Kara Lennox - Under Deepest Cover

They both turned to her. “Lindsay, can you tell us more about what happened?”

“We were in a cabin in the Catskills,” she said, choosing her words carefully.

She didn’t want to lie, not anymore. But she revealed only as much as she had to. “There was an intruder. He shot Bryan.”

“How did you escape?” Amanda asked. “Did the intruder get away? Did you call the police?”

“I honestly don’t know how or why I was spared,” Lucy said, tears pressing hot and insistent behind her eyes. “All I remember is that I got Bryan into the car and got out of there. I contacted the authorities, but I don’t know what happened to the man with the gun.”

She hoped Vargov was alive. She wanted to testify and put him in jail for the rest of his life.

“I don’t understand,” Daniel said, giving Lucy a hard look. “First someone tried to kidnap you, then you had some kind of home invasion. Are you involved with criminals?”

“Not intentionally. I’m a material witness in a criminal case.”

“But how does that involve Bryan?” Daniel wanted to know.

Amanda laid a quieting hand on her ex-husband’s arm. “I should think that would be obvious, Daniel. Our Bryan is a spy.”

Lucy gave a little gasp of surprise, but other than that she didn’t confirm or deny.

“A what?”

“I should have put it together earlier,” Amanda said. “The frequent absences, the injuries, the security measures at his apartment. And that phone of his-that’s not an ordinary cell phone.”

Daniel stared at Amanda in amazement. “You’re telling me our son is a spy? How could you know that?”

“A mother knows these things,” she said mysteriously.

Scarlet arrived with John, and then other Elliotts began trickling in. Some of them Lucy had met, some she hadn’t. But apparently, when one of their own was threatened, they banded together, because she heard none of the bickering that had characterized previous family gatherings. There were lots of hugs and tears.

Even the mysterious “Aunty Fin” showed up.

Lucy sat in a corner, feeling like the outsider she was, as Daniel and Amanda filled in family members as they arrived.

When two men in suits showed up, the mere sight of them filled Lucy with dread.

They came straight for her, as she’d known they would.

“Ms. Miller?” one of them said.

Lucy rose and walked with them into a hallway, where the Elliotts couldn’t hear the conversation.

They gave their names, claiming they were with the CIA.

“Listen, whoever you are, I don’t care if you were sent by the president himself. I know you want me to go with you. I know you want me to tell you what happened. But frankly, I don’t trust anyone right now. In the last forty-eight hours I’ve been almost kidnapped, shot at, and very nearly eaten by a bear. A United States agent tried to kill me-and he shot the man I love, who is in surgery right now fighting for his life. I’m not leaving here unless you remove me bodily from this hospital. I will report to the closest FBI field office tomorrow morning and give you and anyone who’ll listen a full report. But not tonight. Is that clear?”

The two men looked at each other as they inched away from her. “Yes, ma’am.”

And, amazingly, they left. She wouldn’t have believed that little Lucy Miller from Kansas, dressed in shorts and a tank top, could intimidate two federal agents, but apparently she had.

She returned to the waiting room to resume her vigil. Scarlet sidled up to her, giving her torn, filthy outfit, her messy hair and her scratched and scraped skin a disapproving look. “If fashion is a religion,” she said solemnly, “you’ve broken virtually every commandment.”

Bryan’s first conscious feeling was one of panic. Shots fired. Pinned down.

Pain, blood-then nothing. Lucy! Oh, God, what had happened to Lucy? Was she dead or alive?

“Lucy,” he mumbled.

Gradually sensation returned. Someone was holding his hand, but he couldn’t quite summon the strength to open his eyes.

Next he became aware of sounds and smells. Alcohol. Betadine. Sterile sheets and beeping machines.

Suddenly he was ten years old again, coming out of surgery to repair his heart.

“Bryan? Are you awake?”

It was his mother squeezing his hand. Except he wasn’t ten years old anymore.

“Lucy,” he said again. “Is Lucy okay?” He pried his eyes open to see both of his parents. “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice sounding wispy and weak.

“Lindsay called us. How do you feel?”

Like his head was full of cotton and his chest full of knives. But he remembered how his mother felt every little pain right along with him, so he didn’t tell her the truth. “I’m good,” he said. And he was alive, at least, which was something. Then it sank in, what his mother had just said. “Lindsay” had called them. Lucy had at least made it off the mountain. “Is Lindsay okay?”

“She’s got a few scrapes and bruises, but she’s fine,” Amanda assured him.

“What about me?” His body didn’t feel normal, but he knew the surgical anesthesia always made him feel not quite connected to his body.

“You lost a lot of blood,” Daniel answered. “The bullet nicked an artery, but it didn’t hit any major organs. You’ll be fine.”

“And when you’re fully recovered,” his mother said sweetly, “I’m going to kill you. Why didn’t you tell us you were a secret agent?”

Uh-oh. His secret was out. Bryan supposed he should be surprised his perceptive mother hadn’t put it together earlier. “‘Cause you’d have grounded me.”

Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Bryan. We didn’t go to all the trouble to get you heart surgery and save your life so you could throw it away chasing down terrorists and whatnot.”

“Lucy-I mean Lindsay-told you everything?”

“She hardly told us anything,” Amanda replied. “She said something about an intruder, that’s all. But I put it all together. Bryan, I’m so angry with you.”

She sniffed back tears, and Daniel put his arm around her. “But I’m so proud, too.”

It occurred to Bryan that this was the first time he’d seen his parents together like this since their divorce more than a dozen years ago.

“Where’s Lucy?” he asked. “Hell. Lindsay-”

“We get the picture,” Daniel said. “Lindsay is Lucy. She’s in the waiting room.

Two goons who looked like they could have been from the cast of Men in Black showed up wanting to take her away, but she got rid of them.”

Bryan summoned a smile. That sounded like his Lucy. “Could you bring her here? I need to see her. I have to tell her-” Hell. He didn’t know what he wanted to tell her. But if he could just see that she was okay, then he could handle the aftermath of this fiasco. And there was going to be a hell of an aftermath.

“I’ll go get her,” Amanda said. She patted Bryan’s leg, then slipped out the door, leaving the two men alone.

“She’s really special, this Lucy?” Daniel asked.

“More than you can know.” Bryan shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. The painkiller was wearing off, and the ache in his shoulder and chest were getting worse. “I don’t know that we can-I mean, the only reason we were together-”

“If she’s special, don’t let her go,” Daniel said solemnly. “No matter what anyone says. I’ll let you rest now.”

Bryan wanted to protest that he didn’t need rest. He wanted to see Lucy. But he did nod off.

The next time he opened his eyes, she was there, sitting in a chair next to his bed. Someone had given her an old college sweatshirt to put on over her tank top. She was scraped and bruised, no makeup, her hair looking as if it hadn’t seen a comb in some time. And she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.