“I saw a man waving from the corner window, and then he disappeared. He looked like he was in distress. I guess my fire department training kicked in, and I had to check up on him. I’m glad I did.”
Lucy watched Johnny lie for her, and her heart twisted in her chest. He wasn’t used to it the way she was. He was only doing it for her. His whole career was built on his honesty and bravery. He’d demonstrated courage today, and as far as Lucy was concerned, he was showing his integrity by keeping her and her secret safe.
Sunny turned to Lucy again. “So, instead of using his phone and calling for help, or going into the hallway and knocking on a neighbor’s door, he thought he would wave down a passing car two stories below his apartment?”
“It looks that way,” Lucy said.
Sunny nodded slowly as she glanced between Lucy and Johnny. Lucy knew from the way Sunny squinted her light green eyes that she didn’t believe a word they said. She looked like she was going to say something else, maybe ask again, but her phone rang. When she looked at the little window on the front, she tightened her lips and touched a button.
“Pettigrew… yes, sir, we’re on our way, but we had an emergency to take care of.” She glared at Lucy with an intensity that set her back. “A man flagged down her driver, and they discovered a gas leak in an apartment building … yes, sir. He was transported to the hospital, and he’s expected to make a full recovery, but our agent—” Sunny opened and closed her mouth, then opened it again. “Sir, it would be better if she could meet with you on a later date.” Sunny closed her eyes. “Yes, sir. We’ll be there shortly.” She cleared her throat loudly when she punched the off button on her phone. It sounded more like a low growl.
“I want you to know, Lucy, that I don’t like lying to my superior,” Sunny said as she shoved her phone into her pocket, “without there being a darn good reason for doing it.” She lifted Lucy’s wrist and pressed two fingers to her pulse as she looked at her watch. After six seconds she released her arm. “I don’t think this meeting will kill you. Although if we run into anymore, uh, unexpected disasters along the way, you might not make it there alive.”
The only way to gain entrance into the local agency was from the underground parking garage, and only authorized persons or guests of agents knew of its location. Still, an armed Marine guarded the entrance to take personal weapons away from agents and store them in lockers until they left the building.
Lucy and Sunny took their guns from the small of their backs and handed them to the serious Marine. Lucy remembered him from the last time she came in.
“Agent Mackenzie,” Sergeant Rodriguez said, taking her weapon, “Nice to see you again. I was sorry to hear about your husband. He was a great agent. He’ll be missed.”
That was something Lucy didn’t expect, a familiar face bringing up her dead husband. The heartbreaking ache she’d kept buried deep within her chest painfully surfaced again, bringing alive Mac’s memory so tangibly Lucy could feel his strong embrace encircle her body. For a moment she could almost detect the faint scent of vanilla and leather, his signature aftershave. Loneliness enveloped her, until Johnny touched her shoulder. He stood inches behind her. He was alive and within her reach, physically, if only Lucy could give into him emotionally. Right at that moment, it didn’t seem likely. Not with Mac being so near. “Thank you, sergeant.” She turned and motioned to Johnny and Dusty. “We need two guest passes.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He held out his hand. “May I have your ID’s please?”
Johnny slid out his wallet from his back pocket and opened it. His fire department ID was in the opposite insert.
“You’re with LAFD, too?” Rodriguez asked as he looked at Dusty’s uniform.
“For eight years now.”
Rodriguez’s brown face broke into a smile. “My brother’s on C shift. Maybe you know him? Michael Rodriquez.”
“Mikey,” Dusty said loudly. “Yeah, you must be Jesse.” He reached out and shook the man’s extended hand. “He’s a good man. He told me his big brother was a Marine. He just didn’t tell me where you were posted.” Dusty looked around. “Now I understand why.”
Rodriguez winked at Sunny. “I threatened to shoot him if he told.”
“There’s a lot of that with this agency,” Lucy said softly.
Rodriguez took out two guest passes and gave them to Johnny and Dusty. “I need these back before you guys leave.”
“Sure thing,” Dusty said as he clipped the placard to his shirt’s lapel. Johnny did the same.
“This way.” Sunny turned down the hallway, but waited until Lucy was next to her before she began walking. “The assistant director’s name is James Brockway. Have you met him?”
“No. We had our meetings with Assistant Director Bancroft.” Lucy shuddered once as a shiver slid up her spine. “I didn’t like her. She kept smiling at me and leering at Mac.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to hear about your husband, Lucy. I didn’t know Agent Mackenzie personally, but I heard—”
“Stories,” Lucy finished before Sunny could. “I know.”
Sunny pointed down the hallway. “Brockway’s been here for nearly two years. From what I understand, he grew up through the ranks, starting as an operative twenty-five years ago. He transferred in from Houston, and as far as I can tell, he tows the line on every regulation we have, yet he’s fair.”
The news was nauseating. All Lucy needed was a gung-ho ex-operative living vicariously through his subordinates. Now her defenses were up. What was the real reason he wanted to talk to her?
Was
she going to get fired? Or sanctioned? How difficult would it be for her to talk her way onto Gabe’s mission? Would she have to go rogue—without permission? Lucy pressed her hand to her stomach in a vain attempt to quell the wings of the stupid butterflies, which seemed to have metamorphosed into pterodactyls.
Sunny went through the nondescript doorway first. There wasn’t even a name on the outside—by appearances, it could have been an ordinary janitor’s closet. Lucy remembered the last time she had been there. Not only did the other assistant director have her name on the door, but the gold-toned placard was secured to the door with gem-headed bolts, probably to fit her stature. Evidently this new guy liked his privacy. Or he was paranoid.
Sunny stopped by the secretary’s desk. “Hi, Kate, we’re here, as ordered.”
“Hi, Kate,” Lucy said to the redheaded assistant. “I was hoping you were still here.”
Kate gave her a smile. “Lucy, I’m so glad you’re better. I requested to stay here after the dragon lady, uhm, Assistant Director Bancroft was promoted to Washington.” Kate came from around her big desk. “I see you’ve kept yourself busy, especially this past week.”
“How do you know?”
Kate gave Lucy a hug. “It’s a perk of working with Jim—with the assistant director. I get to read the best reports before they’re archived.” Stepping away from her, Kate said quietly, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you how sorry I was to hear about Mac’s death, but I came to visit you in the hospital in Paris. I stayed with you for two weeks, you just didn’t know it.”
“No, I guess I wouldn’t have.” Lucy moved close to the woman and gave her another quick hug. “Thank you for caring about me.”
“I wanted to stay longer, but …” Kate let her go. “I had to get back to work.” Motioning to the men, she said, “You two will need to take a seat out here. Sunny, you can go in with Lucy.”
“I wasn’t going to wait for permission,” Sunny snapped.
Hesitating for only a moment, Lucy gazed at her doctor. Sunny’s brows were pinched together close enough to create a groove between her eyes, and her lips were set firmly in a frown. Lucy appreciated the protective concern. She was sure if there was a way for Sunny to write an excuse to get out of this meeting, she would.
Kate tapped twice on the door before opening it. “Agents James and Pettigrew are here.”
“Send them in.”
Kate stepped aside and held out her arm toward the interior of his office. “See you later,” she whispered as Lucy slipped by.
The door closed, and Lucy got her first glimpse at the man behind the important desk. He wasn’t what she expected. James Brockway might have been her dad’s age, despite the gray scattered throughout his thick black hair. It would have made him look older if he hadn’t had such a smooth face. When he looked up from his computer screen, she stared into his piercing eyes.
Brockway reach out his hand. “Agent James.”
When he stood, Lucy noticed his athletic build, again something she hadn’t expected. It looked as if he could take on any mission at a moment’s notice. Lucy took his hand in hers. She wasn’t ready for how warm his skin felt, nor how tightly he gripped her hand. “Assistant Director Brockway.”
He looked over at her doctor and motioned to the chair. “Hello, Sunny. Take a seat.”
Lucy sat in a leather chair next to Sunny and waited while he finished reading something on the computer screen. With as much of a hurry he’d been to get her there, she couldn’t understand why he ignored her now.
Unless he had her reports pulled up on his monitor.
Depending how far back they went, he could be reading about when she partnered with Mac. What if he read between the lines and discovered the secret to how Mac completed most of the impossible assignments he’d been given?
“Agent James—” Brockway turned toward Lucy and said slowly, “I was on my way to lunch earlier, and I ran into Agent Mendez out in the hallway. He told me about your recovery and of your attack.” He lifted a sheet of paper from his desk. “He also gave me a copy of the lab report from the syringe that you took away from that foreign agent. It seems she wanted to know something from you very badly before she killed you.” He slid the paper across the desk closer to Lucy. “Do you have any idea what that might be?”
Lucy didn’t bother reaching for the report. She knew what drugs it contained. “No, sir. I don’t.”
Brockway rested his elbows on the desk and leaned forward. “I have to tell you, Agent James, I was impressed when Mendez told me how you were able to disarm that woman with only an IV stand minutes after waking up from a coma—”
“I never said she was in coma,” Sunny interjected. “Lucy was unconscious due to a bad reaction to the chloroform and her head injury.”
“Isn’t that basically the same thing?” Brockway asked.
“No! Lucy’s EEGs were all normal.”
“Be that as it may, Agent James had the ability to think clearly enough to understand she was under attack, and she had the physical strength to defend herself within a very short time of waking up.” He returned his attention to Lucy. “I believe this was very extraordinary, and I wanted to meet you.”
Lucy relaxed. Her own paranoia about his guessing her secret had carried her away.
“I began reading your last reports while I waited for our meeting. They all seemed short and well organized. Very neat and thorough. I also had enough time to continue reading some of your mission reports from when you were married to Agent Mackenzie, and I found them to be ... amazing, to say the least.”
“You don’t believe them?” Lucy stiffened her back.
“I didn’t say that exactly.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Brockway lifted one hand, palm up. “That Agent Mackenzie got a lot better at his job after he married you.”
Lucy kept an even tone in her voice. He couldn’t prove anything. “My husband was one of your best agents. I doubt you’ll ever have one equal to him again.”
“I appreciate your loyalty, Agent James, and don’t get me wrong: I believe Agent Mackenzie was a fine operative, but he was only average before you became his partner. Whatever you brought to the partnership made him better, possibly the best we’ve had on our team.” He gestured toward his computer screen. “I’ve had time this afternoon to do some background on you. You trained harder before going to the academy than what the cadets do on campus. You graduated in the top one percent academically and won every sharpshooting competition you entered. Why are you still a courier?”
“Because … that’s my job, and I love it.” Lucy sat very still. The timing couldn’t be better to ask for a temporary assignment. “Assistant Director, I know you read my report on my having to destroy the film that Gabriel Green gave me to deliver. It doesn’t seem fair that he has to do the work all over again. And I was hoping you might let me help him retake those pictures using up-to-date photo equipment and watch his back.”
“And maybe find the men who attacked you while you’re at it?”
Lucy held her breath.
Sunny said, “Would that be so wrong, Jim?” She pointed to Lucy. “Isn’t it about time she goes after them?”
“You condone Agent James going on a mission after being in the hospital for four days?” Brockway asked.
Sunny shook her head. “No, not at all. I’ve only known her for a very short time, but one thing I’ve learned is that she’s very stubborn. If we don’t help her, then she’ll track down Green on her own and talk him into letting her tag along.”
Leaning over to Sunny, Lucy asked quietly, “How did you know?”
“I’m not stupid,” Sunny whispered, not so softly.
“Dr. Pettigrew, you’re dismissed,” Brockway said.
“What?” Sunny jerked her head toward the assistant director.