by Paula Graves
“Protect it, darling,” her father had said, his voice deep and urgent.
Protect the code.
She remembered.
She pressed her hand over her mouth, feeling sick. It had been the next morning when she and her parents had returned from breakfast to an ambush. Annie remembered the look on her father’s face as he tried to fight off the attackers, to protect her and her mother from their intentions.
And then, she realized with a whimper of frustration, her memory disappeared into a deep, black void.
“Annie!”
Wade’s harsh whisper, close behind her, sent a jolt through her nervous system. Trembling all over, she turned to look at him. He gazed back at her, his eyes fathomless in the beam of her flashlight.
“Shut down your light,” he whispered.
Then she heard it. The sound of a vehicle coming up the road, the rumble of its engine soft but unmistakable.
Someone was coming to the cabin.
Chapter Ten
He should never have agreed to come here, Wade thought as he followed Annie through the darkened cabin toward the back exit, especially given her recent bouts with debilitating flashbacks. But after her first shaky reaction, she’d responded with surprising confidence, extinguishing the flashlight and leading the way toward the back.
They reached the back door before the car engine died at the front of the cabin. Annie opened the door and slipped outside, grabbing his arm to pull him out behind her. They closed the door quietly, the click of the latch engaging camouflaged by the sound of footsteps ringing on the front porch steps of the cabin.
Annie slipped the key in the lock and twisted it. “I didn’t lock the front door behind us,” she whispered, her brow furrowed.
“I locked it when I heard the car coming,” he whispered back. He held up his hands to show her he’d donned a pair of thin leather gloves. “No prints.”
She shot him a look of relief. There might have been a little admiration in her expression as well, though he supposed he could be indulging in a bit of wishful thinking.
He didn’t have time for wishful thinking.
“Come on.” Annie tightened her fingers around his. She led him into the tree line at the back of the cabin until he could barely see the building through the thick palisade of tree trunks and low-hanging limbs.
“Now we can’t see what they’re doing,” Wade murmured.
“Just a minute.” She kept moving, tugging him with her, until they reached four pine trees lined up side by side like sentries standing guard. Overhead, their boughs tangled inextricably, as if they were holding hands in a giant game of Red Rover. But between their wide, rough trunks, Wade could see the cabin.
“We called them the four sisters,” Annie whispered. “Mom and I. Dad said we were being fanciful.”
Wade peered through the darkness at the cabin. From this vantage point, he could see the porch and the side window of the large front room.
Next to him, Annie let out a soft gasp as the light came on in the front of the cabin.
“Bold,” Wade murmured.
“Look who they are,” she whispered back.
He peered through the darkness. One of the men was standing near the window, looking intently at the floor. After a second, he looked up, seemingly right at Wade.
Wade froze, even though he knew the light inside the cabin would turn the window into a mirror blocking out anything outside. The man stood there a moment before he turned away, but it was long enough for Wade to recognize him as one of the two fake A.F.O.S.I. agents who’d been keeping watch outside Annie’s hospital room. The same men who’d chased them through the tunnel.
“They don’t give up, do they?” she whispered. “Think they’re looking for signs we were there?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re looking for something else.” Like whatever they’d kidnapped the Harlowes for in the first place. He and his family had assumed it was to find out what the three generals were hiding, but the bad guys already knew about the existence of General Ross’s journal. They’d gone to a lot of trouble trying to steal it from Lydia Ross just a few weeks earlier, nearly killing Wade’s sister in the process.
So what were these guys looking for? Keys to the code that had kept the journal unreadable so far, despite Shannon’s best efforts to crack the cipher?
He glanced at Annie, who was watching the movement of the two men inside through narrowed, thoughtful eyes. She looked different, he realized. Stronger and less nervous than she’d been even a few hours ago as they drove up the mountain toward the cabin.
What had happened when he’d left her alone inside her father’s study? Had she remembered something else?
“They look like they’re planning to stay awhile,” Annie whispered.
She was right. They did. The light went off in the front room and came on again in one of the smaller rooms—General Harlowe’s study, he realized. “You didn’t leave any traces behind, did you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Shifting his position a little, Wade looked down the narrow drive and spotted a dark sedan in the driveway. It was parked several yards away from the house, which confused him for a moment until he realized the hard-packed dirt and gravel of the driveway wouldn’t produce tire tracks the way the softer dirt closer to the house would.
These guys didn’t want anyone to know they’d been here, either.
“Are they both in that room?” he whispered.
“I see two shadows.”
He wondered if they’d left a third person to guard the car. “Wait here.” He edge his way closer to the sedan, keeping the trees between him and the cabin’s line of sight.
Of course, Annie didn’t stay put. “Where are we going?”
He shot her a look of frustration. “Not much for waiting here?”
“You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do, are you?”
“If you mean search their car? Yeah. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Are you crazy?” Even though she was whispering, her voice rose an octave. “They’ll see the dome light—”
“They can’t see the car from where they are. Worry more about whether or not the car is locked.” He slipped through the woods quietly, his attention fixed to the cabin even as he kept the car in his peripheral vision. The light in the front room remained off, but a soft glow through the windows showed that the other light was still on.
“You wait here and watch the cabin,” he said.
“I can’t see the cabin well from here. Plus, I’d have to shout for you to hear my warning.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll go with you. I’ll play lookout.”
He frowned, not wanting her to take such a desperate risk. But she was right. She’d make a much better lookout if she was closer to him, with a better view of the cabin. There was no easy way to do what he wanted to do.
He either had to let her take the risk, or call it off altogether.
He almost called it off. The idea of putting Annie at graver risk went against everything his Marine Corps training had drummed into him. Marines didn’t risk the lives of civilians if there was any way to avoid it. And he had a way to avoid it. He could abort the mission.
But he might never have a better chance to get a close-up look at just what the S.S.U. mercenaries were up to. If there was anything in their car that Cooper Security could use to unravel whatever plot those guys were cooking up, he had to take the chance.
He might even come across a vital clue to the whereabouts of Annie’s parents. Could he really walk away from that opportunity?
He couldn’t. Not for Annie’s sake. Nor for the sake of all his family had risked over the past few months to find out what this ruthless band of mercenaries was really up to.
“Okay,” he said quietly, clasping her hand in his. “You stay as close to the tree line as you can. If you see any movement in the house, tell me and then get the hell out of sight. Understood?”
She nodde
d, gazing up at him with scared eyes. But her chin lifted and her shoulders squared. “Let’s go.”
The first obstacle was the door lock. There was a possibility that the two men had locked the car behind them when they went inside, but Wade was gambling that they’d value a fast getaway more than vehicle security given their stealthy mission and the cabin’s secluded location.
He was right. And, to his relief, the dome light Annie had worried about didn’t engage when he opened the driver’s door. They’d chosen to go dark. Cops often disabled their dome lights so that they could easily open the door without the dome light revealing their position.
So did the bad guys.
Annie crouched next to the car, her worried gaze pinned to the front of the cabin. “Just hurry!”
He took a risk and turned on the pen light, flicking the beam around the car’s interior. The front seats were empty, almost pristine. There was a whiff of military precision to just how buttoned up the vehicle was, a reminder that for all their corruption, most of the S.S.U. operatives had been trained by professionals. It was a mistake to assume that evil intentions equaled sloppy procedures.
He closed the front car door as quietly as he could and tried the back door. The back was nearly as spotless as the front, save for a manila file folder lying on the floorboard behind the driver’s seat.
Wade flipped the folder open and found a photo of Annie Harlowe staring back at him. It was her professional headshot, apparently commissioned by the D.C.-area newspaper she worked for. It was the same shot Jesse had supplied to all the Cooper Security operatives he’d assigned to the Harlowe case when they’d first been reported missing.
He flipped the photo to get to the next page. It was a one-sheeter on Annie Harlowe, listing her place of residence, her personal connections, her favorite haunts back in D.C. and elsewhere. It wasn’t exactly like the dossier Jesse had compiled for them when they first started looking into the Harlowes’ disappearance, but it was much the same.
After all, the S.S.U.’s current goal was similar to Cooper Security’s previous one: find Annie Harlowe.
He flipped past the dossier, half hoping he’d find something similar on the other Harlowes. It might mean they’d managed to escape as well. But the next photo in the stack wasn’t either of the elder Harlowes, which might mean a couple of different things. Either the S.S.U. still had custody of the Harlowes or they knew the Harlowes were no longer able to pose any sort of risk to them. Either way, it wasn’t good news.
Nor was the photo now staring up at him from the folder. A pair of bright blue eyes stared out of a pretty oval face. Honey-brown hair framed her face in loose waves. Her pink lips were curved in an enigmatic smile.
Wade muttered a low curse.
“What?” Annie asked in a worried whisper.
Wade picked up the photo and showed it to her. Her eyes widened.
“That’s Rita Marsh,” she whispered. Her brow furrowed as the implications hit her. “Oh, no.”
Wade looked at the sheet of paper that lay beneath the photo. It was a dossier on General Baxter Marsh’s elder daughter, similar to the one the S.S.U. had gathered on Annie Harlowe. Where she worked, where she lived, who she socialized with. And at the bottom, written in bold, black pen strokes, the words Millwood Presbyterian Church. 10/20, 2 p.m. stood out like a neon warning sign.
“The light in the front room just came on!” Annie grabbed his arm.
Wade slid everything back into the folder and replaced it where it had earlier lain. He closed the back door quietly and grabbed Annie’s hand.
They ran straight for the woods, not looking back until they’d reached the safety of the four entangled pines. Together they crouched, trying to stay quiet as they caught their breaths and waited anxiously for any sign that the men inside the cabin were about to leave.
“The light’s off again,” Annie whispered, her body trembling next to his. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, feeling a rush of sheer male pleasure as she leaned against him, turning her cheek toward him so that it brushed against his face.
Adrenaline could be a powerful aphrodisiac, and Wade found himself fighting hard against the urge to kiss her again. But Marine Corps training was harsh and relentless for a good reason, and the discipline and control his drill sergeants had pounded into his young skull full of mush paid off. He whipped the rush of desire under control.
“They’re staying,” he murmured as a light came on somewhere in the back of the cabin again. “Any idea what they’re looking for?”
She didn’t answer right away, drawing his gaze to her face. It was pale in the shaft of faint moonlight angling down through a narrow break in the trees. Her caramel eyes looked mysterious and dark, sending a spark of unease fluttering through his gut.
She was hiding something, he realized.
But what?
“I don’t think we should stick around any longer,” she whispered.
He couldn’t argue.
They circled through the woods, Wade letting Annie lead the way, as she seemed nearly as surefooted and confident moving through these woods as he used to be navigating the woods of Gossamer Ridge. They reached the car, hidden behind a tall canopy of kudzu vines that had formed between a pair of broken tree trunks. They were lucky, Wade knew, that it was September and the vines were still lush and green. Within a couple of months, the vines would wither and the leaves would thin out and die off until spring brought new growth again.
They were far enough from the cabin that it was unlikely the two men wandering around inside could hear the Ram’s engine. But Wade still drove quickly down the mountain road, determined to put as much distance between them and the S.S.U. agents as possible.
His heart still pounded wildly by the time they reached the motel. He parked a few doors down from their room and they walked the rest of the way, moving at a fast clip. Only after they were inside did either of them make a sound, and it was Annie, who burst into helpless laughter.
Wade watched her with surprise, not only because her mirth seemed out of tune with the frantic tension of the last half hour but also because he’d never heard her laugh that way before. It was full-throated and infectious, drawing a smile to his own lips.
She stared back at him and just laughed harder. He found laughter bubbling up in his own throat and gave in, aware that laughter was a much safer tension reliever than what he’d contemplated earlier in the woods.
They quieted down after a moment, and Annie collapsed on the bed, faceup, staring at the ceiling. “That was just about the scariest thing I’ve ever done on purpose,” she said.
“I wish I could say the same.” He dropped onto the opposite bed. “How are you feeling? How’s your head?”
She propped herself on her elbows and looked at him. “Fine, actually,” she answered with a half smile. “How’s your knee?”
With a blink of surprise, he realized it hadn’t bothered him at all while they were up on the mountain, though he felt a little twinge of pain now from so much sustained use. But it wasn’t a bad pain, he had to admit. A little muscle ache but nothing that would give him any real trouble.
“Not bad,” he admitted.
Her smile lingered. “I have a theory.”
He wasn’t sure he liked the knowing look in her eyes, but he took the bait anyway. “What’s that?”
“When you’re not thinking about your knee, it doesn’t bother you nearly as much as when you do.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying it’s psychosomatic?”
“Well, no. Not the injury. But you’re so focused on what you’ve lost that you’ve been ignoring what you still have.”
He wanted to argue with her, but if he was absolutely honest with himself, he couldn’t. She was right, at least about tonight. With a ticking clock and the constant pressure of trying to evade detection, he hadn’t had a moment to think about his bad knee. He’d just pressed on, past the weakness and whatever twinges of
pain he might have felt, just as he’d always done with minor aches and pains during his time in the Marines. No man’s body was flawless, none free of twinges and the strains of hard work. Many a night he’d had to ice his shoulder or massage his calves after a twenty-mile training run carrying a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders.
But a sore muscle isn’t the same thing as having your knee blown off.
“Don’t overthink it, Wade.”
He leaned toward her, irritated that she seemed to find him so easy to read. It made him feel naked. “You remembered something tonight,” he threw back at her, preferring to be on offense rather than defense.
Her eyes widened slightly before she schooled her features to a calm neutrality. “A thing or two,” she admitted.
But he could tell she was holding something back.
“It happened when you were in the study,” he prodded her.
“Shouldn’t you call your company and tell someone about the photo of Rita?” she asked.
He pulled out his phone, typed in a text message and sent it to his cousin Luke’s phone. “There, done. Now, stop changing the subject.”
She sat up and faced him, her eyes ablaze. “You want to kiss me.”
He arched one eyebrow at her bold statement. “You must really want to change the subject.”
She just smiled and stood up, walking slowly across the room toward him. “I do,” she admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you, too.” She laid her palms on either side of his face. “Just to get it out of the way, I’ll stipulate that doing this is probably all sorts of stupid, and I have no doubt that most of what we’re both feeling right now is adrenaline fueled.” She bent closer. “But I’ve been wanting to do this ever since we ran away from the cabin.”
He couldn’t have resisted her if he wanted to, especially when she lowered her mouth to his. She kissed him fiercely, soulfully, her hands tightening on his cheeks to hold him in place. Unwilling to relinquish total control, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her down to the bed with him, pressing her deep into the mattress beneath him.
