Withholding Evidence Read online

  The tension in his jaw relaxed a titch.

  She pressed closer to him and tightened her grip on his shirt. “I’m sorry, Keith. I’m a fool. I should have accepted your apology and dinner invitation. Can I have a do-over?”

  He held her gaze for a long moment, then he slowly slid his hands around her waist and pressed her body against his, lifting her slightly as he lowered his head and kissed her.

  She opened her mouth and welcomed his tongue. The kiss was hot, deep, and left no doubt it would lead upstairs and into his bedroom.

  Keith broke the kiss. “You sure this is what you want, Trina?”

  Her answer was a kiss, followed by more as she traced his jaw, enjoying the feel of the slight abrasion of afternoon stubble against her lips. She kissed downward, over his throat, down his neck, to the closed buttons on his shirt. She paused and undid the top button, then licked the bare skin revealed underneath.

  Keith scooped her up with one arm, swiped her bag inside the enclosed stairwell with his foot, then closed the door and slid the dead bolt home with his free hand. He shifted her to his shoulder and climbed the stairs. Without pausing on the main floor, he crossed through the kitchen and living room, then climbed another flight. Finally, they arrived in his bedroom, and he stopped at the foot of his bed, where he slowly lowered her, her body sliding against the length of his until her feet hit the plush throw rug on the hardwood floor.

  She spared a glance for his room—noting without surprise it was spotless. Nary a dust bunny in a bedroom that could grace the cover of a Pottery Barn for Men catalog, if there were such a thing.

  His neat-freak tendencies were a decided turn-on, and she made a mental note to clean her apartment before inviting him over, because she had a feeling her habits would have the opposite effect on him.

  This was crazy fast for Trina—she never jumped into bed with a guy this quickly—but it felt right. He felt right. For whatever reason, she wanted him, and hallelujah, he wanted her too.

  She dispensed with the rest of the buttons on his shirt while he untucked her blouse and unfastened hers. Her mouth was on his in an unending hot kiss that spurred her to work faster at undressing him.

  She reached for his belt and opened the buckle, and had moved to the button on his fly when a crashing boom split the air and rocked the town house. All at once, the floor beneath them shifted. Then it cracked, and a sudden fissure split the room. Keith shoved her backward onto his bed, as behind him the floor fell away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  KEITH COVERED TRINA, shielding her from the raining debris. His brain had gone straight to combat mode as he assessed threats. The front of the town house was three stories, starting with the garage, but it was built into a hillside, so the back, where his bedroom was, was only two stories above ground.

  The blast must have been to the front… What the hell was it? It had sounded like an IED, but what could have triggered it?

  More importantly, who and why?

  The bedroom was still intact—for the most part. A fissure had split the room, and the hardwood floor on the other side of the break had collapsed. The interior wall slumped. A bad sign. A structural beam on the ground floor must have gone down.

  No getting out through the bedroom door.

  He didn’t smell smoke—it must have been a quick flash. It took out the beam but hadn’t caught fire…yet.

  The gas line could have cracked. The garage would be filling with gas right now. Only a matter of time before the pilot light on the furnace would trigger a real explosion. No time to wait for rescue. He had to get Trina out of there. He ran his hands down her body, checking for injury. “You okay?”

  His words were muted, as was her affirmative response. The boom had been loud enough to ring his bell and it would be minutes or even hours before hearing would return to normal.

  He spoke directly into her ear. “We’re going out through the back window. Quickly. Before the gas furnace goes.”

  Her eyes were wide with fear but, thankfully, not panic. They could panic together when they were safely on the ground and away from the town house. He prayed to hell his neighbors were evacuating their homes now.

  He shifted his weight, slowly, carefully, just in case the room teetered on the brink of collapse. Pulling Trina with him, he crossed the short expanse of floor to the window. A narrow roof, cover for the back porch, jutted out two feet below the window. It should hold both their weight, as long as the joists hadn’t cracked.

  He swung his legs over the sill and tentatively placed his weight on the tar-paper shingles. The roof lurched. His weight could pull the whole thing down, but it might hold Trina. He straddled the sill and urged her to climb through.

  She placed a foot on the roof, and nothing shifted. Thank God.

  With his mouth next to her ear, he said, “Climb down the support post and run clear of the building. There’s a gate in the back fence. Go through it, cross the road, and keep running. Don’t look back. I’ll follow. I promise.”

  She scooted across the roof. At the edge, she dropped flat to her belly, then slid her legs over the edge while gripping the gutter. She quickly shifted one hand to the corner post and dropped out of sight.

  Keith waited until she ran clear of the roof before putting his weight on it, then he followed her lead and made his way to the edge. He slid on his butt, only flipping at the last moment to shove off the roof and jump backward. A support beam collapsed as he did so, and the roof came down, the debris falling with him to his small brick patio. He rolled to his feet and chased after Trina, catching her just on the other side of the gate. With an arm around her shoulders, he pushed her forward. They just needed to cross the lane and run up the rise, then they’d be far enough away—out of the blast zone.

  But they didn’t make it. A thunderous boom shook the ground. The shock wave sent him forward. He caught Trina and rolled, taking the brunt of the impact as he was ground into the paved road.

  TRINA COULDN’T BREATHE. She tried to suck in a breath, but nothing happened. Logically, she knew the impact had knocked the wind out of her, but it was hard to control the panic.

  A high-pitched whine filled an otherwise silent void.

  Can’t breathe.

  She rolled off Keith and struggled to her feet. He did the same. Massive road rash covered his arms. His back could only be worse.

  The ground felt like it was still moving, but that was probably her battered equilibrium. She swayed. Tried to take in a breath. Nothing.

  Keith cupped her face and said something. His mouth moved. Sound and air had both vanished, like she’d entered space but with a minimum of gravity.

  A great, gasping groan sounded, breaking the noise and air vacuum. She’d made the sound and managed to take in a sliver of oxygen. Her lungs expanded, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

  “Slowly, Trina.” This from Keith. A muted sound that drifted below the buzz. “Don’t try so hard.” His shirt was open and hung from his arms in pieces. His belt was still undone. Blood dotted his arms and tattered clothes.

  She managed another grunt, then a shallow breath. Slowly, her lungs filled with the acrid, smoke-filled air. She held her hand to her chest—her shirt was open like Keith’s, but thankfully not shredded—and turned away from the burning crater to gasp for cleaner air.

  With shaking hands, she buttoned her top. She had a million questions, but between her dulled hearing and inability to breathe, she could hardly voice them. Keith placed a hand on her back and pulled her close, hugging her against his chest.

  She took in several slow breaths, utterly grateful for the feel of his beating heart against her cheek.

  He spoke directly into her ear. “Ambulance, police, and fire will be here any moment. You need to be checked out at a hospital.”

  “So do you!” She yelled the words but could barely hear them.

  He nodded. “I won’t leave you.” She read the words on his lips, heard them in a faint echo of sound that rode abo
ve the high-pitched ringing that tried to block everything else.

  His lips touched hers, then he took her hand, and they slowly walked down the street, Trina with a slight limp. She’d twisted her ankle either when she climbed from the roof or when they rolled. She hadn’t felt it at the time.

  They had to circle a long block to get back to the street Keith’s town house faced. Or rather, had faced. The wail of sirens cut through the ringing in her ears. The first responders were arriving.

  They reached the corner and saw a crowd had formed a block ahead in front of the row of town houses. More people were filling the street as they approached. People’s eyes widened and they cleared the way for them both as she limped toward a fire engine that blocked the wreckage that had been Keith’s town house from view. Two firefighters were directing pedestrians to back off, creating a buffer between the people and the blast zone.

  Trina scanned others in the crowd for signs of injury but saw none and hoped everyone had fled their townhomes after the initial blast, before the second, devastating one.

  Depth of sound slowly returned, as if a filter had been removed. She heard both low murmurs from the onlookers and the high-pitched cry of a baby.

  They rounded the tail of the fire engine to see the crater that had been his town house again. Debris still floated down. His house was on the end of the row. The adjacent home had also been destroyed. Only the far wall of the structure remained, sagging with jagged, crumbling edges.

  Keith’s gaze dropped. She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  “You’re okay. I’m okay. As long as my neighbors are okay, I don’t give a damn about my stuff.”

  A boy about eight years old shouted, “Keith!” and ran toward them with his arms out.

  Keith dropped to his knees and hugged him. “Tyler, please tell me your family is okay.” He ran his hand over the boy’s dark curls.

  “We’re all fine. Even Patches is okay.”

  Trina looked up to see an African-American woman running toward them with a younger child in her arms and a dog on a leash. Keith let go of Tyler and hugged the woman. “Thank God.”

  She hugged him, but the toddler in her arms balked and squealed. The woman stepped back. “We got out right after the first blast. It shook the house, woke the baby. Tyler put Patches on a leash, and we bolted. Tyler wanted to go into your house to see if you were okay—” She caught her breath and spoke in a choked voice. “I couldn’t let him.”

  Keith scooped the boy back into his arms. “Your mom was right. You’re very brave, but never, ever go into a building after an explosion. Always do just what you did—grab your mom and your little brother, and get out. Fast. ’Kay?”

  The boy nodded. “I wasn’t scared.” But his voice shook as he said it.

  “It’s okay to be scared, Ty. I was scared. And if your daddy had been home, he’d have been scared. Sometimes being scared is what keeps us safe, makes us stronger.”

  “You promised to teach me how to throw a football. Guess that won’t happen now.” Tyler glanced back at the burning wreckage, and Trina’s heart went out to the little boy who’d just lost his home and was trying his best to figure out what it meant.

  “I will,” Keith said. “This weekend if I can. We’ll take a video and send it to your daddy so he can give you pointers. He’s a better player than me.”

  Tears burned Trina’s eyes. The boy was handling the situation better than she was. Shock, fear, adrenaline, and now seeing Keith interact with this family—three people who could have died just moments ago—was almost her undoing.

  First responders descended upon their small group, clearly alerted by their disheveled state. “Are you Keith Hatcher? Is that your home?”

  Keith set Tyler down and nodded.

  “Was there anyone else inside?”

  “No. Just Trina and me.” He put an arm around her and pulled her forward.

  The questions began. First, she and Keith were put in the back of separate ambulances, and Falls Church police and a fire department investigator questioned her as a paramedic assessed her condition. Then the FBI arrived.

  Except for scrapes, bruises, and a sore ankle, she was fine. She insisted on forgoing a trip to the hospital so she could be questioned on-site—and stay near Keith, who remained inside his ambulance long after she’d been released from medical care. She imagined a medic was cleaning the road rash on his back and arms.

  In embarrassing detail, she described for the FBI everything that had happened. From arriving at Keith’s house, his slamming the door in her face, to ending up in his bedroom. It was too early to determine where the initial blast had come from, but from eyewitness accounts of the state of the town house between the two explosions, they suspected the first had occurred at the front of the structure, on the lowest level.

  Speculation ran in favor of the second, larger blast being caused by damage to the gas line from the first, but whether the initial one was an accident or deliberate was anyone’s guess.

  The fact that the FBI was involved so quickly was a sure sign that they were erring on the side of deliberate.

  Which would mean someone had tried to kill Keith. But why?

  Given his history with the navy SEALs and the nature of the operations she knew he’d been on, there could be any number of reasons and suspects, but the FBI wasn’t ready to rule out Trina as a potential target either. She was questioned extensively on her background and her high security clearance, and the fact that she worked for the attorney general’s wife definitely caused some concern.

  Mara, Erica, and Cressida arrived at some point while she was being questioned inside an FBI van. She had no clue how much time had passed, considering she was still in a hazy blur as the reality of what had happened slowly penetrated.

  Full dark set in, and lights were strung up so investigation of the scene could continue unabated. Thunderstorm warnings meant investigators needed to collect as much data as they could before trace evidence would be washed away.

  A headquarters of sorts had been set up at the perimeter, and Trina saw Keith only in passing as he crossed from the ambulance to a larger mobile crime scene investigation vehicle.

  Curt arrived not long after her coworkers had, and there was a flurry amongst the FBI investigators. Not surprising considering it had to be rare for the AG to personally visit a potential crime scene. He made it clear he’d come out of friendship—but that didn’t stop him from grilling her with the same intensity as the special agent in charge, who’d arrived only minutes before Curt.

  A bomb going off in a former navy SEAL’s town house on the outskirts of the nation’s capital brought out all the bigwigs.

  She recounted her day to Curt and the SAC with the same degree of detail, including the fact that she’d borrowed Mara’s office to talk to Keith at the Navy Yard. Who knew what was important at this point?

  Done answering questions, she waited outside with her coworkers while Curt questioned Keith. Too tired to pace but too freaked-out to sit still, she stood and rubbed her arms, chilled in spite of it being an eighty-degree muggy summer night.

  Finally, Keith stepped out of the mobile unit. Cressida, Mara, and Erica all faded into the background as he made a beeline for her. His arms came around her, and she pressed against him, feeling like she could finally breathe again after having the wind knocked out of her hours ago.

  He held her for a long time, stroking her back. She simply breathed and melted into him, holding him for all she was worth.

  It had to end eventually, she supposed. Keith’s arms loosened, then he kissed her lightly on the lips. He stroked her hair. “You look exhausted.”

  “I am. You, on the other hand, look fine. I find that unfair.”

  “Training. This wasn’t my first unexpected explosion.” He frowned. “But it was the first in the US that threatened civilians.” He sighed. “Listen, Trina, I called Rav. Much as I want to be with you, I’m going to stay at one of the Raptor faciliti
es while we get this sorted out.”

  If there was one thing Trina needed right now, it was to be with Keith. Not for sex, but just to hold him and be held. They’d just been through something together, and maybe it wasn’t rational, but he was the only person she wanted to be with in the aftermath. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”

  “No. Until we know what’s going on, I’m a danger to you.”

  “What if I’m the reason the bomb was set? For all we know, I’m endangering you.”

  “What reason could anyone possibly have to try to kill you? The people you write about are all dead.”

  “Not all of them. You’re still alive.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve established that you aren’t studying me.” He frowned. “I’m a former SEAL. I’ve been on a lot of ops.” He hesitated for a moment, then added, “I’ve killed people. There are reasons certain people could want me dead. Until we know who, I refuse to endanger you—or anyone.” He swore and rubbed his hand across his face. “I still need to figure out how I’m going to tell Tyler I can’t play ball with him. I never should have promised. I didn’t know what else to say.”

  It was clear Keith was resolute, and no amount of argument would convince him. And what if he was right? What if this had been a deliberate attack, revenge for the orders he’d carried out while in the navy?

  She, of all people, knew history. She knew what clandestine operations entailed. She didn’t know the details of his particular ops, but she had highly educated insight into the nature of his work. “Will you call me?”

  He shook his head. “No. No contact until this is sorted out. Period.”

  She crossed her arms. “You still owe me dinner.”

  He laughed. “Babe, I promise, as soon as we know it’s safe, you can pick the restaurant. Hell, I’ll fly you to Paris if you want.”

  “I prefer Italy.”

  He hooked both index fingers in her belt loops and tugged her forward. His kiss was hard, fierce. A sexy, sweet, sad good-bye. “Just promise you’ll wait for me, and you’ve got a deal.”