Constant Craving (Task Force Hawaii #3)

by Melissa Schroeder

  “Got here last night. Talked to him this morning.”

  Fear spiked. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Said something about wanting to talk to that Edwards woman in person.”

  “I didn’t know he was here.”

  “It’s not his first time.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “He was here a couple months ago. I thought he said you two got together.”

  Something was definitely off. He wasn’t afraid right now. He was pissed. All the blocks were starting to fall into place, and he didn’t like where they fit.

  “Wait, he actually said we got together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t even remember a memo saying he was coming by.”

  “He didn’t come officially.” Tsu sighed, and rose from the chair to get more coffee. “He came here because he’d just been served with divorce papers. Or, that is my assumption—I can’t really remember. I know he tried to cover up the problems in his marriage for awhile before his wife pushed for divorce. I swear he said he saw you.”

  “When was it?”

  Tsu shrugged. “Couple of months.”

  He grabbed his supervisor. “When?”

  When TJ heard the dates, his heart almost stopped.

  “Fuck.”

  He didn’t know what it all meant, but the fact that his mentor had not contacted him was beyond troubling. He started back to his office and pulled out his cell to call Charity, but it went straight to voicemail. He frowned and tried again.

  Nothing. That was odd, but he knew there were dead zones at TFH, especially in her lab. Still, something churned in his gut. Something was really off, something bad.

  He grabbed his keys and was out the door. He didn’t know what the fuck it all meant, but he knew it wasn’t good. He just hoped it had nothing to do with Charity.

  Charity looked back over her list of occurrences for the last month and sighed. There wasn’t much to it, but it all centered around her and TJ. She knew that she didn’t do anything to get on the radar of anyone at the FBI. Nothing. The one ripple in the calm waters of TFH was TJ. It all seemed to have something to do with him.

  She knew he had nothing to do with setting her up, but was someone setting her up to set him up?

  With a groan, she closed her eyes.

  “Now you are making no sense, Edwards,” she murmured.

  Opening her eyes, she sighed. It was best to just close everything down and go to the hospital. She’d been getting texts from the hospital from everyone on the team. The latest was from Graeme, who said Del had passed out at one point and bashed his head. She smiled. She loved when a big old Alpha man fell hard for a woman.

  After her computer shut down, she stood, grabbing her pillbox purse. She couldn’t wait for the baby. She wasn’t one for babies and such, but Emma wasn’t the only person who thought of TFH as a family. Emma was like a sister to her, and so she looked at the new baby as her nephew or niece.

  There was a footstep in the hallway and her heart jumped. It pounded in her neck. She knew it wasn’t anyone from TFH because they were all at the hospital; more than likely causing a ruckus and driving the staff crazy. As a group, they were pretty annoying, she thought with a smile. Couldn’t be the cleaning crew. They didn’t come in until eight at night.

  “Hello? TJ?”

  As the silence continued, her nerves stretched tighter.

  “TJ?”

  Nothing. No word. She tried to call TJ, but her phone was dead. Then, a large man appeared; older, with a bit of gray in his hair, and an unsmiling face. He was wearing a pair of khakis, and the ugliest Hawaiian shirt she had ever seen—and that was saying a lot.

  “Sorry, no. Callahan should be here soon, though, but maybe I should introduce myself. Stan Remington.”

  “TJ’s old boss.”

  He smiled, but there was no humor in it. In fact, there was an gleam to his eyes that could only be described as evil. “Yes, that’s right Ms. Edwards.” He moved his hand, and it was then she noticed the gun. “But you know me better as Edward Foley.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Anger and fear rode shotgun on the drive from FBI headquarters to TFH. By the time TJ turned onto Ward Avenue, he was about out of his damned mind. He’d paid no attention to traffic rules and regs. The only thing he cared about was getting to Charity before Remington could hurt her.

  His phone buzzed. It had done that several times since he’d started on his way over. He knew it wasn’t Charity. Every time, it was Tsu looking for him. The buzzing stopped after a moment.

  TJ pulled into the visitor parking behind the building. When he grabbed the phone, he almost growled when he saw it was Tsu, again. He didn’t need interference from another FBI supervisor.

  He wanted to avoid him, but TJ knew better. His supervisor wasn’t going to let it go.

  “What?” he snarled.

  “Where the fuck are you, Callahan?”

  “At TFH. I can’t get hold of Charity, and Remington is off the grid.”

  “Way off the grid. He disappeared from DC yesterday. He just left, no leave. On top of that, there is no record of him coming here.”

  “Which means he’s not here to play nice with anyone.”

  “And now, he’s not answering anything. His phone or email.”

  “Great.”

  “I’m calling in HPD, and I’m on my way over there now.”

  “Gotcha. Treat it as a hostile situation.”

  “I would rather you wait for us,” Tsu said.

  “I’d rather you not make me disobey an order.”

  There was a long beat of silence. “Okay. No orders. We’ll be there as fast as we can, and the HPD should get there before us.”

  TJ clicked off his phone and slipped it into his pocket. After stepping out of his jeep, he grabbed his bulletproof vest. He knew that Tsu had people coming, and the HPD might have been alerted, but for now, he was in charge. He wasn’t going to wait.

  He approached TFH headquarters with an eye out for anything suspicious. Everything looked normal, eerily so. He knew the team was gone, attending Emma at her delivery, but this felt as if it was too serene. He tried the front door and found it unlocked. He frowned, knowing that Charity had said she was in lockdown. He pulled his gun out of the holster and opened the door. As he walked down the hallway, his phone vibrated. It was Charity.

  He turned it on, his heart finally beating normally again.

  “Hey, there.”

  “So nice to hear your voice, Callahan.”

  Icicles formed in his blood when he heard Remington’s voice.

  “Remington.”

  “One of my brightest protégés. You were always quick. It’s one of the reasons I liked you, but never trusted you. And you always had wonderful taste in women.

  He spoke in a normal voice, as if they were discussing the weather. It was cold-blooded, and that bothered TJ more. That meant Remington thought he was in charge of the situation and, at the moment, TJ was worried that he was.

  “Where are you?”

  “We are down in Ms. Edward’s lab.”

  Then the line went dead. TJ heard the sirens outside, but ignored them. With dread hanging over him, TJ made his way to the stairwell. Keeping his back to the wall, he walked down the stairs, and made it to Charity’s hallway pretty fast. He heard voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Charity almost felt numb. It was like she was in the middle of some horrible movie of the week on Lifetime where her stalker was now going to kill her. She felt as if she were watching it from a distance while she was in the middle of it. And that told her how freaked out she was if she wasn’t making sense in her own head.

  Her captor hadn’t said much. He’d muttered plenty, but very little of it seemed to make sense. He’d used the gun to force her to sit down while he used plastic cuffs to restrain her. She knew from her training, the best thing to do was to engage him. If she could get him talking, he would
be distracted, and that would help TJ.

  She closed her eyes as terror screamed through her system. Just thinking his name had her losing her sanity. She couldn’t think of him. Not now. She knew he was on his way down, but she had to put him out of her head. If she didn’t, she would surely panic.

  “Have you even thought this through?” Charity asked.

  He snorted. “Yes. You have no idea how long I have been planning this.”

  She didn’t really want to know. The thought that a man TJ looked up to, thought of as a mentor, was capable of doing this just made her sick. She could only imagine what this was going to do to him. At the moment, he would be ready to kill Remington for threatening her. Knowing that Remington had used that trust to commit crimes was going to tear TJ’s heart out.

  “Tell us, how long have you been planning it?”

  TJ was standing there in the doorway, as big as day. Relief came first, leaving her almost dizzy, but then, she realized he was a target. Anger and fear came rushing back. What the hell, was he standing there waiting to get shot? He had a bulletproof vest on, but that didn’t protect his head. The idiot was going to get himself killed.

  “First, let’s drop the weapon there. On the ground.”

  He didn’t pay any attention to Remington. His gaze moved to her. “How are you doing, Charity? Did he hurt you?”

  “No.”

  Something must have eased his worry because his expression lightened. She watched as TJ dropped his gun on the floor.

  “Kick it over here.”

  TJ did as Remington ordered, but the slight tightening around his mouth told her that he wasn’t happy with having to do it. Of course, he wasn’t. He was virtually unarmed now. TJ didn’t carry a lot of weapons on him, and that was probably the only one he kept with him throughout the work day. Why did he need weapons? He was a cyber geek.

  “That’s a good little FBI agent.” The gleeful tone to Remington’s voice made Charity’s stomach turn over. “And, to answer your question: Years. Of course, this little bit was last minute, or I should say, the last six months.”

  “Why?”

  “Why would anyone do something like this? Money.” Then Remington snorted. “Of course, Captain America wouldn’t understand that. Too much pride for that, right, Callahan?”

  “No. It’s the fact that my parents raised me right.”

  Another snort, but she felt the barrel of the gun ease back from her temple.

  “Sure, sure, the sainted Callahans.” Sarcasm replaced the glee and Charity welcomed it. She could handle that over someone being happy about deceiving and planning to kill TJ. “Well, after twenty years, I was ready for a new start, for something all mine.”

  “You killed people. Ruined lives.”

  She didn’t dare look at Remington, but she felt his shrug. “They were stupid, and many of them had already been committing crimes on their own. I just helped the FBI take them down for something else.”

  Charity watched TJ’s jaw flex, telling her he was grinding his teeth. Remington probably knew his comments would get to TJ and was using it to hurt him. That made her want to hurt the bastard even more.

  “So, what is going to happen here?”

  “Ah, yes, the plan. You were always one with a plan, weren’t you, Callahan? Hell, you have lists and lists of shit to do in your head, don’t you?”

  “At one time, you thought that made me a good FBI agent.”

  Another snort. “It made you easy to control. You wanted so badly to be accepted on merit that you would do anything to get it.”

  “Being prepared and being good at my job have nothing to do with that.”

  “Sure, Callahan. I’m sure you have no daddy issues, right? That your need to succeed at the FBI wasn’t to prove to everyone you were better than your father.”

  “No. No daddy issues, other than the fact I was raised to do the right thing. Apparently, you weren’t.”

  Remington grunted, but didn’t say anything else.

  “Your plan now?”

  “Well, my plan is to kill Ms. Edwards.”

  Her stomach churned, and she had to swallow bile that had risen into her throat. She knew that had been his objective, or at least some facsimile of it. But hearing it expressed out loud left her physically ill.

  TJ, once again, remained cool under pressure. “What is that going to get you?”

  “You’ll take the fall. I’ve done enough to plant the information. Dangled her out in front of you like a prime piece of meat. She is definitely your type.”

  The anger and fear that had been dominating her feelings now had a healthy dose of irritation. She might be forced to take some maniac with a gun, but she would not be put into a category.

  “What do you mean by that? I am not a type. I am an individual.”

  Remington pressed the barrel harder against her temple.

  “Charity,” TJ said, exasperation filling his tone.

  Remington went on. “You are definitely his type. Smart, pretty, a little on the curvy side. He likes a woman with a little spirit in her. You were perfect, and you were easy to set up. So easy. Now, it will look like you were working for him, and he was the one who was calling the shots.”

  TJ shook his head and stepped a little closer. It was then that she realized he had been inching forward for the last couple of minutes.

  “You can’t get away with it. Cops are on their way.”

  “You think I don’t know how to stage a scene? After all this time, are you really still that naïve?”

  TJ said nothing. He kept staring at Remington, and she could see his mind working. TJ never sat back and let things happen. He would plan, and then he would execute the plan. Right now, he was figuring something out in his head.

  “Nothing? You have nothing to say?” Remington’s voice had raised to a shout.

  TJ shrugged, pretending indifference. At least, she was hoping he was pretending indifference. If he wasn’t, she might just kill him if they got out of this.

  Then, without looking at her, TJ said, “Don’t move, Charity.”

  Before she could blink, TJ rushed Remington. Remington turned, swung the gun in TJ’s direction, but there wasn’t time for him to shoot. TJ tackled him, and they went falling to the floor. She jumped out of the chair and searched for something, anything to hit Remington with. They rolled around, punches being thrown, and TJ got in a few before she heard the gun go off.

  Fury and terror exploded within her. With a scream, she grabbed an award she had won when she worked for the CIA. It was metal, and she knew it would hurt. Remington turned toward her, and she whacked him across the face with the figurine. He fell back, his hand hitting the credenza, causing him to lose the gun. Charity paid no attention to where it went. Remington was trying to regain his balance, so she concentrated on him instead. Without full use of her hands, since they were still restrained, she used what she knew from defensive training, and what her mother had taught her. She lifted her knee and hit him in the face. The sound of crushing bone left a sick pit in her stomach, but she ignored it. She had to make sure he stayed down.

  “Bastard. You do not hurt my man, and I am definitely not a type.”

  She was still kicking him when she felt hands on her arms. She spun around, ready to attack, but found it was TJ.

  “Hey, babe, calm down. He’s unconscious, I think.”

  “If not, I’ll make him wish he was,” she said, biting out every word as she turned to kick him again.

  “It’s okay. We’re safe.”

  His steady voice calmed her nerves. He grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk and cut her restraints. The normalcy of his actions calmed her down, until she looked at him. He sported a split lip, and blood stained his white shirt on one shoulder.

  “You’re hurt.”

  He shook his head, then winced. “Damn, that...”

  His words trailed off, and his face lost a lot of color. He closed his eyes and swallowed. Charity knew that h
e was probably trying his best not to throw up. Before she could say anything else, police and FBI were pouring into her office. With them, she saw Adam and Marcus.

  “You really know how to throw a party, Charity,” Marcus said with a smile. “Whoa, Callahan, you don’t look so good.”

  “I’m jusss fine.”

  She shook her head, feeling slightly off center herself. She knew the adrenaline was starting to dissipate. “You are not fine. The bastard shot you.”

  “Tis nothing but a flesh wound.”

  “Sit down.” She helped him into the chair in which she had been held hostage. “Where are the medics? Did someone call?”

  Before anyone could answer her, EMTs came rushing into the office. There were two, a large Hawaiian man she’d seen before, but didn’t really know. The woman of the pair was someone Charity had talked to before; although, she couldn’t remember the woman’s name. She was a head shorter than the man, but definitely in charge.

  “You need to get out of the way,” the female EMT said.

  Charity hesitated, then after one more squeeze to TJ’s hand, she stepped back.

  As the EMT’s started to work on TJ, she turned and saw an FBI agent cuffing Remington. He didn’t look so threatening now. They gave him a tissue to hold against his bleeding nose—which she was sure she had broken—and he definitely was going to have some massive bruising on his face.

  Then, in one split second, he raised his gaze to hers. He snarled his lip, and then lunged in her direction as he screeched. Her heart jumped into her throat, but she fisted her hand just in case he got close enough for her to punch him. He didn’t get far. FBI Agents grabbed him and held him back. But, before she knew what he was doing, TJ was standing in front of her as if to protect her again. He swayed a little bit, but he stood there waiting until they pulled him back. It was then she realized there was blood on the back of his head.

  “You stay the fuck away from her, Remington. If you ever get close or even think of hurting her again, I will tear you into so many pieces, they will not be able to identify your body.”

  The agents tugged on Remington hard, and then gave up and dragged him out of the office.