Bradley pulled over to the curb and stared at the scene playing out on his sister’s street. His left eye still smarted from the blow he’d received in Steve’s “game.” He’d killed two of the Double Down guys, and gotten tagged in the eye by the female operator going for his forehead. But after he processed the fact she’d been taller than he was, he hadn’t let her get him. Bradley had managed to slip away before she could regroup from his retaliation.
Now, cops and black and white cars with their lights flashing crowded the street. An ambulance was parked by the curb in front of his sister’s apartment. The back doors were open, and inside a familiar figure sat receiving medical attention.
What was going on?
He grabbed the door handle and hopped out before he realized he hadn’t shut off the engine. Alexis always made him act stupid. Nothing has changed there. He pulled the keys out and pocketed them, then made his way to her at a far more sedate pace. Where was Rachel? And why had Alexis come here on a night when his sister asked him to come over?
His ankle kicked back at him with every step. That pang of pain. He pulled back even more, slowing his pace. It was pure luck Rachel had caught him on two weeks of medical down-time between missions. Also, when he’d happened to be talking with Double Down Inc. about his plans for when he left the service.
He was OUTCONUS on missions all over the world close to three hundred days a year, but she’d called him this afternoon during his interview.
I have to tell you something.
Bradley stepped up to the back of the ambulance, where an EMT held gauze against Alexis’s temple. “Where’s my sister?”
Her eyes lifted, and he watched like it was slow motion. Relief he was there. The realization that she wanted him there. Guilt. Frustration. He was pretty sure all that would be written over his face as well if he hadn’t learned to keep it locked up tight. Who knew SEALs training would come handy in relationships?
Not that they had a relationship.
Anymore.
Underlying everything that Alexis’s face broadcast loud and clear was one thing that beat out the rest: pure terror.
His stomach clenched. “Alexis, where’s Rachel?”
“Sir!” A suited man strode over, not much older than him. The guy flashed a badge. FBI. “I’m Agent Walker.”
“Master Chief Bradley Harris.” Since they were doing titles.
He walked with the man over to the curb in front of his sister’s house. Out of earshot of Alexis. Bradley said, “What’s going on?”
“Approximately one hour ago, Senator Harris was abducted from her home. The Secret Service agents on your sister’s detail were either incapacitated or killed.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Alexis. And that haunted look in her eyes.
“She was in the house when it happened.” The agent answered the question Bradley hadn’t asked. “We’re trying to ascertain if she had anything to do with what happened. So far she’s been too shaken up to answer any questions. It can’t be a coincidence, though. Your sister is abducted on the same night her disgraced former assistant is paying her a visit?”
It hit the tip of his tongue to tell the agent Alexis would never put Rachel in harm’s way. That she would never do anything to harm her friend. But he didn’t know that, did he? After everything that had happened, he had to face the fact he didn’t know Alexis at all.
Maybe once upon a time he could’ve said that.
Bradley squeezed the back of his neck, and looked at his boots.
“Are you aware of anyone who might want to do something like this?”
He glanced up. “Abduct my sister? No. Who would do that?”
“No one she was up against, who might’ve had a grudge?”
“You’ll have to ask her assistant that. I don’t exactly keep close tabs.” He realized how that sounded. “We’re close, but I’m not in Virginia all that much and I’m not all up in her work.” And it wasn’t like he could tell her what he was doing. She didn’t have the clearance.
“We’re contacting her assistant, and I have agents already at her office looking through her files to see if any threats have been made,” the agent said. “We’re also going to talk to Ms. Calvert.”
Alexis.
She’d been part of their lives for years. Bradley struggled to think of a memory of Rachel that didn’t also have Alexis in it. At the time it had seemed so natural for their relationship to slip into more. Then came the awkwardness after, and wondering what Rachel was going to think. It had soured everything at a time when he’d been heading out for deployment. When he’d come back, Alexis had retreated into her head. She’d pushed him away and told him it was for the best. Bradley didn’t want to believe it’d been because of him. But then, he’d always been good at denial.
“I’ll talk to her.” He swallowed, wondering if it would even help. “She’s more likely to open up to me than someone with a badge.”
“She has a grudge against cops?”
Bradley shook his head and just made his way to her, rather than get into all that with the agent. Alexis probably didn’t want someone “official” wading through her business. It had already been splashed across social media and the news. He wondered how she’d even survived that when she’d always been such a private person.
Then again, if she hadn’t wanted it exposed, then she shouldn’t have done what she’d done. Right?
Bradley scratched the side of his head, trying to nail down the frustration so he didn’t blow this conversation. He wanted to feel sorry for her that she’d gone through all that—having her private life blasted everywhere. But what was he supposed to think? She’d rejected him. It hardly even made sense to him that a woman like her would choose that. Over what they could have had? Made no sense.
The EMT had leaned close to her. Too close. The man’s lips moved as he said something in her ear. She stiffened.
“Lex.” He said the nickname before he even realized it.
Her attention shifted, latching onto him. A lifeline.
Bradley steeled himself against that need to rescue her. To be the one who saved her. He glanced at the EMT. “You done?”
Alexis scooted forward on the stretcher to the open door. “He’s done.” She shot the medic a look. The guy had said something to her she hadn’t liked.
Alexis hit the mouth of the ambulance as he held his hand out. Helped her down. She blew out a breath. “Great timing as always.”
“Except not, since I got here after Rachel was taken.” He looked at his watch. “She didn’t want me here until nine-thirty.”
Alexis frowned. “She asked me to come at seven.”
All this had happened in an hour and a half? Never mind the fact Rachel had invited them to come in the same night. Bradley couldn’t make sense of this. Had she wanted to meet with them separately, or was his sister’s plan for Alexis to still be at the house when Bradley showed up? She was a politician. He wouldn’t put it past Rach to finagle a reconciliation.
Like that was going to work.
“Why’d she call you over?”
Alexis chewed her lip.
“Just tell me, okay? Whatever it is can’t be worse than my sister being who-knows-where at the hands of a crazy person.”
Tears filled her eyes. “She—”
Bradley waited, but that was all she gave him. “What?”
“He’s going to hurt her.” There was more she didn’t say. But he couldn’t ask about that right now.
Bradley got close. Forced her to focus on him only, and not anyone else. Or the fact that the special agent was listening to everything. “Who?”
Alexis sucked in a choppy breath. “I don’t know.”
The agent snorted. “You expect us to believe that? You’re her closest friend. Or you were. So who would have taken her?”
A tear rolled down her face.
“Who?”
“I don’t know who he is.” The fear in her eyes, that pure unadulterated horror, washed over him. Bradley wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her tight. Keep her safe from all of it. But what he needed to do was help find Rachel. Alexis would be safe. She was scared, yes—but for her friend. Rachel was the one in danger right now.
“What can you tell the agent who’s going to help them find her?”
Alexis shook her head, rubbing at her jaw with a shaky hand. That was a nasty injury on her temple. “I don’t know.”
The agent’s tone dripped with sarcasm as he said, “We’re supposed to believe—”
“I don’t know!” She screamed the words at him.
“I should arrest you for conspiracy.”
“Do it!”
Bradley wound an arm across the front of her body and pulled her back three steps. “Alexis. You need to calm down.”
Her breath came in gasps as she deflated in his arms, her body bucking as she started to cry. Big, body-wracking sobs.
Bradley scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the front steps of Rachel’s neighbor’s house. He sat and held her on his lap as she cried, rubbing his hand up and down her back. She sucked in a breath. “He’s—” Another breath. “Oh God, he’ll—”
“Talk to me, Lex. Who?”
She shook her head.
“If you know something that will help them find her, you have to tell me.” Otherwise he would let them arrest her. At least it meant they’d scare her into talking.
“She’s probably so scared.” A low moan escaped her throat.
He pulled her tighter against him.
Her body hitched and she started to pull away from him. He shook his head. “Lex.” Tried to hold on tighter. Why was she always pushing him away?
She shoved out of his arms, her hand planted on the railing and she retched on the steps in front of him.
Bradley got up and pulled her hair back from her face. He looked at the agent. “Get her some water.”
The agent didn’t move. “Looks like all the signs of a guilty conscience if you ask me.”
“No one is.”
Alexis straightened. “My friend is out there—” She waved her hand at the city beyond this street. “—scared out of her mind, and probably fighting for her life. And you’re being glib?” Bradley touched her shoulder, but she shrugged him off and squared her shoulders. “I want your superior here. I want an agent capable of acting like a professional.”
“Good one.” The agent sneered. “You of all people, lecturing me on acting like a professional?”
Alexis’s whole body flinched.
The agent didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t care. “Excuse me while I go find your friend. And if I find out you had anything to do with this, you’ll be in cuffs faster than you can say Snapchat.”
She didn’t back down until he’d walked away. Then she just…deflated again. Slumped against the railing like that was the extent of the fight she had in her.
Bradley studied her. She didn’t have the guilty edge of someone who’d done what they set out to do. Or who’d been duped into it. She might know more than she was saying, but Alexis wasn’t involved. He knew that. He knew her.
Or, at least, he had. He’d known her in every way a man could know a woman. But, was that any more than a college fling for her? A onetime, home-on-leave, fling for him. Tell yourself that. The fact she hadn’t wanted to talk about it afterwards didn’t stop him from making more of it than it was. He’d never considered himself a romantic, but there was something about him and Alexis that was just…right.
But that was years ago. Since then, he’d gotten saved, and he knew precisely what the Bible said about what they’d done. They’d known it was wrong as well. And while he didn’t want to live with that guilt—and gave it to God daily—maybe there was more they had to do. A way they could reconcile things between them so he didn’t feel like she’d trapped him—forever, in a way he’d never be able to get past her. And didn’t think he ever would.
“You want me to give you a ride home?”
Tonight wasn’t the night for that talk. It might’ve been why Rachel had called them both here, but he couldn’t know that now. Not until he saw Alexis back to wherever she lived and hit the streets to find his sister.
With the help of Double Down.
Alexis nodded and pushed off the railing, clutching one arm across her stomach. He waited while she grabbed her purse, and spoke with one of the police officers. The man was aloof. Bradley could understand why, considering her public persona. The brush she’d been painted with on social media.
The guys on his SEAL team had peppered him with questions about her when it all came out. Bradley had been too shocked to do anything but tell them all to buzz off. None of their business. Even though the internet seemed to think it was everyone’s business.
Still, the way her shoulders slumped and seemed to turn inward. The defeated look on her face. He had to rub a hand across his chest over that aching muscle that had never really let her go.
Bradley held the passenger door for her, and shut it after she’d climbed in. He rounded the F150 to his side. Sat in his seat, he asked for her address.
She gave him cross streets.
“You live above the Walgreens, or what?”
“You can drop me off there. It’s fine.”
“Do you need something for your head?”
She glanced at him as he pulled out. “I just want to go home. Can you please drop me off there without twenty questions? I’m exhausted, and—” Her voice broke.
Bradley heard her fighting back tears for the next two miles of Georgetown traffic. The area she’d directed him towards was run down. Where did she live? Certainly nowhere near the Virginia condo she’d been at before. That complex was high-end, and she’d been so happy the day they moved her in. This Alexis was…broken.
A consequence of her own making?
He wanted to listen to logic. All the evidence said her own actions had brought her low. But what was the truth? She’d been sweet. Honest. That post online was the opposite of everything he’d ever understood about her. Everything he’d loved about her.
He pulled over in front of the Walgreens.
She got out, then turned back. “If you…” She took a breath. “If you hear anything, will you call me?”
Bradley nodded. “You, too. Okay?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and conceded with a nod.
“And I want you calling me if you need anything. Or if you think you’re in danger. Got it?” She knew him. She knew he had to ask. No matter what had happened between them, Bradley would be there for her.
Alexis stared at him for a full minute, then finally said, “Thank you.”
She shut the door. Bradley sat in silence until he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. Then he inhaled. She’d looked at him like he was the best man she’d ever met. But it also seemed like she thought he just might be her only hope. And maybe he could be. He was a good guy. It made him feel kind of good about himself…until he realized it also meant she thought she was in trouble.
Serious trouble.
Bradley watched her move down the sidewalk—without going into the Walgreens—and turn a corner. He pulled onto the street and followed. Traffic slowed enough for him to see her enter a rundown apartment building behind the pharmacy. The parking lot was a mess of cracked concrete and weeds. Busted out windows. Boarded up doors.
This was where she was living?