No Exit

by LENA DIAZ,

  “Been doing this awhile.”

  She yanked on her shoulder belt, loosening it, and turned to face him. “The fact that no one’s following us speaks volumes. I don’t know whether to thank you or fire you.”

  “Fire me? What the hell for?”

  “I’ve been thinking all day about what happened this morning, and—”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” He steered around a pothole, and she braced her arm against the dash.

  “You’re afraid that I was thinking?” The irritation in her voice made him want to smile, but he didn’t dare.

  “I figured you were way too calm when I went to your office to get you. You talked yourself into thinking this morning’s gun chase wasn’t a big deal, didn’t you? Let me guess. You’ve decided maybe it makes sense that Sebastian and Tarek would go search the floor because they’d heard something. And that they wouldn’t have hurt you if they’d found you. You’re thinking I made a crisis out of something that never should have been one. Am I getting warm?”

  “Maybe.” She crossed her arms.

  He checked the mirrors, then passed some slow-moving cars before settling back in the right lane. He preferred that lane, so he was closer to the exits if he had to pull off fast. “Do you have an executive assistant?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No.”

  “But your father has two.”

  “Yeah. Well, he’s the CEO.”

  He decided not to argue that one. He didn’t have a clue what a CEO did versus a president. “Okay, how about your administrative assistant, Jolene?”

  “What about her?”

  “Does she carry a gun to work?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But it doesn’t bother you that your father’s assistants do?”

  She straightened in her seat and started tapping her thigh again. “I didn’t say that. But my father is big on security. His armed guards pick him up at the house every morning and drive him home every night. Maybe he’s gotten some threats that he hasn’t told me about, so he hired those two as additional armed security on top of being assistants. I don’t know.”

  “Hm.”

  She flopped around in her seat again. “Instead of discussing my father, let’s talk about you. Why were you on the top floor?”

  Knowing the best way to hide something was to stay as close to the truth as possible, he said, “From my vantage point in your reception area I saw you go into the stairwell. A few moments later, your father and Sebastian headed up in an elevator.” And this was where the lies began. “Sebastian’s suit jacket flipped open as he turned around, and I saw his gun. Without knowing whether you’d gone upstairs or down, I decided to go up, just to make sure that you weren’t in danger.”

  “Hm,” she said, echoing his earlier disbelief.

  “If you think I’m lying,” he said, taking a chance, “then why do you think I went upstairs?”

  “I’m thinking,” she said.

  “Uh-oh.”

  She lightly punched his shoulder. “Knock it off.”

  He grinned and took the exit that the GPS unit told him to take, the exit that he already knew from his earlier surveillance would lead them toward the White Hawk Ranch area where she lived.

  “Okay, answer this,” she said. “Why did you warn me in the cafeteria, repeatedly, not to tell anyone that I was upstairs? In particular, you seemed concerned about my telling my father. Why?”

  He shrugged. “I’m new to EXIT. I don’t know your father’s assistants, or even your father. But their having secret meetings on a floor under construction, and at least one of them having a gun, rings all kinds of alarms for me. Your safety is my top priority, so I preferred that you not say anything until we could sort all of this out later. In private. Like we’re doing now.”

  “Hm.” This time she didn’t sound so skeptical. She sounded like she might believe him.

  He slowed and made another turn. There was far less traffic here than there’d been on the highway. Gas stations and convenience stores dropped away, gradually replaced with spacious homes and expansive lawns that would probably be bursting with color come spring but that were muddy brown with patches of snow right now.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Why did you sneak upstairs to listen in on Cyprian’s meeting?”

  She didn’t reply and instead looked out her window as if the scenery had suddenly become enthralling.

  A few minutes later, Melissa dug the remote control out of her purse to open her garage. Jace pulled in and killed the engine. The door closed behind them and he waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he leaned across her and grabbed his pistol from the glove box.

  She put a hand on his forearm, stopping him. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking my gun inside the house. Although, I suppose if there are any bad guys waiting for us, I can try to karate chop them instead. But sometimes a gun is the easier way to go.”

  Her lips twitched. “Good point.” She dropped her hand, seemingly unconcerned about the gun after that. He’d half expected her to recoil when she saw the SIG Sauer. A lot of his clients were afraid of guns, perhaps because it was a symbol of their own mortality and a reminder that they were in danger. But she’d simply seemed curious about why he felt he needed one right now. Go figure.

  Since he wasn’t wearing his holster, he shoved the pistol into his waistband.

  “You should give me your cell-phone number, I guess, for after you check everything out and leave,” she said, grabbing her phone out of her purse. “I’ll call you in the morning when I know what time I want you to pick me up and take me to work.”

  “I thought I made myself clear back at your office. Where you go, I go. I’m not leaving.”

  Her brows shot up. “You want to stay here? At my house?”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  She shook her head. “Actually, no. I’m kind of relieved. I wasn’t looking forward to being alone after the day I just had. Thank you.”

  He nodded and popped the driver’s side door open. “I’ll grab my go bag from the trunk.”

  “Go bag?” She opened the passenger door.

  “A week’s worth of clothes, ammo, my gun holster. I always keep a bag around in case I have to hit the road unexpectedly. Saves time.”

  “Be prepared, right? Isn’t that the SEAL motto?”

  “I think that’s the Boy Scouts.”

  Her face flushed. “Oh. Do the SEALs have a motto?”

  “The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.”

  She winced. “No offense, but I hope that motto is a big, fat lie. I really need tomorrow to be better than today.”

  He didn’t tell her what he already knew. Odds were that this was all going to get a whole lot worse before it got better.

  “Wait for me,” he said. “Just a precaution. I need to make sure the house is secure.”

  “I’ve got an alarm. If there was a problem, the company would have called me.”

  “Only if they knew there was a problem. Alarms might slow a professional down, but they won’t stop him.” He left her with that sobering thought and retrieved his duffel bag from the trunk, strapping it over his shoulder like a backpack to leave his hands free. Melissa joined him at the door, her purse on her shoulder and the heavy book bag cradled in her arms.

  “Leave the bag,” he said. “I’ll come back for it after I clear the house.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not helpless. I can carry it.”

  It wasn’t worth arguing about, so he let it drop. “I go in first. Don’t come in until I tell you to.”

  “But I’ll have to turn off the alarm. Assuming it’s still on.” She gave him a brave smile, but he could see the worry and tension in her face.

  Unable to resist the temptation, he smoothed her hair back from her face. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Her eyes widened the moment he touched her. But she didn’t pull away. Instead, her breathing hitched.
Just a little. Just enough to let him know she wasn’t unaffected by him—any more than he was by her.

  Damn. He shouldn’t have touched her. Now all he wanted to do was touch her again. Focus, Atwell. “Does anyone else have a key or know the security code?”

  Her breath fluttered out of her on a soft sigh. “My, ah, father.” She cleared her throat. “My father has a key, and the code. And Silvia Conti does, too. She’s his live-in housekeeper. But she comes here once a week to help out.”

  He drew his pistol. “Where’s the alarm panel?”

  “This door leads into the mudroom. Another door to the left goes into the kitchen, which runs along the front of the house. The panel is on your immediate left.”

  “Is the kitchen a separate room or open?”

  “Open. Basically the foyer, kitchen, and sunken living room are all one big room. There are short hallways on the right and left that lead to the dining room, my home office, and a bathroom. Everything else is upstairs.”

  “Give me the upstairs layout.”

  A few minutes later, armed with all the information that he needed, he held the pistol out in front of him, trigger finger on the frame. “Unlock the door and step back.”

  “Wait. Do you have another pistol in your car, or your go bag? I can cover you.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I would never joke about firearms. I’ve got two of my own inside. If you want backup, in case someone is waiting on the other side of that door, I’m your girl.”

  He did have an extra gun in his bag. But he wasn’t about to give it to her. Although he was much more inclined to trust her after meeting her in person, he still wasn’t going to put his life in her hands without knowing exactly where her loyalties lay. If she knew he was an Equalizer, sworn to destroy EXIT—and her father, if necessary—she might turn on him. And he’d rather that she wasn’t holding a pistol when she did.

  “I’ve got this. Where do you keep your weapons? Are they locked up so an intruder can’t get to them?”

  “Both have trigger locks.”

  He noticed she hadn’t told him where the guns were. Maybe she didn’t trust him either. One of his priorities before he went to bed tonight would be to confiscate her guns if he could find them. “Let’s go.”

  She unlocked the door and jumped out of the way. Jace rushed inside, sweeping his pistol back and forth, then up toward the balcony that overlooked the living room. The warning beep of the panel behind him was reassuring. But he took a few more seconds to scan the balcony and hallways.

  “Clear,” he called out.

  “Is that SEAL-speak for I can come in?” Melissa’s voice sounded from the garage.

  He smiled. “Yes. You can come in.”

  The tap of her heels on the marble floor announced her arrival. He kept the parts of the house that were in shadow in his gun sights while she turned off the alarm and flicked on the lights.

  “Go ahead and set it again,” he advised. “Minus the motion detectors.”

  “Already did. We’re locked up tight.”

  “We’ll see about that. Take me on a tour, so I can check all the doors and windows. But stay behind me.”

  The tour ended upstairs in her bedroom at the end of the gallery. Jace looked out the back curtains while Melissa set her purse and book bag on top of the four-poster bed.

  “I don’t like this balcony,” he said.

  “I do. It has a gorgeous view of the Indian Peaks.”

  He shoved his gun in his waistband. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant. You’re worried someone could climb up into my room. But I’m sure you noticed the steel bar over the doors. And the glass is reinforced, supposedly bulletproof. My father is paranoid and insisted I replace the glass in all of the doors and windows when I bought the place.”

  “I can see your father being worried about your safety after last night’s encounter with ski-mask guy. But why do you suppose he was worried before that?”

  “I always assumed it was because of what happened to my mom and my brothers. They were killed when I was a little girl. He never remarried, and I’m all he has. He worries all the time that something could happen to me. I think he’s afraid he’ll end up alone.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” And he was. He already knew her background, of course. But since she was talking, opening up, he didn’t want to do anything to discourage her. Especially if she told him anything useful for his mission that he hadn’t already discovered. “How old were you? When they died?”

  She ran her fingers across the carvings on one of the wood posters. “Five I think. My brothers were six years older than me, twins. We were on a family vacation in Europe that summer, staying at a villa in Paris. Since Mom was usually home taking care of me back in the States, and my brothers were in school, she didn’t get as much time with them as she’d like. She thought it would be fun to take them on a two-day trip to Florence, just her and the boys, for some mother-son bonding.”

  The corner of her eyes tightened with remembered grief. “The day they were supposed to return, a previously unheard-of extremist terrorist group—Serpentine—hijacked their plane, demanding some of their comrades be freed from prison. Back then, smuggling a bomb on board in checked luggage was much easier than it is now. The Italian government refused to give in to their demands. The terrorists weren’t bluffing.” She shivered. “Everyone perished. They say it was instantaneous, that my mom and brothers felt nothing. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d like to think it is.”

  Jace pushed away from the balcony doors. The sadness in Melissa’s eyes gave him the crazy urge to take her in his arms and comfort her. But all the reasons that he should keep his distance kept him from reaching out.

  He checked his watch. Six thirty. Lunch—an extremely uncomfortable half hour spent in the cafeteria with Tarek—had been a long time ago. “I make a mean grilled cheese. I could whip up some sandwiches for both of us.”

  Her lips curved in a reluctant smile. “As tempting as it is to be twelve again and eat a cheese sandwich, I don’t have much of an appetite. I’ll probably read some financial reports for a while before going to bed. Make yourself at home, though. There’s a TV in the living room. Remote’s in the drawer in the coffee table. When you’re ready to call it a night, there are four guest rooms on this floor, and they’re always made up and ready to use. Silvia’s fanatical about keeping every inch of the house clean and having fresh sheets on all the beds even though they’re rarely used.”

  “If you change your mind, let me know. I could throw in a Pop-Tart for dessert.”

  Her smile finally reached her eyes. “Be still my heart. Maybe some other time.”

  He strode past her to the door.

  “How long were you a Navy SEAL?” she called out, stopping him.

  He paused and looked over his shoulder. “Six years. Why?”

  She anchored an arm around one of the footboard posters. “The last meeting I had today was with HR, to get your security and background report. What you just said matches that report. The write-up also stated that you served with distinction, that you saved many lives, including the lives of men in your unit at great risk to yourself. Your last commanding officer’s final evaluation called you honorable, brave, loyal, and above all else . . .” She swallowed hard. “Trustworthy.”

  He slowly turned around. “My evaluations wouldn’t be shared in a background check.”

  She smiled sadly. “Yes, well, my apologies for that. My father pushed for more information. He has an uncanny ability to convince people to answer his questions.” Her smile turned bitter. “One of my deepest regrets is that I’ve turned a blind eye for so long and haven’t made him answer enough questions.”

  He cocked his head. “Are you ready to tell me why you snuck upstairs today? What you hoped to learn by listening to your father’s secret meeting? Or what you even think the meeting was about?”

  She started to say som
ething, then seemed to think better of it and shook her head. “No. Not yet. I need to . . . think.”

  AS SOON AS the door closed behind Jace, Melissa ran into the bathroom and threw up. She retched until she was sore, and there was nothing left. When her stomach finally settled down, she brushed her teeth, washed her face with a cool, wet cloth, and faced the woman in the mirror: the woman who was considering something that both sickened and terrified her.

  Betraying her father.

  DO IT.

  That order, barked at him over the phone this morning, had him fisting his hand around the hilt of the jagged-edged knife as he stood in the middle of the dusty room that time—and the enforcers—had forgotten long ago.

  A broken, ladder-back chair with a shredded twine seat blocked his path. Like this rotting, dying place, it had succumbed years ago to the ravages of humidity, mildew, and rat feces.

  He kicked it out of the way with the toe of his boot and peered out the broken window at the little ghost town. The nondescript car he’d chosen for tonight’s work crouched like a forlorn child in the moonlit, weed-choked gravel out front, gravel that hadn’t been driven on for at least a decade until a few months ago, when he and Cyprian had first begun to use this place for their meetings.

  Do it.

  Cyprian had said those words like the dictator that he was, expecting his command to be carried out quickly, efficiently, without question. As always. And he would obey that command. But not because Cyprian wanted him to. He’d carry out the order because it suited his purposes. Because, after all, it’s what he’d been manipulating Cyprian into for months, with every meeting they had in this place.

  How apropos that Cyprian would choose to conduct their planning sessions here. Even the name of the fake town, Enforcement Alley, was a tribute to his bloated ego. Though to be fair, this copycat training facility really was better than its FBI counterpart, Hogan’s Alley. Or at least, it had been in its heyday.

  But Enforcement Alley had proven to be too dangerous, the maze of forgotten mines with their rotting supports and lost caches of explosives beneath the surface making the ground too unstable, unpredictable, deadly. Whole cars had been swallowed and buildings heavily damaged when sinkholes opened up without warning.