Her Sanctuary

by Toni Anderson

  Thank God.

  “She’s in the hospital just now, but yeah, she lives here.” His brows lowered over don’t-flatter-yourself eyes that no longer looked amused. “My sister Sas stayed there last night after her shift finished—she’s an ER doc. And Ryan, my brother...well, he’s not back yet.”

  She tried to keep a lid on her alarm, chewed at her bottom lip. “So it’s just you and me.”

  She stiffened as he threw back his head and laughed.

  “You, me,” he pointed to the little girl who was pulling books off the shelf at the side of the bed. “Tabitha. Couple hundred head of cattle, seventy-six horses, three dogs, two barn kittens, a donkey and a couple hamsters.” He laughed again and the deep sound filled the room with warmth. “You’re never alone on the Triple H. We’ve got a couple of hands who live out in the bunkhouse and Sas and Ryan’ll probably roll up in time for breakfast. Make the most of the peace and quiet.” He made no secret about looking her over now. “It won’t last.”

  Tabitha broke in, her small piping voice loud in the pre-dawn stillness. “Unca Nat?”

  Elizabeth remembered to breathe as Nat’s attention switched to his niece. Hunkering down he caught her small hand in his, “Yes, Tabby?”

  “Is this your girlfriend?”

  The quiet laughter had a hard edge that made her shudder, and his glance flickered over her as if he’d spotted her reaction.

  “No, Tabitha Rebecca Sullivan, this lady isn’t my girlfriend, and you,” he pointed his finger at her belly and wiggled it, “shouldn’t be in here hassling our guests.”

  He tickled her briefly before he scooped her up under his arm.

  “What you doing, Unca Nat?” Tabitha asked between giggles and shrieks.

  “Looking for you, Squirt.” He tickled his niece again. “And checking up on our guest,” his voice was low and warm as he smiled, “making sure she’s still alive.”

  If you only knew.

  Fingers squeezed tight against each other as unconsciously she gripped her hands together. The tension ebbed as Nat Sullivan turned to leave the room. She relaxed with a sigh that turned into a groan as the big wooden headboard pressed unforgiving against her spine.

  “Come on, Tabby. Mizz Reed here looks like she needs more shut-eye. Let’s see if she can stay on her feet for the whole day this time, huh?”

  Ignoring the heat that flooded her cheeks, Elizabeth pulled the covers back onto the bed and glared at him for no other reason than it made her feel better. He winked at her, ignored her scowl even as she felt her blush spread down her neck. He hoisted his niece over one shoulder and strolled out of the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  She should be so lucky.

  She slumped back into the covers, both bemused and annoyed by Nat Sullivan.

  “What the hell am I doing here?”

  Her hands cradled her forehead and she closed her eyes. Turned her face to the coolness of the pillow and nearly cried at the thought of getting up.

  It was 6:10 a.m.

  For the first time in months she let herself drift off, sleep stealing her awareness and lulling her into a light doze. The warmth and security of Nat Sullivan’s bed provided a sanctuary that she needed more than her life’s blood.

  ****

  Federal Plaza, NYC, April 3rd

  Marshall Hayes, Special Agent in Charge of the Forgery and Fine arts Division of the FBI held the SAC of the Organized Crime Unit in a two-handed grip, suspended against a wall in the latter’s plush NY office. Nicotine laced Ron’s breath and Marsh was close enough to see the stains on his teeth. Ron’s face pulsed blue-purple, the sort of color that spelled oxygen deprivation and skyrocketing blood pressure. Short legs kicked uselessly off the floor.

  Marsh’s forearms hurt from the strain of lifting dead weight and his biceps vibrated as muscles began to give. He sucked in a deep, deliberate breath, relaxed his hold a fraction, let the fury dim.

  The whites of Ron’s eyes were blood-shot and highlighted the dirty blue of his iris’s. Pudgy fingers clasped Marsh’s wrists like manacles, an intimate embrace between two men who didn’t even like each other.

  Marsh stepped back, air blasting out of his lungs in a whoosh, jerked his hands away, fingers stiff with residual tension. Ron clung to Marsh’s wrists as he slid down the wall and landed with a thud. Marsh shook him off, backed away and listened to the heartbeat in his head go thud, thud, thud.

  Ron Moody wasn’t worth a murder charge. He wasn’t even worth a new suit. Marsh reached down, picked up the gun off the thin beige carpet. Nobody had drawn a weapon on him in years. The type of criminals he dealt with usually used deception and paper trails, not firearms. Ron had been fumbling with his holster from the moment Marsh had opened the door.

  Shit, things must be even worse than he’d thought.

  Marsh flicked the safety on the weapon and stuck it in his jacket pocket. Slumped in the chair opposite Ron’s messy desk, suddenly deflated as adrenaline crashed. Ron was a moron, a classic blue-flamer, who didn’t care who he burnt on the way to the top.

  “If she’s dead, I’ll bury you.” Marsh kept his voice low as he stared at the view dominated by the Brooklyn Bridge. He turned his head, leveled a flat stare at the man on the floor. “I may even kill you first.”

  Ron gave an ugly mutt scowl. He breathed heavily, his hands wigwaming on the carpet on either side of his hips.

  Marsh reached across the desk, pressed the old-fashioned intercom. He needed information, but first he needed caffeine.

  “Can I get a coffee, Alice, please? Better get your boss one too.”

  Marsh watched Ron silently. The other man’s neck looked too thick for his starched collar; the flesh bulging against the stiff cotton. Ron inserted a stubby finger and leaned back to suck in more air. After a moment, he rose unsteadily to his feet, holding onto the wall as if his legs couldn’t support him. He stumbled, just enough to be convincing, before he sank into the black leather throne behind his desk. Everything about the man confirmed Marsh’s deeply held belief that you should never judge by appearances.

  Face beet-red, eyes pitifully distressed, Ron rubbed his throat as he waited for Alice to bring in the coffee. After she left, he cleared his throat. “Elizabeth’s not dead.” His voice was raspy and coarse.

  Marsh waited. Sipped his coffee.

  Ron loosened his tie, undid the top button of that constricting shirt.

  “DeLattio was looking at twenty years minimum with what we had on him. He had no chance.” Ron chuckled, leaned back in his chair with a satisfied rocking motion.

  Callous bastard. Marsh clenched his fists tighter, trapped the emotion inside and honed his wrath. To Ron, Elizabeth was nothing more than a means to a career-making arrest.

  “Once we accessed his computer, we found more evidence of money laundering and embezzlement than we’d ever suspected. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth.” Ron pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket and swabbed the sweat that streaked his brow. Ron glanced quickly at Marsh, but his eyes skittered away before their gazes connected. “But all the players were entered in code. Without DeLattio’s help we couldn’t pull the evidence together to make the arrests.”

  Silence hummed between them. Marsh didn’t want excuses; he wanted a lead, anything to tell him where his agent had disappeared.

  “He’s smart.” Ron shifted in his seat, held Marsh’s gaze for about half a second. Getting braver. “We could find nothing else to pull this thing together, okay?”

  No, it wasn’t okay. It was not, freaking okay.

  Ron crumpled the grubby linen handkerchief under his right hand. “With DeLattio looking at jail time, there was no way he was talking. The DA brokered a deal and now we can wipe out an entire generation of criminals playing the money game. Do you know what that could mean?”

  Marsh knew what it meant all right. Elizabeth is hung out to dry. Screwed three ways to Sunday. He let Ron talk, giving the man enough rope to hang himself.


  “Those files contained information on not just the Bilottis, but South American drug-lords, terrorists, government officials, even dirty cops.” Looking calmer now, his color back to a ruddy brick-red, Ron carried on. “Everything went to plan. He never once suspected a woman would have the balls to infiltrate his family’s organization. The bugs she planted worked brilliantly.”

  Marsh knew that Moody was as surprised as the mob that a woman had led the sting on the Bilotti’s. Ron still had a hard time dealing with women on equal terms.

  Marsh gripped the arms of the chair so he didn’t lash out. He kept his voice level, reasonable. “You screwed up, Ron.” He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the mob or Ron’s bureau credibility. “You sacrificed an agent, my agent, who’d repeatedly risked her life for your cause.”

  His agent. His friend. A woman he’d dragged into the bureau when she’d been too young to know better. Marsh clamped down on the self-recrimination that tormented him. He should have looked after her. And she should have damn well known better.

  Ron stared back at him with small dense eyes, rat-like—scheming and barely hiding it. Each breath coursed through Marsh’s body like an endorsement of violence. The Organized-Crime Unit had used Elizabeth like a tissue and afterwards, discarded her like garbage. His molars clamped together so tightly his jaw ached. Placing one palm on each thigh, he pressed them down with the full weight of his shoulders. All to keep from punching Ron in the face.

  It would definitely make him feel better.

  But it might not get him what he wanted.

  “Look, Hayes, I know DeLattio is pissed at Elizabeth right now, but he has more important things to worry about than revenge. He still doesn’t know she’s an agent. Was an agent,” he corrected quickly. “He just thinks she’s a vindictive bitch with more money than sense.”

  “Who else knows she was working undercover?” Marsh asked. He’d insisted the information had remained need-to-know. His department relied on long term undercover work that unwary agents could blow with a single careless action.

  “McCarthy. The DA’s office.” Ron picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk, on his coffee mug, on his knee. “Johnston may suspect, though. He’s sharp. And his partner, Valdez. The rest of the office thinks she turned states evidence.”

  “She thinks you’ve got a leak in your division, Moody.”

  “That’s bullshit, Hayes, and you know it. We rounded up the mob guys without a hitch. If we had a leak, word would have gotten out.” Ron leaned back, sweat once again glistening on his brow.

  Marsh didn’t agree. He took another drink of his coffee and placed the cup back on the floor beside his chair. Leaks could be as low level as a typist or service tech, even the janitor if the agents got sloppy. Or it could be a smart agent knowing when to play the boundaries and when to hold fire.

  “Look, I know you’re angry, but it’s not my fault she bolted.” Ron rubbed his bald spot, irritation showing through with each jerk of his hand. Ron Moody wasn’t used to placating anybody. His voice was a low rumble as he leaned forward, his eyes narrow beams of annoyance.

  “The bottom line is that more people want Andrew DeLattio dead than Jews hate Hitler. If the mob gets him, he ends up drinking the East River. So he testifies, gets a face transplant courtesy of the U.S. government, and lives out the rest of his miserable life in WITSEC.” Moody’s shoulders dropped as he rested back against his fancy chair and took a slurp of his coffee. “He doesn’t have the time or the resources for vengeance.”

  Marsh rapped short fingernails on the arm of his chair. DeLattio had been bred for violence. Despite his ivy-league education, he’d lived and breathed it, every day of his life. He must have stashed away millions at some point—he’d have been a fool not to. DeLattio didn’t strike him as a fool.

  Marsh’s eyes narrowed.

  Ron owed him.

  The press coverage had blown two-years of solid undercover groundwork; Elizabeth’s life, both undercover and real, was fucked. He stared at Moody without blinking. A cheap trick, but he wanted Ron off-balance.

  Ron ran a single digit around his shirt collar. Marsh didn’t crack a smile.

  “Look, I know the press and the mob want a piece of her, but our sources suggest they don’t know any more than we do.” Ron hesitated and Marsh knew he was hiding something.

  “Spill it,” Marsh said.

  Ron stared down at his hands that were now on the desk, strangling a pen.

  “Rumor has it Peter Uri flew into La Guardia the same day Agent Ward disappeared. We don’t know for sure that she was his mark, but we’re pretty sure he flew on to Mexico.”

  “And you just let him go?” Marsh sat up straighter in the chair, too wise to the games of the bureau to be surprised, but horrified just the same. The implications...

  Uri was one of the most wanted professional assassins in the world, a shadowy figure with a reputation that was clinical, ruthless and deadly.

  “It was only a rumor.”

  Marsh leaned forward. Grabbed Ron by his fat blue tie and dragged him halfway across the desk with papers flying. Ron knocked his mug, spilled his coffee, eyes pin-balling the damage as he yelped. “Those were my orders, okay? You wanna know why? Go ask your pal Lovine!”

  Brett Lovine was the youngest director the FBI had ever had. He was Marsh’s boss, but he was also a close personal friend of the Hayes’ family. And without Marsh’s father, General Jacob Hayes’ personal backing, Brett would never have made it past Assistant Director.

  Damn straight Marsh would ask him—in private.

  Marsh released Ron. His top lip curled with disgust at the sight of the man before him. Ron made him want to put his fist through a wall.

  “So what are you going to do now, Ron? Sit on your fat ass and contemplate promotion?”

  “What the hell do you want me to do, Hayes? Take off after her myself?” Ron’s ruddy jowls wobbled with indignation. Maybe he’d do them all a favor and keel over dead of a coronary. “Special Agent Ward was offered protective custody, but she refused. She resigned. I couldn’t detain her, for Christ’s sake. We even offered her Witness Protection. Your precious agent told me to shove it where the sun don’t shine.” Moody shifted restlessly on his chair, chewed his pudgy lips. Marsh had a pretty good idea of Elizabeth’s exact words.

  “You offered her the same protection you offered DeLattio?” Derision spiked his tone. Marsh leaned forward, smelled Ron’s sharp and acrid fear. “You miserable little prick.”

  “Now you just listen to me...” Ron spluttered, trailed off, remembering the ease with which he’d been overpowered earlier.

  Marsh held himself perfectly still. He waited as anger bubbled and popped below the surface of his skin. He raised an eyebrow to make sure he had Ron’s full attention.

  “No, you listen to me. I want every piece of information you have on Special Agent Ward’s disappearance. Every photograph, report and sound-bite. And I want it today, before I leave this building. Before I talk to Director Lovine.”

  Ron’s Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively, like he was swallowing string.

  Marsh felt no pity. This man had left his agent at the mercy of a monster. Elizabeth could have easily ended up on a slab in the morgue with the protection Ron had offered her—maybe she would have preferred that.

  Ron managed a sickly smile. “No problem.”

  Marsh knew better.

  Ron stood up and pulled on his crumpled jacket. Marsh followed him into the inner sanctum of the largest field office in North America.

  Chapter Three

  Quantico, Virginia, April 3rd

  “I want to know where that bitch is and I want to know now.” He slammed his fist into the metal table, wanted to pound it into the floor. Wanted to crush and twist and damage it so desperately he could barely think.

  Beware the fury of a patient man.

  Give him ten minutes alone with her, and he’d carve the letters onto her flesh.

  The
email message Charlie had passed on had to have come from her.

  Who the fuck did she think she was?

  His Italian suit was rumpled and grimy, his tie and belt removed for personal safety reasons. His scalp itched. His unwashed hair was greasy, and three days worth of beard stubbled his chin. Andrew rubbed the uneven bridge of his nose, remembering. It had hurt like fury when he’d finished with the bitch, but not all the blood had been his.

  And he still wasn’t done with her.

  He made his lips curve. The skin on his face crinkled around his eyes, even though he wanted to maim.

  He’d first spotted Juliette Morgan at a gallery opening by some up-and-coming nobody from the Lower East Side. To him the pictures had looked no better than blood splatters on a wall. He’d kept his opinions to himself, smart enough to know that the Feds were chasing him harder than ever now he was on Wall Street.

  He leaned back in his chair. Examined his fingernails; cleaned them with the edge of his teeth.

  She’d been smiling at some fat art critic, but not for long. The critic had scuttled away when Charlie had told him to get lost. The critic had known who Andrew DeLattio was. Juliette hadn’t had a clue.

  He pushed dried cuticle down his thumbnail. Bit away the dead skin. The bitch had looked down her perfect nose at him, elegant eyebrows raised in inquiry, looking like a freaking movie star.

  And he’d wanted her. Totally, mindlessly. In every fucking way. He slammed his fist against the table, lowering his eyebrows to hide the hate. She’d hooked into his bloodstream like morphine and the more she’d spurned him, the more he’d been determined to have her.

  Andrew kicked back on the orange, plastic chair, one foot balanced on the metal table in front of him. The ugly table and chairs provided the only furniture in the utilitarian room. He was being held at Quantico in the heart of the American justice system, protected from his friends and family by Marines.