Dangerous Games (Aegis Group, #3)

by Sidney Bristol

  He pressed the tip of the blade against her, dragging it down to her wrist. She gasped and watched a thin red line of blood bubble up from the thin scratch. It burned, but more than anything it shocked her awake.

  This was really happening. She was really in danger. And not just because she’d been taken. Whatever this man wanted, she had no idea what it was—or how to give it to him.

  “Where. Are. The. Files?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know.” She hated how she sobbed, but what else could she do? She had no answers. Nothing to give him. Maybe Crystal did? But she was clueless. “I was too behind on work when we were bought out to do anything besides work and sleep. Please! Please? I didn’t do anything. I don’t have any files. You have to believe me.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Maybe I can find them? I could find the files. Log into the network.”

  He pulled his hand back, rage twisting his features. Something—a thought, a memory—stopped him. He lowered the blade and took a step back.

  “You have them. Somewhere.” He folded the knife and stalked away, into the kitchen.

  Andrea watched him go, tiny tremors shaking her body, growing in intensity until she was hunched over, her teeth chattering.

  This was real. It was happening. Where was Zain? Why wasn’t he there yet?

  Kevin paced through the house.

  The bitch didn’t know.

  She couldn’t.

  If she’d known, she’d have told him. Instead, she’d cried and bled and screamed some more.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Andrea didn’t know. She couldn’t look him in the face and say she didn’t know when he had a knife in her. Where were the files? Had she taken them without knowing? Was it an accident? When Speckles called... This wasn’t good. Everything hinged on ensuring those files, all the incriminating evidence, was locked up tight—or better yet—destroyed. Kevin didn’t mind doing a little time for a kidnapping or a break-in, but murder? Hell no. But if Andrea didn’t know and someone else had them, or if they were just out there somewhere, the plan was shot to hell.

  Fuck!

  Kevin shoved his hands through his hair.

  The laptop. He should try it again. Maybe she had some sort of remote back door access to the rest of her data or even the company network. It was a long shot, but it was all he had.

  He went out to the car and dragged out the bag. Speckles had copied everything off it already, so its only use was as a prop for the eventual end game move. Until then, maybe he could find something. An answer. Anything.

  Kevin passed by the basement staircase, pausing outside the locked door to listen for any sounds from below.

  Hey, at least she’d stopped her bawling and the damn cat’s scratching.

  Both were a bonus.

  He set the laptop up at the kitchen table, where he could see through to the front windows, the back door, and the basement landing. It’d taken him longer than it should to break into the damn thing, but eventually he’d done it. Now, a couple of keystrokes and he was in.

  The Wi-Fi was weak, what with the storm, but he was able to finally connect.

  A notification window popped up from YouTube with Crystal’s face on it.

  A new vlog? What?

  Kevin clicked and waited. And waited. And waited. It took the seven minute video almost twenty minutes to buffer, but it finally played.

  The frame was on Crystal, solo, with a spiral-bound notebook in her hands. Her hair was up and she wore glasses. The vain bitch usually put way more effort into how she looked. So what was the deal?

  He recognized the room from his one successful break in to the place. It was on the first floor, some sort of study-slash-geek room. She sat on a small, antique sofa with posters of Firefly, Predator and Star Wars behind her. There were three cats in the frame.

  Fucking cats. He hated the God damned things. Especially hers.

  “Hi, Nerds.” Crystal shifted and pushed her glasses up. “This isn’t my normal vlog. Today, around four o’ clock, someone broke into Andrea’s home and kidnapped her. Some people are aware of what happened at comic con. We by no means blame the convention or its staff for the actions of one person, or a group of people, but you guys need to know. You need to know just what is going on, because one of you out there—you might have seen something. You might know something. And I need your help in bringing my best friend home.” She glanced at the paper and sucked down a big breath.

  “Since D7 was released, Andrea and I have been harassed online, and now in person at comic con, which I did not attend. Andrea had drinks and games thrown at her, nude pictures handed out like fliers, her hotel room and home broken into and trashed. This is wrong. It’s an invasion of privacy. And what’s worse, now someone has kidnapped her. We—myself and the police—think whoever did this was at comic con. What we know about her kidnapper is that he is an Asian man, maybe late thirties, and he is short and stocky.” Crystal turned her notebook to face the camera, displaying a rough, crappy composite sketch of Kevin.

  “Fuck!” Kevin stood up, knocking the chair over. “Fuck.”

  “This is what we have, based on security footage. If you know anything—anything at all—please call the number in the liner notes. Also,” Crystal leaned in until her face filled the screen, “if you’re out there—whoever you are that took my friend—this isn’t how to get what you want. Kidnapping, breaking and entering, threatening people, doxxing us—this isn’t okay. Andrea, if you see this, we’re looking for you.”

  “You cock-sucking bitch.” Kevin flung the chair across the kitchen.

  His face was out there.

  This was too soon. He wasn’t ready.

  He grabbed his phone and scrolled back through the contacts until he found Patricia. He hit dial on her contact and held the phone up, his hands shaking with rage.

  “I just saw. I didn’t know that’s what she was doing.” Patricia’s voice was high, thin, breakable. He couldn’t wait to get his hands around the cunt’s neck. He’d toss her in Andrea’s grave. A two-for-one special. What the hell was he paying her for?

  “Get it down.”

  “I can’t do that,” Patricia whispered.

  “What good are you then?”

  “I did my job. I kept an eye on her, I got you in here. What else do you want me to do?”

  “You better—” Kevin closed his eyes and inhaled. “Stay close to her. In the same room kind of close. She hears anything, gets any sort of tip, let me know. Otherwise, you’ll disappear next. And no one will be looking for you.”

  He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the table.

  The plan was falling apart. Any second, Speckles was going to call.

  Kevin needed a new plan.

  16.

  Zain hit print and stared at the mug shot.

  Kevin Lee.

  He was as good as dead.

  “I’ve got him,” Zain said out loud.

  Max sat up straight, his head swinging toward Zain.

  “What? Who is he? Let me see.” Max got up, circled his desk and leaned over Zain’s shoulder. “We’re just now starting to get tips from Crystal’s vlog.”

  “Can we release the name?”

  “Do I want to know how you found him?”

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” Their facial recognition access was a favor. One they’d paid dearly for by almost losing one of their guys. But the FBI, CIA and NSA all owed Aegis a big, honking debt. So Zain got to play with toys that were so far above what he’d been able to do before. The capability alone was terrifying. And he got access to it.

  “Let’s see if he’s got a file before we discuss releasing his name.” Max returned to his desk, tapping out the name.

  “He does.” Zain pressed his lips together. He’d skimmed the police records on Kevin as soon as the Aegis facial recognition program had returned Kevin’s positive identification. Just to see if it was a real match.<
br />
  “Kevin Lee...I need more to go on.”

  Zain rattled off the date of birth and waited. Max whistled.

  Yeah.

  “We do not want her releasing this guy’s name,” Max said.

  “No, especially after Crystal went off script.” Zain grimaced. She might as well have thrown the gauntlet down. He turned in the chair. In some way, having a name and an identity to hate was worse than not knowing.

  Kevin Lee was going to die, and Zain wouldn’t feel any remorse about it.

  “This guy’s file...it reads like a bad soap opera.” Max shook his head. “As a kid he was in and out of foster care, had some really shitty parents, spent a lot of time in juvie, signed up for the army but got kicked out of boot camp. He’s been a floater ever since. His arrest record—shit. How is this guy not in federal jail already? Mugging. Robbery. Drunk and disorderly. Intent to sell. It’s just the same stuff over and over and over again. I mean, he’s done some time, but it’s mostly been small stuff. Oh, look, here he did a six week stay in a psych ward. He was put there by the state for observation. Holy fuck. We can’t release this guy’s name.”

  That was what Zain was afraid of.

  The whole thing—from the doxxing to the break in’s and now the kidnapping—it was done with intent. By someone with the ability and money to organize it. Everything he’d found still pointed at one person—Cliff. But that answer felt wrong. There was motive, an ability, and yet—it just wasn’t right.

  “Someone hired Lee. Who? And why?” Zain said out loud.

  “Who is on your suspect list?” Max asked.

  Zain didn’t want to answer that question. As soon as the good detective got a whiff of Dark Matter’s CEO, Max would sink his teeth into the man and hang on. Good police work would point straight to Cliff. But it was too neat. Too packaged. It was as if someone were setting Cliff up to take the fall.

  Who would benefit from that kind of a move?

  He needed to know more about the structure of Dark Matter.

  Off the top of his head, Miranda should go straight to the top of the list, but nothing about her had set off warning bells. She was checking in, obviously concerned. Could she be that good of an actress? Then what about the Vice President of Dark Matter? The guy Cliff had started the company with?

  “I need to talk to Crystal.” Zain straightened and reached for his phone.

  “She texted earlier and said she was on her way.”

  “I’ll go let her in.” Zain pushed to his feet and pocketed his phone.

  The halls were dimmed, most of the people gone at this late hour, save for the four-man team manning the phones following the vlog, Max and himself. They had a long night ahead of them.

  He let himself out, waved at the officer manning the front desk and stared at the parking lot.

  The storm had mostly died off. Rain splattered the pavement in fits now, but it was mostly over.

  Was Andrea okay?

  He’d failed her.

  He’d told her he’d protect her. Keep her safe. That no one would ever kidnap her. And less than twenty-four hours after he’d made that promise to her, it was broken. She was gone, and the only lead he had was a name that didn’t add up.

  Who was Kevin Lee? Why did he care about Andrea? What was his role in all of this?

  Gavin would have answers to many of those questions within the hour. Zain was going to owe him big time. They had a couple guys in the intel department, but none of them had the kid’s natural ability. It was something else. Over time, Gavin would be better than him. And then what? What did he do? Where did he go?

  A car pulled into the lot out front. He squinted, making out two figures. Crystal and—who?

  Two women got out of the car. He waited, staring mostly at the second, trying to figure her out.

  Was this Patricia? The woman Andrea was so resistant to?

  Crystal stepped through the glass doors first.

  “Zain, anything?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “This is Patricia. She offered to drive me over.” Crystal gestured to her girlfriend.

  “Hi.” He shook the other woman’s hand, taking the opportunity to give her a once over.

  Pretty, curvy, a bit normal looking, though, for what he knew about Crystal. Andrea was right though—there was something just...off...about her. He couldn’t place his finger on it.

  “Can I talk to you alone for a moment?” he asked Crystal.

  “Patricia knows everything. It’s cool.”

  “Still, I’d prefer to just speak with you. If you don’t mind?” He didn’t give a fuck whose feelings he hurt when it came to Andrea’s life.

  “It’s okay. Seriously. I’ll just go to the corner store and get us a drink. We never stopped to grab anything.” Patricia flashed a too-bright smile and pulled out the car keys.

  “Thanks for being so understanding.” Crystal reached for her girlfriend, capturing her in an awkward hug.

  Patricia patted Crystal’s shoulder while smiling at Zain.

  Yeah, it was probably a dick thought, but he could see Patricia swooping in to play the sympathetic shoulder to Crystal. Chances were, the woman was harmless, and this was nothing more than an opportunity to her. Patricia extracted herself and left, never once looking back at them.

  “We aren’t going back?” Crystal asked after a moment.

  “In a minute.” He turned to face her. “Tell me more about Miranda.”

  “My boss Miranda? Why?”

  “Was the buy-out amicable?”

  “Yeah. I mean, there was some tense stuff in the beginning between her and the VP, but nothing major. It just took them a while to work out who was in charge of what.”

  “Why?”

  “Okay, so, Doug Mahoney is...I get the feeling he and Cliff used to be way closer than they are now. We call Doug Mr. Baloney, if that tells you anything about him. He and Miranda butted heads because he thought he should have operational control of Grunge, including being able to tell Miranda what to do.”

  “Mmmkay.”

  “And...I’m not clear. I don’t know anything for certain. What I got was that the deal Miranda worked out with Cliff was that she only had to answer to him. And then Baloney steps in and tried to change it. Cliff almost changed the deal because—it was done. He was the boss and Miranda was screwed. But...then something happened. No idea what. And everything smoothed out. Overnight. Like—insta smooth sailing. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Tell me more about Doug. When was he demoted and promoted?”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  Zain stared at Crystal. He didn’t doubt her allegiance to her friend, or that she was as invested in getting Andrea back as he was. The problem was—how much could he trust her? Unlike him, she was looking at a situation where someone she knew and likely trusted was ready to stab her in the back. Quite literally, if that person was yanking someone like Kevin Lee around.

  “Zain, you’re scaring me,” Crystal said.

  “We might have a lead, but it’s wrong.”

  “What? And that means—?”

  “I think someone, maybe Miranda or Doug, is setting Cliff up to take the fall for kidnapping Andrea and everything else that has happened, and I don’t believe it’s him.”

  “Wait—hold on—you just listed the three least suspicious people. I mean, I don’t like Doug, but that’s because he is so fiercely loyal to Cliff. Like, if they weren’t so straight I’d say they were gay for each other.”

  “Then who else would benefit from pointing fingers at Cliff? If we don’t come up with another name, more leads, Max is going to arrest Cliff once he figures it all out.”

  “You haven’t told him?”

  “No, because I don’t think its Cliff. Neither did Andrea.”

  “You—wait—you and Andrea already had a list? Was I on it?”

  “No—”

  “Then why not tell me?”

  “Because we don’t
know who we can trust. You’re about the only person I can think of who wouldn’t be on that list.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Crystal, focus.”

  “You didn’t just learn that your—”

  “Stop turning this into something about you. It’s not. Do you want to find Andrea, or not?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then listen. Someone in the Dark Matter umbrella wants to pin this whole circus on Cliff. Now, you tell me, who stands to benefit from that?”

  Crystal’s mouth worked soundlessly. Her brows drew down, lifted, she squinted and still—no answer.

  “No one.” She shook her head.

  “Someone has to.”

  “No, seriously, no one wins. If Cliff is gone then...it’s a lose-lose situation for us.”

  The double doors burst open.

  Max grinned.

  “I know who hired Kevin Lee,” he said.

  Zain’s stomach sank.

  “Who?” Crystal asked.

  “Cliff Barnes.”

  Fuck.

  The clock was now officially counting down until they arrested the wrong man. What would happen to Andrea? What was her role in all of this? And how much danger was she in once Cliff was arrested?

  Andrea hugged her knees to her chest. Her butt was numb from sitting on the wooden stairs. The complete darkness made it hard to tell the passage of time. How long she’d been down here. Alone.

  Well, almost alone.

  She’d found Crystal’s cat.

  October was content to lay next to Andrea and purr.

  Her arms had stopped burning. After the overwhelming fear had died down, she realized the cuts were shallow and mostly scabbed over already. It didn’t change the fact that the psycho had cut her. Blood still flaked off her skin and stained her clothing.

  She sucked in a deep breath.

  Where was Zain?

  He’d said to wait for him, to do nothing, but shouldn’t he have found her already?

  What was taking so long?

  She stood, gripping the railing with both hands while her legs remembered what they were good for. October meowed, the sound punctuated with a question mark, as though she were asking, When are we going home?