Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Exit Strategy\Payback\Covert Justice (39 page)

He pondered the phone in his hand. “Is it safe for me to have a pizza delivered?”

She could tell he was trying to keep things light, even as he processed the seriousness of the situation. “It should be, but to be sure, you can use my phone.”

He took her phone and dialed the number from memory. “What do you like?”

“Meat. The more the better.”

He widened his eyes at her. “I'd have taken you for a vegetarian.”

“I'd starve.”

He placed the order and returned her phone before settling back into his chair. He grimaced as he sat. He had to be hurting.

He pulled in a deep breath and winced again. He could use the accident as a cop-out. He could tell her he didn't feel well and needed to get some rest. Most people would.

Not Blake Harrison. “I want to talk more about this situation, but first, I need to know more about you.”

Heidi wasn't sure where he was going with this, but it was a fair question. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

“Who are you?” Frustration oozed from his words. She needed to remember he'd had less than thirty minutes to come to terms with some life-altering news.

“My name is Heidi Zimmerman. I'm an FBI agent and for the past ten years, the Kovac family has been my primary assignment.”

“Ten years? How old are you?”

“It's none of your business, but I'm thirty-two. I joined the Bureau straight out of college. Virginia Tech. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and a minor in accounting.”

“Interesting combination.”

“The Kovacs own several manufacturing enterprises. I've gone undercover as an engineer more than once.”

“How'd you wind up with the FBI?”

Heidi gave him the answer she gave to anyone who asked. “I was always interested in law enforcement. Seemed exciting and fulfilling. So I went for it.”

Blake studied her, then shook his head. “I've believed pretty much everything you've said, but I don't think that's the real reason.”

Heidi froze. How could he—?

“If you don't want to tell me, fine. Spare me the slick story that could be an advertisement for the FBI recruiters to use. It doesn't suit you.”

Heidi didn't answer right away. She hadn't expected Blake Harrison to be so perceptive. But the truth? The truth wasn't something she shared. Ever. She couldn't. Not if she wanted to live to fight another day.

“I didn't lie,” she said. Blake started to argue with her but she cut him off. “I grew up rough. There were a few police officers who made a huge impact on me. Then this FBI agent saved my life.” She'd skated into dangerous territory and decided to keep it vague. “By the time I graduated from high school, I had my heart set on joining the FBI, but with my background, I didn't know if the FBI would take me. I chose college courses so I could work in something other than law enforcement if plan A didn't pan out.”

She hadn't come anywhere close to telling him the whole truth, but not one word of what she'd said was a lie. She gave him time to process her words.

“Why are you embarrassed about your childhood?” he finally asked.

How had he made that leap? And how annoying that he was right. “Look, not everyone has a Norman Rockwell upbringing. Mine isn't something I talk about. When people ask, I give them the recruiting-poster version. It's cleaner. And most people don't like messy.”

He nodded. “That I believe. But you shouldn't assume my life has been all sunshine and roses.”

No. She knew about that. She'd had background checks run on the entire Harrison family. Not because they were suspects, but more than one operation had gone south because an agent hadn't done their homework.

The Harrisons had checked out. An American success story. Family-owned business, strong family, loyal employees.

Except for one.

Blake closed his eyes and shook his head. “You know about Lana, don't you?”

She wouldn't deny it.

“Do I even want to know how you know?”

“Background checks are a standard part of an operation like this.” His eyes flashed and Heidi pressed on. Might as well rip the bandage off in one quick pull. “As soon as Markos got the job, I ran background checks and financials on your entire family. Even pulled some reports on your grandparents, looking for any connection to the Kovacs, however slight. I didn't find anything that raised any red flags.”

“Except Lana.”

“Her, um, mistakes, were a matter of public record. As was your divorce and her relinquishment of her parental rights while in prison.”

Blake fidgeted in his chair. Frustration? Embarrassment? Or trying to find a more comfortable position? Heidi couldn't be sure.

Heidi's phone buzzed in her pocket. She silenced it without looking. As a rule, she kept her phone out of sight when she was meeting with someone on official business. If she was going to ask them to trust her, they deserved to get her undivided attention.

The phone vibrated again. Two calls in ten seconds? It might be time to break her rule.

Blake waved his Mountain Dew toward her. “Seems like someone wants to talk to you. Go ahead.”

“Sorry about this.” She caught the call before it went to voice mail. “Zimmerman.”

“Are you still with Blake Harrison?”

Max? “Yes.”

“Stay with him.” Max's tone left no doubt. Something bad had happened.

“What—”

“Hang on.”

Blake's phone rang and his brow furrowed as he glanced at it. She waved a hand to encourage him to take it.

“Mom? Mom, slow down. What—”

His face registered confusion, then concern, then horror. “I'll be right there. Call me if anything changes. Tell Dad I love him. Yes. I love you, too.”

He dropped his phone on the table. “They're taking Dad to the hospital in Asheville. Mom thinks he's had a stroke.” He stood and rummaged around in a basket on the kitchen counter. “I have keys to Mom's car in here somewhere.”

A stroke? This explained the call from Max.

Max came back on the line. “Heidi,” Max said.

“I know. Stroke?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Don't let Blake Harrison out of your sight.”

THREE

H
eidi slid her phone into her bag, retrieved her keys and stepped into the kitchen where Blake pawed through the small basket.

“Good grief.” He dumped the basket on the counter. “Where are they?”

“Blake.” If he heard her, he didn't acknowledge her. She put one hand over his. That got his attention.

“Look, I'm sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”

She jangled her keys. “I know. I'll drive.”

He froze. “What?”

“I'm coming with you.”

“Why?”

Bless his heart. He didn't understand. “Blake, someone tried to kill you last night. You have the grandson of a notorious organized-crime family working for you. Now your dad has a stroke?” He had to see the pattern here.

“My grandfather died from a stroke in his early sixties.”

“Then this may be nothing more than a horrible coincidence, but I'm not willing to take that chance. Let me drive.”

They loaded into her car with no further conversation. She didn't need his occasional prompts to turn left or right, but this probably wasn't the best time to tell him that she'd already made it a point to know how to get to the nearest hospitals.

He stared out the window as she drove and she didn't try to interrupt his thoughts. She'd unloaded a lot of information on him. He had to be exhausted from the long night in the hospital, and now this.

When her phone rang, she answered, aware that his face had paled. She held the phone to her ear, rather than letting the audio play through the car's Bluetooth system.

“Zimmerman.”

“Just talked to Richards,” Max said. “They have eyes on the little girl. She's watching a movie. Both grandparents in the house. No suspicious activity. Team's prepared to stay all night.”

“Good.”

“Caroline Harrison's phone indicates she's heading to Asheville.”

As expected.

“Kovac is at home.”

“Are we sure?”

“Yes. He's sitting on his back porch smoking. TacOps says he's been out there for thirty minutes and he's been home all day.”

“So...”

“We'll keep an eye on things. We'll get some blood samples and have our guys run tests for anything suspicious.”

She could feel Blake's eyes boring into her and chose her words with care. “I would think it would be difficult to cause a stroke without there being other warning signs.”

Anyone who'd ever watched a crime drama or a spy thriller would know certain drugs and poisons could be used to induce a heart attack, but a stroke?

“It should be,” Max said. “I have a call in to a few of our bioterrorism experts to be sure there isn't something new out there we haven't heard of. The only drugs or poisons I know that can cause a stroke would have to be consumed in such high quantities that they'd have to be administered over time, with a gradual buildup of symptoms. He should have been too sick to be sitting around having dinner one minute and then be exhibiting full-on stroke symptoms the next.”

“Unless someone's found a way to induce a stroke that looks like a natural one.”

“Exactly.”

“Let me know what they say.”

“I will. You okay?”

“Yeah. Should be at the hospital in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Tell Blake the latest is his dad's stable. They've administered those stroke drugs. He's breathing on his own and talking to the docs.”

“I will.”

“Z. Be careful.”

“I will.”

She hit End and glanced at Blake. “Your dad is stable and talking to the doctors.”

He blinked in surprise. “Do I want to know how you know that?”

“If you don't, then you aren't going to like the rest of it.” She filled him in on Caroline's location and Maggie's.

“How on earth do you know all this?”

“While you were in the hospital last night, a judge gave us permission to put traces on your phones. And we set up some passive surveillance at your homes and your in-laws' home, since you and Maggie are there so often. Some video feeds on the outside, motion sensors, stuff like that. We have no intention or desire to violate your privacy. This is all for your protection, I assure you. I didn't think you'd object.”

“I don't know how I feel about that.” Blake frowned. “We can discuss it later. Why do you think Maggie is in danger? Even if I'm somehow a problem for Mark's plan, what reason would he have to target my daughter?”

Heidi's mind flitted to that sunny afternoon fifteen years ago. The smells. The heat. The pain. No. Not again. She shook off the foreboding.

Blake needed to be concerned enough to work with them, to take the necessary precautions, but not so worried that he couldn't carry on business as usual. “I don't want to think she is, but I'm not willing to take any chances, because the truth is I can't guarantee we can keep anyone safe.”

She let that hang there, not wanting to rush past it and have it look like she was trying to gloss over this harshest of realities. “We don't know why Kovac is here or what his end game is. We don't know if your family is at risk or not. Up until last night, we assumed you were safe and we were wrong. We've been tracking Kovac's movements, but now we have a system set up to alert us if he approaches any member of your family outside the plant walls. By tracking your phones and cars, we'll know if anyone decides to take off on an unplanned trip and we'll know if anyone's phone suddenly goes dead.”

Blake shifted in his seat. “Don't take this the wrong way, but that's not much. Cell phones and locations are all well and good, but if somebody decides to kidnap my daughter or my mother—”

Heidi held up a hand. “We doubt either of them are targets, but we have systems in place to monitor their whereabouts. If anything looks suspicious, I'll be notified. After what happened last night, I've put in a request to get additional support at your home, but with your houses the way they are, it may be tricky.”

She paused as she waited for the traffic to clear so she could turn left. “We're looking for a rental property close to the plant we can use as a base of operation.”

He shook his head. “This is way past weird.”

“I wish I could tell you it won't get weirder, but it will.”

“Awesome.” Blake rubbed his hands over his face.

They rode in silence for a few minutes before Heidi risked a question. “I was going to ask you this before your mom called. Do you work late often?”

“You don't already know?”

The words held a mixture of hostility and teasing that made it impossible for her to be angry with him. “No. Your family has been on the periphery of my surveillance. Not the main focus.”

“Okay. That makes sense, but I don't understand what my work schedule has to do with anything.”

“I'm trying to get a handle on how difficult it would have been for him to plan the attack against you last night.”

He adjusted the seat belt at his neck. “I almost never work late.”

That didn't fit with the profile she'd been building in her head.

“I work hard while I'm there, and then leave by four-thirty unless I'm covering for one of the engineers or dealing with some major production issues. I make it a point to spend evenings with Maggie. I take her to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes one afternoon a week, and she loves sports. We just finished soccer and are getting ready to start basketball. If we don't have practice or a game, then we hang out at home. If I have things I didn't get to during the day, I log in to the system from home and work after she goes to bed.”

“So Kovac took advantage of a rare opportunity.”

“If that's what you want to call it,” he said.

She decided to take the conversation to a lighter topic. “How did you ever land on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?”

“I earned my black belt a few years ago and I want Maggie to be able to defend herself.”

So much for a lighter topic.

They didn't talk the rest of the way. Heidi didn't mind silence, but most people she knew had to fill it with something. Blake Harrison didn't fit the mold of anyone she knew.

The security guards gave them a curt nod as they entered the hospital. Her weapons could pass for ordinary objects, but not having to submit to a bag search made things much easier.

She punched the up arrow on the elevator. “As long as you're here, pretend I don't exist.”

“What?”

“There's no logical explanation for my presence, or for you to know who I am.”

“Right.”

“Hand me your phone.”

“My what?”

“Your phone. I'll put my number in there. Then if you see anything suspicious, you can call or text.”

He handed her the phone. She returned it as the elevator settled on the fifth floor.

“I'll be nearby. Leave whenever you're ready. I'll catch up in the parking lot.”

* * *

When the elevator doors opened, Heidi stepped off without a backward glance. To anyone watching, they were two strangers on an elevator.

Except no one watching would know she'd saved his life. Or that she was an undercover FBI agent seeking to take down a notorious crime family. She wasn't kidding. The more he thought about it, the weirder this whole mess got.

He spotted Caroline and rushed to her side. “How's he doing?”

Caroline rocked back and forth on her heels. “Okay, I think.”

His mom came out and he pulled her into a long hug.

“Your dad's waiting for you,” she said. “They said you could both come back.”

Blake followed his mom through the ICU. They passed the nurses' station and a break room where someone had burned popcorn. The stench was overpowering, but he preferred it to the antiseptic hospital smell permeating everything else.

His mom paused before a small room. “Your dad wants to talk to each of you alone for a minute.”

He shot a glance at Caroline, her eyes wide in fear. “Go ahead, Care Bear.” As much as he wanted to see his dad, he had a feeling Caroline needed to see him, and hear what he had to say, more.

His mom leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “This is not how I expected this day to go.” He put an arm around her and rested his cheek on her head while they waited. He let his eyes travel around the ICU to see if he noticed anything suspicious. Trouble was, he had no idea what he was looking for. Maybe a janitor who lingered too long in a room, or a visitor who didn't have the same look of concern worn by the families of the patients in these walls?

His dad's stroke was probably due to heredity and not foul play, but with his entire body aching from the events of last night—had it only been twenty-four hours ago?—he couldn't shake the fear gripping his heart.

Was Mark trying to eliminate the Harrison men or did he have his eyes set on the entire family? Or was it just him? What could they have done that would justify murder? Or were they in the way of something he planned?

He scanned the room again, trying to be observant without being obvious about it. It was harder than it sounded and he wished he knew where Heidi was.

More than anything, he wished no terror lurked in the wings and that he'd never had a reason to meet her, in an official capacity, but it was hard to dislike a woman who'd saved his life. Or one who'd taken such a keen interest in keeping his family safe.

Caroline came out of the room teary but smiling. “Your turn,” she said.

He stepped through the door, pausing in the dim light to get his bearings and to be certain no one else was in the room before crossing to hug his dad.

His dad had always been his rock. The one thing that couldn't change. Seeing him lying on the white sheets, his face pale, a slight droop to one side of his mouth, was almost more than he could bear.

“Hey.” His dad tried to smile. Half of his face cooperated. “It's going to be okay.”

Blake swallowed. How would it ever be okay?

“There's a scary nurse that's going to come in here soon. Before she does, I want us to pray.”

“What?”

“Let's pray.”

Blake took his dad's hand and bowed his head.

“Father, You know how proud I am of my son. No father could be prouder. So I ask You now to comfort him. Ease his mind and his heart. Give him the strength to face the challenges of the days ahead. Give him the grace to trust You no matter what comes. Help him to remember that You are in control and nothing that has happened has caught You by surprise. In Jesus' name, I ask these things, Amen.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Blake said. His dad couldn't know how desperately he needed God to answer that prayer.

His time with his dad was cut short by the entrance of the nurse who didn't look as if she'd appreciate being asked to come back a few minutes later.

His mom met him at the door. “Go home. Get some rest.”

“I hate to leave you alone.”

“I'll be fine. I've told Caroline I want her to go home, too. I'll call you if anything changes.” She placed one hand on his cheek like she'd done since he was a little boy. “He's going to recover, Blake, but we need you to be able to run things at the plant and you can't do that if you're worn out. You're going to have your hands full for a few weeks.”

She had no idea.