Mine's to Kill (5 page)

“Yes, boss,” they said in unison with laughter. She knew she had pretty much just given them permission to leave work, but there was a reason for it. She needed to see who left, who stayed, and who took greater liberties with the database before they did it. She needed to set a trap. The only thing she could do was hope that trap didn’t backfire and get an agent and witness killed.

The drive over to Colt Grayson’s place had been pleasantly cordial. She and Huck were getting along well actually, just like most of the other guys. He wasn’t happy about this assignment and she knew it because he made sure to tell her.

“You know I didn’t have a choice in this, Huck,” she said to him.

“I know. Your chains are being yanked just like mine.”

She laughed. “We’re the puppets.”

“And they’re the puppeteers. At least I’m not the one dealing with her heinous the Director,” he snickered.

“She’s not that bad,” she said. “Just like us, she has somebody else to answer to.”

“Yeah, maybe if we all remembered that we wouldn’t be so hard on each other.”

“Am I too hard on you all?”

“No. You’re a boss and while you’re not our best friend you’re also not our worst enemy. It’s just…well, you know we’ve lost some witnesses and comrades…tensions exist in our unit and I was trying to figure out how to fix that before you arrived.”

“Don’t stop on my account. I think a unit works better when it works as one. We have to know we have each other’s back and we’ll help each other survive.”

“True,” he admitted as they rang the front doorbell and the lights inside flickered. The buzzer sounded and Huck pulled on the door. “Guess that means we’re expected.”

“I guess we go upstairs,” she said as she looked at the note with the drawn arrow. She laughed at the picture of the badge and the guy with horns wearing an FBI vest.

When she reached the top of the stairs she pushed another bell. She was sure the lights must have flickered again because there was no sound and since he was deaf he wouldn’t need a sounding door bell. A minute or so later the door swung open.

Autumn let her eyes drift up the man’s lower belly on up to his finely built chest. Even with the navy-blue t-shirt that stretched across his chest she could still see the underlying muscles. By the time her eyes had caressed to their visual pleasure she looked up into his eyes and what met her was the most striking expression that nearly knocked her off balance. She cleared her throat and reminded herself she needed to start signing. The man was probably staring at her because she had yet to introduce herself.

Huck pulled his identification and she signed who they were. Colt nodded and stepped aside to let them in. Colt closed and locked the door behind them. He had a hint of paint on his beige cargo pants so she assumed they caught him while he was working. Candice had said he was some important artist or something like that. Autumn wouldn’t know anything about the guy because she didn’t have time for art. She liked art; she just didn’t have time to get involved with it, study it, and enjoy it.

“I told the last guy no,” Colt signed. “I told all of them no. I’m telling you the same.”

“If you would just hear us out,” she signed and spoke at the same time so Huck would know what she was saying. “They’re worried about you.”

“No they’re not.” He cut her off. “They’re worried about their case. I’m not leaving; that’s final.”

“And this time they’re not asking you to. They would like for you to make room for one of our agents in your home.”

“That would be me,” Huck said and she signed his words.

“No,” defiance sparked in his honey brown eyes.

“This is for your protection,” she told him. “Let us help you.”

“Feds,” he looked her over. “What makes him any different than the others?”

“He’s skilled in the art of protection. Let him watch over you.”

“No. He doesn’t even speak my language.”

“Of course I don’t,” Huck snapped and she shook her head. He wasn’t helping the cause at all.

“That’s my point. Is he going to call up the translator every time we need to discuss something? Are you going to come running for him?”

“She’s the boss,” Huck said and she had to sign his words.

“I’m just here to smooth the way, but I am sure we can—”

“You do what he does?”

“I have experience, but Huck—”

“Then it’s you or nobody.”

“Excuse me?”

“You speak my language. You can do the job. You or nobody. You know where the door is,” he signed before walking away.

“Well that was rude,” Huck said loudly.

Autumn took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“So what now boss? Are you going to let the Director know he doesn’t want God, he wants you.”

She rolled her eyes, looking up to the ceiling and shaking her head in a “why me,” manner. “She said he gets what he wants. That means you and York will have to hold down the fort while I’m here. And I’ll need you to be my backup if I need it.”

“The man hates me.”

“You’re one of the best. I won’t go into the trenches without you backing me up.” She meant those words. From everything she had discerned Huck was one of the best. Before he took that bullet trying to save the life of the person he was in charge of protecting he was at the top of his game. She didn’t trust many, but she had to trust him. She couldn’t do this all on her own. She would trust him to back her up, but she couldn’t trust him with the ultimate secret. She couldn’t tell him why she was placed over his unit—not right now anyway.

She stepped outside the door and then hit the bell again. She watched the lights flicker. “He’s going to need to lock up behind us.”

Huck nodded.

When Colt came to the door he looked at her in a way that told her he wasn’t happy being summoned. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” she signed. “Lock up and keep safe.”

He nodded before looking her over from head to toe. Then he closed the door in their face and she heard the locks turn. “Let’s go, Huck,” she shook her head.

“Oh this is going to be a fun one for you,” he teased. “I’ve had a couple cases like that—the ones that make you wish you hadn’t drawn the short straw.”

She chuckled. “Duty is duty. Keep me posted on anything going on in the office. I’ll have my phone with me.”

“Got ya,” he nodded as he got in the car. She walked around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.

She never went into an assignment thinking it would be a piece of cake because she knew even the seemingly less dangerous could become fatal, but this guy would be a breeze to protect. He was more of the type to keep to himself which meant he wouldn’t spend the day pestering her to go out and party with friends at some club for the night. He wouldn’t put her in a position where she was working in overdrive trying to keep him shielded from harm. He seemed like the kind of guy who stayed at home, locked in his art room painting or whatever else it was he did back there, and she figured protecting a guy like that should be easier than protecting somebody like the President who had been out in public far too often. Of course when she pulled a brief undercover assignment protecting the President she had a team of Secret Service agents around her, and she wasn’t in charge so that helped too.

The most difficult thing she saw about current changes to her schedule was the fact that she was supposed to be with the unit solving a bigger problem. She wasn’t undermining this guy’s importance, but the fact that a lot of other lives hung in the balance of her finding their leak and plugging it before another witness or agent could end up extinguished seemed more important to her than serving as babysitter to a guy who could have anybody watch over him yet he refused to cooperate.

She was going to need help. It didn’t matter if she hadn’t wanted to inform anybody within the unit of her purpose for being there, she was going to have to do it. She was going to have to trust somebody and hope that her trust was not misplaced. There were a lot of lives at stake here; including her own.

Chapter Five

“I
didn’t invite you to my place for sex, York.” Autumn shook her head. She had never given the man the impression that she wanted anything more than a working relationship with him. Sure, she would love to build friendships here if her time in the unit was going to become permanent as Candice had implied, but she wasn’t focusing on that right now. Right now she had bigger issues than making a comfortable place for herself within the specialized unit.

“I was hoping you hadn’t. I wouldn’t want to have to file a harassment charge against you, now. But when a woman slips me a note in my copy of a new briefing file to come to her place at seven I get suspicious.”

Autumn laughed. “Sorry about that. There was no other way. I need a confident, and I am going out on a limb here to trust you. The reason I’m here is deeper than what you all were told and I need you to realize that secrecy is crucial. Can I trust you?”

He shrugged.

“Can I trust you? Your word that what I say here stays between us,” she looked at him.

“Okay. What’s going on?” He narrowed his eyes as if he were upset that she was being so secretive. She couldn’t help it. This was bigger than any of them, including herself. She had lives in the balance and she couldn’t put their witness on the line by trusting the wrong man.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if this new case didn’t mandate I be the agent handling protection.”

“You want me to take it?”

“You can’t. The witness won’t cooperate and he won’t deal with anybody who doesn’t speak his language. The Feds got this moved up to priority which is why it’s in our special case load. What I need to know right now is can I trust you?” She spoke the question slowly.

“I’m dedicated to my country, to each witness I protect, and I will lay down my life for both; you can trust that.”

She sighed with relief. “Good. I was hoping for that, not just your words, but the honesty I see in your eyes when you say them. I’m a fairly good read of people. I can usually tell when they’re lying to me, but sometimes I can’t. I needed to be sure. Here’s the thing. We have a traitor among us. I was brought in to flush that traitor out. I don’t think they’re going to pull me off this after the case is done with—the Director has assured me that I’ll stay wherever she wants me, but while I’m handling protection detail I can’t watch what’s going on in that office as closely as I need to. I have all the people I moderately think I can trust out in the field, some I don’t know if I can trust out there too. Right now I don’t know who in that office is compromising our witnesses and I don’t know how. I have been looking into it, but if I’m not there most of the day every day then I can’t do the job as it should be done and one of our agents could be compromised.”

He nodded. “You want me to spy for you.”

“Yes,” she saw no need to beat around the bush here.

“Okay.”

“Just like that? No questions asked?”

He shrugged. “I have had my doubts for a while now about that office, about what’s going on, and about why you came to us. We’ve lost some high profile witnesses in some bloody ways along with good agents. If I can help stop this then I will. But I do have a question. Why did you trust me? Why not Huck or one of the others?”

She smiled. She maybe could have consulted Huck, but she hadn’t. Why? That was his question. “Because your recommendation comes from somebody I trust a lot more than a government file.”

“Yeah, who is that?”

“A mutual friend. I believe you know her—Henri.” Judging from the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips she could tell he knew exactly who she spoke about. How many women in the game did they know named Henri anyway?

“You know Henri?”

“I know her. We have history—limited, but I still would trust her with my life and apparently she says you’re the only member of this team that she would trust to turn her back on.” Henri turned her back on few people in this business so if she would trust York to that extent then Autumn figured maybe she could trust him with her secret.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “We have history.”

“I don’t need details. All I need to know is that she trusts you and I’m hoping that we’re not both wrong in our trust.”

“You’re not. I’ll do what needs to be done to help you plug the leak.”

“Thanks,” she smiled at him. “But please be careful because whoever is doing this isn’t afraid to be the cause of somebody dying. I’m sure he, or she, will go through whatever it takes to ensure they get away with it. Heck, for all I know there could be more than one person in on this.”

York nodded. “I lost a good friend already. Grace Henshaw,” he said and she nodded. “I trained her when she came on board and to lose her that violently makes me feel as if I didn’t do my job—as if I’m responsible.”

“But you’re not. You didn’t do this so don’t own his guilt.”

He nodded again. “I know. But if I hadn’t talked her into it. She was perfectly happy being the woman behind the team. I told her she should ask for training to be on the front lines because she liked what we did so much. I went to bat for her to get an entry spot when there wasn’t one available and she shouldn’t have gotten her foot in the door there. If I had just left her where she was…”

“I read the report. There were a lot of people who could have, and probably should have, said no. She wasn’t experienced for this and she should have worked her way up the ranks. But I do know she had skills and there were a lot of people who would have benefited from having her multi-trained. Trust me when I tell you the people who said yes said yes because they wanted to use her down the line.”

“You sound like you’ve been there.”

“I worked my way up from the bottom, but I won’t lie to you when I say I didn’t progress in the track I did out of my own desire. They used me just like they use everybody else.”

 
“They’re using you still.”

She nodded. “They’re using all of us. We don’t get much say in that.”

“True,” he admitted. “I just wish it hadn’t happened to her. I trained her for nearly a year before Huck ripped her away from my command and put her with Chris Urban. They both died in Georgia that day.”

“I know, and I know how much you’re hurting. You don’t get this far in the field without losing somebody.”

“I know. You must miss your old team.”

“I do,” she said. “But my replacement is already in. His name is Julian, he was Air Force and did some missions with the Squadron.”

“Oh yeah, I know him. My buddy, Jet, works with the Squadron.”

“Yeah, Julian’s good I hear. I didn’t have much time to get to know him.”

“He is good, and honest. He’s the kind of guy you would want on your team.”

“Then they’ll love him. He’ll fit right in with the unit. We were always about covering each other.”

“When the Special Conditions unit started here we were the same way. I know we’re not that old of a unit, but in the starting days things were good with us. Somewhere over the past year things started going downhill.”

“I know. And I know you all haven’t hired any new people within the past year, which is what makes this more difficult. Betsy came in to replace Grace and since she had been with the unit on a part-time basis anyway she really wasn’t so new.”

“I know. Betsy only worked a couple days a week and she came in mostly to deal with the excess case loads we started having.”

“Why didn’t you all hire somebody to help Betsy out after she took Grace’s spot?”

York shrugged. “I think Huck had planned to do it, but he never got the okay on the expense. Plus, Betsy swears she’s fine and if you look at how she works you would probably agree. That woman works faster than anybody I’ve ever met doing the same job she does. Plus, she seems to be a walking computer. Did you know she can recite a recently read case file with eighty-nine percent accuracy?”

“I know you all think that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t make my job easier here.”

“How so?”

“If she can remember a recently reviewed case file with that much accuracy then how much more accurate would she be if all she had to remember was the witness, the new name and the new location? I’m not saying she’s our leak, but I can’t rule her out either.”

York nodded. “I see the problem,” he said. “Fortunately for you, finding things out is my specialty. I’ll take care of the investigation for you as much as I can. You focus on keeping your witness safe.”

“Oh joy is me,” she mumbled. “Not that I am going to hate this, but the guy is rather rude.”

“They all are until the bullets start flying,” he said. “Trust me; by the time they end up as a file in our Special Conditions unit they’re not real happy with the government.”

She laughed hard. She understood the ease at being unhappy with the government. Sometimes she wasn’t happy with the powers in charge either. It felt as if her entire career was one big chess board and she was the pawn sent to do the Queens’s bidding. In this case, Candice was the queen who dominated the board. Autumn would never mistake that woman laying her life, or her career, on the line to save the king in some elaborate chess board. No, the entire board was hers and pieces were hers to do with as she pleased. Unfortunately, this time Autumn had been moved into new territory yet again and she was going to be in charge of protecting one crabby artist—one crabby cute artist actually.

She pushed the thought of Colt Grayson from her mind. She could not think this guy was cute. First, she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, in fact she wasn’t even sure she liked men anymore because all the guys she had dated turned out to be real jerks and she had told herself she was going to stay single forever because men just weren’t worth it. Second, this guy was in her care. She had to make sure he survived to testify. She wouldn’t let an ounce of lust derail her mission no matter how great a body he had, or how cute those honey brown eyes were.

Autumn packed her needed supplies and clothing. She wasn’t sure how long she would be away from home and she didn’t have an agent set to relieve her yet either. Basically, Candice had told her in her umpteenth phone call of the day that she could consider the assignment a twenty-four hour, minimal relief assignment, but that she would be generously compensated for the excess time. Autumn would have loved to have a backup for more than just the one-day a week visits to the office to do the morning meeting. She had things she had to do as well, not just trying to keep tabs on the office, but keeping her place in order too. She hated letting anybody in her house so since she didn’t trust the neighbors she had asked York to water her orchids for her. He had laughed at her when she asked, but said he would help her out. “I’ll even take in your mail,” he said. “But when I’m off on that assignment you just made sure I would have to take over in Alaska I expect you to keep tabs on my place too.” She had agreed. York didn’t have any plants that needed watering, but she could pick up the mail, dust a little and make the place look lived in a couple days a week. She wouldn’t want him coming home from assignment to find his place cleaned out. He had a security system, but that didn’t mean somebody wouldn’t get in and take a couple things on their way out before the cops arrived.