Lisa Childs - Agent Undercover

If she didn’t fight fast and hard, she would soon lose her chance.

And maybe her life...

Chapter Two

“I lost eyes on her.” A voice emanated from Ash’s earpiece. It was a two-way radio that transmitted what he said and what the other agents said. “She’s gone...”

Claire Molenski had stepped through the front doors of the hotel and disappeared into the darkness. Ash had followed her from the dining room, but at a discreet distance that had only drawn the attention of the older woman who had earlier noticed him staring at Claire. The woman had winked at him, either teasing him or encouraging him. Ash had waited only a few minutes before exiting those lobby doors and stepping into the lot.

“Where the hell has she gone?” he asked the question more to himself than to the other agents who could hear him through their earpieces. He hadn’t been far behind her.

“We lost the visual on the subject,” another agent remarked.

Ash cursed. How had she slipped the surveillance so easily? The woman was a bigger threat than even he had realized. And from the minute her name had come to his attention, she’d had his full attention. He’d known this woman was going to be dangerous.

He stepped deeper into the shadows of the dimly lit parking lot. And he heard something. Something muffled and soft—like a crying kitten—was just loud enough to draw his attention. There were plenty of strays in the questionable outskirts of Chicago.

But was it a trick? A lure?

He moved carefully between the parked cars, keeping low so that no one noticed him. But he noticed a dark shadow, probably of a man, bent over as he lifted something from the asphalt. Lights flashed on as a car started, dispelling the shadow to the image of a hulky bald-headed man. The light shimmered off the pale blond hair of the woman that the man carried.

Claire.

Her head lolled back, her eyes closed. She was either unconscious or dead. That cry Ash had heard must have been her last weak attempt to scream for help. Had he heard her too late? But if she was dead, why was the man carrying her? To dispose of the body?

Ash reached beneath his sweater and drew his gun from his holster. He could have spoken into the radio and signaled for help. But then he might have also made the man aware of his presence. And if he was going to overpower him, he needed the element of surprise.

So he crept through the rows of parked cars as the driver of the vehicle with the lights honked and rolled down his window. Ash had thought it was an accomplice. But the driver called out, “Is everything okay? Is she okay?”

“Just had too much to drink,” the man murmured, his accent so thick the words were hard to comprehend.

The driver hesitated yet, his car idling in the lot. He must have realized what Ash had—that the situation wasn’t right. At the very least it wasn’t what the man claimed. Ash had only seen Claire take one sip of her wine and no more. Had it been drugged?

Maybe that was why she had rushed off the way she had. But she had been clear-eyed and coherent then. Whatever had happened to her had happened after she’d stepped through the doors of the hotel and out of Ash’s sight. It had happened so damn quickly that he’d nearly lost her—and still might.

“Why don’t we call hotel security?” the driver suggested.

The man slung Claire over one arm and pulled a gun with his other. He pointed the barrel through the open window of the car. “Why don’t you mind your own damn business?”

Chivalry forgotten now, the driver sped off—tires squealing as the car careened out of the lot. The car had drawn the attention of other agents, who ran across the lot toward the man.

Ash stepped from the shadows, the barrel of his gun pointing at the man’s heart. Claire was slung over his other shoulder, and so small that Ash wouldn’t hit her if he fired. Or at least he hoped he wouldn’t...

“She is my business,” Ash said. “So you can put her down now or you can take a bullet.”

The big man scoffed. “You will shoot me?”

Ash shrugged. “Either I will shoot you or one of the other FBI agents will.”

All around them, guns cocked. Ash hoped all of those guns belonged to fellow agents. But some could have belonged to this man’s associates. Would he have attempted this abduction alone? Which country or group might they be from?

“Put her down,” Ash said.

“I could kill her,” the man threatened.

“If that was the plan,” Ash said, “she would already be dead. But then she wouldn’t be worth anything.”

The threat she posed would have been eliminated, though. Ash’s assignment accomplished. But that gave him no sense of relief—only regret. Anger surged through him, heating his blood despite the cool night air. He had no intention of letting this man, or anyone else, kill Claire Molenski.

The man turned his weapon on Ash, pointing the barrel at him. “Then I will kill you—”

Before he could fire, someone else took the shot, and the big man crumpled to the asphalt. Ash lunged forward and caught Claire before she could hit the ground, too. She was incredibly light and small, more like the weight and size of a child than a woman. But there was nothing innocent or vulnerable about her. He had to remind himself of that; he had to remind himself that she was the danger.

But because of what she knew—and how many nefarious groups and governments wanted that knowledge—she was also in danger. Some people or countries weren’t able or willing to pay for the information she had; instead they would torture her for it.

Ash had seen men three times her size break. Claire Molenski wouldn’t survive. So just watching her wasn’t going to be enough to keep her safe. But protecting her, like she needed protection, would make it harder to gather enough evidence for her arrest.

* * *

HER HEART POUNDING WILDLY, Claire awoke in a panic. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, if it had been minutes or hours since she’d been chloroformed.

Where had she been taken? She blinked her eyes wide, trying to clear her fuzzy vision and her fuzzy head. But the room was dark.

She reached out and breathed a sigh of relief that her hands weren’t bound. Her fingers skimmed across silky material, and she recognized the soft surface on which she was lying. She had been carried to a bed. She skimmed her hands down her body and breathed another sigh of relief that she still wore her dress. Maybe nobody had hurt her.

Yet.

But then a lamp snapped on, and she blinked against the brightness of the light shining in her eyes. “What—where am I?”

“Your room,” a deep voice replied.

She couldn’t see him—not with the light filling her vision field with spots. Who was he?

And why was he lying to her?

This wasn’t her room. Her bed wasn’t this soft and smooth. Her mattress was old and lumpy, but since she was rarely home, she hadn’t seen the reason to replace it. Or to make the bed, either. Her sheets were never smooth. They were always rumpled, usually kicked to a tangled mess at the foot of the bed, as she rushed to get to the office. She was pretty much always at work—before the sun rose in the morning until after it set again at night.

“Why did you grab me?” she asked, her pulse still racing. While she wasn’t bound, she had been abducted.

He replied matter-of-factly, “So you wouldn’t hit the ground.”

“I wasn’t going to fall...” She blinked again, and her eyes adjusted to the light enough that she could make him out standing over the bed.

He was tall—taller than she had even realized when she’d talked to him across the table earlier. And he was so broad. No wonder he had overpowered her so easily in the parking lot in the dark. If only she’d seen him coming, maybe she could have outrun him.