Winter Hawk

by Rachel Grant

  Nate and the others were given champagne, and they all drank another toast as the crowd counted down the last ten seconds to three o’clock as if it were New Year’s Eve.

  Nate squeezed Leah’s hand as first one drone took flight, then another and another. Then four at once, then a dozen. In less than a minute, five hundred drones were in the air, and thirty seconds later, all fifteen hundred were in flight.

  Nate’s heart pounded as he watched the artistry of the drone dance. The drones were lit with LED lights, and the colors moved but didn’t flash. As Leah had described, it was a kaleidoscope, shifting, moving, mirroring. Beautiful and awe inspiring. Four minutes into the show, three new drones joined, and his heart did a little lurch as the dancing drones adjusted to assimilate the newcomers.

  For a moment, he’d thought they might go berserk. But they didn’t. It was like a ripple in a calm pool. The colors undulated, shifted, and settled back into the new normal, forming spirals and ribbons, gliding through the air the way a figure skater jumped and twirled. At the sixteen-minute mark, more drones joined, and the dance changed again. They formed a row of hearts, the colors lined up so they were rainbows, red in the middle and violet at the outside. Then the hearts wrapped around, forming a ring with the V of each huge heart pointing toward the center.

  The hearts separated and flowed into another shape, all fifteen hundred drones forming one giant bird. It opened its wings, and his breath caught as the giant hawk’s wings rippled and flapped. Then, somehow, the hawk seemed to soar upward. The hawk dissolved, and now the drones were fireworks arching across the sky, only to come together to form the word “PEACE” in a half dozen languages, before all fifteen hundred drones gently landed in the field below.

  The crowd in the stands cheered wildly.

  Everyone in the executive seating area was on their feet, laughing, clapping, crying, and hugging.

  The twenty-minute-long show had been utterly exhilarating. Hawk’s heart pounded and his eyes were damp. He turned to the woman by his side to see tears streaking down her face. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard and deep. A fierce kiss to show how overcome with emotion he was.

  When he finally raised his head, she smiled and had something of a dreamy look on her face. “So, you liked it?”

  “My God, that was incredible.” He tightened the arm around her waist. “So…the hawk…?”

  “It was originally a dove. Last night, I changed it. For you.” She rose on her toes and whispered in his ear, “It was the best way I could think of to tell you I’m falling in love with you, Hawk.”

  He closed his eyes and hugged her tight, absorbing the message he’d felt the moment he saw the giant, beautiful bird in the sky. He kissed her neck, then whispered his reply. “I’m crazy in love with you, Leah Ellis.”

  He held her, eyes closed, ignoring all the elated people around him. Only one person in this stadium mattered, and she was in his arms.

  “I really hate to burst your moment,” Josh said, “but Kevin Marks is gone.”

  17

  Leah paced the room Hawk had commandeered for her once they realized Kevin had slipped out during the show. The same security guard who’d gotten distracted by the display and hadn’t seen Kevin leave was now standing sentry outside the door, as Hawk and the others took off to search for Kevin. He was probably long gone, but she understood why Hawk had to try.

  Detective Brown would arrive at the stadium any moment. He could have taken Kevin into custody. They’d been so close.

  But at the same time, she didn’t want to regret watching the show, sharing it with Hawk. The way he’d squeezed her hand and gasped when the hawk formed… She could get high on that moment for the rest of her life without any other drug.

  The main suite had been cleared out so Tim and Michelle could be interviewed separately and together by the half-dozen news crews who were reporting on the event. Tim asked Leah if she could pretend Sunday had never happened and give a sound bite, and she’d done so—she’d be crazy not to take credit when she would probably start her own company soon—then she’d returned to this quiet room with a bottle of champagne and a cheese platter to keep her company.

  She messaged Nate to let him know she was back under guard, and decided to pour herself a glass of champagne. After being interviewed by Detective Brown, she and Hawk would go straight to the cabin near Shenandoah. Much as they both wanted Christmas dinner with Freddy and family, as long as Kevin was on the loose, she wouldn’t go near the twins.

  Kevin must have bolted once he realized the drones wouldn’t go berserk. He had to be seething that his revenge had failed.

  She glanced at her phone, tempted to read his online posts, but, knowing the words would make her physically ill, she returned the phone to her pocket.

  The way he’d killed Dex said something about how much he’d disliked the senior engineer, but there had to be more to it than being angry she’d slept with Dex but not Kevin.

  What else about Dex pushed Kevin’s buttons?

  One thing was certain, Kevin had been thrilled when she showed up. He’d wanted to see her reaction to the berserker drones. He might have wanted to kill her like he had Dex, but not before she witnessed his revenge.

  And now that she’d ruined it?

  She felt a chill run up her spine.

  Yeah. He’d kill her and probably mutilate her corpse. She was thankful for the guard at the door. They had no way of knowing if Kevin had left the stadium.

  A flash of metal on the carpet caught her eye, and she turned to see what it was. A lost earring? She touched her ears. Both studs were in place and there was nothing in the carpet.

  She turned, and caught another flash. Bigger this time.

  She was losing it. Seeing things that weren’t there. She took another step, then saw the spider.

  Oh shit. She’d forgotten about Kevin’s spider drones.

  This one was the size of a half-dollar coin, with a dark matte finish. It was the jewellike eyes that had caught the light and her attention. How did it get in here?

  Oh hell. It had probably been on her skirt under her coat. It was small enough to easily hide in the hem or liner.

  What could these things do besides listen in? She presumed they had cameras and microphones, and it was obvious they moved fast. She stomped on the drone with her boot, crushing it, then reached into her pocket for her cell phone. She’d call Hawk and give him a warning he was probably bugged too.

  She thumbed on the phone then felt a tickling on the back of her hand. Her stomach dropped as she turned the hand clutching the phone and saw another spider, this one smaller than the last. It held on like a real spider, defying gravity.

  Before she could shake it off, it leapt to her neck and bit her.

  18

  Nate’s stomach took a nosedive when he didn’t spot a guard at the door. Where’d the guy go? He shoved open the door to find the room empty and turned to face his boss.

  “She wouldn’t have left under her own power without texting me.” He held up his phone, showing the texts she’d sent when she left to be interviewed and when she’d returned.

  Keith cursed. “Marks is still here.”

  Nate pulled the smashed spider from his pocket. The moment he’d seen it on his sleeve, he’d known what it meant. “And he used one of these to find her.”

  He scanned the carpet of the empty room and spotted a similar smashed drone. “Leah found one too.”

  Keith bent down and picked up something from the carpet. He held it out, and Nate saw it was an even smaller drone. It started to move. “Crap! It still works.” Then it leapt at Keith’s neck. “Ouch! It bit me.” He pulled it off his neck, and Nate saw two dots of blood, as if the spider was a tiny vampire. “Shit. It probably had some sort of tranquilizer in it. That’s how he took Leah.”

  “It’s too small for more than one dose.”

  “Yeah. That’s why I’m still standing. I think I know what happened to the guard.”
>
  Nate yanked off his jacket and started patting down his clothes. But if he had one of those on him, Kevin would have initiated it by now.

  “They can’t have gone far,” Keith said.

  They’d all donned their Raptor headsets when they went in search of Kevin, and now Keith radioed the others with the news.

  All the operatives who lived in the compound had come to the event. Michelle Hollis had kept her word and listed them as hired security, so they had a platoon of armed operatives searching the crowd for Kevin Marks.

  Nate and his boss worked as a seamless team as they began clearing offices and suites one by one. They found the security guard one suite over, unconscious, but he roused when Keith checked his vitals.

  Nate radioed for medical help, then they left him to continue down the line. The HH party had been held in the Lincoln suites behind home plate, slightly closer to third base. Leah had been left waiting for him in another suite down the row along the first base line.

  Kevin couldn’t go far carrying an unconscious woman. The man didn’t have the build for it, and he’d be noticed if he left the concourse and climbed the bleachers with Leah in his arms.

  He must’ve taken her into another of the Lincoln suites. There were twenty-two to choose from, but Nate guessed the guy would stay on the side between home plate and first base. If he rounded the corner in the other direction, he was more likely to be seen by the press waiting to interview the HH executives.

  Movement caught Nate’s eye as he scanned the closed suite doors. He came to a stop, holding up his hand to Keith to stop him as well. He pointed down.

  There, skittering across the floor, was a tiny metal spider. It slipped under the door to the suite on the end.

  Kevin Marks had to be behind the door.

  Nate radioed for backup, then they flanked the door. He debated waiting for the others to arrive, but he heard a muffled scream. No way would they wait.

  Nate noted the knob was broken—which explained how Kevin had been able to enter the suite, but also meant he couldn’t lock the door behind him—and raised a hand to count down from three. On one, Keith kicked the door and Nate entered, gun out, sweeping the room.

  The room was empty, but he spotted Leah through the window that overlooked the ball field. She and Kevin were outside, in the suite’s reserved outdoor seating section. She had a noose around her neck and was kicking and struggling as Kevin pulled on the other end of the rope, hoisting her up.

  Leah’s body shielded Kevin. Taking a shot could mean hitting her and risking the bullet going down to the field, where children were lined up, collecting their drones.

  He and Keith raced for the exterior door to the outdoor seats. Kevin saw them and hoisted her higher. He’d looped the rope through a gap at the end of a beam, and Leah’s feet cleared the seats, dangling in the air. Her free hands grabbed at the rope around her neck as she kicked at Kevin’s head and shoulders and missed because he was just out of reach.

  Kevin looped the rope around the railing to tie it off. Nate jumped the rail and landed in front of the row of seats below. If the crowd below and behind him saw what was happening on the executive level, he wasn’t aware of it, his focus entirely on Leah, who struggled as her face turned deep red.

  He jogged over to get a clear shot at Kevin that didn’t face the field and fired his pistol right as Kevin dropped the rope without knotting it. Kevin dove for cover, and Nate’s bullet hit him in the shoulder as Leah dropped.

  She hit the rail and bounced back, bumping Kevin.

  Screams reverberated through the stadium as the gunshot registered.

  Nate vaulted back over the rail to get to Leah as his boss sprinted past her to chase after Kevin, who’d shoved Leah away, then ran down the row, hopping the rail between sections. He leapt down to the lower level and stumbled.

  Nate pulled the noose from Leah’s neck. “Can you breathe?” he asked, his heart pounding as she struggled to take in air.

  “Yes,” she rasped. “A little.”

  He glanced in Keith’s direction and watched as he tackled Kevin, bringing the injured man down easily.

  Nate pulled Leah into his arms as he radioed for a medic. “Keith got him, sweetheart.”

  “One of his damn spiders bit me,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “It knocked me out.”

  “I know.”

  “I woke as he was dragging me out here to hang me.” Her voice was getting stronger already. “I screamed, hoping you’d hear.”

  “I did.” The scream was why they hadn’t waited for backup. If they’d hesitated another minute, she’d have been hanging and Kevin long gone before they got to her. His eyes burned as he realized how close he’d come to losing her. And she could have damage to her hyoid or trachea that could still be life-threatening. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “I love you, Leah.”

  “I love you too, Hawk.”

  Tears spilled over as he held her and gazed over the park where just thirty minutes ago, a giant hawk had soared above a mesmerized crowd.

  19

  Hours later, there was a knock on Leah’s hospital room door. She managed a normal-sounding “Come in,” but not at high volume. Her throat hurt too much for that.

  The door opened with a drawn-out creak. When no one entered, she said again, “Come in?”

  A shiny, metallic drone floated into the room, flying a little shakily, but it was being navigated by camera, so she’d cut the operator some slack. She grinned when she saw the mistletoe hanging from the drone. It flew above her head and stopped, hovering there.

  Hawk entered the room and glanced from her to the drone. “Oh look, mistletoe!” He leaned down and kissed her gently, then navigated the drone to park on the chair.

  “You’re adorable,” she whispered.

  “Thank you.” He took her hand in his. “Word on the streets is they want to keep you overnight.”

  “Yeah. The doc is ninety percent sure I’m fine given that I never lost consciousness from strangulation, my voice is normal, and I don’t show other signs of trauma. I could probably go home, but they don’t know what was in the spider bite, so they’re going with a better-safe-than-sorry approach.” She squeezed his hand. “Don’t worry about me, though. I’m fine. You should go have Christmas dinner at your brother’s.”

  “I’m not leaving you in the hospital to have dinner at Freddy’s.”

  “I don’t want to make you miss Christmas.”

  “Sweetheart, I haven’t missed Christmas. I got the best gift in the world today.” He kissed her hand.

  How was it possible that she could be this happy when a few hours ago, one of her coworkers tried to hang her?

  But Kevin had failed and would go to prison.

  Detective Brown had stopped by earlier and shared what he could of Kevin’s motives and actions. He’d written a manifesto of sorts, which had been found in his hotel room. Part of him probably expected to be caught and killed, and his ego couldn’t bear not having the world know his greatness.

  Much of Leah and Hawk’s speculation was correct—he’d hated her for rejecting him, had learned through hacking HR files that Leah had slept with Dex at the previous year’s holiday party, and then a week ago, his spider drone had picked up a conversation between Dex and Tim, as they mapped out their scheme to fire Leah and install Dex as the head of engineering.

  Tim was trying to seize control of the company from Michelle, and he needed Dex to do it.

  Kevin had thought he might finally have his chance with Leah if he was there to pick up the pieces of her broken heart when she was escorted off base. He could even tell her what Tim and Dex were up to and help her get her job back. He drove down to DC ahead of the rest of the HH crew and was looking for a place to pull over near the Navy Yard when Leah was escorted out and got in some other guy’s car.

  Livid, he followed. Within a few blocks, he realized the driver was taking her for a roundabout ride, fleecing her like a crooked cabdriver. Now he
needed to save her from her stupidity in trusting some asshole driver.

  Again, he could be her hero, but then in the Mt. Vernon parking lot, he saw her with the driver, and she was all over the guy. And her shirt was unbuttoned.

  She was a bitch and a whore, and he tried to run the slut down, but the asshole cheating driver shoved her out of the way.

  The manifesto had gone into a long rant about Leah, which she figured the officer censored for the most part, but the gist was he was mad that an unattractive cougar with no other prospects still didn’t give Kevin the time of day. That she’d tried to get him in trouble with HR after she was the one who slept with the office prick who’d stolen Kevin’s work and passed it off as his own only inflamed his anger more.

  The last part explained the extra hostility Kevin had carried toward Dex. Probably the reason Dex had been stripped before he hanged.

  The manifesto had gone on to explain that Kevin had toyed with the idea of screwing with the D25DD code for months and had already written his own version. After leaving her at Mt. Vernon, he made up his mind and went straight to her place so he could get her computer and notebook. He entered the townhouse with a key he’d lifted from the office weeks before. He had his flashlight and would search the office, take what he needed and leave. He hadn’t noticed the light on in the back. Hadn’t realized Ainsley was there until she called out to him, thinking he was Leah.

  When she saw it was him, she’d said, “Kevin, what are you doing here? And why the flashlight? The power works.”

  He couldn’t explain why he was there and couldn’t carry out his plan now that Ainsley had seen him. But luck was on his side. This was Ainsley. He flicked the flashlight switch to strobe and hit her with the bright, flashing beam.

  She dropped like a rock. But the seizure wouldn’t kill her, and she’d remember seeing him. He had to find a way to make her death look like an accident.

  Again, luck was with him. He was truly blessed. A full pan of hot oil bubbled on the stove. The rest was easy. He grabbed Leah’s computer and notebook and slipped out the back door before the fire had spread enough to be noticed by the neighbors.