Seven Days to Forever (15 page)

“I’ve got the parabolic mike on the men from the vans, Major,” Sarah said. “They’re speaking Ladavian. They’re talking about the money. I’d say they’re not here to sightsee.”

“Chase team, do you have your targets?” the major asked.

More voices responded, reporting positions. Abbie felt her head start to spin.

“Miss Locke! Hi, Miss Locke!”

Abbie pivoted to see Bradley Hedgeworth waving as he skipped along a step toward her. She looked at Peter. He was smiling and saying something about lunch.

She wanted to scream. It should have been so simple, but it was all falling apart. How long had she been standing here? How much time was left? She had to get away from them. Or she had to get them away from the money. She had a bullet-proof vest, but Peter only had tweed, and Bradley, dear God, Bradley only had a Capitals sweatshirt and a ball cap. If those Ladavians were anything like the men who had broken into her apartment, they wouldn’t care who got in the way. Instead of saving a child, she’d just put another one in danger.

Before she could move forward, Bradley skipped down the steps and stopped in front of her. He grinned. “Miss Locke! Did you know there are thirty-six columns on the memorial? That’s the number of states there were in the Union when President Lincoln was killed.”

“That’s right, Bradley.” She put her free hand on his shoulder to hold him in place as she started to step around him. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m sorry but I don’t have time to chat.”

Peter brushed his fingers over the back of her hand where she touched Bradley. “Can I call you tonight, Abbie?”

The scream was rising in her throat now. She pressed her lips together and made a non-committal sound.

There was a blur of movement at the edge of her vision. She jumped, prepared to run when she heard a familiar deep voice.

“Abbie, sweetheart!” Flynn was suddenly at her side, bending down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry I’m so late. Were you giving up on me?”

She shook her head and exhaled hard. She wasn’t sure she could speak.

Flynn flashed a smile at Peter and Bradley as he slipped his arm around Abbie’s waist and smoothly propelled her up the stairs. “I hate to steal you away from your friends, darling, but we’d better go.”

She took a few steps before she glanced behind her. Bradley’s grin had faltered. Peter was staring after her with an expression of hurt disappointment. She wanted to explain, to apologize for her lies and her rudeness, but she couldn’t. She realized she’d never be able to. She’d taken an oath of secrecy.

Jack Norton moved down the steps to intercept Peter. He made a show of fumbling with a map. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, drawing Peter’s attention away from Abbie. “Could you show me how to get to Grant’s Tomb from here?”

She hurried to keep up with Flynn. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You said you didn’t have a boyfriend,” he muttered.

“I don’t. Peter isn’t. I mean—”

“The Ladavians are holding at sixty yards from your position,” Sarah said sharply. “They observed Abbie’s meeting with the civilian and they’re arguing whether to proceed.”

“Norton, keep running interference with Abbie’s friends,” Redinger ordered. “O’Toole, deliver the pack and get out of there ASAP.”

Flynn’s fingers dug into her hip below the Kevlar vest. “Let’s go, Abbie.”

“But I’m supposed to do this alone.”

“Not anymore.”

She didn’t know how they reached the top of the steps. She barely had time to catch her breath before they were passing by the marble statue of the seated Abraham Lincoln and striding down the shadowed colonnade. She focused on the sixth column.

“Now,” Flynn said.

She swung the pack from her shoulder and dropped it at the base of the column as they passed by.

“They saw the drop,” Sarah said. “They’re still debating.”

Abbie’s steps faltered. She started to twist around to look back but Flynn didn’t slacken his pace.

“It’s over, Abbie,” he said. “Your part’s done.”

“But I want to make sure they get the money even if I have to put it in their hands,” she said. “It’s my fault this happened. I should have remembered that Peter might be around here. I should have—”

“Miss Locke!”

At Bradley’s loud cry, she jerked away from Flynn and spun around.

“Miss Locke!” The boy was waving and racing up the steps toward her. “Miss Locke, you dropped your pack!”

The scene unfolded with the slow-motion horror of a nightmare. Peter stepped around Jack to follow his son. Bradley’s ball cap fell off as he ran around Lincoln’s statue. Abbie held up her palms as she told him to stop. Other tourists who were scattered around the monument turned to observe the commotion.

“Bradley, no!” Abbie cried.

The child skidded to a stop beside the sixth column and scooped up the green backpack that held the cost of another child’s life. He brought it to Abbie and smiled proudly.

She blinked back a surge of tears and took the pack from his hand. She was beyond screaming, beyond disbelief. She watched helplessly as he picked up his hat and ran back to his father.

“The Ladavians are leaving,” Sarah reported.

“All right,” Redinger said. “Chase teams, move out.”

Time snapped into its headlong rush forward. Abbie hugged the pack to her chest. “No. Please. This can’t be happening. Give me another chance.”

Flynn put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Abbie. Let’s go.”

Her lungs heaved with a sob. “No. Let me try again.
Please!
”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and guided her away from the building. “Rafe, are you in position?”

“I’m at the curb with the meter running, O’Toole.”

“We’re heading your way,” Flynn said. “Major, I think it would be best if you took Abbie off the air now.”

“It’s done, Sergeant.”

The voices in Abbie’s earpiece suddenly stopped. She rubbed her forehead and glanced at her watch, but she couldn’t see the numbers through her tears.

* * *

Flynn had never been good around women who cried. He seldom saw actual tears—he knew how to read the warning signs and usually was long gone before they started. Tears were like anchors. Like chains. Slipping past the defenses he’d spent a lifetime perfecting. They were a weapon that, when deployed, was best answered by retreat.

But retreat wasn’t an option here. He would no sooner leave Abbie now than he would leave a wounded man behind on a battlefield. He let the canvas partition fall shut behind him, closing them off from the rest of the tent in the privacy of the cubicle that had been serving as her bedroom. He reached down to rub her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “You did your best.”

She was curled into a ball on her cot, her arms wrapped around her legs. She held herself stiffly, her whole body shaking. She’d been like this since Rafe had dropped them off at the warehouse.

“Did my best?” she repeated. “That’s what I tell my nephews when they miss a fly ball. This wasn’t a Little League game at the community center. This was a
child’s life
for God’s sake.”

“We’ll find him.”

“I promised his father we’d bring him home. The ambassador and his wife must be frantic. They’ve already been going through hell.”

Flynn maneuvered between her cot and Sarah’s and squatted down in front of her, bringing his face level with hers. “Don’t give up yet, Abbie.”

“But the terrorists won’t let Matteo go now. What happens to him if…if…Oh,
God,
this has to be a nightmare. It’s my fault. Again. This is the second time I messed up the ransom exchange.”

“It’s no one’s fault,” Flynn said firmly. “It’s Murphy at work.”

She wiped her eyes on her knees and lifted her face. Her skin was blotchy, her nose red. Her lips were swollen and her chin trembled. She wasn’t a dainty weeper. No, there wasn’t any ladylike sniffling for a woman like Abbie. The emotion that was pouring out with these tears was as genuine as everything else about her.

Flynn felt out of his depth. He knew he wouldn’t be able to remedy this situation with a smile. No clever words were going to help, either. He stroked back a lock of hair that was stuck to her wet cheek. “Except for the men on guard duty and Esposito, the rest of the team is still out there,” he said. “Even the major. They’re following those men from the LLA the same as if the ransom exchange had gone through.”

“I can’t believe this happened. I just can’t believe it.”

He eased the hair behind her ear, then rested his hand on her arm. “Would you feel better if I took you home?”

“God, no! I can stay, can’t I?”

“Sure, you can stay. You’re still part of the team, and the mission isn’t over yet.”

“I need to know when…or if…” She paused, her breath hitching. “I need to know how it turns out.”

Flynn had rid both of them of their electronics as soon as they’d entered the tent, so he was no longer able to listen in on the team’s progress. He tipped his head toward the canvas wall. “Esposito’s monitoring the radio. He’ll tell us when there’s a development.”

“A development? That’s what you’d call it if you found Matteo Vilyas’s body—” She pressed her lips into a firm line as her eyes brimmed.

He leaned closer and caught the front edges of her jacket. He tugged it off her shoulders. “Abbie, you need to relax. Let it go. It’s out of your hands now.”

She uncurled from her huddle in order to take off her jacket. She stared at the bullet-proof vest she wore beneath it as if she’d forgotten it was there, then jerked back and stripped it off as if it burned her. With a sob she flung it to one side. “I know there’s nothing I can do, but I hate feeling helpless. That’s why I make lists and follow schedules. That’s why I always wear a watch.”

He rose from the floor to sit down beside her. The cot started to tip, so he shifted his weight to the center and moved behind her back. With his knees bent, he propped his feet on the cot’s frame on either side of her, looped one arm in front of her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. “We all hate feeling powerless, Abbie,” he said. “That’s why we commando types like to compensate by carrying big guns.”

“What?”

“It goes along with all that equipment I’d started to tell you about yesterday. The army shrinks have a term for it, I think.”

She made a choking sound. “Please, don’t try to make me laugh, Flynn. It would only make me feel worse.”

“What I’m trying to do is to get you to stop blaming yourself.”

“Flynn—”

“Did you get any sleep at all last night?”

She hiccupped, then gradually relaxed into his embrace. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“You’re wiped out. That’s why this is hitting you so hard. Once you get some rest you’ll be able to establish some perspective.”

“I can’t distance myself, if that’s what you mean.”

“It would be easier for you.”

“Sure, it would be easier. You’re used to this because it’s your job. Nothing personal, right?”

He folded his arms over hers, then closed his eyes as he inhaled the scent of her hair. “Not always.”

“I’m just not cut out for this.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Abbie. I wasn’t being patronizing when I said you did your best. You handled tweed man as well as anyone could.”

“Tweed man…Oh, no.” She exhaled and let her head fall back against his shoulder. “Poor Peter. He looked like a kicked puppy. So did Bradley. The worst of it is, I’ll never be able to explain to him why I acted that way.”

“You were trying to keep him and his kid safe by getting away from them.”

“Yes, but he’ll think I was just trying to avoid him. I’m sure I hurt his feelings. Bradley’s, too.”

“Sometimes we have to do things we wouldn’t normally do for the sake of a mission.”

“I’m starting to see that.”

He rubbed his nose against her temple. “So what kind of car does tweed man drive?”

“A Volvo station wagon. Why?”

“He seems to like kids. He sounded as if he could be a history buff, too. But he isn’t your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Sounded as if he wanted to be.”

“He asked me out, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go so I made an excuse.”

“Good.”

She hesitated. “Why would you say that?”

Flynn remembered the surge of satisfaction when he’d whisked Abbie away from Peter. It hadn’t had anything to do with the mission. Neither was what he was doing now. Since when had he held a woman in his arms simply because she needed to be held?

Yet he couldn’t pretend he was holding Abbie like this only out of some noble desire to offer her comfort. He did want to comfort her, but there were other things he wanted to do, too.

“Flynn?”

“He might fit most of your requirements for what you told me you want in a man,” he said. “But you wouldn’t be happy with him, Abbie.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

He shifted her in his arms so that he could see her face. Her tears had stopped. Her eyes were luminous. His gaze dropped to her lips. He couldn’t find the words to answer her question.

But that was nothing new. When it came to his feelings for Abbie, words had failed him before.

Why should he try to analyze this? He was simply going to have to show her.

Chapter 9

I
t was like the first trembling instant when a roller coaster lingered at the crest of a drop. Abbie felt her heart thud painfully. She could see the danger ahead. She could do nothing to stop it.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d known this was going to happen. That moment on the bus when Flynn had seared her with his kiss, she’d understood there would have to be more. There hadn’t been time then. This wasn’t really the time, either. After her spectacular failure this morning, how could she possibly think of her own pleasure? Had she no shame? Had she no conscience? Had she forgotten what could happen if she followed her instincts instead of her brain?

But her mind was still spinning, her emotions in turmoil, and Flynn’s arms felt so solid and right that she couldn’t turn away. What else could she do but hang on for the ride?

Flynn kissed her gently at first. With one arm supporting her shoulders and his long legs angled on either side of her, he held her in a secure embrace. Although his big body surrounded her, she felt no uneasiness. She’d never felt uneasy with his size, even on that first evening when she’d let him into her apartment and hadn’t known who he was.