Dirtiest Secret

by J. Kenner

  None of that mattered now, though. The only thing Dallas cared about at the moment was learning what was wrong.

  "Don't sugarcoat it," Dallas said. "Just tell me."

  Liam didn't hesitate. "Ortega's dead."

  Dallas allowed himself one moment to feel shock. Anger. Fury that the hope he'd been riding on had been so cruelly and quickly ripped out from under him.

  One instant to feel lost. Slapped down. Fucked all over again, just like he'd been when he was fifteen. As helpless as he'd been in the dark.

  Then he pushed it away. He shifted focus. And he moved on.

  He needed to strategize. To plan. And for that, he needed information. "How?" he demanded as they fell in step together, heading for the Range Rover.

  "Homemade shiv. His death is considered classified while they investigate, but my source tells me that the bastard sliced his own throat."

  Dallas pulled open the door to the backseat and tossed his duffel inside. "They're calling it a suicide?"

  "That's the official word," Liam acknowledged as he slid in behind the wheel.

  Dallas joined him in the SUV that had been tricked out just like all the vehicles Deliverance used. "You believe it?"

  "Do you?" Liam gave him a sideways look as he shifted into gear and cranked the stereo up, so that a riot of hip-hop filled the car.

  "Hell, no," Dallas said. Ortega had been sitting on the holy grail--a near surefire bid for immunity. Why the hell would he off himself before at least seeing how his ploy played out?

  "Right there with you, bro."

  Dallas grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler between them, downed a long swallow. He let the music pound into him as he stared out the window at the verdant foothills of the Andes rising up in the distance, majestic against the bright blue sky.

  He needed to think, but right then, he felt numb. Jane. Ortega. The goddamn Darcy leak. It was all just piling on.

  He turned to Liam. "This is one hell of a setback--"

  "Isn't that a fucking understatement?"

  "--but we can work it. Use Deliverance's resources to investigate the supposed suicide."

  "I've already got Noah digging around to find out who knew Ortega was in custody," Liam said, referring to the team's computer and tech guru. "That should lead to figuring out how he got the shiv. Not to mention who had reason to want him dead."

  "Good." Dallas considered the options. "Any chance Ortega could be the Jailer?"

  "I thought you might ask," Liam acknowledged. "It didn't ring for me, but neither one of us is going to rely on my gut when the stakes are this high, so I poked around. Timing doesn't work. He was free as a bird the day you were snatched, but the day Jane was released--and we know the Jailer spoke to her at the site in London--Ortega was in a Louisiana jail, waiting for some asshole lawyer to get him released for lack of evidence. Which said asshole managed a few days later."

  "Just as well," Dallas said. "Ortega's already dead, and I want the pleasure of choking the life out of the Jailer with my own bare hands."

  "You're thinking the Jailer might be behind the suicide."

  Dallas glanced sideways at his friend. "Hell, yes. But we can't bank that. Not yet. Ortega was the kind of slime who made enemies. God only knows how many people would kill to keep him from ratting them out."

  "But he'd only threatened one. The only trade he offered was the Sykes kidnapping."

  "And that," Dallas said, "is why Ortega's death isn't as much of a clusterfuck as it could be. The fact that someone went to the trouble to kill him is a lead. And a damn good one."

  "In the meantime, we focus on Mueller."

  "Exactly." Dallas knew that Quince would dredge every bit of intel about Ortega out of the German fuck. Between that and the intel Noah was gathering, with any luck they'd pick up the trail of breadcrumbs that led to Ortega's involvement in the kidnapping. Not to mention his contact for that job.

  It would be slow. It would be plodding. But it was a shot, and until he found the Jailer, Dallas intended to run every lead to ground.

  And, of course, there was Jane's bombshell about Darcy to consider. He still couldn't believe the financier had told WORR about Deliverance--and had actually mentioned their goddamn code name. That was a serious breach, but Dallas knew better than to panic. His men were top notch. His organization well-cloaked. The name was unofficial only. And Darcy had nowhere to point. WORR might look, but they wouldn't find.

  Jane herself, though, was a different kind of problem. The kind he couldn't dismiss. Couldn't chase down. Couldn't fix.

  The kind that got under his skin and drove him to distraction. She was his lifelong obsession, his dirtiest secret, his deepest love.

  Bottom line--he wanted her. And Dallas was a man who was used to getting what he wanted.

  When they were about five miles from the safe house, Liam reached over and clicked off the stereo. "So what's up your ass?"

  "Excuse me?"

  Liam gave a slight shrug. "Just noting the attitude, man."

  "Fuck you. I don't have an attitude."

  "Just calling it like I see it."

  Dallas scowled. "Our best lead bled out in custody. If I've got an attitude, I think it's justified."

  Liam glanced at him, gave a little shake of his head. "Whatever, man."

  Hell. Shit, fuck, damn.

  Dallas had no intention of getting into a conversation about Jane. And as for Darcy...

  He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. "I was waiting to tell you until we were all together."

  "Tell me what?"

  "That Darcy screwed us."

  For a moment he saw the fury in Liam's face. Then his friend's lips pressed together and he gave a curt, quick nod.

  "Give me the details when we're inside." He nodded at the gate that surrounded the ten acres nestled in the foothills. "Might as well give me a few more minutes before I get really pissed off."

  A single push of a button on the Rover's console opened the gate, and Liam blasted through, kicking up dust as he went from the asphalt to the dirt road. From this distance, the house was hidden from sight by a line of trees, but Dallas knew it well enough. His father had purchased the five-bedroom stucco house with the familiar red tiled roof when Dallas was only a boy.

  He'd bought it from his dad a dozen years ago, and had made a point of bringing various models and D-list actresses to the property at least twice a year, just to keep up the illusion that the house was now his own private love nest. But in reality, it was so much more than that. Over the years, Dallas had transformed the interior into a state-of-the-art operations center.

  It was one of the crown jewels of Deliverance's operational holdings, and just seeing it again--stately, well-camouflaged--made Dallas smile. He'd spared no details in putting together Deliverance, and that care and planning showed in the results.

  They'd get results with Mueller, too. He was certain of it.

  They parked on the graveled drive that formed a semi-circle in front of the house, then passed through the functionally landscaped front yard. The house was well-secured, though not obviously so, yet easy enough to enter with the proper access codes. They were inside within seconds, stepping into the terra-cotta tiled foyer of what appeared to be a vacant home.

  Dallas shifted his duffel so that it hung more comfortably on his shoulder and then headed for the kitchen. Not massive, but well-equipped.

  Right then, Dallas had no use for it. He passed the stove and fridge and headed straight to the broom closet. The back wall was covered with a series of hooks on which hung coils of rope, extension cords, copper wiring, and spools of tape.

  Dallas took hold of the empty middle hook, turned it ninety degrees, and then pushed. The entire back wall opened on a hidden hinge, and he and Liam slipped through into a second room that, at first glance, appeared to be an electrical closet and storage space.

  Here, Dallas opened the electrical panel, flipped three breakers in combination, and turned
to see the final door open at the back of the room.

  This time he followed Liam, who was already halfway down the stairs by the time Dallas had closed the small metal door that covered the breaker switches and retrieved his duffel from the floor. He eased over the threshold, shut the secret door behind him, and followed his friend down the dimly lit stairs.

  The heart of Deliverance's South American operation was two stories down beneath a false basement floor. It was always a shock to the senses to go from the murky yellow basement lighting to the bright, high-tech glow of the main conference area.

  Quince stood at one of the map tables poring over what appeared from Dallas's perspective to be an electrical schematic.

  "About bloody time," he said, peering at Dallas from over the top of the half-frame reading glasses he wore only when he was focusing intently on a project. He had a lean, hard face and deep-set eyes. Women called him ruggedly handsome, but that was all about the attitude. Most of the time, Quince just looked like a badass.

  Now, the badass broke into a smile. "Beginning to think you'd decided to come by carrier pigeon." He came around the table and caught Dallas in a hug, coupled with a hearty slap on the back. "Good to see you, mate."

  After Liam, Quince had been the second man Dallas had recruited into Deliverance. His boarding school roommate had risen high in British intelligence, and was currently an active MI6 agent. Dallas had never intended to recruit him--too damn risky. But then Quince had confessed that he'd waited in the dorm for a while, but then decided to follow Dallas that night. That he'd arrived in time to see the kidnappers drag him and Jane into the back of an unmarked van. And that he'd never felt more powerless in his life than he had at that moment.

  Dallas had taken a chance. He'd told his friend the truth. And Quince had insisted he join the team. He'd been the riskiest addition, because he'd made clear that he wouldn't come on board without authorization. Dallas had debated for three months then finally given the okay.

  Now, one man--and only one man--in the British Secret Intelligence Service knew that Quince worked with Deliverance. The trade-off had seemed fair. Dallas acquired Quince's very unique skill set, and British intelligence acquired certain limited information regarding human trafficking rings and terrorist activity uncovered by Deliverance.

  But if it all went to hell, Quince was on his own. He'd be completely disavowed.

  It was a risk that Quince had willingly accepted.

  Now, Quince shot a quick glance toward Liam. "He brief you?"

  "About Ortega? Yeah. I got the memo. Makes the one in the box all the more important," Dallas added, referring to Mueller.

  "So are you really planning to have a go at him?" Liam asked Dallas. "Is that why you came?"

  "It's why I came," he admitted. And he wanted to--wanted to go in there, grab hold of the hair at the back of Mueller's head, and smash his ugly face down onto the table. He wanted to tie his legs to the chair and jam his heel into the guy's crotch until his balls spewed out his nostrils.

  He wanted to make the guy hurt. He wanted to make him pay for what he did to Ming-hua, the scared little boy who was finally back in China with his family. For what he did to every child he'd kidnapped. Every innocent that he'd harmed. That he'd scarred.

  Wanted to, but he wasn't going to.

  Because Mueller had information about Ortega's jobs, his life, his contacts. Information that might lead to the Jailer. And extracting that information was a job that required certain skills that, thanks to the British government, Quince had acquired.

  Dallas would trust his friend, his colleague. He'd take a backseat and let his people do what they were trained to do.

  "Dallas?" Liam pressed.

  "No," he said. He looked at Quince. "You work. I'll watch."

  Quince tilted his head in both acquiescence and respect. Dallas knew damn well that his friend understood what the decision cost him. "All right then."

  "I need to fill you both in on something first, though," Dallas added. He paused to gather his thoughts and present what he knew about Darcy as succinctly as possible. "I talked to Jane. She's the one who told me WORR had Ortega in custody."

  "How'd she hear?" Quince asked.

  "Must've been her ex," Liam said, eyeing Dallas for confirmation. "He heads up a division there now."

  Quince aimed a steady gaze at him. "You okay, man?"

  Dallas nodded. All of the men in Deliverance knew about his kidnapping. Knew his sister had been with him. Knew she'd been freed and he'd been left behind to suffer.

  And they all knew that Jane and Dallas didn't see much of each other anymore.

  None of them, however, knew the real reason why.

  Dallas turned to Liam. "Did she call you, too? Did she tell you about WORR and Ortega?" He hadn't thought to ask her if she'd spoken to Liam.

  "No. She's been buried in that screenplay, and I've been working in London. We haven't talked in weeks."

  As children, the three of them had been inseparable. Now, Liam and Jane were still close, and that was probably the one thing for which Dallas was jealous of his friend.

  Jane, of course, didn't know the truth about what Liam did. She thought--as did the world--that Liam worked for SysOps, a private security company that operated under the umbrella of the Sykes conglomerate and dealt with security at the various Sykes retail establishments.

  "What did she say?" Liam pressed.

  "She told me about Ortega getting caught in WORR's net," Dallas said. "That he wanted to trade immunity for information about our kidnapping. But that's not all of it. She also told me that WORR knows about Deliverance."

  "Bloody hell," Quince said.

  "That about sums it up," Dallas agreed. "Apparently Elaine Darcy put pressure on her son," he began, then ran down the rest of what Jane had told him.

  "And he knew the name? He knows we call ourselves Deliverance?"

  "We've never advertised it, but we've never kept it a secret. There's risk involved. We all know that. But code name or not, no client has a clue to any of our identities." They were too careful for that, operating Deliverance through a complicated web of anonymous contact points, untraceable wire transfers, burner phones, and a myriad of other precautions.

  "You might want to have a talk with Darcy," Liam suggested. "As a concerned friend. After all, your ex-brother-in-law is at WORR. Makes sense you would have heard the news."

  Dallas nodded. "I thought of that. Would be good to know what he's telling Bill. I'll catch him at a party. Or throw one myself."

  "Rough gig," Quince said with a cocky grin. "I saw the pictures of you and that actress that were all over the Post. Hard life you got there."

  Dallas shot him the bird. But he smiled while doing it. Then he nodded to Quince. "On that note, why don't you go show our guest just how hard this life can be?"

  "Thought you'd never ask."

  As Dallas watched, Quince went to the door and started to slowly raise the lights. First there was only a gray blur. Then it formed into the outline of a man. And then Dallas could see that it was Mueller, sitting in the dark in the soundproof room, his hands cuffed to the table as he tried to look cool and tough, when Dallas knew that he was scared right down to his bones.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, taking his eyes away from the image behind the one-way glass only long enough to see the caller ID. Adele.

  For a moment, he was tempted to answer, but she wasn't the woman he wanted or needed.

  He sent the call to voicemail, then slipped the phone back into his pocket. Then he moved closer to the glass and watched as Quince entered the room and shut the door behind him, the thud of the steel reverberating even over the electrical hum that filled the tech-heavy room.

  He watched as his friend put a small leather case on the table. As Mueller's eyes went wide.

  And then Quince opened the case, and Dallas caught sight of the gleam of a steel scalpel and a metal hook.

  He saw the coil
of rope.

  He saw the hypodermic.

  And he knew that Mueller saw it all, too.

  As if compelled, Dallas took another step forward, then pressed his fingers to the glass. He looked at Mueller's face. At the fear in his eyes.

  He was trapped. Alone.

  Completely under the power of someone else. His life in their hands, and no one to turn to.

  Dallas knew how he felt. He'd been trapped. He'd been terrified. He'd been cold and hungry and lost and afraid.

  But unlike Mueller, Dallas had had someone.

  He'd had Jane.

  Dallas woke in a dark so black he wasn't even sure if his eyes were open.

  He was sore--every single muscle. Even his bones. Hell, even his teeth. And his head was pounding like a bastard.

  He tried to sit up, then realized there was something around his waist strapping him down. And although he pulled at it and ran his fingers over every bit of it, he couldn't figure out how to get free.

  Panic, which had been hiding behind a fog of confusion and denial, moved firmly into the forefront. "Jane!" He could push himself part of the way up, and he did that now, twisting his head around as if suddenly, miraculously, he'd be able to see something despite the inky darkness. "Jane!"

  But there was no answer other than the echo of his own voice.

  For hours, he struggled and strained. Then he slept. Then he struggled some more. He grew weak and realized he'd had no food or water and his clothes were stinking and filthy. His throat was parched. And for the first time he didn't wonder when he was going to get free, but if he would get free.

  He'd lost all sense of time, but at some point there was someone else in the room. He called for Jane again, but this time, his voice was only a croak, and as he cried for her, someone nearby dropped water into his mouth.

  That happened again. And again. Water. Then food. Until his mind seemed to come back and he could focus. His clothes were stiff on him and disgusting, and the strap around his waist continued to hold him in place. His back ached. His shoulders hurt. His feet were cold. But he was alive and they were feeding him and giving him water. He let himself hope. Mostly, he hoped for Jane. That she was alive. That she was safe.

  Every time they brought him liquid, he called for her, hoping that his soothed throat made him just that much louder. Maybe she was right there in an adjacent room. And maybe hearing his voice would give her hope. If there was even a chance, he would keep on doing it.