by Elle James
“She’s in the bathroom,” Cole answered so softly only CJ could hear.
The sound of the toilet flushing and water running in the sink was followed by Mrs. Carpenter leaving the bathroom and heading into the walk-in closet.
“Mustang?” Cole whispered softly into the headset.
“I read you,” Mustang responded.
“Put a GPS tracker on her car,” Cole said. “Now.”
“Roger,” Mustang responded.
Mrs. Carpenter emerged from the closet wearing a soft gray dress and red high heels. She slipped her arms into a black trench coat and left the bedroom, descending the stairs much slower than she’d climbed them.
A moment later, Cole heard the sound of the kitchen door clicking shut.
“The missus has left the building,” Mustang said into Cole’s headset.
“Did you get the GPS tracker on her car?” Cole asked.
“Roger.”
“Good. We’ll be down as soon as her car leaves the street,” Cole told him, pushing the closet door open. “Be ready to track her.” After checking that he couldn’t see the driveway through the window, he strode to the desk and checked the status of the download. It was complete. He removed the flash drive and slipped it into his pocket. Then Cole pulled CJ into his embrace and dropped a kiss onto her lips. “I’ve wanted to do that all day. And I’d kiss you longer—”
“—but we have to follow that duplicitous Mrs. Carpenter.” CJ took his hand and led him down the stairs and out through the kitchen door.
Mustang was already in the van when CJ and Cole climbed in.
“Follow her,” Cole told Arnold as he handed Jonah the flash drive. He also texted him the two images he’d taken of the IP address to the Trinity recruiting site and of the Carpenters’ browser history. “It’s apparent that one of the Carpenters has a connection to Trinity. Seems it could be Chris Carpenter, Mrs. Carpenter or the man she’d called my love on her cell phone. Or it could be all three.”
“Hopefully, one of them will take us to their leader,” Jonah commented, his back to the others, busily tapping the keys on his laptop.
Cole prayed they would. He was ready to take down Trinity and put an end to their reign of terror. Then he could get back to making love to CJ without worrying someone was waiting in the sidelines to put a bullet through her head.
* * *
CJ UNZIPPED THE coveralls and stripped out of them. She sat cross-legged on the floor of the van, staring at the tracking device Mustang held in his hand in the passenger seat, directing Arnold through traffic.
“They aren’t going to get anywhere really fast in this snarl,” Mustang commented, looking at the bumper-to-bumper stream of cars.
“Neither are we,” Cole pointed out, leaning over the back of Mustang’s seat. “Where does she appear to be headed?”
“She’s headed east on Reservoir Road,” Mustang said. “No, wait. She’s turning north on Thirty-Seventh Street.”
Arnold drove the van out of Foxhall Village onto Reservoir Road.
A few moments later, Mustang reported, “Now she’s on Tunlaw Road.”
CJ leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “Isn’t that close to Embassy Row?”
“I found a lot of travel sites in their travel history,” Cole mentioned. “Wanna make a guess as to where?”
“Russia,” Jonah said from behind them. “Someone was searching for flights to Moscow.”
“Do you think Mrs. Carpenter is cheating on her husband with a Russian?” CJ asked.
“She’s stopped in front of the Russian consulate,” Mustang said. “Even if she’s not cheating on her husband, she’s meeting someone close to the consulate.”
“There’s no crime in that,” Cole noted.
“No,” CJ said. “But there is crime in attacking the White House and kidnapping the vice president and a mid-level staffer.”
“True, but just because Mrs. Carpenter is stopping close to the Russian consulate doesn’t mean she’s meeting someone from the consulate, or that she was involved in the attack on the White House,” Cole said.
“But she could be,” CJ insisted, peering out the front window of the van as if she could see as far ahead as the consulate.
“She’s moving again,” Mustang said. “Heading for New Mexico Avenue.”
“We’re not far behind now,” Arnold commented.
When the Carpenter woman stopped in front of the consulate, they’d gained ground and were now less than a couple of blocks behind her.
Her pulse pounding, CJ watched through the window, searching for a silver Mercedes. Ahead, traffic came to a stop at a light. The car in front of them turned onto a side street, leaving two cars between them and the silver Mercedes.
“There she is,” Cole said.
“And she has someone in the car with her,” Mustang noted.
The light turned green and they made a left onto Nebraska Avenue and a left on Arizona.
“I think they’re headed for Chain Bridge,” CJ said.
The light changed to red before they reached Arizona Avenue. The vehicle in front of them stopped. Had they been first to the light, CJ was certain Arnold would have blown through it. Instead the gap between them and Mrs. Carpenter lengthened.
By the time the light changed and they were moving again, the silver Mercedes had crossed Chain Bridge and merged onto George Washington Memorial Parkway heading north.
“Can we move any faster?” CJ asked, leaning over Arnold’s shoulder.
“Only as fast as the people in front of us. We can gain some ground when we hit the parkway,” Roger said.
Once on the major highway, they picked up speed. Roger adeptly zigzagged through the traffic, gaining on the woman in the Mercedes. Once again, they had closed the distance between them. Soon, they could see the silver sedan moving in and out of the fast lane.
Roger kept two cars between theirs and Mrs. Carpenter’s, following her close enough to keep up, but far enough not to alert her to their presence.
A black sedan whipped past, swerving dangerously close to the vehicles in front of them. When it moved up alongside the silver Mercedes, it turned sharply into the side of the smaller vehicle. The Mercedes swerved violently, crossed the lane of traffic to its right and ran off the road, hitting a ditch and rolling several times before coming to a stop upside down.
Traffic slowed and Roger was able to get to the side of the road.
As soon as the van stopped, Cole ripped open the sliding door and they jumped out.
Cole was first to reach the crashed vehicle. CJ was next.
Mustang, Jonah and Roger brought up the rear, his cell pressed to his ear, reporting the accident to the 9-1-1 dispatcher.
Cole dropped to one knee and peered into the vehicle. Lying upside down, the top of the car had caved in several inches. “Doesn’t look good.” He tried to open the door, but the damage kept the door from budging.
CJ squatted beside Cole and looked in through the window.
Mrs. Carpenter lay crumpled against the ceiling. The man who’d been in the passenger seat lay across her, blood soaking his forehead. No airbags had deployed, making their injuries worse.
Neither moved.
“Let me in there,” Arnold said.
Cole and CJ moved aside. Roger placed a tool against the window and the window glass exploded, creating a hole the size of his fist. Using the other end of the tool, he scraped the glass away from the frame.
Cole leaned in and touched two fingers to the base of the neck of the man lying over Mrs. Carpenter. He shook his head. “Not getting a pulse.” He tried to get to Mrs. Carpenter’s throat but couldn’t with the man on top of her. “I can’t get to the woman,” he said.
Cole grabbed the man’s arm and pulled. The dead weight and the angle didn’t make it easy. “Help me get him out.”
With Cole pulling as well, they inched the man’s body past the steering wheel and toward the window.
When Mustang could get close enough, he gripped the man’s arm and added his weight to the tug-of-war.
The man broke free of whatever was holding him in and slid all the way out. “Check for identification,” Cole called out and turned back to the upside-down vehicle.
CJ reached in, searching for Mrs. Carpenter’s arm. A bloody hand grabbed her wrist.
She stared into the woman’s open eyes through the blood staining her face. She tipped her head back to look into CJ’s gaze. “Help me,” she whispered, her words gurgling.
CJ held on to the woman’s hand and pulled.
Cole reached in and hooked his hands beneath her shoulders and slid her the rest of the way out.
The woman kept a death grip on CJ’s hand as Cole lifted her and carried her away from the vehicle.
Smoke turned to flame as the leaking gasoline caught and burned.
Cole, Mustang, Roger, Jonah and CJ ran up the embankment, putting as much distance as they could between them and the burning Mercedes.
No sooner had they reached the top of the embankment, the fire reached the gasoline in the tank and erupted in a blast that sent them to their knees.
Cole laid Mrs. Carpenter on the ground, covering her body with his as the ash rained down on them.
Sirens wailed in the distance, moving closer. Traffic had slowed and backed up with rubberneckers eager to see what was happening.
The hand on CJ’s wrist slackened and the fingers released her.
CJ stared down into Mrs. Carpenter’s eyes. “What do you know about Trinity?” she asked.
The woman gave a slight shake of her head. “They...did...this.”
“We don’t doubt that. We need to know who their leader is,” CJ said, leaning closer. “Tell us.”
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. “Never.”
“You’d let him kill you, rather than tell us who it is?” Cole leaned over the woman. “Trinity has to be stopped.”
“Not until it’s done.”
“Until what’s done?” CJ asked, tempted to shake the woman until she got answers.
“Soooonnn.” Lydia Carpenter inhaled a shallow breath. Then all the air left her lungs, as if on a sigh, and she breathed no more.
Cole cursed.
CJ checked the woman for injuries. Other than a gash on her forehead, she appeared to be fine. She hadn’t been wearing her seat belt. Nor had the man who’d been with her. Internal injuries could have taken their toll. CJ couldn’t let it go. She pressed the heel of her palm against the woman’s chest and pumped several times.
Cole felt for a pulse and shook his head.
“She knows something,” CJ said through gritted teeth as she knelt beside the woman and performed CPR, continuing until the EMTs arrived and took over.
They worked on Mrs. Carpenter even as they loaded her into the ambulance and drove away.
CJ wiped the blood from her hands down the sides of her leggings, her heart pinching hard in her chest. “She knew something,” she repeated.
Cole slipped an arm around her middle and pulled her against him. “We’ll follow that lead. Everyone she’s been in contact with. We’ll look at her phone records and check into her passenger’s identity. Surely he had connections to Trinity, as well.”
CJ nodded. She’d seen her share of dead bodies, but this person had been the closest to being able to give her the answers they so desperately needed. So damned close.
“Come on. We need to get back to Charlie’s estate and fire up the main computers.” Cole turned her toward the exterminator van. “We have work to do.”
Chapter Ten
It took Arnold over an hour to get them back to Charlie’s. As always in the DC area, roads resembled a parking lot.
While Jonah worked on picking through the data on the flash drives as they sat in traffic, Cole could do nothing without a computer of his own. They’d tracked down the leads they’d had. Now they had to dig deeper into these new ones.
“Do you think Chris Carpenter is involved?” CJ asked.
Cole shook his head. Based on what they knew so far, he doubted it. “He could have been telling the truth when he said he’d left his phone at home the day of the attack. Likely his wife sent the text to Tully.”
“Someone should question him about his wife’s connection with the Russian.”
“Sergei Orlov,” Jonah called out from his position at the laptop inside the van. “I got a look at his wallet prior to the EMTs arriving to collect the bodies.”
“What have you got on him?” Mustang asked.
“He works at the Russian consulate as some kind of staffer,” Jonah reported. “He’s been in the States for over a year and has no criminal record.”
Cole pulled out his cell phone and dialed the estate.
“Halverson Estate, Grace speaking.”
“Grace. How’s Declan?”
“He’s here, refusing to take pain meds and grouchy as a grizzly bear with a sore paw. But he’s alive. Want to talk to him?”
“Yes, please,” Cole said. “Put him on.”
“Cole. You gotta get me outta here. These women are going to smother me to death. I’m fine. I can go back to work.”
“The doctor said two weeks without lifting anything heavier than your hand,” Grace said in the background. “That means lifting a gun is out of the question.”
“My gun is not that heavy,” Declan grumbled. “Forget about me, Cole. What’s happening?”
Cole brought him up to date on the visit to Carpenter’s office and home. When he got to the part about the phone conversation between Lydia Carpenter and her lover, Declan interrupted.
“She was having an affair with a Russian?” Declan whistled. “Affairs in Washington are practically public knowledge. No one in DC ever gets away with anything juicy like that for long.”
“Apparently, Mrs. Carpenter was.”
“And you caught her,” Declan said.
Cole went on to explain about the accident and the Russian’s death and Mrs. Carpenter’s words.
“By the way,” Jonah said. “I hacked into the hospital records. They called it. Lydia Carpenter is officially deceased.”
“Chris Carpenter should be on his way to the hospital, if he’s not there already.”
“I’ll have Snow intercept Carpenter to see what he can find out about the missus and her lover,” Declan said.
“We’re headed back to the estate,” Cole said. “Unless you can think of anywhere else we should go at this point.”
“No,” Declan said. “We need to put our heads together and think about our next steps before we take them.”
“You don’t need to do anything but take your pain meds and sleep,” Grace said in the background.
“I’m beginning to regret the relationship portion of this gig. I liked it better when I made my own decisions about what my body could or couldn’t take,” Declan grumbled.
“You can’t let your wound get infected,” Cole said. “Let yourself heal before you jump back into the thick of things.”
“Great,” Declan muttered. “All I need is one more person telling me how to recuperate.”
“Like I said,” Grace murmured in the distance, “grizzly bear cranky.”
“You would be, too, if you were stuck with a bullet wound when your team is out risking their lives.” Declan cursed. “See you guys when you get here. If I haven’t died of boredom by then.”
Forty-five minutes later, the van pulle
d through the gate of the Halverson estate and rolled to a stop in front of the mansion.
Declan, Jack and Grace met them at the top of the steps.
Declan held a hand over his middle, his forehead creased.
“You didn’t have to come out to greet us,” Mustang said.
“I needed some air,” Declan said and turned, wincing. “Hurts like the dickens.”
“It wouldn’t hurt as bad if you’d take the pain medication the doctor prescribed,” Grace reminded him, slipping her arm around his back.
Declan draped his arm over her shoulder and leaned into her. “I can’t take those drugs. They make my brain fuzzy. I get the feeling we’re on the cusp of something big. I need a clear mind to think through what’s going on.”
“Fine. But at least find a place to stretch out,” Grace said softly. “I don’t like it when you’re in pain.”
He kissed her cheek. “I’ll be okay. You’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.”
“I hope not. I haven’t had nearly enough time with you. I want more.”
Declan laughed. “Even when I’m surly?”
She smiled up at him. “Even when you’re surly.” Then she rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his in a light kiss. “If you’ll follow us, I had the guys set up a lounge chair in the war room for Declan before Gus left.”
Declan tipped his head toward Jack. “Snow checked with the hospital to track down Chris Carpenter. He never showed up. Mack’s in the war room, going through the video images that Gus is transmitting via the drone.”
Carrying his laptop and the two flash drives, Jonah ducked past the people standing at the entrance and hurried inside.
Declan watched as he disappeared into the study. “Has Jonah found anything useful from Carpenter’s computers?”
“The URLs and IP addresses were the most interesting items we found on the Carpenters’ home computer. Jonah’s digging into Sergei Orlov’s background. All we know so far is that he works at the Russian consulate.”
They entered John Halverson’s study and descended the stairs into the basement war room.
Jonah was already hard at work, searching the internet for clues and answers.