by Jodie Bailey
Well, he was here now when Amy was suffering, and he wasn’t about to let her have to straighten her spine alone when he could give her something to let her know he’d been there too, that he’d have her back until the end of this.
Or at least until the Marshals Service pulled him off her case. His hand eased across the seat. His fingers laced with hers, uniting them—her in her current desperation and him in his past pain.
He could ask to be reassigned to her case, to come off the constant running that was witness retrieval and stay put for a while, making sure Amy Brady got what she needed to survive until her tormentor was caught.
He could make her a promise and try to take the blackness away from this moment, to give her something to hold onto, something solid in a world that had twisted into more uncertainty than she even realized.
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but a light broke the darkness down the road, then another. His radio crackled to life. “Local LEOs have you in sight.” He bit down on his tongue and leaned forward, searching the road. Two unmarked SUVS and two unmarked sedans pulled into the parking lot, maneuvering until there were two before him and two behind them.
His promises could wait until another day. For now, he pressed pause on the forty-two second countdown and prayed Amy would survive whatever surprise struck them next.
SIX
Amy sat on a thin metal cot, elbows on knees, head in hands and focus on the floor. Half an hour ago, after a mercifully quiet drive to the outskirts of Atlanta, a vehicle switch and a winding drive through traffic, Amy had asked to be alone.
Sam’s team had complied, giving her the promised windowless “guest room” in the office tucked into a high-rise near downtown. From the outside, the ninth-floor space appeared to be a nondescript consulting firm.
The inside was far different. In this office, lives hung in the balance, shielded by Sam and his elite team of deputy marshals.
The introductions had been brief and her walk through the office quick, but Amy knew the tall, willowy brunette Sam had introduced as Dana was a tech genius. She’d emerged from a room filled with laptops, large screens and the hum of servers. The AC had blasted Amy’s arms as she’d passed, a clear indicator that equipment was working to the max.
There was also Isaiah, a six-foot-something wall of muscle. Amy wasn’t sure she wanted to know his job description, but she was certain she wanted him on her side.
The other three faces and names blurred as Sam ushered her up the hallway into the small holding room. His relief at having her safely ensconced in his headquarters had been palpable as his shoulders relaxed and his demeanor eased. He’d been all-business as he shut the door behind him, leaving her with her requested quiet.
Other than the small cot, this room smelled, felt and looked like a business office, right down to the is-it-gray-or-is-it-blue Berber carpet.
Maybe it was gray. She turned her foot so her shadow shifted. No, blue.
She’d been playing this game for ten minutes, trying not to think about the implications of what Sam had told her in the car.
Grant Meyer was dead. Murdered. Whoever had killed him hadn’t tried to make it look like a suicide. She knew the brazenness of the killing was what worried Sam and his team. She’d been in WITSEC long enough to know Meyer’s murder was a message. I can find you anywhere. No one can stop me.
Now that she was alone and the adrenaline was wearing off, thoughts assaulted her no matter how much she tried to avoid them. Her mind had gone on the attack in the quiet, when the only sound was the soft hum of voices from somewhere down the hall. Sam and his team were plotting their next move, devising the best way to protect her from an enemy who was a ghost.
A light tap on the door brought Amy to her feet, her pulse jumping. They’d found her. She was about to die.
Then again, killers typically didn’t knock. They charged in and took what they wanted without bothering with politeness. She winced, cheeks heating at her fear. It was probably Sam, stopping to check on her.
His presence shouldn’t make her heart continue its rapid dance. Maybe she was freaked out over the possibility he was coming to take her away. Even a cot in a windowless office was better than fleeing in the dead of night.
Another tap, followed by a feminine voice. “It’s Dana.”
Dana. Not Sam. Her shoulders dropped. “Come in.” Amy shoved her hands in her pockets as the other woman slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.
Dana moved with the grace of a ballet dancer, although she was dressed in jeans and a gray polo that bore the logo of a company that didn’t exist. Isaiah’s shirt had the same logo. She extended a bottle of water. “Sam being Sam, I figure you haven’t had anything to eat or drink. He’s on his way with snacks until we can get something more substantial. There’s a Filipino restaurant down the street that makes the best lumpia you ever tasted.”
In answer, Amy’s stomach rumbled, the mention of food reminding her that she’d taught through lunch. “Thanks. If I’d known how today would go, I’d have done more than grab a muffin at the coffee shop for breakfast.” She cracked open the bottle and took a long draw. “What’s lumpia?”
Dana grinned as though they were old friends reuniting for coffee. “They’re like Filipino spring rolls. You’ll be on the hunt for more every time you get hungry. Sometimes when you’re not.”
“Good to know.” There was an undercurrent in the conversation, something Dana wasn’t saying, as though this girl talk was about to reveal something that would bring on another bend in the road. Amy took a cautious sip of her water and waited, trying desperately to project calm, knowing she probably looked as awkward as the outcast geek in an ’80s teen movie.
“So...” Dana leaned against the wall beside the door and crossed her arms. “I’m guessing you know I’m not here to talk about amazing fried bundles of food joy.”
“I figured.”
“Sam’s tied up in a logistics session while Isaiah fills him in on some intel. I was sent to ask you a few questions.”
Mimicking Dana’s posture, Amy crossed her arms as well, the water bottle damp and cool against her side. “Like where I might want to resettle?”
Dana winced, then shook her head. “I’m sure that conversation is coming. I’m sorry it has to happen to you again, but no. They sent me to ask about the past few months, if you remember anything unusual, any people taking a sudden interest in you or strange occurrences at work or your apartment.”
“None that I can think of.” Amy ran her finger around the face of her watch, tracing the crack in the crystal. “Nothing stands out.” It wasn’t as though she socialized a lot. Sure, she had a small circle of friends, but having to hide her entire past made deeper relationships tricky. She’d long ago resolved not to date, not wanting to lie to a man about who she really was, afraid she’d slip in conversation and reveal everything.
“Any of your students take a particular interest in your class, ask for some extra one-on-one time during office hours?”
Amy shook her head. She’d have definitely noticed that. As one of the younger adjuncts at the community college, she was careful about how much time she spent with individual students, wary of implying a friendship that wasn’t there.
“Okay, let’s talk about your friend Layla. What’s your—” The door eased open and hit Dana in the shoulder. She stepped forward as Sam eased around her.
“Sorry.” He looked a bit sheepish. “Isaiah’s looking for you. He’s trying to pull up a map on the secure server.”
Throwing her arms out, Dana whirled on one heel as though she’d forgotten Amy existed. “I’ve told him a dozen times not to touch those machines. He does something to mess them up every time and it takes me a month to restore everything the way I like it. I think he does it on purpose.” She disappeared out the door, gesturing as she talked, her running dialogue about Isaia
h and his lack of tech awareness staying away from her stuff.
Sam leaned out the door and watched her go, chuckling. “Always fun to set her off.” He was still smiling when he turned back into the room, that grin doing something squirrelly to Amy’s stomach. “Oh, hey. I brought you a snack to hold you over until the real food gets here. If Dana’s involved, it will probably be from the Filipino place up the block. I think she’s addicted.” He held out his hand, producing a pack of orange peanut butter crackers he’d probably found in a vending machine.
“Thanks.” Amy took the offering before she sank onto the edge of the cot. Settling the water bottle on the floor, she stared at the crackers, the sight of them resurrecting memories she’d buried when the need for her new identity and new life story had overtaken her past. So many memories. So many emotions. All in a stupid pack of crackers.
Amy swiped at her eyes and ripped open the plastic. She popped a whole cracker into her mouth and let the salt sprinkles dissolve on her tongue, certain she wouldn’t be able to swallow past the ache in her throat.
“Wow.” Sam sat beside her, the cot sinking with him. “If I’d known crackers could move women to tears, I’d have been more careful with my choices.”
A swig of water, more chewing, more water... Finally, Amy was able to swallow. She turned the package over and over in her hands, a couple of neon orange crumbs drifting to the ambiguous blue-gray carpet. “I haven’t had these since I was in high school. My sister and I practically lived on crackers, peanut butter sandwiches and coffee back in the day.”
At the mention of her sister, Sam tensed and eased a bit away from her. He cleared his throat. “You’ve hinted before that your early life wasn’t easy.”
“No, but we made it work. Our mother was the kind of woman who chased after any man who could promise her happiness. As soon as things got difficult with whoever her current flame was, she’d bail. It was her way to simply vanish with the man-of-the-month and leave us on our own. She chased happiness with men, but she never had the joy to back it up, never would give her life to Jesus.”
“What about your father?”
Amy chuckled, but it held no humor. “Clearly, my birth certificate is not in that all-knowing file of yours. If it was, you’d see a big fat bunch of nothing where my father’s name should be. I can’t give you one single piece of information about him. I don’t know if my mother wasn’t sure who he was or if she’d moved on from him and didn’t want him involved.” She brushed cracker crumbs from her pants. “We were sixteen when she died, and we petitioned for emancipation instead of going into the foster system. We’d been taking care of ourselves for so long it seemed easier. By then, we were both working while going to school and we actually had more than we had before she died. We had each other too. Until...” Until Amy had decided Logan Cutter was dashing and friendly and charming, the perfect man for her sister.
Oh, how wrong she’d been. It had been a swift decline as Logan convinced Eve she needed no one but him, that he loved her, that he’d take care of her... By the time Amy figured out what was happening, the man had emotionally abused and manipulated Eve until the sisters were separated for good, the gulf between them wide. Eve cut all ties with Amy, her mind twisted into believing that Logan truly cared and that Amy only wanted them to be apart. And now, Amy had no idea where her sister was or even if she was still alive.
Sam stood and paced the room, stopping at the door to look down the hallway in the direction Dana had taken. His shoulders were straight, his posture stiff, as though there were some burden he’d picked up when she started talking.
Amy stood. “Sam? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He exhaled loudly and turned to her, his expression tight and his eyes not quite meeting hers. “I think there are a few things we need to talk about while we’re here, before we move on to DC and get deep into the relocation discussion.”
“Okay...” Whatever it was, it must be a hard truth. For all they’d been through tonight and in the past, she’d not seen Sam look quite this tortured.
“You may want—”
“Sam!” Isaiah’s voice echoed up the hallway, his deep bass seeming to fill the room.
Sam stepped backward out the door and looked toward the sound, morphing from uncertain bearer of unknown news to confident deputy US marshal. “What?”
“Dana needs you. Now.” Isaiah stopped at the door and glanced in at Amy. “It looks like she found the data breach and it’s not good.”
* * *
Sam shoved past Isaiah and bolted from the room, calling over his shoulder to his teammate, “Stay with Amy until I get back.” In no way did he want her out of that room. He needed to control what she saw and heard until he could tell her the truth about her sister.
He slowed and stepped through the door of Dana’s office. The room was larger than the conference room and housed more computer equipment than most big-box electronics stores. Large and small monitors filled the space that also held their internal servers and processing equipment. A separate air system kept the space cool to accommodate all of the equipment and to keep it from overheating. There were no chairs because Dana typically paced as she worked, her way of thinking and ramping up her step count in the daily competition the team had devised to keep them connected and competitive when they were scattered across the Southeast.
When Sam walked in, she turned from the monitor she was looking at and aimed a finger at it. “I don’t know how, but someone just used Edgecombe’s login.”
Sam reached for the large metal bar-height table that dominated the center of the room, the steel cool beneath his fingertips.
“I’m not sure. His login should only work on his machine, because the system recognizes IP addresses and only allows the ones we’ve white-listed.” Dana turned to the monitors, her fingers working over the track pad on the table before her. “I’m in the process of scanning his recent logins, trying to see if there’s a pattern. It’s possible some of the times he appears to have logged in to the system, it was actually someone using a cloned version of Edgecombe’s machine. There are notes on Amy Brady in the system. If someone found a way in, they’d know everything about her.”
Straightening, Sam closed the distance between him and Dana, watching the screen as she scrolled. “Can you see the location of the machine that’s on now?”
“That’s what I’m digging for. If we can get that info, we might be able to find out who your bad guy is before he can strike again.”
“Does the system know Amy’s here?” If it did, they’d have to move immediately, and Sam was certain she wasn’t physically or emotionally ready.
Dana shook her head. “No. Her movements since you picked her up haven’t been logged.” Her eyes never left the screen. They simply moved back and forth as she scrolled through lines of data, her brow furrowed. When she shook her head, Sam’s stomach bottomed out. “Every single login has been authenticated by the IP address, including the one that’s accessing the servers now. Someone has their hands on his laptop.”
Sam drummed his fingers on the metal table. “No. His entire vehicle including his laptop was secured at the scene.”
“Then someone was able to spoof his IP address on another machine. I can check and see if there are overlapping logins, though the system shouldn’t allow it.”
“I need you to find that machine.”
“I can track it as long as it stays online but that could take a few minutes, and we have to hope whoever’s looking doesn’t know that. On the flip side, we have to hope they don’t stay on too long, because that would mean they’re getting deep into information we don’t want them to. Edgecombe’s access was limited to his people, but still... On the dark web, data on the handful of hidden witnesses he’s handling could go for big bucks to the right bidder.” Dana dropped her hand from the track pad to her side. “Sam, I can remotely s
hut this guy down and knock him off the system, but that kills any chance we have of tracking him.”
Sam scrubbed his hand on the back of his neck. If they let their bad guy stay in the system, Dana could locate him. But the longer he lingered, the more data compromised and the more people whose lives might be in danger.
This was bigger than Amy. It was bigger than Sam. Bigger than all of them. He dropped his hand to the table with a thunk. “Shut him down.”
Dana didn’t hesitate. A few swipes on the track pad, a few different screens, then she stepped away from her machine with an oddly defeated sense of triumph. “He’s off. And probably mad as all get-out. Worse, he knows we’re onto him.”
“We kept him from breaching more data. Take the win. Let’s notify the deputy who’s taking on Edgecombe’s caseload. Have him contact his people and make sure they’re okay. Put a watch out on the dark web to make sure nobody’s name surfaces. And is there a way for you to track the usage on Edgecombe’s login and get a data history? See if you can find out what this guy learned and where he was in the system?” What Sam didn’t know about computers was a whole lot more than what he did.
With a sly smile, Dana turned her back to him and walked across the room to another monitor, swiping her finger across the track pad to wake the machine. “I’m amazing, Sam. I can do anything given enough time.” She hesitated. “I may even be able to track down the spoofed laptop, assuming the bad guy doesn’t rip out the hard drive or dump it into a river somewhere.” Her voice was grim. She wanted to find the guy. This was personal to all of them. Deputy Edgecombe may not have been on their team and he was, in fact, a stranger to everyone but Sam, but he was still one of them—a deputy marshal killed while doing the selfless job of protecting another person’s life.
He should have gone with Edgecombe today instead of waiting to be called in. Like Devin Wallace, Sam had been too late. He wondered if forty-two seconds had been the difference in Edgecombe’s life and death as well. He balled his fist, digging his nails into his palm, desperate for a physical pain to drive way the emotional hurt. “Work fast.”
