Known Threat

by Kara A. McLeod

  “Then what the fuck?” I shouted, furious and sick at the idea of Allison failing so miserably to have an honest-to-goodness relationship that she’d felt compelled to hook up with Byers. “I could walk into a maximum-security prison for violent offenders and point randomly at someone with my eyes closed and come up with a better human being than him. So why the fuck would you even bother? He couldn’t have been that great in the sack.”

  Okay, that was probably a little dramatic, and it was entirely possible that I should’ve saved the hyperbole for any other situation except this one. Unfortunately, my mouth was running independently of my higher reasoning, and my mouth was an absolute bitch when I was hurt.

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you!” Allison shot back, starting to get angry again. “What I did after I broke up with you is none of your goddamn business. Besides, who are you to talk? Your last girlfriend punched you in the face in the middle of the sidewalk during a protective visit. After she cheated on you, dumped you, and then went through your phone and read your private text messages. I hardly think that brilliant choice in partners qualifies you to judge mine.”

  We both froze and stared at one another as the accusation continued to echo in the still evening air. I was aghast that she’d just thrown Lucia’s last moments on earth in my face. I’d thought she had more class.

  I fought to close the door on all the violently eddying emotions that bubbled up inside me. The small part of me not metaphorically writhing in pain and still capable of rational thought was screaming at me to restrain the words dying to burst free.

  But I was fighting a losing battle. Too many horrible things had happened to me in too short a span of time. And all the frustration and angst that’d been building inside me for the past several weeks was about to rush out in a powerful torrent the way a flash flood springs up in the Grand Canyon. I don’t know why I even bothered to try to rein it in. I couldn’t fight nature.

  “Pull it,” I ground out, my voice low and hard.

  “What?”

  “Your transfer request. Pull it.” The words were so icy they almost burned.

  Allison’s brow furrowed in obvious confusion. I didn’t blame her. My statement probably seemed like a complete non sequitur. I smirked to myself, feeling victorious. Now she knew what it felt like for me to have a conversation with her. I could almost never follow her discussional segues.

  “Ryan, what—”

  I took a step forward well into her personal space, which caused whatever question she’d been about to voice to die on her lips. I wasn’t positive what the expression on my face was, but it rendered her speechless. Uncertainty flickered in her eyes, and she shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants.

  “Pull your transfer request. Or I will pull it for you. I don’t want you up here.”

  The rational part of me cringed even as the words came out of my mouth, but unfortunately, the rational part of me was no longer in the driver’s seat. No, it was forced to watch as the emotionally volatile, completely irrational part of me strung together sentences that I knew even now I’d regret later on. But I was exhausted and scared and still reeling from discovering in a very public forum that the love of my life had been having an affair with the biggest asshole on two legs, and I stubbornly refused to just shut the hell up.

  Allison narrowed her eyes at me and set her mouth in a hard line. She took a step forward. We were now standing so close that we were almost touching. It would’ve taken only the barest of movements for our lips to brush. At that distance, I could feel the fury wafting off her in blistering waves.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I can, and I will.”

  Allison scoffed. “You don’t have the strings to pull to stop my transfer, little one.”

  I laughed, a dark, brittle, twisted sound. I didn’t see anything amusing in any of this, and the humorless bark that’d just escaped my lips made that clear.

  “Allison, I was just shot in an assassination attempt orchestrated by my boss, who’d been stealing counterfeit currency from our vaults for who knows how long and selling it to the Iranians to use to fund God knows what terrorist activity. A fact that all the higher-ups in our agency missed, and I had to catch.

  “My twin sister was subsequently kidnapped because said boss failed to assign the Walker case to an agent for monitoring, and Walker’s been running around unchecked for weeks plotting his revenge against me because he thinks I’m making time with his hypothetical wife.

  “Short of demanding to be put in charge of PPD, I don’t think there’s a single thing I could ask for in this moment that headquarters wouldn’t move heaven and earth to give me, if for no other reason than to keep me from making too big a fuss.

  “Either you withdraw the request, or I will. The choice is yours.”

  And with that proclamation, I turned without giving her a chance to interject and stalked self-righteously back toward the door to the building. At least that’s how I chose to see the action. Because otherwise I would’ve been forced to recognize it for exactly what it was: running away.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Once I’d made it back inside, I took a slight detour to the bathroom in the hallway off the security room to collect myself. No way would I be able to jump back into the fray of planning Rory’s rescue like nothing had happened. Not after that conversation. No, I needed some time to calm the hell down so I could focus on that all-important task.

  I leaned heavily on my hands on the edges of the sink and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I looked like an absolute mess. All the fear and anxiety slithering around inside me was visible on my face, underscored by new notes of anguish and fury. I sighed as I twisted the cold-water tap and then bent down to splash several handfuls against my cheeks, not caring that my makeup was about to become smeared and runny.

  “That was quite a scene back there.”

  I started at Claudia’s voice and spun around to face her, conscious of the icy droplets dripping from my skin to stain the front of my dress shirt and my suit jacket. She was scrutinizing me intently, which made me more than a little uneasy.

  “Wasn’t it though?” I snagged a paper towel and blotted my face and neck and then wrapped a piece of it around my index finger and ran it underneath my eyes to catch any traces of mascara or eyeliner that hadn’t been able to withstand the moisture.

  “You okay?”

  “Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a terrible liar?”

  “All the time. Doesn’t stop me from trying, though, as you can see.”

  Claudia smiled and rested her shoulder against the wall adjacent to the door. With her thumbs hooked into her pockets and one ankle crossed over the other, she was the picture of casual. “Clearly. Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Fair enough. I won’t push you. But I need to know: Are you going to be able to focus?”

  “I’ll do what needs to be done. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Good. Because I need you to be on your A game. You of all people know what’s at stake here. We can’t afford any slipups.”

  “That’s convenient because I don’t plan to make any.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear. How much time do we have left?”

  I consulted my watch. “Not much. He should be calling within the next ten minutes or so.”

  “The guys at the field office know what to say to him? They’ll pass all the pertinent info to us ASAP?”

  “Rico’s going to field the call. All the squad phones are rolled to my extension, which also rings to my cell. When he does call, I’ll have Rico put the phone on speaker so we can listen in, and we can use him to manipulate the situation as best we can.”

  “Perfect. I’d much rather be involved on a firsthand level than to have to hear the information after the fact. When he does call, what do you need me to do?”

&nb
sp; “I’d prefer it if you didn’t speak. I don’t want Walker interacting with anyone except Rico. We need to project as much of an illusion of control as we can, and that’s one of the ways I want to do it. Besides, allowing him to talk to too many people will only confuse him, and it’s tough enough to keep him on topic on a good day.”

  “Not a problem. What else?”

  “I’d like to grab a laptop from the CP, so I can type to Rico as he talks. I’m going to need him to say certain things, and that’s the easiest way to convey them. My handwriting is atrocious.”

  “Mine’s upstairs. You can use that.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Claudia snapped back to studying me like I was some species of interesting animal that she couldn’t quite figure out. I tried to force myself not to squirm. “Are you ready to go up? Or do you need another minute?”

  I turned my back to her so I could check myself out in the mirror. I took another few moments to erase any remaining smudges of eye makeup from my cheeks and rinsed my mouth with cold water before fluffing my hair. Well, I looked a little better, at any rate. I’d say I’d been downgraded from train wreck to circus act. It was the best I could’ve hoped for under the circumstances.

  “I’m good. Let’s go.”

  Claudia hesitated for a long moment before nodding once and turning to exit the restroom. I blew out a long breath, tossed my balled-up paper towel into the trash can, and followed her. On a whim, I grabbed the crook of her elbow before she could lead us into the stairwell.

  “Ma’am?”

  Claudia turned to face me, clearly startled. “Yes?”

  “I’m really sorry this happened. I know that doesn’t change anything, but…” I shrugged and ran one hand through my hair.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  I gave her a shaky smile. “Kinda feels like it is.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything to prevent this.”

  “I couldn’t?” My words were tart.

  “You think you could?”

  I lifted my hands. “I’m pretty good at the ‘if only’ game. I think I’ve held the title for six years running.”

  “From everything you’ve told me, this man has been gearing up to do something for a very long time. You’ve just been delaying the inevitable. And if it wasn’t your sister, he probably would’ve grabbed someone else. Short of having powers of clairvoyance, I doubt you could’ve done anything.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

  “Because you’re a little too much like me for your own good.” Claudia favored me with the tiniest smile before turning to head up the stairs. “Come on.”

  I nodded even though her back was to me and trudged obediently up the steps behind her. I was starting to sweat again, as the reality of what was about to transpire bore down on me like a freight train. Only I didn’t have the option of stepping off the tracks. Nope. I had to stand there, take a deep breath, and let it hit me.

  The mood in the apartment upstairs was an interesting mixture of tense and subdued, laced through with hints of outrage and nervous anticipation. It did nothing to quell my own unease. In fact, it probably made it worse.

  Upon entering the room, of course, I immediately looked at Allison, who was standing ramrod straight staring out the window. As soon as the door opened, she turned her head, and I faltered in my step as that gaze locked onto me. Frankly, after that debacle upstairs on the roof, I was surprised she was still there, and I didn’t have the energy to try to figure out why. I took a deep breath and forced myself to move, trying to ignore my thundering heart as I softly closed the door behind me.

  Claudia approached the NYPD brass still sitting at the dining-area table, and I hovered near the exit for a long moment, feeling like a complete and total idiot. Now that I’d had a few minutes to cool down, I felt pretty bad about some of the things I’d said to Allison. And judging by the faint air of misery shrouding her, I guessed she felt bad about a few things, too.

  I averted my eyes and debated the merits of apologizing. I couldn’t decide whether that would be a fantastic idea or an epic mistake. The mere notion of talking to her tied my stomach up in painful snarls and made me more than a little terrified. No, I couldn’t do this now. I didn’t have room inside me for any more emotional detours. I’d been on far too many today already. It was time to focus on Rory. I could deal with the mess I’d made with Allison later.

  Claudia rested a gentle hand on my arm. “You okay?”

  “Sure. Just thinking.”

  She nodded as though that was to be expected and handed me her laptop. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” I made my way over to the chair I’d been perched in earlier today when I’d broken the news of Rory’s kidnapping to Claudia, marveling at how much had happened in the short period since then. Had it really been only two hours? Wow. Somehow it felt like a lifetime.

  I could feel Allison staring at me from her station at the window, and my cheeks burned. Having her attention on me when I was trying to ignore her made my skin prickle and the spot on my temple where I imagined she was staring itch. That it was also the spot where I sported a nice scar courtesy of the events that’d eventually led us here was not lost on me. I rubbed it absently with the tips of my fingers and huffed.

  Rico settled himself on the arm of the chair and looked down at me, his expression one of fear-laden sympathy. I tried to smile at him but was afraid I’d failed. I handed him my cell phone, and he hesitated before accepting it. He shifted his attention to the device in his hands, and I started tapping random keys on my borrowed laptop to get it to wake back up, thankful that Claudia had already unlocked it for me.

  “Any minute now,” Rico murmured softly so only I could hear.

  “Yup.”

  “You ready?”

  “Are you?”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  “That makes two of us. But we’re going to have to keep it together.”

  He sighed and tilted his head back so he could look at the ceiling. “I know.”

  He was quiet, obviously thinking about something. I couldn’t tell whether he was sifting through his thoughts searching for the one he wanted or whether he was trying to figure out how best to phrase the one he already had. Either way I was loath to interrupt.

  I opened up a word-processing program and stared blankly at the cursor as it mocked me from the clear, white screen. I tapped my fingers against the keys of the keyboard—not firmly enough to make any letters appear, but enough to alleviate some of my pent-up nervous energy—somehow enjoying the faint clicking sounds that resulted.

  “Ryan, I—”

  The ringing of the phone in his hands startled him enough to make him fumble it and drop it. We both watched in horror as it clattered to the ground. Rico bent down to snag it and then resumed his position on the arm of my chair. He held the phone up so I could see the caller ID. Our eyes met, and I nodded.

  The faint buzz of conversation that’d permeated the room around us tapered off, and though I shifted my attention to the screen in front of me, I could tell that people had started moving closer. I felt a light touch on my other shoulder and looked up to see Claudia gazing down at me. Her expression was encouraging, and I took a deep breath.

  I nodded at Rico once more, and he nodded back. I was as ready as I’d ever be. No sense in delaying the inevitable. I allowed my fingers to hover over the keyboard and tried to still their trembling as I waited.

  “Adam,” Rico said once he’d pushed the button to accept the call. His voice was clear and calm and projected a confidence I knew he didn’t feel. “You’re right on time.”

  “Did you set it up?” Walker asked without preamble. “Am I going to get to see my wife?”

  “Did you let Agent O’Connor go?”

  “Yes.” The answer was immediate. He’d barely given Rico a chance to finish the question before he’d blurted out the answer.

  He’s lying, I t
yped. Rory would’ve called me. I tried hard not to think about the one way he could’ve been telling the truth. It was too horrifying.

  Rico nodded and mouthed, “I know.”

  I pursed my lips. Walker didn’t normally lie. Not to a direct question, at any rate. That he’d chosen to do so now only highlighted how completely out of my element with him I was at the moment. I may’ve known him better than anyone in the agency, but that didn’t mean I knew all of him. Unfortunately, it appeared I hadn’t encountered certain facets of his personality yet. Or perhaps he just hadn’t had the opportunity or need to showcase them during any of our earlier interactions. I couldn’t be certain, but it didn’t matter. The answer wouldn’t help me now.

  I typed that Rico should call him on it and held my breath, praying I’d made the right decision. The feel of the blood rocketing through my veins was making me light-headed. I gripped the arm of the chair with my left hand in an effort to ground myself.

  “Adam, that’s not very fair of you.”

  “What isn’t very fair of me?”

  “I’ve been nothing but honest with you, and now you’re lying to me.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You are, Adam. I know you are. Because Agent O’Connor would’ve called me if you’d set her free. So unless her release was metaphorical and she’s in a state that makes it impossible for her to do that, you still have her.”

  Walker didn’t say anything, and I squeezed my eyes shut and massaged my temples with my fingertips. I needed to bring this conversation back to familiar ground so I could figure out how to navigate it, but I didn’t know how to accomplish that goal.

  Rico nudged me, and I looked up at him. He raised his eyebrows at me, and I let out a soft huff of exasperation. Silently hoping I was making the right move and not simply doing more harm than good, I typed out Rico’s next declaration and bit my lip.

  “If you’re not going to be honest with me, we’re done here.”

  I heard a few soft gasps and some shuffling, and I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into me. My face was on fire. I tried to ignore the fact that I was the center of attention and just concentrate on the task at hand, but my focus had started to slip. I longed to glance at Allison for reassurance. It was a struggle not to.