by Rachel Lee
His choice of description hit her hard. She was sure she’d never known anyone who felt that way about himself. She ached for him. “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?”
“You wanted truth, and that’s the truth. It’s what I did. I hope intentions matter.”
“Intentions always matter,” she said firmly, knowing it in the deepest part of her heart. “If you mean to do good and everything goes all cockeyed, you can’t be blamed for having a black heart. You might have been stupid or made a mistake, but you meant well. Yeah, I think that counts a whole lot.”
But it horrified her to hear him comparing himself to a Faustian demon. Which brought up another question. “What planted the image of Mephistopheles in you? Your upbringing?”
“Do we ever escape what we learned as children? I served what I believed to be a good cause. I’m not so sure I always served it in good ways. Apparently not, since someone is mad enough to want revenge.”
He shook his head a little. “Enough truth for right now. I’ll have to deal with my sins later. Right now, if I’m ever to do that, I need to save my life and make sure hell doesn’t rain down on you and Ryker.”
He paused. “And if I can, I need to make sure this never happens to another operative like me.”
A chill trickled slowly down her spine. “How can you do that? Won’t that just put you in more danger?”
His gaze had grown hard again. “I’m not afraid of danger, Julie. Never have been. I’m not afraid of dying, either. I just don’t want to leave a mess behind me.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” she demanded. “When you got here, you were willing to hit the road and hang yourself out there. You stopped only because you didn’t want to inadvertently involve more people. Now what’s going on?”
“The realization that I’m a blood offering. And if they’d do this to me, they could do it to someone else.”
* * *
A blood offering. The words chilled Julie to her very core, and the feeling didn’t dissipate as the morning wore on. Outside the storm continued unabated, but she felt as if it had entered this apartment, entered her heart and soul with its stinging ice.
A blood offering. “Trace?”
He was pacing again, his arm once again in the sling. “Yes?”
“Blood offering. As in sacrifice?”
“Exactly,” he said. “I don’t know for sure, obviously, but the only way to put this together is that an asset wants to take me out, and they think appeasing that person is more important than my life.”
She nodded, but words escaped her for a little while, a rare circumstance for her. Finally she asked, “Everyone wants you dead?”
“I doubt it. It’s probably a very small group. Maybe only one or two individuals who think they can let this all happen under the radar. Poor Trace Archer, we sent him on medical leave and he met with a terrible accident. Or something like that. This isn’t the kind of activity that anyone would want to become widely known.”
“I can see why. But you believe they’re capable of it?” Some last vestige of the old Julie hoped he would deny it, but reality was driving home fast.
He stopped pacing long enough to meet her gaze. “Some of them are. I don’t doubt it. It’s a culture of secrecy, a culture of people willing to take great risks or to put others at risk. Among them have to be some who don’t feel any particular loyalty to anything except their perceived mission. If a few people think this will be ultimately helpful, they won’t even hesitate.”
“But if they’re so sure they’re right, why not just take you out themselves?”
“Because this way they can deny any part in it. No tracks. Clean.”
She leaned forward, put her arms across her thighs and stared at the floor. Once again it struck her that she’d led a very sheltered life.
Then she realized something else. When she’d dived into this, she’d blithely thought that Trace was the target and all they had to do was protect him and help him find his pursuer. Yes, it might be risky, and she was indeed willing to die to protect Marisa, but she hadn’t thought about something else, something very important.
If they got Trace, they might not stop there. Cleaning up this operation and covering their tracks might mean they needed to erase her as well because she might know something. She might not just happen to be collateral damage.
She could very well become a target, too.
Chapter 7
Ryker called again about three in the afternoon. Julie answered.
“Hey, I’m coming over. About thirty minutes.”
“You can’t go out in this!”
“I need stuff for the baby. Anyway, I’m heading for the grocery. The sheriff will pick me up there and drop me off near your place. Visibility is near zero, and no one will see.”
Julie stared out the window at the stormy day. “It’s dangerous.”
“Not in an official vehicle with chains and a plow on the front. I’ll get there. Tell our friend.”
Then he disconnected. She returned the phone to the cradle and found Trace right behind her. “Ryker’s coming over.”
He didn’t answer, simply looked at the TV set where a cheerful meteorologist was showing a growing storm and saying it was unlikely to pass through before Tuesday. Schools would probably be closed due to the dangerous conditions.
“That’s Ryker,” he said finally.
“Schools almost never close around here. He’s nuts. He shouldn’t even attempt this.”
“He’s probably going crazy wanting to do something about this situation. I can identify.”
“Well, I’m glad you can! If something happens to him, Marisa and the baby...”
He caught her arm gently in his good hand. “Nothing will happen. I’ve known Ryker for a long time, Julie. He doesn’t take stupid risks.”
“No? You’ve got a killer on your tail. Tell me again about stupid risks. You, Ryker... Johnny, even. Do you ever think about anyone else?”
She watched his face tighten. He dropped his hand from her arm. Then he said three succinct words before he turned his back on her. “All the time.”
“What all the time?”
“I think about other people all the time,” he snapped. “I made a career of it. Do you imagine I never once thought of Marisa when I had to identify what was left of Johnny? Anyway, who do you believe I did all those things for, Julie? Myself? No, I did them for the benefit of all the people at home, people like you.”
She instantly felt about two inches tall, and she wished she could take her angry words back. It was just that watching Marisa’s late husband leave all the time, going off to destinations unknown as if he had no obligation at home, had left her with a bad taste in her mouth. She’d always thought Johnny was selfish.
Now she was accusing Ryker and Trace of the same thing. Maybe Johnny had been selfish, but only because he’d taken a wife. Maybe that was his true selfishness, falling in love and then leaving so often. Maybe it wasn’t his job at all.
Trace pivoted to face her, and some of the tension was gone from his face. “Who were you talking to, Julie? Who were you mad at?”
“Johnny,” she said, exhaling until her own tension fled. “Johnny Hayes. I watched all those years as he went traipsing off, leaving Marisa behind to handle everything on her own. I could see the excitement building in him when it was almost time to leave. He was like an addict who knew a fix was on the way. But then I had to watch Marisa grieve him. My God, his death almost ripped out her heart. Did he ever think of that?”
“Probably not,” he admitted. “He was a bit of an adrenaline junkie. You alluded to it yourself. But it’s the main reason I never married. Why drag anyone else into this hell? But now I’ve pulled you in.”
“I don’t think I gave you much choice,
” she reminded him. Slowly, she wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe I was seeing it all wrong. Marisa loved him. He loved her. Maybe the sacrifice didn’t seem that big to her until he died. Maybe it wasn’t selfish at all.”
“Oh, it was. Every relationship is selfish to some degree. I know plenty of guys like John who have married and raised families.” He shook his head a little. “However, when you’re gone a lot, those relationships sometimes suffer. It all depends on how much you’re around to take care of it.”
“When he was home, it was beautiful to behold,” she murmured. “But...Marisa’s not me. I shouldn’t project my feelings about it on her. I just know I often wondered how she could stand it. But she did.”
“Different strokes and all that,” he replied quietly. “Look, Julie, if you want out of this, just say so. I never meant to get you involved. I wouldn’t have except the sheriff said...”
“That I don’t take no for an answer. He’s right.” She gave a tired laugh. “You know, Trace, telling me no is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I know it. Enough people have told me, and I can see it in myself.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Just do me a favor. Don’t try to protect me by cutting me out of this.”
“But...”
“And don’t give me the operational security argument. This operation isn’t entitled to any security, in the first place. In the second, I may already be a target, too.”
His brows lifted. “No.”
“As soon as they find out about me, am I going to look like a loose end that needs some cleaning up? I don’t know, and neither do you. Maybe not. I’m just a small-town teacher. Chances are, they’ll figure you manipulated me like an asset and I don’t know a darn thing. Then again...”
He reached out with his left hand, catching a strand of her hair and running his fingers along it. Then he cupped the back of her head and pulled her against him so that she felt his warmth, his hard chest. His heart beat strongly against her ear. Oddly, he made her feel surrounded by safety. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said, running his hand down her back, causing her to shiver with a pleasure that seemed to contradict their conversation. “I swear it.” Then he let go of her and added in a lighter tone, “I protect my assets.”
“You’re not getting off that easily,” she said. An impish idea had occurred to her, and before she could rethink it, she decided to go for it. God knew, she needed to change the mood in this place.
“Meaning?”
“Before we face the world, you need to give me a cover story.”
His mouth opened a bit, and stayed open for several seconds before he responded. “We have a cover story.”
“You do. But I invited you here, remember. I need to be hanging all over you like a starstruck kid. The guy hunting you will think you’ve manipulated me, romanced me into stupid compliance.”
She could tell he was thinking about it. “It might work,” he agreed finally. “But your reputation.”
“Will recover,” she retorted. “So get used to the idea of me clinging. In fact, I think you should take me to bed.”
“Julie!” For the first time she saw him gape.
She almost laughed and was grateful to feel her mood lifting, but before she could shock him anymore, there was a knock at the door. Grinning, she went to peer out the peephole. Hah. She’d thrown an agent off balance. How many people could do that?
And what a relief not to be brooding. She wasn’t the sort.
She let Ryker in quickly, and he entered with a swirl of blowing snow. “Success,” he said, stomping his feet to clear his boots. “They’ll come back for me when I’m ready.”
“What about Marisa and the baby?” Julie demanded.
“A couple of guys are watching the house. The baby’s sleeping and I suspect Marisa has long since crashed. They’ll be fine.”
“Sure, and how did you explain your absence?”
He smiled at her. “Julie, you don’t know Marisa very well in some ways. All I said was I needed to go out. She didn’t pepper me with questions.”
He unzipped his jacket and hung it on the peg. “Trace? How’s it going?”
“Nowhere, basically. I’ve got a narrowed list of possibilities, but not narrow enough that I want to do any hacking yet.”
Ryker nodded, his face settling into the granite lines Julie remembered from when he first came to this town. For his part, Trace was beginning to look as stony. Game faces, she thought. They were putting them on.
She decided to treat this as a view on something new. They certainly weren’t going to be able to discuss anything inside this small apartment without her hearing it.
She settled at her desk, telling the men to help themselves to coffee, then waited. She wanted to know what they were thinking, what paths they were considering.
“Okay,” said Ryker, “we took you off the grid two days ago. How long do you figure before they start backtracking? You were higher up the ladder than I was.”
“Well, this storm plays into the problem. Have you been looking at the maps?”
Ryker nodded. “It’s hitting Colorado hard, too.”
“So I could be hunkered down in Denver, as far as they know. That’s where my cell went off the grid. If I were managing this operation, my first thought would be that I had a wreck, got picked up by a passing motorist and made it to Denver or even a little beyond. With the atmospheric conditions that moved in overnight Friday, there are lots of reasons my cell might not be making a connection right now. I could have gotten out of range of a tower, for example, then been stopped dead in my tracks by the weather.”
“Makes sense,” Ryker agreed. “And then?”
“If they’ve been following me all this time, they know I occasionally hit dead zones for cell transmission. They won’t be particularly concerned unless I don’t show up again by, say, Wednesday. Then they might be concerned enough to backtrack my route.”
“Might be?” Julie dared to ask.
“Pain meds,” Trace said to her. “There’ve been a couple of times since my injury when I hurt so badly that I just doped myself up and stayed put. It wouldn’t be the first time I stopped moving. In fact, I’m not so sure that they didn’t give me all those meds to make me do exactly that. Anyway, I’m not supposed to know for certain that someone is hunting me. What’s more, I’m supposed to believe that the Company is looking out for me. The real concern will arise if I don’t emerge to check with them, say...Thursday.”
“I’d give us a Wednesday cutoff to be safe,” Ryker said.
“I agree,” Trace answered. “That’s not a whole lot of time to figure out who the tiger is.”
Julie found this fascinating. She could hear the expertise as they spoke, the certainty that they could predict at least some of what would happen. How many times had they done things like this? She looked at Trace with renewed respect. “You can fiddle with my computer,” she said.
Trace smiled. “Thanks. I guess under the circumstances, if I start hacking into those files, I should do it from someplace not too far from Denver.”
“That would continue the illusion,” Ryker said. “Might even strengthen it and keep them from looking backward too soon.”
Julie leaned forward. “Why is time so important?”
Trace answered. “Because I haven’t yet figured out who this guy is. I need to know who, at the very least, or we might not be able to protect anyone. Which got me thinking...” He turned to Ryker. “Everyone was indefinite about whether someone was after me.”
“Until Thursday night,” Ryker agreed. “That’s when Bill let the cat out of the bag, indirectly at least.”
“So maybe they weren’t sure before then. Maybe it was a suspicion, which could mean this guy hasn’t been tracking me for very long. Maybe he’s gone
off the grid for them, too.”
“Now I’m confused,” Julie said honestly. “Are you saying they might be on your side after all?”
“Hell no,” Trace said bluntly. “All I’m saying is that until sometime last week they weren’t sure what this guy was going to do. I’m reasonably certain they expected this, but they didn’t know.”
“I suppose,” she said acidly, “that it counts for something that they told you to go on the road.” This whole thing, she thought, would have given Machiavelli a run for his money.
Trace shook his head. “Sorry. That was pure plausible deniability at work, regardless of what this guy might do. Some butt-covering going on. The question is, are they actually going to help him find me?”
Ryker looked at him. “What’s your gut saying?”
“Probably.”
Ryker swore quietly. “I was afraid of that. I’ve been arguing with myself for three days now, trying to find a way around it. Makes me sick.”
“It makes me sick, too,” Trace admitted. “And not just for myself. There’s a viper’s nest that needs some cleaning.”
“I was hoping you’d say that, because when we catch this guy I want to use him as a broom to do a little housecleaning.”
Julie felt impressed by their certainty, then reminded herself that these men had been in similar situations before. They knew what they were doing. Of course there could be no guarantees, but their skills made a good outcome more likely.
But as she listened, she had to fight to see it as an intellectual problem. From that place, this was a fascinating discussion for her. From any other place, such as her heart, it was sickening, disgusting, horrible.
“So,” Ryker said, “Eastern Europe is a pretty broad area. How many ops did you supervise there?”
“Too many,” Trace admitted. “I was running people all over the place.”
“Well, if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that at least one of your operatives screwed up somehow. The question is whether you even heard about it.”
“There is that,” Trace agreed. “If something blew up badly enough that some asset is this angry, then it must have been terrible. And it should have crossed my radar.”
