Perilous Trust

by Barbara Freethy

  A skinny man with dark hair and glasses, dressed in an expensive suit and tie, got out of the Escalade. On impulse, she turned on her camera and snapped a photo. She didn't recognize him, but he certainly exited the vehicle like a man expecting attention.

  After him, Senator Raleigh stepped out of the car. Another meeting with the senator? Was this about Alan or something unrelated? Raleigh and Hunt had gone to Yale together; maybe the other man had as well.

  She snapped a shot of the three men shaking hands. Then they walked into the bar. Glancing at her watch, she noted the time—three forty-five. A little early for happy hour, but the bar would probably be quiet before the after-work crowd came in.

  Through the front windows, she saw them sit down at a table where a fourth man was already seated. She slipped out of her hiding place and moved a little closer, discreetly snapping a few shots of the fourth man as she got closer. All she could really see was the back of his head and his stark-white hair.

  Then she moved down the street and crossed at the corner, spending another few minutes pretending to peruse some magazines at a newsstand with a good view of the bar. She stayed there for about fifteen minutes, not sure how long she wanted to keep her stakeout going. What might serve her better was identifying who else Peter and the senator were having drinks with.

  She turned in the opposite direction and walked to her apartment, which was a mile and a half in the opposite direction.

  She hoped Wyatt would be there. She had information for him and also some questions. She hadn't pressed him too hard the night before, but that was going to change. It probably wouldn't be easy to get him to talk. Now only was he distrustful and skittish right now—for good reason—out of the guys in their Quantico group, Wyatt was the most aloof, the most elusive, the one no one really knew, not even after a long conversation. Maybe that's why he was a good undercover agent. He gave nothing away.

  Unfortunately, he wouldn't be back undercover any time soon, at least not in this city.

  She entered her apartment building, keeping a close eye on her surroundings. She had a gun in her bag and knew how to defend herself, but she was hoping trouble had not found its way to her door. She walked up the stairs to her second-story apartment and knocked three times before using her key.

  She didn't want Wyatt to shoot her before she could identify herself. But when she entered the room, she knew he had not come back. The apartment was exactly as she'd left it. She checked the bedroom and bathroom just to make sure he wasn't there and that there weren't any signs of a break-in.

  As she moved over to her kitchen window, she glanced down at the alley between her building and the one next to it. She saw someone moving through the shadows. Was it Wyatt—or someone else?

  Grabbing her bag, she pulled out her gun. If someone had tracked Wyatt to her place, or if Peter Hunt had decided her questions needed to be silenced, she better be ready.

  * * *

  While Damon was showering, Sophie took their dishes to the sink. She washed and dried everything by hand, wanting to leave the kitchen as spotless as they'd found it.

  When that was done, she got a notepad and a pencil out of the kitchen drawer and sat down at the table.

  She'd told Damon she thought she could draw the tattoo she'd seen on the gunman, and she wanted to give it a shot. But thinking about the tattoo also made her remember how close she'd come to losing her life. She shivered, the terror she'd felt still very close to the surface. She was trying to compartmentalize, but the experiences she'd been through over the past few days were beyond anything she'd ever had to deal with before.

  But this was the kind of thing that Damon dealt with all the time—the kind of situation her father had dealt with, too.

  As she thought about that, an older memory came into her head—her mom and dad arguing over something late one night. It had been unusual, because unlike Damon's parents, her parents had rarely raised their voices over anything. But that evening, her mom had been upset, worried, wanting to know why her father had to have such a dangerous job, why he couldn't quit after the years of service he'd already put in, why he had to be the one to keep putting his life on the line.

  She'd never really thought of her dad as having a dangerous job. He was FBI, but he wore a suit when he went to work. He didn't come home with bruises and gunshot wounds. He'd never been almost killed—at least, she didn't think he had. But at this point, she wasn't sure about much of anything.

  She'd thought she could read people. She'd thought she was a good judge of character, but the person she'd been closest to was quickly becoming a stranger, making her question everything about her life, her relationships.

  But those questions weren't going to be answered until they found out who had killed her father and who was after her.

  She picked up her pencil, closed her eyes and tried to remember what she'd seen.

  The image started to come to life…

  Opening her eyes, she sketched one snake and then another, trying to intertwine them in the way she remembered, but it wasn't quite right.

  She ripped off the page and went to the next one. After several more attempts, she felt she had the snakes right. Then she tried to duplicate the vine that had wound around them. There had been tiny leaves on that vine. She felt as if there was a pattern to the leaves.

  Were they spiked at the ends? She thought so. And they were bunched in twos, growing into a cluster as they wound up and down and around the middle.

  Excitement ran through her as the picture developed. Now that she had the snakes, the vines and the leaves, she took a stab at the pattern in the middle. It had had six points, a circle inside, then a triangle and in the center of the triangle was an eye—a red eye.

  The eye that she'd felt was looking at her.

  A chill coursed through her, and it wasn't just because of the eye she'd drawn. It was because the symbol, the snakes and the vine reminded her of something.

  She felt sure she'd seen the design somewhere before, but where?

  She'd studied art and history and anthropology where symbols played important roles in many cultures. She could have seen this particular image anywhere. She might not have seen it as a tattoo but rather in a picture or on a piece of art.

  Maybe she could find it on the Internet now that she'd put it down on paper. She looked around for the phone, but Damon had taken it with him. She'd have to wait until he was done changing, unless she could find another computer in the house.

  Setting the drawing aside, she walked down the hall and into Vincent's study. There was no computer on the desk. She looked through the drawers and found nothing beyond envelopes, paper clips, pens, and some more notepads. She was about to close the last drawer when a black-and-white photograph caught her eye. She pulled it out. It was actually a photocopy of a picture of six people. They stood in front of a sign that said Quantico. Jamie was in the middle. Damon was next to him. She didn't recognize the other two men or the two women, but she was guessing this was the group of friends who used the baseball forum.

  Someone, probably Jamie, had written a note across the bottom: The next superheroes.

  She smiled. Jamie had always wanted to be a superhero—first the Army, then the FBI. Was that what drove Damon, too, beyond his appreciation for structure?

  Maybe it was more about control than structure. Damon had been used as a pawn between his parents. They'd forgotten that they had a child who needed both of them. It had been more about winning than parenting. And Damon had not had the power to change that.

  He'd said it was patriotism and 9/11 that made him join the Army, and she didn't doubt that at all, but she suspected it was also about wanting to be his own man, to do something important with his life, to make a difference—perhaps even be a superhero.

  He'd been a superhero today at the storage unit. He'd taken down two gunmen with two shots fired in rapid succession. He'd been so quick, only one man had been able to get off an errant shot that fortuna
tely hadn't hit her. She still didn't quite know how he'd done it.

  Jamie would have been proud of his friend, she thought, as she looked back at Jamie's smiling face in the photo. He'd had a military haircut at the time the picture had been taken, and there was purposeful determination in his expression. The two women were quite attractive, one with very dark hair and an exotic beauty, the other more girl-next-door with lighter brown hair and light eyes. The other men were handsome, both dark-haired, rugged in appearance. They definitely looked like they were ready to take on the world. Especially Damon—his dark-brown hair and blue eyes could shine, even in a black and white copy of a photo.

  A step brought her head up, and she was relieved to see Damon come through the doorway.

  "It's you," she said with relief. He'd changed into a pair of clean jeans and a light-blue button-down shirt that made his eyes look even bluer. His hair was still damp, and he must have found a razor somewhere as his cheeks were smooth again, so smooth she wanted to run her fingers along his jawline. "You took your sweet time."

  "What are you doing in here?"

  "I was looking for a computer."

  "To do what? We can't use anything here in the house. Too risky."

  "Really? Would Vincent or Cassie know someone was in here using the computer? Anyway, it doesn't matter, because I couldn't find one, but I did find this." She handed him the photo. "Superheroes, huh?"

  "That's what Jamie called us. This photo was taken a few days before Jamie died." He sighed at the end of his statement. "Tragic."

  "I never really understood what happened. No one would tell me."

  "The mission we were on was classified."

  "But I thought you were training. Aren't all those missions fake?"

  "Not this one. All I can tell you is that it was a horrific accident. But what Jamie did that day made a difference. It changed something important, and I try to hang on to that. Otherwise, it eats away at me."

  She could see the pain in his expression. "Do you hold yourself responsible in some way?"

  "I think we were all responsible in some way—even Jamie. If he were alive, he'd probably be the first to say that. You should put this back where you got it."

  "Before I do—want to tell me who you've been talking to in the forum? Can we use names yet?"

  He hesitated, then nodded. "I think we're there. This is Bree Adams. She's my inside-the-FBI contact." He pointed to the woman in the middle with the light-brown hair and light eyes. "And this is Wyatt Tanner, the undercover agent who was working with your dad." He identified the man on the far right with the dark hair and unsmiling eyes.

  "And the others?"

  "Parisa and Diego. They're both currently working out of the country; that's why they haven't responded."

  "Thanks. It helps to put faces to names. I remember seeing some of these people at the funeral, but no one from Quantico came to the wake but you."

  "No. They felt the wake was for closer friends. Jamie and I had a longer history together, so, of course, I went. Bree was close to Jamie but only for a short time. They had a fling during training. She was torn-up after he died, but she wasn't sure she'd be welcome at the wake, so she stayed away."

  "He never mentioned her to me." She paused. "Did you have a fling at the academy?" she asked curiously.

  "No, I don't mix business and pleasure. The people in this picture are my friends. That's it. Keeps life simple."

  She smiled at his words, then took the paper from his hand and returned it to the desk. "While you were showering," she said, changing the subject. "I drew what I think is the tattoo. I feel like the design is familiar. I want to go on the Internet and see if I can find the image. That's why I was looking for a computer since you can't seem to leave your phone unattended."

  "Sorry. I didn't deliberately keep it from you. It was just in my pocket." He handed it to her and then followed her back to the kitchen.

  She gave him the drawing, and he perused it for a long moment.

  "What do you think?" she asked.

  "That I wish I'd noticed even a tenth of what you did. This is good, Sophie. You're an artist. You see not just the big picture but also the details."

  "I wouldn't say I'm an artist, but I do like to sketch. I have a feeling this design means something, and if we find out what it means, we might be able to close in on who this person was." She paused. "Although, maybe the police already know. Can Bree find out what the police report says?"

  "I just sent a message to the forum with that very question. Hopefully, we'll learn what the police know very soon."

  The mention of the police put her nerves back on edge. "You shot those men in self-defense. Even if the police arrest us, they'll have to believe that, right? The guys were wearing ski masks. They were there to rob us and probably kill us."

  "I would hope that would be taken into consideration—if that's the way the police report the scene."

  She didn't like the suggestion behind his words. "How could they not report it that way?"

  "If there's an FBI mole, there could also be someone in the Connecticut Police Department. But let's not worry about that. I'm not as concerned about the police as I am with who sent those shooters and who's coming next. I don't think anyone is giving up."

  * * *

  Bree positioned herself behind her kitchen island, gun in hand, as three sharp knocks came at her door. It was a signal from their Quantico days. She walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Wyatt. It must have been him she'd seen in the alley.

  She lowered the gun and let him in. As he entered, she said, "I wasn't sure you'd be back."

  "I probably shouldn't be, but I wanted an update."

  "Where did you go early this morning?"

  "To find someone."

  "Who?" she asked curiously.

  "A friend of mine."

  "I thought you were all out of friends."

  "She doesn't know who I am. She's a waitress. We've hung out a few times. She works the early shift at a diner."

  She gave him a considering look. Wyatt was attractive when his face didn't boast three shades of purple bruising, and she had no doubt that he could find a woman whenever he wanted one, but she hadn't seen him getting involved while undercover. "Wasn't that risky?"

  "She was part of my cover. I had to bring someone to parties. I couldn't always show up alone. It would have raised suspicion."

  "Why did you go see her today? You're obviously in a shitload of trouble. Why take that to her?"

  "Because there's a part of me that wonders if she knew more than I thought she did."

  "Did you talk in your sleep?"

  "We didn't do a lot of sleeping," he retorted.

  "Of course not. So, what happened when you went to the diner?"

  "She wasn't there. The manager said she called in sick today. I went by her apartment. She wasn't home, either."

  She saw the grim expression in his eyes and realized he wasn't so much suspicious of this woman as worried. "You don't think the Venturis would go after her, do you?"

  "I don't know. I only took her to two parties, but it's definitely possible. I shouldn't have waited so long to look for her."

  "Maybe she was just taking a personal day. When's the last time you saw her?"

  "Two—three weeks ago." He sat down on the couch and propped up his feet on her coffee table. "Do you have any news?"

  She took the chair across from him. "Well, Damon shot two people this morning at a storage unit in New Haven. Both are dead."

  Wyatt sat up at that piece of information. "Was he arrested?"

  "No. He and Sophie Parker are on the run. They were caught on security footage at the storage place. I don’t quite know how they got away, but they did."

  "Good. Although, I don't know how innocent Sophie Parker is."

  "She seems like a pawn in all this. One of the deceased males was identified as Carl Rucker, who was employed by one of the Venturi companies."
/>   His expression turned grim. "And the other?"

  "No ID. No facial recognition. He has a tattoo. Analysts are working on it." She paused. "Karen Leigh also showed your photo to everyone. She said that a CI told her you were made, and if anyone has contact with you, they should tell you to come in. She looked right at me when she said it."

  "I probably shouldn't stay here," Wyatt said. "I'll find somewhere else to sleep tonight."

  She couldn't deny that moving around might be the best choice for him. "Also, Peter Hunt and I had a bit of a confrontation in the elevator. He came at me about having information on you and Damon, and I decided to turn the tables."

  Wyatt raised an eyebrow. "What did you do?"

  "I poked the bear."

  He groaned. "That sounds like you, Bree."

  "And you," she retorted.

  "I can't argue with that."

  "I asked him why he hadn't known about the lake house where Sophie went, since he was friends with Alan and also with Vincent Rowland. He said he hadn't spoken to Vincent and mumbled something about not spending vacation time with Alan. I'm not sure I buy it. Also, the storage unit from today's ambush was rented by Alan under an alias, and since it was in New Haven where both he and Peter went to school, I was surprised Peter didn't know about that, either."

  "Peter is looking more suspicious by the day."

  "So is Karen. I don't know why she put your photo up in front of the entire office, not just your division. It felt like she had an ulterior motive. I'm wondering if she is going to frame you for something. If the investigation gets too close to FBI involvement in Alan's death, who better to pin it on than someone who might have been turned by the crime family he was sent to investigate?"

  Wyatt stared back at her through unblinking serious dark eyes. "I can't think of anyone better."

  "Do you know Seth Hanford? He seems to be a little put out that Karen has more power now. He has been asking a lot of annoyed questions in our meetings, as if he's angry he's out of the loop."