Decoded. Debra Webb

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СКАЧАТЬ had to get past this. Do a 12-step program. Something. Slade Keaton was trouble and she needed him out of her life. Now.

      Her lips trembled. Tears brimmed on her lashes. Idiot. Idiot. She stamped the rest of the way back to her car, hit the remote unlock and got behind the wheel.

      “Now what?” she muttered to herself. Was this a game to him? This was her life and she was sick of games. She should just leave and never look back.

      Where the hell was he? Her car’s interior lamp faded to black. Obviously he could see her from wherever he was. Coward.

      “Start the engine and drive away.”

      Her breath caught. Their gazes locked in the rearview mirror. How had he gotten into her car? Hadn’t she locked it? She’d hit the unlock on the remote two steps before reaching the car, which was habit, but there wouldn’t have been a warning that the doors were unlocked already. Where was her brain?

      “Hurry, Maggie. I don’t know how much time we have left.”

      Her hand shook as she picked through the keys for the right one. All the questions she wanted to hurl at him clogged into a huge knot in her throat, and the thick silence throbbing inside the car made it hard to breathe. It took two attempts to get the key into the ignition. A quick twist and the engine started.

      “Drive.”

      The tone of that one word warned her that she shouldn’t ask any questions. She set the headlamps to the on position and eased away from the curb.

      “Where are we going?” She hated that her voice trembled. Damn him.

      “Just drive.”

      Fury blasted her. That was it. She’d had enough. Maggie slammed her foot on the brake. The car rocked to a stop. “Where are we going?” She was a grown woman. She had responsibilities, first and foremost to herself.

      “Maggie.”

      She closed her eyes, couldn’t bear to hear him say her name. “Stop. Just stop.” She shook her head. “I can’t do this anymore.”

      “We have to move,” he urged. “We can talk later. Right now you just have to trust me.”

      Maggie laughed. She didn’t mean to, but the sound, brittle and painful, just burst out of her. “You have to be kidding!” She was hysterical. The stress had evidently pushed her over the edge.

      When cold steel pressed against her temple, her attention swung to the rearview mirror. He had a gun to her head. A gun! “What’re you doing?”

      “Drive, Maggie. Just drive.”

      Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Forcing her foot to move from the brake to the accelerator, she reminded herself to breathe. She’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

      An explosion fragmented the silence. Light burst to her left, changing the darkness to a brilliant yellow. Pieces of something showered down on her car. Not hail…but rocks or pieces of brick.

      As if in slow motion, she turned to stare out the car window. The brownstone where Slade worked and lived had blown up. Flames licked toward the stars. Pieces of the building lay on the sidewalk…on the street. On the hood of her car.

      “Go, Maggie! Hurry!”

      Somehow her foot punched the accelerator. The car lunged forward.

      She tried to blink away the images, her fingers cramped from clutching the steering wheel so tightly. This couldn’t be happening. The man she loved—the father of her unborn child—had put a gun to her head. His office—his apartment—had just exploded.

      In that moment her reality sharpened into perfect clarity. She had never known this man. She had suspected as much. Her intuition had warned repeatedly that he was hiding something. Everything. Above all else, his identity.

      Maggie slammed on the brakes, harder this time. She glared at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Who are you?”

      He leaned forward, reached up and threaded his fingers into her hair. His hold tightened as he pulled her closer. She should scream. She knew this. But his slightest touch rendered her totally helpless.

      “I know you better than you know yourself, Maggie. I know you want to trust me.”

      She wanted to argue. The words refused to form on her tongue. The sound of his voice slid around her, tethering her as surely as if he’d used steel bands. How could she lose all control so easily? Where was her courage? Her logic?

      His lips pressed nearer to her ear. She shivered. “If you don’t do as I say we’re both going to die. I, for one, have no desire to die tonight.”

      The cold steel of the weapon he held snuggled against her throat. “Now, drive.”

       Chapter Two

      2:10 a.m.

      Victoria Colby-Camp heard the ring of the bedside phone, but the concept of opening her eyes and answering was far too difficult to grasp. The sound of her husband’s voice as he took the call parted the constricting layers of sleep, allowing her to rouse more fully. Who would call at this hour?

      “Was anyone hurt?”

      Victoria sat up, instantly wide awake. “What’s happened?” Was it Jim or one of the children? A member of their extended family at the Colby Agency? Fear roared through her body like a fire set to dry kindling.

      “We’ll be right there.” Lucas heaved a weary breath as he placed the phone back into its cradle and turned to his wife. “A friend from Chicago P.D. called Jim. We don’t have any real details just yet, but there’s been an explosion at the brownstone.”

      The offices of Jim’s old firm, the Equalizers. Almost two years ago now, Slade Keaton had taken over the firm since Jim had joined Victoria at the Colby Agency. Early last year Keaton had moved into the renovated upstairs apartment of the brownstone. Jim had gone there shortly after midnight to confront him regarding their suspicions as to his true identity. He’d found no sign of Keaton. Thank God Jim hadn’t been in or near the building when the explosion occurred.

      “Was anyone in the building?” Maggie James, the owner of the coffee shop across the street from the Colby Agency offices, was Keaton’s girlfriend. Anguish tore through Victoria. She prayed they were both safe. Whoever Keaton was and whatever he had done, Victoria wished him no harm. And Maggie was innocent in all this. Her only misstep was falling in love with a man whose past was an enigma that even Lucas hadn’t been able to decipher.

      “The explosion occurred less than an hour ago. Maybe fifteen minutes after Jim was there looking for Keaton.” Lucas adjusted his prosthetic leg and stood. “They’ve only just gotten the fire under control. They’re waiting for the rubble to cool to start the search.”

      Victoria dropped her feet to the carpeted floor and rushed to the closet for clothes. “Were any of the neighboring buildings damaged?” she called out to Lucas. The brownstones along the two nearly identical blocks were structurally connected. She doubted one could have been destroyed without damage to one or more of the others. Since most were businesses, she prayed no one had been working СКАЧАТЬ