The Risqué Target (31 page)

“And when you caught that case at HAARP, where he works, it was the perfect opportunity. He had Brent Walden do the dirty work,” she said, “but all along, he was setting you up to take the fall.”

“No. The son-of- a-bitch and Brent Walden set us both up,” he countered, enraged. “Not me alone. You as well.” Brent Walden was long gone, but Hark Sullivan had pulled Nala ino it. She might have died. Hark Sullivan would pay for that.

“At the convention,” she said, NESA assigned me to introduce myself to Hark Sullivan. An ordinary occurrence. I thought nothing of it at the time. Then, we thought someone in NESA wanted us dead. But the more I thought about that, the less sense it made. Anyone high enough up in NESA to do that would’ve had the access to learn about your parents’ house, yet nobody came after us there. When we were grabbed, nobody questioned us, and nobody tried to kill us. Even the bombing of my sister’s shop was the old shop when nobody was there. The more I thought about it, the clearer it got that NESA isn’t out to get us. I think they pitted us against each other because HAARP—Hark Sullivan, that is—had implicated you in the bombings. NESA pitted us against each other because our bosses knew we’d stop at nothing to clear our names and find the real rogue. They must have suspected Hark at least as much as they suspected us. And they knew if you and I were innocent, we'd find evidence to convict him.”

Tantum shook his head at her in disbelief.

The left side of her nose crinkled. “What?”

“You amaze me, Nala Dekker,” he said, still awed by her discovery. So much for his arrogance, he thought in exasperation. Baby agent or not, she'd cracked the case wide open.

She shrugged. “My eyes were fresh. I wasn’t personally involved. That's why I could see my way to the truth, Tantum.” But her eyes gleamed at his praise.

He went  to her and took her hands. Looking down at her small, frail fingers, he started to rub them. “No, sweetheart. You're a good agent, and you should take credit for the job you've done. I'm an ass for ever doubting you, for making you feel like you needed my protection. I'm sorry.”

She smiled. “To be honest”—she leaned in toward him—“I don’t want to always take care of myself. I like knowing you want to take care of me. But only you.”

Smiling at her whispered confession, he leaned the few inches closer to her until he met her lips and kissed her. During that long and passionate kiss, he realized something he'd denied for weeks, something he was afraid of more than anything in his life. He was in love with her.

She swooned from his kiss, soft and gentle. It was not urgent, or untamable, like last night in the rain, but in it she felt his belief in her and his caring for her. During her weeks of hiding, as she researched everything and anything she could to discover who’d set them up, she hadn’t been able to resist delving into Tantum’s past. She’d run across the seeming coincidence that the same police officer had done the paperwork on his teenage arrests, but hadn’t known what to make of it. Then, sometime in the small hours of the morning, she’d come bolt awake remembering what his father had said that she’d ignored in her early distrust of Tantum: that he hadn’t been guilty of those teenage offenses. His father had thought that somebody had set him up.

That coincidence was suddenly too big to ignore. All night as he’d slept, she’d hunched over the laptop, ferreting out the pieces and putting them together, driven by the excitement of the chase, but her dread had grown, too. Telling him had been even more difficult than she’d feared it would be. Only the hope of freeing him had given her the strength to do it.

But would the truth free him? Or was it too late? Now they had a clear Target. With the resources of HAARP behind him, Hark Sullivan was dangerous. If Tantum’s guilt over an accident he hadn’t caused was unreasonable, Sullivan’s fixation was outright deranged. He had to be taken out of play, but how would Tantum do that?

When his lips drew away, she caught the look in his eyes, hard and flat, and she knew he meant to kill Hark Sullivan. Those scars, inside and out, had made him what he was. Ruthless. “Get ready,” he said. “We need to go to NESA and report our findings.”

Skeptical, she searched his face. “We're just going to tell them we think Hark Sullivan is responsible? Without real proof?”

“We've got Brent Walden.” His voice was cold. “He's all the proof we need.”

Her hands came out, perplexed. “But we don't know where he is.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “I have a pretty good idea where Brent Walden is.”

If he was going to shut her out, all she could do was stay beside him and be ready for anything. She went to the bedroom, slipped into her jeans, a shirt and sneakers, and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She wondered how he knew where Brent Walden was. After all they’d been through together, his holding back infuriated her. Damaged goods, he’d called himself. Trouble she should steer clear of. But it was too late for that. Attacking her teeth with the toothbrush, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. He cared about her. She had to hold onto that. She gave her hair a quick brush, turned off the light and went out to the bedroom.

A hand clamped over her mouth, and a strong arm came around her waist, knocking the breath out of her. “Call your boyfriend,” a man's voice demanded, sounding vaguely familiar. Nala froze, glancing around the room. She was alone except for her attacker.

She eased her head to the left and recognized the man from the elevator, the one who’d held Tantum and her in the motel room. He had escaped before NESA arrived, so he must be Sullivan’s hit man. She had no idea how he’d found them, but she knew what he’d come for. He meant to complete his assignment, and Tantum was his Target.

“Call him,” he ordered again.

She shook her head. She'd die first.

“Then I'll snap your neck and go in there after him. You choose. Call him, and you’ll both live a little longer. See, I get paid more for keeping him alive,” he said. “Now choose.” He shifted and a gun jammed hard into her throat.

More time sounded good, but she had to warn Tantum. She nodded and felt the man's hand lighten over her mouth.

“Don’t be stupid, bitch. Just call his name, no funny stuff. Do you hear me?”

She nodded again, and when his hand moved from her mouth, she called, “Marcus!”

“Yeah?” His voice came from the kitchen, sounding perfectly normal. Panic stabbed through her. He was so used to that name it was second nature. He hadn’t even noticed her attempt to warn him.

“Marcus, darling, can you come here for a second?”
Please don’t. Please don’t!

He appeared in the doorway, gun in hand, pointed directly at them, and grinned. “Yeah, sweetheart? What do you need?”

“I needed you
not
to come in—” she managed before the man’s hand clamped back over her mouth.

“But you called me darling. What else was I supposed to do?” he answered calmly, and clicked his cheek, making that maddening little noise she couldn’t stand. “Where did you find this bozo?” He flicked his eyes at her captor. “You know where he's from, don’t you, snookums. The motel.” He smiled, and she felt the man holding her jerk slightly with the urge to shoot him.. “Yeah, this is the goon who kidnapped us,” Tantum continued.

“Drop it. We both know how you feel about the girl. Hell, you even came alone to the park to save her. Personally, I thought you'd figure it was a trap and not show up at all, that’s why I didn’t come myself. So, put the gun down, we both know that if you try to shoot me, she'll be dead.”

Tantum flicked a brow. “Yep, you got me there.”

Nala frantically shook her head until the man's hand slipped from her mouth. “Don't you dare put that gun down!” she yelled at Tantum.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I can't chance it.” He lowered the gun.

“No, Tantum! Don’t do it,” she pleaded, begged.

He knew better. an agent should never give up his weapon. She stomped on the man's foot, hoping to distract him so Tantum could shoot before he dropped the gun, but her captor had some kind of training too. The pain just made him shove the gun harder into her neck, cutting off her air.

Tantum stopped, bent, his gun midway to the floor. His eyes turned deadly. “Hurt her, and I kill you,” he threatened.

The man loosened his hold and she gasped for breath. The look in Tantum's eyes was a death sentence for the man, but his gun hit the floor.

“Turn around and walk,” Sullivan’s thug instructed, and shifted the gun to her temple, pushing her to follow Tantum. “That door. Open it and go down the stairs.”

Her panic rose again as she followed Tantum climb down the stairs to the basement, watched him walk to the center of the cold, damp room.

“Stop. Turn around, but keep your hands in the air and don’t make a move.” He pushed her toward Tantum.

But getting away from the gun did nothing to ease her fear. It was now pointed directly at Tantum. Without thought, she moved protectively in front of the man she loved.

Tantum knocked her back behind him. “Yeah right, Nala – like that's gonna happen,” he muttered.

“Hey, shut up!” the man snapped.

“She was trying to protect
me
,” Tantum cracked, sounding both appalled and exultant. “What do you make of that? Has anybody ever liked you enough to shield you, you scumbag?” He gave the man a derisive laugh, and Nala realized how crazy, how freaking nuts Tantum Maddox truly was as he continued to taunt the man who had the gun.

The man casually lifted and then dropped his shoulders. “Maybe she just thinks you can’t handle yourself,” he tried to match taunt for taunt. “Here, if you two are so tight, put these on each other, over there, around that support beam.” he said, tossing two pairs of handcuffs to the cement ground.

“Can’t say I mind it.” Tantum picked them up and straightened. “But you know what? I'm going to get her out of here. Mark my words.” He turned to Nala with a sly grin, the same one he'd given her at the bondage joint. The same one he gave to her before making her have an orgasm.

What the hell is he thinking? What is he doing?
Nala couldn’t figure what angle he was working. The only return she could see for his smart-ass remarks was an increasingly pissed-off assassin.
Is he trying to get us killed? Does he hate himself so much he’s giving in to some crazy death wish?

Tantum pushed the cuffs at her but dropped them. “Shit,” he cursed. “See that window up there?” he said to the man, pointing as he bent down to pick up the cuffs.

“Yeah,” the man replied, irritated but puzzled.

“She's going to crawl out of it,” Tantum nonchalantly replied and stood up.

Their captor stared at Tantum for a long, hard second. Then he laughed. “Enough bluffing, asshole. Shut up and cuff each other.”

“Ladies first,” Tantum said.

“You’re so gallant,” she murmured, catching his eye, trying to read his intentions, but they might as well have been a fathomless aqua sea. She could only stay alert and ready as she stood in front of the beam thrust her arms out at Tantum. He slipped the cuffs around her wrists. Dangling the second set from his finger he gave her his annoying little confident smile.

She wiggled her wrists, making the cuffs clank. “How am I going to cuff him?”

It was a logical question, but the man was not stupid enough to go anywhere near Tantum. He waved the gun. “Do it yourself.”

Tantum shrugged, as he he’d won instead of lost for good, she thought angrily. He slipped his arms around the pole, placed one cuff on his left wrist and squirmed his right hand into the other. He tapped the metal against the beam until it clicked closed.

The man inspected them, tugging and shaking the restraints, then left the room.

“Tantum Maddox,” she said, turning her head against the beam, inches from his smug face, “you'd better have a damn good explanation for that display of… of…” She was so angry she couldn’t get the words out.

“He's a trained hit man. He feeds off of fear. I wanted to throw him off track, to distract him,”came his offhanded answer.

“And that did what?” she asked, shaking the cuffs in frustration. “In case you haven’t noticed, we're trapped and handcuffed,” she huffed.

“Yes,” he agreed smoothly. “But you’re wearing my handcuffs, sweetheart.”

“What?”

“When I pointed to the window, I switched them. Luckily, I had mine in my back pocket. I really couldn’t find any other way out of this.” He glanced at the window. “You’re good at escaping through windows, do you think you can make it through that one?”