Echoes (16 page)

“So I'm working at not needing the rush so much anymore. I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer the life Nash lives to the one Travis does, but this particular situation . . . No, I'm not enjoying it.”

“Why not?”

She was so earnest, trying so hard to understand what he couldn't explain, that he couldn't help himself. He laid a hand along the side of her face and brushed his thumb over her full lower lip.

“Because you're not Nikki. And you're not me. You didn't go looking for trouble, and I'd have preferred if it hadn't found you. That being said, if it was going to find you anyway, I'm more than happy to have been on hand to help.” He slid his thumb along the seam of her lips. “And, in case I haven't been perfectly clear on this point, sugar, don't be sorry about not being Nikki on my account. What I want has nothing whatsoever to do with her.”

Oh, yeah, he'd been perfectly clear. But he'd also left the ball in her court, and she wasn't at all sure what to do. The slow drag of his thumb stroking her skin rekindled the flames running along nerves all through her body. It would be easy to succumb to the heat, to let the fire burn away all her fears, all her memories, even if only for a short time. He could make her forget the world.

The telephone jolted her out of his sensual spell. Both she and Mac whipped around to stare at it where it lay on the kitchen counter. She stood first, and was reaching for the receiver when the doorbell rang, three short, sharp bursts followed by the sound of a heavy fist banging on the security door.

“I've got that.” Mac headed for the entry.

“Miss Pearson,” said a crisp voice when she answered the phone, “this is Lexie. Nash is on his way up to your apartment. We need to move you.”

“He's here.”

“Ah, he elected not to stop, then. Good. I'll let him explain.” She hung up, leaving Callie with a dial tone buzzing in her ear. Nash followed Mac into the apartment.

“Time to go,” he said the minute they reached Callie. “Someone knows you're here.”

“How is that possible?” Callie asked at the same time as Mac asked, “What happened?”

Nash addressed Callie. “It's my fault. It never occurred to me to check you for tracking devices. I didn't realize what we were dealing with.” He pulled a handheld scanner from his pocket and ran it up and down Callie's body, like a doctor examining a patient in a science fiction movie. “Not in your clothes. It'll be in your purse, then.”

“But how . . . who . . . ?” A tremor shook the building, accompanied by muffled crash. The lights went out. Red emergency lights popped on, and a siren began to wail somewhere in the distance.

Callie was terrified, but Nash appeared unfazed. “Boom-Boom was right,” he said.

“Seth's working for you, too? Did you leave anyone to do government work?”

Nash shrugged. “HSE can afford the best, and Lindsay fits the bill.” He looked at Callie, read the confusion on her face. “Seth Lindsay worked as a demolitions expert when Mac and I were in the Army.” The siren shut off. “Of course, now that his suppression design saved the damned building, I'll probably have to give him a bonus.”

The floor had stopped shaking, but Callie had not. Mac slid an arm over her shoulders, pulled her close, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and held tight. Like Nash, he seemed to take the explosion in stride.

“Car bomb?”

“Indeed. He tried to jack the code to get into the garage, so we trapped him in the tunnel. Seth set it up. Baffles on top of baffles. You can't prevent the ground tremor, but you can keep the building from coming down around your ears. But we don't have time to chat. The insulation keeps the noise down, but this is a residential neighborhood. Someone will have called the police. So, Callie, if you'll get your purse?”

She reluctantly detached herself from Mac's solid stability and retrieved the bag from the bedroom. Nash ran the scanner over it. A high-pitched whine indicated that it had found something, and he pressed a button on the device. A second later, the noise stopped.

“Useful,” said Mac.

“Come to work for HSE and you, too, can play with all the cool toys. But we have to get a move on. There are wigs, hats, things like that in the bags of clothes Lexie left in the bedroom. Put something on. We have to take you out of the building, and I don't want you recognizable when you leave. There are also vests.”

It took Callie a moment to realize he meant bulletproof vests. Once she did, her teeth began to chatter.

“D-do you really th-think we'll need those?”

Nash didn't meet her eyes. Instead, he shared a look with Mac, who grabbed her hand and tugged her into the bedroom.

“Come on, sugar,” he coaxed, voice dark and soothing, “let's see what lovely Lexie bought for you.”

He pulled some jeans and a T-shirt out of a shopping bag, then a pair of panties and a bra. The sight of the underwear—plain, practical, white cotton without a scrap of lace—in his large, dark, scarred hand sent a frightening shock of awareness through her. She swallowed hard and battled it back, concentrating on the mundane.

“How did she know my size?”

Mac laughed hoarsely, clearing his throat before he spoke. The sudden intimacy had obviously affected him, too. “I'd lay odds that was Trav's doing. He's a ladies' man. Probably had your measurements down before you set foot on
The Tramp
.” He handed her the clothes, then dug back through the bag, coming up with two wigs. “You want to be black or blonde?”

Remembering Nikki's long fall of blond hair, Callie took the black wig and retreated to the bathroom.

She shucked off the clothes she'd been wearing for what seemed like a week, then pulled on the underwear and T-shirt. Unfortunately, no matter how she tried, she couldn't get into the jeans; Travis had sussed out her 34C bra correctly, but she hadn't worn a size six jean since . . . well, not since she'd broken off with Theo after her father's death. And wasn't that just the confidence builder she needed at this very moment? The memory of Theo, the perfectionist thoracic surgeon, who'd proposed to her despite constantly finding fault with her weight, her hair, her style of dress.

“Get a move on,” she heard Nash shout. The regular lights flickered back to life, and she gave up on the jeans. Poking her head out the bathroom door, she asked Mac to pass her the shopping bag. Inside, she found a loose, ankle-length bohemian-style skirt with an elastic waist. It wouldn't be as easy to move around in as pants, but at least it fit and didn't rub against her bruised hip. She pulled her hair into a tight knot at the base of her skull and yanked the wig over it.

She emerged to find Mac holding out a bulky black vest in one hand and a blue nylon windbreaker with a big New York Yankees insignia on the back in the other. He was already wearing a similar set of clothes, along with a Yankees baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. She slipped the vest over her head and tightened the straps around her waist.

“It's heavy, I know,” he said, “but you'll get used to it.” She doubted the truth of his statement but settled the awkward covering on her shoulders as comfortably as possible. He helped her on with the jacket, and they rejoined Nash in the foyer.

“You know the city, right?” She nodded. “Good. Lexie got you two a room at the DoubleTree Suites in Times Square. You're registered as Joshua and Kathleen Marsh.” He handed each of them a credit card with the Marsh name. “You do the check-in. Even with the hat, the scar makes Mac's face too memorable.

“A crowd is gathering, so it's time we joined the party on the sidewalk.” Nash handed Callie a MetroCard, the ticket to the New York City subway system. “Slip away when you can. If you can get a taxi, it'd be safer than the subway, but have them drop you at the TKTS booth or something, not the hotel, just in case anyone asks.” He led them out of the apartment and down the hall. They jogged down the stairs, Nash's voice echoing slightly as he spoke to Mac.

“Call me when you get checked in. Before this guy showed up, we found an interesting connection between the Steeles and your in-laws, but I don't want to get into it until we have plenty of time to hash it out. Despite Seth's setup, I'm not certain we can hide the fact that the explosion came from here, so I suspect I'll be tied up for a while.”

Callie stumbled, her sore hip knocking into the railing, but Mac caught her before she fell. “The guy who did this,” she coughed, almost unable to voice the words. “Is he alive?”

“Unfortunately not.” They reached the landing for the second floor, the public access area, and Nash pulled the door open. “Step off here for a minute. We can't talk privately in the stairway.” When the door closed behind them, he held up a hand to silence Callie's questions.

“Guy breaks in, expecting to park the car under the building, get to a safe distance, then detonate. No idea yet how big a blast he expected. Maybe the bomb was designed to bring down the whole building, maybe just to send all the residents running into the street, where you'd be easy prey. Either way, when the gate came down behind him and the one at the bottom of the ramp didn't open, trapping him in the tunnel, he panicked. Lexie has that part on video. When I came to get you, he was standing outside the car, trying to figure out what to do. That tunnel has other . . . features. If he'd been alone, he'd have been unconscious in a couple minutes and we'd have gone in after him. Unfortunately for him, he had a partner, or an employer, who was willing to sacrifice him so he couldn't answer our questions.”

“The partner smelled the trap and detonated with him still in the tunnel,” said Mac.

“Looks that way.”

Callie could feel hysteria bubbling through her system, emerging as a tiny squeak of sound in her throat.

Mac grabbed her shoulders, turned her to face him. “Look at me. Callie. Look at me.” She did, focusing on his eyes. Once searing hot, they were now utterly cold. “That man would have killed you, killed every innocent person in this building just to get to you, to us, without hesitation. You have to remember that.”

But she couldn't seem to. “W-what if h-he h-had a w-wife? A f-family?”

Some of the chill left Mac's gaze, and his voice went low, soft, persuasive. “Then they're better off without him. A man who'd blow up an entire city block for money, he couldn't be a good husband, a good father. He wouldn't have it in him. Right?”

She found herself nodding.

“So shut him out. We have to concentrate on getting you somewhere safe, where we can figure out exactly what is going on.”

She nodded again, which Nash took as his cue to open the stairway door and begin hurrying them downstairs once again. They exited the stairway into a small lobby, no different from hundreds of others in Manhattan. A man in a doorman's uniform stood chatting with a young couple near the street entrance while several others milled around. Police cruisers and fire trucks had pulled up outside, and multi-hued flashes of light strobed through the plate-glass windows.

“Any problems, Ted?” Nash asked the uniformed man.

“No, sir.” Pale green eyes flashed over her and Mac in a single, comprehensive glance. Doorman, my ass, Callie thought. Ted was another HSE operative.

Lexie approached them. “Seth is still in the tunnel,” she said with a brief nod of greeting. “There's no damage visible from the street, so if we can keep people out of the building, no one has to know this was the source of the blast. With enough manpower, Seth can get the damage hidden within six to eight hours, completely repaired with no trace left behind within a couple of days.”

“Good enough. Get him whatever he needs. Let's go outside and make ourselves available. Mac, Callie, hang behind and take off when you can. I'll catch up with you later.”

Nash opened the front door, and everyone in the lobby began to drift outside. Mac took Callie's hand and towed her along, exiting the building behind the couple who had been with Ted when they'd arrived. Mac kept them close to the building, moving from one cluster of people to the next. Callie spoke a few words every time they shifted groups, Mac remaining silent, his right side toward each new group to prevent his scar from drawing unwanted attention.

Minutes seemed hours, but eventually they reached the subway entrance. Even sitting on the train, however, Callie could not relax, and when a transit officer entered their car, seemingly intent on memorizing the faces of all the passengers, panic welled up in her chest. Mac had seated himself to her right so he could hide his ruined cheek by facing her, but the window behind their seats acted as a mirror—should the officer glance at it, he'd notice the unmistakable scar.

As nonchalantly as she could, Callie raised her right hand and laid it along Mac's face, carefully masking the scar tissue. His body tensed as she used her hold to urge him toward her. His mouth met hers and she whispered “Cop” against his lips, hoping the single word would suffice as explanation.

Whether it did or not, she had no time for more, as Mac took control of the kiss, and the same hungry heat she'd felt earlier rushed back through her. The man could kiss. His left arm, which had rested along the seat back behind her shoulders, now cinched her against him, his hand cupping the back of her head. His right hand mirrored her own, sliding along the side of her face, both hiding her features and holding her in position. He sucked her lower lip between his teeth and bit down gently, and Callie felt a rush of wet heat soak her new panties. She wanted to climb into his lap then and there, take the ride all the way to the end, but he drew away.

“Our stop, I think.” His voice was as low and uneven as the rumble of the train itself. How he'd managed to catch the announcement she had no idea.

Shaking with embarrassment and need, unable to look at him or any of the other passengers, she allowed him to take her hand and help her off the train.

As Nash had recommended, Callie checked them in while Mac ducked into the men's room in the hotel lobby, where he would not be noticed. By the time he met her at the bank of elevators, Callie had managed to regain some of her composure.

“We're in 706,” she said, handing him a key card as they let a crowd of tourists sweep them into the elevator car. They remained silent while the car rose, disgorging passengers on both the fourth and fifth floor before opening onto the seventh for them.

The moment they entered the room, Mac used his cell to call Nash, who would ring them back, Callie assumed, from yet another prepaid cell so no record would exist tying him to the hotel.

“Why don't you take a shower,” Mac suggested as he hung up. “It's been a long day.”