Secret Keeper

by Paula Graves

  “Al Adar rebels shot me in the kneecap,” he answered flatly.

  She winced. “Damn.”

  “The knee was a loss, but the surgeons worked hard to save the leg.”

  “How long ago?” The headline-grabbing siege in Kaziristan had happened several years ago, but she knew the fighting had gone on a lot longer than that. There were still some NATO troops left in Kaziristan, including American soldiers, trying to keep the stabilizing nation from devolving into chaos again.

  “Two years,” he answered. “The doctors promise I’ll continue getting better.” He sounded as if he didn’t believe it.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not all the time. Just when I overuse it. Or I try to kneel or crouch or, you know, treat it like a working knee.” The bitterness in his voice rang loud and clear. He shot her a sheepish look. “Not that I feel sorry for myself or anything.”

  “We’re a pair,” she said with a smile. “You’re all bitter and gimpy and I’m muddle-headed and weak as a kitten.”

  He laughed aloud, as if surprised by her blunt candor. “Bitter and gimpy, huh?” He pushed away from the tree trunk and patted the pistol he had tucked into a waistband holster attached to his jeans. “Well, that’s where the Glock comes in handy. The great equalizer.”

  She eyed the gun, realizing for the first time that she’d allowed herself to go out in the woods alone with an armed stranger. Just how desperate had she become to find someone to trust?

  Even now, with the possibility of treachery placed firmly in her head, she didn’t feel afraid of Wade Cooper. Every instinct she had told her he was one of the good guys.

  But could she really trust her instincts, with so much of her memory missing?

  She fell into step with him, trying to stay focused and aware as they walked farther into the woods. Even if Wade Cooper was one of the good guys, she couldn’t depend on him—or anyone else—to protect her.

  Her parents were in trouble. And the key to finding them was locked somewhere in her brain. She was their only hope. Not Wade Cooper or his family or anyone else.

  If her parents were to be found, it was up to her to find them.

  With her mind occupied with the crushing weight of that thought, she didn’t realize immediately that they’d moved out of thick woods into a partial clearing. Almost blending into the woods around them stood a large, wood-shingled house. It took her a minute to realize where she was.

  The Marshes’ lake house.

  It had been a long time since she’d visited this place. Over ten years ago, at least. She’d been a bright-eyed high school graduate, less than a month away from her first year at the University of Georgia. She’d picked journalism as her major, much to her mother’s pride and her father’s chagrin. The older Marsh girl, Rita, had been a junior at Yale and, if Annie recalled correctly, mooning over some young Marine Corps lieutenant under her father’s command. She’d tried to convince Annie that an Ivy League school would be the smarter choice and seemed downright horrified that Annie had turned down an offer from Columbia to choose the Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Georgia instead.

  Evie, the younger Marsh, had been seventeen and tomboyish. She’d secretly confided to Annie that she wanted to join the Marine Corps, but her father wouldn’t hear of it. Annie had never heard whether or not Evie had gotten her wish. General Marsh had changed commands at that point, and the Marsh and Harlowe families had lost touch for a while.

  She was surprised she even remembered the place, but as they walked slowly around to the front of the house, she had a strong flash of memory.

  Rain, pouring in sheets. The empty facade of the house staring back at her like a slumbering beast, daring her to wake it.

  But she had to get inside.

  Get General Marsh. General Marsh can help.

  Her legs wobbled beneath her, and she took a stumbling step forward to keep her balance. Her toe caught on one of the flagstones half hidden in the deep grass, pitching her forward.

  Wade caught her before she fell, dragging her into his tight embrace.

  She twisted in his arms, looking up at him, a flood of memories rattling her brain. She’d tripped on one of the flagstones and fallen, hitting her head. Blood had dripped like water into her face, she remembered. It had hurt like hell, but she couldn’t stand still.

  They were looking for her.

  “I hit my head on a flagstone,” she said aloud, her voice oddly distant, as if she were speaking from far away.

  “One of these flagstones?” Wade’s arms tightened around her. “I found you not far from here—”

  “I think I was here last night.” She found her balance again, and Wade let her go. Cool morning air seeped into her clothes, replacing the earlier warmth of his arms. She felt strangely bereft.

  “Here at this lake house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know why you were here? Did someone drop you off?”

  She heard an engine rumbling in her head. “A truck.”

  “Someone let you out of a truck? Just dropped you off?”

  She couldn’t let anyone see her. She had to be sure nobody saw her. The fear of discovery was so strong, it made her insides tremble even now. “No, I don’t think they dropped me off. I think I stowed away and got out on my own.”

  Wade’s brow furrowed. “You stowed away on a truck?”

  “I think so.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead, struggling to remember. “I think it was the only way I could get here.”

  “Here to the lake house?”

  She looked up at the silent face of the house, at the low-slung front porch and the solid wood door. “Yes.”

  She’d needed to see General Marsh. General Marsh could help.

  But help her do what?

  “I don’t remember why,” she said aloud, although in the back of her mind, she heard her father’s plea.

  Protect the code.

  “I’m tired,” she said, tucking the thought away. She’d think about it later, when she was alone. She wasn’t a good liar. If she wasn’t careful, Wade Cooper would see through her deceit.

  You can trust him, can’t you? He’s taken care of you so far.

  But he was still a stranger.

  She couldn’t trust anyone. Not with her parents’ lives on the line.

  * * *

  ANNIE HARLOWE WAS keeping secrets. Wade could see it in the way her face shuttered during her moments of silence. It was if there was a whole mysterious world inside her brain, a movie playing out behind her soft caramel eyes that she kept hidden from the rest of the world.

  How much of it was natural reticence, and how much was active deception? Wade couldn’t be sure, not yet. But if there was one thing he was still good at, one thing the al Adar bullet hadn’t stolen from him, it was his natural instinct for ferreting out the truth.

  Once, when Jesse hadn’t known he was in earshot, Wade had heard his older brother refer to him as “the Cooper Security lie detector.” Jesse would never have said it to his face—the eldest Cooper brother liked to keep his younger siblings humble by rationing his praise in small, timely doses.

  But Wade was pretty good at detecting bull. And right now, Annie Harlowe was chock full of bull, at least where her memory was concerned.

  She remembered something. Maybe a lot of somethings. And General Marsh’s lake house figured right in the middle of it all.

  He didn’t think she was lying about having been at the Marsh’s house the night before. Wade had found her in the woods about forty yards uphill from the lakeside cabin. The gash in her forehead could have easily come from falling and hitting her head on the edge of the flagstone, as she’d said.

  But he had a feeling she knew why she’d ended up at the Marshes’ lake house, and that was the part of her memory she seemed determined not to share with the rest of them. He supposed it was natural that she’d be reticent where her inner secrets were concerned. Despite the help they�
��d given her, she really didn’t know the Coopers from any set of strangers she might run into on the street.

  And he hadn’t exactly been sharing any of his secrets with her, had he?

  The Coopers had been sitting on General Ross’s coded journal for weeks, not sharing what they knew with anyone outside the handful of Cooper Security agents who needed to know what they had in their possession. Even the bad guys could only guess that the Coopers had control of the journal.

  It was a secret Jesse had entrusted to a chosen few, and Wade had told no one else about it.

  But watching Annie Harlowe sitting on the sofa, deep in thoughts he wished he had the power to read, Wade was beginning to think the secret of the journal might be just the thing that would convince Annie to spill a few of her own secrets.

  They were already certain that General Harlowe had known about Ross’s journal. If Wade’s sister Shannon and her boyfriend Gideon were right, Harlowe himself, along with Baxter Marsh, might be the only people left who knew how to decode the journal and reveal its tantalizing secrets.

  The phone rang, making Annie jump. She shot a sheepish grin at Wade as he crossed to the side table to pick up the phone. No ID on the display panel on the phone. Probably the office. “Hello?”

  He was right. Jesse was on the other end of the call, and he sounded tense. “We’ve just had an incident.”

  Wade listened, glancing toward Annie as his brother tersely described an unexpected visit from a man in uniform to the Cooper Security offices.

  “It wasn’t one of the men from the hospital,” Jesse said, “but we do know he’s not an S.S.U. agent. At least, not as far as we’ve been able to ascertain.” Jesse described a short, stocky man in his mid-forties, with thinning blond hair and sharp blue eyes.

  The description didn’t ring any bells for Wade, but apparently his brother’s wife Amanda, who’d once been a CIA operative, had recognized the man as a fellow spook.

  “Says his name is Oliver Pennock, and the last she knew, he was pretty high up in the Transnational Issues Division. Said his area of expertise was Central Asia.”

  “Kaziristan,” Wade murmured.

  Annie’s gaze snapped to his face, her entire body going tense, and he regretted speaking aloud.

  “He came here looking for Annie Harlowe,” Jesse said. “He asked all friendly-like, smiling and easygoing, but when we told him to talk to the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department, he dropped the act. Pretty much threatened our company, our business license, and most of our staff with all sorts of dire, unspoken consequences if we didn’t turn her over to him.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What do you think?”

  Wade grinned, imagining just how many creative places his brother, the ultimate Marine, had suggested the CIA agent stuff his threats.

  “That does mean he knows we have her,” Jesse warned, wiping the smile off Wade’s face. “I don’t think she’s going to be safe there with you much longer.”

  Wade looked at Annie again, his stomach tightening with dread. She’d just begun to look a little bit settled around here, and he was about to have to uproot her once again. “Who’s going to get her out of here?”

  Annie sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the couch. The look she sent his way was full of alarm.

  “You are,” Jesse answered firmly.

  A ripple of panic shot through his gut. “Alone?”

  “We’re pretty sure we’re being watched here at the office. You need to get her out of there as soon as you can. Head for the Cooper Cove Marina—I’ll call Uncle Mike to let him know y’all are coming. Dad’s down there this morning, helping out at the bait shop, so he can help you figure out what comes next. But you need to get away from your house now.”

  “Okay. I’ll call back from the bait shop—”

  “No. I’m not sure the office phones are safe. I’m using an untraceable phone, so I’ll call you.” Jesse hung up without saying goodbye.

  “We have to get out of here, don’t we?”

  Wade turned to look at Annie, who was now on her feet. She still looked a little pale, a little tired, but there was also an undercurrent of energy flowing through her, electric even from the distance of a few feet. Wade felt drawn to that core of strength radiating from her, as if he could pull from that energy to fill his own flagging resources. He took a couple of steps toward her before he stopped himself.

  “I know you need more rest—”

  She shook her head, cutting him off. “Just catch me up on what’s happened while I pack.”

  * * *

  THE COOPER COVE MARINA nestled in a wide-mouthed cove about five miles from Wade Cooper’s bungalow. The marina itself consisted of five large piers from which jutted several boat slips, many of them occupied. As Annie followed Wade up the gravel path to the small bait shop a few yards inland from the piers, she saw a couple of boats slide in expertly to adjacent slips. Two dark-haired men who looked almost identical tied up their boats with the speed of experts and headed down the pier toward them.

  Wade gave a wave but didn’t stop to greet them. The two men waved back and kept coming. Annie felt an unexpected fear of turning her back on the strangers, even though Wade seemed to recognize them.

  “This is awfully exposed,” she murmured to him as they reached the front door of the bait shop.

  “That’s why we have to act like we’re not trying to hide,” Wade responded with equal softness. “But if you’re worried about those guys following us, relax. They’re my cousins, and they hate the S.S.U. every bit as much as you do.”

  Wade led her up to the front counter, where two men in their mid-sixties stood together, watching them arrive in silent scrutiny. The taller of the two men smiled a greeting, but the other man, Annie noticed, was watching Wade’s limping struggle with a hint of dismay.

  “Dad, Uncle Mike, this is Annie.” Waving toward the taller man, Wade said, “Annie, my uncle Mike. And this,” he added, looking at the shorter man,” is my dad, Roy Cooper.”

  “Nice meeting you, Annie,” Roy Cooper said with a genuine smile. He turned his gaze to his son. “Hear you need a quick getaway.”

  Wade’s smile didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “Word gets around fast on the Cooper grapevine.”

  “Jesse called to arrange for you to take a boat trip across the lake to Willow Point. Jake’s going to drive you over there, and Gabe’s riding shotgun to watch your back.”

  “And what happens when we get to Willow Point?”

  “Mariah will pick you up and take you to Luke’s stable,” one of Wade’s cousins answered. Either Jake or Gabe. Annie didn’t know which was which, or if she’d have been able to tell them apart if she did.

  Wade gave his cousin an odd look. “You don’t expect us to ride horses out of here, do you?”

  The other cousin laughed. “Lord, no. Like Luke would let you have any of his horses anyway. No, they’re going to let you borrow the stable truck. They don’t have any need to haul horses over the next few days, so it’ll just be sitting there in the yard unused anyway. And it’s Riley Patterson’s old truck, so it’s not even registered to anyone named Cooper.”

  Wade clapped the man’s shoulder. “You, Gabe Cooper, are a genius.”

  “It was my idea,” the other cousin protested.

  “You’re a genius, too, Jake.” Wade turned to Annie, his dark eyes glittering with life. He was excited by the prospect of the unknown adventure spreading out like a big, wild mystery in front of them, she realized. Even though it might be—no, almost certainly would be—dangerous. Maybe he was excited because it was certain to be dangerous.

  Even stranger, some of his excitement seemed to have infected her as well, because the idea of going on the run with Wade Cooper had her knees trembling and her heart pounding, not with fear but with anticipation.

  Had she utterly lost her mind? Or was it the sheer relief of doing something active, even if it was running away from the bad guy
s, that had her blood flowing like fire in her veins?

  For three nearly blank weeks of her life, she’d apparently been a mouse in a cage, tormented and trapped and utterly helpless. Now she was free. Running for her life, scared out of her wits, but free.

  It was about damned time.

  The ride across the lake took only a few minutes. They met up with a beautiful woman with dark brown hair and silvery eyes—Mariah, the wife of Wade’s cousin Jake— who smiled a quiet greeting before she quickly herded them into her SUV. Another ten-minute drive down a winding country road ended at a sprawling stable yard.

  A tall man with buzz-cut dark hair emerged from the barn. He waved Mariah off, and she drove away. “Luke Cooper,” he introduced himself to Annie quickly. “Sure am glad to see you alive and kicking.”

  Annie managed a smile in return, though she was already starting to feel overwhelmed. So much for her earlier flash of bravery.

  “Here are the keys.” Luke handed Wade a small key ring with two keys on it. “Try not to wreck it and don’t get pulled over. You’re not covered on the insurance policy.”

  “I think that’s the least of our worries,” Wade said with a wry smile.

  Luke looked at Annie again, but he addressed the question to his cousin. “Any clue where you’re going?”

  “Don’t know.” Wade looked at Annie. “Any idea how we’re supposed to stay in touch?”

  “Oh, yeah. Nearly forgot.” Luke dug in his pocket and pulled out a small, nondescript cell phone. “Prepaid, untraceable. Use it sparingly.”

  Wade took the phone. “Thanks. For everything.”

  They walked to the other side of the barn, where a dusty forest-green Ram 1500 pickup truck sat next to a large bale of hay. “So,” Wade said as he unlocked the passenger door. “Where you reckon we should go?”

  Annie had been thinking about that question ever since they hopped aboard his cousin’s bass boat back at the marina. “I think there’s really only one place that makes sense.”

  He paused in the middle of shoving the duffel bags containing their supplies into the bench seat of the truck. “Yeah? Where’s that?”