by Paula Graves
Across from them, Jesse had helped Evie into the seat beside him and was examining her head injury with a dark scowl on his face.
“It’s just a bump,” she said, but her reassurance didn’t seem to lighten Jesse’s black mood a bit. He waved at the headsets hanging over the backs of the seats and put his own set on. Evie did the same.
Once Wade and Annie had their headsets on, Jesse spoke into the mike, his voice coming clear and hard across the headset speakers.
“What the hell happened in there?” he asked Wade.
“Long story,” Wade spoke into the mike of his own headset, sounding weary for the first time. He threaded his fingers through Annie’s, locking his gaze with hers as if the rest of the world around them had disappeared. “Get us to a safe place and I promise, we’ll tell you all about it.”
Annie darted a quick look at Jesse and found him still scowling at his brother. But if Wade noticed, he gave no sign of it, his attention focused on Annie’s face, as if searching for reassurance that she was unhurt. She squeezed his hand.
“There are at least a dozen men inside or surrounding the perimeter of Cooper Security,” Jesse said. “The Chickasaw County SWAT team and the Maybridge Police Emergency Services Unit are both heading to the scene.”
Wade looked at his brother. “Could be a bloodbath.”
“They know what they’re up against,” Jesse said. “They’ll retreat if it gets too hairy—we’ve already called in Cooper Security reinforcements. All our best-trained field agents are already on the way there.”
“We should go back and help,” Evie said.
“No,” Jesse said firmly. “You’re injured, and Annie isn’t trained for this kind of skirmish.”
“We’ll get the two of you somewhere safe and go back to swell the ranks,” Wade said firmly.
Annie tightened her grip on Wade’s hand. “You can’t go back there.”
He kissed her knuckles, his eyes dark with regret. “It’s my job.”
“Isabel’s shoring up the perimeter security for her farmhouse—that’s where we’re taking Annie and Evie,” Jesse said. “Izzy, Ben, Megan and Evan will guard them until we can arrange something more permanent.”
Annie looked at Wade with alarm. Something more permanent? Were they talking about sending her away somewhere, separating her from everything familiar to her?
Separating her from Wade?
There was no time to ask questions for the rest of the ride, as Wade and Jesse ended up discussing strategy back and forth over the headsets. Annie finally made herself take off the headset to tune them out, as the threat assessments they were throwing around were dire enough to scare the life out of her.
She had to believe Wade would be okay. He and the Cooper Security crew would round up the intruders and deliver them to the authorities without any more bloodshed.
It had to happen that way. Wade had to come back safely to her.
The helicopter landed on the road in front of a sprawling farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, the pilot managing to stay clear of the trees that flanked the road on both sides. As soon as they touched down, Jesse and Wade hurried the two women out of the helicopter and into the house, where Isabel and her husband, Ben, were waiting to take over.
“Wait!” Annie called as she realized Wade was heading right back out to the helicopter.
Wade turned to look at her, a question in his dark eyes.
She found herself at a loss for words to express the terror expanding in her chest like a poisonous cloud, making her sick with worry. She had no words for what she was feeling, no way to tell Wade just how scared she was at the thought of never seeing him again.
He crossed to her side, pulling her away from the others. “Don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispered.
He cradled her face between his big hands. “You’ll be safe here. Isabel and Megan won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I’m not afraid for myself,” she said bleakly. “I’m afraid for you. Going back there, dealing with those monsters—”
“We’ve dealt with them before. We know what we’re doing.”
Frustration with his blasé confidence filled her aching chest. “Famous last words, Cooper.”
He smiled. “Try not to worry.”
She grimaced. “Impossible.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You’d better.” She closed her hands over his where they lay on her face. “You come back alive, you hear me?”
A smile curved his lips. “That’s usually the plan.”
“I mean it, Wade.”
His eyes glittered with amusement. She didn’t know whether to smack him or kiss him. “So, is that an order?”
She nodded, her heart in her throat. “Yes. It is.”
“Okay, then,” he said, his smile spreading. “You’re the boss.”
“Say it,” she demanded, needing to hear the words.
He dipped his head toward hers, brushing his lips lightly across her mouth. “I’ll come back to you alive,” he vowed.
She prayed he would be able to keep the promise.
* * *
WADE’S COUSIN AARON MET Jesse, Wade and about two-thirds of the active Cooper Security field agents at the edge of the perimeter the Chickasaw County SWAT team had formed around the Cooper Security office building. Dressed in body armor and a black helmet emblazoned with the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department insignia, Aaron looked formidable as he broke away from a cluster of similarly dressed deputies and crossed to greet Wade, Jesse and the other Coopers who’d arrived to provide backup.
“The building is secure,” he told them, but his grim expression made Wade’s gut tighten with dread.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Well, for one thing, there are only two bodies in the building. Fiorello and Hotchkiss. No sign of Fordham or Dr. Ambrose. No sign of anyone else.”
“They didn’t want to leave any evidence behind,” Jesse growled. “Damn it.”
Wade’s brother Rick muttered a string of low curses. “How’d they get away so quickly?”
“I think once Wade, Annie and Evie escaped their clutches, they lost their reason for being there,” Aaron suggested.
“They couldn’t get into the vault, which is where they probably assume the coded journal is,” Jesse said. “Smarter to cut their losses and bug out as quickly as they could.”
“Regroup and attack another day.” Wade grimaced.
Jesse’s cell phone rang and he excused himself to take the call. Rick put his hand on Wade’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I talked to Isabel a few minutes ago. Annie’s fine. She’s just worried about you.” Rick gave him a knowing look. “She seems like a good woman. You could do worse.”
“Marriage has made you soft, Rick,” Wade shot back with a grin.
“Wade!” Jesse hurried toward him, pocketing his phone. His grim expression made Wade’s chest tighten with alarm.
“What is it?”
“Just got off the phone with Maddox Heller,” Jesse said. Heller, Wade had learned recently, was Jesse’s silent partner at Cooper Security. A former Marine security guard who’d funneled his unexpected inheritance into Jesse’s start-up security firm, Heller had an expansive network of contacts in the intelligence services, including the CIA.
“What did he want?” Wade asked.
“He just received word that Emmett Harlowe just showed up in the E.R. at Chickasaw County Hospital. Alive and well.”
Chapter Seventeen
The safe house was a nondescript, brick and clapboard ranch-style house in the middle of an ordinary suburban neighborhood just north of Birmingham, Alabama. It had a large, fenced-in backyard, a wide, grassy front lawn and a side yard amply sheltered by dogwood and hickory trees.
Annie arrived around ten that morning, accompanied by a pair of Cooper Security agents she’d met briefly outside a truck stop a couple of days
earlier. Delilah Hammond, the female agent, looked a bit more put-together and dangerous than she had when she was pretending to be Annie. She was definitely all business. Troy Cooper, Wade’s cousin, was more easygoing and quick with a smile. Annie found herself gravitating toward him, and not just because she hoped he might tell her why she’d been spirited away from Isabel Scanlon’s house and taken on a two-hour, twisty and circuitous drive to this safe house.
“What’s going to happen next?” she asked Troy as she settled at the kitchen table across from him. Nearby, Delilah was watching the street outside the house through the square window set in the patio door.
“Two more people will be joining us, along with a few more guards,” Troy answered.
“Well, that’s vague.”
Delilah looked over her shoulder. “It’s supposed to be. Mission integrity is vital.”
“And you think I’m going to spill some top secret? To whom?”
“She has a point, Dee.”
Delilah shot a pointed look at Troy. “They’ll be here soon. Everything will make sense then.”
Annie snapped her mouth shut to keep from saying something rude to Delilah. The woman was putting her life on the line to protect her, after all.
But did she have to be so damned annoying about it?
“Why didn’t you let me wait to talk to Wade?”
“We had to move fast,” Delilah answered. Her back went suddenly rigid, and her hand moved to the Glock tucked into her waistband holster.
Troy stood and joined her at the window, his posture equally tense. Then he relaxed visibly and turned to look at Annie. “Here we go.”
Annie rose to her feet, trying to see past them through the small window, but the two agents blocked her view completely. Frustrated, she dropped back into her chair and waited for whatever was going to happen next.
The agents stepped back from the door, Troy pulling it open to admit their new visitors. Annie didn’t know what to expect, but the person she saw standing in the doorway caught her utterly by surprise.
“Daddy?”
Emmett Harlowe’s dark eyes locked with his daughter’s, and he started to laugh a low, hearty chuckle that did more to relieve Annie’s fears than anything she’d heard in a long time.
She jumped to her feet, throwing herself into his waiting arms. “Oh, my God, Dad! How are you here?”
“It’s a long story,” he whispered into her ear, hugging her close. “I’ll tell you all about it but first—” He turned to the man who’d accompanied him into the house. “Any ETA on her arrival?”
The man—a tall, sandy-haired man built like a tank—checked his watch. “Before lunch. That’s all I can say for sure.”
“Whose arrival?” Annie asked.
“You mother’s,” her father answered. “They released her from the hospital this morning and a crew of agents will be bringing her here to join us.” He stroked Annie’s hair. “Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick about you this whole time. When the men who debriefed me told me you escaped, I nearly collapsed with relief.”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, patting his cheek. He looked tired and too thin, older than she remembered. “How are you? You look tired.”
“I am tired. And angry as hell.” He kissed her forehead. “And right now, I’m a little hungry. Anything to eat in this place?”
Troy jumped in, showing them the contents of the refrigerator. Annie and her father made a couple of turkey sandwiches, while Troy heated up some canned soup, pouring the contents into a couple of mugs.
“There was a man among my captors who is apparently working for the good guys,” Annie’s father told her after they’d finished most of their early lunch. “He helped me escape—took a big risk to do it.”
“Are you sure he was really on your side?”
“He told me his name, and when I shared it with the Cooper Security agents who met with me at the hospital, they seemed to recognize it—Damon North. Ever heard of him?”
She shook her head. “I wonder how he explained your escape?”
“He drugged the thugs who were guarding me, so I’m not sure anyone saw him come to my rescue. Still, it was quite a chance he took.”
“And you’re sure you’re okay?” She reached across the table and caught his hand, a little alarmed when his fingers trembled beneath hers.
“I’m sure.” He squeezed her fingers. “Just need some groceries and a little shut-eye. Doctors looked me over this morning before letting me go. Just told me to eat, sleep and avoid any more kidnappings.”
“Heads up,” Delilah said from her spot at the patio door.
“Mother’s here?” Annie asked, pushing to her feet and heading for the door.
Troy stopped her before she got there. “You need to stay away from doors and windows, Ms. Harlowe.”
She frowned at him but retreated back to the table. “I hate being under lock and key. It’s too much like being held captive.”
“Not anywhere near the same,” her father chided gently. He smiled placidly, but she saw a hint of impatience in his expression, and his gaze kept wandering over to the patio door.
It opened, finally, admitting another pair of agents and Annie’s pale-faced mother, who caught sight of her daughter and husband the second she stepped foot into the door. She pushed past the guards who had helped her up the stairs and hurried into her family’s embrace.
An hour later, Annie was finally satisfied that her parents were both going to be okay, despite the obvious trauma of their recent captivity. Her mother’s memory problems were mostly gone, except for a blank space that seemed to cover most of her time in captivity. From her mother’s description of what she could remember, it seemed clear that she’d been kept drugged most of the time, just as Wade had speculated.
“She didn’t have much to offer except for leverage,” Annie’s father told her later, after they’d coaxed her mother into taking a nap. She was still a little weak and could clearly use the rest.
“What did you tell your captors?” Annie asked.
“More than I like to think about,” her father admitted. “I told them about the coded journal.”
Annie nodded, remembering what Wade had told her about the attempts to steal the journal from the Ross’s house on Nightshade Island. “But not the code itself?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t allow myself to do that.”
“Neither could I.”
The general wrapped his arm around her. “That’s why I trusted you with it, you know. Because I knew you’d protect it at all costs.”
She felt his arm trembling where he held her. “Dad, why don’t you lie down with Mom for a while? You could both use some sleep, and I know she’ll sleep better if you’re in there with her.”
Her father smiled. “You’re just trying to get your old man to rest.”
“Guilty as charged,” she said with an answering grin. “In fact, a nap sounds pretty good to me, too.” She’d had little sleep over the past twenty-four hours, and it was sapping her energy as well.
“Okay.” Her father cradled her face between his hands, searching her features as if he wanted to memorize them. “Just promise me you’ll be here when I wake up.”
“I promise.”
He kissed her forehead again and opened the door to the bedroom where her mother was sleeping, closing it behind him.
With a weary sigh, Annie bypassed her own bedroom and went back into the kitchen, where four of the six bodyguards were eating a quick lunch. The other two, she saw, were moving slowly around the house, watching the perimeter for any sign of intruders.
Annie found Troy watching the street in front of the house, his posture straight and on alert. She hated to interrupt, but of the guards watching over them, he was the most likely to be able to answer her question.
“Have you heard anything from Wade?” she asked. “Last I heard from him, he was going to confront the intruders at the security company.”
Tr
oy glanced at her, his expression mildly curious. “The intruders had fled by the time anyone got there,” he said. “Wade’s fine.”
She frowned. So why hadn’t he at least called her to let her know he was okay? Why had he let Cooper Security agents spirit her away to this safe house without even saying goodbye?
She rubbed her gritty eyes and wandered back to the bedroom she’d been assigned, settling onto the soft mattress without bothering to pull back the sheets. The tension in her back eased a little as she forced herself to relax, but the twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach remained, keeping her awake and staring at the ceiling overhead.
Had she read too much into the closeness she and Wade had begun to share? He’d admitted he didn’t see himself as much of a good bet for a relationship. Maybe he thought he was sparing her heartache in the long run.
If the pain in the center of her chest meant anything, he had spared her nothing.
* * *
“THEY’VE ALL ARRIVED SAFELY.” Jesse hung up the phone and looked at his brothers and sisters, who’d gathered in his office to await word on the transfer of the Harlowes to the Birmingham safe house.
Wade felt a ripple of relief dart through him, tempered a bit by the low simmer of anger that had begun to build in his gut ever since he realized his brother had spirited Annie away from Gossamer Ridge without even giving him a chance to say goodbye.
What must she be thinking? Did she think he didn’t even care enough to tell her he was okay?
“Shannon, I’d like you and Gideon to head to Birmingham as soon as possible. I want you to debrief General Harlowe about the code and how it relates to the journal we have in our possession. Specifically, I want you to find out if General Harlowe has any idea if General Ross entrusted his part of the code to anyone else. Gideon, you knew General Ross very well—maybe between yourself and General Harlowe, you can figure something out.”
“Will do,” Gideon agreed. He caught Shannon’s hand and they left the office immediately.
“I’m going to assign a few more guards to rotate in and out with the crew currently there at the safe house,” Jesse added to the others. “Meanwhile, the rest of you are going to have to work extra hours trying to figure out where our security systems failed and what we can do to shore them up.” Jesse gave a dismissive nod, and the others started to disperse immediately.