To the Brink (37 page)

He'd needed it bad.

"Harder, baby." He fisted a hand in her hair and guided her to move faster, take him deeper. "Yeah. Oh yeah."

That did it. He shot into her mouth with a groan of satisfaction, then floated on the high as she let him go with a long, lush glide of her tongue and crawled up his body to snuggle.

Had Marion ever been this sweet? This slutty?

His cell phone vibrated, then skittered around on the bedside table where he'd set it with his pocket change.

He'd started dreading answering that fucking phone.

And with good reason.

His blood ran cold as he listened to Legaspi make excuses about yet another bungled attempt to do away with Darcy Prescott.

He shot to a sitting position, shoving Magda away.

"I don't want to hear your excuses. What the fuck is it going to take to make you realize what's at stake here!"

When he heard the hysteria in his voice he forced himself to settle down. But his blood pressure spiked again when Legaspi informed him where Prescott and her superstud ex-husband, Ethan Garrett, were headed.

Washington.

Son of a fucking bitch.

"And you know this how?"

He listened. Breathed a small breath of relief. At least they'd done something right. Garrett had found the GPS device that had been planted as a decoy. He hadn't, however, discovered the secondary unit or listening device.

"All right," Charles said, shoving Magda's hands away from his flaccid cock as she worked to distract him. "All right," he repeated, his mind back in rational mode.

This wasn't all bad news. Prescott didn't know what was on the tape. Christ, what a break. No one alive but himself and Amad knew.

And, according to the conversations that had been monitored in Garrett's SUV, no one but Darcy Prescott knew where the tape was stashed. The woman was smart; he'd give her that.

"Relay instructions that neither Prescott nor Garrett is to be intercepted until they retrieve the tape from her precious post office box. Then I want them dead, you understand? But for God's sake, make sure they don't take them out in broad daylight or make a spectacle doing it. . . ."

He sighed in disgust. "Okay. I'll spell it out for you. Discretion is imperative, do you understand? There's more security in Washington these days than politicians. If there's even a hint of a disturbance, blue-and-whites will come out of the woodwork. And I—make that
we
— can't take a chance on that tape being confiscated.

"I don't know," he growled. "We're talking about one woman and one man who you tell me has been laid up with a hole in his leg, for chrissake. You've got the numbers. Take advantage. Just make sure they get the tape, then kill Prescott and Garrett without a fuss, or so help me, more heads than theirs will be on the line."

He snapped the phone shut, tossed it on the table. On a deep breath, he lay back down. "Carry on," he told Magda when she sat back on her knees, her almond eyes questioning and eager to please, her pointy little breasts standing at attention.

With a sultry smile, his little whore bent over him again.

"Harder," he snapped when his cock just lay there, wilted and unresponsive.

After fifteen minutes of vigorous and unsuccessful manipulation, he pushed her angrily away.

This was all Darcy Prescott's fault. The meddling bitch. He was going to dance in the streets when she was finally dead.

And then he was going to fuck Magda blind.

Chapter 25

"You're not really going to start up
again, are you?"

They were in Arlington, Virginia, just outside D.C. Ethan glared at the mule-headed woman behind the wheel as they slowly circled a three-story building with a facade of large black stone slabs that housed, among other things, the post office where the tape sat in Darcy's post office box.

"Just tell me the damn box number and combination," he restated between clenched teeth as he scanned the street from the passenger seat, looking for a place to park.

"We go in together or we don't go," she insisted, and started another circle around the block when the parking spaces were all filled.

God
damn
her, she was stubborn.

And he was dead beat. They'd driven straight through, raced like hell to get here in fifteen hours to make sure they made it before the post office closed at 4:30. They had about a half an hour to spare. Neither one of them had caught more than a few hours' sleep during the past thirty-plus hours, and that had been in the SUV.

Ethan was running on adrenaline and the really bad coffee they'd picked up at some fast-food joint along the way. He didn't know what was keeping Darcy awake. His stitches were pulling, and he felt like he could mainline another gallon of blood and still come up short.

And his sixth sense was warning him that they had a tail.

Had he missed something? Unfortunately, it was entirely possible. He cursed the dumb luck that had landed that round in his thigh and knocked him off his game. He felt as sharp as a basketball.

"I'm not going to find a spot on the street this time of day," she said. "Everyone's rushing to beat the windows closing."

She whipped the SUV around the corner and nodded toward a parking garage. "Okay?" she asked.

"Nothing about this is okay, but it's not like we've got a lot of choice."

She pulled in, finally found a spot on the fourth floor of the garage, and parked.

Ethan reached into the glove compartment and pulled out his Beretta. He shoved it into the waistband of his cargo pants, tugged his black T-shirt over it, and opened his door. Then he gave Darcy one last beseeching look.

She ignored him and joined him outside the SUV.

"Stay alert."

With his hand clamped tight on her elbow, they left the ramp's elevator. Working to stall a limp, Ethan steered her outside and across the street.

"If I say run, you haul ass, understood? No questions. No hesitation. Just run."

"You really think they might have found us?"

He tugged open the heavy glass double front door of the building. "Let's just say I'm not willing to take any chances. If something happens and we get separated, Nolan's and Dallas's numbers are programmed on the speed dial," he added, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and handed it to her.

"Ethan—"

"Just call them if we run into trouble, okay?"

"Okay, fine," she grumbled, and led him through a lobby done in white marble and plate-glass windows.

Ethan studied the face of every person they met as they turned a corner and passed a bank of elevators. He checked out their clothes, looking for loose shirts that could conceal a piece.

"This way," Darcy said, pulling open another set of glass doors.

He checked their six as she walked through the door, didn't spot anyone who looked out of place, and followed her through into the post office lobby.

Rows of post office boxes filled the wall to their left. Half a dozen people were in various stages of retrieving their mail. To the right, uniformed clerks manned windows, assisting with the lines of individuals waiting with outgoing mail or cards telling them they had packages too large for their box. A long, narrow counter ran down the middle of the lobby between the service windows and the wall of mailboxes. The counter was occupied by a dozen or so people filling out address labels and looking up zip codes.

Nothing looked out of place. It appeared to be normal, peak time, business as usual.

And it made him as nervous as hell.

"Over here." Darcy started toward the boxes.

He tugged her back toward the door, made a show of pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

"Easy," he whispered against her lips, smiling as if he were telling her lover's secrets. "Let's not tip our hand just yet."

He lowered his head to her neck, nuzzled, and positioned them so he could watch the room. "Laugh. Like I just told you something that shocked you."

"Like my life hasn't been one unexpected shock after another?" she said after pushing out a credible laugh.

Doing a damn fine job of diversion and driving him crazy in the process, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Playing with the hair at his nape, she whispered in his ear, "Do you see anyone suspicious?"

"Nope. And that's enough to set my teeth on edge." So was the way her hips were pressed against his belly, but he kept that little tidbit of trivia to himself.

He let out a tight breath. "Okay. Let's do this."

Arms around each other's waists, they walked casually to the boxes. He shielded her body with his as she bent slightly to work the combination.

"What's taking so long?" he asked under his breath as he continued to scan the lobby.

"My hands are shaking."

"Deep breath, babe. You can do it."

"Finally," she said, her voice breathy with relief.

He glanced around to see her withdraw a number of current-box-holder-type advertisements—and a small, padded manila envelope that she quickly tucked between all the junk mail.

"Got it," she said.

He relieved her of the stack of mail so quickly she didn't have time to react. With his back to the main lobby, he worked the envelope open, slipped out the tape, and tucked it into the pocket of his cargo pants.

"Let's go." Without drawing any attention, he tossed the empty envelope and junk mail into a trash can when they walked by.

"So far, so good," Darcy said.

And just that fast everything went to hell. They'd just stepped outside when Ethan realized they were in trouble.

A man in a pair of jeans and a loose, open shirt over a white T-shirt came out of nowhere and walked up beside them. He wore a Patriots football cap and a pair of Oakleys—like an average Joe sports fan who just happened to carry a gun with enough firepower to down an elephant.

Ethan recognized the feel of a Glock when it was shoved into his kidneys.

"Keep walking," the guy ordered.

Before Ethan could react, another man, similarly dressed—this one an Eagles fan—joined them, flanking Darcy on the left.

"Ethan," she squeaked, her eyes widening in panic.

"Just be cool," Ethan said as the pair of guns walked them down the sidewalk toward the curb.

"Good advice, hero. You're smarter than you look."

"Look, if it's money you want," Ethan said, stalling for time as he scoured the street for a possible way out of this, "just take the wallet, pal."

"I'm not your pal. And you know what we want."

Yeah. Ethan knew. Just like he knew what he wanted. A miracle.

Damned if he didn't get one.

An Arlington PD cruiser pulled up at a stoplight.

"Don't even think about it," Oakley warned, shoving the business end of the Glock deeper into Ethan's back.