Hard to Trust

by Wendy Byrne

  Sensations and the sounds of that moment in Afghanistan seemed to envelope her in those ten or so steps down the hall. Fear, as her constant companion, snaked up her back, grasped its gnarly arms around her neck, and squeezed. Maybe she had PTSD like the shrink told her, because it felt like she'd been hurtled back into the day everything in her life shifted. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath to calm herself and tried to focus on where she was. New York, outside her friend Nick's apartment, rather than surrounded by desert.

  Everything about the aloneness of the moment made her want to give in and scream until she couldn't anymore. She was a loner by nature, but the sensation pounding in her chest pleaded for company at this moment in time. Replicating that all-encompassing fear was not a good headspace to be in. Despair threatened to unhinge the last spot of sense in her psyche.

  Breathe.

  Focus.

  She placed her ear against the wooden door of Nick's apartment. Why couldn't she hear his TV blaring? He liked his TV and music loud. There was no in-between for him. Twenty-four seven. It drove her crazy when they were together on assignments. He said he needed white noise to soothe his wounded soul. She could relate to the wounded soul part, but she took a more proactive method of helping her wounded soul.

  Her breath hitched as she yanked the gun from her backpack.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Nothing.

  She drew in a breath, covered the doorknob with her shirt, and twisted. Somehow she wasn't surprised when the door sprang free.

  She drew her gun even as the all-too-familiar smell of blood lingered in the air. Tears sprang to her eyes as she sensed what she'd find. Through concerted effort she forced herself to detach and focus.

  On the table in the living room, Chinese takeout, complete with chopsticks in the cardboard containers, lay half eaten. An empty bottle of wine without so much as a glass in sight. Straight from the bottle. That was so Nick. She even managed a half-smile at the memory of him downing a bottle in record time on numerous occasions.

  She checked the kitchen next, but it was small and spotless. Nothing marred the counter or floor. She peeked out the window leading to the fire escape, hoping maybe he was sitting outside despite the frigid temperatures. But of course he wasn't.

  The bathroom was vacant, free from any sign of disturbance. Maybe she was wrong about the sensation in her chest—the memories swirling about her mind evoked images too horrific to contemplate right now.

  Except for the closed door at the end of the hall.

  One room left to check. Despite her extensive training and everything she'd witnessed in her career, her heart rat-ta-tat-tatted inside her chest as she covered the knob with her shirt and turned.

  The room was dark except for the lights flickering from the sign on the café across the street, producing throbbing graphics along the walls and ceiling. She kept her gaze focused toward the upper part of the ceiling, waiting until she was ready. Finally, she shifted her scrutiny to the bed.

  Blood.

  Lots of it.

  Oh my God.

  Nick lay on the bed, blood leaking from his body and seeping into the sheet and spreading to the mattress beneath. The bright red color suggested it had been recent. Maybe less than an hour. She bit back the wail desperate to escape her lips.

  Had her phone conversation to him triggered this whole problem? It couldn't be a coincidence that he'd been killed even while somebody tried to kill her. Paranoia wasn't paranoia if it was grounded in reality.

  He'd been with her that day in Afghanistan. She'd shared with him her discovery. Now he was dead. Just like Alex. Everything inside her knew she was next.

  Even though the urge to run skittered down her backbone, she fought it back. This was not a time to wuss out. She needed answers, and maybe there'd be some clues as to what happened. Wasting the opportunity would be silly. She could fall apart later.

  Detach.

  Like the flipping of a deadbolt, she disengaged her brain from the roiling emotions as she morphed into professional mode.

  They'd staged it to appear as a suicide, with a pill bottle propped on the nightstand and bloody wrists. But it was a surface job, either because of expediency or design. A halfway decent detective would read this as a murder scene within the first few minutes.

  Had she just walked into a trap? The idea settled inside and it felt right, even though it made her queasy. Coming here had played right into their hands—not that she would have changed her behavior, but still the thought rankled her.

  They'd set her up. Being a fugitive of a murder charge would give whoever they were carte blanche to kill her. No doubt that had been their objective all along.

  Finding the remnants of that note she'd pieced together had been a lark. But that didn't change the outcome. She had to believe either Alex was alive or somebody wanted people to believe he was still kicking around, waiting to pounce on the bad guys. Was it some sort of intimidation tool meant for their enemy to make them believe otherwise—like they'd executed the wrong man that hot desert evening? But they hadn't. She'd seen the video a million times.

  She shook her head. There had to be more to this story. That was the million-dollar question. But who killed Nick? Why did they hire The Alliance to protect her and not Nick? That was the part that stuck in her craw. That was yet another piece to the puzzle that made no sense. A fast but meticulous perusal gave her nothing. Still, she downloaded whatever Nick had on his computer into her flash drive before sneaking out of his apartment and into the street.

  She'd been on her own many times before. Now was no different.

  Her hands shook as she hooked her backpack over her shoulders. She pulled the hijab she stored in her backpack and wrapped it around her head as a makeshift disguise as she wandered onto the street, uncertain where to go next. Should she work her way back to Jake's and enlist his help, even if the very idea went against her grain? Why would she trust someone with dubious motives when she'd learned long ago to rely on only herself?

  Instead, she walked into a café a couple of blocks away and took a chair in back. She did her best thinking under pressure.

  * * *

  Jake tracked her signal to Nick's apartment. But before he could get there, she was on the move. Going to Nick's place seemed to be the logical conclusion, which meant the guys who were tracking her would figure that out as well.

  The cab left him off about a block away, as traffic had slowed to a crawl. As he got closer, he spotted the police barricades and the crowd that had formed in the middle of the block.

  The family itch, as he and his two siblings called it, wormed along his skin until he couldn't ignore it. Something had gone wrong. Very wrong. Did it happen again? Did they mow her down in the middle of a busy New York street? Was he careless enough that once again he'd lost the person he was supposed to protect?

  If he blew another assignment, he'd have to cash it in and call it done. What good were his protection services if his assignments kept ending up dead? Maybe Petrovich had gotten the whole thing about his inferior skills correct after all.

  Three police cars, lights flashing, hovered in front of the address. Failure chilled his chest until he wanted to scream. He'd made a tactical error once again. Trusting she'd be compliant had led to failure.

  Jake brushed off the wash of guilt as he stood with the gawkers anxious for a hint of information, all while hoping she wasn't the reason the ambulance had arrived. But he had to know. He turned to one of his fellow spectators. "What's going on?" The words stuck in his throat.

  "Some guy named Nick. They found him dead in one of the apartments."

  Jake blew out a breath as he realized it wasn't Tessa. But as the name circled his brain, he couldn't help but know there was a connection. "Burglary?"

  "Nope, they think it was suicide. But somebody mentioned something about a strange woman hanging around. The police are looking at the surveillance"—she pointed to the cameras perched atop the building
—"and are talking to the people who saw her."

  Oh, crap. Was Tessa some kind of double-agent hit woman? Speculation about the whys behind her visit to her friend made him once again question what he'd gotten himself into.

  Maybe he'd been lucky she only circumvented the burglar alarm at his place, when she could very well have killed him in his sleep. He needed to back out of this assignment fast and hard.

  He'd felt sorry for her yesterday and, more than likely, played right into her hands. The idea he was protecting an assassin crawled around inside him. Yeah, he'd done that before, and he wasn't about to do it again.

  But if she were as good as the powers that be would lead him to believe, she wouldn't have gotten tripped up by cameras outside a building. A cold-hearted killer planned in advance for that kind of eventuality, but a woman running with fear as a motivator didn't consider those kinds of things.

  More confused than ever, he separated from the crowd and watched the notification on his phone that told him she hadn't moved in the last five minutes or so. He followed the signal to a twenty-four-hour café.

  He peered inside and almost missed her. She had a hijab covering her hair and was sitting at one of the overstuffed chairs in the very back, typing something into her laptop. Even through the glass he could sense the anxiousness in her fidgety demeanor. He supposed that could be a reflection of the murder she might have committed moments ago, but he didn't think so. Then again, his reliability score had tanked recently.

  Why was he giving her the benefit of the doubt when he should be calling Jennings?

  Still, he couldn't help but be fascinated. Her fingers seemed to tremble as she worked through the keystrokes. Her legs bounced up and down like a nervous teenager on a first date. It didn't seem to be the body language of someone who'd just committed murder.

  But she'd been well trained, as he'd been. Lack of emotion was a trademark of Petrovich indoctrination, and it had probably been drummed out of her as well. But her fear seemed to be palpable even through glass and distance.

  Her eyes drew wide. For a second or two he thought she might have spotted him lingering outside. He prepared himself to walk inside and confront her about what he suspected. Before he could do that, three men surrounded her table, each one with a phony plastic smile on his face that was more about control than pleasantries.

  Things had just gone to hell right before his eyes.

  * * *

  Tessa settled into the large chair in back and sipped her extra-large coffee. She needed some time to think through her options—if she had any, especially as she could still hear the trail of police sirens in the distance. From the looks of things, any choice she might have had was no longer available. Part of her wanted to give in to the emotion of losing Nick, but knew she didn't have the time to indulge herself right now. Maybe never.

  Second-guessing her decision to cut Jake loose wasn't going to do her any good now either. She had to plan and decide what to do next. They went after Nick. She would be next.

  She opened her laptop and tried to search for signs of anything connecting the three of them, besides their recent trip to Afghanistan. Lingering thoughts of Alex flitted through her, as persistent and unclear as ever.

  The idea she'd been responsible for Nick being targeted made the pain of his death even more real. Why wouldn't she have thought about her home phone being bugged? Maybe because she had been so hollowed out and washed up that she didn't have time to think with her usual amount of acumen.

  She burrowed further into her hijab and hoped she'd have a few moments to decide what to do next. With a target on her back, she needed to plan her moves more wisely from now on.

  After watching the video of Alex being killed one more time, she plugged in the names of the operatives she knew were present, Amir and Behrang. What was she missing?

  "You must come with us, Ms. Graham." Three men stood in front of her. One so close the gun he had in his hand was visible only to her. The thing that kept trailing around her brain was their Russian accents. Why had she somehow known about the Russian part?

  She drew in a breath and bet on the fact they wouldn't kill her in front of twenty or so people. "I'm not going anywhere with you." She settled back into the seat even when he moved next to her and pressed the gun against her ribcage.

  "Then I suggest you read this." The man handed her an envelope, which she opened with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.

  The note, crudely written, included a picture behind it. It was a scene where it appeared all the people had been shot. The letter stated, You will do as we say or we start killing off innocent victims. As you can see, we've done this before, and we will have no qualms about doing it again.

  Her mind raced while her heart thumped. The gun in her bag would be useless with innocent people shuffled into the mix. They had her. And they knew it. She had no choice but to follow where they led and hope for the best.

  * * *

  Jake watched from outside the window as one of them handed her an envelope. When she opened it up and glanced at the contents, she nodded. Even from this distance he spotted the slight hitch to her jaw, which could be interpreted as fear, anger, or even frustration. Any one of those emotions would play into the scenarios that were on replay inside his head. Before Jake could think through any options he might have, she left with the men out the back door. From his angle he couldn't determine if she left willingly or not.

  Crap.

  This could be about a scheduled meeting after she committed murder, and the envelope included her payoff—or it could be a simple case of taking her somewhere to kill her. Either scenario fit into the realm of possibilities.

  He pulled down his baseball cap and traipsed through the cafe, hesitating at the back door for a second or two before slowly pushing it open. At first he didn't see them, but eventually he spied the group at the end of the block.

  Knowing her type, she wouldn't have gone without a fight, so he had to assume she'd gone with them willingly. Either that, or they had a gun somewhere ensuring her cooperation.

  Unless, of course, his original assumption about the envelope being payment for offing Nick was correct. He shook off the assumptions, even if that had been the first thought. Jennings had reiterated during their phone conversation that he shouldn't trust her. Jake didn't know if that was more about his history than anything relative to her possibly being a double agent. But they wanted him to protect her as well. From these guys? Or from herself? This whole assignment was much more than he'd bargained for.

  Before he could formulate any kind of plan, the men shoved her into a waiting car and took off. There was no mistaking the body language and the roughness with which she was forced. Another layer to the puzzle for him to analyze.

  But the good news was that they hadn't discarded her backpack. That gave him a fighting chance, even if the odds—considering the three men plus the driver—were four, possibly five against one, depending on which side she fell in the equation.

  He glanced at his phone and picked up the tracking signal, following its green beacon through the streets of Manhattan, giving silent kudos to The Alliance for having developed such an accurate device. Going back to retrieve his car wasn't an option. He sensed he didn't have that kind of time. Flagging down a taxi became a necessary evil.

  "I know this sounds really corny, but I'm following somebody, and I need you to keep enough distance so you're not spotted."

  "No problem." The man turned and gave him an encouraging smile. "You chasing after a cheating girlfriend?"

  Jake gave him a tight smile. "Something like that."

  * * *

  Tessa knew she was in trouble. A whole lot of trouble. Despite the rough handling and the unmistakable sense that she had no option, it was the words they used that sent chills down her spine.

  Russian? Were these the same guys from her home in Virginia? She hadn't heard them speak, so it was impossible to know. If that were true, had they found Jake
as well? Disabling his alarm the way she did made him easy prey for the likes of these men.

  One of them put something on his hand and hit her across the face. Stars bounced around her head. She felt the skin across her cheek break open as blood dribbled down her face. Even though she saw it coming, she didn't have time to recover before he used the same hand to punch her in the gut. The wind escaped her lungs as she struggled for breath.

  "You will tell us what we want to know."

  "I don't know—"

  She didn't have time to finish before the prick of a needle shot something hot and fiery into her veins, bringing everything around her to a standstill. Her head fell forward, followed by her body, before she landed on the floor of the car.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jake had lived in Manhattan for a long time, but hadn't explored the neighboring boroughs. As they crossed the bridge into Queens and travelled farther and farther into the places he never knew existed, he had to wonder where they were headed. With his go bag alongside him for reassurance, he tracked her on his phone. "I'll give you directions."

  "What you got there?" the taxi driver asked while looking into the rearview mirror.

  He had to think about the response least likely to generate a lot of questions. "It's one of those apps to track a cell phone."

  "Cool. I heard about that stuff. Just haven't had a chance to see it in action."

  To Jake's relief, the guy didn't press the matter any further. They wove through town in a haphazard pattern, getting stuck in traffic on more than one occasion. The idea she might be in trouble felt like a neon sign pulsing through his brain. He should have anticipated she'd be able to bypass his alarm easily, despite the fact it was the latest and most up-to-date technology on the market.

  If she died on his watch, they wouldn't have to fire him—he'd up and quit on his own. Then again, if she were dirty, more than likely he'd be dead within a few hours. No use worrying about something until he got a handle on the situation.