by Linda Howard
Survival of the fittest. That was what they’d failed to take into account, the primal instinct to protect oneself and family.
In hindsight, this was something she should have done years ago, immediately after the mission had been completed, when no one was expecting it. The body count would have attracted too much attention, though, and now here they were. She had to eliminate all of them—do it herself, or have it done.
Xavier should have been first. He was by far the most dangerous, had been even before the bungled attempt on his life. Al was almost as bad, but he’d grudgingly agreed that taking out Xavier was the only thing they could do now, so she’d bought some time there. The main thing with Al was to act before he got his guard up.
The specialist would have to handle Xavier. There was nothing she could do herself; she’d have to be insane to even consider the idea of trying to handle Xavier. He would be coming for her, Al was completely right about that, and the best place to get her was her own home. When she was at work, she was untouchable. Xavier would expect her to take evasive actions going to and from work. He might think she would go to ground somewhere, but she couldn’t live her entire life hiding from him and he’d know that. He’d also expect her to think she had everything handled, that her ego would blind her to her vulnerabilities.
She had an ego, but not where work was concerned. When it came to the job, her motto was simple: do it. No matter what, do the job. That was where they all underestimated her, but then she’d deliberately built that image. Winning was easier when the opposition didn’t know what you were capable of doing.
If she knew Xavier, he wouldn’t wait long. He’d hit fast and hard. She’d truly expected him before now; what had delayed him? Was he trying to find Lizzy? When Lizzy had left her car behind in the restaurant parking lot, they’d lost any way of tracking her. That didn’t mean Xavier had lost her, though. The sneaky bastard probably had his own trackers planted on her. She had no way of knowing for certain, but she trusted when her gut told her something, and it was saying she was on the right track.
In that case, Xavier had gone after Lizzy, and was probably making certain she was in a safe place. That would make locating her more difficult, but she’d surface sooner or later. And every hour Xavier delayed was an extra hour in which she layered in another story, another false trail, another document that proved he was unstable and descending into insanity. Let all of his trip wires be sprung; he’d be just another nut-job conspiracy theorist. The evidence in the deaths of President and First Lady Thorndike was ironclad, right down to the DNA. Despite the unexpected circumstances, the plan had held.
This one would, too. The most worrisome factor for her was the time limit. This couldn’t stretch on for too long.
Ashley was furious at being taken from college, of course. She so enjoyed stretching her wings, and now abruptly her feathers had been clipped. She was very much Felice’s daughter, fiercely determined in everything she did. Felice could make the fiction she’d concocted—that the NSA had picked up on chatter that could indicate a domestic terrorist attack on Ashley’s college—hold for a couple of days, but after that Ashley wouldn’t buy it.
She didn’t mind battling with Ashley, but she didn’t want to alienate her forever. Being too heavy-handed would definitely push her daughter away. She would, if necessary, do anything to protect Ashley, but she’d do everything she could to make certain it didn’t come to that.
On cue, her cell phone rang. It was Ashley’s ring tone, the one she herself had picked out so Felice would know it was her and answer the call. She only hoped the men guarding Ashley had placed the call, instead of letting her call whomever she wanted. Sighing, she took the call.
“Hello, Ashley. No, nothing has been settled, one way or the other.” She put weariness in her tone.
“Mom, this is ridiculous.”
“Protecting you isn’t ridiculous.”
“Then why didn’t you have the entire college evacuated?”
“Because if there is a legitimate threat, doing so would alert the perpetrators and we wouldn’t catch them.”
“So you’d just let people die?”
“Of course not. Investigators are working around the clock to make certain that doesn’t happen, and I might add they’re risking their own lives in doing so.”
“Only if there’s a real threat, and you don’t know that for certain.”
“No, I don’t.” Arguing with Ashley was like trying to nail gelatin to a wall. Her girl was slippery.
“So you intend to have me kidnapped and guarded every time you think there might be a threat?”
“Have I done this before?” Felice demanded.
A pause, then she heard a sulky, “No.”
“Then give me a little credit. I evaluated the intelligence, and even though I personally think nothing will come of it, it’s still credible enough that I don’t want to risk your life. You’ll understand when you’re a mother.”
Ashley made an exasperated sound. She would have continued arguing, but Felice said briskly, “I assume Mr. Johnson is there with you. Please hand the phone to him.” Johnson was the name they’d chosen for Ashley’s guard. Again, Felice had no idea what his real name was, nor did it matter.
“This is Johnson.” The man’s voice was calm. She was glad; whether or not he was a nice person didn’t matter, so long as he acted nice in front of Ashley.
“Be careful with her cell phone. Don’t let her have it again until this situation is resolved.”
“Yes, ma’am. She won’t like it, but you’re the boss.”
In the background, Felice heard Ashley demanding, “What did she say?”
“You may tell her exactly what I said. Keep her buttoned down tight.”
Felice ended the call, smiling at Ashley’s spirit even though it had been for nothing. She’d pay a price for this, but keeping her daughter safe was worth it.
Tomorrow … tomorrow she’d take care of Al.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Lizzy slept. She didn’t know how, because despite Xavier’s warning, the shock was so massive she’d been reeling from it. It didn’t help that she had no memory of what she’d done; she believed him implicitly. Not remembering her actions was somehow worse, because she had no context through which to filter the things he’d told her. She didn’t know what she’d thought, what she’d felt, what the other agents had done, where they’d taken her afterward or what she’d said and done. All she had were the bare facts, and on the face of it they were ugly.
Xavier could have told her more, and would if she asked, but all she’d wanted was time to absorb what he’d already said. “I’m okay,” she said steadily. “Just let me deal with it, okay?”
He’d given her a sharp look, one she’d returned without flinching, so he’d given a brief nod, turned out the light, and slid down in the bed with her. She’d turned on her side so her back was to him, not to shut him out, but because that was what felt right. He’d put his heavy arm around her and pulled her back so she was nestled in the cradle of his muscular body. She rested her hand on top of his. The position, the feel of him, the familiarity, had combined with the sheer physical exhaustion of the day and instead of lying awake fretting about things she couldn’t change, she’d gone to sleep within minutes.
She woke before dawn with his big hand sliding over her breasts, stroking and teasing her nipples into tight peaks. The things he’d told her the night before loomed over her, a heavy weight that could crush her. She shouldn’t enjoy this, she thought dimly. She didn’t deserve to laugh, to feel joy, yet pleasure was already blooming deep in her belly, so that she rose through layers of sleep into need, her breath sighing out, her body moving restlessly. That, too, felt very familiar, not just the sensation, but the timing. How many times had he awakened her in the early morning?
Maybe he understood something of what she was feeling, and that was why he’d chosen to wake her like this. She lived, and he wanted her to live, to
find the fire and fullness of life that she’d once had. This, what was between them, was both trite and powerful. Civilizations had been risked, had fallen, because of love.
She could no more deny him than she could stop the beat of her heart.
His hand left her breasts and smoothed down her side and hip, over the curve of her belly. His touch firm, he dragged his fingertips through her cleft, found the soft, damp opening between her legs, and bit her in the curve between her neck and shoulder as at the same time he slid two big fingers deep into her. The heel of his rough palm pressed down hard on her clitoris, sending little lightning shocks all through her.
Her body bucked and shimmied under the triple onslaught. A breathless little cry slipped from her lips and she turned her face against the pillow, fighting to contain the sensation, and the sounds she was making. What he was doing felt so damn good, and if she gave in it would be over far too soon.
He licked where he’d bitten, then bit her again. He shifted his position so he was lying half over her, controlling her with his weight. His other hand stroked over the coolness of her bottom, down, between her legs, touching where his fingers entered her and stroking, stroking, taking her higher.
There was so much sensation she was drowning in it, yet when he removed his fingers and slid his erection into her, she was jolted yet again. There was friction, heat, stretching, fullness. He flattened his hand low on her belly and braced her for his slow, powerful thrusts. She felt every inch of him dragging out, squeezing back in. And despite how much she wanted to make it last, all too soon she was lost to the delicious, maddening increase of tension, winding tighter and tighter inside her, until she couldn’t take any more and went flying.
Even then, when the mindless spasms of pleasure eased, there was more. There was the feel of him moving hard, pushing deeper and deeper, until she heard that grunt he gave, followed by the rhythmic surges of orgasm. She loved it, loved that their lovemaking was as intense for him as it was for her.
Sweaty, lungs heaving, they settled together. He brushed her hair away from her face and rumbled, “You awake?”
Despite everything, she found she could laugh, the sound soft in the darkness. “No, I was faking it.”
“I have to go back.”
There it was, the decision that had been hanging over them for the entirety of the time they’d been together, which wasn’t that long at all, only about twelve hours—twelve precious hours when she’d felt as if a missing part of herself had been restored. But they couldn’t run for the rest of their lives, and Xavier wasn’t a man who turned his back on a problem, anyway. Odd that her clearest memories, her strongest instincts, revolved around him; or perhaps it wasn’t odd at all, given what they’d shared, how intense their time together had been.
“Yes,” she said. “We have to go back.”
“We?” There was iron in his tone. She’d known that particular argument wasn’t over with, so this was as good a time as any to revive it.
“Yes, we. If you leave me behind, I’ll follow. If you lock me in a house and board up the windows, I’ll set the place on fire. Trust me. And don’t tell me ‘your people’ will take care of me, because I’m not buying it. We’re in this together.”
“You’ll hinder me. You’re out of shape and out of practice—”
“Hey.”
“Training shape,” he clarified, running an appreciative hand over her breasts and hips. “Your instincts are good, but how long has it been since you fired a weapon?”
“My guess? Four years.” Since she’d fired the shot that killed the President, in fact.
“It’s a skill set that requires constant practice to maintain. You’d be lucky to hit the broad side of a barn.”
That was an exaggeration, but in his world being able to hit a target wasn’t good enough; the shot placement had to be precise.
“Not only that,” he continued, “but you don’t remember what either Felice or Al look like. Either of them could take you, and you wouldn’t have a clue until it was too late.”
Felice? Al? The names were new to her, yet they resonated. They were part of her lost years … “They’re behind the people who tried to kill us?”
“Felice, definitely. Al, possibly. It has Felice’s handiwork written all over it.”
“How?”
“She used outside people. Al would have used some of his own people, and we’d both probably be dead.”
“Al … what are his people like?”
“Me.”
“Oh.”
From out of nowhere swam an image of a lean, whipcord-tough man with shortcut, graying hair. “Is Al in his fifties, gray hair?”
Behind her, Xavier tensed. “That’s Al. Have you seen him?”
“I remember him.”
“If you remember anything about him, you know he isn’t anyone to fuck with.”
“But you don’t think he’s involved in this?”
“Oh, he’s involved. The big question is whether he’s helping Felice, trying to stop her, or just sitting on the sidelines waiting to step in and mop up.”
“What does your gut tell you?”
“I’m not discounting anything.”
She turned in the circle of his arms and looped her arm around his neck, pressing her face to the warm skin of his shoulder. “Do you have pictures of them?”
“At my condo. I can’t go back there yet. Possibly some of my people could come up with some surveillance shots.”
“Just how many people do you have?”
“Enough to have backup whenever I need it.”
As far as detail went, that was fairly useless.
He pinched her ass. “You’ve met some of them, in a way.”
“I have?” Immediately she thought of nosy Maggie Rogers, and the full-blown suspicions she’d felt the day she first started getting her memory back.
“At the barbecue restaurant. The guy you punched and stole his car? Him.”
“Oh, no.” She was immediately assailed by guilt. “He was on our side, and I punched him!”
“He’ll never hear the end of it, either. The others are teasing him nonstop, for getting mugged by the protectee. But it made him feel a little better when you cut my spark plug wires.”
She didn’t feel at all guilty about that. He’d terrified her enough that she thought he deserved a few cut wires, and she said as much, which earned her another pinch on the ass, followed by a rub.
She kissed his chest, loving his closeness, made all the more precious by the long, cold years without him. He could marshal some excellent, commonsense arguments against taking her with him; none of them made any difference to her whatsoever. She wasn’t going to let him leave her behind. The sooner he faced that reality, the sooner they could return to D.C. and take care of business.
“The first thing we have to do is find a motorcycle shop and have a passenger seat installed on the Harley—either that, or we rent a car. It’s too far back to D.C. for me to ride behind you the way I did yesterday.”
“You aren’t going.”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I love you, and I am.”
Maybe it was saying she loved him that did it. Maybe he’d gone into shock. But he’d fallen silent, and there were no more arguments. She doubted both of those possibilities, because this was Xavier; whatever had changed his mind, her emotions wouldn’t figure into the equation.
She’d hoped they would rent a car, but he opted for the Harley. Not only did he not want to leave it behind, but the helmets provided them with perfect identity concealment. He located a shop that could install a small passenger seat with a backrest on the bike; then he bought her a helmet that almost matched his, so they’d look like one of those motorcycle couples who thought it was cute to dress alike. Even better, the helmets had radio capability, so they could talk.
He disappeared for a little while, leaving her to twiddle her thumbs in the bike shop. She wondered if he’d ditched her, after all, but he retur
ned within the hour, wearing a shirt he hadn’t had on when he left, a button-up chambray shirt that he’d left open over his tee shirt.
Lizzy lifted her brows at him in question, but he ignored her.
She sat down and flipped through a year-old magazine on bow hunting. She was anxious to be on the road, to start the endgame, but she felt as if she’d been through this countless times before, the endless waiting for the action to begin.
By noon, they were ready to head back to D.C. He got on the bike, she parked her butt on the much-more-comfortable passenger seat, and they headed northeast. Before they hit the interstate, though—a much faster route than the hilly, curvy route she’d taken the day before—he wheeled off the road behind an abandoned old service station, and from the small of his back produced a black automatic pistol.
“Here. You’ll need this.”
Cautiously, Lizzy took the weapon, and as soon as her palm closed on the butt of the pistol she was flooded with tactile memory, not just of the weight and shape of a handgun, but the buck of the weapon when she fired, the sound, the smell of cordite and gunpowder. It was a Sig Sauer compact, a nice weapon she’d used before, though the model wasn’t her favorite.
“Thanks,” she said, ejecting the clip and checking it, the movements coming back to her automatically, without conscious thought. She slapped the clip back into place. She didn’t have a shirt or jacket to hide the weapon if she tucked it into her waistband, so she put it on top in her backpack.
“Ready?” he asked, the sound coming through the helmet’s built-in earpieces.
“Yes.” She might not be prepared, but she was ready. There was a difference, and she hoped he didn’t make the distinction.
“One more thing.”
She waited. The black face mask of his helmet turned toward her. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this before,” he said in a musing tone. “But I love you too, and that’s why you’re here. I’m not letting you get away from me again.”
