Cold in the Shadows 5 (16 page)

“Don’t go firing your analysts just yet.” Her eyes rolled tiredly. “I was the only witness, but I never saw the guy’s face. He wore a mask. The cops and DA kept my identity secret because they wanted to pretend ‘the witness’ knew more than she actually did and I refused WitSec because I was halfway through my Ph.D. and no way was I throwing that away for some stupid mugger. They set up a sting operation with a woman police officer as a decoy, but they never caught the guy. The case is still open, but no one thinks they’ll find him after so many years.”

She sat up and reached for the water. By the time he realized she wasn’t going for the cup he was staring down the barrel of his own gun. The space between heartbeats felt like an eternity.

Well, hell.

“I need you to back away from the bed, Patrick.” The heavy gun wavered in her one-handed grip. Her finger was hooked around the trigger.

He could lunge and maybe knock the weapon out of her grip, but taking a bullet from that gun at close range meant he’d bleed out before he even made a phone call.

He raised his hands, palms facing forward. “Careful, Aud. That thing is locked and loaded.” He eased his weight from the bed and backed up a half step. “You don’t want to do something you’re going to regret.”

“Shooting someone who kidnapped me and held me against my will?” Her bottom lip wobbled. “What US court would have a problem with that? I don’t even know if you’re really CIA because it’s
classified
and I only overheard part of a conversation when I was almost unconscious. For all I know you made that up, too.” The gun wavered and she wrapped both hands around it, but it was still unsteady.

Killion eyed her narrowly. He wasn’t a big fan of having a loaded weapon pointed in his direction, but a professional assassin would have already pulled the trigger.

“No court in the country would convict an innocent woman on that basis,” she told him.

He edged to his right. “Unfortunately they might not be so understanding toward a woman already wanted for murder.”

Her eyes widened. “They think I murdered Hector in cold blood? Oh, my God.” He didn’t correct her assumption it was Hector they thought she’d killed. She looked like she was going to start to cry again. “I have to talk to an American official.” Her voice rose in bewilderment. “I need to tell them the truth. You have to help me!”

He crossed his arms over his chest and eyed the weapon in her hands. “You gonna shoot me or not?”

“No!” She lowered the gun so it rested on her thighs. “Any sane person
would
shoot you. You’re arrogant, annoying and so goddamned secretive.
And
you could be a deranged serial killer for all I know.” She wasn’t making a lot of sense. “But I don’t care what anyone says or thinks, I’m
not
a killer.” She wiped her eyes. “I just want to go home.”

“I’m beginning to see that, Dr. Lockhart.” He reached out and lifted the gun out of her lap and stuck it back in his holster, feeling like a damn fool. His heart regained its normal sinus rhythm and a sense of relief filled him. Not just because she hadn’t shot him, but also because any doubts to her innocence had been obliterated.

“Remind me sometime to show you how to take the safety off a SIG—just not today, okay?” He leaned down and dropped a kiss to her forehead. The desire to climb in beside her and hold her close almost overwhelmed his good sense, so he stood and backed away. She was no longer someone to be played for information. She was an innocent who needed his protection.

“Go to sleep.” He paused on his way out of the room. “And call me Killion. Only my grandma calls me Patrick, and that’s only when she’s pissed.”

*     *     *

K
ILLION PICKED UP
his satellite cell phone and punched in Jed’s number. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” It was the middle of the night and he’d obviously woken the guy, but Jed didn’t complain.

“No way is Audrey Lockhart our professional assassin.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“No way is Audrey Lockhart our professional assassin.”

“Dammit. You’re sure?”

“I’d bet my reputation on it.”

Killion expected a joke about that not being much to lose, but Jed took him by surprise and grunted. “Good enough for me. So why were we led to this woman?”

They’d been fed just enough information to find her before someone had tried to take her out of the picture, permanently.

“I just found out Audrey was Gabriel Brightman’s daughter’s best friend when the daughter was murdered during a mugging a few years ago. Audrey survived because the guy’s gun jammed.”

“Why didn’t we know about this?”

“Cops and DA kept her name out of the reports to protect her identity,” Killion told him.

“Audrey dated the brother, right?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know about the friend/sister connection until tonight.” He was kicking himself for not knowing something so vital.

“What happened tonight?” asked Jed.

Killion’s career was built on passing along information and Jed was someone he trusted with his life. This wasn’t gossip. It was data.
And how’d you like it if your nightmares ended up in a database, asshole?

“Her friend’s death came out in conversation. Cops never caught the guy. You gotta get Frazer or Parker digging into Gabriel Brightman. He sounds like a perfect candidate for The Gateway Project. Friend of Burger’s. Getting revenge for a dead kid? Maybe involving the cartel? Maybe blaming Audrey for surviving when his daughter didn’t, so setting her up to take the fall?”

“It’s the closest we have to a motive, although why take out Burger if they were supposed to be friends?”

Killion shrugged. “Maybe he figured Burger had gone too far?” The VP had helped fund a terrorist attack in some twisted effort to increase the fight against them. “Maybe Brightman figured if Burger got caught he’d bring him down, too?”

“I suppose.” Jed sounded tired.

“You all right?”

“It’s four
AM
.” Jed’s voice held an edge.

“I forgot you feds were nine-to-five government employees.”

“Said the man living it up in the Caribbean.”

“Which reminds me. I need to get off the island. Now that we know Audrey doesn’t have information to squeeze, I need to keep searching for the assassin.” And the more time he spent with Audrey the more involved he became. He didn’t like it. Didn’t want it. She wasn’t the kind of woman he could walk away from without one or both of them getting hurt, and he always walked away.

Time to move on.

But no matter how many reasons he came up with for ditching the biologist the idea still felt wrong. How about the fact he’d attacked her that first night? And that his attack and her subsequent report of the attack probably got her stabbed the next day and her grad student murdered—not that she knew about that yet. Another fact that would make her hate him if she ever found out.

“What about Lockhart?” asked Jed. “We can’t just turn her loose, she’s wanted for murder. Even if the truth comes out the cartel still wants her dead for reasons unknown.”

Audrey was definitely in danger. “We have to assume either Brightman or the cartel masterminded this whole thing, or they’re working together. We need more people on them. See if there’s a connection between Gómez and Brightman.” Killion scrubbed his face. “Did you check the phone records of those two detectives?”

“Yeah.” Jed sounded like he was working on a computer now. “Detective Torres called a burner cell located out the outskirts of Bogota. Parker is trying to pin it down because that same burner cell was used to call a number in Kentucky. The burner is now turned off and if the person they called has half a brain they’ll have ditched it.”

“Keep monitoring it. Plenty of smart people do stupid things.” He thought of all the things he wanted to do to Dr. Lockhart even though she didn’t have a clue. Smart people. Stupid things.

He mentally kicked himself. He shouldn’t be having these thoughts about someone under his care and supervision. The situation had changed.

“We’re gonna need documentation to get back into the country. We’ll stash Audrey in a safe house somewhere. As long as no one spots her arriving she should be safe until we catch up with the guy pulling the strings.”

“It’s going to take a while to set up transportation if we want to keep this below the radar. Unless those Brit friends of yours can give you another ride? Chatter is someone took out some terrorists who hijacked a vessel heading toward the Panama Canal. Think that was them?”

Killion smiled. “If it wasn’t us, it was them. But I’m not pulling them back into this unless we have to.” He wasn’t jeopardizing their base of operations in Colombia. There were other ways to move around that raised less red flags than dead of night helo flights. His reluctance had nothing to do with the way Noah had looked at Audrey back in Cartagena. “Know anyone with a boat?”

Jed laughed. “It’s only thirty nautical miles to the nearest airstrip. You could swim over and steal another plane. All very Indiana Jones by the way.”

Killion rolled his eyes at the ribbing.

“It’s going to be forty-eight hours before we can get a chopper out there,” said Jed. “I just texted Parker. His security firm is all tied up, helping us out on a case in upstate New York. Unless you want to bring in someone else?”

“No.” The risk of someone blabbing about Audrey’s identity was too great, especially with her face on every newspaper in South America.

“Think of it as a weekend—remember them?” said Jed.

Killion ignored him. “How’s Frazer?”

“Getting better. He arrested the serial killer and got the girl this time.”

“He’s definitely keeping her?”

“Looks that way.”

Killion grunted.

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

“That’s what?” Killion growled.

“The problem I can hear in your surly tone. You like her. You like Dr. Audrey Lockhart and spending time alone with her is scaring the shit out of you.”

“Fuck. Off.”

“Not your usual type, buddy. She’s got that nerdy thing going for her.”

“Up until ten minutes ago I thought she might still be a cold blooded killer.”

“Which made the attraction safe because you’d never betray a mission.” Killion was flattered for all of a millisecond. “Now you’re trying to run away as fast as you can.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Hey, that’s your job.”

“Bite me.” Killion hung up and closed his eyes. Dammit. He hated that Jed was right. This was why he worked alone. It was much easier alone.

*     *     *

A
UDREY LAY IN
bed staring at the streaks of sunlight playing over the ceiling. She was so mad at herself. She’d had Patrick Killion at her mercy last night but she’d managed to blow it by breaking down like some pathetic weenie. There was a knock on the door and the man himself opened it wide and stood wearing jeans, a faded blue T-shirt and sun block, which she could smell clear across the room.

“Time for some PT, Lockhart.”

She hadn’t been sure how he’d react after she’d pointed his gun at him last night. The kiss he’d placed on her forehead had been unexpected, and sweet. It made her uneasy now—too gentle, too tender—reminding her of the fact he’d taken care of her when she was sick, and rescued her when she would have otherwise died.

A hero.

Their dynamic had changed, but he was still an operator on a mission, doing dangerous things on behalf of his country. And she was still a frog biologist.

Even if he
was
a government agent, James Bond did not live happily-ever-after. When he did fall in love, the woman generally died a painful graphic death, and she had no intention of dying for at least another seventy years. And she couldn’t afford to believe she was anything other than a job to a man like this—no matter how “sweet” those tender little kisses were, or how they made her heart squeeze.

Audrey pushed herself up in the bed and winced as the healing skin on her side tugged. “I don’t think I’m ready for sit-ups just yet.” But she was fed up of lying around like a slug.

He grinned and she was startled by how much younger he looked. How less world-weary.

“How about a swim?” he suggested.

The idea of getting into the ocean was appealing, but there was a problem. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

He went over to the drawers and started searching through them until he came back with two turquoise pieces of string. “Unluckily for me this looks like it might fit.” He spread the triangle of material over his own chest.

“I’ve seen bigger post-it notes.” She leaned forward and snatched it out of his grasp. “I can’t believe they let you loose with a gun.” She cocked a brow. “And what are
you
wearing?”

His mouth twisted. “Seriously? There’s no one around for miles, and, trust me, not even the most advanced military satellite system can spot a man’s dick from space.”

She raised another brow at him, and he pushed out a heavy sigh. He went to the other side of the room and dug into another set of drawers. Whipped out a pair of red board shorts. “These big enough to preserve your modesty?” He quirked a brow back at her.

“Only if you can squeeze them over your ego.”

The smile got hot and dangerous. “I do have a big ego.”

“No kidding.” She slung a pillow at him, clutching her side as much to stop laughing as to stop from hurting herself. “Out.”

He looked genuinely pained. “I hate to tell you, but I’ve seen you naked—three, maybe four times if we count—”

“This is not helping your cause.”

“Hey”—he hung onto the doorframe, clearly reluctant to leave—“what kind of costumes do frogs wear on Halloween?”

“You really think there’s a frog joke I haven’t heard? Jumpsuits. Ha ha.”

His eyes got a wicked gleam in them. “What did one lesbian frog say to the other?”

She shook her head. “Lesbian frog?” The guy was incorrigible. “Fine. I don’t know, what did one lesbian frog say to the other?”

His smile was pure devilry. “They’re right. We do taste like chicken.”