Reluctant Hero

by Debra Webb

  * * *

  BECCA SENSED HE was done talking to her. She suspected he might even be gone already, but she kept up a one-sided conversation just in case. He hadn’t denied it when she called him Lawton. Of course, he hadn’t confirmed it either. That would have been too much to ask.

  What he had confirmed, bringing her a burger topped with sautéed mushrooms, Swiss cheese and mayo with a side of fried pickles and a chocolate-cherry milk shake was that he’d been poking through her life. Once a week, she splurged and ordered this lunch through an online app from her favorite family-owned burger joint near the office.

  She wanted that to mean she was being kept near the office, and knew better than to jump to that conclusion. It was safe to assume from the hot burger and thick, cold shake that she was still in San Francisco.

  “Consider this another offer to buy my way out of here. You have learned by now that I’m loaded, right?” As a new billionaire, Lawton wouldn’t care about money. “I hope you didn’t call Daddy. He’s far too busy to bail out his daughter, even from a kidnapper.”

  She ate for a few minutes in silence, wondering what kind of conversational bait to dangle next. She wanted to keep him talking. Not because she was bored or lonely. That would be the definition of pathetic. No, she wanted him to talk so she could worm under his defenses and get out of here.

  “Hey, Lawton, did I mention that I called him when I got stonewalled by the army?” She twirled her straw through the milk shake, grinning at the silly noise. “He has all kinds of friends in strange places. I thought he could help me get a more comprehensive look at your service record.” She popped a pickle into her mouth, enjoying the tangy flavor. “Don’t worry, your secrets are safe. He didn’t help. Dad doesn’t believe in favors or handouts.”

  Not for daughters who flew the nest anyway.

  “Are you even there?” she asked, peering at the camera again. At the continued silence, she polished off the burger, cleaned up her trash and returned to the chair.

  Picking up the notepad again, she flipped over a new page and started drawing, letting her thoughts wander aimlessly. When she paused to stretch her hand, she realized she’d filled the page with sketches of Lawton.

  The first was a detailed picture of his face when he’d been at her door, the ivy cap pushed back from it. Another one was a recreation of his head shot from his security firm’s website. She’d drawn how she imagined he would look in a tuxedo. No, wait. That wasn’t a guess; that was how she’d seen him at the gala. She picked up the pencil again, scrambling to get the images on the page as they flooded back into her mind.

  As she sat back again, several faces stared back at her from the notepad. The happy expressions of Rush and Lucy, a man she didn’t know with hard eyes and sharp features, and another man with a scarred cheek. But the face she couldn’t look away from was Lawton’s. She’d sketched him with eyes wide, lips parted and worry stamped on his forehead. He seemed to be pleading with someone. Could he have been begging her to drop the story?

  She knew it was a memory. Now she just had to figure out what it meant and where it fit in with her previous recollections of the gala.

  Chapter Five

  Leaving the condo, Parker walked for several blocks, stopping here and there along the way and doubling back at one point to confirm he wasn’t followed. Satisfied, he moved forward with his plan to pick up the SUV registered in his name. With luck, Theo’s killer had eyes on the car and picking it up would draw out Parker’s enemy. He couldn’t develop an effective strategy or counterattack until he knew if he was up against one man, two or a team.

  There had been two men at the hotel. He just didn’t know if the sentry was a local hire or into this as deeply as the man with the scar. In Parker’s experience, that snarl and the delight in his mean eyes when he’d put that syringe to Rebecca’s neck added up to a man who enjoyed his work.

  Feeling comfortable and confident behind the wheel of his own car, Parker had watched his mirrors for any sign of a tail as he cruised through the city, eventually reaching the pier where Theo had been a crane operator. He had two and a half days left to unravel this mess, and he didn’t want to lose any other friends along the way.

  He’d come down to ask questions about Theo’s last days, hoping one of his coworkers would give him a new lead to work with. No one had seen Theo chatting with strangers. None of his friends on the job thought he’d been behaving strangely or showing signs of stress. Everything had been situation normal for Theo until he’d been shot.

  Parker walked from the pier toward the diner, daring either fate or the killer to take a shot at him. It was an idiot move, especially if Theo had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and a victim of local crime rather than the blackmailer. Passing by the alley again on his way back to the pier, he paused and stared at the fresh bloodstain about ten feet from the sidewalk.

  It was too easy to picture Theo dead before he hit the pavement. The man had crossed the world going from one mission to the next, always willing to get in the trenches and get dirty and always eager to contribute to get the job done.

  No one took a shot at Parker. No one spoke to him, though there were people milling about across the street and on the corner. He decided to leave the witnesses to the professionals and stalked back toward the pier.

  Returning to his SUV, he watched the cargo ships and port crews work while he gave the recent events consideration. He rolled his windows down, hoping the breeze off the bay would blow out the clouds of guilt and doubt muddling his thoughts. His instincts screamed Danger, yet he couldn’t pinpoint the source. America had enemies and the army had enemies. Good grief, Parker had enemies. Not Theo. He’d been little more than a pawn on a global chessboard.

  Whether or not Rebecca’s reporter admitted it, he’d contacted Theo because of that anonymous tip. This couldn’t have been a coincidence of local crime. Parker wasn’t confined by the laws and was therefore free to make the logical leap. Bill had wanted information on the gold theft, or more likely the details of the mission around the time the gold was allegedly stolen. If the police got those pieces out of Bill, what would happen next?

  Danger. Parker could practically smell it on the air.

  At least Rebecca was safely out of the office and out of the scarred man’s reach. Parker should probably encourage Bill to get out of town, but with the police active on the case, the reporter had a thin layer of protection in place. Parker had the sense that if the person pulling the strings on this wanted Bill dead, he’d be dead already.

  He tapped his fingers absently on the door panel as he watched a crane operator load containers to the deck of a cargo ship, maneuvering each piece like another layer in a slow-moving, complex block-stacking game.

  Yesterday, it had been Theo sitting in that crane. He’d told Parker how much he enjoyed working a job challenging enough and noisy enough to mute the ghosts from their combat years.

  Parker swore. They lived in the same city and saw each other only a few times a year. Benign neglect was a lousy definition of friendship. They’d been through hell together and Theo had died worried that those nightmares had come calling for them.

  He curled his fingers into tight fists and drummed them against the steering wheel. He wanted a target, needed a viable outlet for the rage building inside him.

  His phone rang and seeing the Nevada area code and Jeff Bruce’s face on the screen, he felt dread settle like a cold lump in his gut as he picked up. “Hello?”

  “Parker?” The soft, feminine voice was thick with tears.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Naomi, Jeff’s wife. He’s...”

  Her voice trailed off and Parker checked the phone to be sure the call hadn’t dropped. “Naomi? What happened?” he asked, his pulse pounding in his ears. Don’t say dead, don’t say dead. Parker had made those calls to
loved ones, and he wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone. “Take a breath. Just take your time.”

  He heard her suck in a ragged breath and exhale slowly. “He’s been in an accident,” she said. “I’m at the hospital.”

  “I’m on my way.” He started a mental list that began with unlocking the safe room door remotely and letting Rebecca know where to pick up the belongings he’d taken.

  “No.” Naomi sniffled. “I mean, that’s not why I called. He said don’t come.”

  What? “Okay.” Why wouldn’t Jeff want him out there?

  “The police said his car was run off the road. Hit and run near a bridge. Between the seat belt and airbag he survived it. Another car stopped to help. They got him out before the river took his car.” More sniffles. “The doctors are sure he’ll recover.”

  “That’s good news.” His pulse returned to something closer to normal. “What do you need? How can I help?” Parker had to get his head out of the sand and give clear warnings to everyone on the list. Keeping the ransom note to himself hadn’t helped any of them. With two men on the list attacked, in order, he couldn’t pretend the incidents were unrelated. His team deserved the heads-up, and being vigilant while separating theory from fact wouldn’t hurt any of them. Hell, it might save what was left of them.

  “He’s back in surgery right now, but he said to tell you—only you—he saw the driver of the other car. He said it was Fadi.”

  Parker bit back the visceral protest. Jeff had to be wrong. Parker absolutely could not reconcile the smart, helpful young man they’d known with this cowardly act of attempted murder. “He was sure?”

  “He was.” She sniffled. “You know who he’s talking about, who he saw, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” He struggled to believe it. It had to be true; Jeff wasn’t prone to hallucinations. “I promise I’ll handle it,” Parker assured her, having no idea how to keep that promise.

  “When he got home after that deployment, Jeff talked about Fadi and the family frequently,” she said. “He said he was one of the best locals he’d met over there. I got the impression any one of you would have vouched for him or his family. If he got his visa and made it over here, wouldn’t he have reached out?”

  “Yeah, you’d think so.” Parker closed his eyes, but it was no defense against the onslaught of memories from those months of recon and analysis and careful interpretation of words and actions. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I’m upset,” Naomi said. “Don’t worry. I can pull myself together before he gets out of surgery.”

  “Let me know when he’s out. I’d like to talk to him when he’s ready.”

  Naomi promised to keep him updated and when the call ended, Parker sat there, dumbfounded. He felt as if he was mired in quicksand and every move he made dragged him closer to drowning.

  At this point, with Theo dead and Jeff in the hospital, Parker had to assume the blackmail note was as bogus as the anonymous tip sent to Rebecca. It seemed like a safe bet they’d been contacted in order to flush out the entire team.

  Although the kid was the obvious common denominator, Parker wasn’t ready to take that bait. The Fadi Parker remembered had a clear head. Loyal and proud of his heritage, and aware of the political and geographical economics of the area, he wouldn’t have been easily swayed by propaganda that would turn him against the Americans.

  What on earth was he up against?

  He needed to get back to his computer and dig into the thumb drive with the rest of Rebecca’s notes from her trip to Iraq. He had to find the exact points where his mission and her visit overlapped and hope the answer gave him a worthwhile clue. Otherwise he was just spitting into the wind while someone picked off his friends.

  * * *

  BECCA WAS GOING stir-crazy in this room. She knew exactly how many steps she needed between the wall and the door, having counted it out a dozen times. Or more. By the same method she knew the distance in steps from the counter that served as a kitchen to the Murphy bed. Sure, the safe room was all tricked out, complete with the best of everything except a window or a clock. The indulgent decor choices didn’t take the sting out of being held against her will.

  There was an entertainment system, but the television and radio components had been removed, probably because the devices had been able to connect to the outside world.

  “This is cruel and unusual punishment,” she’d hollered at the camera near the door. “I can’t even stream shows or movies.” No, she was left with a small library of books and music CDs for amusement. Unfortunately for Parker Lawton, her mind needed more stimulation.

  She’d spent what she considered the remainder of yesterday focused on the gala, sketching out every scene she could recall from the time she’d left the apartment with her less-than-stellar date to the moment she’d woken up in the safe room. By the time the third meal of fried chicken salad arrived, she’d been pretty confident in the order of events.

  Not too hungry, after thinking it all through, she’d picked at the salad and stashed the rest in the refrigerator. Bored and frustrated, she gave up on a novel and applied her brainpower to finding a way out of this box. She hadn’t come up with a good idea before she fell asleep.

  Based on the eggs and toast that had been delivered while she was in the shower, she wanted to assume it was a new day. She detested this sense of helplessness, this utter lack of control as she wandered aimlessly from hour to hour without the anchor of her normal schedule.

  When would Lawton let her go?

  After the burger and milk shake exchange, she’d given up all pretenses that her captor could be anyone other than him. Who else lived in San Francisco, had virtually unlimited funds at his disposal and a reason to keep her out of his business? Those facts and the questions he asked were more than enough to convince her.

  She debated the wisdom of causing damage to the safe room she’d likely have to live with and making him offers he couldn’t refuse.

  “This won’t work, you know,” she said, aiming her words at the entertainment system where the speakers pushed that deep, altered voice into the small space. “The network has to know by now that something’s wrong. I don’t take time off without significant planning. Someone will raise the alarm.”

  Hopefully someone already had. What was the minimum time before the police would take a missing-person report on an independent adult? “Bring a clock with the food next time,” she muttered. “It’s common decency.”

  On a wave of uncertainty, she took a long drink from her water glass. Just to change things up, she forced herself to consider the possibility that her kidnapper wasn’t Parker Lawton.

  There had been someone else at the gala. Sitting down, she flipped back through the pages in the notepad and studied the face with the scar that she’d sketched. What if he was her captor? She shivered, remembering the way his forearm had crushed her neck, nearly suffocating her.

  What if that man was working for Lawton and she’d been taken as leverage to drop the story about the stolen gold? Oh, good grief, playing the what-if game was as pointless as yet another rundown of the facts. What she needed was a distraction.

  No, she needed to get out of here. Not just for her safety, but for her sanity.

  She sat up and reached for her water glass, and the lights went out. Startled, she bumped the plastic tumbler with her hand and she heard the water splash onto the table and tile. “Lights! Please?”

  “Remain seated,” he ordered in that altered voice that scraped her nerves raw.

  Once more she obeyed, despite her urge to leap into action. What good would it do when he could obviously see her with the cameras and she couldn’t see anything other than layers of darkness?

  She heard the lock disengage and the door open on a soft whoosh. Just as quickly, the door closed and locked again. His footsteps were b
arely audible as he approached.

  “This really isn’t fair,” she protested, shifting in her seat.

  Strong hands gripped her shoulders from over the back of the couch, pushing her deeper into the cushions. “Do not move.”

  She didn’t think his hands felt as rough or heavy as those of the man with the scar, but she couldn’t be completely sure. “Do I get an early release if I cooperate?” She hoped keeping it light would mitigate the strange mix of excitement and fear his presence stirred up in her.

  “No.”

  “Then why bother?” She slid down and rolled off the love seat and out of his reach. Gaining her feet, she bolted for the door. Maybe while he was inside with her, there was a way to—

  He was on her in the next instant, faster than a heartbeat, one of his arms clamped against her waist and a hot palm covering her mouth.

  His chest created an unyielding wall at her back. She shifted her hips, seeking an advantage, and only managed to create an intimate contact better suited for a different kind of darkness.

  “Screaming does nothing, remember?” The words, spoken at her ear, reverberated through her. It wasn’t solely an effect of the voice alteration. The stubble on his jaw had scrubbed lightly across her skin with each word.

  Slowly, he peeled his hand from her mouth.

  She didn’t embarrass herself by calling for help. Nothing had come of her one and only bloodcurdling scream, and nothing had come of any of her shouting matches that followed. When she tried again to pull away and gain some breathing room, he caught her wrists and pulled them behind her back. A moment later she felt the cool pinch of plastic, heard the rasp as zip ties were pulled snug against her skin.

  “Wait a second,” she protested. “You don’t need to do this.”

  “It’s done.” One large hand circled her upper arm and he guided her unerringly around the furniture until she was seated in the armchair. “Now we’re going to talk.”

  The touch branded her skin under his palm, leaving her chilled everywhere else. “No, please. Not like this.” This prickly sensation under her skin had to be a rant brewing inside her. It was temper and frustration, not attraction to the man holding her hostage. Obviously she needed fresh air to clear away the cobwebs of being locked in here. “Please. Just cut me loose and I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.”