Blown Away

Royce shrugged. “Slow television night.” Sean knew Royce used to have a family. A wife and a son. The wife died in an auto accident and the son disappeared his second year at Georgetown University. With no one expecting him, he didn’t really have a home to go to.

Sean understood not having a home or someone awaiting his return. For a short time he’d dreamed of TJ filling that role.

“Anyone else working?” Royce glanced over the tops of the cubicles the agents used when they worked in the office. Mostly, they operated in the field.

“The last time I checked, Tim was back in his corner hacking away at the bank account the CIA traced to the terrorist in Dindi.”

“Any leads?”

“Not yet.” So far, Tim hadn’t been able to get past the bank’s firewall. Even when they did break in, the chances of the account pointing to an individual were slim, which meant additional digging into shell corporations.

“What about the legislative assistant who was with Haddock in Dindi, TJ Barton? Have you run into her? Any chance of getting close to her?”

Sean stiffened. At one time they’d been close. But that wasn’t what Royce meant. “Yes, I’ve run into her. She’s in Haddock’s old office, two doors down from mine.” He hadn’t told Royce anything about his previous life with TJ.

“Did she recognize you?”

“Yes. I had to tell her I was working undercover.”

“Couldn’t lie your way out of it?”

Sean shook his head. “No, she’s former FBI and too smart for the lies.” He hadn’t told Royce why TJ had been the only one of her party who’d escaped injury.

“You look like a man with a lot on his mind.” Royce dropped into the chair beside Sean’s desk. “If it has anything to do with this case, spill it.”

Royce gave him the opening. Why did he find it so difficult to talk about what happened between him and TJ? He’d misplaced his focus in Dindi, he didn’t want to risk losing this assignment because Royce lost faith in his objectivity. Honesty won out. “There’s something you ought to know about what happened in Dindi.”

“You mean more than what you’ve already told me?”

“Yeah.” He hesitated. How did he tell Royce he’d fallen for a stranger in less than two weeks? Hell, in less than two hours. He’d traveled all over the world with the Army Special Forces and then again with S.O.S. And in a small country in Africa, he’d found TJ. What were the odds?

“Is this about the affair you had with Haddock’s assistant?” Royce asked.

Sean’s gaze snapped to Royce. “How did you know?”

A sad smile tipped the corners of the older man’s mouth. “Marty told me about her the morning he died.” Royce’s lips tightened into a thin line. “He was glad to see you falling hard after all the ribbing you gave him about marrying Kat.”

Sean nodded, remembering. “I did give him hell. Felt like I was losing my best friend.”

Royce stared at a snapshot hanging on the wall of Sean, Marty and Kat on mountain bikes in the North Carolina hills. “You didn’t lose a brother in Marty, you gained a sister in Kat.”

“I did lose him in the end.”

“And you’re blaming your relationship with the Barton woman on it, aren’t you?”

Sean pounded his fist on the desk. “Yes.” He rolled back from his desk and stood. “If I hadn’t been playing around—”

“You’d be dead, too.” Royce stood. “Not only would Kat have lost her husband, she’d have lost her friend. You’ve been the only one keeping her from falling apart. None of us are as close to her as you are. She needs you. Face it. You weren’t meant to die.” Royce laid a hand on his shoulder. “It wasn’t your time.”

“And it was Marty’s?” He shook loose of Royce’s hand, anger burning a hole in his gut.

“Yes, damn it.” Royce crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t get me wrong, I cared for Marty as much as anyone, and I never wished bad things to happen, but his number was up.” With his feet braced apart and his eyes blazing, Royce had only just begun his tirade. “You didn’t die in that attack for a reason. And that reason was to find out what really happened. Are you going to pull your head out of feeling sorry for yourself long enough to accomplish your mission? Or do I need to find a replacement with a better perspective?”

Hands clenched into fists. Sean wanted to strike out, hit someone. The anger he’d fed off for the past month boiled up and threatened to overflow into action. Royce’s words struck him like a blow and he wanted to hit back. But Royce Fontaine was his friend, not the enemy. Not the person responsible for the deaths of Congressman Haddock, Marty Sikes and many others. Someone else had ordered that attack.

“Are you on the case?” Royce asked.

Sean straightened his shoulders, drawing on his years of military service and ability to work under extreme pressure. “I’m on.”

“Then stop beating yourself up.”

Sean’s jaw clenched. “Is that an order, boss?”

“Damn right. And get in tight with Barton. She might be able to get into places you won’t have access to as temporary staff.”

He should have seen it coming, but Royce was a pro at manipulating the best of them. Sean hated that he’d been gullible enough to fall for Royce’s technique. “Sneaky bastard.”

Royce’s brows rose. “We do whatever it takes.”

Meaning Sean had to get in with TJ or any other staff member in order to determine who the hell backed that bombing. “Okay, I’ll work with TJ.” But he would not fall for her again or lose his perspective.

Sean’s boss gave him a slap on the back. “Thought you’d see it my way.”

Royce may think he had it all sewn up, but Sean knew TJ Barton wasn’t a pushover. She might see things in an entirely different light. So much for keeping his distance from the one woman who could blow his cover. “I hope she sees it your way, too.”

“That’s where you turn on the McNeal charm.”

It would take a lot more than charm to get under TJ Barton’s defenses after Dindi.

A whoop went up from the computer lab.

Royce turned and stepped out into the hallway. “Let’s go see what Tim found.”

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK the following morning, TJ had already been at work for two hours. Just because they’d lost Congressman Haddock didn’t mean the work went away. He hadn’t been the only official lost in the bombing. They’d also lost Bryce Chumley, the legislative director, and Monique Tyler, Haddock’s executive assistant. Additional duties of their lost comrades were divvied out to the remaining already overloaded staff. The projects everyone had been working transferred to other congressmen within the party for oversight.

So, why waste time pretending to sleep when there was more work to be done than this one legislative assistant could accomplish? With testimonies to read, reports to write and condense, documents to file and recommendations to make, sleep became a highly overrated commodity.

Who was she trying to kid? She hadn’t slept all night because every time she closed her eyes, she saw headlights beaming in her rearview mirror. If not the headlights, Sean McNeal stared at her from the pile of rubble standing where the American embassy had been. She thought she’d had nightmares before Sean rose from the dead. His revelation about the bombing possibly originating from the Rayburn Building had her alternating between scared and angry all night long.

The carpet next to her bed lay flat with the amount of pacing she’d done into the wee hours. And the more she paced, the madder she steamed. Her anger stemmed from the so-called American who had killed other Americans. She also couldn’t deny her anger at Sean McNeal for letting her mourn his death when all along he’d been alive and well. If Sean had stepped into her apartment last night, she couldn’t have been held responsible for her actions.

The secret inner part of her finally won out and rejoiced that he hadn’t in fact died. After all the grief, her heart lightened for the first time in the weeks since her return. But that didn’t excuse him for leading her to believe he was dead. She still wanted to give back a little of the anguish he’d caused her. Her anger spiked higher when she considered revenge on a live Sean McNeal when she should be more concerned about a killer running loose in the halls of the Rayburn Building.

Who could it be?

A knock sounded at her door and TJ’s heart thudded against her chest. Instead of wading through the stacks of documents awaiting her attention, she’d been reviewing her own list of possible suspects and wondering which ones Sean had already checked out.

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