by Jodie Bailey
But now, as the world tinged a deep pink, no drunken revelry filtered out to the street. The place was quieter than he’d ever seen it. In the four months Tate had been hovering around this crew, they’d never missed a weekend, never taken the party anywhere else. Isaac was too jealous of his territory to risk someone out-partying him.
To the left of the house, on the short parallel tracks of concrete that passed for a driveway, Isaac’s little souped-up Honda sat close by the side door. Five more tricked-out coupes lined the lawn, chrome dull in the faded morning light. The gang was all here, but the house was silent.
Tate brushed the grip of Meghan’s gun, his teeth working his lower lip. He was about to walk into the unknown with a weapon he’d never fired. He slipped the revolver from the small holster and flicked it open, checking the cylinder. Five .357 rounds, so at least they had some heft. His Glock held fifteen rounds in the magazine. Meghan’s revolver gave him a third of what he’d normally carry. If things turned ugly, he’d have to be extra careful of his aim. And pray. A lot.
The curtain in the front window shifted. Was someone watching for him? Maybe Phoenix had told Isaac to clear the house and do the dirty work.
Tate tapped his index finger on the trigger guard. This could be an ambush, and the walk to the door would make him an easy target. And the whole world had better believe he wasn’t going down at the whim of a pack of street thugs.
Maybe he was overreacting. There was no way for Isaac to know Tate had purposely let Meghan go. No witnesses had seen what transpired between them. It was possible the party had moved elsewhere or ended much, much earlier than usual.
But this would be the first time, and Tate didn’t put faith in coincidences. The belief everything happened for a reason had kept him alive on more than one occasion. Reading the situation was his specialty, and this situation read like a horror novel. It didn’t seem like this could end without bloodshed.
Tate held the pistol tighter. Inflicting pain, taking lives...these were the parts of the job Tate never got used to, the parts he tried to avoid whenever possible. If this was what it appeared to be, all of the above would probably happen within the next three minutes.
He steeled himself for confrontation, then pulled his phone out and typed a quick text to Ethan. Target house quiet. Stand by. He had ten minutes before Ethan called law enforcement and scrapped the op to pull Tate out. Of course, not texting in ten minutes would mean Tate was probably dead.
He slipped from the truck, shoving his phone in his pocket and tucking the gun behind his leg, acting as though he hadn’t observed anything out of the ordinary. Without streetlights and with night still hanging on, he would be a vague target. He walked along the edge of the yard rather than on the cracked sidewalk anyone waiting would expect him to use.
At the porch steps, he took a bracing breath, all the while feeling as though invisible spies hovered in every dark shadow, and approached the door from the side. If one of the neighbors peeked out, they’d peg him as the investigator he was, but he wasn’t about to take the chance someone would shoot him through the door. He frowned at the wood siding. It didn’t offer any more protection than the door did.
A small sliver of light filtered onto the porch. The door was cracked open, no obvious signs of tampering. There was definitely something out of whack.
He didn’t hesitate. Lifting Meghan’s gun so it would be at the ready, he said a quick prayer, wishing he had a partner to back him up. Meghan had always been good in moments like this, each following the other in an unspoken tactical dialogue of eye contact and hand signals. If she wasn’t in danger, he might have asked Ethan to contract her onto the team as a civilian.
But he had this. He was good at what he did, and his skills were the reason Ethan kept calling him in. Tate Walker could do the job.
Tate eased the door open with his foot, skimming the room until the smell smacked him across the face, stinging his eyes. Metallic. Raw.
Blood. And lots of it, if the strength of the stench was any indication.
He followed the gun into the room, waiting for movement, but there was none.
Six bodies lay facedown in a neat row in the center of the small living area, wrists bound, blood seeping into ever-widening puddles on the scratched hardwood.
Someone had executed Isaac and his entire crew. The larger man lay on the end, probably the last to die.
Because Tate had let Meghan escape.
He swallowed. More blood. More death. Deaths he’d have to find a way to wash his hands of when this was all over.
He could have brought Meghan in from the school, appeased whoever had ordered her kidnaping, but then it might have been her sprawled on the floor with her life drained away.
He tightened up on the gun and focused on the moment. He had to bring whoever had done this to justice. Unless Isaac had double-crossed someone else, the brutality of the scene sent a message. Phoenix wasn’t afraid to punish anyone who crossed him, and he believed Isaac’s men had failed in their assignment.
Tate’s mind sped into high gear. He scanned the scene, focusing on the details instead of the big picture, pulling his mind into the work and not into the fact six men were dead. They’d been criminals, yes, but no one deserved this.
He fought not to gag, biting his lip so hard his eyes watered. He examined the bodies and noted the deep gashes at their throats, quick and clean. Isaac had apparently received special treatment, or he’d fought. The blood still flowed from his wounds. He’d only been dead a few minutes.
The killer was still in the house.
Tate swallowed hard against the pounding in his ears, willing his adrenaline to ebb so he could focus his senses. He needed more than sight.
A soft sound filtered in from the small bedroom to the left. Tate hefted the gun and headed toward the door, keeping his focus on the door as he skirted the tangled maze of legs. The air felt off, disturbed, the metallic odor of fresh blood nearly overwhelming, but Tate could tell from years of experience. Someone waited behind the door.
He took one step closer, then drove himself shoulder-first into the door, meeting resistance.
Something heavy slammed to the floor, echoed by a string of curses that burned Tate’s ears. There was a skittering sound of metal across hardwood.
Too light to be a gun—it had to be a knife.
Knives were his worst enemy.
Tate righted himself and aimed in the direction of the sound, but a body flung itself into his stomach, driving him against the wall, his shoulder slamming into the ancient Sheetrock so hard he went through it, his back catching hard on a wall stud, knocking the air from his lungs. He heaved in air and fought against both his attacker and the memory of the last time he’d lost a battle with his gun at the ready. The loss had earned him a knife to the chest.
Tate threw his arm out, catching a chin, then lifted his knee and drove it into the man’s stomach, shoving him backward several steps.
In the dim light leaking in from the living room, Tate got his first good look at his assailant. He was small, wiry, wearing a black T-shirt and dark jeans, his face covered by the kind of ski mask common in these parts, used to combat the frigid winter chill.
But it was the eyes. Murderous, dead and locked on Tate. He glanced toward the knife on the floor, but Tate kicked it sideways under the unmade bed and leveled his weapon, too winded to speak.
There was a brief stare-down before the killer sprang again, landing both of them in the living room. Tate’s shoulder rammed tight beneath the couch as his head slammed against the floor, threatening darkness.
The killer scrambled up first and bolted for the rear of the house.
Tate shook off the pain and followed, but the squeal of tires from the driveway told him he was too late.
FOUR
Shutting off t
he engine, Tate sat and waited for Meghan to come out of the house. He had no doubt she’d heard him drive up and was probably armed to the teeth, ready to fire if she didn’t realize it was him. Better to sit and let her come to him. After all that had happened in the past day, she was probably on high alert, even when it came to him. Approaching the house with his hands raised would tip the advantage in her favor.
His hands. He stared at his fingers, expecting to see red. Despite the double layer of latex gloves he’d pulled on, the warmth of fresh blood had seeped through, a sensation he’d never been able to wash away easily. He’d checked each body for signs of life, even though the amount of blood made life impossible.
Isaac’s whole crew was dead.
Everyone except him.
He slammed a fist against the steering wheel. This was his fault. He’d lost control of the situation, let his guard slip when Meghan had gotten involved. He cleaned other people’s messes, stepped in when it was too hot for anyone else to handle. How had he become the one who needed someone to pick up the pieces behind him?
He’d ditched the house, reported in to Ethan and let the other man call the police. Now Tate was without a place to call home. Again. This time, it was his fault the mission was aborted because everything had gone sideways.
Every inroad he had to their hacker was gone, and they were thrust to the beginning, with no clear way to stop an attack that could cut the power to the entire nation, leaving the country wide-open to things only horror movies portrayed.
This failure undid everything. Phoenix was intimately familiar with every other member of their unit. Tate had managed to stay on the fringes, playing dead in order to do the job. Now, even though Phoenix might not realize Tate was working with his former unit, he was the lone survivor of Isaac’s crew, a loose end to be cut off. He wore a target on his back large enough to see from space.
No way was he sitting around waiting for Phoenix to make a slip. He’d get Meghan to talk, find out her connection and resume the pursuit. This did not end here. As far as Tate was concerned, he’d be the one to call the final shots, not a coward who hid behind a computer screen.
The light in the truck faded into shadow as someone passed between the morning sun and his passenger window.
The truck door eased open, and Meghan slid in. The scent of coffee and some kind of citrus soap drifted in with her. “You’re back already?”
Tate nodded, not trusting himself to keep the anger out of his voice if he spoke. He needed to be gentle and noncombative if he wanted answers.
“What happened?” Meghan McGuire never spoke softly. She definitely thought something was wrong if she was bringing out a soothing voice now.
Guess she wasn’t mad anymore. Hopefully she’d softened enough to talk.
Tate lifted his head to find her scanning his face, his chest, as though she was assessing him for wounds. Even though the action was utterly professional, her scrutiny made him warm in places he’d long thought cold, especially after what he’d seen this morning. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was definitely something he shouldn’t be feeling.
The familiar scent of her, the fact she hadn’t changed a bit since their last op together, settled the spinning thoughts that had refused to be grasped since he’d arrived at Isaac’s house hours ago. There had always been something about Meghan McGuire, and having her reappear in the midst of this current chaos was too much for him to hold his silence.
He caught her gaze and stopped her perusal of him. “Isaac’s crew is dead.”
She stiffened. “All of them?”
“Executed.” The word hit the air hot and violent, with all the anger he’d been trying to hide.
Beside him, she dug her fingers into the faded denim covering her knees, the only outward sign she was internalizing what had happened. After a long moment, she relaxed her hold. “Because I got away.”
“Because I let you go.” While there was nothing he could have done differently, the death of six men was still tough, even if those six men were morally bankrupt criminals.
Death was never easy. They’d both seen enough of it to know life was the most precious of commodities. It was doubly hard when Jesus wasn’t in the picture. No more second chances for the heart after it stopped.
The thought made his hands tingle, and he dragged them along the seat again, trying to wipe off the sensation. “It seems Phoenix wants you badly if he’s willing to execute the guys he thinks let you slip away.”
The silence between them was broken by the clicks and pops of the motor as it cooled in the early morning air. Tate let the silence settle, giving Meghan time to see the gravity of the situation and the need for her to lay out her story. He wanted to drag the information out of her, but he knew better.
“We’ve got to find out what he wants.” Meghan hit on the objective. “Because if we don’t, he’ll keep on coming after both of us.” She looked away, chewing her bottom lip.
Forget him. This was all about Meghan. This mission was no longer simply about tracking Phoenix and derailing his plans. It was about keeping the hacker from tracking Meghan. She was important to this shadow man for some reason, and he had to find out why. He just had to convince Ethan of it.
Actually, he didn’t. Since he wasn’t an official part of the team, he was technically free to do whatever he wanted. But Ethan wouldn’t let him go easily, not after all this time and not without backup.
“Tate? Your mind’s going a hundred miles an hour. Clue me in.”
He wanted to laugh, and probably would have if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Yep. She hadn’t changed. She was still his Meghan. Direct as ever. She’d long ago learned how to draw him out of his thoughts, and she’d push relentlessly until he talked.
She didn’t need to pressure him though. The tension kept building inside him, pushing against his skin and throbbing in his head. Talking it out with the woman who’d once tagged along on his every thought process would be a relief. Of course, he’d never tell her so. “I no longer have an in. I have no way of gaining access to our hacker. He’s assuming he killed everybody in Isaac’s gang. I waltz in and tell him I was part of his group and I’m alive, then I’ve signed a death warrant.” Especially after what he’d seen. “We were close.”
He clenched his fist, wanting to pound it on the dash until the pain made him forget everything else. “This hacker...he wants you specifically, and he’ll kill to get to you.” He turned in the seat, the vinyl squeaking a protest at the motion. More than anything, Tate wanted to ask her why, but that line of questioning was a delicate one he’d have to draw out over time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t time they had. “I think the best plan is to get you to Virginia, and then I can come here knowing you’re out of—”
“Absolutely not.” The denial was firm, brooking no argument. “I don’t run, and you know it.” Something in her expression shifted. She turned away, facing the windshield, then back to him. “I’m going to the school.”
“Absolutely not.” He hadn’t signed off on her going to the school. No way was she putting herself in the crosshairs.
“I’m going with or without you. If he’s been in my system, then the school’s computer is all you’ve got left to link to him.”
“Remote in.” Meghan was a computer genius, one of the best in the world. She could hack her own system remotely in the time it would take him to make scrambled eggs for breakfast. There was no need for her to step into the building.
“No.”
“I said you’re not going.” The situation was spinning even faster out of control, her tenacity wresting it from his grasp. Her stubborn nature was burned into his memory. She’d march into Phoenix’s lair unarmed and fight to the death before she’d go into hiding. Meghan wasn’t a coward, but Meghan had to realize sometimes the bravest course of action was to step away and regroup, co
me out fresh. “I’ll go. You can walk me through it or you can remote in, but—”
“No. There are too many variables for me to walk you through it. If I remote in, he’ll track me here. I’d rather march into a building he knows I frequent than lead him to our one place to hide.”
No matter how much Tate wanted to keep arguing this, she was right. Worse, she’d never pull back. All she’d do was wait until he collapsed from exhaustion, then take off without him. Still, she didn’t get to drive this bus into the ditch. “Fine, but I go with you.” He hated conceding this one to her. It crawled all over him. “First I have to ditch the truck. It was at the scene and my footprints are all over the house, so authorities are going to start digging. Until we know for certain my cover was trashed, I have to stay in character, which means getting arrested if the cops find me.” Protocol dictated he didn’t out himself for any reason until they could prove he’d been burned. Unfortunately, proof would only come with a second attempt on his life.
“Makes sense.” Meghan pointed toward the rear of the house. “There’s a barn out—”
“No. Somewhere they can’t connect to you. If my truck was reported at the scene, then I’m the prime suspect. If someone finds the truck on your property and starts digging, they’ll know we were partners and assume you helped me.”
“For now, you park it in the barn on the far side of the pasture. And then I want answers. Like it or not, I’m all in, and I want to know everything, including how it is you’re still alive. If you want my trust, you’re going to have to tell me why I was lied to for all these years.”
There she went, trying to take the reins again. Tate drummed his thumbs on his knees. He hadn’t said he needed her help, but her trust was something he craved. Maybe if he opened up, she’d follow suit. “Got it.”
“And then you rest while I upload a program to take to the school. You’ve got that haggard look that says you haven’t hit the rack in days. Even superheroes sleep, Walker.”
