by Jodie Bailey
“Hmm. Either Macey Price is the slickest of liars—”
“Or she’s innocent.”
“Look, I know this isn’t easy.” Harrison scratched his chin and sat back in his desk chair. Even though it was late, he was still at Eagle Overwatch’s headquarters at Camp McGee near Mountain Springs, North Carolina. Ostensibly a small training post, the remote location made McGee the ideal place to host the deep-cover unit. “It’s hard to walk that line between suspect and friend. It can get blurry really fast.”
“It’s not blurry.” Trey’s defenses crept up and the words held a snap he didn’t usually employ when talking to a superior. He knew what his job was, and he wasn’t going to fail. Macey Price was a suspect, plain and simple. Nothing more.
Harrison’s lip crept into a half smile. “You sure about that?”
“I’m sure. It’s just tedious when there isn’t any new evidence to point to her. All we have is some old emails and some old bank transactions that anyone could have planted. She’s been squeaky clean the whole time I’ve been here.”
“And yet...”
“And yet the evidence can’t be denied, either.”
A tip from a credible source that Macey was involved... A trip to Denver that coincided with one of the sales... An offshore bank account that regularly received sizable deposits they had yet to successfully trace... Late-night cell phone calls from her phone to random burner phones, all lining up with data thefts... The stack of evidence against Macey was high.
But the government was being cautious before it swooped in. If Overwatch moved too soon, the bad guys could be spooked into hiding, and the government wanted the one linchpin who held it all together. Trey’s team needed concrete proof linking those phone calls and Macey’s trip to active buyers from the government’s watch list. So far, there just wasn’t enough.
“Well, now you have some action to work with. Someone was definitely snooping in her house, and she knew exactly how to take down the threat. With her bare hands, no less.”
Trey nodded, his lips a tight line. “She taught self-defense in college, so there’s no surprise she was able to get out of that situation. When it comes to solid proof, we’re still in the gray.”
“Tonight you’ve got a really good crack at getting some answers,” Harrison said. “If you’re going over there to help her clean up the mess they left behind, then you’ll have access to a lot of spaces you don’t normally have access to.”
It was the upside of a bad situation. He’d been able to do a limited amount of surface-level searching when he’d been at the house but had been unable to do any real inside digging alone. When Olivia was alive, she’d set up a seriously complicated security system, and the team had been cautious about gaining entry to the house. They needed to keep court orders and such on the down-low while still operating under legal authority so that when they were ready to present a case, nothing would be thrown out on a technicality. With Macey giving him permission to “help” her tonight, Trey could definitely scope out new intel.
“Also, given that this is amping up, I’m sending Staff Sergeant Richardson and Dana Santiago to you. They should be there late tomorrow or early the next day. My gut says this is about to blow wide-open and you don’t need to be out there alone.”
“Sir, I—”
“I’ve got the rest of our team and a backup security detail headed your way,” Harrison said. “We need eyes on Macey Price at all times, so you can switch shifts with them. I want her going to work and living her life as normal so we can keep your cover safe. They’ll watch her when you can’t. Richardson can provide backup at your house, and Dana will be available to dig into any tech you can get your hands on.”
Trey bristled. Did the team commander not trust him? After all this time? “I think I—”
“This is not about trust, Blackburn. I feel like the endgame is coming, that we’re close to something big. This isn’t about you.”
“Yes, sir.” Sure, it made sense, but Trey’s past still reared up with the sting of a hornet. He’d probably never feel good enough or trusted enough.
“Here’s a thought.” Captain Harrison’s chair creaked through the speakers as he shifted and sat straight again. “You said she seemed rattled by the home invasion and clueless as to why it was happening to her. It’s definitely interesting to me that she’d give you as much access to the house as she’s offering up right now. If she was truly a woman with something to hide...”
Then she’d never let anyone get as close as she had let—and was about to let—Trey get.
Trey sighed. “It could be she’s just that good.”
“You do realize investigation isn’t just about guilt. We have an obligation to protect the innocent as well as to bring the guilty to justice. You have to keep an open mind to both sides. Facts. You’re searching for facts.”
“I know that.”
“And I know that your past tends you toward expecting the worst of people, even the ones who seem the most innocent.”
Trey bristled. His personal life was off the table and Captain Harrison knew that very well. “I also learned a long time ago that you can never trust a criminal. Sometimes the nicest, most innocent people turn out to be the ones who have eight bodies in the basement freezer.” He shuddered. “And on that note, I’m heading next door. If she’s hiding anything, I don’t want her to have too much time to move it.” Facts might be facts, but it was hard not to let his instincts join in on the game.
“Roger that. You be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?” Trey held his finger over the laptop’s trackpad, ready to disconnect. “Know what? Don’t answer that.” He killed the video call in the middle of the team commander’s chuckle. His propensity for not staying safe was what had landed him in Gavin Harrison’s sights in the first place and his eventual assignment to Eagle Overwatch.
He’d never dreamed his first long-term undercover op would linger for so many months.
Or that a case he’d initially thought would be laid out in stark black and white would fall into so many variations of gray.
THREE
Macey stood in the doorway of her bedroom and dug her teeth into her bottom lip. It was the only room in the house that hadn’t been touched. In every other area, chaos ruled the day. But in here? She must have surprised them before they’d gotten as far as her most personal space. It was an odd calm in the middle of a raging sea.
Kito leaned against her leg, probably sensing her distress. He hadn’t left her side since her mother and Trey had walked out the front door, frequently pressing his whole weight against her. While he tended to fight formal training, it turned out he was a pretty good emotional support animal.
Absently, Macey scratched the spot between his ears. Her pristine room ought to make her feel slightly less violated. Instead it creeped her out, as if her home was a job the criminals had left unfinished and would be back to complete.
She shuddered at the thought. A tap on the front door nearly sent her running for the shattered back door. Grabbing the bedroom door frame to keep her balance as her socked feet slid on the hardwood, she pressed her hand to her chest.
Kito bounced for the front door, always happy for more company.
Wild dog. Macey took a deep, steadying breath and tried to center her thoughts. It was probably Trey. It was about time for him to return. He’d promised to fix the back door and to help her clean up.
After padding up the short hallway, Macey headed across the living area to let him in, prepared to argue her earlier point. While she was grateful for his help and would let him stay as long as he wanted to lend a hand with setting everything back to rights, she wasn’t about to let him spend the night on her couch.
That seemed a little beyond what their usual friendship was. She unlocked the dead bolt and yanked the door open. His presence was unnecessary, too. Sur
ely those men would not be foolish enough to come back. They’d likely look somewhere else. Somewhere with a less stringent security system.
A less stringent security system.
She stopped with her hand on the storm door’s lock. Before she’d left the house to go for her run, she’d set the alarm. How had it not gone off when the men had kicked in her back door?
“What?” Trey’s voice cut through the glass door and the paralysis that had smacked her. “Mace? You going to let me in or stand there staring at me?”
Shaking her head, she twisted the bolt and let Trey in, then locked the storm door behind him. She shut the front door and turned the dead bolt. She wanted both sealed against invisible threats outside.
Maybe she wouldn’t mind so much if Trey spent his night camped on her couch after all.
He settled a small duffel bag and a toolbox on the floor by the door, then squeezed past her into the living room, stopping to rub his knuckles over Kito’s head. “You okay?” he asked her. “I literally just watched you turn white.”
“Why didn’t the house alarm go off?” She didn’t turn to face him, just stared at the back of her front door, her racing thoughts finally getting the better of her.
“Are you sure you set it?” His voice came from over her shoulder, close by, close enough for his presence to be felt against her back. “You were headed out for your run. Maybe you forgot? Maybe you meant to and got distracted by Kito?”
With a sigh, Macey turned and brushed past Trey, walking into the kitchen and to the keypad installed by the garage door.
Kito followed and slurped water from his dish, the everyday sound grating on Macey’s nerves. She stared at the keypad. The system was bulky and overcomplicated, one Olivia had designed and installed when she’d moved in several years ago. “I never set the whole system, just the doors and windows. All of that stuff Olivia had turned on was too much. But I definitely remember pressing in the code this evening. My finger slipped on the last key when Kito came tearing around the corner and hit my knee, so I had to wipe out the code and start over.”
“Maybe you didn’t fully set it? Maybe Kito threw you off?”
“Maybe.” At this point, Macey doubted everything about her own memories and her own actions. She’d fallen down the rabbit hole, had witnessed her home being invaded and had engaged in a physical altercation with thugs all by herself. Maybe she should go to bed in her untouched room and pretend the rest of the house was pristine and peaceful.
Trey stepped up to her side and tapped the digital screen on the alarm system. “This is a fairly safe neighborhood. I never did understand why Olivia insisted on such an overkill alarm.”
In spite of herself, Macey snorted a chuckle. “Same. We went round and round over it after I set it off several times. She went all out with the motion sensors and the pressure pads in the floor, and I’m pretty sure there are heat sensors somewhere. Even cameras on the doors. She was paranoid.”
“Why?”
“Said she saw a lot of things working in intelligence, including the worst side of humanity. Claimed that, without the alarm set, she’d lie awake at night convinced someone was coming in the back door to annihilate humanity with our house as ground zero.” Actually, that wasn’t as funny now as it used to be.
“She never struck me as the paranoid type.”
Macey shrugged. “Since she—” She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Since she died. Two months later and it was still hard to believe her best friend was truly gone. Two months ago, she’d left for a work trip and died in a car accident in Italy. The phone call from Olivia’s aunt was burned forever into her mind.
Macey shook off the memory. “Anyway, Olivia designed the whole thing herself, but I got into the computer that runs the system and shut down pretty much everything except the doors and windows. I can just see myself getting up for water in the middle of the night and having some net fall on my head like an old Bugs Bunny cartoon.”
“Man, I hope there aren’t nets in the ceiling. That would be a little much.” Trey tapped Macey on the shoulder. “Come on. I’m going to piece your door frame back together and reinforce it for tonight. I’ll need an extra hand to do it. After that, we can get started on this mess. Tomorrow we can go buy you a new one.”
Exhaustion descended on Macey like a cold, wet blanket. “I don’t know. Maybe we just put the door back together and then call it a night. It’s almost midnight, and you have to work tomorrow.”
“I took the day off. You need help and I’ve got some leave to burn up, and since we just came out of the field, now seems like a good time for a break.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close in a quick, brotherly hug. “Trust me. You won’t sleep tonight if you know this mess is out here. I know you. You can be a little...” He drew away and raised an eyebrow.
“A little what?” She shoved him in the shoulder, genuinely amused at his teasing. Maybe she did need him around after all. “A little too much of a neat freak? A little too much like Monica on Friends?”
“You said it. I didn’t.” He headed for the front door, grabbed his toolbox, then aimed a finger at the back door of the house off the dining room. “Come on. The sooner we get this door secure, the sooner I’ll be able to take a deep breath and know you’re safe.”
Trey made quick work of screwing the pieces of the door frame together to secure it until Macey could have a new door installed. He also braced boards across the door to prevent it from being shoved open since the lock had been splintered.
While he cleaned up his mess, Macey prowled the house, conducting a second inspection of the rooms to determine which was the worst. The first time through, with Trey and the police, she’d been focused on big-ticket items that might be missing. This time, her eyes took in the carnage of dumped drawers and ransacked closets.
Trey joined her at the door to Olivia’s old room, which until tonight had remained largely untouched. With no close family to claim her stuff and her aunt living in California and unable to pack up the personal belongings, Macey had left it alone, unwilling to erase her best friend’s existence from the planet so quickly.
Now everything had been destroyed. The mattress had been cut with something sharp and foam littered the floor. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Even Kito seemed to be done with the intrusion to their life. He dropped to the floor outside the bedroom door with a heavy thud.
Trey’s hand found the small of Macey’s back and rubbed tiny circles there as though he thought it would comfort her. She stepped into the room, pulling away from his touch.
He didn’t follow. “What don’t you understand?”
She shrugged. “Why this kind of destruction? I mean, my electronics are still sitting where I left them. None of my money is missing. It’s like they were... Like they were looking for something specific. And the worst of the mess is in here. In Olivia’s room. But they didn’t take anything. Her jewelry box is still there.” She walked over to the dresser and picked the box up from where it had been tossed onto the floor. After centering it upright in front of the mirror, she set the picture of her and Olivia on vacation in Denver up beside it. She reached for the second photo that usually sat on the other side of the box, the one Olivia had always guarded closely to her heart.
Only it wasn’t there. Macey turned and scanned the room, ignoring Trey’s questions, her heart beating faster.
Those men had taken something.
And that something made no sense whatsoever.
* * *
“Find the picture, Trey!” In front of him, Macey became a frantic tornado of rapidly unraveling emotions. She searched through piles of clothing, ducked to look under the bed and then leaned forward to look behind the dresser. “Find it!”
Something weird was going on here. Macey had been a study in calm denial for hours and now a photograph set h
er off? Had her wall of denial—or guilt—finally cracked? “Macey.” Trey gently grabbed her by the shoulders and slowly turned her to face him, half-afraid she’d fight the way Gia had when she’d—When he’d caught her in her dissolving web of lies.
But Macey wasn’t Gia. Her distress was genuine. She was upset, not angry.
Trey squeezed her shoulders. “What’s going on? What picture?”
She shook her head, still scanning the room as though the photo she was searching for might materialize out of thin air if she simply kept looking for it. It definitely seemed her emotions had finally overtaken her reason; that the reality of the break-in had finally...well, broken through.
Gently, Trey grasped her chin and stilled her frantic searching. He lowered his voice and tried to make her look him in the eye, to ground her into something real so she wouldn’t fly apart. “Look at me, Mace. Right here. In front of you. Everything’s okay. I promise.” The biggest lie he’d ever told. He was the guy who might wind up proving she needed to be put away behind maximum security bars for the rest of her life. He definitely wasn’t the one who should be trying to reassure her that her life was okay right now.
But it was all part of the game.
With a suddenness that jarred him, her brown eyes latched on to his and she froze.
So did he.
This was the closest he’d ever been to her, face-to-face. The longest they’d ever made eye contact. Where he’d expected to find calculated cunning and manipulation, he saw instead vulnerability and...fear. The last two things he’d half wished for but had never truly expected.
The purity of her expression rocked him to the core. He’d looked bad guys in the eye before. Had watched more than one man and woman try to manipulate the system. Had even seen his own wife try to fake her way out of her lies. But never had he seen anyone do it so successfully, with such utter guileless innocence behind their eyes.
