Blindsided, page 8
part #1 of Book Two Series
Or two.
Pete had pulled in six hours after they’d arrived, the trunk of the rented VW he was driving filled with food. Now they all sat before Mickey’s “wall of evidence,” trying to put together the pieces Jack had left behind.
Although Rafe had dismissed Ruby’s conclusion that his partner had wanted him and Sean to come together on this, he knew it was likely true. Sean hadn’t lied—Jack had been the eternal optimist. A glass-half-full kind of guy, one who always saw the sun hovering behind the clouds.
Whereas Rafe only ever saw the shadows.
And it wasn’t only cooperation Jack would have wanted. He would want Rafe to pick up where he’d left off.
As a mentor for his incorrigible and unrepentantly criminally-minded younger sibling.
Goddamn it.
Something Rafe was pretty sure he didn’t have in him.
Ruby sat across the room in a hideous, mustard-yellow recliner, the folder Mickey had given to him in her lap as she paged through it.
She was determined to keep her distance—something Rafe both understood and fiercely resented—and which he knew he should respect. Which—if he was smart—he would emulate.
Because it was highly likely he had no future, immediate or otherwise, and trying to rebuild the bridge he’d burned was both deeply selfish and profoundly stupid.
Neither of which he was proud of, but both of which he was capable.
The flight from Toronto had been a piercing mixture of heaven and hell. Being granted the freedom to touch her—her fine-boned hand, the delicate shell of her ear, the lush curve of her hip, the sensitive small of her back—had loosened the tight rein he kept upon himself, liberating his need and the dark, yearning hunger he felt every time he looked at her.
I missed you.
And now he wanted her beside him. He wanted that freedom all the time.
Now he was questioning how the hell to survive. How to accomplish his mission without the ending he’d assumed was inevitable.
The ending part of him had welcomed—until he’d gone to retrieve Jack’s message.
And he didn’t know if it was possible, or just more wishful thinking. Because that would be utterly typical of life—his life—to grant him a sweet, intoxicating taste of what he could never have.
I let you go once. I won’t do it again.
Words he shouldn’t have said, but he didn’t care.
Because he meant them.
And now…she was angry with him. For any number of reasons.
For leaving her; for forgetting.
Even though he never had.
For coming back.
For choosing death, no matter how gallant.
And if it was her contemplating going down with the ship? How the hell would he feel?
Infuriated.
Terrified.
Determined to do whatever it took to stop her.
He stared at her and felt sick at the thought.
She looked up at that moment, her dark amber gaze crashing into his.
And everything within him went still and cold, as he had whenever his mother was around.
As if he didn’t move, he wouldn’t be seen.
Ruby scowled. For a long moment, she just stared at him. Then she stood up and walked over to sit down on the ugly plaid couch beside him.
The breath frozen in his lungs slowly seeped out.
“What is it?” she demanded, staring at him. “You look…off.”
“Am I not allowed?” he asked, his voice hollow, the cold, predatory thing within him rising to the surface.
Self-preservation. Born in his mother’s shadow; fed by blood and death and war. Ruby’s eyes narrowed. That she saw it wasn’t even a question.
She saw everything.
But she didn’t look away; didn’t flinch.
And he wanted to touch her so badly, his hands curled into fists.
“Nothing is already written,” she told him matter-of-factly.
He blinked, his throat suddenly tight, his heart a heavy drumbeat in his chest.
“We’re free to decide,” she said, and her gaze softened. One of her hands lifted to hesitantly touch his jaw. “Life is filled with possibility.”
The thing inside of him watched her with unblinking stillness. “I’m bound.”
Her touch slid away, and his knuckles ached. He stared at her, unable to surrender, unwilling to retreat.
“You’ve chosen,” she said quietly. “There’s a difference.”
Then she stood up and went back to the yellow recliner.
Rafe watched her go; it was everything he could do not to stalk after her. To stop her. Shake her. Make her understand—
“Time to get this show on the road,” Sean announced from where he stood in front the “wall of evidence,” which was little more than a corkboard filled with index cards and bright red strings linking some of the items together. “Mick?”
The boy stood next to his father, a long, slender length of wood in hand. He slapped it against the corkboard.
“Here’s what we got,” Mickey said. “A map with the location of the compound.” The wood struck the map Ruby had drawn with a loud whap. “The resume of Dr. Trudy Gordon, a British molecular biologist, and her picture.” A whap against the picture of the sad blonde. “Three emails between Uncle Jack and Dr. Gordon spread out over six weeks." Whap! “A dossier and various news clippings about Russian Billionaire Christos Sarkovski.” Whap! “And one napkin from the Red Cock pub in Moss Bo.” Whap! “Da?”
“Well done, son.” Sean nodded, and Mickey moved to stand against the wall. “Now, the question to be answered is how these things connect, and how they lead to Jackie’s death. We know Dr. Gordon approached Jackie online. That she sent him this email, in which she stated she was a molecular biologist workin’ at a private lab in western Norway on a project she claimed posed a grave threat to, and I quote, ‘the entirety of the civilized world.’ Jackie replied two days later, tellin’ her he would meet her in Oslo at Meacham Park in one week. There is no CCTV footage of the meet; Jackie wouldn’t have let that happen. But accordin’ to his phone records, a call was made from his number to the Meacham Hotel, which sits at the foot of the park, indicatin’ he was there.”
“You have his phone records?” Rafe interrupted sharply.
Sean gifted him with a mocking smile. “Aye.”
“How?”
“Some of us have, shall we say, a broader reach.”
Outside the box, Rafe thought, annoyed. Jack had always cultivated contacts outside of the Agency, acquiring a vast number of people to whom he could reach out at any given time. He’d often given Rafe a hard time for not doing the same.
Sometimes you gotta trust people for them to trust you back, brother.
But Rafe had never been any good at trust. And he’d foolishly assumed he would always have Agency resources, which were second to none. So now here he sat…getting his intel from a man many in global law enforcement considered a terrorist. Having to take it at face value…and be goddamn grateful for getting it at all.
“The final email from Gordon appears to confirm another meetin’, this one to take place at the Red Cock Pub in Moss Bo. From what I’ve gathered, it’s the local pub the workers at the facility utilize to blow off steam.” He went to Ruby’s map and marked an “x” just east of the plant. “Most of them live off-site, in barracks built just outside of the village—a highly secure, gated community with armed personnel, guard dogs, and a hot fence.”
Pete snorted. “Sounds like they’re more afraid of someone getting out than someone getting in.”
“Aye. We’ve no CCTV to confirm the meet up, but again, Jackie’s phone records back up his location. That’s where the trail goes cold. We have no further contact between them. And four days later, Jackie’s body is found in Syria by a local NGO. He was beaten and broken and burned. They didn’t just kill him; they tortured him. To bloody death.”
Rafe met Sean’s burning, furious green gaze and realized they were on the exact same page. Finally, something in common.
Someone they loved was dead. And a price would be paid.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby said quietly into the silence that had fallen. “I didn’t know that was how he died.”
Sean looked at her. “They crushed every fuckin’ bone he had.”
“How’d he end up in Syria?” Pete asked.
“Christos Sarkovski,” Rafe replied. “His fiancé is Aramina Gregos, daughter to Stavros Gregos, formally General Stavros Gregos under Assad. She would have had no trouble arranging transport to Syria, or arranging the torture and murder of a man at the hands of any number of the militant factions at war there.”
“Sarkovski,” Pete repeated. “You think he’s bankrolling the project?”
“He has the money and the requisite lack of humanity.” Rafe shrugged. “Why else would Jack have a dossier on him?”
“Gotta wonder if Dr. Gordon is still alive,” Pete murmured, looking at her photo.
“She got him killed,” Sean said bluntly.
“She cared for him,” Ruby corrected, and they all looked at her.
“These aren’t their only communications,” she continued, holding up the emails from the folder. “They can’t be.”
Sean’s brows rose. “Why not?”
“Have you read them? Really read them? They’re not…informal. They’re personal.”
“What’re you sayin’?”
“She tells him she’s sorry for involving him. That she wishes she’d never reached out. To watch his back, to be careful. To remember what she said—something not contained in these messages. There was a lot more to their correspondence than what’s here. They knew each other.”
“Bloody hell,” Sean said.
Rafe’s thoughts exactly. “Are you saying they were lovers?”
“I don’t know.” Ruby looked at him. “Maybe. But at the least, they were friends.”
Friends. Something heated and frustrated and deeply painful moved through him.
Friends, he thought. Like us.
Whether she would admit it or not.
“As of last week, she was still on Magnolia’s payroll,” Sean muttered. “So it’s a safe bet she’s still breathin’.”
“She might be too valuable to kill,” Ruby pointed out. “If she’s their head researcher, they might need her alive more than they want her dead.”
“For now,” Pete said.
Again, silence fell.
“We need to find her,” Ruby said. “She’s the key.”
Rafe’s gaze narrowed on her. She continued to surprise him.
Which would no doubt make her even angrier with him than she already was.
Underestimating her.
When would he learn?
“That she is,” Sean said grimly.
“Have you been out to the site?” Rafe asked him.
“Aye. Not much to see. Most of it’s buried.”
“How did you know where it was?”
“Jackie sent me the GPS coordinates two days before he died.”
“He knew,” Rafe said.
“Aye, he did.”
Another moment of painful silence.
“The Red Cock,” Ruby said, breaking it. “We need to see if we can find a lead on Gordon.”
“Me and the old man are out.” Sean folded his arms and leaned against Mickey’s wall of evidence. “I’m too Irish, and he’s too…spook. They’ll be watchin’ for us—his brother and his partner.”
“I’ll go,” she said.
Rafe sat up abruptly. “No.”
“Me too,” Pete added. “We can split up, divide, and conquer.”
“It’s a small town bar, filled with locals. You’ll stick out like sore thumbs.”
“We’re tourists.” Pete shrugged. “Just an old Canadian and his young, beautiful American lover in town to see the Sognefjord."
For a moment, Rafe couldn’t speak.
“We have comms,” Sean said. “We can wire you so we know what’s happening. Just in case.”
Just in case.
The words turned Rafe’s blood cold.
“No,” he said, his voice like frost.
Ruby only ignored him. “Tonight?”
Pete shrugged. “No time like the present.”
She stood. “I’m going to get cleaned up.”
“No,” Rafe growled.
She walked out of the room.
“She’ll be okay,” Pete told him mildly. “She’ll be with me.”
Rafe stared at him. “If anything happens to her—”
“Relax, old man,” Sean scoffed. “She’s here. Let her have her turn.”
But she shouldn’t be.
She shouldn’t be.
“Nothing will happen,” Pete said calmly. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“You’d fucking better,” Rafe told him.
Thirteen
Anyone says anything they shouldn’t, anyone looks at you wrong, anyone even thinks about touching you, you get the hell out. Do you hear me?
Ruby took a deep breath and tried to shake off the warning.
But she was all too aware of Rafe, his intensity unabated by the physical distance between them; even reduced to the small earwig she wore, he was larger than life.
Pain in my ass.
She was nervous enough without him breathing down her neck. Oh, she had faked her way through plenty of crazy situations before; growing up in the ‘hood, working as a paramedic, being a Messenger, all had required a fake it ‘til you make it attitude.
But nothing like this.
Infiltration.
Her adrenaline was redlining; she felt drunk on endorphins.
Thrilled and horrified and excited as hell.
She’d always known the adrenaline junkie in her would likely be the end of her. But she’d never imagined it playing out like this.
Not in a million years.
Rafe was close to having kittens. It was, she thought, sublime.
She sat at the narrow wooden bar of The Red Cock Pub, which was a surprisingly light and airy establishment, with a sleek, modern interior and stark black and white prints of the infamous Sognefjord hanging on its walls. The music was Swedish, the drinks were cold, and the people were, by and large, young.
It was not what Ruby had expected.
Pete was somewhere in the bar behind her, mingling. They’d walked in separately, despite his comment about being a Canadian tourist, and he was working the room with surprising skill. He’d shaved and slicked back his steel-gray hair; clad in a black blazer, denim shirt, and a pair of freshly polished cowboy boots, he was, Ruby had realized, a handsome man.
Hard and worn, his face deeply lined. But strong and uncompromising, attractive in a way that had nothing to do with beauty.
Ruby liked him. He was kind, and it was clear he wasn’t just Rafe’s friend, but his mentor as well. A man who advised and counseled Rafe with stubborn, relentless, exasperated patience, one who cared for him deeply.
Rafe was damned lucky to have him, Ruby thought.
Did he even realize that?
His mother might have been a first-rate asshole, but he’d been given many others. His guardian, Cheyenne; Jack and Pete. Even Sean looked at him with respect. Annoyance and mockery and open irritation, but respect as well.
The stupid man. He had so much more than he realized.
“What do you see, sweetheart?” Speak of the devil. “Talk to me.”
She sighed.
“Hi,” said a new voice, and she looked up to see a man slide onto the stool beside her. “You’re not from around here.”
An American, she realized. Good looking, with a friendly smile and expensive clothes.
“What gave me away?” she asked.
His gaze drifted over her. “We Americans always stand out.”
For better or worse, she thought wryly. It was something she’d noticed, too.
“I’m Ferris,” he said and held out his hand.
“Jenifer,” she replied and shook it.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Tell him no,” said the devil in her ear.
“Sure,” she said.
“What’s your poison?”
She showed him her beer.
“Definitely American,” Ferris said and grinned.
He caught the bartender’s attention and ordered two more beers. Then he settled in and eyed her. “So what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“That pick up line is older than I am,” she told him.
“Does that mean you won’t tell me?”
They were flirting, she thought. How odd.
Because she wasn’t that girl; she’d never been that girl.
Her life hadn’t ever been that simple. Things like flirting, dating, even sex, had been secondary to survival. She had come first. And as time had passed, finding someone had seemed…unimportant.
That ship, she’d often thought, had sailed.
So, to find herself now seated at a bar with a man who was smiling at her in open interest was…surreal.
Par for the course.
“Tell him to get bent,” muttered the devil.
“I came to see the Sognefjord," she said, ignoring him.
Ferris lifted a brow. “That’s a long trip just to see a fjord.”
Ruby studied him for a long, silent moment. “My mother was born here. She died when I was five, and I always wanted to see her country. I suppose I’m here because I want to feel close to her.”
Ferris blinked.
“She’s bloody good,” Sean murmured in her ear.
“Stifle,” Rafe told him.
“I’m sorry,” Ferris said. “Do you like it?”
“It’s incredible,” Ruby replied honestly. “I’m in love.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty intense. Where are you from?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Go Pack.” Ferris grinned. “I’m a Cowboys fan, myself.”
“A Texan?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tipped an imaginary hat. “So, have you been out to Sognefjord yet?”
“Not yet.” She sipped her beer. “What’s a boy from the Lone Star state doing at the top of the world?”
“I’m a computer engineer. I do IT work for Magnolia.”
