Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “On the surface, they look like nothing more than a medical research group. They run tests on people, seeing if new drugs are any good at treating their specific ailments. All the searching I did on their name brings me to your average, inoffensive, run-of-the-mill template website. All stock imagery, the whole nine yards. They’re very vague about the exact research they do and its exact purpose.”

  Again, for the third time in less than a full day, the hair on the back of Sledge’s neck stood straight up. “I hope you’re not telling me what I think you’re telling me,” he muttered, looking at Logan but thinking of Marnie.

  “When Hawk got me into the code for their sites—and let me tell you, he worked for hours to get me there—it was pretty clear. All of the disclaimers and legal information hidden in the code point to the government. This is something government-based, some group working with them, or even a branch we’re not aware of. I don’t know exactly.”

  “You’re sure of the generalities?”

  “I would stake my job on it. Whoever Data Pro is currently working with, they’re government-based.”

  It was one thing to believe something but another to have that belief confirmed. Rather than feeling triumphant knowing he’d been right all along, Sledge’s stomach churned.

  What the hell were they supposed to do with this?

  Chapter Twelve

  Funny, but the sound of so many people moving through her house didn’t bother Marnie half as much as she would’ve imagined under any other circumstances, probably because they were moving around doing their work for her benefit.

  The entire world had changed in less than twenty-four hours. Yesterday at this time, she was in mourning. Lost, confused, but still sure of herself, sure of her work, her company, her place in the world.

  Now, looking back on it, she was ashamed at the attitude she’d taken. Yes, she was devastated over losing Michael and Carla. They were good people, hard-working and honest and decent.

  But once the initial shock and grief had worn off, all she’d cared about was who would do the work they were leaving behind.

  She cringed away from the memory, but there was no ignoring it. She’d been selfish, unthinkably selfish, and she’d known it too, or else she would’ve said something to Beth along those lines. She’d known how Beth would take it, how disappointed she would’ve been, and so Marnie had kept her thoughts to herself.

  She told herself this was what managers did, what executives did. Yes, there was the human element, the truly tragic side of things, but life went on, business went on. Her business would tank if they messed up this project. It wasn’t every day someone had the chance to work for the US government.

  Which was what she couldn’t tell the team currently fitting her house with all sorts of security gizmos. She wanted to open up, but there was no way of knowing what the results would be. She wasn’t one for taking chances, and this chance could result in more than a lost contract. It could mean litigation or worse. Who could say how much worse? It wasn’t something she was willing to risk.

  Even though she knew how it made her look to refuse, to be less than forthcoming, they would have to deal with it.

  Besides, it was because she was working for the government—or some branch of it, some group—that she knew this threat couldn’t be coming from her latest client. That was ridiculous, the thought of the government sending someone out to kill the people doing this work.

  Besides, it wasn’t like what they were doing was anything revolutionary, and all the data was coded. Even she hadn’t been able to figure it out all the way. There was no way for anyone in the company to understand exactly what was being talked about with those facts and figures, no way of knowing exactly who was being tested.

  She wished there was a way of getting this through to Sledge and the others. Wouldn’t men like them, who did the sort of work they did, understand the importance of keeping certain information private? She would’ve assumed so. No doubt the sort of work they did, with all the expensive equipment they were installing over the house and the sort of experience Sledge made it sound like they had, would understand discretion.

  She only hoped they would eventually understand or at least give up asking questions she couldn’t answer.

  Maybe she could get Sledge to talk to them for her. Funny how he’d become sort of her go-to person in all this when she’d been convinced before what a piece of garbage he was—a bottom feeder. Now, he was her lifeline.

  He would probably laugh if he knew that. Just another example of her being weaker than she felt comfortable letting on.

  Was it weakness to need help, though? Was she only being overly hard on herself? Probably. She always was her own toughest critic. It was easy to project her insecurities onto somebody else and assume they saw her faults as clearly as she did.

  In reality, Sledge probably didn’t pay her much mind at all. She was a client, nothing more than that.

  A client whose life he’d saved. A client who, even now in the stillness of her room, all alone, couldn’t stop thinking about the thrill that raced up and down her spine whenever he looked at her, who couldn’t deny the little rush of excitement he brought to her life just by being near.

  When he was the one who’d chosen to sit with her on the sofa while they were talking to the team, it was like a silent message of support, of solidarity.

  She wouldn’t have felt as secure with any of the others sitting with her, and she knew it. How she knew was a mystery. She just did. The mere fact of his presence made her stronger. She could handle things when he was there.

  It was stress doing this to her; that was all—stress and fear and uncertainty. People tended to grow closer to those around them when they were going through a crisis. It was a proven fact. There was a reason so many movies were based around that simple premise, how humans tended to grow exponentially closer, to develop intimacies they wouldn’t normally develop thanks to great stress. When people felt like they were on the same team, battling something larger than themselves, it bonded them.

  That was all she was going through, the feeling of having a bond she hadn’t even known a day earlier. She’d had no idea he or any of his teammates existed, and now here she was, wishing he would join her in her room, wishing they could have a few quiet minutes together.

  Not that she had any idea what they would do during those quiet minutes, not in any clear sense. Just having him there, with her, would be enough. She might even be able to relax a little.

  It was scary how she needed him, maybe just as scary as knowing somebody out there might want her dead.

  She jumped, startled at a knock on her door. “Marnie? We need to talk.”

  Hadn’t she just been wishing he was there with her? Now, hearing the tightness in his voice, she took it back. No, she didn’t need to see him right now. Not when he sounded that way.

  “Marnie. Sorry if I’m waking you up, but we need to talk. Now.” He didn’t leave room for argument. She hopped up off the bed, amazed that she could walk a straight line with her knees shaking the way they did.

  “I wasn’t sleeping. What’s going on?” she asked when he practically knocked her over, barreling through the doorway into her bedroom. He was like a tornado or a brick wall on two legs, and just then, he was in what her mom would’ve called A State.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance to come clean with me.” He turned to her, standing near the window that the burglar had used to break into the house. “Just one more chance. I want to know you’re not lying or hiding anything.”

  This again? She couldn’t help sighing in frustration—and maybe even boredom since explaining herself was getting a little old. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  He growled, making her breath catch. This wasn’t the first time he’d done something that freaked her out a little. Hadn’t she only just been telling herself how she trusted him?

  “Marnie, I’m trying really hard to be understanding,” he gru
nted, “but you’re pushing me too far. Let’s leave it at this: nothing you tell me will go further than our group. My team works with high-level clients all the time—I’m talking political figures, celebrities, people with more money than you or I could imagine having. People with secrets. People in need of protection for themselves and their families. They trust us with their lives, and they don’t regret it when we’re finished.”

  “I believe you.” And she did. He was completely and totally sincere, desperate for her to understand, to believe. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

  “Fine.” He drew a deep breath, his eyes narrowing. “Then I’ll tell you something you’re not going to want to hear. My team back at headquarters got into your system.”

  It was like he’d punched her in the stomach. All the breath left her lungs at once. “What? You hacked me?”

  “Marnie, you didn’t give us a choice. None of us are playing when we say we need to know certain things. We need to know who we’re working with. Don’t you understand how unfair it is to us? Here we are, helping you in every way we can, and you couldn’t be bothered to let us know you were working with the government.”

  “How dare you?” she hissed. It didn’t matter that he was more than twice her size or that he looked like a bull about to break out of a pen. If steam had come out of his nostrils, it would’ve completed the picture.

  In spite of this, she stalked toward him, her fists clenched at her sides. “You broke into my system? Do you understand I could have your ass for this?”

  “Spare me the theatrics,” he sneered. “You’ve already wasted enough of my time. Don’t you know what this could mean for my team, not just yours?”

  “What? Do you think somebody’s going to come after you now too? I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t all a bunch of conspiracy theory mumbo-jumbo.”

  “You are either insane or the most determined person I know—determined to destroy your life. You’re dead set on being blind, ignoring what’s right in front of your face.”

  “All that’s in front of my face right now is somebody who’s violated my trust.” And damn her voice for breaking a little at the end.

  “I told you.” His already deep voice lowered even further, turning to velvet—with a brutally sharp edge. “We needed to know who you were working with so we could know who to pursue.”

  “And doesn’t it strike you as a little ridiculous now? Going to all that trouble, breaking into my network, and all you found out was I’m working with a government agency. My company has a contract with this agency. They want us to interpret their data. Don’t you feel pretty stupid now, thinking they had something to do with this? How much time did you waste, digging up this info?”

  “Wake up!” It was practically enough to blow her hair back, the vicious bark of his voice. “And grow up while you’re at it. Newsflash, Marnie, with your genius IQ: these government agencies, these secret groups like the one you’re working with, are capable of anything. You are expendable to them—all of us are. It’s a not conspiracy theory. It’s the truth.”

  “And how would you know?” she demanded. “What makes you such an expert?”

  “Maybe I’ll get the chance to tell you someday if we don’t all end up dead.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? And you’re the one telling me to drop the theatrics.”

  “No. I absolutely do not think I’m being dramatic. One day, you might understand exactly who you were dealing with all along. Suffice it to say, you need to start talking. Right now. What sort of information were you processing for them? And it doesn’t matter if you don’t think it was important. I want to know about it.”

  There were only a few times in her life when she understood what it meant to really want to kill somebody, to be angry enough to commit cold-blooded murder. This was one of those times. Nothing would’ve given her as much pleasure as killing him then.

  Who knew what else they dug into while taking a tour of her company’s network? It was like her entire life had been cut open for everybody to examine—between a burglar in her home, the strangers now roaming it, and their work in hacking her system, nothing was hers anymore. She had no control over anything.

  Frustration and rage and disappointment—yes, she was disappointed in them for hacking her—all combined and threatened to choke her. She couldn’t remember ever being so heartsick, feeling so vulnerable.

  Sledge muttered something to himself that sounded suspiciously like profanity. “Marnie, I understand how you feel right now,” he finally muttered, his words clipped and precise.

  She laughed. “Don’t play that psychological game with me. It won’t work. You had me fooled for a while there, letting me think you were on my side.”

  “I am on your side. All of us are. That’s the entire reason we’re here.”

  “No, you’re here to do a job. And that job is more important to you than any trust that might have built up between you and me. If I would’ve known you would just hack the system anyway, I would’ve told you. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to break into my company that way. How am I supposed to trust you now?”

  “You do realize the same thing goes both ways, right? Because now I don’t know if we can trust anything you say. You can tell me all you want that what you’re saying is the truth, but how am I supposed to know? How are any of us? Here we are, setting your house up, getting you locked down, now we find out it’s the freaking United States government that’s after you. That’s the sort of thing we might’ve benefited from knowing before now, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not the government who’s after me,” she sighed. “Do you know how ridiculous you sound right now?”

  “Do you know how naïve you sound right now? You have no idea what some of these secret, closed-door groups are really like. You don’t have the first idea.”

  When he took a step toward her, she took a backward step. There was something new in his eyes, in his voice, some deeper emotion. Something worse than anger. “You need to get one thing straight right now,” he growled, advancing while she retreated. “The people you think are working on your behalf aren’t always. And these fringe groups, the people you don’t hear about on the news or anything, they are capable of things you couldn’t imagine. And they’ll tell you, just like they probably tell themselves, that everything they do is for the good of us—the people. Well, I’m here to tell you that when any group starts thinking of the people and what’s best for them, they lose sight of the individuals involved. Like you. Like the people on your team. You are expendable, collateral damage. They don’t care about you. And if this group, whoever they are, was doing research they would rather the public not know about, they’ll do anything to silence you—and they’ll still be able to sleep at night because they’ll tell themselves it’s for the best, that if the public were ever to find out what they did, it would cause anarchy. So what are a few lives, then? When you compare it to an entire group of people, an entire nation, rising up and protesting? They can justify anything. So, tell me again how this couldn’t possibly be the government tracking all of you down and killing you one by one?”

  By the time he finished, she was sitting on her bed and he was standing over her, a towering mountain of muscle and pure, burning rage. There was almost a tangible heat pouring off him like lava flowed through his veins instead of blood.

  Her tongue darted over her lips, moistening them since they’d suddenly gone dry. “How do you know any of that? What makes you such an expert?”

  “Let’s just say I know a lot of things. Like I told you before, I might be able to tell you about some of it sometime.” He was breathing heavy, like an angry animal or one that felt threatened, ready to attack.

  Who was he? What did he know that she didn’t? And could she believe him?

  “I don’t have any reason to lie about this,” he reminded her in a quieter voice than before. It was uncanny, the way he answered questions s
he hadn’t asked out loud like he was tuned into her brain somehow.

  “Yeah, I figured that out,” she whispered, trembling hard enough that the bed trembled underneath her.

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

  That was enough to pull a laugh from her chest. “Are you sure about that? You should see yourself right now.”

  “I would never hurt you. None of us would.”

  “It hurts me that you went behind my back and broke into my system. That hurts.”

  “Sometimes, certain steps have to be taken.”

  “Like the sort of steps you just described? For the greater good?”

  That stung, she could tell. He practically recoiled from her accusation, vague though it was. “This isn’t the same thing,” he muttered, his lip curling up in disgust.

  “Are you sure about that? Or are you rationalizing, the way these evil people you described rationalize the things they do?”

  “I won’t let you do this. You’re not going to make me the bad guy. They are the bad guys, all of them, the ones who would send someone to your house to learn more about you, to make you feel vulnerable. The ones who ran you run off the road. That’s not me. That’s not us.”

  She wasn’t about to argue, especially when she believed him. They wouldn’t do what had been done to her and Beth, to Carla and Michael. They were the protectors, the ones who tried to make things right for people who were defenseless against ruthless bullies.

  She cleared her throat. “If this is true, I’m not the only one who’s going to need protection. There are still more people out there from my team, and they’ll need help too.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he murmured. He was calmer now, like now that he’d spoken his piece, he could breathe easier. “And once we’re sure you’re secure here, we’re going to post guards near their houses just to keep an eye on things.”

  “Do you think they’ll need the same level of security I need?”

  He tilted his head to the side, studying her. “You know them better than I do. Do you think you could trust them with this new information? Do you believe they wouldn’t tell anyone this shady, secret group is after them, honestly?”