Under His Protection

by Isabella Laase

  “There’s more,” said Bukowski grimly. “She told me that she recognized him, a regular with all these guys harassing her.”

  “Look,” said Rivers in an even tone. “You two have been on duty for over twelve hours. She’s safe. Go home. Get some sleep, and we’ll sort all of this out in the morning.”

  Nodding in acknowledgement, he took a deep breath so he didn’t frighten her any more than she probably already was and gently knocked on her door. He waited the requisite few seconds without a response and was relieved to find that she’d left the knob unlocked. But, then again, breaking down the door would probably have made him feel better.

  She was sleeping, all curled up with her pillows and wearing her rainbow bunny shirt; her brow was softened and her gentle breathing just above a whisper. She’d been dealing with this shit for a long time and probably had taken the whole thing in stride, but his need to protect her was so powerful that he had to fight the urge to join her on the bed and wrap himself around her small frame to keep every horror in the world away. He closed the door without disturbing her, and the angry hold on his muscles relaxed a little further.

  Turning back to Rivers, he said, “You’re right. Call me if anything comes up, but the way she looks, she should sleep all night.”

  Rivers guaranteed that he wouldn’t take his eyes off her, and Bukowski walked Cruz to the side street where they’d left their cars when they’d started the morning shift. “Good night, Cruz,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry, again.”

  “This wasn’t your fault,” he dismissed, unwilling to let her sweat over what was clearly his responsibility. Bukowski was an asset to their team, but more important, Victoria liked her. It was nice to see her talk to somebody besides the irresponsible Amanda Grant. “You followed protocol to the letter. I was... I allowed myself to be distracted. I should have seen him earlier.”

  “Don’t be so damned hard on yourself,” she said in exasperation. “You reacted the second he closed his car door, but let’s lay some cards on the table. I’ve been working with you for weeks on this assignment, and it doesn’t take a trained observer to figure out that she means more to you than a normal charge.” Bukowski added a superior grin. “Even if you haven’t figured it out yourself, you’ve got some feelings for her that run deeper than the job and that isn’t a bad thing. Now, go get some sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Cruz stood stupidly by his car while she walked to her pickup with a tiny wave over her shoulder. He started to cuss softly, but as much as his sense of professionalism demanded a different answer, he couldn’t deny it. Victoria did mean more to him than she should, and it wasn’t just a physical reaction to her cute, well-toned body. He was falling for her. Instead of making him feel all warm and fuzzy, the reality unsettled him.

  This was a no-brainer. Getting emotionally involved with their charge was about the worst idea an agent could have; distance equated with observance. He needed eyes on the crowd, not on Victoria. He didn’t even want to think about the fact that this was his... he stopped to count the layers of authority between him and the president, including the freaking Secretary of Homeland Security. Sleeping with your superior’s daughter would never qualify as a good career move.

  He trusted Bukowski to keep the information to herself, but he also recognized the need to institute some changes. Under the circumstances, he didn’t trust the protection detail to anybody else, but he’d be more vigilant about limiting his attention to the sassy side of that little girl and bury the distracting emotions in a deep, deep place. As soon as this whole investigation was over, he’d ask to be reassigned back to the White House. MacMillan may be an idiot, but Cruz would come up with a reason that made sense for everybody.

  It had taken a five-mile run and a long, cold shower before he’d succumbed to a fitful slumber exacerbated by dreams where she was just out of his reach in a dark wilderness. Lurking behind trees and in dark corners of the forest, the hidden dangers refused to be identified, but he knew they were there. He just couldn’t see them, and he couldn’t save her.

  His cell phone pulled him out of his nightmares, but it took a second to clear the cobwebs before he recognized Rivers’ ring tone. He’d never call in the middle of the night if it wasn’t an emergency. “What?” he rumbled.

  “I’m sorry, Cruz, but she bolted,” said Rivers, quickly updating him. “She woke up a little while ago and said she’d left her wallet at the restaurant today. Amanda Grant had it in the car downstairs but couldn’t bring it up because she couldn’t find a place to park. We went down; she jumped in Amanda’s car, and the two of them took off. My car was three blocks away, and I didn’t have a chance.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me? I told you not to let her out of the apartment without calling me. What the hell were you thinking?”

  Rivers was quiet for a second, and when he continued, his tone was significantly more professional than Cruz’s. “I take full responsibility, Agent Cruz, but we never placed her under any kind of house restriction. She’s done nothing to indicate that she’d run on us. When we went downstairs, she was wearing sweats and sneakers with no makeup, so I didn’t see anything suspicious. She played me, and I allowed it. But like you’ve told me a thousand times, we can’t protect somebody without their cooperation, and tonight, Ms. Bradford chose not to give us her cooperation.”

  Cruz ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “You’re right, Tim, and I’m sorry. I just... Wait. Did she take her cell?”

  “Hang on, I’m almost back upstairs.” Another few minutes went by before he came back on the line. “I don’t see it in her bedroom. She usually keeps it on her nightstand.”

  Cruz smirked. She’d damn well better be okay because when he found her, the little shit wasn’t going to sit for a week. The FBI didn’t even have to trace her phone, which was how the Secret Service had occasionally found her in the past. That process took too long, so he’d put a tracking app on the damned electronic the first day he’d started this detail. She had so many games and other junk on it that he didn’t think she’d even noticed.

  He opened the app quickly before getting back to Rivers. “They just turned south on Massachusetts Avenue. Get started from your end, and I’ll get down there as soon as I can. We’ll find her sorry ass before she gets out of the damned car.”

  * * *

  They didn’t get there quite that fast. With the girls still making steady progress, Rivers got caught in heavy traffic after some district event let out, and a few miles down the road, an accident on the Arlington National Bridge over the Potomac drew him to a complete stop. Cruz was further away, relying on a fairly open expressway, but a wrong turn took him an extra twenty minutes out of the way after he’d incorrectly guessed their ultimate direction.

  A little over an hour after Rivers’ initial call, he found Amanda’s Mercedes stashed in a no-parking zone in front of a trendy new night club in Arlington with Victoria’s sweats and sneakers discarded on the front seat. Clearly, this had been a highly detailed, planned escape. His hand twitched slightly, allowing the dream of having both girls under his palm, but it was Victoria who was truly going to regret this decision. She knew better.

  The requisite bouncer blocked his way at the front door, but Cruz tensed, whipping out his credentials. “I’m a federal agent, and I’m looking for one person and one person only. So, get the hell out of my way, or I’ll have the entire FBI down here to check the age of every person in that room. Is that really what you want?”

  The burly guy with a full beard looked like he could have given Cruz a run for his money with a few well-placed blows, but he was able to think for himself. Standing aside, he said, “Get in there and get what you want, buddy. We don’t want any trouble.”

  The bright lights from several expensive chandeliers twinkled off glass and steel to create a sharp contrast to the dark shadows, and the heavy bass music gave him the twinges of a headache. The room reeked of pot, legal in DC pr
ivate homes but in a bar in Virginia, the Arlington County cops could have filled their jail cells with the number of rich kids who were higher than a kite. He was probably the only guy in the place who’d passed thirty and his neatly cut gray dress slacks and oxford cloth shirt did little to help him blend in. Anxious to keep attention away from himself, he ordered a ginger ale to put something in his hand and started his search.

  The girls were at a semi-circular back table and nestled between three of the scummiest-looking, tattooed, greasy kids he could imagine, each in their early twenties. It took him a second or two to remember that Victoria was also this young, but she didn’t belong with these self-absorbed losers, even if the whole scene hadn’t been a violation of his trust.

  Walking up to the table, he waited until she looked up. One minute she was laughing and giggling, drinking something blue and bubbly with a straw and the next, their gaze met and her face fell. Amanda took a few extra seconds to register her mood change, but when she saw Cruz, she spoke for both of them. “Fuck,” mumbled Amanda. “How the hell did he find us?”

  Victoria had the sense to look guilty when Cruz held out his hand, but she shied away from him with a quick maneuver. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, willing his voice to remain calm. “I promise. But right now, I need both of you to come with me. And you’re running a tab, little girl, so I wouldn’t do anything else to add to it.” He didn’t want a scene; hell, he didn’t even want to use her name. There was a possibility that nobody knew who she was, so with any luck at all, they’d get out of here with no bigger casualty than his temper.

  “Damn,” Amanda said with a shudder. “Is he always like this? You never told me how hot he was when he gets all stern. You’ve been holding back.”

  Emboldened by Amanda’s words, Victoria took a chug of her drink, finishing about half of it in one gulp. “Yep,” she slurred a little. “My bodyguard’s a hottie. I was hoping for multiple personalities, though, to give me a little breathing space at night, but I haven’t figured out where all of his switches are. Go away, Cruz. Or wait in the parking lot. I’m fine.”

  Cruz didn’t crack a smile. “Let’s go, both of you. I’m taking you home.”

  “We found them first,” hissed one of the idiots at their table. “They’re staying with us.” A second skinny kid put his arm around Victoria and pulled her a little closer to his side, but Cruz knew her too well. She was trying to act like she was enjoying herself, but the subtle cringe, the way she drew her arms to her chest, and the sharp look in her eyes were the windows to her unhappiness. Cruz reached for her a second time, but the loser pulled her even closer and snapped, “It’s not often that the president’s daughter is here to entertain us. I’m taking her home tonight, so fuck off, asshole.”

  She was leaving with him over Cruz’s dead body, but knowing that Victoria’s identity had been discovered changed his strategy. Drawing his gun in a small crowd would have been a recipe for disaster, especially since she wasn’t by his side. He didn’t want to take his attention off the table to see how far out Rivers was, but he needed backup. Even if he could take all three of these guys—and truthfully, their skinny little frames and toothpick-sized limbs didn’t look like that would be a huge challenge—any kind of a fight would get the whole crowd going. People were already coming to the table for a front row seat to the unfolding drama, and cell phones were appearing.

  Knowing the impact his nonverbal messages had over her, he turned his glare on Victoria and didn’t blink. Gratefully, she had the common sense to look embarrassed. “Come on, Amanda,” she said slowly. “We have to go.”

  Amanda looked around with a bored sigh, but both girls stood and tried to move past their new friends when the boy-toy yanked Victoria back to his side. “I said, you aren’t going, bitch. I paid for your fucking drink, so you can sit here and drink it with me.”

  It took everything in his resolve to keep himself from throwing the kid through a window, but Cruz pulled out his wallet and dropped a fifty dollar bill on the table. “No harm, no foul, kid. They need to come with me, now.”

  The kid picked up the money with a grin, but he didn’t lessen his hold on Victoria. Cruz was considering his next move when Rivers spoke softly behind him. “How are we doing here, Cruz? Do we need some help?”

  “Yep,” he said just as quietly, never taking his glare off the small crowd at the table. “I think a few county cops right now would be about perfect. A little show of force might get us out of here without a single public relations disaster.” But that plan failed when the moron pulled Victoria close enough to kiss her, groping her breasts and sliding his hand under her dress. She cried out, connecting to his ugly face with a few well-placed, but ineffective punches.

  “Fuck,” said Rivers at the same time Cruz lunged. In a single move, he had the kid across the table and onto the floor with his arm pinned behind his back. Cruz pulled a little tighter, milking the panicked shriek and ensuring that it wasn’t a pleasant experience for the skinny shit. He felt better, but the drama was enough to get everybody on their feet, the twenty-something college crowd looking for a fight.

  “Under the table. Now,” he shouted to Victoria and Amanda and was relieved when both girls jumped to obey.

  Rivers tackled a second aggressive kid from the table, but Cruz was forced to push his captive aside when a couple of bystanders charged them. The incoming crowd slowed a little when they saw the lack of effectiveness the pansy punches had on Cruz and Rivers, but it wasn’t until they drew their service weapons with a quick shout, “Federal agents, stand down!” that the onslaught came to a halt. It was a tense showdown when the Arlington County cops barreled through the doors with their own guns drawn. Seeing the weapons, the local cops drew a bead on them and demanded they disarm, while Cruz and Rivers continued to shout, “Federal agents! Don’t shoot!”

  Five of the combatants ended up in handcuffs and none of them were Secret Service agents, but the real damage had been done. A full army of video-taking civilians had been bad enough, but the paparazzi presence surprised him. He hadn’t realized they’d found her, and Johnny Morningstar’s front and center ugly frame did little to calm his temper. He needed to get both girls out of there. “Come on, you two,” he said without bending down to look under the table. “Do not make me come and get you.”

  Rather ungraciously, they crawled out on their hands and knees, long hair in their eyes and their skinny little cocktail dresses riding a little too high up their asses, another perfect picture for the press. Cruz groaned, lending each of them a hand to help them to their feet, but he resisted the urge to gently push the hair out of Victoria’s eyes and rub the side of her cheek to further calm his nerves.

  The Arlington County sergeant came to Cruz, speaking quietly and avoiding the press, who’d been pushed back by the local cops. “We searched that first kid you said wouldn’t let her go and found a bottle of tranquilizers in his pocket. Are you sure that he didn’t slip anything into their drinks?”

  Cruz roared and lunged after the fucking shit of a kid, and it took Rivers and two uniformed officers to hold him back. “I never gave her anything!” screamed the kid in abject terror. Apparently, the handcuffs had finally cemented his predicament, and he’d turned cooperative. “I swear. She didn’t have anything in her drink.”

  “I’ve talked to both of the girls.” Rivers spoke softly, his grip tight on Cruz’s arm. “Other than being a little drunk, they’re fine. I don’t know what his plans were for the next few hours, but I think he’s telling the truth. You take Amanda home, and I’ll settle Victoria down for the night. Amanda can come back for her car in the morning.”

  “I’ll take Victoria until the next shift change,” he said, glaring at his errant charge with enough force to make her look away. “Take Amanda home, then call it a night. And she parked in a fucking no-parking zone. They’ll tow her car before morning, and she can pay the damned impound fees.”

  With the press still in full pur
suit, shouting her name and demanding a quote, Victoria had the intelligence to keep her mouth shut and her head low. He expected that he’d hear a lot of justification, whining, or at least lame excuses after she got into his Jeep, but she pulled her knees up to her chin and curled into a quiet self-exile. By the time he’d stopped at a fast food restaurant a few miles down the road, all she could say was, “I’m not hungry, thank you.”

  He ignored her and ordered a single cup of coffee. “Drink this. I need you to be sober when we talk. Are you sure that you don’t feel any effects of a tranquilizer? I can get you to Walter Reed in about twenty minutes.”

  “No, really,” she said quickly. “He didn’t have time to put anything in my drink. Yet.” She took the cup with a trembling hand. Good, he thought to himself. A little fear right now wasn’t a bad thing. A few long minutes went by, the lights from the expressway giving him the occasional glimpse of her silent profile, before she spoke again. “I’m sorry, Cruz. It was an impulsive decision. I should have thought through all of the ramifications. It all happened so fast that you could have gotten shot back there.”

  “Yep, you should have.” Her apology lessened some his anger, but it didn’t lessen his need to hold her accountable. “Did you call the press yourself tonight? Because I’m starting to run out of other options.”

  “Why would I do that?” she asked incredulously. “I hate everything about this.”

  “Do you? Then how did they find you again, and why did you refuse to leave? We both knew how this was going to end, so why string it out? You’ve told me before that you like upsetting your father and this little show of yours is going to be pretty upsetting since the media was right there to document everything.”

  “But I didn’t, Cruz,” she begged. “Please, you need to believe me. I know I screwed up, but I need you to believe me.” He didn’t say a word, turning west on the half empty I-66, but she mumbled, “You’re going the wrong way. The city is to the east.”