Kiss the Bride (70 page)

Shane couldn’t answer that. He couldn’t tell her about Johnny. It was too painful. Instead, he shook his head. “I lost my faith in love.”

She touched his shoulder. “We all have crises of faith.”

“Not you. Not about love. That’s one of the things that I admire most about you. Your resilience, your unwavering belief in happily ever after.”

“Some people call it romantic foolishness.”

“They’re wrong. You gave me hope. You gave me back my faith. And that’s a gift I’ll never forget.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

He straightened and she beamed up at him, her warm smile filling his heart with their special friendship.

“We better get back,” she said. “You’ve got something very important you have to do.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Go find Tish and tell her everything she needs to hear.”

While Shane and Elysee were walking around the lake, Tish had returned to the ranch to retrieve her camera equipment and her clothes and get the hell out of there before she ran across her ex-husband and his bride-to-be. She hurried past the Secret Service agent positioned in the hallway near her bedroom. She found the montage of photos of Shane and Elysee spread out on the desk the way she’d left them that morning.

Seeing their happy faces was a knife to her gut. How was she ever going to put this video together? Looking at the pictures over and over, feeling that constant weight on her heartstrings would be torture.

The sudden urge to go shopping was overwhelming.

No, no. That was a cop-out. She knew it now. Shopping was the way she’d smothered her feelings. No more smothering. No more denial. She would embrace the pain. It was the only way through it.

You can do this. You’re not a coward. See this thing through.

Once and for all, she would prove she was a consummate professional. Nothing was going to stop her.

Haphazardly, she tucked the pictures back into the photo albums. She grabbed the stack and stood up. A clipping floated out, drifted to the floor.

Tish leaned over to pick up the piece of paper.

It was an article from
People
magazine about the backhoe accident on the UT campus. The headline read
SECRET SERVICE AGENT SAVES FIRST DAUGHTER’S LIFE
.

There was a photograph of Shane lying in a hospital bed looking frail and pale. His head was shaved, his scars
fresh. The picture hit her with a visceral punch. Bile rose in her throat and her body went cold all over. For the first time she recognized how close Shane had truly come to dying.

Tish couldn’t bear looking at the photograph, seeing him so helpless. That wasn’t her husband. That wasn’t her Shane. Breathing heavily, she flipped the clipping over, pressed the article facedown on the desk.

Resolutely, she again hoisted the photo albums in her arms. As she did, her gaze slid over the flip side of the
People
article.

It was a piece about an Indian woman working with the WorldFem organization to put a stop to the horrific practice of honor killings. Because of her work, she’d been placed on a death list, targeted by an assassin. Tish’s eyes drifted to the photograph. She’d seen this woman before.

At Shane and Elysee’s engagement party.

A thought stirred at the back of her mind, not yet fully formed. Yes, this was definitely the woman she’d seen. Could this woman be the key to why someone had tried to steal her disk?

Pondering that question, Tish took the third copy of the disk from her purse and slipped it into the camera, which was hooked to the DVD player. Seconds later, she was reliving the engagement party.

Fast-forward through the pomp and circumstance. Fast-forward through Shane giving Elysee the ring and kissing her. Fast-forward through Nathan Benedict announcing their engagement. Fast-forward past the congratulatory toasts.

To the part Tish was searching for.

Elysee was surrounded by well-wishers, blushing prettily, innocently. Then the camera caught a furtive woman
wearing a scarf over her head hovering in the shadows. Tish watched as Elysee made her excuses, slipped through the crowd, headed toward the woman. They shook hands and Elysee led her through the French doors and out onto the patio.

Her pulse quickened. She didn’t even remember filming this. Her mind must have been too befuddled by the engagement.

The camera angle swung away from Elysee to put Shane in the foreground. He was talking to Cal Ackerman. The camera lingered longingly on his face, spelling out for anyone who wasn’t too blind to see that the person behind the camera was hung up on her subject.

Tish yanked her eyes off Shane and searched the background. Dammit. There wasn’t any more footage of Elysee.

Wait, wait. There it was. Out on the patio when she’d accidentally left the camera on without knowing it.

It was the mystery woman and Elysee was handing her something. Was the footage of this woman the real reason someone had wanted her disk in the first place?

Tish had no answers. None of it seemed to have anything to do with someone burning down her apartment. Were the two incidents even connected? She rewound the tape.

The camera moved again, back to focus on Shane. Was she besotted with the man or what? There were other people in the frame behind Shane. The Ambassador from India was speaking in a language she vaguely recognized as Hindi, to a man who had his back to the camera. They were both eyeing Rana Singh.

She still didn’t get it. Something was going on, but it was over her head. Whatever was on this disk held no
meaning for her, but it definitely meant something to the person who was on it.

“Turn off the video and eject the disk,” a voice from the doorway commanded. Too late, she realized she’d left the door to her bedroom ajar.

Startled, Tish turned and immediately let out a gasp of shocked surprise.

For there, pointed at her face, was the business end of a very large handgun with a silencer attached to it.

P
ete Larkin motioned toward Tish. “Hand me the disk.”

“What?”

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” she asked.

“Just the disk.”

“Why would you want the disk of the engagement party unless—”

“I’m on it and it’s not a flattering camera angle,” he growled. “Give me the disk.”

“You speak Hindi,” she said, as a terrible thought took root in the back of her mind. Larkin was the man talking to the Indian Ambassador on the tape.

“Fluently.”

“You’ve been to India.”

“Many times.

“Oh my God,” Tish gasped as her suspicions crystallized. “You’re the death squad assassin I read about in
People
magazine hired to kill Rana Singh. That’s why you want the disk. It can incriminate you.”

“Ding, ding, she’s smarter than she looks, folks.” Larkin ripped the disk from her hand and stuffed it in his front
pocket then lowered his gun, pressing it firmly against her rib cage.

“Pick up your car keys,” he commanded, nodding to where they rested on the desk.

Once she had the keys in her hand, he took the gym towel that was slung around his neck and used it to cover the gun in his hand. He wrapped his arm around Tish’s shoulder.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “We’re going out the side exit. If we meet someone on the way out and you give any indication of what’s going on, I’ll kill them. Got it?”

Tish nodded. She had no reason to doubt his sincerity. The cold, calculating look in his eyes told her he was very capable of carrying out his threat.

“Walk at a steady pace, neither too fast nor too slow,” he instructed. “When we get outside, walk to your car, get in on the passenger side, and scoot over behind the wheel. Now let’s go.”

He muscled her out of the room and forced her to walk down the corridor beside him. Larkin had slung his arm around her waist, his gun pressed icily into her side.

Tish had fleeting thoughts of escape, but before she could even form a plan, Larkin whispered, “Forget about trying to make a run for it. I have no compunction about shooting you here if I must.”

The flagstone walkway was wet from water sprinkler overspray. Now Larkin’s other hand was at the back of her neck and he was pushing on her spine with his thumb, keeping her in line by putting pressure on her nerve endings. He guided her around to the back of the house where visitors parked in a covered lot.

“You’re doing fine. Just keep it up.”

When they reached the Acura she did as he’d instructed, getting in on the passenger side, sliding over to the driver’s seat. He slid in after her, never taking the gun from her side.

“When we get to the security checkpoint, give a friendly little wave and keep driving. The guards don’t pay as much attention to who’s leaving as to who’s coming in. If you so much as raise an eyebrow I’ll kill you both. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now drive.”

“You’re not going to get away with this, you know. There are cameras hidden all over the place. When I don’t come back, the Secret Service will review the security tapes and hunt you down.”

“Wrong. I’m CIA. I know exactly where the security cameras are and how to disable them,” he bragged.

“If you’re CIA, how come you’re working as a physical therapist at the President’s ranch house? Not much foreign intelligence going on in Katy, Texas. Doesn’t seem like a job they’d give to their best agent.”

His scowl deepened. “I got sent here when Elysee was engaged to her previous fiancé, Yuri Borshevsky. He had KGB ties. Someone had to keep an eye on him—since I speak twelve languages including Russian and Hindi, guess who got picked?”

“Still, it seems like a menial assignment. Babysitting, almost.”

“It is.” Larkin gritted his teeth. Clearly this was a touchy subject. “Now shut your mouth and drive.”

Her life was in her own hands. She had to do something to get away from him or he was going to kill her. Of that she had absolutely no doubt.

Drive off the road.

“If you try to drive off the road,” he said, reading her mind, “you’ll be dead before your head hits the steering wheel.”

“Lovely imagery. Thanks for that.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m not screwing around.”

“There’s one problem with your threat.”

“And what’s that?”

“If you kill me now you’ll never know who all I gave copies of the disks to.”

“You made copies?” His voice hardened.

“Lots of them.”

“You’re lying.”

“Are you willing to take that gamble?” She snuck a glance at him. His eyes narrowed, glaring, and his jaw tightened. She could see his mental cogs turning.

He swore violently and pressed the gun against her temple. “Who else has copies?”

The feel of the end of the gun against her head was more chilling than finding a rattlesnake in her bed. Her body went cold with fear; her fingers blanched white on the steering wheel. Her mind raced desperately around the possible avenues of escape.

Stay calm. You’ve got to stay calm or you’re lost.

“We’re in traffic. Someone could see you with that gun pressed to my head and call 9-1-1,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you put it out of sight?”

She could tell it irritated him to have to do what she said, but she also knew she’d made an excellent point. He slid the gun down the side of her head, past her neck, and repositioned it against her rib cage. It was only slightly less terrifying there than having it pointed at her skull.

“Hang a left at this next traffic light and remember my finger is on the trigger. You make a wrong move and the gun goes off.”

“And you’ve got one hell of a mess to deal with.”

“I’ve dealt with worse.”

“Still,” she said, struggling to keep hysteria at bay by sounding flippant and carefree. “You’ll never know how many copies of the disk I made.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. In fact, I think you’re lying. I don’t think you made any copies at all.”

“But you’ll never know for sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure I know a way to persuade you to talk.” His voice sounded so sinister, she dared a quick glimpse at him. His features were maniacal, and she knew this was no mission sanctioned by the CIA. He had to be a rogue agent who’d lost all sense of boundaries. One look at his ominous face and she knew he was talking about torture. Horror sickened her stomach. She had no doubt he was completely capable of carrying out such an awful deed.

Please don’t let me throw up, she prayed.

She had mistakenly thought that by telling him she’d made copies of the disk he would spare her life, because there was no way of knowing whether she was telling the truth or not. She’d never counted on torture. If this deranged lunatic tortured her, she knew she would end up telling him anything he wanted to hear. Including the fact that she’d given a disk to Elysee.