He and Rikki floated and bobbed side by side, submerged in the murky water until they reached the far end of the pond.
They’d have to head over the back fence and make a run for it if they hoped to get out of this situation. He squeezed Rikki’s arm.
Again, she knew what had to be done.
She breached the surface first, emerging from the water like some slinky, primordial creature, and he scrambled over the slippery edge behind her. The noise of their escape broke the silence of the night, and the light from the flashlight made a jerky survey above the pond.
By the time the beam of light found Quinn, Rikki had launched herself over the fence. As Quinn grabbed the slats of wood to freedom, their assailant fired his first shot—from a silencer.
The bullet cracked the fence inches from Quinn’s right hand. That was all the incentive he needed. He hoisted himself over and landed on the ground.
Rikki grabbed the back of his shirt at the collar. “Run.”
“No kidding.”
They’d landed in someone else’s backyard, but Quinn couldn’t even see the house from their position. Belinda had bought herself a place on a large lot, alongside other homes on equally large lots. The size of these yards would save their necks.
In a crouch, they ran for the fence to their left. The clouds cooperated with them and drifted across the slice of moon again.
Rikki hit the fence with both hands. “I can’t get over this without a boost. Can you?”
“Piece of cake, Buttercup.” He laced his fingers together, and Rikki wedged the sole of her tennis shoe against his palms. “Ready?”
“Just hurry it up.”
He launched her up, and she hoisted herself over.
His height gave him an advantage, and he swung over the fence with ease.
They made their way through a couple more lawns like that before hitting the street. Their shoes squishing with water, they kept to the shadows until they reached the park.
Rikki was panting by the time she grabbed the door handle of his vehicle. “It’s a good thing we left the car down here.”
“Yep, but I’m surprised Belinda Dawson didn’t provide a getaway car for us.”
Quinn started the engine before he fully sat down or closed the door. He left the lights off as he crawled into the street, checking his rearview mirror.
The cars on the streets of Savannah were few and far between until they emerged from the quiet residential streets into a boulevard dotted with bars and nightspots.
Quinn finally let out a pent-up breath, but still kept watch on his mirrors.
Rikki slumped in her seat, pressing a hand over her heart and the wet T-shirt that stuck to her chest. “That was close. He was no cop, was he? Did you get a look at him?”
“I didn’t see him at all, but you’re right. I don’t think Belinda called the cops on us.” Quinn sluiced his wet hair back from his forehead and combed out a piece of moss.
“Then who did she call? Who was that? He had a silencer.” Rikki crossed her arms over her midsection. “It must’ve been CIA. She called the Agency to check on us and discovered nobody had been sent for David’s equipment.”
“Maybe, but how did someone get here so quickly and why the subterfuge?” Quinn rubbed his palms, which the fence had abraded, against the steering wheel. “If she called the CIA, found out we were impostors and then reported us, why would she collude with the Agency to catch us in the act? The CIA would never use a spouse like that to lure impostors out of the woodwork. Especially a widow. Can you imagine the liability if the Agency did that and a spouse wound up dead?”
“It could’ve been someone from the Agency but not sanctioned by the Agency. Is that what you mean? Someone already out here looking after Belinda. Someone who’s in on the joke and knows that David is alive and well and getting tattooed in Thailand, or wherever.” Rikki grabbed her ponytail and twisted it to wring out the pond water.
“That’s what I’m thinking, someone with the Agency—or not, but nobody official.”
Rikki tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s a scarier scenario than having an on-duty agent after us.”
“Except—” Quinn wheeled into the parking lot of their motel and parked in front of their room “—if an agent had captured us, taken us down at gunpoint, the Agency would’ve wasted no time identifying you, unless you erased your fingerprints with acid, but I recall your fingertips being intact.”
She wiggled her fingers in front of her. “The hair and the eyes are as far as I’ll go for a disguise. I’m going to agree with you and bet our shooter was either a rogue agent working with David or someone involved in this traitorous network of David’s jumping on any hint that someone believes he’s still alive.”
Quinn cut the engine and lights but didn’t make a move to leave the car. “Which brings us back to Belinda.”
“It sure seemed like she trusted us while we were there. What do you think set off her alarm bells?”
“Maybe the interest in the photo. She realized after we left that the picture was of David post-death and started to get worried.”
Rikki leveled a finger at him, seemingly in no hurry to get out of the car and her wet clothing. “Or she called the number on your fake card.”
He tapped the burner phone in his cup holder. “Except I didn’t get any calls on this phone.”
“Either I showed too much interest in that picture or she had orders from David to be wary of any outreach from the Agency. She called the CIA to check out our story.”
“Our story didn’t pass the test. She brushed it off with the Agency and then made a call to her henchman.”
“And set us up.” Rikki rubbed her chin. “How did she know we’d be back?”
“She didn’t know for sure, or Dawson is so paranoid he orchestrated the setup just to be on the safe side.”
“Do you think she called David after we left?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? Isn’t that something David would do? Disable the alarm system, leave off the lights on one side of the house, disengage one set of locks on the door and have Belinda call in backup when we showed up. Hell—” he yanked the door handle “—she might’ve had a camera watching our every move down there.”
Back in the room, Rikki peeled off her wet T-shirt and shimmied out of the jeans sticking to her thighs. “Ugh, that pond water was disgusting. I hope you didn’t swallow any of it.”
“My lips were sealed. I’m just glad we left our phones in the car. I would’ve had a lot of explaining to do to get my encrypted phone replaced.”
Rikki kicked her wet clothes into a corner. “We need to get David’s emails to Chan and decoded. I want to know what he was up to and what he was doing in South Korea.”
“Other than setting up his own death and your entrapment? I’d say Dawson was a busy boy—and I already sent the emails to Chan.”
“Why South Korea? There must’ve been a reason for him to pick that area instead of staging all this in Dubai, for example.”
“That’s a mystery those messages might solve.” Quinn pulled his own damp T-shirt over his head and tossed it into Rikki’s wet pile of clothes. “Right now I want to get this pond scum off my body. Do you want to help me?”
“I’d like nothing more than to rub pond scum from your body.”
Quinn sprinted past Rikki to the bathroom before she could change her mind. He ran a warm bath and dumped some body wash in the water to create bubbles. Then he stripped off the rest of his clothes and sank into the tub, as much as his six-foot-three frame could sink.
“That was fast—bubbles and everything.” Rikki hung on the door frame in her underwear.
“Technically it’s body wash, but it worked.” He scooped up a handful of bubbles and blew on them.
“I knew Navy SEALs were resourceful. I just
didn’t realize in how many ways.” She stepped out of her panties and unhooked her bra.
Quinn opened his legs, patting the water between them. “I have a place for you right here.”
Rikki dipped a toe in the water before stepping in and lowering herself into the tub. Leaning back against his chest, she said, “Don’t get any ideas in here, McBride. We might both end up drowning.”
“Ideas?” He cupped her breasts from behind and nuzzled her neck. “What ideas do you think I might have?”
She put one arm behind her, winding it around his neck. “The kinds of ideas you have every time we’re within two feet of each other.”
“Can I help it if I find you irresistible?”
And then he used all his resourcefulness to show her.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Quinn got back to business. While Rikki looked through her old emails from David, Quinn contacted Donovan Chan again. If Chan wondered why Quinn was asking about a dead agent, he kept his questions to himself.
Rikki looked up from Quinn’s laptop. “I don’t see anything suspicious in David’s communications, nothing to suggest that our mission to Korea was anything other than what he claimed—a lead on Vlad.”
“Did he ever disclose how he got this intel?” Quinn tossed his phone on the cushion beside him.
Rikki wedged the tip of her finger between her teeth. “Not in the emails, but he mentioned a name when we were in Dubai, and it was the same guy we met in South Korea—Buddy Song.”
“Was this Song in intelligence in South Korea? Why wouldn’t Song go straight to the CIA or to Ariel and the Vlad task force?”
“I don’t know.” Rikki shrugged. “I didn’t ask him. David had his contacts outside of our partnership, relationships he’d cultivated over the years before I even became an agent and started working with him.”
“Do you know how to contact Song? Did anyone ever reach out to him after David’s supposed murder and your capture?”
“My supposed murder, too.” She raised her eyebrows. “You know that better than anyone.”
Quinn clasped the back of his neck and squeezed. “Do you have to keep reminding me?”
“Like I said before, if it hadn’t been you I’d be dead.” She tipped the computer from her lap onto the bed and crossed her legs. “Ariel didn’t tell me what kind of investigation was done into David’s murder, but I doubt anyone knows about Song. David didn’t even put his name in an email to me. We only ever spoke about him.”
“I think Song is a good place to start. What do you remember about him? Where did you meet?”
“We met in Seoul, at a park. He spoke English very well. He helped us cross the border, and I got the feeling it wasn’t his first rodeo.”
“He was probably someone who facilitated border crossings between North and South Korea. Maybe that was his insight into Vlad. He probably helped him cross the border, too.”
“Could be. Song got us to a tunnel between the two countries and said goodbye there. The rest is history. David and I crossed over and hadn’t traveled five miles before I was taken and David killed—or so I thought.”
“But now we know Song didn’t set up David. David manipulated the entire scenario, with or without Song’s knowledge.”
“And definitely without mine.”
Rikki rubbed her nose, and Quinn knew David’s betrayal of her stung. He couldn’t imagine any of his sniper teammates turning on him like that. For a while, the Navy had tried to tell them Miguel Estrada had been working with the enemy, but he and the rest of the guys hadn’t believed that for one second.
But Rikki had proof.
Quinn stood up and stretched his arms, almost brushing his fingertips on the ceiling. “Do you think Ariel can track down Song? Would she? She’s deep undercover enough that nobody’s following her movements.”
“I can ask her. I never thought about him before, but that’s when I believed our mission to Korea was something straightforward, or at least as straightforward as our missions ever were. Now that I know David pulled a scam on me—” she flicked her fingers in the air “—everything and everyone is fair game.”
Quinn peered through the curtains on the window. “We can do all this on computers and on my trusty phone. We don’t need to stay in Savannah.”
“When do you have to report back for duty?”
“Three weeks.” A sudden fear gripped Quinn’s heart. “If we can’t clear you before then, you need to go back to Jamaica where you’ll be safe.”
Rikki’s lashes dropped over her eyes. “Maybe. I vowed I wouldn’t return there until my name was cleared.”
“I can continue our sleuthing.”
She widened her eyes. “From Afghanistan or Pakistan or Libya or wherever you’re going? I don’t think so, Quinn.”
In two steps, he was at the bed and sitting on the edge. “Then we’ll figure it out, and then maybe you don’t have to go back to Jamaica. You can go back to your job and I can do mine and maybe we can be together—freewheeling and fancy-free, no strings, nothing to tie us down except each other.”
Rikki sucked in her lower lip. “That’s what you want?”
“That’s what I always wanted. I don’t understand why I scared you off in Dubai to the point you felt you had to run away. Yeah, I felt something deep for you, maybe deeper than you felt yourself, but that never meant I wanted to restrict you, make you give up the job you love. Hell, my job isn’t exactly a nine-to-five, white-picket-fence deal.”
“We have to talk this through first.” Rikki twisted her fingers. “There’s a lot I have to tell you.”
“About your time in the labor camp and your escape?” He cupped his hand over one of her knees. “I do want to hear about that, Rikki. It’ll only make me think you’re more amazing than I already do.”
“It’s not just that, Quinn. Jamaica…”
“You’re not going to tell me you have a boyfriend in Jamaica, are you?” He curled his fingers into her leg. “I don’t even care. I know I love you more than anyone else could.”
She pressed her fingers against her bottom lip and whispered, “Quinn.”
“So whatever it is…” He jerked his head toward the ringing phone on the table by the window. “That’s not my regular phone. That’s the burner, and nobody has that number except Belinda.”
“Or random telemarketers.”
Quinn pushed himself off the bed and lunged for the phone. “It’s her.”
He jabbed the button to answer and to put the phone on speaker at the same time. “Hello? Agent Miller.”
“Agent Miller, this is Belinda Dawson.”
“Mrs. Dawson, did you find some of your husband’s equipment after all?” He rolled his eyes at Rikki, who’d followed him off the bed and had her hip wedged against the table.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Miller, if that’s really your name.”
Quinn swallowed. “Pardon me, ma’am?”
“You can cut the Southern boy charm, too. I’m immune.”
“I’m afraid you lost me, Mrs. Dawson.”
“I almost lost you last night to that thug watching my house night and day.”
Rikki grabbed his wrist, her eyes taking up half her face.
“You’re going to have to explain yourself, Mrs. Dawson.”
“You and I both know my husband is alive, Agent Miller, and I can give you the proof you need.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rikki clapped a hand over her mouth. Why was Belinda doing this? Why was she outing David?
Quinn braced his hands on the table and hunched over the phone. “Why would you give me proof that your husband is alive?”
“That’s what you were sniffing around here for, wasn’t it? You and your…partner seemed awfully interested in that photo of David—the one taken after his supp
osed death. When you zeroed in on that picture, I finally felt a glimmer of hope.”
Quinn raised his eyebrows at Rikki, but all she could do was shrug. She had no idea where Belinda was going with this.
Quinn cleared his throat. “What do you mean by hope? Hope for what?”
“David swore me to secrecy about his betrayal. He warned me that I’d lose everything if the CIA found out he’d been spying for the enemy. He sent people to watch me, to keep tabs on me.”
“How do you know my partner and I aren’t just two more watchdogs?”
Rikki nodded at Quinn. He knew all the right questions—the same ones she’d be asking.
“You were fishing. They don’t fish. Your unexpected appearance on my doorstep yesterday told me that the CIA has doubts about David’s story.”
Rikki scribbled a question on a napkin and shoved it toward Quinn.
He gave her a thumbs-up. “Why didn’t you just call the CIA yourself and report this?”
“You’re kidding.” Belinda gave a soft snort. “You work for the Agency, so you should understand. I don’t know whom to trust over there. I didn’t know who was in on it, or even if his fake death had been sanctioned by someone over there. I wasn’t about to step out of line, but you two…”
Quinn cut her off and with a gruff voice asked, “If you trusted us so much, why did you call the dogs on us last night?”
Belinda released a long sigh. “That wasn’t me.”
“The alarm system, the lights, the door? You even took the picture.”
“They ordered me to do all that. They knew you’d been there.” She sobbed. “They bugged my house.”
Quinn’s gaze locked on to Rikki’s. “And now? How do you know you’re not being bugged now?”
“I bought a throwaway phone, and I’m at a restaurant waiting to have brunch with my friend. David taught me well.”
Rikki couldn’t contain herself anymore. “Why are you turning on your husband now, Mrs. Dawson?”
Belinda sucked in a quick breath over the line. “I’m tired of living this way. David was supposed to send for me, but he hasn’t. I can’t trust anyone. I don’t want to get on the bad side of the CIA and be tried as a traitor. I’d be willing to…you know, testify against him to save myself.”
Kick A** Heroines Box Set: The UltimatumFatal AffairAfter the DarkBulletproof SEAL (The Guardian) Page 102