Read the book: «Decoded»
She was the first woman he’d allowed so close.
Two years he had worked to seduce her, drawing her ever closer. At first, it was nothing more than a positioning strategy. Her coffee shop was located directly across the street from the Colby Agency. As time passed, he’d found himself noticing things about her. Like her smile. He missed her when they were apart. That confession rattled him. How had this happened? He’d been taught from birth not to feel any emotion. With Maggie he’d been too human, too weak to resist her, and that had put her in danger.
Now there was only one thing to do.
With one last look at her he walked out the door, the backpack on one shoulder, the automatic in his waistband. He pushed all other thoughts from his mind except the mission.
He would never be safe until the job was done. And neither would Maggie.
Decoded
Debra Webb
MILLS & BOON
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First, I must thank friend and awesome Colby fan Patsy Adkins for helping me
make a big choice for the Colby family in this story. You are awesome, Patsy!
Decoded is dedicated to one woman in particular, Aliya, but also to a group of
wonderful people who give selflessly to NGOs (non-government organizations)
all over the world. Aliya and her team have traveled far and wide to selflessly
help the victims of devastation. Just this year, 2011, they traveled to Japan to help
with the horrific tragedy there.
Thank you, Aliya, for your compassion and for the courage to act.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debra Webb wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the military behind the Iron Curtain and within the confining political walls of Berlin, Germany, that she realized her true calling. A five-year stint with NASA on the space shuttle program reinforced her love of the endless possibilities within her grasp as a storyteller. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Debra has been writing romantic suspense and action-packed romantic thrillers since. Visit her at www.DebraWebb.com or write to her at P.O. Box 4889, Huntsville, AL 35815.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Slade Keaton —He is the enigmatic head of the Equalizers, a private investigations firm that ensures justice outside the law as often as inside. Keaton has secrets that even the woman who loves him is afraid to uncover. Those secrets involve the Colby Agency, and now a dangerous enemy has been roused. Keaton must stop the Dragon before she destroys the people he has come to care about. Can he hope to survive?
Maggie James —She has suspected for a while that Slade Keaton is not who and what he seems, but she is desperately in love with him. Still, Maggie is no fool. She has to do the right thing…but what about the baby she is carrying?
Lucas Camp —Lucas fears that Slade Keaton represents a serious threat to his wife, Victoria, and to him. But is Lucas ready for the truth Keaton’s real story will reveal? Whether he is ready or not, the past has crashed into the present and Lucas must face his most vicious enemy to date.
Victoria Colby-Camp —Victoria will fight for those she loves. Her compassion for Slade Keaton may very well save his life.
Alayna —Alayna has been a loyal subject to the Dragon. But can she look the other way when her brother’s life is threatened? Or will she finally stand up to the monster who is her mother?
Dragon —Pure evil. She might be nothing more than a legend or myth in the Intelligence world. But Lucas Camp and Slade Keaton know just how real and dangerous she is. She has awakened and is poised to devour anyone who gets in the way of her destroying Slade Keaton.
Jim Colby —He is the son of Victoria Colby-Camp, head of the Colby Agency. He has had his reservations about Slade Keaton, however no one understands secrets better than Jim. First and foremost, Jim will protect his mother. But part of him needs to reach out to Keaton, a man who is in the middle of a horrendous nightmare that is all too familiar to Jim Colby.
Ian Michaels and Simon Ruhl —Victoria’s most trusted colleagues. These two men serve as seconds-in-command at the Colby Agency.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter One
Chicago, October 14, 1:05 a.m.
Maggie James parked her car two blocks beyond the brownstone where he would be. She shut off the lights and engine and sat in the darkness. He hadn’t stopped by the coffee shop tonight the way he always did. The way he had done for two years.
Emotion burned Maggie’s eyes. Two years. How had she allowed this to happen? It wasn’t enough that she had been a fool. She had known their relationship was make-believe. That he was a fantasy. Not a single thing he had told her would be the truth. Not his name, not the vague past he’d tossed to her like a bone for a starving dog.
Nothing.
Everything about him was a carefully planned deception. Every fiber of her being sensed the duplicity and yet she couldn’t point to one instance where he had contradicted himself. There hadn’t been a single trip up, but she knew. She just knew.
If she’d had a lick of gumption she should have walked away long ago. Her instincts had warned her time and time again. He’s dangerous. This isn’t real. But she hadn’t listened. Maggie Sue James, thirty-two years old, had pretended it didn’t matter. Each time she had worked up the nerve to tell him to stay away, he’d walked into her coffee shop and she’d lost her courage in that same second. Her knees had gone rubbery and her heart had overridden her brain. He had taken control of her as easily and completely as if she had been a mere puppet.
Maggie swallowed back the lump in her throat. She was addicted to him. There was no denying the truth. Sleep eluded her if he wasn’t in her bed. Her very soul ached if more than a day passed without him making love to her. Even though the intensity of his lovemaking terrified her at times, she could not resist. How was that possible? No man, not even her low-life former husband, had held that kind of power over her. She’d been a lot younger back then. Wasn’t she supposed to be smarter now?
But everything had changed for Maggie sixteen hours and twenty minutes ago. That defining instant had somehow cleared the fog from her brain, and her entire life had zoomed into vivid focus.
At 7:40 a.m. she had finally summoned the courage to take a pregnancy test. It had been positive. Positive.
She was pregnant and plenty old enough to know better. How had this happened? She swallowed those little daily pills faithfully. Never missed a day. Ever. Two more tests an hour or so later—long enough to frantically dash to the corner drugstore—had both confirmed the same reality. Maggie was pregnant.
Squaring her shoulders, she pushed aside the apron she’d shed once she’d gotten into the car, and grabbed her purse. A busy night at the coffee shop had distracted her from this necessary business for a while. At closing time the anger had started to build once more, pounding in her skull like the threatening winds of a hurricane. The next thing she knew, she had been in her car headed here. This couldn’t wait any longer.
Over the past eight years she had climbed a couple of mountains. She had finally dumped her no-good, cheating husband. The move from Indianapolis to Chicago had given her a fresh start. Two years later she’d bought the drowning coffee shop and she’d turned it into the place to stop while shopping or working on the Magnificent Mile. Her name had become the talk around watercoolers and in checkout lines. She had worked hard to achieve that success—and she’d done it during the worst of the sluggish economy.
She could do this. Slade Keaton wasn’t interested in a wife, much less a child. He would be glad to let her go just as soon as she informed him that she was pregnant. Anger elbowed aside the softer emotions. Oh, he would be only too happy to disappear from her life then. Whatever his reason for hanging around this long, it wasn’t about her. That made for a bad relationship regardless of the other concerns she suspected.
Well, that was fine. Maggie opened her car door and climbed out. The late-autumn chill invaded her jacket, making her shiver. The sooner he was out of her life for good, the better off she would be. Maybe then she could finally move on.
Maggie surveyed the street in both directions before locking her car. This wasn’t exactly a bad neighborhood anymore, but at night there was no such thing as a really good neighborhood. The row of brownstones lined two blocks. Some were still private residences, but most had been turned into businesses years ago.
Her hands burrowed deep into her pockets, cell phone clasped in her right, as she walked toward the brownstone on the end of the first block. The windows were dark. Her steps slowed. He had to be here. When he wasn’t at her small apartment over the coffee shop, he was here, at his place of business on the ground floor, or in his second-floor apartment.
Maggie scanned the vehicles parked along the street. His sedan wasn’t among them. There was an alley along the rear of the row of brownstones. During the daylight hours city maintenance and garbage collection vehicles required full access, but at night the area was fair game. Maybe he’d parked there. Maybe he’d called it a night, which would explain the lack of lights.
And maybe she was crazy for coming here at this hour. Then again, he’d left her little choice when he didn’t show at the coffee shop. She had to do this while she still had the nerve. The needling notion that something was wrong cut through all the confusion in her brain, leaking a new kind of fear into her belly. He’d always come to watch the folks at the Colby Agency leave for the night. Never failed.
But not tonight.
What if he’d already left? Just walked away? Running his private-investigations firm from some other location was certainly possible. Slade didn’t do any of the actual investigating himself. He rarely met with clients.
He could be gone.
Her knees felt a little wobbly and her stomach churned with uncertainty. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? She wanted him out of her life. He wouldn’t be interested in a child. Why tell him? Leaving out that complication would make this entire matter far simpler. The last thing she wanted was for him to hang around just for the sake of the child. What kind of father would he make if forced into the role?
What kind of mother would she make?
Dear God, what am I going to do? Terror nipped at her. She wrenched her hands from her pockets and wrapped her arms around her waist. She’d always taken care of herself, yes. But this was a child! A whole human life that would be counting on her! What if she screwed up? What if she couldn’t do it? Her parents had been hardworking, salt-of-the-earth people. Good parents. Would she be a good mother? And could she assume the part of father, as well?
Her younger sister had three kids, but she also had a husband who was a fantastic dad. Heck, her older sister had five kids and she’d done just fine after her husband died.
Maggie kicked aside the fears and doubts and grabbed back her courage. She was a James. Having a houseful of kids was the norm. Truth was, Maggie had wanted kids a long time ago, but her bum of a husband had put off the idea. Lucky for Maggie and the prospective children.
Sadly, the only thing thoughts of her ex proved was that Maggie was foolish enough to fall hard for the wrong kind of guy twice.
When would she learn?
A little late to worry about that now.
Her cell vibrated. Maggie dragged it from her pocket and stared at the screen. It was him. Her heart commenced that crazy gallop.
She considered not answering. But wasn’t talking to him why she was here? He could be waiting for her back at her place.
Maggie cleared her throat. “Hello.” She struggled to slow her breathing and tune out the pounding in her ears. Be calm. Stay focused. This was far too important to allow emotions to override her good sense.
“Turn around and walk back to your car.”
A trickle of fresh fear seeped into her chest. “What?” Maggie glanced around. “Where are you?”
“Walk back to your car. Now.”
She swiped a wisp of hair from her cheek. “Not until you tell me where you are.” She was finished. No more games. No more fantasies. This was reality. Butterflies swirled in her stomach.
“This is not the time to turn stubborn, Maggie.” His voice was stern, just shy of harsh.
Frustration tightened her lips. She shoved the phone back into her pocket. She wanted to just keep walking in the other direction. Actually what she wanted to do was call him back and tell him to go to hell.
Instead, she obeyed like a submissive child.
You can’t keep doing this, Maggie!
She was a grown woman. With a child on the way! She had to get past this. Do a 12-step program. Something. Slade Keaton was trouble and she needed him out of her life. Now.
Her lips trembled. Tears brimmed on her lashes. Idiot. Idiot. She stamped the rest of the way back to her car, hit the remote unlock and got behind the wheel.
“Now what?” she muttered to herself. Was this a game to him? This was her life and she was sick of games. She should just leave and never look back.
Where the hell was he? Her car’s interior lamp faded to black. Obviously he could see her from wherever he was. Coward.
“Start the engine and drive away.”
Her breath caught. Their gazes locked in the rearview mirror. How had he gotten into her car? Hadn’t she locked it? She’d hit the unlock on the remote two steps before reaching the car, which was habit, but there wouldn’t have been a warning that the doors were unlocked already. Where was her brain?
“Hurry, Maggie. I don’t know how much time we have left.”
Her hand shook as she picked through the keys for the right one. All the questions she wanted to hurl at him clogged into a huge knot in her throat, and the thick silence throbbing inside the car made it hard to breathe. It took two attempts to get the key into the ignition. A quick twist and the engine started.
“Drive.”
The tone of that one word warned her that she shouldn’t ask any questions. She set the headlamps to the on position and eased away from the curb.
“Where are we going?” She hated that her voice trembled. Damn him.
“Just drive.”
Fury blasted her. That was it. She’d had enough. Maggie slammed her foot on the brake. The car rocked to a stop. “Where are we going?” She was a grown woman. She had responsibilities, first and foremost to herself.
“Maggie.”
She closed her eyes, couldn’t bear to hear him say her name. “Stop. Just stop.” She shook her head. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“We have to move,” he urged. “We can talk later. Right now you just have to trust me.”
Maggie laughed. She didn’t mean to, but the sound, brittle and painful, just burst out of her. “You have to be kidding!” She was hysterical. The stress had evidently pushed her over the edge.
When cold steel pressed against her temple, her attention swung to the rearview mirror. He had a gun to her head. A gun! “What’re you doing?”
“Drive, Maggie. Just drive.”
Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Forcing her foot to move from the brake to the accelerator, she reminded herself to breathe. She’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.
An explosion fragmented the silence. Light burst to her left, changing the darkness to a brilliant yellow. Pieces of something showered down on her car. Not hail…but rocks or pieces of brick.
As if in slow motion, she turned to stare out the car window. The brownstone where Slade worked and lived had blown up. Flames licked toward the stars. Pieces of the building lay on the sidewalk…on the street. On the hood of her car.
“Go, Maggie! Hurry!”
Somehow her foot punched the accelerator. The car lunged forward.
She tried to blink away the images, her fingers cramped from clutching the steering wheel so tightly. This couldn’t be happening. The man she loved—the father of her unborn child—had put a gun to her head. His office—his apartment—had just exploded.
In that moment her reality sharpened into perfect clarity. She had never known this man. She had suspected as much. Her intuition had warned repeatedly that he was hiding something. Everything. Above all else, his identity.
Maggie slammed on the brakes, harder this time. She glared at his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Who are you?”
He leaned forward, reached up and threaded his fingers into her hair. His hold tightened as he pulled her closer. She should scream. She knew this. But his slightest touch rendered her totally helpless.
“I know you better than you know yourself, Maggie. I know you want to trust me.”
She wanted to argue. The words refused to form on her tongue. The sound of his voice slid around her, tethering her as surely as if he’d used steel bands. How could she lose all control so easily? Where was her courage? Her logic?
His lips pressed nearer to her ear. She shivered. “If you don’t do as I say we’re both going to die. I, for one, have no desire to die tonight.”
The cold steel of the weapon he held snuggled against her throat. “Now, drive.”
Chapter Two
2:10 a.m.
Victoria Colby-Camp heard the ring of the bedside phone, but the concept of opening her eyes and answering was far too difficult to grasp. The sound of her husband’s voice as he took the call parted the constricting layers of sleep, allowing her to rouse more fully. Who would call at this hour?
“Was anyone hurt?”
Victoria sat up, instantly wide awake. “What’s happened?” Was it Jim or one of the children? A member of their extended family at the Colby Agency? Fear roared through her body like a fire set to dry kindling.
“We’ll be right there.” Lucas heaved a weary breath as he placed the phone back into its cradle and turned to his wife. “A friend from Chicago P.D. called Jim. We don’t have any real details just yet, but there’s been an explosion at the brownstone.”
The offices of Jim’s old firm, the Equalizers. Almost two years ago now, Slade Keaton had taken over the firm since Jim had joined Victoria at the Colby Agency. Early last year Keaton had moved into the renovated upstairs apartment of the brownstone. Jim had gone there shortly after midnight to confront him regarding their suspicions as to his true identity. He’d found no sign of Keaton. Thank God Jim hadn’t been in or near the building when the explosion occurred.
“Was anyone in the building?” Maggie James, the owner of the coffee shop across the street from the Colby Agency offices, was Keaton’s girlfriend. Anguish tore through Victoria. She prayed they were both safe. Whoever Keaton was and whatever he had done, Victoria wished him no harm. And Maggie was innocent in all this. Her only misstep was falling in love with a man whose past was an enigma that even Lucas hadn’t been able to decipher.
“The explosion occurred less than an hour ago. Maybe fifteen minutes after Jim was there looking for Keaton.” Lucas adjusted his prosthetic leg and stood. “They’ve only just gotten the fire under control. They’re waiting for the rubble to cool to start the search.”
Victoria dropped her feet to the carpeted floor and rushed to the closet for clothes. “Were any of the neighboring buildings damaged?” she called out to Lucas. The brownstones along the two nearly identical blocks were structurally connected. She doubted one could have been destroyed without damage to one or more of the others. Since most were businesses, she prayed no one had been working late. The injury or death of the innocent was always the most devastating in deliberate acts such as this. Admittedly, she had no way of knowing if the explosion was deliberate just yet. However, based on the events that had taken place recently related to Keaton, she felt confident that the explosion was the result of foul play.
“The two buildings on either side were damaged, but Jim didn’t mention to what extent. He may not have known. He’s en route. We’ll be right behind him. Perhaps there will be more information by then.”
Victoria dressed and stepped into a pair of comfortable leather slides, not bothering with socks. Grabbing a clasp from her bedside table, she tucked up her shoulder-length hair. Lucas was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and sneakers, no less. She so rarely saw him dressed casually that she almost smiled in spite of the circumstances. Thank God for him. As much as she loved her son and her grandchildren, her life would not be complete without Lucas.
Victoria grabbed her purse as they hurried to the garage. Lucas tucked his weapon into the waistband of his jeans. Ever the gentleman, he opened then closed her car door before climbing behind the wheel. As soon as they backed out into the driveway, the house and garage were secured with a single click of the security remote. The rest of their small gated community was tucked in for the night. The gas streetlamps and lovely landscape lighting had a calming effect. As scary as the world could be sometimes, she was very thankful for a safe and pleasant neighborhood.
With her nerves settled, Victoria used the time as Lucas drove through the darkness to consider the possible causes of the explosion. Gas leak…? Explosive device? Did Keaton keep explosives on hand? Surely that was not the case.
Considering what had happened only days ago to Levi Stark and Casey Manning, Lucas’s goddaughter, in Acapulco, Keaton had made some powerful enemies. Had those enemies caught up with him this night?
Victoria blinked away the images that immediately attempted to intrude. She didn’t want to think about the woman…the one they called the Dragon. According to Levi and Casey, she looked a great deal like Victoria—like a sister. That Lucas had had an affair with the woman made it hard for Victoria to breathe.
But that was in the past. Thirty years ago. Victoria had no right to feel jealousy about that time. If this woman was Keaton’s mother, as suggested from the results of Levi and Casey’s investigation, she clearly had no motherly feelings for her son. That part of the intelligence—the biological connection—had not been corroborated, so it was best not to speculate. Bottom line, the Dragon was an enemy to Keaton and, it seemed, to Lucas.
The idea made no sense. Why wait all these years to strike? Of course, she may have only just located Keaton. Perhaps thanks to Victoria and Lucas trolling his history. As much as she wanted the truth in order to assess any threat from Keaton, Victoria genuinely hoped she and Lucas had not triggered this tragedy.
“This has nothing to do with anything you did.”
Her husband had read her mind. The tension banded around her chest eased the slightest bit. “How can you be so sure?” She had sent Levi down to Mexico. Keaton had stirred her suspicions and she’d reacted. Dear God, what had they done?
“This one is on me,” Lucas said quietly. “You need to understand that. You have no part in that world.”
The question Victoria had wanted to ask for the past twenty-four hours pressed against her skull. She needed to know. But did she have a right to know? “Are you certain I had no part in what happened?” She held her breath. The woman looked like Victoria, after all. Had that been the reason Lucas had turned to her all those years ago?
Two, then three beats of silence passed. Lucas reached for her hand. “Let’s not do this to ourselves until we have the facts. Whatever is happening may be about Keaton only. The ordeal in Mexico may have been a way to smoke him out once our connection to him was established.” Lucas exhaled a big breath. “The fact is, we can’t rule out or confirm anything yet.”
Victoria ordered herself to breathe. Lucas had assumed her question was about the current situation. In time they would need to talk about her other question, the one she really needed to ask. But that would have to wait.
This puzzle had to be pieced together very carefully, one fragment at a time. Far too much was at stake to go about this any other way.
THE BROWNSTONE STILL smoldered when they arrived on the block. Jim waited for them just outside the perimeter of the crime scene. The cold filtered right through the thick sweater Victoria had chosen. She hugged her arms around herself and hoped for good news about Keaton and Maggie.
“Still no word on victims,” Jim said as they approached. “I called Maggie’s home number as well as the coffee shop and there’s no answer. Keaton isn’t answering his cell and his car is parked in the alley.” Jim jerked his head toward the brownstone. “It’ll be hours before we know the probable cause of the explosion and if there are victims.”
The chill invading her bones turned Victoria’s blood to ice. “What about the neighboring buildings?”
“One’s empty and the other’s a business. The owner has confirmed that no one employed there was in the building tonight.”
Thank God for that news. Victoria stared at the wreck that had been the home of the Equalizers. Her instincts warned that this was deliberate, calculated destruction. Whoever had done this either wanted Keaton dead or wanted to send him a very loud message.
Lucas and Jim discussed the steps that would be taken by the police and fire departments. Victoria tried to pay attention, but her mind kept wandering to Maggie and how all this would affect her—if she was still alive. Dread ached in Victoria’s bones.
Jim had tried to reach Keaton all night, but he’d simply disappeared. Victoria had considered calling Maggie or paying her a visit to warn her. What would she have said? I think the man you love is dangerous?
Regret settled, heavy and sickening, in Victoria’s stomach. She should have warned Maggie.
Now it might be too late.
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