Page 72 of Westin

“I’m the one they’re after. Why shouldn’t I walk out there?”

“Because they’ll kill you!”

“If they’re busy killing me, they won’t mess with you or Clint or any of the others!”

“I’m not going to just stand here and watch you give yourself over to them! We’re going to fight, Lee, whether you like it or not!”

“I see she told you what her name really is,” a voice behind them said. “She’s usually good about staying in character until the final arrests are made.”

Westin watched the color drain from Lee’s face, but her eyes never left his. There was fear there. Cold fear. He’d never seen anything quite like it.

He turned, pushing her behind him. A man, smaller than him, less than six foot he guessed, blond and good-looking, the kind of guy who would do well in Hollywood if he had a box to stand on every time he kissed his leading lady. A golden version of Tom Cruise.

“How gallant of you,” the man said. “But I can assure you that Lee can protect herself much better than you probably can. She was trained by the best.”

“You always did have a massive ego, Will,” Lee said as she stepped around Westin, refusing to be protected, even by him.

“Are you going to tell me I wasn’t the best?”

She lowered her head slightly. “You were. You were the best at all of it—until you turned to the dark side.”

“We’ve always been on the dark side, Lee. Just because we did it in the name of catching the bad guy didn’t make us any better than them.”

“But didn’t it? At the end of the day, we went home, and they went to prison.”

“I’ll still be going home.”

“I don’t know about that.” Lee stepped further away from Westin. He could see Clint’s gun tucked into the back of her jeans, barely covered by the tail of her shirt. He was sure this guy couldn’t see it, but he would if she turned the wrong way. “I sent an email to White this morning. It contains more than enough evidence to prove you’re the one who went rogue.”

“Any information you got off Fang’s computer I can explain away.”

“This isn’t just from Fang’s computer.”

The Tom Cruise lookalike paused at that, but he didn’t stop. He took a few steps toward her, waving his gun as he directed her the long way around the couch. “It doesn’t matter. I can explain everything once I have your body.”

“Then why don’t you just shoot me, Will?”

He ignored her question, again impatiently gesturing with his gun to get her to come around the couch down the long way. Westin frowned, a little confused about what this guy was up to. He’d been so busy watching him, the hadn’t checked the windows behind him, hadn’t looked around the room to see where he’d come in. There were windows in the bedrooms, but there was also a small laundry room at the other end of the cabin with an exterior door. He saw the movement just before Lee did; that same slender Hispanic man who’d tried to pull her from her car by her hair was sneaking into the room, a gun in both his hands.

“Lee!”

She jerked the gun out from her waistband and fired in one, quick succession as Westin hit his knees. Two shots fired, then a third. Westin watched as Lee jerked back, twisting on one ankle just before a fourth shot echoed through the cabin.

“Lee!” he cried again, crawling to her as she fell back. He moved his hands quickly over her body, expecting to find blood staining his fingers. She sat up and kissed him almost roughly on the lips. “I’m okay,” she said. “I just turned too fast. My ankle went out on me.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay.”

She untangled herself from him and cautiously pulled herself up to her knees. Whatever she saw must have given her courage because she quickly jumped to her feet and ran around the couch. Westin followed, catching sight of the Hispanic guy bleeding out on the carpet. Clint was going to be pissed about that! All that blood…

“Why, Will?” Lee dropped to her knees again beside her partner. “Why did you do it?”

Blood was bubbling out of the man’s mouth and he was moving it almost like a fish out of water. It was surreal, like something Westin had seen on the cop shows Clint liked to watch so much. There was a hole in his chest and it was sucking in air; he could see the way the blood seemed to be flowing in two different directions. The man wasn’t going to make it if someone didn’t do something—that much was obvious to Westin. But Lee didn’t seem intent on saving him. She only wanted answers.

“Was it just about the money?”

Will coughed, splattering blood across the front of her shirt. She stared at him for a long moment, then suddenly seemed spurred into motion, grabbing a throw pillow from the loveseat and shoving it hard against the wound on his chest. Will cried out, proving he could still make a noise, and then lay back, breathing visibly easier.