by Paula Graves
“Is Gabe one of the Coopers?”
“One of the fishing cousins,” she answered with a half smile. “He’s a former bass pro. Now he guides fishermen on Gossamer Lake.”
“Sure you can trust him?”
“I’d trust any of the Coopers with my life.”
Brand flashed a quick smile. “Are you sure about walking away from Cooper Security? You seem to be a big fan.”
“They were great to me. They gave me opportunities to do a lot of good things for people in trouble, and I didn’t have to answer to a bunch of bureaucrats to do it.”
He grimaced a little at her words, but she didn’t care. Brand might be a bureau man through and through, but she never had been part of that mind-set. She’d joined the FBI to do good things, and when she’d begun to understand the sometimes-ridiculous rules were more important to her superiors than the results, she’d decided she couldn’t live under those strictures and look at herself in the mirror.
Brand might think his rejection of her had been the deciding factor, and maybe it had been the breaking point. But she’d already been thinking about leaving before Bluefield, West Virginia, ever happened.
And as much as it hurt to think about walking away from Adam Brand again, she’d do it if she had to. She’d spent the first seventeen years of her life imprisoned by her parents’ bad choices.
Never again would she let someone else make her choices for her.
Not even Adam Brand.
Chapter Ten
The chat room was a temporary web address that Cooper Security’s IT director, Shannon Stone, had set up. Cooper Security protocol was to give agents a way to interact with the head office covertly, without going through more obvious channels, so Shannon set up chat rooms as needed, then disabled them after each use, making it nearly impossible for intruders to use them to trick agents in the field. Gabe Cooper had called with a new chat-room address twenty minutes earlier, warning Delilah that if she wasn’t on time, the room would disappear.
“You’re on time,” Brand grumbled in her ear as he looked at the chat-room window over her shoulder. “Where are they?”
Delilah was logged in under her Cooper Security code name, CDarling, a nickname Wade Cooper had given her the first time he’d heard her slip into her mountain drawl.
Brand had chuckled at the name, catching the meaning. “Charlene Darling? From The Andy Griffith Show?”
Grimacing, she’d nodded. “Apparently I have a hillbilly accent.”
“No. Really?”
She had almost nudged him in the ribs before remembering he was still recovering from a bullet wound in the side.
Another name finally popped into the chat room: Leatherbrat. “That’s Evie,” she told Brand. “Her father is a retired Marine Corps general.”
She typed in a greeting, using code that Evie would be able to interpret. Evie responded in kind, reassuring Delilah that she was talking to the real Evie Marsh Cooper.
“Where’s g33kgrrl?” she typed, referring to Shannon.
“On her way. Last minute system blowup she had to tend to. What’s up?” Evie asked.
Typing on the tablet’s keyboard was unwieldy, making it harder to get her thoughts across in full, correctly spelled sentences. Delilah apologized in advance for any typos and outlined, in an abbreviated manner, their question about tracking down any holdings Wayne Cortland might have beyond the lumber mill in Travisville.
“I can do a full forensic search if you need me to,” Evie offered. “Just give me the particulars.”
Delilah had anticipated the question and had already pulled up the files on Cortland Lumber. She outlined what they knew and explained what they were looking for.
“So you think this is connected to what’s going on with Davenport?” Evie asked.
“It must be, if he’s the one behind the murders in Bitterwood, and we think he is.”
“We?”
“Those of us still investigating the murders,” she answered vaguely, giving herself a mental kick.
A third name popped up in the chat-room list, but it wasn’t g33kgrrl. Instead, the name was Litehaus. Delilah’s eyebrows rose. “Changed your handle?” she typed.
Litehaus, who Delilah assumed was Shannon, answered, “I’m a sentimental fool.”
“Shannon and her husband have some thing about lighthouses,” Delilah murmured to Brand. “I think there was one on the island where they met or something.”
“Leather’s catching me up on what you want,” Shannon typed. “What do you need me for?”
“I’m looking into some hacktivists who may be involved in whatever Cortland’s up to, and one of the names pinged my radar. I figured you’re a computer geek, you might have heard of it. Someone named pwnst4r.”
The other two remained silent so long Delilah feared she’d lost her connection to the chat room. “Hello?” she typed to test the theory. It showed up just fine.
“We’re here,” Shannon answered. “Where did you come across that name?”
Delilah exchanged a look with Brand.
“They know who it is,” he murmured.
She nodded and typed in her answer. “I was looking into Adam Brand’s disappearance and stumbled onto a list of notes he was making. Pwnst4r was one of the names he’d listed in a file of hacktivists he thought might be involved with whatever Cortland is up to.”
There was another long moment of silence, as if the other two women were conferring on their side of the computer. Finally, Evie answered, “Neither of us is familiar with that name.”
“They’re lying,” Delilah said flatly to Brand.
“I know.”
“Okay,” Delilah typed. “Thanks anyway.”
“How do we get in touch with you if we need to?” Shannon asked.
“I’ll be in touch through one of your cousins,” Delilah answered and shut down her end of the chat room without waiting for a response.
“So that’s it?” Brand asked. “They know who pwnst4r is but we let them get away without telling us?”
Delilah shook her head. “I know who pwnst4r is,” she said.
Brand’s brows lifted. “Who?”
“Ever heard of a code cracker named Endrex?”
Brand frowned. “The name’s familiar....”
“It should be. He’s the cracker who brought down the Espera Group last summer. He’s the guy Jesse and Evie tracked down and saved to get the evidence against Morris Gamble and Katrina Hilliard.” Gamble, the former U.S. Secretary of Energy, and Hilliard, who’d been President Cambridge’s chief of staff, had both been indicted in a wide-ranging conspiracy to allow a multinational consortium called Espera Group to control and manipulate the production, sale and distribution of oil and natural-gas resources.
“I thought he went into witness protection,” Brand said.
“I think he did. But if I know anything about Nolan Cavanaugh from my brief acquaintance with him, it’s that he’s too inquisitive for his own good. And he hates hacktivists—he thinks they’re posers who have just enough skill to be dangerous and they often choose the wrong causes to champion.” Delilah grinned, remembering the handful of visits she’d made to Nolan Cavanaugh while he was recuperating from his brush with death. “He’s an iconoclast, but he’s smart enough to generally know the good guys from the bad guys.”
“So if he ran into these particular hacktivists and got wind of what they were up to—”
“—he might feel obligated to keep an eye on them and see if he could stop them,” Delilah finished for him. “And he and Evie go way back—if she knows he’s in witness protection, and she knows the online name he’s using now, she’d protect him from anyone, including me.”
“Surely she knows you’re smart enough to see through it.”<
br />
“I think that’s what the long pauses were about,” Delilah admitted. “Her way of telling me who it was without actually telling me. In case I’m under duress.”
“Do they know I’m with you?”
Delilah looked up at Brand. “At this point, probably. All this subterfuge wouldn’t really be necessary, would it? I’d have just gone into a safe house with Seth and Rachel.”
“Great.” He grimaced.
“If they were going to turn you in, they’d have done it already,” Delilah said flatly. “They’re giving us a lot of rope.”
“To hang ourselves.”
“That’s up to us, isn’t it?”
“So how do we find this Nolan Cavanaugh if they don’t help us?”
Delilah turned to face him, her pulse notching up as she realized how close he was sitting. She tried to hide her reaction. “I’ll give that some thought. But in the meantime, I’m hungry. Think we can risk going out for real food?”
He rubbed his beard. “Risk is the right word.”
“We could order takeout from a nice restaurant. Or do we need to conserve your money?”
“Actually, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go pick up that stash of supplies I told you about.”
“Supplies? I thought it was just more money.”
“It’s both.” He shot her a confident smile that made her blood run hot. “I like to be prepared.”
“How prepared are we talking?”
He reached up and brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “Boy Scout prepared, darlin’.”
She lifted her chin and leveled her gaze with his. “You like playing with fire, Boy Scout?”
His blue eyes darkened. “Sometimes.”
“Do you ever think about the scorched earth you leave behind?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Not as much as I should,” he admitted. He tried to pull his hand away from hers, but she held it firmly in her grip.
“Maybe you ought to.” She lifted her other hand to his face, allowing her fingers to tangle in his crisp beard. “Maybe you shouldn’t start things you’re not willing to finish.”
He curled his free hand around the back of her neck, tugging her closer. “Who says I’m not willing to finish?”
A shock of desire jolted through her, settling like fire at her core. All these years later, she could remember how it felt to have him inside her, moving, surging, leaving her shuddering with release.
Wanting him so much now she could barely breathe.
“I always thought you were the most beautiful creature that ever walked into my life,” he murmured, his breath hot against her cheek as he bent to whisper in her ear. “Sometimes you would walk into the office and I couldn’t catch my breath.”
She closed her eyes, drowning in memories. “You never showed it.”
“I didn’t dare.” He tangled his fingers through her hair, snaring her in place. “I didn’t dare let you see how much you affected me. Then I’d have been utterly lost.”
“I thought you disapproved of me sometimes.” Trembling as his lips brushed across her temple, she struggled to keep her head. “You were harder on me than on anyone else.”
“I expected more from you,” he corrected softly. “Because I knew you were brilliant and capable of so much more than anyone had ever challenged you to do.”
To her surprise, tears burned her eyes at his words. She put her hand on his chest and pushed him away, turning her head so he couldn’t see her reaction.
“Hammond?” He sounded puzzled as he bent toward her, trying to look into her eyes.
“We need to concentrate on finding Cavanaugh.” Her voice came out ragged.
He caught her chin in his palm, making her look at him. A film of tears blurred his face, and she blinked rapidly, trying to drive them back. But a tear spilled down her cheek before she could stop it.
He caught the drop of moisture with the pad of his thumb, looking genuinely puzzled. “Did I say something to hurt you?”
“No.” She tried to laugh, but the sound was watery and uncertain.
He laid his hands on her cheeks, studying her face. “You have to know you’re brilliant and capable.”
“I do know,” she admitted with another little laugh. “But I’ve never heard anyone else say it.”
He laughed in response, pressing his lips against her forehead. “I never knew you needed anyone to say it.” He pulled away, smiling down at her. “You walked into my office like you owned the place and told me what you intended to do and how I was going to help you make it happen, remember?”
She nodded, cringing a little at the memory. “That’s what you fancy educated people call bravado. I was scared out of my gourd but I didn’t dare let anyone know it. So I pretended I was a big ol’ bitch on wheels who wasn’t going to let anyone tell me no. I kept hoping that if I did that long enough and loud enough, one day I might believe it myself.”
“Did you?” He brushed back a piece of hair that clung to her damp cheek. “Believe it, I mean?”
“Yeah. Eventually.” She pulled away from his grasp, needing room to breathe. Crossing to the motel-room window, she gazed out at the street beyond, where midmorning traffic was passing by with flashes of sunlight reflecting off windshields and chrome. She closed her eyes, watching bright bursts of colorful afterimages dance behind her eyelids. “Enough to know when it was time to walk away and start somewhere new.”
Brand was silent behind her. Eventually, she opened her eyes and turned to look at him.
He gazed back at her with fathomless eyes. “I did what I had to do.”
She managed a smile. “I know. So did I.”
He looked away, his gaze falling on the tablet computer. “How do we find Nolan Cavanaugh?” he asked again.
She thought about the question, the answer popping into her head as if someone had dropped it from the ether. “We don’t. We let him find us.”
* * *
THOUGH THE DRIVE TO Hungry Mother Park, a Virginia state park nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, would have normally taken a little over an hour from Galax, Brand decided to play it safe and take back roads, adding almost an hour to the trip. But the payoff in scenery alone would have been worth the extra time. The added security of staying off the more highly traveled roads was almost an afterthought.
The snow that had hammered the Smokies had hit the mountains near the park as well, remnants visible in the higher elevations and even crusts of the white stuff lingering on patches of land hidden from more than an hour or two of direct sunlight. As a kid growing up on the Georgia coast, he’d have happily welcomed snowfall, but dealing with the icy precipitation during his years in D.C. had been enough to cure him of his childhood fascination.
Still, there was enough of the boy still left inside to find the sight of the snow-dusted mountains thrilling as Delilah drove the twisty road toward the park. As she neared the lake, he directed her to detour north on a less-traveled road that wound into the woodlands. She gave him a questioning look when, a few miles later, he told her to take a right onto a weed-eaten dirt road.
“I saw where you grew up,” he murmured. “I know you know how to drive on roads like this.”
She did as he asked, the Camaro jolting along the uneven dirt track, sending him bouncing against his seat belt hard enough to jar his wounded side. He bit back a groan of pain and pointed to a grassy place well out of sight of the main road. “Park there. We’ll hike the rest of the way.”
Days of little sleep, combined with the bullet wound, had sapped much of his strength and made the uphill trek harder than he remembered. Delilah appeared to be full of restless energy, easily keeping pace with his longer legs and sometimes appearing to hold back to keep from rushing ahead.
The cold air and exercise f
lushed her cheeks with healthy pink, and he realized with surprise that he hadn’t noticed until this moment that she hadn’t been wearing makeup for days.
The hillbilly in her native habitat, he thought with a stifled grin, knowing she’d hate what he was thinking, even though he meant it as a heartfelt compliment. The Delilah Hammond he’d known eight years earlier had fought hard to wear a veneer of glamorous sophistication as if she came by it naturally, painting over her redneck roots with expensive cosmetics and a carefully chosen wardrobe that must have cost her a good chunk of her lower-level government salary.
It had taken him a few months to get a glimpse of the real woman beneath the polish. That was when the trouble really began for him. Because as tempting as the flashy facade of Agent Hammond had been, the real Delilah Hammond was downright irresistible.
“How much farther?” she asked as they reached a bend and the trail extended on as far as the eye could see.
“Right here,” he answered, stopping at the base of a sprawling oak tree. He circled the tree and spotted the long, narrow green vinyl packet he’d left behind the tree trunk, hidden under a tangle of undergrowth.
“Is that the package?” Delilah asked, eyeing the small bundle with obvious skepticism.
He opened the bundle and pulled out a camp spade. “No, this is the tool to get us to the package.” He started to put the spade in the dirt at the base of the tree when he spotted a tiny triangle of white sticking out of the earth. He froze in place, his heart suddenly slamming his ribs like a sledgehammer.
“What is it?” Delilah asked, going still in response to his reaction.
He looked around them, peering through the woods, the hair on the back of his neck prickling with warning.
“Someone’s been here,” he said.
Chapter Eleven
“Careful...” Delilah sucked in a deep breath as Brand cautiously shifted dirt away from the little plastic triangle sticking up from the dirt. “It might be booby-trapped.”
“Yes, I know.” He darted a quick look at her, not bothering to hide his frustration.