Promises to Keep (23 page)

Fifty-Nine

Sabrina had Ben drop
her off at home. It was just before ten. The second day of SWAT recertification was shooting qualifiers, which meant that Nickels didn't have to be to the range until noon. With any luck she could catch him before he left for the day.

“I have to talk to Nick—get him to take Val and Lucy somewhere until this is all over,” she said while Ben pulled curbside to let her out.

“Michael already took care of that,” Ben said.

She paused as she was getting out of the car and looked back at him. “What do you mean?”

“Last night,” Ben said with a shrug. “Michael arranged to get them out of town; they should be gone by the end of the day. He didn't tell you about it?”

She shook her head, trying to reconcile the man she woke up to this morning with someone who made arrangements to keep her family safe. “He didn't say anything to me about it.” She gave Ben a quick smile. “I'll just do a quick walk-through, make sure everything's okay, and then I'll be over,” she said to him, shutting the car door before rounding the hood and heading up the driveway. Nick's truck was gone but Val's car was in the driveway, so she headed for the back door and let herself in. From the kitchen she could hear the murmur of voices in the living room. Val was talking to someone.

“Hey, it's me,” she called out as she locked the door and reset the alarm.

“Hey, we're in here,” Val answered. “Grab a glass if you want mimosas.”

Mimosas
? Sabrina looked at her watch as she came through the dining room. “You know, adding orange juice doesn't negate the fact that you're drinking champagne on a Wednesday morning,” she said, looking up to see Val sitting in the living room with the woman she'd seen on the porch yesterday. Obviously Nick hadn't shared their imminent travel plans with his wife.

“One won't kill you, right Courtney?” Val smiled. “Besides, we're celebrating. You remember Courtney?” she said with a
be nice
warning look.

“I'm on duty.” She
so
did not have time for this. “And yes, I remember.” She jerked her mouth into a quick smile. “Nice to see you again. What are you celebrating?”

“Only that she has the cutest baby in the whole wide world,” Courtney said, tipping a bit more champagne into her flute. “Our photo shoot this morning was fantastic. I don't think I've ever shot a more photogenic little girl.”

Something about the way she said
shot
stiffened Sabrina's spine. “Where is Lucy?”

“Sleeping,” Val said, taking a sip of her drink, sloshing a little over the side of her flute.

She looked around the room. Nothing seemed out of place but, Val's day drinking aside, there was definitely something off about this whole scenario. “Where's Nick? He doesn't have qualifiers for another couple of hours.”

“Devon?” Val said, taking another drink, looking at the woman sitting across from her. “She calls my husband Nick—he used to be in love with her.” Val looked up at her then with a look that might have been jealousy, but it passed too quickly to cause anything more than a momentary clench in her gut. “
Devon
was gone when we got here—just us girls.”

“He was never in love with me, he was just too stubborn to admit it,” Sabrina said.

Before Val could answer Courtney leaned in, taking the glass from her friend's hand. “Why don't you go get the proofs from our shoot and show them to Sabrina?”

Val nodded and stood, the tension that had suddenly sprung up between them set aside. “Good idea! You're gonna love these, wait here …” she said, her voice trailing down the stairs.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Sabrina cut Courtney a scathing glare. “What the hell did you do to her?”

The woman sitting in front of her gave her a wide-eyed look. “Me? I didn't do anything. You, on the other hand …” She wagged her finger back and forth. “I think the two of you have some deep-seated issues to work out.”

“Val and I are fine,” she said, the insistence in her voice sounded like a lie, even to her.

“Everything can't be fine all the time, Sabrina,” Courtney said, lifting Val's flute in a mock toast. “Honesty—one of alcohol's finer side effects. You should try it sometime.”

“How many has she had?”

“Just this.” Courtney set the half-empty glass on the table between them and sat back in her chair.

“Really? Because she looks like she's half in the bag.”

“She's a bit of a lightweight—and
totally
starved for fun,” Courtney said, slouching back in her chair, taking the champagne bottle with her, leg draped over the low-slung arm. She looked to be around thirty, her long brown hair pulled away from her face in a simple pony-
tail. Her jeans were faded, frayed at the cuffs. Her T-shirt had a picture of Einstein with the words
keepin' it relative
across the bottom. She lifted the bottle to her mouth and took a drink before continuing. “But I like her. She's … uncomplicated. What you see is what you get.” She tipped the bottle in her direction. “Not like us.”

Apprehension tingled along Sabrina's scalp. She stood. “I think you've caused enough trouble for one day.”

Now Courtney laughed, swinging the leg that was hooked around the chair's arm in a lazy circle. “I haven't even gotten started.”

“I'm sorry; let me be clear.” Sabrina leaned over the coffee table, putting her very much in the other woman's personal space. “Get the fuck out of my house. Now.”

“We'll leave in a minute …” Courtney said, looking up at her and smiling as if she hadn't just been asked to leave. “You know, she barely knows me. Didn't even ask me my last name. That's another thing I like about our Val; despite her harrowing, near-death experience at the hands of a serial killer—a harrowing, near-death experience that was completely your fault, by the way—she's still trusting. Another thing you and I lack.”

“What
is
your last name?” Sabrina heard herself ask. Somewhere upstairs she heard a muted thump, like something heavy had fallen onto the carpeted floor.

Val.

She reached for her SIG, had it cleared and aimed at Courtney's chest in the time it took to draw a breath. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

“Please, one question at a time.”

Sabrina answered by thumbing the hammer back on her SIG.

“I'm chipped, the same as Michael,” Courtney said, that playful tone of hers suddenly gone. “I die, my chip goes dark; my chip goes dark, your boyfriend's an oozing pile of muck that'll have to be cleaned up by a hazmat team.”

Sabrina reset the hammer but kept hold of the gun.

“Good. We're beginning to understand each other.” Courtney smiled, setting the bottle on the table. “Now, don't get mad, but … I drugged your friend,” she said, holding up her hands in a
stay calm
gesture. “She's fine; it's nothing life-threatening. She'll wake up in about an hour with a pounding headache, swearing to never drink champagne again. And Lucy is fine too, scout's honor.” To prove it, she picked up the baby monitor on the end table and turned up the volume. Behind the soft crackle of static, Sabrina could hear the baby's even breaths.

“I know who you are,” she whispered, unable to understand how she'd been so dumb … so blind. “What do you want?”

“It's simple. I want you to disarm yourself and follow me out that door,” she said, finally standing. “There's a car waiting that will take us to the airport.”

“And then?”

“And then we're going to get on a plane and fly away,” Courtney said, as if she were asking her to go to the movies.

Sabrina shook her head. “I don't have to kill you. I could shoot you in the arm. Or maybe just kick the shit out of you.”

“You and I will have our day in the sun, Sabrina … someday. But not today. Today we're on a bit of a schedule.” She looked at her watch, quirking her mouth into a sheepish grin. “We have less than a thirty minutes to get to Moffett Field. If we're not there, my boss is going to rain holy hell on this place. A lot of people will get hurt—including your BFF and that pretty little girl of hers. Tick tock.”

Sabrina ejected the magazine from the grip of the gun and set both of them on the coffee table before doing the same to the LCP strapped to her ankle.

“Your pockets too.”

She hesitated a moment too long before digging into her jeans and pulling out the red silk pouch Phillip had given her the night before. Panic flexed its muscles, spreading inside her chest like wings unfurled. “It's nothing, just—”

“I don't care what it is. Drop it on the table.”

She gripped the pouch tighter for a moment, as if hoping to be able to absorb whatever it was that managed to keep Wade at bay through the fabric and into her fingers. But then she let it go.

“Good girl,” Courtney said an encouraging smile on her face. “Circling back to your original question, my last name is Tserkov'. It's Russian for Church.”

Sixty

Movement flickered in the
corner of his eye. Michael turned away from the laptop, expecting to find Lark. Instead, it was Alex standing in the doorway, Sabrina's dog by his side. “
Vse v poryadke
?” Is everything alright?

He couldn't be sure, but he thought the boy nodded before entering the room, shuffling across the floor to curl up on the floor next to his chair, leaning his temple against Michael's knee. He felt it again: connection, recognition.

The back door banged open seconds before Ben called out, “You here?”

He looked down at the boy. “Yeah, in the dining room,” he said without standing. Ben appeared in the doorway a few seconds later, his eyes zeroing in on the boy.

“Looks like you made a friend,” Ben said.

“You know me,” he said, shooting his partner a wry smile, “I'm Mr. Personality. Where's Sabrina?” he said, looking at the laptop's display. It was 10:15 a.m. Ben's time estimate of when his father w
ould arrive was just that—an estimate. He had no real way of knowing where his father was or when he'd show up. They had to assume that Shaw could waltz through that door at any moment.

“I dropped her at home. What'd you find out?”

“Alone?” He looked past his partner, out the window at the fence that separated Sabrina's yard from Miss Ettie's.

Ben rolled his eyes. “We're less than thirty seconds away, Nervous Nelly—she'll be fine. You want to tell me what you found?”

“For starters, the reason your father targeted Leon Maddox,” he said, launching into the full explanation.

Ben listened, his face growing grimmer by the second. “I
knew
it. Everything goes back to money with him. Did you tell Maddox about my dad's involvement?”

He nodded. “Not sure if it was a good idea, but he needed to know who he was dealing with.”

Something he said jerked Ben's spine a bit straighter. “Speaking of … I need you to do something,” he said, his gaze dropping to the kid on the floor. “And don't ask questions.”

Michael's gaze followed his partner's. “Okay … ”

“Look at the back of his neck, just above the hairline. See anything weird?”

Michael placed a gentle hand on Alex's head. The boy went stiff, but he didn't move. “
Eto normal'no. Ya vam ne povredit.
” It's okay. I won't hurt you.

He feathered the hair along the boy's hairline, looking close. “What am I supposed to see?”

Ben let out a relieved breath. “The Cyrillic letter F tattooed on his scalp.”

Oh shit.
Michael looked up from the boy's head. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“If you think it's the personal stamp of ownership, used by a certain Russian mob boss to mark his immediate family … then yes, it means what you think it means.”

He looked even closer. “There's nothing.”

“Good.” He took a step away from the doorway. “Can I talk to you in the kitchen for a minute?”

“Yeah, hold on,” he said. “
Smotri
,” he said, and the boy looked up at him. “
Vy khotite igrat' v videoigru
?” You want to play a video game?

The boy nodded, and Michael motioned for him to stand before searching the laptop for the zombie-killing game his partner was currently addicted to. When the kid was settled, he cocked his head toward the kitchen and Ben followed.

“Sergey Filatov?” he said, looking around to make sure they were alone. “This
cannot
be happening.”

“Oh, it's fucking happening, partner—it's happening. I just can't figure out the how and the why.” Ben passed a hand over his face, the look on it telling him that there was something else. Something he wasn't saying.

“What's with the look? Tell me—”

There was a knock at the front door, a firm pounding that advertised exactly who it was. Ben looked at his watch. “No way. It's too soon,” he said, charging through the doorway into the foyer. The sharp expletive that followed told Michael everything he needed to know.

Time had just run out.

Sixty-One

“Get Alex, take him
upstairs,” Michael said, pulling Ben away from the window in order to look for himself. Two men were standing on the front porch. Their dark suits and even darker shades made them look like Secret Service, but he knew what they were: Pips sent by Livingston Shaw to collect him.

He threw a look over his shoulder to see Ben speaking quietly to the boy while he closed up the laptop. Alex looked at him, his usual blank expression laced with fear. Michael nodded and tried to give him what he hoped was an encouraging smile. As soon as Ben and the boy disappeared up the stairs, Michael opened the door.

“Let me guess—out spreading the good news?” he said, leaning himself against the doorframe.

The man on the left slapped a meaty paw against the door and gave it a push. “News is never good when you're involved,” he said in a conversational tone. He looked like a white version of Lark—hulking frame and clean-shaven head, hands the size of baseball gloves.

Michael stopped the door's progress with his boot. “And don't you forget it,” he said, somehow managing to match the Pip's easy tone. “You can also forget about stepping so much as one polished wingtip over the threshold of this house.”

The Hulk smiled and took a half-step forward.

“It's time to go,” the Hulk's partner said to Michael, wrapping a restraining hand around the other man's bicep. “Mr. Shaw is waiting.”

“Hold up.” Ben came down the stairs, his jacket and case in hand. Both Pips took a step back and folded their hands in front of them, eyes averted. They always reacted like that when they saw Ben—almost like they were scared of him. Ben threw them a wink that sent them shuffling while he handed Michael his stuff. “Have a good day at the office, dear,” he said, tapping a finger against Michael's jacket before throwing it over his shoulder. Whatever it was that he'd managed to slip into it was something he didn't want his dad to know about.

Michael gave a discreet nod, indicating that he understood before turning toward the pair of thugs on the porch. “Let's go, boys, I ain't got all day,” he said, muscling his way between them to make his way down the stairs.

He set his case on the sidewalk in front of the sleek black limo and pulled his jacket on while waiting at the curb. The Hulk popped the trunk and tossed his bags inside while the other Pip frisked him, pulling his Kimber and his knife from their holsters before handing them to the Hulk to be put in the trunk. He also pulled out Michael's cell phone and dropped it on the sidewalk, where it shattered. “Oops,” he said while grinding it beneath his heel. “What's this?” he said, pulling a small sliver case from his inside jacket pocket.

“Breath mints,” he said, his tone bland, expression bored. “Help yourself. Please.”

The suit gave the box a shake, listening carefully to the rattle inside before stuffing it back inside his pocket. “Fuck you,” he growled, giving him a shoulder check and leaving him curbside to circle around the front of the limo to climb into the driver's seat while the Hulk opened the back door for him. As promised, Livingston Shaw was waiting inside.

Michael slid across black leather, settling back against the seat. He remembered the last time he and Shaw had taken a ride together; it had ended with him being told that he'd been carting a dirty bomb around in his back. He wondered what Shaw had in store for him this time.

The Hulk closed the door and climbed into the front passenger seat. Looking out the window Michael could see Ben standing on the porch, doing his best to conceal the worry on his face.

“How is it that you always manage to find your way back here, Michael?” Shaw said in a bewildered tone that said he didn't understand the attraction.

He thought of Sabrina. “It's my home.”

“Yes, well … your perpetual return has become tiresome,” Shaw said, following his gaze out the window. As soon as Ben caught his father's attention, he flipped him the bird. Shaw sighed and settled back into his seat. “Almost as tiresome as my son's incessant lack of respect or discipline.”

Michael turned his face away from the window as the limo began moving and met Shaw's glare head-on. “On his worst day, your son is ten times the man you'll ever be,” he said quietly, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile at the look that passed over his boss's face. “Save your threats, Shaw. We both know you can't kill me.”

“And why is that, Michael?” Shaw said, disinterested, while he watched the scenery whip past the window. “Considering that you lied to me this morning about Leo Maddox's death, I'm hard-pressed to find a reason not to kill you at this point.”

Shaw had spoken to Reyes and gained proof of life, then, so he must know that Michael's earlier call had been a ploy. The fact that Shaw came for him anyway spoke volumes.

“I
am
the fattened calf, aren't I? If you kill me, you'll lose the only thing keeping Reyes in check.” He shook his head, disgusted. “Are you really that stupid? Did you really think you were going to be able to control him?”

For a split second, he was sure Shaw would deny everything. Instead, he flicked a finger over the switch that raised the privacy partition between the front seat and the back. As soon as it was fully raised, he spoke. “I'll admit that my partnership with Reyes has proved to be problematic, but I have every confidence that things will right themselves.”

“And how will things
right themselves
, Shaw?” Michael said, his
tone low and even. “You want me to kill him for you? Rescue the
Maddox boy? That
is
why I'm here, isn't it? To clean up your mess?”

“You're here to do exactly as I say, Michael.” The limo slowed as it turned into the parking lot at Moffett Field, stopping only long enough for the Pip behind the wheel to flash their credentials before being let through the security gate.

They rounded the hangar. Next to Ben's older Lear was a jet. Both looked ready for takeoff. Next to the Lear, a Range Rover sat on the tarmac. Shaw reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone to dial a number. “You may board the plane now,” he said before ending the call.

Michael watched as the driver's side door to the Rover popped open and a Pip climbed out to open the rear passenger door. A familiar brunette in jeans and T-shirt stepped out and turned, motioning for someone else to follow her.

It was Mary, the nurse who always conducted his exams after coming off assignment. “What's she doing here?” Michael said, confused.

“Regardless of your momentary indispensability, you'll do well to remember that there are others—less important others—relying on you to complete your mission.” Shaw tapped a manicured finger against the glass. “Pay attention, please.”

In the moment before she appeared, Michael had the insane
thought that if he closed his eyes, he could actually stop it from
happening. He could keep her safe, as long as he didn't see her. “You rotten bastard,” he said, leaning his forehead against the glass, completely defeated as he watched Sabrina climb out of the Rover.

Mary said something to her and she turned toward the limo where he sat, actually took a step in his direction before the Pip who'd opened her door grabbed her by the arm. He watched as she whipped her arm around in his grasp, reversing the hold he had on her so fast the Pip didn't know what hit him until she popped him in the mouth with a rabbit punch.

Michael took a deep breath. Schooled his face into an emotionless mask. “Okay, I get it. You can let her go now.”

“I'm afraid that's not possible,” Shaw said. “Ms. Tserkov' has very specific instructions, and Ms. Vaughn, well … she has her part to play in all this, just as you do.”

Tserkov'. The Russian word for
church
. He looked out the window at the woman who'd been pretending to be nothing more than his nurse for nearly three years. “What is she—
really
?”

“I think you know what she is, Michael, but I'll indulge your curiosity a bit. Her parents were Russian counterintelligence, embedded in the US in the early eighties.” While Shaw spoke, he watched the woman he knew as Mary step between Sabrina and the Pip. She continued to speak, jerking her chin in his direction. “When the Cold War ended, they were abandoned here by their government, eventually rooted out and killed by the CIA. Korkiva—or Courtney, as she likes to be called—is more than a bit disgruntled over the desertion.”

He could literally see the fight drain out of Sabrina and she nodded, casting another look at the limo over her shoulder. Even though he knew she couldn't see him behind the tinted glass, she seemed to look right at him, her mouth moving soundlessly.

It's okay.

She turned and allowed herself to be led toward Ben's plane, mounting the steps before disappearing inside. He didn't need to ask where Shaw was taking her.

“He'll kill her,” he said as he watched the Lear's hatch close and its stairs fold up. “He's been planning this from the moment he learned about her.”

As soon as the plane started to taxi down the runway, Shaw popped the locks on the limo door. “You're correct. Reyes will kill her … but not right away. You have time, though not much. Ms. Vaughn's fate very much depends on the choices you make within the next twenty-four hours.”

“You're not calling the shots anymore, are you, Shaw?” Michael said, remembering his conversation with Reyes the night before. How he'd thanked him for killing Cordova, like he'd done it for him and him alone. “Sucks to be someone's bitch, doesn't it?”

Shaw smoothed a palm down the crease of his five-thousand-
dollar hand-tailored pants, his expression telling Michael he was fighting for control. “I have every intention of sending you after her
and
the Maddox boy; but before that, there's something I need you to do.”

“
You
need me to do?” he said, even though he knew exactly what Shaw was talking about. “Cut the shit and just tell me what Reyes wants.”

Shaw stepped a foot onto the tarmac as soon as the Pip opened the car door. “It's very simple, Michael: you need to finish the job you started,” he said, still unwilling to admit that he'd lost control of the situation he now found himself in. “If you want to save your Sabrina, you're going to have to kill Pia Cordova.”