Mission: Out Of Control

How she wished Brody were standing here with her—if not holding her hand, at least close enough to hear her scream should someone jump out of the shadows.

She startled at a young man who looked about eighteen.

“Did Bishop send you?”

“Whatya have?”

She dug into her pocket, pulled out the computer.

A crack shocked the air, and she jumped back.

The kid collapsed, his body lying with eyes wide in the dim glow of a jewelry store’s display.

She stood there, unable to move or breathe.

A second shot shattered the glass window beside her.

Her legs moved then, fast. She ducked down a road, turned into another alley and sprinted.

An arm snaked around her, clamping over her mouth. “I found you.”

She slammed a fist into her captor’s leg, landing her foot on his instep. He woofed out a breath, let her go and she whirled.

“Ronie!” he said.

She gulped a breath. “Brody!” She launched herself into his arms.

And then, because that’s what he did, he lifted her and carried her away.

SUSAN MAY WARREN

is a RITA® Award-winning, bestselling novelist of more than twenty-five novels. She has won an Inspirational Readers Choice Award, an ACFW Book of the Year award and has been a Christy Award finalist. Her compelling plots and unforgettable characters have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. She and her husband of twenty years and their four children live in a small town on Minnesota’s beautiful Lake Superior shore, where they are active in their local church. You can find her online at www.susanmaywarren.com.

Mission: Out of Control

Susan May Warren

MILLS & BOON

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And God demonstrates his own love for us in this:

while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

—Romans 5:8

To Andrew, David, Sarah, Peter and Noah,

and my secret weapons Rachel Hauck, Ellen Tarver for helping me craft a book that

I pray brings glory to the Lord.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

LETTER TO READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

Was it too much to ask for a little peace and quiet on his so-called R & R?

Apparently Brody Wickham—ex-Green Beret, current on-leave security operator for Stryker International—had turned into a magnet for trouble, and he knew inside his gut that someone was going to get hurt.

Preferably not him.

Brody could spot the ugly future the second that Vonya—the one-name, brazen rock ’n’ roll diva and the leader of the crazies inside this D.C. nightclub—stepped up to the edge of the stage and, with a feral scream, sprang into the outstretched hands of her minions. Perhaps soared might be a better term, as she launched herself, arms flung out, like some sort of prehistoric animal in scaly black leather and a peacock mask, her garish pink wig a plume, into the undulating mosh pit.

Thankfully, anonymous hands caught Miss Crazy and floated her over the mass like a piece of bacon. It didn’t mean this wouldn’t end badly. With blood. Broken bones.

Death by stampede.

And Brody Wickham, off-duty bodyguard, simply couldn’t let that happen, despite wanting to stay incognito in the shadows near the bar. He moved to the edge of the crowd, every muscle coiled. He’d guess that in about ten seconds, he’d have to plow through this mob and save her.

He should be sitting on a lawn chair in the backyard of his parents’ suburban ranch home, catching up on the news of his eight brothers and sisters—most of whom he hadn’t seen for nearly a decade. Or helping his parents decipher the foreclosure notice from the bank.

The music nearly shook the bricks from their mortar in the warehouse-turned-club, the perfect venue for Vonya’s eccentric pulse, with its black Art Deco walls covered in skinny mirrors, disco lights dangling from the ceiling, and a round stage that thrust out into the audience.

Despite the cacophony of noise, he had to admit, Vonya had pipes. Brody wasn’t so iron-eared as to not recognize the flash of talent in the tones that blew out of that petite body covered in leather and fishnet, even if he spent most of the night averting his eyes from her plunging minidress.

A random elbow connected with the soft tissue of his nose, stopping him cold at the fringes of the dancers.

Okay, what was he doing? This wasn’t his gig, his battle. He didn’t even know this impulsive woman, and nobody had asked him to be a hero today.

He was here for—

Lucy! She’d jumped right into the mosh pit, moving to the middle, pushing, shoving, bouncing off dancers twice her size.

Everything inside him pinged, his adrenaline rushing. Oh, he’d known, just known, that his fifteen-year-old sister had no business at a Vonya concert, which was why he’d heard himself volunteering to take her when she appeared in a black-and-purple scoop-neck T-shirt, enough silver costume jewelry to sink a small ship, and skintight animal-print jeans.

And since when had his all-things-Catholic mother decided to say yes to the nose piercing? Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who’d lost his mind.

Then again, his mother wouldn’t be the first person to let someone talk her into something against her best judgment.

Only, her concessions didn’t get people killed.

“You don’t want to go to a Vonya concert,” his sister had whined, shortly after his mother had tossed him the keys to her Subaru, more than a little relief in her eyes.

“I don’t care about this Vonya chick—I care about you. Are you sure you don’t need a…jacket? Or maybe a paper bag?”

Lucy shot him her best death-ray glare. “I’ll just pretend I’m a celebrity. You can be my bodyguard.”

“You know, I do sometimes bodyguard people for a living. I might know a few things about staying out of the way.”

“Not at a Vonya concert,” Lucy said. “I hate to tell you this, dude, but you’re in way over your head.”

Clearly. He kept his gaze on her as she bounced in the center of the mosh—

She went down.

“Make a hole!” Brody shoved toward her, his blood hot in his veins. By the time he reached her, Lucy had surfaced, her face flushed, holding her nose. Blood dripped out between her fingers.

Okay, that was it. He glanced once at Vonya, saw her riding the wave, then wrapped his hand around Lucy’s arm. “We’re leaving.” The so-called music ate his voice.

She yanked her arm away. “I’m fine!” Her painted eyes glittered.

He didn’t have time to retort because the punk next to Lucy turned on him. “Leave her alone, dude!” He then threw his body—or perhaps someone threw him—against Brody.

Brody caught him, pushed him away.

Definitely time to egress.

He glanced once more at Vonya, his gut tight, trying to shake off the dread. With a gulp, the pit swallowed her whole.

See? Someone should have stopped the madness long before this.

The crowd swelled around her, people pushing, chaos breaking free, bodies tumbling, screaming ripping through the club.

“Brody!” Fear showed in Lucy’s wide eyes.

Brody wrapped his arms around her, pushing them both out of the crowd. “You okay?”

She nodded, still protecting her nose.

Perfect. So much for bringing his sister home in one piece.

“Go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Stay away from the crowd!” He had to shout inches from her face, but even as Lucy nodded, his attention pulled back to the mob.

No Vonya. But screams and grunts emitted over the microphone, and even the band members had stopped playing.

“Go!” he yelled to Lucy, and plowed back into the violence.

Another elbow to the gut nearly blew out his breath, but he moved with the purpose of a ground assault, shoving bodies aside, protecting his face as he waded through to Vonya’s last known position.

Nothing, although he did manage to haul to their feet two women and a very skinny kid.

He made it all the way to the man-size speaker…and spotted a flash of pink huddled behind the equipment.

Vonya crouched, holding her left arm curled tight to herself. Despite the black makeup, the weird peacock mask, the bright pink Marilyn Monroe-style hairdo, and the scaly leather dress, he recognized a woman shaken.

Not that it took a psychologist to figure it out—her mask hung torn from her face and she stared up at him like he might be the boogeyman.

So he didn’t stop to focus, analyze or plan. Didn’t stop to think through his actions. Just bent down, slipped his arms around her and swooped her up.

“Hey! What are you doing?” She twisted in his arms, eyes wide.

“What does it look like?” he said into her ear, as he pushed through the hysterical crowd toward the back entrance. “Trying to save your pretty little neck.”

“Call 911, tell them things are out of control!” she said, twisting in his arms as if wanting to run back into the mess.

“You should have thought of that before you threw yourself into the audience.”

She stiffened. “I’m okay. You can put me down.”

“Not quite yet, honey.”

But he looked at her then. She seemed more petite up close with her crazy pink hair and false eyelashes, and she swallowed back something that looked like shame.

Then he kicked open the back door and freed them to the alley.

“I said, put me down!”

No problem.

Unfortunately, her words came out timed perfectly for the paparazzi, who got a million-dollar shot of him flinching as she landed an openhanded smack across his face.

Of course she’d been summoned by the senator. Ronie finger-combed her sea-sticky hair as she sat in the back-seat of the limousine, her trench coat tucked around her, trying to chase from her bones the last of the chill from the choppy ferry ride to Martha’s Vineyard. Her father’s voice on her machine rang in her memory…

“Sounds like you made a real spectacle of yourself this time, Vonya. Your mother and I want a word with you. I’ll expect you at the beach house this weekend.”

Of course he expected her. But at twenty-eight, she thought she might be strong enough to resist his summons.

Well, she might be if she weren’t broke and needing the senator’s goodwill in the form of financial backing for her upcoming European tour, aka rescue mission.

She’d saved the text message from the Bishop and now ran her thumb over her cell in her pocket.

Found him.

Thank You, God.

Her throat tightened even as she stared out at the ocean, at the frothy waves clawing the shore. Please let the senator be in a good mood.

The limo turned into the long drive toward Harthaven, past the weathered split-rail fencing, the green-carpeted pastures. A couple of her mother’s thoroughbreds lifted their heads as if in greeting. The tires ground against the gravel until the car pulled up at the front door.

“Nice to see you again, Miss Veronica,” the driver said, as he opened her door.

“You, too, Mr. Henley.” She lifted her messenger bag from the seat and stood for a moment in front of the ancestral home, two centuries of age in its weathered cedar shakes. Out of habit her eyes went to Savannah’s tiny, empty attic window.

“Veronica, you made it!” Her mother’s voice emerged first as she exited the house, crossed the porch and descended the front steps. Ellie Wagner looked about twenty-five, with her long brown hair held back in a ponytail, and her brown riding pants and pink blouse. She held her helmet, with a pair of gloves shoved inside, against her hip. “I was just leaving for a quick ride. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” She pecked her daughter on the check as she breezed by. “Oh, we’ll be dressing for dinner tonight, but your father would like to see you for drinks in the study at six o’clock.”

“I don’t drink.” Never had, really. And never mind that she hadn’t called herself Veronica since her sophomore year in college.

But it didn’t matter. Her mother waved her gloves and disappeared around the corner to the stable.

“No problem, Mother, I’m down with that,” she said to the brisk island air.

She kept a standard little black dress and a strand of pearls in the closet just for Saturday nights at Harthaven. Her fans wouldn’t have a prayer of recognizing her.

Sometimes, after a concert, she didn’t even recognize herself.

Six p.m. The hour of execution, when she had to discard herself of all things Vonya and climb back into the expectations of her upbringing. But no one could ever accuse her, Veronica Stanton Wagner, of not knowing how to adapt. She’d eaten Zong Zing with the ambassador to China, challenged the sons of the prime minister of Nepal to a game of Bagh Chal, learned to play the djembe from a musical troupe from Ghana, and could speak, although poorly, snippets of Portuguese, thanks to the young wife of the United Nations representative from Brazil.

She could probably manage to behave like a proper lady tonight at dinner. Especially if it meant erasing from her father’s recent memory the newspaper photo of Vonya laying her palm across a very handsome, yet downright surly, self-appointed bodyguard after last Saturday’s debacle.

Yeah, well, she’d been a victim one too many times of a crazy fan. And one very dangerous stalker. How was she to know he actually wanted to help her?

She could still see his shock as he recoiled, then the growl that flashed into his eyes as he’d gritted his teeth and set her down.

Stabilized her as she rocked on those lethal five-inch heels.

No, not a fan. Thankfully, he hadn’t let loose the words behind the disgust that flashed across his face.

But the derision from the stranger hurt, she had to admit it.

Or not a stranger anymore. Brody Wickham. She’d discovered his name after her frantic manager found them returning from the alley. Tommy D had decided to make him a national—or at least music-industry—hero.

She longed to forget him, hating the way he and his condemnation stuck in her brain. In fact, she thought she’d escaped the claw of shame long ago.

Clearly not. And it didn’t help that Brody Wickham cast a steely, almost annoyed image across national airwaves and onto prime-time entertainment shows when he announced that he’d simply been trying to keep her from hurting herself. Nice.

Except maybe he’d been right. She still sported a greenish-black bruise on her arm.

Oh, given the choice, she would rather have holed up in her SoHo loft this weekend with a bowl of popcorn and her keyboard to work on a new song. But she couldn’t rightly beg for money over the phone, or even through email. Senator Wagner wouldn’t want to miss the pleasure of staring her down and making her feel fifteen and a failure.

Just once, she’d like to be twenty-eight, smart and beautiful.

But this little excursion wasn’t for her. Or even for the senator. And life didn’t always hand out choices.

An hour later, Ronie gave a last survey in the mirror—short brown hair curled into tiny ringlets around her head, the barest dusting of makeup, a little lip gloss, a touch of lime eye shadow. She appeared, well, wholesome.

She didn’t exactly hate the look.

The smells of a pot roast, or maybe lamb with rosemary, tugged her down the stairs. Stopping off in the kitchen, she sneaked a fresh roll from a basket on the counter, earning a growl from Marguerite, their weekend housekeeper, and tore it into tiny pieces as she walked toward her father’s study.

The melodies of Tchaikovsky escaped through the cracked open door. She eased it open.

Tripp Wagner stood with his back to her, an outline of power as he stared out the window overlooking the grounds. Twilight had begun to darken the pond and seep across the grass. Only a glimmer of light sprinkled through the pines that ringed their property. Sometimes she wished they had beachfront property, where they could watch the sun sink like a fiery ball behind the sandy dunes.

“Father?”

“Come in, Veronica.”

Ronie stepped inside the study. A desk lamp puddled orange over the leather blotter on the mahogany desk. His briefcase lay on the credenza, under a family picture, now nearly fifteen years old. Ronie barely glanced at it, not really recognizing any of the four of them.

“You can help yourself to a drink.” He gestured with a glass of something amber—bourbon, probably—still not turning from the window.

“I still don’t drink alcohol, Father,” she said, but moved over to the bar and poured herself a glass of cranberry juice. It helped to have something to hold on to when the senator began his orations.

“Not that anyone would ever know.”

She braced herself.

“Sometimes, I can’t believe that is actually my daughter making a spectacle of— No. I promised your mother.” He sighed, turned and, for the first time, let his eyes rest on her. She stifled a tremble, not because he frightened her—well, not much, anymore—but because she saw in his hazel-green eyes such sadness, it filled her throat with something scratchy and hard.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s part of the act.”

He looked away, rubbing his thumb along the glass. He nodded. “Have a seat.”

Not a request—it never was, so she slipped into the Queen Anne chair against the wall. Her father settled one hip against the desk, his pant leg riding up to reveal a dark sock. He probably hadn’t had to change for dinner—he had simply gotten up that morning and dressed in a suit and tie. But they’d all been hiding inside their own costumes since Savannah’s death, hadn’t they?

He took a breath, and in the gap of space, she wondered if maybe she should go first—a burst of Father, I need your help might detour the dressing-down.

Or not. Maybe it would only add ammunition. She took a sip of her juice and balanced it on her lap, staring at the bloodred liquid.

“I want you to cancel your European tour.”

Her head shot up, but he already had his hand up to stop her words.

“I’m not trying to interfere with your career, Veronica. But the truth is…I’ve had some disturbing threats lately, and I’m just not sure that you should be parading around in nightclubs across Europe when there are men out there who’d like to see me dead—or worse, at their mercy.”

Her father had always been an epic presence in her life. Even now, he seemed invincible, his hair dark as oil, his face unlined, his shoulders broad. The sigh that shuddered through him shook her again.

“What are you talking about?”

He set his drink on the desk. “As the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I am the one who suggested the embargo on Zimbala. General Mubar has decided that I’m an enemy of his people, and that’s putting it kindly. He’s made a few personal threats lately, the kind that I should take seriously.”

“General Mubar wants to hurt you?”

“General Mubar thinks I’m standing in the way of the United States recognizing his illegal government.”

She edged forward in her seat. “You know he’s starting to recruit child soldiers, right?” She still had the images from her tour imprinted in her head.

“I know, and that’s why I recommended that we establish economic sanctions against Zimbala. And why the general’s made a very public pledge to hurt me…and I’m worried that will affect you.”

“Why me?”

“After your too-publicized visit there three years ago, he’s convinced you had a hand in influencing my decision.”

“But I went as Vonya. There was no connection to you.”

“Maybe you think this crazy identity as Vonya hides you, but I’m sure Mubar, just like my colleagues in Washington, has figured out who you are. I don’t know for sure, but we can’t take any chances.” He paused, looked at his drink, then back to her.

His gaze seemed to part her chest, burn it. Finally, “Veronica, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to sever that connection.”

Right. Somehow, she found her voice, although when it emerged, it cracked, and sounded nothing like either of the women she worked so hard to be. “I’m not trying to sever that connection—”

A knock at the door cut into her words. “Your guest is here,” Marguerite said.

“Give us a moment, then show him in.”

Oh, hallelujah, her father had set her up on a date. Now she could spend the entire evening fighting sleep to the tune of some political discussion or a treatise on a new case before the Supreme Court. Didn’t he know by now that she’d never fall for a man he’d handpicked? She wanted a poet, or perhaps a musician—someone who embraced life and wasn’t made of stone. “Lawyer or politician, Father?”

He frowned at her, as if he had no idea what she might be referring to. “Business, Veronica.”

Whatever. She hoped her “date” didn’t expect a good-night kiss. “Listen, I understand your warning, but I can’t cancel my tour. The record label already took a chance on me, taking me from an indie band to a regular on the pop charts. I need this tour to keep my momentum. Frankly, even if I wanted to cancel, I couldn’t. I’d lose all my deposits and end up owing my firstborn child to the record label.”

His face twitched. Oh, great choice of words, Veronica. She set her drink on the table. Might as well go for broke, since…she was. “The fact is, I need…I need help.”

His right eyebrow went up.

“I’m a little in the red right now.”

He folded his arms across his chest, and oh, yes, he had her right where he wanted her.

“I lost a lot with the stock market crash, and then, my accountant made some tax mistakes, and I ended up paying back taxes and penalties—”

“Are you still using your Harvard friend for your accounting?”

“—and Tommy D redid the condo for a photo shoot, and it went way over budget—”

“Did I mention I think he has stretched your image a little far? I don’t know why you insist on using your college friends to help your…career, or whatever you’re calling your flamboyant—”

“Father, please, Tommy D is a great manager, and this is what it takes to stand out.”

“Tommy D’Amico recognized ‘sucker’ written all over you the second he saw you serving at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. I think you need to look a little closer at why your money seems to be vanishing.”

“I’m not a fool for wanting to help people, Father.”

“But you’ve become a fool doing it.”

She stared at her juice, suddenly seeing again her so-called rescuer’s disgust.

Her father sighed, turned back toward the window. “So, you need money.”

She fought for her voice. “I’m good for it—you know that. I just…well, we put a lot into this tour already and I can’t back out. I was hoping…”