Hearts Under Siege (13 page)

She whirled back, his emotions mirrored in her expression. “I get it!” she burst out, but then stopped, her eyes locking on his. Her body practically vibrated with tension.

God, her eyes are blue.
His forehead crinkled, and whatever he’d been about to say faded from his mind. His tension changed. It stopped being painful and started being…needy. The air held a slight chill, but heat shimmered between them. He had the odd sensation of being on the verge of the most exciting thing he’d ever experienced.

And then those blue eyes shimmered, wavered, and he realized they’d filled with tears.

“Molly.”

“Don’t,” she whispered, and they spilled over.

Appalled, he pulled her into a hug. “No, Moll, don’t. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He wasn’t certain what he was apologizing for, but it was the only thing he could do. Molly crying was far worse than Jessica crying. Jessica was made for tears. He’d probably seen Molly cry three times in their entire lives. And never because of him.

She shook with sobs she wouldn’t release, and he squeezed her harder, rubbing his hand over her back in a motion he hoped was soothing. Regret and helplessness swirled through him. What could he do? What did she need? He had no idea.

Seconds ticked by as he held her and she grew tenser in his arms, not burrowing into his comfort nor pulling away. He sensed her fists were clenched at her sides, and slid one hand down her arm to check. As soon as it wrapped around hers she released her grip, and his fingers automatically entwined with hers. He struggled to understand what had caused this—if it was Jessica or Christopher, or just him and what they’d done in South America. Maybe he should ignore her moratorium on the subject. Maybe they really had to talk about it. Apprehension prickled up his spine, and suddenly he had no idea what he’d say. The lines he’d prepared the other day no longer seemed to fit.

He curled his hand so hers was inside it, and she finally relaxed, easing against his chest and turning her face slightly into him. He was about to open his mouth, to say who-the-hell-knew-what, when he spotted his mother inside the screen door, watching them. Her expression was uncharacteristically implacable, and that unnerved him more than anything. Instead of speaking, he moved his hands to Molly’s shoulders and eased her back. She swiped a hand under one eye, saw his mother standing there, and smiled up at him.

“Thanks, Brady. I need to go check the…” She trailed off and trotted up the steps. His mother opened the door for her and said something Brady couldn’t hear. Molly shook her head and disappeared inside, but his mother came out and glared down at him, arms folded across her chest.

“What?” Brady spread his own arms, feeling like he was ten again and didn’t know which thing she’d caught him at.

She sighed and dropped her arms. “Come here.” She sat heavily on the top step, patting the spot next to her.

“It’s chilly out here, Mom. We should go inside.” But he obeyed when she shook her head. “You okay?”

She shrugged. “Everything’s set up for tomorrow. I’ll be better after that.” But Brady knew better, and her tone said she did, too.

“I wish…” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He wished it had been him? As if that would be easier on her.

But she had a different interpretation. “I wish you hadn’t stayed away so long, too.”

Brady took a deep breath. “Mom—”

“I understand why you did,” she interrupted. “I hated every minute of it, but I understood. We can’t help how we feel about people.”

He blew out a breath and didn’t bother asking how she knew. She probably hadn’t needed to be told, but Molly would have explained. She’d seen him that day. The day hope had shattered. He didn’t know how much she’d overheard, but it didn’t matter. She’d known enough from the beginning, from the moment he’d met Jessica and crashed in a lovesick heap at her feet. She would have explained to his parents, so their hearts didn’t break at his absence.

“It was selfish,” he admitted. “I didn’t think about how it would hurt you and Dad. I just knew how much it hurt me.”

“Oh, Brady.” She shook her head slowly. “You’re not the only one with regrets. We let you do it. I think if we’d dragged you back instead of giving you space, you’d have gotten over her more easily. You’d have been able to see what was in front of you. And we’d all be so much happier.”

He wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Seen what? Chris and Jess?” Just saying their names made his throat burn. “That’s what hurt so much.”

“No.” She didn’t say “you moron,” but her look of disgust did. “Watching them would have made you pine more for what you couldn’t have. I mean seeing what you
could
have. Instead of twelve years of wallowing in misery, you could have been happy. We all could have.”

Brady bristled. He hadn’t pined
or
wallowed. That was the whole point of staying away, even if it stretched out longer than he’d ever expected. But he knew that wasn’t what she was getting at. He didn’t want her to spell it out. Already, his insides were writhing. So he angled the topic a little.

“You’re right.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Jessica wasn’t anywhere around, and lowered his voice. “If I’d spent more time with her, I wouldn’t have put her on such a high pedestal. I’d have seen her flaws and maybe gotten over her faster.”

His mother raised an eyebrow. “Faster?”

He shrugged, unwilling to admit anything. “Circumstances are pretty extreme right now.”

She chuckled. “Oh, hon. They are. But they don’t need to be.”

Brady frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Some people are high maintenance. Chris—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “Chris was taking more— He was traveling for work more and more, and there was good reason. Whenever he was away, she came over here.” Now she glanced around. “She drove me near insane with her inability to entertain herself.”

Brady managed a chuckle around the knee-jerk reaction to defend her. “She had a business.”

“That she ran poorly and abandoned.” She rocked back a little and shook her head. “I love her. She’s been like a daughter to me. But that doesn’t mean I think she’s perfect. And hon,” She turned to look at him, her gaze as piercing as it had been when he was fourteen and hating not only that she thought she knew what was best for him, but that she really did know. “Jessica isn’t right for you. Especially now.”

“She needs—”

“—to figure out on her own what she needs.”

He blew out another breath. “Like you’re letting me do?”

She patted his knee. “I’m your mother. I stood by and let you try to figure out what you needed for far too long. Now I’m just going to tell you.”

“You don’t need to, Mom. I know what you’re going to say.”

She
hrumph
ed. “You do not.”

“You’re going to say Molly—”

“Hell, no.” She rocked to her feet, using his leg to brace herself. “I’m going to tell you to leave her alone. You’re much too late, sweetie.” She waited for that to sink in, and though he didn’t respond, she nodded and went into the house.

Brady draped his forearms over his knees and stared out across the back yard, watching the yellowed maple leaves swaying in the afternoon breeze. His thoughts drifted, touching on memories. The kick to his gut when he’d met Jessica and thought it was love. The heartsickness he’d lived with until he told her—and was shot down with just enough hope to feed the disease. He’d barely seen her since, so those moments had become frozen. Touchstones. But in reality she wasn’t what he’d wanted her to be, and he knew mere habit ruled his emotions now. Habit that was already breaking.

When he and Molly had been in high school and college, best friends with no benefits, his friends had needled him about his “wife.” She’d been a constant, her personality and approach to life so complementary to his own, it was no wonder everyone expected them to get together. But he’d known her his whole life. His feelings hadn’t exactly been brotherly, but he’d never felt “that way” about her. Until this week. Until the worst thing that had ever happened to him knocked him out of his bubble, and he’d taken action without thought.

That night down in South America, when he’d lost himself in his best friend…how was that different, emotionally speaking, than the way he’d lost himself in a fantasy over Jess?

His mother had warned him off Molly, yes, but he had a sneaking feeling she was using reverse psychology. Everyone thought men wanted what they couldn’t have. Well, he wasn’t going to fall for that. It didn’t matter if his mother thought he belonged with Molly, that he would be happy with her. He wasn’t rushing into anything.

It took two, anyway, and Molly had made it very clear their night together hadn’t meant anything deeper than comfort.

A familiar, sweet scent accompanied the squeak of the back door opening again. Brady buried an automatic craving, almost as disgusted with himself as his mother had been, but not for the same reasons.

“Dixson called,” Molly said from behind him. “He wants to meet us.”

Brady stood without turning, afraid his training had abandoned him and everything he’d been thinking about would show on his face. “Now?”

“Now.”

“Then let’s go.”

Chapter Eight

Molly and Brady met Dix outside the Starbucks in the food court at the mall two towns over. Dix hadn’t stayed on the phone long, and that, coupled with the odd meeting site, iced the pit of her stomach. She spotted him almost immediately, smack in the center of the half-full crowd of tables and chairs, a soda cup in one hand, the remains of a meal from the Chinese restaurant shoved to one side of the table.

Brady caught her arm as she zeroed in on Dix, both visually and physically. When she frowned up at him, he motioned toward the row of food counters. Molly nodded. They’d look more natural if they got something to eat before joining Dix. But the logic of the action didn’t give her patience.

“Stop bouncing,” Brady muttered as they moved forward in line at the sub shop. “You look like you have to go to the bathroom.”

“Then that’s what I’ll do. Get me a side salad and bottle of water, please.” She dashed off to the ladies’ room without waiting for a response. Thank God he’d given her something to do, even if he’d meant to insult her into obedience. She tried not to rush, but Brady was still several people from the counter when she emerged from the restroom. After a moment of hesitation, she walked over to Dix and sat down.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” He didn’t shift position much and just gave her a casual nod.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothin’. What are you up to?”

Molly glanced around, expecting to see someone walking by, but there was a good twenty-foot cushion of space around them. Probably why he’d picked the spot. But why here in the first place?

“Knock it off, Dix. What’s really going on?”

Dix’s expression stayed neutral, but he tilted his head a fraction, toward Brady. “Don’t you want to wait for him?”

She kind of had to, at least about Christopher. But that wasn’t the only thing she had to talk to Dix about, and she wasn’t sure she wanted Brady to hear the rest, anyway.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she asked.

Dix’s eyelids flickered. For someone whose emotions were transparent enough to keep him out of the field, he was hiding them well now. “I’m on leave.”

“What?” She fell back in her seat in surprise. That wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “Why?”

This time, the answer was projected clearly on his face. He looked away, hunching forward and grabbing his soda.

Her heart sank. “Because of me.” He didn’t move, and she sighed in frustration. “Dix, talk to me.”

His turn to sigh, and he hunched even further. He looked so dejected and kicked-puppyish, it made her want to get up and walk away to spare him telling her whatever embarrassed him so much.

Finally, he shook his head and met her eyes. “I asked them to reassign me. Of course, they asked why. I told them the truth.”

She wasn’t going to assume what that meant. “That you wanted to date me?”

He nodded and sucked on his straw. “Did
not
go over well. They suspended me.”

Anger sparked through her, growing in layers as each reason to be angry occurred to her. “That’s insane. You followed policy and protocol, right?” He nodded. “You did nothing improper before then. And they left me without a handler.”

“You’re on leave, too, basically. You shouldn’t need a handler. Not until after Christopher’s funeral.”

Brady dropped his tray on the table and glared at both of them. “Thanks for waiting for me.”

“We haven’t talked about anything yet,” Molly bit out, annoyed that she couldn’t ask Dix if he’d changed his mind about her. Not in front of Brady. “He’s been suspended.”

Brady raised his eyebrows as he sorted out the food and drinks on the tray, handing Molly her salad without looking away from Dix. “What’d you do?”

Dix mumbled something and turned back to Molly. “Something’s odd about all of this,” he told her, glancing slightly at Brady to include him without meeting his gaze.

Brady frowned. “We know. That’s why we’re here.”

“He means his suspension,” Molly said. “He doesn’t know why we’re here.”

“It has something to do with your brother, I know that.” Dix straightened and slid his cup away. “When they asked me why Molly’d come in, I said to hand over your intel. When they asked why I needed to be involved, I said she had questions about your brother, and that’s when everything shut down. When they froze me out.” He looked at Molly. “So what is going on?”

She hesitated. She trusted Dix, wanted to tell him the truth, but it was Brady’s decision, as Chris’s brother. Brady nodded, and she turned back to her handler. “Chris’s casket is empty.”

Dix’s mouth fell open and he leaned away. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. Our reaction, too.”

“How do you know this?”

“Um.” She examined her salad, stabbing at the lettuce with her plastic fork. “I looked.”

“You broke into a coffin?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice, but it overlaid something more jarring. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, and when he spoke again, it was gone. “You must be pretty fired up,” he said to Brady.

“Yeah. They just keep giving us the accident line. I don’t know what this means. But there’s something strange going on, that’s for damned sure.”

Dix looked at Molly again, puzzled. “Why did you look in the coffin, anyway? What did you think you’d find? Or not find…?”

“It never occurred to me that he wasn’t dead until I saw the emptiness.” Hope welled again. God, reality was going to be hard to face if Chris really was dead. “I just had a bad feeling. There wasn’t anything in particular. Things just felt…off.”

He drew his soda cup toward him again and picked at the edge of the lid. “You were obviously right. After you talked to Ramona, administration holed up for two hours in the soundproof conference room. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but add that to all the rest—”

“And you get a cover-up,” Brady said grimly. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I don’t, either. I’ve worked for SIEGE for ten years and have never seen anything like this.” The jarring undertone was back, like an unrosined bow scratching somewhere in an otherwise perfectly tuned strings section.

“Well, I’m not so surprised.” Molly shrugged when both men turned to her. “Come on, we’re in the spy business. I know we don’t do wet work and stuff, but even the way we get information has to get us in trouble sometimes.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I haven’t heard of anything like this, either.” Brady unwrapped his sub but didn’t pick it up. “I guess that’s one reason they keep us so compartmentalized.” He eyed Dix again. “So why did they suspend you?”

Dix shifted in his chair, hooking his elbow over the back of it. “I asked for reassignment.”

Brady narrowed his gaze at him, then aimed it at Molly. “For any particular reason?”

Crap
. She became extraordinarily interested in her salad.

She shouldn’t care if Brady knew she was interested in dating Dix. And honestly, she didn’t care. A small part of her felt he deserved it. Well, maybe not so small. But she felt a lot stranger at the possibility that Dix might sense she’d had feelings for Brady.

Past tense, Moll? Uh-huh, right.
She could feel the weight of Dix’s gaze on her and stuck a cherry tomato in her mouth.

He finally said, “I didn’t want to be Molly’s handler anymore.”

Brady didn’t say anything, and she sneaked a peek. He was scowling, but looked like he was trying not to. Brotherly protectiveness? Professional disapproval? Or something else?

“Has she done something to make you not want to work with her?”

Dix gave a little snort. “Just be herself.”

The tension around them changed. Molly could sense Dix relaxing and Brady tensing even more.
Get over yourself
, she thought, and stopped hiding in her food.

“Dix, we need to get into SIEGE.”

He winced. “Yeah, I thought you’d say that. But I’m suspended, remember?”

“We don’t need you to get us in.” Brady’s voice had gone colder, sending a shiver up Molly’s spine. “We just need some direction once we’re inside.”

Dix looked incredulous. “You don’t need me to get you in? How the hell do you think you’ll do it without help?”

“We’ll worry about that part. I’ve got it covered.” Cold and now hard, too. He’d figured it out.

Molly tried not to feel thrilled that Brady didn’t like Dix’s interest in her. That
wasn’t
why she wanted to go out with Dix. She wanted to go out with a guy who liked
her,
wanted to be with her, didn’t just use her for his—

No. Unfair. Brady hadn’t taken anything from her that she hadn’t wanted to give. But it was about time she expanded her focus.

“Please, Dix.” She laid her hand over his and tried to show promise in her eyes, because she was damned if she was going to set up a date in front of Brady. “Tell us where we can look. Where we’re likely to find anything. We promise it won’t lead back to you.” She hoped she could keep that promise, especially since Brady didn’t look all that interested in agreeing to it.

Dix took a deep breath. “All right. Here’s what I can tell you.”

…

“Angle it down this way.”

Molly gritted her teeth and shifted the flashlight she was holding. She
hated
being the lovely assistant, standing and following and holding. But Brady was the one with all the skills. He’d gone into the building before regular office hours were over, pretended to check out, and hid inside until most of the staff had left. Then he let Molly in—probably disabled an alarm or two, but she didn’t ask—and found the offices they had to search. His lock-picking skills got them inside and into the cabinets in seconds each time. And then she held the flashlight while he dug through the contents. So annoying.

So far, everything had gone smoothly. They’d been up here for only about ten minutes and had searched every office Dix directed them to, avoiding or disabling the fairly routine security measures he’d warned them about. A few minutes ago, she’d expressed disappointment that they hadn’t encountered more high-tech deterrents.

“The more high-tech the visible security,” Brady had said, “the more you’re telegraphing how important the protected space and items are.”

“So there’s
in
visible high-tech security?” she’d asked, wondering if the elevator they were in was notifying someone right now of their presence, shooting their images over to another office or the director’s smartphone or something. “Stuff Dix didn’t mention?”

“Yep. He probably doesn’t know about it.”

“But we’re not avoiding or disabling those things.”

“Not possible.” Brady turned to her. “Besides, I don’t care if they know I was here.”

The coldness in his voice had chilled her, so she’d stopped asking questions. Now, fifteen minutes later, the likelihood of getting caught was making her antsy again.

“We need to go,” she urged him as he dug his picks harder into a hidden cabinet’s lock.

“Not yet.” He inhaled, held it, and let it out slowly, then plied the picks more delicately. “This file cabinet was behind a panel, and this lock is damned tough. If it’s anywhere, it’s here.”

“It” being God knew what.

“All right. But hurry,” she couldn’t help adding. She glanced over her shoulder. The hallway stayed dark through the crack they’d left in the office door to avoid getting locked in. Dix had named four administrators who were likely to have the kind of information they sought. This was, of course, the fourth office. None of the first three had yielded squat, and Molly worried that they kept everything on the computer. “Squat” included any other kind of major paper file, not just information on Christopher. They either had a central repository Dix wasn’t aware of, or they didn’t keep paper at all.

She and Brady definitely didn’t have time to try to hack the computers.

A
click
drew her attention back to him. He hissed with victory, and the cabinet door swung open to reveal four file boxes, neatly labeled “
Active Personnel
” with an alphabetical range. They both reached for the Fs at the same time. Molly clenched her fist and backed off. Brady flipped through folders and grabbed one. She saw “
Fitzpatrick, C
” in the beam from her flashlight, then Brady shoved the file inside his jacket and locked everything back up.

“Let’s go.”

She followed as they ran silently through the building. Moments later, they were in her car, driving normally down the street.

Normally, except for her pounding heart. “I can’t believe no one showed up. That was way too easy.” Her fingers traced the edge of the fat file she held, but she didn’t open it. Brady was driving, which surprised her. She’d have thought he’d want her to drive so he could look through the file.

“I did some things to prevent it,” he told her. “Here.” He steered abruptly into a gas station and pulled up next to the trash can at the end of a bank of pumps. “Toss the gloves.”

Molly rolled down her window and tossed the grocery bag full of wadded-up paper napkins—some of which were wadded around the latex gloves they’d worn—into the can. They were far enough away from the building that no one would search for them here. Even if they did, fingerprints inside the gloves would only prove they’d worn them, not where they’d done so.

“What kinds of things?” she asked as they pulled back out on the street and headed home in the mid-fall dusk. It seemed like it should be midnight, but it was only just before seven.

“Better you don’t know, in case we do get caught. You can claim I dragged you along and you don’t know anything.”

She hated that idea as much as she hated being the lovely assistant, but didn’t say so. Her feelings weren’t relevant to anything. “Did you see the labels on those boxes?” she asked.

He nodded once, sharply.

Her voice quivered a little, from trying so damned hard to keep the elation out of it. “That’s a good sign.” Though Chris’s file being in with other active personnel didn’t have to mean he was alive and still on a mission.

“They could just be slow to remove it,” Brady said, echoing her thoughts.

“I know, but—”