Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies (2 page)

Kyle’s face flashed through her mind along with her sister’s, squeezing her insides painfully.

“You need to come in, Genie. Let us protect you,” Cameron said. “At least until we can get a handle on what’s happening.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I can protect myself.”

“That’s what your father thought, and where has that gotten him?”

But how could her father have just disappeared? “What aren’t you saying, Cameron?”

“Genie, don’t be stubborn.”

“I’ve heard that one before. And it doesn’t sound like an answer.”

Silence filled the line.

She wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. She never had. “Just let me know if you hear something, okay?”

“Genie.” His voice hardened.

Out of the corner of her eye, out her bedroom window, she saw another dust cloud rising in the distance. She stopped dead in her tracks, spun to the window, and grabbed the high-powered binoculars off the wall. “Cameron, someone’s coming,” she said softly. “And this time it’s not the UPS man.”

“What do you see?” he snapped.

“A convoy. Three black SUVs. Yours?”

“No. Hang tight. I’ll get you out of there.”

She stilled, her grip tightening on the binoculars. “How do you know where I am?”

“Kiddo, I’ve always known. We’re coming to get you. Kyle is already on his way. But, trust me, he’s not in a black SUV.”

There was that word again. Should she trust him?

“Something bad has happened to my dad,” she said as the vehicles sped closer and closer to her home. The home no one but her father was supposed to know about. The place she thought she was secure. Hidden.
Safe
. She’d been wrong. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

“We don’t know anything yet. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“How else could they have found me?”

She hung up the phone, grabbed the Glock she kept in her nightstand, her ankle holster, an extra magazine and the Ka-bar Bowie hidden in the railing of the staircase. She climbed the ladder up into the crow’s nest two rungs at a time.

Pulling out her .50 caliber long-range rifle, she stuck the barrel through the slot in the bulletproof bubble that doubled for a roof and pointed it at the ground.

Time to welcome company.

…

“Kyle, what’s your ETA to Genie’s?” Josh Cameron’s voice blared through Kyle’s headset.

Kyle Montgomery glanced down at his flight instrument panel, then out the copter’s large window at the barren Nevada desert. “Ten minutes.”

“Make it quicker, she’s got company. Three black SUVs.”

Kyle swore under his breath as he scanned the horizon, searching for any sign of the vehicles. “We should have given her a heads up as soon as we found out about Marsters’ disappearance.”

“And try to explain it to her over the phone? She would have bolted before we got anywhere near her, running headlong into this mess and causing even more trouble.”

“Maybe. But at least she’d already be gone.”

“And in a lot more trouble because she’d do it solo, refusing help from anyone. You know that. The foolish woman thinks she doesn’t need us anymore. That she’s better off alone.”

“Believe me, I know how much trouble Genie can be.” The words tasted bitter in Kyle’s throat. There was a time when he’d thought he knew Genie better than anyone, that he’d known about her deepest secrets, and understood her hidden fears. A large, ill-timed explosion had taught him how wrong he’d been. And he still had the scars to prove it.

“I suppose you do.” Cameron sighed.

“Any idea how long she’ll be able to keep them at bay?” Kyle asked, determined to move the conversation out of the past and into right-the-hell now.

“Wish I knew. She disconnected the line and isn’t answering.”

“No surprise there.” Any way to make his job more difficult and that headstrong hellcat would find it.

“If anyone can hold her own and get herself out of this, it’s Genie,” Cameron insisted.

Kyle couldn’t help wondering if Cameron was saying the words more to appease himself or Kyle. All he knew for sure was that ridding herself of messy complications was Genie’s specialty. The fact that Kyle had ended up being one of those complications didn’t sit well with him. Not then. Not now. The familiar anger and frustration clenched his gut, and his fist tightened on the controls.

“Just extract her and bring her into headquarters STAT,” Cameron ordered. “Whatever Marsters is up to now, chances are it has something to do with whatever went down at the warehouse eight months ago, and Genie is the only one who can help us.”

“If Marsters is in on whatever is going on,” Kyle said. “Because if he’s not—”

“Then we’re dealing with Sean Emerich.”

“And if that’s the case, she won’t want to come in,” Kyle said as he raced across the sky.

“You think I don’t know that?” Cameron returned. “I’m still waiting to talk to her about the explosion. Just get her in here. I don’t care what it takes. The quicker I have her in my office and debriefed, the quicker we can get a handle on what’s happened before the shit hits the fan.”

“You got it.” Genie wouldn’t like it, but that wasn’t Kyle’s problem. He was following orders. Pick up and deliver the package, no questions asked. As far as he was concerned, the less time he spent with Genie Marsters, the better.

He had no desire to put himself through that particular wringer again. She’d said all she needed to say when she’d disappeared without a word, never checking in, leaving him broken and alone in the hospital after the explosion. For all he knew,
she
was the reason that warehouse blew up. The reason he’d almost blown up with it.

Hell, yeah. The quicker he finished this assignment the better.

…

Crouched in the crow’s nest, Genie bolted the metal door beneath her and took position. She’d designed this fortress herself. She could handle this incursion. Her phone rang again. She ignored it. She didn’t need Cameron. She didn’t need rescuing, and she sure as hell didn’t need to see Kyle again.

The three SUVs pulled to a stop outside her house, forming a tight circle on the desert sand. Men dressed in black filed out the doors and into the center of the circle, using the vehicles as cover.

She nibbled on her bottom lip. Smart. Even from up here, the angle was such that she couldn’t get to them. These guys were pros. And they’d done their homework.

Kiddo, I’ve always known.

Was it Cameron? Had he sent this team to take her out, or to be assured she’d leave with Kyle?

Kyle. Oh, God.

Dark brown hair. Deep blue eyes. Wide generous smile. Strong, warm embrace.
Wanted to love her forever
. She pushed thoughts of him from her mind and focused on the men hiding within the circle of vehicles. She counted nine. Nine big men to come after little ol’ her?

She smiled.

One of the men inched forward. She waited, counting under her breath as he moved steadily into the center of the crosshairs on her scope. She pulled the trigger aiming below his vest. He collapsed to the ground, blood spreading across his thigh.

“One down,” she whispered. “Eight more to go.”

His cohorts quickly pulled him back behind the wheel of the closest vehicle.

Almost like a military operation.

She crinkled her brow.

They quickly reformed, and then a man crouched wielding a large mirror in his hand. Before she could react, a sharp blinding light hit her. Pain stung her eyes. She squeezed them shut. Then she heard it, the pounding of footsteps on her staircase.

Shit! She opened her eyes, but for a few seconds saw only white pinpricks before her vision refocused.

Wood splintered and her house shook beneath her as someone kicked and pummeled her steel-reinforced front door.

“Damn!”

Her cell rang again. This time, she answered.

“Genie, where are you?”

Kyle
. She hated the little flutter that hit her chest when she heard his warm, gravely self-assured voice. Flutters like stupid, happy little butterflies. “I’m in the crow’s nest. They’ve breached my perimeter.”

“Don’t worry, I’m almost there.”

“Who said I was worried?” she added, faking nonchalance.

“And why would you be worried? I’m sure you can handle this. Should I just go back to Vegas, belly up to the bar and grab myself a cold one?” Irritation pricked his voice.

She hated that it had to be
him
coming to her rescue. Of all the people on their team, and it had to be him. “You do whatever you have to do.”

“That seems to have become a specialty of mine.” The line clicked and he was gone.

She sighed. She always pushed him away. Even when they’d been together, she’d kept him at an arm’s distance. A long arm. He’d loved her, but it hadn’t been enough. Could never be enough. Because he could never know the truth of who, of what, she really was.

Becca’s voice mocked her. “God forbid Genie should let herself find happiness and love. It would mean she had something to lose, a weak spot, an area of vulnerability.”

But for the three Marsters girls, what choice did they have? What choice did
she
have?

Even so, Becca’s words still burned, but this time they were tinged with sadness. Her sister had been right all along. Only now Becca was dead, and Genie knew what loving and losing really meant.

With her dad missing, she was quickly learning what it also felt like to be vulnerable, scared and completely alone. And she didn’t like it.

Something crashed. The house shook beneath her, rattling her teeth. The men, whoever they were, had gained access. She searched the horizon, looking for a cloud of dust on the road, for any sign that Kyle was coming. That no matter what she said or did, he wouldn’t abandon her.

He wouldn’t. Not Kyle.

Not this time.

Or would he?
After all, hadn’t she abandoned him first?

She cringed as she felt and heard her house being torn apart below her. Who were these men? What did they want? Suddenly, they were pounding on the door beneath her, shaking her little perch until she wasn’t certain how long it would withstand the abuse.

“Who are you? What do you want?” she yelled.

The pounding continued. She heard a shot fired into the metal. They’d reach her soon. There wasn’t much that could withstand the degree of force they were dishing out. She pulled the necklace her father had sent her out of her pocket and placed it around her neck, tipping the crystal inside her shirt. Then she closed her eyes and tried to get a reading through the metal door of the men below. Were they Cameron’s men or Emerich’s? She reached out with her mind, but got only vague impressions that were absolutely no use. She couldn’t determine why these men were after her, or who had sent them.

She searched the horizon for Kyle once more but he was nowhere to be seen. She stashed the Ka-bar into the sheath at her waist and her Glock back into the holster at her ankle, and set down the rifle. She quickly scanned the yard. No one remained at the vehicles.

They were all inside. All coming for her.

Time to move
. She unlatched the bulletproof bubble and pushed the top open. She had a motorcycle stashed out back. Once she got down to the ground, she’d flatten their tires and take off for Vegas. It was the best chance she had.

The acrid scent of burning metal warned her time was running short. They were torching the latch off her trap door. They’d reach her within seconds. She climbed onto the small landing on top of the roof. She was very high up. Too high to survive a fall to the desert floor. She picked up the end of a repelling cable hooked at the ready onto the roof and attached it to her belt.

It was a long drop to the ground, but nothing she hadn’t done before. She just hoped there wouldn’t be anyone down below waiting for her.

Chapter Two

Kyle stared in disbelief at the odd, mushroom-shaped structure rising up from the cracked, dry earth of the Nevada desert.

“There she is,” the voice of Johnny Garino, his crew chief and closest friend, buzzed in his earpiece.

Genie stood on the roof of the strange house. Three black SUVs were corralled on the ground far below her. She looked incredible, breathtaking, silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. Kyle sucked in a breath as she clipped a cable to her belt.

“She’s getting ready to fly!” Johnny called out, his voice rising in pitch.

“Hold on, baby. I’m almost there.” Kyle pushed down on the throttle urging the bird faster, even as he willed Genie to turn and see him, to hold on until he could sweep her away from the danger.

And once he did, once he had her safe and secure in his cockpit, then what?

Then he’d try not to kill her himself.