The Paris Assignment

by Addison Fox

  And then she caught sight of Campbell, reassurance flooding her veins that he was unharmed.

  “Let’s go.”

  Campbell’s voice echoed in her ear as he dragged her toward a small two-seater. “You have the keys?”

  “They’re in the car.”

  She abstractly noticed one of the other cars was missing. “Why’s there an empty space here?”

  “Shooter took it.”

  “Who was it? Did you see him? You know my executives. Was it Lucas?”

  Campbell pushed her toward the passenger seat before running around to the driver’s door. “I don’t know. All I got the moment I stepped into the garage was a hail of gunfire so I stayed down while I looked for something to go after him with.”

  Once they were both in, he turned to her. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay here?”

  “No way.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “I’m not sitting here alone and I’m not letting you face him alone. This is about me and I’m going to see it to the end. Besides, he’s got a car which means he’s got keys and access to the house. I’m not staying here.”

  “All right.” His face was grim, yet resigned, and she offered up a quick prayer of thanks his stubborn streak didn’t pick that moment to argue.

  Instead, he gunned the engine and drove them into the Paris night.

  * * *

  Lucas wove in and out of traffic around the Sixteenth arrondissement. He kept a clear eye on the large SUV that pursued him, thrilled that the idiot security team had selected the largest vehicle in Abby’s fleet.

  Muscle men.

  He scoffed at their ridiculous decision but also knew it gave him a decided advantage. Not only could he slip through traffic far easier, but there was no way he’d miss them in and among the various cars filling the streets.

  And bless Paris, the city was wide-awake, irrespective—or in deference to—the late hour.

  Which gave him an idea.

  The apartment he’d prepared wasn’t that far away. He’d lead them down the Champs-Élysées, past the Arc and lose them from there. He could abandon the car at the first moment and slip into the night undetected.

  He didn’t think he’d been recognized but couldn’t risk going back to the hotel and a quick tap of reassurance on his inside front pocket ensured he had the only thing of value he needed, anyway.

  As if it mattered.

  When this was all over, he’d have what he wanted as well as all the status that would confer with it. He could gather his things then.

  Lucas glanced in the rearview mirror, pleased to see the bulky SUV had fallen farther behind. It would only take a few more minutes and he’d be well rid of them.

  And then he would go make sure his trap was well-baited.

  * * *

  “Do you see him?” Campbell wove in and out of traffic as Abby kept a steady focus on the cars in front of them.

  “No, but I know we passed David and that damn SUV. I hate that car.”

  “Simon probably picked it,” Campbell muttered as he wove around another car. “And I suspect David’s sentiments match yours right now.”

  “There!” She pointed, then shook her head. “Well, maybe it’s him. Why the hell are all my cars black?”

  He couldn’t hold back the quick grin at that one. She’d been a rather intrepid passenger and he realized she’d also provided a pair of eyes he desperately needed as he navigated the crowded streets.

  “He’s headed for the Arc. See.”

  Campbell caught sight of the tail of the black sedan and sped up as soon as he realized he had a hole.

  “Campbell! Look. He turned off.”

  Campbell saw where she pointed and cursed. He was so far left it was going to be hard to get all the way right.

  “Go down another block. We’ll cut him off.”

  “He’s going to get bottlenecked in there.” A sudden opening had him zipping across several lanes and taking the right Abby had pointed out. “And now that he’s slowed down we’ll close the gap. This car is small and it’s got zip.”

  He knew that was more than true. It had given them the advantage against the SUV the security team had chosen and had even allowed them to gain ground on the larger sedan.

  “Stop!”

  The words were no sooner out of Abby’s mouth than Campbell saw what had her issuing the command. The car they’d been following had been abandoned, the door hanging open and the interior lights bright. He saw the driver fleeing on foot down the street and pulled to a hard stop a few feet down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Following him.”

  She had her belt off and was reaching for the door handle. “Can you at least lock this one? I’d prefer to avoid the insurance paperwork on two cars.”

  He leaned over and grabbed her arm, dragging her back for a quick kiss. Whatever they lost in time he knew was well worth the moment. “I love you. You know that?”

  Her smile dimmed as she went totally still. “Really?”

  “Yep. Now let’s get this bastard so we can get on with it.”

  She allowed herself the briefest of moments—barely a second or two—to savor his words.

  He loved her.

  And with unerring certainty she knew she loved him in return.

  Abby was all speed and motion as she leaped out of the car and raced around to his side. In deference to her request, he alarmed the car as he shoved the keys in his pocket.

  “Go! I’ll keep up and I’ve got running shoes on. You’re tall and you’re easy to keep sight of.”

  “There are too many people.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on, I’m not letting you go.”

  Another wave of happiness assailed her at his words, completely at odds with their situation. She followed behind him as they dodged people who streamed up and down the avenue. The man they were pursuing—was it Lucas?—had a good head of steam but he was as delayed as they were by the throngs of people and slowly Campbell and Abby narrowed the gap.

  “You see him?” She gasped behind him but never lost her ability to keep pace, despite her shorter legs.

  “Yep.”

  “Where?”

  “Look toward the Arc. He’s about a street away.”

  “He’s going to have to veer off!” He saw what she meant as they got a few feet farther. “There’s a traffic circle around the Arc. He’ll have to take a side street that spokes off.”

  But which one?

  Campbell tried to keep his focus on his quarry but the foot traffic had grown heavier, tourists and city dwellers alike out enjoying the late evening.

  Where was he?

  “There!” Abby pointed and Campbell followed the direction, the two of them off in further pursuit.

  A huge cry went up ahead of them as their guy obviously knocked over a few people. Campbell pulled Abby to the far side of the sidewalk, determined to avoid the aftereffects, namely a heap of people lying on the sidewalk trying to figure out who might be hurt and what had just happened.

  “Back that way.”

  “Where?”

  Her hand tightened in his. “I think he’s backtracking to the car.”

  Campbell could only hope Abby was right as he took another turn. His chest began to tighten with the exertion and he knew she had to be getting winded. As soon as he saw a clear stretch ahead of them he turned his head for a quick check to see how she was doing. “You okay?”

  “Keep going.”

  He fought through the burn and kept up the pace. What he couldn’t account for was his inability to see the man they pursued.

  “You see him?”

  “No. Where’d he go?” Her voice rose behind him.

  “I don’t know. He was just there.”

  He slowed their progress, moving into a steady jog as they doubled back toward the street where they’d parked.

  “He was running as long as we were,” her heavy pants assailed him. “He can’t have gotten t
o the car yet.”

  Campbell came to a full halt as he scanned the street. “Where the hell’d he go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The heavy blow that slammed into his head prevented any response. Dimly, as he fell to the ground, Campbell heard Abby screaming.

  Chapter 17

  Abby stared at the well-appointed apartment and knew, without the slightest doubt, that it was lined in some way that made it soundproof.

  “No one will hear you.” Lucas Brown stared at her from across the room. He stood behind a built-in bar mixing a drink in a martini shaker, looking for all the world as if he were entertaining.

  “Figured.”

  His eyebrows lifted at her comment but he didn’t reply, instead just kept shaking his cocktail as a thick sheen of cold water formed on the metal.

  “Comfortable?”

  Restraints held her hands pinned to the arms of a dining-room chair. “Delightful.”

  “I’d suggest you appreciate what you have as I can make things a whole lot less delightful.”

  “Since I’m sure that’s already on your agenda why don’t you dispense with the formalities.”

  He shrugged as he poured his cocktail. “Not yet.”

  “You know we’re on to you. The theft of the device. Your fake relationship with Stef. The hit on Paul.”

  He shook his head as he crossed to take a chair opposite. Despite the fact he’d also restrained her legs to the chair, Lucas sat a fair distance away from her.

  As if she were distasteful to him.

  He’d done something to her in the street that caused her to black out so he’d had to have touched her then. Despite that, she knew, without a doubt, that he hadn’t enjoyed it, nor was he interested in repeating the experience anytime soon.

  Curious.

  Where she’d originally feared rape and death, she could at least cross one worry off her list.

  And why did that make her want to laugh out loud?

  “A smirk, Abby? Really?”

  “Consider it a recognition of the absurdities of life.”

  He shrugged and she saw something familiar in the gesture, even as she couldn’t place it. “Suit yourself.”

  “Oh, I will.” She hesitated a moment. “Won’t you tell me anything?”

  “Soon enough.” He lifted his glass to her in toast. “Soon enough.”

  * * *

  Campbell rubbed the back of his neck as David drove him to the house. Abby had long since vanished and panic had taken counterpoint to the hard throbbing in his head with the vicious fists of a bass drummer.

  Where was she?

  He knew he needed to stay calm and think through it.

  Lucas Brown had been the one jingling his chain all along and he’d already had David dispatch a team to the man’s hotel. They didn’t expect to find Lucas—if he were, in fact, responsible—but maybe something would turn up in his room.

  The moment they reached the house, Campbell raced for his room and the makeshift office he’d set up.

  And saw his buzzing phone where it danced on the top of the desk.

  “Kenzi—” His sister’s name came out on a harsh sob he couldn’t hold back. “They’ve got her.”

  “They who?” Kensington’s normally calm tone rose several notches. “Who, Campbell?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. We couldn’t see him, damn it.” The worst sort of frustration rode him.

  That Abby could be gone and he had no idea where was as painful as it was impossible to believe.

  “It’s Lucas Brown.”

  “How do you know that? Are you sure?”

  “I have it right here. Listen to me.”

  He listened to Kensington recount the specifics. How the man had been born Lucas McBane Brown.

  How there had been several notations on file in the McBane security archives about a woman and her son who’d tried repeatedly to get entrance to visit Abby’s father on his business trips to the London office.

  Each and every one was denied.

  And then a rather large financial payment made to the same woman two years after Abby was born that had ended the visitation attempts.

  “It was a blip, Campbell. A well-buried blip. The only reason I even thought to look at it was that I kept asking myself what a powerful man like Abby’s father might have had in his closet.”

  “You found it.”

  “Fat lot of good it’s done.”

  “Actually, it’s done more than a lot of good.” Campbell felt the phone vibrate in his hands and removed the screen to look at it.

  And went still when he saw what came up.

  “Kenzi. I’m going to transfer you to David. The two of you can run point on Brown’s company. I know where she is.”

  “How?”

  “My ghost just took form.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Enough with the geek talk.”

  He didn’t have the strength to smile, but he did take comfort from his sister’s reaction. “No geek here. I cracked the device. The one Lucas stole from Abby.”

  “Yes?”

  “I can find him. He’s using a wireless device to manage the tracker and I’ve reversed it.”

  “You found him.”

  “Gotta go.”

  “Campbell! You can’t go in there alone.”

  “Work it out with David.”

  Campbell disconnected on the shouts of his sister.

  * * *

  Abby jerked her head back, the lazy edges of sleep clearing at the pain in her neck.

  Had she actually slept?

  Early morning light crept through the window and she knew she hadn’t been here all that long. Even so, her arms had gone numb and her legs felt like lead weights in the chair.

  Campbell.

  He was foremost in her thoughts, the only driving thought whether or not he was okay.

  The thought was swiftly followed by another. Where was Lucas?

  She sat still and tried to listen for any sounds—that subtle evidence that another person was in the same place as you.

  The soft creak of the hardwoods down the hall confirmed he was there and she took an easy breath.

  At least he hadn’t gone after Campbell.

  It still didn’t explain his game. What did Lucas want with her? Or them? Whatever it was, the evidence that his feelings were personal were mounting.

  “You’re awake.”

  “Hard to sleep tied up.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “You think I’m going to be here awhile.”

  He flicked a glance at her as he folded the cuffs of his fresh shirt. “Good plans take time to execute.”

  “There’s a plan?”

  At the mention of a “plan” her mind briefly latched on to the Joker in one of the Batman movies and his gleeful taunts that there were no plans.

  “Of course there’s a plan. I’m a strategic leader in my field. I know how to plan and execute. A well-planned strategy trumps flash each and every time.”

  “How long have you been working this one?”

  “About twenty-five years.”

  “What?” She did some rapid math in her head. “But you’re not more than thirty-five.”

  “In November, as a matter of fact.”

  “So how is it possible you’ve been planning to kidnap me since I was five?”

  “Ten was when the idea of vengeance first took root in my mind.”

  At his use of the word vengeance any hope this wasn’t personal fled.

  “Most ten-year-old boys are interested in footballs and trains.”

  He reached for the tie that hung around his neck and began tying a Windsor knot. “Let’s just say I was advanced for my age.”

  Diabolical more like but she held the thought. He was finally opening up and it would do her no good to bait him to the degree he refused to say anything.

  He crossed to the mirror that hung on a wall near the apartment’s entry. �
�Your innocence is charming.”

  “Innocent of what?”

  She saw his gaze flick to her in the reflection of the mirror, but still had no idea what this was all about.

  “Didn’t you ever wonder about your father? His youthful escapades.”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, my dear sister.” Lucas crossed the room, his gaze never wavering from hers as he placed one deliberate foot in front of the other. “The result of his escapades have thought about you.”

  Her brother?

  Shock layered over disbelief layered over a strange sense of happiness.

  A brother.

  His flat cold stare froze any semblance of joy, but even so, Abby couldn’t dismiss the way several pieces fit into place. The vague familiarity in his movements. Their easy camaraderie. An overall level of comfort with him she’d had from the start, even as there were no overtones of anything sexual in the least.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There was nothing to tell.”

  “Lucas! Of course there was.” The hard glint in his eyes caught her up short and she was forced to acknowledge there was no welcoming look in his gaze.

  No happy reunion or even any interest in one. “What did he do to you?”

  “Nothing. He did absolutely nothing.”

  She fought to find the right words to penetrate the cold. “Surely you can’t think I’d do the same.”

  “It’s too late to find out.”

  When the door slammed behind him, Abby knew it was true.

  Whatever forces had shaped him—her father’s clear dismissal of the boy’s existence at the top of the list—were too well embedded to be changed.

  She glanced down at her tied arms and knew her first hopeless moments.

  How would anyone ever find her? Or even know to look for her here?

  * * *

  “You can’t go barreling in there like the freaking cavalry.”

  David’s words were a strict warning and Campbell had gotten sick of listening to the man’s “recommended restraint.”

  He wanted Abby back and he had no interest in delaying that goal for any reason.

  “You don’t know how he’s got it armed, Campbell. We need to watch and observe. She’s alive.”

  “How do you know that?” His voice was quiet, the words lodged tightly in his chest.