silently and tiptoeing through his house out to her car, she could have rolled over and run her hands over his spectacular body until he’d woken up. Until he’d pressed his lips to hers and made her forget everything but the feel of him on top of her.
Instead, she’d slipped out the door, embarrassed and uncertain after waking up next to a man she barely knew. Before she’d turned off his street, she’d gotten the call from Martin, sending her here. She’d felt a surge of nerves mingled with anticipation and a stupid, baseless confidence that she could change the outcome the shooter had planned today.
Right now, more help was on the way, possibly even Scott himself, but she was the only one left to save. Would they arrive before the shooter found her?
Chelsie eased back toward the door of the community center, erasing her view of the dead soldiers, of the blood painting the concrete red. Ears ringing from the gunshots, she clutched her Glock so tightly her hand ached. She didn’t have the range of a rifle, and whoever had been shooting had been deadly accurate.
She opened the door, staying low, and slipped back inside the community center, her heart beating a too-rapid tempo. A haze fell over her thoughts and she couldn’t shake it. Six years in the FBI and she’d never seen anything like this.
Six years in the FBI and she’d never failed like this. She’d joined on a fluke, an attempt to find a place she finally fit. And she thought she had. She’d started in the Los Angeles Field Office, thrown into counterterror as a rookie, and discovered she had a knack for understanding people, agents and criminals alike. That knack had helped her to shed the Barbie-doll nickname she’d been given her first day, and to fit in with the mostly male agents. And it had ultimately led her to negotiation.
Becoming a negotiator had made her feel as though everything in her life had finally snapped into place, as though she’d found where she belonged, the place she could make a real difference.
Resolution through dialogue—it was CNU’s motto. In the intense, unforgiving two-week training, she’d excelled. In real life, apparently, she didn’t.
Martin Jennings had told her to wait for him before she engaged the shooter. He had more than twenty years’ experience talking down dangerous subjects; she had training exercises in a classroom. She’d inched as close to the scene as she dared without putting herself in the line of fire, fully intending to wait. But two people had been shot as she stepped out the door, and she’d known she couldn’t sit on the sidelines a second longer.
She’d done her best, and she knew it. But her best hadn’t been close to good enough.
Worry about it later, Chelsie told herself, her eyes darting left and right. She stuck close to the wall as she walked through the empty, silent community center. Then the sound of a siren reached her ears. She let out a relieved breath, but it caught less than a minute later as a shadow passed by the glass door on the side of the building. A tall shadow, carrying a rifle.
Flattening herself against the wall, Chelsie set the bullhorn carefully on the floor so she could grip her Glock with both hands. She inched closer, stepping soundlessly in her practical flats. Her senses seemed to shrink, until all she saw was the glass door to the side of the building, until all she heard was her own even, deep breathing. If there was no talking him down, she wasn’t letting the shooter get away, wasn’t giving him the chance to go after anyone else. Not today or ever again.
Slowly, slowly, she turned the handle and opened the door, inch by inch. She sensed before she saw that he’d heard her, so she ripped the door open the rest of the way. Her Glock came up fast and steady, taking aim at center mass. “FBI! Don’t move!”
She instantly processed the Kevlar vest, the extra weapon strapped to the leg, the Remington rifle in his hands, then recognized more before he finished spinning toward her. The dark blond hair. The tall, lanky body. The long, slim fingers gripping the stock of the rifle.
“Scott,” she blurted. The fun-loving, quick-to-smile agent she’d been unable to resist last night seemed like someone else entirely in his tactical gear, his expression fierce and determined.
“Chelsie.” Relief bloomed in his chocolate-brown eyes, so strong it made her own eyes water.
Another HRT sniper materialized from around the corner, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Scott. Heat rushed up her face, but it wasn’t from the embarrassment of being caught in the same clothes he’d peeled off her last night, or from seeing him so soon after sneaking out in the darkness. Seeing Scott couldn’t distract her from the weariness and splintering anger she suddenly felt.
Nine people had died today. And it didn’t matter what the FBI thought of her actions. Her career as a negotiator had ended before it had even begun.
June, present day
“You missed a spot,” Chelsie told Maggie Delacorte as they walked out of the Washington Field Office.
Scott’s younger sister looked nothing like him. A few inches shorter than Chelsie, with dark brown hair cut into a stylish, practical bob, and light blue eyes, Maggie shared only one thing with her brother: the intensity in their gaze. Or two, counting their willingness to put their lives on the line in FBI tactical positions.
Maggie shrugged, swiping a hand over her face that completely missed the smear of camouflage paint left along her hairline. “Doesn’t matter. I have a date with my TV and a bowl of popcorn tonight.”
That was Chelsie’s evening plan, too. She smiled at her friend, who’d been with the Washington Field Office’s SWAT team for the past four years. SWAT was an ancillary position, meaning Maggie did that in her spare time. She spent her days as a regular Special Agent working civil rights cases like hate crimes and human trafficking. She was in the thick of it all the time, while Chelsie had come back to the WFO a year ago and not only dropped hostage negotiation but switched to the safest job she could find. White-collar crime, where lives were rarely on the line. Where she wouldn’t have to stand by and watch while nine people were shot and killed.
Chelsie shuddered and Maggie eyed her questioningly.
As the days had turned into months, she’d slowly stopped having nightmares about her only case as a negotiator. The FBI had found her not to have any fault in the incident. They’d cleared her within a week and expected her to continue as a negotiator. But Chelsie had wanted out. It was her job to change the outcome of cases like that. If she couldn’t do it, she had no business being a negotiator.
Maggie knew about that day—it had been big news at the time. But Chelsie had never discussed it with her, especially not what had happened the night before with Maggie’s older brother. The only one-night stand she’d had in her entire life.
And she certainly wasn’t going to put any of that on Maggie now. Tomorrow was the anniversary of the shooting, but they’d caught the perp the same day. She’d testified against him, and his trial had finally concluded last month.
Clayton Connors was a former soldier, honorably discharged after suffering minor injuries in an IED that had killed the rest of his unit. It had seemed likely that his insanity plea would land him in a mental institution instead of prison, but after a week of deliberating, the jury had found him guilty. Chelsie had watched as he’d been led out of the courthouse in shackles, heading toward a maximum-security prison. He’d never be getting out.
The same couldn’t
