Covert Christmas Twin

He rushed toward her to see if he came to the same conclusion. He was used to participating in the planning of missions, not carrying them out. Kendra saw him coming and took one step to the side. He flattened his back against the wall, beside her, as the windows upstairs had no shades. The way the sunbeams angled against the house provided some cover, though. They would reflect off the pane and make it harder for the men downstairs to know they were being watched.

“They have weapons, Joe. We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“When the FBI raids a place to take a suspect in for questioning they have weapons, too. You’re not a vigilante, Kendra. Let’s not go rogue. It’s not time for knee-jerk reactions when we don’t know their intentions.”

Kendra’s head fell. “Why do you have to be so logical?” Her shoulders touched his with the movement before she tilted her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes had lost the hard sheen, and he recognized a new openness to negotiation, to reason. “I feel like I’m flying blind, and I don’t know what to do.”

He reached over with his free hand and squeezed hers quickly before letting go. “I think we should seriously consider calling the police.”

“Even if I agreed, the phone system is probably full after the shooting at the university. Doubt we can expect a fast reaction time, and she made a point of telling us not to trust anyone from other agencies. I assume that includes the police. Meanwhile, Beverly is still in there like a sitting duck.”

He leaned over to look out the window. Beverly’s house burst into a flaming ball. The windows next to him exploded, blowing shards of glass inward. He grabbed Kendra and dove to the ground as the side of the house disappeared.

FOUR (#ua3b73726-43b0-5651-8710-19950b34613e)

Kendra hit the floor. Her knuckles made first contact. She cried out from the impact as her fingers were still wrapped around the gun. She rolled and popped up to a sitting position. Smoke billowed into the open side of the house from the massive crater next door. Half of Beverly’s house was gone.

The gunmen were lying prone on the grass below. Two of them wore jackets with FBI on the back. Were they legit or agents on the take? Another wore a nondescript blazer and yet another had on a blue jacket with US Marshals in yellow letters on the back. Everything added up to confirm what Beverly and Joe had been telling her. Kendra really wouldn’t be able to trust anyone until she took down the rest of Masked. One of the men started to move to his knees but fell down again. Injured but not dead, he’d likely survive.

Joe held one hand over his left ear. The jagged remains of the floor that was left beneath them creaked. He gestured to the stairs. “We need to go before this collapses, too.”

Her eyes, nose and throat burned as she let her gaze travel over the burning pile of rubble. There was too much smoke to tell just how deep the explosion went. Did it take out the basement apartment, too? “But—”

“She’s not dead, Kendra. We have to go. This is our chance to escape.”

She searched his soot-covered face for reassurance that he wasn’t bluffing. “How do you know she’s not? What if she’s still in the basement, trapped? You don’t know for sure, do you?”

He holstered his weapon and stood, pulling her upright with him. “No one becomes an NCS agent without always having a backup plan. She’s the best of the best. The bomb was probably for our benefit so we could leave without anyone following us. Come on.” Joe held her hand and guided her over the mess of broken wood and glass by the stairs, also covered in debris. The third step no longer existed.

They made it downstairs. The ringing in her ears diminished enough she could recognize the oncoming sirens—so many sirens in one day. Usually the sound spiked her adrenaline and put her on alert, but today her insides felt hollow and numb. Weeks of tracking down her birth mother only to lose her. It was hard to believe Joe’s theory that she’d escaped, but he knew Beverly better than she did, so she let him lead.

For now.

They reached the same back door they’d entered. Joe unclipped his holstered gun once more and led her down an alley between old houses with detached garages. He looked over his shoulder every few steps. The gravel crunched underneath her feet. She lost track of how many turns they made before Joe came to a stop. He checked over his shoulder once more before he accessed a garage keypad. “How are you holding up? Have you noticed any injuries?”

She focused on her breathing, and the fog that she’d operated in for the past fifteen minutes began to fade. Her bones and muscles ached from the sheer force of the explosion, but other than that, she felt fine. “No. What about you?”

He glanced down at his thumb as the garage door started to go up. “I think I got a nasty splinter but other than that—”

She snorted. She couldn’t help it. “Do yourself a favor and don’t lead with that injury at the next academy reunion.”

He flashed the good-natured smirk that made him seem five years younger, and she found it contagious. She needed to choose to trust that Joe knew what he was talking about and keep moving forward.

The garage opened to reveal an old-fashioned cruiser bicycle with white-rimmed wheels and a basket. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ll tell you right now I’m not sitting on the handles while you steer.”

He waved her toward the interior door. “This is my place, a rental. The bike came with the house. I thought we could wash up, and I’ll ride this to pick up my car and come back to pick get you. If you don’t mind, I’d like to grab a bag before we travel to Caltech.”

The statement brought back the sense of urgency. “You have a go bag ready, right?”

He nodded. “Some habits die hard.”

She suspected it was more that he wasn’t really ready to leave the FBI, but she didn’t want to start that discussion again. “Between the shooting on campus and the house exploding, I would imagine all the ways out of town will be guarded checkpoints in no time flat. While I think we could pass inspection, I’d rather not increase Masked’s chances in discovering I was the Fed who contacted Beverly.”

“I’m not worried about the checkpoints. I know of a farm with an access road that leads clear out to a highway. I’ll be shocked if anyone thinks to monitor that.”

She reached up and brushed the soot off his cheek without thinking. He stiffened but looked down, a kindness in his eyes that made her heart beat faster. She pulled her hand back as if burned. “Sorry. I’m sure you can take care of that yourself.” What was wrong with her?

“I’ll take all the help I can get.” He shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention to my appearance.”

As if. His clothes always looked brand-new, crisp and fresh. She gestured toward his button-down shirt that amazingly, despite the soot covering it, didn’t look wrinkled.

“I find ironing to be relaxing, and I like starch.” He opened the door inside his house. “Restroom is to your left. I’ll grab my car first and we can either leave town or get your rental, though I think the campus will be on lockdown.”

“I parked on a side street.”

“Smart. Should’ve known you would’ve.” He strode in the house and up the stairs while she stepped in the spotless washroom. Her apartment was barely lived in and wasn’t this clean. She didn’t think the adage “cleanliness is next to godliness” was actually in the Bible, but it probably didn’t hurt as a quality trait on his résumé if he really was making a transition to being a pastor. Kendra made sure all evidence of ash and grime was removed from herself and the sink. Once she got her bag from her car she would have to change clothes at the airport to ensure no one smelled smoke on her before boarding.

She stepped out and Joe stood waiting, holding a bag in one hand and offering her a water bottle in the other. It was as if they’d both switched on autopilot. Within fifteen minutes, they’d returned his car to the garage and managed to escape town in her rental, even though they’d passed plenty of parked police cruisers and black SUVs, likely assigned to federal agents. They both kept their hats and sunglasses on despite the overcast skies, until Joe found the dirt access road on barren farmland that had already been harvested.

Another sixty minutes later, they returned the rental at the airport and bought separate tickets on Southwest with direct service to Los Angeles. Since there was no assigned seating on the airline, they could sit together without fear of someone looking at the manifest and connecting the dots. By the time the attendant announced boarding, they’d gone three hours without speaking, which was fine with her.

“You know what I remember most at the academy?” Joe asked, as if he’d heard her thoughts and wanted to correct her. He leaned back in his seat, ignoring the flight attendant’s safety speech. “Boxing.”

She cringed. “I have a lot of memories of Quantico, but that’s one of many I definitely choose to forget most of the time.” The boxing test was a necessary, but painful, part of training. All trainees had been paired up in a boxing ring, men against women, and told to beat on each other in order to prove they could defend themselves. “I’ll never forget that poor accountant. Cynthia, was it?”

He groaned. “Brandon popped her right in the nose, and that was it. She quit.” He shook his head and sneaked a glance at her. “I wouldn’t have lasted, either, if I hadn’t been paired with you.”

“Maybe.”

“No, I’m sure. I’ll never forget tapping you on the shoulder while the instructor yelled to hit you harder. If you hadn’t made it clear you knew how to defend yourself with that fake-out jump punch to my jaw, I wouldn’t have passed.” He shook his head. “I still don’t agree with that part of our training. If I’d actually made any contact with you or caused any bruises like some of the others...”

“You can thank my three older brothers and my Tang Soo Do instructors. I had to be an expert in wrestling and blocking maneuvers.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what you told me back then, too.”

She found herself smiling, not at the memory of having to fight each other, but from remembering what happened afterward. “I never thought I would be consoling a guy who tried to hit me—even though I totally know you took it easy on me—with burgers and fries.”

He laughed. “I felt horrible. Never thought I would ever try to hit a girl, even if it was for training.” His smile morphed into a frown. “I think that was when I first questioned whether I’d taken the right path.”

There he went again, implying he was serious about leaving the FBI. She refused to believe it. “I’m sorry I got you wrapped up in this. Obviously, it’s not normal FBI work, so you can’t really judge—”

“You heard Beverly. She had this in mind for me ever since I met her, just shortly after I arrived as the interim associate pastor. I was just too trusting to see it.”

Kendra chose her words carefully because she knew—despite the loud aircraft noise—that someone might overhear bits and pieces of their conversation. “But if you hadn’t needed to help me this morning, she might not have been able to manipulate you into coming with me. For that, I’m sorry.”

He leaned slightly toward her so only she could hear. “There’s no need to apologize. While I stood in line, I realized that it wouldn’t have mattered.” His voice was soft and caring. “All Beverly would’ve needed to do was mention your name, and I’d have come running. I think she knew that.”

Kendra felt her eyes widen but didn’t reply. What did he mean? Because they could never, ever, be more than friends no matter how strong the attraction. Agents together as a couple never worked.