Читать книгу Bodyguard With A Badge - Elizabeth Heiter - Страница 11

Chapter Three

She’d just taken a federal agent hostage.

And not just any federal agent. No, she’d picked some kind of super-agent, a man who could take down an armed criminal with his bare hands. When he’d flattened her against the floor of his boss’s SUV a few hours ago, she’d discovered he probably had a negative percentage of body fat. He was all hard, solid muscle.

She should be afraid of what he could do with that muscle, especially after her actions tonight, but for some reason, he made her feel safe.

Andre’s hands were tense on the wheel as he drove silently away from Quantico. He hadn’t said a word since they’d gotten in the car and driven past the guard and out of the gated complex. But she knew that wouldn’t last much longer.

What she didn’t know was what she was going to say to him.

It didn’t matter that she’d emptied the gun of its bullets back in the FBI office after she’d slipped it out of an agent’s holster. There was still no excuse for what she’d just done. Not even if it might well save her life.

The armed standoff at her office building had surely made the news by now. Dylan would know his goons had failed. What’s more, he’d know where to find her himself. Heck, if he wanted to, he could probably get into Quantico and drive her away without anyone making a word of protest. Why would they question a fellow law enforcement officer?

“You planning to tell me what this is all about?”

Andre’s question was quiet, almost a whisper, but it still made Juliette jump in her seat as his voice brought her out of her reverie.

“And would you mind aiming that gun somewhere else? I’d prefer it if you didn’t shoot me accidentally.”

“I’m not going to shoot you at all,” Juliette blurted, then silently cursed herself.

But her words didn’t seem to surprise him. He just repeated his request, and she set the gun on her lap, close enough that she could grab it, but not pointed at him anymore.

“Where are we going?” he asked when she didn’t say any more.

She’d directed him to drive out of Quantico but hadn’t given him a location beyond that. The truth was, she had no idea where she was going. Back to her office—where her car was—was a bad idea, because police were surely still there. And by now, Dylan would have both her work and home address.

Her apartment was off limits. All the things she’d worked hard to build for herself here, she’d have to leave behind. But that was a small price to pay for her life.

She’d planned to have Andre drop her off somewhere she could hitchhike out of town. But the exact logistics of getting out of town before the FBI found and arrested her? She hadn’t quite figured those out.

He must have sensed her hesitation, because he suggested, “How about I drive you to my place?”

“What?” She gaped at him. Was this some kind of trick?

“You obviously have nowhere to go,” Andre said, his voice tired. “And I think you need help. Let me help you.”

“I just repaid you for saving my life by taking you hostage!” Juliette flushed as she said it, both at the absurdity of what she’d done and at how ridiculous she was to argue with him if he was really willing to hear her out.

“You also told me you weren’t going to shoot me,” Andre replied, still sounding calm and in control, even though she was the one holding the gun.

A gun that as far as he knew was loaded with bullets. And one she’d proven she knew how to use when she’d told him the Glock didn’t have an external safety.

This had to be a trick. But what choice did she really have? She was tired of running. She wanted her life back. She wanted a real life back. Maybe if she let herself trust him, just for now, Andre could help her get that.

“Okay,” Juliette agreed, amazed the words were coming out of her mouth even as she said them. “Let’s go to your place.”

* * *

THIS WAS A bad idea.

The words echoing in Andre’s head sounded like his older brother, Cole. And even though it was his experience that Cole was almost always right, Andre pushed them aside and held open the door to his house for Juliette.

He watched her glance around the living room curiously, taking in the oversize couch, the comfortable chairs bracketing it, the coffee table stacked with books and coasters. He knew it appeared lived in, the kind of place often overflowing with friends and family. She lingered on the photos lining the table behind his couch—he and his brothers, he and Scott on an overseas mission, his HRT team after a joint training with some navy SEALs. His families.

“You have a nice home,” she said softly. “It’s cozy.”

There was something wistful in her tone, as though she didn’t have memories scattered all around her own place. But for some reason, he had a hard time imagining her not surrounded by people. Instead of asking about it, he said simply, “Thanks. Make yourself comfortable.”

Right now, she seemed as far from comfortable as possible. She’d left her heels somewhere in the woods, so she’d been barefoot ever since, the hem of her slacks collecting dust. She had one hand crammed into the pocket of her cardigan, the outline of the Glock clearly visible. Her hair was a mess, with a few bobby pins valiantly trying to hold up what had started out as a bun, and leaves woven through strands that shimmered under the light. Her pale skin had been flushed from the moment she’d pointed the gun at him.

Maybe if he could get her to relax, he could get a real story out of her. And then he could decide on his next move.

When she just shifted her weight from one foot to the other right inside his door, he closed it behind her and flopped onto his couch across the room, careful not to let the hem of his T-shirt come up. So far, she hadn’t thought to ask, and he didn’t want to give her reason to suspect he was armed. He might be willing to bring her to his house, but there was no way he was handing over his gun.

He was giving her a lot more benefit of the doubt than he normally would. Maybe it was the attraction he’d felt for her the second he’d seen her. More likely it was the vulnerability he kept seeing. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress.

The only problem was, there was a good chance Juliette was involved in something she shouldn’t be. At the very least, she’d taken a weapon off someone, and he couldn’t forget that meant she was more dangerous than she appeared.

Still, he needed her to trust him if they were going to get anywhere. He’d figure out the rest of it from there.

“Have you lived in Virginia very long?” he asked, his tone easy and casual.

She eyed him as though wondering what his angle was, but he just waited patiently, hoping to ease her into conversation.

Finally, she took some hesitant steps forward and settled gingerly on the edge of one of his chairs, far away from him. “A little while.”

“I’ve been here for four years, ever since I got accepted into HRT.” When she looked perplexed, he clarified, “The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. The tryouts were brutal, and when they put me in a sniper role, I had to go through extra training with the marines.”

She leaned back into her chair a bit, her expression intrigued, so he kept going.

“The guy you met today, the one who came down that trail we were on? That was my partner, Scott. We’ve worked together for two years. He’s practically my third brother now.” He paused, hoping she’d engage, that he could connect with her and get a real story about what had happened today.

“You have two brothers?” Her gaze went back to the photos, probably searching for someone with any kind of genetic similarity.

“You’ll never pick them out,” he said with a smile. “They’re my foster brothers. We look nothing alike. But we’re closer than blood.” Even after the fire that had destroyed their house, that had very nearly taken Marcos’s life, and had split them apart into separate foster homes, they’d managed to remain family.

“That’s nice,” she replied, and there it was again, that wistful tone.

“You’re not close to your family?”

“No. I grew up in boarding schools.” She said it without anger, just a hint of sadness.

Andre cringed. He only had a vague memory of his biological family, before they’d died in a boating accident when he was five. But that vague memory was tied up in his mother’s arms, holding him close; in his father’s voice, reading him stories. And he had five years of a true, brotherly bond with Cole and Marcos in his second foster home. But before and after that? He knew what it was like to feel all alone, to do his best to go unnoticed because that was the safest way.

He silently cursed. He was already sucked into those wide hazel eyes. He didn’t need any more reasons to feel tied to her, to protect her at all costs, even if she really belonged in jail. His gaze shifted to the bulge in her sweater where she’d stuffed the gun.

“Do you want to tell me what really happened today, Juliette? Who were those men after you?”

“I don’t know.”

He must have looked skeptical, because she immediately insisted, “I don’t know them. But I know who hired them. They had criminal records, right? Probably in Pennsylvania?”

He leaned forward. “How did you know that?”

Her face pinched. “Because my ex-husband hired them to kidnap me.”

“Your ex-husband?” Andre tried to keep the surprise off his face. He didn’t know why he’d expected her never to have been married. It shouldn’t matter one way or another, but he found himself disappointed. “Why would he want to kidnap you?”

She gave him a sad smile. “Let’s just say that the divorce wasn’t amicable. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s official. I filed, and then I ran. But in order for it to be approved, he has to agree to no-fault. I didn’t want to go through a court date, so I didn’t dare file a fault complaint.”

She fidgeted on the chair, avoiding his gaze, and he knew there was more to the story. Probably a lot more.

Anger heated him, and memories flashed through his mind, images he didn’t want to dwell on, from his first foster home. “Did he hurt you?”

“No.” She shook her head, but still didn’t meet his eyes. “But I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and he knew it. I tried to tell him I’d keep his secret, just to get him to let me go, but he wanted me close. So when I finally accepted that I was in danger, that I had to go, I just filed and ran.”

“Why were you in danger?” Andre forced himself not to lean forward, not to show the aggression he was feeling toward her ex. “Why didn’t you just go to the police for help? Get a restraining order against him?”

She let out a heavy breath. “I couldn’t do that. He was...”

“He was what?” Andre pressed when she went silent for too long. Then his phone rang, and he saw her tense even before he checked the readout. Scott was calling.

He considered letting it go to voice mail, but if someone had spotted Juliette holding a gun on him, he didn’t want his teammates swarming his house in a misguided rescue attempt. “I need to answer this,” he told her. “But you’re safe here, okay?”

He didn’t let her argue, just picked up his cell. “Scott. What’s going on?”

“You didn’t see that woman—Juliette or Mya or whatever her name is—sneak out, did you?”

“Why?” Andre asked, instead of answering, because he hated lying to family.

“She left before they could question her,” Scott said. “You’re not going to believe this, but she actually managed to get a weapon off of Nadia in the restroom.”

“Is Nadia hurt?” If Juliette had disarmed a weapons training agent who could bring fellow agents to tears using her chokehold techniques on the training mats, then Juliette was much more dangerous than he’d suspected.

“Nah, Nadia’s fine. Mostly embarrassed. Apparently this woman has sticky fingers.”

So, Juliette was a pickpocket. Somehow, that didn’t fit. But then nothing about Juliette had fit so far. Still, taking a wallet from an unsuspecting mark on the street was a lot different from getting an agent’s weapon out of its holster.

“Anyway, there’s a lot more to this story,” Scott continued. “And the FBI thinks the woman’s in danger.”

Andre’s gaze sought Juliette’s. She stared back at him, her eyes wide.

“What did they get from the gunmen? Are they talking yet?”

“Yeah. I spoke to Froggy. Turns out they took an initial payment for grabbing this woman, and they were expecting more when the job was finished.”

“Who paid them?” Was Juliette right? Was it her ex?

“These idiots are claiming they don’t know. Which is either true, or they’d worked out their stories together beforehand. They say they were approached anonymously, that it was supposed to be easy money. Grab her, do the job, then get the other half of the money when the deal was complete.”

“And they didn’t think it was some kind of setup? Or just take the first payment and run?”

Scott sighed. “They both seem to think a cop hired them.”

“A cop?” Andre scoffed. “They think a cop hired a pack of ex-cons to kidnap a marketing employee at gunpoint out of her workplace?” He watched Juliette go pale and frowned. “That makes no sense at all. What kind of cop would send these guys in on such a flawed plan?”

“Well, it wasn’t the original plan,” Scott said. “Right now, because the third guy fired in that office building on FBI agents and they’re all going to face some serious sentences, the two we’ve got in custody are tripping over each other trying to make deals. The case agents have them separated, but they’re getting the same story.”

“What are they saying?”

“The hostage grab out of the office building was the criminals’ plan. They wanted it to hit the news, so their anonymous employer would see it. They were planning to grab her and demand a higher payout for her delivery.”

“Okay,” Andre said slowly. “That does make more sense. So, the original plan was to grab her more quietly, then make the trade in some deserted location? Juliette for the money?”

“I wish that was the case,” Scott answered. “But the plan wasn’t to grab her at all. And apparently the second guy—the one you tackled on the path—was trying to double-cross the other two and get all the money for himself, so there’s no love lost there.”

“So what was the plan?” Andre demanded, a bad feeling settling in his stomach as Juliette’s words came back to him, her fear of taking her ex-husband to court. And suddenly he knew. Her ex-husband was a cop. Her ex-husband was the cop, the one who’d hired three dangerous ex-cons to grab Juliette.

He watched her hands clutch the arms of his chair until her knuckles were bone white. And he could tell she knew the answer to his question without even hearing Scott’s reply.

“They were supposed to kill her, Andre. They were told to snatch her quietly, drive her somewhere secluded, kill her and bury the body.”

“This was never supposed to go public,” Andre said, not taking his eyes off of Juliette.

“No. This woman was supposed to just disappear forever.”