The Grass Is Greener [McQueen Was My Valley 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  He looked even more gorgeous when he smiled. Such even, white teeth! The Marines must have a very good dental plan, especially for Irish terrorists. It hit Sasha suddenly. How did she know Rowan O’Shea—if indeed that was his name—worked for John Maliano? Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was just pumping her for information about the congressman. “I wouldn’t say I’m as enthusiastic as Mr. Maliano. Having been over there, having spent many months living in the filthy confusion and squalor, I can’t say I support an escalation of troops anywhere. Anywhere at all.”

  “But without troop escalation, your sort would be out of jobs.”

  Again with the smile. “Aye. But isn’t that the goal? A world where we no longer need oafish goons such as me to protect or arrest anyone?”

  Sasha tilted her head. She liked this man—whoever he really was. “I suppose that would be a nice pie-in-the-sky ideal. But in my line of work I see too many victims of—”

  “Wait,” he said quietly. Rowan stood slowly, hands slightly out from his sides as though he held bombs. He made absolutely no noise as he sidestepped away from the table, alert like a stalking lioness. In one fluid motion he reached inside his vest, presumably for his gun, so Sasha twisted around in her chair to see what he aimed at. Surely he couldn’t just go around shooting someone inside the Winterhawk Resort?

  The target looked just like a harmless, dorky twenty-something head-banging rocker with unattractive, lopsided features. Had Rowan perhaps been hanging around John Maliano too much, becoming more paranoid of every harmless asswad listening to Radiohead or Death Cab for Cutie on their iPod?

  The dork froze in position when he saw Rowan going for his gun. He looked like a cartoon character stock-still like that, his backwards baseball cap revealing him to be a nerd of about thirty years of age with a bad dental plan. It was evident he had been one of those unfortunate “pizza faces” in his teens.

  Sasha wondered why the dork was reacting so strongly to Rowan. Rowan could just be any guy reaching for a cell phone. But all at once the dork broke into a run. With hands out in front of himself as though he blindly felt his way, he tore through the swinging doors that led into the Atrium proper, then probably for the escalators or main entrance.

  “Don’t move, Sasha,” Rowan commanded, dashing after the dork.

  Sasha spent a few split seconds admiring his brutal, well-toned figure as he covered the distance in a flash. But her doctorly instincts took over and she grabbed her tablet to jog into the Atrium. If there was to be a shooting, she wanted to witness it. Sasha wasn’t the sort to retire with the chickens in the yard either, as Rowan claimed to want. She wanted to witness whatever went down so she could defend Rowan’s choices—or prosecute him, if he turned out to be overly reactionary, using unnecessary force. She could not side with a man because he had a beautifully muscled ass.

  In the main ballroom lobby, the dork had disappeared. Rowan pivoted on one foot, gripping his gun, as if unsure which way to proceed. He seemed torn between following the questionable dickwad out the front doors to the parking lot, or assuring Jane, who was sprinting out of the ballroom where John’s idealistic voice thundered over the PA system.

  Since Sasha had no interest in the vanished dipwad, she started for her friend. That’s when her entire life as she knew it was irrevocably changed, for better or worse.

  Looking back on it later, time seemed to slow down. She heard Rowan yell, “Don’t move, Sasha!” but her body kept going toward Jane. An incredibly anguished expression tweaked Jane’s features into a mask of pain and agony, and she reached out to Sasha with clawlike hands. Her twisted mouth was saying something. But between Rowan’s yelling and the chatter of the usual Winterhawk conference-goers, Sasha couldn’t tell what Jane was trying to say.

  So of course Sasha amped up her walk into a jog, ignoring Rowan. Just as he seemed to make his own decision and pivoted toward the two women, the entire wall behind Jane exploded.

  The first concussion must’ve knocked Sasha backward. The sound wave had such a tangible force it was as though someone shoved her on her ass. Her last view of Jane, about thirty feet away, was of the wall shattering into a myriad of chunks of concrete, glass, and rebar. Then Jane was gone, Sasha spun on her behind, and some chunks of concrete were pelting her.

  She held her tablet over her face, so the worst of the chunks only bashed her computer. People screamed and ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, just like in the movies. Everyone dashing in different directions. But louder than the people screaming was one overwhelming, constant, loud ringing. The sound wave had also damaged her inner ear, Sasha knew.

  She crawled to a wall for shelter and waited for the last chunks to drop.

  Chapter Two

  Rowan was absolutely blown away by this Sasha McQueen woman.

  He didn’t often fall hard, instantly, like this. In fact, never. In his years jaunting about dealing with domestic terrorists, he hadn’t fallen at all, aside from once in Cuba, and he didn’t like to think about that.

  Perhaps he was attracted to Sasha’s seeming innocence. She was a clean-cut sort, someone who had stayed far away from any sort of unsavory trouble or intrigue, such as the soul-crushing messes Rowan constantly infiltrated, sorted out, or squelched.

  It was tiring, constantly hanging out with nothing but other grizzled ace mercs, discussing kill zones, precise strikes, raids, and HVTs. The terrorist he tracked today was a High Value Target. Sean Hinton had already bombed in or near towns immediately prior to speeches by John Maliano as he crossed the country on his tour. Atlanta’s bombing was blamed on a splinter group of al-Qaeda. The mall bombing near Cheyenne, Wyoming that killed twelve was pinned on the same obscure group. Then apparently the same folks went up to Detroit the day before Maliano arrived there just to blow up a black church and take credit for it again.

  These bombings, conveniently, gave Maliano a lot of things to rant and rail against. But the coincidence of the timings, and the fact that there had been no chatter about this splinter group in America, led Rowan and his cohorts to question it. Once Rowan studied the data, it really looked like this Sean Hinton character somehow was acting in concert with Maliano. This thug didn’t even appear to be a career criminal—maybe just a guy who liked to blow things up and get paid for it. It was worse, in a way, to be tracking a brainless thug who didn’t even possess ideals, twisted or not. Rowan was convinced there was a direct link between Hinton and Maliano.

  Rowan had been following the tour for a week now, keeping an ear to the ground for chatter, but nothing had been blown up around Salt Lake City in the past couple of days.

  So, having nothing else to do—he’d already put an electronic diving rod into Hinton’s cell phone a few weeks earlier, but he had to be within a hundred feet for it to alert him—Rowan had locked eyes with the stunning, delicately beautiful medical professional. He could tell she’d have no tattoos, artistic or crude or otherwise, not like the few Rowan had and regretted. This lady was refined, schooled, and was typing about Alzheimer’s disease. Rowan had learned to tell what people typed from yards away. He had 20/10 vision, which came in handy in his job. It gave him something to do during hours of mind-numbing surveillance.

  But he didn’t know where Hinton was, no one had blown anything up, and this medical professional woman was delightful. She didn’t protest him sitting at her table, and he let her think he worked for Maliano. Actually, he tried to stay away from Maliano, Jane, and others of their entourage. It wouldn’t do to be recognized as some kind of cracked hanger-on plotting to assassinate the Congressman. It was pleasant talking to Sasha. His cock even expanded when she smiled and showed her dimples.

  Did Miss—at least, she wore no wedding band—McQueen want a cottage with chickens and a horse as well? Rowan was forty-eight, ancient for the life of The Circuit. He was too old to be standing around lodges or malls waiting for some murderous douche bag to show up. Both his brothers already had wives and children back in Ireland. Due to the
nature of his business, Rowan had never even asked a woman to marry him. He’d saved up plenty of money by now. His only excuse to continue the mercenary lifestyle was that he hadn’t found anyone worthy of marrying. And perhaps he was just a little addicted to the lifestyle out of habit.

  With any luck, that was about to change.

  “But without troop escalation, your sort would be out of jobs.”

  Then I’d really have no excuse not to retire. “Aye. But isn’t that the goal? A world where we no longer need thugs such as me to protect or arrest anyone?”

  “I suppose that would be a nice pie-in-the-sky ideal. But in my line of work I see too many victims of—”

  “Wait.” Rowan stood slowly, holding a flat palm out to indicate the woman to stay seated. It had been so long since he’d used the divining rod, at first he didn’t know what that off-key and very quiet beep was. Rowan took a few steps and the beeping got slightly louder. Why would Hinton be coming to the Winterhawk, risking being seen with or around Maliano? His style was to remotely blow up a bomb from miles away and then run.

  Rowan took more steps in the logical direction, toward the Atrium café. By the empty breakfast buffet, Rowan saw him. And he didn’t think that Hinton knew his face, but Hinton clearly recognized him and froze, then ran like the yellow squirter he was. Bombers were always yellow wimps when it came to face-to-face confrontation.

  Rowan took off after him. Hinton dashed past the escalators toward the bell desk. Just as every muscle in Rowan’s body geared to send him off after the bomber in a straight line, he saw Jane Maliano from the corner of his eye. Jane jogged from the ballroom practically wringing her hands with distress. Once even the glimmer of hesitation sent a signal to his muscles, all was lost. He pivoted like a moron, Hinton vanished, and with ire and reluctance he turned toward where Sasha, disobeying his order, was running for Jane.

  It didn’t occur to him that Hinton would rig the ballroom. Why would he? Why would he blow up his boss, Congressman Maliano? They had a good thing going, those two.

  Rowan watched helplessly as the wall that separated three ballrooms from the lobby exploded outward. The impact of the sudden shock wave, and the forward momentum of a wall of debris, carried a dozen people through the air, one of them Jane Maliano. Rowan was far away enough that he was only slammed back against another wall, and he instantly crouched to grab a ragged piece of a wooden door or other to use as a shield against the crap that rained down around him. Most were chunks of concrete, sheetrock, and twisted metal, but he had to use the shield to bat away a chunk of what looked like someone’s shoulder.

  As the shower of shrapnel subsided, car alarms in the parking lot shrieked out and survivors furiously thumbed their cell phones. Rowan tossed away the shield and ran for Jane, falling to his knees. Ignored, she sprawled in an impossible position, both legs clearly dislocated or even ripped from their sockets beneath her pants. A chunk of concrete had also caved in her forehead and she didn’t seem to really see Rowan hovering over her. But she must have known a person, anyone, was nearby, for her lips moved. Rowan bent closer to hear her.

  “Tony Danza.”

  Rowan pulled away, peering at Jane’s smashed face. “Tony Danza? Is that what you said?”

  “Yes!” Jane insisted. “Tony Danza!”

  “Excuse me,” Rowan said politely. He couldn’t tell if he was yelling or not, for his ears rang so loudly. “But what does Tony Danza have to do with this? Did you know a bomb was going to be set off today?”

  “Yes. See Sasha. Tony Danza!”

  Rowan was all too familiar with the glazed eyes of death. Mercifully Jane Maliano had passed quickly onto the other side, and Rowan closed her eyes for her. There was really not much else to do here, so he raced around the shrapnel-pitted corner and over to the Atrium, where Sasha was just now standing up, looking around, dazed.

  Rowan was accustomed to the sight of bombings, but for someone in the medical field it must have been traumatic. Rowan gripped Sasha by the shoulders and steered her back into the Atrium café, going against the flow of lookie-loo diners who were just now daring to peek their heads out. Sasha tried to resist, to return to the ballroom lobby like a zombie with her arms straight out ahead of her, but Rowan guided her to a table. He took her tablet from her death grip and placed it on the table.

  “But I’m a doctor,” she insisted as she sat. Something had clipped her cheekbone, which didn’t concern him. But he was painfully familiar with the look of someone in shock, and he didn’t like the way she gripped one of her arms as though it were injured. “I must go help people.”

  “I think you may need help yourself.” Rowan really didn’t want her seeing Jane all mangled on the ground. The paramedics would take the living first, so Jane might lie there awhile. “Does your arm hurt?”

  “Yes, but that’s not very important, is it?” She looked into Rowan’s eyes for the first time. “I was heading toward Jane, and then boom. You’re John’s bodyguard. What caused it?”

  Rowan lightly took her hands in his. “I think it was a terrorist act, but listen carefully, Sasha.”

  “That guy you were following?” Sasha was yelling, too.

  “Yes, listen. I saw Jane. She said to me”—it sounded absurd even as Rowan merely thought the name—“‘Tony Danza.’ That’s exactly what she said to me, just now. Does that have any meaning to you? She said ‘See Sasha.’ And ‘Tony Danza.’ I’m quite sure she said Tony’s name. She said it twice.”

  “Tony Danza?” Sasha frowned at the ground now. The café was almost completely empty now, patrons having either run to the parking lot for their lives in fear of another explosion, or standing rubbernecking at the dead and dying. “Well, actually, that does make sense, in a way. Yesterday when I was having dinner with Jane I was talking on my cell to my sister Xandra. She owns the Triple Play lodge in southeastern Utah. And she happened to mention that Tony Danza had just been a guest at the lodge.”

  This actually made the whole actor thing an even bigger conundrum. “Did Jane overhear you talking?”

  “I may have been laughing and said his name aloud. Like, oh, how funny is that, some random actor from the seventies. Xandra may as well have said Corey Feldman or Ralph Macchio stayed at her lodge. But what could that have to do with this bombing? Does Jane think Tony Danza is somehow going from lodge to lodge blowing people up? Where is Jane, anyway?” Sasha craned her neck to see around Rowan’s shoulder. She winced, telling him her arm was injured.

  “Why don’t we take care of you, first?” Rowan saw medics in the lobby, so he dashed out to grab one. He told them to bring a stretcher—he didn’t want any complications in case she had other injuries.

  For suddenly Sasha McQueen was a valuable property to Rowan. He was surrounded by bodies, the injured, and parts of bodies, but Sasha was his main concern. This should have troubled him, as new sensations were often troubling. If there was one thing about the mayhem of The Circuit it was the predictability of emotions. Anger, hatred, betrayal, surprise at betrayal, and more anger. Care and concern were certainly not emotions Rowan O’Shea felt on a daily basis, or even an annual one.

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Sasha yelled when she caught sight of the stretcher and bearers. “I don’t need a damned stretcher! Paramedic, look, I’m a medical doctor and a forensic expert. I’m the ME over in Charleston County, South Carolina. If you’d just let me examine some of these victims—”

  “You’re going with these nice men.” Rowan was already handing a medic Sasha’s laptop for safekeeping. “I want you to get X-rays, MRI, the whole nine yards.”

  “Look,” protested Sasha as a medic tried to press her to at least sit on the stretcher. “I do this all the time, go to crime scenes. Rowan, tell them. I could probably even help determine the site of the bomb, where it was planted, by the trajectories of the airborne missiles. I know a lot about IEDs. My arm? It’s just a sprain, bruising from when I fell on it. Nothing to be done about it anyway except bandage
it up.”

  Rowan had told the medic Sasha was in shock, and the men were insistent. She was still talking as they carried her away. “Rowan! I want to see Jane! I know her husband must be dead, but you’ve got to find out where they’ve taken her.”

  Rowan walked alongside the stretcher, to distract her from the pile of limbs by the ballroom that had been Jane. Sunlight came through holes in the roof and walls where John Maliano’s stage had been. “Listen, where were you and Jane going to go after Winterhawk?”

  “Well, Jane and John were continuing up to Boise. I was going to my sister’s wedding at the Triple Play down south.”

  “Why don’t you just keep to that plan?” Rowan gripped Sasha’s hand, the uninjured arm. “Forget this whole mess. I know who did it, I saw him a few seconds before the blast, it’s just a matter of finding—”

  “You do?” asked a medic. “Because the dispatcher just said some guy named El Zeub, some radical Muslim terrorist, has already taken credit for this bombing.”

  Rowan rolled his eyes. “El Zeub, right.” He looked fondly at Sasha. “That means ‘dickhead’ in Arabic. It’s the same guy.”

  “He didn’t look like any El Zeub to me,” said Sasha. Rowan was proud of how calm she was as they loaded her into the back of the ambulance. “No, no! You don’t need to strap me down. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “What if we go around a sharp turn?” asked the medic. “You’ll go flying.”

  Rowan handed the guy his business card. It seemed funny, a mercenary with a business card, but it contained only the most basic information, and a phone number to a remote answering service for the company that could get ahold of Rowan in minutes. “There’s no radical Muslim, Sasha. I have my theories which I’d love to run past you later, maybe at the Triple Play Lodge.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to come all the way to that remote lodge, Rowan.”