THE DEFENDER

by Adrienne Giordano

  The receptionist tapped her headset. “I have Elizabeth Brooks on the line for you. She says it’s urgent.”

  Elizabeth. With an answer. Penny started toward her office. “Give me one minute and put her through.”

  After finding themselves on the disapproving end of Penny’s scowl, the few associates who’d been rubbernecking in the hallway skulked back to their offices. She may have made an idiot out of herself, but she still had power around here. Even if she didn’t feel it at the moment. Get over it.

  She strode into her office, picked up the handset and waited for the line to ring. A few seconds later, line one lit up. She punched the button.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Make the deal. Get your brother back. Sorry you had to wait on me.”

  Penny dropped into her chair, rested her head against her free hand. “It’s okay. I know it was a big decision. You’ll never know how sorry I am to put this on you.”

  “There’s really no choice, is there?”

  She wished there were. More than anything right now, she wanted to see Colin Heath rot in a cell. Instead, Brent strode into her office and planted himself in one of her guest chairs.

  “I need to go. I’ll call you soon.”

  She hung up and focused on Brent. “And what? You’re going to sit there all day? I have clients to speak with. Attorney-client privilege and all that.”

  “I’ll leave when you’re talking. For now, you’re not leaving my sight.”

  * * *

  RUSS STEPPED INTO THE HOME of Gerald Hennings and took in the large curving staircase with the ornate brass railing leading to the second floor. The steps may have been marble. Russ wasn’t sure and didn’t care. All he cared about was the truckful of rage plowing through him, and if he didn’t let it loose, he’d go insane.

  Penny had shafted him. The woman had consumed his thoughts for months, but hell, off-the-charts sex shouldn’t have been worth his career. Defense lawyers. There you go.

  To the right of the entry, Hennings led him to a study where floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined one wall and upholstered furniture large enough to seat a dinosaur adorned the room. A rich man’s office. A man whose wealth grew by getting criminals off. Colin Heath probably had an office like this. That thought only made Russ boil, so he turned his attention to Hennings.

  In prior meetings, Hennings had been buttoned up tight. Expensive Italian suit, pocket square, fancy silk tie. The works. Today he wore khaki pants with a blue button-down shirt. Some would call it business casual. Russ’s guess was this was about as casual as Gerald Hennings got.

  Russ didn’t wait for the man to sit. “I need to know what this deal is Penny made with Heath.”

  Hennings dropped into his desk chair and stared. “What deal?”

  Yeah, as if he didn’t know. Penny didn’t make a move without her father knowing. “I’m giving you one shot to fill me in and maybe I won’t have you both charged with obstruction. Start talking.”

  And now the big man straightened up and gave him a hard look. Angry. So what? Russ had anger in spades. He had enough anger to fill this mansion. Didn’t matter.

  “Watch your tone, Agent Voight. I don’t know about any deal. I’ve been here with my wife all day. I spoke to my daughter earlier when she was on her way back from a meeting with Elizabeth.”

  This was news. “She met with Elizabeth this morning?”

  “Yes. I assumed you were there.” Hennings blew out a soft breath. “You think she met with Elizabeth about a deal with Heath?”

  Either Penny made this move without her father or he was playing him right along with his daughter. But the high-pitched, shattered sound of shock in his voice didn’t sound like an act. “I believe so.”

  Hennings leaned forward, snatched his phone up. “Let’s find out.”

  * * *

  PENNY KNEW BRENT had one serious problem. That being nature had made a call. An immediate one he refused to answer.

  And Heath would be calling in fifteen minutes.

  Bladders were only so big and she guessed by Brent’s increased fidgeting that his was about to go boom.

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said. “Go pee. You’re making me nervous with all the damned squirming. I have calls to make, anyway.”

  He stared a minute and she sighed. “Suit yourself. It’s your exploding bladder.”

  Finally, he stood, pointed a beefy finger at her. “I’ve been good to you these last few days.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “If you move from this office, I will arrest you. Understand?”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  He rolled his eyes. Clearly, he didn’t agree with that statement. The nasty finger point only confirmed it.

  “I’ll be back in thirty seconds. Do. Not. Move.”

  She waved him away. “Yes, master.”

  The minute he left her office, Penny scooped up her purse, her cell phone and the phone Jenna had given her. At the door, she checked the hallway. Nothing. She ran to her father’s office, fumbling through her office key ring as she went. After unlocking the door, she slipped in, grabbed his car keys from the desk drawer where he always kept them and said a silent thanks that he’d been escorted home and had left his car. For safety, she grabbed a folder out of his drawer. If Brent came back, she’d ditch her purse and say she needed the folder.

  Hopefully, Brent needed a bowel movement that would buy her a few extra minutes. And what kind of insanity made her conjure that thought?

  Forget it. Keep moving. She poked her head into the hallway. No Brent. All she needed to do was take a quick right, shortcut it through the conference room, exit the door on the other side and hit the emergency stairwell. With any luck, no one would see her.

  Not that luck had been her friend recently. Not at all. And what was with these crazy thoughts? Her mind was a mess. Keep moving. She darted through the conference room, cracked the far door and peeked out. No life in the opposite hallway. Perfecto. She might pull this off. Once inside the stairwell, she kicked off her heels and bolted.

  One way or another, she’d make this deal.

  Alone.

  * * *

  RUSS’S PHONE RANG. Damned thing. He intended to ignore it, but since Hennings was on hold waiting for Penny, he checked the screen. Brent.

  “What is it?”

  “She’s in the wind,” he hollered.

  “Come again?”

  “Penny. I lost her.”

  Fierce banging ravaged Russ’s skull. Brutal. He closed his eyes while he contemplated the murderous venom about to be unleashed. “How the hell—”

  “Hey, unless you wanted me to piss myself, I needed a break.”

  “She bolted while you were in the john?”

  Hennings snapped his eyes to Russ. “What?”

  If he weren’t so furious with her, Russ would find the simplicity of her escape comical. Russ jerked his chin at Hennings. “Your daughter has eluded a U.S. marshal. While he relieved himself.”

  “I checked the whole office,” Brent said. “No one saw her. I think she went out the emergency exit.”

  “Her car isn’t at the office. She must have grabbed a cab. Get someone to her place. Fast.” He went back to Hennings. “Do you have any idea what she’s up to? She could get herself killed.”

  Something flickered in his eyes and he averted his gaze. This guy was good, but not that good. Russ spotted that momentary realization that his daughter may have just made a critical error. “My car is at the office. She knows where I keep my keys.”

  A litany of swearwords filled Russ’s mind. He visualized wrapping them in twine, setting them aside for later. Concentrate. He went back to Brent. “She probably boosted her father’s car. Had she taken any calls?”

&
nbsp; “Only client calls that I could tell.”

  “Did any of them sound like Heath? Was she acting squirrelly?”

  “No.”

  “Let me call you back.” He hung up, threw his phone on Hennings’s desk and it clattered against the solid wood. Go to work. Slowly, he raised his gaze to Hennings.

  “Here’s the short of it. The minute she gets out of her car, Heath will kill her. Zac will probably already be dead. Elizabeth Brooks and her son, having reneged on her agreement with the U.S. government, will no longer be under protection and will probably also be murdered. There you have it. Two of your three children murdered. Not to mention the client. That’s what I’d call a bad freaking day.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Penny. She’s on her way to see Heath. She made a deal with him. She all but admitted it to me.”

  “She wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Well, she did. That makes us both suckers for your daughter. She ditched her only protection and we have no idea where she’s going. If I can find her, I’ll intercept and maybe save her life.”

  The man’s throat bobbed. Come on, pops. Get to where I need you.

  Hennings stared down at his desk for a few seconds, then raised his gaze to Russ. “What do you need from me?”

  Excellent. “She never goes anywhere without her phone. I need you to call your service provider and get a location on that phone. I could get a warrant, but that takes time, and by then Penny could be floating in a lake. We have a lot of lakes in this area.”

  Hennings didn’t just go white; the man nearly keeled over. “That’s not necessary.”

  Not necessary? Say what? One of the twines on the bushel of swearwords snapped. What could be more important than locating Penny? “Sir—”

  He grabbed the cordless on the desk and dialed. “We have tracking on all company phones. All I need is the password. Hold on.”

  Russ waited, hands on hips, his fingers twitching while Hennings made a call. Hurry up. Hurry up. Every second was one second more Penny had. By now, she could be out of the city. Way ahead of him.

  Penny’s father jotted notes, hung up and swiveled sideways to his laptop. No time for that. Russ pulled his phone and grabbed the notes.

  “Hold it,” Hennings said.

  “Sorry, sir. No time. You want your daughter back, it’s my way.”

  He punched the website into his phone, only messing up twice because his damned fingers were too big for the screen and—there it was, the welcome screen where he loaded the user name and password. Within seconds a miniature map popped up. He zoomed in on the blinking red arrow.

  “She just got on I-94. Heading north. What’s she driving?”

  “Probably my car. Mercedes S550. Black.”

  Russ ran toward the door. “Thank you. I’ll call you when I’ve got her.”

  Which, if the map was correct, might not be for a while. Rotten luck that he was south of her location while she headed north. She’d managed to be a good forty miles in the opposite direction.

  When he caught up, he’d kill her. No doubt about it.

  * * *

  PENNY PRESSED THE GAS on her father’s car. At any second, Colin Heath would be calling with additional instructions. As he’d said he would, he called the disposable cell phone at two-thirty and told her to head north to Wisconsin. Then he’d hung up.

  Which terrified her on several levels. The first being she was without any sort of backup, had no clue where she was headed and might walk into an ambush. For all she knew, Heath would kill her and Zac and then hunt down Elizabeth.

  Call Russ. Penny checked the side mirror and switched lanes to avoid the slower car in front of her. Outta the way, guy. She despised fast driving, but in Chicago, if someone wasn’t stuck in traffic, they’d better be keeping up. Or leading.

  Worse, the sky had opened up and poured buckets of rain, making the road slick and turning sane drivers into lunatics. She cruised by the slower car and kept a good distance from the truck in front of her. Hate trucks on an expressway.

  Not that she could avoid them, because she needed to get to the state line, where no one knew her whereabouts. At the very least, she should alert someone. If not Russ, then her father. Right? But he’d send someone to follow her, and Heath had warned her about that. Come alone or Zac dies.

  She shook her head. These thoughts. Too much. Too many chances to make a fatal mistake.

  Panic curled inside her, settled in her neck. She lifted one hand off the wheel and massaged the stiffness.

  You need to do something. On the seat beside her, her work phone buzzed. She checked the screen. Russ. Again. He’d called at least five times. Chances were he’d keep calling. Time to face it. She clicked the speaker button and threw the phone back on the seat.

  “Penny?”

  And just the sound of his voice, that low resonance, even tinged with anger, brought a sense of order to her devoured mind.

  She bit down on her bottom lip. Don’t lose it. Inside her, all that emotion—fear, anxiety, heartbreak—sliced at her, ripping and tearing, stealing her air. Can’t breathe. Tiny red dots swirled in front of her—truck lights—and she gripped the sweat-slicked wheel.

  “Penny!”

  Russ’s hollering filled the car. He’s yelling at me. Yelling? No, sir. She gasped and trapped air broke free, all that amazing oxygen clearing her fuzzy brain.

  “Russell, I’m so sorry.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On I-94.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t put everyone in danger. Even if it meant losing him, she couldn’t risk it. She swatted at flowing tears. “I...I don’t know. He hasn’t told me yet. I’m so sorry. If I could have done it differently, I would. I hate that I’ve hurt you. I don’t know how to fix this. I’m sorry. I adore you, Russell Voight. I just can’t give you what you want. I need my brother back. And I need Elizabeth and Sam and you safe.”

  Flashing headlights in her rearview drew her attention. A car signaling her to get the heck out of the left lane. Right. Pay attention. Fearing blind spots that might cause a wreck and delay her, she swung a look over her shoulder and shifted lanes. Focus. Concentrate on the road.

  “Listen to me,” Russ said. “You’re in over your head. We can make this work. Together. If you haven’t done anything yet, we can fix it. You need to pull over. Let me catch up and we’ll work it out. We’ll get Zac back and the you-and-me stuff, we’ll figure it out. After the case is settled, we’ll figure it out. If you get yourself killed, that’s not helping anyone.”

  As if she didn’t know that? “Russell, if I want my brother back alive, I need to do this. Alone.”

  Eyes still on the road, she fumbled over the phone’s keypad and punched the button. Ridiculous man. Telling him where she was going would be the worst thing. Ever.

  Phone. Her mind flashed to arguing with him the first time he’d confiscated her phone and taken the battery out.

  “Oh, no. No. No. No.”

  She pulled to the shoulder and yanked the battery from her phone. “Stupid, Penny. Very stupid.”

  Chalk it up to stress killing her brain cells, because on a normal day, she’d have thought of that. At least she’d realized it before it was too late.

  * * *

  RUSS WATCHED THE RED ARROW disappear. “Oh, come on.”

  She’d turned the phone off. Probably pulled the battery, too. He’d wondered how long it would take her to figure it out. He shouldn’t have called her. Critical error, that. But hey, this was what happened when law-enforcement people got emotional. They pushed too hard, got too dialed in to what they needed to close a case and tunnel vision set in. For him, falling for Penny was the final bullet into the hear
t of his case.

  Not only had he lost complete control of a massive financial-fraud investigation, but by the time it all ended, he might have multiple homicides. Penny, Zac, Elizabeth and her son. Who knew?

  He pressed the gas. At the time he spoke to her, she’d been twenty miles ahead of him on I-94 heading toward Wisconsin. He had twenty miles to figure something out.

  Where the hell would she be heading?

  He hasn’t told me yet. That was what she’d said. Which meant she had an alternate way of communicating with Heath. And considering she was en route, it had to be a second cell phone.

  Scanning his contacts while checking the road—total death wish—he found Brent’s number and hit Speaker.

  “You find her?” Brent huffed.

  When they did find her, if Russ didn’t kill her first, Brent would be there. This stunt had humiliated more than one federal agent.

  “She’s on I-94 but she just went dark. Which means she has a second phone.”

  “She always uses the office one.”

  “She’s communicating with Heath somehow. Find that investigator she’s using. Jenna someone. I’ll explain later, but find her and ask her how Penny is communicating with Heath.”

  “I’m on it.”

  One thing about Brent, he understood urgency. Some guys would have wasted time peppering Russ with questions. Brent? He took action. Good man.

  It took seven and a half minutes for Brent to call Russ back. And just in time because he was bearing down on the spot where he’d lost Penny.

  “Got it,” Brent said.

  “What?”

  “Jenna gave Penny one of her phones. It’s a spare she keeps. She suspected Penny would go off the grid so she told her it was a disposable phone. It’s not and when Penny left the office, Jenna tracked the phone. This chick is good. She’s right behind her on I-94 and Penny doesn’t know it.”

  The confined anger and hurt that had turned his body rock-hard unfurled into a flood of relief. His limbs and shoulders went loose and he breathed through it. “Jenna is aces. You got a number for her?”