Deathwatch (3 page)

The feet moved faster and faster.
The killer was running now.
Probably for his car.
Kate held her breath and prayed it wasn’t the one she was hiding under.
Then he was right there suddenly, coming straight toward her.

She reached for the fist-size stone by her hip, even as she knew it wouldn’t make a difference.
The next second he would open the door, jump in and back up, see her on the pavement.
He'd pull his gun.
One bullet and his troubles would be over.

No, no, no.
She gripped the stone.
She was too petrified, too bruised and battered to run.
 

But instead of jumping into the car above her, he ducked into the next one over.
And then he was gone, peeling out of the parking lot as people ran from the church.

Kate coughed at last, spit dirt, coughed again.
She lay still, suddenly boneless, amazed to be alive.
At least a full minute passed before she gathered herself enough to crawl from under the car, holding her breath against the pain.
The fire and smoke of the burning vans kept her hidden from the church crowd for the moment, blocked from the agents who were trying to herd everyone back inside so they could secure the scene.

Cirelli was circling the burning FBI van, gesturing wildly with her arms, her mouth moving as if shouting, although Kate couldn’t hear the words.

She shook her head, trying to shake the ringing from her ears, but it didn’t work.
She needed to lean against something for a second to catch her breath, but the lid of the trunk moved under her hand.
The explosion must have popped it open.

Common sense said she should head back to the agents.
Reality said, they couldn’t protect her.
They hadn’t been able to protect Marcos, and Marcos had been just a job for the killer.
Eliminating Kate was a lot more personal.

Rauch Asael wouldn’t stop coming until he killed her.
He couldn’t afford to let her live.
And if he came after her, her family could easily become collateral damage, caught up in the crossfire.

Even as her knees shook, her overwhelmed brain struggled to think, circling back to the same thought: the only way to keep her family and herself safe was to disappear forever.
So instead of running toward the church and the FBI, she opened the trunk wider and slipped awkwardly inside, pulling the lid closed.
She coughed again, wiped her face with her sleeve.

Except for the faint glow of the emergency release lever, darkness surrounded her that smelled faintly like rubber, probably from the spare tire in the tire well under her.

She didn’t mind the cramped space.
It reminded her of the gap behind the washing machine in the laundry closet where, as a kid, she used to hide from her birth mother’s hard slaps.
Some people disliked tight, dark places, but she thought of them as sanctuary.

She closed her eyes.
He didn’t get me.
She was unhurt.
And once she was far away from here, the people she loved would be safe too.
 

Her heart slammed against her chest.
She was twenty-nine and still lived with her family.
She had a job and kicked in money to pay bills, but she’d stayed home.

The arrangement helped them financially, and it helped her, too.
She was saving for a house.
And since she didn't have a huge rent payment, she was able to contribute to Emma's college tuition.
She could also waive her fees when she had a client whose parents couldn't afford them.

She’d waited forever to have a family, so she’d been reluctant to leave them, especially since they didn’t want her to go.
The Bridges family had been the first and only place she’d truly been safe.
In her subconscious, they defined “home” and “safety,” the two things she craved above all else.

She no longer had either.

Her breath hitched.
Sweat beaded on her forehead.
Compared to the air-conditioned van, the trunk was an oven.

Fire trucks wailed in the distance, coming closer and closer.
Her hearing was coming back.
In another moment, she could even hear the agents shouting orders.
She tuned them out and did her best to untangle her thoughts, her brain barely able to process what had just happened, feverishly trying to come up with a plan for what she would need to do next.

This was not how the FBI’s set-up was supposed to end.
The agents were supposed to grab their man, and she was supposed to be back with her family, explaining herself by now.
The sudden change in direction sent panic racing through her.

She was a massage therapist, not some super spy or action movie heroine.
She knew muscles and anatomy.
She had no idea how to disappear, how to find a new identity, how to hide from a man who always found his target.

The sirens came closer—until she felt as if they were going off inside her skull—then suddenly cut off.

She didn’t know how much time passed before someone came for the car she was hiding in—maybe an hour.
She was ready to pass out from the heat.
The door opened, then slammed shut.
The engine hummed to life.

Her nails sank into the heel of her hands as her fingers curled into tight fists, her entire body tensing.
Oh, God.
 

Last chance to change her mind.
She could still get out.
She could go to the agents.

But she didn’t.
She stayed hidden in the trunk, wracked with doubts, as the car backed out then slowly rolled forward.

What if she never saw her family again?
That invisible hand kept squeezing her heart, hard, until she could barely breathe.

Tears spilled at last and washed down her face.

She had thought attending her own funeral would be the hardest part.
She’d been wrong.

Leaving was harder by far.
 

Chapter Two

Broslin, Pennsylvania

18 Months Later

“
Yo.
Murph!
You’re home.”
 

Murphy Dolan shifted drowsily on the passenger seat of the car as he woke, every limb stiff after the long flight from Germany to Philly then the ride from the airport.
He blinked his eyes open, registering the snow first then the fact that they were pulling up his driveway.

The clock on the dashboard showed two a.m.
They'd made good time, no traffic to speak of this time of the night.

After an eight-month deployment in Afghanistan, his semi-renovated Victorian with its peeling paint and dark windows was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
For the first time in a long time, his battered body relaxed.

“
Did I get the house right?”
Tommy, his army buddy, peered bleary-eyed through the windshield, leaning his forearms on the steering wheel.
 

“
This’s it.
Thanks, man.”
Murph stretched, as much as he could in the cramped space.
God, it was good to be home.
 

He craved the quiet solitude of his house, the peace and normalcy of the Pennsylvania small town he called home, and the safe sanity of everyday life.

“
Pretty little town,” Tommy commented, a city boy through and through.
“Must be nice living in a Christmas postcard.”
 

Maybe not that idyllic, but Broslin was a place you’d want to come home to, Murph thought, the kind of place where people knew and watched out for each other.
“Wilmington ain’t bad.”

“
City girls.”
Tommy offered a sleepy smile.
“Bright lights, big titties.”
 

Murph shook his head as he got out and grabbed his army duffel bag from the back of the car they’d rented at the Philly airport.
He fronted the money, and Tommy drove, since the shrapnel in Murph’s left shoulder still hurt like hell and would have made hanging on to the steering wheel for a long drive too much.

He didn’t want to think about his injuries now.
He didn’t want to think about anything at all.
He wanted to go back to sleep in his own bed, in his own house.

Tomorrow, he’d start rolling again, would figure out a way to fix his shoulder and get back on the Broslin P.D.
He was going to finish renovating his house.
He was going to reclaim his old pre-deployment life and never leave town again.

“
You want to come in to grab a cup of coffee?”
He gestured toward the house.
 

An inch or so of snow covered the walkway and the roof, the moon huge in the sky, bathing the carved wood pillars in silver light.
Maybe the place did look like a postcard.

But Tommy rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Nah.
I’m so close to home, I just want to get there now.
Mom's probably waiting up.”

Murph nodded.
“Thanks for the ride.
I’ll see you around.”
Although he wasn’t sure if they would see each other again.
His injuries had permanently retired him from the United States Army Reserves.

As Tommy backed down the driveway and drove away, Murph filled his lungs with the cold night air.
He looked after the car, watched it disappear at the end of the street, then his gaze slid to the house on his left.
The FOR SALE OR RENT sign was gone, a single light on in an upstairs window.
Looked like he had new neighbors.

Good.
He didn’t like abandoned houses around.
They drew crime.

On his other side, Mrs.
Baker’s house slept dark and quiet.
She usually spent winters with her grandkids in Florida since her arthritis couldn’t take snow.
She needed warmth and sunshine.

He’d walk around the place tomorrow, make sure everything was all right.

Murph shuffled up to his front door, yawning.
He’d been traveling nonstop since he’d been released from the field hospital in Bagram, Afghanistan two days ago.
He was dead on his feet, but his bed was just steps away now.

He dropped his bag, fished out his keys and unlocked the door.
The house wasn’t exactly home yet, but it would be once the renovations were finished.
Right now, except for the main living areas downstairs, most of the place was still a construction zone.

No big deal.
He was grateful that he'd lived to see the place again.
Too many of his friends weren't coming back.
He didn't want to think about that either, although, he knew they'd stay with him for as long as he lived.

He swung his bag inside, untied his boots and kicked them off as he went, shedding clothes on the floor.
He didn’t even turn on the lights.
Plenty of moonlight came in the windows, and he knew the place, although it looked like his brother had moved around some of the furniture.

Doug had asked to stay a week when his wife had tossed him out in the fall.
He’d ended up staying six.
Murph didn’t mind.
No sense in the house standing empty.

He would drag the sofa back by the window later.
All he wanted right now was to stretch out his weary bones and sleep on his own sheets.
The bedroom was fixed up.
Thank God for that.

The guest bedrooms and guest bath upstairs and the staircase that led to them needed plenty of work still, as did the basement and the outside of the house, starting with the roof.
He’d tackle that in the spring.
He shut that line of thought down.
He didn’t have the energy to so much as think about work.

Down to nothing but his ACU pants, he dragged his tired, aching frame into his bedroom, then pulled up short at the sight of a nearly naked woman in his bed.

What the hell?

Her long legs tangled in the sheets, her mess of reddish-brown hair half across her face.
Her white nightgown, nothing but a scrap of fabric, looked shrink-wrapped around her torso and hips.
He caught her scent, a faint trace of old-fashioned roses, sexy and somehow homey at the same time.

He stared, suddenly wide awake and then some.
Even the pain in his shoulder stopped pulsing.

As a welcome home present, he approved one-hundred percent.

Except for the screaming.

* * *

Kate woke from a deep sleep, saw the shadow of the killer at the end of her bed and screamed before she remembered the gun under her pillow.
But she did pull the weapon the next second, flipped the safety off and aimed at the bastard.

His hands came right up.
“Take it easy, sweetheart.”

The voice—deep, relaxed, and sexy—wasn’t what she expected from the country’s most dangerous hit man.

A shaft of moonlight glazed his body with silver glow, outlining an impressive amount of muscles.
He seemed unarmed.
And mostly undressed.
Was she dreaming?
She’d dreamed of him finding her so many times….

But no, this wasn’t a dream.
This time, the fear and the rush of blood in her ears were all too real.

“
I want to see your weapon,” she demanded when she found her voice.
“Throw it down.”
Where the hell was his gun?
Or his shirt, for that matter?
 

“
I’m unarmed.”
 

Right.
His weapon was probably behind his back, tucked into his waistband.

“
Don’t move.”
She’d been holding the gun with both hands, but now reached for the phone on the nightstand with her left.
She had 911 on speed dial.
She pushed the button, but didn’t try to pick up the phone.
She couldn’t afford to be distracted.
The call itself should bring some kind of emergency response to the address.
 

She had this all thought out, had imagined it a million times.

“
You might be the better shot, but I have my gun out and aimed,” she warned, even knowing that words would never hold back a man like him.
 

She braced herself.
She couldn’t hesitate.
She had to shoot the second he moved.

But instead of launching an attack, he tilted his head and looked her over.
Took his time.
“You belong to Doug?”

Her frenetic mind struggled to make sense of the question.
“No.”

“
I don’t suppose I could talk you into putting that gun down?”
 

“
Doug who?”
 

“
My brother.
I’m Murph.
He probably told you about me.
This is my house.”
 

“
No it’s not.
I’m renting it.”
For the next three months still.
She never stayed in one place long, no matter how much she wanted to stop running.
 

“
From?”
 

“
Doug Dolan.”
That Doug?
Her frenetic mind made the connection at last.
 

The man in her bedroom looked like he was swearing under his breath.
“Doug’s my brother.
I didn’t know he rented out the house.
Technically, it’s not his to rent.”
His impressive shoulders rose as he filled his lungs.
“I’m going to reach out very slowly and turn on the light.
All right?”

She hesitated only a moment before nodding.
“The better I see, the better I can shoot you if you try anything.”

She squinted her eyes so the light wouldn’t blind her, but she had to blink a few times anyway when he flipped the switch and light flooded the sparsely-furnished room.
The old pine dresser, armchair and the bed with the nightstand had come with the house.

She looked at nothing but the intruder.
Wrong height—this one was several inches taller than Asael.
Wrong shape—his shoulders were much wider.
Wrong chin—although that could be faked with a facial prosthetic.
But the overall body couldn’t.
As good as Asael was, he couldn’t have grown over the past year and a half.
Which meant she had the wrong guy at the end of her gun.

But still.
He might not be the killer she was running from, but he
was
the man who’d broken into her house, into her bedroom, half-naked in the middle of the night.
She kept the gun steady.
 

His dark eyebrows drew together.
“I was deployed overseas.
I got back stateside a couple of hours ago.”

His camouflage pants and the dog tags hanging from his neck backed up his story, but she was still shaking inside and not ready to lower her weapon as fast as that.
“I want to see your I.D.”

“
Out in my bag by the front door.”
He paused as he watched her.
“How long have you been living here?”
 

“Almost s
ix weeks.”
Which meant she had almost three more months left on her short-term lease.
Then she would move again.
 

She’d been scouting out places already, a small lake community down in Maryland in particular, but hadn’t found a house yet.
She didn’t like apartments.
She couldn’t be stuck up on the third floor of a building.
She needed multiple emergency exits.

He stepped back.
“I’m going to back away now and get you that I.D.”

“
Turn around first.
Slowly.”
 

He raised an eyebrow, but complied.
Okay.
He had no weapons on him that she could see.
The rippling muscles in his back distracted her a little.
When her gaze slipped below his belt, she yanked it back up.