by Jodie Bailey
“He didn’t.” Tate took a post inside the doorway and watched the hall. “I bumped it.”
She should have known. He’d long ago mastered opening doors by using a specialized “bump key” to manipulate the tumblers inside a lock. She’d tried to talk the school into more sophisticated locks, but the cost was too prohibitive. “Who rearmed the system?” Small puzzle pieces kept dropping. If she’d had to turn off the alarm today, someone had reset it last night.
Tate shifted and caught her eye, not letting her turn away. “Since I told you to get as far away as you could as fast as you could, I detoured by and secured the building before I went to the farmhouse last night. Took my chances all it took was pressing a button.”
He’d come back. Meghan’s heart jolted from the adrenaline shot. In the middle of an op, with his life in danger, he’d made sure the school was safe before he moved on.
She could kiss him. Right now. Forget every reason she shouldn’t.
In her small windowless office, his presence expanded to fill the space, invading the air, surrounding her with the faint scent of outdoors and something that had always been indescribably Tate. There were a few steps between them. If she closed the gap, what would he do?
He was watching her, something in his expression shifting, almost as if he’d focused everything on her.
She’d definitely focused everything on him.
The exact danger Ethan had warned her against.
Using every ounce of her willpower, Meghan tore her attention from him and turned to the computer controlling the alarm. She pulled up the entry log, reading through the numbers. “If I can see whose code he used, then...” The words caught on cold anger wrapped around her throat. Surely not.
“What?” Tate stepped closer, ready to defend her from whatever cyberthreat reached through the computer to assault her.
Meghan straightened and dared to meet his eye, desire for him drowned out by the roar of her own outrage. “Isaac used my code.”
* * *
Tate’s mind fogged as he watched Meghan, unable to reconcile the way she’d been looking at him two seconds ago, her expression carrying a fire that had hit him full blast in the chest and torqued his ability to think clearly. He hadn’t felt such a jolt in years, not since a few days before she left, when for one brief moment he’d thought...
No. He cleared his throat, trying to swallow the memory and catch what she was trying to communicate. “Your code?”
Meghan’s face drew tight, fine lines radiating from her mouth. She was good and angry. Or trying to appear she was. Something had her rattled.
She moved to her desk, pulling an external drive from the pocket of her cargoes as she dropped into the chair.
She knew better than to ignore him. “You’re sure?”
The glare she fired his way said a whole lot of things he probably shouldn’t translate, but the loudest was an unspoken “Have I ever been wrong before?”
He wasn’t going to touch that one. She’d been wrong about some personal things, but she’d never once missed a clue on a mission. “What does that mean?”
She wiggled a wireless mouse to wake up the desktop computer. “I’m an idiot.” The words were under her breath, but in the silence of the office, they traveled.
Tate stepped away and scanned the hallway, wishing he could see the parking lot. He’d give Meghan a minute to internalize whatever she was dealing with, but then he’d press until he dug out what she wasn’t saying. There was plenty she was keeping quiet. Her skittish pacing at the house earlier said she was holding something in reserve. Problem was, he had no idea what.
He wasn’t used to her hiding from him, and the fact she felt the need to now drove a strange whisper of fear along his spine. He glanced at Meghan, watching her work. Maybe if he redirected her, she’d come clean. “You’re uploading the software?”
She didn’t turn away from the computer. “If it works, it should track Phoenix to the device he used to upload his virus and then follow him wherever he goes.”
Anything else he wanted to say blew away, the intensity in her expression driving any remaining suspicions from his mind. When she was deep into something, in her zone, she was so incredibly...
Beautiful.
Tate took a step back, hitting the door frame with his shoulder. The wave of heat caught him again, thundering in his chest, clicking into place like a puzzle piece. Something had felt perfectly right since the moment he’d stood on her porch steps last night. Something that said they’d been apart way too long.
Something that had to stop. He was here to protect her not to...feel whatever this was. Lord, help me out here. I’ve got a job to do, an asset to protect. Beyond protecting her, I’ve got nothing to give. Stephanie had been proof of his inadequacies. He’d succeeded at everything he’d touched in the military, even cheating death. There was one issue he could count as a failure in his life. Marriage.
“You’re staring.”
Tate blinked, trying to focus on something besides the affection unfurling inside him. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I watched you work.”
“Well, stop doing it now.” Her typing stuttered, then started again. “You’re making me antsy.”
Tate swallowed whatever absolutely bizarre desires were trying to blindside him. “You should show your program to Ashley. She’d love to work on it with you.”
“Ashley?”
“Ashley Kincaid. She does contracting—”
Her hands smashed flat on the keyboard, the resounding cacophony of clicks echoing off the walls of the small office. “Kincaid?”
“Yeah, she—”
“Ethan Kincaid married Ashley Colson? His partner who almost got killed?” The edge to her voice was a razor sharp enough to slice the questions thin.
Did Meghan have feelings for Ethan? They’d had some pretty intense conversations right before Meghan got out of the army, but Ethan’s heart had always been Ashley’s.
Was he missing something? And how come the thought of Meghan and Ethan coated his vision with green slime? “They got married about—”
Meghan practically growled. “I ought to knock him into next week.”
Whoa. “What?”
“He’s the one I went to when I...” She kept her focus carefully on the keyboard, though her clenched fists pressed into the desktop so hard Tate was afraid she’d split the laminate in two. “He wrecked my life with his advice. Advice he didn’t even take himself.”
Her assertion made absolutely no sense. Unless...“Ethan told you not to get married? Who were you—?”
Her eyes glanced off his, something similar to panic skittering across them. “I know why Phoenix is after me.”
The sudden subject change whipped his thoughts around before snagging on his emotions. Forget jealousy. Forget whatever Ethan had done and whoever Meghan might have considered marrying. Her past relationship status wasn’t relevant. At her confession he had one emotion. Anger. Anger and confusion. “And you didn’t feel the need to tell me?” His voice refused to stay level. This was her secret? She had information on their hacker? He lifted his chin, his composure scattered like shotgun pellets on a distant target. “Why’s he got his sights on you, Meg? I need to know. Now.” He ground the last word out in gravel.
“I’ve been tracking him for years.” Her voice was the audible version of black letters on white paper, and she kept her attention firmly on the screen in front of her. “I did work-study in the financial office in college and...” She glanced at Tate and seemed to consider something before she continued. “He stole the identities of some of the school’s donors. He’s cocky, left a signature so the world would know it’s him. He used it yesterday in a message he sent right before you made an appearance. If you’ve got the code, I can confirm this is the same guy.”
Tate jerked his phone from his pocket and thumbed through a few screens, certain the pressure of his anger would shatter the glass. He shoved the device toward Meghan. “This came from a hack in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.”
She gave the phone a cursory glance. “Yes.”
Tate shoved his phone into his pocket and balled his fists, twitching his thumbs along his knuckles. If she’d been tracking Phoenix for years, it wasn’t for kicks. It was personal. It was something soul deep, the kind of power that drove a vendetta. Identity theft alone wasn’t strong enough to push a decadelong crusade. Meghan was leaving out key details of the story.
Tate wasn’t sure which was worse: knowing Meghan was hiding things and had been for years or knowing Phoenix had been gathering resources for a decade or more. “What else?”
Meghan was silent, and fury tightened Tate’s muscles. He didn’t have all the time in the world to wait for her to speak. Phoenix could do anything, anytime. “McGuire. You will tell me. Now.”
Meghan jerked her head up, eyes flashing, but she didn’t lash out the way he’d expected. “I kept tabs on him, watching to see if we’d crossed paths with him on any of our investigations. With his recent exploits, I think he’s after more than an easy money score.”
She was right. Phoenix had already proven he was beyond something as petty as identity theft. The alternative was more than Tate could wrap his mind around. He needed to pull in his team and their resources. He needed to get close to the target again, before Phoenix accessed his funding and something worse than nightmares came to life. “Did he ever use those identities?”
“No. I tracked. He’s held them all this time. After a while, I figured he got spooked and tossed them, that it was a one-off.”
“He’s holding on to them until he needs them.”
“What would he be waiting for?” She looked him dead in the face, lips parted slightly in the same horrible realization Tate was coming to himself. “If he waits long enough, some of these people won’t have donated to the university for years. When enough time has passed, he can use the information and no one will figure they all came from the same place. He’s stockpiling.”
“If he’s sitting on hundreds, possibly thousands, of identities he’s collected over the years, he could pull in enough money in one week to finance anything he wanted. I’ve seen what this guy can do, and none of it is pretty. If he’s after you, then he knows you found him out the first time and you’ve been watching. He may be eliminating anyone who knows what he’s been doing.” But something didn’t make sense. “Why try to take you instead of sending his assassin?” It was likely, if he was about to make a move, Meghan was better off to Phoenix dead. The thought sent an unfamiliar wave of fear through Tate.
“I don’t know.”
Tate hadn’t spent his military career learning to read people for nothing. Meghan was a strategist, a planner. They used to sit for hours hashing out their next move. Her lack of communication now spoke more than she ever could.
Meghan was still lying. She knew exactly what Phoenix was after. What was she not—
“There’s something else.”
Do tell. Tate waited, muscles tight.
“He’s known all along who you are. Your cover was never safe.”
Adrenaline sent a wave of dizziness through him before he could catch himself. Once again, the game wasn’t what he’d thought. Once again, the other team had read the playbook before they even took the field.
Fresh frustration blew a whole different fire through him. “How would you know?” The demand was low, but it carried the roar of a fighter jet.
“You said he seems to enjoy toying with the unit. He sent me a message, letting me know who he was right before you broke in. He knew I’d get away, knew you’d let me go. He didn’t kill Isaac and his guys because they lost me. He killed them because he was cleaning up after Isaac’s usefulness was tapped. Tate, you stared down the killer and he bolted. Why leave you alive?” She shoved away from the desk, ripping out the cords to the external drive as she shut down the computer with the other. “There’s no good reason except one. He’s playing a game. And we walked right into it.”
Tate moved instinctively for his gun. “Then we—”
From somewhere along the hallway, a door cracked open and footsteps echoed, edging closer.
SEVEN
Meghan stood, reaching for her weapon as Tate took a position to the left of the door. Adrenaline shot through her in the face of impending confrontation. She steadied her nerves and waited.
“Meghan?” The female voice echoing through the hallway robbed Meghan’s muscles of their readiness.
She holstered her weapon and tugged her T-shirt over it, waving a flat palm at Tate to stand down. “It’s the principal.” Yvonne Craft had a habit of working odd hours, even on weekends, her responsibilities never ending.
Yvonne opened the door and strode in, her dark hair piled in a topknot, a Michigan State T-shirt over khaki shorts. She looked like exactly what she was: a school principal on summer break.
But her face...
Meghan held her ground, though she wanted to run. Yvonne was the most easygoing person Meghan had ever met. She’d hired Meghan fresh out of the army, even though Meghan’s views on God didn’t quite line up with the school’s theology. As often as Yvonne had tried to convince Meghan that God cared about her daily life, Meghan had returned fire with the fact He’d never proven it.
Even then, Yvonne was rarely angry. The one time she’d ever worn an expression this stormy was when the school had been vandalized.
Meghan leaned forward, ignoring the way Tate stiffened as she eased closer to her friend. “Yvonne? Is everything okay?”
The other woman flicked a glance at Tate, then focused on Meghan. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was deeper than usual, weighted with anger...and something else.
Behind Yvonne, Tate straightened. He’d heard it, too. His gaze caught Meghan’s with an unspoken question of what she wanted him to do.
Nothing. Something might be off the rails, but the principal wasn’t a threat.
Still, Meghan slipped the external drive into her pocket, unwilling to fully explain. That would require telling Yvonne who Tate was, and that couldn’t happen without blowing his cover even further. “I had to come in and—”
“You’re no longer employed here.” Yvonne stepped closer, hand out, words sharp enough to leave scars. “Keys.”
Outside the army, this school was the only family Meghan had ever known, and now she was being forced out? Meghan’s mouth opened but refused to produce any sound.
She focused on Yvonne and avoided Tate. If she saw even one trace of sympathy, Meghan would splinter. There was only so much a girl could take in twenty-four hours, and she had hit the valley. Hard.
Yvonne’s open palm stayed between them, unwavering. “Keys.” She bit the word off as if it were acid.
“Is this because I resigned?” Meghan fished her key out of her pocket, hoping Tate and Yvonne wouldn’t notice she was shaking. She’d faced armed gunman and fought grown men with nothing but her skills, but nothing had rattled her this way, one of her two closest friends ripping away from her for no discernible reason.
“It’s because we have questions about what’s been happening on our servers while you’ve been working here.” Yvonne’s fingers closed around the key, knuckles whitening. “Leave, Meghan. Take your friend with you.” She stepped aside, clearing the path to the door. “And never come back.”
“I can explain what—”
“I’m sure you can, and I’m sure it would all be a lie. You can go now, Meghan.”
If it was going down this way, if Yvonne wasn’t even going to listen to reason, then...fine. Meghan banked the wall around her heart even higher and kept her steps
even as she marched down the hallway, even though she wanted to run for the woods and hide as though she were the little child she’d suddenly become.
Tate was right beside her, the only indication the incident had gotten to him the pace of his breathing. They hit the parking lot before he spoke. “Are you—”
She practically threw the truck keys at him, acknowledging she was in no condition to drive. She was too busy trying to hold together what was left of her world. “Shut up.” The command was tight, held together by rubber bands. If she said too much, she’d be crying into Tate’s chest. Crying for Tate’s pain, for Jacob Reynolds’s death, for her own grief. And anger. At Yvonne. At Ethan Kincaid, who had counseled her to walk away, then violated his own cardinal rule.
The truck rocked when she slammed the door.
“I’m guessing you guys were friends.” Tate hesitated with the keys halfway to the ignition. “What happened in your office would throw anybody.”
Well, he knew only half of it. If Meghan had believed God had any interest in her daily life before, she no longer did. Today, He’d thrown the door wide to an assault on her body and soul.
But she wasn’t going out without a fight. “Don’t worry about it. Yvonne being mad I’m leaving all of a sudden is the least of my worries. We have to focus. We know we’ve been set up. Phoenix is probably waiting for our next move. I managed to upload the program that will follow Phoenix if he hacks in again, so this side trip was a success. If something is bothering me, trust me, it’ll pass in the next two minutes.” It had to.
Tate watched the parking lot as he twisted the key. “Because you’ll bury it.”
“Because I’ll get over it.” He didn’t get to psychoanalyze her. Nobody did. Nobody had yet loved her enough to earn the right. And nobody ever would. Especially once she did what she had to do now and Tate found out the truth about her involvement in the hack Phoenix had pulled off with her help. Knowing she had to confess her worst sin slammed the door on her tears, icing them in fear. He’d never trust her again, but with everything falling apart, she no longer had a choice.