Nina crouched in front of Emily while her father wrapped his arm around her shoulder. Their greeting had been warm enough, but clearly there was distance between them. Still, that was something Mason Pierce was going to have to figure out. Though Nina figured it was likely the reason for this move to work permanently stateside. But before their family could master that hurdle, Nina had to bring Steve Adams down.
Otherwise he would torment this girl for the rest of her life.
Emily pressed her lips together. “It was last night. Just after three, because that alarm clock they gave me is so bright it lights up the room, so it was the first thing I saw.” She paused. “I don’t know what woke me, but he was there. Standing in the corner. Just watching me.” She pointed to a dresser, where Nina imagined the man had perched on the surface and waited.
But for what? While Nina had been resting at Wyatt’s, unknown, Steve Adams had been here. They’d gone to Montana and come back, and she hadn’t said anything. They couldn’t assume Mr. Thomas was idle, not when he took every opportunity to move.
Mason shifted. “Did he touch you?”
Emily glanced at her father, a slight frown on her face. “No. He stayed over there. We just talked, and then he walked out the door.”
Nina exhaled. This was unreal. She glanced at Wyatt, who stood in the doorway, a door Steve Adams had walked out of. Wyatt nodded. He understood what she was feeling. That the man should never ever have been able to get in this house. Protective custody. What were they supposed to do when nowhere was safe for this girl?
Nina turned back to her. “What did you talk about?”
“He told me a story. About a curious little mouse that was free to play all she wanted, but she was hungry for cheese so badly that she got all of her little mouse friends killed.” Emily’s mouth curled. “It wasn’t a very good story. But he seemed to think it was important.”
Nina nodded. “It was.” She squeezed Emily’s hand. “Did he say anything else?”
Emily shrugged. “Not really.”
“Nothing about coming back?” Nina saw Mason glance at her as he picked up on the fact her question was significant.
“No. He didn’t say that. It was more like he wanted to pass you a message, but I don’t really know what it was.”
“That’s okay, I understand it,” Nina told her. “You did great.” She was about to get up when Mason spoke.
“Why didn’t you tell Gramma or one of the marshals that he was here?” He clearly wanted to downplay his concern, but it was there. A father’s heart of love for his daughter even though their relationship had been characterized by the physical distance of his deployment.
“He walked out the door,” Emily said. “How could he do that unless one of them let him in and out? I was scared. I thought Mr. Thomas must be friends with one of the marshals or something. How else did he just leave without anyone stopping him?”
Nina explained his history as a CIA agent, and what that meant for his skills at covert operations. He could certainly break into and out of a house without anyone knowing. But he shouldn’t have even known where Emily and Theresa were.
Mason turned to Wyatt. “How did this happen?”
Wyatt didn’t react, even under the pressure of the soldier’s stare. “That is a very good question. One I will find an answer to.”
“He could have killed her—” Mason’s voice broke. “Hurt her.”
Nina still had Emily’s hand in hers. She could see the girl grow concerned over her father’s reaction, so she squeezed her hand again. “I don’t know. We’re tougher than we look. Right, Em?”
The girl cracked a smile. Her voice was small, but she lifted her chin. “Right.”
“Nothing about this is right,” Mason said. “Not one thing.”
Nina stood and tugged on Emily’s hand. “Why don’t you run downstairs and see what your Gramma is doing?”
“I know you just want to talk about me while I’m not here.” She stood up. “But whatever. I don’t want to talk about Mr. Thomas anyway.” Her gaze zeroed in on Nina. “I want to go home.”
Nina said, “I’m working on that.”
“Whatever.” The girl left.
Mason linked his fingers behind his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Look, I know how you feel.” Wyatt stepped forward.
The soldier shook his head. “You have kids?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t know how I feel. There’s no way.”
Wyatt sighed.
Nina took a step closer to Mason, but he cut her off before she could speak. “They’re done here. I don’t care how ‘safe’ you deem them. He got in here.”
Wyatt’s eyes were dark. “We’ll definitely be moving them, of course. But we’ll also figure out how this happened.”
“You had better.” Mason paused. To let his words sink in? “Now we finish this. You know what that message was, right? About the ‘little mouse.’”
Nina nodded. “That’s what Steve Adams called me when I was a little girl. Before he killed my mother.” She glanced at Wyatt. “Now we need a plan to draw him out. That’s what I’m thinking we need to do. Lay a trap for him, and when he shows up—” She clapped. “Snap it shut.” Both men nodded, but neither spoke, so Nina said, “All we need is someone to be bait whom he wants strongly enough to get his attention. Make him come to us.”
“No.” Wyatt started to say more, but Mason cut him off before he could finish his thought.
“How about you?” Emily’s father folded his arms, his hard stare directed at Nina. “So eager to catch him, I’m guessing I’m not good enough bait for that. We can try, and I’d do it just for the chance to get face-to-face with this guy. But I don’t see you jumping at the chance to do this. Seems more like you want the marshal here to do it for you.”
“Of course I’m going to be the bait,” Wyatt said.
She shuddered just hearing the words. “No, you aren’t. If anyone is going to be bait, it’s me.”
“If you’re going to argue about it,” Mason said, “why don’t we make it a party and all go in?”
Wyatt laid his hand on her shoulder. “Nina has been fighting this guy for years. I don’t want her near him, though I can understand why you’d want to be part of the takedown of the man who traumatized your daughter.”
Mason said, “Seems to me like she’s holding up pretty well under the circumstances.”
Nina couldn’t believe he was brushing it off. Maybe he just needed to feel like things were better than they really were, or convince himself he was making it that way. Or he didn’t want to be the bait, and he just didn’t want to say that.
But Mason had to wake up, or Emily would be so far gone off the rails he’d never be able to get her back.
Nina said, “He gets in your head. Emily knows that, I know that. He’s tied himself to her in the same way he tied himself to me. He thinks he helped us, or that we should be grateful.” She swallowed down the hot rush of emotion, determined not to lose control. “This thing consumed my entire life, and now I finally have the chance to end it so that the same doesn’t happen to Emily. You think I wouldn’t gladly be bait?”
“No.” Wyatt squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not doing this, Nina. I’m not going to let you.”
“Well, then, who is?”
“I am.”
* * *
Wyatt caught her gaze and motioned with his head for Nina to step to one side with him. They’d spent hours planning. Now it was time to go.
But not before they talked.
Nina frowned, but went with him. She’d barely spoken to him since his declaration that he go in alone. The plan had coalesced to him and Mason, with it being broadcast over the airwaves that Nina and Emily were with them, just to make it all the more tempting for Steve Adams.
Wyatt took her to one of their conference rooms and shut the door. He braced himself for her ire. She hadn’t been happy that he was the one to risk himself, while she waited in the van. It was likely this would hurt as much as their conversation in the plane. He was putting himself on the line, along with Mason, to help her fix her problem. She had to realize that.
Wyatt pushed away his twisting thoughts and faced her down. “I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re good with the plan.”
Nina shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be? Of course you need to be the one to do the takedown.”
He didn’t miss the sarcasm in her voice, but chose to continue on. “I want you to stick in the van with Parker.”
“I’m not going to jeopardize this operation. I have more professional experience than that.”
“Look.” Wyatt sighed. “I know you wanted to be in on this, but I want you to be safe.”
Wyatt had seen over and over agents who had to witness an innocent get hurt just to obey an order. When they couldn’t take it and disobeyed the call to hold their positions, things always went wrong. Parker could control Nina, but if she made up her mind and he was distracted for a second, then she could slip away from him and wind up getting hurt.
“Nina—”
“No, I think we’re done with this conversation. You seem to think I can’t be a professional, like I’ve forgotten all my training in the last few weeks.” She stuck her hands on her hips. “Just because you’re the bait doesn’t mean you’re the only one in the line of fire. Once we sight him we’ll be moving in, and I’ll be in the lead. You think you’re shutting me out, but you’re the one who doesn’t see that this is a team effort. It won’t be just you out there. It’ll be all of us.”
Wyatt stepped closer and reached for her.
Nina took a step back. “I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “You thought I was mad you overruled me. You don’t get to make accusations like that and then feel bad just because I pointed out that you’re being unreasonable.”
“Well, I do feel bad, okay?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure you’ve made your true feelings clear. You’re the big man doing the takedown. I’m just the little woman sitting safe in the van.”
Seriously? That’s what she thought? “Nina, I care about you. I would have thought that was pretty obvious by now. I’m still here. Now tell me why it’s bad I want you to be safe?”
“There’s no way you could get out of this without us ending him...as a team. But apparently you’re not interested in that.”
What she said clicked in his brain. “So you do want him dead.”
“He wants us dead.”
“You know, you might have to face the fact that he’s going to be arrested. I won’t kill him unless he makes a move to kill me, Mason, or any other officer. It has to be justified, but that’s nowhere close to what I’m aiming for. It’s not justice if he wants to be dead so he can escape the punishment he’s due.”
Wyatt took a step back, glad he finally knew what page they were on. “He’s controlled your life for so long I don’t think you even realize how bad it is at this point. He’s sucked you in, made you consider things you’d never even have thought of if the desire to get revenge for what he did to your family wasn’t so strong.”
“This isn’t revenge. It’s justice for the team to take him down.”
“You think he cares about that? He’s got you so twisted around it’s like you want to form some kind of club with Emily Pierce. Yes, you both went through something traumatic. But that doesn’t make you...what, sisters?”
“I can’t care about her?”
“You want to think this is healthy, but it isn’t. I think it’s gone on so long you don’t know how to live without the shadow of Steve Adams in your life. You say you have this great teaching job lined up for your future, but you can’t even get in a real relationship.” He dropped his hands, realizing he was edging into hurtful territory and ready to shut it down. And he would, in one second. “If you could, things between us would be a whole lot different. But instead I have to shut you out, and you have to stay in the van.”
He really, seriously was worried about her. Wyatt wanted good things for her, but it was like she had been damaged by Steve Adams. Maybe a kind of PTSD, he didn’t know exactly. But he’d seen it in his father’s inability to function when he realized a little girl had died because he hadn’t moved faster in the case. True or not, it was how he had processed what happened to him.
Nina was doing the same thing, and she didn’t even know it.
Wyatt didn’t want to say anything else that would get her upset, so he left.
It was time to go, and as it was he barely made the coordinated meet with Mason Pierce. The whole situation had been orchestrated, and it had to go down right, or they would lose the element of surprise with Steve Adams.
The team element Nina had mentioned wasn’t lost on him. That was why Parker and the rest of the guys were there. But Nina would be safe, Wyatt had made sure of that.
She might not want to accept it, but somewhere in all this Wyatt had fallen for her.
Wyatt drove Mason to a house on the edge of town, the place they’d broadcast was the new safe house for Emily and Theresa. Of course it was totally empty. They were taking a lot of chances trying to convince Steve Adams of an elaborate untruth, hoping it would draw him out.
The house was furnished, but with that musty smell of being closed up for too long.
Mason paced the downstairs living area. Wyatt checked his phone, a burner Parker had supplied him with, then clicked his radio. “In position.”
Parker answered. “Roger that. Switching to radio silence.”
Wyatt didn’t want to think about the fact that Nina was in the van, two streets over. They’d set up surveillance, but it was limited to ensure Adams didn’t catch onto it.
“Dude, you look like someone kicked your cat.”
Wyatt glanced at Mason. Lighthearted in a situation like this? The man was totally military. He knew when to get serious, but he could take the hit of adrenaline and keep on joking. “Sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Let me guess. She turned you down?”
Wyatt shook his head.
“Got you all tied up in knots and then shut you down. Seen it before. Dude, it even happened to me. Honestly one of the biggest surprises of my life.” Mason blew out a puff of air. “One moment everything’s fine, video chats, phone calls. Emails. Then it slows down. Eventually it’s a trickle. Then I get divorce papers in the mail. In Afghanistan.”
“Harsh.”
“You have no idea.” Mason shook his head. “Now my kid’s a stranger, my wife is the shadow in the room no one wants to talk about and my days are filled with trying to put back together something that’s still going to be incomplete when I’m done.”
Wyatt nodded, unsure what to say.
“Then I realize I got Emily out of it. Even if I’ve got nothing but trust issues, an estranged daughter and some good memories mixed in with a whole load of crappy ones—I still have a child. A precious daughter I will twist myself inside and out to win back.” Mason went so still it was like he was a statue. He started to talk, made one incomprehensible noise and collapsed.
Wyatt whirled around. The barbs of a Taser imbedded themselves in the vest he wore, but one hit the skin of his neck. The shock of it made his breath catch. The force of the voltage coursed through him, and he blacked out for a second.
He came to when Steve Adams pulled the gun from the holster on Wyatt’s hip and shot two rounds into Mason Pierce.