Staying Alive

by Webb, Debra

  A memory pinged Claire. “He said that today.” How could she have forgotten? “Something like, if you run out of time our game will be over.”

  Krueger closed his eyes and shook his head. “He’s a cold-blooded killer, Miss Grant. When the right opportunity presents itself, he loves nothing more than dangling a person’s life on the end of a string just to make him or her sweat.”

  She didn’t have to ask. Claire knew instinctively from Krueger’s words and voice that Nusair had yanked his chain more than once.

  “Is that why he let me live today?” She hadn’t been able to get that idea out of her head from the moment that timer stopped counting down the seconds.

  “I’m certain of it. He enjoys the fear you experience. He wants more.”

  Another realization became crystal clear. “That’s why he said I would die over and over again.” Her gaze connected with Krueger’s. “He’s going to do it again.”

  “That’s a strong possibility. He insisted that you keep the cell phone with you at all times. He’ll likely call again. Probably sooner rather than later. The only question is how he’ll go about his next move.”

  “Maybe next time you’ll be able to catch him,” she suggested, the conversation they’d had earlier about her being an asset zooming into dramatic focus. Her first assessment had been right. She was the bait. As much as she hadn’t meant to sound bitter, the words had come across that way. She could see it in his eyes.

  “Maybe,” he told her, effectively evading the question. He hitched a thumb toward the door. “We have your cell phone charging downstairs.”

  She hadn’t even thought of that. In fact, she would have walked away from that play area in the mall and left it lying on the floor if someone else hadn’t thought to pick it up. She hadn’t exactly been in her right mind at the time.

  A light tap on the open door drew Claire and Krueger’s attention across the room.

  Talkington looked a little hesitant to enter. “Just thought I’d let you know that the pizza is here.”

  “Thank you,” Krueger said, his tone dismissive. When Talkington had moved away from the door Krueger turned back to Claire. “Just so we’re clear on this, Miss Grant.” His gaze leveled on hers, the cool, calculated intensity back. “If there were any way within my power to make this go away for you, I would personally see to it that it happened. Make no mistake, I want Nusair badly, but I don’t want him if it means sacrificing your life. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of making that choice. He has made the choice for us both.”

  Claire knew he was right. “I believe you, Agent Krueger. After today, I know you will do whatever you can to help me get through this. And if, during the stressful moments that are likely planned for me, I come off as ungrateful, please know that’s not the case.”

  “Then I believe we’re in agreement, Miss Grant.”

  They were.

  She relaxed considerably. “Why don’t you call me Claire, Agent Krueger? A man who knows my favorite ice cream should certainly call me by my first name.”

  A smile toyed with one corner of his mouth as he yielded just a little. “Does that mean you’ll call me Luke?” The same amusement that tugged at his lips, made an appearance in his eyes. “I can’t recall the last time anyone called me by my first name.”

  The moment was such a departure from seconds before, but it was also contagious. Claire felt her own lips form a smile. “I thought Agent was your first name.”

  “Very good, Miss…Claire.”

  As he turned to the door, she placed her hand on his arm. He stared at it a moment before meeting her eyes. “Just so you know,” she said, needing to make sure he understood her position, “if the worst does happen I won’t hold it against you. I did what I did to protect my students because it was the right thing to do. I don’t regret my decision and I’m prepared to face the consequences.” This was a place she’d come to know long ago. Regret was a completely useless and destructive emotion.

  Admiration flashed in the depths of those green eyes. “I’m quite certain I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Claire.” His hand came up. She held her breath as he tucked an errant wisp of hair behind her ear. His fingers grazed her cheek, made her shyer. “You puzzle me.”

  He stared deep into her eyes a moment longer, then dropped his hand back to his side. “We should join the others before the pizza disappears.” As they moved toward the door he added, his tone back to that neutral place he appeared to prefer, “I’ve worked these operations before. Agents on all-nighters will eat anything that doesn’t eat them first.”

  Claire, with Krueger right behind her, made her way back to the staircase and then down to the first floor. Her nerves still jangled from his touch. She kept telling herself how foolish her reaction was, but it didn’t do a lick of good. She noticed there were at least two agents in every room she passed, all with pizza and soft drinks.

  The smell of garlic and cheese had permeated the air, making her stomach rumble in less than ladylike fashion by the time they reached the kitchen.

  No one had touched the cheese pizza. Several others, ranging from meat lovers’ to supreme, slices missing, sat around the large kitchen table.

  Claire grabbed a slice while Krueger reached into the refrigerator. He handed her a diet cola. She imagined that her preferred soft drink was in her file as well. As much as she hated dieting, she would rather consume her caloric intake in chocolate than in sugar-packed colas.

  A ringing cell phone snapped her attention toward the bar that separated the kitchen from the large family room.

  “We have a call coming in on Miss Grant’s cell,” Agent Holman announced.

  Claire stared at the phone the agent held in his hand.

  What if it was Nusair again?

  Her heart rammed into her throat.

  “Have we ID’d the caller?” Krueger demanded.

  “Can’t pin it down, sir,” Agent Betty Nance explained. “Someone’s rerouted Miss Grant’s calls through a server that blocks all our attempts at caller identification or the originating location of the call.”

  Agent Talkington rushed into the kitchen with a wireless, hands-free earpiece for Krueger.

  Krueger tucked the earpiece into place and turned to Claire. “Take the call, Claire.” His voice was gentle, much more so than when that first call had come in.

  Claire placed her pizza and cola on the table, the chill of fear already making her fingers numb and shaky. She’d barely blinked and Holman was suddenly standing next to her offering the phone.

  Praying it wouldn’t be him, Claire accepted the phone. Her fingers trembling, she opened the flip top and pressed it to her ear. “Hello.”

  Chapter 9

  “Claire?”

  Darlene.

  The sense of relief at hearing her friend’s voice proved so acute that Claire pressed her hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut to hold in the overwhelming emotion.

  Struggling to regain some semblance of composure, she scrubbed the dampness from her cheeks and managed a shaky, “Hey.”

  “Where are you? Are you okay? My God…the news…the whole thing at the mall was on the news! I’ve just come from the Dentons’. I can’t believe this happened to Joey. His father is such a nice man. It’s just awful. What kind of animal would do this?” When she paused and Claire remained silent, Darlene asked, “Claire, what’s going on?”

  Claire looked to Krueger. He’d heard Darlene’s end of the conversation the same as she had. She wasn’t sure what she could tell her friend.

  “Tell her,” Krueger murmured, “that you’re safe and you’ll contact her as soon as the threat has passed.”

  If the threat passed.

  The unexpected understanding in his eyes gave her the strength she needed.

  She mentally buttressed herself for telling her friend something other than the whole truth. “I’m okay.” She allowed her gaze to rest on Krueger. Mentally held on to him for support. “I’m
in a safe place. Don’t worry, I’ll call you as soon as this is…over.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  Darlene wasn’t ready to give up. She must have heard the uncertainty in Claire’s voice. They knew each other far too well.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Just take care of our kids.”

  “Please be careful, Claire.”

  “I will.”

  It took every smidgeon of strength Claire possessed to hold back the emotions pounding inside her as she said goodbye to her friend…knowing it might be the last time. She closed the phone. Holman was there instantly, taking it from her hand. Keeping it charged and handy was essential since that was the only connection to Nusair. Claire felt numb…something she seemed to be experiencing a lot lately.

  “You should eat,” Krueger encouraged. “Before the pizza gets too cold.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

  Claire left the kitchen, hurried up the stairs and closed herself up in her assigned room. She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. She just needed to be alone. And, oddly, for the first time in her life, she had no appetite whatsoever. If she weren’t on the verge of tears she might actually laugh.

  More than anything right now she needed to feel free of today’s events. She needed to escape somehow. But she couldn’t. There was no place to go that Nusair wouldn’t find her. She had promised to try and help trap him, but how were they ever going to accomplish that when all they could do was react?

  No more thinking.

  She went into the bathroom, undressed and huddled in the shower until the water ran cold, then she went through the blow-drying and straightening routine with her hair. At this point she didn’t actually care how her hair looked, but the familiarity of the chore was somehow comforting.

  Once she’d pulled on her nightshirt, she opened that box of special chocolates she’d kept for an emergency and popped a delicious piece into her mouth. The gratification was instant and soothing. Deciding one would never be enough, she took a couple more and crawled into bed. She promised herself that things would be better tomorrow.

  Now she was lying to herself.

  Things wouldn’t be better tomorrow.

  She had killed a man.

  No matter how tightly she shut her eyes she could still see him lying there on her classroom floor.

  She replayed every moment of the events that led up to that frantic instant when she’d knocked the weapon away from little Peter Reimes and toward Habib Nusair.

  No matter how she played out the scene, there simply had been no way to save Peter without doing what she had done.

  But Habib, still a kid himself, had been a human beneath that veneer of hatred that compelled him to commit such heinous acts of terrorism. She had killed another human being, however cruel and lacking in compassion.

  A part of her would never forgive herself.

  His own youth had made him reckless. If he’d had one of his minions holding the boy while he forced her to shoot, she wouldn’t have been the one to kill him. He might have even been the one to escape with his life. But he’d been full of vile arrogance and determined to be the one to hold the target. Probably wanted to watch her face as she was forced to do the unspeakable.

  Where was his mother? Why hadn’t she or someone taught the man the true meaning of compassion? The value of human life? Was anyone actually mourning his death? Well, other than his father with his evil plan for revenge and, as far as Claire was concerned, that didn’t count.

  How had Habib come to be the ruthless killer she had observed in her classroom? Was he merely following in his dad’s footsteps?

  Maybe she was wrong to blame the rest of his family for the way Habib had turned out. She didn’t know his family, other than Abdul, and she only knew him by reputation.

  Claire had known her brother-in-law’s family.

  The Farmers were good people. No matter that their son abused his wife, they still loved him. In their eyes, Claire had murdered their son.

  Just as she had murdered Habib in Abdul Nusair’s eyes.

  How long would it take the guilt to fade?

  She still felt remnants of sadness when she thought of Tad Farmer, even after six long years of trying to put it behind her. But the sadness wasn’t the same thing as regret or guilt. She felt guilty for taking a human life, felt sad for those who would mourn the loss. But she couldn’t possibly regret her actions.

  How could she have made any other choice?

  Tad Farmer had entered her home, with a weapon, intent on harming her sister.

  Habib Nusair and his followers had entered her school intent on harming her students. Habib himself had ordered Principal Allen’s murder. A pang of grief stabbed deep into her chest. Habib would have killed more students before SWAT got inside had she not stopped him.

  And that had only been the beginning.

  She had done the right thing.

  She would definitely do it again if the circumstances called for such action.

  If Nusair didn’t kill her first.

  “Claire.”

  Her eyes didn’t want to open.

  “Claire, we have to go.”

  A hand shook her shoulder. This time her eyes flew open. The light from the lamp on her bedside table cast a dim glow over the man who shook her again, a little harder this time.

  “Get dressed. We have to leave. Now.”

  The urgency in Krueger’s voice had her throwing the covers back.

  “What’s happened?”

  He sat on the bed next to her. He placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “We’ve picked up on some chatter between some of Nusair’s suspected followers that he’s planning a strike on a safe house in Seattle before 7:00 a.m. We aren’t inclined to believe that he has our location but we’re not going to take the risk. So we’re leaving as soon as you can be ready. Don’t worry about packing. Your things will catch up to you later.”

  She wondered if it was that simple. As calm and soothing as his voice sounded, he looked worried. More worried than she had seen him. “How could he find us?”

  “He couldn’t,” he said flatly, with no hesitancy. “Not unless he’s using some technology we don’t have yet to capture a signal from your cell despite our measures against his doing just that. This may just be a bluff to try and force us to react. But we’re not going to take the risk.”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth then.

  He licked his thumb, then swiped at something on her chin. Heat glimmered inside her, momentarily chasing away the cold reality she’d awakened to.

  One corner of his mouth quirked. “I see you found the chocolate.”

  She glanced back at her pillow, saw the melted chocolate on the pillow case. She’d fallen asleep before finishing that last piece. The heat she’d felt all over at his touch suddenly zeroed in on her cheeks.

  “I did.” She met his eyes, felt warm all over again at the way he looked at her. “Thank you.”

  He cleared the interest she was certain she saw from his eyes. “We should get moving.” He stood, backed up a step.

  She climbed out of the bed, abruptly aware of how high up her thighs the hem of the nightshirt fell. “Okay.” When he didn’t move, she ducked past him and rushed around the room, gathering jeans and a sweatshirt and her sneakers. Socks? Where were her socks? She checked under the covers and found them. Then she backed toward the bathroom door. “I just have to change and I’ll be ready.”

  As if he’d suddenly realized he should leave, he gestured to the hallway. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

  Claire retreated to the bathroom and dragged on her clothes. She ran a brush through her hair. There wasn’t time to evaluate what had happened with Krueger. He was right. They had to hurry. She finished up, grabbed her purse and met Krueger in the hall outside her room. She followed him down to the first floor.

  Everyone was already gone.

  At her questioning look, Krueger explai
ned, “An advance party moved about fifteen minutes ago. The others are waiting outside.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked as he escorted her out of the house and to the SUV standing by in the driveway.

  “To another location in the city. We can’t move too far out of Seattle.”

  “In case Nusair has another round planned for today,” she guessed.

  Krueger opened the rear passenger’s door and she climbed in. He slid into the front seat and nodded for the driver, Talkington, to go.

  When he still failed to address her concern, she reworded her question, “You think that’s going to happen, don’t you?” She scooted to the other side of the backseat so she could see his profile.

  The beat of silence that followed her question was fraught with mounting tension.

  This couldn’t be good. Fear brushed the base of her spine.

  “We know he is.”

  “How?” She reminded herself to breathe and willed her voice not to shake. “How do you know this? Has he called?”

  A long agonizing moment passed before he answered. Every second of silence registered in the hard lines and shadowed angles of his face. This wasn’t as easy for him as he’d like her to believe.

  “A boy was taken from his home.”

  Claire’s fear morphed into horror.

  “Who?”

  “Chad Wade.”

  A student in Sherry Everett’s class. Another fifth-grader from Whitesburg Middle.

  “When did this happen?” The question came out in a calm voice, though she didn’t see how she could speak so rationally considering the hurricane of questions and concerns whirling in her head.

  “About two hours ago.”

  The digital readout on the SUV’s dash indicated it was 4:00 a.m. Despite police protection, the boy had been taken from his own home, maybe his own bed, in the middle of the night.

  Another student from her school.

  An only son. He didn’t have to say; she knew.

  “Has there been any contact from Nusair?” She didn’t know why she asked that question, a second time at that. If he had called Krueger would have wanted her to answer the call.