Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Exit Strategy\Payback\Covert Justice (50 page)

She weighed her options. She could try to shoot Markos from here, but a branch could deflect the bullet. She could scoot closer and hope the roar of the water would drown out her approach. She could call Blake on his cell and tell him to get out of there, but if he moved, she couldn't predict Kovac's response. He might shoot him on the spot before she could do anything.

Father, help me.

She picked her way through the trees, thankful the ground was moist from recent snow and the leaves blanketing the forest floor bent instead of crackling as she stepped on them.

She'd gotten within fifty yards when Markos moved toward Blake. Slow and deliberate. She followed behind him at a faster pace, relying on the sound of his own movement to disguise hers.

Her mind raced for a way to get them all off this mountain alive, but no matter which scenario she considered, someone wound up dead every time. Kovac wouldn't surrender, but maybe she could disarm him. She'd seen one gun. And the bat. But she had no way of knowing what sort of arsenal he hid under the field jacket he wore.

She wanted to take him alive. He was the key to unlocking the door to his family's plans for HPI.

She slid through the brush behind him, shrinking the distance between them. At this point, if he turned, she'd be exposed, but that didn't matter anymore. She slid the rifle back over her neck and pulled her Glock out of the holster. At this range, she could drop him if she had to.

He paused twenty feet from Blake's position. If he would sit tight for five more minutes, she'd have a team of agents at her disposal and they'd be able to wrap this up in a nice neat bow.

Kovac moved.

So much for waiting on backup.

FOURTEEN

B
lake finished his coffee. He still didn't have any answers, but the peace he'd been missing for weeks had settled over him. He knew deep in his soul God had not dropped the ball. He needed to wait. And trust.

“Don't do it, Markos!” Heidi's voice rang out from behind him.

He turned and for one long second, everything froze. The man he knew as Mark Hammond stood three feet away. A large gun protruded from his waistband, but the immediate threat came from the baseball bat Mark gripped with both hands.

Ten feet from Mark, Heidi stood exposed, weapon drawn.

Mark turned toward Heidi.

Before Blake could blink, Mark drew his gun.

Heidi and Mark fired at the same time.

Heidi ran in a crouch toward them. “Blake! Run!”

Blake looked back to Mark. He lay on the ground, blood seeping through his jacket, but he managed to lift his arm and take aim. Blake kicked Mark's arm and his gun flew into the woods.

Heidi stood two feet away, chest heaving, hair flying around her face, eyes burning as she glared at Mark, her gun pointed at his chest.

“Markos Kovac, you are under arrest for attempted murder.”

Mark looked at Heidi, then at Blake. “I am truly sorry.”

He reached for his belt. Did he have another gun?

“Blake!
Run!
” This time, Heidi grabbed Blake's arm and pulled him as she dashed away from Mark.

What was going on? She had a gun on him. What did she think—

The ground rocked beneath him and an explosive force knocked him off his feet and away from Heidi. Burning branches rained down on them and as the dust cleared, Blake looked back toward Mark.

Mark was gone.

His gun lay a few feet away, and Blake scrambled for it. Where had Mark—?

As he reached for the gun, his brain made sense of the scene and the awful truth registered.

Severed body parts lay strewn over the burning mountain. A stench he couldn't describe, but would never forget, filled the air.

“Heidi?”

She had known. Somehow she'd known what Mark intended and she'd pulled him to safety.

“Heidi?”

Oh, no. “No!”

Heidi's jacket glowed with fire. She yanked the rifle over her head, dropped to the ground and rolled.

He rushed to her side and grabbed one sleeve to help her pull her arm out. Her eyes were wide and the terror in them frightened him more than anything he'd witnessed yet.

Free of the jacket, she yanked her smoking sweatshirt over her head and threw it to the ground. She stood and stomped on both the jacket and the sweatshirt, over and over before she collapsed to her knees, sobs shaking her body.

She was in just a tank top now, and on her exposed skin he could see the patchwork of scars from her neck down the back of her arms. The skin stretched and puckered in odd places, and had a pinkish tint that didn't match the rest of her olive-toned complexion. The scarring could be seen on her chest above the edges of her shirt. He could only assume it covered most of her torso.

What had happened to her?

Blake knelt beside her. “It's okay, honey. It's okay. It's over.” He pulled her into his arms and held her as she shook. Was she in shock? Having a panic attack? He couldn't make sense of her reaction. She was the bravest woman he'd ever known and not the type to fall apart over an explos—

He rested his cheek on the top of her head as the pieces fell into place. The scars. Burns. Horrible burns. She'd told him the Kovacs had scarred her for life. He'd assumed it was a metaphorical statement, but now he realized she'd been telling him the literal truth.

“Baby, I'm sorry. The fire is out, honey.” He kept up a steady stream of encouragement as her shaking slowed to trembling. She relaxed out of the tight ball she'd curled into and leaned her head against his chest as her breathing eased.

“They killed them.”

She took a deep shuddering breath, and he hastened to reassure her.

“You don't have to tell—”

“I was sixteen. They placed me in a foster family that had a twenty-one-year-old son...”

A violent tremor rocked through her. Blake fought back the nausea as the implications of what she was saying registered. “You don't have to—”

“Yes, I do!” Her voice shook as she yelled at him. “I do! Because you have to understand.”

He had no idea what to do. He sensed that she expected him to push her away, so he held her. Tight. She squirmed in his arms. He refused to let go. She could break free if she wanted to, and if she put up a serious objection, he'd release her immediately.

For a moment, he thought she might punch him.

Then the air whooshed out of her and she went limp in his arms.

“When he came after me, I ran. Rachel was twenty, working at the restaurant I stopped in to get warm. She asked a few questions that I thought I'd deflected, but fifteen minutes later, this couple shows up and slides into my booth. Her parents, David and Angie Thompson.

“I still don't know why I told them everything, but I did. Next thing I knew, I was in a clean house with a clean room just for me, wearing clean clothes. I fell off the grid and they caught me. Put me in school. Became my family.”

She sniffed.

“It was the happiest year of my life. I made good grades, went to church, discovered there was Someone who had loved me forever and would love me forever. Fell head over heels in love with Jesus and truly believed my life would be glorious and wonderful forever.”

She shrugged in his arms. “I didn't know anything about Rachel's boyfriend for a while. Even after I met him, I didn't know who he was—who his family was. I didn't know how much danger we were all in.”

More pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Was he a Kovac?”

“Yes. Jozsef Kovac. He went by Joe. Markos's oldest brother. He was the apple of his grandfather's eye, which was the only reason he hadn't yet faced any consequences for his refusal to join the family business. But his uncles wouldn't stop pressuring him. When he and Rachel told the Thompsons what was going on, they were horrified. Not that she'd fallen in love with the grandson of a crime boss, but that they intended to elope and disappear to avoid his family's retaliation.”

She swallowed hard.

“They should have stuck to that plan. It would have saved their lives.”

“The Kovacs found out?”

“Oh, yeah. Mr. Thompson had a lot of connections, and he'd agreed to help them. The plan was to set them up in Canada. In Vancouver. Things were almost finalized, and as far as anyone knew, no one in the Kovac family had a clue.”

“How did they find out?”

“I still don't know for sure. I suspect they were being followed. They may have even bugged them. Either way, someone in the Kovac family decided to make an example of them. I believe it was one of his uncles. His grandfather is a horrible, violent man, but he loved him, and so did his father. But some of his uncles are worse than his grandfather ever thought about being, and one of them gave the order.

“We were at home. All of us. The Thompsons, Rachel, Joe and me. It was going to be our last meal together before they ran. Mrs. Thompson asked me to go out to the garage to get some Cokes out of the fridge. I remember I had my hands full of cans. Then everything exploded.”

He squeezed her tighter and rocked back and forth as he would when comforting Maggie.

“I don't remember much after that. Heat and pain. My clothes melted into my back. It took weeks of skin grafts and surgeries and—”

What could he say? He held her and prayed.

“Uncle Frank was Rachel's godfather, and even before then, he'd decided he was my godfather, too. He and Aunt Ginny had welcomed me into the family because the Thompsons had. Mr. Thompson must have confided in Uncle Frank, because when I regained consciousness, they were there. He'd arranged for it to look like I was killed in the blast. I left the hospital with a new name and a new face and strict orders never to get anywhere near the Kovacs.”

“I'm getting the impression that you don't follow orders very well.”

She barked a mirthless laugh. “No. Uncle Frank gave up trying to keep me from going after them and insisted if I was going to play with fire, I at least do it right. I spent my summers learning all sorts of law enforcement techniques. Joined the FBI straight out of college and then went into the organized-crime division. Became the agency's expert on the Kovacs.

“And, here I am.” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. “I'm sorry for the meltdown. I don't like fire.”

“You can melt down on me anytime.”

She tried to pull away. He held her closer. “Where do you think you're going?”

“I have a job to do, Blake.” The sadness in her words cut him to the quick. “We've got a pulverized Kovac scattered all over the place. The family will notice his absence and we need to have a plan for how we're going to handle it. I have to call Uncle Frank, and process the scene, and try to find Katarina Kovac before she does a runner.”

“You can do all that in a minute. First, I need you to answer one question.”

“What?”

“How did you know he was here?”

“The TacOps team got an alert when he closed in on your position. They called me.”

“Just you?”

“There's a team on the way up the mountain. They'll be here any second.”

As if on cue, the unmistakable sound of people running toward them pierced the morning air.

Max broke through first.

“Kovac?”

“Blew up.”

Max's eyes widened in horror as he took in the scene and then filled with compassion when he saw the smoking remains of Heidi's jacket and sweatshirt. He knelt beside them. “Z? You okay?”

“Yeah.”

Max looked at Blake for confirmation. “No,” Blake disagreed. “She was on fire.”

Max's reaction proved Blake's suspicion that he knew what had happened in Heidi's past. Blake fought back the little green monster.

Max put one hand on Heidi's arm. “Why don't you take a few more minutes while we secure the scene?”

“I'm fine.”

“I have no doubt you will be. Sit tight.”

He squeezed her arm and then returned to the group of agents standing a few feet away, their expressions ranging from shock to dismay. He gave orders and they dispersed in groups, some back down the trail, others around the explosion site. Heidi had sat still through it all, her head resting on his chest, but when a chopper circled overhead, looking for a place to land, she pulled away.

“Time for me to get back to work.” She gave him a wan smile. “Thanks.”

He'd kept his hands away from her skin, afraid of how she might react to his touch, but now he risked it and gently ran his hand down her arm.

She flinched. “You don't have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend it doesn't matter.”

“What doesn't matter?” Had she hit her head? Could she be that sensitive about her scars?

“I know what I look like.”

“Do you?”

“I've been looking at myself every day for fifteen years. Trust me. You think you'll get used to it and it won't matter, but you won't and it will.”

He almost asked how she could think so little of him. Then he saw Max watching them and he got the distinct impression that if he didn't tread lightly, Max would make him regret it. She got to her feet, brushed dirt from her legs and tank top and walked over to one of the agents kneeling beside something that looked disturbingly like an arm.

She shivered in the breeze. If he offered her his jacket, would she get the wrong idea? Would she assume he wanted her to cover up her skin so he didn't have to look at it?

Max walked up to him and extended a hand to help him up. When he got to his feet, Max nodded in Heidi's direction. “You have your work cut out for you, bro.”

“Do you know why she's so sensitive?”

Max shrugged. “Took some fierce teasing in college from girls who didn't have enough sense to know she could have killed them in their sleep and gotten away with it. Then a boyfriend dumped her over it.”

“Was that the real reason or did she assume?”

“Sara says the guy was a real jerk. Took her to a party but asked her to wear long sleeves so she wouldn't gross his friends out.”

Blake swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat. What kind of idiot—

“It's stupid, and she knows it. But at the time, she didn't have anyone to help her process it. Sara says it's a combination of post-traumatic stress and survivor's guilt. The only family she ever loved died and as much as Frank and Ginny tried, she was already in her late teens and badly traumatized by the time she came to them. There was only so much they could do to help her. When we met, she still had a lot of anger. Now?” He looked at her and shrugged. “I think she wants it to be over, but she can't walk away.”

“It's hard for me to believe a woman as brilliant as Heidi would struggle with a few scars.”

“I can't argue with you there, but when it comes to this stuff, she's still sixteen. She still has nightmares, and she avoids fireplaces and fireworks. I think in some ways, she believes if she could put the Kovacs away, make them pay for what they did, then she'd be able to let it go. Until then...”

Heidi looked in their direction and Blake could tell she knew they'd been talking about her. She rolled her eyes and walked away.

Max snorted. “Like I said...”

“Got any advice?”

“Tell her the truth. Whatever it is.”

* * *

Heidi stalked around the mountainside. Her ears rang from the detonation and the stench of burned flesh threatened to make her sick. No one ever got used to that smell.

The forensics team would arrive soon, and she needed to call Uncle Frank with an update, but she couldn't do it yet. She needed to get her emotions back on an even keel after that humiliating breakdown in Blake's arms.