by Lisa Hughey
Her shudder was likely imperceptible to anyone else, but Alex was hyperaware of her mood. Her momentary happiness at seeing her coworker Dwayne evaporated when the judge touched her.
Since the threat to the judge had escalated and the health of Adams-Larsen’s employee had been in peril, Alex’s boss had insisted Jillian Larsen be kept in the loop. He still couldn’t figure out why his boss was willing to accommodate and work with a woman who’d been a disgrace to the US Marshals, but he wasn’t in a position to question anything right now.
The judge had requested that Marsh Adams be present at this debrief and mission planning session but the former marshal was noticeably absent. Again.
“Is Marsh joining us?” The judge directed the question at Jillian Larsen.
Her lips tightened, infinitesimally, but Alex recognized her irritation. “He wasn’t able to break away from his current assignment.”
Which Alex might have believed if Kita hadn’t also appeared strained. Just for a second. Something else was going on beneath the surface. But he couldn’t imagine that Marsh Adams’s absence had anything to do with the judge’s situation, so he didn’t care.
For some reason, the judge didn’t go off on Larsen. But his disappointment was clear.
Kita’s worried glance at Jillian Larsen confirmed something was going on with Marsh Adams.
They all sat at the large dining room table, a mahogany oval with a finished edge and a shiny dark stain. A long fabric rectangle adorned with orange pumpkins and golden cornucopia ran the length of a table that could seat twelve easily. Candlesticks and glittery fake pumpkins were scattered across the fabric. So either the judge had a girlfriend or a decorator. Based on the way he’d been pawing Kita last night, and the jealousy of his assistant, Alex’s bet was on a decorator.
“What have you got?”
“Fingerprints on the bill were a nonstarter, just like we expected.” Shep tapped the shiny wood tabletop. “Security cameras inside the ballroom and at the entrance didn’t capture the woman giving the waiter the drink.”
“How?” Alex barked out.
“There are some very small gaps, and apparently this woman knew to avoid them.”
Jillian Larsen was all business. “Were we able to get pics of the crowd when the drink went flying? By the way, good work, Kita.”
Dwayne patted her hand. “No one was paying undue interest to the waiter or the judge. My guess is she left, but by now she’ll know her attempt failed.”
“What about the waiter? Any luck getting him to identify the woman?” Kita rubbed her wrist.
“Dead end.” Shep said, “We had him watch the footage but he didn’t see the woman.”
“So we need to be extra diligent from here on out.” Alex wanted Dwayne’s hand off Kita. “Any information on the tox screen?”
Shep continued, “The drink contained a high level of aspirin.”
Jillian spoke. “Over the counter?”
Shep nodded. “Plain old, everyday aspirin.”
Kita jerked. “How did we get that information so fast?”
“Doctor Patel swabbed your legs and had the lab use a quick response test to get a preliminary result. We’ll get the full screen results in another twenty-four hours, but at least we have a starting point.”
“What would aspirin do to you?” Kita’s gaze had shifted to the judge.
“Almost kill you,” growled Alex.
“Yeah, but that’s me. While allergy to aspirin is relatively common, I happen to have an extremely severe reaction to it. But for most normal people, it wouldn’t have made a blip in their health.”
The judge had been uncharacteristically silent while they’d batted ideas back and forth.
“Why aspirin?”
The judge shifted uncomfortably in his ornately carved chair.
“Judge?” The steel in Alex’s voice was necessary. He didn’t typically talk to a protectee this way but the man had to be withholding information.
The judge cleared his throat, pressed his palms to the mahogany dining table, and stared at his hands. “I have a little problem with diabetes,” he confessed.
Not a huge surprise, so did approximately ten percent of the United States population. “I’m missing something.” Alex frowned.
“Aspirin can interfere with insulin levels. A high dose could possibly cause extremely low blood sugar,” Judge Adams said reluctantly.
“So theoretically if you had that drink….”
“Well, the combination of alcohol, aspirin, and an empty stomach, since we hadn’t eaten dinner yet, would have done some damage.”
Done some damage. Alex was trying to wrap his brain around the judge’s statement. “Would it have killed you?” he asked bluntly.
“I don’t know.” The judge had lost all his bluster. “Diabetes isn’t an exact science. Everyone’s body reacts differently. We’d have to ask my doctor, but even then he might not know the precise outcome of ingesting a large dose.”
But the fact that someone had tried to give him aspirin seemed to suggest that the person had done in-depth research on the judge. “This indicates either personal knowledge or access to high-level intelligence.”
The judge cleared his throat.
“How many other people know you have diabetes, Bobby?” Jillian Larsen insisted.
“Not many.”
Alex put steel in his voice. “Ballpark it for us.”
“Five, maybe six. My assistant, my bailiff, my ex-wife, me, my doctor, and likely his nurse, and my pharmacist.”
That was a damn short list.
“Could any of them be compromised?”
“Everyone can be coerced,” Kita said. “With the right incentive.”
Jillian said, “We need more intelligence, Judge.”
The older man blinked. Irritation washed over his features before he smoothed his face into a bland, smarmy mask.
Alex threw in the details from the marshals’ official investigation. “The Office of Professional Investigation is also reviewing all his cases to see if anyone has recently gotten out of jail. If we narrow the pool down to women, it will go faster.”
But Kita was shaking her head. “Vengeance. Could be the spouse or significant other that he put away, rather than the actual person.”
“It’s a level removed,” Alex shot back.
“Possessive or violent behavior isn’t relegated to just men,” Kita said softly.
He didn’t like the way she’d drawn into herself. And he definitely didn’t like the way her boss was looking at her.
The judge had been stonewalling this investigation from the beginning. “Why did you request protection if you aren’t going to be cooperative?” Alex kept his voice level, but Shep still shot a surprised look his way.
Yeah, as far as Alex knew, typically they weren’t too rough on their judicial protectees.
The judge flushed, creeping up his ruddy face and turning him an even brighter shade of red. “I didn’t.”
“You….” Alex couldn’t finish.
“My, ah, assistant, Vanessa, is the one who turned the letters over to the US Marshals Judicial Protection Service.” The judge looked sheepish. “I didn’t think there was a credible threat.”
Alex was trying to wrap his brain around the fact that the judge had not been the one to request protection. And one thought kept returning to the forefront. “Then why did you ask for backup from Adams-Larsen?”
The silence in the room was overwhelming.
Kita responded, saving the judge. “Let’s focus on the more pressing issue. Clearly the threat to the judge is real.”
So, yeah, they needed to be focused on protecting the judge. But eventually he wanted to know why the judge had insisted on Adams-Larsen.
“And we need to game a security plan with the updated information.” Jillian continued. “I’d like you to bring Dwayne in on this.”
“No obvious bodyguards in public,” the judge said gruffly.
So
Alex’s initial analysis had been correct. The judge didn’t want anyone to know he was under protection.
The doorbell rang just as Shep’s phone buzzed.
“Excuse me, this is the security for the building. I need to answer.” Shep turned away from the table.
The judge stood, but Dwayne stepped in front of him. “Let’s move to a more secure location.”
Kita headed for the door along with Alex.
Shep was talking quietly. Alex listened to his partner’s conversation with one ear even as he focused on Kita. “I’ll answer. You stand behind the door.”
Kita’s presence beside him sparked an unusual level of concern for her welfare.
“I’ve got training.” She kept pace with him, trying to convince him she was capable.
“You were completely debilitated a few hours ago.” Alex didn’t want her anywhere near the door. “Let me handle it.”
Shep had hung up. “Security cameras fritzed.”
Alex stopped, stood to the side of the door in case someone was on the other side ready to unload a weapon. He unholstered his weapon and thumbed off the safety.
“The doors in this place are steel reinforced,” Kita commented. “You’re in more danger on the side of the door than behind it.”
She stepped up to the door and peered through the security peephole. “No one.”
Alex nudged her out of the way. Carefully, he turned the deadbolt and opened the door.
No one was there. Alex looked left, then right. The hallway was empty. He stepped out into the hall. The elevator was silent. The only other escape route was the stairway at the end of the hall.
Alex took off at a run. “Lock the door behind me.”
Chapter 10
Kita hesitated for less than a second.
“Keep the judge under guard,” she ordered the room at large.
She shot out the door after Saunders. Since he went right, she went left. But the end of the hallway was a dead end. There was no escape outlet this way. She headed back to the co-op. The short jog down the hallway had tired her out.
She leaned against the door frame and guarded the entrance to the judge’s home. No one would get past her while she waited for Alex Saunders to return. It didn’t take long.
He burst from the stairwell exit.
Frowned when he saw her. “What are you doing out here?”
“I went the other way.” She jerked her head toward the end of the empty hallway.
“You were supposed to stay inside.”
“Yeah, well…orders and I don’t always mix.” She held his stare, until he blew out a breath.
“We’re going to talk about this.” Then he did the chin lift.
“We’re partners. I was just backing you up.” She smirked. Good thing she pulled that out of her ass because she pretty much hadn’t been thinking about Alex when she’d gone left.
His mouth twisted and she was pretty sure it wasn’t with amusement, but action drew her gaze to his lips, which drew her mind to other less serious pursuits.
“Inside,” he barked.
She had to stop having these feelings. Being inappropriately attracted to her “partner” had bad idea written all over it. And while she didn’t always follow the rules, she did listen to her gut. Getting tangled up with Alex Saunders was a terrible idea. Kita dropped her gaze to the floor to hide the sudden flare of lust. That’s when she saw an envelope on the floor.
Alex said, “Shit. Where did that come from?”
“No idea. I just noticed it.” Kita bent down to grab it.
“Don’t touch.”
Fortunately, she’d already seen the white crystals on the beige carpet. Kita snatched her fingers back against her breastbone.
“You see that?” She glanced at Alex, dread filling her up because a letter for a federal judge and dusted with white powder was never a good sign.
Alex said, “Could be anthrax.” He tucked his weapon in his holster and pressed a button on his phone. “We’re going to need the HAZWOPER team at Judge Robert Adams’s residence.” He nodded, then hung up the phone.
He stared at her steadily. “So not all rules are off-limits?”
“I may be impulsive but I’m not stupid.” Kita defended her actions. “Look. The judge was adequately guarded inside his co-op.” He wasn’t going to rattle her.
“You agreed I was lead on this.”
Kita fought a snarky comment. “True. But—”
“Let’s just leave it at that. We need to focus on this more immediate problem right now. Later we can tackle your insubordination.”
Okay, maybe he was going to rattle her. Insubordination?
Alex pressed another button on his phone. “Shep…Suspicious envelope at the judge’s front door. Waiting for Hazmat. Keep everyone quarantined inside until we confirm there is no poison or threat.”
She could hear Shep squawking through the phone line. He was still yakking when Alex disconnected the call. Alex leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. All the adrenaline that coursed through her earlier disappeared, and with a whoosh she slid to the floor. Back against the wall, legs propped, and elbows on her knees, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.
“Hey, you okay?” The concern in his voice surprised her. That shadowy memory of him hovering over her, whispering that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, slithered through her mind again.
The feelings he evoked were unfamiliar. She took care of herself. Even when she’d been kicked out of her mother’s house and gone to live with Marsh and his mom when she’d been seventeen. “Yeah.”
But maybe she’d overdone it a bit.
“Any specific symptoms? Shortness of breath? Rapid heart rate?” He’d perked up, his gaze scanning her for injury. He knelt down beside her. His unique piney scent invaded her consciousness, calming her rising anxiety.
“I’m good. But, ah—” Kita squirmed against the wall “—thanks for asking.”
His blue eyes sparkled, lightening his features, and his mouth quirked. “That was pretty tough, huh?”
His entire demeanor shifted. Gone was the serious, severe rule follower. In his place was a guy intent on mischief.
“You should laugh more often.” She spoke without thinking. Of course. And she wasn’t even sure why she was giving him advice on laughing since she rarely managed that particular action herself.
Alex ignored her and punched in a number on his phone, then set it on the floor. The speaker blared as the phone on the other end rang.
Shep answered. “Gaffney.”
“Any word on the cameras?”
“This floor, plus one above and one below had malfunctions.”
Well that was fucking handy.
“Get the tapes of the entire building.”
“Already on it.”
Alex blew out a breath. “I’ll call with an update once HAZWOPER gets here.”
“Ten four.” And Shep was gone, they were back to her and Alex. Alone.
With a packet of anthrax? She couldn’t think about the implications of that.
“Pretty fucking bold.” Kita stared at that envelope, wondering if they were at serious risk of being contaminated. She rubbed at the knob on her left wrist.
“Yeah, and the attacks are escalating.”
“As if they knew he had protection?” Except the judge had tried to keep that nugget a secret. Right now, Alex was posing as a driver and Kita as an aide.
Alex mulled that over.
His gaze followed her unconscious act of rubbing her wrist. Her tell. She knew it but most of the time it didn’t matter. She spent her days in front of a computer screen or training clients in self-defense.
“What happened to your wrist?”
She stopped rubbing. “I followed the rules.”
“What?”
Her gaze kept straying to that envelope. “What does HAZ-whatever stand for?” She rubbed her wrist again.
“Hazardous waste operations a
nd emergency response team.” Alex squatted down, clearly trying to put her at ease. “The CDC and the government have a strict emergency response protocol in place. It will be fine.”
She blinked. Her eyes a gritty mess, makeup caked at the corners, reminding her that she’d been unconscious not too long ago. She couldn’t afford to show any more weakness. “Okay.”
“There’s no need to panic.”
“I’m not panicking.” Not exactly. But holy shit, anthrax.
“We’ll be given an antivax and started on a course of antibiotics and quarantined until they can figure out if the powder is actually a toxin.”
Quarantined. With Alex Saunders. “How long?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“In the co-op?”
“Likely not. They haven’t been exposed so they may quarantine them inside the apartment.”
“Do you think that was the purpose?” Kita speculated. “If she—they—wanted to ensure that the judge was in a certain place, then the best way to do that is to trap him in a known area.”
Alex considered her comments. Nodded. “Good point. But the response team still won’t quarantine the people in the apartment with us.”
Us. A shiver went over her spine. She was going to be trapped in a place with Agent Saunders. Weirdly that didn’t upset her as much as it should.
The HAZWOPER team arrived, cutting off their conversation. Men and women in breathing masks, white jumpsuits, and anti-contamination gloves secured the area around the judge’s door.
A doctor administered a shot to each of them.
They were given containment suits to get them out of the building, loaded into a secure van, and taken to a properly prepared facility trained to deal with an anthrax outbreak.
Through the exams and shots and questions, Kita’s energy began to flag. She literally felt like she was wilting under the strain.
Hours later, they were finally ensconced in a US Marshals safe house not too far from downtown DC. The rowhouse was part of a long line of houses, in the middle of a slightly rundown neighborhood. The security alarm ensured that the house would stay undisturbed. Their defensive concerns were different from the regular ones associated with hiding and securing a federal witness. Mostly the Marshals just needed a place to stash them until the test results could confirm or deny the presence of anthrax in that letter.
