“I’ll help you,” she said impulsively. “I’ll come back and we’ll do some research. If there’s one thing I know how to do better than most people, it’s find stuff on the Internet. If there’s a doctor who can help your leg, or a program that’ll get you into a better school, we’ll find it and we’ll get you where you need to be.”
Kayleigh hesitated a moment, then sighed. “We don’t have a computer here.”
“I’ll take care of it.” But Gabby heard the girl’s real argument. You’re just saying all that. You won’t really come back. Because she remembered what despair felt like, she said, “Do you have something around here to write with?”
“I guess.” Kayleigh’s response might’ve been sullen, but moments later Gabby heard a rustle of bedclothes and the shuffling sound of someone feeling around in the darkness. “Yeah.”
Gabby gave the girl her phone number and e-mail address. “If you don’t have a computer here, maybe they have one at your school or the library you could use. Or you can call me. I mean it.”
And she did, she realized, even if it meant taking the Orange Line all the way out to Southie and using her cane to tap her way through the rough neighborhood in order to make good on the promise.
The idea was frightening. It was also tempting, an opportunity to help someone who needed her more than the nucleus of students and friends she’d gathered around herself like a shield.
When Ty cleared his throat out in the hall, she stood. “I’m sorry. We have to go now, but I promise I’ll be back.”
And, like Ty, Gabby didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.
She’d crossed the tiny room and had her hand on the doorknob when Kayleigh said softly, “Are you really helping him find a bad guy?”
There was a wistful quality to the question, one that found an echo deep inside Gabby and had her smiling ever so slightly. “Yeah.” She nodded, more to affirm it to herself than anything. “I really am.”
* * *
Ty got them out of the Wellbrook Halfway House as fast as he could, with only a nod to Tom and Lennie. “I’ll be in touch.”
He could tell from their expressions that they wouldn’t be holding their breath until his return.
Then again, if what Tom had shown him was the truth, then he didn’t blame them for their lack of faith. If the letters were real, and not part of some elaborate mind game perpetrated by Liam and staged by the residents of the Wellbrook Halfway House, then they had every right to their suspicions, because they’d been promised the moon and been handed a lump of garbage.
Beside him on the sidewalk outside the halfway house, Gabby shivered faintly. “It’s cooled off.”
“Here.” Ty shrugged out of his windbreaker and draped it over her shoulders.
“What about you?”
“I’m fine.” In fact, it was probably better this way, because the jacket had covered his holsters. In this neighborhood, particularly in these circumstances, he’d feel better having his weapons in plain view and easy access. Call it an implied threat. You don’t bother me, I won’t put a hole in you.
When she’d finished donning his jacket and rolling up the sleeves, he took her hand. “Come on. Our last stop, unless Liam changes the rules on us, is an admin building at Boston General Hospital.” He paused and took a breath. “I’m sorry, Gabby. We still can’t risk a vehicle. We’re going to have to hoof it.”
“Let’s go, then.” She followed his lead out to the street without protest, and his respect for her, which was already far too high for his comfort, edged up another notch.
Most of the women he’d met, including the trained field agents, would’ve been close to the end of their reserves at this point. Gabby, though, soldiered on and did what needed doing. He wanted to tell her he was proud of her, that she blew him away.
Instead he tightened his grip on her hand and led her into the night. As he walked, he thought about what Tom had shown him, about what it might mean.
They traveled several blocks in a silence broken by shouts, sirens and helicopter rotor thumps off to the south. Thankfully, it sounded as though the riots were beginning to either die down or move farther away.
The churn inside Ty’s head, however, continued unabated, souring his mood and making him feel restless and a little mean. He wanted to hit something, to fight someone. He wanted to drive fast, to blow something up, to make love to a willing woman.
To make love to Gabby.
“Back there, Tom showed me some letters,” he said abruptly. “Official forms from something called the Urban Improvement Fund. Some were from before the campaign trip, promising him a three-tiered grant spread out over two years, partly for improvements to the building, partly for education and remedial programs. There was even supposed to be money for a counselor.” He wasn’t familiar with the actual programs, but the paperwork had sure as hell looked legit. “The newspapers went to town on it, talking about how the work would help revitalize the neighborhood and help transition singles and families from the streets back onto the grid.”
When he fell silent, Gabby glanced over at him. “What happened? Did the funding get cut?”
“I’m not sure it ever existed.” That would be the first thing he’d check. “Once the election was over and President Stack and Vice President Davis were inaugurated, he and Lennie got a couple of letters about senate budget cuts and alternate funding sources, and then one final form letter announcing the dissolution of the Urban Improvement Fund.” He paused, acid churning in his gut. “By that time they’d committed to the improvements they’d outlined in their grant proposal. They’ve had to cut corners almost everywhere else in order to pay off the work. Meanwhile, other parts of the house and the program are falling apart.”
Tom had openly admitted that, hindsight being twenty-twenty, they never should’ve contracted for work without having the money in hand. They’d gotten caught up in grand plans, and he swore they’d been egged on by their contact at the Urban Improvement Fund, who’d disappeared right around the same time the grant went kaput.
“That’s terrible, and of course I feel for them.” Gabby said quietly, “But budget cuts happen, and sometimes worthy causes suffer. I don’t see the connection to what’s happening here.”
“According to Tom, Grant Davis was deeply involved in the Urban Improvement Fund. That’s why he stopped at the halfway house during his campaign swing, and why he made a special point to schedule all the photo ops. The project was supposedly his baby.”
“That should be easy enough to check.”
“If we had power and computer access, sure,” Ty said sourly. “Unfortunately, we don’t have either between now and dawn, so we can’t check anything. Which, no doubt, was part of Liam’s plan—to cut me off from my resources and then twist things around until I can’t figure out which way is up anymore.”
They walked half a block in silence before Gabby said, “Did Liam leave you a message about the bomb?”
“No.” And that worried the hell out of him. Had he missed a clue, or was there something else going on?
Gabby furrowed her brow in concentration. “Liam couldn’t have known about me, or if he knew you had a fake online girlfriend in Boston, there’s no way he could’ve predicted you’d drag me along with you. So that thankfully rules out little Kayleigh being involved. Which means he wanted you to know about the Urban Improvement Fund.”
“I’m with you there.” Ty tugged on her hand, guiding her to his side so her body bumped against his at hip and shoulder. “Pothole,” he said, by way of explanation, and wondered if he was trying to explain it to himself or her.
The cool night crowded him. He’d killed the flashlight to avoid attracting attention, and the moonlight cast deep shadows on either side of them. Feeling the prickle at his nape that warned they were being watched from one of the row houses they’d passed, he moved closer to Gabby and adjusted his automatic in its holster, just in case.
Or maybe there was nobody watchi
ng, and the sense of unease came from within.
Gabby seemed to sense his tension. Her voice bordered on tentative when she said, “I know you said the vice president is a good man, but what if—”
“Stop,” he said harshly, interrupting before she could voice the suspicion Liam was trying to plant in his head. “It wasn’t Grant. If anything, someone close to him is trying to make him look bad. Maybe even Liam himself.”
The Gabby he’d first met face-to-face, the one who’d switched places with a friend and hidden in the shadows, would have let it go. The Gabby who’d escaped from Liam in the church and run from the cops an hour later, the one who’d bared her soul in an effort to help a child…that Gabby lifted her chin and said, “Don’t talk over me just because you don’t like what I’m saying. Is that how the Secret Service investigates threats to their protectees? By ignoring the interpretations they don’t like?”
“Of course not, but—”
“But nothing,” she said, interrupting him this time. “Take your own emotions out of the equation for a minute and pretend Grant Davis isn’t your friend. What do you see?”
“I see that Liam Shea is a very smart man who is looking for revenge and is perfectly willing to kill to get what he wants. Given that, it’s no leap to believe he’d manipulate evidence in order to take down the most powerful of the men he blames for how his life turned out.” Ty clenched his free hand into a fist, almost wishing one of the nearby shadows would turn out to be a threat, and give him a target for his frustration. “It’s really almost simple. It’s not enough for Liam to simply kill Grant. He’s determined to destroy his reputation, too. He wants to kill the Patriot’s legacy.”
“What about you?” Gabby asked softly. “Why hasn’t Liam attacked you directly? You were one of those men. You were there when the rescue went wrong. For all we know, he blames you for not setting off the diversion in time. So why hasn’t he tried to kill you?”
“Because he knows he’s already taken away the most important thing—The man I’ve sworn to protect with my life.”
It wasn’t until Ty said the words aloud that he realized how sad that sounded. Liam had hurt Chase and Ethan by targeting their families, and he’d gotten to Shane by hitting at the company he’d sweated blood to bring to the top of the security world. Ty didn’t have a family of his own, didn’t have a company of his own. He had his relationship with Grant, which was part friendship, part hero worship.
At what point had that become enough for him?
Shaken by the errant thought, Ty continued, “By taking Grant on my watch, Liam struck at both of us. Now he’s getting off on seeing me flail around as I try to make it through his stupid treasure hunt before the bomb goes off.”
“What if it’s more than a scavenger hunt?” Gabby said, her expression pensive in the moonlight. “What if he’s trying to tell you something?”
“Then I’m not listening,” Ty said shortly. “And this conversation is pointless.”
He expected her to snap back at him or lapse into silence. Instead she said softly, “The idea wouldn’t make you angry if part of you didn’t think there was something to it.” She paused, waiting for a response. When he marched along, his jaw clenched, she said, “You can see the pattern. The boat at the aquarium wasn’t named after the vice president any more. The tutoring center is closed. The halfway house—”
“Stop!” he said sharply. “Just stop, okay? You don’t know anything about what’s going on here. You don’t know Liam or Grant, or what either of them is capable of, and I don’t need you playing amateur sleuth or trying to crawl inside my head. The only reason you’re here is because I don’t know where Liam is or when he’s watching, and I’ll be damned if I let another—” He clicked his teeth together on an oath, on the anger he knew wasn’t really directed at her, and fought to gain some semblance of calm. When he thought the words would come out sounding a shade more reasonable, he said, “Look, I don’t mean to be a complete jerk, but just back off a little, okay? I’m not used to working with anyone else, and you’re crowding me.”
“Well, excuse me,” she said, her fingers going stiff in his. “I don’t remember asking you to come see me while you were in town. In fact, I’m pretty sure I said to stay away.”
“Until you talked Maria into pretending to be you, of course.” Realizing he was close to shouting, Ty reined himself in with a mental yank and cursed under his breath. “Listen, Gabby, I didn’t mean to—”
He broke off when he caught a flicker of motion out of his peripheral vision. At the second flicker, he transferred Gabby’s grip to his belt and hissed, “Stay behind me. We’ve got company.”
A low chuckle emerged from the shadows between two row houses, followed by the silhouette of a man, or rather a boy in his late teens, slim-hipped beneath low-hanging jeans, wearing an unbuttoned Red Sox jersey and a matching cap turned sideways. He seemed to glide across the pavement, sinuous and snakelike, an impression that was reinforced by the smoothness of his chest and his shaved-bald scalp beneath the ball cap.
“Company,” he said, his voice soft and almost sweet. “Doesn’t that sound all friendly and stuff? Since we're being friendly, I'll introduce myself. I'm Snake, and these here are my boys.”
Footsteps shuffled as other teens emerged from the shadows all around Ty and Gabby, ringing them, hemming them in. There were ten in all, each one bigger than the last, until the final figure stepped up, a mammoth young man, maybe nineteen or twenty, with huge biceps and no neck.
Ty palmed the flashlight and flicked it on, shining it directly in No-Neck’s eyes for the distraction factor. “We’re not looking for trouble here, guys.”
A quick scan told him they didn’t have any guns he could see, but they were holding enough pipes and knives to do some serious damage.
Snake bared his teeth, showing off a pair of filed-sharp canines. “Maybe we are.” His eyes fixed on Ty’s semi-automatic, then slid to Gabby. “You think you can take all of us before we take her, tough guy?”
Ty cursed inwardly when Snake’s eyes flicked to his hardware. Odds were that they wanted his guns more than they wanted Gabby, but he wasn’t willing to play those odds any more than he intended to surrender his weapons to a street gang.
Problem was, he couldn’t very well distract them while Gabby took off on her own without guidance, which left him pretty thin on options.
“Think about it, guys. You don’t want to do this,” he said quietly.
Snake’s teeth flashed again. “Why not?”
Because I’m a federal agent, you moron, Ty thought, but didn’t say because it would probably make things worse. Instead, he flicked his light around the circle. Based on their hesitation and the lack of visible gang colors or tats, he was willing to bet they were an offshoot of the riots, not an organized street gang. Even better, he caught a couple of nervous shuffles when he moved the flashlight beam from face to face.
If there was a weak spot in the circle, he should be able to exploit it. “This blackout isn’t going to last forever,” he said, locking eyes with one of the shufflers. “When it’s over, the cops are going to come looking for the punks who had their fun tonight. You sure you want to be those guys?”
The shuffler wavered, broke eye contact and began to edge away. Victory flared in Ty’s veins and he eased back, using his body to herd Gabby toward the weak spot in the human circle, hoping she’d understand.
Get ready to run, he thought, wishing she could read his mind. That way.
“Yeah.” Snake swaggered forward with No-Neck at his side. “As a matter of fact, I do want to be one of those guys. Starting now.” He gestured to Ty’s underarm holster. “Hand it over, butt first, and no funny stuff or we’ll make the lady suffer.”
“Okay, okay.” Ty held his hands out, indicating no harm, no foul. He reached into his holster, moving slowly, and came up with the 9mm, holding it by the butt with two fingers. “Let’s not do anything we’ll all regret.”
&
nbsp; He flipped the weapon, caught it by the grip and shot Snake.
The punk shouted and went down, clutching his upper arm. In the stunned moment before all hell broke loose, Ty killed the flashlight and grabbed Gabby’s hand. “Run!”
He lunged through the gap the shuffler had left in the circle. The kid went down with a grunt, and Ty staggered free, dragging Gabby after him, as a roar went up from the gang.
“Get him!” No-Neck’s bellow was nearly lost under a high-pitched wail from Snake, but it did the trick.
The punks spun and charged.
He knew he couldn’t shoot all of them, not in the dark, running, with only fifteen in the mag and one spare clip, along with the slower revolver. Instead Ty opted for full-out retreat.
He and Gabby raced along the street. He led her along the road itself, not trusting the shadows because violence had a nasty habit of attracting more of itself from the darkness. Though the moonlight made it easier for him to run flat-out with Gabby in tow, it made things equally easy for their pursuers, who were younger and faster.
Hopped up on rage and adrenaline and whatever else they’d been into that night, the street toughs howled threats and imprecations as they closed in fast.
“We’ve got to get off the street,” Gabby said urgently. “Do you see anywhere to hide?”
“It’s all houses, and they’re locked up tight.”
“We’re right near the edge of Southie, right? I think there are shops up one street and over.” She gestured north.
“It’s better than nothing. Come on!” Ty spun, raised his weapon and sent two shots over the punks’ heads, close enough to scatter them. Then he turned down the next cross street and put on the afterburners.
He and Gabby ran across one block and up the next. His legs burned and his lungs ached, and he could only imagine how she was feeling by now.
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