Defenseless (Somerton Security #1)

by Elizabeth Dyer

  Georgia looked up into Parker’s wide-eyed stare. His arm trembled as he stared at the guy he’d just shot, a look of stunned disbelief stealing across his face.

  Georgia scrambled out from beneath the weight of her assailant, snatched up her gun, and stood. Carefully, she used her boot to push the gunman to his back. His eyes, blue and hard as polar ice, were open and vacant. She went to a knee and, with a trembling hand, checked for a pulse.

  Nothing. She heaved out a sigh. Thank God it was over.

  “Georgia?” The sound of her name, unsure and shaky, had her pushing to her feet and turning toward Parker. She used the back of a sleeve to wipe the blood from her chin.

  “It’s okay.” She glanced up at him, caught the way he couldn’t stop staring at the dead man on the floor, the way the arm holding the gun at his side trembled, and immediately made her way over to him. “Let me have this,” she coaxed as she laced her fingers through his and slid the gun from his slack grip.

  “Is he . . . ?” He swallowed audibly, leaning against the wall. He visibly collected himself, forced his body to go stiff and still. “Did I kill him?”

  “Yes.” There wasn’t time for soft deliveries or careful truths. She needed Parker’s head in the game.

  Parker twisted his neck, his gaze landing on the prone body. “I’ve never . . .” He swallowed and dropped his head, his skin going sheet white. “I thought it would be different. Harder.”

  Georgia dropped a hand on his shoulder, doing her best to ignore the way tiny tremors met her fingers. “Hey.”

  Parker looked away from the man he’d killed but didn’t meet her gaze. “I’ve made decisions, hard ones. Ones that have led to death, some planned, some not,” he admitted on a whisper. “I guess I always thought this would be the same. It should be the same. I still own the responsibility.” He looked at her, his blue eyes a warm reminder as they searched her face that he was still alive.

  Heaven help her, she intended to keep him that way. “It shouldn’t be that different. Pull of a trigger, stroke of a key. The end result is the same.”

  He swallowed hard and looked away. “It shouldn’t be different.”

  “But it is.” She slid her hand across his shoulder and let it come to rest against the warm skin of his neck, delighted in the way goose bumps rose and his eyes dilated at her touch. For a moment, she allowed herself the solace of enjoying the steady, slightly elevated beat of his heart. Let the pulse beneath her fingers remind her of what was important. He was alive—they both were—and that was all that mattered. “I can feel your thoughts racing,” she said, lightly stroking her fingertips along his neck, following the corded muscle down until she could stroke a thumb back and forth across his collarbone. “If you chase them, looking for answers, looking for sense in this . . . they’ll drive you in circles until you second-guess everything that just happened. Until you convince yourself you could have, should have, done something more. Something different.” She clenched his shoulder. “You did exactly what you had to do. Nothing more and nothing less.”

  “He’s dead, Georgia.” He focused on her, admitting out loud what she knew was tearing him up.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “And if you focus on that, if you let the thought take root and grow, it will consume you until it becomes the poisonous voice in your head, the one that whispers you didn’t do enough, you weren’t fast enough or good enough. That you are wrong and guilty and bad.”

  “How am I supposed to stop that? He’s dead because of me.” He shuddered.

  “Because whenever that happens, you’re going to look at me.” She dragged her hand down across his shoulder and over his biceps. “You’re going to look at me, and you’re going to remind that vicious internal voice that the important thing isn’t that you killed him . . . It’s that you saved me.” Georgia dropped her hand and stepped back. “That’s what you focus on, because that’s what you did. We didn’t start this fight, Parker. We didn’t break into his house and threaten his life. All we did—all you did—was defend yourself and save my life. That’s it, that’s all that’s important. Okay?”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then shook off the fear, the shock, and straightened. “Okay.”

  “We need to get out of here.” Georgia set the assassin’s weapon next to his body and began searching his pockets.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for ID.” She came up empty. She hadn’t really expected anything—whoever the guy was, he hadn’t been hired off the street. He’d worked her over like a pro—he was trained, probably military, which frankly scared the shit out of her. “Grab my phone out of my bag—I dropped it by the door—then go get your laptop. We’re walking out of here in sixty seconds.”

  For once, he didn’t argue or question. He just moved. Retrieving her phone, he handed it to her, then disappeared down the hall to grab his computer.

  Georgia took a deep, steadying breath, then pulled the ski mask up and off the guy’s face. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. He was just so normal, so forgettable. Military buzz cut. Cleft in his chin. Small scar bisecting his eyebrow. If she’d passed him on the street or met him at a bar, she’d have dismissed him. She’d expected something . . . more, though what exactly, she couldn’t say. Raising her phone, Georgia took a half dozen quick photos. She didn’t know who the guy was, but with any luck she and Parker would connect with Ethan in the next twenty-four hours. Maybe he’d have more intel on him—at the least, Ethan should be able to run the photos through a facial-recognition program. One thing was for sure: someone wanted Parker dead.

  “Jesus.”

  Georgia glanced up as Parker reappeared, beanie on his head and backpack slung across his shoulder. Any color he’d regained fled his face.

  “What?” This wasn’t the shock of stripping away the mask and revealing the person. This was something deeper. Something far more personal. “Parker, what is it?” A curdle of dread formed in the pit of her stomach as Parker stared transfixed at the dead man in the middle of his hallway.

  “I know him.”

  “What do you mean you know him?” Georgia shot to her feet and took two quick steps around the body.

  Parker had to crane his neck to glance around her, to make certain the stress, the sheer impossibility of the last half an hour wasn’t sending him down an acid trip from hell. No, he knew that face. Gordon Fletcher. How many times had Parker seen him at the office? How many times had he swaggered into tech ops, demanding this or dictating that, his smug smile accentuating the cleft in his chin and turning him into the oh-so-familiar frat-boy douche some men never grew out of? Alive or dead, Parker would know the man on his floor anywhere.

  “That’s Gordon Fletcher. I work—worked—with him.”

  “Shit.”

  Yeah, that about summed it up for him, too. It had all seemed so surreal. Ethan’s text. Georgia’s urgency. The dead guy in the hallway. Too much like a bad dream after a thirty-six-hour coding binge. Everything had felt so disjointed. Fictional. Parker was the guy who analyzed, planned, and executed—and all from the relative safety of an off-book government facility in Virginia. Now, a familiar face had accomplished what Ethan, Georgia, adrenaline, and the sick realization he’d killed someone had not. Parker’s thoughts slid into perfect, organized alignment.

  “Gordon was competent and a bit of an asshole—”

  “A bit?” Georgia choked on a strangled laugh that tinged on the side of hysterical. Given the way she cut off the sound, straightened her spine, and settled into herself, she must have heard it, too.

  “Point is, he’s not the type to go freelance. Too many variables, too much risk. He liked the easy missions, the guaranteed paydays.” He turned and strode down the hallway, pulling off a glove and shoving it in his pocket. “The only reason he’s dead on my floor is because someone I know, someone I work with, sent him to kill me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Parker nodded. Nothing about this had made any s
ense—until now. He didn’t have all the details, but this one thing he knew. He’d run every single person who worked in and around the cyber warfare unit through his predictive analysis program. He knew Gordon, what he was capable of, what motivated him. “I’m sure.”

  He entered a security code into a panel on the wall and opened the hall closet across from the kitchen. Placing his palm along the built-in scanner, he waited for the beep, then logged into his personal security system. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “How certain are you that Ethan is the only person who knows you’re here?”

  “Not as certain as I’d like to be. But like I said, I was a last-minute assignment, and Ethan plays things pretty close to the vest on a normal day.” She shrugged. “Given how the last thirty minutes have played out, I’d say he had a pretty damn good reason to be concerned. Why?”

  “Because right now you’re about the only advantage I have.” He entered in a series of commands, then confirmed his instructions. “I’m erasing the footage from the last twenty-four hours,” he said as he slammed the door shut. “The longer we can keep whoever is trying to kill me in the dark about who you are, the better.” He slid his phone out of the inside pocket of his peacoat. “Power off your phone and anything else electronic you’ve got on you.”

  Georgia did as he asked but stepped in front of him when he reached for the front door. “Me first.”

  He didn’t argue.

  She unholstered her gun and slowly slid the industrial door open wide enough for her to scan the hallway. “All clear, but let’s take the stairs.”

  “Agreed.” He followed her to the end of the hall, then through a door that led to an emergency staircase. The first frigid bite of cold in the unregulated space clenched the muscles along his spine.

  “Does this let out in the garage?” Georgia asked as she descended the stairs, her gun at her side as she carefully scanned each floor below.

  “Yeah, but we’ll need to take your car. Mine’s got in-dash nav and a tracking system the DoD insisted on.”

  Georgia swore as they reached the fourth floor. “I didn’t bring my car. I took the train, then an Uber.” She shrugged at his groan. “I don’t really like driving in the city, especially to and from DC.”

  “Well, we can’t risk my car, and even if we wanted to, we aren’t going to find an Uber in this weather.”

  “So what does that leave?” she asked as they reached the ground floor. “We could go to my apartment, but we can’t really be sure that no one knows I’m with you. Once they do, it’s the first place they’ll look. We could try one of Somerton Security’s safe houses; there are several in the DC metro.”

  “Risky. Ethan’s message didn’t follow protocol, didn’t tell us where to go. We don’t know if he’s been compromised or not, and if, by extension, Somerton Security has been compromised, too.”

  “Okay.” Georgia turned toward him, gun at her side, and visibly fought a shiver. “But if we can’t risk using our phones, then how do we make contact with Ethan? The safe houses will have some basics. Cash, heat, and, most importantly, a burner phone Ethan should have contact information for. We need to get somewhere safe, but then we’ve got to figure out what the hell is going on. The longer we’re in the dark, the more danger we’re in.”

  “Yeah, but assuming Ethan is free to reach out—” Parker swallowed. Ethan was his lifeline, his safety net for shit like this. If he couldn’t make contact . . . No. Parker pushed the thoughts away. He couldn’t deal with them—not yet. Maybe not ever. “Assuming Ethan can reach out, I don’t think he’ll use the phone. Our team has other procedures in place.” He tugged at the brim of his hat, then stuffed his fists in his armpits. Fuck, it was cold, which meant outside was going to be bone-breakingly bitter. “The few times I’ve traveled overseas for ops, we’ve always had an established protocol. In the event a member of the team gets separated, or if we all have to scatter, there’s a half dozen or so message boards we’re supposed to monitor. Instructions for meet up or extract are supposed to come within twenty-four hours. That’s how Ethan will make contact. Until then, I think we should stay away from anything expected or routine.”

  Parker watched as the struggle between the sense of his logic and the pull of her training played out across Georgia’s expression.

  “You’re sure someone in the DoD is behind this?” she asked, though certainty drew the planes of her face tight.

  “Yes.” It was the only damn thing he was certain about.

  “Okay. No safe house. How much cash do you have on you?”

  “Couple hundred, maybe. You?”

  She shook her head. “Don’t carry cash.”

  He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. It really wasn’t the time to lecture her on how easy it was to hack a credit card or bank account.

  She palmed the watch at her wrist, twisting it in a nervous habit he was coming to recognize as something she did when weighing a decision. “It’ll be enough for a night or two at a cheap motel—but not more. If Ethan hasn’t made contact in twenty-four hours, we’re going to have to figure something else out.” She crossed her arms, a wince creasing her forehead. That cold was going to be hell on the bruises blooming beneath the delicate skin of her face—and that was only the damage he could see.

  He resisted the urge to run a thumb along the welt above her eye. She’d taken a beating. For him.

  He shook himself out of his distraction. “MARC is still running. We can take that into DC, then transfer to the Metro and find somewhere to stay for the night.”

  “What makes you think the rail’s still up?”

  “I get mobile alerts on my phone. I’d have seen a notice it was down when I powered it off.” He tried to crack his knuckles through the thick fabric of his gloves, then gave up. “But who knows how long that’ll last. We should get moving.”

  Georgia leaned into the heavy outer door, pushing against the bitter wind. She scanned the open area behind his building, then pulled her head back inside. “You’re sure about this?”

  Yes. No. Mostly. Indecision seeped in with the bitter cold, freezing his nerve and raising doubts. This wasn’t his area of expertise. He didn’t know what the best option was. But you know what the worst options are; sometimes that’s good enough.

  “Yeah. We give Ethan twenty-four hours to make contact. Lay low until then.”

  “Then let’s go.” She pushed her way through the door and out into the open. Parker followed, the wind catching the door and slamming it shut behind him. As the wind kicked through his layers like a knife through his ribs, he prayed to God this wasn’t the one time the universe decided to prove him wrong.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Let me help,” Parker said, reaching for the key to the motel room.

  Georgia jerked away, ignoring the way every nerve ending in her body screamed to life simultaneously. The damn door was stuck, not technologically complex.

  “I got it.” She turned the knob and threw her shoulder into the door—God, she took stupid and stubborn to new heights when she was tired—and stifled a gasp as she stumbled into the room, Parker close at her heels. Flipping the switch by the door, Georgia swallowed down a lump of disappointment as a single overhead bulb flickered to life.

  “Well, this is cozy.” A hint of a grin slid through Parker’s voice.

  When they’d selected the Starlite Inn, Georgia had adjusted her expectations from clean and comfortable to safe and secure. When the toothless clerk behind the bulletproof glass had smiled and asked if she’d need the room for an hour or an overnight, she’d repressed a shudder and readjusted her expectations from safe and secure to warm and undisclosed. She allowed her expectations to slip another notch or two as the radiator gurgled a dirge from the far wall. If she caught a tepid shower, a few hours of sleep, and avoided bedbugs, she’d score the night as a win and be grateful.

  “Can I take that?” Parker reached toward the messenger bag still slung across her shoulder, his movements and
expression careful.

  “It’s fine.” I’m fine, she thought, letting her bag slide from her shoulder to crash to the floor. So stop asking. Leaving it where it lay, she dumped the convenience-store bag on the table and contemplated sinking into one of the two burnt-orange chairs flanking the small table in the corner of the room. Of course, odds were if she gave in to the urge to drop into the scratchy fabric calling her name, she’d never get back up. “Lock the dead bolt and set the chain.”

  Georgia rooted through the contents of the bag spread across the scarred wooden surface. Cheetos, beef jerky, a few bottles of water, a couple of candy bars, and the makings of a basic first aid kit. She repressed the urge to sneer. She’d passed starving hours ago and now clung to the cliff face of too-exhausted-to-give-a-damn by her fingernails. Had it really only been earlier that afternoon Ethan had called her to Baltimore? In less than eight hours, she’d gone on the run, been shot at, beaten to hell, dropped in a bad part of town in the middle of a blizzard, and called a bitch. She was cranky, dammit, and who could blame her?

  And through it all, Parker had remained quiet, almost as if he were in a state of suspended animation, going where she told him, doing as she asked. No complaints. Little commentary. A model client. And so completely fabricated and unnatural that Georgia found herself struggling with the urge to snap him out of it. Violently. Creatively. She didn’t care. At first she’d blamed good old-fashioned shock for Parker’s docile obedience and lack of ongoing chatter. That maybe he just needed a bit of time, a little quiet to sort through everything. Or a strong cup of coffee. Either way, who could blame him? He’d shot a man—a man he apparently knew—and fled his home. But as the afternoon had worn on, as they’d changed trains and directions, losing themselves in DC and scavenging what they could from the only open store they could find, it had become abundantly clear Parker was coddling her.

  As if he didn’t believe she could take care of herself. As if he believed her weak.