TRACELESS

by Helen Kay Dimon

  He certainly never got unexpected guests around midnight.

  He got up as the doorbell rang a second time. One tap of the keyboard and the large screen mounted on the wall flickered on. The alarm system feed showed images from every camera outside the house. Someone with a baseball cap pulled low stood on the front porch holding what looked like an envelope and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  The unwanted visitor was enough to get Connor moving. He slipped around the conference table and headed for the foyer. Cameron Roth, a member of Corcoran’s traveling team, met him at the bottom of the stairs. He was spending a few nights in the crash pad on the third floor, but right now he waited, fully dressed, with a gun in his hand.

  “What’s going on?” Cam asked.

  “No idea.”

  “I’ll handle backup.” Cam took the last few steps and set up position flat against the wall on one side of the door. “You get to be the target.”

  Connor tucked his gun at the back of his waistband. He had another by his ankle and Cam as insurance, so Connor felt safe unlocking and opening the door.

  He caught the guy halfway down the front steps on the way back to the beat-up sedan idling by the sidewalk. “What do you want?”

  The guy jumped then spun around. Make that a kid. The tall, all limbs and no coordination type. He was fidgety and had the eye-darting thing down.

  “I have a package,” the kid sputtered.

  “At midnight?”

  “I got extra to bring it now. Are you Connor Bowen?” When Connor stayed silent, the kid practically threw the padded envelope at him. “I had to wait three extra hours to deliver it as ordered. The guy said it was pretty important and said you’d be the one to answer.”

  The timing and delivery didn’t make much sense, but Connor—and Corcoran—had a lot of enemies. It was entirely possible that one of them planned on crawling right up his lawn, or at least wanted to send a message that he could.

  Connor was not in the mood to play. “Who? I want a name.”

  The kid visibly swallowed and started backing down the stairs. “I don’t have one.”

  “Then who do you work for?” Cam stepped into the doorway, not bothering to hide the gun in the hand hanging by his side.

  The kid’s eyes almost popped out of his head. He took another step and almost went down when his heel overturned. “Whoa, what are you—”

  “Stop.” Connor didn’t yell but the kid stilled anyway. “Now answer the question.”

  “I had instructions.” Words rushed out of the kid as he held up his hands. “All the information about my boss is on the packing slip. You can ask him. I just needed the money for, you know, stuff this summer.”

  Connor swore. “Unbelievable.”

  “You should leave.” Cam waved the kid away. “And stop going to strangers’ houses at midnight.”

  Connor heard the slap of sneakers against the pavement followed a minute later by the rev of a car engine. None of which grabbed his attention. Curiosity nailed him. He didn’t even wait for the door to close to check the package. Taking it back into the office, he had a pair of gloves on and went to work.

  A few seconds later Cam appeared on the other side of the conference table. He watched the preliminaries with a frown. “Paranoid much?”

  “It’s protocol.” The package could contain a host of dangers and Connor was already breaking rules to rip it open fast. “And do you blame me in light of some of the people we handle?”

  “Good point.”

  Wearing the blue gloves, Connor ran his hand over it, carefully squeezing. “Feels empty.”

  “Want to x-ray it?”

  The question highlighted the step Connor decided to skip. One of them. “No time.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m not sure.” But the churning in his stomach and twitching at the back of his neck gave him the clues. His instincts shouted at him to hurry.

  Sliding a letter opener under the flap, Connor broke the seal. He upended it onto the paper Cam spread out on the conference room table. A ring bounced around on the table, pinging and spinning. Gold and slim.

  With each rotation the anxiety built in Connor. He slammed a palm against it to stop the noise then picked it up. He didn’t know anything about jewelry but he recognized this. To be sure, he tilted it to get a better look at the inscription and read the piece of the Aristotle quote.

  “A single soul inhabiting two bodies...”

  Cam leaned in and studied the ring. When he straightened again, the frown morphed into a look of confusion. “I don’t get it.”

  Connor did. The kick to his gut had him rubbing a hand over his stomach from the sharp whack of pain there. “It’s Jana’s.”

  The phone he always carried with him buzzed in his pocket. It couldn’t be a coincidence his wife’s wedding ring arrived right as the private line only she knew about lit up. He braced his body for the killing blow.

  If this was the way she planned to tell him their temporary separation had become permanent in her mind, she could forget it. He was not losing her. He’d get on a plane and fly to her. No more waiting or giving her space.

  She asked and he obliged, even though every day without her sucked a piece of his soul away. But the end? No way. Wasn’t happening.

  Feeling the heat of Cam’s stare and tension coiling inside, Connor slid his thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to his ear. “Jana?”

  “No, but she says hello.”

  The metallic twinge had Connor’s head snapping back. He recognized a voice modifier. More out of habit and training than actual thought, he pressed the speaker button.

  Jana’s voice filled the room. “Connor, stay away!” The tremble gave way to a scream then all sound cut off.

  “Jana!” Connor almost dropped the phone as adrenaline and anxiety thundered together in his brain.

  The other voice filled the line again. “She’s done talking.”

  The word done echoed in Connor’s head. “Where is she? Put her back on.”

  “That’s enough.” The modifier only highlighted the menace in the person’s voice. “This isn’t a negotiation. You have your proof of life.”

  “Who is this?” Connor could barely get the question out.

  This time the voice laughed. “The man holding your wife. And if you want her back, you’d better get smart fast and figure out where she is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You have seven hours and a long way to travel.”

  The line cut out but Connor kept yelling over the buzzing sound in his ear. “Wait, where are you?”

  “Okay.” The color drained from Cam’s face as he blew out a breath. “Any idea who that was?”

  With a shaking hand, Connor hit the end button and fought off the mix of panic and fury whipping through him. “The man who kidnapped my wife.”

  Chapter Two

  The noises in Jana’s head roared, growing louder with each second until she woke with a start. She tried to move her arms and something pinched her stomach. She tugged again and bindings dug into her skin.

  She bit back a scream as she opened her eyes. Blinking, she adjusted to the pale light and tried not to draw any attention or move her head as she glanced at the area right in front of her and just off to the sides. She couldn’t turn around and see behind her, but she picked up enough clues to know she’d been moved.

  A small room with a few windows. No furniture except the rickety, hard chair under her. A wood floor thick with dust. And two bruisers dressed in black, standing on either side of a window next to what she assumed was the front door to this cabin. Without facing her, they looked like the same ones who burst through the door back at the office.

  The pieces didn
’t add up to anything good.

  She searched her memory for a building that fit what she saw and remembered an abandoned shack about two miles from the charity. She’d found it while out walking one day, trying to clear her head and work through the pain of not being near Connor.

  Connor... Because of her he would walk into a trap. She closed her eyes on the wave of pain that crashed over her.

  “The princess is awake.”

  At the sound of the male voice her eyes popped open again. Her captor, the one who had hovered over her earlier while he threatened Connor over the phone, stood right over her again. There still was nothing hiding his identity, which confirmed they did not plan for her to survive whatever they were plotting.

  He or one of these guys must have knocked her out. Some way she’d ended up here with only these three. She had no idea how many hours had passed but could see from the area outside the window that it was dark outside. The sky took on an eerie gray and tall trees blocked her view of anything more than a few feet away from the building.

  Hoping to stall, do anything to get her bearings again, she said the first thing that came into her head. “How is Connor supposed to find me here?”

  The man she thought of as the leader shrugged. “He’s resourceful.”

  “He’s not superhuman.” But he was close. He’d saved her from an impossible situation once before and she had to believe he would somehow do it again. But at what cost?

  When he received the call he’d sat hours away in Maryland. There was no way he could catch a commercial flight at that hour. But he was ingenious. He knew people. He never spoke about his time before starting the Corcoran Team or whatever he did years ago in black ops, but it conditioned him for situations like this. She knew that much.

  The leader crouched down and met her at eye level. “I am well familiar with your husband.”

  “How?” Because if he knew Connor from the old days, this guy might have the same skills and then... She couldn’t think about the “then” part.

  “You don’t need to worry about that now.”

  “He won’t get here in time.” Even if he did land in Utah by the deadline, she had no idea how he would know where to look for her.

  Shifting her shoulders, she tried to move her hands but they stayed locked behind her. There was a little give in the ropes binding her ankles, but too much shifting and the chair would tip over. She didn’t see how that would help her.

  She concentrated, trying to figure out if she still had her phone, but the ties lay flat and tight against her body and she didn’t see any signs of bulging from the cell. That was really bad news since her phone had a chip in it and could provide Connor with a beacon to find her.

  The idea had been for Connor to know her location at all times. He insisted it was a matter of safety, not trust. Before she left home she viewed it as further evidence of his overzealous need to wrap her up and store her away.

  All that had changed now. The chip, the constant analysis, his insistence she run recovery drills with the team struck her as sound planning. The ability to commandeer a flight in record time might turn out to be the perfect trait in a husband.

  “For your sake, let’s hope you’re wrong about your husband’s tardiness.” The leader stood up but stayed bent over her. His mouth loomed close to her ear. “And stop fidgeting.”

  “You think I’m going to sit here for hours and wait to die?”

  He balanced his hands on his thighs and continued to lean in close. “Would you rather be unconscious? Because I could arrange that. Again.”

  Footsteps clomped against the hardwood right before a second man appeared at the leader’s side. This was one of the guys who chased her through the charity building. “Or I can keep you occupied.”

  Her stomach flipped as bile rushed up her throat. This one, taller and bulkier, wore a feral grin. His gaze never stopped roaming and the heat in his eyes promised pain.

  The leader chuckled as he stood up and slapped the other man on the back. “Looks like my associate here is eager to step in and keep you company as you wait.”

  “Yeah, I am. She ran last time. She won’t this time.” The guy reached out and the tips of his fingers touched her hair.

  She flinched and threw her body in the opposite direction. “Don’t touch me.”

  The chair rocked and teetered. She would have crashed to the floor, unable to brace for the impact, if the leader hadn’t clamped a hand down on her shoulder and steadied her.

  He smiled at his friend. “It would appear she’s not interested.”

  Fear pumped through her. Every bone shook and she fought to keep the tremor out of her voice. Panic and revulsion mixed until her head pounded. “No.”

  “Are you sure?” This time the oversized attacker grabbed her hair. Balled it in his fist and pulled. “You must be lonely if you and your husband are really separated.”

  The leader’s eyebrow lifted. “Well, Jana? Is he right? Are you looking for someone to keep you busy and your mind off your husband?”

  Tears came to her eyes as the man ripped strands of hair from her head. She stopped moving—anything to keep him from getting a tighter grip. From pulling her closer to him or his hot breath blowing cross her cheek.

  She inhaled through her nose, desperate to calm the nerves jumping around inside her. Tried to remember all of Connor’s instructions and the directions he called out during his impromptu safety drills. The most basic was to keep the attackers talking. Make them deal with her as a human being and not a product to be traded. “Tell me why you want Connor.”

  The leader shrugged. “Tell me why you don’t.”

  “He will kill you both when he gets here.”

  The men looked at each other and laughed. The one with the death grip on her hair spoke up. “I doubt that.”

  “Let me go.”

  “That’s enough.” The leader pushed his friend back and crowded her.

  She could smell the sweat on his skin and the heat pouring off him through his clothes. She fought to keep the dizziness from knocking her over as terror ran wild through her. “What are you—”

  “Quiet or I will put one in your mouth, too.” A black slip of material dropped out of the leader’s hand and he waved it in front of her face. He came at her with his hands out. His thigh touched against hers as he practically stood on top of her.

  “No.” She shook her head, swiveled and turned.

  He grabbed her chin in a bruising hold. “Stop.”

  When he slipped the material over her eyes, the room went black. She couldn’t make out shadows. Nothing. Terror gripped her in the darkness. Fear like she’d never known crashed over her as she gasped for breath.

  Her panic only made the leader angrier. His motions turned jerky and more forceful. He tied the knot behind her head and pulled tight, causing pain to spread through the back of her head.

  “Easy.” An unfamiliar male voice, barely a whisper, sounded directly behind her.

  A hand cuffed the side of her head. “She’s a—”

  “Right. Let’s get ready,” the leader said.

  His voice she recognized. It was burned on her brain. He talked with Connor. He acted as if he knew all about her husband. And now he talked with someone who hid in the shadows behind her. Another man so quiet she hadn’t even sensed his presence.

  “You have to give Connor more time.” She had no idea if that was true but she needed noise. Needed them to talk to her before all of the sensations bombarding her dragged her under.

  Then a presence stood right behind her. Not touching but close enough for something in her skin to tingle.

  “Don’t underestimate him.”

  It was the voice. The one she didn’t recognize. And the fury in those three words had her shivering so hard she couldn�
��t stop.

  * * *

  Connor lowered the binoculars. Snipers used them for a reason. This set had increased magnification and brightness so that being more than two hundred yards away from his target didn’t matter at all. These worked for up to a thousand yards, so he could easily see two armed men walking around inside the cabin and the top of another person’s head. Even in the poor light he could tell the hair color matched Jana’s.

  That was enough for him. He checked his bulletproof vest and started to leave the protective outcropping of rocks where he hid with Cam. Connor was careful not to make too much noise but rubble and rocks crunched beneath his feet.

  Cam grabbed his arm. “Hold up.”

  That wasn’t happening. Already Connor’s mind spun with a list of horrible things his wife could have endured. He needed her out of there right now. “Jana doesn’t have more time.”

  “According to the GPS in her phone she’s not even in there.”

  Throughout the entire tense flight across the country, they’d talked strategy. Connor’s second-in-command, Davis Weeks, stayed back at Annapolis headquarters and provided intel via the comm they all wore during operations. Even now the entire team listened in and stayed connected via earpieces and watches.

  All Davis’s tracking and calculations put Jana at the charity headquarters a few miles away. Connor knew that was wrong and Davis agreed. “The GPS is too easy. It’s a setup,” Connor said.

  Cam nodded. “Probably.”

  “They would have found her cell and planted it somewhere else as a red herring. That’s what the guy on the phone was talking about when he dared me to find her.”

  “Still, we need to be smart.”

  “Listen to the man.” Holt Kingston made the comment in the comm then appeared in front of Connor two seconds later.

  Connor blinked, trying to figure out why the entire three-man Corcoran traveling team surrounded him all of a sudden. He’d grabbed Cam and brought him along more because he was in the house when the call came than anything else.