DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  Rhett thanked the cop while I stood at the barrier still, looking down over the edge. The bridge was just a narrow concrete structure that stretched a couple yards over a dry riverbed. Someone standing down there would have easily heard a car coming, could have detonated an explosive, and watched the resulting accident. Would even have been able to stand back in those trees and watched the cops and paramedics work on the victim.

  Was Rebecca there that night? A part of me was sure that was something she would have taken great pride in doing. She would have wanted to see the results of her work.

  Rhett moved up behind me, her hand on my arm. “Have you seen everything you wanted to see?”

  I pointed toward the dry, dying stand of trees about a hundred yards from the bridge.

  “She stood there. She watched the accident and the aftermath.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Because it’s what I would have done.

  The thought just floated through my head, but I knew it was right. It was what I would have done. If I wanted to make sure someone was dead, I would have stuck around to watch. I would have made damn sure I was right.

  “She probably came by the hospital, too. I bet if we asked, someone would remember a redheaded woman hanging around my room in the first week or so after I was admitted. I bet someone told her I wasn’t going to make it and only then did she feel safe enough to leave.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No. I’m sure of it.” I turned to Rhett, brushing her hair back from her face. “Someone wanted me dead. Rebecca was tasked with making sure I was dead. She wouldn’t have just walked away after the accident.”

  “Have you ever wondered why she wasn’t in the car with you? You were together before, when you rented the car. What happened, what excuse did she have, not to be in the car with you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we had a falling out.”

  “Or she made you think that she was done with you.”

  I nodded. “The only way to know for sure would be to ask her.”

  Rhett looked down at the dry river bed. “She’s still in custody. Hayden said she would probably be booked on firearms charges.”

  “I think it would be worth the try.”

  ***

  I sat at the little desk, the computer monitor in front of me, the phone to my ear. There was nothing on the screen but the logo of the county jail, but her face would be there very soon. I wished Rhett had come inside with me, but she thought it would be best if it was only me and Rebecca. She thought she’d be more likely to answer my questions if she didn’t have to worry about her audience. She might have been right, but I wasn’t sure the woman would answer any of our questions no matter who was there.

  Rebecca’s face suddenly appeared on the computer screen. I watched as she picked up the phone.

  “Xander. You’re the last person I expected to come visit me.”

  “Did you blow the engine on my car? Did you cause the accident?”

  A wry smile twisted her thin lips. “Who else do you think would do it? It was quite a spectacular crash, too. You hit that barrier at seventy miles an hour. It’s always wonderful when the natural landscape adds to the plan.”

  “The landscape?”

  “I blew the engine just as you hit the peak of that little hill. The downward slope caused the car to pick up speed and there was nothing you could do to slow it.”

  “Then you visited the hospital.”

  “Doctor said you were in a coma and not likely to make it. If I’d known you were going to be some sort of miracle case, I might have stuck around.”

  “Why did you want me dead?”

  “Orders. You know how that is. How many did you kill on orders?”

  My face heated with shame. That’s what I’d been afraid she would say. The moment I looked down at that riverbed and found myself surveying the area for a good place to stand and watch the accident, I’d known there was something wrong with me. Something sinister.

  “We’re both pawns in this game, Xander. It was nothing personal. You would have done the same if you’d been in my shoes.”

  “Why?”

  She frowned, her eyebrows knitting. “What do you mean, why? You know very well why you were expandable. You walked away at a time when things were too fucked up for a loyal agent to just up and walk. You knew too much. And then you went and contacted Olsen.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on, Xander. You knew when you took the assignment in France that you were no longer in a position to leave the Company. You were in too fucking deep. That thing with your sister … that was unexpected. But it wasn’t a good enough excuse to get out.”

  I was lost. I had no idea what she was talking about. I had a sister? What thing with my sister? And the Company? What Company?

  “You screwed up. They might have let you leave, let you settle down to help your sister with her kid, but then you contacted Olsen at that detention center and they knew they could never trust you to keep your mouth shut. That’s why they sent me to you, why they had us pull those jobs.

  “And then they were done with you. They wanted you eliminated. You even told me you understood, that you’d been expecting it. You asked me to …” She trailed off, her eyes moving over the scar on my face. “Wait a minute. You know all this. Why are you …?” And then she began to laugh. “You don’t remember any of this shit, do you?”

  “I was in the hospital for five months, relearning everything. My head injury was severe.”

  Rebecca found that incredibly amusing. She laughed heartily, her eyes never leaving my face, the humor never reaching her eyes. And then she just stopped, as abruptly as a car hitting a concrete barrier.

  “It doesn’t matter to them, Xander. They’ll keep coming after you until it’s over, until they wipe you off the face of this earth. You’ve got too much in your head. You know too fucking much.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “That’s ironic, isn’t it.”

  “Who’s coming after me, Rebecca?”

  She studied my face for a long moment. “You were a damn good lover,” she finally said, confirming what I thought I already knew about our relationship. “I’ll give you a list of names. What you do with it is your problem.”

  And then she quietly spoke four names:

  Luke Murphy, Peter Bradford, Megan Bradford-Murphy, and Hayden Dubois.

  What the fuck did Hayden have to do with all of this?

  ***

  “I have some information,” Rhett said as I walked out of the county jail.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Waverly found a robbery that took place out in this area the night of your accident. But it wasn’t money that was stolen. It wasn’t really a theft at all. You appear to have broken into an airport and rerouted a couple of planes. Both planes landed on schedule, just in the wrong place.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Rhett shook her head. “Waverly’s checking the flight manifests to figure it out. But she thinks you were some sort of computer expert before … before you lost your memories. She also thinks you were in the Marines.”

  “Might explain the gun wound knowledge.”

  “It might.” Rhett hesitated a second before giving me the last bit of her new knowledge. “She also thinks you were more than likely recruited into the CIA from the Marines.”

  The CIA? Didn’t they sometimes refer to it as the Company?

  I was beginning to wonder what kind of man I’d been before all this. Did I really want to learn the truth?

  Rhett slipped her hand through mine. “We should get back on the road,” she said.

  She was limping again, the pain in her leg clearly growing intolerable. I helped her into the car and knelt beside her, my hand sliding over the lumpy bandage under her jeans.

  “Let’s get a room and call it a day. You need to rest this leg.”

  She smiled
gratefully even as she protested. “Austin’s just an hour’s drive from here.”

  “We’ll stop. Gray Wolf will still be there tomorrow.”

  She leaned toward me and kissed me gently. “Okay.”

  ***

  Edgar Olsen was exposed by small Houston security firm, Dragon Security. Two years ago, co-founder of Dragon, Peter Bradford, was thought killed in a car accident. However, an investigation into his death by his sister and Dragon co-founder, Megan Bradford-Murphy, led to the discovery that Olsen was holding Mr. Bradford captive in his small apartment in California, using him to help communicate with a group of terrorists in Paris, France.

  The plot, according to CIA agent Walter Pierce, was very complicated. Olsen was essentially orchestrating terrorist attacks in order to profit off of the economic chaos that often follows such attacks. These attacks, according to Pierce, included the assassination of Prime Minister Thomas White last year in London. Pierce says that Olsen employed multiple CIA agents in his plot, and that more indictments are expected.

  I sat back, glancing around the library, feeling as though someone must be watching me. Rhett was back at the motel. She thought I was out looking for food. And I was, to begin with. But then I saw the little computer icon on the door of the library and I couldn’t resist coming inside and doing a little research.

  Edgar Olsen. He sounded like a real nut. Who would use terrorist attacks to profit? It was like profiting on the genocide of the Jews. It was absolutely disgusting.

  But Rebecca had mentioned his name, said that I’d tried to contact him after he was arrested. Why would I do that? Was I working with him? Was I one of those that the authorities expected to indict?

  It didn’t feel right. But I had no idea who I was before the accident. I could have been an entirely different person. I looked it up when I got out of the hospital. I did a lot of research while I was in Houston.

  Some people never got their memories back. Some people had complete personality changes after they suffered amnesia. Some people grew nicer, some meaner. Some became homicidal after their head injury, some became more docile. Head injuries affected people in many different ways, some not that pleasant. It all depended on the part of the brain effected.

  How did I know I wasn’t a cruel, evil person before my brain injury?

  Maybe it’d been a mistake to begin this search. But, again, if I hadn’t, I never would have met Rhett.

  But there was no rule that said we had to finish what we’d started.

  Chapter 13

  Rhett

  I must have drifted off to sleep because I didn’t hear Xander come into the motel room until he was climbing onto the bed behind me, his hand sliding over my hip.

  “What would you say if I asked you to run away with me?”

  “I’d ask where you plan on going.”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere tropical so that you can wear a bikini every day.”

  I chuckled. “I’m not sure you want to see me in a bikini. I’m a little hippy.”

  “You’re gorgeous.”

  I rolled onto my back, wincing a little as I jostled my sore thigh. I touched his face, a little bothered by the desperation that was in his eyes.

  “What’s the matter? What happened?”

  He kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m beginning to think it would be better if I didn’t find out who I really am.”

  “Why?” I sat up, pulling myself up against the headboard. “What did Rebecca say to you?”

  His eyes fell from mine to the top of the bed. He watched his hand move up over my thigh, watched himself press his hand against my belly. Already it felt like a possession, like he had every right in the world to possess me. I’d never wanted that from a man, never wanted to be controlled by a man. But the idea of belonging to Xander was not as unpleasant as I’d thought it would be.

  I was quickly falling head over heels for this man. He seemed perfect: gentle and kind and polite and respectful. He was everything my father had tried to be. He was the man I’d been waiting for ever since I realized that the Disney princes were just a fantasy and that Beast was never going to come out of the movie and sweep me off my feet.

  But then Luke’s warning continued to ring in the back of my head.

  “What if I’m not the man you think I am? What if it turns out that I’m not a good man, that I was a criminal or some sort of terrorist?”

  “Why would you jump to terrorism? Did she say something?”

  “Just what you already knew: that I was in the CIA.”

  “Why is that a bad thing? My boss’ husband was in the CIA.”

  “Hayden …?”

  “No. Megan Bradford-Murphy. Her husband, Luke, was in the CIA years ago. I’ve heard stories around the office of how he changed his appearance so that he could be close to Megan and protect her from some corrupt agent. It was very romantic, apparently.”

  “Sounds kind of deceptive to me.”

  I shrugged. “Depends on which side of the story you are.”

  “What if I was on the wrong side?”

  I moved close to Xander, brushed my lips against his. “I can’t believe that.”

  “What if I’m not this person? What if I was different before?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” I pulled back a little to look him in the eye. “But I don’t think it matters. You’re a good man now.”

  He groaned deep in his chest before moving into me, before kissing me again. He pushed me back against the headboard, pinning me there. Panic would normally burn in my chest with his first touch, but not now. It never even occurred to me to be afraid of Xander anymore. What did stop us was when his hand brushed my leg. Pain shot through me and I cried out against his lips.

  “What?”

  He pulled back, his eyes immediately dropping to my leg. He tugged at my jeans, pulling them off of me as gently as he could. We could both see that something wasn’t right before he even began to remove the bandage on my wound. There was a dark stain on the white, but it was clearly not blood. And the smell was not pleasant.

  “It can’t be infected,” I said.

  “It’s possible.”

  “But it was fine this morning!”

  “Happens sometimes,” he said as he removed the bandage. Pain shot through my leg as he carefully pulled the gauze from my wound. He groaned softly. “You’re going to need medical attention.”

  “We don’t have time for that right now.”

  “But if we don’t treat it, you’ll have sepsis by morning.”

  “You don’t know—”

  I stopped myself, realizing he probably did know. I had no doubt that, somewhere in the information locked in Xander’s mind, was the knowledge of what could happen when a bullet wound became infected. That was definitely something the CIA would teach their field agents.

  “Would you be okay here alone for a little while?”

  “Where are you going?”

  He studied the nasty, swollen wound for a moment. “To get help.” He leaned close and kissed me gently on the forehead. “I’ll be back.”

  He was gone before I could argue with him.

  I stayed on the bed, my leg throbbing now that it was exposed to the air. It really didn’t look good, the skin puffed up around the small, pink stitches. I couldn’t believe how fast it had gotten infected. It didn’t even hurt until we got to the county jail.

  I grabbed my phone, thinking he might try to call me if he got into trouble. And then I realized that he didn’t have a phone of his own and, even if he did, he didn’t have my number. He was truly on his own. So was I.

  I unbuckled my ankle holster and held the gun against my thigh. I never knew when trouble might hit, especially with everything else that had happened on this case. And the doubts Luke had planted in my head.

  Was it possible that Xander was lying to me? Was it possible he remembered more than he was letting on? Luke seemed to think he was using me to get close to Megan, but that see
med unlikely since we were hundreds of miles from Megan at the moment. And he genuinely seemed surprised by the things we’d learned so far. But could it all be an act?

  I looked at my phone, running through my list of contacts. When Ingram Porter showed me his business card, I had inputted the information on my phone. I meant to call him earlier in the day, to let him know we were ready to meet with his client. I put it off—why, I wasn’t sure—but it seemed like now was a good time to have a discussion with this man who seemed to know more about Xander than I did.

  “Ms. Dennings,” he said when he answered my call. “I was hoping I’d hear from you sooner rather than later.”

  “I suppose you saw what happened at the motel.”

  “I heard about it secondhand. A woman attacked your client?”

  “Not just any woman.”

  “No,” he agreed. “A CIA agent by the name of Rebecca Hamilton. A former partner of your client’s.”

  “She was the one who caused the car accident that resulted in his amnesia.”

  “Is that right? She admitted to this?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “That’s … interesting. I’ve actually had a discussion with a colleague of mine who was also an agent with the CIA. It seems that Rebecca Hamilton and Xander King have a connection to you and your firm.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She tells me that during that whole scandal some five, six years ago—you remember the CIA agent who was discovered to have been using a terrorist cell to get rich?—Hamilton and King were working surveillance on the case, following leads and trying to find the mastermind behind the whole thing before your bosses embarrassed the CIA by unmasking the son-of-a-bitch themselves.”

  “They were working on the case?”

  “They were part of a special task force. They were the ones who were supposed to find the criminal.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “No. But my colleague tells me that part of their assignment was to follow Megan Bradford around, to monitor her investigation into her brother’s car accident. Apparently the accident was faked by the CIA and he was hidden away by another agent who was acting against CIA orders.