The ground dropped out from under her feet. The world tilted on its axis as she rolled end over end. Branches and bushes scratched at her skin as blackness closed in at the edges of her vision. Sliding down the last few feet before the road, Elizabeth closed her eyes as the oxygen rushed from her lungs, unsure how long she lay there.
“Liz!” a male voice called.
She recognized that voice. A deep rumbling tore down the road, growing louder, and she forced her eyes open. “Sullivan?”
“I’ve got tracks!” Her boss’s voice grew fainter, but she couldn’t respond. Not without giving away her position to the shooter.
No. This wasn’t the end. Not today. Another explosion of pain throttled through her as she flipped onto her side. Her team had come. She wasn’t alone. They’d recover Braxton, and—She covered her mouth to prevent the scream in her throat from escaping. Save energy. Keep moving. “Any extra calories you can sacrifice would help a lot right now, baby girl.”
Thick trees lining the road made it nearly impossible for her to spot movement. If the shooter had followed her, there were countless points where she could be walking straight into another ambush. She wouldn’t be able to see him coming. Elizabeth ran a bloodied hand through her hair. She had to risk it. She had to get to Braxton. Had to get to her team.
Briars and weeds sliced into the bottoms of her feet, but she forced herself to keep moving. Anchorage PD wouldn’t have been far behind Sullivan and the rest of the team. Somebody was getting Braxton the help he needed. She had to believe that. The alternative would rip her world apart, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take after what they’d been through the last five days. How much more heartache was she supposed to bear.
Swiping a hand beneath her runny nose, Elizabeth held her breath at the sound of a snapping twig. Her head pounded in rhythm to her racing heartbeat. She froze, only redirecting her gaze toward the tree line. He’d found her. Was hunting her. The weight of someone watching her—stalking her—pressurized the air in her lungs. Her fingertips tingled with the need to find a weapon. A shadow shifted to her left, and every ounce of willpower screamed for her to run. The tree line was the only way back to Braxton. If the shooter stood between her and getting to him...
“There’s nowhere you can run, Elizabeth. Nowhere you can hide.” That voice. She’d never be able to forget it, and she automatically dug her fingernails into the center of her palms. The shooter stepped from the tree line, gun in hand. The black ski mask shifted as he spoke. “Haven’t I already proven how far I’m willing to go?”
“You can’t get access to Oversight’s programming, can you? Even after I gave you the password when you threatened to throw me over a cliff.” Elizabeth straightened. He was right. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t hide. She’d have to finish this herself. She’d have to go through him. It was the only way to save Braxton. “That’s why you haven’t killed me yet.”
Which meant he wouldn’t kill her until she gave him the access.
“Seems you’ve implemented security measures even I can’t get past.” The man in the mask held the high ground. Any movement and he’d have the advantage. And the longer they stood here talking, the faster Braxton bled out.
“And you never will.” Despite the failed mission that cost Agent Valentin his life, Oversight saved thousands of lives every day by predicting violence and threats. She’d always be proud of that, and she’d do what she had to, to protect it.
Silence stretched between them for the space of two breaths. Three. Time was slipping away too fast. Every beat of Braxton’s heart endangered his life. They were wasting time. Wrapping one hand around his opposite wrist, gun pointed toward his toes, the shooter seemed more businessman than professional hit man. Maybe federal agent. “I’ll make you a deal, Elizabeth. You give me what I want, and I guarantee your bodyguard lives.”
“There’s no way I would ever trust you.” She wasn’t stupid enough to believe he’d ever keep his end of a deal between them. But if she could get close enough to Braxton—ensure he was alive—she could shut down Oversight on her own and end this nightmare.
“Then the alternative is letting him bleed out, and I put a bullet in you now.” The shooter raised the gun with one hand. Taking aim, he scrambled down the hill and closed the short distance between them. He fisted the ski mask with his free hand and tugged it over his head. Familiar dark eyes centered on her. “Do we have a deal?”
“You.” Her knees shook as she stumbled back from the man in the suit. Shaking her head, she fought to keep her balance. “That’s not possible. They said you were—”
“Dead?” Faster than she expected, the shooter slammed the butt of his gun into the side of her face, and Elizabeth dropped hard. Darkness closed in around the edges of her vision, but in the center, a ghost from the past still stared down at her. “Let’s just say it didn’t stick.”
* * *
DEATH HAD TO be earned.
But Braxton wasn’t willing to pay the price. Not until he recovered Liz.
A migraine pulsed behind his eyes. Three hundred stitches. Two bullet wounds. One stab wound to the rib cage. Two transfusions of blood. Hell of a way to die. But this wasn’t over. Liz was missing. Vincent Kalani and Sullivan Bishop had tracked her path through the woods behind his childhood home to the road. As well as the shooter’s. Then they’d simply disappeared. Spots of blood had stained the snow in her tracks. She’d been injured. According to the forensics expert, there’d been clear signs of a struggle, but no evidence of where the bastard had taken her.
He forced his legs over the edge of the hospital bed, and another wave of pain shot through him. Braxton gripped the sheets in his hand. He neutralized the groan working up his throat. Didn’t matter how many bullets he’d taken or how much blood he’d lost, he was getting Liz back. And he’d kill anyone who tried to stop him.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Damn, he wasn’t alone, and hadn’t realized it until right this second. How much anesthesia had the doc given him?
“Look at you sacrificing yourself for others, Levitt.” Elliot Dunham, Blackhawk Security’s private investigator, propped his feet up on the edge of the bed and laced his fingers behind his head. “From what Liz told me about you, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Hell. Of all the people on Liz’s team to send, her boss sent this one. “Aren’t you supposed to be babysitting?”
“Ah, yeah. About that...” Elliot planted the chair back onto the gleaming white tile and rested his elbows against his knees. Narrowing his gaze, the former con man cocked his head. “I kind of...lost your dad.”
A laugh stretched the stitches down his side. Braxton highly doubted that. His old man had a way of disappearing at exactly the right time with exactly the right amount of cash he’d stolen from people’s wallets. “You might want to cancel your credit cards. You’re about to learn who Brolin Levitt really is.”
Elliot patted his back jeans pockets, then his jacket. “Wow, he’s good. Didn’t feel a thing. I’m going to have to get him to show me some moves.”
“Good luck finding him.” He’d probably never see his father again. No loss there. Although Liz might have a hard time with the old man’s disappearance. She’d kept tabs on the addict, made sure he had a place to sleep at night, food to eat. One day she’d understand how pointless all of that was. Brolin Levitt was a selfish son of a bitch. She’d be better off not knowing the real coward behind the drugs. Shoving off the bed, Braxton dropped onto the floor and shot his hands out for balance. He’d been brought in through the emergency room doors seven hours ago. Liz could be anywhere by now. If that SOB hadn’t gotten to her first.
“If you’re going after her, you’re going to want to see this.” Elliot reached for a file folder on the side table and tossed it onto the bed beside Braxton. “Did a little digging into the background of the CIA agent who w
as killed during the trial run for Liz’s program. Justin Valentin.”
“You don’t have clearance for that intel.” Anticipation flooded through him as Braxton reached for the file. A clean-cut photo of the agent had been paper-clipped in front of a military service record, driving record, residency proof and a whole lot more classified documentation Braxton had never seen before. Specific missions, confidential informants Agent Valentin kept. Even as an analyst, he would’ve had to get clearance or federal warrants for the paperwork in this file. “Where did you get all this?”
“You don’t want to know.” Elliot leaned in closer from his position in the chair, dropping his voice to a whisper. “It’s blackmail. I have files on everyone I investigate. And some people I don’t investigate, but that stays between us. Also, I can see straight through your—”
Braxton closed the file and reached for the opening in the back of the hospital gown. If there was another way to make patients more uncomfortable, he didn’t know how it’d be possible. He searched the room. Where the hell were his clothes?
“The hospital staff had a hard time getting all the blood out of your clothes. You know, because there was...a lot. So they were incinerated. Good news, though—” Elliot hauled a duffel bag from beside his chair into his lap “—I brought you some of mine. Should fit. Had to guess your shoe size. Don’t tell Vincent, but they’re his.” The private investigator tossed the bag at him, and Braxton was forced to release his clutch on the gown to catch it. Elliot guarded his eyes, chin to chest. “So Liz built a program for the NSA to spy on civilians, huh? I knew I liked her.”
Digging into the duffel bag, Braxton pulled jeans, socks, boots and a long-sleeve shirt from the depths. He dressed fast. Every minute he wasted here, the higher the chance he’d never see her again. Hiking his foot to the edge of the bed, he suppressed a groan as he laced his borrowed boots. Pain was temporary. Losing Liz, that would be forever. “The program was designed to identify terrorists and criminals before crimes actually happened. It worked ninety-nine percent of the time, too. Oversight has saved thousands of lives.”
“But the one percent got a CIA agent killed last year,” Elliot said.
“That mission tore her apart. Valentin had disguised himself as part of the group he’d infiltrated, and Oversight hadn’t been able to tell the difference because of a line of broken code. Liz blames herself for the mistake.” Braxton studied the photo of Justin Valentin for the second time and narrowed in on the color of the agent’s eyes. Ice blue. Not dark enough for the man in the mask. Justin Valentin wasn’t their unsub and had only a wife and two young boys left behind. None of whom he considered a threat as he looked over their financials within the file. The shooter could be anyone, doing this for any reason, as far as Braxton knew. His shoulders deflated, the stitches protesting along his rib cage. They were back at square one.
Hell, all of this could’ve been prevented if he’d just stayed.
“So does someone else. Whoever is trying to kill her planted Agent Valentin’s fingerprints on those casings from the rooftop shooting.” Elliot leaned back in the chair. “They wanted her to know they knew she created Oversight and about the failed trial run.”
The fingerprints. They were the only piece of evidence left behind in this investigation. He had to look at that report again. “Give me your phone.”
The private investigator tossed him the device, and Braxton wasted no time logging in to his own email for the ballistics report Vincent had forwarded him less than twelve hours ago. Scrolling past the diagrams and countless pages of analysis, he focused on the latent fingerprints recovered from the casings. The shading was too light to have been pulled directly from wherever the prints originated. Elliot was right. They’d been planted on those casings and purposefully left at the scene. Which meant the shooter had pulled them from somewhere else using tape or another adhesive. Something Agent Valentin had to have in his possession and the bastard coming after Liz had gotten ahold of.
“What do you got?” Elliot stood, circling the bed.
“These prints are too light to have been taken directly off the source. They were transferred at least once more onto those casings.” Braxton zeroed in on a corner of one print and turned the phone on its side to zoom in on the area. A small, clearly defined arrow interrupted the impression at the edge of the print. He’d seen that exact shape, combined with a circle and two more arrows like it, before. On the Trident—Beretta’s logo. “The prints were originally lifted off Justin Valentin’s service weapon. A Beretta 92 FS, if I had to guess.”
Elliot took the phone, studying the impressions on the screen. “The CIA’s favored handgun for their field agents. Very nice. Good catch.”
“Whoever wants Liz dead got ahold of a CIA agent’s service weapon in the middle of Afghanistan. Can’t be a long list.” The shooter had made this personal by coming after her. He’d obviously been close to Valentin, blamed her for the agent’s death. Why else plant those fingerprints? Why else play this mind game? Braxton rolled back his left shoulder where he’d taken the second bullet during the fight. He exhaled hard against the pain but rolled it back again. “Valentin didn’t have a partner?”
“Not according to his records.” Elliot reached for the file on the bed, thumbing through the pages. “The last time Justin Valentin was assigned a partner was...” The private investigator scoffed. “A year ago. The agency suspected the partner had sold classified information to the Russians, but the agent died in the line of duty before charges could be brought up. That sucks.”
Braxton straightened a bit more, his instincts on high alert. “What’s the agent’s name?”
“Liam Waters.” Elliot looked up from the file. “Why? You know him?”
“No.” He’d never heard that name before, but it was the only lead they had, and his gut screamed this would get him closer to Liz. Hell, he should’ve fought harder. He should’ve been a step ahead of the shooter who’d taken her, but he’d been so caught up in...her, he hadn’t been able to think straight for days. And it’d gotten her kidnapped. Again. Braxton stretched the stitches in his shoulder. He’d tear this entire city to pieces to find her. And kill anyone who got in his way. “How fast can you get access to Waters’s files?”
“An hour, tops.” The private investigator folded his arms across his chest, file still in hand, and leveraged his weight against the edge of the bed. Gray eyes, darker than Braxton’s, narrowed on him. “What are you thinking?”
“Make it thirty minutes.” He couldn’t wait that much longer. Not when Liz’s life was at risk. Braxton pulled the shoulder holster, complete with a smuggled handgun, from the duffel bag, and maneuvered into it slowly. Another round of pain lightninged through his injuries, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. Nothing would stop him from recovering Liz. And if the shooter turned out to be a dead man after all, he’d make damn sure the bastard never got up again. “I want to know if former agent Liam Waters is really dead.”
Chapter Fourteen
A dull ache at the base of her skull beat through her in rhythm to her heart rate. Elizabeth cracked her eyes then closed them again against the brightness of a wall of active monitors in front of her. Blurry streaks cleared. The wide bay window had been covered with thick blankets. Blue light from the screens highlighted the three walls and large box near a door in her vision but nothing more. No other details. No telling where the shooter had taken her.
Not the shooter. He had a name. Former CIA agent Liam Waters.
And he blamed her for his partner’s death.
“You’re awake.” Footsteps echoed off the worn hardwood flooring, growing closer. “I was beginning to think I’d hit you too hard.”
Flashes of the woods, of Braxton facedown in the snow, crossed her mind, and Elizabeth fought to swallow around the tightness closing in. If Anchorage PD or her team hadn’t made it to the scene in time... She pulled again
st the handcuffs behind her back and two more pairs around her ankles and the legs of the chair. She wasn’t going anywhere. A rush of nausea forced bile into her throat. She licked at dry lips. “How long have I been out?”
“About eight hours.” Waters maneuvered into her vision and stood in front of her, gun loose in his grip at one side. Lines furrowed between his thick eyebrows, a head of dark hair wilder than she remembered from his files. Before he’d joined the CIA, Liam Waters had been part of the fleet antiterrorism security team, or FAST, where he’d been partnered with Agent Justin Valentin for a number of years then accused of selling classified intel to a Russian contact. After Oversight had misidentified Valentin for an extremist, she’d hacked into the agent’s files. Wanted to know the man her program had killed. Agent Liam Waters had been in those files. As were the charges the CIA planned to bring against Agent Valentin’s partner before Waters had been killed in action. Bruising shadows shifted in the light of the monitors as he spoke and, suddenly, he seemed so much...older than she remembered from his files. Worn. Desperate. Not dead after all. “Recognize what’s on the monitors?”
Elizabeth shifted her focus to the screens. City names from across the country popped up on the bottom of each monitor as it scrolled from image to image. Cars passed beneath cameras, civilians walked down streets, thin white squares homed in on, processed and identified facial features. The weight of Waters’s attention settled on her. “You’re the one who hijacked Oversight’s feeds.”
“And you’re the one who killed my partner with it.” Cords looped circles behind Waters’s feet. Hundreds of them, all connected to the monitors, disappeared behind the door to her left. Not an exit. Most likely a server room, which meant the only way to escape was behind her. Waters crouched in front of her, his knees popping with the movement, gun still in hand. “Justin Valentin had a family. A wife, two boys. I showed up at his house every morning to pick him up for work for four years, and when their youngest was diagnosed with leukemia and they couldn’t pay for the treatments, I did what I had to do to make sure they could. Of course, they’d known what I’d done. There was no hiding the fact I’d started selling intelligence to the Russians from my own partner. He was a good agent, but, as it turned out, a father would do anything to save his son. Justin helped me plan my own death. Because you see, they were my family, too.” Waters stood, fanning his grip over the gun’s handle. The monitors cast his features into shadow from behind. “Now those boys can’t look at me without thinking of their dead father. His wife refuses to see me, won’t take my calls. You did that. You took my family from me.”
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