‘Because he didn’t come to you when you were in the coma?’
Decker nodded. ‘He was my emergency contact.’
‘I know. Your only one. That’s why I hated leaving you alone.’
He swallowed hard. ‘Good thing, I guess. Symmes wouldn’t have sat with me for the hours you did. He has a family. Had a family,’ he corrected, his voice still level. ‘No wife or kids, at least, but his parents were old and he took care of them.’ His throat grew thick and he had to clear it. ‘Nurse Evil would have probably put a pillow over my face if you hadn’t been there.’
‘Maybe,’ she murmured. ‘Doesn’t make his loss any easier.’ His hand that clutched the bedrail was suddenly warm. Her hand covering his. It was comfort, pure and clean and . . . sweet. And it gave him the courage to ask the questions he needed to ask even though the answers were ones he really didn’t want to know.
‘How did he die?’ Because it shouldn’t have happened. Decker clearly remembered overpowering the traffickers’ head of security and one of his men. It had been the day before he got shot. He remembered every second of that day. I tied them up. Securely. I made sure their pockets were empty and I disarmed them. I know I did. But something had happened, because Richard Symmes was dead.
‘The head of security had a blade hidden in the hem of his pants,’ Kate said. ‘We were able to piece the scene together. It looks like the second guy helped his boss rip his pants leg and get to the blade. They cut the ropes on each other’s hands and were almost free when Symmes entered the room. They stabbed him, but he was able to shoot them before they got away. All three were dead before we got there.’
Decker wanted to sigh, but he held it in. ‘I should have checked them better.’
Her hand squeezed his. ‘The blade was thin, Decker. If you’d stripped them naked and taken their clothes, then maybe . . . But you disarmed them, and from the knots I saw on those ropes, you’d tied them well. Maybe you should wonder how Agent Symmes let them get the jump on him. Symmes was armed. He knew he was walking into a potentially deadly situation. Maybe he wasn’t being careful.’
‘Symmes was a good man.’
‘From what I can see, so are you,’ she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice, even though he steadfastly refused to meet her eyes.
The corners of his mouth, however, had a mind of their own and curled upward, pleased at her compliment. ‘At least he got ’em,’ he said gruffly.
‘How did you get them?’ she asked, not moving her hand away from his. ‘We wondered.’
He appreciated the topic change. ‘I was so damn frustrated that all they’d let me see was the legit books, no matter how much I hinted to the head guy.’
‘Joel Whipple.’
‘Yeah, him. Joel is a weasel. He’s brilliant with numbers, but he’s got a streak of mean in him even though he was too scared to do anything with it. Like he wouldn’t push you off a boat himself, but if you tripped and fell overboard, he’d stand there and watch you drown. Watch him closely. He said he wants to deal, but he’ll be sneaky.’
Kate shrugged. ‘It’s moot. He’s gone. In the wind.’
Decker wasn’t really surprised. ‘Foul play?’
‘None that the investigating agents could find. He bailed. He’s probably sipping Mai Tais on a beach somewhere. Could he have suspected you?’
‘Of being a Fed? I doubt it. If he had, he would have told his partners and I’d have gone to sleep one night and not woken up the next morning.’ A twitch of her fingers on his was the only indication that the thought of him not waking up bothered her. Otherwise, she was silent, letting him answer the question she’d asked. He liked that. Too many people asked a question, then jumped in to help answer it. ‘But he did think I was gunning for his job. That’s why he kept me focused on the legit books. He knew I was bored out of my skull. I think he was biding his time, waiting for me to blow a fuse so that he could have an excuse to end me.’
‘What happened the night you abducted the two security guys?’
‘Partly luck, partly preparation. As soon as they transferred me from being a bodyguard to an accountant, I started setting up a plan in case I got a break. Which happened that night.’
‘The escape of one of their trafficked victims.’
‘Yeah. It set off the alarm in the security control room. I’d already made friends with the guy manning the room. I’d work all night and take my break up there with him. I started bringing coffee, doughnuts, getting him comfortable with me being there. I also kept a syringe of sedative in my pocket, just in case I had to make a quick escape. When the alarm sounded, I injected him with the sedative and then added some to his coffee, in case someone checked up on him. It made him woozy enough that I was able to walk him out to his car without him raising another alarm.
‘I contacted his boss, told him that I thought his guy was using, but that I thought he should take care of it directly and not involve the rest of his team. The boss appreciated that – he was a former cop who really didn’t trust the traffickers. They trusted him, though, and that was their mistake. He met me, I injected him with sedative, then tied them up and dropped them off in the apartment that Symmes had set up as our meeting place. I called Symmes from a landline in the apartment, let it ring once, then hung up. That was our code.’
‘Why didn’t you just tell Symmes who you’d brought to your meeting place?’
‘Because at that point, both of the security guys believed I was just trying to stage a coup. I’d been in the security department before they stuck me in Accounting. I wanted them to think I was a crooked opportunist, not that I was Bureau. I did call Symmes on my burner phone once I’d left the room. He was on his way to pick them up already. I tossed the burner after I called him – I never used a burner more than once. Rich Symmes knew what he was walking into.’
So why did you let them take you down, Rich? Why?
‘Then you shouldn’t feel guilty that he’s dead,’ Kate said quietly but firmly. ‘It was a good plan, Decker. It worked, except for Symmes getting surprised by them. That’s not on you.’
He nodded once, grateful for the words. Someday he might actually believe them. ‘Anything else you need to tell me?’
‘The guys that shot you . . . they’re dead too. Everyone is dead now who was in any position of authority or who knew anything. Only people left standing are the low-level flunkies.’
There was something in her voice, a reluctant regret that had him turning his head to look at her. ‘Who killed the guys who shot me?’
Her chin lifted slightly. ‘I did. They shot you through some trees, then hopped in their car and drove away. I chased, I shot, the car wrecked into a tree, and . . . no more shooters.’
Decker considered the layout of the compound where he’d been shot. If the shooters’ car was on the road, driving away, she’d had to run down a long driveway just to have a clear shot. If they were driving fast, they would have gotten a huge head start. ‘How far away were they?’
She shrugged. ‘Half a mile, give or take.’
His eyes widened. She’d hit a moving car at half a mile? ‘Are you fucking serious?’
Her mouth tightened. ‘I’m good at my job, Decker.’
He remembered she’d been carrying a rifle with a scope when she’d dropped out of that tree behind him. ‘Holy hell, you must be. I mean . . . wow.’ She looked uncomfortable with his praise, so he dialed it back. ‘Thank you. You kept them from hurting anyone else.’
She looked away. ‘Yeah. But now we can’t question them.’
‘Who knows if they’d still be alive by now anyway? Whoever got Alice may have gotten them too. What’s going on with that anyway?’
‘You know what I know, basically. Novak’s following up. How are you feeling now?’
‘Tired. Frustrated. Hungry.
’ He slid her a sideways look. ‘But otherwise, better than I might have been. Thank you for jumping the staff like hurdles. You may have saved my life.’
Her auburn brows arched, her cocky attitude thankfully reappearing. ‘May have? I’d say I definitely did. I’d say you definitely owe me.’
Suddenly he was no longer tired, but he was very frustrated and very hungry. Only in a different way now. He owed her. He liked the sound of that. He liked it so much that he had to shift his hips, bending one knee slightly to hide the sudden tenting of the sheet over his groin.
He smirked to hide what would have been a heated look that both her old and new partners would have heartily disapproved of. ‘Can I go online now?’ he asked, giving the tablet she held a pointed look.
She huffed a short laugh and put the tablet in his hands. ‘I turned all the locks off so you don’t need my password. Knock yourself out.’
‘Thanks.’ He wondered if her password would have been Jack. ‘Anything I should avoid?’
‘No. I only use it for e-books, knitting patterns, and games, and not very often at that. In fact I can’t remember the last time I even turned it on.’
But she’d turned him on. He kept his gaze on the tablet, feeling uncertain for the first time in a long time. Because she was the first person in a long time to have gotten close enough to matter. She’d held his hand and had sat with him for hours and had definitely saved his life. He knew that her voice was the one he’d listened for the whole week he lay helpless in that damn ICU bed. He knew that she was the one he trusted.
But he didn’t know why she’d stayed. She’d said it was because Symmes was dead and he had no other emergency contacts. If that was all it was, he wasn’t interested. He didn’t want her pity. He wanted her to be as turned on as he was.
‘Decker? Is something wrong?’
He drummed a tattoo on the tablet’s cover, his fingers needing something to do. Something to touch. Just ask her. Ask her and be done with it. ‘Who was Jack?’
Her gasp was barely audible, even in the quiet of the room, and for a long moment she didn’t say a word. Finally she blew out a breath. ‘How do you know about Jack?’
He kept his eyes on his still-drumming fingers. ‘I heard you,’ he admitted. ‘You talked to him. When I was . . . out of it. You said you were sorry.’
Another silence, longer this time. Then she reached over the rail to cover his hand. ‘Please, stop the drumming. You’re making me crazy.’ Her hand, which she hadn’t retracted, was visibly trembling.
‘Who was he, Kate?’
‘How do you know he was anything? Maybe he is.’
‘The other woman – Novak’s sister – you told her that you needed her to be your new contact because your old one had died. She asked if it was Jack, then said she was sorry for your loss. That usually indicates a death.’
‘Jesus,’ she whispered, her voice trembling too. ‘What else did you hear?’
‘Later, you were humming “Wish You Were Here”, then you cried.’ One side of his mouth quirked up. ‘Then you played Disney songs for me and made me promise not to tell. That you had a badass rep to protect.’ Taking a chance, he flipped his hand over so that he could lace their fingers together. She didn’t pull away and he summoned his courage again. ‘Who was Jack, Kate?’ he asked as gently as he could.
She drew a deep breath. ‘My husband’s brother,’ she said on the exhale.
What the fuck? He whipped his head around to stare at her. ‘You’re married?’ he demanded, regretting his tone immediately.
She was pale. Stricken. Like someone had slapped her. That someone would be me. You idiot. Because a verbal slap could hurt more than a physical one.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not anymore. He died, too.’
Decker let his head drop to the pillow, calling himself twelve kinds of fool. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’ she asked, her voice too quiet. Too sedate. ‘For accusing me of cheating on my husband, that I lost my husband, or for poking into my personal life?’
‘The first and second ones. I accused you of something terrible and I’m sorry.’ He turned to look at her again, the guilt stabbing him worse than any real-life knife he’d ever taken in his gut. But he needed to be honest. ‘But not the last one. I needed to know.’
She gave his hand a weak squeeze before pulling away. ‘It’s okay, I guess. I would have wondered, too. Um, I started charging the tablet in the car on the way over. It’s at about twenty percent now.’ She pulled a charging cord from her bag along with a wireless card. ‘You can get Internet here in the hospital, but if you want to do anything secure, use my Wi-Fi card.’
‘Thank you.’
She leaned over to plug the charger into the wall outlet near the floor and he bit the inside of his lip. Damn, but the woman was built. Such a pretty butt. He wanted to reach out and touch so badly . . . But not here. Not now.
But definitely not ‘never’. He adjusted the tablet so that it covered his erection, which had found its second wind after hearing she wasn’t married. Not anymore, anyway. His heart could feel sympathy that she’d lost someone she’d loved, but his cock didn’t have any such feelings. All it knew was that it wanted her. A lot.
She straightened and shouldered her bag printed with the picture of kittens and yarn, the movement making her jacket swing back to reveal the service weapon in her shoulder holster.
God. The soft woman who knitted with camo-colored yarn was a better shot than he was. Far better. The disparity was . . . hot. So hot that the tablet on his lap popped up, then slid down the sheet, nudged by an almost painful pulse of his completely unsympathetic cock. He reset the tablet in place, then realized that she’d grabbed her laptop bag as well.
She was leaving. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Not far. I need to follow up with Agent Troy on getting you a private doctor.’
‘You can call him from here,’ Decker said, studying her face. She was still rattled.
‘I need a little space,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back and Agent Triplett is just outside. I’ll tell him that nobody is to give you anything. Can I get you some water or juice while I’m out? I’ll get it from the drink machine in the cafeteria.’
‘Yes, that would be nice.’ He frowned as his stomach growled. He was suddenly starving. ‘And a cheeseburger. Maybe two. And chicken. Not soup or nuggets. Wings, with hot sauce. Or maybe not hot sauce just yet. I’ll save that for tomorrow.’
She laughed. ‘Anything else?’ she asked.
Relief had him sagging back into the pillow. She was smiling at him again. ‘Peanut M&Ms,’ he said. ‘And pie. Apple. Or cherry, whichever they have. Maybe some Cheetos. And a brownie. Or cake. Chocolate.’
She shook her head. ‘How about an appointment with a dentist because of all that sugar?’
‘I’ll floss.’ He lifted his hand in a three-fingered salute. ‘Scout’s honor.’
She looked surprised. ‘Were you a Boy Scout?’
‘Eagle.’ Thanks to Mama D and the real Griffin Davenport.
Her expression grew pensive. ‘Good for you. I’ll see what I can do about the food.’ She started to open the door, then stopped short. ‘Oh. I completely forgot why I came to see you to begin with. We need to get everything you can remember from the traffickers’ ledgers. Customers, suppliers, profits, losses – anything you can recall. Hopefully there will be something in there that points to McCord’s mystery partner.’
Decker nodded, grateful for something tangible to do. ‘I’ll get on it.’ He waited until she was gone, closing the door behind her, before turning on the tablet and opening a browser page.
He stared at it for a full minute before giving in to the need to know. With one hand he hunted and pecked his search te
rms: survived by Kate Coppola, husband, death, and Jack. Then he held his breath and hit ENTER.
Six
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Thursday 13 August, 1.25 P.M.
Mallory had been giving a lot of thought to her plan as she drove to the Kroger and she’d thought she knew exactly what she needed to do. But now that she was here, parking the car, she wasn’t so sure.
What if he finds out? What if people still don’t believe me?
He’d take Macy. He’d get custody of her, even though it would mean murder.
It’s not like he hasn’t done it before. So many times. What’s two more?
But . . . they were his blood. His sister. Her husband.
He’d still do it. Of that Mallory had no doubt. He’d nearly done it once before. Just to teach me a lesson. And if he got custody of Macy? He’d make her into Sunshine Suzie.
So what do I do? Mallory sighed. She’d had this argument with herself so many times. ‘Shit or get off the pot,’ she murmured, remembering her mother saying the words a lifetime ago.
It was the thought of her mother that got her moving. No way would she ever be like that, surviving from one fix to the next while her children cried themselves to sleep, hungry and cold. Not gonna happen. I really would rather be dead.
She locked the old non-descript car he’d given her to drive, noting that he’d changed the plates again. He did that every time she returned from running errands and she often wondered where he got all the license plates. But she didn’t ask because she really didn’t want to know any more of his secrets.
She was having enough trouble with the secrets she already knew.
Keeping her eyes to herself, she made her way into the Kroger, crossing her fingers that it still had a pay phone. Pay phones were really hard to find these days, so she made a point of remembering when she saw one because she had no cell phone. He’d never allow that, even though he’d be able to track her every call.
Mind games. He loved to play mind games.