Hard to Trust

by Wendy Byrne

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alex.

  Tessa tried to keep the drumming of his name out of her head, but it didn't work. She couldn't help but remember their first days together as agents when they walked the halls of Langley before getting their first assignments. Fast friends. Committed from the start because of their similar backgrounds. Now he was dead.

  And she'd done a bad, bad thing.

  A little snooping led to a whole lot of trouble. And questions. More questions than she had answers. And she hadn't even officially gone back to work yet.

  Being debriefed and shrunk and debriefed again until she thought she might run from the building screaming hadn't put her on a positive trajectory. But she'd been a good little girl and played by their rules. Then she'd done something a whole lot worse when she snuck into the counterintelligence unit and retrieved shredded documents. Old habits died hard. But in the past she'd uncovered some gems while doing this maneuver. The computer could never be totally erased. Deleted documents were still hiding around inside somewhere. Print documents were safer because they could be shredded. If nothing else, she had a whole lot of patience.

  Yep, she'd done a bad, bad thing, all right.

  She plunked her head against the back of the tub and allowed the warmth to take over. Little by little her body was giving in to the pull of the soothing waters, loosening her ever-throbbing shoulder that still hadn't healed from the bullet wound. Bits of steam wafted around as she closed her eyes. If she could only get her mind to release some of the thoughts clogged inside.

  It had taken her the better part of twenty-four hours, but she'd painstakingly gone through the shredded documents piece by piece. As usual, she had to wade through grocery lists, tantalizing love notes, and whatnot to get to the good stuff. What was that old adage about curiosity killing the cat?

  Holding up the heavily taped piece of paper to the light, she read the transmission and nearly wept. It wasn't at all what she'd expected. She had to be losing it.

  Backgammon—Alex's game. He loved the strategy involved. Coincidence somebody was using that code name? Maybe.

  The idea was crazy. Ludicrous. This was all about not wanting to face the reality of losing her best friend. Who was she kidding? Her only friend.

  She propped her laptop on the side of the tub. Maybe if she played the video of his murder enough times, her brain would finally capitulate and make peace with what happened. Alex was gone. As in dead gone. She was alive, with enough gaps in her memory that didn't jibe with what she knew to be true. So she was making stuff up to appease her guilt. And there was that memory that wouldn't go away—part real, part fabrication, no doubt.

  As many times as she'd watched the grainy video, the jolt of the gunshot hitting Alex, sending his chair tumbling to the ground, jarred her to a point that she nearly forgot to breathe until the hitch in her chest reminded her. She played through it again frame by frame, knowing there'd be nothing in the clip to make her believe Alex was anything but dead. Still she forced herself to watch for that elusive something to give her a spark of hope.

  Maybe she should call Nick and tell him what she'd found. He was there when it all went down. Maybe he could make sense of the note she'd uncovered.

  Why had she and Nick been spared during the massacre at their camp in Kabul? Why did they take Alex and no one else?

  The idea of capturing a CIA operative would lure any red-blooded terrorist, but why stop there when there were two more ripe and ready for the picking? None of it made sense.

  Knowing Nick was a night owl helped assuage her guilt for calling at midnight. He picked up the phone on the second ring, but didn't respond. The only evidence he was there was the sound of breathing on the other end of the line.

  "Nick?"

  His breath whooshed out. "What do you want now, Tessa?"

  She ignored his irritation. Unfortunately, she'd become accustomed to that kind of response from almost everyone around her lately. "Do you remember anything?"

  "No." The annoyance level notched up a bit in his gruff response. "The same thing I told you yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that."

  "I've been watching the tape and—"

  "Stop watching the damn thing. It's not healthy." He bit off a series of curses. "Maybe you should go see that shrink like they suggested."

  She considered the idea for a millisecond then pushed it away. "Where were you again, during the attack?" The details were sketchy from her point of view and getting some readings on what she could have done might help mitigate some of the guilt lodged in her chest. Was her focus on the note some imaginative wanderings run amok?

  While her shoulder had somewhat healed from the attack—even if it still hurt like hell—neither of them could help solving the question of why Alex had been taken and executed. Other than the fact they were Americans caught questioning a rebel informant, the answer as to why he'd been singled out remained elusive. There had to be something more involved beyond the obvious. She didn't know what, even as something tickled at her memory. Now the note she'd pieced together and her foggy recollection of that day wouldn't go away.

  "I don't think we're supposed to be talking about this with each other until the investigation is over."

  "Come on, Nick. We survived The Farm together. We were a team, the three of us." She couldn't help but consider what had happened in the intervening years. "There's no one else I can talk to besides you." The loss of Alex had hit her hard. Before he'd died, they'd texted or emailed nearly every day regardless of where they were. She needed answers to the elusive thoughts rattling around her brain, or she might very well go insane.

  "Just because ten years ago we went through CIA training together doesn't mean diddly. I can't be your sounding board. I've got my own issues to deal with." He sounded tired and full of emotion, and his voice cracked.

  "But I was going through some paperwork and found a reference to Backgammon. Don't you think that's weird considering Alex is dead?"

  "What kind of paperwork?" For the first time, his voice seemed to brighten.

  She hemmed. The fact that she'd illegally gotten the paperwork wasn't something she could bring up. Nobody except Alex knew of her obsession with recreating shredded documents. Secrets were never secrets around her.

  "Stuff that was lying around."

  She doubted they expected one of their own to snatch the shredder bag before the cleaning crew came in to bring it to the incinerator. As for her excuse, she'd always been a bit of a puzzle freak, so the process appealed to the inherent programming within her brain. On assignments when there was a task involving a paper-shredding expedition, she was the woman most likely to get the job done in the shortest amount of time.

  Nobody knew how her skill had morphed into a bit of her own spying expedition except for Alex.

  "What in the holy hell are you doing, woman?" Alex's teasing voice made her jump when he walked into her home.

  "Practicing."

  He sat down next to her and examined what she'd put together so far. "Bull. This is from the director's office."

  "I have my ways."

  "If it was lying around then it mustn't be that important. Nothing top secret would be visible for anyone to find." Nick's clipped tone brought her back into focus.

  She chewed her lip, desperate for him to agree with her. Going it alone wasn't in her plans. She needed him to be on board with her in this endeavor.

  "Maybe, but it's still strange. Don't you think?" She needed Nick to take the bait. If Alex were on the other end of the line, he would have joined her in a heartbeat.

  Stop thinking about Alex. But each day it seemed she missed him more than the day before.

  "For all you know, they could have been discussing arrangements for his star on the wall at Langley or something. It might not be as intriguing as you imagine. Everyone who knew him called him Backgammon."

  "They were talking about him in the present tense, as if he were alive." Maybe she wa
s going crazy if Nick wouldn't even listen to her.

  "Who wrote the note?"

  "A person named Reddog. Do you know who that is?"

  His voice faltered. "No idea." He sucked in a breath. "Alex is dead. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better off you'll be." His voice rose at the end, as if he'd reached the point of exasperation. Nick had never been a patient man, and the whole experience seemed to have made him even less so.

  She tucked her tail between her legs at his scolding. "You're right. I need to come to grips with the idea, but I miss him. A lot."

  He blew out a breath. "I do too." His voice softened. "Besides, I don't remember what happened that day at camp. I got knocked out. They dragged me into the desert and abandoned me."

  "But why? Why wouldn't they go along with their plan, which I can only assume was to take you and me as well? Or maybe just kill us then and there."

  And why hadn't he heard what she did? Or maybe he'd heard it too, but was afraid to mention it.

  "They might have gotten spooked for some reason." He cleared his throat. "I need to get going."

  "Do you think they got Alex to spill any secrets before they…?" The words came ever so slowly, as it almost seemed sacrilegious to think Alex would betray his country, even under duress. Who knew what anyone might do when subjected to torture? The Farm could only prepare an agent so much for the eventuality.

  "Would you stop obsessing about this?"

  She opted to change the subject, as she suspected she was wearing on his patience. "Have you been cleared to return to work yet?"

  "Nope. They're still waiting on the final physical to give me the go-ahead."

  "You going to be based out of New York still?"

  "Yep. Makes things easier. I spend half my time flying all over anyway, so it makes the most sense. I'll check in with you when I make a trip to Langley later in the month when," he cleared his throat, "they do the dedication of Alex's star."

  "Sure, Nick. It will be good to see you."

  She disconnected. Nick couldn't have been clearer. He didn't want any part of probing into the specifics of the message. Fine. She'd been on her own before. She could do it again.

  She dropped the phone on the floor next to the tub as she stared at the message once again. Even though she hadn't captured everything, with a few bits and pieces of the puzzle missing, there was enough to make her wonder what it meant.

  Backgammon back in play. Loose ends taken care of…soon. Weaknesses…Reddog.

  Did it mean anything at all, or was it guilt playing havoc with her thoughts? But if it didn't mean anything, why bother to shred it? That was the part that didn't make a lick of sense. Although people shredded a lot of things that had nothing to do with secrets.

  Unwilling to let it die, she took a picture with her cell phone then saved it to her Dropbox. Not for any reason other than to capture it so she could study it more in her spare time. Sooner or later she'd be able to fill in the missing data, and whatever was written would make sense.

  Hopefully.

  Dreaming about Alex being alive every night wasn't going to help further her cause. It would only lead others to think she'd gone off the deep end. Maybe for once she should take the doctor's advice and take those sleeping pills he'd given her.

  In some ways she was happy to be out of Afghanistan. But she hated desk work. Shifting through piles and piles of data searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack made her crazy. For the time being, until she was cleared for fieldwork once again, she'd be in a cubicle at Langley.

  She rolled her shoulders to get rid of the kinks brought on by the lingering damage from the bullet in her shoulder. The doctor had told her that in order to get the bullet out, they'd have to break the bone. She wasn't ready for that kind of intervention.

  She tamped down her frustration. Being at Langley could help further her personal investigation. A positive spin on the challenge facing her might be the only way to get up Monday morning and head to work. Fieldwork had always been her niche. The redundancy of being on site made her skin itch. She never could get anything accomplished stuck behind four walls of concrete and stone.

  If she could remember more of what happened that day, or maybe if she'd been more mindful about doing something to stem her own blood loss before she passed out, she'd have a better idea of what actually transpired between her discovering Eli's body and Alex getting led away. Normally snippets such as that stuck in her mind forever, but this time they'd been blown away by a force she couldn't quite explain.

  "Don't kill her." Could it have been Alex's plea for leniency that she'd somehow misinterpreted as a command? The psychologist thought it was born of some kind of hero fantasy she had about Alex.

  The shrink had told her it was about PTSD. She couldn't deny that as a possibility. Although that pat answer was almost as frustrating as the elusiveness of the truth.

  All she could think about was where she went wrong. How had she missed the clues that seemed so obvious now in hindsight?

  She laid her head back once again, closed her eyes, and let her mind drift. Seconds later, her body started to relax. An indeterminate amount of time later, her heart started to beat so fast she could feel the pulse of it in her ears.

  Holy crap.

  Somebody was in her house.

  * * *

  As far as intel, what Jake had pretty much sucked. An address, sketchy information about Ms. Graham, and diddly else. He didn't even know a whole lot about what went down in Afghanistan. He got off the plane in DC, rented a car, and drove to Virginia arriving in Tessa Graham's neighborhood just before midnight Friday.

  He used GPS to get him close to her place then walked to survey the area. Google Maps could only tell him so much. As he expected, it was a typical suburban neighborhood, more than likely filled with people who worked in DC, with well-manicured lawns and overpriced fancy cars in the driveways.

  Her place was the end unit of a townhome building. With a brick exterior, two-car garage in front, and open space behind backing up to a small wooded area, it appeared pricey and relatively new.

  He did a quick check for surveillance cameras mounted to the roof, but still wasn't assured when he found none. She had access to the latest in technology. It was conceivable she had some kind of hybrid system to keep the bogeyman—currently him—away from her door if she didn't want him there.

  Dark both inside and out. Not even timer lights. Which seemed a little odd. Most CIA types that he knew were of the paranoid variety, and had all sorts of bells and whistles in terms of staggering lights turning on and off, as well as state-of-the-art alarm systems.

  Curious, he placed his fingers on the window ledge and leveraged himself to see inside. It was one of those designs where the entire floor was open. From the front window he could see clear through to the kitchen, where dishes were strewn about, all the cabinet doors were open, and broken glass littered the floor. The trash—mostly an overabundance of Starbucks cups—was scattered about the hardwood floor. Cushions were yanked off the couch and ripped open, the stuffing inside bubbling out.

  What the hell had happened?

  The whistle of the wind in the trees nearly blocked out what sounded like the tap of footsteps across the roof. If they were a little faster and lighter, he might believe they were a squirrel, but knew instinctively they were of the human variety.

  He followed the sounds from above, moving along the front of the building. Stopping, he plastered himself against a large evergreen and listened. The dainty steps were too soft to be a man. Could it be the elusive Ms. Graham making a run for it? Had she somehow spotted him outside? Or did it have something to do with whoever trashed her place?

  He'd reached the end of the unit, cowering next to a bush laden with tiny thorns that adhered to his pants and poked through the fabric of his jeans. Just as he was about to believe he'd gone crazy, someone slid down the drainpipe not ten feet away from him.

  Based on the slight build,
he'd bet female. While he couldn't see much in the dark, he'd put money on the fact she was his target. His hunch was confirmed when she rubbed at her shoulder before peering around the corner. Whatever she saw made her hesitate for a second before she sprinted through the back toward the woods.

  Since he'd scoped out the neighborhood, he already knew cutting through there led to the center of town. On a Friday night, he couldn't help but wonder where she might be headed, or why she might have run. Had she escaped from whoever trashed her place, or had she done the damage herself to get people off her trail?

  But then he peeked around the corner and spotted a guy in a knitted hat guarding her back door. Unless he missed his guess, the guy had a gun clutched along his side.

  What was the guy doing there? Could the CIA have hired somebody else besides him to bring her in? Was this some kind of off-the-radar operation? Or did this have something to do with whatever went down in Afghanistan? The only thing he knew with certainty was it had a whole lot to do with the mess he'd spotted inside.

  Any way he looked at it, the entire situation made him curious enough to see where she went. But it also raised the question as to why in the hell they had hired him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Any minute now Tessa expected her heart to pop out of her body, as oxygen seemed unable to reach her starving lungs. She'd been in tough spots before, but nothing like Afghanistan and nothing like today. A home invasion by some bad guys had always been a lingering thought. Being discovered and tracked down seemed even more likely in her current frame of mind.

  Why hadn't she seen this coming?

  There was only one answerthe terrorists that let her go had tracked her down. Somehow. Someway. Maybe Alex's death hadn't satisfied their bloodlust. Someone had tracked her from Afghanistan to kill her. That remained the only explanation in her current paranoid state.

  Perhaps Alex had promised them something in exchange for her life that hadn't panned out. Now they had come to exact revenge.