Bourne to Love Emma (RED-Stone Operatives Book 1)

by Paxton, MacKenzie K.

  “Hey – I don’t want you to park on the street unless you can grab one of the spots right in front of the doors and Frank can see you from the lobby. Why don’t you park in the extra spot for my apartment. They’ve got monitored cameras in the garage. My code for the gate is 0510.”

  “Oh-five-one-oh. Got it. I’ll be over in half an hour and I’ll call you when I’m on my way up.”

  I cleared the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen before I got Mia cleaned up and changed so she could take a nap. Once she was down, I picked up her toys in the living room and wiped down the cabinets and table where her sticky fingers left heaven-only-knows-what on them.

  I checked my watch. It had been almost an hour since Heather said she was coming over. I pulled my phone out and sent her a text to give her grief.

  Dang, woman. Did you find a shoe sale you couldn’t pass up on your way over? Move your butt and come entertain me!

  I chuckled at myself, tucked my phone back in my back pocket and went to pull the laundry out of the dryer. By the time I finish folding the clothes, hanging some of them up and moving the wet clothes from the washer to the dryer, she still hadn’t text me back. I hit her name on my phone and called her this time. Four and a half rings later, I got her voicemail.

  “Hey, Heather. I thought you’d be here by now…. Not being able to get ahold of you is making me kind of nervous. Call me back. Bye.”

  A little frisson of unease edged up my spine. I hit Jason’s name on my phone and called him, remember what he said. Fortunately, he answered on the first ring.

  “Emma, what’s wrong?”

  “Heather said she was coming to spend the afternoon with us and she should have been here by now. I text and called but she didn’t answer. I’m worried, Jason.”

  “Heather’s … fine. She’s on the phone with John now and we’re heading back to you. We should be there in the next fifteen minutes.”

  His voice told me there was something he wasn’t saying. Something had happened to Heather. “What happened, Jason? I need to know.”

  “Someone was in the parking garage when she got there and they… shoved her into the wall when they were running away.”

  “Was it Dan? Did she see him?”

  “She didn’t get a good look at the guy, but I’ve already got Frank pulling the feed from the cameras in the garage. Just hang tight, babe. I’ll be there in about ten minutes and bring Heather to you.”

  “Okay.” My voice quivered as we get off the phone. My hands were shaking and I felt sick. This had become like one of those Lifetime movies. This can’t be my life. I started to walk to the couch to sit down but turned around and grabbed the gun off the top of the fridge so I could take it with me. Mia was still napping, so I just sat there with the gun and mentally stood guard over both of us. No one was coming in that door without me seeing them.

  ~Jason~

  I know Emma is scared now. She hadn’t been really worried through most of this, but she was now. And it made me furious. My job is to protect people from the bad guys. It’s been my job for a long time and I’m not doing it well enough to keep her from being scared. This fucker was actually in our parking garage – just a handful of flights of stairs below her apartment. Granted, you have to have a security card to get into the building from the garage, but he should have never gotten that close.

  We had only been talking to the mechanic at Salazar Automotive – who had loaned the car to Dan while his was supposed to be towed in for repairs, only that was all a lie – for maybe ten minutes when John got the call from Heather. I’ve never seen John show much emotion, it’s one of the things that made him a good marine and it’s an asset to any company like the one he runs. But he couldn’t hide his anger and worry when he heard from Heather. It didn’t take long before he had it all stowed away again, but it was the first time I’d really seen it.

  He was still on the phone with Heather – not really talking to her, just staying on the phone with her until we get there. Every now and then he would look at the clock on the dash and tell her how much longer it would take us to get there.

  Two patrol cars blocked the garage entrance when we got to the building and there were quite a few people hanging around to see what was going on. I pulled up and parked right behind one of the patrol cars and John was out of the car before I even shut off the engine. An officer stepped in his path and it took less than ten words for John to get him moving again.

  When the officer stopped me, I explained that we were working personal security for one of the tenants and we believed that this incident was related. The officer waved me through with a warning that we would need to provide an official statement before they left.

  John was holding Heather while he listens to another officer. They were standing next to Emma’s car. Fuck. Emma’s car had four flat tires and the driver’s window was smashed. It sounded like Heather was in the wrong place at the wrong time – he hid when he heard someone pulling into the garage, most likely, but had to do something when she pulled up and parked right next to Emma’s car. Thankfully, body-checking her into a concrete pillar in front of the car was all he did. She was cradling her right wrist in her other hand and the knee of her jeans had blood on it, but that appeared to be the extent of her injuries.

  John looked at me and then told the officer that we were going to take Heather upstairs, check on Emma and then we would meet them in the security office to review the footage from the garage and exterior cameras. When we got to the elevator, Frank was walking off and he looked like he was walking to his own execution.

  “Mr. Winters, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t at my desk, so I didn’t see the monitors until Ms. Jackson was already on the ground. I called the cops and got here as fast as I could but he was gone. I’m really sorry.”

  John opened his mouth to say something, but Heather beat him to it.

  “Frank. It’s fine. You do a wonderful job keeping us safe and helping us when we need a hand. It wasn’t your fault that some psycho decided to kick my ass today. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but his. John is going to focus on finding him and returning the favor, aren’t you honey? We all know that Frank can’t be expected to do all the functions of his job sitting behind that desk and staring at screens all day. He does a lot more than that. So don’t you apologize again, Frank. You called the cops and helped me get my purse so I could call John. That was what I needed and you did it.”

  She dismissed the entire group with a wave and said, “Now, I need to see Emma and snuggle with Mia for a bit. You guys have more important things to do…like finding the asshole who is trying to hurt my best friend and nailing his ass to the wall.”

  She leaned up and kissed John hard on the mouth and then smiled at me and Frank before she got on the elevator. I hopped on with her before the doors closed.

  “So, Jason. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. Not a lot of what I want to hear, but a lot nonetheless.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about you, too. We –“

  Heather raised her hand and cut me off.

  “Emma is my best friend. If you hurt her, I will chop off your balls and shove them down your throat and let you choke on them, capiche?”

  The elevator doors opened on my floor and she patted me on the cheek before she walked down the hall to Emma’s door, limping just a little and holding her injured wrist against her middle.

  I would never actually admit to anyone that I was scared of a woman who was maybe 5’8” and a buck fifty…. But, yeah. I was a little. Damn.

  ~Emma~

  I yanked open the door and hugged Heather hard. She yelped and I jerked away from her.

  “Oh my gosh. You’re hurt! You’re bleeding! Oh my gosh!”

  “Emma, I’m fine. I just need to clean up and I’ll be good as new. Well – I’ll need some Mia snuggles to make me all better, but the bathroom will do for now.”

  Heather patted me on the arm and walked past me to the bathroom. I turned back
toward Jason as he stepped in and closed the door behind him. I stepped into his arms and wrapped myself around him. The worry of the last hour hit me and I fought the urge to cry. Jason rubbed his hands and up down my back and told me that everything would be alright. When I pulled myself together, Heather was coming back from the bathroom and Jason motioned both of us to the kitchen table.

  “So, it looks like Dan lost control of his life after the divorce. He –“

  Heather deadpanned, “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  Jason smiled grimly. “He got in trouble at work, got involved in drugs, got fired, evicted from his townhouse and had his car repossessed. All of that has been in the last two to six months. We also think he got involved in money laundering, but we haven’t been able to pull that thread and find where it leads yet.”

  Heather still seemed a little out of sorts from her experience downstairs. I sat still, absorbing what Jason was telling me. Everything still had that unrealistic bent to it. It made it hard to take it all seriously and really believe that this was happening.

  I finally asked, “What does any of that have to do with me, though?”

  Jason replied, “I asked the same question, but the bottom line is that we have no idea what’s going on in his head. We don’t know what his plans are or why he made them. All we know is that he’s escalated and that’s bad.”

  “Because he hurt Heather we can assume he’ll hurt me?”

  Heather put her hand on my arm. “No, sugar, we can assume he’ll hurt you because he slashed your tires and beat the shit out of your car. I was just a side benefit for his assholishness today.”

  I could actually feel the blood drain out of my face as I turned my eyes to Jason for confirmation that what Heather said is true. He nods, his expression shuttered.

  “I’ve got to go back down and help review the tapes. I want you to stay here with Heather until John and I can come back up and we can figure out what we need to do, okay?”

  Mia started crying in the living room, so I got up to get her. She needed a new diaper, so we walked to her bedroom. My mind was in such a fog. How the hell did we end up here? And why now?

  ~Jason~

  I walked to Mia’s bedroom where she was putting pants back on over a clean diaper. When she finished, she lifted Mia onto her hip and turned toward the door where I was waiting. I pulled them both into a hug. Emma ran her hand down my back and wrapped her arm around my waist. I held them close and closed my eyes for a minute. It would be too easy for something to happen. We need to end this now before they get hurt.

  “I’ve got to go talk to John. Heather is staying with you two and I’ll be back up in a little while, okay?”

  She nodded and leaned up to kiss me softly. I kissed her back and then kissed Mia on the head. She’d been quiet since her nap this afternoon, almost like she could sense the turmoil around her.

  “Be careful, Jason.”

  “I will, baby.”

  I walked back to the kitchen to tell Heather I was leaving and make sure she would stay inside with Emma and Mia.

  “Heather, I’ve got to run downstairs to talk to John.”

  “Go. We’ll be fine.”

  I walked to Emma’s freezer and pulled out one of the ‘boo-boo bags’ that Emma keeps for Mia when she falls and bumps her head. Heather raised an eyebrow when I handed it to her.

  “You need to ice your wrist. It will help with the swelling and inflammation. You should probably take something for the pain, too. Want me to check with Emma and see what she has?”

  “Thank you. I’ll ask her for something. Don’t keep John waiting, he’s liable to get nasty. He’s been on edge for a solid week now between this and the case you’ve been working on for him.”

  “Yeah. I know the feeling. I’ll be back in a little bit and we’ll all go next door. Keep the door locked, okay?”

  “Thanks for that tip, Captain Obvious. I think I could have come up with that plan on my own considering that Emma’s deranged asshole of an ex-husband tried to knock my brains loose a few hours ago.”

  I sighed. “Keep them safe. That’s all I’m worried about.”

  She stared at me for a minute before her expression softened. “With my life. Hurry back.” And she shut the door and locked it.

  Downstairs John, Frank and two police officers were in the security office. There wasn’t room for all of us, but apparently we were all going to cram inside together for grins. John nodded at me when I scooted in beside Frank and watched him rewind the feed again.

  The image showed a person moving along the shadows on the edge of the garage and then moving from car to car until it reached Emma’s car. He was wearing dark pants and a dark hoodie with the hood pulled low over his face. He had on gloves, too, dammit. He stayed in the shadows and pauses. After a minute, he made his way to the stairwell door and tries the door. Locked.

  He moved in the shadows back to Emma’s car and crouched beside the driver’s side door, cupping his hands around his face to look inside. He stood quickly and pulls a tool of some kind out of his hoodie and busted the window. He stuck his arm through and grabbed something, putting it in his pocket. Crouching back down, he was still for a few seconds before he pulled a knife out of his pants and stabbed it into the rear driver’s side tire. Then he circled the car and flattened the rest.

  As he stabbed the front tire on the driver’s side, he jerked toward the front of the car and crouched against it. The camera caught Heather’s car pulling in next to Emma’s passenger side and we could see her as she turned her car off and grabbed something – her purse – before climbing out and shutting the door. She must have said something or made some kind of noise when she saw Emma’s tires, because the guy jumped from in front of the car and grabbed her by the wrist, slinging her in front of her car and her knee and shoulder slam into the concrete pillar.

  “Motherfucker,” John half whispered as he sees Heather being injured.

  When Heather hit the ground, the guy ran across the parking garage and out the exit.

  “Frank, pull the feed from outside the building,” I said.

  A minute later, we saw video from the exterior cameras. When Frank backs it up to the right time frame, we could see the man run out the exit of the garage and head up the block. He ducked into the dry cleaners two buildings down and we lost him.

  We were all silent for a moment before the police officers started talking to John about how he wanted to handle things. They couldn’t make an ID on the guy without fingerprints or being able to see his face – which we couldn’t on the video we have. He knew where the cameras in the garage were and he did a good job not looking up toward them.

  The officers told John that they were going to go down the street to the dry cleaners and see if they could tell us anything. Other than that, though, we were getting no help. Fortunately, we aren’t relying on them for help, just for legal charges to be filed. Unfortunately, we’re screwed on that for the time being, too.

  John walked the officers out of the security office and Frank and I stared at the video feed still playing. I gestured to the chair and ask “May I?” Frank stood up and took a step away.

  I slid into the chair and pulled up the garage feed again. I ran through it several times before I felt John walk up behind me.

  He asked, “what are you seeing?”

  I rewound it to when he first walked up to Emma’s car and then just stood there before he walked to the stairwell entrance. “What is this? What is he looking for? Why find her car in the lot and then walk off?”

  I forwarded through the feed until he circled back to Emma’s car and looked inside before smashing the window. I zoomed in on his hand when he pulled his arm back out, but the video was too grainy for me to see what he’s taking from her car. “What is this? What on earth does she have in her car that he wants enough to risk getting caught like this?”

  I turned in my seat. “I want Emma to come down and take a look at this, but I
don’t want to leave Heather or Mia alone. Do you want them all down here or …”

  “Bring them all down. We need to discuss what we’re doing next anyway and she deserves to be part of the conversation.”

  ~Emma~

  Jason text me to let me know he and John were coming back upstairs to get us because we needed to see something. I grabbed some shoes for me and a jacket for Mia since the lobby tends to be too cool for her.

  We were ready when they knocked. Once we were all in the security office, John asked if he could hold Mia for me. Jason sat down at the desk and turned a knob to back up the video playing on the screen. After a few seconds, I saw the parking garage. Jason walked me through what they had seen and then showed me the video where he broke my car window and reached through to get something.

  “Can you tell what he took, Em? He didn’t dig through your glove box or anything. Whatever he was after was on the driver’s side of the car…”

  “Can I see it again?” I watched as the video played again and mentally went through what I keep in my car that is within reach of the window. Traveling with a baby means I keep a lot of random things in my car, just in case. But on my side…. Spare keys to my apartment are in the glove box. Maybe that’s not a good idea anymore. I grimace at how stupid that seems now.

  “There’s nothing worth stealing. I keep a couple of bottles of water and an umbrella in my door. I take my purse inside. There really isn’t – oh.”

  “Emma what is it?” He sounded so far away all of a sudden and I closed my eyes against a wave of dizziness.

  Jason stood up and then pulled me into the chair and pushed my head down toward my knees. I could feel myself gasping for air and there was a buzzing sound in my ears. “Breathe, baby. In and out. Breathe with me.” He crouched in front of me with his hands on my knees. I could hear him breathing in and pushing it back out. I focused on him. The buzzing stopped and my heart didn’t feel like it was going to explode anymore, but I couldn’t sit up yet.