“Sure.” A different car than yesterday. For precaution’s sake, the agency made sure she never came and went from the building in the same vehicle twice.
In the underground garage a silver SUV was waiting for them when they stepped out of the elevator. Taylor hopped in the back while Chris rode up front with the driver.
“Looking forward to getting warrants and affidavits against these assholes,” Chris said as he shuffled through the printouts she’d given him. So far she’d managed to match four people to the offshore accounts recovered from the files Charlie had sent from that flash drive at Baker’s estate.
And one of them was Dillon.
She tried to push him from her mind and think about happier things—like Logan—but he weighed heavy on her mind. The agency wanted him arrested, and it was only a matter of finding him and taking him into custody.
Agency lawyers had already compiled a list of evidence covering his various crimes. When he was convicted, he’d serve his sentence in a federal prison. And it would likely be for the rest of his life.
The guilt beat at her but she shoved it aside. He’d brought all this on himself, and if it wasn’t her helping uncover his crimes, it would be someone else at the agency. And he’d also tried to kill her, so by comparison, sending him to jail seemed a fair deal to her.
“This is great work, Taylor,” Chris went on as the driver pulled through the raised mechanical gate protecting the garage and out onto the street.
The sky was heavy with clouds, a dull, leaden gray that matched her mood. All she wanted at this point was to get this wrapped up and know that Dillon was in custody. Then she could try to put all this behind her and move on. With Logan.
He’d slipped past her defenses with alarming speed and ease, but there’d been no stopping it. She hadn’twantedto stop it. And now that he’d stolen her heart, she couldn’t imagine having to let him go. When he came over tonight she wanted to make sure he wanted a real relationship with her going forward.
“Rest of the team is catching up on the latest intel you provided right now. They’ll be ready for us when we get there,” Chris added.
“Sounds good. I—” She stopped talking when a man dressed in a dark hoodie suddenly stepped out onto the road in front of them and raised his arm, pointing something at them.
“Jesus!” Chris didn’t even have time to reach for his weapon before the driver veered hard to the left, but it was too late.
Three bullets slammed through the windshield in rapid succession.
Chris grunted and swore, and the driver slumped over in his seat, blood spilling down his face from the wound in the side of his head. His hands slid off the wheel as he lolled sideways in his seat, but his foot was still on the gas. The engine revved as the vehicle tore toward a row of parked cars on the far side of the street.
Chris made a grab for the steering wheel but it was too late. Taylor’s seatbelt jerked taut across her chest and right shoulder, her head snapping forward with the impact as the crunch of metal on metal rang in her ears.
Ignoring the pain, pushing through the shock, she fumbled to undo her seatbelt and immediately crawled forward to shift the SUV to neutral and shut off the engine. The driver was obviously dead, and Chris was gravely wounded in the chest. He was slumped against his door, one bloodstained hand pressed to the wound, his breaths coming in wheezing gasps.
“Get…my weapon…” he managed, flailing his free hand out to hit the automatic door unlock button. They had to get out of the SUV and use it as cover.
Dillon. Dillon had found her and done this.
Taylor reached inside his sport coat for the pistol in the holster beneath his armpit, but the front passenger door yanked open. Chris let out a strangled yell as two gloved hands reached in and hauled him out.
Taylor shrank back and scrambled across the back bench seat to get out the other side, but one of those hands caught her ponytail and yanked her back hard enough to snap her head back on her shoulders.
She shot a hand out to grasp the wrist holding her hair to take away his leverage and half-twisted around to throw a punch at him. Her fist sliced past his face as he ducked away.
It wasn’t Dillon.
A total stranger stared back at her. Olive skin, dark hair and eyes. And the utter lack of emotion in them chilled her to the core.
“You’re coming with me,” he muttered in a heavily accented voice, and shoved the muzzle of his pistol beneath her jaw.
Taylor froze and swallowed as she stared into those lifeless eyes, her heart lodged so far up her throat she was choking on it. There was nothing she could do as he unceremoniously hauled her out of the vehicle by her hair, dragging her backward across the seat.
Pain exploded across her scalp and through her neck.
She scrambled to get her feet under her as the man whirled her around. Chris was on his side as he spoke into his phone, pale face tinged with blue. He was trying to draw his weapon with his free hand despite the blood pouring from his chest wound.
The man yanked hard on her hair, jerking her head back, and fired a bullet into Chris’s face. Taylor’s scream was cut off by a hard, gloved hand slamming down over her mouth.
“Shut up or I’ll put one into you too,” he snarled under his breath, and dragged her upright. A car screeched to a halt beside them. The man holding her wrenched the back door open and threw her inside, climbing in after her.