Midnight Secrets (29 page)

“How’d you hide for six months?”

Jack flashed a grim smile and pointed to himself. “You’d be surprised how invisible the homeless are. That’s how I slapped that tracker onto Blake. Pretended to be a homeless vet at a rally, he had to shake my hand. Looked right into my eyes and he didn’t recognize me. Didn’t even really see me. Where are they?”

“Turn this corner and—” Joe looked up and saw the outline of an ancient van. “There it is!”

Impossibly, Jack stepped on the accelerator harder and they shot forward. “We need to be careful, I don’t want Isabel hurt.”

Joe lifted the IR binocs to his eyes. “I see them,” he reported. “Three outlines. Isabel is sitting on a bench.” Shoulders slumped. In the hands of the enemy. She had no idea they were coming after her. She thought she was alone, abandoned. On her way to her death.

Hang on
,
honey
.
Just hang on a little while longer
,
we’re coming for you.

“Where’s Blake?” Jack asked.

“Sitting next to her,” he answered. “And Isabel is—” He stopped. What was he seeing? The red outlines that were heat images were churning.

“Isabel is
what?
” Jack shouted.

“Fighting,” Joe replied, surprised the word came out. It felt like there were rocks in his throat. “She’s fighting Blake and—oh God.” He watched as she beat at Blake with handcuffs or restraints on her wrists, then started whaling on the driver. He was torn between cheering her on and screaming at her to stop it. They were undoubtedly armed. What the fuck was she thinking?

Though she was magnificent.

The van ahead fishtailed.

“She’s fighting the driver.” Joe couldn’t take his eyes from the binocs. It was like watching a train wreck.

The van swerved onto the other lane, then veered back into the right-hand lane. Isabel was a red-gold ninja, limbs moving almost too quickly to follow in the IR lenses, so quickly her movements left a red-gold trail, like manifestations of ghosts.

The van turned into the Morrison Bridge, wobbling. Thank God there was very little traffic on the roads.

“What?” Jack asked urgently. “What’s happening?”

“She’s putting up a real fight,” Joe said, terrified, trying to keep the pride out of his voice. “She’s got her head real close to the driver’s face. I think, um...” He held the monitor up to try to decipher what was going on. Isabel’s and the driver’s heads together formed one big red-yellow blob. Isabel pulled away and the driver took a hand off the wheel to place it against his head. “I think she bit him. Or kissed him.”

One or the other.

The van swerved again only instead of righting itself, it curved even farther to the right.

“Hey!” Joe shouted at the driver of the van. “You crazy fuck! You’re going to go off the bridge!”

The van speeded up as it rammed the bridge spars, broke through them and plunged straight down into the cold water of the river.

“Stop the car!” Joe screamed.

Jack stood on the brakes and Joe opened the door before it came to a complete halt. He studied the black water as he tore his boots and jacket off, figuring out his moves, figuring out how to get to Isabel because not saving her was not an option. He was either going to come up with Isabel or he wasn’t coming up at all.

He’d clocked in four and a half minutes underwater during training but only after super oxygenating and not moving in the water. On a rescue mission he could last two minutes, tops. That wasn’t important, though. The only important thing was how long Isabel could last.

He only had time to pull in two deep breaths, filling his lungs up completely with air then exhaling deeply by the time he stood on the edge of the bridge where the van had crashed through the barrier.

Isabel was a civilian and civilians didn’t last long underwater. She’d be terrified and panicky and flailing. She’d last thirty-forty seconds before she tried to pull in a terrified breath and breathed water. At least the water was freezing cold which slowed things down a little. Make that fifty seconds, tops.

Joe started the clock in his head as he stood barefoot on the edge of the bridge just long enough to calculate the entry point of the dive.

The van’s roof was disappearing underwater. There would be some air trapped inside the cabin and Isabel was smart enough to take advantage of that. He had to dive as close to the vehicle as possible. One second to calibrate and he dove.

The water was freezing cold and black. The van’s headlights were on and he used that as guidance as he fought the swirls of water displaced by the sinking van. In a few hard strokes he was there at the front passenger door, barely able to see inside by the glow of the headlights. Isabel was still flailing and for a second he couldn’t understand why as he floated just outside the window.

Ten seconds.

Then he saw that the driver was still attacking her.

Goddammit. He had his Glock in its shoulder holster but he couldn’t use it underwater, much as he’d like to just shoot the murderous fuck in the head. On some missions his Glock had been equipped with maritime spring cups that protected the firing pin but this one didn’t have it. Beyond that, the shock wave could damage Isabel’s internal organs, could even kill her.

He pounded on the window to get her attention and she turned, face lighting up when she saw him.

Goddamn. His heart simply turned over in his chest. She’d just fought off two murderous men, she was in a vehicle that was submerged in water, he had no idea if she could even swim, she was surely terrified and the love in her face when she saw him nearly blew him apart.

No one had ever looked at him like that before. He was not going to lose this woman. He was going to save her and if she’d have him, he was going to marry her. And if she wouldn’t have him, he’d just keep asking.

Twenty seconds.

The driver was reaching for her again, movements impeded by the water rushing in.

Joe motioned Isabel away. By some miracle she understood and moved slightly to one side and Joe drove the butt of his Glock with all his strength against the glass pane. It broke, shards of glass floating in the water. Too bad. If they got cut, they’d get stitched up. The important thing was to get to the surface.

He quickly broke away all the pieces of glass clinging to the window frame, reached in past Isabel and with a quick movement of his hands broke the driver’s neck, then put his hands under Isabel’s arms and pulled her out.

Thirty seconds.

From the backseat, a hand reached out, flailing. Blake. Joe watched coldly as Blake’s desperate face appeared, bubbles around his head. He was drowning.

Good. Joe hadn’t bought into the whole bringing-Blake-to-justice thing anyway. The fucker deserved to die.

The heavy vehicle was pushed sideways by the swirling water, crashing into his leg, dragging a shard of glass with it. His blood darkened the water. There was no pain—the water was too cold for that. But if his leg wouldn’t function, it would take longer to get Isabel to the surface. He pulled her completely out of the window just as the van settled on the bottom, hoping no remaining glass was cutting her open.

His right leg wasn’t working right. Fuck. The plan was to hold Isabel and propel them both upward with the strength of his legs. But with only one leg functional, there was only one thing he could do.

Forty seconds.

There wasn’t enough light for Isabel to follow gestures so he took her arms and placed them tightly around his neck and hoped to God she understood. She did. She held on tightly as he began to rise in the water using the full power of his arms and his one leg.

Fifty seconds.

It felt like it took forever, hauling both of them up through the dark, freezing, muddy water. Almost immediately he lost the light of the headlights of the van and could see nothing, nothing at all. Not even Isabel’s face so close to his.

Damn.

He knew she was alive because she was holding his neck but he thought he felt her grip lessen.

Please God.

Please don’t let this brave, beautiful woman die. Take me instead. But if he was too slow, he’d live because he was a navy SEAL and had trained for a year to dive and come up in dark cold water. He’d live but Isabel would die.

Fifty-five seconds.

Isabel’s grip was loose. She was dying.

Light! Faint, barely perceptible. He aimed his face up and pulled as hard as he could.

Fifty-eight seconds.

Joe broke the water on a huge gasp, just as Isabel went loose in his arms.

His head swiveled as he looked up at the bridge where the men had angled the headlights to shine over the water. Jack was shining a powerful flashlight into the water.

“Rope!” Joe screamed just as a rope hit the water five feet from him. He was bearing Isabel’s full weight now. Her eyes were closed and through chattering teeth he started praying.

Don’t die on me
,
honey.
Don’t die.
Don’t die.
Please God
,
don’t let her die.

He wrapped the rope three times around his forearm, his other arm around Isabel. She needed to get the water out of her lungs but he couldn’t do it here. He had to get her onto that bridge where Metal could work his magic. Metal had saved men’s lives countless times. He’d saved lives other medics couldn’t save. He knew what Isabel meant to him, he’d save Isabel.

He had to.

The four men pulled them out of the water, Joe hanging from the rope, holding Isabel tightly to him.

Her eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping. He couldn’t do anything—one hand was holding on to the rope pulling them out of the water and the other was grasping her. All he could do was stare at her face, willing her eyes to open.

His gasps were clouding the frigid air with steam but there was no steam coming out of Isabel’s mouth.

Oh God.

And then they were pulled over the bridge onto concrete and Metal was bending over Isabel and Joe was on his knees, gasping, coughing out water. Blood pooled around his leg. Metal looked over at him, big hands compressing Isabel’s chest, but Joe waved him away.

“Take...care...of...Isabel.”

Metal was counting under his breath, big hands compressing Isabel’s chest hard. Isabel was so cold and still, beautiful face deathly white.

And then—the most glorious sound he ever heard. Isabel, coughing. Metal put her on her side as she weakly coughed out the water she’d swallowed. She looked ice white and battered. The most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

Joe’s leg wouldn’t bear him so he crawled over to Isabel, putting his arms around her, holding her tightly, patting her back as she coughed. He pulled back and looked down at her face, wanting his face to be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.

Her eyelids fluttered, she coughed again, then opened her eyes.

“Is he dead?” was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

Joe laughed weakly, and it turned into a cough. “Yeah.” His voice was gravelly. “He’s dead.”

“Good.” Her eyes closed again.

Joe tapped her cheek. “Honey. Honey, don’t go off just yet. There’s someone you have to see.”

“Don’t want to see anyone,” she said, her voice drowsy. She was falling into hypothermia. They’d wrap her up in their jackets and get her to a hospital fast but first—first she had to know something. Joe lifted his hand and beckoned to Jack. Jack hunkered down on his haunches next to Isabel.

Joe turned her face toward Jack. She blinked. Blinked again.

“Jack?” she whispered, holding out a hand.

Jack grabbed it, put it against his filthy, stubbled jaw. “Sis.”

Tears welled, fell down her face. “You’re alive!” Her mouth formed the words, though there was no sound.

She gave a sob, then another, then lifted from Joe’s arms to throw herself into her brother’s arms, crying and laughing at the same time.

Metal stood. “Gotta get her warm and to a hospital,” he said, but he didn’t stir. It was an incredibly moving moment. Jack’s head was bent over Isabel’s and though he wasn’t sobbing, tears were falling down his cheeks into his beard.

Jacko and Nick held out their hands and lifted Joe. He couldn’t put weight on his right leg, but they were strong men and they were there for him. Everything in Joe’s world felt heavy with the sense of rightness.

His woman, in her brother’s arms, crying out her happiness. His buds, holding him up.

It was going to be all right.

Isabel turned her face, held out a hand. Jacko and Nick shuffled forward with Joe between then until he could reach her, take her hand.

“You—alive. My brother—alive. Blake—dead,” she whispered. “Happiest day of my life.”

Epilogue

The Grange
,
Mount Hood
Two weeks later

It was a great party. The place was fantastic. It was a sunny day and the place was filled with light. Built of wood and glass the reception hall was huge, airy, magnificent. A cathedral to the art of living well.

And eating well.

There were whole stretches of time when the entire ASI crew—a rowdy bunch normally—fell completely silent as a new dish appeared on the fifty-foot-long table. Isabel had designed the menu and had done some of the cooking and it was spectacular. She’d absolutely refused to rest after near drowning and had been working round the clock on the menu.

Joe glanced over at her for the billionth time. So far there’d been ten toasts to her and she was rosy and smiling and so goddamned beautiful it nearly blinded him. She’d begun her blog again—just a few posts so far but the reaction was overwhelming. Each post now clocked up a hundred thousand hits and the numbers were climbing fast. She’d dusted off the file of the book on food she’d been writing. Joe let her be, didn’t push her in one direction or another, because she was finding her own way back just fine. But he was incredibly proud of her.

Her brother Jack was sitting on her other side. He’d cleaned up for the occasion after his months of staying under the radar, pretending to be a mentally disturbed homeless person. He and Nick had been huddled together for the past two days, planning the next steps.

The FBI had handled the removal of Hector Blake’s body back to Washington, DC, where soon the former senator would drown for the second time in a tragic accident in the Potomac. The Portland driver had been ID’d as a former member of the Clandestine Service who had quit after a fuckup in Pakistan.

Nick and Jack were patiently combing the records of former Clandestine Service members and they were being investigated for possible involvement in the Washington Massacre. They were both going back to DC tomorrow to ramp up the investigation, but they had given themselves today off. Amidst all the death, it was time to celebrate life.

There was a kids’ table and Isabel had prepared a perfect kid menu and they were gobbling food down like the apocalypse had come. Lily, Suzanne and Midnight’s amazingly gorgeous little girl, sat at the head of the kids’ table, completely in charge. At four, she was a little princess.

The servers wheeled out a huge cake that was an exact replica of the ASI compound, down to the chocolate trees with mint leaves, the walls made of something Isabel called ganache. It looked amazing and doubtless tasted amazing, too. The servers were pouring champagne.

Pretty soon Midnight would stand up and make a speech and then the Senior would, too. His bosses. For real, this time. Though Joe’s leg was going to take another month to heal, he had absolutely insisted on coming in to work and he was starting to get a handle on their workload, on their clientele and had made a couple of suggestions that had been gratefully received. And as soon as he got the doctor’s okay, he was going operational.

So everything was going just dandy, except for one thing.

He and Isabel were together. She made that clear. But she never, ever spoke about a future together, which was what Joe wanted more than his next breath.

So he was approaching it as an op. Carefully calibrated, step-by-step. He had his strategy all planned out.

First step—unite the houses. Then their lives.

Joe leaned into Isabel and refrained from taking a big sniff, like a dog. God, she always smelled so damned good.

Be calm
, he told himself.
Relax.

This was worse than going on a mission downrange, because then it had been only his life in the balance. Here it was his heart.

“Hey, honey,” he said casually. “Look what Suzanne designed.”
For us.
He swallowed the words because, well, for Suzanne to design something for them, there first had to be a
them
.

He had his tablet with him and scrolled through the images. Suzanne was as magical with design as Isabel was with food.

She’d taken their two houses, united the gardens and built a glass walkway between the two. In the images the walkway was transparent but in actuality it would be made of one-way glass so that the long corridor got all the sunshine but nothing would be visible from the outside.

And it united their two houses into one, making for one big house with a huge garden that would be a great family home.

Isabel watched the carousel of images silently and Joe quietly began sweating. The corridor Suzanne had planned was full of hothouse plants and benches, with a living-room-like arrangement at one end, so light-filled it would be like taking coffee in a garden, even in winter.

Suzanne had called it an orangery, only he didn’t see any orange trees.

It was gorgeous, guaranteed to delight a chick. No? Isabel didn’t look delighted, she didn’t look anything.

Fuck.

Had Joe miscalculated? Presumed way too much? Was this a bad move? Shit, he thought he was being really clever, presenting united houses before proposing to unite their lives.

Maybe she didn’t want to unite their houses
or
their lives. Maybe she was just fine with the way things were. Maybe...maybe she was planning on moving on. Moving away from Portland.

God.

He watched her face carefully for some sign of what she was feeling, but couldn’t discern anything.

Finally the carousel of beautiful images stopped and Isabel looked up at him.

“Joe Harris!” Her voice rang out loud and clear. Everyone stopped talking and looked at them. Even the servers stopped and looked at them.

Oh fuck.

“Yes, honey?” He tried to smile.

Isabel tapped the glassy surface of the tablet. “Is this by any chance a proposal of marriage?”

Yes it was, but it was a subtle one. It was supposed to
lead
to a marriage proposal. Eventually. She’d seen right through it and he had no way to back down now. If she was going to refuse him it was going to be in front of everyone.

“Uh, yeah,” he croaked.

She looked severe. Disapproving. The ASI crew and Suzanne’s people watched, fascinated. Metal and Jacko were smiling sardonically.

Joe had made the mistake of putting on a dress shirt and a tie. He hated dress shirts and ties. Especially ties. They made him feel like a noose was around his neck. He loved it that ASI didn’t have a dress code. He ran a finger around his shirt collar to loosen it up a little so he could pull in some air.

Isabel frowned. “This is the most half-assed marriage proposal I have ever heard of. Do it right.”

Joe’s eyes widened.
Do it right.

Okay
.

Joe stood, using the table for balance. But there was no frigging way he could get down on his knee, not with that injured leg. He threw desperate glances at Jacko and Metal and they manned up. Both came around and each took an arm. They were holding almost his entire weight. That was okay. He wasn’t up to his full weight yet and even when he was, Jacko could bench-press him.

They lowered him to the floor so he could kneel on his good leg.

Ring.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Ring.
Not in his wildest imagination had he thought he’d need a ring so soon.

The table had been set with pretty crystal napkin rings. He snatched his up and held it out to her on his sweaty palm. She picked it up, looked at it carefully, then put it on her left-hand ring finger. It was so large she couldn’t close her hand but she still held her hand out as if admiring an ordinary ring.

Isabel looked down at him and finally, finally smiled. “It’ll do. For now. Then you get me a proper one.”

Joe was breathing hard. “Is that a yes?”

She signaled Metal and Jacko and they hauled him back up.

“That is a definite yes,” she said and kissed him.

The whoops shook the rafters.

* * * * *

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by Lisa Marie Rice, please visit Lisa’s website
here
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