Secret Assignment

by Paula Graves

  “Oh, no!”

  “She fought them off, managed to hold on to her purse, but they pushed her down and scraped her up a little.” He shook his head. “At the time, we thought it was just a random mugging, but—”

  “But now you’re not so sure.”

  “It was brazen. And until a couple of nights ago, odd.”

  “They were dressed in black with masks on?” Shannon guessed.

  She really was spooky, Gideon thought. “Yeah. And they disappeared as soon as people came running to her rescue.”

  “That’s why you didn’t tell Lydia what the men on the island looked like.”

  “I think she guessed anyway,” he said.

  Shannon stopped walking and turned to look at him, emotion glowing in her dark eyes. She touched his chest again, her warm palm flattening against his sternum. “You’re good to her. I know she’s happy you’re around.”

  He shook his head. “I’m a constant reminder of everything she’s lost.”

  “No, you’re a comfort.” She smoothed her hand over his chest, her touch sparking a wildfire in his veins. The midday heat couldn’t touch the inferno scorching his insides as he gazed at her upturned face, overwhelmed with the need to possess her, somehow, to brand her as his. It was an alien sensation, and frightening, but he was helpless against its power.

  He lowered his head slowly. Deliberately. Giving her time to protest if she wanted to.

  But she rose to her feet, curling her fingers in the fabric of his T-shirt. Closing the space between them, she brushed her mouth lightly against his.

  He felt the world around them spinning into nothing, and it scared the hell out of him. As he started to pull away, she tightened her grip on his T-shirt and kept him close.

  Their gazes locked. In her dark eyes, he saw an echo of the desire pounding in his own chest, and he was lost.

  He bent his head again, his mouth slanting hard and hungry against hers. He sidestepped, pulling her with him until they had left the main sidewalk and slipped into the shadows of a narrow footpath between two buildings.

  Salt air danced across his skin as she kissed him back, rising on her toes so she could wrap her arms around his neck. He dragged her against him, turning until her back flattened against the warm concrete block wall behind her. His mouth slid away from hers, moving down the curve of her jaw to nip lightly at the sensitive skin on the side of her neck.

  “Get a room, geezers!” The voice, high-pitched and sarcastic, hit Gideon like a bucket of ice water. He stumbled backward, away from her, until his back flattened against the opposite wall.

  A couple of teenaged boys ran away from the footpath, laughing wildly.

  Shannon stared at him across the footpath, her eyes drunk with passion. She looked beautiful and vulnerable. So small. So fragile.

  He’d walked away from their first kiss, not wanting to talk about it. And she’d let him.

  He didn’t think she would let him just walk away this time.

  But to his surprise, she composed herself right in front of him, unhurried and giving a fine show of being unaffected. She straightened her blouse where his exploring hands had shifted it out of place and finger-combed her dark hair away from her face.

  “Let’s go find Lydia,” she said, and walked out of the narrow alley, leaving him no choice but to follow.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lydia was in a happy mood at dinner that night, sharing tidbits of news she’d heard from her friends at the hair salon. To Shannon’s eyes, she looked a decade younger. Maybe leaving the solitude of Nightshade Island would be good for her after all. At least Shannon hoped so.

  As usual, she retired to her room early, leaving Shannon and Gideon to lock up for the night. Shannon put away the supper dishes while Gideon checked all the locks. Returning, he perched on one of the breakfast bar stools, watching as she put the last clean cup in the cabinet. “Looks like we’re going to get some rain tonight.”

  “I thought the tropical storm was still a few days away.”

  “Only two now,” he said. “And it’s big enough that we’ll see some feeder bands roll through tonight and tomorrow.”

  “You look worried.”

  “I can’t shake what we talked about earlier. What if I’m the one bringing this mess raining down on Nightshade Island?”

  “I don’t think it’s as simple as a grudge,” she said with conviction, although she couldn’t tell him the central reason she’d come to that conclusion, not without potentially putting someone in grave danger.

  Gideon hadn’t been the only person who’d recognized a name today.

  “So you really think it’s something in the general’s collections?”

  “I think we’re on the right track, connecting those guys to MacLear. There are too many clues that add up—the Melville/Ahab’s Folly connection, the commando-style infiltration of the island, AfterAssets’s connection to Salvatore Beckett—”

  He nodded. “I did think, once I remembered Ray Stephens, that he’d have been a prime prospect for the SSU. Skilled, physically brave and utterly lacking a moral compass. Fits the bill.”

  “So now we have to figure out what they want.”

  “Have you come across anything in the general’s papers that raised any flags for you?” He sounded genuinely curious.

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure,” Gideon admitted. “General Ross told me his suspicions about MacLear’s possible involvement in Ford’s death. But he also hinted the danger might not be over. He asked me to stick around to help him protect Mrs. Ross when he had to be away from the island.”

  Shannon leaned closer. “You think he was murdered, don’t you?”

  “The police can’t say for sure that the crash wasn’t an accident. It’s just—the rate of speed the car was going when it crashed makes no sense. If anything General Ross was an overly cautious driver.”

  “Maybe he fell asleep and lost control?”

  “Maybe, but not likely. He prided himself on his alertness.”

  She shook her head. “No tampering with the brakes?”

  “The brake lines were intact, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t bleed out the fluid of the brakes. There was almost no fluid in the chamber after the wreck, but the forensic mechanics couldn’t be sure that didn’t happen in the wreck itself—he drove into the bay, so any fluid from the cracked brake fluid chamber would have washed away.”

  “What would be the motive?”

  Gideon glanced toward the stairs, as if worried about being overheard. He lowered his voice. “If the general knew something damaging to someone high in the food chain, which is definitely the impression I got, whoever’s behind these intrusions could’ve burned Stafford House to the ground and not removed the threat as long as the general was alive.”

  A shudder of foreboding rippled up her spine. “So if we find whatever secret the general was hiding—”

  “We could be targets, too.”

  She wondered if Jesse had any idea what he’d sent her into. She couldn’t imagine he had; she’d been asking for a field case for over a year now with no luck, Jesse turning her down on cases far less dangerous than her trip to Nightshade Island was turning out to be.

  “Maybe you should go home,” Gideon said quietly.

  She snapped her gaze up to his. “No.”

  “This isn’t what you signed up for.”

  “No, but I’m capable of handling it,” she said, wishing she sounded more confident. “I do have training, and you can’t be here with Lydia twenty-four hours a day. But maybe we should bring more Coopers into this investigation.”

  She could see from Gideon’s scowl that he wasn’t crazy about the idea. “Calling in reinforcements may scare the bad guys off.”

  “And that would be a bad thing because?”

  “Because maybe they decide to bide their time and go after Lydia and her treasures when neither of us are there to protect her.”

  “What’s the
alternative—luring the bad guys here?”

  “No, but I don’t want this to follow Lydia to her new home. It needs to end here and now.”

  He was calling Lydia by her first name regularly now, she noted. Coming to terms with actually feeling a connection to someone else? “Okay. I agree.”

  His expression softening, he laid his hand on her shoulder, his touch gentle. “I know this isn’t what you expected when you came here. I’m sorry it’s turned into such a mess.”

  “I’m glad I’m here. I want to help.” She laid her palm against the center of his chest, knowing it would serve as a potent reminder of the kiss they’d shared earlier that day.

  He gazed at her uncertainly, hunger blazing in his eyes. After a moment, he slid his hand around the back of her neck and tugged her to him, nuzzling his nose in her hair. “You make me crazy.”

  She couldn’t hold back a smile, lifting her face to look up at him. “That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

  He released her, his hand lingering at the base of her neck before dropping away, leaving her feeling bereft. “I’ve been thinking, if what the general knew was explosive enough to get him killed, maybe he wrote it down somewhere. Like, say, a coded journal.”

  “I might be able to find an e-book version of that cryptography book I have at home. It could help.”

  He nodded. “I’m going to go do my nightly patrol. Go get some rest. It’s been a long couple of days. Lock up behind me.”

  She walked him to the door. “Be careful.”

  He managed a tired smile. “I always am.”

  After watching from the porch until he was out of sight, she went back inside, locked the door behind her and pulled out her cell phone. Climbing the stairs to her room, she called her brother.

  Jesse sounded tired when he answered. “What’s up, Shan?”

  “A lot.” She tamped down a sense of guilt at making the call to her brother behind Gideon’s back. “But let’s start with a question I’ve asked before. Why did you really send me here to Nightshade Island?”

  There was such a long silence on Jesse’s end of the line that Shannon wondered if she’d been disconnected. But he finally spoke. “Has something else happened?”

  “Not in the last few hours. I’m more curious about why you’re not surprised that the SSU may be involved with whatever’s going on here on Nightshade Island. I know Rick’s told you about AfterAssets, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “The connection to Salvatore Beckett and the timing of the company’s creation don’t give you pause?”

  “Of course they do.”

  “Am I a sacrificial lamb here?”

  “God, Shannon, what do you think I am?”

  “A secretive bastard, for one thing,” she snapped. “You sent me here knowing something was going on, but you didn’t bother to tell me. Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want you overtly snooping around and getting into trouble.”

  “Why didn’t you send Isabel or Rick or one of the other field operatives?”

  He was quiet a moment before answering, “Nobody would suspect you of being a field operative.”

  Great. Just great.

  “It’s getting dangerous here. Gideon doesn’t want me to call in the cavalry, but I thought I should at least give you the option.”

  Jesse’s long pauses were beginning to unnerve her. When he didn’t speak right away, she added, “What haven’t you told me?”

  Jesse released a long breath. “Remember Major Gantry?”

  “The guy who turned state’s evidence against Barton Reid?”

  “Yeah. What I didn’t tell you, or anyone outside of the family, is that shortly before Megan’s wedding, there was another attempt on his life. He had to be moved immediately into witness security. But before he went, I got a chance to talk to him. And he told me that Barton Reid’s not at the top of this conspiracy’s totem pole. There’s someone else. Gantry doesn’t know who, but he says Reid and the other conspirators were deeply concerned about what three American generals knew.”

  Shannon’s stomach tightened painfully. “Three generals?”

  “We’ve come to the conclusion that the three generals in question almost certainly were the three generals in charge of the Kaziristan peacekeeping troops at the time of the insurrection.” His voice deepened. “One of those three generals was Edward Ross.”

  Shannon pressed her hand over her mouth, feeling ill. Was Gideon right? Had General Ross’s car crash not been an accident at all? “Wait a second,” she said, something else occurring to her. “Wasn’t Rita’s father head of the Marine Corps troops in Kaziristan?”

  “Yes, General Marsh is one of the three generals.”

  Baxter Marsh was the father of Jesse’s former fiancée, Rita. Her younger sister had started working at Cooper Security earlier that summer, in Accounts Payable. Unlike Rita, who blamed Jesse for the breakup several years ago, Evie didn’t seem to hold any grudges against the Coopers. “Have you talked to Evie about it?”

  “I haven’t yet, but I may have to now.”

  The grim tone of her brother’s voice intensified the feeling of sick worry squirming in her belly. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “The third general in charge of the Kaziristan forces was Air Force General Emmett Harlowe.”

  “And?”

  “This afternoon, he, his wife and his adult daughter were all reported missing.”

  Shannon sat down on her bed, troubled by the implications. “Someone’s trying to get rid of the generals before they talk.”

  “That’s certainly what it looks like,” Jesse agreed. “Have you found anything in General Ross’s papers that gave you pause?”

  “Just one thing. And really, it might be nothing.” She told her brother about the coded journal. “It could have nothing to do with Kaziristan at all.”

  “Or it could have everything to do with it,” Jesse said.

  “I’m planning to download a digital version of that cryptography book I have at home if I can find one,” she told Jesse. “I was going to try to get to work on it tomorrow morning.”

  “I’d rather you bring it home with you and do your detective work here,” Jesse said.

  She tightened her grip on the phone, not because she found her brother’s suggestion outrageous, but because she found it so tempting. If he was right about the conspiracy swirling around the three generals, the danger to Lydia Ross—and by association, to her—might be far from over. After all, General Harlowe’s whole family disappeared together.

  Maybe these incursions by the men in black masks were attempts to silence Lydia Ross and take whatever potential evidence they could get their hands on. Maybe they had no intention of staying away, despite the temporary setback Gideon had dealt them.

  Shannon wasn’t a field operative. She’d never been involved in anything more dangerous than a nighttime hike up Fuller’s Bluff on the east face of Gossamer Mountain.

  But however light her experience in the field, Shannon did have skills that could lend an extra layer of protection for Lydia Ross and Nightshade Island. As long as she could help keep the wolves at bay, there was no way she could take the journal and run.

  “I’d rather stay here,” she said, swallowing her fear. “I can help Mrs. Ross.” And Gideon, she added silently.

  “Maybe I should come down there, then.”

  “Not yet,” she said, remembering Gideon’s earlier words. A full-force invasion of Coopers could easily deter the four intruders from having another go at the island, but Lydia Ross ultimately might be in more danger than ever. All they’d be doing was deferring the inevitable attack to a time and place where Lydia would be even more vulnerable. “Believe me, I’ll call in the cavalry when it’s necessary.”

  “Shannon—”

  “Jesse, you sent me here. Now you’re just going to have to trust me to handle the situation you sent me into. Okay?”

  There was a thick pause o
n the other end of the line before Jesse said, “Okay, but stay in touch.”

  “I will.” She said goodbye to her brother and hung up the phone, her mind already moving several steps ahead.

  Jesse hadn’t said outright to keep the information about the three generals to herself, but he’d certainly implied that the information was hush-hush. So was it something she could share with Gideon or not?

  Yes. Gideon had a right to know what they might be up against.

  She went out the French doors on the balcony side of her room, hoping to spot Gideon on his nightly island patrol. He was nowhere in sight, but the mild salt breeze coming off the Gulf of Mexico lifted her hair and filled her lungs, leaving her unwilling to confine herself to her room just yet. The silvery moon struggled to cast its light through the dark clouds scudding across the sky, the first hint of the coming tropical storm.

  It would be raining by morning, she thought. Would that help or hinder their efforts to protect Nightshade Island?

  Seeing no sign of Gideon from her side of the house, she circled around to where she had a good view of both the caretaker’s house behind the garden and, several yards farther toward the beach, the stark silhouette of Nightshade Island Lighthouse.

  The caretaker’s house was dark, she saw. But in the lighthouse, a light flickered up top in the service room.

  Gideon must have gone up to check the lighthouse, she realized, already heading back to her room. She tugged on a pair of sneakers, went downstairs and let herself out through the garden door.

  * * *

  GIDEON WALKED SLOWLY along Nightshade Island’s sandy eastern shore, trying to concentrate. He was out here to search for any signs of intruders—unexpected movements in the gloom, out-of-place sounds—but his mind kept wandering back to Terrebonne and the feel of Shannon Cooper’s lips beneath his own.

  He was a long way from boyhood. He’d known a lot of women, cared deeply for one or two in his younger days, but none of them had crawled under his skin and put down roots the way Shannon Cooper had in the space of three short days. He actually felt a strange, physical withdrawal from her presence that made him feel incomplete.