THE FIRST SIN (6 page)

“You could have talked to me.” My voice was hoarse with anger and pain.

“You never said a word.”

“Lex—“

I was trembling all over now. “Stacy Randolph is dead.” The shock on his face was real. Gary thought Randolph worked for the same language interpreting agency as I did so he knew her.

He dropped his hands away from my shoulders. I could see his desire to comfort me, to wrap me in his arms. No friggin’ way. “Oh God, I’m sorry.”

So much more pain wanted to explode from me that I backed away from him.

turned, and took the hardest swing yet. This time at his passenger door. I don’t know why the crunch of metal was so satisfying, but it was. Pain, anger, hurt, betrayal, shock, guilt. Could anyone feel so much balled up within and not be turned inside out? I raised my chin and whirled to face Gary—

And came face-to-face with a pair of men in blue.

Christ.

The frantic beat of my heart increased as I looked from one stern face to the other.

Not jail. Oh, God.

One of the cops looked at the damage to the truck. “Must have pissed you off good,” he said in a strong Southie accent.

I swore I heard amusement in his voice.

The other officer marched me the few steps to the cruiser and forced me up against it, my back to him, my arms and legs stretched out as I braced myself against the car. I could smell the soap he must have used to shower, and the drycleaner scent of his pressed uniform.

My anger started to fade, and instead a sense of defeat made my body ache.

Right then I wanted to curl up in a ball and hope this was all a dream. A nightmare as bad as the ones I had nearly every night.

“I’m not pressing charges,” Gary started to say when the cop’s words cut across his.

“What the hell—?” the cop was saying as he found the Glock at my hip, before he discovered the knife strapped to my ankle. “Do you have a license to carry concealed weapons?”

Oh, shit. I always locked my handgun in the glove compartment of my Cherokee before I saw Gary, but today I’d been too distracted.

“No,” I muttered, part of my anger draining away into cold, hard reality. Lexi Steele was an interpreter. She wouldn’t have a concealed weapons permit. “I don’t.” “Then I guess it’s a trip to the station for you,” the cop said.

“I’m not pressing charges.” Gary repeated. “That’s fine,” the officer said. “But we’re taking her in for possession of illegal weapons on her person.” I was so in for it when Oxford found out. The people standing around or peering over their balconies only knew me by my real name of course—I’d grown up with a lot of them. To everyone I knew in “real life” I was just Lexi Steele. Pint-sized tough chick who could speak nine different languages.

The officer finished searching me, and I heard the jangle of cuffs. He jerked my arms behind my back before the cold metal bit into my skin.

The officer started reading my Miranda rights.

Icy realization hit me.

I was really going to jail.

I was going to be put behind bars.

Now I’ve really blown everything, haven’t I?

When they shoved me into the back of their cruiser, I met Gary’s eyes. His were filled with regret, not anger. And that hurt worse than if he’d been furious with me. I looked out the cruiser’s other window and swallowed so hard I coughed. Everything familiar now seemed alien as the officers drove through Southie toward the District 6 station on Broadway.

Like an egg separated from the yolk, what was real separated from what couldn’t be.

Gary had been a safe place in my not-so-safe life, and now that was gone.

March 28

Thursday morning

Nick scrubbed his hand through his hair. Just great. He had a partner who apparently didn’t know the meaning of the words “low profile.”

He clenched his jaw as he leaned back in the chair of his home surveillance room. Blue light from the several computer screens was the only illumination in the room, which suited him just fine.

Just looking at one club in particular had him clenching his hands and ready to punch holes through the walls. He hadn’t been one to destroy property, but goddamn, just seeing the Diamond Castle made him want to go to the nightclub and tear the place apart. He wanted it so bad his palms itched.

Now he had a partner who could possibly have fucked things up unless RED

had gotten the situation under control and kept what she’d done out of the media. He felt a surge of frustrated anger. He didn’t need this shit. Not now.

Nick got up from his chair and headed toward his bedroom to change into his sneakers and shorts. He needed to go for a run. He’d be no good to anyone if he lost control. He was too close to achieving his goal. And yes, he’d mow down anyone who got in his way, but he’d try to make sure that Lexi Steele was safely out of the way. However, not even she would have the power to stop him.

March 28

Late Thursday morning

I don’t handle cold metal bars well so I was more than a little relieved when a short, stocky female officer strolled up to my cell and said, “You’re in luck, babe,” she said as the lock clanked and she rolled the door open. “You’ve got yourself a ‘Get out of jail free’ card.”

I pushed myself to my feet in time to see two men enter the corridor. A combination of relief and dread went through me in a harsh rush.

It was two of my own agents, Takamoto and Smithe. This was just the beginning of Oxford’s punishment. God.

The BPD officer winked at me before she led us down a couple of corridors.

“To think,” Smithe said with a grin, “we’d end up bailing our TS out of jail.”

I glared up at him. “Screw you.”

Takamoto laughed and I glared at him, too. I’d tried calling Georgina last night. But she never answered her cell and I couldn’t think of anyone else to call. Not my family. Not even my brother Zane, who was a RED Special Agent, too. He knew Gary and I didn’t want Zane to end up in jail, too, for killing my now ex-boyfriend. No, I’d had to face the lion’s den and place my call to Oxford.

The officer escorted us through a main door and into the police station itself.

The breath I took felt like I’d just sucked in a lungful of spring air compared to how it had smelled where we just came from.

‘Tsk.” Smithe wasn’t going to give up as he signed out the two weapons that had been taken from me. The knife and the Glock—both had saved my life one time or another, or had ended someone else’s. “Beating some guy’s truck in broad daylight—yeah, that’s low profile.” I gritted my teeth and gave Smithe a harder look. “I have a pretty nasty assignment I’m almost ready to put someone on. I think you’d be a good candidate.”

Ha. That shut him up. Takamoto looked like he was holding back a smile.

I didn’t have a permit as part of the job, so those weapons weren’t coming near my hands until we got into the transportation they’d brought. I might as well have been naked. While still in the BPD station, Takamoto handed me my wallet with my civilian ID and I shoved it into my back pocket. I blinked when we walked into the sunshine. Was it already almost noon? Crap. Since I hadn’t eaten for so long, I was light-headed on top of being exhausted, hurt, angry, and filled with so much pain I couldn’t begin to think straight. One black Ford Expedition with dark-tinted windows waited in the back of the police department parking lot. A cool breeze hit me and I shivered. Spring had only made it to us a week ago.

Christ, what an inane thought. Who cared that it was spring now? I might be losing my job.

The breeze became a light wind and threw my dark hair across my face, a face that could probably use a whole bar of soap. My mouth tasted sour, and no doubt my breath would bowl over Superman. As soon as I had faced the firing squad I had a date with a toothbrush and a shower. I walked toward the SUV with Takamoto and Smithe. “You know how to do it up good, Steele,” Takamoto said with a grin as we reach the SUV “We’ve all got our talents,” I muttered.

Smithe opened the rear driver’s-side door for me. “And yours seems to be getting in deep whenever you get a chance.”

I scowled at him as I buckled my seat belt. “Bite me.” “One of these days I’ll take you up on that,” he said before he shut the door.

The leather was smooth against my back as I slid down in my seat, exhaustion rolling through me. I’d faced Randolph’s death and had gone over everything I could about her case. I’d had my head agents brief me before I stopped at Gary’s, took a bat to his truck, ended up in jail, and had a nightmare that made me feel like I hadn’t slept at all. My eyes fluttered and Takamoto’s and Smithe’s conversation faded as sleep came.

March 28

Thursday afternoon

‘Time to face your doom, Steele,” Smithe said. The words barely registered as my eyes blinked open and I stared at the seat in front of me.

Shit.

Oxford.

The familiar parking garage for RED’s cover operation made it easy to tell where I was. I didn’t want to be here right now. I’d rather have stayed on that backseat and slept for a million years than face what I had to now. In the agency only Oxford knew I’d been an assassin. All anyone knew was that I’d been in Special Forces in the Army before joining RED as a special agent.

I owed her, and I hated the thought of disappointing her or, even worse, putting her in a position where she might have to can me.

Damn. The thought of being forced to leave RED hit me like a punch to the gut.

I rubbed my goose bump-covered arms. If I lost my job, I’d lose my identity.

Everything that I’d worked for since she saved my ass.

Takamoto and Smithe headed out of the lower level of the garage with me trailing in their wake. My scalp itched and

I knew I had to look like I’d just come off of one of those survival reality TV

shows, and lost. If I was a girly-girl I might have cared. Right now I didn’t.

Feeling started coming back into my limbs and my body as we took the parking garage elevator up to the first floor. My feet dragged like a kid being taken to the principal’s office as we reached the pseudo interpreter agency.

After my ASAC canned me from the Recovery Enforcement Division, would any other branch of the NSA take me on?

Ha. The NSA didn’t know I existed. After all, RED didn’t exist, right?

When the three of us passed the glass-walled reception area where the blinds were always kept shut, my reflection made it clear I looked even worse than I’d thought—which was pretty damned bad.

I glanced down the hallway that led to the exercise center and wished I could jump into the shower in the women’s locker room before it was time to face Oxford. Yeah, like she would wait for a little thing like a shower. Takamoto touched the fingerprint scanner; then he, Smithe, and I entered the empty elevator and Takamoto punched the button for the fifth floor.

“This year the Yanks don’t stand a chance against the Red Sox,” Takamoto said, and I turned my attention to him. Thinking about the baseball season that was going to start Monday was a lot better than thinking about what I was about to face.

Oxford’s disappointment. And no doubt anger. “The boys kicked ass in the Grapefruit League during spring training,” I said.

“Zapato’s looking particularly good,” Smithe said. “He’s one hell of a pitcher.”

As a city we were still pissed about last year’s ninth inning loss to the Yanks on a home run by Andy Dominique in the World Series.

Every floor seemed to pass by too fast. With a soft stop, we reached my fifth-floor doom.

I looked down at the CC and wished I was working with my team. But at this moment I was destined to stay above the CC on the catwalk that went past the TSs’ glass-walled offices.

“Oxford’s,” Smithe said.

I glared at him. “Oh, really? Thanks for informing me of that little fact.”

While Takamoto and Smithe left me and headed toward the stairs to the CC I practically dragged my feet as I went to my ASAC’s office.

Darlene looked down her nose at me as she immediately showed me in, almost like she was shoving me through the door before she closed it.

I swallowed as I met Karen Oxford’s dark eyes. Her gaze remained steady as she pressed a button on her glass-and chrome desk.

Vertical black blinds hummed along their track as they covered the glass walls, giving us complete privacy. This was so not good.

Oxford leaned forward and clasped her hands in front of her on her desk, her dark gaze shrewd and calculating. At times like this she made me feel as if she could peel me like an onion, layer by layer. She didn’t invite me to sit, just stared at me for a long moment.

Oh, damn. As much as I’d cared for Gary, my career meant enough that I would have chosen my job over dating any guy. And I was about to lose it.

And Randolph. God, I couldn’t leave before I took out her killers.

“You destroyed property in front of a street full of witnesses,” she finally said.

“I caught my boyfriend in bed with a woman.” Heat and numbness alternately gripped me.

For a moment I swore her gaze and her tone lessened their intensity. “I realize you lost an agent as well as your significant other in one day.” Her tone was hard, though, as she continued, and any possible softness was gone.

“Regardless of the situation, Steele, you were completely out of line.”

“Yes, ma’am—“

“Have you ever thought how it might compromise yourself and your family if your escapade ended up on the evening news?”

U h . . .

She pulled a cell phone out of her desk. “’You were recorded, Steele. If RED

hadn’t cleaned up the mess before it ended up as a little joke on the news, your face would have shown up on every television in the Boston area.” My cheeks burned. Shit. That was something that never occurred to me.

I fought the urge to start begging. Don’t can me, don’t can me, don’t can me,

“Nothing like that will ever happen again.”

“It had better not.” Oxford looked at me intently. “I won’t have you compromise this agency.”