by Liz Wolfe
Greenley grinned, lifted a hand in a mock salute, and followed everyone down the stairs. Moments later, she heard the first of the trucks pull out of the gate.
“Let’s get the doctors’ laptops. Then I’ll call Ethan and tell him to pick up our evil scientists.”
Mac pulled a semi-conscious Jonah down the hallway, and Shelby repeated the retinal scanner procedure with his eye and opened the door to his office. She quickly unplugged his laptop and stuffed it in her pack.
“Now, we need to leave him somewhere and get Dr. Ruthless to open her office for us.”
“Can’t we just leave the computers to the FSA and FBI?” Mac asked, dragging Jonah after her.
“After everything we’ve been through, I don’t know who to trust anymore. I want all this taken care of, and then I’ll call in the feds. They can figure it out from there.”
“Good point.”
They were almost at Greenley’s office when she heard a noise from Jonah’s office. Mac must have heard it too, because he stopped and turned back.
“Did we leave the lights on in there?” he asked. Shelby shook her head. Motioning him to stay behind her, she approached the office. Definite noises. Drawers opening and closing, papers being shuffled around. She took the safety off her gun, paused at the doorway, and then charged in.
“Freeze!”
A tall, slender, blond woman turned to face Shelby. Her eyes were frantic, and she held a sheaf of papers in her hand. Mac shuffled up behind her, still holding onto Jonah.
“Chris! What are you doing here?”
“This is your SAC?” Shelby asked, giving Chris a once over. She wore a set of night cammies with a knit hat pulled over her short hair. The look in her eyes was that of a half-demented person.
“Where are they, Jonah? Tell me!” Chris lunged at Jonah, and Mac pulled him out of her path. Chris caught herself and stepped back a few feet.
“Chris, calm down. Tell me what you’re doing here. What is it that you want from Jonah?”
“How the hell do you even know him?” Shelby asked. Especially on a first name basis.
The slightly crazed look slipped from her eyes, and she looked from Mac to Shelby. Mac moved Jonah into the office and sat him on a sofa like a rag doll. He was coming to a little more, but he had restraints on, so Shelby wasn’t worried about him.
Chris dropped into the chair behind his desk, which apparently she’d ransacked in the few minutes they’d been gone.
“He’s been blackmailing me with some photos.” Chris sighed. “I didn’t want to give him the information about the investigation, but he said he’d send the photos to the FBI, my family, magazines. I’d have been ruined.” Chris frowned and choked back a noise in her throat. “I even dragged Monique into it. I threatened to tell her lover about us if she didn’t give me the information from the FSA.”
Shelby became wary. This was not good. In any way. Chris was confessing to giving classified information to Jonah Thomas. Because he was going to ruin her career. Like this wouldn’t ruin it? Of course, if Mac and Shelby weren’t alive to tell about it, she supposed it wouldn’t have any effect on Chris’ career.
“Chris, stay calm. We’ll figure this out. We’ll work everything out. Jonah is in custody now. He can’t hurt you any longer.” Shelby saw the gleam in Chris’ eye and the subtle movement of her arm. Before she could react, Chris had pulled a gun out and shot Jonah in the head.
“You stupid bitch!” Another shot fired from behind Shelby, and she turned to see Ruth standing in the doorway. Shelby glanced back to see that Chris had a hole in her forehead similar to the one in Jonah’s. She whirled to aim her gun at Ruth, but Ruth had already moved to Mac.
Ruth held him with an arm around his throat, her gun pointed to his temple.
“Where did you come from?” Shelby cringed inwardly at the stupidity of the question, but it had just popped out of her mouth.
“You thought you’d drugged me with that tricky little canister, didn’t you?” She was right. Shelby had thought that.
“Unfortunately for you, I have asthma.”
“You have asthma.” Shelby remembered her using an inhaler at The Center, but what the hell did that have to do with this?
“I use a breathing machine at night. It forces oxygen into my breathing passages.” Ruth smiled, and she looked truly evil to Shelby. “It helps with the asthma. Tonight, it had the added advantage of bypassing most of the noxious fumes you pumped into my quarters.”
Crap. That sucked.
Mac grimaced, and a strangled groan escaped his arm-clasped throat. Shelby looked into those deep green eyes and, in a hot second, realized what Mac meant to her. Her only thought was his safety and survival.
Shelby was taking this bitch down.
“Now that I have a hostage, I suppose we can negotiate.”
“There’s a flaw in your plan, Dr. Ruthless.”
“Really? I fail to see it.”
“Well,” Shelby explained in a patient tone, “a hostage is only good if he’s alive.” She took careful aim and shot Mac.
Ruth gasped as Mac slid from her grasp, blood running from his upper arm.
Shelby didn’t hesitate to fire a second time. That one went into Ruth’s shoulder. From the placement, she figured she’d probably shot through Ruth’s clavicle, but she was really hoping she hadn’t hit anything vital. Shelby wanted Ruth alive to suffer for everything she’d done.
Shelby had already reached Ruth when the gun slid from her hand. She whipped Ruth around, pulled the restraints over her wrists and tightened them.
“Ouch!”
Good. She wasn’t going to die.
“Shut up!” Shelby pushed her over to sit on the sofa with her dead colleague and knelt down to Mac.
“Mac?” Shelby whispered. Please God, don’t let him be unconscious. Or dead. Surely she was a better shot than that.
“Shelby,” he whispered. She jerked her gaze from his bleeding arm to his dark green eyes.
“What Mac?”
“We’re really going to have to talk about these spontaneous displays of affection.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I want to know whose bastard sperm they used to impregnate Shannon!”
Shelby could hear Chase’s voice from down the hall as she approached Ethan’s office. She thought she should probably give them a moment, but then she wanted to know who the bastard was too, so she slipped inside his office.
“I know, Lieutenant Harmon. I have all the data here.” Ethan held a manila folder out to Chase.
Chase ripped the folder from Ethan’s hand and opened it, scanning the contents. “Where is it?” he demanded.
Shelby took pity on the poor guy and took the folder from him. She skimmed the pages, found the data he wanted and handed it back to him. “Right there.”
He snatched the folder from her hand and looked at it. “Oh, my God!”
Shelby grinned at him.
“I’m the bastard.”
“I don’t know if I’d put it that way, but it’s true. The Center impregnated Shannon with your sperm. Evidently they were trying to create another child with Sam’s unusual abilities.”
“Does Shannon know?” Chase asked.
Ethan smiled and nodded. “She does.”
Chase looked like he was going to be sick. “What did she say?”
Ethan shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to interpret her reaction. She’s downstairs. Maybe you should go talk to her.”
“Yes,” Chase agreed. He turned to Shelby and grinned. “I’m going to have a baby. Again.” He bolted from the room without waiting for a reply, not that she had one for him.
“I can’t believe the mole was Monique.” Ethan dropped into his chair and leaned back. “Of course, I didn’t know that Monique had been Chris Jackson’s lover either.”
“Nor should you have.” Shelby sneaked another look at the check he’d handed her. Between this and the retainer she’d gotten in the begi
nning, Parker Security and Investigation could stay open for another six months, even without the bouncer gigs she and Paige had been doing. She slipped the check into her pocket to prevent looking at it again.
“What about the people behind Thomas and Carlson? Any luck on finding them?”
“Some. We’ve managed to get into some of the files that were on their laptops, and we’re tracing some financial transactions. All we really know so far is that they call themselves The Dominion Order. We’re working on finding out exactly who they are and what else they might be up to. We’ve alerted Interpol and the intelligence organizations of our allies.”
“The Dominion Order? Sounds presumptuous.”
Ethan leaned forward and twined his fingers together. “So, you ready to come back?”
“No way.”
“Come on, Shelby. We both know you love the job.”
“I love the work. And I have my own agency to provide the work now. I don’t need the FSA.”
“That’s probably true,” Ethan admitted. “But the FSA needs you.”
“No. I’m done with the FSA. You have all those trainees. Use them.”
“Not a damn one of them shows half the promise you did.” Ethan slammed his palm on the desk.
“Like I said, you need to improve your recruiting methods.” Her cell phone chirped, and she pulled it off her belt.
“What?”
“Hey Shelby. Paige here. You busy?”
“Not really. What’s up?”
“I just wanted to ask you again about buying into the agency. You said I did a good job with the Fortress and—”
“Sure,” Shelby said, grinning when Paige gasped.
“You mean it? Really?”
“Absolutely. I’ve discovered I actually like working with a partner.”
“Oh, Shelby, you won’t be disappointed. I promise.”
“I know. But just so we’re clear, you’re only getting thirty percent.”
“That’s good. That’s fine. Oh, one more thing. I got a call about a case.”
“And?”
“Well, do you want to hear about it?”
“No. You’re a partner. You make the call. Just make sure Zoe is able to handle the office if you have to be out for any length of time. Tell her not to accept or decline any cases. Just keep her busy with the accounting books.”
“You got it! See you when you get back.”
Ethan leaned back in his chair. “You’re working with a partner now?” He shook his head. “I’d never have believed it.” He looked up as someone knocked on his door and gestured.
“Excuse me. Ms. Parker, you have a visitor.” The fresh faced young man looked apologetic.
Shelby swiveled her chair around and saw Mac through the glass walls of Ethan’s office. They hadn’t had a chance to talk since they’d been picked up along with Dr. Ruthless and the dead bodies. His arm was in a sling, but otherwise, he looked good. Really, really good.
“Excuse me, Ethan, I need to speak to Mac.”
“Sure, but first, Shelby, how about another op? Just one more.”
“I don’t think so.” She rose and walked to the door.
“It’s something you’d really like. It’s in the Caribbean. A real piece of cake.”
“Why me?” She forced herself to turn back to Ethan.
“It requires a chameleon.”
She looked back at Mac. He was smiling. There was a certain heat in his eyes. “Find another one. Maybe Mel’s available.” She heard Ethan snort as she opened the door.
“How’s your arm?” she asked Mac.
“It’ll be fine in a few weeks. Flesh wound.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m sure that’s what you planned.”
Shelby blushed, wondering just how to explain to a man that you shot him for his own good.
“Shelby, just consider it.” Ethan’s voice had turned into a pleading whine. She ignored him.
“I’ve been thinking about us.”
“You have?” Was this good or bad? She really wished she had better social skills. Maybe she’d have some answers to questions like that.
“It’s never easy to start a relationship. And it’s even harder when it’s started under… well, let’s say dire circumstances.”
Shelby couldn’t argue with that so she didn’t. But she didn’t think Mac was sounding real positive right now.
“I thought we should take some time to think about what we want, where this might eventually lead.” Mac spoke softly, and Shelby felt a hard lump form in her throat. She swallowed hard.
“Sure. I understand.” Crap.
“See, this is perfect timing, Shelby,” Ethan broke in. “You do the op in the Caribbean, then you two can have time to consider everything. You always said you think best when you’re on the job.”
Mac pulled a brochure out of his breast pocket and handed it to her. “I thought this might be a good place to start.”
Shelby took the brochure he handed her and stared dumbly at the pictures of couples frolicking in the ocean, riding horses, and dancing under the stars.
A luxury island resort? She opened the brochure and found two airline tickets tucked inside. The significance sank in, and she looked back at Mac and smiled.
“Sounds like a great place to me.”
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