To Take Up the Sword

by Brynna Curry

  He unlocked the front door, carried the bags inside, and began to put the contents away. God, he missed Serena. They’d become close when she’d been his partner while undercover, pretending to be his fiancée and a master jewel thief, at one point spending two months in Paris with him and away from her husband. It shouldn’t have happened. He should have seen Serena was too deep undercover and cut her loose. She’d fallen in love with him. He’d cared for her, wondered what it would be like between them, but that was as far as it had ever gone. As far as it could go. Call him old-fashioned, but he had a code of honor.

  The radio on top of the fridge beeped, announcing the tornado watch he’d been expecting since early that morning. He folded the empty paper bags and stuck them in a drawer next to the sink. Wonder was a dangerous thing. Afraid he would allow too much grief to show and cause her family more pain, he hadn’t attended her funeral. So he’d never actually seen Serena after she’d died. Her family had wanted a closed casket anyway, which was odd. Could she have faked her death? No. Not even to save herself.

  * * * *

  Lea clutched her oversize purse close to her chest as she ran through the woods, afraid the precious contents would be lost. Her rental car was in a ditch a half a mile down the road where those two goons had shot out her tires. Knowing she was almost where she wanted to be, she’d made a run for the cabin where Gabriel Spiller was supposed to be staying.

  Ignoring the squishy feeling of water in her sneakers, she jumped the small creek bed and twisted her ankle on the landing. A loud pop cut through the air around her. Something struck the tree next to her head. Were they shooting? At her?

  It had taken time to track this Spiller down. Now Lea hoped he could help, before she got herself killed. What did she know about being on the lam? Was that even what she was supposed to call it? The statue was ugly. Maybe she should just give it to them. She knocked on the back door of the wood cabin. A Jeep was parked out front, so he had to be here, or at least someone did.

  A moment later, the door opened.

  * * * *

  The knock on his back door sent Gabriel’s senses into overdrive. He’d heard no vehicle. No one should have been out here on foot, unless they didn’t belong. He checked the SIG Sauer resting in its holster at his side, gripped the butt of the pistol, and peered through the lace curtains of the kitchen window. If Smythe had found him, he intended to be ready.

  Fiery red curls winked through the curtains. He had to be seeing things. Throwing open the door, a single word uttered from his lips before he dragged her inside. Pinning her to the door, Gabe kissed her with all the passion he shouldn’t have for another man’s wife. Serena.

  Gabriel raised his head to look at the woman melting in his arms. Something was wrong. She had the same wild, curly red hair, same lush green eyes, but those eyes were soft when they fluttered open on a sigh and held none of the harshness that dominated the Serena he knew. Her face was more heart-shaped and now that he had her up close and personal he realized she was taller, too. Almost tall enough to look him directly in the eyes. She wasn’t Serena. So who the hell was she?

  The woman fluttered her eyes and sighed. Her fingers brushed across her lips. “Thanks, handsome, but that’s not the sort of help I’m after. Are you Special Agent Gabriel Spiller?”

  His heart stopped. Serena’s voice, her smile, but not her kiss, her body… Just what was going on here?

  “Yes, but you’re not Serena. Who are you?” This time when he grabbed her shoulders, it was with force, not care. Her blurred eyes focused on his and gradually began to clear.

  “You look like an angel, Gabriel, but you tempt a body like Lucifer himself.”

  “Answer the question.” His blood raced, but whether from anger or passion he wasn’t sure.

  She gave him a folded card out of her jeans pocket. “You probably never heard of me. I’m Leannan O’Neil. My sister said if ever I needed help to find you.”

  Gabriel released her and pointed to a chair, then opened the folded card and read the words scribbled on the back.

  I’m trusting you with my treasure. Have a care, Angel. I love you, Serena.

  His hands shook. Her treasure? He rubbed his thumb across the words as if he could reach out and touch the woman who’d written them.

  “How did you find me, Leannan O’Neil?” His voice was hard now, no warmth or passion.

  “That was the hard part. The FBI isn’t free with information, you know. I showed them the card and they acted like they’d seen a ghost. I’m Serena Roarke’s sister.”

  “I gathered that. Twin?” She could have been, he thought.

  “No, four years younger.”

  Gabe saw her eyes soften, as she began to realize Serena’s feelings. Married to a man she both loved and respected for most of her life, but at the same time in love with another man she couldn’t forget.

  “She must have been in love with you.”

  And that love had killed her.

  He bristled. “No, we worked together.”

  “You forget I was on the receiving end of your welcome, but we’re getting off the subject here. I need your help.”

  Gabe studied the woman in his kitchen. His body still wasn’t willing to believe she wasn’t Serena. He ached, and by the smile on her face, Ms. O’Neil knew it.

  “Why do you need my help, Ms. O’Neil?”

  Leannan pulled a bundle out of her large bag.

  “I’ve been getting hang-up calls, death threats demanding some kind of diamonds. Frankly, I didn’t want to give them the leverage of fear, so I ignored them thinking they’d get tired of harassing me. Yesterday, I came back to the house after my morning donut run. I don’t normally go home once I’ve left for work, but I’d forgotten my graded papers. I’m a schoolteacher, sixth grade. My house was trashed and there was a severed mannequin’s head on my pillow covered in blood. I know it’s a little cheesy, but whoever left it there tore my place apart. I think they were looking for this. Serena’s parting gift.”

  Gabriel unwrapped the offered bundle and groaned, remembering Gueraldi’s calling card. Another of those damned Madonna statues. The profiler assigned to the case had told him they were a sort of irony to Gueraldi, considering his Catholic background. When Ryan Corrigan held smuggled or stolen diamonds, they’d been concealed inside a statue like this one. Could Serena have hidden the diamonds inside?

  * * * *

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Serena gave it to me before she was murdered. She said if she didn’t or couldn’t come back for it, I was to give it to you and only you. Otherwise, mum’s the word.”

  She watched as Gabriel laid the statue on the kitchen table and got the meat mallet out of a drawer by the sink. The garishly painted face was in pieces before Lea realized what he was going to do.

  “You broke it! I know it was ugly, but…”

  He pulled a velvet pouch through an opening at the bottom and shook the contents out on the table.

  “My God.” She hissed in a breath. “Are those…”

  “Yes, the missing diamonds.” He turned toward her. “The last of Gueraldi’s men went free because of these. You had them all along. I could charge you with withholding evidence.”

  “Not if I didn’t know about them, and I can promise you I didn’t.”

  “Ms. O’Neil.” Gabe cocked his eyebrow. “You’ve got to be kidding me. She had to have told you.”

  “Leannan, but you should probably call me Lea, seeing we’ve become so well acquainted. And no. She didn’t. I knew something was bothering her, but she wouldn’t talk about it. Just that she couldn’t involve Jack. I never guessed she’d hidden something inside the statue. How could she have done that anyway?”

  “Ever seen Romancing the Stone?”

  “Only a million times. It was Serena’s favorite… Oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  A loud crack interrupted the conversation. Glass shattered from the window behind him. Lea screa
med. They’d found her. “Did I forget to mention them?”

  Chapter 3

  Gabriel shoved her under the table and covered her with his body as a hailstorm of bullets pounded into the side of the cabin. Her head hit the floor with a thunk. She shuddered. The solid weight of him pressed her into the hardwood, covering her with his heat and leaving no room for the imagination. No doubt about it, Gabe Spiller was a walking fantasy.

  “What the hell?”

  “Those goons must have found me. I don’t know how. I cut through the woods after they ran me off the road. They’ve been after me since yesterday at lunch. I got away from them at a truck stop in Birmingham by hitching a ride with a truck driver.”

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?” A slug burrowed into the table above them.

  “She was a little old lady with pictures of her grandkids taped to the dashboard. I figured she was safe. She dropped me off at Wendy’s in Jasper, then I rented a car and drove the rest of the way.” Another shot whizzed over her head.

  “I bet I can guess. You paid with plastic. You may as well have left a trail of bread crumbs. Crawl now.”

  Lea jerked when Gabriel bellowed the command at her, shoved the diamonds in his pocket and snatched his keys off the overturned chair.

  “I’m sorry. Are you going to help me?” she mumbled as she crawled across broken glass and hardwood floors, reached the door, and opened it a crack. Gabriel’s gilt hair eased into her peripheral vision.

  “I don’t see them.”

  “Me either. Run like hell and keep your head down. Maybe you won’t get killed.”

  Out the door like a shot, Lea ran for the bright yellow target, and heard the sound of heavy footsteps in the grass running behind them. She climbed in through the driver’s side and Gabriel shoved her over. She tried to peer out the window at her attackers.

  * * * *

  “Get down. Are you trying to get your head blown off?” He put the Jeep in reverse and peeled out of the drive, spitting dirt and gravel in every direction. A wave of heat, light and noise exploded into chaos behind them. The cabin had burst apart in a massive fireball. “Must have hit the gas line in the kitchen,” he noted.

  “What do you mean? You say that like you were reporting the weather!” Lea growled from beside him, her bobbing red head an easy target. He put his hand on top of her head and shoved her back in the floorboard, not too gently either.

  “Down, O’Neil.” Gabriel hit the main road going ninety, and then alternated by checking the rearview for locals and glaring at Lea. He took a hard right onto Highway 253 from 241 in Bear Creek and headed toward Phil Campbell the back way. She’d brought trouble to his doorstep. He’d wanted a vacation where he could wallow and grieve in peace, then make a new plan. What he didn’t want was to be tossed back into a cyclone of greed, danger and death. Okay, so it was dramatic and selfish, but he was burned-out. He’d been an agent for eight years, and in that time he’d lost four partners. Maybe he’d had enough of the whole game. Little Miss Quiet Mouse had already proven she’d be hard to ignore. Every time he looked at her, Gabe saw Serena and what might have been if circumstances had been different.

  “I was having a nice quiet life, Leannan, before you came barreling into it. Care to give me a reason why I shouldn’t dump you on the locals and take off with the diamonds?”

  “Serena trusted you with her life, and whatever you two had going got her killed.”

  Gabriel’s heart clenched.

  “You cared for her, obviously. Now she’s trusting you with me. Are you going to let her down again?”

  Gabriel didn’t say anything for a minute. She’d known the right thing to say, just like her sister. “No. You have more in common with Serena than I first realized, Leannan.”

  “I don’t think you’d be surprised how many people say that. It’s Lea.”

  “I like Leannan. It’s different.”

  “I hate the name. Know what it means? It’s Gaelic for sweetheart or beloved. Would you want the cashier at the grocery calling you ‘beloved’? I mean, really. ‘Two dollars is your change, beloved sweetheart.’”

  “I guess not.” Gabriel swerved to miss a deer that leaped out in front of his Jeep. “Those things are everywhere. They should have special insurance policies just for deer.” He grabbed her bag out of the seat next to him and began rifling through it one-handed.

  “What about possum? Hey, get out of that. Isn’t anything sacred?”

  Gabriel groaned. The ‘possum’–as they were called down south–body count was up to seven. “Don’t get me started on those things. They give me the creeps and they look like giant mutant rats.”

  “City boy.”

  “Guilty as charged. So why a schoolteacher? Why not a cop like your dad and sister?”

  “Serena always wanted to be a cop even before she met Jack. After that, it seemed they constantly competed with each other to be the best. She wanted to change the world by cleaning it up one drug dealer at a time. I guess I admire her passion, but I’d rather nurture the goodness in children, teach them values rather than punish them after they’ve gone too far.”

  “I’ve never thought of it like that.” Ignoring her protests, he kept digging until he pulled out a slim little cellphone. “Found it.”

  “Hey, give me my phone! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Saving your job.”

  He scrolled through the programmed numbers and found the one saved as school, then pressed send.

  “Hello, Two Elms Elementary, how may I assist you today?” asked a cheerful voice on the other end.

  He would have bet his creds the woman was a grandmother with glasses on a chain around her neck and she knew the name of every child and parent that crossed in front of her desk.

  “I’d like to speak with the principal, please.”

  “That would be me, sir, Ms. Amabel Potter. Adelaide is out with the flu. What can I do for you?” It must be a small school.

  “Ms. Potter, I’m Special Agent Gabriel Spiller with the FBI.” He was interrupted before he could say more.

  “Oh, gosh, is this about Leannan’s house? Where is she? Is she okay? What would the FBI want with her?”

  “Actually, I am calling regarding Leannan O’Neil. We will be requiring her service for a time. Arrange a leave of absence.”

  “Is she okay? We all just adore her here. Is she in any trouble?”

  “You mentioned her house.”

  “Why, yes. The volunteer fire department is still there making sure the fire doesn’t catch the other houses. It was a total loss. It just exploded. The cops believe she was inside, because of the time of day and her usual routine, but haven’t found a body. Now, I tried to tell them, she usually stops by Dunkin Donuts about six, six-thirty and comes on in to work. Do you think they listened? No!”

  “Leannan is safe with me. It would be best if everyone thinks she is dead.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I can’t elaborate further.” Gabe cut her short and flipped the phone shut.

  “Can I get up off the floor now?”

  He glanced at the rearview mirror, saw no one and dragged her up.

  “Lay off the manhandling, Gabriel. Do you realize you’ve done nothing but jump on me since we met? Where are we going anyway?”

  “Washington, DC. I have to turn in those diamonds, and since I’m still not sure how involved you are in all this, you get to go with me.” He’d have to tell her about her house. Hell.

  “Listen, I have a career and responsibilities. I can’t just take off like that.”

  “You just did, Leannan. You’re all mine, until I can prove you are innocent or I no longer need you. You came to me, remember? I spoke with Ms. Potter.”

  “Do I still have a job?”

  “She sang your praises. Listen. I have some bad news.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Your house is gone.”

  He heard the sharp intake
of her breath, felt the punch of her loss in his gut while she gently sobbed beside him. Combined with the whipping gusts of wind buffeting the vehicle, it was an eerie sound of despair. In the chaos, he’d forgotten about the severe weather the National Weather Service had predicted for the evening and through the night.

  “No. How?”

  “An explosion. It must have detonated as soon as you left. Your boss said it was a total loss. A lot of people think you’re dead. I told her you were safe and to keep it quiet. It might be better if people think you were killed, at least until I figure out what is going on.”

  “There’s nothing left. I have nothing left. Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. I’m sorry, Lea.” Gabriel stretched his hand across the seat over to hers and covered it. “I meant what I said. You’re safe with me.”

  * * * *

  Unable to fight off the tears, Lea cried silently. Gabe made no move to start the conversation again, but it was an eerie sort of quiet. She felt the tension with every breath. She was seated next to a FBI agent, a man who’d probably taken lives in the line of duty, a man who had kissed her brainless and tried to comfort her loss with a simple touch of his hand. There were millions of dollars in stolen diamonds in his pocket. Who was he really? Could she trust him? Maybe. Serena had.

  She’d been ransacked, chased, shot at, and hauled around. Her home was gone. If she hadn’t heard Serena’s voice imploring her to get out, she would have likely been in the house when the fire started. My sweet little house with the window boxes filled with flowers, burned. Every corner of the house had her imprint on it. Lea had remodeled–in some places rebuilt–the house herself. Thank God she was insured, but now she had nowhere to go and nothing to go back to. Huddling in the seat, she hugged her knees and cried herself to sleep looking out the window.

  * * * *

  She woke when Gabe slowed for a sudden turn to the left off the highway onto what she guessed was a county road. The movement almost landed her in his lap. Fat drops of rain splattered the windshield and made the wipers almost useless. “Where are we? Did we lose them?”

  “For now, anyway. I’m taking a little detour to be sure. We’re going to need some shelter for awhile. I know a place we can wait it out.”