Every Secret Thing

by Rebecca Hartt

  Is that a threat? Lucas wondered. The pain radiating through him made it difficult to think. Was he threatening to hurt Charlotte if Lucas didn’t cooperate with him?

  Too angry and confused to speak, Lucas watched Fitz set the camera back on the nightstand. Sending Lucas a sharp nod, he strode away.

  What just happened? Lucas asked himself as the agent disappeared.

  Had he and Saul been duped from the start? Had Fitz lied to them about shutting down The Entity? Could he be, in fact, protecting its members? Perhaps Charlotte was a better judge of character than either one of them.

  I have to call her, he thought, picking up his cell phone. He had to think a minute before realizing he didn’t know her number. He started to call Saul, then hesitated at the thought of disturbing the rest they were getting. All at once, the door flew open and in marched T-Rex with a smirk on her face.

  “I knew you was just lookin’ tough for your friends,” she declared, crossing straight to his bed and reaching for the IV. “You ain’t nothin’ but a big baby.”

  Lucas’s gaze fell to the syringe in her man-sized hand. “Wait,” he called out, “I don’t want that.” Anything with a muscle relaxer in it would put him right to sleep.

  “That’s not what your friend said,” she retorted, scarcely even pausing as she removed the plastic cap from the needle and jammed the syringe into the port.

  Lucas realized she was referring to Fitz. “He’s not my friend!” He practically shouted the words, but it was too late.

  With a pursing of her lips and a rolling of her eyes, T-Rex shot the liquid formula into the tubing that sent it straight into Lucas’s veins.

  “Don’t matter to me if he is or he ain’t,” she retorted. “These are doctor’s orders.”

  With a muttered curse, Lucas went to pull the IV needle out of the back of his hand, but with his right arm bound to his chest, that effort proved impossible. He cursed again, thrashing his head against the pillow in his frustration. Already, he could feel an insidious tide of lethargy sweeping through him. Whether he wanted to or not, he was going to relax to the point of passing out.

  He figured he had just enough time to complete his call to Saul.

  He was thumbing the call button when T-Rex slapped his good arm. “Oh, no you don’t. Can’t you read the sign?” As Lucas followed her nod toward the sign saying NO CELL PHONES, she snatched his phone away and placed it on the stand next to the camera. “You got a landline beside your bed. You can use that.”

  Closing his eyes, he willed her to leave so he could take his cell back without her seeing. He had to inform Saul and Charlotte what Fitz had done. The agent had destroyed their best hope of freeing Jaguar.

  That was Lucas’s last thought before the sedative trekking through his bloodstream got the better of him.

  Chapter 13

  “Lucas, please wake up. We’re missing the motion hearing,” Charlotte begged. Not daring to shake him, she lightly tapped his cheek, though in her frustration she was tempted to slap him harder.

  His eyelids fluttered, the first sign she’d seen that he was regaining consciousness, but he still didn’t waken.

  “I think he heard me,” she said to Saul, who stood at the foot of the hospital bed with a scowl on his face and his arms crossed.

  “Won’t make much difference at this point,” he stated, glancing at his watch. “We can’t get back to The Beach in two hours. And thanks to his watchdog, we’re going to have a hard time sneaking out of here before they’re ready to release him.”

  Charlotte heaved a long-suffering sigh. They’d returned to the hospital the previous evening, with the intent of stealing Lucas out of his room. The nurse who’d hounded them that morning had left for the night, giving them the perfect opportunity, except Lucas had been sleeping so soundly they hadn’t been able to waken him.

  While cooped up in the hospital room, waiting for him to stir, Saul had discovered the photos on the digital camera were gone, completely erased.

  “He must have found a way to copy them over to his phone,” Charlotte concluded.

  “And deleted the originals?” Saul argued. “I don’t think so.”

  Charlotte had to agree with Saul. Lucas had wanted to back up the pictures, not transfer them. Plus, he’d been sleeping like the dead, forcing her and Saul to return to the same motel they’d crashed at earlier. The fact that he was still sound asleep at eight o’clock the next morning suggested he’d been drugged.

  When Rexanne had barged into his room that morning, she’d told them Lucas had asked the other nurse for the muscle relaxers last night; then he’d asked for more earlier that morning.

  “He ain’t nothin’ but a big baby,” Rexanne had declared, checking Lucas’s vitals and then leaving.

  Neither Saul nor Charlotte had believed her.

  “I swear they’re drugging him intentionally,” Charlotte raged, pacing to the window and back. “What if someone came in here and deleted the photos while he was sleeping? He never would have known.”

  “Who would have done that?” Saul countered. “No one knows we’re here.”

  Charlotte stared down at the parking lot, thinking. “Fitz might have known,” she reasoned, “either because I turned on the phone he gave me and he’s tracking me, or because Lucas called him and told him what happened. Remember, he said he was planning to call Fitz.”

  Facing Lucas’s bed again, her gaze went to the cell phone next to it. “We could find out if you would just hack into Lucas’s cell. Are you sure you can’t guess the passcode?” she added, repeating the same question she’d asked an hour earlier.

  “No,” Saul repeated, respecting Lucas’s privacy. “Hey, I think he’s waking up.”

  Charlotte hurried to the bed in time to see Lucas slit his eyes. He visibly struggled to rouse himself.

  “Lucas, you have to wake up,” she repeated. “The motion hearing starts in two hours. We might get our evidence to Carew in time if you get up.” If they still had evidence.

  “What happened?” His voice sounded rusty with disuse. “What time is it?”

  “It’s eight thirty on Friday morning. You’ve been asleep for almost twenty-four hours.” Seeing his confusion, Charlotte turned to pour Lucas a glass of water from the pitcher by his bed.

  Saul approached him on the other side. “You want to sit up, sir?” he asked, pressing the remote that raised Lucas to a sitting position.

  “Oh, no,” Lucas blurted suddenly, causing them both to look at him in concern.

  Charlotte froze. “What?”

  Lucas plowed the fingers of his free hand through his thick hair. “Fitz was here,” he grated. His entire body went rigid. He gripped the bedrail with a white-knuckled hand.

  “Calm down,” Charlotte urged, passing him the cup she’d poured. “Drink some water and then tell us what happened.”

  Lucas gulped down the contents of the cup and handed it back. “Where’s the camera?” he asked, looking around. “Are the photos gone?” he added, as Saul produced it from the pocket of his jacket.

  “Yep.”

  Lucas growled in disgust. “Fitz showed up like an hour after you left,” he raged.

  Charlotte had never seen him so hot under the collar.

  “He said he already knew about the warehouse. Wait, did he say that?” For a second, Lucas seemed to question himself. “Yes, yes, he did. I remember.” Lucas frowned, as if trying to remember. “He said he didn’t want us jeopardizing his investigation, so he deleted the pictures. And then, I think he threatened me—or you,” he added, looking at Charlotte with an expression of befuddlement.

  The words roused her indignation. “Threatened me how?”

  Lucas frowned again and shook his head. “Maybe it was more of a warning; I don’t know,” he amended. “He said not to let my guard down or something could happen to you.”

  His gray eyes, full of concern, looked up at her.

  “I told you I don’t trust that man,” she reminded
him, pacing to the window and back. “He’s been throwing up roadblocks for Jaguar’s defense from the beginning.” She proceeded to list all the instances Fitz had gotten in their way. “First, he took the hard drive from Lloyd’s office, making all the evidence Lloyd had disappear, except his iPad, which only I knew about. I personally think he took that from me, too, but I’m not going to convince you of that. Then he told Jaguar’s counsel not to mention The Entity in any of her arguments, and now he’s deleted our proof that Dwyer has been storing stolen weapons in Sabena. How do we know he’s telling the truth about shutting down The Entity? It looks to me like he’s trying to protect them!”

  Lucas shared a dark and disappointed look with Saul.

  “I have to agree with you,” he surprised her by admitting. “On top of all that, Fitz told T-Rex that I’d asked for pain meds. He’s the reason I was drugged all this time.”

  Charlotte’s hands curled into fists. “He told her to drug you?” she railed, while taking note of Lucas’s nickname for the scary nurse, who lurked in the hallway even then.

  “Wait.” Another thought occurred to her. “What if he drugged you to keep you away from Jaguar’s motion hearing?”

  Lucas tossed back the sheet that covered him. “I’m sure he did. Either way, we’re missing the hearing, and our evidence is gone.”

  “So that’s it,” Charlotte seethed. “We know where Dwyer is storing stolen weapons, and we can’t do anything about it?” She gestured helplessly. “And you got shot for nothing,” she added.

  “What can we do without proof?” Lucas pointed out.

  “I told you Fitz had an agenda,” Charlotte reminded him. “And we’ve been unwittingly helping him. If the FBI is protecting The Entity, then we have to turn to the DIA for help. Let’s go talk to my godfather,” she proposed, warming to the idea. “Don’t forget I sent him photos of LeMere’s journal. If he still has those, we can use them to reinforce Monica’s testimony.”

  Lucas shot an uncertain glance at Saul. “We don’t know for sure that Fitz is working for The Entity.”

  “We don’t know that he isn’t, either,” Charlotte countered. “At the very least, my godfather could help to protect us. Think about it. If Fitz is protecting Dwyer, then The Entity knows exactly where we are right now. We’re not safe. We need protection.”

  Lucas looked at Saul, who tugged on his beard, clearly undecided.

  “Fitz told you not to contact your godfather,” Saul reminded her.

  Charlotte tried again. “That’s because he knows Larry Martin is the only one who can stop him if he’s dirty. Don’t forget, Lucas, the man stole our evidence and he drugged you. What more proof do you need that he can’t be trusted?”

  Lucas rubbed his forehead thinking. “I’ll agree to visit your godfather on two conditions,” he relented. “The first is we say nothing about The Entity. We’re there for the evidence you sent him and nothing else. Secondly, we don’t mention the FBI. If Fitz is on the brink of bringing down The Entity, I don’t want to be the reason his investigation goes south.”

  “Agreed. We should go soon, then,” Charlotte urged, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Uncle Larry knocks off early on Fridays to play golf.”

  “We’ll have to dodge that nurse,” Saul reminded them.

  Lucas swung his feet off the bed. “Help me get dressed,” he requested of his chief.

  As Saul turned toward the locker for Lucas’s clothing, Charlotte headed for the door.

  “I’ll find a way to distract T-Rex,” she offered, using the nickname Lucas had given her. “Think you can be ready in five minutes?”

  “Should be,” Saul answered.

  Six minutes later, Charlotte slipped back into the room just as Saul was helping Lucas put his shoes on.

  “Time to go,” she announced with urgency.

  In that same instant, a fire alarm started shrieking at the other end of the hallway.

  Saul shot her an astonished glance. “Did you do that?”

  She strove for an innocent expression. “Not me.” It was, in fact, a fork and paper towel sparking in a microwave in the staff’s little kitchenette that was causing the billowing smoke.

  Lucas’s pale complexion gave Charlotte second thoughts. “Maybe leaving isn’t such a good idea,” she added.

  “I’m fine,” Lucas insisted, standing up.

  As Saul grabbed Lucas’s duffel bag, Charlotte went to put her arms around her injured hero. It felt nice to hold him close again, though the circumstances weren’t the best.

  Five minutes later, they streaked away from Patuxent Naval Air Station with Lucas in the front seat, his eyes closed and lines of pain bracketing his mouth. He tried to raise the headrest with his one good hand.

  “Here, let me do that.” Charlotte raised it for him.

  With a whispered word of thanks, his head fell back. Charlotte caught herself smoothing down the short, soft strands of his hair that were sticking up. The reminder that Lucas wasn’t hers to pet had her withdrawing her hand. He didn’t want a woman whose career was important to her. He wanted a wife who would stay at home and give him babies—three of them. And it won’t be me, Charlotte thought.

  Barring traffic, DIA headquarters was about an hour-and-a-half drive from Patuxent. With her phone from Fitz powered off, the FBI special agent shouldn’t have any notion where they were headed.

  She might actually make it to her godfather’s office without being abducted this time.

  At DIA Headquarters’ security checkpoint, Lucas suffered a body search, despite his obvious injury. The guard on duty claimed to be a retired Marine master sergeant, and given the search he gave Lucas, he clearly nursed a grudge against SEALs.

  “He squeezed my cojones,” Saul growled, still red in the face from his humiliation. “I almost broke his effing nose.”

  If he weren’t in such terrible pain, Lucas would have laughed at Saul’s discomposure, but laughing was beyond him at that moment. Voices echoed off the marble floor of the vast lobby. He leaned against the wall, waiting for Charlotte to be admitted.

  She had taken off her wig and glasses and scrubbed the makeup off her face so she could use her NCIS badge. Her makeup-free face was flushed with frustration at that moment since the badge, which Fitz had given to Lucas at their first meeting, was scanned by the security guard and declared inactive. He refused to let her in.

  Not to be stopped, Charlotte summoned a guard who recognized her. Lucas heard her persuade the man to telephone the director on her behalf and tell him who was there. In the next instant, Charlotte was talking on the phone with her godfather, her smile of tenderness so beautiful Lucas’s heart clutched.

  Their time of being stuck with each other was going to end soon. Whether Jaguar succeeded in clearing his good name or ended up being dishonorably discharged, Charlotte was bound to go her own way—provided everything worked out as Fitz had promised them.

  Lucas didn’t want to believe Fitz had actually betrayed them. If that were true, why would he have coordinated Charlotte’s rescue and enlisted the SEALs help in the first place? It made no sense for him to go to such lengths, unless his only purpose was to dupe them into believing in his investigation.

  But Charlotte had a point. The man had denied them their best shot of proving Jaguar’s innocence. All they’d gotten from Fitz was his promise that Dwyer would be arrested soon and Jaguar’s convictions overturned. Was Fitz a man of his word?

  Charlotte cut into his thoughts as she breezed up to them, beaming with anticipation.

  “Uncle Larry is expecting us,” she declared. “He’s out of his mind with joy right now. All this time he thought I was dead. It’ll probably take him a while to get his emotions under control.”

  Her dancing eyes focused on Lucas and her smile faded. “Lucas, you don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her, pushing off the wall. “Your godfather’s waiting.”

  In the elevator, a clammy sweat breached Lucas’s
pores, causing his T-shirt to stick to him. He widened his stance to counteract his unsteadiness as the elevator rose to the fifth floor.

  Glancing at him sidelong, Charlotte shifted closer and linked her arm through his good one.

  He felt instantly bolstered. She didn’t have to touch him anymore. They weren’t trying to pass themselves off as honeymooners as they were in Sabena, but she obviously considered him a friend. The realization both consoled and saddened him, making him acknowledge he wanted more from her than merely friendship.

  As they stepped out of the elevator, a woman in a chic gray suit jumped up from her desk to greet them.

  “Miss Patterson,” she cried, embracing Charlotte warmly. “I’m so happy to see you. Gentlemen,” she added, acknowledging Lucas and Saul as she backed up and opened a wide door. “Go right on in,” she invited. “Mr. Martin is expecting you.”

  “Uncle Larry!” Charlotte abandoned Lucas to rush into the big office beyond. Lucas and Saul followed more sedately.

  The handsome, fifties-something director rounded his desk with his arms flung wide. Charlotte threw herself at him.

  “Charlotte!” He pulled her into a bear hug, lifting her briefly off her feet before putting her down again and setting her at arm’s length to look her over. If he thought her wardrobe odd, he didn’t say anything. His own attire was as sharp as Special Agent Fitz’s, with a power tie and glinting cuff links. “I can’t believe you’re here. And you look incredible, not a scratch on you. You’ll have to tell me everything,” he added, his speech swift and forceful. “I’ve been worried sick.”

  “You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Charlotte commented. She rubbed his flat belly, clearly on familiar terms with him.

  “From worrying about you,” he admitted, with a grimace. “I thought you were dead, Charlotte,” he added gravely. The weight of the world seemed to descend on his shoulders as he regarded her.