Nowhere Safe

CHAPTER 21



Trish and Colbert?

Okay, fine.

But Trish and Big Charlie?

No way.

Josh had called the Atlanta office with the coordinates on the warehouse, and immediately gotten the owner’s name from Amanda, who was manning her souped-up laptop for the duration of tonight’s op. Amanda had mad skills, could find out anything on anybody, and Sabrina had snaked her from MI6 four months ago. Thank God.

Josh had run background checks on everybody he–or Ryder–had seen Trish speak with at the TV banquet, but hadn’t gotten half the dirt on Big Charlie that Amanda had found on Trish’s business competitor in a ninety-second data search.

Still, no links to drugs, the underworld, or terrorism. Hell, no links to anything other than an expensive 900-number porn habit. No obvious connection that would finger Big Charlie as The Chessmaster.

At this point, Josh had a headache from trying to make the puzzle pieces fit and fight off the gut feeling that he was missing something critical–that Trish didn’t fit the role he kept trying to cast her in. He parked the sedate gray sedan–a rental kept at the hotel headquarters for his team–a block away from Big Charlie’s warehouse. He loved his retro Porsche, but knew better than to drive an easily identifiable vehicle while tailing a target.

He’d watched at a discrete distance after Trish had driven down the access to the rear of the building, tapping nervous fingers on the steering wheel as he’d waited on intel.

He had to know what he might be walking into, and whether he might need backup.

Was Trish a recovering alcoholic, struggling to regain her life?

Or was she a professional agent working Josh like a skilled con artist by portraying the vulnerable but untouchable female? There were holes in Trish’s past, and according to her file, she’d associated with some shady characters.

And the most telling part?

She had no significant assets to match her family’s name and wealth.

Of course, as Josh knew better than most, that could mean something entirely different than it appeared on the surface.

But it could mean that she was exactly what Sabrina insinuated. A skilled operative.

He shut the car door, shoved his keys in his pocket and followed on foot. The office hours displayed on the front door of Big Charlie’s warehouse indicated it closed at six.

What was Trish doing here? From what he’d been able to discern, she couldn’t stand the man.

Josh had spent a chunk of his investigative time playing devil’s advocate. These operations called for cold, objective thinking. He excelled at it. Or had at one time.

He’d been trained since he was ten to think of everyone he didn’t know as an enemy.

His parents–the only ones he knew anyway–had lost their only birth child to a kidnapping. When they’d adopted Josh, they were determined that no one would ever harm another child of theirs because of their money.

Josh’s adoptive dad, a technology industry magnate, had a brother in the CIA, the person who, three years after the kidnapping, had first observed Josh as a punk running the streets of the upper west side of New York, going up against opponents who were bigger and badder when he was still wet behind the ears.

Josh’s future uncle–the one he’d called Ty before he’d ferreted out the man’s real name–had been undercover and playing the role of street bum when he’d first encountered Josh and taken an interest.

Josh had tried to pick Ty’s pocket for the few dollars Ty had begged from passersby.

Yeah. He’d tried to pick the pocket of a homeless man. Tried being the operative word. Josh had been after food money, but even desperate he couldn’t do it. He’d stolen the money, backed a few steps away, then he’d turned around and put it back.

Ty had seen potential in Josh, then Sabrina and Dingo, offering them payment for intel when they delivered.

Ty had convinced his richer-than-God brother to take in a wary kid with no manners who wanted only to stay in his group home with two other brats, Sabrina and Dingo. Ty had guessed right–that the childless couple had plenty of love left to give, even though they couldn’t bring themselves to have another baby. Josh hadn’t made it easy on anyone, but the impossible happened when Ty was proven right.

Once Josh’s parents decided to keep him, they’d raised him with bodyguards, the best private tutors available, and pre-set play dates with the kids of trusted friends.

All the while, Ty had funneled money and opportunities to Sabrina and Dingo, watching over them from a distance, then helping them find their way into the intelligence community.

Trips out for Josh were always scheduled. No chance a date could take him as far as first base with a freaking security detail in tow.

It had been a privileged, orchestrated, strange upbringing.

Except when they’d handed him over for short stints to Ty, who’d taught Josh all he needed to know about how to protect himself when the bodyguards were absent. Josh had trained with Ty for one month, four times a year, until the summer when Ty didn’t come home from his latest mission.

Josh had made Ty a promise. He would shield his identity at all costs. Ty had told Josh that there were no guarantees in life, and no person was promised tomorrow, but made Josh promise to never put his parents through the pain of having their money cost them a child again.

Josh took everything Ty taught him to heart, and by the time he was eighteen, could ease his way into any social setting, take on any persona from uber-wealthy aristocrat to street thug.

Which was why, once Josh became an adult, he’d been more at home in a clandestine life than the social world his parents lived in.

Josh had gone underground and never re-emerged.

When Josh reached the loading area at the rear of Charlie’s warehouse, hair prickled along his neck. All of his instincts sharpened, on alert.

Something was wrong.

At the corner of the building, he leaned around to find...no Trish. Her late-model Dodge sedan and a Cadillac sport utility were in the parking lot, along with two panel trucks. The kind normally used to deliver furniture.

He was damned tired of feeling one step behind her. Josh surveyed the deserted loading dock and eased over to the steps that led to the service door.

AA

White panic showered over Trish.

Breathe. Breathe. Move. Do something, for crying out loud.

Big Charlie could be dying. Maybe he was already dead.

Don’t hyperventilate. She whimpered at the idea of touching him, but forced herself to move into the wide office toward his still form.

He was huge. Maybe he was breathing under all that body. Bile ran up her throat at the sharp coppery smell permeating the office. Don’t throw up. Her body shook so hard her teeth jarred. She extended a trembling hand to check his throat for a pulse.

None. She snatched her hand back.

Maybe he was too fat to find one. She felt like she was moving in slow motion. She got her hands under Charlie’s shoulder and strained to lift him up to a sitting position, grunting with the effort.

She felt his bulk shift and jumped away.

Big Charlie lay back in his chair, eyes wide open in horror and a knife shoved through his throat.

Oh, dear God.

Tremors racked her body. She lunged for his desk phone and dialed 9-1-1. The operator answered. Trish cut her off with, “Send an ambulance to Big Charlie’s at–”

A shadow fell across the desk in front of her. She shifted into defense mode. She swung an elbow around that hit a solid body and she heard an “umhp”” just as something hard struck her head.

Pain flashed through her temple. Crap. Arnie would be totally pissed because she hadn’t watched her back. She threw her hands out to break her fall, but she fell anyhow into a black, empty void.