by Cindy Dees
While Emily ducked into a restroom, Jagger strolled outside and attached the tracking device to the underside of the kid’s rear bumper before the student pulled out of the truck stop.
Jagger timed their departure so they actually followed the kid for a few miles, just in case the AbaCo tails had closed in to visual range while he and Emily had been stopped. Once AbaCo saw their car moving in the same direction as the tracking beacon, the goons would back out of visual range again. And the fact that they were following the wrong car hopefully wouldn’t dawn on them until the student had arrived in Richmond several hours from now—long after Jagger and Emily had disappeared into the rural back roads of the Shenandoah Valley.
Jagger drove erratically, speeding up and slowing down, slamming on the brakes and making last-second turns, and even pounded down a few dusty dirt roads. No plumes of dust kicked up behind them. Eventually, he became convinced that no one was following them, at close range or otherwise.
He held out a hand across the car to Emily. “I need the cell phone.”
“The phone! I’m so used to being on the Rock and not having one I forgot we had it. Let me call my mother—”
He cut her off gently. “Me first. Please. It’s important.”
“Uh. Oh. Okay. Here.”
He dialed with one hand and held the device up to his ear. A marine clerk answered the line.
“This is Captain Holtz. I need to speak to—”
He got no further with the clerk. The familiar voice of his boss came on the line. “Jagger. Damn I’m glad to hear your voice again. Thought we’d lost you there, for a while. Where are you?”
“Not far away, actually.”
“That’s excellent news. You’re still planning to turn yourself in, right? Do you have the woman with you?”
He glanced over at Emily. “Yes to both.”
“Come in ASAP. The sooner we get statements from you, the sooner we can sort this mess out and clear your name.”
“Right. About that. I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you, sir. The good news is that between the two of us, Miss Grainger and I should be able to hand you enough information to bury AbaCo once and for all. The bad news is we have something else to take care of first. We can’t turn ourselves in just yet.”
“Jagger.” The colonel’s warning tone was grim. “If you run around like a fugitive, the credibility of your entire story will be called into doubt. Your only shot at clearing yourself is to get your butt in here now.”
Jagger winced. “Sir, I know you’re right. Nonetheless, I have to take care of this problem first. It’s not negotiable. You can tell the FBI that I’ll be in touch with them in a few days.”
“How many days?” the colonel demanded.
“As many days as it takes, sir. We’ll come in, I swear. Just not yet.”
“You’re putting me in an awkward situation, son.”
A heavy silence fell between them. There was nothing more for Jagger to say. His daughter came first. Before his career, before his safety, before his life. But then inspiration struck. “Could you do me a favor, sir?”
A harrumph rumbled in his ear. “What kind of favor?”
“Broker a deal for me. If the FBI will help me take care of this personal problem of mine first, I’ll turn myself in and cooperate fully with them when it’s successfully resolved. I’m not exaggerating when I say we can bury AbaCo. Turns out the entire company is a front for German Mafia activity.”
The colonel went dead silent. Jagger heard the guy’s mental wheels turning fast. “That’s pretty tempting bait. The entire company, you say? But the firm’s worth billions. If we took that out, we’d financially gut the German Mafia. Crime in Europe would plummet. Countries all over the world would owe us big time…” His voice trailed off. “I could work with that.”
Jagger held his breath. This might be just the break they needed. With the full resources of the FBI to help them, AbaCo wouldn’t stand a chance of getting its mitts on Michelle.
“It may take me a day or two to work this deal, Jagger. You gonna be okay in the meantime?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be lying low and taking care of business.”
“I’ll do what I can. But if they turn down your offer, they’re gonna come after you hard. They’re pissed that an operative of your experience turned on them.”
“I didn’t turn, sir.” The colonel said nothing in response, and Jagger added a little desperately, “C’mon. You know me better than that.”
“Yeah. I guess I do. Either way, be quick about your business.”
“I hear you loud and clear, sir. And thank you.”
A snort. “Don’t thank me. If you want to cover my ass and yours, turn yourself in.”
Jagger disconnected the call thoughtfully. Problem was, once the colonel found out that he and Emily had a child together, all hell was going to break loose anyway. Government operatives were emphatically not supposed to become romantically involved with their informants or human assets. By using her to gain entrance to the AbaCo party, he had cast Emily in the role of an agent, albeit unwitting, of the U.S. government. Still, it was enough of a professional entanglement that she was entirely off-limits to him romantically. It was going to be just a wee bit difficult to get around the fact that they had a daughter whose age placed her conception firmly on that New Year’s Eve two years ago when Jagger had used Emily on a mission.
He was screwed either way. That being the case, he might as well save Michelle and unite Emily with her daughter before he went down in flames.
Grimly, he handed the phone to Emily. “Don’t give your mom any details over the phone. Just tell her to stay inside with other members of your family, don’t open the door to any strangers, and for God’s sake, don’t let Michelle out of her sight for an instant.”
Emily nodded and made the call. Even across the car, Jagger heard Mrs. Anderson’s agitation at the other end of the line. Apparently, the danger of the situation had been adequately conveyed and understood. Good. The way he figured it, a grandma was a mommy once removed, which made a grandmother almost as deadly as a mother when her grandchild was threatened.
“How much longer?” Emily murmured as she put away her phone.
“An hour.”
It was a tense sixty minutes. He fought his urge to stand on the accelerator and barely managed to hold the car somewhere close to the speed limit. The more time he had to process the idea of having a child, the more connected he felt to her—and he’d never even met Michelle! It bordered on bizarre.
His anxiety climbed with every mile closer they came to her. He was about to meet his daughter. A human being that he’d helped create. The enormity of it overwhelmed him.
What would Michelle think of him? Would she be scared of the grim stranger with her eyes? Would she instinctively recognize him and cut him a break? What did a person do with a fifteen-month-old, anyway? Was that too old for peekaboo? Should he have tried to find her a toy in that rest stop? What did kids that age play with, anyway?
He checked his rampant nerves sharply. She was a baby, for crying out loud. She wouldn’t quiz him on his qualifications to be a parent, thank God, because he was grossly unprepared. The brain freeze induced by the mere thought of facing a diaper or a bath was proof enough of that.
“Are you okay?” Emily asked him abruptly.
He started. “Why do you ask?”
“You look about ready to throw up.”
He grimaced. “Impending parenthood does that to a guy.” He knew the words were a mistake the moment they left his mouth.
Emily’s face went closed, and she turned to stare out the passenger window, hurt written in the lines of her neck and shoulders.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Em. I’m just nervous. I want Michelle to like me.” He took a deep breath and confessed, “I don’t know the first thing about kids.”
“Neither did I. But you’ll catch on fast enough. That is, if you feel like sticking aroun
d.”
He huffed. “Of course I’ll be sticking around. I have every intention of stepping up to my new responsibilities.”
Emily flinched again. What had he said now? He was looking forward to becoming a dad. Eager to change the subject, he said, “When we reach your uncle’s house, I’ll stay outside and make sure we don’t have any company while you go in and get Michelle.”
She started. “What? I thought we were going to stay with my aunt and uncle for a while.”
He frowned. “Of course not. We’ve got to get away from anywhere AbaCo might look for the child.”
Skepticism dripped in her voice. “So you’re going to…what? Run around acting like a superspy with a toddler in tow?”
That had been his plan. Although when she put it like that…“Have you got a better idea?”
“Well, no. But I don’t think that’s much of a plan. Little kids are pretty high maintenance, and it’s not like you can strap her into her car seat for hours on end, stick a bottle in her mouth and call it good.”
Damn.
Emily must’ve read his mind because she snorted. “She’s not a newborn. She sleeps about ten hours at night and takes either one long or two short naps each day. The rest of the time she’s busy climbing and exploring and generally destroying everything she can lay her hands on.”
Oh, Lord. The weapons and delicate electronics that were part and parcel of his job being pawed by a toddler—yikes. Time for a new plan.
He blurted, “Do you know anybody in Virginia who’s an old friend? Somebody you haven’t contacted in years? Like not since you worked for AbaCo?”
“No. Nobody. Just my mom’s family.”
“How about your mother or your aunt and uncle? Would they know someone who’d take you and Michelle in?”
“What? And bring AbaCo’s thugs to their doorstep? I can’t do that to a family friend, or to someone I’ve never met for that matter!”
As a trained operative, he didn’t hesitate to use anyone and everyone around him to accomplish a mission. And frankly, now wasn’t the time to stand on ethics. It was time to marshal whatever resources they could and use them, no matter what the risks to others. “Em—”
She must have heard the lecture coming in his voice because she waved it off. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s bad enough that Michelle and I are in potential danger. I won’t do that to anyone else. Find a way to keep us safe without involving other people.”
“I’m not superhuman,” he snapped.
“I don’t know. From what I’ve seen of you so far, you come pretty close. Not many people could’ve survived what you have. And certainly not with their minds and bodies and souls intact.”
In an attempt to lighten the mood he reminded her, “Hey, you’re Danger Girl, not me. I’m just some guy, remember?”
“No, you’re Super Spy. You’re not just some guy.”
“Danger Girl and Super Spy. We make some pair, huh?”
She wasn’t about to be derailed so easily, however. “You’ve come through stuff intact that would have killed other people. You can do this, Jagger. I know it.”
He wasn’t sure anything about him was intact. “Then you’ve got to let me do what I know how to do, the way I know how to do it. Don’t fight me on this. We need to take Michelle and get her away from anyone that AbaCo might somehow connect to the two of you. They know we’re in the Washington, D.C., area, and they’ll scour your records for any contacts in this part of the country. Your entire family is at risk as long as we’re with them. Likewise, they’ll be watching every hotel, restaurant, bus station, you name it. We can’t go anywhere public. We’ve got to go to ground.”
She stared at him. Hard. He avoided meeting her gaze under the guise of watching the road.
She huffed. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But you get to tell my mother.”
Chapter 12
Emily didn’t wait for Jagger to get out of the car. She raced for the front door, which opened without her having to ring the bell. “Michelle!” she cried.
“Mamaaa!”
Her relief when that sturdy, beloved little body rushed into her arms spilled down Emily’s cheeks unchecked in hot, wet tracks. She buried her face in her daughter’s silky curls. Out of the corner of her eye, she just caught a glimpse of the shotgun her stepfather leaned inside the door before he followed his granddaughter outside. Good. They’d taken her warning seriously.
“Mama?” Michelle frowned up at her, as if unsure whether or not she should be crying, too.
“I’m crying because I’m happy, sweetheart. I missed you, munchkin. Did you miss me?”
The little girl reached up to touch Emily’s damp cheeks. Then she smiled and wriggled free, eager to be on the go once more. Emily laughed. “Hold on a second, sweetie. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
She scooped up Michelle before she could take off like the world’s cutest bullet, and turned.
Jagger was standing beside the car. His face was devoid of expression, but he stood absolutely still, his intense gaze riveted on his daughter. Something about him must have captured his daughter’s attention, too, for she stuck a thumb in her mouth and stared back, her own restless nature, so much like her father’s, curbed for the moment.
“This is my friend Jagger. Jagger, this is Michelle.”
He moved then, easing forward cautiously. He stuck a finger out and touched one of the child’s bouncy curls carefully. Michelle made a fast grab and captured his finger, promptly stuffing it into her mouth.
A look of wonder spread across Jagger’s face as she gnawed enthusiastically on his fingertip.
“Teething,” Emily murmured apologetically. “Sorry.”
“That’s entirely all right,” he murmured back.
Her mother’s voice startled her from the front door. She’d completely forgotten about her mom in the magic of the moment. “Who’s your friend, Emily? Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Oh. Sorry, Mom. This is Jagger Holtz. Jagger, my mother. Doris Anderson.”
He nodded gravely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
Her mother’s shrewd gaze flitted back and forth between Michelle and Jagger and comprehension dawned. Emily winced. So much for that cat. One look at Michelle and Jagger side by side, and the feline was irrevocably out of the bag as to who was Michelle’s father. Thankfully, Doris merely pursed her lips and said nothing.
Emily’s stepfather boomed, “Well, come on in and sit a spell.”
She looked over her shoulder at Jagger. “That’s Al. I told you about him. He’s my mother’s husband.”
“Handy with a shotgun, I see,” Jagger muttered.
Emily grinned. “Oh, yeah. Terrorized the few dates I managed to land in high school.”
Jagger grinned. “Stupid boys. Didn’t know what they were missing when they let you get away. You’re worth braving howitzers over, let alone a measly shotgun.”
She smiled into Michelle’s hair as they went inside. She turned the toddler loose within the confines of four walls and watched until the toddler raced out of sight. She spoke briskly to her mother. “We need to pack up a few of Michelle’s things. Jagger and I need to leave with her right away.”
Thunder landed on her mother’s brow. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go haring off all over the countryside with a baby in tow, young lady—”
“Don’t young lady me, Mom. Some really dangerous people are after us.”
“All the more reason not to go running around.”
She’d feared her mother might be obstinate about this. “Jagger knows what he’s doing. He can handle the people who are chasing us. He just needs to know that Michelle is safe and that she won’t be used to get to us.”
“She won’t be if she stays here. Al’s brothers are hunters, too. They all know their way around a gun if it comes to it.”
Emily sighed. “We’re not talking about a handful of bubbas with shotguns here. These men are ex-St
asi agents. They’re mobsters. Violent criminals.”
“So call the police and let them deal with this.” Ever practical, Doris was.
Emily glanced over at Jagger. “Help me out, here.”
He spoke quietly. “Think of a team of Special Forces commandos storming your home and killing everyone in the place so they can grab Michelle. They’ll come in all at once through the windows and doors, toting submachine guns that shoot through your walls like tissue paper. They’ll attack at night using night-vision goggles and you’ll be completely blind. Not that Al or his brothers will get a shot off at them anyway before the team mows them down like sheep. Their weapons will literally cut you in half with bullets.”
Everyone in the room stared at Jagger, aghast.
“Who are you?” Al finally asked.
“I’m a covert operative trained in the same methods as the people who are coming after Michelle. The assault I just described is what I’d do in the same situation. These guys are professionals. They’re armed to the teeth and they’re ruthless. With all due respect, sir, you and your family are no match for them.”
Doris spoke up tartly. “Sounds like you’re no match for them by yourself, either.”
He smiled ruefully at her. “I’m not. That’s why Emily and I have to leave and take Michelle someplace where we can hide until the authorities catch up with these guys.”
Al grunted. “So surround the house with police or FBI or whoever.”
Emily winced. “Right, well, there’s a problem with that. Jagger and I have had a little misunderstanding with the FBI and they’ve got federal warrants out for our arrest. We’ll be able to clear up most of the charges as soon as we talk to them, but first we have to make sure that Michelle’s safe. That’s why we need to take her and leave.”
Doris announced firmly, “You’re not going anywhere until both of you get a decent meal into you. You look half-dead with exhaustion.”
A hot meal was Doris’s cure-all for everything that ailed a person. Emily sighed. She looked over at Jagger for approval. He nodded reluctantly and she turned back to her mom. “All right. We’ll stay for supper. But then we’ll have to go.”
