Silent Truth

  Hannah didn't look convinced. "Where are you going?"

  "To see someone Dr. Tatum told me about. Please don't ask, because I don't want to involve you if what I'm doing goes really bad."

  Hannah nodded. Her eyes teared up. "They said you were with that Wentworth woman when she got shot."

  Abbie swallowed. "Yeah. Is Gwen still alive?"

  "Aren't you watching the news?"

  "Not really. I've been on the road."

  "She's hanging on, stable. Oh, and the police stopped by looking for you. They weren't happy I didn't know where you were. I gave them the message some guy left with the nurses about you traveling." Hannah slashed a glance at Hunter that should have left a mark, then her eyes lit with a sudden revelation. "A guy came here looking for you."

  Hunter checked his watch. They had to go, but Hannah had raised his interest. "Who?"

  Her sister glared silently until Abbie told her it was okay to tell him. "He didn't leave his name. Said he was a friend of Abbie's from the television station and wanted to get in touch, but he didn't even have a card. Wore sunshades he wouldn't take off. I hate to talk to anyone when I can't see their eyes. He said he couldn't go without glasses. He had a blood birthmark right here." She pointed above her right eye at her forehead. "Ring any bells?"

  "No." Abbie looked at Hunter, who told Hannah, "The less you say about Abbie being here the safer it is for her."

  That alarmed her sister. "Is she in danger?"

  Hunter hated to pull Abbie away, but they had to go. "Abbie, it's time."

  "For what?" Hannah said, and stepped up beside Abbie, putting her arm protectively around her.

  Abbie hugged her sister. "I'm okay, but he's right. Keep a lid on my visit. He's helping me get what we need. I hope to find out something today or tomorrow."

  Hannah hugged her sister back, then Abbie went over and kissed her mother's cheek before reaching Hunter's side. Pain and worry wicked through her gaze, but she soldiered up, ready to go.

  He turned her toward the door as it opened. A half-put-together-looking young woman with long wavy brown hair and pudgy cheeks entered wearing burgundy corduroy pants and a gray sweatshirt. She stopped the minute she saw Abbie. "You finally managed to fit Mom into your busy schedule?"

  "Get out of my way, Casey."

  This had to be the younger sister. She gave Hunter an up-and-down perusal. "He's not Mom's new physician, so what's going on? You using this place for hunting grounds?" Her lips twisted in a sour frown; she was clearly trying to embarrass Abbie.

  Hunter considered several ways to put this mean-hearted sibling in her place. That would only undermine Abbie, whose shoulders slumped, but her voice didn't waver when she replied.

  "How's the pig, Casey? Caught him sleeping with any relatives lately?"

  Hunter put everything together when she referenced the "pig" who she'd indicated had thought he was trading up to a newer model "without pesky morals." Abbie had caught her fiance sleeping with her sister.

  Not so cliched as she'd joked bitterly this morning.

  They had to go and he was damned tired of seeing Abbie attacked. He put his arm around her. "Ready, sweetheart?"

  Casey's mouth fell open at the endearment.

  He kissed the top of Abbie's head and led her out. She didn't say a word all the way to the ambulance. Once they were inside the vehicle again and moving, Hunter's cell phone buzzed. No one should have had this number, but he wasn't overly surprised to find Gotthard on the other end when he answered.

  "Got something you need to hear before you go into Kore," Gotthard started in. "Tatum took a drug that induces cardiac arrest. The police now question Tatum's suicide and are trying to figure out what the killer's spoon means. They've tied the spoon to the ones found at Gwen's home and the Blanton woman's apartment. The only common thread is Abigail. The authorities haven't gone public with anything but the FBI is avidly searching for her."

  Hunter closed his eyes. Fuck.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Hunter, you getting all this?" Gotthard snapped. "Abigail is a suspect in Gwen's shooting. We have to talk to her first."

  "I hear you." Hunter moved over to the end of the gurney so Abbie wouldn't hear much above the rumble of the ambulance motor. "What else do they have?"

  "That Gwen's security saw Abigail upset Gwen enough for her to leave the party, and one of them overheard Abigail tell Gwen she would only talk outdoors, somewhere private. Gwen's patio was an obvious location. The shooter had to know she'd be there and in position for that shot."

  "That's not definitive," Hunter argued, sounding too defensive of Abbie. But something that had been said in Abbie's apartment after the shooting started making noises in the back of his mind.

  The killer told Abbie she'd been most helpful.

  "There's more. Abigail works for a television station in Chicago. The station manager said she blackmailed him into letting her replace the female journalist assigned to the Wentworth party. That was after he'd offered her a promotion as his assistant and a raise."

  Everything Gotthard said slammed up against Hunter's image of Abbie as anything but a conniving female with an agenda. He looked at her leaned back on the gurney, lost in sad thoughts. She couldn't be playing him. Something would have given her away by now. "We know anything about her boss?"

  "He's not well liked by some at the station, but he is dating a board member's granddaughter, who confirmed she gave up the ticket and went to New York with him."

  "That all the police have?"

  "No. Remember the accidental deaths from the files our contact sent about women with rare blood who did not enter the Kore center? Abigail's stepfather, who adopted her, died eleven years ago. She went to see her father just before he died. He drowned in a lake on his farm with no history of mental problems and in perfect health. It was listed as a suicide, but our people reviewed the autopsy report and aren't buying that."

  "Why?" Hunter squeezed his fingers around the frame of the gurney next to his leg.

  "Her adoptive father had been on a high school swim team. He broke a state record for swimming a mile. No history of depression. He had a pig farm and everyone who came in contact with him the week before his death said he was excited his daughter was coming to visit. That fits the type of peculiar accidental deaths in the file we're building on the women with rare blood." Typing pecked through the phone speaker when Gotthard paused, then he said, "Here's a side note. She was living just a couple miles from the area where you and I dealt with that little problem six years ago."

  The night before Hunter met Abbie, when six men died, not one of them worth mourning. "Really?"

  Gotthard paused, waited on something, then continued. "Abigail's the only one who can answer some of these questions. Gwen can't be interrogated. She's under lockdown inside the Kore Center. Supposedly, she hasn't regained consciousness."

  "Could be a lie to keep Gwen from talking to anyone."

  Abbie glanced over at Hunter at the mention of Gwen, then turned away to stare at nothing.

  "Could be." In classic Gotthard mode, he jumped to a new topic. "The prime minister's arriving Saturday in Denver and is speaking at a university there on Monday, then he meets the president in DC on Tuesday. If we haven't figured this out by Monday afternoon, Joe will be forced to alert the president of a possible assassination attempt. We have to plan for a bombing as well, based on what our contact has been sending us."

  "Hard to pull off an attack of that magnitude in DC," Hunter interjected. "Not with that much security climbing all over the place. But we can't rule out the possibility."

  "True. The last thing we can afford is for the prime minister to be harmed while he's here with the bad blood that has grown between him and the president. The best lead we have right now on finding the JC killer is inside the Kore center."

  Getting to the records without being spotted was going to be a Houdini act, but Hunter had no other options.

  Gotthard added,
"Got another hit on the JC spoon. New location."

  "Where?"

  "Home in the mountain range between Montana and Wyoming. Looked like an army with automatic weapons turned it into Swiss cheese. Know anything about that?"

  "Why would I?" Hunter answered noncommittally.

  Gotthard held his reply for a few seconds, no doubt getting his answer from Hunter's lack of one. "Sure you know what you're doing?"

  "Yes." He lied to himself as much as Gotthard with that one.

  "Trusting the wrong person right now could put you so far outside our reach we wouldn't be able to help you, or it might force Joe to... it could get you killed."

  "Just doing my job," Hunter said. Admit nothing.

  Gotthard chuckled wryly. "Right. For the record, you don't look any more like a doctor than Mako does, but he has the MD to go with the white coat."

  Busted. "Guess I should have been surprised at not seeing familiar faces today." As in BAD agents around the medical center.

  "Joe wants a good reason not to snatch her from you."

  "She's the only way into the Kore records," Hunter whispered. He had no intention of putting Abbie in the middle of all this, but he'd just given Joe a valid reason to stay out of Hunter's way until he got the data they needed.

  "I should have given you more credit," Gotthard said, indicating he now thought Hunter was using Abbie.

  Of course the people who had known him the longest believed he would put a woman at risk to find this killer and get the data. They thought he'd cut Eliot's climbing rope.

  He glanced at Abbie, who must have felt his eyes. She smiled at him and his heart swelled. She hadn't told him everything. Was there any way the killer was manipulating her?

  Gotthard continued. "We need every bit of intel we can get our hands on before Saturday. Joe needs your skills, but this operation requires everyone working like a team."

  "I'm doing my part getting inside Kore."

  "Keeping Blanton away from us isn't team thinking. Careful who you stake your life--and national security--on. Women have exploited men for centuries. Arrogance is our biggest weakness. Well, that and our cocks."

  Hunter had never allowed a woman to fool him on an operation. Was Abbie that good? Had he been so sure of his skill at reading people he'd let her convince him she needed protecting and that she'd wanted him last night as much as he wanted her?

  Still wanted her. Wrong brain talking again.

  Gotthard had a point and Eliot would have agreed, based on the evidence presented, then told Hunter to flip it around and use cold objectivity. Had getting involved with Abbie caused him to overlook a potential threat?

  "Don't make a mistake," Gotthard emphasized. "You'll only get one."

  "I figured as much." Hunter ended the call, but he couldn't ignore a new question Gotthard's call had raised. The JC killer had taken a team up the mountain to Hunter's cabin. Had the killer placed a tracking device on Abbie? She was wearing all new clothes by the time she reached the cabin. Except for her underwear--and Hunter could personally attest to the fact that nothing was hidden on either of those slim pieces of material--which she'd left at the cabin.

  When he'd heard her talking in her apartment before the confrontation with the intruder, he'd thought she'd been on the phone with someone at first or just talking to herself. Back when they first met, she'd told him how she talked to her plants but they still die on her. He tried to take a step back now and review everything that had happed with unbiased eyes. Play the devil's advocate.

  Abbie had been surprised when she found the transmitter Hunter stuck on her dress before she entered her apartment building, but what if she'd actually found it while talking to the JC killer and switched gears to put on a show by acting terrified? If so, she would have had the tracking device on her at the point Hunter had carried her out of the apartment. Where would she have hidden a transmitter...

  Son of a bitch. He hadn't done a cavity search, but he'd had no reason to do so and a woman had the perfect place to slide a transmitter the size of a small tube up inside her.

  His gut argued none of that fit Abbie, that she couldn't be an operative, but as Gotthard had pointed out Hunter was putting a lot of lives on the line based solely on what she'd told him.

  He worked with some of the best female agents on the planet. But what about their meeting six years ago? No, that had been entirely by accident because he'd completed a mission so close to where she lived.

  His forte was making logical decisions on a second's notice and executing with brutal efficiency. No hesitation.

  In his line of work, hesitation got people killed.

  If Abbie was innocent she should have straight answers.

  If not? He'd depend on his training to guide his decisions at that point and not allow some undefined emotion that was turning his gut inside out to influence him.

  He looked over at her. "We need to talk."

  Abbie barely heard Hunter over the rumble of the ambulance. She stopped worrying about her mother and started worrying about his lifeless tone. What had his phone call been about? She sat up. "Okay."

  His face gave away nothing, but she could feel the vast space opening up between them. "You told me a friend got you into the Wentworth event as a favor. Who?"

  She glanced away, then realized how telling that would be and met his gaze. "Just a girl from work."

  "You didn't blackmail your boss to get inside the fund-raiser?"

  Crud. What had Stuart told the police? "What are you getting at?"

  "The truth. Did you or did you not blackmail your boss to get that invitation?"

  "Okay, fine. Stuart Trout is a dirtbag. He wouldn't do me one simple favor. I told him getting into the Wentworth event was very important to me."

  "This same dirtbag had just offered you a better position and more money, right?"

  "Yes, but what's that got to do with anything?"

  "Just confirming details."

  Hunter's guarded attitude surprised her. "I told you everything about that night. I had to pressure Stuart or I wouldn't have gotten to talk to Gwen."

  "You threatened to tell his girlfriend he'd been involved with you?"

  "No, I threatened to tell Brittany he made a pass at me if he didn't help. He's a slimeball I wouldn't let touch my dead philodendron."

  The oddest moment of relief filtered through the suspicion holding his gaze hostage and gave her hope until Hunter asked, "How'd your father die?"

  She flinched at the unexpected change of topic. "He drowned. Suicide."

  "But he was an excellent swimmer, right?"

  "Yes." What had Hunter found out about her father's death?

  "Doesn't that sound suspicious?"

  Yes. She'd spent many sleepless nights wondering if she was at fault for Raymond's death. She had no idea why Hunter was acting as though they were on opposite sides of a wall all of a sudden. "I questioned everything about his death from the beginning, but everyone said I was looking for a way to justify an accident. I harangued the police for over a year, but they all blew me off, accusing me of being in denial. That's the reason I got into investigative reporting, but nothing ever came of all my efforts to prove he hadn't killed himself. His life insurance company had no investment in helping. No one did. The only reason I finally left it alone was because his death had devastated my family and I kept reopening the wound."

  Hunter stopped there, staring at her as if he tried to decide if he knew her. That hurt much more than she could have imagined. She asked, "What's going on with you?"

  "How did the guy in your apartment know your name?"

  "I told you, I don't know. Before you got there he said I did a good job. I don't know what he was talking about. Do you?"

  "I can't say."

  "You mean you won't say. I've told you everything--"

  "Except for the final key to accessing the Kore database."

  "So now you're going to strongarm me into this by acting suspicious of... w
hat exactly are you suspicious about?"

  This time Hunter was the one who looked away while he thought on something. When he lifted his head his eyes were filled with an emotion she couldn't pinpoint. "You have to understand, Abbie. A lot of lives depend on how well I do my job. I can't let anything but facts influence my decisions."

  "What do you think I'm guilty of ?"

  "I'm not accusing you--"

  "Just tell me what's going on, dammit." She was reaching the end of her frayed emotional rope.

  "I can't. Not yet."

  There it was. She ran headfirst against that steel-wall gaze born of a distrust that had started in childhood. She understood why, really, she did, but that didn't change how much it cut for him to draw an invisible line between them. He probably didn't like standing all alone on the other side of that line, but that might be the only safe haven he'd come to trust.

  She wanted him to know he could depend on her.

  Screaming in frustration probably wouldn't get that message across, but her insides were on a rampage.

  Abbie drew up her knees and leaned forward, propping her head on her crossed arms. "You're making it sound like forcing my slimy boss to help me get into the Wentworths' was a felony, that I had something to do with my father's death, and that I know the crazy guy in my apartment."

  He seemed content to hear her out, so she continued. "Here's the truth. If my mother hadn't been ill I wouldn't have risked my career by threatening my boss for an invitation to the event or badgering a Wentworth on her own property. If you hadn't been there snooping around, you wouldn't have gotten involved in Gwen's shooting. If you hadn't driven me home and broken into my apartment you wouldn't have known about the intruder, but I will be eternally grateful that you did come back. I don't know what's going on or why people are chasing us or why that guy knew my name. All I know is that my mother is dying and I need your help. I'm going to give you all the access information for the database. Not because I feel threatened, but because I believe in you. I trust you. What are you going to do?"