Whispered Lies

Izmir tottered. Carlos ran headfirst, ramming him all the way into Turga. The gun exploded again, so close Carlos lost his hearing, but the bullet deflected high.

Carlos crashed down on top of Izmir, who landed on Turga with a heavy thud. Rolling over, he pushed to his feet.

Turga struggled to squirm free of the dead body pi

Carlos hurried to Lee’s sprawled body. Fresh blood poured from a hole ripped into his chest. His first duty was to get Gabrielle out of here, but she’d live.

The kid wouldn’t.

Dropping down on his knees, Carlos gently lifted Lee’s ravaged body into his arms. When he did, his fingers slipped into a gaping wound in Lee’s back no bandage would plug enough to save him. Warm liquid gushed down Carlos’s arm and pooled on the floor.

“You just had to be a hero, huh?” Carlos said in a voice raw with regret.

Lee’s lips twisted up on one side, teeth missing from the perfect set he’d had just an hour ago.

Carlos pulled him close to hear the whispered words Lee struggled to form.

“Sorry.” Lee drew hard for a gurgling breath that shuddered through him. A scarlet trail of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Failed…first time.”

“No.” Carlos swallowed against the lump in his throat. He’d never get used to watching the young die. “You aced it.” His eyes stung.

“Carlos!” Gabrielle yelled.

He swung, instinctively lifting the handgun as he did.

Turga had somehow freed himself of Izmir and was ru

Rage blinded Carlos.

He unloaded four shots in succession…all into the lower hips and genital area. Not the spot a marksman of his ability would normally aim for, but Turga didn’t deserve a bullet between the eyes.

Turga hit the ground, hands grabbing himself. Guttural howls rocked the warehouse for several seconds, then he just cried, rolling from side to side.

When Carlos turned back to Lee, the kid’s lips were moving, his eyes bright. Carlos leaned his ear close to Lee’s mouth.

“Thanks” wheezed out, then one hard shudder racked the broken body before Lee’s soul passed on.

Carlos dropped his chin to his chest, breathing hard. His eyes stung. There was nothing more helpless than feeling the last breath of someone he held, knowing he couldn’t do anything to save that person.

Just as he couldn’t sixteen years ago.

Pain knifed through him, dredging up a memory from the past with brutal clarity. He’d held another battered body, that of the young girl he’d loved with all his being, as she’d drawn her last breath.

His heart beat erratically, aching in his chest.

Light footsteps approached him. Not Turga, who had finally silenced. Dead at last.

Lee was no longer in pain. Carlos still had a job to do and another woman to protect. He eased Lee to the floor. With one phone call, BAD would have a cleanup crew here in a half hour. He couldn’t wait that long and risk one of Turga’s people coming back.

Leaving Lee uncovered just seemed wrong, but Carlos couldn’t expend the time to put his clothes on him.

He stood and turned to Gabrielle, the informant everyone wanted. She’d stopped on the other side of Turga. Chestnut brown hair scattered from having gone overboard and drying in a wild wind. Face white as a ghost and hands trembling, she sure as hell didn’t look the part of an international operative. The baggy workout clothes underneath her open trench coat were still damp.

Turga lay dead on the floor between them, the room littered in carnage.

She lifted misery-filled eyes to his, punching him in the gut with her suffering. “Is he, is he dead?”

Carlos wasn’t sure which he she referred to, but since they were all three dead he just said, “Yes.”

The blank stare worried him. They had to go. Chances were they’d have to interact with someone in the public once they were out of here. He needed her lucid.

When she showed no real signs of coherence, he stepped over Turga to reach her. He held her shoulders, careful not to get blood on her. Considering everything, she should be screaming her head off right now or completely catatonic. Her eyes drifted past him to where Lee lay silently.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Me, too. He was a good man.” Carlos shoved his mind back into gear. “We have to go before someone else shows up.”

She nodded, but when he started to move around her, she pulled out of his grasp.

“What?”

Gabrielle didn’t answer. She just took her trench coat off as she stepped over Turga, then draped the coat over Lee’s body.

Nothing could have endeared her more to Carlos in that moment. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and waited until she returned to his side.

She stopped short and stared at him. “Is any of that your blood?”

“Not enough to bother with.” However, he couldn’t walk around in public like this if he didn’t want to draw attention. “Go get your bags.”

She took a deep breath that seemed to fortify her, then she walked past Izmir to where she’d been sitting.

Carlos grabbed the towel already soiled with Lee’s blood from when Izmir had cleaned his hands. He made quick work of wiping the worst of the blood off his arms and searched the floor beyond the table for Lee’s clothes. Ignoring the twist of guilt over taking Lee’s clothes, he yanked off his turtleneck and pulled on the long-sleeved T-shirt that had been tossed aside. He exchanged his jeans for Lee’s, which were close in fit, and spread his bloody shirt over Lee’s face, then walked back to gather up Gabrielle and her belongings.

No point in worrying about DNA at this point since his blood was in the mix and BAD should get here first to clean up.

He reached for her computer bag and she came alive.

“No.” She snatched the bag to her chest. “Thank you, but I’ll take it.”

That reminded Carlos of just whom he was transporting. The Mirage. A woman with a bounty on her head, including one from Durand.

Right now she was a woman he didn’t believe had ever been this close to guns or killing. His informant needed fresh air soon or once her shock passed, the sick smell of death would overtake her.

“Don’t look at anything but the door.” He pointed that way to get her moving.

The slash of disbelief she cut at him brought a flare of color back to her cheeks. “What? You think I’ll have nightmares? Like I missed seeing any of that?”

He sighed. She might have seen gunshots and some bodies hit with bullets, but her eyes had been glazed when she stood within inches of the blood surrounding Turga and the lower half of his mangled body. She hadn’t actually seen the gore.

“Do you want to see it again?” he challenged, sure of her answer.

“No, of course not.”

“Then keep your eyes on the door.” He walked her to the exit and opened the door halfway, then dropped her backpack on the floor. “Stand here, breathe in some fresh air, and close the door immediately if you hear a car or see anyone.”

She grabbed his forearm right where the glass had cut it. He managed not to curse, but snapped at her, “What?”

“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded in a whisper.

“I’m not.” He gently pried her fingers off his gash that would now seep blood again. “I’m going to get Turga’s phone and make a call.”

She exhaled a sigh that partnered with the relief in her eyes. “Okay.”

Carlos moved carefully around the bodies to stay out of the blood. Turga had kept his cell phone in his right pants pocket. The one shredded to pieces. Part of the phone had fallen out of his pocket into the plasma puddle.