Time to snap the fuck out of it before someone got killed.
* * *
When TJ woke, there was a note on his bedside table. “Be ready.”
His father had obviously already left.
He checked the time and groaned. It was the start of breakfast so he changed into some clean clothes and slipped out of their rooms, carefully locking the door behind him as he didn’t trust Malcolm not to come in and steal their stuff if provided the opportunity.
He had the man’s camera slung over his shoulder and hidden behind his back, striding confidently along the corridor as if heading for breakfast. He wore sneakers and kept his tread light. Thankfully, there was no one at the stairs or outside the surveillance room so he kept going, walking quickly until he came to Malcolm’s door.
His mouth went dry as he stopped and listened with his hand on the knob. If Malcolm was in here, TJ was screwed.
After a few silent seconds, TJ inserted the key and tapped quietly on the door. “Uncle Malcolm?”
There was no reply. TJ went inside, but the light was on so he didn’t bother with his flashlight. The bed was unmade.
The sound of the shower running made TJ’s heart constrict. Crap. Malcolm was still in here. Sweat formed on TJ’s palms. This was probably his only chance, and he needed to act fast unless he wanted to get caught. He went over to the laptop and spotted the card. He ejected it into his palm, swung the camera under the bed, kicking at the strap. Then he headed straight out the door, closing it quietly behind him as his heart nearly punched its way through his chest.
Damn.
He slipped the SD card into his pocket and walked back down the hall to his room. He kept his head down, footsteps soft, and prayed every step of the way no one was gonna catch him.
* * *
Charlotte knocked on Kayla’s door and poked her head inside. “May I come in?”
Kayla nodded.
“How are you feeling today?”
Kayla shrugged. “Better, I guess.” She looked miserable.
“You ate?” A breakfast tray sat on the dressing table. The plate still half filled with food.
“The nurse insisted.”
“You need to build your strength.” Charlotte tried to smile reassuringly. It was natural for Kayla to continue to be upset about her friend’s death. It was natural to feel survivor’s guilt. “Can I ask you a few more questions?”
Kayla nodded a little uncertainly. “Can I ask you some?”
Charlotte hesitated. “I’ll tell you what I’m able.”
“Where’s Brenna?”
“With the Medical Examiner. He’ll release the body soon.”
Kayla swallowed. “I want to bury her properly. I have money.” Her tone was defiant.
Charlotte nodded. “I’ll make sure the office knows.”
“I don’t want people to think she’s unloved.” Kayla wiped at her eyes. The news was still fresh, and the young woman looked like she’d been crying for most of the night. Unlike Charlotte, who’d been having sex with a man she could easily have fallen in love with had she had the slightest inclination he might feel the same way.
We probably need to cool it.
Obviously not.
“I’ll get you the contact details today. Brenna will be well taken care of, I promise.”
Kayla nodded. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“Do you have a surname and address for Brenna’s ex, this Simon guy?”
Kayla’s brow pleated in confusion then cleared. “You think he killed her?”
“We aren’t sure yet how she died. We want to eliminate him from our enquiries.”
“You think he’d drive all this way?” Kayla’s expression showed she was thinking hard.
“What do you think?”
“He was pissed when she left him. Threatened to kill her. Threatened to kill me too.” Her lip wobbled. “But I can’t see him bothering to travel all this way. He’s a bully and a pig, but a lazy pig.” She gave Charlotte his surname and the street he lived on. Charlotte texted it to McKenzie and forced thoughts of Novak out of her mind. She’d have to get used to working without him around and ignore her mortification until this was over.
“Was the last time you saw TJ a week ago last Wednesday?”
Kayla nodded then frowned. “Did he find Brenna?”
“Yes.”
Her dark eyes lifted. “What did he say?”
“That’s the problem,” Charlotte admitted. “TJ didn’t say anything. He ran when confronted by a Federal Wildlife Officer who gave chase. When the officer got within sight of the walls, the people inside opened fire, wounding him. He’s in the hospital lucky to be alive.”
Kayla still looked confused. “Why would TJ run?”
“Because he was scared?”
“Why would he be scared?”
Charlotte let the silence work for her.
Kayla kicked off the covers. “No. I can tell what you’re thinking, but there is no way TJ would hurt Brenna.”
“What if Brenna told TJ you didn’t want to see him anymore?”
“Then he’d have either gone home or come down to the camp to talk to me. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Maybe he didn’t mean to? Maybe he lashed out in anger, and Brenna’s death was a terrible accident?”
Kayla stood and started pacing. She looked frail in the borrowed nightshirt. “TJ isn’t violent. He’s a gentle person. You think I’d be attracted to someone who couldn’t control his temper? No. Nope. No way. I’ve seen that cycle too many times to fall for that crap.”
Her passionate defense was convincing.
Charlotte sighed heavily. “We need TJ to talk to us, but his father won’t cooperate. I was hoping you’d be willing to record a message to TJ that we can send via email or play over a loudspeaker. I’m hoping you can persuade him to come out and talk to us.”
“Are they like, holed up inside their bunker and surrounded by the FBI?” Kayla suddenly seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.
Charlotte nodded. “I’m doing everything in my power to get them to communicate with us, but they won’t pick up the telephone. We want to end this thing without violence, but they aren’t helping achieve that goal.”
Kayla’s mouth tightened. “Please don’t let anyone harm TJ. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Ever. I won’t be able to live if I lose him too.”
Charlotte reached out and squeezed her arm. “A message from you might persuade him to talk to us.”
Kayla swallowed noisily. “I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to help get him out of this alive.” She picked at her shirt. “But not wearing this. Do you have any of my other clothes?”
Charlotte almost smiled. Kayla must be feeling better if she was worried about her appearance. “I’ll see where your things are.” It was possible the lab had finished with them and could release them, but not likely. “We’re about the same size so I’ll fetch you something of mine to wear in the meantime. One thing. Would you be willing to work with a basic script from us? One that encourages TJ to give himself up for questioning so we can figure out exactly what happened to Brenna?”
“I’m not lying to him,” Kayla said tersely.
“I’m not asking you to lie. I don’t want you saying something to him that he might misinterpret and possibly put his life or those of the others inside the compound in danger.”
Kayla looked upset and confused, but Charlotte couldn’t tell her about the threat TJ’s father had made. It was possible the other people in the bunker hadn’t heard Tom utter that threat to the Feds. She wanted to avoid cornering Tom or creating panic and that meant treading very carefully indeed.
Kayla nodded. “Okay.”
Charlotte headed to the door. “I’ll fetch you something to wear and a brush for your hair. We’ll tape downstairs so you don’t have an entire crew of Feds in your bedroom.” It was important to have a safe space to retreat to.
Charlotte headed down the corridor
and opened the door to the room she shared with Novak. She stood paralyzed for a few moments as the memories from last night flooded her mind. But she didn’t have time to dwell on the fact it hadn’t been enough for him while it had been almost too much for her.
Instead, she grabbed another pair of black leggings, a t-shirt, and a gray FBI sweatshirt from her small case. The room smelled of their night together so she opened the window a notch. She’d close it after they finished filming. She dropped the clothes off and left Kayla to change in privacy, heading downstairs to where a tech was setting up the recording equipment in front of the roaring fire.
Kayla came down five minutes later, looking young and scared and delicate after her illness. But there was a determined set to her jaw that Charlotte recognized.
“Sit over here by the fire.” Charlotte encouraged.
Kayla sat on the couch, and her sock-covered feet didn’t quite touch the floor. The sweatshirt looked bulky, but at least it would keep her warm.
“Read off the teleprompter. If you want to run through it first, that’s fine. And if you want to say something a little more naturally, then go with it.”
Kayla stared at her, looking young and uncertain and overwhelmed. Who wouldn’t be?
It took almost an hour to get a take they could use despite the fact she’d gone off script a little at the end talking about how much she wanted to see him again at their special tree. Kayla was now sitting shaking while drinking hot cocoa.
“Send it to McKenzie and BAU and get them to review it ASAP. If we don’t hear back in thirty minutes, we’re using it anyway,” Charlotte murmured to the tech working with her on this.
Charlotte went back over to Kayla. “You look tired. How about I take you back to your room.”
“You’ll let me know how it goes? If TJ sends a message back for me, right?” Kayla shuffled along in a pair of house slippers the ranch owner had found for her.
Charlotte nodded. “As soon as I get the chance. Yes.”
Kayla turned outside the door to her room. “Please don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt TJ.”
Charlotte swallowed. “We are doing our very best to get everyone safely out of this, Kayla. You have my word. This agent will get you anything you need in the meantime.” Charlotte indicated the guard.
“No problem. I’m here to help.” The man smiled cheerily.
Kayla nodded and tried to disguise a yawn. They’d definitely exhausted her more than they should have.
“Get some rest.” Feeling guilty, Charlotte turned around and left. She needed to head up the mountain and see if her team had made any progress knocking down the wall of silence the people in the compound had erected. She needed to stay busy to keep her mind off the wreckage Supervisory Special Agent Payne Novak had made of her heart.
Chapter Thirty
Forty minutes later, Charlotte watched intently as Eban, speaking from the cover of the woods, used the bullhorn to work through a monologue that they often used in these sort of barricade situations.
How can I help you?
What do you need?
Everyone wants a peaceful resolution.
No one wants anyone to get hurt.
We know you don’t want to go to prison.
We understand your fears.
Help us resolve this peacefully.
The words echoed eerily through the air, swirling through the trees and bouncing off the bare rock of the mountainside—hardly conducive to surrender.
HRT had knocked out the camera feeds and ground sensors as they didn’t want the people inside the bunker to have any information regarding the FBI’s intentions, or help them potentially pick off targets with a sniper rifle. Charlotte was back in the same creek bed she’d visited several times already—a safe zone for the FBI to assemble personnel.
She tried to pull her wooly hat farther down over her ears but damn, it was cold. A storm was gathering. The tension grew thicker around them, putting everyone on edge, pulling tighter and tighter until Charlotte thought her nerves might snap.
Novak paged her on the radio. “Leaflets are inbound.”
“Roger that.” She sounded so lame, but it wasn’t like she could scream at him, “I don’t want to cool it!” At least not without humiliating herself in front of everyone and possibly losing her career.
Yippee-kai-yay, mother trucker.
She heard the quiet buzz of the large drone approaching from the east and looked up at the overcast sky. The tops of the trees swayed violently in the wind, and the forecast said it was going to get much, much worse.
The drone zipped overhead, and she twisted to watch its progress as Eban kept up his monologue.
Even though there were no defensive slits on the inner walls—probably so defenders didn’t kill one another in the crossfire—the plan was to do a rapid delivery to avoid anyone inside the bunker getting a line of fire on the drone. The drone would dip inside the barbed-wire fence, release its cargo, and head straight out again.
“Leaflets deployed.” Novak’s deep voice crackled in her ear again, and she hated how the memories of their intimacy conflicted with his clipped military precision. He seemed remote and not simply because he was still back at the base.
She keyed in the radio channel that connected her to the negotiation team. “Tell them about the leaflets, Eban. Before they freak out.”
She hated being distracted about a personal issue during an incident—which was why the FBI didn’t allow agents in a relationship to work together in the same unit. But she and Novak technically weren’t in the same unit, and they were equals in terms of rank and authority. They hadn’t broken the rules, but their affair, if you could call it that, would be frowned upon by people with too much time on their hands at HQ.
Not that anyone would ever know about it.
And what did it matter? Novak had proven he wasn’t interested in her for more than a one-night stand. She wasn’t the sort of woman who needed to have the message repeated. Communication was her expertise. Cool it? She was happy to shove the entire disastrous episode in the deep freeze. She wasn’t stupid or desperate. Nor would she ever admit exactly how close he’d come to changing her idea about the sort of man she wanted to fall for.
The drone flew overhead again as Eban explained over the bullhorn that the FBI wasn’t trying to attack them or scare them. It was simply delivering some information by drone as the people inside had allowed them no other option. Then he was back to the calm reassurances that were both comforting and lulling.
Novak had told her he wasn’t good with women, and she’d thought he was using that as an excuse to avoid relationships. But she’d been wrong—he really wasn’t good with women. He was grumpy and difficult. He was also attentive and kind.
She hated him. She really hated him.
A fierce blast of wind had her staring up at the sky with concern. The first flake of snow catapulted out of the air, followed by another and another. Winter had arrived, and she was pissed.
* * *
TJ started viewing the photographs on his laptop. Hundreds of images. Thousands. Of the mountains. Of the owls that had hatched in the late spring. Beautiful images that showed his world in all its magnificence. At dawn. At sunset. In bright sunshine and drenched in rain.
At first, he didn’t understand.
Then he came across one of Kayla sitting in her sleeping bag looking as if she’d just woken up inside a sunny yellow tent. His mouth went dry.
He printed the image out, needing that physical connection to the girl he loved, the girl he thought he’d lost. He touched the screen, wishing he knew where she was and whether or not she was okay.
Why did Malcolm have this camera? Had he stolen it?
Of course he’d stolen it. But from whom?
TJ kept going through the images with mounting trepidation. The answers came toward the end of the pictures as he’d known they would. The ones taken on Wednesday morning. The ones taken by the girl who’d died. The girl who lo
oked so like Kayla. Kayla’s friend.
He went through each single photograph until he finally figured out what had happened, and exactly why Brenna Longie had been murdered.
A calm rage settled over him. Now he understood. Now he understood everything.
His email dinged and, although he expected another plea from the Feds to end this thing peacefully, instead the sender was Kayla, and there was a video attachment.
His heart was on fire when he clicked play.
* * *
Novak tossed the radio on the counter and then winced when Romano shot him a startled look.
“Sorry.”
“No problem, boss.”
Romano had warmed up the second drone, and they were using it to monitor the inner door and the leaflet delivery. The small, white postcard-sized pieces of paper fluttered around every inch of the enclosure like a giant ticker-tape celebration at the end of the Super Bowl.
“You gotta be missing hanging out with a beautiful woman rather than me and a bunch of hay bales.” Romano shot him a grin.
“Shut the fuck up.” Novak’s teeth were clamped so hard together it was like breaking his jaw every time he needed to speak.
Romano sobered, and Novak didn’t miss the face he pulled as he went back to his monitor.
Novak sighed. What he should have done was made a joke about the hassle of working with women in general or Charlotte in particular, but there was no way he was doing that. Not even to disguise the fact he was absolutely miserable. These were smart guys. It wouldn’t take them long to do the math.
“Movement on the door,” he said instead.
The people in the compound sent out the young boy again. He ran like a rabbit, zigzagging this way and that, collecting handfuls of leaflets before heading back to the door. Clearly terrified.
“Fucking cowards,” Novak snarled.
Romano shot him another wary look. “Everything okay, boss?”
Novak scratched his eyebrow. Dammit. “Sorry for being an asshole. I’m getting a little sick of these guys running the show. I know the negotiators are right. We need to exhaust all peaceful avenues unless something changes on the inside. But I think the people in that bunker are a bunch of paranoid fools.” And Novak had hurt someone he cared about, whether he wanted to care about her or not. No wonder his ex had decided he wasn’t worth the effort.
Cold Wicked Lies: A gripping romantic thriller that will have you hooked (Cold Justice - Crossfire Book 3) Page 26