Under the Wire: Bad Boys Undercover

by HelenKay Dimon

Her voice sounded so distant, so lost. He tried to comfort her but the words wouldn’t come. “I don’t know that yet. I’ll take photos and run facial recognition.”

  “It’s so bad in there that you don’t think I can identify them?”

  The thought of having her march in there and witness that scene firsthand tore at him. “I don’t want you to have to look.”

  He picked up on the footsteps and heard a faint whistle. She spun around, aiming her gun at the corner of the cabin with a shaking hand.

  “Whoa.” He reached around and lowered her arm. “This one’s with us.”

  Parker stepped around the side of the cabin. He carried two bags and didn’t look even a little winded, though he had to be double-timing it to make it to the cabin this fast.

  “How did you know?” she asked as she peeked over her shoulder at Reid.

  “He was making a lot of noise.” Just as he’d been trained to do. Sent the code through their communications system on their watches then announced his arrival with the whistling. Made no attempt to cover his tracks or the noise he made on approach.

  “On purpose.” Parker’s gaze switched from Cara to Reid. “What’s wrong?”

  “We weren’t the first ones to find this cabin.” Reid waited for Parker to pick up the hint.

  When he didn’t say anything, Cara spoke up. “Bodies.”

  Parker took a step toward the cabin but stopped when no one joined him. “Have you ID’d them yet?”

  “Cara isn’t going to look.” She wasn’t going anywhere near the place, if Reid had his way.

  Parker frowned. “But we need—”

  “Hey, Parker.” Reid didn’t try to hide the frustration in his voice. “No.”

  “It’s okay.” She shook her head and seemed to snap out of the stupor she was in. “I can do it.”

  “No.” Reid vowed not to back down. There were some things a person couldn’t unsee. He’d seen some awful shit on this job, but that didn’t mean Cara had to see humans treated like discarded pieces of garbage.

  “The sooner we get confirmation, the sooner we know what we’re looking for here.” Parker said the words nice and slow, as if explaining new information.

  Reid understood how recon worked. The timing made sense. Everything Parker wanted to do followed protocol. But sometimes the playbook on these things missed the human toll.

  “We need to get her out of here.” Reid emphasized each word in a not-so-subtle message to his friend and team partner.

  “You know that can’t happen right now. We’ve got bodies stacking up and—” Parker’s voice cut off as he winced. It was as if he’d only just noticed how pale and close to the edge Cara looked. “Sorry.”

  Finally. Ignoring Parker, Reid turned to Cara. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. The stillness and the chill coming off her muscles worried him. “Your job is the same. Stand here. You’re our first warning.”

  Tension pulled around the corners of her mouth. Stark pain showed in every line of her body and in those dark eyes. “What are you going to be doing?”

  “Talking with Parker.” Possibly killing him for being so damn clueless.

  “I have a feeling that’s a nice way of saying what you’ll really be doing,” Parker mumbled under his breath.

  Damn straight. But Reid didn’t want to startle her. Today had been a nonstop roller coaster of pain for her. He didn’t want to add to it.

  He kissed her on the forehead. “Stay here.”

  She nodded. “Don’t be long.”

  “I’m not leaving you.” He meant right then, but he worried that he really was talking about forever.

  “Okay.”

  He gave her hand one last squeeze then forced his fingers to let go.

  13

  REID FOLLOWED Parker back inside the house of death. He didn’t welcome the second trip, but this couldn’t be avoided. As much as he hated the idea of forcing Cara to look at photos, Parker was right. They already had so many unknown variables. If they could understand how many people they needed to find, that would at least give them an idea of how to use their limited resources.

  “Fuck me.” Parker looked around as he wiped a hand through his hair. “This is some pretty horrible shit.”

  Not the worst they’d seen. Not by far, which is the part that really sucked. Reid had lived most of his adult life being other people. He’d been undercover in CIA special ops. Pretended to be everything from a terrorist to a white pride nationalist. Literally watched a man get ripped apart while tied to two truck bumpers. Saw another get buried alive.

  That didn’t even touch the endless parade of dead bodies, some of them at his hands. So many visions haunted him, and he didn’t want that for Cara. “Now you know why I want her out of here.”

  Standing there with his hands on his hips, Parker glanced over at him. “You sure that’s why?”

  “Don’t be a dick.” They had bodies to handle and a mission where he still didn’t understand the end goal. The last thing he had time for was a game of verbal gymnastics about Cara.

  “I’m just saying you two got back to kissing really fast.” Parker’s voice lowered as he took a step closer to Reid. “Be careful there, man.”

  “You think she’s the killer?”

  Parker shook his head. “You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think she will fucking flatten you if you don’t watch your back.”

  “She weighs half of what I do.” Reid knew that’s not where his friend was going, but this was not the time for a discussion about his love life. There was never a good time for that.

  “Emotionally, you idiot.”

  The comment hit a little too close. When she’d walked out, he shut down that side of his life. Made a vow to keep things with women light. Make sure they knew the score up front and not get involved. Work was his priority. Staying in peak condition. Covering his team. Analyzing data.

  It all sounded good until he’d gotten that call from Caleb. One suggestion that Cara might have walked into danger—again—and Reid blew every promise he’d ever made himself. He turned his life upside down and brought Parker along for the ride.

  So much for swearing off women. For swearing off this woman.

  “Does she look like she’s capable of doing anything right now but throwing up?” The look on her face, the vulnerability, ate at him.

  “So, you’re going to swoop in, be all caring and shit, and then what?” When Reid started to respond, Parker talked right over him. “I’ll tell you. Boom! You’re knocked on your ass a second time.”

  “I’m concentrating on the job.” Not that he even knew what that was. They’d come to Russia expecting one thing and walked into something very different.

  “We don’t actually have an official mission.” Parker slipped his gun into the holster on his thigh and reached for the phone in his back pocket.

  Reid couldn’t argue with that, so he went another way. “Do you want to go home?”

  “Nah, that bullshit is not going to fly.” Parker crouched down and started taking photos of the dead. “You want me to get pissed off so we can trade verbal jabs and you can maybe throw a punch or burn off whatever is riding around inside of you.”

  Parker might say odd shit but he was not dumb. Reid had recognized that from the beginning. The guy had street smarts, and for being on the socially awkward side, could read people faster than most. “Do you know how many metaphors you just mashed together?”

  Parker shuffled around the floor as he got each shot. “I barely know what a metaphor is.”

  “You can’t sell the dumb hick thing to me.” Reid didn’t buy it at all. “Yetis, snowmen . . . I know you believe in some weird stuff, but you’re rock solid.”

  Parker glanced up. “Do you know why I believe?”

  “No clue.”

  “Because when you see shit like this you should believe anything is possible.” Parker stood up. “If humans can do this t
o other humans? Hell, I’ll take my chances with Yetis.”

  For the first time, Parker’s obsession with conspiracies made some sense to Reid. “Fair enough.”

  “Now about Cara . . .”

  “I’m not going to fall for her again.” Reid thought saying the words might make him believe them. Something about repetition making it so.

  Parker smiled. “Too late. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to ask when you un-fell for her.”

  “It’s been one day.” Had he really only been next to her again for a few hours? That didn’t seem possible. Within seconds they’d fallen into a rhythm. They argued and debated, but he enjoyed the challenge. Man, she messed with his mind. “A really long day, but still.”

  “You never fell out of love with her.”

  He had to be. He could not be so pathetic as to hang on after she left him and never looked back. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know when a guy is about to do something stupid when I see it.” Parker flashed the phone’s screen. “Hell, you were already thinking about wasting valuable time by not having the one person who could make these IDs actually do it.”

  “I wanted to spare her this.” Reid took one last look at the motionless bodies. “I mean, Jesus.”

  “We’ve seen worse.”

  And that was a fucking shame. “Which says a lot about us.”

  “I need to know your head is on the mission. I count on that.” Parker thumped his fist against Reid’s chest. “Count on you.”

  That trust went both ways. Reid depended on Parker to have his back. That’s why he needed Parker to understand about Cara. “It is, but we can make this work without exposing her to more danger.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Three sharp knocks sounded at the door. “Gentlemen, once again you forget I can hear you.”

  Reid almost groaned. Her muffled voice from the other side of the closed door served as a stark reminder of how on top of each other they were. “Shit.”

  “She’s got voodoo hearing.” Parker sounded impressed by that fact.

  “No, just the normal kind,” she said.

  Parker laughed. “I’ll grab the rest of the photos, what little forensics I can. You go handle her.”

  Reid opened the door and almost slammed into her. She stood right there, frowning.

  “You were listening in,” he said, stating the obvious.

  “Actually, I tried to hear all of it but you guys kept whispering.” She rolled her eyes. “What? As if you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

  The door opened again and Parker slipped outside to join them. “She has a point.”

  “I could only pick up a few words, but I get that you’re ticked off.” She looked at Parker. “Why?”

  “I’m supposed to be in Montana right now.”

  She nodded. “Makes sense.”

  Reid watched their back and forth. The practical science type and the conspiracy nut with a near perfect shot. They shouldn’t have gotten along but they seemed to understand each other. Reid had no idea what to think about that.

  He switched topics, trying to pull them all back to the problem they needed to handle first. They could deal with all the other problems later. “We need a new safe house.”

  “I can take care of that,” she said.

  Reid ignored the idea of dragging her any deeper into this than she already was as he made a mental list of all they needed to accomplish and started assigning tasks. He looked at Parker. “You need to handle these bodies.”

  Cara exhaled as she moved a few steps away from the front of the cabin. “That sounds awful.”

  “We don’t want them sitting out here,” Parker explained.

  She winced. “Them?”

  “How many were on your expedition?” Reid asked, needing to clarify the number of bodies they needed to track down.

  “Eight, including me. Only four of us were at the temporary site when whatever happened there happened.”

  Parker glanced at Reid. “Eliminate Cara and Cliff and that Simon guy, and we’re still missing one.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

  Parker joined her. “Here.”

  Standing next to her, he flipped through the photos on his phone. Head shots only, but still gruesome. The looks on their faces, the blood. With each flick of Parker’s finger, Reid could see the color drain from her face.

  When her balance faltered, Reid took a step in her direction. “Cara?”

  “They are on my team . . . were.” She looked up at him. Her dark eyes were filled with sadness. Strain pulled at her mouth. She swallowed twice before listing the names of the dead men.

  From experience, Reid knew the best way through this was to stick to the facts. He hoped she’d appreciate that idea. “That leaves two unaccounted for. Simon and—”

  She filled in the blank. “Brad Byron.”

  “At least we’ve seen Simon.” Reid turned that information over in his head, trying to figure out what that meant.

  Simon wasn’t moving when they spotted him. Dragging around a dead body didn’t make sense. The attackers wouldn’t do that unless they needed him for something. That pointed to him being alive. But there were still so many unanswered questions.

  Reid tried to mentally chart out the locations they’d been to. He thought they formed a triangle. If there was a bull’s-eye area for whatever was happening, they might be standing in the middle of it. Then there was Cara’s intel about the rumors of scientists being moved around out here with military escorts.

  “Five dead and we don’t know exactly why.” He didn’t mean to say the comment out loud, but it wasn’t exactly a secret.

  Parker nodded toward the cabin. “I’ll handle this.”

  “What does that mean?” Cara asked.

  “Tasha arranged for one of her contacts to meet me and take Cliff’s body. We’ll do that here, too.” Parker made the comment as if it answered everything.

  From the way Cara’s mouth dropped into a thin line, Reid guessed it didn’t and rushed to explain. “We need to get them out of here. Home where they can be autopsied and then returned to their families.”

  “That’s the worst sentence ever.” She shook her head and walked even farther away from the cabin. Still close and likely not away from the smell that soaked through the walls, but as if she needed some mental distance from all the death.

  Parker watched her for a few seconds before saying anything. “I’ll get in touch with Tasha, take care of this and get to the drop site.”

  “What will we be doing?” Cara asked.

  “It sounds like I do all the work, right?” Parker winked at her. “Because that’s true.”

  Reid skipped over that and answered her question. “Finding a place for us to meet up and figure out where we go from here. Trace the steps, look at maps. It’s a lot of overview work.”

  “You could listen to me.” Some of the color flooded back into her cheeks. “I told you I have a place.”

  “In Russia.” He didn’t even fight to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  “I’m a geologist. I know the area.”

  Interesting that she waited until now to make that announcement. “We aren’t going to hide in a cave.”

  “That wouldn’t be so bad.” Parker shrugged. “We’ve slept in places that make a cave look like a fancy hotel.”

  She looked back and forth between the men. “Like what?”

  Reid worried Parker might actually describe the scenes for her. “Not now.”

  “Fine, then how about an abandoned mine?” From her voice it was clear Cara thought she’d won this round.

  And she had. Reid remembered something about mines, but she would get them there faster. That meant less time out in the open. He only hoped the attackers—whoever they were—hadn’t gotten there first.

  Parker whistled. Looked even more impressed with her. “Even better.”

  “You need to start trusting me.” She gla
red at Reid as she talked.

  She might have good ideas, but they had a past. He wasn’t quite ready to forgive and forget. He didn’t move on as fast as she did. “Easier said than done.”

  She stared at him for a second without saying anything. Eyed him up as if she were assessing his mood. “Then I guess I’ll have to earn it.”

  One of Parker’s eyebrows lifted. “Are we still talking about finding a safe house?”

  “Yes,” Reid said, because that had to be the case.

  This time she shrugged. “Good question.”

  14

  CARA TRIED to calm down. Her heartbeat kept jumping around and a headache pounded in her temples. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Cliff’s lifeless form. Now visions of the other men on her team played in her head.

  The blood. The obvious beatings. She couldn’t even describe what Ken’s face looked like. As if the bone had disintegrated. Eyes open. Other eyes closed. The evidence of the horror was right there. A piece of it would stay with her forever.

  She leaned against the tunnel wall within the abandoned mine and inhaled the stale air. Almost choked on the hint of mold she drew in with each breath. Her muscles shook, making the gun hanging loose in her fingers tap against her side. She could barely hold on to the thing and her hand refused to tighten around it no matter how many times her brain screamed for it to do so.

  Reid had said to stay here while he ventured deeper into the shaft. If that meant avoiding whatever new terror lurked around the next corner, she would listen. Never one to blindly obey, this time she was fine with it.

  She looked up, following the line of the arching ceiling soaring above her head. The stone walls had been painted white in places. The color peeled away, revealing patches of gray. No matter the color, the walls trapped in the cold temperatures. A chill filled the air.

  The glow sticks Reid dropped onto the dirt floor gave the place an eerie glow but let her see her surroundings. Wires ran the length of the wall and connected to lights above her head. The box attached to the wall across from her was rusted and the door hung half off its hinges. Streaks of orange stained the space around it.

  She guessed water had touched and possibly shorted out the electrical panel at one point. A very bad thing, but there was one bright spot. No bodies. No sign of blood.