Over the Line (19 page)

“Doubtful. Where is everyone?”

“The girls are all locked in Sadie’s bathroom. At least that’s where I left them.” She went through the same process James had, checking the gun’s mag. She pressed the top down. “Full. I heard two shots, though.”

“Yeah, I’ve got another guy in the snooker room. His gun had two missing rounds. The front door is locked. This one’s locked. I think it’s safe to say that we are on a reverse lockdown. We’re stuck in here with the bad guys.”

Beth took a step toward him, and he reached out and dragged her close. He kissed her forehead, again overwhelmed with knowing she was safe, and better than that, that they were now in this together.

“How do you want to play this? I cleared the rooms upstairs that weren’t locked before I came down but I’ve been in here for a few minutes so I don’t know if anyone else went up there. I’m worried that there are more men moving around the house. If they wanted Director Walker, he’s in the study down here, right? Why would they need to find anyone else?” James wondered why she’d used his father’s work title instead of just saying “your dad,” but he couldn’t argue with her logic.

“Yes, he should be in the study, and I hope he stays here. I wish I knew where my mom was. If she isn’t upstairs, I don’t know where she’d be.” He tried to look out of the kitchen window, but because they were in the basement, all he could see was grass and the bottom of the marquee.

“Could she have gone outside to supervise something?” Beth asked. “What about Gracie? I thought she’d be in here but she’s not.”

“Fuck. This is a nightmare.”

“Split up?” Beth asked, chambering a round.

Nothing about this situation made him want to split up. He wanted her right by his side where he could protect her. Okay, and where she could have his back, too.

She continued. “I know it’s best to stay together, but we’re more dangerous apart, since no one knows we’re, well, us. We can cover more ground and find more people.”

James nodded once, knowing she was right. “My mother’s salon is at the opposite end of the house to my father’s study. The house is symmetrical. I guess it’s the only place she could be.”

“I’ll find your mother and Gracie, and get them upstairs to Sadie’s room. Then I’ll come look for you,” she said.

He looked at the man on the floor wondering if he should tie him up.

“Don’t worry,” Beth said. “He won’t wake up until next Tuesday, I promise you that.”

He nodded. “Okay, I’m going to try to clear the ground floor.”

“Deal.” They bumped gun-holding fists and gave each other identical smiles. Yeah, who would have thought they’d be under fire in the United States? Afghanistan was one thing, but McLean, Virginia was something different. Or should be, at least.

James headed to the door, but turned just before he went through it. “This,”—he said, motioning between them—“I’m sorry about this. About everything.”

She shrugged and said, “Good luck out there. Don’t get shot.”

He grinned. “You either.”

Beth watched him go and gave him a few seconds. As soon as this was done, she was out of here. She was fairly convinced that she was falling in love with him, which was crazy. Literally bone-deep nutso.

Damn him
. She assessed her surroundings before heading out into the hallway.

No gunfire, no scuffling. Just on the off-chance it was working, she picked up the kitchen phone. It was dead.

She left the kitchen, looking up the stairs as she went. No movement, still quiet. This time she went past the staircase to an area of the house she’d never been in before. It was a mirror image of the other side of the house, as James had told her, but the hallway was painted a dusky purple.

She had to find James’s mother. For him. Then certainly her debt to him would be paid. Going through and clearing each room as she went, she eventually found the counterpart to the masculine study where she’d had her lovely meeting with the director.

Ear to the door, she listened for movement. There were no voices, no sounds of movement within. She quietly turned the handle and pushed the door open. She’d never kicked in doors by herself before; she’d always had someone at her back, so she’d decided upstairs that stealth was the best idea.

The room seemed empty so she stepped inside and closed the door silently behind her. There were two other doors in the room. Maybe they were closets. She held very, very still, and heard someone breathing. She edged around the room, back to the walls. A stiletto peeked out from under a large antique-looking desk.

“Mrs. Walker?” she whispered. “It’s me, Beth.”

A head poked out from under the desk, and James’s mother saw Beth with her gun. “I knew you were no good. I knew it. My son would never want to be with someone like you. Thank God. Now, what do you want? What is all this about? Put that gun down.”

For someone sprawled on the floor under a desk, she was still full of poison. Beth took back the kind words she’d said to James about her. She sighed.

“Get up. I’m not going to hurt you. Have you seen Gracie?” She didn’t have anywhere else to put the gun, so she let her arm fall to her side.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Sweet hell. Mrs. Walker, I’m not involved with this. James sent me to find you. The other girls are in Sadie’s room,” Beth tried to explain.

“A likely story. Where is he? What have you done with my son? If you’ve hurt a hair on his head, I will kill you myself.” She spat the words at Beth.

Wow. Just… wow
. Now what was the plan? Whenever she’d rescued people before, which in all honesty wasn’t really her specialty, she’d been in uniform. She’d never had to convince anyone she was a good guy before.

“I don’t know what to tell you. There are masked men in the house, your security is nowhere to be found, and all the external doors are locked. James is looking for your husband and his colleagues, and I said I’d come look for you.”

One of the other doors in the room opened and Beth immediately took a shooting stance and aimed her gun at the door. Gracie came out of a closet. Beth lowered her gun, mentally if not physically swiping her brow in relief that she hadn’t shot.

“I believe her,” Gracie said, shrugging.

Mrs. Walker covered her face with her hands in apparent desperation. “Okay,” she said when she lowered her hands. “But I swear to God, if you are lying, I will put my Louboutin through your eye.”

Beth didn’t doubt it, but didn’t want to waste time placating her. “I’m taking you to Sadie’s room. Harry, Maisie, and Sadie are in the bathroom. That’s where I’m taking you, okay?” She used a military strategy—keep repeating the goal in case anyone was distracted the first time it was stated. “Please stay behind me, and don’t say anything when we are outside this room.” She looked at the women. Mrs. Walker’s nod was somewhat reluctant, but Beth took it as acquiescence.

The hallway was quiet, making Beth think that this could all really be just about the director and his work cronies in the study. She wondered if it was a secure study, like a panic room, or just a regular room. She cleared the hallway, and motioned for the two women to exit the room.

They followed her down the hallway until Beth, by habit, put up her fist. They stopped obediently as if they were her troops. She would have smiled if her heart wasn’t beating a tattoo in her chest. She crouched and took the corner, pointing her weapon first up the stairs, and then down the hallway beyond the staircase.

Nothing. She led them up to the second floor. But halfway there, she heard a commotion.

She took the rest of the stairs two by two and peeked around the corner toward Sadie’s room. The door was open. Shit.

Beckoning the ladies to her, she whispered for them to wait, backs to the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.

Heart pumping and echoing through her ears, she crept up to the doorway. Inside, Sadie was slung over a guy’s shoulder, kicking and hollering. Maisie was trying to hold on to her.
Jeffrey? What the fuck?

Ah. Jeffrey. The jealousy over the wedding, the e-mails. She sighed to herself.

“No, she has to come with me. I’m saving her. I’m taking her to safety. William told me…”

“Put me down,” Sadie was yelling over and over, while Maisie was crying, holding on to her hands.

William? What does William have to do with this?

Whatever he was doing, he could stop right now. Beth wasn’t scared. She could take Jeffrey. But then she saw he had a gun in one hand. Fuck it all sideways. Well, that made it all a lot clearer. She raised her weapon but then realized that he could easily start shooting, and there were too many people that could be in the way. Cursing inwardly that she didn’t have a waistband to tuck the gun into, she carefully put it out of sight on the floor, just on the other side of the door.

“What’s going on?” she asked as if she’d just walked in.

Maisie screamed, “He’s trying to take Sadie! You told us to wait here.”

“I did. Jeffrey, it’s not safe down there; you should stay here with us. Put her down.”

Her reasonable tone seemed to penetrate his mania and he put Sadie down. She tried to step away from him but he grabbed her around her neck. A kind of uber-violent hug. “I’m rescuing her. She needs me to rescue her. William told me that I could take her out.”

“Take her out? You’re going to kill her?” Beth inched back toward her gun.

“No! That’s not what he meant. He meant I could take her outside.”

Did he?

“Where is William?” Beth asked, trying to sound calm. This was getting more complicated by the second.

“He’s downstairs with his friends. He told me he would create a diversion while I rescued Sadie. I told you I could tell she didn’t want to get married.”

Sadie’s mouth opened but Beth shook her head sharply to stop her from saying anything that would further derail Jeffrey.

“William seems to have friends with guns downstairs. Look.” She retrieved her gun and held it by its muzzle so he wouldn’t feel threatened. “See? I took this off one of them. I don’t think this is a prank diversion, Jeffrey. I think William is doing something real.”

He loosened his arm around Sadie’s neck and squinted as if trying to figure out what to do next. “No, I’m taking her to safety,” he decided. He dragged her toward the door, gun waving wildly.

Beth swallowed. She really just wanted to shoot him. “That’s great, Jeffrey. But you can’t expect her to want you to rescue her without rescuing all of us, too, can you? How will she be able to look at you again knowing you left us all behind in such a dangerous situation?” She figured fucking with his head was the right approach.

Sadie leveled a stare at her, and Beth hoped that she was getting the hint. “Beth’s right. What if my sister gets killed, or my best friend? How will I ever be able to forgive you for leaving them behind?”

He scoffed. “No one is going to get killed.” And then his mouth snapped shut as if he’d said too much.

“How do you explain the men downstairs with masks and real guns, real bullets?” Beth asked. He was crazy. Certifiably crazy.

An arm snaked around her shoulders. She jumped and looked round.

James. Prayers answered. Her breath steadied, and the adrenaline pulsing through her abated. She wanted to hold on to him. Forever.

“What’s going on, Jeffrey? Isn’t it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?” He smiled at his sisters as if he couldn’t see Jeffrey’s gun.

“I’m saving your sister,” Jeffrey said, tightening his grip on Sadie.

“From what?” James asked, still smiling.

“The men. The masked men who are in the house. They have guns. They will kill everyone unless…” He hesitated as if he didn’t know what to say next.

“Unless what?” James dropped his arm from Beth’s shoulder after squeezing it, sending a little comfort through her.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m saving Sadie. Taking her away from this. It’s dangerous here. It’s dangerous for her to get married here. To Simon. William told me he was dangerous, and I couldn’t find anything in our databases about him. He’s fake. He doesn’t exist. I couldn’t get the director to see sense.”

Holy shit, he sounded just bat-shit crazy. There was no way he was leaving the room with Sadie. But at least James was here. Then she was jostled, elbowed out of the way by Mrs. Walker.
Oh good, now everyone’s here.

“James, we should do as Jeffrey says. Let’s not cause any problems.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, is it, Jeffrey? You have a gun, and try as you might, you can’t shoot all of us.”

Jeffrey paused and looked at his weapon as if he could count the bullets inside, and James took the opportunity to suddenly lunge at him. The gun went off as he jerked Jeffrey’s hand upward. Plaster fluttered down from the ceiling as Beth ran forward, shoving Sadie and the other women back into the bathroom.

By the time she had turned around, Jeffrey was on his back with a bloody lip and a half-closed eye. James flipped him over, then took a stocking lying on the bed and tied his hands. Jeffrey tried to speak, but he just dribbled incoherently.

“I think your arms are broken, so try not to move too much,” James said conversationally. Beth watched him finish knotting the stocking. God, he was magnificent. She wanted him—not sexually, not right now—but next to her, forever. She slipped that thought into a pocket as Mrs. Walker picked up the gun Jeffrey had dropped. She handed it to Beth in what Beth could only think of as a vote of confidence.

“You don’t know what you’re doing. Simon doesn’t exist. She can’t marry him.”

“Of course he does. How you stayed my father’s secretary so long without him realizing how stupid you are amazes me,” James said.

He was right. Jeffrey should have figured out that the reason Simon wasn’t in any database was because he was a covert operative.

“I’m his right-hand man,” Jeffrey protested weakly.

“James, thank God you’re here,” Sadie said from the bathroom. “You were awesome.”

He smiled back at her for a second, and then glanced at Jeffrey again. His fight was gone and he was looking at the bullet hole in the ceiling.

“They were supposed to be blanks. William told me they were blanks.” He closed his eyes, and Beth could have sworn he was trying not to cry. “I can’t believe I was so stupid. William convinced me Simon was a terrorist. That I’d be a hero if I saved the family from Sadie marrying him.”

“They’re supposed to be blanks? Not live rounds?” Beth asked, ignoring the rest.

“Yes!” Jeffrey said.

“Blanks can still kill people, you idiot.” James said, kicking Jeffrey’s leg.

Jeffrey just closed his eyes and shook his head.

Beth looked at the ceiling. “These
are
live rounds. They’re not blanks.” She looked at James. “Do you really think this was just a plot to kidnap Sadie?”

“I think William told Jeffrey that he’d make a diversion so Jeffrey could have Sadie, but I’d guess this was a diversion for something else William wanted to do.”

“Does that sound possible, Jeffrey?” Beth said.

Jeffrey looked at the ceiling and shrugged again.

* * *

Beth left the room, allowing the family members to hug and reassure each other. She watched them through the doorway from the outside. Just as it should be.

James instructed his mother and Gracie to stay with the girls, fixing to leave Jeffrey trussed up like a chicken out in the hall. Beth had stepped back out of the way when a hand grabbed her around the throat. She went cold and reacted instinctively. Stepping backward she swung her head back to head-butt the assailant in the face, but he was ready for her—he turned to the side so that her head only made contact with his shoulder.

She must have made a sound because James stood and turned with his gun up at eye level. He lowered it a second, as if to check that what he was seeing was really happening.

“No way. Put her down.” He aimed his weapon at the guy’s head. “I can take you from here.”

“I don’t think so.” William pressed a gun to Beth’s temple. Everything went quiet and still. Her vision became blurred, and only then did she realize that he was still choking her.

“If she falls, the second she’s down you’re dead,” James said evenly, advancing on them. William released the pressure on her neck, but dragged her backward and off balance.

“Untie him.” The man pointed his gun at Jeffrey.

“No. Not until you release her,” James said, still coming.

William dragged her toward the stairwell. Great, one shove and she’d break her neck on all that marble. She tried to think of a way to get out of his grasp, but her brain wasn’t working as well as it should be.

“I’m not letting her go,” William said.

“Me either,” James countered. He lowered his gun for a second, then pinned William in his sight again. “What the fuck, dude? What’s this about?”

“Freedom of information. The people I’m working with are going to publish everything in the CIA database. Americans have a right to know about all the government lies and cover-ups, what their government really does with taxpayer money. I’m going to be the next Julian Assange.”