by Paula Graves
Rick couldn’t see Amanda. Had she fallen?
He forced his mind back to his own problem, shoving the man he’d grabbed to the floor and disarming him as quickly as he could. No time to gag him, and it was too late, anyway, now that he’d set off the alarm. Behind him, he heard gunfire—rifle shots—and he hauled the man into one of the unoccupied bedrooms.
As his captive tried to knock his feet out from under him, Rick landed two quick blows against the back of the man’s neck, stunning him enough to still his struggles. Pulling out more flex cuffs, he quickly cuffed his wrists and ankles together behind the man’s back and shoved him into the bedroom closet.
Edging toward the doorway, he whipped his head into the hallway for a quick look.
The gunman who’d taken shots at Amanda lay in the hallway, bleeding from his neck. There was no sign of the other two gunmen from downstairs.
Rick carefully eased out into the hallway. He heard gunfire coming from downstairs—two different guns. The other men had remained downstairs at their stations.
He was careful when he bent and checked the pulse of the fallen man. Even as he did so, the blood pumping from the man’s torn throat trickled to nothing as his heart stopped beating.
His own heart in his throat, he rose and crossed the hallway, following a path left by bullet holes until he reached the doorway of the bedroom on his right. The door was closed, but bullet holes ravaged a furrow through the wood, light from the room inside trickling out through the openings and painting a polka-dot pattern of luminance on the door across the hallway.
He opened the door, fear of what he’d find inside stealing his breath. He made it about four inches inside the room before the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed hard against his temple.
He heard a quiet exhalation and the gun fell away. Amanda pulled him inside the room with strong hands and shoved him against the wall. “Status report?”
“One trussed like a turkey in a closet. One dead.”
Her expression darkened. “The others?”
“Still downstairs.”
She stared up at him for a moment, her furrowed brow reminding him of the look she’d given him just a few short minutes earlier, when he’d told her he loved her. “What are the chances we can get out of this without anybody else dying?”
Slim, he figured. But it was worth a try.
The radio he’d taken from Beckett was still tucked into his jacket pocket. He brought it out and depressed the talk button again. “We have four of your men. You’re surrounded. You’re not getting out of this alive unless you surrender.”
From downstairs, the gunfire ceased briefly before two shots, seconds apart, split the air.
Then silence, as still and endless as a grave.
Rick froze, staring at Amanda.
She gazed back, her eyes narrowing with puzzlement.
The unexpected buzz of Rick’s phone in his pocket made him jerk with surprise. He checked the message. It was a single word. Status?
Rick sent an answering text—four men killed or captured, two men status unknown.
The silence resumed, lingering a couple of minutes. Then, noise exploded downstairs—a door slamming open, boots crossing the hardwood floor in noisy clumps, men shouting orders.
“Stand down, Rick!” His cousin Aaron’s deep voice came from below. “I’m coming up.”
Rick and Amanda eased out of the bedroom into the hallway just as Aaron reached the landing, his weapon at the ready. He lowered the gun as he spotted his cousin. “Murder-suicide downstairs.” He glanced at the man lying dead in the hallway. “Where are the others?”
Rick showed him to the rooms where he’d left the three captives. Beckett glared at him with murder in his dark eyes as several of Aaron’s deputies hauled them outside.
“We need to get your statements,” Aaron told Rick as he and Amanda joined the rest of the crew downstairs. Besides the deputies, Rick saw, several of his cousins and all of his brothers and sisters were there.
Isabel caught sight of him and ran over, throwing her arms around his neck. “Are you okay?”
“Fine now,” he said with a grin, turning just in time to catch Shannon as she came flying at him, as well.
Megan just grinned at him from behind her sisters. “Can’t take you anywhere without it turning into a shoot-out, can we?”
Jesse stood a few feet away, talking to a man in civilian clothes. The man’s back was to Rick, but something about him seemed familiar. Jesse caught Rick’s eye and motioned for him to come over.
Rick saw that Amanda was also heading toward his brother and the unknown man, her gaze focused like a laser on the back of the stranger’s head. Her expression darkened to a scowl.
When he reached his brother’s side and turned to look at the stranger, Rick realized why.
It was Alexander Quinn.
“What the hell do you want?” Rick asked, glaring at the spy. Jesse’s hand closed around Rick’s arm, but he shrugged it off. “You have a lot of nerve—”
“In five minutes, maybe less, there will be six men from the CIA here to take Amanda in for questioning,” Quinn said flatly, ignoring Rick’s show of hostility. “That can’t happen.”
“There really is someone at the CIA involved in this,” Amanda said in a soft, strangled voice.
Quinn just looked at her, not affirming her statement. But in his hazel eyes, Rick saw all the confirmation he needed.
“Maddox Heller has a safe house set up for you, just outside of Birmingham. You can be there in a little over an hour. I need you to stay there until Heller himself comes to get you. You’ll be meeting with Senator Blackledge, who chairs a subcommittee on foreign relations. You’ll tell Senator Blackledge and his subcommittee everything you know about Khalid Mazir.”
“Will that be enough to keep her safe?” Rick asked.
“Nothing in life is sure,” Quinn answered bluntly. “But she’ll be a hell of a lot safer handling matters this way than going off with the CIA.” He handed Rick a set of keys. “There’s a dark blue Toyota Camry parked down at the main road. Take it and drive to Maddox Heller’s house. Your brother will handle the authorities.”
Rick looked at Jesse. His older brother nodded.
He felt Amanda’s hand close around his. “Let’s go,” she said urgently.
He twined his fingers through hers and let her lead him into the woods.
THE SAFE HOUSE MADDOX HELLER stashed them in was a small house in Gardendale, a northern suburb of Birmingham. The small split-level home in the middle of a tree-lined neighborhood had a sprawling backyard that would have been perfect for dogs or children.
Amanda had never considered having either. But seeing that big yard stretching out below the back deck, she felt a little sad to see it so empty.
Behind her, Rick stepped onto the deck. “It’s getting cold out here. Don’t you need a sweater?”
She turned to smile at him. “A sweater? You make me sound old and fragile.”
He shrugged off his own jacket and swung it around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. “You’re definitely not old or fragile. But your lips are turning a pretty shade of blue.”
She struggled against the overwhelming urge to close the remaining gap between their bodies. From the moment she and Rick headed into the woods to this very moment, there’d been no time to talk about anything but survival.
But Rick had told her he loved her. Sooner or later, he was going to want to talk to her about what he’d said.
And she had no idea how to respond.
“You’re avoiding me,” he murmured.
“I’m standing right in front of you,” she answered in an equally quiet voice.
“And yet, you feel miles away.”
She forced her gaze up to meet his. “You want to talk about what you said.”
He nodded. “I do.”
“What’s to say?”
“Well, for starters—why did you say no? No, you don’t love me
back? Or no, you don’t want to hear me say it?”
The vulnerable bravery in his voice made her want to cry. “Did you think telling me you love me will just magically solve all our problems?”
He threaded his fingers through her hair, drawing her closer. “Love’s not supposed to solve things, baby.”
She made a face. “Then what good is it?”
He bent and kissed her, a slow, sweet, heat-building caress that made her head spin and her heart pound. He finally dragged his lips away from hers and brushed them against her earlobe. “Is that a serious question?”
She curled her fingers in the front of his shirt. “I have so much baggage, Rick—”
“Are you talking about your mother? All her boyfriends? The social services visits and the occasional forays into the foster-care system?”
She stared at him, not sure whether to be impressed or appalled. “How the hell—?”
“You told me your real name, remember? I had Shannon do some records research for me. She emailed it over that first night we spent at Isabel’s.”
“I can’t believe you did a background check on me.” She pushed against his chest.
“I needed to know what else in your background might be a threat against you.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But we’ve been keeping secrets from each other far too long.”
She stopped pushing at his chest, knowing he was right. Her whole life had been one series of secrets after another. She’d thought that was how she wanted it to be.
But secrets were just another way of hiding from the world. Secrets were a coward’s way out, and she was no coward.
Not anymore.
“My mother never told me who my father was,” she said aloud, picturing her mother’s skittish response the first time she’d asked that question. “I’m not sure she knew. She drank too much, and she slept around too much.”
Rick ran his fingers along the curve of her jaw. “You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.”
“I want to. I want you to understand—I want to understand—what made me the way I am.” She gazed out at the big, empty backyard. “We never had a backyard. We lived in apartments—lots of them, one after another, because my mom could never keep a job long enough to stay current with the rent at any one place for long.”
“Is that how you’d end up in foster care?”
She nodded. “She’d have to give me up for a while until she could get back on her feet and prove to a judge that she could take care of me again. And there was that time she actually shot one of her boyfriends.”
“He tried to kill her.” At her look, he added, “I told you, I read all the files.”
She felt a bittersweet twinge. “I used to think of foster care as vacation. I was so lucky with the families I was placed with. They were good to me, and I was just so grateful for a little stability that I did everything I was asked to do. Then my mom would get herself back together and back to the serial apartments we’d go.”
“I couldn’t find any records on your mother after you turned eighteen,” Rick said quietly. “What happened to her?”
“She witnessed a murder about a year after I left home. From one day to the next, she was just gone. I’m pretty sure she’s in witness protection somewhere. I’ll probably never see her again.” She saw a hint of sadness in Rick’s eyes. “It’s okay. It’s best this way. I can pretend she got her act together and is living a happy, sane life.”
His smile looked bittersweet. “I used to do the opposite. Imagine my mom was happy here instead of somewhere else.”
He’d never told her much about his family. “Where’s your mom?”
“Last I heard, somewhere in Europe. She left when I was about twelve—didn’t want to be a mother or the wife of a small-town cop. We see her maybe once a year now.”
She looked away from his troubled face. “I was never much more than an afterthought to my mom, either.”
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. “I’m sorry, baby. Nobody should have to live that kind of life. We were lucky because Dad stuck around. And he’s a great dad.”
“I survived.” And she had, hadn’t she? She’d faced down a hell far more challenging than life with her irresponsible mother. She’d faced it down and survived. And if she had to face hell again, she’d come out on top, because that was the kind of woman she was.
A woman who’d served her country with honor and strength. Who’d fallen in love with a good man three years ago and, damn it, deserved the chance to spend the rest of her life loving him and being loved in return.
Didn’t she?
She smiled up at him suddenly, making his brow crease with suspicion. His look of wariness only made her laugh aloud.
“I love you, too,” she said aloud.
“Just like that?” he asked, sounding unconvinced.
“I don’t think three years is ‘just like that,’” she pointed out, lifting to her toes to kiss the underside of his jaw. “But, while I may be a slow study, once I get the hang of something, I’m damn good at it.”
He caught her face between his palms. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’m so tired of running away from things that scare me, Rick. That’s not me. I don’t know how I ever let myself get that way.”
“You’ve been through so much—”
“It’s not just that. I’ve been running away a lot longer than that. It’s why I went to work for the CIA in the first place.” She shook her head. “But I’m tired of keeping secrets from people I want to be close to. And I’m tired of pretending I don’t need anyone else. I do. I need you.” The smile in her voice faded, and she felt the prickle of tears behind her eyes, as if admitting her vulnerability had opened a chink in the wall holding back all the fears, doubts and emotions she’d held in check so ruthlessly over the past few years.
“I need you, too,” he admitted, kissing away the tears trickling down her cheeks. “I have no idea what life with me is going to be like, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be boring—”
She kissed him hard, letting the heat of desire burn away the tears of doubt. His arms snaked around her waist, pulling her with him into the house. He stripped off the jacket he’d lent her and started on the buttons of her blouse.
The phone rang, making them both groan.
Rick broke away and picked up the receiver. “Yeah?” He listened for a second, then punched the speaker button on the phone. Maddox Heller’s voice came over the line. “Blackledge just called. The hearing’s on for tomorrow in D.C. Get packed now—you’re flying out tonight on a chartered plane.”
Rick hung up and turned to look at Amanda with wry amusement. “Are you getting as sick of government interference as I am?”
With a grin, she crossed to him, sliding her hand slowly up his chest. “Just a few more days. Then the world will know about Khalid Mazir and we can figure out what to do with the rest of our lives.”
“Any thoughts on that?” he asked as he walked with her into the bedroom to pack.
“Anywhere you are is fine with me,” she said, meaning it.
He stopped in the middle of unzipping his suitcase and turned to her. “Same here, baby.” He kissed her, hard, making her toes curl up.
Then they went back to packing.
SENATOR BLACKLEDGE PUT THEM up at the Watergate Hotel. On his own dime, he assured them when they suggested less expensive accommodations. His smile was damn near gleeful, Rick noted, when he met them in the room the night before the hearing.
“I thought this place would be appropriate for a top-secret meeting,” he said with a grin. “And I suppose you’d qualify as a whistle-blower, Ms. Caldwell.”
“Not exactly,” Amanda demurred. “I mean, I can’t tell you who the mole in the CIA could be—”
“We’ll find out,” Blackledge assured her. “Meanwhile, you’re saving a struggling Central Asian democracy from electing a ter
rorist mole as their president. For that, you should be given a Presidential Medal of Freedom—”
“No,” Amanda said quickly. “If I could do this anonymously, I would—”
“But you can’t.” Blackledge looked genuinely sorry for her, Rick noticed, although he wasn’t sure he could really trust the old politician’s words or actions. Blackledge had been in Washington a long time, and the place had a way of corrupting even the good ones if they stuck around long enough.
“Here’s how it will go. You’ll testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I’m on the committee—so I’ll guide you through it. All you have to do is tell the truth. What you went through three years ago and the recent attempt on your life. You can do that, can’t you?”
Amanda nodded.
“Okay, then.” Blackledge sat back in the chair and looked them over. “You’ll want to dress up—look a little more put together than you do now.”
Amanda slanted a quick look of amusement at Rick. He stifled a smile and asked Blackledge, “What about Barton Reid? Can we pin any of this on him?”
“Unfortunately, Salvatore Beckett seems to be the only one who knows who hired them, and he’s not talking. The others were hired by Beckett, and they only knew that he was paying them well to track down Ms. Caldwell and procure her cooperation.”
“Her cooperation? They were trying to kill her.” Rick’s voice rose in anger.
Amanda closed her hand over his arm. “You don’t expect them to admit that, do you?”
“What about the shooting and arson in Thurlow Gap?” Rick asked the senator. “I imagine the locals probably want some answers—”
“They’ll get them. I’ve already discussed the matter with Senator Douglas of Tennessee. He’s handling it for you even as we speak.” Blackledge stood. “I don’t want to be accused of tampering with a witness, so it’s time I go.”
Rick walked the senator out, then returned to where Amanda stood by the window, gazing at a misty view of the Potomac River. “Soon, the whole Tidal Basin will be lined with blooming cherry blossoms,” she said as he wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned her head back against his shoulder.
