The Woman Left Behind: A Novel Read online

  Okay. Now she knew where they were. She didn’t know what was going on, or what she should do, but at least she had located them.

  A single shot from inside shattered her nerves. It was a silenced shot, which didn’t mean the little “pew pew” sound Hollywood evidently thought a silenced shot sounded like, but in the real world meant it wasn’t as loud as normal but it was still recognizable for what it was, at maybe a quarter of the sound.

  Levi!

  That was the only thought she had, just his name, but terror and dread laced through her because she knew what one shot could do. She heard shouting, and without thinking she twisted the doorknob of the kitchen door and it opened.

  Shock that it had opened combined with urgency, and she slipped through the small opening, her sneakered feet silent on the cracked linoleum floor. She didn’t remember pulling her weapon but it was in her hand, the solid weight of it reassuring.

  She heard two voices, Mac’s angry and snarling, a woman’s sharp voice trying to ride over his, but she didn’t hear Levi. As she crept forward she caught a smell, one she’d smelled before, that of blood and death, the stench of bowels and bladder that had let go.

  Levi.

  She felt as if her own blood had drained from her body, as if her soul shriveled to dust. Without Levi, there was nothing. If that was him whose death she smelled, then she had nothing, and whoever was on the other side of that doorway was going to die. Not hearing anyone else, she focused on the voices she could hear, and they were coming from the left of the doorway.

  She moved. She didn’t know if she was quiet or not, didn’t care. She rolled around the doorway, weapon outstretched and ready, her finger on the trigger. A silver-haired woman turned a startled face toward her and flinched, but retained her grip on the weapon she had pointed at MacNamara, who was tied to a kitchen chair that had been placed in front of her.

  Shocked recognition rocketed through her. She knew that woman. She was famous, particularly in D.C., a powerful Congresswoman who had been on several powerful committees, but who had resigned from them after her husband’s death a couple of years ago. Kingsley. Joan Kingsley. What the hell!

  Then out of the corner of her eye she saw more people, and she darted a quick look to the side. Levi. Levi! He was alive, on his knees with his hands locked behind his head, but someone she didn’t know stood off to the side, a big, cold-eyed man, standing far enough away that Levi couldn’t lunge and reach him, and his Glock was trained on Levi.

  On the floor against the right wall, a slightly portly man lay sprawled in the inhuman, ungainly sprawl of the dead, his face turned away, blood slowly pooling around his head. She didn’t know who he was, and didn’t care. He wasn’t Levi.

  Instinctively Jina knew Joan Kingsley was the linchpin of this situation, whatever was happening, and she kept her weapon aimed right between the congresswoman’s eyes. “Put it down,” she said evenly. “You and the big guy.”

  “I don’t think so,” Joan Kingsley said. The startled expression was gone from her face, and in its place was a chilled detachment, an emptiness.

  “Shoot the bitch!” MacNamara snarled, rocking violently in the chair as if trying to turn it over.

  He would, too, but his rabid personality could well trigger a round-robin of shots that would result in Levi’s death, and Jina thought she’d shoot MacNamara herself before she let that happen.

  “Shut up!” she bellowed, taking her gaze off Kingsley for a split second, just long enough to shoot him a lethal glance.

  Adrenaline was burning through her veins but she felt chilled herself, lightning impressions and assessments flitting through her brain. They were in a nightmare situation, one with no good solution. MacNamara was bound to a chair, unable to move, with Kingsley’s pistol aimed almost point blank at his head. Levi was on his knees, also under threat, and the cold-eyed man’s weapon was rock steady.

  Jina was frozen, locked in the standoff. She was one person, and had no Ninja training. She loved Levi. She didn’t love MacNamara, didn’t even like him. If she saved anyone it would be Levi, but she wasn’t sure she could do that. Her marksmanship was average, there was no way she could pull the trigger, control the recoil, and aim again at Joan Kingsley in time to save MacNamara’s life. But if she shot at Kingsley, then Levi—

  She couldn’t even think the thought.

  “There’s no solution,” Joan Kingsley said, her gaze cold and distant. She had the look of a woman who had taken the last step and had nowhere else to go. She had reached some inner wall, and there was no negotiation in her, no give, no indecision. “You can’t win. There are two of us, and one of you.”

  “I can take one of you,” Jina said, not giving an inch.

  Joan gave a little shrug. “You might. You might not. Either way, you lose. On the other hand, if you put your gun down, you have a chance at life. MacNamara doesn’t, regardless. He’s mine. But you—you and Butcher, there—you don’t have to be involved.”

  What a load of horseshit, Jina thought with utter clarity. There was no way the bitch would willingly let any of them live.

  Options: If she shot the man guarding Levi, the reflex could well jerk his finger which was definitely on the trigger, and kill Levi. Same with MacNamara, if she shot Joan Kingsley. Even if she killed one, the other would kill her.

  Maybe.

  Jina reached deep. She’d been through team training, she’d been taught to look at each situation logically. Levi wasn’t bound. MacNamara was. If she shot the man and Levi was wounded or killed, MacNamara was still tied to the chair, still helpless, and he’d be dead too. If she shot Joan Kingsley, though, there would be a split second lag time before the man behind Levi could act, and in that length of time Levi himself would be moving. MacNamara might well be dead, though, because Kingsley was holding the pistol butted against his skull. On the other hand, he might not. Kingsley’s hand might or might not spasm. No way to know.

  It was a chance. A slim one, but the only one.

  She couldn’t help it. She looked at Levi, agony in her eyes, just a quick glance but enough for her to read him, to see the fierce readiness, the thought he was all but compelling her to see.

  Fire!

  She risked his life.

  She pulled the trigger.

  Levi hurled himself back and to the side, the move catching the other guy by surprise because neither direction was exactly what he’d anticipated.

  Joan Kingsley stumbled back a step, then went down on her knees. A look of massive shock spread over her face. Jina wasn’t accurate enough to try for a head shot so she’d gone for the torso, but it was a hard hit, right through the sternum and heart. Kingsley was dead there on her knees, and the knowledge was in her eyes.

  Her mouth twisted, and very deliberately she lifted the pistol she still, aimed it at the back back of MacNamara’s head, and took the shot. Jina shot again, and again hit her target, but she was too late.

  The shost jerked the other man’s attention toward Kingsley, a mistake she saw him realize right away, but it was too late. Levi was on him, death on the attack, one steely arm lacing around the man’s shoulders while the other gripped his chin. Panic flared in his eyes, one brief second, then Levi jerked the guy’s chin and it was over. A pop, and it was over, a life extinguished with one movement.

  Levi let the body drop, gave Jina a sharp assessing look, then strode to MacNamara where he lay in the overturned chair. Jina let her arm drop to her side and stood frozen. She didn’t need to check. She’d seen the shot, knew it was over.

  She felt numb. She leaned against the door jamb, then slowly sank to the floor. Three people were dead; she didn’t know who the man was, but Joan Kingsley was a member of the House of Representatives, and Axel MacNamara had run the GO-Teams with ruthless efficiency and savage loyalty. There wouldn’t be ripples of effect from this; there would be tsunamis. Congress would go on, but the GO-Teams—Joan Kingsley might have killed them, too, when she’d killed Axel MacNama