In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite), page 23
He wouldn’t have fallen in love with her.
Emotion. Emotions get you killed.
Wade Price had taught him that. And now he stood in Wade’s house with his widow, determined to save his youngest son, no matter the cost to himself.
She must have heard him move, because she looked up. Her eyes were hollow reflections of fear and despair in the golden glow of the afternoon light filtering through the curtains.
It was a little after six-thirty. They had less than a half hour to call Boyle.
JP walked into the living room and sat down beside her. “We’re going to find it,” he said, hoping his voice held more conviction than he felt. “Whatever it is. We’ll get your family back.”
“I don’t know where else to look.” She swiped at her tears with shaky fingers. “There’s no time left. And there’s no place else to search.”
“Let’s talk about it. Let’s think,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing and confident tone. “Was there something he did when he was in here? A habit he might have had?”
She stared at him, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. “You don’t understand,” she said, anguish in her voice. “I don’t remember!” A trickle of tears flowed down her cheeks. “I can’t remember the details of Wade. The things he did or said. Not anymore.”
Was that good or bad? Good, but he couldn’t help but think selfishly. Not now. He pushed everything from his mind except the need to find Wade’s secret hiding place.
Focus, get the job done, and survive.
Another of Wade’s rules.
“He knew he’d been set up,” JP began. “When he was worried, or when he did talk about work, what did he say?”
“Nothing. I never knew what he did exactly,” she replied. She’d controlled her tears. “I still don’t know. He was so contained. He had nothing here from his life before. Buck. Buck was what he cared about, what he brought with him.”
“What about you and Cole? Anything of yours that was important to him?”
She stared at him for a moment, then bowed her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
This wasn’t helping. But he didn’t know what else to do.
Damn it! There had to be something!
“Framed,” she said, her head still bowed.
“What?”
“He was set up.” She looked up and met his gaze. “Framed. That’s what it said on that receipt. But he knew you’d know that. Right?”
He nodded, even though he hadn’t.
“So why write that one word? Not an explanation?”
JP’s mind raced. Framed. So, what else could it—Jesus. How had he not thought about the other meaning? As in…a frame? He regarded her, hope blossoming. “There was another word on the paper. ‘Back.’”
“My God!” She jumped up and looked at the wall. A watercolor of a southern plantation and several other paintings hung on one wall. On the one opposite, above a drop-leaf table, a collection of family photos hung, all framed.
Framed. Back.
“That’s it! The back of one of those,” she said, pointing excitedly.
JP shook his head. “No. Brooks searched the house. That’s definitely one of the first places he would have looked.”
“Not the picture, the frame,” she replied. “Would he have searched the frame itself?”
JP considered that. “Maybe not thoroughly.”
“How about a frame behind his back?”
JP’s eyes narrowed. “Did he sit there?” He indicated one of the overstuffed chairs closest to that wall. “Maybe with one of those behind him?” He studied the family pictures.
“No,” she said after a pause, her voice firmer than he’d heard so far. “He always sat on the couch, so he could put his feet on the coffee table.” She turned toward it. “Cole. He loved Cole.” She pivoted toward the lamp table with the pictures of Cole.
There were three photos. Cole, sitting up, probably not a year old. A posed picture. She opened the back and tore apart the frame, checking it by tapping on it, then rapping it against the edge of the lamp table. “It would sound hollow, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Let me have it. He took a pocketknife and pried open the narrow wooden frame.
Nothing.
They tackled the other picture, the one that showed Cole with a stuffed animal. A bear. And again there was nothing.
“What about his stuffed bear?” JP asked.
“I checked it. There’s nothing,” she replied, reaching for the third picture. She stopped. “It wouldn’t be a microdot or some other small spy thing would it?”
He’d thought of that, but had discarded the possibility. Wade had no way to create something like that without help from the techies. Not as quickly as he’d needed it. “No, I don’t think so. More likely it would be an old-school paper list, or maybe a thumb drive or some other computer storage device.”
She shook her head. “Wade didn’t use a computer here. Ever. Besides, Brooks took away my computer and every thumb drive he saw. He’d have found anything Wade might have left.”
“And Boyle would know if Brooks found something because he somehow has access to Agency information.”
The third picture was one of her with Cole, laughing. Cole’s second birthday. She stopped. “Wade wasn’t even here when this was taken.” She looked up at him, then opened the portrait anyway. There was nothing there, either.
“Another picture then. What was important—” He reached for the picture he’d seen that first night. The one that told him he’d found Wade. A photo of Abby in her wedding dress. Wade had his back to the camera; only one side of his face was visible, as he looked over his shoulder.
His back.
“Ron was there, at the wedding. He came late,” she said when she saw which photo JP was looking at. “That’s why Wade turned. I never really thought about it before, but he hated for anyone to be behind him.”
JP pulled the backing away. The picture fell to the floor, faceup. The backing slid to one side. He ignored them and pried open the wood along the corners.
And there it was. A tightly rolled piece of paper, not thick, not too long. A note, like one from those pads his mother had kept on her refrigerator for her grocery list.
He unrolled it.
Abby pointed the penlight at it. “It’s gibberish,” she said, her voice betraying despair.
Code. Wade had written this in code, with tiny writing, on both sides. A code they’d agreed on several years ago.
“It’s proof. Evidence he planned to use,” JP said. “He gathered this over time.”
He read quickly, stumbling a few times as he tried to decipher Wade’s random words. “He worked with Frank Boyle during Boyle’s last year. He didn’t trust him. When Boyle came here as Ron, Wade got even more suspicious and decided to check him out.” JP stopped interpreting, read on. Silently.
Wade. The cowboy. Everything black or white. No gray for Wade.
But no real proof, either, just suspicious coincidences. But Wade believed Boyle was using his knowledge of Agency operations to interfere with field assignments. JP seethed when he read which ops Wade thought Boyle had sold out, remembering the men who’d died.
JP read this entry carefully, fully aware of the intensity of Abby’s gaze on him. Her expectations. When he reached the end, he folded the paper.
“What does it say?”
He couldn’t tell her the specifics, and not just because these were clandestine operations. He didn’t tell her because it would reveal so much that she didn’t need to know. About Wade, about himself. About what they did.
“It’s Wade’s suspicions of sabotaged jobs within the Agency.”
“Yours?”
“The last one, yes.”
“Would this be enough to prove to the CIA that you and Wade didn’t do anything wrong?”
He hesitated. “Maybe. If Brooks listens, which after a year of chasing me, he probably won’t.”
“Which is why you ran.”
“Yes.”
“And the reason Brooks came here accusing Wade.”
“Yes.” The same reason JP had come here. Frank Boyle knew just how to play things. To set him up.
“I don’t have any way to make a copy. No scanner. After you give this to Ron, will you remember what it says?”
She still wanted to prove Wade a hero. This might just do it. JP nodded. “Yes, I will.” He pulled out his cell phone. “But just in case, I’ll take a couple of photos. Not sure they’ll come out, or that they’ll stand up as real evidence, but it’s worth a shot.” He clicked a few photos of the front and the back, getting as close as he could and still be in focus.
He felt a surge of relief. He hadn’t lied to her. And he’d managed to keep the most damaging of Wade’s—and his own—secrets hidden.
If he could get her family back safely, maybe, just maybe, there was a chance she’d understand. If she did, maybe they had a chance at a real relationship.
…
It was a good thing Abby was sitting down. Her knees were shaking so badly she would fall if she’d had to walk. But that’s what they had to do. To get Cole and Steve back.
JP punched a button on his cell phone.
“It won’t work,” she said. “The towers are too far away. Just use the house phone.”
“I don’t want to risk Brooks interfering at this point. The house phone is probably bugged.”
“We’ll have to drive toward town then, or the freeway. You can usually get a roaming signal there.”
“Let’s go,” he said, pocketing the phone and the note. “I’ll send the pictures to someone I’m pretty sure I can trust before I make the call to Boyle.”
They walked down the hall to the kitchen. When he turned off his penlight, she did as well. He looked out the windows, focused on the woods where they’d parked the car.
“We’ll go out the same way we came in.”
Moments later they were again in the woods, walking toward the car. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour but had fallen behind the trees, casting them in flashes of light and shadow.
JP stopped. Abby nearly bumped into him. “What?” she asked in a whisper when he signaled for her to stop. She strained to hear anything except the sounds of the summer afternoon. The insects and frogs had quit calling the moment they drew near, but she could hear others singing farther away. Nothing disturbed the quiet.
JP aimed the shotgun into the shadows, completely and utterly alert.
There. She heard it now. Rustling in the undergrowth. The sense that something or someone was there. Her heart raced. She held her breath.
With a signal for her to stay, he moved forward. One step, two. Patiently. Silently. As if he weren’t there. As if he were stalking prey.
She was sure he could hear her heart pounding. But his entire concentration was on whatever he’d heard.
He signaled her to move forward. She tried to move as he had, place her feet in the places where he’d stepped, crushing down the weeds noiselessly. But she heard her footsteps. Loud. Obtrusive.
Again, with incredible grace and silence, he moved closer toward the car. She could see a bit of it now, between the shadows and trees, in the evening glow.
“Drop it, Blackmon.”
The disembodied voice made her gasp. JP didn’t even flinch.
“I’m aiming at her,” the male voice said. Deep. Smooth. She recognized it.
Brooks.
“Throw it to your right,” the order came. “Not even you can get me before I pull the trigger.”
JP threw the shotgun to one side. It thudded against the ground.
“Now, Abby,” Brooks said, “step toward him.”
She was sure it was Brooks, wasn’t she? A flash of light caught her attention. She looked down.
A small red dot. On her chest. Oh, God. He had one of those laser things to help him aim, like she’d seen in movies. “Brooks?”
“Move, Abby,” Brooks said. “JP, don’t even consider it.”
The red dot stayed with her, steady and menacing. She was sure she’d fall as she took the few steps she needed to stand next to JP.
“She has no part in this, Brooks. None,” JP said.
“Put your hands on your head. Both of you.”
Somehow, stiffly, Abby managed to raise her arms. JP raised his, too, his hands on the back of his head.
“Ron has my son, Brooks. Let us go so we can—”
“What is she talking about?” Brooks asked JP, as if she didn’t exist.
“Local guy named Ron Hodges is really Frank Boyle. I’m guessing you already know that. He’s holding Cole Price and Abby’s brother, Steve,” JP replied. “I have to call him before seven or they’re dead. There aren’t any cell phone towers around here. We have to drive toward town.”
“You found it, then,” Brooks said. There was a pause. “You drive, Abby. Move to the car.”
“Brooks, please, my son—”
“Shut up and move!”
Fear robbed her of thought, but she walked toward the car. It took a lifetime to reach it. She still couldn’t see Brooks. He was just a voice off to one side.
“Where’s your spare gun?” Brooks asked.
“Duffel,” JP replied.
But it wasn’t, Abby knew. He had it on him. She didn’t know where. He’d dropped his holster in a Dumpster in Amarillo before they’d arrived at the airport.
“Put your palms flat on the front end of the car. Abby, get JP’s bag. And don’t either of you think you can do anything. I still have my gun on Abby.”
The little light was still shining on her—a tiny red dot that followed wherever she moved. It wasn’t always on her chest. Sometimes she could tell it was on her neck. It had flashed in her eye once.
“She doesn’t know what Wade left,” JP said. “Let her go.”
There was silence from the woods. After a hesitation, Brooks spoke. “Wade didn’t tell her anything, did he?”
“No. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Good old Wade. We wasted all this time recording her phone calls, monitoring her movements. And the whole time she didn’t know a thing.”
“I don’t understand,” Abby said finally.
“Brooks is no better than Frank Boyle,” JP said in disgust.
Then it all became clear. She’d thought Brooks was doing this because she was here with JP, helping him. But that wasn’t it at all. Brooks was part of this whole mess. Maybe he hadn’t known Ron had kidnapped Cole and Steve, but that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted what Wade had hidden.
“Makes no difference,” Brooks replied. “Frank won’t be with us much longer.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Shut up and get the duffel. JP, keep your hands on the car, legs back and spread.”
Brooks was afraid of JP, she realized. Afraid he’d pull a gun and shoot him. With good reason. He would find a way to get them out of this. When she opened the car door and reached inside, she had to move her bag to grab JP’s. She didn’t want to turn, afraid Brooks would shoot her.
Coward. She had to get through this. For Cole and Steve.
For JP.
She turned, the duffel in her right hand. Brooks was in the clearing now. He wore no suit coat, but his slacks were carefully creased, his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, still looked crisp, and he held a gun in his right hand.
“Toss it out in the woods,” he said.
She glanced at JP, hoping he’d somehow figured out what to do and would tell her, as he had in Ocean Springs. But he was staring at the car hood.
She threw the bag out, slinging it in an arc.
“I’m not going to frisk you,” Brooks said to JP. “I don’t need her alive. I know you have a weapon. Get rid of it. You so much as think about turning around and she’s dead.” He waited.
JP reached into the back waistband of his jeans, beneath the shirttail of his denim shirt, and tossed the handgun into the woods.
The little red light stayed on her the whole time.
“Good. Now, JP, reach in your pocket and put the keys on the car.”
She waited, breath tight in her throat. All she needed was a signal. Something.
The keys jingled as JP put them on the car.
“Get the keys, Abby,” Brooks ordered.
With the tiny red bead on her shoulder, she walked toward JP. He must have a plan now. He’d give her some instructions.
She took the keys. JP did nothing.
“JP, passenger seat,” Brooks said from just behind the rear door on the driver’s side. “When he’s inside, Abby, you get behind the wheel.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as soon as they were both in the car.
Brooks got in the backseat and closed the door. “Go toward the freeway,” he ordered.
She couldn’t see it, but she sensed the menace of the red dot on the back of her head. Now she realized JP wouldn’t do anything for fear Brooks would kill her.
It was all up to her.
Chapter 15
All JP needed was a chance, a tiny opening, but Brooks was being careful to the extreme. And he held the trump card—a gun at Abby’s head.
“Keep your hands on the dash,” Brooks ordered him as Abby started the engine. “One false move from you and she dies. I don’t give a damn if we crash.”
That told him the son of a bitch had nothing left to lose.
Abby drove down the path and onto the dirt road. “Which way?”
“I said to the freeway,” Brooks repeated.
She was terrified, she had to be, but she was gutsy. She didn’t even flinch at Brooks’s harshly worded command. She turned onto the dirt road, then onto the county road that led to the freeway.
“My gun is still aimed at her head. Take out your cell phone,” Brooks ordered. They rode in silence as JP slowly pulled it from his jeans’ pocket, careful not to give Brooks any reason to shoot.
“Hold it up so I can see it,” Brooks said. “Don’t want you calling anyone.” When the freeway came into view, he said, “Abby, pull over to the side of the road.”
Abby did as he ordered and brought the car to a halt.
