Redeem My Heart (19 page)

“We have ten minutes,” Crest granted, glancing at his watch that cost more than the whole outfit Fallon was wearing. He wasn’t one to boast about his wealth, but he did like the finer things in life…similar to Ryland in more than one way, not that she would point that out to either of them at the moment. Crest’s business was very lucrative, especially the government contracts his agency enjoyed. Ryland’s activities over the last couple of years had really dampened Crest’s ability to thin out his team by fulfilling certain duties, so seeing this to the end was beneficial for CSA in a business sense. She just needed to be successful within the next few minutes before Ryland did something that couldn’t be fixed. “Make them count.”

Fallon caught the set of keys that Jax threw her way. She slowly inhaled to try and calm her racing heart, but the thought of what awaited her had her on edge. Just how exactly did Ryland expect to obtain the answers he sought? His customary practice was to eliminate the targets, not question them. Townes opened the driver’s side door for her and waited until she was inside before giving her a piece of his own advice.

“Jernigan might not be the head of E.D.A. according to what we know about him—however he is a lead that is worth interrogating,” Townes concluded, most likely from the files she’d given him. It was his next statement that had her understanding he must have his own contacts, making him even more invaluable to Crest than she originally thought. “The man keeps a weapon in nearly every room of his house. If I were Ryland, I’d have taken him into the formal living room where Jernigan rarely spends much time. There’s a Glock 26 taped underneath the coffee table.”

Fallon nodded her appreciation and then inserted the key into the ignition as Townes closed the door. She turned the engine over and then proceeded down the long drive, the house sitting in the middle of an acre of land. She scanned the windows of the country style house, noticing the driveway circled around the structure. She opted to choose the front door as an entry point, thinking about what Townes had said about the living room and the layout Crest had shown them earlier. Ryland had to have seen her headlights from the front window, so she didn’t bother to quietly shut the car door.

“I’m impressed, Miss Canna,” Ryland said, opening the front entrance as Fallon walked up the wooden steps of the freshly painted greyish blue porch. “Not pleased, mind you, but certainly impressed. I take it Crest and his crew will be arriving shortly?”

“Not if you cooperate fully,” Fallon remarked, doing her best to take everything in at once. A small hallway was in front of them that led to the kitchen. To the left was the formal living space where Special Agent Jernigan sat in a chair facing the entryway. The relief that someone had arrived was more than evident, but he also appeared in considerable pain. Her stomach lurched at what Ryland might have done in the time he’d been here, but she could see nothing to reveal Jernigan’s source of pain. Fallon kept her tone low so that the man wouldn’t hear what she had to say. “I will tell you that Jessalyn has been notified and HRT called in.”

“Well, I guess that doesn’t give me a lot of time now, does it?” Ryland closed the door behind them, leaning in a little closer to her than necessary. “We were just having an informative conversation before you interrupted us.”

“I think you’re smarter than that,” Fallon replied, reaching inside of her jacket and pulling her weapon out the exact same moment Ryland mimicked her motions. “Special Agent Jernigan, do not make this situation into a free-for-all. Ryland, you know very well your former captor keeps a firearm in every room. Why give him an opportunity to access one of them?”

“It wouldn’t be any fun then, would it?”

Jernigan leaned back in his chair, his face red with anger when Ryland crossed the room and walked behind the man so that both of them were facing Fallon. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She cautiously took a couple of steps into the room but maintained her distance. She didn’t like that Jernigan would now hear their conversation, but this was apparently how Ryland wanted to play this out.

“Jernigan is not the man we’re looking for,” Fallon declared, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention. She once again glanced around the room, finding no shadows hiding in the corners. She then focused on Ryland, wanting this over and done with before Crest decided to breach. She’d give anything to be back in the sanctuary of Crest’s remote cabin. “We need to leave now before steps are taken that can’t be undone.”

“It’s too late for that malarkey.” Jernigan sat up a little straighter, apparently feeling more in control now that someone was here to rein in Ryland and his three ring circus. Didn’t he understand that no one had the ability to spare him if Ryland decided otherwise? He also gritted his teeth once again in pain. What was she missing? “As for you, I know exactly who you are. I’ll have your badge and—”

The agent snapped his jaw shut the moment Ryland gently laid a hand on his shoulder. Something definitely had to have happened before she arrived and she was now working in the dark. Had Jernigan let something slip regarding E.D.A.?
Had
he been a part of it? She’d combed through his career, his bank accounts, his family, and basically anything or anyone that would have given the authorities something to indicate that he was involved in something greater than his most recent position in administration. There had been nothing.

Ryland leaned down and whispered something in the agent’s ear that she couldn’t hear, causing another wave of uneasiness to come over her. She didn’t holster her weapon, but instead kept it at her side. Crest had given her ten minutes to retrieve Ryland without any harm having come to Special Agent Jernigan. She figured she had roughly six minutes left to unscrew this pooch.

“Please tell Agent Canna what you confessed to your involvement before she decided to join us this evening,” Ryland directed, causing Fallon to step forward. That’s when she could see the blood that pooled underneath Special Agent Jernigan’s chair. His foot had been shot clean through, no doubt by Ryland. Fallon wanted to scream and yell at him that he shouldn’t have handled this so-called interrogation in this manner, but it was far too late. The ability to control this situation was slipping out of her hands. It was then that she noted a small 9mm firearm placed on the table. Ryland had known about the weapons stored in every various location and had played this like a game—one where he couldn’t lose. Of course Jernigan would have gone for the weapon. “I find it so fascinating.”

“I was the one to close down the E.D.A. operation.” Special Agent Jernigan had closed his eyes during the admission and Fallon couldn’t tell if it was due to shame or pain. It must have been the latter, for shutting down such a program took a considerable amount of initiative. “I also ordered the test subjects to be terminated, but was overridden by someone further up the pecking order with far more horsepower than I could muster.”

Well, that explained the remorse Fallon thought Jernigan had projected. She still wasn’t pleased with the fact that Ryland had gone to the extreme of shooting a Special Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. They could have easily gotten this information had Ryland worked with her, allowing Crest to seek out this information through other means. The fallout from this wasn’t something easily contained.

“Who was in charge of E.D.A. prior to your assignment there?” Fallon asked, her gaze catching the tormented flash of agony within Ryland’s dark eyes. He hadn’t wanted to believe that his memories could have been influenced by someone else with an agenda larger than any of them could have ever imagined. Because of that, she wasn’t able to predict his actions. He’d held on to hope and now it was gone. A sliver of fear crept up her spine at the stillness that now invaded him. “Special Agent Jernigan, who—”

The sound of a flashbang, glass breaking, and thuds of what must have been bullets embedding into the drywall filled the air. Fallon dropped to the ground and immediately sought cover while calling out to Ryland to do the same. She finally made it to the archway and leaned heavily against the six-inch wide solid wooden doorframe, trying to see back inside the room. Pieces of debris were flying through the air in every direction. Nothing could have avoided all of that firepower. This wasn’t a breach as much as it was an urban assault. Special Agent Jernigan was now on the floor, his eyes wide open as blood pooled from what was left of the side of his head. Someone had just snipped a thread, leaving them with nothing but another unsubstantiated clue to run down.

Chapter Sixteen

“A
mbush!” Ryland grabbed ahold of Fallon’s upper arm and all but dragged her toward the back of the house. The driver he’d hired could very well have taken off at the sound of the initial volley, but he was their best bet of getting off of this property unscathed. As was his usual SOP, everything now compartmentalized in his mind. Emotions ceased to come into play as he worked out multiple scenarios of what lay ahead of them, depending on the course of action that presented the least amount of exposure to enemy fire. “We’re going out the back.”

“Ryland, CSA has this place surrounded.” Fallon lifted her arm to cover her face when the front door splintered from a breaching charge detonated over the hinges. “We can’t leave exposed.”

“We can’t stay here any longer.” Ryland and Fallon entered the kitchen, taking caution to remain low and avoid a stray bullet from a rear guard. He caught sight of several shadows outside the windowed door and shoved Fallon behind the island as he opened fire. These men weren’t amateurs; they were dressed for combat and well armed. One down. Two down. Not enough to stop the gas canister that came through the broken window glass. “Fuck.”

Ryland held out his hand, for which he was grateful when Fallon didn’t hesitate. They made their way back toward the way they came, but he basically cut through the middle and led them upstairs. These assailants didn’t want Ryland eliminated or they would have taken him out at the same time as Jernigan. No, they wanted him alive but incapacitated.

“Is that earpiece working?” Ryland asked once they reached the landing. He turned and fired in one motion, taking the figure out at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you getting updates?”

“Nothing.” Fallon took the lead, surprising him when she raised an arm and fired. A loud thud could be heard over the bursts of gunfire ringing about outside of the house. She’d just dropped one of the intruders without blinking, telling Ryland she would have made just as excellent a field agent as she did a profiler. A rush of adrenaline shot through him when he thought of the team the two of them could make, when it was all suddenly diminished by recalling what Jernigan had confessed. “We’re about to be—”

An explosion rocked the house, knocking both of them off of their feet. Ryland didn’t hesitate to pull Fallon underneath him, covering her head to prevent any debris from striking her. The blast hadn’t hit the house directly, but it had been damn close. Why would they be using RPGs? Within seconds, everything went silent with the exception of distant voices coming through the broken glass. He slowly and carefully moved so that she could sit beside him. What the hell had just happened?

“Schultz Jessalyn,” Fallon said a little breathlessly, resting her head back against the spindle of the balcony that overlooked the lower level. She’d answered his question, even though it had remained unspoken. The tension slowly drained from the both of them now that someone had suspended the situation. “He’d been alerted to the fact that you took Jernigan hostage.”

“That’s a relative term,” Ryland argued with the lift of his mouth. They could both hear multiple warnings that the threshold was about to be breached. It did cross his mind that Jessalyn would take this as an abuse of his agreement, but he could definitely argue it in his favor. “I would have said he was a detainee for questioning in an active investigation.”

Ryland didn’t feel the need to point out that he wasn’t the one who actually assassinated the man, but then he also didn’t feel it imperative enough to explain his actions leading up to that eventuality. Fallon had heard the substance of what had been discussed. What she hadn’t heard was that Jernigan had respected the man who’d started the covert program and thereby did his best to cover that person’s ass. Ryland sighed in resignation and joined her in resting his head against the banister. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with Crest or any of his gang of lackeys, but there wasn’t any rest for the wicked.