Emma’s injured arm got squished under her torso, pinned against the asphalt. Perkins landed on top of her, pressing down hard enough that Emma bit her lip to keep from screaming.
“Stay down.” Perkins’s voice was short. Efficient, but she also seemed kind of mad. Even while she was covering Emma with her body. This woman would take a bullet for her? They didn’t know each other, but maybe Perkins was exactly that type of person.
Time seemed to slow. The length between each shot that cracked across the parking lot growing longer. Every breath roared in her ears like the ocean. If Mint was going to dump her off on anyone and walk away, she was actually kind of glad it was this woman.
Perkins lifted up enough that it took the overwhelming pressure off Emma’s arm. She tugged at Emma’s other arm and said, “Up. Go to the restaurant and get inside. Keep your head down.”
She didn’t argue, just got her feet under her and started to move.
Perkins continued to cover her with her body, shielding her from bullets. Emma pushed at the front door of the restaurant.
A bullet hit the rental car and another window smashed.
Perkins shoved her inside and immediately pulled her phone out. “Mint?”
“I’m pinned down.”
Emma heard his answer, even with the phone pressed to the other woman’s ear. She also heard the stress in his voice.
“I’m coming to you,” she said.
“No.” His answer came fast. Too fast for Emma’s liking. “Stay with Emma.”
“Go help him.” Emma motioned to the door. She needed Perkins to go out there and help him. To protect him the way she had protected Emma.
Perkins didn’t move. She said, “Are you hurt?” to Mint.
The answer took too long. “Stay with Emma. I’ll call and get our back-up on their way here.”
“Fine.” Perkins hung up. She moved immediately to the window and looked out.
“You aren’t an FBI agent, are you?”
Perkins didn’t turn around. Before Emma could say anything else, a man bustled up to them. He was shorter than Emma, maybe only barely five feet tall and had more red hair on his face than was on the top of his head. “Should I call the police?”
He directed his question to Perkins. She turned back from the window. “Tell them to keep it quiet. They show up, sirens blaring, it could scare him off, and we need this guy caught. Keep everyone away from the windows, and we’ll have the situation locked down ASAP.”
She certainly sounded like a federal agent.
“I’ll get on that.” He hurried away.
She didn’t see a single head pop up above a table, and she could hear the muffled sounds of a baby crying.
Outside, shots were still being fired. But not at the restaurant.
“He’s trying to kill Mint.”
Perkins stopped her from going all the way to the window. “Will you stay here if I go assist?” She paused for a fraction of a second. “I’m not going if you’re going to stick your neck out. Figuratively or literally.”
Emma wanted to smile at that, but didn’t. “Go help Mint. I won’t move.”
She had no desire to be face to face with Aaron Jones again. And as long as he was still firing—at Mint—then she figured he wasn’t headed here to deliver another “message.” Not to mention the fact she was about to fall over. Perkins needed to help Mint. That was her skillset.
Perkins was out the door before Emma realized. She caught a glimpse of the woman moving fast, on her phone again with her gun out in the other hand. Emma slid down the nearest wall and huddled in an alcove of the foyer.
For the first time in a long time, she wanted to pray. Not to the God her mother seemed to worship, a stifling being with no personality who expected perfection from His followers. No, Emma needed a rescuer. Mint needed a rescuer. She prayed for Perkins, that she would have the strength to help him, and that she would know what to do.
After a few minutes she realized the shooting had stopped. The door opened, and Mint strode in. His face was gray, even paler than it had been only hours ago.
She shot up and met him. “Come and sit down.” She didn’t comment that he looked like he was about to fall over.
“Your arm okay?” He slumped into a chair and winced.
“My arm?” She’d been pushing the pain away since it happened. What did that matter now? Her skin felt flushed, but apart from that and the nagging ache, she was all right. “Let’s worry about you right now.” That was the important thing. He’d been hurt.
“Just scratches.” He pulled his hand away from his shoulder, but she didn’t see anything. Until he turned. The shirt on the back of his shoulder was shredded. Blood stained the edges of the tears.
He twisted, trying to look over his shoulder, and sighed. Emma moved around to his back. “Let me look.” She fingered the edges of his torn shirt and pulled it apart. Half a dozen places had been cut. “Looks like glass.”
“From the car window.”
Underneath and around the cuts were old scars. Warped skin, like he’d been burned. Pale white lines. Emma touched the edge of a prominent one and traced the line with the pad of her index finger.
Mint shot from the chair and paced away.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He didn’t answer her. Just strode to the window where he pulled out his phone and made a call. “Perkins, status.” Like he was in charge, and she reported to him.
But Emma couldn’t get those scars out of her mind. They weren’t all war wounds. She’d volunteered at a children’s hospital in college, reading stories to the kids. Keeping them company. Playing card games. She knew what abuse looked like.
His dark eyes turned to her. “Good.” He hung up the phone.
She wasn’t sure what exactly she should say. “I—”
He didn’t let her get the words out. “Perkins is headed back. Jones got away.”
Emma nodded. “Are you okay?”
He pinned her with a stare. “Are you?”
Touché.
What was that quote from that movie about being at an impasse? It fit here. They were both just stubborn enough to not admit they needed help.
“Perkins has your antibiotics.”
Determined to help her get better. Did he have anyone in his life who would do the same for him? The way he’d held back from her. The way he was professional with Perkins. Telling her to stay with Emma…
She didn’t think there was anyone who did that for him. And either he didn’t think he needed it, or he wasn’t prepared to allow it to happen. The phrase kill them with kindness came to mind. Was that how she was to break through to Mint, come at him with nothing but the softest of kindness?
And did she want to?
The man would be tough to crack…and apparently having stress and an injury made her think in nothing but analogies and metaphors. Mint might care about her and be determined to keep her safe—even if he wouldn’t admit it to her. But would he accept her doing the same for him?
Emma figured she just might want to find out.
Mint figured he could stand for about five minutes, and then he was going to fall over. But he wasn’t about to let Emma in on that little secret. Or anything else.
He couldn’t get the feel of her touch out of his mind. He wanted to hold on to it, savor it. Even while he knew he couldn’t admit he liked it. Or that he wanted more of it.
There was too much going on to even consider something with Emma. They lived in different cities, she was technically a client of Double Down—even if she didn’t know it—and there were rules about making missions personal. And all that was before he got to his personal hang-ups. Or the possibility that Emma might succeed in her plan to get put in prison for murder to save the life of a woman she didn’t know all that well, who might be in this situation because she’d gotten herself there.
Perkins shoved open the door, frustration lining her face. “Okay?”
He nodded. “You?”
“Thank you.”
Mint glanced over and saw a redheaded man who looked like a gnome hand Emma a stack of first aid supplies. She came to him, a tentative look on her face. He didn’t wait for her to ask, just sat so she could do what he couldn’t do, because he couldn’t reach that far. She stood behind him, Perkins in front.
“Jones got away?” he asked his teammate. He didn’t want Perkins walking around to look at his wound. She would see what Emma had seen and then things would change. He didn’t need his teammates looking at him with pity. Even if they called it compassion.
It was enough that Emma had seen. And maybe, just maybe, he’d wanted her to. He could admit that to himself at least. Then he shoved the idea aside and winced, since she’d slathered something cold and gooey over his cuts.
Perkins curled her lip. “I got the license plate on his car. I called it in.”
“Any word from the others about Kerri?” He heard Emma’s intake of breath at his question.
Perkins shook her head. “Not yet.” But he knew that look.
His teammate didn’t think much of Kerri’s chance at a long life. If she did survive, she would be affected in a way that might never go away. And Emma would carry the guilt of that for the rest of her life. Mint understood. There were things in him that had been imprinted so deep, he would carry them forever. Things that couldn’t be seen. Touched, with those soft fingers of hers.
She worked efficiently right now. Barely making contact skin to skin. She pressed tape over the gauze she’d placed on his cuts. They weren’t bad but—like her gunshot wound—they would likely get infected if he just left them.
Two EMTs strode in the front door. Perkins glanced at the manager. “We should get out of here before the actual police show up.”
Mint nodded.
“I’m done.”
He turned to watch Emma carry two handfuls of wrappers to the nearest trash can. Perkins walked out the back fire exit with them. The sheriff was just walking in the front door when they moved around to the cars. Perkins’s was barely drivable.
“I’ll never get the deposit back on that now.”
No one smiled.
Perkins collected her things, and they piled into Mint’s car.
He turned on the engine and pulled out, asking his teammate, “Will your ID hold up when the sheriff runs whose car that is?”
“If it doesn’t, then I took a job with the wrong private security firm.”
Mint nodded, understanding exactly where she was coming from on that.
“I knew you weren’t a real FBI agent,” Emma said from the backseat. She left those words hanging in the air, and Perkins shifted in her seat to face their charge.
“We’re here to keep you safe,” his teammate said.
“By lying to me and putting Kerri’s life at risk. Aaron Jones is going to kill her now.”
Perkins continued as though she hadn’t said anything, “And to find out who in Washington DC is blackmailing people with information so sensitive, one woman already took her life.”
Emma said nothing.
“Do you know Senator Rachel Harris?” Perkins paused long enough that Mint figured Emma nodded. “A few weeks ago she was kidnapped. Her best friend, Alexis, was framed for it. Bradley Harris, Rachel’s brother, worked with the FBI. Then they were taken as well, and Alexis got strapped with a bomb. A man who worked for the blackmailer was determined to get Bradley and Rachel’s inheritance money.”
Emma’s voice was breathy when she said, “A bomb?”
Out the corner of his eye, Mint saw Perkins nod. “Mint was the one who saved Alexis.”
He wouldn’t exactly have put it that way.
Perkins continued, “Rachel is safe, and now Bradley and Alexis are married. But we still don’t know who the blackmailer is. What we do know is that Aaron Jones works for him. We think he knows who the man is.”
Emma stayed silent again for another moment. “A blackmailer?” Her voice was flat.
She knew. Mint could hear it in the tone. He said, “Who is it?”
“I don’t know his name.”
“Does Aaron know?”
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I think Aaron works for him, but he’s only here so I’ll take the rap for the senator’s death.”
Perkins said, “He could be here under the blackmailer’s authority. But Aaron could also be trying to save his own skin.”
“Does that matter?” Emma asked, her tone short. “Kerri’s life is what matters.”
“Agreed,” Mint said. But it was easier than finding her. They needed Aaron to lead them to where he was holding Kerri and that would take time. “He came out to shoot at us today—”
“He was shooting at you,” Emma put in.
“Okay. He came to shoot at me—”
“Because he knew I wasn’t going to the FBI. Before I even knew.”
“Emma—”
“Don’t, okay? You all have this plan, and you’re on your mission to do whatever. But this is my life. It’s Kerri’s life. All you’ve done so far is jerk me around and lie to me. So pull over, because I’m getting out. I’m going to the real FBI, and I’m going to get Aaron to let Kerri go before she dies from whatever he did to her that left blood all over her house when he kidnapped her.” She paused. He didn’t turn around. He could hear her breath coming in great heaves.
He could tell her that was nothing but shock, but would it help? She wasn’t likely going to accept much from him or give anything else to him. At least, not without some kind of exchange. Maybe if Kerri was already safe. If it was only Emma whose life was on the line.
“We’re not stopping,” Perkins said. “And we’re not letting you out. If we’re going to find Aaron Jones, have any hope of saving Kerri, and manage to bring this blackmailer to light, then Double Down needs your help, Emma. In return, you get a shot at a future that doesn’t involve being in prison for murder.”
“You think I care about that?”
“Everyone cares about that,” Mint said, not at all happy with the fact she was still thinking about doing this. He needed Kerri found before Emma did something she couldn’t take back.
Perkins shifted again, about to say something else. Her phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, then up at him. “We have a serious problem.”