The Scotland Yard Exchange Series

by Stephanie Queen

  “I meant arrest, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  She didn’t believe him. That was fine since he wasn’t sure if he believed himself, although it would be very bad form to kill the man—at least not without first learning everything he knew. But interrogating Azzam wasn’t his job. He needed to find the leak and see that Azzam and his men were taken into custody. And then he needed to take care of the leak.

  He gave her the time to shop, posing convincingly as Aussie tourists. He followed her around until he’d checked out every area of the terminal. Then they took up their positions near the gate where he would have been emerging when the flight he was supposed to be on landed. Within one minute he spotted Azzam. Unfortunately, Pixie saw him too. He knew the man was good enough to see through their disguises. He needed to keep them out of Azzam’s line of sight. He took Pixie’s arm and turned her around so that her back was toward Azzam and his men. He could see three of them.

  He drew Pixie to a mobile office booth and whispered to her, “Pretend you’re doing work—don’t take your eyes from this monitor.”

  He felt her silent hiccup as he squeezed her to his side and saw her shut her eyes like a child fearing a monster. Goddamn it, he’d been asking too much of her to be with him on this mission. She would have been safer back in the States.

  “I’ve got this under control, Pix. I’m calling in reinforcements now.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped out the number. He watched Azzam, and while listening to the ringing on his end of the phone, he spoke in a soothing whisper in Pixie’s ear.

  “David will send people he knows from outside the Yard to…”

  Disbelief slammed him as he noticed Azzam’s gaze become alert and looked toward the passengers emerging from the deplaning door. Pixie looked up at him.

  “What is it?” She turned and followed his gaze.

  They both watched David and Grace walking while David pulled his phone from his jacket, but he was too much of a pro to look around for Chauncey, knowing he’d be within sight. As Chauncey adjusted to the sudden change in his scenario, he saw Azzam and his men adjust as well. His muscles coiled with a spike in adrenaline as he prepared to take action.

  She felt a shot of elation when she saw David and Grace. But then everything froze in place. Something was off. She knew their arrival was important, but couldn’t think why. They weren’t supposed to be here—were they?

  She heard Chauncey speak into his phone. “He’s here. And what the hell are you doing here?” Chauncey spoke coolly and Pixie broke from his grasp to stand at his elbow, listening to the call.

  “I’ve called in a special expert to handle the detention of Azzam,” David said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “His name is Oscar and he’s absolutely trustworthy.”

  “Who…”

  “He’s a friend of law enforcement of sorts. That’s all I can say.” David signed off and Chauncey watched him put the phone back in his pocket. He also watched Azzam showing patience, controlling his men, while he scanned the crowd behind David, apparently believing that David had accompanied Chauncey.

  “Did I hear the name Oscar?” Pixie asked, her voice strangled.

  “Yes. Do you know of him?” Chauncey finally ripped his gaze from the scene surrounding them and looked at her for an answer. She sucked in a breath at his ice cold eyes.

  She looked away from that stare before she answered him, but when she saw the woman, she forgot about Oscar.

  Chapter 10

  “Mabel!” She was so startled to see the older woman, who immediately turned to her, confused. She rushed toward the woman. What was David’s aunt doing in London? She looked like Mabel, but different. She was wrong. It wasn’t Mabel. Someone grabbed her arm. It wasn’t Chauncey. Her knees buckled immediately and she felt the room spin.

  But she heard the rough words come from her accoster’s insane mouth. “You’re not such a hot shot now are you?”

  Azzam’s words snapped her out of her confused fear and she darted her eyes to where she saw Chauncey close by with his gun drawn. Screams pierced the air, but she held onto her own. She looked back up at Azzam too late to realize that she’d given away her man. As Azzam spun her around in front of him as a shield, she did what any red-blooded, or at least redheaded, American woman would do: she screeched and stomped her heel on the man’s foot. Not as effective minus the stilettos, but Azzam flinched. Still he managed to fire a shot in Chauncey’s direction. Chauncey—or someone—fired back, well above their heads. Azzam tightened his grip on her while she struggled.

  Feeling hot and pumped like an inflated superhero parade balloon, her mind razored in on what to do as he dragged her, running toward the door. She saw security guards ahead. People screamed so she could hardly hear herself, but she decided not to aid and abet and dug in her heels. As they slowed down, someone shot the gun from Azzam’s hand. He swore and dropped her. She was ready and scrambled to her feet. Two security guards ran toward her.

  “Never mind me—I’m fine—get after that man,” she shouted the order and pointed toward Azzam’s retreating figure. One of the men turned course. The other approached her.

  She stood on shaky legs and started running the other way, back in the direction of her man.

  “Miss, miss…” the man called after her as she kept going.

  She couldn’t worry about what happened with Azzam or his men. Those security guards would get them. She had to get back to Chauncey. The gut-wrenching feeling inside her screamed that Azzam’s earlier shot had hit him. As she scrambled amidst the bedlam it was a surprise to her that her legs held up while she fought the strangling impulse to vomit.

  When she reached Chauncey, he was surrounded by all manner of people, including what looked to be a medic with a bag.

  “Chauncey!” She flew forward and meant to claw her way through the crowd of official looking people when Grace caught her.

  “He’s okay, honey. It’s okay. A shoulder wound. David insists it’s minor.” Grace embraced her. She looked up at her friend, felt the rush of blood from her head in a woosh, and everything went black.

  The hospital room was clean and crowded. Lucky for her, Grace convinced the EMTs that she didn’t need an ambulance. The faint had only lasted a split second. Long enough to be more of an embarrassment than alarming. Sophia reminded herself that Chauncey had been even luckier. He’d been taken by the ambulance, but his wound was minor, according to the doctor who was still checking him out.

  It didn’t matter what the doc said, she shook as if she were trapped in an icelocker anyway. If only she hadn’t been so stupid—she clamped down on the thought lest the dizziness that threatened every time she went there caused her to drop where she stood.

  “Why didn’t you shoot him first?”

  He didn’t answer her. He hadn’t said much of anything to her. She attributed that to a few things. First, everyone else was talking and asking him questions. He mostly paid attention to David and the doctor—in that order—and he answered only them. Second, he must be in pain. He, in fact, appeared whiter than most of her sheets. And third, lest she forget, he wasn’t exactly in the habit of answering her questions in the first place.

  But that didn’t stop her from hovering over him. While Grace hovered over her.

  “Sweetheart,” Grace said quietly to her, “he couldn’t shoot at Azzam with you in the way.” Sophia winced. She’d more than been in the way. She’d been the cause of the entire debacle. Every time she looked at Chauncey’s white face and stiff upper lip as the doctor probed him, she felt like crying. He’d been the one to shoot the gun from Azzam’s hand while running after him.

  What had she been thinking? She should have known the old woman had not been Mabel. Poor woman was there to meet her grandson and Pixie’d been damn lucky the woman had a strong heart and hadn’t dropped dead in the middle of the disaster.

  David stood at the end of the bed in the pr
ivate room and flipped his phone into his breast pocket. He spoke in the authoritative, yet mild voice that only he could do—at least he was the only one she ever heard speak that way outside a movie theater. He’d make a great dad some day, as long as he and Grace didn’t wait too long. He wasn’t getting any younger.

  “HQ is sending people down to guard the room. Two men I know personally. As soon as they get here I’m to report in and take stock. Any idea what I should be telling them?”

  Chauncey had been studiously attending to David’s words in spite of the doctor’s probing of his injury. It was a testament to David’s clout that they didn’t have to wait in the Emergency Room with the crazy-looking crowd in there. The nurse tried to shoo them out of the room once, but Chauncey told her, “No. They stay,” in such a way that she hustled out of the room wide-eyed and worried. Sophia hoped that nurse wouldn’t be in on any of the stitching up later.

  The doctor stood back for the moment to write some things on his chart and Chauncey finally answered David’s question. “Tell them the leak is in their office. Make sure you get as many men in the room as you can when you do.”

  “Sure. Then Azzam will be after David too. Any other keen ideas?” Sophia said.

  Chauncey grimaced in lieu of a grin. She didn’t know why smiling should be painful with an arm injury. “Tell them I botched it. But we have more pictures. Plus they’ll get more videos of him coming and going from Heathrow. The international terminal has more cameras than the paparazzi at a royal press conference. We have him pinned down and well identified. We’ll find him.”

  “They got his cab driver. Bringing him in for questioning later. Will you be up for it?” David asked him. Sophia held her breath for his answer.

  Chauncey concentrated hard on the words. He felt Pixie’s eyes on him, heard her suck in a breath. A pain having nothing to do with his injury throbbed through him.

  He finally turned to her, but she spoke before he did.

  “You did not botch it.” She looked at David and Grace then back at him. “I botched it and you all know it. Don’t bother covering for me. I’m not in law enforcement. It’s not like I’m going to lose my job. I saw David and Grace and then that poor old woman and I…I reacted and blew our cover and drew Azzam’s attention. That’s what happened. Then you tried to save me from myself after I foolishly got captured by that…beast.”

  “Well, you showed him, didn’t you?” Grace nodded.

  “The specifics don’t need to be discussed further,” Chauncey said. Aware of everyone’s eyes on him, especially Pixie’s, he kept his face neutral in spite of the pang of warmth that shot through him and landed where it inevitably did when it concerned her. He said to David, “I don’t care what we tell HQ, but I’ll not have them taking over protection detail.”

  David nodded with a slight smile. “I thought that’s what you had in mind. Even after today.”

  “Especially after today. How many security personnel would put up with that behavior or deal with it appropriately and put themselves out to…”

  “Wait a minute—are you talking about me as if I’m not in the room? Again?” Pixie stood to her full height and stared her green-eyed laser at Chauncey when he turned to her. He softened his face. She needed kid gloves right now. Whatever else she’d planned to say disappeared when he smiled. She smiled back.

  David harrumphed. “I have a special security guard arriving shortly to stand guard outside your door and augment the regular forces.”

  “You don’t say?” Chauncey turned from Pixie’s green eyes. He needed to snap himself out of this disquieting worry he had. He had never experienced a soft spot before and this was no time to start. He fixed his attention on David. Had the man said “special” security?

  He heard a loud and booming voice in the hall outside their room, accompanied by a scuffle. Everyone turned toward the door as a large man barreled through it. Chauncey didn’t know who he was, but judging by the look on Pixie’s face and the slight buckle in her knees, if the man wasn’t so old he’d have thought he was her old flame coming to call. Whoever he was, he was a loud and imposing figure. The slap of jealousy hit him and replaced the anxiety of near loss he’d been struggling with an instant before.

  “Pixie! My God!” The man boomed and headed straight for her in spite of the crackle of excited voices that erupted at his entrance. The man embraced her in an overbearing way. Chauncey felt compelled to stand, but the doctor pushed him back down and he was in no condition to put up much resistance. The damn doctor had given him some kind of medication for the pain that took the fight out of him.

  “This is Oscar a.k.a. Antonio—”

  “Oscar will do.” The man abruptly stood back from Pixie and turned to David’s outstretched hand, but Oscar clasped David in a bear hug instead.

  Meanwhile he could swear Pixie had tears in her eyes, however, she refused to meet his gaze the harder he tried to stare her down.

  Grace spoke up then, looking at him with one of those womanly looks. “Chauncey, this is Oscar, my former fiance. He’s in the security business and you’ll be very well protected. He saved my David’s life once.”

  “More than once, Gracie, but I won’t quibble,” Oscar said. He held out his arms with a grand grin and Gracie stepped right into them for her turn at an embrace. Chauncey felt like he’d become a character on the set of the soap opera EastEnders.

  He looked at David with a lift of his brow. David was smiling at the reunion between his wife and her former fiancé in too tolerant a way—even if the man did save David’s life. There were lines.

  Chauncey reached out and took Pixie’s hand and she finally turned to him. She said, “It’s all right. He’s like family. Oscar’s like the crazy uncle in the family.”

  He laughed. Whatever medicine the doctor had stuck him with worked well indeed.

  The doctor announced, “You’ll need to stay the night, but if all is well you can leave in the morning.” Then he clipped the chart to the bed and pushed his way through the seeming throng that had gathered in the room and headed toward the door.

  “Hold on there—I can’t stay,” Chauncey called after the doctor as they all watched him walk through the door. Damn. No matter. “I’m not staying. Any thoughts on where I should go? Someone will be watching me and I’ll be be followed—along with the rest of you. We’re all on the run now.”

  “I have a place we can go,” Oscar said. “But you can’t go anywhere dressed like that.” The hulk of a man—who, Chauncey had to admit, was dressed impeccably—stared at his shredded shirt.

  “Don’t tell me—another disguise?” Pixie said.

  “Oh, this’ll be fun! I haven’t dressed up in disguise since…” Grace said.

  “Never you mind, darling. I’m sure dark glasses and a hat will do for you. After all, the only way you’re going anywhere is in the back of a police car,” David said.

  Chauncey stood. In spite of his caution, the dizziness flooded his brain and he gritted his teeth to hold onto his balance and remain erect. He stood still. Pixie turned to him and held onto his arm. Her touch gave him another kind of jolt and he kept his errant mind from going back to their night together. The drugs were good, but he had to marshal his thoughts. He gritted his teeth and smiled. She gave him a look as though she’d read his mind and knew. The sensations disconcerted him. He’d been crazy to allow this complication of something between them. In the meantime, if he were honest with himself, he was glad that she held him at that moment. Maybe he ought to start being more honest with himself more frequently, drug induced or not. Then again, his most important task was keeping them both alive.

  He steadied himself on his feet.

  “Where are you going?” Sophia asked in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.

  The chatter in the room stopped. He looked up.

  An unusually tall and erect older man stood in the doorway. The man didn’t bother to look around or greet anyone. He didn’t bother to smile. He spoke t
o Chauncey directly while he walked slowly into the room with measured steps as if he were concentrating like a toddler beginning to walk. Chauncey concentrated hard to overcome his disorientation.

  “Son,” the man said. “I heard you were back. Still in one piece?” His father nodded with a glance at his bandaged shoulder. Chauncey stiffened, feeling himself come to attention like a soldier when a general walks in the room.

  “Just a scratch,” he said. “Still holding down the fort?”

  “Yes. I thought you might need a place to stay. I’ve come to take you back.” His father had been staring at his face, probably looking for any sign of weakness. But then he looked around the room and acknowledged the others. Chauncey introduced each of them to Bradley Miller. His father transformed into a gracious man for ninety seconds.

  “We were making arrangements for a safe house for Chauncey and Pix—Sophia Alano, sir,” David said. “They’re both in a bit of a jam with a rather notorious group after them.”

  Chauncey had purposely left out his father’s title, but he should have known David would address him as “sir.”

  “I know all about it. Ms. Alano is certainly welcome in my home as well. It’s the safest house in London, I assure you. And I dare say I might be considered a target under the circumstances as well.”

  “True. I’ll leave it to you, Chauncey and HQ to decide then.” David smiled and shook Bradley’s hand. Grace winked at him and they left, sweeping Oscar away with them.

  Chauncey was effectively left with no choice but to accompany his father. At least he still had Pixie. She hadn’t said a word upon meeting his father, but he looked forward to dinner that night all the same. He wouldn’t be bored.

  Chapter 11

  “You have no luggage?” his father asked as they walked into his town house in a very conspicuous part of London. There was a police car out front and a few guards on protection duty, Pixie noted. She tried to keep herself from being wide-eyed about the place as she looked up at the ridiculously high ceiling where a ridiculously rare antique chandelier hung. And this was just the entryway. She shivered, imagining what the rest of the place would look like.