Page 79 of Be Courageous

Steven cursed him silently. “Pacemaker.”Just hurry. Let me out of here.

Ellis whipped his head toward the sound of Steven’s voice. He gulped.Oh, no.

The TSA agent was pulling him aside. “I’ll have to pat you down.”

Ellis barked across the scant distance between them. “FBI. Seize that man!”

A meaty hand closed around Steven’s elbow.

People screamed and ducked as the blue jackets elbowed their way through the crowd toward him.

Ellis was the first to confront him, his green eyes mocking. “Steven Sauers, you’re under arrest for the deliberate concealment of evidence pertaining to the crimes of the Centurion Cohort, for conspiracy to commit murder, and for extortion.”

Steven feigned bafflement along with a German accent. “You have me confused with someone else.” He caught the eye of the TSA agent. “My name is Hans Steuben. May I take out my passport now?”

The TSA agent shrugged. “Go ahead.”

Before he could reach for his passport, Ellis seized the corner of Steven’s fake moustache and yanked. It came off, along with a patch of artificial skin. Witnesses gasped in one accord. Denial kept Steven numb.

“Like I said.” Wresting him from the TSA agent, Ellis whipped him around. “You’re under arrest.”

Steven resisted only to find himself bent over the luggage scanner, his feet kicked apart, his arms twisted painfully behind him. His own carry-on suitcase whacked him in the back of the head before Ellis hauled him upright.

Indignation exploded in him. “I’ll have you fired for this, Ellis! You’ll be sleeping on the streets, living on food stamps by the time I’m done with you!”

To his chagrin, those who heard his vociferations only chuckled. He was prodded away from the crowd, surrounded by a phalanx of FBI and TSA agents.

“We’ll read you your rights on the way to jail.”

Meeting Ellis’s confident smirk, Steven tasted dread for the first time.

Well, this might really be the end.

* * *

Miles turned into his mother’s driveway after three weeks away. As he neared the garage, the beams of his Acura slid over a familiar Volvo XC90 parked in the driveway, nearly bringing him to a halt. What washedoing here? Dad hadn’t stepped foot in the old family home since storming out two years earlier.

Miles parked in the garage next to his mother’s reliable Honda. As the large door rumbled shut behind him, he wondered if his father had picked up Maggie from the airport and brought her over. That would only make sense if his sister flew in for Thanksgiving a day early.

Maybe his father was here forhim. Maybe he had an update on the Centurion roundup. Steven Sauers, hoping for perks at his cushy federal prison, was throwing every Centurion elite he’d ever protected under the bus. Maybe McKenzie could leave Witness Protection sooner rather than later.

Reenergized by that prospect, Miles hastened into the house with his suitcase. His assignment in Freeport was finally over, thank God. Every time he saw a yacht, he thought of McKenzie’s close call with Ravenel and ached for her company.

The aroma of pecan pie wafted toward him as he emerged from the mudroom into the kitchen, coming face-to-face with his parents who stood in awkward silence.

His mother, wearing an orange apron dusted in flour, lit up to see him. Petite, with short chestnut hair and brown eyes, she looked nowhere near her fifty-four years.

“Miles, I’m so glad you’re back.” She approached him to kiss his cheek. “How was the trip?”

All Miles heard was the forced levity in her voice. He focused on his father. “Why are you here?”

His father blinked at the rather confrontational question, then leaned back against the counter, making himself at home. “Good to see you, too, Son. Congrats on your Freeport assignment.”

“Thanks.” Miles glanced at his mother to gauge whether she needed him to eject his father out of the house by force—not that he could. She looked flustered but not necessarily in need of rescue. In fact, all kinds of emotions were showing in her flushed face.

He looked back at his father. “So what’s the latest with the Centurion shakedown?”

Dad sent him a satisfied smile. “I’m glad you asked. Given Sauers’s testimony, we’ve built cases against twelve former Centurions, and we’ve already won six of them.”

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