Under Fire - Carol Ericson

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to me, that you wouldn’t tell me your name.” Her fingers twisted in her lap as she hunched forward in her seat.

      She was offering to cover for him. Why would she do that, unless she knew more than she’d pretended to know?

      “You’d lie for me?”

      She jerked back and whipped her head around. “Lie? You’re an agent with a government covert ops team. If I learned anything at the lab, it was how to keep secrets. I never revealed any of my patients’ names to anyone, and I’m not about to start now.”

      “I appreciate the...concern.” He lifted a shoulder. “Tell the cops whatever you like. I’ll be long gone either way.”

      She tilted her chin toward the highway sign. “That’s my exit in five miles.”

      “Then I’ll deliver you safe and sound to your home, Dr. Whitman.”

      “You can call me Ava.”

      After riding in silence for a while, Ava dragged her purse from the floor of the car into her lap and hugged it to her chest. “What happened to Simon? He looked...dead inside.”

      “He snapped.” His belly coiled into knots. If Simon could snap like that, he could snap, too.

      “Did you know about his condition somehow?”

      “I had an idea, and when I discovered he was heading out to New Mexico I put two and two together.”

      “Was it the stress of the assignments? I saw most of you four times a year, but of course you weren’t allowed to discuss anything with me. You all seemed well-adjusted though.”

      Max snorted. “Yeah, I guess some would call that well-adjusted.”

      “You weren’t? You’re not? Can I do anything to help you?”

      She touched his arm again, this time lightly, brushing her fingertips across the slick material of his jacket.

      The human contact and the emotion behind it made him shiver. He clenched his teeth. “You can’t do anything to help...Ava. You’ve done enough.”

      She snatched her hand back again and studied her fingernails. “This is the exit.”

      He steered the car toward the off-ramp and eased his foot off the accelerator. She continued giving him directions until they left the desert behind them and rolled into civilization.

      He pulled in front of a small house with a light glowing somewhere inside.

      She grabbed the door handle and swung open the door before the car even stopped.

      “Hold on. I’ll walk you up.”

      “I thought you were anxious to get rid of me.”

      He scratched the stubble on his chin. That hour-long drive had been the closest he’d come to normalcy in a long time. He didn’t want to leave Ava, but he had to—for her own safety.

      “I was anxious to get you away from the lab and back home. The police can pick it up from here.”

      If there was anything left of the lab when they got there. Tempest had to know by now that one of its agents had gone off the rails. The crashes and noises at the lab could’ve been Tempest.

      “Well, here I am.” She spread her arms.

      He jingled the keys in his palm and felt for his handgun and other gear on his belt as he followed her to the front door.

      She dragged her own keys from her purse and slid one into the dead bolt. It clicked and she opened the door.

      Apprehension slithered down his spine, and he held out a hand. “Wait.”

      But it was too late.

      Ava had stepped across the threshold and now faced two men training weapons on her.

      And this time she wasn’t behind bulletproof glass.

       Chapter Three

      Simon was back—in stereo. Ava caught a glimpse of two men with guns pointed at her for a split second before Max snatched her from behind, lifting her off her feet and jerking her to the side.

      At the same instant, she heard a pop and squeezed her eyes closed. If the men had shot Max, she was finished.

      An acrid smell invaded her nostrils and she opened her lids—and regretted it immediately. The black smoke pouring from her front door stung her eyes and burned her throat.

      “Hold your breath. Close your eyes.” Max lifted her and tucked her under one arm as if she were a rag doll.

      She felt like a rag doll. The jolt of fear that had spiked her body when she saw the gunmen had dissipated into a curious out-of-body sensation. A creeping lethargy had invaded her limbs, which now dangled uselessly, occasionally banging against Max’s body.

      If she was lethargic, Max was anything but. His body felt like a well-oiled machine as he sprinted for the car, still clutching her under one arm. He loaded her into the front seat and seconds later the car lurched forward with a shrill squeal.

      “Get your seat belt on.”

      Her hand dropped to the side of the seat, but her fingers wouldn’t obey the commands of her fuzzy brain. At the next sharp turn, she fell to the side, her head bumping against the window.

      A vise cinched her wrist. “Snap out of it, Ava! I need you.”

      How had Max known that those three little words amounted to a rallying cry for the former Dr. Ava Whitman?

      She rubbed her stinging eyes. She sniffled and dragged a hand beneath her nose. She coughed. She grabbed her seat belt and snapped it into place.

      Without taking his eyes from the road, Max asked, “You okay?”

      She ran her hands down her arms as if wondering for the first time if she’d been shot. “I’m fine. Did they shoot at us? How did they miss...unless...?”

      “I’m okay. They didn’t get a shot off.”

      “I thought— What was all that smoke? The noise?”

      “I was able to toss an exploding device at them before they could react. I don’t think they were expecting you to have company.”

      “Let me get this straight.” She covered her still-sensitive eyes with one hand. “Two men had guns pointed at us when we walked through the door and you were able to pull me out of harm’s way and throw some smoke bomb into the house at the same time?”

      “I had the advantage of surprise.”

      Her hand dropped to her throat. “Did you know someone would be there waiting? Because I was sure surprised to see them standing there.”

      “Let’s just say I had a premonition.”

      She shook her head. “Superhuman.”

      Max jerked the steering wheel and the car veered to the right. “Why’d you say that?”

      She tilted her head. Why the defensiveness?

      “When I saw those guns, I thought we were both dead. Somehow you got us out of there alive. Did I ever thank you? Did I ever thank you for what you did at the lab?”

      “Not necessary.” He flexed his fingers.

      “Are you going to tell me what those men were doing at my house? Are they with Simon? Did they come to finish the job he started?”

      She held her breath. If she had a bunch of covert ops agents after her, what was her percentage of survival? Especially once Max Duvall left her side, and he would leave her side—they always did.

      “I’m not sure, Ava.”

      The name sounded

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