<><><>
Ash DeHan hated nights like this. Lonely nights when he questioned the decision he’d made six months ago to isolate himself in this small Colorado ski area. At the time it had seemed the right choice. Drop out of the life he’d made for himself and begin something new. But if he’d expected some great plan for his future to reveal itself here, he’d been wrong. All he’d found was a lonelier existence than he’d had before.
At first he’d been relieved to be free of planning the next mission for Firebrand. Time to relax and enjoy the scenery. But reality had quickly crashed in on him. In trying to drop out of life, he’d brought himself and all his baggage along on the trip. And that made all the difference.
He was never going to silence the screams and wails that echoed in his head, reminding him of missions he’d carried out for Firebrand. And he was never going to forget how the two people he’d loved most in the world had betrayed him. Those were the thoughts tormenting him tonight, and they’d brought him to this all-night diner in the middle of what he hoped would be the last big snowstorm of the season to try and make some sense out of his miserable life.
Then there were the unanswered questions about his future. What was he going to do about that? When he had joined with Reese Alexander and Colt Hanson after their military days to form the special ops group they’d named Firebrand, he’d welcomed the intrigue, the adventure, and the danger they’d lived with as undercover operatives for the CIA.
But now they were older, and the lure of missions contracted but not officially recognized by the government no longer seemed as enticing as they once had. Now Firebrand was about to reinvent itself in the form of a state-of-the-art training facility where they would pass on their knowledge to military groups, law enforcement agencies, and security companies who would come to train with them.
The only question that remained was whether or not he would be a part of this new enterprise. Reese and Colt had been on site overseeing the construction of the facility for the past six months while Ash had languished in Colorado trying to decide if he could work with them at a training center in the North Carolina mountains only a few miles away from his old home. That was another decision causing him sleepless nights.
He pulled his thoughts away from that subject. Nothing had to be decided tonight. He picked up his cup, but the coffee had grown cold, so he set it back down. The waitress hadn’t been by his table for a while, and he wondered where she was. Not waiting on customers, that was for sure, since he was the only one in the place. Tonight he sat at the table he occupied every time he came to this diner. When he entered a public place, he always made it a habit to pinpoint where every person in the room was stationed, and it was best to do that from the back of the room. He didn’t have to worry about other customers tonight, but the front door was another matter. You never could tell who might enter, and he’d learned long ago not to let his guard down. Getting caught by surprise was what got men like him killed. He shifted a bit in his seat and felt the comforting pressure of the Sig-Sauer P226 holstered underneath his jacket.
Through the window he could see the whirling snow, which appeared to be letting up. He glanced up at the clock over the door that led into the kitchen and frowned. Almost midnight. Nearly two AM. in North Carolina. He shook his head and frowned. Maybe it was time to go home.
Home? The word conjured up the memory of another place, another time, and the coffee threatened to come up. He didn’t have a home. Richard and Lainey had seen to that. A cabin, that’s all he had. On a mountain road in the middle of nowhere. A place to sleep and eat but nothing else of importance if he had to leave at a moment’s notice.
The memory of what he’d left behind for Firebrand hadn’t dimmed through the years. And now here he sat at the back table of a deserted dining room wondering if it had been worth it.
“Want me to warm you up?”
Startled, he glanced up at the waitress standing next to the table. “What did you say?”
She held a coffee pot in one hand and gestured toward his cup with the other. “Would you like your coffee warmed up?”
The jeans she wore were like all the other waitresses he’d seen in this place in the last few months, but none of them wore T-shirts like hers. It might as well have been glued to her body, and the low-cut neck left little to the imagination.
She had one hand propped on her hip and a coffee pot in the other. He nodded and held out his cup. “Sure.”
She bent forward to pour the coffee, and the shirt gaped open even farther. He turned his head to look away, but she leaned even closer. He didn’t move until she’d finished pouring the coffee. Then she straightened and smiled. “Would you like anything else?”
The tone of her words carried an invitation to more than just coffee and eggs. He shook his head. “No, thanks.” He darted a glance toward the kitchen and frowned as a sudden thought struck him. “You didn’t wait on me earlier. What happened to Lisa, the other waitress?”
She smiled and pointed to her name tag. “I’m Eve. I was helping the boss with some cleaning in the kitchen, and Lisa took the floor for a while. Now we’ve switched places, except she and the boss have stepped outside to catch a quick smoke while the snow’s let up.”
The woman inched closer to the table until her leg almost touched his, and a seductive smile pulled at her lips. Ash pushed the coffee cup away. Definitely time to call it a night and head for home. “I guess I ought to be going home before the roads get covered again. Could I have my check?”
She frowned and pulled her lips into a pout. “Don’t hurry off. I’ve been watching you come in here for weeks, but you’ve never noticed me. I thought this might be a good night to get acquainted.” She waved her hand around to point out the empty room. “It’s just of the two of us. Why don’t we make the most of it?”
His gaze raked the room before he turned his attention back to her. “Maybe some other time, Eve. I really need to get out of here.”
She dropped down in the chair next to him, scooted closer, and crossed her legs. Batting her long eyelashes at him, she snaked her hand across the table and covered his hand with hers before she slid her fingers up his arm. When she reached his bicep, a smile curled her lips, and she tilted her head to one side. “Aw, come on, Ash,” she whispered in a husky voice. “I’m lonely tonight. All I want is some company. Can’t you help a girl out?”
Instinct from years of training ripped through him. With a growl he grabbed her hand in a crushing grip and stared into her startled eyes. “How do you know my name?” he snarled.
A frightened look flashed across her face. She tried to jerk her hand free, but he didn’t let go. “I asked the boss. He told me you’d bought the old Jenkins cabin up on Winding Ridge Road. What’s the big deal? I told you mine.”
Ash closed his eyes for a moment and relaxed his hold on Eve’s hand as he swallowed hard. What was the matter with him? Was he so jaded he distrusted everyone he met? He released her hand and sank back in his seat. There was no reason for him to take out his frustrations on a girl who probably came on to all the regulars. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She wiped at the corner of her eye, and her lips pulled into a wobbly smile. “My mother tells me I come on too strong sometimes. ‘You’re never gonna get a husband that way,’ she says. And I guess she’s right.” She grinned at him. “Not that I thought you’d be good husband material, but you look like a guy who could show a girl a good time.”
His face warmed at the teasing smile. Another woman had looked at him that way once, and the memory made his stomach clench. He’d been comparing every woman he met to Lainey for a decade, and he needed to stop. “You said you’re lonely tonight, Eve. Well, I am, too. I haven’t met many people around here.”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve lived here all my life, and there aren’t too many people worth knowing.” Her gaze raked him from head to toe. “Pre
sent company excluded.”
Her sincere tone made him smile. What would it hurt if he enjoyed some female company for a change? At least he’d have someone to talk to for a few hours. “Then maybe it’s time we got to know each other better.”
“What do you have in mind?”
He studied her for a moment—long blonde hair pulled into a pony tail, blue eyes that reminded him of summer days, and a body that could easily grace a fashion runway in New York. Getting to know Eve might help keep him from thinking about Lainey tonight.
“What time do you get off work?”
She glanced at the clock. “Actually I was supposed to get off at twelve. I told the boss I’d wait until he had his smoke break before I left.”
He leaned forward. “I hear they have a new band in the lounge over at the hotel. How would you like to mingle with the ski crowd for a while?”
Her eyes lit up. “That sounds great. Let me get my coat and clock out.” She rose from her chair and started to walk away. With a shake of her head she stopped and came back to the table. She pulled her order book from her pocket and tore off the top copy. “I forgot to give you your check. You can pay me at the cash register when I come back.” She cocked an eyebrow at him and leaned over to pick up his coffee cup. She was so close he could feel her breath on the side of his face. “I might even let you have your meal free if the boss isn’t looking. I’m just full of surprises.”
Ash didn’t respond as she walked away, but he watched as she sauntered across the dining room. She stopped at the swinging door into the kitchen and waved. When the door closed behind her, he scanned the room once more. Nothing had changed. He was still the only customer. It had been a quiet night at the diner. He stood, shrugged on his overcoat, and picked up the ticket Eve had laid face down on the table.
He turned it over and inhaled quickly. His fingers tightened on the paper, and he cast a wild-eyed glance to the kitchen door and back to the ticket. The sheet contained no itemized food order. Instead a message written in a scrawling hand filled the page. His heart slammed against the wall of his chest at the words. Lainey is in trouble. Call her right away.
He crumpled the note and stuck it in his pocket. What a fool he was. The diner was quiet, all right. Too quiet, and he should have noticed. He’d been played by a blue-eyed pro in a tight T- shirt. He only hoped Reese and Colt never found out how he’d let his guard down.
But he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to find Eve. She had some explaining to do, and he intended to get the answers. He slipped out of his overcoat and hung it on the back of a chair. Keeping his hand on his holstered gun, he stealthily crossed the dining room but stopped before approaching the kitchen door. He stood still and listened for movement. Nothing.
Eve said the cook and the waitress had gone outside for a smoke. But in the weeks he’d been coming here, he’d never seen either one take a smoke break. And there was always the sound of a country music radio station mingling with the rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen.
Tonight no sounds at all came from the kitchen. Something was wrong here. He should have been suspicious from the beginning, but he’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Eve had held out her apple, and he’d taken a big bite. Now it was payback time.
He needed to proceed with caution. There was no telling what he might find in the kitchen. He glanced out the window and noticed the snow was falling harder. Nobody would stand outside and smoke in this weather, which left him dreading the answer to the questions on his mind. Where was Eve? And where were the owner and the shy young girl who’d waited on him when he first sat down at the back table? And the most important one of all—what waited for him behind the closed kitchen door?
Ash took a deep breath and pulled out the Sig.
Chapter 2
Ash didn’t like the situation. The cafe owner and the young girl who’d waited on him earlier were unaccounted for, as was the sultry Eve. He had to find them. But the swinging door that blocked the entrance to the kitchen presented a big obstacle. A door that wouldn’t stay open long enough for him to sweep the room could prove fatal.
He took a deep breath, gripped the Sig with both hands, and eased up to the wall next to the door. No sounds came from the other side. He’d done this hundreds of times in other places and under difficult conditions. But the fact remained all missions were different, and he had to focus on the one at hand.
With one hand he shoved the door enough to allow it to spring open. Now he was committed, ready or not. Before the door had a chance to close he had the gun back in a two hand grip, took a ninety degree step from the wall, and scanned the first slice of the pie, the section of the room he could see. The door started to drift back to its closed position, but Ash was ready.
He took another step and knocked the door back as he moved further into the room and completed slicing the pie. So far so good. No assailants waited in the kitchen, but the missing workers were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Eve.
His gaze drifted to a closed door on the left side of a narrow hallway that led from the kitchen to the outside exit, probably a storage room. He approached the doorway cautiously, stepped to the side, and turned the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. He moved against the wall as he pushed the door open. It drifted back and stopped when it hit a storage shelf.
The instant he moved away from the wall and started his scan of the room, he saw Joe, the cafe owner, and Lisa, the young waitress, on the floor. They lay bound and gagged on their stomachs side by side in the small walkway that ran between the shelves of food and supplies that ringed the room. The blood that pooled under their heads told him there was no need to feel for a pulse. Instead he concentrated on determining whether an armed assailant was still in the building.
Moments later with his sweep done, Ash dropped down between Joe and Lisa and rubbed his hand across his eyes. Why had they been killed? And why didn’t he hear the gunshots? The obvious answer flashed in his mind. The killer had used a silencer.
Ash bit down on his lip as he reached down and gripped Joe’s shoulder. Had he and the pretty waitress with the dimpled smile been killed because someone wanted to get to him? He didn’t think he could bear one more death on his conscience. He had enough of those in his past.
Now he faced a new problem. What should he do? The police had to be called, but Eve’s message coupled with two murders told him he had to get out of here and call Lainey. If he waited for the police, he could be tied up for hours and possibly days. The last thing he needed was to be dragged into an investigation.
There was only one solution to his problem.
Ash rose to his feet, walked to the telephone in the kitchen, and dialed 911. When the operator answered, he wiped his prints from the phone and laid it down on Joe’s worktable next to a mixing bowl. He glanced around for his coffee cup, but it was nowhere to be seen. Eve had either washed it or taken it with her. Maybe she hadn’t wanted his DNA found at the scene either.
Then he wiped the handle of the storage room door and checked once more to make sure Joe and Lisa would be visible to the first responders and ran back to the dining room. He jerked his overcoat off the chair where he’d draped it, ran to his SUV in the parking lot, and roared off down the street.
The first flashing blue lights appeared in his rearview mirror as he turned the corner at the end of the block. He could breathe easier for the time being. Now to find a secluded area and pull over to make a phone call. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble and killed two people in the process to get him to call Lainey. It made no sense. Why hadn’t they just told him to make the call?
The answer hit him before the question had finished running through his mind. Because somehow they knew he wouldn’t have called. He’d vowed he’d never speak to anyone in his family again, and he hadn’t in years. Now two innocent people had paid the ultimate price for the anger he harbored toward Richard and Lainey. The thought was like a knife twisting in his gut.
As he approached
the outskirts of town, he recalled seeing a sign that pointed to a small park when he’d passed here before. The entrance lay up ahead, and he swerved onto the snow-covered road that led toward a picnic area on the backside of a lake. The vehicle hadn’t come to a full stop before he yanked his cell phone from the clip on his belt.
For a moment all he could do was stare at the phone. He didn’t want to think about Lainey, much less talk to her. He raised his hands and pounded them against the steering wheel. He didn’t want to talk to her, the woman who from the day he’d met her had wanted four things—the DeHan name and money, the house where he’d grown up, and the business his father had built.
Well, she was welcome to it all. It hadn’t taken her long to turn to his brother when Ash left for training with Firebrand. And Richard had been only too happy to oblige her since he’d always been in love with her. With Richard’s death and Lainey the mother of their son and only DeHan heir, she had it made for the rest of her life. If she was in trouble, she deserved every bit of it.
The memory of Joe and Lisa lying in a pool of blood flashed in his mind, and he closed his eyes. The execution style of their murders, a gun with a silencer, and no witnesses left behind could only mean one thing—a professional hit. Was Eve the killer or did she have help? Somebody must really want him to talk to Lainey if they were willing to kill two innocent people to guarantee he’d make the call.
For that reason alone, he would call Lainey, and he would listen to what she had to say before he hung up. But if she thought she could persuade him to give her the time of day after that, she was mistaken.
He lifted the cell phone and punched in the number he’d committed to memory when he’d started kindergarten and had to know his personal information—his home phone number.
<><><>
Lainey sat in the big wingback chair in front of the fireplace in the den and sipped a cup of coffee. The flickering flames from the gas logs made her think of Richard. In the early days of their marriage he’d built real fires on cold nights, but she had never mastered the technique of starting a fire. That’s why right before his death he’d had the gas logs installed. He’d tried to think of everything that would make her life easier after he was gone.
Targeted (Firebrand Book 1) Page 2
