by Jodie Bailey
Did he really have to ask? He knew. Already, he knew. Trey drummed his fingers on the table. He should have known all along. “Let me guess. The aunt that Macey has been talking to was either Olivia or someone working with her.”
“That’d be my guess.”
From the other side of the table came soft clicks as Dana worked at her laptop, searching the videos from the camera at Macey’s house with greater urgency than ever. If they could get a video of Olivia actually in the house at some point after her death, they’d have a whole lot more evidence. They could nab what she was searching for and whether or not she’d been able to retrieve it.
At the moment, though, that was Dana’s focus. Trey’s had to be on Macey. “Macey had no reason to doubt Olivia was dead. She had no one to double-check with. As someone who wasn’t even related to her, she wouldn’t have been able to get any real information anyway. When an ‘aunt’ called with the news, what else would she think?” What else would he himself think? He’d bought the ruse, as well. “I should have caught that.” Were there any more ways he could fail in the course of this investigation?
“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, brother.” Rich clamped a hand on his shoulder, then sat in the chair beside him. “We all missed that.”
“I ran it through the databases when you told me she died and came up with a death certificate and an accident report. It isn’t a difficult hack to a database to plant just enough evidence to make it look real.”
“So there was never a wreck at all?” How far had Olivia gone to cover her tracks?
“There was a real car accident.” Commander Harrison scratched his chin, then recrossed his arms and adjusted his stance. “If I had to guess, I’d say Olivia planned to fake her death for a while, either to get out of the game and cover her tracks or to pin everything on Macey, then move on with a life of luxury after her last big sale. There was a car accident with deaths, but the names were never released. I’m thinking she stumbled on that accident and put her plan into place. Trouble was, she’d left the intel behind and had to find a way to get it.”
“Or she figured it was safe at the house until someone else came after it,” Rich said.
If Olivia was the one watching the house cameras, she’d know there had been an intrusion. “So the big question is, who’s trying to grab Macey? Olivia and an as-yet-unknown crew? Or whoever she’s been selling to and didn’t deliver to?”
“Or both.” Rich had never been accused of being an optimist. Looked like he wasn’t about to start now.
Trey shoved away from the table and walked to the window.
Macey still hadn’t come back around the corner. Either Kito was taking more time than usual or something was very wrong.
He stepped sideways for the door.
Everyone in the room must have noticed, because both men were on his heels.
“What is it?” Rich stood close behind his right shoulder.
“I’m going to check on Macey.” He relayed his concerns, then jogged down the steps, his two teammates on his heels again. “Mace?”
No answer.
His heart rate and his pace picked up. He skidded around the corner and stopped, Rich nearly running into his back when he did.
The wide-open space beside the barn stood empty. No Kito. No Macey.
No clues.
Grinding his teeth together, Trey bit back words he never said anymore. When he finally found his voice again, it was harsh and ragged. “I never should have left her alone.” He whirled toward Captain Harrison. “I thought we were safe here.”
“We are. Chances are the dog took off after an animal and she followed.”
Trey’s pulse rate throttled back. Knowing Kito, that was a very good chance. That dog hauled off after everything that crossed his path. And knowing Macey, she wouldn’t have left her dog in the woods alone to run back to the house to give them a status report before searching for him. “Macey!” His voice echoed to him from the nearby rocks and trees.
Silence.
The commander stepped around him and pointed at a slim trail that quickly disappeared into the woods. “I’m thinking this way. If that’s the case, she’s followed the dog away from the ridge, but it wouldn’t take a lot for the two of them to get turned around and lost in the woods around here.”
Great. Even more for Trey to worry about. Next thing he knew, someone would bring up black bears and bobcats. There was nothing either of them could say that he hadn’t already thought. “She can’t have gotten far.”
“You go left. Rich, take the right. And I’ll barrel straight through. Call when you find her.” The commander laid a hand on Trey’s shoulder as he passed, trekking into the woods. “We’re the only ones around, so she’s safe. We’ll find her fast. Like you said, she can’t have gotten very far.” He was several feet into the woods before he called over his shoulder, “Watch where you put your feet down. It’s rattlesnake season.”
“Rattlesnakes. Great.” So there was a danger he hadn’t thought of. Trey set off into the underbrush, picking his way carefully. The early morning air was relatively cool, and the budding leaves layered varying shades of green among the trees. Any other day he’d relish a hike like this. Today, he couldn’t stop the feeling in his gut that said Macey was in serious danger.
“Macey!” He called her name and stopped to listen.
Still nothing. From behind and to his left, Rich and the commander both called her name, their voices growing fainter as they all hiked farther from one another. Why couldn’t she hear them? Worse, why wasn’t she answering? Visions of her at the bottom of a ravine or faint from a rattlesnake bite all warred with his common sense. God, I just found her. I can’t lose her now.
A muffled sound came from his left, a consistent thud that sounded way too familiar, and not at all like he needed Macey to sound.
This was a four-legged sound. He reached for the pistol at his hip and rested his hand on it, just in case his hunch was wrong and a bobcat was bearing down on him. “Kito! Come!”
The crashing stopped, but then it picked up with greater intensity. Within seconds, that beautiful husky burst through the underbrush and jumped on Trey, paws on his chest, clearly happy to see a familiar face.
With a burst of relief, Trey rubbed the dog’s head. “Good boy. I mean, bad boy for running away, but good boy for coming when I called you. Where’s Macey?” He wrapped the leash around his hand and looked in the direction from which Kito had appeared, expecting to see Macey right behind him.
But the only sight was trees and rocks. The only sound the birds who were greeting the dawn.
Macey was still missing. And the longer she was gone, the more likely it became that he might have lost her forever.
SIXTEEN
“I don’t have what you want. I promise.” Macey’s eyes refused to leave the gun aimed at her. Her hands went out to her sides, away from her body. She’d never routinely carried a weapon in her life, but somehow she had to show this person she was unarmed. “Please.” She couldn’t die out here. Trey and his team would never know which way she’d followed Kito. She could vanish into these woods and no one would ever be able to find her.
The figure stepped closer and out of the shadows, weapon steady.
Macey forced her brain into defense mode. She could get out of this. There had to be a way to defend herself. She’d trained for this over the years.
But so far, there was nothing. As though the person knew her strengths, they stayed at a distance where their gun would be effective but Macey’s training would not.
The gunman shifted to the side again, widening their stance.
There was something familiar about the gait, about the stance, about the build... Something she should know, should recognize. Macey dragged her gaze from the gun to the head.
With their free hand, the stranger reached up and swep
t the hood back. Jet-black hair tumbled out and surrounded a face that—
The force of recognition shook the air from Macey’s lungs. “Olivia.” The name came out on what felt like her last breath. Her former roommate and friend had dyed her blond hair, but there was no doubt whose face it was.
Except Macey had never seen Olivia’s expression the way it was today, hard and desperate. “I want Kito. Where is he?”
“What?” This was about her dog? Olivia had come back from the dead and was holding her at gunpoint over her dog? “Why?”
“Because what I need is on a microchip in his neck.” Olivia steadied the weapon in a way that was entirely too practiced and stepped threateningly closer to Macey. “You tell me where he is, I take him, and you walk away. Promise.”
Lord, please let Kito have made his way back to the house, somewhere safe where Olivia can’t get to him. Please. There was no doubt Olivia’s promises were empty. There was no doubt that once she had Kito, she’d likely kill them both. No way would someone who had set up such an elaborate scheme to frame Macey leave a witness alive. “You’re lying.”
Arching an eyebrow, Olivia looked Macey up and down. “You’re stronger than you used to be, aren’t you? Something about your friendship with Trey maybe?” Her smile was tight and mean, like a bully taunting the weak kid at school. “You know he’s not really your friend. He’s investigating you. Looking to put you in prison for the rest of your life.”
Macey pulled herself taller. Olivia had no idea how much Macey knew, which meant she might not realize her plan had been fully uncovered. Something deep inside her refused to back down to a common bully, even if that bully was holding a pistol in a deadly steady grip. “Trey’s the good guy, not you.”
Olivia blinked rapidly, her arm dropping slightly before she raised it again. “He already told you?”
“Everything.”
Where was this boldness coming from? It definitely wasn’t from her. Somehow, Macey had stepped outside of herself. Maybe it was because she’d experienced the worst sort of betrayal from this woman and Olivia couldn’t hurt her any deeper. Maybe it was because she’d surrendered her life to God’s authority and had no fear of death. Regrets, but not fear.
She had no idea where her peace originated. She only knew Olivia didn’t scare her.
But Olivia sure was scared. It showed in the furrow of her forehead and in the deep V between her brows. “Jeffrey said this would work. It will work. You’re lying.” Uncertainty crept into the bravado, wavering her voice and the pistol in her hand. “I want the dog. Now.”
“He’s in the woods somewhere, chasing a squirrel. You’ll have to find him.”
Something in Olivia seemed to reset. With her free hand, she pulled her phone from her pocket and glanced at the screen. “You think I can’t? How do you think I found you? There’s a tracker in his collar. When I saw on the video that someone had broken in looking for the intel, I tried to come and get him, but Trey’s gotten in the way every time. Killing a military investigator to get to the dog would have set off a world of people looking for me. It’s one thing to murder a civilian and another entirely to kill a federal agent. We’re going to find Kito, and then, sadly, it’s going to look like you shot him and then yourself because you’re so devastated over what you’ve done to your country.”
For the first time, fear skittered along Macey’s spine. Olivia could do what she wanted to her, but she couldn’t touch Kito. He was an innocent animal. She dug her teeth into her lip and prayed for Trey to realize she was gone, for Captain Harrison and Rich and him to come bursting into the clearing to save her. Please.
“Start walking.” Olivia glanced at her phone, then waved the gun to the left. “That way. I can get him within half a mile, and he’s somewhere to our left, back toward the house. If you run, I’ll put a bullet in your back and forget the suicide angle.”
Lord, keep Kito far away. Honestly, she didn’t care what happened to her. She wanted her dog to be safe. Macey started walking, stomping through the underbrush, praying Trey or someone on his team would hear her and realize something was wrong.
A rustle in the underbrush paralyzed her foot above the ground.
Olivia stopped walking behind her, likely leveling her pistol at the sound.
Not Kito. Please not Kito.
Two birds beat the air with their wings and soared into the trees.
Macey dared a glance over her shoulder at Olivia, who shifted the weapon toward her back and was watching her with deadly intent. “Keep walking.” She glanced at her phone screen and gestured to the left. “He’s around here somewhere.”
“You might as well tell me everything if you’re going to kill me. Give me the dignity of knowing why I’m going to die.” Macey stepped carefully over a fallen branch. If only she was fast enough to pick it up and swing it, but Olivia seemed comfortable with that pistol and would likely pull the trigger before Macey could wrap her fingers around any makeshift weapon.
“Not much to tell.” Olivia had always been a little bit of a braggart, a little bit cocky about her job in intelligence. “I don’t have an aunt. You’ve been in contact with me all along. You should have done your homework. Don’t believe everything you read. Turns out, with no living relatives, it’s not so hard to fake your death. The only person I really needed to fool was you. And I had Jeff’s people do just enough to make it look like I really did die. Enough to fool the government, anyway. Same people helped him fake his death.”
“He double-crossed his brother, didn’t he?”
“You’re catching on. The intel I dug up can take down our military piece by piece. It’s a vulnerability in the system that allows access to the communications channels. Whoever has the knowledge of that back door can pass any word officially through any channel that they want. An order to fight, an order to stand down... It could cause chaos. No one would know who to trust. Bidding for that kind of intel goes high. And rather than let Sapphire Skull use it to fund themselves, we figured we could retire somewhere together in style.”
“Were those your men in my house?”
Olivia laughed. “Nope. They’re with Sapphire. They think you’re the leak. They think you have what they want. I was on retainer to them, a monthly stipend, if you will. And they found out I was holding back something big. Only, all along, I’ve let them think I was you. There was a dummy drive in the photo on my dresser, and that kept them busy for a few days, but once they figured that out, they came after you again, wanting what they’d paid for.”
She chuckled. “And you had it all along. I tried to get into the house the other night, but Trey was there. Since Sapphire was clearly onto you, I figured I’d bide my time and they’d kill you eventually. Then I’d just scoop up Kito and move on. When I saw the in-house video, I figured out Trey knew you were innocent, but by the time I got to the house, they were already in the process of moving you. Fortunately, you brought the collar along, and here we are.”
The bushes rustled again. Three more birds flushed out of the brush, flying toward the risen sun.
“Stupid birds,” Olivia muttered. She jabbed the pistol into Macey’s spine. “Walk.”
She was so close. Too close. A mistake too many attackers made. Without stopping to think what she was doing, relying solely on instinct and training, Macey ducked and spun, driving her shoulder into Olivia’s stomach. She shoved Olivia backward against a tree and the two of them dropped to the ground. The gun fired wildly, then clattered into the leaves beside them and disappeared in the thick tangle.
Olivia countered with a blow to Macey’s sternum, driving the air from her chest.
Before Macey could fight back, Olivia straddled her chest and wrapped her hands around Macey’s throat. “You shouldn’t have taught me how to fight back.” She squeezed tighter. “You’re too much trouble.”
Macey struggled and fought, diggi
ng her nails into Olivia’s wrists, trying to pull free. Her pulse pounded in her head. Her windpipe ached. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t hear anything outside of the pounding in her ears.
Blackness came quickly, tingeing the edges of the world and narrowing on the hatred in Olivia’s eyes as she choked the life away from her.
Another sound, so far away. A blur of something through the darkness.
Suddenly, Olivia’s weight was gone.
Macey struggled for air and fought to roll away, to sit up, to get moving.
But another shadow blocked the morning sunlight. She forced her eyes open.
Kito. He stood over her, looking down with his giant doggy face. She lifted a hand, wrapped her fingers in his neck fur, and the world went black.
* * *
Trey paced the deck, watching the activity in the driveway and wondering how hard it would be to take down Captain Harrison, who blocked the door to the house.
Without taking his eyes off the vehicles in the driveway, the commander said, “Sit down, Blackburn. You’re making me nervous.”
He glared at his commander. The man had nothing to be nervous about. The woman he loved wasn’t inside the house right now, being looked over by medics. He hadn’t carried Macey out of the woods, half-conscious with bruises already forming around her neck. He hadn’t witnessed a known criminal with her hands wrapped around the throat of—
“Stop reliving it. It won’t do anything but raise your blood pressure. She was conscious by the time the medics got here. They’ll let you in soon.”
Trey walked to the deck rail and spread his hands wide, leaning heavily on the wood. Almost too many vehicles to count flooded the open area around the house and partially blocked the drive. A convoy of SUVs had already left and more were pulling out behind them, hauling Olivia into custody. She’d face more questioning than she’d ever dreamed. And, hopefully, she’d give them enough to shut the Fryes and Sapphire Skull down for good.