Facing Fire

by HelenKay Dimon

  She shook her head as she picked up Danny. The weight nearly knocked her over, but she locked her muscles. With his head tucked under her chin, she let Josiah help her up. She looked up at the men who had once scared her and now made her feel safer. “Now I’m ready.”

  Mike nodded. “Impressive.”

  Through all the noise around them and the panic that threatened to take her over, she focused on Josiah. His face, the confident way he stood there, grounded her. “I told you I could help.”

  “I should have listened.” He held his hand out to her again.

  This time she took it.

  10

  THEY HANDED Danny off at the prearranged spot to guards chosen by his dad and sanctioned by the Alliance. The kid was shaken but fine. Josiah could say the same about Sutton. She didn’t buckle, didn’t turn on them. But her protection of the kid, the way she held off trained commandos with a knife, would stay with him for a long time. Those moves went beyond training as a PI.

  When they got to the temporary mobile operations center, Josiah took Sutton’s blindfold off. They walked into the windowless warehouse building with its chipping green walls and concrete floor. Except for the impressive array of technical equipment, all the monitors, and the state-of-the-art security, it could pass as any run-down building in any run-down city anywhere.

  Lucas Garner, Bravo team’s explosives expert, who could also shoot the tab off a soda can from a distance at which most people couldn’t even see the tab, leaned with a thigh on the table and watched as Ellery typed. He watched her a lot, so seeing him hover over her now was not a surprise. Neither was the fact he had volunteered to act as her bodyguard until they caught or killed Benton.

  He spied them and stood up. “Nice job out there.”

  Ellery got up, too. “Ms. Dahl, welcome.”

  “Please call me Sutton.”

  For some reason Sutton stopped walking halfway across the room, so Josiah put a hand low on her back and guided her toward the row of desks and computers. “This is Ellery and Lucas.”

  A smile, genuine and far too inviting, spread over Sutton’s mouth. “You were the voice in my head.”

  Ellery winced. “I know it’s disconcerting to have someone speak through those little speakers.”

  “I actually found it comforting.”

  She just never let up with that. Josiah didn’t know what she expected but he’d grown to dread her saying that phrase. “There’s that word again.”

  Mike joined them with a water bottle in his hand and another one that he passed to Sutton. “Yeah, they have inside jokes already. It’s cute, right?”

  Not to Josiah. Not when all of them were staring at him now. “I’m still holding my gun.”

  “Did you really do that without glasses?” Ellery asked Sutton.

  She nodded. “I only use them when I’m tired.”

  Josiah remembered her mentioning something about glasses. “Wait, that was real?”

  “Sure. Is Danny okay?” Sutton asked, directing her comments to Ellery and clearly ignoring the men in the room.

  Lucas answered anyway. “He’s fine. He’ll be reunited with his father in a few hours.”

  “You’re not the dad?”

  Lucas laughed. “Did the not-Japanese thing give it away?”

  “I didn’t want to assume.”

  The conversation bordered on painful. Josiah debated turning the topic completely but decided she deserved more than that. She’d put her life on the line without question. The least he could do was fill in some of the blanks.

  “Danny’s father’s name is Gabe.” Hiroshi, but Josiah didn’t add that part. He didn’t see the need to provide last names, none of which were real anyway. “Mike, Gabe, and a guy named Parker are all on Delta team with me.”

  Her eyes took on a new intensity and her body language switched from slumped shoulders and tired to high alert. “That’s the name of your organization?”

  His black-ops instincts kicked in. The change in her demeanor had him wanting to test her. “It’s the Alliance.”

  “When did Josiah get so chatty?” Lucas asked.

  But Josiah didn’t break eye contact with her. “She’s in this now.”

  She actually smiled. “Thank you.”

  “Besides that, if she really is working for Benton she already knows who all of us are and the name of the group.” Seemed logical to him. He could drop hints, maybe plant a false lead or two, and see where it all led. If this all amounted to some big play by Benton to get a person deep inside the Alliance again, Josiah would be ready.

  It was possible she truly did travel to Paris hunting a guy she thought was named Bane. The paper and digital trail of her life sure made the explanation seem real. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. If she had, then he would look like a gigantic asshole. But if it came down to his ego or his team’s safety, he didn’t care how he looked.

  “You ruined it.” Her mouth flattened into a thin line. “Is it that you can only be the nice guy for short periods of time?”

  Ellery crossed her arms in front of her. “Are we missing something?”

  “Josiah still thinks I’m working for this Benton guy.”

  Mike took a long swig of water, then refastened the cap on the bottle. “You did have his file on us.”

  “I’m pretty sure I mentioned I took that.”

  “Any IDs on the guys we took out?” Mike used his bottle to point to the largest screen with a feed of the cleanup at the school. When no one answered, he glanced at Josiah. “What, that conversation wasn’t going anywhere. We needed to move on. You know I’m right.”

  Ellery turned around and went back to typing. “No identification. I’m running facial recognition.”

  A necessary waste of time. They had to check but Josiah knew that road wouldn’t lead anywhere. “My guess will be mercenaries for hire even though that doesn’t add up.”

  “Because?” Lucas asked.

  “Benton doesn’t trust anyone. He is not going to give orders to men he potentially can’t control. Men who could turn on him if someone—namely one of us—offered more money.” That’s the piece that never fit. Benton had a never-ending supply of hired guns. Someone somewhere should have turned on him. To their knowledge, and Ellery had dug and checked, no one had.

  Sutton nibbled on her thumbnail as she watched the movements on the screen. “Frederick.”

  “What?” Mike asked.

  “Bane has a sidekick named Frederick. I think the last name is Heinz, but my digging might be wrong on that. There are about a billion guys with that name in the world.” Sutton’s gaze traveled around the room before landing on Josiah again. “But whatever the last name, he’s Bane . . . Benton’s right-hand man.”

  Josiah took every word apart in his head and analyzed them. He’d never heard this name. Never seen a sidekick. Getting the details now, from her, started those alarm bells ringing in his head again.

  The roller-coaster ride of trusting her and not trusting her really pissed him off. And he blamed her. “You forgot to mention this guy until now?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  The words lit a match to his anger. “Wrong answer.”

  “Okay, wait.” Mike held up both hands. “To be fair, it’s not like you guys had a lot of time to sit down and have a get-to-know-you chat.”

  “Since when are you the voice of reason?” Josiah didn’t want that now. He needed to have this out and get it settled. Fight it to the death, if necessary. With three highly trained operatives in the room, they should be able to coax the truth out of her one way or the other.

  Mike shrugged. “I’m trying something new.”

  “Run the name along with Bane’s.” Josiah nodded at Ellery before turning back to Sutton. He almost hated to face her. To see the wariness in those eyes and know he put it there, real or imagined. “Tell us what you know.”

  “In his thirties, maybe. Tall and bald. A big guy with a German accent. He travels with you
r Benton, if that’s him, and I’m thinking yes, at all times.”

  No way. “We didn’t run into anyone like that in the caves in Pakistan.” They found Benton there, hiding chemical weapons and readying to ignite the region in a battle to end all battles. Jake Pearce had been his sidekick. He lied to them and played the role of traitor and ate a bullet in return.

  Sutton frowned at them. “Did you say Pakistan?”

  “Our last date with Benton.” Mike pitched his water bottle into the trashcan by Ellery’s side.

  Lucas nodded. “Good times.”

  “You’re going to give information for us to compile a drawing of this Frederick guy,” Josiah said. They’d start there, then he could hand it all to Ellery to work out while he assessed the trustworthiness of the intel Sutton provided. “Then we are going to walk through the information you have on Bane and every single conversation you’ve ever had with him or Frederick.”

  “The Bane part is a lot.”

  He was officially tired of hearing her denials and excuses. “You’d be smart not to leave any of the important parts out.” He reached for her, to show her to the interrogation room in the back.

  She stepped out of his grasp. “Stop threatening me.”

  “They have communication issues,” Mike said to Lucas and Ellery.

  Josiah ignored the sarcasm and kept staring at Sutton, willing her to understand the seriousness of this issue. “We’re also going to talk about everything you saw and all you know, no matter how minor or unimportant you think it was.”

  She blew out a long breath. “This is going to be a long night.”

  He kept at it. Blocked out the other people in the room and the look of disapproval on Ellery’s face, as well as the concern on Lucas’s. Spelled it all out to Sutton. “And then you’re going to go over it again and again until Ellery can find something we can use to track this motherfucker down.”

  “Can I shower first?”

  A totally reasonable response after everything that happened and the early morning hour. Still, a fevered fury had him in its grasp and wouldn’t let go. His voice grew louder. “No.”

  Sutton threw her hands up in the air. “What do I have to do to prove myself?”

  “You can’t.”

  Her face flushed and her jaw locked. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  The fury had all piled up—the near-miss in Pakistan, his uncle, almost losing Danny tonight—and now spilled over. Rage that had nothing to do with her lapped at him. He wanted to vent and yell and punch a wall. Instead, he aimed it all at her. “We have a maniac gunning for every member of this team and you are our only link to him. I’m still not even sure which side you’re on.”

  “How can you say that after what happened with Danny?” The question came out on shocked breaths.

  “Because Benton will do anything, use anyone.” Mike tried to talk. Ellery said something. Josiah pushed it all out and kept going after Sutton. Part of him wanted her to break. If she was bad, if she didn’t deserve to be trusted, he wanted to know now. Maybe that would help him not care about what happened to her. “He will lie and cheat and kill. He would have blown up that school and every child in it tonight if he thought that would get him what he wanted.”

  “Which is? Oh, wait. You think I already know.” Her rage matched his now. She talked with her hands, gesturing and pointing as tension pulled her expression tight. “I don’t know anything about this Benton. The man I knew has pretended to be a lot of people but I never found that name. And when you talk about trust . . .”

  “What?” He shouted the question at her.

  “How do I know you’re not the bad guys in all of this?”

  She wanted proof? Fucking fine. He stepped past her toward the desk. “I’ll show you.”

  Lucas stepped in front of him. “Josiah.”

  “Don’t do what I think you’re going to do,” Mike grumbled from behind him.

  Josiah shoved them all away, physically and mentally as he hovered over Ellery. “Cue it.”

  She lifted her hands off the keyboard. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  “Fine, I’ll do it.” He reached around her and hit the button. He knew which screen had the video ready and how they all worked to make sure he never saw it playing.

  Mike grabbed his arm. “Calm the fuck down.”

  But Josiah was too far gone. He stood by the screen and pointed his finger at the horrible scene unfolding. The scene he saw every time he closed his eyes. “That is Benton’s idea of a good time. Whatever petty bullshit you’re chasing him about, this is bigger. I guarantee it.”

  The dialogue replayed.

  About forty and scarred with burns. He said his name is—

  The words cut off at the loud boom.

  Sutton jumped and her hands went to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

  Josiah felt sick inside. “Exactly. Now maybe you have a clue.”

  Her eyes widened. “That is sick. So sick.”

  She stood there, frozen in place, and repeated the phrase over and over. Her body actually rocked back and forth. If she relished his pain or the death, she was conducting a master class in how to act out the opposite. Her body curled in and her face paled. She was the picture of despair.

  Much of the punch left him but the need to torture himself, to pay penance, remained. “Want to see it again?”

  “Goddamn it, that’s enough.” Mike reached around him and punched a button that made the picture freeze.

  Numbness settled in Josiah’s bones. “Want us to play it again so you can be sure you want to talk?”

  Sutton closed her eyes and shook her head. “Turn it off.”

  He couldn’t stop. The world crashed in on him and he lashed out at her. “Does that look like something you want to be a part of?”

  She dropped her hands and glared at him. “I said turn it off.”

  “Listen to her, Josiah.” Tasha’s smooth voice boomed through the room as she walked in. “At the very least, you need to listen to me. Do it now.”

  She kept walking until she stood in front of Sutton with her hand out. “My name is Tasha.”

  “She’s the boss,” Mike said, filling what might be the most important piece of information for Sutton.

  “Yes, I am.” Tasha pinned Josiah in her sights as she said it.

  At first Sutton just stared at the outstretched hand, but then she shook it. Pain still lingered in her eyes, but a healthy dose of confusion played there, too. “You’re also British.”

  “Half the team is.” Tasha glanced at the screen and then back to Sutton. “And, no, I won’t fire Josiah, though it is tempting at this moment.”

  He wasn’t in the mood for a scolding. “She needed to see the truth.”

  Even Ellery turned on him. “There might have been a more tactful way to handle it.”

  “I apologize if you were traumatized.” Tasha guided Sutton to the nearest chair.

  Not that she was in the mood to be placated or coddled. She kept right on glaring at Josiah. “For which part? The kidnapping, being shot at, almost getting killed at the school. That tape.”

  Mike stood next to Josiah and whispered under his breath. “Clearly you are not a people person.”

  He had been before this job. Before all the death. Before her. Josiah didn’t know what the hell he’d become now.

  “She should see the rest of the tape.” He held up his hands when it looked as if Mike wanted to launch an attack. “For ID purposes.”

  Tasha sighed in a way that said she was done with all the nonsense. “On that I agree.”

  Ellery started it up again. The camera scanned the destructive aftermath of the explosion in the room. Josiah saw those legs and the blood spilled on the floor and looked away. He’d had enough Benton for one day.

  The name is Benton, but then I think you know that.

  Ellery turned it off, but Tasha shook her head. “Let it play.”

  I started with Josiah but you’ll all get
a turn.

  This time Tasha hit the button and stopped the tape. “Is that the man you know as Bane? Is it his voice?”

  Sutton just stared at the monitor. She seemed lost in thought. Maybe just lost.

  Guilt tugged at Josiah. “Sutton? Do you recognize him?”

  She nodded, slow at first, but kept going. “It’s his voice . . . his hand. Bane and Benton are absolutely the same person.”

  Josiah started to go to her but Tasha stopped him with a simple flick of her hand. He thought about disobeying. Actually wanted to ignore her, tell Tasha this wasn’t her business, but that would be an overstep. Josiah couldn’t go there, not with his emotions all churned up and regret pounding in on him. So he stayed still and thought about what he should say to her, if he could even find the right words to explain the doubts.

  “Why don’t we take a break?” Tasha cleared her throat, which was her way of telling people to clear the room. “Ellery, maybe you can show Sutton where she’ll be staying for a few days. Let her shower.”

  “Babysit her,” Mike said.

  “Don’t help.” But Tasha focused on Mike now. She pointed at him, then at the doorway behind him. “You and Lucas start digging into this Frederick guy and go through everything Ellery collected on Bane and this fake company Clayton Pharmaceuticals, and that office. I want a preliminary report in thirty minutes.”

  With a nod, Lucas and Mike took off. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ellery ushered Sutton in the direction of the bathroom. “It’s this way.”

  She got halfway there before turning around to face Josiah again. “You’re right about one thing. You suck at comforting.”

  11

  JOSIAH DREADED the next five minutes. He sat down hard in the chair Ellery had just abandoned and stared at the closed door she just slammed shut.

  With the fire inside him back at a low heat, the reality of what just happened hit him. He’d forced Sutton to watch his uncle get blown apart. He couldn’t get through five seconds of it without wanting to drop to the floor, and he’d played it for her.

  He’d seen her eyes. Wide with horror and unshed tears. The way she rocked back on her heels and then went blank. Just shut down.