Hearts Under Siege (3 page)

Molly thought she was the only one to feel it. At least the Fitzpatrick parents were oblivious, babbling about traditions they could pass on to Christopher and Jessica and their eventual kids, about wedding preparations and when they’d get to meet Jessica’s mother—her only close living relative. Chris acted natural—affectionate with Jessica, indulgent with his parents, and good-natured with Brady.

At first no one, including Jessica, seemed to notice Brady’s increasing withdrawal. Molly covered for him pretty well, and without much hardship. After all, she’d preferred the Fitzpatricks to her own family for her entire life. If she participated boisterously in the family cookie baking, sang vivaciously while they decorated the tree, it all fit with past behavior.

And then Molly overheard Jessica and Brady having a private conversation in the back hall. Chris and his father had run to the store for more wrapping paper, and Donna was down in the basement doing laundry. Molly carried empty popcorn bowls into the kitchen and heard Brady and Jessica murmuring at the base of the back stairs, right outside the room. She didn’t think anything of it at first, but as she was about to pass the doorway, the murmuring turned into sighs and the unmistakable sound of a kiss.

Molly froze, stunned. And then it was too late. She should have kept walking, making her presence known before they’d done anything. If she did it now, they would know she’d heard.

Cracks crazed the surface of her heart. She’d always known Brady didn’t love her that way—that pain was different, a softer, more constant suffering. But this sharper, more acute pain wasn’t for her. It was for Brady, who was making himself vulnerable to a woman who wasn’t going to decide in his favor. For Chris, who’d be devastated if he found out about this. For Rick and Donna, who just wanted both their sons to be happy.

“I should say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” she heard Brady say.

Molly closed her eyes and leaned against the rough pine paneling of the kitchen wall, resigned to having to listen to this.

“It’s okay.” Jessica’s voice was high and breathless. Molly wanted to stab her through the heart. “I’ve known, well, since the day we met. That you—”

“—have feelings—”

“—for me. Yes. But, Brady…”

“I can’t help myself, Jess. I love you. If there was any chance, any way, you could love me back, I had to do this now.”

Now? Why now? Molly held her breath through Jessica’s hesitation, then as she repeated Molly’s silent question aloud.

“It doesn’t matter.” Brady sounded impatient, almost desperate. “I have to figure some things out before the end of the year. This is one of them. Jess,” he pleaded. “I need to know how you feel.”

“Your brother,” she protested.

“I love him, too. And I never want to hurt him.” Brady’s voice cracked just enough that Molly knew he meant it. “Please, Jessica. Be honest with me.”

For long moments, there was only breathing in the little space of the back hall. Molly’s hands tightened on the bowls she held. If Jessica said yes, if she said she cared about Brady…God, what a mess this would be. And the tiny spark of hope that Molly never fed, never admitted even existed, would be crushed forever.

“I can’t,” Jessica wheezed, and the tightness around Molly’s heart lessened. “I love Christopher. I’d never betray him. And even though there’s…something…between us, it’s not worth throwing away what I have with your brother. We just—”

“I get it.” Sorrow drenched Brady’s words, and Molly ached to go to him, to comfort him, to ease his pain any way she could, regardless of what it would do to her own heart. She pushed away from the wall, but he wasn’t done speaking.

“I can’t do this, then.”

“What?” Jess sounded confused. “Do you mean the kiss? I don’t want—”

“No, not that.” Disgust didn’t quite overcome the sorrow, and Molly was glad to hear it. Glad to know her best friend wouldn’t commit adultery with his brother’s wife, or even allude to the possibility.

“What, then?”

“Anything. I can’t do these family get-togethers. I can’t see you, spend limitless hours watching you with my brother. Not when I think he’s the wrong man.” His voice held conviction that injected fear into Molly’s battered heart. Whatever had been bothering him since fall semester, whatever he had to figure out…Jessica’s answer had resolved it for him.

“He’s not wrong,” Jessica said, her soft tone no less convicted.

Molly imagined Brady nodding.

“Okay. But I still can’t do it.”

“But…the wedding?”

“I’m the best man, of course I’ll be at the wedding. After that, though, forget it.”

An uncertain pause, then, “If you have to.”

“I do.”

“Okay, then.” After a moment, Molly heard light footsteps going upstairs, and Brady entered the kitchen.

He didn’t notice Molly standing there, and she had to hold back a sob. That kind of utter defeat should never be seen on the face of someone so young. He walked across the kitchen to the island, where he braced his hands wide and hung his head. A tear fell to the butcher block, then another, staining the soft wood dark. After a couple of minutes, he raised his head and spotted her in the reflection of a copper pot. He turned, and there was nothing in his eyes. Not pain, or sorrow, or even determination. Not the Brady she knew.

Molly didn’t move, afraid that this might be one of those defining moments, the kind that didn’t occur in every life, when someone could look back and say, “That’s when everything changed.” Then, with perfect clarity, she recognized that it was. That none of them, even her, would ever have the same relationship with Brady again.

And she was right.

Chapter Two

Twelve Years Later

Boston, Massachusetts

“Yes, we do piano tuning. What’s the model?” Molly grabbed an order pad and started taking notes, keeping an eye on the teens goofing off with the guitars. She knew them, trusted them for the most part, but that was because they knew her, too, and knew she was a hard-ass. “Earliest we can get to you would be next Wednesday. That okay?” The front door chimed as her cell phone began blasting “Smoke on the Water.” She ignored the phone and watched the older man wander to the sheet music section while she finished scheduling the piano tuning. She’d just hung up when the kids approached to pay for the picks and strings they wanted, and then silence rode behind them as they went out into the chilly October night.

Her cell rang again. The old man looked up, his eyes sharp, glancing down to where the driving beat of her favorite Deep Purple song demanded her attention. Instead of answering, though, she thumbed the unit to silence it and waited for the man to approach.

He carried a few sheets of music to the counter.
Andante
and
March in D Major
by Bach, for cello. “No
Ode to Joy
?” she asked, and the man shook his head.

“Too pedestrian,” he commented, his voice smooth and cultured. CIA, she guessed, though she never knew if she was right. She took the music from him and went into the back room, a little alarmed to hear her cell phone go off again. Someone really wanted to reach her. Why didn’t they call the store? Urgency gripped her insides, and she quickly found the box the man was here for, under a stack of plastic bags. She slid the folded papers he’d handed her with the sheet music into the file cabinet and shoved it closed, locking it before heading back out front. The man stood right where she’d left him, patiently holding his hat and apparently reading the calendar hanging next to the curtained doorway to the back room.

“Winterbourne Garden.”

“What?”

The man nodded at the calendar. She twisted to look, saw the flowering vines or whatever on the picture, and nodded impatiently. “Yeah, I guess.” She handed him the box a little too abruptly and reached for her phone.

“Ah.” The man tipped her a nod of thanks, raising the box a little, and left, thank God. She snatched up her phone. All the missed calls were from Jessica.

Brady
.

Panic made her fingers stiff as she hit the combination to return the call, not bothering to check the voice mails Jess had left. The phone rang four times before she answered, and every ring was a new horror, a new shaft of fear into Molly’s heart.

Ri-iing
.

Killed in action.

Ri-iing
.

Terrorist prisoner.

Ri-iing
.

Explosion, too few parts to identify.

Ri-iing
.

“Hello? Molly? Hello?”

“Yes! Jessica. It’s me. What’s wrong? Calm down.” Jessica was hysterical, sobbing so hard Molly couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Her fears coalesced into a giant fist compressing her lungs until she could barely breathe. “Who is it, Jessica? Who’s…hurt?”

Rick, Donna, Chris, Brady.
Please don’t let it be Brady, God that’s selfish but ple-ease don’t let it be Brady!

But Jessica couldn’t calm herself, and Molly had to wait her out, pacing behind the counter, Fitzpatrick names pounding in her head with each step, Fitzpatrick faces flashing behind her eyes as Jessica cried and coughed. Rick was sixty, with no history of heart disease, but that didn’t mean a heart attack couldn’t happen. Donna could have had a stroke, or fallen, or had a complication from her diabetes. They could have been in a car accident. Christopher…and Brady…

No. She couldn’t think it.

“Jessica,” she said softly but firmly, her own desperation well hidden. “You have to calm down. This isn’t good for you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” The cries became more muffled, compressed. Choked back, rather than controlled.

“Tell me, hon. What is it? What happened?”

A long, deep breath, then, her voice quavering but finally clear, “Christopher. He’s…oh, Molly, he’s dead.”

Even preparing herself for the worst couldn’t keep shock from cascading over her. Heat swept from her head to her feet, and guilty relief—
not Brady
—made her sway, her vision dimming around the edges, lights flashing. She leaned on the counter. “Oh, Jess. Oh, no. What happened?”

“I don’t know. They won’t tell me. I don’t understand—some guy came to the house and told me— told me he was— he’d been killed. He won’t leave until someone gets here. But he won’t tell me any more.” She broke down into sobs again.

Shit
. Molly was in Boston, Jessica in Connecticut, hours away. “Did you call Rick and Donna?” They might already know. They often sent someone to the parents and spouse at the same time. God, they were going to be devastated. And Brady…

“Yes,” Jessica said. “They’re on their way over. They should be here—oh. They just pulled in.” She sounded calmer already.

“Did anyone call Brady?” Molly’s voice broke on his name. She closed her eyes, sucking in air to combat nausea.

“I can’t reach him. His voice mail says he’s out of touch for a few days, and his secretary said she didn’t know where he was.” Anger strengthened Jess’s voice, and Molly knew she would be all right, for now. “How the hell can his secretary not know where he is?”

Because she wasn’t his secretary. But Molly couldn’t tell her that.

“I told her it was an emergency! She told me to leave a message. As if I could relay something like this that way.” She started to cry again, but not as hysterically.

Molly had to sit down. There were no stools or chairs behind the counter, so she sank to the floor, her back to the shelves under the register, and tried not to fall apart. “I’ll find him,” she assured Jessica. “Are Rick and Donna there?” Jessica’s mother had died of breast cancer a few years ago. An only child, she only had her in-laws now.

“Yes, the…whoever he is just let them in. He’s talking to them, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I have to go.” She hung up abruptly.

Molly slowly closed her phone and rested her head on her knees. They shook, and so did her hands. It was the adrenaline. She had to sit here for a minute, let it dissipate. Let her body recover.

Then she had to find Brady and tell him his brother was dead. She pressed a fist to her mouth to hold back her own sobs. It was somehow vital that she hold together better than Jessica. Grief surged now, as if it had been waiting its turn, and she couldn’t keep it back. Tears burst from her eyes and she let go, burying her face in her voluminous skirt, crying for the loss, for the hole it would leave in the Fitzpatrick family—for what it would do to Brady.

It was going to kill him. He’d blame himself, even though he had no clue that Chris wasn’t the business consultant he’d always presented himself to be. He’d blame himself because he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t seen his brother for years, except for the occasional lunch or dinner when they were both “on business” in the same town. Brady refused to go to Chris and Jessica’s home, refused to attend any family gatherings…had even missed his aunt’s funeral three years ago. His parents went down to DC every once in a while, his mother totally baffled by his distance from the family, his father stoic about it. Molly had told them why he did it, when Brady refused to and she couldn’t stand to watch his parents suffer in confusion. Of the two of them, Rick seemed to understand best, maybe because Brady had described his first reaction to Jessica as being just like Rick’s to Donna. But Donna didn’t know why Brady couldn’t put it aside, couldn’t stifle the love he felt for his brother’s wife, so that he didn’t lose them all. So they didn’t lose him.

The worst part, for Molly, was Brady pulling away from her, too. She’d known, that day in the kitchen, that he would do it. It had been slow and painful because she fought it, and they’d had ingrained habits and routines at college. But once they graduated and he moved to DC, it had become a lot easier. She’d stayed in Massachusetts to get her master’s before spending a few years traveling the world with various orchestras, rock bands, and opera companies—and hated every minute away. She’d been preparing to open the store here in Boston when SIEGE—Strategic Infiltration of Enemy Group Enterprise, a government-sanctioned, privately owned information broker—had recruited her.

They weren’t close anymore, she and Brady, and she’d never stopped regretting it. Most of their communication was via e-mail. Once in a while, he took or made a phone call, and their connection was still there, tenuous but strong enough that she knew it would never be lost completely.

And knowing how much he loved his family, staying away to avoid hurting them as much as to avoid his own pain, she’d kept him updated on family news. She hadn’t yet told him the latest, knowing it would devastate him. But this—this was so much worse.

The door chimed, jerking her back to awareness. She’d forgotten the store was still open. Dragging herself to her feet, wiping the remnants of her tears from her face, she almost expected a solemn, dark-suited facilitator to be standing there. But no, it was a young woman in slouchy cargos and a snug hoodie, hair pulled into bunches all over her head, dark rings of makeup around her eyes. She could be an operative or a carrier, but not a facilitator.

She turned out to be none of the above, just a music major looking for a certain CD that Molly didn’t have. She held on to her patience by her fingernails while she processed the special order and ushered the woman and her boyfriend out, locking the door behind them. After rushing through her closing procedures, she stuck a sign on the door saying
Closed for Family Emergency
and did a quick bank drop on her way out of town.

Six hours, eighteen phone calls, and one about-to-explode bladder later, Molly arrived at Brady’s apartment in DC. He wasn’t going to be here—the phone calls had helped her pinpoint his location in South America—but she’d need things from his stash before she caught a plane. She’d taken off with a full tank of gas, a bare-bones duffel bag, and nothing else. Who knew how long it would take her to zero in on Brady? He was supposed to be out of communication for another week.

His “secretary” had offered to set up a communication bridge, but Molly didn’t want him to find out alone, far away, via strangers. Despite the separation of the last decade, she was going to be there for him when he got the worst news of his life.

…

Brady pulled the hood of his all-weather coat higher over his head and hunched against the thunderous rain. Fuck this weather. Fuck this country. And fuck the fucker who was following him.

He’d been here a bit too long, his cover growing shaky over the last few days, but there was one piece of information that would make the previous week and a half worthwhile. Without it, the rest of the intel was file-filler and not much else. His contact had set up a meet for three hours from now. His cover only needed to hold until then. But his shadow had appeared this morning, and he—or she—was good. Too damned good. Brady had been moving around the city all day, trying to lose him. Taxis, buses, quick dashes down alleys, and always the bastard remained just a few steps behind.

Time to change tactics. Stop moving, see what the guy did.

Brady entered a tenement building SIEGE occasionally used for a safe house and ducked into the elevator. His shadow entered the foyer a second before the doors closed. Brady hit the fourth floor—high enough for the elevator to reach before the shadow did via the stairs. As soon as the door opened he hurried to an apartment across from the stairs that he knew was empty, jimmied the lock, and slipped inside, watching through the tiniest crack. Three breaths later the stairwell door opened and a small, black-clad figure glided through and paused, eyes on the barely open door Brady stood behind. It had to be a woman, someone that slender, but he couldn’t see a face past the jacket hood. He narrowed his eyes. A jacket very much like the one he was wearing.

She reached for the door, her body tensing and angling sideways, presenting a smaller target. Brady wasn’t going to wait for her attack. He yanked open the door and swung, his fist slapping into her palm.

A door opened down the hallway. Brady twisted his hand around the woman’s wrist and yanked her into the room, spinning her to try to pin her against his body. She used the momentum to slam them against the door, bouncing off and putting distance between them. Her hands went up. No time to assess if she had a weapon. He went for a leg sweep but she leapt into the air and rode him to the floor, trying to pin his wrists with her knees. Her indrawn breath poked at his brain, but instead of analyzing it he rolled, using his superior weight to reverse the pin. She bent her leg and narrowly missed the jewels, her knee digging into his groin. He grunted and closed his eyes in reflex, and, oddly, she froze. He opened his eyes, his gaze landed on her face, and—

“Molly?”

Shocked beyond belief, he jerked back and onto his feet. He’d have reached down to help her, but she stood first.

“What the
fuck
are you doing here?” He couldn’t even engage his brain enough to consider possible reasons.

“I came to find you.”

Still not processing. Barely reacting. Someone could come through that door behind him and take him out right now, and he wouldn’t even have the capacity to know it was happening. “Why?”

Instead of answering, Molly walked past him, opened the door to check the hallway, then reclosed and locked it with the state-of-the-art deadbolt installed by SIEGE rather than the flimsy one he’d jimmied so quickly. How did she know how to do that?

The answer to that was obvious, but made absolutely no sense. She was a
musician
, for cripes sake. Or music teacher. Or whatever. Something that created a total disconnect with her presence in this country. And the skills she’d displayed a moment ago.

“Brady, sit down.”

He didn’t move. “You took me down.”