Hearts Under Siege (17 page)

Brady turned at the sound of her handler’s name. Shae took advantage of his distraction and darted around him.

“Wait!” Molly called out. Half the heads in the room turned toward her. As Shae started to run past the tribute board she faltered, then halted, and whirled to face Molly, her expression distraught.

For half a second, everything froze. The young girl’s face was right next to a photo of Brady and Chris as preteens, in their baseball uniforms, arms around each other. Even though Chris was beaming and Shae’s eyes were wide with fear, the resemblance was uncanny. Unmistakable.

A gasp behind Molly told her Brady had seen it, too.

“Jesus,” Molly whispered, then said to the girl, “Go. Get out of here.”

Shae spun and dashed down the center aisle and out the door, no one making a move to stop her. She pulled up her hood as she went, and no one reacted as if they’d seen what Molly and Brady had.

“
Byrnes!
” Dix must have been calling her name repeatedly.

“What?” It came out sharply enough to draw Brady’s attention from Shae.

Brady’s niece.

Chris’s daughter
.

“I don’t give a shit what you tell them.”

Molly gaped at the phone. She’d never heard Dix curse before. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He didn’t apologize or explain. “You and Fitzpatrick get here
now
. Meet me at departures. This may be your last chance to find out what really happened to Christopher.”

Chapter Eleven

The small terminal at Westchester County Airport was full of hectic bustle, full of commuters and families, all with somewhere to go. But Brady hardly noticed.

He stood next to Molly outside the security gate, waiting for her handler, lost in numbness. He had no idea what she’d told his parents about missing the burial and couldn’t summon any kind of emotion about it. Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to, anyway, without Chris’s body actually being in the casket. But this shock had been one too many.

Christopher was dead. Or not. Possibly murdered. His body was missing. The woman Brady had pined over for twelve years turned out to be an annoying princess. He was falling hard for his best friend. His father was, or had been, a friggin’ spy.

And Chris had a goddamn daughter.

Brady’s only anchor in this quicksand of chaos was Molly’s hand in his. He hadn’t let go of her except to let her drive, and he couldn’t imagine being without her. Which was strange, given how little he’d seen her over the last twelve years, and yet it felt more right than anything else in his life ever had.

Molly shifted with impatience, and he unconsciously tightened his grip so she wouldn’t let go. She squeezed his hand and stilled, but continued to glower up and down the crowded terminal.

“He said we had to get here
now
, so where the hell is he?” she muttered.

“Getting your tickets.” Dix strode up and handed her two ticket sleeves.

She flipped one open to check it, and Brady saw their destination. “Vancouver?”

“Corporate purchase, but you’ll need ID at security, of course. I hope you have your passports.”

“Always,” they said at the same time.

Dix eyed their clasped hands and frowned. His stance widened and his chest puffed out a little. Brady twisted his hand so his fingers intertwined with Molly’s. She shot him a surprised look at the possessive move, but he didn’t care. Dix may have an interest in Molly, but she was
his
.

“What’s going on?” Molly asked as she tucked the tickets into her jacket pocket.

Dix’s jaw tightened before he spoke. “I found information on that encoded mission you were asking about.”

At that, Brady automatically scanned the area. No one stood within earshot, but they all kept their voices low. “What kind of information?”

“Your brother wasn’t on a standard mission. There was no client agency we were collecting information for.”

Brady went cold. “What does that mean?” The logical answer was wet work, but SIEGE didn’t do wet work. That had been a major selling point twelve years ago, when they’d recruited him.

“It could mean a lot of things.” Dix moved closer. Closer to Molly than to Brady, who curbed the urge to tug her into his side. This wasn’t the time or place for that battle.

“What do
you
think it means?” Molly asked Dix. She looked up at him, and Dix looked down at her, and when his expression softened, anger burned through the cold in Brady’s veins.

He clenched a fist, the rational corner of his brain telling him to cool it. Molly must have noticed his tension, because she stroked her thumb across his knuckles—though she didn’t move away from Dix. In fact…was she actually batting her lashes?

It’s called blinking, moron
. He let the stroking thumb calm him enough to focus on what Dix was saying.

“I think it’s an internal matter. I don’t know who assigned the case or what Chris was investigating. But it looks like they thought someone in SIEGE was—is—dirty.” His jaw tightened, his eyes icy. He clearly didn’t like that idea. But any organization could be corrupted, because any person could be corrupted given the right circumstances and incentives.

“So what are we going to look for?” she asked.

“You’re meeting a guy—the rendezvous details are in there.” Dix nodded at the slender folders he’d handed her. “He’s leaving the country tomorrow for an indefinite length of time. Miss him, and it’s over.”

“What is he supposed to tell us?”

Dix shrugged. “SIEGE has an office in Vancouver. I think Chris was up there to investigate someone high up in the administration.”

“How do you know all this?” Brady asked. Molly shot him a scowl at his hard voice, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have any reason to trust Dixson. Hell, it could be Dixson Chris had been investigating.

“I promised not to divulge my source,” Dix said. Standard bullshit. So it didn’t mean anything, but it didn’t make Brady happy, either.

“What’s this guy going to tell us?” Molly asked.

“I don’t know. Hopefully enough for you to figure out what happened to Chris. But—”

“But we can’t trust him,” Brady said. “Right?”

“Hell, no. Be fully prepared for anything.” Dix glanced at his watch. “You’ve got to go. They’ll be boarding soon.”

“Thanks, Dix.” Molly let go of Brady and hugged her handler. Hugged. Her
handler
.

Disgusted, Brady stalked off to the security line, getting his passport and boarding pass ready. Molly joined him too many minutes later, but didn’t say anything until they were through security. Afterward, neither of them said much beyond, “We’ll buy clothes there,” and “That way to our gate.”

Fine with him. He had to get his jealousy under control. Molly would eat him alive if he showed it—more than he already had.

The gate area was crowded, with every seat taken. People already stood in line for boarding, some sitting on the floor or leaning against the glass, watching the baggage and maintenance people do their jobs. Way too many people to allow conversation. So they didn’t talk until they were in the air, in their seats at the very rear of the plane.

…

When the seat belt sign pinged off, Molly sighed and eased her seat back, allowing herself to relax for the first time all day. It had already been a long one, and it was only midafternoon. They had a very long flight ahead of them, too. She’d be able to sleep a little, but not until Brady unloaded. He’d been piling it up all day. Which topic would he hit first?

“What did you tell my parents?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

She grimaced apologetically. “I said you couldn’t handle going to the cemetery.”

Brady groaned, and she felt a twinge of guilt for laying the blame at his door.

“I bet that went over well,” he murmured.

“Jessica went a little hysterical, said she couldn’t get through it without you. Your mother cried and said it wasn’t like you, but then she told Jessica to find a backbone, she had to be strong for her baby, and Christopher wouldn’t want her to be so needy. It worked, a little.” She glanced at him. “Your father knew I was lying, and he stood up for you. Still…” She breathed against the heavy weight on her chest. Their leaving had caused a lot of pain, and she hated that. Rick might suspect the things they believed, or hoped, or feared hoping, and support their efforts. But this trip might not yield answers, which would mean they’d hurt Jessica and Donna for nothing. And now, those answers had as much potential to be very bad as they did to be very good.

“Dad will take care of them,” Brady murmured, his eyes closed but his face tight. He clearly didn’t like the excuse she’d made.

She clamped her teeth on defensiveness. Maybe it had been the wrong thing to say, but she hadn’t exactly had time to consider her options. She’d been trying to spare him the burden of lying to his parents, and her thought processes had been compromised by the huge shock she’d still been recovering from.

A shock, she acknowledged, that must still be reverberating in Brady.

He rolled his head and tilted it closer to her. “Shae.”

“I know.” She did the same, so they were face to face and no one else could hear them if they talked low. “She’s the spitting image, Brady. And yet, I don’t know if I’d have seen it if she hadn’t stood right next to his photo like that.”

“I don’t get why.” His voice cracked. “Why didn’t we know?” He laced his fingers through hers again, something he’d been doing a lot lately.

She didn’t mind. She would gladly be his anchor as much as he needed her to be. She just wished she could convince her body that was all it meant.

“Maybe
he
didn’t know.” She let her mind drift into speculation about the girl. “She was about fourteen,” she started, and stopped when Brady’s arm jerked under hers.

“She was? How do you know?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I…can just tell.”

“How?”

She made a face. She wasn’t about to say she judged the girl’s age by the development of the girl’s hips and chest along with the combination of softness and angularity in her face.

“I have to know,” he insisted. “Just in case—”

Molly sighed. “I’m a girl. I was fourteen once. Just trust me on this.”

“But girls develop faster now. I read an article about hormones in milk—”

“If they do,” she said levelly, “maybe she’s thirteen. But not younger than that.” She understood why his need to know was so strong. “Don’t worry. It was before Jessica. I’m sure of it.”

“How can you be?” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Never mind. I’m flogging you about something we can’t possibly determine now. Do you think Chris found out in May? And that’s why his behavior changed?”

She blew out a breath. “Maybe. I’d have thought he’d have told Jessica, but we’ve already learned things weren’t as perfect in their marriage as they seemed. And it might not have been up to him.”

“What do you mean? I’d never keep a secret like that.”

“Maybe he was ordered to. It could have been a court thing. He could have known since the beginning, maybe even had visitation rights but only as long as he didn’t tell his family about her, or something like that.”

“She seemed to know him, didn’t she?” he mused.

Molly thought about the way the girl had knelt next to the coffin, the grief twisting her delicate features. But her eyes had been dry. “I think she at least knew who he was to her. But that doesn’t mean he knew her. She could have found out who he was but never approached him.”

“How did she find out about the funeral?”

“Obituary in the newspaper, most likely. Or a Google alert. Reading online papers. Whatever.” She was tired of playing Q&A. “What are you thinking?”

He gave a hollow laugh. “I’m thinking I have a niece, and maybe it will be better if Chris really is dead, because once Mom finds out she’s a grandmother and she missed out on the kid’s entire childhood, she’ll make his life a living hell and then kill him herself.”

Molly managed to give a chuckle of agreement. But too many things were rushing through her all at once. Brady’s statement was the first time any of them had dared even to come close to indicating there was a chance Christopher was alive. And he’d said it without thinking, so she knew he’d stopped trying not to hope he wasn’t dead.

An image flashed into her head, of the Fitzpatricks this Christmas, all together—Chris and pregnant Jessica, Shae and her newfound grandparents, Brady and Molly, as a couple instead of best friends…and her secretly pregnant, too, about to announce it to everyone.

The vision was so vivid it took her breath away, and longing dug deep, carving through the scars she’d laid when Brady opened his heart to Jessica and was rejected, then rejected Molly and everyone else in return. Since finding him in South America and spending so much time right up against him this week, her yearning had fluttered against the scar tissue, but she’d refused to let it break through. But with the vision, the claws of her hunger for more opened new wounds, and that intense longing gushed through.

But she wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be. Wrong time of the month, stress, intense emotion, and she was on birth control in addition to the condom they’d used.

That vision was pure fantasy, and fantasies didn’t come true.

Tears stung her eyes. She aimed her gaze out the window, at the clouds reflecting brilliant sunlight. If Brady noticed, he would think her eyes were just watering from the light.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“About?”

He stroked his fingers against hers. “About you. Us.”

Oh, no. No, no, no.
Hell
no. That was way too cliché. Brady suddenly willing to talk about his feelings, hard on the heels of her own thoughts? She couldn’t handle that.

But a deep-down part of her that had never stopped hoping, that sang in joy at his words, compelled her to ask, “What about us?”

His hand tightened. He turned his body more toward her, though he didn’t raise his head to look in her eyes, thank God. He kept his gaze glued to their hands.

“Mostly about how I never would have gotten through any of this without you.”

Molly made an involuntary noise in her throat. Wow. What was even worse than a treacly declaration of love? A sincere expression of gratitude.

He was damned lucky she was stuck on this plane with him.

She managed a smile. “Don’t thank me. You’re my best friend, and I’m doing what best friends do.”

She watched his brows dip in a frown. “You’re more than a best friend. You’ve gone way above and beyond this week, and I know none of us have appreciated it nearly enough.”

For God’s sake.

She pulled her hand from his and banded her arms over her body. “Yes, you all have. And these circumstances haven’t been normal. You’ve never had another best friend, you don’t know what we’re supposed to do in a situation like this. I know you’d do the same for me.”

But he was shaking his head. “You know it’s a lot bigger than that, Moll. We’ve had a unique bond since the day we met.”

She couldn’t even remember the day they met. They’d been so young, all she really had was a collection of impressions. Her parents fighting, her escaping, Brady—and to a lesser extent Christopher—always ready to distract her, their parents always willing to take her in. She wasn’t sure she remembered what the days had been like before the Fitzes moved in behind her house.

Okay, so maybe it was a rare bond.

“Fine, it’s bigger. So?”

“So maybe it—”

“Drinks?” The flight attendant appeared at Brady’s side, a practiced smile on her face.