"In our private parking level downstairs."
"We need a car."
Abbie rode silently in the limousine Hunter had finagled from the Kore center. He must have been concerned about someone not connected to Kore following them to make this tactical maneuver, but she kept silent. He wouldn't want to talk until they ditched the car.
Funny how she was starting to anticipate how he thought. He had the driver drop them at O'Hare airport, where he towed her quickly through the terminal, bypassing the ticket counter. In less than three minutes, he strolled with her through baggage claim and walked up to a limo driver holding up a sign for Johnson, who smiled and led them to the limousine corral.
Just like that, they were off again, and Hunter pressed a button on the panel at his armrest to engage the privacy glass.
She turned, ready to start in on him.
Hunter rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and let a yawn escape. Had he stayed up all night watching over her and making car arrangements? He must have felt her eyes and swept his bloodshot orbs her way. "Now we can talk."
"I have to find my brother." She didn't demand, just stated that with certainty.
"I know. I spent some time last night searching records for him. I found a home address not far from downtown Chicago and a phone number. He appears to be some kind of consultant for the health care industry. Based on his website, he works out of his home."
She managed not to let her jaw drop. "You have a phone number?"
He stifled another yawn and fished the electronic unit and his cell phone from his jacket, handing both to her. "Everything's in a file set up for you on my desktop. The only number listed is a business line, which is probably a cell phone or a home line that doubles as a business phone. We're going to Bloomington first--"
"Why?"
"Because I have to do something that will take ten minutes tops." He hadn't barked at her, but he was getting irritable. "Call your brother. We'll go there next."
She hoped he wasn't lying to her, that he really would help her meet her brother. Handling the computer phone device carefully, she clicked the file with her name, which opened, then tried a couple other files that refused to open. She tried her brother's phone number. After two rings, she got his voice mail.
Abbie ended the connection and handed Hunter his phone. "His voice mail says he'll be in meetings until two today. I knew you wouldn't want me to leave a message so I just hung up. Sorry I snapped at you about going to Bloomington. Didn't mean to sound so self-centered."
Hunter put his hand over hers and rubbed his thumb lightly across her skin. "I know you're anxious about your mother."
If he kept being nice to her she was going to lose this battle to hold a part of herself back from him. She changed the subject. "What about the information you were looking for?"
"Got everything I could find and sent it to my people."
"How long's the drive to Bloomington?"
Hunter propped his head in his hand, elbow on the door panel. "Two hours each way."
"You're not handing me over to someone, are you?"
"No." He hadn't said "not yet," which she'd find encouraging if he'd explain what he planned to do with her. And he clearly wasn't sharing where they were going or why.
She should slide farther away to her side of the seat and keep a distance between them. But his thumb was still rubbing across her hand, soothing her.
Trust took time and someone had to try first.
She lifted his hand to her shoulder and snuggled against his side.
Hunter turned his head and stared at her, his eyes asking a question she couldn't read. He kissed her forehead and tucked her close. She laid her head on his chest and hugged an arm around his waist, content to ride quietly, though not at peace.
She still had no idea where they were going or when he would deliver her to a bunch of strangers... or law enforcement.
Hunter came awake the minute Abbie touched his face. He took in the surroundings beyond the limo they traveled in.
"We're in Bloomington," she informed him.
He sat up and ran a hand over his face and hair, forcing the spiked ends to lie down.
She handed him a T-shirt from her shoulder bag and one of the waters from the side service console. "You can wash and dry your face with this."
"Thanks." He used a splash of water to wash up, then killed the balance of the bottle in one long swallow. He caught a street sign. The driver was heading east from the interstate and turned south on Center Street.
Evergreen Memorial Cemetery would be just down the road.
He handed Abbie the empty water bottle she put in the ice bucket, then told her, "When we stop, you stay in the car."
She gave him her not-happy look. "Why? Where are you going?"
"Have to talk to someone alone, but I'll have the driver keep the doors locked and you'll be in my sight the whole time."
She pushed away from him over to her door and looked out, not saying another word.
The car turned between stone columns on each side of the entrance to Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.
Hunter curled his fingers tight to keep from reaching for her. He'd slept hard with her in his arms, his body content when she was close by. The couple feet now separating them might as well be miles. He hated even the small distance, but she wasn't his and he couldn't keep her. Trying to stay free long enough to reach her brother would be a challenge and might very well lose him the small window he'd need to elude BAD, but he couldn't turn his back on her.
He could tell himself he was sticking this out because they'd cut a deal, but that would be a lie. He couldn't let her down. Or hurt her again the way his suspicions had slapped her emotionally.
God, he couldn't stand thinking of how she'd been hurt.
She'd practically given her life last night. If he could fix things with BAD right now he'd do it just so he could stay with Abbie. But he'd forced Joe's hand when he snuck her out of the Kore center. Joe had to be furious even after receiving the files Hunter downloaded into the online vault.
If he could believe Joe would continue to use him on the mission and not trick him into being caught, Hunter would do whatever BAD needed to prevent the anticipated bomb attack.
But he wouldn't willingly give Abbie to them.
That meant he had to figure out what to do with her while he evaded BAD.
No call from Gotthard in the last hour meant Joe had probably unleashed a team.
When the car parked near the David Davis memorial inside the cemetery grounds, Hunter said, "Be right back."
She lifted a hand in dismissal, face still turned to gaze out the window.
Hunter got out and told the driver, "Lock the doors."
"Yes, sir."
He walked around the front of the car, welcoming the cool breeze that woke him fully. Fresh air untainted by disappointment and suspicion filled his next breath. He glanced down at his wrinkled clothes and brushed at his jacket to no avail. When he reached the memorial, he moved around the far side and stopped where he could face the car.
A slender female, average height, in black pants and a gray hooded jacket approached from his left, walking through the historical markers splattered with sunlight slicing through the naked hardwoods.
As he always requested, Cynthia left her hood in place. Blond hairs escaped and flew around her face, which didn't harbor venomous eyes for once. "I would have spoken over the phone if this was inconvenient."
Her voice flowed gentle as the wind this time, not harshly like the last time.
"Not a problem." He'd told her not to leave voice mails and only to speak by phone in an emergency since he couldn't always ensure they were both on secure lines. He set up an e-mail and text program just for her to contact him and instructed her to send messages from somewhere other than home. Had to admit that she never scoffed at his security measures, just nodded and said Eliot had given her the same instructions.
"I'm moving to St.
Louis," she told him in her usual get-to-the-point manner, which he did appreciate about her. "I have a new position there." She handed him a piece of paper. "This is the address where I'm moving."
He took the paper, which was another reason this had to be in person. He wanted no electronic trail to her. "I need some time to recon your new location."
"No, you've done enough. I can do this on my own."
He didn't want the irritation rising inside him to reach his voice, but he was too tired and had too little time to battle over this. "Eliot wouldn't want you to move without me checking it out."
She didn't flinch at hearing her dead husband's name, as she had before, and calmly replied, "Eliot would know that I'm capable of taking a new job, moving my home, and raising his son on my own. We discussed this when he found out I was pregnant. You're the one who feels like you have to do this, the one who can't get past his death."
That verbal backhand stung.
"Guess you've gotten over his death then." Hunter wanted to give himself a knuckle sandwich the minute he said the words. He hadn't meant to strike out at her, but she'd hit a nerve by telling him to get over Eliot's death.
He'd waited four years to find Eliot's killer, only to meet the bastard, then let him escape.
She grumbled something low, shook her head, and looked at Hunter with steel in her gray eyes. "Eliot told me once that you can be the biggest asshole when you're watching over the people you care about. I don't know where I rank on your care meter, but I'll let that slide." She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. "You've always been polite, but I knew you were angry with me. News flash: I was angry with you for a long time, too. I blamed you for his death."
"I know. You have every right to blame me."
"No, I don't. I insult Eliot by thinking he'd have worked that closely with anyone he didn't trust with his life. And you're insulting Eliot by assuming I trapped him into marriage when I got pregnant. Think about it. Would the calculating and precise Eliot we both knew leave anything to chance?"
Hunter considered what she was saying and couldn't argue her point. Eliot might have acted goofy when he wanted to make you laugh, but he was careful and meticulous with anything important. And having a baby would have been important to him. "Eliot intentionally got you pregnant?"
She nodded slowly. "We talked about it. He told me you handled all the danger but said everything in life came with risks. When I came to terms with how precarious his life could be, I finally agreed. I told him I was willing to have a baby with him, so we stopped using protection. The next time he came home I was pregnant. He couldn't have been happier." Her eyes glistened. "Couldn't wait to get married."
"Eliot shouldn't have done this." Hunter argued, but he shouldn't have blamed Cynthia. He'd jumped to the conclusion she'd trapped Eliot, needing a target for his anger over losing his best friend. Cynthia had been too handy, just as Hunter had been too handy for her. Now he was irritated at what Eliot had done. "Bad enough to marry you and leave you, but to leave a child--"
"See, that's where we differ, Leroy, or whatever your real name is, because I seriously doubt you're a Leroy." Her voice held no recriminations or undercurrent of hate any longer. She sounded sad and wistful. "I thank Eliot every day that he left a piece of himself with me. I love our son and I'm a good mother raising him. He'll be four in a few months. I didn't want to move him when he was so small, but I want to get him settled now before kindergarten."
"Why move? Is someone bothering you here, or do you need a better place to live, or..." His natural instinct to protect surged to the surface.
She smiled. "I can't stay here. I need to move away from the grocery store where I shopped with Eliot and the restaurants where we ate and the house that's too quiet without him. I need to be somewhere it won't break my heart to wake up every day in the room we shared so much in. Eliot will always own a place in my heart. It's just too painful to look for him around every corner or to think I hear his footsteps on the carpet. If I had it to do over I'd still have spent that time with him and had our son, because I'd rather have had those two years with Eliot than have never met him. Life has no guarantees. He could have been killed in a traffic accident or I could have died from an unexpected illness. We accepted the risk of loving each other."
Hunter had no argument for that. He'd spent as little time as possible in Montana over the past four years because he missed Eliot so badly when he visited the cabin. This time he pressed in a gentler tone, "I still want to check over your new location before you move."
"Can you do that in the next three days?"
"No, I--" His gaze strolled over to the limo, where more problems waited. "I'm a little pressed for time this week."
"I'm moving Monday." She held up a hand when he started to say more. "I don't need you to recon my neighborhood. It's a nice, safe place to live. I want you to come meet your godson."
Hunter lifted the paper she'd given him and memorized the address since he planned to destroy the paper immediately. "Be careful and stay close to home once you're settled. I'll let you know when I've been there."
She sighed. "You're welcome to stop in whenever you want. You be careful with whatever you're doing. You may not be ready to forgive me, but I've forgiven you. I want you to be part of Theo's life, to help him know who his father was." Cynthia leaned forward and kissed Hunter's cheek, then turned away.
He fought a lump in his throat as Cynthia strolled through the markers and disappeared in the direction of Eliot's grave. She had a core of iron and had held nothing back in loving his friend. He was starting to understand how easy it would be for a man to lose his head over a woman like Cynthia.
The way he'd lost his head over Abbie.
Turning away from the memorial, Hunter started back to the limo that held the one person who'd made him feel anything since meeting Eliot.
But Hunter couldn't be as cavalier about life when it came to Abbie even if there was no chance of seeing her again.
After telling the driver to find a restaurant, Hunter slid onto the backseat.
"Old nuisance?" Abbie asked casually, but she was annoyed.
"No. Wife of a friend of mine."
"Does he mind you seeing her now?" she asked tartly.
He shouldn't enjoy the jealous sting in her voice, not when he would lose her all too soon. "She's his widow. He expects me to keep an eye on her. She was only kissing my cheek."
"Oh, well, shoot. Sorry. How was I supposed to know?" she mumbled. "Not like you introduced us. But that makes sense because you don't trust me, right?"
"I don't trust anyone to know her identity or location."
Abbie closed her eyes. "You'll never trust anyone period."
He hadn't thought he could feel worse than he had after he'd left her unprotected at Kore and she'd almost died, but hearing her disappointment cut deep.
She cared for him.
Hell, he cared for her. Talk about stupid on his part.
But her disappointment in him would make leaving him easier for her when they separated.
Not for him.
The day she walked away she'd take a piece of him with her he'd never replace.
His cell phone buzzed. It could only be Gotthard. Hunter answered, "You get the files?"
"Yes. Where are you?"
"Why?"
"Joe wants you to come in."
"I'm following a lead on something from the Kore center."
Gotthard sounded whipped. "It isn't a request."
"I know. Thanks for the heads-up." Hunter disconnected the call.
The hunt was on.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Who would have thought riding around in a limousine would become tiresome, but Abbie was over touring through Illinois. "When will we get to Chicago?"
"By two o'clock. About twenty minutes," Hunter answered politely. He'd been nothing but accommodating since leaving the cemetery. She didn't think he cared much for her "You'll never trust anyone"
comment, but if he wouldn't let her meet his friend's widow Hunter clearly would never trust anyone.
Including her.
"Can I call my brother again?" she asked.
"It's not quite two o'clock yet." Hunter handed over his phone.
He had a point. "I'll call Hannah to see how Mom's doing then."
"Go ahead."
She wanted to shake him out of his granite-tough reserve and see something alive in his eyes again. But she had the feeling that one call he'd taken on the way out of the cemetery hadn't gone well. Hunter had told the caller he was tracking down a lead from the Kore center, not that he was playing keep away with his people to give Abbie a chance to find her brother.
How much trouble was Hunter getting into by not bringing her in and not going to meet with his people? She didn't know and he wasn't going to confide in her.
Not in a prisoner.
No matter how he might color it, she was headed for some form of incarceration. She had to make the most of her mobility while she could. Punching the speed-dial number he'd programmed in for the medical center, she kept pushing buttons until she reached her mother's room.
A woman who had been moved into her mother's room answered the phone.
"May I speak to Mrs. Blanton?" Abbie asked.
"She's gone."
"Where?"
"To ICU. She's not doing so good," the lady told her.
"What happened?" Abbie clutched her throat.
"I don't know. Your mama was gone when I came back from having an X-ray. Nurse just said she had a bad spell." Abbie thanked her and hung up, then called the ICU desk. She inquired about her mother and found out Hannah was in with her.
When she ended the call, Hunter asked, "What's happened?"
"Mom's heart is beating irregularly. Her liver hasn't gotten worse, but it's not improving either. She had a bad night and ended up in the ICU." Abbie lifted the phone and pressed the buttons for her brother, waiting through two rings.
This time someone answered before the third ring. A shallow male voice said, "Hello?"
"Hi." She was so unprepared to hear a voice she didn't know what to say. "Is your last name Royce?"