He shrugged. “Enough.”
“Hmm. I already know the major stressor in your busy life is your business.” Her hand came up, her index finger displayed. “Count with me, Alex. High blood pressure. That’s one. Tension-induced migraines. Two. Chronic fatigue. Cardio-vascular issues. Problems sleeping. Probably upset stomach or gut-related issues on a twenty-four-seven basis, an ulcer you won’t admit you have, and constant backaches. Am I missing anything?”
By then she showed all ten fingers, which either meant she couldn’t count or a couple of those items counted double. There was no sense answering. She’d hit all the high points—or low points, depending on which side of the table you were sitting on.
“Stress is a killer, Alex.”
No shit. “Tell me something I don’t know.” He stared her down. “None of us are going to get out of this alive, Doc. What do you expect? Me to call in sick every time I wake up with a sniffle? Sorry, not happening.”
“You’ve got the flu, Alex, not just a cold, and because of your heart issues, you’re a patient at risk. You’re running a fever, I can see it in your eyes. Take your ibuprofen now, but I’ll have your pharmacy deliver what you need. Which do you deal with?”
Alex shrugged. He didn’t have a pharmacy. “Kelsey would know that.”
“Of course, she would. Did you ever stop and think that she worries herself sick about you? That maybe you expect too much of her?”
Damn, this woman of Beau’s was bossy, and staring her down wasn’t working so good. Alex rolled four of the pain meds out of the bottle and into his palm, tipped his head back, and swallowed them with the OJ chaser.
“There,” he ground out, wishing to hell the rasp in his voice didn’t make him sound like a liar. Cough. Cough. “Problem solved. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to work.”
“After you eat breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day.”
There went those lips again, only McKenna’d pursed them like she was thinking what to say next. Goodbye would’ve been nice, but Alex knew he wasn’t going to get that lucky. Not this time. He really was sick, damn it, with one of the many strains of damned inconvenient flu caused by an insignificant, microscopic bug that doctors and researchers should’ve found a way to eradicate years ago. But they hadn’t, and he felt like shit. That was enough to make him reconsider the home office Kelsey kept hinting they should organize.
Maybe it was time to step back and let younger men play god. Mark and Harley surely handled more than their fair share of meetings and deployments already. Beau had stepped up to fill Mother’s role. He and Ember worked together well. She kept him busy and engaged in learning The TEAM’s inner workings, when he might have withdrawn into his surly shell again.
Which was more than Alex could say for that ship anchor Tucker Chase had offloaded on him, that Camilla You-Pronounce-It-Kah-Me-Ah Brinkman. Ugh, his brain spasmed just thinking about her snotty I-am-better-than-everyone-in-the-goddamned-universe attitude.
If she’d been military, he’d have already dressed her down and ripped her a new one. But she was young and somehow fragile and... Shit. The woman was a freakin’ puzzle he hadn’t yet had the time nor the compunction to figure out. People weren’t born rude, and Alex knew she was smart. He wasn’t about to throw her back. Not yet. He didn’t give up on people, damn it. But if things didn’t change… If she didn’t pull that stick out of her ass and straighten up…
Ping!
The security app on Alex’s cell interrupted his mental rant, notifying him that the love of his life was home. Alex sucked in a gut full of relief. Until said love of his life burst through the kitchen garage door with Lexie in her arms and growled, “Don’t you dare think of going to work today, Alex.”
“But, sweetheart…” He still planned to blow off this temporary illness—cold or flu, it didn’t matter. Until he caught sight of his little girl’s red face.
Lexie looked like she’d been crying. Her eyelids were puffy and the whites of her eyes were pink. She stretched her arms out for him to take her.
“I want my Daddy,” she cried, her voice as scratchy sounding as his. “I sick. My froat hurts and I runnin’ a temper-ah-chur.” She said that big word like the big girl she was trying so hard to be. “And Mama says we gotta take a nap together or we gonna be gwounded for a week. She mad at me, Daddy. A whole week.” Lexie broke into tears the moment he cuddled her inside his arms.
“Mama’s going to ground us?” he asked, going for gentle, but he ended up growling like a bear.
Lexie leaned back away from him, her big brown eyes wide and glistening. “I don’t wanna be gwounded.” She hiccupped. “What’s a matter, Daddy? You sound scawy.”
Well, yeah. Alex cupped her sweaty head and leaned into her forehead. “That’s because Daddy’s sick, too,” he finally admitted. “Come on, tiger. Let’s go find Beagle Boy.” Her stuffed, plush raccoon.
“But I want Mommy,” Lexie sobbed even as she nestled her sweaty little body into him, her arms tucked between them and her head under his chin.
Man, this was everything Alex had ever wanted when he’d come home all those years ago to an empty house, his first wife and daughter dead and gone forever. Lexie was burning up, and he was such an ass, forever running off to work instead of watching his one and only baby girl grow, eating Oreo cookies with her in the kitchen… Doing all the things he missed doing with Abby. Kelsey was right. Of course, she was.
“I know, baby,” he whispered to the child he adored. “I want Mommy too, but she needs to talk with Doc Fitz right now. You want to sleep in Mommy’s room with me, or should I bunk with you?” For some reason Lexie had always called his and Kelsey’s bedroom ‘Mommy’s room’. Why wouldn’t she? Kelsey was usually the only one there when Lexie had a bad dream or a tummy ache.
“My bed’s too widdle!” Lexie bawled. “I wanna sweep with you and Mommy!”
And there it was, as plain and as simple as the cute little runny nose on her adorable red face. Lexie needed her dad, and Alex needed her more than he’d been smart enough to realize. That made his decision easy. Mark could handle Montego. And Montego? Well, she could go to hell.
Kelsey shot Alex a funny look when he lifted to his feet without further argument and retreated to their bedroom with Lexie tucked against him.
“We’re, umm, going to go nap, so we don’t get ‘gwounded,’” he told McKenna at the entrance to the living room. “Bring baby aspirin when you can get away from Mama Bear over there.” He nodded at Kelsey. “Two OJs would be nice. On the rocks. With those cute little bendy straws. You know how we like ’em.”
“I do,” Kelsey said quietly.
“And something to soothe that sore throat,” McKenna added.
“Yeah, well, okay. You’re the doctor. Kelsey, McKenna needs to call something into our pharmacy. I told her you handle important stuff like that.”
Kelsey broke into a sad smile. “I’m on it, sweetheart. Thank you.”
Alex nestled his chin into Lexie’s little neck, sick and tired but doing it at home for a change. He and Kelsey would talk later, after Doc Fitz left. He would ask how she’d gotten that dark bruise on her cheek. It wasn’t there last night. What’d she run into at work? A wall?
Chapter Eighteen
Renner leaned over Tara, needing to see those pretty eyes open again and clear. Needing to hear her tell him that she would be okay even though he knew she wasn’t. The slice on her neck was long but minimal. Her ex had only made a superficial cut. The ER doctor had glued it shut, but the others on her arm were deeper. They’d required stitches. Over a hundred. Her bastard ex-husband had scraped off a good portion of her cat tattoo as well. That couldn’t be stitched but was sealed at the moment with the same kind of glue. As a result of those combined injuries, she’d lost a lot of blood. For now, bags of saline and type-O IVs hung at her bedside.
Besides being dehydrated and hypothermic when she’d arrived, she had a
concussion. The side of her head was swollen and bruised. Renner felt like shit that he hadn’t taken Jorge down quicker, especially after he’d seen the clear signs of torture. He should have. Tara’s ex was not only a dangerous man, he was a sadist. And he would die in the near future for what he’d done to Tara if it was the last thing Renner did.
But now, like Alex, Mark wanted specifics. He started out slow and kind. “You need stitches.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“You want anything to drink? You hungry?”
Renner shook his head. Mark was just making small talk before the inquisition. Warming up. Batter, batter, batter…
“Precisely how long have you known Miss Shanahan?” And there it was. The sneaky fast pitch.
“Already told you. I bumped into her at McCormack’s last night shortly after sundown.” Renner tapped at his cell screen for the current time, realizing it had been another long day without sleep. Not that he was worried. Days like this one were a given in the Corps, especially for scout snipers, when a guy laid for days in the sand or the mud just for the chance to end a designated tango. “That makes it a half hour later than the last time you asked.” He didn’t look at Mark when he said that. Either Mark believed him or not.
“She’s not just a cat burglar, and that man she married on a drunken whim in Colorado is not just some terrorist.” The big guy sucked in a belly full of air, then slowly blew it out before he said, “Jorge Poerbatjaraka is a recruiter for ISIL. Right now, he’s working for the American turncoat who changed his name to Ahmed Al-Yousif, and who now lives in Syria under the protection of the current POS regime.”
“Yeah, I know. Ember told me.”
Mark leaned into Renner’s space. “He’s in Washington, DC, Renner. Right now. Al-Yousif is in our town, only he didn’t arrive on any transatlantic flights that we know of, which means he either came down through Canada or up from Mexico.”
That got Renner’s attention. “Are you thinking he’s planning an attack?”
“That’s exactly what he’s planning, but before you run off and do something stupid, relax. The FBI’s got this one and, just in case, I’ve also got Connor and Hunter watching him.”
“You know where he is?” Incredible. Some terrorist from the Mideast came to town and The TEAM was on him like white on rice. But Renner couldn’t catch a blood-thirsty serial killer from Cuba on her second whirlwind tour of the District.
“Of course, we know where he is,” Mark continued in that calm, calculating tone he used when he talked to Alex. “I’m going out on a limb here to say something I never thought I would or could say about the FBI…” He cleared his throat. “But I trust the particular FBI office that’s handling Ahmed Al-Yousif’s threat. Director Tucker Chase is all over this creep’s ass, and his people have already taken custody of Jorge Poerbatjaraka. We are officially off the case. I understand how you feel. I’d want to kill the guy if he hurt Libby, too. But you are not to go after him for any reason, understood?”
That was another thing. Mark now pronounced Jorge’s surname easily.
“Good, because tonight I’ve got better things to do. I’m going after Montego. Once and for all, that bitch is going down.”
“What I don’t understand…” There went that steady, patient tone again. “… is how you knew where to locate Miss Shanahan.”
“Because she called me,” Renner said to the empty space between him and Tara. Which wasn’t true at all. Kelsey was the one who’d called him, and she’d been frightened enough for Tara that she’d screamed in his ear. Renner’d never heard a woman scream like that. But he wasn’t about to tell Mark anything that would lead back to Kelsey.
“Okay, but then what? She didn’t know where she was. The police found blood evidence that she was inside Poerbatjaraka’s trunk. There was no way she could’ve known where he’d taken her, and…” Mark held up one hand. “…before you tell me you tracked her GPS signal, understand that I’ve already spoken with Ember. You did not request an assist from her to track any cell, and it can’t be done with a random third-party number you pulled off your caller ID. You know the technology behind GPS tracking, the network of twenty-four USA global positioned satellites transmitting information back and forth to receivers on earth. Triangulation, Renner. Zeroing down on one specific cell number is all about latitude, longitude, and altitude—but that’s only if four or more of those government operated satellites just happen to be in view of the designated cell you want tracked at the same time. Maybe Ember could pull off something like that, but you plain and simply do not have high enough Department of Defense clearance, her network of contacts, or her level of expertise, to get it done.”
Renner turned a half-smile on Mark. By expertise, Mark meant Ember’s ability to hack into most secure sites on the entire planet. “I’m insulted. You telling me I’m technically challenged?”
“I’m telling you I need the whole story.”
And there it was. The real reason Renner couldn’t leave Tara. She didn’t need some gentle, good-looking giant coaxing the truth out of her when she finally opened her eyes. Renner didn’t yet know what that whole truth was, only that he needed to talk with Kelsey before Mark talked with Tara.
Because things weren’t lining up. Kelsey had been with Tara at Hillcrest Heights, and Tara had been using Kelsey’s cell phone when Jorge struck. But why were they there and who were they meeting? For that matter, why wasn’t Kelsey at Raymond’s Kids home for runaways like she should have been? He’d checked. That was the first place he’d called once Tara was safely in the ER. He’d had questions for her then, but her staff said Kelsey had left early, that she had a pressing engagement that couldn’t wait. Somewhere between eight-thirty this morning and noon, Kelsey was not where she should’ve been. Instead, she was across the Anacostia River in a mostly African American, rundown section of Maryland. Doing what?
He now knew Tara worked for Kelsey, a tiny piece of intel Tara could’ve shared with him last night, yet hadn’t. Why not? Yes, she’d admitted she worked at a halfway house for runaways, and maybe she hadn’t intentionally concealed who her boss was, but most people would have been forthcoming about insignificant details like that. Unless...
Was it possible Tara was not who she said she was? Could she be part of her ex-husband’s terrorist scheme? Was the beating he’d given her a clever misdirect? A ruse? Just part of their plan to gain Kelsey’s sympathy? To get inside The TEAM?
Weary, Renner ran a hand over his face, scrubbing extra hard to get the cobwebs out of his mind. No. He’d seen the real Tara last night. She was no terrorist, and he was an ass, a tired ass, for letting his cynicism run away with him. Not every shadow was an assassin in waiting, and not every pretty woman had a bomb strapped to her belly.
But until he knew precisely what Tara and Kelsey were mixed up in, Renner refused to out them. Neither of them were idiots, nor were they untrustworthy. Besides, Kelsey was not one to take risks. That she’d put herself in harm’s way to protect Tara from her ex said a lot about her. Kelsey was loyal to a fault. Unfortunately, the window to contact her at home and ask those questions had come and gone. Renner wasn’t about to disturb Alex. Uh uh. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that…
Yet Renner couldn’t stay with Tara any longer. He needed to check in with Ember on Montego’s whereabouts. That was his primary mission. He needed to get back on the job. Mark had made a sound decision assigning Junior Agents Seth McCray and Beckam Garner to watch over Tara. Renner liked and respected those men. Seth was a man you could always count on to always do what was right. Beckam had only been with The TEAM two months. The former Army Ranger was green to the ways of civilian life, yet eager to work with the legendary Alex Stewart. Seth and Beck were a good match. Both Army, and both rock solid.
Yet he didn’t want to leave.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Mark asked quietly.
Renner shook his head. “To be honest, I�
�m not sure I know. But I need you to trust me.”
“Never said I didn’t. Just wish I knew how to help.”
“Then don’t let Tara out of your sight for a minute,” Renner said quietly as he lifted to his feet and watched her breathe. Man, her poor face. “She needs an ice pack.”
“You’re right, I’ll talk to the nurse and make sure she gets one.”
“Keep her safe.”
“Copy that,” was all Mark replied. “We’re in the home stretch, Renner. It’s up to you now.”
“Great. No pressure. Thanks for that.”
“I’m serious. You’re the only one who can bring Montego down. So do it.”
Renner looked into Mark’s eyes then. “Thanks, Boss.”
Yeah, Tara couldn’t be safer.
Chapter Nineteen
With Tara under armed guard, and Alex out of his way for the day, Renner aimed for Roslyn and McCormack Industries once again. But traffic on the George Washington Memorial Highway was thick. He was barely within sight of the Lincoln Memorial on his right when Ember’s call came over his hands-free.
“Renner,” he answered, braking as traffic ground to a full stop yet again.
“I couldn’t disobey Mark,” she led with.
“What are you talking about?”
“About you not asking me to track your friend-who-is-not-a-client’s GPS. If I’d known what was happening...” She choked. “If I’d known she was in trouble…I’m so sorry. I would’ve helped. I would’ve covered for you.”
“Stop. How could you have known what I didn’t even know?”
A sniffle came over the connection. “I will always help you, Renner.”
“I know. Anything else?” Some disgruntled driver had just careened into Renner’s lane. He didn’t mean to sound curt.
Renner (In the Company of Snipers Book 19) Page 15