Nic huddled with the others in a miserable, scared knot.
“I smell something,” Zach whispered.
She would have snapped at him to shut the heck up, but she smelled it, too, a faintly rotten odor that crinkled the hairs inside her nose and made her want to cough.
Hurry, Ethan, she thought. Hurry!
He blasted the lock and kicked the door open, then disappeared into the room, his path lit only by the faint luminance of his penlight. Moments later, the light brightened considerably and he reappeared carrying a half-dozen larger, military-type flashlights. He shook his head. “No gas masks, but take these.” He passed out the flashlights.
Nic accepted one and snapped it on. As the scared group followed Ethan down the long, unlit corridor, she pressed her sleeve to her nose and mouth, trying to filter out the gas. Still, her head spun and her feet dragged against each other as Ethan turned down another hallway.
Behind her, she heard someone fall, heard the others dragging the fallen person up and onward. Instead of panicking, Nic sped up to match Ethan’s pace and touched his hand. When he looked over at her, she said, “You can do this.” She halfway expected him to push her away, to push away the responsibility he’d been saddled with.
Instead, he took her hand and squeezed it, and led her into the darkness.
Chapter Nine
Spain
Robert had been in the sun-baked box truck for nearly two days without food—and more importantly, without water—when he finally heard someone outside. Survival instincts clamored for him to make noise and attract attention, but his MI6 training had him keeping quiet until he figured out whether the approaching footsteps belonged to friend or foe.
He had his answer moments later, when he heard the sounds of a padlock being undone, followed by the rattle of chains and the metallic clanks of the accordion door being unlatched. Feigning unconsciousness, he lay limply on his side with his arms and legs still bound and his face pressed against the dirty floor of the box compartment. He positioned himself to face the door, though, and kept his eyelids slitted.
It was all he could do to keep himself still when the door rolled up to reveal a heavyset, bearded stranger holding an unconscious Evangeline draped over his shoulder, fireman-style.
Rage roared through Robert, tensing his limbs and bringing his heartbeat to a thunder in his ears at the sight of her, bruised and battered and unutterably beautiful.
And captured, goddamn it.
Behind her captor, Clive Fuentes gestured with a pistol. “Toss her in. I’d rather kill them and dump the bodies, but they still have value to me for another day.” He looked directly at Robert. “You hear that, Robert? You’ve got twenty-four hours to say goodbye to your wife.”
His age-graveled voice still held the tones of years earlier, when he’d been Robert’s friend and mentor.
The betrayal banded Robert’s muscles like iron, making them tremble with hatred. Clive had tried to kill him, all but ruining his marriage in the process. And for what? Oil revenue and a dirty investment scheme. What a waste of an agent, of a human being who’d once done the right thing.
Robert forced himself to stay still as the bearded thug unceremoniously dumped Evangeline near the door. The guy shot Clive a look. “You want to tie her or anything?”
Clive scowled. “What’s the worst she can do in the next twenty-four, pull his zip ties off? That won’t get them out of the truck, and it won’t change the fact that we’re practically in the middle of nowhere.” He waved to the door. “Just lock ’em in. Won’t matter if they make noise. Heck, none of it is going to matter after tomorrow.”
With that, he reached up and yanked on a dangling strap. The accordion door rolled down and closed with a decisive slam, followed by the clank and clatter of the padlock.
Robert opened his eyes the same moment Evangeline opened hers. In the weak daylight that filtered through vents high overhead, they locked gazes, not daring to speak yet, not daring to move. He drank in the sight of her, and the relief that her eyes were clear and angry, good evidence that she’d been faking unconsciousness as thoroughly as he had.
Are you okay? he mouthed, fearing the dark bruise on the porcelain skin of her cheek might indicate worse injuries elsewhere.
But her lips quirked, then shaped the words, I’m okay. You?
Fine. But on the heels of relief came sick anger, partly self-directed, partly aimed at his wife. When the sound of footsteps faded with distance and then went silent, he swung around into the partway-seated position he’d perfected over forty-eight hours of being bound hand and foot, with his shoulders pressed against the wall of the truck, his hands at the small of his back and his legs stuck out in front of him. Then he scowled at his wife. “I thought I told you to stay the hell in the Vault.”
There was no doubt in his mind that she’d come after him, and been captured in the process. He knew her too well to believe otherwise.
He expected her to snap back at him, to snarl as they’d been doing at each other too often lately. Instead, she climbed to her feet, wincing once or twice, and crossed to him. Then she bent down and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “One of these days you’ll remember that I work with you, not for you.”
Then she stood back and lifted the hem of her bedraggled shirt, which had once been a pale pink button-down. At first, his libido kicked in with some seriously kinky images. Then he got it, and anger turned to shock as she peeled a microscopically thin flap of flesh-toned latex away from the small of her back, revealing a flat, button-like device adhered to her skin beside a small chip with tiny fiber leads.
“You’re bugged,” he said, feeling like a royal ass. “You planned this. God, I love you.”
She smiled, but touched a finger to her lips and mouthed, Are they listening?
He shook his head. “Why bother? You heard Clive. He doesn’t consider me a threat anymore.” Which begged the question of why he’d been kept alive thus far.
What—or who—was the bastard waiting for?
“Good,” Evangeline said. She pulled both devices free and dropped to a cross-legged sitting position. After fiddling with the flat button for a moment, she set it aside on the floor of the box truck, then cued up the miniature transmitter and fixed one of the fibers along her jawline. “Cameron? Can you hear me?”
Robert closed his eyes, beginning to believe he might be given a second chance—or was it a third or fourth chance at this point?—to right things with the people he cared about the most.
“You have our position?” Evangeline said quietly, then nodded. “See you then.” But as she was reaching to kill the connection, her hand stilled. “What?”
Robert heard the horror in her voice and immediately leaned forward, though there was no way he could overhear the fiber transmission, so he was forced to wait until she said, “Got it. Out.” She killed the connection with a shaking hand, and turned stricken eyes toward him. “The security system at the Vault transmitted an automated Mayday two hours ago. The main door was breached, and there’s been no contact from anyone inside since.” A tear welled up. “For all we know, they’re already dead.”
Colorado, USA
ETHAN JOGGED down the narrow tunnel with the others behind him, hoping to hell he hadn’t gotten himself turned around in the mazelike corridors.
The tunnel they were in now was old construction, and the air was damp and faintly musty. If he was remembering the schematics correctly, it should lead them to a concealed exit. If he was wrong, they were in serious trouble.
At the thought, he glanced back at Nicole, who hadn’t asked for any of this. She followed close behind him, with the PPS personnel strung out at her back. Each footstep was a reminder of the lives depending on him. If their attackers didn’t know about the escape hatch, they’d be able to get out and call for help. If the attackers knew, though, he’d just given them a perfect opportunity for an ambush.
The responsibility weighed on him, reminding him why it
was best to remain alone. If nobody was depending on him, he couldn’t let anyone down.
In the near distance, his flashlight beam picked out where the tunnel dead-ended at an airlock-type door with an old-fashioned wheeled lock.
Nerves fired in his veins. He stopped at the door and waved the others back. “I’m going to have a look around.” He focused on Nicole. “Once I’m through the door I want you to shut and lock it behind me. If everything’s okay, I’ll knock, three short, three long.”
She nodded. “Be careful.” Her eyes were huge in her pale face.
Don’t rely on me, he wanted to tell her. I’ve never been good at coming through for people I care about. But that would’ve been admitting that he was coming to care, which wasn’t good for either of them.
Still, he couldn’t stop himself from leaning down and touching his lips to hers. “See you in a few minutes.”
Then he spun the lock, shoved open the heavy door and stepped through.
STILL ABLE to taste his quick kiss on her lips, Nic closed the door behind Ethan. If she were on her own, she would’ve kept it selfishly cracked, needing to know he could get back to safety if he needed to. But she wasn’t alone, so she spun the locking mechanism to seal the door, then waited with her hand pressed to the cold metal panel, listening for his knock. Three short, three long, he’d said. A practical code, no-nonsense, like Ethan himself.
“Do you think they’re out there?” Angel asked, her voice too loud, so it carried to the others and then echoed into the darkness beyond their flashlight beams.
“Sh. I need to listen.” Nic pressed closer to the door, hoping his signal would come soon. The claustrophobia and the panic had been mostly manageable when they were moving, but now, stuck in the narrow, dead-end tunnel, the fear took root and grew.
What if he didn’t knock? She couldn’t lead them back the way they’d come, but if she couldn’t go forward, what then? What if—
Finally, he knocked—three short, three long. Expelling a breath on a relieved rush, she spun the wheel, pushed open the door and stepped through.
The sun was a warm shock after the tunnel’s chill, and the sight of Ethan was an even warmer relief. He nodded to her. “We’re clear.” He lifted his cell phone before tucking it back in his pocket. “I called Blake. He’s going to phone Detective Riske and get us some transportation and an escort.”
“Where are we going?” Zach asked, voice cracking with exhaustion and stress. “If they found the Vault, they can find us anywhere.”
“I’m sending you to the PPS safe house,” Ethan said. “It’ll be a tight squeeze to get you all in there, but the security’s top-notch, and the cops will help lock the place down.”
“We were supposed to be safe in the Vault.” Zach scowled. “But they came after us anyway. What makes you think we’ll be any better off in the safe house?”
“Because they don’t want you,” Ethan said, expression shuttered. “They want Nicole, and she and I won’t be going with you.”
A hitch of fear shimmied through Nic’s gut alongside an equal measure of relief. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt, and knew that Ethan was right—the others would be better off without her. But at the same time, there was a feeling of safety in numbers, a buffer between her and Ethan.
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” he said. “We’ll wait here with the door open, just in case, until Blake and the cops arrive. They’re going to take you to the safe house, where you’ll stay until Evangeline or another PPS field agent tells you otherwise, got it?” He waited for the reluctant nods, then said, “Since Nic and I aren’t going with you, someone else is going to have to be in charge. Who is it?”
To Nic’s surprise the group shuffled for a moment, then turned to the dark-haired goth in their center.
Zach said, “Angel’s our girl.”
When the others nodded in agreement, the receptionist stood up a little straighter, her shoulders came back, and her chin lifted. A new gleam entered her eyes and she nodded, almost hesitantly. “I can do it.” When Ethan didn’t say anything right away, she insisted, “I can. I know you and the others think I’m a disaster. Even Evangeline treats me differently, and she’s the one who wanted me at PPS in the first place. And I deserved it, I know I did—messing up the phone messages and stuff. But I’m better than that. I can be better than that, I know I can.” She looked back at the others. “If these guys are willing to trust me, then I’d better step up.” This time her nod was decisive. “I can do it.”
Ethan reached out and clasped her shoulder briefly. “I believe you.” He nodded beyond her, to where a big coach bus was pulling up at the side of the road, flanked by police cruisers. “Time to go.” He let his hand fall away. “Be careful.”
Angel looked from Ethan to Nic and back, worry evident in her dark-shadowed eyes. “You, too. And keep in touch. I’ll do my best to coordinate the investigation from the safe house, even without all of our equipment.”
“Thanks, but I have a feeling the investigation won’t be going on much longer.” Ethan waved them to the bus. “Go on, get out of here.”
THE BUS pulled out a few minutes later, leaving Nic and Ethan alone, sheltered in a stand of bushes near the concealed emergency exit. She felt the silence crowding her, pressing her closer to his warm, reassuring bulk as dusk darkened the mountainous horizon. “What didn’t you want the others to know?” she asked quietly.
He glanced down at her. After a moment’s pause, he said, “I think something went wrong in Madrid. Evangeline’s phone went straight to voice mail, which means she turned it off, and she never turns off her phone. I got through to Cam, but he was in a hurry. Wouldn’t give me any details, just told me to watch my back. He sounded worried, though, and Cam never worries.”
She reached out and gripped his forearm, and felt the tension humming through him. He was afraid for his friends—for Evangeline and the other agents, for Angel and the staffers he’d sent to the safe house. He was more a part of the team than he thought, she realized, feeling a faint beat of sadness that she wasn’t part of anyone’s team.
“There’s more,” he said. “And you’re not going to like it.”
She stared into the gathering darkness for a long moment before saying quietly, “They’re out there waiting for us, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Call it a gut instinct. Problem is, with all the rocky hills and caves just north of here, it’d be impossible for the cops to flush them out, even if they had the manpower. Robert and the other field agents might’ve been able to manage it, but they’re not here.” He paused. “The Vault is compromised, so we can’t go back in. I think our best bet is to make a run for it.”
She took a deep breath to settle the sudden queasiness in her stomach, and nodded. “I trust you.”
He stared at her for a long moment, expression bleak. Finally, he said, “We’ll move out once it’s dark. I asked Blake to stash a vehicle for us. We’ll need to make sure they keep us in sight long enough to know we’re not headed to the safe house.” He paused, not bothering to voice the obvious corollary, that if they were close enough to see, they’d be close enough to shoot. “I’m sorry. If there were any other way…” He trailed off, frustration evident in the long lines of his body, in the tension across his face and shoulders.
She shook her head. “They’re not after you, or Evangeline’s office staff. They’re after me. They want me dead before I start remembering what I saw that day.”
“Is any of it coming back?”
“Maybe.” She blew out a breath, suddenly angry that there was a blank spot where the memory should have been. “At this point I don’t know what’s an actual memory and what’s just wishful thinking. I can picture the helicopter and the guy with the rocket launcher, who I’m pretty sure is the same guy from the hospital. The build and clothes are right…at least I think they are. Maybe I’m projecting that, too.” She closed her eyes and concentrated,
which only made the hazy images seem less distinct. “There was a pilot wearing a headset, and someone sitting next to him, but I don’t have any details on either of them.”
“They were probably too far away for you to get a good look,” Ethan said. He gave her hand a quick squeeze, and she was surprised to realize they were close together in the lee of the concealed doorway, nearly embracing as she gripped his forearm with one hand, while his opposite hand held hers. Their faces were very near, their bodies sharing warmth as the quick dusk fell around them. Heat shifted inside her. Need.
Overhead, the first star came to life, a poignant reminder that they weren’t underground anymore.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She closed the distance between them, until their breaths mingled on a warm puff of air as she said, “If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think we would’ve made it out.”
The darkness bound them together in that moment, with the light of a single star twinkling down on them. She hesitated a moment, giving him the chance to move away. Instead he eased down to her as she eased up to him, and their lips met in a moment of silent accord.
The kiss began as a soft touch of sensitized skin, a brush of warmth and moist air. Then, as though he’d been waiting for the moment, for the invitation, Ethan gave in to her, leaned into her on a groan. And took.
His tongue swept into her mouth, claiming, possessing, stamping his flavor on each of her neurons as heat flared to life, centered in her core and then spearing outward to her fingertips, which held on to him like a lifeline. She gasped at the sensations and he crowded closer, spinning them until she had her back pressed against the smooth metal of the concealed doorway.
Her full breasts melded to the hard wall of his chest, chafing the aching want to a spiral of pleasure. Lower down, she felt the hard evidence of his desire and gloried in the sensation, in the promise. They strained together, their kiss expanding from gratitude to something far bigger, far more important.
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