traitor bitch before she died. We need leverage. Pick up the medical examiner and bring her here.”
Fax roared at the confirmation of Jane’s death, and the implied threat that they were going to torture Chelsea in order to force him to talk. Pushing with his legs, he lunged at the bastard, and succeeded only in toppling his chair sideways. His head slammed into the floorboards, and the world went dim for a while—a few minutes, maybe longer.
When the universe sharpened around him, he was alone.
Chelsea! Fax’s heart jammed his throat and adrenaline spiked, chasing the last of the drugs from his bloodstream. He started struggling against his bonds, shouting curses and threats. But there was no answer. The men were long gone.
But how long? He didn’t know, couldn’t guess, could only yank against the zip ties that held him fast, knowing that he needed to get free, needed to get to Chelsea before al-Jihad and his men did.
If he didn’t, she’d be dead.
T HE GOOD NEWS , Chelsea realized soon after she sat down in a PD conference room opposite Romo Sampson, was that Internal Affairs apparently had no clue she’d been in the ME’s office after hours the night before.
The bad news was that she’d all but confessed it to Seth on the ride over. Guilt stung at the suspicion that she should’ve kept her mouth shut, as she’d promised Fax she would. She trusted Seth not to say or do anything that’d get her in trouble unless he thought it was absolutely necessary, but she suspected there might be a pretty big difference between Seth’s idea of “absolutely necessary” and her own.
She had to face it, she was no good at this spy stuff. She’d caved under the first real pressure she’d experienced. But then again, why should she have expected anything different? This wasn’t a game, wasn’t an adventure or a story. This was real life and death, a threat to her career, her own safety and that of the people she loved.
Of course she’d caved. She was a wimp.
“Do you need to take a break and get some coffee or something?” the IAD investigator said dryly, warning Chelsea that she’d zoned out on him mid-question. For all she knew, she’d been snoring.
“Sorry.” She smothered a yawn. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” For a variety of reasons, none of which she intended to share with IAD.
Aside from her somewhat dented loyalty to Fax—and her belief that Seth was going to do right by what she’d told him—there was no way she was putting Sara and the ME’s office any further under the political crosshairs than it already was. She might be playing fast and loose with the career that had once been her life, but she wasn’t going to do the same with her friends’ jobs.
“So,” Sampson prompted, “you were describing the van ride after your abduction.”
He was a long, lean stretch of a man, with wide-palmed hands that fit with the rumor that he’d gone to college on a basketball scholarship and was headed in the direction of the NBA when a knee injury had ended the dream. His mid-brown hair was finger-tousled and in need of a trim, and his pleasant, regular features would’ve passed for attractive if it hadn’t been for his eyes, which were a very pale hazel and seemed to stare straight through whoever he was looking at.
The effect was off-putting in the extreme. Add to that the few details Chelsea knew about the end of his and Sara’s short-lived affair, plus the power he wielded through IAD, and he was downright intimidating.
At least he would’ve been, she realized, if she hadn’t spent the past few days learning out of necessity how to stand up to Fax, who was just as intimidating and wasn’t bound by the PD’s code of conduct. Where Romo Sampson was civilized in his pressure, Fax was anything but.
“I’ve told you everything I remember,” Chelsea said to Sampson now. “Twice. I’m not sure how going through it a third time is going to help.”
Sampson stared at her
Fax roared at the confirmation of Jane’s death, and the implied threat that they were going to torture Chelsea in order to force him to talk. Pushing with his legs, he lunged at the bastard, and succeeded only in toppling his chair sideways. His head slammed into the floorboards, and the world went dim for a while—a few minutes, maybe longer.
When the universe sharpened around him, he was alone.
Chelsea! Fax’s heart jammed his throat and adrenaline spiked, chasing the last of the drugs from his bloodstream. He started struggling against his bonds, shouting curses and threats. But there was no answer. The men were long gone.
But how long? He didn’t know, couldn’t guess, could only yank against the zip ties that held him fast, knowing that he needed to get free, needed to get to Chelsea before al-Jihad and his men did.
If he didn’t, she’d be dead.
T HE GOOD NEWS , Chelsea realized soon after she sat down in a PD conference room opposite Romo Sampson, was that Internal Affairs apparently had no clue she’d been in the ME’s office after hours the night before.
The bad news was that she’d all but confessed it to Seth on the ride over. Guilt stung at the suspicion that she should’ve kept her mouth shut, as she’d promised Fax she would. She trusted Seth not to say or do anything that’d get her in trouble unless he thought it was absolutely necessary, but she suspected there might be a pretty big difference between Seth’s idea of “absolutely necessary” and her own.
She had to face it, she was no good at this spy stuff. She’d caved under the first real pressure she’d experienced. But then again, why should she have expected anything different? This wasn’t a game, wasn’t an adventure or a story. This was real life and death, a threat to her career, her own safety and that of the people she loved.
Of course she’d caved. She was a wimp.
“Do you need to take a break and get some coffee or something?” the IAD investigator said dryly, warning Chelsea that she’d zoned out on him mid-question. For all she knew, she’d been snoring.
“Sorry.” She smothered a yawn. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” For a variety of reasons, none of which she intended to share with IAD.
Aside from her somewhat dented loyalty to Fax—and her belief that Seth was going to do right by what she’d told him—there was no way she was putting Sara and the ME’s office any further under the political crosshairs than it already was. She might be playing fast and loose with the career that had once been her life, but she wasn’t going to do the same with her friends’ jobs.
“So,” Sampson prompted, “you were describing the van ride after your abduction.”
He was a long, lean stretch of a man, with wide-palmed hands that fit with the rumor that he’d gone to college on a basketball scholarship and was headed in the direction of the NBA when a knee injury had ended the dream. His mid-brown hair was finger-tousled and in need of a trim, and his pleasant, regular features would’ve passed for attractive if it hadn’t been for his eyes, which were a very pale hazel and seemed to stare straight through whoever he was looking at.
The effect was off-putting in the extreme. Add to that the few details Chelsea knew about the end of his and Sara’s short-lived affair, plus the power he wielded through IAD, and he was downright intimidating.
At least he would’ve been, she realized, if she hadn’t spent the past few days learning out of necessity how to stand up to Fax, who was just as intimidating and wasn’t bound by the PD’s code of conduct. Where Romo Sampson was civilized in his pressure, Fax was anything but.
“I’ve told you everything I remember,” Chelsea said to Sampson now. “Twice. I’m not sure how going through it a third time is going to help.”
Sampson stared at her
Similar Books
