Bear Claw Conspiracy (16 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Gigi fumed in silence for the rest of the drive. But when they pulled onto the deserted airstrip and came into view of the sleek black agency chopper, she said quietly, “I’ve earned this one and you know it.”

Matt cut a hard-eyed look at her. “Life isn’t fair.”

“You said the pilot plus four. That’s you, Jack, Fax and me.” When he glared, she just lifted her chin. “I’m a better shot than Jack.”

“Not by much. And you forgot Tucker.”

“No, I didn’t.” They both knew he wasn’t getting on that helicopter. Even if the detective was willing to leave Alyssa, he was too far off his game thinking about the baby to be any good to anyone right now.

Matt parked out of range of the rotor sweep and they got out of the rental just as Tucker’s SUV rolled into view.

Gigi came around the hood of the car and squared off opposite Matt. Her blood was running high with righteous indignation, but that didn’t stop her from feeling the inevitable skitter of heat that hit her whenever she looked at him. It was stronger than ever now, and she was still storing up those damn details: she was conscious of the tight worry in his expression, the stark determination that wasn’t the cop or the ranger, it was, quite simply,
him.

“Gigi, please don’t do this,” he said quietly. “Not now. Later, after you’re all the way trained, I’ll…” He trailed off with a small shake of his head.

“You can’t even say it, can you?” Her heart sank. She had known that it would probably come down to this between them. She just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. She wasn’t ready for the flameout yet.

Tucker parked nearby and climbed out of the SUV. Alyssa’s door opened, but it was a moment before her feet appeared. Gigi was deeply worried for her friend, but she couldn’t afford to let Matt win on this one. Not if she intended to hold her own in whatever happened between them next.

“This isn’t about us,” Matt said urgently. His eyes were stark. “It’s a tactical decision. Yes, you’re a sharpshooter, but you don’t have any actual live firefighting experience, and we’re not going to be dealing with just MacDonald this time. We don’t have any intel, and there’s no way to get a satellite feed in time. We’re going in blind, with no clue what we’re going to find when we get there. Admit it, that’s not the sort of scenario you’ve trained on.”

He was right, of course. Hazardous response, especially in the city, was all about collecting information before and during the op, and using it to make the best plans and decisions. This, on the other hand, was going to be a “hit the ground and go” scenario, with the added risks that brought.

She took a step toward him, until they were close enough to touch each other, close enough to kiss. “Nobody is going to watch your back the way I will,” she said with quiet determination. “If the roles were reversed, and I was the one who had to go because it was my territory, you’d be fighting for a spot on that chopper.”

“I would kill for it,” he said simply.

His stark words and the punch of emotion in his voice put a lump in her throat. “Then you know how I feel.”

“Fine. Great. How about picturing this: we’re on the ground, there are men shooting at us—real, live men, not cardboard cutouts—and I’m so damned terrified for you that I’m not watching my own six. Which is fine, because you’ve got my back. But I’m also not on top of what’s going on with the others. We get scattered, pinned down, freaking
gunned
down because I can’t think straight while you’re out there.”

She didn’t know how so much aching tenderness could coexist with so much pain. But somehow it did, sliding through her and leaving her bleeding even as she wished she could back down and give him what he wanted.

She couldn’t, though. In the end, it turned out she was a Lynd all the way, after all.

Reaching up, she smoothed the neckline of his T-shirt. “This is who I am, Matt. This is what I want. If you can’t accept me being out in the field, right now, today, then…” she faltered, but made herself keep going, “then don’t bother calling when this is over.”

“This isn’t about a date,” he grated. “There’s already way more than that between us, and you damn well know it. Why do we need to do this right now? We can take time to figure this out and find some sort of compromise we can both live with. Preferably
not
in the middle of an op.”

His face was stark, his eyes as close to begging as they got. Her heart twisted—she wanted to give in to him so badly, but it was that very urge that had her standing her ground. If she gave in now, she would lose a piece of herself. “We can absolutely discuss this later, after
we
finish this op.”

Matt raised his voice. “Tucker, as ranking—”

Alyssa gave a low cry, clutched her stomach, and doubled over. She might have gone down, but Tucker was there to catch her shoulders and prop her back up, his touch incredibly gentle, his face simultaneously tender and frustrated beyond words as he said, “Seriously. Are you ready to ’fess up yet, or would a nice helicopter ride feel good right about now?”

“Fine,” Alyssa said between gritted teeth.

“Fine, what?”

“I’m. In. Labor.” She spaced the words, looking furious, but the moment they were out there, her eyes filled with tears. She looked at him with mingled terror and exhilaration and whispered shakily, “Hey, McDermott. We’re going to have a baby.”

“Yeah. We are.” Tucker turned to Matt, jaw set. “I’m putting you in charge, effective immediately.”

Gigi’s stomach sank.

“Then here are your orders,” Matt said. “Take Alyssa and Gigi back to the city, and don’t let either of them out of your sight.”

“Matt, please.” Gigi grabbed his arm, fingers digging into his solid strength as her instincts warned that she needed to go with him, be with him. “I can handle myself. You know I can.”

She saw the things he had learned over the past few days battle it out against history and loss. He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Gigi. I’m…” He stretched out a hand to her, but when she backed away, he let it drop. To Tucker, he said harshly, “Take her. Watch her. I’m counting on you to…I’m just counting on you. Don’t let me down.”

Face haggard, Tucker nodded. “We need to go now. We can’t wait for the others.”

Matt nodded. “Go. They’ll be here any minute.”

“Matt,” Gigi whispered. Her throat ached with the tears she would shed later; her chest burned where her heart had broken. “Please. Let me be
me.”

But he turned away and said harshly, “Get her out of here.”

Someone grabbed her arm; she jerked back and raised her fists, then froze when she saw Alyssa. She let down her guard. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“I know. And I am, too, but we really need to go.” She pressed her hands to the sides of her belly. “And I mean now.”

Gigi looked back at Matt, met his eyes, and felt his pain as well as her own. “Be careful, damn you.” Then she headed for the SUV with Tucker and Alyssa, and she didn’t let herself look back.

The next few minutes were a whirl: another contraction hit while she and Tucker were getting Alyssa into the car, and then they were in and moving, with Gigi propping up Alyssa in the backseat and Tucker driving like a man possessed.

Gigi waited until they were past the first hangar and out of Matt’s line of sight. Then she said, “Forgive me.”

Alyssa craned to look at her. “For what?”

“This.” Gigi pulled her Beretta, thumbed the safety and pointed it at Tucker’s head. “Pull over.”

He didn’t even flinch. “I can’t, Gigi. He’s right. Fax, Jack and the pilot all have loads more training than you do.”

“Check your text messages. Jack got hung up at Station Ten and Fax and the pilot are still forty minutes out. They’re not going to make it in time.” She racked the action. “Pull over. I can’t let him do it.”
And please don’t make me make this any worse.
She had the perfect hostage right there in her arms.

“Do what?”

“Go after the bastards on his own, flying solo. Literally.”

Tucker hit the brake and brought the SUV to a shuddering, screeching stop. He spun toward her, and for a second she thought he was going to come over the seat at her and fight for the gun. But he snapped, “Put the damn gun away and start talking. How many chopper hours does he have?”

“I don’t know. But he knew her specs right off the top of his head, and his father died in a helicopter crash. National Guard. My guess is that he got good enough not to be afraid.” It was what she would have done.

“I know for damn sure he hasn’t flown since he’s been here.”

“Then let’s hope it’s like riding a bicycle.” She reached for the door.

Alyssa grabbed her arm, fingers digging in. “This is crazy. You can’t go. You don’t know for sure that he can even fly the thing. And what are you going to do when you get there? He’s right—you don’t have a plan, intel, enough manpower. It could be suicide!”

Gigi covered Alyssa’s hand with her own and squeezed. “I’m not being stupid this time. I’m doing what I need to do. He needs me.” Another, more profound sentiment echoed through her, but she kept it to herself.

Alyssa turned weepy eyes on her husband. “Tell her she can’t do this. Make it an order. Do
something.”

For a second, he hesitated. Then he hit the locks and opened her door. “Go. You don’t have much time.”

“Tucker!”
Alyssa flared.

“Enough!” he snapped back. “You think I like this? If you hadn’t insisted on coming out with me—”

“Stop it, both of you,” Gigi said, sharply enough to have them subsiding. She hugged Alyssa tightly, reached up to grip Tucker’s shoulder and slipped out of the SUV, then leaned back in to say, “Go have your baby. Let us worry about the other stuff.”

“Be careful,” Tucker grated. “That’s an order.”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll be good.” To Alyssa, she said, “Ten bucks says I get to the hospital before Baby M puts in an in-person appearance.” She shut the door and stepped back as Tucker cranked the transmission and peeled away.

Alyssa pressed her face to the window, spreading a hand in farewell, or maybe to wish her luck.

But as she set off through the echoing hangar, hoping to get around behind the sleek black helicopter and use the code Fax had texted her to sneak in through the rear hatch, she heard the sound of rotors and her heart stopped.

Her luck had already run out. She was too late.

M
ATT HADN’T FLOWN IN
nearly eight years and this baby was way more than he’d ever handled before, but she was fairly idiotproof—to the point that a chopper could be, anyway. Between his having chatted up the pilot the other day, and Fax—another lone ranger type—texting him the codes when it became clear that he and the pilot weren’t going to make it in time, Matt maneuvered it off the ground without too much trouble.

The chopper wobbled a little, then leveled off and got underway.

He didn’t let himself look at the main road to check on the SUV, didn’t let himself think about the broken grief on Gigi’s face as Tucker and Alyssa had taken her away to safety. Instead, he sent the chopper hurtling toward the Forgotten and did his best to clear his mind.

Half an hour into the forty-five minute flight, when he dropped low and skimmed the treetops, he admitted it was no damned good. His mind wasn’t even close to being clear.

All he could think about was her.

He hated that he’d hurt her, hated that he couldn’t get past his own hang-ups when it came to her going into the field as a cop, never mind crisis response. Most of all, he hated the way her eyes had gone dead as Alyssa pulled her away, and how his insides had hollowed out at the realization that she had lost faith in him, in them.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, and checked the readouts. He was ten minutes out with twenty-five to spare. And with no scanners online, he was going in blind with the simplest of plans: take out any and all vehicles, identify the boss, and grab him.

It sounded simple, but wouldn’t be. And he should be thinking about that, not about the woman he’d left behind.

How had things gone so wrong so fast? How had she become so important to him in so little time? It had been less than seventy-two hours since she skidded her ride into the parking lot at Station Fourteen and promptly made him eat his attitude, but in those three days she had gotten under his skin, into his heart. She had changed him, awakened him, made him
feel.

He didn’t want to lose her. But he didn’t know how to keep her without losing part of himself.

“Damn it, Gigi,” he said aloud. “Why couldn’t you have given me this one?”

“Because it would’ve been the first of many,” she said over the thudding engine noise.

He jolted and whipped around, swearing when he found her standing right behind him. His blood fired at the sight of her, a potent combination of fear, anger, desire, tenderness…and reluctant admiration. Because damned if she hadn’t somehow doubled back and stowed away on the chopper.

“How did you—” Remembering the rear hatch—and the fact that Fax played by his own rules—he did the math. “I’m going to kill Tucker.”

“Don’t blame him—I made him do it. At gunpoint, no less.”

Putting his attention back on the controls, he snapped, “Sit down and strap in, we’re almost there.” But as she came forward and fumbled with the copilot’s harness, he had to ask, “Why did you come after me?” He thought she had given up on him back at the airstrip.

“Because there was no way in hell I was going to let you fly solo on this one.” She glanced over. “Why did you send me away?”

“Because I’d rather watch you walk out than bleed out.”

She blanched, but lifted her chin defiantly. “Those aren’t the only two options.”

“They are the way I see things.”

“Then I feel bad for you.” She turned deliberately to the panel in front of her, pulled her phone and checked a saved message.

He nearly groaned. “Fax sent you instructions for the guns, too?”

“Just shut up and fly,” she said.

He growled low in his throat and thought about stuffing her in a parachute and throwing her out the door. He didn’t have the time or altitude, though, so he was going to have to make sure he kept her in one piece, no matter what.