Deadly Force (14 page)

She’d fired the Glock, aiming straight for Tephra as he went to crush the phone with his booted foot. She’d seen by the shocked expression on his face, he hadn’t expected her to be armed. Too bad her aim was so bad, she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

Or a man.

He’d raised his hands as if to surrender at the exact same moment she’d pulled the trigger. His boot was already on its way down to smash her phone, the bullet nicking his upper left arm and sending him spinning sideways.

He hit the breakfast bar, falling as she pulled the trigger again and the second bullet went screaming across the few feet of space between them and landed in the wall above the stove.

He’d laughed—
laughed
—and hid behind the cover of the bar. “I just want to talk, sweetheart. I have something important to tell you and I can’t unless you and I are face-to-face. There are people watching both of us, monitoring our every phone call, our every move.”

Talk
? Bianca’s ears rang from the gunshots. She must have heard him wrong.

Maggie, bless her doggie heart, attacked him, the sound of his laughter dying in his throat and morphing into a howl of pain. Holding the gun with both hands, Bianca moved around the end of the bar to see him.

Maggie had sunk her teeth into his right calf and was holding on for dear life. Tephra tried to hit her nose with a fist, missed, and hit her in her ear instead. The dog didn’t even flinch.

But then Tephra raised his eyes and saw Bianca standing there with the Glock trained on his chest. “You won’t shoot me in cold blood,” he said.

A trickle of sweat ran down the back of her neck. She firmed her hands on the gun. “Already did.”

His shoulder was bleeding, a steady stream running from the open wound, down his arm, dripping off his elbow onto the floor.

He raised a finger and touched his cheek. “Tit for tat, then, eh, love? You and your dog have gotten me good, but hold up a minute. I didn’t come in here to harm you.”

Right. Where was his other hand? Realization dawned…he was going for a gun. The taunting was just a distraction.

“Maggie!” she yelled, but Tephra moved faster than she expected.

“Stop! I’m not going to…”

She fired, he dodged, the rest of his sentence lost to her as she was hit by a moving train.

Or a tanker.

Or maybe a force of nature.

Big arms went around her, taking her to the ground and knocking the air from her lungs.
Déjà vu
. She couldn’t be sure what happened, but she found herself on the floor as gunshots rang out and she fought to breathe.

The weight that sent her sprawling and now covered her wasn’t any of the things she’d imagined. Cal lay on top of her, firing a big, black gun right through the bar’s cabinetry. The next thing she knew, he was rolling both of them away from the bar, gaining his feet and dragging her up with him.

He grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the kitchen, running through the living room and to the set of double doors that led to the beach.

Tephra yelled; Maggie barked. She and Cal hit the door. He threw it open but she looked back and called for the dog. “Maggie!”

The dog came bounding after them as Cal shoved Bianca through the opening and forced her to crouch against the house. One hand gripped the back of her head as he put his mouth to her ear. “Stay low and get to the street.” His cheek brushed hers, his warm breath tickling her ear. “Two blocks down is an old yellow Chevelle. That’s our car. Get in it and stay low.”

“What about you?”

“This ends here.” He pushed her to her feet and nudged her to run. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“I need my phone.”

“What?” He looked at her like she was daft.

“There’s sensitive information on that phone that Tephra could retrieve. I’m talking national security stuff, Cal. I need that phone. It’s on the kitchen floor.”

“Why would you be stupid enough to keep top secret info on your goddamn phone?”

The words stung, but she knew none of this made sense to him and there was no time to explain. “Don’t let him get his hands on that phone.”

The light shifted in his eyes. An indeterminate, subtle change.
Understanding
. “What did you do, Bianca?”

Before she could answer, his face hardened. “Go. Get out of here.”

She didn’t want to leave him, but he turned ready to leave her. Grabbing him by the arm, she tugged him back and kissed him. Right square on the lips. He’d been her hero since she was a gawky seven-year-old, and he still was.

He drew back, surprise on his face, eyes searching hers. Then he grabbed her by the back of the head and pulled her in for another kiss. She didn’t resist, even though her logical brain told her it was foolhardy to be kissing at a time like this.

His lips were warm and firm, pressing against her in slow, but oh, so familiar caress. Instinctively, she closed her eyes. Her heart, already racing, skipped a beat, and an aching sensation throbbed inside her chest. All she wanted to do was throw her arms around Cal’s neck and never let him go.

But this was real life. This was Cal, Mr. Navy SEAL. No matter how good the kiss felt, no matter how long it had been since they’d had such a heated, sexy mingling of their lips, he wasn’t swept away by it like she was.

He broke the kiss and stroked his thumb across her jaw. “I’ll get the phone,” he said, his voice a touch ragged. The next second, he disappeared into the house, the sound of the deadbolt clicking into place.

Chapter Twelve

He was alone in a house with a killer.

Cover wasn’t hard to find with the oversized, expensive furniture, but the open-concept layout was hardly ideal. Cal scooted next to a tall, solid antique armoire that gave him a decent hiding place and went still. The heavy wood of the piece was probably the only item in the room that would stop a small caliber bullet.

His H&K felt solid in his hand. The house seemed too quiet now in the aftermath of the altercation. The sun was sinking low in the West, golden light shining brightly through the picturesque windows and highlighting cherry undertones in the hardwood floors.

Cal wasn’t sure why the man hadn’t taken a shot at him as he’d hustled B out the door. He’d made sure his body was a wall between her and the assassin, making himself a perfect target.

A normal person might believe from the stillness in the house that the intruder had left. Cal’s finely-tuned senses told him differently. No matter how quiet, how stealthy another human being could be, he could sense them. Their very presence gave off energy—a subtle pressure to the air—and combined with the fight or flight mechanism in their brains, they left an impression like a ghost. Hard to see or hear, but there all the same.

Cal waited.

“You are certainly complicating things,” the man called from the kitchen a few minutes later. “I know I scared her with all that talk about killing her, but that was for Uncle Sam’s ears. Can’t be too careful. They’re listening, you know. Watching me. Watching you. I have to make it look good. Truth is, I only want to talk to your wife, not kill her.”

Was this Rory Tephra? Cal had seen pictures of the man from his SEAL days, but the brief glimpse he’d caught of him in the kitchen didn’t match up to the image in Cal’s memory.

“Is that why you shot at her? Newsflash: women don’t feel like talking after a bullet grazes their cheek.”

The man’s voice echoed with pride off the kitchen’s high ceilings. “If I’d wanted her dead, Reese, I wouldn’t have missed that shot and you know it.”

But he
had
missed—barely, and because of Maggie. “What game are you playing?”

“A serious one. Marx is not the only target on this mission.”

“Gus Molier was a target?”

“Who?”

“My marina neighbor, you bastard. Why’d you have to kill him?”

A pause. “His real name was Colin Mills. A slick little assassin known for his serial killer tendencies. He doesn’t shoot his target—he kidnaps them, does his torture shit, and dumps their body in the ocean. He’s the go-to man for the Russians, but I’ve heard the Chinese have hired him a time or two. Good thing I showed up when I did, or you might have been fish food.”

What is he talking about? Gus wouldn’t hurt a fly
.

This man was psychotic. And injured. Was he buying time with this conversation? Cal listened closely for any sounds he was moving around, trying to stem his bleeding shoulder or escape out the kitchen door.

He heard nothing except the hum of the fridge. Through the silence, the faint high pitch of a police siren alerted him to approaching trouble.

“Enough of the bullshit,” he called. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“You know who I am.” The siren grew louder. The man issued a heavy sigh and Cal heard shuffling. “Seriously? You called 911? What kind of SEAL are you, Reese?”

“I didn’t call anyone.”

The slightest squeak of rubber on tile. “Well, unfortunately, there’s no time to explain now, tadpole. I gotta run.”

“Wait!” Cal peeked out from the armoire, gun raised. No one.
Where did he go
?

Cal crept forward, past the fireplace and toward the kitchen archway.

The door stood open, the kitchen empty. From the outside, the siren grew louder, a second one adding to the cacophony.

Blood droplets made a path across the floor from the island to the door. Cal glanced at the spot where Bianca’s crushed phone had been.

Gone.

Whatever had been on that phone was now in the hands of the psycho.

The first police car arrived, skidding into the drive.
Time to go
. Cal started backing out the other way, praying Bianca had made it to the car and was safe. His gaze swept across the island and caught sight of a piece of paper on the countertop. Had that been there before?

Car doors slammed outside. No time to look. He shoved the paper in his pocket and high-tailed it.

Chapter Thirteen

The shaking started the moment she saw Cal.

Hold it together
.

Exactly what she
had
been doing, huddled behind the wheel of the car with Maggie as police cars streamed by and dozens of onlookers followed. Holding her breath, trying not to let her mind run wild with possible scenarios. That lightheaded feeling had returned and a weird ringing had set up camp between her ears.

Seeing Cal, safe and unharmed, sent a wave of relief coursing through her system. Through the windshield, his gaze locked on hers. Her frozen lungs gulped oxygen and a smile broke over her face. Her lips still remembered the warm imprint his had left behind.

He didn’t smile back.

Maggie, in the passenger seat with her head out the window, wagged her tail furiously in Bianca’s face. Bianca couldn’t blame the dog. She knew the feeling.

She started the engine. Cal approached the driver’s side, eyes scanning the area. “Move over.”

His voice was grim. Bianca started to protest that she would drive, but the next second, he opened her door, leaned down, and forcefully shoved her across the bench seat.

“Hey!”

The dog danced over her lap and greeted Cal. He patted her head and slipped into the driver’s seat, putting the car in gear at the same time. Before he even shut the car door, they were moving.

Fast.

Bianca hastily snapped on her seat belt, doing her best to keep Maggie from slamming into the dashboard as Cal took a sudden left. She wanted to throw her arms around him, hold him tight for a minute to reassure herself he was there and he was okay. The tight set of his jaw and his quick movements as he dodged around people and other vehicles told her now wasn’t the time.

She kept quiet, biting the inside of her cheek for a couple of miles until they located the highway. Maggie climbed into Bianca’s lap and stuck her head out the window, and although Bianca protested, she let the dog stay. Dog smell filled her nostrils, but as they increased speed, the wind flowing through the car lessened it, and the feel of Maggie’s strong, solid body, half in, half out of her lap, was reassuring.

I’m not a dog person
, she reminded herself,
except maybe for this one
.

The Chevelle continued to eat up the highway and still Cal said nothing.
Typical
.

The boy who’d seduced her with nonstop talk in high school about his dreams and their bright future together had turned into the man who wouldn’t communicate. During their marriage, he’d become more and more withdrawn, his mind always on the next training operation or mission. She’d understood he couldn’t discuss his job, but it had gotten so bad, he wouldn’t engage in even a simple conversation about the weather.

He doesn’t know what to say to you.

Petting Maggie’s side, Bianca divided her attention between the side-view mirror and straight ahead. The sun was setting on Cal’s left, the peach-colored orb of hydrogen and helium hovering ever lower over the Pacific and taking its heat and light with it.

On her right, shadows grew larger, inching ever closer. Cal was thinking—always thinking—but she couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “What happened back there?”