Kentucky Confidential

by Paula Graves

  “I can’t believe Christmas is less than a week away,” she said as she sank onto the sofa next to Connor, who sat with his socked feet propped up on the coffee table while he used her laptop to surf the web.

  Connor set aside the laptop and turned to look at her, lifting one hand to touch her cheek. “I can’t believe we’re actually going to spend another Christmas together.”

  She leaned closer, and he wrapped one arm around her shoulder, tugging her against his side. They sat quietly for a while, looking at the tree, content not to speak.

  “I called Quinn on the burner phone while you were taking a shower,” he said a few minutes later.

  She looked up at him. “Did you change the number with the app afterward?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did Quinn have to say?”

  “He said we made the right choice, but I could tell he wasn’t that happy about it.”

  “Do you care?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Not really.”

  “Does he have any new information for us?”

  “I didn’t bring up some of the things we discovered,” Connor admitted. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”

  “I’d really like to know why Farid—or Malcolm, or whoever he is—took the chance of blowing my cover when he talked my landlord into letting that guy in my apartment. What if it really was Tahir Mahmoud? What if he’d killed me right there in front of Malcolm? Would he have let Tahir kill me in order to protect his own cover?”

  “I don’t know. But the first chance I get to talk to Quinn face-to-face, you’d better believe I’m going to ask him.”

  Risa nestled closer to Connor. “I can’t shake the feeling that whoever wants me dead is somehow connected to Akwat.”

  “How could it be connected? All you were doing was a background check.”

  She rubbed her belly, where the baby was kicking lightly against her womb. “Well, yeah, it was just a background check at first. But I did start to make a few deeper inquiries.”

  He looked down at her. “What kind of deeper inquiries?”

  “Honestly, it was probably just my paranoid nature, but it occurred to me that if the hemorrhagic fever the bats were incubating in those caves could somehow be coaxed into jumping species, it might turn out to have—strategic implications.”

  “Coaxed? You mean, on purpose?”

  “Maybe.”

  He frowned, his gaze moving toward the window. He stared at the Christmas tree in silence for a moment. She had a feeling his mind was nowhere near this cozy little living room.

  He finally spoke again. “But if the disease jumped species, the bad guys couldn’t be sure that they could control the infection.”

  “That’s kind of what I was looking into,” she said. “I wanted to see if the disease DNA was close enough to the hemorrhagic fevers we’re already familiar with. Maybe something that could be controlled before the effects became pandemic. Bad guys wouldn’t necessarily want to wipe out the world’s population. In fact, an epidemic wouldn’t be necessary to spread terror. You know the kind of hype that accompanied that Ebola outbreak in the US a few years ago, and those cases amounted to almost nothing.”

  “But imagine if someone were able to spread a new, unknown virus in a deliberate, controlled way.” Connor shook his head, a light shiver rippling through him. “The panic alone could be devastating.”

  “Exactly the sort of panic terrorism is intended to create.”

  He turned to face her. “But we’re going on the premise that someone in our own government is gunning for you. The US isn’t in the terror business.”

  “No, but what if someone inside the government wants to get their hands on this pathogen first? To weaponize it for his own purposes?”

  “What purposes?”

  “Any number of things—manipulate the stock market? Undermine trust in public health services? Or private health services, for that matter. Or maybe target a particular population to foment racial unrest.”

  “God.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  Connor laid his head back against the sofa cushions, gazing up at the ceiling. He looked as shaken as she felt. “And you really think it’s possible?”

  “I was in the CIA long enough to realize that most of our worst-case scenarios weren’t nearly bad enough. Look at what happened with Barton Reid. The man was making backroom deals with terrorists in order to manipulate public opinion and legislation that would suit his personal desires. Don’t you think he’d have done something just this ruthless if it had served his purposes?”

  “But Barton Reid is in jail.”

  “He wasn’t the only person involved in that mess. We know that much from the post-arrest Senate hearings.”

  Connor rubbed his chin. “You know who we really need to talk to? The people who took Barton Reid down.”

  “The Coopers,” Risa murmured.

  Connor nodded. “The Coopers.”

  * * *

  CARA COOPER WAS the world’s most adorable six-month-old. Wavy dark hair like her mother’s and her father’s bright blue eyes made her impossible to resist, even on a bad day.

  And today had been a very bad day, thanks to the first baby tooth trying to make its way into her toothless little mouth.

  Jesse Cooper’s cell phone ringing was barely audible over Cara’s fretful wails. Evie patted the baby’s back soothingly and nodded for her husband to go take the call.

  He didn’t recognize the number displayed on his phone, but after an hour of trying to help his wife soothe their little darling, even a crank call would provide a welcome distraction. He closed the door behind him, muting the baby’s cries, and answered the phone. “Jesse Cooper.”

  “Mr. Cooper, my name is Connor McGinnis. I work for Maddox Heller.”

  Ah, Jesse thought. His former partner strikes again. “How’s Heller these days?”

  “Seems well,” McGinnis answered, his tone suggesting he was running low on patience.

  So Jesse cut to the chase. “What do you need?”

  There was a brief pause, as if Jesse’s blunt question had caught McGinnis by surprise. Then the other man outlined the reason for his call in the sort of quick, organized spiel that told Jesse that Connor McGinnis was, like Jesse himself, a product of the US military.

  “So, you want to know if any of Barton Reid’s associates could still be pulling strings inside the government?” Jesse summed up.

  “Yes.”

  “Short answer, yes. It’s possible.” He and his family had done a lot to limit the damage Barton Reid did to American influence in the Middle East and Central Asia, and to thwart his group’s domestic terrorism ambitions. They had helped authorities apprehend and convict the worst offenders, but Jesse had never lost sight of the fact that there were probably others like Barton Reid out there, lying low, waiting for a chance to make another move.

  “Possible,” McGinnis repeated. “But you don’t have a handy list of suspects, I take it?”

  “No. But if you think that’s what you’re up against, I might be interested in looking into the matter.” He had a few resources inside the government he could turn to. Plus, his gruff father-in-law, retired US Marine Corps General Baxter Marsh, knew where a whole lot of bodies were buried at the Pentagon.

  If someone was planning to use a position high in the US government for his or her own benefit, it would give Jesse a great deal of pleasure to put a permanent stop to the plot.

  “I’m not really able to come down there and discuss it with you.” For the first time in the phone call, McGinnis sounded tentative, even wary.

  “Are you the person with a target on your back?” Jesse asked.

  “No.”

  But maybe it was someone he cared about, Jesse
thought. “Why haven’t you taken this to Heller? Isn’t he working for some government security contractor now?”

  “He is. So am I.”

  “But contacting the company could be dangerous to you?”

  McGinnis didn’t respond. It was all the answer Jesse needed.

  “Okay. I can come to you,” Jesse said finally. “But I’ll have to talk to Heller first. Make sure you’re on the level.”

  “Are you sure you want to get that involved in this situation? Maybe this is something we could just discuss over the phone. It would be safer that way. For you, at least.” From McGinnis’s tone, Jesse could tell that the situation might be even more dire than he thought.

  But he’d been in some grim tangles before and lived to tell about it.

  “I spent over a decade in uniform risking my life to protect the citizens of the United States,” Jesse said. “I didn’t stop doing that when I finally took the uniform off.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Then you know what I mean. You’re talking about a plot to deliberately infect people with a deadly disease in order to create panic and terror. I can’t let that stand if I can do something about it.”

  “I know,” McGinnis said grimly. “But all I’m working with right now is suppositions. What-ifs.”

  “So let’s try to find something a little more concrete,” Jesse said.

  * * *

  DEEP NIGHT HAD fallen over the mountains, and with it, the first flutterings of new snowfall. Just flurries at the moment, but even inside the cabin, warmed by central heat and a crackling fire, Risa felt the unmistakable chilled, damp promise of more snow.

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea.” She turned to look at Connor, who was crouched by the hearth, stoking the fire as if he, too, felt the gathering fury of winter.

  “I don’t, either.” He stood and crossed to where she stood at the big picture window, gazing past her own faint reflection to the dusting of snow starting to gather on the wooden deck outside. “But we can’t just hunker down here forever. You’re—we’re—about to have a baby. I don’t want Junior to come into the world with a target on his own little back.”

  “Or hers,” Risa murmured, turning toward him as he moved closer.

  He pulled her into an embrace as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it had been, once. As natural as breathing.

  She nuzzled closer. “When’s he supposed to arrive?”

  “If the weather cooperates, tomorrow afternoon. Apparently Cooper Security has their own chopper.”

  “Unfortunately, I think we’re getting more snow sooner or later.”

  “Hopefully later.” He tangled his fingers in her hair, gently tugging until she looked up at him. “Meanwhile, let’s think about something pleasant, okay?”

  She flattened her palm over his chest, enjoying the feel of his heartbeat beneath her fingers. “Like what?”

  “Like, have you thought about names for Junior?”

  She hadn’t, she realized. Was that strange? She’d tried out numerous nicknames over the past few months, as her pregnancy went from little more than a notion and slight thickening of her lower belly to the reality of stretch marks, cravings, weight gain, and something alive and kicking inside her.

  “No,” she admitted. “I haven’t.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked up at him and blurted the truth she hadn’t even realized herself. “I think I was hoping we could choose a name together.”

  For a second, she thought he was going to pull away from her at the stark reminder of the way she’d failed him. But his expression shifted, a smile flirting with his lips. “Knew you couldn’t stay away from me forever, huh? That old McGinnis mojo in overdrive.”

  She gave a surprised laugh and punched his shoulder. “Conceited ass.”

  He lowered his head, resting his forehead against hers. “That’s half my charm, darlin’.”

  She rose to her toes and kissed him, just a delicate brush of her lips on his, but sparks seemed to crackle between them on contact, and Connor sucked in a swift breath.

  Then he kissed her back, and there was nothing delicate about it. She met his fierce passion with equal fervor, curling her fingers through his hair and pressing her body against his, straining to get closer. Each caress seemed born of storm and fury, as if months of need and longing, pent up to the point of bursting, had breached a dam and spilled over, swamping them with need.

  He took her hand and began moving toward the bedrooms. They stopped at the nearest one, the one she’d chosen as her own. Tripping over one of her discarded shoes, they stumbled into the bed, laughing as they almost slid into the floor.

  In a way, stripping his shirt over his head and reaching to unzip his jeans seemed like the most natural thing in the world to Risa. She knew his body almost as well as she knew her own. The scar on his shoulder, thick beneath her fingers, was a near miss from the Battle of Fallujah. The thin scar on the back of his hand was from a Taliban soldier’s knife, wielded in hand-to-hand combat in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.

  And the bullet furrow just over his hip had come nearly a decade ago when al Adar rebels took the US Embassy in Tablis, Kaziristan, in a three-day siege.

  He caught her face between his hands, gazing into her eyes as if he was seeing her for the first time. Maybe, in a way, he was. He’d never seen her face filled out the way it was from her pregnancy. And there were new marks on her body as well, stretch marks around her hips and belly. Her breasts had grown a cup size, and her bottom was a lot curvier than he would remember.

  Slowly, he tugged her sweater over her head and dropped it over the side of the bed, taking a moment to simply look at her. His gaze dropped to her breasts, straining against the too-small bra that Iris Heller had lent her. Downward, taking in the round swell of her pregnant belly, the road map of stretch marks and the button of her navel.

  She felt suddenly self-conscious in a way she had never felt with him, nearly overcome with the urge to cover herself, to hide the changes in her body from his too-sharp eyes.

  As she reached for the blanket, he caught her hand. “Don’t.”

  She waited, heart pounding, as he smoothed his hand across her belly, his fingertips tracing a shivery path over the curves. The baby gave a sharp kick against Connor’s palm, making him grin.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said, bending to kiss her belly. Then, his beard stubble rasping against her stomach, he lifted his gaze to her and grinned. “You, too.”

  God, she loved him. More than she had ever realized.

  * * *

  RISA CURLED UP like a kitten in her sleep, her naked backside tucked in the curve of his body, soft and deliciously warm. Connor pulled her against him, feeling a powerful need to shelter her from the world outside the walls of the cabin, a concept she would laugh at if he ever spoke it aloud.

  She was, as he knew, supremely capable of protecting herself. She’d managed to stay alive with very little protection for seven months with a price on her head, after all.

  But she was his wife. The other, vital part of his heart. He’d thought she was lost to him forever, and now that he’d had time to work through all the reasons she’d hidden the truth from him for as long as she had, he knew whatever mistakes she’d made weren’t significant compared with the possibility of losing her again.

  He had to find out who had targeted her. Find a way to put an end to the threat, once and for all.

  And that meant finding out why there was a price on her head in the first place.

  “You still awake?” Risa’s sleepy voice was a soft murmur in the quiet darkness.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he answered.

  “Do you think I’m fat?”

  He laughed softly. “You don’t really expect me to answ
er that question, do you?”

  “Does that mean you do think I’m fat?”

  He gave her backside a light slap. “I think you’re perfect.”

  She made a soft, purring noise. “That’s such a good answer.”

  He grinned. “I missed you so damn much.”

  She was silent for so long, he thought maybe she’d drifted back to sleep. Then she rolled over to face him, cupping his jaw with her palm. “I missed you, too. Every single minute of every single day.”

  He kissed her brow. “We’ve got to figure out who’s trying to kill you.”

  “First we have to figure out why. That’ll tell us who.” A soft grumbling noise rose between them, and she grinned. “The kid and I are hungry.”

  He wrapped a piece of her dark hair around his finger. “We never got around to dinner, did we?”

  She sat up and started scooping up clothing. “Beat you to the kitchen!”

  By the time he pulled on a pair of jeans and padded barefoot into the kitchen, Risa was bending to look inside the refrigerator. “It was very sweet of Rose and Daniel to buy some groceries for us.”

  “We need to start adding up all the money we’re going to owe people when this is over,” he said.

  “I know.” She pulled out a package of sliced roast beef and a small jar of mayonnaise. “Roast beef sandwiches?”

  “Sounds good to me.” He found the loaf of bread in the box by the refrigerator and pulled out a few slices. He started to put two pieces in the toaster for her before he remembered that pregnancy could change a woman’s food preferences. “Toasted or not?”

  “Toasted,” she said with a quick grin. “You had to ask?”

  “Didn’t know if Junior in there preferred it a different way.”

  “Ah.” She smiled. “I’ve been lucky. Junior hasn’t really changed any of my tastes.”

  “No cravings?”

  “Oh, I’ve had cravings. But I just crave stuff I already like. Chocolate. Salt-and-vinegar chips.” She nodded at the toaster. “And toast.”