Going Dark

by Monica McCarty

  With the station emptying quickly, Dean escorted her out of the building behind a couple who from their backpacks, poles, and boots he assumed must have been trekking on the islands. He wanted to stick with the crowd. He was pretty sure they hadn’t been followed, but he wasn’t about to relax his guard.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after they’d been walking for a few minutes. “I know you’re furious with me, but I didn’t mean any harm.” When he didn’t say anything, she grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “Can you blame me for being curious? We are sleeping together, for God’s sake, and you’ve barely told me anything about you.” She stopped and even before he heard the emotion in her voice, he could see the tears in her eyes. “I don’t even know your name.”

  Dean felt about as big as one of those annoying biting midges. He didn’t want to hurt her, and yet that was exactly what he was doing. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know.

  But if she started crying, he didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do. Just seeing the glimmer of tears in her eyes was twisting him up inside something fierce. It was making his chest pound in an odd way, and making him antsy and uncomfortable—as if he were walking across hot coals. Hell, he’d rather walk across hot coals than see her cry.

  He did the only thing he could do. He pulled her into his arms. “Aw, shit, Annie, I’m sorry. I know you don’t understand, but you’ll just have to trust me that I don’t have a choice. If I could tell you, I would.”

  As he was wearing the backpack, she’d slid her arms around his waist. He still had the gun tucked in his jeans at the small of his back for safekeeping and easy access. Her cheek had been resting on his chest—which felt pretty damned amazing—but she tilted it back to look up at him. “If you told me, you’d have to kill me?”

  He smiled, and lifted his hand to stroke a finger down her cheek. “Something like that.” But he quickly sobered. “But it’s serious, Annie. I know you are curious, but it’s dangerous—and not just to me. I’m asking you to stop. To put whatever it is you think you’ve learned aside and forget it.”

  Forget me.

  She knew what he was asking. “I’ll try, but I’m not sure I can.”

  Unfortunately that made two of them.

  She looked so gorgeous staring up at him with all those emotions he didn’t want to see in her eyes, he would have kissed her.

  If he hadn’t sensed the movement behind him.

  • • •

  Without realizing it, Annie had stopped them in the perfect place for an ambush. It was a dark curve in the road where they couldn’t be seen from town or by their fellow passengers, who were now ahead of them. Were there any stragglers behind them? Dean would guess not or their attackers—he was assuming there was more than one—wouldn’t have made their move.

  They must have been watching from the station and followed, waiting for an opportunity. Were they the source of the signal failure?

  Shit.

  Sensing the movement behind him, Dean reacted. As he couldn’t both reach for his gun and get Annie out of the way, he chose the latter. He pushed her away from him and spun, instinctively using his hand to knock aside the weapon that he was pretty sure had been coming toward the back of his head.

  He connected with enough force to do some damage, but the guy was well trained. He grunted with pain but didn’t release the weapon—an HK USP Tactical with Swiss-made suppressor, from the looks of it.

  Dean was ready with his next move before the attacker could bring the gun back around. He wasn’t going to mess around, not wanting to take any chances. He didn’t know how many or how skilled they were. It was kill or be killed. He went for a blow to the throat, targeting the trachea with the side of his forearm and swinging his leg around his ankle at the same time to knock him off balance.

  There was a sickly crunch and gasp as the guy’s throat collapsed. He crumpled and started to fall back but had enough presence of mind while he was asphyxiating to swing the muzzle back around. Dean stomped on his gut and tried to knock the gun away again, but at the same time he sensed the second guy out of the corner of his eye to the right, taking aim.

  Fuck, he wasn’t going to have time to do both. He went for the gun that was in his reach. He swore he could see down the barrel as he reached for the choking man’s hands and tried to point the muzzle in the direction of his compatriot.

  He didn’t make it before the shot went off. It went wide of Dean, but not wide enough to come close to the second attacker.

  The guy was going to shoot him.

  Dean heard the muffled sound of a gun being fired, and in the split second of awareness, he steeled himself for impact.

  It didn’t come.

  Shit. The sound had come from behind him. He watched in disbelief as the second attacker who’d been standing about ten feet away fell—or dropped—backward as the bullet struck him right between the eyes.

  Holy shit.

  Dean turned slowly around, already guessing what he was going to see. Annie stood there frozen, still holding the gun in the firing position.

  • • •

  It had happened so fast. Annie didn’t know what had possessed her to grab the gun as “Dan” pushed her away. It was there tucked in the back of his jeans, and her hand just kind of clenched the grip on instinct, and as he pushed her back, the gun came with her.

  Neither did she consciously think about shooting the second attacker. Dan was locked in battle with the first guy. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the second guy approaching with a raised arm and a gun on the end of it pointed in Dan’s direction. She didn’t think. She just lifted her hands and fired.

  Instinct again. Although it was the first time she’d shot anything other than a piece of paper at a shooting range.

  Oh God, she’d just killed someone.

  Slowly awareness dawned, creeping over her in a mottled flush of shock. She couldn’t seem to move. She was still holding the gun; her finger was still pulling the trigger. She wanted to let it go, but she couldn’t release the death grip.

  Dan came toward her and wrapped his hand around her wrist, forcing her arm down at the same time as he released the gun from her hand.

  She looked at him wordlessly. What just happened?

  She didn’t think she’d spoken aloud, but she couldn’t be sure. The noise in her head was too loud. “You just saved my life. You didn’t have any other choice. He would have killed me.” He shook his head in amazement. “Shit, how the hell did you learn to shoot like that? I thought you didn’t like guns.”

  “I don’t. I hate them.”

  He laughed. “You could have fooled me. You shoot like a pro.”

  She frowned. “I haven’t touched a gun since my father died.”

  “But he trained you?”

  She nodded. He’d insisted she learn how to defend herself. He’d said she was a natural. She’d almost been able to hear the “if only you’d been a boy.”

  “He did a hell of a job,” Dan said. “That was a perfect shot.”

  She shook her head. It had been horrible. “I was aiming for his heart.”

  “Well, that was a hell of a miss.” He paused, giving her a long look. “You look a little pale. You aren’t going to throw up or anything, are you? It’s all right if you need to. Lots of guys do their first time.”

  She shook her head. She felt something. Numb, maybe? A little cold? But not ill. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Give me a minute. I want to get rid of them in case someone is behind us.”

  The path along the harbor that would take them back to the village had the sea on one side and a two-lane road, houses, and a hill on the other. The men had obviously been waiting in the shadows of one of the houses.

  After quickly patting them down and pocketing the guy’s wallet and
phone, Dan dragged the guy who had attacked him across the path and pushed him under the railing of the concrete walkway onto the rocks and beach below. He did the same with the man she’d shot, and Annie had to admit, she was glad when the prone body disappeared over the side where she didn’t have to look at it anymore.

  “The tide will be coming in soon,” he said. “With luck they’ll wash out to sea.”

  “Without luck?”

  He shrugged, apparently not worried. “They won’t be seen until morning, and it will take them time to determine identities and time of death. We should be well on our way to Glasgow by then.”

  “They were the same guys from the beach,” she said.

  He nodded. “They must have come straight here, figuring we’d head to the closest major port.” He thought for a minute. “They either had someone watching at the airport or were able to tap in to the computers and realized we hadn’t flown. Have you seen either of them before today?”

  She shook her head.

  He took out the wallets and flipped to the identities. “Hans Richer from Germany and Jonas Meier from Switzerland. Mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. I assume they are aliases.” He pulled out the phones, which were cheap disposables, and started to toggle through the mailboxes. “No recent calls or texts on this. I’m sure they’ve been careful, but I’ll check the trash just to be sure.” He finished the first phone, and went on to the second. A moment later he swore, and his expression darkened.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This one has a text. It was sent about fifteen minutes ago. He must not have had a chance to delete it.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Nothing. It was a picture.” He paused, and she could see the self-recrimination burning in his gaze. “Of me.”

  Twenty-nine

  Annie knew Dan was furious. What she didn’t know was whether he was angry with her. Did he blame her for the man getting a picture of him? She didn’t know why it was so horrible that he had done so; she just knew that it was. Actually, from the look on his face, it wasn’t just horrible; it was catastrophic. And they both knew that if he hadn’t come to her aid, none of this would have happened. Whatever had forced him into hiding had obviously been serious, and by helping her, he’d revealed himself.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He shook his head, seeming to take away some of the anger with the movement. “It’s not your fault.” He reached out to take her hand. “Come on. We should get out of here, and I think we could both use a drink.”

  That might be the biggest understatement of the week—which was saying something.

  They walked quickly back into town. As he didn’t seem the hand-holding type, she was surprised when he didn’t release hers. Instead he wrapped it in his big palm and tucked it in his Baja sweatshirt pocket as if he wanted to keep her close.

  Which was fine by her.

  Though small by American standards, Oban was a decent-sized town in the Highlands. The harbor was at the center, and most of the businesses hugged a half mile or so semicircle of coastline with the ferry terminal to one side. There were a number of restaurants and hotels right along the waterfront, including the fancy-looking one that they went into.

  “I thought we were on a budget,” she said after they walked by the imposing-looking doorman into a large reception hall that seemed to be wall-to-wall marble. Not the new and shiny kind, but the old and stately.

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “I figured we could both use a few creature comforts, and I’ll have access to more funds in Glasgow.”

  She would have asked about that, but the attractive woman behind the desk asked Dan if they were checking in. He smiled, obviously going into his charming mode again, which he was definitely better at than Annie would have anticipated. Although when a guy was that built and good-looking, he could pretty much smile and that would be enough.

  He explained that he and his girlfriend—as she’d been downgraded from a wife, Annie guessed they must not be as traditional in Oban as they were on Tiree—had been caught unexpectedly in town and didn’t have a reservation.

  “You must have been booked on the train to Glasgow,” the woman said with a smile. “You aren’t the first unexpected guests we’ve had tonight. It’s not a problem. We aren’t fully booked. One or two rooms?”

  She looked at Dan as she asked, but her gaze slid over to Annie for a second—or maybe passed over Annie for a second was more accurate. Clearly she wasn’t impressed and thought he could do better—i.e., herself.

  The woman was in her early twenties, but doing everything she could to look older with thick foundation, heavy eye makeup, and bright red lipstick. Her long hair was pulled back in a bun, but very heavy, long, dark bangs contrasted dramatically with her pale Scottish skin and light blue eyes.

  Compared to how done up the woman was, Annie looked as if she’d been camping for a week. All right, she wasn’t exactly looking her best, but what part of “girlfriend” did the woman not understand?

  “One room will be fine,” Annie said maybe a tad snippily, before Dan could respond.

  He gave her a questioning look, which she didn’t answer. But he wasn’t that slow on the uptake. He figured it out and grinned. If the woman hadn’t been watching, Annie would have elbowed him in the gut.

  He made it a little better by sliding his arm around her waist, tugging her in tight against him, and pressing a kiss on her head. The feel of his body against hers was still too new not to cause all kinds of tingly reactions.

  The woman quoted a price that seemed outrageous for one night, but he paid in twenty-pound notes and she handed over the key—an actual key, not a key card—with a big wooden placard attached that Annie suspected made it difficult to walk off with. The room was on the second floor, which in Brit-speak Annie knew meant the third.

  The elevator barely fit the both of them. Clearly these places hadn’t been built with guys sized like him in mind. His shoulders almost spanned the width. He took advantage of the closeness to drag her in against him again. “You don’t have any reason to be jealous.”

  The tinge of amusement in his voice made her feel again like elbowing him.

  She might have if he hadn’t added, “I haven’t looked at another woman since you landed in my lap.”

  Okay, maybe she’d melt instead. She looked up at him, and their eyes met. “Really?”

  He shook his head. “Have you taken a look in the mirror lately, Doc? You’re pretty hot.”

  Usually a superficial comment like that would be an instant turnoff, but instead it made her obnoxiously happy. He was bringing out all kinds of weird reactions in her. She couldn’t ever recall being jealous before or needing reassurance about her looks. She’d arrived in Scotland a confident, self-possessed, newly minted PhD (admittedly with horrible taste in men), and he’d time-warped her back to high school as a moody teenager in constant need of reassurance. She’d lived through Mean Girls once; she didn’t need to do it again.

  “Yeah, well, you’re a little too hot, so you can probably ease up on the smiles and go back to Mr. Stern and No Bullshit. Or grow back the mountain man beard.”

  They’d arrived at the door by then, and he just looked at her and laughed. “I’ll remember that. But some women like the beard.”

  There was something a little too wicked twinkling in his eye, and she decided she’d better not follow up on that one. It might make her angry—or curious. She couldn’t decide which was worse.

  He flipped on the lights, and she sighed so deeply it sounded almost like a moan. The bathroom was enormous and fitted with a huge jetted tub. On rare occasions she enjoyed baths, and this was definitely going to be one of them. She might never get out.

  But then she wouldn’t be able to put on the plush robe and slippers. Or use
the fancy British Molton Brown toiletries.

  “It’s all yours,” he said, obviously noticing her reaction. “I have to make a call.” He paused, giving her a long look. “You doing okay? I won’t go if you don’t want to be alone right now.”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine.” Surprisingly she was. The numbness and coldness had faded to be replaced by . . . nothing. She actually felt a little guilty for not feeling horrible and falling to pieces. Wasn’t that what most people—especially women—did in books and movies?

  She wasn’t making a feminist statement—although that did drive her nuts—nor was it that she didn’t value human life. She just valued his more. There had been a threat, and she took care of it. There was nothing else she could have done. If she hadn’t acted, he would have been killed. It was as simple as that.

  Maybe she had more of her father in her than she wanted to acknowledge. For the first time in a long while, that thought didn’t make her sad. She had him to thank for that.

  “Make your call, Tex.” She couldn’t call him Dan anymore. It felt too weird now that she knew that wasn’t his real name. “And you can bring me back that drink you promised. But no whiskey—with or without the e.”

  He nodded, smiling at the reference to the Scot spelling of whiskey without the e that they were very particular about. “I remember.” He grimaced. “I have a feeling after this call that I’m going to need it more than you.”

  • • •

  The phone only rang one time before it was answered. No passwords this time. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for hours.”

  “Busy,” Dean said. The LC might be his commander, but he’d been doing this too long to let him tear him a new asshole—even when it might be deserved. “I had to leave Tiree unexpectedly.”

  He could almost hear Taylor narrowing his eyes and giving him the scowl of death through the cell towers. “What do you mean, ‘unexpectedly’?”