Shadow Woman Read online

  She’d been pleased with the planning and preparation. The plan had evidently fallen apart in execution, though. Damn it! She’d been assured that only top-notch people would be used. Evidently, instead of the A-Team, she’d gotten the B-Team—and “B” stood for “Bozos.”

  Despite her tension, she reached home without incident. Still, the tight feeling between her shoulder blades didn’t ease until she had parked in the garage and lowered the door. Even then, she carefully examined every corner of the garage before she got out of the car. She knew what Xavier was capable of, and she didn’t take anything for granted. When she unlocked the door and entered, the alarm system began its warning beep; she punched in the code, relocked the door, then went straight to the den and got her weapon from the desk drawer. She checked every room in the house before she dared let her guard down. Until this was over, she’d have to be very careful.

  Then she retrieved the burner cell phone from her purse. She’d have to get a new one; they were intended for one-time use—hence the term “burner,” though of course sloppy people disobeyed that protocol all the time. She’d never thought she would be one of those people, but she didn’t have time to get a new phone and she needed to know exactly what had happened.

  She took both the gun and the phone into her bathroom. She turned on the water in the whirlpool tub, then flipped the switch that activated the modern rock-and-water feature in the corner. Normally the sound of the rushing water was very soothing to her, but now she didn’t notice it other than as a means to an end. When the tub was full enough, she turned on the whirlpool motor. She stood between the tub and the waterfall; anyone who was trying to listen in would have a hell of a time trying to make out words over the white noise.

  She made the call. When her contact answered she said tersely, “What happened?”

  There was a short pause. Maybe he was trying to come up with some reasonable excuse for his failure, but in the end he said simply, “Both projects failed.”

  Felice was stunned. “Both?” Good God, how could that happen? Xavier was a difficult proposition at any time, but the other should have been a cakewalk. This was worse than the worst-case scenario. “How is that possible, unless your people are completely incompetent?”

  “The attempt was at a restaurant. The owner decided to play hero with a shotgun. My men got away, but they missed the target.”

  “You colossal fuckup.” She was so angry she could barely speak. She seldom resorted to vulgarity, but she was the one who could pay a very large price for this man’s failure. He could shrug and move on to other clients, while she was left to deal with a catastrophe.

  “The shotgun wasn’t expected. Things happen.”

  “I expect your men to do as they’re instructed.” Lizette should be dead. For God’s sake, she was barely human! Okay, that was an exaggeration. But you couldn’t wipe away a portion of someone’s memories and a chunk of her basic makeup and expect her to continue to function at her previous level. Getting to her should have been child’s play. “Tell me they picked her up again.”

  “Not yet. She stole a car in the parking lot and got away.”

  “So she isn’t in her own car now?” Felice pinched the bridge of her nose. “That doesn’t make sense. Her car was right there; why steal another one?”

  “I can’t say, unless she was so panicked she wasn’t thinking.”

  “In which case she’d return for her car when she calmed down. Has that happened?”

  “No, her car is still sitting at the restaurant.”

  Felice looked at the ceiling as she pulled in a deep breath. She’d been right all along, then. The little things out of the ordinary that Lizette had been doing were because, against all odds, she was recovering her memory. It wasn’t supposed to be possible—but they all did things every day that a hundred years ago would have been considered impossible. Even Al wouldn’t be able to explain away leaving a perfectly good car behind and stealing another one.

  “There’s more bad news,” continued the deep voice at the other end of the call.

  “I suspected as much.” Her voice was tight.

  “The team I sent after the other target were both found dead in a park a little more than an hour ago.”

  Even though she’d been expecting that, she still felt as if the ground dropped out from under her. She put a hand on the bathroom vanity for support. “I didn’t hear anything about bodies being found this afternoon.” And she would. The NSA heard everything.

  “You wouldn’t. We tracked their car when they didn’t check in, found the bodies, and cleaned it up.”

  “And the target?”

  “He didn’t go home. We haven’t picked him up yet, but we will.”

  Scenes from The Terminator flashed before her eyes. Xavier would be like the robot; he would keep on coming no matter what they did, killing everyone who got in his way. That was the downside to providing intense, advanced training to people like him; it was great when he was on your side, but if he ever turned on you—

  She had a panic room; she’d installed one five years go. But she couldn’t live there forever, and what about her daughter? This could continue for some time, if Xavier was on the run. Besides, it wasn’t in her nature to hide from trouble. She had to handle this; she had to come up with a plan to finish the mission. Felice grabbed onto her rioting emotions and tamped down the fear she couldn’t afford to wallow in.

  “My daughter, Ashley—I want her picked up and secured.”

  “If she objects?”

  “She can object all she wants; I want her under lock and key until this is done.” Ashley wouldn’t like it, and she was definitely her mother’s daughter, Felice thought; she would carry a grudge for a long time. But she’d take having her daughter angry at her over having to bury her only child any day of the week, without hesitation. Xavier was ruthless. If he couldn’t get to her any other way, he would use her daughter against her. Anything was possible: kidnapping, torture, murder. If the situation were reversed, Felice had no doubt that she’d do whatever was necessary. And if she herself would do it, she had to assume Xavier would go to the same lengths.

  She would protect her child at all costs.

  The cost would be high. Ashley was independent, or trying to be, and she wouldn’t like being hidden away, missing out on the two summer classes she’d been taking, removed from her friends and all their social activities.

  Tough shit. Ashley’s safety was more important than anything else in this world.

  “I gave you two assignments, one easy and one admittedly not so easy. You assured me both would be handled, and instead your people have been completely incompetent. The situation is royally screwed up. How are you going to fix this?”

  “I have someone in mind,” her contact said. He didn’t even sound urgent. Perhaps he was accustomed to jobs going wrong, which wasn’t a good thing. On the other hand, he did have an impeccable reputation. “If you want to pay the money to get him, he’s a real badass, a specialist in his field. He isn’t required often, but in special circumstances he’s … invaluable.”

  Felice didn’t ask how much money he was talking about, because at this point it was immaterial. And if this badass guy was the best, why hadn’t he been employed to do the job in the first place? Deeply annoyed, she snapped, “I don’t care how you get it done, just do it.” She wouldn’t be safe, her daughter wouldn’t be safe, until Xavier was dead. And none of them would be safe until Lizette was in the ground. She should have been put there years ago.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll get him on the hunt.”

  “Call me when my daughter is secured.” She ended the call and stood there in deep thought for a moment, mentally running through scenarios and possibilities. One in particular stood out: if she had to get her hands dirty and take care of matters herself, she was starting with him—and she had no doubt that he was well aware of that fact.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Room 107 hadn’t been occupied