by Paula Graves
He met her outside and unlocked the truck with the remote, but he pocketed the keys before he headed to the motel office to settle up the bill with his dwindling cash. If they had to spend too much more time running, he was going to have to make contact with Riley or Hannah again.
But was that a risk worth taking? He already knew Alexander Quinn probably had someone watching Riley and Hannah as it was.
He’d half expected he’d return to the parking lot to find his truck gone. A woman smart enough to navigate the hacker world could probably figure out how to hot-wire his truck.
But she and the truck were still there. She had buckled herself into the passenger seat and sat almost primly upright, her hands folded on her lap. He stared at her in dismay as he climbed behind the steering wheel.
Where was his prickly porcupine?
He shut the door and put the key in the ignition. But he didn’t start the engine. After a few seconds of silence, she slowly turned her head to look at him. The corner of her eye twitched wildly.
“Something happened last night between the time we got our rooms and this morning when you knocked on my door,” he said quietly. “You’re trying real hard to convince me everything’s okay, but you’re just not that good a liar.”
Her gaze dropped to her lap. “Who sent you, Jack? Was it Carlos?”
He stared back at her, caught off guard. “You think I’m working for your gunrunning ex-boyfriend? Really?”
“Maybe it’s not Carlos. Maybe it’s somebody in what’s left of the Cortland organization. How did they get to you? Did they see you talking to me at the diner and think you could be bought?” She turned to look at him, stark pain in her tear-rimmed eyes. “How much did they offer? What was my life worth to you?”
He reached across the truck cab and cupped her face in his palm. She flinched, but she didn’t pull away. “Your life is priceless, Mallory. I would never do anything to hurt you. Or anyone else. Not anymore. I’ve hurt enough people for one lifetime.”
A tiny crease formed in the skin between her eyebrows. “You have no idea how much I’d like to believe that.”
He dropped his hand away. “But you don’t.”
She looked at her hands again. “I don’t know you. Not really. And what I do know about you doesn’t exactly make me want to put my life in your hands.”
The truth stung a hell of a lot more than he had expected. “What happened last night? At least tell me that much.”
She bent down and reached into her backpack. For a heart-stopping second, he was certain she was going to come back with her Smith & Wesson pistol in her hand, but instead she pulled her laptop computer onto her knees. Opening the computer, she ran her finger across the touchpad and woke the screen, then clicked around until she brought up an image.
“I didn’t want to leave the dialogue box open,” she said quietly, turning the monitor toward him. “But I made a screen grab.”
He leaned closer to get a better look. The image showed a message box in the middle of the computer screen with just four words typed within.
Don’t trust Jack Drummond.
A chill fluttered up his spine. “You think that’s from Endrex?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Did you try to track the message back to its origin?” Even as he asked the question, he realized he sounded like an idiot trying to pretend he wasn’t.
Mallory’s stony expression shifted, the corners of her mouth twitching as if she were trying to suppress a smile. “I tried. No luck.”
“Which means what?”
“Whoever sent it is good at what he or she does.” She pulled one foot up onto the truck seat. It was only half a porcupine, Jack thought, but he’d take it. At least it was a sign of thawing.
“I don’t know who sent that to you, Mallory. I don’t know anybody in Tennessee besides you and my in-laws.”
Her brow furrowed suddenly, and she tugged her other leg up to the seat, wrapping her arms around her knees. He managed not to smile at the welcome return of the porcupine position, but some of the tension in his muscles relaxed.
“What are you thinking?” he prodded when she didn’t say anything else.
“I told Alexander Quinn about you, Jack. Your name, who you were to Mara—”
“Why?”
She turned her head, resting her cheek on her knees as she looked at him. “Because I was suspicious of you. Showing up like you did out of nowhere, trying to engage me in conversation. You told me you wanted to talk to me somewhere private. I didn’t know—”
“If I was trying to get you somewhere private to do something to you?”
She held his gaze. “Yes. Or that maybe it was a coincidence, and you really didn’t know I wasn’t Mara.”
“But if I kept trying to talk to you, I’d figure it out?”
She rubbed her cheek on her knee. “I moved around a lot after Mara’s death. City to city, never sticking anywhere for long.”
“Until you stumbled on that plot you were telling me about? The one targeting Oak Ridge?”
“Right. This is the longest I’ve stuck around any one place in a long time. Probably since college.” She lifted her head and looked pointedly at the key in the ignition. “Jack, we’re losing daylight.”
“So we’re back on the same team again?” he asked, resting his hand on the key but still not turning it.
She managed the hint of a smile. “I don’t think you’re working for Carlos. Or the Cortlands.”
That wasn’t exactly what he’d asked, but he supposed for his prickly porcupine, it was about as strong a statement of trust as he was likely to get. He started the truck and headed for the highway that led back to the mountains.
* * *
BY NINE, THEY had parked near the edge of Lilac Point Park, just off the main parking area. Mallory had directed him to drive past the gravel parking area and position the truck between a couple of sprawling mountain laurel bushes just behind. The bushes wouldn’t hide the truck completely, but it was better than sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of the mostly empty parking area.
“This is a park?” Jack murmured, peering at the narrow patch of browning grass between the gravel parking lot and the rock-strewn banks of Deception Lake.
“So they say.” Mallory had unbuckled her seat belt and was now packing things into her backpack, borrowing liberally from both her own duffel bag and Jack’s.
“Why are you stuffing all that junk in your backpack?” he asked.
She zipped up the backpack and set it on the floorboard beside her. “Because I’m going to have to get out of the truck to meet him, and if things go bad, I don’t want to be out there running for myself without some supplies.”
“You’re paranoid. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“It’s not paranoia if someone’s really out to get you.” She turned sideways on the truck’s seat, pulling her knees up to provide a resting place for her folded arms. She propped her chin on her arms, her restless gaze directed past Jack to the main area of the small park that was visible through the driver’s-side window.
“How’re you going to spot him if he arrives early?” he asked. “You said you don’t know what he looks like.”
“I told you a friend of mine met Endrex in person once. She described him to me in detail.” Her eyes focused on him for a moment. “I think she thought I was interested in hooking up with him or something.”
Jack felt a twinge of annoyance. “Were you?”
“I was on my ‘men are of the devil’ kick then. So not interested.”
“Did you ever get off that kick?” he muttered.
“I’ve come to the conclusion not all men are of the devil.” She shot him a lopsided grin. “And even the ones who are have their uses.”
He was beginning to wish he hadn’t asked the question, because the thought of her with another man left him feeling queasy. “Are you seeing anyone now?”
“You think I’d have thr
own you down on that motel room bed if I were, cowboy?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Sometimes I think I know you as well as I know anyone, and other times you’re a cipher.”
“I’m a simple woman, Jack.”
He could tell by the twinkle in her eyes that she knew damn well she was anything but simple. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Have you?” she shot back.
Not until now.
He straightened his spine, shocked by the thought that had just flitted through his head. In love? With Mallory Jennings?
“No,” he answered.
“Me, either.” There was a wistful note in her voice that caught him by surprise. It seemed to startle her as well, for she tucked her knees more tightly to her chest and looked away.
“I know that kind of love exists,” he said quietly, willing her to look at him again, wanting to read the thoughts her cobalt eyes seemed unable to hide. “My brother-in-law, Riley, found it twice in a lifetime.”
“Tell him he’s greedy. Some people never even find it once.” She bumped gazes with him briefly before she looked away again, but it was enough for him to see that the wistful tone in her voice hadn’t been his imagination.
“Maybe we haven’t found it because we’re not open to it.”
One eyebrow arched in skepticism. “Thank you, Dr. Phil.”
“I could never have loved Mara,” he said a moment later, overwhelmed by the need to explain himself to her. He knew a large part of her opinion of him was based on the way he’d treated her sister, and he didn’t want to part ways with her, as they’d have to do sooner or later, without trying to make her understand he wasn’t that man anymore.
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t that she wasn’t lovable. She was. Lovable, lovely—she deserved to be loved by a man who would give her everything she needed.”
“You weren’t that man.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. I wasn’t,” he agreed. “And even now that I’ve sobered up and tried to change who I am, I still don’t think we could have made things work.”
“You’re right. You couldn’t have.” Sadness marred her pretty face. “Mara didn’t believe in love, Jack. She believed in a lot of things I didn’t, like hope and patience and all those lovely virtues, but she didn’t believe in love. Not after what my father did. She would never have loved you. She picked you because she knew you’d never ask it of her.”
Jack stared at her, not certain he believed her. Was she telling him these secrets about Mara to put his mind at ease? To absolve his guilt? “That doesn’t sound like Mara.”
“You never knew Mara, Jack.” She reached across the truck cab and touched his shoulder. “She never let you.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’ve spent the past four years hating you. And you’re nothing like the man I thought you’d be.” She pulled her hand back, closed it around her elbow and rested her chin on his arms again. “I thought you knew about her past. She told me you didn’t, but she had a way of telling lies when she was trying to protect people. And I know she was trying to protect you.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t deserve it.”
“I didn’t deserve the way she protected me, either.”
“I know she loved you.”
Mallory shot him a bleak smile. “She had to. I was all the family she had left.”
The sadness in her eyes was more than Jack could bear. He reached across the space between them and cupped her cheek again. “She loved you because you’re you. And because you’re not as unlovable as you seem to think you are.”
She blinked a couple of times and pulled away. “As flattering as that sounds, we’re not here to have a heart-to-heart.”
He dropped his hand to his lap again. “So, what does this Endrex person look like, anyway?”
Mallory’s eyes widened as she gazed past him. “Like that,” she said with a nod.
He followed her gaze. About fifty yards away, a thin, gangly man in his midthirties walked slowly toward them across the fading grass. He had sandy-blond hair, parted in the middle and pulled back behind his neck, probably in a ponytail, though from the front, it wasn’t readily obvious. He was dressed in jeans and a faded green Army jacket over what looked like a graphic T-shirt.
He stopped suddenly, and Jack realized Endrex had spotted the hidden truck. “He’s early, too.”
“Probably for the same reason,” Mallory said. “I have to go to him alone.”
“No.”
“Jack, if he sees someone he’s not expecting, he’ll run.”
“He’s already seen me. I think we have to play it straightforward.” Jack opened the door.
Mallory scooted out of her side of the truck and hurried around to meet him, her gaze still locked with the long-haired man who had frozen in place, staring back at them, wide-eyed, like a cornered animal.
Jack held back, letting Mallory move ahead toward the wary man. She said something to him that Jack couldn’t hear, but whatever it was made the sandy-haired man relax a little.
Mallory turned and looked over her shoulder at Jack, giving a slight nod. He picked up his pace until he could see the clear green color of the other man’s eyes.
Endrex let his gaze glance across Jack’s face before it flicked back toward Mallory. “I need this information to get to the right hands,” he said in a soft-spoken, uninflected tenor.
“What are the right hands?” Jack asked.
Endrex’s gaze snapped toward Jack again.
“This is Jack,” Mallory said. “He’s a white hat.” She slanted a quick look his way, the corners of her mouth quirking upward. “Literally.”
“I was a rodeo cowboy,” Jack explained.
“Quaint,” was all Endrex said before turning his gaze back to Mallory. “I know Quinn isn’t sure he can trust me. I know why, but this is legit, and it’s big, and Quinn needs to get his hands on this information as soon as you can get it to him.”
“Okay,” Mallory said with a nod, but there was an odd note in her voice that Jack had come to recognize as a sign of deception.
She was lying to Endrex. She had no intention of taking whatever Endrex was peddling to Alexander Quinn.
But why?
Endrex reached into the front pocket of his faded jeans and withdrew a small black flash drive. “There are photos on that drive of a man named Albert Morris. He’s a US senator here in Tennessee, and he is not the man he claims to be. A friend of mine lost his life getting me those photos.”
“Photos of what?” Jack asked.
Endrex kept his eyes on Mallory. “Of Albert Morris and a man named Carlos Herrera.”
Mallory’s spine stiffened, but she showed no other sign of recognizing the name. “Who’s Carlos Herrera?”
Endrex’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve heard the name before.”
“It sounds familiar,” she conceded. “Why would he be meeting with Albert Morris?”
“Herrera used to be a gunrunner down in South America. But these days, he’s gotten into cyberterror. And word is, he’s planning to hold a major power company hostage.”
“What does cyberterror have to do with Albert Morris?” Jack asked.
Endrex finally lifted his gaze to meet Jack’s, his eyes glittering like emeralds. “Albert Morris owns a great deal of stock in a company called Cyber Solutions. If Carlos Herrera successfully takes control of Eastern Tennessee Power’s SCADA and shuts down power for half the state, stock in Cyber Solutions will go through the roof. He’ll make millions within a few hours.”
Jack stared at the other man, his gut twisting. “You mean this is all about money?”
Both Mallory and Endrex looked at him as if he was an idiot. “It’s always about money,” Endrex said. He handed the thumb drive to Mallory. “Get this to Quinn. He’ll know what to do.”
He turned and started walking away, his steps swift and sure.
Mallory looked up at
Jack, anticipating his unspoken question. “I don’t know if we can take this to Quinn.”
“Why not?” he asked as they started walking back toward the truck.
Before she could answer, a loud crack split the air, and the tree two feet from where Mallory stood threw off splinters, one of the pieces of wood shrapnel slicing across Jack’s hand, stinging.
Next to him, Mallory uttered a single, succinct curse and grabbed his hand. “Run!”
Chapter Fifteen
Mallory couldn’t be sure from what direction the gunfire had come, but if they could reach the truck, at least they’d have cover and the possibility of holding off the gunman until someone reported the shots to the police.
But they were still ten yards from the truck when the back tire nearest them exploded into shreds at the next bark of gunfire.
Rifle fire, she amended mentally. Whoever was shooting at them wasn’t using a handgun.
Jack’s hand tightened around hers and he zigzagged to their left, heading away from the truck toward the thicket of trees near the edge of the lake. “Trust me,” he growled when she tried to tug him back toward the truck, which might be useless as transportation but could still give them cover.
What’s it gonna be, Mallory? Take your chances by yourself? Or trust the cowboy?
She stopped resisting and ran harder to keep up with Jack.
He was hurting; she could tell by the grimace on his face and the low growl of pain that escaped his throat with each breath. He hadn’t shown a lot of signs over the past few days of any lingering injury, but a man didn’t give up a career he loved if there was any way he could go back to it.
They needed to find somewhere to stop, to hunker down and regroup until they could figure out what to do next. She needed to get the information on the flash drive to someone who could stop the plot from happening.
But was Quinn that person?
And would they ever get a chance to stop running? Gunfire was coming steadily in their direction every thirty or forty seconds, giving them little chance to slow down and look for a place to hide.
Through the trees ahead, she saw the start of a rocky hiking trail that led up a slope of the mountain that rose behind the eastern edge of the lake. Hiking uphill would be an even harder choice than running along the uneven ground of the lakeshore, but there was nowhere to hide for at least a couple of miles along this stretch of the lake, which served as a waterfowl preserve and was off-limits to developments.