by Elise Faber
She’d framed it as Laila and Ryker needing help, since Ava and Daniel were still recuperating—Ava because KTS didn’t have any magical broken-bone-healing agents (though I’d put it on my mental list of things to work on), Dan because he wasn’t leaving Ava’s side.
They’d stayed on base, since the location of Dan’s house had been compromised in the same attack that had re-injured Ava’s ankle and ended up getting Dan shot again, and for the most part, they’d sequestered themselves in their quarters.
This sequestering had been forced initially after Laila found out they were working on what had at first been called a vacation and later a convalescence.
She’d revoked their computer rights, confiscated their cell phones, and had locked them in their quarters. She’d even had their meals delivered.
So, on a whole, the locking in hadn’t taken long to stick.
Because pretty soon, the new couple had been locking everyone out.
A fact Olive had told me with gleeful abandon just the night before, when we’d been doing some locking out of our own.
But none of that had anything to do with Ava’s initial protests declaring she had a fucking broken ankle and wasn’t a fucking invalid, mixing along with Dan’s that he’d had the magic Ollie bandage and he was feeling absolutely fine. It didn’t even have anything to do with the fact that they’d protested that Olive should be the one resting, and didn’t she have vacation coming up?
Nope, instead, everyone had ignored them. Ava and Dan sequestering was overdue, and Olive should be resting (not that she would), and our team should be off doing something drug related.
That we weren’t . . .
I knew it was because Hannah was doing me a solid.
Giving me more time with Olive.
And also stocking up on copious amounts of blackmail material for future dates.
But despite all of that—the sequestering, the gossip, the complaining, me loving being with Olive—neither of our teams were any closer to locating Daniel.
He was a fucking ghost in the wind, and we didn’t have a single clue as to where to find him.
No tracking on his old phone, no use of any of his old login credentials (not that they’d been valid since the moment he’d been kicked out of the squad, but we’d double-checked they hadn’t been used anyway). There weren’t any bank accounts in his name or any of the aliases we had on file. It wouldn’t be hard for him to create another, of course, but the frustrating part was that . . . we just didn’t have any leads.
Daniel had an ax to grind.
And that ax had nearly gotten my woman killed.
“Fuck,” I muttered, tossing the file down and moving to the window of the conference room we were currently taking over. The bulletproof (and bomb-proof because I’d made damn sure of that after the incident in the garage) glass looked over the covered pavilion—a sheltered outdoor space that brought in much-needed sunlight without sacrificing security. Today there were a couple of teams on sight, most just shooting the shit, chilling in the daylight, enjoying the first non-humid day in months. One was clearly planning a mission, maps spread on a table, electronic tablets in hand as they plotted. Another group was practicing a type of sparring that took each of them to the thick grass planted along one side frequently and often.
But in here, we were going around in circles.
A warm hand slid around my waist, a head rested on my shoulder, flooding my nose with the scent of strawberries and Olive. “We’ll find him,” she murmured.
I nodded, knew I shouldn’t be frustrated.
We’d just started on the case, and these things always took time.
But Daniel had hurt Olive.
Which meant the fucker had to pay, and the longer he was out there, the longer he had a chance to slip away.
“We don’t even know if he did it,” she murmured, her eyes on the glass, studying the scene.
“He fucking did it,” I muttered, slipping my arm around her and drawing her closer. “We’ve checked everyone else who was on base that day, and they don’t have motive, let alone had any opportunity.” The cameras, the keycards, the access codes. All showed that area completely clean at that time. Which was even more infuriating. I shoved my hand through my hair. “I’ve got no clue how the fucker did it, but I know in my gut that he was responsible for it.”
She was quiet for several moments. “I think so, too.” A soft sigh. “But,” she whispered so low that I had to strain to hear her. “Actually, I found something, and—”
Her eyes darted to the side, and she straightened.
“Wh—”
A tiny shake of her head had me cutting off the question.
“What are the lovebirds up to?”
I turned, saw that Jack had come up behind me.
“Fuck off,” I muttered.
“You treat me so nicely,” he grumbled but didn’t show any sign of leaving. Instead, he turned his gaze to the windows and watched the people outside.
Olive lifted on tiptoe. “Later,” she said under her breath, dropping back down and heading to the table where we’d spread the fucking files out. It was littered with coffee cups and dirty plates, along with her hoodie crumpled into a ball. Something she apparently did when she was thinking—along with resting her forehead on that crumple as she read over the files for the umpteenth time.
Now she grabbed her jacket . . . and a file.
Then with a meaningful look in my direction, she swept from the room.
Chapter Fifteen
KTS Satellite Base
Western Georgia
18:16hrs
Olive
I’d spent the entire day in my rooms trying to puzzle out what I had uncovered and also, not wanting to believe what I had discovered.
The niggling I’d had when I’d seen the file had grown.
And my horror and fury had grown right along with it.
Because . . . seriously, what the fuck?
There had been an error in the file, so minute I might not have even noticed it, if I hadn’t just read the one from the day before the attack.
One word missing from the report on the security checks.
And then reappearing the next day in that same report, written by the same agent.
I’d spent these last hours going over every report that agent had ever issued on security measures—and there were a lot of them, since this agent was in charge of them at this satellite base—and I’d never found that word missing.
All measures were executed and processed as is standard.
Versus.
All measures were executed and processed as standard.
Two letters, one word, and my instincts had prickled. Fuck, it was such a small thing, could easily be a simple typo. Except . . . I knew Tom, knew that he was an agent who was better suited to staying on base, on overseeing these procedures because he was rigid.
The man had a routine, and he didn’t like it to be deviated from.
Maybe one might say a bomb was a big freaking deviation.
But bomb or not, I still didn’t think he would have diverged from his report standards. He was a man interested in details and perfections . . . and I hadn’t found that missing word anywhere else.
Which meant my instincts had prickled.
I’d begun digging.
First, on the file with the typo, ensuring that the typo was also on the electronic version and not just the paper copy I had—it was. Then trying to confirm if anyone else had accessed it to try to edit it. But aside from the requests for paper printouts by Laila and tracing it as attachments through internal base emails of our team and Linc’s, it appeared that no one else had gone in and changed anything.
So, I’d pulled those other reports by Tom.
And I’d gone firmly down the rabbit hole.
Tom had used the phrase as is standard in every report except the one from the day of the explosion, and I’d gone through well over a hundred and fifty of them.
> I gathered the printouts I’d made, stacking them together so I could carry them easily. Then I went to visit Tom.
The base’s security manager wasn’t hard to find.
It wasn’t yet six-thirty when he called it a day and went to the mess for dinner, so I found him in his office, typing away at his computer.
I knocked on the door and the bushy-eyebrowed, gray-haired agent glanced up at me and smiled. “Olive, hi,” he said. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to chat. I need to finish this up.”
“I know.” I stepped into the office and closed the door behind me anyway. “But this is important.”
Pale brown eyes met mine, and I saw regret pass through them when he realized I was going to disrupt his schedule. But he gamely soldiered on, pushing the keyboard tray in and asking, “Are you all right?”
My heart was pounding, my nerves firing and telling me I was right on the precipice of figuring this out, of discovering what in the fuck was going on. But instead of alluding to any of that, I just nodded and said, “I’m fine, Tom. All recovered, and I’m sorry to bother you.” A small smile greeted my apology, and he waved me on. “I’ll let you get back to your work, but I just needed your backup paper copy of your report from the day of the bombing.”
He stilled. “Why?”
I held his eyes. “I can’t tell you that yet,” I said. “Not until I know.”
He was silent for several moments then nodded and went to the file cabinet where I knew he kept a printout of every copy of every report he’d ever written. He flicked through the tabs quickly then stopped, reached inside and tugged out a stapled stack of papers. “How’d you know I kept these?”
I reached for it. “You told me once over coffee.”
“Lunch or breakfast coffee?” he asked suspiciously.
“Breakfast,” I said. “I’d come in from a long night, you were just getting started. Our paths crossed at cinnamon rolls.”
His expression gentled. “I love Tuesdays.”
Tuesdays were cinnamon roll days. “Me, too.”
He started to hand me the file, paused, took the staples out and put the whole stack into the copy machine. “Just in case,” he said, handing me the original and putting the duplicate back into the file cabinet. “You’ll explain later?”
I nodded.
He sat down, pulled out the keyboard tray, his eyes going to his computer screen. “Need anything else?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Thanks.”
“Go on then.” Tom jutted his chin toward the door. “Leave me to it.”
I left him to it.
And I went back to my rooms, still carrying the stacks of folders. I hurried inside, and I spread the two files out on the desk.
On the left, my copy from what Laila had pulled.
On the right, Tom’s printout.
On the left, as standard.
On the right, as is standard.
“Shit,” I whispered, sitting back in my chair as confirmation of what I’d already known, or at least, what some part of me had already known.
I opened up my laptop, began searching for who might have access to be able to alter the reports. Slowly, I was able to eliminate name after name—either they were out on active missions or not in the country or working at another KTS base.
Except one.
And then I began to dig deeper on that one name.
And what I found out made my blood chill then anger quickly well up to take its place.
Because it became clear that Daniel wasn’t working alone.
He’d had help.
From another of our own.
I shot to my feet, knowing that I needed to tell Linc, to tell Laila, to tell Hannah. Leaving the files, I hurried to my door, swung it open—
And didn’t see the blow coming.
A burst of pain, the floor rapidly rising up to meet my face.
Then nothing but black.
Chapter Sixteen
KTS Satellite Base
Western Georgia
19:46hrs
Linc
I knocked at Olive’s door.
Quietly.
Because she’d missed meeting up with us at dinner, hadn’t come back to the conference room, and I had assumed she was sleeping. She still needed her rest, even though she seemed determined to get back to full steam much sooner than I was comfortable with.
Of course, my instincts told me that she should be swathed in bubble wrap and then cossetted away like a precious possession, not getting healthy enough so she could go out on active missions again.
Go out and put her life at risk again.
But I told those instincts to fuck off.
I knew they were wrong, that she was a talented agent, and she was fucking smart enough to take every precaution to keep herself safe. I knew that, and I wouldn’t limit her. Because I also knew it had never even crossed her mind to limit me in that way. So even though my ego and my protective instincts hated her putting her life at risk, I got it.
She was a KTS agent.
The risks came with her.
And I had to accept that otherwise, our relationship would never work.
It was just . . . I also knew that sometimes being a KTS agent meant that our safety was put on a back burner because someone else needed saving.
That was the part that really scared me.
That was the part I had to accept anyway.
When she didn’t answer, I knocked again, a little louder. And then when she didn’t answer that, I used the code she’d given me to open the door and go inside.
Immediately, my blood froze in my veins, and I yanked my cell out of my pocket, calling Hannah. “Olive’s rooms. Now.” I hung up, next phoned Laila, repeating the same order, and then I cleared the room. It didn’t take long. The bathroom. The bed. The closet. By the time I’d checked the only places a person could fit, Laila and Hannah were coming in behind me.
Then immediately stopping.
“Fuck,” Laila said. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “I came”—a glance at the clock—“less than five minutes ago. She didn’t answer my knock, so I used the code she’d given me to come in and found it like this.”
This being . . . a fucking disaster.
Papers everywhere, the desk chair knocked on its side. Her laptop open on the floor, its screen cracked. Blankets torn from the bed, clothes all over the floor. There was no way someone hadn’t heard the disturbance . . . but then again, the nearly soundproof walls had probably prevented that.
Had she called for help and no one heard her?
My heart lanced open.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Laila had done the same as me—checking the bathroom, the bed, the closet, and then coming back to stand by me.
“Pull up her tracker,” I ordered.
Laila nodded and typed rapidly into her phone. All KTS agents had a tracker implanted in the inside of their arm. The tiny device was smaller than a grain of rice, and it provided the base with our location if we ever went missing while on mission. As far as I knew, no one had ever needed it to search while actually at KTS headquarters.
But if she were here, the chip would tell us where.
Laila kept typing, paused . . . then cursed. “It’s not picking up a signal.”
I grabbed the phone. “That’s not possible.”
Another curse, and she snatched it back, jabbing at the screen. “I know it’s not possible.” She held it up so I could stare at the display, at the error message telling me that, in fact, there was no signal to be found.
“Is it possible the walls in the base are blocking it?” Hannah asked.
I nodded. Maybe the concrete was fucking with the signal, especially since the trackers were only supposed to be used to keep eyes on agents when they were off base on missions.
“Maybe.” She sighed, pocketed her cell. “We need to organize a search of the base.”
“I’m on it,” Hannah
said, and I turned to see she was. She’d already picked up her phone, was sending the alert for our team to meet up at Olive’s rooms—I felt it buzz through on my cell—and I listened to Laila do the same, including calling in Ava and Dan.
When I sent a questioning look, knowing they were off, she shrugged. “They would never forgive me if I didn’t let them in on this.”
“Right.”
Less than five minutes later, Ava, Ryker, Dan, Lily, and Jesse had joined us, and together we mobilized the other agents on base to begin a search. I was just heading out with Hannah to check our quadrant when Jack ran in, breathless with wet hair. “Sorry,” he said. “I was in the shower and missed the alert. What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Hannah told him, and she did, giving him the important details as we joined our group and methodically searched the entire base.
“The trackers should work,” Jack said as we moved. “We’ve upgraded the design after what happened in Italy”—how Ava had initially been hurt—“they should be broadcasting through anything.”
I didn’t want to think what that meant.
Would they still broadcast if Olive was de—
I shook my head.
Not the time to think about that.
We moved through our section, and thirty minutes later, every room had been cleared, and the agents congregated in the mess to debrief. No one had seen any sign of her. No blood. No struggle. No alarms set or notes left. It was like she’d just fucking vanished into thin air and knowing that something had happened to her rather than someone having just trashed her rooms when she wasn’t in there had terror gripping me tightly and making it difficult for me to think.
I did my best to try to push that down, to make a mental checklist of what to do, how to find her.
And that had me heading back to her rooms.
There had to be a clue there, something we’d missed.
Laila followed me, and we both surveyed the mess of papers for a moment before diving in. “I’m guessing she found out how Daniel got the bomb in,” Laila said, stepping forward.
She must have. Otherwise she would be here and not hurt or dead—
