A Loaded Question

By Danica Winters

He trusts her with his life.

That might not be enough.

STEALTH contractor Troy Spade works alone. But when a sniper takes a shot at him on a crowded city street, Troy has no choice but to cooperate with the FBI. Agent Kate Scot is shocked to the core when he reveals the details of his investigation. As they get closer to the truth, secrets from Kate’s family will be brought to light. How are they involved in this incident…and what are they willing to do to keep themselves safe?

From Harlequin Intrigue: Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.

STEALTH: Shadow Team

Book 1: A Loaded Question

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harlequin Intrigue
• Release date: Feb 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781488072611

Danica Winters

Danica Winters is a bestselling author who has won multiple awards for writing books that grip readers with their ability to drive emotion through suspense and occasionally a touch of magic. When she’s not working, she can be found in the wilds of Montana testing her patience while she tries to hone her skills at various crafts (quilting, pottery, and painting are not her areas of expertise). She always believes the cup is neither half full nor half empty, but it better be filled with wine.

Book preview

Prologue

Nothing is ever easy... The biggest understatement of the millennia. There was nothing worse than being imperfectly human.

Troy Spade’s mission was supposed to be relatively simple, just a protective security detail to take their medium-risk VIP to the border checkpoint, hand their strap hanger off to the next team, and then they were to head back to the tactical operations center. Intense, but normal. If they didn’t screw things up, they would be done within a couple of hours, debriefed and back to playing Halo on the Xbox.

Tiff glanced over at him, sending him a smile as she drove. He both loved and hated her for the sexy look. This wasn’t the time or the place to bring up all the things they meant to one another. And yet, with that sex-laced smile, all he could think about was running his fingers down her soft, perfect skin as they lay in her bed. This morning, when they had woken up, she had given him a similar smile, except thoroughly sated, well loved and blissful. He was hers and she was his. In that single action, she and their love were everything he needed.

She was his happy place, and he could think of nothing better than spending his days in the constant conflicts that came with war-torn nations and private contracting, and his nights in the peace of her embrace. He had it all.

He took in a breath. Underneath the scent of sand, sweat and gun oil he could still make out the scent of her on him. He loved the way she naturally smelled of woman, and when she wore perfume, it only intensified his need to hold her in his arms once again.

Dammit, Troy. Come back to reality, he thought, checking himself. This. This right here is why being with her isn’t a good idea.

He couldn’t have love. Love was a weakness. Love would compromise their objectivity. Love could lead to only one thing—failure. And failure wasn’t an option. In their line of work, failure was death.

A stray piece of hair had slipped out from under her helmet and was threatening to fall into her eyes as she drove. He was tempted to reach over and fix it for her, but that was the last damn thing he could do. He peered into the back seat where their gunners were seated, watching out the windows and looking for any possible threats.

If they even guessed that there was something between him and Tiff, Troy’s butt would be on the line, and one, if not both him and Tiff, would be on the next plane back to the States. Then the honeymoon would really be over and he would have to go back to some dead-end job where he struggled to make ends meet.

Not an option.

As the detail team leader, they followed behind the VIP, driving offset as they cruised to the objective. He glanced down at his watch. Ten more minutes, if the roads remained clear, and they would be at the Albanian border. Ten more and they would be headed back. Within the hour they would be safe... She would be safe. And maybe, for at least a few hours, he could finally relax. Well, at least relax as much as any person could who was hunkered down in enemy territory, where they stuck out and were about as welcome as a saddle sore.

Oh, the things he would do for money.

The car in front of them wove to the right as they moved to the left in their trademark zigzag pattern. Ahead of them, on the opposite side of the road, a small white car pulled over and stopped. The gunner behind and to his left steadied a bead on the sedan’s driver though the car had gotten out of the convoy’s path. If random vehicles didn’t get out of the way, their convoy would have no qualms in chewing them up and spitting them out.

Just as they were about to pass by the white car, the driver flipped a U-turn, and tires squealing on the hot blacktop, the car charged in the other direction.

Troy turned to Tiffany and opened his mouth, about to issue a warning about the odd behavior, when the up-armored vehicle they were riding in quaked. In slow motion, the black hood of their Suburban launched upward as the violent boom rattled him to his core.

He’d never heard a sound quite like it, the tearing of metal, his friends’ screams swirled with his own, and it all mixed with the thrashing of his heart. It meant only one thing...

We’re hit.

The world twisted around him as he tried to get his bearings. Their SUV careened through the air, flipping hood over bumper as they took the full impact of the explosively formed penetrator... It had to be an EFP—it was the only thing that could have blown them up like this. Or it could have been an IED. But that wouldn’t have hit this hard or done this much damage. Maybe it was an RPG, but again, it wouldn’t have screwed them up like this. Definitely an EFP.

The irony didn’t escape him that even though they had yet to land, he was arguing with himself about what they had just experienced. Dissociation at its best. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all—at least he wasn’t swirling that cognitive drain. An odd sense of peace drifted through him.

Tiffany’s cry pulled him back to reality...to the terror that filled him, the smell of burning rubber and the acrid smoke that filled the air, and to the pain radiating up from his legs. He started to move to see if he even had legs; as he did, he spotted the blood. The crimson liquid was spattered across the inside of the snowflake-patterned broken glass of the front windshield.

It was supposed to be bulletproof.

Definitely an EFP.

A droplet of blood slipped over the glass, toward the ground flashing by them.

There was a strangled cry, the sound a soft mew, like that of the breathless.

Tiff.

He looked over. She stared at him with a wide-eyed, terrified look upon her face. Her mouth was open, the strangled sound still twisting from her lips. The steering wheel she had been holding was gone, as was everything below her shoulder. At the center of her chest, impaled in her core, was a long jagged piece of metal that looked like it had once belonged to the engine block.

Following his gaze, she looked down at the shrapnel in her chest and then back up at him. Her wail stopped as the last bits of breath rattled from her body.

The car slammed down, hitting the asphalt with the screech and shudder of metal meeting stone. There was a shatter of glass as it broke away and exploded through the air and hit his face. It felt like the cold, icy graupel that came on a cold winter day, except each impact was followed by the hot ooze of rising blood.

Tiff’s gaze met his and she smiled through her pain. The light in her eyes, the spark that drew him like a moth, dimmed, and he watched as her life slipped away.

This was it. He was in hell. Everything he had ever done had caught up to him. Here. Now.

It had to be hell... Only in hell would he be forced to watch the woman he loved die...and not be able to do a damn thing to save her.

Chapter One

Everyone was fighting a battle—whether it be in the Siberian tundra, the Afghanistan deserts or in the territory of the heart. And just like all battles, there could be only one victor...and, regardless of conqueror or conquered, all lost something.

Kate Scot had won many battles, and yet had gone on to lose what she held dear more times than she cared to admit. Most recently, that loss came in the form of her apartment and dog—now both in the hands of her ex-boyfriend. She would really miss that dog; she’d had Max since he was just eight weeks old.

But she didn’t hate her ex for kicking her to the curb. Far from it. Given her line of work, it was only a matter of time before he figured out that he was too good for her and it was time to move on to someone else—someone who could dote on and fall over him in ways she never could. Not to mention her inability to completely open up with him.

He had deserved better. And she definitely needed to be alone for a while, and out of the game that was dating.

Dating was for people who had a vacant space in their heart, a space that could be unlocked and given freely—again, something she’d never been capable of doing, or perhaps even willing to do.

She held no doubts that it was the warrior mentality and her training that kept her feelings from ever entering the equation. As a woman in her field, she was constantly falling under the scrutiny of those around her—they pressed her for weakness, both consciously and subconsciously, regularly checking her boundaries and her capabilities. For that reason, above all, she had to be the best of the best within her team.

And it was this thirst for recognition and push to prove herself that had resulted in her receiving the email that now nearly pulsed with its red immediate attention required subject line. The sender, Aaron Peahen, was from the Billings office, and though they were from the same state, there was little love between them. Peahen had a penchant for bringing out the worst in her, and from the times they had worked on joint assignments—the last of which had ended with them throwing insults under their breath at one another—she didn’t bring the best out in him, either.

He appeared to be so old-school that he operated as if having women in the agency was some kind of nuisance the male agents had to grin and bear in order to make the public happy. He would never, no matter how well respected she was, accept that she was just as valuable a team member as he.

No doubt, he had sent her this case to set her up for failure, or send her on some wild-goose chase.

Just like warm milk, regardless of what Peahen sent her, she doubted it got better with age.

She clicked on the offending flag. As she read the email, she could hear Peahen’s deep, rasping smoker’s voice like he was standing over her shoulder instead of six hours away across the state.

Agent Scot,

It has come to my attention that you have materials associated with a case I’m currently working. Do you have time for a phone call? Better yet, I would appreciate you just sending me everything pertinent to case #HJ1085-090.

Your prompt response would be appreciated, but I know this can be a problem for you. Regardless, I need this within seventy-two hours, or I will be forced to contact your superiors regarding the matter.

Agent Peahen

Agent Peacock was more like it. He was all show and no teeth.

And there she had thought, for nearly a moment, that she didn’t absolutely despise her fellow agent. Wrong. What a jerk. He couldn’t treat everyone else this way or he would have been out on his butt and pounding the pavement long ago... Nope, this kind of derision seemed to be aimed straight at her center mass.

Well, he could fire away.

She clicked on her files, opening up the requested information. It was last time-stamped nearly five years ago, and as she scrolled through her file, she could barely recall the information about a bank robbery she had investigated when she had been new to the area.

The investigation hadn’t gone anywhere, and within a month of her initial investigation, it was allowed to go to the recesses of her computer files to catch dust.

Until now, and Agent Peacock wanted to take the case under his wing.

Rage bubbled up from her core. No doubt Agent Peacock had some kind of plan to grandstand and show what a great agent he was by playing off some failed case of hers.

She let an audible grumble slip past her lips.

You okay over there, K? Agent Hunt asked, looking up from his computer for a brief moment. He was paying only half attention, but she appreciated that he had even seemed to notice that something was amiss.

Before she could even answer, Hunt had turned back to his work on the screen.

That, that right there was one of her favorite things about their team. They all cared about each other, but not enough to pry or ask too many stupid questions. More, they never found the need to do any more talking than absolutely necessary to get the job done. With it came little miscommunication, hurt feelings or stepping on each other’s toes.

She pressed back from the desk, her chair rolling over the hard plastic on the floor, making a crushing sound.

Eating sunflower seeds again? Agent Hunt asked. That is a disgusting habit, you know.

Of course, he would be keyed in on her one little quirk. She should have been more careful to keep her mess from hitting the floor.

We all have something we do to pacify ourselves. Don’t get me started about your gum popping. She smiled at him, hoping he would realize she wasn’t about to say anything about his tics.

Hunt chuckled as she stood up, grabbed her suit jacket and slipped it over her arms. Where you going?

Out.

In all honesty, she didn’t know. The only thing she knew was that she could not continue to sit there and stare at Peahen’s email for another second. Sure, she could’ve just sent him the information he wanted and gotten him out of her hair, but she’d never been the type to give in that easily. If he wanted to be a jerk, two could play that game.

She pulled up the file on her phone, and waiting for it to load, she looked over at Agent Hunt. You want to go for a ride? Are you working on something?

Agent Hunt shrugged. "As luck would have it, I’m currently beating level 2421 on Candy Crush, so..."

Then grab your jacket. I may end up needing someone to keep me from throttling Peahen. She chuckled.

Do I even want to know? Agent Hunt asked.

She shook her head. Probably not, but at the very least we can both get out of the office for an hour and take a ride in America’s finest fleet car. She laughed as she motioned toward the window where parked out in front of the building was a late-model Crown Victoria she was sure had likely once belonged to someone sent to a retirement home. In fact, she could have sworn that upon getting in the first time she had smelled baby powder, Bengay and menthol Halls.

With a line like that, how could a boy say no? He stood up and grabbed his jacket, holding it over his arm rather than putting it on. The simple action made her wonder if he didn’t feel the same drive to constantly be on point, like she did.

Yet, if someone saw him and recognized him as an agent, they would think nothing of his prowess or experience just because he wasn’t wearing a jacket. However, if she simply went with her jacket unbuttoned, she would instantly be seen as less authoritative.

She sighed. She had to knock it off. Picking nits would do nothing to stop the infestation of sexism that ran rampant throughout law enforcement. She just needed to buck up, focus on the task at hand and show Agent Peacock who he was dealing with.

Making their way out of the nondescript brick federal building that sat within the heart of the city of Missoula, she stopped and pulled out a stick of gum. She had to kick the sunflower seed habit. That or she would have to step up her running time.

Regardless, as they got into the fleet car, she missed the salty crunch and snap of the sunflower seed shells when she bit down on the kernels. Calories or no, she loved them. Then again, it always seemed like the things she really cared about the most were things that also caused her the most harm.

As she looked in the rearview mirror and put the car in gear, she watched as a black van stopped at the light—directly behind them and blocking their departure.

She didn’t like it, the feeling of being trapped in her parking space. It wasn’t an emergency by any means, but this lack of foresight when setting this building up for agents like her—people who had places to be—it gnawed at her. If the people in the van wished harm upon her, it would have been easy to follow through. In fact, this was exactly how she would have set it up, by boxing her into her parking spot, then slipping out of the driver’s side and silently moving to her window. A quick double tap of the trigger and the driver and the van could pull away within seconds, likely unnoticed and unseen by the general public, and leaving her and Agent Hunt dead.

But maybe she was warped.

No, there was a major difference between paranoid and protective. This, this oversight, was a matter of safety, not her neurosis.

She would need to get a sit-down with the region’s special agent in charge, or SAC, and have them look into the logistics.

Moving to grab her phone and send the agent a text, she heard a crunch