Copy That (9 page)

Jeremy spun around and stared at her. “What the...?”

She couldn’t move. Desperation pounded through her. Her arms were frozen in front of her and she couldn’t drop the gun despite trying to shake her hold loose.

The trembling started in her feet and worked up to her shoulders and every cell inside her screamed with the need to collapse to the floor. If only her mind would click back on.

With a shaking voice, he took a step toward her. “Meredith?”

A high-pitched scream split the silence before she could answer. The pain filling the keening cry made Meredith want to fold her hands over her ears and curl in a ball in a corner.

Sara beat her to it. She stood over the dead body. All color drained from her face and her mouth hung open as the terror poured out of her.

Jeremy looked from Meredith to Sara and back again.

More than anything, Meredith needed him to rush to her side, to take her in his arms. He could peel her fingers off the gun and tell her it would somehow all be okay. A soft caress, a brush of lips against her temple. She wanted it all. The shocking need didn’t make sense, but she craved his touch and attention.

He reached for Sara.

Chapter Eight

Jeremy battled an uncharacteristic case of uncertainty. He was the guy who went in first. He didn’t question. He didn’t hesitate to put his life on the line if he had to. He’d taken an oath he viewed as sacred. But nothing had prepared him for the stark despair bordering on pleading in the women’s eyes.

His heart ached for Meredith as she stood statue-still with the gun aimed at the now empty space in the middle of the room. She’d made the right decision, regardless of the danger. Her instincts proved to be as good as any of the agents he fought beside on the drug battlefields in Arizona.

But the why of her actions wouldn’t matter as she crawled into bed each night. This memory would linger. She’d forever be one of those who knew what it cost to pull the trigger.

He wanted to go to her, to thank her for saving his life and being stronger than he ever gave her credit for, but Sara needed him more. She wasn’t weak, but violence had never tainted her world. Meredith clearly had not experienced the same dose of luck.

Sara’s knees buckled. He saw her crumple and grabbed her before she hit the floor. His body absorbed her chill as he balanced her hip against his.

“Sara? Talk to me.”

“I’m okay.” The shock bleached her skin white as she fought through shallow breaths. Fingernails dug into his arm. “Where’s Garrett?”

For those few minutes Jeremy’s attention had focused solely on the women. He hadn’t let his mind slip off to that indescribable place where none of his questions had answers and his fears about Garrett’s absence didn’t attack his brain.

Now the slicing terror returned. It clogged his throat until he had to force the words out around it. “Wasn’t he with you?”

“No.” She shook her head as she steadied her shoulders and stood on her own again. “I got the signal and—”

“Signal?”

It was the first word he’d heard from Meredith since she’d fired the gun. Her hand now hung loose at her side. The determination on her flat lips hadn’t diminished one bit.

He closed the gap between the two women, bringing Sara along with him until he stood within touching distance of both of them. “Meredith Samms, this is Sara Paulson.”

“Does she know?” Force moved back into Sara’s voice. Gone was the wilting flower. Her shoulders snapped back. Her eyes were alert as she watched Meredith.

Jeremy wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but expected this sizing up was inevitable after all the confidentiality lectures Sara had been forced to endure from Garrett. But that didn’t mean Jeremy couldn’t defuse the situation.

“About Garrett’s job? Yeah, as much as she can. I filled her in.”

“Why?” Sara asked.

“I’m starting to wonder that myself,” Meredith mumbled.

Jeremy leaned closer to Meredith. The move didn’t satisfy his thumping need to know what put that wariness in her eyes, but it did send the silent signal he wanted. She was with him and Sara should not question that fact. “Speaking of my brother?”

Sara shot Meredith one last questioning frown before turning to Jeremy. “It’s been more than a month since I talked with Garrett, but when I got the emergency text I came here as we practiced. I thought maybe he wanted to...”

“What?”

She waved Jeremy off. “It doesn’t matter. Point is I didn’t see or hear anyone, but when I went to swipe the card to get in this guy came at me.” She stared as if lost in the memory.

He glanced at Meredith for direction but she was too busy looking at Sara with sad eyes now filled with concern.

“Sara?” He dipped his head to try to get eye contact.

She rubbed her forehead and the haze hovering over her eyes cleared. “The guy jumped me. Told me to get him in the building or he’d kill Garrett. I was in there forever, just standing, with him not saying anything until you showed up.”

“And you recognized me and not Garrett.” Jeremy knew that was true. Sara could always tell, even in those days when they both wore government-regulation haircuts.

Meredith snorted. “Of course she did.”

“I thought using the wrong name might buy some time and send you a message,” Sara said at the same time.

“The gun aimed at your head did that.” And if he never saw that again, he’d die a happy man.

“I really thought I’d see Garrett.” Sara’s face fell in a look that could only be described as bewildered. “That he’d been lured there and I’d have to sit there and watch him die.”

Meredith put a hand on Sara’s arm as she looked at Jeremy. “Where is Garrett?”

“Who are you again? I don’t understand where you fit in.” The question hung in both Sara’s voice and the way she watched Meredith. There was no judgment, but no trust either.

“She’s with me. She’s a good friend of mine.” Jeremy didn’t break eye contact with Meredith as he staked his claim.

She didn’t even flinch.

From the husky voice to the battle-warrior spirit, she held him in a trance. Her depth surprised him. She was more than an elementary school teacher. He respected the career choice but doubted weapons training was a part of the regular classroom curriculum. Darkness and light played inside her in a mystery he vowed to unravel.

Sara’s head fell to the side, spilling her hair over her shoulder. “Do you work with Jeremy?”

“No.” That was it. Meredith didn’t say anything else or add any details that could have tipped Sara off or tripped them all up.

Since Meredith’s connection to him was through Garrett, and since Jeremy suspected Sara didn’t know about the living arrangements that had led to Meredith being dragged into this mess, Jeremy followed her lead. There was plenty of time for Sara to find out about Garrett’s secret and very confusing life when he was away from her. While he was at it, he could explain it to his brother.

“Now isn’t the best time for explanations. We need—” His phone vibrated. Not to indicate an incoming call. No, this was an alert. A warning he could not ignore.

That fast Meredith was over his shoulder and staring at the screen with him. “What now?”

He tapped in the password and an image of the outer entry came into view. The door to the outside stood open and two figures loomed in the small space on the other side of the hidden door. In a move that appeared practiced, neither faced the security cameras.

Jeremy couldn’t see their weapons but he knew they had them. “Trouble.”

Meredith blew out a long breath. “More men are coming.”

“They’re actually here.” And he might need her shooting skills to survive the next few minutes, so he didn’t pretty up the facts. “Present tense.”

“For the record, I’ve had better first dates.”

His racing mind screeched to a halt. So much for concentrating on the problem at hand.

He looked down at her. “Is that what this is?”

Sara tugged on his arm. “Wait, you just met her and she knows about Garrett?”

“We can figure out the definitions and work out all the explanations later.” Meredith grabbed Jeremy’s wrist and watched the image of the men moving around the closed-in room. “You need to pick up your weapons.”

No one had ever had to tell him that before. The circumstances, dealing with Meredith, it all had him reeling.

“Right.” He collected them, returning each to its hiding place. “We need to go.”

He motioned for them to gather around him, spotting movement along the back wall more than thirty feet away. Gray seeped under the huge sliding door at the opposite end of the room. Smoke curled up toward the ceiling and danced along the walls just as the smell of burning walls hit him.

That blocked that exit.

“Fire?” Panic filled Meredith’s voice.

Sara shook her head. “It can’t be.”

Meredith looked around the room, her movements jerky as her gaze went to the staircase in the corner across from the fire. “Is there another way out from up there?”

“That’s the problem.” The safe house that once seemed so logical now had Jeremy kicking his own butt. The large, wide-open room lacked crevices, places to duck and wait. “The loft is our only choice. We’ll be able to see anyone going in or out from up there and get a few extra minutes of fresh air. It’s an advantage we need.”

Meredith stopped spinning around and looked at him. “I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there.”

“The area has the essentials, but we’ll be trapped. There’s no exit and the smoke will rise. We go up the stairs and we’ll need to get back down as soon as we can clear a path.”

“Interesting layout choice.”

“Yeah, we intended to fix it and install a crawl-out but neither of us have been around long enough to accomplish the task.” Jeremy saw the attackers huddle together near the base of the door. If they were clever enough to breach the outside entrance, they’d be inside within minutes. “Upstairs
now.
”

He shuffled the women toward the stairs as the fire built to a roar outside the back doors. The temperature spiked all around them. Being inside the equivalent of a metal box kept the heat in. Soon, touching the walls would sear their skin off.

With a nod from Jeremy, Meredith led the charge up the stairs, her sneakers clomping against the metal. When she got to the top, she held out a hand and pulled Sara up behind her.

He’d made it to the middle of the steps when the bottom of the unit’s steel door started to rise. Smoke painted the room in a coughing haze, but he could see feet and knew their time was up. Sprinting up the last two stairs, he landed on the floor fifteen feet above the ground. Meredith and Sara huddled on the floor against the bed, out of sight from the area below.

As the door creaked and shimmied, the emergency lights blinked off. Jeremy let his eyes adjust, then conducted a final inventory of the small space around them. They had only the bed and small chair for protection.

Crawling on his stomach, he reached the edge of the mattress frame and looked at Meredith. “Give me a hand.”

Without words, they flipped over the mattress and pressed it against the warming wall as a buffer from the stifling heat. The chair crashed on its side against the floor as they set up a mock fortress with the frame and box spring pressed against the overturned seat.

He pushed the women down and inside the bunker as his body shook from a smoke-induced coughing fit. “Do not move unless I tell you.”

Meredith grabbed his hand with one of hers as she used the other to cover her mouth. “You can’t do this alone.”

Part of him knew she was right, but he would not put her in even bigger danger. If he went down she still had a chance. The attackers wouldn’t be expecting her to come out shooting, and he now knew she would. “Put the pillows over your mouths to filter the air and stay low.”

He grabbed the railing around the loft and lowered his body to the floor. He’d just checked his weapon when he felt Meredith’s breath against his cheek and her weight on his back.

“Let me help.”

“No.” When she looked like she was about to argue, he pressed a finger against her lips. “I’m the first line on this.”

“And if you die—” Meredith choked out the words over a stream of coughing “—Sara and I won’t survive.”

Shadows slipped under the door and into the smoke-filled darkness. The arguments no longer mattered. This was about battle. About the upper hand. “Start at the left side and shoot toward the middle. Spread bullets. I’ll head in from the right.”

They fell to their stomachs, both coughing from the vile air now, as gunfire boomed and pinged all around them. The men below shouted directions and shoes squeaked against the floor. Jeremy fired again and heard a groan right before an outline crashed to the cement. “One down.”

He shot until he ran out of bullets and had to grab a second gun and start over. Something shifted off to his left. He glanced over, expecting to unload a new round of ammunition, when he saw the newest problem. Flames traveled up the wall and licked the ceiling. The attackers clearly intended to smoke them out or kill them in a fire. Jeremy had no intention of picking either choice.

Over the thundering rumble, Jeremy heard the slap of footsteps and watched as more figures rolled under the door. Reality slapped him. They’d handled the first wave and now reinforcements had taken their place.

His lungs clenched as if a giant fist strangled them. He was outnumbered and running out of ammo. Meredith kept shooting, all of her focus centered on the shadows moving below even as her shoulders convulsed in a series of coughs, but one attacker neared the stairs.

“Stay here,” he said.

“What are you—” She swiveled around, but he was gone.

He crouched at the top of the stairs and forced out all the distractions and fears about watching another woman die at his feet and settled his mind to the job in front of him. This wasn’t like last time.

Unlike in Arizona, he could step in. This time didn’t have to end like last time. No one would get up the stairs unless they shot their way through him first.

He picked off one guy as he rounded the bottom rail. He hit another who tried to storm up through the middle. When he turned to help Meredith cover the ground with bullets, all that greeted him was an empty click. Through the stifling smoke he saw the dead eyes of a man right below Meredith and set to fire.