True Shot

by Joyce Lamb

  “Come sit down and talk to me,” Sam said. “I’ll pour us some drinks.”

  “No!” It burst out of her, and Zoe covered her tear-streaked face with shaking hands. A wild sob quickly followed. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

  Seriously concerned now, Sam pulled her weeping friend into her arms and held her tight, smoothing her hand over Zoe’s quaking back. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She didn’t even know what was wrong, but it seemed like the right thing to say. At the same time, her alarm grew. This was Zoe. Stoic, ramrod-straight-posture, I-didn’t-cry-at-Bambi-as-a-kid Zoe Harris. She never cried, rarely even showed much emotion. What the hell had happened while Sam was undercover in San Francisco?

  “No, it’s not all right,” Zoe said and pushed her back with surprising strength. “Everything will never be okay. He betrayed us, Sam. We trusted him, and he betrayed us.”

  “Who? Who betrayed us?”

  “Flinn.”

  Sam’s stomach did a flip. “What?”

  “I’m pregnant,” Zoe blurted.

  More shock had Sam shaking her head, denying herself the leap to conclusions. “You and Flinn?”

  Zoe’s blond, spiral curls bounced as she violently shook her head and stalked into the living room as though she couldn’t stand still. “No! Never.”

  Zoe sank onto the sofa and dropped her face into her hands as stronger sobs tore out of her. “I don’t know when it happened. I . . . he must have . . . must have drugged me or something. I don’t . . . remember . . .”

  Drugged her? Sam’s heart took off at a sprint as she thought of the night a month and a half ago when she’d suspected Flinn had drugged her. But she’d decided then that she was wrong. The days of being strapped down and forced to endure experiments designed to test the limits, and extent, of her abilities were over. Weren’t they?

  Zoe raised her face to Sam, her brown eyes red and puffy. “He’s using me as an . . . as an . . .” Her breath started hitching, and fresh tears poured down her reddened cheeks. “As an . . . incubator.”

  Sam’s stomach rolled with dread. She knew when she needed backup and never hesitated to make the request. As soon as she picked up the phone, though, Zoe clamped iron-strong fingers around her wrist and twisted until Sam winced. Before she could think to create an empathic block, memory that wasn’t hers crashed over her.

  “Why would you do this? What kind of sick bastard does this?”

  Flinn pats my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Zoe. Just hear me out.”

  “Why should I listen to you? You’re the one who did this to me!”

  “You’re part of something vitally important, Zoe. Something that’s going to change the world. You were chosen—”

  “Fuck you!” I shove him back, but it’s not enough. If my Glock was within reach, I would kill him. “I’m not some breed mare for you to use to grow super spies!”

  Sam fell out of the empathic memory as Zoe jerked her up close so that they were nose to nose. For the first time since she’d come weeping through Sam’s front door, Zoe looked coherent and deadly. “Do you get it now?” she hissed. “Did you see?”

  Sam resisted the instinct to try to break Zoe’s grip on her wrist. They were both combat trained, both knew the moves and countermoves for incapacitating an attacker. But this was her friend. She knew Zoe’s intention was not to hurt her.

  Sam relaxed her muscles and waited until the taller woman’s shoulders sagged. Regret added to the emotional chaos of her expression as Zoe dropped Sam’s wrist and took a step back. “God, I’m so sor—”

  Her brows arched sharply, and shock wiped the despair from her eyes.

  The wet splat against the front of Sam’s shirt had her flinching back and glancing down to see a thick spray pattern of red against the white backdrop of cotton. It took a second to register.

  Blood.

  Sam lunged toward her friend. As she tackled her friend to the floor behind the sofa, she felt a tug of pain burn through her left shoulder. Too late. She’d let the enemy take her by surprise.

  She scrambled to her knees and pressed shaking fingers to Zoe’s neck. That was when she realized trying to find a pulse was pointless: Her eyes were open and empty.

  Sam fought down the nausea and grief and forced herself to remember her training. The sniper who had just killed Zoe no doubt waited patiently for Sam to come into view so he could take a second kill shot.

  She had to do something. Move.

  A ticklish feather-stroke down her arm drew her gaze, and she watched the thin stream of blood tracking over her forearm. Numbness spread from her shoulder into the hand resting palm up on her thigh.

  The sound of breaking glass snapped her out of her paralysis, and she slithered across the slippery hardwood floor toward her bag, toward her SIG. With cold, hard—comforting—metal pressed to her palm, she flipped over onto her back and fired one shot into the chest of the intruder tearing toward her.

  He dropped about a yard from her feet, crumpling into a heap, and she kept the gun aimed at him. She didn’t so much as breathe until she saw his fingers go lax on the trigger of his weapon.

  She crawled to him, forcing herself to focus, to do her job, to not think about Zoe, and used both hands to shove him over onto his back. She trained her SIG on him, hyperalert to the tiniest twitch. In head-to-toe black, a balaclava obscuring his features, he looked like any other assassin. Yet, something about him seemed familiar.

  She yanked off the balaclava and sat back on her heels with a startled gasp.

  She knew him.

  He wasn’t a fellow N3 operative, but he was part of the team, one of three men Flinn called “the muscle.”

  And Flinn had sent him to kill Zoe, to kill Sam.

  Disbelief lightened her head. Betrayal tightened her lungs.

  She had to run.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The present

  Frustrated, Mac Hunter hunched over the steering wheel and glanced at the wet, dark-haired woman unconscious in the passenger seat. She hadn’t so much as whimpered when he’d wadded a clean T-shirt and stuffed it between her denim shirt and oozing shoulder to help staunch the bleeding. Then he’d bundled her up in the red plaid blanket from the sofa and hustled her into the Jeep, careful to protect her shoulder from too much jarring. He’d turned the heat on high, conscious of the wet-dog smell of the blanket’s old wool while he’d navigated the rutted road back toward Skyline Drive.

  Now, the rain drumming against the roof of the SUV drowned out the wild pounding of his heart as he watched the frothy, muddy water surging past the front bumper. Just as he’d feared: The storm had washed out the road.

  He had no choice but to turn back.

  He executed a tight T-turn, praying the Jeep’s wheels wouldn’t get bogged down. Four-wheel drive could handle only so much.

  Back at the cabin, he carried the woman through the torrents of rain for a second time. Inside, he kicked the door closed and settled her on the sofa. After cranking the lantern to its brightest setting and positioning it on the table next to the couch, he knelt by her side and smoothed soaked hair off her forehead. Her skin felt cool under the heat of his palm, her dark eyelashes stark against her pale complexion.

  He fished his cell phone out of his jacket and checked again for a signal. None. “Of course,” he muttered. “That would be too easy.”

  Alex had rattled off something about cell signals here, but he’d already forgotten what she’d said. He hadn’t planned to make any calls from here, anyway. Not that a cell signal would help much. He doubted anyone could manage to get anywhere near this cabin tonight with the road washed out.

  Okay, first things first. He had to get the woman dry. Then he’d crank up the generator to heat the chill out of the air and help warm her up.

  A trip with the lantern into the cabin’s only bedroom turned up a white and blue quilt. In the bathroom, he grabbed a couple of thick towels and a first-aid kit
then stood there staring at his own pale face in the mirror. His red-rimmed eyes looked wide and hollow, and the rest of him looked more than a little bedraggled. So much for a relaxing week of destressing.

  He carried his bounty back to the living room and dumped it all on the floor next to the sofa. After a deep, fortifying breath, he stripped her down to practical white cotton underwear as efficiently as he could.

  “Just so you know, I’m keeping my eyes to myself,” he said in a low, soothing voice. If she regained consciousness now, he didn’t want her freaking out on him.

  Still, he couldn’t help but notice how lean she was. Not skinny but toned with clearly defined muscles. Yet she had distractingly feminine curves.

  The lethal-looking blade strapped to her ankle gave him as much pause as the realization that a bullet had most likely passed completely through her shoulder, leaving behind twin entry and exit wounds. Given the other scars he glimpsed, it apparently wasn’t the first time she’d been shot.

  Terrific. Stuck on a mountain in a rainstorm with an unconscious fugitive. Obviously, she’d been on the run, too desperate to get away from whomever had hurt her to seek medical treatment. Maybe that person or, God help him, people were still after her. Any second now, commandos would bust down the door and turn him into a bloody pulp with their big honkin’ guns. If she hadn’t been limp as an overcooked noodle with lips rapidly turning blue, he might have backed out the door and pretended he’d never made it to the cabin.

  Instead, he lifted her upper body and slid the quilt underneath, then maneuvered it under her legs. When she was completely covered, he slid his hands under the quilt, holding his breath as his palms glided over the satin skin of her thighs to her hips.

  “Don’t wake up now, don’t wake up now,” he chanted as he worked her underwear down her legs and off then dropped it to the floor with a rain-soaked thwap.

  Next, he leaned over her and wriggled his hands behind her bare back to fumble with her bra clasp. This close, he noticed that her skin smelled of fall rain and some kind of floral soap. And blood. His stomach turned, but then the clasp yielded, and he divested her of the last piece of sodden clothing. “Mission accomplished. Now let’s get that shoulder taken care of.”

  He quickly cleaned the bullet wound, thinking perhaps the sting from the antiseptic pads he found in the first-aid kit might rouse her, but she didn’t move even an eyelash while he worked. After he’d taped gauze to both the entrance and exit wounds, he noted she didn’t seem as pale as before, and the bluish tint to her lips had given way to a healthier, rosy hue.

  For a moment, he wondered about the color of her eyes. With that ebony hair, he imagined a dark, dark brown, almost black. Mysterious and deep, the kind of eyes a guy could fall into headfirst. Dangerous eyes for a dangerous woman.

  Pushing to his feet, he shook his head at his own foolishness. Instead of wondering about eye color, he should worry about how she’d gotten shot in the shoulder. For all he knew, the cops would be beating down the door by morning, maybe even arrest him for harboring a fugitive. Not that he’d had any choice. A washed-out road made sure of that, and he couldn’t very well just let her bleed, or freeze, to death.

  He’d done the right thing. Now all he had to do was wait until morning. He’d get her to the hospital, let the medical professionals deal with contacting the cops then get back to why he’d come here in the first place: relaxing.

  He took the lantern and headed out into the cold rain to figure out the generator.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Flinn Ford hated the rain, especially the kind of cold rain currently dripping into his collar and down his back.

  His walkie-talkie squawked at his belt, and he lifted it, hoping for some good news. He desperately needed good news. Everything that mattered had gone FUBAR in a matter of days.

  “Talk to me.”

  “We’re not getting anywhere near her tonight. The storm’s taken out the road.”

  “What about on foot?”

  “There’s a river surging down the side of the mountain, sir. Only way we’re getting over it is to be airlifted. Requesting that kind of help will get the attention of the boss. You want that?”

  Flinn scowled at the mention of Andrea Leigh. He didn’t want the FBI assistant director getting wind that something was up, especially considering she had no idea about the project. That stupid fruitcake Zoe shouldn’t have known about the project, either, and now she’d dragged Samantha into it.

  Deke and Tom had assured him they’d made the mess at Samantha’s apartment look like a burglary gone bad, but damn it all to hell, he was fucked. He could live with losing Zoe. That screwed-up bitch had been nothing but trouble from the start. But with Zoe dead and Mikayla reassigned in Afghanistan, Samantha held the only key to making his plan work. He’d be damned if he’d let her slip away from him.

  “Hello? You there, boss?”

  Closing his eyes, Flinn listened to the time bomb ticking in his head. He had to find a way to get to Samantha before it was too late. But how he went about it had to be as under the radar as the act that had started this rolling thunder of a disaster.

  He depressed the “talk” button. “What about approaching through the woods from the other direction?”

  A brief pause, then, “That’d take time, but it could be done.”

  “Then do it.”

  Holstering the walkie, he leaned his head back and let the rain wash over the angry, burning heat in his face.

  “I’m coming to get you, Samantha,” he murmured.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mac Hunter settled in front of the cold fireplace with a groan. His muscles ached and his head pounded. His hopes for a cozy fire had gone up in smoke when the wood he’d dragged inside had done nothing more than steam and sizzle when he’d tried to light it.

  The generator hadn’t cooperated, either, so he’d rummaged through kitchen drawers with the battery-operated lantern in hand until he’d collected several candles and some matches. Now, tiny flames flickered throughout the room, giving it a comforting glow that belied the chill in the air. Rain continued to hammer the roof, and occasional thunder purred in the distance. If not for the unconscious woman bundled inside the heavy quilt in the other room, the atmosphere would have been exactly as he pictured it. But with a fire. And perhaps better lighting.

  Instead of curling up under a blanket with the latest Dean Koontz novel, he snapped open the wallet he’d fished out of the soaked bag he’d found by the door. He had to squint in the dim light to study the driver’s license. The shining waves of ebony hair and lively blue gray eyes didn’t look anything like the pale, sopping-wet woman he’d stripped over an hour ago.

  Claire Hogan. 1235 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. Blue eyes. Black hair. No restrictions.

  An organ donor. He smirked a little at that. Considering the scars he’d seen, he couldn’t imagine her insides had escaped unscathed. Who’d want a liver that had been lacerated or a heart nicked by a knife?

  Next, he pulled out a company ID, surprised to see she worked for Biomedical Research Corp. in San Francisco. The controversial company, which conducted stem-cell research, had been in the news lately after one of its scientists had gone missing. The words “Research Assistant” were printed in bold, black letters under Claire Hogan’s name, right next to a picture of the woman in the other room. In the photo, she flashed a dazzling smile that totally contradicted her current, wounded state.

  Since when did biomedical research assistants get shot? And how had she gotten from San Francisco to this remote cabin in the Shenandoahs?

  And, damn, but that smile looked familiar.

  Recognition washed over him, and he pushed up from the sofa and ambled over to the fireplace mantel and a collection of Trudeau family photos. He had to move a candle to get a good look, but it wasn’t tough to spot the similarly stunning smiles beaming from a photo at least fifteen years old. Teenage versions of the two Trudeau sisters he knew w
ell—Charlie and Alex—flanked a teenage version of the woman he’d put to bed. The three young women shared the same prominent cheekbones and full lips, the same wavy hair in varying dark shades. The girl in the middle, however, was taller and thinner than the other girls, her features somewhat sharp. She also had soulful blue eyes rather than brown. Even so, Mac would have bet money that she was Samantha, the oldest of the Trudeau sisters. That explained how she ended up at this cabin. It belonged to her family.

  “Where’s my bag?”

  He turned, surprised to see her wrapped in a quilt and leaning unsteadily against the frame of the bedroom door. Her now-dry hair hung in soft waves around her face, softening cheekbones that had looked severe before. The softer look did nothing, however, to lighten the dark circles under eyes that were a far more intriguing, and arresting, shade of blue steel than he’d gleaned from the photo.

  “Uh, hi,” he said, and smiled to reassure her. “How’re you feeling?”

  “My bag?”

  A shiver shimmied up his spine at the husky rasp of her voice. Jesus, that voice alone could make a man fall head over heels in lust. “I hung it in the bathroom to dry with your clothes.”

  Interesting that she asked for her bag before she asked about her clothes. All he’d done was retrieve her wallet from said bag before hanging it from the showerhead. Privacy and all. Maybe he’d have to rethink that.

  “Get it and my clothes,” she said.

  He was certain she would have retrieved them herself if she hadn’t been leaning so heavily against the frame of the door. “You probably shouldn’t be out of bed.”

  “Get them. Now.”

  Okaaay. Not a polite request but a harsh demand. Guess this wasn’t the time to bust her on the fake ID. “I was kind of in the middle of something, but since you asked so nice . . .”