by Terry Spear
“We need to discuss exactly why anyone would want you dead,” Dan said to Addie. “If we knew the reason why, we might be able to thwart whoever is behind all this.” He sat down to eat his breakfast of an omelet, slices of ham, and hash browns.
Chase pulled up a chair and had his notepad out in a flash. That’s what Dan liked about his deputy, he was always on the ball.
“When did the first incident occur that made you feel that the attack on you was due to a mole in the organization?” Chase asked.
Addie sipped from her orange juice. “No one was supposed to know of the meeting I had with the courier. No one except our boss and the five men and the other woman on our team. Was it random that I was targeted? I really don’t think so. I had a sixth sense I might be in danger that morning, so I took extra precautions and wore a steel-plated armor protection, when I normally don’t. It’s heavy and cumbersome, and hot. I was glad I’d worn it. It was the only thing that saved me from certain death.”
“Did they catch the assassin?” Dan asked, forking up a bite-sized piece of ham.
“He was conveniently killed. No way to question as to who had hired him. I’m sure he didn’t know that’s what his employer had intended for him. He was found with a large amount of cash on him. Which looked like a plant, to me. I’ve never known an assassin to carry that much cash on him. Payment for a job is usually deposited in an offshore account. And paid after the job is done.”
“Who discovered him?” Dan asked.
Chase smiled at him. “I was trying to give Addie time to chew her food.”
“Thanks, Chase.” Addie finished her omelet. “A couple of our agents.”
“So, one of them could have killed him and planted the cash on him,” Chase said.
She buttered her toast and coated it with grape jelly. “Possibly, or it was someone else the person hired to get rid of the assassin, and he disappeared before the federal agents arrived.”
“You weren’t able to smell who had been close to the assassin when he died?”
Addie shook her head. “I was medevacked to the hospital right away. If anyone had witnessed what had happened to me, they would have thought I was dead. Or near death, I guess, because they hadn’t put me in a body bag. My team members all said they thought I’d been a goner. When I’d recuperated enough, I slipped out of the hospital and disappeared.”
“And came to see me, but didn’t tell me what was going on, or tell me you were leaving again.”
“I wanted to keep you safe,” Addie said to Dan.
“I wanted to keep you safe.”
Chase cleared his throat. “How did you slip out of the hospital? Didn’t you have an armed guard outside of your door?”
“There was a chair outside of it, but no armed guard, no federal agent there to protect me. I knew something was wrong, and I wasn’t waiting to get shot again. I didn’t have my armored vest this time. I got dressed and slipped down the stairwell, afraid the whole time I would run into an assassin. I was more than just afraid, I was terrified. The one person I wanted to call was you, Dan, the only one I knew I could trust, but I didn’t have my phone. They would have been able to trace where I was anyway. Before a mission, I have a storage locker setup nearby where I keep stuff for an emergency—cash, clothes, ID, anything I needed to make a clean getaway if I needed to.”
“Why would you have something like that?” Chase asked incredulously.
Dan was wondering the same thing. Who did that unless they were either paranoid, or something like this had happened to them before.
“My dad was a former FBI agent, but he was killed coming home from a date. There were rumors circulating at the FBI that it had to do with a case he’d been working on. I loved listening to all his tales of heroism, and I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. He knew that, but he warned me that it was important always to have a way out if anyone targeted you. He wasn’t talking about his fellow agents, but a perp he had taken down who had hired men to assassinate him. I always made it a point to have something like it nearby.”
“My house would have been your safe house, but you didn’t stay,” Dan said, reminding her.
“I was healed up enough, and I was afraid if anyone learned where I was, it could cause real trouble for you…and for me.”
“The case your dad was involved in when he died, what was that about?” Chase asked.
Addie finished her hash browns. “Dad had testified against a bank robber. I was eighteen at the time and went to see the man. He denied he’d hired a hit on him. I figured he wasn’t going to tell me the truth and add more years to his prison sentence. Then he said the oddest thing—‘You might want to look closer to home.’ Of course, I asked him what he meant by that, and he shrugged. ‘You’re a clever girl. You can figure it out.’ Closer to home made me think of my grandparents, but both were in a nursing facility by then. And my mom, but she left us when I was eight. I never heard from her again, and Dad never spoke about her.”
“Was she involved with some criminal element?” Chase asked.
“She was an FBI agent like Dad. That’s how they met—on a stakeout. But the police had stated it was a case of him driving home drunk from a bar after having a date there with a woman. And I never could learn anything differently.”
5
Chase relayed all the information Addie had given him and sent it to the Muellers to check out with their contacts at the Bureau.
Addie was sleeping again while they waited for the doctor to okay her release. Kate said she looked much better and was healing well, but just needed ample rest.
Dan liked the idea Addie had of camping out, but then he wasn’t sure she could really manage that strenuous a trip in her condition. If she could do it, whoever was responsible for trying to have her killed would wonder how come the doctor’s charts showed she was near death, but then could be camping in the wilderness.
Leyton and Travis were down in the lobby, watching for trouble.
Dan sat with Chase outside Addie’s room to discuss what they’d learned while Kate and Bridget stayed in the room with Addie while she slept. “What do you think about the bank robber’s story?”
“I checked the guy out and he was killed in a prison riot a few years back.”
“Typical. Every prospective lead turns up to be a dead end.” Dan rubbed his whiskery chin. He needed a shave.
“Bridget said Addie is bound and determined to return to the Bureau.”
“I’m bound and determined to learn the truth before she does that. What about her parents?”
“Yvonne said she’s looking into both the wife and husband’s role at the Bureau, and trying to determine where the wife is now, if she’s still alive.”
“Okay, good. Want some coffee?” Dan asked.
Chase nodded. “Thanks.”
When Dan returned with the two cups of coffee, he said, “What we need to know is why her mother abandoned her daughter and divorced her dad. I can’t imagine the mother would want to have Addie killed. You know how family and friends are often suspects though.”
“Yeah. Which means it’s important we dig her up. And hopefully, she’s still alive.”
Addie saw the shooter, his coal black eyes staring at her as he began to shoot, the silencer muffling the sounds, and she cried out. Pain radiated through her chest, but female voices quickly reassured her.
She woke to find Kate and Bridget hovering over her, touching her, holding her hands.
“Addie, you’re all right,” Bridget said, she and Kate trying to wake her from the night terror.
Chase and Dan both bolted into the room with guns raised.
“It was just a nightmare,” Addie said, feeling chilled all over. “I’m okay.”
Dan rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. “About?”
“The time I was riddled with bullets. I dreamed I wasn’t wearing a protective vest and every bullet hurt.”
“You’re really all right?” Dan asked.
“Yes.”
The doctor came into the room and asked, “Are you ready to go?” He gave her information on what she needed to do for the next few days: no heavy lifting, no climbing or running, no sex.
She smiled at Dan. That was definitely on the agenda. The sex. And as soon as she could, she was going camping, to try and draw whoever came after her out. Carrying a backpack, climbing, and running came next. If whoever it was didn’t come for her somewhere else first.
Whoever came after her, they had to keep him alive this time so they could question him to learn who was behind all of this.
She’d never suspected her mother could have had anything to do with this. Had she been involved in her dad’s death? Her dad would never say why her mother left, only that they couldn’t agree on key issues. Addie never could understand why her mother had left her with her dad either. Though she adored him. Weren’t mothers supposed to love their children and have a deep maternal instinct?
Everyone left the room while Dan helped her to dress. He was her husband, after all, or at least he was taking the role seriously.
“Have you heard from your mother all these years?” Dan asked, fastening Addie’s bra in the back.
“No. Not once.”
“You don’t think she had to change identities to protect you and your dad, do you, in the line of work she does as an agent?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Why would the bank robber say it was someone close to home? Was there anyone else it might have been? A nanny, a housekeeper?”
“A butler?”
Dan smiled as he helped her on with her socks and boots.
“No one. The bank robber was a career criminal. He was used to lying. He probably watched lots of cop shows and they say it’s usually someone close to home.”
“Over the years was your dad seeing anyone? Did he remarry, or was he engaged?”
“He was seeing other women. No, he didn’t remarry and he was never engaged to be married. I think he still held a torch for my mother. Though he took down all her pictures, he had one of him and her and me, as a baby, in his desk drawer. My pen had run out of ink, and I was looking for one in his desk drawer and I couldn’t believe he had kept the picture of her. Though she was dark-haired like me back then. I began searching through his drawers and found several more. He’d kept all of them. Even their wedding photos. None after I was a baby though. Still, that’s not a man who has given up on his wife.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. I’m with your dad on that.”
Addie finished buttoning her blouse. “What do you think about the doctor’s restrictions on what I can do?”
“I wholeheartedly agree.”
She pulled Dan into her arms for a light embrace and a kiss. And groaned. Her chest still hurt where the man had stabbed her.
Dan held her tenderly in his arms, very gently kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth. “We’ll see how you feel tomorrow. You rest all the way home.”
“I think I’m slept out. Will you sit in the back with me?”
“Yeah. I’ll also be the rear gunner if we run into the same kind of trouble as we did yesterday.” He lifted the wig off the bed and handed it to her.
She pulled it on while he eyed the one for him. “Maybe we should switch.”
He laughed and tugged his on. “How ridiculous do I look?”
“Chase was right. It looks natural. What about me?” She made pigtails out of the long, golden hair.
“Like you need to be a dark-haired beauty. My dark-haired beauty.” He kissed her mouth, and took hold of her hand and headed out of the room, where Kate was standing with a wheelchair.
Addie wasn’t about to object. She couldn’t believe how tired she was. Dan rubbed her shoulder and helped her to get comfortably seated in the wheelchair, and then Kate pushed it to the elevator so Bridget and Dan could be ready to pull guns if they had to. Chase was downstairs already, watching for any signs of trouble. Leyton and Travis were getting the cars.
When Addie and her group reached the elevator, someone was coming up to their floor, and Kate pulled the wheelchair back away from the elevator, while everyone waited to see who emerged. A woman and a teen girl. They all gave a collective sigh, and Kate wheeled Addie into the elevator.
She pulled her to the back of the elevator while Bridget hit the main floor button, and she and Dan were ready for trouble. The elevator stopped on the third floor and an elderly man walking with a cane got on. Addie watched him warily though. He could be wearing makeup that aged him, and the cane could hold a sword. Or he could just be an elderly man visiting a patient. She hated to feel this paranoid, but after what had happened to them with the car chase and the business at the last hospital, she was right in feeling paranoid.
When they reached the main floor, Chase was there, watching the lobby. She saw Leyton and Travis with the vehicles, observing the parking area.
Travis opened the door to a black SUV for her. It looked like a Bureau vehicle, lots of room for all of them, and she could stretch out in the very last seat, resting her head on Dan’s lap. What Addie loved was that someone had made a bed for her on the seat—blankets, a pillow, the drink holder pulled out and two cups filled with ice water in them for the two of them.
“Thanks,” she said, not knowing who had gone to all the trouble.
“You’re welcome,” Bridget and Kate said.
Addie should have known.
“Be safe,” Bridget said, and joined her husband in the other car, that would follow the SUV.
Addie climbed into the SUV’s far back seat with Dan and got comfortable, her pillow on Dan’s lap, though she knew if they had trouble behind them, she’d have to move pronto. If they gave her a gun, she’d be shooting out the back window with him. And she was a lot more rested up this time.
“How do you feel?” Dan asked, while Kate looked over the middle seat to check on her.
“I thought I was fine, until I got out of bed and dressed. I’m tired.”
“Another nine hours of rest will help. We can pick up supper on the drive home, and when we arrive home, you can sleep all night,” Kate said. “Where are you going to stay for the night, Dan? You shouldn’t be at your house the first night. Not while Addie’s still recuperating, if anyone comes after her there.”
“The safe house for the first night,” Dan said, “with Bridget and Travis. And anyone else who wants to come and stay to spell us.”
“Leyton will be over after we get home,” Kate said. “Probably Stryker will want to take a turn also. You know, he loves being your deputy, except when he gets left behind when all the action is going on elsewhere and the rest of the guys get to be there to deal with it.”
“Yeah, but if something bad had happened at home, he would have been in the middle of it. And I trust him to get the job done.”
“I agree.”
“Speaking of which, I haven’t heard from him in a while.” Dan called Stryker and asked him if he’d witnessed anything suspicious.
“Yeah. I’m waiting for you to return to town first. Hal and I are just keeping an eye on things.”
“What’s happened?”
“A black sedan with tinted windows showed up at the motel some ways out from town. Since Calvin and Myrtle Dixon are cougars, they’ve been on the lookout for anyone out of the ordinary dropping in at their motel.”
“And?”
“Calvin said two men pulled up, the one paying cash, and the guys got a single room. One pulled out his ID to register the car, and he had a family photo in his wallet. The man in the photo was him, along with three kids who looked like him, and he had a wife. If Calvin gets businessmen who are stopping at the hotel, they always get their own rooms.”
“Anything else?”
“He saw one was carrying a holstered gun. The other had something bulky under his jacket that could indicate it was a sidearm also. They were dressed casually, jeans, jackets, trying to look like they fit in, but the
y were wearing fancy shoes and watches, their hair cut government short.”
“Would the feds be sending their own men for a hit, or someone hired to do the job?”
“Most likely someone hired to do the job. They could just be businessmen, good friends who are sharing a room on their way to somewhere else. But since Calvin’s a retired state highway patrolman, he’s good at profiling.”
“Yeah, he is. Where are the men now?”
“Calvin said they’re still at the hotel. He said he figures if they’re who we’re looking for, they won’t make a move until dark. They don’t know that’s the best time for us.”
“Any other suspicious people running around town?”
“Two other men booked a cabin at Pinyon Pines Resort. Now, that’s not a flag raiser in and of itself. They’re driving a black sedan also. No fishing equipment, just one bag apiece, black leather. Shannon said she thought they could be carrying concealed weapons. She texted her mate already to let Chase know.”
“Hell,” Dan said. He didn’t want Shannon and the kids in any kind of trouble.
“They’re all right. These guys, if they’re the ones we need to be worried about, are staying out of the town, as if they’re afraid they’ll be seen. They don’t know that the places are all cougar run, and everyone is on the lookout for them,” Stryker said. “I’m sure they’re only waiting for the right time to learn if Addie is at your home. The Muellers moved into your home yesterday to conduct operations there. If anyone tried to slip in before you returned home, they’ll have another think coming.”
“That puts them at risk.” Dan didn’t like that bit of news.
“They’ve been doing this for a long time. It makes them relive the old days, and you know they’re always at the firing range, keeping up their shooting skills. They’re happy to do it.”
“We’re not returning there tonight. Addie’s still tired and not fully recovered. We’ll be staying at the safe house and Bridget and Travis will be there to help safeguard her.”
“And Leyton,” Kate said.