The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  She waves at me through the window as I approach the door. Once inside, I slide into the seat across from her.

  “That’s my blouse,” I grump. “And you couldn’t have bought me a coffee?”

  I can tell by her eyes that Grace is busting at the seams to tell me something. I told her not to talk about it over the phone, even though I can’t help but wonder if Chance isn’t completely full of shit about all this surveillance stuff.

  “What’s got you so wound up?”

  “Shit is getting real, Sara,” she hisses as she leans over the table. “Quentin Pearce came by the office this morning with a check for $150,000. He said he needed to talk to you – he used the word ‘imperative.’ And he told me to mention somebody named Sebastian Dacosta to you. He said you’d know what he was talking about.”

  It’s as if I dared the universe to throw me one more fucking curveball, come on, let’s see what you got. Now it’s flying straight for my head.

  Grace looks around to see if anyone is listening to us. The coast is clear.

  “And then I saw the news online,” she whispers. “The guy Pearce said to mention was murdered yesterday afternoon, Sara. What the fuck is going on here?”

  God, I wish I knew.

  “What did you tell him?” I ask. “Did you give him back the check?”

  “No!” she snaps. “We still have bills to pay. And to be honest, Pearce didn’t seem like the bad guy you made him out to be. He was concerned about your safety.”

  “His friends attacked me in the park, Grace!”

  “Are you sure about that?” she asks. “Or were they defending themselves against you?”

  The moments run through my mind again: they definitely started it, but if I’m being honest, Pearce didn’t condone what they did. He tried to get them to stop. “Don’t hurt her! I told him this was a stupid idea!”

  Christ, I’m actually sitting here wondering if I can trust Quentin Pearce. Of all people.

  Grace’s voice snaps me out of my head.

  “I told him I’d try to get in touch with you,” she says. “So here I am. Tre is working with him, Sara. Why won’t Chance? What’s the deal?”

  I shake my head. “It’s too complicated to go into here.”

  “How convenient,” she says with a fake smile. “Look, Sara, all I’m saying is that Quentin Pearce didn’t seem like the demon you made him out to be, and Tre thinks he’s all right. And he paid us what he said he would. Meanwhile, you and Chance just keep saying ‘bad guy.’ Well, pardon me for not thinking the same way you do.”

  I’m so exhausted that I’m actually considering this. ’I told him this was a stupid idea!’ Is Pearce under the thumb of his partner? Maybe he actually is trying to help me. I can’t be sure of anything anymore.

  “So what does he want with me?” I ask.

  “He said he just wants to talk,” Grace pleads. “That can’t hurt anything, can it?”

  How should I know? The last time we talked, I beat the shit out of his associates. But that was before Dacosta showed up dead and Chance started lying to me.

  “Fine,” I say. “Give me his number. I don’t have the contacts from my other phone.”

  She slides a piece of paper across the table and I tuck it into my purse.

  “Sara, are you really okay?” she asks. “You’re in the same clothes you were wearing yesterday. And where is Chance?”

  “I’m fine,” I lie as I stand up to leave. “And I don’t know where Chance is.” That’s the truth.

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  I run my hands down my face to try and wipe the exhaustion from my mind.

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” I sigh. “No more running. I’m going to start taking the fight to them.”

  Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Two

  69. SARA

  A mall food court isn’t exactly the place you’d expect high intrigue to go down, which is exactly why I chose it for this meeting. Anything out of the ordinary happens here and people will have their phones out recording it in no time flat.

  I see them walking toward the eating area before they see me. They’re both in impeccably tailored suits, and it suddenly strikes me that Tre actually has a lot in common with Quentin. They’re both business majors with money on their minds at all times. The fact that they found a way to work together shouldn’t surprise me.

  Tre catches sight of me and his eyes widen. He jogs over and pulls me into a hug.

  “Thank God,” he says. “I was so worried about you!”

  “I’m fine,” I say stiffly, not returning the embrace.

  “Where’s Chance?”

  “I don’t know. That’s probably for the best.”

  Pearce points to a table and we sit, the two of them side by side, me opposite them. I want them to know in no uncertain terms that I don’t trust anyone right now.

  Pearce speaks first: “I was hoping that you would at least hear Tre out, since you’ll likely never trust me again after that night in Lincoln Park.”

  “You think?” I say with a quizzical smile.

  He nods. “You have every right to be angry. My choice of companions was an associate’s idea; I was against it but he insisted. I apologize for their conduct. Although, to be honest, you were the one who resorted to violence first.”

  “I might do it again right now if you keep pissing me off,” I say evenly.

  Tre holds up his hands in surrender and turns to Pearce. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Quentin, but I’d appreciate it if you kept your fucking mouth shut for the rest of our time here. Okay?”

  Pearce glowers, but does as he’s told.

  “Thank you for agreeing to this,” Tre says to me. “I was hoping to be able to talk to you without Chance being here.”

  I flash back to the afternoon when Tre came storming out of Chance’s office after arguing.

  “Why?” I ask. “He trusts you. What can’t you say in front of him?”

  He frowns. “Chance has always been like a brother to me, but I’m worried about him right now. I think this offer from Empire has him on the ropes. At first I thought it was just his pride, that he didn’t want to lose Atlas. But now I think there may be more to it.”

  “Like what?”

  “You remember when we were kids, he got in trouble. That one time he went after his foster father –”

  “Because that so-called ‘father’ tried to put his hand down Chance’s jeans!” I bark. “What of it?”

  “Shit,” Tre breathes. “He never told me that part of the story. But even that speaks to the point I’m trying to make. He’s dealt with a lot of shit in his life where he didn’t have control over what happened to him. His way of coping with that was to become the kind of person who takes charge, who gets things under control. It’s why he was such a good Marine, and why Atlas is what it is today.”

  “You’re listing off his character traits,” I say, trying not to draw lines to what Kelsey said about control. “So what?”

  “So this offer from Empire was beyond his control, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want to lose control of the company, but he also couldn’t come up with a plan to convince the Sullivans not to sell.”

  “And?”

  “And when you found out about the angel investor, he lost even more control.”

  My stomach drops. “You’re saying that marrying me was just part of a scheme?”

  Tre shakes his head. “I can’t say that for sure. All I know is that before we had our falling out, he was talking about manipulating you because you were investigating the company. I told him I was against it, that putting your feelings on the line was out of bounds.”

  Suddenly all the sounds around us in the food court seem to fade into the distance. I’m surrounded by people and yet I feel utterly alone.

  “Sara, did Chance ever tell you about Sebastian Dacosta?”

  “Yes,” I say through numb lips. “And I know he’s dead now.”


  “Did he tell you they both worked for Sully in Iraq?”

  My heart freezes. “No. He never mentioned that.”

  “Dacosta was one of Sully’s hired guns in the days before he and Chance expanded Atlas. There were always rumors of ties to the CIA. And Quentin here has told you about the intel he has on CIA money being embezzled into Atlas as a so-called ‘angel investment.’”

  I say nothing. My mind can’t form any words.

  “It’s very possible that Dacosta knew about that and was the source of that intel to the people who gave it to Quentin.”

  “I can’t reveal who my partners are, obviously,” Pearce chimes in.

  My mind manages to find a few words: “I thought I told you to shut up.”

  The shocked look on his face is enough to lift my spirits for a moment.

  “Look, Sara,” says Tre. “I’m not going to accuse Chance of having anything to do with Dacosta’s death. But you yourself have to admit it looks awfully suspicious when the guy turns up dead right at the time he could be most damaging to Chance.”

  Chance lied to me about where he’d been yesterday afternoon, the time Dacosta was killed. My stomach churns at the thought I’ve been trying to avoid for the last twenty-four hours.

  Tre must see it on my face because he takes my hand in his.

  “Sara, we need to find Chance,” he says. “Can you tell us where he is?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  He nods. “Okay. But I still think you’re the person he’ll contact first, if and when he decides to surface. Will you come with us?”

  My mind is racing. What choice do I have? This craziness has to stop. I tap a few keys on my phone and send my contact info to Tre’s number.

  “You can get in touch with me here,” I say. “I promise to answer. But I’m not going to go with you. Not right now. I have things to figure out.”

  “Of course,” he says. “But if you need anything, I’m just a text away.”

  “Actually, I need money. Chance told me to toss my credit and debit cards so they couldn’t track us, and the banks are closed on Sundays so I can’t get new ones.”

  Tre reaches into his wallet and hands me five hundreds.

  “At the risk of pissing you off again,” Pearce mutters. “There’s a cashier’s check for $150,000 at your office that will clear in a day.”

  “Thanks,” I say, standing up. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Tre’s eyebrows go up. “Promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “I’m really sorry, Sara,” he says. “You should never have been caught up in all this. I’m sorry it took this kind of crazy shit for us to all find each other again. This should have been the happiest time of our lives.”

  Yeah, it should have been. And now I wish I’d never answered Pearce’s call that morning. But like the old saying goes, wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.

  I’ve got myself a big old handful of shit right now.

  Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Three

  70. CHANCE

  If most people knew just how easy it is to hack into their smartphones and use them as listening devices, they probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. The FBI, for example, has the capability and authority to turn on your phone right in your pocket and hear every word you say.

  Luckily, they don’t unless you’re under investigation. But that’s exactly the reason I bought the burner phones for myself and Sara. Unfortunately, that also means I can’t track her with my tech.

  Grace’s phone, on the other hand, was wide-open fair game. That’s how I knew Sara was in this mall, and it’s the reason I’m now watching her walk toward me.

  The look in her eyes makes my heart crack. I text her a message that I hope she sees; I don’t want to have to chase her through the city.

  Stop at the statue.

  She pulls her phone from her pocket and reads as she walks. Then she looks around, startled. I step out from the shadow of a modern art sculpture that looks like an abstract aardvark just as she arrives.

  “What do you want?” she says nervously. “Aren’t you scared of being seen by all the boogeymen that are after you?”

  I steeled myself for what I know this conversation has to be, but it still hurts.

  “Sara, I’m sorry,” I say. “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I didn’t kill Dacosta.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore after talking to Tre.”

  I have to make sure I word this the right way.

  “Tre doesn’t have all the information,” I say. “He doesn’t know the whole situation.”

  “Well, maybe he would if you’d stop slinking around and come clean!” she snaps. “Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

  “Because the less you know at this point, the safer everyone is.”

  I know that’s cryptic, and I know exactly what she’s going to say.

  “How convenient,” she says with a rueful chuckle. “You have to keep me in the dark to make sure something happens. And of course, you can’t tell me what that something is, so I just get to keep on wondering what the fuck is going on!”

  Passersby look at us, startled. I reach out to take her hand but she pulls away from me.

  “I want this to stay nice and public,” she says.

  I can’t blame her for that, but I also can’t have unnecessary attention on me.

  “All I can ask is for you to trust me,” I plead. “Can you do that?”

  She looks at the ground, obviously battling tears. God, how did this all go off the rails so fast? Everything is spinning out of control.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I can’t tell what to believe anymore.”

  “Believe this: I’m doing all of this for you.”

  “Then why did you lie to me about where you were yesterday?” she asks, eyes pleading. “You said you went for a run but you were gone for over two hours and came back smelling like rose oil.”

  Jesus. Mama’s perfume – she hugged me…

  “Sara –”

  She throws up a halting hand. “I only want to hear one more thing from you and then I’m going to leave.”

  “Anything,” I say.

  The stricken look in her eyes almost makes me knees give out.

  “Is our marriage real?” she asks bleakly. “Or was it all just part of your big plan?”

  I take her by her arms and pull her to me before she can get away.

  “It’s the realest thing I’ve ever had in my life,” I say.

  She looks into my eyes, but it’s not enough to keep her here. She pulls free and walks away from me.

  “Good luck, Chance,” she says softly without turning around. “I hope we can find each other again someday.”

  I barely have a moment for that to sink in before I feel the hard steel of a gun barrel jabbing the spot in my back directly behind my heart.

  “You’re not an easy man to find, Mr. Talbot.”

  Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Four

  71. CHANCE

  I freeze, knowing whoever this is doesn’t want any attention drawn to himself, either.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “There’s a copse of trees to your right that leads onto a side street next to the park. Let’s just walk that way. I’ll be a few paces behind you, but my friends have eyes on you. Understood?”

  I nod and start to stroll away, thinking furiously. Department of Defense wouldn’t take this approach. Unless they’re worried about making a scene with the CEO of Atlas. They need the company to perform a lot of the work that they can’t do themselves.

  Unfortunately for me, they need Atlas Security, not Chance Talbot. I don’t have a free pass here by any means. I need more time.

  I see three more men in dark pants and jackets step out from behind the elms as I approach. We’re well hidden from the concourse here, and the exit gate to the street is right nearb
y, blocking the view from where they’re no doubt parked. That’s confirmed when I see the black van a few spots up.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, I guarantee you’re wrong,” I say as the three new guys step in my way to halt me.

  The one who was behind me, an older bald man with horn-rimmed glasses, steps into my line of sight. He’s put the gun away, at least. Two of the others fill his spot behind me, trapping me in a square.

  “We just want to talk, Mr. Talbot,” the bald man says. “We hope you’ll be reasonable.”

  “Does it involve getting in that black van over there?” I ask, nodding toward the street.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “And you’d rather I didn’t draw any attention to us.”

  He smiles. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I raise my hands, palms up. “I’m a reasonable man. I’m glad you’re not willing to shoot me so close to innocent people.”

  “Excellent.”

  The guy on my left flank reaches out to push me forward and I snatch his wrist with my left hand, drawing him forward as my elbow drives into his side. It combines to throw him off-balance, allowing me to shift my weight and pitch him into the guy on my right.

  Those two stumble as the third locks his arms around me from behind. The bald man is standing in front of me looking frustrated, so I stomp my foot into his chest so that he doesn’t feel left out.

  The guy behind me tries to lift me in a bear hug, but I drop all my weight into my hips and root myself to the ground. Meanwhile, the man on my left has recovered enough to join the fray and takes a swing at me. A powerful twist of my hips pulls the one behind me forward into the path of the punch.

  Now it’s those two who are disoriented, leaving me to spar with the guy on the right as the bald one struggles to his feet. We trade a few blows before the other two rush me. I know it’s a foregone conclusion – these guys are trained and I can’t take out all four – but by Christ, they’ll know they were in a fight.

  “Enough,” the bald one snaps. “End it.”

  I feel a hard lump sheathed in softness against the back of my head. Then blackness.