by Anna Perrin
The seconds ticked by.
“Everybody, listen up,” Gene said. “Emotions are running high tonight, but if anybody’s contemplating a lone-wolf takedown, he risks endangering himself and his fellow agents. This is a team operation, and nothing else will be tolerated.”
Gene had directed his remarks to the entire group, but Brent suspected it was a personal warning. If the others hadn’t been listening in, he would have told his boss not to worry. He had rehearsed this operation countless times in his mind and believed its success depended on all of them executing their assigned tasks. He had no intention of deviating from the plan to settle a personal score with Forrester.
He felt the tension in the room mount as Gene continued his running commentary.
“Suspect is approaching our location.”
Half a minute later, “Suspect is pulling into the parking lot.”
Then, finally, “Suspect has left his vehicle.”
Brent withdrew his semiautomatic pistol from his holster and rested it against his jeans-clad thigh. Adrenaline raced through his veins. He forced his breathing to slow, his mind to focus. Soon he’d be face-to-face with the man who had murdered his mentor and best friend, Pete, as well as Harris and Langdon—both agents with promising futures—and who had almost killed Claire and himself.
Forrester’s threat to Claire was going to end tonight. He gripped his weapon tightly and waited.
The door on the south end of the building opened, and a funnel of light pierced the darkness. Forrester took his time directing the beam of his flashlight in a wide arc around him. The light moved methodically to each section of the plant. When the beam hit the printing press, Brent’s pulse leapt even though he knew he was well concealed and would cast no betraying shadow.
After a few minutes, Forrester seemed satisfied nothing was out of place and redirected the light to his destination: the office. Footsteps—quick and determined—echoed in the cavernous building.
Brent counted the steps until he heard the office door opening. The plan called for him to wait for Forrester to pick up the money and make it halfway back to the exit. At that point, Brent was to spring the trap. Forrester would be caught out in the open, unable to retreat into the office for cover or escape to the exterior.
Brent illuminated the face of his watch and monitored one minute ticking by and then another. What was Forrester doing? he fumed silently. Counting every damn bill?
Finally, the footsteps started again, more quickly this time. Now that Forrester had the money, he was obviously in a hurry to get the hell away.
At the count of twenty-five, Brent spoke into his mouthpiece, “Now.”
Ian Alston, who was responsible for rigging the breaker panel, responded by hitting the lights.
Forrester was illuminated in midstride, flashlight in his left hand and Sharratt’s canvas bag slung over his shoulder. His right hand immediately went for the gun holstered on his hip.
Stepping in front of the trapped man, Brent aimed his SIG Sauer. “Stop right there, Forrester.”
The guy let out a stream of expletives.
Five more agents, all with weapons drawn, fanned out around him.
Like a fish in a net, Brent thought with satisfaction. Forrester’s capture was worth every second of planning and waiting.
“You getting this, Gene?” he asked. Alston had set up a camera with the feed going to the surveillance van so Gene and Claire could witness the events playing out inside the plant.
“Oh, yeah.”
Brent directed his next words to Forrester. “You know the drill, but I’ll say it for the record. This is the FBI, and you are ordered to raise your hands above your head.”
Forrester didn’t move.
“I said raise your hands, you sonovabitch,” Brent said, advancing toward him. “Unless you want to add resisting arrest to the charges of extortion, murder, attempted murder and—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Forrester interrupted. “All I did was break out of that damn psych hospital, which I should never have been sent to in the first place.”
“I’m talking about what you’ve been doing since you left Ridsdale.”
“I’ve been lying low.”
“Arson and bomb-setting are hardly lying low.”
“What am I supposed to have set on fire?”
“Your house.”
“What?”
Brent hadn’t expected a confession, but this I-don’t-understand act infuriated him. Did Forrester really think he could con his fellow agents?
“I was there. When the office caught fire, I nearly went up in flames, and Dr. Lamont suffered serious burns to her hand.” The memory of those burns—and the blisters they’d turned into a few days ago—made him even angrier.
“Whatever happened had nothing to do with me. I haven’t been able to get home for a week.”
“Then who knocked out McKenna and put the bullet in Harris’s brain?” he challenged. “Who blew up your rental unit?”
Forrester faltered for a moment, then shot back defiantly, “I have no idea.”
“Save it for the jury,” Brent said. “Now set your gun down on the floor and kick it toward me. Agent Starr is going to remove any other weapons you’re carrying.”
Brent saw Forrester glance at the man assigned to search and disarm him, a man he’d worked closely with. Obviously, Starr was thinking the same thing because he said, “I remember when you came to see me and my wife when my baby girl was born. You said I should spend more time at home, raise my daughter right. Now you’ve left Harris’s kids to grow up without their father.”
“You can’t believe that,” Forrester protested.
“Believe you’d turn against one of your own?” Brent interjected, wishing he could continue the interrogation in a locked room with no witnesses. But there was too much at stake to risk the consequences of breaking the rules. “Why not? Harris wasn’t even your first victim—Pete Sanderson was.”
“I didn’t murder him.”
“I’m not buying this innocent act.”
“You’ve got it all wrong….” His words trailed off as the exterior door opened.
Brent shot a quick glance in that direction to find Alec McKenna striding into the plant, his gun aimed squarely at Forrester. The agent’s arrival was unexpected, as he had been assigned to one of the mobile units tracking Forrester’s progress.
“I heard you were having some trouble, and I thought I might be able to help out,” McKenna offered by way of explanation. Then, to Forrester he said, “There’s no way out, Andy. It’s over.”
Forrester’s gaze darted from McKenna to Brent to the other armed men surrounding him. Brent had seen the same expression of fear and panic in the eyes of other criminals he’d arrested. Fight or flight usually followed.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Forrester.”
Forrester shook his head. “There’s so much you don’t know.”
A sense of unease skittered along Brent’s nerve endings. “We’ll talk about it later.”
If Forrester heard him, he didn’t give any indication. Instead, the man ran straight at him.
Shots rang out. Somebody shouted a warning.
Too late.
A bullet slammed into Brent’s chest.
As he fell to the ground, there was only one thought in his mind: Getting shot wasn’t part of the plan.
Chapter Twelve
Claire cried out as she watched Brent go down. Her gaze had been avidly fixed on the closed-circuit monitor in the van throughout the operation, and while she’d sensed the mounting tension in the factory, she hadn’t been prepared for Forrester’s decision to bolt or the terror that struck her heart when Brent was shot.
Everything had happened so fast. She wasn’t even sure who had pulled the trigger or how many bullets had been fired in the warehouse. The only thing that mattered to her was that Brent had been hit.
Her stomach churned and bile burned her throat, but
she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the horrifying image on the monitor. Brent lay on the factory’s concrete floor, possibly dying, and she was trapped in this van, too far away to do anything. She couldn’t hold him in her arms or look into his eyes or tell him she loved him.
Her heart skipped a beat. Oh, no. No way could she have fallen in love with Brent. She knew better. At least the logical part of her did.
No, she wasn’t in love with him. She was just shaken up by what she’d seen, and yes, worried about him. He’d saved her life twice. Now he could be dying, his blood—
Her heart skipped another beat as she squinted at the monitor. In the back of her mind she was sure she hadn’t seen any blood, but the other agents were crowded around Brent, obscuring her view.
“Claire.”
She felt a hand on her shoulder, making her start.
“Brent’s going to be fine,” Gene said, searching her eyes.
“How do you know? He’s not moving.”
“He’s wearing a Kevlar vest under his jacket.”
“What?” The words took a moment to penetrate her fear.
“It’s standard gear in this kind of operation.”
“But he went down so hard—”
“The force of the bullet.”
Gene’s gaze shifted away from hers, and his next words indicated he was listening to a report over his earpiece. “Ian says Brent’s going to have a beauty of a bruise, that’s all.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re sure he’s all right?”
Gene nodded. “I took a bullet that way about two years ago, and while it’s not fun, it sure as hell beats the alternative.”
“No kidding,” she said wryly.
She glanced back at the monitor in time to see one of the other agents help Brent to his feet. He turned to look at something behind him.
At first, she saw only a pool of dark liquid. Blood, she realized, and felt her stomach churning again. It was apparent from the size of the pool that someone had taken a bullet somewhere the vest didn’t protect. Either that, or someone had failed to wear one at all.
When Brent moved aside, she saw that it was Forrester who lay motionless on the concrete floor.
And she knew from his open, unseeing eyes that he would never threaten her—or anybody else—again.
BRENT HAD IMAGINED dozens of scenarios in which Forrester was captured, but he’d always expected the bastard to go to prison, not wind up dead. Not that he was sorry. Forrester was a cold-blooded murderer who had ended the lives of men better than himself. If he hadn’t died, he would have retained a clever lawyer and challenged every piece of evidence against him. Now that wouldn’t happen. Now there was no chance Forrester would get away with his crimes.
So why wasn’t he satisfied with tonight’s outcome?
He glanced at Claire, who was driving the Mustang, then back at the winding road. A recent rain had washed away most of the gravel, making the last few miles of the ride uncomfortably bumpy. The jarring motion aggravated the bruise on his chest, and he was glad there wasn’t much farther to go.
It was almost midnight when he and Claire reached the cabin, but neither of them was in any mood to sleep. They settled themselves on the couch in the living room.
“Forrester was completely surrounded,” Claire said suddenly. “Why would he think he could escape?”
Brent had been wondering the same thing. Because as much as he couldn’t regret Forrester’s death, he didn’t fully understand the circumstances surrounding it. “Maybe he just flipped out. I’ve seen it go down that way before. A guy suddenly realizes it’s the end of the line for him, and he can’t cope.”
She shivered. “And you got caught in the crossfire.”
“It happens.” That didn’t mean he hadn’t felt a moment of stark terror when the bullets started flying and he was hit.
“I didn’t even see who fired,” she admitted.
“McKenna and Metzger both did.”
“Who hit you?”
“McKenna claimed it was him, but he could be covering for Metzger, who’s only been with the Bureau for a short time. Their guns have been collected, and Ballistics will determine the owner of the bullet that hit me and the ones that killed Forrester.”
During the mandatory investigation that followed the discharge of an agent’s weapon, both McKenna and Metzger would be called upon to defend their decisions to use deadly force.
“If Forrester had given up his weapon when I first ordered him to,” Brent said, “he’d still be alive tonight.”
“He must have known it was dangerous to hang on to it.”
“Maybe it’s a case of ‘suicide by cop.’”
“You think he wanted to die? Why?”
“I’m guessing he couldn’t stand the thought of going to prison.”
If he was right, Forrester had executed one last selfish act before his death. Agents who killed in the line of duty often suffered from guilt. McKenna was a seasoned agent with years of experience, but Metzger wasn’t. How would Metzger cope, especially if the investigation concluded that Forrester had meant no harm to anyone but himself?
Brent immediately thought of Claire. Her job was to support agents through such difficult times. That’s what she’d been trying to do with him. Yet he’d rejected her every effort.
That was going to change, starting now.
“Tonight didn’t turn out the way I expected at all,” he said, “and not just because I was shot and Forrester died. I thought apprehending Pete’s killer would make me feel triumphant or at least satisfied that he hadn’t gotten away with murder.”
“How do you feel?”
He scrubbed at an ink spot on his jeans. “Disappointed, cheated somehow.” He glanced over at her. “Does that make sense?”
She nodded. “For the past week, you’ve been concentrating so hard on capturing Forrester that I think you may have lost sight of something.”
At his quizzical look, she smiled sadly. “Punishing him won’t bring back Pete.”
He felt his throat burn. She was right. Vengeance wasn’t as sweet as people said. The pain didn’t magically disappear or even lessen. But talking relieved some of the pressure.
“The day I met Pete was the luckiest one of my life. Not just because he had my back when I was new and inexperienced, but because he came to be my best friend.”
“It’s wonderful you two had such a close relationship.”
“Some days we’d shoot hoops at his house, whooping and hollering like lunatics. Other days we’d fish in the lake, enjoying the silence and solitude.” He struggled for control for a long moment, before continuing in an unsteady voice. “He was more than my best friend. He was the father I never had.”
“I’m so sorry, Brent.” She shifted closer and lay a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“I’m not sure I can accept him being gone yet.” He closed his eyes, rested his head on the back of the couch.
“There’s no timetable for grief,” she said. “You can’t rush it, you just have to deal with it when you’re ready.”
Her words sounded wise, but right now he was content just listening to her voice. It reminded him of a summer breeze, soft and relaxing. He felt himself unwind for the first time since the beginning of the stakeout for Forrester.
“It took me six months to accept my dad was lost to me,” she said unexpectedly. “I kept telling myself he was on assignment and would show up in the kitchen and ask me to bake tiger brownies for him.”
Brent opened his eyes and waited, hoping she would continue.
After a moment, she did. “I couldn’t deal with the way he’d died. And I was angry and upset about the note he left for me.” She stopped, bit her lip.
Brent looped his arm over her and drew her against his side. “Tell me about it,” he murmured.
“I’ve never told anyone,” she admitted softly. “Not even my mom.”
He remained silent, letting her decide.
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She inhaled deeply, then expelled the breath in a sigh. “He wrote that every time he looked at me, he remembered that little girl—the one who had died during the airline hostage rescue. Her family had been deprived of seeing her grow up, attend college, get married. And although he loved me and wanted the best for me, it was impossible for him to watch me enjoy those experiences.” Her lips trembled, but she kept on doggedly. “He took his life because he couldn’t stop obsessing about somebody else’s daughter.”
Brent held her closer, incredulous that a father could be so lost in despair, he wouldn’t realize the agony his suicide would inflict on his child.
“He needed help,” she said, “and he didn’t get it. I couldn’t let the same thing happen to another agent, another family.”
Brent brushed her hair back from her eyes. “He’d be proud of you, Claire.”
“I like to think so.”
“How could he not be?” he said quietly. “You’re sensitive and caring. You try to help people. You’ve helped me despite my making it difficult for you.”
If someone had told him ten days ago that he would be having this conversation with a woman—especially one who was a psychologist—he’d have scoffed. But a lot had happened in the interval, and the best part was Claire.
“Your patients are lucky to have your special insight.”
She looked away and traced the edge of the couch with her fingertips. “You really think that I can make a difference?”
“I know it.”
The tentative smile that curved her lips gave him hope that she might stay.
CLAIRE HUGGED her arms to her body.
Brent had finally let down his barriers. He had shared his grief and loneliness over Pete’s death with her. And his openness had, in turn, made it possible for her to reveal things about her father’s suicide that she’d never told anyone before. She felt purged, released, and closer to Brent than she’d ever imagined.
She didn’t realize she was crying until he reached over and brushed a tear from her cheek. It was a gentle, fleeting touch. Yet somehow the brief contact charged the space between them. She met his gaze. His eyes reflected the same desire that she felt. For days, she’d been telling herself that physical intimacy with Brent would be a mistake because they weren’t emotionally close. But their relationship had undergone a transformation. Honesty had forged a unique rapport, drawing them together, leading them relentlessly to this moment when the attraction between them needn’t be denied any longer.
