Blamed

by Edie Harris

  When Mark had asked her to dinner, she’d told herself he was exactly the sort of guy she should want, yet she had just sent him away after only a couple of hours in his company. How could she make any real decision about who he was or how they’d suit after little more than two hours? Sure, his idea of extreme stress was serving soup to a publicly elected official, while hers...

  She thought of the house across the street, of its dark windows and the man who lived behind them.

  Yes, her idea of stress, extreme or otherwise, was a world apart from Mark’s. The sous chef would never slink his way into her heart and latch his claws onto the thumping organ until she bled. Since she still appeared to be oozing blood a year after the last set of claws released her, she couldn’t in good conscience open herself up to more emotion.

  With more energy than she felt, Beth sprinted up two sets of stairs until she reached the welcoming white door of her top-floor apartment. Her alarm system beeped at her as she entered, and she quickly typed in the disarm code before locking the door behind her, sliding home both the deadbolt and chain. She didn’t bother turning on the lights.

  The high heels of her boots clicked succinctly against the reclaimed wood floors as she moved into the kitchen. Tossing her clutch purse and black peacoat on the counter, she boosted herself up onto its granite surface, the coolness of which seeped through the seat of her dark jeans. Routine. It was all about the routine.

  Knowing she was tone deaf didn’t stop her from singing about the applause Lady Gaga lived for as she slowly, carefully lifted one leg straight up into the air, the muscles along the back of her thigh groaning in protest at the stretch. The snowy slush of Chicago’s streets in winter made running a pain in the ass, which meant Beth, whose new motto in life was to avoid pain—physical, emotional, whatever—at any cost, hadn’t tied on her Nikes since Christmas, and it was now February.

  Unzipping her boot, she set it silently on the counter next to her, then repeated the process with the other. “I live for the applause, applause, applause. Live for the applause-plause, live for the applause-plause.” Feet covered in thin black socks, she dropped soundlessly to the floor and began her search. Falling into her pattern was easy as she padded over to the sideboard next to her unused dining set and hit Play on her sound system. The strong belt of Lady Gaga filled the front room, picking up where Beth’s screeching had left off.

  The layer of baby powder dusted over the windowsills behind the sideboard remained undisturbed. Following the line of the wall, Beth moved along to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves flanking her pristine, white-painted brick fireplace. No sign that her books and knickknacks had been bothered, but she checked the backs of picture frames and stuck her fingers behind the uneven rows of paperback novels and hardcover biographies, anyway.

  Unable to resist compulsion, she lifted the heavy mirror she’d found at a flea market last September over the mantel and continued her rounds across the room. The large, three-pane front window, the down pillows on her sofa, floor lamps and seat cushions and the shadows behind her mismatched furniture. All the while, the music muffled her footsteps, keeping her location within the apartment an auditory mystery to anyone who might or might not be listening in.

  Routine. The kitchen was next, with the drawers and cabinets gliding smoothly open and closed. Her cooking utensils remained ironically unused, and Beth smiled wistfully, remembering how her mother had fluttered and lamented over her younger daughter’s lack of culinary talent, even as she’d overstocked Beth’s new kitchen a year ago.

  She hadn’t seen Sofia Faraday since she had placed the final spatula in the ceramic holder next to the stovetop. Beth missed her mother so fiercely her heart clenched in her chest.

  Thinking of the family she’d left behind when she gave up the business and moved to Chicago was a distraction Beth couldn’t afford, not until she completed her routine. The powder room was next, followed by the empty, never-used guest room, before she eased into her subtly feminine bedroom, with its pale blue walls and gauzy curtains, at which poor, dull Mark would never get a peek.

  Her movements were quick, swift, her particular neuroses a honed blade as she checked the vanity and its matching tufted stool, the overstuffed bed pillows, the cherry wood headboard and bedside tables...the lush California king she’d never broken in, not in the way a soft, pretty bed ought to be.

  And if that wasn’t deserving of a thwarted sigh, Beth didn’t know what was, even as she ruthlessly shoved aside thoughts of men who lived behind darkened windows, stirring her dormant curiosity more than they ought to.

  The clear fishing line strung between the handles of the French doors to her balcony was unbroken, and the walk-in closet and luxurious master bath were subjected to the same thorough scrutiny. She was aware that she’d unconsciously silenced her breathing and slowed her heartbeat, tricks she’d learned at her father’s knee, but finally, the routine was complete. No one had been inside her safe haven in the two hours and thirty-seven minutes she’d been gone on her date.

  Being a retired assassin sure had its trials.

  She flopped backward on the bed with a gusty groan. Dating was hard. Normalcy was hard. Why had she ever thought she could get a good thing going with an Average Joe—er, Mark? Average Marks didn’t fall for a woman whose paranoia went beyond federal background checks and straight into bugging her potential boyfriends’ apartments—all before the first date.

  Not that she’d done that with Mark, or any other guy, for that matter. But she had considered planting a listening device in his Logan Square apartment for a hot second, and that alone was enough to piss her off.

  Suddenly uncomfortable, she twisted an arm beneath her body, writhing until...there. The small pistol she carried in the belted holster riding the center of her spine slipped into her hand. The weight of the Beretta, warmed from her skin, felt so comforting against her palm.

  That sad fact said more about her stupid attempt at leading a normal life than anything else had thus far.

  Beth suddenly, painfully wished for a pet—something to come home to. She wouldn’t even care if it messed up her security measures, forcing her to spend double the amount of time combing her home each night to make sure it remained the perfect sanctuary. A dog, maybe?

  No, not a dog, because dogs needed yards bigger than the postage stamp of grass in front of her building. Not to mention Beth wasn’t home during the day, and didn’t dogs need to be let out to do their business regularly? No chance in hell she’d ever allow a stranger into her apartment—a stranger much less aware than she—to walk and relieve her puppy.

  An awkwardly floppy, wheat-colored puppy with oversized paws she would name...Waffles.

  Beth grinned up at the ceiling. “Waffles,” she whispered.

  With Waffles the Imaginary Canine in her mind, she rolled from the bed to unwind the fishing line from the balcony doors, unlatching them to step out onto her meticulously shoveled and swept deck. Escape routes must always be accessible, no matter the season, after all.

  The cold night air snatched the oxygen right out of her lungs as she leaned against the wood rail to stare down at the fenced-in patio and alleyway at the rear of her building. Nope. No way could she keep Waffles three stories up on an eight-by-twelve-foot balcony.

  “Damn it.” She had gotten rather fond of Waffles in the past thirty seconds.

  An angry shrill from inside the apartment—the annoying landline phone her oldest brother had insisted she install—had her tucking the gun into the back waistband of her jeans. But as she turned, something about the building next door’s snow-covered third-floor deck caught her eye, erasing all thoughts of Waffles.

  In that typical way of Chicago’s older neighborhoods, the houses were situated close together, often with only a few scant feet separating one brick wall from another. Though Beth had maintained a fairly hermit-like exi
stence since moving in, she knew her nearest neighbors, and the owners of that specific deck, Bob and Keith, were wintering in Tucson and had been since November, not to return until April.

  So why were there footprints pressed into the six inches of un-shoveled snow covering their deck? Fresh, human-sized footprints.

  The back of her neck prickled when she stepped into her apartment again, locking the balcony doors behind her as she hurried to pick up the cordless phone from its cradle on the wall next to the fridge. “Hello?”

  “What the hell is that noise?”

  Beth realized the music was still blaring, though Lady Gaga had been replaced by—”Katy Perry,” she informed her oldest brother, Casey, unable to help the smile that curved her lips even as her mind lingered on the snowy footprints. “Don’t you listen to the radio?”

  “Yeah, no. Turn it off, will you?”

  Moving to mute the heavy pop beats thumping from her speakers, she reached behind her to idly stroke the gun at the small of her back. She wouldn’t give in to the urge to grip it, check the chamber and flip off the safety. She was stronger than her paranoia, so she would not do what her instincts screamed at her to do. “Let me guess—there’s no radio where you are. I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation for you not to know Katy Perry.”

  “There’s radio in Belfast,” Casey Faraday grumbled, his trademark military-man gruffness shaping every syllable. “I just have more respect for my eardrums than you do.”

  Tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, she went to rummage through the purse she’d abandoned on the counter, needing to do something with her hands other than caress her firearm. “You’re in Belfast.” Not that she believed him for a second—Casey was the man who’d taught her the routine she performed tonight and every night. No way would he give away his real location across the landline, when anyone could be tapping in and listening to their conversation. “Shoot.”

  “What?”

  Turning the clutch upside down, she stared down at her cell phone, ID, credit card and cash. “I can’t find my Chapstick.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It’s nice to hear you complain about something so...inconsequential.”

  “Cracked lips are not inconsequential, Casey,” she muttered as she dug into the pockets of her jeans.

  “So, should I ask how your date with Mark went?”

  Now it was her turn to pause. “I never told you I had a date.” Or who with.

  “Oh, didn’t you?” Too calm, too innocent.

  “Casey.”

  “What?”

  “Who do you have watching me now?” Please say it wasn’t the FBI this time.

  “No one.”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes momentarily shut. “Damn it, I don’t need you keeping tabs on me anymore.” Footprints on the balcony. “I’m good here, inconsequential chapped lips and all.”

  His voice was suddenly serious, the stern and authoritative soldier breaking through his brotherly demeanor. Whenever Casey used that tone, it meant that orders were forthcoming and argument would not, under any circumstances, be tolerated. “No, you’re not good, Bethie, and that’s why I’m calling.”

  Crap, but she hated when he went all bossy-britches on her. She’d worked under his command for a decade, back when her role in the family business had been her reason for breathing, and old habits died hard. Stalking through her unlit living room to the front windows, she peeked through a slat in the teakwood blinds at the night outside, dark and cold. No sign of life on the street below...or in the window across the way. “If you guys are so concerned about me, why isn’t one of you here yet?”

  “Tobias is on his way to you.”

  “What?” Her other older brother—the fussy lawyer—was probably the last family member she’d expect to show up on her doorstep in Chicago. “Why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We’ve got trouble.”

  “Then why...why didn’t you call my cell?” Her cell was secure, but anything they said on the landline could be overheard, and likely was, given her storied past. It was why Casey had demanded she get a landline in the first place, so anyone listening would witness Beth being a normal—capital “N” normal—civilian when she spoke to the cable company or one of her coworkers at the Institute.

  “Because I want them to know we know.” Casey’s voice was brutal and as cold as the weather outside her apartment. “A hit’s been put on you.”

  She froze, her stomach cramping. “You really are in Belfast, aren’t you?” she whispered as everything clicked into place. Tobias flying to see her. Human footprints on Bob and Keith’s balcony. The dark window across the street.

  Wait. Not so dark, not anymore. Flashes of light, the kind that signaled discharge by a firearm, lit up the bay window that hadn’t shown any sign of life in nearly forty-eight hours. His window. “Shit.”

  The Beretta was back in her hand before she took her next breath, dropping the cordless phone to the rug on her brother’s concerned shouts. Not bothering to find shoes, she dashed down the stairs and out into the street—an empty street that held new menace, every shifting shadow a possible threat—in nothing but her socks. The freezing winter air cut through her thin blouse, sharpening her senses as she sprinted up the shoveled sidewalk.

  She had to save her friendly neighborhood spy.

  Chapter Two

  The front door handle depressed with a quick click, and Beth moved into the dark stairwell. The turn-of-the-century limestone mansion with its gorgeous wrought iron detailing had been rehabbed into a nouveau three-flat much like hers, meaning that the door to her left was the entrance to the main-floor apartment. Taking the stairs as silently as possible on feet frozen from her run, she ascended to the third floor.

  Routine was one thing, but this necessary stealth, this adrenaline rush...it was a different beast entirely, shoving her back into her past with all the subtlety of a bomb blast.

  Her palms grew slick when she reached the top of the stairwell and saw his open door, her pulse a heavy drumbeat in her ears. Three seconds. She had three seconds to get her brain and body under control. No freaking out or flashbacks allowed, not when she had no idea what waited for her inside that apartment.

  One. Two.

  She might be out of the family business, but she refused to stand by and watch lives be lost when she had the power to save them.

  Three.

  Keeping her back to the wall as she entered the open-plan living space, Beth gave her eyes a moment to adjust before taking in the black shapes of his oversized couch and large club chair facing a sleek, wall-mounted television. The dining table to her right would seat six comfortably, and on its surface sat a closed laptop and a briefcase that had fallen open on its side. Papers spilled from it onto the floor, next to a forgotten suit jacket.

  Other out-of-place details caught her eye as she cleared the front room. The huge print of Manet’s Music in the Tuileries over the fireplace hung askew, and a plush faux-fur cushion had fallen halfway off the piano bench in front of a baby grand. The chic, moneyed interior, so clearly provided by a professional decorator, lent few clues as to the personality of the man who’d lived here for the past six months.

  There was no noise in the place, nothing at all. Even the soft hum of heat through the ventilation was absent. Beth frowned, noticing for the first time that it was definitely cold in here, the uncomfortable kind of cold that meant the furnace had been turned off for an extended vacation, the owner returning from balmy Tahiti to a meat locker instead of a living room. Except she doubted this particular owner was currently taking vacay on a tropical island.

  Three bullet casings in the corner snagged her attention, indicating the shooter had been hiding behind the piano. Whoever it had been hadn’t
bothered to bus the scene, which meant—

  Which meant the shooter either didn’t care about getting caught...or was still here.

  That was when she saw the blood. A trio of droplets marred the hardwood floor, leading away from the piano. More red appeared in the massive kitchen, and she flowed silently past the marble countertops, rich wood cabinetry, and huge appliances.

  Overcompensating much? She let herself smile as she passed the laundry room and half-bath. It would be absolutely karmic if a guy as gorgeous as the one living here packed a peanut beneath his belt.

  The hall split off into two rooms, one of which appeared to be an empty office. To her left, opposite a linen closet, was the partially closed door to what looked like the master bedroom, and from deep within, she heard the first noises since entering: the steady drip-drip-drip of a faucet not turned all the way off.

  Blood marked the door.

  Dread curdled her stomach as she inched inside, noting the wide-open balcony as she cleared the room. With the muzzle of her gun leading the way, she skirted the armoire and entered the attached bathroom. The dripping grew louder, angrier, more ominous, and the Beretta shook in her hands. Chest tight, lungs pumping, she stared at the closed shower curtain circling the elegant claw-foot tub. At the streaks of blood on white fabric.

  Oh, hell no. She’d seen Hitchcock movies—she knew how this shit went down. If anyone was still in the apartment, process of elimination said that person was behind the bloodstained shower curtain.

  Options, she needed options. The Beth of one year ago would have already mentally articulated half a dozen actions and outcomes, but the Beth of one year ago had gone to ground, and for very good reasons. This Beth, the Beth with shaking hands and choppy breathing, was more than out of shape physically—she was out of shape psychologically, as well. She wasn’t made for danger and intrigue any longer.