Beside her, Parker stiffened in his seat. “Look for transactions originating out of South America.”
Ethan blanched, and for a split second, his eyes shifted to Georgia, then back to Parker.
It was a confirmation she hardly needed. The moment Parker had mentioned South America, Georgia’s thoughts had sprung immediately to Will, to the op that had taken his life.
“Then it’s confirmed,” Ethan said on a weary sigh.
“Yes.” Parker shifted in his seat, cast a careful tip of his head toward her.
But why? Did he think her so fragile? Will’s death would always feel like a fresh bruise, but she’d learned to live with it, and maybe that process hadn’t been seamless or easy, but she was getting there. Once they brought Brandt to justice, she’d learn to live with the why and the how, too.
Still, she was sick to fucking death of being left out of the loop. Of being given the smallest piece of information and being told that was enough. The hell it was. She was part of this now. Her life was on the line as surely as anyone else’s. She had the right to know everything. To be treated like a competent adult rather than a child whose parents felt the need to spell out certain words.
“Glad to know my brother’s life was worth something, even if it is just proof,” she spat as Ethan visibly startled, staring between her and Parker and back again. “Yeah. Parker told me what happened. Guess the cat’s out of the bag.” When Ethan’s mouth dropped open, she steamrolled right over him. “You can lecture me about the definition of ‘classified’ later. I think we have more important issues to deal with.” She forced a shrug, tried to tamp down on the anger swirling just beneath the surface. “Will’s dead; we need to focus on making sure the rest of us don’t join him.”
Ethan was silent a long moment, the weight of his stare every bit as heavy as if he’d been sitting across the table from her. Finally, he glanced to Parker, a question Georgia couldn’t decipher sketched across his face.
Parker shook his head, his mouth set in a firm, tight line.
What weren’t they saying?
“Parker?” she asked, her voice a tightly coiled rasp.
“Next steps?” Parker asked.
“Wait—”
“I find proof that Charles is dirty.”
“Parker—”
“But then what? Who do we take this to?” Parker asked, completely ignoring her, even as she turned in her chair to stare at him.
“I have a contact in the Justice Dep—”
“Enough!” Georgia roared, slamming her hand down on the table’s chipped Formica surface. “I will not be treated as if I’m not here! Whatever conversation you two are having but not saying, it ends now.” Georgia shoved to her feet as stunned silence flooded the room. “Parker, look at me.”
Slowly, he lifted his chin, his pale blue eyes finally meeting hers.
“Whatever it is, just spit it out.”
Gravel crunched beneath tires, silencing Parker before he could say anything. Georgia froze, tilting her head toward the driveway. Betty? Unlikely. She used the gravel drive on the opposite side of the trailer that led to an ancient carport. Whoever it was, they’d pulled in behind the Corolla, blocking them in.
“Georgia?” Ethan asked, his voice low and quiet.
“Shhh.” On silent feet, she took three steps toward the door and the curtain-covered window beside it. Georgia waited, her heart pounding so hard it threatened to drown out the sound of an idling car. When the engine died, she reached for the curtain, a thousand innocent explanations—everything from pizza to package delivery—fighting for space in her head. The hiss-spit-crackle of a radio had her freezing in place, too terrified to move, or breathe, or think.
Boots crunched over gravel, heading, blessedly, toward Betty’s trailer.
Slowly, Georgia peeled the curtain an inch away from the window and watched as a uniformed sheriff’s deputy rapped on Betty’s door.
“Georgia?” Parker asked, keeping his voice low. “Is there a problem?”
She held out a hand, gesturing for Parker to stay where he was. God, let this be unrelated to them. They were so close to finishing this.
Betty opened the door, a cigarette dangling from her lips and TV remote in hand. Though only yards and thin panels of rusted metal separated them, Georgia still couldn’t hear what was being said. It hardly mattered. The minute Betty flicked her cigarette ash over the rail and jerked her head toward their trailer, Georgia knew. She forced herself to wait as the sheriff glanced over his shoulder. To hold absolutely still until he turned around and, in what could be described as only a small mercy, followed Betty inside, closing the door behind him.
Gently, Georgia let the curtain fall shut. “We’re going,” she said in a whisper that brooked no argument. “Now.” Moving fast, she pulled her coat off the hook by the door and slung the bag she’d kept packed and ready over her shoulders.
“What’s happening?” Ethan asked even as Parker slowly rose, a stricken expression on his face.
“Sheriff just arrived on scene; he’s with the neighbor,” Georgia said, grabbing Parker’s coat off the back of a kitchen chair and shoving it at Parker. “We’re ditching the car and going out the back.” Where, she didn’t know or care. Priority one had to be getting the hell gone before the authorities descended. There were options. A convenience store. An all-night diner. A superstore. A gas station popular with truckers. All within two miles. She’d planned for this. Considered her options. She’d just prayed she wouldn’t have to use any of them.
“Get clear,” Ethan said as Parker zipped up his coat and shoved the computer cord into his bag, following the procedure Georgia had made him walk through a half dozen times since they’d arrived.
“We’ll make contact when we’re somewhere secure.”
“Isaac Flores is on standby. He’ll arrange transportation.”
Only her training, the rehearsal she’d mentally run through every spare second of the last three days, kept her moving, kept her focused on the task at hand rather than wondering just how stupid she was. Because of course her ex was Ethan’s contact in the Justice Department.
Grasping Parker by the arm, she pulled him down the hall as he snapped his laptop shut and shoved it in his bag. “I go first,” she said, reaching for the window she’d greased with cooking oil until it slid open on silent tracks. She ducked her head outside, then pulled herself through, dropping to the ground on silent feet. She peeked around the corner as Parker followed her out to find the sheriff standing by his patrol car, talking into the radio at his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, pulling Parker around in the other direction and back toward the tree line. The sun was dropping fast, darkness already creeping through the trailer park. Thirty minutes from now, slipping out unseen would be easy. It was time they didn’t have—two more sheriff’s vehicles and a local patrolman were bouncing their way up the pothole-ridden main road. Going unnoticed would be almost impossible, and barren trees provided no cover.
Which left only one option—a contingency she’d considered but prayed they wouldn’t need.
“Over here,” she said, pulling Parker off course and back toward what had once been a mint-green single-wide. From here, there was no direct line of sight to their trailer or the road, but there was direct access to the tree line. Georgia forced herself to drop to a knee, to focus on what would happen if they were caught, and pry back a loose piece of metal skirting. “We have to wait for nightfall,” she said when Parker hesitated. “There’s not a choice.”
There wasn’t, she told herself as Parker dropped to his hands and knees, then army-crawled his way under the single-wide.
I can do this. I can do this.
On a deep breath, Georgia followed him into darkness, carefully pulling the metal sheeting back into place, blocking out what remained of the fading gray light. The scent hit her first—the decaying stench of leaves, dirt, and something else, something she couldn’t, wouldn’t,
put a name to. Bile built in the back of her throat even as sweat pricked up along the nape of her neck and across her forehead. She jerked as the trailer groaned and creaked on cinder-block pillars. She dropped her head in her arms as footsteps fell heavily across the floor less than two feet above her.
Breath caught in her throat, and tears burned at her eyes. A shiver racked her body.
“What can I do?” Parker whispered, his gloved hand coming to rest between her shoulder blades. She shook him off, sinking another inch into wet earth that hadn’t fully frozen, her heart and the footsteps above competing to fill her ears.
I’m not there, she thought as the first hot tear burned its way down her cheek. All at once the remembered stench of urine, blood, and rot filled her nose. She gagged, more tears spilling against her will.
Hands grasped her by the shoulders. “Shh,” Parker whispered, pulling her in and tucking her face into his neck. “You’re not there, Georgia,” he said, his breath a warm puff of air against her ear. “You’re not alone. Not anymore.”
She trembled, then tucked her face into Parker’s chest and breathed through a sob. She couldn’t afford to lose it now. Couldn’t let fear, exhaustion, and ghosts she’d thought she’d buried give them away.
“Shhh.” Parker’s hand came to the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair, anchoring her in the moment, reminding her she wasn’t alone, that the past couldn’t hurt her, not unless she let it.
Notched against Parker as if the world had created him just for her, Georgia forced herself to count the steady beats of his heart, to match her shallow, rapid breathing to the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest. To ignore the way the trailer swayed, to tune out the muted mumble of a too-loud television. To wait. For sunset. For safety.
For answers to questions she’d only begun to ask.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Georgia sat, stiff and uncomfortable, across from Isaac and resisted the urge to shift or sigh. She hated this goddamn chair. Tufted leather and chrome finishing, it was half sophisticated taste and half modern extravagance—and 100 percent bullshit. For something that came with an awful lot of zeros in the price, it sure sucked at its primary function. Overstuffed to the point it had no cushion, the thing squeaked whenever Georgia so much as breathed—twenty-four times over the last hour, by her count—each and every squeal of leather hit her ears like a tiny You don’t belong here! broadcast for the entire room.
As if that were even in question.
Forget the fact that she was covered in dirt and grime, Georgia had never felt comfortable in Isaac’s Victorian-era townhouse, and she never would, not when she was too damn nervous to touch anything—Those are antique highballs, Georgia!—or sit on anything for fear her blue-collar ass would tarnish the surface. Everything in Isaac’s immediate orbit screamed wealth and refinement. From the zip code to the furnishings, absolutely everything had been hand-selected and carefully curated to fit a very specific brand Isaac had been groomed to take over. Was it any wonder, with her unrefined manners and lack of social graces, that she’d never felt welcome, let alone at home, in the place?
“This is all very . . . ,” Isaac said, drawing Georgia’s attention back to him, something she’d been actively avoiding through Parker’s explanations and all of Isaac’s surprisingly thoughtful questions, “disturbing.”
Georgia fought the urge to roll her eyes. Disturbing. Was Isaac ever anything but politically correct?
He rose and moved toward the sideboard he kept in his personal office. After one in the morning, Isaac was still in his work suit, looking like he’d stepped out of the pages of GQ. Tailored pants with a faint charcoal pinstripe, a matching vest, and a starched white shirt. Only the missing jacket and the rolled sleeves showcasing forearms Georgia used to fantasize about gave away that he was off the clock. Georgia watched out of the corner of her eye as he used a silver pair of antique tongs to fill glasses with ice. Once, not so long ago, watching him do that very thing had turned her on. Something about the restrained, controlled way Isaac moved had drawn her attention. The way he’d looked at her had kept it. Now his practiced manners served only to annoy her. She and Parker had come all the way back into DC, and for what? For Isaac to say it was all so disturbing?
“We don’t have a lot of time, Isaac. Ethan sent us here for a reason; we need to know what you think.”
Parker snapped his head around, a scowl twisting his forehead. Yeah, he didn’t like it when she talked to Isaac. He’d made no secret of the fact that he was none too happy with the idea of asking Georgia’s ex for any sort of help. Too bad. At this point, Georgia didn’t give a damn who they had to negotiate with to get out of this mess. Enough was enough. This had to end.
From the moment she and Parker had slipped, muddy and freezing, into the back of a car Isaac had sent for them, she’d made her peace with the situation, even if Parker hadn’t. Isaac was, if nothing else, ambitious as hell. There was no question that exposing a corrupt government official with the sort of power Brandt wielded would be a huge stepping-stone in his career. Parker could sulk all he wanted, but at the end of the day, Isaac would do what was in Isaac’s best interest. And right now, that meant he’d help them.
On his terms, as usual.
Perfect cubes of ice clinked against $300 crystal as Isaac set a drink at her elbow.
“Still the way you like it, I assume?” he said with the confidence of a man who believed he’d once known her, possessed her.
“I don’t want a scotch. I want to know what you think.”
He took his time walking back to the bar, glancing over his shoulder at Parker as he did. “I’m afraid I don’t know your drink.”
Please don’t say Red Bull and vodka. Please don’t say Red Bull and vodka.
“Scotch is fine. Macallan?”
“Yes,” Isaac said, preparing two more drinks and handing one to Parker. He watched as Parker took a careful sip, then placed the glass on the table next to him. “Not to your liking?” Isaac asked, the hint of a grin at the corner of his mouth.
“It’s perfectly adequate,” Parker replied, leaning back in his chair. If the creak and groan of leather bothered him, it didn’t show.
“A thirty-year scotch and you consider it adequate?”
Parker shrugged. His movements moderated and controlled in a way Georgia was unfamiliar with. “I rarely indulge.”
Isaac wore his disbelief across his face, as gaudy and obvious as the diamond pin in his tie. He thought Parker was bluffing, which was just great. Parker had made it clear he didn’t like Isaac, and he was just stubborn enough to take the bait—and lose. Isaac had been raised in wealth, afforded every privilege. He’d take the opportunity to humble Parker simply because it presented itself—and because it had taken Isaac all of ten seconds to figure out Georgia was sleeping with him.
“I see. And on the occasions you do?” Challenge issued, Isaac settled back into his chair, comfortable in the knowledge Parker likely didn’t have an answer. Or if he did, not one Isaac would consider worthwhile.
“Dalmore. The sixty-four was a memorable evening.”
“Dalmore?” Isaac paused, for the first time running a considering gaze over Parker. Dressed in jeans, Chucks, and a slightly wrinkled long-sleeve T-shirt, casual would have been a kind description. Still, Isaac studied him as if he’d just appeared on his radar. “Only three of those bottles were ever produced. The last one sold at auction for more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Parker smiled, his teeth a predatory flash of white in the dark-walled office. “I know.”
Isaac tapped the side of his glass with a finger, then propped a leg up on one knee. “You have excellent taste.”
Parker glanced at Georgia. “I know.”
Sick of the whiskey-laced pissing contest, Georgia leaned forward. “What are we doing here, Isaac? Either you’re willing to help us or you’re not. Time to make a decision; the longer we’re here, the more dange
rous this is to all of us—including you.”
“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” he asked, a hint of a command lacing his tone. “Surely you must have considered it.”
Georgia felt more than saw Parker’s gaze fix on her. What did Isaac want to hear? That in a moment of need, when her life was on the line, when she had no other options, she’d thought of him? She hadn’t. Why would she? She and Isaac were history, a part of her past she’d wanted to leave behind. And Parker. Just what did he expect her to say? All evening he’d been on edge, as if expecting some grand reunion, some trite declaration of love and devotion. Please. Georgia preferred the trailer park to the townhouse. At least there she knew where she stood.
“I’ve been a little busy, Isaac, what with the assassins and the shootings and the running for my life.” She sneered at him. “You’ll have to forgive me if your name didn’t pop up under the header of ‘trustworthy’ or ‘good in a crisis.’”
“So what, this is just a last resort?”
Georgia stared at him. “And nothing else.” Though easy to say, Georgia was surprised it was also easy to believe. A part of her had wondered if seeing Isaac again would open old wounds, awaken old feelings. Oh, she hadn’t worried she’d be stupid enough to fall in love with him again, but she had wondered if she’d fall back into insecurities that had followed her for most of her life. The ones that said she wasn’t good enough. Smart enough. Pretty enough. Instead, she wondered how she’d ever lasted so long in his life in the first place.
Isaac stared at her for a long moment, then inclined his head. “I’ll give you credit; you two did your homework. Coupled with what Ethan’s provided—”
“Which was what, exactly?” Georgia asked. There hadn’t been time or energy to press Parker for answers. Everything had happened so damn fast.
“Proof,” Isaac said simply. “I hadn’t wanted to believe it possible. That someone within the government could do such a thing—”
“There are dozens more files,” Parker said, for the first time offering something that was neither a response to a question nor a snarky comment. “And that’s only accounting for the files Ethan pulled off the server. There could be more.”
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