Silent Rescue

Most days were like that. The same people at the same time, fully predictable. Nicely so.

Brooks noted them all, and noted the discrepancies even more.

Like right that second.

A tall, slim brunette was coming up the sidewalk on the other side of the street. She had her chin tucked into the collar of her tan duffle coat, hurrying, but trying to look like she wasn’t. She kept her head still and her gaze forward, but every two or three steps, her eyes would dart first one way, then the other. Maybe the average observer wouldn’t have noticed. Or maybe just assumed she was looking for a certain address. To Brooks, she looked like trouble.

Automatically, he sat up a little straighter, making more detailed mental notes.

Five foot eight, easily. Maybe five-nine.

A hundred and twenty pounds? Bulky jacket, though. Could add a few pounds to her frame.

Too thin, Brooks thought absently. Not eating? Ill, maybe?

Except her face had nothing sallow about it. Her skin was pale, but in a porcelain way rather than a sickly one. Altogether pretty, actually.

She got closer still, and Brooks fleshed out his description even more. Tight bun at the nape of her neck. Thick enough to let him know her hair would be long. A stray curl hung down over one cheek—which he could see now wasn’t quite so pale, but instead, marked with a rosy glow. Likely brought on by the cold, he thought. Her lips were full and nearly crimson, and she was makeup-free.

And not just pretty, he realized. Stand-out-in-a-crowd stunning.

Was that why she wore her hair in that severe style? Did it have something to do with her plain skin? A mask?

She’d reached the corner across from him now, and, for a second, she just stood there, her stare seemingly fixed on the café. Then she lifted a pair of sunglasses from her pocket, placed them on her face and leaped from the sidewalk to the street. Straight into the path of a brave winter cyclist.

Brooks’s heart jumped to his throat, but before he could react—and rush in like some deranged, parka-clad hero—the woman sidestepped lightly, lifted her hand in an apology and moved toward the café. Straight toward Brooks.

* * *

Maryse’s eyes rested on the man sitting in front of the café that neighbored the Maison Blanc.

He was dressed for the weather. But something about him made her think he didn’t belong. And even though he looked away quickly, his gaze had been too sharp, his interest in her too pointed. Did he know something? Or was she being paranoid?

An hour and a half in the car hadn’t done her mind any good. Try as she might to stay focused on making a plan, her brain had insisted on swirling with dark worry, playing out every one of her worst fears.

Cami is alive, she told herself firmly.

She had to be. But the breathless, sick feeling churning through her wouldn’t rest.

From behind her deliberately dark sunglasses, Maryse let herself study the man for another few seconds, while pretending to look at the hotel.

Under his hood, she could just see that his hair was buzz-cut, his face clean shaven. He had a thick build, made even more so by the big, black coat. His face had a certain roughness, too. A fierce mouth and the strongest jaw she’d ever seen. Powerfully handsome. That was how she would describe him. But when he lifted his eyes to her once more, his expression softened him somehow. There was a measure of concern there. Kindness.

So, no. It’s not him, she decided. There won’t be anything kind about whoever took her.

Her gaze stayed on him for one more moment before she moved past him—and his undeniable undercurrent of attractiveness—and past the café toward the brass-framed doors of the Maison Blanc. She pushed her way through, appreciating the blast of warm air that hit her as she did. It took the edge off her hours-long chill. But she didn’t pull off her gloves as she strode toward the counter—she needed them to curb the urge to sign as she spoke.

Hoping she looked more confident than she felt, she approached the concierge desk. But the uniformed man behind the counter was on the phone, speaking in a hushed tone, his brows knit together with irritation. He didn’t turn her way, and Maryse let out a little cough. She didn’t have time to waste. So when he still didn’t look up, she cleared her throat a second time.

He spun, seeming startled by her presence.

For a second, that paranoia reared its head again. She forced it back and dragged her sunglasses from her face to her head.

He set the phone down on the counter, then smiled at her. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Maryse replied, glad that her voice didn’t shake. “I’m meeting some people—a couple of business contacts—and I think they gave me the wrong room number. The key I have won’t open the door, and no one answered when I knocked.”

“Which room is it supposed to be?”

“Two-twenty-eight?” She lied quickly, hoping there was a room 228.

She tugged the key from her coat pocket and handed it over. He took it and swiped it across the keyboard in front of him, then frowned at the screen.

“Well,” he said. “That explains it. This key is for room eight—no two-twenty in front of it—right here on the first floor. But I’m afraid they’ve asked for calls to be held, and I can’t issue you a new key unless the room is in your name.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.

The concierge tapped the key card on the counter for a second, then smiled again. “You know what I can do for you, though? I can take you down to room eight myself and we can check if your contact is there. We’ll call it a housekeeping emergency.”

Maryse considered the offer. Then rejected it. She was tempted. She wanted to get to Cami. Badly. But she didn’t want to endanger anyone else.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll just give them a call on my cell and leave a message.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

She slipped away from the counter and moved to the chairs in the lobby area. She perched on the edge of one of them, then pulled out her phone and pretended to dial. But she was really watching the concierge. Waiting for a distraction. And it only took a few moments. He lifted the desk phone again and started up with his hushed conversation, turning away from the lobby in the process.

Thank God.

Moving as swiftly as she dared, she eased herself up. She took another glance at the concierge, then scurried across the tiled floor to the hallway, pausing just long enough to read which direction would lead her to room eight, then hurried to the left. She stripped off her gloves now—she’d need her hands to talk to Cami—and counted off the doors in her head.

One.

Two.

Three.

And that was as far as she got. Something jabbed her in the back, and then a click sounded from behind her, and a man’s gravelly voice spoke right into her ear.

“Move,” it said. “Slowly. Walk with me and act like you’re having a good time. If you scream, run or try anything I think is funny, I’ll make sure your daughter is the one who pays the price. Even think about getting the authorities involved and I’ll make sure the price is extracted slowly. And not from you.”

The threat was more than enough to make her obey.

Chapter 2

Brooks took a sip of his espresso—now cold—and told himself he was being ridiculous. That he had an overactive cop imagination waving flags when none were necessary.

For a second, though, he could’ve sworn the dark-haired woman was staring right at him. Scrutinizing him. Looking for something. Which she definitely didn’t find, judging by how quickly she bolted into the hotel.

It bothered him, and he had no idea why. What was her deal? Was she actually in trouble? He wished he’d asked her.

And say what? he wondered. Pardon me, ma’am, but are you looking for someone? Or no? Maybe hiding from someone? Yes, here in the middle of this street. No, no. Don’t call the cops.

Brooks shook his head and took another icy gulp of coffee. Canadians were friendly—that characterization had turned out to be true—but he somehow doubted that gregariousness extended to a tolerance for on-leave cops from south of the border asking nosy questions.

Still...

The sudden buzz of Brooks’s cell phone jarred his attention back to the moment.

“Small,” he said into the phone, his voice clipped.

There was a familiar chortle on the other end. “Now, now. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Does that never get old for you, Masters?” he asked his longtime partner.

“Never.”

“At least one of us is getting a laugh.”

There was a pause. “Not enjoying your vacation?”

“It’s hardly a vacation.”

“Civilian life.”

“Barely that, either. Isn’t it, like, four in the morning there?”

Sergeant Masters let out another chuckle. “Almost seven, actually. Finishing up the night shift.”

“So you thought you’d call me?”

“Oh, c’mon, Small. I hear the Great White North has plenty to offer.”

“Like?”

“Hockey? Canadian bacon? Girls looking for a warm-blooded American to melt their igloos?”

Brooks rolled his eyes. “You’ve been watching too many movies, my friend.”

“You’re telling me there isn’t one pretty girl in that entire country?”

Brooks opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again as he lifted his eyes just in time to see the brunette step out of the hotel doors. The top button of her coat had come undone, exposing her creamy throat, and she appeared oblivious to the cold air.

Yeah, he conceded silently. At least one pretty girl.

“You there, man?”

Brooks forced his attention back to the phone conversation. “What I’m telling you, Masters, is that there isn’t one single igloo here—meltable or otherwise—and quite frankly, I’m a little let down.”

On the other end, his partner laughed so hard he sounded like he was choking. When his amusement finally subsided, he launched into some story about their captain. But Brooks was already distracted again, the long tale fading into the background.

A man in a dark trench coat worn over a well-tailored suit was standing behind the woman. A poor-boy cap covered his head, a scarf obscured the bottom half of his face, and a pair of dark sunglasses blocked his eyes.

A tingle crept up along Brooks’s spine, then settled between his shoulder blades.

He’d tuned out Masters’s voice completely now, his attention focused entirely on the scene unfolding in front of him. He’d already set down his empty coffee cup. He kept his hands open and relaxed. He didn’t have to work on the pose at all. Years on the job—years of waiting patiently for the right moment while looking like he wasn’t waiting at all—bred a certain kind of readiness into a man. A second nature.

Brooks’s eyes flicked to the man in the cap. Then to the brunette. Then back.

The man leaned down and put his face at an even level with her ear. Brooks watched his mouth work silently above the scarf. Though he couldn’t hear a word, the intimacy of the conversation was obvious. Seconds later, the man put out his hand, palm up, and the woman reciprocated by placing her fingers in his.

A gold wedding band—on the woman’s left hand, but not on the man’s—caught the cold sun and glittered.

A total misread, Brooks realized.

It wasn’t a criminal activity. It was an affair.

He averted his eyes, embarrassed that he’d been so caught up in the brunette’s action that he’d attributed her nervousness to something dangerous, when in fact it was actually caused by something far more cliché.

You need to get back to work. For real.

“Masters,” he said loudly, interrupting the unending flow of the other man’s story and not caring in the least. “Did the captain say anything about when I can come home?”

The silence on the other end was a bad sign. Clearly, something had been said, and whatever it was...the news wasn’t good.

“C’mon,” his partner replied after a few weighted seconds. “Any of the guys would kill to be in your position. Paid leave in a foreign country? No collars to run down, no worrying about having some two-bit drug dealer shooting you in the—”

Brooks cut him off. “I’ll take that as a no.”

There was another pause, then a sigh. “We all know what hell you went through, Small. None of us would wish it on our worst enemies. But you lost control. A good man died.”

Regret hit Brooks straight in the gut. More painful than a gunshot wound, and far more lasting, too.

He refused to let it overwhelm him. “Parler slept with my informant. He got himself killed. And the girl, too. The man’s ‘goodness’ is questionable at best.”

This time, the blank air went on for so long that Brooks thought momentarily that his partner might’ve hung up. He knew better, though. Masters was simply giving him a chance to retract his statement. To let his brain catch up to his mouth. But he wasn’t going to give in to the silence.

I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a killer.

He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until Masters answered him.

“I know that, man. Anyone with his lid screwed on tight knows that. But when the chief’s favorite rookie winds up dead...”

The other man’s voice carried on, but Brooks had tuned him out again, this time because he really didn’t want to hear what Masters had to say.

His gaze drifted back toward the striking brunette, but she and her lover were gone.

Maybe to take their tryst to the next level. Maybe to—

Brooks’s musings cut off as he spotted them on the corner of the road.

The girl’s mouth was open in a silent cry, her body bent away from the man, who held her elbow tightly. Too tightly. The man lifted his other hand then and pressed it to the small of the woman’s back. Something metallic glinted in the small space between them.

Brooks leaped to his feet. His thighs slammed into the table hard enough to send the espresso cup rolling off. It smashed to the ground, and his jacket snagged on the chair again, leaving him stuck.

“Small?” Masters’s voice was full of concern.

“I have to go.”

“C—”

Whatever his partner had been about to say was lost as Brooks clicked the hang-up button. He abandoned his jacket, dropped the phone into his pocket and took off at a run.

Because he recognized that glint for what it was.

A gun.

* * *

Without warning, the man with the gun slid an arm around Maryse and pulled her back into a darkened doorway. He clamped a hand over her mouth, pushed the weapon into her back and warned her to keep quiet as a blurred figure went running by. Even with the freezing air surrounding her, and the thick winter coat acting as a buffer, the cool metal drove into her and made her shiver.

She wanted to recoil away from it. Almost as much as she wanted to recoil away from the man wielding it. The single glance she’d stolen before he bundled up his face was enough to make her chest squeeze with fear. His eyes were dark, angry slashes. His mouth no better. A terrible, star-shaped scar covered one cheek.

Maryse closed her eyes for just a second and reined in another shiver.

What were you expecting? she chastised silently. A kidnapper who looked like Santa Claus?

But truthfully, it didn’t matter what he looked like, any more than it mattered he had a weapon. The uncertainty of her daughter’s fate and the hope that this man would lead Maryse to her were more than enough to keep her quiet.

After several long minutes, he forced her back to the sidewalk. And as he led her through the warren of streets, she swore she could feel the cool metal barrel digging a little farther into the small of her back with each step.

Hold on, she told herself. Means to an end. This man knows where Cami is.

She resisted an urge to ask about Camille’s safety. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to hear the sound of her voice. When they’d left the hotel doors, she’d uttered a single word and he’d pinched her so hard that it still smarted.

Trying to distract herself, she glanced up at the nearest building and tried to place it. But it was too late to orient herself. They’d already managed to weave through a half dozen streets that blended together.

Rue Rouge.

Rue Laurent.

Rue...who knew what?

The corners came quickly, and the buildings were piled atop one another, each looking as drearily the same as the other.

Please, she prayed silently, just let her be okay.

In spite of her resolve not to show any emotion, tears pricked at her eyes. It got worse when she glanced up and saw a discarded doll hanging from the edge of a balcony. Normally, that kind of thing made her smile. This time, it made her cringe. Unconsciously, she slowed to stare. And it earned her yet another sharp jab.

“Go,” growled the gunman.

Maryse stumbled a little as they reached yet another corner, this one unmarked by any street sign at all. In her boot, one of her ankles twisted. Even though she tried to bite down and keep it in, a little cry escaped her lips.

Weakness, she chastised herself.

Not something she should be showing. Not if she wanted to negotiate her daughter’s release. The smallest chink in the armor could jeopardize that chance. So she ignored the searing pain that shot up her leg from her twisted ankle, and she let the man behind her push her on.

But they only made it four more steps—not quite all the way across the road—when he abruptly released her arm. As he let her go, he barked out something gutturally unintelligible. For a second, she thought he’d switched to speaking in French. Puzzled, Maryse spun to face him.

Then stepped back as he flew toward her.

What the—

Her thought cut off as her mind worked, trying to make sense of what she saw.

His eyes were wide, his mouth open. A crimson drop fell from one corner of his lips. Then his body hit the ground, and she figured it out.

Not French, she realized. And not English, either.

The sound he’d made hadn’t been words at all. Just a last utterance.

As if to confirm it, his coat flapped open, revealing an increasing pool of red, with a narrow hole in the center.

A gunshot wound.

Maryse’s gut twisted, and she doubled over. The motion saved her. A bullet whizzed by, then slammed into the ground just a few feet in front of her.

With her heart in her throat, Maryse righted herself, turned and fled toward the buildings on the other side of the road. She pushed her back flat against the icy structure just as another bullet hit the cement, this time mere inches from her boots.

Sure it had come from above, her gaze flew up, searching. Was that a pinprick of red light, up in the window of the low-rise up the road? Did the curtains just flash? But everything was still now.

She hazarded a quick glance toward the fallen man. His head had rolled to one side, and his chest no longer rose up and down at all.

Cami.

Oh, God. What did this mean for her daughter? The man on the ground had been her one link to whoever had her.

The wall Maryse had been holding around her heart for the last few hours teetered. A dull ache formed in her chest as the anxiety threatened to overwhelm her. It made her sway a little on her feet. And she stumbled.

But surprisingly, she didn’t fall.

Instead, a warm, strong hand closed on her elbow, steadying her. Then the hand pulled her back into the building. Out of sight. Out of the potential line of fire. It gripped her tightly. And for a paralyzing instant, Maryse’s instinct wasn’t fight, and it wasn’t flight. It was simply to sink into the reassuringly solid touch. And the strange sensation worsened when she looked up and met a man’s gaze. Hazel, flecked with gold, and full of genuine concern.

She had to force herself to pull away enough to take in a little more of his appearance. Whoever he was, he had a frame as bulky as it was tall, and if his height topped less than six foot three, Maryse would eat her wool hat. But as he pulled back a bit more and opened his mouth, it wasn’t his impressive size that made her gasp. It wasn’t even the fact that she finally recognized him as the man who’d been sitting outside the café near the hotel. It was the slight flash of metal at his hip.

Oh, God. This man is the shooter.

And Maryse was off as fast as her legs could take her. Three steps to the edge of the street. Another five to put her past the body lying there. Two more and—

The stranger’s body slammed into hers, then twisted. The motion sent them to the ground together, and for a second, Maryse was on top. But the momentum kept them going, and they rolled. Once. Twice. And on the third time, his powerful forearms locked to her elbows and his thick thighs locked hard against her hips, pinning her to the icy concrete.

He stared down at her, his hazel eyes dark. Like it was she who’d done something wrong. And it made Maryse mad. All the stress of the last few hours funneled through her, found purchase in her knee, then jerked up full force. The man must’ve seen something in her gaze, though, because he swung sideways at the last second, and she just barely managed to graze his hip.

“Stop,” he ordered, his voice full of authority.

Yeah, right.

“I’m trying to help you,” he growled.

Equally unlikely. She struggled harder to free herself, flailing wildly.

“Parlez-vous anglais?” he asked in badly accented French. “I want to let you go so we can get the hell out of here.”

As if to prove his point, he released her arms. She reached up to throw a fist at him, but before she could follow through, three more bullets—not quite rapid-fire, but successive enough to be thoroughly jarring—hit the building behind them.

It really wasn’t him, Maryse realized.

He glared down at her, an I-told-you-so look on his face. The smugness didn’t last longer than a second, though. Another shot made him jerk backward in surprise.

He let out a groan, then rolled off her and pushed to his feet. “C’mon.”

Maryse only hesitated for a heartbeat. Long enough to glance down and realize the flash she’d seen at his waist hadn’t been a gun—just a belt buckle. She took his outstretched hand and let him guide her away from the gruesome scene, and away from whoever was still firing on them.

And just in time. The wail of sirens cut through the air, warning them that authorities were on their way.

Chapter 3

Brooks was careful to keep their flight as casual as possible. Not just because he had a sharp, dangerous burn in his shoulder, but because he knew what the cops would be looking for. He knew what he would be looking for himself, if he was in their shoes: a couple on the run. So he hugged the buildings to stay out of sight and moved at an unsuspicious pace. He could tell that the woman—who was now gripping his hand tightly, and who still hadn’t said a word—wanted to move faster. Her feet kept trying to pick up the pace, and Brooks was the one holding them back.

Why had the sound of the siren spooked her even more?

She was visibly shaken up by the impending arrival of the police, and in Brooks’s experience, that usually meant trouble. And running from the scene of a crime... He shook his head. Never mind the legality of it, he knew how bad it looked.

Deal with it later, he said to himself. When she feels safe and is calm enough to explain.

If she ever did. She kept glancing over her shoulder, then jerking her head forward.

“If you can understand me,” Brooks said softly. “Try to focus on something ahead of you instead of thinking about what’s behind you. Look at the fire hydrant. Then, when we get there, pick something else. A sign or a landmark. Anything.”

He had no idea if she knew what he meant, or if it was just his tone, but she took a breath, and her frantic movements eased. Her pace slowed, too.