Before she took a step onto the first stairway riser, another squeak rose from somewhere nearby. She eased back into the hallway and listened. When she heard nothing, she shook her head in disgust. She was doing it again . . . looking for things that go bump in the night. Tomorrow she would call her doctor and see about getting something to help her sleep. Better to be in a drug-induced state than to lie awake with her imagination running rampant.
Yawning, she returned to her dark bedroom. She’d gotten nearly halfway to the bed when she realized the lamp on her bedside table was no longer on.
The stale smell of cigarettes drifted to her nose, and she knew right away.
She wasn’t alone.
A gloved hand clamped around her mouth. Another pressed the cold edge of a knife blade against her throat.
She trembled, desperate to fight but afraid of that knife. Her heart pounded. Her stomach churned at the smell of alcohol mixed with tobacco in the warm breath that fanned her face. The grating of a low, guttural voice rasped in her ear. “If you don’t want your son hurt, keep quiet, Mrs. DeHan. Do you understand?”
Max! She’d do anything to protect her son.
She gave a slight nod in reply.
The rough fabric of a sweatshirt rubbed against her skin as he pressed the knife blade even harder into her flesh and traced a line down her throat to her collarbone. Her legs trembled, and the man’s hand tightened on her mouth as he pulled her against his body. Chills ran down her spine as he breathed against her ear. “I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth, but I’m warning you first. I’m not alone. If you make one sound, my friend will go to your son’s room and slit his throat. Now are you going to be quiet?”
Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, and a groan gurgled in her throat as another figure clad in black emerged from the shadows. She nodded again.
Slowly the hand released her mouth and groped its way downward along her body until his arm encircled her waist and pinned her arms to her side. She wheezed from the struggle to breathe, and with a chuckle he loosened his hold on her a bit. “Now that’s a good girl. If you’ll just cooperate, this will all be over in a few minutes.”
If he’d thought his words would reassure her, they didn’t. A lot could happen in a few minutes. She began to shake harder. “H-how d-did you get in here?”
He laughed and rubbed his cheek against hers. “You need to talk to whoever sold you that security system. I’m afraid you paid a lot of money for a piece of junk, but then you’re a wealthy woman. Money may not mean a lot to you.”
At his mention of money, she stiffened. Maybe robbery was what this was all about. She took a deep breath. “M-my p-purse is on the dresser. There’s money in it. You can have it all.”
He laughed. “We don’t want your money.”
A new fear coursed through her. A woman living alone. Two men breaking into her home, and they had no interest in money. The killer of the woman in the neighboring town hadn’t stolen anything, either. What had that woman’s last thoughts been? Had she offered her assailants money? Had she begged for her life before she’d been raped and murdered? “P-please, n-no,” she sobbed.
A low chuckle rose from the man’s throat. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re not interested in that either. At least not tonight. If we have to come back, it may be a different story though.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you here?”
“We want you to do something for us.”
There was only one thing she could think of that might be of interest to someone else, the new product her company was about to release. “Is this about my company?”
He laughed, louder this time. “I could care less about your company. This is about Firebrand. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Of all the things he might have said, that was the last thing she expected. She didn’t breathe for a few seconds before she responded. “I don’t understand.”
In one quick motion he raised the knife to her throat again, nicking the skin this time, and trailed it down the side of her neck. Something warm trickled along the knife’s path leaving a burning pain in its wake. She struggled to bring a hand up, to touch the cut that now felt like fire on her skin, but he held her tighter. “Answer my question,” he snarled. “Does the name Firebrand mean anything to you?”
“Yes, yes.” She willed herself to stand still and gulped another deep breath. “I’ve heard of Firebrand.”
He laughed again and relaxed his hold on her a bit. “Now that’s a good girl. But you’ve more than heard of it, haven’t you?”
A new fear grew in the pit of her stomach, something worse than what she’d first thought when he put the knife to her throat. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “All I know is that it’s an ex-military group.”
“You might call them military. I call them an army operating in the shadows.” He practically spit the words from his mouth. “More like paid mercenaries taking on any dirty job the government wants to keep secret.”
She would have collapsed to the floor if his arm hadn’t been supporting her. “Please, I don’t know anything about that.” The last word ended with a sob.
“I think you know more than you’re admitting.”
She shook her head. “Please, believe me. I don’t know. . .”
He nuzzled her ear. “Tell Ash to come home.”
She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and tried to pull her face away from him. “My brother-in-law? We haven’t seen or heard from him in years. He didn’t even come when Richard died. I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“You don’t have to. He’ll be calling you soon. When he does, tell him to come home.”
Her heart pounded so hard, she thought it would burst out of her chest. “What makes you think he’ll come home if I ask him?”
“He’ll come. Just tell him if he doesn’t, my friend and I will be back, and the next time you and your son will both end up dead. I’m sure he doesn’t want anything to happen to his deceased brother’s family. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She tried to speak, but no sound came from her mouth. She nodded.
He released his hold on her and took a step backwards. “Wait for his call, and don’t tell anyone else we’ve been here. If you call the police, we’ll know.”
“I won’t call anyone.” Her legs collapsed, and she sank to her knees. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
The other man stepped up beside her and bent over. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t do as we say.” The man’s thick accent made it difficult to understand his words. When she didn’t answer, he nudged her leg with the toe of his boot. “Do you understand? Nobody but Ash is to know we’ve been here. Don’t gamble with your son’s life.”
She shook her head. “I won’t call the police. I promise. I’ll only talk to Ash.”
The first man leaned over and patted her on the head. “I knew you’d see it our way. Now don’t move until you hear the front door close. Then you can get up. It’s been a pleasure, Lainey. Maybe we’ll meet up again soon.”
Lainey kept her head bowed and didn’t look around as the two men walked from her bedroom. Their soft footsteps echoed on the stairs as they went down, and after what seemed an eternity, she heard the front door close.
Then she jumped to her feet and ran down the hallway to Max’s bedroom. She skidded to a stop next to his bed and stood there, panting for breath, as she watched the rise and fall of his chest. Thank goodness he’d slept through everything. She had no doubt those men would have carried out their threats and killed him if she hadn’t cooperated.
Max had kicked his leg out from under the cover, and she scooted it back beneath the blanket. She resisted the urge to run her hand over his face and arms just to reassure herself he was safe. If something ever happened to Max. . . The thought was so horrible she couldn’t finish it.
She jammed her hand to her lips to keep from groaning aloud and stumbled into the h
allway. Blood still oozed from the stinging cut on her neck, and she lurched toward the bathroom. She rummaged inside a drawer for the antibiotic ointment. Staring into the mirror at the thin red line that ran down the side of her throat, she dabbed the medicine on it and flinched at the sharp, tingling pain that raced down her neck.
When she’d finished, she leaned both hands on the sink, closed her eyes, and bowed her head at the words echoing in her mind as if she’d hit some replay button that couldn’t be paused. “Tell Ash to come home.”
Would he come home if she asked? “Tell Ash to come home.”
He hadn’t been back since he left eleven years ago to join a military special ops group. “Tell Ash to come home.”
Only William Mason, the family’s lawyer, had ever had any contact with him, and it was only a short letter stating that he wanted no communication with his brother and his brother’s wife in the future and that he was renouncing any inheritance he might receive from his father’s estate. “Tell Ash to come home.”
They hadn’t heard from him when his father died a year later, and the fact that he didn’t show up for Richard’s funeral five years ago still angered her. “Tell Ash to come home.”
She clamped her hands over her ears as if she could silence the words and slowly raised her head to stare at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Just minutes ago she’d been remembering things she shouldn’t and wondering how her life might have been different. She’d hardly let herself think it, but deep in her heart, she’d wished for years she could see Ash again. Had he changed? Was he still the man she’d fallen in love with? But more than needing the answers to those questions, she’d wanted him to meet Max, the son he didn’t know he had.
Now she might get that wish, and the thought terrified her almost as much as those intruders. Richard had been there for her and Max when she needed someone, not Ash, and it was too late now for him to be a father.
For some reason those men seemed to think she could make Ash come home. But why? Something had to be terribly wrong.
She pulled her hands away from her ears and trailed one finger down the cut on her neck as a tear rolled down her cheek. “Oh, Ash. Where are you? And what have you done now?”
<><><>
Ash DeHan hated nights like this. Lonely nights when he questioned the decision he’d made six months ago to isolate himself in this small Colorado ski area. At the time it had seemed the right choice. Drop out of the life he’d made for himself and begin something new. But if he’d expected some great plan for his future to reveal itself here, he’d been wrong. All he’d found was a lonelier existence than he’d had before.
At first he’d been relieved to be free of planning the next mission for Firebrand. Time to relax and enjoy the scenery. But reality had quickly crashed in on him. In trying to drop out of life, he’d brought himself and all his baggage along on the trip. And that made all the difference.
He was never going to silence the screams and wails that echoed in his head, reminding him of missions he’d carried out for Firebrand. And he was never going to forget how the two people he’d loved most in the world had betrayed him. Those were the thoughts tormenting him tonight, and they’d brought him to this all-night diner in the middle of what he hoped would be the last big snowstorm of the season to try and make some sense out of his miserable life.
Then there were the unanswered questions about his future. What was he going to do about that? When he had joined with Reese Alexander and Colt Hanson after their military days to form the special ops group they’d named Firebrand, he’d welcomed the intrigue, the adventure, and the danger they’d lived with as undercover operatives for the CIA.
But now they were older, and the lure of missions contracted but not officially recognized by the government no longer seemed as enticing as they once had. Now Firebrand was about to reinvent itself in the form of a state-of-the-art training facility where they would pass on their knowledge to military groups, law enforcement agencies, and security companies who would come to train with them.
The only question that remained was whether or not he would be a part of this new enterprise. Reese and Colt had been on site overseeing the construction of the facility for the past six months while Ash had languished in Colorado trying to decide if he could work with them at a training center in the North Carolina mountains only a few miles away from his old home. That was another decision causing him sleepless nights.
He pulled his thoughts away from that subject. Nothing had to be decided tonight. He picked up his cup, but the coffee had grown cold, so he set it back down. The waitress hadn’t been by his table for a while, and he wondered where she was. Not waiting on customers, that was for sure, since he was the only one in the place. Tonight he sat at the table he occupied every time he came to this diner. When he entered a public place, he always made it a habit to pinpoint where every person in the room was stationed, and it was best to do that from the back of the room. He didn’t have to worry about other customers tonight, but the front door was another matter. You never could tell who might enter, and he’d learned long ago not to let his guard down. Getting caught by surprise was what got men like him killed. He shifted a bit in his seat and felt the comforting pressure of the Sig-Sauer P226 holstered underneath his jacket.
Through the window he could see the whirling snow, which appeared to be letting up. He glanced up at the clock over the door that led into the kitchen and frowned. Almost midnight. Nearly two AM. in North Carolina. He shook his head and frowned. Maybe it was time to go home.
Home? The word conjured up the memory of another place, another time, and the coffee threatened to come up. He didn’t have a home. Richard and Lainey had seen to that. A cabin, that’s all he had. On a mountain road in the middle of nowhere. A place to sleep and eat but nothing else of importance if he had to leave at a moment’s notice.
The memory of what he’d left behind for Firebrand hadn’t dimmed through the years. And now here he sat at the back table of a deserted dining room wondering if it had been worth it.
“Want me to warm you up?”
Startled, he glanced up at the waitress standing next to the table. “What did you say?”
She held a coffee pot in one hand and gestured toward his cup with the other. “Would you like your coffee warmed up?”
The jeans she wore were like all the other waitresses he’d seen in this place in the last few months, but none of them wore T-shirts like hers. It might as well have been glued to her body, and the low-cut neck left little to the imagination.
She had one hand propped on her hip and a coffee pot in the other. He nodded and held out his cup. “Sure.”
She bent forward to pour the coffee, and the shirt gaped open even farther. He turned his head to look away, but she leaned even closer. He didn’t move until she’d finished pouring the coffee. Then she straightened and smiled. “Would you like anything else?”
The tone of her words carried an invitation to more than just coffee and eggs. He shook his head. “No, thanks.” He darted a glance toward the kitchen and frowned as a sudden thought struck him. “You didn’t wait on me earlier. What happened to Lisa, the other waitress?”
She smiled and pointed to her name tag. “I’m Eve. I was helping the boss with some cleaning in the kitchen, and Lisa took the floor for a while. Now we’ve switched places, except she and the boss have stepped outside to catch a quick smoke while the snow’s let up.”
The woman inched closer to the table until her leg almost touched his, and a seductive smile pulled at her lips. Ash pushed the coffee cup away. Definitely time to call it a night and head for home. “I guess I ought to be going home before the roads get covered again. Could I have my check?”
She frowned and pulled her lips into a pout. “Don’t hurry off. I’ve been watching you come in here for weeks, but you’ve never noticed me. I thought this might be a good night to get acquainted.” She waved her hand around to point out the empty room. “I
t’s just of the two of us. Why don’t we make the most of it?”
His gaze raked the room before he turned his attention back to her. “Maybe some other time, Eve. I really need to get out of here.”
She dropped down in the chair next to him, scooted closer, and crossed her legs. Batting her long eyelashes at him, she snaked her hand across the table and covered his hand with hers before she slid her fingers up his arm. When she reached his bicep, a smile curled her lips, and she tilted her head to one side. “Aw, come on, Ash,” she whispered in a husky voice. “I’m lonely tonight. All I want is some company. Can’t you help a girl out?”
Instinct from years of training ripped through him. With a growl he grabbed her hand in a crushing grip and stared into her startled eyes. “How do you know my name?” he snarled.
A frightened look flashed across her face. She tried to jerk her hand free, but he didn’t let go. “I asked the boss. He told me you’d bought the old Jenkins cabin up on Winding Ridge Road. What’s the big deal? I told you mine.”
Ash closed his eyes for a moment and relaxed his hold on Eve’s hand as he swallowed hard. What was the matter with him? Was he so jaded he distrusted everyone he met? He released her hand and sank back in his seat. There was no reason for him to take out his frustrations on a girl who probably came on to all the regulars. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She wiped at the corner of her eye, and her lips pulled into a wobbly smile. “My mother tells me I come on too strong sometimes. ‘You’re never gonna get a husband that way,’ she says. And I guess she’s right.” She grinned at him. “Not that I thought you’d be good husband material, but you look like a guy who could show a girl a good time.”
His face warmed at the teasing smile. Another woman had looked at him that way once, and the memory made his stomach clench. He’d been comparing every woman he met to Lainey for a decade, and he needed to stop. “You said you’re lonely tonight, Eve. Well, I am, too. I haven’t met many people around here.”
Igniting the Flame (Firebrand Series) Page 11
