When she climbed out of the car, she noticed a large black Mercedes sedan parked down the street. Not a big deal elsewhere, but fancy, expensive cars were rare in this middle-class neighborhood of Oceanside in northern San Diego County. And this one had especially dark tinted windows. She hesitated a moment when she caught a flash or reflection from the interior. Was someone inside? Her question was answered when the Benz started, pulled a U-turn, and disappeared down the street in the opposite direction. An uneasy feeling made her shudder. Please don’t let drug dealers be moving into this family-oriented neighborhood.
When she heard someone calling her from the house, she shook off her concern and scurried across the lawn to dart inside.
“Mama, Mama.”
Kat scooped up the toddler. “How’s my baby girl?”
Chapter 2
Around noon, Dillon caught up with Ben Alfren at the elevator. After the talk with his boss, he wanted to pick his friend’s brain about the whole Counterterrorism thing. “Hey, Ben. Want to grab a sandwich at the deli?”
“Sounds good.”
Ten minutes later, they sat at a small outside table, inhaling their lunches. The warm autumn sun beat down, but a breeze from the coast kept the temperature comfortable. Seagulls squawked and circled overhead, always on the lookout for a dropped morsel.
“Rex talked to me this morning,” he said after a pause for a drink.
Ben hesitated. “About?”
“Transferring to Counterterrorism.”
“Ah. Okay. I’m not supposed to bring it up unless asked. So Rex tagged you too?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure why.”
Ben gave an incredulous snort. “Because you’re a damn good agent, for starters.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“There is that.” Ben chuckled and took another bite of his sandwich. “Did you say yes?”
He shook his head. “I want to think about it. What made you decide to make the switch?”
His friend stopped eating and stared thoughtfully into space. “If I’m going to spend my life catching bad guys, I might as well catch the worst.”
Dillon grinned. “Makes sense. I just wish we could stop the terrorists earlier in the process.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, before they organize a bomb plot, before they pick a target, before they even form the damn sleeper cell.”
“How would you do that?”
“Up our cyber game.” He drank a long swig of Coke. “I bet I could hack and destroy a hundred jihadi websites a day. And don’t even get me started on their social media accounts. ISIS, more so than al-Qaeda, has really learned how to use the Internet to its benefit, especially for recruiting Westerners.”
“Well, your master’s degree in computer science would certainly indicate you’ve got the brainpower and skills to do it,” Ben said.
Dillon bristled. “Said the man with the Harvard MBA,” he responded snidely.
“Down, dude. Lighten up. That was a real compliment. If I hadn’t worked out or gone running with you, I might think you were a computer geek based on your credentials. But you’re too much of a Sherman tank for anyone to mistake you for a nerd. Besides, your morning regimen is a killer.” He finished with a groan that said he remembered the last time he’d joined Dillon for his morning workout.
Dillon grunted. “I’ve noticed you haven’t asked to come with me lately.”
“And I won’t. It’s much more fun to be in bed with Amber at oh dark thirty.”
Memories of a soft, warm, curvy woman’s body next to his in bed flooded Dillon’s mind. He shook away the image before her face appeared.
“Maybe you should ask to be assigned to the Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory,” Ben continued.
He sighed. “I’ve thought about it, but I’d miss the adrenaline rush of being in the field. I’m an adrenaline junkie at heart.” He grinned inwardly. He’d done computer stuff that gave him the same exhilaration, but he couldn’t reveal those activities to a federal agent even if he was his friend.
“Aren’t we all?” Ben said, repeating Dillon’s earlier words. “There’s got to be a way to use your mad computer skills here at the local Counterterrorism Squad level.”
“I’d like to think so. Another thing keeping me up at night is all the hacking by China and Russia. The massive intrusions into the Office of Personnel Management and IRS systems broadcast to the whole world how vulnerable we are. I’d sure like a chance at some payback.”
* * *
Kat played on the floor in the living room of her Oceanside bungalow with her sixteen-month-old daughter until Skye’s eyelids started to droop. “C’mon, baby girl, let’s get you down for your nap.”
As she rocked the toddler in the chair that had been Kat’s Scottish grandmother’s, she made a mental to-do list for the ninety minutes or so the little girl would sleep. Unfortunately, the list was so long that there was no way she’d get even half of it done.
After gently laying Skye in the crib and turning on the baby monitor, she closed the door with a tired sigh. It seemed like she was always exhausted these days.
Working at night and single parenting during the day left little time for sleep. But living near her parents provided much needed and appreciated relief. Their insistence that they wanted to help had been the major reason she’d taken the job at the Diablo Beach Nuclear Power Plant on the coast in northern San Diego County even though the plant had already been shut down. Now it was going through the potentially decades-long process of decommissioning. A lot of young engineers didn’t want to work at a nonoperating plant because they felt it wasn’t a good stepping-stone in their careers. Kat thought their opinions were misguided. Instead, she believed the decommissioning experience might actually look good on her résumé. Despite being a single mom, she refused to lose sight of her career goals; they just couldn’t be her highest priority right now.
She cleaned up the small kitchen, put another load of laundry in the washer, and then sat down at the desk in the living room to pay bills online. Sipping her mug of strong coffee, she stared at her dwindling bank account balances. She earned good money, but she never seemed to make any progress toward saving for the future. Besides fully supporting herself and Skye, Kat often subsidized her parents’ finances, partly because their retirement income was minimal and partly because they gave so much of their time to take care of their granddaughter. Of course, her mom and dad always resisted Kat’s financial assistance, but in the end accepted it, because they honestly needed it.
She glanced at her watch. Probably forty-five more minutes before Skye woke up. Resting her elbows on the desk, she cradled her head in her hands and closed her eyes. God, she was tired, but it would be several hours until she could catch her few hours of sleep before going to work. Work. How she wished her job wasn’t adding even more stress to her life. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the errors she had noticed were important. If only her boss would listen to her. Someone had to listen, because this could be serious.
She raised her head and picked up her cell phone. Time to swallow her pride and try to reach Dillon another way. When the operator answered at the San Francisco FBI office, Kat steeled herself. “Hi. I need to speak to Special Agent Dillon O’Malley.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
She so wanted to use an alias but gave her real name reluctantly.
“Just a moment, please, Ms. MacKenzie.”
Her heart counted off the passing seconds while her hand tightened on the phone.
“I’m sorry, but Dillon O’Malley no longer works here,” the operator reported after a full minute.
“H-He’s n-not there?” Disbelief made her stutter.
“No, ma’am.”
“D-Did he transfer or leave the Bureau?”
“I can’t give out that information. Could someone else help you?”
It wasn’t so much a matter of could, but would. Her brain flipped through a
mental Rolodex of her former boyfriend’s friends and colleagues.
“Maybe Special Agent Steve Smith,” Kat said.
The operator was gone over a minute. “Special Agent Smith is…unavailable.”
“Try Kevin Brown, please.”
More time passed.
“Sorry, Special Agent Brown is…also unavailable.”
Instead of asking for Dillon’s best friends, maybe she should try the one who seemed to like her the most. The guy who had actually hit on her one night before she and Dillon reached the exclusive stage in their relationship.
“Perhaps Jeff Rivers.” Kat waited and waited.
“What do you want?” Jeff answered, omitting any normal pleasantries.
She exhaled. “Hi, Jeff. How are you?”
“I repeat, what do you want?”
Okay, so that’s how it’s gonna be. No big surprise. At least he took my call. Kat cleared her throat. “I’m looking for Dillon—”
“Why? So you can screw up his life again?”
“I know—”
“No, you don’t. You have no idea how bad you hurt the guy.”
And you have no idea how badly I hurt. Then and now. But she couldn’t say those words. “You’re right. I probably don’t. But I need to talk to him. Can you tell me where he is?”
“Not a chance.”
“Would you get a message to him with my new number?”
“No way.”
“But—”
“Look, Kat. After you pulled your little disappearing act, I thanked my lucky stars that you and I had never hooked up or I could’ve been the one bleeding instead of Dillon. Now I’d do anything to protect the guy since he got stuck taking the bullet. So leave him and me…hell, leave all of us alone.” He sighed. “Bitch,” he murmured as he hung up.
She cringed, and her eyes stung with unshed tears. She didn’t think she was supposed to hear him, but she had. Oh, my God. Dillon’s friends hated her, and they didn’t even know what had really happened. Heaven help her if they ever found out.
Chapter 3
Dillon ordered a large, meat-lovers pizza for delivery to his apartment before he left the office. Just as he disconnected, another call came in from the annoying anonymous number. He ignored it and headed straight home. Monday Night Football awaited him instead of another workout. Vegging in front of the TV for a few hours tonight seemed like a good idea so his mind could wrestle with the major career decision he needed to make.
The pizza delivery guy arrived shortly after he did. Within minutes, Dillon leaned back in the leather recliner with a plateful of meaty pizza and a longneck Corona, complete with a sliver of lime. Heaven.
His iPhone, lying on the end table, rang again. Irritation bubbled to the surface at the sight of the same number. He shook his head. The damn telemarketer should get a raise for perseverance alone. But enough was enough. He grabbed the phone.
“Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying. Quit calling me.”
As he pulled the phone away from his ear, ready to slam it on the table, he heard a woman’s faint voice. “Dillon?”
Who knew two syllables could pack such a punch? But they did and knocked the wind right out of him.
“Dillon?” came the barely audible voice again. “Are you there?”
Although the words were a whisper, he identified the caller instantly. Slowly, he placed the phone back against his ear and said the only word his paralyzed brain could produce. “Yeah.”
She didn’t answer for several seconds, and before she did, he heard her gulp. Twice.
“It’s me. Kat. Katriona MacKenzie.”
What the hell? How many Kats did she think he knew? There had been and always would be only one Kat in his life.
When he didn’t respond, she spoke louder. “Dillon? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he managed again around a boulder in his throat. Lame, lame, lame. After two years and what she’d done to him, he should have more to say to her. A lot more.
“Am I…interrupting…anything?” she asked hesitantly.
God, he wished he could say something like Yeah, I’m in the middle of screwing my wife’s brains out or I’m on the other line with the president or I’m busy saving the world. But he was just watching football. Alone. So what could he say? “No,” he muttered, the tightness in his chest threatening to choke off his single-syllable words entirely.
“Uh…how are you?”
Thank God, her words sounded strangled also.
“Um, I’m great. Awesome, in fact. Never been better.” He cringed and closed his eyes. Shit, that was over the fucking top.
“Good. I…I’m really glad.”
“You?” Damn, back to single syllables. And he still couldn’t breathe right.
“I’m…okay.”
Then she stalled. He sensed Kat was losing her courage, but he’d be damned if he would make it easier for her.
She sighed heavily. “This was a mistake. Sorry to bother you, Dillon. Bye-o.”
And just like that, she was gone. But not without a last dagger to his heart by using their special good-bye. Breathing raggedly, he sat with the phone at his ear for several seconds before lowering it. Had the call been real or was it the byproduct of wishful thinking? He pushed his head back against the recliner cushion and stared at nothing.
His simply furnished living room disappeared, and he was suddenly standing at the altar in the church in San Francisco. The collar of his tux was too tight, and he was sweating like crazy. Despite his nerves, the stupid grin on his face was so wide that his cheeks hurt. Steve, Kevin, and Jeff stood in a line beside him, all four of them peering down the long aisle toward the door through which his bride would walk. The bridesmaids were on the opposite side of the altar, teary-eyed, but beaming too.
The pews were full of friends and Kat’s family. Since he didn’t have any relatives, they’d foregone the normal seating division. The air smelled of some sweet, flowery fragrance, and the organ played softly in the background. The hum of whispered conversations filled the church as anticipation swelled.
He waited and waited and waited. The guests began to fidget and turn to stare at the back of the church also. Then suddenly, the side door near the altar opened.
His face as stark white as a wedding dress, Kat’s father stood in the doorway, hanging on to the doorjamb for dear life. “I’m sorry, Father John. You…uh and…Dillon…we…uh…need to talk.” He gestured for them to come with him.
The look on Craig MacKenzie’s face made Dillon’s heart drop to his feet. Even though he had seen Kat, healthy and whole, a short while ago during the photo session, he imagined her, broken and bleeding, injured, or worse. Inexplicable panic set in, and he ran from the altar.
Craig ushered them into one of the church offices where Mrs. MacKenzie sat ramrod straight on a small couch. Her severe posture belied the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Where’s Kat? Is she okay? What’s wrong?” The words tumbled from Dillon’s mouth.
The priest laid a warm hand on his shoulder and guided him into a chair. “I suspect you should sit down, my son.”
He collapsed onto a chair, his heart pounding like it was trying to beat its way out of his chest. “Well? Talk to me, goddamnit.” No one reacted to his swearing.
As Craig sat down beside Aileen, they exchanged an anguished glance. Kat’s father clutched his wife’s trembling hands between his massive callused ones as though holding her together. She definitely appeared to be on the verge of coming apart.
Craig cleared his throat and met Dillon’s panicked gaze head-on. “We have…uh…some bad news.”
“For Christ’s sake, tell me,” he pleaded.
“Katie has decided…she can’t go through with the wedding.”
The announcement sucked all the air from the room. No one spoke.
Dillon’s head spun, incomprehension swirling, his ears ringing. He gripped the arms of the chair like they were a life preserver. “Wh
at the hell does that mean?”
Standing behind him, Father John rested both hands on his shoulders and squeezed gently. “Patience, my son.”
“No way. Someone had better start explaining what the hell’s going on.”
Mr. MacKenzie exhaled loudly. “Katie doesn’t believe this marriage can work. So instead of going through with the wedding and then committing the sin of divorce, she…refuses to be part of a marriage doomed to failure from the start.”
His head jerked back. “Doomed to failure? That’s impossible. We love each other. We’re mature, responsible adults, not flaky teenagers. We’ve talked about all sorts of plans for the future.”
“We understand…you feel differently.”
“I want to talk to her. She just has cold feet, a case of wedding-day nerves. Where is she?” His gaze darted around the room as if she were hiding in a corner.
Eyes brimming with tears, lips quivering, Aileen spoke softly. “Craig and I had gone to the bride’s room to spend the last few minutes with her before the ceremony started. We found she’d changed out of the wedding gown and back into her regular clothes. Katie told us what Craig just told you. She asked us to apologize to you, to everyone, and then she grabbed her purse and just…just ran out.”
His jaw clenched. This couldn’t be happening. “Where’s she going?”
“We don’t know,” Craig said.
“I don’t believe you.”
Katie’s dad shrugged. “We’re as baffled and disappointed as you are, Dillon.”
“I doubt it.” He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket.
“We already tried—”
Dillon cut him off with a blistering glare. But Kat’s phone just rang and rang. He left a message, but a dark foreboding warned him that his call wouldn’t be returned. Ever. Disbelief drilled into his heart and left a deep hole.
As Dillon’s thoughts returned to the present, a tsunami of emotion crashed over him, and he gasped like a drowning man, felt like one. Again. Two years ago, Katriona had betrayed him. Like everyone else in his life. And as much as he pretended otherwise, he still hadn’t recovered.
Wanted (FBI Heat Book 3) Page 2