by Desiree Holt
“B-But she’ll need—”
“Both of us. I’m telling my partners to take me out of rotation until she’s back on her feet.”
Peyton was astounded. She’d never expected anything like this. It shocked her that it had all happened in the space of just a few days, but she felt like Blaze did. This was it for her and she was thrilled that he felt the same way.
She smiled up at him. “Is it too soon to say I love you?”
“Hell, no. Not soon enough for me. When Brianne’s well enough, we’ll get married. Again, I’m not asking. I’m telling. But you can be damn sure I’ll make sure the world knows you’re taken. I love you, Peyton.”
“I love you, too, Blaze. You make my life complete. No, scratch that. Remember how I told you my life was in retrograde? Well, now it’s moving forward, and all because of you.”
He startled her by lifting her in his arms.
“Then I think we’d better do something to seal this deal.”
She laughed all the way to the bedroom.
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Galaxy: Critical Density
Desiree Holt
Excerpt
How fucking long can they keep me here?
Hannah Modell looked out of the window of her hotel suite to the esthetic view of…the parking lot. Beyond it, she could see other buildings in downtown Houston, accented by the sparkle of the evening’s lights just coming on. Traffic filled the streets as people came and went, punctuated by the impatient honking of horns. She’d be happy to be in that irritated crowd. She’d be happy to be anyplace except this hotel. Scratch that. Anyplace except for Houston.
Fourteen days since it had happened, and she was still shocked by the whole thing. She and the rest of her GO-Team had been in a remote location, delivering explosives to take out a key terrorist figure who was hiding out in a house in upstate New York. The word was he was planning a strike on a major United States city and their assignment was to take him out first.
Her GO-Team had been flown to an isolated location to launch the drone, which was outfitted with special equipment because of the explosives, and had a long-range capacity. People from various branches of the government and the military would be back at Lowden, watching the feed from the camera on the drone. It was only the third time Hannah had been tasked with doing something this enormous and she’d spent hours checking and double checking everything to make sure nothing would go wrong. She knew she’d probably driven her team nuts, but she hadn’t cared. There was no room for error in a situation like this.
She was stunned when the helicopter carrying Greg Kingsley, Lowden’s vice president, had shown up at their site. Jumping out of the chopper, he’d told them they had to shut down the job. Right. Now. Right that minute. For a moment, she’d just stood there, stunned.
‘But—why?’
‘There’s a situation, Hannah. Something went wrong big time with the drone delivery. A fuckup and we have a tragedy on our hands.’
‘A tragedy?’ She’d stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language.
‘Worse than that. A disaster of epic proportions. We have to get everyone out of here while we sort this out.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. Lowden needs to see you ASAP, since this is your baby.’
What the hell?
She’d pestered him for details, but he had little to say beyond what he’d told her. Just said to wait until they were back at Lowden. She could not understand how this had happened. Misdirect a drone to dump its payload in a different place? Her? Hell, no. She was committed to her job, her country, her patriotism. That was why working for a paramilitary company that did black jobs for the government had been so satisfying, because she got to serve her country in a way a lot of people never could. She didn’t even have friends outside of the job. How disgusting was that?
The moment they’d landed at the complex, they’d hustled her right to Eric Lowden’s office, where he’d told her she was off the job until the situation was resolved.
Situation? This was a hell of a lot more than that.
‘Situation?’ She’d repeated the word.
‘Your drone flew off course.’ Lowden didn’t mince any words with her. ‘I don’t know if the programming got screwed up or something else did. The fact remains that somehow that drone ended up at Senator Mark Hegman’s summer house and blew it all to shit. Including the senator. We’re just damn lucky his wife wasn’t there at the time.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Her stomach had cramped and a chill slithered down her spine. ‘How did this happen? I double and triple checked all my settings and we tested it several times.’
“That’s what we have to find out.”
He continued talking to her in a low voice, but underneath it was hard anger at what a disaster this was for Lowden Tactical. She knew they had to fix this.
She could still hear his voice in her head.
Don’t worry, Hannah. We need to keep you tucked away for your own good. We’ve got nice accommodations for you, Hannah. You’ll be very comfortable while we sort this out. We just need to keep you away from the media while we figure out how it went wrong. You understand.
No, she didn’t understand. She wanted to go home. Why couldn’t she hide away there? Oh, right. The media. Lowden explained very carefully what a disaster that would be.
Although Lowden’s voice had been even and reassuring, it left no room for argument as to what the plan was going forward. He was, after all, the boss. Someone had to take the fall for this, someone other than him. Comfortable, huh? Yeah, right. Why couldn’t she be comfortable in her own apartment? She had the sickening feeling they were going to keep her under lock and key until they could definitively blame the whole thing on her.
You understand why we just need you out of the office, right? And available while we look into this? And as I said, away from the media. If you’re not guilty, you have nothing to worry about. Besides, you might not be safe at home.
Not safe? Who would she be in danger from? Did they know? Or was the evidence not that conclusive? It was, after all, as Lowden had pointed out, her drone, her controls that had supposedly misdirected the drone to dump its payload on a vacationing ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The stated target was supposed to be an ISIS leader who the government had gotten word was hiding out on the estate of a known sympathizer. Lowden had been tasked with delivering the payload because the government was afraid of leaks in its own system.
Were they looking to tie up the blame on her in a nice, neat package? Tell everyone it was her fault?
Mistake! This has to be a mistake.
That’s all she’d thought of when she was standing in the Lowden offices. But if it really happened as they’d said, how did it all go that wrong? She always double checked her settings. And she’d never made a mistake. Ever. The drones were her life. Was it something with the equipment? Something she’d somehow missed? But that was verified and calibrated regularly. And all the questions. So many questions.
The fact there was so much they didn’t seem to know was probably why they didn’t stick her in a jail cell right away. Instead they hustled her out of Lowden to a room at the local FBI office and battered her with questions until she thought her head would explode. Then, suddenly, it was goodbye depressing office, hello high-rise hotel.
What the hell?
They knew her. She kept thinking that over and over. They had to know someone else did this, committed what could actually be classified espionage. She got the feeling, however, that they wanted to make sure they could hang it on her. Keep her around while they sewed things up nice and tight. That was it. Also, there had to be something hinky about the whole thing or her accommodations would be much less appealing.
Espionage.
Just the word made her sick to her stomach, as she had been almost every day she was tucked away in this
upscale jail.
She could still hear the voice of one of the federal agents who had brought her here. Two agents, actually, as if they thought she’d run away. Well, truth be told, if she’d had the chance she would have. This was so wrong. She had not done what they accused her of, although they did hedge a little. That was why she was in a hotel instead of stuck in a cell where no one could find her. Because either someone wasn’t positive they could make a charge against her stick or they hadn’t yet covered their tracks well enough.
This is just a precaution while we complete our investigation, Hannah. After all, national security is involved. If someone else did this, they may not want you to testify.
Someone else? She wanted to scream and tell them it had to be someone else because it damn sure wasn’t her.
You’ll be safe. We have people guarding you.
Guarding. Right. Someone sitting outside her door at all times. She snorted. Only it wasn’t to protect her, no matter how polite they tried to be. It was to make sure she didn’t find a way to slip the noose and get away from them before they made sure the case against her was wrapped up tight. Or to have anyone come talk to her.
Bodyguard my ass.
Despite what they said, they were more like jailers, and the comfortable suite, the cable television with streaming services and anything she wanted from room service didn’t make up for the fact that she knew she was a prisoner. The windows might have drapes on them instead of bars, but the result was the same.
I’m sorry, Miss Modell. We just need you to be available and accessible while we finish the investigation. Thank you for being so understanding.
Available! Understanding! That was a joke. If she tried to leave this hotel suite, she’d end up in a place a lot less appealing.
She wondered what Lowden had even told the rest of its employees, and what they thought. She considered them her friends, sort of. It occurred to her she didn’t have any kind of social life beyond Lowden, but until now that hadn’t bothered her.
When they took her to her apartment to pack up what she’d need for what they called “a possible extended stay” elsewhere, she’d packed everything she could. Of course, her unsmiling guards had checked everything including her undies before letting her fill her suitcases. What the hell did they think she was hiding in them? Secret plans? A payoff? If she’d taken one, for the love of god, she’d have it in a secret offshore bank account where no one could find it.
She had no idea how things had gotten so fucked up, but she knew for sure she wasn’t the one who had done it. She never made a mistake with one of her drones and she’d never do anything like this. She was meticulous with her setting, testing them repeatedly before every flight. Whatever happened, she knew in her bones someone else had screwed with the settings.
She was damn fucking good at her job as a drone operator and she’d never, ever make the kind of mistake of which she was accused. Or worse yet, do it deliberately.
Oh, wait! They didn’t think it was a mistake! They thought someone had been paid to dump the load on a non-target and she was the most likely candidate.
Supposedly she wasn’t “under suspicion.” If she hadn’t done this—big if—then she was possibly in danger from whoever the guilty person was. Or persons. Oh, yeah? She guessed that was why they were hesitant to stick her in a jail cell. If everything pointing to her didn’t stick, Lowden could be in for a huge lawsuit.
Someone had recommended an attorney to her just in case, but since at the moment she didn’t trust either the government or Lowden Tactical to recommend anyone not on their side, she’d passed for the moment. Right now everyone was still tiptoeing around the situation. If it got worse, though, and moved into the next phase, she’d figure out what to do then.
And no one seemed to want to give her any information. Three times a day when one of the “guards” wheeled in her food, she badgered them with questions, but they might as well have been mute for all the info she got from them. She spent hours going over every single thing that had led up to that particular drone launch and still she had no answers.
She turned from the window and began to pace the room, hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans. How in the everlovin’ hell had this even happened?
She had been so excited to get the job interview with Lowden Tactical and it had gone well. She knew she had an unusually high aptitude for spatial awareness and action that made her an expert in the field of drones. Walt Lowden seemed impressed with her and soon, from the air-conditioned comfort of her control room, she was able to kick butt all over the world. Make terrorist strikes that politically the government could not get into.
When Lowden assigned her to one of their GO-Teams she could hardly contain her excitement and pride. These were the highly trained covert teams that took drones into enemy territory to surveille or deliver payloads in places where the government could not. Positions on the teams were considered highly selective. She’d made it through the rigorous training and managed to earn the respect of the others. She was one of only two women assigned to the Teams and she wore the selection like a badge of honor. She would never do anything to bring shame on it. Ever.
Someone had done this and manipulated things to place the blame on her. Someone who was going to make a lot of money as a payoff for getting the payload dumped on a different target. She was discovering in a most painful way there was a big difference between having brains and being smart.
She had to get out of here and try to figure things out, but how? She was never allowed out of the suite and both doors were guarded twenty-four seven. All her food came from room service, the trays minutely examined before she was allowed to receive them and even then, one of her keepers wheeled in the table. The waiters weren’t allowed to enter. Did they think the staff was going to aid in her escape? When housekeeping came to clean the rooms, one of the men dogged her every footstep. She was surprised they didn’t follow her into the bathroom, for god’s sake.
She had her laptop, but she wasn’t allowed internet connection. No cell phone and the desk had been told not to accept any phone calls from this room. She was completely shut off from the outside world. And she had become so immersed in her job that the only people in her life were those on her GO-Team and others at Lowden. How sad was that? And frightening. No one would be banging on doors asking where she was and what was going on.
She stopped pacing for a moment to look out the window again. It was darker now, the outside lights brighter, more people moving in the area filled with hotels and restaurants and shops. She might try to climb out of a window, except the windows were sealed and she was on the fifteenth floor. But there had to be a way out of here. No one was going to try to prove her innocence except her. Could I just catch a break here, please?
A knock sounded on the door, breaking into her train of thought…not that it was much of a train.
“It’s Santos. Your dinner is here.”
She opened the door, something that was just a formality. She was told—ordered—not to put the chain on the door in case she had a problem and they needed immediate access. Problem. Ha! They were the problem. She knew they didn’t want any kind of barrier if for any reason they needed immediate access for her safety.
Right. She almost snorted when they told her that. It wasn’t her safety they were worried about. They just wanted to make sure she couldn’t disappear on them.
She opened the door and found Paul Santos standing there with the room service table bearing her meal.
“If you wouldn’t mind stepping back from the door,” he told her in the even, measured voice she’d gotten used to, “I’ll just wheel this into the room.”
Right. Step back. In other words, don’t try to make a run for it. Everything they did made her feel more and more like a criminal and gave the situation an increasingly hopeless feel. She had to figure this out. She couldn’t just wait here in this hotel while the government and Lowden Tactical gathered incorrect evidence about h
er and the person really behind this got away with it.
But for the moment, she stepped way back from the door while Santos wheeled the table in.
“Enjoy your meal, Miss Modell.”
Santos backed out of the room and closed the door. Hannah had to restrain herself from throwing the safety lock. The lack of it left her feeling so exposed and vulnerable and she hated it.
As she’d done every night for the past two weeks, since she’d been locked away here, she lifted the lids on the dishes. Food had begun to lose its appeal to her, but she knew she needed to keep up her strength. She never knew when an opportunity would present itself. Tonight it was sliced steak and mashed potatoes with gravy, simple food but nourishing.
As she ate, she did what had become a habit with her—analyzed everything about her situation. Trying to figure out who could have set her up. Someone obviously who got paid a lot of money to drop the payload from a drone on a powerful figure who had been secretly aiding the United States on a critical project. How had anyone even had that information? And who would betray their country like this?
Her head ached, trying to find answers where there were no clues. And she certainly wasn’t going to get any locked away in this hotel. But how to get out of here? That was the big question.
Okay, she’d seen enough movies, watched enough television to figure out how to do this.
Think, Hannah. You’re not stupid so don’t act like it.
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About the Author
A multi-published, award winning, Amazon and USA Today best-selling author, Desiree Holt has produced more than 200 titles and won many awards. She has received an EPIC E-Book Award, the Holt Medallion and many others including Author After Dark’s Author of the Year. She has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and in The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The London Daily Mail. She lives in Florida with her cats who insist they help her write her books, and is addicted to football.