by Elle James
Her hand shook. Trembling started at her knees and rippled all the way up her back. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Toby. I just can’t.”
The tiny plastic bag dropped from her nerveless fingers and drifted to the floor.
Mrs. Halverson bent to retrieve it.
“No!” Riley tried to grab the bag from the woman, but Charlie held it out of her reach.
“What is this?” the widow asked.
“Nothing. I was just going to flush it down the toilet.” She reached for the bag. “Please. Let me have it.”
“Is it a drug?” Charlie’s gaze captured hers. “Are you taking drugs?”
“No. Of course not,” Riley answered automatically.
“Then why do you have it?”
Tears filled Riley’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“For what, my dear?” Charlie pulled Riley into her arms and held her.
“Why did you have to be so nice?” Riley muttered between sobs. “This wouldn’t have been so hard if you weren’t so good to me.”
“What wouldn’t be so hard?” Charlie held Riley at arm’s length and stared into her eyes. “Tell me what’s bothering you. Perhaps I can help.”
“Oh, it’s no use,” Riley shook her head, more tears falling down her face. “The only way you can help is for you to die.”
Mrs. Halverson’s eyebrows rose on her forehead. “Sweetie, whatever do you mean?”
“The only way to save my brother is for me to assassinate you.” Riley nodded toward the plastic bag. “The pill is poison. One touch on your tongue and you’d be dead in seconds.”
Charlie’s eyes widened, and she held the plastic bag up in front of her. “You wanted to assassinate me? Why? Did I do something to make you mad?”
“Oh, Mrs. Halverson, no. You did everything to help me.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Then why would you want to kill me?”
“They’re making me. They have my brother, Toby. If I don’t kill you, there’s no telling what they’ll do to Toby. I’ll never see him again. They could kill him, or worse.”
“What could be worse?” Mrs. Halverson asked. Then her eyes rounded. “Torture?”
Riley nodded. “And brainwashing. I can’t let that happen. He deserves a better life. He’s just a child...only six years old.”
“Oh dear.” Charlie stared at the little bag, shaking her head. “Whatever can you do?”
“Nothing. I can do nothing. My brother will disappear, and I’ll never see him again. He’ll think I’ve abandoned him. They’ll tell him I never loved him. They’ll make him a weapon to use against others in the future.” Riley broke away from Mrs. Halverson. “I can’t let that happen.”
“There’s nothing else you can do, then, is there?” the older woman said softly.
Riley stopped pacing and turned to frown at Mrs. Halverson. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll have to kill me.” The wealthy widow held up the bag. “I’ll take the pill and die. Your brother will be safe, and all will end as it should.” She started to open the little bag.
Riley dived toward her. “No!” In her effort to stop Mrs. Halverson from doing the dastardly deed, she knocked her to the floor and straddled her.
Mrs. Halverson let out a squeal and grunted as she landed hard on the marble tile.
The door to the restroom burst open. Mack charged in. “What the hell?” He grabbed Riley around the waist and yanked her up off Mrs. Halverson.
“Let go of me!” Riley fought to free herself of Mack’s grip, but his iron band of an arm held her tightly against his chest.
“Charlie, are you all right?” Mack asked.
The older woman sat up, still holding the little plastic bag. “I’m okay. Miss Lansing was only helping me to take this pill. It will relieve the headache I’m getting.”
“No! Mack, don’t let her take that pill. Please, let go of me. She can’t take that pill.”
“Fiddle. Of course I can.” She tilted her head to the side. “It’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Riley cried. “I never wanted it. Don’t do it. Please, don’t take that pill.” She struggled against the arm holding her around the middle, tearing at Mack’s tuxedo sleeve with her fingernails. “Let me go. You don’t understand. Please. Don’t let her take that pill.” Tears poured from her eyes to the point she couldn’t see clearly. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear them, trying to see what Mrs. Halverson was doing. Praying she didn’t go through with the instructions Riley had been given.
“Mack. Let the dear girl loose.” Mrs. Halverson pushed herself to her feet. “I’m quite all right. And for the record, I’m not going to take the pill.” She held the packet up. “But we can’t just flush it down the toilet. If it’s that potent, it could harm someone else.”
“What are you talking about?” Mack asked, still holding Riley around her middle. “Is this woman really a threat to you, or not?”
Charlie smiled. “She’s not. She just proved she doesn’t have it in her to kill.”
Riley sobbed. “No, I don’t. I’ve failed Toby. Oh, sweet heaven, I’ve failed him.”
She went limp against Mack, her heart breaking into a million pieces. She’d failed her little brother. What horrible things would happen to him now?
* * *
MACK HELD THE woman in the black dress against his chest as she sobbed into his jacket. “Could someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Let me lock the door first.” Charlie hurried to the door and twisted the lock, blocking anyone else from accidentally barging in on them.
When she turned to face Mack, she lifted her chin. “We have a situation.”
“Do I need to call the others in?” he asked.
Charlie held up a hand. “Not yet. I have a plan on how we can remedy the trouble, but I need your complete cooperation.”
“Mine?” Mack shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You will, soon enough.” She nodded toward Riley. “Did you know that Miss Lansing was a Russian sleeper spy?”
Mack stared down at the dark head of the woman crying her eyes out into his expensive tuxedo jacket. “Seriously, what’s going on? Why is she crying?”
“She’s crying because she failed to assassinate me,” Charlie said.
Mack shook his head. “Come again?” Had the woman had too much of the champagne flowing freely throughout the ballroom?
“You heard me.” Charlie tipped her head toward the other woman. “Ask Riley.”
Touching a thumb beneath Riley’s chin, he tipped her wet face upward. The tears on her cheeks made his stomach clench. He wanted to hold her close and chase away whatever was troubling her. “What’s Charlie talking about?”
Riley sniffed twice, and then her face crumpled. “She’s right. I’m supposed to assassinate her. I’m a Russian sleeper spy, sent to kill Mrs. Charlotte Halverson.”
“And if she doesn’t, she’ll never see her little brother again,” Charlie concluded. “I can see no other way to solve this problem but to take the pill she brought to do the deed with and die. Do you?” She tilted her head and stared at Mack.
Mack’s jaw dropped. “Are you out of your mind?” He grabbed for the little packet.
Charlie held it out of his grasp. “No, no. Hear me out. In order for Miss Lansing to have time to find her brother and get him out of the clutches of his kidnappers, I have to die.”
“Charlie,” Mack said in a slow, even tone, though his heart was hammering and his muscles bunched, ready to make another grab for the tiny plastic bag the woman held in her hand. “You didn’t hire me to stand by and watch you die. If Miss Lansing is threatening to kill you, I can take care of her. Now hand me the bag before someone gets hurt.”
“Don’t you understand? The only way to help Miss Lansing and her six-year-old little brother is to have me die. If not permanently, then for a short amount of time. Enough to give you and Riley a head start figuring out who has her brother and getting him back.”
Refusing to release Riley, Mack faced the woman footing the bill for Declan’s Defenders. Her heart was in the right place for most things, but defending a woman out to kill her was just plain crazy. “I can’t let this woman go. If what you’re saying is true, she came here to kill you.” He frowned down at Riley. “How could you? This woman is responsible for saving your life.”
Riley nodded. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“Then why would you want to hurt her?” he asked.
Her shoulders sagged. “I had no other choice.”
Mack shook his head. “There are always more choices.”
“Not when it comes to her little brother,” Charlie said.
“Since when do you have a little brother?” Mack’s eyes narrowed. “You never mentioned a little brother.”
Riley lifted her chin. “You don’t know me well enough to ask.”
“Does your roommate Grace know you have a little brother?” Mack asked.
Riley shook her head. “I don’t advertise that part of my life. I thought I had him hidden away. I didn’t think they would find out about him.” She threw her hand in the air. “Hell, I thought they’d forgotten I even existed.” She stared down at the arm clamped around her middle. “You can release me. I can’t kill Mrs. Halverson. I just can’t.”
“Charlie,” the older woman corrected. “Call me Charlie.”
Riley gave her a weak smile. “See? How could I kill someone who is as kind and generous as Charlie?” She held out her hand. “Please, let me have the pill. I can’t let it get into the wrong hands.”
“Oh, but you’ve put it in exactly the right hands. I’m going to die tonight. And you’re going to save your little brother,” Charlie said.
“You are out of your mind.” Mack released Riley and lunged for Charlie.
She backed toward the door, a frown pulling her brows together. “Listen, you two. We don’t have much time.”
Riley glanced at the watch on her wrist. “Time. Damn. I forgot. They gave me C-4 to set off as a diversion. I’m supposed to kill Mrs. Halverson and set off the explosive to create a diversion and allow me to escape. They’re expecting the explosion.”
“Good.” Charlie smiled. “That will give us time to get my dead body out of the hotel and off to the morgue.” Her smile faded. “As long as the explosion doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“It shouldn’t. I didn’t use a lot of the explosive and I set it in a storeroom surrounded by other empty rooms. No one was there, and it was empty. No one should go back there.”
“Wait a minute.” Mack held up his hand. “I can’t possibly be hearing this correctly. You can’t set off explosives in a crowded hotel. It will start a stampede. Even if the explosion doesn’t bring the walls down, the guests will rush for the doors and crush the people in front of them.” Mack shook his head. “No. No. No. This is insane. Besides, I can’t let you take that pill. If it’s poison, what antidote is there? We don’t even know what it is.”
“I’m not going to take the pill, silly. I’m only going to pretend I did. You’ll call for an ambulance. They’ll wheel me out. Riley will escape and you’ll go with her to help her find Toby, her little brother.” Charlie drew in a deep breath and looked from Riley to Mack and back. “You see? All I have to do is lie dying in a hospital long enough for you two to find Toby and get him back.”
Riley’s eyes narrowed. “The instructions said the poison was fast-acting.”
“So I didn’t take all of it.”
“They’ll wait to give me Toby until they know for certain you’re dead,” Riley said.
“Money can buy just about anything,” Charlie pointed out. “Even a fake death certificate.”
“But they’ll come looking for the body.”
“So we’ll give them one in the morgue.”
“You seem to be forgetting something,” Mack said.
“Am I?” Charlie frowned. “What am I forgetting?”
“You’re not dead. You don’t belong in a morgue until you are.”
“Then you’ll just have to find the boy while I’m lying on my deathbed in the hospital.” Charlie crossed her arms over her chest.
“I don’t like it,” Mack said. “Why don’t we go to the authorities and get them to find the boy?”
“The people who have him are Russian,” Riley said. “They’re not going to let the authorities find them or my brother. They’ll move him out of the country. If they do, I’ll never find him. As it is, I don’t know where to begin looking. I don’t know who my handler is.” Riley’s shoulders sagged. “Some Russian spy I am. I can’t even take care of my own brother.”
“Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “Follow my plan. Poison me, set off your explosion, let me play the dying matriarch and see what happens from there. What could it hurt? You get a few days’ grace, and I get a rest in my husband’s wing of the hospital. I can’t see where this could possibly go wrong.” She waved toward Riley. “Go ahead. Set off your explosion. You’ll see.”
Mack wasn’t quite as sure as Charlie. And he’d rather have brought his men in to discuss what was going to happen, but Charlie had it in her head that her plan would work long enough for him and Riley to save her brother. She wouldn’t be deterred.
“Where’s the detonator?” Charlie asked.
Riley pointed to the ornamental hair clip lying on the counter near the sink. “But—”
“The longer you wait, the more suspicious your handler will become,” Charlie pointed out. “Just do it and we’ll take it from there.”
“I don’t know.” Riley worried her handler would see through the plan.
“Have you worked with C-4 before now?” Mack asked.
Riley nodded. “But it’s been years. Back when I lived with my parents. Before I went to college.”
Mack gaped. “As a teen?”
Riley frowned. “I told you. I was trained to be a Russian sleeper spy. My parents prepared me for just about anything.”
“I thought you were just an engineer...” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “Selling secret blueprints to your comrades?” He shook his head. “You were the one selling the top secret data to the Russians from Quest Aerospace?”
“No, of course not. I thought I was in the clear. That when my parents died, their handlers would forget about me.” She snorted. “I was just another loyal American, trying to do good. Well, they didn’t forget about me. They drew my number and tasked me to kill Mrs. Halverson.”
“Charlie,” the widow corrected.
“Charlie,” Riley echoed. “They’re using my brother as an insurance policy. They didn’t give me a choice.”
“Are you sure about the amount of plastics you used?” Mack asked.
“Pretty.” She drew in a deep breath. “It should make a loud noise and shake the walls but not cause too much damage or a fire.”
“For the record...” He caught Charlie’s glance. “I don’t like any of this.”
“So noted.” Charlie gave him a mock salute. “But you’re going to go along with it?”
Mack nodded and touched his hand to his headset. “Guys, be ready to lead the guests in an orderly exodus from the hotel,” he said.
“Did you say what I think you said?” Gus questioned.
“What are you talking about?” Mustang asked.
“Can’t say,” Mack said. “Just be ready.” Then he nodded to Charlie. “Assume the position.”
Charlie grinned and sank to the floor in her expensive gown.
“You can’t smile if you’re dying,” Mack warned her.
<
br /> The smile disappeared from her face and she closed her eyes. “Ready.”
“I’m calling the ambulance,” Mack said, and dialed 911. He turned to Riley, not sure he should trust her, but knowing it was what Charlie wanted and possibly the only way to get the woman out of the hotel safely if others were gunning for her. “As soon as they say the fire department is on its way, let ’er rip.”
Mack reported a woman down to the dispatcher. Once he was assured the ambulance was on its way, he nodded toward Riley.
She lifted the ornamental hair clip and activated the switch on the back.
A thundering bang rippled through the heavy doors of the restroom.
Muffled screams sounded.
“The guests are moving toward the doors on the west side,” Gus reported.
“And on the north and east,” Mustang confirmed. “So far, they’re moving swiftly without panic. The security staff are facilitating their efforts. Where are you and Charlie?”
“In the ladies’ restroom on the southern end of the ballroom,” Mack said. “If the exodus is moving well, Mustang, I need you here to take over for me. When the ambulance arrives, Gus, lead them into the restroom to collect Charlie.”
“What happened? Is she all right?” Mustang asked.
“No.” Mack stared across the room to where Charlie lay on the floor with her eyes open. “She’s been poisoned. I have to leave, but I need you and Gus to stick with her like glue and keep her safe. Someone wants her dead. If she lives through the poison, they might not let her live to leave the hospital.”
Chapter Three
“Riley, you need to leave the restroom before anyone arrives,” Charlie said.
Mack’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know that I trust her to leave without me. And I can’t leave until Mustang gets here to protect you.”
“I’ll wait for you inside the doorway near the end of this hallway,” Riley said.
“How do I know you won’t take off?” Mack said.
“I have to find my brother, and I need help doing it. But I don’t want you to leave Charlie alone, either. She’s done so much for me already. I couldn’t live with myself if someone finished what I was supposed to start.”