the closed door, she pressed her ear against the wood and listened. From inside, she heard a drawer being closed, then a shuffling noise and the thud of heavy boots walking across the floor. Coming closer to her? She jumped back as the door swung open. A guy in a guard uniform raised his arm at right angles to his body and fired at her. He missed. Her aim was more accurate. Two direct hits. The center of his chest turned bright red. He crumpled to the floor.
The gunshots had alerted the other guards. From downstairs, she heard their shouts. Her best guess for the location of the hostage was the closed door at the end of the hall. As she sprinted toward it, a red-haired maid in a pink smock stepped through one of the open doors, holding a stack of folded linens. She gave a shriek and threw up her hands. No weapon. Not a threat. Gennie pushed her back and told her to take cover.
At the closed door, she tried the handle. Locked! No time for finesse, she crashed through, using her shoulder as a battering ram. Tomorrow, she’d have a bruise, but the injury was worth it if she completed her mission. She pushed the door closed behind her. After slipping her knife into the sheath, she held her gun with both hands for stability as she scanned the large room—a well-equipped home gym with a wall of windows and a wide balcony.
A tall lean man wearing knee-length shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt jogged on a treadmill, moving in time to music that must have been playing on his wireless headphones. His back was toward her. When he turned his head, she recognized his profile.
Without lowering her handgun, she approached. “Noah Sheridan.”
With a glance in her direction, he stepped off the treadmill, removed his headphones and rubbed his hand across his close-cropped dark brown hair. “Good timing, Captain Genevieve Fox. The van carrying your backup is pulling into the driveway.”
She braced herself, expecting a twist at the last minute. “Are you the hostage?”
“Who else would I be?”
He came toward her with his hand extended as though to offer congratulations. But he hadn’t followed the script. The information she’d been given stated that the hostage would introduce him or herself by saying, Take my hand and set me free.
Waiting for him to say those code words, she hesitated. Big mistake! He made the first move. A chop on her wrist, and she dropped her handgun. Before she could pull her knife from the sheath, he spun her around and swept her legs out from under her.
He could have ended her mission then and there. Her gun was within his grasp. His dark eyes blazed with excitement. She could tell that he wanted a fight, wanted to show her who was the boss. Not going to happen. Sure, he had the physical advantage. But she had the intense determination of ten combat-ready soldiers.
The door whipped open. The other guards arrived.
“Back off,” Noah shouted to them. “I’ve got this.”
Bite me! She scrambled to her feet, never taking her focus off Noah. If she subdued him, she had the advantage. Noah was the boss. The guards had to obey his orders.
When he grabbed her, she rolled backward, using his momentum to throw him off-balance. Regaining her feet, she thrust out her injured left leg as an obstacle. He tripped and fell to the ground. Avoiding his grasp, she went down on her knees behind him where she got him in a chokehold, pulled her knife and held it in front of his dark eyes.
He flicked the tip of the rubber blade. “I’ve got one thing to say.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re hired.”
The bodyguards, including those she had supposedly killed, swarmed into the home gym, applauding and hooting their approval. She counted five men and one woman—the non-threatening redhead who had been carrying a stack of folded sheets.
Noah pushed her rubber knife out of the way and stood. “How did you like our Rocky Mountain version of Hogan’s Alley?”
Though she’d trained at Quantico, Gennie had never gone through the original Hogan’s Alley—a famed FBI simulator exercise where actors and other agents took on the roles of villains and innocent bystanders. But she’d played the video game where thugs popped out from behind bushes and a nanny with a baby carriage was in the mix.
“To tell the truth,” she said, “I wasn’t expecting this kind of workout at my first job interview for ARC Security.”
“That’s the point. If you decide to join us, you need to be ready for action at any time and in any circumstance.”
He took her hand and helped her to her feet in a gesture that might have been designed to make her think he was a gentleman. Most definitely, he was not. The fire in his eyes told her that Noah had enjoyed their hand-to-hand combat. He was competitive, and she had no doubt that if he’d thwarted her assault, he would have relished the victory.
She straightened her shoulders, pulled the scarf off her neck and ran her fingers through her chin-length blond hair in a futile attempt at grooming. Technically, he’d said that she was hired but she wouldn’t feel comfortable until she signed a contract. Her confidence had taken a hit when she’d belly flopped into the dirt outside the house and ruined her silk blouse. Her injured ankle was another problem.
The fake guards surrounded her, offering congratulations and words of welcome. The lone woman among them had taken off her pink housemaid’s smock. Her sleeveless top showed tanned well-toned arms. With that level of fitness, she was probably a field agent, and Gennie was glad. For much of her life, she’d been in situations where women weren’t an equal part of the equation. From military engineering courses at Texas A&M to boot camp to two and a half tours of duty, she seemed to be always proving herself against a male standard.
The ARC crew seemed friendly, especially the guards she’d “killed” with her rubber knife and paintball gun. A handsome guy with a killer smile introduced himself as Tony Vega. “I’m the thug you knifed in the entryway. How’d you get inside so fast?”
“Picked the lock.”
“Nice move.” When he bobbed his head, he reminded Gennie of her younger brother. “You got skills.”
“But I failed the mission,” she said. “I didn’t rescue the hostage.”
“Because there was no hostage,” Tony said.
Noah explained, “This scenario was an ambush, designed to capture you. The information we gave you hinted that you couldn’t trust your own people. When I attacked, your instincts kicked in. You overwhelmed me but didn’t kill me. Smart move. You could use me as a bargaining chip when my men came into the room.”
“Is this the usual exercise?” she asked.
“We change it every time,” the woman said. “Otherwise, we’d get bored.”
“And we’re all grateful,” Tony added, “that you went upstairs instead of charging into the kitchen and messing up the barbecue we’ve got planned. Hungry?”
Noah interrupted. “The rest of you go downstairs. I’ve got some paperwork for Gennie.”
Smiling, she watched them leave. Their friendly camaraderie reminded her of her platoon in Afghanistan, which was what she’d expected when she applied
