by Webb, Debra
If Jane had been hurt…or worse…that would be his fault. Just like Patsy’s death was his fault. And maybe even his ex’s.
He shouldn’t have walked away four years ago. He should have stayed until someone at the bureau did the right thing.
Or he was dead for real.
“Mr. Benson.”
Troy looked up, met Michaels’s gaze.
“We’re moving to Jane’s house. If—” He stopped. Cocked his head.
What? Had he heard something?
Michaels motioned to the closet.
One of the other two, Troy couldn’t remember if it was Conroy or Porter, moved soundlessly to the closet door. A man on either side of the door, one reached out and opened it just as Michaels had done the front door.
The closet was empty.
Or appeared to be.
Michaels gave a nod and one of his colleagues eased into the closest. All three men held their weapons like the cops did when they moved in on a suspect.
The man in the closet moved the clothes on the racks aside and surveyed the wall.
A sound—maybe a whimper—echoed from somewhere inside.
Weapons leveled as a panel was removed from the rear wall of the closet.
An older woman huddled in the opening behind the wall. Troy recognized her from the photo in Jane’s purse. The woman blinked. Her eyes widened as her brain registered the weapons aimed at her. She cried out.
“Mrs. Sutton, are you all right?” Michaels holstered his weapon and moved into the closet.
The woman stared at him. “Ian?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He reached out his hand. “Let me help you.”
When she was free of her hiding place and assessed for injury, Troy couldn’t take it anymore. “Where’s Jane?”
“They took her,” Mrs. Sutton cried. “She hid me in there. Made them think I’d escaped. They left with her because they were afraid I had gotten away and would call the police.”
“I don’t want you to worry, Mrs. Sutton,” Ian said. “We’re going to find Jane.”
She gestured to the door. “I heard the phone ring while I was in there.” She shuddered, clutched at her chest. “I couldn’t make out what was said, but a message was left.”
“Where is your answering machine?” Michaels asked.
“The kitchen.” Her voice was weak. She’d begun to shake.
“Porter, I want you to call an ambulance for Mrs. Sutton,” Ian said in that eerily calm voice. When the woman started to object, he added, “I would feel better if you were thoroughly checked out. I know how Jane worries about you.”
Troy started for the kitchen. Michaels followed, calling out one last instruction for another of their colleagues, Kendra Todd, to be summoned to accompany Mrs. Sutton.
The red light on the answering machine blinked. Troy swallowed hard, but didn’t hesitate. He selected the Play Messages option.
“Jane Sutton,” the male voice announced, “will be waiting at home for Trace to save her. She will be exchanged for him. If he does not come alone, she will die. If he resists, she will die. You have one hour.”
The time stamp indicated the message had been left thirty minutes ago.
He turned to Michaels. “We have thirty minutes. Where does she live?”
“About fifteen minutes from here.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jane Sutton’s Home
Michaels broke every speed limit posted getting across town. He stopped more than a block from Jane’s home.
“You go alone from here.”
Troy started to get out but Michaels stopped him. “We’ll get into position. I need you to buy as much time as you can.”
Troy shook his head. “If you show up, he’ll have her killed.”
“They’ll kill her anyway,” Michaels argued. “He’s not going to leave any loose ends. She’s the only one who may have gotten close enough to prove his involvement. Or, at the very least, to verify what has taken place the past two days. We can’t take that risk.”
Troy hadn’t trusted anyone in a long time. Four years to be exact. Jane trusted this man. He had to believe she would trust him now.
“All right.”
“Hell will break loose, Benson,” he warned. “When it does, it’s up to you to cover Jane. You’ll be closest to her.”
Troy nodded.
He understood.
Her life was in his hands.
Michaels and Conroy got out of the SUV and disappeared into the darkness. Troy walked around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.
He drove the remaining distance to the house Michaels had described. The driveway was empty. As he pulled into the drive, he scanned the dark street. A driver likely had the getaway vehicle hidden.
Troy had a fair idea of how this would go down. When given the order, the driver would barrel up to the front of the house. Troy would be hustled into the vehicle and then they would drive away.
As long as Jane was safe, he no longer cared. This had to end.
Tonight.
He got out of the car and approached the house, the weapon at the small of his back burning his skin through his T-shirt.
His fingers itched to reach for the weapon, but he couldn’t make any moves that might set off the wrong chain reaction.
On the stoop he reached for the door and it opened.
“Get inside.”
He recognized the voice. One of the men who’d chased them from his house in Plano. Like before, the black ski mask prevented Troy from seeing his face.
Troy walked past the man. As soon as the door closed the weapon was snatched from his waistband by one of his pals.
“Where’s Jane?” The room was only dimly lit, but she was nowhere in sight.
The man with the gun motioned to his buddy, who left the room.
“Put your hands against the wall.”
Troy obeyed.
The man who appeared to be in charge patted him down.
The other man quickly returned, dragging a very uncooperative Jane.
Troy’s heart squeezed. She looked okay. Mad as hell. Not that he could blame her. But okay.
Her mouth and hands were secured with tape.
“You got what you came for,” Troy announced, not wanting to drag this out. “Let her go.”
A gun barrel jammed under his chin. “You’re not running this show. You’ll follow orders or you’ll both die here.”
Troy raised his hands in surrender. “I got it. You’re the boss.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Jane. He wanted this over for her.
The boss pulled out his cell and made a call. “We’re ready for pickup.” He closed the phone and slid it back into his pocket before turning his attention back to Troy. “This is the way our exodus is going to work.”
Troy listened carefully, didn’t want to make a single misstep.
“You and Sutton will go out the door first. If I see anyone else out there besides my driver, you both die. If you give us any trouble en route, she dies.”
“Understood.” Troy had no intention of making this complicated. His job was easy: cover Jane when Michaels and his people moved in.
The man with the gun stared at him for a long moment. Long enough for Troy to start to sweat.
He was suspicious.
“There’s just one more thing,” the boss said.
Troy prepared for the worst.
“You’re going to change clothes with my colleague.”
When Troy hesitated, as much confused as he was reluctant to comply, the boss pointed his weapon at Jane. “Now.”
Troy stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it to the other guy.
“No need to switch the pants,” the boss qualified, probably because they both wore dark jeans.
The other guy pitched his black shirt and ski mask to Troy. He pulled on both.
The guy now wearing Troy’s T-shirt removed the clip from his weapon and checked the chamber, then handed the impotent weapon to Tr
oy.
“You go first,” the boss ordered Troy. “Take Sutton, put the gun to her head and walk to the car waiting at the street.”
Troy nodded. He hoped like hell Ian Michaels would remember his own advice: “Don’t fire unless absolutely necessary and you fully recognize that your target is the enemy.” The scumbag wearing his T-shirt hauled Jane over to him. Troy wished he could tell her that her mother was safe and that everything was going to be all right. The people she trusted were right outside. All he could do was stare into her pretty brown eyes and hope she understood that he would do his best to protect her.
When the guy motioned for him to get moving, Troy remembered what Michaels had told him. Buy time.
“Where is my uncle?”
“You’ll know soon enough. Now—”
“No.” Troy held his ground. “I want to know for sure that you’re taking me to meet him.”
“You do not want to tick me off,” the boss warned.
Uncertainty nagged at Troy. He ignored it. “If you want me to cooperate, get him on the phone and let me talk to him. I want him to confirm what you’re telling me.”
The boss glared at Troy for several seconds before reacting. Then he retrieved his cell phone and put through the call.
“He wants to talk to you.” The man in charge listened to whatever Troy’s uncle had to say; then he handed the phone to Troy.
Troy accepted it, pressed it to his ear. “Yeah.”
“Do as they tell you and your friend won’t be hurt. This,” he said, “is between the two of us.”
“I have your word on that?” Troy almost laughed out loud at the idea that he’d asked that question. But he needed to buy all the time possible.
His uncle laughed. “Yes, Trace, you have my word. Does that make you feel better?”
“No.” He closed the phone. He shouldn’t have but his fury overrode his logic. He shoved the phone back at the man with the gun.
“No more stalling.”
At the door, the boss gave one last instruction, “You make one wrong move and she dies first.”
“I get it,” Troy muttered. How many ways did he have to say it?
“Let’s go.”
The first step out the door was the hardest. Troy kept expecting to hear the burst of gunfire.
Jane kept the distance between them at a minimum.
She had to know he hadn’t come here alone. Hell, he hadn’t even known where her house was…or her mother’s.
His hand shook as he held the weapon nudged against her, even though he knew it was empty.
They’d reached the halfway mark in the front yard. Sweat had broken out across Troy’s brow. Where the hell was Michaels?
Jane suddenly whipped around. She knocked his feet from under him and they hit the ground together.
A weapon discharged. The bullet thudded into the ground next to her head.
Troy rolled, taking her with him.
More shots.
He had to get her to safety.
Tires squealed. The getaway car.
Troy didn’t have time to see if any of the bad guys made it to the car. He had to keep Jane protected.
She tried to get on top to protect him, but he held her down with his weight, shielded her body with his own…until the bullets stopped flying.
When he dared to raise his head, Michaels and one of his colleagues were cuffing the two men who’d come out the door with Troy and Jane.
Jane made a frustrated sound. The tape. Damn. He pulled it off her mouth. She cursed.
“Sorry.”
She looked up at him, one eyebrow arched above the other. “You can get off me now.”
“Oh. Yeah.” He scrambled up, offered his hand and helped her to her feet. Then tore the tape loose from her wrists and removed the ski mask he’d been forced to wear.
She rubbed at her wrists. “Where’s my mother?”
“One of Michaels’s colleagues accompanied her to the hospital.”
Jane drew in a sharp breath.
“She’s fine,” Troy hastened to add. “It was just a precaution.”
“Thank God.”
He had to smile then. “That was a hell of a good idea hiding her in the closet.”
“I had to protect her.”
For the first time in a long while, Troy wanted to know what it felt like to have someone care about him that much.
The sirens in the distance warned that the gunfire had awakened the neighbors and the police had been summoned.
“Jane.” Ian Michaels, looking no worse for wear, joined them. “Why don’t you go to the hospital to be with your mother? We can wrap things up here.”
“Thanks, Ian.”
When she started toward the SUV, she paused, turned back to Troy. “You want to come?”
Troy looked from her to Michaels; he gave a nod of approval. Troy hesitated before going. “Thanks,” he said to Michaels. “I…appreciate all you did.”
“The Colby Agency will see that Bernard Beckman is brought to justice,” Michaels assured him. “No one messes with our people and gets away with it.”
Troy didn’t have to wonder if he could get the job done. He realized now that Jane was right, if the Colby Agency was on your case, failure was not an option.
When Troy got into the SUV, Jane was already behind the wheel. The interior light allowed him to see that his uncle’s men had knocked her around some more.
He winced. “They hurt you.”
She smiled, despite her split lip. “I’ll live.”
He stared at her the whole way to the hospital. He couldn’t help himself. Even when she shot him a questioning glance. He just wanted to look at her. She was safe. She was beautiful. And she was like no other woman he’d ever met.
Maybe he was giddy with the night’s events…he couldn’t explain it. But whatever it was, he didn’t want it to go away.
AT THE HOSPITAL, they were directed to the fifth floor. Mrs. Sutton had been admitted for observation since her EKG showed some minor abnormalities.
The blond woman sitting at Mrs. Sutton’s bedside introduced herself as Kendra Todd. She left Jane and Troy with Mrs. Sutton and went for coffee.
Troy stood back and watched the tearful reunion. When Mrs. Sutton had fallen asleep once more, Jane ushered Troy into the corridor where they could talk without disturbing the patient.
Jane had washed her face. She looked exhausted but gorgeous. He couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was. Mainly because he wanted desperately to kiss her again.
“I hope you’ll consider changing your mind,” she said, “about starting over someplace else. Ian and Simon know the right people at the bureau. People you can trust to get the job done. You could have your life back.”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “I’m not running anymore.” He brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek. “You said I was a hero.” He shrugged. “Norcross seems to think I’m a hero. It’s time I started acting like one when it comes to my own life.”
Jane smiled, then winced.
He didn’t mean to smile but couldn’t help himself.
“So you’ll stay?”
“Definitely until justice is served.”
“What about after that?”
He caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “That depends on if there’s any reason to stay.”
She reached up, put her arms around his neck. “Would this be a good enough reason?” She pressed her lips to his. Kissed him so sweetly…so thoroughly.
“Definitely a good reason,” he whispered between kisses.
“Good,” she whispered back, teasing his lips with her teeth. “Because I’d hate to have to hunt you down.”
Oh yeah…he wasn’t going anywhere…not without Jane.
Chapter Twenty
Thirty-six hours later
Victoria, Lucas and Tasha were standing by in the conference room at the Colby Agency. Merri and Mildred were entertaining Jamie in Victoria’s office.
Six hours had passed since they had last heard from Jim and his team.
Tasha suddenly stood. “I can’t stand this waiting.” She walked to the window.
Lucas smiled. “You never could stand to wait.”
Tasha sighed, turned back to him and Victoria. “You know me too well, Lucas.”
Victoria recalled fondly that Lucas was the one to recruit Tasha. She was one of the primary reasons Jim was alive today. She’d helped save him. Had fallen in love with him even before she’d known what a good man he was beneath all the bitterness. Victoria was very grateful to have Tasha as a daughter-in-law. She and Jim wanted to have another child. Their last attempt had ended in an unfortunate and unexpected miscarriage. The event had saddened them all. As time passed, Victoria was well aware that her son and daughter-in-law worried that there would be no more children.
Victoria hoped they would soon be blessed with a little brother or sister for Jamie.
Right now she hoped with all her heart that her son, and the others, would return safely from this mission.
And that the enemy would be thwarted once and for all.
Victoria closed her eyes. When would the past stop haunting the Colby name?
This threat to Jamie had shaken Victoria in a way nothing had since Jim’s abduction. Perhaps she was getting old. Or simply tired.
The door burst open. Mildred beamed. “Jim is on the line. I’ve transferred the call to you.”
Victoria’s heart leapt.
Lucas activated the conferencing system. “Jim, is your team intact?”
“No casualties,” Jim relayed, “and only one injury.”
Victoria’s breath trapped in her throat.
“Simon took a bullet.”
“It’s nothing but a flesh wound,” Simon called out in the background.
“He’s right,” Jim confirmed. “Minor injury.”
“Excellent,” Victoria said, finally finding her voice.
“Are you on your way home?” Tasha asked, her face reflecting the worry that had taken its toll the past few days.
“We are en route,” Jim confirmed.
“What’s the status on Barker?” Lucas inquired before Victoria could.
“He and his men have been eliminated.”