by Lauren Carr
“You cleanup so well that one would think you were civilized. I know the truth.” Ripley turned serious. “How are things going?” She told Helen, “I was with Chris when he got the news about Blair.”
With a shrug of his shoulders, Chris wrapped his arm around Helen and pulled her close. “Things are definitely looking up. Retirement is treating me good. You?”
“Since my divorce?” Ripley laughed. “I’ve devoted myself to my career, which was what basically led to my marriage breaking up. Occasionally, I’ve been loaned out to other agencies in the community to work on special investigations. That keeps things exciting.”
“Well, don’t let things get too exciting while you have my daughter.”
“Of course not. I’m assuming you two are going to take advantage of his freedom this weekend, or did you fail to unload the other two?”
“We managed to unload all three of them,” Helen said. “My daughter Sierra is spending the night at a slumber party.”
“And both Emma and Nikki scored sleepovers tonight,” Chris said.
“What about your mother?” Ripley asked.
“Which is why Helen invited me to her place for our own private party,” Chris said with a grin.
“Leaving that helpless elderly woman all alone?” Ripley said.
“My mother is as helpless as a rattlesnake,” Chris said. “She’s invited a friend of hers over. The truth is, I got kicked out. I’m not allowed to go home until noon Sunday.”
“Gives me hope that when I’m sixty-five I’ll have a friend to invite over for sleepovers,” Ripley said.
Before leaving for the Kennedy Center, Helen opted to visit the ladies’ restroom. Since it was still the height of Friday night rush hour, Ripley decided to go as well to play it safe before getting into traffic.
Curious about the chit-chat the new acquaintances would share once he was out of earshot, Chris sat on a bench next to the escalators leading down to the Pentagon City metro stop. He imagined the secrets that they might be sharing in the mirror while washing their hands or checking their make-up.
Whatever. I just hope they don’t decide to share too much. He checked the time on his cell phone. Time was getting short. He looked in the direction of the hallway in time to see a woman with blond hair pass him and stop at the news stand next to him.
A Washington Redskins ball cap covered the top of her head. She wore a thick plaid jacket. A slender woman, her long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail that spilled down her back.
He instantly recognized her face and her build, which was significantly leaner than the last time he had seen her. The tilt of her head. The way her hips swayed as she moved past him was unmistakable.
Upon reaching the news stand, she picked up a newspaper and slipped it under her arm.
He was so certain it was her, that he almost dropped his cell phone to the floor. His knees felt numb when he stood.
Like prey sensing movement nearby, she jumped and spun around.
His eyes locked with her blue orbs. For an instant, the world seemed to stand still in silence.
No, it can’t be. Blair? Blair.
Chris’s mind raced to re-examine everything from the past—Blair’s decision to leave him and their family to take advantage of the opportunity with the state department in Switzerland. Her departure. Their separation. His decision to not take their daughters to Switzerland that summer because Blair had said she would be too busy working on a project. She claimed she couldn’t take any time off. Then, the worst day of his life—the day his supervisor had called him into his office to tell him about Blair’s death on Bastille Day in Nice, France, while apparently traveling with an intelligence officer from Australia.
She had claimed she was too busy to take time off to visit with her family. Obviously, she had enough time to travel to France to meet another man.
Three years after receiving the cremated remains of his wife and the mother of his children, how could she be standing before him?
Should he feel happy to see that she was alive, saddened by her betrayal, or angry that she had put his daughters through such grief. Every one of those emotions swirled inside him like a cyclone.
“Blair.” He took a step toward her only to have her spin around and run down the escalator.
He gave chase. He forgot about Helen and Ripley. All he could think about was that Blair was alive.
Why did they tell me that she was dead?
He weaved through people on the escalator—fighting to keep Blair in his sight.
Was it a mistake or a lie? Why didn’t she tell us that she was alive? Where has she been all this time?
At the bottom of the escalator leading to the ticket area, he stopped. One needed a metro ticket to get through the turnstiles leading to the tracks below.
Peering into each dark corner, Chris turned around in a circle. A steady stream of commuters squirming around him to reach their individual destinations made it a difficult task.
Among the constant activity, one lone unmoving figure leaning against the ticket machines stood out. Clad in worn jeans and a hoodie pulled up over his head, he pretended to focus on his cell phone. While he held his cell phone in his hand, he was watching everyone.
Chris spotted him as being some part of law enforcement. Either a plain clothes security with the metro or a member of a federal agency keeping watch for a possible terrorist attack. Whichever it was didn’t matter to Chris. All he cared about was which direction Blair had gone.
“Excuse me, did you see a blond woman in a plaid jacket, very pretty, go by?”
The man in the hoodie froze at his direct approach. He looked Chris up and down.
Up close, Chris saw that under the laid back, casual, even street-wise attire, he was an attractive, athletic man with striking blue eyes and dimples. Yep, he’s undercover. Vice maybe?
“Sorry, bud, I’ve seen lots of pretty blond women go by.” He glanced around Chris to continue his surveillance.
Dismissing him to return to whatever case he was working on, Chris rushed to the first ticket machine, stuck a five-dollar bill in, purchased a ticket, and hurried down the escalator. He spotted her on the train platform.
She was not alone.
A man wearing a red baseball cap was walking close to her—ushering her along the ramp toward the tunnel where the first car of the next train would stop.
Chris was so intent on catching her that he bumped into a man in a black coat at the bottom of the escalator—knocking him into the handrail. The man’s black hat fell to the ground. Apologizing, Chris picked up the hat and stuffed it into his hands.
When the man responded in an Asian language, Chris turned to him to catch a fiery glare. While he didn’t know exactly what the Asian man had said, Chris had no doubt but that it was a curse.
“I’m very sorry,” he said before continuing his pursuit.
As he drew closer to Blair, he saw that her companion had his arm around her waist.
Blair stumbled—managing to pull away just a second—long enough for Chris to spot the muzzle of a gun aimed at her side.
With a glance over his shoulder, the man pulled her back to him. Under the ball cap, Chris saw the man’s enormous Roman nose and weak chin.
Chris’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach. He broke out in a cold sweat. He had seen that face before. It was hard to forget. Chris had seen it on more than one most-wanted poster issued by the FBI—one of their ten most wanted.
Leonardo Mancini was as evil as he was ugly. International assassin. Willing to kill anyone for the right amount of money.
The lights along the train ramp blinked to signal that the next train was arriving.
Passengers rushed to the ramp—jostling for easy access onto the train. Abruptly, there was a human barricade erected between Chris and Blair.
&
nbsp; Minutes later, they would be gone. Blair would be really dead this time. Judging by the fear in her eyes, she knew it. Mancini would be on an airplane flying off to his next hit before they found her body.
Chris dropped to one knee and extracted the weapon he wore in an ankle holster. With the small handgun down at his side, he gently pushed his way through the passengers to get as close to Blair and Mancini as he could.
The train swooshed out of the tunnel toward them.
As he searched around for a possible solution, he noticed the man in the blue hoodie sliding down the escalator on the railing with his cell phone to his ear. Even if he was law enforcement, there was no way or time to let him know what was going on.
There was no time. Still, several people were crammed between him and Blair and Mancini.
Can’t let them get on the train.
The train screeched to a halt.
He saw Blair’s eyes filled with fright as she searched for help.
I have to save her.
With his eyes on Mancini’s ugly face, Chris thrust the hand holding the gun up into the air and fired a shot into the ceiling. “Everybody down!”
Instantly, people hit the floor or dashed away—clearing a path for him to fire the next shot into Leonardo’s head before he had time to realize what was happening.
Leonardo fell dead.
Once again, time seemed to freeze.
Released from Leonardo’s hold on her, Blair stared at Chris with wide eyes.
Still not believing that she was standing before him, Chris stared back.
Almost with a swoosh, time resumed.
Blair was caught up into the stampede of commuters rushing onto the train.
Mancini’s weapon was kicked around until it landed on the tracks by the hysterical mob trying to escape the shoot-out.
“Chris!” Blair reached out toward him.
His eyes never leaving her face, Chris tried to move toward her, but was pushed back by the mob who carried her onto the train.
“Chris,” she shouted, “I wish we had more time!”
“What?” Chris dodged around people in a vain effort to reach the doors.
“I wish we had more time!” she yelled over the chimes signaling the shutting of the doors.
The doors closed, and the train pulled away with her on it.
She was gone.
Chapter Two
By the time federal law enforcement descended on the metro station, Chris was lying spread eagle on the subway ramp with his hands on top of his head. His gun rested next to him.
Feet away from him, Leonardo Mancini was bleeding out from the bullet in his brain.
As Chris was being escorted up the escalator in handcuffs, an officer pointed at the tracks. “I see a second weapon. Looks like he’s telling the truth about the guy having a gun.”
The cold November air hit Chris in the face when he was taken outside and placed in the back of an unmarked police cruiser. He recognized the make and model as the type assigned to the FBI. As the officers who had escorted him out of the metro station walked away, Chris noticed a man wearing a heavy jacket with “FBI” emblazoned on the back, take a position outside the rear door—presumably to keep the shooter from escaping—as if Chris would get far with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“Chris!” He heard Helen call his name.
Abruptly, the agent opened the door to allow Helen to reach in to hug him. Chris saw Ripley directly behind her.
“What happened?” Helen said with tears in her eyes. “We came out of the ladies’ room and you were gone. Then we heard there was a shooting.”
“They said you killed a man.” Ripley eyed the agent guarding him.
If she was silently asking him to leave them alone, it wasn’t happening. The agent remained with his arms folded across his chest. As it was, it was against protocol for him to allow anyone to talk to the suspect until the investigators questioned him. Chris assumed he was using the opportunity to gather information for the prosecution’s case.
“It was Leonardo Mancini,” Chris said.
Ripley’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes grew wide. “Are you sure?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“Positive,” Chris said.
“Who is Leonardo Mancini?” Helen asked.
“International assassin,” Ripley said. “We know of at least six hits he’s made—some of them contracted by foreign governments. Russia. China. Iran. North Korea. If he was on the scene, I guarantee something big was going down.”
“He had Blair,” Chris said. “He had a gun stuck in her ribs.”
“Blair?” Helen withdrew her hand from where she had clutched his arm.
“As in the-wife-you-buried-three-years-ago-Blair?” Ripley’s eyebrows furrowed.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Chris said, “but I saw her.”
“Maybe she just looked like Blair,” Helen said.
“No.” Chris shook his head. “She was two feet from me. Looked me right in the eyes. She recognized me, and I recognized her.”
“Did she say—”
“She ran. She was scared out of her wits. By the time I caught up to her, Mancini had her by the arm and was forcing her to the train. I didn’t have time to do anything except shoot him.”
“If it was Blair, where is she now?” Ripley cast multiple glances at the agent.
“She escaped on the train.”
“Why wouldn’t she stick around to tell the police what happened?” Helen asked. “She had to have seen that it was you who saved her. Tell the police what was going on—whatever it is—and they could protect her. Where has she been for the last three years?”
Chris was shaking his head. “I’m asking the same questions. You two have to believe me. It was Blair. Leonardo Mancini was going to kill her.”
“Which means she was mixed up in something horribly big, which is probably why she’s been in hiding all this time,” Ripley said.
“Like law enforcement is going to believe that I fired a weapon on a crowded subway platform to kill an international assassin zeroing in on my wife who has been dead for the last three years,” Chris said. “If a shooting suspect told me that story, I’d think he was crazy.”
“Don’t worry,” Ripley said. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to get the girls and take them home.”
“You’re not going to tell Kate—”
“No,” Helen said. “We’ll try to keep this news from the girls until we get it sorted out. I’ll go get your truck and drive back home and tell Doris what’s happened. I’m sure between her and the Geezer Squad, we’ll get this figured out.”
“Geezer Squad?” Ripley asked with a laugh.
“Chris’s book club,” Helen said.
“I’m sorry about our date,” Chris said.
“It’s not your fault.” Helen gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m just glad this assassin didn’t take you out.”
She rose to her feet. Chris’s eyes locked with hers. He tried to will her to believe him until their connection was broken by the rear door of the cruiser slamming shut. He tried to reconnect with her through the side window while Ripley spoke to the agent standing guard. After a moment, Ripley ushered Helen toward the parking garage and they disappeared into the darkness.
Recalling the fear he had seen in Blair’s eyes, Chris wondered what he had missed during their few conversations while she had been working at the embassy in Switzerland. Much of the work she had done was classified. That meant even if something terrifying was going on, she couldn’t have told him.
But still—what could she have been involved in that necessitated her, a communications officer, to fake her death? How could she do that? Allow our children to think their mother was dead? Or was it all a lie? Was she really a CIA
operative and not a communications officer? Had she been lying to me all those years? If so, what else had she lied about?
Chris was so absorbed in the questions swimming around in his mind that he jumped when the agent standing guard yanked open the door. “Okay, Mr. Matheson, time to go for a ride.” He grasped his arm to help him out of the rear of the cruiser.
The flash of a cell phone camera from a few feet away blinded him. A split second before the spots exploded in front of his eyes, Chris noticed an Asian man wearing a black hat. Wasn’t he the guy I ran into on the escalator? The one who cussed me out? Must be happy to see karma in action.
The agent stepped between Chris and the group of bystanders and journalists gathered behind the police barricades.
“We’re not going in this car?” Chris asked.
“Too many windows.” The agent’s fingers dug into Chris’s bicep as he hurried him through the law enforcement investigators questioning witnesses, gathering cell phones, and collecting evidence to put their case together. “I’m sure you’d feel much more secure riding in the back of a nice comfortable SUV.”
They approached a full-sized vehicle with tinted rear windows. Another agent, clad in a dark jacket and wearing a ball cap with “FBI” across the top, stood next to the open door. Before placing Chris inside, the agent searched his pockets.
“I’ve already been searched. You’ve got my weapon.”
“That’s not what I’m looking for.” The agent extracted Chris’s cell phone from the inside breast pocket of his suit. “Have you got a passcode on this?”
“It’s my fingerprint.”
“Which one?” He stepped behind Chris and took turns pressing his fingertips to the phone’s screen until he unlocked it.
“What are you doing with my phone? I do have rights.”
“Just playing it safe and turning off your phone. Don’t want any possible accomplices ambushing us on the way.” He tucked the phone into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. “Watch your head.” He helped Chris into the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt for him.
After the agent had closed the door, Chris heard what sounded like a tussle outside. When he looked, he saw a man in a black coat towering over the agent.
