Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) (24 page)

I was close enough now to hear parts of the conversation. “If that happens, what then?” asked one guy.

I only caught the end of the second shooter’s response. “—Isabella,” he said.

Who’s Isabella?

Then I caught some luck. “Who’s going to lead the teams?” a long-haired man asked.

An older guy spoke up. “I’ll take the south side team.” He nodded at the second shooter. “Powell will take the north team. We go as soon as we get final confirmation.”

Powell.
I took a long, slow breath in. Finally, the leader had a name. Now if I could just get close enough to get a look at the map…

My foot landed in a puddle of chemicals, invisible in the darkness. The splash echoed around the steel walls.

Immediately all six men drew guns. Torches stabbed out into the gloom, searching for me and, as I scrambled back behind the drums, one of them picked me out.

“
There!
” yelled someone. A flurry of shots rang out, some of them hissing inches past my head. I threw myself to the floor behind a stack of drums.

“You see who it was?” a voice asked in the darkness.

“O’Harra.” Powell’s voice, and he didn’t hide his disgust. “The guy from the park.”

I drew my gun, wishing I still had my Desert Eagle instead of the toy Miller had left me with. But even with it, I’d still be ridiculously outnumbered. I could already hear them fanning out: they were going to surround me.

It went against my instincts—I was just itching to go to work on that bastard Powell with my fists—but I had to run or I wouldn’t be able to warn anyone about what I’d seen.

I took a deep breath and sprinted for the door at the end of the warehouse. Immediately, the air came alive with gunfire and not just the staccato bangs of handguns: I could hear the roar of an assault rifle, too. Bullets split the air to either side of me, one of them plucking at my suit jacket.
Shit!
They’d started to run, pounding across the wet floor towards me. I might be able to stay ahead until I reached the door but then I’d be a sitting duck while I hauled it open....

In desperation, I grabbed at the nearest rack of chemical drums and pulled. It was one of the really tall ones, rising thirty feet up into the darkness. It was already rusted and decaying, weakened by years of corrosive, leaking chemicals. With my weight hanging from edge, it sagged... and tipped.

There was a yell from behind me as the men chasing me pulled up short. A second later, the first heavy chemical drum slammed into the concrete, followed by another and another, the sound deafening in the huge, echoey space. It became a cascade, drums bouncing and rolling, each one big and heavy enough to shatter a leg or crush a spine, and some of them were bursting as they hit, spewing their toxic contents. Powell and his men were forced to back off and hug the walls, some of them climbing the racks to avoid the chemicals. I staggered to the door and pulled it open.

The last thing I saw, as I glanced back into the warehouse, was Powell’s glaring face. A chill went through me: he’d recognized me. He probably knew I was Emily’s bodyguard, now... and with Kerrigan already suspicious about Emily, they’d no doubt put two and two together. I was a threat to them... and so was she. They were going to come after her.

I ran.

Emily

After Kian left, I took an epic shower, letting the water sluice over me and soak its heat into my bones. Lying with him on the bed, I hadn’t fully appreciated the workout he’d given me. It was only when I walked—
staggered
—to the shower that I felt the pleasant ache between my thighs and the floppiness in my limbs where I’d clung and arched and writhed against him. I couldn’t stop grinning.
God, is it going to be like that every time?

Every time.
As I shampooed my hair, a worm of fear started to twist in my stomach. What
was
going to happen now? Some things had obviously changed but some hadn’t. He was still my bodyguard. And there was still a lot he was holding back from me: he’d pulled away from me for so long that I knew there must be some serious stuff in his history. Things that bad didn’t just disappear overnight—I proved that every night when I woke up in a cold sweat. He’d overcome them for now but they could still tear us apart….

I frowned.
The hell they will.
I’d finally found exactly what I’d been searching for, that one safe place I’d needed so bad... even
before
the park, even if I hadn’t known it. I wasn’t going to give that up, no matter what anyone said and no matter how hard I had to fight for it. He’d said he was crazy for me, despite the fact he’d seen me at my worst, paralyzed with fear and too scared to sleep. I remembered the promise I’d made to myself at Camp David. Whatever he was going through, I’d let him know I was there for him, too.

I rinsed off my hair, toweled myself off and dressed again. It felt weird, putting the same clothes on again after sex. Sex had always been a night time thing, not something you did in the middle of the day with people—

My eyes suddenly whipped to my bedroom door.
With people right outside.
Had anyone heard? There’d definitely been someone there at one point, but we’d been quiet
ish.
Later we definitely
weren’t
quiet, plus someone could have seen Kian leave my room.

I bit my lip. There was no way we were going to be able to keep a lid on this thing. Not in the White House. Kerrigan and my mom already had their suspicions. This was coming out, one way or another.

The only thing to do was to get ahead of it, so we could deal with it on our own terms. I had to go to my dad. I had to stand there, look him in the eye and tell him this was happening. That’s exactly what I needed to do.

Right after I painted my toenails.

And tidied these papers.

And answered this email.

I managed to put it off for the entire rest of the afternoon, coming up with excuse after excuse, before I finally admitted I was procrastinating. By then, it was nearly time to get into the limos to go to the speech.
Where’s Kian? He should have been back by now.
My stomach lurched. What if he’d run into the Brothers of Freedom at the warehouse?

I chewed on it for a few minutes and decided there was nothing I could do about it—not without drawing attention to the fact he’d gone AWOL all afternoon. I had to solve the problems I could solve. I took a deep breath, grabbed my purse and headed for the Oval Office. But when I got there, I was just in time to see my dad hustling his chief of staff inside, probably squeezing in a last-minute meeting before we left. I sighed and wandered on down the hallway, past the Roosevelt room. I turned the corner and—

The Vice President’s office was dead ahead of me, just past the next junction. The door was open and I could see Kerrigan inside, tapping out a text message on his phone.

His
second
phone. The little one I’d seen him answer at the party.

My heart started thumping. I had to find out what was in that message: it could be the smoking gun we needed. But there was no way I could see from here and he’d see me if I got any closer.

Kerrigan finished texting and shoved the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket, which was folded over the back of a chair. No way I could get to it... unless I could get him out of his office. Even then, I’d have to hope he didn’t take his jacket with him.

I backed silently around the corner and pressed my back against the wall, trying to come up with a plan. Then I hurried to the Press Secretary’s office and leaned in through the open door. Jessica, the Press Secretary, was focused on one of the three computer screens that sat on her desk, her fingers rattling across the keyboard and a pencil clamped between her teeth to help her think. “Hi!” I said. “Did you find the VP yet?”

She looked up, frowned and spat out the pencil, but her fingers kept on typing. “No....”

I did my best surprised face. “Oh! Didn’t you need to talk to him about the
Washington Post
story.”

As Press Secretary, the one thing that scares Jessica more than anything else in the world is being second to know something. “
What Washington Post
story?”

I was making this up as I went along. I bit my lip and tried to look clueless. “Maybe I got it wrong. Someone said to me the
Post
was doing a piece on the VP tomorrow and you
definitely
needed to talk to him before they went to press... didn’t they tell you?”

“Shit!” She grabbed her desk phone. “Mr. Vice President? I need a few minutes. Right now. Yes,
that
urgent. Can you come to me, sir? I want to set up a call with both of us and the
Post....
” Meanwhile she was frantically searching through emails and Post-It notes, trying to find the message she thought she’d missed. I slipped away and retreated towards the residence. Ten seconds later, I heard Kerrigan’s footsteps as he stormed along the hallway. I held my breath and sneaked a look as he entered Jessica’s office….

He was still in his shirt sleeves. He’d left his jacket in his office. Now I had to hope the phone was still in it.

I waited until he closed the door and then set off down the hallway, walking as fast as I could without drawing attention. With every step, my fear ratcheted a little higher, a tight knot growing in my stomach. How much time did I have before Kerrigan and Jessica realized there
was
no story brewing at the
Post?
Two minutes? Three? I tried to walk faster.
When did this hallway get so damn long?

I reached the door to the VP’s office and then had to hang around outside, trying to look casual, while a couple of staffers sauntered down the hallway, chatting and flirting. I was sweating, now.
What am I doing? I’m not a spy!
Come on! COME ON!

The second they’d passed me, I darted into the VP’s office and closed the door just enough to hide me. I rooted through his jacket and...
yes!
The phone was still there. I glanced up at the door, ears straining for any hint of Kerrigan coming back. I started going through the phone’s unfamiliar menus.
Messages. Sent Items. There!

A text message sent just a few minutes ago.
LS CONFIRMED

I stood there staring at it. What the hell was that? That could be anything! I went to the next message and the one before that, but they were just times and dates—presumably of meetings. I was hoping I’d find some reference to the day of the attack in the park but Kerrigan was smart: either he’d deleted messages after sending or he’d done nearly everything as voice calls.

I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Hard, angry, male footsteps.
Shit!
I backed out of the messages and dropped the phone back into the jacket pocket, but I was in too much of a panic. The phone missed the pocket, slithered down the jacket’s smooth inner lining and bounced across the carpet.
Shit! Shit!
I scrambled for it, grabbed it and shoved it into the pocket, then ran for the door—

I opened it to find Kerrigan standing right outside, our faces a foot apart.

His expression went from shock to puzzlement to anger. He glanced over his shoulder at Jessica’s office, figuring it all out. Then he looked past me to his desk. His computer. His jacket.

He looked back to me and those soulless gray eyes flared with rage. “What the
hell
are you doing in here?” he spat. There was no fear at all, no guilt or shame. He was just outraged that I’d mess with his plans.
How dare I?!

That was when I started to get really scared. For weeks now, he’d been the enemy but I’d always faced him in the safety of a hallway or at a party, surrounded by people. Now his mask of civility had slipped away to reveal the monster inside and we weren’t just fighting with words. This was the man who’d plotted to have me killed... and I was alone with him.
What the hell was I thinking?
Kian had made me promise not to put myself at risk and I’d gone ahead and done exactly that.