The deal goes down. There is no backing out.
“Tate?”
He moved the phone from his mouth. “Dane said they cleared debris from the mine explosion.” He paused, as though he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “They found the plane but no people inside. The feds think I knew where it was and blew it up to slow down their search. They still think I’m behind it, and that I know where those people are.”
Liberty couldn’t believe they refused to see things from another angle. “We just have to keep working this to prove you aren’t.” She pointed at the computer. “The bank manager, however, was completely involved.”
Liberty told him what the email said. “Wait, there’s a reply.” She scrolled down and read it aloud. “‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be part of this.’ That’s all he sent back, and the email address is about as generic as you can get. The feds should look into it even though I doubt they’ll get anything back.”
Tate relayed the information to Dane while Liberty thought it through. Could Gerald and whoever he was corresponding with about this “deal” be referring to the plane’s disappearance? If so, where were the people who had been traveling on it? There was no sign of the senator or the two White House staffers. And what about the pilot? No one had even mentioned him.
Tate was being set up, but was this all that was going on? The plane and possibly the kidnapping of three people could be a simple case of a demand for ransom money, or way more than that. Perhaps all this business with the Russians, and the bank manager’s problems, were nothing but a smoke screen hiding what was really going on.
She wandered to the doorway, and pain tore through her shoulder. She wanted to sit down, but she could hardly do that when it would contaminate the crime scene.
Tate took her elbow. “Hey,” he said. “Come over here.” He tugged her into the center of the lobby.
Liberty concentrated on her steps as Tate led her to a waiting area chair, and she leaned her head back with a wince. “It looks like suicide, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the investigators say it was murder.”
Tate’s dark gaze bore down on her.
“What?”
He shook his head, but the intensity of it didn’t lessen. “If you’re okay, we should leave. It won’t be long before—”
Vehicle engines roared. Liberty looked out the glass front door where a stream of cars and SUVs pulled up outside the building. Red-and-blue lights flashed as men and women in bulletproof vests and waterproof jackets with ball caps with their agency lettered on the front jumped out, guns drawn.
Tate stepped toward her, covering her, but they didn’t stop.
The feds poured through every door. A tall man with slick dark hair strode to the front as they were surrounded, at least a dozen guns trained on them.
Secret Service. FBI. State police. Even the DEA was here.
Liberty stood and moved close to Tate’s back.
“Drop your guns!”
She hooked her lousy arm around his waist and rested it against his flat stomach. With her other hand, she held out her gun so the closest fed could take it. Tate hooked his arm under hers and took the weight off her injury. Liberty relaxed into him, thankful he was here and hopeful he could say the same about her. It just seemed right to move closer at a time like this, to close ranks, as it were, and stand together against what faced them. It was what she’d always wanted from their relationship, that mutual support.
The guy motioned to Tate. “And you.” The Secret Service agent must be a local, because she’d never seen him before.
Where was Locke? They needed his support if they were going to get out of this without Tate getting life in federal prison.
Tate handed over his weapon. “Where’s the sheriff?”
“Don’t worry about your friend,” the agent said. “Worry about what’s going to happen to you.”
An agent stepped forward and zip-tied Tate’s hands. She winced when the weight transferred back to her shoulder. He glanced at her. “You need a sling for your arm.”
All Liberty could think of was the last time they’d been tied up, and how easily Tate had gotten out of the same kind of bindings. He was making the choice to submit to them, and she respected him all the more for it. He could fight, though he wouldn’t get far. He could refuse to help, but she knew he was garnering information that would help him.
When the agent grabbed her arm to tug her away from Tate, she cried out and clutched her shoulder with a hiss.
“Hey!” Tate moved toward her and guns were raised again.
The agent let go of Liberty, and she moved in front of Tate. “No one shoots him.” She turned to Tate, her back to all those armed agents. “He didn’t know I got shot.”
“He hurt you.”
She touched his bound hands with hers. “Sit down, Tate.” Okay, so that wasn’t what he’d thought she would say, given his reaction. He sat, but he didn’t like it. A man like Tate, who was all man, wouldn’t willingly take the lower seat when it was necessary to stand up for himself. But he did it because she asked.
Later, when there wasn’t a crowd of people here, she would say what she had actually wanted to say to him.
“Good.” She heard the agent step toward them. “I’m Agent Francis Bearn from the Bozeman office of the Secret Service. We found the plane. Now you need to tell us where the two of you have hidden those people.”
Liberty spun around. Agent Bearn had his phone raised. On-screen were three people.
Scared and tied up, but very much alive.
ELEVEN
Tate was getting sick of explaining himself over and over again, but Liberty was currently being assessed by an EMT so he wasn’t going to start complaining. Concessions would be nonexistent until he convinced these feds he wasn’t the person behind this missing plane.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t help saying, “Maybe you should be out trying to find them, instead of here harassing a guy who has nothing to do with it.”
The fed didn’t react, but Tate’s attention was across the waiting area so it was possible he’d missed it. Liberty winced, but he didn’t think it was over what he’d said. The EMT looked like he was poking her shoulder. The man said, “Looks like you’ll need a stitch or two, and likely some antibiotics. There’s all kinds of germs in a gunshot wound.”
Liberty nodded.
When the agent, Francis Bearn—what kind of name was that, anyway?—started to tap his foot, Tate looked up. Francis stood over him, likely to reinforce the fact that he was in charge and had full control over what happened to Tate next. Which he probably did, but he didn’t need to make a big deal out of it like he was. Tate knew the drill.
“Whether or not you had anything to do with the missing people remains to be seen.” Francis tapped the screen on his phone. “It’s been thirty-six hours since the plane went missing, and right now cooperation is the name of the game.”
“I don’t need to see the picture again. I don’t know where they’re being held, but it looks like an empty room to me. Not sure that’s going to help find them.”
“That’s not what I intend to show you.”
Tate figured the man’s displeasure was due to the fact that he hadn’t been on a presidential detail in at least a decade. He was old enough he’d probably been a Secret Service agent for at least that long, if not longer, but Tate had never met him. Francis could’ve been here in Montana, and slipped through the cracks of promotion, never making it to Washington.
Tate would probably be mad if it had happened to him. Whether or not he’d channel the feeling into making a suspect in a missing persons case feel like the worst criminal in the world, well—he’d like to say he’d be professional enough not to make this personal, but he’d never been accused of taking a back seat.
Tate had b
een written up a few times, but for nothing more than infractions. It had happened in the army as well, so he’d figured it was just his personality. Some people didn’t like those who inserted themselves into a situation when something didn’t sit right with them. And in the old-boy’s network of the Secret Service, it had happened a few times. Agents like Liberty and the rookie female he’d met in the coffee shop, Alana, didn’t deserve to be treated like they weren’t as good as all the male agents just because they were women. They didn’t deserve to get called “Little Darlin’” and asked to fetch coffee for the men. They were agents, just like the rest.
Francis turned the phone toward Tate. “This is the first video we received.”
“Video?” He’d thought it was just a picture.
The screen came to life, dark images and the muffled sounds of someone blowing into a microphone. The image panned to the first person: a suited man, the senator from Oklahoma.
He swallowed. “My name is Edward Frampton.”
The camera panned farther out, to a woman in a white blouse and dark-colored skirt. Her hair was falling out of whatever she’d fastened it up with, and her face was streaked with dirt and tears. Her voice was shaky when she said, “My name is Bethany Piers.”
The last person was a man, younger and thinner than the senator. The other White House staffer, along with Bethany. He lifted his chin. “My name is Anthony Wills.”
The camera shifted, turned all the way around to a man in a ski mask. “And my name is Tate Almers.”
Tate felt his eyes widen. He tried to place the voice, but it was a little distorted, so it was difficult.
Francis hit pause. “This is the third video, and the one where he makes his demands.”
The Tate wannabe said, “Now that we’re all acquainted, I’ll lay out what I want. Two million dollars in nonsequential bills. No hidden GPS trackers either. And the release of Puerto Alvarez. I’ll help you out—he’s at Atwater. I’ll text the address for the drop. You have twenty-four hours.”
Francis paused the video and said, “That gives us until six tonight. Only a few hours from now. And the length of time means he knows it’ll take a while to get Alvarez here.”
“That wasn’t me.” Tate looked at the wall clock. It wasn’t even two in the afternoon, and they’d received this video message hours before Liberty had even shown up at his house. Was that really just yesterday? It felt like a week.
Liberty pushed away the EMT and strode over, her face pinched. “Of course it wasn’t Tate in the video! Any fool could hear a difference in the voices. It actually kind of sounded like—”
Tate shot her a look, then shook his head. The distortion had been there, but it wasn’t enough to cover it completely. He knew what Liberty was thinking. After all, his brother’s hatred of him had been their biggest topic of conversation today. But Tate couldn’t be certain.
And why would Braden be demanding the release of an inmate from a prison in California? Atwater was a high-security federal prison.
Liberty snapped her head around to where Francis stood watching their interplay. Tate was innocent. Francis needed to believe it, and Tate figured he needed to at least trust Liberty as a fellow agent.
“Since when have we been receiving ransom demands, anyway?” she said. “That’s the first I’ve heard about it. This should have been mentioned on the news, maybe, don’t you think?” She glanced around, looking for someone to agree with her. “Or I don’t know, maybe to the Secret Service.”
“If you’re referring to Director James Locke,” Francis said, “he knows.”
“He...” Liberty broke off, stuttering.
“The director has been fully briefed.”
Tate wanted to ask Liberty to sit down before she popped a blood vessel getting all worked up, but he didn’t think it would go down well.
She said, “I can’t believe this. I would have been told.”
“Lib.” Tate needed her to calm down.
She pressed her lips into a thin line, then glanced at the ceiling like she was praying for assistance. How was her relationship with God? They’d gone to church together when they were engaged, but she hadn’t mentioned Him since she got here.
Tate could use some quiet time with his Bible, but he hadn’t stopped praying this whole time. It seemed like things were only getting worse—for the investigation at least. Things between him and Liberty were actually pretty good considering they’d kissed, and right now she was poised and ready to defend him.
Tate nearly smiled, but instead he said, “How was that video sent?”
“It was broadcast live on a social media account. We’ve looked into it, and it’s an anonymous profile as far as we could tell. It was set up minutes before the first broadcast and is still open, which means they aren’t worried it will get traced. Which likely means they’ve covered their tracks. But we are looking into it.”
Francis folded his arms. “There have been two more videos so far. The first one got some attention, but we managed to squash it with a virus before it spread. And before the media turned this whole thing into a circus.” He looked pointedly at Liberty. “The next two we kept from public view. In each video, the kidnapper claims to be you.” He pointed at Tate. “And in one we see a wider view of him.”
“And?” It had to be significant for Francis to bring it up.
“You’re more muscled than him. He was skinny.”
Liberty glanced at him, her eyes sad. “Braden.”
Tate shrugged. “If you didn’t think it was me, why have you been hunting me this whole time?”
Francis didn’t answer. He just said, “Do you think your brother could do something like this?”
Tate shrugged, his attention drawn to the huddle of DEA agents in the corner. All three of them had pulled out their phones and were now typing furiously.
If he was running this investigation and the search for these people, he’d be chasing down Tate as his most solid source of leads as well. It made sense. “I wouldn’t put it past Braden to do something like this. Or at least he might want to. It’s the effort he’d have to put into the execution that I’m having trouble believing.” He told Francis about the conversation at the house.
“So he is involved.”
“Maybe the map on the computer wasn’t something that’s going to happen,” Liberty said. “What if it already has happened? What if it was where they’re keeping the people they kidnapped?” She turned to Francis. “Were you able to get a location from the video?”
“Each of the three were recorded in a new location. By the time we get to it, even minutes after the broadcast is over, they’re already gone.”
“So they find a place with Wi-Fi, log in and make the video, and then move on?” When Francis nodded, Liberty said, “That’s clever. And completely frustrating.”
Tate nodded. “Yes, it is.”
“I’ll put the word out, have your brother found and brought in.”
He nodded to Francis this time, but didn’t say anything. What was there to say? Braden had engineered this whole thing, or at least the fact that it was being blamed on Tate. What kind of brother was he when his own flesh and blood wanted to do this to him? He really hated Tate that much?
“And in the meantime,” Tate said, “we do what? Wait for another broadcast, chase them down and find nothing?” Assuming the feds weren’t actually planning to hand a federal prisoner over to this kidnapper.
“We’re investigating, but we’re also prepping to make the transaction,” Francis said. “It’s our best shot at catching this guy and making him tell us where the people are.”
Tate sighed. “We need more.”
The alternative would be devastating to the families of the missing people.
* * *
Liberty wanted to pace. Or th
row something. Or yell at someone. Instead she stopped and shut her eyes for a second, taking a moment to pray. She was just lifting her head when Locke walked in, closely followed by Alana. The two were never far apart, even if to an outsider it would appear they had only a close working relationship. They had set the bar on having a professional attitude about their romance. Liberty felt a pang of...shame, maybe, when she thought about how she and Tate had been.
Sneaking kisses when no one was looking had been fun and all, but was hardly professional even if no one had caught them. Love made people act crazy, though. Everyone said so. Still, if she could go back, she’d do it all differently.
But she would still do it all again. Because, as much as it hurt now, she’d needed him back then. She’d needed to feel...well, needed. Who didn’t? Liberty couldn’t even describe the feeling, knowing Tate loved her as much as he’d shown her he had.
“Lib?”
She glanced at Tate and shook her head. There was no reason to drag up the past, even if standing here made it feel like they could just slide right back into the place where they’d been so in love. The future had stretched out ahead of them, so far. So bright. Then with one diagnosis, the steel bars of a cell had slammed down over Liberty’s life, and she’d realized she could never give Tate everything he wanted.
“Are you okay?” Alana’s face was open. She’d probably never seen this version of Liberty. Since Tate’s leaving she’d been closed off. Antisocial, and nursing her wounds. She’d pulled away from everyone.
Liberty didn’t even know what to tell her. “Once we get this cleared up, I probably will be.” She turned to Locke and said, “Want to tell me why you never mentioned videos when we talked?”
Locke shrugged. “I compartmentalized information in order to provide you with the best possible focus.”
“Meaning you lied to me.”
“Withholding information as your boss is not the same thing as lying, Agent Westmark.” Locke wasn’t going to apologize when he was convinced he’d done the right thing. Alana’s brow held a tiny line, which Liberty figured meant she didn’t completely agree, but Liberty wasn’t going to mention it.
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