Secure Target (Elite Operators) (3 page)

She was the prettiest one yet.

And may prove to be the hardest to keep safe. She seemed too stoic, too calm. She wasn’t displaying any of the signs of fear that years of hostage rescue had trained him to expect. He worried that she didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. Or was she simply too trusting in the ability of the police to protect her?

That kind of confidence was dangerous.

He set his mouth in a grim line as he considered the dire police track record so far. Three girls dead on the homicide unit’s watch before they threw in the towel and called in the Special Task Force. He hadn’t been on the case more than a few weeks when Hardy killed his fourth victim, and then he took a knife to the gut and lost weeks of investigation as he recovered.

He’d been arrogant and sloppy that day in the parking lot. It was unforgivable, and he’d be damned if he let Hardy claim another innocent life.

He thought about the pride that permeated every inch of Lacey’s home. Second-hand furniture lovingly repaired and restored, carefully coordinated artwork covering cracks in the walls, the meticulously hand-sewn curtains on the kitchen windows. Its resemblance to the house he’d grown up in—raised by his mother on a struggling, remote farm in the countryside near Swellendam, over the mountains from Cape Town—had been eerie.

Something sharp, insistent and long dormant had stirred way down in his gut as he’d watched her move around her bedroom, handling and selecting clothes and toiletries and paperback books. They were intimate, deeply personal symbols of daily life, of days lived free from threat or danger. He wondered about each item as she placed it in her bag. Were those her favorite jeans, chosen because she wanted to feel her best given the danger she faced? Or were her favorite ones in the wash, and these were the third-best pair that had never fit quite right? What was significant about the necklace she plucked from amongst the others in her jewelry case? Had she wanted to read that book for a while and hadn’t had the time, or was it just the first one to hand?

For reasons he couldn’t articulate, he was instantly fascinated by this woman, and immediately drawn to her in a way police operatives were taught to steel themselves against. Sure, she was drop-dead gorgeous, but that wasn’t what filled him with a rushing, prickling compulsion to protect her against all odds, to keep her safe and let her return to this bedroom full of trinkets and stories, safe and unharmed.

Lacey turned suddenly, her face full of curiosity. He braced himself, snapping back to the present. She was finally engaging with the case, and would want to know everything about their previous dealings with Lloyd Hardy.

“How tall are you?”

Or not.

“What did you say?” he managed after a second.

“Sorry. Is that too personal?”

“No, just not the question I was expecting. I’m six-three.”

She nodded as if his height made perfect sense. “What question were you expecting?”

“Something about the case. Thus far you haven’t seemed that interested.”

Lacey’s expression was arch, and there was a chill in her tone Bronnik hadn’t imagined she could possess. “Excuse me if I’m not reacting to the news that I’m the target of a homicidal maniac in the manner you prefer.”

He said nothing, peering straight ahead through the falling snow. He did indeed have his doubts about her reaction, as she put it, but this wasn’t the time to mention them.

After a tense moment, she sighed. “Look, to say this is scary and unexpected is the understatement of the year. I’m just trying to deal with one thing at a time. I figure the details will come together eventually.”

“Fair enough.” They were almost to the hotel, and his focus sharpened. He had to ensure they weren’t being followed before they reached their destination. He took a left turn on Topeka Boulevard and headed north.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

“Is your sister older or younger?”

“Older.” The snow was coming sideways now, and the steering wheel shuddered as the car crunched over a patch of packed ice. What was an African native like him doing in weather like this? He increased the tempo of the windshield wipers.

“How much older?”

“Clara is five years older, Heloise is eight.” There was a car embedded in the snow on the opposite shoulder, its emergency lights flashing. He regarded it warily. Where was this damn hotel?

“You have two older sisters!” Lacey exclaimed with what he felt was excessive delight. “Who was that on the phone earlier?”

“Heloise,” he muttered, scanning the road ahead. At last, the hotel appeared on the left-hand side. He checked the rearview mirror for what felt like the millionth time, but there was no sign of a tail.

“I have two older brothers,” Lacey was saying as he pulled into the parking lot of the chain hotel.

“I know.” He parked the car and switched off the engine. He yanked his phone from his pocket and called Thando, who answered on the first ring.

“All clear,” his partner said without preamble.

“We’ll see you upstairs.” He unbuckled his seat belt and turned to face Lacey in the cramped interior of the rental sedan.

“Here’s the plan. We’re going to be Brian and Linda Miller, a married couple, in town from Springfield, Missouri. I’m a professor at Missouri State and I’m here to meet some academic colleagues at Washburn University. We left the baby with your mother so you could tag along.” He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved the two cheap gold bands, sliding one onto his left ring finger. “Give me your hand.”

Lacey stared at him incredulously, then suddenly burst into peals of musical laughter.

“I’m sorry, this is ridiculous,” she managed between gasps of air. “Linda Miller? We left the baby with my mother?”

“This is not a game,” he scolded, his voice louder and harsher than he’d intended. Her smile vanished instantly.

“Your life is at stake,” he continued, forcing himself to stay calm. “And it’s my job to keep you safe. If an alias and a shared room complicate Hardy’s efforts to find you by even fifteen minutes, that’s fifteen minutes we want to have at our disposal.”

She nodded soberly but didn’t speak. She extended her hand and he put the ring on her finger.

He squinted disapprovingly at the result. “It’s far too big, but it’ll do. Be careful not to let it fall off.”

Her eyes were downcast, and on impulse he took her hand in his and gave it what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. Slowly her long-lashed, emerald-green eyes lifted to meet his.

“Everything will be fine,” he lied. “Let’s go in.”

Lacey drew a deep, shuddering breath. He released her hand, and she unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car. He grabbed her bag from the backseat and joined her for the slippery walk across the snowy lot.

She tilted her chin to look up at him. “One question.”

“Which is?” He scanned the lot around them, trying to note whether he’d seen any of the cars on the drive over, or if any had been parked in Lacey’s neighborhood. The thickening blanket of snow was marred by only a few sets of footprints, and their shallow depth suggested they were at least a half-hour old. Hardy wasn’t here—he couldn’t be.

“Why a professor? Why not a salesman or something? Surely hotels have more of those coming through. An academic would be memorable.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. It was a good question. Maybe she was more switched on than he’d imagined. “University faculties are very international. They recruit professors from all over the world.”

“So?”

“So it’s reasonable they might hire a South African.” At Lacey’s furrowed brow, he couldn’t contain a slight smirk at his next admission. “I can’t do an American accent. It comes out like a cross between John Wayne and Sylvester Stallone.”

She grinned, her upturned, heart-shaped face looking practically angelic as tiny snowflakes dotted her dark hair. Bronnik’s stomach clenched as he thought about the threat facing her, and Hardy’s twisted, leering face popped into his mind like a remembered nightmare.

He took her by the elbow as they approached the door to the hotel.

Not this time, Hardy.

Not ever again.

The elevator glided to the top floor. Lacey was bursting with questions, but Bronnik’s face was stony with concentration, and she figured it would be better to wait until they reached their room. Being in transit seemed to make him nervous.

Their
room. She hadn’t failed to clock his earlier mention of a shared room as part of the decoy. Surely he couldn’t be serious—Thando had probably booked an adjoining twin, and the two men would share that one.

Of course there could be worse roommates. She stole a glance at the trim length of his body beside hers, and as her swift, evaluative gaze came to rest on the determined set of his square jaw, she couldn’t suppress a shiver that she assured herself was due to the frigid weather.

When the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open with a
ping
, Bronnik emerged first, casting his eyes back and forth in the hallway. Without warning he took a firm hold on Lacey’s forearm and pulled her briskly down the corridor. She was forced to fall into a half-jog to keep up with his long-legged stride.

He stopped abruptly when they reached a room midway down the hall. He swiped the card and opened the door in one swift motion, guided Lacey inside and took a last look up and down the hallway before he stepped in and shut the door behind them.

“Hello,” came a deep voice from within the room, and Lacey couldn’t contain a brief shriek.

Thando laughed, rising from his seat on the bed. “Good girl, already on the alert.”

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. Bronnik moved past her, dropped her duffel bag on the bed and paced to the window to look out. The door to the adjoining room was propped open with a chair.

“But how did you…? Don’t you need the person on the other side to open their door as well?”

Thando’s smile was kind, and not at all patronizing. She decided he must be the good cop in this duo.

“Tricks of the trade. Anyway, have a seat. I’ll make coffee. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head, obediently dropping into the small loveseat by the window. The room was about as generic a hotel room as she’d ever been in, and she hadn’t been in many, so that was saying something.

On his path to the kettle, Thando murmured to Bronnik, “Everything check out at the house?” His partner nodded, and Thando followed up with a curt, “Good.”

“Can I ask something?” Now that they were settled into the room, Lacey hoped that they’d have the time to fill her in on a few things.

“Full of questions, this one.” Bronnik nodded in Lacey’s direction, and Thando raised a bemused brow.

“If Hardy doesn’t kill his victims until the third day, surely I’m not in any real danger until then. I don’t know much about serial killers, but aren’t they sort of addicted to their rituals? Wouldn’t it ruin it for him if I died ahead of schedule?”

“Very impressive,” Thando acknowledged, shaking instant coffee granules into three cups and then adding boiling water.

She shrugged. “I like to read the odd crime thriller.”

At the other end of the room Bronnik had produced a screwdriver from somewhere and was standing on a bedside table, unscrewing the cover on the air vent in the ceiling. Ignoring his colleague, Thando dragged the rolling chair from the desk to sit opposite Lacey, handed her a coffee and sat down with his own.

“Coffee’s on the desk, Mason,” he called over his shoulder. His partner grunted something unintelligible in reply.

“You’re absolutely right,” Thando began, taking a sip of his drink. “Hardy won’t try to kill you before Thursday. But there’s a very strong possibility he’ll try to kill me or my partner over there.”

“So I’m actually in more danger if I’m with you two?”

He shook his head. “No, he’ll go out of his way to avoid harming you, at least until the third day. In the meantime, he’ll be hiding around the corner somewhere, watching you. That’s how he operates—he spends the first two days following his victims, stalking them. We’re not sure why, other than it helps him plan the scenario for the kill. And he loves the feeling of giving the police the slip.”

“Okay.” She paused to process this information. “So he can’t stalk me if I’m stuck in a hotel, under guard?”

“Not exactly,” he began, but was interrupted by a metallic crash at the back of the room. She looked up just in time to see the screwdriver drop from Bronnik’s hand as he leaned against the wall, wincing and holding his left side.

“That’s enough now, Mason. Take it easy,” Thando commanded in a voice that made her imagine him ordering people to lie on the floor with their hands behind their backs. “I swept the room already.”

“I’m fine,” Bronnik insisted, but as Thando turned to continue their discussion Lacey could see him climbing down from the small table.

“With the previous victims, the police focused on the third day and tried to intercept Hardy when he came in for the kill,” Thando continued. “This time we’re going to play it differently. We’ll try something new—something preemptive.”