Brody's Vow (Colebrook Siblings Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

Trinity rushed through the trees, determined to make it to Quantico before Tino caught her.

Special Agent Brody Colebrook exited the physical rehab facility with a sigh of pure relief and paused on the sidewalk to take a moment, breathing in the sense of newfound freedom.

The early spring evening air was chilly, but so fresh compared to what he’d been breathing for the past ninety minutes during his physical therapy session. His last for the next two weeks, marking the end of a series of surgeries and rehab stints since he’d been wounded in late January. Now he was finally free to head home to the Shenandoah Valley for some serious R&R and he couldn’t wait to get there, to unwind and put this all behind him.

His left leg was weak and it ached like a bitch, the constant pain sharper right now because of the workout he’d just put it through. He hid a wince as he stepped down off the curb and started across the parking lot for his truck, his gait uneven, but hell, at least he was walking.

A bullet had taken a chunk out of his lateral thigh during an op in northern Jordan a couple months ago, but at least the Hostage Rescue Team had saved the two remaining hostages, including Summer Blackwell, the wife of a fellow HRT member. Brody’s femur had been cracked but not broken, and though he’d always be missing some muscle mass in his quads and hamstrings, he still had two whole legs.

Unlike another member of his family. His older brother Wyatt had been through hell after being wounded by an IED in Afghanistan, so Brody was all too aware of how lucky he’d been in comparison.

He’d no sooner fired up his truck when his phone rang and he was surprised to see DeLuca’s number on the screen. He only ever called about work stuff, and Brody was on indefinite medical leave. “Hey, Commander. What’s up?”

“You still near Quantico?” No preamble, no bullshit.

“Yeah, I’m just leaving my last appointment, on my way home for a couple weeks.” Where at least his dad was looking forward to seeing him.

“Can I call in a favor first?”

He stilled in surprise. “Sure. What do you need?”

“I’m with Blue Team in Austin right now, and Briar’s in L.A.” His wife. “I just got a message from my alarm company. Apparently our home security system suddenly went offline a little while ago. Is it storming there?”

Brody looked up into the calm, purpling sky, streaked with bands of clouds and the first stars beginning to appear high above. “No, wind’s been calm here all day.”

DeLuca sighed and Brody could imagine him taking off his Chargers ball cap to run a hand through his short brown hair. “Maybe it was a power surge or something. Anyway, the alarm company can’t seem to turn it back on or reset it remotely. Would you mind swinging by our place on the way out of town to check it out? It’s probably nothing, but it’s weird that the entire system just crashed. The alarm company sent the cops over but they didn’t see anything wrong. I’d feel better if I had someone I trust run by to take a look, and I didn’t want to ask my neighbors in case there was an actual break-in or something.”

“Sure, no problem, I’ll stop by now. You got a spare key hidden somewhere?” When he had the information he needed he assured DeLuca he’d call once he checked things out, then hung up. It kind of annoyed him that his trip home would be delayed, but his commander had never asked him for anything and as far as favors went, this was small. Shouldn’t take him long and then he’d be on his way.

It took him just under fifteen minutes to drive to his commander’s place, a two-story house in a nice, quiet area full of tidy yards and homes. When he pulled up at the curb in front of the house the first thing he noticed was that all the lights were off, even the exterior front porch light, which DeLuca told him he left on whenever he and Briar were both out of town. The cops were long gone.

Before exiting the truck Brody reached into the backseat and withdrew his pistol from the bag he’d packed, tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. He swept his gaze over the front of the property as he approached the house, moving along the side of the yard, near the privacy fence.

He’d been here a handful of times before with his teammates and the guys from the assault team for cookouts in the backyard. DeLuca liked to get the sniper team and assault team guys all together for some social downtime a couple times a year, and so the wives and girlfriends could meet up and get to know one another too.

They didn’t get the chance to do that kind of thing often because he and the other guys trained constantly when they weren’t on a mission. Their punishing schedule was deliberate, and meant to keep all their skills sharp to protect everyone on the team and ensure they were the best of the best.

That’s why he’d been working so hard in the gym and at physio these past two months, to try and regain every bit of function and strength possible in his leg. He was thirty-four, still had a few years of eligibility left on the team.

Whether or not he’d ever be operational again was still up in the air at the moment, and he hated that uncertainty. He wanted to be back with his guys, back in the action, leading from the front as he’d always done, both with the HRT and back during his days in the Corps.

It had been months since he’d felt useful to anyone, and really, doing this favor for his commander was a welcome change of pace. Now he put all his training and experience into use, and damn, it felt good to slip into operational mode again, instead of sitting around on his ass doing nothing. If someone had broken into the house and was dumb enough to still be there, they’d be sorry.

From his vantage point near the fence he could see that the front and garage doors didn’t appear to have been tampered with, and all the windows at the front of the house were intact. He continued along the east side, checking for footprints in the damp grass and finding none. At the side entrance to the garage, he paused to inspect the door. Both the knob and the lock showed no signs of forced entry, so he went around the back.

A slight prickle at his nape registered when the security lights mounted on the side of the house didn’t go on as he rounded the rear of the house. They were motion-sensored. He remembered them from a former team gathering here. Even with the power being off, they should have come on because they had backup batteries in them.

At the back door, located on ground level next to the stairs that led up to the back deck and into the kitchen, he stilled when he noticed dark splotches on the concrete stoop.

Drawing his weapon, he crouched down for a better view, ignoring the sharp protest from his injured leg. There were definite partial, wet footprints outlined there, as though someone had stood here on tiptoe recently, either barefoot or in socks. But when he glanced up to check for signs of forced entry, again the doorknob and window appeared untouched.

He pushed to his feet to look up at the sliding glass doors that separated the kitchen from the upstairs deck just in case, but didn’t see anything suspicious there either. So, back door it was. He was sure whoever had come here was long gone by now, but just in case…

After retrieving the spare key from the hiding spot DeLuca had told him about, he carefully slid it into the lock and used the bottom of his T-shirt to grip the knob so he didn’t erase any fingerprints. The door cracked open a few inches, releasing a slight breath of air tinged with gun oil and leather.

But no series of beeps indicating the alarm was on and had registered the door opening.

On guard, Brody stepped into the game room with his weapon aimed dead ahead, and swept the area. Nothing caught his eye or seemed out of place but when he looked down, he instantly spotted the wet footprints gleaming in the dim light on the hardwood floor.

Son of a bitch.

Easing the door shut behind him, Brody kept his pistol up and headed through the room in the darkness, moving by memory toward the doorway that led into the downstairs hall. He paused to one side of it, waited a few beats, then whipped around the corner, checking the long, narrow space. Empty, but with the streetlights shining through the transom windows on either side of the front door, he saw the trail of wet footprints continuing down the hallway.

His shoes were silent against the hardwood as he cat-walked his way toward the door, staying close to the wall as he moved. Just as he neared the landing at the bottom of the stairs, a cold female voice came from the shadows to the right.

“Stop right there and drop your weapon.”

He whirled then froze at the sight of the woman standing there, the pistol in her grip pointed directly at his chest.

Trinity aimed the Glock at the intruder’s center mass, her finger securely around the trigger even though she felt frozen to the core and she could barely keep her teeth from chattering. He was tall, built, and he’d been favoring his left leg as he moved. If he was one of Tino’s contacts, it didn’t make sense that he hadn’t tried to shoot her yet.

“Put it down, now,” she ordered in a low voice when he didn’t move, the ache in her head hurting worse as she spoke.

“You first,” he shot back, his stance and posture just as unyielding as hers.

In the light coming through the thin, rectangular windows on either side of the front door, he looked wary but not afraid and right away she recognized that he was a seasoned operator. Somewhere in his thirties, he had short dark hair and dark whiskers on his square jaw. And his gaze never wavered from hers.

“Not happening,” she said, survival instinct making her alert in spite of her injuries and fatigue.

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in here?” he demanded, a distinctive Virginia drawl lacing his voice.

She didn’t know who he was, but figured if he’d been sent here to kill her, they wouldn’t be having this conversation because one of them would already be dead. A sobering thought. “You first.”

“Special Agent Brody Colebrook, FBI. Now why the fuck are you in my commander’s house?”

So he was HRT. She vaguely recognized his name from a past conversation with Briar, remembered he was on one of the sniper teams. She relaxed a fraction. Just because he was HRT didn’t mean she trusted him one hundred percent, but he obviously wasn’t going to shoot her unless he had to.

So she lowered her weapon a little. Slowly.

Colebrook didn’t move, just stared at her and waited, pistol still aimed at her. “Well?”

“I’m a friend of Briar’s.”

Surprise flashed across his face, then he unhurriedly lowered his weapon to match her stance. They remained edgy, both of them still holding their pistols in a double-handed grip. “Prove it.”

She mentally laughed. “I can’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it.” She couldn’t call Briar for proof because she didn’t have a phone with her.

His lips twisted into a hard, cynical smile. “I don’t think so.” He lowered his weapon a few more inches, switching to a one-handed grip as it rested alongside his right thigh. Then he raised his left hand and held it at shoulder level, palm out in a nonthreatening gesture. “I’m going to pull my phone out of my front pocket and call my commander to verify,” he said, watching her intently. “If you’re who you say you are, we’ll go from there. If not…” He let the unfinished threat dangle but she wasn’t worried. If he called his commander, Matt would vouch for her.

“Fine, but put it on speaker.” She watched his every move as he retrieved his phone and dialed someone. If it was the cops instead of Matt, she’d shoot him in the good leg and be long gone before anyone could follow her.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said when Matt answered. “I found out why your security system isn’t working.” In the silvery light coming through the windows his eyes gleamed darkly as he pinned her with a hard gaze. “Someone disabled it. She says she’s a friend of Briar’s. Didn’t give me a name and now we’re both standing here in your front entryway having a Mexican standoff. Want to help me out?”

“This is Supervisory Special Agent DeLuca,” Matt said, his voice echoing in the stillness. “Who am I speaking to?”

“It’s Trin,” she replied, relief spilling through her at the sound of his voice, a heavy weight of fatigue flooding in.

A beat of surprised silence passed. “Trin? What are you doing there?”

“I…ran into a snag and needed somewhere to stay.” She’d been hoping for backup, and not in the form of the man facing off with her right now.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Colebrook, it’s okay. Trinity’s an old friend of Briar’s.”

Colebrook grudgingly tucked his weapon into the back of his waistband and Trinity set hers on the table behind her. The moment she did, a wave of dizziness and exhaustion hit her as the night and head injury caught up to her. She steeled herself, refused to let her guard down and collapse onto the chair behind her the way her body was begging to. She’d been through far worse than this before, and would never let him see how tired and hurt she was.

Letting out a slow breath, she stepped out of the shadows, careful to stay away from the transom windows in case Tino or anyone from his deadly network had managed to follow her here, and let Colebrook see her.

The FBI agent straightened, a frown pulling his eyebrows together when he took in the sight of her, dressed in too-tight jeans and sweater she’d snagged from Briar’s closet, her wet hair plastered to her head and the blood streaking down the side of her face and neck. Her head ached like hell and she was pretty sure she needed a stitch or two in her scalp.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

“What’s wrong?” Matt said, his voice sharp.

“Nothing,” Trinity answered quickly, giving Colebrook a warning shake of her head, covering a wince as a sharp pain lanced through her skull and her sore neck muscles protested. Matt would already have figured out that she was in trouble but she wasn’t giving him details. He would get other people involved if she told him, and she didn’t want anyone’s help but Briar’s.

There was no one else she could go to for assistance. She hadn’t had time to get a new phone and there was no landline in the house. As per usual she was all on her own on this one, no handler, no backup of any kind. It was what made her so good at her job and why various organizations and agencies hired her to fulfill certain contracts—she had no ties to trip her up, giving her the flexibility to operate on her own and make her own decisions. This was the way she’d always operated, ever since leaving the Valkyrie program, and normally she loved the freedom.