The Shaughnessey Accord

by Alison Kent

  And you? she wanted to ask. If you’re who Tripp says you are, what sort of choices do you have? “It would go easier on all of us if you could give me a hint? Or maybe just give Mr. Vuong what he’s looking for, and save all of us this hassle?”

  “She has a point,” Tripp finally put in, Danh having removed the gun from the top of his head. “Give up the goods and we can all go home.”

  The professor’s expression remained unaffected. Apparently he wasn’t as put off by having her strip him as she was by the reality of the act. He slipped off his turtleneck with a nonchalance that was strangely disturbing and handed her the shirt.

  Danh circled the both of them while she went through the same process of searching seams and hems. “Professor. Why don’t you tell us about the memoir you’re writing. With your experience, you must have more than a few tales to tell.”

  Why the hell was Danh baiting the man? Nothing good was going to come of this, Glory just knew. She found nothing embedded anywhere in the shirt and glanced helplessly at Tripp. His response was no more than a look that encouraged her to hang in and he’d figure a way out of here soon.

  “I’m not so sure this is the time and place for stories,” the professor argued as he heel-toed off both shoes for Glory’s inspection.

  “It’s time for whatever I decide. Do you have a publisher for your memoir? Do you have an audience waiting to read about your life?”

  The professor’s smile was a picture of paternal patience. “I’m not seeking publication, Mr. Vuong. I’m recording my memories as a self-indulgent exercise more than anything.”

  “Is that right? So if I have one of my men bring in your portfolio, then you will read to us?”

  Glory sensed a shift in the room’s tension even before she got to her feet with the shoes hooked over two of her fingers. Tripp had moved from leaning against the wall, his knees drawn up, his hands at his back, to a sitting sort of crouch as if ready to launch himself forward.

  The professor, now bare-chested and barefooted, pushed his glasses farther up his nose. It seemed to Glory that he was using the motion as a cover, or else as a signal to Tripp.

  She had no idea what was going on, what part in this drama she was supposed to be playing. So she simply offered Danh the shoes. “There’s nothing here.”

  Danh never even looked at her. He gave all of his attention to the professor, gesturing the length of the other man’s body with his gun. “It’s your choice, Professor. Hand Miss Brighton your belt and your trousers. Or tell me what you’ve done with the information passed to you by the courier.”

  “Courier? I’m sure I don’t know what it is you’re talking about.”

  Danh swung. The gun cracked into the professor’s skull above his ear. His glasses skidded across the floor and between Tripp’s feet. Nobody moved. Glory watched blood trickle between the professor’s fingers where he held his hand to his head.

  Screw the little punk with the gun. Even if the professor was the agent Tripp said he was, the man didn’t deserve this inhumane treatment.

  She crossed the room and had her hand on the lid of the plastic storage crate when Danh ordered, “Stop where you are, Miss Brighton.”

  She mentally flipped him off, opened the crate and gathered a handful of napkins. “I will not stop. This man is bleeding.”

  She handed the napkins to the professor, then crossed her arms and faced Danh directly. “I’m done here. You obviously don’t expect to find anything in his clothing. You’re just playing some sick game, and it’s got to stop.”

  Even as she said it, she sensed the professor removing his belt on her right, Tripp pushing up to his feet on her left. She was in deep shit, she knew it, and she no longer cared. If this was going to be her end, so be it. She just wanted this ridiculous siege of her property over with.

  And then Danh began to laugh, a chuckle that was part desperation, part admiration, and a lot of disbelief. When he finally spoke, it was to call out in his language for one of his henchmen, to whom he issued orders while never breaking eye contact with her.

  She ignored the professor’s offering of the belt, turned to Tripp for help and mouthed, What now?

  He cast a brief glance toward the professor, gave an even briefer nod before looking at her again and answering with a silent, Bathroom.

  He wanted her to go to the bathroom. He wanted her out of here. She could only imagine that he had a plan and was sending her out of harm’s way. She longed to go, felt she should stay. After all, she was on a roll, albeit a reckless one.

  She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and hurried forward before she lost her nerve. “Mr. Vuong,” was all she got out before his man had taken hold of her upper arm and started propelling her toward the door.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

  “I think you need to freshen up, Miss Brighton, and leave the business of negotiation to the men.” And that was all she heard.

  Seconds later, she found herself being shoved through the door and into the women’s restroom.

  Glory gripped the edges of the white porcelain sink and hung her head. A part of her wanted to do nothing but break down and sob. Another part of her wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to cry again, or if she’d ever have reason to.

  If she couldn’t come to real tears over this, the most horrific experience of her twenty-seven years...

  Her eyes stung. It was impossible to blink. But still there was nothing. No reaction. Just nothing. Here she was alone, momentarily safe, yet none of the tears that had welled before would come.

  She supposed the mind-racing processes of logic and reasoning had squashed all emotional response. And then she snorted. At least they could’ve put out some effort to answering her number one burning question.

  Who the hell was Tripp Shaughnessey?

  She’d only begun to ponder all the possibilities when she heard a quiet scratching against the ceiling tiles overhead. She brought her gaze up slowly, remained absolutely still but for her eyes that searched the mirror’s reflection of the small room behind.

  A ceiling tile shifted, dislodged from the frame. A second followed until there was a gaping black hole in the corner nearest the door. She froze, this time not even moving her eyes, staring as a face smeared with camouflage paint appeared in the opening.

  Her heart thundered. She tried to swallow her fear but choked. Her palms grew slick with sweat against the cool porcelain sink.

  The man put a silencing finger to his lips and she nodded, watching mesmerized as he vanished, then reappeared feet first, dropping to the floor behind her.

  She turned around as a second man followed, indistinguishable from the first in the same camo gear. He remained silent and still as a third man appeared.

  This one had black hair pulled to his nape in a ponytail. He also seemed to be in charge as he was the only one who spoke. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded.

  “Is anyone hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  He pressed his lips together as if satisfied, then asked, “Where’s Tripp?”

  “In the storeroom,” she whispered, her biggest question answered. As if there had really been any doubt. Tripp Shaughnessey was not at all who he seemed.

  “We counted six intruders. Is that right?”

  She thought for a minute. “It’s hard to say. I can’t tell one from the next. Except for Danh and the one Tripp knocked out, they’re all still wearing their masks. I haven’t seen but four together at a time.”

  “Danh?”

  “The one in charge.” She swallowed. Her hands began to shake. “The one holding Tripp.”

  The dark-haired man nodded, turned to his friends, gestured in what looked like a series of coded signals. Both gave sharp affirmative shakes of their heads, and then the first man approached.

  “I need you to follow my instructions, okay?”

  As if she’d expected otherwise. “Sure.”

  “Lock yourself in one of the s
talls and don’t move until we’re back.”

  “And if you don’t come back?” she asked, because she couldn’t help consider the possibility after the day she’d had.

  He smiled at that. Camo paint or not, it was a look she was certain had left more than a few women speechless, a look that was all about confidence and certainty, even while it glinted with a cockiness that said she had no idea who she was dealing with.

  Before today, she would’ve agreed. But that was before today. “Right. You’ll be back. And what then?”

  “First things first,” he said and motioned for her to lock herself away.

  She did, only reluctant because she wanted to see and hear and know what was going on. This was her shop, dammit. Her customers, her employee, her livelihood under siege. As it was, she wasn’t even able to pace. The space between the toilet and stall door was nil.

  She knew Tripp’s three associates had left the room, though she’d never heard them go. Now all she could do was wait. She did so with her head braced against the stall door, her body flat, her hands splayed at her sides, her fingers spread. It was a silly pose, really, but it enabled her to breathe calmly instead of hyperventilate.

  A thud in the hallway outside brought her head up a short time later. She laced her fingers tightly, then loosely, worrying them at her waist. Minutes passed, or seconds—she had lost all sense of time—another thud sounded, followed by a scuffle, though she never heard a single voice cry out or call orders.

  She was crazy with wanting to know what was happening, insane with the realization that there was nothing she could do to help. She was locked in a toilet; it felt so wrong to pray, though she was certain her mother’s First Presbyterian prayer circle would tell her a toilet was as good as any place.

  And so she did, sending up wishes and hopes and supplications as best she knew how, wondering if any of the unanswered phone calls had been her father checking in, ready to give her his lecture, wondering how hurt her parents would be to know she’d fallen for another dangerous man.

  Suddenly she wanted more than anything to ask about her father’s meat loaf sandwich. To find out if the potato pancakes had been too salty as they usually were. She wanted to talk to her mother, to hear her scolding voice and promise to go out with any guy she wanted her to meet.

  A patently untrue promise, of course, because the only man she wanted in her life was three doors away if she counted the one on the stall. Three doors and an entire lifetime of experience. The fact that he had any interest in her at all left her surprised.

  She was no one but Glory Brighton, hardly interesting to a man who had seen the world, though she had to admit she did seem to attract ones followed by trouble. Yet even as she entertained the thought, she knew it wasn’t true. Tripp was nothing like the troublemakers she’d known in the past.

  He was all about solving problems and saving the world from men like those others. From men like the ones who had threatened all that she knew, all that she had. If she got out of here in one piece, she swore she’d pull a Scarlett O’Hara and take an oath to stand up for what was hers and to never go hungry again.

  In the next moment, the bathroom door squeaked open. She spun around, pressed one eye to the crack below the stall’s hinges. One by one, the three men returned. Tripp followed. She couldn’t stay put any longer and slid back the flimsy lock on the door.

  The moment he spread wide his arms, she was there, her face buried against his chest, her arms around his waist, his around hers. He smelled so good. He felt like her world, like he was everything she would ever want or need, and she wasn’t sure she knew how to let him go. Knew as well that, for now, she had to.

  “Sweetheart, are you okay?” he murmured into her hair.

  “What about you?” She pulled away frowning, holding his hands and rubbing the dried blood from the skin on his wrists.

  “All in a day’s work.”

  “Your day maybe. Not mine.” And upon saying that, the tears finally came. Tears of relief and exhaustion and joy that she would never go hungry again—and that Tripp would be around for her to snuggle with and argue with and make love with another day.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said with no small measure of regret. “But I’ll be back for you when this is all done.”

  “What do I do now?” she asked as the phone again started to ring.

  “You answer that and tell them you’re opening the door.”

  “And what do I say about”—she glanced toward the hallway where through the door still propped open she saw—“the bodies.”

  “That a man of steel spun a sticky web.” He said it with a smile she wanted to return but couldn’t. Not even after he lowered his head, rubbed his nose over the tip of hers, and kissed her soundly.

  When he finally lifted his head, she blinked stupidly. His grin cleared her sensual fog. “No, really. What do I say?”

  Tripp glanced up as his three associates vanished into the ceiling. He quickly spelled out her cover story. She absorbed it all, ran the explanation over in her mind until she was certain she had no questions.

  Then she backed across the room and watched Tripp pull himself up through the gaping hole in the ceiling, disappearing behind the tiles he settled back into place.

  Okay. First step. Take a deep breath. Second step. Answer the phone. A move that required she leave the restroom and circumvent the pile of bodies. She could do this. She could do this.

  Eyes scrunched up, she scurried down the hallway and into the shop.

  “Glory, sheesh.” Neal struggled to gain his feet. “Where have you been? What’s going on? How’d you get by that son of a bitch?”

  “I’ve got to get the phone, Neal. But come here. I’ll cut you loose and you can free the others.”

  “They’re gone?” asked the lighter-haired of the two secretaries, duct tape hanging loose from her mouth. “What happened?”

  “Long story made short, they’ve been put out of commission,” Glory said, instead of blurting out the truth of men of steel and webs.

  She made but the briefest eye contact with the professor as he entered the room under his own steam to a round of gasps and questions, before she picked up the phone.

  “Glory Brighton here.”

  Tripp showered and changed clothes in the ops center’s locker room after an hour spent between the treadmill and the weights.

  Julian, Christian and Kelly John had cleaned up first. They had more to clean up, what with the grease paint they’d worn to avoid recognition—the sort of disguise they rarely had to wear.

  But they’d been operating on their own turf, in close proximity to the very building housing the office that was their cover. The camouflage had been about self-preservation, not about blending into the jungle of the city.

  All any of them could do now was keep their fingers crossed that the strategy had worked.

  Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and another draped over his head, Tripp padded into the dressing area. Glory should be done with the police by now. At least with anything they were going to need her for tonight.

  Now it was his turn to get to her and finish what they’d started. He wanted to make sure she was okay, that she wasn’t alone and frightened, that she knew he hadn’t lied when he’d promised to come back.

  He tugged the towel from his head to find he had company. Hank Smithson stood with his hands in his pockets and the butt end of a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

  “Julian’s off to Miami, but I’m taking Christian and Kelly John to dinner since they’re pissin’ and moanin’ about never gettin’ their lunch.” Hank rocked back on his boot heels. “You up for a steak?”

  Lunch, right. The reason he’d gone to Brighton’s all those hours before. Tripp pulled his duffel out of his locker, tossed his towel to the bench behind him.

  “Actually, I’m off to see a girl about a promise,” he said, stepping into his boxers.

  Hank nodded, shifted his cigar to the other sid
e of his mouth. “I figured you might be thinking of something along those lines. Kinda surprised to hear you’ve been making promises, though.”

  Buttoning the fly on his jeans, Tripp glanced over with a grin. “Yeah, sorta shocked myself with that one.”

  “The girl’s a good influence.”

  “She gets my jokes,” Tripp said, surprising himself. “She doesn’t necessarily laugh, but she gets them.”

  Hank stopped rocking, pulled his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe she knows what I know. That life doesn’t have to be funny all the time. That doesn’t mean it ain’t worth living.”

  Tripp tugged a black T-shirt down over his head, sat to pull on socks and his boots. “Guess I’m pretty transparent, huh?”

  “No. You just need to forgive yourself for the things no one else holds against you. The past is the past, son. You need to see to your future.”

  “With Glory, you mean?”

  Hank turned to go. “With whoever makes you happy for all the right reasons.”

  Ten minutes later, Tripp stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed, hands in his pits, watching the lights of the ambulances and patrol cars flash off Brighton’s front glass.

  The hostages had been examined by paramedics, statements had been taken by detectives, and the scene combed by the forensics team. The media was now out in force.

  He figured the patrol cars in the distance were hauling Vuong’s gang away, finishing the job the SG-5 team had started. Good riddance to the lot of the bastards for the scare they’d given Glory.

  A scare Tripp still felt burning like an ember he’d stepped on with bare feet. Damn, but he’d come way too close to losing her and any chance to tell her how crazy he was with wanting to get to know her.

  A new burst of cameras flashing had him looking toward the door just as Glory came out flanked by two people he’d bet money were her parents. Her mother even had the same curly head of hair. A policeman in front of them staved off reporters as the three slid into the back of his car.