by Linda Howard
“I’m surprised,” Xavier said softly. Not surprised that Al had killed Felice, but that he’d trust the evidence in anyone else’s hands. She might have just disappeared. That would have left him and Lizzy looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives, but Al would have been a lot safer if no one knew.
Perhaps. None of them was truly safe, and they never would be.
“Mind if an old man gives you some advice?” Al asked, his voice gruff but a lot more relaxed than it had been when he’d first sat down.
“Can’t promise I’ll take it, but sure. Shoot.”
“Get a new job.”
Not what he’d expected to hear. “A job?”
“I’m sure you have some sort of marketable skills.”
He’d hear about that line later, when Al was gone and he met up with Lizzy. She was listening in; she was watching his back. She was probably laughing her ass off, right about now. No—she’d laugh later. Right now, she was looking down a barrel at the back of Al’s head.
“Disappear,” Al said quietly. “Change your name, change her name, move to Bora Bora, or Paris, or fucking Omaha, for all I care. Open a bakery or a tackle store, or hell, I don’t know. A driving school, maybe.” That made him smile. “Well, maybe not a driving school. Stay in one place for a while, make a few babies. Live, like a normal person.”
“This advice from a man who’s been married … how many times?”
Al shrugged his shoulders. “I could’ve made it work with the second ex-wife if I’d lived in Omaha and run a bookstore or a doughnut shop.” His eyes darkened, deepened. “Get out. That’s my last bit of advice to you. Just walk away. Live your life.”
And with that he took his own advice. Al Forge stood and walked away without looking back.
Epilogue
Almost a year later, with the hot Texas summer sun scorching her skin, Lizzy braced herself on the shooting range of their security-training firm and sighted down the barrel of the big Glock in her hand. She wore ear protectors, which she hated because they added another level of heat to the already almost unbearable temperatures, and steadily pulled the trigger until the clip was empty. Then she reloaded and did it again.
Suddenly her heart began beating with a slow, heavy rhythm.
The hot, seared landscape blurred, and images began forming in her mind.
For the past year she’d been recovering bits and snippets, here and there, but never the central event itself. Most of what she’d remembered had centered around Xavier, the giddy delirium of their relationship and the uncertainty that had plagued her because he was—well, he was Xavier, skilled and lethal to an incredible degree, dark and sexy and sometimes scary, but always exciting. She’d have died rather than admit it, but on a professional level she’d felt completely out of her league with him, while in their personal relationship she’d demanded they meet as equals. In the end, though, when she was dealing with the shock and grief at what she’d done, it was his personal commitment that she’d doubted.
He was right. She’d been a mess. If the situation had been less dire, if they’d been able to give her a month to come to grips with everything, maybe the whole situation could have been avoided.
Xavier didn’t think so. He thought that, no matter what, Felice would eventually have turned on them all. Maybe he was right. They’d never know, because beyond a doubt it was Lizzy beginning to recover her memory that had pushed Felice over the edge.
She did remember some things about Felice, and part of her mourned for the woman she’d known while they were training.
Now, perhaps because of the familiar weight of the pistol, the way it bucked in her hand, even the smell of burnt gunpowder, the protective curtain came down.
She remembered the high-heeled shoes she’d worn, the blue-gray suit with the darker blue silk blouse, an exact match of Natalie Thorndike’s clothes that day.
She remembered Charlie Dankins giving her the signal, ushering her into the President’s suite.
She’d gone straight to the First Lady’s bedroom, to the elegant handbag that had been tossed on the bed. She had a small hand-held computer that could read the thumb drive, then copy the data to another thumb drive. She had just inserted the second thumb drive in the USB port when the bedroom door opened.
For a second they’d simply stared at each other, the President, the First Lady, and herself. Then the First Lady had lifted her hand, and Lizzy had seen the gun.
She lunged toward the First Lady, coming in low, catching her gun hand and shoving it upward.
The First Lady shoved her, surprising strength behind the move. The President leaped at her, trying to wrap her up and take her down, but Lizzy had rolled into the First Lady’s feet and sent her staggering in an effort to keep her balance.
The First Lady rounded on her again with the weapon. Lizzy surged again, got her hand on the pistol, trying to jerk it away. Her finger slipped inside the trigger guard. The First Lady slung her hard against a table, and the impact made her hand jerk. Both of them had their fingers on the trigger when they staggered hard against a table, and the impact made her pull the trigger. Three shots. They all hit the President.
She saw the First Lady freeze, staring in horror at her husband.
Moving swiftly, Lizzy pounced. She grabbed the First Lady by the hair and slammed her head into the wall. The woman staggered, her eyes half-rolling back in her head.
“Here,” Lizzy said, and gave her the pistol. Then she turned her so she was facing the President, and Lizzy herself grabbed up the dead-giveaway little hand-held computer, as well as the thumb drive lying beside it, and bolted for the closet. It was the only place she could think to go.
It was stupid. It was inevitable that she’d be found there, but she had no other place to go. Already the door was being kicked down. There was a connecting room, but it would be locked.
There, in the dark closet, she listened to the uproar outside. She heard more shots. She stood frozen, her stomach knotted in panic, trying to fight through the horror of what had just happened. They were caught. There was no way out. All of them would be executed. And she’d killed the President.
She had very little clear memory of being gotten out of the suite. She knew it was through the connecting room, that the door had been unlocked. She remembered Xavier, everyone, moving fast, someone all but dressing her … dear God, that had been Felice.
After that … grief. Pain. Tears. The feeling that she didn’t deserve to get away with what she’d done. Nothing they’d said had made much of an impact on her, not the proof of the President’s guilt; all she felt was the rawness of her emotions that she didn’t think would ever heal.
Except now … standing in the hot Texas sun … she suddenly realized that she had healed. The memory wipe had given her three peaceful years in which she had recovered. That hadn’t been the purpose, but nevertheless that was the result.
And now she’d remembered the act itself.
She heard Xavier coming up behind her. She turned a little to watch him, because she couldn’t not watch him. Black boots, jeans, olive-drab tee shirt. A thigh holster was strapped to his right leg.
He eyed the target. The shots were all grouped in the tattered center. “You killed the fuck out of that one,” he said.
She flinched a little, tried to hide the movement, but nothing concerning her escaped him. He frowned, gripped her shoulders, and turned her to face him. His dark gaze bored into her blue one, and his grip tightened.
“You remember.” It was a statement.
“Yeah.” She got the one word out, but it was a struggle; her throat felt thick, clogged with the tears she refused to cry. The time for crying was long past. She’d done what had to be done, and the knowledge was a burden she’d always carry. She would always grieve at what had been necessary.
Xavier wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, lending her the support of his big body. The added heat was one more level of hell, and yet havin
g him there was all she needed.
“I’m okay,” she said a few minutes later, because if it wasn’t quite true now, one day it would be.
“You sure?”
“Sure enough,” she said, and slipped her arm around her husband’s waist. A small fuzzy dog began racing through the red dust toward them, yapping like crazy. She leaned down and scooped him up, held him the way Maggie had with her arm under his belly. “Roosevelt,” she said, “stop that infernal yapping.” Even though she knew the answer she asked again, “Exactly when is Maggie coming back?”
“Another two weeks, maybe.” Xavier looked around at the facility they’d designed and constructed. Security people already came from all over the nation for advanced training. It was challenging enough that he didn’t miss black-ops work much at all. Besides, he had Lizzy. That made up for losing the excitement of getting shot at.
Together they walked back to their offices, and the life they’d built together.
To my sister, Joyce. I love you. I miss you. Rest in peace.
By Linda Howard
A Lady of the West
Angel Creek
The Touch of Fire
Heart of Fire
Dream Man
After the Night
Shades of Twilight
Son of the Morning
Kill and Tell
Now You See Her
All the Queen’s Men
Mr. Perfect
Open Season
Dying to Please
Cry No More
Kiss Me While I Sleep
To Die For
Killing Time
Cover of Night
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Up Close and Dangerous
Death Angel
Burn
Ice
Veil of Night
Prey
Shadow Woman
By Linda Howard and Linda Jones
Blood Born
Running Wild
About the Author
LINDA HOWARD is the award-winning author of many New York Times bestsellers, including Prey, Veil of Night, Ice, Burn, Death Angel, Up Close and Dangerous, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Cover of Night, Killing Time, To Die For, Kiss Me While I Sleep, Cry No More, Dying to Please, Open Season, Mr. Perfect, All the Queen’s Men, Now You See Her, Kill and Tell, and Son of the Morning, and co-author (with Linda Jones) of Blood Born. She lives in Alabama with her husband and two golden retrievers.
