Vanished Final 7.2019: An ALIAS, Enemies to Lovers Romantic Suspense

by Lisa Hughey

  Who the fuck was here now?

  An older woman, dark brown hair pulled back into a tight bun, similar to the style Jillian wore her hair, and cargo pants and a tight black top, opened the door and walked in as if she owned the place.

  “Good work, Jill.” She nodded tightly. “I’ll take her from here.”

  What now?

  “Ms. Womack!” Brianna jumped to her feet.

  “What are you doing here?” Jillian kept her weapon trained on Brianna but the frown on her face said a lot.

  Had Jillian notified her old boss that they were closing in on Brianna?

  “How did you get here so fast?” That was from Marsh Adams.

  Fast? Something peculiar was happening here but Hamish kept his mouth shut.

  He should focus on what was happening in this shitty little apartment but his anguish was like a river of shame flowing through him. Brianna had just devastated him.

  Before he’d just thought that his inattention to his brother was to blame for him not seeing that Charlie was struggling. But now he knew the truth. His brother had been targeted because of Hamish’s job.

  “I’m going to make sure you never see the light of day,” he vowed.

  “You have no jurisdiction here, Officer Ballard,” Deanna Womack said crisply.

  Certain things weren’t adding up. What was she doing here? And how did she know his name? Had Jillian told Womack he was here when she’d met with the woman?

  Had she been stringing him along this whole time?

  “You need to go back to your own country.” Deanna Womack whipped out flex cuffs and clipped Brianna Walsh’s wrists together. “I’ll take care of this one.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Jill piped up.

  “No need.” Womack tugged Brianna toward the front door. “I’ve got her.”

  Beatrice smiled. She didn’t appear upset at all.

  Hamish pulled himself out of his pit of grief. His brother was dead. He couldn’t change that, and something weird was going on right now.

  “What about Marsh?” Jillian asked.

  “Technically he didn’t do anything illegal.” Deanna shrugged. “He’s free to go.”

  Marsh Adams bristled. “Seriously?”

  Jillian shot him such a look of disdain it was a wonder that the man didn’t crumble on the spot. “I’ll go with you,” she repeated to Deanna.

  “Really, not necessary.”

  “I’m not letting anything interfere with bringing her to justice.” Jill tucked her weapon into the holster at her side.

  “I’d prefer to come as well.” Something was totally off about this whole fucking thing. The level of panic rising inside Hamish threw him off. But he trusted his gut. And something was terribly, terribly wrong.

  “Dee’s right. You have no jurisdiction here.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. She handed him her phone. She was trying to impart some wisdom with her gaze. But Hamish had no fucking clue what was going on.

  “The digital room key is in the app so you can get your stuff.”

  They’d have to discuss the lack of security on a digital key later. But Hamish just nodded. “Quite right. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Don’t bother.” Jillian shook her head. “I have plenty of burners. It’s not important.”

  “But—”

  “No regrets.” She smiled wistfully. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”

  She flicked at glance at her partner but didn’t say a word.

  He watched her get into the car with Marshal Womack and the woman he’d hated. Something was off but he wasn’t putting it all together.

  “Can I get a ride?” Marsh Adams followed him out the door.

  Hamish wanted to say no. Actually he wanted to punch the bloke, but he restrained himself. “Fine.”

  Something made Hamish decide to follow the sporty red car with Jillian inside.

  He thought he’d feel more triumphant. But as he stared at the back of the car with Brianna and Jillian in it, he realized that nothing was going to bring his brother back.

  Hamish was more worried about Jillian and how she was handling her partner’s betrayal.

  “What’s the deal with you and my partner?” Marsh Adams asked. Curious. He didn’t ask about Brianna or why they were after her. He wanted to know about Jillian.

  “None of your business.” Hamish was feeling surly. He didn’t like that Jillian had basically told him not to let the door hit him in the arse.

  “Something is wrong,” Marsh said.

  “You’re a twat. That’s what’s wrong,” Hamish snarled. “You didn’t contact her for months.”

  “I was undercover.”

  “Say what?”

  “I was trying to get a location on the money.”

  “So you sold out your partner?”

  “No. I was working for Deanna.”

  The car in front of them took an unexpected turn. Hamish wasn’t used to driving on the right side of the road. The unfamiliar placement of the steering wheel and the extra concentration to stay in the proper lane slowed him down.

  “Are you saying that Deanna Womack knew where you were all along?”

  “Sure. I filed weekly reports with her.”

  “Then why didn’t you contact Jillian?”

  “Because Dee made that a condition of the op. I had to go completely dark.”

  “She’s been worried sick about you.” She compromised herself to find her partner. And another thought occurred to Hamish. “So if Deanna Womack knew where you were, why’d she show up just now?”

  The only things that had changed were Hamish had revealed her password and Brianna had confessed that she had the money. “Was your apartment bugged?”

  “No. I sent Dee an SOS when you and Jill arrived.”

  But that was only about forty-five minutes ago. “You may be wrong about that bugging, mate.” Or had Deanna followed Jill and Hamish? Shite. “Something is not adding up here.”

  Jillian had been trying to tell him something when she’d handed him the phone. There was a moment. He had to trust Marsh right here. “Can I trust you?”

  “About as much as I can trust you.”

  He was perfectly trustworthy.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone she’d given him. “Check that. There’s something on there that she wanted me to have.”

  Marsh was quiet as he studied the phone. “There’s a recording.”

  Marsh pressed play. They listened in silence. Jillian had captured everything he needed to convince his boss to extradite Brianna Walsh back to the UK.

  Hamish should be jubilant. But right now all he could think about was Jillian.

  That crazy woman had put herself in the car with the woman responsible for his brother’s death and her former boss, who she clearly didn’t trust.

  “Bollocks.” They were both silent.

  Why would Jillian give Hamish the recording? It was what Deanna Womack had been looking for with Marsh’s help for the last three months.

  “Why wouldn’t she give this to Marshal Womack?” Hamish tapped the steering wheel, trying to reason out Jill’s motives.

  “Jill didn’t trust her. But why?”

  “The why isn’t important right now.” Hamish sped up. Jillian was in danger. “We need to back her up.”

  Marsh Adams had been quiet. The red car was in sight about three hundred yards ahead of them. “We’ve got a problem.”

  A black van had turned from a side road and now followed Deanna Womack’s car. The women had chosen a less traveled scenic highway back to Boston. Which meant that there were very few cars on the road, except them, the red car, and now the van that rode the red car’s bumper.

  “I see them.”

  The black van sped up and rammed the red sports car with Jillian inside.

  Shit.

  Dee had asked Jill to drive. It put her in a more vulnerable position but Jill had known that if she refused, Dee would figure out that Jill
was on to her. Dee wasn’t using a federal car. She should have realized that Jillian would make note of that.

  Jill had insisted on coming along because if she wasn’t mistaken, her old boss had gone rogue.

  “What the hell was that?” Dee whipped around to stare out the back of her Mustang.

  Jill glanced in the rearview mirror. Mentally she willed Hamish and Marsh to get the hell away from them because she was pretty sure that Dee Womack hadn’t come to take Beatrice in.

  But they had bigger problems right now.

  “Brace yourself.”

  A large black van slammed into them again. Jillian slowed down because if they went any faster, they would be sailing onto the sand with the next bump. The landscape to their left changed with every turn. Sometimes a gentle slope to a small beach, sometimes rocks, sometimes trees—none of them would be a good place for their car to use as a road. Up ahead was a parking lot for a lighthouse.

  “I’m going to have to pull off the road.” Jill began to decelerate. “We can’t put civilians in danger.”

  “Are you crazy?” Beatrice screamed.

  Dee argued. “Don’t stop. And she’s not a civilian.”

  Jill would address that comment later when they weren’t in danger of being run off the road.

  “They’re speeding up to ram us again.”

  “Who is it?” Dee tried to peer out the back window.

  “I believe it’s the Walsh brothers.” Jill pulled into the parking lot of the Foxhead Lighthouse and brought the car to a stop, but left it running.

  “Who the hell are the Walsh brothers?” Dee asked.

  “Her cousins.” You traitorous bitch. “Malachi and Matthew.”

  Dee snarled. “Hopefully they aren’t dumb enough to cause an international incident.”

  “I think it’s too late to stop that.” Jillian shook her head. Dammit.

  The only good news: Marsh and Hamish drove on, ignoring the little offshoot to the parking lot, and they had the recording of Beatrice’s guilt and Dee’s arrival. Her heartrate slowed and she became hyper-focused.

  Jill said, “Shooting isn’t the preferred method of death for the Walsh mob but they might make an exception.”

  “How the fuck do you know this shit?”

  Jill was done. “Maybe you should have paid closer attention to who you were trying to blackmail.”

  “I didn’t blackmail her. She bribed me with the lure of big cash, but then she disappeared.”

  Two men raced up to Dee’s shiny red Mustang and trained weapons on the women. “Get out of the car.”

  Jill’s heart thudded hard as she remembered Hamish’s caution about the brothers and the destruction of the back entry to ALIAS.

  She opened her door slowly, not wanting to make any sudden moves.

  “Hands on the fuckin’ hood. Keep ’em where I can see them.” Walsh cousin number one gestured. “Move!” he roared.

  She hated to turn her back on a man with a weapon but at this point she didn’t have a choice. Dee did the same on the other side of the car.

  “What are you doing, Mattie?” Beatrice asked sweetly. She was hunched over the open rear door, her hands zip-tied to the door handle.

  “You fuckin’ cunt.” Matt Walsh ignored Beatrice and spoke to Jill. “Where’s Officer Ballard?”

  “Your boy is certainly popular.”

  “Shut up, Dee.” What was the right answer? Jill didn’t look at the road where Marsh and Hamish had driven on and decided on the truth. “On his way back to DC.”

  “You better not be lying.” The other cousin, presumably Malachi, was tossing a large serrated knife in the air with his right hand and gripping a 357 Magnum pistol in his left.

  Shit, at this range she’d have a hole the size of Massachusetts in her if he lost his temper.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Dee said.

  Shut up, Dee.

  “We don’t give a fuck what you want, bitch.” Matt Walsh grabbed Beatrice’s hair in a rough, angry grip and yanked her head back. “We want the money.”

  “The government took it, Mattie. I swear.”

  Malachi flipped the knife again. “Guess what, cousin dear, we don’t believe you.”

  Jill assessed her odds. They sucked. Big hairy donkey balls. But Beatrice deserved everything that was coming to her.

  She could do this for Hamish. Justice. Not everyone deserved redemption. And she’d avenge his brother for him. Thank God, he was gone.

  She didn’t always play by the rules. Wasn’t that why she’d started ALIAS? Jillian opened her mouth, knew that she was likely sending this woman to her death. “She’s got the money.”

  “Oh, really?” Malachi yanked on Beatrice’s hair and she shrieked. “You’re coming with us.”

  “They’ll kill me!” Beatrice cried and implored Dee. “Don’t let them take me. I’ll share the money. I swear.”

  Dee shook her head. “You had your chance. I was counting on that money. Now I’ve got complications galore.”

  Shit. That did not sound good for Jill. Because now that Jill knew Dee had intended to betray the US Marshals, Jill was a liability too.

  “You don’t want to get in our way.” Matt waved his weapon, making Jillian nervous.

  Right now they had no idea that Dee was law enforcement. Crooked, no good, lying law enforcement but still. That information could tip the scales to the side of even more fucked.

  And apparently Dee had been out of the field for far too long.

  “This is a mistake,” Dee drawled “Do you realize who I am?”

  “We don’t give a fuck who you are, lady.” Matt jabbed Dee in the back of the head hard enough to dishevel her hair. Blood clotted on the back of her bun.

  Dee told the cousins, “Take them both and I’ll let you get out of the country with no problems.” And she’d eliminate the problem of killing Beatrice and Jill. Although how she’d get around Hamish and Marsh, Jill had no idea.

  “Really, Dee?”

  “Shut up or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  Well that had worked out well.

  Before anyone could say another word, Hamish walked down the road toward this little tableau of violence. What the hell was he doing? She’d saved him. And he was fucking it up!

  “You said he was gone.” Malachi loomed menacingly over Jill. The knife tip poised over her heart. Shit. White spots dotted her vision. She was going to end up gutted by the side of a lighthouse.

  “He was supposed to be,” she said faintly.

  Push away the fear and focus on your own skills. But damn it, what was he doing here?

  Chapter 16

  Hamish had run the entire way down the road to get to her. His heart thundered at the sight of Mal Walsh with a knife against Jillian.

  He couldn’t lose her.

  At some point she’d become far more important than revenge. His quest wasn’t worth Jillian’s life.

  “Don’t hurt her.” Hamish held his hands high, showing he was unarmed. Aye, Marsh Adams had thought he was crazy, but he was going to have to use his nerd brain, not brawn, to negotiate with these two. One thing talked above all else. “I can get you the money.”

  Jill shook her head silently.

  “We don’t want any trouble with you.” Malachi literally took a step away from Jillian.

  Jill’s breath escaped in a rush.

  “You know I keep my word. Let the American woman—” he gestured to Jill “—go.”

  “How can we trust you won’t go after the money?”

  “I never wanted money. I just wanted Brianna to pay.” A bizarre current of understanding arced between him and Malachi.

  “How do we get the money?” Matt Walsh broke up their silent commiseration.

  “You need your cousin alive to access her account. She has to get the money in person.”

  “Ha!” Brianna crowed. “I told you.”

  Hamish held up Jillian’s phone with the recording. “Everything y
ou need is on this phone. Her password. The account is in the Turks and Caicos. My guess is she went to the Dominican Republic and then took an untraceable boat ride to Turks and Caicos.”

  Jill made a noise. “Don’t.”

  “You can have your cousin and this. But you’ve got to let Jillian Larsen go.”

  “You’re going to let them take her?” Jillian asked, a look of utter surprise on her face.

  “She doesn’t matter,” Hamish said.

  “What?”

  Hamish shook his head. “She’s not worth losing your life over. I won’t let her take another person from me.”

  Jill’s eyes softened, and all he wanted was to wrap her up in his arms, but they still had to get out of this.

  “Oh, that’s so sweet.” Beatrice made a gagging noise.

  There was one other car in the parking lot. Probably belonged to tourists tromping around the lighthouse. They couldn’t afford to put them in jeopardy. They needed the Walsh family to get gone.

  Beatrice was still handcuffed to the door.

  “Give them the keys to the Mustang so they can get out of here quickly.”

  “You can’t give them my car!” Dee screeched.

  Jill tossed the keys to Matt.

  Once Matt grabbed them, he gestured with his gun. “Get in the van. And don’t follow us.”

  “Fine.”

  Hamish, Dee and Jill trudged toward the black van.

  Dee began to lunge toward the Walsh brothers, but Jill must have anticipated the move. She shoved her former boss hard and she went through the open panel door, the violent action taking her down. But Deanna Womack clipped Hamish and the force of their collision propelled him into the door frame, banging his head on the metal.

  He groaned. “Bollocks. That hurt.”

  Blood gushed into his eye and over his cheek.

  “The evidence,” Malachi grated out.

  “Here you go.” Hamish tossed the phone gently. It spun, end over end, until Malachi grabbed it out of the air.

  “Close the van door and count to one hundred.” Matt commanded them.

  Hamish closed the door then put his knee in Dee’s back and handcuffed her hands behind her back using the zip ties he still had in his pocket. A red haze obscured his vision in his right eye and his temple throbbed.