by Cindy Dees
Rather than argue anymore with her mother, Emily headed for Michelle’s room and began to pack clothes, diapers and toys for her daughter. Doris stomped up and down the hall and did a lot of mumbling under her breath but did not interfere. Emily was relieved to be left to pack in peace.
Over the course of the next hour, however, a repeat of the initial argument occurred, first between her and Al, and then between her and Jagger against everyone again. In the end, Jagger reluctantly agreed to stay at the house until he and Emily had someplace specific in mind to head for.
But over the meal, Jagger recruited Al’s family to help him find someplace to go. He laid out his requirements succinctly. They needed someplace isolated to hole up with Michelle where the FBI could eventually come and interview him. That place needed to be free of any family or friends of Emily’s, Doris’s or Al’s that AbaCo could track down. It needed to be reasonably close to Washington, D.C., and it needed to not be connected to any commercially traceable databases, like those used by hotels or stores.
Doris frowned. “In other words, you need to find the home of a complete stranger who will take you in despite the fact that you bring life-threatening risk with you.”
Jagger grimaced. “Pretty much.”
Emily’s mother excused herself from the table. “I may know just the person, and now’s the perfect time to catch her.”
Emily and Jagger cleared the table and started washing and drying the dishes while her mother signed on to the computer in the dining room. Doris was online a total of maybe two minutes, and then she marched into the kitchen, smiling broadly.
“I’ve found a place for you three to stay. However, I’m not telling you where it is unless you agree to take me with you.”
Emily groaned. Jagger cocked an eyebrow and commented wryly, “I see where you get your stubborn streak from, Em.”
“Well?” Doris demanded belligerently. “You’ll need a babysitter if you plan on running all over creation, and I’m not letting that baby out of my sight until I know she’s safe.”
Jagger shrugged. “You have a point. Emily and I may be a bit occupied over the next several days with security arrangements and after that with debriefings.”
Yeah, and going to jail if the FBI didn’t buy their respective stories about AbaCo. In that event, Doris would need to be nearby to take custody of Michelle. Emily glanced over at Jagger and saw the exact same thought mirrored in his troubled gaze.
Her mother beamed. “I’m already packed.” When Emily scowled, her mother continued. “I did it while you were packing Michelle’s things.” She added defiantly, “I won’t be any trouble.”
“Right, Mom. No trouble at all. Now I’ve got you to worry about, too.”
Doris shrugged. “Take it or leave it. I go, too, or I don’t give up the location to you.”
Emily looked over at Jagger. He said in resignation, “All right. You go, too, Doris. Two mother bears protecting the cub has to be better than one.”
Once the decision was made, they left almost immediately. There was a brief flap when Jagger refused to let Doris tell Al where they were going. But when Jagger gently suggested that if Al was captured and tortured for the information it would be best if the older man didn’t, in fact, know where Jagger, Emily and Michelle were, everyone subsided in horror.
Thankfully, in anticipation of picking up Michelle and a bunch of baby gear, Jagger had rented a full-sized car. They set out into the night.
“So who are we going to visit?” Jagger asked after about a half hour of evasive driving designed to make sure they had no tail.
Doris replied, “I belong to an online chat group for single moms and the occasional grandma. One of the moms lives in this general area. When I went online and asked if she’d mind a few houseguests, she invited us right away.”
Emily asked sharply, “Does she understand the risk in taking us in?”
“I made it clear there were some legal problems and that Michelle’s safety was an issue. I wasn’t sure how much I should explain over a computer, though.”
Jagger nodded. “You did well to keep it vague. We’ll fill in our hostess when we arrive and she can decide if she wants us to stay or not.”
Emily murmured, “Can’t we just drive to Washington, D.C., and walk into FBI headquarters tonight?”
Jagger frowned. “In the first place, I have every reason to believe AbaCo’s men will be staking out the place. I doubt we’d make it anywhere near downtown D.C. before they snatched us.
“In the second place, I want to bag these bastards once and for all. The only bait we know for sure that AbaCo will bite at is me and you. As soon as you and I give our statements to a federal attorney or two, we’ll have all the backup we need. Then we show ourselves to AbaCo’s goons, they make a grab for us and Uncle Sam grabs the lot of them. A couple of days. Maybe a week. And then this will all be over.”
It sounded so easy. If only she could believe it would work out like that.
Jagger drove grimly into the night. His plan sounded straightforward enough. Except he’d been in the field enough years to know exactly how many things could go wrong between now and happily ever after. He’d had two long years to contemplate those things. He wanted nothing more than to head for the nearest armed fortress of government agents. But he had faith that if he tried to reach any kind of government installation in this part of the country, they’d find their way blocked by a wall of AbaCo guns. He and his family just had to be patient a little while longer and let events take their course. The stakes were far too high for him to screw up the end game now.
His family…he kinda liked the sound of that.
Michelle was adorable. Of course, he hadn’t had to walk the floors with her all night over colic or whatever babies got that kept them up. And she hadn’t had a screaming meltdown or a stinky diaper or a food-throwing tantrum yet. He tried to imagine the little bug doing something messy and babyish but was completely unable to muster up any real dismay at the prospect. Clearly, he was already head over heels for her.
Their destination would take them back toward Washington, D.C., but was still deep in the heart of Virginia horse country. The hour-long drive passed quickly as he studied his rearview mirror and tried to form a speech that would honestly spell out the danger they posed to their hostess without scaring off the woman entirely.
All too soon, they arrived at a mailbox that bore the number they were looking for. But beyond that, he saw nothing but a dirt path winding away into a forest. Well, he’d wanted isolated. Looked as though he’d gotten it. He turned onto the driveway.
And drove. And drove. The thing wound into what must have been a mile of woods before the trees finally gave way to rolling horse pastures and four-board oak fences on either side of the drive. They topped a hill and a towering, wrought-iron security gate blocked their way. Wow. Talk about a fortress.
Jagger pulled up before the security camera and intercom box.
Doris leaned forward. “Tell her Graminator is here.”
“Graminator?” he asked gravely as Emily rolled her eyes beside him.
Doris glared. She looked prepared to turn him over her knee and spank him if he said anything more. Thankfully, a pleasant female voice came out of the intercom before he could give in to the temptation.
“Come on up to the house. Drive around back, and I’ll open one of the garage doors for you. Pull in there.”
He thought he detected a note of businesslike competence in the woman’s voice. This might just work out after all.
The big gates swung open and he guided the car through, waiting until the gates had closed behind him to continue. No sense waxing sloppy at this late date. He eased forward and the drive topped yet another hill. He whistled through his teeth. A magnificent Colonial mansion rose out of the valley before them. Trees bordered the structure on three sides, but from this angle, a long, manicured lawn stretched from their feet all the way to the front doors.
The dr
iveway took them down the lawn, around a four-tiered fountain and past the east end of the gracious home. As promised, when he pulled around back, one of five garage doors was invitingly open. He pulled inside, and the garage door slid shut behind them. He directed Emily and her mother to stay in the car until the door was entirely shut. And even then, he murmured for them to stay put while he checked things out.
He eased out of the car, crouching beside it, weapon drawn. He made a cautious circuit around their vehicle, ending up back at the driver’s-side door.
A spill of yellow light fell into the dimly lit garage and a slender figure was silhouetted in the doorway. The same calm, businesslike voice from before said easily, “I’m unarmed but feel free to verify that for yourself.”
A woman stepped forward, her hands held wide away from her body, palms up, as if she’d been checked for weapons before. She approached to within a dozen feet of him and then turned her back on him, waiting expectantly.
“I’m sorry about this,” he murmured. “But I can’t be too careful.”
The woman answered casually, “I fully understand. I’d be equally cautious were I in your position.”
He duly frisked her, keeping the exercise as quick and impersonal as possible. Then he nodded over his shoulder at the car. Emily stepped out, carrying a sleeping Michelle, followed by Doris.
Their hostess smiled. “I’m Laura Delaney. Welcome to my home. I’ll do everything I can to ensure your comfort and safety during your stay here.”
Jagger frowned. She sounded as though she knew exactly what she was getting into, here. How was that? Who was this woman?
“I assume you scanned your car for tracking devices?” she asked him.
He nodded. “I found one and passed it off to a kid headed to Richmond for college.”
“You only found the one?” the woman challenged.
He frowned. “I was in a rest stop. I couldn’t exactly dismantle the car in the parking lot.”
Quick alarm lit the woman’s features. “Let me take the ladies inside and get them settled. Then I’ll come back out and help you go over the car with a fine-tooth comb.”
Jagger frowned. “You think there’s a second device?”
“It’s what I’d do if I were tracking someone I really didn’t want to lose.”
Crud. He really had gone soft in that box. Maybe he’d lost the edge. And now his entire family’s lives were depending on him. A sharp jolt of alarm zinged him. Was he up to this fight, after all?
As they scoured the rental car for bugs, Jagger went over the general story of his past two years. Laura offered to look into the charges against him, and it wasn’t as though he was about to say no. If his boss failed to cut a deal with the FBI, he’d need to find another way to approach the bureau to arrange their surrender.
He found the second device inside the dashboard. Thankfully, it was a passive homing device and not an active transmitter that could send detailed information to AbaCo’s thugs.
Jagger took great pleasure in stomping the tracker into dust. Then he asked his hostess tersely, “Do you think we should leave your place?”
“They probably know the general area in which to search for you, but I doubt they had time to triangulate your exact location. It’s late and your girls are exhausted. Let’s get all of you a good night’s sleep and we’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”
The stress of the past two days was catching up with him all of a sudden. Coffee could keep him going for only so long, and the moment she mentioned sleep, a wall of fatigue slammed into him head-on. Nonetheless, he murmured gamely, “I’ll stay up and watch your place.”
Laura laughed. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re dead on your feet. I’ve got the watch tonight.”
“You have some experience in such things?” he asked cautiously. She sounded like some sort of soldier or covert operative. She might not want to reveal her government connections, though.
She replied with equal caution, “Yes, you could say that. Suffice it to say that you should feel free to sleep very soundly. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He caught the significant undertone in her voice. Yup, she was a pro. An operative of some kind. Hallelujah. They could use a little support from the home team right about now.
As Laura led the way through an enormous kitchen, she opened a broom closet and took out a lethal-looking Dragunov sniper rig. Furthermore, she looked entirely at ease handling the weapon. Holy crap. Was she more of a pro than he’d guessed? More than a government agent? Some sort of mercenary, maybe?
“Do I want to know who you are?” Jagger asked even more cautiously.
“Let’s just say you and I play for the same team. Or at least we both used to.”
He nodded. Fair enough. In his line of work, that was more information than many operatives would volunteer. It—and that Dragunov—were all the identification he needed. No civilian would ever have gotten her hands on the specialized military weapon. She was an operator just like him. Or maybe not just like him, but close enough.
She showed him upstairs to a two-bedroom suite joined by a sitting room. Doris was already snoring gently in one room, and Emily was curled up, unconscious, with Michelle in the king-size bed in the other room.
“Get some sleep, Mr. Holtz. And rest assured, this estate has a few security tricks up its sleeve. No one’s getting near the house tonight without me knowing about it. My son and I like our privacy.”
He nodded and stretched out on the sofa in the sitting room, his pistol clutched in his hand.
Which maybe didn’t turn out to be such a great idea. He awoke with a jolt to bright sunlight and someone plucking his gun from his limp grasp.
“Whoa there, kiddo,” he exclaimed. “That’s not a toy for you, Michelle.” He managed to retrieve his gun from the toddler’s chubby hands just as Emily came around the corner on the hunt for the escapee.
“There you are, munch—oh. I’m sorry. I was hoping you could get a little more sleep.”
He grinned up at Emily. “Not with this little kleptomaniac on the loose.”
He glanced at his watch, stunned to see that it was after 9:00 a.m. He actually felt pretty close to human.
Emily announced, “I think I smell breakfast cooking. My mom got up a while ago and said she was going to go down and whip up a little something for all of us.”
The mention of food sent his stomach growling against his spine. “You go on down. I’ll join you in a minute.”
And that was why he was alone in the upstairs hallway when Laura announced sharply from someplace toward the front of the house, “Incoming!”
Chapter 13
Emily froze at the foot of the sweeping staircase as Jagger came barreling down from behind her, bellowing, “Get away from the windows!”
She wasn’t anywhere near a window, but his shout sent her tearing toward the kitchen instinctively. He was right on her heels. Doris had already snatched up Michelle and was holding the now-crying toddler close. Jagger threw open the oven door where a batch of muffins was browning, then pulled Emily, Doris and Michelle into a giant bear hug in front of it. Heat poured out on all of them until it felt as if she were a muffin baking in the oven.
“Why are we standing in front of the oven?” Emily ventured to ask.
“We’re hiding,” Jagger bit out.
“Standing in plain sight?”
“We’re hiding from infrared cameras.”
“What?”
“Helicopter’s buzzing the place,” he replied tersely. “Probably scanning the house for heat signatures. The heat from the oven should obscure us from their sensors.”
Comprehension lit Emily’s features, followed closely by panic. “They’re looking through the walls?” Her entire body vibrated in his arms as a nearly unstoppable urge to bolt tore through her.
“Just stay put, honey. All they should see in the kitchen right now is a big blob of white where the oven ought to be. Trust me,” he
soothed.
For Michelle’s sake, she corralled her rampaging terror. But bad guys could look right into a house without so much as a by-your-leave? The thought creeped her out completely.
Their hostess, Laura, came rushing into the kitchen. She smiled approvingly when she saw them clustered in front of the oven. “Helicopter’s drawing away from the house. I wasn’t sure if that meant they didn’t see what they were looking for or if it meant they’re going to fetch their ground forces. But after your quick thinking, Jagger, I’d say we can safely assume it is the former.”
“So we’re safe?” Emily asked.
“For now. They may be back, but I’ll make a few phone calls. The regional air traffic control facility ought to be amenable to giving us a heads-up if any more unscheduled aircraft try to buzz this place.”
Emily stared. “They’ll do that for people?”
Jagger chuckled. “Not for all people, honey. But for our erstwhile hostess, I should think they would.”
Emily’s eyebrows shot up. Wow. Who was Laura Delaney? Just then a beautiful little boy with dark hair and his mother’s bright blue eyes fringed in magnificent black eyelashes came running into the room. “Mommy! What’s wrong? Is it the bad men again?”
Laura scooped up the child, whom Emily estimated to be around five years old. “Nope. No bad men here, Adam.”
Jagger piped up. “Did you know that this lady here is called Danger Girl? She’s great at keeping people she likes safe. Sometimes she even rescues them, too.”
The little boy stared at her, his mouth a round O.
“Jagger,” Emily muttered in disgust. “Did you have to?”
Laura started. “Danger Girl? You?”
Emily rolled her eyes. “It’s an old—and bad—joke between Jagger and me. If anyone around here is superhero material, it’s him and not me.”
“Hmm.” Laura eyed the two of them speculatively, but said no more. Emily got the feeling she’d missed something in the exchange.
