by DeLeon, Jana
“I was thinking,” he said. “When all this is cleared up, maybe you and I could take a weekend trip to New Orleans. See the city for a couple days, eat some good food, maybe throw some money away at the casino…”
I felt my heart leap in my throat, and other parts of me started to tingle. What Carter was suggesting was huge. It would take our relationship to a whole new level—the level I’d sorta been avoiding because of emotional stuff but secretly dying for because of physical stuff. My heart and body wanted me to yell “hell, yes” and pack a bag. My head was shouting “not until you tell him the truth.”
Apparently, I hesitated too long, because Carter said, “Never mind. It was a stupid suggestion.”
“No,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t stupid at all. I was just surprised. It’s been a long time since…” Like forever. I’d never gone away for a long weekend with a man. I’d dated—at least I guess you could call it that—but I’d never been with anyone that I would consider sharing living space with for any length of time.
Carter’s expression shifted from offended to sympathetic. “It’s been a long time for me too. I guess I subconsciously swore off relationships. I didn’t realize it, really. Not until you came along.”
“Mine was more of a conscious decision. That’s why I’m so careful. I didn’t really plan on this, and with me being here only for the summer…”
And with me being a CIA assassin, and here under a false identity, and not being at all the person you think I am.
Carter frowned. “It’s not logical, given the situation, and you can bet that’s something I’ve thought about at length. But ultimately, I can’t deny my attraction to you. You’re the most interesting woman I’ve ever known.”
“Interesting? Is that what you’re calling it these days? I thought I was a Yankee imported terror.”
He laughed. “I admit that a lot of your choices frustrate the heck out of me, but that doesn’t make them not interesting. In fact, because you seem hell-bent on doing exactly what you want and everyone else be damned, it might make you even more attractive.”
I blushed and stared down at the desk, wondering what Carter would think about the real me. Would he find that person interesting, or would he be appalled? Sure, Carter had been a soldier, and even though we’d never talked much about his time overseas, I was sure he’d seen and done things that civilians would never understand. But my profession took soldiering to an entirely different level. It required a disassociation from humanity that most people weren’t capable of understanding, much less achieving.
“A weekend trip sounds like a lot of fun,” I said finally. What the hell. It wasn’t a lie. It did sound like a lot of fun, and maybe the CIA and FBI setup would bag Ahmad and all of this could be over. My confession would probably be a lot less harsh if people weren’t still trying to kill me.
Carter smiled and I could see the tension leave his shoulders. Unfortunately, it had settled right into mine. Despite all my good intentions, I was digging a deeper and deeper hole.
My phone buzzed. My hand clenched when I saw the message from Gertie.
The alarm is going off at my house. I told the alarm company to shut it off and figured we’d go check it out, but Ida Belle said to let Carter handle it. She’s an old poop. If you go with him, will you please get my good blue lawn chair out of the shed?
I frowned.
“Is something wrong?” Carter asked.
“Gertie’s at my house and her house alarm went off.”
“She still has that thing? I thought she’d taken an ax to it after the false alarms.”
“I think this thing with Max bothers her more than she’ll admit,” I said. “Lately, Sinful hasn’t exactly been the sleepy town it used to be.”
“That’s true enough.” Carter rose from his chair. “I guess I better go check it out.”
“Is it okay if I come with you? Gertie wants me to grab a chair from her shed.”
“Given that it’s probably the alarm on the fritz or operator error, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Besides, if I don’t, you’ll just go afterward and get the chair.”
“You know me too well.”
I followed Carter out of the sheriff’s department and hopped into his truck. With any luck, the alarm was as faulty as Gertie claimed and this would amount to a whole lot of nothing. But I wasn’t convinced enough to ignore it, and I didn’t want Carter going in blind. If the men in New Orleans had tracked Gertie down by her license plate, they could have shown up at her house.
Gertie’s house looked fine when we pulled up to the curb. In anticipation of being at my house, Gertie had left the porch light on, but that was the only thing that looked different than it usually did. “Everything looks normal,” I said.
Carter nodded as we walked up the sidewalk to the house. He checked the front door and it was still locked. A quick review of the windows showed them to be secure as well.
“I’ll look around back while you get the chair,” Carter said.
We headed through the gate and into the backyard. Carter started with the windows and I set off across the lawn for the shed that was tucked in the back corner. I was almost there when I heard Carter yell.
“There’s a broken window back here.”
I started to turn around, but then I heard a noise in the bushes in front of me. A second later, a man with an assault rifle burst out of the bush and leveled his gun at me.
Chapter Fourteen
Without even thinking, I lunged forward, grabbing the barrel of the rifle with my right hand, pushing it away from me then pulling it toward me and down at the same time. When the shooter stepped forward, off balance, I struck him in the nose with my left hand, then reached down to grab the stock of the rifle. With my right hand still grasping the barrel, I shoved the gun upward, clocking him in the forehead. As I took one step back, I pulled the gun down and backward, breaking his grasp, then flipped it over and fired a single shot into his heart.
The entire event took only seconds to play out, but it felt as if everything were in slow motion. I stood there staring down at the man. I could hear the faint sound of footsteps pounding behind me as my pulse throbbed in my temples. A second man bolted from behind the shed and before I could even lift the rifle, a shot fired behind me, hitting him square in the middle of the head. He dropped like a stone. I stood there, my heart pounding so hard my chest hurt.
This wasn’t the guys from the alley. These men worked for Ahmad.
Carter checked the two men for a pulse and removed the remaining weapons from their bodies. He glanced back at me several times, but was completely silent as he worked. When he’d collected the small arsenal and placed it in a pile behind me, he stepped in front of me.
His expression was a mixture of anger, frustration, and disappointment. “If I run your prints, what will I see?” he asked quietly.
I dropped my gaze to the ground, unable to look him eye to eye. “You’ll see information on Sandy-Sue Morrow.”
He sighed. “What agency?”
Carter knew the score. Not just anyone could attach one person’s fingerprints to another person’s existence. It took someone with federal placement and high up the food chain.
I looked back up at him. “CIA.”
“And the real Sandy-Sue Morrow?”
“Is vacationing in Europe, courtesy of my boss who happens to be her uncle.”
His expression darkened. “Gerald Morrow is your boss?”
Crap. “Yeah. You know him?”
“I worked with some of his men in Iraq.” His voice was steady when he delivered the sentence, but I saw the tiny shift in his eyes.
If Carter had worked with Morrow’s operatives in Iraq, then he knew exactly what I was. Morrow dealt with only one type of operative.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” I said.
“No you’re not. You’re just sorry I found out before the summer was over and you could disappear.”
“No! That�
�s not it at all.” I struggled to find the words that could explain everything I’d felt and thought and agonized over since I’d realized my feelings for Carter went deeper than I ever expected.
“I couldn’t tell you the truth,” I said. “I couldn’t compromise my identity or put you at risk. I was going to tell you the truth before I left. I just needed things settled.” I sighed. “I shouldn’t have gotten involved with you at all.”
“That’s probably the only thing you’re sorry for.”
My heart clenched and my stomach rolled. I felt tears well up in my eyes, and I struggled to keep them from falling. “Not in the way you’re implying.”
But I knew my words were just that—words.
Carter hated me, and I didn’t blame him. I had lied to him about everything from the moment we’d first met and continued the lie even after I’d gotten personally involved with him. What I’d done was understandable on a professional basis, but inexcusable on a personal one.
“You know,” he said, “I’m angrier at myself than anything. I knew you didn’t add up—all that poking your nose into criminal activity, your knowledge of certain things that was well beyond the average civilian, that dive you made to drag me from the bottom of the lake—but I didn’t want to believe it, so I stuck my head in the sand. It was stupid, but it’s all on me.”
“No, it’s not. You weren’t supposed to know. You can’t blame yourself.”
“Do Ida Belle and Gertie know? Ally?”
I felt my heart drop into my stomach all over again.
“Ida Belle and Gertie do. Ally doesn’t know anything.”
His face flushed red. “I see. So you could tell two nosy old ladies, but you couldn’t tell the man you were in a relationship with?”
“They’re not…I didn’t…” What the hell could I say to explain why Gertie and Ida Belle knew without giving away their secret? “I didn’t tell them. Shortly after I arrived, they saw me do something, just like you did. Something they recognized from their time in the service.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “That situation at Gertie’s house, right after you arrived. It wasn’t Gertie and Ida Belle who took them, was it?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” It was the biggest lie in the world, and I was sure Carter knew I was lying. I was also sure he understood why I couldn’t tell the truth. The last thing I could afford was being implicated in a crime, even if I was the person who’d ended someone else’s crime spree.
“Of course you don’t.” He waved his hand at the bodies. “Do you know anything about these men? Or is that something else you’re going to pretend ignorance on?”
I shook my head. Director Morrow wasn’t going to like it, but at this point it would be irresponsible and dangerous to leave Carter in the dark. I wasn’t interested in either.
“They work for Ahmad, an arms dealer in the Middle East. I was undercover in his organization when I got made. Director Morrow is certain there’s a leak at the CIA that compromised my cover, and after I blew cover Ahmad put a price on my head.”
“Which is why you’re not in protective custody.” Carter blew out a breath. “How do you think they found you?”
“I’m not sure that they did.” I gave him a brief rundown of everything that had happened since the counterfeit money blew through Sinful.
When I was finished, Carter stared at me for several seconds, his expression a mixture of frustration and a tiny bit of disbelief. I didn’t blame him. It was a huge coincidence.
“Wait,” he said finally. “You said these weren’t the guys from the alley behind the art gallery.”
“They’re not.”
“Then why would they be here at Gertie’s house?”
“I think they might have followed the guys from the alley here.”
“Why would you make that leap?”
I pointed to the hedges. “Because I think the men from the alley had already been dispatched before we arrived.”
Carter turned around to look at the hedges where I pointed to the tip of a shoe sticking out from under the bush. He walked over and pushed branches of the bushes aside and peered inside. I knew the men from the alley were both in the bushes as soon as he turned around.
“This is a huge mess,” he said. “I don’t even know how to report it, but I can’t leave four bodies in Gertie’s backyard and I can’t just send them to the morgue without paperwork.” He ran one hand through his hair. “Jesus H. Christ!”
He was right. It was a huge problem, and I didn’t have a clue how to handle it.
“Carter?” Deputy Breaux’s voice sounded behind us and I jumped. “Is everything all right? Mr. Templeton called about gunshots and said he couldn’t reach anyone down at the sheriff’s department.”
Carter looked at me, and I could see the panic on his face. He didn’t just have to come up with an explanation that worked, he had to do it in a matter of seconds. “No, Deputy Breaux. We have a situation here.”
“What kind of situ—oh, Christ! That’s a body. That’s two bodies. What in the world happened?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Carter said. “Gertie’s house alarm went off, but it’s always been broken so I didn’t think much of it. Fortune had dropped me some dinner by the department and rode with me to pick up a chair Gertie requested she get from her shed.”
“And you found them like this?” Deputy Breaux asked.
Carter shook his head. “When we went to get the chair, one of them came out of the bushes with an assault rifle. I managed to disarm him and got off a clean shot, then the second man came around the shed and I took him out with my service revolver.”
Deputy Breaux’s eyes widened with fear and admiration. “Wow! That is something else. I wish I would have seen it. So what were they doing in Gertie’s backyard?”
“I don’t know for certain, but I suspect they killed the two men hidden in Gertie’s bushes.”
Deputy Breaux’s head jerked around to stare at the bushes. “There’s two more bodies in there. Holy crap. That’s more dead people than I’ve ever seen in one place, even the funeral home.”
“It’s practically an infestation,” I said.
Deputy Breaux looked over at me. “Are you all right? I can’t imagine how scary that was being right in the middle of it.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“She’s a lot tougher than she looks,” Carter said. “Can you call and get a pickup of these bodies for me? I’ve got the camera in my truck. I just need to document the scene. I’ll do the paperwork when I get back to the department.”
Deputy Breaux nodded and looked over at me. “Do you need me to give you a ride? I don’t think you should stay here with the bodies and all.”
I looked over at Carter, desperately wanting him to say I had to stay and give my statement. Maybe then I’d have a better chance to explain. After I’d had a chance to process it all and not while I was standing over a man I’d just killed.
“Go ahead,” Carter said. “I can take your statement tomorrow.”
His tone was so dismissive that I felt the tears well up all over again. He bent over one of the bodies and pretended to check it, but I knew it was his way of avoiding looking at me. I turned around and followed Deputy Breaux out of the back lawn, perched on the edge of completely losing my composure.
I’d thought my life was over when I got sent to Sinful. If I’d known it was just beginning, I would have done things a lot differently.
Chapter Fifteen
Ida Belle and Gertie were sitting in my living room when I walked in the front door. They barely looked up when I walked inside, their eyes glued to the television.
“Francine had a baking emergency that Ally went to tend to,” Gertie said. “I sent you a million texts, but I guess you were busy with more important things.” She elbowed Ida Belle.
I walked into the living room like a zombie and sank into the first chair. They looked at each other, instantly sobering.
; “What happened?” Ida Belle asked.
The dam burst. All the tears that I’d been holding back came flooding out. Tears for hurting Carter with my lies. Tears for ruining my career because I refused to follow protocol. Tears for my mother whom I missed so much and tears for a father I didn’t miss at all. Tears because I hadn’t realized just how much everything in Sinful mattered until I was faced with losing it.
Gertie and Ida Belle jumped up from the couch and hurried over. Gertie leaned over and put her arm around my shoulders. Ida Belle sat on the coffee table and put her hand on my arm.
“Whatever it is, we can fix it,” Gertie said, but her voice was laced more with fear rather than conviction. My breakdown had scared and surprised them.
“Not this time,” I sobbed. “Everything is ruined.”
“You told Carter the truth,” Ida Belle said.
I nodded and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “I had no choice. He made me just like you two did.”
Gertie sucked in a breath. “The men were at my house?”
“Yeah, but they were already dead. Ahmad’s men had taken them out. They hid behind the shed when we arrived. I just…reacted, you know? The first one rushed me from the bushes, holding an assault rifle, and I dispatched him like he was a pizza delivery boy.”
“You killed him?” Ida Belle asked.
I nodded. “I disarmed him and shot him with his own weapon. The entire exchange probably took three seconds. I was standing there in shock from the dispatch when the second one ran out and Carter shot him.”
“Disarming and disabling men with assault rifles isn’t exactly the kind of thing librarians are known for,” Gertie said. “I take it the revelation wasn’t well received.”
“That’s the biggest understatement I’ve heard since I’ve been in Sinful,” I said.
“I’m so sorry,” Gertie said. “Give him some time. This was a shock, I’m sure.”
“How could it not be?” Ida Belle agreed. “Not only is Carter hurt on an emotional level, his pride has taken a huge hit. You fooled him, and he’s not easily fooled.”
