Besides, he thought on an uncharacteristic beat of depression, what was the point? He didn’t have anyone to report to anymore. He had to assume that Muhammad had been telling the truth and Jane was dead, her network obliterated.
Perhaps records of his undercover work still existed somewhere, but it’d be twenty to life before he’d be free to search for them, and it wasn’t like he had friends on the inside ready to go to bat for him.
In the aftermath of Abby’s death, he’d let those connections fall away. Some he’d even intentionally severed as part of making himself into the agent Jane had needed—one with no ties, no regrets.
No heart. The thought came out of nowhere, but it resonated more than he liked. Since when did he think things like that? Since he met Chelsea, that was when. She’d awakened something within him that had been long dormant, since Abby’s death, or maybe even before that, when he’d realized the woman he’d been in love with wasn’t the one he’d thought he’d married.
He’d married a fantasy. One that had looked an awful lot like Chelsea did in reality.
Sure, they were different types physically, but Chelsea had the core values he’d grown up with, the ones that lent themselves to a house in the suburbs, with a white picket fence and a couple of kids. He’d wanted that once, had thought he’d found it, only to have it disappear.
In response he’d disappeared, becoming something even his own family had turned away from. A man who thought in terms of acceptable risk and tied his lover to a bed in a boarded-up motel, and left her alone.
He was worse than a bastard. He was heartless. He was—
“There you are,” a familiar male voice said, interrupting Fax’s self-recrimination.
He stiffened and turned to face the man who stood alone on the other side of the holding-cell bars, wearing the uniform of a Bear Claw cop and pointing a gun in his direction.
“Muhammad,” Fax said evenly. “I’m surprised you bothered to have me turn around. You’re not the type to shy away from shooting a man in the back.”
Al-Jihad’s second in command sneered, but didn’t disagree. “You’re going to tell me where the woman is before you die.”
“Not happening.”
“You’re not the only one with access to designer drugs.” The terrorist tapped a code into the keypad and swung open the door to the holding cell, mute evidence that al-Jihad’s reach was growing longer by the day. Now, it appeared, he had friends within the Bear Claw PD itself. Keeping his weapon trained on Fax’s midsection, where a bullet might be fatal but death would be slow and agonizing, Muhammad tossed a pair of handcuffs onto the floor at Fax’s feet. “Put these on. We’re leaving.”
Fax bent and grabbed the cuffs. Then he lunged forward, straightening as he attacked, so his head slammed into the terrorist’s midsection.
It was a suicide attack, but he’d rather die now than risk giving up Chelsea’s location under the influence of powerful truth-telling drugs.
Muhammad shouted and reeled backward, but stayed on his feet and brought the pistol down, slamming it into the back of Fax’s head.
Fax rolled, absorbing some of the blow and deflecting the rest, but bells still chimed in his skull as he threw himself at the other man, landing a punch to the bastard’s gut and then going for his throat, intending to choke the life out of him. He wanted Muhammad dead, wanted revenge on behalf of the guard’s wife who’d lost both husband and son, for the morgue attendant who had been Chelsea’s friend, and for the cops who’d given their lives to save hers.
Fax got a grip on Muhammad’s throat and bore down, but the other man brought the gun to bear and fired.
The bullet whistled past Fax’s shoulder and the report deafened him, stunning him just long enough for Muhammad to break free.
Fax reoriented, though his sense of hearing was limited to a high-pitched whine. Muhammad was on his feet, standing in the holding-cell doorway, pointing his weapon directly at Fax.
Instead of firing, he jolted, then turned and looked toward the door connecting the holding area to the main PD. Seeing something he didn’t like, he spun and ran for the side exit, leaving the holding-cell door wide open.
Fax didn’t waste any time. He broke for the doorway, but he was already too late. Just as he cleared the opening, a big man wearing street clothes burst through the door that led to the PD. He carried himself like a cop, and locked on Fax the moment he was through. There was another man behind him, and they looked like they meant business.
Fax didn’t know if they were al-Jihad’s contacts or upstanding members of the Bear Claw PD, but they were his enemies either way.
Roaring, Fax swung.
The cop dodged and shouted something, but Fax couldn’t hear over the whine of temporary nerve deafness. He could only see the other man’s lips moving, his eyes sparking with annoyance. Then the big guy grabbed him and his buddy got the other side and they were hustling him, not back into the cell or the PD, but toward the rear exit.
Which meant they were on the terrorists’ payroll, Fax realized with a sick lurch. They were dragging him to wherever al-Jihad was holed up, and when they got him there, they’d pump him full of drugs and ask him where Chelsea was hidden.
“No!” he shouted, struggling to break free. He almost made it, only to have the guy on his right side grab a choke hold and bear down.
Gagging, Fax staggered. The first guy keyed in the code needed to get them out the back door, and waved them through, looking worried.
Fax’s hearing was starting to come back online, enough for him to hear an engine revving in front of them, and men shouting behind.
Then they were through the door, and Fax froze—not at the sight of the nondescript but powerful sedan the men were dragging him toward, but at the sight of the woman sitting in the driver’s seat.
Chelsea. He wasn’t sure if he said her name aloud or only thought it, but it was a magic word, unlocking his limbs and brain so he could lunge forward and dive into the vehicle. The two cops piled in after him, and she hit the gas before they were all the way in, peeling away from the PD and accelerating across the city, headed for the highway.
Behind them, he imagined the other cops were too stunned to immediately pursue. They’d been betrayed by their own, by Chelsea and two strangers who had zero reason to help him.
Fax dragged himself up and onto a seat and the others did the same. He caught Chelsea glancing at him in the rearview mirror, and he said, “How did you do it?”
Her eyes went cool in the reflection. “It’s called having friends, Jonah. You should try it some time.”
Chapter Ten
Chelsea drove them back to the deserted motel in the silence that’d fallen after Fax’s few attempts to start conversation.
“Save it until the team’s all assembled,” she’d snapped, trying to make it clear that he wasn’t in charge anymore. At least not of her or her friends.
After Sara, Seth and Tucker had rescued her from her motel prison, she’d told them everything about her association with Fax and his claims to be an undercover fed. She’d left out the part about the sex, but could tell that Sara had guessed.
Seth, who’d heard part of it before, had interjected that he’d investigated the claim and found nothing in any of the databases that supported Fax’s story, or Jane Doe’s existence. However, he was willing to admit that he was no computer expert, that it was possible the files existed and he didn’t know where to look, or didn’t have the proper clearance.
Besides, Chelsea had argued, the very nature of Jane Doe’s team meant that the records were buried deep, if they existed at all.
That was when Tucker and Seth had asked her if she really truly believed that Fax was who he said he was, and her plan was the only real way to protect Bear Claw—and the U.S.—from al-Jihad’s terror network.
“I believe him,” she’d said simply, and her friends had nodded and moved on from there, agreeing to help her break Fax out of the Bear Claw PD and la
unch their own, completely illegal, completely unsanctioned op during the following day’s festival, with the intent of taking out al-Jihad and his men and flushing out the conspirators within the Bear Claw PD and the local FBI field office.
Granted, the decision had been significantly hastened by the fact that Seth hadn’t much liked some of the answers he’d gotten when he’d started looking deeper at Fax’s background, and noticed that his dishonorable discharge didn’t mesh with his numerous commendations.
The FBI agent had been even less pleased to learn that his questions had tipped off someone who’d gotten word to al-Jihad that Fax was an undercover agent, Chelsea his contact. In fact, he’d been furious—but in Seth’s case, fury apparently translated into cold efficiency.
He and Tucker had planned the jailbreak, but most of their plan hadn’t been necessary because they’d gotten there on Muhammad’s heels—a lucky break that Chelsea was trying not to think too hard about. What mattered was that Fax was out of the holding cell, and they were on their way to rendezvous with the rest of the group, which would include Fax and Chelsea, Seth and Tucker, along with Sara, who’d stayed behind to get a couple more of the hotel rooms ready, and Seth and Tucker’s wives, Cassie and Alyssa.
Chelsea hadn’t wanted to involve the other women, but Sara had been adamant about being included, and the guys had refused to shut out their wives, who were decorated cops in their own right.
That had been borderline annoying, but Chelsea had squelched the negative thoughts, knowing they came straight from jealousy. She wanted to be part of a relationship like that, formed of both partnership and love. It wasn’t that she didn’t want her friends to have that sort of love, either. It was just that she wanted it, too…yet had the self-destructive tendency to be attracted only to men who were completely unable to give her what she wanted.
Or maybe not, she thought on a burst of the new self-awareness she’d gained during the long, quiet day. Maybe it wasn’t so much that she had bad taste in men—maybe it was that she gave up at the first sign of trouble. Maybe the long string of near misses were cases of her running away rather than putting all her effort into saving something, taking the risk that she might fail.
Well, not this time, she told herself. I’m not giving up this time. Not on Fax or his operation.
She glanced at him in the rearview mirror, only to find him watching her. Their eyes locked in the reflected image, and a flare of warmth kindled in her midsection.
Deliberately, she looked away and forced her eyes back on the road just as the turnoff leading to the motel came into view. They’d deal with business first. Then they’d deal with what might be the start of something important, if she was willing to fight for it, and he was willing to change for it.
Which, she acknowledged, was a big “if.”
She pulled up the long, winding drive that led to the deserted motel. They’d decided to stick with the same place, on the theory that the electricity and water hadn’t yet been turned off, and it offered all the concealment that had prompted Fax to choose it originally.
The closed-down motel was practically a campground, tucked into the tree line at the edge of the state park. It wasn’t visible from the street and there weren’t any houses for a couple of miles on either side, which meant they didn’t have to worry about the lights attracting unwanted attention from locals who knew the place had gone out of business. It was a good hideout, just as it’d been a good prison.
Chelsea parked Seth’s car and climbed out.
“Come on.” She led the way to the room where Fax had imprisoned her, figuring there was a certain sort of irony to using the room for a strategy session.
Upon entering, she saw that Sara had gotten rid of the cuffs and chain, and the bucket. The room was back to looking like a cheap, tired motel room, with a sagging king-size bed and bare patches on the walls. The rickety desk held a pile of pizza boxes and a couple of cases of soda and sparkling water, and the cooler was now full of ice.
“All the convenience of home,” Sara said wryly as Chelsea entered, but her eyes were locked on the doorway behind her.
Chelsea knew without looking that Fax had come in behind her—she could feel his presence itch along her nerve endings like fire, and she could see the anger in Sara’s eyes.
Her friends might have agreed to help Fax, but they’d done it for her sake, not his. They had, each in his or her own way, let Chelsea know they hated how he’d involved her, endangered her. Sara was even more worried, having figured out they were personally involved. Chelsea had done her best to defend Fax’s decisions, but knew her friends were seriously reserving their judgment.
Stepping aside, she waved him into the room. “Fax, this is Sara.”
Fax nodded. “The head ME.”
“Chelsea’s friend,” Sara corrected with a distinct snap in her voice, and the two of them spent a few seconds measuring each other.
Outside the motel room, the rise and fall of male and female voices heralded the arrival of Alyssa and Cassie, who had stayed behind—keeping a very low profile—to see how the PD members and FBI field agents handled the incident, figuring that might give them some insight into the conspirators’ identities.
Within moments, all four of them came through the door. Rock-solid Tucker and blond, tomboyish Alyssa were followed by dark-featured Seth in full-on brooding mode, with imp-faced, steely-eyed Cassie at his shoulder.
That meant that Chelsea suddenly found herself in a dingy motel room crowded with six other people and one pretty serious standoff, with her friends glaring at the man who had been, for one short night at least, her lover.
Sara shifted her glare to Chelsea, and she could practically see it in her friend’s eyes: Your taste in men stinks.
“No kidding,” Chelsea muttered under her breath, but moved to Fax’s side. “Back off,” she said. “He had a job to do, and made the choices he needed to make in order to get it done.”
“But it’s not done, is it?” Sara said softly. “Not even close.”
“Which is where we come in,” Chelsea said, although they’d already had this fight and she’d won it. “Something really bad is going to happen tomorrow if we don’t stop it, and you five are the only ones I trust to help us.” She turned to Fax. “I hope I won’t regret this.”
She half expected him to say she already should. Instead, he tilted his head in Seth’s direction. “Agent Varitek?”
“Yeah,” Seth allowed.
“Who did you talk to on the inside?”
Seth hesitated for a long moment, then said, “I’m not naming names right now. Suffice it to say the channels shut down way before they should have.”
“Which tells me nothing.”
Seth shrugged. “Sorry. That’s the way it’s going to be.”
Fax gritted his teeth. “Then why bother to bust me out? Why not just leave me to Muhammad and his nine-millimeter?”
It was Sara who answered, “You can thank Chelsea for that.”
All eyes fixed on Chelsea, including Fax’s. She felt her cheeks heat and made a point of not looking at him. But he said, in a voice intended mostly for her, “Thank you.”
It was a small thing that shouldn’t have mattered. Because it mattered too much, she snapped, “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for all the people who are going to be at that concert tomorrow.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t blow the whistle and have them cancel the whole thing,” he said, still speaking softly, as though they weren’t the center of attention.
“I was going to,” she answered honestly, looking at him fully for the first time since they’d entered the motel room. “Except you were right. It’s not just about the festival, and it’s not even just about al-Jihad and the other escapees. We need to root out the evil, not just clip a few branches.”
And oddly, the word we didn’t seem so strange. She was involved up to her neck and she wasn’t backing down this time, wasn’t retreating even though the odds of
success seemed very slim.
Chelsea stepped away from Fax, distancing herself from him and aligning with her friends. “You’ve got backup now, Jonah. Tell us what to do.”
And with that, she handed him leadership of the small group, trusting him with her friends.
For a few seconds he looked as if he was going to refuse. Then his shoulders relaxed and his jaw unlocked, and something flickered across his face that might’ve looked like exhausted relief in another man, but on him simply looked like a moment of calm. “Thank you.” This time he said it right out loud, and meant it.
“You’re welcome,” Seth said. “I think.”
The subtext was clear—he might accept Fax as group leader for now, but they were all going to be watching him very, very closely.
“Well, I’m glad that’s more or less settled,” said Chelsea, deliberately breaking the tension by moving across the room and reaching for one of the pizzas. “Who’s hungry?”
Fax was turning to answer her just as a set of headlights cut through the darkness. Reacting instantly, he turned the motion into a lunge, catching Chelsea around the waist and bearing her to the ground beneath him.
“Down!” Alyssa shouted, going for her weapon as the others scrambled to kill the lights and take positions.
“Stay!” Fax hissed, shoving Chelsea into the corner beneath the desk. “Don’t you dare move.” Then he was gone. Seconds later, he returned and shoved Sara in beside her, hissing the same warning.
Chelsea grabbed Sara’s hands and they clung to each other while the professionals took up position around the room. She couldn’t see anything—the headlights had cut out—but she could feel the incredible tension in the air, and hear a few low-voiced exchanges from the others.
Had Muhammad followed them from the PD? That was the only thing she could think had happened, unless—
A whistle sounded outside, interrupting her train of thought: several short bursts and one long, in a pattern of some sort.
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