Killer Countdown (Man on a Mission)

by Amelia Autin

  Carly couldn’t help the tiny smile that played over her lips as she remembered everything Shane had done to her. Things that—if she had her way—he’d be doing again, soon. Very soon.

  * * *

  They settled side by side on one of the couches in the living room, sipping from their wineglasses, and Carly asked, “So you really think it’s them? The New World Militia?”

  He shrugged. “No idea. But they’re the best answer I can come up with. Especially since I’m cosponsoring that domestic terrorism legislation again this session. Some sections of that bill would directly impact the New World Militia.”

  She thought about this for a minute. “I think you need to tell the FBI and the ATF.”

  “I think you’re right. But not just them.” She cocked her head to one side and gave him a questioning look, and he said, “Did I happen to mention my brother-in-law, Cody Walker, is the head of the Denver branch of the agency?”

  “No, you hadn’t mentioned it,” she said drily. “But I knew.”

  A faint smile touched his lips. “Ahh, I see. You researched me.”

  “I’m a reporter,” she exclaimed in a huff. “It was necessary to know everything I could about you for my story.”

  He placed his wineglass on the coffee table in front of him, then took hers and placed it beside his. “I’m not criticizing,” he said mildly. “Just acknowledging how thorough you are.”

  “That was before I knew you,” she clarified. “Before I...before we...”

  “Became involved.”

  Her breath whooshed out. “Yes. I would never do that to you now. Not now. Please believe me.”

  He cupped her cheek and brushed his lips against hers. “I believe you.” His conscience nudged at him, and he confessed, “I did the same to you. And I can’t even use the excuse that I was researching a story.”

  Her eyes widened. “You checked me out? When?”

  “The day I met you.” She seemed blown away by his admission, so he added softly, “I was drawn to you, Carly. I had to know everything I could about you. Especially...”

  “Especially what?”

  “If you were married. Involved. Batting for the other team. Or otherwise unavailable.”

  “You checked me out.” She couldn’t seem to get over it. “So that’s how you knew about Jack,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

  “Yeah. Hell of a thing to learn the woman you’re smitten with almost married someone else.” He didn’t say it lightly, jokingly. He was serious, and he didn’t care if she knew it.

  Carly’s eyes closed for a moment, and a variety of expressions crossed her face. When she looked at him again, she was as serious as he was. “That was a different woman. I was a different woman eight years ago. I’ve changed since then. In some good ways...but also in some bad.”

  “Name one.”

  “I’m...harder now, I think. More cynical.”

  He tugged gently until she was cradled against his shoulder. “In what way?”

  “My profession, for one. I used to be...oh...a little naive, I guess, when it came to journalism. I used to believe all reporters were as idealistic as I was. But I’m not that way anymore.”

  He smiled to himself. Carly was still idealistic—she just didn’t realize it. “What happened to change you?”

  “All the news coverage about Jack, after he... The way the press hounded me, hounded Jack’s parents. The way our private pain played out on the six o’clock news for everyone to gawk at.”

  Shane processed her words, finally understanding why—after she’d tricked her way into his hospital room the week before—Carly had left without a story. “That’s why you said my epilepsy was no one’s business but mine that first day.”

  She nodded. “Some things aren’t news. Not legitimate news. Some things should remain private.”

  “I agree with you there. But Carly,” he said, kissing her temple, “that doesn’t make you hard and cynical. Just the opposite.”

  “No, but it does make me cynical about my profession. Because I know there are some of us out there who will do anything for a story. No matter what. No matter who it hurts. Ambush journalists, I think you called them,” she added with a sad little smile.

  “And sleazy paparazzi, let’s not forget them.”

  She laughed as he’d intended. “Right. Can’t forget them.”

  * * *

  Shane’s hands were moving, stroking over her body’s curves, and his lips were doing the same over the curves of her face as he murmured in the deep voice that never failed to move her, “I’m so sorry, Carly. Sorry they hurt you. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Her breath caught in her throat at what Shane was doing, and she barely managed to reply, “No one does.”

  “Let me make it up to you.”

  “You’re not responsi—oh, Shane...”

  “Is that ‘oh, Shane, yes’? Or ‘oh, Shane, no...’”

  She couldn’t even answer. Could only arch against his wicked hand and whimper, praying he’d accept that as please, yes!

  The world condensed down into here and now. Into this moment and the next, and the next. Into Shane and Carly and the way he touched her so reverently, as if he cherished everything about her. Into the emotions that speared through her heart and into her brain. Into the whirling maelstrom where the only anchor holding her safe was Shane.

  Eons later, after an orgasm that had left her in tears again, after Shane had lifted her into his strong arms and carried her into the bedroom, after he’d undressed them both without haste, after he’d smoothed on a condom to protect her, he paused at the portal to her womanhood and whispered, “Look at me, Carly.”

  Still too dazed to do anything except follow his order, she gazed up into his eyes and nearly drowned in the darkness there. He pressed inward a tiny fraction, saying, “This.”

  She arched, trying to take him deeper, but he pulled back slightly, saying, “Isn’t.”

  She couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus on anything but his body moving on hers. In hers. Inch by inch. “Just,” he growled, as if he was fighting to hold back.

  “Please, Shane,” she whispered.

  He filled her. And when he was seated to the hilt, he held her eyes captive and uttered one word. “Sex.” He pulled out almost completely, then surged back in. “This isn’t just sex,” he repeated implacably. “Not for either of us.”

  There were no more words after that. Just sighs and moans and...at the very end...wordless cries of satisfaction. From both of them.

  * * *

  Carly woke in the darkness. Alone. She reached out a hand for Shane, but the place where he’d lain beside her when she’d fallen asleep was empty, and the sheet was cold to the touch. So she knew he’d been gone a while. Long enough for his body heat to dissipate.

  She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp, then glanced around the room, hoping to find her suitcases. No such luck. The clothes she’d worn earlier were lying in tidy piles across the arms of the chair in the corner, and they brought a smile to her face. Shane had taken his time undressing her earlier, she remembered. And she had been content to let him.

  But for some reason she didn’t feel like donning her work clothes again. Especially since she had every intention of luring Shane back into bed with her. So she tugged the top sheet free from the comforter, wrapped it around herself sari-style and went in search of him.

  She found him in the living room, standing naked except for his boxer shorts in front of the picture window. He’d cracked the blinds open slightly, and was staring out into the night lights of DC as he spoke into his cell phone.

  Carly took a moment to admire the shadowy picture he made in the darkened room—muscle, bone and sinew backlit by the skyline behind him. Okay, I can’t really see hi
s muscles, she admitted, but she’d felt them enough to know they were there. And she could see broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist and hips—obvious because his boxers rode low on his hips—a classic outline of male beauty.

  She sighed soundlessly, remembering the way she’d clutched those hips earlier as he’d brought them both to completion...long and slow. Never rushed until the very end, when he—

  Shane’s voice crashed into her consciousness. “No, Cody,” he said firmly. “I haven’t a scintilla of proof. It’s a theory, that’s all. But I thought you’d want to know.”

  A long silence was followed by “I’ve already shared the theory with the FBI and the ATF, and they’re going to check into it. I figured the agency deserved a crack at it, too, given your long history with the New World Militia.”

  He chuckled softly, obviously in response to what his brother-in-law was saying. “Yeah, and you’re very welcome. Always happy to be a target for a good cause.” He listened for a minute, then said, “Give Keira my love and tell her I’m sorry I called so late and woke you both up, okay? And give her a kiss from me. Not that you need an excuse to kiss your wife,” he joked. He laughed after another minute of silence. “Give Alyssa a kiss, as well. Tell her Uncle Shane plans to be back in Denver at the end of March, and can’t wait to see her on the two-wheeler she got for Christmas—if the snow has melted enough.”

  Shane nodded in response to something said to him, then ended the call with “Thanks, Cody. I appreciate this. Let me know what you find out.”

  He disconnected and turned. When he caught sight of Carly he froze for an instant, then relaxed. “I didn’t hear you come in,” he said. “How long have you been there?”

  She padded barefoot toward him. “Long enough to know you’ve already notified the FBI and the ATF.” She touched his chest and found his skin cool beneath her fingertips. “You’re cold,” she chided. “You should have put more clothes on.” She was unwrapping the sheet as she spoke, then enclosing both of them in its enveloping folds.

  “Mmm, this is nice,” he told her, sliding his hands around her waist. “I didn’t want to wake you,” he explained. “I just grabbed my boxers and my cell phone and left.” He kissed her lightly. “I got distracted earlier, but I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to get the ball rolling on the investigation.”

  “Let’s go back to bed where it’s warm.” She shivered slightly, because everywhere his skin touched hers was cold. “You can tell me the rest there.”

  “Okay.” His hands moved and he lifted her up, even though his cell phone was still clutched in his left hand. “Wrap your legs—yes, like that,” he told her as her thighs automatically clasped around his hips. He began walking them back toward the bedroom. “Hold on tight.”

  “You always say that,” she murmured, teasing him a little.

  Laughter rumbled out of him. “I don’t always. Sometimes I can’t even form words,” he teased back. He tumbled them both onto the bed, then pulled the comforter over their already-cocooned bodies.

  “Mmm, this is nice,” he repeated, letting his hands wander at will, but Carly caught them before they could go too far.

  “Don’t start anything until you tell me everything,” she insisted.

  “Everything’s a pretty tall order.”

  “You know what I mean.” She wrapped one hand around a certain portion of his anatomy and squeezed lightly. “We have ways of making you talk,” she said in a mock-threatening voice with a fake Russian accent, forcing another laugh out of him.

  “Marines don’t surrender to threats.” When her fingers tightened he sucked in his breath and said, “Okay, okay, you win.” But then he began tickling her fiendishly until her grasp loosened and she choked on her own laughter, begging him to stop. “Ha-ha,” he gloated like a cartoon villain. “You are at my mercy, fair maiden.” But he stopped the tickling. After they’d both had a moment to catch their breaths, Shane’s face tightened with sudden seriousness. “I wish you were,” he said in an undertone.

  “Wish I were what?”

  “At my mercy.” He rolled her over until she was beneath him, and all at once he was hot and heavy between her thighs. “Because, God help me, I’m at yours.”

  A complex wave of emotions washed through her, and her chest was so tight it ached. In that instant she knew there was no turning back from this point on. She fought to free her hands from the sheet, then cradled Shane’s face as she blinked back tears. As serious as he was, she whispered, “God help us both.” Then she kissed him.

  * * *

  Marsh wasn’t given to panic. He planned his life as methodically as his hits, and vice versa, always leaving a margin for error. And he rarely had trouble sleeping. Dreamlessly.

  But he’d woken in a cold sweat at 3:17 a.m., his heart pounding, the ragged remnants of a nightmare of epic proportions clinging stubbornly to his consciousness. And try though he might, he hadn’t been able to go back to sleep again.

  He turned over in bed, punching the pillow and bunching it beneath his head, as if the inoffensive object was his most recent target. He knew why he’d had trouble falling asleep last night, which was also the reason for the nightmare—his target had disappeared. Marsh had no idea where he was. Even the man on the inside didn’t know—just that the senator had notified his staff he couldn’t be reached at his home, only via cell phone...and that was an area where Marsh was not an expert. He had no idea how to hack into someone’s cell phone.

  The kind of disappearing act the senator had pulled usually meant a woman was involved, the man on the inside had suggested. Marsh hadn’t volunteered anything, but he knew the senator wasn’t at the reporter’s house, either, because no one was there.

  And time was running out.

  He’ll be at work tomorrow, though, Marsh consoled himself. Not that I can kill him on the Senate floor...but I can trail him from there, find out where he’s hiding.

  Then take care of the senator once and for all.

  Chapter 13

  Despite not being a morning person, Carly was dressed and getting into the car beside Shane at seven-thirty. “I have time to drop you at your office before I go to work,” he’d told her in the wee hours of the morning.

  “You don’t have to,” she’d stated. “The network’s studio is out of the way for you.” Niall’s condo wasn’t all that far from the Capitol Building, and if Shane didn’t have to take her to work, it would be a straight shot for him. “I can take a cab,” she’d added. And sleep in, she’d thought but hadn’t voiced.

  “Humor me,” he’d said stubbornly. “I can’t guard you 24/7, but I can at least make sure you get to and from work safely. What time should I pick you up after work?”

  Now Carly watched Shane through sleepy eyes as he drove his Mustang GT through the DC traffic, shifting gears effortlessly. Occasionally she sipped from the travel mug of coffee he’d handed her just before she’d walked out the door. She hadn’t had time for breakfast—she never had time for that in the morning as a general rule before heading to work—but she couldn’t survive without coffee.

  At first she’d been surprised Shane knew how addicted she was to coffee, then she realized she shouldn’t be. He was incredibly observant...and they had spent one night together in her town house—and a morning after. She hadn’t been able to offer him much in the way of breakfast that morning, but she had brewed fresh coffee for him—her Café Du Monde coffee and chicory blend that she bought from a little Chinese grocery not far from her house. It cost her an arm and a leg because she couldn’t buy it most places—only in New Orleans’s French Quarter, online or in Chinese grocery stores almost everywhere, though at a premium price. But she’d fallen in love with the coffee the first time she’d visited New Orleans, and it was her only indulgence.

  Shane turned toward her when they stopped at a stoplig
ht and smiled the heart-stopping smile that had garnered him a few extra votes in the last election. “Awake yet?”

  “I’ve been awake since you woke me at six...mostly,” she assured him. “But you’ll never make a morning person out of me.”

  His smile turned wicked. “A challenge. I love a challenge.”

  The light changed and he turned his attention back to the road, for which Carly was grateful. He wouldn’t see her flushed cheeks as the memory of how he’d awakened her this morning floated through her mind. Not to mention the memory of how he’d kissed her when he’d brought her home from the interrogation following the reception at the Zakharian embassy, and said, You’re dead on your feet. Sleepy, early-morning sex might be great, but not for our first time.

  There’s no “might” about it, she barely stopped herself from saying out loud. Sleepy, early-morning sex with Shane was great. And if she had to wake up early, that at least made up for it.

  * * *

  Carly was kept busy reviewing video footage with her producer on a story that was about to break wide open: a police shooting of an unarmed black man in Philadelphia, which had been caught on dash-cam video that the Philly police had refused to release to the public until several networks—including Carly’s—sued under the Freedom of Information Act.

  The dash-cam video had just been released that morning, and the story would air that night. The victim—who’d turned out to be a uniformed police officer on his day off, doing nothing more than picking up a pizza for his family—had miraculously survived despite being shot seven times, and Carly had snagged an interview with him in the hospital two months ago, along with his wife and children. Her initial interviews had aired at the time, but now the video of the actual shooting made the story explosive.

  “Should I go up there?” she asked J.C. “Do we need something else to make the story pop?”

  He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. “We’ve got enough footage of you on the street from when the shooting occurred. We can splice that in with your in-depth interviews with him and his family along with the dash-cam video footage—it’s black and white and kind of grainy, but I think our guys can enhance the image a little without damaging the integrity.”