Megan twisted the lock pick against the tumbler. She heard the click, pulled out the pick and twisted the handle. Bingo. With one quick glance over her shoulder, she headed in. Outside was dark, the street quiet and still—apart from the flash of light from a TV across the street. Upstairs window. Someone watching a show at two in the morning.
The door didn’t open all the way. She shoved it far enough to get through, shifting back a pile of boots and shoes kicked off behind the door. Like the occupant didn’t even use his own front door, except as a spot to discard clothing when he got home. Inside was musty. Like old laundry left wet in the washer for too long.
Cardboard boxes had been stacked on the left side all the way down the hall, with only a foot and a half gap to get into the living room. One couch. A coffee table stacked with pizza boxes and at least six remotes.
Megan stood in the hall to survey what she could see from this spot and waited for a minute before she stepped further in. No dog. That didn’t rule out a cat. If he did have a pet, she didn’t imagine it was faring too well in this mess.
The home’s occupant, FBI Special Agent Daniel Zimmerman, was a Special Agent in Charge in Baltimore. Which basically meant he was a department head, or a manager. Zimmerman had stolen a sonic weapon from a research facility that had been involved in weapons testing a few days ago.
He was now on the run with a weapon that could topple buildings, killing everyone inside.
Megan trailed through rooms, ignoring the urge to hold her nose. The snap securing the holstered weapon on her hip was undone. She was going to leave it that way until she was back in her car and away from here.
Fear snaked up her spine, leaving a trail as it went. She shivered but kept walking. Bedroom. Bathroom. Thankfully the man hadn’t felt the need to rent a house bigger than this tiny dump. He apparently preferred to sleep on a bare mattress and squeezed the toothpaste from the middle. Which made her wonder—was that because he’d recently gotten divorced, or was it the reason for it? Maybe she should pay the woman a visit and ask.
She’d think Zimmerman had moved in recently, except that the divorce had gone through six months ago, the lease had been signed months before that, and all the boxes were covered in a thick layer of dust.
Didn’t care. Had better things to do. Only slept here, showered here, and occasionally ate in the kitchen.
Didn’t have kids. Was reportedly a workaholic. Definitely the kind of boss that expected everyone who worked under him to be available 24/7, because that was the way he worked. Not many of his coworkers had good things to say about him.
But was he the blackmailer they’d been looking for?
Some of her team back at Double Down were convinced of it. Megan wasn’t going to jump on that train without irrefutable proof. That just wasn’t the way she worked.
Not now at least.
Once, a long time ago now, she’d been enthusiastic like that. Take-charge. Get the job done without fail no matter the consequences. Life had taken care of that. And for the past two years, since the darkest time in her life, she’d been a whole lot more cautious.
She trusted her boss at Double Down. Steve Preston ran the private security agency with a professionalism she’d never seen before. She’d certainly put him to the test before she took the job. He’d even joked at one point that it felt like she’d been interviewing him.
Which was precisely what had been happening.
Megan didn’t trust. Not now, and certainly not when lives were on the line. She could take care of herself. She worked with the Double Down team because it gave her legitimacy and backup. But finding one FBI agent on the run? Megan didn’t need help with that. She only needed a few days to look into his life so she could figure out where he would strike first.
Then she would take him down.
A dark figure moved outside, beyond the dining room at the rear of the house and out the window. Open blinds. Megan lowered the flaps of the box she’d been peeking inside—towels and other linens, musty from disuse.
She pulled her weapon free of its holster and backtracked to the hallway where she peered around the frame of the kitchen door. The figure didn’t stop at the back door. He twisted the handle. Jiggled it. She waited.
A few seconds later the lock in the handle rotated.
He stepped inside.
She knew it was a man from his build, those wide shoulders. The confidence in his intention said he didn’t think he was going to get caught. Then he paused, pulled a phone from the front pocket of his jeans and looked at the screen. It illuminated his features.
Not Zimmerman.
This man was younger, his face hardened by life and the world. Not a man she’d want to meet on a dark street. And also not one she needed to tangle with right now. She had what she’d come here for—a sense of Zimmerman’s state of mind. Whatever this guy was here to do, he wasn’t likely to strike gold among the boxed-up remains of Zimmerman’s married life.
The man sent a text then slid his phone back in the pocket.
Megan needed the right moment to slip back out the front door, so she waited for him to move into another room so she could get out.
But he came in her direction.
She pressed her back against the wall and held her breath as he moved past her to the front door. Then she slipped into the kitchen, sidestepped behind the door, and peered through the gap. Not much light came in the front windows, but it was enough to see him open the door.
“It was unlocked.”
“So.” Another man entered, breathing heavy. He set something down. “Let’s just get on with this.”
“You don’t think its weird the front door was unlocked?”
“I think I’m not going to care in a minute when the whole house is burning down, because I’ll be long gone.”
Megan took a step back. Purely self-preservation. Thankfully she didn’t bump anything. That would have been disastrous. She turned for the back door.
“I thought it was weird, that’s all,” the first man said.
“Just get pouring.”
Gasoline. She knew before she even smelled it. They were going to burn the house down.
The second man continued, “He doesn’t want anything left behind. No loose ends.”
“Does that include us?”
“It will if you don’t shut up. I’ll kill you and leave you here myself.” He paused. “Now get pouring.”
Megan stared at the front door. They would see her. Fast enough to shoot? She’d have to get the door open which would give them a second or two to realize what was happening and then pull their guns.
One of the men was now headed into the kitchen. That cut off her route to the back door. She wasn’t about to hang around in a burning house.
Megan darted around the kitchen door and down the hall to the front door, praying with every step that they were both headed the other way through the house.
She flung the front door open…
And slammed into another man.
It took Adrian a second to realize the person who’d rushed him was a woman. He grasped her arms, not sure yet whether he was supposed to arrest her or help her, when she spoke in a breathy voice, “Fire.”
That was when his nose caught up with the rest of what was happening and at the same time, his brain registered the fact he’d found the woman he’d been here looking for.
Gasoline wafted from inside the house.
He turned. “Let’s go.”
“Read my mind,” she said, moving past him. They trotted together down the front path. “Stay low. There are two guys in there.”
He snagged her arm. “Two?”
When she nodded, he pulled his gun. There was no time for backup. He’d have to arrest them himself. With Megan’s help, of course. “We can wait for them to come out and take them down.” He slid his cell phone from the inside of his suit jacket, called 9-1-1 and asked for police and fire.
He couldn’t tell them who he was. Not when this was an FBI agent’s house, and he was a fellow FBI agent from a different office looking for the agent who lived here. The wrong person would be tipped off or this would get leaked to the media, and there would be widespread panic that an FBI agent had gone rogue—armed with a sonic weapon that could take down buildings.
When the dispatcher kept up with the conversation, Adrian said, “Gotta go,” and hung up.
Megan turned and started to walk away, down the sidewalk. Adrian looked at the front door of the house. Still open. No one had come out. Had the person or persons inside not cared when a woman ran out?
“Megan.” He caught up to her. “Back up. Let’s go take these guys down.”
She shook her head.
Adrian tugged on her arm.
She gave him a hard look and pulled her arm from his grasp. He backed up and held his hands up. “We can’t leave them in there. They could hurt the firefighters, or cops. Whoever gets here first.”
“They didn’t hurt me.”
“They could know where Zimmerman is. Or what he’s up to.”
She shook her head. “They’re just minions.”
“So you know for sure that they know nothing?” He shot her a look. “I thought you were better than that.”
He stared down at her, black skinny jeans. Running shoes. Dark T-shirt under a black jacket. She’d pulled back her long blond hair into a ponytail.
The look on her face was…torn.
Adrian had the interesting urge to ask her how she was doing. But he swallowed it down and said, “I don’t have backup. That means I need your help to take them both down.”
They couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get intel from whoever was about to burn down Zimmerman’s house.
“No.” She turned away. “They’re minions. It’ll be a waste of time.”
“Fine. I’ll go by myself.”
She frowned over her shoulder. “And get killed?”
He shrugged. “They didn’t kill you.”
Adrian didn’t wait for her answer. He couldn’t let anyone get away with destroying possible evidence, especially not someone who might have key information that he needed. This was bigger than one fire. They needed everything they could get to find Zimmerman and stop him.
He glanced over his shoulder as he went back to the house. Megan stood still, watching him. It was dark, but in the streetlights he could see her face. Not properly, otherwise he’d never have thought she was scared. That wasn’t her—a self-assured, professional woman. He must have read her wrong.
Adrian pulled his gun and made his way to the front door. Sirens in the distance meant cops would be here in a minute or so. He needed to stop these guys before the fire—
Flames whooshed through the house.
He stepped back at the rush of heat. When no one came out the front, Adrian went around the side through an open gate to the back door. At the rear corner of the house, two men ran at him. Headed away from here now that the deed was done.
“FBI. Hands up.” It was as much of a reflex to say it as it was to bring his weapon up and brace his weight.
They barreled into him, running at full speed.
Adrian squeezed off a shot and landed on his back. The man grunted and then went limp, dead weight on top of him. His ears rang. Adrian shifted the man off him and turned to see the other one run away.
Then he was gone.
“Adrian!” Megan’s voice was audible even over the ringing in his ears. She rushed over as he was climbing to his feet and gasped as she saw the dead guy.
“The other one?”
She shook her head. “He ran away before I could reach him.”
“Didn’t even stop for his friend.” He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the dead man’s face.
“Are you okay?” There it was again, that fear in her eyes laced in her voice as it trembled.
The police sirens got closer. The fire was bigger now.
“Let’s go.”
It grated him to do it but sticking around and explaining would take entirely too much time. Adrian was on assignment and his boss knew to cover him if anything was reported in about what he’d been up to.
Like firing a weapon.
Hopefully by the time regulation caught up to him, he’d have found Zimmerman.
He took Megan’s hand, and they made it to the front of the house and the sidewalk before the cop car turned the corner. They headed down the street.
“Where are you parked?”
Would she disappear, and he’d have to find her again? He didn’t like it. They would work much better as a team. But when he’d suggested it, she’d flat out turned him down.
She led him around the corner to a side-street and stopped near a vehicle.
“This your car?”
She nodded. “Later.”
“Whoa.” He held up his hands again, then got between her and the route she was taking around the car to leave. “Hold up. We should talk about this, go over our game plan.”
She said nothing.
“We’re both trying to find Zimmerman and stop him. Working together makes sense.”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t do partners.”
Adrian tried not to let the fact she was seriously cute distract him. His ex-wife could attest that he wasn’t good at relationships. “I know, on account of the fact you let me face both those guys by myself, and one got away. The other is a lost lead.” Because he was dead.
She couldn’t hide the wince. “I’ll find Zimmerman. You don’t have to worry about making sure the FBI saves face.”
“You got this?”
She shrugged. “I usually do. Why would this be any different?”
Adrian squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Fine. I need your help. I’m flying solo on this. Maybe I’m the one who needs someone to kick ideas around with.”
“So call Steve.” Before he could object, she said, “Get my number.”
“That’s it?” he asked. “Get your number?”
She said nothing.
“What’s so bad about teaming up?” Whatever reason there was, she adamantly refused to even let herself go there. Doesn’t need anyone, doesn’t need anything. So why did she still look scared? It hadn’t gone away. And it hadn’t been a mistake.
There was real fear in her eyes.
“Meg—”
“Get down!”
A gunshot echoed through the night.
He felt her body jerk as he grabbed for her and dived, and then they both hit the ground.