by Jodie Bailey
Rather than replay his actions this morning, she focused on his story from the night before. His ex-wife’s betrayal had been brutal. It was bound to be something he still battled. Maybe his walking away this morning wasn’t about Macey at all. Trust was a big thing with him, and he’d said as much about God. He trusted God but not people.
Macey trusted neither. The people she could see couldn’t be counted on. How in the world could she trust a God she couldn’t see?
Pressing her palms against her eyes, Macey let the darkness swirl. Trey had been able to see his wife and look her in the eye, and she hadn’t been trustworthy. Her treachery had left Trey bruised and broken.
What did Macey do now? The last thing she wanted to do was to lose his friendship, even if it could never grow into anything more. Pursing her lips, she pulled out her phone and fired off a text. She’d head him off before he arrived and she had to look him in the eye.
We’ve been friends too long to let something stupid make it all awkward. Pretend it never happened?
Hopefully, he’d see it before he saw her. And hopefully it would be enough to salvage their friendship.
Outside, a green sedan slowed to a stop at the end of the sidewalk and a tall man with a military haircut stepped out.
Macey shoved away from the desk with a sigh and went to open the door for Tonya’s new cleaning crew. She’d have to find a way to address everything with Trey, to have a conversation that would at least make him believe she was okay with their near kiss leading nowhere.
She turned the key in the lock and shoved the door open, holding it for the man. “James?”
He stopped halfway up the short sidewalk, his foot sliding as though he was surprised to see Macey standing there. For a second, he regarded her with a look somewhere between confusion and anger, but then he seemed to come back to himself and gave her a small smile. “Yeah. I’m James.” He stopped just short of the door. “And you are...?”
“Macey. Come on in. You can wait in the lobby and I’ll get Tonya for you.”
He gave her an odd smirk, then nodded. “Tonya’s still here?”
Something about him gave Macey an odd chill, almost like fingers walking up her spine.
She shook it off. After the way her week was going, she’d probably be suspicious of any male who stepped within ten feet of her. Sooner or later, she had to get over this freaky paranoia. “In her office. She wasn’t sure if you were coming today or tomorrow.”
With a brief nod, he brushed past her into the waiting room and walked over to the reception desk, speaking over his shoulder. “Had some time tonight. Thought I’d go ahead and take care of everything now. You said she’s in the back?”
“Yep. I’ll get her for you.” Macey glanced into the parking lot. Still ten minutes until Trey was due. Surely she’d be able to think of something to say by the time he—
A soft sound came from behind her and a hand clamped over her mouth as an arm snaked around her neck and drew her back against a heavy chest.
She struggled and fought to scream, digging into the arm with her fingernails, twisting and turning as tears sprang to her eyes and her air gradually closed off to the pressure against her throat. She jabbed with her elbow and hit air, tried to throw her weight forward, but he’d planted himself too firmly, ready to counter her every move. Her side pulled and ached.
A whisper blew hot against her ear. “Knock it off. I already know you’re a seasoned fighter. You go quietly or I find whoever Tonya is and put a bullet in her head.”
Macey whimpered and froze, then fired a silent prayer to the God Trey believed in. Please. Please don’t let Tonya come out here. She slumped. The pressure against her throat made it hard to breathe. The pain in her side drove tears to her eyes. Fear pounded her heart against her rib cage. Even if she wanted to fight, she was powerless to do so, paralyzed by terror.
“Tell me where you put the intel. We paid for it in good faith.” His grip on her neck tightened and spots danced before her eyes.
Her mind spun. Intel? Payment? The words didn’t make sense. They fogged and scrambled as her body slipped into survival mode. She blinked and struggled to stay on the surface as darkness threatened to creep in.
The man dragged her toward the door. “Fine.” His hoarse whisper grated against her ear, barely penetrating the fog. “You can come with me. I have some good friends who know exactly how to make you tell us what we want to know.”
Macey’s breath stuttered on the edge of a sob. Nothing made sense. Nothing. His words... She had to be dreaming. This had to be a nightmare.
The world grayed around the edges. Her ears deafened her with a roar she could no longer fight off.
There was no help coming. And she was about to die.
ELEVEN
Macey is innocent. Macey is innocent.
Trey wrapped up a quick debrief with Macey’s new daytime security detail in a parking lot around the corner from her office and shifted his truck into gear, heading out to pick her up.
Macey is innocent. Macey is innocent.
Trey’s heart pounded the same rhythm it had picked up when Dana made her pronouncement just two hours earlier. Relief had lifted weight from his shoulders, made him feel like he could stand taller. Maybe even breathe easier.
The back of his mind cautioned that this changed nothing between them. But at least now, when he left her behind to move on to his next assignment, he could be assured that she wouldn’t go to jail for crimes someone else had committed in her name.
His relief blew away on a hurricane of anger. Olivia had betrayed Macey in a way no one should ever be betrayed. She’d toyed with Macey’s life, putting her not only in danger of federal prison for the rest of her days but also in danger of those days being cut short by someone Olivia had clearly double-crossed. Someone who now wanted Macey dead.
The team’s job had shifted. Captain Harrison had ordered them to protect Macey at all costs while searching for whomever was trying to destroy her. To find out what that person was searching for and to shut them down for good. Clearly, even though Olivia was dead, someone believed her pipeline of information was still wide-open and would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, even if it meant plowing Macey six feet under the ground.
The question was who. Jeffrey Frye was alive—or at least he had been on that video with Olivia—and he was clearly part of the plot against Macey. It was possible he wanted to finish what Olivia had started. Or had his brother Adrian bought the lies and was now seeking what they thought Macey possessed? Worse, was it an unknown actor? Someone they had yet to identify?
Dana was working every angle, but it would take time. Tracking down the living dead was a tall order.
The trick now was to figure out how to protect Macey twenty-four hours a day without her figuring out what was going on. This was still an undercover mission. And the longer she was kept in the dark about the danger she was in, the more likely they could get her through this without her ever learning that she’d been betrayed not only by Olivia, but by Trey, as well. As much as he’d like to rush her into hiding or into protective custody, they couldn’t. Such a move could prevent them from ever ending this for good.
He whipped the truck around the corner into the parking lot. Keeping constant eyes on her was key. It was the only way to ensure those men never reached her.
He rounded the slight curve in the driveway at Macey’s work and slowed to a roll. A green sedan sat at the curb in front of the sidewalk, two wheels up on the grass. Only one other car sat on the far side of the parking lot, a small red crossover with a stick-figure family in the rear window.
Where were all of Macey’s coworkers? Why was the parking lot empty?
And whose sedan was that?
Something was definitely not right.
The glass doors to the building flew open and a man backed out, draggi
ng a woman with him.
Macey.
Adrenaline revving into high gear, Trey fought the urge to gun the engine, opting for the element of surprise. He slid the truck into Park and eased out, leaving the door open and the engine on. He was running across the parking lot before he even had a fully formed plan. All he knew was that Macey was in danger and he was the only one who could save her.
The man dragging Macey down the sidewalk battled to hold on to her while simultaneously attempting to keep an eye on the surrounding area and any threats headed this way. He appeared to struggle with her as he covered her mouth and tried to drag her with him. An outline below his shirt at his lower back clearly showed a pistol tucked there.
Trey ran at full speed. He had one chance to take the guy down before he saw Trey and took his panic out on Macey or reached for that gun.
He prayed Macey didn’t get hurt in the melee.
When they cleared the building, Macey threw her weight backward and twisted her shoulders, throwing the man off balance. As he stepped sideways, Trey dipped low and dug his shoulder into the guy’s hip, driving all three of them to the ground.
Macey grunted, rolled to her side and lay still.
The man tried to flip onto his back to fight, but Trey had the height and strength advantage. He drove a fist into the side of the guy’s head and knocked him face-first into the ground. Trey leaped onto his back and pinned his face in the dirt with one hand while reaching for the handcuffs on the back of his belt under his shirt with the other.
With a moan, Macey rolled onto her back and stared at Trey, wild-eyed and terrified.
“Get inside. Now. Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone but me, no matter what you see.” He hauled her attacker’s arms behind his back and cuffed them tightly, then pulled the gun from the dude’s waistband and tossed it about twenty feet behind him.
Macey continued to stare, motionless. “Now, Macey. Now!” He hated to shout at her, but if this guy had friends, things were going to get ugly fast. She was safer inside.
As she edged back toward the building, her eyes never left the handcuffs Trey had shackled around the man’s wrists. She slipped inside and stood at the door, staring and shaking.
The man bucked. Trey pinned his head to the ground again, turning away from Macey’s horrified gaze. No matter what he did from this point forward, Macey knew she was in danger.
Even worse, she knew the depths of Trey’s lies.
* * *
She must be dreaming. She had to be. There was no way the events of the past hour had been real.
Sliding her hands forward on Trey’s kitchen table, she stretched out her arms and dropped her head to the cool wood. Her side ached and burned. The pounding pain in her neck and throat testified to the truth that the past hour had very much happened. A man had grabbed her. Threatened her. Tried to drag her away to tortures unknown.
And Trey... He’d taken the man down and handcuffed him. Two men in an SUV had raced in and hauled the man who’d attacked her away. Men who weren’t police but who had clearly known Trey very well.
Once again seeming to know he was needed, Kito crept under the table and nudged Macey’s thigh with his nose. She dropped a hand to his neck fur and buried her fingers there, grateful someone had thought to bring her precious companion to her. For a brief moment, with his blue eyes looking deeply into hers, she sank into a sense of peace.
It was short-lived. Her dog could give her comfort, but he couldn’t give her answers.
“Here.” There was a soft thud on the table near her head. A presence followed the female voice as someone slid into the chair beside her. “Water won’t make everything better, but it will help.”
Macey turned her face toward the voice, but didn’t lift her head or pull her hand away from Kito. It was as though her body had given up the fight and was determined to melt the bones right out of her. Clearly, it had taken her emotions along with it, because she was completely empty. Dead and cold. Unable to feel even the terror she knew lurked somewhere inside her waiting to pounce.
She looked past the glass of ice water condensing droplets onto the table and met the brown-eyed gaze of Trey’s friend Dana, a woman who’d greeted them at the door with a look of compassion and understanding. A woman she’d never seen before. Surely, Trey didn’t have a girlfriend he’d never mentioned.
Then again, he’d cuffed a man in front of her, so how well did she really know him? “Who are you?” Her voice came out on a croak that would probably last a few days.
The woman graced her with a soft smile and leaned slightly closer, her long dark hair falling over her shoulder to swing near her cheek. She laid a warm hand lightly on Macey’s back near her aching neck. “I’m someone who’s been where you are right now.”
Macey’s eyes slid closed. Cryptic. Too cryptic. Maybe she really was dreaming. Maybe she’d been deprived of oxygen for too long. People talked in riddles or acted...well, not like themselves. Trey had practically thrown her into his truck and raced home, one hand gripping hers as he talked through his Bluetooth about things she couldn’t hear over the whirlwind in her brain and in her life.
When they’d arrived at his house, he’d ushered her inside so fast she hadn’t had time to protest that she wanted to go home. He’d pulled her to his chest, holding her close for a long time before handing her over to this woman with only a name.
Now he was somewhere in the house. The low murmur of his voice drifted up the hall. Macey desperately wanted him to come back and hold her again because, in that moment, in his arms, she’d felt safe and protected. Given what she’d seen and experienced, she shouldn’t have, but she definitely did.
The shiver started deep inside her, somewhere she couldn’t identify, and worked its way out to her fingers. She pulled her hand from Kito, who lay on her feet, and wrapped her arms around her stomach.
Dana got up and came back with a blanket that she draped around Macey’s shoulders.
Macey sniffed when she recognized the blue material, a sudden rush of tears threatening. She swallowed them even though it hurt. “I bought this for Trey for Christmas.” He carried that St. Louis Blues blanket to her house every time he came over to watch hockey. A few times, he sat on one end of the couch while she sat on the other, the blanket covering both of their laps, even though they never touched.
Dana sighed but said nothing. Instead, she reached out a slender finger, swiped a bit of condensation from the table and then wiped it on her jeans. A diamond ring glistened on her finger. Maybe that was why Trey had backed away. “Are you engaged to Trey?” Why else would this woman be in his house, touching his things? The thought ached in her heart more than the strain ached in her throat.
This time, Dana laughed out loud. It was short-lived but packed with humor that was totally out of place. “No. I’m engaged to Rich, the guy who helped Trey hang your door last night.”
With what felt like the last of her strength, Macey pushed up from the table and sat back, sagging against the chair. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and angled toward the Dana woman, who reminded her a bit of some Lewis Carroll character in Wonderland.
Maybe that was it. She’d fallen through the looking glass.
“Can I go home?”
“How about we wait a few minutes? I think Trey wants to talk to you first.” Dana slid the glass closer to Macey. “And I do, too. I meant what I said. I’ve been where you are.”
Something inside Macey snapped. The fear and confusion all erupted and exploded on this stranger who claimed to know what she was going through. There was no way anyone could understand. “You’ve been attacked by strange men and don’t know why? Had your house broken into? Been stabbed by a guy wielding a box cutter?”
A sad smile lifted one corner of Dana’s mouth. “My threat was knives, not a box cutter. Many, many knives.”
&n
bsp; Macey straightened. There was no way this woman was telling the truth.
Or was she?
Dana sat back and crossed her arms, her eyes haunted in a way that couldn’t be faked. “I used to work for the US Marshals Service in WitSec. The long and short of it is that someone wanted revenge on my birth parents, so they came after me.”
She held her hands out in front of her and ticked off items on her fingers. “I was almost kidnapped from a friend’s wedding, attacked in my own apartment, held at knifepoint more than once...” She stopped and lowered her hands to the table, staring at them as though they had her story written between her fingers. “It was a rough time. But in the midst of it, I found Rich. Sometimes, these things come with a silver lining. Rarely, but sometimes. Too often in WitSec there were no upsides to situations like ours. But sometimes...” She arched an eyebrow and shrugged. “There are times when God steps in and brings a blessing you never saw coming.”
God again. First Trey, now this stranger who shared her story. With two women who’d been traumatized and terrorized sitting at the same table, it was hard to believe God was looking out for them. “Y’all keep bringing Him up. I just don’t see it.”
“Look at the positive instead of the negative. You’re alive and safe here. You’re beside someone who knows exactly what you’re going through and can help you. Your home is intact. I’d say God’s been pretty busy on your behalf.”
“Maybe.” It was too much to think about. The idea of some all-knowing, all-supreme being up in Heaven watching over her wasn’t where her radar wanted to go. “That man at work... He thought I had something of his. He threatened to—” Macey swallowed bile that tried to rise in her throat and waited for her voice to cooperate. “He threatened to torture me. I have no idea what he’s talking about. All of these things are connected, aren’t they?”
She turned toward Dana and grabbed the woman’s forearm with both hands, trying to hold on to reality the only way she knew how. “I wasn’t randomly attacked. Somebody thinks I’m someone else. Or they think I have something they want.” Her heart rate accelerated and her words came faster as her fingers dug tighter on Dana’s arm. “If I knew what it was, I’d give it to them. I’d give them anything they wanted. I’d—” She sucked in a quick breath, released Dana and turned her face to the ceiling, shouting raggedly at a God she wasn’t certain existed. “Just give me an answer if You are really up there!”