Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Exit StrategyPaybackCovert Justice

by Shirlee McCoy

  He rested his cheek on the top of her head as the pieces fell into place. The scars. Burns. Horrible burns. She’d told him the Kovacs had scarred her for life. He’d assumed it was a metaphorical statement, but now he realized she’d been telling him the literal truth.

  “Baby, I’m sorry. The fire is out, honey.” He kept up a steady stream of encouragement as her shaking slowed to trembling. She relaxed out of the tight ball she’d curled into and leaned her head against his chest as her breathing eased.

  “They killed them.”

  She took a deep shuddering breath, and he hastened to reassure her.

  “You don’t have to tell—”

  “I was sixteen. They placed me in a foster family that had a twenty-one-year-old son…”

  A violent tremor rocked through her. Blake fought back the nausea as the implications of what she was saying registered. “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do!” Her voice shook as she yelled at him. “I do! Because you have to understand.”

  He had no idea what to do. He sensed that she expected him to push her away, so he held her. Tight. She squirmed in his arms. He refused to let go. She could break free if she wanted to, and if she put up a serious objection, he’d release her immediately.

  For a moment, he thought she might punch him.

  Then the air whooshed out of her and she went limp in his arms.

  “When he came after me, I ran. Rachel was twenty, working at the restaurant I stopped in to get warm. She asked a few questions that I thought I’d deflected, but fifteen minutes later, this couple shows up and slides into my booth. Her parents, David and Angie Thompson.

  “I still don’t know why I told them everything, but I did. Next thing I knew, I was in a clean house with a clean room just for me, wearing clean clothes. I fell off the grid and they caught me. Put me in school. Became my family.”

  She sniffed.

  “It was the happiest year of my life. I made good grades, went to church, discovered there was Someone who had loved me forever and would love me forever. Fell head over heels in love with Jesus and truly believed my life would be glorious and wonderful forever.”

  She shrugged in his arms. “I didn’t know anything about Rachel’s boyfriend for a while. Even after I met him, I didn’t know who he was—who his family was. I didn’t know how much danger we were all in.”

  More pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Was he a Kovac?”

  “Yes. Jozsef Kovac. He went by Joe. Markos’s oldest brother. He was the apple of his grandfather’s eye, which was the only reason he hadn’t yet faced any consequences for his refusal to join the family business. But his uncles wouldn’t stop pressuring him. When he and Rachel told the Thompsons what was going on, they were horrified. Not that she’d fallen in love with the grandson of a crime boss, but that they intended to elope and disappear to avoid his family’s retaliation.”

  She swallowed hard.

  “They should have stuck to that plan. It would have saved their lives.”

  “The Kovacs found out?”

  “Oh, yeah. Mr. Thompson had a lot of connections, and he’d agreed to help them. The plan was to set them up in Canada. In Vancouver. Things were almost finalized, and as far as anyone knew, no one in the Kovac family had a clue.”

  “How did they find out?”

  “I still don’t know for sure. I suspect they were being followed. They may have even bugged them. Either way, someone in the Kovac family decided to make an example of them. I believe it was one of his uncles. His grandfather is a horrible, violent man, but he loved him, and so did his father. But some of his uncles are worse than his grandfather ever thought about being, and one of them gave the order.

  “We were at home. All of us. The Thompsons, Rachel, Joe and me. It was going to be our last meal together before they ran. Mrs. Thompson asked me to go out to the garage to get some Cokes out of the fridge. I remember I had my hands full of cans. Then everything exploded.”

  He squeezed her tighter and rocked back and forth as he would when comforting Maggie.

  “I don’t remember much after that. Heat and pain. My clothes melted into my back. It took weeks of skin grafts and surgeries and—”

  What could he say? He held her and prayed.

  “Uncle Frank was Rachel’s godfather, and even before then, he’d decided he was my godfather, too. He and Aunt Ginny had welcomed me into the family because the Thompsons had. Mr. Thompson must have confided in Uncle Frank, because when I regained consciousness, they were there. He’d arranged for it to look like I was killed in the blast. I left the hospital with a new name and a new face and strict orders never to get anywhere near the Kovacs.”

  “I’m getting the impression that you don’t follow orders very well.”

  She barked a mirthless laugh. “No. Uncle Frank gave up trying to keep me from going after them and insisted if I was going to play with fire, I at least do it right. I spent my summers learning all sorts of law enforcement techniques. Joined the FBI straight out of college and then went into the organized-crime division. Became the agency’s expert on the Kovacs.

  “And, here I am.” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry for the meltdown. I don’t like fire.”

  “You can melt down on me anytime.”

  She tried to pull away. He held her closer. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I have a job to do, Blake.” The sadness in her words cut him to the quick. “We’ve got a pulverized Kovac scattered all over the place. The family will notice his absence and we need to have a plan for how we’re going to handle it. I have to call Uncle Frank, and process the scene, and try to find Katarina Kovac before she does a runner.”

  “You can do all that in a minute. First, I need you to answer one question.”

  “What?”

  “How did you know he was here?”

  “The TacOps team got an alert when he closed in on your position. They called me.”

  “Just you?”

  “There’s a team on the way up the mountain. They’ll be here any second.”

  As if on cue, the unmistakable sound of people running toward them pierced the morning air.

  Max broke through first.

  “Kovac?”

  “Blew up.”

  Max’s eyes widened in horror as he took in the scene and then filled with compassion when he saw the smoking remains of Heidi’s jacket and sweatshirt. He knelt beside them. “Z? You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Max looked at Blake for confirmation. “No,” Blake disagreed. “She was on fire.”

  Max’s reaction proved Blake’s suspicion that he knew what had happened in Heidi’s past. Blake fought back the little green monster.

  Max put one hand on Heidi’s arm. “Why don’t you take a few more minutes while we secure the scene?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I have no doubt you will be. Sit tight.”

  He squeezed her arm and then returned to the group of agents standing a few feet away, their expressions ranging from shock to dismay. He gave orders and they dispersed in groups, some back down the trail, others around the explosion site. Heidi had sat still through it all, her head resting on his chest, but when a chopper circled overhead, looking for a place to land, she pulled away.

  “Time for me to get back to work.” She gave him a wan smile. “Thanks.”

  He’d kept his hands away from her skin, afraid of how she might react to his touch, but now he risked it and gently ran his hand down her arm.

  She flinched. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend it doesn’t matter.”

  “What doesn’t matter?” Had she hit her head? Could she be that sensitive about her scars?

  “I know what I look like.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’ve been looking at myself every day for fifteen years. Trust me. You think you’ll get used to it and it won’t matter,
but you won’t and it will.”

  He almost asked how she could think so little of him. Then he saw Max watching them and he got the distinct impression that if he didn’t tread lightly, Max would make him regret it. She got to her feet, brushed dirt from her legs and tank top and walked over to one of the agents kneeling beside something that looked disturbingly like an arm.

  She shivered in the breeze. If he offered her his jacket, would she get the wrong idea? Would she assume he wanted her to cover up her skin so he didn’t have to look at it?

  Max walked up to him and extended a hand to help him up. When he got to his feet, Max nodded in Heidi’s direction. “You have your work cut out for you, bro.”

  “Do you know why she’s so sensitive?”

  Max shrugged. “Took some fierce teasing in college from girls who didn’t have enough sense to know she could have killed them in their sleep and gotten away with it. Then a boyfriend dumped her over it.”

  “Was that the real reason or did she assume?”

  “Sara says the guy was a real jerk. Took her to a party but asked her to wear long sleeves so she wouldn’t gross his friends out.”

  Blake swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat. What kind of idiot—

  “It’s stupid, and she knows it. But at the time, she didn’t have anyone to help her process it. Sara says it’s a combination of posttraumatic stress and survivor’s guilt. The only family she ever loved died and as much as Frank and Ginny tried, she was already in her late teens and badly traumatized by the time she came to them. There was only so much they could do to help her. When we met, she still had a lot of anger. Now?” He looked at her and shrugged. “I think she wants it to be over, but she can’t walk away.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe a woman as brilliant as Heidi would struggle with a few scars.”

  “I can’t argue with you there, but when it comes to this stuff, she’s still sixteen. She still has nightmares, and she avoids fireplaces and fireworks. I think in some ways, she believes if she could put the Kovacs away, make them pay for what they did, then she’d be able to let it go. Until then…”

  Heidi looked in their direction and Blake could tell she knew they’d been talking about her. She rolled her eyes and walked away.

  Max snorted. “Like I said…”

  “Got any advice?”

  “Tell her the truth. Whatever it is.”

  *

  Heidi stalked around the mountainside. Her ears rang from the detonation and the stench of burned flesh threatened to make her sick. No one ever got used to that smell.

  The forensics team would arrive soon, and she needed to call Uncle Frank with an update, but she couldn’t do it yet. She needed to get her emotions back on an even keel after that humiliating breakdown in Blake’s arms.

  He’d been great. Kicking the gun away had saved her life. She needed to thank him but she’d been avoiding eye contact. She needed to grow up and get over herself. Yes, half of her body had been burned to a crisp, but she still lived and she could still fight. She didn’t need people to think of her as beautiful or desirable to do what she needed to do.

  But waiting for the look in Blake’s eyes to change from appreciation, maybe even infatuation, to the inevitable pity, was going to drive her insane.

  He came beside her as she knelt by a shoe blown thirty feet from the blast site. “I want to ask you some things, but I’m afraid you’ll take them the wrong way.”

  This should be interesting. “Go ahead.”

  “I have two questions. First, is your skin more sensitive where it was burned?”

  Not the question she’d been expecting. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m wondering about nerve endings. Do you feel heat, cold, touch, more or less?”

  Oh. “I do get cold easier. I also overheat easier because my skin doesn’t sweat the way it should. As for touch, I honestly don’t remember.”

  She remembered his hand running down the side of her arm. The tingling sensation spreading through her whole body at his touch. Maybe the correct answer was she felt more when he was the one touching her?

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. Poor guy. He looked miserable. And why wouldn’t he be? He’d had his morning solitude destroyed by a maniac trying to kill him. And then he’d seen a man blow himself up. Not what he’d had in mind for this day.

  “Because I wanted to tell you I thought your skin is very soft, and I also wanted to ask you if you’d like my sweatshirt because I’m afraid you’re cold, but I’m worried you’ll have this bizarre notion that I want you to cover up. If you want to wear tank tops year-round, you’ll get no objection from me. Although it might be hard for me to get any work done because I’ll be distracted.”

  Heidi had no idea what to make of that. It had come out of the blue and left her abnormally speechless. She managed a strangled “What?”

  Blake knelt down and forced her to look him in the eyes. “Are you cold?”

  She could say no. If anyone else had asked, she’d say no, but she’d run all the way to the waterfall and had been sweating before having to take off her sweatshirt. Not only did the tank top provide minimal coverage to her skin, it was also damp. She’d been avoiding asking anyone for a sweater because she didn’t want to be seen as weak. Blake held her gaze, waiting for her to answer. And he’d already proven how good he was at knowing when she was shading the truth.

  She sighed. “Yes. I am.”

  He pulled off his jacket and dropped it to the ground. His T-shirt lifted as he pulled the sweatshirt over his head and gave Heidi a view of an impressive set of abs. “Here,” he said. He tugged his T-shirt down and handed her the sweatshirt. “It will swallow you whole, but it should keep you warm.”

  “You’ll be cold now.” His sweatshirt was a nice thick fleece. His jacket wasn’t much more than a windbreaker.

  “I’ll be fine.” He shrugged into his coat.

  She hesitated.

  “Do you need some help putting it on?” He grinned.

  “No. Thanks.” She slid the fleece over her head and relaxed into the warmth. Her body had tensed from the chill in the air and now it wanted to go limp. The scent of him was everywhere. In her hair, wafting into her face every time she moved.

  She liked it.

  Maybe too much.

  She might need to find a different sweater.

  Blake stood close. “Better?”

  “Much. Thank you.”

  Blake stuck his hands in his jacket pocket and looked around the scene. “Now what?”

  “Things are about to get messy.”

  “About to?”

  Good point. “I have to call Uncle Frank and tell him Kovac blew himself to bits. Which means we have nothing to go on in terms of figuring out what he was after. We will try to take his wife in for questioning, but she’ll lawyer up.”

  “There’s nothing you can do to keep her?”

  “Unless we find proof of something in the home, or find some way to connect her to his activities…and let’s not forget we have no proof of any illegal activity on his part…then we won’t be able to charge her. The Kovacs don’t do jail time.”

  She turned and studied the scene. Something flitted through her brain, begging for attention, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. She closed her eyes and perched on a fallen log. She’d learned if she took the time to replay an event, clues popped up that her subconscious had recorded, but she hadn’t noticed in the moment.

  Max asked Blake what was going on.

  “I don’t know. She’s in the middle of a conversation and just drops. Is she okay?”

  Max chuckled. “Watch and learn. Knowing Heidi, she’ll have solved the case by the time she stands up.”

  Heidi tuned them out again. Replayed what she’d seen, heard, felt, smelled. She dismissed everything personal, her fear of being too late and her relief when she wasn’t, and focused on what she’d seen.

  Markos had waited a long time to make his mo
ve. He’d been in one spot for at least fifteen minutes. His delay had given her time to arrive and warn Blake.

  Markos hadn’t shot Blake. It would have been the one sure way to kill him. Making it look like an accident wasn’t a bad idea, but if you needed him dead, why not choose the option that would guarantee it?

  She focused in on Markos’s face. He’d shot at her, but either he was a lousy shot or— “He didn’t want to kill me.”

  “What?” Blake and Max spoke in unison and when Heidi opened her eyes she found them hovering over her.

  She held up a hand and closed her eyes again. His face. The delay in killing Blake. After Blake had kicked his gun away, he’d lain there, looking at the two of them, and then he’d said he was sorry. Sorry for what? For all the trouble? For what he’d already done? For trying to kill them?

  A mobster who’s sorry for his actions? That did not fit the profile unless—

  “Z?” Max’s worried voice broke her out of her contemplation. “Throw us a bone.”

  “I don’t have it yet.”

  “Make it snappy. We’re dying here.”

  “Okay, but I’m thinking out loud.” She sat on the ground and crossed her legs. Blake and Max joined her.

  “We don’t know why Kovac came here, but we know there has to be a reason. A criminal reason. He moves south with no one but his wife, and gets a job? No way a Kovac would do that without an ulterior motive. We’ve got no idea what his plan is, but we know whatever it is, he—or maybe the senior Kovacs—decided the Harrisons were a liability. So they start trying to pick them off.”

  “I’d agree with all of that,” Max said.

  “But I think we have to acknowledge the attempts on Blake’s life have been pretty pitiful.”

  Blake huffed. “To you, maybe. I’m the one about to get a frequent-patient card for the ER.”

  She had to smile. Leave it to Blake to bring some levity into the situation. “I mean, they’ve all been halfhearted. Running you off the road, the Mountain Dew, the pallets—they seem like the kind of attempts someone would choose if they wanted to be able to say they’d tried to kill you, but hadn’t succeeded. Those attempts gave you a solid chance of surviving.”