Let Me In

  LET ME IN

  LET ME IN

  DONNA KAUFFMAN

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  For Angela…

  Thank you for the support, the laughter,

  and the sisterhood

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  He was the last person she ever wanted to see again. She’d done her time, she was out now. For good. Free. Free to be whatever she wanted to be, and what she wanted to be was alone.

  It had been three years since they’d parted ways, and not under the best of circumstances. Derek Cole had been her boss then; the man who decided where she went, what she did, and how long she stayed. To say he hadn’t been happy with her decision to resign would be putting it mildly. Too damn bad, had been her feeling at the time. The intervening years had done nothing to change that sentiment.

  Tate Winslow didn’t just like her newfound solitude, she reveled in it. Home used to be wherever she laid her hat. And her gun. Now home was the stunning vistas and peaceful beauty of the Hebron Valley, framed by the gently rolling Blue Ridge Mountains in Madison County, Virginia. She’d been Agent Winslow in her previous life. She went by Tara Wingate now. Not a stunning change, she’d tried to keep some sense of herself, but change enough to start fresh, leaving no tracks. Hers was a privately designed protection program created by someone who knew firsthand how to make a person disappear. Her former boss hadn’t been pleased with her choice, but he’d respected it and her request for help in creating a new life for herself. She’d made certain no one here knew of her past…and he’d made certain no one from her past knew she was here. There had been no contact since and there would be no contact. Ever.

  She’d come here battered in both body and soul, desperately in need of healing. She’d expected it to take time, and was willing to give herself whatever it was she needed to feel whole again. She’d given enough to others. It was time to take a little back for herself. Not that she’d really had a choice. There hadn’t been anything left to give.

  Surprisingly, adjusting to the quiet life in the valley had come easily, and the healing had followed more swiftly than she’d imagined possible. She’d found her rhythm quite naturally here, the slower pace of life calling to her in more ways than she’d known were possible. She’d only wanted a break, an escape, a place to lick her wounds and heal in private. She hadn’t known the true depths of solace there was to be found in such a new way of life, but was profoundly grateful for every scrap of it. She hadn’t realized how much faith and trust—two commodities she’d never had in large supply—that she’d put into it always being there for her. Until the instant it all changed.

  The adrenaline pumping into her system right now was the exact opposite of everything she’d come here for, everything she’d become. It made her physically nauseous. Worse was the ease with which her training kicked right back in. That she’d ever need for it to, ever again, made her emotionally sick. And mad as hell.

  It was a brutal revelation, discovering her peaceful existence could be so easily and swiftly shattered by something as simple as a rattling doorknob. Three years in the valley had healed wounds, soothed scars, and introduced her to a world where joy was found in morning blooms and evening bird calls. But apparently no amount of soul-soothing would ever erase the training ingrained into her from her previous life. A life where distinguishing between, and identifying, even the tiniest of sounds could mean the difference between life and death.

  So when the rattling sound came, she knew it wasn’t the wind whistling over the shaker roof and vibrating the frame of her log cabin home. She had made casual friends of a few neighbors since moving here, but not a single one of them would have come calling after midnight without advance notice…even in an emergency. She had no family, no relatives. No one who would simply enter, or try to, without knocking first.

  And yet, someone was at her door. A door no one from her previous life should know existed. Or certainly not where it existed. Derek hadn’t been happy she’d left the team, but he’d promised he’d allow her the permanent exile she sought. And though he’d been a tough boss, he’d never expected anything from his team that he hadn’t taken, or couldn’t take, himself. He never shied away from making a blunt observation, and he never made promises because he knew reality didn’t always come with the luxury of keeping them. So, when he gave his word, he backed it up. Without fail.

  The return of that sickening, heart-pounding sensation, where every second was crystallized into a completely separate, fully realized moment in time, was something she’d never wanted to experience, ever again. But, in less than five seconds, she had palmed her gun from under the corner of her mattress—a security blanket, she’d told herself, smart for a woman living alone in the middle of nowhere—and had her back flat against the wall next to her bedroom door. She hated this, hated it with a deepening rage that was almost as bone-chilling as the sound that had launched her into it.

  Drawing on every shred of training she’d had, fury mounted as she made her way out of her only bedroom, and crept down the short hall to the front room. She paused to peek around the corner, making a slow visual sweep of her small cabin, then moved in along the front wall. Staying low to the ground, she peered cautiously out of the panoramic front window, silently cursing the lack of night vision goggles, hating that she’d even thought of it. She’d bought the cabin mainly for that window, and the view of the valley and the endless rippling vistas of blue mountains that it showcased. The idea that someone was out there, using the very same window to stare in at her, made her even more livid.

  She was crawling toward the door, already leaning toward shooting first and asking questions later, when a hushed, gravelly voice whispered, “Tate. It’s me.”

  She went stock still, her heart lodged instantly in her throat. Hearing her old name . . knowing only one person could connect the woman living in this cabin to that name, only increased her fury. She knew that voice. Knew it belonged to a man who was quite capable of getting himself into any structure he wanted to. So why was he rattling her door knob? Unless…

  She crept closer, and positioned herself on the hinged side of the door. Not smart, but Derek would expect her to do as she’d been trained. Especially considering he’d been the one to do the training. It was the smallest of edges, but with him she’d need every one she had. She didn’t respond.

  “Tate. Let me in.” There was a long pause, then a choked, “Please.”

  Please? The almighty Derek Cole asking instead of telling?

  He had to be in trouble. The most serious kind. And of all the places in the world he could go and drag that trouble with him, he’d chosen her doorstep.

  “How dare you,” she hissed, not intending to speak at all, but her rage at his gall robbed her of her better judgment.

  “Had no choice.”

  “There are always choices.”

  “Open the door. I haven’t—I can’t—”

  There was a thump again st the door, as if his body weight had collapsed against it. Or the body weight of someone else. Holy Mother of—if he’d brought some wounded team member to her door, thinking she would play doctor—

  “I will shoot you both if you so much as set foot inside this house. Find somewhere else to bleed to death. Anywhere else.” To anyone else, the comment would seem callous at best, heartless at worst, but they had all been trained to do what they could to right very difficult wrongs in exceedingly impossible situations. Every single time they went to work, they put their lives on the line, knowing every mission could be their last. The risks sucked, and nobody wanted to die, but that was part of the job. And the other part of the job was to accept those risks…and never put innocent bystanders in danger in order to save yourself. You’d inserted yourself willingly into a potentially deadly situation. They hadn’t.

  There was a grunt. Then another thump. “Just me, Tate.” Another thump, then a scraping sound. “Just me.”

  She leaned against the wall of the cabin, willing her racing heart and even more swiftly racing mind to slow down long enough so she could think and act clearly. “It’s Tara. I don’t work for you any longer, and I sure as hell don’t owe you anything. Get off my property, Derek.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Won’t.” And that was just it. Short of calling the authorities or putting him out of his misery right there on her front porch, there was going to be no way to get rid of him. She looked at the small table on the other side of the door, and the drawer where she kept a charged cell phone. She’d only gotten it for emergency purposes. Otherwise she didn’t need one. There was no one to call, and no one who would call her. But if anything constituted an emergency it was this. Only without knowing the parameters of the mission that had driven him to her doorstep, even calling the locals to haul an apparent unknown trespasser off her property could unwittingly put others in danger. Which meant she couldn’t make that call, and she hated him even more because he damn well knew it.

  “You need to be anywhere else but here,” she informed him.

  “It’s about CJ.”

  Tate’s heart stopped all together. A split second later, she was yanking the door open, and dragging a half-hunched, half-crumpled Derek into her living room. He grunted when she left him to lie where she’d dragged him, stepping over his prone body to close the door, unable to tell, in the pitch darkness, whether he’d left any telltale signs of his presence on her porch. Like a backpack. Or a pool of blood.

  She rolled him to his side, not particularly caring what injuries he’d sustained—and it was clear he wasn’t healthy at the moment—or how much worse she might be making them by her rough handling. She gripped the collar of his black, Kevlar-lined jacket and yanked up so his face turned up toward hers. “CJ is dead. I saw her.”

  “You were wrong,” he choked out.

  “Wrong?” She shook him, stunned, beyond even fury now, unable to process the whole of what was happening. Her training might never wane, but she wasn’t as mentally sharp as she used to be. In any other instance, she’d be happy—proud, even—to know that about herself. It wasn’t healthy to have your brain wired to register, analyze, and process life-or-death information in an instant, and do so as if it were as natural as breathing. “Wrong how? I saw her. I know I’m not wrong. She’s dead, Derek. Has been since three days before they pulled me out of that godforsaken village.”

  “No,” was all he managed.

  “How could that be? Is this some kind of sick hoax? How dare you come here and—” She made herself stop, and swallowed hard, jaw so tight it ached. “Tell me, all of it, right now, or so help me, God—”

  “They still had her. After you…she was still there. Is still.”

  Tate’s grip loosened. “No,” she said, the whisper sounding like it had been tortured out of her. “That’s impossible. Not after what we—oh God.” Her fingers went completely slack. His head thumping against the floor barely registered as wave upon wave of unwanted memories flooded her mind. “It’s been three years,” she said, her voice toneless now, hollow, as she fought against the swiftly resurfacing past and the wave of nausea that accompanied it. The fury that had built up inside her fled so quickly it left her feeling lightheaded.

  Think about CJ. Not…not what had happened back then.

  Back there.

  CJ. Alive. She simply couldn’t put that together. Not in any rational way.

  She looked at Derek, who hadn’t moved. Her eyes had adjusted to the low light, but it was still too dark to make out much. He was in significant pain, that much was certain. Tough shit, she thought, resisting with all her might the avalanche of nightmares that were piled up behind a mental door she’d very carefully, and very thoroughly, closed the day she’d left Washington. “How?” she choked out. “How do you know this?”

  “Not…now,” Derek ground out. “Not yet. I’m—I’ve been…” He grunted as he struggled to lift his head on his own, scan his surroundings.

  “I’m not bugged,” she retorted sharply, thankful for the sudden resurgence of fury. “No one has been here.”

  “I have.”

  Her throat closed over as the new reality she was trying to stave off battered its way through her carefully constructed walls.

  He’d been here. In her space.

  Her world here, her life, was truly compromised, then. She wanted to shake him, hard, wanted to scream and shout and inflict pain, the likes of which he was inflicting on her. “How dare you!” she half-sobbed, half-growled.

  “Better me,” he managed, his voice, what there was of it, wavering badly as he let his head loll back to the floor. She could barely make out his features, but it looked like he had his eyes squeezed shut.

  Interrogation and detainment rule number one: never shut your eyes. Never.

  “Derek—”

  “Than them,” he finished, then his head rolled to the side and his jaw went slack.

  “Derek?” She leaned over him again. Despite her earlier threats, her heart tripped. “Don’t you go dying right in my foyer, dammit. You’ve already brought enough trouble to my door. You’re not about to leave me to figure out what to do about it by myself.” She pressed her palm to his cheek, turning his face to hers, trying to catch what little moonlight there was so she could better assess his condition. She didn’t dare turn on so much as a flashlight until she learned more about what she was up against. The muscles in his face had gone slack, but his eyes were closed, and she could feel the warmth of his breath. He was still alive. “Good,” she breathed, relaxing a little. She turned his face a bit more toward the spare wash of moonlight coming in through the front window. “Don’t think that means I won’t personally strangle you, though,” she warned, leaning closer to get a better look.

  He’d either taken a hell of a fall, or a hell of a beating. She was betting on the latter. There was a gash over his left eyebrow. A black and blue contusion swelling over his right cheekbone. The corner of his mouth was dried with caked blood, and his chin was all scraped to hell. And that’s just what she could make out in next-to-no-lighting. It was also a bitch of a time to notice how thick and dark his eyelashes were.

  She lowered his head back to the floor and rocked back on her heels to look over the rest of him. He was five years her senior, which put him at thirty-eight now. And while her past and what she’d gone through had left an indelible stamp on her, aging her in body, mind, and soul, whatever he’d been through in the past three-plus years—or hell, even in the past three days—hadn’t diminished one iota of his natural, God-given beauty. Of which he’d always had an abundance. Didn’t change the fact that he was a hard-ass, son-of-a-bitch who’d just compromised her whole world. And, quite probably, her life.

  “Derek,” she repeated, sharply this time. “Don’t fade on me now. I need to know why you’re here, all of it, and what the hell happened to you.” She leaned over him again, and debated on doing a quick once-over with her hands to see if he was bl eeding. He was lying in an awkward position, and she wished she had more light so she could get a better idea if he was suffering from any obvious fractures or dislocations. She refused to feel bad for her rough treatment of him earlier, but though she was still furious with him, it wasn’t in her to totally disregard his condition. Besides, she needed him to be alert so she could get information out of him. He’d sounded pretty out of it, which made her worry that he’d suffered something more than just a good ass-kicking.

  She tried not to think about how he’d let himself even get in that position. He was better than that. But then, she’d been better than that, too. Sometimes, even the best weren’t good enough.

  She started to slowly move his arm, hoping she could ease him over to his back, when she realized that the reason he was lying so awkwardly was because his wrists were bound behind his back. Shit.

  She scooted around behind him, staying low to the floor, well below the line of view through the window. The cords wrapping his wrists together had been tied off neatly and thoroughly. A professional job. Her gut squeezed as a dozen new questions formed. He’d managed to loosen the bonds slightly, but from what she could feel of the skin around the cords, he’d paid a price for that, too.

  She shifted her gaze to the rest of him, but had to run her hands down his hips and legs to get a true read on the rest. Her hands didn’t come away sticky, so no bullet holes, but his ankles had been bound as well. Which meant he’d made it to her house and up onto her porch in his current condition. That explained the weight of his body thudding against the door, and why he’d rattled the knob rather than simply entering the cabin using the skills they all possessed.