by Paige Tyler
She laughed. “Well, that’s not going to happen. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ve kind of fallen for you. It’s been a long time since I’ve even bothered getting involved with a guy because my job makes it difficult. But with you, it seems to work, and I realize I’m not scared to give us a shot. So stop worrying about whether we’re moving too fast. Whatever speed we move at is good for me.”
He leaned over and kissed her, tracing a few fingers up and down her arm at the same time. Little goose bumps popped up all over the place, and she shivered.
“It’s nice knowing I’m not the only one who feels that way,” he said. “I hadn’t thought too much about what it would be like to have a real relationship until I met you. Now, I find myself thinking about it a lot.”
Warmth spread through her chest. She hadn’t even been looking for a relationship. Now she’d found one in the most unusual of ways.
She picked up her tea glass, clinking it against his. “Then here’s to thinking about relationships…and that B&B in San Francisco.”
Chapter Nine
HAYLEY AND CHASEN were on their way back to her place when her phone rang. She dug it out of her bag to see who it was and frowned. Instead of a name displayed there, it was a weird jumble of numbers and letters. She started to toss her phone in her purse then hesitated. Curiosity killing the cat and all that.
Thumbing the green button, she held it to her ear. “Hello?”
“We’ve noticed you’ve been digging around William Nesbitt and Jack Yates, Ms. Garner.” The voice on the other end of the line was muted and mechanical sounding, like the caller was using a synthesizer to alter it, making it unrecognizable. “You should be more careful. Nesbitt is more dangerous than you know.”
Hayley tightened her grip on the phone. Crap, it was the hacktivists. It had to be. Who else would scramble an incoming number and use a voice synthesizer?
“And how would you know that?” she asked.
“Because we’ve been watching him much longer than you have, and we’ve learned much more about him.”
Hayley didn’t say anything.
Chasen glanced at her. “What is it?”
She covered the bottom of the phone with her hand. “I think it’s them,” she whispered. “The People. They told me to watch out for Nesbitt, that he’s dangerous.”
“Are you still there, Ms. Garner?” the voice asked.
“Yes, I’m here,” she said. “If you have so much more information about Nesbitt, why haven’t you posted it online yet? You’re The People, right? That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“Because there are some things we know for fact and other things we can only guess at. We can’t expose the second part before we’re sure.”
Cryptic. And a little surprising. But they didn’t deny they were The People. She wouldn’t have expected a group of hacktivists to verify something before publishing it. Heck, a lot of major news outlets these days didn’t bother with that pesky little detail.
“Can we meet somewhere so we can talk in person?” she asked.
Beside her, Chasen frowned. She pretended not to notice.
There was silence on the other end for so long Hayley thought they’d hung up. “We didn’t call because we wanted to meet you. We called to warn you you’re in more danger than you know. Have a good night, Ms. Garner.”
“Wait!” she begged. “Look, if you have information—even uncollaborated at this point—it could lead me to other clues that might help take down Nesbitt and Yates. Isn’t that what you want, too?”
More silence.
“Okay,” the voice finally said. “We’ll text you with the address. Meet us there in an hour. And come alone.”
The call ended with an audible click.
Chasen glanced at her. “What did they say?”
Hayley recapped the conversation. “They want me to come alone.”
He snorted. “That’s not going to happen.”
“They might not talk to me if you’re with me,” she protested.
His jaw tightened. “Too bad. Because I’m not letting you meet them by yourself. They’re saying Nesbitt could be dangerous, but they could be, too. You don’t even know for sure if they’re the hacktivists.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it again. If Chasen were just some guy she was dating, she wouldn’t even have told him who was on the phone. She would have said she was investigating a lead and she’d call him later. But Chasen wasn’t some guy she was dating. He was the Navy SEAL who’d saved her life and the man she’d had a long conversation with about having a real relationship. He wasn’t someone she was willing to blow off.
Moreover, he was right. This could be a dangerous situation and she didn’t want to run into without thinking it through. She’d already learned the hard way what could happen when she did.
The sun was setting by the time they got to the address The People had texted her. It was an old clothing store long since gone out of business in one of the seedier parts of the city. As she and Chasen got out of the truck and made their way over to the back door, Hayley was glad he’d insisted on coming. She wasn’t keen on poking around abandoned buildings by herself.
She thought the door to the store would have been locked, but it was standing open, as if waiting for them. The place was dark inside, the only light coming from a blinking fluorescent bulb over the checkout counter. Empty clothing racks and metal shelves cast freaky shadows on the wall and the few leftover posters of twenty-somethings in jeans and fancy tops who were trying hard to look cool and unconcerned at the same time.
Beside her, Chasen was tense, like he expected someone to jump them at any moment.
“Hello?” she called.
There was no answer—other than the echo of her own voice.
“Maybe they’re not here,” she whispered to Chasen.
“They’re here,” he murmured in her ear, pointing at a tiny red light attached to a security camera in the far corner of the store. “They’re watching us.”
“We told you to come alone!” a man’s voice called.
Hayley tried to see where he was, but all she saw were clothing racks and shelves.
“I’m a friend, here to watch out for Ms. Garner,” Chasen said.
“We know who you are, Petty Officer First Class Chasen Ward,” the man said. “Military personnel files are notoriously easy to hack.”
Chasen didn’t seem fazed by that. “If you know who I am, you know what I can do. And if you think you can get to her without getting through me, maybe you’re not the hackers you thought you were.”
Hayley put her hand on Chasen’s arm, still trying to figure out where the man’s voice had come from. “We only want to talk to you about Nesbitt and Yates. Chasen isn’t here to cause trouble. He’s here to keep me safe.”
A door in the back of the store opened and two guys and a girl walked out. Alan Peat’s neighbor had been telling the truth. These people were definitely in the college-age range.
The trio stopped a few feet away, eyeing her and Chasen warily.
“I’m Hayley and this is Chasen,” she said, even though The People obviously knew their names already. Hopefully, it would prompt them to give their names.
The college kids exchanged looks.
“I’m Andrew,” the stocky, blond-haired guy said then jerked his head at the wiry, dark-haired guy carrying a backpack over one shoulder and the petite girl beside him. “This is Owen. And that’s Kyla.”
Hayley wondered if they were their real names then figured since they only gave their first names, they probably were. “How did the three of you get involved in digging around people’s digital dirt and exposing corrupt politicians?”
She expected Andrew to answer since he was the one who’d made the introductions, but it was Kyla who spoke.
“My father was killed in what the police called a road rage attack two years ago,” she said softly, her voice catching a little. “The cops tried, but the
y never caught who did it. I was finally coming to accept the fact my mom and I would never know who killed my dad, but then I met Owen and Andrew in my computer engineering program at school. With all the surveillance equipment out there watching everything we do using everything from traffic cameras to facial recognition software, they thought we might be able to use those to find the killer.”
“Did you?” Hayley asked.
“We haven’t found enough data to put anyone in jail yet, but enough to convince me his death had nothing to do with road rage,” Kyla said.
“Along the way, we dug up a lot of dirt on other people doing things they shouldn’t be getting away with and figured we should do something to try to stop them,” Owen put in.
“Since it wasn’t like we could go to the cops, we put the word out the only way we knew how—through the net,” Andrew said.
Hayley could understand them wanting to do the right thing but not knowing how. Even so, didn’t they realize how dangerous what they were doing was?
Chasen pointed that out to them. “If you keep poking around, sooner or later you’re going to run into someone who pokes back. And if Nesbitt is as dangerous as you say, it might be him.”
“I know.” Kyla lifted her chin and pushed her long, dark hair behind her ear. “But we won’t stop what we’re doing because it’s dangerous. We can’t.”
Hayley knew the feeling. “What do you have on Nesbitt?”
Owen took off his backpack and pulled out a fancy laptop. Setting it on the counter, he flipped open the lid and booted it up. Hayley was surprised they were able to get a Wi-Fi connection in this abandoned place. She could barely pick up a signal at the coffee shop she went to.
“Our software boosts the strength of any Wi-Fi signal within a mile,” Owen said when she mentioned it. “My laptop hops onto that signal without needing to decrypt it. Free, untraceable Wi-Fi anywhere in the country.”
Wow. That could come in handy.
Owen pulled up a picture of a middle-aged man with dark hair graying at the temples and wire-rimmed glasses.
“This is my dad,” Kyla said, her dark eyes bright with tears. “He was a civil engineer for the city of San Diego, but he also worked for the state reviewing new building plans, conducting inspections, and occasionally doing engineering analysis at accident sites.”
Owen hit the arrow key on the monitor. A picture of some kind of collapsed metal and stone structure popped up.
“He was shot and killed a few days after he started conducting an inspection on an elevated pedestrian walkway in San Clemente that collapsed and killed two people,” Kyla continued. “Alpha One Construction was the company that built it. Rumors were they’d cut corners to save a few dollars on the project. My dad never had a chance to file his report, but I happened to see his notes as he was reading them over breakfast the day before his murder and I’m sure he was going to declare Alpha One at fault. Unfortunately, the notes disappeared and the other engineer brought in by the city to finish his work declared the construction up to code. The fault was placed on the owner of the hotel facilities on either side of the walkway. They had supposedly overloaded it several times, and that was said to be the official cause of the collapse.”
Chasen frowned. “Did the police look into Alpha One to see if there was a connection to your father’s murder?”
Kyla shook her head. “No. They never even questioned Jack Yates or anyone at Alpha One. The case is still open but cold.”
“Where does Nesbitt come into this?” Hayley asked.
A picture popped up on the screen of another middle-age man, but this guy looked leaner, almost predatory.
Andrew picked up the narrative. “This is Nestor Stavros. He’s a freelance security consultant who does occasional work for Nesbitt. After a year of digging, we have nothing to show they have any business or personal relationship, but we have lots of pictures of them together and bank documents showing movements of cash from Nesbitt’s various accounts to Stavros’s overseas account. Nothing that would hold up in court, but enough for us to be sure he’s paid this guy several times in the past to do work for him.”
“You said he’s a security consultant. What exactly does he do for Nesbitt?” Chasen asked.
“I guess most people would call him a fixer,” Andrew said. “Anyone who does something to piss off someone Stavros seems to work for disappears under strange circumstances. He’s been arrested multiple times for assault and even brought in for questioning on several murders, but nothing has ever stuck.”
“And you think he’s the one who killed your father?” Hayley asked Kyla.
Owen clicked through a few keys, pulling up another picture. It was a grainy image from what was probably a traffic camera. Even though it wasn’t a great picture, it was obvious they were looking at Stavros.
“This was taken off of I-5 in San Clemente fifteen seconds after my father went through the same light,” Kyla said. “Stavros ran the light to keep up with my dad. Ten minutes later, my father was dead and Stavros was nowhere in sight. No one saw anything, though.”
“Two days later, a large amount of money moved from one of Nesbitt’s accounts to Stavros’s,” Andrew added. “We can’t prove it, but we know Nesbitt paid Stavros to kill Kyla’s father on behalf of Jack Yates.”
“And the connection between Nesbitt and Yates?” Hayley asked. “What did Nesbitt get out of making Yates’s problem go away?”
Andrew shrugged. “At the time of her dad’s murder, Alpha One was in the middle of the competition for the Imperial Beach Construction Project. They were in the lead, but if it had come out that Yates’s company was responsible for multiple deaths due to poor construction, Alpha One would have been eliminated. A few months after Yates’s problem went away, Alpha One won the contract and immediately announced subcontractor deals with a bunch of local companies that had already given plenty of money to Nesbitt in the form of campaign contributions.” Andrew shrugged. “Nesbitt did something for Yates, who did something for a bunch of smaller companies that in turn did something for Nesbitt.”
Hayley looked at Chasen to see he seemed as shocked as she was. Crap this was so much bigger and more complex than she’d thought. This was like some enormous game of scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. No wonder no one had ever connected the dots in this deal. She’d found her link between Nesbitt and Yates. Or, more precisely, The People had found the connection. Now they needed proof to go public.
They talked for a bit longer, but while the three college kids had lots of circumstantial stuff on Nesbitt, Yates, and even Stavros, they didn’t have anything the police would ever believe. Kyla admitted that was the reason they’d contacted Hayley. They knew they had taken this as far as they could on their own. If they wanted to catch her father’s killer, they needed help.
They gave Hayley and Chasen a phone number to call in case they needed some hacking done—or found anything.
“Be careful around these people,” Kyla said. “They killed my dad to protect their profits. I doubt they’d hesitate to kill you to protect their freedom.”
It was completely dark by the time Hayley and Chasen left the abandoned store. He didn’t say much on the drive back to her place. Then again, neither did Hayley. She wasn’t sure how much of this she could share with her editor. Heck, she was worried to even share it with Brad. She didn’t want to make him any more of a target than he already was.
She and Chasen had just walked into her apartment when his phone rang. He dug it out of the front pocket of his jeans, frowning at the name on the call screen before thumbing the button and putting it to his ear.
“Ward,” he said then listened for a while. “Shit. Yeah, I’ll be right there. Hold your damn horses.”
“What’s wrong?” Hayley asked, though she already had a pretty good idea.
He shoved the phone back in his pocket. “A mission. I have to go.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. And I couldn’t te
ll you even if I did.” Sighing, he cupped her face with his hand. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. We talked about this, remember? You’re a SEAL. You go when they call. So go…and be careful.”
“I will.” He kissed her long and slow. “You be careful, too. Don’t go poking Nesbitt and getting yourself in trouble. Promise me you won’t go anywhere near this story without Brad while I’m gone, okay?”
“I won’t,” she promised.
“I’ll call you when I can.”
After another kiss—this one not nearly long enough—Chasen pulled away.
“Safe and sound, remember?” she said, forcing a light tone into her voice. “If you want more of what I gave you last night, safe and sound. Got it?”
He grinned. “Got it.”
Then he was gone so fast it was like he’d pulled all the oxygen out of the room. At least that was the reason Hayley told herself she suddenly couldn’t breathe.
She hugged herself, an unfamiliar sensation of loneliness closing over her. It was immediately followed by that freaky feeling of being watched again. After being with Chasen last night and all day today, she’d almost forgotten what that felt like.
Having Chasen bail on a moment’s notice really sucked, but it was worth it for the chance to be with him in the first place.
Chapter Ten
CHASEN SAT ALONGSIDE his teammates in the strap seats of the Air Force MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft circling the target area at a hair below thirty thousand feet, waiting for the rear ramp to drop so they could parachute into their objective.
Somewhere far below them in the middle of a small, well-guarded village was a cachet of Russian-made SA-16 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles that would be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. They were small, but they packed a big punch and could easily take down a low-flying aircraft.
The Team’s mission was to find the weapons and the man who’d delivered them to the village. They would get photographic evidence, right down to the Russian Cyrillic markings on the launchers, and get that info back to the CIA via the team’s satellite commo rig. Then they were to destroy the weapons and hopefully apprehend the arms dealer at the same time. If everything went well, they’d move to an extraction point a couple of miles outside the village and be picked by helicopter shortly before dawn. If things didn’t go well, they’d have to make something up on the fly.
