Hidden Truth

by Danica Winters

  Going back to her phone, she told them to move on the intel.

  If she was wrong, and Trevor or someone from his family had planted this for them to go on some wild-goose chase, her job would be on the line. The Bureau hated spending money and resources on anything that proved to be a dead end, but her gut was telling her that this was something they had to do. If she didn’t act, and the Martins were in motion for a trade, then she’d miss her opportunity. Maybe it was a bit aggressive to jump on their first big break in the case, but if they could one-and-done this, she could go back to the agency with her head held high. Mike would have his deadline met and she would be the resident hero.

  Besides, Trevor had probably set all this up...he’d brought her all the way to the backside of the moon knowing they were unlikely to have any digital reach. If he thought she was a threat, it was one heck of a plan. She’d been completely at his mercy. Why had she been so stupid in letting him take her on this ridiculous trail ride? She should have trusted her gut and found a way to stay behind. If he had gone without her, she could have been right there and dug deeper into the lead the IT crew had picked up. As it was, she might as well have been sitting on her hands.

  She stuffed the phone back in her jacket and after doing her business, careful to keep the gun from falling in the snow, she made her way back to the horses. Trevor was already there, waiting for her. He had a worried expression on his face and after what she’d just learned, all she could do was stare at him. He was probably thinking about the deal he was going to miss.

  The last thing she should have done was sleep with him. Heck, he’d probably even had that planned, too. Be cute, joke a bit, tell her she was beautiful, and she had turned to putty in his hands.

  Why was she so stupid sometimes? She knew better than to let herself fall for a man like him.

  She stretched, as if by doing so, she could wedge herself back into the box that was her role as a UC for the Bureau. There was a job to do. If she didn’t think about the way his lips felt against her skin, or the way he sighed when he fell asleep, it wouldn’t bother her too much.

  He turned away from her and as he moved, there was a dark blue patch on his ass like he’d wet his pants. “You know,” she teased, trying to relieve some of the stress that filled her, “most people take their pants down when they use the restroom.”

  “Oh...yeah...” He dropped his hands to the back of his jeans and gave a constricted laugh. “I slipped and fell down in the snow when I was trying to find a place. Nothing like a cold, chapped ass to remind you how good life is back at home.” As he said the word home, his face pinched like there was something painful about the word itself.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if he really meant how good life was back where he could run guns once again.

  She set her jaw. He was a killer. He put guns into the wrong hands, hands that were more than happy to pull the trigger even when the guns were pointed at the innocent.

  He could act as endearing as he liked, but that didn’t make him any less guilty.

  She just had to remember not to be a fool—no matter how tempted she was to take on the enticing role as the woman on his arm.

  No doubt he had one incredible, fast-paced and thrilling life. If only it was on the right side of the law.

  Chapter Nine

  She was acting weird. Or maybe he was, he couldn’t decide. As they hiked toward the smoke, he couldn’t make heads or tails of his thoughts. This was all driving him mad. At least he would soon find out one way or another if she could be trusted. He would have his answer and then they could move forward—or not.

  The snow crunched under their feet, the sound reminding him of what needed to be done. All they had to do was get to the bottom of the Cussler brother’s death for now. He could deal with the rest when he got home.

  Yes, shoving the thoughts of her possible deception away...yes, that was the best answer. If he was acting weird, at least he could put an end to it this way and slide back into his role as one of the Martin brothers—tech billionaires extraordinaire, complete with a fictionalized military backstory...well, sort of fictionalized. Some of his experiences with the military had been all too real.

  That’s all this feeling was, his past coming back to haunt him. He was out of that game. Now he just had to look to the future.

  If only it were that simple.

  Becoming a civilian was proving to be far harder than he had expected it to be. He’d always thought that the people who had the biggest issues were also the ones whose egos wouldn’t allow them to step away from the game. He’d never thought that he would be one of those people. Sure, his identity had been all spook all the time, but that wasn’t who he was. He had always thought of himself as so much more...and yet he was constantly proving himself wrong. Even the way he made his bed every day spoke of his passion for a life that was no longer going to be his once he retired completely.

  There was a click and slide in the distance, just like the sound of a round being jacked into a bolt-action rifle. He glanced in the direction of the smoke. They had to be at least a half mile away from the possible camp. They were surrounded by a blanket of white, interspersed with dots and jags of gray and black and trees that had fallen victim to a recent forest fire. In the world of white, nothing moved. Yet the sound had been nearly unmistakable.

  He’d heard that grind of metal too many times in his life to get it wrong.

  “Get down,” he said, moving behind a piece of deadfall and motioning toward Sabrina to follow suit.

  She looked at him like he had lost his mind, but she did as he told her and squatted down beside him. “What is it? Did you see something?” she whispered.

  As the last syllable fell from her lips, a bullet whistled by them. Without thinking, he pushed Sabrina all the way to the ground so she was lying behind the log. Based on the sound and the percussive wave of the shot, whoever was shooting at them was uphill, not far. He knelt as low as he could, using the tree for as much cover as possible. He pulled his phone and using the selfie angle, he looked behind him.

  At the top of the trail, he could make out the black tip of a rifle barrel.

  They couldn’t move. If they dared to go anywhere they would be an easy target for whoever was holding that gun. Their adversary literally had the upper hand.

  “Can you see who it is?” Sabrina asked.

  “Can’t see their face, but whoever it is, they are using a high-caliber rifle. Any closer, and a tree just might not be wide enough to keep us safe.” He moved to pull his SIG Sauer out of his thigh holster, but then he realized it was already in his hand. He had no idea when he had taken the gun out, and yet he was impressed by his body’s autonomous reaction to gunfire.

  Maybe being a trained mercenary really did have its advantages after all.

  “Take out your—” Before he could say the word gun he noticed that, just like him, she had her weapon drawn and ready. The gun was pulled close to her chest and high, the position of a law enforcement officer or a well-trained marksman.

  She had said she’d been trained to use weapons by her father, but she didn’t appear to be a Sunday shooter.

  She rolled and moved to look over the log. As she readjusted, another round pinged through the air. This time, it sounded like it struck something to their left.

  “Do you think they’re really that bad a shot?” he asked. “Or are they messing with us?” The question was as much a legitimate question as it was a test for her.

  She looked up the hill, like she was gauging the distance. “The gun’s caliber is too big to be using open sights—they have to have a scope on it. And if they have a scope on it, they could hit the hair on a gnat’s ass at this range. They have to be messing with us. Either they’re trying to flush us out, or they’re sending us a message that we aren’t welcome.”

  Test failed. She was definitely no Sunda
y shooter.

  “You’re right,” he said, crestfallen. “Which leaves us with two options. We can fight—and turn this into a shooting gallery—or we can sit here and wait for them to get bored and leave. But if we wait, and they really are out to kill us, then they may well get the drop on us and move around until they have a better angle. We could be sitting ducks.”

  In a way, regardless of what the person shooting at them chose to do, he couldn’t help feeling like he was a sitting duck with Sabrina. It seemed all too likely that she wasn’t the woman she was pretending to be. Hell, she probably had gotten pinged on her phone the second he’d gotten pinged on his. Maybe she had heard something that had turned her off of him... Maybe she was already making plans for the fake drop in Seattle. That would explain why she was acting so weird.

  He grumbled aloud. He couldn’t fall back down that chasm, no. No more second-guessing himself. No more second-guessing her.

  He had bigger things to worry about right now. He was being ridiculous by allowing his mind to wander. He had to focus.

  The wind kicked up as quarter-size snowflakes cascaded down from the sky, making the entire world look like something inside a snow globe. It was his chance. Though they only had small arms, he’d have to make a break for it.

  “Cover my six,” he said, moving his chin in the direction of the shooter.

  “Are you crazy?” Sabrina asked. “If you go out there, you’ll be an open target.”

  She wasn’t wrong; there was little cover. “That’s what you’re here for,” he said, smiling in an attempt to downplay the danger they were in and put her mind at ease. “You’re going to have to put your money where your mouth is. You said you’re good marksman.”

  “I didn’t mean I was this good. They have to be at least fifty yards away—way outside my comfort zone.” She grabbed his hand, stopping him from moving. “Don’t go.” There was a deep well of concern in her eyes.

  He had to act for the same reason she didn’t want him to go—he had to shield her, the woman he loved.

  Not that she could ever know that.

  Though if she thought about it, she’d probably quickly realize that he wasn’t the kind of man who would risk his life for just anyone.

  He moved his hand out of hers and snapped a round into the chamber of his weapon. “Start shooting in three...two...” He stood up and raced up the hill, firing as he zigzagged haphazardly over downed trees and rocks. The brush pulled at his feet, threatening to bring him to his knees and welcome him to his death.

  Taking a hard right, he watched as the gunman’s barrel came into view above him. He hit the ground as the muzzle flashed. The bullet thumped as it ripped into the tree base just inches from his head.

  Gunfire rang out from Sabrina’s direction. There were twenty-two rounds in each of his guns’ magazines. They’d have to be smart about this.

  As Sabrina fired, he jumped back to his feet. A couple dozen yards in front of him was a large boulder. It was a long way to go without cover, but he had to go for it. He sprinted as hard as he could up the hill. The shooter fired. The bullet pinged off a rock, ricocheting into the air.

  He slumped down behind the boulder. His breath came in heavy gasps, but he barely noticed as adrenaline coursed through him. Sabrina was out of sight, tucked behind the deadfall. Good.

  For a moment, the world was silent. Fat blobs of snow coursed down, one landing on his nose and quickly melting, like some warning to him about the impermanence and fickle nature of life. He needed no reminder.

  Trish flashed into his mind. She would have loved this. There was nothing she jonesed for quite like a good firefight. She was probably looking down on him from heaven. The thought came with an ethereal bit of warmth.

  He smiled up at the sky, knowing full well that it was probably nothing more than his mind playing tricks on him, but he didn’t care. If there was even a tiny chance she was here with him now, he needed her to know he loved and missed her. Maybe he could even make things right by saving Sabrina now.

  Raising his gun, he charged from behind the rock and ascended the hill. He expected gunfire to rain down on him, but as he ran there was nothing except the crunch of his boots in the snow. As he breached the crown of the mountain, he stopped. There was no one there. A little way down from where he stood was a stand of timber, thick and dense as it had somehow escaped the ravaging effects of the fire that had taken down its sister side.

  Near him on the ground was the packed snow where someone had been lying down. A smattering of brass casings littered the ground. From the patch of packed snow, there was a set of tracks leading into the timber and then they disappeared between the trees. The shooter was probably watching him right now. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he realized how easily the shooter could set up again from behind a tree and take an open shot at him.

  He moved to the patch of boulders they had been using as coverage. Whoever had been shooting must have planned out this location. In defense and offense it was literally perfect—high point, great coverage and the ability to blend in with the background. He couldn’t have done a better job himself.

  Whistling down, he motioned over the hillside for Sabrina. She stood up and he waved her forward, surveilling the area around her as she hiked up the steep hillside. His breath made a cloud in the air as he guarded her and the cold bore down upon them. It was colder up here, even more frigid than it had been the night before.

  They’d gone a whole day without food and the water supply was running low; soon they’d have to start thinking about boiling snow. They couldn’t afford to chase after whoever it was that had been trying to gun them down, but they were so close. They couldn’t stop now.

  Sabrina plopped down beside him, her breathing heavy. “Holy crap, that hill didn’t look that steep from the bottom. How did you run up it?”

  He chuckled. “Someone taking aim at you tends to give you an extra incentive to move.”

  “You’re hilarious,” she said sarcastically, nudging his arm as she slipped her gun back into the waistband of her pants. “I don’t see any blood.”

  “And I haven’t seen anyone moving. Either they are hunkered down somewhere in that timber—” he motioned toward the stand down the hill “—or they hightailed it out of here.”

  She motioned toward the curl of smoke rising up from the center of the timber. “Do you think we have enough rounds to go down there, poke around and see if we can flush anyone out?”

  “I can’t put you in danger. At least not more danger than we’re already in—up here, in the middle of nowhere, if one of us gets hurt, we may never make it out.”

  “From the moment we left the ranch, we’ve both known that this was a high-risk situation.” She moved closer to him and put her hand on his knee. “Even when things are hard, I’m not one who gives up.”

  “But this isn’t a battle of wills, or resilience.” He put his hand atop hers and traced the length of her finger with his. “This is possibly life or death, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  She gazed into his eyes, and as she looked at him he could see the start of tears. And yet the look on her face wasn’t happiness; it was like she was torn. Maybe she was feeling just as confused as he was about this entire situation and how unlikely it seemed that they would end up together.

  “Trevor, you...we are amazing. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’ve never met anyone like you. I don’t know what it is about you, but even now just sitting here close to you, with bullets raining down on us at any minute... I dunno why, but I feel safe. More than that, I would be the happiest woman alive if I could stay out here and avoid going back to the real world if it meant I could spend another second with you.” The expression on her face seemed to darken as she spoke, in contrast to what she was telling him.

  “But?” He waited for the ax to fall.

  S
he huffed. “But...” She paused, suddenly taken with her pants’ stitches. “But I don’t think we should be worried about it right now.”

  That wasn’t what he was expecting her to say. He’d assumed she was going to tell him she wanted nothing to do with him once they got out of the woods, that she was quitting the ranch, or she had some deep dark secret that would keep them from coming together, but not this. As much as her avoidance was a relief, it was going to nag at him. There was something she wasn’t saying, that she must not be ready to tell him. And yet he had to respect her needs and not push her to open up more than she was comfortable with.

  She reached down in the snow beside them, digging in the white fluff like a nervous tic. Her fingers reddened as she moved them around in the snow, and it melted and stuck to her skin. Even though it was not his own hand, he could feel the sting of the cold, and he wanted to take her fingers and warm them for her so she wouldn’t feel any pain. But he stopped himself. It seemed like perhaps he wasn’t what she wanted.

  She gasped, pulling her hand from its icy diversion. In her grasp was a spent casing. She flipped it over, reading the caliber stamped into its base.

  “This came from an HK416,” she said, staring at the brass in her hand.

  There was no way she could possibly know about the Heckler & Koch assault rifle. It wasn’t a particularly common gun, though they could be bought on the black market. “What do you mean? How do you know?” The knot in his stomach returned, larger than ever.

  “This brass is nearly identical to a .223, but here.” She handed the casing over. “If you feel the weight, it’s significantly lighter.”

  He took the casing and rolled it around in his hand, but he wasn’t thinking about the cold metal thing; rather, who the stranger was sitting next to him. He stuffed the round in his pocket and stood up.