Lisa Phillips - Double Agent

Before she could react, his hands were on her neck. She tried to push him off, but his weight and the pressure on her windpipe made her see stars.

The doorbell rang downstairs.

With shaky hands she found his shoulders, then his face, where she applied pressure with her thumbs until he cried out. She kicked off the floor hard enough to dislodge him and dove for the dresser top for something to use as a weapon. Two arms locked around her waist and lifted her off her feet. Sabine cried out and was dragged backward.

A loud thud came from downstairs. “Sabine!”

She struggled against her captor. Strength bled from her like water down the drain but she lifted her legs and slammed until she made contact with the intruder’s shins. He let go of her and collapsed to his knees.

Boots pounded up the stairs.

Sabine spun and caught the intruder with a kick to the side of his head. The pain in her twisted ankle nearly buckled her legs, but she followed up with a solid punch. The guy still hadn’t gone down. In fact, he was regrouping.

The bedroom door swung open, hit the wall and bounced back. Doug filled the doorway. Despite the fact that she’d left him in the Dominican Republic, something inside her leapt at the thought that he’d come to help her, not interrogate her.

The intruder took one look at Doug and sprinted for the window. The smash was deafening. Sabine ran over and looked out, but he was already up on his feet and running across the lawn. Rain sprayed in through the open window and Sabine backed up from the broken glass.

Doug’s phone beeped.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling the cops. What do you think I’m doing?”

Sabine tried to grab the phone, but he refused to let go of it. All the warmth she’d felt when he burst in like some kind of knight of yore here to save the princess in distress deflated like a pricked balloon. He was trying to tell her what to do again.

“No cops. There are too many things I don’t care to explain about my life or why someone would break into my home.” She lost her grip on the phone then, probably because it was soaked, like Doug’s leather jacket, jeans and wool hat. “How long were you outside? You’re drenched.”

“How long does it take to cross the street?” He folded his arms.

Sabine loved the sound of leather crackling.

“Nice weather you guys have here.”

“I like it. It discourages lingering.”

He grinned. “Kind of antisocial, aren’t you?”

“Why are you here?”

Instead of answering, he turned away, and Sabine followed him to the garage where he rummaged around her damp Cadillac and came up with a hammer, some spare pieces of two-by-fours Ben had left and a box of nails.

She stood at the bottom of the stairs, tapping her foot—even though it hurt. Halfway up he looked back over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose you’ll accept saving you from an intruder as an answer.”

“Not likely, since I had it handled.” Sort of.

As nice as it would be to believe he’d come here to help, he couldn’t have known she’d need saving from an intruder at that very moment. Since Doug was busy fixing her window, Sabine headed into the kitchen for some water and to raid her stash of painkillers. She didn’t dare sit. What little strength kept her upright now would dissipate, and she’d be asleep in thirty seconds. While she was incapacitated, Doug would probably throw her over his shoulder and take her to whoever he reported to for that questioning he’d threatened her with.

No, it wouldn’t do to let her guard down.

Upstairs she could hear the thud of the hammer. The last time he’d been in this kitchen with her—at Ben’s memorial service—he’d been nice. Now he was being nice again, helping her. He probably thought she couldn’t have fixed it herself. He’d be right. She was so drained it was tough to think straight.

Was he friend or foe? Doug acted like he cared. Then in her hotel room he had seemed so determined to find out what had happened to Ben that he was like a runaway train. Nothing would keep him from getting what he wanted.

She was a workaholic, but it seemed more like Doug lived and breathed the army. Now that this particular mission had become personal, there was nothing he wouldn’t do.

Sticking around was a bad idea.

Sabine had just about summoned up the strength to figure out where her purse was when Doug reappeared, wiping his hands on the leg of his jeans.

“Thinking about running again?”

“I was—” Her voice gave out. Sabine touched her throat. It was tender from the intruder’s grip. She sucked in a deep breath. In that moment it was all she had the strength to accomplish.

“Sabine.”

His voice sounded far away, like he was speaking underwater.

The floor swept up toward her, and Sabine descended into darkness.

* * *

Doug caught her before she hit the floor and lifted her into the cradle of his arms. She weighed more than he thought. Tall and slender, Sabine was lean with muscle. Strong. The woman might have an iron core, but his heart had been in his throat since he’d been on her doorstep and heard her cry out over the sound of wind and rain.

After he had kicked the door in and pounded up the stairs, he’d been scared to death he’d find her dead on the floor. Instead, Sabine had put up a valiant fight against her assailant. Now rather than being outside searching for the guy who’d had the audacity to put his hands on Sabine—Doug had seen the marks on her throat—he carried her upstairs.

Doug set her down on the bed and removed her boots. Her ankle was puffy and swollen, but her breaths were deep and steady. He wrapped her in the comforter, turned on the bedside lamp and left the door ajar in case she cried out.

He sighed and lowered himself to the top step in the dark. He had to get a handle on his emotions. He couldn’t freak out like that every time Sabine was in danger.

Pictures lined the wall, all the way down the stairs. He didn’t need light to see the images of Ben at Little League or Ben wearing a tux as he walked Sabine down the aisle. She was divorced now. Ben had revealed that much about his sister, though none of the actual details—so long as you didn’t count the way his lip curled when he mentioned Sabine’s now ex-husband.

All Doug wanted was to find out who had killed Ben and why. After that he wouldn’t have to wonder where she was or what she was doing...or if she wondered the same thing about him. Or what that sadness behind her eyes was.

His phone hummed. “Richardson.”

“You got her?” The voice was gruff and full of authority, the voice of his commanding officer, Colonel Hiller.

“Found her fighting off an intruder in her house. Soon as she comes around, we’ll be on our way.”

There was a noncommittal noise. “She okay?”

Doug stood. He stretched out his back and made his way down the stairs. “She took some hits, but mostly she’s just exhausted.”

“I’m not surprised. That girl’s one busy little beaver. Been up to all kinds of things since Sergeant Laduca died.”

Doug’s heart clenched at the memory of Ben bleeding out in his arms and forced himself to focus instead on his commanding officer’s words. “She has?”

“Stuck her nose into classified records, for one thing. Girl’s got a lot to answer for. The least of which being who she works for.”

Doug found a diet soda in the fridge. It would have to do. “She’s CIA.”

“Not according to anyone I spoke to. Once upon a time, sure. They hired her, trained her and sent her on missions. A half dozen years ago she went off the grid. Disappeared, and the only thing she left behind was a pool of blood.”

“She’s some kind of rogue ex-CIA agent? Are you serious?” Then he remembered who he was talking to. “Excuse me, Colonel. I’m just having trouble assimilating this. She was kind of stuck-up about the CIA thing. If she works for someone else, she must be the best actress in the world.” He thought for a second. “Did you tell the CIA we found her?”