by LENA DIAZ,
He slowly nodded, thinking about the men and women in positions above him, above Faegan. Kendall was the first name that came to mind. But, no, Kendall had left the bureau when Gannon had. They’d both gone to Homeland Security together. So who did that leave? He counted them up. “Not that many, less than ten.”
“And you know them?”
“Every single one.” He picked up the glass again and turned it around and around as he thought through the list. “None of them fit. I just can’t picture them being a part of hiring mercenaries and becoming cold-blooded murderers. Which means Faegan must have been at the top of the food chain as far as EXIT goes. He did what he did to protect himself, to keep anyone else from finding out.”
She studied him, her head cocked to the side. Then she slowly shook her head. “Nope. You don’t believe that. You still think he was taking orders from someone else.”
He was about to deny it, but then he said, “Yeah. I guess I do.”
“But it’s not anyone you know of in the FBI?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“How about other agencies?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, like the CIA or Homeland Security. I was talking to Jace earlier and he mentioned that there used to be a Council that worked with Cyprian Cardenas, to oversee his activities.”
“Well, that didn’t work out so well, did it?”
She smiled. “No, it didn’t. At the time, though, it consisted of people from several different alphabet agencies. Which means, it’s possible someone in those other areas still has some knowledge of EXIT and what it used to be. Maybe one of them was working across organizations with Faegan. I don’t see why not. It’s not like everything was on the up-and-up, going through official channels. If they met at some social function where several agencies were in attendance, they could strike up a conversation, realize they both had the same goals, and start up a partnership.”
He stared at her, her words triggering some kind of memory that he couldn’t quite bring into focus.
“If you follow that theory,” she continued, “Faegan would have worked with someone he trusted, and they each would have used their positions at their respective agencies to help cover their tracks. Going with that theory, is there anyone you know at another agency who hates you and would want to ruin your life? We’re not talking someone who wants you dead. If that were the case, you’d be dead already. No, whoever did this wanted to make you crazy, to ruin your reputation, to make it impossible for you to ever work at the FBI again.”
“Go on,” he said. “What you’re saying makes sense.”
“Okay, well, the person who wants to ruin you wouldn’t want you to go to prison either. Because they would never let someone with inside information on EXIT go to prison for fear that they’d talk, right?”
“Right.”
“So this enemy of yours, hypothetically speaking—if your worries are right—wanted you to live with the guilt over not being able to save your supposed wife. He or she wanted you to go down the path of self-destruction. Whoever it is, they wanted you to lose everything, to hit rock bottom. Had you ever done anything to Faegan that he might hold against you enough to want to destroy you?”
He slowly shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that myself, ever since I realized I was being set up. And it’s baffled me from the get-go. There’s nothing that I can think of that would have made Faegan want to destroy me.”
“Well, there you go. That’s why this isn’t sitting right with you. It may be that all Faegan needed as incentive was the money, and you were just convenient. It wasn’t personal at all. But if it was personal, then you need to think about anyone you might have slighted, even unintentionally, who might hold a grudge they could never let go. Things that start out small can eat at a person and sour them from the inside out. What seemed like nothing can become a mountain of rage after years of letting it fester.”
The last piece of the puzzle fit neatly into place. And he suddenly knew exactly who hated him that much, who blamed him for missed promotions, missed opportunities. The same person who’d once been his best friend, but who was always second best when they went up for a raise, a promotion, a coveted assignment. The man who blamed Kade for stealing his girlfriend. A man who’d refused to forgive Kade, even years later. They’d both worked in the FBI for the same bosses—Faegan, and his boss, Kendall—for years. Then his friend had left with Kendall for an opportunity in Homeland Security. As for Faegan, he could have kept in touch through the many social gatherings between FBI and Homeland Security agents, just as Bailey had predicted. It had been right in front of Kade this whole time and he’d never even realized it. The man who’d set him up was Robert Gannon. Had to be. A few quick calls and he could have Robert’s home address.
“You’ve thought of someone, haven’t you?” she asked, watching him.
He shook his head, carefully schooling his features to not give anything away. “I’m still thinking it through.” He drained the last of his bourbon, then held the glass up. “Looks like you’re ready for another beer. Can I convince you to get me another bourbon while I’m lazy out here?”
“We’re not finished with this conversation,” she warned. “I’ll be right back.” She headed into the condo, then disappeared into the kitchen.
Bailey smiled at the two women standing by the kitchen sink. One of them had red hair, like her, that hung almost to her waist. Tessa maybe? The wife of one of the Buchanan brothers that she’d met earlier. The other woman was a very short brunette that she couldn’t remember at all.
“Hi, Bailey,” the brunette called out, offering her a warm smile.
Damn. “Hi.” Bailey drained the beer bottle, then put it in the recycle bin in the pantry before setting Kade’s glass on the granite kitchen island. She grabbed one of the bottles of whiskey sitting in the middle and was about to pour some when the woman who’d spoken put her hand on Bailey’s arm, stopping her.
“If that’s for your guy, Kade,” she said, “this is the one he got earlier.” She picked up a different bottle and set it in front of Bailey.
“Um, thanks. And he’s not my guy.” Was he?
She laughed. “Yeah, I’ll be sure and remind you that you said that at your wedding. I’m Madison by the way, in case you forgot. My husband is the good-looking Buchanan.” She braced her elbows on the island, and didn’t even have to lean over to do so. “I’ve never met a female assassin before. What made you want to do that? Did you just wake up one day and say, hey, I’d like to kill some bad guys?”
The redhead groaned and grabbed Madison’s elbow. “Sorry, Bailey. I’d tell you that Madison has had a little too much to drink tonight. But, honestly, she just doesn’t have a tactful bone in her body. Come on, Trouble. Let’s leave Bailey alone. She’s obviously preoccupied.”
Madison grumbled something to Tessa but obviously wasn’t really upset at her since she smiled at Bailey over her shoulder.
“We’ll talk later,” Madison promised, before she was practically dragged out of the room.
Thoughts of the two women faded as she poured the bourbon into Kade’s glass. She had something more important to do before taking Kade his drink.
Surf the net.
Kade had thought of someone when they’d been brainstorming earlier. She was sure of it.
And so had she.
There were only two names she knew of in relation to people he’d worked with who were now at another agency—Robert Gannon, and Kendall. Unfortunately, she didn’t know Kendall’s first name. But she was still curious what she might find in a search. Maybe it would be enough to pressure Kade to tell her the whole truth.
The search on Kendall was a bust. But the search for Robert Gannon yielded one extremely interesting fact—he lived in Boulder, not far from this condo. That would make it pretty easy to check him out and see whether he had anything to do with Faegan’s machinations.
With a fresh bottle of beer in
one hand and Kade’s drink in the other, she headed out to the balcony. Her heart sank when she found it empty. After a quick search of the condo, she couldn’t deny the obvious.
Kade was gone.
Chapter Twenty-five
Friday, 10:02 p.m.
Kade ducked down behind the air-conditioner unit outside Gannon’s house as a car drove past and headed down the street. When the car turned at the stop sign, he straightened and continued around to the back. The house was a brick two-story—maybe three thousand square feet—but nothing overly outlandish or fancy for this neighborhood. Gannon was a smart guy. He wanted to fit in, not stand out. He was a master at staying below the radar, which was part of the reason that Kade had never even suspected his involvement in everything that had happened until the evidence was right in front of his face.
There was no fence around the backyard and Gannon didn’t have any plants up close to the house, either. Kade was completely exposed as he went to work on the security system that was hooked into a utility box bolted to the brick wall. All he could do was hope that none of the neighbors looked out their windows until he made it inside. But even if they did, he wasn’t all that worried. He didn’t need more than a few minutes to accomplish his goal. Even if someone called the police, it was unlikely they’d arrive in time to stop him.
The alarm took longer than he’d hoped to disable and bypass. Gannon had installed a state-of-the-art system that would foil most burglars.
But Kade wasn’t a burglar. And he had more incentive than most.
He eased through one of the back French doors into a mudroom and took his time, carefully “clearing” the kitchen, then the ornate dining room with its fancy place settings that Kade would never have expected of a bachelor like Gannon. The agent must have hired a decorator, because nothing here reminded him of the man he’d once known. Gannon was a minimalist, fond of straight, clean lines, and very little clutter. This house looked like something out of a magazine.
Kade hated everything about it.
The next room over, toward the center of the house, was what should have been a family room, meant for watching football games with friends in front of a sixty-inch monstrosity on the back wall. Instead, there wasn’t a TV in sight, just more elegant, stuffy-looking antiques. He shook his head. Gannon had changed, really changed.
A massive winding staircase led to the second floor, but it was the open doorway near the front of the house that had Kade freezing in his tracks and bringing up his pistol. From his vantage point, ten feet away, he could see a wall of bookshelves on the left-hand side of the doorway, but little else. A light was on, its soft-yellow glow flooding out into the two-story hallway. And he could hear a one-sided conversation, as if someone was talking on the phone. The side he could hear was a voice he recognized.
Gannon.
“No, sir. I haven’t worked with Special Agent Faegan in some time, not since I switched agencies. I don’t know why you think I might know something about some operation in Colorado Springs or another one in Asheville.”
A pause, then, “Of course, Special Agent Kendall. Yes, I heard that. It is a tragedy that our brothers at the FBI lost Special Agent Simmons . . . No, I never met him . . .
“Understood. Faegan was a loose cannon back when he was my boss. And so was Quinn . . . I’m not surprised at all to hear you say that Quinn could potentially be involved. He’s been spiraling out of control for months . . . What’s that? Well, of course sir. I’d be happy to contact the FBI and act as a liaison until this is all properly investigated. It would be an honor. Yes, sir . . .”
He mumbled something else into the phone that Kade couldn’t make out, then said, “Thank you, sir. Good night.”
Footsteps sounded from inside the room.
Kade aimed his Walther PPK at chest level, just as Gannon appeared in the doorway. The other man froze, his eyes widening as his gaze met Kade’s.
“Quinn, what the hell are you doing here?” His dark gaze dropped to the gun before looking up again. “Put that away.” He slowly raised his hands, his suit jacket tightening across his shoulders. “There’s no need for a gun. I’m unarmed.”
“Yeah, well. Forgive me if I don’t believe a single word coming out of your mouth.” He waved his hand in the air, gesturing toward the paintings on the walls, the coffered ceiling twenty feet above them. “Nice place, if you don’t mind living in a museum. Seems to me I remember you more as a beer and nuts kind of guy. Where’s the big-screen TV? The carpet? You’ve changed, Gannon.” He moved his finger from the frame of the gun to the trigger, and enjoyed the flash of fear that crossed Gannon’s face as he followed the movement. “And not in a good way. Lose the jacket. I want to see for myself whether you’re wearing a gun.”
“Why are you here?” Gannon asked, as he slowly pulled off his jacket, then tossed it aside to land on the floor near the bookshelves.
“I’m one of the people who’s going to make sure that everyone knows you colluded with Faegan to kill innocent people and line your pockets. Did you really think you two would get away with trying to set me up as your fall guy while you both garnered millions of dollars and killed the Enforcers and anyone else who could bring down your scheme?”
He took a step closer, then another, but was careful to stay out of range so Gannon couldn’t lunge at him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s sit down and figure this out together.”
Kade laughed harshly. “Still lying, even up to the end, huh Gannon?”
“I’m not lying. I don’t know anything about . . . what did you call them?”
“If I didn’t know you better, I might actually be convinced. You’re a good liar, I’ll give you that. But the problem is, conspiracies have a way of getting out, don’t they? How did it happen? Did you meet up with Faegan at one of those dinner parties they make us go to? And he told you about EXIT and that he’d been ordered to shut down the remnants of the Enforcer program? You must have realized right away that you both had a gold mine at your fingertips. Most Enforcers made hundreds of thousands of dollars per hit or protective detail. And you thought that money was yours for the taking. But you knew you’d need a fall guy just in case things went wrong. Clever, really, to choose two. Me, as the first fall guy. Faegan as the second. Too bad you didn’t plan a way out of this if both of your scapegoats didn’t work out. Turn around.”
“You’re talking crazy, Kade.”
“Am I? Tell me, are you still working on that background report I asked for? Sure is taking a long time.”
“I told you in my email that stuff like that takes time. I had to keep it under the radar so I wouldn’t tip off Faegan if he was doing something wrong. If I’m guilty of anything it’s that I didn’t follow up.”
“Oh, I’m sure you followed up—with Faegan, to let him know I suspected something was going on. Now turn around.”
Gannon slowly turned. He wasn’t wearing a holster, and Kade didn’t see the telltale bulge of a gun anywhere.
“Lose the pants.”
He swore and looked over his shoulder. “What the hell for?”
“Don’t look at me like that, asshole. Lose the pants so I can be sure you aren’t concealing a backup gun anywhere.”
Gannon mumbled beneath his breath and took off his shoes, then shucked off the pants, tossing them onto the jacket. He held his hands out, looking ridiculous in his dress shirt and tie, black socks and red-silk boxers peeking out from beneath the bottom of his shirt.
“There. Satisfied? I just got home from work a few minutes ago. I locked my gun in the safe and was about to go upstairs to change. I’m not armed.”
“Excellent. That makes us even.” Kade held up his gun, popped out the magazine, then ejected the bullet from the chamber. He set them aside on a skinny, decorative table by the stairs, vaguely surprised the thing didn’t collapse beneath the gun’s weight. He clenched his hands into fists. “Now you can’t say that I didn’t give you a fair chanc
e.”
The surprise on Gannon’s face quickly changed into a sneer. He took up a boxing stance, fists raised and stepped toward Kade.
“Leave it to you to let your ego get in the way. You should have kept the gun, Quinn.”
He took a swing at Kade’s jaw, but Kade had anticipated the move and ducked down, swinging his own fist in a vicious uppercut.
Gannon stumbled back, wiping at his bottom lip, his hand coming away smeared with blood.
“You bastard. I should have had you killed instead of setting you up as a fall guy. You’ve been nothing but problems from day one.”
He charged forward, managing to get a punch in this time, slamming Kade’s left shoulder hard enough to make him stagger against the wall. But Kade used the momentum to swing around, slamming his foot into Gannon’s knee before the other man could jump back.
Gannon swore and fell back against another decorative table, which collapsed beneath his weight. But he managed to remain upright, standing at an awkward angle as he tried to keep most of his weight off his injured knee.
They both faced off, slowly circling each other. Kade couldn’t help but laugh.
“Looks like we both match now.” He indicated the leg Gannon was favoring.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Too bad that gunman only managed to hit your thigh the night your wife was killed.”
Kade narrowed his eyes. “I know everything. I broke into the lab, saw the films, figured out that you used hypnosis and mind-control techniques to make me think I’d been married when I never had. All so you could, what, drive me crazy? Make me vulnerable, at rock bottom, so I’d buy anything you were selling? So I’d think Faegan was doing me a favor by giving me this one last mission, a chance to redeem myself?”
Gannon shrugged. “So you finally know. Good for you. It was an easy setup. Car accidents are easy to arrange. Of course, the bullet hole in the door was a problem, so I had to get creative afterward—make the car disappear. Bribe a police contact into filing a false report.”
