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Grim faces swung toward him.
“You get a vehicle?” Andre asked.
When Scott shook his head, Andre ran for the other side of the building for a different vantage point. Scott started to follow when a sedan swung into the lot, sirens screaming.
Glaring at the newcomer—the CNU negotiator had finally arrived—Scott sliced a hand in front of his neck and the siren went silent.
Martin Jennings, who’d been a negotiator for the Bureau for nearly two decades, hopped out of his car. “Where’s Russell?”
Scott froze in the process of chasing after Andre, but it didn’t matter, because his partner was already coming back their way.
“What have you got?” Froggy asked.
“Black Taurus. I got a plate,” Andre said. “We’ll need to call the locals and have roadblocks set up. He’s gone.”
“Russell?” Scott asked, his attention fully, anxiously on Martin.
“Chelsie Russell,” Martin said. “Brand-new negotiator. I called her to have her meet me here and she was already nearby. She should have beaten me.”
Scott glanced at the non-Bureau cars in the lot. Ten cars. And the shooter had been parked over by the bleachers, not here. Was the tenth car Chelsie’s? He scanned them, and realized the one way at the back was a small, nondescript white compact. Just like the one Chelsie had driven last night.
Sucking in a hard breath, Scott spun for the front lot again. Behind him, he heard Martin calling for ambulances and Froggy calling the locals to get roadblocks set up. He sensed without glancing back that Andre was following him, that his partner knew something was up.
But all he could think of was Chelsie. He’d seen nine bodies. Was there a tenth?
* * *
CHELSIE RUSSELL HUNCHED outside the front door of the community center, shielded on either side by the brick walls of the building that jutted forward, forming a protective U around her. The bullhorn she’d been shouting into less than ten minutes ago hung limply at her side. Above her, the sky was a brilliant, mocking blue.
She was too terrified to move.
A minute ago, the shooter had taken another shot, although at what she had no idea. All his targets were dead. All except her.
He’d been shooting from somewhere off to her right. Was he maneuvering around now, trying to get a bead on her?
She stared at the army officers who’d ducked down behind the community-center sign, thinking they were safe. He’d picked them off, then shot the three who’d run toward her, ignoring her gestures for them to stay where they were. Nausea rolled through her and she forced herself to look away from the men, their arms splayed wide as if they were still entreating her to help.
They’d been alive a minute ago. Alive and afraid, like her. When she’d crept out the door, she’d seen a sudden burst of hope in their eyes. They’d started to run even though she’d frantically gestured for them to stay put. So she’d put that bullhorn to her lips and done exactly what the FBI had trained her to do.
Connect with the perpetrator. Identify what he wanted. Then convince him through communication tactics that he could achieve it another way.
But he’d ignored every attempt she’d made to talk him down. Resisted every single tactic she’d been taught by the Crisis Negotiation Unit.
She’d gotten here in time. She should have been able to save five of them. But she hadn’t made a bit of difference.
Why hadn’t she stayed in Scott Delacorte’s bed? Instead of dressing silently and tiptoeing through his house out to her car, she could have rolled over and run her hands over his spectacular body until he’d woken up. Until he’d pressed his lips to hers and made her forget everything but the feel of him on top of her.
Instead, she’d slipped out the door, embarrassed and uncertain after waking up next to a man she barely knew. Before she’d turned off his street, she’d gotten the call from Martin, sending her here. She’d felt a surge of nerves mingled with anticipation and a stupid, baseless confidence that she could change the outcome the shooter had planned today.
Right now, more help was on the way, possibly even Scott himself, but she was the only one left to save. Would they arrive before the shooter found her?
Chelsie eased back toward the door of the community center, erasing her view of the dead soldiers, of the blood painting the concrete red. Ears ringing from the gunshots, she clutched her Glock so tightly her hand ached. She didn’t have the range of a rifle, and whoever had been shooting had been deadly accurate.
She opened the door, staying low, and slipped back inside the community center, her heart beating a too-rapid tempo. A haze fell over her thoughts and she couldn’t shake it. Six years in the FBI and she’d never seen anything like this.
Six years in the FBI and she’d never failed like this. She’d joined on a fluke, an attempt to find a place she finally fit. And she thought she had. She’d started in the Los Angeles Field Office, thrown into counterterror as a rookie, and discovered she had a knack for understanding people, agents and criminals alike. That knack had helped her to shed the Barbie-doll nickname she’d been given her first day, and to fit in with the mostly male agents. And it had ultimately led her to negotiation.
Becoming a negotiator had made her feel as though everything in her life had finally snapped into place, as though she’d found where she belonged, the place she could make a real difference.
Resolution through dialogue—it was CNU’s motto. In the intense, unforgiving two-week training, she’d excelled. In real life, apparently, she didn’t.
Martin Jennings had told her to wait for him before she engaged the shooter. He had more than twenty years’ experience talking down dangerous subjects; she had training exercises in a classroom. She’d inched as close to the scene as she dared without putting herself in the line of fire, fully intending to wait. But two people had been shot as she stepped out the door, and she’d known she couldn’t sit on the sidelines a second longer.
She’d done her best, and she knew it. But her best hadn’t been close to good enough.
Worry about it later, Chelsie told herself, her eyes darting left and right. She stuck close to the wall as she walked through the empty, silent community center. Then the sound of a siren reached her ears. She let out a relieved breath, but it caught less than a minute later as a shadow passed by the glass door on the side of the building. A tall shadow, carrying a rifle.
Flattening herself against the wall, Chelsie set the bullhorn carefully on the floor so she could grip her Glock with both hands. She inched closer, stepping soundlessly in her practical flats. Her senses seemed to shrink, until all she saw was the glass door to the side of the building, until all she heard was her own even, deep breathing. If there was no talking him down, she wasn’t letting the shooter get away, wasn’t giving him the chance to go after anyone else. Not today or ever again.
Slowly, slowly, she turned the handle and opened the door, inch by inch. She sensed before she saw that he’d heard her, so she ripped the door open the rest of the way. Her Glock came up fast and steady, taking aim at center mass. “FBI! Don’t move!”
She instantly processed the Kevlar vest, the extra weapon strapped to the leg, the Remington rifle in his hands, then recognized more before he finished spinning toward her. The dark blond hair. The tall, lanky body. The long, slim fingers gripping the stock of the rifle.
“Scott,” she blurted. The fun-loving, quick-to-smile agent she’d been unable to resist last night seemed like someone else entirely in his tactical gear, his expression fierce and determined.
“Chelsie.” Relief bloomed in his chocolate-brown eyes, so strong it made her own eyes water.
Another HRT sniper materialized from around the corner, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Scott. Heat rushed up her face, but it wasn’t from the embarrassment of being caught in the same clothes he’d peeled off her last night, or from seeing him so soon after sneaking out in the darkness. Seeing Scott couldn’t distract her from the weariness and splintering anger she suddenly felt.
Nine people had died today. And it didn’t matter what the FBI thought of her actions. Her career as a negotiator had ended before it had even begun.
Chapter Two (#ulink_6c8b87a1-4f7b-5afd-9490-33e4ab04215d)
June, present day
“You missed a spot,” Chelsie told Maggie Delacorte as they walked out of the Washington Field Office.
Scott’s younger sister looked nothing like him. A few inches shorter than Chelsie, with dark brown hair cut into a stylish, practical bob, and light blue eyes, Maggie shared only one thing with her brother: the intensity in their gaze. Or two, counting their willingness to put their lives on the line in FBI tactical positions.
Maggie shrugged, swiping a hand over her face that completely missed the smear of camouflage paint left along her hairline. “Doesn’t matter. I have a date with my TV and a bowl of popcorn tonight.”
That was Chelsie’s evening plan, too. She smiled at her friend, who’d been with the Washington Field Office’s SWAT team for the past four years. SWAT was an ancillary position, meaning Maggie did that in her spare time. She spent her days as a regular Special Agent working civil rights cases like hate crimes and human trafficking. She was in the thick of it all the time, while Chelsie had come back to the WFO a year ago and not only dropped hostage negotiation but switched to the safest job she could find. White-collar crime, where lives were rarely on the line. Where she wouldn’t have to stand by and watch while nine people were shot and killed.
Chelsie shuddered and Maggie eyed her questioningly.
As the days had turned into months, she’d slowly stopped having nightmares about her only case as a negotiator. The FBI had found her not to have any fault in the incident. They’d cleared her within a week and expected her to continue as a negotiator. But Chelsie had wanted out. It was her job to change the outcome of cases like that. If she couldn’t do it, she had no business being a negotiator.
Maggie knew about that day—it had been big news at the time. But Chelsie had never discussed it with her, especially not what had happened the night before with Maggie’s older brother. The only one-night stand she’d had in her entire life.
And she certainly wasn’t going to put any of that on Maggie now. Tomorrow was the anniversary of the shooting, but they’d caught the perp the same day. She’d testified against him, and his trial had finally concluded last month.
Clayton Connors was a former soldier, honorably discharged after suffering minor injuries in an IED that had killed the rest of his unit. It had seemed likely that his insanity plea would land him in a mental institution instead of prison, but after a week of deliberating, the jury had found him guilty. Chelsie had watched as he’d been led out of the courthouse in shackles, heading toward a maximum-security prison. He’d never be getting out.
The same couldn’t be said for the man who probably still gave Maggie nightmares. Maggie had never shared her past with Chelsie, but she’d heard a few office whispers over the years. The Fishhook Rapist, who’d claimed one victim every September 1 before releasing her with a brand on the back of her neck, had started with Maggie a decade ago. It was when Maggie had been a senior in college, and Chelsie was certain it had led her friend to the FBI.
Maggie was a lot braver than she was. Instead of hiding behind the safest cases she could, she’d jumped into one of the roughest, and probably most dangerous, jobs in the Bureau.
Chelsie opened her mouth, wanting to ask Maggie how she did it, then promptly closed it. They’d bonded in the Academy as two of the few women in the class, but Maggie had come in with Ella Cortez, and theirs was a friendship Chelsie could never hope to match. She and Maggie shared stories in the office and got a beer together after work once in a while, but that was the extent of it.
She’d never told Maggie—or anyone else—the profound sense of failure she’d felt after the shooting. It had eroded her confidence to the point where her parents and three younger brothers had been certain she would quit the Bureau entirely. But somehow she’d stuck it out. Maybe one day, she’d feel like she belonged here again.
Instead of saying any of that to Maggie, Chelsie put on her usual smile and waved as Maggie hopped into her car. Then she strode to the back of the parking structure where she’d left her trusty old compact. Her steps slowed as she approached.
Beside her little car was a hulking black SUV. And even from a distance, though she hadn’t seen him in more than six months, she recognized the man standing beside it.
His hair was a little bit longer, not so close to a buzz cut as it had been a year ago. It was a little bit blonder, too, as if he’d been spending a lot of time in the sun. His deep brown eyes were covered with a pair of sunglasses, but she could still picture their exact shade. His expression was neutral, his jawline hard, but like always, he seemed to crackle with barely contained energy, seemed to exude charm just standing there. He looked as though he’d put on muscle, though she knew firsthand that his lanky form made him appear thinner than he actually was. When she’d taken off his clothes, she’d discovered muscles that had felt like steel under her greedy fingers.
She forced herself to keep moving, to stare at him with what she hoped was an expression as bland as his. She was five foot ten in flats and he still had half a foot on her. “Scott. What are you doing here?”
There was no question he’d been waiting for her. Anticipation fluttered to life in her stomach. He’d pursued her in those first few months after the shooting. He’d shown up at Shields or stopped by the WFO to see Maggie and then found a way to seek Chelsie out, too. He’d given her that sexy smile, and asked her to dinner, or out for drinks. Eventually, she’d said no enough times that he’d stopped chasing her.
She’d been shocked that he’d wanted even a second night. Chelsie had heard about some of his exploits through Maggie over the years, so she knew Scott had a reputation as a one-date kind of guy.
One-night stands had never been her style. But that night, she simply hadn’t been able to resist him. She’d been on such an incredible high when she walked into Shields. She’d finally become an FBI negotiator and she’d wanted to celebrate. None of her usual friends at the office had been available, so she’d gone by herself. She’d expected to grab a beer and toast her accomplishment, then go home.
Then Scott had sat down next to her and bought her that beer. Out of all the women in there, Scott had turned the full force of his charm on her. The sexy, lopsided grin; the intensity of his gaze focused solely on her; the feel of his fingers brushing over hers—it had hit her with a longing she’d never felt. They’d stayed until closing time, long past when all the other agents had left.
When he’d invited her home, she’d planned to say no. But somehow, she’d stared into his deep brown eyes and found herself nodding, her heart beating faster as she’d told him to lead the way. She’d followed him out of that bar before she could change her mind.
Until this moment she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him.
She tried to forced back the emotion, tried to ignore the little voice in her head telling her it could have worked, if only she’d given him a chance. Scott might have chased after her, but he’d just wanted a repeat of that incredible night, a simple fling. It would have ended quickly, but inevitably someone would have found out. That wouldn’t have made a dent in his career, but it sure would have hurt hers.
She didn’t date other agents. As a woman, that was a quick way to make everyone around her question how she’d succeeded in the Bureau. She didn’t need that.
Especially since it had happened once before. She hadn’t gone out on a single date with her supervisor back in LA, but he’d shown interest, and that fast, the rumors had started. It had taken a transfer to Washington, DC to stop them. That romance would have been forbidden. One with Scott wasn’t—they didn’t work on the same squad. But she didn’t want to risk it—her career or her heart. Not for someone who wasn’t searching for anything remotely serious.
She’d known serious wasn’t Scott’s style the second she’d met him, years ago, when she’d been out at a pub with Maggie and Ella and a few other agents. He’d swung by their table, said hello, his gaze lingering longer on the female agents, then he’d been off. He hadn’t paid her any special attention then, but she’d definitely noticed him. She’d realized right away that it was probably better he hadn’t homed in on her, because she didn’t do casual. And it had been immediately obvious that casual was the only way he worked.
It didn’t matter how her pulse picked up at the thought of him, even a year after their one incredible, spontaneous night together. It didn’t matter how completely in tune his sense of humor had been with hers, how strangely comfortable she’d felt with him, how right his body had felt pressed against hers. It didn’t matter how much she’d wished things had turned out differently. Because the truth was, he reminded her too much of a day she wanted desperately to forget, reminded her too much of her failure.
She tried to keep her face impassive, wishing she had her own shades to cover eyes that were probably showing too much as she stared up at him. Had he decided to try again? Was she crazy to keep resisting him?
His biceps flexed as he reached up and removed his sunglasses, and that fast, Chelsie’s shoulders dropped. There was no heat in his eyes, just cool professionalism. If there was a hint of something more intimate lurking in those chocolate-colored depths, he hid it well.
“Chelsie.” Scott’s deep voice was flat and even, nothing like the way he’d growled her name as he’d lowered himself on top of her. His mouth had caressed hers exactly right, with a familiarity he shouldn’t have known. His hands had slid over her body with a similar confidence, making her writhe beneath him desperately.
She swallowed hard, trying to banish the memory, and saw recognition flicker in his eyes, and couldn’t hold his stare.
If Scott Delacorte had known exactly how to touch her, it wasn’t because they were somehow magically in tune. It was because he had a lot of practice. Chances were he’d long since moved on. If she couldn’t seem to do the same, she at least needed to do a better job of pretending.
Gritting her teeth, she tried to hide her reaction and looked back into his eyes.
His blank expression had cracked, letting a hint of what she’d seen in his eyes a year ago peek through. But his voice was hard and urgent as he demanded, “I need you to get in the SUV and come with me.”
“What? Why—”
“Connors escaped from jail this morning. We’re putting you in protective custody.”
* * *
AS SCOTT SPED out of the WFO’s parking structure, he sensed Andre’s gaze on him from the passenger seat. They’d been partners since Scott joined HRT. When you’ve put your life in someone else’s hands enough times, spent enough missions scouting out targets for days on end, you got to know the person. Andre definitely knew something was up.
Scott had never told him about Chelsie. He wasn’t the type to kiss and tell in general, but he wasn’t completely secretive, either. Still he’d never spoken to anyone about what he’d shared with Chelsie. Somehow, it felt too intimate, and he wanted to lock the memory away, keep it only for himself.
From the backseat, Chelsie finally spoke up. “How’d he get out?”
“Faked a medical emergency,” Scott said. “The ambulance was in a car crash. Connors overpowered his guard and then tackled the driver. He was gone before the police arrived.”
Andre turned in his seat, stretched his hand toward Chelsie. “Special Agent Andre Diaz. Scott and I are partners at HRT.”
“Chelsie Russell. So, Andre, why the protective custody?”
Tension vibrated in her voice. As an agent, she was well aware they wouldn’t put her into protective custody simply because a criminal from one of her cases had escaped.
“There was a break-in at your apartment this afternoon, about an hour after Connors got out,” Andre said in his typical straightforward way.
“What? Why didn’t anyone call me?”
“There’s probably a message on your phone,” Scott said. “You were in a meeting.”
Scott sensed Chelsie lean forward in the backseat, and he couldn’t help but notice the familiar scent of her strawberry shampoo. He wanted to reach his hand back and clasp it around hers, but he swallowed the urge and tightened his grip on the steering wheel instead. She might still have been attracted to him on some level—he’d seen that in her wide blue eyes the second she’d stepped close to him in the WFO parking lot—but Chelsie had made her feelings about him clear.
“Did he take anything? And how did he find me?” Chelsie asked.
“Well, the place wasn’t ransacked,” Scott answered. “We don’t know how he tracked you down.” Her information was unlisted, but apparently Connors’s skills extended beyond his rifle.
“Are you sure it was Connors?”
“No. But prison officials went through Connors’s cell after he got out and it seems like the guy was fixated on you.” Scott gritted his teeth, remembering the briefing the team had gotten from Froggy an hour ago. The Bureau wanted Chelsie Russell in protective custody, and since Connors had gotten his marksman training from the military, they wanted a pair of snipers watching her.
HRT did protective details all the time. Protecting another agent was an unusual assignment, but Scott had volunteered. Every time he thought about Connors, he remembered how the man had shot the tactical mirror out of his hand from two hundred yards away. There were top-notch snipers in HRT, but this was Chelsie’s life they were talking about. Regardless of her feelings for him, he had to be the one protecting her. And Andre, good friend that he was, had immediately raised his hand, too, when Scott volunteered.
“He fixated on me, how?” Chelsie asked, her voice tight.
“Your name was written repeatedly in a notebook that was found in his cell,” Andre said. “He had limited internet privileges and when they checked, they discovered that he’d been looking for information on you.”
At Connors’s murder trial, the prosecuting attorney had argued the only reason the two community-center workers and Chelsie had lived was because Connors hadn’t been able to line up shots on them. He’d been drawn to the site because of the military connection, but for some reason, after his capture, he’d become obsessed with Chelsie.
