Smoky Mountain Setup

by Paula Graves

  She turned to face him, catching his hands in hers. “I never once believed you were lying about that. Not once. No matter what other trust issues I had, I never doubted you were a good FBI agent. You didn’t ignore orders on a whim, and you didn’t put people’s lives in danger for selfish reasons. I know you wanted to stop those guys. I did, too. But I wouldn’t have defied orders and blundered into that warehouse just because I was eager to make an arrest. And neither would you.”

  His eyes narrowed briefly. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  He blinked rapidly, and she didn’t miss the hint of moisture in his eyes as he looked down at their clasped hands. “Thank you.”

  “I know a lot has happened since Richmond. I know we can’t go back to what we had then. I don’t really want to.”

  He let go of her hands. “Yeah, a whole lot of water under that bridge.”

  She took his hands again, giving them a sharp tug to make him look at her. “It wasn’t enough then. Not for either one of us. It’s not something we should aspire to now.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Aspire to?”

  “I don’t want to live this way anymore. I want more than half a relationship. I want to be able to trust someone else. I want someone else to be able to trust me, too.”

  He nodded. “I get that.”

  “Maybe that person will never be you. That’s something you’re going to have to figure out. I just know that as much as I loved you then, it wasn’t enough. It would never have been enough, not the way it was. Not with everything we held back.”

  He released a huff of air. “Yeah. You’re right. It wouldn’t have been.”

  She let his hands go and stood up. “I’m going back to my room now. You try to get some sleep. And if you need me, you know where to find me.”

  It took strength to walk out of his room and not look back, but she made herself do it. Made herself walk across the wide corridor, enter her dorm room and close the door behind her.

  And if she cried herself to sleep, it was nobody’s business but her own.

  * * *

  “WE STOCKED UP for the snowstorm,” Mark Fitzpatrick told Landry as he passed him a plate of eggs, bacon and toast, steaming hot from the stove.

  “Did you buy up all the milk and bread?” Landry asked with a smile, knowing that a fellow Southerner would get the joke.

  “What was left.” Fitz grinned. “Don’t you wonder why people don’t make a run on charcoal and grills instead when snow is forecast? Seems those things would be more useful.”

  Landry joined the other agents who’d gathered at the conference table for breakfast. Their numbers had expanded, he noted. There was a small, dark-haired woman sitting next to Sutton Calhoun, and across from her, a taller brunette had joined Adam Brand and Alexander Quinn, her head close to theirs in conversation.

  “Ivy Calhoun and Delilah Brand,” Olivia told him as he settled beside her at the table. “They’re both cops in Bitterwood. They worked the overnight shift as part of the department’s snow contingency plan or something.”

  “And there’s another guy’s wife who’s a cop, too, right? You said she was called out on Grant Carver’s disappearance?”

  “Right. Sara Dennison. Dennison headed out last night to meet up with her and see if she could tell us any more about the investigation. I guess they haven’t made it back here yet.”

  Two more people came into the conference room, still dressed in heavy clothing and red-cheeked from the cold outside. One was a tall, rawboned man in his midthirties with wavy brown hair and dark eyes, while the woman beside him was petite, blonde and sweet-faced. They both gave Landry a curious glance.

  Then the man did a double take. “Cade Landry.”

  Landry sighed. He’d spent the past few months trying to look as different from his FBI photo as he could, but apparently there were some things a man couldn’t change about himself.

  “Landry, this is Anson Daughtry, our IT director, and his wife, Ginny, one of our accountants.” Olivia gave Anson and Ginny a pointed look. “Who’re both supposed to be somewhere sunny on their honeymoon.”

  “And miss the fun? Who do you think we are?” Daughtry set down their plates of food and pulled out a chair for his wife before settling across from Landry and Olivia. “We just walked in—anything new on Carver?”

  “Not that we’ve heard,” Olivia answered.

  Daughtry gave Landry a curious look. “I heard you’d shown up, but I thought you two were stuck in your cabin.”

  “You knew I was at her cabin?”

  “He was the one I had monitoring that bank account in Barrowville,” Olivia murmured.

  “I see.” He arched an eyebrow at Daughtry. “And from that, you figured out who I was and where I was?”

  “Well, we knew you had once had a relationship with Bombshell Barb—” Daughtry’s mouth snapped shut, and Landry saw Ginny dig an elbow into her husband’s ribs. “We knew you were once involved with Agent Sharp, so when the bank activity showed up—”

  Landry lowered his voice. “Your boss likes to stay on top of what’s going on in all his agents’ lives, doesn’t he?”

  Daughtry rolled his eyes. “You have no idea, man.”

  At the head of the table, Quinn’s cell phone trilled. He answered it with a brief “Hello” and just listened for a moment. “Okay, thanks.”

  The room had grown quiet, all eyes turned to their boss.

  “That was Dennison. A call came in to Sara’s radio while they were checking in on his grandmother. Patrol officers just got a call about a body found in the snow about a mile south of Fowler Ridge.”

  Brand was the first to ask the obvious question. “Carver?”

  “We’re not sure. Dennison’s heading over there with Sara to take a look.” Quinn’s gaze landed on Mark Fitzpatrick. “You know Carver’s wife pretty well, don’t you?”

  Fitz nodded. “Lexie and I went to high school with her. You want me to go wait with her in case we get bad news?”

  Pressure built inside Landry’s chest and swelled upward, making his head pound. He had to get out of this room, out of this building.

  He had to get as far away from these people as he could, before anyone else got hurt.

  He was on his feet and halfway out the door before anyone else reacted. He heard Quinn call his name, heard the scrape of chair legs on the floor as he swept through the door and down the hall.

  Footsteps padded after him, hurrying to catch up as he reached the stairs. Olivia’s voice rang out behind him. “This is not your fault.”

  He turned swiftly to look at her. “You’re trying to tell me you honestly think the BRI would have taken your colleague if I hadn’t shown up at your cabin two days ago like a stupid fool?” He felt sick, the half a plate of bacon and eggs he’d eaten heavy in his gut. “I knew there was a risk. I knew it. I just thought I would be the only one who would suffer if it all went wrong. I should have known better.”

  “You don’t know this had anything to do with you.”

  “Of course I do. That man on the mountain—he knew exactly who I was! I could tell from the tone of his voice.”

  “Just because you recognized his voice doesn’t mean he recognized you.”

  “Then why, after all this time of your friend Carver living safely on that mountain, did he get grabbed the very same day that bastard ran into us on the mountain? Can you answer me that?” Agitation rose like bile in his throat, spurring him into motion again. He started down the stairs at a reckless pace, two steps at a time, and bolted toward the front door.

  Olivia raced down after him, grabbing him as he reached for the handle. “Damn it, no! Don’t you dare walk out on me again! Not like this.”

  “It could have been you, Livvie.” He turned to l
ook at her, his heart contracting at the concern that darkened her blue eyes. “You could be that body they found in the snow. I never should have come here. I never should have brought this nightmare to your doorstep.”

  “It’s not Carver.” Alexander Quinn’s voice rang in the foyer, making them both turn to look at him. He walked unhurriedly down the stairs toward them, coming to a stop a few feet away.

  “Dennison called back?” Olivia asked, sounding relieved.

  “Yes. Halfway to the site, they got a call from the patrolman on the scene. The body had ID on it. Driver’s license. Some professional credentials.”

  Beside Landry, Olivia frowned. “Professional credentials?”

  Quinn walked closer, his gaze sliding from Olivia’s face to Landry’s. “To be specific, FBI credentials. Someone you both know, actually.”

  Olivia exchanged a glance with Landry before she looked at her boss again. “Are you telling us—”

  “After all this time, Darryl Boyle finally turned up,” Quinn said.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I thought we’d never find Boyle’s body. I figured he was somewhere down a hole in the mountains where nobody but the bears would find him.” McKenna Rigsby looked up at Nick Darcy, carrying out a whole silent conversation in that one glance.

  Olivia had been tangentially involved in the ruse Rigsby and Darcy had set up to trap Darryl Boyle, an FBI agent who’d stupidly tried to co-opt the Blue Ridge Infantry to create a domestic terror act devastating enough to make the government finally start rooting out radicals from within the US borders. But Boyle had turned the tables on Rigsby, and if she and Darcy hadn’t been able to convince the head of the Blue Ridge Infantry that Boyle wasn’t the ally he made himself out to be, it might have been Rigsby lying dead in the snow rather than Boyle.

  “I wonder how long he’s been out there,” Darcy murmured, looking troubled. Olivia knew he had never fully made peace with trading Boyle’s life for Rigsby’s, no matter how much he loved her. Like the rest of The Gates agents, he didn’t like leaving anyone behind, even someone who’d gone into league with the bad guys.

  “Not long.” Quinn walked into the conference room, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Sara said the body was pretty fresh.”

  “He disappeared months ago,” Landry said.

  “I know.” Quinn glanced at Landry. “There were signs that Boyle had taken more than one beating during the time he’s been missing.”

  Landry’s face went pale, and he looked down at his hands clasped tightly together on the table.

  Olivia quelled the urge to touch him, knowing he’d just shrug her hand away. But she needed to get him somewhere alone, soon, and see if she could get him to talk about what he’d been through. Whatever the BRI had done to him—and she couldn’t imagine they’d been kind in any way—he was still suffering the emotional aftermath.

  Repressing that trauma wasn’t going to make it go away. And anything he could remember about his time in captivity with the BRI might be important in their quest to take down the vicious militia group.

  Quinn crossed until he was standing close to Landry. He waited for Landry to look up before speaking again. “You realize the discovery of Boyle’s body after all this time is only going to reenergize the FBI’s investigation into what happened last spring.”

  Landry gave a solemn nod. “I know. I should get out of here before the FBI comes knocking on your front door.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Quinn bent and planted his palms on the table. “But we need to consider what to do with you while the FBI is sniffing around.”

  “Maybe it’s time to turn myself in.”

  “No.” Olivia closed her fingers over his arm. “The last time you tried turning yourself in, the BRI took you captive.”

  “But I was alone then.” He squeezed her hand. “Now I’m not.”

  Warmth flooded her. “No, you’re not.”

  “I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet,” Quinn said. “We’re pretty sure there are still people left in the FBI who are sympathetic to the Blue Ridge Infantry.”

  “Darryl Boyle made that pretty clear. We just don’t know who or how many.” McKenna Rigsby looked across the table at Landry. “I’m sorry, Landry. I feel as if I’m the reason you went through what you did, because you were trying to help me.”

  He shook his head quickly. “Don’t. You were a target, too. You had every right to try to figure out who in the FBI was trying to kill you. I’m sorry I didn’t work all that out before things went so wrong. I should have been paying better attention.” His gaze dropped and he tugged his arm away from Olivia’s grip. “I should have been a better agent.”

  “You can flog yourself later,” Quinn said in a dust-dry tone. “Right now I need you to concentrate on what you might know about the people who took Carver captive. I don’t want to lose an agent. We’ve been damned lucky so far, and I’d like the record to hold.”

  Landry nodded but didn’t say anything more.

  “I think we’re safe from the FBI until the roads clear, but once they do, we’re going to be racing the clock.” Quinn looked at the agents surrounding him. “I’d like to stash Landry somewhere the FBI wouldn’t think to look for him, but I’m not sure at this point that our established safe houses are a good option. They’re too easy to connect to The Gates. Any other suggestions?”

  “Rachel’s uncle and aunt live over in Bryson City,” Seth Hammond suggested. “They’ve got a guesthouse out back of their place. Rachel and I have stayed there a few times. Nobody’d think to look for Landry there.”

  “Rachel’s his wife,” Olivia murmured to Landry.

  “A decent option. Any other suggestions?”

  “I have family in Alabama who are damned good in a fight,” Caleb Cooper said.

  “I’ve considered that option, but I don’t want Landry that many hours away.”

  “What difference does that make?” Olivia asked, not liking the dark gleam she saw in Quinn’s eyes.

  Her boss glanced at her briefly before turning his pointed gaze to Landry. “Because sooner or later, I believe Mr. Landry will understand the vital need for him to tell us everything he remembers about his time in BRI captivity. And when he does, I don’t want to have to drive six hours to hear him out.”

  Next to Olivia, Landry looked down at the table, his jaw tight with anger. She put her hand on his leg under the table and felt his muscles twitch. “Why don’t we start with Bryson City?” she suggested. “As soon as the roads are cleared for travel, I’ll drive him there. We’ll play tourists for a few days until the FBI gets tired of sniffing around here.”

  Quinn’s gaze remained on Landry’s lowered head. “Very well. The temperature is supposed to rise above freezing this afternoon, with enough sunshine to give us a decent melt-off. The roads could be clear enough to drive by morning.”

  Olivia squeezed Landry’s leg. “Then we’ll head out first thing in the morning.”

  * * *

  “THE HUNTERS ARE nice people.” Olivia had spent most of the past hour folding the clothes for their trip to Bryson City. She kept a couple of changes of clothing at the office for emergency situations, she’d explained to Landry when she’d pulled the small overnight bag out of her locker in the agents’ bull pen. Added to the clothes they’d brought with them on the hike over the mountain, she had enough to wear for four days. If they could find a laundry in Bryson City, they could stay longer if necessary.

  But Landry knew it wouldn’t be necessary.

  He’d put off facing everything that had happened to him in BRI captivity for long enough.

  He caught Olivia’s wrist as she placed a pair of socks in one of the suitcases Quinn had provided. “We don’t have to go to Bryson City.”

  She frowned. “You want to go so
mewhere else?”

  “I can tell Quinn everything he needs to know tonight. Get it over with and get out of here so you and everybody else can get on with your lives.”

  The look on her face nearly unraveled his resolve. “You want to leave? Now? After—” Her lips snapped to a thin line and she turned away.

  “It would be better for you, Livvie. Surely you can see that. Even if we can somehow prove I’m not a traitor, there’s no way the FBI lets me come back. I’m done there. And I’m not sure what other sort of job I can get that’s going to be worth anything. I don’t know how to be anything else.”

  “Quinn would hire you.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. I’m too big a risk. He knows that. So do you.”

  “Because you worked with the Blue Ridge Infantry? Obviously, you were trying to bring them down.” Her brow furrowed. “Right?”

  She was trying so hard not to have doubts, but she couldn’t quite pull it off. He couldn’t really blame her. He hadn’t exactly given her a reason to believe in him anymore.

  “I was. But I wasn’t doing it for the FBI or any other organization that could back me up. I have only my word that I was on the side of the angels, and Quinn can’t trust my word.” He touched her face, letting his fingers slide lightly over the perfect curve of her cheek. “You can’t, either, can you?”

  Her jaw tightened, her chin lifting. “I believe you.”

  “Without any proof?”

  Her gaze leveled with his, her eyes a cool, crystalline blue that should have chilled him but warmed him to his core instead. “Your word is the proof. I believe you.”

  She almost convinced him she did.

  She released a soft sigh, as if she could read his own doubts. “Let’s just go through with the plan, okay? We’ll go to Bryson City to stay for a few days. Once we’re there, if you want to tell me everything you can remember about your time in captivity, great. If you feel you need to wait a little longer, that’s fine, too. I know you’ll do the right thing for Grant Carver.”