Blue Ridge Ricochet

by Paula Graves

  A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth, hinting at an unexpected set of dimples in his lean cheeks. “Trade secret.”

  “I don’t have a tension wrench down there, so you must have improvised.” She tried to remember what sort of tools were in the cellar. There was a box down there that had been here when she rented the cabin, apparently left behind by the last tenant. It had been a jumble of odds and ends, screws, nails, a hex key or two, some rubber bands, and a few brads and paper clips. She hazarded a guess. “Paper clips?”

  “Should have known you were the lock-picking type.”

  “I like to think I defy easy categorization.”

  He laughed softly. “I bet you do.”

  She didn’t like the way he’d turned this conversation into an exploration of her secrets, so she pushed back. “Where have you been for the past few weeks?”

  “Don’t you know that, too?” he challenged softly, taking a couple of steps toward her. “You seem to know so much already.”

  Though he was still too thin and too pale to look fully dangerous, her spine stiffened at his advance. He’d been strong enough to take her down by surprise, and she wasn’t completely sure she’d have been able to fight him off if he hadn’t rolled off and let her go.

  Unfortunately, that hint of danger was doing all sorts of mortifying, tingly things to her insides. And she’d been doing so well with her “stay clear of bad boys” resolution to this point, damn it.

  “Why don’t we start from the beginning?” she suggested, taking a step back to maintain the distance between them. “I read an article about your disappearance a couple of weeks ago. Apparently your boss at the FBI reported you missing.”

  “Really?” He seemed surprised to hear it. “Which boss?”

  “Some Japanese name, I think.”

  “Michelle.”

  She didn’t like the way he said her name, with a touch of affection. Was she just his boss or something more?

  She gave herself a mental kick. What the hell, Nicki? “Right. Michelle isn’t a Japanese name.”

  “Matsumara is.” There was a touch of humor in his voice. “What else did the article say?”

  “Probably a lot less than you could tell me,” she answered. “Since it happened to you.”

  He looked at her, his brow furrowed, and she thought he was about to refuse to answer her question. But after a moment, his expression cleared and he turned away from her and walked toward the fireplace. He’d started a fire, she saw, wondering why she hadn’t noticed it when she walked into the cabin earlier.

  Maybe because her mind was preoccupied with how she was going to explain her reckless actions once she let him out of the cellar?

  “It was a Friday,” he began. “I left the office, packed a bag and started south toward Kentucky.”

  “You’re from there, right?”

  He frowned. “The article was that thorough?”

  “The articles,” she corrected lightly. “There was speculation you might have been heading there for the weekend, maybe to visit family or something.”

  His expression shuttered. “No family left there anymore.”

  “So you weren’t headed to Kentucky?”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s still sort of home, I guess.”

  “But you didn’t make it there.”

  “No. I didn’t.” He picked up the fire poker and she tensed. But he merely prodded one of the logs, stirring up embers before returning the iron to its holder. “I realized I was being followed. And then, I was run off the road.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t remember much about the accident, really. I think I might have hit my head.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Men. Six or seven of them. They were rough and didn’t really care if they were hurting me. In fact, if my subsequent interactions with them are any indication, they probably enjoyed hurting me.” He turned to look at her. “It doesn’t matter. Yesterday morning, they left me alone and didn’t lock the door. Maybe they thought I was too weak to do anything. I don’t know.”

  “You got away?” She didn’t mean to sound skeptical, but even to her own ears, her doubt was obvious.

  “I got away.” A touch of defensiveness darkened his voice. “I just started heading west. I knew I was somewhere on a mountain. I figured if I headed west, I’d reach civilization sooner or later.”

  “So you were walking through mountains all day?”

  “Not all day. Sometimes I was hiding from the people looking for me.”

  Nicki tamped down a shudder. “You know they’re probably still looking for you.”

  He nodded. “That’s why I’m still here in this cabin instead of out there in the woods.”

  “The lesser of two evils?”

  “Duct tape versus steel-toed boots in the ribs? Yeah, definitely the lesser of two evils.”

  She shook her head, feeling sick. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. If it makes you feel any better, I couldn’t even concentrate at work for thinking about you in the cellar. I should have at least let you go to the bathroom before I locked you up.”

  He released a little huff of laughter. “And fed me, right?”

  “You must think I’m a terrible person.”

  He shook his head, still smiling. “Where would I ever get that idea?”

  This whole thing was just too much. Dealing with Del McClintock, who’d probably like to get in her pants, was bad enough. But dealing with this cipher of a man, whose pants were proving an unexpected temptation to her, had her feeling completely out of her element.

  She’d worn a lot of hats in her short life, from go-go dancer at a Memphis club to an EMT in Nashville. Now she was a fry cook in little River’s End, Virginia. What she wasn’t, what she clearly had no talent for, was being an undercover operative for Alexander Quinn and The Gates.

  She wondered if Agent X had left any word for her at the drop site. She hadn’t even thought about stopping to check, so intent had she been on getting home to let her captive out of the dank cellar.

  As a spy, she stank up the place.

  “You can go. Whenever you want. Just do me a favor and wait until you’re well clear of here to call your friends in the FBI, okay?” She waved toward the door. “You can take my Jeep. There’s a train depot in River’s End where you can even catch a train back to DC if you want. Leave the Jeep there. I can pick it up later with my spare key.”

  “How do you figure I’ll be able to pay for my train ride out of here?”

  Her heart sank. “I can probably come up with fifty in cash, but I don’t know if that’s enough for a ticket.”

  He nibbled at his lower lip, and she couldn’t seem to stop wondering what those teeth might feel like worrying the tender flesh of her earlobe.

  Damn it, Nicki!

  “You know, I think I might prefer to stick around.” Dallas’s tone was low and thoughtful. “I’m not exactly in fighting shape at the moment, so I’m not sure I’m ready to face an FBI interrogation in my current state.” His gaze flicked up to meet hers, a dangerous gleam in those dark eyes. “And I do enjoy solving puzzles.”

  She didn’t miss his meaning, but she feigned ignorance. “I don’t have any puzzles around here. I’m not very good at them, myself.”

  He smiled, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. “Don’t play stupid with me, Nicki North. I may not know who you are or what you’re up to, exactly, but I’m not blind. I know you’re smart and resourceful. And maybe, if I stick around here long enough, I just might figure out what sort of game you’re playing.”

  “I don’t play games.”

  “Of course you do. We all do.” He moved toward her, his pace steady but unhurried, giving her time to retreat.

  But she couldn’t make her l
egs move. It was all she could do to hold his suddenly feral gaze as he closed the distance between them.

  “I’m good at games.” His voice was a low growl, barely more than a whisper. “And I play to win.”

  She lifted her chin, the challenge in his voice sparking through her like a jolt of electricity, firing up her own hidden resolve. “So do I.”

  If it was a game he wanted, it was a game he would get. Because he was right. Everybody played games.

  But nobody played them quite as well as Nicolette Jamison.

  * * *

  HIS NAME WAS not Agent X, of course, but ever since Nicolette Jamison had referred to him by that moniker in one of her reports to Alexander Quinn, he’d found a certain humorous satisfaction in thinking of himself that way whenever he approached the drop site.

  The name he was currently using was John Bartholomew, and he wasn’t any sort of agent anymore. Hadn’t been for nearly a decade, his nascent career with the CIA over almost before it began, thanks to his terrible timing during a black bloc protest in Athens not long after Greek police shot a teenager. He’d walked out of the hostel where he’d been staying and right into the path of a chunk of concrete that had caught him square in the temple.

  At least, that’s what he’d been told when he’d awakened nearly three weeks later in an Athens hospital with no memory of the previous two months of his life.

  His notes on his surveillance operation were long gone by then. His hotel room had been thoroughly searched and sanitized within an hour of his injury, his station chief in Athens had told him with regret. His mission was compromised and the CIA didn’t care that it hadn’t been his fault. They had no further use for him.

  After his recovery, he’d returned to the life he’d been planning before the agency had recruited him, working as a tax preparer in his father’s accounting firm in Johnson City, Tennessee.

  He’d hated every minute of it.

  Thank God for Quinn. The old CIA hand had needed a man in southern Virginia, just across the border from Johnson City, for a mission his security agency had taken on.

  Quinn had picked him.

  The snow underfoot had turned slushy as the temperature rose above freezing shortly before noon. If the trees overhead weren’t blocking the sunlight that had broken through the clouds after a gray morning, the snow would probably be gone altogether within an hour. But the canopy of shade would keep the crusty slush on the ground for a while longer, forcing him to walk carefully so he’d leave only a minimal trail of footprints in the snow.

  He spotted the fallen log beside the drop site cave. The branch was sticking up, their signal.

  She’d left him a message for Quinn.

  He started toward the cave when the sound of voices carried through the cold air. Freezing in place, he scanned the woods for the source.

  There. Two men in woodland camo topped the rise, barely giving him time to hunker down behind a clump of knotted vines. As long as he stayed still, he shouldn’t be spotted.

  He hoped.

  The men were carrying .22 rimfire rifles propped on their shoulders. Dangling from their left hands were the limp carcasses of a couple of gray squirrels.

  Hunters. Gray squirrel season in Virginia would be over at the end of the month, so these guys were probably trying to get in a few final hunts before March.

  They passed the cave and the fallen log without so much as a glance, chatting quietly about where they should go after squirrels next. They walked perilously close to where he was hidden behind the twisted vines, but if they noticed him hunkering in hiding, neither of them gave any sign.

  He waited until their voices drifted into silence before he moved, walking as rapidly as he dared to the cave to check the small stone cavity where Nicki Jamison left her missives for Quinn.

  The message was there, as expected. He tucked the folded paper inside his shirt and melted back into the woods from where he’d come.

  Only when he reached the privacy of his truck did he unfold the paper and read the message inside.

  Eyebrows arching at the information, he started the truck and drove southeast.

  Once he’d safely reached Abingdon, he pulled out his phone and dialed the number Quinn had given him. Quinn answered on the second ring. “Miller’s Plumbing.”

  “Dallas Cole is alive. And guess who’s nursing him back to health in a cabin in River’s End, Virginia?”

  Chapter Six

  Nicki North was not her name. He didn’t know what her name really was, but Nicki North sounded too much like an alias for Dallas to buy. But she really did seem to be a fry cook at a local diner, because he could still smell a delicious hint of hash browns and bacon lingering in her hair when she leaned close to check his wounds.

  She touched his wrist just below the scratch he’d sustained while freeing himself from the duct-tape bindings. Her blue eyes rose to meet his. “This is new.”

  He nodded.

  “You did it freeing yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  She dropped her gaze, looking troubled. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you. I should have figured out something else.”

  “Taking men captive isn’t your normal hobby?”

  Her gaze flicked up. “No.”

  “That wasn’t a serious question,” he said, softening his tone.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I was a psychopath. Under the circumstances.” She applied antiseptic to his new wound, wincing when he sucked in a sharp breath. “Sorry. Really, I’m sorry.”

  “You’re afraid of something.” He caught her hand as she started to pull away, holding her in place.

  Her gaze met his and held. “I’m afraid for you. We both know you’re in trouble. And River’s End is full of people you do not want to run into.”

  “You’ve already delivered that message. Loud and clear. But what I can’t figure out is why you still live in River’s End if you’re so afraid of the people around here.”

  “I’m not the one in danger.” She said the words in an untroubled tone, but he didn’t quite buy it. Beneath her calm, unhurried movements, he sensed a dark undercurrent of tension.

  Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe all her fear was for him.

  But he didn’t think so.

  She finished bandaging his wrist and sat back. “That should keep you until I get back.”

  “You’ve got to go back to work?”

  “No. I have to go check on a friend who’s home sick.” Her gaze shifted away, a sure sign of deception.

  “A friend?”

  “A woman I know. Long story that I don’t have time to tell.” Her expression shuttering, she packed up the first-aid kit and stood, pushing her chair back from the sofa. “You should take advantage of the peace and quiet to catch up on your sleep.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed.

  She slanted a look at him as she set the first-aid kit on the mantel, but if she suspected he was insincere, she didn’t probe. “I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. I’ll bring back some groceries and fix us a proper dinner.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble.”

  That time she stopped in the middle of unlocking the door and turned to look at him. “You’re being mighty accommodating.”

  “Where am I going to go?”

  Her eyes narrowed a notch. “Where indeed?” She continued through the doorway and closed it behind her. He heard the rattle of her keys in the lock, shutting him safely inside.

  He waited until he heard the Jeep’s engine fade away before he began a slow circuit of the house, similar to the search he’d made before, after he’d freed himself from the cellar. But this time, instead of looking for incriminating evidence, he focused on trying to get a feel for the place in hopes of
gaining a deeper understanding of the woman who lived there.

  Like the simple bedroom, the rest of the cabin seemed sparsely furnished with anything that could be described as personal. Most of the furnishings were old and mismatched, but not in a particularly charming way. Instead, they seemed to be the products of a single day of shopping in a secondhand store, chosen more for utility than style.

  Not at all what he expected from the woman who’d taken him down in her kitchen, taped his hands together and thrown him in her cellar.

  He started a second turn around the cabin, this time looking in less obvious places. Drawers. Cubbyholes. Closets.

  If the measure of the woman wasn’t easily discerned from the surface of her life, then perhaps there were hidden places where all her deepest, darkest secrets lay.

  After a second pass through the cabin without finding any obvious hiding places, he stopped in the middle of her bedroom and looked around, trying to figure out what hiding places there might be that were less than obvious. An alcove or a hidden trapdoor, something that he might not notice at a cursory glance.

  The problem, he mused as he went from room to room, was that he was out of his element. Despite the artistic nature of his public relations career in the FBI, his world revolved around computers. Being stuck in this little mountain cabin without a computer or cell phone in sight was proving to be enough technological deprivation to drive him crazy.

  He’d always been good with technology, even as a boy in the backwoods of Kentucky where computers were a luxury. He’d made friends at school with David Price, whose father was a computer programmer at the college up at the university in Lexington. David had spent all his summers with his dad, picking up everything there was to know about how computers worked.

  He’d taught Dallas everything he knew, which hadn’t been a lot. David hadn’t been that interested in computers, preferring sports and, later on, girls.

  Dallas had liked sports and girls, too, but he’d found himself utterly fascinated by the language of code, how the tiniest changes—a symbol here, a number there—could entirely change how a system functioned.