Covert Christmas Twin. Heather Woodhaven

creak of the wood confirmed she was on the move without him looking away from the window.

      “I don’t think they’re going to ignore potential witnesses,” she said. “I can take them out from the top floor. Holler if we have a first-floor breach.”

      Joe blew out a steady breath, struggling to keep cool. The tension in the back of his shoulders had turned into a full-fledged knot, most likely because he refused to process what he’d done. Now, when he thought he’d never need to be responsible for someone else’s physical safety again, he’d been forced to raise his weapon for the second time in one day. The man outside reached inside his blazer. Joe tensed and moved his finger closer to the trigger.

      A handheld radio appeared in the man’s hands as his gaze traveled above, upstairs. He was likely calling for reinforcements. He turned and waved at someone outside of Joe’s view. Not good.

      The windows Joe stared out of appeared to be single pane, not the double-pane windows so common after the fifties, so Joe didn’t feel comfortable hollering to Kendra upstairs without fear of being heard. He took advantage of the man’s distraction, though, and kept sight of him through the ten-inch-diameter hole in the shade, praying silently that the man and the “friend” who joined him didn’t see Joe as he slid over to the stairway. He took the stairs three steps at a time.

      He reached the landing. Kendra glanced up from her position by the northernmost window. “They haven’t entered Beverly’s house yet, but I’m counting a good eight men that have it surrounded now. Oh. Scratch that. One man is opening her back door.” Kendra looked over her shoulder. “Why don’t you take a post near the guardrail in case we get any visitors downstairs?”

      “I don’t intend to shoot anyone, Kendra.”

      She pursed her lips and glanced at the gun in his hand. “Why do you have that then?”

      “For self-defense only. If you’re so worried about her safety, let’s call the police. Beverly made it clear she wanted us to go, and if we’d stuck to the plan—”

      “You mean the plan to hide out until the coast was clear? It wasn’t as if I meant for that man to see me, Joe.”

      “If you weren’t so intent on proving—”

      Kendra’s lips flattened. She lowered her weapon and stepped away from the window. With her left hand she raised an index finger. “Don’t. Whatever ninja behavior analysis she taught you, I don’t want to hear it. I know I’m a good agent, despite what she said. I don’t need to prove anything. Besides, you didn’t answer my question. Why do you still carry a gun?”

      “I don’t usually carry it.”

      “You had one with you at a university, Joe. I’m grateful, but that’s not a normal thing for a chaplain or pastor to do.”

      “That’s different. You saw the man who was following her. Those men are always armed.”

      “You appointed yourself as Beverly’s personal bodyguard? Again, not the behavior of a guy ready to leave the FBI.”

      He opened his mouth but had no reply because he couldn’t ignore the possibility she was right. Beverly had practically said the same thing when she’d suggested he keep his foot in the door by applying for the FBI chaplain program. It was like an epic game of Twister. He had one foot in law enforcement, the other foot in academia and his hands in two different types of ministry. Not a single spot felt very comfortable at the moment.

      Kendra straightened and glanced out the window. “We’ll have to continue this conversation later. Guard the front door. It looks like they’re about to swarm both this house and Beverly’s.”

      He rushed toward her to see if he came to the same conclusion. He was used to participating in the planning of missions, not carrying them out. Kendra saw him coming and took one step to the side. He flattened his back against the wall, beside her, as the windows upstairs had no shades. The way the sunbeams angled against the house provided some cover, though. They would reflect off the pane and make it harder for the men downstairs to know they were being watched.

      “They have weapons, Joe. We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

      “When the FBI raids a place to take a suspect in for questioning they have weapons, too. You’re not a vigilante, Kendra. Let’s not go rogue. It’s not time for knee-jerk reactions when we don’t know their intentions.”

      Kendra’s head fell. “Why do you have to be so logical?” Her shoulders touched his with the movement before she tilted her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes had lost the hard sheen, and he recognized a new openness to negotiation, to reason. “I feel like I’m flying blind, and I don’t know what to do.”

      He reached over with his free hand and squeezed hers quickly before letting go. “I think we should seriously consider calling the police.”

      “Even if I agreed, the phone system is probably full after the shooting at the university. Doubt we can expect a fast reaction time, and she made a point of telling us not to trust anyone from other agencies. I assume that includes the police. Meanwhile, Beverly is still in there like a sitting duck.”

      He leaned over to look out the window. Beverly’s house burst into a flaming ball. The windows next to him exploded, blowing shards of glass inward. He grabbed Kendra and dove to the ground as the side of the house disappeared.

       FOUR

      Kendra hit the floor. Her knuckles made first contact. She cried out from the impact as her fingers were still wrapped around the gun. She rolled and popped up to a sitting position. Smoke billowed into the open side of the house from the massive crater next door. Half of Beverly’s house was gone.

      The gunmen were lying prone on the grass below. Two of them wore jackets with FBI on the back. Were they legit or agents on the take? Another wore a nondescript blazer and yet another had on a blue jacket with US Marshals in yellow letters on the back. Everything added up to confirm what Beverly and Joe had been telling her. Kendra really wouldn’t be able to trust anyone until she took down the rest of Masked. One of the men started to move to his knees but fell down again. Injured but not dead, he’d likely survive.

      Joe held one hand over his left ear. The jagged remains of the floor that was left beneath them creaked. He gestured to the stairs. “We need to go before this collapses, too.”

      Her eyes, nose and throat burned as she let her gaze travel over the burning pile of rubble. There was too much smoke to tell just how deep the explosion went. Did it take out the basement apartment, too? “But—”

      “She’s not dead, Kendra. We have to go. This is our chance to escape.”

      She searched his soot-covered face for reassurance that he wasn’t bluffing. “How do you know she’s not? What if she’s still in the basement, trapped? You don’t know for sure, do you?”

      He holstered his weapon and stood, pulling her upright with him. “No one becomes an NCS agent without always having a backup plan. She’s the best of the best. The bomb was probably for our benefit so we could leave without anyone following us. Come on.” Joe held her hand and guided her over the mess of broken wood and glass by the stairs, also covered in debris. The third step no longer existed.

      They made it downstairs. The ringing in her ears diminished enough she could recognize the oncoming sirens—so many sirens in one day. Usually the sound spiked her adrenaline and put her on alert, but today her insides felt hollow and numb. Weeks of tracking down her birth mother only to lose her. It was hard to believe Joe’s theory that she’d escaped, but he knew Beverly better than she did, so she let him lead.

      For now.

      They reached the same back door they’d entered. Joe unclipped his holstered gun once more and led her down an alley between old houses with