The Kill Shot

by Nichole Christoff

  Marc’s own hands were quick and strong. I’d found that out when he announced he’d wire me up himself. With the self-assurance of a neurosurgeon, he’d loosened the impeccable knot in his ruby-red tie, rolled up the sleeves of his made-to-measure dress shirt, and ordered me to unbutton my clothes. But despite Marc’s overabundance of confidence, I didn’t miss the crease of concern marring his forehead. Or the way he kept muttering about me and Kevlar.

  “Relax,” I told him. “I don’t need Kevlar. Liedecker’s harmless and I’ve got you and your team to back me up.”

  “Just don’t test that theory, all right?”

  Marc sent the sound tech on her way, snatched my charcoal-gray suit coat from a hook on the tiled wall, and handled it with all the finesse of a bullfighter. When he helped me into it, his fingertips lingered on my lapels. And if I didn’t know better, I’d have said the Evening Star sparkled in his obsidian eye.

  “Be careful, Jamie.”

  “I’m always careful,” I replied.

  And I meant it.

  Marc opened his mouth to say something more. But an agent manning a monitor interrupted him. “Time to boogie.”

  Marc and I turned. And there, on one of the electronic screens, was Stan Liedecker, strutting through the parking structure like he’d just won the lottery. I shoved my nerdy, square-rimmed glasses up the bridge of my nose, grabbed the handle of the ordinary leatherette briefcase Marc had had filled for me, and went out to meet him.

  Reagan National Airport is a long string of terminals, linked one to another like beads on a bracelet. Sandwich shops and newspaper stands hug the curving walls, trying to tempt travelers into spending their cash before boarding their planes. In front of an establishment called Capitol Coffee, I found Liedecker sitting at a little bistro table, sipping something steamy from a paper cup.

  In a maroon sweater, worsted wool pants, and penny loafers, he was dressed like every other late middle-aged, Washington stuffed-shirt on his day off. He’d brought an overnight bag with him. It rested on the chrome chair beside him. I supposed he had his toothbrush in it—and his bankbook for his off-shore account, too. I could make out his round-trip ticket to the Cayman Islands protruding from the bag’s end pocket like a feather in a hat.

  But I had what Stan Liedecker really wanted.

  He grinned like a fat cat who’d swallowed too much cream when he caught sight of me approaching his table.

  I slid into the seat across from him, stood the briefcase upright on my lap.

  “I’d buy you a cup of coffee,” he said, “but I’m about to board my plane.”

  “That’s all right.” I patted the side of the leatherette case. “I’ve brought you a parting gift.”

  Marc had made sure case was full of the well-worn fifty dollar bills Liedecker had demanded. Altogether, they weighed close to twenty pounds. And were worth half a million dollars.

  “Payment in full,” I said, though I knew guys like Liedecker always came back for another touch. “You’ll stick to your end of the bargain?”

  “Of course.” He nodded. And he smiled.

  But I needed him to spell it out. I needed him to say I was buying his influence at the FDA with this money. And I needed him to admit he was willfully breaking the law so the wire I wore could transmit his confession to the authorities.

  Instead, Stan Liedecker slid a little plastic baggie across the table to me. “This is for you.”

  A baker’s dozen of waxy pink-and-white capsules gleamed inside the bag.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “Just a recreational indulgence someone at another company cooked up.”

  I didn’t touch the packet.

  Liedecker chuckled. “Don’t worry. They’re on the house. I can get you more, if you like. And tell your boss I’m still willing to fix his clinical trial problem. For another half mil, of course.”

  Liedecker grinned at me. I wanted to slam the heel of my hand into his nose and feel the satisfying crunch of his splintered cartilage beneath my pulse, but I made nice and smiled at him in return. After all, he’d just said the words that would sound so good in front of a federal judge.

  “Well,” he said, glancing at his Rolex. “Mustn’t be late.”

  He rose from his seat, reached for the briefcase.

  I stood and gladly offered it to him. Because the second the man’s liver-spotted hand curled around the handle, Marc would move in. He’d arrest Liedecker. The scumbag would face jail time for illegally lining his pockets. And for offering to approve untested drugs that could kill people.

  But things didn’t happen that way.

  A lady with a tight perm and a loose cardigan paused as she passed our table. She let out an ear-piercing squeal, dropped her orange plastic Capitol Coffee tray as if it had bitten her. Hot liquid splashed everywhere. Liedecker and I looked down to see fat drops of coffee bead on his shiny shoes. We looked up and followed the woman’s pointing finger.

  Halfway across the open expanse of the terminal, Marc was on the move, closing in like a bird of prey. His helmeted agents zoomed toward us like a swarm of hornets. Their flat-black assault rifles were nocked to their shoulders—and each one aimed at Liedecker.

  “Guns!” the woman shrieked.

  Heads turned. Travelers screamed. Men and women ran every which way. Some cowered on the floor. Panicked parents dragged their children behind the cover of trashcans or concrete planters full of ficus—just in case bullets began to fly.

  But none of this fazed Stan Liedecker.

  With a snarl, he shoved the briefcase into my chest. My arms locked around it as the impact knocked me back a step. That’s when Liedecker grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “You sold me out!”

  I gritted my teeth, twisted up and out, and slammed the edge of the briefcase into Liedecker’s wrist. But I couldn’t break his grip. He jerked me to him, spun me around—and wedged his arm beneath my throat in a fierce headlock.

  Marc’s eyes locked with mine. His hand dove beneath his suit coat. It came up with his service weapon.

  “Stand back!” Liedecker shouted at him. “Everyone just stand back or I’ll break this woman’s neck!”

  He’d do it, too. I knew he would. Especially when his groping hand plunged beneath my jacket. It closed over the transmitter clipped to my trousers. Liedecker ripped it free of its wire, threw the thing to shatter on the ground.

  At my back, his body quivered with rage. And the pressure he applied to the point of my chin strained the muscles in my neck. I was certain he’d carry out his threat.

  I was certain he’d snap my spine.

  Marc and his agents were certain, too. They froze where they stood. But they didn’t lower their weapons.

  Adrenaline shivered through me like a sickness. But so did fear. And I refused to give into it.

  I swallowed against the pressure at my throat, dredged up all the authority I could muster, and made my voice strong with it. “Think it through, Stan. You hurt me, I fall. And all those agents get a clear shot at your center mass.”

  “Then you’re coming with me,” he snapped, “because I’m getting on that plane. And you’re holding my bank roll.”

  He was right.

  I still cradled the briefcase to my chest.

  He jerked me backward, forced me to keep in step with him. We weren’t far from his gate. Or from his plane.

  “You’ll never get on board,” I warned.

  “Who’s going to stop me? The TSA?”

  “No. I will.”

  Liedecker snorted and his arm drew tighter. “That’s big talk for one of Pharmathon’s pretty little technocrats. What are you really? A federal marshal?”

  “I’m mad as hell,” I lied, “so be smart and let me go.”

  But Liedecker had other ideas. He shoved my chin high and hard. Pain lanced my brain box—and my fingers flicked the clasps on the top of the briefcase.

  The lid of the little valise dropped open.

&
nbsp; And all of Stan Liedecker’s glorious cash slipped from inside.

  Stan gasped as an avalanche of fifty-dollar bills tumbled to his feet and streamed across the floor. Like the greedy bastard he was, he let go of me to grab them. And when he bent to rake at his money, I didn’t hesitate.

  I slammed the blade of my hand into the base of his skull. Muscle and bone met the soft spot at the top of his neck. Stan Liedecker gurgled. He dropped to his knees. And when he fell face-first onto the floor, his head went thump against the hard surface—just like a rotten melon.

  Of course, from where I stood, it sounded rather like justice.

  Chapter 2

  Eighteen minutes later, Stan Liedecker had been cuffed and stuffed into the back of a DEA fleet sedan. I’d turned down a pair of paramedics who offered me a ride to the hospital. They threw in the added attraction of a neck X-ray, but they still couldn’t tempt me. I wanted to be with Marc and his team of agents in the crowded ladies’ restroom. In the company of a flock of federal prosecutors, we watched the video footage and listened to the recording of my encounter with Liedecker. And when the fool said the magic words that would translate into a prison sentence, everybody cheered.

  A burly agent in a bulletproof vest offered me an enthusiastic high five. A prosecutor in pearls swung her rump to mine for a happy hip bump. Even Marc caught me in his arms. He hugged me close. And he wasn’t in a hurry to let me go.

  “You did it, Jamie.”

  “We did it,” I said. Because I certainly didn’t deserve all the credit.

  “We,” he repeated. “I like the sound of that.”

  And that’s when Marc Sandoval winked at me.

  I couldn’t say I hadn’t noticed Marc was a handsome man. Black-haired and hard-eyed, Marc looked more like a renegade biker than an uptown banker despite the beautiful suit he wore. The DEA shield he’d clipped to his belt didn’t do a thing to smooth his rough edges, either—and that was quite all right.

  “You know,” he said, “you had me worried for a minute.”

  “Only for a minute?”

  Liedecker, I was certain, would remember me for much longer.

  “Have a drink with me,” Marc said, “and I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking for days.”

  It was an intriguing offer.

  But I shook my head.

  “I can’t, Marc. Thank you, though.”

  I slipped from his embrace, hunted up my overcoat, and willfully overlooked the DEA agent’s deepening frown.

  “What’s your hurry, Jamie? Hot date?”

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. I had more than a hot date.

  I had a houseguest.

  And I couldn’t get home to him fast enough.

  Granted, by Washington, DC, standards, the route from Reagan National Airport to my place in the heart of Old Town Alexandria was a quick trip. In fact, the expedition was hardly long enough for a phone call to Hudson Paul. But to me, the journey still lasted an eternity.

  Sooner rather than later, however, I eased my glossy green Jaguar XJ-8 into the alley that ran behind my rehabbed 1803 townhouse. I punched my complicated PIN into the keypad that opened my garage and drove inside. Once the door was down, I got out of my car.

  Upstairs, in the kitchen on the house’s main level, I found the private nurse I’d hired. She had roses in her cheeks and silver in her hair and her deep purple surgical scrubs had been ironed to within an inch of their life. She was drying my big stoneware mixing bowl with an Irish linen dishtowel when I greeted her and behind her, cooling on the range-top, rested a pan of freshly baked lasagna. The savory scent of oregano wafted all the way across the room to me.

  “How’s the patient?” I asked her.

  She smiled ruefully, draped the dishtowel over the lip of my farmhouse sink to dry. “He’s a little cranky, but he’s trying not to show it. He sure is ready to get that cast off his leg.”

  Of that, I had no doubt.

  In the spring, I’d met Mrs. Montgomery’s patient. He was a soldier with a moral compass that pointed true, a soft spot for stray dogs, and a smile that put sunlight to shame. And this fall, he’d had my back when I’d tangled with an operative of a particular terror organization on a secret military installation. As a result, he’d ended up getting hurt. With a leg broken in three places.

  Facing surgery and rounds of check-ups at the DC-area’s new Walter Reed Army Hospital, he would’ve had to endure the discomfort of a long stay in the military’s temporary housing, the expense of a shabby motel room near the hospital compound, or the trial of travel to and from his own New Jersey digs.

  So I’d invited him to stay with me.

  And Lieutenant Colonel Adam Barrett had accepted.

  Now, after six long weeks of pain and pills and staying put, Barrett’s cast would come off in the morning. He couldn’t wait. And neither could I.

  I couldn’t wait to see him either, so I wished Mrs. Montgomery a pleasant evening and left her to make her own way to the front door. I dumped my overcoat and suit jacket on an obliging chair and hurried down the hall. I stuck to the deep, Savonerie runner streaking down the middle of the floor and let its deep pile swallow any clicks my handmade high-heeled shoes might’ve made on the hardwood. At the open door to the guest room, I paused. And while my heart did somersaults, I peeped around the jamb.

  There, on this side of the crewelwork coverlet, Adam Barrett reclined like some kind of recuperating Celtic hero. The hulking cast that encased his leg from toes to hip had been propped on enough pillows to furnish a high-end hotel. And Mrs. Montgomery had heaped plenty more against the mahogany headboard.

  Barrett’s blond head lolled across them, his hair a little shaggy according to army standards. Abandoned books were stacked beside him on the nightstand. And well within reach, his aluminum crutches gleamed against the wall.

  While I watched, Barrett tucked a muscled arm behind the nape of his neck. The TV’s remote control lay listlessly in his other hand. He flipped from one channel to another, too late in the season to find a baseball game and too alone to complain about it.

  I said, “Hello, soldier. What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

  The frown Barrett had been sporting vanished immediately. He shoved himself a little higher on the cushions. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Us private eyes aren’t called gumshoes for nothing.”

  “Well, you look great, shoes and all.”

  “When the doc cuts you loose tomorrow, you might never want to look at me again.”

  “That’s not gonna happen,” he said.

  And I smiled in spite of myself.

  “Mrs. Montgomery’s headed home,” I told him, “but she left us lots of lasagna. We could get you out of here. Move you into the dining room for a dinner party. Or have a picnic on the living room floor.”

  Barrett nodded acceptance. But it wasn’t enthusiasm. Belatedly, I realized why.

  To get to a picnic on the floor, Barrett would need my help.

  For any soldier, accepting help was a challenge. In the field and at home, our men-and women-in-arms are expected to be self-sufficient. And they are.

  But for Barrett, accepting help was even more difficult. Because he wasn’t just a soldier who took orders. He was a capable military police commander who gave them.

  “Forget what I said,” I urged him. Because I never wanted Barrett to feel like less than he was. Not when he meant so much to me.

  And it was this that propelled me across the room.

  Determined to perk him up, I drew alongside his bed, stepped out of my elegant shoes. Careful of his cast, I sank a knee into the mattress beside his thigh. And swinging a leg across his lap, I straddled him in one smooth move.

  With a fingertip, I traced the letters stamped on the old gray sweatshirt he wore—A-R-M-Y—and I smiled. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  The television remote dropped from Barrett’s grasp.

  And his hands
gripped my hips.

  “Whatever it is,” he replied, “I’m going to say yes.”

  Truth be told, in the seven months since we’d met, Barrett and I hadn’t had the opportunity to say yes to much of anything. And that went double for sex. But I’d been okay with that. Because sex is a game changer. And anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

  In recent days, however, Barrett and I had booked a weekend getaway to celebrate his return to health. When Friday rolled around, we’d be headed to Virginia’s wine country where we’d spend our days walking the vineyards. And our nights? Well, neither of us had suggested definitive plans. But I thought we both had a pretty good idea how we’d finally be spending those.

  “Tonight,” I said, smoothing my hands along Barrett’s broad chest. “Don’t worry about dinner in the dining room. We can stay right here.”

  “Sure. This bed’s the ideal place,” Barrett replied, “to have lasagna.”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed. “And Mrs. Montgomery probably left a salad in the fridge.”

  “But she’s gone for the day?”

  “She is.”

  “So we’re alone?”

  “We are.”

  “Hmm,” Barrett said. “I do like lasagna.”

  But lasagna was the last thing on my mind when he bent his good leg, changed the angle of his lap. The move tipped me into him. And his mouth met mine.

  Anytime Barrett kissed me—every time he kissed me—was like wading barefoot into a rushing river. The shock of him always left me breathless. And the swift slipstream of his intensity always threatened to sweep me away.

  But what a way to go.

  As one kiss led to another, I wrapped my arms around Barrett’s neck. His left hand traveled the line of my thigh. It flexed behind my right knee—and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back. With Barrett on top of me. His bodyweight pinning me to the comforter in a combat move made playful by passion.

  “Your leg—” I breathed.

  “—is fine.”

  “I’ll feel better when I hear the doctor saying that tomorrow.”