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On one wall a television had been mounted. It showed four camera views of the exterior and the office; their arrival had not been unexpected.
Lizzy looked up at Xavier. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” She not only didn’t know these men, but one of them had good reason to hold a grudge against her. Her lack-of-trust issue at the moment was perfectly reasonable, from her standpoint.
“It’s the only idea.” He led her past the three men—who continued to work as if they hadn’t been interrupted—to another office in the back of the garage. Glass windows overlooked the work area, so it wasn’t private, but there was a coffee machine, a couple of swivel chairs, a desk and computer.
“When are you leaving?” she asked, leaning against the desk and crossing her arms over her midsection.
“Not for a couple of hours.”
She looked through the office window; she could see all three men from here. “And you trust these guys?”
“Completely. I wouldn’t even consider leaving you here if I didn’t. They’ve been helping me look out for you for the past three years. They’re good at what they do.”
Lizzy lifted her chin slightly, straightened her spine, and faced her biggest fear. “What if you don’t come back?” She couldn’t lose Xavier, find him, and then lose him again. It would be incredibly unfair, incredibly painful. After all this, she wasn’t certain she’d even want to go on.
Of course, odds were without him she didn’t stand much of a chance anyway.
“We’ll get something to eat, you can get acquainted with them, and by the time I leave you’ll be more comfortable—”
“Wait a minute. Stop trying to distract me, okay? You said you didn’t need backup, but you were just talking about me, right? You’re taking one of them with you, at least. Aren’t you?” Surely he wasn’t going to face the people who were trying to kill her—them—alone.
“No. I need to do this on my own.”
Exasperated, infuriated, Lizzy threw her hands in the air as she paced around the small office. “What good does it do to have people who can help if you won’t use them? Why go up against those people alone when it’s not necessary?”
Xavi
er nodded toward the work area. “They know a lot, but they don’t know everything and they can’t. If anything goes wrong tonight, they don’t need to be anywhere in the area when the shit goes down. They can’t even know where I’m going tonight, who I’m targeting.” He gave her a brief, hard smile. “You know how everything has to be compartmentalized. Need to know. I have to do this alone.”
Given the magnitude of their secret, the small circle that knew the truth of the President’s death and the cover-up that had followed, that made some sense. But still—
“You have to come back.”
“I will.” He cupped her chin, tilting her face up. “I have you to come back to, and that makes a helluva lot of difference.”
“I’d feel better if I were helping.”
“I know.” Graciously, he left the tough shit unsaid.
“Instead I’m going to sit here, wondering and worrying, with a bunch of men I don’t know and—sorry—don’t trust, and …”
“I thought about that,” Xavier said, then he leaned down and kissed her, a quick kiss, a brush of his lips on hers. “She should have been here by now.”
“She?” Lizzy drew back and gave him a suspicious glare. “She, who?”
Then a new sound caught her attention: a yap. A very familiar yap. No, it couldn’t be—She turned and gaped at the woman who was walking across the stained concrete floor, a dog held securely under her arm as she paused to talk to the other men. She stared up at Xavier. “Maggie?”
Xavier had been gone little more than half an hour, and already Lizzy was shaking. This went beyond worry. She was more terrified than she’d been for as long as she could remember, and that was saying something. It had been bad when it was her life on the line, but at least when she was on the run she could do something. All she could do tonight was sit and wait, knowing that at any time Xavier could be dying, that she might never see him, talk to him, hold him again. One thing she remembered about herself: she hated waiting.
Maggie, stroking a sleeping Roosevelt’s fur, smiled at her. “I understand,” she said softly. “Waiting is a lot harder than being in on the action.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing for the past three years, isn’t it? Watching and waiting for something to go wrong.” Maybe her voice was too sharp, but Lizzy was still pissed that her neighbor had been spying on her all this time—even though Maggie had been working for Xavier, even though her intentions had been good. She wasn’t pissed at Maggie; she was pissed at herself, because she’d been so blind for the past three years that she hadn’t figured out that something about her nosy neighbor wasn’t quite right. No, worse—she had been a little suspicious, and had let it slide. Careless stuff like that could get people killed.
“I suppose I have been,” Maggie said, not at all perturbed, “but that’s not what I meant. When you’re in our business, waiting for someone you love to return from a job is absolute torture.” She smiled. “Being in the thick of things, the minutes fly past. Yeah, it’s dangerous. Yeah, we’re all adrenaline junkies to some degree. Any one of us would rather face bullets than … this. But sometimes this is required, and above all else, we do what is required.”
Maggie knew what she was talking about; Lizzy accepted that. Maybe she knew too well. Who had Maggie waited for? Was she really a widow, or was that just part of her cover? Had she waited for someone who didn’t return? Lizzy didn’t want to know, not tonight.
“He’s different with you,” Maggie said. Maybe she saw the new fear in Lizzy and was kind enough to change the subject. “More … human.” She smiled, and continued to stroke Roosevelt’s fur. “Still Xavier, still the most capable man I know,” she clarified, “but still, it does give me hope for the rest of us.” Reaching out with her free hand, Maggie grasped one of Lizzy’s and gave it a comforting squeeze.
