Hold on Tight (24 page)

They’d made love enough times to pass away the evening after Jamie’s clinic visit. Things had been mercifully quiet and there was a peace in her heart she wanted to remain there forever.

Now she took the cell from him, propped up on an elbow. “Lou, it’s Jamie.”

“Gary’s been found,” Lou said curtly. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?” she repeated dumbly as she sat all the way up. “What happened?”

“When our agents found him, he was already murdered. We got another anonymous tip.”

“I want to see the body.”

Lou paused, and then, “Alone?”

“Chris Waldron is with me—he won’t let me go alone.”

“Can’t say I blame him.” Lou rattled off an address; it was a school maybe ten miles from her house. Or where her house used to be. “Get there quickly, Jamie—we want to clean up the scene fast.”

She clicked the phone closed, told Chris, “I think … I think it’s over. Handler’s dead. I’m supposed to go to the crime scene. Actually, I want to go.”

Chris nodded slowly. “Okay. We’ll look at the body. I’m just glad they got the bastard.”

“The FBI didn’t kill Gary Handler. They found him murdered.”

He stared at her, knew exactly what she was thinking. Because she’d told him everything after they’d made love, told him about her parents and Alek, her voice halting. And he’d held her and let her talk everything through and then he’d made love to her again.

With both their hair still damp from quick showers, they were on the road within fifteen minutes of Lou’s call, her wearing Chris’s T-shirt and sweats, both impossibly big on her, but there wasn’t an alternative. Chris sped along the nearly deserted highway, singing quietly to the songs on the radio and she let that soothe her, until they arrived at the school.

“Lou said they wanted to wrap this up quickly—it’s a school day,” she murmured as Chris pulled up behind an FBI agent’s unmarked car and rolled down his window as a female agent approached them.

It was only then Jamie realized she didn’t have any identification on her.

“Can I help you?” the agent asked.

“This is Agent Jamie Michaels,” Chris told the woman, and Jamie added, “You can call Lou Carter to verify—”

The agent held up her hand. “He already called, said you wouldn’t have your ID. I’m Beth Miller. Come with me, I’ll show you the scene.”

After a quick, reassuring squeeze of Chris’s hand on her thigh, she was out of the car, the night air slightly humid and sticky, the smell of death permeating the grassy area that would be filled with high school kids mere hours from now.

As an FBI agent, she’d studied many different specialties, including profiling. That was a specialty unto itself, and now she called on all the skills she’d learned as she approached the body of Gary Handler.

The ME was next to the body; he shined his flashlight on it so Jamie could get her view.

Gary Handler was splayed on his back, arms pointing right, legs awkwardly to the left. His throat had been slit, the ground muddy with blood.

“Time of death is between eleven and midnight. Whoever called this in had to be the killer. The call came in just after eleven,” Beth told her. “And there’s something else—a woman’s name is written in blood on his chest.” She motioned for the ME to open the shirt.

When he did, Jamie felt her mouth drop. Her world spun for that single instant and then she pulled it together. She could do this. Neither Beth Miller nor the ME knew what the name meant. No one in the FBI would either.

Chris would, but he was hanging back with the other agent, no doubt so he could get a better look at the surrounding area.

And Kevin would know too, would see the name
Deanna
written with blood across Handler’s chest.

What the hell it all meant was something Jamie couldn’t think about here, not in front of total strangers. She wouldn’t tip her hand to the FBI, no matter how shaken she was.

“Could it be a drug hit?” Beth asked.

Jamie shook her head. “He never turned on the men he worked for.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Our deliberate leaks made them think he did, right? Enough to have them put a contract out on him.”

“This doesn’t feel like a hit. But it’s not random. The body looks posed,” Jamie continued. “Whoever did this is most definitely sending a message.”

She snapped a couple of pictures with Chris’s cell phone. “Was there anything else of note?”

Beth handed her a piece of paper that had been bagged. “It was in the guy’s hand.”

A birth certificate with the name Peter Romanov. She wanted nothing more than to stuff it into her pocket, but she couldn’t. It was evidence—bagged and tagged—and so she took a couple of pictures of it instead, telling Beth, “I know someone who can look into this.”

And then she turned toward Chris, who led her away from the scene and toward the car. She didn’t look back. Couldn’t.

“Talk to me,” Chris said once they were safely inside the car.

She told him about the woman’s name written on Handler’s chest. “My mother’s,” she confirmed as she stared down at the picture she’d taken of the birth certificate, as though it could reveal the mysteries of the world.

“Oh, fuck.”

“Yeah, that sums it up.” She paused. “I’ve got to call Kevin. He’s going to want to put me and PJ under stricter protection again.”

“And what is it you want?”

“Not that. Not anymore. I meant what I said—I’m done hiding.” She looked over at him. “I’m going to need your help. I can’t do much, because …”

Because of the baby
.

“You think Alek killed Gary?”

“Or someone working for Alek. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but that’s the only place my mind will go right now.” She showed him the picture of the birth certificate.

“Russian name—do you recognize it?”

“No. Alek’s family name is Frolov. I’ll have to check with Kevin—he’s the expert. I mean, the Russian mob has some big ties to Mexican drug running—they could’ve met …” She trailed off.

This was not good. The sick feeling in her stomach grew as she scanned the area. She saw cops and other agents, the coroner and various other necessary personnel. No one out of the ordinary.

At least not anyone in plain sight. “We need to get out of here.”

Chris didn’t hesitate, saw her hand on her gun as if readying herself for anything and pulled out of the school parking lot. “There’s got to be a link between Gary and Alek. Whatever it is, that’s what we need to explore. Call Kevin—we’ll go see him.”

“I need to get away from here. Let’s go back to the cabin. Please.”

“Jamie, look—”

“Please. Just for a few hours. I need the quiet, the peace. I need to think, and I’m not going to be able to do that anywhere else,” she said plaintively. “I can deal with all of this in a couple of hours. But not now.”

“We need to run that birth certificate,” he said quietly. “But the FBI’s not going to know the significance behind all this unless you tell them.”

“I know. I need to talk to Lou about it. He deserves to know first,” she said. “Can you ask Nick to run the birth certificate for me? He seems to have access to things he shouldn’t. The only place he won’t be able to get into is the Marshal’s database.”

He glanced at her. “You don’t know Nick all that well, do you?”

“Just … can you wait to call him, until we’re back at the cabin?” she asked. Because once she was back at what, in such a short time, she’d come to think of as a sanctuary, she could finally breathe again.

Gary had been dead wrong.

He’d stood over Gary and smiled. The positioning of the body was perfect and the plan couldn’t have been going any better.

When he’d gotten Gary out of jail, he’d promised the man his freedom after doing these favors, and when the prisoner had learned that he’d be stalking and menacing Jamie Michaels, the agent responsible for his arrest, he’d been more than happy to agree to the deal.

Gary hadn’t realized the world didn’t work like that—the fucker was too trusting for a criminal.

And now he was dead.

“Weak. Worthless,” he’d whispered to the body.

“Weak. Worthless.” His father spat the words at him with
fury, in full presence of the prison guards, twenty years ago when Alek had been captured after killing Ana and Patricia Jane’s parents. Father and son would be serving jail time together now, or so it seemed. And even though his father was fully protected in prison, thanks to his status in the Russian Mafia, he’d told the guards to take his son away, to put him in the general population
.

His throat tightened at the memory—the thought of being in that cell forever had nearly killed him. If he’d been there any longer, he would’ve hung himself.

But he’d escaped, with help from his connections in the underworld—escaped and hid and then, when he’d lost all hope, he’d found them—Patricia and Ana.

Patricia and Ana would never be that lucky again. He’d known that sussing Ana out with Gary would enable him to find Patricia more easily—she’d been the one hidden from him for over a year, the one he wanted most.

With that thought, he walked through the woods and toward his car, ready to make sure of that now.

“You didn’t call them,” Jamie said in obvious confusion as they drove up to the cabin, and found Jake and Nick waiting on the porch.

“No, I didn’t.”

“I guess they’re psychic too.” There was a gratefulness to her tone, as if comfortable with the fact they’d already revetted the cabin’s safety and wore rifles around their necks.

“My father must’ve called them,” he said, rolled the window down as he pulled close. Nick approached the car, while Jake remained on the porch, watching.

“Hey, you guys all right?” Nick asked, looked to Jamie first, who nodded, and then to Chris.

“Rough night,” was all he trusted himself to say.

Jake came up to the car then, helped Jamie out while Nick climbed into the passenger’s seat and told Chris to park around back.

“It’s okay, we’ve checked inside,” Jake reassured Jamie as she let him lead her safely inside the cabin.

Chris drove the car the short distance around to the back of the cabin, where he’d parked earlier.

“What’s going on?” Nick demanded quietly, his voice rougher than normal as they sat together inside the car. “Dad called. He sounded worried. I haven’t heard him sound that worried in a hell of a long time.”

“Gary Handler was killed tonight. From the looks of it, it’s someone from Jamie’s past.” His own voice was a hoarse croak—it was the first time since all of this began that he’d had a moment to let down.

“Something to do with why she’s in witness protection, right?”

He told Nick as much as he knew about Jamie’s past, what she’d told him about her mother’s case and Alek Frolov, and watched his brother’s face turn intense.

“Will she go back into hiding, disappear if it turns out this has to do with witness protection?” Nick asked.

“Fuck, Nick, why are you going there now? This could just be—”

“A coincidence?” Nick interrupted. “Get your head out of the sand—Jamie knows what’s going on, I can see it in her face.”

Chris turned away from his brother, his hands still gripping the steering wheel tightly.

“If she’s got to go back into hiding, would you go with her? Relocate?” Nick persisted.

“Would you go with Kaylee? Because when you ran off half-cocked to Africa with her there wasn’t a damned thing anyone could do to try to stop you.”

“You tried to stop me,” Nick pointed out.

“I love her, Nick. I’d do whatever it took to keep her safe.”

“I know that, man. It’s just that … Look, Jake’s getting married.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“No. He’s getting married at the end of the week.”

What the fuck? “I thought he’d agreed to wait until next year.”

“He says he’s tired of waiting.” And yeah, Chris had been surprised he’d been this patient, waiting for Izzy’s mom to plan the perfect wedding. Apparently, shit like that took years. “They’re doing a small thing on Friday. Just us. No one else will even know it happened.”

“I wouldn’t miss it. You know that,” he said when he found his voice, and even then, it was tight with emotion.

His words were greeted with silence at first and then, “All right, one thing at a time. What can we do to help Jamie and PJ?” Nick’s voice was calm and reassuring, the way he always got in a crisis.

“I don’t know, Nick. I don’t know what the hell else to do but hunt this bastard down myself,” Chris admitted. “And I don’t want to bring the danger to you or Jake, to Izzy and Kaylee.”

“You won’t. You aren’t,” Nick assured him. “It’s going to get better—it always does.”

Chris wanted to believe that, but this time, he wasn’t so sure.