Chapter Twenty
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“TURN HERE!” COLTON yelled at Zeb.
They took the curve into the subdivision at seventy, throwing Colton against the passenger door but he barely registered the pain.
Shelby.
I have to save her.
From the backseat, Connor handed him a gun. “You might need this.”
Colton took the Sig, gripping the stock hard. Beatrice had called to tell him Shelby wasn’t answering her calls. Then she’d told him about the fingerprint match, the shoes traced to Paris and a very unlikely customer. To top it off, she’d told him what Emit’s TrackMap had found—the relationship it discovered that, with the other evidence, revealed the killer.
The fucking bastard had been in front of him the whole bloody time. Setting up Shelby. Setting up all of them.
Shelby must have figured it out too, even without all the fancy tech. She’d drawn the serial killer away from the hospital and the people she loved, and knowing her, thought she could stop him on her own.
Jon was down. Beatrice had patched them through to Shelby’s open cell phone line, allowing Colton and the others to hear everything going on in his house while their end was muted.
Tell Colton I love him.
She was about to die and those were her final words.
Fucking A.
“Two more blocks, then the last road,” he told Zeb. “Hurry.”
Zeb was an expert driver and was going as fast as the rental car could handle, but Colton wished he could yank the wheel away and drive himself.
“Who are you really?” he heard Theo say.
Daniel—or whoever he was—answered. “I’ve been many men in my lifetime. The real me is dead and buried.”
Theo snorted. “How did you know it was me?”
“I wasn’t sure until tonight. Until you shot that bodyguard.”
“Wait.” Shelby’s voice was angry. “You did all of this, Theo? You killed those men?”
Did she really not know or was she playing dumb?
“Nice of Daniel, here, to become my scapegoat.” Ingram.
Fucking creep. Assistant In Charge Theo Ingram had played them all.
So had Daniel from the sounds of it, but Colton wasn’t sure exactly how.
Lights from the car behind them flashed in the side mirror. Shelby had known she was flushing out the killer and she’d at least been smart enough to alert Denbe and Jocelyn from her office. They were right behind Zeb’s rental.
“Light,” Connor said, handing Colton a flashlight to clip onto his gun.
And it was his. Connor had somehow retrieved it from the cops when Colton had gone belly up.
Thank God someone had his back.
Connor. Zeb. Jax.
Beatrice.
This was what family did. They had your back, chastised you when you deserved it, and kept your head above water when you couldn’t.
Sweat poured down the back of his neck. He hadn’t had any pain meds in hours. That and the fact his wife was about to be shot made him want to crawl out of his skin.
“Give up, Theo,” Shelby said. “We have your prints.”
Ingram sounded slightly surprised. “On what?”
A wrapper found at the abandoned house. Not exactly conclusive evidence of anything.
Shelby seemed to realize the same thing. “Even if you kill me, Colton will prove you murdered those men and shot me. You won’t get away with this.”
“Oh, Shelby, when are you going to wake up and understand that Colton Bells isn’t in my league? He’s nothing but an annoying gnat buzzing around my ear. No one will believe him over me. Besides, after I’m done here, I’ll be paying your ex a visit in the hospital. What a sad tragedy that he’ll die the same night you did, and Daniel will take the fall.”
“Like that’s going to happen,” Daniel said. “The gig is up, Ingram. Put down your weapon.”
The road to the house was coming up. Colton pointed. “There. We’re running out of time!”
Zeb took this corner on two wheels. The house came into view.
Seconds, that’s all they had.
The headlights registered inside the house. Colton heard Shelby say, “Right on time.”
He was out and running before Zeb stopped the car.
But he was too late.
The sound of shots erupted inside the house and Colton’s heart stuttered.
“Shelby!”
The screech of tires, footsteps pounding behind him. Colton’s body, his heart, shredded into a million pieces as he jumped over the pile of debris that had been part of his truck and lunged through the hole in the dining room wall, gun drawn.
The headlights illuminated the scene. Colton pulled up short.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Shelby asked without taking her eyes off Theo.
Colton swallowed hard. Shelby and Theo were only feet apart, both of them pointing guns at the other.
A Mexican standoff.
He couldn’t stop the retort. “Saving your ass from the looks of it.”
The side of her mouth twitched with a suppressed smile.
God Almighty, he loved this woman. She might have been wrapped in a far prettier package, but she was as fearless as he was.
Colton moved slowly, one step at a time. He saw Jon’s feet in the hallway, a shadowy lump—Daniel—farther down in the dark. A colorful cane lay at Shelby’s feet.
“Stay where you are,” Ingram said as he stared at Shelby over his gun. “This is one kill you’re not cheating me out of, Bells.”
The bastard planned to kill her either way.
Colton had been in a similar situation once before. The mission had gone south in the minutes afterward and he’d drawn a shooter to him, using himself as a shield to protect a mother and son. It had ended with him in the hospital clinging to life.
He’d do it all over again—be a human shield—if it saved Shelby.
That night—the one when he’d saved the mother and son—he’d try to talk to the gunman, draw him out and get him to lower his weapon. To surrender peacefully.
The SEALs had trained him to be a killer, but to respect life and never kill when unnecessary. For a brief instant, he almost allowed that training to kick in.
Zeb, Connor, Denbe, and Jocelyn joined the party, fanning out, guns drawn.
“Why did you do it?” Shelby asked. “What was it about that mission that turned you into a serial killer?”
“You left my brother an invalid.”
TrackMap, as always, was right.
“Lt. Moore,” Shelby said. “He’s your brother?”
Ingram’s hand tightened on the gun. “He gave everything to his country and your mission all but killed him. It would have been better if he had died. He’s a shell of the man he used to be.”
Shelby looked pained. “I’m sorry, Theo. None of us wanted that. He was a hero.”
Theo’s whole body shook with rage. “You were in charge, Shelby. I read the reports. If you’d done your job and subdued Quan, my brother would still be here. Really here.”
Shelby’s throat moved as she swallowed. “That may be true, but you had no right to take the lives of those men because of that. It wasn’t their fault.”
“Justice needed to be served.”
Sadness touched Shelby’s face. “So you appointed yourself judge, jury, and executioner?”
“Someone had to.”
“This isn’t the Wild West, Theo.”
“Maybe it should be.”
Her chin lifted and she squeezed the butt of the gun tight with both hands. “By my count, there are five weapons trained on you at this moment besides mine, Agent Ingram. You so much as blink and you won’t be walking out of here. You’ll be carried out on a gurney.”
Agent Ingram. Distancing language. She knew what had to be done and wasn’t afraid to do it.
A faint, sad smile crossed her lips.
Because, like Colton, she respected life, maybe more so than others, but she was never going to let Theo Ingram hurt another human being. She deserved to take revenge on him, the man who had shot her. The man she had trusted and believed was helping her with her case. Her career.
But revenge wasn’t in Shelby’s blood. She believed in justice with all her heart, but she would never shoot Theo out of retribution. An eye for an eye wasn’t her style.
Good thing it was Colton’s.
He pulled the trigger.
The shot boomed through the broken house, Ingram’s hand exploding and his gun flying into the air. He screamed and was knocked backward by another round that hit him in the shoulder.
This one from Shelby.
He stumbled and fell over a chair. Shelby stayed right with him, her gun ready to fire again, her leg not slowing her down in the least.
As he writhed on the floor in pain, Shelby bent over and placed her gun—which Colton realized looked suspiciously like Jon’s—right in Theo’s shoulder wound. She gave a push and the man cried out. “That was for Sabrina, you asshole.”
Ingram screamed obscenities, and Colton made a note that maybe Shelby did have a little bit of an eye for an eye mentality.
And then she kicked Ingram in the ribs. With her bad leg, no less.
“And that’s for me, you lousy”—kick—“son”—kick—“of a bitch.”
Yep, his beauty queen might be harboring more vengeance than he’d realized.
She reared back to kick Ingram again and Colton gently drew her aside as the rest of the group took over.
She collapsed into him as he eased the too-big H&K from her hand. “You tried to take my kill.”
Her warm, breathing body was the best thing he’d ever felt. “You weren’t going to kill him.”
“A part of me wanted to. For those men.”
He snuggled her closer, letting his nose sink into her hair as he closed his eyes and thanked the Big Guy she hadn’t been killed. “I know.”
Ambulances arrived and Colton felt dizzy from the whirling lights. He drew Shelby out of the way and into the kitchen doorway as EMTs administered to Jon, Daniel, and Theo.
Shelby’s arms were loose around his bandaged body. “Why are you not in the hospital? You’ll pull your stitches or some such thing, and then I’ll be playing nurse maid even longer.”
Denbe walked over to repeat what the EMTs had told him. “Your man, Nickelback, was shot in the upper right back, struck his head on a piece of debris, and is unconscious. They don’t know the extent of his injury yet. Daniel, or whoever he is, was hit in the stomach and has lost a lot of blood.”
Both men were on gurneys and being wheeled out. Ingram had his hand bandaged and was screaming about his shoulder as Jocelyn read him his rights.
“Colton?”
Shelby’s voice sounded far away even though she was right next to him.
“Yeah?”
“You look pale. Let’s get you back to the hospital.”
He blinked away the dots hovering on the edge of his vision. “I don’t need no stinkin’ hos—”
The room spun and his legs went out on him.
Two days later
SHELBY BREEZED THROUGH the door pushing a wheelchair in order to retrieve Colton.
“I’m not getting in a goddamn wheelchair,” he said.
She’d spent far too much time at the hospital recently, and she was as anxious to leave as Colton.
But first things first.
He was sitting in the recliner near the window, dressed and ready to go. He’d given her quite a scare at the house, but he was going to be fine, and a part of her was looking forward to taking care of him. She was sick of being the patient. Now she could torture him.
“This is your ticket out of here, Bells.” She patted the metal handles. “No wheelchair, no exit. You’re lucky I’m even speaking to you since you didn’t tell me who Wyatt Evers really was.”
Although he was under orders to take things easy for the next week or so, the doctor had released him. Shelby suspected it was more for the doctor and staff’s benefit than Colton’s—they were all sick of hearing him bitch.
She was too.
Plus, she wanted him all to herself, without worrying about a nurse walking in on them when they were having sex in his hospital bed.
Which was no easy task.
But still fun.
“You haven’t been complaining—oh, wait, that’s because I’ve given you multiple orgasms in the last two days, from my hospital bed, no less,” Colton harrumphed. “So save it, beauty queen. I’m walking out of here on my own two feet.”
Being humbled by your body after an injury sucked, especially when your mind was in working order and you had things to do.
It could drive you crazy.
She was all too familiar with that brand of crazy.
Luckily, her brain was doing better. Her vision hadn’t deserted her since the bombing. Her leg was healing, too, which Colton attributed to the sex, but she knew was due to time, her driving need to put Theo in jail, and her even stronger desire to repair her marriage.
She tapped the chair. “We need to visit someone before we leave.”
“Connor was just here. He said Sabrina’s sleeping after her first therapy session and Jon is a cranky SOB and we should stay away from him. We can come back later. Bring Jon a casserole and a crossword.” They still had dozens of casseroles stacked in the parish’s fridge. “He’ll love that.”
From the evil look on Colton’s face, Jon would not love that. Theo’s bullet had nicked a rib and collapsed one of Jon’s lungs. He was due to get out of the hospital in the next 24 hours but couldn’t fly until the doctor gave the okay. Beatrice had already threatened to move a temporary office to Good Hope since she had four of her people there already.
“Besides,” Colton muttered, “I want to get out of this hellhole.”
God, he was as ornery as they came. A caged animal.
“It’s not Sabrina or Jon.” She bumped his leg with the wheelchair’s foot rest. “So get in and hush or I’ll leave you here and do this interrogation without you.”
“Interrogation?” His entire face lit up. “I thought Theo had already been transferred to Oklahoma City.”
“He’s actually going all the way to DC.” Theo was in jail, bail denied, awaiting a trial that she was going to be front and center for. He’d fooled her too many times for her to feel happy about. Hell, he’d even dropped a bug into her wheelchair of all things when she and Colton had gone to the office! He’d gotten an earful.
Plus, the fact he’d tried to kill her, not once, but three times. She couldn’t wait to put him away for good. “We’re going to see someone else.”
Colton eyed her suspiciously, then grumbled under his breath as he shifted from the recliner to the wheelchair. “Okay, but make it quick. I need some decent food and a beer.”
“No beer. You’re still on medication.”
“I’m not taking any meds.”
Bullheaded man. She wheeled him out of the room and down the hall while he badgered her with questions. “Your mother all right?”
“She’s back to her normal self.”
“Reverend Jack? I assume he’s rubbing his hands together in anticipation of reaming me out.”
Colton outweighed her by at least seventy pounds. Pushing him took effort, but the simple fact that she wasn’t the one in the wheelchair made her quite happy. “He’s actually thankful you shot Theo to save my life.”
“He thinks I saved your life?”
“You did, numbskull.” Colton had saved her in many ways since his return. “He’s very grateful to you for the first time ever, I think, and yes, he believes you saved me, which you did. In theory, it should have been the easiest thing in the world for me to incapacitate Agent Ingram after what he did. In reality, standing there, looking him in the eye while considering taking his life was daunting.”
“You would have pulled the trigger.”
“I’m glad you shot first.”
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her as they waited for the elevator. Two years ago, she’d shot first and Colton had taken the blame for her. The other night at the house, her hand had trembled as she stared down a serial killer across the black barrel of his weapon.
In some ways, Shelby understood Theo’s hatred. His need for revenge over what had happened to his half-brother. If Colton had ended up like Peter Moore, she’d have felt the same burning rage inside her.
That didn’t excuse what he’d done.
Theo had thought he was infallible. He’d hunted serial killers for a living. Knew how they thought, how they operated. Slipping into that mindset, into that skin, had been easy for him. He’d thought he was being clever when she’d started linking the deaths of the vets together, sending her to Good Hope to keep her out of the way. He’d wanted to make sure she didn’t find anything to connect to him. He’d even removed information from her files after she came out of the coma, hoping her memories wouldn’t return.
Then they had. The night she’d met Colton at their house three months ago, she’d suspected her boss was up to something involving the case. The missing link had been Wyatt Evers. She hadn’t understood his connection to the others, even after speaking to his wife, and had hoped Colton could explain it.
Now, she had the story, but she wanted the details straight from the horse’s mouth.
Three people exited the elevator before she wheeled Colton inside. She hit the button for the 2nd floor and the doors slid shut.
Before the elevator started its descent, Colton grabbed her and pulled her into his lap.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
One hand cupped her cheek, drawing her mouth to his. He kissed her softly, then parted her lips with his tongue.
She sunk into him, enjoying the moment and the feel of his strong arms and even stronger need for her.
“I love you, Shel,” he said, breaking the kiss. “I’ve screwed up a lot of things between us over the years. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Her dad had always told her she was a spiritual being in a human body. Humans made mistakes, but their connection to spirit could lift them above those. In that realm, they could find forgiveness and peace.
They could find love.
“I’m not without a few faults, myself,” she said. “I’m going to make things right with the Bureau about Quan. I’m hoping we can do the same between us as well.”
He smoothed a stray hair away from her face. “You’re all I ever wanted. You make me not hate myself so much.”
“Oh, Colton.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “You make everyone think you’re an ass so they stay away because you’re afraid to let anyone know you care. All you’ve ever wanted is to be accepted and loved. I know it’s difficult, but you need to let down your defenses with people; they might surprise you.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Zeb eyed them from the hall. “I see the patient is feeling better.”
The thick erection pressing into her bottom suggested he was indeed. She climbed out of Colton’s lap. “You ready to interrogate our man?” she asked Zeb, holding the doors open.
“He’s going with us?” Colton said.
Zeb took over wheeling Colton out of the elevator. “I have orders, son. Your woman, here, is in charge, but I have to be present so I can give a report to some higher-ups. I’m just doing what the big guns tell me to.”
“His woman?” Shelby gave Zeb her get real look.
Colton chuckled and Shelby had the feeling Zeb rarely did what he was told. “So Beatrice wanted you in on this?”
They headed for Room 312. “My former employer, actually. I wasn’t their first pick to dig into this, but I was already here. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Shelby had to admit, she was glad the former CIA operative was there to back her up.
Zeb walked slowly, allowing her to keep up with no problem. “Did you look at the USB from Ruby?”
“Ruby?” Colton glanced over his shoulder at her. “Ruby was here?”
Another spook, this one a beautiful, dark-haired woman who was engaged to Megadeth, had caught Shelby in the hospital parking lot the previous night, nearly scaring the hell out of her.
“I reviewed it,” Shelby told Zeb. “Let her know I appreciate being put in the loop.”
“What loop?” Colton said.
“Hush.” They were at the door to Room 312, and Shelby lowered her voice. “From the Bureau’s standpoint, I’m here to get an official statement from Daniel Mitchum about the other night, nothing else.”
“From the Bureau’s standpoint?” Colton looked even more confused. “Why are you two acting so weird?”
“You’ll see.” Shelby opened the door and ushered him and Zeb inside.
Daniel Mitchum, aka Wyatt Evers, was sitting in bed watching CNN. He clicked off the TV and nodded at Shelby. “I was wondering when you’d come see me.”
Shelby pulled out a small recorder. “Before I turn this on, I want you to know that if you decide to go back to your former identity, I’ll accompany you to talk to your wife and explain things. The Bureau will never learn who you really are from me, and neither will my father.”
“And I’ve agreed to play dumb if you don’t want the Agency to know you’re alive,” Zeb added. “I’ll tell them you’re not their man, but only if you explain to Agent Claiborne everything she wants to know.”
Colton’s gaze ping-ponged between her and the man in the bed. “What the hell are you two talking about?”
“Colton,”—Shelby motioned at the man in the bed—“you remember Wyatt Evers. The man who infiltrated 12 September and then managed to get a message back to the CIA about Connor’s whereabouts.”
He sat back. “That’s not Evers.”
Daniel pointed at his face. “Plastic surgery, brother, and a lot of bleach on my hair.”
A lift of Colton’s brows. “No way.”
Shelby nodded. Zeb grinned.
“So Ingram killed the wrong man,” Colton said. “Then who’s the dead guy we thought was you?”
Daniel/Wyatt rubbed his eyes. “When I got back to the real world, I had trouble adjusting. I hung out on the streets, wandered around, stayed in some pretty bad places. I tossed my dog tags and driver’s license in a dumpster at one point. The dead guy was probably one of the homeless men I hung out with and he fished them out of the dumpster and died with them on.”
“The local ME didn’t get prints from the body before the Navy took it away to verify it wasn’t Wyatt,” Shelby said to Colton. “The NCIS report has mysteriously disappeared. Not even Beatrice can locate it.”
“The Navy didn’t want me working for the CIA, but because of my skills and the fact my grandparents are from Baghdad, it was easy for me to talk and act like a native. All I was supposed to do was ask a few questions and see if I could determine whether McKenzie was still alive or not. Next thing I knew, I had an in with 12 September. I took it. Unfortunately, I got in so deep, I had to sever ties with my handler. The CIA assumed I’d flipped and the Navy didn’t want anything to do with me. Even after I got back and cleared my name with the Agency, the Navy was done with me. They wanted to pretend I never existed so letting a dead homeless guy take my identity was a way for me to disappear.”
Zeb leaned on the windowsill. “Why ingratiate yourself with Shelby’s family?”
“After Bard was shot and then I saw a blip about my own death, I knew something was up. I thought it might be a member of 12 September, taking us out one at a time. I wanted to reach out to someone, but technically, I no longer existed and it’s not easy to come clean after all the things I’ve done. Figured I’d keep an eye on Agent Claiborne since she led the FBI side of the mission and was still in Oklahoma where our killer seemed to be as well. Taking on Daniel’s persona was easy.”
“So you posed as a junior pastor for my dad?” Shelby couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that choice. “Seems like there are easier jobs.”
“I actually enjoyed working with your dad and helping people. Felt like setting a few things right after all the trouble I’ve caused.”
Zeb crossed his feet at the ankles. “Not even CIA trained operatives could accomplish what you did, getting in tight with 12 September, and you were undercover a long time. That’s why the Counterterrorism group thought you’d turned.”
He grimaced, a haunted expression crossed his face. No telling what atrocities he’d seen. Maybe even helped commit. “There were times when I was so deep in that shit, I wasn’t sure myself. But I had to stay until I could get McKenzie and the others out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get word to the Agency before the others were killed. That weighs heavy on me.”
The sadness on his face was honest, raw. The truth cut deep lines in his face.
Shelby patted his hand. “Most people will never know the sacrifice you made for your country. I, for one, want to thank you for helping us save Connor and stop Quan.”
Wyatt ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t think I’d ever make it out of that compound alive, so I owe you thanks as well.”
“What did the Agency do with you once you came home?” Colton asked.
“They kept me at a black site for months, debriefing me.” His fingers formed air quotes. “It wasn’t technically torture, but it felt like it. When they finally let me go, I wandered around for a long time. I couldn’t assimilate back into real life. I went home to Lori but things were…weird. Too many ghosts, you know?”
Colton nodded. These men—all of them, whether SEALs or spies—lived separate lives. No matter how much they loved their wives and families, coming back to normal, everyday life in the USA was foreign to them.
Wyatt looked a little gray around the edges. It was time to get her official statement and leave the man to recoup. “I meant what I said about going home to your wife. If you decide to let Lori know you’re alive, I’ll go with you and do what I can to smooth things over with her. I know coming clean scares the hell out of you, but she deserves to know you’re alive. Maybe you two can work things out.”
“If you want the Agency to go on believing you died in that fire,” Zeb added, “I’ll make sure my report says that.”
Wyatt nodded at Zeb, then his sharp eyes appraised her. “Why would you do all of this for me after I lied to you?”
Shelby smiled. “I’m a sucker for happy endings, and besides, you did so in order to protect me.” She squeezed Colton’s shoulder. “I’m used to that.”
Setting her recorder on the table, she took a seat. “Come Monday, I may be out of a job, but for now, I’d like to take your statement about what happened at my house with Agent Ingram. He betrayed so many of us. I’m going to make sure he goes away for life.”
Wyatt nodded and pointed at the recorder. “Happy to oblige, ma’am. Turn that thing on.”