No
. No, of course not. Was she crazy? Well, yes, she was, that was the whole problem. Dan had the right to make love to a whole woman, a woman whose elevator reached the top floor.
Was her body even, um, up to it? Her hip bone had been shattered in a million pieces and was held together with titanium pins. So many she set off metal detectors at airports. She’d only been walking for five months. He was a heavy, vigorous man. Maybe sex was beyond her, maybe he’d break a bone or something.
Or, worse, maybe she had become shriveled or something, inside. Maybe she’d end up not being able to do it. Or maybe she could manage it and then she’d fall asleep, only to wake up terrified and sweaty from a nightmare.
Man, that would be guaranteed to send him screaming into the night . . .
Claire’s head was swirling by the time they made it to the front desk, and she still wasn’t any closer to a decision.
She waited a moment for the clerk to show, frowning slightly. He’d struck her as a very conscientious young man who wouldn’t desert the front desk, but who knew?
Well, the keys were hanging on a board to the left. As a matter of fact, all ten keys were there. Either there were no other guests or they were all out to dinner.
She stretched out a hand and a second later, Claire was on the floor with a ton of man on top of her. A large, armed man. Somehow, Dan had conjured a big black weapon from out of nowhere. A Glock 19. A gun that meant business.
“Sh,” he whispered in her ear and she nodded. She wouldn’t have had the breath to talk, anyway. He was amazingly heavy and he covered her completely, head to toe.
So much for the fear that she couldn’t have sex because her bones might break. If her bones hadn’t broken now that he’d jumped on top of her, they sure wouldn’t during sex.
But sex was very far from Dan’s mind. She looked up at him, trying to take her cue about what was going on from his face.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
He looked grim and hard, narrowed eyes quartering the room, just like a soldier would. One corner, blink to black, another, blink to black and so on. He was fast and thorough. After he’d searched, he lowered his head until his lips touched her ear. “Bloodstains on the floor.” His voice was the merest whisper, and carried no farther than her ear.
Claire nodded, understanding completely. Bloodstains and no clerk at the front desk. It could mean anything, but mainly it could mean trouble. They’d both spent a lot of time in places where trouble was always the most likely explanation for any puzzling phenomenon, particularly where blood was involved.
Dan got off her, still crouching, and signaled for her to come around the desk. She scooted as fast and as quietly as she could and crouched behind the desk. She could see it now, clearly. A trail of blood that led to a closed door that probably opened onto a back room.
Big gun at the ready, Dan gave another sweep of the room with his eyes and reached out to open the door to see where the blood trail led. The knob turned but the door would only open an inch or two. Something in the room was blocking the door. Claire’s eyes met his. She could feel her heart thudding.
Dan put his shoulder to the door and shoved, opening it enough to stick his head in. Claire saw the sole of a boot. Dan glanced down, then pulled the door quietly closed. His face was grimmer than before.
Claire felt sick to her stomach. The clerk had seemed like such a nice young man. What had happened? Drug dealers? A burglary gone bad?
Dan reached up to grab her key. Still crouching, Glock held as if it were an extension of his hand, he moved forward then stopped, frowning. Claire had him by the coat. She’d simply grabbed a hunk of material and grimly hung on. No way was he going exploring and leaving her here alone. She signaled urgently with her hands.
I’m coming with you!
Dan’s jaws worked, processing that. He shrugged and gestured for her to remain behind him.
Claire scrambled up in a rush, careful not to make any noise. Yes, of course she’d stay right behind him. He was armed and she was not. He was a former soldier and she was a former desk jockey. She was crazy, not stupid.
Dan moved quietly into the lobby, Claire trailing him. A little brass plaque on the right-hand wall of a wide corridor said
Rooms 1-10
with an arrow pointing down to the end. He stopped in front of each room and listened. Claire couldn’t hear anything over the thudding of her heart, but he seemed to be satisfied that the rooms were empty. There was a tiny space under the door of each room showing darkness.
He stopped in front of her room, number seven, and pointed at the bottom of the door. A faint light glimmered. He looked a question at her and she shook her head sharply. She distinctly remembered turning out the light. She believed strongly in energy conservation. Not even in her most crazy periods did she ever forget to turn out lights. It was ingrained behavior.
The faintest sound penetrated the door. As if someone were . . . ripping something?
Someone was definitely in there.
Dan’s big arm flattened her against the wall several feet away from the door. He crouched and quietly inserted the key in the lock with his left hand, right hand gripping that big, bad Glock. He twisted the key, pushed open the door and dove into the room.
For the second time in her life, Claire’s world exploded.
A second passed, two. A lifetime in combat.
The man wasn’t shooting at him. There was only one door and Dan hadn’t heard glass shatter so the man hadn’t left.
Dan peered around and froze. The intruder had pulled a rifle with a scope to his eyes. A small rifle, an AR-7. Lightweight, small profile, easily concealable. The perfect hit man’s weapon. But why a goddamn
scope
in a room? And he wasn’t aiming at Dan, he was aiming at the wall.
What the fuck?
Two booms, loud in the small room. Dan flinched and closed his eyes at the shards of brick wall flying by, feeling the burn of small lacerations on his face and hands.
Goddamn!
The man knew Dan was crouching behind the sofa. If his rounds could penetrate a brick wall they sure as hell could go right through a foot of upholstery. He knew Dan was armed so why the
hell
was this bozo aiming at the wall . . .
It hit Dan like a sledgehammer upside the head. His blood froze. That wasn’t a scope fitted on to the rifle, it was a thermal imager. And he was aiming at Claire!
Dan didn’t dare stand up. He didn’t have body armor on, goddammit, so he couldn’t draw the man’s fire. Though he’d gladly take a bullet for her, if this guy was gunning for Claire, Dan couldn’t do her any good at all if he was dead or if he was gut- or lung-shot.
He had to stay alive. The trick was to distract the man somehow.
Another round went into the wall and Dan gritted his teeth, feeling himself go into firefight slo-mo. Though everything was happening in the space of fractions of seconds, it felt like hours as he set up the geometry of things, aware that he was operating with only half his mind. The other half was mired in bright red waves of panic at the thought of a wounded Claire outside in the hallway. That slender body prone, still, bleeding.
Dan shoved the image back into the deepest corner of his brain. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need the image of a broken Claire in a hotel hallway flashing bright in his head. It distracted him, slowed him down.
He always kept his cool in a firefight but this was the first time he faced an opponent with split attention.
It was deadly. He had to focus and move fast if Claire was to have a chance of surviving this.
Dan jerked at the leg of a console table that was still upright. The fucker hadn’t gone after the furniture. Maybe he hadn’t had time yet. The console tipped forward and he caught a big porcelain vase filled with silk flowers. He hefted it, jaws clenching. It was heavy. Good.
If he peeped around the corner, he’d get his head blown off, so he simply lobbed the heavy vase at where he had triangulated the man’s head to be and gave up a silent cry of victory as he heard the sounds of china shattering and a man’s low curses.
Glass shattered.
Dan rose, grim and ready, Glock up and firing, but a briefcase was sailing through the window and the man was diving after it through the glassless window frame. Dan rushed to the window, peering into the darkness of the hotel’s back garden.
There he was! Zigzagging through the bushes, agile and strong. He knew what he was doing. Dan fired at center mass, a savage burst of glee coursing through him as his round hit the intruder in the back. The intruder gave a grunt and stumbled, then shot the padlock on the fence surrounding the hotel on the run and powered his way through it.
Shit! Fucker had body armor on! Dan slapped the window frame in frustration. For half a second, he fought the temptation to go after the intruder. Jump right out that window and go in pursuit and find him and waste him. It’s what every cell in his body wanted, he yearned for it, but there was only one thing in the world more important to him than revenge and she was out in the hallway, defense-less, maybe bleeding to death.
Dan raced out into the hall. Horror nearly knocked him off his feet when he saw her, facedown and still. So still. He slid down on his knees next to her, frantically touching her all over.
“Claire! Claire! Goddammit, Blondie, talk to me!”
He turned her over, looking for blood, feeling for broken bones, but she was intact. He shuddered with relief when she opened her eyes and looked up at him. Big, beautiful silvery blue eyes, aware and
alive
.
He pulled her up and into his arms and completely forgot how fragile she was, clutching her close to him with all his strength, simply breathing her in. Finally, when he got himself under control, he gently helped her stand up.
Claire’s light blue eyes roamed over his face. “Is he gone?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Dan had an arm around her back, steadying her, feeling something strange against his hand. “Are you hurt anywhere? Fuckhead had a thermal imager. He could see you through the scope. My heart nearly stopped when he shot through the wall. But he—”
Missed.
Dan was about to say the fucker missed when he realized what he was feeling. Her big black down coat was ripped all across the back, stuffing and feathers coming out of the rips.
Claire threw her arms around his neck. She was shaking so hard he tightened his grip to absorb some of that terrible trembling.
“Sh.” He rocked her gently, back and forth, holding the miracle that was a live Claire in his arms. He brushed his lips back and forth over that goose-down soft hair, absorbing every detail of her because another few inches and he’d be howling over a dead body.
She snuggled more tightly against him, seeking the comfort of his body and if he could have, he’d have had her crawl right in under his skin.
A miracle. A fucking miracle is what he was holding in his arms.
The big puffy coat, which held her body warmth, had shown up on the thermal imager as heat. The man thought he was shooting at a plump woman, but he was only hitting a down coat. That, and the fact that she’d been lying tight in next to the baseboard and the man had had an awkward shooting angle, had saved her life.
They clutched each other for long minutes, both desperate for comfort. Dan thought he might need it more than she did. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Claire’s lifeless body on the inside of his lids.
Still holding her tightly with one arm, Dan pulled out his cell and called one of his best friends.
“Yo, Gunny. This better be good, I’m just now going off duty and I have a hot date.”
“You can get laid another time,” Dan growled. Lieutenant Marcus Stone got laid quite enough, he could do without tonight. Abstinence for a change would do him good. “I’m on Warren Street. In a small hotel called the Kensington House. There’s a dead body in the lobby, looks like a knife attack and there’s been an attempted murder in room seven. Victim a Ms. Day. Ms. Claire Day. She survived the attack.”
“Whoa,” Marcus growled. “Day? Claire Day?
Blondie?
She’s alive?”
Dan grit his teeth, regretting that he’d once gotten very drunk and spilled the beans to his friend. “Get over here, stat. And bring the CSU.”
“Yeah, buddy.” Marcus sobered up. “On my way. Don’t touch anything.”
Dan tightened his hold. No problem. The only thing he wanted to touch was Claire.
It was the Boss’s gift—leadership. He was always fair and always reasonable and that was why his men would walk into hell for him. Heston would, damn straight. The Boss had always sent him on ops with the best intel and the finest equipment, which was more than he could say for the US government, which had sent him out on patrol in Iraq with canvas-sided vehicles and, for the first few months, inferior body armor.
It was the Boss, actually, who’d got him the best armor possible on the private market and passed it on to him, in exchange for a little job that had cost Heston nothing except some time and effort. And on top of it, the Boss had paid him ten thousand dollars. In cash.
Right now, Heston—whose father had never been able to hold down a job and had never had a bank account—had a million dollars in an account offshore and owned his apartment outright. Thanks to the Boss.
And this was the beginning. The Boss had plans, big ones, and Heston intended to be at his side when he got where he wanted to go.
He ignored the pain as he cruised the streets, checking his six. No one followed, he made sure of that. After a quarter of an hour, he pulled into a dark side street and pulled out his cell. A one-off, prepaid, untraceable.
Problems
, he texted. The Boss was at a dinner at the Willard with big shots, people he needed for the next step. Heston hated to interrupt him, but the Boss would want to know. A discreet one-word message. And the Boss would decide whether to interrupt the dinner or not.
Heston’s cell phone gave an incoming message trill.
Room 415 in half an hour.