Heartbreak Hero

by Frances Housden

  Once inside, with the doors shut, Jimmy could slice her throat and escape down to the basement before Schmidt arrived.

  Kel stopped advancing as Chen reached the elevator door. Feet spread, he took aim, steadying the small gun with both hands. There was more riding on this than a drug bust. If he missed Chen, the woman Kel loved could die, but at least he no longer saw more than one of each of them.

  The threat was almost as important as taking the shot. If Chen got flustered by it, Ngaire might be able to disarm him, but at the moment her chances looked slim to none.

  Ngaire felt Jimmy hesitate, then the knife left her throat as he struggled with the down button. The warning ping ringing almost immediately seemed to startle him, and as the blade returned the amount of time left to her ran out.

  There was little humor in Chen’s yelp as her funny bone jabbed his gut. There was pain as she ducked into the knife edge, and a shot missed her by inches as Kel took the opportunity she’d made for him. Then the doors swung open and the last thing she remembered was Kel shouting, “Get him, Schmidt!”

  Kel adjusted the ice pack on the back of his neck for the tenth time as Ngaire said, “Thank God it’s all over.”

  “Not quite. Schmidt’s gone with the police to lock up Chen and his buddies, and I was lucky they didn’t lock me up with them, but we still don’t know what he wanted from your case.” As a lucky charm, the symbol was like a liar never letting the truth stand in the way of a good story. And now its luck was well and truly up. He bent to his boot and removed his knife. “Let’s see if this will do the trick.”

  One thing about Ngaire, she could always make him laugh. She eyed the blade, then his boots. “What else do you keep in there?”

  “Only my feet, doll. Only my feet.”

  Unable to control a shudder, she took the knife from him as he went to put down the ice pack. “Here, I’ll do it.”

  He touched the dressing at her throat. “It’s a wonder you can bear to handle it after what happened.”

  “It’s not much more than a scratch, I’ve had worse. Why do you think I took up hapkido in the first place?” She held the blade flat, slipping it under the slit Chen had made.

  “Well you sure fooled me when you fell.” God, his stomach had turned over when he saw the blood and thought he’d lost her. Yet here they were, more than just going through the motions. She was every bit as determined to spike the drug cartel’s plans.

  She eased the blade right round the edges of the laminate but found nothing. “Oooh, this is so frustrating. Time to get to the heart of the matter.” One second later, she’d slit the laminate, top to bottom, side to side.

  “Hey, watch, if it’s inside you might damage it.”

  She lifted one eyebrow and stared. “And that would matter?”

  “It could be the only copy…but I guess you’re right.” Nursing his ice pack, he watched her take a few more swipes.

  “Well what have we here?” Slipping a narrow strip of paper from under the laminate, Ngaire followed it with two others. Spreading them out on the case, she began to fiddle with them. “Does it matter which order?”

  “I wouldn’t have a clue. Chemistry was never my long suit. I know as much as I need to do the job. But the word is, it’s the only copy. Why else would Chen go to so much trouble? And now we’ve found it, my boss will expect me to pass it over to him.”

  Holding the strips between finger and thumb, Ngaire pouted, head on a tilt as she considered them. “So, how’s his chemistry.”

  “He came to the job from the army, same as me. He was officer material, though, so I don’t suppose it’s any great shakes.” His facetious statement earned a brief laugh from Ngaire, yet he could see her mind hadn’t stopped working when her hands did, as she nodded toward the laptop on the desk.

  “Can you get the Internet on that thing?”

  “You betcha. What are you looking for?”

  “I know this site where we can get the formula for Viagra. Do you think your boss would recognize the difference?”

  “He’d never admit to it. Chaly likes to give the impression that he’s extremely virile. Can you remember the Web address?”

  “With my memory, definitely.” She gave him the thumbs-up and somehow everything fell into place. “So what do we do with the evidence? Should I eat it or what?”

  Kel had an idea his life was never gonna be dull again.

  He had expected Chaly to waken him in the middle of the night, eager for the results, but his boss’s patience surpassed belief. Not that Kel had slept in his own room, but Chaly had the kind of supercilious belief in his own importance that wouldn’t be put out of shape by rousing him from Ngaire’s bed no matter what the hour.

  The call on his cell phone came at 7:00 a.m. “I’ll share breakfast with you. Meet me in the lobby in half an hour.”

  That was it, no please, no thank you. Exactly like the man he knew never to turn his back on. Chaly wasn’t going to be pleased to see Ngaire by his side, but he could lump it. Damned if he was going to let her out of his sight until he had to. They’d had a bittersweet night, two wounded heroes, him with a headache and her with her throat swathed in dressings. It had either been suffer or let the painkillers put him to sleep—and he hadn’t slept. But he’d missed supping on her throat’s tangy flavors so reminiscent of her personality. To him Ngaire would always be a margarita—don’t hold the salt—and he loved it.

  “Which one is Chaly?” she asked as they stepped into a lobby filled with their traveling companions, minus Chen and company.

  Chaly was at the far side with his back to them, looking out the window. God knows what had happened to him last night, but this morning his impatience was hanging by a thread. His boss’s nervous habit of flicking his thumb across the tips of his long fingers was the first thing Kel noticed. You’d think they were an hour late instead of a mere twenty-five minutes into their allotted thirty. “See that tall, edgy-looking suit, the one with silver hair standing by the window? That’s GDE’s SAC.”

  “That man?”

  Her step faltered as if she might hang back. He squinted down his nose at her, as it hurt like hell to bend his head. “What’s wrong? Do you know him?”

  “For a moment, I thought I did, but I guess it’s just a trick of the light. The guy I’m thinking of was younger.”

  “Here he comes. Brace yourself for action. He’s not the kindest man in the world, and he won’t give a damn that we’re walking wounded.” He laughed, trying to make a joke out of something that was only too true. Ngaire edged closer.

  Funny how Chaly always managed to look down his nose even when he wasn’t as tall as Kel. “Well, now…” His boss’s gaze scanned his watch, then took in Ngaire’s attributes from top to toe, without stopping to blink. Kel’s hand fisted in his pocket. His SAC didn’t actually lick his lips, but Kel saw the wolf in his eyes begin to prowl. “Seems the heartbreak hero takes the lady, again. Too bad we have to part you lovers so soon.”

  “You said meet for breakfast. We’re here, and I’m not going anywhere until I’ve seen Ngaire on to her plane.”

  The wolf in Chaly’s eyes leapt for Kel’s throat. “Yeah, and spiders have wings. You’ll leave when I say you will, Jellic.”

  He felt Ngaire tense, but he supposed when you weren’t used to Chaly it could take you that way. “Not this time. I’m not ready. I’m booked on the afternoon connection for Singapore. We can either do our debriefing when I get there, or you could change your mind and take the flight I’m on.”

  Kel pulled the narrow strip of paper from his pocket. Folded in four, he held it in his open palm, wondering if the lie in it would burn his skin. “I presume this is what you were wondering about? Better take it with you.”

  A moment’s greed flickered in Chaly’s eyes. Kel’s lips twisted as he guessed his boss had already spent the money his promotion would bring. One moment the paper was there, the next hidden in the depths of Chaly’s inside pocket as he patted the gra
y suiting that matched his hair. “At least you did one thing right. I suppose you deserve a few extra hours for a job well done.”

  The cold sensation Ngaire had experienced stayed with her even after Kel’s boss had gone. It was as if the ice chips in Chaly’s eyes and voice slithered down her spine. “I don’t like him.”

  Kel’s laugh was wry. “I’d say that puts your vote with the majority. He’s good at his job, though.”

  She didn’t know if Kel would want to hear this, but she had to tell him. “Maybe too good. I was right, I have seen him before.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Blue Grasshopper. Although his hair was dark then, I know it was the same man. It happened when I went up to the manager’s office to collect my prize. The door was partly open when I got up there, and I could see two men. They were arguing, so I waited outside, but that habit Chaly has, of constantly flicking his fingers, was exactly the same. He was doing it as he waited by the window this morning. It was the first thing I noticed. Then, later he said, ‘And spiders have wings.’ The inflection in his voice was the same as he used arguing with the manager at the Blue Grasshopper. I’d never heard the expression before, I think that’s why it stuck in my mind, but its all too big a coincidence. I guess he must have worn a wig that day.”

  “Damn! How dumb am I? That’s what Gordie meant by a family member. One of ours. An agent!”

  The weather had turned up the heat to bake down on the long, low-lying roof of Christchurch Airport, as if to tighten the screws on Kel’s sore head. Wasn’t it enough that Chaly’s perfidy made him feel his head was sealed inside an iron mask, with his warring emotions battling to escape?

  The supposition that one of GDE’s agents murdered Gordie had reopened the wound on his grief, the loss of his good right arm.

  And now he was about to lose Ngaire….

  It was harder to give credence to the curse, coincidence being an easier out. Yet, on this trip he’d seen and learned things that grabbed at his fractious synapses screaming, “Believe!”

  As he waited with Ngaire near the gate, he felt as if time had folded back to the first day they met, with him guarding his laptop and Ngaire protecting the day pack that contained Te Ruahiki.

  Driven by lack of time, at last he blurted out, “I can’t let you go through the wait alone. I’ll join you in San Francisco and keep you safe. Not even an earthquake can separate us.”

  Ngaire knew there was a steel strength in Kel that refused to be beaten. It shone through everything he did, like rescuing damsels in distress, but he’d never battled against a curse before. And no matter that his need to protect her radiated like a tangible aura, they faced a preternatural force.

  “The fatalist in me says it’s out of our hands now. I’ve done all I can, the rest is up to Te Ruahiki.”

  Ridding himself of his laptop, Kel pulled her into the heart-stopping shelter of his arms. “Hell, how can you think that? I can’t.”

  Beneath her ear she heard his heartbeat hiccup twice, deep in his chest, as if stumbling over a rock-strewn surface. Like the weeks ahead. “We’ll do it the only way I know how, one day at a time.”

  She thrust the platitude at him, thinking women had done this through all time, put on a brave face to make things easier for their man as he readied himself for battle. It seemed like a lifetime since she’d wondered if this moment would arrive wrapped in regrets. But she’d never regret a moment of knowing Kel.

  Loving Kel.

  “You have to go. Chaly must be stopped, but you’ll never take him down overnight. Just promise me you’ll take care. There’s always the chance that he’ll discover the trick with the formula. Please, please watch your back, since I can’t do it for you.”

  “Damn, I’m going to miss you. You know I love you, don’t you?” Kel watched a brief spark light her eyes, then cloud over as she lifted her fingers to his lips, pretending she didn’t want to hear more. He kissed their tips and pulled it away. “You can’t fool me, doll. I know you love me, too. We have something in common with your grandparents. That moment of instant recognition. It was like that with us. Go on, admit it,” he said.

  “Am I so easy to read?” she asked.

  “Only a fool wouldn’t know the other half of himself when he saw it.” He gathered her close. Her pulse raced under his fingertips. Raced faster when he pressed his mouth to the pulse point on her wrist and her breath parted her lips in a sigh.

  “Of course I love you. How could I not?”

  Her answer turned the screw a notch tighter on his reluctance to let her go. All that was in him, all that he was, clawed to hold on to her, to never let her go, duty be damned.

  But he wouldn’t be who he’d become—what his father’s betrayal had made him—if he let Chaly get away with murder.

  “The hell with it! When this is over I’m resigning from GDE. It’ll just be you and me, doll, taking the road to hearth, home and family. How many kids do you want? I always fancied four myself.”

  If he’d struck her, the pain couldn’t have hurt more. She blamed herself. Why hadn’t she told him the truth when she’d had the chance, and saved herself the heartache and chagrin.

  She had been too blind to see it coming.

  His dear face blurred as tears blinded her. She heard her name called as if from far, far away. “Will passenger McKay please board Flight NZ 202 at gate eight. Your flight is about to depart.”

  She wanted to kiss him goodbye, but to do that meant never letting go. Instead she put the facts baldly. “That first time I got mugged, the guy who stabbed me took more than my money, he also stole any children I might have had. I’m sorry, I can’t give you a family. So sorry… Goodbye, Kel…”

  With one glimpse at the undisguised horror on his face, she thrust her boarding pass at the hostess, escaping like Alice, down a tunnel leading to the last place she wanted to go.

  Away from Kel.

  As she dived on board and hurried up the aisle to her seat, behind her she heard the steward’s angry shout. “Sorry, sir, I can’t let you enter the plane without a boarding pass.”

  Epilogue

  I f only… Once more it had come down to those damning words, a reminder of how he’d gotten there too late to help Gordie, balked by the lowlifes inhabiting the dark. No use blaming others for the delay this time, at six o’clock of an evening, Chinatown’s honest citizens were simply going about their lawful business.

  He’d blown it pure and simple by thinking he could rely on the date line to get him out of a fix. But too many people had wanted to experience New Year’s twice. To paraphrase, airline seats were scarcer than wings on spiders.

  He checked the number—this was where she worked. He barreled through the door, saw her name on the wall under the legend First Light Do Jan, the only address she’d allowed him. The arrow pointed upstairs, the direction a little too close to heaven for comfort. Ngaire just had to be alive.

  Hell, he’d even informed Jo he was getting married and given his blessing to the search that might clear their father’s name. So his loving Ngaire had already achieved one miracle. Without hesitation his boot hit the first step. The saying, a day late and a dollar short, clipped him a fast one round the heart. Eight days since Ngaire turned thirty and today would soon be over. Pray God, he wasn’t too late.

  He’d left GDE’s Singapore headquarters in turmoil, with all of their agents but one fighting to recover from the shock of their late SAC’s betrayal and murder. And that was the agent he’d discovered had stabbed Gordie.

  Hell, he hadn’t known whether to be mad or glad that his flushing away the tiny pieces of torn-up formula had gotten Chaly killed by his co-conspirators, instead of him facing a jury of his peers the way Gordie’s murderer would. Damn and blast! It had all taken too long. Far too long.

  He’d been hamstrung, tied up in the investigation and forced to renege on his promise to be there for Ngaire.

  Had she even remembered he’d made it?

 
Or had she given up on him, long ago, deciding his word was as insubstantial as the case he’d had against her? Melting away like flames for water. Or had their five weeks apart been a lifetime, the way it had for him? He’d wanted to call her, but hadn’t. If she was going to tell him to piss off, he had no chance of changing her mind unless they were face-to-face. He’d made a crass blunder, though the signals that she couldn’t have children had been there. He’d chosen to read them the wrong way.

  The door at the top was well oiled, pushing open without a murmur. A clean sweep of planked wooden floor stretched ahead of him, a smooth oiled surface that bare feet would appreciate. Under the windows, folded stacks of blue mats courted dust mites dancing in a stray strand of late winter sunlight that dodged the gap in the buildings across the street. The uneasy silence mocked him like the smile on Te Ruahiki’s face, a lifetime ago.

  “Too late,” it said.

  Too late for Ngaire and the life he’d planned for them.

  But the well of hope inside him hadn’t completely dried up. It surged as the sunlight picked out a doorway he hadn’t noticed.

  Striding toward it, his heart racing his feet to the door, he grabbed the handle and flung it open wide.

  Ngaire reached into the semidark pocket of space, expanding it by half again with the simple flick of a switch. She heard soft footfalls in the do jan as she plugged in her hairdryer. Leena was early for once, and surprise, surprise, she’d removed her shoes, so the click of heels that usually announced her arrival was missing. “You’re early,” she called without bothering to look as the door opened in a rush. Leena was always in a hurry. “I’m not quite ready. Take a seat while I finish drying my hair.”

  “Only if I can play with it after you’re done, doll.”

  The hairdryer did a bungee jump from her hand. Only the shortness of the cord stopped it smashing to pieces on the floor.

  “Kel,” she whispered in a voice so needy, it confirmed everything she’d refused to own up to in the long, long weeks since she’d left New Zealand. How much she’d missed, wanted, loved the man she’d run away from like a whipped puppy.