She’d gotten Celeste out of his reach—God willing—but that hadn’t stopped him from killing Grace, the only woman Sydney had been friendly with since Jenny Marie’s death. Which meant anyone else she was even the slightest bit close to was in terrible danger.
“Step up,” said one of the SWAT team members, a fortysomething guy with salt-shot dark hair and kind-seeming gray eyes.
Sydney blanked. “What?”
He indicated the SWAT van. “Climb in. You’ll be safe in here while we get the scene secure.”
“Oh. Right.” She climbed aboard and found herself in a utilitarian rear compartment with sideways-facing bench seats and racks and lockers holding a variety of equipment. But as she sat on the long, uncomfortable metal bench, she realized he’d been right, whether he’d meant it that way or not. She needed to step up and start taking responsibility for her actions.
Jenny Marie had died because Sydney had used her to get information to Celeste. Danielle and Jay had died because she hadn’t been smart enough when she escaped, hadn’t been quick enough at getting them help. Grace had died because she hadn’t given the team enough to go on, enough to justify a raid and an arrest. Four people were dead, indirectly because of her.
Sydney dropped her face into her hands. It was too much to bear.
“Hey.”
Recognizing Sharpe’s voice, she looked up quickly. Despite everything else, despite the situation and the danger, and the horror she’d just endured, a little jolt of electricity sped her heartbeat at the sight of him standing in the open van doors, staring at her.
His dark hair was mussed, his jaw heavily shadowed with stubble, and he still had his discarded tie wadded up in the pocket of his tired-looking button-down shirt. Beneath the gray suit jacket she could see the straps of his shoulder holster, which he’d put back on before they left his house.
He looked sexy as hell, and lethally cold. She’d never realized before how much of a turn-on the combination could be until she’d met him. Until she’d kissed him and realized that the agent’s cool exterior camouflaged a warm, caring man. One she liked and trusted.
One she wanted. And that was a big problem, because if Tiberius had known about the safe house, and about Grace, then he knew about Sharpe, as well.
Which meant the agent was as much—if not more—of a target than she was.
I’ll kill them, Tiberius was saying. I’ll kill the people around you, and I’ll keep killing them until you give me the password.
“Hey,” she said, smiling faintly. “I’m glad you—”
“I just wanted to get my phone,” he cut in. “Then I’ve got to get back to work.”
I wasn’t going to get mushy, she wanted to say, but there were other people around, so she didn’t. Instead, picking her words carefully, she said, “Did something else happen I should know about?”
She didn’t think his banked anger was all about Grace and the attack on the safe house. Not that he didn’t have a right to be angry about those things, but this anger seemed more specific. More directed at her, like she’d done something truly terrible.
He looked at her and she nearly shivered at the contempt in his expression. “Don’t bother. The game’s up.”
Her blood chilled in her veins. “What game? What’s going on?” She reached out to touch him but he moved away. “What are you talking about?”
He looked at her long and hard, and she couldn’t read a thing from his expression. Finally, he said, “Grace managed to get a message off to Jimmy before they grabbed her. It turns out I was right. There was someone on the inside working for Tiberius. It just wasn’t who I suspected it would be.”
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from the inner pocket of his suit coat and passed it to her.
Heart thundering in her ears, Sydney unfolded the page and scanned the contents. It was an email message, sent from a Hotmail account she didn’t recognize. She recognized the destination, though. It was one of the accounts held by Tiberius Corp. One of the ones she’d used during their early negotiations about her coming to work on the island.
The message was simple and damning. It gave the location of the safe house and the positions of the surveillance teams, ending with I trust you’ll live up to your end of the bargain. It was signed with the same initials that were in the Hotmail address: SEW.
Sydney Ellen Westlake.
Her fingers went numb and the paper fluttered to the floor of the SWAT van. “I didn’t send that message. That isn’t my email account.”
“What was the deal?” he said, as though he hadn’t heard her. Or maybe he’d heard her and had already judged her and found her guilty. The utter disgust in his expression certainly suggested as much.
His mistrust cut Sydney straight to the quick. So much for them being on the same page regarding the attraction between them. If he was this ready to believe the worst of her, then he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was.
Anger flared. Hurt. Confusion. “Where is this coming from?” she said softly. “Why won’t you listen? I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I’m cooperating.”
“Yes, but with whom?” He retrieved the paper, reread the contents. His voice was coldly conversational when he said, “What did he promise you? Freedom? Safety? Access to your records so you could complete the cure for your sister? More money than you could spend in this lifetime?”
“He already promised me all that,” Sydney snapped, anger coming to the forefront. “And I still took my life into my own hands and escaped from the island because I refused to be involved in building a bioweapon.”
“All evidence to the contrary.” He folded the paper and returned it to his pocket.
“It’s a fake.” Her volume increased, earning curious looks from outside the van. “I’m telling you, I didn’t write the email. It’s not my account!”
“Grace checked that. The message traced back to the IP address on her laptop at the safe house.” He paused. “What did you do, wait until she was asleep and sneak access? How’d you get around the firewalls? Something your sister taught you?”
“I didn’t,” she said miserably, anger losing steam as the heartache built. “I didn’t sneak Grace’s computer to email Tiberius and I sure as hell didn’t tell him where the safe house was located. I didn’t.” Her shoulders sagged. “I swear. You have to believe me.”
But there was no belief in his cold blue eyes, no compassion. And there was no hesitation when he turned and walked away.
JOHN STOOD ON THE SIDELINES while the evidence techs did their thing in the kitchen where Grace had died. He knew his strengths, and crime scene reconstruction wasn’t one of them. Besides, he didn’t need to reconstruct a damn thing. He’d been there. He’d witnessed it.
He couldn’t get the sight of Grace’s face out of his head, even after the techs had bagged and tagged the body and transported it away from the scene. John had lost team members before—life-threatening danger was, unfortunately, part of the job description in the major crimes unit—but he’d never before been up close and personal with premeditated murder during the actual act.
She’d been executed not ten feet away from him, which made it impossible for him not to think about what he should’ve done differently, and there, the answer was simple.
He should never have left the scene with Sydney. He shouldn’t have taken her home, shouldn’t have spent time with her alone when he could’ve been working instead.
While he and Sydney had been cuddling on the couch, Tiberius’s hired guns had been taking out the surveillance teams—drugging them rather than killing them, thankfully—and subduing Grace. While he and Sydney had been driving back to the safe house, Tiberius’s men had bound Grace and pumped her full of God only knew what for questioning.
She would’ve held out as long as she could, and when she broke under the combination of chemicals and interrogation—maybe worse, he didn’t know yet—she would’ve given them as little as possible.
He hoped
like hell she’d been too far gone to realize she’d given the countersigns that would lead him into the trap. He hated thinking that she’d died knowing she’d failed her team leader.
It’s okay, Grace, he said inside his own skull, in case her spirit lingered nearby, or maybe because he needed to say it for himself.
Only it wasn’t okay. It was far from okay.
How had he not known Sydney was still in contact with Tiberius? He should’ve sensed that was where her head was at, should’ve known she’d try something like this.
History repeated. Back at the university where she’d worked before, she’d tried to pressure the administration to reinstate her funding by accusing her ex-lover of stealing some of her work. Combine that with her decision to work with Tiberius despite knowing at least something of what he was, and there was a pattern of unaccountability. Why had he thought she’d changed?
Because you wanted her, his baser self said. And damn it, that part of him was right. He’d overlooked the history because after watching her with her sister, he’d convinced himself she’d done what she’d done out of love, and because she’d felt like she was out of other options. That didn’t make it right, but it was understandable to a point.
But this…this was inexcusable. Unforgivable.
“Hey.” Jimmy Oliverra came up beside John, gave him a nod and took position beside him, leaning back against the wall in a section of kitchen that’d already been processed for evidence. “They saying anything yet?”
Jimmy was the major crime unit’s secondary—and now, John supposed, their primary—computer whiz. He’d spent the most time of any of them working shoulder-to-shoulder with Grace, and the grief showed in his eyes and the deep lines beside his mouth. He was a professional, though. He’d soldier on despite—or perhaps because of—the emotions.
John knew he needed to do the same, and it rattled him to know he needed the reminder.
You’re the Iceman, he told himself. Pull it together.
“They haven’t found anything we didn’t already know or guess,” he said, answering Jimmy’s question about the evidence techs. “And we’re not going to change that by sitting here and staring at them.” He turned for the door. “Let’s go.”
Jimmy hesitated. “Can I have a minute? I’d like to…you know, say goodbye.”
John didn’t bother pointing out that they’d already transported the body. He nodded. “Make it quick.”
AN HOUR LATER, THE MAJOR crimes unit was assembled in a conference room deep within Quantico. Sydney was in a “guest” room down the hall, with a locked door that assured she was going nowhere until John was good and ready for her to leave.
He’d had it with working around her. This time, she was going to give them everything, or he’d nail her with obstruction, conspiracy and whatever else he could think of.
“She’s got immunity,” Jimmy reminded him when he muttered something to that effect.
John glared. “Not anymore she doesn’t. That email voids the immunity agreement. Period.”
There was silence from the four teammates assembled around the table. Jimmy sat next to John. On the other side sat sharpshooter Michael Pelotti and Drew Dietz, their evidence specialist. There was an empty chair between Drew and Michael, where Grace would’ve sat.
John felt her loss keenly. She’d been the one to sometimes soften his rough edges, the one who’d challenged him to tread the middle ground.
Then again, the middle ground had gotten them where they were now. Maybe it was time for a take-no-prisoners type of approach.
“She might be telling the truth,” Michael said, his tone thoughtful, like the man himself. Dark and lean, the sharpshooter spoke the way he fired—smoothly and deliberately. “Tiberius is clever. If he figured out he could use Sydney to put you off your game, he’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I’m not off my game,” John growled. “I’m fine.”
But Michael had known him a long time, longer than the others. “I don’t think she’s working for him, to be honest. I just don’t see it. Think about it for a second—Tiberius could have looked into your background, found out about the other incident and figured a fake email implicating Sydney would be a good way to push your buttons. Even if it didn’t, he could be assured you’d throw out her intel the moment you suspected she was still working for him. That’d push back any plan for raiding the island. Maybe that was his goal.”
“You’re giving him too much credit,” John said. But he couldn’t totally dismiss the possibility. First, because he trusted Michael as much as he trusted anyone, and the sharpshooter was leaning toward Sydney’s side, and second because, damn it, despite his knee-jerk fury when he’d first seen the email, the more time passed the less likely he found the whole scenario.
Sydney had said it herself. She’d risked her life to lock down her work and escape from Rocky Cliff Island. With her sister safe and an immunity deal in place, what leverage could possibly compel her to accept another offer from Tiberius? She knew what happened to his loose ends. There was no way she would’ve believed he’d let her walk away once it was all over.
Which suggested she was innocent—of the email, at least.
“So what’s the plan?” Jimmy asked. There were deep shadows beneath the computer tech’s eyes, and his shoulders sagged under the weight of his grief. The youngest and newest member of the group, he hadn’t experienced the loss of a teammate before, and Grace’s death had hit him hard.
“Whether or not the email is a fake,” John said, trying to reorient his brain and make a new set of decisions on the fly, “and I’m not willing to say one way or the other right now, it was good enough to fool Grace. It should be enough to get permission for a raid, especially coupled with the other intel we’ve managed to accumulate.”
That got everyone’s attention. Michael said carefully, “What other intel?” His real question was obvious: Why didn’t we know about it?
John spread his hands. “Sorry for the secrecy, but this was really need-to-know stuff from one of the other teams working Tiberius.” And he wasn’t the only one who suspected there was a leak, not in his team, but somewhere higher up the chain of command. The team leaders were keeping a very tight hold on their information as the case developed.
“And?” Jimmy prompted.
John said, “There’s been some serious chatter between the island and reps of four other major players.” He named three of the country’s ranking mob bosses and a wealthy importer who specialized in drugs from south of the border. All four had recently been indicted and were awaiting trial, three for murder, one for rape.
All four of the cases hinged on DNA evidence.
Michael whistled. “He’s lining up his buyers. Does that mean he’s cracked the computers?”
“Unknown.” John scrubbed his hands across his face and heard stubble rasp.
Exhaustion beat at him. He’d been up for… Hell, he’d lost track of how long it’d been since he last slept. He needed to rest; they all did. But there was no way he was letting Tiberius get away with what he appeared to be planning.
“I’ve looked at the programs,” Jimmy said, making a visible effort to focus on the conversation. “They’re good. Better than good, even. But they’re not uncrackable.”
“Could you break them?” Michael asked.
“Under a deadline? Fifty-fifty,” Jimmy said. “But given enough time and firepower, yeah. I think I could.”
“So if he’s contacting buyers, odds are that he thinks his people are close to breaking the code,” John said.
“Or he was counting on getting his hands on Sydney during tonight’s attack,” Michael countered.
In the ensuing pause, Drew spoke up. “Not to be a total buzzkill, but how do you know he doesn’t already have Sydney’s viral vector? What if he was contacting the buyers to set up payment and drop points?”
John shook his head automatically. “He doesn’t have the bug yet. If he did, he would’ve left Ro
cky Cliff. There’s no way he’s staying there long-term. He’s too vulnerable there. We know too much about the defenses, and he knows we…” He trailed off, realizing what he’d just said. “Oh, hell.”
The logic played, which meant Tiberius didn’t have the bug…and Sydney hadn’t sent the email.
If she were working with Tiberius again, and had asked him to break her out of the safe house, then she would’ve already given him the password. He wouldn’t have committed his forces without that assurance.
Ergo, Sydney hadn’t sent the email. Somebody else within the organization had done so.
And he’d refused to listen to her claims of innocence. Like the cold SOB they called him, he’d automatically assumed the worst of her.
“Is it possible to send something from one computer and make it look like it came from another?” he asked Jimmy.
The tech didn’t even hesitate, as though he’d been thinking along the same lines. “Yes, if you use one of those remote uplink programs, the ones that let you dial in to your home computer and use your own on-screen desktop and stuff from a remote location. It’s conceivable that someone could hack in and send an email that looked like it came from Grace’s laptop, under a Hotmail account they’d set up using Sydney’s initials, without ever touching the machine.”
“Which could mean this doesn’t involve anyone on the inside,” Michael observed.
“Not necessarily.” John tried to talk himself out of it, but couldn’t see any other way. “There has to be someone working for Tiberius, not on the team or surveillance, necessarily, but somewhere in the network. There’s no other way he could’ve known not only the address of the safe house, but also the surveillance posts. Also, they knew they needed to get a second counterpassword from Grace. There’s no way they would’ve known that without a heads-up. I just can’t see Grace volunteering the info, regardless of what hell they put her through. She was too good an agent for that.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before Drew said, “So what’s the plan?”
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