“I can get it.”
She swept her camisole from the floor and pulled it over her head. “You stay right there and keep that bed warm.”
“Impossible without you in it, and how come you look even sexier with that top on and your bare bottom peeking from the hem?”
“Because you have sex on the brain now.” She bent forward in front of the fridge to grab a bottle of water, mooning him.
“You don’t play fair, woman.” He threw a pillow at her but missed.
“I sure hope you have better aim with a gun than you do with a pillow.” She spun around, holding out the bottle of water.
As Hunter grabbed another pillow to chuck at her, a soft knock at the hotel door had them both suspended, the look of shock on Hunter’s face surely mirroring her own.
“Wait.” He leaped from the bed, snagging his boxers from the floor.
She dropped the bottle of water onto the floor and crept toward the door, hugging the wall in case someone decided to shoot point-blank into the door.
The knock sounded again—louder, stronger.
Hunter appeared beside her, thrusting her behind him as he leaned to the side to peer through the peephole. “It’s someone in a dark hoodie. I can’t see his face. Too short to be Jeffrey.”
A woman’s voice called through the door. “The code. Give me a code, Nightingale.”
Chapter Ten
Sue pressed a hand against her heart. “It must be someone working in The Falcon’s unit. Maybe she brought news of The Falcon.”
Hunter held up his hand. “Hang on.”
As he turned to the safe in the closet, Sue called out. “One, five, two, two, seven.”
The woman coughed and rested her forehead against the door, but she answered the correct sequence of responding numbers.
Hunter sidled up next to her with a gun pointed at the door.
“She’s legit, Hunter. I’m opening the door.”
“Slowly.” He stood behind the door as she eased it open.
The woman fell against the door with a thump, and as Sue widened the door, the woman fell into the room, landing in a heap on the floor.
“Oh my God.” Sue dropped to her knees beside the woman. “What’s wrong?”
“I hope she wasn’t followed here.” Hunter poked his head out the door and then shut it, throwing the top lock in place.
Sue had loosened the woman’s sweatshirt and pushed the hoodie back from her head. She gasped and fell back on her heels. “She’s been beaten.”
Hunter crouched beside her. “What happened? Who did this?”
The woman’s lashes fluttered and her slack mouth hung open, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner.
“I think she lost consciousness.”
“Let’s get her on the sofa. Get some towels.” He slid his arms beneath the woman’s small form and lifted her in a single motion.
As he carried her to the sofa, Sue pulled on her underwear and rushed to the bathroom to collect the extra towels. She grabbed a hand towel and ran it beneath the faucet.
Had The Falcon’s entire unit been blown wide open? Were they all targets now?
When she returned to the room, Hunter was seated on the floor next to the sofa checking the woman’s vitals.
“Is she still alive?”
“Barely.” He peeled the woman’s blouse back from her chest. “She has multiple wounds. These look like stab wounds.”
“God, what happened to her?” Sue pressed a towel against the woman’s bleeding head.
“The same thing that would’ve happened to you had you gone along with Jeffrey tonight.”
Sue clenched her teeth as she used the wet towel to clean up some of the blood on the woman’s face. “How did she get here?”
“God knows.” Hunter clasped his hands behind his neck. “She needs medical attention, Sue. We can’t do this here. We’re losing her.”
“If she wanted to go to the hospital, she would’ve gone to the hospital—she came here instead.”
“Maybe just to warn you, and she’s done that.” He rose to his feet. “We have to get help. She’s somebody’s daughter, sister, wife, mother. My God, if this were you, I’d want immediate medical care for you, regardless of any other circumstances.”
“Of course, you’re right.” She smoothed the corner of the towel across the woman’s mouth. She might have a son, just like her.
“I’m calling 911, and then I’ll call the front desk of the hotel. We can say we don’t know her. She came up to our room like this, knocked on the door and collapsed. We don’t know anything.”
“Does she have ID? Did you check?”
“I didn’t.” He held up his phone. “You do that while I call.”
Sue searched the woman’s pockets and scanned the floor inside the room and in the hallway in case she’d dropped something.
When Hunter ended his call, Sue spread her hands. “Nothing. She has nothing.”
Ten minutes later, Sue waved at the EMTs as they came off the elevator. “Over here. She’s here.”
For several chaotic minutes, the EMTs stabilized the injured woman and got her onto a stretcher as the police questioned Sue and Hunter.
The questions continued even after the EMTs had taken away the patient, but Sue had years of lying under her belt and she maintained her ignorance without blinking an eye.
Maybe Hunter didn’t have quite the same skills in mendacity as she possessed, but his military training had given him an erect bearing and poker face that was hard to pick apart.
In the end, the cops had no reason to believe she and Hunter had injured the woman or even knew who she was—and the hotel’s CCTV would back them up.
Sue clicked the door closed behind the last of the police officers and braced her hands against it, hanging her head between her arms. “I wonder who she is.”
“Hopefully, she’ll regain consciousness and tell us...and tell us why she came here.” Hunter traced a line down her curved spine. “She must’ve used every last ounce of her strength to get here and recite that code to you.”
Sue turned and nestled her head against Hunter’s chest, just because she could. “How did she know I was here? How did she even know about me? The Falcon has never even implied I was part of a group.”
“Different plans for different people. Maybe you’re the only CIA agent and The Falcon has different rules for you.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Let’s get back to bed for the remaining hours we have left in this morning.”
“We’re going to try to see her at the hospital tomorrow, right?”
“I don’t see how we’re ever going to get any information out of her if we don’t—and I’m sure she wanted you to have info or she never would’ve shown up here.” He leaned over her to put his eye to the peephole in the door. “I hope nobody followed her. We’ve been secure at this hotel so far.”
“We think we have. How did she find us?”
Hunter yawned and flicked off the light in the entryway. “We’ll ask her tomorrow.”
On the way to the bed, Hunter peeled off the T-shirt he’d hastily thrown on when the EMTs arrived and stepped out of his jeans and boxers at the same time. He slid his naked body between the sheets and patted the bed beside him. “Has your name on it.”
Sue shed her pajamas and underwear and crawled in beside him. She didn’t know if she could do another round with Hunter, but if he wanted her again she wouldn’t mind one bit—and she owed him.
Instead, he pulled her back against his front and draped an arm over her waist. He nuzzled the back of her neck. “Would you think I’m heartless if I told you I’m glad that wasn’t you bloody and beaten, looking for refuge?”
“No. I know what you mean. You’re not happy it happened to her, either, but...yeah.” She threaded her fingers through his and
planted a kiss on his palm. “I’m glad you’re here, Hunter. I’ve never had a bodyguard before.”
“I’m here and I’m not leaving.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t be so sure about that, Hunter.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Hunter slipped from the bed, careful not to disturb Sue. He’d lain awake most of the night as much to soak in feeling Sue’s body next to his as to keep watch over her.
He crept to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
He didn’t like the fact that the woman had shown up at their hotel room, hanging on to consciousness by a thread. How did she know she hadn’t been followed? She could’ve led her assailants right to Sue’s doorstep.
Or maybe that’s what she planned. Who knew where she learned that reciprocal code? Sue had no idea whether or not this woman was connected to The Falcon and the work they were doing.
He couldn’t have left a battered woman in the hotel corridor anyway, but he didn’t trust her. Hell, he still didn’t trust Sue. He knew she’d been hiding something from him. Why not just come out and tell him she was a double agent, a mole embedded with a terrorist group? Why sneak around when they were on the same side...or at least he assumed they were.
Sue had told him she was black ops working for the other side, but what if she were just working for the other side? People turned all the time for money, ideology, revenge. The CIA seemed to have its suspicions.
If he were honest with himself, he didn’t know much about Sue’s work or life. He’d heard about the CIA father, the overbearing stepmother, the beloved sister. He hadn’t fallen for her based on anything she’d told him about herself.
He’d gotten in deep because of the way she made him feel. Rebound. He turned his face to the spray of water in the shower.
He’d clicked with her so quickly because she was nothing like his ex-wife, Julia—except for the secrets and now the lies.
Sue had wanted him at a time when he’d no longer felt wanted. Powerful stuff to resist.
He shut off the water and snatched a towel from the rack next to the shower. Maybe this time, he needed to be the one to walk away—but not before he got everything he could about Major Denver out of her.
She could be lying about what she knew about Denver, too. Once you caught a woman in one lie, you never knew how many more could be on her lips.
The knock on the door caused him to drop his towel. “Did I wake you?”
“Just by not being in bed when I reached for you.” Sue knocked on the door and jiggled the handle. “Have you gotten modest all of a sudden? I’ve seen it all, Mancini...and I’d like to see it again.”
He left the towel on the floor and reached over to let her in.
The dark gaze that meandered over his body from head to toe felt like a caress. When she met his eyes, she licked her lips. “Thought we might shower together this morning.”
He stepped back, whipped aside the shower curtain and turned on the water again. “Great idea.”
As she joined him under the warm spray and he kissed her wet mouth, all his doubts disappeared...or rather receded into one small corner of his brain.
After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, Sue called the hospital, but once the nurse who answered the phone determined that Sue was not related to their visitor from last night, she refused to give her any information at all.
Sue shook her head at Hunter and raised her voice. “I’m the one who called 911. She stumbled to my hotel room.”
A few seconds later, Sue slammed the phone to the table, rattling the silverware.
“No luck?”
“She refuses to tell me anything.”
Hunter drained the coffee from his cup and clicked it back into the saucer. “If the nurse is that closemouthed, we don’t stand much of a chance getting in there to talk to her, even if she does regain consciousness.”
“The nurse wouldn’t even tell me if she was awake or not.” Sue broke a crust of toast in two and crumbled it between her fingers.
“I’m thinking not. If she used the last bit of energy she had to make it to our hotel and give you that code, I think she’d want to talk to you when she comes to.”
“Maybe, maybe not, but there are ways to get into hospitals and see patients, whether you’re family or not.”
“Yeah, I almost forgot...you’re CIA.” He winked and pulled his laptop from its sleeve and placed it on the table. “You ready to look at everything I have on Denver?”
“Go for it.” She raised her hand as the waitress walked by. “Can I get a refill on my coffee, please?”
Hunter brought up the spreadsheet and file he’d been populating since yesterday while Sue had been making her mysterious phone calls and attending her mysterious meetings with terrorists.
He swung the computer toward her. “You and Denver are at the top, and my goal is to connect you by the time we reach the bottom of the tree.”
“Have his contacts told him about an impending attack on US soil, too?”
“Yes, that’s what he believes is happening. The problem is that the attack is not being carried out by one group—or even the usual suspects. This group is scattered, has no defined leader—and may have connections to the US government.”
Sue’s heart skittered. “Traitors on the inside?”
“It’s the only way to explain the setup of Denver. It’s widespread and there seems to be no urgency to clear Denver’s name, even when charges against him have been shown to be false.”
Sue’s phone buzzed on the table beside her, and she shot him a glance beneath knitted brows. “It’s my manager.”
“Are you going to answer it? Maybe you’ve been cleared to go back to work.”
“I doubt it.” She lifted the phone to her ear. “Hi, Ned.”
She cocked her head as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “What are you doing on the sidewalk in front of my place? I’m not home, Ned.”
Sue’s eyes widened in her suddenly pale face, and Hunter’s insides lurched.
“Okay, okay. I’m at the Hay-Adams in the coffee shop.” She ended the call and tapped her chin with the edge of the phone. “Ned’s coming over. He wants to talk to me.”
Hunter swallowed. “He couldn’t do it over the phone?”
“Apparently not.”
“He just wants to update you.” Hunter shrugged, feigning a nonchalance that didn’t match the rumblings in his belly. He tapped his laptop’s display. “Did the group you infiltrated ever mention weapons from Nigeria? Apparently, there was a secret stash there that Denver knew about or suspected.”
“I’d have to retrieve all my notes, which I pretty much turned over to The Falcon.”
“You kept copies?”
“I have copies of all my reports on my laptop. I can definitely go through them with you, and you can tag anything that relates to Major Denver.”
They went through another cup of coffee each as they discussed Hunter’s spreadsheet, and he really felt that they were making some progress. If they could get to the bottom of this plot and link it to Denver’s findings before he went AWOL, the army would have no choice but to exonerate the major.
Sue had been keeping an eye on the entrance to the restaurant, and she lifted her hand and waved at a compact, balding African American man charging toward them.
When he reached their table, Sue stood up and pulled out the chair across from her. “Have a seat, Ned. This is Hunter Mancini. Hunter, Ned Tucker.”
Hunter had risen from his chair and stuck out his hand to the other man.
Ned looked him up and down before releasing his grip and taking his seat. “Military?”
“Delta Force. You?”
“Air Force.” Ned leveled a stubby finger at Sue. “Are you helping her out?”
“I’m tryin
g. Why?”
“Because she needs it.” Ned turned to Sue and covered one of her hands with his. “Sue, what have you been up to? There is no way I believe you’ve been spying for the other side, but I’m hearing about evidence against you that’s giving me pause. Enlighten me.”
“You enlighten me.” Sue wiggled her fingers at the waitress. “Do you want some coffee, Ned?”
“I’m wired enough as it is.” He turned to the approaching waitress and asked her for a glass of water. “I can’t tell you much, Sue.”
“Bogus emails again? Emailing classified documents?” She pinged her coffee cup. “None of that is true, Ned. It’s been planted, just like those emails about Major Rex Denver were fakes.”
“It’s more than that, Sue.” Ned glanced over his shoulder and ducked his head. “The investigators have pictures—pictures of you meeting with known terrorists.”
Sue dropped her spoon onto the saucer with a clatter that further jangled Hunter’s nerves. Those pictures could definitely be in existence, but who could’ve taken them?
“That’s absurd. Any photos of me with terrorists would be meetings with informants.”
Ned wiped his brow with a napkin and then crumpled it in his fist. “Okay, that makes sense, and any of those meetings would be documented as protocol dictates, right? Right, Sue?”
“Of course. Protocol.”
“Speaking of protocol.” Ned thanked the waitress for his water and downed half the glass in one gulp. “You never saw me here. We never had this conversation. I have my own sources within the Agency and someone gave me a heads-up, but if anyone found out I relayed this info to you, I’d be in almost as much trouble as you’re in now.”
“I appreciate you’re going out on a limb for me, Ned. This is going to come to nothing, but even if it doesn’t, I’ll leave you out of it.” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry.”
Ned raised one eyebrow to his bald pate. “You’re always telling me that like you have some secret guardian angel. I hope you don’t mean your old man, because as revered as he is in the Agency, not even he could get you out of this mess if it’s true and you don’t have the documentation to support those meetings.”
Undercover Accomplice Page 10