and dinner for one.
What she had thought was her husband’s work as an investment banker keeping him busy with “late-night meetings” turned out to be Maxwell having drinks with his twenty-two-year-old secretary. Now Sabine was as alone as ever but with the added bonus of feeling like a chump because her husband had cheated on her with someone younger and prettier. She would think twice about letting anyone else in again.
She punched the first two numbers of her ten-digit code on the panel for the security system and paused. It wasn’t armed. That was weird. She’d set it before she left, hadn’t she? She never forgot something as important as security. Sabine set down her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and stood still for a moment. The house was quiet as always.
After a walk-through of the downstairs rooms yielded nothing, Sabine crept upstairs, keeping to the side so as not to step on the creaky stair halfway up. Cold shimmered through her from head to toe. She had never needed a gun at home before. Her handler’s words from the park came back to her.
Don’t get caught with a gun. Ever. And don’t get caught by the police, not even for a speeding ticket. You do and you’re on your own.
Careful not to look at the pictures of Ben on the wall, Sabine rounded the stairs at the top and studied the upstairs hallway. Her ears strained for...a rustle coming from Ben’s bedroom.
The door to her brother’s room had been closed since his last day of leave and his subsequent return to base. He’d always been sort of juvenile about her going into his room, a response probably from the lack of privacy they’d had in foster homes. She’d respected his wishes and had agreed not to go in there.
Light flashed across the opening, and Sabine crept forward. She peered into the room and eased the door open inch by inch.
A black balaclava covered the intruder’s face, leaving only his eyes visible. It was definitely a guy, judging by the shape of his wiry body. The efficiency with which he worked his way through Ben’s belongings told her that he was a professional. This wasn’t just some teenager looking to score.
He slammed the dresser drawer shut and yanked open the next one. A gun wouldn’t scare off this guy and would likely raise more questions than she was okay with when she had to explain a dead body to the police.
She would have to rely on her CIA training.
Sabine took a deep breath and rushed him. He looked up a split second before she slammed into him with the force of her body and knocked him off balance. The guy twisted so she was the one who hit the floor and the back of her head slammed against the carpet.
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
