Sharpshooter (13 page)

The footsteps didn’t stop. Something heavy hit the stairs. A shot fired.

Ricocheted?

“I said
freeze!
” Gunner yelled. “Stand down! Stand—”

The man was running toward him. Gunner didn’t see a rifle. The guy was sweating. His eyes were wild as he brought up his hands. Gunner saw the handgun gripped in the man’s shaking fingers.

He’s not going to stop.
The guy was desperate to escape, and he was about to shoot at Gunner. The man was ready to kill, in order to escape.

Gunner didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger on his own weapon.

* * *

W
HEN
SHE
HEARD
the sound of the shots—two shots, fired closely together—Sydney started running toward the James Fire Building. Her heart was racing fast, adrenaline burning in her blood, and she
had
to get to Gunner.

Cops were in front of her. Slowing her down. She wanted to shove them aside—so she did. Then she headed into the building with her gun up, ready to do anything she had to do in order to help Gunner.

She found him on the stairs crouched over a body.

Sydney didn’t lower her weapon. Her gaze swept over Gunner.
No blood. No blood. No blood.
The mantra repeated in her head until she could breathe normally again.

“He wouldn’t drop his weapon.” Gunner’s voice. Flat. She lifted her left hand, curled it over his shoulder.

The cops were there, fanning around the body. Gunner’s shot had been lethal, right to the heart.

The man’s eyes were closed. His body lay sprawled and twisted on the stairs.

“There’s a rifle, sir,” one of the cops said.

Sydney lifted her head. She saw the young, uniformed cop pointing up the stairs.

Gunner rose. “He ditched it when he came down the stairs. I heard him toss it. Then he...he pulled his backup weapon.”

Gunner hadn’t been given a choice. She understood, just as she understood that it was never easy to take a life.

Whether Gunner was following mission orders and taking out a threat through his scope or fighting an up close enemy, it wasn’t easy.

Never easy.

“Gunner?” she whispered, wanting him to look at her.

His head turned toward her. His eyelashes flickered. She knew Gunner wouldn’t show emotion here. She’d seen him do this before. He shut down after a kill. Withdrew.

That was the way Gunner worked.

“I wanted to take him in alive,” Gunner said softly. “I wanted to find out
why,
to find out who’d sent him.”

Because Gunner must think this was a hired killer, just like the mercenary who’d targeted the EOD agents before. She glanced back at the man. Early thirties, blond hair slicked with sweat. She didn’t recognize his face, had never seen him before.

The EOD would find out everything they could about him. They’d run down his fingerprints. Analyze the scene.

Her gaze flickered over him. There was a tattoo on the inside of the man’s wrist. A striking snake. They’d track that tattoo, too. They’d find out who this man was and why he’d been shooting at them.

Gunner still held his gun in his right hand. Sydney tucked her own gun into the waistband of her jeans, then she reached for his weapon. “It’s over now.”

But Gunner shook his head. “No, I’m afraid it’s just getting started.”

* * *

T
HERE
WAS
SO
much blood on his hands. Gunner knew he’d never be able to wash all of that blood away.

He was in the EOD office. He’d been questioned, cleared, briefed. The cops had handed their investigation over to federal agents—FBI personnel who would report their findings back to the EOD.

“Gunner?”

He turned to see Sydney standing in the doorway behind him. There was worry on her delicate features.

“Are you okay?” Sydney wanted to know.

He wasn’t the one with a bullet in his heart. He should have tried for a nonfatal shot, but the man had been aiming his own weapon right at Gunner’s head. There hadn’t been time to do anything but fire. “I just killed our lead.”

She frowned, then shut the door. Then she was coming closer to him. “You just saved my life, that’s what you did.”

He didn’t speak.

“Why do you have such a hard time,” she asked him, tilting her head back to better study him, “ever seeing yourself as a hero?”

“I do my job, Syd. That doesn’t make me a hero.”

“It does to me.” She reached for his hands. The ones that had killed so easily before and, he knew, would again. He’d always been good at killing. “When I look at you, I see the man who saved my life today. The man who has saved me dozens of times in the field. You’ve saved so many. So
don’t
—” now an order snapped in her words “—ever see yourself as anything less, understand me?”

She stared up at him, her bright eyes telling him that he was good. That he was worth something.

The woman was going to tear him apart.

A knock sounded at the door then. Sydney still held his hands. She didn’t let go.

When the door opened and Slade stood there, Gunner wished she’d let go. He saw the flash of pain in Slade’s eyes, but his brother quickly schooled his expression.

“I heard what happened.” Slade’s color was better. Not the pale mask of death that he’d looked like when he first came back to the U.S. “I wanted to make sure you were both okay.”

Slade had been given clearance to come into the EOD office. Mercer wanted private updates with him, so Slade had access to some of the floors there.

Gunner carefully studied his brother. Did he know this man now? Had he really known him before? “I’m okay.”

Slade’s lips twisted. “Of course you are. Killing has always been easy for you.” Slade’s words uncomfortably echoed Gunner’s own thoughts. “Aim and fire...” He laughed lightly. “Bet the guy never even saw you coming.”

Gunner stiffened.

“Killing isn’t easy for anyone,” Sydney said, voice stilted. “A life is a life.”

“Yeah, but some trash just needs to be taken out every now and then, right? And this bozo who targeted you...” His gaze focused on Sydney’s face. “I’m glad he’s gone. I don’t—I don’t want you in danger.”

Sydney pulled away from Gunner. Actually, she put her body between Gunner and Slade. Gunner was struck by the fact that...she’d always been between him and his brother. From the first moment he’d seen her and—wanted his brother’s girl.

She’s not his any longer.

“You heard about the fire, too?” Sydney asked.

Slade nodded grimly. “What can I do? I want to help.” He waited a beat, stepped forward, then added, “I
need
to help.”

“We’re not sure what’s happening yet,” Sydney told him, voice cautious. “Slade, we don’t want you putting yourself in danger. You just got out of the veterans’ facility. You need to recover more. You need—”

“I need to get my life back.” The faint lines near his mouth deepened. “I’m not the kind of guy to sit on the sidelines. After two years, I
need
to get back in action. I want to be normal again. I want to be me.” His voice roughed. “Let me help, both of you. I want to help.”

Gunner could see the struggle on his brother’s face, but he also didn’t want to put Slade back in harm’s way. Slade wasn’t in shape to handle any dangerous missions, no way.

Slade straightened his shoulders. “I can help here, okay? In the EOD office. I can do grunt work, I can read through files. I can do
something.
”

“Maybe you can,” Gunner agreed, because he didn’t want to hurt his brother’s pride. Hadn’t he already done enough to him? “We’ll talk to Mercer and see what can happen.”

“Good.” Relief flashed in Slade’s eyes, then his gaze dipped to Sydney once more. “I’m so sorry.” A rasp had entered his voice. “Sorrier than I can ever say. I never, ever should have hit you.”

She stared back at him. “You weren’t yourself.” Her words were flat.

“No, no, I wasn’t.” He came closer to her, caught her hands.

This time, Gunner was the one to tense.

“I’ll prove to you that I’m better,” Slade whispered. “I will.”

Then he seemed to realize that he was holding her hands. He blinked, shook his head and backed away. “I’ll go find Mercer. I want to talk to him first, plead my case, you know?”

He could try. Gunner wasn’t sure that Mercer would allow the guy to do much, not with all the secure intel in the facility. But Gunner would talk to Mercer, too, and see if there was something very low-risk that Slade could do, something to help make Slade feel as though he was helping them.

Slade hurried out of the room. Gunner saw that Sydney had tilted her head, and her gaze was still on the door, even though Slade was gone.

Was she realizing that the man she’d known
was
fighting to return? It was too late for going back now, too late for them both.

“Sydney...” He exhaled slowly. “About Slade—”

She turned toward him. “Did you ever find out why Slade didn’t make the EOD team?”

He blinked. That was the last question he’d expected from her.

“He seems to want to be here so badly, but he told me...he told me that he withdrew his agent application.”

“That’s what he told me, too.”

A furrow had appeared between her eyes. “That’s when he started taking all those charter trips. He said he was trying to save up extra money for the marriage.”

The marriage.

“But after he disappeared, there was no money in his bank account.”

He knew that. He’d helped Sydney pay for the funeral. But he didn’t like where she was going with these questions. “What are you thinking?”

She bit her lower lip, then shook her head. The smile she gave him didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing. I’m just worrying over nothing.” She backed up a step. “The techs are waiting for me.”

“Don’t leave the building without me,” he told her, his worry breaking through.

Sydney gave him a little salute. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

Then she was gone, and he was left with a faint suspicion swirling in his own mind. At the time, he’d wondered why Slade’s bank accounts had been cleared out. Cleared so that only dollars remained, when Slade had been doing charters for almost a year.

His money had vanished.

Gunner had pushed aside the mystery two years ago, but now he was wondering...just where had all of that cash gone?

* * *

S
LADE
TOOK
A
deep breath, then knocked on the door that led to Bruce Mercer’s office. Well, the outer office, anyway. Because when he opened the door, he saw the hard stare of Mercer’s assistant, Judith Rogers. Judith looked barely twenty-five, but he’d learned that the woman had the tenacity of a bulldog. He’d tried to get to Mercer before, and she’d blocked him more than once.

When she saw him, her auburn brows rose. “Do you have an appointment?” Judith demanded.

Great. He barely managed to keep his expression polite. Judith annoyed the hell out of him. “No, but he’s going to want to see me.”

“I doubt it.” Crisp. “Mr. Mercer is a very busy man.”

“Yeah, well, I think Mr. Mercer would like to know if he has a killer in his midst, don’t you?” He tossed that out deliberately, knowing that Judith wouldn’t be able to ignore those words. “Of course, if you just want to stand back and let an agent die...”

She stood instantly, all five foot nothing of her. Then she pointed at him. “Stay here.” Her high heels clicked as she headed for Mercer’s door. She was inside for—he counted—two minutes, and then she came back and told him, “Go in, he’s waiting for you.”

He didn’t let his grin break free. He was good at controlling his expression. At showing only what he wanted folks to see. People were so easily fooled.

So easily.

He entered the main office and closed the door. He made sure to hesitate as if he were uncertain.

You’re going down, Gunner.
His brother had been downstairs, with his hands all over Sydney.

Right in front of me.

“Slade.” Mercer sat behind his big, fancy desk. One of his eyebrows had climbed. “Ms. Rogers told me that you had some information to give me.”

Slade glanced over his shoulder, as if he were trying to make sure that no one could hear him. Then he nodded quickly.

“Have a seat.” Mercer waved his hand toward the chair in front of him.

Slade limped toward the seat, making sure to drag his leg a bit, conscious of Mercer’s assessing gaze as it fell on him.

“You’re looking better.”

“I am better.” He’d been fine all along. That rehab had been a
joke.
He blew out a hard breath. “I heard about the attacks on Sydney.”

“Did you.” But the words weren’t really a question.

Again, he nodded quickly. “I want to help.” He let his hands tightly curl over the armrests on his chair. “Give me a job to do, give me
something.
”

Mercer shook his head. “There’s no way you’re going into the field. You have no security clearance any longer—or the training needed—for a job like that.” The man wasn’t pulling punches. “And physically, mentally, you’re far from ready for any mission.”

That’s what you think.
But he didn’t let the rage slip out. “Give me a job here. I heard the techs talking—they think someone tried to break into the system. I can watch surveillance video, I can read files, I can do
something.
”

Mercer just stared back at him. “I thought you were here to talk to me about one of my agents being a threat.”

Slade flinched.

“Do you have intel to provide to me?”

Slade looked down at the floor. “I want to help so I can prove it’s
not
him.”

Silence.

He forced himself to look up and, sure enough, Mercer was still watching him with that too-assessing gaze. “Give me a name,” Mercer ordered.

“He didn’t leave me to die.” Slade forced the words out in a rush. “I was wrong. It was the drugs talking. He couldn’t have left me to die.”