Brown looked from his cousin to me, then laughed like a child at the circus. “Come back to me, lady. We’ll be together. Always.”
The tip of his knife drew a bright bead of Tim’s blood. Tim hissed through his teeth, clutched at Brown’s wrist. Pearce wrestled me toward his waiting cousin.
“Please, Jamie. Just talk and he’ll go.”
“No.” I fought to get a fingertip on the stock of my Beretta. A fingertip was all I managed, though. “Whenever your cousin’s in trouble, he runs to you, doesn’t he? Well, look at him now, Pearce. He’s in a whole heap of trouble.”
“This time will be different.” Pearce’s voice implored me to understand. To forgive. To relent. “This time, I found an institution to take him, Jamie. A nice place with people who care.”
I didn’t believe it. Such places cost a pretty penny, surely more than a chaplain could afford. Unless that chaplain had a trust fund—
Of course, Pearce didn’t have a trust fund. His father had jerked it away when he’d joined the army. As a chaplain, though, he’d had something else.
He’d had pure and simple trust.
After all, who besides the chaplain did a soldier trust with his secrets? Who besides the chaplain heard from soldiers’ worried sweethearts, friends, and parents? And who besides the chaplain would be in a position to know who had deep pockets—and to profit from that knowledge?
“Wealthy parents didn’t come to Tim with bribes for reassignments, did they, Pearce?”
He stopped struggling, but he kept me in a clinch.
And my temper flared.
“You targeted moneyed friends and families, suggested they pay to save the soldiers they loved. You put the touch on them. Well, what about the ones who couldn’t pay? What about the soldiers you and Tim put on the kill list? They would’ve given their lives for their country. You killed them for a little cash, Pearce.”
Pearce’s fingers bit into my arms.
“See my cousin standing there? See the wreck he is? I’m responsible for that. I’m responsible. Because I went off and left him with a monster.”
Brown smiled at me with stars in his eyes. His grip tightened on Tim’s throat. Tim gurgled like he couldn’t breathe.
Pearce said, “I didn’t do what I’ve done so I could buy a Jaguar, Jamie. I didn’t do it to wear handmade shoes. I did it so I’d have the money to take care of Charles. I owe him. Can you understand that?”
I couldn’t. I didn’t know if I ever would. And if Charles Chapman Brown had his way, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance.
But at that moment, his knife clattered to the floor. His free hand clamped the back of Tim’s head. And while Pearce and I looked on, Brown wrung Tim’s neck with a sickening snap.
“What have you done?” Pearce howled.
Brown allowed Tim’s body to slide to the floor. He toed my ex-husband out of his way. Tim rolled into the office—and there he stayed.
I didn’t love Tim anymore. But I didn’t want to see him dead. My heart flashed cold. A thousand bells rang in my ears. All I could hear was their clanging—and the words of Charles Chapman Brown as he spoke to me.
“Lady,” he crooned, “we’ll be together.”
Brown grabbed for me.
Instead of pushing me forward, Pearce jerked me back.
I felt the slide of metal against leather as Pearce lifted my Beretta from its holster. He pointed my weapon at Brown. It vibrated in his hand.
“Stop, Charles. You’ve got to stop right there.”
Brown’s arm blurred in a roundhouse swing, striking Pearce in the temple. My old friend staggered, fell, tried to rise—and his cousin kicked him in the face. His nose exploded in a gout of blood.
Alone with a madman, I bolted for Tim’s office.
Brown and I reached the threshold at the same time. He fisted a hand in my hair, wrenched my head back. My scalp, already so sore, threatened to come apart at Elise’s carefully wrought seam. My neck, already aching, nearly snapped with the force. Against my exposed throat, Brown pressed the edge of his knife.
Not again, I thought.
I clawed at his arm.
Brown crushed me to him. His knife broke my skin. His breath steamed in my ear.
And against the small of my back, I could tell he was aroused.
He hauled me backward. But I refused to go willingly. My heels dragged the floor. A gap opened between our bodies. I fumbled behind me, found his groin.
I grabbed, twisted, squeezed.
Brown gagged, groaned, let me go.
I darted into Tim’s office, tried to slam the door. Brown’s palm jammed it open. I flung my shoulder into it, added all my weight.
On Tim’s useless slab of a desk sat a sleek black telephone, but it was as remote as a telephone pole outside. I’d never reach it if I let go of the door. And on the floor, beside one of the chrome-and-pleather chairs, lay Tim himself, his arms and legs twisted at impossible angles.
Yet his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.
“Tim?”
At the sound of my voice, he moaned.
“Tim, you have to help me. Tim, you have to get up!” I eyed the phone on his desk, prayed I could coach him to reach it. “Tim!”
But Tim was nonresponsive.
At my waist, my BlackBerry vibrated. I had no idea who was on the other end of the connection, but my heart soared. However, reaching for my cell meant removing a hand from the door.
Still, I braced my feet, snatched my BlackBerry, and snapped it on.
“Brown!” I shouted. “At Tim—”
Brown’s sudden shove sent the phone flying from my hand and me crashing to the carpet. Breathing like an injured bull, he charged into the room. Like a crab, I scuttled away from him.
In his hand, his knife dripped blood.
My blood.
“We’ll be together, lady, forever…”
I rolled onto all fours, scurried under Tim’s desk. I shoved his chair away, scooted backward on my bum, hit the wall. Pinned, I watched Brown approach. Only the thick glass of Tim’s desk separated him from me. The glass magnified Brown’s face as he loomed over me—and magnified the frenzy in his eyes.
I had nowhere to go, so I braced myself against the wall. My only thought was to keep that glass slab between us. With both feet, I kicked upward. My boots caught the edge of the glass, flipped it from its supports.
The slab slammed into Brown’s chest, stunned him for one long second.
“No! Charles, stop!”
Pearce stumbled toward his cousin, blood drizzling down his face.
Dazed, Brown stepped back.
A jagged crack snaked upward through the glass desktop, forked. A glass spear, long and pointed, slid down Brown’s front. It hit the floor, stood on end, and tipped backward.
Pearce surged forward. He couldn’t stop. Not even when his gut met the shard of glass. His own momentum carried him forward—and impaled him.
Instantly, I heard the front door at the other end of the house crash and splinter. MPs and FBI thundered through the living room and poured into the office. Men and women armed to the teeth led the way.
But I only had eyes for Barrett.
Chapter 38
Eight days after Pearce Schuyler bled to death on a spike of shattered glass and Charles Chapman Brown was remanded to federal custody, Tim Thorp, suffering from three cracked vertebrae and a dislocated shoulder, took early retirement from the United States Army.
I knew because he dropped by to tell me about it.
I’d just returned from a mind-numbing run along Alexandria’s waterfront, taken the time for a long soak with the jets of my sunken tub, and donned my oldest jeans and my favorite red tee. I’d forgone makeup, rubbed some cream into my stitch-free scars, and pulled my hair into a perky ponytail for the first time in days. My plans for that Saturday included only paperback novels, chocolates, and champagne. But not as an indulgence. Matty, who checked on me often since my ordeal
with Brown, had suggested the plan.
He’d called it therapy.
And he’d called it right.
Before I could settle onto my sofa and start turning pages, however, my doorbell rang. Barefoot, I bounded down the stairs, checked the monitor linked to the camera above my townhouse door. Tim’s image shimmered as he stood on the doorstep.
But Tim wasn’t alone.
He’d brought my father with him.
I let them in, showed them into my home office on the first floor. My father busied himself, perusing the spines of my books and mentally estimating the value of my antiques. Leaving Tim to talk to me.
It had been eight days since I’d last seen him, and he looked like hell. He wore a wide, foam support around his neck and his left arm was still in a sling. His chinos and collared shirt were wrinkled underneath his jacket. More than that, his cheeks were haggard and the ice had melted from his blue, blue eyes.
“Jamie,” Tim began, “the photo of Brooke…the one from my office…I’d like to have it back, please.”
Without a word, I crossed to my mahogany desk, opened the second drawer. And there she was. Brooke Thorp. Brooke Sago, really. Smiling up at me as she celebrated the last birthday she’d spend in Tim’s household.
I handed the snapshot to Tim.
“I appreciate your finding her.” For once in his life, Tim Thorp, it seemed, meant what he said. “She’ll always be my daughter, Jamie. Even if she’s with Brandy, she’ll still be my baby.”
I glanced at my father, who was pretending oblivion as he peered out my front window.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure she always will be.”
My father crossed the room then, clapped a hand on Tim’s good shoulder.
“You’ll have visitation rights,” my father said. “Perhaps joint custody. Your divorce is no reflection of your skill as a parent. Many women simply aren’t up to the challenge of being military wives.”
That hadn’t been my problem when I’d been married to Tim, but I didn’t point that out. Unfortunately, my father’s sentiment was true enough. Barrett’s own marriage was proof of that.
I hadn’t seen him since he’d charged into Tim’s home office. Turns out he’d sent Elise to his house to look in on me. When she didn’t find me, but saw the photos I’d spread all over Barrett’s bed, she’d called him—and he’d wasted no time calling me.
Of course, he hadn’t called me since. To be fair, though, I hadn’t called him, either. The way I figured it, I’d made my choice where he was concerned. And I intended to live with it. I just hadn’t counted on missing Barrett quite so badly.
“So what will you do now?” I asked Tim.
“Monday, your father is introducing me to the head of a congressional lobby.”
“With your years of experience, they’ll be lucky to have you,” my father said.
“What kind of lobby is it?”
My father proceeded to pick nonexistent lint from his coat sleeve as Tim’s eye skittered away from mine.
“They lobby,” my father proclaimed, “for improved veterans’ affairs.”
Of course they did.
And they’d bury Tim so deep in their bureaucracy, the soldiers he and Pearce had traded for cash would have to come back from their graves to dig him out.
My father moved for the door. I didn’t stop him. I was all too happy to close it behind him and Tim.
Tim. Less than the man he had been. And maybe more human for it.
They’d been gone about forty-five seconds when my doorbell rang again.
Thinking my father had thought of one more offensive platitude, or that Tim hadn’t finished trying to assuage his conscience, I opened the door without checking the monitor.
“Look, we’ve both said all there is to say…”
But the words died on my tongue.
“Hello,” Barrett said.
I ran a nervous hand over my ponytail, scanned both sides of the street. My father’s chauffeured Town Car was nowhere to be seen. Barrett’s red Dodge Ram, though, had been squeezed into a space half a block away.
“I just stopped by to bring you this.” He carried a bright white pastry box in his hands. The red script of Bertie’s logo curled across the top.
I accepted the box from his hands and peeked inside. “Bertie’s Double Dutch chocolate cake!”
“I heard that’s hard to come by in Alexandria, Virginia.”
“You’re right. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Barrett drew a breath, blew it out. “You were right, too, by the way. I do want kids.”
My stone stoop felt like it was sliding away beneath my feet. I wanted to slide away with it. Not that I should’ve felt that way. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to get tangled up with Barrett. I sternly reminded myself of this and clasped the cake box in my hands so tightly I inadvertently dimpled the sides.
And then he said, “But you were also wrong.”
“Barrett—”
“It’s Adam.”
“Adam. This isn’t a good—”
“You’re wrong because you think all I want is kids. Well, I want much more than that.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear him out. Barrett didn’t get the message—or he didn’t want to get it.
He said, “I want companionship and fidelity. We both know how hard those qualities are to come by. I want intelligence and integrity, and beauty and bravery. I’ve only ever met one woman with all those traits.”
The cake box trembled in my hands.
“I want you, Jamie.”
The box tumbled to my feet.
I pressed a palm to my heart, ordered it to hold still. I didn’t want it to break again. But the whole of it hammered beneath my breastbone.
Barrett said, “I’m active duty, though, and I’m in New Jersey. You’re here outside Washington. I know you might not want a long-distance relationship. I know you might not want me—”
“Adam?” I said gruffly.
His mouth snapped shut. His eyes sought mine.
“How on earth could I not want you?”
He was heroic and humble, tough and tender. Best of all, he saw strength in me even when all I could see was weakness. He believed I’d succeed even when I was terrified I’d fail. He might not have been what I needed, but he was certainly what I wanted. And maybe, for once in my life, the man I wanted really wanted me just as much.
As if in unspoken answer to my blurted question, Barrett smiled at me. It was a slow smile that spoke of midsummer balefires and promises made in the soft moonlight. I wrapped my arms around him, nuzzled the open neck of his French blue oxford shirt. He smelled of bergamot and a blazing hearth. And I never wanted to let him go.
“I missed you,” I confessed. My voice was thick with unshed tears.
“I missed you more. Fort Leeds has been a very lonely place without you.”
The plane of his cheek was smooth from a recent shave and the tip of his nose sent shivers along my spine as it traced the line of mine. The navy blazer he wore made the most of his broad boxer’s chest and I slipped my hands beneath it, just to be closer to him. He held me tightly as he walked me backward, into the house.
And kicked the door shut with his heel.
I said, “I spent the whole week trying not to think about you.”
“I didn’t think about you so much, I drove all the way from Jersey to track you down.”
“About that.” I tried to slip from his arms, tried to be my old rational self, but the emotional me wasn’t ready to let him go. “How did you find my house?”
“What, you’ve never heard of military intelligence?”
But my witty reply got caught between his mouth and mine.
Because that’s when Adam Barrett kissed me.
To David,
for making this, and so much more, possible.
Acknowledgments
As many writers can attest, getting a novel from the brain box to readers
everywhere is a long and winding road. I’d like to acknowledge those who’ve helped me along the way. First, I owe many thanks to my wonderful agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein. She believed in Jamie and that means the world to me. Here are three cheers for editor extraordinaire Kate Miciak and her team at Random House. Kate, I’m convinced, is the Writer Whisperer. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my first readers: Nicole, Keri, and Lois. They slogged through my first manuscript ever—and helped me see I did indeed have a book in me. I’ve got a heartfelt hug for Karen Rose as well. Without her encouragement, this book would be in a box under my bed—if it existed at all. Here’s a shout-out to my fabulous critique group, the Rockville 8. They cheered Jamie from page one until done, and offered plenty of good advice, which certainly made this book better. And thank goodness for my mom, who let me stay up past my bedtime to read Nancy Drew and watch Remington Steele—and then discussed them with me. I’ve got a kiss, too, for my dad, who always told the best stories over dinner and took me to see more stories at the movies every Saturday. And where would I be without my first partner in crime, my brother, Wayne? Alicia, Ed, and Erika are three of the most enthusiastic cousins a writer could have. Thanks, guys! Most of all, I’m grateful to David, who’s been with me every step of the way. And last but not least, I must thank the men and women of our U.S. armed forces. For more than twenty years, I lived among them, and to this day I am convinced I could never do half the things they do, let alone make half the sacrifices they make for us. With that said, I’ll add I’ve let my imagination run riot on my fictional Fort Leeds. Consequently, the events and personalities you’ll encounter on that military installation are purely my own invention.
About the Author
NICHOLE CHRISTOFF is a writer, broadcaster, and military spouse. She credits James Thurber, Raymond Chandler, and Jane Austen with her taste in fiction. When Nichole’s not reading or writing, she’s out in the woods with her ornery English Pointer.
www.nicholechristoff.com
Facebook.com/NicholeChristoff
@NicChristoff
If you enjoyed The Kill List, read on for an exciting preview of Jamie Sinclair’s next thrilling adventure in
The Kill List Page 26
