Classified Baby

by Jessica Andersen

  “At least something’s going my way today,” he muttered, leaning the dented bike against the concrete wall just inside the parking bay.

  As he crossed to the Jeep, his cell phone rang, surprising him. He glanced around and saw that where there had been cement before, now there was sky, letting the cell signal through.

  He flipped open the unit. “Ethan here.”

  “Ethan! Thank God.” Evangeline’s tone, the one she used when things were really going wrong on an op, tightened his gut.

  “What’s wrong?”

  A burst of static drowned out her answer.

  “Hang on,” he said loudly, walking toward the blasted-out section to boost the signal. “Say again?”

  “I said, we’re pretty sure Clive isn’t the mastermind of all the murders. There’s someone else involved.”

  Ethan tightened his fingers on the phone, gripping it so tightly the plastic edges of the unit bit into his skin. “Who?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Call Nicole,” he said urgently. “She’s with Blake Rothschild. Make sure they know they’re in—”

  A sharp blow slammed into the back of Ethan’s head. He staggered forward and went down, fuzzily aware that the phone skittered away and was crushed beneath a booted foot. Nearly unconscious, he cursed and reached for his gun as the booted foot drew back and kicked him hard. The blow rolled him over just as a second kick caught him in the temple and knocked him out, with one panicked thought accompanying him into the blackness.

  Nicole!

  “GOD, I couldn’t be happier to get into my own clothes,” Nic said with a heartfelt groan as she jogged down the short flight of stairs to the lower floor of her safe, familiar one-bedroom apartment.

  She found Blake in her kitchen, and was jarred by the sight of a man making sandwiches at her counter, and even more jarred by the faint jab of disappointment that his hair was sandy rather than gold-tipped brown, his clothes tailored rather than casually rugged.

  When he turned and smiled at her, she instinctively lifted a hand to tug at her clothes, which somehow felt odd, as though so much had happened over the past few days that her body should have changed.

  But she hadn’t changed, and it was time to get back to her old life. Or rather, back to the new life she’d be making for the baby and herself.

  She took a deep breath and told herself to smile, even though her stomach jangled. “You didn’t need to cook.”

  Blake grinned. “I’m not sure sandwiches count as cooking, but given my past experience with needing my body guarded, I figured it’d been a while since you’d eaten on anything resembling a normal schedule.”

  “You can say that again,” Nic said, and her laugh was genuine as she took a seat at the round table that was tucked into the open end of the kitchen.

  She saw that he’d set two places and put out coffee for himself, herbal tea for her. Her eyes wanted to fill when she realized he’d paid attention to what she’d asked for the first time they’d met, and had taken the trouble for her. Worse, the only thing it made her feel was uncomfortable.

  When he set down her plate and his, then sat, she took a deep breath. “Listen, Blake. I don’t know what or how much Ethan has told you about my situation, but…” She trailed off, not sure how to say what she thought needed to be said without sounding like an idiot if she’d misread the signals yet again.

  “But you’re in love with him,” Blake finished for her.

  “That wasn’t what I was going to say.” Nic did her best to hide a wince. “But, yeah. I’m in love with him.”

  Strangely enough, it felt good to say the words out loud, and realize that the world hadn’t ended. Nothing fundamental had changed—or rather, it had changed days ago when she’d seen Ethan climbing down to rescue her from the elevator, or maybe months ago, when she’d first looked into his eyes and seen someone she wanted to know better.

  Blake took her hand, linked their fingers and squeezed. “Don’t stress. I’m offering you my friendship and funding for your project, nothing more.”

  Nic felt a hot blush stain her cheeks. “Oh.” She lifted her hands to her face. “I’m sorry yet again. I know we talked about this before, but the way you were looking at me earlier, I thought—”

  “You thought right, but no matter what Ethan told me about you being available, the look in his eye says otherwise. That look says Hands off, she’s mine.”

  “Or not.” Nic sighed, but picked up her sandwich and dug in. “He can’t handle the idea of family or responsibility, and I refuse to put myself down again by struggling to make things work with a man who doesn’t love me enough to fight for me.”

  Blake frowned. “Don’t you think—”

  He was interrupted by a quiet knock at the front door, which was just down a short hall from the kitchen.

  Ethan, Nic thought, her heart giving a sharp jolt at the thought he hadn’t been able to bear the idea of her being alone with Blake.

  She was halfway across the kitchen before she was even aware of moving, only to have Blake catch her arm. “Wait,” he said, voice low. “Let me get it, just in case.”

  Having experienced far too many unpleasant surprises over the past few days, Nic wasn’t about to argue. She stayed close behind him as he headed for the door.

  He was a step away when the panel exploded inward, kicked or rammed with such force the lock ripped away from the wooden door frame. The door slammed into Blake, sending him staggering back into Nic. He grabbed for her but missed, and she fell backward onto the floor as two men charged into the apartment.

  One was tall and lean, his skin drawn so tight over his bones that it appeared shiny and faintly yellow. He wore a dark knit cap pulled low on his forehead and a navy jacket turned up at the collar, so that all she could see of his face was a hooked nose and a pair of cruel, ice-blue eyes. She recognized the other one instantly, recognized the blocky face, the straight nose and paradoxically full lips of the man from the hospital.

  Panic slashed and she screamed when the first guy pulled a knife and lunged at Blake.

  He dodged with a shout and grabbed for his attacker, twisting furiously in an effort to keep himself between Nic and both of the men. He ducked a punch, glanced back at her and snapped, “Run!”

  Indecision froze her in place as Blake swung a vicious kick at one of the men. In the split second his guard came down, the other guy landed a crippling kidney-punch that sent Blake staggering. The guy from the hospital turned toward Nic, eyes glittering. “Come on, sweetheart. It’ll go easier on you if you cooperate.”

  Nic spun and bolted away from the men, down a short hallway and through the kitchen, where a back door led to an alleyway behind the apartment building.

  She slammed through the door and skidded into the alley, feeling the cold on her damp hair and through the thick wool of her socks. Turning for the main road, she let out a gasp of relief at the sight of a passing car and the blue bubble lights on its roof.

  “Help!” she screamed, bolting for the police cruiser. “Help us!”

  A man stepped out from behind a Dumpster just short of the main street. His features were shadowed, his silhouette broad and his fighting stance an immediate warning that flared panic into Nic’s already panicked brain.

  She skidded to a halt and cried out when something sliced through her sock and into her foot—glass or a piece of metal or something that cut into her flesh bringing a sick wash of pain. She spun and tried to run the other way, but she slipped on the slick blood and her consciousness swam with the pain. Staggering, she’d taken only two steps before the shadow closed in on her and the man grabbed her by the upper arm, his fingers digging into her flesh with punishing intensity.

  Nic screamed and he twisted her arm behind her back and clamped his free hand across her mouth. Then he began dragging her deeper into the alley, toward where she saw a dark sedan parked behind an overly full Dumpster.

  She struggled and clawed at him, but to n
o avail. The sedan’s trunk popped open as they approached, and Nic screamed as he shoved her in and slammed the lid, cutting off the light.

  She continued to scream as the engine came to life and car doors slammed. The noise echoed in the tiny, cramped space, hurting her ears and pounding the fear into her brain. She sobbed and clawed at the inner locking mechanism, which wouldn’t budge, and howled when the car started moving, taking her away.

  The jolting ride made her miserably sick within minutes, forcing her to curl up with her arms clamped across her belly. As she lay there with tears trickling down her face, she prayed for another chance, for rescue.

  For Ethan.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Robert drove them through the first set of blast doors and they saw the damage that had been done to the Vault, Evangeline’s throat tightened. “Oh, no.”

  “Goddamn it.” A muscle ticked at the corner of his jaw, and his fingers clutched the steering wheel, bloodless with the force of his grip. “Ethan is ours. We’re not letting Clive and his thugs destroy anything else that belongs to us.”

  For the first time in a long, long time, since even before the plane crash, Evangeline believed it when he said “we” and “us,” believed that it meant more than a marriage, something closer to a partnership. But though the new closeness she and Robert had found in Spain warmed her, worry for Ethan grew as Robert gunned the SUV down the short concrete tunnel and into the main parking garage.

  “There!” Heart skipping a beat, she pointed to a corner of the lot, where the lights feeding off the backup generator left a darkly shadowed section.

  “I see it.” Jaw clenched, Robert sent them skidding into the corner, where they both jumped from the still-shuddering SUV to stare at a single hiking boot lying on the concrete.

  Robert glanced at her. “Ethan’s?”

  “Yes,” Evangeline whispered, throat tight. “But where—” She broke off at the muffled sound of another engine. “They’re taking him somewhere!”

  She spun back to their SUV, but stopped when Robert raised his hand. “Wait,” he said. “It’s not moving.”

  Sure enough, the engine noise didn’t change in pitch or distance. The vehicle was idling. But where?

  Evangeline drew the 9 mm she’d snagged from the safe house and followed the noise, conscious of her husband’s warm, solid presence at her back.

  They rounded a corner, where part of the ceiling had fallen in. Rocks and dirt littered the floor and the cement slabs made crazy angles that left Evangeline feeling tilted and unsteady, but the reinforcing metal beams were mostly in place, and the structure seemed solid enough. For the moment, anyway.

  “I don’t like the feel of this,” Robert said under his breath.

  “Me neither.” But she kept going, passing a colossal chunk of concrete, and hesitating at the sight of something large and square hidden beneath a tent-sized blue tarp, which was weighted down with broken concrete.

  The idling noise was coming from within.

  “Ethan!” Evangeline bolted forward and yanked at the tarp. “Ethan, answer me!”

  She heard nothing besides the engine’s idle and the crinkle of the blue tarp, which fought her efforts to pull it free.

  “Here. I’ve got it.” Robert kicked away several of the cement weights and heaved, his muscles bunching with the effort as the tarp pulled aside to reveal Ethan’s Jeep.

  A gush of foul air washed into their faces, making Evangeline gag. “God. Ethan!”

  The car windows were cracked at the top but so fogged that she couldn’t see in. She fought her way across the sagging tarp and yanked at the driver’s-side door, fearing the worst. She gasped when a heavy weight forced the door open and Ethan’s limp body tumbled out.

  She grabbed for him and nearly went down, saved only by her husband’s strong grip around her waist, and by his hands steadying Ethan’s dead weight. They lowered him carefully, then caught him beneath the arms and dragged him away from the foul air, around the corner to cleaner oxygen.

  “Is he—?” She couldn’t finish the question, fearing they had been too late, fearing that Clive and his associates had won, after all.

  Robert felt for the other man’s pulse and nodded. “He’s breathing and his lips aren’t blue. He must not’ve been in there too long, or else the tarp let in enough fresh air to keep him going.” He pulled Ethan partway up to a sitting position and gave him a shake. “Hey, Moore, wake up! You sleeping on the job?”

  Ethan groaned and muttered something that sounded anatomically impossible. Evangeline’s lips curved. “I think he’ll live.”

  Robert gave him another brusque shake. “Come on, Ethan. Nicole needs you.”

  That brought him around in an instant. Ethan’s eyes flew open and he reached up to grip Robert’s wrists where the other man held his collar. “What happened?”

  Robert shook his head. “We don’t know all the details yet, but they went straight through Rothschild and snatched her from her place. Blake’s in pretty rough shape, but he saw a dark green or dark blue sedan leaving, and wrote down plates that turned out to belong to a stolen HumVee, meaning they were switched out.”

  “In other words, you have no idea where she is.” Ethan shook off Robert and struggled to his feet. He stood, swaying, as bloodlust flared in his eyes. “You have Fuentes?”

  Robert nodded. “He’s back at the safe house, but he’s not talking yet.”

  “Take me there,” Ethan ordered, his tone brooking no argument. “He’ll talk to me.”

  ROBERT DROVE like a madman, but he still didn’t go fast enough for Ethan. Through the stabbing headache brought on by carbon monoxide poisoning, one thought drummed over and over in his brain.

  Nicole was counting on him. He couldn’t let her down.

  When they reached the safe house—an intentionally nondescript residence in a ruthlessly middle-class neighborhood outside Denver—he was the first one out of the car. His knees nearly buckled when he hit the ground running, but he forced himself to keep moving.

  He didn’t have time to be ill or injured. Not now. Not when Nic needed him most.

  “Where is he?” Ethan demanded the moment he slammed through a side door into the kitchen, where Angel had set up shop at a butcher-block breakfast bar.

  Instead of waving him past, the dark-clothed receptionist jumped up and stood in front of him, blocking his headlong rush.

  A month ago—hell, even a few days ago—she would’ve ducked the question or gotten confused, or maybe pretended to. Now, hardened by danger and death, grown into the woman he suspected Evangeline had seen beneath her haphazard shell, Angel fisted her hands on her hips, barring him from entering the rest of the house as Robert and Evangeline came through the door behind him.

  “Settle down,” Angel ordered, her voice surprisingly firm. “Take a breath and think about what you’re doing. If you go in there half-cocked, Fuentes will know he has the upper hand from the get-go, and you’ll come away with nothing. Is that what you want?”

  Ethan took a deep breath because she was right, damn it. He needed to get a grip before he went any further, or else he risked losing everything.

  He’d reacted without thinking once before, when he’d forsaken training to reach for Caro, and the burst of emotion had cost him. Now, he was damn well going to slow down and use his head, use all the logic he’d thought was his salvation but had turned out to be his excuse to keep himself separate from everyone else.

  Well, he wasn’t on his own now, Ethan knew. He was part of the team.

  Sucking in a breath and then letting it out slowly, he said, “Okay.” He took another breath and counted to three. “I’m cool.”

  Angel looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I think you are.” She stepped aside. “He’s in the second bedroom on the left. Cam and John are in there with him, but they haven’t gotten anything new. He just keeps repeating that this was all because of Robert.”

  Evangeline’s husband mutt
ered a curse, but at the moment, Ethan didn’t really care why, he only cared about getting Clive to tell him where Nicole had been taken. She was all that mattered right now.

  By the time Ethan opened the door to the back bedroom, he had tamped his panic down to cold, logical rage. Inside the small room, the bed had been shoved up against a wall to clear the center of the room. There, Clive sat in a heavy chair, cuffed to the sturdy wood by his wrists and ankles. Wearing a stained and rumpled suit, he still managed to exude the graceful power Ethan had noted in the photographs PPS had managed to collect.

  Cold logic, he reminded himself when the rage threatened to swamp him. Brutal self-control kept him from flinging himself on Fuentes and strangling the bastard. Instead, he jerked his chin at Cam and John, who sat in folding chairs against the opposite wall, keeping watch over the prisoner. “Give us a minute, will you?”

  The other men rose. John leaned down to glare at Clive, lips pulled back in a sneer. “We’ll be back.” Then he left, with Cam following.

  As they passed, Cam gripped Ethan’s shoulder briefly in a gesture that transmitted support and respect, and a level of friendship Ethan wasn’t sure he deserved, but was damn sure going to try to earn in the next few minutes.

  When the others were gone and the door had shut in their wake, Ethan grabbed one of the unoccupied chairs and spun it around so he could straddle it and lean his folded arms on the backrest as he glared at the captured but unbowed ex-spy.

  Ethan wasn’t a trained interrogator, and as far as he knew, they were fresh out of truth serum and torture devices. Among the PPS operatives, Robert probably had the most experience with this sort of thing, along with a hell of a motivation, yet he’d been unable to crack Fuentes’s silence, which boded ill for this interrogation.