by Lisa Hughey
“She wants Marsh.”
Okay, well he knew that Marsh had been gone for a month. Their original speculation that the person writing the letters wanted Marsh appeared to be dead-on.
Marsh Adams could hopefully make this whole thing go away. With as close as the employees at Adams-Larsen seemed to be, and the fact that he was Kita’s childhood friend, his compliance should be a no-brainer. “Well, then. Get. Him.”
“We can’t.” Jillian finished before he could rip her fucking head off. “He’s missing.”
Chapter 20
Kita had her hands full driving with the plastic zip tie on her wrist. Darla Nichols, AKA crazy bitch, sat in the backseat behind her. “I will shoot you if you slow down.” They were on the Beltway heading toward Rock Creek Park. Well, that minimized her options, didn’t it? There was no way to roll from the car going this fast.
The good news was, once they stopped and were out of the car, Kita would have the advantage. And at this time of morning, she wouldn’t have to worry about collateral damage.
The park should be empty.
“What do you want with Marsh?” Her stomach rocked.
All she needed was a distraction, but so far Darla had been surprisingly tactical. Kita had never gotten close enough to take her down. Which begged the question, was it accidental or was she trained?
“That bastard. I can’t wait to make him pay for what he did,” Darla muttered.
“What did he do?”
“I want you to die, you know,” she said conversationally. Her lack of emotion made the statement that much more chilling. Darla Nichols wasn’t bothered by the thought of murder.
“I still don’t understand why.”
“Marsh Adams took someone from me. So I want to take someone from him.”
Kita was extremely confused. “Who did he take from you?” Maybe that’s where Marsh had been? But oh, fuck, if Crazy McCrazyPants was demanding Marsh meet them, Kita was in deep shit. Because according to Jillian, Marsh was MIA.
“Pull into that parking space.” They’d arrived at the park. It was o dark thirty and the park was deserted.
Right now, Darla was ignoring Kita. It would be best if she could disarm the woman before someone showed up. Marsh wasn’t going to show, obviously. The only other option was to send someone in his place.
She should be upset but right now she was just happy because they couldn’t send Alex. Darla had met Alex so he wouldn’t be out.
“He killed my lover.”
Oookay. Now Kita was really confused. “When did this happen?”
“Last month, you idiot.”
The only memorable event last month was the death of Sergei Polzin at ALIAS headquarters. Except he’d been killed by an FBI agent. The press had been given limited information, with the only details being that an unidentified person was in a shootout with Polzin after he took hostages at their office.
“You realize you’re burning bridges here. What about your congressional seat?”
“It’s over. They’re going to find out I poisoned my husband.” Darla laughed bitterly. “My opponent got ahold of a report that was supposed to be destroyed.”
“So you’re going to prison.”
Darla Nichols was silent, clearly thinking.
“Not if I can help it.” Darla tapped the headrest.
“Super confused right now, Congresswoman.” Kita tried to appeal to her vanity. “Can you explain?”
“Huh. There’s an idea.”
Kita had no clue what she was talking about but hopefully if she kept the woman distracted she could figure out a way out of this mess.
“Adams-Larsen is going to help me beat this. I’m the innocent victim of a frame job.” Darla punched in a number on her cell.
Kita could hear the phone ringing. She wondered who Darla was calling now.
“Good morning, judge,” Darla said pleasantly, as if she were making a social call. “I woke up horny,” she purred. “Come pay me a visit.”
Kita heard the judge blustering in the background. But the tap on his phone meant everyone was listening. She thought about yelling out something to warn him and his security. But the gun pressed up to the back of the seat was a deterrent.
Hopefully Jill had alerted everyone that Darla “Crazy Woman” Nichols had taken her hostage.
“Come on, darling. Have a little adventure.”
When the judge agreed, Kita knew that Jill had gotten the information to Alex and Shep. Otherwise there’s no way they would have agreed to let him near Darla at this time of night.
She gave him their location. “See you soon, darling.”
As soon as she hung up, her voice turned hard. “Let’s go.”
“It’s cold out,” Kita whined. She didn’t want to make it too easy for the congresswoman. She’d get suspicious otherwise.
“Do it. Or we will have a problem.”
Kita reluctantly opened her car door. Darla was standing outside the open door, within kicking distance, and her gun was nowhere to be seen.
Kita kicked out, hitting the woman in the stomach. She grunted but didn’t go down. As Kita rolled out of the driver’s seat, Darla grabbed her arm. Which would have worked in Kita’s favor, except a small pinch on the inside of her arm was the only warning she had.
Immediately her vision began to blur. She opened her mouth and forced out the words, but her tongue had thickened and her eyelids began to droop. “Whaat did youooooo give meeee?”
“Nighty-night.”
Fuuuucccckkk.
Alex slammed his fist against the scarred tabletop. “We don’t have a choice.” If it came down to the judge and Kita, he couldn’t even go there.
Jillian was on the other end of the line. “Dwayne is too big, and Shep’s coloring is all wrong. You’re the same general size as Marsh.”
“She’ll know as soon as she sees me.” Alex did not want to put Kita in jeopardy.
But he’d lost the argument. They plotted out a rescue strategy while Alex was on his way to the park. The judge and Dwayne were right behind him.
He was driving Shep’s car. He’d dropped Shep off about a half mile away. He was running to get in place. Fortunately, they still had the tech available from the night of the fundraiser so they could communicate with each other.
Jillian had taken Hannah and the kids to Adams-Larsen and called Maria Torres to keep them company, just in case Frank Donner somehow found out that Kita had been harboring the kids and his sister-in-law. Which, based on the way this evening or morning had turned into a total goatfuck, seemed very likely.
He drove slowly, the headlights cutting through the dark woods. The urge to speed down the road thumped through him like a heavy bass.
He nearly vibrated with the need to get to her. To make sure she was okay. Dwayne and Jill had told him to calm down, that Kita could take care of herself, but until he held her in his arms, he couldn’t shake the worry that something was about to go horribly wrong.
He pulled into the parking lot. On the far side, Kita was sitting on a bench with Darla standing behind her. Something was wrong with Kita. He could tell immediately that she was…off.
He pulled the baseball cap low over his brow so that in the still of the night, only his jaw and mouth would be visible.
“In position,” Shep said in his ear. “But the way she’s standing, if I shoot, there’s a possibility the weapon in her hand will go off. At that range, Kita will be dead.”
Besides, Darla Nichols was a sitting congresswoman, and they couldn’t just shoot her down in cold blood. As much as Alex wanted to end this and get Kita safe.
“Don’t shoot,” he murmured. But he couldn’t seem to see any way out of this clusterfuck without someone getting shot. “Try to get closer.”
“Come on out,” Darla called in a singsong-y voice.
Alex exited the car slowly. Put his hands in the air. He was the decoy. “I’m unarmed. Just like you demanded.” His voice came out strained. Hop
efully Darla had never met Marsh in person. No one seemed certain on that detail, which was a pretty big fucking detail to get wrong.
Darla Nichols held the weapon to Kita’s ear. The coffee he’d sucked down sloshed in his stomach, acid churning.
Kita sat docilely, her wrists cuffed in front, her eyes glazed.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Benzodiazepine.”
Dammit. Alex ran through what he knew about the drug. Sedative, hypnotic, sleep-inducing, anti-anxiety, anticonvulsant, and muscle relaxant properties. Would she be okay? Why hadn’t they asked if she was allergic to any other medicines?
“What do you want?”
“I wanted you to pay,” she shouted.
He didn’t understand. She seemed to have some personal grudge against Marsh Adams. “What for?”
“You killed Sergei!” she screamed.
Who the hell was Sergei?
“This is classified information,” Jillian spoke in his ear. “Sergei Polzin was shot in our offices. But Marsh didn’t kill him. The bigger question is how she knows about Sergei.”
The situation was clearly volatile. “How do you know Sergei?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Alex had been hoping to distract her so that Shep could sneak up behind her. But her hand remained steady.
The limousine with the judge and Dwayne drove up. They were out of time.
Alex was this close to giving the order to take her down. The fallout might destroy him but Kita would be safe. Alive.
Chapter 21
Kita’s head lolled to the side.
She needed to shake off this sluggishness from whatever drug Darla had given her. Rookie move. A big mistake on her part to underestimate her opponent.
She’d assumed Darla was just a woman who’d taken over her husband’s congressional seat, but clearly there was more going on here.
The barrel of Darla’s .38 dug into the side of her head. And it hurt. She needed to focus, to use that pain to get her head clear. The judge was on his way and she had to protect him.
Their job, Alex’s job, was to keep the judge safe.
But Alex was out there, pretending to be Marsh. And when Darla figured out that Alex was the one wearing that Nationals baseball cap, all hell was going to break loose.
Darla was unpredictable, at best.
Unstable, at worst.
Unfortunately, Kita was not processing very quickly. Her body was lethargic. She needed to get the drug through her bloodstream, but when she tried to move her arms nothing happened.
She squeezed her hands into fists, but her motor skills were so compromised that she mostly just curled her fingers in on her palms. Her legs jerked out, kicking a pine cone across the hard-packed ground.
Pine needles scented the air, reminding her of Alex. Alex didn’t deserve the fallout from this weird confluence of events. He had done everything by the book. She was the one who went off script and endangered both the judge and her coworkers.
She couldn’t let anything happen to Marsh’s father.
She had to make this better. She’d made the mess, now it was time for her to clean it up.
But damn she still had very limited range of motion and fine motor capabilities.
She tried to move her legs, and touched another pine cone. Closing her eyes, she focused on lifting her leg just enough to rest her foot on the pine cone.
She pressed down hard, and the sharp edges dug into the soft arch of her bare right foot. Spikes of pain shot up her leg. The pain helped her focus.
Darla was yelling at the judge to get out of his car.
The judge opened his door. In a smart move, he’d positioned his car so that the door protected most of his body. He stood there with only his shins and his neck and his head exposed. Which was still problematic if Darla’s shooting ability was as good as her captive-taking skills.
If Kita could just give him some sort of signal so he ducked, the heavy car door would protect him.
Dwayne was the driver of the limousine.
“What is going on here?” The judge’s voice trembled. And for the first time since Kita met him, he sounded old.
“Your son is going to pay.” Darla threatened. “Initially I wanted to kill someone who mattered.”
“You really were going to kill me?” The judge sounded so surprised.
“Yes, legions of women would have wept at your funeral Bobby,” she said drily.
He seemed at a total loss for words.
She turned away from the judge and spoke to “Marsh” again. “But I realized that threatening to kill your father or your friend—” she had a hank of Kita’s hair in her hand and shook her head like a rag doll, making her scalp sting “—still wouldn’t make you pay enough, and I’ll still be vulnerable.”
“So what are you doing with her like that?” The fake Marsh had barely looked at her. She knew it was Alex and she was terrified that Darla was going to figure it out and shoot him.
She wasn’t the most stable person.
“Leverage.” Darla said, “If you don’t take my threat seriously, you won’t do what I want.”
Kita guessed the goal was to apprehend Darla alive. But if Darla began to shoot, Kita had to be ready to help.
“So you aren’t going to hurt them?” Alex tried to clarify.
“I won’t if you agree to help me. If you don’t, I have nothing to lose by killing them both.”
“What demands?” Alex spoke at the same time the judge said, “I’ve promised to put in a good word for you, my dear.”
“A good word isn’t going to cut it.” Darla’s arm trembled. “Adams-Larsen is going to give me a new identity.”
Kita still didn’t have enough range of motion. But she knew she had to move soon. She had to stop this train wreck before the judge got hurt.
* * *
“Oh hell.” Jill’s voice in his ear struck a chord.
“What is she talking about?” Darla Nichols was rambling about starting a new life. The woman had gone completely fucking nuts.
“Who are you running from?” the judge asked. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even look confused.
And Jillian’s swear word softly echoed in his ear made him realize that he was the only one in this scenario who thought the congresswoman was crazy.
She laughed harshly. “Who isn’t after me?”
Alex was trying to catch up, not having a clue what was happening. But suddenly all the little details about Adams-Larsen were clicking into place. The PR firm that didn’t seem to have a lot of clients. The ex-CIA and ex-FBI and ex-Marshals. They weren’t running a PR firm.
Darla continued, “Marsh took away my ticket out of here.”
“You were planning on leaving the country with Sergei Polzin?” The judge tried to keep her attention on him. Probably thinking he was protecting Alex. But Darla was unstable enough that they were all in danger.
“You give people new identities?” Alex asked Jillian. He was trying hard not to move his lips. The last thing they needed was for Darla Nichols to figure out he was wearing a comm device.
“Can we talk about this later?” Jill sounded exasperated.
“I need details if I’m going to negotiate with her.”
“Yes. We set up people in the general public who have…problems,” Jillian said in his ear.
Betrayal, sharp and intense, burned beneath his breastbone. “This is information I could have used yesterday.” But he didn’t have time to indulge in anger. At least not right now. Right now he had to save Kita.
Alex bluffed, calling out to Darla Nichols. “We need to know who is after you in order to figure out your logistics.”
“Once the news that I killed my husband is made public, the Russians will be after me.”
The Russians.
“Explain.” Alex barked out.
“I was part of the ‘illegals’ program as a child. It was started by the SVR, Russian Intelligence.”
“Holy shit,” whispered Dwayne. “This is what we talked about.”
The incident had created a major diplomatic embarrassment between Russia and the US.
“I thought they rounded up all the people in Operation Ghost Stories.”
“There are many foreign agents still placed here.” Darla laughed. “My grandmother was sent here with the express orders to train her offspring.”
“And your mission was to infiltrate the US Government?”
She’d been trying to get on the House Committee on Foreign Relations. So she could influence policy for and against Russian allies and enemies?
“I grew up here, went to college, joined political organizations and began to target individuals with national political aspirations.”
The plan was brilliant.
“I married my husband, encouraged him to discuss his positions and his decisions. Once he’d cemented his position in the House of Representatives, I was tasked with eliminating him and taking over his seat.” She spoke so dispassionately. Calmly relating that she’d killed her husband of twenty years.
The judge said with wonder, “A sleeper. I wondered about the husband. The timing of his death was definitely suspect.”
“Are there more like you?”
“I don’t know them. But yes, of course.”
Alex dropped his gaze to Kita, checking in with her. She was looking far more alert. But her face still held a groggy cast.
“You’re loyal to the Russian government?”
“I may have been born here, but I have served my mother country for many years.”
“So that’s why you need a new identity?”
“Yes. Once my opponent releases the report that confirms I killed my husband, I will go to prison.”
“Why not go to Russia?”
“They are going to be angry with me that I have lost my position in the House.” She shook her head. “I cannot go there either.”
She pressed the weapon harder to Kita’s head.
Kita whimpered.
Alex stared at that weapon, his emotions a churning mass. Protocol insisted they wait for the US Marshals backup. He had called right before they got here. They were coming but he couldn’t afford to wait. He stared at Kita, willing her to look at him.
