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Tension hummed through him as he eased toward the last of the three doorways. He flashed back on the moment after the blackout, when the emergency lights had come up at the John Hancock building to reveal a party in shambles, the president and vice president missing. Though President Stack had been found nearby, drugged and confused, VP Davis had not.
Had Gabby been taken hostage, as well?
There’ll be hell to pay if she has, he thought out of nowhere, as he eased through the last door into her bedroom.
There he hesitated for a half second before letting the flashlight beam play over her bed. Unlike the other rooms, which he noted, were devoid of color this room was vibrant. The king-size bed had a fluffy duvet draped with a woven afghan in the deepest of jade greens, and pillows of every shape and size formed a drift against the plush, padded headboard, all in vibrant jewel tones visible even in the wan illumination.
It was, he realized, as unexpected heat burned through his veins, almost exactly as he’d imagined it during their online “dates.” He let his gun hand sag—
And the moment of hesitation nearly cost him everything.
A blur came at Ty from the side. He turned and ducked in a single motion, and the blow glanced off his shoulder. His attacker cursed and kicked out, sending Ty’s gun and flashlight spinning away.
The light smashed into the wall, plunging them into darkness. The gun clattered somewhere off to their left, momentarily lost.
Ty lunged for the other man and they went down on the floor beside Gabby’s bed. “Where is she?” he grated, landing a gut punch that had the other guy wheezing. “Where is Grant Davis? If you’ve hurt either of them, I’ll kill you.”
A blow caught Ty at the temple. His head snapped back, and he saw stars where there weren’t any. Fury spiked. Roaring, he grabbed for the bastard, got a fistful of his shirt and punched him hard in the face. The impact bruised his knuckles and sang up his arm.
“You want to get back to basics?” he grated. “How’s this for basic?” He landed a second punch and thought he felt bone give.
The other man went limp. An atavistic thrill ran through Ty, a surge of victory, of rage. He shifted his grip and reached for the handcuffs he wore on his belt.
With a roar, his opponent exploded into action beneath him, reversing their position and driving his fist into Ty’s jaw.
He saw stars again.
Then blackness.
BREATH SOBBING in her lungs, Gabby tugged at the bars on her bathroom window. When she’d first rented the place, she’d considered them a necessary security measure.
Now they were a trap.
She heard another crash in the bedroom, followed by a pained shout from a second man. She thought it was Ty’s voice, but how could she be sure? She’d barely met him.
“Come on,” she hissed, and yanked at the unyielding bars again, knowing it was futile but unable to make herself stop trying. “Come on!”
Behind her, beyond the bathroom door, the fighting sounds abruptly cut off.
Gabby froze. She strained to hear what was happening out there, needing to know who’d won.
She heard only silence, followed by the sound of footsteps in the bedroom.
Ty would’ve called her name, right? He would’ve said something to let her know he was okay.
Unless he wasn’t okay.
No, Gabby thought as the footsteps paused and she heard the sound of her closet door opening and clothes hangers being slid aside on their metal bar. Oh, no. Her fingers fell away from the window grate and her throat clenched until only a trickle of oxygen got through.
The footsteps resumed, drawing nearer.
A weapon. She needed a weapon.
Nearly wheezing with fear, she groped near the wall until her fingers found a smooth plastic shaft, like a length of pipe. She closed her fingers and tested its weight, then decided it would have to do.
A click of metal on metal signaled the turn of the bathroom knob. Gabby braced herself and raised her weapon.
The door opened. She screamed as loud as she could, and attacked. She lunged toward the sound and swung, yelling, “Get out of my house, you bastard!”
Her first blow missed the intruder and slammed into the wall. The impact sang up her arms and numbed her fingertips, but she couldn’t stop now. When she heard a rustle of cloth and felt motion nearby, she yelled again and swung.
This time she connected with flesh. She felt the blow land, heard a man curse.
Then he grabbed her, banding one strong arm around her torso and clapping the other across her mouth. “Shh! Quiet. Knock it off!”
She swung and connected with the back of his head. He swore and shook her. “What is wrong with you? Can’t you see—” Then he broke off. “It’s Ty, Gabby. It’s Ty. You’re okay.”
He repeated the reassurance a few more times, but she’d already stopped struggling, letting herself go limp in his grasp as his words played through her mind. Can’t you see?
No, I can’t, damn it. Anger spurted—at him, at whoever had broken into her house, her sanctuary. But beneath the heat of rage was another warmth—the feeling of being held in a man’s arms. In Ty’s arms.
That last thought shouldn’t have mattered. He’d lied to her, damn it. He’d used her emotions to pursue a lead. It hadn’t been about romance for him. It’d been the job.
Trouble was, her body didn’t seem to care.
“Shh,” he whispered against her temple, his breath ruffling her hair. “I think he’s gone, but I’m not positive. I needed to make sure you were okay before I went after him.”
They were pressed back to front, with the solid wall of his chest braced against her shoulders, the strong columns of his thighs touching intimately against the backs of hers.
Seeming to realize it, he shifted away and loosened his grip on her body. “You done screaming?”
She nodded against the hand that still covered her mouth. When he released her, she said, “Sorry, I thought you were…whoever that was.”
“I know. Lock yourself in here while I search the house.”
“Wait.” She put out a hand and touched his forearm, which was warm and solid beneath a layer of cotton shirt. “Does this mean you believe that I’m not involved with the man you’re looking for?”
There was a long pause before he said, “I haven’t decided yet.” Then he exhaled. “The mess out there certainly strengthens your case, except for two things.”
“What things?”
He turned away from her, distance muffling his voice. “For one, I don’t get how he’d know to toss your place while we met, unless he knew about the meeting.”
“Maybe he was following you,” she said, but that wouldn’t have worked with the timing. “Even better, maybe he’s monitoring your e-mail.” She shrugged. “I could do it.” Right about now she was wishing she’d back-hacked his account and taken a look. It would’ve saved her a little bit of heartache and a whole lot of embarrassment.
It might’ve saved her computer, too. If she’d told him to take a hike when he first started e-mailing her…she would’ve missed some very good times, she admitted, and hated him for the truth of it.
Why couldn’t he have been the man he’d pretended to be?
“We can talk about it later,” he said, and for a moment she thought he meant they could talk about the so-called romance they’d conducted. Then she realized he was talking about whether she was involved in the vice president’s kidnapping, and reality returned with a vengeance.
Her house had been ransacked. She’d been chased into her own bathroom. Ty had been attacked in her bedroom. For all they knew, their attacker was still out there.
“Take this.” She pressed her bludgeon into his hand.
There was a short pause, then a snort. He returned the weapon, and there was a thread of laughter in his voice when he said, “I’ve got a gun. You keep the toilet plunger.”
TY’S AMUSEMENT was short-lived, though. Once he was back out in Gabby’s bedroom, sweeping the flashlight to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he was all business. He wasn’t thinking about the blazing fury that’d pounded in his chest as he’d struggled with the intruder, or the way Gabby’s curves had felt nestled against him.
Or if he was thinking those things, he shoved them deep inside, where the emotions couldn’t distract him from the most important things, couldn’t deflect him from the job.
“Where are you, Liam?” he said quietly as he worked his way out of the bedroom and back down the hall, retracing the path he’d taken only minutes earlier, though it felt like he’d aged a year in that brief space of time when he’d thought Gabby was gone.
Focus, Tyler, his father’s voice said in Ty’s head. Keep your mind in the game.
And though Colonel Jones had been speaking about high school sports, and the words had come long before Ty had followed family tradition by enlisting, the advice held true now.
It was past time for Ty to focus on his priorities—finding Liam, liberating Grant Davis and neutralizing the bomb threat. It wasn’t about the woman. It had, quite possibly, never been about her.
Ty searched the house, flashlight and gun both held at the ready, but there was no sign of the intruder, and the streets outside were dark and deserted.
Convinced the place was clear, he returned to the ransacked bedroom and knocked quietly on the bathroom door. “Gabby? It’s okay. You can come on out. I need to ask you a few questions.” Like what was missing. Who she thought had been in her house.
And why the break-in had coincided with their rendezvous in a courtyard down the street.
The door opened and Gabby stood at the threshold for a moment, lit by the warm yellow beam of his flashlight. Her chin was up and defiant, her pale eyes clear. That, coupled with her lovely hair, which gleamed even in the feeble light, combined to make her seem ethereal. Magical. More, somehow, than the woman he’d imagined during their late-night conversations, when the line between lies and reality had begun to blur.
Focus!
Ty scowled. “Look, I think we need to get something straight here. I never—”
The digital ring of his handheld interrupted, surprising him. He’d thought the battery too low to grab a signal, not to mention the lack of cell coverage twenty-five hours into the blackout.
Figuring it was Chase, Shane or Ethan with new information, he flipped the phone open, welcoming the faint blue glow. The four of them comprised Eclipse, an under-the-radar black ops group that had grown out of their military service. Work with Eclipse had taken them to every hellhole on the globe and made them the best of friends. The kind you trust with your life.
It took Ty a moment to realize it wasn’t a call, then another moment to read the text message in the fading glow of the dying battery.
“Nice punch. You got lucky, but your luck is about to change. If you want to see Grant Davis alive, bring your girlfriend and at the O—”
That was all he got before the battery quit.
GABBY HEARD his hiss of indrawn breath, and immediately tensed. “What is it?”
“It is, or rather was, a text message.” He repeated it aloud, not bothering to hide his irritation, or the way his voice went dry on the word girlfriend.
Hey, she wanted to tell him, this isn’t my fault. Which made her realize that the reverse was true. Anger flared in her chest and she snapped, “That guy broke in because of you, didn’t he? Because he saw us together.”
“Maybe,” he said neutrally. “Or maybe you and he were working together and something backfired.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Her breath hissed between her teeth. “I didn’t ask you to come here. In fact, I’m pretty sure I tried to end it between us. I would have been perfectly happy never meeting you in person.” Or if not happy, at least content. Safe and secure in her little world, which no longer seemed quite so safe. “This man—Liam was it? He came here because of you. He wrecked my things. He took my computer, for God’s sake. Do you know how much that thing cost me, and how long it’s going to take me to rebuild the Braille translation hardware? I’d finally gotten the peripherals exactly where I wanted them.” She broke off, aware of his silence and nearly palpable tension. “And you don’t care about that, do you?”
He exhaled. “Your stuff isn’t stolen, but it’s busted up pretty good. And it’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I have bigger things to worry about right now.”
“Vice President Davis,” she said, remembering the text message and trying not to linger on the word girlfriend or think about how long it’d been since that word had applied to her for real. “Do you know where you’re supposed to meet this guy?”
She could feel him weighing his answer. Finally she heard him shift and give heard a low curse. “No, I don’t. And it’s nearly midnight, damn it.”
That surprised her. Hadn’t it just been ten o’clock? Hadn’t she just been hiding in the corner of the courtyard, unable to bypass the opportunity to meet Ty, even if only through Maria’s eyes?
Apparently not. Apparently nearly two hours had passed in a blink.
“Let’s work this through logically,” she said, thinking fast. “He was just here and he knows you and I are here. That suggests the meeting place is somewhere nearby.”
He didn’t speak for a minute, and she’d just about decided he wasn’t going to answer her at all when he suddenly said, “How many places within, say, a five-minute walk have names that begin with the letter O?”
She thought fast, partly to help, partly to make him go away, make it all go away so she could lock her doors and crawl back into her familiar, comfortable patterns. “There are a couple of restaurants that begin with O—Orsini’s and Only Seafood. But they’re closed because of the blackout.”
“Not a restaurant,” Ty said. “He thinks bigger than that. Something important. A monument, or an historical building, maybe?”
“Let me think.” She frowned, reviewing her mental map of the area. She imagined herself walking up one street and down the next, counting the steps, tapping with her cane. At the edges of her brain, a faint sensory memory lingered. It was the smell of old wood and candle wax, overlain with the fragrance of summer flowers. It could’ve come from a hundred places in the historical city, but this impression brought a sense of peace. Of reverence. “There’s a big church nearby, but it’s called Christ Church.”
“Which doesn’t start with an O,” he said.
“No, but that’s not its only name.” Excitement built as the connection clicked in her brain. “They used to call it the Old North Church.”
“As in ‘one if by land, two if by sea’?” he quoted. “That Old North Church? I thought it was near the water.”
“We are,” she countered. Realizing he didn’t know the city well, she led him to the front door. It hung open, letting in the night air, which was heavy with summer humidity and the hint of an incoming squall. She gestured beyond the neighborhood, nearly due east. “The New England Aquarium is that way, right on the harbor.” She turned and pointed northwest. “The church is that way, overlooking the mouth of the river. Two blocks over, one up. You’ll make it if you run.”
“We’ll make it,” he corrected. “Come on.”
“Not on your life.” Heart picking up a beat, Gabby backpedaled up a step and reached for her front door, for safety. “I’ve had more than enough excitement for tonight. You’re on your own.”
But when she swung the panel shut, he blocked it halfway. “The message said to bring my girlfriend.”
“I am not your girlfriend,” she snapped.
“He doesn’t know that. If you’re innocent, then you’re right—he either followed me and backtracked you to your place somehow, or he already knew about you from my e-mails. Now he’s wondering exactly how much you know, or how important you are to me.” He paused. “Either way, you’ll be safer with me than staying here.” His words sounded logical, but there was an undercurrent in his tone that she didn’t like.
Swallowing past the growing knot of panic in her throat, Gabby shoved on the door, trying to force it closed. When he resisted, they engaged in a brief tussle that brought tears of frustration to her eyes. “Would you just go!” she shouted. “Go away and leave me alone! I’m not the person you’re looking for!”
Her words echoed, gaining new meaning.
Ty’s voice went soft. “Listen, Gabby—”
“No, you listen,” she said, her temper spiking. “I joined Webmatch because I was looking for a friend. Someone who doesn’t need much sleep, like me. Someone I could talk to.” Her voice broke on the memory of the things they’d said to each other during their nighttime exchanges, things she’d never told anyone else. Things that made her feel stripped bare now. “I wasn’t looking to become part of some shoot-’em-up that belongs in an action movie, not real life!”
But even as she said that, a small part of her wondered whether she might not have been looking for adventure, after all. Something new and different. A way out of her rut. A hint of danger amidst the peace. Why else had she discouraged all the other respondents and homed in on a divorced bodyguard who, by his own admission, rarely stayed in one place too long and dated online because his lifestyle didn’t leave room for a more traditional relationship?
