Secret Keeper

by Paula Graves

  She wrapped her legs around his hips, tugging hard at the hem of his T-shirt. He wriggled against her, trying to aid her in her efforts, but the sound of his phone buzzing stilled them both.

  “I have to get it,” he groaned.

  She breathed hard against his neck. “I know.”

  He rolled away from her, pulling his phone from his back pocket. There was a return text from Luke. What he read there made his stomach drop. “Oh, no.”

  Annie sat up next to him, looking over his shoulder at the text. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Is that the neighbor who agreed to watch your cat?”

  Wade nodded, staring with sick horror at the phone display.

  George Foley found dead on your front porch this p.m. Murdered. Watch your back.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What about the cat?” Annie asked as she watched Wade pack their supplies. Her whole body still felt numb from the shock of Luke Cooper’s last text message. She’d met George Foley briefly outside Wade’s cabin, introduced to him as a cousin from Birmingham as Wade arranged for his neighbor to keep an eye on Ernie and make sure he was fed and spent the nights indoors.

  “I don’t know.” He picked up the phone for the third time in the last five minutes, this time dialing a number. Annie got up and started packing where he’d left off, earning a small, grateful smile as he paced away from the bed while he waited for his cousin to pick up.

  A moment later, he said, “Luke, it’s me. Tell me what you know.”

  While Wade listened, anger and regret darkening his expression, Annie finished packing quickly, although from what she could glean from Wade’s side of the conversation, Luke seemed to be urging him not to make any quick decisions.

  “I know it’s dangerous, but it’s dangerous here, too.” He told Luke about their visit to the cabin. Luke didn’t seem to take the news well; Annie could hear his raised voice from where she stood.

  “It’s done, and it got us the information about Rita Marsh. Have you told Jesse yet?” After a brief pause, he said, “Well, do so as soon as you can. He needs to know.”

  Annie finished putting the last of their clothes and supplies in the bag and zipped it shut. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she watched Wade as the speed and power of his pacing increased. He was starting to limp a little now, though he clearly wasn’t thinking about anything but the trouble at hand, a reminder that while he was in better condition that he thought, he wasn’t 100 percent and might never be again.

  But he was willing to put everything he had left on the line for her. She saw it in the fierce determination gleaming in his dark eyes and the power and intensity of his gaze when he looked at her. “I’ll keep her safe,” he said into the phone, but she knew it was a message to her, too.

  She had to tell him about the code. It might end up being useless information, especially if they couldn’t find the other generals’ codes, but he’d earned the truth from her. And given the clear threat the S.S.U. posed to Rita Marsh—and the rest of her family, no doubt—it was the least she owed her father’s old friend as well.

  Wade said goodbye to his cousin and hung up the phone. “Ernie’s fine. Shannon has taken him in for the time being.”

  “Do they know what happened to your neighbor?”

  “Double-tapped in the back of the head. Luke said my house has been tossed as well.”

  “So they know I’m with you.”

  “Apparently.” He sat beside her on the bed, close enough to touch. She didn’t let herself give in to the temptation.

  “Luke wants us to stay put?”

  “He wants us to get out of here and go somewhere else. He suggested Canada,” Wade added with a wry grin. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He sighed. “I want to go back home. My family is there. Safety in numbers and all that.”

  “It’s dangerous to go back there.”

  “I’m afraid it’s dangerous to go anywhere.” Wade leaned forward, putting his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. Things seem to be getting worse the longer you stick with me.”

  “They’d get worse anywhere,” she said quietly, echoing his earlier words. “I’m glad I’m with you.”

  He shot her a wry look. “You just want me for my body.”

  She laughed, as he’d clearly intended. “Well, sure. But I also trust you to have my back. You’ve already gone far beyond the call of duty.”

  “I’m going to tell you something,” he said, a look of decision crossing his face. “It’s something only a very few people know and you can’t share it with anyone else.”

  The code, she thought. He knows something about the code.

  “Last month, my sister Shannon worked a job for Lydia Ross, archiving her late husband’s papers and collections. While she was there, she found something strange.”

  “A coded journal,” Annie murmured, now certain she was right.

  His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “You know about it?”

  She nodded slowly. “I didn’t remember before tonight, though.”

  “What do you know about it?” he asked warily.

  “It’s written in multilayered code that can be broken only if you have all three code keys,” she said, watching his face carefully. He seemed surprised, though she didn’t know whether it was what she was saying or the fact that she was saying it at all that confounded him the most.

  “How do you know this?”

  “My father told me about it, shortly before we were abducted.”

  Wade sat back, thrusting his fingers through his dark hair. “We think your father must have told the S.S.U. about the journal at some point of your captivity, because shortly after your abduction, a group of their agents went to a whole lot of trouble to get that journal away from Lydia Ross.”

  “My father wouldn’t tell anyone about the journal,” she protested.

  “Not even to preserve your life? Or your mother’s?”

  She quelled the urge to insist he wouldn’t, because in truth, while her father loved his country, there was nothing he loved more than his family. Knowing that all three layers of code would have to be broken before the journal would be any good to anyone, might he have revealed its existence in order to keep the S.S.U. thugs from harming his family?

  It was a strong possibility, she had to admit. For all she knew, she herself had revealed the truth. There was a lot about her time in captivity she still couldn’t remember.

  What if the information about the journal had come from her?

  She looked up at Wade with alarm. “Did they find it?”

  “No,” he admitted after a brief pause. “The journal is safe.”

  Relief raced through her. “Good.”

  “Do you know what’s in it?” he asked.

  Her father’s voice rang in her mind. Protect the code.

  But Wade Cooper wasn’t with the S.S.U. He’d put his life on the line for her, lost a friend and neighbor for her. If he hadn’t earned her trust by now, there was no one on earth who could.

  “It’s an outline of a far-reaching conspiracy my father and Generals Ross and Marsh uncovered during their mission in Kaziristan,” she answered slowly, watching his face for his reaction.

  He didn’t look surprised this time. So he’d already had an idea about what the journal had contained.

  But how had he learned about it?

  “You already know this,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Suspected it,” he admitted. “But we weren’t sure what the journal contained because we haven’t been able to break the code.”

  “You have to have all three code keys to break it,” she repeated.

  “Each general kept one of the keys?”

  “Yes. All three had to have input before the contents made sense.” Her gut twisted as she realized something that should have occurred to her before. “And with General Ross dead—”

  “We don’t have that part of the code, regard
less,” he finished for her. “But we’re working an angle on that end that we’re hoping will solve the problem.”

  “What kind of angle?”

  He looked at her through slightly narrowed eyes, as if assessing how much he should share. “I don’t know the details,” he admitted. “I just know that the tech department is working hard at trying to bust the code.”

  “I doubt it can be broken without all three parts,” she said bleakly. “Did General Ross know, before his death, that other people were looking for his journal?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Who would he have told his secrets to, if he were inclined to share?”

  “At a guess, his son Ford.”

  “His son is dead,” Annie said bleakly. “Killed in Kaziristan two years ago. So if General Ross told Ford his secrets—”

  “We’re trying to find out if he could have told someone else. We’re in contact with his widow and also Ford’s best friend.”

  “Maybe General Ross gave the information to someone without their realizing it. Maybe he told my father where to find the information if something ever happened to him. Which means he almost certainly told General Marsh as well.”

  “General Marsh won’t take any of our calls. He’s even ignoring calls from his younger daughter these days.”

  “He has to know he’s on someone’s hit list after all this.”

  “I think he’s probably more worried about his daughters,” Wade said. “With good reason, considering what we found in that car tonight.”

  Annie rubbed her gritty eyes. “Do you think General Marsh told one of his daughters the key for his layer of code?”

  Wade looked at her suddenly, realization gleaming in his dark eyes. “Your father gave you the key, didn’t he?”

  She stared at him, not sure how to answer. Protect the code, her father had told her. The best way to protect it was to let everyone think it no longer existed in any recoverable way.

  But hadn’t Wade earned her trust?

  He had. But some things were more important than trust.

  “No,” she lied. “He didn’t.”

  Wade looked briefly troubled by her statement, but soon his expression cleared. “You’re probably safer that way.”

  Now she felt terrible for lying, even if it was to do what her father had asked her to do. “We’ll be less likely to ever be able to break the code and protect what my father and the other generals knew.”

  “That’s not my priority at the moment.” He looked at the bag Annie had finished packing. “I don’t think we can stick around here any longer. You ready to go?”

  She found her gaze wandering around the motel room, taking in the cramped, uninspired decor, and realized she’d felt safer here than she’d felt in a long time.

  Because Wade had been with her.

  “Where are we going, exactly?”

  He picked up the bag. “The most secure place in Chickasaw County is the Cooper Security office building. Double layers of security, plus a whole building full of people who know how to fight like soldiers.”

  “So, what? We bunk down on desks or something?”

  Wade just grinned at her. “Or something.”

  The trip back to Chickasaw County took three and a half harrowing hours, most of which Annie had spent certain that every passing car was full of S.S.U. agents determined to stop them. About halfway there, Wade pulled the Ram pickup into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour truck stop near the I-59 on ramp and parked, shutting down the engine. Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket—the third time he’d done so during the long drive—he pecked a few times on the small keypad and hit Send.

  “What now?” Annie asked warily.

  “We go inside and have an early breakfast.” He opened the driver’s side door and climbed out of the cab, making a little grumbling noise as his bad knee took his weight.

  He limped a little as he led her inside the truck stop diner, but the impairment would have been barely noticeable had she not been looking for it. She smiled behind his back as they took a seat at the counter, a few seats down from a small cluster of truckers who were drinking coffee and sharing road stories with a smiling middle-aged waitress.

  A second waitress, a redhead in her early thirties, took their order with a stifled yawn. Wade ordered eggs, bacon and a biscuit, but Annie didn’t think her nervous stomach could handle much more than a glass of milk and a piece of toast. The waitress nearly rolled her eyes at the order but headed to the back to hand it off.

  “Should we be out in the open like this?” Annie asked.

  Wade just smiled. “We’re going to be on the road a long time. Can’t starve ourselves or we won’t make it far.” Beneath the counter, he caught her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  She looked up at him and saw his gaze slant upward for a second. He squeezed her hand again.

  Slowly, she let her eyes drift upward and spotted a security camera. She blinked, lowering her gaze while her eyes were shut, and hoped it had looked natural.

  “Where next?” she asked aloud, striving to keep her voice normal. She didn’t know if the security camera had audio recording capabilities, but just in case...

  “Jesse said he has a friend in Minnesota who could get us across the border without anyone asking questions,” Wade said. “I’m afraid we’re in for a lot more driving.”

  The waitress brought their plates and handed them their receipt. Wade pulled his wallet out and paid the bill, then unhurriedly ate his breakfast.

  Annie nibbled her toast and tried not to freak out completely. Clearly Wade had a plan of some sort. She had to trust he knew what he was doing.

  But when they went out to the truck to find it tightly flanked on both sides by two dark panel vans, she felt panic rise in her throat.

  “Steady,” Wade said in a low voice, threading his fingers through hers.

  As they reached the truck, the front doors of the van on the left opened, and two men got out, one tall and blond, the other shorter and dark-haired. They headed up the walk to the truck stop.

  The second they were inside, the panel door of the van on the left slid open, making Annie’s heart skip a beat. Two people emerged, a dark-haired woman about Annie’s size and a dark-haired man who looked enough like Wade to be his brother, though it wasn’t Jesse Cooper, whom she’d met briefly in the car that helped her escape the hospital.

  Wade handed over the truck keys to the man, who unlocked the pickup and climbed into the driver’s side of the cab. The dark-haired woman stopped, pointed to Annie’s denim jacket and held out her hands. Annie took off the jacket and handed it to her. The woman put it on and walked around the truck, climbing into the passenger side.

  “In the van,” Wade murmured, waving his hand toward the open door.

  Annie looked into the van and found Isabel Cooper looking back at her, an encouraging smile on her face. She held out her hand to Annie.

  With a deep breath, she took it and let Wade’s sister help her inside.

  Wade climbed up behind her and they settled into one of the two bench seats in the enclosed body of the van while Isabel closed the door.

  “The vans blocked the security camera’s view of the truck,” Wade explained. Outside the van, the truck’s engine roared to life, then faded away as the truck apparently left the lot. A moment later, the other van started and drove away as well, heading in the opposite direction.

  “Who were those people?” Annie asked.

  “The two guys who went into the diner are Terry Allen and Dennis McCready. Terry and Mac. The guy in the van is Mason Hunter, one of our field agents. The man and woman are my cousin Troy Cooper and Delilah Hammond, another of our field agents,” Isabel answered, settling on the bench seat in front of them. She buckled herself in. “Troy looks a lot like Wade, obviously. And Delilah is the closest to you in size and coloring we could find on short notice.”

  “Didn’t we just send them out as decoys for the S.S.U. to follow?”
Annie asked with alarm. “What if they try to ambush them?”

  “Delilah spent several years in FBI special ops, and Troy was a Navy SEAL for over a decade before retiring this past spring and joining Cooper Security to help us go after the S.S.U.,” Wade answered. “They know the risks and they know what they’re doing.”

  Annie still didn’t like it. “What now?”

  “Mac and Terry eat breakfast.” Wade checked his watch. “We have about fifteen minutes to decompress.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be doing much of that,” Annie muttered, her hand over her still-racing heart.

  “It’s the best way we could figure to get you to the Cooper Security office without anyone knowing it,” Isabel said. “There are still people watching.”

  “How did you get away unseen?” Annie asked. “Isn’t there someone following you, too?”

  “Scanlon and I went to Huntsville last night to see a concert. Our car’s still parked in the hotel parking lot, and Scanlon’s in the room, with the do-not-disturb sign on the door.” She shot Annie a wry grin. “Sadly, I’m not there with him, but my phone is, so if anyone’s figured out a way to track me by my cell signal, they should think I’m in there, too. As soon as we get underway, Mac will drop Terry and me off where I left my getaway car and we’ll be heading back there to reunite me with my phone and my husband in time to check out.”

  “This is all very cloak and dagger,” Annie said.

  “It’s kind of what we do.” Wade caught her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. When he started to let go, she held on, twining her fingers through his. He gave her a long, smoldering look that did wonders to drive off the chill that had settled deep in her bones during the harrowing drive from Georgia.

  The two men who’d left the van returned, not even acknowledging the rest of them as they climbed into their seats and the driver started the engine. Only when they were a mile down the road from the truck stop did the blond man in the passenger seat turn to look at them. “Terry Allen,” he introduced himself to Annie. “This is Dennis McCready. Goes by Mac.”

  “I’ve caught them up on what we’re doing,” Isabel said.