Page 80 of Once a Killer

As she began to bump over the second one, she saw a flash of light on her left. She glanced over that way and saw the barrel of an M4A1 carbine. Aimed at the SUV.

“Down,” she yelled. “Below the seat.”

She stomped the accelerator to the floor. As soon as she did, she heard the loud burst of the carbine firing. The vehicle shuddered as it flew over the speed bump, and a fusillade of bullets hit the window on her side of the car. Each bullet spider-webbed the glass, making the white spots obscure her vision. Bullets hit the side of the SUV, as well, each impact jolting the door beside her. Thank God for the armoring Jameson had installed. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, struggling to keep the Monster moving in a straight line. The way it wobbled, she knew the tires had been hit. Good thing they were run-flats.

Keeping the accelerator floored, she steered the big SUV down the street. It zig-zagged wildly, but it didn’t stop. Didn’t crash into a tree. The bullets stopped, but she didn’t slow down. There might be another sniper waiting to make sure they were dead.

Or make sureshewas dead.

As they neared the turn into the alley, she let the SUV slow, but her hands still gripped the steering wheel tightly. Just before she turned into the alley, she glanced at her rear-view mirror. No one behind them. So no chase vehicle. She drew a deep breath. Blew it out slowly. Kept her gaze on the alley in front of her. “Jameson. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. She heard him swallow. “Glad I got the most bulletproof protection available. We were hit multiple times, but the Monster is still running.”

“Yeah. Whoever did your armoring did good work.”

“Why were they shooting at your side of the car?” he asked after a long moment.

“I think that was on purpose. I think this shooter was after me.”

He stilled. Turned his head slowly to study her. “Why would someone be shooting at you, Bree?”

She swallowed. She’d been so worried about Jameson that she hadn’t even considered that she could be a target. But Larrimore and Kingsley had been shocked to see her at the conference. As though they’d assumed she was dead.

“Larrimore and Kingsley,” she said, her voice grim. “Only people I know who’d want me dead. Way too coincidental that someone shoots at your car a couple days after they saw me at the conference.”

Jameson tried to pull his phone out of his pocket, and Bree saw his hand shaking. “I’m calling Weston. I want him to look into those two.”

“Please don’t do that,” she said, reaching across to put her hand on his. “I want to talk to Mel and Dev. Tell them what happened with Larrimore and Kingsley back in Afghanistan, and what happened today. They can look into it and try to figure out what’s going on without alerting either of those jerks. And they can take care of it. Better to keep it on the down low than turn the CIA loose on those two. That’d be a total clusterfuck.”

Thank God they were only a few houses away from Jameson’s apartment. Bree was driving slowly down the alley, but they were vulnerable. She watched the rear-view mirror for signs of someone following her but didn’t see a thing. She checked the yard of every building they passed and saw nothing. But her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly until she drove the Monster into Jameson’s garage. Didn’t take a deep breath until the door rolled closed.

Didn’t let the tension leach out of her shoulders until they were in Jameson’s apartment with the doors locked behind them.

“God, Bree,” Jameson said, yanking her into his arms. He held her against his chest, his face buried in her hair. He clutched her so hard that she had trouble breathing, but she wasn’t about to complain.

Jameson’s arms were exactly where she wanted to be. She was protecting him, but right now, he was comforting her. And as she pressed her face into his neck, her racing heart finally began to slow.

“Talking to Mel and Dev is a good idea,” he murmured into her hair. “If you need to go back to Montana and talk to them in person instead of making a phone call, we can do that. But things are heating up here, and I’d rather be in Chicago. I suspect you would be, too.”

She nodded into his chest. “Yeah,” she said. “Going to Montana would take two or three days, minimum. I don’t want to be away that long.” She tightened her grip on him. “It feels like things at the lab are starting to come together, you know? I want to press our advantage.”

“I agree. Why don’t you see if they’ll do a Zoom meeting? They’ll need to see you. And you’ll need to see their reactions to your story.”

“Yeah, good idea.” She stepped away from the safety of his arms. “You want to look at the data from those trackers now?”

“Hell, no,” he said immediately, grabbing her again. “I want to take care ofyou.” He tightened his grip on her. “You had to drive several blocks with bullet holes in the car, with windows obscured by bullet hole spidering, with tires barely bumping along the street. That had to be terrifying. The damn data’s not going to change. Why don’t you think about what you want to say to Mel and Dev, then text them and see if they’re available for a Zoom session? We can have dinner and take a look at the tracker data after we Zoom with them.”

“Okay.” She reached for his hands and twined their fingers together. Squeezed once and let him go. “Thanks for not freaking out this afternoon,” she said. “Made my job easier.”

“I was freaking out inside,” he said, his mouth finally curling into a smile. “Just trying hard not to let you see it.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” she said. “I was struggling with the Monster, trying to get her back here. I would have lost my focus if you’d freaked out.”

When she texted Mel to ask if they were free to Zoom, she got a yes almost immediately. While Jameson set up his computer in the kitchen, she paced the small room, trying to organize her thoughts. Mel and Dev knew what she’d done in the Marines, because she’d needed to ask them not to assign her to a case where she might have to shoot someone. She never wanted to take someone’s life again.

She wouldn’t hesitate to shoot to kill in order to protect her principal. But she preferred cases where that was a low probability . And Mel wouldn’t have offered her a job if she hadn’t known pretty much everything about Bree and what she’d done in the military.

When she got a text from Mel, telling her they were available now, she nodded at Jameson. “They’re ready,” she said.

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