“Yep.”
“Where is the prototype?” Jasmine asked.
“I’ve kept it someplace safe. Once we retrieve my daughter, we’ll go for the prototype.”
Something struck Emily as odd there. It was almost as though he did not completely trust his people and was using the prototype as a bargaining chip to get their daughter. That did not sit right with her, but she could not argue. Anything that got Kendra out faster and unharmed was fine with her.
“So we go for the girl tonight and then head out to Washington?” Ace asked.
“I think that plan is sound. What do you all think?” Asher asked, looking around the table.
“Do we have a strategy or are we going in blind?” Emily wanted to know.
Asher pointed a clicker at one of the walls and the screen came to life. She saw a tall, modern-looking apartment building on it.
“We’ve traced your daughter to this building in the East Village. She lives with a couple on the second floor.”
Emily gazed at the building, soaking it in. It looked like a normal home belonging to an upper middle class family. She wondered which room they put her daughter in. Did she stay cooped up in a single room for the last seven years or had they moved around? The questions burned inside her, but she kept quiet.
The screen changed to a picture of a couple. They looked like a fairly average couple. He looked like a businessman and she looked like she was in real estate. Okay, Emily didn’t know why, but that was what struck her about the woman. She had sharp, intelligent eyes, the kind that made you want to do anything to please their owner. Then her power suit also added to that impression. They were smiling at the camera. They looked happy, like normal, everyday people. Not like people who were keeping someone else’s child as a hostage. She wanted to hate them, she really did. But she couldn’t. It was just too confusing.
“This is the couple she’s been living with,” she heard Asher say.
“Is she being held or tied up in a room or in a secret closet somewhere?” Ace asked.
Emily was not surprised by the question. A year ago, they’d had to rescue a woman who was being held in a secret closet, behind a wall panel. One of the guys ended up falling in love with her and they moved to Florida together. She missed Drew and would have loved to have him on this mission.
“That’s the strange part about all this,” Asher said. “She lives with them as their adopted daughter. She goes to school, or at least she used to.”
“What do you mean?” Emily’s heart was pounding. They had adopted her daughter? Did her Kendra look on this woman as her mother? Had she been made to completely forget her own mother? Hating the couple was no longer difficult. She felt the anger and despair flood her soul.
“She has not been to school for a couple of days.”
“The plan had been to take her from school, but she’s always heavily guarded,” Wayne added.
“Plus the possible collateral damage if there’s an exchange of fire,” Jasmine noted.
“Yeah.”
“When did she stop going to school?” Emily asked.
“The day I went missing.”
She’d figured as much, she just needed to hear him say it. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Was she ready for this? Ready or not, she needed it. Desperately. She turned to Wayne and met his gaze.
“Do you have a recent picture of Kendra?”
She saw emotion flood his eyes as he returned her stare. “Yes,” he answered simply.
“I want to see it.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good id—”
“I want to see it,” she repeated firmly.
Wayne sighed. “Emily…Are you sure you can handle it?”
She shook her head. “I’m not, but I’ve got to see the picture.” Of that much she was certain.
Wayne looked away from her for a brief moment. When he looked back, he was once again without expression. He shifted his glance to Asher and nodded.
Asher pointed the clicker at the screen and the image shifted. In its place was a young girl. Her hair had been dyed brown and straightened, but Emily recognized her immediately. The solemn blue eyes, the same shade as her father’s, definitely belonged to Kendra. She had a slight smile on her face, like she wanted to smile, but was not sure if she should. She was already tall for her age. Emily noted that she did not look starved or tortured. In fact, she looked well cared for, except for the sadness in her eyes. Those told a different story.
Staring at the picture on the screen, Emily felt her chest begin to constrict. She took a deep breath and let it out. Then repeated the exercise a few more times until she had her emotions well in hand. She was not going to have a meltdown in front of these people. She could handle this. She would handle it.
She wanted to reach out and touch her baby through the screen. She placed her hands on her legs where they could not be seen and clenched them. She felt a warm hand cover one of her clenched fists and knew without looking that it was Wayne. For reasons she could not explain, his touch soothed something inside her.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Ace said, staring at the screen.
“What’s that?” Asher asked.
“The family that has her, they look like a Caucasian family. I thought the Chinese had her.”
Wayne withdrew his hand and Emily felt the cold mist close around her chilly heart.
“It was not the Chinese that took her,” he said quietly.
“But, Peng Ho…you said…” Emily did not know what to think.
“What we think is that there are others who know her whereabouts, including the Chinese,” Asher said.
“So who took her then?” Emily wanted to know.
“We have our theories,” Jasmine said quietly.
Emily looked at her in silent inquiry.
“Look, we can’t be sure, okay, and I would not like to be quoted on this, but we suspect that the government had something to do with her disappearance.”
Emily felt the chill in her heart grow colder.
“The government?”
She shook her head, rejecting the thought outright. The government was there to protect the people not abduct them or their kids. She knew she was being unbelievably naïve, but she needed to believe that. She needed to have that belief or everything she’d always thought to be true would dissolve like a pile of dust.
“It’s just a theory, Emily,” Wayne said.
Theory or not, one thing was evident to her. “Kendra is in danger.”
The silence around the table spoke volumes. She wanted someone, anyone, to disagree with her, but the truth was clear. They needed to get her daughter out as soon as possible.
“We’ll go after her tonight,” Wayne said.
“Not you, Carter,” Jasmine said, shaking her head.
“Why not?” Ace wanted to know.
“It’s too dangerous for him.” Simeon said. He had been quietly observing and listening, not contributing much. “And for you too.” He directed his gaze to Emily.
“Wait…what?”
“I’m afraid Jansen’s right. You and Carter will have to sit this one out,” Asher said.
“Like hell!” Emily was having none of it.
There was no way in hell she was going to sit and twiddle her thumbs while she let others retrieve her daughter. If there was any retrieving to be done, it was going to be done by her.
“I’m with Emily on this one,” Wayne said, his face set.
“Guys, please understand,” Jasmine said, trying to reason with them. “After Emily’s visit, a BOLO was put out on Wayne. So every cop in this state will be on the lookout for him. Besides, Wayne is a high profile target at the moment and the fact that you are connected to him…”
“Makes me one too,” Emily finished for her. It was a difficult pill to swallow, but it was the fact. Which was why Peng Ho and his goons had come to her at the park when she was running. She might be divorced from the man, but she w
ould always be seen as connected to him.
With a BOLO for Wayne sent to every police department, he needed to stay low. And it seemed, so did she.
“Fine. We’ll sit this one out,” Wayne said in a clipped tone. She could tell he was not happy about the decision.
“We’ll bring her back,” Simeon said with quiet assurance.
But Emily had a very bad feeling about the whole thing. She wanted to be positive, she really did. But she’d been down that road so many times and was afraid to hope. It was more than that though. Something just didn’t sit right with her. She could not put her finger on it, but the gut feeling was right there and her gut had never steered her wrong.
Several hours later, after the others left, leaving Emily and Wayne alone together, she still could not shake off the bad feeling. They had met up again in the conference room and gone through the plan for the evening. It had seemed like a flawless plan. She had not been able to find a loophole and the brilliance of it gave her added respect for the Shadow Force people. Yet that bad feeling had persisted.
She stood up and walked out of the conference room without saying a word to Wayne. She thought briefly about going to the room that she’d been shown earlier on. A few minutes’ rest would do her good. But she knew she would not be able to relax enough to rest. So she went back outside to the gazebo. The garden was well lit, but the gazebo itself was dark. Emily welcomed the darkness as she sat there and prepared to wait.
Chapter Six
Friday, 10 p.m., New York.
Wayne stood a way off and watched Emily. She paced back and forth for several minutes then sat down. After a couple of minutes, she was back on her feet again, pacing. He wanted to go out to her, comfort her. Maybe in the process he would get some comfort as well. But he knew that the last person she would want was him. He leaned against the wall and shut his eyes, trying to soothe the dull ache that had been a part of him for almost longer than he could remember. Every single day he’d had to spend without this woman had been agony. Having her here, even knowing how much she hated him, still felt a hundred times better.
He opened his eyes again. This time she was sitting down once more.
“To hell with it,” he murmured and closed the short distance to the gazebo. He could not stay away even though he knew she would not appreciate his presence.
She turned to look at him as he approached, her eyes glittering in the dark.
“Are you okay?” he asked, coming to a halt right in front of her.
“You really want me to answer that?”
“Yes,” he said with a shrug, though he wasn’t sure she could see the gesture.
“Unbelievable,” she said shaking her head with a laugh. “No, I’m not okay. And you want to know why?” She went on without waiting for a reply, “It’s because I find out that after being married to you for ten fucking years, I don’t know a damn thing about you.”
He dipped his hands into his pocket. He could understand her anger, yet for some reason it fueled his.
“Yet I know you better than anyone ever could.”
“That’s because I did not live a double life! I was always open to you, I hid nothing!” Wayne was mad. He could not believe what he was hearing. He thought of all the times he’d wanted to tell her about his involvement with Shadow Force, about his inventions…all the times that she was never available. She was always out serving their country, and he had not resented that. Well, not all the time. Most of the time, he’d been damn proud of her. And when she was around, it just did not seem to be the right time to bring up all that shit.
Eventually, he’d come to the conclusion that it was probably best if she didn’t know. If she did not know him, it was not because he didn’t want to share himself with her.
He brought his hands out of his pockets. Waving a hand in the air angrily, he decided it was time to tell her some home truths.
“Tell yourself that if it makes you sleep at night. But let me tell you something, if you really wanted to know who I was, you would have. You were so wrapped up in yourself that you had no room for anyone else, except maybe Kendra.”
“That is total bullshit and you know it! You were the one who was emotionally unavailable when I needed you the most.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You asked for a divorce. I wanted to be there for you. I needed you to be there for me, but as always you were only thinking about Emily. It’s always been about you!”
Wayne was dismayed to hear himself yelling. He had raised his voice to match hers and they were standing toe to toe.
“You know something, Wayne Carter?” She had lowered her voice by several decibels. “I hate you. I hate you with every fiber of my being. I hate that you made me fall in love with an illusion and I can’t wait to see you rot in hell. Once this is over, I want nothing to do with you. Do you hear me? Nothing!”
Every word that fell from her mouth was like a lick of flame on his already wounded heart. He felt agony in his soul as her words sliced him open and left him to bleed. Suddenly, the need to stop her from saying something they would both regret gripped him and without thinking, he leaned forward and captured her mouth in a kiss, effectively ending the flow of words.
Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next. As their lips met, a shock went through his body as a wave of electricity flowed between them. He was not the only one to feel it either, because her eyes widened in shock and she went absolutely still. Then her lids came down, her hand clutched his shirt and she kissed him with all the fervor he was feeling.
Wayne forgot everything. Forgot why they were arguing or even that they’d been arguing. Everything faded except the feel of the woman in his arms. He kissed her like a man who had been starving. She returned his kiss, each stroke of her tongue fanning the fire inside him.
Eventually they had to breathe and they broke apart. Her lids came up slowly and he almost drowned in the passion in their depths. She stared at him and the shock in her eyes mirrored the one he felt. What the hell had just happened? His nerves were all tingling from the heated blood in his veins. His eyes went to her lips and he desperately wanted to taste her again.
Just then she stiffened and her body went into an alert mode. Then she grabbed him and pushed him to the floor of the gazebo just as he heard the unmistakable sound of a bullet wheezing past. Someone had shot at them.
Emily tapped him and pointed towards the house. They needed to find a way to get inside. It did not help that they had no weapon on them and they had no idea how many people were waiting for them or where they were. She pointed again towards one corner of the garden and he understood that was where the bullet had come from.
He turned to look at the house. Once they stepped outside the gazebo, they would be visible to anyone who was shooting at them. That made them sitting ducks. It did not sit well with him. They had to find a way to get out without being hit by a bullet. At the same time, it was dangerous to remain there where anyone could find them and pick them off.
“I’ll go first,” he whispered to her.
She shook her head fiercely. “We go together.”
“We need to know how many shooters are out there,” he pointed out.
Suddenly there was a barrage of gunshots. It seemed to be coming from a closer range.
“There, that answers your question,” she whispered. “There’s just one.”
“Okay. See those hedges?” He felt her nod. “We crawl and use them as shields.”
Luckily, they were both wearing dark clothing so that would help, but not by much.
He glanced at her and wished there was a way he could keep her safe. But if he even suggested it, Emily would end his life right there. So with his heart in his mouth, he nodded at her and lying flat on their bellies, they began to crawl.
They were halfway to the house when he looked back and saw a dark figure walk to the gazebo with a gun pointing inside. He increased his speed even as he heard the gun go off once more. If
they could just make it to the door before the person realized that they were no longer in the gazebo… Emily also increased her speed. They made it to where the hedges ended. He glanced at her and at his signal, they made a mad dash for the door. The gun went off then and Wayne felt a dull ache on his arm. He did not stop to find out what it was but pushed Emily inside and then shut the door behind them.
Just as they bolted the door, five armed men hurried towards them.
“We heard gunshots, are you alright?” one of them asked.
Wayne recognized them as Asher’s security personnel. He wondered where they had been all the while.
“We were on the other side. There were supposed to be two people watching this side at all times,” another one of the men explained.
“Whoever shot at us must be gone by now.” Emily said. “But feel free to check it out.” She waved towards the door they’d just come through.
The men nodded then ran out the door. They were once again left alone. Wayne felt a sharp pain on his arm and turned to see what it was. That was when he noticed that he was bleeding. Emily noticed it too and grabbed the arm. Her touch was gentle.
“You were hit,” she said tonelessly.
He looked at his arm. It hurt like hell, but it did not feel like much more than a flesh wound. “It’s just a scrape,” he told her.
“Come on,” she said, getting to her feet.
“What’s up?” He also got to his feet.
“We need to get it cleaned up so it doesn’t get infected,” she said. “I noticed there was a first aid kit in the room I was given.”
He nodded and walked after her. The night was turning out to be full of surprises, and he had a feeling they had not seen the end of it just yet.
**
Emily could feel the rapid beating of her heart and she just managed to hold her hand steady. She should not be this affected by what was no more than a flesh wound. But as she cleaned and bandaged up Wayne’s arm, she was shaken by the realization that she could have lost him that evening.
She looked up from his arm to find him looking at her. His gaze arrested her, holding her hand still for a brief moment, before she looked away and went back to what she was doing.
Silver Shield Security Box Set Page 104
