06 Double Danger (12 page)

As the guy dashed inside, Simon slowed, pulling his gun. If there was going to be a showdown, he wanted to be prepared. At least the guy had lost the backpack. Still, he’d proved himself a formidable opponent, and Simon knew better than to make the mistake of assuming he could easily obtain the upper hand. Never underestimate the enemy.

Even after the gloom of the highway overpass, the warehouse seemed dark, most of the casement windows high above him obscured with soot and grime. A single
beam of light fell across the floor like a white gash, streaming from a broken windowpane on the east wall. Off to his left, near the door, Simon could see a stack of crates fronted by a large iron pillar, rust leaching into the paint, making it look like some sort of macabre barber pole. The cement floor was wet and cracked. And the place smelled of salt, sea, and dead fish.

Ahead, somewhere in the shadows, Simon heard a footfall. Calling on years of training, he pushed aside fatigue and pain, moving on silent feet to crouch behind the stack of fallen crates. Momentarily secure in the relative cover provided by the wooden boxes, he peered out into the darkness. At first he thought the man was gone, or that he’d managed to find a place to hide, but then the guy stepped into the beam of light near the far wall.

Seeing an opening, Simon grabbed his gun and pushed to his feet, but his elbow caught the edge of a crate, and before he had time to react, it fell, slamming into the concrete floor. The man jerked around, whipping open his jacket, the light hitting the explosives taped to his torso.

Everything shifted into slow motion, Simon trying to gauge the distance as he leveled his gun. Too far, even for him. But from where he was standing, he could see the man’s craggy face split into a grin as he lifted an arm, his gaze reaching for Simon’s across the expanse of the warehouse. And then, in what was probably less than a fraction of a second, the man pressed his thumb onto something he held in his hand.

The warehouse was suddenly swallowed in an eruption of light, the man disappearing as a massive ball of fire mushroomed upward, ripping through the warehouse’s roof as if it were made of paper. Above him,
Simon heard concrete and metal buckling and groaning as the explosion tore through the overpass.

And then as his mind struggled with the reality of what was happening, the fireball expanded, rushing straight at him. In its wake, windows shattered and the floor buckled, giant pieces of concrete crashing to the ground.

Simon’s brain was screaming for him to run, but his feet seemed to have forgotten the drill. Then suddenly, something hit him hard, driving him to the ground behind the pillar and the fallen crates. The roar of the blast and the heat of the flames rushed past, searing the wooden boxes and melting the paint on the pillar, but then it was gone. Debris from the building and the overpass still rained down from above, but despite all of that, he was alive.

Next to him, something groaned. And his mind shifted into gear. Not something—someone.
J.J.

She lay next to him, one arm still thrown protectively across his shoulders. She’d been the one to push him to safety. She groaned again and then shifted beneath the rubble of a crate. Alarmed, he sat up, pulling bits of debris off her. Dazed, her gaze moved to his face.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. But what the hell did you think you were doing coming in here like that? You had to have seen him. Seen the bomb.” He knew his anger was irrational. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Christ, J.J., you could have been killed.”

“Well, you
would
have been killed if I hadn’t come.” Her voice was colored with an emotion he wasn’t sure he could identify, but there was something in her eyes that
held his. Something that suddenly seemed more important than breathing. He leaned forward, not sure exactly what he planned to do, losing himself in the azure depths of her eyes.

But then a piece of metal clattered to the ground, startling them both—the moment evaporating, almost as if it had never been there.

And as the sound of sirens filled the air, he stood up and held out his hand.

“You saved my life.”

“No big deal.” She shrugged as she pushed to her feet, ignoring his outstretched hand. “I was just returning the favor.”

It was exactly what he would have said had the situation been reversed. And considering their past, it was better that they keep it professional. The moment of—whatever the hell it was—was best forgotten.

B
e still or you’re going to have a scar,” Hannah said, taking another stitch as Jillian winced.

“At least it’s not anywhere anyone is going to see it.” The gash was just above her waistline. About three inches long. Deep and fairly jagged. And just at the moment, despite an anesthetic, it hurt like hell. Actually, if she were being honest, everything hurt. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes. But she wasn’t about to admit it. Not even to Hannah, who on the whole had been pretty sympathetic.

Jillian had spent the last couple of hours at the bomb site with the team. Answering questions and dealing with the fallout. And then finally, she and Simon had been allowed to come back to the brownstone, where she’d opted for Hannah’s care over losing another four or five hours at the emergency room.

At the moment, she was sitting on a stool in the kitchen while Hannah worked. Simon had disappeared upstairs,
presumably to change clothes and take a shower. They hadn’t really had a chance to talk about what had happened. But Jillian figured that was probably for the best.

“Yeah, well, if you ask me,” Hannah was saying, drawing Jillian’s attention back to the present, “you should have gone to the hospital and let them stitch you up. I’ve got rudimentary training, thanks to a couple of training courses and Lara. But at best, this is nothing more than a field dressing.”

“It’s just a cut.” Jillian shrugged. “I would have done it myself, but I couldn’t see it. And you can bet your ass Simon isn’t up there calling a doctor for himself.”

Hannah shot her a look over the top of her glasses, the frames a pale green with multicolored stripes. “It’s not a competition. From what you’ve said, it sounds to me like the two of you are lucky to be alive. Simon in particular.”

“It was closer than I would have liked.” She closed her eyes as Hannah took another stitch. “I’ve had the training, and I’m more than qualified to be here. It’s just that when I took the job with Homeland Security, I didn’t figure on being on the front line.”

“So what made you do it?” Hannah asked. “Take the job, I mean. Simon said you were interested in medicine back in the day. Homeland Security seems like a pretty significant change of course.”

For a moment, Jillian hesitated. There were parts of the story she simply wasn’t ready to share. Especially not with a friend of Simon’s. But there was no reason to cut Hannah off. She was just trying to be friendly and keep Jillian’s mind off the pain. So, with a sigh, she settled for a partial truth.

“I gave up the idea of medical school when I got married.”

“That was right after college?” Hannah smiled. “Simon doesn’t like talking about his past all that much. But when it was clear the two of you knew each other, he told us about the three of you in college. Your husband’s name was Ryan, right?”

“Yeah. We sort of got married on the spur of the moment.” An understatement. “He and Simon had just enlisted, and I guess I was feeling left out.” And hurt. “So when Ryan asked, I said yes.”

“Sounds less than romantic.” Hannah’s gaze was probing for a moment, and then she turned back to her work. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

“That’s okay. We were really young and impulsive.” And just like her mother, Jillian had traded all of her dreams for a wedding ring and the wrong man.

“But surely you still could have gone to medical school?”

“Not without amassing a world of debt. And I couldn’t do that to Ryan. Not just starting out. I figured there’d be time enough later. Pretty unrealistic, I guess.”

“Life is about trade-offs.” Hannah shrugged, taking a last stitch. “Sometimes it pays off. Sometimes not. So how did you adjust to life on base?”

“It was hard. I mean, Ryan and Simon were gone most of the time.”

A blessing in hindsight, but in the beginning, she’d felt so alone. And when Ryan was home, it hadn’t always been pretty. She winced at the memory. Relieved that Hannah would think it was because of the physical pain.

“I know what you mean. I’ve always said that military spouses have the hardest job.”

“I tried to keep busy. I took some nursing courses and
volunteered at the base clinic. It wasn’t med school, but it was something. At least until…” Her mind flashed on the image of Ryan’s funeral. The flag-draped coffin. Simon in his service dress uniform. She’d wanted to reach out to him, but all she’d been able to think about were the awful secrets being buried that day.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Hannah said, her eyes full of sympathy, and Jillian took comfort even though Hannah didn’t truly understand. “It must have been really awful. Especially to lose Ryan like that.”

“You think you’ve prepared yourself,” Jillian said, still fighting the memories. “You imagine the worst over and over when they’re gone. But then when the officers show up at your door, it’s nothing at all like what you imagined.” She could still see them standing there. Her thoughts rushing immediately to Simon. Praying that he be alive. That he be unhurt. And then the guilt had hit her. Ryan was the one who was dead. And no matter what he’d done, who he’d become, he was still her husband. And she’d…

“You okay?” Hannah asked, her eyes kind behind her glasses. “Am I hurting you?”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “Just tough memories.”

“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s okay. It’s part of the reason I’m here actually. Because of what happened in Somalia, Ryan died a hero, and the Navy brass figured the best way to promote the success of the war was to trot out the hero’s widow.”

“You.”

“Exactly. And it didn’t hurt that my father was a general. Army. Two tours in Vietnam and, after that, a career with the Pentagon. So essentially, I became a commodity.
Paraded about to smile and shake hands. Anything for the greater good. Believe me, there were days I wanted to run away screaming.” The paradox had almost killed her, actually. Celebrating her husband as a hero, while trying to deal with the memory of the man who’d almost destroyed her.

“But you didn’t,” Hannah said, tying off the surgical thread, “because you’re a strong woman. I’ve seen you in action. Or at least I’ve seen the aftermath.” She spread some ointment on a bandage and carefully placed it over the newly sutured wound. “And besides, it takes one to know one.” She grinned, her smile making her look impish. “So is that how Homeland Security found you? All that greater good bullshit?”

“More or less.” Jillian nodded, grateful to be back on safer ground. “The director of Homeland Security and my father go way back. I ran into him at an event. And after catching up on old times, he mentioned that he was looking for someone to be a part of his disaster training program. Someone to coordinate the department’s efforts to keep the nation’s first responders ready for anything.”

“And he thought you were the right person for the job.”

“I don’t know. I guess. Between the premed and nursing classes, I had enough medical background to fill the bill. But I suspect his friendship with my father had a lot to do with it. As I said, they’re pretty tight.”

“And your father was worried about you.”

“Something like that,” she shrugged. Her father had seen it as a way to enhance his reputation. In his mind, wives and daughters were meant to be displayed. Accessories to be used to their greatest advantage. “Anyway, there was also the whole widow of a hero thing—it
played well in the press and meant that I was openly received by most everyone I needed to work with.”

“But Avery said you’d been trained as an agent.”

“I was. It was part of the deal. The director figured that if the disaster drills ever became reality—”

“Which, as we proved with the helicopter crash, is a
when
not
if
,” Hannah interjected.

“True.” Jillian shifted on the stool. “Anyway, in that kind of situation, obviously I needed a different skill set.”

“And did you make the right decision?” Hannah asked. “Accepting the director’s offer?”

“Well, in the middle of training, I had some pretty serious doubts. It was a tough nine months. But I also realized just how badly I needed a purpose in my life. Something separate from Ryan and the Navy. And I’m not the kind to back down from a challenge. So yeah, I think I did the right thing.” She laughed, surprised at how easy it had been to talk with Hannah even if she’d only shared a revised version of the truth. “Probably more than you wanted to know. I’d say it was the drugs, only you haven’t really given me anything but a local.”

“Blame it on my curiosity,” Hannah said with a smile. “There aren’t that many women in our line of work, and I’m always interested in what brought them to the party. And let me be the first to say how grateful we are that you were out there today. Without your quick thinking, we might have lost Simon. And he’s become very important to all of us.”

It was a sentiment Jillian shared, for better or worse, but she wasn’t willing to talk about it with Hannah, no matter how friendly the woman was.

“All right,” Hannah said, thankfully not pushing for
anything more. “We’re all done here. But I want you to promise you’ll see a doctor as soon as things calm down.”

Jillian lifted both hands in supplication. “I swear. I’ve already got an appointment. Follow-up from the helicopter crash. It’s been a hell of a week.”

“No kidding,” Simon said, appearing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his voice washing over her like some kind of tonic. “You okay?”

“Couple of stitches.” She pulled her shirt into place as Hannah cleared away the medical supplies. “You?”

“Nothing a good stiff drink won’t cure.” He walked farther into the room, his limp more noticeable than usual.