Chapter Thirty-Two
Walsh wasn’t rough or unkind as he walked Tess along miles of bright white corridors.
“Am I under arrest?” she asked him.
“Not yet.” He didn’t sound friendly or approachable.
“You think I’m involved.”
“I don’t know if you’re involved or not, which is why I want you to answer some questions.” He grunted. “I do think you messed up the career of a really great federal agent and good friend of mine.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong. He renewed an old acquaintance in order to further the investigation. I would have thought he’d get a commendation.”
Walsh clenched his jaw.
“What’s going to happen to my brother?”
“Lots and lots of questions. Then I’m guessing life without parole. You?” His gaze traveled up and down her, eyes glinting in contempt. “I guess we’ll find out.”
She shivered. All these years she’d run from her past and it had still led to this. Handcuffed by the FBI. It must have been pre-ordained at birth. She raised her chin and pressed her lips together. She would do well to remember Parker’s advice and keep her mouth closed until his lawyer arrived. She did not want to end up in prison.
They came to a door and Walsh used his ID to get them inside.
They stepped inside a small crowded conference room and Tess came face to face with her worst nightmare.
In front of them, Mac and Frazer flanked Cole, who was wearing handcuffs just like she was.
A large, black man pointed to the side of the room with a hard stare. “Wait there until a secure room is made available.”
She wanted to speak to her brother, but knew in doing so she’d only make things worse.
Mac looked over his shoulder as if sensing her presence and their eyes locked. That short moment of silent communication held every ounce of regret and guilt.
The main door behind them opened, and at the same time another door opened off to the right. A small trail of men and women in suits poured out of a meeting.
Walsh pulled her back against the wall.
Cole glanced over his shoulder. He caught her eye and his expression was so confused and miserable her heart clenched for him. Then his eyes widened and Tess turned to see what he was staring at. A woman held a clipboard in front of her, but from Tess’s side-on vantage, she spotted a weapon. The woman raised it to aim at the people leaving the meeting room.
No time for a verbal warning. Tess did a snap-kick that knocked the woman’s aim off target, but the bitch didn’t drop her weapon.
“She went for my gun!” the woman screamed.
“Carolyn!” Cole shouted across the room.
Everyone started moving at once.
Walsh tried to restrain Tess, but she knew the other woman was lying. She also knew this must be Cole’s “girlfriend” who’d led her brother on, set him up, and tried to kill him.
The gun was still in play and Tess saw the agents react almost in slow motion. She knew they’d think she was the threat and by the time they figured out the truth someone could be dead. She didn’t intend it to be Mac or Cole.
Eighteen years of martial arts training had Tess twisting out of Walsh’s grip. The cuffs got in the way of her efforts to block, but she batted the clipboard away so the woman’s hands were no longer hidden. Everyone was still a split-second behind her in reaction time and Tess didn’t think, she just acted. She rushed the woman, crowding her against the wall. The blast of a handgun exploded through the chaos and fire seared her side like a white-hot poker sinking into her flesh.
* * *
Paula screamed in frustration as Cole’s traitorous bitch of a sister ruined her plans of revenge. Twenty years of planning and preparation destroyed and for what?
She’d had the director in her sites. She inched the weapon out from under Tess’s weight and fired off another shot, but the director and AG were back in their protective bubble, while her colleagues scrambled, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Fools. Idiots. Imbeciles!
Paula held Tess up with her left arm and put the Smith and Wesson that David had given her against his daughter’s forehead.
The room went silent and Tess tensed even as she leaned heavily on Paula. One wrong move and she would happily put another bullet in the bitch.
Agent Walsh was down on the ground, bleeding.
“Paula?” ASAC Steve McKenzie approached with his weapon drawn, his eyes never leaving her face even though she knew he was seeing everything around him, from his pal Walsh bleeding out on the floor, to Tess, her human shield.
“Do you love her, McKenzie?” Her voice came out ragged. “Or did you just fuck her to get information?”
“I love her.” Mac’s words surprised her in their honesty. She hadn’t thought him capable of even that much truth. “If you ever truly loved David, you’ll let his daughter go.”
She smiled bitterly. Steve McKenzie was the last person who should be allowed to even utter David’s name. He was the reason the man she loved was dead.
And then it struck her. There was still some revenge she could salvage from this mess. “I watched you two going at it like sex-starved rabbits. Figured you’d be busy on that kitchen table for long enough for me to murder your pesky ex. The cops were stupid enough to fall for it and the FBI obediently followed suit.”
Tess tried to struggle but Paula tightened her grip. The people around them didn’t seem to realize Tess had taken a bullet and was slowly bleeding out. “Stay still if you want your brother to live,” she hissed into Tess’s ear.
Paula looked at Cole, who was white-faced with shock. Poor kid. He’d never stood a chance being brought up in such a tainted environment.
“Carolyn?” Cole swallowed noisily. “What are you doing?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not Carolyn, lover. Paula. Carolyn was an undercover identity I used occasionally.” She watched his forehead crease in confusion. “I was doing what your daddy wanted me to, Cole. Didn’t mean I didn’t love you.”
Tess was leaning heavily against her now. Paula felt the hot, slick slide of blood seeping into her suit.
Mac edged closer. Paula knew he was capable with a pistol. She’d studied him avidly at the gun range. She intended to make him use the weapon to give her the spectacular ending she deserved. She just hoped to delay that inevitable long enough to take the woman he loved with her.
“You’re Henry Jessop’s daughter?” he asked.
A fresh wave of hatred rushed over her but the longer she stretched this out, the more chance she had of making Steve McKenzie weep.
She knew exactly how hard it was to lose the person you loved.
He cocked his head to the side. “I don’t remember seeing you at the compound.”
“David’s bitch of a wife suspected us so I never came over to the compound. We used to meet at the old cabin or in town.” Memories made Paula’s throat clog.
“You were friends with Brandy Jordan?” he asked.
Paula smirked. “Yeah, I heard you were looking for her. She wouldn’t have told you anything.” Finally, she was free of the lies and deception. She didn’t have to pretend to be some little, drone bitch. “Brandy dragged me to the bar one day to meet Eddie and his brother. David was there, too.” It had been fate—beautiful and capricious. Despite all the pain and misery that followed, she wouldn’t swap that one magical year for anything.
“You were young and impressionable. He used you for sex, but he would never have left Francis for you.” Mac’s eyes held pity and she wanted to pull the trigger and obliterate Tess Fallon’s skull just for that. To witness the destruction of all Mac’s hopes and dreams. But this was better. The classic negotiator’s tactic of slowing everything down and getting the hostage-taker to talk was gonna cost Tess her life. Paula was smarter than he was. She was smarter than them all.
“He was gonna leave her but then she got pregnant with Cole.” Her eyes lifted to the young man she’d seduced. “Your mother really was a bitch.”
Mac ignored her. “So you married some guy called Rice or is that another false identity?”
She shrugged and settled Tess’s heavy weight against her chest. Didn’t matter now. “He was one of Dad’s ranch hands. I paid him for the privilege of being my husband and then paid him off a few years later. He was harmless.” She hadn’t even slept with him. The only man she’d slept with since David was Cole. Their relationship hadn’t been about the sex. It had been about love.
“What happened to your son, Paula?”
Icy cold washed over her. How did he know she’d had a child? “Henry raised him, but he…” Her voice cracked. “He died in an accident on the farm when he was fifteen.”
Mac was moving to her right where she was more open. How long before he spotted the blood on Tess’s side? But he didn’t drop his gaze from her eyes.
“It’s over, Paula. Let Tess go and you can have your day in court. You can gloat about how easy it was to make us look like fools. You can brag about all you accomplished. How you infiltrated the FBI.”
“Nah.” Paula kept her shield in place. It was tempting, but prison wasn’t her idea of infamy. “You guys are going to be too busy fighting to prosecute anyone. The courts won’t even exist anymore.”
He laughed. “You think your fellow antigovernment nut jobs are gonna come out of the woodwork and rise up now? Because you parked a truck out front? Give me a break.”
“It’s already happening and you know it,” she hissed.
Tess went completely limp in her arms. Paula struggled to hold her upright but never took her finger off the trigger. Was the bitch dead yet? Or just passed out? Paula took a step along the wall. There was nowhere to go. “They’ll see the truck bomb on the news—”
“We already spun it as a training exercise,” Mac cut her off. Another man discounting her opinions, her value.
“The media knows better,” she ground out. “So do the others who think the same way I do.”
Mac laughed scornfully “They won’t do a damned thing and you know it. They’re chickenshit. You wasted your whole life on some fruitless exercise in revenge and when we round them up, they’ll squeal like babies and head straight to prison.”
“You’ll never find them all. They’re everywhere.” She smiled evilly. “In every facet of law enforcement, in every government department. Even elected officials. The revolution just began and you can’t stop it. Not anymore.”
Mac was shaking his head like he knew more than she did. God, she hated him. Hated his supercilious arrogance and smug over-confidence while his girl died in her arms.
“We have their names and IP addresses from the One-Drop-2-Many site.”
“Liar.” No way could they decrypt that information.
“High school grad hacked the site. Feds are knocking on doors as we speak.” Mac grinned and she swung the gun toward him, determined to wipe the smirk off his handsome face.
* * *
Mac lined up his sites between Paula Rice’s navy blue eyes and smoothly squeezed the trigger.
She crumpled to the floor, no more revolutionary bullshit oozing from her lips. Tess dropped like a deadweight on top of her. He hadn’t hit her—thank God. What was wrong? Had she passed out?
Other agents moved in, blocking his view, kicking Paula’s weapon away from her body. Someone lifted Tess and laid her on the floor. Three agents were attending to Walsh who was in bad shape. Mac pushed past Eban Winters who was checking Paula’s pulse.
“She’s dead,” he declared, catching Mac’s eye. “Nice shot.”
Nice shot, an inch to the left of Tess’s skull with a gun he’d never fired before. He’d put his trust in Alex Parker’s professionalism.
God. He felt sick. Why wasn’t Tess moving? What was wrong?
He knelt beside her on the floor. Moved the hair off her face. “Did she faint?” He felt for her pulse. Then he glanced lower and saw a pool of blood staining the top of her jeans. He ripped up her crimson sweater and saw a bullet hole just above her hip. “Get the medics over here!” he roared.
“Apply pressure to the wound,” Eban ordered, coming in beside him.
Sweat burst out of his pores as Mac ripped off his sweater and folded it several times, and pressed it over the wound. Eban checked her pulse again. Frazer was giving Walsh CPR. Fuck. How had Rice got this far?
“Is she breathing?” Mac asked Eban, holding back a scream of fear and frustration.
“Tess?” Cole’s anguished cry came from behind him. He didn’t want to imagine what the kid was going through. He’d been in love with a woman who didn’t exist, who’d used him and maybe gotten his sister killed.
“Don’t die on me, Tess. Don’t you dare die on me. I’ve got a lot of making up to do.”
“She’s not breathing. Pulse is thready.” Eban started blowing into her lungs and Mac felt hope draining out of him with every drop of Tess’s blood that seeped into the carpet.
“Where are the fucking medics!” he yelled.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up with a glare. It was the director.
“Is there any evidence to suggest she’s involved in this plot?” the director asked.
“No, sir. We’ve checked all her banking activity, online communications, all her known associates. There is no proof she is involved.”
“Then take those handcuffs off.”
Eban obeyed. Mac wasn’t removing his hands from Tess’s injury for anything or anyone.
Finally, he heard running feet and medics burst into the room.
Cole dropped to his knees beside his sister. Tess’s face was blueish-white and last time Mac had seen someone that pale they’d been in the morgue.
The paramedics pushed him out of the way and started pulling Tess’s clothing aside. Cole swore when he saw the small bullet hole was still seeping blood.
Mac wanted to scream and rage but needed to focus.
“We’re going to find every last one of the people who thought they could attack us in the heart of the FBI.” The director was talking to him but Mac’s gaze was on Tess. “Frazer, I want you and ASAC McKenzie to nail down every piece of information we have on these people. Stamp out any signs of this so-called uprising.”
Mac nodded. Yes. Law enforcement needed to make sure they rounded up all the crazies involved in this mess before anyone else had any lightbulb moments. The paramedics eased Tess onto a stretcher and lifted it. Started running out the doors.
The director strode off to deal with the fallout.
Frazer squeezed his arm. “This is one of those moments that defines us for the rest of our lives.”
Mac snapped out of his fugue state. He started walking. Then he started running. No way was he letting Tess out of his sight. His job suddenly seemed irrelevant compared to the concept of losing her. The paramedics were about to close the door of the ambulance when he swung up beside them.
“You can’t come in here,” one guy said.
He sat down on the end of Tess’s stretcher and squeezed her foot. “Just try and stop me.”