Bridal Armour

Problem child in this context could mean anything from an informant to an assassin. “Am I being reassigned?” He wanted to ask more questions, but wouldn’t risk it in front of the guards.

“No. Watch for the paths to cross.”

“If they do?”

“Document, but do not intervene.”

Whoa. That set off all of his internal alarms. “Yes, sir.”

“Any news for me?”

He thought of DeRossi and Casey in the cab and out of his reach. “Not at this time.”

“You lost her,” Holt said with an irritable sigh.

“Not exactly.” It wasn’t a lie. He still had a general direction. “This freak storm is slowing everything down.”

“I need to know what she’s after. ASAP.”

“Yes, sir,” Jason replied. “I’m on it.”

Ending the call, he turned the phone back and forth in his hands, waiting for the picture to come through. When it did he gave a low whistle. A woman with fiery red hair and a grin as satisfied as a cat with a mouthful of canary filled his screen. He vaguely wondered what she’d been doing when the photographer had captured the candid shot. He had the disquieting sense that he’d seen her before. Though he couldn’t place her immediately, he knew it would come to him.

Shaking off the errant thought, he considered how to fulfill his orders. Regrettably, he didn’t have much choice but to go back to square one: DeRossi’s hotel room. He’d searched yesterday and turned up nothing useful. Not even that uniform.

Damn. He’d been played by an expert whose day job of riding a desk was apparently no indication of what she was capable of. The fact that she and his boss were headed by cab to long-term parking when Jason had followed her to the short-term garage initially meant she had a backup vehicle. The logical conclusion was she had a secondary hotel room, too.

Damn.

“Can you access the cameras from the gate areas?” Jason provided the terminal number where he’d found DeRossi this morning. He hoped going back to where she’d been would give him a clue about where she was headed with the director.

Reviewing the video footage from the cameras near the gates did nothing but affirm he hadn’t missed a drop or exchange. She might have done a little shopping in recent days, but everything now pointed to her coming here solely to grab Director Casey.

Thanking the security team, he exited the office and headed for the parking garage. Holt expected a new player to intersect with either DeRossi, Casey or both of them. He had to pick up the trail.

Casey had hired Jason into Mission Recovery. Jason wasn’t sure he could sit back and do nothing but document any danger aimed at the director. As a Specialist, his job was to salvage missions that had gone beyond the hope of regular recovery. Holt knew that, knew the philosophy of the Specialists. Did the deputy director really expect Jason to go against the order to stay out of whatever was going on here? Was he relying on the Specialist philosophy of running toward danger rather than away from it?

Jason struggled to make sense of the limited data he had, to organize that data into the context of the orders Holt had handed down.

The Initiative jumped on internal investigations like kids jumped on candy after the piñata breaks. DeRossi had carte blanche to do anything in the name of her official inquiry. And apparently not even Holt knew precisely what she was after. Did that include giving someone a chance to take out the director? Jason’s gut clinched.

None of it lined up.

What could be so bad that execution was the best answer?

The better question was did anyone, including the deputy director, really believe Jason would stand back and let that happen?

Frustrated, he turned up the collar on his suit coat, not nearly enough protection against the blizzard. Staring out into the storm, he guessed there were two inches of snow on the ground already and about ten more on the way. He had to pick a direction and get moving.

Jason remembered Director Casey’s answer when he asked why he’d been selected to join the Specialists. “You have the best instincts I’ve seen in a long time.”

His instincts were on high alert but he just had to figure out where to aim them.

Casey was here for a wedding. Jason turned in the general direction of the mountain resort hosting the event. Somewhere behind the blizzard was a chalet with a fatherless bride counting on her uncle to walk her down the aisle in just over forty-eight hours. Jason felt his temper rising at the idea that he was supposed to observe and document if the director was threatened.

But anger would only blur the instincts.

Evidence to the contrary, in this weather, he couldn’t see DeRossi going anywhere other than her hotel room to wait out the storm, no matter what her primary plans had been. If DeRossi was out to make a statement, the wedding party was full of covert operatives from Specialists to Colby Agency investigators with plenty of history and exemplary service records. There could be any number of reasons for her to intercept Casey here and now.

A cold wind blew through the parking garage and he took it in, clearing his head. His decision made, he turned back to his car, just as a flash of orange caught his peripheral vision. He spun around, watching an oily black cloud beat back the storm in one small spot among the endless fields of parked cars.

Car bomb.

Something entirely too much like fear detonated in his gut.

Busy airport or not, he just couldn’t believe the explosion was a coincidence. Jason raced to see if losing DeRossi had meant the death of his director.

Chapter Three

Thomas hadn’t stayed alive as the head of Mission Recovery by relying on luck or anyone’s mercy. He tried to tell himself he was following this woman out of professional courtesy, but it didn’t work. DeRossi was a weakness. One he’d purposely culled from his life years ago. He’d never had any real objectivity where this woman was concerned.

They’d parted as friends—or so he’d thought—until she’d landed on the Initiative committee.

Knowing she could look over his shoulder, question any or all of his decisions had only affirmed his choice to avoid a personal relationship—with her or anyone else. In this line of work you could have the job or the life, but not both.

A tiny voice in his head suggested his niece and her soon-to-be husband disproved his theory. What might work for her, however, would never work for him. He was too set in his ways and there was an inherent distance he didn’t think he could bridge.

He scowled, thinking back to those days working with Jo. They’d been good as partners and he’d assumed their chemistry had been more about the rush of fieldwork than any real connection. Except he’d never quite gotten her out of his system.

“Tonight is all you get. I have to be at the Glenstone Lodge by tomorrow.”

She nodded once.

“For Casey’s wedding.”

She nodded again.

“She asked me to give her away.”

Jo slanted him a look with those midnight eyes, then, without comment, pushed open the exit door.

Cold air, swirling with heavy, wet snowflakes, battered them. Visibility was bad even though they were protected by the terminal building. He glanced up. The mountain peaks weren’t even a shadow on the horizon. The roads to Glenstone were probably already closed. “Lord, what a storm.”

More silence from Jo as she stepped into the miserable weather.

He reached to button his coat, belatedly realizing she didn’t have anything warmer than the flight attendant’s uniform blazer.

“Take this.” He draped his overcoat across her shoulders. She graced him with a small, tight smile and rushed toward a waiting taxi. He didn’t know how she managed it on those needles she called heels.

“I was about to give up on you, lady,” the driver said as they slid into the welcome warmth of his cab.

“What does he mean by that?” Warnings clanged in Thomas’s head even as he closed the door. He could overpower her, but he was too curious about what she was really after.

She shot him a look that confirmed he already knew the answer. He gave her points for remembering her field training and planning more than one exit.

Thomas gave the name of the hotel and the driver pulled away from the curb. The typical airport traffic was lighter on the employee access route, but the cab fishtailed a bit in the worsening conditions. He hoped the driver knew which way was which, because Thomas had no idea. It wasn’t quite a whiteout, but the wind had picked up and was blowing snow sideways across the car.

“Hard to believe this is October,” Jo said with a subtle nod toward the driver.

“Looks more like January,” Thomas agreed.

He had questions for her, all of which had to wait until they were alone. He heard an alert on his phone and pulled it from his pocket.

He frowned, recognizing Deputy Director Holt’s personal number on the missed call list. Thomas had left clear instructions for the current cases. He scrolled down to check messages, but between the heaters on high and the interrupted signal he couldn’t make out anything but “committee.” Sitting next to Jo, he assumed Holt was trying to give him a heads up about her.

“Problem?” Her smile was tight and her hands were in her pockets again.

Thomas shook his head. “Nothing Holt can’t handle.”

That answer only seemed to increase her anxiety as her lips thinned and she crossed her arms. When the cabbie turned toward long-term parking rather than the outlying circle of airport hotels, Thomas couldn’t ignore his instincts any longer.

Slowly, his gaze locked with hers, he tucked the phone back in his pocket. Slower still, he placed his hands, fingers spread wide, on his thighs.

When she didn’t move, he arched a brow.

Finally, she followed suit, showing him her hands were empty before folding them in her lap. “Truce?”

“Too soon to tell,” he replied with brutal honesty.

“I know this is unexpected,” she said, her voice pitched too low for the cab driver to overhear. “Work with me. Please.”

He thought of the wedding plans, of his beautiful niece turning into a lace-covered bridezilla monster and decided both he and Lucas had faced tougher challenges. The rehearsal and dinner was hardly optional, but given his current predicament—unarmed in a blizzard with an obviously determined and still-talented agent who had clearly made an effort to get his attention...

“You have twenty-four hours.”

She nodded, her tension easing fractionally.

“I will not miss her wedding.”

“Agreed.”

He thought it was an odd response, but the cab pulled to a stop behind a beige compact SUV and their conversation halted.

She paid the driver while he retrieved their bags from the trunk. When the parking lights flashed indicating she’d unlocked the vehicle, he opened the back hatch and put their luggage inside. The engine rumbled to life, startling him, and he looked over his shoulder to confirm she was controlling the car.

“Remote start,” she said hurrying over.

He suddenly caught a whiff of an unmistakable odor of a lighted fuse, a precise scent he’d hoped never to come across again.

“Should have remembered it soon—”

“Jo, run!” But she kept moving closer to the car.

Throwing himself at her, he took them both to the icy pavement. He rolled them into the driving lane, his body the only shelter he could offer.

In his mind, it was Germany all over again, right down to the snowy conditions.

The blast of heat washed over them, obliterating the car and, for a moment, the blizzard conditions. The pavement shook with the force of the car dropping back down to earth and the detached, analytic part of his brain wondered just how high it had blown.

He risked a glance toward the ball of fire. The luggage had been vaporized in the explosion. His clothes, his irreplaceable surprise for Casey and whatever Jo had packed for her little venture were long gone. Reactions and assessment had to wait for later. Right now, they needed to move. Easing his grip on Jo, he looked into her midnight eyes, and weighed the sincerity of the shock and terror he saw there.

He knew she could be a consummate actress; it went along with their line of work. Various scenarios cycled through his mind, all of them bleak. Was she the perp or the victim? Had this been an attempt on her life or his? Both? Maybe she’d changed her mind about killing him or maybe the timing came down to a faulty fuse or signal on the bomb?

He wanted answers, but survival was first and foremost. Going separate ways seemed like the most prudent solution in light of the current circumstances. But the phrase “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” kept nudging him. Was Jo a friend or enemy?

Uncertain, he made his decision based on their relationship prior to her role with the Initiative committee.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” Snowflakes caught in her long eyelashes. “You?”

He gave a snort, but before he could answer, her eyes went wide and she flipped him onto his back. “Your jacket was on fire,” she explained.

Well, her quick thinking and the deep slush seeping through the fabric had put it out now. He made a mental note that her reflexes and physical ability seemed to be in perfect order. It wasn’t all that comforting considering his seemed to be a bit sluggish.

“Thanks.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, removed the battery and tossed both pieces into the fiery wreckage. “Give me yours.”

She scowled, but did the same with her own cell phone.

“Now let’s move. Stay low.”

“I know the protocol,” she snapped, anger clear in her eyes, intensifying the flags of color high in her cheeks.

The attitude was a good sign. Maybe. He just didn’t have enough facts to sort out the situation. “Prove it.”

“That car was rented in your name. I changed your reservation and picked it up for you days ago,” she answered before he could ask the obvious question. She held up a key fob with the logo of a different make. “My car is two rows that way.”

He nodded and motioned for her to lead. Again.

They moved quickly through the lot, but he knew anyone could be watching, waiting for the right opportunity to pick them both off.

How had the bomb been triggered? And who wanted him dead? There were a number of possible answers to both questions. He mentally narrowed the list to people who wanted to eliminate them both, but that left him plenty of names to consider. And only sprouted more questions as he wondered who knew they were both in the area.

When they reached her car, he noted the license plate and watched her use a compact from her purse to check the undercarriage for problems.

She nodded, convinced it was safe, and they climbed inside. He suspected she was holding her breath the same as he was as she turned the key in the ignition. When the engine came to life and they were still intact, he buckled his seat belt. The action had him thinking of Lucas, and wondering how best to alert his friend to the developing situation.

“What’s your plan?” He cranked up the heater and defrosters while she backed out of the parking space.

“Get out of Denver with all haste.”

He had the wet, singed clothes on his back, his wallet and quickly dwindling options. “I hope you have something a little more detailed in mind.” Her lips were pursed and quirked to the side, a sure sign she was thinking. “Go on, spill it.” Maybe he’d get lucky and she’d give him something he could work with. “You used to like having a sounding board.”

She peered up at the gray sky and he thought this time she might keep her theories to herself. “I’m wondering how you bribe Mother Nature?”

“Pardon me?”

“The storm almost took down your plane.”

“You saw the landing?”

She nodded. “The storm certainly gives an assassin the advantage since you’d be trapped here overnight.”

“Disadvantage,” he argued. “The storm traps the assassin, too.”

She slid a look his way as she merged onto the Interstate. “I’m not the assassin.”

He wanted to believe her. “Says the woman who dropped me off at a car rigged to explode.”

“Relax. I would have been beside you if I hadn’t been picking my way through the snow. It took me back to that night in Germany.”

Recalling the way she’d fiddled with the contents of her pockets, he reached across the seat and searched her.

Conditions were so bad, she had to keep both hands on the wheel and couldn’t counter his search, but she called him all kinds of names in the interim. He didn’t find a remote for the destroyed car, but his fingers closed on a small, flat disk sealed in a thick plastic envelope the size of a quarter.

“Not the assassin?” He held it up then snatched it back when she made a grab. The car swerved and a loud rumble growled around them as the tires rolled over the grooved pavement meant to alert a drifting driver.

“Not the assassin,” she insisted. “That is just a light sedative. I brought it along in case you weren’t inclined to cooperate.”

“Any other surprises planted on you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Yes, he would. Her sly smile wasn’t encouraging his trust but it was stirring other feelings he had no business allowing just now.

“Thomas, I know it looks bad,” she said, her tone quiet and serious. “But I am on your side.”

“I can’t even call in my people to assess the device,” he grumbled.

“But—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Everyone I trust is at the top of a mountain.” Without a phone, he couldn’t immediately reach the offices in D.C. He leaned forward, trying to see anything through the storm. “A mountain I can’t even see. We should stop and buy a phone,” he added, spotting a bright neon sign for a superstore.

“Not just yet.”

He swiveled in his seat. “We’ve got a tail?”

“No. But I’d rather put the airport farther behind us before either one of us swipes a credit card.”

Thomas took it as a bad sign that he hadn’t been thinking about that. Sure, he’d flown out here for a wedding and left business to his deputy director, Emmett Holt, but that didn’t give him the luxury of being rattled by events.

“What the hell does the Initiative committee want with me that couldn’t wait until Monday?”

“I can’t tell you right this minute.”

“Jo—” He couldn’t finish the threat. She jerked the wheel right and nearly lost control of the car in an effort to get to the exit ramp.

“Tail?”

“Yes.” She laid on the horn and blew through the light at the end of the ramp. “There’s a gun taped under your seat.”

She pulled a hard left at the next corner and, with him reaching for the gun, his head rapped the door. On a curse, he powered down the window. Maybe the blast of cold air would have the added benefit of an ice pack.

“Stay in the left lane,” he ordered. Thankfully traffic was sparse with the storm keeping most sane people safe inside. “Let him get closer.”

“Are you nuts?”

“I’m open to better ideas.” When she slowed down, he assumed she didn’t have another suggestion.

The car pulled up beside them. The heavily tinted glass made it impossible to identify the driver, but the dark, menacing barrel of the handgun poking out of the back window made the intent clear enough.

He was ready to shoot out the front tire when Jo muscled the SUV into a spin. Like a boxer going for the knockout punch, she used her bigger vehicle against the smaller sedan, connecting and driving the vehicle into a traffic light post. The impact crumpled the hood of the sedan and left them disabled in the roadway.

She shifted into Reverse and for a split second he thought she intended to ram the other car again, but she turned the steering wheel and sped away.

In the side mirror he caught the flash of a gun muzzle and braced for impact, but the bullets went high and wide.

They were alone as she turned the corner and revved the engine to make the next light. Finally they were back on the Interstate and going westbound this time. They were headed into the storm, but maybe conditions would improve as they worked their way up the mountain while the storm rolled east and out over Denver.

Chapter Four

5:55 p.m.

Jason wasn’t the first on the scene of the explosion, but he was the first who had any idea what he was looking at. He flashed his badge and picked up what clues were available to the trained observer. The few people in the area of the explosion didn’t have much useful information. One man noticed a cab leaving the row at about the same time. He thought the backseat had been empty.

No one saw a man or woman leaving the scene, but Jason knew Director Casey wouldn’t have advertised his escape. And the snowfall, while melted away by the heat of the explosion, was coming down fast enough to blur any footprints leading away from the area.

Jason searched anyway. He looked at several empty spaces, making notes of the locations in case he could get a look at the video surveillance.

Studying the lot, he turned a full circle. Whoever had parked the car had done so with careful thought to the cameras and shuttle stops. That smacked of someone organized like DeRossi.

He found the license plate a couple rows away where it was still warm enough to melt the snow trying to cover it. He didn’t touch it, just placed a call to the Mission Recovery analyst on duty and asked her to run the information. Within moments he learned the car was registered to a rental car agency and had been rented in Director Casey’s name. Two days ago.

DeRossi.

Director Casey might have made the reservation, but no way he’d picked it up. Two days ago, the director had been in D.C. Unsure how Agent DeRossi had managed this with him on her tail, he made a note to ask her as soon as he had her cornered. And he would get her cornered.

Holt was going to hang him out to dry when word got back that Jason had misplaced the director. He was alive, that much was clear, but for how long? Out of options and with the wail of more sirens closing in, Jason stalked back to his car.

He opened the door and was about to slide behind the wheel when another flash of color caught his eye. Distinctive red hair was swept back into a high bun. She might have been another traveler distracted by the commotion, but something in the way she was looking over the scene put his instincts on alert.

When she looked his way, he recognized her as the woman Holt asked him to watch out for. Even without the heads up, he would have known she was involved. It was the sly, satisfied tilt of her mouth that didn’t match the shock of the innocent bystanders. Was she the bomb builder? The trigger man—woman? He resisted the urge to walk over and confront her directly.

Instead, he went back and exchanged information with the officers on scene, giving her a chance to make an exit so he could follow her. It was a long shot, but if she didn’t lead him to DeRossi, maybe she’d lead him to the people behind the plan to blow up Director Casey’s car.

Without a cap or scarf, she obviously wasn’t trying to blend in. Hair like hers would be memorable to the dullest of eyewitnesses. He was grateful for her confidence, as that striking hair made it easy to keep her in his periphery with the rest of the world muted by blowing snow. Did she know, as he did, that Casey and DeRossi had escaped the trap?

When he saw her striding away, he quickly returned to his car, prepared to follow her until he had some answers. Choosing the lane closest to the building, he paid the parking fee and pulled through the gate, then stopped just behind the small building to wait.

It didn’t take long and once again her bold overconfidence made it easy. Alone in a boxy Jeep decades past its prime, she drove right by him.

He groaned when he spotted the temporary license plate and his hopes for a name and registration evaporated.