Out of Time

by Monica McCarty

  “Promise me,” he repeated more insistently.

  She met his gaze and nodded, but she wasn’t sure whether she would be able to keep that promise. She wouldn’t let him die. She couldn’t. She wasn’t done with him yet.

  She would never be done with him.

  But she did as he asked and ran out to the car to retrieve his gear bag—and blowout kit—from the trunk. After getting him a bottle of vodka, which he took a couple of long drinks from to dull the pain, he was able to talk her through the harrowing procedure of disinfecting the wounds—the smaller entry wound in his back and the larger exit wound in his front—and patching him up with the military clotting gauze that had a hemostatic agent on it to help stop bleeding, something he called Israeli bandages, and more gauze to wrap around him tightly to hold everything in place.

  He talked her through the whole thing, helping to calm her when her hands were shaking.

  But as soon as she’d finished, he was out cold. She curled up next to him with her head on his chest, too scared and tired to move. She needed to hear the beat of his heart against her ear.

  She couldn’t stop the shivering. She’d never been so scared in her life. She couldn’t delude herself anymore. Colt mattered just as much to her as he ever had; that was never going to change.

  But something would have to.

  “Why is a baby so important to you?”

  His question came back to her. But suddenly it clicked, and she realized what he was really asking: “Why am I not enough?” It wasn’t about the baby; maybe it never had been. Colt thought she wanted a child because loving him wasn’t enough. Somehow she had to make him see that he was.

  If she had a chance.

  Her heart squeezed with fear, trepidation, and uncertainty. After everything that had happened, how could she let him back in her life?

  She lifted her head long enough to look at the gray features of the man who still looked half-dead and knew that was a stupid question. It was too late. He was already in. He’d never really left.

  I can’t lose him.

  She had to do something.

  She got up to get her phone. She’d promised not to call the ambulance, but she hadn’t promised not to call Scott. He would know what to do to keep her stubborn, mean, tender, cruel, sweet, wounded, and scarred ex-husband alive.

  Twenty-two

  After the dead end with Baylor at Natalie’s parents’ house, Scott had been up much of the night waiting for news from Kate.

  Initially they’d been optimistic that Baylor’s guys—or more accurately, Baylor’s future father-in-law’s private contractors (i.e., private army)—would find something. Natalie’s parents thought they remembered seeing a laptop when they’d packed up her things from the apartment. But the guys had been through the boxes a dozen times and hadn’t been able to find anything.

  Scott had thought it was strange that Mick wouldn’t have sanitized the apartment, but he’d had them check again and the laptop was there on the inventory list of the things in her apartment. Tellingly, however, when Natalie asked them about her journals—journals Scott didn’t even know she kept—they weren’t on the list.

  Someone had sanitized the apartment before the police arrived.

  Mick had been an asshole, but he hadn’t been a stupid one. Would he have been sloppy enough to leave the laptop or was there another reason?

  When Scott voiced his suspicion to Natalie, she didn’t disagree. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Mick left some kind of insurance plan to cover his ass. You think it could be on my laptop?”

  “Maybe. I can’t think of another reason why he would leave it there. It could be just the proof we are looking for if it leads to the person he was working for.”

  To say that the news that someone on the inside had been involved—and that that person could be General Thomas Murray—had thrown Scott for a loop was putting it mildly. It seemed inconceivable that someone of the general’s stature and reputation could be involved. A hard-liner against Russia suddenly passing on top-secret information to them? What kind of warped thinking could justify that?

  But if the leak wasn’t Natalie—and Scott was convinced it wasn’t—someone else in that room had passed on information. And any way they looked at it, the general made the most sense, especially given how fast Scott had been tracked to Natalie.

  “I wish I knew what happened to it,” Natalie said.

  Scott did, too. The nine men who’d died deserved an answer, and he owed it to them to find out.

  After dinner with the senator, a much less awkward one than the night before, Scott and Natalie returned to the suite and tried to get some sleep. But Scott had been restless—even for him—and slipped out of Natalie’s bedroom and returned to his own so as not to disturb her.

  The deputy secretary’s computer would help exonerate Natalie and help prove that someone else in the room had passed on the information to Mick. But if they were going to accuse the general, they would need more than that. They would need proof.

  Proof could be on Natalie’s laptop, but what if they couldn’t find it?

  Scott had been going over every angle and he had a hunch that there might be another connection. He sent an e-mail to Donovan, asking him to have Brittany forward it to her friend Mac to have her look into it. He would have gone through Kate, but he didn’t want to bother her while she and Colt were working on the deputy secretary’s computer.

  He hoped to hell nothing went wrong.

  He had just slipped back into bed beside Natalie to try to get some sleep when the phone he’d put down on the bedside table buzzed.

  * * *

  • • •

  Natalie had been sleeping with Scott long enough to be used to his restlessness. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten up multiple times in the night to deal with something that was on his mind. How he survived on so little sleep, she had no idea, but he seemed to not need more than four or five hours a night.

  Natalie would be comatose during the day if she did that.

  But when the phone rang at a little after five in the morning, Scott wasn’t the only one wide-awake. If it was Kate reporting back with news of Deputy Secretary Waters’s computer, Natalie wanted to hear it. She followed Scott into his room, where he’d gone presumably not to wake her, and sat on the edge of the bed while he stood in front of the window to take the call.

  He glanced toward her and she could tell from his expression, even in the predawn shadowed light, that whatever the person on the other side of the conversation was saying, it wasn’t good.

  Her impression was solidified when he swore. “Fuck. Tell me exactly what happened.” He was quiet for a couple of minutes as the person on the other end filled him in. “Did Waters see him?”

  Uh-oh. Definitely not good.

  Scott’s expression grew even more intense. “Where did the bullet hit?” Natalie gasped and Scott’s gaze met hers. She could see how worried he was. “You are sure it went through?” He waited. “Okay, good. He was lucky, as usual.” Another pause. “No, no, you did the right thing. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” From his tone, Natalie could tell he was obviously trying to calm her down. “Colt would know if it hit something vital, Kate. If he needed a hospital, he would have told you. But I’ll be there soon to make sure. He’s not going to die, okay? You have to calm down.”

  He had to repeat himself a few more times, but eventually Kate must have relaxed enough for Scott to hang up. Natalie already had an inkling of what had happened, but it was still a shock to hear that Deputy Secretary Waters had shot Colt.

  “I didn’t even think that Rich liked guns,” Natalie said, referring to her mild-mannered former boss. “Let alone knew how to use one. He never said a word.” She looked up at Scott apologetically. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for. A hom
e weapon is something Colt would have anticipated. But you can’t control for everything. Apparently the laptop had an alarm and the humidity this summer made the office window difficult to open.” He took a few steps toward her. “I hate to leave you here like this, but Kate is freaking out, and I told her I would come check on Colt. I guess she’s not as over him as she wanted me to think.”

  “Of course you have to go,” Natalie said. “I’ll be fine here.”

  Scott looked at her, clearly uneasy with the idea and seemingly debating with himself. “I’d rather take you with me, but I don’t know what we are dealing with yet, and it’s safer for you here with all the senator’s security.”

  “Scott, go!” she said with not a little exasperation. “It’s Fort Knox, remember? I’ll be fine.”

  He held her gaze for a moment longer and nodded. After retrieving his bag, he pulled out some clothes and went into the bathroom to throw some water on his face, brush his teeth, and use the toilet.

  Even though she’d seen it before, she was amazed at how quickly and precisely he operated. In a matter of minutes, he was dressed and geared up, ready to go. She knew he was already in mission mode, but he surprised her by pulling her into his arms for a long and very thorough kiss before he left the room.

  She held on a little long—not wanting to let him go.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “You can hang out by the pool but try to stay close to the house otherwise.”

  “Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere. I’m sure the senator will take good care of me.”

  “He’d better,” Scott said fiercely. “I’m trusting him with what matters most to me in the world.”

  And then, before the swell of happiness could rise from her heart to her eyes, he was gone.

  The room seemed so empty with him gone and the sudden sense of loss told her how quickly she’d come to depend on his steady presence again.

  Natalie sat on the window seat, her knees tucked in her arms, and watched the sun come up, praying that this would all be over soon without anyone else getting hurt.

  * * *

  • • •

  Scott hated leaving Natalie behind, but if he had to go, he knew he could do a lot worse than the senator’s fortress. The place was wired up tight and monitored by a well-trained security force.

  Nothing was going to happen to her. At least that was what he kept telling himself as he made the forty-five-mile drive to Kate’s town house in McLean. His sister must have been watching for him. The door was thrown open before he pulled up.

  One look at her tear-ravaged face, and he was glad he’d come right away. He held her in his arms in the doorway as she sobbed out her fear on his T-shirt. “Where is he?” Scott asked. “Let me see him.”

  Kate turned and pointed behind her. “He collapsed right after he got inside. I couldn’t move him.”

  Scott closed the door behind him a little too hard, and Colt’s body tensed at the sound. His eyes opened and shut a few times before settling on open.

  A gruff curse was the first thing Scott’s former chief managed to say before his hand went to his injured side with another, “Fuck, that hurts. What the hell—” He stopped, as if suddenly remembering. But just in case he didn’t, Kate had come down on her knees beside him. “You were shot!” she yelled accusingly, and then repeating in soft tremble, “Shot.”

  She looked like she might fall apart all over again, but before Scott had put a steadying hand on her, Colt had done it. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I told you I’d be okay. You did a great job.”

  Scott had never heard Colt talk to anyone in that tone of voice. Even when they were married, he’d never talked to Kate so gently. Scott looked back and forth between the exes, wondering what the hell was going on. He’d obviously missed something, and it was equally obvious that he doubted he’d like what it was. There was an intimacy between them that he hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “You could have died!” she accused again through tear-filled eyes.

  Colt shook his head. “It would have had to be a few inches over to have any chance of that.”

  She looked like she could have shot him herself. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  Colt tried to smile, but from the tightness of his expression he was obviously in a lot of pain, and it came out as more of a wince. “I thought you’d appreciate the truth.”

  “God, are all men idiots or just you?”

  Colt looked at him, but Scott had no idea how he was supposed to answer that.

  “Let me see how close he is to death’s door,” Scott said. He gave Kate a few instructions of stuff to get him, mostly to keep her out of the way while he pulled back the bandages and talked to Colt, but she’d actually done a pretty good job. Better than she’d done on his shoulder. Apparently, Colt was a better instructor than YouTube. “The exit wound may need to be stitched or stapled closed. Do you want me to do it?”

  “Fuck no,” Colt said. “I saw your handiwork when you had to patch up Ruiz once. I’ll do it myself if I have to. Just help me up.”

  Scott half carried him into the living room. He laid down a blanket that was hanging over the back of the sofa, although he doubted under the circumstances that Kate would mind if the upholstery got blood on it. Colt sat rather than lay down. Scott assumed the clenched jaw was him fighting against the urge to throw up.

  “How do you feel?” Scott asked.

  Colt shot him a glare that said asshole. Scott just grinned.

  “I’ve felt better.”

  “I think you were off a couple inches in your estimation,” Scott said, watching the door in case Kate appeared. “That bullet barely missed a few vital organs. From the amount of blood on the rug out there, you’re lucky you didn’t bleed out.”

  Kate’s sudden appearance cut off Colt’s reply, which from his expression Scott was going to assume would have been angry.

  “What did you say?” Kate asked.

  “Nothing,” Colt said before Scott could reply. “Except that I’m going to owe you a new rug. I hope to hell it wasn’t one of the ones from your grandmother’s house. As I recall those were worth more than I make in a year.”

  Apparently Scott wasn’t the only one who got shit for his bank account.

  Kate ignored the bait; she wouldn’t be so easily distracted. “Shouldn’t you be lying down? You look pale.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Colt said. “I just need a few minutes.”

  “You sure about that?” Scott interjected, deciding to help Colt out. “I think you might be getting a little too old for the job if you let a fifty-year-old politician get the jump on you.”

  “Fuck you, Ace. And anytime you want to go head-to-head in a workout just let me know. The bastard got off a lucky shot, but I still finished the mission.”

  Scott looked at Kate. But she was surprised, too.

  “You did?” she said. “I thought you weren’t able to put in the thumb drive.”

  “I wasn’t. I had to improvise. Since the jig was up, I went ahead and grabbed the laptop. It should be in the car on the front seat.”

  “I got the bag from the trunk,” she said by way of explanation. “I didn’t even look in the front.”

  Scott went to retrieve the laptop and handed it to Kate when he came back in. She sat down in one of the living room chairs and started to tap. She was instantly in the zone, and Scott and Colt went over the specifics of what happened while she worked.

  Scott was glad to hear that Waters hadn’t gotten a good look at Colt.

  “I was out the window on the roof when he fired,” Colt said.

  Scott didn’t need to ask whether Waters had seen him get away. Colt was too good for that. He would have parked somewhere where no one could see him and out of the eyes of any security cameras.

  After a few m
ore minutes, Kate looked up. “I don’t see anything. I want to run it through a program I have, and I’ll let Mac have a look at it, too, but if Natalie downloaded a spyware program on here, I’m not seeing it.”

  “Are you sure?” Scott asked.

  “Not yet. Give me a couple hours.” She disappeared into her office with the laptop. Colt gave up the tough act and lay down on the couch and asked for painkillers. Scott passed the time by getting him some toast and chicken broth that Colt could eat to take with the pills he had in his bag so that he could sew up the wound. Colt was one of the toughest sons of bitches Scott knew and watching him stitch up his own bullet hole was nothing all that new.

  Apparently Kate’s former fiancé hadn’t moved out all of his belongings as Scott was able to locate a fresh T-shirt to replace the ruined one he’d helped pull off Colt. He thought Colt might object, but other than the fact that his mouth was a tight line, he accepted the loaner without a word.

  Having exhausted his nursing skills, Scott let Colt rest while he went into the kitchen to get some food and fill the other guys in on what was going on. The calls took a while, and it was after nine by the time he went back into the living room to check on Colt, who had just woken and was looking a little less close to death’s door.

  Kate came in a few minutes later. She jellied a little at the T-shirt but collected herself quickly. “I found a few bits of code that may have been left over from what Natalie originally loaded, but it’s nothing that would have bypassed security or enabled anyone to listen in on a conversation in the Tank. Mick must have learned the information from someone else who wanted to make it look as if Natalie had done it.” She paused and looked at Scott. “I think Natalie was telling the truth.”

  Scott didn’t need confirmation, but it was nice to get. He decided to check in on Natalie and fill her in. He’d left her his burner phone in case she needed to reach him, and he’d taken one of the backups he had in his bag.