An Affair of Deceit (29 page)

Riley ground his teeth together. He’d left his sidearm locked in his vehicle, as per standard interrogation procedure once a suspect was in custody. Since he’d be going into the room to do the talking, he didn’t need a weapon on hand—and he didn’t think the Feds needed theirs, either. But he couldn’t tell the FBI how to run the show. He looked around for a decent chair. “Fine. Let me fill you in on what I’ve uncovered in the past twenty-four hours.”

Greene’s neatly groomed eyebrow flickered. “I’m all ears.”

“You might want to grab some coffee. It’s gonna take a while.”

One cup of burned coffee later, Riley had explained the complex machinations of history that he’d learned from his mother. Then he and Greene dove into the case file, reviewing every shred of intel they’d gathered in preparation for the interrogation. A few hours in, Riley rubbed the back of his neck, thinking that he could sure as hell use a shower. A lot of time had passed since he’d gotten sweaty with Abigail. His skin cooled at that recollection. It was impolite at best to go radio-silent after the initiation
of an intimate affair, and he wasn’t interested in letting her think that it was a one-time thing. He’d probably not get to call Abigail for days once he started the interrogations, so he’d better do it now, while he still could.

He stretched his arms. “Gotta make a call. Do you mind?”

Greene’s sharp brown eyes met his. “Abigail?”

“Yeah.”

Greene didn’t answer right away. “You plan on telling her anything?”

“Only that we have the suspects safely in custody. Nothing further.”

Greene flicked a hand nonchalantly. “I guess she’s got the right to know. But watch yourself. Don’t let your dick lead you down a path you can’t come back from.”

Riley readied some smart-ass comeback, but he silenced as a door opened behind him. FBI agents streamed out of the room where Mason was being held, some heading out the main door to the hallway, others for the coffeepot. They left the door to Mason’s room open. One agent brought a cup of coffee inside it.

“Guess we can’t deny him that,” Greene muttered. “Here comes Battersley.”

A tall, dark-haired agent approached Riley and Greene.

“Mason’s coming up rosy,” Battersley said without preamble or introduction.

Greene frowned. “Cleared?”

“Not quite yet. We’ll continue pressing him with junior agents. Practice, you know. But at this point, we believe he was, as he claims, taken hostage by Lukas Kral. We see no evidence of any impropriety. As for Kral”—the agent looked toward the closed door—“all I can see is that Kral entered the United States via less-than-legal means, but that’s not worth my time.”

“He kidnapped a federal agent.”

The dark-haired man lifted a well-groomed eyebrow. “On foreign soil.”

“And illegally transported him across the United States border.”

“So call Immigration.” Now the agent smiled, showing a narrow gap between his two front teeth. “We’ll talk to Kral, but we were primarily interested in Mason. Now that he’s answered our questions, you should be prepared to handle this on your own.”

“Why were you looking at him?” Riley asked.

Battersley eyed him closely. “You’re both CI, correct?”

Riley and Greene nodded.

Battersley lifted a single eyebrow. “Then I’m sure you can imagine why I can’t divulge any details of an active investigation.” He turned to face his gathered team. “Haven and Rodriguez, take Mason out for a bathroom break. Everyone else is joining me with Kral.” He turned back around. “Except you two, of course. But you’re welcome to talk to Mason once he gets back from the head.”

“We will,” Riley said. Behind Battersley, a pair of Feds led a slim, gray-haired man into the small bathroom off the side wall.

Peter Mason. Abigail’s long-lost father. She had his ramrod posture.

Before the bathroom door closed behind Mason, he glanced around the main room. Riley met his eyes, a pair of very pale blue eyes that couldn’t have been more different from Abigail’s, though the intensity of his gaze was much like hers. There was some sort of reaction in Mason’s face when he saw Riley, a tightening of his mouth or jaw, but the bathroom door closed before Riley could puzzle out what it might have meant. Perhaps nothing, or perhaps Mason had recognized him.

Unlikely. He hadn’t seen the man since he was a toddler, at best. But he did look a hell of a lot like his father had at this age. Maybe Mason still thought of Scott Riley, after all these years. He’d died protecting Mason’s wife and child, after all. It wasn’t unlikely that Scott crossed his mind now and again. Seeing Riley might have been like seeing a ghost.

Battersley followed the other agents toward the room where Kral was being held.

As they streamed in, Greene began to say something, but he was cut off by a loud crack and bang in Kral’s room.

Men began shouting in Kral’s room. The door slammed shut.

Greene and Riley froze, and then they ran to flank either side of the windowless door. More shouting and shuffling on the other side told them that a physical struggle was going on, but the walls were too thick for any words to be discerned.

The FBI agent who’d been standing guard in the hallway came inside. “What’s going on?”

“No idea,” Riley said, amazed that the guy would walk in so casually after hearing a disturbance. “Pull your weapon and go back outside. Lock the door and call for backup.”

The man shook his head. “Could be nothing. Just a little argument.”

“Son of a bitch,” Greene grumbled, and pulled out his phone and began punching in numbers. “I’ll do it myself, then.”

Riley pressed his ear to the door. He heard a singsong voice and the deafening crack of a gunshot.

Greene’s eyes met his. “Shit. We’re unarmed.”

“The guys in the bathroom aren’t.”

On cue, the bathroom door opened. The two FBI agents came out, one with his Glock drawn, the other behind Mason, holding his arms tightly. They tried to shuttle him back into the room where he’d been interrogated, but he resisted, digging his heels into the short carpet.

“No!” Mason hissed. “Let me go. I can talk to him. Convince him to stop. He’s sick—dying. Let me go to him; I can control him.”

The agent with his weapon out cocked his head at his partner. “Get him in there. Lock the door.”

“No,” Mason shouted and bucked hard against the agent holding him.

More screaming erupted in the room by Riley’s ear.

“Kral’s free,” Greene muttered.

Riley stepped back so he couldn’t be seen by anyone inside if the door opened. “We can get him when he comes through. You disarm. I’ll disable.”

Greene nodded.

A gunshot exploded behind the door next to Riley’s ear, followed immediately by three more. Rapidly fired, they sounded like expert shots, and Riley hoped that they’d been administered by an FBI agent, but he feared the worst. There’d been six agents in that room. Five could be down now. Kral might be using one as a human shield.

The guard from outside the room came back in, eyes big. “What the—”

Greene waved him back outside, but the man didn’t go. Riley held a finger to his lips, hoping the guy would at least keep quiet. If Kral didn’t know how many people remained outside, then they still stood a chance.

A quiet, high-pitched voice vibrated from inside the room. That singsong voice again. It sounded insane to Riley, even without hearing the words.

He stilled, listening. More shuffling from the room, getting closer to the door. He held up a hand, and even Mason and his two guards stopped fighting. Everyone went stock-still as they waited to see what would erupt from that room.

Greene’s face was a mask of calm. There was no one Riley would rather have at his side when facing an armed madman.

The doorknob creaked and rotated. Riley held his breath as the door swung slowly inward.

Greene saw something first—his eyes widened, and his mouth formed a circle of surprise—but he didn’t react quickly enough. A shot reported loudly enough to make Riley’s ears pop and buzz. Greene fell to the ground.

Riley ducked. The next bullet sailed over his head.

A short man came rushing out with lanky Agent Battersley in a choke hold.

Kral—with an FBI hostage.

Kral howled and spun, dragging the struggling agent with him. He aimed his gun at the men holding Mason and fired two shots. Both men crumpled to the floor, writhing—alive?—leaving Mason standing, unhurt.

Riley held himself still, crouched against the wall, waiting for his chance to charge Kral.

The federal guard fired two shots. One blasted through Kral’s left ear and embedded in the wall above Riley’s head. Kral, screaming in wordless rage, let loose a single shot. The guard went down.

But Kral had shown Riley his back.

Riley rushed him. He took two quick steps and leapt for Kral. At the same moment, someone screamed.

The noise drew Kral’s attention. His head twisted, saw Riley soaring toward him. As quickly and deadly as a striking viper, Kral whipped his gun around the torso of struggling Agent Battersley and aimed it straight at Riley.

In slow motion, Kral’s right index finger tensed on the trigger. In the
thud-thud
of a single heartbeat, Riley felt the scant millisecond when Kral’s digit pulled past the Glock’s safety lever.

Kral was going to fire straight at his head.

It would be a point-blank shot. He’d die. Riley knew all this, and still he wouldn’t have stopped his leap even if he could. He only hoped he’d have the momentum to hit Kral hard enough to free Battersley. If he was lucky, the shot would go through his arm, or pass through his neck without hitting anything vital. Maybe he’d have another chance to take the villain down. Maybe he’d live to see Abigail one more time.

Then again, maybe not.

The gun blasted. Time sped up. Riley fell hard to the ground.

Not because he’d been hit by the bullet—but because someone had tackled him at high speed, knocking him out of the way.

Now, that person’s chest smothered Riley’s face, hiding Kral from view. Riley struggled to push whoever it was off of him, but the guy was about as easy to budge as a sandbag.

Kral screeched like a cat in heat. Another gunshot split the air. Something heavy—probably, unfortunately, Agent Battersley—thumped to the floor. Footsteps slapped away and out the door, leaving the room in silence.

The figure on top of Riley finally rolled away. Short gray hair framed the pale, contorted face of Peter Mason. Blood spilled out from a hole in his chest, dyeing his white shirt red.

Mason’s lips moved.

“Go,” he said. “Abigail. Fei. Save them.”

And then Abigail’s father closed his eyes.

W
HEN
R
ILEY DROPPED
her off in the city, Abigail had insisted on being left at the courthouse. He’d argued, but only faintly. She knew he didn’t have time to really push the point. With him busy with her father and Kral, there was nothing for Abigail to do but what she always did. Work.

She prepared herself to put out fires that had ignited in her absence, but as far as she could judge from her various in-boxes, efficient, unflappable Beth had kept her office running smoothly while she’d been away. Apparently, Abigail had only done what most other people did every now and then: she’d taken a long weekend. No one but Beth and the night guard had even noticed—the latter had smiled his greeting when she’d arrived late on a Sunday afternoon.

Abigail was almost offended by the fact that the judicial system did not require her constant attention to maintain its course.

But that was that. She dove into her work, burning the memories of Riley’s smooth, hot skin against hers in the cool blue flames of her impassive productivity.

After a few hours of work, she found herself standing in front of the big window that overlooked the steps of the courthouse, uncertain of what she was looking for.

Whatever it was, she didn’t see it.

Then finally, around eleven o’clock, long after her weekend coworkers had gone home, she found herself wondering how her mother was doing.

Abigail lifted her cell off her desk, and then she stopped, her finger hovering over her mother’s name, when she realized what an absurdity it was to call her mother, especially at this late hour.

It was a clear sign that she needed a break. She stood, stretched her arms above her head to work out the kinks of hours of sedentary work, and began to gather a few files to take home, although she didn’t really want to go there. If only she had a bed in her office. She wrote a note to herself to buy a sleeper sofa tomorrow.

Her head was down when the outer door to her office opened and shut. Beth normally sat out there, but she rarely came in on weekends, and never this late. Perhaps she’d heard through the grapevine that Abigail had returned.

“Beth?” she called.

No one answered. Footfalls snapped hard against the wood floor, coming closer.

The heavy steps lacked Beth’s high-heeled elegance. The skin on Abigail’s arms prickled.

“Beth?” she called again, squinting her eyes to peer through the slatted window that separated her inner office from the reception area. A form walked steadily toward her door.