Killer Assignment

by Black, Maggie K.

He frowned. “That’s what my father used to say. He practically never looked up from his desk my whole childhood. It destroyed his marriage and our family—”

  “I’m really sorry. That must have been terrible. But I’m pretty realistic about knowing I don’t have time for a relationship with anyone, let alone marriage or children. Not until my career is further off the ground.”

  Well, they had that much in common. Her tone of voice was that of a sympathetic professional now. As though she actually felt sad for the boy he’d been—the kid so desperate to earn his father’s approval before he’d learned the hard way it wasn’t coming. But that gentle, unguarded warmth he’d heard there just a few moments ago had melted away. “I have three more months of this. Tops. This is just temporary.”

  Yeah, every workaholic he knew had said that. “But what if the board decides to let your boss keep his job?”

  Her back arched against the window as though she was trying to back away from the thought. Suddenly, he found himself missing her smile.

  “Then I guess I’ll just have to work harder and come up with another plan. I’m not just going to give up.”

  “All right, but—”

  “When was the last time you took a vacation, Mark?”

  Touché. “I was supposed to go camping with a friend this week. But—” But I’m hopping on a plane Monday. “Something came up, and now I have to work. It’s not the same thing though.”

  “Because you’re out there changing lives, and I’m just a writer who covers ridiculous parties?”

  Okay. That was not fair. That’s not what he had meant. Was it? There was the clatter of a garbage can falling over on the deck outside. Celia probably had raccoons. He’d take a look at how she secured her bins tomorrow.

  Katie’s head hadn’t turned. Then again, if she lived in the city she’d probably gotten used to tuning out background noise. But in the kind of places he traveled, a keen sense of hearing was sometimes the only thing stopping you from losing half your gear in the night.

  “What I do matters, too.” Katie’s voice rose. “It used to, anyway. And one day it will again when I’m actually able to go back to writing hard-hitting, investigative pieces like covering how the loss of the Langtry Glen drug rehabilitation center devastated a community—”

  Another crash outside. This was louder. Hang on. Were the shadows playing tricks on him, or was there actually someone out there?

  He held up a hand. But she didn’t seem to notice.

  “—instead of having to cover the fact Jonah Shields, the big, bad developer responsible, is holding a party.”

  Mark jumped out of his seat, his mind momentarily paralyzed as two thoughts hit him at once like dueling claps of thunder. Katie was talking about his father.

  And a hooded figure was outside the window with a camera.

  FIVE

  In a heartbeat, Katie’s emotions went from mild frustration to white hot panic as she watched Mark leap to his feet. What was happening? What had he seen? Her head began to turn. But in an instant, the timbre of his voice made her freeze.

  “Don’t. Move.”

  His eyes met hers. Serious. Focused. With such a single-minded intensity that the dark forest-green iris of his eyes almost faded to black. Then a lighthearted smile spread across his face that looked so genuine she would have almost believed it was real. He stretched out his hand. “Come here. Let’s go sit in the other room.”

  The cold sliding window pressed up against her neck. She willed her feet to move. They didn’t. Panic dripped down her spine, paralyzing her limbs. She could hear movement behind her back now. Someone was there. Inches away from her. Separated only by a thin sheet of glass. Someone who had hunted her like an animal, and now had her in his sights. Did he have a gun? Her eyes glanced over Mark’s shoulder toward the hallway. Even if she ran, there’s no way she’d be able to outrun a bullet and the spray of flying glass.

  “Katie.” The authority in his voice cut cleanly through her fear like a knife. Mark stepped toward her. “Trust me.”

  She stumbled forward and slid her hand into his. His fingers tightened around hers. Could he feel how badly she was trembling? He turned them toward the hallway. Everything in her wanted to run, but his arm slid around her shoulder, pulling her into his side, forcing them to walk.

  “There’s someone outside, isn’t there?” she whispered into his neck.

  He nodded.

  “Does he have a weapon?”

  “Not that I can see. But he was holding a camera.”

  A camera? But why would someone take their picture? Had he been watching her all night? Taking pictures through the bedroom window while she’d been sleeping?

  “It’s safer for everyone if we don’t startle him until you’re out of harm’s way.” Mark added, “He hasn’t moved since I spotted him, so he may not have realized I saw him. Just go into Celia’s room, lock the door and call the police.”

  She squeezed his hand slightly and rolled her shoulders back until he let her go. Then she strode calmly ahead of him into the hallway, knocked twice on Celia’s door and then turned the handle and stepped inside. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get that camera.”

  Mark turned back toward the dining room.

  She risked a glance over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Billy through the glass. The teenager turned and sprinted off into the night. Mark ran after him. She shut the door, braced her hands against the door frame and tried to slow her racing pulse. A flashlight switched on behind her. Celia sat up in bed looking tired but alert.

  “Sorry to wake you.” Katie crossed over to the bed. “Everything’s okay...” Oddly, as she said those words she felt them to be true. “Mark saw someone outside. He suggested I wait with you and that we call the police.”

  And somehow she’d just trusted him...

  She sat down on the bed and stared at the door.

  Dear Lord, please keep him safe. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really prayed for anything. But as she felt the words rushing through her heart, a gentle peace followed.

  Celia had the phone in her hand. “The phone line is dead.”

  “How about a cell phone?”

  “We don’t have any reception around here.”

  For a moment, Katie felt the new and fragile peace about to slip from her grasp.

  But then the older lady took her by the hands and bowed her head. “Oh, Lord. Like the psalm says, you have searched us and you know us. You perceive our thoughts from afar—”

  There was a knock at the door. “Katie?”

  She jumped up. “Yeah?”

  “He’s gone.”

  She opened the door. Mark looked so tired and worn that for a moment it took everything in her to keep from just slipping her arms around him and letting him lean against her for support.

  “The phone’s down.”

  “That’s okay. We can call the police on my satellite phone.”

  * * *

  Mark gripped his coffee mug with both hands and watched as the sun slipped over the horizon. The officers who had answered his call were different from the ones they’d spoken to last night, and the one taking Mark’s statement made no attempt at hiding the fact he thought his time was being wasted.

  According to Officer Smith, a downed tree had taken out both the power and phone lines. The young, square-jawed officer had then added that it was a common hazard of being in a rural area, as if Mark was some sheltered city dweller who’d never stepped outside his office before.

  He gritted his teeth and focused on just getting through the officer’s questions. This one arrogant man was not going to rob him of either his patience or self-control.

  Yes, the man had been a slender build. Yes, he was certai
n it was the same young man who had tried to kidnap Katie from the station. Yes, he was certain that he had a camera in his hands. But the figure had already been halfway across the yard when Mark had opened the door, and he’d taken off running into the woods. Yes, he was absolutely positive it hadn’t been a large raccoon or a bear.

  An hour later, Mark was pacing circles around the truck. His mind was tossing up questions he couldn’t even begin to find an answer for.

  The officer had been especially skeptical about Mark’s motives for chasing after Billy. So what if the boy had a camera? The harder Mark tried to explain that he’d been trying to protect Katie’s honor from prying eyes, the more he’d come to realize he’d suddenly reacted out of an old, ingrained instinct born from years of watching his father’s security guards chase away the paparazzi. As a boy, he’d wanted to protect his younger sister from the media’s glare, when at his mother’s funeral a crowd of cameras vied for pictures of her tears. No wonder their father had sequestered them inside the walls of the family complex in northern Ontario, insisted they don baseball caps and sunglasses in public and hidden them behind their car’s tinted windows. That privacy, at least, was one thing he could thank his father for. When Mark had left home, there’d been very few childhood pictures of him floating around the internet. Then, he’d learned the technical skills to further erase what little there was of his digital footprint. While there were plenty of people who had reason to hate Shields Corp, very few were obsessed enough to study his family so thoroughly they’d have recognized his adult face.

  But still, his name had haunted him.

  Jonah Mark Shields Junior.

  That was what his parents had chosen to name him when he was born—Junior. They hadn’t even given him a real name to call his own. Sure most people had called him Mark—especially his sister. But every time he saw his name on a piece of paper it was a reminder that he wasn’t even a full-fledged person in his family’s eyes. Merely an extension of his father.

  That was how the world had treated him, too. With a mixture of fear and contempt. Women had pretended to like him until they realized he didn’t actually have a cent of his father’s money. People had deferred to him, but he could never be sure who actually liked him.

  He’d walked away, changed his name, cut himself off from his past. But still, it was always there, threatening to sneak up on him. That was one of the things he loved so much about being in small, third-world villages in far-flung parts of the world. There he could be sure of being known as himself, and not just as an extension of his father.

  The screen door creaked then clattered. Mark jumped. Katie was standing on the front porch. Vibrant blue-and-turquoise cloth cascaded from her waist down to her knees. Her slender frame was set off perfectly by a navy top and cream-colored jacket. Her long blond hair was tied back in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. Her face, clean of makeup, caught the sun as she moved. Mark’s mouth went dry.

  The memory of her fingers curling against his hand slipped into his mind. What must it have taken for someone that strong and determined to have been willing to place her life in his hands? To be trusted by someone like her was an honor, a responsibility. And what was he doing with it? Staring at her like some teenager mooning over his first crush? No, she deserved better than that. A woman like her deserved to be courted. To be taken out on a proper date to the kind of restaurant he wasn’t about to be able to afford. Besides, he was leaving the country on Monday, for six months, maybe more. Then when he returned, between his work and hers, they’d just end up breaking each other’s hearts like Nick and Jenny or his father with his mother.

  While waiting for his turn to be questioned, he’d skimmed through some of Katie’s newspaper articles online. Not just the newer fluffy ones but older ones she’d written before Ethan had become editor. What he read impressed him even more. She had a flair for words, but she also had heart. When he’d gotten to the piece about Langtry Glen, he’d had to put his machine away. He didn’t want to know what she’d said about his father.

  That’s when it hit him. In all the years he’d known his father, he’d never once thrown a party or allowed media within the family complex. When Katie had mentioned she was heading up north to cover a gala, it had never even occurred to him that his privacy-seeking father was about to throw open his doors. So, why had he decided to throw a gala the very weekend Mark was traveling up to meet him? Let alone one he was inviting the media to?

  The mere thought sent chills running up the back of his neck. He’d not been in touch with his father personally about meeting. He’d instead contacted his father’s private secretary, Tim Albright, who had instructed him when to come.

  Had the party been booked before or after Jonah had discovered his estranged son was coming home? Was this his father’s way of punishing him? Nick kept telling him they needed to develop a media strategy to deal with the inevitable day that a reporter called to ask why a small, humanitarian charity was being run by Jonah Shields’s son. Even though his father and sister had nothing to do with TRUST, if a scandal-seeking reporter started throwing around unfounded allegations about some underhanded link, it could be the charity’s death knell.

  As long as the company stayed small, grassroots and under the radar, the day someone might find a link between TRUST and Shields Corp had seemed too far off to worry about. Until now.

  But one thing was certain. As long as Katie’s life was in danger, he wasn’t leaving her side. He’d get her to Kapuskasing safely. Then he’d decide what to do about his father.

  Celia had followed Katie out onto the porch. As the two women hugged, he caught Katie glancing his way. His eyes met hers, and her eyebrows raised. Had she read the expression on his face?

  The trees rustled gently behind him. The wind had better not be picking up again. Needing something to keep his hands busy, he pulled out the sleek silver case housing the broadcast unit prototype. He rested it on the back of the truck and snapped it open. His heart caught in pride as the compact yet powerful equipment inside purred to life.

  As the faint sound of Katie’s laughter drifted across the yard toward him, he found himself fighting the urge to go over and ask what was so funny. Celia slipped something into her hand. If Katie discovered who his father was, would she feel obligated to tell the people she worked with that she was driving up to Kapuskasing with Jonah Shields’s own son? Judging by what he saw of the newspaper’s website, it seemed exactly the kind of secret they’d be all over exposing in big capital letters. He could avoid the press who were descending on his father’s home by rebooking the visit with his father. But he had promised Katie that he would drive her north and was not about to abandon her now. Would her employer try to force her to write about him in order to keep her job? There was no way he’d make her choose between keeping her job and protecting his identity.

  Even worse, what if the news of who she was traveling with put her life in even further danger? As much as he hated the idea of having some irresponsible media outlet all over his business, the idea of somehow jeopardizing Katie’s life made telling her about his past almost too risky to bear. No, he’d tell her when he got her there safely. Either that, or he’d drop her off, get on a plane and fly out of her life. If she found out the truth later, he’d just have to hope she’d understand why he kept it secret.

  She walked across the lawn toward him. “Ready to go?”

  “Pretty much. Did you manage to get through to your office?”

  “I did. They’re really going overboard with covering my trip online now.”

  “I saw.” He tried not to roll his eyes. Then he smiled slightly to see that she was rolling hers.

  “They’d have probably written an entire piece on what I had for breakfast this morning if I’d told them,” she said. “The paper is playing it like some kind of grand conspiracy now. Were Billy and Al trying to steal my identit
y so they could sneak someone into the event? Will they try again? I can just imagine Ethan gleefully rubbing his hands together and hoping something even worse befalls me. I can’t wait for this story to be over.”

  You and me both.

  “Is that the transmitter unit? Can I see it?”

  He spun it toward her. The sturdy case housed a thin tablet computer, two microphones, mixers and a state-of-the-art transmitter. “It’s basically the world’s smallest, all inclusive, portable radio studio.” An unexpected thrill ran through his heart as he heard her gasp. “It has a pretty long battery life but can also run off a simple car battery. Think blackout, hurricane, terrorist attack—basically it’s a way to get information out safely anytime traditional broadcast systems are down.” He quickly walked her through the set up and tutorial. “You can broadcast live, just like any normal radio station. Plus we’ve even compiled a directory of common emergency sounds and warnings that you can just activate and run.” His hands flickered over the touch screen. “Let’s pretend a tsunami just hit and you want to warn people about potential aftershock waves.”

  A series of sound waves popped up on the screen. He hit Play. Eight long beeps played, and then the screen went black. He tapped the keys in vain, but the whole machine had frozen. For a moment, he battled the urge to curse, pushing the words out of his mind before they reached his lips. Those words were part of the world he grew up in—the cruel, ruthless edge of his father’s world—not the man he was now.

  To her credit, Katie didn’t laugh.

  “I’m guessing this audio file is corrupted,” he said.

  “Thank God you caught it.”

  His eyes scanned her face. She seemed sincere. He smiled. “Yeah, thank God.” He dug a tattered notebook from the recesses of his bag. A pen was hanging from the spine by a leather strap. When he pulled the pen out, the strap broke free. Figured. He snapped the strap off the pen and then made a note in his log. “Tsunami file corrupt.” He sighed. It was item 127 on an ever expanding list of bugs and problems that needed fixing. Starting with the fact that if he didn’t disable the transmitter before it booted up, the unit now had the disconcerting fault of trying to take over every frequency in the area.