He folded his arms. Braden didn’t need to worry about Liberty. Tate would watch out for her. “Tell me what you know.”
Braden leaned against the wall, a wry smile on his face. “Nobody tells me nothin’.”
“You just said you heard I was in trouble,” Tate said. “So where’d you hear it?”
“Around.”
“How many people are in that house?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Because they’re trying to kill me. Or send me to prison.” Tate’s stomach knotted. “And Liberty is going to get caught in the cross fire.” It was the only thing Braden seemed to care about.
The tactic seemed to work. Braden said, “I’m not getting involved. If you have a problem with the Russians, it’s your deal.”
“You won’t even talk to them, find out who’s calling the shots?” From the look on his face, Braden knew who was calling the shots. Tate pointed to the house. “You could find out why they’re targeting me.”
Braden didn’t say anything. Which meant he probably knew exactly what was going on. Tate sighed. “Are you behind this? Because if you are, tell me where those missing people from the plane are.”
Braden stayed silent.
“I’m not going to prison. I don’t care if you do nothing to stop it. But I’m not going to let those people die.”
“Like the way you let Mom and Dad die?”
Tate jerked his head back at the force of Braden’s words. They were like a physical blow. “Mom and Dad’s deaths had nothing to do with me. I wasn’t there.”
“I know. You were with me,” Braden said. “I used to think you could do anything. School. Football. Girls. You were the man. Then Mom and Dad went away, and they never came back. You couldn’t keep them here.”
“It wasn’t in my power to do that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Braden said. “I was a kid, and that’s what it felt like. Sixteen years old, and you were my larger-than-life big brother who could solve any problem. Finish any fight. You could do it all. But you couldn’t bring them back.”
Tate squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I knew you were mad at me, but I didn’t know this was why.” He looked up. “Why didn’t you tell me you felt this way? And why turn to drugs and the worst kinds of friends you could possibly find instead of talking to me?”
“My recreation habits are none of your business.”
Okay, that was the brother Tate knew. Smart as a whip. Talk about being able to solve anything. The time Braden had fixed the toilet? Tate hadn’t even known where to start.
“Besides,” Braden said. “You left. Joined the army and found a life better than the one with me in it.”
“I supported us. You were supposed to take the money and go to college.”
Braden snorted.
“Instead you wasted it all on your recreation habits.”
“My life is none of your business.”
“It is now. You’re hanging with people who want me dead or in federal prison. So which is it? Dead, or my reputation ruined and me incarcerated? Pinning a missing plane and three people gone squarely on my shoulders? Who would that benefit? Besides your ego, I mean.”
Braden’s lips thinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I’m pretty sure I already told you that’s why I’m here.”
Braden snorted out a burst of laughter. “I figure it serves you right, Mr. Super-Secret-Agent Tate Almers.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d realized his brother didn’t just dislike him, but that he actually hated Tate. “Then I guess you’ll have to go with me to talk to the sheriff.” He reached for his brother, and Braden stepped back.
Tate followed him and caught hold of his arm. “You’re not going to warn them I know. You’re going to help me instead. Your brother.” The two of them were family, whether Braden wanted to recognize it or not.
Braden swung around. Tate saw his brother’s fist at the last second. He ducked his head to the side as it whistled past his ear. Tate threw a punch into his brother’s diaphragm.
Braden’s breath whooshed out and he wheezed.
Tate braced. “We don’t need to fight.”
His brother didn’t quit. He swung again. Tate ducked and then pulled his brother’s arm behind his back and slammed Braden into the siding. “Enough. We’re not fighting, Bray.” Their parents would be seriously disappointed with how the two of them had turned out.
Braden struggled against his hold. “I’m not telling your best pal, the sheriff, anything.”
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this with or without you. But I won’t let you tip anyone off to the fact that the Russians are behind this.”
Braden grunted and renewed his struggle. Tate let go with one hand and pulled out his phone to tell Liberty what was happening. He’d just dialed the area code for Washington, DC, when a gun fired.
From the back of the house.
“Sounds like Liberty might need help.”
Braden was right. Answering gunfire sounded. Two shots, then a third.
Tate was going to have to keep hold on his brother while he helped her. He pulled him from the wall but didn’t see Braden’s elbow until it hit his face. Tate stumbled back a step as pain reverberated through his head. His brother’s footsteps fled away, and then the front door slammed.
Tate shook off the daze. He raced around the house and drew his gun out as he moved. Liberty turned the corner at the back, holding her left shoulder. Fear was raw on her face. “Go!”
Tate waited until she got to him, almost colliding with him.
“They’re coming!”
She didn’t slow. Tate glanced back as he raced after her. Two men rounded the corner. Tate found cover at the front corner of the house and fired two shots. They ducked down, and one hid behind a trash can.
The neighbors would call the police, and then surely the feds would come and investigate. Gunshots in a small town like this had to be part of the wider investigation, the search for Tate. What he wanted to know was who was out searching for the plane? The feds were completely distracted by all the evidence pointing at Tate.
He fired off two more shots, then raced after Liberty and caught up to her by the truck. Her face was pale. She pulled the door open with a wince. How badly was she hurt?
Tate turned the key and listened to it fire up. “You okay?”
“Through and through.” That was all she said.
He gunned it out of the parking spot and spun the car around in a U-turn so he didn’t have to drive past the house again. “Who were those guys?”
Liberty shook her head. She held her gun in her left hand, rested on her lap. That same shoulder was the injured one. Blood was visible between the fingers of her right hand, which gripped her left shoulder.
“That doesn’t look good.”
“Just get us out of here.”
Tate glanced in his rearview mirror. “You’ll have to hold on a little longer.”
“Why?” She tried to turn to see behind them but stopped and groaned. Liberty closed her eyes and rested her head back.
“Because they’re in the sedan, coming after us.”
NINE
Liberty bit her lips together and tried to fight the pull of the pain attempting to send her consciousness spiraling into black. It wouldn’t hurt anymore, but it also wouldn’t help Tate. He’d have to carry her from the car.
Maybe after they got away from these people behind them.
“It was the two guys from the truck.”
“Behind us?” Tate’s voice was tight. He was concentrating.
Liberty didn’t open her eyes. Her stomach churned, and she could feel warm wetness under her fingers. The bullet had hit the fleshy part of her shoulde
r, right above her collarbone. She couldn’t lift her arm now, and the spot where she rested the heel of her palm on her collarbone did not feel good at all. Maybe it was broken from the impact.
But the exit wound under her fingertips boded well. It hurt like nothing she had ever felt. Still, in the grand scheme of things, it had knocked her down but not out.
“They were looking at a computer in the kitchen.” He needed to know this information in case she passed out.
“Well, right now they’re racing after us.”
“It was a map. They were pointing at it.” She took a measured breath while the pain threatened to make her sick. “Planning something.”
“You heard them?”
“No. It was the impression I got from what they were doing.”
Tate tapped the steering wheel. “Hang on.” He turned left. Liberty could hear traffic sounds around them.
She opened her eyes and found they were in town. It wasn’t like rush hour in a city, but it was busy. “Isn’t it dangerous to lead them through this many people?”
Tate glanced at her. “More people means they can’t open fire or they draw too much attention. Plus, we might be able to get lost in this crowd.”
“But we need to know what they were looking at on that computer,” she said.
“They’re chasing us, Lib. They shot you.” His mouth was a thin line, his lips pressed together. “We’re going to have a hard time turning things around so we can ask them questions. It hasn’t worked for us so far.”
“Did you talk to your brother?”
“It was hardly a conversation.” Tate held the steering wheel like a race car driver. “Braden still hates me, but we knew as much. He’s likely involved in this and doesn’t care I’m going to go to prison, but that isn’t a surprise either. Go figure. The link between the plane and the Russians? It’s me.”
“And Braden,” Liberty said. “Maybe by Braden’s design.”
She’d met Tate’s brother once and he’d seemed kind of...sad. He’d reminded her of Tate a whole lot, even despite his problems and the fact that he didn’t see them as problems at all. Braden seemed content with what his life was, instead of taking Tate’s tactic of always seeking to make his life better. Two converse ways of dealing with the tragic deaths of their parents. She wanted to do something for Braden but didn’t know him well enough to push him to seek help.
Tate’s life had become something different since he’d left the Secret Service. Some of the drive he’d lost was probably her fault. Still, he was fixing up his cabin and working as a deputy sheriff. He’d retained the push in him to make things better—just not himself.
Was it because he didn’t think he was worth it?
She knew how he’d felt about her caring for him. He’d told her over and over that her loving him made him feel worthy of good things when he hadn’t thought he deserved them. When she’d left, had Tate decided that seeking out love for himself wasn’t worth it any longer?
Liberty’s heart wanted to break all over again just thinking about it. That was precisely the opposite of what she’d tried to do. Only because he was worth so much—more than she could ever give him—she’d cut him loose from being tied to her so he could find more.
With someone else.
Liberty sucked back a sob, and Tate reached over to squeeze her knee. “Hang on. We’ll be out of this in a minute. I have an idea.” He paused. “Can you walk?”
She nodded. It would hurt to move, like it hurt to think right now—or to think past the pain, at least—but she could do it.
“Okay. One more block.”
“Are they right behind us?”
“Two cars between. They’re playing it cool, but they’ve been tailing us since we left the house. Probably waiting for a quieter stretch of road so they can run us off and shoot us.”
A shiver moved through Liberty’s body, one she wasn’t sure was entirely about having been shot.
“There’s a coffee shop up here. Side door in an alley between two buildings. If I can get the car in there, we can get in the kitchen on the side of the coffee shop. The place has a front and a back door—it stretches the length of the building—and they won’t know which way we went out. There won’t be time for them to split up and find out.”
“Good.” She didn’t like the idea of being on the run again. That was, if they’d actually quit being on the run this whole time. Safety was an illusion at this point, and she had the painful shoulder to prove it.
Tate made a sharp turn between two buildings and pulled in just past a Dumpster. Liberty’s fingers slipped on the door handle. Her head swam, and Tate appeared in front of her. “Up and at ’em.”
Liberty gritted her teeth. Tate walked with his arm around her waist, his shoulder right up against her good one. Anyone who saw them would know immediately she was shot and needed help, but maybe that was a good thing.
They moved through the coffee shop’s kitchen, which smelled like cinnamon. The air was thick and hot and made her gasp for the cold air of outside.
Tate led her down behind the counter and out onto the coffee shop floor. The line at the counter was at least fifteen people long. Kids, families. Safety vests and name tags. Search-and-rescue workers and volunteers. They had to be taking a break from searching for the plane. Or they were all fueling up for a hard day of walking through the backwoods to look for the missing people and the crash site.
“Liberty?”
She knew that voice.
Tate didn’t slow. He weaved through the crowd and headed for the back door. Liberty glanced over her shoulder. “Alana.”
“Are you...” She frowned, then drew her weapon. “Tate Almers!” Her voice rang out and the room went quiet. “Secret Service. You need to stop.”
Tate’s body stiffened and he turned. He put his front to her back and his arm around her waist.
* * *
He backed up farther. People around them spread to give them a wide berth. Tate looked at her and said, “Just let us leave, whoever you are.”
She wore a badge on her belt. The woman was Polynesian-looking, and her beauty was understated.
“She’s the rookie who replaced you,” Liberty said over her good shoulder. “Now Alana’s in love with Director Locke. The two of them are besotted with each other and planning a wedding for next summer.”
Alana’s eyes softened a tiny bit. There it was. Her weakness.
Tate said, “I don’t care who you are. We’re not going with you.” Not when he knew his brother was intimately involved with this. That explained the why—Braden hated him. But it wasn’t the whole of what was going on, and Tate needed to find out what the rest was.
“You have a gunshot wound?” This Alana person waited for one of them to answer her question, then said, “Liberty needs a hospital, whether you like it or not.” She stepped as he did, keeping the gap between them the same. At what point would she swoop forward and try to grab Liberty? To save her from him, probably. As if.
“Liberty will be fine,” Tate said. “If you want to help, it isn’t going to be by taking me in. It’s going to be by figuring out who’s ordering the Russians around. And finding the plane.”
“You’re going to tell me where the plane is.”
“Would if I could, Alana.” Tate lifted his own gun and maintained his hold on Liberty. She’d told him Locke was on their side. So why was his fiancée trying to arrest Tate now? Cold permeated him. Liberty must have lied about their meeting.
Tate said, “I’ve never seen the plane, and I have no idea where it is or where those missing people are. You tell Locke I said so. Tell him I already have Russians on my back, and if I’m going to figure this out I don’t need his people there, too.”
“No, you just need one of them at your front.”
Her words made him tighten his grip on Liberty. She’d been hurt, and if she stayed with him it was going to happen again. Maybe even killed.
As much as Tate cared about her well-being, he couldn’t forget the fact that Liberty was a Secret Service agent first, and whatever she meant to him came second. Her loyalties would become clear soon enough. Maybe they already had. And maybe it would mean the difference between prison and freedom, but Tate wasn’t sure he cared either way. This time with her was better than any of the long, lonely days of the last year.
“Let us go.” Liberty’s voice was soft. “Alana, let us leave.”
“Can’t do that. Tate is to be brought in for questioning. This isn’t about you, Liberty. It’s about those missing people.”
Tate said, “Blaming it on me isn’t going to solve anything. It’s just a distraction from where your resources should be focused—on finding those people.”
Alana didn’t exactly disagree, judging from her face, but he knew the push of following orders. It was Liberty who said, “Tell Locke we know Tate’s brother is involved with the Russians.” She stepped back, forcing Tate to move with her.
A few more steps and his back hit the door. He prayed there weren’t any Russian gunmen outside, ready to shoot them. Though if they did die, Alana would do her job to bring justice, and those men wouldn’t get away with it.
“They’re planning something else,” Liberty said. Tate’s back pushed the bar on the door and disengaged the latch. “Tell Locke I’ll be in touch.”
She wasn’t contacting him again if Tate had anything to say about it.
Alana said, “Liberty...”
Locke strode out from a hallway. Saw Alana, saw them. His eyes widened even as he pulled his gun. Tate shoved himself and Liberty out the door and took off running. He couldn’t judge if Locke would pursue them or not. Tate didn’t know the man well enough, not anymore. He’d been sure Locke would throw every regulation there was at Tate for getting angry and nearly starting a fight with him. Instead, he’d turned around and offered Tate an early retirement deal. He’d been flabbergasted, to say the least. What kind of person did that?
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