Defense Breach

by Lisa Phillips

  They reached the hall upstairs, and she saw Grady’s head and shoulders sticking out of a doorway at the far end.

  “Grady!”

  She didn’t care at this point if they realized she cared about him. Why would she? He could be seriously hurt, and she wanted to see his condition for herself.

  The two agents stepped over him and entered the room, where Wilson stood.

  “Drop the gun!”

  “You have nowhere to go!”

  Stringer eased up to a sitting position and grabbed his gun, his gaze not settling on anything. Like he couldn’t focus.

  She crouched beside Grady but couldn’t touch him with her hands bound. “You okay?” She called over to Grady’s friend.

  “Hit my head on the way down.” He shook off the confusion and turned to her while Wilson placed his gun on the ground and surrendered to the two agents.

  Two more lay on the floor, along with an HVAC repair guy. Dead? Was he one of the guys who’d been with Wilson in the Library when Barnes had brought her in there? She couldn’t see his face, but he’d been shot as well.

  Her breath was coming fast. Too fast. “All this for a stupid clock?” There had to be more to it or none of this made sense. Then again, when did violence ever make sense?

  Grady could be dead, and she couldn’t even check. Why did that suddenly feel far more devastating than going to prison for a crime she didn’t commit? One that, at this point, hadn’t even happened yet. Wilson had tried, and here he was. Captured. But at what cost?

  His glare shot daggers at her. “Meddling girl.”

  She hadn’t been a girl for a long time. “You didn’t have to kill these men.”

  The agents were looking at her differently now, grudgingly respectful. Great. Or it would be, if she could actually help them.

  Grady groaned and shifted. That was when she saw the blood, high on his left shoulder. “Can someone cut these plastic ties so I can help him?”

  Stringer got the okay from the agent in charge, and she was cut free. Then he moved to the other agents who were down. More Secret Service personnel stepped over Grady and into the room.

  “Watch it.” She frowned at them and tried to help move him out of the doorway, but the man weighed a ton. “Grady.” She patted his cheek. “Grady, wake up.”

  She needed to find the source of the blood. Needed to put pressure on it, after she figured out exactly how bad it was.

  “Skylar?” He actually looked pleased to see her leaning over him.

  She breathed out the tension she’d been holding even while she was yelling at Wilson, and everyone else. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “Winged.”

  “Which is macho-guy speak for Yes, I got shot, but I’m going to pretend it doesn’t hurt that badly. Right?”

  Stringer cracked a laugh. He was back over by one of the downed agents. Would he be laughing over a dead man’s body? That didn’t seem—

  The man sat up, touching a bleeding knot on his forehead.

  Beside her, Grady sat up as well. “Seems like that’s the second time you’ve saved me today. Are we even now?”

  “Don’t be cute.” She shook her head, not realizing what she’d said, and continued, “I don’t think my heart can handle you making light of this right now.”

  A couple of the agents looked at her. Why were they staring?

  She caught Grady’s gaze and saw his look had softened. No, that wasn’t good. Why was he so handsome? Grady leaned over and whispered, “I wouldn’t want to cause your heart any problems.”

  He was joking, right? Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to give out from the strain. “I’m not going to have a heart attack, I want to graduate from Secret Service training first. And that’s not going to happen if you keep getting knocked unconscious.” She pointed to the top of his arm, the fleshy part of his shoulder. “And shot. And scaring the life out of me.”

  Stringer grinned at her from across the room.

  Skylar decided to stop talking. That was probably the best course of action. They were all staring at her—and Grady—like they’d both suddenly grown wings.

  Grady put his good arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side in a quick hug. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

  “Thank you.” She knew she sounded like she had an attitude, but it was that or cry. And her father had never tolerated tears. Although right now it seemed like getting emotional over this man served to change the other agents’ estimation of her. It wouldn’t clear her name, but it was a shot toward them actually trusting her instead of simply giving her the benefit of the doubt and letting her help Grady. At least, she could hope it was.

  Stringer, his face now devoid of humor, stood over one of the agents on the floor. He shook his head.

  “Oh, no.”

  Grady squeezed her shoulder. “First we work. When the job is done, then we remember.”

  That was how they deal with stuff like this? Get on with things, and push the grief away for later? She’d lost friends in combat before. And her mom, when she had been barely old enough to remember her. Grief hit when she least expected it. There was no pushing it aside. But these agents were pure professionals. They would power through and expect their emotions to fall in line like everything else.

  Skylar got up. Grady did the same. The feeling in his eyes made her wonder if he wasn’t as adept at what he’d said as he wanted to be. And honestly, that lifted him higher in her estimation.

  When he was already pretty high up there.

  *

  Grady glanced at Skylar and saw she was ready. Alert. Her attention had switched from him to the room at large. Namely, Wilson and the threat to White House security he represented. He knew from her file that she’d excelled in training. Seeing it on paper was one thing, but he’d always preferred practical application. He strode over to Wilson even while he thought about her interesting reaction to his having been grazed on the shoulder by that bullet.

  Namely, those tears he’d seen in her eyes when he’d regained consciousness.

  He’d been worried for a second that the bullet had hit something important. He’d actually wondered if today was his last day alive. And the one thing he would die regretting? Not getting to tell Skylar he really did believe she was innocent.

  That had been the only thing in his mind when he’d hit the ground. As he’d gasped through the pain. When he’d realized the wound wasn’t mortal, he’d wanted to see her again.

  Something about Skylar Austin had grabbed him. And didn’t seem to want to let go.

  Then she’d gotten all emotional over the fact that he’d been hurt. Again. He’d seen what was underneath the frustration. The helplessness—a mirror of his own feelings. She cared.

  She cared about him.

  In that moment, she hadn’t blamed him for doing nothing while she was detained, suspected of being one of the thieves. It’d been all about Grady and whether he was okay.

  Later he would think on it. Figure out what it meant for this burgeoning friendship they seemed to be developing. For now, he needed some answers from Wilson as to what on earth was going on.

  He faced off with the man. “Tell me about Agent Barnes.”

  Wilson stared him down. Subdued, for now. Whether he would be cooperative was another matter entirely.

  “Were you working together?”

  Silence.

  Skylar said, “One of your men is dead, two are in custody and Barnes ran off. You’ve been captured. There isn’t any reason for you to keep all this covered up any longer.”

  Grady didn’t begrudge her needing to have her say, but he was the one who was going to take point on this. She’d earned the right to be part of it, though she had no legal standing as an agent. He gave her a nod and then asked Wilson, “Who are you covering for?”

  Something about what Skylar had said bothered Wilson. As much was clear from the twitch in his eye when she’d mentioned Barnes making a run f
or it.

  Grady said, “There’s no reason to protect Barnes. He ditched you to face this alone.”

  The reality was they had no idea if Wilson was the mastermind of all this or if Barnes was. They didn’t know if it was a onetime thing or one in a series of thefts from the White House. Maybe they had a whole business going. Here and in other high-profile buildings.

  Grady said, “A good man is dead. Now we’re going to take apart your whole life to get to the bottom of your role in this. There’s no way for you to escape justice at this point, so you might as well tell us what we want to know.”

  “I want my lawyer first.”

  “Nobody said you were under arrest.” He would be, but Wilson hadn’t been read his rights yet. There were legal procedures in place, but if he could get Wilson to talk before an official arrest they would be one step closer to figuring all this out.

  “You pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger. You killed an agent in here. And you sent me and Skylar out of the White House to kill us. Seems like a pretty elaborate plan for…” He looked around, saw a clock on the shelf behind Wilson.

  This room was basically a sitting room with feminine decoration, though minimal. Much of the White House had the appearance of a museum—beautiful but impersonal. This room was no different.

  “This?” Grady pulled the mantel clock from the shelf and tested the weight of it in his hands. “There are other clocks. Maybe this isn’t the right one. Without going through the curator’s files for a list of all the clocks in the White House, it’s my best guess. Since you guys were in here and all and went to so much trouble.”

  Wilson had spent time trying to find the clock. He’d tried to kill Grady and Skylar in order to cover up what he was doing. Then when he did find it, he’d killed a man. Grady couldn’t believe one clock was worth so much trouble.

  “Tell me,” Grady said, “is there something special about this one, special enough for you to go to all this fuss? Or is it just about the money?”

  The back of the timepiece had a tiny door to hide the internal workings of the clock. Still, it didn’t look like anything special. Grady wasn’t an art historian, though. Or a curator. It could be worth millions for all he knew. He figured so long as he didn’t drop it, he’d be okay.

  On the other side of the room, Stringer helped the injured agent out. Grady and Skylar had plenty of backup here with his team leader and the other agents remaining. He didn’t want her in danger but had to face the fact that they were both at risk until he got word that Wilson had been found and detained.

  Not to mention any other thieves still trying to escape custody.

  “It doesn’t look like much of anything to me.” He shifted it from hand to hand, then pretended to drop it. Wilson didn’t even flinch. Worth a try. At least now Grady knew Wilson had no personal connection to the clock. He wasn’t trying to steal it because of an intrinsic value. Nor for nostalgic reasons. Probably just for the money, then.

  Wilson made a huh noise in his throat.

  He looked at him. “Something to say?”

  The man’s brows furrowed, as though he was processing this whole situation. “Turn that over again.”

  Grady showed him the back.

  “That’s…” His voice trailed off. “You said Barnes left?”

  Grady strode from his spot beside Skylar over to Wilson and said, “If he had, what would it mean?”

  It wasn’t likely Barnes would get far. Not with the agents all looking for him. More were on their way, those not already on duty this morning. Soon the whole place would be swarming with more Secret Service. Barnes would have nowhere to go.

  “Would it mean he’s left you to take all the blame?”

  “Left me with nothing but a fake I was supposed to steal, and a trap that’s well and truly snapped shut now.” The English tone to his voice sounded sardonic. He’d given up caring. He was just mad. “Guess I know where I stand.”

  A fake? Grady’s head spun. “Barnes didn’t take the real clock?”

  Wilson’s face twisted. “He told me to steal this one.”

  Skylar said, “And now there’s nothing left to do but tell the Secret Service everything you know. Who you are. Who got you into the White House. All that.”

  Wilson had been thrown to the wolves by Barnes. Kind of like Skylar, and Barnes’s attempt to implicate her as working with Wilson. Barnes and Wilson had already tried to have Grady and Skylar killed this morning. Would Barnes now do the same to Wilson?

  It was a good reason the man might stick around, instead of fleeing. Unless he had a partner to do the deed for him.

  Barnes had turned on everyone and then left. Which made Grady wonder what the man was into. Theft, yes. But there had to be a deeper reason he was betraying the badge. Maybe it was more than this one clock—maybe it had been a whole string of thefts.

  If multiple thefts had taken place over the past months, or even years, Barnes had worked here and then he’d covered his tracks so no one noticed. Whatever the truth was, it was serious enough he’d found it necessary to confuse the situation completely before making his escape.

  The theft of a clock didn’t seem to warrant this level of scrambling to misdirect everyone.

  Wilson’s expression turned belligerent. “Just don’t file an insurance claim on the thing. You’ll probably get about thirty dollars.”

  It really was a fake? “You didn’t know?”

  “I was assured everything was legit. Guess I got played.”

  “This was a onetime gig?”

  Wilson shook his head. Not in the negative. Grady figured he was just done talking. “I want a lawyer. And I wanna to-talk deal.”

  The team leader spoke up then. “No deals. Not when one of my agents is lying dead on the floor of this room and you’re the one responsible.”

  “Barnes is the one responsible.”

  That might be true, but Grady figured he wasn’t going to get away with anything either. Both men would be brought to justice.

  The Secret Service agents led him from the room, and Grady turned to one of his team. “Did we get everyone?”

  The guy nodded. “All the hostiles are now accounted for. We just have to figure out which ones are real thieves.”

  This was shaping up to be a long day.

  Grady thumbed his radio. “This is Agent Farrow. Has Agent Barnes been located yet?”

  The call came back. “This is Agent Mills. I’ve got a dead guardhouse agent here. I think Barnes might be in the wind.”

  TEN

  Investigating agents had shown up to deal with the bodies. Likely the FBI would also need to be informed of everything happening in the White House. They’d hit the point now that an agent had been killed where regulation would demand another agency take the lead on investigating.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Grady remembered the door to the curator’s office having been open. He glanced at Skylar. “One second. I just want to check in there.”

  She hung back but looked about as reluctant to let him out of her sight as he was to let her out of his. Good. This way he could make sure she was safe. Likely at the same time she endeavored to make sure he wasn’t hurt any more either.

  His arm stung, but other than needing a bandage over the gash on the meat of his shoulder, he was okay.

  Grady pushed the door to the curator’s office all the way open. The interior was packed with artifacts. Things that hadn’t yet been catalogued, and others scheduled to be sent to the Smithsonian or the National Archives for storage. So many items were gifted to the president they didn’t have enough rooms to hold them all here.

  He spotted the White House curator at her desk, sipping tea from a china cup. What was she even doing here in the middle of a situation?

  Kristine Bartowski was originally from Ohio. She wore thick-rimmed glasses and had wool sweaters in every color. Her usual work uniform was completed with a knee-length skirt and brown Mary Janes. Grady had only mentally filed a
ll this when he’d brought one of his sisters through the White House on a tour and she’d tried to give Kristine fashion advice. It hadn’t gone down well.

  Would she even talk to him today?

  The sight of her was so incongruous to everything that had happened so far today, he almost laughed. What came out was a cough.

  Kristine looked up, then tugged the earbud from her right ear. “Agent Farrow.”

  “There have been gunmen loose in the White House all morning, ma’am. It’s not safe for you to be here.” His tone came out grouchier than he liked, but his shoulder stung.

  “You having an exercise does not supersede the fact that I have work to do, Agent.”

  “Yes, it does. Especially in light of everything that’s happened.”

  There was a traitor in their midst, and now Kristine was here. Grady couldn’t help the thought that she might have something to do with it. Of course he would think so right now. But how did he get her to come to Command for questioning? There was no way she’d just go with him.

  Considering she was here, he might be able to garner information on this clock. Would the curator know how a fake had made its way in? She wasn’t going to like the insinuation underlying his words when he brought it up.

  But this was about more than just her pride. Skylar’s life could still be at stake, which meant Grady had to be his most charming self if he wanted answers. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

  He glanced back at the door where she stood. Skylar’s big blue-gray eyes had broadcast her fear loud and clear today, and that hadn’t changed now they’d caught Wilson. Yes, she could take care of herself. Yes, he’d seen her calm and collected through the most dangerous of situations. Now she was probably exhausted, the fatigue bringing her emotions close to the surface. It made him determined to find Barnes and make her safe.

  “Can I help you? Or are you going to let me get back to my work?” Kristine’s eyebrows had risen above the rim of her glasses.

  Grady cleared his throat. He sat across from her at her desk, even though she hadn’t invited him. “I’ll be quick. I don’t want to disturb you, but I do have a question.”