by Paula Graves
Wade grabbed a small bedpan from the table by the bed and thrust it into her hands. A series of dry heaves racked her aching body, but apparently her stomach was empty, for nothing came up.
Wade disappeared from view for a moment, returning with a wet washcloth from the bathroom. He handed it to her and she took it gratefully, pressing the cool cloth against her mouth.
“I know they looked you over carefully in the E.R. before they brought you to a room,” Wade said gently. “There was a female deputy with you, so they probably checked for that. I think the doctor would have told you if they’d found anything.”
“Three weeks,” she rasped, her throat aching. “They might not even find anything after three weeks—”
Wade closed his hand over hers. Heat spread through her from his warm, firm touch, helping to settle the shakes that threatened to take over her body. She took a couple of deep breaths, willing herself to deal with what she knew rather than what she didn’t.
She had to separate herself from how the story affected her personally and stick with the facts. She had to think like a reporter.
“Is there a theory behind what happened to me and my parents?” she asked aloud, dreading what Wade’s answer might be.
He hesitated before he spoke, drawing her gaze to his eyes to see whether she’d find truth in them or more secrets. “The official story is that the investigators have formed no theories.”
“And unofficially?”
“The fact that your father is such a high-ranking military officer suggests a national security angle.”
Of course, if she were thinking straight, the thought would have crossed her mind already.
And there was also her father’s odd behavior when he’d called her the Monday before her flight to Chattanooga to ask her to make time for a family vacation the next week. “There’s something I need to tell you about,” he’d said, sounding serious.
Had he ever gotten a chance to tell her whatever he’d wanted to share?
“How did anyone kidnap all three of us from a busy airport?” she wondered aloud.
“They didn’t,” Wade answered, squeezing her arm with gentle strength. She looked down at his long fingers, at the play of muscles and tendons in the back of his lean hand as he squeezed again and let go. “You and your parents arrived at the cabin on the eighteenth of August as planned. The caretaker handed the key over to your father, and you and your mother were both there with him. You were seen the next morning in Dahlonega, where you’d apparently gone for breakfast. The caretaker remembered seeing you and your parents return in your father’s silver Ford Expedition around ten-thirty on the nineteenth. That’s the last anyone saw of you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember any of that.”
“Your concussion could have caused a memory loss.”
“Will I get it back?”
“I don’t know.”
The nausea was knocking on the back of her throat again. She wrestled it back to mere queasiness. “Why do I get the feeling you know more about what happened to me than I do?”
“I don’t think I do.”
He sounded honest enough, but she saw more mysteries behind those big brown eyes. “You’re keeping something from me.”
Wade Cooper was saved by a knock on the door. When nobody entered a moment later, Wade stood. “I’ll see who it is.”
He crossed to the door, favoring his right leg. His right knee looked a little larger than his left, straining against the faded jeans he wore. Bum knee?
He spoke in low tones to someone outside the door. The other voice sounded male as well, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Wade closed the door behind him and returned to her side, pulling his chair closer. His dark eyes were deadly serious.
“Two men from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations are downstairs asking to talk to you. It’s up to you. If you want to talk to them, fine. If you want to wait until you’re feeling better, that’s fine, too.”
The last thing she wanted to do was face an interrogation by the A.F.O.S.I. But all she’d be doing was putting off the inevitable. “You can tell them I’ll see them.”
Wade nodded and stood. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a narrow wallet. He removed a card from one of the inside pockets and handed it to her. “That has my cell number on it. You need to talk to me about anything, you call. Understand?”
His urgent tone made her stomach hurt, but she nodded, wincing at the flare of pain in her head. “Are you leaving?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be just down the hall. Call that number, and I’ll come running.”
As he disappeared through the doorway, she released a slow, shaky breath. She wasn’t used to feeling weak and vulnerable. She hated it. But her world had upended in the span of a few minutes—or, more accurately, three missing weeks. She had to find her feet again.
She had to find out what happened to her parents.
A brief knock on the door preceded two men dressed in dark suits who entered the room in tandem. They filled the small space with an air of authority, introducing themselves as Braddock and Hartman from the A.F.O.S.I. Braddock, who was taller, darker and leaner than stocky, sandy-haired Hartman, did most of the talking. Hartman stood slightly behind the other man, holding a small duffel bag. Annie eyed the bag with curiosity.
“We need to know everything you can tell us about the incident in Georgia,” he began without further preamble.
“I can’t tell you anything,” she said carefully. “I have a head injury and I don’t remember any of it.”
Braddock’s eyebrows inched upward. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
The two men exchanged a look that gave her the creeps.
“Could I see your identification?” she asked.
Their gazes snapped to her. Braddock’s tense expression melted into an engaging smile. “Certainly.” He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.
Annie tensed, an image flashing through her muddled brain. A needle, glistening in the glow of a single, bare bulb. A tiny droplet of moisture trembling on the point before it fell.
Panic seized her insides, threatening to turn them to liquid.
The man withdrew his hand. It held only a flat black wallet. He flipped it open and showed her an official-looking name badge. Arthur Braddock with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Looked legit.
So why couldn’t she shake the feeling these guys were anything but what they claimed to be?
“What is the last thing you remember before waking up?”
“I was standing at the luggage carousel at the Chattanooga airport,” she answered.
“And you remember nothing else?” Braddock sounded skeptical.
“I have vague memories of being in the emergency room earlier tonight, I think,” she answered carefully. She didn’t mention the image of the needle, mostly because she didn’t really trust these two men. But the truth was, she did have some memories of being examined in the emergency room. They’d cut off her clothes. Poked and prodded and X-rayed. She had a vague memory of being in a cool, white cavern—a CAT scanner?
“Why were you and your parents in Georgia?”
“Vacation. We like to get together once or twice a year.”
“Just the three of you?”
“We had plans for lunch with my aunt Phyllis on Thursday.” Her mother’s sister lived in Gainesville, Georgia. They usually tried to meet her for lunch or dinner at least once during each trip. Annie guessed they hadn’t made it to lunch, if the last time she and her parents had been seen was on the nineteenth.
“Your aunt is the one who reported you missing,” Hartman said.
Braddock looked at the other man. Annie got the feeling he’d prefer that Hartman stay quiet.
“I really don’t have anything else I can add,” Annie said.
“I think you probably know more than you realize. We’d like to take you back to Quantico with us. Ther
e’s a hospital on base that can see to your medical needs, and the staff psychiatrists can help you work on recovering more of your missing memories.” Braddock’s voice was gentle and encouraging, but Annie realized, with alarm, that she didn’t believe a bit of it.
These people were not here to help her.
“We’ll need you to sign the transfer papers for the hospital, so they’ll release you. We can transport you tonight.”
Don’t go with them. Whatever you do, don’t let these men get you alone. The voice she heard in her head wasn’t her own. It was her father’s, the low, gravelly coastal Carolina drawl she’d always loved so much.
“I don’t have any clothes—they cut them off of me in the E.R.”
“We’ve brought you some clothes to wear.” Hartman put the duffel bag on the bottom of her bed and stepped back.
“You thought of everything,” Annie murmured. She faked a smile. “Okay, then. I need a few minutes alone to get dressed,” she said quietly. “That will give you time to finalize the transfer with the hospital staff. Then I’ll sign the papers, and we can go.”
Braddock and Hartman exchanged glances. “Okay,” Braddock said with what she supposed was meant to be a gentle smile. The expression looked predatory.
To her relief, they left the room, closing the door behind them. She slumped back against her pillows, her pulse pounding a cadence of agony in her head. With shaking hand, she reached for the phone on the small bedside table and pulled it onto the bed next to her.
Opening her hand, she looked at the slightly rumpled card she’d held in her tightly clutched fist during the meeting with Braddock and Hartman.
Wade Cooper. Cooper Security.
She picked up the receiver and dialed the number.
Wade Cooper answered on the first ring. “Cooper.”
“They want to transfer me to a hospital in Quantico,” she said without preamble, keeping her voice low, in case the men were just outside the room, listening in.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“No,” she answered flatly. “I think you need to get me out of this hospital. Right now.”
Chapter Three
Two men in dark suits flanked the door to Annie Harlowe’s room. Annie had said they’d told her they were going to coordinate the release papers with the hospital, but Wade had a feeling they already had plans for how to remove her from the hospital without going through any channels. If she was right—if these men were imposters—the last thing they’d want to do was deal with hospital red tape.
What he needed was a distraction.
He slipped back inside the waiting room. “Two men guarding her door. Possibly armed—can’t tell from a look.”
Aaron and Melissa had joined the three of them, arriving just as Annie was calling Wade. He felt a hint of relief at having his younger cousin around for whatever came next. His position as a deputy, not to mention the Smith & Wesson M&P 40 he wore in a belt holster beneath his green Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department jackets, added a heartening amount of heft to their makeshift rescue operation.
“We need a distraction,” Megan said.
Jesse had been across the room on the phone. He returned, his expression grim. “They’re not A.F.O.S.I. Mason Hunter just checked with a friend of his who’s been working this case for the Air Force.” Hunter was a fellow Cooper Security operative who had once been an Air Force major. “Nobody there has heard anything about finding Annie Harlowe.”
Wade grimaced. “Until now.”
Jesse shook his head. “Mason was discreet. Treated it like a routine touching-base thing.”
“So like I said,” Megan said, “we need a distraction.”
“I can get security to take them off for questioning,” Aaron suggested.
“They’ll flash badges and tell security to stand down,” Jesse disagreed.
“Or say to hell with the charade and start shooting,” Wade countered.
“If they’re not A.F.O.S.I., who are they?” Megan asked.
“Do you really have to ask?” Aaron growled.
“S.S.U.” Wade grimaced.
“We have to assume it’s them,” Jesse agreed.
Wade wished he could believe otherwise, but bitter experience told him there were few other possibilities. The collapse of MacLear Security, once one of the top private security contractors in the world, should have been the end of the company’s Special Services Unit—the S.S.U. It had been the illegal actions of that secret army of ruthless, corrupt mercenaries that had brought down the once well-respected, legitimate security company.
But some of the S.S.U. had avoided indictments and joined forces as a band of guns for hire. Cooper Security had come across the S.S.U. several times in recent months, each encounter more alarming than the last. Left to their own devices, without the need to maintain an air of legitimacy, the S.S.U. agents had become bolder and more ruthless than ever.
“We’re certain the S.S.U. was involved in the abduction of the Harlowes, aren’t we?” Megan asked.
“As sure as we can be without hard evidence,” Jesse agreed.
“They were trained by former feds at MacLear,” Megan said, “so they certainly would know how to pass themselves off as federal agents.”
Meanwhile, Wade thought, the clock was ticking. He had to get Annie Harlowe out of that hospital room without those two men in suits catching him. But what would coax them away from the door?
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the last number, Annie’s hospital room. She answered on the second ring, her voice cautious.
“Braddock and Hartman are standing right outside your room,” Wade told her. “We need them to go somewhere else for a while. Here’s what I want you to do.” He outlined a plan he hoped would work.
She was silent a moment, then said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Wade hung up the phone and turned to his sister, who gazed up at him with a grin. “I’ll go find some scrubs,” she said.
* * *
THE MINUTE SHE’D HUNG UP the phone with Wade Cooper, Annie began to second-guess herself. What made her think the stranger who’d found her in the woods was any less dangerous than the two men who’d just left her hospital room? He had secretive eyes, and unlike the man who’d just flashed his badge at her, Wade hadn’t shown her anything but a slightly rumpled business card. Anyone could print up business cards.
She looked down at the card: Cooper Security. The name sounded familiar. Something to do with a recently indicted former State Department official named Barton Reid. Someone at Cooper Security had been involved with gathering evidence against him, right?
She pressed her fingertips against her forehead, wishing her head would stop hurting. Her pulse pounded like a jackhammer in her ears. She couldn’t imagine all this stress could be good for her concussed condition.
One thing at a time, Annie. First order of business—get dressed. Over the phone Wade had told her he’d brought her a change of clothes, borrowed from his sister, for when she was released. She needed to put them on now so they could leave the hospital without anyone asking questions.
She had to remove the IV in the back of her hand in order to move at all. With a wince at the biting pain, she removed the cannula and pressed her fingertip against the open vein to stanch the bleeding. Though a little dizzy, she managed to keep her balance long enough to reach the small in-room closet and pull out the bag Wade had told her would be at the bottom.
Inside the bag, she found a pair of sweat pants and a long-sleeved thermal T-shirt. The loose-fitting clothes nearly swallowed her whole, though they were actually a size smaller than she normally wore. She must have lost weight sometime over the last three weeks.
Had her captors starved her? Was that the least of the things they’d done to her?
Don’t think about it. Just get dressed and get ready.
She’d just pushed her feet into the slip-on sneakers she’d found at the bottom of the bag when sh
e heard voices outside her room. She scurried back to her bed, nearly stumbling on the way, and pulled the covers over her to hide her clothing.
A red-haired nurse in blue scrubs entered her room, carrying a bottle of juice. She gave Annie a quick smile and handed over the juice. “I’ll take your friends down to the clerk’s office so they can get our doctor to sign off on the transfer,” she said brightly. She had a broad rural drawl, intelligent gray eyes and a quirky smile. “I’m Megan Pike,” she told Annie in a lower voice. “Wade’s sister.”
Wade had told Annie that he was sending his sister in, but Annie couldn’t see much resemblance between this fair-skinned, freckled woman and her dark-haired brother with his olive skin and mysterious midnight eyes.
“What happens next?”
“My cousin Aaron is down the hall within sight. If the men don’t come with me willingly, he’ll confront them and, if necessary, take them into custody.” Megan smiled briefly. “He’s a deputy. And big as the side of a barn.”
“I’m not sure those men aren’t armed,” Annie warned.
“Neither are we, but Aaron and my brothers are all armed. I don’t think anyone wants a shootout in a hospital, including those guys outside.” Megan tried to sound confident, but she couldn’t quite sell it.
“Do you know who they are?”
“We think we do,” Megan admitted. “Wade will explain everything as soon as we get you to a safe place.”
“Which is where?”
“Wade’s place, for now.” Megan glanced over her shoulder. “I’ve got to get this show on the road. Just wait right here. If you hear trouble starting, get behind your bed and take cover.”
Annie’s chest tightened with alarm. “You think that could happen, don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Megan admitted. She went outside. Annie heard more voices. One of the men raised his voice enough for her to hear him say, “Is that really necessary?”
“It is,” Megan said firmly. “It will only take a couple of minutes.”
Finally, footsteps moved away from her door. Annie eased herself into an upright position on the bed, her gaze glued to the door.
A minute later, the door swung open. Annie held her breath.