Final Stand Read online

  She sat. “I know you don’t like him.” Victoria smoothed down the edges of her blouse. “But he’s my family.”

  “Took you in when no one else did, blah-blah. I know.” He turned away from her and filled the carafe at the sink. “Doesn’t make him a nice guy.”

  “He’s…mellowed with age.”

  “Way to choose your words.”

  “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  Mark hung his head, hands to the counter. His back muscles flexed.

  “What?”

  He turned around. Behind him the coffee pot started to sputter and trickle. “I just don’t know why you go out of your way to spend time with him. And your friends, the people who care about you? They don’t even know you’re hurt, or where you are. You’re pushing them away.”

  “I called Sal. He won’t pick up the phone.”

  “And Dakota? Talia? Niall? Josh—”

  “I get it.”

  “Me.”

  “What do you want from me?” She turned her hands over and showed him her palms.

  Mark was silent for a long time. “You know what I want.” He paused. “And at the same time, you also have no clue.”

  He set a full mug of black coffee in front of her. Some sloshed over the rim onto the quartz he’d installed as countertops.

  What was she supposed to do with that? Victoria had tried to cut him off so many times. She thought she’d succeeded. Until he found her in South Africa. That had ended a three-year dry spell of not seeing each other and not talking. Lately they’d spent so much time together. She’d almost been able to believe they could make a relationship work between them.

  But life got in the way. Like it always did.

  “You should let me walk away this time.”

  Mark sipped his coffee. “You’re going to leave me with this mess to clean up and just walk off into the sunset? What will you do now? Get another federal job somewhere else, start over with a new team?”

  “I was thinking about going home.”

  He swallowed, coughed, and put down his mug. Opened his mouth. Closed it. “Why would you think that’s a good idea?”

  Victoria shrugged.

  “You think he won’t find you there?” His face changed, as realization hit. “You think going there will surround you with people trained to take care of themselves if it comes to that. As opposed to people you care about.”

  She said nothing.

  He nodded. “Fine. I’ll take vacation time and go with you.”

  “You can’t do that.” Besides the fact it would never get approved. Not at a time like this, when everyone in the FBI was in disaster cleanup mode.

  “You’re not going by yourself.”

  “I can take care of me.”

  “These people are trying to kill you, Victoria. How many times do you think it’s going to take before they come at you and manage to put you in the ground?”

  She shrugged. Her coffee wasn’t finished, but it was time to go.

  “Sit down.”

  “No.” She turned back to him. “You aren’t going to tell me what to do.”

  “Victoria.”

  She collected her purse.

  He caught up to her at the front door. “You just got here.”

  “I got here hours ago. Thanks for letting me crash.”

  “I didn’t let you. You broke in.”

  Victoria reached for the handle.

  “You step out there, I can’t protect you. Pacer thinks this has to do with Oscar Langdon. Tell me why he thinks that, and why these guys seem to all want to point the finger right back at you in the middle of an FBI corruption investigation?”

  She stared at his shoulder.

  “That mission. The one in Vienna?”

  She nodded. “I said there were FBI agents involved. Now I’ve got them all scrambling to save face. Why wouldn’t they try to turn some of the heat back on me?”

  “But Oscar Langdon?”

  “I thought it was FBI agents from the Austrian embassy who had betrayed me.” She rubbed the skin inside her arm. Langdon’s mark. She’d never told Mark about it.

  “Stay here. Work this case with me, so we can figure out together who he is. Why he’s so fixated on you.” He touched her shoulder, his thumb skimming the skin on the side of her neck. “Help me keep you safe.”

  She shut her eyes. The image of him lying in that hospital bed, pale. Hooked up to machines. And she was supposed to stay here and let him stand between her and the next attacker that would come at her?

  “You need to rest anyway.”

  He’s strong, but we’re not optimistic. You should prepare yourself for the fact he might not make it.

  “I can’t stay.”

  “Then why did you come here except to take a nap with my dog. This is the one place you know is safe. Why can’t you let me keep it that way for you?”

  “You know why.”

  He was already rolling his eyes before she’d even finished speaking. “Victoria.”

  “Obviously coming here was a mistake.” She tugged the front door of his house open. “Thank you for the update about my grandfather.”

  His jaw clenched. She didn’t look at his eyes.

  She just walked out.

  Chapter 6

  Seattle, WA. Wednesday 8.11a.m.

  Mark let himself into his office and set his tumbler of coffee on the desk. He sat, then hit the power button on his computer before reaching above his head and stretching. He was too old to sleep in armchairs.

  He wasn’t too old to come home to his fixer upper—no matter that he’d now have to wait to make a profit on it—and find the woman he’d been in love with for years stretched out on his couch. With his dog. Bleeding.

  Whoever she’d gotten to sew her up, he needed to find the person and punch them in the face for doing a hack job. If he thought she could reach that far, he wondered if she would’ve stitched it up herself.

  Always walking away from him. In fact, the one time in his life that Victoria hadn’t walked away—because he’d been the one to do it—was the worst day of his life. So it didn’t bother him too much that she took that role. Unless she was walking away because she was determined to protect him.

  He’d seen fear. From a woman who had been fearless since the day he’d met her in the fourth grade, and that didn’t sit well with him. He knew where she’d been, and some of the things she’d done. The fact she was scared now? It wasn’t all bad. No, it was actually good. It meant she understood the threat she was under. But if she was only scared for him, then it meant she didn’t care what Langdon threw at her.

  Was a man on the FBI’s Most Wanted list really fixated on Victoria? There had to be a reason they’d both been brought up in the same conversation. Maybe it was well known among those corrupt FBI agents that Victoria was the one who’d exposed them. If Langdon was an FBI agent—or had been at one point—then they could be well aware of a threat to her.

  It might not be misdirection.

  He needed to do more interviews and put some serious pressure on if he was going to find out if Langdon really was gunning for Victoria in some kind of revenge plan.

  He picked up his desk phone and called security. “Has Dennis Pacer checked in yet this morning?”

  “No, Sir. We haven’t seen him yet.”

  “Thanks.” Mark hung up. Usually Pacer was here by now, ready to get to work routing out the corruption.

  So where was he?

  Mark’s phone buzzed across the top of his desk. The number was local.

  Did you really put agents on me?

  His lip curled up at the corner and he texted back.

  Giving them the runaround?

  A second later, he got a reply.

  They probably have better things to do than walk through this home décor store, trying to figure out where I went.

  Mark chuckled. Then he picked up the phone and called the senior agent of the two he’d assigned on his way home
last night. He’d had them sit outside his house until Victoria left, and then stay on her.

  Apparently she thought this was amusing. At least she wasn’t somewhere wallowing. He was pretty good at brooding, but she won the prize for that every time. She was right. Those agents had better things to do.

  Just making sure you’re safe.

  She’d gotten into so many scrapes the last few days, he had a right to worry about her. Victoria’s reply to that was a “greater than” sign and the number three. Took him a second, since he was a forty-something-year-old man, but he figured out it was a heart.

  Mark stared at that heart for longer than was probably necessary.

  Then he put his phone aside to read all the updates from last night and early this morning. He made a plan for his day. After he’d fulfilled those duties, he picked up his desk phone again. This time he called Salvador Alvarez.

  Formerly on Victoria’s task force, the man was a retired US Marshal. If anyone could find out where her grandfather had gone, it was him. Mark left the guy a long and detailed message. Then he took a minute to pray for Victoria’s only living family. The man had treated her like any other piece of furniture in his house, barely acknowledging her existence until she became functional. Like if he’d run out of beer and chips, or if the bathroom needed cleaning.

  He’s mellowed with age.

  The woman had a pathological need to see the good in everyone she cared about. She needed to be on the side of “right” so badly that she refused to believe they were capable of doing something bad. Even when she was treated like garbage, she still cared about people.

  What that said about how she couldn’t seem to return his affection? He didn’t want to think much about it. He knew what the holdup was. But that didn’t stop him from wishing about what could have been if things had been different that one pivotal afternoon. Hadn’t life brought them far enough that the past shouldn’t factor? Victoria didn’t even want to entertain the idea, though.

  But if he let her go, she would just float off like a released balloon. Who was going to catch her then?

  His phone rang then. The same number he’d received the heart text from only a moment ago.

  He swiped to answer. “Change your mind about that detail?”

  “Dennis Pacer is dead.”

  The expression dropped from Mark’s face. A moment of being alone and honest.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded thick. “What happened?”

  “I was supposed to meet him.” Her voice didn’t betray any emotion. It never did. “Showed up, saw him crossing the street. He was hit by a car that jumped the light and then rolled onto the sidewalk. He didn’t see it coming until it was too late.”

  That was when a tiny portion of upset leaked into her tone. He said, “Are you okay?”

  He heard her sigh. “They targeted him.”

  “But not you?” This time, at least. “Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

  “I called in an anonymous tip.” She gave him cross streets. “Hopefully it’ll get to my team, and they will be the ones to investigate. Dennis deserves the best.”

  “Nothing wrong with local cops.” Mark gathered up his keys. He sent a one-sentence email to two of his agents and then pocketed his wallet.

  “I don’t know them.” She’d started walking.

  Mark left the conversation about cops and moved on to another topic. “You shouldn’t be on the street. It’s not safe.”

  “I have somewhere to be.”

  His resolve slipped. “Will we ever get to a point in our lives where you fill me in on where that is before the fact, instead of after?” He pulled the door to his office open, more irritated than he had a right to be.

  They had a friendship, but aside from that, certainly nothing resembling an agreement or any kind of consensus between them.

  Victoria had already hung up.

  Mark rode the elevator to his car, then drove to the scene. Uniformed police were on scene. He found the uniform with chevrons and stuck his hand out. “Mark Welvern.” He told the guy who he was, and flashed his badge.

  The cop just raised one eyebrow.

  “I don’t wanna take over. Just looking for information, okay? This guy was working with me on the investigation into our dirty agents.” Mark had learned a long time ago that problems didn’t get solved until you took ownership of them. This issue was an FBI one, and so as the ranking agent in this city, it was on him. The buck stopped with him.

  “Hit and run. You think it was related?”

  “I have a source who thinks it was, but she’s suspicious of everything.” Mark shrugged. “This guy was spearheading the cleanup. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  The sergeant scratched his jaw and nodded. “Dark SUV. Could have had government plates, the witness wasn’t sure. What they do know is that it barreled right for Pacer. No confusion, no mistake. They were aiming for him sure as they’d pointed a gun and pulled the trigger.”

  Which was the method Mark would have chosen. Clean. Less public. This was a brash message that had been received, loud and clear.

  “One hit, and he was dead.”

  Mark blew out a breath. “Not an easy task. They couldn’t have been sure they’d kill him, which means they were making a point and didn’t mind coming back later if they needed to finish the job.”

  There were certainly cleaner ways to kill someone.

  A car pulled up at the curb. Two people climbed out, a man and a woman both with federal badges displayed on their belts. It hit Mark that Josh and Dakota, an engaged couple, got to work together. Just as they were working to build a personal life together. Maybe some couples wouldn’t survive both living and working together, but he always thought it’d be ideal.

  They got to do it.

  He got terse phone calls. Secrets. She never lied to him, but he knew there was a lot she didn’t say. Because she thought he wouldn’t want to know?

  He sighed, then went to greet his friends. “Hey.” He shook both their hands.

  Dakota said, “Hey.”

  Josh looked him up and down. “You look terrible.”

  Mark wasn’t going to get into all the ways that was true. “Has Victoria checked in with you?” He told them about the phone call, but not that she’d been at his house the night before. A couple that weren’t planning to spend the night together until after their wedding wouldn’t understand Victoria even just sleeping on his couch. With the added bonus that it would likely make them more frustrated.

  Mark never wanted to carry the weight of stumbling someone he knew was a genuine believer trying to do the right thing.

  Dakota folded her arms. “Don’t you have more important things to do than worry about someone who can take care of herself?”

  “If she carried a gun on her at all times I might not worry so much.”

  “She doesn’t carry a gun?”

  He shrugged. “Most spies don’t, unless they think they need one.”

  “I always need one.”

  “It’s a good thing you have that badge then.”

  She grinned. “It really is.” Then she sobered. “Two agents still unaccounted for?”

  Of course she was going to be all over him about that. “I have people on that.” When she said nothing else, but continued to study him, he figured that meant she wanted an update. There were two stragglers who hadn’t been picked up in the sweep. Two agents implicated in the dirty dealings.

  He said, “One was scheduled for vacation the week of the arrests. He never showed up at his hotel.”

  “So he’s on the lam?”

  Mark nodded. “The other just disappeared. He had to have known we were going to conduct the operation and round them all up. Somehow he got wind of it and fled.”

  Josh glanced at the yellow tape, strung up around the spot where Pacer had died. “And in light of this?”

  “I need to find out if either of them worked in Aust
ria or anywhere in Europe five years ago when Victoria was there.”

  “So you have leads.”

  Mark nodded.

  “Good,” Dakota said, “When bodies drop around my friends, it’s too close for comfort. She’s being targeted isn’t she?”

  Mark understood the gravity of it, and her fear. Still, he said, “I don’t think there’s been a day in Victoria Bramlyn’s life over the last thirty years when she wasn’t in danger. It’s all she knows.”

  “I don’t have to like it.”

  Mark didn’t either. And hadn’t last night, when he’d been cleaning her bandage. “Doesn’t mean there’s anything we can do to change what is.”

  Chapter 7

  Seattle, WA. Wednesday, 10.37a.m.

  Victoria turned away from watching Josh and Dakota talk to Mark. She shouldn’t have waited around to see who showed up. To watch the body of her colleague be scraped off the sidewalk and hauled away.

  She cleared her throat and glanced up at the gray sky where the sun blazed valiantly behind.

  He was dead. Now what she needed to do was focus on the next step. Langdon had known Pacer would be here, and yet he hadn’t also targeted her. Not after her grandfather and the airport bathroom incident.

  She glanced at the screen of her phone, then tucked it back into her purse. The police still hadn’t found her grandfather. If he was being held against his will somewhere, it was a wonder he hadn’t irritated his captors into releasing him. She could see that happening, and it made her smile. Better than the alternative. Victoria was a realist, but she also intentionally didn’t feel things deeply. If she opened that dam, the whole ocean of her emotions would roll out like a tsunami.

  And she would never get her work done.

  Sure, it wasn’t fair to Mark. He deserved more than the muted feelings she didn’t want to acknowledge. He deserved what Josh and Dakota had. Which meant that if she was a better person, she’d have let him go a long time ago.

  Apparently she just wasn’t that good of a person. She was still stringing him along. Still claiming him as part of her life. Still calling. Still texting. Still thinking of him—more than she should.