The bullet hit the pavement, throwing up sparks.
A man screamed.
Ricochet could be a bitch.
“Shane! Come on.” Kyle pounded his fist on the top of the van.
Shane peered down at the others crawling through the busted out space where the windshield had been. Felix was suspended between Adam and Isaac. Lacey crouched, hugging her arm to her chest, blood seeping out between her fingers.
She’d been hurt.
“Go,” Shane said.
He would protect Lacey—and the others—with his life if need be.
Someone needed to hold the men in pursuit back.
“Shane, I’m not kidding. Come on. Now.” Kyle grabbed at his clothes but he couldn’t get a grip on the damp fabric.
The second car came to a stop, blocking the empty street.
“We just want the girl,” someone yelled.
Shane lifted his gun, aiming for the dark space of the window.
Sirens bared and flashing lights lit up the road.
The men who’d been hiding behind the car dove for the second vehicle while a pair of patrol cars came to a screeching halt, throwing up water.
Shane stared at the SUV, committing the license plate to memory, and held his hands up.
For now, Lacey was safe, but someone wanted her dead in a bad way.
Lacey huddled in a corner of the crowded holding cell. It wasn’t her first time being arrested, but this time there was no way to explain it all away. No misunderstanding. She had no way to rationalize what’d happened tonight.
She shivered, teeth chattering and tried to pull her legs in tighter.
The benches were taken up by three grouchy looking women who smelled like a mix of wet cat and urine. Several drunks took turns hugging the toilet. And the other women were just trying to not make eye contact.
The clock on the wall ticked off another half hour, and still no word from the guys.
Her arm throbbed where she’d been cut, but she hadn’t bled through the bandage, so she’d take that as a sign she’d live. For now.
Dear God, what about Aanya and Dev? What had happened to them?
She covered her mouth and closed her eyes.
Isaac had said they were looking for her, and there at the end, before they were all arrested, the man in the SUV—it’d been Marcos, she knew his voice—said all they wanted was her.
How did she fix this? What was there to be done?
She wanted Shane, to curl up in his lap, bury her face in his chest and let him hold her.
The way he’d stared down those men, with death in his eyes...
God, she just wanted to hug all his pieces back together. She never wanted him to look that way again. It was awful. The kind, gentle, stick in the mud, pig-headed man she’d come to know was not that person. He’d done it for her, and she was grateful. She was still breathing. They were all alive. She didn’t have to like it though.
“Miles?” An officer standing at the door to the general holding cell scanned the occupants. “Lacey Miles?”
“Here.” Lacey pushed to her feet. Her legs tingled from the cold. She hobbled toward the officer, hoping for some news.
“Come on.” The officer’s gaze flicked over her, nothing kind about the way he looked at her.
“Are you putting cuffs on me?” Lacey needed to know what to expect, what was happening.
“No. Come on.” The man turned.
Lacey hustled after the gruff man, swallowing down more questions. She didn’t want to push her luck one bit, especially after spending most of the night sitting on a cold, concrete floor.
The officer took her to a room with chairs lining the wall.
The two people waiting for her weren’t dressed like they’d been before. Will wore a track suit, as though he’d just come from a jog, and Susan had on jeans and a plain hoodie. Very dressed down for FBI agents, though Lacey had next to no experience with them. They were unmistakable though, wearing their authority like a cloak.
“Well, you don’t look as bad as the others, that’s for sure,” Agent Susan Leary said. She held out a cup of coffee toward her. “Thank you, officer.”
Lacey took the cup, as much for something warm to hold as for the caffeine and sat in the closest chair. She didn’t have the energy to remain standing with the others.
The officer lost no time in exiting the room and leaving her alone with them.
“What happened? What’s going on? Where are the others?” The tension ratcheted up with each question. She’d been holding steady, clawing to the shreds of her calm while in holding, but now she couldn’t take it anymore. “Sorry for waking you up...”
“Easy now. And you didn’t wake us up, we thought coming in here dressed down would be better. Just in case someone was watching.” Agent Will Sutton took the chair next to Lacey and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Oh.” Lacey blinked. That made a heck of a lot of sense.
“We’re working on having you all released into our custody. Considering the fatality, they’re not very keen on releasing the others.” Susan grimaced and pulled one of the chairs around to face Lacey. “You weren’t, by any chance, wearing your camera during the attack?”
“No.” Lacey stared at the black and white linoleum tiles, loosing herself in the memory. “I’d just gotten out of bed, looked out the window and saw movement. That’s when I woke Shane up and...it’s all a blur. I did grab the camera and a laptop on my way out, but they were in the van.”
“Do you remember who shot first?” Susan leaned forward, all her attention on Lacey.
“I saw three flashes of light inside the house before the whole team was in the van. I don’t know who shot who, but they were the first ones to shoot on us once we were rolling.” She glanced from Susan to Will. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.” Even in the early morning hours, Will was cheerful and his southern drawl pleasant. “The other two, Dev and Aanya, where were they?”
Lacey sucked in a deep breath and sat up, glancing at the wall.
“They didn’t listen. The plan was, if anything happened, we were to go down the stairs and meet up at the patio doors. The van was the backup escape vehicle. Someone said they went straight for the garage and got separated.” She swallowed. “Aanya has to be so frightened.”
“One thing I don’t understand. Aanya and Dev were the targets. Why were they following the van?” Susan frowned.
Lacey stared at her.
“Aanya and Dev weren’t the targets. I was.” She swallowed.
“They couldn’t ransom you for money the first time.” Susan frowned. “The tapes?”
“Yeah. I guess they’re worried there’s more on there? That it’s evidence? That...I don’t know.” Lacey shook her head. “Marcos was there. He said they just wanted me.”
“Well, he’s painted a big, ol’ target on his back. It’ll be pretty hard for him to sneeze without drawing attention now,” Will said.
“Lacey, would you be up to identifying the body?” Susan glanced at her watch. “The morgue will be open.”
“Whatever will help.” Lacey had seen her share of dead bodies over the years. The life she lived was dangerous.
“Okay.” Susan nodded and pushed to her feet. “The good news is that we don’t have to go to the city morgue. They’re setting up a new facility around the corner. Think you can walk there?”
“I’m good to go, now.” Lacey gulped down some of the coffee and followed behind Susan, with Will bringing up the rear.
They guided her out of the police precinct and strolled along the sidewalk. The sun was bathing the horizon in the first rays of light. The humidity was so dense Lacey thought it might drown her. But at least the storm front seemed to have passed. That was one blessing. She didn’t want to relive the days of that storm any time soon.
Susan handled signing them into the morgue and an attendant, fresh on shift, guided them to a back room. Lacey downed the last of her coffee
before entering the freezer-like space.
A black body bag lay on a rolling metal table.
“Did he suffer?” Lacey asked.
“No, the shot was clean through.” Susan pulled on a pair of gloves. “Why don’t you turn around, and when I’m ready you can look?”
Lacey nodded and faced the wall, closing her eyes and breathed through her mouth.
Death smelled the same in every country.
The sound of the zipper was the loudest thing she’d ever heard. The rustle of the body bag and a few papers stretched the moments on.
“Okay, take a look,” Susan said.
Lacey turned, Will close to her side. In case she collapsed?
Susan held her hands over the top of the man’s head. Lacey could guess, since she didn’t see a bullet wound, that the top of his skull was gone. Someone had swabbed the blood off his face, but a few traces were still there.
“They called him Hank, but I think his real name was Henry. He talked about having family from Oklahoma. I got the feeling he’d served with Marcos...before something happened? Does that help?” Lacey glanced between the two agents.
“It does.” Susan stepped between Lacey and the body, tugging the zipper back up. “We have your notes on the video, but there are places where features are hard to make out. Lining him up with what you gave us will go a long way in identifying everyone.”
Lacey turned, staring at the wall of silver doors.
TV shows and movies showed walls like these, of dead bodies slotted in on tables like a human filing cabinet.
“Is Josh here?” she asked.
“Josh, your friend, Josh?” Will asked.
“Yes.”
“Maybe? That wasn’t really our case. I can check and see.” Will turned and stuck his head out the door.
“Looking at the report, I’d advise against viewing the body,” Susan said softly.
“If I’m right, and this is all because of me, I owe it to him.” Lacey swallowed.
“It should be...this one.” The man in the white coat grasped the handle to a door mid-way up. “Are you sure you want to see it?”
“Yes.” Lacey forced herself to walk across to him.
“This will be a closed casket funeral, you understand?” The man just kept staring at her.
“Josh wanted to be cremated. His ashes spread in different parts of the world by people he edited for.” Lacey should know. She’d promised to take a piece of him back to Nepal during the honey harvest.
“Okay, then,” the man muttered.
He pulled the door open and slowly slid the body out, as though he expected her to change her mind.
Instead, Lacey braced her hand against the wall and covered her mouth.
Damn Josh. Damn him.
She sucked down a deep breath and sobbed into her hand.
Josh might have chosen to put a bit of teaser video up on the site, but she’d made the choice to go to Jamaica. She hadn’t been careful enough, and he was paying the price.
His poor parents...
She hoped they didn’t have to see him this way, that they could remember him as the smiling, mostly goofy young man with sparkling eyes instead of...this.
“I hate to ask...” The morgue attendant opened and closed his mouth.
“It’s Josh. That’s his tattoo. He got it during Pride week last year, and right after that, I took him to São Paulo. He’d always wanted to go.” She glanced up. “Please tell me his family hasn’t seen him?”
“No, they were flying in today to confirm,” the attendant said softly.
“Don’t show them? If there’s anything you can do, please don’t let this be how they remember him.”
There wasn’t much to identify. If she were just looking at Josh’s face...she wouldn’t recognize him. Without the tattoo, maybe she wouldn’t know it was him either.
It was all her fault.
Lacey turned and buried her face in her hands.
She should have been the one to die—not Josh.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
“What the fuck are you doing?” The voice of a vicious angel echoed off the walls.
Lacey turned toward Shane, her eyes tear-blind.
Strong hands gripped her, pulling her in close to a wall of warmth.
It should have been her.
Marcos stalked through the room, taking stock of the wounded and missing.
Not everyone had made it to the safe house. Where were they? Had they been caught? What the hell was going on?
Lacey Miles was costing Marcos more in manpower and money than his usual clients. If he didn’t need to shut her up so bad, he would have cut his losses. But she had the ability to pin half a dozen kidnapping charges on his ass if she talked. Which she would. He had no leverage to keep her quiet.
“Marcos?”
“Not now, Alex,” Marcos snapped.
“Mr. Basu is here.”
Marcos stopped in his tracks.
“You don’t mean the one in the back room, do you?” Marcos’ stomach knotted up. Great. Just what he didn’t need.
“No, I mean the old one.” Alex tipped is head. He knew more than the others because Marcos could trust Alex, to a point.
“Fuck.” Marcos dragged his hand across his jaw. “Crack open a case in the kitchen, bring everyone in there to do a toast for Hank and keep them there, got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcos strolled to the window and peered out at the front drive.
A sleek luxury car, a rental judging by the tags, sat out front.
Family members extorting family was a tricky business. The fewer who knew, the easier it was to pull off. Given the hiccups they’d had so far, Marcos wasn’t going to take any chances. Plus, he didn’t much like this client.
The team migrated to the back of the house, following the promise of booze. Most of the men would self-medicate with alcohol for the next week as a way to deal with the loss. The sooner Marcos could get rid of Lacey and finagle a payment, the sooner he could cut these guys lose and head to Delhi.
Marcos strode to the front door and opened it.
The car’s engine cut off and a man got out.
Mr. Basu was a shorter, paunchy man who liked his linen suits and cool colors. He approached the house, expression grim.
“We can talk upstairs,” Marcos said.
Mr. Basu didn’t argue, and wordlessly followed Marcos up the stairs to the corner room he’d taken for his office and sleeping quarters.
“I heard my son and his new wife are going home.” Mr. Basu leveled a glare at Marcos. “How can one source tell me that, and you tell me everything is proceeding according to the contingency plan?”
“Because I am in possession of your son and daughter-in-law.” Marcos gestured at the rear of the house. “You could see them if you like.”
“No,” Mr. Basu snapped. “They cannot know I was involved. That was the deal all along.”
“I know.” Marcos nodded while sweat broke out along his spine. If he didn’t silence Lacey or get her camera back, he wasn’t so sure he could deliver on that point.
“What is your plan now?” Mr. Basu stared at Marcos, eyes narrowed.
“Depends. Are you willing to get your hands dirty to ensure we get what we want?” Marcos asked.
“For what I’m paying?” Mr. Basu barked a laugh.
“I’d take fifty percent, as a sign of good will.” For that much, Marcos would skip town and leave the guys to the cops. It was time to think solely about himself and Tommy now.
“I’m listening.”
Marcos just needed to set the hook.
It could all go well, still.
16.
Shane backed out of the dark office to the tune of Lacey’s deep, even breathing. She’d fallen asleep in his arms, and while he wanted nothing more than to hold and comfort her, he had a job to do. Their clients were gone, and Lacey’s life was in danger.
He held his breath until th
e door was fully closed.
Only once the catch settled did he sigh with relief.
His relief was short lived. Isaac’s angry tone carried through the office suite.
Shane steeled himself for the worst and strode toward the conference room where everyone had gathered on their arrival at the FBI offices in downtown Atlanta. He was disappointed that Travis, one of the company’s best private investigators, hadn’t arrived yet. Travis was a man who’d been tempered under the toughest of conditions and still retained a level head. They needed him, the sooner the better.
The FBI agents were nowhere to be seen, just the Aegis Group Alpha Team members. It was early still, so he could see how they might be there before most people were at work. Which was a good thing since Shane was tempted to mop the floor with Isaac’s ass already.
“All I’m saying is, we were hired to do a job.” Isaac didn’t glance Shane’s way, he just kept staring Kyle down. “We were hired to protect the Basus. Not Lacey. If they want her, why not give her to them? Use her as bait or a...a Trojan horse or something. Protecting her isn’t doing our job. We’ve lost sight of what we were paid to do.”
Shane stared at the side of Isaac’s face, his blood pressure rising, his vision hazing.
“The hell we are,” Shane spat. He thrust his finger in Isaac’s face, staring him down despite Isaac’s refusal to look at him. “Our mission, in case you forgot, is to bring the victims home. We work within the bounds of the law to ensure that happens.”
“Yeah, well, we haven’t brought them home, have we?” Isaac turned, finally meeting his gaze. “They want Lacey? Give her to them. We’re only doing our job.”
Shane stared into Isaac’s eyes. It was easy to lose sight of how cut throat Isaac could be under the smiles and laughs. He was a good soldier, he followed orders, but sometimes he didn’t see the people under the job. Maybe it was how he coped with loss, or just a part of Isaac that was permanently broken, but Shane hoped he never saw the job as more important than the people.
“Back it up.” Kyle shoved his arm between them, shouldering them apart.
Shane didn’t budge an inch, but Isaac took several steps back.
Because deep down he knew he was in the wrong?
Dangerous in Love (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #1) Page 18