Eye of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  But no amount of pep talk helped. As she stared at the stranger in the mirror, a terrifying darkness all but swallowed her.

  Gray walked into the room and stood behind her. He wrapped his arms around her. His face softened as he rubbed his stubble-roughened cheek against hers. “You look beautiful.”

  She speared his gaze. “I can never go back, can I? I can never be the person I was.” She pulled on a strand of hair. A hollow wind howled inside her. “There’s nothing left of me.”

  “There’s everything that’s important. Just because you can’t see you doesn’t mean you aren’t there.” His lips brushed her cheek. Her heart did a slow roll. She leaned into the embrace, desperate to connect with something solid, with something warm, with him. “I see you, Abbie. I’ll always see you.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and their image in the mirror merged and blurred.

  ABBIE HAD FINALLY FALLEN asleep. The arch of her bare foot on the edge of the bed was curiously vulnerable. Gray wanted to take it in his hand and rub away the red marks left by the ill-fitting shoes they’d bought. Dangerous thoughts. You can’t protect her if you’re drowning in feelings. Gray freed the comforter from beneath her legs and covered her. She kicked away the cover as if it would slow down a possible escape.

  He lifted a pair of socks from the duffel, sat on the edge of the bed and carefully slipped the socks over her feet. Against his better judgment, he let his palm linger against her arch, savored her pulse against his palm.

  To punish himself for his weakness, he headed to the bathroom. There he assessed the damage to his carefully polished image. The brown of his hair was drab. The cut uneven. Abbie had apologized endlessly for the untutored results. He’d told her it was perfect. No one would look at him twice.

  He’d asked Abbie to give up all she’d taken with her from her previous life. The least he could do was lose the shades that would peg him as her escort before anyone could get close enough to recognize him.

  An oily sensation swam in his gut. He’d worn sunglasses since he was fourteen. Since Bobby Fehr had seen the fear in his eyes and taken advantage of it.

  Gray reached up and slowly peeled the shades from his face. The bright light from the fixture above the sink made him blink.

  He was once again fourteen, short and scrawny—a runt. Muscle and height hadn’t caught up to him until he’d turned eighteen. On the first day of high school he had stood on the concrete apron by the front door of the mustard-yellow building, waiting for the first bell, as the welcome letter had instructed the freshmen class.

  Bobby Fehr, a sophomore, had swaggered out of nowhere, zeroing in on Gray as if he’d had a target tattooed on his forehead. A ring of students had gathered around them. Excitement had buzzed. Gray had tried to move away from the bull seeing red. He tried to talk his way out, but Bobby had been looking for a fight and nothing was going to stop him. Gray had already had enough experience with this type to know the signs, so he’d thrown the first punch and had tried to make it count. It had. Bobby had gone down like a sack of cement.

  All day the spiders had fed on Gray’s neck. All day his body had been primed for payback. The blow had come as Gray had been walking out the front door, almost tasting freedom. Bobby’s size-thirteen foot had jacked Gray’s legs from under him. Gray’s face collided with concrete, and two triangles of tooth enamel and his blood now decorated the apron. And even though Bobby Fehr’s father had been the town dentist, Gray had had to wait until the free clinic came around a few months later to get the teeth repaired.

  School had proved a lonely place where he couldn’t let his guard lapse.

  And now, staring at his darkened hair, butchered haircut and uncovered eyes, he saw that young boy again—always off balance and trying to hold himself up.

  Leaving himself this exposed was dangerous. Showing emotion was lethal in this business. Especially when it came to Abbie. He’d always felt too much for her. He couldn’t let her see that his feelings for her still ran deep. She didn’t need to deal with his failures on top of everything else.

  His job was to keep her safe. Nothing else.

  Her father had been right. He couldn’t give her what she needed. He slammed a fist against the lip of the sink. “Yes, you can. You can give her your skills. You can keep her alive. You can get her to court. There’s more at stake than Abbie here. WITSEC. Steeltex. The U.S. Army. Seekers. They all depend on you getting Abbie safely to court.” His feelings for Abbie came way down on the list.

  He scooped up the pair of shades from the rim of the sink. His fingers itched to settle them over his eyes. Instead he tossed them into the garbage can.

  With a resolute flick he turned off the light, strode into the room and took up his post on the chair.

  Just because someone overcame his past didn’t mean he could escape it.

  “READY?” GRAY ASKED AS THEY settled into a computer cubicle at the library in downtown Lowell the next morning.

  “As I’ll ever be.” Abbie scooted her chair closer to his, and her sweet scent went straight to his head. Shad ows had deepened under her eyes and her cheeks had hollowed as if her sleep hadn’t proved restful. After they got out of the library, he’d make her eat whether she wanted to or not. She had to keep up her strength.

  Clearing his throat, Gray focused on the screen and the contents of the file Bryn had forwarded to Abbie. He was amazed at the amount of information his sister had managed to gather in such a short time. She could give Kingsley a run for his money. Unfortunately not much of the news was good. Maybe Vanderveer had tossed out a couple of crumbs of truth along with the slab of lies.

  Phil Auclair was now part of the multiagency task force headed by Seekers, Inc. He was the liaison between Seekers and the USMS. One of his bank accounts showed a steady accumulation of funds in eight-thousand-dollar increments over the past four months. Real-estate records showed he and his wife had made a deposit on a piece of land in a retirement resort in Florida. Coincidence that the deposit came two days after the last attack on Abbie while she was in WITSEC custody?

  Brynna confirmed that Hale Harper was Falconer’s cousin and had until a year ago worked on a DEA task force in Texas. Bryn had included an article covering the car bombing of his family. In the past six months his bank account had seen a steady decline in funds. But A plus B didn’t equal C. Harper’s withdrawals nowhere matched Auclair’s intakes. Harper was now working at the heart of the federal building where witnesses were processed. A click of a button would provide him all of Abbie’s information. But the lines between him and Auclair or him and Vanderveer didn’t connect. Which didn’t mean the connection didn’t exist, only that Gray couldn’t see it—yet.

  Gray had had Bryn run a check on everyone on the team—just to prove to Abbie that Gray could put his trust in the people he’d worked with for the past two years. Apart from Harper, everyone looked clean.

  Gray had also asked his sister to see if she could pull up any information on mill employees who answered directly to Vanderveer.

  And there, bold as brass, flashed a picture of a woman called Pamela Hatcher, Raphael Vanderveer’s personal assistant—the woman who’d chased them in Boston yesterday.

  “I took that photo,” Abbie said, leaning in close to him so her voice wouldn’t carry. Her breath was warm against his ear. He tipped his head closer to catch every last wisp. “At the press conference announcing the winning Steeltex bid. I don’t remember seeing her there. But I remember seeing her before. At the mill.”

  He pointed at the woman dressed in a brown tweed suit, standing on the dais behind a group of men, shaking hands. “She doesn’t really stand out. Look at how she’s dressed.”

  “Her whole demeanor is different than the woman who’s following us, but I should have recognized her.”

  “Obviously she didn’t want you to. Whoever she is, she’s good.” Gray clicked the file closed with more force than it needed. What he really wanted to do was strangle Pamela with his bare h
ands so she could never harm anyone again. “Someone who sees killing as a sport.”

  With shaking fingers Abbie returned the flash drive to its holder on the chain around her neck. “And I’m next on her list.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Rafe sat like a model prisoner across the table from the colorful platoon of testosterone-laden law-enforcement thugs vying for his cooperation. He’d already dismissed every rank of officer from state to federal as beneath his worth. All he had to do to gain their assistance was twitch the right string.

  The one person who fascinated him was the man they called Falconer. His stare penetrated as if he could see through all the layers that made Rafe tick. Yet Rafe could read nothing in the dark gaze and stone face—as if the features belonged to a one-way mirror. But the condescension came through loud and clear. This Falconer was just like his father. No matter what Rafe had done, George had looked through him as if he didn’t exist.

  I will not be ignored again.

  Rafe measured and weighed his opponent. Smiling, he turned and played the rest of the federal puppets like a master. “Of course I understand. I want nothing more than to clear this whole misunderstanding. Abrielle is a fragile woman who is very loyal to her father. She manipulated the photograph to protect her father’s image. Any child who loves a parent would do the same. I’m simply asking for a chance to prove my innocence.”

  “You’ll have your day in court next week, Mr. Vanderveer.” That was the lawyer trying to sound oh-so professional. Too bad the thousand-dollar suit didn’t come with sweat-absorbent lining. The black stains under his pits were a dead giveaway to his eagerness for results. “We need something now to prove your goodwill.”

  “Once you have Marko al-Khafar in custody, you’ll realize I wasn’t selling anything of value.” Not that the Chechen rebel could give them any answers. Or at least not the ones they sought.

  “First we need to catch him.” That from the local twerp who was doing his best to impersonate the voice of reason.

  “It’s very simple,” Rafe said, laying out his plan for the eager imbeciles. “Bring me a phone. I’ll contact my source. I’ll promise him the piece of Steeltex technology he’s been pining for. Once the buy is set, your team of experts can follow me to the rendezvous point and collect your prize.” He smiled because he’d learned that it put people at ease. “Everybody wins.”

  “No go.” This from the eagle-eyed Falconer, who still stared at Rafe as if he were as transparent as onion-skin paper.

  The bald marshal, who’d pegged himself the leader of this little gathering of morons, motioned for an underling, who came scurrying from his post along the vomit-green wall. “Bring a phone.”

  Falconer crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I suggest we hold off on this decision.”

  The marshal’s jaw twitched like a fish on a line. “Let’s see if he can make good on the first part of the plan.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Falconer said.

  The marshal’s jowls quaked like a volcano about to blow. He reared off his chair and gestured Falconer outside the room. Of course, neither could know that simply moving out of ear range didn’t mean Rafe couldn’t hear their conversation. Not with that plate-glass window on the door framing their war of wills. He’d learned to read lips from his deaf mother. Really, how gauche of them not to have uncovered such an important detail.

  “The plan is too risky,” Falconer said, keeping his cool.

  The marshal’s shiny pate turned a bright pink. “It’s the best chance we have to find out how much damage he’s caused.”

  None, my dear sirs. I’ve sold defective merchandise to defective nations with defective ideals. The loss goes to the foreign rebels. Really, they should see that he was helping them. The sooner all these mujahideens killed each other off, the sooner the world could return to peace. I’m doing you all a favor.

  “Raphael Vanderveer isn’t trustworthy.” Lob, Falconer.

  “None of these pukes are, but we have to start somewhere. This Chechen is part of a group that receives help from foreign terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda. We get al-Khafar, we can start connecting the dots back to the point of origin.” Volley, the marshal.

  “Do you really think he has any intentions of leading you to his source?”

  “What else can he do? It’s not like we’re taking the chains off and sending him out into the world with a promise to come back on his own. We’re going to hang on his tail every inch of the way.” Rage pretzeled the marshal’s body at an odd angle.

  “He has a plan or he wouldn’t cooperate so willingly.”

  “He can plan all he wants. He won’t have a chance to breathe crooked until he’s back behind bars.”

  “I can’t sanc—”

  “That’s right, Falconer, you can’t.” The marshal straightened as if he’d just remembered he was in charge. “You have no jurisdiction in this operation.”

  The marshal strode back into the room, slamming the door on Falconer’s retreating back.

  Sweet victory.

  AFTER LUNCH GRAY CONTACTED Kingsley via a throw-away phone. Pillows propped against the headboard, mouth tight with strain, Abbie leafed through the printed pages of Bryn’s report hoping to make connections. “Any news?”

  “Falconer’s out to skin you alive when he finds you.”

  Gray squirmed uncomfortably against the hotel-room wall. “Five days. We’re almost there. How’s Brynna?”

  “Except for the bruises, she looks fine.”

  “But?” Why was there always a but when it came to Brynna?

  “Let’s just say Marta isn’t used to someone who’s so self-contained.”

  Gray’s guilt cranked up another notch. He should have done more to get her out of Echo Falls. He should have tried harder. That he didn’t know how bad things had gotten for her wasn’t an excuse. She was his kid sister. “She’s been in a world of hurt for a long time.”

  “It shows.” Kingsley’s chair creaked. The click of computer keys filled the background. Was Kingsley trying to locate the call? “What’s with you and your sister anyway?”

  “Ask her and—if you get an answer—then tell me.” Gray rubbed at the pain blooming at the base of his neck. “Can you run financials on Brynna?”

  Kingsley’s hesitation weighted the silence. “Personal or business?”

  “Both.” Gray bit out the word, remembering Vanderveer’s insinuation about Brynna’s financial problems in his poison letter. Since when had a scumbag’s lies meant anything to Gray? He wiped a hand over his face, then everything in him stilled except for the overloud beating of his heart. He’d cared about what went on in bullies’ skulls since he’d resorted to a forced laid-back attitude and shades to deflect regular poundings. Gray turned away from the disturbing thought. Vanderveer didn’t matter. The check on Brynna’s financial state would simply prove him wrong. Brynna was many things, but she wasn’t a criminal. She wouldn’t betray Abbie.

  “Listen,” Kingsley said. “Vanderveer’s making a move. The task force allowed him to set up a meet with Marko al-Khafar, a U.S. national with Chechen roots he’s been doing business with. Falconer thinks Vanderveer’s going to use the opportunity to escape.”

  No surprise there. Cramming Vanderveer’s vast ego into a prison cell had to hurt. “Watch out for a woman named Pamela Hatcher. She’s his secretary and personal gun-for-hire. At the very least she’s killed three deputy marshals and a cop in Maine.”

  “Mercer’s on her. She flew right under the radar when we first looked at her.”

  Her average background had made her a perfect choice for Vanderveer’s mission. “Steeltex makes her invisible, for one. For another, she’s a drab mouse until she dresses up like Lara Croft on a mission. I have no idea how she’s doing it, but she’s been on our trail since day one.” But if Rafe had called her back for his escape attempt, it gave him and Abbie a window to act. “Did Mercer manage to crank cuffs on her?”

  “N
o, she nabbed an MBTA cop and played the scared female well enough that Mercer was stopped and brought in for questioning. By the time he straightened everything out, he’d lost her track.”

  Gray swore. He’d hoped to have one less worry chasing him. Instead he’d doubled his trouble. “When is this meeting of Vanderveer’s taking place?”

  Kingsley cleared his throat. “Need-to-know. You don’t.”

  “Even if I could fix it so al-Khafar takes offense at Vanderveer’s offer? Without al-Khafar’s help, Vanderveer’s chances of getting away clean shrink.”

  Kingsley’s chair creaked in time to his thoughts. “How are you going to do that?”

  No freakin’ idea. “A man’s gotta have his secrets. Especially with a mole in the house.”

  “No mole, Reed. I’ve been through everything with a magnifying glass. I’d bet my new mixing board Harper’s clean. He’s in pain, but he’s coping. He’s got a lead on the inside informant at WITSEC.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s still following tracks.”

  Pretending he’s giving, but not showing his hand, Gray thought. “One of Auclair’s bank account shows heavy deposits in the past few months.”

  “Yeah, we’re on that. Falconer’s out interviewing Auclair’s wife.” Kingsley gave an appreciative whistle. “Your sister’s got some nose for digging up information. Almost as good as mine.”

  Coming from Kingsley, that was the height of compliment.

  The squeaks of Kingsley’s chair stopped abruptly. “Tomorrow at dawn.” He lowered his voice. “Falconer’s in the nest.”

  “Thanks for everything.”

  “Call me tonight at home and I’ll give you the details.” Kingsley let out a long breath. “I hope to God I’m doing the right thing and didn’t get snookered by your Hollywood charm.”

  “Boy Scouts have a nose for truth, right?”

  “Right. Hey, watch your back. I don’t like where this is going.”