Breaking Away (4 page)

The only two agents he’d worked with were Dobson and Gilbert, and Dobson had called to warn him of a setup. Had Gilbert set up this assassination?

When he found the bastard, he was going to take him out—slowly. Very,
very
slowly.

CHAPTER 2

Las Vegas, Nevada

A
child’s wail reached into the protective darkness and pulled her toward consciousness. It must be Joy, crying. Her child’s distress dragged Samantha further toward awareness. She tried to lift her head, but it felt heavy like it was glued to the…It
was
the floor she was lying on. As consciousness returned, pain ricocheted through her body like the recoil of a bungee cord. She groaned. The last thing she remembered was Will’s fist coming at her face.

Joy’s insistent cries pierced her muddled thoughts.
Have to go to her.
She bunched her knees beneath her and attempted to rise. Her jaw was numb, her vision blurred in one eye, and her arms shook as she pushed her upper body free of the floor. Nausea rolled over her and she gagged. She curled in on herself and pressed her forehead to the floor as dry heaves convulsed her body, intensifying every ache.

Once the sickness passed, she breathed in and out, afraid any further movement might make it return.
Phone. I need the phone.
God, her face hurt. She hurt
. Oh God, the baby
! Fear charged through her. She touched her lower abdomen where an achy cramping had taken root. She looked down her body to her shorts. Her legs were coated with blood. A sharp wail escaped her and blended with Joy’s cries. He’d killed their baby. She was miscarrying.

No. No.

She curled on her side and waited for the pain to recede. The sound of a phone ringing broke through her pain. The living room looked like a war zone. Furniture was toppled. The lamps broken. The coffee table had been destroyed by a brutal stomp. It lay beside her, two legs broken off. The muffled ring sounded from beneath it.

She hadn’t walked away when she should have. The first time he’d slapped her, she should have left. But he’d threatened to kill her if she did. And now their unborn child was dying because she hadn’t had the courage to stand up to him.
Oh, God!

She’d run for the phone and Will had wrenched it from her hand. And punched her. He’d wanted to kill her. She’d seen it clearly in his eyes, his face.

The ringing stopped.

Joy’s cries grew more frantic. And she was beating at her bedroom door.

A knock sounded at the door. Samantha gathered her breath. “Help me.” The weakness of her voice shocked her. Why couldn’t she shout?

The knock came again. A man’s face appeared in the window, dark hair, square jaw. Shock tracked across his features. The door was shoved open and a man and woman stood at the entrance. New neighbors. She’d seen them yesterday moving in. They didn’t know to ignore the shouts and cries. The sounds of breaking glass and furniture.

“Dial nine-one-one, Steve,” the woman said even as she was coming into the room.

“I’m on it.” He was punching numbers.

“Oh, dear God!” She knelt next to Samantha and touched her shoulder.

“Get Joy,” Samantha pleaded and pointed down the hall with a movement of one finger. Even that seemed to hurt.

The woman rose, picked her way through the debris, and disappeared down the hall. Joy’s cries grew louder and closer.

Her pale blonde hair hung wet with sweat around her face, which was flushed and swollen from crying. “MommaMommaMomma….” Joy strung her name together in a constant litany, like baby talk, her voice fraught with fear and anguish. She struggled to escape the strange woman’s arms and come to her. The woman soothed her by taking a seat on the floor next to Samantha.

Joy’s hiccups and sniffles tore at her. This was her fault. This was what she’d forced her child to experience.

“Momma’s hurt, but she’s going to be just fine,” the woman said. She held Joy in her lap, but allowed her to touch Sam’s hand. That seemed to sooth her.

Samantha caught her daughter’s fingers, and with what little breath she could muster, through the constant painful pressure of her ribs, she shushed her. “Momma’s going to be fine, Joy. The doctors will help me.”

A siren wailed in the distance.

“Callmygrandmother. Joyneedsher.”

The pity she read in the woman’s face brought tears to her eyes and shame to her heart. She turned her face into the floor.

“Phone,” she croaked, pointing her finger toward the coffee table. “Ellen.”

“I’m going to wave the ambulance down,” the man said from the door.

With one arm looped around Joy’s small body, the woman shoved her hand beneath the coffee table and retrieved the phone, then pushed buttons.

Samantha closed her eyes and listened to the conversation. The words, “she’s been beaten” echoed over and over through her brain. How many times had she hidden the bruises, the red marks like burns on her skin, the pain of wrenched muscles and broken bones? How many times had she denied that she was a battered wife? To herself. To her grandmother. She had hidden it until no friends remained to deny it to.

Will had killed their unborn child with his fists, his feet, and she had allowed him to—because she’d stayed. And she’d stayed because of his threats against her, her grandmother, and Joy. If he could kill the child in her womb with his fists and feet, he could kill Joy with one twist, one slap. Her four-year-old body was so small, so fragile.

Samantha clenched her teeth against their chattering. She felt so cold. The blood gushed from her womb. Her thin cotton shorts were sticking to her skin. “Don’t let Will have her. He threatened to…kill her.”

The woman’s lips trembled, and then she pressed them together. “I won’t. Your grandmother is on her way.”

A siren screamed up to the house, then cut off. Two male EMTs entered the house loaded down with equipment. They set aside their kits, and the woman hurried to her feet at their direction. She hiked Joy on her hip, murmuring reassurances.

Samantha flinched when one of the men reached out to touch her face.

“Easy,” he said.

Samantha dragged in as full a breath as she could. “My husband beat me. He threatened to kill my daughter,” she muttered as he continued his examination.

“The cops are on their way,” he said, shining a light into her eyes.

“His name is Will Cross.”

The man’s movements stilled. “As in Cross Construction?”

“Yes.” A fresh gush of blood erupted between her thighs and pooled beneath her.

The two men glanced at each other.

“If I die, you have to tell them, he killed our baby.” The words sounded slurred. It was difficult to speak.

“You’re pregnant?”

She couldn’t feel her face. The room darkened, as though she were looking through a mesh screen. She ran her hand down over her belly. “Not anymore.”

Blackness rolled over her. She welcomed it.

CHAPTER 3

San Diego, California

F
lash woke to a headache that pounded against his temples with every heartbeat. Dried blood had hardened on the right side of his face and stiffened his hair into spikes. Head wounds bled like a son of a bitch, and this one had oozed all over the seat.

Where the hell was he?

Finally recognizing the back of his apartment complex, he shoved open the car door and swung his legs out. He groaned as the movement caused the throbbing to ratchet up to jackhammer status. He must have passed out for a while.
What the hell had happened?
One minute he was going along with the plan and the next he was dodging bullets.

And getting shot
.

He remembered the drive away from the scene as though it were a fog-enshrouded dream.

How long had he been out?
He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to drive from the storage facility to the apartment complex. Then he’d been out maybe ten minutes.

Gripping the edge of the door, he eased himself up and out of the driver’s seat. Dizziness struck and the asphalt rocked beneath him. He swallowed back nausea, and braced a hand on the edge of the open door. He had to get to his apartment and assess how badly he was injured. He should have driven to a hospital. But until he was certain about what the hell was going on, he couldn’t risk having a bullet wound reported.

Holding onto the car for balance, he gathered the bag full of money and the gym bag holding the artifacts from the trunk, then staggered forward toward the back entrance of the complex.

What was the key code?
If he didn’t get it right within three tries, it would lock him out completely for thirty minutes. If anyone was coming after him for shooting the FBI assassins, they’d be here any minute. His vision blurred. He closed his eyes and attempted to visualize the numbers. Opening his eyes again, he punched in the number and a red light flashed.

Wrong code. Damn.
What the fuck was it
? And why wouldn’t his eyes work? He closed the left one and the pad grew clearer. He punched in the number again and the light flashed green.
Thank you, Jesus.

He swung the door open and slipped inside. The back hallway ran from one end of the building to the other, and stairway on the right led up to the other floors. He tugged open the steel fire door and climbed the stairs to the second story. Pain throbbed with every step. His vision blurred and cleared. But at least the nausea was easing. He cracked the door and looked out into the hall. All clear. He hustled down to his door and unlocked it.

Wait. What if they were waiting for him
?

Setting the bags aside, he drew his Sig from the small of his back. He pulled back the slide to check the chamber. How many rounds had he fired? Two at the one guy’s chest, and three into the other man’s legs. Seven remained out of the twelve-bullet magazine, plus one in the chamber.

Standing to one side, he shoved the door open.

Nothing happened and he bobbed around the edge of the door to look inside the apartment.

Silence rushed out and nothing moved. He took a tentative step into the room. Everything was as he’d left it. He retrieved the bags and tossed them into a chair, kicked the door closed, then staggered down the hall to the bathroom. Blood darkened his jacket and had saturated his shirt. He peeled them off and tossed them into the trashcan.