The Agent's Redemption (Special Agents At The Altar 4) (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

She wasn’t going to answer him. Jared couldn’t blame her. He had put her on the spot. She looked as if she wanted to be anywhere else than standing in that waiting room with him and her sister.

She probably wanted to get back to Alex. She’d been gone a long time.

“Forget it,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that. I’ll take you back to the apartment—back to Alex.” Maybe he would hook her up to Alex’s lie detector test and ask her again. Then he would know if she told him the truth.

“So I can pack?” she asked. “So Alex and I can leave.”

And he realized why she hadn’t answered her sister’s question. Because she wasn’t sure how he felt. Because he’d never told her.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he said. “Ever...”

Then she was in his arms, clutching him closely. “Are you really okay?” she asked.

“Yes.” They’d given him some painkillers that had dulled the ache in his head and his shoulder. But the narcotics had done nothing for his heart—only she could fix that.

“Are you sure you should be checking yourself out?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m fine,” he replied, but it was a lie. “At least I will be once you tell me how you feel. Do you want to pack up and leave?”

She shook her head. “No,” she replied. “I don’t want to leave. Ever...”

Warmth and relief flooded his heart. Her admission made him feel much better than the painkillers had. “That’s good,” he said as he ignored his wounded shoulder and clutched her closer. “Because I’m never going to let you go again. I love you, Becca.”

He didn’t care that he’d announced it in front of her sister and his fellow agents who’d joined them in the waiting room—probably when they hadn’t been able to find him in the ER.

“I love you,” she said. “I’ve always loved you.”

“I know,” he said. “I shouldn’t have doubted you six years ago.” But he’d been scared. He hadn’t wanted to put his heart on the line if her feelings hadn’t been real. And even if they’d been real, he’d doubted they would have lasted through her disappointment in his being unable to find her sister’s killer.

“I should have told you about Alex,” she said as she pulled back. “We’ve both made mistakes. We’ve both hurt each other.”

He nodded. “But we have the rest of our lives to make it up to each other.” He dropped to one knee right there in the waiting room. And he pulled out a jeweler’s box. He’d bought the ring the day before. He hadn’t had time to get it sized. It probably wouldn’t fit. Maybe she wouldn’t even like it. But he’d wanted to have the ring for this moment—for when the killer was caught—and it would be safe to propose. He opened the box and held it out to her. “Will you marry me, Becca? Will you become my wife?”

She said nothing; she just stood there, staring at him like she’d been staring at Lexi when he’d kicked open the door to the bride’s dressing room. As if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “Are you serious?” she asked.

“You can hook me up to Alex’s lie detector test and ask me again,” he offered with a chuckle. “But yes, I’m serious.”

Her eyes widened in surprise.

“I guess I’m an old-fashioned guy,” he admitted. “I don’t want you to live with me forever without making this official. And as I understand it, we already have a license and a wedding all planned out.”

“For a fake wedding...”

He shook his head. “Let’s make it real, Becca,” he urged her. “Say yes. Become my wife.”

“Yes,” she said. Then she shouted, “Yes! I want to marry you. I want to become your wife! I love you!”

He slid the ring on her finger, and to his surprise, it fit. Perfectly. Just like the two of them. He pulled her into his arms—where she fit perfectly. Just days ago he’d been dreading everything about their fake wedding. Now he couldn’t wait to get to the altar.

* * *

P
ENNY
P
AYNE
WAS
RIGHT
. The wedding she’d helped Rebecca plan was perfect. But it wasn’t because of the beautiful flowers or the dress or the double chocolate cake that Alex and his father couldn’t wait to eat. It was because of the people.

Not everybody was there, though. Rebecca’s parents had not been as forgiving of Lexi as she and Jared had been. They didn’t understand that she would have died had she not played dead. Rebecca couldn’t be happier that her sister was alive and able to be her matron of honor. And Alex had two flower girls to walk down the aisle—one on each arm. Becky was blonde and blue-eyed like him while Amanda had her father’s fiery-red hair.

And since Rebecca’s father wasn’t there to walk her down the aisle, George was doing the honors. She held his arm as he walked her toward the altar—toward her groom. She had always thought of him as her brother. Now he officially was.

She smiled up at him through her veil and mouthed the words
thank you
.

And not just for walking her down the aisle. She had him to thank for Lexi being alive and happy.

Lexi had already made it down the aisle. Her girls leaned against her while Alex had gone to the men’s side. He stood between Jared and his best man, Nicholas Rus. She smiled with amusement as she remembered how Dalton Reyes, Blaine Campbell and Ash Stryker had teased the other FBI agent. They’d warned him that whoever stood up as best man was the next agent to make his own trek to the altar.

Nick had laughed as if the idea was preposterous. But it had become true for all of them. She hoped it did for him, too. He intended to stay in River City, Michigan, with the family he’d only recently discovered was his.

Rebecca didn’t blame him. She was thrilled with her family. She loved having her sister back and George and her nieces. But the most important part of her family stood before her. Jared and Alex. The two loves of her life.

She stopped next to Jared. He lifted her veil and pressed his lips to hers.

Alex tugged on his pants. “Daddy, you’re supposed to wait until the end.” He must have remembered that from Dalton’s wedding. Of course the little boy forgot nothing.

“She’s so beautiful I couldn’t wait,” Jared said.

Alex smiled. “Mommy is very pretty.”

The guests laughed. The church was aglow with warmth and happiness and love. Rebecca had never felt so much love.

Jared held her hands as they repeated vows the minister fed them—about loving each other through sickness and health, good times and bad. Their love had already survived all those things, so she knew they would make it just like Jared had promised: forever.

She slid the gold band on Jared’s finger, and he slid a gold band on hers, up against the diamond engagement ring he’d already given her.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister said. “You may kiss your bride...again.”

The guests laughed.

But Rebecca was focused on Jared as his handsome face lowered to hers again. He kissed her—reverently and then passionately. Applause burst out in the church.

Mrs. Payne had been right. It was the perfect wedding. And theirs would be the perfect marriage.

* * * * *

Read on for a sneak preview of
FATAL AFFAIR
,
the first book in the
FATAL
series
by
New York Times
bestselling author
Marie Force

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.

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Fatal Affair

by Marie Force

ONE

T
HE
SMELL
HIT
him first.

“Ugh, what the hell is that?” Nick Cappuano dropped his keys into his coat pocket and stepped into the spacious, well-appointed Watergate apartment that his boss, Senator John O’Connor, had inherited from his father.

“Senator!” Nick tried to identify the foul metallic odor.

Making his way through the living room, he noticed parts and pieces of the suit John wore yesterday strewn over sofas and chairs, laying a path to the bedroom. He had called the night before to check in with Nick after a dinner meeting with Virginia’s Democratic Party leadership, and said he was on his way home. Nick had reminded his thirty-six-year-old boss to set his alarm.

“Senator?” John hated when Nick called him that when they were alone, but Nick insisted the people in John’s life afford him the respect of his title.

The odd stench permeating the apartment caused a tingle of anxiety to register on the back of Nick’s neck. “John?”

He stepped into the bedroom and gasped. Drenched in blood, John sat up in bed, his eyes open but vacant. A knife spiked through his neck held him in place against the headboard. His hands rested in a pool of blood in his lap.

Gagging, the last thing Nick noticed before he bolted to the bathroom to vomit was that something was hanging out of John’s mouth.

Once the violent retching finally stopped, Nick stood up on shaky legs, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and rested against the vanity, waiting to see if there would be more. His cell phone rang. When he didn’t take the call, his pager vibrated. Nick couldn’t find the wherewithal to answer, to say the words that would change everything.
The senator is dead. John’s been murdered.
He wanted to go back to when he was still in his car, fuming and under the assumption that his biggest problem that day would be what to do about the man-child he worked for who had once again slept through his alarm.

Thoughts of John, dating back to their first meeting in a history class at Harvard freshman year, flashed through Nick’s mind, hundreds of snippets spanning a nearly twenty-year friendship. As if to convince himself that his eyes had not deceived him, he leaned forward to glance into the bedroom, wincing at the sight of his best friend—the brother of his heart—stabbed through the neck and covered with blood.

Nick’s eyes burned with tears, but he refused to give in to them. Not now. Later maybe, but not now. His phone rang again. This time he reached for it and saw it was Christina, his deputy chief of staff, but didn’t take the call. Instead, he dialed 911.

Taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart and making a supreme effort to keep the hysteria out of his voice, he said, “I need to report a murder.” He gave the address and stumbled into the living room to wait for the police, all the while trying to get his head around the image of his dead friend, a visual he already knew would haunt him forever.

Twenty long minutes later, two officers arrived, took a quick look in the bedroom and radioed for backup. Nick was certain neither of them recognized the victim.

He felt as if he was being sucked into a riptide, pulled further and further from the safety of shore, until drawing a breath became a laborious effort. He told the cops exactly what happened—his boss failed to show up for work, he came looking for him and found him dead.

“Your boss’s name?”

“United States Senator John O’Connor.” Nick watched the two young officers go pale in the instant before they made a second more urgent call for backup.

“Another scandal at the Watergate,” Nick heard one of them mutter.

His cell phone rang yet again. This time he reached for it.

“Yeah,” he said softly.

“Nick!”
Christina cried. “Where the
hell
are you guys? Trevor’s having a heart attack!” She referred to their communications director, who had back-to-back interviews scheduled for the senator that morning.

“He’s dead, Chris.”

“Who’s dead? What’re you talking about?”

“John.”

Her soft cry broke his heart.
“No
.
”
That she was desperately in love with John was no secret to Nick. That she was also a consummate professional who would never act on those feelings was one of the many reasons Nick respected her.

“I’m sorry to just blurt it out like that.”

“How?” she asked in a small voice.

“Stabbed in his bed.”

Her ravaged moan echoed through the phone. “But who... I mean,
why
?”

“The cops are here, but I don’t know anything yet. I need you to request a postponement on the vote.”

“I can’t,” she said, adding in a whisper, “I can’t think about that right now.”

“You have to, Chris. That bill is his legacy. We can’t let all his hard work be for nothing. Can you do it? For him?”

“Yes...okay.”

“You have to pull yourself together for the staff, but don’t tell them yet. Not until his parents are notified.”

“Oh, God, his poor parents. You should go, Nick. It’d be better coming from you than cops they don’t know.”

“I don’t know if I can. How do I tell people I love that their son’s been murdered?”

“He’d want it to come from you.”

“I suppose you’re right. I’ll see if the cops will let me.”

“What’re we going to do without him, Nick?” She posed a question he’d been grappling with himself. “I just can’t imagine this world, this
life
, without him.”

“I can’t either,” Nick said, knowing it would be a much different life without John O’Connor at the center of it.

“He’s really dead?” she asked as if to convince herself it wasn’t a cruel joke. “Someone killed him?”

“Yes.”

* * *

O
UTSIDE
THE
CHIEF
’
S
office suite, Detective Sergeant Sam Holland smoothed her hands over the toffee-colored hair she corralled into a clip for work, pinched some color into cheeks that hadn’t seen the light of day in weeks, and adjusted her gray suit jacket over a red scoop-neck top.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves and settle her chronically upset stomach, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. Chief Farnsworth’s receptionist greeted her with a smile. “Go right in, Sergeant Holland. He’s waiting for you.”

Great
, Sam thought as she left the receptionist with a weak smile. Before she could give in to the urge to turn tail and run, she erased the grimace from her face and went in.

“Sergeant.” The chief, a man she’d once called Uncle Joe, stood up and came around the big desk to greet her with a firm handshake. His gray eyes skirted over her with concern and sympathy, both of which were new since “the incident.” She despised being the reason for either. “You look well.”

“I feel well.”

“Glad to hear it.” He gestured for her to have a seat. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

Pouring himself a cup, he glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve been worried about you, Sam.”

“I’m sorry for causing you worry and for disgracing the department.” This was the first chance she’d had to speak directly to him since she returned from a month of administrative leave, during which she’d practiced the sentence over and over. She thought she’d delivered it with convincing sincerity.

“Sam,” he sighed as he sat across from her, cradling his mug between big hands. “You’ve done nothing to disgrace yourself or the department. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Not everyone makes mistakes that result in a dead child, Chief.”

He studied her for a long, intense moment as if he was making some sort of decision. “Senator John O’Connor was found murdered in his apartment this morning.”

“Jesus,”
she gasped. “How?”

“I don’t have all the details, but from what I’ve been told so far, it appears he was dismembered and stabbed through the neck. Apparently, his chief of staff found him.”

“Nick,” she said softly.

“Excuse me?”

“Nick Cappuano is O’Connor’s chief of staff.”

“You know him?”

“
Knew
him. Years ago,” she added, surprised and unsettled to discover the memory of him still had power over her, that just the sound of his name rolling off her lips could make her heart race.

“I’m assigning the case to you.”

Surprised at being thrust so forcefully back into the real work she had craved since her return to duty, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why me?”

“Because you need this, and so do I. We both need a win.”

The press had been relentless in its criticism of him, of her, of the department, but to hear him acknowledge it made her ache. Her father had come up through the ranks with Farnsworth, which was probably the number one reason why she still had a job. “Is this a test? Find out who killed the senator and my previous sins are forgiven?”

He put down his coffee cup and leaned forward, elbows resting on knees. “The only person who needs to forgive you, Sam, is you.”

Infuriated by the surge of emotion brought on by his softly spoken words, Sam cleared her throat and stood up. “Where does O’Connor live?”

“The Watergate. Two uniforms are already there. Crime scene is on its way.” He handed her a slip of paper with the address. “I don’t have to tell you that this needs to be handled with the utmost discretion.”

He also didn’t have to tell her that this was the only chance she’d get at redemption.

“Won’t the Feds want in on this?”

“They might, but they don’t have jurisdiction, and they know it. They’ll be breathing down my neck, though, so report directly to me. I want to know everything ten minutes after you do. I’ll smooth it with Stahl,” he added, referring to the lieutenant she usually answered to.

Heading for the door, she said, “I won’t let you down.”

“You never have before.”

With her hand resting on the door handle, she turned back to him. “Are you saying that as the chief of police or as my Uncle Joe?”

His face lifted into a small but sincere smile. “Both.”