Taken by Surprise (26 page)

* * * *

Rhonda settled into a chair at the kitchen table, her attention focused through the nearby doorway to the figure doing a dance of part irritation and part elation before the television screen.

"I didn't know how much I could miss that sound," she sighed, smiling as Lucas pumped the air with a fist as, on the television screen, the Death Star exploded into nothingness.

"He's been a handful," her mother commented, taking the seat across from Rhonda. "He doesn't stop! Play this, build that, run here, run there. I'm exhausted an hour after getting up in the mornings. You didn't keep me going that much."

Rhonda shrugged. "I was a bookworm, a girl. He's an adventurous, active boy."

"Who is glad to have his mother back," her mother added, blue eyes swimming. "And I'm glad to have my daughter back."

"Oh, Mom." Rhonda reached for her mother's hand, held it. She noticed changes in her mother in recent months, saw an approval and felt a comforting, guiding hand she always knew to be there, but never truly felt until she left Preston. "I never meant to worry either of you."

"Of course you didn't. You went on a vacation, for crying out loud. How were you to know a drug lord…" Her mother broke off abruptly and shook her head. "I can't help but think how much the whole thing sounds like a
Lifetime
movie."

Rhonda laughed. "Believe me, it didn't feel like a Lifetime movie."

"Oh, honey, I know it couldn't have. You must have been so scared."

"I was," Rhonda admitted.
Still am
. She darted a glance back at Lucas, who remained where he had taken up stake after Michael left, in front of the television. Safe. He was safe. She was safe. Michael would be safe. She didn't doubt that. So why did she feel the terror twisting in her belly, the same wrenching sickness she felt when she had been locked inside the room in Phay's compound?

"Tired, too." Her mother nodded, patted her hand. "Why don't you go lay down for a while? I think I have enough energy left in me to take care of Lucas for a few more hours."

"No, Mom, I couldn't sleep right now." It took every ounce of control she possessed to sit for any length of time. She wanted to be up pacing the floor, out there going after Phay. She wanted to be in Michael's arms with Lucas beside them. Safe. All of them safe and together where they belonged.

"Then take a shower. Stand under the hot stream, and let it ease some of that tension in your shoulders."

"That, I might do." She hadn't showered since the safe house in Cambodia. How many hours ago had that been? She'd lost track. "Thanks, Mom, for everything." She stood and kissed her mother's cheek.

"That's what mothers are for."

Rhonda detoured at the living room to steal a great big hug and kiss from Lucas, who moaned and fussed at her for screwing up his game.
Back to normal already.
Some things never change
. She laughed as she started down the hall to the bathroom. She wondered fleetingly why the cop, Brooks, wasn't on the sofa where he'd been for much of the time since she'd gotten here. Then she heard voices drifting into the hallway from the spare bedroom.

Brooks and the DEA agent who Michael introduced to her as Sherman Page spoke in low tones. She nearly dismissed the conversation despite the desire to see if they knew anything about what might be happening with Michael and the others. The obedient "Sir, yes, sir, I understand, sir," made her stop to listen.

"She won't leave this house for anything," the voice assured.

Page's voice, Rhonda recognized, no doubt talking with his boss, who called to make sure she kept her end of the bargain to remain at the house, where he knew she would be safe.
Not putting much trust in me, are you, Michael?

Page said something else she couldn't make out, and then she heard a snap like the sound a cell phone makes when flipped closed. "We're to wait until he gets here to do anything with Rhonda or the boy."

Rhonda's blood turned to ice in her veins. She caught her breath, held it, straining harder to listen over the sudden pounding in her ears.

"The party will be in full swing in about an hour. That's when Cosmos, Bingham, and the feds plan to do the takedown. He's already spotted Hutchens and that FBI agent, Graham. He's got his way out without being seen. As soon as they go in, he heads this way."

"So we wait," Brooks said lazily.

"We wait."

Like hell we do. Rhonda double-timed it back to the kitchen before either of the men knew she had overheard them. Her mother thought everything sounded like a Lifetime movie before. Rhonda planned to put her smack dab in the middle of one now.

* * * *

Jackson snagged a drink from the tray of a passing waiter and brought the glass to his lips as he scanned the large, crowded room. The hostess of tonight's party made no secret of her wealth given the lavish Southern belle mansion and its period furnishings. The secret lay in how the money and possessions had come into her hands, how many lives she had destroyed while taking pleasures in a privileged one of her own.

"Are you enjoying the party?"

He recognized the throaty voice that spoke softly in his ear, felt the harsher curves of the woman against his back. He moved a half step to his right, surreptitiously putting a fraction of distance between them. He hadn't been kidding when he told Christa he thought Amanda was scary.

"I've attended better." He kept his voice bland, expression on the bored side as he continued to study the people mingling about the room. What he saw didn't quite meet the expectation he'd built about tonight. He thought he would find himself engulfed in a world of leather and whips, sex toys and shackles. Instead, he walked into a scene not so unlike any other Friday night party. People chatted, drank, munched, and danced.

"Oh, being from the West Coast, I bet you have." Amanda moved to his side, close enough that her breasts brushed his arm with each measured breath.

He didn't step aside again, figuring it best not to piss off the hostess's play toy, even if the woman gave him the creeps.

"I'm surprised Christa doesn't have you catering to her needs."

"My mistress will let me know if there is anything she requires of me. Don't you have your own dominatrix to please?"

"I do. I'm pleasing her now by talking with you."

Jackson averted his gaze, quickly seeking out Christa, finding her across the room with Martisha D'Estibar, the hostess of this great bash and the one suspected of heading Veng Kim Phay's stateside operation.

"The shit is going to hit the fan in about an hour."

Jackson stayed in character, feigning disinterest even as his mind latched onto Amanda's words, heeded her warning.

"You would be wise to find a way out of this party before then."

In an hour, the DEA and FBI would storm the place. He and Christa had entered tonight's party sans receivers, neither willing to chance detection in such close, well-lit quarters. They were alone in here with no way to contact the agents on the outside, no way to warn them the op had been blown.

Amanda turned toward him, a hand snaking over his thigh toward his cock. He flinched, squared his shoulders, and let a faint look of discomfort overtake his expression. Instinctively, he recognized the difference in the come-on. When she felt his ass at Club Vixen, she had been exploring. This move was for show, to make anyone who happened to watch believe she was testing bounds, tempting Christa's submissive, likely under the orders of her own dominatrix.

"They know." Her nose brushed his lobe as she spoke low, directly in his ear. "The one you're looking for is here. Even with agents storming inside, you're not likely to make it out of here alive."

"Why are you telling me this?" Jackson barely moved his lips, wondered if she would hear the scarcely audible question over the music and conversation in the room.

"I like you. I like Christa." She sighed, her breath fanning the side of his neck as she bowed her head. "I love my mistress, but I can't stand what she has become involved in. She'll get away. Martisha and Phay have a way out. It's already planned."

"There are more than a dozen agents outside this place right now, Amanda."

"And just as many with guns in this very room ready to fight back."

Jackson had already suspected as much. He'd caught the bulge at the small of the back on some of the men who passed him, the bumps in the clothing of others who poorly concealed their weapons. He felt the outline of his own Glock in the shoulder holster beneath the leather jacket he wore. Christa's outfit didn't offer her the possibility of concealment. She chose it for that specific purpose, insisting she stood a better chance at making them believe they could still trust her if she made it obvious she wasn't armed. Besides, she had him there if anything went wrong.

In less than an hour, they would likely find themselves in the middle of a shoot-out with her completely unarmed. If he attempted to get her out, if they tried to leave the party now, Martisha would certainly wonder why and likely look to Amanda for answers. The jig would be up too soon. And if they stayed…

"It's not about the job
.
"
Christa's words echoed in his memory.
"It's about life, theirs, mine, yours."

Yeah, but how far did an agent go to ensure the safety of life? Jackson knew how far he was willing to go. As his gaze slid to Christa and he thought about everything she'd said to him, all he'd learned about her, he knew how far she would go.

All the way.

* * * *

Rhonda drew in a startled breath when the door opened easily in her hand. She hesitated, her mind reeling from her conversation with Cameron Stone.

"Michael is not going to like this."

No shit, he wouldn't. She didn't care for it much herself. Her mother and Lucas were once again in protective custody, this time under the trustful and watchful eye of Rhonda's next-door neighbor and SSPD detective, Samantha Beckett. With time running out, Samantha had put Rhonda in direct contact with Cameron Stone, albeit reluctantly.

"That's why we're not telling him."
Michael would know the moment she stepped inside. That was the agreement she and Stone had made. He would keep it quiet until then. Otherwise, Michael would pull her out before she inched a toe through the door.

"He's going to kill me."

Rhonda almost smiled, remembering the FBI agent's groan, her own amused reply.
"Better you than me."

"We should let him come after you like he plans, be ready to take him down at your mother's house."

That's when she reminded Stone he had already ruled out that idea himself.
"Too many bystanders, too many chances of people getting hurt, including,"
she'd added with feeling,
"my son and my mother."

D'Estibar's house was secluded, already surrounded, and Stone had FBI agents inside. Michael didn't want to tell Stone how close to Phay she could get because he knew Stone would use the connection.

"Prove him right, damn it,"
she'd all but pleaded with Stone.
"Use me. Put me inside there, too."

She pulled herself back to the here and now, stepped inside what appeared to be an empty room. Her breath stuck in her throat as the cool barrel of a gun pressed to her temple. Icy fingers curled around her wrist as, in the next heartbeat, the gun lowered and the hand yanked her further into the room. The door slammed shut. She turned to find Phay, gun in hand, face a mask of disbelief and mistrust.

Rhonda licked her lips. Calm, strong, stubborn, she made herself act that way in his presence all those days he held her captive in Cambodia. She could do it again, this one last time.

"You're alone." She allowed a modicum of surprise to sound in her tone. She expected to find him in the company of at least two of his goons, maybe more. Surely he hadn't come to the coast alone. Even when he took her for leisurely strolls around the grounds in Cambodia, his minions kept close watch.

"I was." His gaze roamed over her, probing, dissecting. "It appears I am not now. What are you doing here, Rhonda?"

"I came to find you."

"How
did
you find me?"

"The men in my mother's house, Brooks and Page, I heard them talking after they got off the phone with you. I convinced them to tell me where you were."

"Why?"

"So I could come to you, of course." She put just enough fright in her tone, enough hesitation in her steps for believability as she began slowly perusing the room.

Study, really, she decided, the bookworm part of her admiring the shelves of leather-bound books, the chaise lounge, the small writer's desk. She took it all in, cataloging everything even as a part of her mind traveled overseas. In her memory, she walked alongside Phay in his courtyard, listening to him offer her things that made her stomach churn. It helped to stay in character, to be strong yet afraid, confident yet equally unsure.

"You were right. I didn't expect him to come for me, but he did."

"The DEA agent?"

"Michael, yes. Come to find out, he loved me after all." She shot Phay what she hoped would be the amused, slightly wide-eyed look she intended. "Who would've thought?"

"I did," Phay countered, his gaze following her every move. He seemed to absorb her every breath, hear each beat of her pulse. "You are an easy woman to love, Rhonda."

She laughed cynically at that. "Funny, my ex-husband didn't think so."

"Your ex-husband was a coward, an imbecile," Phay spat.

"He is that," Rhonda wholeheartedly agreed. "You aren't." She turned to face him, knowing the action would give more weight to her declaration.

"You say that, and yet you expect me to believe you come here tonight to be with me, to go away with me?"

Rhonda's heart tripped. He didn't believe her. Shit!

"You give me what I wanted, a dying man's last hope."

Rhonda's mind scrambled to take that in. "Dying?"

"Yes, I did not tell you when you were in my company. I have but only a few weeks left to live, less perhaps. So you see, if you truly wish to be with me, you will do so in the afterlife. I planned to live out our last days together in peace but," he shrugged, raised the gun, aiming at her head. "Since you are here now and our time has run out, we shall end it tonight."

Rhonda's heart stilled. Her eyes widened. The plea stuck on her lips as, behind Phay, the door flew open and Michael rushed inside. Too late, she realized in the next instant as the blast of one gunshot, two, split the air. She watched as Phay's head exploded before her eyes, felt the excruciating heat to the left side of her own head just before the world went black.