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Wildcat winced and Carrie looked on with sympathy at the both of them. Shane kept his expression blank and wondered how to begin. He might as well get it over with, he thought. She wasn’t going to like the outcome either way.
“When I first joined the Hostage and Rescue Unit I was given your father as a target,” Shane said, his throat suddenly dry. “In fact he was my very first target. It was a hell of an assignment for someone as new as me to the job.”
He remembered the congratulatory slaps on the back and looks of envy from some of his other co-workers. It had made him feel like a king at the time, but now it made him feel like the lowest form of life. His military record had been undisputable, which was why the director had passed the file his way.
Shane got up from the table and went to find the makings for coffee. The silence behind him was deafening as he poured dark grounds into the filter and added water. He tried to find his words carefully, but they stuck in his throat. There could be no more secrets between them if he wanted the chance to have a future with Rachel.
Distracted, Shane left the coffee on the counter and returned to his seat next her. “I wasn’t pulled onto the team to assassinate your father. A sniper is not an assassin. That’s an important distinction for all of us, and being called to take out a target was never something my unit handled lightly. At the FBI, snipers were called in as a last measure to protect something or someone in imminent danger.
“Intelligence found information that your father had copies of some very important documents from Homeland Security and the military. Documents involving weapons. Intelligence also told us that Dom had set up a meeting with Lex Torrino out in New Jersey to sell the information for several million dollars. It was common knowledge that Lex had ties to terrorist groups, so it was a matter of national security that he never get his hands on those documents. I was set up as a precautionary measure in case the documents were in jeopardy of disappearing. My instructions were to take out both targets if it looked like the briefcase was going to be part of a switch or if Lex got too greedy.
“Dom went to meet Lex in a very public train station at rush hour with the briefcase in hand. They each stopped at a kiosk and grabbed a cup of coffee before finding a table. They were getting down to business when an overzealous agent busted in on them before they could make the transaction. Civilians were everywhere and no one could hear orders over the shouts as agents jumped out of their hiding places with guns drawn. I knew it was a blown mission from that moment, but I had to wait for the FBI to officially cancel my contract to kill. It only took them a couple of minutes to get in touch with me. I didn’t even stay around to see what happened. My job was done as far as I was concerned. It turned out intelligence had been wrong and your father’s briefcase had a bunch of real estate papers inside and Dom was going to sell Lex some property he owned in New Jersey.”
Even now Shane knew he’d just been doing his job and felt no remorse for what he’d always considered an important service for his country. “It was just a job,” Shane said. “One of many I was given over the years. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“If it had come down to it,” Rachel asked. “Would you have killed him?”
Shane only hesitated for the barest of seconds before he answered.
“Yes.”
Rachel pushed back from the table and walked into her bedroom, shutting the door with a finality that scared the hell out of Shane. Would there ever be a point in his life where the mistakes of his past would stop coming back to haunt him?
* * *
Shane went back to the coffeepot and poured himself a large mug of the steaming liquid. Every sip tasted bitter on his tongue. He kept his back turned, wishing for things that could never be when Carrie’s soft voice interrupted his private thoughts.
“Let me talk to her,” she said. “She’ll understand you did what you had to once she has time to think about it.”
Shane didn’t answer her, but he heard Carrie’s light knock and the squeak of hinges a few seconds later.
“Hell, Ace,” Wildcat said. “This is my fault. I didn’t even think about your information being in the file. I just grabbed it from my home office and drove straight here.”
“No, it needed to come out. I should have been honest from the start and told her sooner. She might not hate me so much now if I had.”
“You love her,” Wildcat said, surprised.
Shane took his coffee, tossed Wildcat a bottled water because he knew his friend never touched any kind of caffeine, and settled back across from him. “I don’t know. I want her, but what I feel for Rachel, it’s not like it was with Maggie.”
“I’d worry more if it was,” Wildcat commented. “They’re different people. And you’ve changed since Maggie died. I’m not saying that what you felt for Maggie should ever be replaced, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that’s left out there for you either. You’re still alive, my friend. It’s time you started acting like it.”
“The last few days have made me realize that more than ever. I think I’m starting to feel my age.”
Wildcat leaned back his head and laughed. “Hell, you’re only thirty-six. I’m three years older than you, and I’m in the prime of my life. Maybe you need to take some vitamins.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that would help,” Shane said sarcastically. “Or it could just be the blood loss.”
“If you hadn’t been sitting behind a desk getting soft for two years, that guy in Tulsa never would have gotten a piece of you.”
Shane’s only response was a rude hand gesture. “What was the business in Chicago that held you up?” Shane asked. “Does it have to do with Angelo Valentine?”
“You could say that,” Jones said, rubbing his hand over his face, his exhaustion showing. “This whole thing has been screwed up from the beginning. Angelo’s been busy since you and Rachel left New Orleans. Bodies have been washing up from Lake Michigan on an average of one a day.”
“Anyone we know?”
“No, but your girlfriend does. Three days ago a tourist noticed Cleopatra Carlisle floating near Navy Pier with the zoom lens of a camera. The body was fairly fresh, and she’d been dead less than a couple of hours. Death was the standard MO used by Angelo himself—throat sliced to the point that the head was barely attached,” Jones said, making a slicing motion across his neck with his finger. “The file on Cleo says she was a close friend of Rachel’s. They roomed together at Loyola for four years, and Rachel was her maid of honor last Christmas. The husband was away on business at time of death.”
“Damn,” Shane said, massaging the headache that still pounded behind his eyes. “This is going to be hard on Rachel. She’s going to blame herself.” He got up and rummaged through one of the drawers until he found the bottle of Tylenol. So far it hadn’t done anything to relieve the pressure, but he was willing to give it another try.
