Jocelyn realized if he used that voice with her she might crawl under a desk. He sounded two seconds away from whipping that gun out and taking aim. Clearly the man did not like people storming his house.
Plastic thudded against the wooden desk as Kent dropped the phone, then slapped it flat against the top. “It is after hours. Why did you call me here?”
“Wrong question.” Ben shifted his weight until his legs were hip-width apart and he crossed his arms over his chest. “We should be asking why you were already at the bank at this hour and not home with your wife.”
“It is almost midnight,” Joel added.
“My life is not your business.” Kent slid the phone toward him under his palm.
Before the cell traveled one more inch, Ed reached over and snatched it. Jocelyn had been about to do the same thing and sent Ed a half smile in appreciation for stopping all the unnecessary banging.
Connor didn’t move. “Oh, I think it is.”
“Not to cause trouble, but what is going on here?” Ed asked. “It’s late and the bank’s business is done. Why not meet at Kent’s house or at the police station? I don’t understand.”
“Because they’re not police.” Kent reached for the phone. “Maybe we should call and double-check their authority.”
Connor shrugged. “Go ahead.”
When Kent hesitated and the phone stayed in the cradle, Jocelyn zeroed in on the subject that mattered most to her. “Call your wife while you’re at it. I’d love to meet her.”
“What?” Kent’s gaze flew to Jocelyn’s. “I barely know who you are.”
Maybe it was the tone or the way his gaze met hers then quickly skidded away. A bunch of tiny little clues that led to one very obvious conclusion—he knew exactly who she was and not just because she used this branch for her banking.
No, guilt vibrated off him. He had put her in danger or he had stood back and let it happen. She’d bet her life on it, and that was exactly what she’d been doing for days, whether she knew it or not.
“I think you do.” Jocelyn gained confidence the more the thought spun around in her mind. “You know who I am and why I’m in danger.”
Ben put a hand against the small of her back. “She’s the one your employee dragged into this mess. The one people keep trying to kidnap or kill.”
After a swallow big enough to see his throat move, Kent folded his hands together on the desk in front of him. Then unfolded them. Then they disappeared on his lap. “I understand the bank robbery was upsetting, but—”
“Enough.” Connor barked out the warning, and all motion and the small noises in the room stopped. Even the desk chair ceased creaking as Kent rocked.
“What?” he asked as he wiped away a new sheen of sweat on his forehead.
“Stop with whatever you’re hiding.” The words exploded out of Jocelyn. The frustration that had been building finally burst loose and she refused to hold off one more second from breaking into the interrogation. “Enough women are dead.”
Kent’s head wobbled as if he was about to go down. “What are you talking about?”
Ed stepped in closer, glancing from Kent to the rest of the room. “Wait, uh, who’s dead?”
“Okay, this isn’t getting us anywhere.” Connor pointed at the ceiling. “Where does the staircase up to the balcony eventually lead?”
“Emergency exit.” Ed gave the answer.
Connor ignored him. “Where else?”
Jocelyn liked his style. All of them, actually. She started thinking of them as her men. They came in, they took charge, they refused to back down and they were willing to die for women they didn’t even know. Even now Ben touched her back, giving her a lifeline and reassuring her of his presence.
“We checked.” Ed nodded in Joel’s direction. “Right? There’s nothing else up there.”
Connor exhaled, letting his displeasure flow over the room. “That’s not true, is it, Kent?”
“Keep in mind this is your last chance to come clean,” Ben said from behind her.
Kent started shaking his head and didn’t stop. “You can’t do anything worse to me.”
Joel took a step closer. “Worse than what?”
“Me.”
At the sound of the familiar male voice, Jocelyn felt a hand push her forward and heard Ben yell at her to move. She stumbled into the desk and looked around in time to see Gary press a gun to the back of Ben’s head.
Another man pointed one right at Connor’s face. The surprise visitors had them all shifting and all weapons up and aimed.
She still hadn’t processed all she was seeing when Kent stood up and his chair shot back. The men crowded closer to Ben’s side of the desk until the guy with Gary pulled a second weapon and aimed that one, too.
Everyone had moved but Ben. He had picked pushing her out of the way and getting her out of the direct attack line over getting a jump on his attacker. He’d traded his body for hers.
Seeing him now, hands raised and anger straining in every muscle of his face, had her fighting off a gasp. She would not give this Gary person the satisfaction of knowing he scared her, that terror stormed through every cell.
“Gary Taub.” The harsh tone ripped out of Connor.
“What are you doing here?” Ed asked as he took a step forward.
“Nuh-uh.” Gary made a tsk-tsking sound. “Everyone stays where they are. Guns on the floor or the NCIS hero gets a bullet through his brain.”
“No.” She jumped forward and only Connor and Ben putting out their arms to stop her kept her from running into the madman’s hands.
Gary laughed as he talked over her, acting as if her anguish bored him. “Although, I’m not sure how devastating Ben’s murder would be to anyone. His own father is disgusted and embarrassed by him, isn’t he, Ben?”
“Ask him.” Ben said the words through a locked jaw as his intense gaze drilled into Jocelyn.
She knew he wanted her to stand still. To not antagonize the lunatic with the gun. Despite the fear pumping through her, she had no intention of starting a battle that ended with bodies scattered all over the floor. But if Gary went for Ben, her control would never hold.
Connor stiffened his stance but his gun’s barrel never left the direct line to Gary’s head. “That’s enough.”
“Touching.” Gary spoke right into Ben’s ear. “Looks like I’m wrong. A woman who barely knows you thinks you’re worth saving. Maybe if she’d spent more time with you she’d know you’re not worth it.”
What was that...? Jocelyn blinked. She swore Connor and Joel closed in on Gary but she hadn’t seen them move and they hadn’t made a noise. She chalked it up to an optical illusion, maybe wishful thinking. With a second glance at the floor, she knew the sensation of shrinking space wasn’t in her head. Connor’s foot had inched in.
She glanced up for verification. Connor didn’t look at her but his head dipped in what she took for a nod.
“Let’s show her how wrong she is about you.” Gary pushed on Ben’s shoulder. “Get on your knees.”
“Not happening.”
“I said no moving.” Gary’s voice kicked up as he scanned the room. “You have one second to get those guns on the ground or Mr. NCIS will have a nasty accident.”
“We’re listening.” The anger left Connor’s voice. He sounded reasonable and calm, as if he wanted to have a nice chat over coffee. “You clearly want to tell us something. Do it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have time.”
“He’s transferring money.” Kent said the words so fast they ran into one long word.
Gary barked right back. “Shut up.”
“He’s running out of time.” Kent swallowed and shifted his weight until he balanced his palms against his desk. “He has less than an hour.”
>
“Now is not the time to play the hero, Kent. You know what will happen if you do. I believe I’ve made that clear over the last few days.”
The pieces clicked right into place. Jocelyn saw the total picture. Kent being blackmailed. His wife in danger. “You have his wife hidden somewhere. You’re threatening her to get Kent to help you.”
Gary’s grin bordered on feral. “Aren’t you the smart one?”
“Is she even still alive?” It hurt Jocelyn to ask the question.
The idea of this woman, and Pamela, being dead at this man’s hands made Jocelyn’s stomach heave. An overwhelming wave of sadness crashed over her as the very real possibility that the men she’d come to believe in so much might be too late this time.
The horrible thought floated through her mind and she used all of her concentration to push it away. The worry and the guilt. Later, in the quiet with no one around, she’d analyze everything and let her emotions bubble over. Right now she needed Gary’s attention on her while Connor and Joel, and possibly Ben, followed through with whatever plan had them shrinking the room by barely moving their feet.
“Sharon is dead?” Ed asked.
Kent lost all restraint. He came around the side of the desk with his arms waving and eyes wide with fear. “No!”
Jocelyn shifted along the front of the desk or else Kent would have run right into her. He seemed blind to anything but getting to the man holding his wife.
“So, all this really comes down to a burglary.” Ben almost shouted the comment. The force of his voice stopped Kent’s drive to Gary. “Just greed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. I have plenty of money.”
It had been so long since Jocelyn hated someone. When she’d changed her life and her name, she’d promised not to wallow in negative emotions. She had too many other issues to handle.
But with Gary it didn’t fester. It imploded, fueling the white-hot heat rolling over her. “Then what? You like kidnapping women and faking bank robberies?”
“Some men might find your feistiness refreshing, Ms. Raine. I am not one of them.” Gary’s dark eyes squinted at her. “You may wish to keep that in mind.”
“What’s the plan here?” Connor asked, dragging the attention back to him.
“You’re going to spend some time in the bank vault while Kent unlocks the door to his other office upstairs. The one filled with computers and servers and, not too long from now, the information I seek.” Gary nodded to his sidekick. “Colin here will watch over all of you while Kent and I take care of our pressing business.”
“What does that mean?” But she knew. There was no way this Gary guy would leave witnesses. He ran a legitimate business. Had clients. He couldn’t afford to have anyone out there knowing the kind of man he really was.
“Kent looks like a loser, doesn’t he?” Gary laughed while he said it, as if he was telling some sort of private joke. “You’d never know the government trusts him and this small know-nothing bank to transfer huge sums of money to undercover field operatives. The money comes in and Kent’s other division, the one he can’t discuss without risking the government’s wrath, holds the money, then transfers it into the appropriate accounts.”
Connor’s gaze narrowed even further. “So, this is about money.”
So much death because one stupid man had to collect more and own more. She hated men like him. Had spent the last year outrunning the memory of one. “You’re a petty thief. No better than the guys who rob gas stations.”
“Jocelyn.” Ben gave the warning. One word, her name, and a look of boiling fury.
Gary gave the clock behind Kent a quick glance. “You may want to listen to your boyfriend and stop talking.”
“But she has a point,” Connor said.
The sound coming from Gary sounded like a growl. “Money is the least of my concerns. This is about information.”
Joel switched his gun to aim at Colin. “Enlighten us.”
“Why not? You won’t be able to use what you learn to your benefit anyway.” Gary smirked, clearly pleased to share his brilliance. “For that moment when the money goes in, identifying account information for those top secret accounts is not as well protected as it normally is. Parts are decoded and, with the right equipment, which I have, can be caught in that fraction of a second before shutting off again.”
Any way she added it up, the answer was money. The man who professed to have enough wanted more. “And you take all the cash.”
“No, I’m grabbing the account information. The whereabouts of the people in the program. There are people who would pay for it. Or I can make the necessary arrangements to have an undercover operative found. My choice. Their lives will be in my hands.”
“This is about your brother,” Joel said.
“Murdered.” Gary uttered the horrible word but didn’t say anything else.
“You’re saying this is about revenge for you?” Ed asked.
Tension choked the room. Jocelyn wanted the team to move. They were waiting and talking, and it didn’t make sense.
Gary’s eyes turned wild as he spoke. “My brother’s team failed to protect him and he got killed. I got a bogus story about his death. Facts I knew were wrong.”
Connor nodded. “But he worked undercover and no one could talk.”
“But they could pay, and they’re going to. They let him die. Hell, they may have killed him to shut him up. Doesn’t matter. I’ll burn it all down.”
“Which means we all need to die, as well.” Her terror cut off her breath and threatened to suffocate her.
Greed was simple and straightforward. A ridiculous excuse for so much pain, but an emotion she saw at the hospital in the way heirs fought over dying parents and insurance companies battled about paying out claims. But vengeance came from a twisted place. It consumed, burning everything in its path. Worse, it meant Gary wouldn’t care how many people he took with him so long as he went out in his brother’s name.
“How do you expect to take us all on?” Connor asked.
“I have the gun and your man.” Gary pressed the gun against Ben’s head again. “And I’m not alone.”
Joel laughed. “Colin here? I’m pretty sure when the bullets start flying he’ll run away like the scared animal he is.”
“I think I could take him,” Jocelyn said, because at this point she might be able to strangle them all with her bare hands.
“You are welcome to try, Ms. Raine.”
Kent leaned harder against the desk, and the legs groaned under the impact of his full weight. “He has a partner.”
“Oh, yes.” Gary shot her one of those smiles that promised pain. “Did I fail to mention that?”
“I think we’ve heard enough.” Ben looked to Connor.
He nodded. “Yep.”
The last thing she saw was Ben diving for her. His arms wrapped around her, and his big body slammed into hers. The momentum sent them flying into the desk, then crashing to the hard floor. The room blurred around them as she struggled to bring it all into focus.
Ed reached for Kent, and Connor took Gary out with one bullet to the forehead. While she rolled over the floor tucked against Ben’s chest, shots rang out and men yelled. A loud thud echoed in her ears as Gary fell in a boneless whoosh.
Then silence.
Struggling to sit up and settling for balancing on her elbows with Ben still covering her, she glanced over his arm and into the chaos. Connor and Joel grabbed Colin’s guns and shoved him hard against the wall.
“You okay?” Desperation pounded off Ben.
She looked up at him while her hands roamed over his arms and she scanned his chest for blood. “You?”
“Answer me. Are you—”
“Fine.” She cupped a hand over his cheek. “Thanks
to you.”
Ben exhaled. “We wanted him to talk. Tell us as much of his scheme as we could before mobilizing the takedown.”
Her head jerked back. “The big stall and all that talk was some tactic?”
“Yeah. We run it in a drill a thousand times per month. We know the signals and can do them without a word or movement. It’s all in the eyes.” Ben winked as he separated from her and reached out to Gary’s body. Took out the other man’s phone and pocketed his weapons.
Death had overtaken him during the fall. The man’s eyes were open and his arms spread out wide as blood ran from the wound in his head.
She doubted Connor missed shots much but he sure didn’t miss from that distance.
“No!” Kent pushed out of Ed’s grip and scrambled around the desk. “What did you do? My wife. I need to find Sharon.”
Joel caught the other man before he ran right up Connor’s back. “Colin here is going to help us with that.”
“I don’t know anything.” Colin looked around. His body shook and his dark eyes were alive with fear. “Please.”
Joel shook his head. “Oh, Colin. Begging?”
Between the frantic headshaking and grabbing at Connor’s hand where it shoved against Colin’s chest and held him to the wall, Jocelyn worried Colin might lose it right there. Worse, he’d shut down before they could get to Kent’s wife.
Colin struggled and his body rocked. “Gary’s partner kidnapped her, not me.”
“Who’s his partner?” Ed had moved up and joined in the semicircle penning Colin in.
“I don’t know. Gary wouldn’t tell me. Said the partner insisted on anonymity but had set the whole thing up.”
With a hand extended down to her, Ben got to his feet, then pulled her up beside him. Then he was off. He broke right into the middle of the group of men and put his face close to Colin’s. “Not believable.”
“I swear. I don’t know anything.”
Joel whistled. “I hope for your sake that’s not true.”
Jocelyn joined in because despite all the rage whipping around and the poor woman hidden somewhere, she could not let these men kill an unarmed man. Honest and decent men, she couldn’t imagine it happening, but the nerves in the room hovered at the breaking point. “The only reason to let you live is to find Sharon.”
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