Jae's Assignment (21 page)

That had never happened before. She never lost sight of what her job was.

The truth was that he’d stirred an emotion in her that she seldom allowed to the surface, and from that night in the lounge, Jae felt something for Trevor that she simply couldn’t shake.

She hadn’t felt that way when she’d worked for him. Or had she?

Jae had never been attracted to her assignments, never allowed personal feelings to enter her workspace.

So there she was again, guilt clawing away at her. And yet, so was the overwhelming desire to go to him and revel in that passion that weakened her knees. She wanted him to kiss her to oblivion as he took her on another wild journey freeing her to surrender completely to his powerful seduction.

Tormented with an onslaught of emotions that she didn’t have the energy to dissect, Jae slumped against the slick wall as the water continued to spray against her back.

She didn’t know which need to fulfill first—running from the shower and rejoining Trevor in bed, or giving into the ever-tightening knot in her throat indicating she wanted to cry.

She chose the latter.

Trevor awakened blurry-eyed, sated and alone. Sitting up, he was just about to call out for Jae when he heard the shower running and relaxed against the pillows.

Memories of him and Jae besieged him and his fingers itched to stroke her velvety mocha skin again. He recalled the other time he’d awakened in her bed and the multitude of fragrant pillows that had been a safety net for him. He was comforted then, not by their cushiony softness, but by her lingering scent. More than that, Trevor was just extremely glad he’d found her again.

After leaving her in Richmond, he’d become worried and he was frightened for her and had prayed the unscrupulous men after him hadn’t gotten to her. He didn’t think he could stand another person dying because of him.

His eyes strayed to the nightstand. The smart phone lay in two pieces since she’d removed the battery. He suddenly smiled remembering prim and tight-lipped Regina James had had two cell phones. Even then, he’d been curious about Jae.

From his lab, he’d often looked out at the empty desk and wondered about her. Did she have a boyfriend or would she have dinner with him at some romantic place? But those thoughts would come to a screeching halt when she would look up and catch him staring at her. She didn’t appreciate it by returning an unwavering glare right back at him. His heart beat just a little bit faster when she would meet him eye-to-eye.

In the days after she left, Trevor would go home to his one bedroom apartment, eat his solitary dinners, listen to jazz on the stereo, or work on his research. Occasionally, a co-worker would call and invite him out for a beer, and then there were the times he would go home with an overly friendly female. He couldn’t risk taking her back to his place. He remained on guard at all times. It was one of the last things Dan Willow had told him.

He couldn’t hurt another woman by his faked death. That’s what he had done to his girlfriend, Gina, and to his sisters, his father, and his stepmother.

Pushing the gloom away, he was eagerly waiting for Jae to finish her shower. With excitement racing through him, Trevor pulled the covers back and climbed from the bed.

He tapped on the bathroom door then opened it slightly.

Through the frosted shower door, he saw Jae resting her face against the shower wall. He was immediately concerned that she was ill.

Stepping into the shower, he turned her to face him and saw she had been crying. Damn. He prayed he hadn’t hurt her in the ferocity of his lovemaking, but he didn’t think that was it. Cupping her cheeks in his hands, he searched her face and recognized what he saw. Fear and regret, and it brought on an unwelcome feeling of self-loathing. She’d compromised herself and her job because of him and the enormity of it was staring him in the face.

“Jae, sweetheart,” he murmured as the warm water ran down his face and a primitive feeling of protectiveness overtook him. Furious at himself, he masked it by gathering her into his arms. He didn’t want to see her crying. He didn’t want her to be hurt, ever. He wanted to protect her and he vowed silently that he would by leaving.

“Jae, the last thing I wanted was for you to be hurt.” He massaged the tension from her shoulders and would have turned and left her alone in the shower had she not risen up on her toes and kissed him as her hands glided over his body.

All of his doubts flew from his head when Jae melted against him and regardless of what happened, he would protect her.

* * * * *

Jae relaxed with Trevor’s arms around her after their shower. They lounged in bed most of the morning and missed having breakfast in the hotel. They were content to eat the rest of the cookies that Trevor raced down the hall to his room to get, while Jae made a two-cup pot of coffee that came with the room.

“I would’ve loved to have prepared you breakfast,” Trevor said, lying beside Jae on the bed, stroking her side. “I owe you a breakfast date.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said, accepting the half cookie he fed her. “Trevor, about last night, you do know that you took an awful chance coming back to your hometown, don’t you?” After his slow nod in agreement, Jae asked him to tell her about Adian Cole and after a few seconds of hesitation, to her surprise, his face lit up briefly.

“Adian was a fun guy. He laughed a lot and was quick to lend a helping hand. He gave of himself freely. He was a good son, brother, uncle, boyfriend, friend. As a physician, who cared for his patients’ well-being, he did everything he could to alleviate their pain and suffering.” Trevor sat up against the pillows. “He was a pretty decent guy or so I’ve been told,” he said, gazing into Jae’s eyes.

“Tell me how he died, Trevor?” Jae asked.

“After arriving in the US from Afghanistan, I—he was killed in a car accident. The car went over a guardrail and exploded. He died instantly.”

“And Trevor Grant, tell me about him.”

Trevor closed his eyes briefly. “He emerged after plastic surgery in a private clinic in Connecticut. It was all arranged and paid for by the FBI. After fully recovering, he was sent to the Kincaid Institute where a position of researcher awaited him. He was provided a decent apartment and he lived a very solitary, but modest life. He didn’t even have a car. He hated that his family had to mourn the loss of another son, brother, and uncle. He taught himself to cook and played computer games, and because of his love of jazz, he fiddled around with a saxophone. It was all to fill the long empty hours when he wasn’t working, but nothing took away the isolation. His new life was a different type of prison.”

“It was dangerous for you to come back here. I was so afraid for you. I knew I had to find you.” He smiled before he told her no one would recognize him. “If they knew you, they would. I did.”

“Ah, but that’s because you’re an FBI agent,” Trevor said, bringing her closer.

“No, it’s because I know the shape and color of your eyes, the cleft in your chin, the shape of your mouth,” she said, reaching up and tracing his bottom lip. “Your stance, your walk, these things haven’t changed. For these reasons we need to leave.” The practical side of her knew it wasn’t an option to stay there any longer, particularly if Darius issued a BOLO on her car and by now, he should have.

“I
will
get my breakfast date at some point, won’t I?”

“Sure,” she said, with a wide smile that matched his. “And thanks for telling me about Adian. He sounded like a great guy.” Jae eased from the bed.

“Listen, sweetheart, there’s a lot I want to say to you about us and I should have said something before we took things to another level.” He got out of bed totally unconcerned with his nudity.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked as she walked over to the dresser and started collecting her things and getting dressed. “I thought we had this conversation at my parents’ house. There’s no us,” she said, firmly.

“I just thought that after so much has happened between us… I didn’t want you to be disappointed when things end.”

Letting his words sink in, Jae held up her hands. “Whoa! You think because we hooked up last night that we’re now a couple?” Not giving him an opportunity to respond, Jae continued. “Trevor, relax. We had sex. Period. There is no ‘us’ in that, and trust me, I’m not looking for anything from you. So let’s just chalk it up to us having a good time and let it go.” She turned away and packed up her things so he couldn’t read the tormented expression in her eyes. Though she knew he was right, it hurt to hear the words aloud.

“You’re right, Jae. I guess I was thinking like a normal man. I thought you were…”

Jae turned to face him. “You thought I was what? A lonely woman looking for that fantasy picture living in your head of having kids, a house with a picket fence, and all of that, huh?”

“No, I was going to say that I have nothing to offer you.” He stepped into his jeans, as if trying to ignore the words she spat so contemptuously at him.

“Come on, offer me what? I didn’t ask you for anything, Trevor,” Jae said heatedly.

“Hey, I didn’t know what you were expecting, that’s all I meant to say. Call it the colossal foot in mouth syndrome,” he said with a sardonic half smile.

Jae swallowed her rising temper, as well as her panic. She chose to make light of his words. “Well, you’d better get a handle on that so when you do start dating again, you don’t make the mistake of offering every woman you have a sexual encounter with a castle in the sky fantasy, or you’re going to end up with a lot of hard-up women banging on your door, waiting for a ring,” she said, walking briskly past him to go into the bathroom to collect her toiletries.

“I won’t,” he said, scowling as she returned to the bedroom.

Jae watched his face become a hardened mask. “Hey, I’m sorry if I came off harsh.”

“You were speaking your mind, and as a shrink—” he held up his fingers to indicate quotation marks, “—it’s encouraged.” She stood on her toes and slid her arms around his neck.

“Just remember what I told you, Trevor,” Jae whispered, closing her eyes to the sensuous flame igniting in her chest as she kissed him.

“Refresh my memory,” he said, sliding his arms around her waist and bringing her close.

“It was just sex,” she said, quietly. “It can’t be anything more than—”

Trevor cut her off with a murmur against her lips. “I remember. You don’t go out with your assignments, much less White men. Instead, you just kiss them passionately and have sex with them, right?”

When Jae’s eyes flew open, she found his cold, glacier blue eyes, staring down at her.

Chapter Seventeen

Less than thirty minutes later, Jae and Trevor stepped into the elevator heading down to the fifth level of the parking garage. When several cheerful guests rushed to catch the elevator before it descended from the seventh floor, Jae looked beyond them and spotted two men rushing down the hallway in the direction of the rooms they had just vacated. Glancing at Trevor standing to her right confirmed she was right. He too recognized the man from the jazz lounge.

It was the same man who’d shot her.

Seeing the men hurrying past the open elevator, Trevor immediately reached for Jae but two of the guests on the elevator moved back, effectively separating them. Pushing her rolling travel bag behind her, Jae silently indicated for him to twist his backpack to his side. With their bags behind them, they would be able to flee when necessary.

On high alert, Jae automatically went inside her jacket to her holstered weapon. Not wanting to frighten or panic the jovial guests, she didn’t pull it out, just unclipped the strap that held it in place for easy access. She held up three fingers to Trevor then pointed to the elevator panel, indicating they were getting off on the third floor.

When the elevator descended to the third floor and the doors eased open, Jae slowly exited the elevator and scanned the empty hallway for any sign of the gunman.

Trevor was on her heels after making his way to the front of the elevator. The second the elevator doors closed, he reached for her and together they ran down the hall, looking right and left. “Let’s head for the stairs,” he said.

“No, we need to get to my car,” she managed to say before a room door opened several feet ahead. The two of them made a dash to the alcove where an ice machine was located.

A hotel guest had left his room and was pulling his travel bag. When he stepped in the elevator, Jae grabbed Trevor by his shirtsleeve and ran to the room the guest had vacated. Using a small flat tool she pulled from her satchel she was able to pick the card slot.

Once inside the room, Jae immediately went to the window and searched the road below. She saw a van that didn’t look out of place and thought it probably belonged to a guest.

“Tell me you’re not checking out the view. We’ve got to get out of here,” Trevor said.

“I’m not,” she said, her mind processing scenarios. “By now, they know we’re not in our rooms, but we haven’t checked out either.”

“Right, let’s take the stairs and get to your car,” he said before opening the door just a crack to glance. “It’s clear.”

Now following him, Jae ran along and when he pointed to the stairwell exit, she sprinted down the steps along with him. When a door slammed several floors up, each paused long enough to glance up through the railing.

Jae stared up into the haunted eyes of the man who shot her. “It’s him,” she whispered.

Trevor saw him also. “Go,” he said, grabbing her travel bag and his backpack and then racing down the steps until they reached the lobby. There, he watched as Jae opened and closed the door with a bang, then they continued down four more steps. Holding their breaths and being absolutely still, they stood beneath the short landing, listening to the heavy tread of footsteps thundering out into the lobby. Jae crept up the four steps and spotted the man walking at a fast clip through a lobby full of hotel guests. His eyes panned over them before going out the front double doors. “It’s checkout time,” she whispered. “Let’s go back up the stairs.”

“Okay,” Trevor said. Jae pulled out a pair of plastic handcuffs then snapped the cuffs around the handle of the doorknob so it wouldn’t open from the other side. “Good job,” he whispered, then had to take several steps to catch up with her as she took the steps two at a time until they reached the third level again.

From there, Jae kept them on a zigzag from one set of stairs to another on opposite ends of the hallway until they reached the fourth floor.

When they passed the elevator on the fourth floor and it dinged its arrival, they stood back, waiting, but found it empty. “Another flight of stairs?” Trevor asked, breathing hard.

“I thought you could run,” Jae whispered sarcastically, stepping inside the elevator and punching the button for the fifth floor.

“Normally, yes, but after last night and this morning, I have no energy. Ah, Jae, about that—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped as they stepped off the elevator.

The parking garage was almost deserted except for Jae’s Mustang, a van, two black sedans, and a jeep.

Since the elevator was on the other side of the building, they had to hike at a fast pace to her car. Jae’s eyes kept darting back and forth between the sedans, the jeep, and the van. Each was located in a different area of the garage. Jae determined both of the sedans were empty. The van was packed so tight with clothes and toys she automatically dismissed it, her attention focused on getting to her Mustang safely.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Reaching inside her jacket for her weapon, she heightened her defensive mode.

As they walked cautiously to her car, Jae had to shush him as he murmured her name and when he reached for her, she stepped away from him. She silenced him by holding up her hand to her lips.

“Don’t say anything,” she said, focusing all of her attention on their immediate surroundings. Jae’s eyes swept every inch of the parking level. Slowing her pace, she gave a hand gesture indicating for Trevor to stay behind her as her grip tightened on the gun. She slowly bent her right arm behind her right thigh. Her footsteps were sure and silent.

As they moved closer to her car, a twenty-something-year-old man stood up from the far side of her Mustang. He held something in his hand.

Trevor stopped dead in his tracks, but she didn’t. Calling out her name, he grasped her hand to stop her from advancing on the man. “Stay here, Jae. I’ll take care of this,” he said, dropping their bags to the dusty concrete and advancing on the would-be car thief.

“Forget it. That punk is trying to steal my car,” she said, quickening her step when suddenly another man, older, ambushed her from the left. With little time to react, Jae used her free hand and grabbed the man’s thumb and twisted his arm behind his back. Catching him off guard, Jae swung her right hand up from behind her and using a forward motion swung the butt of the weapon up, striking him in the throat twice. When he clutched his throat and dropped down to his knees, she released his thumb and then shoved him as hard as she could. He collapsed in a heap.

Turning, she saw that Trevor had the younger man in a chokehold. She was just about to let out a sigh of relief seeing that neither man was one of the two chasing them earlier, when her attacker must have gotten his second wind and came after her again. “FBI!” she shouted when he closed in and chopped at her right arm, which knocked her to the ground, causing the gun to dislodge from her hand and skid a few feet away from her.

As Jae struggled with her attacker she noticed another looming behind Trevor before he hit him upside the head, knocking Trevor unconscious.

“Trevor!” Jae shouted his name as she bolted up from the concrete floor to dodge the meaty fist of her attacker. She moved sideways and saw Trevor lying motionless on the ground. He was out cold.

“You will die,” the man said, coming toward her.

Heart pounding, Jae blinked when she saw a large man lift Trevor and put him in the backseat of one of the sedans she’d spotted earlier.

“Hey!” she yelled, scrambling toward her gun. She kept an eye on the man closing the distance to her weapon. He lunged forward as they both reached for the gun. He reached it first but her swift kick slid it further across the ground.

“Are you kidding me?” Jae rolled over with him, intent on punching him in his face, but he blocked the blow and shoved her as he got to his feet. She sprang up again, this time with a high jump and kicked him hard in the chest. Stumbling when he reached out to grab her, Jae spun around and jabbed her elbow into his side. Unfortunately, she was too late. He had anticipated her move. He reached around, grabbed her by her jacket, then flipped her over his shoulder where she hit the concrete—hard.

Not giving her another chance to get up, the man stood over her and pointed his own weapon at her as if daring her to move.

Having landed on her back knocked the wind out of Jae. As she struggled to see past the burst of light that floated in front of her eyes and the pain shooting across her shoulder blades, she couldn’t believe what was happening. The man’s twitchy movements and unfocused eyes led Jae to believe he must be high on drugs. She knew she would have to incapacitate him somehow, but he seemed to have the strength of someone much bigger and stronger and that called for a strategy change.

“You will protect your life in order to protect others?”

Jae heard his robotic words. “What the hell are you talking about?” she shouted and lunged for him again. She succeeded in pummeling him in the face. He simply absorbed the blows then pushed her back. With a sickening feeling and her hands throbbing, Jae watched him take aim at her and suddenly another shocking reality slammed into her mind. She was about to die. He leveled his gun at her chest as he gave hand signals to the man standing by the black sedan.

In her peripheral vision, Jae saw the man in the driver’s seat. It was the same man who had shot her, the same man who wanted Trevor dead. “Where are you taking Dr. Grant?” she asked, inching backward by pushing her hands and dragging her bottom against the concrete. She needed to get to her car.

There was a switchblade secured to the undercarriage of her Mustang. But staring up into the glazed dead eyes of her attacker, Jae wondered if she could even make it to the driver’s side panel without getting shot. “W-what’s going on? Tell me,” she pleaded, still moving backwards.

“Your assignment is over, Special Agent Randall, and Dr. Grant must come with us.”

“Where are you taking him?” Even as she spoke, Jae’s mind was on Trevor. She had to get to him but she needed to get to her car first. “Tell me, damn it!”

“You will die like your brothers will die,” he said, pulling the slide on the gun to put a round in the chamber.

“My brothers? I don’t have any brothers,” she said, rolling onto her right side and away from him until her back against the driver’s door. Within seconds, she’d unhinged the casing, grabbed the weapon, and flipped it open. Then with a tight grip she pulled her hand out from under the car and with dead-on accuracy, jabbed the six inch blade into the back of the man’s calf just as he assumed a shooting stance.

Had he not fallen backward and away from her, she would have jabbed him in the other calf to further slow his movements. He stumbled and grunted in pain but managed to shout to the man in the car to get her.

Scrambling to her feet and still holding the bloody knife, Jae broke into a run in the direction of the car idling one hundred feet away. As she kept her eyes trained on that second car, the other sedan pulled out of a parking spot. Instantly she knew there wasn’t help coming. She’d made a tactical error—the man had yet another partner.
Damn!

Even as the man she stabbed gave an awkward and obviously painful chase, Jae slowed down when several kids could be heard laughing and talking while coming up the ramp on skateboards.

The noise seemed deafening and she knew it was pointless to call out for help, but she also didn’t want to risk innocent kids getting hurt.

She was almost upon the car and dived forward but her arm was clamped in a tight grip as she pulled on the door handle of the car. She could make out Trevor lying on the backseat still unconscious. His hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs.

In those few seconds, the madman managed to twist the switchblade out of her hand and thump her on the back of her head. Letting her body slide down to the ground, Jae hoped he thought he’d knocked her unconscious.

As she lay on the ground, the second car pulled up and Jae squinted to see a man’s black spit-polished dress shoes as he stepped from the passenger’s side. She heard him give quick instructions to the man who was now picking her limp body off the ground.

“Take care of her, but not here and get their bags,” he ordered, before getting into the car that Trevor was in then peeled down the exit ramp.

Jae felt her body being lifted and shoved onto the floor of the car before it started out of the garage. With her head pounding, Jae narrowly opened her eyes long enough to see the car slowly spiraling down the garage ramp.

As she was mentally planning a way to overtake the driver, she heard a voice coming through a cell phone or two-way radio. The driver was told to return to the facility when he’d completed his task. “I will,” the driver said.

Jae understood the order. Quietly inching her body around in the tight space of the floor in the back of the car, she was able to see the driver’s profile. He wasn’t a large man, but he was muscular, clean-shaven with crew-cut hair. She thought he, too, moved almost mechanically like a robot, like the man who shot her.

She needed to get out of that car and if she managed to do that, then her next task would be finding out where they’d taken Trevor. Assessing her situation, it would appear to be bleak and she had no weapon. Slowing her breathing, she channeled her focus on escaping.

“H-help me. P-please,” she groaned in pain. For the most part the driver ignored her as he continued the slow spiral down from the fifth level of the garage.

Jae frantically felt around the floor with her hands under her bottom, searching for something, anything she could use as a weapon. There was nothing, but did she notice he hadn’t put his seat belt on.

Using her feet, she eased the dangling seat belt backward until she could reach down and grasp it with her hand. Then she swiftly yanked it back and shot up from behind the driver’s seat.

At that exact moment, he glanced into the rearview mirror and saw her. His eyes didn’t register surprise, just a deadly glare as he stared straight ahead and fired two quiet, yet rapid shots into the backseat. It took Jae by surprise because he barely moved.