Hard Target

by Tibby Armstrong

  “They’re like…emeralds,” he decided.

  “What?” Freckles danced on the bridge of her nose as she laughed up at him.

  For several minutes Simon could only stare at her, speechless.

  “Lily.” He breathed her name, afraid if he spoke louder, he’d break the spell that bound him to the most wonderful moment of his existence.

  “Simon.” Dimples popped to life in her cheeks and she squeezed his hands.

  He shook his head, at a loss despite the happiness coursing through him. “You’re… What happened?”

  The light flickered in her expression, briefly doused by memories he could only imagine, and he cursed himself for asking so soon. He pressed a soothing kiss to her temple, and then led her to the sofa where they sat facing one another. Knees pulled up, hands clasped around their shins, they drank one another in. Memories of being warm and safe under the eaves in his attic bedroom, rain pattering as he and Lily shared secrets and dreams, broke through the dam Simon had built around his past.

  So much love and hope rushed into his heart at once, it crippled his ability to form a coherent thought. Tears choking him, he grabbed his sister and pulled her into his lap. Cradling her to him, he held her so tight she probably couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t make himself let her go. With featherlight touches and murmured endearments, she comforted him. This woman who’d been through so much. In her strength and beauty, she reminded him of Alex. Two wonderful women, both his. He set Lily away from him, if only to feast his eyes upon her once more. She looked…blurry.

  Passing his sleeve over his face, Simon dried his tears and laughed at himself. “I’m sorry. I seem to have sprung a leak.”

  When he could see again, he brushed twin thumbs along the tears staining Lily’s cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry, Simon,” she said. “I tried, for so long, to tell you.”

  Anger at Downing, bright and hot, pulsed through him. “None of this was your fault. Do you hear me?”

  “I could hear things. See them. But I couldn’t respond.” Her expression took on a wild aspect, far away and haunted. He grasped her fingers and simply let her speak. “I started to recover, remember?”

  He nodded. “I remember.”

  She’d showed so much promise of recovery during the first nine months and then, just before his arrest, she’d backslid. The doctors were at a loss to explain her relapse. Even the brain scans showed nothing.

  “The first time I saw him…he told me what he was going to do.” Arms tight around her middle, she rocked gently to and fro, self-soothing. “They injected me every night and at first I tried to fight. Then…I stopped, unless you were there. I thought you’d see. That you’d understand what I was trying to tell you. And then…”

  Simon’s heart dropped, shattered upon impact with the floor, and threatened to blow away with the winds of his emotion.

  “And then I stopped coming.” He barely got the words out past the constriction in his throat. Like a noose, it tightened with each syllable, threatening to hang him like the criminal he knew himself to be.

  Lily brushed his knuckles with her fingertips and rested her cheek on her knees. “I heard them tell you to stop. That it upset me too much.”

  Rage and sadness threatened to overwhelm the happiness of the moment. Simon stood and paced to the window. Outside the world went on—cars raced along below, and joggers like little bouncing ants wove through the edge of the park. Inside the shelter of the security flat, his world had become a much more complicated place.

  “Do you know why they did it, Lil?” He’d not spoken her childhood nickname for so long it felt surreal even as his lips automatically retrieved it from memory.

  A rustling sound, then a warm hand at his shoulder anchored her to him. He felt so distant, she might’ve been a million miles away.

  “They talked a lot in front of me. Probably they thought I couldn’t hear. Or it wouldn’t matter.” She rested her forehead against his shoulder and he turned to take her in his arms. “It was all for you, Simon. Downing wanted to trap you, but I’m not sure why. It was a sick game for him.”

  Simon’s arms tightened involuntarily and he had to force himself to loosen his hold as Lily continued her story.

  “He had Mom and Dad killed, then me drugged. And you fired. All to see how long it would take you to break, and exactly what kinds of things he could make you do.”

  In all the years he’d been doing side jobs for Gibbons, Simon knew he worked for someone more powerful behind the scenes. Someone who wanted to remain hidden. The whole scenario made no sense, and likely wouldn’t even after he’d had a solid sixteen hours of sleep.

  “Why didn’t he just ask me? Threaten me?” Simon ran a hand down Lily’s back, relishing the texture of her hair and the warmth of her living spirit. “He didn’t have to hurt you, or Mom and Dad.”

  His world danced on that pinprick of thought, a bright-red drop of blood welling at the newly opened wound. Not only had his parents—their parents—died, but it’d somehow been his fault.

  She gave him a sad little smile. “If I can’t blame myself, you can’t blame yourself either.”

  “But—” She pressed two fingertips to his lips, stopping his protest.

  “Downing is a sociopath. He loves to play games with people’s lives.” Still speaking, she caressed his cheek. “He has connections and lots of them in the CIA. You got on his radar and he decided to play with you, use you, and one day he would’ve broken you just to see what you’d look like as you crumbled.”

  “I’m going to kill him.” The confession made him feel better. As if he had a purpose and some control. “And I’ll enjoy it.”

  Dropping her hand, Lily heaved a sigh. She stood and walked away, but he gently grasped her arm and tugged her around to face him.

  “What is it?”

  Her shoulders slumped and she refused to meet his eyes. “Promise me you won’t do anything so stupid?”

  Simon snorted. “With my IQ?”

  Lily’s head snapped up and Simon instinctively raised both hands. More dragon than woman, she might breathe fire at any moment.

  “Wow. I’d forgotten that look.” He laughed then hugged her tight once more. “I promise. Okay?”

  Motion in the security monitors caught his attention and Simon turned his head to take in Jenny and Gun standing outside the door to the flat, arguing. Günter clearly wanted to come inside. Jenny blocked the door with her small frame and shook her head. Emphatic.

  Lily followed Simon’s gaze and smiled. “I like your friends.”

  “Did they let you in? Or David?”

  “They took care of me, along with Kyra and David.”

  She had to be dealing with so much, going through so much, yet she walked to the door and opened it with all the composure of a worldly woman twice her age. Simon stared after her, awestruck and admiring as she opened the door. Alex would adore her. The thought struck him hard. She wanted a family so badly, and he understood her craving more than she probably knew.

  Günter barged in and Simon met him halfway. The man grabbed him into a hug that nearly crushed his ribs to powder. His family was here with Jenny, Gun, and now his sister. If only Alex were here. Then everything would be as it should be. It’d be perfect.

  “Good to see you too, Gun,” Simon squeaked. Then, after a moment, “Think maybe you could stop cutting off the circulation to the lower half of my body? I like the parts down there almost as much as the ones above my shoulders.”

  Laughing, Günter stepped away and whacked him on the back. “Good to see you.”

  Jenny wrapped him in a less-painful hug before they sat—Simon and Lily on the sofa, Jenny and Gun holding hands across the gap between the occasional chairs.

  “Have you heard from Ryan?” He couldn’t bring himself to say Alex’s name, for fear his voice would crack. If anyone knew where she was it’d be her partner.

  Light dimmed in Gun’s and Jenny’s expressions simultane
ously and Simon’s world darkened.

  “We thought you would’ve heard more…” Gun said and shook his head. “We tried to get through to the FBI. Searched the hospitals. They’ve got her locked down tight, mate. At St. Vincent’s. That’s all we know.”

  Simon felt himself blanch. If she were still in the hospital? Christ. Please let her be all right. If not, he’d kill Downing slower, but either way the man was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

  “So, what happened with Downing?”

  Exchanging a wary glance with Jenny, Günter spoke. “Nobody knows where he is.”

  The statement chilled Simon’s blood to ice and made him wish for a weapon, especially as Gun reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a familiar-looking white envelope. He handed it to Simon, who took it with two fingers and turned it over.

  It said on the front, simply, Dr. Jakes.

  Simon met Gun’s eyes. Gun nodded. It was from Downing. Knowing the envelope to be useless as evidence, and Downing’s expertise extensive enough to have erased any paper trail long before now, Simon simply tore open the envelope.

  Inside was a photograph of a young woman with blonde hair to her waist. Holding a guitar, eyes closed, she appeared lost to the world as her fingers strummed the instrument.

  He passed the photograph to Günter who frowned. “Lila Trent.”

  In the midst of unfolding the note, he asked, “What would he want with Lila?”

  The twenty-three-year-old musician recently won her sixth Grammy. With a career spanning half her life, she claimed industry clout few could match, except maybe David Tallis and a handful of others.

  “It’s a threat,” Günter said. “A taunt. She’s touring with David this winter.”

  Simon finished unfolding the note. Jagged letters formed the words.

  We’re just getting started.

  A menacing enough statement. Simon shivered, but not from fear. “So he got away?”

  “For now,” Günter said.

  Adrenaline forged new pathways in his system as he warmed to the idea of the chase…and the kill. Simon met Günter’s eyes, clear blue and knowing, and nodded. “For now.”

  First he had to find Alex. Get her back and make sure she was safe. Then he could contemplate revenge.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Alex sat on the edge of her hospital bed, the heart and oxygen monitors silent for the first time in three and a half weeks. She didn’t need the nurse’s judgmental tsk-tsk at this morning’s weigh-in to let her know she’d lost weight. Her too-loose jeans needed a belt, and her once-fitted tee hung from her frame. What she wouldn’t do for some garlic noodles and a bowl of egg drop soup.

  Stomach rumbling, she closed her eyes and pictured Simon. She’d let him feed her from his hand, would follow the noodle to his fingertips where she’d nip at the pads of his index finger and thumb. Hell, there’d be no “letting” him. She’d beg if necessary. The imaginary foodie daydream played out, and not surprisingly, her muse landed them in bed. Twenty-four hours with Simon would likely do more for her psyche than all the garlic noodles in Manhattan.

  She stood and paced to the window, resting her forehead against the shockingly cool glass. Far below, an ambulance sat parked by the emergency bay, lights quiet. Noise had punctuated her arrival, so it was appropriate, really, that silence would see her off. She didn’t remember everything, but there were snapshots—sirens screaming, barked commands from doctors, the absolute belief she’d come to the end of more than the ambulance trip. She had expected to die.

  This early in the morning the clouds mingled with fog, turning pearly gray in the dawn light. The sky had weight, and she didn’t doubt the rain would start long before she had her discharge papers in hand. Hospitals and the heavens—both were burdened by unpredictability in everything but the guaranteed wait that came between predictions, promises and results.

  A pile of mail she had yet to go through, all of which was brought to her each day, lay mixed with newspapers, magazines and some pizza fliers they’d used last night for her going-home party with the staff and a few friends from the Bureau. She sat at the little table and began idly sorting through the items, separating out the junk mail from the newspapers and those from the magazines she’d probably never have time to read. As she prepared to toss most of the paper into a recycling bin, the headline on last week’s copy of Voice and Vibe caught her attention. It read, The Spy’s the Limit.

  Curious, she pulled the magazine from the stack and placed the rest in the bin. Standing by the window in better light, she examined the cover. On a rocky outcropping in Central Park, with the New York skyline as a backdrop, David Tallis stood, hands on his sister’s shoulders, while Günter and Simon flanked her. Serious. He looked too serious. She ran her fingers over his face as if she might be able to smooth the worry lines furrowing his brow and disguising his shallower dimple. Why hadn’t he called? Visited? Was he taking care of his sister? Did he still blame her for the ordeal the Bureau had put them all through?

  Flipping open the magazine, wondering if there were more pictures or maybe even an explanation for his absence inside, Alex paged to the article. A full feature, it openly discussed Jenny’s and Günter’s role in the bust-up of the White Tiger’s drug distribution ring in London the previous year, Simon’s involvement with John Downing and his sister’s recovery, as well as the team’s plans to continue providing security services to the rich and famous.

  “Dear God.” Alex read through the article again. He’d given his reasons for coming clean about his past and his involvement with the recent FBI operation. Mentioned the FBI had been preventing him from seeing his girlfriend. Though he didn’t mention her name, she knew exactly who he meant and hugged the magazine briefly to her chest as a mixture of anger with her boss and love for this man made her close her eyes. His words, printed in black and white for all the world to see, swam through her mind’s eye.

  I’m tired of living a lie, he said. It’s easier to protect the people I love with the truth.

  The AD was going to have a fit.

  “Glad to see you’ve got that magazine on you. Saves me time tap-dancing for your benefit. Your assignment’s done today with your discharge. You won’t see him again.”

  Speak of the devil… Alex whirled to face the AD, magazine still clutched to her now-pounding chest and blurted the first thought that came into her head. “Won’t see him… Is this true?” She rattled the magazine at him. “Have you been keeping him from seeing me?”

  Dark raincoat swirling around him, her boss swept into the room. She regarded him in wary silence as he perched on the edge of her guest chair and withdrew a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “If you want your promotion,” he said, “you’ll agree to cut ties with Dr. Jakes.”

  At the idea of never seeing Simon again—of him living and breathing somewhere in the world and not being able to touch him, laugh with him, fight with him over the Times crossword puzzle or watch him drown his pancakes in syrup—her soul guttered and threatened to flicker out of existence entirely.

  “I don’t understand. I mean, I might be able to understand why you didn’t want anyone to know where I was while I recuperated, but…”

  She shook her head as all the pieces dropped into place. She’d wondered why her calls to Simon never got as far as his voicemail. Why the phone rang and rang. The FBI had been controlling who she had access to. Even Ryan was on assignment across the country, where he’d been undercover and completely unavailable to her.

  Before this mess, panic made her sharper. Apparently her grievous bodily injuries had healed but her wits were dull and dangerously slow. “You can’t be serious about cutting me off from my…friends. When this made the six o’clock news, I ceased to be useful as an undercover operative.”

  An indulgent smile, the first she’d ever seen on the man’s face, drew her own brows together. His smile faded and, belatedly, she realized she was scowling at him.

  “Downing is stil
l on the loose. Dr. Jakes is a target. If he were to be captured and knew too many of your secrets?” The AD’s expression had cooled, his mouth turning down at the corners. “I’m sure you can see why the Bureau can’t turn a blind eye to the relationship?”

  This man had been her mentor. She’d wanted to follow his impressive career trajectory for more than five years. Now? Now she feared what that hard, fast climb would cost her. She’d end up emotionless, capable of any deceit and subterfuge in the name of a cardboard cutout of honor. The thought left her dead inside, not inspired.

  “Tell me?” she asked, needing answers to her questions before she gave him the reply to his. “Why didn’t you want us to rescue the president?”

  “Had you left the matter alone, we would have been able to jam the bomb. As it was? You made it worse and compromised an operation well above your clearance level.” The AD’s expression, remote only seconds before, flooded with cold anger. “Once he discovered your interference, Downing went off course and we lost the thread of that operation.”

  “That’s not an answer.” Alex brought her chin up. “However, it seems to me that the Bureau should have found a way to convey to me the necessary pieces of information I’d need to do my job, because if the Bureau’s taught me anything, sir? It’s to think things through and make the best decision in the field based on the information available.” She glanced pointedly at the packet he’d set beside him. “And in that same vein, it makes me wonder why I’d be eligible for that promotion.”

  The AD stood, leaving the papers on the little table next to him. “Because, when your heart isn’t involved, you’re someone who gets the job done.”

  Alex reached out and swept up the papers. They outlined her promotion, new duties in Chicago, and an addendum eliciting her sworn oath that she’d never communicate with Dr. Simon Jakes again.

  “I can’t believe you expect me to sign this.” The words sounded hollow to her own ears.

  Never speak to Simon again?