LITMIR.BIZ

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could shoot and take them out, Jeremy dipped into his strength reserves. He bucked his hips and grabbed for the gun in the grass as he knocked his other fist into the side of his attacker’s head.

      “Put the weapon down!” Joel yelled.

      Footsteps slapped against the walkway as Joel and Meredith came closer. Jeremy grabbed for the attacker’s gun. Anything to keep it from pointing in Meredith’s direction. Joel could fight back and defend. He had the training and the skills. She was an innocent bystander.

      Jeremy’s fingers wrapped around the hot metal as he strained to push the barrel toward the other man. Jeremy braced his back against the ground as he kicked out to unbalance his attacker. The guy’s quick look at Joel gave Jeremy an opening. He slammed his elbow into the attacker’s jaw, sending his head flying back and loosening his hold on the gun.

      Jeremy tore the weapon away, ready to fire, but the attacker stopped him with a sucker punch, right on his fresh wound.

      Fire raced through Jeremy’s body as his breath hiccuped and his body jackknifed. Pain exploded in every brain cell. His fingers went numb and the gun dropped to the ground next to him.

      With a sound somewhere between a roar and a laugh, the attacker slipped a knife out of his belt and aimed it right for Jeremy’s gut. One second he saw the other man’s teeth and a face splotched red with rage. The next a boom thundered around them.

      As if in slow motion, the attacker slid off Jeremy and fell to his side. Blood trickled from the small hole in his forehead as a sea of red pooled beneath him in the grass.

      Jeremy looked up in time to see the bleak determination in Joel’s eyes as he lowered his weapon. He’d done exactly what Garrett had taught him to do…kill the bad guys. The question was whether the answers they needed stopped with the man bleeding out on the ground.

      “Jeremy!”

      “I’m okay.” He could barely move his mouth, but he forced the words out. He also put up a hand to keep Meredith from plowing into him as part of her rescue plan.

      A few more seconds and he’d pass out. Being knocked unconscious would be the perfect ending to this crappy day. But instead of hugging him, she dropped to her knees and brushed her hands over his chest as if he were made of glass.

      “He shot you.”

      “How did that happen?” Joel checked the attacker for a pulse then took up position on Jeremy’s other side.

      “It didn’t.” Jeremy leaned on both of them to sit up and couldn’t hide the sharp inhale when he pressed his hand against his side. “He alive?”

      “No,” Joel said.

      “There’s blood all over you.” She reached over Jeremy to Joel. “Give me your jacket.”

      Joel didn’t hesitate. He ripped it off his shoulders and wadded it into a ball.

      When she pressed it against the wound, Jeremy’s world started to spin. “Not shot.”

      Meredith bunched his shirt in her fist and exposed his bare chest before returning the makeshift bandage to his side. “He got you.”

      “Old knife wound. I reopened it. Not a big deal.” With each breath he took, the house in front of him shimmered and shifted. With his head tilted to the side, the landscape morphed from bright colors to dull gray. That had to be a bad sign.

      “That’s it. No more excuses.” She jumped to her feet but stayed crouched at his side. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

      Jeremy grabbed her arm and tightened until the black-and-white vision in front of him blurred then shifted back into place.

      “She’s right.” Joel took out his cell. “You need medical attention.”

      “Just a safe house and a first-aid kit.” Jeremy tried to harness all his energy to get to his feet. If he sprawled on his back he’d lose any chance of convincing them to go along with his plan.

      “You’ll bleed to death if we don’t get you help.” She nodded at her hand and the blood seeping through the jacket.

      She had a point but he wasn’t ready to admit it. “I need an ID on the dead guy and for someone to find Garrett.”

      Jeremy pushed out the worst fears about his brother being hurt or injured. He’d know. He’d feel it in his gut. The connection they shared extended that far. It bound them when the miles kept them apart for months. Like when Garrett got shot two years ago and lay bleeding in a hospital in a country where no one knew his name. Jeremy had sensed it all.

      “You win. I’ll call it in to the office.” Joel pressed a few buttons, then put the cell to his ear.

      All the color rushed out of her cheeks. “You two can’t be serious about treating this with simple first aid.”

      “We’re going into hiding,” Jeremy said.

      Her hands flattened against his chest. “We?”

      “The two of us.”

      “Oh, really?” Her voice turned positively frosty as she sat back on her heels.

      For some reason, her slip from panic to angry teacher mode restored some of his strength. “I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with me for a while longer.”

      “Who says?”

      That one was easy. “Me.”

       Chapter Five

      “It’s been an hour and thirteen minutes since you went to collect information. I’ve been paging you for the last ten.” Ellis stopped pacing and shuffling the papers in his hands long enough to glare at Andrew. “You’d better have some good news to explain your delay.”

      “Not exactly.” Andrew shut the office door behind him and stepped inside. Not far. Just in front of the door at the edge of the dark blue carpet. As if distance would save him from his new boss’s wrath.

      “And by that do you mean ‘no’?”

      “Garrett Hill is still missing.” The younger man visibly swallowed but his voice stayed strong. He didn’t as much as shift his feet as he delivered the bad news.

      “Unacceptable.”

      Andrew spent far too long studying the file in front of him before responding. “Our man in Coronado says—”

      “Stop.” Ellis dropped his stack of folders on the desk and slid into his chair. The silence stretched out, ratcheting up the tension as it built. He could have eased the choking panic in the room, but he fed off it instead, letting the quiet throw the younger man further off balance.

      “Sir?”

      “I don’t care what anyone says.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “Call the operative back in. While you’re at it, tell him to bring his government passport and security badge with him, because if he can’t track a man escaping a fire in the middle of broad daylight he’s done at this agency.” So much for sending the guy with a decade of service to cover his top man. Garrett Hill could slip any tail. That’s what made him so good.

      “But according to our guy there was a pretty big crowd around the fire. It would have been easy for anyone to move in or out of there without being noticed.”

      Ellis flipped a switch on his desk and a bank of monitors to the left flickered to life. “There are people in this office who get paid to keep me updated on what’s happening everywhere in the world. I need you to establish other skills if you want to remain useful.”

      He also had a file on his desk filled with photos and status reports and backgrounds on every person in Garrett’s neighborhood. Ellis had possession of redacted top secret reports on the brother and a separate paper consisting of less

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