Chapter Twenty-One
Ellis was an old pro at waiting. He kept reminding himself of this. How long he’d waited for Kirsten to remember. To be okay.
What was a few interminable hours laying a trap while his wife and best friend potentially walked into a different dangerous situation?
He paced. He looked out the window. He talked himself out of calling Boyd, of following them, of demanding Zach send a brigade of cops up here.
Zach had a few guys waiting close by with the kind of vehicles that could make it up the mountains in all this snow, but they hadn’t wanted anything that might be obvious. This was essentially a sting operation. And they had mitigated every risk, but it didn’t make it easy to relax.
He wanted anyone and everyone involved arrested, questioned. He wanted to end this damn hell he’d been in for two years.
When the motion detector ping went off on his phone, Ellis gave himself a moment to pause, to settle. It wouldn’t be Boyd and Kirsten. It was going to be someone after him, because how could this not stem from his undercover work with the Carusos?
He pulled on his coat, turned the safety off his gun, then carefully eased the front door open, ready for anything. The world was bright—the sun bouncing off the packed snow. The sky blue enough to make his eyes burn.
But there was no one out here in the front that he could see. Since the one access point was covered by Zach’s lookout, and Boyd had gotten around that himself, Ellis moved carefully around the cabin, figuring he’d find whatever intruder or intruders had followed Boyd’s same path.
If they were FBI too, or the Carusos had found more agents to turn, they would likely behave the same way Boyd had. The same training often led to the same decision-making.
Ellis moved carefully, silently, his breathing carefully regulated so he could hear every sound around him.
When he got to the corner, he stopped, angled so he could see into the back.
At first, he didn’t see anyone, and then out across the backyard, hunched behind the outbuilding, he saw the hint of a boot.
He readjusted his grip on the gun, surveyed the world around him. He couldn’t assume there was just one person. He had to watch his back. And hope Boyd and Kirsten were watching theirs.
Once he was fairly certain no eyes were on him, he began to creep forward.
He took his time. He used every year of FBI training and work to make the right choices.
No rushing. No knee-jerk reactions. No letting his mind fixate on could bes or would bes.
Just careful, rational, measured steps forward.
He didn’t necessarily recognize the figure from the back, since the person was wearing a hood and crouched down, but it was clearly a woman, which meant it had to be Colleen.
“Stand up, Colleen,” he ordered, gun aimed and ready to shoot if she whirled.
She froze. For a moment, it was just that. Her standing there kind of crouched, not moving and not responding. She’d been looking at some kind of screen she had balanced on a tree stump.
Ellis kept his gun trained on her and his ears on high alert, waiting to see if anyone else popped out. But, at least for the moment, it seemed to just be her.
Which worried him. There had to be others. Had they followed Boyd and Kirsten? Were the two people he cared most about in the world in danger even as he stood here dealing with Colleen?
But everything was fine. He hadn’t heard a gunshot. He hadn’t heard anything, and sound could carry out here. He’d know. He had to stick to the plan, or everything crumbled.
“Took you longer than I thought,” he said, trying to go for casually friendly. Keep the situation calm.
“You knew I knew she wasn’t dead when you called,” Colleen said, still crouched. “You think you fooled me or something?”
“I don’t know what to think, Colleen. This whole ridiculous circus is beyond any sane person’s reasoning.”
Very carefully, she straightened. Ellis didn’t want to shoot her, but he held the gun trained on her. He’d hold his fire, at least until he had the full picture. She had a gun, but at the moment it was pointed at the ground. He kept his trained on her while she slowly turned.
“Sane? Or are you just a touch slow, Sutty?” She smirked.
He said nothing. Didn’t react to the insult. Her insults didn’t matter to him.
“So, it’s just you and me. Why? You really that broken up about my disinterest all those years ago?”
Her smirk turned into a sneer of disgust. “Don’t flatter yourself.
Why do you think I was interested in the first place?
Because you’re so great?” She snorted. “The Carusos knew you were coming before you even got started.” The hold on her gun tightened, but she didn’t lift it. She just smiled. “Thanks to me.”
Which clarified some things, though only a little bit. Still, it was a shock. The whole thing, that had never made any sense to him, hadn’t been about him… It had been about the Carusos doing recon before the assignment?
For nearly two months, he thought he’d been doing prime investigative undercover work, and they had…known. Because of a leak in the office. Because Colleen had set him up as some kind of…mark.
He didn’t know what kind of relief it was, only that he felt some. That this was about him and not Kirsten. That he hadn’t screwed up beyond the telling.
He’d been set up.
Sure, it was a shock too, but he had to keep his feelings under a dull layer of control. Because this wasn’t over yet.
“So what’s this? The Carusos thought they’d send you to finish the job? Seems like a pretty bad choice, all in all. You weren’t even an agent. I think they’d have better lackeys to do their dirty work.”
“Do you think they honestly care about some low-level FBI agent who gave them a few little slaps on the wrists—slaps they knew were coming and set up to work out that way? You’re nothing to them. They wouldn’t look for you if they knew to.”
Ellis tried to hide his confusion, but he knew Colleen saw it because her smirk was back.
“Honestly? You’re actually mostly nothing to me since none of your little friends were ever the wiser.
You pissed me off, sure, but your sanctimonious wife getting in my way so I couldn’t have the kind of access the Carusos wanted to you?
I couldn’t let that stand. She is going to pay. ”
Kirsten. It was really somehow about Kirsten. Not in any of the ways they’d predicted. Probably because this was some kind of psychosis on Colleen’s part, not any kind of sense.
“The plan would have been perfect if she hadn’t warned you off me.
” Colleen laughed bitterly. “I would have gotten paid a hell of a lot more, and you’d have been dead a long, long time ago.
Instead, I had to lay low, make sure nothing came back to me.
Move to Raleigh. Play it straight.” She made a frustrated kind of noise.
“I waited, but I knew I’d get my chance.
You FBI agents all think you’re so special, but I proved it’s nothing to do your own undercover.
Had to be a little bit more careful this time.
Had to make sure to finish the job. I got close a few times, but there were so many eyes on her.
Yours, mostly.” She rolled hers. “It’s pretty pathetic the hold she has on you. ”
She’d been a threat for a lot longer than he’d anticipated, and it shocked him and infuriated him he hadn’t seen it, but he tried to take some comfort in the fact Kirsten was safe—she was safe because he’d made sure of it.
Ellis said nothing, and he began to realize there was something…off about all this explanation. In his experience, villains only made long, explaining speeches in the movies, and this was no movie.
She was wasting time.
She must have realized he’d caught on, because her smile curled higher. “But you’ve given me everything I need, Sutty. Kirsten’s going to be dead, and everyone’s going to know it was you who did it.”
BOYD STOPPED ON a dime, so Kirsten did too. Her heart was tripping against her chest, particularly when she saw Boyd flip the safety off his gun. She followed suit, but her hands shook as she did it.
Suck it up, she warned herself inwardly. For Ellis.
“You’re going to put your back to mine. We’re going to move in a slow circle. You see anything—a shadow, a flash, anything—you say my name. We’ll switch places, and I’ll shoot. Got it?”
“Yes,” she managed to say, though her voice was little more than a shaky whisper. Still, she was relieved she wasn’t going to have to shoot. She was just eyes, and Boyd would take care of it.
They were doing this because he’d seen something or heard something or sensed something but didn’t know what it was, and she could look for danger without falling apart. She would.
She had to do what she’d promised Ellis.
Do what Boyd said. She moved so they were back to back.
She moved in time with him, and even though she didn’t feel steady and her heart hammered so loud in her ears she didn’t hear much else, she searched the tree line, the shadows.
She thought of nothing but doing her job…
and saying Boyd’s name when she saw the shadow of something far off move.
“Boyd.”
He moved, almost before she’d fully gotten his name out of her mouth. The gunshot went off, loud and painful so close to her ear, but her gaze was still on the trees. And in the shock and fear, she saw another flash. Heard another gunshot.
She didn’t let herself think. She just aimed at the man in the woods and pulled her trigger. She heard something splinter, and a distant thud and crash—hopefully of a body hitting the ground.
“Kirsten!” It was the grip on her arm that finally got through to whatever shock her body had held on to. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her finger was still tight on the trigger. Her breath held—so she let it out in a rush, opening her eyes.
Boyd stood in her vision, though he wavered a little as she worked to focus her eyes. His gaze was fierce, mouth grim. “Breathe,” he ordered.
And she was doing what Boyd said, because she’d promised Ellis she would, so she inhaled, exhaled.
“Let go of the trigger,” he told her, a little more gently this time.
She managed to loosen her grip. Her knuckles ached. Her body pulsed in time with her heart beat.
“Next time you shoot a gun, keep your eyes open,” Boyd said through gritted teeth. He was holding on to his arm like…
Kirsten made a sound of distress, her heart dropping to her toes for a second. Blood seeped out from between his fingers. Boyd shook his head.
“It wasn’t you. You were pointed in the right direction and you got your guy. Just in the future, I’d like it not to be me. So keep the eyes open.”
You got your guy. Kirsten’s gaze began to move toward where she’d shot, but Boyd was pulling her along. “There’s no one else here. I think we should double back to Ellis. I have a bad feeling someone was waiting for him too. He can handle his own, but…”
But he was alone.