Secret Agenda

by Paula Graves

  Ignoring the tingle of danger at the back of his neck, Evan reached over the fence and rubbed the dog’s jaw, allowing Patton to lick his hand. “Hey, Patton. You’re looking good, fellow! All grown up into a big, bad hound dog.”

  “Who are you?” Her voice was low and hard.

  He met her gaze. “Evan Pike.”

  Her eyes iced over. “I told you I didn’t want to talk to you about my husband.”

  He held his ground, despite the fierce anger in her expression. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think what I have to tell you is something you need to know.”

  “I’m armed and you’re trespassing. I don’t know what you know about the laws here in Alabama, but they tend to be sympathetic to people protecting their property.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “You plan to shoot me? Really?”

  “Are you sure I won’t?” Like her husband, she had a hard-edged Southern drawl that reminded him of the place he’d once called home. He’d left Cumberland behind ages ago, but memories lingered, good and bad.

  It had taken a couple of years back in Washington to regain his neutral inflections after two years in Kaziristan surrounded by a bunch of Southern boys in the army unit where he’d acted as a liaison to an Assistant Secretary of Defense, tasked with monitoring rules of engagement compliance after a politically embarrassing incident. He had to fight against lapsing into his native accent now as he spoke. “I need ten minutes of your time. If, when I’m finished, you want me to leave, I’ll go and not bother you again.”

  “I want you to go now.”

  “What are you afraid of, Mrs. Randall?” he countered. “You think I’m going to tell you something about your husband that you don’t want to hear? I’m not.”

  Not yet, anyway.

  “Funny. That’s not what Vince thought.”

  So Vince had written home about him. He’d figured as much. It had taken over a year to get past Randall’s native distrust of anyone from the civilian side of the Pentagon. His passion had been the safety of his men, and while he’d understood the need for limits in the rules of engagement, Vince Randall had seen too many deaths and even more close calls to be happy about limits on what his men could do to protect themselves.

  Evan wondered, even now, to what lengths Randall might have gone to protect his men. What compromises he might have made.

  “You don’t look surprised,” she said darkly.

  “I know soldiers write home.”

  The ice melted under the anger burning in her eyes, lighting her up like a lantern, all hissing flames and pent-up energy. “I reckon they feel they ought to warn the folks who love them that someday, some well-meaning but out-of-touch lawyer from D.C. is going to get them all killed.”

  “I don’t blame you for being angry—”

  “You don’t blame me?” She stared at him in disbelief, visibly bristling. “I blame you.” Her voice broke. “I blame you for four years of living alone without the man I loved practically my whole life. I blame you for the kids we’ll never have and the house we’ll never build together and—” Her voice broke, her face creasing with frustration.

  He felt sick, but he couldn’t stop now. This might be as close as he’d ever get to finding out what really happened that night in Mi’Qaa Valley. “I understand your feelings—”

  “Don’t handle me,” she warned, the hand with the shotgun lifting in warning.

  Patton whimpered softly, as if sensing the sudden miasma of tension roiling across the yard between them.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not. But I have to tell you something you need to know, even if you don’t want to hear it.” He didn’t let her interrupt, though he could see the intention shining in her stormy eyes. “I don’t think al Adar rebels killed your husband.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “What?”

  Even as he opened his mouth to speak, the words stuck in his throat. How sure was he, really? And if she accepted this part of the truth, did he have the guts to tell her the rest of his suspicions about the night her husband died?

  “You got something to say?” she prodded. “Might as well say it now, since your ten minutes is nearly up.”

  He took a deep breath, leveled his gaze with hers and blurted it out before he could stop himself again. “I think your husband was assassinated by an American contractor.”

  Chapter Two

  Evan waited for her reaction, ready to duck if her twitching fingers lifted the shotgun. But he saw curiosity in her eyes rather than anger, the first non-hostile expression he’d seen from her since she’d come outside the house.

  “MacLear,” she murmured, catching him off guard. When he didn’t speak immediately, her gaze pierced him like an arrow. “That’s who you’re talking about, right? MacLear Security’s Special Services Unit.”

  “Yes,” he said, stunned. “You knew this already?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know it now. Why would MacLear target Vince? He never had anything to do with them, even in Kaziristan.”

  Evan wasn’t so sure about that, but he knew better than to voice his nagging suspicions, especially now that he had her actually talking to him. “But MacLear was there.”

  “And the Special Services Unit was doing special wet-work jobs for Barton Reid for years,” she added faintly.

  “Allegedly.” Anger darkened his voice. Proving Reid’s role in the mess had turned out to be harder than expected.

  “Allegedly,” Megan echoed, her voice tinged with disgust. “Do you think Barton Reid ordered my husband’s murder?”

  He couldn’t tell whether she thought the idea had merit or not, but at least she didn’t dismiss the thought outright.

  “I think someone did. Maybe Reid, and if I can prove it, maybe some of the charges against him will finally stick.”

  Her tone was bleak. “Good luck with that.”

  “He’s going to walk if we can’t tie him to something concrete. You know that. He won’t have to pay anything for the terror he put your cousin’s family through. Or the hit he put out on your sister-in-law back in March.”

  Her head cocked and her eyes narrowed. “You know a lot about me and my family.”

  “I made it my business.” He squared his shoulders and met her gaze directly. “I guess my ten minutes are up now. Do I stay or go?”

  She was silent a moment before finally giving a single backward jerk of her head and turning toward the house.

  As she started up the steps, he let himself into the yard and closed the gate behind him, pausing a moment to let Patton greet him properly. He looked up to find Megan watching him from the open doorway. She’d tucked the phone in the pocket of her running shorts, but the shotgun remained in her hand.

  In an instant, he felt a tug low in his belly, an attraction to this backwoods avenging angel, with her fiery hair, stormy eyes and death at her fingertips.

  She was dangerous on an entirely different level.

  * * *

  BASED ON THE GRUMBLINGS IN HER husband’s letters, Megan had reduced Evan Pike to such a wizened, rule-worshipping paper-rustler in her mind that she’d never stopped to wonder what he really looked like. He was taller than she’d expected, bigger altogether—over six feet tall, a good eight inches taller than Megan herself. His broad, muscular shoulders, flat belly and trim hips would not have been out of place in any army unit, although he’d never been a soldier, according to Vince.

  She realized he was aware of her scrutiny when a smile flirted with the corners of his mouth. “Do I pass muster?”

  “Remains to be seen.” Biting back her annoyance, she carried the shotgun to her bedroom and set it against the cabinet that stood by her door. She never locked it up while she was home, unless one of her cousins brought their kids over for a visit. Gossamer Ridge wasn’t exactly a dangerous place, but the Cooper family’s run-ins with some very bad actors over the past few years had put her on alert.

  She returned to the living room, where Evan
stood patiently near the door, waiting for direction. Patton sat on the floor at his feet, gazing at him with a ridiculous look that could only be a doggy grin.

  “Nice place,” Evan commented.

  She looked around the bungalow, his words driving home just how indifferent she’d become to her surroundings. The bungalow was supposed to have been a placeholder until Vince returned from his last tour of duty and took his honorable discharge. They’d already saved up a down payment for a nice piece of land not far from where her cousins’ family lived on Gossamer Lake; Vince had planned to do most of the construction of the house himself once they picked out a set of blueprints to work from.

  Now the bungalow was purgatory, a lingering place, until she figured out what to do with the years stretching in front of her with no clear purpose.

  “Thank you,” she responded, wondering if he was merely being polite or if he actually saw something of interest in the drab, utilitarian living room. At least it was clean. She wasn’t messy by nature, but Patton couldn’t say the same. Between the hair shedding and his habit of shredding his toys until their innards lay scattered about the room like clumps of dirty snow, Patton had proved a high-maintenance companion.

  “If you’re not comfortable with my being here, Mrs. Randall, we could go elsewhere. Maybe a late breakfast in town?” he suggested.

  “I’m not uncomfortable,” she denied, the lie obvious even to her own ears. She gestured toward the kitchen doorway. “If you’re hungry, though, I have eggs in the fridge. Ham, too.” Apparently she was helpless against her habitual hospitality, ingrained by years of living in a Southern small town.

  “You don’t have to feed me—”

  She’d already made the invitation. She didn’t intend to jerk it back. “Patton and I haven’t eaten yet, either. You’re welcome to join us.”

  She saw his lips quirk. “Gotta love the South. Everybody tries to feed you, even if they hate your guts.”

  She didn’t comment—what could she say, that she didn’t hate him? That remained to be seen, didn’t it?

  She waved at the small breakfast bar near the stove, hiding her amusement when he tried to settle his big frame on one of the small stools. He looked like a giant in a child’s chair.

  Patton trotted up beside him and sat again, his attention fixed on the newcomer. Evan Pike reached down and scratched the dog’s ears as if they were old friends.

  “You and Patton knew each other back in Kaziristan?” She washed her hands at the sink.

  “I’m the one who found him. Aren’t I, boy?” Evan smiled at the dog, who gazed at him as if he were a long-lost friend.

  “Vince said he just wandered up one day.”

  He glanced up at her as if trying to gauge whether she was calling him a liar. She wasn’t, really—Vince had been vague about Patton’s origins. “He was tiny—barely weaned. He’d crawled under one of the trucks for warmth and probably would’ve been squashed if I hadn’t spotted him as the truck was about to roll out.”

  She stifled a shudder. Life without Patton around these past four years would’ve been hell. “Why didn’t you send him home to your own wife?”

  “I don’t have a wife,” he answered. “Vince said you loved dogs, so it seemed the right answer.”

  She dried her hands. “I’m glad to have him.”

  “He looks great. Much more polite than he was back at the base.” His smile crinkled the skin around his eyes and made his whole face come alive. The skin on her back rippled at the sight, sparking a flutter of alarm.

  Was she attracted to him? Good grief, what terrible timing for that slumbering part of herself to stagger back to life. She’d already decided that, short of being married to Vince Randall for life, being his widow was the only other option. If she couldn’t have Vince back, she’d rather be alone.

  Attraction or no attraction.

  She ignored the tug in her gut and crossed to the refrigerator to pull a couple of brown-shelled eggs from the bin. “Scrambled or fried?”

  “Whichever’s easier,” he answered. “May I use the sink to wash my hands?”

  “Of course,” she answered, though she immediately regretted not sending him down the hall to the bathroom instead. Partitioned from the breakfast nook by the counter bar, this section of the kitchen was small, and his broad-shouldered presence seemed to reduce the size by half.

  Their arms brushed as she reached past him for the frying pan. She gritted her teeth against the heat flooding her body.

  Her sisters had been urging her to dip her toe in the dating pool again. She’d always ignored the suggestion, certain she was the kind of woman who mated for life. She’d had her one great love. She didn’t need a pale imitation.

  Still, if she’d had a steady boyfriend now, she doubted she’d be standing here, crowded by a big, inconveniently attractive man and feeling like a virginal sixteen-year-old at her first high school dance.

  He dried his hands on a paper towel and looked down at her, making her feel small and vulnerable. She didn’t like the sensation. “Garbage can?”

  She held out her hand. “It’s under the bar—I’ll throw it away for you. Go. Sit.” And get your enormous male self out of my kitchen before I do something embarrassing.

  “Sure I can’t help with something?”

  Why not? It would keep him occupied and out of her way. “There’s bread in that box.” She waved at the toaster next to him on the bar. “Think you can handle toast?”

  “Sure.”

  She plated the eggs, saving a little for Patton’s bowl, and carried the plates over to the bar. He added slices of toast.

  Rather than sitting on the stool beside Evan, she stood across from him at the bar to eat.

  “Good,” he commented after a bite. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The silence between them thickened. Halfway through her eggs and toast, Megan could stand it no more. “What makes you think MacLear had anything to do with Vince’s death? Didn’t the army investigate? Are you saying they covered it up?”

  “The official story about your husband’s death in the line of duty doesn’t match up to the evidence,” Evan answered flatly. “There are big holes in the story, questions nobody can—or will—answer. Believe me, I’ve tried to get those answers, but it didn’t take long to hit a wall. But I don’t think the army investigators are the ones covering things up.”

  “Are you here in an official Pentagon capacity?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t work at the Pentagon anymore.”

  That caught her by surprise. “Vince said you were practically married to the place.”

  “We got a divorce.” That smile came out to play again, this time tinged with regret. “Irreconcilable differences.”

  No longer hungry, she scraped the rest of her eggs into Patton’s bowl, giving the dog a quick scratch behind the ears. “Were you fired?” she asked.

  “I would’ve been if I hadn’t resigned.”

  “Because you’re asking questions about Vince’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “None of Vince’s buddies ever suggested it was anything but a rebel attack. Don’t you think someone would have said something to me if there were questions?”

  “They may not have known there were questions.”

  She shook her head, still not able to make sense of what he was trying to tell her. “Vince died four years ago. If you had questions, why’d it take so long to ask them?”

  His gaze lifted reluctantly. “I didn’t want to have questions. I didn’t want to make waves.”

  She didn’t know whether to feel sorry for him or angry at him. “How long did you sit on your suspicions?”

  “Not the whole time. I had—” He paused, as if searching for the right words. “I had a wild thought, at the time it happened. Because of how it happened. We were protecting civilians against al Adar at the time—”

  “You mean Vince and his men were protecting them from al
Adar,” she corrected, more fiercely than she’d intended.

  He looked chastened. “Right. And al Adar isn’t known for sniper hits. They’re more the ‘plant a sneaky bomb’ types.”

  “So you wondered why they’d chosen to kill a soldier sniper-style?”

  “That, and I wondered how they’d managed it. I asked around at the time—nobody had ever heard of al Adar snipers.”

  “There’s always a first time,” she said, though she was beginning to understand why Evan Pike might’ve had questions.

  “Nobody makes that kind of shot the first time,” Evan disagreed. “One clean round, straight through the heart, no chance of survival?”

  “Maybe the shooter was so close it wasn’t a tough shot.”

  Evan shook his head. “Your husband’s patrol team searched immediately for the shooter. He was nowhere close enough to make an easy shot. And nothing we know about the rebels in Kaziristan suggests they have the training or weapons necessary to pull off that sort of sharpshooting.”

  “Okay,” she conceded. “Maybe it wasn’t al Adar. But what makes you think MacLear’s Special Services Unit was behind it? It could have been rogue elements of the Kaziri army. Some of them still carry Dragunovs—”

  He looked surprised by her knowledge. “Not a Dragunov. Wrong caliber. The round that killed your husband was a 7.62 x 51mm NATO round. Dragunovs shoot the old 7.62 Russians.”

  “So the Kaziris got their hands on some NATO rifles,” she countered. “God knows there’s probably a ton of surplus lying around in Central Asia after the past few years—”

  Evan shook his head. “Still doesn’t explain the shot accuracy. I checked with CIA and military intelligence. Nobody in the Kaziri army is thought to be any good with precision rifles. Same with al Adar. Whoever shot your husband knew what he was doing, and right now, none of the Kaziris fall under that category.”

  Megan frowned, unease prickling in her belly. “Okay. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. It wasn’t al Adar and it wasn’t anyone in the Kaziri army. Could it have been friendly fire?”

  “All units in the area were accounted for at the time of the shooting,” he answered. “No live fire going on anywhere within thirty klicks—kilometers—of the checkpoint where your husband was shot.”