Silent Evidence

by Rachel Grant

  23

  Sean followed Hazel to the car, his entire body radiating anger, but Hazel didn’t care. She wanted to leave and hadn’t been looking forward to a four-hour car ride with Sean. She’d screwed up. She never should have indulged in a quickie in the forest, but part of her didn’t want to be forced to regret it so soon. She wanted to savor the memory for a little while.

  The best way to do that was to get the hell out of Dodge. Or in this instance, get the hell away from Sean. The last thing she wanted was to drive back to Gaithersburg with her dreamy-in-love cousin and his wife when her heart had just been ground to bits. Add to that Alec’s unwillingness to accept that Isabel was the target and it would be excruciating.

  She absolutely understood why Alec had a deep-seated need to believe Isabel wasn’t the one in danger, but Hazel was done being bent into a pretzel to feed his denial. She was done with bodyguards. Done with playing along. This wasn’t about her, and she wouldn’t lie anymore to make her cousin feel better.

  Sean insisted on carrying her bag and loaded it in the back of Matt’s SUV before turning to kiss Hazel good-bye, keeping up the charade of fake boyfriend. His jaw was tight and the kiss perfunctory.

  Hours ago, he’d kissed her neck as he thrust inside her, and she’d felt like the universe was hers for the taking.

  Now, at least, they wouldn’t have to go through a long-drawn-out breakup charade. Anyone watching would know their new relationship was on the skids. She hated that she was even thinking about this crap, when really, she was worried about Isabel.

  She’d managed to pull Isabel aside. She was putting on a good show, but Hazel knew the explosion had shaken Isabel. “I hate that Chase is caught up in this,” Isabel had said. “It feels like Alaska all over again, and I’m not even sure why. A memory I can’t quite reach.”

  Isabel had shared few details over the years about what happened to her when she was abducted in Alaska. Once she’d mentioned she didn’t remember most of it, but sometimes memories would surface, like an elusive déjà vu.

  Alec needed to focus his energy on protecting Isabel. By leaving with Ivy and Matt, Hazel was freeing up Sean to help Alec where it really mattered.

  Before she pulled away from Sean’s fake embrace, he touched her cheek and said in a whisper, “We’re going to talk as soon as I get back to Gaithersburg.”

  “Fine,” she said. She didn’t know if she was going back to Alec’s or not, but she wasn’t about to tell Sean that. He didn’t need to know she planned to ask Ivy if she could stay with her for a week or two while she apartment-hunted. She had money in savings and could afford a studio while she picked up consulting jobs and waited for the Virginia ME work order to be authorized. Plus, JT might have more work for her, and maybe she could line up some guest lectures with a few local universities. Her work for ICMP always drew a wide audience. People were interested in the intersection between forensics and the aftermath of genocide and how it reshaped the political landscape. It was a history, politics, and science lesson all in one.

  “Be careful,” Sean said, his eyes burning with intensity. He then turned and gave Matt a hard stare, which was odd. He’d seemed to like Matt from the moment Ivy met him in Grand Cayman.

  Yet Matt returned Sean’s look with a hard stare of his own. What was the deal with that?

  She was too exhausted to try to decode their looks. A Vigenère cipher would be easier to crack, with or without the key.

  She climbed in the backseat and flopped her head against the headrest, closing her eyes as they pulled out of the parking lot. She didn’t look back or wave good-bye. Her fake relationship—and even the almost real one—was officially over.

  “She never believed she was the target,” Sean said to Rav once they retreated to the hotel room recently vacated by Hazel.

  Their hotel room. The one with the fantastic king-sized bed in which he should have made love to her. But he’d fucked up, and instead, he’d taken her in the forest at a time when she was vulnerable.

  She’d never forgive him. But then, he’d never forgive himself.

  He walked over to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. All that remained inside was the remote-controlled G-spot vibrator, the dildo, the bondage kit, the lube, and one of the sex dice. He closed the drawer and planted his fists on the dresser. He dropped his head and laughed and cursed at the same time.

  She left the dildo but split the dice.

  Hazel made a statement even when she walked away.

  “What’s going on?” Rav asked.

  “Nothing. I just fucked up.” He turned and met his boss’s gaze. “You aren’t paying me for this weekend. I screwed up. That’s why Hazel took off. This is all my fault.”

  Rav was silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Does she know how you feel about her?”

  Sean leaned back against the drawer that was half-empty of sex toys. “No. And if I told her right now, she’d never believe me.” Hell, he was just figuring it out himself. “What’s your gut saying on Matt? He doesn’t have an alibi, and he’s the only person to witness the explosion.”

  Rav’s jaw tightened. “I want to think Matt’s one of us, but it’s hard to know what to believe. For years, he was embedded in the US Coast Guard without any hint of what he really was. Deception is like breathing for him.”

  “He loves Ivy and Julian. He lights up every time he looks at the boy.”

  “He loves Julian. No question there. Everything he’s done has always been to protect him. I’m worried Ivy is the only way he can adopt Julian.”

  “Bullshit,” Sean said. “They fell in love before they knew it would ever be possible for Ivy to adopt Julian.”

  “Sure, Ivy fell in love. But she doesn’t have the best track record there. She married Patrick Hill, after all.”

  Sean understood Rav’s concerns, but it bothered him that Ivy’s first marriage was being held against her. But then, Hill had manipulated her. Who was to say Matt hadn’t done the same? Matthew Dimitri Clark’s training was beyond that of a grifter like Hill. Matt was an absolute master at deception.

  And Hazel was in a car with him right now. If Matt was somehow involved in this mess, Hazel had just walked into a trap.

  They’d been on the road for thirty minutes when Ivy said, “Spill, Haze. What’s up with you and Sean? You breaking up already?”

  Hazel didn’t bother to open her eyes. She’d wanted to sleep since leaving the inn, but was caught in a strange combination of exhaustion and adrenaline, heartache, and confused lust. She’d mentally been reliving the moments in the forest, when Sean had been on his knees before her, making her forget everything but the feel of his mouth.

  She was half-asleep, lulled by the hypnotic, intense daydream. “He was never my boyfriend,” she murmured, mostly to herself so she could live with her decision to walk away.

  “What?” Ivy asked.

  Hazel’s eyes flew open, and she sat up straight.

  Oops.

  Part of her wondered if she’d meant to let that slip, and she realized she probably had. It was ridiculous that Alec insisted she couldn’t trust her sister with the truth. She was family and Hazel’s best friend. Plus, the whole national security thing was moot—Hazel didn’t know anything about that, so there was absolutely nothing she could reveal.

  And Matt had been investigated by Raptor about ten minutes after he’d met Ivy. He was certified fresh.

  She’d hated lying to Ivy. How would she feel if the tables were turned and she discovered Ivy didn’t trust her enough to share something as important as a death threat or that she’d lied about a relationship?

  Hazel would be devastated her sister didn’t have faith in her. “He was never my boyfriend,” she repeated.

  “I heard you, I just don’t understand. You both just spent the entire weekend acting like a couple. So you’re saying it was just a hookup? That’s fine, but why pretend it was more?”

  “No. It wasn’t just a hookup.” At leas
t not until a few hours ago, but Ivy didn’t need to know what happened in the forest. “It was all a lie.”

  Ivy gave her a confused look. “You lied about being a couple because Sean needed a date for the scavenger hunt? That’s a little weird. And unnecessary.”

  “No. I came to the wedding with Sean because Alec was convinced I needed a bodyguard.”

  “What?” Ivy said with alarm. “Why would you need a bodyguard?”

  “I love our cousin, you know I do. But he’s being irrational, and I think it’s because Isabel was threatened. He’s just not thinking clearly.”

  “You’ve lost me, Haze. What are you talking about?”

  “Isabel was threatened?” Matt asked. “When? Does the explosion have to do with the threat?”

  She rubbed her temples. She was so frigging tired. A glance at the clock explained why. It was five in the morning. She’d gotten up at seven yesterday, and they’d had a full day before the late-afternoon wedding.

  She was so thankful Matt was driving. He looked wide-awake, while there was no way she could operate a motor vehicle right now. “It’s a long story, which began a week ago. Monday, to be exact.” She dove in, telling them everything she knew—which wasn’t much. Alec would be pissed, but his objections to telling family made zero sense. If there was something he hadn’t told her, it was his own damn fault.

  He’d made her lie and pretend to be involved with a man she very much wanted to be involved with. This part was her story to tell, and she would confide in her best friend. When she finished, Matt and Ivy were silent for a long time. Finally, Ivy said, “There’s really only one reason why Alec wouldn’t tell me any of this. Why he’d put Sean through this charade in front of all our closest friends.”

  It took a moment for Hazel to realize she was talking to Matt, not her. She was about to ask what that reason could be, when Matt nodded.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Alec’s being pigheaded,” Ivy said.

  She’d known Ivy would be hurt, but from her tone, the stiffness in her shoulders, and her tightly clenched fist, this went far deeper. She was angry. Fiercely angry.

  “If it makes you feel better, he’s not trusting me with any real information either. In one sentence, he tells me someone might’ve threatened me, and in the next, he shows me a heavily redacted letter that explains nothing.”

  “I get that he’s worried about Isabel, but to suspect you? What the hell is wrong with him?”

  Again, it took Hazel a moment to understand who Ivy was talking to and what her words meant.

  Matt let go of the steering wheel with his right hand and took hold of Ivy’s. “It’s okay, sweetheart. He has good reason to wonder about me.” He met Hazel’s gaze in the rearview mirror and added, “I showed up out of the blue and fell hard for your sister. Alec doesn’t know me, and given Ivy’s background and the fact that pretty much all foreign intelligence agencies want her mapping AI drone, it’s perfectly reasonable for Alec to wonder about me.” His focus remained on the road, but his next sentence was directed at Ivy. “He’s worried because he loves you and Julian, and he’s scared for Isabel. Cut him some slack.”

  “I can’t believe he made Sean work during a wedding in which he was best man!”

  Hazel sighed. She’d been struggling with that one all week and hated it that she was just a job to Sean. A job he couldn’t wait to leave behind. After all, Dubai was calling.

  Good thing she had a new vibrator, because she was giving up men. She wished she’d taken the dildo too.

  “Hazel, I think you’re being a little too quick to assume you aren’t a target,” Matt said.

  She crossed her arms and glared at him in the mirror. “You going to take Alec’s side on everything?”

  “Actually, I am. Here’s how I see it. Yes, Isabel was probably the prime target, but with you there, with less obvious but still red hair, they’ve got more cards to play. Anyone going after a wealthy sitting senator who was an Army Ranger and also happens to own his own private army isn’t fucking around. These guys mean business, and your cousin knows it.

  “First, they set him up so he can’t tell anyone by tying it to a national security concern—and the fact that they know details about national security means they’re connected, which is even scarier. With the need for secrecy, they’ve removed the private army. Boom. Then they word the note in a vague way that means Alec’s got to protect two flanks. And again, he can’t tell anyone, except, say, one trusted employee, a man who was in Alaska and knows the shit that went down there. I bet you anything the national security issue that has Alec worried is the cover-up the FBI, CIA, and DIA managed to arrange.”

  “Cover-up?” Hazel asked, her head spinning at Matt’s wild speculation.

  “Yes. Cover-up. You don’t really think it was as simple as the FBI made it sound, do you?”

  Ivy frowned at Matt. “Simple? Isabel was abducted and held for ransom.”

  “It was more than that,” Matt said. “She was tortured and very likely brainwashed.”

  A chill spread through Hazel. How did Matt know this? He’d been an analyst of some sort for the NSA before he inherited a crap ton of money from an uncle around the same time as the car accident that scarred him. Perhaps he was higher up and better connected in the NSA than he’d hinted at? But then, employment by the NSA was usually kept quiet.

  Did he know for a fact that Isabel had been tortured, or was this all speculation?

  “If I wanted to go after a wealthy senator with a seventy percent approval rating,” Matt continued, “one who doesn’t need campaign donations and who lives in a fortress, I’d remove his army—which was neatly done with hints that the cover-up has cracks—and go after what he loves the most. Isabel, yes, but the rest of his family too. Everyone knows this, especially after what Ivy went through in Palau.

  “Then I’d really screw with him by staging an incident that makes it look like Isabel was the target. Blow up a car that’s just like hers. Even better, their car is damaged in the blast. The goal being to scare Isabel at a time when she’s surrounded by operatives. A time when she should be safe even though she’s not ensconced in the fortress. Then, the moment Alec’s attention is on Isabel and not you, that’s when I’d strike, but not at Isabel. That’s when I’d go after you.”

  Now she broke out in a cold sweat. Just like in Croatia. But then, it had been from nightmares. This…this was real. She took a deep breath and rubbed her hand on the seat cushion, feeling the texture, trying to ground herself, as she should have done in the forest by touching the tree and listening to the wind and the leaves, instead of screwing Sean.

  Now she had the sound of the tires on the road. The hum of the engine. The sound of the madman in the driver’s seat, telling her she was in danger.

  Had Isabel really been tortured?

  What did Matt know, and how did he know it?

  Who is Matthew Clark?

  The SUV’s headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating a tunnel of roadway. She stared at the extent of the light where it faded, unable to penetrate the dark morning ahead.

  Was Matt right? Was she in danger? She’d ditched her former SEAL bodyguard and former Army Ranger cousin to catch a ride with Matt, who might be as fit as the rest of the guys, but his only special skill that she knew of was throwing hatchets, and he probably didn’t have one of those in the car.

  “Matt…” Ivy said, drawing out his name in an alarmed tone.

  “I see it,” he said.

  “See—?” But then Hazel turned and saw it too. A car barreling down on them. Her breath left in a rush, taking away her ability to scream. The car was coming up the straightaway very fast. Like…a hundred miles per hour kind of fast. Matt pressed the accelerator, and they shot forward down the state highway, avoiding being rear-ended by the speeding car. But then she wanted to scream because they were coming upon vehicles in front of them.

  Traffic would be light on Sunday morning
at normal speeds, but they were going—she glanced at the speedometer and would have blanched if there was blood left in her body to expel—a hundred and ten.

  Matt darted from lane to lane, maneuvering between the slower vehicles like a race car driver, staying just ahead of the speeding vehicle behind them, who darted and weaved in a similar fashion.

  Someone was going to make a mistake, and people were going to die.

  As part of her training, she’d examined the bones of high-speed-accident victims. She could see the shattered pelvises, crushed skulls. Femurs splintered into a dozen pieces.

  She finally got air in her lungs, but instead of screaming her fear, she let out a low moan of terror. Her heart pounded and her whole body shook. Meanwhile, Matt was calm in the driver’s seat, shifting from lane to lane without any outward sign of stress.

  Ivy gripped the handle above the door and made a small squeak as they nearly touched a bumper in front of them with a close lane change. Then the road opened up before them, no visible cars ahead. Matt pressed the SUV to go even faster, and shockingly, it did. But then, it was a Porsche Cayenne and built for speed.

  All at once, Matt changed lanes and slammed on the brakes, and then the car that was chasing them passed the Cayenne, and Matt was in pursuit.

  “Call Alec. Give him the license plate,” Matt said.

  Ivy did as instructed. How was she holding herself together? Hazel was pretty sure she was about to puke.

  “Alec, we’re being chased by a black Audi sedan. Virginia license plate.” She read him the numbers.

  “Sync to my Bluetooth, Ivy, so I can talk to him,” Matt said, tucking a headset around his ear, then returning his hand to the wheel. “Shit! Gun.”

  He slammed on the brakes.

  In an instant, the windshield became a web of cracks, and Hazel thought the bullet might’ve passed by her head on the way to the back window.

  The Cayenne slowed to a less rocket-like speed, and Matt exited the four-lane highway with a sharp turn to the right. Hazel was pretty sure two wheels left the pavement, but they made the turn and then several more, until they were deep in the industrial area of a medium-sized town.