The Secret She Keeps

by HelenKay Dimon

  “Why?” Jenna asked.

  Connor looked around the room to see if they were listening, getting it. “To give him the leverage he needs to convince Maddie to leave Whitaker and go with him.”

  “I thought she was his escape plan, but maybe there’s more happening here,” Jenna said.

  Exactly. That was Connor’s worry. He didn’t expect Jenna to be an ally in the concern, but he welcomed any help. “Hell, he had Maddie feeling guilty and thinking about going back in days ago.”

  All that blackmail and manipulation. He found her weakness and pressed on it until she flinched. Connor vowed never to doubt his initial impression of a person again. When it came to Evan, Connor waded through bouts of unexpected jealousy. Let his past creep in and throw him off stride.

  Never again.

  Ben made a humming sound. “It’s more likely he’s using you as the bargaining chip.”

  That stopped every thought moving through Connor’s brain. “Meaning?”

  “The one way to get her to help him off the island is to threaten you.”

  “I agree,” Sylvia said.

  Jenna took over. “And he would have had access to the note. I mean, I’m assuming.”

  “No.” Daria shook her head. “I told Ben I’d never seen that before.”

  “I understand. That’s not the issue.” Ben stopped there as if he wanted to reassure Daria there were no open questions about that. “Evan is the one who told me that his people saw it in Owen’s file. Problem is he doesn’t have people. He’s on leave from WITSEC.”

  Sylvia closed her eyes. “Unbelievable.”

  Connor understood the feeling. He’d bought into that part about the note as well. They all had. It made sense. It tied up their suspicions in a neat way that made them easy to package and handle.

  “He planted the note to frame me.” Daria’s voice gained strength as she spoke. By the end she sounded as furious as the rest of them for being duped.

  “Possibly,” Ben said.

  Jenna snorted. “I’d say definitely.”

  They’d all arrived at the same place. Same conclusions and a shared belief Evan was the key to everything. That still didn’t save Maddie and that’s all Connor cared about. “We can run through all of this later. Where do we look now?”

  Jenna walked up to the map and pointed out the known areas of access in and out for larger vessels. “We’ve blocked his access off the island but there are still small craft.”

  “Where would someone launch one?” Daria asked, fully engaged now.

  Jenna sighed. “From any house with a dock. That’s the problem. We live on water. It’s all around us. The only thing that may help us here is the weather. Cold and snow. That makes water travel pretty prohibitive.”

  “Son of a bitch.” The boat part. Connor knew that was the answer but hearing it made it real.

  Adrenaline pinged around inside him. The need to get out there, yell her name in every corner of the island, swamped him.

  “I have everyone—Dom, Captain Rogers, and some others—out on boats watching for that.” Even Ben didn’t sound convinced by his words.

  “You can’t blanket the entire island with a few volunteers on boats.” Jenna picked up her cell again. “I can put a plane in the air to give us a better visual.”

  Still a long shot. They needed a shortcut. Connor joined her at the map. He scanned the edges, hoping something would jump out at him. Marinas and docks. Older greenhouses that hadn’t been refurbished. Forest land and open tracts.

  So many options and none of them good. There were too many places to cover. Too many miles of open water.

  He glanced at the least populated piece of the island. The section without any landmarks but one. The black letters jumped out at him. “The prison.”

  “What?” Sylvia asked.

  Of course. They were doing this backward, looking for loopholes in the obvious places. Evan needed seclusion. And no one knew the secluded parts of the island like Maddie did.

  He turned around and faced the room. “You said he might convince her to help him leave the island.” He glanced at Jenna. “Is there a way off near the prison?”

  “It’s rocky, but yes. It’s actually the hardest part of the island to patrol and watch over.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “What am I missing?”

  That had to be it. For the first time in the last hour Connor felt a bit of hope. “Evan trained her how to hide. Maddie staked out the island and picked the prison ruins as her ultimate hiding place. She knows that ground. If he has her there, she might have an advantage.”

  Ben opened the door. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 32

  Snow fell as they drove through the center of town. Winter had held off but now set in, blanketing the sky in a soft gray. The unseasonably warm temperatures of a few weeks ago broke, and frigid air circled around them.

  The car windows fogged and she used the side of her gloved hand to clear a patch for her to see through. Evan had locked the doors from the inside. But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to run. Not when he bargained with Connor’s life.

  As Whitaker passed outside the window she looked around for any familiar face. If she saw one, she didn’t know what she could do. It’s not like she would endanger someone else to save herself. She could try to convey a message but Evan sat next to her, watching every move as his gaze switched back and forth between her and the slick road.

  The car ventured out of the more residential area and through the towering trees. Even without their leaves, the massive trunks blocked what little light managed to break through the clouds. Neither of them said another word for ten minutes.

  With every mile they drove, her mind raced to come up with a plan. She was bringing him out here because it was the one place she knew better than others. And she’d talked about it with Connor. If he could work out that she was missing and in trouble, he might think about the prison and get Ben out there. But there were so many ifs and maybes, and really she just wanted to stall until a better plan popped into her head.

  The one wild card sat next to her. She had no idea what Evan was thinking. She now knew that was always true.

  “There.” She pointed to the turnoff for the prison. The sign had been torn down long ago but locals knew. She found the place on a map and spent hours investigating.

  “Excellent surveillance.”

  That’s what she was to him, a mix of skills and training. A prize that he plucked out of danger and shined to his satisfaction.

  The change in him still made no sense. He’d never been emotional or charming. He treated her as work and she never took it as an insult because that’s exactly what she was. One of the people he watched over. He and a team, but she dealt almost exclusively with him. That was the point of the program—secrecy. For it to work, only a limited number of people could have the real details about her life.

  “It’s too cold to use the boat.” Between the air and the water kicking up the sides, they’d freeze. She doubted the small engine would even work. It would be useless and she needed him to know that.

  “We’ve been through worse.”

  It had been eight months since they practiced any survival skills. Ned was killed in prison, stabbed while eating lunch in the dining hall when he refused to give up his seat. The news termed it as a turf war of some sort. An inside prison sort of thing. She always struggled to believe that was true because Ned wasn’t the type to walk into the middle of a battle he knew he couldn’t win. But she had no idea what the truth was and never would. One of her many fears—a new one she never expected—was that her end would become a big mystery like Ned’s was.

  “I haven’t prepped the boat for winter.” A few days ago she planned to show off her favorite place to Connor. Now she might die there.

  Evan shot her a quick look while maneuvering through the overgrown path. “I doubt that you would be so careless with your life.”

  “I got complacent.” Th
at was the only explanation for her failure to see that Evan had unraveled. She noticed it all now. The lash in his voice and the underlying current of darkness that ran through him. It swirled around him, infecting everything from his walk to the way he snarled and snapped at people.

  He’d changed. Some invisible switch clicked inside him. And for some reason, he aimed his obsession at her.

  “You were lazy.” He swerved to miss a stump lying half over the makeshift road.

  The quick move sent her slamming into the door. Her head banged off the window. “Damn.”

  “You’re fine.”

  She rested the injured spot against the cold glass, letting the icy slickness ease the throbbing. “If you say so.”

  “But those lazy days are over. You’ll learn from this experience and not repeat it. We’ll be more dedicated to your training. I can take the time and mold you.”

  There was nothing warm or genuine about his self-satisfied smile. It chilled her. So did his comment. More time with her meant more time away from his desk and the other people he watched over at work. WITSEC had black sites or the equivalent where he could help her get tougher, or whatever his ridiculous plan was.

  “What about your job?”

  “You are my job.”

  She feared that would be the answer. But she had so many other questions. Where would she live and how would he hide her? He couldn’t think she would sit somewhere and stay quiet forever. Once she figured out how to protect Connor, she would scream the world down about Evan’s new demeanor and cult-like need to be praised. She would dismantle him and make sure anyone who had ever heard of WITSEC knew about this rogue agent.

  Then there was the issue of Daria and Owen. Poor Paul. He still hadn’t woken up this morning before she left.

  “Did you retire?”

  “I made adjustments.” The car skidded to a stop next to a fallen tree and he looked at her. “Life is about learning to shift priorities and keep moving forward.”

  “That’s what I was trying to do.”

  “You. Were. Going. Backward.” His yell bounced around the inside of the car.

  Her instinct was to shrink back, make her body smaller, as she tried to come up with the safest exit. She forced her body to still. “It’s my life.”

  He turned off the car. “Not anymore. Get out.”

  She scanned the area. The prison’s side entrance sat about twenty feet in front of them through the woods and a gate. She knew where the fencing gave and they could squeeze through. Knew because she’d tracked every inch of the outlying area and structures for signs of weakness.

  That gave her an advantage but even if she got there first and somehow broke free, he would still follow. She had no car or way back. Limited clothing and no weapon.

  Evan got out and circled the car. He leaned in, putting his face close to hers. “Pretend your boyfriend’s life depends on you complying, because it does.”

  Biding her time. That was the game here. Talk and act like she was complying until she could come up with a strategy that protected Connor and got her away from Evan. If she ran, he could grab Connor first, before she could get to him. If she left with Evan, then ran away from him later—the option that sounded the smartest right now—she still had to get word back to Connor first to ensure his safety.

  Evan knew people and she no longer took for granted that he played by a certain set of rules. Nothing confined him or reined him in. He lived like a man with nothing left to lose. No job or family . . . just her.

  He put a hand on his gun as he stood there. “I’m not asking again.”

  The weapon. That was the answer. Distract him, then shoot him. She’d vowed never to hold a gun with the thought of hurting a person again. She went along with the firing practice, knowing it would be a skill she never used. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  She got out of the car and wrapped her oversized jacket around her. Her footsteps slipped on the iced-over path. She stepped into the more wooded area to keep from falling.

  Evan’s steps mirrored hers. The crunch of their footsteps echoed through the woods. Snow made a distinctive sound as it hit the ground. If they’d been deeper into winter without the warm spell, the packed mud would be frozen and this area of Whitaker would be a wasteland.

  They marched, ducking under bent branches and climbing over fallen limbs. With each step she calculated the risk if she grabbed his gun. The amount of damage and blood if she could get off a shot. The time it would take her to crawl to safety if the whole thing backfired and she got shot.

  Then she thought about Connor. His smile. Watching him work in the kitchen. All those articles about the workaholic. The way he touched her when he peeled her clothing off. So many sides that made up the complex, flawed, beautiful picture. If he was her last breath of happiness on the earth she could live with that.

  Wordless, they walked over the rocky and uneven path. Broken pieces of concrete and ruins littered the trail. Some walls still stood and time had preserved a labyrinth of rooms from the innermost collection of the cells.

  The small prison had held maritime prisoners, caught for committing all sorts of crimes. But sometime fifty or so years ago someone decided it was cruel and unusual to house people in the path of frigid winds at the end of a secluded island. Interesting she should end up here.

  They made their way to the far side of the compound, around walls overgrown with ivy. At this end the water lapped against the slim shoreline. The waves rushed in and out, leaving approximately five feet of rocky beach exposed.

  The temperature dropped another ten degrees here. The snow had stopped but the sky threatened to let loose again.

  She looked out over the pale blue water. Watched the waves and whitecaps dance in the distance. There was no way to survive out there. Her only chance was to get off a shot.

  More stalling. “The temperature—”

  “Don’t fall in and you’ll be fine.” Evan looked around. “Where’s this boat?”

  Her mind zipped to the shed and to the preserved rooms. Which one gave her more of a chance?

  “Do you think you can put this off? I’ve waited three years for you to hone your skills. That’s enough.”

  “What’s the plan here, Evan?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are we going to live together off the grid? Are you going to start a compound with other people in the program?”

  “The place is picked out.”

  Her stomach heaved at the thought of how long he’d planned this. “Where?”

  “Not something you need to worry about.”

  He had lost all touch with reality and he intended to drag her to that same mental place. To break her. “This is over, Evan. My case. The danger. There’s no need for any of this. I need to be able to make my own choices, not live in fear.”

  “You forfeited that life. Now you will return to the program.”

  “You mean your program.”

  He ticked off the parameters. “Limited contacts, all preapproved by me. Work. Studying your craft. Practicing maneuvers.”

  “So, I’ll be your servant.”

  “You’ll be my greatest achievement.” He managed to make the comment sound serious.

  She felt like she was locked in a bad movie. “You’ve lost it. You’re not even rational anymore.”

  “Then you shouldn’t test me.”

  Connor had seen enough. He watched with Jenna, Ben, and Sylvia as Maddie and Evan talked. The distance gave them some protection. So did the remains of the two-story building they waited on. They lay on their stomachs. Among rocks and debris on the cold concrete.

  He couldn’t feel anything but the anxiety clenching in his gut. Adrenaline pumped through him. Whatever needed to be done he’d do, even if he had to go through Ben to do it.

  The special glasses Jenna grabbed at her house let them see most of what was happening but not hear a thing. He had no idea what Evan was saying but he could see Maddie argue about something.

  If he
waited too long she might piss Evan off. Connor did not trust the man to be mentally steady enough not to open fire.

  Connor started to get up. “I’m going.”

  “Do not move.” Ben issued the order without taking his gaze off Maddie.

  “She doesn’t look like she’s hurt,” Sylvia said.

  Jenna swore under her breath. “Yet.”

  Ben glared at Jenna before returning to surveillance. “We watch and wait. The police officers are on the way. We need numbers and firepower. Not you rushing in and getting hurt.”

  “We’re not waiting.” This time Connor got up.

  Ducking and keeping low, he ran to the back of the floor and shifted behind a crumbling wall.

  When he looked up, all three of them were standing there, staring at him. Sylvia stayed back a bit and watched the scene below them.

  Ben’s glare was the most heated. “He is trained and has a weapon. If bullets start flying the chances of Maddie getting hit are too high.”

  Ben’s arguments made sense but nothing about Evan or his plans or what had happened over the last few weeks was logical. They needed to deploy a different strategy to keep up. “Then send me in without a gun. He hates me. The attention will be on me and you can get off a shot.”

  “Wait, doesn’t that mean he’ll shoot you?” Jenna asked.

  Ben nodded. “Exactly.”

  There was no other choice. They all knew it, but for some reason only he wanted to face it. Maddie couldn’t stall forever. No way would Evan fall for that.

  Connor turned to Ben. “Your people are spread out on boats and across the island. Reinforcements are trying to fly in and ferry in, but the weather is messing with visibility. Even when they do land, they still have to get to this side of the island. There’s no time left.”

  Ben shook his head during Connor’s entire speech. “I’ll move until I can get a clear shot.”