Caleb saluted Adam with his coffee mug. “Thanks, man.”
Adam held up a salute of a different kind. “The only missing member is Zach Bachman.”
“Zach’s the one who likes to blow things up.” Holden sent Maddie a smile as he spoke. He flirted and won women over without even trying.
Maddie seemed bored by it all, but her hands told a different story. She twirled the coffee mug between her fingers, letting it clank against the table with each turn. “Is this Zach guy off kidnapping another woman or is that Adam’s specialty?”
Caleb laughed. “I like her.”
Adam refused to be won over that easily. This woman had a complicated past. And he wasn’t interested…mostly. “I’m sure she’s thrilled to know that.”
“Zach is at my house with my wife, Claire, and Caleb’s wife, Avery.” Luke poured another cup of coffee and downed half of it in one gulp.
“And the woman Holden hopes will one day suffer a brain injury and marry him,” Adam said.
Holden snorted. “He means my fiancée, Mia.”
Maddie blew out a long breath. “That’s a lot of people to keep track of.”
Adam reached over her shoulder and grabbed her mug. “And here’s the main point—none of us are trying to kill you.”
Holden frowned. “Adam, what the—”
“She can’t figure out if we’re good guys or not. I’m trying to convince her and thought maybe repetition would help.”
Maddie waved her hands in front of her. “The fact that I don’t automatically believe Adam upsets him.”
“Forgive him. He’s not so good with women,” Caleb said.
“Apparently,” she mumbled.
Adam pulled out the chair next to Maddie and sat down. “Can we get back to the debriefing?”
“Is that what this is?” Maddie looked around the table. “If so, you’re going to be disappointed.”
“Why?” Luke asked.
“I’m not an oversharer. I’m not about to spill every detail and tell you all about my life. Just let me confirm everything with Rod and get his opinion—”
Luke shook his head. “Can’t.”
It was Adam’s turn to sigh. “I’m pretty sure I already explained this.”
She stopped glancing around and focused on him. “Try again.”
It still hurt to say the words. Adam had used every search he could think of, tapped into every resource. He’d hacked into intelligence databases and the private files of every person he could trace to Rod. And found nothing.
Adam swallowed back the fear something had happened to Rod and the horrible suspicion nothing had. Both scenarios kept him from sleeping more than four hours in a row. “Rod uncovered the problem in WitSec. He gathered information and then disappeared. We tracked you down from the notations in one of his files. We couldn’t piece together much except your name.”
“I don’t really understand,” she said.
“Rod realized that someone had sold the new names and addresses of at least three woman in witness protection to people who were willing to pay big money for the details. Bad people.” Adam wasn’t sure how she’d react to this part so he rushed through it to get it over with. “Someone on the inside, or a group of people, profited while two of these women were tracked down and killed.”
She visibly swallowed. “And the third?”
“You,” Luke said.
She glanced around the table, her mouth falling straighter as she went. “You’re sure?”
“Your name was on Rod’s list but it’s the part where three guys just tried to kill us in West Virginia that confirmed it for me.” Adam had the rocking headache as further proof.
“You said Rod had the information and now he’s gone. So, how did you put all the other stuff together?” Her voice turned softer as the sentence continued.
Adam looked at Luke for guidance. When he shook his head, Adam knew not to mention David Brennan’s name. The guy had been a congressional staffer at the time, but he’d won the special election and now was Representative Brennan. “From our contact in a congressional office.”
Luke leaned forward and grabbed the coffeepot again. “Bram Walters had your personal file locked away somewhere. Not sure how he got it, but the guy was crooked. Who knows how he did anything.”
Her mouth dropped open. “The congressman who died saving the woman who worked for him…?”
“I see the lady knows her news,” Caleb said.
She looked around the table until her gaze stopped on Holden. “Wait a minute.”
“Yeah, that was Mia, my fiancée, and Walters didn’t save her. He tried to kill her.”
Caleb nodded. “So we killed him.”
Maddie made a hissing sound. “This is a lot to take in.”
Adam thought her eyes might explode. They were huge and glassy and the confusion on her face was tough to miss. He sympathized.
He couldn’t exactly blame her. If he hadn’t been working on the inside, uncovering the conspiracy, he never would have been able to follow along. Or believe.
Looked as if he’d handed her another reason to doubt him. “You’ve only heard part of it, but you get the idea.”
She brushed her hand through her long hair. “So, where is Rod now?”
“We can’t find him. No leads, no forensics, no credit card or alias usage. It’s like he disappeared.” The words sliced into Adam as he said them.
He excelled at tracking people and for some reason he couldn’t find the only person he wanted to see. The failure filled him with a fury that tried to claw its way out.
For the first time since he met her, Maddie smiled. “Like me.”
Luke choked on his mouthful of coffee. “You’re saying you think Rod is now in the program?”
She shrugged. “The scenario sounds familiar.”
“No.” Adam refused to believe that. “Rod would figure out a way to let us know.”
Her smile faded. “If you say so.”
“He would.”
“I didn’t and believe me I wanted to.” She looked over at Luke. “Were there others? More than the two WitSec women who were killed, I mean.”
Luke hesitated for a second before replying. “Only the three of you that we know of, but there could be more. We only have Rod’s cryptic notes and who knows if he uncovered everyone in this thing.”
She pushed back from the table, holding her arms stiff in front of her as if preparing for a verbal deathblow. “So, who’s trying to kill me and why?”
“We’re guessing your ex paid big money to…uh…” Holden sputtered to a halt. He just sat there.
“Make me disappear.”
“Yes.” Adam didn’t see a reason to pretty it up. This woman could take bad news. She’d had more than her share in her twenty-eight years.
“Knevin paid to get the information so he could kill me.” Her hands shook. “This is his revenge.”
Adam nodded. “That’s the way it looks. Knevin paid for your info. Other people paid for the other women’s info.”
Maddie let her head fall back. She stared up at the ceiling with her fingers clenched onto the wooden table in front of her. “He’s just turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving.”
Her anguish ate at Adam. Despite the crimes that had landed her in this position, the instinct to protect her rose out of nowhere and slapped him.
He reached over and brushed his palm over her forearm. “If it’s any consolation, we’re impressed you turned him in. Entering the program is not easy.”
Her muscles relaxed as she settled back into her seat. “Or all that stable, since my first handler is missing and Adam tells me my recent one turned bad and is now dead.”
“Admittedly, the program needs a review and overhaul,” Luke said with a huge dose of humor in his voice.
Maddie must have picked up on the lighter mood because she shot Luke an apologetic look. “True, but I’m still not talking.”
Adam looked at his fell
ow agents. “Told you.”
“I don’t have any information that could help you anyway.”
Luke leaned in even farther as if trying to will her to talk. “You don’t know that.”
“Trust me.” She smiled. “After all, isn’t that what you’re all expecting me to do with you?”
Chapter Six
Maddie didn’t like the sleeping arrangements. She got the bed and the comforter. Adam got the couch downstairs. Poor Caleb and Avery got kicked over to Luke’s house.
Maddie appreciated the game of musical beds for her benefit, but she needed the spot downstairs. The one closer to the telephones. She’d even hidden the painkillers Caleb given her for her back. She needed her wits. Dozing off before dawn and without making the necessary call wasn’t an option, no matter how much she wanted it to be.
And she did. She didn’t pretend to understand the agents she’d met but she couldn’t help but like them. Whether they were torturing Adam with jokes or arguing about how to proceed, she saw the companionship. Envied it.
She’d never really had that certain closeness with anyone but her mom. Missing her funeral was the one moment that could smash Maddie’s control and reduce her to tears.
She couldn’t grieve or apologize. Couldn’t be there for support or explain how her life had gone so wrong so early and so stunningly fast. Knevin stole those precious moments that mattered more than her safety.
Throwing her off a building wasn’t the worst thing he’d done to her. Robbing her of her life was. Those scars didn’t heal or the pain abate with the right combination of pills and lotions. No amount of self-medicating could take away the suffocating guilt.
She looked at the chronic pain in her lower back as her penance. Some days she had trouble walking. After a long shift at the diner, she would soak in an ice bath just to function again.
Having Adam tackle her, even if it was to save her, wrenched something low and tenuous. Right now sitting had her gasping.
So, not taking the meds Caleb handed to her had taken every last ounce of strength she had. Getting down the stairs without waking Adam was no picnic, either. With her hand on the railing, she stepped as lightly as possible, placing each foot carefully and ignoring the agony that shot up her leg. The careful navigation had sweat beading on her forehead and her arm muscles shaking from fatigue.
When she finally hit the bottom riser, she exhaled, letting the air shudder out of her on a long sigh. Forcing her hand to unclench from the metal handrail took longer. She balanced there, listening to the hum of the machinery and soft buzz of the safety lighting in the kitchen area.
Now it was just a short walk to one of two options—the door or a phone. She knew she should leave. She’d seen Adam punch in the code. They all did when they left and no one had tried to hide it from her. It appeared getting in was the tough part. Exiting should be easier.
But she didn’t want to go. Not that way. Sneaking out like a coward didn’t appeal to her. After all the agents had done to help her, to make her feel welcome, she couldn’t bolt without a word. She owed them more than that.
She knew Adam expected her to run. He believed the worst of her, that she’d dealt drugs and stood back not caring about the consequences. She was guilty of a lot of things but not that sin. No one could lay that at her feet.
The phone. She’d call and let her handler guide her actions from there, no matter what they were. She knew that amounted to abdicating responsibility, but the weight of maturity pressed her down to the point of crushing her. She needed a break.
Tiptoeing was out of the question, but she could silently slide across the hard floor. With slow and unsteady steps, she made her way to the computer monitors. She picked up the receiver. Instead of an insistent buzz, silence greeted her. She clicked on the button to disconnect but the noise didn’t change. Figuring the phone was somehow hooked into the computer system and under Adam’s control, she regrouped.
With the hand of her good arm wrapped around the back of a chair, she eased into the kitchen area. The phone there would be for an outside line. It had to be.
She barely had the handle off the cradle when the quiet hit her. This one didn’t work, either. She spun around, almost falling to the floor in the process. There had to be a cell phone around there somewhere.
Her gaze ran all over the room…and stopped on the two men standing at the bottom of the staircase.
One she’d never seen before. He wore jeans and had short brown, almost military-style hair. The most unsettling part was his brown-eyed gaze. He stared right through her as if he could read her every thought.
The angry one pushing up his glasses was Adam. The gray sweatpants and slim white T-shirt highlighted every muscle, but did nothing to soften the harsh lines of his face.
“Looking for something?” Adam asked.
When nothing smart popped into her head, she went with her fallback option. “Getting a drink of water.”
The mystery guy nodded toward the monitors. “We don’t keep the drinking glasses in the computers.”
She could keep up the pretense or just come clean. Since fooling the wall of testosterone looming in front of her would not be an easy feat, she threw out a little attitude of her own. “You cut the phone lines.”
“Nothing so drastic,” Adam said.
As usual, he answered with a non-answer. “Tell me.”
He walked across the floor to stand in front of her. “When you picked up the phones they automatically went dead.”
The other man joined them. “And sent an alarm to his watch.”
“You are…?” She thought she knew but wanted to confirm her theory.
“Zach Bachman.”
“The explosives guy.”
“That’s me.”
“Happen to have a cell phone on you I could borrow, Zach?”
He shot her a crooked smile. “Sorry.”
“That makes two of us,” she mumbled.
“You’re injured,” Adam said, stating the obvious.
Truth was, her left leg kept tingling. The misfiring nerves would soon twist until the pain became unbearable. “I know that.”
Zach’s unreadable expression turned to one of concern. “What happened?”
“Someone threw her off a building.”
Zach’s concern morphed to fury. “In West Virginia?”
“Years ago,” she explained.
Zach blinked. “You guys lost me.”
“One bad guy dislocated her shoulder and another messed up her back.” Adam shifted and ducked, wrapping his arm around her waist until he balanced her body against his.
Zach still looked lost. “Are either of these guys you?”
“No.” Adam was barely paying attention to his friend. All his energy seemed focused on her and making sure she sat down.
It worked. With her good arm around his shoulders and her feet only skimming the floor, the waves of pain subsided. Letting Adam take on most of her weight took all the pressure away.
“Where were you going?” he asked as he guided her to the couch under the stairs and the tangle of sheets where he was supposed to be sleeping.
“I didn’t try to leave, if that’s what you’re getting at.” It was important to her that he knew that. She didn’t know why, but she wanted it out there.
“Only because you were smart enough to know I’d rig the door to make that impossible.”
She didn’t know that before but she did now. “I need to check in with the program.”
He lowered her to the cushion with a gentleness she didn’t expect from a man with arms the size of small cars. He tucked the pillows in around her.
And never stopped lecturing. “You need to stay alive.”
“Adam, please stop.”
“Listen.” He stood over her with his arms crossed and tension spilling out of him. “I can’t bring Rod here, but I can come close.”
She wanted to lean back and relax, but the comment brought her back to sanity.
“What does that mean?”
“Rod’s former partner, Vince Ritter.”
Zach stepped up. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why?” she asked.
Adam stared at his friend. “That’s what I’m wondering.”
“We need to keep her location under wraps until we know who is trying to kill her.” Zach’s voice stayed even, but he focused so intensely on Adam he seemed to will his partner to understand.
The entire scene made her wary. Zach knew something. He had a piece of information that even Adam didn’t appear to know. If they weren’t going to share with each other, how could she trust them to open up to her?
She cut through the nonverbal battle between Adam and Zach and got right to the obvious conclusion. “You don’t trust Vince.”
Zach shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”
He didn’t have to. “Is there anyone you guys do trust?”
He frowned at her. “Each other.”
Adam nodded.
She closed her eyes wondering if they actually did.
ADAM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED sitting guard all night on the bottom step. There weren’t any reachable windows, but Maddie clearly had no boundaries, so he had to take drastic measures.
Zach stopped in front of him and handed over the extra beer in his hand. “You look like you could use this.”
Adam took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Your point?”
“Right.” Adam took the bottle and tapped it against Zach’s before moving over to make room on the stair.
“What’s the thing about her being thrown off a building?”
Adam couldn’t get the idea out of his head. It kept replaying until his stomach clenched and his back teeth ground together. He tried to imagine the sheer panic she must have felt before she went over. The pain once she woke up. She was damn lucky to be alive.
He wanted that Knevin creature dead. Preferably thrown off the roof of the prison and left to rot in twisted agony just so he’d understand the message.
It wasn’t the first time fantasies of revenge ran through Adam’s head. Years ago he’d stood by Robyn’s grave, oblivious to the chill of the Portland rain, and vowed eternal hatred of all drunk drivers.
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