"Oh, let me see." She lifted her hand, then started counting off fingers, "Oneyou're on parole and hunting down Marseaux to maybe or maybe not kill him. Twothere's an APB out on you with a shoot-to-kill order. Threea terrorist group might be targeting an American city with a biological agent that could kill untold numbers. Are you hearing a pattern here, Nathan? The word 'kill' getting through? People are going to die. You could be one of them."
She was hurting and he was the reason.
Nathan reached over to cover her hand. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her.
She covered her eyes with her free hand. A tear ran down her cheek.
How could one drop of water do so much damage to his heart?
Nathan pulled over into the emergency lane and clicked on his flashers. When Terri looked up, he used his thumb to gently wipe the damp streak along her cheek and leaned over to kiss her, "I knew better than to drag you into my problems."
"You didn't drag me, I came willingly. I don't want you killed in a shootout or by Marseaux. I was there, Nathan, I watched Conroy die before my eyes when there was nothing I could do. Nothing. Even with all my training and a gun in my hand, I was helpless, and it's a bitter feeling of worthlessness I have to deal with every single day for the rest of my life. I don't ever want to relive that again and definitely not when it concerns someone I care about."
Nathan winced at the pain in her voice. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry."
She cupped his neck, kissing him back... a gift he didn't deserve but desperately wanted. He'd lived inside a hollow cavern he'd called a body for so long he considered it home. But she'd brought life back into his jaded world, had jump-started his heart and now the organ bled for her.
When he ended the kiss, Nathan held her face between his palms, wishing he had the right words to fix everything. Not his strong suit. "I'll do whatever it takes to help you, but no one else."
Terri nibbled on her lower lip, contemplating something. She leaned back, out of his grasp, swiped a hand across her eyes, then took a breath as if her next words required strength.
"It's not that simple. I can't walk a tight wire between you and the law. I know you're a good and decent man. I went to work this morning thinking I could find a way to give you a chance at staying free and having a life. But you don't want that. You want revenge more than you want anythingor anyoneright now."
Revenge was all he'd been living for, but when he looked at Terri he wanted so much more that his burn for vengeance simmered. Didn't matter. He was a hunted man. Staying with Terri any longer only drew her into a danger his presence had created for her. He couldn't live with himself if she was killed.
"I'm clearly on one side of the fence," she said. "The question is, which side are you on?"
The right side.
But this wasn't the time for pretty words and promises. He'd always taken the hardest path and he wouldn't take her down this road with him. "My own side."
Disappointment darkened her gaze. "What would Jamie want you to do?"
Nathan leaned back against his seat, flipped off the emergency blinkers, and pulled back out into traffic. He tried to ignore her question as they rode in silence. That would be about as easy as ignoring the scent of her, which he'd never get out of his car or his mind. Making Jamie's killer pay was the last thing he could do for his family.
How could he live knowing Jamie's killer enjoyed life while his brother decomposed in a tomb?
Goddamn them all.
But then maybe he was the one truly damned.
Nathan wouldn't shirk his duty. "Jamie wouldn't want me to put myself in danger"
"Then don't."
"but he'd understand that I have to do this. I can't live knowing his murderer walks the streets free. I. Can't. The only reason he was in danger was to help me. I owe him justice. If not for me, he'd be alive."
"If not for you, he'd be in jail."
He didn't want to hear that. "Yeah. I sacrificed two years of my life in hell so that he could be shot in the head and his body dumped naked on some docks. Forgive me if I'm just a little pissed off about that."
Nathan watched the traffic ahead, the cars surrounding them and behind, anywhere but her face. He needed to find out who JB was in the DEA, but she'd be duty-bound to alert the agent if she did know him, so asking her for more information only pulled her deeper into this mess. He could find his own answers and never planned on working with law enforcement. No one had ever fought his battles.
He wouldn't let Terri take the heat for helping him.
Jamie's death was on Nathan's head. He wouldn't add hers.
"Stop here," she told him over a block from the precinct. He hated to drop her so far away, but pulling closer to the building with this car was not wise.
When the car stopped moving, Terri opened her door, then paused. "I don't want to see your body on a slab in the morgue."
"I know." He struggled to end this on a good note, but there was no right way when everything in his world had gone wrong. "Let me know when you're ready to drive home. I'll follow you and... stay near." He couldn't walk into that house and not make love to her, so he'd just patrol the outside on foot tonight.
She nodded, stepped out, and closed the door.
Nathan watched her until she disappeared inside the swinging door. His chest tightened at the finality of watching that door close.
During Nathan's tour in the army, Jamie used to tell everyone his big brother was saving the world.
What would Jamie want him to do?
Save the world.
Out of habit, Nathan glanced, around, checking people walking, cars moving past on his side, then his gaze moved to the rearview mirror.
An NOPD squad car was slowing down and angling to pull in behind him... and parked.
Nathan moved his hand to the gearshift.
*
Terri walked into more than the normal zoo on the second floor of the temporary precinct building. Sharp words and grim faces painted the room with a palpable tenseness. One pocket of officers and a couple civilians murmured, shoulders hunched in a cringe.
"You aren't getting that damn container," Philborn shouted at Donnie Sinclair, who stood with three other DEA agents looking just as hostile.
"People are dying and you want to play who's got the biggest dick? I'll show you as soon as the court order gets here. Your ass is fried if you don't open that gate to us." Donnie wheeled around and stormed out. The other agents followed suit while trying to maintain a regal Fed air.
Terri trotted over to her desk, glad not to have been a part of that war. Several officers she passed at desks seemed to be moving fast with a purpose, talking excitedly and speed typing.
Or did she just feel sluggish after her draining ride?
An NOPD detective sat hunched over his desk, elbows propped with one hand holding the phone and the other holding his head."... just because she fits the description of the other blondes, it doesn't mean your girlfriend has disappeared. I understand, but I still have to send you to Missing Persons to start there and they won't issue a bulletin until she's been gone for forty-eight hours. I know you're worried, but call more people and see if anyone saw her on Canal Street or has heard... "
Terri got to her desk and checked her messages. Taggart hadn't returned her call, but she wasn't surprised.
Was he not at home or just ignoring the phone when it rang?
Out of habit, she turned to where Sammy normally smiled at her from his desk. Her heart squeezed over the empty chair. He'd have Taggart's home address.
Where was Sammy?
If he'd been kidnapped, they should have heard something by now. Her stomach twisted at the reality of not hearing a word in the first twenty-four hoursprobably dead. The callous agent inside her knew the chance of survival, but the woman who cared for the young man with big plans had a harder time accepting cold statistics.
Who was the young woman Sammy had planned to marry? Why had
n't Terri asked her name?
And, dammit, why wasn't Sammy here for her to ask that?
Terri hit her fist against the desk. If Marseaux killed Sammy, she was going to...
What? She understood the urge to personally go after scumbags like Marseaux, but she would not cross the line into vigilante territory. Her job was to bring criminals to justice, not play judge, jury, and executioner.
"We'll have to turn over the container to the DEA." Philborn had silently walked up to her. The usual hum of noise across the room had cranked up another notch since she'd walked in the door.
"I heard Donnie yelling about that. He was just here this morning with Brady, so what pushed his button now?" She glanced around. "Or have you gotten word on Sammy. Is that what everyone is so tense about?"
"You haven't heard?"
"Heard what?" Now that she paid closer attention, the atmosphere was more than agitated. The room was filled with matching bleak expressions.
"About the viral outbreak. Killed sixteen so far. Looks like the same thing as the one in India."
"Here, in this country?" She stood up. "Oh my God. Where?"
Chicago.
Terri's ears rang. She couldn't speak. Blood rushed from her head, spinning the walls of the room. She heard Philborn from a distance saying, "Sit down."
Next thing she knew her head was between her legs. She had to call Grandma and get her home. Terri shoved her head, swallowing against the nausea. "I'm okay, really."
Philborn looked worried. "You need a doctor?"
"No, it's just... my grandmother is in Chicago."
"Oh, shit."
"I have to call her. Go do whatever you have to. I'm fine."
"Okay, but don't stand up quick again." He lumbered back to his office.
Terri hit speed, dial and prayed her cell phone would work. After three rings, voicemail picked up on Grandmas phone. "Dammit." She pounded the desk. Then her cell phone dinged with a voicemail from an hour ago. Why hadn't the damn phone rung?
She punched send to dial her message box.
Terri, this is Grandma. I'm fine, just feeling like I'm getting a cold and don't want to fly with my head stopped up tomorrow. We all... to come... They let us fly standby... flight's not full so I'll... coming in on... flight...
Terri's heart thumped over the distress she heard in her grandmother's voice, but thank God she'd already gotten a flight before the airport was shut down. She grabbed a pen to jot down the flight information, but the message broke up before she could hear all of it.
She lifted the damn phone to smash it against the desk, but stopped before hitting the hard surface. This haywire electronic nuisance was the best chance of Grandma contacting her until she got home. Grandma must have made it out or she'd be calling Terri at work, home, and everywhere if she'd heard about the virus. So, logically, her grandmother was en route to New Orleans. That was a plus. She tried once more to reach her grandmother and got voicemail.
God, please let Grandma be on the way home. Safe...
Terri went cold as another thought occurred to her.
What if that virus had come from their seized container? Had the virus been transported in those teak tools?
The dates didn't fit, but maybe they had to move up the attack.
If the viral outbreak and this container shipment were connected, her grandmother was just as vulnerable here, and maybe more at risk, until Terri solved this case. Grandma knew nothing about BAD, She thought Terri really was freelancing as a consultant. Call Carlos to help?
Terri started weighing the pluses and minuses, a major one being that she still didn't know who to trust in any agency with her life. Trusting her grandmother's with BAD or anyone else in law enforcement was out of the question.
Grandma knew Nathan, or at least that he was a Drake.
Bad as it sounded, Terri's best hope lay with trusting an ex-con.
She might not care for Nathan's tactics, but she did trust him to find a way to protect her grandmother. The plus would be sending him out of sight until she figured some way to clear Nathan of the charges. She used the desk phone to call him, grateful that she finally had a number for him.
"What's up?" Nathan answered sharply as if he was in a hurry.
"Have you heard about the viral outbreak in Chicago?"
"Yes. Got a lead yet?"
"Not yet. I called because Grandma is in Chicago."
He cursed low, but she heard every word. His anger on her behalf softened her insides. She believed him when he said he hadn't killed the three men, but Nathan hid secrets and couldn't see past his need for revenge. They had nowhere to go from here that wouldn't end up with him on the wrong side of a police-issued weapon.
"The good news is that she's on her way home," Terri continued. "The bad news is her message on my cell phone broke up so I didn't get all her flight information."
"What do you need me to do?"
Was he driving? Sounded like the car motor in the background.
"Can you find somewhere safe for her until we get a handle on this? I won't be able to go home and keep an eye on her and I don't want someone coming into the house to get me only to find my blind grandmother."
"I'll handle it."
That was the man who had stolen her heart. Nothing was too much to ask of him... except to abandon hunting for his brother's killer.
Then again, maybe she did ask too much of him.
"She'll call me as soon as she lands," Terri explained. "Her friends will take her home. If you could pick her up from home, I'll call you as soon as I hear from her."
"Stoner will" He paused. Definitely street sounds in the background."take her somewhere safe. Too dangerous to be with me."
The APB. Open season on Nathan Drake. "If you'd come in"
"Write this down," Nathan said, cutting her off. Then he rattled off a phone number Terri scribbled on a sticky note before continuing. "Call Stoner with details. For security, tell your grandmother when she meets him, to ask Stoner where he last worked with me. South America. He has family close to New Orleans in Metairie. She'll be safe."
"I'll call you as soon as I hear from her." Terri stopped talking and listened closer. A car enginethe Javelin?revved high and tires squealed. "What are you doing?"
"Driving. Anything else?"
Sirens squeezed through the phone line.
Terri hunched close to the phone and whispered. "Are you being chased?"
"Yes. Little busy right now. We through?"
Was he serious? How could he sound so calm? "No. You better not get caught, dammit."
"Don't plan to." The squeal of rubber on pavement stretched for two seconds, then louder sirens filled the lines before a click. He'd hung up.
She clutched the phone. What if they caught him? Would he give up or get shot? The nausea was back. Grandma wouldn't like being picked up by a stranger, but if Terri told her Vic Stoner was a friend of hers and the Drake boy, as Grandma called Nathan, she would probably understand and go with Stoner.
Terri's cell phone buzzed. She answered it without looking at the ID in case Nathan had called back with some last words to give her before he got shot or died. Melodramatic? Probably, but she was involved with a lunatic. "Mitchell here."
"Terri, you okay? You sound sick," Carlos said.
"Allergies."
He seemed to accept that. "I've been trying to reach you between coordinating with the teams in India."
"My phone has been acting up."
"I'll get you a new one, but you should be checking in more often."
She accepted the criticism, glad he sounded too tired to chew on her worse, "I didn't have anything... until now."
"Really? Have any idea who released that virus or what it is?"
"Not yet, but I might soon. Where are you now? Do you have computer access?"
"Yes, I'm at our satellite office in Baton Rouge, but I'm leaving soon, Retter and his team are held up getting out of India, so I may have to put a team
together for Chicago."
"I have a lead, well, more of a hypothesis, but I need to get out of here to talk." If Terri couldn't get Grandma home any faster or save Nathan from the police, the least she could do was find the damn missing tools and see if there was anything there that could help them. "I need someone's home address."
"Whose?"
"Fred Taggart," She gave Carlos everything she had on Fred, starting with his badge number.
Carlos had the address in one minute. "Need a partner?"
"No, He's a friendly. Let me get down to my car and I'll catch you up." She walked out to the parking lot with two officers, who climbed into separate squad cars. Nathan wouldn't be here to watch over her if she ran into trouble. She hurried to reach the exit ahead of both cars, then waited on them.
When she pulled out, they were right behind her. Her car purred while she waited on an opening. She scooted out ahead of a string of traffic, leaving the two squad cars stuck.
And anyone who might have been right behind them hoping to follow her.
What was Nathan doing? Had they caught him? Instead of the GPS she should have had a police scanner installed, Terri tried Nathan firstvoicemailthen called Carlos back.
Carlos answered on one ring. "What are you going to do at Taggart's?"
Shake that fool until his teeth falls out if he doesn't hand over what he stole. "Nothing that requires two people. Just going to ask him for contents the captain believes he took from the container to determine if he has anything that will help with the investigation. I'll offer to keep him out of trouble if he comes clean."
"So what's your hypothesis?" Carlos prompted.
"I think the drug shipment was a Trojan horse to get something more important out of customs quicker. With New Orleans so shorthanded on law enforcement, they probably figured getting to it in the police yard would be less trouble. The dead body threw a kink into getting the container released, so the NOPD gets a tip on drugs inside and, bam, the container is released into their custody. If the person who broke into the container had gotten what they wanted the first time, it wouldn't have looked odd, but they broke in twice so it was clearly not for the drugs. The steel frame had been opened the first time and the drugs were removed."
"What do you think he was looking for both times?"
She whipped her car around a bus that had stopped in her lane. "I'm thinking a virus was transported somewhere in that box of teak pieces. Nothing else makes sense. I only unwrapped a couple of tools when I first searched the container, since those didn't appear to be anything but merchandise. I don't know if Taggart has something significant or not, but if he does I'm going to get it."