The Shaughnessey Accord by Alison Kent Page A

to never go hungry again.
    In the next moment, the bathroom door squeaked open. She spun around, pressed one eye to the crack below the stall's hinges. One by one, the three men returned. Tripp followed. She couldn't stay put any longer and slid back the flimsy lock on the door.
    The moment he spread wide his arms, she was there, her face buried against his chest, her arms around his waist, his around hers. He smelled so good. He felt like her world, like he was everything she would ever want or need, and she wasn't sure she knew how to let him go. Knew as well that, for now, she had to.
    "Sweetheart, are you okay?" he murmured into her hair.
    "What about you?" She pulled away frowning, holding his hands and rubbing the dried blood from the skin on his wrists.
    "All in a day's work."
    "Your day maybe. Not mine." And upon saying that, the tears finally came. Tears of relief and exhaustion and joy that she would never go hungry again—and that Tripp would be around for her to snuggle with and argue with and make love with another day.
    "I've got to go," he said with no small measure of regret. "But I'll be back for you when this is all done."
    "What do I do now?" she asked as the phone again started to ring.
    "You answer that and tell them you're opening the door."
    "And what do I say about"—she glanced toward the hallway where through the door still propped open she saw. . . —"the bodies."
    "That a man of steel spun a sticky web." He said it with a smile she wanted to return but couldn't. Not even after he lowered his head, rubbed his nose over the tip of hers, and kissed her soundly.
    When he finally lifted his head, she blinked stupidly. His grin cleared her sensual fog. "No, really. What do I say?"
    Tripp glanced up as his three associates vanished into the ceiling. He quickly spelled out her cover story. She absorbed it all, ran the explanation over in her mind until she was certain she had no questions.
    Then she backed across the room and watched Tripp pull himself up through the gaping hole in the ceiling, disappearing behind the tiles he settled back into place.
    Okay. First step. Take a deep breath. Second step. Answer the phone. A move that required she leave the restroom and circumvent the pile of bodies. She could do this. She could do this.
    Eyes scrunched up, she scurried down the hallway and into the shop.
    "Glory, sheesh ." Neal struggled to gain his feet. "Where have you been? What's going on? How'd you get by that son of a bitch?"
    "I've got to get the phone, Neal. But come here. I'll cut you loose and you can free the others."
    "They're gone?" asked the lighter-haired of the two secretaries, duct tape hanging loose from her mouth. "What happened?"
    "Long story made short, they've been put out of commission." Glory said, instead of blurting out the truth of men of steel and webs.
    She made but the briefest eye contact with the professor as he entered the room under his own steam to a round of gasps and questions, before she picked up the phone.
    "Glory Brighton here."

    Tripp showered and changed clothes in the ops center's locker room after an hour spent between the treadmill and the weights.
    Julian, Christian and Kelly John had cleaned up first. They had more to clean up, what with the grease paint they'd worn to avoid recognition—the sort of disguise they rarely had to wear.
    But they'd been operating on their own turf, in close proximity to the very building housing the office that was their cover. The camouflage had been about self-preservation, not about blending into the jungle of the city.
    All any of them could do now was keep their fingers crossed that the strategy had worked.
    Wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and another draped over his head, Tripp padded into the dressing area. Glory should be done with the police by now. At least with anything they were going to need her for tonight.
    Now it was his turn to get to her and finish what they'd started. He wanted to make sure