Breach of Trust

by Jodie Bailey

  “I do.”

  “Take my gun. Go inside through the fire door. Isaac will assume you’re locked out and you ran for the woods. Get in your car and get out of here. Go as far as you can. Don’t go near your apartment because there’s two more guys waiting there for you. Get out of town and don’t call the police. We can’t blow this operation wide-open yet.” This mission was too important. If their target figured out they were onto him, he’d pack his toys and vanish by nightfall. Tate was too close to shutting the door on an op they’d been running for more than two years, an op that had left several broken lives and untimely deaths behind it.

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and slipped it into hers. “Don’t answer it, no matter what. I don’t care what number comes across. I don’t care what text messages you see. Do not answer. But don’t lose it and don’t turn it off. I’ll find you.”

  “Stop talking to me as though I’ve never done this before.” The words were coated with sass thick enough to choke them both.

  Ah. There was the blowback he’d expected. He grinned in spite of himself. “Then stop looking at me as though you’ve never done this before.”

  She drew her eyebrows together, pulling her keys from her pocket and stepping around him, prepared to make a run for the building. “You have so much talking to do, you’re going to be hoarse by the time you’re done.”

  Tate grabbed her elbow and glanced over his shoulder. “I promise I’ll find you and explain later. Right now I need you to...” He was fully, painfully aware what he was about to ask of the woman he’d trained himself. “Hit me. Pretend you hate me.”

  If the silent anger she fired at him was any indication, this might be the worst punch he ever took.

  Meghan pulled in a deep breath, her posture easing into the one that knew this business was life or death.

  The part of her that knew Tate was a dead man if they couldn’t sell her escape.

  TWO

  Tate Walker was alive. And Meghan couldn’t decide whether she hated him or loved him for it.

  As directed, Meghan had avoided her apartment and run here, to the house owned by the Snyder Foundation, the one place that couldn’t be connected to her. She paced the length of the darkened living room, the old hardwood creaking beneath her feet. The midnight wind sang through the trees, ruffling new leaves and brushing branches against the old white farmhouse. Normally, the solitary sounds of the house settling for the night brought comfort. This place had a story, and though Meghan had no idea what it was, she’d love to find out. With the age on the little farm nestled in the midst of the woods, there was no telling what it had seen.

  She might not know the past, but she knew what it would see in the near future. Hope. A place where kids beaten down the way she had been could find refuge and acceptance. The bouncing from foster home to foster home would end at this front door. There would be love here, love that defied thievery or deception, that carried on no matter what mistakes the kids made or what they felt they needed to do to get attention.

  But it wouldn’t happen if Meghan couldn’t keep herself out of trouble long enough to finish the renovations. Her past had come for her, and no one would want a woman with a target on her back working with troubled children.

  At the window by the front door, Meghan lifted a slat on the plantation blinds and peeked through, hoping to see headlights but finding only moonlit shadows.

  She should have stood her ground against Isaac, should have stayed with Tate to have his back if things went south. You didn’t abandon your partner. By following Tate’s directive and fleeing instead of staying behind to see what happened, she’d certainly abandoned him.

  Except he was no longer her partner. And standing her ground would have probably gotten them both killed, especially with her edge worn off by his reappearance.

  Hard as it was, taking refuge was the right course of action. Meghan slipped the phone from her pocket and slid her thumb across the screen, concrete proof his appearance wasn’t the product of an overactive imagination. From her time chasing cybercriminals in their small clandestine army unit, she had no doubt the tech in the device could track her to the nearest meter. So where was he? She’d failed him once and believed her failure had left him dead. If her pseudoescape today had cost him his life...

  Unfamiliar nausea swirled, and she dropped the slat, dragging a finger along the grip of the revolver holstered at her hip, refusing to think anymore. To keep from being traced, she’d pulled the battery from her cell phone and locked it with Tate’s gun in the small safe in what would be her bedroom when the house was finished. She’d pulled out her own weapon, wanting the familiar heft of her Ruger. The revolver was on her at all times when she worked on the property, but it was usually to make her feel better about the remote possibility of coming across a snake.

  Her skin tightened. Kidnappers, she could handle. Snakes? They were the one foe she feared.

  Headlights danced across the front windows, and Meghan laid her hand on the pistol, heart revving, ready for confrontation. If this wasn’t Tate, things were about to get real ugly, real fast.

  The headlights flickered three times, paused, then flashed twice more.

  Tate.

  It was an old signal they’d worked out years ago, one she’d thought she’d never see again. One she’d longed for in the darkness many nights, wishing he were still alive.

  Never dreaming he actually was.

  She loosened her hold on the pistol and cracked the door open, stepping onto the wide wraparound porch. The diesel on the old pickup rattled as Tate killed the engine; then he climbed out, his figure in the moonlight a silhouette against the trees.

  Meghan stood guard at the top of the steps. What should she do? Throw her arms around him and welcome him to the land of the living? Or punch him one more good time? The war between relief and anger centered right in her stomach, twisting into a knot so tight it might never unravel.

  Tate stopped at the bottom step, almost as though he could hear the swords clashing. He was taller than her memories gave him credit for. His shoulders broader, his stance speaking of an inner strength different from the one she remembered. No longer a barely leashed weapon, this strength ran deeper, steadier, more solid. Powerful enough to handle whatever life threw at him. Even death, apparently.

  He looked up, face an interplay of shadow and light. His hair was still dark, though some very premature gray had shot through a few places. His jaw was still strong. But it was the eyes. It had always been the eyes, a clear sea green contrasted with his dark hair... In a rush, they brought back all the reasons she’d fallen in love with him in the first place.

  And those same eyes reminded her how they’d haunted her after he supposedly died, begging her to save him.

  Her grief had been for nothing. Meghan balled her fists. “I don’t know whether to hug you or shoot you.” She let the anger drip off her greeting. He deserved to hear it.

  Tate took another step but stopped before he got too close, respectful of the new chaos in her life. “I hope you don’t opt for shooting. It’s been a rough day already.” He tilted his head and surveyed the front of the house. “What is this place? I thought you had an apartment near the school.”

  “It’s not mine. Not exactly.” She was the one with questions, but she couldn’t make herself stop answering his. She’d spent four years thinking he was dead. Something inside still couldn’t process his seeming immortality and kept on operating as if this was all normal. “I’ve been hired by the Snyder Foundation. It’s going to be a group foster home when we finish renovating. The foundation bought this farm, so tracking me to it would be tough going.” Tough but not impossible, especially if the anonymous blackmailer from her past was a bigger deal than she’d thought. If her former unit was involved, things were much uglier than a simple kidnapping. They tra
cked cyberterrorists on the highest levels. Small-time gangsters didn’t even cross their radar.

  “Really.” Tate wore the ghost of a smile. “A foster home. Your dream come true. I’m proud of you, McGuire.”

  In spite of everything, the praise settled into the hollow places behind her rib cage. He’d remembered what was important to her, what she’d wanted to do from the time she was a little girl, shuttling to yet another foster home. It really was her dream coming true. One of them, anyway.

  The pleasure chilled, wrapping her heart in ice. She’d scuttled an entirely different, softer dream for her future when she’d walked away from the army and Tate Walker four years ago. Walked away without leaving him any clue that her side of their friendship had grown into something so much more.

  She was still staring at Tate, trying to reconcile his reality when he tipped his chin, his eyes catching hers and holding fast. It was the same jolt she’d felt when she saw him a few hours ago and realized Tate was alive. After years of grieving, he was alive. “Why aren’t you dead?”

  He blinked, then gave her a rueful smile. “You want me to be?”

  Never. The knowledge he was there in front of her wrapped around something inside and freed emotions long locked away. But the freedom brought confusion, anger and something she didn’t dare try to define.

  When she didn’t answer, he sat on the step at her feet, patting the wide wooden porch boards beside him. “Might as well have a seat, and we can both start explaining.”

  Both? As far as she was concerned, this story was all his. She might be in some unknown danger, but Tate’s continued existence trumped everything. His story came first.

  Staring at him made her head swim, made the past fold onto the present and shower her anew with grief she would never let him see. “This show’s all yours, Walker.” She settled beside him, keeping a fair space between them, sweeping her arm out to encompass the small clearing around the house. “I’ve got nowhere to be. You can talk all night.”

  “No. You can talk.” The friendly Tate vanished into investigative mode, his tone hard and matter-of-fact. “Explain to me why my undercover persona was tasked to seize an asset, and, when I made the grab, it was you.”

  Shouldn’t he already know? He was the one undercover doing the investigating. She was the victim. And he didn’t get to interrogate her. “I have no idea. Why don’t you explain to me why you were trying to kidnap me in the first place? Or better yet, why you let me believe you were dead for four years?”

  Tate drummed his thumbs on his blue-jeaned thighs. “Do you get that your life’s in danger?”

  “And do you get that I don’t trust you?” It would wound him, but Meghan really didn’t care right now. He’d been a part of a team trying to kidnap her today. He’d lied. He’d let her grieve. And she had grieved for every single moment they could have had if she hadn’t been too scared to face her feelings. It had been pain the likes of which she’d never known before, and the healing had never fully come. Now he was back? There was no way she was letting him off easy.

  He winced and stared across the yard. After a minute, he pinched the bridge of his nose, then glanced at his watch. “Long story.” The deep pain in the lines around his mouth made Meghan want to find a way to make it better, to take away the hurt.

  Fine. She’d let him off the hook...for now. “Then explain why you tried to kidnap me. You’re the one who started this mess.”

  “Believe me—I was as surprised to see you as you were to see me.”

  “Doubtful. I’ve never been dead.”

  “Fair enough.” Tate pushed himself up from his perch on the stairs and walked to his pickup; the distance between them opened like a canyon. “I can tell you it’s a cyberterror threat. And why you? No idea. I’ve been on this op a long time, and the threat’s not from anyone we’ve dealt with in the past.”

  Had someone found out who she was, her talent for hacking systems and ferreting out information necessary to eliminate the bad guys? Had they found out she hadn’t always used her talent for good—something Tate wouldn’t know?

  She followed close at his heels, needing to know what was happening. Needing to know if her past was bleeding into Tate’s present. “I need more.”

  “You won’t get it. You left the unit. When you did, you let go of the right to be involved in an active investigation.” His demeanor was cold business, his voice tight. “Aside from Isaac’s crew, you’re the sole link I have to a hacker with an endgame your worst nightmares can’t fathom. You’re an asset, not my partner. Get used to it.”

  * * *

  He’d gone too far. Tate saw it as her jaw tightened and her eyes took on a different sheen, as though she’d drawn the curtains so he couldn’t see in. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say, but nothing had been right since he’d come face-to-face with her earlier in the afternoon.

  No, it had been wrong for a whole lot longer than that. When she left the army and dissolved their team without explanation, she cut him clean through, marked him in a way his physical scars never had. After the way his mouth had just gotten away from him, there was obviously some latent anger stirring inside. He reached for Meghan but hesitated before he touched her, wanting to force her to look at him, but he knew better. She’d take a long time to thaw now that he’d wounded her.

  Still, he had to try. “That came out harsh, but you have to understand. Information’s classified unless I can prove you need to know. This mission has been ongoing, but the whole game changed when you got involved. Now I have to find a way to protect you while maintaining my cover. Chances are high you’ve seen the hacker we’re after, and you might even know him. You’re a more valuable asset than you realize, and I have to—”

  “How would I have seen whoever it is you’re after?” She squared her shoulders, ready to fight. Ready to fight him. But something besides anger lurked in her posture. If it had been anyone but Meghan, Tate would have called it fear. “I can take care of myself. I have the same training as you. All I need to know is who’s after me and why.”

  How had it come to this? He’d taught her nearly everything he knew about defending oneself, while she’d taught him how to locate a hack buried in a system. They’d worked well, had been a team others envied. Now here they stood, toe-to-toe and worlds apart. Everything about it felt wrong.

  “I don’t know why. I was hoping you did. And you have no idea what you’re dealing with.” Tate dragged his hand down his face, scraping against a full day’s worth of stubble. “This is not some ordinary hacker. This guy—” He stared at the trees weaving gently in the light breeze, his jaw working back and forth as he chewed on his next words. So much was classified, and he wasn’t used to having to censor himself around Meghan.

  She eased closer to the truck, keeping the dented red hood between them. “What?”

  He drummed the chipped metal hood, weighing how much he could trust her. Old habits and their former closeness pushed the whole story forward, but there he couldn’t overstep forces above his pay grade and beyond his control. “This is potentially the biggest threat to national security we’ve encountered since the unit was put together.” He dropped his gaze to her, bracing for the anger about to be unleashed in his direction. “I can’t tell you more, not without authorization.”

  Sure enough, Meghan drew away, her face tightening. She smacked the truck’s hood, the dull metallic echo bouncing off the trees. “There’s an order out on me, and you don’t want to tell me why?”

  Her voice was shrill, but she had to know this wasn’t personal. National security trumped all. When ops were classified, “trust no one” kicked in.

  Still it had to hurt to be on the outside of this. It hurt him to be the one to shut the door on her. His former partner...his former best friend.

  Tate pinched his lips together, the action radiating pain into h
is jaw. If he wasn’t careful, she might throw a punch of her own volition. He focused on the woods behind her, trying to distance himself. She wasn’t his partner. She was an asset. A woman with a secret he needed to uncover if he wanted to apprehend a hacker who had twice come close to causing mass chaos. Working this op meant keeping Meghan at a distance, no matter how much it hurt. “I need my phone. And my gun.”

  She flinched, the action so quick only someone who knew her would notice. Pulling the phone from her pocket, Meghan slid it across the hood with a little too much force, then pivoted on one heel and stalked up the porch steps, shaking the entire structure with the force of her anger.

  Tate watched her go, thoughts too spun around to do much else. Captain Meghan McGuire. He’d been dead certain he’d never see his former partner again. When he’d hauled her to her feet today and caught sight of those brown eyes the color of Turkish coffee, he’d nearly dropped his cover story in shock.

  For four long years, he’d let her believe the story the army had told her. That he was dead, killed in the attack that actually had nearly put him in the grave. Playing dead allowed him to do his job, working in the shadows for an elite military unit tasked with shutting down cyberthreats to the United States and its allies. Still, somewhere in the intervening years, he’d lost count of the number of times he’d wanted to reconnect with her, to find the easy camaraderie that had gotten him through many hard times in the past.

  She didn’t know he’d missed her, and if what he knew of Meghan’s less-than-carefree childhood was any indication, she probably viewed his faked death and years of silence as the ultimate betrayal. If she’d done the same to him, he’d be the one demanding answers and working to douse anger. He owed her the real story. Soon. But not until he figured out why she was in danger.

  Tate stretched his neck and unlocked his phone, forcing his thoughts into the game. He’d lost ground today, “letting” Meghan get away.