He ran a hand through his hair. “Trust me, I’m thinking about it.” Damn, he was tired. The unrefined, shop-floor fluorescent lighting in the kitchen didn’t help things. It certainly didn’t help the pressure building inside his skull, directly behind the orbital bone.
“Ethan, what the hell could she have been up to in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, she likes pottery here and there. But she doesn’t like it that much. She’s not going to wake up and wander out there in the middle of the night and start working on some fucking soup bowl. So what was it?”
“I don’t know,” he said again.
“It’s just weird.”
“I agree. It’s weird. But . . .”
She glared at him. He wasn’t used to that look. “But what?”
“Maybe you should try getting some rest,” Ethan said.
Her eyes narrowed. “It might not prove anything except that she’s a fucking liar.”
“It might be a long day tomorrow,” Ethan said. He was at a loss on what to say to Kalani about Lea. Sorry your sister is a big fat liar? They all knew it, even if most of them didn’t want to admit it. Still, he was pretty sure that wouldn’t go over so well.
He really had no idea what the next day would bring. But he was almost certain it would be longer. Certainly longer than this day, and already it had been almost longer than he could bear. Than either of them could bear.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“I’m fine.”
“Are you tired?”
“No,” Kalani snapped. “What are you talking about in there? What’s Jackson saying? What’s your big plan?”
“You haven’t been listening in?”
“No.”
“We haven’t really gotten anywhere yet. But I know he wants to check out the cave. Matthias wants to do it tonight, but Jackson will make him wait. He’ll make all of us wait until he knows exactly what’s going on.”
“And so what’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I think a lot of that depends on your sister.”
Kalani sat up sharply, her hands falling away from the mug of tea she had started toying with again. “In what way?”
“Do you trust her?”
Fuck, she looked like she was about to cry. Her bottom lip trembled just so slightly. Or had he imagined it?
He felt himself almost trembling, too. It had been long and tiring night.
“You should get some sleep,” he said, realizing that the voices in the living room had gone quiet. How long had it been quiet? Through the drama and mystery of his conversation with Kalani, and the brief allusion to his older brother, he had a difficult time remembering if he’d even heard footsteps, or the front door open and shut.
He stood and walked back into the living room. It was empty except for Sam, who was lying on the sofa, reading a hardcover book. Ethan asked him for an update.
“What do you mean?” Sam said.
“Where’d they go?”
“Out to the barn.”
“Why?”
“For privacy. They’re waiting for you.”
He walked to the door, eager to finally get an update, some answers. He was sick of sitting around waiting for whenever the bomb would drop—perhaps literally. He’d take just a vague indication of their plans for Tucker, and for Lea. What was the next day going to bring? He was almost out the door when he stopped and turned back to Sam, who was still, oddly, lying on the sofa. It was like he was on a vacation or something.
“Aren’t you coming?” Ethan asked him.
“To the barn? No. I’ve got orders to stay here.”
“What for?”
“Just to keep an eye on things.”
Ethan didn’t press him any further. He knew that by “things” Sam meant Kalani and Lea. On Jackson’s orders, no doubt. Not just a watch for them, to keep them safe. But of them—like they were the suspects. He didn’t like how that concept felt, even though at least Lea definitely was one. But Kalani . . . He hated that she’d continuously been lumped into the problem. He hated the whole thing.
Fuck.
He could always just give up his job here, and the writing job back in Washington. And maybe, if he was around full-time to protect her, just maybe Kalani wouldn’t need that type of “witness protection.” It seemed like hardly any kind of protection anyway. It seemed more like the authorities’ way of keeping tabs on them. Was that who was behind all the equipment and wires? Either way, he wasn’t happy about it.
“So what’s the story on Kalani?” Jackson asked when Ethan walked alone into the barn. The men were sitting around a pottery table, all of Lea’s wonky clay monstrosities pushed to one side. They’d made room for a few laptops that sat open, their fans humming quietly in the warm night air.
“Kalani doesn’t really have a story,” Ethan said. “You know that. It’s all Lea.”
“The black sheep,” Matthias said.
“I guess so.”
“Did Kalani talk to her tonight?” he asked.
“Kalani doesn’t think she was too medicated, if at all.”
“Ethan,” Matthias said, “Sam and I saw the whole thing tonight. She was practically tripping over herself. Slurring her words, even. I was trying to be polite about it in front of Kalani, but she was definitely fucked up.”
“Kalani just said she’s awake and acting clear as day. She thinks Lea just wanted an excuse to get away from you two.”
There was a quiet laugh about that from Logan, the new guy, who clammed up soon after when he noticed that no one else had joined in. Tired people act differently in all different types of situations. Fatigue, stress, it all comes out in a variety of ways.
“It’s come to my understanding,” Jackson said, looking away from his laptop screen, “that Lea is a professional liar.”
Matthias nodded, his face grim.
“Did Sam say that?” Ethan said.
“A lot of things say that,” Jackson said. “Would you say that? Would you agree?”
“I would agree she’s a liar,” Ethan hedged. “But that’s got nothing to do with Kalani.”
“We all know how you feel about Kalani,” Matthias said.
“Anyway,” Jackson continued, after a quick glare to Matthias, “we’ve heard some things back from Washington.”
“You mean from Tansy?” Ethan said. His nerves practically jumped at the words. What had the master hacker managed to dig up?
Now it was his turn to be glared at by Jackson. “Tansy and the others from Washington.”
Right. It was time for him to stop letting his nerves get the best of him and just shut up and let Jackson get on with his briefing. He kept forgetting important little things, such as him being the new guy. Relatively new. Kalani, in a variety of ways, had helped him forget that. Had helped him escape and think up a whole different parallel life than the one he was currently stumbling through.
“We actually already went on a bit of a wild goose chase, looking around for Tucker,” Jackson said. By the look on his face, and by his very presence there, Ethan knew the search came up fruitless. “In fact, we checked out a tuna-canning facility in coastal Virginia last night.”
“What the hell would Tucker be doing there?” Matthias said.
Jackson frowned at him like he didn’t want to elaborate.
“Sounds like it’s a good thing you didn’t find him,” Ethan said.
“I’ll lay it out for you guys really simply,” Jackson said. “For the time being, we can’t trust the ‘authorities’.” He said the word making little air quotes with his fingers. Ethan had an idea who he was talking about, so he didn’t ask. There had always been a disturbing overlap between private security paramilitary groups like Blackwoods and government agencies. Until the trial, and until Blackwoods and its cronies could go down for good, it was a damn good idea to keep things compartmentalized.
“We can’t be too careful,” Jackson said in the following s
ilence from the team. “That’s why I think we should take care of the Tucker situation on our own. And to move forward with this business with the cave alone.”
“What business with the cave?” Ethan said.
“Tucker,” Jackson said. “I think he might be being held nearby, or at least there’ll be a clue to his whereabouts. We can at least find out what’s going on with the surveillance equipment someone so thoughtfully left behind for us. And we’ll likely find a whole bunch of other problems in there, too. That’s why we’re waiting on the rest of the troops tomorrow. A morning raid.”
Ethan liked the sound of that. He’d waited so long for some action. Some real physical steps closer to resolving everything, rather than just sitting around waiting for the bad guys to find them again. An excuse to fire his gun in anger and not training at some shooting range in the next town over. That was his worst fear when Jackson had sent him there, that he’d waste all that motivation on training and not on actually taking out some bad guys.
“We’ll send out a scouting raid before that,” Jackson said. “With some of our numbers we have now. That’s why it’s important we all get some sleep, even just an hour or two. I want to get out there and scope out that cave no later than oh-three-hundred.”
“Sounds perfect,” Ethan said. “Count me in for both.”
“No,” Jackson said. “I’ve got other plans for you.”
Ethan tried to hide his disappointment. Despite not hearing the actual plans, he knew he’d be disappointed. He wanted that cave. He wanted that action.
“You and Logan are on sister detail. Got that, Logan?”
Logan nodded and said a firm yes, dispelling Ethan’s assumption that he’d fallen asleep minutes before.
“You’ll be wherever they are, just feet away. If they’re upstairs in the bedroom, I want you in Tucker’s old room. Or their rooms if it’s vice versa. Or downstairs. Or in this barn. I want you to stick on them hard. Got it?”
Logan nodded at Ethan. He hadn’t met him before, but something in his gaze told Ethan that the two would work well together.
“Lea can be shifty,” Matthias said.
Ethan nodded, agreeing.
“Don’t let them try any shit,” Jackson said. “Either of them.” He looked hard at Ethan and said to him, “Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Ethan said, trying to sound convincing as possible while his attention drifted elsewhere—not to Kalani, as had so often happened in the last twenty-four hours, but on something splattered on the ground. Something gray. Like a stain he’d heard about.
“I understand your situation with Kalani is . . . complicated,” Jackson said. “I don’t have a problem with that per se. On the contrary, I think it may help us in the end. Help us keep her trust. But it still has to be managed.”
Ethan scanned the floor, the whole floor, under the area where they’d been sitting.
“Do you understand, Ethan? I need to know we’re on the same page here.”
It looked like chalk. Like a layer of dried dust. Dried clay.
“Ethan?”
Ethan pointed to the ground under their chairs and feet. “What is all that shit?”
“Huh? What?” A few of the guys shifted, moving their feet to check under them. Finally Matthias muttered, “What the hell is he talking about?”
“You don’t see it? I’m talking about the marks on the floor, the shoe prints.”
“Okay,” Matthias said. “What about them?”
“They weren’t here earlier today,” Ethan said. “You know what else wasn’t here in the barn? Whoever left those shoe prints.” He pointed at the ones in question. Massive shoe prints in contrast to the dainty little prints that Lea or Kalani could have left behind. “Check your shoes,” Ethan said.
They checked, comparing them to the shoe print, which was a very unique design of waving lateral lines.
“This clay dust gets everywhere,” Ethan said, remembering Kalani’s speech earlier. Had she had any idea it was really a warning? “And when it gets wet—”
“Yeah, we got it,” Matthias said as he lifted his foot and looked at the bottom of his shoe. “It’s not mine.”
“Not mine either,” Logan said.
Jackson shook his head no for himself.
“Could it have been Tucker?” Matthias asked.
Another hush fell over the group.
“Whatever it is,” Jackson said, “and whoever it is, I don’t like it.”
24
Kalani
“Where are they going?” Lea said, her voice quiet next to Kalani. They were huddled in the upstairs bedroom window, watching as several soft red lights bobbed in the darkness of the back yard. The LED lights of headlamps. The red dots moved out in a single-file line, slowly into the clearing, each light finally blinking off until they could see nothing. “How many lights was that? Five?”
“I think I saw four,” Kalani said, trying to imagine where the dots would be now, imagining how close they were to the tree line. And then beyond, where they might be heading . . . but wondering about that made her nervous. No one had come up to their room to say anything. No explanations or warning, no offers for her to join in.
“Five would be all of them,” Lea said. “Right? Ethan, Matthias, Sam, Jackson . . . New Guy . . .”
Kalani shook her head. “I think it was four.”
“So then one of them is still here?”
She could almost detect a twisting type of concern in Lea’s voice. Normally, the idea of one of the DARC guys staying back to protect them would be comforting. To hear Lea talk, it sounded like she was describing the return of a prison guard. No matter what, and for whatever reason, Lea had definitely become scarred by the last several months. Kalani knew she had her own types of scars, but mistrust in Jackson’s men, and Ethan, was definitely not one of them.
“Is that such a bad thing?” Kalani said. “If one of the guys stayed behind?”
Lea didn’t say a word.
“They’re here to help us, Lea.”
She laughed, backing away from the window. “Kalani, come on. They’re just here to make sure we’re not working with Blackwoods. They’re trying to keep a lid on us.”
Kalani looked out the window and found nothing but darkness. She turned back to her sister, who sat in front of her vanity mirror.
Lea picked up a comb and started running it through her hair. “Keeping tabs on us, tracing our calls, making sure we don’t communicate with them.”
“You sound like you want to communicate with them,” Kalani said.
“Making sure we stop cooperating with them.”
“You mean you haven’t already stopped?”
“I stopped,” she said. “But they haven’t.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Lea put the comb down, staring at herself in the mirror. “It’s the only way I can talk to them,” she said, reaching down and opening a drawer. She pulled out a bunch of folded papers. A newspaper. The page size and font looked familiar. “Here,” she said, holding it out for Kalani. “Take a look.”
Kalani grabbed the paper, unfolding it as quickly as her hands would allow. Hands that felt rubbery and unresponsive. She could barely flip through, barely knowing what she was even trying to do before she said, “What? Where? What am I looking for?”
“The back page,” Lea said.
The back page . . . the classifieds . . . where she and Ethan had shared so many of their secret messages. She felt sick thinking about it, like those messages were so close, on the same page. Somehow, despite the ridiculousness, it felt like it had cheapened everything. It felt like it had ruined their story . . .
“Go ahead,” Lea said. “Go ahead and see, at the back page. Look for the ad for Dark Forest for the Trees.”
Dark Forest. Blackwoods. Kalani shivered at the implication—can’t see the forest for the trees. She’d been completely blind to Lea’s motives, apparently. What else had she missed? She found the square. It r
ead: Heavens, we know. We don’t have to be, but we’re on your side.
They’d been clever. It was worded just well enough to not be openly threatening, but it didn’t take much to read between the lines. It was the same nickname for her that Ethan had used. The realization made her blood run cold. Tears burned. A wet pressure built up.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it was just harassment,” Lea said. “Like those phone calls I kept getting? One of the calls, they told me to check the paper, and I didn’t want to bother you with it. But now I find that, specifically addressed to you.”
She read it again, blinking the tears away. Then she tossed the paper across the room, its pages fluttering noisily as it coasted and landed on the floor at the corner of the room.
“I’m sorry,” Lea said.
“You’ve been talking to them?”
“No. I haven’t. I told you I haven’t.”
“But what the fuck?”
“I told you,” Lea said. “I told you no.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kalani pleaded.
“I told you.” Lea was sitting still, calm and collected in the chair. “I haven’t been talking to them. Those calls were old, the harassing ones, and I told you about that already. This is different . . . I don’t know. I didn’t even believe it at first, but then, you got the paper and so I just wanted to look at it to be sure. And there it was.”
“Lea,” Kalani said, choking on the word.
Lea was the older one. Lea . . . was supposed to protect her, always.
She trusted her, even after everything, despite how implausible and sick . . .
She loved her.
“Lea,” she said again, recoiling away from the table.
“No, no,” Lea said, standing turning and grabbing hold of her shoulders. “No, don’t do that.” She followed Kalani to the bed, sitting next to her, patting her shoulder. “No, don’t think that, you’re just under stress. A lot of stress.”
Kalani had begun rocking back and forth. And Lea, assuming an old sisterly role, held on to her. “No, no,” she said quietly, shushing her. “No . . .”
Dark Discovery (DARC Ops Book 8) Page 18
