Cold Silence, page 29
“You used me.” Pain seared across her chest. He’d stuck close to her so he’d be the first to know when and if they tracked down EG’s real identity. He’d gotten to know her out of suspicion and utility. The sex was probably an unexpected bonus.
“I think you’re amazing, Yael. I was a fucked-up idiot who fucked up.” He dragged his hand over his hair. “I think what we have could be special. I want to see where this can go…”
Inside she felt ice cold. “I thought you didn’t do relationships.”
“I might. For you.” His voice cracked.
Silence stretched between them until he finally broke it. “I’m not talking about getting married, but dammit, you could at least meet me halfway here.”
“I did meet you halfway, Shane, but you lied to me and I don’t know if I can forgive you for that.” The truth rang out, shocking in its honesty. And maybe halfway wasn’t enough for a real relationship, not one built on lies.
He swore before they both climbed into the truck and drove silently back to Building 64.
She opened the door to get out, knowing she needed to end this now while she had a hope of surviving with her heart even vaguely intact. “I’m not looking for anything complicated, Shane. I thought this was a bit of fun to ease a stressful situation. I thought you understood that.”
She forced herself to look him in the eye when she lied. He was going to hate her soon enough anyway. “It’s probably best if we keep everything between us strictly professional from now on.”
Alex came to the main entrance with a tense look on his face. “I think I’ve found something.”
Yael jumped out and went into the building without waiting for Shane. She couldn’t bring herself to face him. It hurt too much.
29
Several hours later, Shane was still pissed as he and Alex Parker covertly approached Ethan Grice’s home on the edge of Charlotte, North Carolina. They’d flown down here on Parker’s company jet.
Yael was still onboard the aircraft, along with Ashley Chen. The rest of the task force was split between Quantico and staging at Andrews Air Force Base, ready to take off as soon as they had a potential location on Grice. SWAT teams around the country were on high alert as were HRT’s Blue team who were currently training on the west coast.
The fact Yael had pushed him away seconds after she’d come apart in his arms was driving him nuts—as if the sexual connection they shared was nothing out of the ordinary. He was still furious, with himself mainly.
For the first time in years, he was the one trying to prolong a relationship. They seemed to share something amazing. The fact he hadn’t been completely honest at the start made him feel like a jerk, but he’d had legitimate concerns and hadn’t been thinking straight.
Now she’d shut him out and he didn’t like it. Not at all.
Male ego? Maybe.
He understood that she was angry with him for the lack of trust and the invasion of privacy but, considering EG had infiltrated the task force via Parker’s team, his initial suspicion wasn’t so far-fetched. She was spooked but he didn’t think it was his actions that scared her—more the thought of getting involved with someone and he totally got that. She was still in danger from this psycho motherfucker though. It wasn’t like he could walk away and let her fend for herself, even if he wanted to.
He figured that they needed to catch this asshole and then he could work on things with Yael.
“Reminds me of Mallory’s home when we first met,” Alex said wryly, glancing at the houses on the edge of the trees.
Shane grunted again. He liked Alex well enough but he didn’t want to talk about the guy’s perfect life or ideal wife.
Alex shot him a look. “You and Yael have a falling out?”
“What gave it away?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the icy silence or awkward atmosphere on the flight down here? Or maybe your current brooding demeanor. I take it there was an argument?”
Shane made another non-committal sound. He couldn’t make out the guy’s expression in the darkness. They were both dressed completely in black including balaclavas and thin gloves. No FBI markings or insignia. They both glowed a ghostly green through night vision goggles. This was an off-the-books op that Ashley Chen said it was better she knew nothing about.
“Hard to argue when the other person refuses to talk to you.” Pretending she’d only been into him for the sex? It was laughable. He’d done plenty of only-for-the-sex relationships and this wasn’t it. Yael was too complex for a relationship to be that uncomplicated or two dimensional. What really surprised him was the fact he wanted more.
“I fucked up,” Shane admitted. “I was suspicious of her at first. Figured if anyone was a leak in the task force it would be someone like her, or you.” He shot Alex a look in the darkness. They kept their voices barely above a whisper. “People who can manipulate the internet into saying whatever it is you want it to say. She wasn’t too happy when I admitted that to her earlier.”
“Ah. I’m used to people being suspicious of me and, frankly, I don’t trust anyone I haven’t checked out all the way back to kindergarten.” Alex paused again and Shane did too. “But Yael has had some bad life experiences.”
“Yeah? Join the club.”
“You’ve always had someone to fall back on. Your family, your SF buddies, your teammates.”
Alex Parker seemed to know a lot about him. Maybe it was Shane’s questions at the motel the other day. Maybe it was the fact he was sleeping with his employee—or rather had been sleeping with his employee before he’d been unceremoniously dumped after the best sex of his life.
Alex continued, thankfully oblivious to Shane’s wandering thoughts. “She hasn’t had anyone in her life for a very long time.”
And now her best friend had been kidnapped by a maniac. Shane’s mood slumped deeper into the dumps.
“In fact, she’s only recently realizing that there are people in the world she can trust.”
Shane stared at Alex’s shadow and the not-so-subtle reprimand. “What happened?”
“It’s not my story to tell,” Alex stated simply.
Shane ground his teeth with frustration.
“For the record, I don’t think she’s told anyone about her past. Not even Laura.”
“But you know all about it?” Shane asked.
“I figured it out before I offered her a job.”
“Did she know that?”
Alex shook his head. “No. Unlike some people, I know when not to push.”
Fuck.
“I know what it’s like not to know who you can trust. To never feel completely worthy of the people you care about…”
Shane did care for her and thought she might care about him too. The feelings he had for her were stronger than he’d expected them to be and not something he’d planned for. What had started out as leveraging her knowledge about computers had turned into so much more.
But perhaps it was better to end things now, before either of them got hurt. He didn’t have the sort of job that lent itself to relationships. Gone for weeks at a time and on call for the rest. Plus, she wasn’t good for his focus, and lack of focus got people killed.
He thought about Scotty and Grace and acid crawled up his esophagus. They’d both lost everything. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about his love life. This was the time to concentrate on catching Scotty’s killer. Maybe then they could all move on with their lives.
They continued moving stealthily through the woods, still some distance from their target.
Alex wasn’t done with him yet.
“Before I met Mallory, I didn’t let anyone close. I told myself I did it to protect them but in reality, I was scared. Scared of rejection. Scared of not being deemed worthy if they knew the whole truth.”
Shane shot the guy a glance. Was he talking about being an assassin for the CIA? “I doubt Yael has a history of covert ops.”
Alex laughed reluctantly. “She does not, but she’s a gentle soul and has reasons to guard her emotions.”
That gentle soul had tossed him aside like he was a live grenade. Hadn’t seemed to matter to her whether or not he had any feelings on the issue.
After a few more minutes they reached their destination.
“That’s the place.”
They watched for five long minutes but there was no sign of activity from inside. Alex started silently across the frost-damaged lawn. They reached the backdoor and, in under a minute, Alex had picked the very expensive lock.
“Wait.” He held up his hand, pulled out some sort of device and turned it on. Then he sent a text and twenty seconds later the whole neighborhood went dark. Alex eased open the backdoor and headed straight to the alarm system that was starting to beep on auxiliary battery power. The beeps got closer together and Shane braced himself to move fast if the alarm went off.
A triple beep told Shane the system was disarmed and they were in.
“Won’t EG know someone’s in his house?” Shane whispered.
“Not with my little gadget. And I’ve turned on a signal blocker that prevents any listening devices or cameras from transmitting within a ten-meter radius in case he has some hidden inside the house. If EG notices the interference on any of the feeds hopefully he’ll put it down to the power outage.”
“How long until the power company turns it back on?”
“We should have about thirty minutes. If EG investigates the issue he’ll see that there is an area outage. And Yael is all set up to follow anyone checking for outages who is not situated in the immediate area.”
Shane’s mouth tightened. “Smart.”
“Yael’s idea.”
Like Shane hadn’t already guessed that.
Alex flipped up the NVGs and they both turned on their red-beamed flashlights. The rest of the FBI didn’t know about this place yet. Alex wanted to search for the crypto before Evidence Response Teams got in here because doing otherwise would slow them down. He wanted to barter Laura’s life for EG’s fortune.
“You really think he left the money here?”
“Yep. He doesn’t trust banks and he doesn’t think we’ll find this place.” The house was registered to a corporation and hidden under layers and layers of shell companies. “I doubt he’d risk carrying it all on his person in case he was mugged or apprehended. It probably isn’t all of the money but I’d wager it’s the bulk of it.”
Shane knew that, ideally, they’d stake out the place and arrest the fucker when he came home to pick up the cash. But EG had Laura and no one wanted her to die.
“Where do we start?”
“Panic room.”
“You saw the blueprints?” Shane asked in surprise.
Alex shook his head. “Simpler than that. As soon as I located the property, I found an old real estate listing. It mentioned a panic room.”
“He never did any killing here, right?” Shane didn’t want to contaminate evidence of a crime scene if he could help it.
“Not that we know of but anything is possible.”
A shiver ran over Shane’s back. Ethan Grice was a serial killer with no morals and zero empathy. Who knew when he first started his grisly trade.
Shane followed Alex to a large bookcase and they quickly figured out the opening mechanism and pulled the doors wide. Behind the cases was a steel door.
“Four-inch-thick steel with a 10-gauge carbon steel inner plate. Eleven bolts form the locking mechanism which also has electronic lock guards.”
“Great. How do we get in?” Shane eyed it. “I could probably blow the hinges and bolts.”
“The amount of explosives required might destroy everything inside which is fine except I want the hardware wallets intact.”
The thought of giving Grice the money left a bad taste in Shane’s mouth but he wasn’t sure he could live with the alternative either. Hopefully they could catch the guy during the exchange—if he took the bait.
Alex leaned closer to examine the electronic lock which had shifted to some sort of auxiliary power system. He removed the faceplate and attached another small electronic gadget to some of the wires. Then they waited.
Every second ramped up the tension. The hairs on his nape rose. What if the sonofabitch had boobytrapped this space?
Fifty seconds felt like an eternity but finally the lock clicked and Alex pushed on the lever, spinning it in a circle until it unlocked and came ajar.
Shane halted the door with his foot and ran the flashlight around the crack of the opening. Satisfied, he moved his foot. “Looks clear.”
They headed inside. There was a comfy couch set up in front of a TV and gaming console. A desk and a computer that was currently turned off.
A large refrigerator stood in one corner and there was also a small chemical toilet. The place was equipped with enough supplies to last for a month, easily.
A sweatshirt hung off the back of the chair but apart from that, the room didn’t give anything away about the person who owned it. No photographs or artwork. No books or magazines. It wasn’t much cozier than a prison cell which held a high degree of irony.
Alex went over to the desk and carefully opened the drawers. “Bingo.”
Shane took some photographs on his phone. Alex slipped something that looked remarkably like a couple of data sticks and key fobs inside an evidence bag that Shane handed him.
Shane checked the rest of the room and found two more wallets beside a small surveillance unit placed near the door.
“Here.”
Alex took photos and scooped them up into the bag also.
“Why does he have so many? I thought you could store billions on a single wallet?”
“Probably in case he loses one—doesn’t want all his eggs in one basket. I expect he’s carrying plenty with him in case he needs to run, but this is his retirement plan.”
“Looks like he planned to hide out here if the cops ever tracked him down. Might have worked too.”
“FBI will put a watch on this place in case he decides to come back here, but once he realizes we cleared him out, I doubt he’ll be back unless he thinks we missed something.”
They headed out of the panic room and closed the door. Alex reassembled the keypad before removing the gizmo off the alarm panel. Silently they headed out the door, into the trees, leaving no trace they’d ever been there. Alex sent a text to Yael and a few seconds later distant streetlights and houses once more started to glow.
Shane checked his watch. Time was ticking for Laura Bay. “Think he’ll go for it?”
Alex remained silent.
It was pretty much the only hope they had right now.
“Where are they?” Bile burned the back of Yael’s throat every time she thought about Laura being at that monster’s mercy. She glanced at the time. 2:03 a.m. They only had a few hours until the auction went live and every psychopath in the world got to bid on the worst way to torture and humiliate her friend.
Ashley checked a text on her cell. “They’re back.”
She went over to the door of the jet and opened it. Shane and Alex came inside and Ashley quickly secured the door behind them.
Yael tried not to think about how good Shane looked dressed all in black. Why one man looked like the best thing in the world despite bristling with weapons, whilst another turned her stomach holding nothing more sinister than a screwdriver, she wasn’t sure. “Did you find it?”
Shane nodded and a wave of relief filled her.
Alex pulled a bag of six different hardware wallets out of one of his pockets. He handed them to Ashley.
Yael sat at the computer and embedded a beacon into the metadata of one of the images Alex sent her. It would tell them where, when and on what device the image was opened.
The plan was for Ethan’s boss to email Grice’s work address telling him he had something he needed urgently from the guy. The email itself would be the photo along with a message from Alex asking EG to contact them on a cell number if he wanted his crypto back. If he hurt Laura, he’d never see any of it again.
Grice had turned his work email settings to render HTML without images but Yael had superseded his previous instructions. There was a good chance that he wouldn’t realize until it was too late. Hopefully it would give them a glimpse of his location. At worst it would let the bastard know Alex had the guy’s fortune in crypto.
In the meantime, they had to wait.
Shane stored his assault rifle in a room at the back of the plane and Yael tensed when he came and sat beside her. She met his stormy green eyes.
“Don’t worry. I can act professional.” Shane’s lips pulled back in a half smile. “Even when I don’t want to.”
A lump formed in her throat and the unexpected threat of tears had her blinking and looking away. She nodded. Grateful and heartbroken all at the same time.
She watched Ashley and Alex work on the email and finally agree upon the text before they sent it off. It was possible EG wouldn’t check any email accounts for fear of being tracked, but the alternative was announcing they had the crypto on the dark web which EG would probably view as both a humiliation and a challenge. This sort of coward was bound to take his anger out on the innocent.
Yael clenched her fists. “What do we do now?”
Ashley flicked a glance at her then at Shane. “We wait.”
“We’ll take off and head west for a while.” HRT had planes on both coasts ready to go in minutes. “Why don’t you get some sleep?” Alex suggested.
She could barely keep her eyes open. “I don’t want to.”
“I’ll wake you if we hear anything.”
She shot Shane a glance and the atmosphere seemed to thicken between them. She blew out a large breath. Nodded. Sleep made sense. She was exhausted and she didn’t want to think. She closed her laptop and found a couch where she could lie down.
30
Ethan opened his phone to look for the nearest drive-thru along this deserted stretch of highway when he saw he had an email notification from his boss. Sneering, he clicked on the message, expecting either gossip about the arrogant prick Eric Pierce who had hopefully died of his wounds or a request to cut short his vacation and come in to work as they were now short-staffed.
