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and happily surprised by the assignment to the embassy legat. Even though it was largely grunt work, an embassy placement was a plum assignment for a green agent. Her superiors had assured her it was a sign that the bureau had high hopes for her career advancement.
Then everything had gone to hell in a firestorm of rocket-propelled grenades and brutal al Adar terrorists on a mission of death and chaos. She’d been lucky to get out of the embassy alive. Several other Americans hadn’t fared as well, including three of her legat office associates.
She pushed herself up from the sofa, not liking the trembling weakness in her knees as she crossed to the front window to look out at the woods beyond the small cabin clearing. Morning was giving way to midday, the light moving inexorably toward the west.
Darcy had been gone almost twenty minutes.
Letting the curtains swing closed, she leaned against the windowsill, feeling achy all over. She felt hot and grimy, in desperate need of a shower and about a week of sleep, but she didn’t trust her shaky limbs to hold her weight long enough to take a shower. Plus, the hot water might reopen her wounds and start the bleeding again.
Damn it.
She stumbled her way back to the sofa and sank into the cushions, hating how weak she felt. She’d worked so hard to stay fit, stay strong, keep up with the men in her FBI unit, and one stupid bullet—one that hadn’t even hit any vital organs—had her as wobbly and weak as a newborn calf.
The last time she’d felt this shaky, she’d been huddled with several other embassy employees in a curtained alcove, watching an al Adar rebel named Tahir Mahmood slit the throat of one of the embassy’s translators, helpless to do anything in case it alerted the other armed terrorists swarming the embassy to their hiding place.
She’d grown up just over the state line in North Carolina, until her family had moved to Raleigh when she was a teenager. Life in the Appalachian Mountains could be both beautiful and hard, and she’d experienced both sides of that life. But nothing she’d seen or heard in the hills, during her FBI training or during the first ten months of work at the US Embassy in Tablis had prepared her for the raw brutality and utter disregard for human life she’d witnessed during the embassy siege.
It had changed her. Her outlook on life. Her career goals.
Her hopes.
We have to go back for him!
Her own voice rang in her mind—younger somehow, more naive and trusting than now. She’d thought they could save Michael Cameron, one of her fellow legat agents, when rockets had set their section of the damaged embassy ablaze. She’d wanted to dig through the rubble a little longer, try to reach him before the flames could, but the back section of the embassy had been crumbling around them.
Darcy had grabbed her arms and forcibly removed her from the area, hustling her, even dragging her to other parts of the embassy that had remained structurally stable during the onslaught of rocket fire.
They’d eventually met up with several other embassy employees being herded to safety by one of the embassy’s Marine Security Guards, a Georgia boy named Maddox Heller. Heller had sneaked them into the alcove in the formal dining room to hide when al Adar rebels had stormed that section of the embassy.
Teresa Miles, a pretty young interpreter in her first Foreign Service assignment, hadn’t been so fortunate.
A trilling sound made her nerves jangle. The phone was ringing.
She picked up the receiver and glanced at the digital display window. Darcy’s cell-phone number.
Should she answer? What if something had gone wrong? What if it was a trick?
Quelling a surge of fear, she pushed the answer button and lifted the phone to her ear. But she didn’t speak.
“Rigsby?” Darcy’s voice was low and soft on the other end.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Are you okay?”
“For the moment.” Even over the phone, she could hear the tension in his voice. “When I arrived at Lila Birdsong’s cabin, there was a sheriff’s cruiser there. I think I know who it is, but she knows me. I can’t risk going inside yet until she comes out.”
“Won’t she see the Land Rover?”
“Not unless she’s looking. I’ve hidden in the woods off the road.”
“Darcy, this is crazy. Just get back here. We’ll figure out something else. I’m feeling better already,” she added, wondering if he could discern the lie on his end of the line.
“No, you’re not,” he growled, answering her question. “I’ve been searching the internet on my phone while waiting, and I encountered some options for us to try before we start breaking into pharmacies.”
“Don’t take any stupid risks, Darcy.”
She could almost hear his smile. “I never take stupid risks, Rigsby. Only smart ones. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up before she could respond.
She hung up and set the phone on the coffee table, her hand trembling and her pulse pounding in her ears.
* * *
THE SHERIFF’S CRUISER passed slowly on its way down the mountain road, the midday sun glinting off the chrome and briefly obscuring the driver as the vehicle approached Darcy’s hiding place in the woods. He’d left the SUV behind and walked closer to the road for a better view.
The glint faded as the cruiser rolled past, giving Darcy a good view of the driver’s shoulder-length bob of dark hair and pretty profile. Sara Lindsey. Cain Dennison’s girlfriend.
Darcy knew that Sara and Cain’s grandmother had become close a few months earlier, when Sara had returned home to Ridge County after several years as a Birmingham, Alabama, police officer. Maybe her visit to Lila Birdsong had been entirely unrelated to the call he’d made to Cain Dennison.
Or maybe it had everything to do with it.
He pulled out his phone and punched in Dennison’s phone number. The Gates agent answered on the third ring. “Darcy?”
“Did you tell anyone besides your grandmother that I was going to visit her?”
“No.” Cain sounded curious. “Did something happen?”
“Your girlfriend was at your grandmother’s place when I arrived.”
“So?”
“So, I didn’t expect to see a Ridge County sheriff’s deputy as part of the welcoming committee.”
Cain sounded confused. “It’s not like you don’t know Sara, Darcy. You’re a friend, not a suspect.”
On the contrary, Darcy realized with a gut-twisting wrench. He didn’t have any friends. He couldn’t afford them.
Not with McKenna Rigsby’s life hanging in the balance.
* * *
THE RATTLE OF the doorknob sent a hard shudder down McKenna’s back. Groping for the Glock, she knocked the pistol and holster to the floor.
Damn it!
The thought of bending down to pick up the fallen weapon was almost more than she could contemplate, but she forced herself into motion, retrieving the holster, grabbing the grip of the pistol and sliding it out smoothly just as the cabin door swung open.
Darcy froze in the doorway, raising his hands, one of which held a large plastic sack. “It’s me. Don’t shoot.”
She lowered the pistol, her hands shaking. “You could have called to warn me.”
“I thought you might be sleeping. You need rest, and I didn’t want to risk waking you.” He locked the door behind him and looked around the room. “Have you been here the whole time I was gone?”
“I