Breach Of Trust
Jodie Bailey
LETHAL REUNIONMeghan McGuire’s ready to put her military career behind her and start her dream job helping troubled children—until a man from her past reappears. Tate Walker is supposed to be dead. But now he’s standing on her doorstep, telling her she’s in danger. Tate never thought he’d see Meghan again…and certainly not as the target of the hacker he’s trying to bust. With both of their lives in danger, they have to work together to hunt down the criminal. But when Tate learns about the past Meghan’s been hiding, he’s not sure if she’s still the woman he once loved. Or if he can he trust her with his survival—and his heart.
LETHAL REUNION
Meghan McGuire’s ready to put her military career behind her and start her dream job helping troubled children—until a man from her past reappears. Tate Walker is supposed to be dead. But now he’s standing on her doorstep, telling her she’s in danger. Tate never thought he’d see Meghan again…and certainly not as the target of the hacker he’s trying to bust. With both of their lives in danger, they have to work together to hunt down the criminal. But when Tate learns about the past Meghan’s been hiding, he’s not sure if she’s still the woman he once loved. Or if he can trust her with his survival—and his heart.
There had to be a way out of this.
Even with her military training, a fight against someone who knew her and her background would be a lot more difficult than an altercation with a neighborhood punk. There was no way to know how many intruders were in the building or how heavily armed they were. No intel meant an unfair fight.
The beeping of the alarm gained speed. All she had to do was hang tight and stay hidden for another five minutes. The police tended to arrive quickly once the alarm notified them. After last year’s break-in and vandalism, they didn’t play when it came to this school.
“We should have waited till it was dark.” The twanging on the edges of the voice was somehow familiar. Somehow, somewhere she’d heard that voice before. Meghan dug for a memory, for a face, but came up empty save the bizarre feeling she shouldn’t be afraid.
JODIE BAILEY writes novels about freedom and the heroes who fight for it. Her novel Crossfire won a 2015 RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Love Inspired Suspense Book Award. She is convinced a camping trip to the beach with her family, a good cup of coffee and a great book can cure all ills. Jodie lives in North Carolina with her husband, her daughter and two dogs.
BREACH OF TRUST
Jodie Bailey
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
—Isaiah 43:18–19
To my cousin Ben.
Who else?
Without your manual push mower, Tate—and this book—never would have existed.
Here it is forever in print: you were a trendsetter with penguin firefighters before they were cool.
Contents
Cover (#ue6a91956-ab55-51dc-a03a-0a7a1f93b65b)
Back Cover Text (#u6132aa0b-96ca-5cf7-b048-45d759e5eb9d)
Introduction (#u89c9f96a-3d52-52d5-8095-0a228fd009de)
About the Author (#ubef7cfc4-d405-5867-84f4-872fb4f0bbd5)
Title Page (#u3f852818-5dce-5927-85a1-55a9841e2272)
Bible Verse (#ud9edf56c-3dbc-5e0f-8b16-6b749c484c01)
Dedication (#uf5025224-b25d-56eb-9994-04b39998f919)
CHAPTER ONE (#u071be562-a22d-542a-9698-d2ef8d5eb019)
CHAPTER TWO (#uf1cd6ed5-db56-5822-a0b2-9edf06dafb03)
CHAPTER THREE (#u43da2add-6cf4-506a-a28f-64e77b3826fa)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u7eb49bea-9a68-59a3-815c-3ebd5158e3fb)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ulink_6d7b810c-2e39-5d6a-a907-c538ae6e26de)
Meghan McGuire dragged her fingers through her short dark hair and scanned the computer screen, fighting an uncharacteristic cold sweat at the message swimming in blue on the display.
It’s time for round two.
He’d returned. The short series of numbers he used as a signature followed the message, leaving no room for doubt. More than a decade of silence, enough time to stop looking over her shoulder...and still he’d returned. Here. On her last day as technology director at a tiny private school on the outskirts of Flint, Michigan.
If she’d left yesterday, her official last day... If she’d denied principal Yvonne Craft’s request to run through the system one more time... If she’d left at seven, the way she’d planned... Any of those things, and she’d be at the farmhouse, painting window casings with Phoebe instead of sitting here, her life crumbling right as she was about to step into her dreams coming true. Right as she was about to start a whole new season.
At thirty-one, she’d had plenty of those already. But when it came to this one? Aside from the day she’d joined the army, this had been the first she’d really been excited about. Working with her friend Phoebe Snyder’s charitable foundation, Meghan was putting the finishing touches on a foster home for the most desperate of lost children.
And she wasn’t going to let the past steal it. Not without a fight. Rolling her neck to the side to stretch out the tension, she reached for her backpack and an external drive. She could download an image of the system and—
A sudden series of thuds bounced along the hallway and the alarm panel by the front door started its incessant beeping, demanding someone feed it the correct code before it called the police.
“We’ve got about two minutes before the cops start this way.” The voice, coarse and unfamiliar, scraped into the office and grated against Meghan’s ears.
Her fingers tightened around the straps of the backpack. No one she knew was supposed to be in the building this late.
And no one she knew would worry about the police, either.
Meghan slipped to the closed office door and pressed her back tight against the wall to listen, recalling long-unused training to keep her breathing even. The church housing the school wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods, and they’d suffered one other break-in, when vandals nearly destroyed the school. Her car parked under the awning by the front door should have been a clue to any aspiring burglar trying for an easy score that the building was occupied.
But maybe that was the point. If they were hoping to find someone in the building...well, that was more than she wanted to think about. And she’d be sure to give them a fight they never anticipated.
It had been a long time since she’d been involved in a physical altercation, but she’d been trained well. Meghan stiffened her stance, charged by the prospect of action. Anybody who broke into this building had no idea what they were in for.
“Her car’s out front. She’s here. Find her.” The rough masculine voice echoed from the hallway. “Get her into the van. I’ll take care of the alarm.”
Meghan’s stomach tightened, and she balled her fists, automatically preparing for combat. This wasn’t a burglary. This was a targeted plan, and she was at the center of it. She should have anticipated this. If she’d been smart, she would have headed for the door the second the horrible message popped onto the screen, but she’d been too shocked he’d appeared again after this much time had passed.
There had to be a way out of this. Even with her military training, a fight against someone who knew her and her background would be a lot more difficult than an altercation with a neighborhood punk. There was no way to know how many intruders were in the building or how heavily armed they were. No intel meant an unfair fight.
The beeping of the alarm panel gained speed, demanding a code before the whole system went off. All she had to do was hang tight and stay hidden for another five minutes. The police tended to arrive quickly once the alarm notified them. After last year’s vandalism, they didn’t play when it came to this school.
“We should have waited till it was dark.” Another voice followed, deeper than the first, twanging the edges of something familiar. Somehow, somewhere she’d heard that voice before. Meghan dug for a memory, for a face, but came up empty save the bizarre feeling she shouldn’t be afraid.
A lie if her mind had ever told her one.
“If we’d waited till dark, she’d have been gone. We have one shot at this. And unless you want to be the one facing the pain if we blow this job, you’ll grab her before she figures out we’re here.” A string of curses stampeded from the hallway. “Stupid alarm. There’s no way she’s not hearing it. You go that way. And make it quick. If I don’t have the right code, we’ve got about fifteen seconds before the stinking alarm goes off and triggers the cops.”
They had the alarm code. Meghan’s muscles tightened with readiness as she searched her windowless office for a way out. Help wasn’t coming. She was on her own.
And she was defenseless. The cell phone in her hip pocket had never gotten a signal in her small office deep inside the first floor of the steel-and-concrete building. Her gun was locked in the safe at the house. She hadn’t carried a weapon for personal defense since she left the army four years ago. All she had was herself, her training and a backpack full of books and random technology. While she’d been trained well, that wouldn’t get her far against no less than two men determined to haul her out of here. Into a van.
Such a cliché.
Dropping the bag silently beside her feet, she slid closer to the door, keeping tight to the wall, listening for footsteps, watching for shadows as an early Michigan evening cast weak light into the hallway.
The alarm stopped beeping, severing any hope of the cavalry’s arrival. A small number of people were privy to the code, and none of them sounded anything like the men stalking the building now. None of them would want to shove her into a van or be worried about police presence.
She had to get out. Fast.
Meghan walked the familiar building in her memory. From the front lobby, the building branched off into three directions. From the muffled sounds of footsteps and distant murmuring, the men hadn’t headed in her direction yet, which meant she had about one minute to figure this out and save her skin. Easing around the door, she peeked into the hallway.
The front door was out. Even though it was about a hundred feet away, it was part of the central hub in the main lobby. Whoever was hunting her would have to pass it again soon, and if she got caught dead to rights in the middle of the hallway, there was nowhere to run.
She glanced left. The fire exit was half the length of the building away, opening to the back school yard and a small wooded area on the other side. If Meghan could hit the door running, she might make it to the highway on the other side of the trees before they caught her, though the blaring door alarm wouldn’t allow her much of a head start.
There was a lot of open ground to cover in the hallway, then between the building and the woods. Once she was out, the door would lock behind her. She had her keys, but unlocking the door to get back into the building would cost her valuable seconds if she burst outside into the face of a waiting kidnapper. Worst-case scenario, the exit would bring her out on the opposite side of the building from the front parking lot and, if they caught her, they’d have to drag her all the way around in full sight of anyone driving by on the busy road in front of the school.
The fire exit wasn’t perfect, but it was all she had.
Closing her eyes tight, Meghan tried to listen over the pounding in her ears. The only sounds were the thumps of doors opening and closing on the far side of the building. She exhaled and hit the hallway at a dead run, bursting through the door to the earsplitting shriek of the fire alarm.
She stumbled on her flip-flops, kicked them off and kept running over soft grass, freshly sprouted after the long winter.
A shout echoed behind her. If she could make the woods and get through to the highway, surely they’d leave her alone in such a public venue.
They had to.
Dry mulch from the nearby playground dug into her feet as she pressed faster, bruising skin accustomed to winter shoes.
Footsteps closed in behind her, and then a force caught her lower back, driving her knees into the ground, her upper body pitching forward, dirt and grass pressing into her mouth. She spit and fought the weight pinning her legs as it shifted away.
Hands grasped her arms and hauled her to her feet, turning her to face her pursuer. She hardened her gaze, determined to memorize her captor’s face. Struggling to free a fist and throw a punch, Meghan caught a good look at him and went limp, her fight dying.
Green eyes.
Familiar eyes.
The eyes of a dead man.
* * *
Tate Walker’s grip loosened, then tightened again. He scanned their target’s face, skimming familiar short dark hair and deep brown eyes that no one who saw them could ever forget. He nearly choked on nothing more than air.
Meghan McGuire was their mark? What would a hacker who was threatening national security want with her?
She jerked once, hard, breaking the connection and twisting her arm as she tried to pull away from his grasp. “You’re not real.” Her voice was raw, and although the words were low, they carried the force of a shout. “Let me go.”
He couldn’t. If he released her and she ran or, worse, stood there and vented the anger burning in her eyes, his cover would blow sky-high and they’d both be dead in the next ten seconds. Glancing over his shoulder, he figured he had about that long to explain before Isaac rushed out of the building, if the other man wasn’t watching already. “I’m under cover. Follow along.”
Her nostrils flared and she pulled again, struggling against him. Meghan had always had fight. It had made her a partner other operatives in their small specialized military unit had envied. More than once she’d been offered other teams, other assignments, but she’d always stuck close to their partnership, loyal until the day she walked away without even offering him a goodbye.
Right now, her fight was about something more than self-preservation. She had the wild-eyed, caged-animal fight of someone who thought she was losing her senses. “This isn’t real. You’re dead. Ethan told me you died. There was a funeral. Everything.” She twisted her body, trying to free herself, but her eyes stayed on his. “You’re—”
The fire door crashed open behind him, and Isaac’s shout echoed off the trees. “You got her?”
Time was up. Tate winced and fired one last plea at Meghan. “Trust me.” That was a lot to ask of any woman. Especially one who’d believed he was dead for four years.
But she had to trust him. His heart hammered. He’d had his cover compromised one other time, and it had left him close to death in a pool of his own blood under a hot Pennsylvania sun. The moment had changed everything about his life. His chest ached empty even now, his breathlessness a testament to the physical price he’d paid at the hands of a traitor.
He wouldn’t land himself there again.
After shooting a warning into Meghan’s angry and confused expression, he whipped around, keeping his grip tight and her close, tucked slightly behind him. “Yeah. I got her when she busted out the fire door. Go get the van and bring it around to the back lot.” He pointed toward the corner of the parking lot barely visible on the other side of the low brick building, praying Isaac wouldn’t decide to take issue with Tate giving orders. “It’ll keep us from dragging her out into the open by the road. Too many chances for somebody to see us if we try to take her out the front. She’s a fighter.”
Meghan pulled again, growling low. Whether she was helping to sell his story or truly trying to escape, he couldn’t take the chance and ease up. If she ran while Isaac was present, the man would shoot her before she made cover in the wood line. Isaac wasn’t a man with a whole lot of patience. Short, stocky and prematurely balding, he covered his perceived inadequacies in front of his small band of ruffians with a lot of bravado and a notoriously hot temper.
Isaac’s volatile personality was of the dozen reasons Tate didn’t look forward to the consequences of what he was about to do. On a normal day, a man like Isaac wouldn’t even make him blink. But when Tate had to keep cover and couldn’t defend himself? Things could get ugly. Fast.
Isaac hesitated, assessing the situation. He scratched the back of his head, clearly unwilling to let his prey out of his sight.
Come on. Go. Tate’s muscles tightened. He hadn’t been a member of Isaac’s ring long enough to gain the man’s full trust, and he was severely testing a fragile thread right now.
The pause felt like an eternity, but Isaac turned and tried the door.
Locked.
He tossed a disgusted smirk in Tate’s direction and took off at a slow jog around the corner of the building.
Tate nearly sagged in relief. Turning fully toward Meghan, he kept a firm hold on her wrist. After reaching under his T-shirt at his waist, he pulled his clipped holster free, holding the pistol out to her grip-first. “Take this.” He’d count it a blessing if she didn’t shoot him with his own weapon.
She stared at him in wide-eyed shock, an expression he’d never seen in all the years they’d worked side by side. Seeing him living and breathing had to make her question everything she thought she knew about reality.
He laid the holstered pistol on her palm. “Stay with me, McGuire. Just get through the next few hours and I’ll give you answers.” The ones the government hadn’t classified, anyway.
She swallowed hard, the lines around her mouth deepening. At least she was losing the panicked-deer look; her expression morphed into the concentrated stare of a warrior. This was the Meghan McGuire he knew. He’d smile if the situation weren’t so desperate. And if she wasn’t so uncharacteristically silent.
She was listening. And she hadn’t started running. Yet.
Tate fought the crazy urge to pull her into a hug before he let her go. “You have keys to the building?”
“I do.”
“Take my gun. Go inside through the fire door. Isaac will assume you’re locked out and you ran for the woods. Get in your car and get out of here. Go as far as you can. Don’t go near your apartment because there’s two more guys waiting there for you. Get out of town and don’t call the police. We can’t blow this operation wide-open yet.” This mission was too important. If their target figured out they were onto him, he’d pack his toys and vanish by nightfall. Tate was too close to shutting the door on an op they’d been running for more than two years, an op that had left several broken lives and untimely deaths behind it.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and slipped it into hers. “Don’t answer it, no matter what. I don’t care what number comes across. I don’t care what text messages you see. Do not answer. But don’t lose it and don’t turn it off. I’ll find you.”
“Stop talking to me as though I’ve never done this before.” The words were coated with sass thick enough to choke them both.
Ah. There was the blowback he’d expected. He grinned in spite of himself. “Then stop looking at me as though you’ve never done this before.”
She drew her eyebrows together, pulling her keys from her pocket and stepping around him, prepared to make a run for the building. “You have so much talking to do, you’re going to be hoarse by the time you’re done.”
Tate grabbed her elbow and glanced over his shoulder. “I promise I’ll find you and explain later. Right now I need you to...” He was fully, painfully aware what he was about to ask of the woman he’d trained himself. “Hit me. Pretend you hate me.”
If the silent anger she fired at him was any indication, this might be the worst punch he ever took.
Meghan pulled in a deep breath, her posture easing into the one that knew this business was life or death.
The part of her that knew Tate was a dead man if they couldn’t sell her escape.
TWO (#ulink_906a9b5d-8b78-52cc-bfde-98b2db79a121)
Tate Walker was alive. And Meghan couldn’t decide whether she hated him or loved him for it.
As directed, Meghan had avoided her apartment and run here, to the house owned by the Snyder Foundation, the one place that couldn’t be connected to her. She paced the length of the darkened living room, the old hardwood creaking beneath her feet. The midnight wind sang through the trees, ruffling new leaves and brushing branches against the old white farmhouse. Normally, the solitary sounds of the house settling for the night brought comfort. This place had a story, and though Meghan had no idea what it was, she’d love to find out. With the age on the little farm nestled in the midst of the woods, there was no telling what it had seen.
She might not know the past, but she knew what it would see in the near future. Hope. A place where kids beaten down the way she had been could find refuge and acceptance. The bouncing from foster home to foster home would end at this front door. There would be love here, love that defied thievery or deception, that carried on no matter what mistakes the kids made or what they felt they needed to do to get attention.
But it wouldn’t happen if Meghan couldn’t keep herself out of trouble long enough to finish the renovations. Her past had come for her, and no one would want a woman with a target on her back working with troubled children.
At the window by the front door, Meghan lifted a slat on the plantation blinds and peeked through, hoping to see headlights but finding only moonlit shadows.
She should have stood her ground against Isaac, should have stayed with Tate to have his back if things went south. You didn’t abandon your partner. By following Tate’s directive and fleeing instead of staying behind to see what happened, she’d certainly abandoned him.
Except he was no longer her partner. And standing her ground would have probably gotten them both killed, especially with her edge worn off by his reappearance.
Hard as it was, taking refuge was the right course of action. Meghan slipped the phone from her pocket and slid her thumb across the screen, concrete proof his appearance wasn’t the product of an overactive imagination. From her time chasing cybercriminals in their small clandestine army unit, she had no doubt the tech in the device could track her to the nearest meter. So where was he? She’d failed him once and believed her failure had left him dead. If her pseudoescape today had cost him his life...
Unfamiliar nausea swirled, and she dropped the slat, dragging a finger along the grip of the revolver holstered at her hip, refusing to think anymore. To keep from being traced, she’d pulled the battery from her cell phone and locked it with Tate’s gun in the small safe in what would be her bedroom when the house was finished. She’d pulled out her own weapon, wanting the familiar heft of her Ruger. The revolver was on her at all times when she worked on the property, but it was usually to make her feel better about the remote possibility of coming across a snake.
Her skin tightened. Kidnappers, she could handle. Snakes? They were the one foe she feared.
Headlights danced across the front windows, and Meghan laid her hand on the pistol, heart revving, ready for confrontation. If this wasn’t Tate, things were about to get real ugly, real fast.
The headlights flickered three times, paused, then flashed twice more.
Tate.
It was an old signal they’d worked out years ago, one she’d thought she’d never see again. One she’d longed for in the darkness many nights, wishing he were still alive.
Never dreaming he actually was.
She loosened her hold on the pistol and cracked the door open, stepping onto the wide wraparound porch. The diesel on the old pickup rattled as Tate killed the engine; then he climbed out, his figure in the moonlight a silhouette against the trees.
Meghan stood guard at the top of the steps. What should she do? Throw her arms around him and welcome him to the land of the living? Or punch him one more good time? The war between relief and anger centered right in her stomach, twisting into a knot so tight it might never unravel.
Tate stopped at the bottom step, almost as though he could hear the swords clashing. He was taller than her memories gave him credit for. His shoulders broader, his stance speaking of an inner strength different from the one she remembered. No longer a barely leashed weapon, this strength ran deeper, steadier, more solid. Powerful enough to handle whatever life threw at him. Even death, apparently.
He looked up, face an interplay of shadow and light. His hair was still dark, though some very premature gray had shot through a few places. His jaw was still strong. But it was the eyes. It had always been the eyes, a clear sea green contrasted with his dark hair... In a rush, they brought back all the reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place.
And those same eyes reminded her how they’d haunted her after he supposedly died, begging her to save him.
Her grief had been for nothing. Meghan balled her fists. “I don’t know whether to hug you or shoot you.” She let the anger drip off her greeting. He deserved to hear it.
Tate took another step but stopped before he got too close, respectful of the new chaos in her life. “I hope you don’t opt for shooting. It’s been a rough day already.” He tilted his head and surveyed the front of the house. “What is this place? I thought you had an apartment near the school.”
“It’s not mine. Not exactly.” She was the one with questions, but she couldn’t make herself stop answering his. She’d spent four years thinking he was dead. Something inside still couldn’t process his seeming immortality and kept on operating as if this was all normal. “I’ve been hired by the Snyder Foundation. It’s going to be a group foster home when we finish renovating. The foundation bought this farm, so tracking me to it would be tough going.” Tough but not impossible, especially if the anonymous blackmailer from her past was a bigger deal than she’d thought. If her former unit was involved, things were much uglier than a simple kidnapping. They tracked cyberterrorists on the highest levels. Small-time gangsters didn’t even cross their radar.
“Really.” Tate wore the ghost of a smile. “A foster home. Your dream come true. I’m proud of you, McGuire.”
In spite of everything, the praise settled into the hollow places behind her rib cage. He’d remembered what was important to her, what she’d wanted to do from the time she was a little girl, shuttling to yet another foster home. It really was her dream coming true. One of them, anyway.
The pleasure chilled, wrapping her heart in ice. She’d scuttled an entirely different, softer dream for her future when she’d walked away from the army and Tate Walker four years ago. Walked away without leaving him any clue that her side of their friendship had grown into something so much more.
She was still staring at Tate, trying to reconcile his reality when he tipped his chin, his eyes catching hers and holding fast. It was the same jolt she’d felt when she saw him a few hours ago and realized Tate was alive. After years of grieving, he was alive. “Why aren’t you dead?”
He blinked, then gave her a rueful smile. “You want me to be?”
Never. The knowledge he was there in front of her wrapped around something inside and freed emotions long locked away. But the freedom brought confusion, anger and something she didn’t dare try to define.
When she didn’t answer, he sat on the step at her feet, patting the wide wooden porch boards beside him. “Might as well have a seat, and we can both start explaining.”
Both? As far as she was concerned, this story was all his. She might be in some unknown danger, but Tate’s continued existence trumped everything. His story came first.
Staring at him made her head swim, made the past fold onto the present and shower her anew with grief she would never let him see. “This show’s all yours, Walker.” She settled beside him, keeping a fair space between them, sweeping her arm out to encompass the small clearing around the house. “I’ve got nowhere to be. You can talk all night.”
“No. You can talk.” The friendly Tate vanished into investigative mode, his tone hard and matter-of-fact. “Explain to me why my undercover persona was tasked to seize an asset, and, when I made the grab, it was you.”
Shouldn’t he already know? He was the one undercover doing the investigating. She was the victim. And he didn’t get to interrogate her. “I have no idea. Why don’t you explain to me why you were trying to kidnap me in the first place? Or better yet, why you let me believe you were dead for four years?”
Tate drummed his thumbs on his blue-jeaned thighs. “Do you get that your life’s in danger?”
“And do you get that I don’t trust you?” It would wound him, but Meghan really didn’t care right now. He’d been a part of a team trying to kidnap her today. He’d lied. He’d let her grieve. And she had grieved for every single moment they could have had if she hadn’t been too scared to face her feelings. It had been pain the likes of which she’d never known before, and the healing had never fully come. Now he was back? There was no way she was letting him off easy.
He winced and stared across the yard. After a minute, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then glanced at his watch. “Long story.” The deep pain in the lines around his mouth made Meghan want to find a way to make it better, to take away the hurt.
Fine. She’d let him off the hook...for now. “Then explain why you tried to kidnap me. You’re the one who started this mess.”
“Believe me—I was as surprised to see you as you were to see me.”
“Doubtful. I’ve never been dead.”
“Fair enough.” Tate pushed himself up from his perch on the stairs and walked to his pickup; the distance between them opened like a canyon. “I can tell you it’s a cyberterror threat. And why you? No idea. I’ve been on this op a long time, and the threat’s not from anyone we’ve dealt with in the past.”
Had someone found out who she was, her talent for hacking systems and ferreting out information necessary to eliminate the bad guys? Had they found out she hadn’t always used her talent for good—something Tate wouldn’t know?
She followed close at his heels, needing to know what was happening. Needing to know if her past was bleeding into Tate’s present. “I need more.”
“You won’t get it. You left the unit. When you did, you let go of the right to be involved in an active investigation.” His demeanor was cold business, his voice tight. “Aside from Isaac’s crew, you’re the sole link I have to a hacker with an endgame your worst nightmares can’t fathom. You’re an asset, not my partner. Get used to it.”
* * *
He’d gone too far. Tate saw it as her jaw tightened and her eyes took on a different sheen, as though she’d drawn the curtains so he couldn’t see in. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, but nothing had been right since he’d come face-to-face with her earlier in the afternoon.
No, it had been wrong for a whole lot longer than that. When she left the army and dissolved their team without explanation, she cut him clean through, marked him in a way his physical scars never had. After the way his mouth had just gotten away from him, there was obviously some latent anger stirring inside. He reached for Meghan but hesitated before he touched her, wanting to force her to look at him, but he knew better. She’d take a long time to thaw now that he’d wounded her.
Still, he had to try. “That came out harsh, but you have to understand. Information’s classified unless I can prove you need to know. This mission has been ongoing, but the whole game changed when you got involved. Now I have to find a way to protect you while maintaining my cover. Chances are high you’ve seen the hacker we’re after, and you might even know him. You’re a more valuable asset than you realize, and I have to—”
“How would I have seen whoever it is you’re after?” She squared her shoulders, ready to fight. Ready to fight him. But something besides anger lurked in her posture. If it had been anyone but Meghan, Tate would have called it fear. “I can take care of myself. I have the same training as you. All I need to know is who’s after me and why.”
How had it come to this? He’d taught her nearly everything he knew about defending oneself, while she’d taught him how to locate a hack buried in a system. They’d worked well, had been a team others envied. Now here they stood, toe-to-toe and worlds apart. Everything about it felt wrong.
“I don’t know why. I was hoping you did. And you have no idea what you’re dealing with.” Tate dragged his hand down his face, scraping against a full day’s worth of stubble. “This is not some ordinary hacker. This guy—” He stared at the trees weaving gently in the light breeze, his jaw working back and forth as he chewed on his next words. So much was classified, and he wasn’t used to having to censor himself around Meghan.
She eased closer to the truck, keeping the dented red hood between them. “What?”
He drummed the chipped metal hood, weighing how much he could trust her. Old habits and their former closeness pushed the whole story forward, but there he couldn’t overstep forces above his pay grade and beyond his control. “This is potentially the biggest threat to national security we’ve encountered since the unit was put together.” He dropped his gaze to her, bracing for the anger about to be unleashed in his direction. “I can’t tell you more, not without authorization.”
Sure enough, Meghan drew away, her face tightening. She smacked the truck’s hood, the dull metallic echo bouncing off the trees. “There’s an order out on me, and you don’t want to tell me why?”
Her voice was shrill, but she had to know this wasn’t personal. National security trumped all. When ops were classified, “trust no one” kicked in.
Still it had to hurt to be on the outside of this. It hurt him to be the one to shut the door on her. His former partner...his former best friend.
Tate pinched his lips together, the action radiating pain into his jaw. If he wasn’t careful, she might throw a punch of her own volition. He focused on the woods behind her, trying to distance himself. She wasn’t his partner. She was an asset. A woman with a secret he needed to uncover if he wanted to apprehend a hacker who had twice come close to causing mass chaos. Working this op meant keeping Meghan at a distance, no matter how much it hurt. “I need my phone. And my gun.”
She flinched, the action so quick only someone who knew her would notice. Pulling the phone from her pocket, Meghan slid it across the hood with a little too much force, then pivoted on one heel and stalked up the porch steps, shaking the entire structure with the force of her anger.
Tate watched her go, thoughts too spun around to do much else. Captain Meghan McGuire. He’d been dead certain he’d never see his former partner again. When he’d hauled her to her feet today and caught sight of those brown eyes the color of Turkish coffee, he’d nearly dropped his cover story in shock.
For four long years, he’d let her believe the story the army had told her. That he was dead, killed in the attack that actually had nearly put him in the grave. Playing dead allowed him to do his job, working in the shadows for an elite military unit tasked with shutting down cyberthreats to the United States and its allies. Still, somewhere in the intervening years, he’d lost count of the number of times he’d wanted to reconnect with her, to find the easy camaraderie that had gotten him through many hard times in the past.
She didn’t know he’d missed her, and if what he knew of Meghan’s less-than-carefree childhood was any indication, she probably viewed his faked death and years of silence as the ultimate betrayal. If she’d done the same to him, he’d be the one demanding answers and working to douse anger. He owed her the real story. Soon. But not until he figured out why she was in danger.
Tate stretched his neck and unlocked his phone, forcing his thoughts into the game. He’d lost ground today, “letting” Meghan get away.
The growing bruise spreading across his cheek had bought him some sympathy...and some nasty ribbing from a bunch of punks who couldn’t believe he’d let a girl get the best of him. At least they’d bought it.
Isaac had been red-faced, screaming furious when he’d discovered Meghan had eluded them, but after a phone call to report Tate’s failure to “the boss,” he’d given the group a knowing look and said it wasn’t his place to deal with the problem.
Which meant it was going over Isaac’s head. Whoever this hacker was, he wanted Meghan, and Tate had lost her. If he was angry enough to deal with Tate himself, then they would finally see face-to-face one of the most dangerous cyberterrorists in the world. It was possible his “mistake” would bring an end to the chase they’d been on for two years and an op that had forced Tate undercover, infiltrating the small band of street thugs who did the dirty work of the mysterious hacker in this area of the country. It was easier to get into Isaac’s good graces as muscle-for-hire in his low-level gang than to go straight for an audience with the king.
He could almost taste the end of a reign of terror for the unnamed criminal who had stolen lives, financed terror attacks and infiltrated the US military. Bringing him to justice would be a pleasure.
Isaac and his crew thought Tate was off somewhere licking his wounds, that he was doing things even his imagination refused to think. He’d make his way to Isaac’s in the morning, probably to find a drug-fueled party in full swing.
He could worry about Isaac later. Right now, he had to call in and report. And, if he could convince his team leader, perhaps he’d get permission to fill Meghan in on the op. Maybe together they could find out why she was targeted and why an international terrorist had hacked something as low level as a Christian school in central Michigan. Tapping into the school’s unsecured network had been the mistake that had allowed Tate’s team to zero in on him. It could all be another elaborate trap, like their last mission. Or it could be a fatal mistake on their target’s part.
He dialed Captain Ethan Kincaid’s number, and the team leader answered on the first ring. “You safe? From our end, it seemed your phone took a joyride.”
“I am, but we’ve got a wrinkle.”
“Not a big one, I hope.” Ethan was never going to be patient with anything that held them back. The hacker they were chasing had nearly killed Ethan’s now-wife and his best friend, Sean Turner. This was personal for Tate’s team leader.
“Meghan McGuire.”
The silence from Ethan’s end of the phone was telling. It was long seconds before he said anything. “Captain Meghan McGuire? Your partner?”
“The same.”
“How did you come across her?”
Tate thumbed his cheek, where a dull ache persisted in the spot Meghan’s fist had met. He needed sleep. Soon. But it probably wasn’t coming. “I wish I knew. Our hacker sent word two days ago for us to grab an asset. No name, just a description and a location to be determined. We were to sit on go until he knew there was an opportunity. This afternoon we got a location and a time. When we went in, it was her.”
“Our hacker wants her bad enough to pull her right off the street? Why?”
“No idea.” Tate gave a quick rundown of the events leading to Meghan’s staged escape. “But I want Ashley to dig into everything Meghan’s done since she left the army.” The request made his muscles tighten. Checking on his former partner was a necessary precaution, though not an easy one. At least Ashley could handle it, and it wouldn’t have to go through any channels that might raise red flags elsewhere.
Ethan’s wife, Ashley, ran Colson Solutions, a high-level technology consultant firm that also employed former team member Sean Turner. Ashley and Sean could do nearly anything with tech, stuff Tate would never understand. They’d been outmatched once, by the very hacker they were currently pursuing. The hacker Ashley had nicknamed Phoenix, like the mythological bird. Every time they thought they’d destroyed him, he showed up again.
And he was somehow always watching, always two steps ahead of them.
“You don’t think she’s working for Phoenix?” Ethan’s voice held skepticism. Back in the day, they’d all worked together in one form or another; the bond formed by their small unit was a strong one.
Tate prayed hard Meghan was still the woman he’d once known, prayed she hadn’t somehow flipped to the dark side. After all, she’d been his partner, the person he’d trusted with his life, the woman who he’d once counted as his best friend. “It’s been over four years since I last saw her but...no.”
“Probably we both need to step back and let a third party evaluate this one.” Ethan’s unspoken suspicions came through loud and clear.
“I’m not too close to her.” Tate could hear the fight in his own voice. “Unless Ashley unearths something shocking, I’m not going to treat Meghan as though she’s a suspect. If I got tangled in something, you’d come to me before you sent in the hounds, and I’m doing the same for her. I need permission to fill her in so we can get some answers.”
Ethan blew out a loud breath. He knew he’d lost this round to Tate and to all of their shared histories. “Fine, but use your judgment. Four years is a long time and people change. You should know better than anybody.”
THREE (#ulink_e1a259b8-3e73-59a2-9454-cfe316288c28)
How dare he speak to her as if he had some kind of authority? It was her life in danger, her past popping up all over the place. Meghan stopped at the window by the front door, holding Tate’s pistol tightly. She struggled to grab on to sanity, because it was rapidly slipping, muddying reality with dreams and nightmares.
She couldn’t lose her grip now. She had to face reality. Tate couldn’t tell her anything because she was nobody. It was true. When she’d walked away, she had relinquished the right to know. Having him stand before her and stonewall her hurt more than she cared to admit.
Meghan lifted the edge of the blinds and peeked through, needing another minute, but Tate wasn’t standing where she’d left him. She clenched her jaw, the tension in her head throbbing. It shouldn’t have been this way. Finding out he was alive should have been joyful, the promise of a new chance, not conflicting and angry and confusing.
Meghan dropped the blinds with a clatter and squared her shoulders. Confusing was the key word. Nothing about this day made sense, and the one person who could answer her questions stood somewhere in the shadows, where he’d apparently been living for years.
Putting on her game face, Meghan stepped onto the porch, determined to get the information she wanted.
Tate stood at the edge of the wood line, barely visible in the moonlight. His voice drifted to Meghan, words indistinguishable, although it sounded as if he was arguing with someone on the other end of a phone call. After a moment, he pulled the phone from his ear. The screen illuminated the hard set of his jaw as he stared at the device; then he shoved it in his pocket as she drew closer.
He took the offered gun, studied it, then held it out to her. “Trade me for yours.”
Without a word, Meghan unclipped her holster from her belt. He was right. If he appeared with the weapon she’d supposedly stolen from him, Isaac would know in an instant something was off.
She held the gun low and behind her, out of his reach. “Information first.” From the little bit she’d been able to figure out from watching his posture, it was clear the phone call had been to someone above his pay grade, likely determining what he could safely say to the outsider.
Tate didn’t hesitate. He’d surely been anticipating her move. “A couple of years ago, we set on a terror cell using a legitimate government contractor as a front. Their hacker would gain access to the network, tweak the payout amount and collect several times what was due. We put the brakes on the physical side of the cell and took the contractor into custody, thinking we’d managed to cut off the entire operation, but a few months later, the hacker surfaced again. We’ve been calling him Phoenix.”
“Because he keeps coming back.” She should know.
“Worse every time. He aided another cell, one murdering young soldiers without close relatives to ask any questions, then stealing their identities in order to set terrorists into their places. They planned random attacks within the ranks, making it seem as though soldiers were behind them. The kind of fear and distrust those plants would breed could rip our entire military apart.”
Meghan gasped as the depth of her former blackmailer’s treachery came into focus. Phoenix had targeted soldiers like her, young men and women with nowhere else to turn. She’d been in college when he’d had her hop to his bidding, had blackmailed her into stealing personal data from high-dollar donors. Anger at the terrorists caught a backdraft and engulfed any hostility she’d felt toward Tate. “Tell me you stopped whoever was behind it.”
“We did.” There was pride in Tate’s voice, but it didn’t last. “Problem is, Phoenix was still out there. He has a distinct signature, and he’s fond of taunting us. That last little operation was led by the son of the contractor we took out of commission in the first op. The kid was out for vengeance, and he targeted our team, drew us in and led us right by the nose. When we caught him, he tried to convince us he was the hacker, but it became evident pretty quickly he didn’t have the skills. Phoenix watched us the entire time we were working the mission. He was always a step ahead, as though he had an ear to our plans, and, in the end, the cell nearly took out a soldier and one of our men in Kentucky. He went underground for a few months, then popped up in a hack at your school about a year ago.”
“Wait.” Surely she’d heard him wrong. She’d had no idea the system was hacked until two days ago. How long had her past been biting her heels? “A year ago? You’re sure?” How hadn’t she spotted him? She was the best. If he was poking around in the system she’d built and strengthened herself, then he was better. Pride, fear and anger spun in a combustible mix.
“He’d been snooping in your system for months before we found him. We’d been scouring networks, and one of our trackers pinged him about six months ago. We traced him to some planted files on your network and had another operative dig into it. He didn’t find anything suspicious on your end. The guys we sent in to do a cursory search never knew you, and you don’t show up on any of the school’s public sites.”
“I stay out of the limelight.” It was necessary with the work she’d once done. Plenty of terrorists would love nothing more than to take out a member of their unit. For four years, she’d done her job as tech director and teacher, trying to keep her past where it belonged.
“Naturally. Problem is, it seems as if our hacker found you and has been gathering intel on you, waiting for his moment. You’re the only one who can tell me why.”
Meghan stepped closer and pressed her palms against the worn metal of the truck hood. How long had he been watching, waiting to strike? “Why not let us know we were hacked?”
“We didn’t want you to do something to tip him off.” Tate didn’t appear to notice her discomfort. “Intel from some other sources point to an impending attack on the power grid, and one of the few hackers in play who can handle such a play right now is Phoenix. We have to take him out now, while we have an in, or we could be facing a serious disaster.”
The weight of the situation tore Meghan’s focus from herself. This was what she’d fought against when she was beside Tate in the military. “How’s the operation?”
“At the moment, slow. We were able to figure out who’s doing his grunt work. It’s a small street gang, the kind that will do anything to prove themselves. Isaac Koffman has insecurity issues, and he’ll do whatever it takes to bolster his street cred. He wants to move his crew into the big time, be a national syndicate, but he hasn’t got the brains to pull off the types of crimes he’d need to do in order to make a name. He’s got delusions of grandeur and no way to propel himself into the big time. Isaac’s prime material for manipulation, willing to drag his crew into things others wouldn’t touch for fear of getting caught. Made it easy for our hacker to use him and easy for me to get inside.”
Always go for the weakest link. When they couldn’t hit the big guys directly, they’d go for the contractors. Security was lax there. She’d run the same scheme with Tate before, and it tended to work.
But guys like Isaac were also the ones with the itchiest trigger fingers, desperate to assert and to keep their authority. Tate was fortunate Isaac hadn’t punished him for Meghan’s escape today, especially with the kind of hacker Phoenix had proved to be. But she’d been around enough punks like him to understand the wannabe mobster’s thought process. “Isaac thinks as long as you’re around, you’ll catch the flack for my getaway. Phoenix is why he didn’t cut you loose or kill you himself.”
“Exactly. If things go our way, the big guy may be angry enough to deal with me personally.”
“Which could get you killed.” For real this time. Meghan backed away from the truck and paced toward the house. The thought dug at her still-bruised heart, and she didn’t need him to read it on her face. She wasn’t ready to lose him twice, especially when she still didn’t know where he’d gone the first time. If she had to grieve for him all over again, the pain might be the one foe that could destroy her.
“Here’s hoping it doesn’t go that far.” Tate glanced at his watch, a chunky black monster, the same kind he’d worn for as long as she’d known him. “I have to go. It’s a pretty good drive to Saginaw from here. I’m hoping Phoenix has already heard Isaac’s report and decided he needs a face-to-face with me.”
It was a long shot with the kind of shadowy hacker they were targeting, but it was probably their best shot. Still, Meghan didn’t like him walking straight into danger without someone guarding his back. “I’m going with you.”
“Oh, no, you’re not.” He held up a hand to stem her building argument. “Think. They catch sight of you anywhere near me and we’re done. You’re captured and I’m dead. Like it or not—and I know you’re not a fan of the idea—I have to go this one alone.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again. No, she wasn’t a fan. Not one bit. But he was right. And the truth made it an even harder pill to swallow. “Fine. But if I don’t hear from you in the next twelve hours, I’m coming after you. And if it goes south...”
“Fair enough.” He looked up from his watch, searching her face in a way that skipped electricity across her skin. “You’re a valuable asset.”
The jolt fizzled. There it was again. She was nothing but a means to an end.
Tate stilled, the sudden lack of movement ushering silence between them. “But I also need...” His voice deepened. “Despite what you think, I trust you.” A flash Meghan couldn’t read slipped across his features, then vanished. He turned toward the house. “You’re sure you’re safe here?”
Whatever the flash was, it must have been a trick of the moonlight, because he was all business. It didn’t stop Meghan from wanting to rewind the moment and make him say whatever she imagined he’d thought. “Safer here than anywhere else.” Then again, safety was probably a thin thread. If Phoenix was the hacker who had blackmailed her years ago, then she was in bigger trouble than she’d thought. Still, she couldn’t ask for help. Not yet. When it came to Tate and her former team, full disclosure meant risking everything. She’d been blackmailed in college, had been young and scared, but none of that would matter. She’d hacked personal data for an unknown entity who could turn out to be a terrorist, and the truth was enough to send her to jail for a long time if her team found the truth.
No, she couldn’t tell Tate about anything yet. Not until she was certain she really could trust the man who’d let her believe he was dead, who could be up to anything now. No, she needed answers first.
“Stay low. I’ll be in touch.” He stepped closer, then stopped and almost smiled. “It’s good to see you, McGuire. Really good.” He held her gaze for a moment, then turned and walked away.
* * *
Dawn was creeping over the edges of the horizon when Tate rattled the truck to a stop in front of the small house on a back street near Saginaw. With peeling white paint, faded wood and a sagging front porch, the place was a testament to Isaac’s failures. The man’s life goal was to be the leader of a crime ring capable of driving fear into the heart of the nation. The saving grace was Isaac lacked the mental acuity to build such an empire.
Tate had lost count of the times he’d had to hold back his fist to keep from knocking Isaac’s arrogance down a few pegs. He’d love to take the guy down for something as petty as the meth lab in the shed, but it wouldn’t do the mission any good, and it would scatter Isaac’s pack of yes-men to new haunts.
Killing the engine, Tate surveyed the house. Light shone from the window in the front living room, but the rest stood a dark vigil over the street.
The hairs on the back of his neck raised. Something was going on. On Fridays at sundown, Isaac ran a party that raged until Monday morning. Those parties required some of Tate’s best acting skills. He’d avoided more pills, pipes and bottles than he cared to consider. And he’d dodged just as many scantily clad hangers-on who believed him to be the strong, silent type who needed taming. His heart broke for a couple of the girls he’d managed to talk to without having to fight them off. But rescuing them would mean jeopardizing the mission, losing his target and probably sacrificing his life. It was hard to sleep, knowing he could help, but the mission wouldn’t allow him to yield his cover. It was doubly hard to sleep knowing some of the men and women who walked through Isaac’s front doors craved this lifestyle and viewed help as a weakness.
Yeah. Weekends were the worst on this op. Tate was fortunate the whole lot of them in the house were usually too wasted to realize he wasn’t.
But now, as the world tinged a deep pink, no drunken revelry filtered out to the street. The place was quieter than he’d ever seen it. In the four months Tate had been hovering around this crew, they’d never missed a weekend, never taken the party anywhere else. Isaac was too jealous of his territory to risk someone out-partying him.
To the left of the house, on the short parallel tracks of concrete that passed for a driveway, Isaac’s little souped-up Honda sat close by the side door. Five more tricked-out coupes lined the lawn, chrome dull in the faded morning light. The gang was all here, but the house was silent.
Tate brushed the grip of Meghan’s gun, his teeth working his lower lip. He was about to walk into the unknown with a weapon he’d never fired. He slipped the revolver from the small holster and flicked it open, checking the cylinder. Five .357 rounds, so at least they had some heft. His Glock held fifteen rounds in the magazine. Meghan’s revolver gave him a third of what he’d normally carry. If things turned ugly, he’d have to be extra careful of his aim. And pray. A lot.
The curtain in the front window shifted. Was someone watching for him? Maybe Phoenix had told Isaac to clear the house and do the dirty work.
Tate tapped his index finger on the trigger guard. This could be an ambush, and the walk to the door would make him an easy target. And the whole world had better believe he wasn’t going down at the whim of a pack of street thugs.
Maybe he was overreacting. There was no way for Isaac to know Tate had purposely let Meghan go. No witnesses had seen what transpired between them. It was possible the party had moved elsewhere or ended much, much earlier than usual.
But this would be the first time, and Tate didn’t put faith in coincidences. The belief everything happened for a reason had kept him alive on more than one occasion. Reading the situation was his specialty, and this situation read like a horror novel. It didn’t seem like this could end without bloodshed.
Tate held the pistol tighter. Inflicting pain, taking lives...these were the parts of the job Tate never got used to, the parts he tried to avoid whenever possible. If this was what it appeared to be, all of the above would probably happen within the next three minutes.
He steeled himself for confrontation, then pulled his phone out and typed a quick text to Ethan. Target house quiet. Stand by. He had ten minutes before Ethan called law enforcement and scrapped the op to pull Tate out. Of course, not texting in ten minutes would mean Tate was probably dead.
He slipped from the truck, shoving his phone in his pocket and tucking the gun behind his leg, acting as though he hadn’t observed anything out of the ordinary. Without streetlights and with night still hanging on, he would be a vague target. He walked along the edge of the yard rather than on the cracked sidewalk anyone waiting would expect him to use.
At the porch steps, he took a bracing breath, all the while feeling as though invisible spies hovered in every dark shadow, and approached the door from the side. If one of the neighbors peeked out, they’d peg him as the investigator he was, but he wasn’t about to take the chance someone would shoot him through the door. He frowned at the wood siding. It didn’t offer any more protection than the door did.
A small sliver of light filtered onto the porch. The door was cracked open, no obvious signs of tampering. There was definitely something out of whack.
He didn’t hesitate. Lifting Meghan’s gun so it would be at the ready, he said a quick prayer, wishing he had a partner to back him up. Meghan had always been good in moments like this, each following the other in an unspoken tactical dialogue of eye contact and hand signals. If she wasn’t in danger, he might have asked Ethan to contract her onto the team as a civilian.
But he had this. He was good at what he did, and his skills were the reason Ethan kept calling him in. Tate Walker could do the job.
Tate eased the door open with his foot, skimming the room until the smell smacked him across the face, stinging his eyes. Metallic. Raw.
Blood. And lots of it, if the strength of the stench was any indication.
He followed the gun into the room, waiting for movement, but there was none.
Six bodies lay facedown in a neat row in the center of the small living area, wrists bound, blood seeping into ever-widening puddles on the scratched hardwood.
Someone had executed Isaac and his entire crew. The larger man lay on the end, probably the last to die.
Because Tate had let Meghan escape.
He swallowed. More blood. More death. Deaths he’d have to find a way to wash his hands of when this was all over.
He could have brought Meghan in from the school, appeased whoever had ordered her kidnaping, but then it might have been her sprawled on the floor with her life drained away.
He tightened up on the gun and focused on the moment. He had to bring whoever had done this to justice. Unless Isaac had double-crossed someone else, the brutality of the scene sent a message. Phoenix wasn’t afraid to punish anyone who crossed him, and he believed Isaac’s men had failed in their assignment.
Tate’s mind sped into high gear. He scanned the scene, focusing on the details instead of the big picture, pulling his mind into the work and not into the fact six men were dead. They’d been criminals, yes, but no one deserved this.
He fought not to gag, biting his lip so hard his eyes watered. He examined the bodies and noted the deep gashes at their throats, quick and clean. Isaac had apparently received special treatment, or he’d fought. The blood still flowed from his wounds. He’d only been dead a few minutes.
The killer was still in the house.
Tate swallowed hard against the pounding in his ears, willing his adrenaline to ebb so he could focus his senses. He needed more than sight.
A soft sound filtered in from the small bedroom to the left. Tate hefted the gun and headed toward the door, keeping his focus on the door as he skirted the tangled maze of legs. The air felt off, disturbed, the metallic odor of fresh blood nearly overwhelming, but Tate could tell from years of experience. Someone waited behind the door.
He took one step closer, then drove himself shoulder-first into the door, meeting resistance.
Something heavy slammed to the floor, echoed by a string of curses that burned Tate’s ears. There was a skittering sound of metal across hardwood.
Too light to be a gun—it had to be a knife.
Knives were his worst enemy.
Tate righted himself and aimed in the direction of the sound, but a body flung itself into his stomach, driving him against the wall, his shoulder slamming into the ancient Sheetrock so hard he went through it, his back catching hard on a wall stud, knocking the air from his lungs. He heaved in air and fought against both his attacker and the memory of the last time he’d lost a battle with his gun at the ready. The loss had earned him a knife to the chest.
Tate threw his arm out, catching a chin, then lifted his knee and drove it into the man’s stomach, shoving him backward several steps.
In the dim light leaking in from the living room, Tate got his first good look at his assailant. He was small, wiry, wearing a black T-shirt and dark jeans, his face covered by the kind of ski mask common in these parts, used to combat the frigid winter chill.
But it was the eyes. Murderous, dead and locked on Tate. He glanced toward the knife on the floor, but Tate kicked it sideways under the unmade bed and leveled his weapon, too winded to speak.
There was a brief stare-down before the killer sprang again, landing both of them in the living room. Tate’s shoulder rammed tight beneath the couch as his head slammed against the floor, threatening darkness.
The killer scrambled up first and bolted for the rear of the house.
Tate shook off the pain and followed, but the squeal of tires from the driveway told him he was too late.
FOUR (#ulink_f1b4307e-6965-5e46-8aba-9101b4fc669b)
Shutting off the engine, Tate sat and waited for Meghan to come out of the house. He had no doubt she’d heard him drive up and was probably armed to the teeth, ready to fire if she didn’t realize it was him. Better to sit and let her come to him. After all that had happened in the past day, she was probably on high alert, even when it came to him. Approaching the house with his hands raised would tip the advantage in her favor.
His hands. He stared at his fingers, expecting to see red. Despite the double layer of latex gloves he’d pulled on, the warmth of fresh blood had seeped through, a sensation he’d never been able to wash away easily. He’d checked each body for signs of life, even though the amount of blood made life impossible.
Isaac’s whole crew was dead.
Everyone except him.
He slammed a fist against the steering wheel. This was his fault. He’d lost control of the situation, let his guard slip when Meghan had gotten involved. He cleaned other people’s messes, stepped in when it was too hot for anyone else to handle. How had he become the one who needed someone to pick up the pieces behind him?
He’d ditched the house, reported in to Ethan and let the other man call the police. Now Tate was without a place to call home. Again. This time, it was his fault the mission was aborted because everything had gone sideways.
Every inroad he had to their hacker was gone, and they were thrust to the beginning, with no clear way to stop an attack that could cut the power to the entire nation, leaving the country wide-open to things only horror movies portrayed.
This failure undid everything. Phoenix was intimately familiar with every other member of their unit. Tate had managed to stay on the fringes, playing dead in order to do the job. Now, even though Phoenix might not realize Tate was working with his former unit, he was the lone survivor of Isaac’s crew, a loose end to be cut off. He wore a target on his back large enough to see from space.
No way was he sitting around waiting for Phoenix to make a slip. He’d get Meghan to talk, find out her connection and resume the pursuit. This did not end here. As far as Tate was concerned, he’d be the one to call the final shots, not a coward who hid behind a computer screen.
The light in the truck faded into shadow as someone passed between the morning sun and his passenger window.
The truck door eased open, and Meghan slid in. The scent of coffee and some kind of citrus soap drifted in with her. “You’re back already?”
Tate nodded, not trusting himself to keep the anger out of his voice if he spoke. He needed to be gentle and noncombative if he wanted answers.
“What happened?” Meghan McGuire never spoke softly. She definitely thought something was wrong if she was bringing out a soothing voice now.
Guess she wasn’t mad anymore. Hopefully she’d softened enough to talk.
Tate lifted his head to find her scanning his face, his chest, as though she was assessing him for wounds. Even though the action was utterly professional, her scrutiny made him warm in places he’d long thought cold, especially after what he’d seen this morning. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was definitely something he shouldn’t be feeling.
The familiar scent of her, the fact she hadn’t changed a bit since their last op together, settled the spinning thoughts that had refused to be grasped since he’d arrived at Isaac’s house hours ago. There had always been something about Meghan McGuire, and having her reappear in the midst of this current chaos was too much for him to hold his silence.
He caught her gaze and stopped her perusal of him. “Isaac’s crew is dead.”
She stiffened. “All of them?”
“Executed.” The word hit the air hot and violent, with all the anger he’d been trying to hide.
Beside him, she dug her fingers into the faded denim covering her knees, the only outward sign she was internalizing what had happened. After a long moment, she relaxed her hold. “Because I got away.”
“Because I let you go.” While there was nothing he could have done differently, the death of six men was still tough, even if those six men were morally bankrupt criminals.
Death was never easy. They’d both seen enough of it to know life was the most precious of commodities. It was doubly hard when Jesus wasn’t in the picture. No more second chances for the heart after it stopped.
The thought made his hands tingle, and he dragged them along the seat again, trying to wipe off the sensation. “It seems Phoenix wants you badly if he’s willing to execute the guys he thinks let you slip away.”
The silence between them was broken by the clicks and pops of the motor as it cooled in the early morning air. Tate let the silence settle, giving Meghan time to see the gravity of the situation and the need for her to lay out her story. He wanted to drag the information out of her, but he knew better.
“We’ve got to find out what he wants.” Meghan hit on the objective. “Because if we don’t, he’ll keep on coming after both of us.” She looked away, chewing her bottom lip.
Forget him. This was all about Meghan. This mission was no longer simply about tracking Phoenix and derailing his plans. It was about keeping the hacker from tracking Meghan. She was important to this shadow man for some reason, and he had to find out why. He just had to convince Ethan of it.
Actually, he didn’t. Since he wasn’t an official part of the team, he was technically free to do whatever he wanted. But Ethan wouldn’t let him go easily, not after all this time and not without backup.
“Tate? Your mind’s going a hundred miles an hour. Clue me in.”
He wanted to laugh, and probably would have if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Yep. She hadn’t changed. She was still his Meghan. Direct as ever. She’d long ago learned how to draw him out of his thoughts, and she’d push relentlessly until he talked.
She didn’t need to pressure him though. The tension kept building inside him, pushing against his skin and throbbing in his head. Talking it out with the woman who’d once tagged along on his every thought process would be a relief. Of course, he’d never tell her so. “I no longer have an in. I have no way of gaining access to our hacker. He’s assuming he killed everybody in Isaac’s gang. I waltz in and tell him I was part of his group and I’m alive, then I’ve signed a death warrant.” Especially after what he’d seen. “We were close.”
He clenched his fist, wanting to pound it on the dash until the pain made him forget everything else. “This hacker...he wants you specifically, and he’ll kill to get to you.” He turned in the seat, the vinyl squeaking a protest at the motion. More than anything, Tate wanted to ask her why, but that line of questioning was a delicate one he’d have to draw out over time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t time they had. “I think the best plan is to get you to Virginia, and then I can come here knowing you’re out of—”
“Absolutely not.” The denial was firm, brooking no argument. “I don’t run, and you know it.” Something in her expression shifted. She turned away, facing the windshield, then back to him. “I’m going to the school.”
“Absolutely not.” He hadn’t signed off on her going to the school. No way was she putting herself in the crosshairs.
“I’m going with or without you. If he’s been in my system, then the school’s computer is all you’ve got left to link to him.”
“Remote in.” Meghan was a computer genius, one of the best in the world. She could hack her own system remotely in the time it would take him to make scrambled eggs for breakfast. There was no need for her to step into the building.
“No.”
“I said you’re not going.” The situation was spinning even faster out of control, her tenacity wresting it from his grasp. Her stubborn nature was burned into his memory. She’d march into Phoenix’s lair unarmed and fight to the death before she’d go into hiding. Meghan wasn’t a coward, but Meghan had to realize sometimes the bravest course of action was to step away and regroup, come out fresh. “I’ll go. You can walk me through it or you can remote in, but—”
“No. There are too many variables for me to walk you through it. If I remote in, he’ll track me here. I’d rather march into a building he knows I frequent than lead him to our one place to hide.”
No matter how much Tate wanted to keep arguing this, she was right. Worse, she’d never pull back. All she’d do was wait until he collapsed from exhaustion, then take off without him. Still, she didn’t get to drive this bus into the ditch. “Fine, but I go with you.” He hated conceding this one to her. It crawled all over him. “First I have to ditch the truck. It was at the scene and my footprints are all over the house, so authorities are going to start digging. Until we know for certain my cover was trashed, I have to stay in character, which means getting arrested if the cops find me.” Protocol dictated he didn’t out himself for any reason until they could prove he’d been burned. Unfortunately, proof would only come with a second attempt on his life.
“Makes sense.” Meghan pointed toward the rear of the house. “There’s a barn out—”
“No. Somewhere they can’t connect to you. If my truck was reported at the scene, then I’m the prime suspect. If someone finds the truck on your property and starts digging, they’ll know we were partners and assume you helped me.”
“For now, you park it in the barn on the far side of the pasture. And then I want answers. Like it or not, I’m all in, and I want to know everything, including how it is you’re still alive. If you want my trust, you’re going to have to tell me why I was lied to for all these years.”
There she went, trying to take the reins again. Tate drummed his thumbs on his knees. He hadn’t said he needed her help, but her trust was something he craved. Maybe if he opened up, she’d follow suit. “Got it.”
“And then you rest while I upload a program to take to the school. You’ve got that haggard look that says you haven’t hit the rack in days. Even superheroes sleep, Walker.”
He’d argue, but he was crashing fast. Fatigue, shock...they’d already taken a toll on his thought processes.
“I’ll show you the way and you can tell me the rest of your story.” Meghan reached for her seat belt and pulled it across, clicking it into place. “It’s a bumpy ride. Might want to buckle up again.”
Tate obliged, and the lock clicked solidly into place. Protecting himself and Meghan was going to make this ride a whole lot bumpier before this was over, and it would take more than a seat belt to save them.
* * *
After the glare of sunlight overhead, the interior of the old horse barn was dark. Meghan slid out of the truck and slammed the creaking door shut, breathing through her mouth to avoid the musty, earthy smell of old hay and long-moved horses.
She examined the floor around her feet, making sure a snake wasn’t about to slither over her foot. As soon as her sight adjusted, she searched the walls and the exposed ceiling rafters. No slithery visitors appeared. Good. In no way did she want to turn into a screaming weakling in front of Tate Walker. It was bad enough she was demanding the truth from him when she’d hidden her past for years, first out of self-preservation, and now...? Now because she wasn’t sure who he was anymore.
Tate killed the engine and sat for a minute before he got out, probably debating how much he wanted to tell her. Well, he could debate with himself all he wanted. She was getting the whole story.
When he climbed out of the truck, his eyes caught hers across the hood, and the contact made it feel as though no time had passed. They were working an op together, prepping for the next step, well-honed partners in the fight to save the world.
Meghan swallowed hard and kneaded the back of her neck, her mind unwilling to grasp that the man she’d once loved stood here now, still alive. In odd moments, her world tilted and her past reality twisted in Tate’s reappearance. Her stomach swirled again, a strange mix of joy and the feeling she didn’t know anything about the world. What else was a lie?
“Where have you been hiding?” She sounded like a broken record, but really, how she sounded was the least of her worries. Maybe answers would erase some of the hurt and the anger over the sleepless nights she’d spent swimming in guilt for walking away from her partner before the op that had supposedly stolen his life.
All because she cared too much to stay.
“You really want to do this now?” The slight tinge of amused challenge was one she’d heard a thousand times before. It settled in and relaxed some of the tension, took the edge off her questions.
The setting was too much like all those moments in countries too far-flung to mention, when they’d decompressed together, evaluated their missions and talked about their lives. She’d told him things she’d never confessed to another living soul. Everything except the blackmail and the hack that had come back to haunt her.
Those were discussions when she’d felt closer to him than to any other person on earth. When she’d thought, more than a few times, there could be something more for them, something outside of battling the bad guys together. Something involving a house like this and...
Not that it mattered. She’d left the service and Tate behind when she could no longer hold back the things she was starting to feel for him.
And then he’d been killed.
“Now is as good a time as any. We have no idea what’s coming next, and you have to prove to me I can trust you.” A sudden surge rushed into Meghan’s throat, and her spine stiffened. She crossed her arms over her chest and squared herself in the doorway, blocking his escape. She needed to know how he could lie to her, how he could spend four years with no contact of any kind. How he could simply stop existing.
Now that she’d asked, the words refused to stop coming. “Ethan called and told me you were killed on an op gone bad. Nothing more. And then he all but vanished, too. I was shut out. Nobody would give me information and I missed...I missed your funeral. I spent months trying to reach contacts, trying to dig up what really happened. No one would tell me anything. You were more than my partner. And I spent a lot of nights staring at the ceiling thinking maybe if I’d been on the op with you, I could have had your back, done something to stop it.” The guilt choked harder, constricting her voice. She never cried. Never. But piling years’ worth of grief and guilt on top of a rapidly rising past had cracked her walls. She bit her lip. Hard.
“Nothing could have saved that op, and if you’d been there, you’d probably be dead the way I nearly was.” Tate’s voice was low, reassuring, the way it had always been. He slammed the door of the truck. When it failed to stay closed, he pulled it open and shut it again before facing her, features shadowed in the dim light, making him appear to be the biggest mystery of all. He rapped his knuckles on the peeling hood of the truck. “We had a mole in the system.”
“Who?” He had to be kidding. Their unit was small. Everybody knew everybody. Someone selling them out to the bad guys from within was akin to betraying family.
“Craig Mitchum.”
The name didn’t ring any bells, but it didn’t matter. White-hot rage burned her skin. If she ever found the man who’d betrayed Tate and her fellow team members—the only real family she’d ever known—he’d never forget the encounter.
“He came in on a secondary team around the time you left, assigned to a different op. He partnered with Ethan Kincaid on—”
Wait. No. Meghan held up her hands. “Ethan’s partner is Jacob Reynolds.” Jacob and Ethan had worked side by side with them on multiple ops, but he’d gone deep undercover on an op she wasn’t privy to. She’d always assumed his continued silence meant he was still dug in. “What happened to Reynolds?” Asking the question brought a knowing feeling, a sick sensation that the answer was about to tilt her world yet again.
Tate stared out the door toward daylight and the pasture beyond, but it was clear he saw something else. “Reynolds was overseas, gathering intel on a terrorist posing as a contractor. He was outed by Craig Mitchum and killed by a group of insurgents working for the terrorist.”
Meghan took a step back, the news a blow to the chest. She steadied herself on the truck’s frame, trying not to sway on her feet. Jacob Reynolds was one of those guys who was always smiling, who had your back whether the situation was a shoot-out in a foreign country or not enough change in your pocket at the fast-food counter. He didn’t deserve to be cut down by a traitor. “How?”
Tate didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at her.
“No. You don’t get to hold out on me now.” Their team was a family, a family she’d been cut out of, obviously, and one losing members without giving her a chance to grieve.
Tate pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly, his green eyes dark with barely sheathed anger. “He was taken off an outpost during the night. Tortured before he was killed.”
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