Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Attorney General Dryden came through the door a few minutes later. He looked over at her with bloodshot eyes. He was in a crimson Harvard sweatshirt and jeans instead of the suit she was used to seeing him in.
He swiped a hand over his bald head as if forgetting he’d shaved it last week. He surveyed her apartment and let go of a massive breath when his eyes connected with Emily.
“Are your wife and daughter okay?” she asked straight away.
“After you called, I caught someone on camera trying to get into my home. I set off every damn alarm in my house, and he took off. Thank you for the heads-up.”
She slung her arms around his neck, allowing the boss-employee lines to blur. “I’m so glad you and your family are okay.” She let go of him after a moment. “I killed the guy,” she forced out the admission.
“I heard, but how’d you know . . .?” He must’ve set eyes on Liam.
“He saved me.” She jerked a thumb Liam’s way once he stood alongside her.
“More like Emily saved me,” Liam said. “The guy who came after her was well-trained.” There was a hint of frustration in his tone, and she was certain he was upset about not having personally taken the guy down.
But the guy had been big. Like—really big. Plus, he’d had a gun and Liam had a knife.
Dryden took a small step away from them. “Liam Evans?”
“You know me, sir?”
“Yeah, I know who you are, and I’ve been calling you all afternoon.” He looked around the room, eying the men and women in uniforms going through her place. She supposed Liam was right to hide the evidence in her safe.
“I never answer numbers I don’t recognize.” Liam added a shrug. “Should’ve left a message.”
“Well, we can’t talk here.” His attention wandered back to Emily. “After you give your statements, I’ll arrange for a police escort to take you both to the White House.”
“The White House?” She opened her mouth to ask for an explanation, but he held his palms in the air and shook his head.
“Not here.” And then he went to talk to the FBI agent in charge of the crime scene.
Shit. Crime scene.
“What was that all about?” she whispered to Liam out of earshot of her boss. “And why would he be calling you?”
“No idea.”
She smoothed a palm over her cheek, not sure if she could break the seal of confidentiality she’d been sworn to in her line of work. Maybe if she was sparse on details it’d be okay?
“The case we’re working,” she began in a whisper, “we have a witness, and she’ll only talk to one person, but it’s not like that’d be you.
” She pivoted to face him, finding his eyes closed.
She reached for his chest and rested her palm over his heart, noticing the fast beats. “What are you thinking?”
“Maybe I do know something.” He opened his eyes and motioned for her to go out into the hall, but before they could make it a federal agent blocked their path.
“We’re ready for your statements.”
“Yeah, of course,” she answered, catching sight of Liam’s jaw tightening beneath his beard, anger rising to the surface.
Whatever he knew—well, he looked pissed.
“Who are you texting?” she mouthed in the back seat of the squad car as they were driven to the White House.
“My team,” he returned in a low voice. After he tucked his phone into his pocket, he reached for her hand and threaded their fingers together, allowing their clasped palms to rest in the small space between them on the back seat.
His gesture had been unexpected. But somehow, it felt right. Like her hand belonged with his. Like she was already his in every possible way.
But a paper that declared they were married was merely a piece of paper, and so it was crazy she’d feel such an intense connection with him.
“I don’t want my brother hearing about this. And I’d rather Sam not know as well. She and Owen are in Charleston this weekend.” The last thing she wanted was to endanger her best friend. Sam had been through so much already, and Emily would fight like hell to keep her safe. “Please.”
“What happened to being honest?” His grip tightened, but his thumb shifted side to side in a calming manner atop her hand.
“It’s an omission, not a lie,” she said, not meaning to snap out the words in the way she did. “It’s for her protection,” she added softly.
He dragged his focus to their hands. “I’ll do my best to keep her out of the line of fire.”
“Thank you,” she said when his eyes met hers again, and this time she was the one squeezing his hand.
“You two okay back there?” the officer behind the wheel asked, interrupting whatever moment they’d been sharing.
“Yeah, thanks for the lift.” Although she regretted the ride because she hadn’t had two seconds alone with Liam to learn what he might know about the case she was working on with Dryden.
And the fact he even knew anything was insane.
“We’re going to get you through this,” Liam said to her once they’d arrived. “Together.”
Secret Service took over for the officers and escorted Liam and Emily to the Oval Office after going through security measures.
No one was in there yet aside from the president’s Secret Service.
“You ever been here before?” She took a seat on one of the two couches in the center of the room.
It wasn’t her first time in the Oval Office, and normally she’d survey the scene, take in every little detail, and try to feel the presidents of the past as if they were in there with her, but today wasn’t the norm. Today was a nightmare.
“Yeah,” he answered.
She picked at the lint on her T-shirt, not sure what to do with her hands. The memory of shooting the man popped back to the forefront of her mind, and she stared down at her palm and curled her right hand into a ball.
Am I a murderer? When she’d heard Liam struggling she’d reacted on instinct. She couldn’t let him die for her.
“You’re not a killer.” His words were rough, like a command she needed to hear—to understand. Her focus drifted up to find his light eyes pinned to her face.
She wasn’t sure how he knew what she’d been thinking, but then again, he’d said he was an expert at noticing details. The man could probably read her like a book. Extra-large font. Bold letters. Maybe he’d been reading her long before this moment.
“I barely know you,” she whispered. “But I feel . . .”
He sat next to her and pressed a hand to her knee, catching her gaze, and she realized she didn’t need to offer more. He got her. Somehow, he just knew.
“I owe your grandfather or your dad—whoever taught you to shoot—a proper thank you someday.” His lips curved but stopped short of a full smile. He was trying to distract her, to remind her of the good that had come from the bad.
“My grandfather first taught me to shoot.” She smiled as she thought about him. The memory of such a strong man who’d help shape her into a strong woman.
“Mine, too.” He reached for her hand again, locking their palms, and a warmth flowed from the tips of her fingers all the way up to her shoulders.
The band of discomfort in her chest dissolved, replaced by a strange sense of ease. Of home. Forgiveness for the death she’d caused. Acceptance of her actions.
“I’ve had to kill a lot of people,” he said, his tone somber.
“I mean, as a sniper, you have to point your weapon at a stranger and snuff the life out of them.” He glanced at the two men standing guard on each side of the door before meeting her eyes.
“But in the SEALs, the way we looked at it—the way we got through it—was to focus on the lives we were saving back home rather than the lives we were taking.”
She absorbed his admission, but before she could respond, the doors opened and her boss and the president entered the room side by side.
Liam released his hold of her hand, and they both stood. She glimpsed at him out of the corner of her eye, noting his hands positioned behind his back as if at attention, as if he were still in the Navy and standing before his commander in chief.
The president moved toward them and reached for her hand first. “Good to see you made it out alive, Miss Summers. Glad you happened to have a friend like Liam with you at the time.” His gaze snapped to Liam. “Interesting timing, though.” He reached for Liam’s hand.
“Mr. President,” he greeted him.
“I guess next time we need to get ahold of you, I ought to call you myself. Maybe send my people to locate you?” He went over to a rolling bar cart alongside the couch. Made of rich dark wood with a high-gloss shine, it had two crystal decanters and four matching tumblers.
“You could’ve called Jessica,” Liam said. “Why didn’t you?”
“I had hoped the fewer who knew what was going on the better.” He swished the brownish-gold liquid around in his glass. Probably Scotch. “But after tonight’s turn of events, well, I’ll have to rethink things.” He took a drink. “Tell me, how’d you happen to be with Miss Summers tonight?”
“Sir, if I may?” Emily smoothed her palms over her shirt then let her arms hang tensely at her sides. “We’re friends, and he was in town—”
“I don’t buy it.” He polished off his drink and set the glass down, then loosened his tie. “This can’t be a coincidence,” he said. “One of you must’ve told the other what’s going on, and before we continue, I need to know who else you told.”
“About my case, sir?” What was she missing?
“Emily didn’t tell me anything, Mr. President,” Liam said. “After the operation, I headed to D.C. to visit my grandfather, and then I had dinner with Emily and her brother earlier this evening.”
Operation? So, he had, in fact, obtained their witness. But . . .?
“Jake Summers is in town?”
“I didn’t tell him anything, either,” she rushed to clarify, feeling the walls of the room closing in on her.
The president tossed his tie, popped the top button of his shirt, then leaned back against his desk, arms crossed. “Who knew about the witness? About our retrieval team?”