All of which made Kat’s chest ache.
She opened the door and leaned out. “All done,” she said to Jeremy, who was sitting on the floor holding Eileen. The puppy had curled into a ball in his lap and fallen asleep.
Jeremy peered up at her. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
He nodded his head to the side, silently asking her to come all the way out. Kat let the door shut behind her and crouched down.
“What happened with Beckett?” he asked.
Why did Jeremy have to be so perceptive? “Nothing, Jer. Everything’s okay.”
Looking at the puppy, he stroked her head. “Didn’t look that way last night.”
“I know.” Kat watched as Eileen stretched in her sleep, rolling over to bare her big puppy belly.
“Kat . . .” Jeremy worried at his spider bite piercing with his tongue for a long moment. “Did Beckett do that to you? The bruises, I mean.”
“Oh, God, no. He didn’t. Why would you say that?” The thought that others would think that of him made her stomach hurt.
Jeremy cut his pale green eyes to her. “He looked angry and you looked upset. It didn’t seem like something he’d do, but then again, you’ve been here nearly a week. How else would you have gotten them?”
“He didn’t. I promise. He’s a good guy, Jeremy.”
“Okay. Then who did? ’Cause those bruises really look like fingerprints.”
Damnit. Kat settled all the way onto the floor and crossed her legs in front of her. Jeremy had never been as overprotective of her as Nick, but he still stood up for her plenty when they were teenagers. And he’d always been someone she could talk to and count on. As much as she didn’t want to tell him the sordid details, she didn’t think it would be fair to blow him off. “Can this stay between just us for now?” She met his gaze.
His eyes narrowed, but he finally nodded.
“Ex-boyfriend.”
Jeremy’s expression went serious, lips pressed in a line, jaw tight. “Ex because of this?” He jutted his chin toward her arm.
Kat shook her head. “Ex because I realized he was way too self-centered and controlling for me. I broke up with him almost four months ago.”
“If you dumped his ass four months ago, how is it you have fresh bruises?” he asked, dark brown brows cranked down.
“He’s not so happy about being broken up.” Kat sighed, her gaze scanning down the sleeve of ink on Jeremy’s right arm.
“Aw, hell, Kat.” He ran a hand through his perpetually messy dark hair. “This guy is harassing you?”
She stroked her fingers over one of Eileen’s paws. “I wouldn’t have characterized it that strongly before he grabbed me on Friday morning.”
“And now?”
Pause. “Yeah. Which is why I got a restraining order against him before I came to Baltimore.”
“You gotta tell Nick.”
Her head was shaking before he even finished the sentence. “Not right now. He’s got enough on his shoulders to worry about. I mean it, Jeremy. You gotta promise me.”
“Kat—”
“Promise me,” she said, putting a hand on his knee. “I’ll tell him. I will. But not while he’s dealing with all this. I mean, I know you’re dealing with a lot, too, but I don’t want to distract him from the mission.”
“I don’t like it,” Jeremy said, nailing her with a stare.
Kat nodded. “I understand. Do you promise?”
Sighing, he finally nodded. Eileen twitched in her sleep so hard she woke herself up. Shaking his head, Jeremy chuckled, watching her as she climbed out of his lap. “Can you believe all this is happening?”
“It’s surreal. But if it has to be happening, I’m glad the three of us are together. I was kinda pissed at you guys for not letting me know you were in trouble here.”
His right eyebrow arched, the one pierced with little silver hoops. “You do realize the irony, right? And that you and Nick could almost not be more alike.”
She frowned, then realized he’d totally nailed her on that one. Just a teensy bit hypocritical to be mad at Nick for not telling her all this was going on when she refused to tell him about Cole, wasn’t it? Ugh. “I don’t like you very much right now.”
His grin was immediate. “You totally love me. I am full of the awesome.” He pointed to himself, which made her focus on his white shirt for the first time. Big red lettering read, There’s a party in my pants. Smaller words beneath said, And you’re invited.
Kat chuckled. “You’re full of something, all right. Come on, we should go back in. The call with Seneka went great. It looks possible that he was unaware of this whole situation and might be willing to help.” She rose and offered him her hand.
He grabbed it, and she helped him up. Jeremy pulled her into his arms. “You are such a munchkin.”
Her head just reached his shoulder. He and Nick had gotten all the Rixey tall genes, apparently. Smiling, she said, “Small but mighty, baby.”
Pulling back from the hug, he winked. “Don’t I know it. Come on.”
Back inside, Eileen made a game of trying to get Cy’s attention from his third-shelf perch, and Kat and Jeremy found the guys deep in discussion about secure meeting places. Marz had a series of maps open on the monitors, and Nick had a legal pad full of ideas.
“I don’t think you can nail this down without doing recon first,” Beckett said. “Which argues for asking for a meet tomorrow morning, not tonight.”
Marz turned in his chair. “Em and I have got Garza’s burial at ten, so we’ll be out of pocket all night to— Aw, shit. Em had asked if we could get down to Fairfax before rush hour so she could spend some time with her mom tonight. I can only do that if Charlie’s comfortable running the zmail hack at seventeen hundred.”
All eyes turned to Charlie, who nodded. “No problem.”
Marz looked to Nick, who shrugged. “Works for me,” Nick said.
“I hate to miss it, though,” Marz said, frowning. “Maybe I’ll rig a laptop so I can hear the conversation. Anyway . . . I’ll think about that.”
“Why did you say it that way?” Beckett asked, frowning at Marz.
“Say what?” Marz asked.
“That you and Emilie had Garza’s funeral to attend.” Beckett crossed his arms.
“Oh.” Marz shrugged. “I don’t know. I just assumed no one else . . .” He shrugged again.
“Emilie’s important to you, so she’s important to me. I’m going, too,” Beckett said. “That okay by you?”
“Well, yeah. Of course,” Marz said.
Kat cleared her throat. “I know Becca, Sara, and Jenna really want to be there for Emilie, too. She’s lost so much and yet she’s given so much back to all of us. I want to be there for her tomorrow. Wouldn’t feel right not to.”
Beckett nodded, and it was the first time he’d made eye contact all morning. It made Kat want to go to him, but she wasn’t sure where they stood.
“Kat’s right,” Nick said after a long moment. “Beckett, too. We’re a family, and that means we need to be there for Emilie tomorrow. But let’s be smart about it. I want to know more about this cemetery. Layout. Number of entrances. Surrounding roads and highways. Whatever seems relevant.”
Marz nodded. “Uh, wow. Okay. Yeah, sure. I can do that.” Kat didn’t think she was imagining the emotion on the man’s face, and it made her really proud of Beckett for bringing this whole thing up. “Emilie purposely didn’t have an announcement printed in the paper, so his funeral wouldn’t attract any unwanted attention. She can’t imagine who else would come to the guy’s funeral besides her and her mom. They’re not even inviting the rest of the family out of safety concerns. Should be quick and quiet.”
“If those aren’t some famous last words,” Easy said.
Everyone chuckled.
“All right,” Nick said. “Sounds like everyone has their marching orders. Let’s get to it.”
“Do you think I could catch a ride with y
ou two?” Kat asked Marz, fingering the hem of her long-sleeved blue T-shirt. “I had no idea how long I’d be staying here and I only brought a few days’ worth of clothing. I was thinking maybe you two could drop me at my place on the way to Em’s mom’s house and pick me back up on your way home, so I could grab some stuff for a longer stay.” Among the things she needed was a new pack of birth control pills, or she and Beckett were going to have to get very careful about using condoms.
Marz shrugged. “I don’t see why that would be a problem.”
“Actually, I’m not sure that’s a great idea,” Beckett said, his features hard-set.
Kat’s gaze whipped to him. “Why not?” And then she saw the answer in his eyes. Cole. But she had the restraining order now, and she hadn’t heard a single word from him since it’d been served. He’d clearly gotten the message to back off. “It would only be for a few hours, right?” She looked to Marz, who nodded.
Beckett arched a brow.
“How ’bout this. I’ll promise not to leave my apartment between the time Marz drops me off and picks me up? But I really need some stuff from my place. And I’d been thinking of grabbing some extra clothing to bring back for the other women. Sara and Jenna have almost nothing to their names right now. And none of us have a thing to wear to the funeral.” Only Becca and Emilie had gotten the chance to pack any belongings before they came to stay at Hard Ink. Sara and Jenna had apparently had to flee with just the clothes on their backs. They couldn’t even order anything, since the cordoning off of the neighborhood had cut off mail service to the building for now.
“Maybe Beckett’s right, Kat,” Nick said, glancing between them.
She didn’t miss the annoying smugness that settled over Beckett’s expression. He smirked at her. “I have the perfect solution, then. Beckett can just come with us and stand guard while I pack.”
Damn if that arrogance didn’t fade right back off his face. “We have stuff to do here tonight—”
“Actually, that’ll probably work,” Nick said. “We’d narrowed our meeting place down to three choices. We don’t need everyone to check them out. Shane and Easy and I can go—and Dare, if you’d like to come, too, that would be great.” The biker nodded. “We’ll all meet back here late. Done.”
Kat smiled at Beckett, who looked like he wanted to break something. Repeatedly. “Sounds good to me,” she said.
MAN, WAS SHE paying for getting Beckett sucked into being her bodyguard.
He hadn’t said more than a half-dozen words to her during the hour-long trip to D.C. They’d taken Shane’s big pickup with the second row of seating so they’d have plenty of room for Emilie’s mother. And, luckily, Beckett had sat in the front seat with Marz, which gave Kat and Emilie some time to chat. The poor woman was so worried about her mother, and Kat was simultaneously sympathetic and a little jealous. It sounded like Em and her mom were super close. Back before her parents’ car accident, Kat had been really close with her mom, too. Hearing Emilie talk and tell stories made her realize that she missed her parents a lot more than she’d been aware of, or maybe it was just more than she’d let herself think about.
And now Nick and Jeremy were all she had left. She couldn’t begin to imagine losing either of them.
Before Kat knew it, they were navigating the traffic around Dupont Circle and turning onto her street. Her building was a ten-story tan-brick-and-glass apartment complex that made up in city views what it lacked in updated appliances.
Marz turned into the U-shaped drive in front of the building and pulled to a stop near the door. “We’ll call when we’re getting back on the road later.”
Beckett nodded, and Kat said, “Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.” She leaned over and gave Emilie a hug.
Kat hopped down from the truck and took a minute to just stand in the warm May sunshine. Beckett followed close behind, a small duffel bag in hand. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. Car traffic whirred by behind her. Taxis blew their horns at daring pedestrians chatting on cell phones. The signal at the nearby crosswalk beeped out a tone that told the vision-impaired when it was safe to cross. The sounds of the city were at once so familiar and so foreign to her—and it wasn’t just how long she’d been gone, but how much it felt like she’d visited a whole other world while she’d been away. Except for crossing the street to take a shift in the sniper’s roosts and the trip to the coffee shop, she hadn’t been outside of Hard Ink the whole time.
Looking around, everything here was just so normal compared to what Nick and the team had been dealing with for the past month. It almost felt like it wasn’t real. Like it couldn’t be real.
A hand on her back. “Come on,” Beckett said, doing a one-eighty scan of the street.
“Relax, Beckett. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and DOJ is down on Pennsylvania Avenue. Cole’s nowhere near here right now.”
“But he’s not our only threat, is he?” His hand pressed more firmly.
Well, she had to give him that. Even though, deep down, she could hardly imagine mercenaries staking out her building and tracking her down. Was that really her reality now? She did as she was told.
The building’s lobby was bright and airy, the result of the wall of windows that looked out onto the street and the ivory-colored tile flooring and brick walls. She nodded at the young blond woman sitting at the reception desk. Mallory? Kat didn’t know her well since she worked during the weekday hours when Kat was usually away from the building.
Stopping at the wall of brass mailboxes, Kat fished for her keys in her purse. She opened the door and . . . just as she expected, saw the slip that meant she’d gotten too much mail to fit in the postcard-sized box. “I’ve gotta take this to the desk,” she said to Beckett, nodding him back the way they’d come.
She pushed the slip onto the counter. “Hi, there.”
The woman looked up from her thick constitutional law textbook, took the slip and smiled. “I’ll be right back,” she said.
“Do you think you’re gonna talk to me while we’re here?” she asked Beckett, whose gaze was trained on the windows.
Those sharp blue eyes cut to her. “It’s under consideration.”
Kat bit back a smile, stepped right up against the front of his big body and slipped her arms around his back. “Come on, now. Don’t be all grumbly.”
Peering down at her, he gave her a droll stare. But one of his arms hugged tight around her shoulders.
“See? That’s better already.”
His eyebrow arched, and it made her smile. And then the skin around his good eye crinkled, just the smallest bit. Enough to let her know she was making headway. “The team has a lot going on today, Kat. That’s all.”
Guilt slid heavily into her stomach. “I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I really thought it would be okay if I was just here long enough to pick up some things.”
“I know,” he said, nodding.
“Here you go,” came Mallory’s voice as she returned from the back carrying two flat boxes and several rubber-banded stacks of mail. She handed it over the counter, and Beckett shouldered his duffel and grabbed the whole pile.
“Thank you,” Kat said to the woman. “And you, too,” she said to Beckett as she led him to the bank of elevators.
It was a quick trip to the eighth floor, where Kat unlocked her door and let Beckett into her small, one-bedroom apartment. The door opened into a generously sized living room decorated in shades of teals and browns. Big, airy windows lined the wall that adjoined the living space to the small dining room, and a small but serviceable kitchen sat beyond.
“So, this is home,” she said. Not that she spent that much time here. Sleeping aside, she probably spent far more time at her office.
Beckett nodded, looked around, and dropped his bag on the coffee table.
Kat wondered what he thought of her based on where she lived. When she’d found this apartment after she’d landed her job at Justice, she’d been so ecstatic to find a place in
the city near the Metro that she hadn’t minded at all that it wasn’t quite six hundred square feet. But Beckett’s height and broad shoulders almost made the space feel like a shoe box. “It’s nice,” he finally said.
“Did I hear right that you lived in D.C.?” she asked. He nodded. “Where?”
“I’m in a little row house on Capitol Hill. Just renting.” Beckett walked over to the window and peered down at the street. “It’s not as . . . homey as this.” He shrugged.
“Well, thank you. It’s comfortable here.” Kat wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. There wasn’t much else, as she was mostly a take-out kinda girl. “Want something to drink?”
He shook his head. “You should start packing.”
Kat popped the tab on her drink and took a long, cold sip. “We have at least two hours.”
His gaze cut to hers. “I want us to be ready.”
“For what?” she asked, coming back into the living room.
“For anything.”
“Beckett—”
“Damnit, Kat.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them heavily to his sides. “I was already spun up over your prick of an ex-boyfriend this morning. Now, you’re here, in the same exact place he waited to jump you on Friday, and I don’t fucking like it. Not to mention Seneka. We’ve put you in enough danger without piling anything else on.”
“Is that why you left? My bed, I mean?” Her belly squeezed in anticipation of his answer.
Giving her his back, his gaze returned to the window. And her belly squeeze turned into a rock. “It just . . . all became too much,” he said.
Kat’s heart tripped into a heavy, anxious beat as she put down her drink and came to his side. “What did?”
He put his hand on his chest and pressed, his mouth set in a grimace. Some sort of struggle played out on his face, and then he shook his head. “Have you ever sat in a position for so long that your foot fell asleep? And then you get up later, not realizing how asleep it is, and the pins and needles are nearly intolerable?”
“Yeah,” she said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. Dread curled into her belly.