The Enforcer

by Marliss Melton

  A metallic taste filled Dylan’s mouth. Adrenaline released an onslaught of fight-or-flight hormones that stirred visions of her vaulting over the railing at the edge of the mountain.

  “Easy,” Tobias crooned, as if privy to her thoughts. “Just stay calm.” He held a warm palm against the side of her face, anchoring her for the time being next to him. “I’m right here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “Someone is trying to frame me.”

  “Yes.”

  She remained rigid in her seat fighting to stay calm, to think. What if she’d done it and she just couldn’t remember? With a gasp, she looked at Toby. “You don’t think I shot General Treyburn?” she demanded.

  “I know you didn’t.” His certainty, radiating through the timber of his voice, quieted the fear that she’d finally lost her grip on reality.

  I’m not crazy, she assured herself. “I need an alibi,” she said out loud. “The urine and blood tests might prove toxicity, but everyone responds differently. Some people pass out on benzos; others remain conscious but can’t remember what they did.” Closing her eyes, she covered them with her fingers, searching in the darkness for clues about what had happened to her. The barest scraps of a memory floated through her mind. She tried grasping at them only to have them melt away like snowflakes under a baking sun. “I can’t remember last night at all!”

  “Shhh, stay calm.” He leaned in until his forehead touched hers, grounding her in his strength. “Hopefully, the results of the blood test will cast more light on the situation than the urine tests.”

  As he stroked the back of her head until her runaway heart slowed. Dylan groped for his other hand and held it tightly. “Thank God for you.” What would she do right now without him? She would surely lose her grasp on reality, that’s what. Her PTSD would get the better of her. “I love you,” she blurted, too afraid of her circumstances to care about the risk her words carried. Tears welled in her aching eyes. Without Tobias, her life would scarcely be worth living, especially now, with this going on.

  Yes, admitting her feelings for him stripped away the last layer of her protective shell, but she wanted him to know what a blessing he’d been to her, should the worst happen. She searched his stunned expression, wondering what his reaction would be.

  Toby drew a startled breath. Dylan’s confession spread through his consciousness to his extremities, warming him like a swig of brandy. Ah, Christ, she’d picked a hell of a time to admit to her feelings for him! And in a matter of days, after she learned who he really was, she was going to regret those unguarded words of love. All the same, he savored them for the momentary bliss they brought him.

  “I love you, too, babe,” he whispered, astonishing himself. The irony of his circumstances curled his upper lip. It had taken a feisty revolutionary, whose questionable stability made her an enemy of the state to win his heart. “And I’m not going to let you take the rap for this,” he swore.

  Determination roughened his voice and elevated his pulse. He squeezed her hand harder. Before she could react to his declaration, he prompted, “Try to remember what happened last night. Start with the last thing you recall.”

  Her brow furrowed, and her eyes slid off to the left. “I remember meeting with my last patient and grabbing crackers from the machine so I wouldn’t be hungry working so late. Then I stopped by the nurses’ station, and I checked in with Leigh. After visiting the restroom, I walked into my office and saw a cup of coffee on my desk with a note from the nursing staff.”

  Toby groaned as the source of her debilitation became apparent. “You drank a beverage you didn’t get yourself?” he asked, marveling at her naiveté.

  “The nurses bring me a mocha latte every morning,” she explained. “It never occurred to me to hold it in suspicion.”

  “Then either one of the nurses laced it,” he reasoned, “or whoever brought it to you knows about the nurses’ habit. What happened after that?”

  “I started reviewing my patients’ records and looking for trends when my eyesight gave out.” She fell quiet.

  “And then what?” he prompted.

  She struggled to remember. “I think I tried to stand up, and I couldn’t. I remember reaching for the phone to call for help and…I knocked over my cup. That’s it.” She shook her head. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

  “That’s good, though,” he said, encouraged that she remembered at least that little bit.

  “Next thing I knew, I woke up at my desk all confused. And that’s when I called you.”

  Toby scrubbed a hand over his face. God, if she could only remember more.

  “Wait.” A haunted look entered her eyes. “I think I remember dreaming that same dream…” Her voice faded off on a note of horror.

  “What dream, beautiful? Did you dream about your boys?”

  “No.” Her pupils shrank to pinheads, as if a bright light of fear suddenly shone on them. “I dream that I’m in an insane asylum,” she whispered, and a shiver ascended Toby’s spine. “I’m in a straight jacket and people are poking me with needles.”

  Christ. “How many times have you dreamt that?”

  “A lot.”

  “And you had that dream last night?”

  Awareness entered her eyes, as if she’d just put together the first two pieces of a scattered puzzle. “Yes, but—then it was real.”

  His scalp prickled. “What do you mean it was real?”

  She looked down at her fingers, curling the tips of them as if recalling some action. “I could feel carpet under my hands and something that felt like a candy wrapper. I was curled up in an enclosure of some kind. And I thought I could hear your voice in the distance,” she added, cutting him a startled look.

  Toby squeezed her hand. “That’s good,” he encouraged, both horrified and elated that she was remembering. “What else?”

  She went perfectly still, but after a moment, the corners of her mouth drooped, and she shook her head hopelessly. “That’s it. I can’t remember any more. My next memory is waking up with my head on my desk and the sun in the window.” Her face crumpled with sudden misery. “You believe me, don’t you, Tobias?”

  The depth of his own helplessness made him want to howl. “I believe you, Dylan,” he assured her gruffly. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her tightly to him and rocked her from side to side. “I’m sure the blood test is going to corroborate your story. You’ll be fine.”

  Providing the FBI couldn’t find some clever way to dismiss the evidence she presented; after all, they were bound and determined to bring a perpetrator to justice, and she was already a suspect for a similar crime.

  But for now, the best and only thing he could do for Dylan was to get her home so she could rest. Considering her mental-emotional fragility, not to mention the shock to her body, she’d suffered as much punishment as she could handle for one day.

  As for himself, he wanted to savor her confession of love for as long as possible. All too soon she would learn the truth about him. Kissing her cheek, he worked his lips closer to hers. Her clenched jaw slowly relaxed. At last, she turned her head and trustingly touched her mouth to his.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he reassured her.

  She lifted tear-stained eyes to him. “You love me?” she asked, as if doubting his earlier confession.

  Illogical joy buoyed his heavy heart. “Yeah.” He laughed aloud at how ludicrous it was that he’d fallen in love with the FBI’s top suspect. They were like two sappy kids so overwhelmed with their feelings for each other that the daunting odds against them could scarcely darken their joy. In all likelihood, Dylan would be charged with a crime she hadn’t committed. Her life was going to hell in a hand basket, but—right here, right now—what they’d found in each other made them happy beyond measure.

  Determined to make her smile, he started to sing his confession to the tune of the Happy Birthday Song. “I love you, I do. I love you, I do. I love you, dear Dylan. I love
you, I do.”

  By the time he finished, she was laughing and sobbing at the same time.

  Toby’s eyes stung as he regarded her. Framed by an autumn sea of undulating mountains and touched by a sun that turned her hair into a flame, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. If there were any way to keep her smiling through the hours and days to come, he would do it, but it wouldn’t be easy.

  ***

  “Wake up, beautiful.”

  A feather-light kiss on Dylan’s cheek roused her from a deep, dreamless sleep. Snapping her eyes open, she lifted her head to find herself stretched out on her own bed—not in Terrence’s room where she remembered being last. Tobias stood over her, cloaked in the mellow tones of dusk that shone in her three narrow windows. Even in the muted light, she could read his concern.

  “Did you move me in here?” she asked, still feeling disoriented.

  “Sure did.”

  “When? I don’t remember.”

  “Hours ago. You fell asleep in Terrence’s chair,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her hip. “The benzos are still in your bloodstream, making you drowsy.”

  Pushing herself into a sitting position, she encountered Milly snuggled against her other side. “What time is it now?”

  “Four thirty in the afternoon.”

  “Did the results come back from the hospital yet?”

  “As a matter of fact, they did.” He sent her a lopsided smile. “I had to charm the nurse into sharing the report with me. And, by the way, Leigh swears that neither she nor any of the night nurses brought you coffee last night.”

  “Then who?” Dylan asked. Who, besides, Wesley Hendrix hated her enough to drug her?

  Tobias shrugged. “If the cup and the note hadn’t disappeared, we could analyze the handwriting. Whoever it was, they picked up the spill, all except for a small stain on the carpet. Do you want to hear the results of the blood test?” he pressed.

  She swallowed heavily. “I don’t know. Do I?”

  “I think you do.” He sent her an encouraging smile. “There were high levels of—” He glanced at a word he’d written on his hand “—flunitrazepam,” he said carefully.

  “Rohypnol,” she breathed, supplying him with the brand name.

  All trace of his smile fled. “That’s the date rape drug.”

  “It’s one of them,” she confirmed, experiencing a peculiar mixture of relief and outrage. What had seemed more like a dream than anything else was fast becoming reality. She really had been drugged.

  Tobias reached for her. “Are you sure you weren’t—?”

  “Raped?” She rolled her eyes at him. “Honestly, that’s the least of my worries with potential murder charges looming over my head.”

  “Christ, Dylan. Who would do this to you?”

  She spread her hands. “Hendrix?”

  “I already checked out that possibility. He was admitted to Jefferson Regional Hospital last night and held for observation until this morning.”

  The reference to last night’s mission had her sitting up taller. “So you did it? How did it go?” In all the fuss surrounding her disappearance, she’d forgotten all about Tobias and Sheriff Fallon’s mission last night.

  Tobias grimaced. “Let’s just say he’ll think twice before prescribing Elypsia again. But if Hendrix didn’t drug you, then who did?”

  She blew out a breath. “Well, the director doesn’t care much for me, but I can’t imagine him murdering a general, let alone framing me for it.”

  “Both Nolan and Treyburn advocated military involvement in Syria. Who do you know that’s opposed to war—besides your priest?”

  She gasped at his implication. “My God, Tobias, you don’t think Father Nesbit could have anything to do with this!”

  He squeezed her thigh apologetically. “Honey, I don’t know what to think.”

  “No!” She pushed his hand off her thigh and struggled out of bed, forcing Tobias to get up and disrupting Milly’s slumber. “I’ve known him all my life,” she railed, pacing toward her dresser and back. “He and Cal Fallon were my father’s closest friends. He would never do anything to harm me.”

  Tobias held up both hands. “I’m not saying it’s him. I’m just asking you if you know anyone else opposed to our involvement in Syria.”

  She whirled on him. “Well, who wouldn’t be? No one in their right mind wants a war.”

  “You’re right.” His voice fell into a more soothing cadence. “No one wants war, but sometimes taking action is the only ethical thing to do. If we’d stopped Hitler early on in his career, six million Jews might have been saved.”

  Dylan couldn’t argue with logic like that, but it was warring individuals like Hitler who spawned aggression in the first place. She dropped her throbbing head into her hands. “It’s complicated,” she admitted.

  Tobias closed the gap between them. Pulling her hands from her face, he drew her into his embrace. “Hey, I’m right here,” he assured her, holding her close.

  Dylan burrowed her face gratefully into his shoulder and leaned into his strength.

  “Sheriff Hooper’s reviewing the footage on the hospital’s security cameras,” he added, “so if you never left the building then you have nothing to worry about.”

  She swallowed against the knot of fear in her throat. “But what if I did leave the building, and I just can’t remember?” she whispered.

  A knock at her partially open door prevented him from answering.

  Tobias abruptly released her.

  Gil Morrison poked his round head through the opening. “A couple of cars just pulled up outside,” he warned. “They look official.”

  Dylan sucked in a frightened breath. “It’s the FBI, isn’t it?” she guessed, observing Tobias’s grim reaction. “They’re here to arrest me.”

  “No.” He reached for her hand. “They’ll just want to ask you questions. Just tell them what happened to you. Tell them about the results of your blood test.”

  Her stomach cramped. “What makes you think they’ll believe me?”

  “If they don’t, they’ll conduct their own tests. They won’t arrest you, Dylan, not until they build a stronger case, and we’re going to keep that from happening.” He drew her gently toward the door.

  She resisted briefly, forcing him to look back. “You still believe me, don’t you, Tobias?”

  “I’ll always believe you,” he affirmed.

  That was all that mattered. He believed her, and he loved her. How could anything go wrong when she had all that going for her?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dylan entered her command room on knees that jittered. No less than three men in suits awaited her, two of whom had paid her a visit a month ago when they’d questioned her about the bombing of Secretary Nolan’s car. Under the suspicious and hostile gazes of her NCOs, the special agents milled about the room, eyeballing the maps and the easel and anything lying about, but not touching anything—yet.

  At Dylan’s entrance, they turned to face her. In the glow of several lit lamps, she could read suspicion in their alert gazes. Tobias’s hand at her elbow gave her the courage to lift her chin and acknowledge each agent individually.

  The one with the bristling moustache approached her first. “Charles Palmer, special agent in charge,” he reminded her with a nod in lieu of a handshake. “You remember Tibbs, and this is Special Agent Maddox.” The new man, Maddox, was a handsome mixed-race man in his thirties.

  “Three of you this time.” Dylan smiled bitterly. Was she such a dangerous entity that she merited three special agents?

  “Plus a forensics team outside,” Palmer informed her, causing her palms to sweat.

  “I see.” She clung to her poise. “Well, I know why you’re here.” She swallowed against the fear tightening her throat. “You think I’m involved in the shooting last night, just as you think I bombed the defense secretary’s car. I assure you I did neither, and I’m happy to cooperate in your investigation,
so you can find the culprit who did.”

  “Well…” Palmer looked bemused by her candidness. “We thank you for that.” He withdrew a sheaf of folded papers from the lining of his navy blue jacket. “I have a warrant here to search your property and to seize anything of suspicious nature.”

  “Search away,” she agreed. “But if you’re looking for my gun, I’ve already surrendered that to the Martinsburg Police. They’re investigating the matter of my disappearance last night. You’ll have to confer with them.”

  Palmer shot his colleagues a startled and disgruntled look. He withdrew a pen and pad of paper from his breast pocket and scribbled himself a note. “What’s this about your disappearance?”

  Dylan gestured to the sofas and the armchairs. “Why don’t we sit?” She suspected her amnesia story wasn’t going to help her cause any. If anything, it made her appear even more suspicious. How could Tobias be so sure they wouldn’t arrest her on the spot?

  His steady hand led her toward the loveseat. The FBI agents dropped into various chairs around the room while the NCOs continued to hover. Hopefully, Terrence had fallen asleep and was oblivious to her circumstances.

  As Tobias sat down beside her, Special Agent Palmer cut him a curious look. “Have I met you before?”

  Dylan spoke up. “Oh, no you haven’t. This is Sergeant Burke,” she said, making introductions. “He’s my…my senior operations NCO,” she finished, lamely.

  Something akin to comprehension flickered in Palmer’s eyes before he looked fixedly down at his notepad. “You were saying that you disappeared last night?” he prompted.

  The warmth of Tobias’s knee where it touched hers gave her the courage to put her account forward. She explained what little she remembered of the previous evening, how she’d worked late at the hospital; how she’d found a cup of coffee on her desk as she did nearly every morning. “I didn’t know it was drugged,” she added.

  Palmer’s eyebrows, as bushy as his moustache, shot toward his hairline. “Drugged?”

  “Yes.” She described how her vision had failed her, how she remembered knocking over her coffee as she passed out. “I woke up later, still groggy, and it felt like I was sitting in a dark, confined space. There was something under my hand—a candy wrapper.”