Packing Heat

by Penny McCall

  “No, I can—”

  “Listen to me,” he said, giving her a little shake when she tried to brush his hands off. “The only reason I’m letting them put me back in there is because I know you’ll get me out. Which you won’t be able to do if you’re in trouble yourself.”

  “But I lied to you—”

  “To save someone you loved. I’d have done the same.”

  She fought for another second, trying to pull away so she could do . . . She had no idea what she could do. She could barely think around the idea of Cole being back in that tiny cell he’d hated so much.

  “I’m trusting you to keep your head and do what you have to do.”

  She relaxed, all the fight going out of her at the word trust.

  “Harm?”

  “I’d promise you, but I don’t know how you can possibly believe any promise I’d make.”

  “Like I said, I trust you.”

  “Touching scene,” one of the agents grumbled loud enough for them to hear, and when they turned, he was reaching for a leather holder on his belt.

  “No cuffs,” Daniel said when his intention became clear. “Harmony.”

  She ignored Daniel, holding the arresting agent’s eyes until he followed Daniel’s instructions.

  “Wrap up here,” Daniel said when she finally turned her attention back to him.

  “Okay,” she said, steadying as she focused on what she could control. She needed to close the house up, get the rental car back, and check out of both hotels so she could make the next plane to D.C., whatever time that was.

  “Mike mentioned something about a car.”

  “A GT,” she said, adding it to her mental list.

  Daniel whistled slightly under his breath. “No wonder he wants it back. He said he’d let you know where to take it. Call me as soon as you arrive in Washington. If I’m going to get Hackett out of jail permanently, I’ll need your statement.” And he was gone, following the two agents and Cole up the stairs.

  Harmony just stood there watching them disappear, and then her brain kicked back in.

  Cole might be resigned to this outcome, but she sure as hell wasn’t. She’d had to accept a lot of things in her life—the death of her parents before she’d ever really known them, working a job she loved for people who had no faith in her abilities, and now being betrayed by the only family she had left. She’d be damned if she stood by passively while Cole went back to jail.

  Besides, he was right about the FBI. The powers at the Bureau handed down orders and expected everyone to fall in line so things worked out the way they wanted. And what they’d want here was to keep quiet what Richard Swendahl and Victor Treacher, two of their own, had done. They’d probably get Cole back in Lewisburg and decide that was the best place for him and his inside information about the double agent and the thief who’d held prominent, long-term positions at the FBI.

  And that was exactly why she’d get what she wanted this time. Unless she didn’t get her backside moving.

  She raced up the stairs to the main level and found the four men still standing in the foyer, Daniel and the two agents talking quietly. It made no sense until she caught movement beyond the stained glass sidelights. The paparazzi would have left when they realized no celebrities were involved, but they’d have been replaced by newspaper and television reporters, along with their camera crews. Judging by the number of shadows on the other side of the glass, there seemed to be enough media people to make it impossible to leave the house without becoming a part of the story. Which worked to her advantage.

  She put herself between the agents and the door, her hand resting on the butt of her gun. Not that she would have pulled her weapon on two FBI agents, a former U.S. Attorney, and a civilian. She just wanted to make sure they knew she meant business.

  Daniel stepped in front of the agents and Cole, and said, “I’ll handle this,” just as the front door eased open.

  Harmony automatically looked over her shoulder, expecting to see a reporter or photographer. Instead she came face-to-face with a slim, beautiful woman with long, dark hair.

  “Vivienne Foster,” she said, “but you can call me Vivi.”

  “Harmony Swift.” She shook the hand offered without thinking, even though she had to let go of her gun to do it. She felt a little jolt when their hands touched, which was probably just her own imagination, and Vivi’s reputation. She looked like she might be a gypsy, so it wasn’t that difficult to imagine her with a crystal ball and tarot cards.

  “I didn’t get to meet you in Boston,” Vivi said, “or to thank you.”

  “I had to get back to Washington. I, ah, wasn’t exactly on the clock, if you know what I mean.”

  “You’re an Aries,” she said with a slight smile. “Willful, enthusiastic, adventurous, honest.”

  “I could add an adjective or two to that list,” Cole put in.

  Vivi smiled. “People who are Aries are warriors, and warriors have no patience for obstacles.”

  Harmony ignored Cole. “I’m glad everything worked out,” she said to Vivi.

  “As it will with you. With both of you,” Vivi amended, tipping her head to one side. “In all matters.”

  Harmony felt better just hearing her say it. Maybe it was her own optimistic tendency, but there was something . . . calming and reassuring in Vivi Foster’s manner. She wasn’t placating. She believed what she said, and that gave it weight.

  “I thought you were going to wait in the car,” Daniel said to Vivi.

  “I prefer to avoid the media,” she explained for everyone else’s sake, “but I was concerned that something . . . unfortunate might happen.”

  “Like me doing something idiotic so I could rescue Cole?” Harmony said.

  “I don’t need to be rescued,” Cole put in crankily. “I can handle my own problems.”

  “This isn’t your problem. I promised you wouldn’t go back to jail.” The ragged edge of tears in her voice embarrassed her, but it softened Cole’s anger.

  “There’s no reason for you to ruin your career, Harm. And I won’t be in Lewisburg long, right?”

  The question had been directed to Daniel, but Harmony answered first. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve thought it all through.”

  “In the last two minutes?”

  “Are you going to make me shoot at you again?”

  “No.” Cole stepped away from the agents.

  “You won’t get away with this,” one of them said.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Harmony shot back. “There’s all the explaining the FBI will have to do about the hundreds of photos of Richard and his Cossacks being taken off in handcuffs. The Cold War is over, but I think national television news might still be interested to know what really went down today. If they find out Cole was instrumental in outing a double agent, they’ll wonder why he’s still in jail, and they’ll ask a lot of questions about subjects the FBI doesn’t want to become public knowledge. And let’s not forget the thirty million hostages.”

  “Thirty-five million,” Daniel said.

  It took a minute for that to sink in, and even then she didn’t want to believe it. “Where’s the other five?” she asked, although she already knew because suddenly Cole wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “We’ll sort it out in Washington,” Daniel said.

  “All the money will go back where it belongs,” Cole added, his gaze lifting to Harmony’s. “But it’s not about the money, is it?”

  Harmony saw the apology in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough. He’d stood right in front of her, ten short minutes ago, talking about trust and not meaning a word of it. And it wasn’t just ten minutes ago. They’d spent days together, days when she’d agonized over telling him one ridiculous little white lie. And the moment she’d felt like they had a real partnership she’d told him the truth, knowing he’d be angry. Even then, when the fireworks were over and they’d promised each other there’d be no more secrets, he’d been lying.

  “No
,” she said, “it’s not about the money.”

  chapter 30

  BY THE TIME A WEEK PASSED, MOST OF THE MESS HAD been mopped up. Richard Swendahl and his partners in crime were still in federal custody, and Harmony had given her report. As far as the FBI was concerned, the trial was just a formality. Richard’s completely uncoerced confession to Harmony while he’d been holding her at gunpoint meant he’d spend the rest of his life in jail. Known Russian mafiya members had denied any connection to Irina and Leo, but their collaboration in perpetrating a fraud on the U.S. government, not to mention the attempted murder of an FBI agent, meant lifelong incarceration for them as well. Harmony felt sorry for the other inmates of whatever prison Irina landed in.

  Scotty Treacher had been brought in for questioning. Fear of his father wasn’t nearly enough to withstand the combined efforts of Mike Kovaleski and Daniel Pierce, not to mention a strategic twenty-four hours in jail. He’d sung like a stool pigeon. He’d still go to prison—minimum security—but the testimony he gave in exchange led to Victor’s arrest, and the house of cards Victor had built on top of a stolen security system and a framed software specialist began to collapse.

  The fallout included two geeks masquerading as FBI agents, which explained why it had been so easy to get the better of them—time after time after time. It also answered the question of how Mike Kovaleski had been kept in the dark. Treacher being the head of Systems Security, no one questioned how he ran his department. It had been easy for him to talk two desk-ridden geeks into fulfilling their secret agent fantasies. They were singing, too, now. No one had been hurt, so all they could be charged with was impersonating federal officers. They’d get a slap on the wrist, and a ticket to the unemployment office. Treacher would face two more criminal counts: hindering a federal officer and attempted murder.

  Cole provided the coup de grâce, and he didn’t even have to give a statement to do it. A first-year law student could have tied the current testimony to the transcripts from Cole’s criminal prosecution eight years before, and come up with more than enough rope to hang Victor Treacher. Daniel Pierce did that, and forged it all into a key that unlocked Cole’s jail cell permanently. Despite Cole’s attempts to lock himself into a new one.

  Harmony had promised him he’d take no heat for her actions. She made sure he didn’t. Her gamble had paid off in a big way, sure, but the suits weren’t happy about the way she’d pulled it off—the U.S. penal system and the FBI made to look incompetent, not to mention the potential for serious trouble she’d risked in her balls-to-the-wall race across the country. The fact that no one had been hurt wasn’t nearly enough mitigation.

  It wasn’t even the truth.

  Another week had passed since Treacher’s arrest, but Harmony still felt sick to her stomach. Because she hadn’t faced Cole yet, and there’d be no hope of moving on with her life until she did.

  She took a couple of deep breaths and pushed through the revolving door of the Washington hotel where Cole was staying. She nearly ran into him.

  Harmony froze, her eyes dropping to the small black duffel he carried. “Going somewhere?” she asked him, amazed at her ability to speak, let alone breathe.

  “To find you,” he said, and the hope she’d thought dead began to warm her heart.

  “Then I saved you a trip.”

  He looked down for a minute, smiled a little, sadly, before he met her eyes again. “All business, Harm?”

  “I wanted to thank you for helping me—”

  “You didn’t come here because you’re grateful. You came here because you’re in love with me.”

  It was Harmony’s turn to smile, and her smile was just as sad as his had been.

  “You’re not denying it.”

  “Love isn’t blind, and it isn’t magic. I love you, but—”

  “You can’t forgive me for diverting the money. I gave it back, every cent.”

  “Maybe you’d like to have this conversation by yourself.”

  He blew out a breath. “I’ve done that about a dozen times in my head over the last two weeks.”

  “Then you know how it turns out?”

  “It turns out bad,” he said. “That’s why I was coming to find you.”

  “So I could let you off the hook? Fine, you’re off the hook. You can stop trying to convince everyone the whole thing was your idea. They don’t believe you anyway, and you’ve done nothing to be punished for.”

  “I lied to you.”

  “You had a lot on the line.”

  “So did you, but you told me the truth.”

  Harmony wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she didn’t.

  “Look,” Cole said, “I went into this hoping to find that new evidence you told me about. Failing that I intended to set myself up, disappear, do whatever it took to stay out of jail. But I should have told you what I was doing. I should have made it clear that it wasn’t you I didn’t trust. It was the Bureau.”

  “But you weren’t sure I’d choose you over my job.”

  He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, the prison buzz cut grown out an inch or so now. It made him look younger, and even more endearing. “In the beginning, yeah. You’re FBI. Going after a bunch of Russian kidnappers is one thing. Taking on one of your own—not just a couple of half-baked agents but someone with real power—is totally different. I figured when you found out about Treacher, you’d bolt.”

  “And you had no intention of going back to jail. I get it.”

  “No, you don’t.” He took her by the elbow and pulled her out of the doorway so the other guests could go in and out. The warmth of his hand, even through her light sweater, nearly brought her to her knees.

  “You proved me wrong, Harm,” he said, letting her go and putting some distance between them, as if he, too, had a hard time concentrating when they were close. “I meant it when I said I trusted you, but when it came to proving it—”

  She kissed him, just a peck on the lips, actually, but it did the trick. “I know you rehearsed and everything, but you need to let me talk.”

  Cole rubbed his fingers across his heart, his smile dawning slow and wide. “As long as you start all your sentences that way.”

  “If I did that in a building full of rooms with beds, we’d never settle anything.”

  “Verbal communication is highly overrated.”

  A typical male viewpoint, Harmony thought, and she needed to get the past cleared up if they were going to have a chance at a future. “I was hurt that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about the five million dollars,” she began. “I was still stinging from Richard’s betrayal, and it took me a little while to work through that, but once I had time to think it over it occurred to me that I’d be a fool to let the money matter.

  “You followed me into that basement, Cole, and you stood there while I blew the only advantage we had by putting my gun down and facing Irina one on one. You kept Leo out of my hair long enough for me to prove myself, and not to you.” She shook her head, realizing just how big a fool she’d been. “I was the one doubting my abilities. You gave me a chance to regain my confidence, and it could have cost you your life.”

  “You came here to thank me for that?”

  She bumped up a shoulder. She’d come there for so much more, but she couldn’t tell Cole that. She’d already told him she loved him, and he’d felt no urge to make any declarations of his own. When, or if, he did, she didn’t want it to be coerced.

  So she changed the subject. “Mike told me your system is going to be returned to you. Well, not returned, but at least attributed.” According to Mike, Scott Treacher had been paid five million for the software originally. Daniel Pierce felt that was too low a figure for a system of such magnitude—not to mention eight years of Cole’s life—and Daniel made sure the price tag included the cost of the frame Cole had worn for so long. “I’m glad everything worked out for you.”

  “That sounds like good-bye.”

  Harmony crossed her
arms, rubbing one hand over the ache just below her breastbone. “It seems like we’ve said everything there is to say.”

  “Have we?”

  “Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who rehearsed.”

  He slipped his hands into his jeans’ pockets and hunched his shoulders. “I never got this far before,” he said, just his eyes shifting from the floor to her face. “But I’ve been doing some thinking. A lot of thinking, actually.”

  “And?” she said, barely getting the word out because she was holding her breath.

  “I’ve always wanted to start my own security company—computer security.” He straightened, excitement lighting his face. “I have some ideas that will make my old system look like Swiss cheese. It’ll blow the computer security community’s collective minds.” He sobered. “But it’s not likely anybody will put their trust in me.”

  “You’ve been exonerated.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I was convicted. Once people hear that, they won’t want to know anything else about me.” He took a step toward her, just one step. Hoping, but not too much. “Which is why I need someone to front for me. Like a former FBI agent with an extremely trustworthy face.”

  “You told me I look like Barbie.”

  “Not a bad first impression. Especially if the client is male. Or Ellen DeGeneres.”

  “She and Portia need a lot of computer security?”

  “You never know.”

  Her heart soared. After everything she’d put Cole through, he was still willing to take a risk on her. “So . . .” She started walking toward him, very slowly. “You’re offering me a job?”

  “I know how much the FBI means to you, but—”

  “Meant,” she said. “Past tense.”

  “You were fired?”

  “I quit. Sort of. I’m sure they would have fired me anyway, or at least encouraged me to find other employment. Somebody’s head had to roll.”

  “And you sacrificed yours.”

  “Believe me, it was no sacrifice. And you were willing to go back to jail for me.”