by Cynthia Eden
“I could barely see any-fucking-thing on the way up.”
She reversed the SUV and parked it near that broken railing. When she jumped out, her flashlight automatically swept the scene...
And she saw the big truck that had been parked off road, partially hidden behind a patch of trees. “Tucker,” she snapped, warning him with a motion of her hand.
His gaze immediately zeroed in on the truck. He rushed toward it with his weapon drawn.
“Empty,” he barked.
It was empty. There was a freaking car-sized hole in the guardrail, and her two agents—her friends—weren’t answering their phones. They hadn’t arrived at the ranger station because they couldn’t.
She and Tucker immediately began scaling down that mountain. Their lights swept out, and she could smell gasoline.
Hold on, Macey. Hold on, Bowen. We’re coming.
Down, down they went, slipping and falling because it was so steep. Rocks tripped her and branches cut into Samantha and then—
Her light hit the wreckage. She staggered to a stop. Oh, Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Tucker was right beside her. His flashlight swept to the left and there—covered in blood—they saw Macey.
She blinked against their light, for a moment looking lost. Blood soaked her—her shirt, her hands and—
“He can feel everything.” A sob shook her body. “But I didn’t have a choice! He was dying! I had to work on him!”
Bowen lay on the ground before Macey. A chunk of metal was in his chest. A tourniquet was wrapped around his legs and the blood...
“Get back up the mountain,” Samantha ordered Tucker as she ran to Macey. “Get help!”
* * *
“YOU CAN LET him go, ma’am,” the medic said as he secured Bowen. “We’ve got him!”
They were airlifting him to safety. She should take her hands off Bowen. Macey knew that. The scene was chaotic around her and the whoop-whoop-whoop of the helicopter blades filled her ears.
Bowen was still alive. His eyes hadn’t opened. He hadn’t looked at her. But he was alive.
She’d made sure of it.
Her body ached because her muscles had been clenched with tension for so long. She’d had to do things to him...hold his veins, fight so hard...
No anesthesia.
She’d hurt him. She knew it. Daniel had once promised her...
I’ve made sure that you will feel everything that happens to you... I’ll start slowly, just so you know what’s going to happen. I keep my slices light at first. I like to see how the patient reacts to the pain stimulus...
“Ma’am, you have to let him go.”
Her hands slowly lifted. “I’ll see you soon, Bowen,” she promised him.
But he didn’t look at her.
Because he couldn’t.
* * *
“MACEY.”
She blinked. She was sitting in the back of an ambulance. A female EMT was cleaning the wound on her face, and the scene around her seemed completely surreal.
The night was gone. The sun had poured into the mountains. She was back on the road, away from the wreckage. She could see a team hauling up a body bag.
Jonah. They’d found their missing agent.
“Macey, tell me what happened.” Samantha’s voice was strained.
“Bowen is going to be all right.”
“Macey—”
Her head turned as she stared at her boss—and her friend. “Bowen is going to be all right?”
Samantha hesitated, and Macey felt as if her heart had just been clawed out.
“You took care of him,” Samantha assured her softly. “No one else could have done what you did. You kept him alive, Macey. Now he’s going to the hospital. They’ll work on him. They’ll do their best.”
“Removing that metal is going to be tricky. They have to be sure—”
Samantha’s hand closed around hers. “You kept him alive.”
A tear leaked down her cheek. “Even wounded so badly, he got out of the vehicle because he wanted to save me. I don’t know how he did it. Shouldn’t have happened. But he got out of that wrecked SUV. He pulled a gun on Jonah. He stopped Jonah.”
“So Bowen is the one who shot him?”
Give me the gun. She’d asked him that, again and again. Because Macey had known exactly what she needed to do. “I did it.” She’d been the one to aim. Bowen had been too weak then, he’d been falling. “I shot Jonah in the head because he was going for his weapon.” That weapon had been taken from her. “You have it now...it’s proof...”
“About Jonah’s gun...” There was a hesitant note in Samantha’s voice.
Macey stared at her.
“It wasn’t loaded.”
Her breath choked out. “He...he forced us off the road, nearly killed us both...” And his gun wasn’t loaded? Her eyes squeezed shut. “Just like his father.” Oh, God. He’d been so much like his father. Killing everyone and then...
Killing himself. “Jonah wanted to die.” Because the end had been there for him. Only, he’d wanted to take out Bowen, too. He’d wanted her to see Bowen for what he was.
And I do. Bowen is the man I love. The man I’ll always love.
“Did he confess, Macey?” Samantha pushed.
The EMT cleared her throat. “She really needs to get to the hospital.”
The hospital. Yes. Macey nodded, still feeling dazed. Adrenaline. Fear. Pain. She had to get to the hospital because Bowen was going to be at the hospital. She needed to see him. “Bowen is going to be all right...”
“Did Jonah confess, Macey?” Samantha asked once more.
Macey realized that she’d closed her eyes. Macey opened them, blinked. “He admitted to killing Daniel Haddox. He even... Jonah was the one who slit the throat of Gale Collins.”
She heard a dark curse from her right and realized Tucker was there, too.
“She was bait,” Macey explained. Her hand rose and pointed to her eyes. “Because she was like me. Jonah used her, made her think...” Nausea was rising in her, but she swallowed it down. She was an FBI agent. She could do this. She’d give her statement, even covered in Bowen’s blood. Bowen! She’d tell them what happened. She’d wrap this scene...
“She needs a hospital.” The EMT sounded angry now.
“Jonah used Gale. Convinced her that...convinced her that she was working with the FBI. Then he killed her...” Her breath rushed out. “His program worked. Said he’d...he’d found Patrick. Took him out, too.”
“Did his fucking program predict Curtis Zale, too?” Tucker had moved closer.
She strained to remember on this part. “Yes, but he...needed help finding the victims.” It was hard for her to think clearly. She’d asked him if Wesley had helped but...
I’ll never tell.
“Where is Wesley Kaiser?” Samantha wanted to know. “We noticed there were bind marks around Jonah’s wrists and ankles. Was that staged?”
“No...he said...said Wesley had taken him, but that he’d gotten away.”
Tucker and Samantha shared a long, hard look. “So they were working together.”
A shudder worked along her body. Was everyone as cold as she was? No, no, of course not. Shock. “He said... Jonah said he was the only one at the FBI who listened to Wesley’s story.”
“Where is that kid now?” Tucker fumed. “If Wesley’s still out there, the public is in danger.”
She shook her head. “He...he took Jonah. Jonah said the guy...that Wesley was trying to...to stop him.”
Tucker gave a low whistle. “Wesley went to Jonah seeking justice for his sister. Looks like he got a whole lot more than he bargained for.”
“I—I need to see Bowen,” Macey whispered. “I need him.”
Samantha nodded curtly. “We’ve got this scene.” She motion
ed to the glaring EMT. “Take her to the hospital.”
“About time,” the woman muttered.
They loaded Macey into the ambulance and right before those doors closed—
“Wait!” Macey called.
She saw Samantha and Tucker turn back to her. “There’s someone else involved,” she managed. “Not just Wesley...something else...someone else...”
Samantha and Tucker shared a dark look.
The doors closed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BOWEN FELT LIKE HELL. Absolute freaking hell. He was lying in the hospital bed, bandages were all over him, and the light coming through the blinds fell right into his eyes.
And Macey isn’t here. Where is Macey?
He’d woken in that room, and his last memory had been of Macey’s fingers closing around his as she jerked the gun toward Jonah.
Had they shot the other agent? Had the bullet found its target?
Where. Is. Macey?
He grabbed for the side of the bed and began to haul himself up. Pain lanced through him, but he didn’t care. There was an IV line pumping into his vein, but he grabbed for it—
“Are you trying to undo all the hard work that the doctors here did? That I did on that godforsaken mountain?”
Macey.
His head whipped to the right. She was standing there, bruises on her beautiful skin, a bandage on her cheek and a faint smile on her face.
He could only stare at her.
“Bowen?” Her smile slipped away as she hurried to him.
He grabbed her; the IV burned, and he didn’t give a fuck. He pulled Macey closer, wobbling there on the edge of the bed.
“No, Bowen, you don’t even want to know how many stitches you have!” The beep of machines was wild around him. “Stop!” Gently, she pushed him back. “You have to take it easy.”
He didn’t want easy. He didn’t want anything but her. “Couldn’t...remember what happened.”
Her eyes widened. Such perfect eyes. Eyes he could stare into forever. “We shot Jonah.”
Okay, so they had shot him.
“Then you almost died.” Her lips pressed together and pain flashed on her face. “And I have never, ever been so scared in my life.” She eased him back onto the bed. “Not even when I thought Daniel Haddox was taking my life.” She started to back away.
But his hand flew out and curled around her wrist. “Thought...Jonah was going to...kill you.”
“I don’t believe that was ever his intention.” Her lashes swept down. “He was very twisted up. He managed to get past us all, for so long. Managed to work at the FBI. I’d sworn I wouldn’t be fooled again—”
Bowen brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers.
“I wasn’t going to let him get away with what he’d done.” She stared into his eyes. “I wasn’t letting you die on that mountain.”
His Macey was safe. They’d both made it.
“You were in surgery for over six hours.” Her left hand rose and pressed to his chest. “That chunk of metal missed your heart.”
“Because you already had it.”
Her head tilted. “Bowen...”
“I know we won’t be together in the field anymore.” His words rushed out. His throat was sore, his voice a bit raspy—he figured they’d had some tube shoved down his throat during surgery—but he had to keep talking. “If we can’t be partners there...”
She was shaking her head.
“Then I want us to be partners...I want us to be partners in life.” He was screwing this up. Still sick from surgery, weak, but the words needed to be said. He’d come too close to losing the one thing that mattered most to him.
Macey.
She wasn’t shaking her head any longer.
“Will you marry me, Macey?” He could barely breathe.
“This isn’t some delirious proposal that you won’t remember later, after your pain meds wear off?”
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
Fuck, yeah! He yanked her closer and his mouth pressed to hers. He didn’t care about the pain he felt because he had Macey in his arms. Macey in his life, and she’d just promised him forever.
No pain could ever compete with that.
“I love you, Bowen,” Macey whispered against his lips.
He knew they’d come through the darkness. Knew that they’d survived. And now...now he had Macey.
He would fight like hell to always keep her at his side.
As his friend, as his partner, as the woman he loved more than any-fucking-thing.
His Macey.
And he held her even tighter.
* * *
DR. AMELIA LANG hurried back to her motel room. She’d just heard on the radio that FBI Agent Jonah Loxley had been killed—and that the man was the suspected perpetrator in several homicides.
Wesley Kaiser was wanted by authorities.
Wesley... Carlisle.
Oh, God.
She’d worked side by side with him. She’d thought she knew him, but apparently, the guy had abducted Jonah Loxley.
The cops didn’t know where Wesley was. They’d put out an APB for him. She’d had a guard on her last night, but she’d sent him away that morning, thinking she was safe.
I don’t feel so safe any longer. Her hand tightened on her purse. She had a license to carry a concealed weapon. She’d told the cops about her license and the guy who’d taken her to the motel the night before—that cop—had told her it was a good idea to keep the weapon close.
She fumbled with the lock on her room and hurried inside. She shut the door, flipped on the lights and—
“Hello, Dr. Lang.”
Carlisle. No, Wesley. He was there. Screaming, she yanked the gun from her purse and whirled around. He was standing near the window. Sadness covered his face.
“It didn’t work. Susannah is dead, so many people are dead...and I don’t feel better. I just feel worse.” His hands fisted at his sides and he took a lurching step toward her. “Why won’t the pain stop?”
The gun shook in her hands.
“Why won’t it fucking stop?” He stared at her with wild eyes—and then he ran at her.
Amelia fired. He kept coming at her. So she kept firing. Over and over. Until he stopped running.
Until her gun was empty.
The next day...
“YOU SHOULD BE in the hospital, Macey,” Tucker muttered, shooting her a hard glare as she stood in the Gatlinburg police station.
“I’m okay.” But Bowen? He wasn’t as okay. He’d have to stay in the hospital for quite a while longer, but he would recover. He’d survive.
Then she’d marry that man.
“I can do this interrogation,” Tucker continued, motioning toward the one-way mirror. They were in the observation room, and Dr. Amelia Lang—a very pale Dr. Lang—sat in the interrogation room. Her shoulders were hunched and her hands were on the cup of coffee that rested on the table before her. “You don’t have to go in there.”
Yes, she did. “The case is almost closed.” A case that had drawn national attention. An FBI agent as a killer? Of course that story was on every TV channel.
But the story wasn’t over, not yet.
“I just need to ask her a few questions.” Macey gave him a quick nod. “I need to do this.”
The faint lines near his mouth tightened, but Tucker nodded. Macey turned away from him and walked slowly into the hallway. Samantha was waiting for her. When Samantha saw her, one dark brow arched. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
I said yes. I have a life to look forward to. So many good things...not just darkness. “Yes.”
Samantha pulled her close in a hug. “Congratulations,” she said, and her voice was warm. But when she eased back,
a shadow had fallen over her face. “I will always remember seeing you on the side of that mountain, your body covered in blood as you fought to save him.” Her chin lifted. “I hope that man understands just how much you love him.”
“He does,” Macey told her, believing this with all of her being. “Because he feels the same way about me.”
Samantha considered that. “Yes, I believe he does.” Her gaze slid to the closed interrogation room door. “I’m assuming you want the honors?”
“I think I deserve them.”
Again, Samantha seemed to consider her words. “Yes, you do.” She opened the door for Macey. “I’ll be watching. If you need me, I’m there.”
Because Samantha had her back. Just as Bowen did. As Tucker did. They were more than just a team. They were a family.
And woe be unto anyone who messed with her family.
Macey walked into the interrogation room. Her heels tapped lightly on the floor. She didn’t have a manila file in her hand. Didn’t have an evidence bag. She didn’t need one.
Dr. Lang glanced up as she entered. Relief swept over her face. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Agent Night!” She rose, almost spilling her coffee cup because her hands were shaking so badly. “I heard about what happened to you and Agent Bowen. It’s a miracle you both survived!”
Macey stopped near the table. “I believe in miracles, Dr. Lang.”
Dr. Lang smiled, a quick flash, but then it was gone. “Please...just make it Amelia. We’re long past the formal point, aren’t we?”
Yes, they were. “I believe,” Macey continued, her voice calm and easy, “that there are good people in the world. People who want to help others. People who want to be happy and help their families and their friends to be happy. People who want to make the world a legitimately better place.”
Amelia still stood, uncertain.
“And I also believe that there are monsters in this world. People who seek out darkness. People who thrive on pain and chaos.”
“You think, Carlisle—I mean, Wesley—was one of those people?”
Macey pulled out her chair and sat at the table. Amelia slowly lowered into her own seat. She pushed her coffee cup away.