Libby tore her eyes from Kristin, who was making even more comical faces now. “Thank you, Mr. Anderson. It’s nice to be back.”
“Can we give you a lift?” he asked with a pleasant smile.
She hesitated. There was no reason not to get into the elevator. No reason to take three flights of stairs when she could ride down. Kristin put her hands on either side of her iPad like she was praying and mouthed the word, “Please.”
Libby bit the inside of her lip. Then she stepped onto the elevator. The doors closed with a swoosh. Nate let out a long sigh. “Well, that was certainly easier than I’d hoped,” he said as he punched a code into the elevator panel once it started to move. It glided to a stop, then reversed and began to go up instead of down.
Libby blinked. “Um, I was going down.”
Nate didn’t look at her as he spoke. “Not anymore. Kristin was just coming to get you, but you saved her the trouble. And you’ve caused a lot of trouble, Miss King. But that ends today.”
Libby stumbled backward, hitting the wall. Her eyes darted to Kristin, who looked at her sadly. “You should have cooperated, Libby.”
Shock reverberated through her, followed by anger. “You’re a part of this? How could you be a part of it? How could you let things mean more to you than the truth—than human lives? My God, Kris.”
Nate glanced at Kristin. A look passed between them then, and Libby knew. Stupid, stupid Kristin. She’d gone and fallen for this asshole. She’d disparaged him—made fun of him—to throw Libby off the scent. To throw everyone off the scent.
Libby felt sick. This woman was her friend. Someone she’d trusted—at least as much as she trusted anyone. But she’d been wrong, like always. She believed in people and they betrayed her. Would she never learn?
“No lives are in danger, Libby. The suit works,” Nate said. “And the Army will make their own adjustments once they take delivery.”
“It works, but it can’t distinguish friend from foe at least fifty percent of the time when the AI component is in control,” she grated.
One of Nate’s eyebrows went up. “I guess he told you a lot, didn’t he? What else did he say?”
Libby frowned. “Where’s Paul?” she asked with a coolness she didn’t feel.
Her heart was in her throat and her palms were wet with sweat, but she told herself Jared was listening. He could hear her, and Dax could see where she was, and they would come. They would. So she’d get Nate Anderson to talk and she’d let him incriminate himself. He would take her to his office and try to get her to tell him where the copy was, but he wouldn’t get a chance to find out. Jared and the guys would be there. Soon.
“How would I know?” Nate said just as coolly. “He quit. For all I know, he left town.” He took his phone out and looked at it. “Ah, yes. Daniel is arriving now.”
The elevator kept going, past the fifth floor, then the sixth. There were only eight floors in the building. When they passed the eighth, she knew they were going to the roof. The elevator glided to a stop and the doors opened. A helicopter touched down on the pad, rotors spinning as a swift breeze picked up her hair and tossed it.
Libby tried to shrink backward into the elevator, but Nate took a firm grip of her arm and tugged her toward the waiting craft. Kristin followed, eyes hard and mouth set in a firm line.
“Where are you taking me?” Libby demanded.
“Somewhere we can talk,” Nate said. “Without interruption.”
The door to the helicopter opened and Daniel sat there, looking vaguely anxious. Nate shoved her inside despite her struggles. She screamed, but it wasn’t going to do any damned good on the roof with no one to help her. Nate backhanded her before he picked her up and tossed her onto the seat opposite Daniel. He climbed in and sat beside her while Kristin joined Daniel. The helicopter lifted off at Daniel’s signal.
Fear clogged Libby’s throat. Jared was down there. The guys were all down there, and none of them had anticipated this. They couldn’t follow her now. They couldn’t burst in and save her.
She was on her own.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jared’s blood was ice. He’d listened to the exchange between Libby, Nate Anderson, and Kristin Martin, and he’d hated that he wasn’t in the elevator with her—but he’d known he was going to be by her side in the next few minutes when his team breached the building and went to her rescue.
Until a new sound came over the comm.
“That’s a helicopter,” he said as the silence of the elevator was broken by noise. “Didn’t anybody fucking know that Daniel Weir took a helicopter to the Pentagon? Shit!”
“They’ve gone to the roof,” Dax replied. “Weir just landed.”
He heard Libby ask where they were going as the helicopter noise grew louder.
“Somewhere we can talk. Without interruption.”
They heard the sounds of a struggle and then Libby screamed. There was a solid sound and a gasp from Libby. Someone had hit her. The rotor noise became slightly muted as if someone had shut a door. Jared recognized the whine of the engine as the speed increased. Anderson and Weir were abducting Libby by air, a possibility nobody had considered when they’d made their plans.
Jared had been waiting in his truck for Libby to exit the building and join him, but now he sped around to where he’d left the others in the surveillance van. He shoved his truck into park halfway on the sidewalk, not caring that it wasn’t a proper parking spot, and jerked the door of the van open to jump inside with his teammates. Dax’s gaze was fixed on the screen. Colt was in the driver’s seat. The instant Jared joined them, he shoved the van in gear and began to drive.
“Where are they going?” Jared asked.
“Looks like they’re headed north at the moment.”
Jared clenched his jaw. “They could take her anywhere. We won’t be able to keep up.” He punched the side of the van, swearing. Rascal and Dax looked at him. Colt glanced into the rearview. “I shouldn’t have let her go in. She’s got the card, but now they’ve got her—and that card is her only insurance. If they get it, they’ll kill her.”
“Libby’s not stupid. She’ll keep them guessing as long as she can.”
“And how long is that going to be if they search her? Jesus!”
“We just need them to touch down,” Dax said. “Soon as we know that, we can hone in on their location.”
Jared swore again. None of it was good enough for him. Just a few short minutes ago, this whole thing was nearly over. Libby had the card and she was on her way downstairs. He’d been waiting for her. And then everything changed, and she was gone.
His head pounded with guilt. His throat was tight. He’d been in this situation before, but he’d never been as emotionally invested as he was now. He’d parachuted in to save injured combatants hundreds of times. He’d extracted hurt soldiers from combat zones, wounded civilians from disaster areas, and he’d done it without letting his emotions get involved. Even that last brutal mission in the Hindu Kush where he’d nearly lost his own life, he’d never felt the way he did now.
Like his heart had been ripped from his chest. Like his soul had been torn in two. The woman he’d sworn to protect—promised to protect—was in danger because he’d failed to keep her safe. And that was killing him inside.
He didn’t know what was happening anymore because the range of the comm unit had been exceeded. Dax couldn’t see anything on the camera feed any longer. They couldn’t hear Libby. But they still had the cell phone, and the tracking device he’d placed on her skin, and Dax had a lock on both. Colt drove according to Dax’s general instructions, but they had no way of knowing where Anderson and Weir were taking Libby. Tyler, Jace, and Brett were also in pursuit as Dax’s instructions were fed to them through the comm link.
“The helicopter isn’t tracking north anymore,” Dax said a few minutes later.
Jared’s heart throbbed with hope. If they were touching down, they hadn’t gone too far. Which meant Jared
and his team had a chance to get to Libby.
“Where are they?” he asked when Dax didn’t say anything.
“Bringing it up on GPS… Just a sec…” Dax wore a look of concentration as he tried to pinpoint the location. When he suddenly grinned, Jared let out the breath he’d been holding. He was still pissed, still scared shitless, but his teammate smiling was a good sign. “They’re near Harper’s Ferry. I’ll have the location in a few seconds. Tyler, can you find out if Anderson or Weir—or hell, Kristin Martin—has property in Harper’s Ferry?”
“Copy. I’m on it,” Ty said through the earpiece.
“I’ve got the coordinates,” Dax said. “And an address.”
“Kristin Martin has a house on the Potomac River in West Virginia, bought a month ago. That’s the address.”
Dax did a little finger wave thing like he’d dropped a bomb. “Boom. We’ve got them.” His fingers moved fast across the keyboard. “It’ll take us an hour to get there from here.”
“Shit,” Jared swore. “Anything could happen in an hour.”
“We’ll make it,” Colt said as he pressed the pedal down. “She just needs to stall.”
“I’ll call Ian. Maybe he can make some magic happen,” Dax said.
“If they search her, it’s over,” Jared said, the knot in his chest tightening. If those guys found the media card and verified the contents, they’d have no more need for Libby. This time, she wouldn’t escape.
And he’d lose her forever.
Libby stared at the terrain below. They flew north, until the packed buildings and clogged roads of Virginia gave way to long stretches of forest and hills that were still blanketed in white. There were roads here, but not as packed with traffic. There was a river, which had to be the Potomac, and then a smaller river which branched off it. She didn’t know which river that was, but the helicopter banked and started to descend, flying low as they skirted along the water. When it stopped moving and began to descend onto a snowy bank, she didn’t know which river she was looking at. There was a brick house in a clearing nearby. It was a big house with a spectacular view of trees and water.
Nate slid the door of the craft open. Daniel went first, then Nate hopped down behind him. “Let’s go,” he said to Libby, jerking his head at her.
Libby’s belly twisted. Her eyes stung as her gaze met Kristin’s. “You were my friend,” she said, betrayal a hard knot in her throat.
Kristin’s expression seemed stricken, but then it hardened. “And you were mine until you threatened to ruin everything.”
“Me? I didn’t do anything,” Libby cried.
“You listened to Paul’s lies. You helped him smuggle information off classified servers. Don’t you care about all the people who will lose their jobs if his lies get out?”
“I didn’t steal anything. I had nothing to do with Paul except to be nice to him. You know I’m nice to everyone!”
Kristin jerked her head toward Nate, who was waiting. Daniel was walking toward the house, talking on a cell phone. “Get out and let’s go.”
“And if I don’t?”
Kristin laughed. “If you don’t, then Tom up there is going to have to get out of the pilot’s seat and make you. He won’t be happy about that either.”
As if to punctuate the sentence, Tom turned around and leveled her with a menacing look. Libby unclipped the seatbelt and clutched her purse to her as she jumped down. She was very aware of the media card in her shoe, and trying to figure out how she could possibly keep it concealed. If they made her take her shoes off, it was over. They’d know it was exactly what they wanted.
She looked at the river beyond, but there was no escape that way. Not unless she could swim to the other side, and she wasn’t dumb enough to think that was a possibility. Not in the clothes she was wearing, and not at all considering she was a terrible swimmer in the best of circumstances. Not to mention the water was frigid right now. The woods were a possibility, even though the trees were bare. There were a lot of trees, and her coat was almost white. She eyed the woods as they walked toward the house.
“Don’t bother trying to run into the woods,” Kristin said from behind her. “You won’t get far. Tom is an expert marksman, and he’s carrying a rifle. And even if you did get away, he’d find you and bring you back. He’s a former special forces soldier, and he won’t let you escape the way those others did.”
Libby whirled to face Kristin, fury burning her up inside. Kristin stopped abruptly. Behind her, Tom was exiting the helicopter. The rotors spun slower, and the engine was no longer running. Tom had a rifle slung over one shoulder, like Kristin had said.
“You knew about that? You knew those men snatched me off the street? That they scared me and hurt me and were planning to kill me? How could you care so little about me? We were friends!”
Kristin shook her head. “I’m sorry, Libby, but I told you. When you threatened the company like that—our livelihoods, our futures—I couldn’t make excuses for you. I couldn’t take your side. I recommended you for the job, and that’s how you repaid me. Repaid all of us. You and Paul were going to take it all down, and for what? So you could feel important somehow? So you could finally say you’d accomplished something big? You’d be in the news, wouldn’t you? A hero who could sell her story about the big bad company she’d helped to destroy.”
Libby’s heart hurt. She’d spent many evenings talking with Kristin about her life, about her upbringing and the way her family had always marginalized her. She’d wanted to accomplish big things in her life, but her parents had told her the only thing she was meant to do was be a wife and mother. Not that there was anything wrong with being a wife and mother, and not that she didn’t want to do those things too, but it wasn’t all she wanted to do. She wanted to find love and she wanted to see the world. She wanted to feel needed and important to someone, yes. But she wouldn’t lie or hurt others to make it happen.
“If you think I want to destroy Ninja Solutions to feed my own ego or my need for approval, then you never really knew me at all, did you? Because it’s apparent I never knew you. I thought you cared about the truth, Kristin. About right and wrong. But instead you only care about getting ahead—about snagging yourself a rich husband and living the life you think you deserve—”
Kristin slapped her so hard her head snapped to the side. Her cheek stung and she could taste blood where a tooth had sliced into the tender flesh inside her mouth.
“You shut up. You don’t know a damned thing. I’ve worked hard all my life, and I won’t let you ruin it. I won’t let you ruin this company, not when we’re so close to making all our dreams come true. You’d have gotten a lot of money when the deal went through—we all would. But that’s not enough for you, is it? You want to be important.”
There was nothing Libby could say that would change Kristin’s mind. The friend she thought she’d known, the woman she’d spent hours laughing and talking with, wasn’t real. It had all been a lie. She’d known Kristin was a bit more interested in fashion and luxury than Libby had thought reasonable, but if the girl wanted to spend a month’s paycheck buying a Louis Vuitton bag, then who was Libby to tell her she couldn’t do it? After all, she’d met Kristin, and gotten this job, because the woman had a shopping addiction and kept coming to Libby when she’d worked in a retail store. But how could those things mean more to Kristin than people did?
Libby turned and started toward the house, her eyes blurring with tears. Not tears of pain from being slapped, but tears of betrayal. How did she always choose the wrong people to care about? Why did she put her heart on the line when she knew how it was going to turn out?
Nate stood on the wide front porch, waiting. Libby shot a longing look at the woods. But running would give her less time than staying would. If she ran, Tom would shoot her. If she did what Nate asked, then maybe she could buy enough time for Jared and his teammates to arrive.
Despair filled her. They were back in Chantilly and they were drivin
g, not flying. Even if they knew where she was, it would take them too long to get here. She could stall for a little bit of time, but not enough.
Still, she had to try. She thought of Jared, of his soulful blue eyes and serious expression. Of the way he touched her and made her body come alive with sensation. She’d never felt like she did with Jared. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.
Love. She was in love with him. She could deny it, but why? Now wasn’t the time to lie to herself. Not when she was so close to dying. She might not mean anything to him other than a good time, but she couldn’t regret a moment of their time together.
Libby trudged up the steps and took one last look around before walking inside the house behind Nate. Whatever happened now, she wasn’t going to give up hope that Jared would find her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There were two other men inside the house besides Daniel and Nate. Libby’s pulse pounded in her throat as Nate shoved her into a chair and one of the men looped a pair of zip ties around her wrists and tugged them tight. Then he did the same to her ankles, tying them to the chair legs instead of each other.
Daniel was still on the phone, talking about delivery dates and meeting times as if he were in a boardroom instead of present at an abduction. Nate stood with arms crossed over his chest, glaring at her. He was a handsome man, but all she could see was the ugliness in his expression. Kristin entered the room and took a seat on the couch opposite Libby, picking up her iPad and tapping something on it.
“Now, Libby,” Nate began. “I need you to tell me where you put the media card Paul Hicks gave you”
“Um,” she said, her eyes darting between the two men and Nate. “I-I don’t have a media card.”
Nate nodded and one of the men stepped between her and Nate and punched her in the stomach. The blow whooshed the air from her lungs and made tears spring to her eyes, though she thought it could have been a lot worse. They must not want her incapacitated just yet.
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