Caleb kept trying to block that question from his brain. If he didn’t ask it, he didn’t have to think about the real reason. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Caleb, don’t shut me out.” She brushed her thumb over his chin.
He kissed her fingers. “I’m not.”
“Do not assume something that’s not there. Rod was trying to protect you.”
She was trying to console him. Caleb recognized it and reacted by sharing feelings he didn’t even know he had. “Or he didn’t trust us. Didn’t think I could do it.”
“He talked about all of you all the time. He was so proud. So convinced he’d assembled the best team anywhere.” Those dark eyes were so soulful, so achingly sweet.
Caleb almost lost the thread of the conversation. “I get it.”
“But you’re still missing my main point.”
“Which is?”
“Rod never mentioned Vince. You guys mattered. He didn’t.”
The words cut straight through Caleb. All those hours of wondering why Rod had made the choices he did and why he didn’t check in came back to Caleb. He hadn’t wanted to deal with it or admit it, but anger festered there. It came out in hatred for Bram and Trevor and frustration over losing the old Recovery program.
“Don’t forget that part, Caleb.”
He nodded because he didn’t trust himself to say anything. Thanking her for giving him back his faith seemed inadequate.
She squeezed his hand. “Bottom line? I don’t trust Vince.”
“And that’s why you didn’t share the information.”
“Maddie Timmons is alive and she’s counting on us to help her stay that way.”
He was humbled by Avery’s dedication to a woman she didn’t know. “I’ll trust your judgment on this.”
She smiled. “Now that’s progress.”
Chapter Fourteen
“You may find this hard to believe, but I do have a business to run.” Trevor didn’t bother with sitting at his desk, because Russell wouldn’t be staying long. If he harassed Sela again, he wouldn’t even be allowed in the building. Good executive assistants were hard to find, and Sela Andrews was exceptional. Trevor wasn’t about to waste his investment in training her simply because Russell couldn’t control his temper.
“This is more important.”
“I truly doubt that.”
“I need some of your men.” Russell dropped into the chair closest to Trevor’s desk and crossed his ankle over his opposite knee.
Apparently Russell missed the fact he was the only one sitting. Also forgot he didn’t have any say in Orion. “Excuse me?”
“The ones I sent to take care of Avery Walters failed.”
Not exactly new information. He’d put a man on Luke right after Russell’s earlier call. The status report refuting all of Russell’s claims didn’t surprise him. According to Trevor’s man, nothing in Luke’s demeanor or actions suggested he’d lost a member of his team. The comings and goings at his house had not changed. Holden hadn’t moved out.
Most interesting was the men’s ability to dodge a tail. Impressive as always. Wherever they kept going remained a mystery. They consistently went in and out, always leaving a male with the women, and switched their driving routes each time. Trevor seriously considered hacking the traffic cameras to track their movements. He would have done it if he didn’t think Adam already had control of that computer system. Last thing Trevor wanted was for Luke and his agents to trace anything back to Orion or its offices.
Trevor guessed Recovery had set up a new shop. He’d find it, but he had other priorities at the moment. Namely, the irritating blowhard planted in his office.
“Are you sure?” Trevor asked.
“I have confirmation she’s very much alive.”
“I seem to remember you calling and bragging about having neutralized the Recovery problem,” Trevor said with more than a little sarcasm.
“That may have been premature.”
“May? That sounds like an understatement.”
“Was.”
It felt good to make Russell admit his failure. “Interesting.”
“Caleb Mattern is alive, as well.”
Trevor viewed that as a positive thing, but he didn’t mention that. He leaned against his desk with his hands balanced behind him. “Your men really did fail, didn’t they?”
“One is dead and the other will be when I get my hands on him.”
They shared a significant loss of life where Recovery was concerned. Trevor lost more men than he could tolerate. “So, why are you here? You could have told me you were wrong without having to see me.”
Russell’s jaw clenched. “You train soldiers for this sort of work.”
“I run a company, not the military.” Not a formal militia anyway. Most of the troops Trevor had at his disposal were former military. Many had substantial training before signing up with him. All would fight to the death…for the right price.
“I’m not in the mood for word games or your pretend indifference.”
“Why do I care what you want?”
Russell’s hands curled into fists. “Because I’m in charge of this operation.”
It amazed Trevor that Russell still thought so. “I see.”
“I cannot afford to lose any more men.”
The man could not be this simple. “You are not borrowing any of my employees.”
“Avery Walker grabbed the email.” Russell pushed up from the chair and started pacing. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Apparently not.”
“This is a disaster.”
Trevor couldn’t tell if this was a bit of unnecessary Russell drama or if an integral piece of information was now public. If it was the latter there was only one person to blame. Russell. How hard was it to keep one email from getting out into the open?
“What’s in it?” Trevor asked, wanting to be clear about what had Russell in a lather.
“I don’t know. It’s some sort of code.”
Just as he suspected. Drama. “Then why are you worried?”
“Aren’t you?”
ADAM’S FACE POPPED UP on the monitor in the middle of the console. Zach sat at the warehouse tech counter and tapped on the keyboard. Two seconds later Holden’s face showed up on the left screen. Avery crowded between Luke and Caleb as they stood behind Zach.
Luke folded his arms behind his back. “We’re all on conference. Go ahead.”
“Have you started the tracking?” Adam asked.
Zach kept right on typing and a third monitor started racing with lines of computer script. “Yep.”
She leaned closer to Caleb. “Did I miss some thing?”
“Zach is making sure no one is tapping into our communication.”
“Could someone do that?”
Luke answered her. “Consider it a precaution.”
“Before Adam starts, we need to have an agreement on a related issue,” Caleb said.
She had no idea what he planned to say. She also wondered how he was standing. The fact he leaned hard enough on the back of Zach’s chair to flip the chair over was a bad sign to her way of thinking. The man should be in bed. Be resting.
The way he hobbled around the room pretending he was fine was downright pathetic. She was all for letting a guy save his ego, but Caleb was jeopardizing his recovery. If she had to enlist Luke’s help to get Caleb to sit down, she would. They had to get through this conference first.
“What’s up?” Holden asked the question, but all of the men were focused on Caleb.
He glanced in her direction before speaking. “No one tells Vince about the email we grabbed pre-bomb or Maddie Timmons being alive.”
Luke frowned. “Didn’t you already do that?”
“No,” Zach said as he leaned back in the chair and then quickly sat up again when Caleb bobbled behind him.
Luke took in the physical byplay and Caleb’s questionable leg but didn’t comment on it. Part of Avery wanted Luke t
o order Caleb to sit but deep down she knew that was the wrong way to handle the situation. The last thing he needed was his friends to focus on his injury instead of his strength. A man like Caleb needed to feel needed. She understood that now. How she’d missed it before she fired him she didn’t know.
“Why the secrecy?” Luke asked.
“Avery doesn’t trust him.”
“Zach!” she sputtered. She’d never sputtered in her life, but these guys had her totally off her game. She was accustomed to being in control. She was in charge in her lab. At home there. She could…
Luke nodded. “Okay.”
“What?” Her breath stopped in her chest. As she looked around at the men, she saw instant agreement with Luke’s curt comment. “You all agree?”
“We can hold off if you want us to.” Adam shuffled some papers on his desk as he talked.
The sudden show of trust almost knocked her backward. “Just because I said so?”
Luke shrugged. “I admit I’d like to know your reasoning, but it’s not important. If you want us to keep quiet on this we will.”
For the first time she looked at Caleb. He stood there, sweat gathering on his forehead as he struggled to stand up. Somewhere along the line she’d gone from the woman they all tolerated because Rod foisted her on them, to someone they listened to. She’d spent hours worrying about how by protecting her they couldn’t be out watching over Maddie. None of that seemed to matter to them right now. They weren’t talking to the woman who once hurt Caleb. They were accepting her as one of their own.
She wasn’t a crier and didn’t burst into tears just because, but feeling as if she belonged somewhere almost pushed her there. She was so shocked she explained her theory about Vince without any hesitation. It came out in one long-winded sentence.
After an extra second of silence, Adam jumped in. “Now let me fill you in.”
It was that simple. They all turned to Adam as though what she said wasn’t a big deal. Forget that they had a relationship with Vince. They sided with her instincts. The relief almost knocked her over.
“We all know Maddie is alive. I moved in next door and made contact,” Adam said.
“What does that mean?” Avery whispered to Caleb.
He smiled back. “She’s attractive and he’s trying not to mention that fact.”
Adam looked up from the papers in front of him and glared at Caleb. “Thanks to the files David Brennan provided, we also know all three women had the same WitSec handler for a short period of time.”
“Russell Ambrose,” Zach said.
Adam nodded. “Good guess.”
“That’s not necessarily significant since Rod’s also tied to these women and we know he didn’t kill two of them,” Holden pointed out.
“But Rod doesn’t have a pattern of communication with Bram Walters, a man we know was digging around in WitSec and keeping secret files. And I know Rod doesn’t because I checked, so if anyone wants to get angry about that, do it and then get over it.” Adam waited for a response, but when no one spoke up he continued. “Rod also doesn’t have suspect deposits in a hidden checking account.”
Caleb stopped shifting his weight around. “How much we talking?”
“Hundred grand.”
Caleb whistled. “Damn.”
“They’re small deposits made into different accounts. It took a while to track it down, but after I accounted for his pay and some miscellaneous deposits, it was easy to see the pattern.”
“Nice job,” Luke said.
“That doesn’t mean he’s working alone.” Adam adjusted his glasses. “I don’t have any proof, but I doubt he is.”
Caleb’s hands tightened on Zach’s chair as he spoke. “Russell strikes me as ruthless but not brilliant. I doubt he has the stones to make this work.”
She had a few theories, but she wondered what everyone else was thinking. “Who do you think—”
Holden didn’t let her finish. “Trevor Walters.”
Luke shook his head. “Couldn’t have anything to do with the fact you hate him?”
“True, but he’s got the men with the expertise to pull off building sweeps and car bombs,” Holden said.
She snorted. “I’m not impressed.”
Zach turned around and stared at her. “Because?”
“You guys have beaten them all. If these guys are so well trained and there are so many of them, why haven’t they made inroads into defeating you? As far as I can tell, the only side with casualties is theirs.”
They didn’t pound their collective chests in victory, but the room practically hummed with satisfaction. She didn’t say it to win their favor. She truly believed it. They beat back everyone sent their way. They did it with a quiet dignity and strength. She admired them for it.
And she loved Caleb.
The thought floated through her mind and stayed there. She’d been half in love with him when he turned her away two years ago. Not having any finality to the relationship left her with an open wound. Seeing him again made it itch and burn. Realizing she’d hurt him, that the lack of trust once ran both ways, that she was equally responsible for where they were and how they got there, allowed her to heal.
Luke brought her attention back to the WitSec situation. “Sounds like it’s time for me to meet with Trevor again.”
Holden groaned. Caleb swore.
“Why?” she asked.
“If he sent men after you and Caleb, we might have the advantage by showing up with you very much alive. Trevor isn’t one who flinches, but I’d like to make him try.”
“Caleb is not going anywhere.” She dropped that bombshell and waited for a response.
“Excuse me?” The deadly cold in Caleb’s voice was hard to miss. Luke even stepped back a little.
“You can barely stand.” She waved her hand at him because his crunched-up body position said more than she could. “We should load you up with painkillers and throw you in bed.”
“He’ll be sitting.” Adam sounded amused.
She didn’t find him funny right now. “You are not helping.”
“Sorry,” Adam mumbled, even though he didn’t look at all contrite.
“And what do you mean by sitting?” she asked.
“I’ll set the time and place,” Luke said. “We’ll control the access.”
“I still say no.”
Caleb ground his teeth together. “Not your call.”
She refused to back down. “It should be.”
Caleb matched her anger with some of his own. “And I don’t know why Luke thinks you’re coming along.”
“Of course I am.”
Luke cleared his throat. “I need to see if I can shake Trevor up, Avery. Seeing Caleb might do it. And you’re coming along because if Trevor’s involved, he needs to know there’s someone out here who can make life very tough for him.”
“You’re making her a target,” Caleb shouted, and the room grew silent.
She wasn’t about to jeopardize Luke’s plans. The idea scared the heck out of her, but she knew these men would keep her safe. She also knew she couldn’t sit back and wait for another witness to die. “I’m fine with that.”
Caleb glared at Luke over the top of her head. “I’m not.”
Luke didn’t look away. “I don’t love it either, but we can contain it.”
“I’m assuming I’ll take over from there,” Adam said.
“Exactly. Adam will be ready. His job is to see if Trevor reaches out to Russell or anyone else.”
She had to talk some sense into them, at least about Caleb. Doing it in a group wasn’t working. She’d take Luke aside and convince him. There was no way he could get into a car, go somewhere and act with his usual superspy perfection.
In the meantime, she’d do what she could to put Caleb’s mind at ease about her participation. “And you can do that from West Virginia?”
Adam winked at her. “I can do it from anywhere.”
Chapter Fifteen
<
br /> Twenty-four hours later Caleb still hadn’t cooled off. He sat in a private room of a near-empty restaurant right off Capitol Hill. Luke set up the meeting and gave Trevor almost no time to get there. It was the best way to ensure he couldn’t bug the place or set his own plan into motion.
“Is he going to show?” Avery asked as she played with the silverware.
Luke leaned against the door frame and stared out into the main dining room. “Definitely.”
“Are you going to talk to me again or just keep pretending I’m not here?” she asked Caleb.
He didn’t have the control he needed to respond. Not yet. Not after she spent the night all over him, guiding him into her and exhausting him so that he couldn’t do anything but pass out in a deep sleep. Then she tried to leave him at home this morning. Actually crushed a painkiller into his coffee and tried to drug him. So much for a pleasant morning-after. And good thing he liked to watch her and was remembering how good she felt the night before while he glanced at her long fingers, or he might have missed her attempted drugging.
“Caleb?”
He held up a hand to her. “No.”
“I was doing it for you.”
Part of him knew that. The rational part, the same part he was ignoring at the moment. “I’m a grown man.”
She clanged the silverware loud enough to be heard on the next block. “And I want you to be safe.”
“I outweigh you by sixty pounds.” He was also taller, louder and meaner, but he left those details out.
Her mouth twisted as if she tasted something sour. “That really doesn’t matter since you can’t walk.”
“You don’t have to bring that up every minute.”
“I do if you insist on acting like you’re fine.”
Luke glanced at him over his shoulder. “I thought her plan was pretty ingenuous. Seemed like something Claire would try. Drugging is her style.”
Avery wore a huge smile. “Thank you.”
“That’s not a compliment,” Caleb mumbled.
“It sort of is since I married the lady.” Luke came away from the wall and slid into the booth on the other side of Avery. The good-hearted tone had vanished. “He’s here.”
Avery shifted in her seat as she tried to see outside the small room. “Alone?”
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