Dead End

by Lisa Phillips

  They followed him up the ramp to the open yellow front door. The inside was clean, decorated with feminine touches like fresh flowers on the coffee table that matched the pillows on the couch.

  A young woman stood in the kitchen at the stove, probably early twenties.

  “Bridget.”

  She spun, a pleasant smile on her face. “Yeah, Pops?” She blinked at the two of them, stood in the doorway and then glanced at her grandfather. “You have company.”

  “Don’t get too excited, kid. They’ll be gone in an hour. It’s a work thing.”

  Bridget eyed Nina, then Wyatt. “They’re plumbers, too?”

  No one moved. Thankfully, if they had to have some kind of cover story, Wyatt’s badge wasn’t on his belt.

  Bridget grinned.

  “Scram, kid.”

  “Whatever, Pops.” Bridget narrowed her eyes at her grandfather’s tone and then her lips twitched. “I’ll be in the barn until Bill comes in for lunch. I have clay to fire.”

  Abe nodded. Before Bridget left, she poured coffee for each of them and plated three cinnamon rolls. Abe wheeled over to a spot at the table where there was no chair to pull out. Wyatt and Nina sat opposite him. If Nina had to guess, she’d say that Bridget was ecstatic her grandfather had company and it wasn’t something that happened often, if at all. She would also guess that Bridget knew exactly who her grandfather had been before he retired.

  The old man glanced at the closed door and reached for the sugar bowl. He spooned two heaps into his mug and stirred, a small smile of defiance on his face. “I always figured one day someone would show up out of the blue to see me.” His voice was like sand being poured out.

  Nina had to know if he was bound by some kind of confidentiality agreement, or whether he would be able to speak to them freely. “Is there any kind of gag order in place?”

  The CIA could be a tricky animal, especially when a person retired. Just because she wasn’t part of it anymore didn’t mean she was free to speak of the things she’d seen and done while she worked there. She figured the same was true of Abe Turnel, though they were allowed to tell those closest to them who they were—after filling out a ream of paperwork to disclose the disclosure.

  Abe’s chest jerked, which Nina decided might have been laughter. “They could try.” He sighed again. “But nah, not about this. They don’t even know, and it’s not in any official or unofficial report. Tried to tell them, but they never listened. Not once, not about him. Golden boy, everyone thought so. Reports I filed were misplaced or simply disappeared. He continued going on missions. Lauded for his work. Years had passed before I could no longer ignore what was happening. I made up my mind to confront him. Two weeks later I wake up in the hospital with a fractured back and a whole lot of healing wounds. So here I am, years gone by. I’ve been ‘retired,’ and Steve Adams is nowhere to be found.”

  Wyatt set his mug on the table. “What do you know about him faking his death?”

  The old man snorted. “I hear things, even now. Wasn’t surprised, but didn’t believe for a second he was in that box when it blew up outside Langley.” He made a tut sound with this tongue and shook his head.

  “Since then, he’s attempted to kill again.” Nina gripped her cup to hide the fact her hand shook. “We need your help. He singled us out. I think he’s trying to tie up all the loose ends. Everyone who might be able to point a finger at him for murder, any of the murders.”

  Abe pressed his lips together, then said, “How many?”

  “Six,” Wyatt said.

  Abe shut his eyes.

  “Anything you can tell us might help us to get ahead of him.” Nina’s stomach was clenched tight. “He killed my mother, and my father went to prison for it. The other day we met a young girl, Emily. He killed her mother, too. He tried to kill the mother’s best friend because she talked to us. Another woman was shot in the leg. This is getting out of control. That’s why we’re here.”

  Abe opened his eyes, grief raw on his face. There was nothing about him that suggested what he had been—a career CIA handler. She knew the type, and it had all bled from him either because he’d been out of the business for so long, or because of what Steve Adams had done to him. All that was left was a broken-down old man who wanted to rest, but couldn’t do that until the weight was lifted from his soul.

  “I’m sorry to drag you into this. Especially if it puts you in harm’s way. That isn’t our intention.”

  “I’m already in it.” The old man’s eyes were wet. “I’m ready if he wants to come at me. He won’t harm my family. They know as much as they can know, and they are both prepared.”

  Wyatt nodded. It was the same kind of solidarity she’d seen between Wyatt and Parker, who had stayed with the plane. A man-to-man, protect-those-we-love mentality that left her feeling cared for—in a slightly smothered way.

  Nina had held her own, once when Mr. Thomas had drugged and then tried to abduct her from her apartment, and the other when he’d shot Kashi.

  Steve Adams was a highly trained covert agent with years of experience. He was bigger, and stronger, than her, and yet he hadn’t succeeded in his plan to take her somewhere and kill her. Not so far, at least. Thank You, Lord.

  Nina said, “Is there anything you can tell us? Ideally we need to find him, but somehow I think we’re going to have to lay out bait. It has to be strong enough to lure him out in a way that we’re not caught off guard. We have to be prepared to take him down, but he has to walk into it not knowing what we’re doing.”

  “You’re talking about a twisted, sadistic man who is extremely adept at covert operations. I’ve never seen anything like it, not in all the years I was with the agency. The man was unparalleled. That’s why the powers that be refused to believe he was a merciless killer. He was their star, and they poured time, money and all the resources they could find into cultivating his skills.”

  Nina nodded. She had known this wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d been prepared for it. “He’s slipping. I can’t even really put my finger on it, but he’s losing his grip. Wyatt shot at him, and he fled.” She motioned to him, beside her. “Then he showed up at Wyatt’s house and attempted to kill him. He’s having to adjust his plan and adapt to what we’re throwing at him. It’s catching him off guard, but we need to step it up, otherwise we have no chance whatsoever of bringing him in. We may as well let him kill us all.”

  Abe stared at her with a combination of respect and a smidge of what she figured was him thinking she was insane. Not anything new. He pushed away his cinnamon roll and interlaced his fingers on the table. “I’m going to tell you a story. Do with it what you will, but maybe it will help you understand why this is essentially a fool’s errand.”

  * * *

  Wyatt had lost his appetite also. Anger burned in hot flames that filled his body and threatened to spill out. He could not believe the CIA had let a madman go unchecked for years, costing six people their lives. The arrogance was unbelievable, but then he figured that was par for the course with an agency that did everything under cover of darkness, cloaked in secrecy.

  And Nina had worked for them.

  She’d been part of that culture of lies, perpetrating who knew whose agenda in the world. As far as he was concerned, she could never have been completely certain that her orders came from the right people. If everything was done all cloak-and-dagger style, how had she made sure she wasn’t perpetrating some crazy person’s sick agenda?

  Take Steve Adams, for example. The man had been celebrated, given authority over others. A certain degree of autonomy he had used for his own agenda. There was no way he hadn’t been killing innocent women on the side and not brought that lack of morals and empathy into his workplace to watch people suffer the consequences.

  And get away with it.

  “It was nearly for
ty-five years ago now, and it was his first mission.” Abe sighed, as though simply saying it out loud was painful. “He was young, but tasked with getting close to a young Frenchwoman whose brother it was believed had ties to a group of Spanish separatists that don’t even exist now. She had a four-year-old daughter.

  “As the weeks passed he began to miss check-in. He would file a report that gave us nothing and say he needed more time. So I went to look in on the situation and found him playing house with her. Taking the little girl to school. When I was asked to apply pressure to my agent, to remind him he wasn’t living in the real world and that he needed to finish the job, he responded. The information was delivered the next day, and the takedown of the Spaniards was effected.”

  Abe sighed. “But I’d seen something in him. Something about Steve Adams and that woman, her child...it was... I don’t even know how to explain it other than to say it was desperate. So I looked into Steve’s childhood. His father remarried when Steve was twelve, and the woman had a daughter. Something must have happened, something that sparked a sickness in Steve Adams that means he latches on to women with daughters. He develops a bond with them and when he kills the mother, the daughter is set free. That’s what he said to me before he put me in this chair permanently. He thinks he’s doing them a favor.

  “The only thing I could see that might explain it would be that Steve’s stepmom was hurting her daughter somehow, though there were never any reports. Steve’s stepmother died of heart problems that could easily have been the result of a poison, but an autopsy was never done. His father died years after, but before I could talk to him. It’s entirely possible that either Steve or his father killed the wife and Steve transfers that to each of his victims, whether the mother was hurting her child or not.”

  Beside him Nina gritted her teeth. “Mine never did.”

  “It’s possible, that first mission, the target may have been hurting her daughter. But I could never find anything other than hearsay to back that up, though I talked to several people who knew her.” Abe paused. “Something happened to Steve Adams, and we may never know what it was. All I have is theories and speculation. The likelihood that he’ll explain himself one day isn’t more than wishful thinking. But there is something wrong with him, something broken that no one will ever be able to fix.”

  Nina shut her eyes. Wyatt slid his hand under the ends of her hair to touch her neck. He gave her a gentle squeeze to impart some strength, or maybe give support if she needed it. His heart felt like it was tearing in two, for her. He didn’t want her anywhere near a serial killer bent on making his last stand with Nina. Was it wrong that he would rather it was anyone else in the world than her? But she was determined not to allow any more collateral damage.

  It was enough to make Wyatt want to pray for Emily, to double her protection and to make sure Steve Adams didn’t get anywhere near her. Neither of them needed that on their consciences. There was no way they would walk away from it.

  “It was the beginning of a pattern I saw repeat itself over and over. Missions he fell too deep into. People who were never the same after they met with him. It was bizarre, like some kind of mind-altering drug that he possessed with only his words. He left them reeling, like they’d been struck in the face and he’d never even touched them.”

  “What about the kills?” Wyatt asked. “Surely you had to have known he took lives where it was not part of the sanctioned mission.”

  Abe blew out a breath. “That first, the Frenchwoman? She was found dead weeks later. Steve had been on respite, between missions. He went off radar during the time she was killed. I searched and searched, but could never prove he went out of the country. Still, I had my suspicions. In all these years that’s all I had. Never any proof, not until I confronted him. But I knew.”

  Nina shuddered under Wyatt’s hand. “What can you tell us about his favorite places to go, or where he might go to ground?”

  “He’s a nomad. Homeschooled by a father who believed experiencing the world was an education in itself, so he was dragged all over. Europe, India, China, Australia. The US and Canada. It made him a better agent, understanding cultural differences the way he did, and his ability to blend in with locals. But he favored the US. Always came back here, I think because his parents considered it home. They had a place in Texas, but without the drawl. You’d never guess that’s where he was from.”

  Wyatt tapped the table with his fingers, trying to think like the homicide detective part of him that he would always be. He’d never been as good as his father, but he’d certainly been heading that direction.

  If anyone could figure out Steve Adams’s next move, it was Nina. Who better to catch a spy than a spy? Wyatt only needed to convince her that it was possible for her to out-think Steve Adams. She’d known him, had thought about him, for years. It was primarily the memories of a traumatized child, but Steve Adams was clearly attached to her. Likely to each of the children of the mothers he’d killed—children he’d freed from whatever they had been subjected to. Or children he, in his twisted mind, had conceived they had been subjected to when in reality they were normal, healthy children.

  “What happened to the Frenchwoman’s daughter?”

  The question emerged before Wyatt had even thought it through all the way, but it made sense. Maybe she would be able to help them bait Steve Adams.

  Abe’s head jerked. “I looked into her. She went to live with an aunt and now works at a Paris bank. There was no indication Steve Adams ever made further contact with her.”

  Wyatt stood and held out his hand. “Thank you. And thank you for your time.”

  Nina glanced at him but got up. She didn’t want to leave. She looked like she had a whole lot more questions, but the lines around Abe Turnel’s face had deepened. There was more going on medically with this man than simply old age and a spinal injury. He’d been attentive for long enough, but he was fading fast.

  He wheeled his chair behind them to the door and sat on the porch as they walked down the steps.

  Wyatt wanted to grab her hand and hold it. As much to reassure her as to feel her warmth and the beat of her pulse under his fingers. They were alive, and he was going to make sure they stayed that way.

  Wyatt turned back to thank the man one more time before they went to the plane and headed home.

  The red dot sat dead center on Abe Turnel’s chest.

  “Gun!”

  Both Wyatt and Nina dived toward Abe as a shot rang out. The wheelchair tipped back and they landed in a tangle of limbs. Wyatt felt Abe start to shake under them and looked up.

  He was laughing. “Kids these days. They all want to be heroes.”

  Crack. The gunfire continued. Shot after shot with seconds’ pause between each. Abe’s fuzzy brow crinkled.

  From the plane, Parker yelled, “No! Stay back!” Wyatt glanced up to see Bridget at the barn door.

  “You get out of here.” Abe frowned. “You get Steve Adams away from my granddaughter.”

  The next shot hit the wall just above Wyatt’s head.

  FOURTEEN

  Nina flinched. Would the gunshots ever stop? A guttural sound emerged from her throat. She screamed at Wyatt, words she didn’t even know she was saying. He ran to her and lifted her up, still yelling, and carried her with him while Abe Turnel yelled, “Go! Go!” from his prone position on the porch.

  Shots slammed the house in a row closer and closer toward them. The boom reverberated across the valley. Was Steve Adams going to shoot the plane? They would never be able to get out of here then. How had he even found them?

  Wyatt set her on her feet and raced across the grass, pulling her along after him, his head low as Steve Adams took shot after shot, trying to kill them as they ran.

  Nina’s breath caught in her throat. Wyatt could die, and she would be there to watch it happen. Wh
at a nightmare. When would it stop?

  Wyatt caught up to Parker, beside the plane. Nina nearly collapsed, but caught herself. It was time to quit being weak. That wasn’t the kind of woman she was, no matter what was happening.

  “Let’s go.”

  Nina nodded even as Wyatt took her elbow and ushered her inside. The plane engine roared. He had his phone out already, calling for police even as the plane started away.

  Wyatt pulled her toward a pair of seats. “We need to draw Steve Adams’s fire away from the ranch. I called the cops. They will keep the Turnels safe.”

  She tried to think it through. “Do you think he tried to kill Abe because he talked to us?”

  “Tying up loose ends. That’s what you said, right?”

  Nina sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly to regulate her breathing. “You’re not a loose end. You’re a serious problem.” Surprise flashed on his face, so she said, “I just don’t think you should sell yourself short. He should be worried, but he isn’t going to stop.”

  Wyatt sat on the seat beside Nina as the plane accelerated. She surveyed him, checking for injuries. He seemed unharmed. Nina touched his shoulders, his neck. His face. He was okay.

  Nina’s breath hitched. A nice old man who had carried a lot of guilt until that morning had nearly been killed. Thank You, God, that he was able to tell us all that information. Steven Adams hadn’t silenced him. Abe had been able to say everything he’d wanted to say, to relieve himself of a burden he had carried for years—one that had nearly cost him his life when he’d tried to confront Adams.

  There was no way she would let Wyatt end up dead. If Steve Adams was trying to torment her by coming after Wyatt, Nina had to spin that to her advantage. To use it somehow to trap the man so they could catch him.

  Wyatt touched her face, and Nina realized she was still touching his. The muscles around his eyes contracted. “I don’t want to know what you’re thinking, do I? It doesn’t look good at all. Maybe you could wait and tell me later.”