Steve chased the shooter down the street. The man had jumped into the same car Steve had spotted earlier watching the house. Couldn’t pass up the chance to kill all four of them? Whoever the guy was, he’d balked at the last minute. Apparently not prepared for the level of force that immediately retaliated back at him.
The car sped away. Steve slowed to a stop and hung his head, breathing hard. But why stop at all? It wasn’t like he had business returning to the house. The cops would show up and he would only get arrested.
Steve pulled out his burner phone and texted Bradley.
Anyone hurt?
A few seconds later he got a reply.
Just bruises.
Steve stowed the phone and headed for Mrs. Cromwell’s house. It was better than standing still on the sidewalk and wishing he could go back to Rachel. Make sure they were all okay. Bradley would be fussing over Alexis. He would take care of his sister as well, but Steve couldn’t deny he wanted to be there.
Then again, he also wanted to walk right to the vice president’s house and bang on the door. Finally have it out with the man. Would William Anderson call the cops when Steve showed up? Probably. He also had a contingent of Secret Service on site who would stop Steve before he even got close.
Lost cause.
They weren’t going to let him punch the VP square in his smug face. As much as Steve wanted to do exactly that. Maybe more. Couldn’t happen.
Then again, they claimed he was a threat. A killer. Why not make that real clear and just kill the guy? Make himself nothing but a self-fulfilling prophecy.
He’d certainly done enough awful things in his life, even if they weren’t unlawful. He’d been an active CIA agent for years. Trained. He’d gone on missions precisely like the one responsible for the vice president’s foray into blackmail and murder. Did that make either of them right? No. Life wasn’t black and white, right or wrong. There were so many shades of gray. Good people did bad things and bad people did good.
Steve was only responsible for his own actions and reactions.
Instead of going back to Mrs. Cromwell, he walked all the way to the vice president’s house. So much walking he was going to have sore legs tomorrow. But that was the way in Washington DC. You either drove everywhere and ended up stuck in traffic, or you walked.
Outside of the Secret Service’s surveillance perimeter, Steve crouched. His watch said it was a little past midnight. His fingers were chilled, his nose going numb with the cold of December.
He waited there long enough to ascertain the Secret Service were sticking to a pattern he knew. Steve pulled a device out of his backpack, and turned it on. It would temporarily disable the heat sensors. He’d have to work around the security lights, but Mrs. Anderson didn’t like them on all the time at night. They were often turned off altogether to prevent the flash from turning on because a squirrel crossed the sensor beam.
And how did he know that?
The person who’d been tasked with attempting to test the security set up at the VP’s Washington residence was him.
One of Double Down’s many physical security tests. And it seemed like they hadn’t made many changes since then, despite the comprehensive report Steve had issued to the Secret Service about the security at the house, giving him intimate knowledge of the setup. Steve figured they should’ve tweaked at least something. Considering he was a fugitive.
Steve scaled the brick wall and used the cover of bushes and trees to make his way to the back of the shed. He checked that his device was still working, disabling the security cameras. Soon enough, whoever was on security would check. They would figure out what the problem was and sound the alarm.
He waited until the right break in rolling patrols and sprinted to the outside wall of the house. Steve used a lock pick kit to enter the French doors that led from the patio on the west side of the house into the vice president’s study. So the man could look at the trees while he contemplated the fate of the country—or how to victimize more people.
The desktop was bare. Steve would only have seconds at most, so he went straight for the safe. A couple of jewelry boxes. A zippered pouch containing…probably a few hundred. File folders. He took pictures of the contents to look at later.
At the back was a leather bound book. A photo album. Steve flipped through the pictures and found they were of William Anderson’s parents. Their mission where they’d preached the word of God in a small Venezuelan town.
Until that town was massacred.
They smiled for the camera. Small children surrounded them, all happy. William stood tall beside his father. On the other end of the row of four Anderson’s was another boy, smaller than William. A younger brother?
That wasn’t something that had come up in the background checks. Not the ones anyone had run on the VP’s history. Steve took a photo with his phone. Could be relevant.
He kept flipping, aware that time was quickly running out. More photos of their family. The church people. William and another boy, a Venezuelan. Best friends? Steve took a few more pictures with the camera on his phone.
Two connections. People who knew everything about what the vice president had gone through? Confidants. Accomplices. One possibly his brother, the other a Venezuelan. Assuming they were still alive—though he’d never heard anything about a younger brother—and able, they could be in league with him. Or prepared to testify against him.
He stowed the belongings back in the safe and put everything back in its place. Was there really a brother out there, somewhere? The Venezuelan could have grown up to be El Cuervo. He was dead now, but Steve had been tasked with helping him escape that restaurant. Someone the blackmailer had wanted safeguarded.
Halfway to the patio door, he saw a flash of movement. Steve hugged the wall, out of sight. Not a roving patrol whiling away the night hours. This person moved with purpose. With intention. Who was it, and where were they going?
A scream rang out. Not from outside, this came from somewhere in the house. Yelling followed. Then the muffled shouts of multiple Secret Service agents. Steve stayed where he was. An escalation from “normal” to there being a situation would mean everyone was on alert now. He didn’t need to rush this and end up being spotted trying to get off the property.
He moved in a steady pace to the patio door, intending to slip out. The door opened. Steve drew the curtain and ducked behind it in one move. The light flipped on inside the room. He took one slow breath and let it out silently.
Then he eased the handle down and moved outside.
Air blew in, a cool breeze that shifted the curtain.
“Freeze!”
Steve fired a couple of shots. He aimed high, so they’d hit the ceiling and not a person, and then he ran. Pumped his arms and legs and raced across the grass to the wall. He jumped, still running, and his trailing leg slammed the wall. He ignored the crack of pain and flipped his body over the wall.
He raced into the street a second before he realized those blinding lights coming at him were a car. The far corner glanced off his hip, spinning him around with the momentum. He landed on his backside in the street and rolled. But not before he caught a look at the driver.
Rachel.
A shot rang out.
The Secret Service agent who raced after him had jumped the wall.
Steve clambered to his feet and kept running. Mostly just trying to escape the mess that he’d made of his life.
Rachel blinked. Her foot slipped off the brake, and the Secret Service agent raced in front of the car. Too fast for her to do anything.
Could she have hit a fed on purpose? The way she’d hit Steve. Rachel touched her head to the steering wheel between her hands. What had she been thinking anyway, coming here? Apparently the same as Steve, except for the fact he’d wound up being chased by an armed agent. She only wanted to talk to William Anderson. Demand the reasoning behind the fact she’d been shot at tonight.
Her hip still hurt from when she’d flung Alexis to the floor.
Today was turning out to be a day for bruises. Enough to make her stiff tomorrow at the office. If she managed to make it back home tonight.
Rachel pressed the gas and drove into the vice president’s property. She showed her ID. When the guard said it wasn’t a good time she said, “Nonsense,” and kept driving past him. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot at her car. Or arrest her.
She’d discovered in the past few years that rather than attempt to persuade people she was in the right place—and that she knew what she was talking about—it was more effective to pretend you knew exactly where you were. “Fake it till you make it” was a valid option in Washington politics. Too bad it had spilled over to other parts of her life.
She parked away from the front door so she didn’t block anyone important. It occurred to her that Steve could have hurt someone. She hoped not. She wanted to believe he wouldn’t do something like that, but these were exigent circumstances. He’d been effectively pinned against a wall. Accused. Implicated. Some of it he’d actually done. Some of it he would take the blame for, simply because of who he’d been before she met him. She’d found out as much as her clearance level would allow, and had actually uncovered information on a couple of missions he’d been involved in as an officer for the CIA.
It had only made her prouder.
A ham-sized fist pounded on her window, jolting her out of her Steve-daze. “Ma’am.”
She cracked the door and climbed out, shoving him out of the way with the door. “It’s Senator, actually. Rachel Harris.”
“Of course.” Like that was obvious to him. Was she supposed to know who knew her and who didn’t?
Before he could say anything else, she demanded, “What happened here tonight?”
If he knew much about her, as he seemed to think he did, he should know she was connected to Steve. A few reporters looking into this whole situation had uncovered the link to her and Bradley. Their story—parents killed, sister victimized and then kidnapped, brother part of the rescue—as well as Bradley’s tale of long lost love with Alexis had all replayed over and over again in the media the past few weeks.
She was waiting for them to offer to turn her story into a made-for-TV movie.
“A woman was killed.” The agent lifted his chin. “Sure you want to get involved in that?”
She blinked. “Killed by who?”
“The perpetrator hasn’t been formally identified as yet.”
He was going to brush her off with the “official” blurb? There probably wasn’t even an investigation. Yet. And he was blowing her off?
Rachel said, “Was it Steve Perkins?”
“Why would you mention him, specifically?”
Rachel wasn’t going to hide it. Not when it would come out. “I saw him running across the street. I actually hit him with my car, and then one of your agents ran after him.”
The agent nodded.
“Who was killed? Did Steve do it?” She tried to sound concerned for the victim, but probably wasn’t far from it being really obvious she would defend her friend. Why try to gloss over the truth? Most law enforcement personnel and feds, plus most of Washington, thought she was losing it, mentally. After all, they figured, how could she possibly heal from what had been done to her? They thought she had to be a pitiable victim for the rest of her life. Rather than actually have the chance to move on, find peace.
“Ma’am—”
She waved a hand. “Fine. You aren’t going to help me.” So much for finding out what had happened. Steve sure wasn’t going to tell her. She didn’t even know where he’d gone. Where he’d been staying.
Her eyes filled with tears just thinking about whether or not Steve had access to a safe place. “At least tell me whether or not it was the vice president’s wife who was killed. Is Mrs. Anderson all right?” She moved closer and her voice hitched when she said, “I’d hate for anything to have happened to my friend.”
Faced with a distraught woman, the Secret Service agent went into protective male mode. Worked every time. Especially lately, when people now knew what she’d been through. Yes, she was playing people who assumed she still should act like a victim. But it was effective.
“It wasn’t Mrs. Anderson.” He touched her elbow for a second, then let his hand drop back to his side. “Just between you and me…it was the housekeeper. She got up to get a snack, and someone stabbed her.”
Rachel gasped. “Goodness me.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s a tragedy. Especially considering it was her daughter who found her. Both of them live on the east wing of the house. They were going to have a late-night snack after their movie ended. She’s falling apart now.”
Rachel couldn’t imagine finding her mother like that. How old was the girl?
It had been bad enough hearing about her parent’s deaths after the fact. They had gone on a trip, and their small plane was caught in bad weather. She’d been in college. Alexis had been her roommate at the time. Bradley was off on some SEALs training mission. The three of them had never been closer than when they were grieving.
Bradley and Alexis had even managed to set aside the weirdness between them. For a while, anyway.
Her phone buzzed against her hip. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the screen. A text from a private number.
Tell me you aren’t still there.
It immediately buzzed again.
Meet me at our diner. NOW.
He really didn’t need to yell at her. What was wrong with asking nicely?
“That’s why you can’t stay here. This has to be an investigation, and we can’t have any outside interferences.” The agent had the decency to wince. “You’ll have to leave, Senator.”
“Of course. I understand.” She got back in her car while he stared at her with raised eyebrows. Yeah, so maybe she was playing into the whole “unhinged” thing by acting erratically. But she really didn’t want to be here, or part of a murder investigation.
Why would the housekeeper need to be killed?
She wanted to trust that Steve hadn’t done it. So either it was completely unrelated to what was happening here—unlikely—or it had been done during a time he was in the house for a reason. In order to add more fuel to the fire? Make him look guiltier than he actually was, considering he hadn’t killed anyone.
Yet.
At least she hoped he hadn’t, and wouldn’t have to either. Steve deserved better than that.
She maneuvered her car around the circular driveway. Two police cars and a coroner’s van passed her on the street, headed for her house. When all of this had become her normal life, she didn’t know. She’d wanted to do what she was good at and be able to make a difference in the world. Was that too much to ask? What better way to help people than to be instrumental in turning the tide of the great government machine.
Somewhere along the way, she’d been dragged down into the petty taking of sides. Her attempt to be honorable was essentially ignored. Now her name meant nothing, and not because she’d done anything to drag it through the mud. She had been a victim. A fact the blackmailer was going to have to answer to.
When they finally managed to bring him down.