by Paula Graves
By the time she’d hidden the evidence of her first aid in the trash can next to the refrigerator, the clock on the wall showed 10:45 p.m.
And still no sign of Scanlon.
How much more blood had spilled tonight in Halloran County?
* * *
GETTING CLOSE TO THE TENT by the river wasn’t easy. The location had apparently been chosen with some care, as if the tent’s inhabitants had wanted to make it difficult for anyone to stage an ambush.
These fellows were almost certainly former SSU agents. They knew better than to trust anyone, even partners in crime like the Swains.
Especially like the Swains.
But Scanlon was careful, too, keeping low, taking his time. He managed to get within ten yards of the tent without being observed, and there he settled down and searched his belt pack for the personal sound amplifier he’d picked up at a Fort Payne drugstore on an earlier supply run. He inserted the earpiece into his ear and found that the soft murmur of sound coming from within the tent turned into intelligible speech.
“Can’t believe J.T. sent those rednecks on a job like this. What idiots.” That was Munroe’s voice, the Louisiana drawl as strong as ever.
“Can you believe they thought that Shipley guy was a fed?” That was the one named Nolan Alvarez, who’d called himself Norman Bayliss. His tone suggested utter contempt. “I mean, feds are usually dolts, but this guy makes even the worst feds I know look like superheroes.”
Thank you very much, Scanlon thought with a grin. He’d worked hard to look like a dolt. He supposed Alvarez forgot the other part of superhero stories—they all had alter egos. Hiding in plain sight was what superheroes did.
“Are you sure you can vouch for J.T.?” Alvarez asked.
“I thought so. He was pretty good in a skirmish.” Munroe’s voice came out like a shrug. “But if he’s blood kin to those rocket scientists, maybe not.”
“Well, better get some shut-eye. We’re supposed to report to Kurasawa by nine tomorrow. We’ve got to be up and back to the truck by sunrise.”
No, not yet! Scanlon grimaced with frustration as the Coleman lantern extinguished, plunging the tent into darkness. He’d learned only enough to raise a dozen more questions.
He waited a few minutes longer, until the sound amplifier picked up the snuffling noise of one of the men snoring. Taking as much care as he’d used to sneak down to the tent, he made his way back up the side of the mountain and headed east to his cabin near the mountain crest.
Kurasawa, he silently repeated several times, hoping the name would mean something to Adam Brand when he called in the report. And the former SSU agent named J. T. Swain was definitely kin to the Swains here in Bolen Bluff—also useful information.
The thick palisade of trees thinned out at the edge of the clearing where his cabin sat. He saw a faint light glowing inside, where he’d left the bulb on over the stove. Otherwise, the cabin looked quiet and still.
He climbed the wooden steps in a hurry, almost losing his footing when his boot hit a slick patch at the top. Pausing, he pulled the penlight from his belt pack and shined it down at the top of the porch.
A large crimson stain gleamed in the narrow beam of light.
His stomach lurching downward, he crouched and touched his fingertip to the spot. The liquid was slightly viscous, adding to his growing conviction that he was looking at a small pool of blood. One sniff and he knew for sure. There was no mistaking the iron-rich odor of fresh blood.
He scanned the rest of the porch with the penlight and saw the faint evidence of muddy footprints on the wooden slats by the door. Blood drops moved toward the door.
Or did they move away from the door instead?
He walked quietly to the door, heel to toe to limit the noise. With a flash of penlight, he saw that the filament he’d left in place on the door was broken in two.
Please, God, please—
He found the door locked, but that was no surprise—it had been locked earlier when the man he believed to be J. T. Swain had gotten inside the cabin. Hell, for all he knew, the Swains owned duplicate keys for every house on this mountain.
He eased inside, the door making only the slightest noise. Enough to make Isabel hide, if she was still there.
Please still be here, Cooper. Please be alive. Please be all right—
Slowly, deliberately, he went room by room, looking for signs of a struggle. For blood. For broken furniture.
For a body.
He didn’t see any blood, although the chairs in the kitchen were arranged differently from when he’d left. Isabel might have come into the kitchen for a quick snack, although he’d warned her to stick to the back of the cabin, where she’d have a better chance of reaching the closet in time to hide.
No signs of anything out of place—in fact, the bathroom was cleaner than he’d ever remembered it being.
He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Finally, his pulse rushing in his ears like white water, he entered the bedroom, trembling with dread. The room was empty and still, the closet door closed.
He walked slowly, softly, to the closet and stared at the doorknob. One turn, and he’d know whether or not she was still in the cabin.
One turn, and he might discover his worst nightmare had come true.
He closed his hand over the knob, took a deep breath, and turned it, yanking the door open.
And came face to face with the barrel of Isabel’s Beretta.
“Son of a bitch!” Isabel hissed, pulling the weapon back and lowering her head to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me—I didn’t even hear you coming until the front door opened.”
He reached down and hauled her to her feet, looking her over for signs of injury. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Scared out of my wits, but fine—” Her eyes widened. “Oh my God, you saw the blood on the porch.”
“Hell, yes, I saw the blood on the porch—where did it come from?” He released her, his hands still shaking.
“It was a kid and his father—the kid had slipped and cut his head on a rock.” Isabel holstered the Beretta and shoved a mass of dark curls away from her face. “It was a mess—kind of a partial scalping. This whole flap of skin was flayed away from his skull—”
“Did they see you?” he asked, alarmed.
“I had to let them in,” she admitted with a worried frown. “The man was freaking out completely, and I didn’t know if the kid was going into shock or something—”
He wanted to argue, to chastise her for taking such a chance with her own life, but the truth was, she wouldn’t be Isabel Cooper if she wasn’t willing to put her life on the line to help a person in trouble.
He made himself calm down. Losing his mind wouldn’t help a damned thing. “Did you tell them your name?”
She shook her head. “I got their names, though. The father was Pete. The little boy was Tommy. The man was about five-ten or five-eleven, with sandy brown hair. Brown eyes. Some graying at the temples. I’d say he’s in his mid- to late thirties. The little boy had blond hair and brown eyes. Eight years old. They were Southerners, but their accents were mild—city folk. Their clothes and gear looked new and moderately expensive.”
She rattled off the facts to him with the practice of an FBI agent trained to notice those kinds of things. Somehow, her professional calm seemed to seep into his bones, helping him regain a sense of perspective.
“Was the boy badly hurt?”
“It looked worse than it was. Head wounds bleed a lot, which is what scared his daddy so much, but the wound itself was mostly superficial. It’s going to require quite a few stitches, but he didn’t seem to suffer a concussion or any kind of closed head injury.”
“Good. How did they get up here?”
“Apparently they were hiking nearby when Tommy stumbled into the rock outcropping.” She touched his arm. “I’m sorry. I know it was a huge risk to let them in—”
“You d
id what you had to,” he said, meaning it. “Was he going to take his son to a doctor?”
“He said there’s a clinic in town that’s open twenty-four hours.”
Scanlon’s heart sank. “And it’s run by a Swain cousin.”
Isabel’s eyes widened. “Oh, no.”
“It’s not likely he wouldn’t mention getting help from a woman in a mountain cabin.” Scanlon’s mind raced as he tried to catalog all the ways Isabel’s kindness could come back to bite them in the backside. “I think we have to assume that they’ll start wondering who that woman could be.”
“And they know you have a cabin on the mountain.” Isabel looked ill.
“So we have to assume they’ll be asking me some questions about the woman in my cabin.”
“Tell them I’m your cousin,” Isabel suggested quickly. “I came here because my creep of a husband was beating on me and I needed a place to stay for the night. But I left first thing in the morning.”
“What if they don’t wait until morning to come?” he asked.
“News travels that fast?”
He shrugged, not sure. “Lori Canning is the woman’s name—she’s a second cousin or something. Seems to be a decent sort—she’s a general practitioner. She worked awhile in Birmingham, then came back here to Bolen Bluff a couple of years ago to give the place an in-town clinic. She’s not the only doctor there—the others drive in from places like Gadsden and Huntsville to man the clinic on a volunteer basis.”
“So maybe she’s not even there tonight.”
It was possible. “I don’t think she’s involved in the family business, so most likely, anything she might say would be in passing.”
“In other words, she’s not going to hop on the phone immediately and send out an alarm.”
“Right.” And even if Lori was pulling the night shift at the clinic, she might not know enough about who lived where in Bolen Bluff these days to wonder who the mystery woman might be. He was starting to relax a little.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel said faintly.
He looked at her, noticing her pale cheeks and tired eyes. “You should go on to bed now. It’s late and you probably haven’t fully recovered from the ketamine.” He started to leave, but she called his name, making him stop and turn around.
“You’re calling SAC Brand tomorrow, aren’t you? To arrange my extraction?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, trying to ignore the sense of despair burning a hole in his gut. “What happened tonight makes it pretty clear that we can’t take any more chances.”
She turned away from him and sat on the side of the bed, her fingers toying with the edge of the blanket. “You didn’t tell me how tonight went. I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come home.”
She couldn’t hide the worry in her voice. Her gaze slid up to meet his, and he could see the toll the night had taken on her. He crossed to the bed and sat beside her, brushing his shoulder against hers. “It was a test.”
“A test?” Alarm tinted her voice. “Did you pass?”
“I think so. But they didn’t.” He told her about meeting the two men in the tent by the river. “Definitely former SSU agents, at least the one who called himself Bayliss. His real name is Nolan Alvarez—remember him from the SSU person-of-interest list the Bureau circulated when they first went after Barton Reid a couple of years ago?”
“I do. What about the other one—Munroe? Was he on the list, too?”
“No, but maybe your brother would recognize his description. You can ask him about it when you get home.”
Her lips thinned at his mention of home. “How do you know they didn’t see through your cover?”
“Because I went back to spy on them after I parted ways with Davy and the others,” he answered.
“You what?” She sounded horrified.
“I was careful. And I had this.” He showed her the sound amplifier in his belt pack. “Unfortunately, they decided to get some sleep and bugged out on me before I could find out anything more. But they did confirm that J. T. Swain from the SSU is related to the Bolen Bluff Swains.”
“So the SSU is working with the Swains?”
“Looks like it. I don’t believe these guys think very much of the Swains—definitely not Davy and the boys who went out there tonight. Which makes me wonder what they’re getting out of this collaboration.”
“Maybe the Swains have something the SSU wants.”
“We’re assuming the SSU is some kind of cohesive unit. For all we know, they’ve scattered to the wind and they’re taking jobs as they come, on an individual basis.”
“It’s not that simple,” Isabel disagreed. “Last month, at least a dozen of them worked together trying to kill my sister-in-law. They’re staying in touch.”
“Paid for by that guy in Kaziristan—”
“Khalid Mazir,” she supplied. “But we’ve been looking into Mazir, and it turns out that he had some ties to Barton Reid. Reid had been pushing the U.S. to support Mazir’s bid just before his arrest, which makes me wonder what Reid was going to get out of the deal.”
Scanlon rubbed his gritty eyes. Every question he answered seemed to raise another question. “I can’t imagine what Barton Reid could want from people like the Swains.”
“If J. T. Swain is the connection—and I’m guessing he must be—maybe it has to do with the serial bombings.”
He looked at her, not following.
“The SSU took a murder-for-hire job from Khalid Mazir, right? And we’ve been theorizing that the serial bomber may be taking these bombing jobs for pay, as well.”
“And they started about the time all hell broke loose at MacLear,” he added, pieces beginning to click into place. “He could have learned how to build a bomb at old Jasper’s feet.”
“Which would explain the similarity in the old bombs and the newer ones. Probably uses the same materials, same construction—old school.”
“Swains do appreciate their own history,” he agreed.
“I guess we can call it in to Brand in the morning—” She stopped short, and he saw in her stricken expression that she’d forgotten for a moment that she’d be leaving the next day, as well, if all went as planned.
He had forgotten, too, so caught up in the spirited back-and-forth that had characterized his partnership with Isabel Cooper. Watching her walk away again, even though he knew it was safer for everyone, was going to hurt, like pulling a scab off an old wound. “We should get some sleep,” he said softly. “Been a long day for both of us.”
She caught his hand as he rose to go. “When I thought you were dead, I used to talk to your ghost. You haunted me. Every day. But it was comforting, too, seeing you everywhere I looked.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.
She rose to face him, lifting both hands to his face. She brushed her thumb across his mouth. “You could be at this assignment for a long time. The ultimate long con.”
He smiled, enjoying the sensuous slide of the soft pad of her thumb over his lips. “Could be. Unless I catch a break and find Swain in the middle of building another bomb.”
“I won’t be able to see you. Or know if you’re safe.” She closed her eyes, her fingers dancing across his jaw line in light caresses, sending shudders of need rattling up his spine.
“Brand will let you know if something happens to me,” he answered, moving his hands to her waist. She was fiery hot, burning his fingers through the thin cotton T-shirt she wore. He let his left hand drift upward, his fingers tracing over the curve of her rib cage until the back of his hand brushed the underside of her breast.
Her eyes fluttered open, black as midnight. Suddenly, she surged upward, her mouth hard and hot against his, driving him backward onto the bed.
Chapter Ten
She was out of control. A rush of emotions flooded her chest—fear, need, anger, joy, desire—and flowed through her into the hands that moved with fierce determination across his flat belly, pushing
up the T-shirt he wore beneath his flannel shirt until her fingers tangled in the crisp, dark hair of his chest. Bending her head, she kissed the center of his sternum, feeling his heart pounding against her lips.
His fingers caught in her hair, drawing her up to face him. “We can’t do this. You know we can’t.” He was trying to sound tough and logical, but she knew even better than he did how out of character it was for him to try to be the voice of reason.
That was her job in the partnership, keeping his flights of intuitive fancy from soaring too close to the sun. Of course, she wasn’t doing much grounding at the moment, was she?
“I don’t know anything anymore,” she admitted, kissing his stubbled jaw. “I just know that if I have to leave you tomorrow, I don’t want to leave anything unsaid or unfelt.”
“You don’t need to say anything.” His voice came out in the faintest of whispers. “But neither of us is thinking clearly at the moment, and that’s not a good thing—”
To her dismay, he eased her off him and stood up, moving toward the door without even looking at her.
“Scanlon—”
He stopped in the doorway but didn’t turn. “Please don’t make this more difficult.”
“I don’t think it can get more difficult than what you put me through already,” she said, frustration making her unleash a little of the pent-up anger she felt. “You let me think you were dead for six long months. And that the bomb that killed you was really meant for me. So don’t try to pretend anything that happens now will be more difficult than that. Don’t you dare.”
“There was no other way—”
“You could have trusted me.”
He turned around then, his blue eyes blazing. “And you’d have been right in the middle of everything, trying to help me. Just like you are now.”
“You know what I’ve realized?” she asked. “We’re not nearly as good when we work apart. Don’t you think there’s a reason why you’ve been here six months and made only a little headway into infiltrating the Swains?”
“Why’s that?” His voice was faint with annoyance, but she could tell he knew she was right.