Decoded

“This one is on me,” Lucas said quietly. “You need to understand that. You have no part in that world.”

The question Victoria had wanted to ask for the past twenty-four hours pressed against her skull. She needed to know. But did she have a right to know? “Are you certain I had no part in what happened?” She held her breath. The woman looked like Victoria, after all. Had that been the reason Lucas had turned to her all those years ago?

Two, then three beats of silence passed. Lucas reached for her hand. “Let’s not do this to ourselves until we have the facts. Whatever is happening may be about Keaton only. The ordeal in Mexico may have been a way to smoke him out once our connection to him was established.” Lucas exhaled a big breath. “The fact is, we can’t rule out or confirm anything yet.”

Victoria ordered herself to breathe. Lucas had assumed her question was about the current situation. In time they would need to talk about her other question, the one she really needed to ask. But that would have to wait.

This puzzle had to be pieced together very carefully, one fragment at a time. Far too much was at stake to go about this any other way.

THE BROWNSTONE STILL smoldered when they arrived on the block. Jim waited for them just outside the perimeter of the crime scene. The cold filtered right through the thick sweater Victoria had chosen. She hugged her arms around herself and hoped for good news about Keaton and Maggie.

“Still no word on victims,” Jim said as they approached. “I called Maggie’s home number as well as the coffee shop and there’s no answer. Keaton isn’t answering his cell and his car is parked in the alley.” Jim jerked his head toward the brownstone. “It’ll be hours before we know the probable cause of the explosion and if there are victims.”

The chill invading her bones turned Victoria’s blood to ice. “What about the neighboring buildings?”

“One’s empty and the other’s a business. The owner has confirmed that no one employed there was in the building tonight.”

Thank God for that news. Victoria stared at the wreck that had been the home of the Equalizers. Her instincts warned that this was deliberate, calculated destruction. Whoever had done this either wanted Keaton dead or wanted to send him a very loud message.

Lucas and Jim discussed the steps that would be taken by the police and fire departments. Victoria tried to pay attention, but her mind kept wandering to Maggie and how all this would affect her—if she was still alive. Dread ached in Victoria’s bones.

Jim had tried to reach Keaton all night, but he’d simply disappeared. Victoria had considered calling Maggie or paying her a visit to warn her. What would she have said? I think the man you love is dangerous?

Regret settled, heavy and sickening, in Victoria’s stomach. She should have warned Maggie.

Now it might be too late.

Chapter Three

2:32 a.m.

Slade Keaton… He didn’t know why he continued to consider himself by that name. That life was over. If he’d needed convincing, the past couple of hours had confirmed that fact. Hanging on to such superficial trappings was a grave error. He knew this.

Another change wasn’t the end of the world. He’d changed his name so many times during the latter part of his thirty years on this earth that he couldn’t even remember all the ones he’d used. This was not a new scenario to him.

Yet, somehow, it felt like the end of the world…like a whole new concept. Because of her. His gaze settled on the woman behind the wheel. Slade closed his eyes and shook his head. He’d made a mistake. That, he could say with complete confidence, was a first. He opened his eyes and focused his attention on the dark road ahead. A man like him couldn’t afford careless mistakes. He’d been trained better than that.

Images from his formative years attempted to invade his concentration. He kicked them aside. The past was irrelevant. Nothing mattered except today…this moment. He would not die for her.

Rage tightened his lips. Mother. Madre. The woman who had been anything but a mother to him. He had eluded her, just as he had eluded the rest of the world, for a dozen years now. No one had cornered him. But his recent mistake had allowed her to find him. Now there was only one way this could end.

One of them had to die.

The idea of killing his own mother evoked only one emotion. Determination.

“What now?”

Slade shifted his attention back to the here and now. Maggie had stopped at an intersection. Deep, dark woods closed in on all sides, leaving the highway nothing but a black river flowing in front of the headlights. Even the moon and stars had concealed themselves as if they, too, sensed the impending doom.

“Do I go straight or turn?” Her voice was sharp but still shaky. She was scared and rightly so. Maggie James had no idea how close to death she’d already come. If he was successful in maintaining her cooperation, she would never know.

“Take a right.” Slade calculated the miles before they reached the motel. Four, maybe five more. The place was a dump, but it was close to the interstate and there was a café next door. It would fulfill his immediate requirements.

Maggie made the turn and drove onward through the darkness. She’d stopped asking questions an hour ago. Mostly because of the weapon he’d wielded. Guilt nudged him. He’d done what he had to. She might never realize it, but he’d saved her life.

“How much farther?”

It looked as if she was through with the silent treatment. “Not far now.” She wasn’t going to like the next step in his plan any more than she’d liked the last. There was nothing he could do about that. Time was of the essence.

The headlamps spotlighted a road sign in the distance indicating a ramp to the interstate. After he’d covered arrangements for Maggie, he’d take that interstate to St. Louis. From there he had private air transport to Mexico City. He had contacts in Mexico City. This war would require extensive resources. And a whole lot of something he’d been short on his whole life—good luck.

Luck, right. He had made his own way in this life. Depending on luck would have offered him as much security as counting on his so-called mother to be a parent. Not happening.

Slade hadn’t actually missed having a real parent. One couldn’t miss what one hadn’t had. But, recently, he had begun to wonder what it would have felt like. What his life would have been like had his circumstances been different. How would it feel to have a real relationship?

He was a fool. Fury hardened his jaw. He should not have stayed in Chicago so long. Weakness had invaded, making him soft and stupid. He would never have a real anything. He was not real, not in that sense.

The motel’s aged neon sign strained upward, high above the one-story queue of run-down rooms, in order to be seen by travelers on the interstate. Two tractor-trailers were parked along the side of the road. There wouldn’t be enough space on the old strip of a parking lot for rigs that size, but the motel offered drivers a cheap place to sleep for a few hours before hitting the road again. Slade had checked out the motel and gotten a profile on the typical guest.

“Pull into the motel parking lot,” he instructed, then waited for her to comply. “Park in front of the office.”

He’d rented the car under an alias and stashed it for this leg of his departure. He hadn’t known then that he would have a passenger. To some degree the snag could work in his favor. Having dumped Maggie’s car at the bus station would serve as a ruse, helping to buy sufficient time to get to St. Louis.

Maggie shut off the headlights and the engine. Her hands continued to clutch the steering wheel. Her respiration was slow enough to indicate some level of calmness, but he couldn’t be certain of how she would react during the next few minutes.

“We’re going in to rent a room.” He leaned forward. “Don’t force me to do something you’ll regret.”

“Like you haven’t already?”

Her voice didn’t wobble now; rather, she sounded weary and resigned and just a little frustrated. That shouldn’t make his gut tighten with regret, but it did. He mentally narrowed the situation into focus and blocked those senseless, dangerous emotions. “You’ll thank me later. Now, get out.”

They emerged simultaneously. He tucked the weapon into his waistband beneath his jacket. His arm went around her waist and she tensed.

“Relax.” He paused and looked directly into her green eyes. They glistened with the fear she worked so hard to hide. “We need this to look natural. No trouble, okay?”

She nodded. He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. Her breath caught and she trembled. The satisfaction he should have felt at having that much power over her failed to make an appearance.

Keeping one arm around her, Slade pushed open the door to the office. A bell jingled. The guy behind the desk looked up from the compact television blaring with the canned laughter of a sitcom. He studied Slade from behind his nerdy eyeglasses. Looked young enough to be a college student or maybe a dropout. Working the graveyard shift apparently made him a little jumpy. He lowered the volume on the set.

“You need a room for the night—” the guy glanced at Maggie “—or the hour?”

Slade didn’t smile. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a bill big enough to get the clever guy’s attention. “The night. We’ve still got a long way to drive.” He pulled Maggie closer and gave her the smile he’d kept from the clerk. “Don’t we, baby?”

She nodded, the move jerky. “We… Yes.”

The clerk reached for the old-fashioned row of boxes that held actual keys to the available rooms. “Make it on the west end,” Slade prompted. “I don’t want to wake up with the sun in my eyes.”

The clerk tossed a key onto the counter. “Clean sheets are over there.” He pointed to a row of shelves on the other side of the room. “Checkout time’s 10:00 a.m.”

“Thanks.” Slade picked up the key, then, keeping Maggie close, grabbed a stack of bed linens.

Outside, Slade opened the passenger-side door of the rental. “Hop in. We’ll park in front of the room.”

Maggie climbed in and Slade closed her door. He kept an eye on her as he rounded the hood. Those Irish genes of hers could kick in anytime now. Maintaining control was essential.

The view of their room and the sedan would be blocked by the tractor-trailers parked along the road at that end of the property. Any additional layers of security were welcome.

Once parked, Slade was out of the car first and at her side by the time she opened her door. He passed the linens to her, then ushered her to the trunk where he grabbed the one bag he’d brought along, a backpack. To her credit, she didn’t scream or try to run or even argue with him as he guided her to the room. She waited quietly as he unlocked the door and opened it. Just as quietly, she walked inside and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. The linens landed in a heap on the naked mattress.

The bare bulb glowing above their door was the only exterior light working on that end of the row of rooms. He unscrewed the bulb and took a final look around the parking lot. They seemed to be in the clear for now.

With the door secured, he checked the bathroom and closet, then placed his bag on the floor and shoved the key into his jacket pocket alongside her cell phone. He’d taken it as soon as they were far enough away from the explosion for her to work up the courage to try to use it without him noticing. He’d turned it off and removed the battery, just in case.

Maggie was strong and brave. He’d admired that about her for the past two years. She would need all the strength and bravery she possessed for what was to come.

As if that courage had abruptly kicked in to full throttle, she turned on him, green eyes blazing as hotly as that mane of red hair. “What kind of trouble are you in—” her lips tightened “—whoever you are?”

“Sit.” He gestured to the bed.

Her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m not taking any more orders until you answer my questions.”

Weariness hit him hard. Or maybe it was the drain of having her look at him that way. Funny, his entire life he’d never cared what anyone thought of him. He’d stopped caring about that kind of thing by the time he was seven. By twelve he would have killed anyone who got in his way like this. That he tolerated it now startled him still. His indulgence of this unfamiliar aspect of human bonding the past two years was the biggest surprise of all. He’d spent endless hours making this lonely, hardworking woman want him as she had never wanted anyone before. After that, he’d told himself that stringing her along was necessary for his cover.

As it turned out, he had been the fool.

He contemplated drawing his weapon to gain her cooperation, but he lacked sufficient motivation. Instead, he dropped into the chair by the window. The room was a little cold, so he turned on the heat. The box beneath the window rumbled then shook with the effort of noisily blowing out stale air.

“I mean it,” she warned when he turned his attention to her once more. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m walking out that door.”

He dropped his head back on the chair and deliberated as to which lie to offer. There were so many. So many, in fact, that he had to think hard to sift out the most recent ones. Counting the water stains on the ceiling distracted him for a moment. The stains were dark and without uniformity or pattern. Like his life.

As good as her word, Maggie started for the door. He grabbed her arm as she passed his chair. Her gaze collided with his. She was just mad enough to call his bluff. Another funny thing. He never bluffed.

His lapse into the mundane was going to get him killed. And anyone else who had the misfortune of being with or connected to him.

“Maggie, sit down.”

She stared at him for an endless moment before relenting. With a frustrated about-face she stamped to the bed and sat, arms still crossed, one foot patting against the ragged, once-beige carpet.

With a heavy breath he settled his eyes on hers. “The people who hit the brownstone—”

“You mean the ones who blew it up?” she snapped. “That’s what they did, Slade. They blew it up.” She gestured in frustration. “Innocent people may have been injured or killed.”

He reached for patience. “No one was injured or killed.”

“How do you know?” She shot to her feet. “You can’t know!”

“I have a contact who’s keeping me informed.” He’d received two messages since they left Chicago. Unless an unauthorized person had been inside the buildings on either side of the brownstone that housed the Equalizer offices, no one had been hurt.

Maggie dropped back down to the mattress. “That’s one good thing.”

He had her attention, so he might as well get to the point. “I need you to stay here for a few days.” Her eyes grew rounder with each word he said. “Until the dust settles. When it’s safe for you to go home, I’ll give you the all clear.”

MAGGIE TOOK A MOMENT TO calm the outrage and indignation mounting inside her. She had decided that he had no intention of killing her or he surely would have by now. Still, pushing the issue wouldn’t be smart. God knew, she’d been wrong about him all this time, so what made her think she knew anything now?

“Where are you going?” Someone obviously wanted him dead. Was he going to go up against whoever this was alone? She tried her best to ignore the weight on her chest. Why did she care? If she were smart she would let him go and then get out of here as fast as possible. “Who did this? What do they want?”

He braced his forearms on his spread thighs. His unusually dark gray eyes studied hers. “The person responsible for what you witnessed tonight has been looking for me for a very long time. I can’t evade her any longer. When this—”

“Her?” Maggie felt her brow furrow in confusion. The person responsible for this insanity was a woman? An old lover? Jealousy flooded her, washing away the harsher emotions she’d hoped to hang on to.

“The less you know,” he advised in that deep voice that curled around her like a warm, familiar blanket, “the better. You’re already a target simply by virtue of the fact that you’ve been seen with me.”

Maggie’s head started to spin. She felt sick to her stomach. How had she gotten herself into this? “I don’t understand.”

“You have to believe me when I say that she will stop at nothing to get to me. Anyone in her path will go down, too. Anyone she believes she can use to get to me will suffer an even worse fate.”

Maggie hugged herself more tightly. Her fingernails bit into her skin despite the sweater she wore. “What kind of person has enemies like that?” She wasn’t totally naive. She watched the news. There were bad people out there. All kinds. But was this about drugs? Guns? Stolen goods? Murder? An angry client of his private-investigations business? Or some past business dealings? What?

She held his gaze, her insides raging with an agonizing twist of emotions. This man was the father of her child. Yet she had no idea why someone would want to kill him. She didn’t know him at all.

As if sensing her thoughts, he looked away. “The kind of person you don’t want to know.”

As cold as he’d been from the moment their gazes locked in her rearview mirror, just now she heard something almost like vulnerability in his voice. But that was impossible. Just her imagination. She wanted to hear real emotion and that wasn’t going to happen.

“I’d say it’s a little late for that.” He’d been dragging her heart around for almost two years now. This wasn’t the time to suggest she didn’t want to know him. He’d stolen that option from her a long time ago.

Slade pushed to his feet. “There’s nothing I can do to change that now.” He nudged the curtain aside and stared into the night.

“So that’s it.” She shook her head. “You steal two years of my life and then you tell me there’s nothing you can do to make this right.” Hysteria had edged into her voice. She forced it back. “What does that make you, Slade?” A user, she didn’t say. But it was true. He’d used her to get close to Victoria and Lucas. She understood that part now. If her friends at the Colby Agency were in danger it would be her fault. That confounded quaking started deep inside her once more.

He had weaseled his way into her life for a reason. Something that involved the Colby Agency. Maggie had a right to some answers.

“Why the Colby Agency? They’re good people. What could they possibly have done to you?”

He turned around, his face a hard mask she couldn’t hope to read. “You think you know people, but you don’t. Can you really be certain they’re good people? Can you? Really?”

“Of course I can,” she retorted without hesitation. “It’s you I don’t know.”

“At least we agree on something.”

Maggie dared to take two steps toward him. His gaze narrowed. “You made me love you.” Her throat tried to close. She fought the aching emotions. “Just so you could do whatever it was you came to Chicago to do.”

More of the dingy carpet between them disappeared as he took a step toward her, matching her stance. The air vanished from her lungs. “I didn’t do anything you didn’t want me to do.”

The tremors grew stronger. She struggled to restrain the visible shaking. “You never felt anything for me, did you?” How could she love the wrong man twice in her life? Hadn’t she learned anything the first time around? That part hurt the most. Knowing that she loved him so much and he felt nothing at all.

“Listen to me carefully, Maggie.”

He touched her. She couldn’t bear it. She drew away.

His hand dropped to his side. “You have one chance at surviving this. If you do exactly as I say, you’ll be safe.”

As though she would trust anything he said. She laughed. “You said yourself that she’d seen me with you. What’s to keep her from coming after me once you’re gone?” And what would happen to him? Would he be able to win against this woman who had sought him for so long? Misery writhed inside Maggie. The idea that her child would never know his or her father abruptly tore at her with staggering viciousness.

“I won’t let that happen.”

How could he make such a promise? “You can’t guarantee my safety.” If that were the case, they wouldn’t be holed up in this hovel. Was he kidding her or himself?

“It’s me she wants,” he said, his voice weary. “As long as you stay out of the way you’ll be safe.”

He wasn’t going to give her any answers. This man she had come to love was going to leave her and she would never know if he was dead or alive.

“Then go.” She pointed to the door. “Just go.”

“Don’t call anyone you know. Don’t leave except to get food from the café next door.” He held up his hands for emphasis. “No matter what you hear or see, just stay put until I tell you otherwise.”

The pain that coiled inside her as he reached for his bag was very nearly unbearable. How could she just let him go like this? But wasn’t that what she wanted? To be free of him? She couldn’t trust him. She didn’t even know who he was. Her baby would be better off without him. She would be better off.

Then why did it feel as though her world was crashing to an end with every step he took?

He hesitated at the door.

Maggie felt as if her very bones had crumbled, leaving her helpless and unable to move.

Slade turned, his gaze settled on her and he strode back to where she stood. His hand closed around her neck and he pulled her close. He kissed her hard. Made her melt against his body. How could she spend the rest of her life without him?

By the time he drew his lips from hers she was gasping for breath. He pressed his forehead to hers. “You make me wish I was someone else.”

He tucked something into her jacket pocket and walked away.

Fiery tears flowed down her cheeks. She would never see him again, never—

The window shattered, raining glass into the room.

Slade spun around, lunged toward her, taking her to the floor and covering her body with his.

“Stay down.”

Her heart seized when he scrambled to the bedside table and turned off the lamp. Something thunked against the wall near the bed. Was someone shooting at them? There hadn’t been any gunshot blasts.

He moved in close to her in the darkness. “There’s a window in the bathroom. You may have to break it to get out.”

Was he sending her out the back way alone? Fear crowded into her throat, choking off the air to her lungs. “But what will you—”

“Listen to me, Maggie.”

The base of the lamp on the bedside table burst. Maggie screamed.

“I’m going out that door to draw them away. I’ll fire three shots in a row when it’s clear for you to go out the back. Run as far into the woods as you can and stay there until you hear sirens. The police will come.”

Before she could argue, he was opening the door.

A bullet thwacked into the doorjamb just above his head. Fear crammed into her chest.

Maggie struggled with the need to run after him. But she had to protect her baby. She crawled to the bathroom, crept inside and closed the door.

For long seconds or minutes, she couldn’t say for sure which, she sat on the floor, her back against the wall, and tried to catch her breath. Her heart pounded so fast it hurt.

She prayed hard for her child’s protection. For Slade’s protection. She checked her pocket to see what he’d put there, part of her hoping for a note that explained everything. Cash. She closed her eyes and fought the wave of tears.

A sharp sound cut through the silence. Then a second gunshot. A third rang out and her muscles instinctively reacted. She sprang to her feet and felt for the window. It was large enough, but the lower sash didn’t want to budge. She double-checked that it was unlocked, then pushed upward with every ounce of strength in her body.