Rescue Me (13 page)

“You did it, Ms. Davis. If you hadn't seen
through Damon, we would have never found Tommy.”

“Thank you, Mr. Miller.” She stepped out of
the hug and gave him an uncomfortable smile. Spencer moved to her
side and took her hand in his. When he squeezed, she squeezed back
as her smile finally reached her eyes.

Miller dropped his gaze to their hands and
gave a single nod. “Very good. I see you're taking advantage of my
offer.”

Kathryn casually pulled her hand back.
“Excuse me?”

Oh, shit.

Spencer spied Weber out of the corner of his
eye and knew he'd caught on as well. He was so fucked.

“I gave Spencer a little incentive to find my
grandson.”

“And what sort of incentive would that be?”
Weber asked, his voice even, dangerous.

He had to do something and fast. “Kathryn,
why don't you take Martha inside the Com Van for some coffee as we
wait for the team to bring Tommy in?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Martha offered.

Kathryn didn't look pleased at the request.
She thrust out her chin and for a split second, Spencer thought
she'd unleash on them all. But then she nodded and softened her
face with a smile. “Right this way, Martha.”

As she walked out, she threw a glare over her
shoulder at Spencer that hit him clear to his soul. There'd be hell
to pay after this.

“That incentive?” Weber prodded.

“I told Allen that if he found Tommy I'd be
sure the board turned the other way while he got the K-SAR wildcat
out of his system.”

“Oh you did, did you?” Weber turned his glare
on Spencer.

Yep. Definitely fucked.

It pissed him off that he referred to Kathryn
like some woman that didn't mean shit to Spencer. She wasn't a
fling he needed to fuck out of his system. She
fueled
his
system.

Good luck convincing her of that after
this.

“Tommy is on his way,” Weber told Miller. “As
soon as he arrives, we'll get him checked out by our medical team.
You can see him then. Now if you'll excuse us, I need to have a
word with my agent.”

“Don't be too hard on him, Weber. My offer
obviously worked.”

Bullshit. Kathryn found that boy using her
gut instincts and personal experience. It had nothing to do with
Miller's offer. Weber nodded for Spencer to leave the tent. He
debated whether to follow orders. His personal life was just
that—personal. Weber had no right to dictate who Spencer spent his
time with outside of the job.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Weber
demanded the instant they stepped away from the tent. “Not only can
you not keep your love life out of a find, but you bring in a
member of the goddamn board? Are you mental?”

“I never said a word to him.”

Weber walked away and then spun around again.
“And yet he knew exactly where to hit you. We are right back to you
not being able to keep your personal life out of the job.”

“There's nothing to keep out.”

“Bullshit. You don't think I saw the way you
stuck to her side like you two were joined at the hip? I'm not
blind, Allen. Neither is Miller. She compromised you on this
find.”

Spencer thrust his hand through his hair.
“Why are you so pissed about this? We found the boy thanks to
her.”

“And
only
thanks to her! If you
weren't sniffing around like a buck in rut, you would have picked
up on Salazar. Instead, you let a fucking citizen show us up.”

The team appeared over the hill, a bundle of
foil emergency blankets in Lyon's arms. They made a beeline for the
ambulance.

Weber watched them until they had the boy
safely in the back of the vehicle before turning to Spencer.
“You'll meet me back at HQ in an hour. That should give you enough
time to get your shit together. We're going to have a little talk,
you and me. If I don't like any of your answers, I'm benching
you.”

“For a successful find?”

“For coming that close to it being a failed
find.” Weber held up his finger and thumb a millimeter apart. “You
lose focus when she's around and that's not something I can afford
in my agents. One hour, Allen.”

Spencer stilled as his blood cooled. Goddamn
Weber for having the authority to do exactly that. And goddamn
himself for not having the balls to tell him to take this job and
shove it up his ass. They found Tommy Miller.

What more did he want?

Just the thought of eating a greasy dinner
from a paper sack had Kat's stomach churning in protest, but if she
planned to last through the debriefing with the rest of the units
and then the interview with Tommy once the TREX medical team
cleared him, she needed to eat.

She managed half a burger and some cold
fries, then washed the food down with a watery soda. It landed like
a lump of wet clay at the pit of her stomach and she knew she'd
need a whole lot of Tums to help it digest.

The Com Van door opened and Spencer poked his
head in. “They're ready for us.”

Kat gave him a nod and stood to brush the
salt and crumbs off her front. Spencer eyed the gesture and at
first she thought he directed the hunger in his eyes at her. Then
she followed his gaze to the bag of food. She'd bet he hadn't eaten
since bringing her in on the search.

She handed him the bag. He didn't say a word
and instead had everything devoured in a matter of seconds. He had
a voracious appetite, in
every
sense of the word. Once he
consumed the food, he looked at her. That hunger was still there,
swirling, darkening his gaze. A jolt of anticipation shocked her
body, tightening her nipples. They needed to close out this search
so they could finish what they started in the back of the Com
Van.

“Thanks,” he said and handed the empty sack
back. “Ready?”

“Let's do this.” She fell into step beside
him and wanted desperately to know what exactly this incentive was
that Martin Miller mentioned. But right now, she needed to keep her
focus on Tommy. She'd have time to grill Spencer later. She'd have
time to do a whole lot to Spencer later. She smiled at the thought
and debated which part of him she'd attack first.

She spotted Tommy's tiny body on the gurney.
Twigs and pine needles muddled his dark hair. Dirt caked against
dried blood from all the scratches on his skin. He had a bandage on
his arm. No doubt the wound that left the blood for TREX to
find.

Kat furrowed her brow. The poor kid was a
mess.

But he was alive.

The two-man medical team had Tommy in the
back of the ambulance, the doors open, as they tended to him. One
checked his vitals as the other added something to his IV. Martha
stayed right by his side. The team had him covered in thick, wool
blankets. From a distance Kat watched them work fluidly around
Martha as she hovered. Not once did they ask her to move.

She knew these two, having had them on
several of her searches in the past. They did more than TREX finds
and she chalked it up to yet more third-party agencies.

“Hey, Geno,” she called out as one of the
members of the medical team jumped out of the back of the
ambulance. “How's he doing?”

“He's in amazing shape, all things
considered.” He nodded at Phil still in the back with little Tommy
as the other man wrote something on a clipboard. “I was just
telling Phil what a miracle this is. You find a wounded little boy,
in the middle of the forest, in the middle of a winter storm.
Nicely done.”

“Thanks. But I can't take all the credit.”
She nodded toward Spencer.

Phil set the chart aside. “TREX didn't find
him. K-SAR did. You did it, Kat. I don't know how you pulled this
miracle out of that sweet ass.”

He lost his grin when Spencer nailed him with
a lethal glare. He whipped around and focused on securing Tommy on
the gurney.

“Can I talk to him?” Kat hated to push after
everything Tommy had already been through. It was always best to
interview the subject as soon as possible to capture everything
while it remained fresh in his or her memory. Trauma did
interesting things to the memory, altering it or sometimes deleting
it altogether.

She would know.

Phil, now on Spencer's shit list after his
comment, spoke up, no doubt in hope of redeeming himself. He darted
his gaze from Spencer to Kat as he jumped out of the ambulance.
“Ask now, because once we get to the hospital you won't get another
chance until he's released. Hospital policy with minors.”

Kat stepped up into the ambulance and sat
down next to Tommy. He looked so small strapped to that giant
gurney. “Is it okay if I ask you some questions, Tommy?”

He nodded. As soon as Martha took his hand,
Tommy burst into tears. Martha held him as he curled to her.

She already saw that coming. When they'd
finally found her the only thing she'd wanted was human contact.
She'd been so scared she'd never see another person again. It
didn't matter whom she hugged, only that she held them and never
let them go. When she'd spotted her dad, she'd burst into a fresh
tantrum of tears and ran into his arms. She'd never wanted to leave
his side again.

Tommy shook as he held fiercely onto his mom.
He buried his face and sobbed hard, apologizing over and over.

“It's over.” Martha stroked Tommy's hair from
his eyes.

“Bad men are out there.”

“I know, baby. But there are good men out
there, too. The good men brought you back to me.”

With fresh tears in his eyes, he peeked at
Kat from under his mom's hold. “Who are you?”

“This is the person who showed the good men
where you were hiding,” Martha explained.

He pushed away from his mom and even sat up.
“Y-You showed them where I was?”

Kat nodded, not knowing how else to explain
it to a six-year-old. “That was me.”

He then threw his arms around Kat and spoke
in a tiny voice that pulled at her resolve.

What he said next had her heart in her throat
and tears in her eyes. “Mommy says angels are real. Are you an
angel?”

Tears streamed down Kat's cheeks as she
hugged him tight. “Today I am.”

* * * *

Spencer stood with his back against Weber's
office wall at TREX headquarters, his booted foot kicking a dust
ball around on the floor as he contemplated why Weber felt the need
to lecture him again, and after a straight twenty-hour shift. At
least he smelled better after hitting the showers at HQ. It took
him an extra twenty minutes between the Seattle traffic and finding
soap that didn't make him smell like he'd just gone through a
decontamination drill. Now here he stood in the Western Region of
TREX's HQ, wondering if he'd be welcome here this time
tomorrow.

Weber hated HQ and made it a point to avoid
it at any cost, which made this one of his special occasion
meetings. Oh how Spencer loved those. They usually involved Special
Agent in Charge Dan Weber yelling his ever-loving head off and
Spencer getting busted down to
shit
duty until he did
something to get off Weber's
shit
list.

Why the hell was he here? Really? If Weber so
much as coughed Kathryn's name, Spencer would walk right out the
goddamn door. They found Tommy Miller alive. He and Kathryn hadn't
done anything wrong. Hell, Spencer had the board's permission to
pick up where they'd left off, which brought him back to his
original question.

And Weber just sat there behind his large oak
desk, glowering at him with those hooded blue eyes sheltered by a
brow furrowed in fury. Spencer knew better than to speak first and
give up too much information, so he remained silent and continued
to kick at the dust ball.

He pushed his fingers through his hair and
slowed when he picked up on Weber watching the nervous gesture.
Spencer growled and jammed his fingers into the pockets of his
BDUs. He didn't want to give Weber any indication that his nerves
had him strung tight. “Got a mirror?”

“No.”

This had better not have anything to do with
Kathryn or that he'd kissed her while on duty. The only way Weber
could possibly know was if Becker ratted them out. If he had, the
son of a bitch was dead. Spencer would see to that. After the way
that man kept looking at Kathryn, Spencer may just kill him
anyway.

He caught himself laboring his breathing the
more he thought about why Weber called him here and decided to
mentally walk through the find to keep his brain occupied.

Thank God for Kathryn Davis. Tommy Miller had
a guardian angel in her. If she hadn't picked up on Salazar's
guilt, they may have lost that kid forever. Spencer's gut cramped
at the thought.

But she'd found him and now Tommy Miller
rested safely in the warmth of a hospital bed and not curled up in
a little ball in the frigid, dark cold, crying himself to sleep. Or
worse. When Weber stood and paced—never a good sign—Spencer's
nerves sank into his gut, tightening it until he could bounce a
quarter off his abs. Weber continued to pace back and forth, every
once in a while stopping as he heard a door open and close.

The maddening silence was the worst part.
Weber always took his time to form his words, which meant Spencer
had to wait and concentrate on keeping his temper under control.
The mix of irritation at being clear up to Seattle, the exhaustion
from the find, the emotional cruelty fate had dealt by keeping him
and Kathryn apart. Everything snaked inside him, winding him like a
recoil spring on an M16. It was only a matter of time before he
exploded. And he knew he would need to in order to release all this
pent up energy.

He scanned the room to keep his mind
occupied. Pictures lined the office walls, photos of the SAC
shaking hands with various people of importance. The desk sat in
the middle of the room, the uncomfortable metal chairs with stained
cushions stationed in front. As Weber paced behind the desk,
Spencer waited.