Читать книгу Breach Of Trust - Jodie Bailey - Страница 12

FOUR

Shutting off the engine, Tate sat and waited for Meghan to come out of the house. He had no doubt she’d heard him drive up and was probably armed to the teeth, ready to fire if she didn’t realize it was him. Better to sit and let her come to him. After all that had happened in the past day, she was probably on high alert, even when it came to him. Approaching the house with his hands raised would tip the advantage in her favor.

His hands. He stared at his fingers, expecting to see red. Despite the double layer of latex gloves he’d pulled on, the warmth of fresh blood had seeped through, a sensation he’d never been able to wash away easily. He’d checked each body for signs of life, even though the amount of blood made life impossible.

Isaac’s whole crew was dead.

Everyone except him.

He slammed a fist against the steering wheel. This was his fault. He’d lost control of the situation, let his guard slip when Meghan had gotten involved. He cleaned other people’s messes, stepped in when it was too hot for anyone else to handle. How had he become the one who needed someone to pick up the pieces behind him?

He’d ditched the house, reported in to Ethan and let the other man call the police. Now Tate was without a place to call home. Again. This time, it was his fault the mission was aborted because everything had gone sideways.

Every inroad he had to their hacker was gone, and they were thrust to the beginning, with no clear way to stop an attack that could cut the power to the entire nation, leaving the country wide-open to things only horror movies portrayed.

This failure undid everything. Phoenix was intimately familiar with every other member of their unit. Tate had managed to stay on the fringes, playing dead in order to do the job. Now, even though Phoenix might not realize Tate was working with his former unit, he was the lone survivor of Isaac’s crew, a loose end to be cut off. He wore a target on his back large enough to see from space.

No way was he sitting around waiting for Phoenix to make a slip. He’d get Meghan to talk, find out her connection and resume the pursuit. This did not end here. As far as Tate was concerned, he’d be the one to call the final shots, not a coward who hid behind a computer screen.

The light in the truck faded into shadow as someone passed between the morning sun and his passenger window.

The truck door eased open, and Meghan slid in. The scent of coffee and some kind of citrus soap drifted in with her. “You’re back already?”

Tate nodded, not trusting himself to keep the anger out of his voice if he spoke. He needed to be gentle and noncombative if he wanted answers.

“What happened?” Meghan McGuire never spoke softly. She definitely thought something was wrong if she was bringing out a soothing voice now.

Guess she wasn’t mad anymore. Hopefully she’d softened enough to talk.

Tate lifted his head to find her scanning his face, his chest, as though she was assessing him for wounds. Even though the action was utterly professional, her scrutiny made him warm in places he’d long thought cold, especially after what he’d seen this morning. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was definitely something he shouldn’t be feeling.

The familiar scent of her, the fact she hadn’t changed a bit since their last op together, settled the spinning thoughts that had refused to be grasped since he’d arrived at Isaac’s house hours ago. There had always been something about Meghan McGuire, and having her reappear in the midst of this current chaos was too much for him to hold his silence.

He caught her gaze and stopped her perusal of him. “Isaac’s crew is dead.”

She stiffened. “All of them?”

“Executed.” The word hit the air hot and violent, with all the anger he’d been trying to hide.

Beside him, she dug her fingers into the faded denim covering her knees, the only outward sign she was internalizing what had happened. After a long moment, she relaxed her hold. “Because I got away.”

“Because I let you go.” While there was nothing he could have done differently, the death of six men was still tough, even if those six men were morally bankrupt criminals.

Death was never easy. They’d both seen enough of it to know life was the most precious of commodities. It was doubly hard when Jesus wasn’t in the picture. No more second chances for the heart after it stopped.

The thought made his hands tingle, and he dragged them along the seat again, trying to wipe off the sensation. “It seems Phoenix wants you badly if he’s willing to execute the guys he thinks let you slip away.”

The silence between them was broken by the clicks and pops of the motor as it cooled in the early morning air. Tate let the silence settle, giving Meghan time to see the gravity of the situation and the need for her to lay out her story. He wanted to drag the information out of her, but he knew better.

“We’ve got to find out what he wants.” Meghan hit on the objective. “Because if we don’t, he’ll keep on coming after both of us.” She looked away, chewing her bottom lip.

Forget him. This was all about Meghan. This mission was no longer simply about tracking Phoenix and derailing his plans. It was about keeping the hacker from tracking Meghan. She was important to this shadow man for some reason, and he had to find out why. He just had to convince Ethan of it.

Actually, he didn’t. Since he wasn’t an official part of the team, he was technically free to do whatever he wanted. But Ethan wouldn’t let him go easily, not after all this time and not without backup.

“Tate? Your mind’s going a hundred miles an hour. Clue me in.”

He wanted to laugh, and probably would have if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Yep. She hadn’t changed. She was still his Meghan. Direct as ever. She’d long ago learned how to draw him out of his thoughts, and she’d push relentlessly until he talked.

She didn’t need to pressure him though. The tension kept building inside him, pushing against his skin and throbbing in his head. Talking it out with the woman who’d once tagged along on his every thought process would be a relief. Of course, he’d never tell her so. “I no longer have an in. I have no way of gaining access to our hacker. He’s assuming he killed everybody in Isaac’s gang. I waltz in and tell him I was part of his group and I’m alive, then I’ve signed a death warrant.” Especially after what he’d seen. “We were close.”

He clenched his fist, wanting to pound it on the dash until the pain made him forget everything else. “This hacker...he wants you specifically, and he’ll kill to get to you.” He turned in the seat, the vinyl squeaking a protest at the motion. More than anything, Tate wanted to ask her why, but that line of questioning was a delicate one he’d have to draw out over time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t time they had. “I think the best plan is to get you to Virginia, and then I can come here knowing you’re out of—”

“Absolutely not.” The denial was firm, brooking no argument. “I don’t run, and you know it.” Something in her expression shifted. She turned away, facing the windshield, then back to him. “I’m going to the school.”

“Absolutely not.” He hadn’t signed off on her going to the school. No way was she putting herself in the crosshairs.

“I’m going with or without you. If he’s been in my system, then the school’s computer is all you’ve got left to link to him.”

“Remote in.” Meghan was a computer genius, one of the best in the world. She could hack her own system remotely in the time it would take him to make scrambled eggs for breakfast. There was no need for her to step into the building.

“No.”

“I said you’re not going.” The situation was spinning even faster out of control, her tenacity wresting it from his grasp. Her stubborn nature was burned into his memory. She’d march into Phoenix’s lair unarmed and fight to the death before she’d go into hiding. Meghan wasn’t a coward, but Meghan had to realize sometimes the bravest course of action was to step away and regroup, come out fresh. “I’ll go. You can walk me through it or you can remote in, but—”

“No. There are too many variables for me to walk you through it. If I remote in, he’ll track me here. I’d rather march into a building he knows I frequent than lead him to our one place to hide.”

No matter how much Tate wanted to keep arguing this, she was right. Worse, she’d never pull back. All she’d do was wait until he collapsed from exhaustion, then take off without him. Still, she didn’t get to drive this bus into the ditch. “Fine, but I go with you.” He hated conceding this one to her. It crawled all over him. “First I have to ditch the truck. It was at the scene and my footprints are all over the house, so authorities are going to start digging. Until we know for certain my cover was trashed, I have to stay in character, which means getting arrested if the cops find me.” Protocol dictated he didn’t out himself for any reason until they could prove he’d been burned. Unfortunately, proof would only come with a second attempt on his life.

“Makes sense.” Meghan pointed toward the rear of the house. “There’s a barn out—”

“No. Somewhere they can’t connect to you. If my truck was reported at the scene, then I’m the prime suspect. If someone finds the truck on your property and starts digging, they’ll know we were partners and assume you helped me.”

“For now, you park it in the barn on the far side of the pasture. And then I want answers. Like it or not, I’m all in, and I want to know everything, including how it is you’re still alive. If you want my trust, you’re going to have to tell me why I was lied to for all these years.”

There she went, trying to take the reins again. Tate drummed his thumbs on his knees. He hadn’t said he needed her help, but her trust was something he craved. Maybe if he opened up, she’d follow suit. “Got it.”

“And then you rest while I upload a program to take to the school. You’ve got that haggard look that says you haven’t hit the rack in days. Even superheroes sleep, Walker.”

He’d argue, but he was crashing fast. Fatigue, shock...they’d already taken a toll on his thought processes.

“I’ll show you the way and you can tell me the rest of your story.” Meghan reached for her seat belt and pulled it across, clicking it into place. “It’s a bumpy ride. Might want to buckle up again.”

Tate obliged, and the lock clicked solidly into place. Protecting himself and Meghan was going to make this ride a whole lot bumpier before this was over, and it would take more than a seat belt to save them.

* * *

After the glare of sunlight overhead, the interior of the old horse barn was dark. Meghan slid out of the truck and slammed the creaking door shut, breathing through her mouth to avoid the musty, earthy smell of old hay and long-moved horses.

She examined the floor around her feet, making sure a snake wasn’t about to slither over her foot. As soon as her sight adjusted, she searched the walls and the exposed ceiling rafters. No slithery visitors appeared. Good. In no way did she want to turn into a screaming weakling in front of Tate Walker. It was bad enough she was demanding the truth from him when she’d hidden her past for years, first out of self-preservation, and now...? Now because she wasn’t sure who he was anymore.

Tate killed the engine and sat for a minute before he got out, probably debating how much he wanted to tell her. Well, he could debate with himself all he wanted. She was getting the whole story.

When he climbed out of the truck, his eyes caught hers across the hood, and the contact made it feel as though no time had passed. They were working an op together, prepping for the next step, well-honed partners in the fight to save the world.

Meghan swallowed hard and kneaded the back of her neck, her mind unwilling to grasp that the man she’d once loved stood here now, still alive. In odd moments, her world tilted and her past reality twisted in Tate’s reappearance. Her stomach swirled again, a strange mix of joy and the feeling she didn’t know anything about the world. What else was a lie?

“Where have you been hiding?” She sounded like a broken record, but really, how she sounded was the least of her worries. Maybe answers would erase some of the hurt and the anger over the sleepless nights she’d spent swimming in guilt for walking away from her partner before the op that had supposedly stolen his life.

All because she cared too much to stay.

“You really want to do this now?” The slight tinge of amused challenge was one she’d heard a thousand times before. It settled in and relaxed some of the tension, took the edge off her questions.

The setting was too much like all those moments in countries too far-flung to mention, when they’d decompressed together, evaluated their missions and talked about their lives. She’d told him things she’d never confessed to another living soul. Everything except the blackmail and the hack that had come back to haunt her.

Those were discussions when she’d felt closer to him than to any other person on earth. When she’d thought, more than a few times, there could be something more for them, something outside of battling the bad guys together. Something involving a house like this and...

Not that it mattered. She’d left the service and Tate behind when she could no longer hold back the things she was starting to feel for him.

And then he’d been killed.

“Now is as good a time as any. We have no idea what’s coming next, and you have to prove to me I can trust you.” A sudden surge rushed into Meghan’s throat, and her spine stiffened. She crossed her arms over her chest and squared herself in the doorway, blocking his escape. She needed to know how he could lie to her, how he could spend four years with no contact of any kind. How he could simply stop existing.

Now that she’d asked, the words refused to stop coming. “Ethan called and told me you were killed on an op gone bad. Nothing more. And then he all but vanished, too. I was shut out. Nobody would give me information and I missed...I missed your funeral. I spent months trying to reach contacts, trying to dig up what really happened. No one would tell me anything. You were more than my partner. And I spent a lot of nights staring at the ceiling thinking maybe if I’d been on the op with you, I could have had your back, done something to stop it.” The guilt choked harder, constricting her voice. She never cried. Never. But piling years’ worth of grief and guilt on top of a rapidly rising past had cracked her walls. She bit her lip. Hard.

“Nothing could have saved that op, and if you’d been there, you’d probably be dead the way I nearly was.” Tate’s voice was low, reassuring, the way it had always been. He slammed the door of the truck. When it failed to stay closed, he pulled it open and shut it again before facing her, features shadowed in the dim light, making him appear to be the biggest mystery of all. He rapped his knuckles on the peeling hood of the truck. “We had a mole in the system.”

“Who?” He had to be kidding. Their unit was small. Everybody knew everybody. Someone selling them out to the bad guys from within was akin to betraying family.

“Craig Mitchum.”

The name didn’t ring any bells, but it didn’t matter. White-hot rage burned her skin. If she ever found the man who’d betrayed Tate and her fellow team members—the only real family she’d ever known—he’d never forget the encounter.

“He came in on a secondary team around the time you left, assigned to a different op. He partnered with Ethan Kincaid on—”

Wait. No. Meghan held up her hands. “Ethan’s partner is Jacob Reynolds.” Jacob and Ethan had worked side by side with them on multiple ops, but he’d gone deep undercover on an op she wasn’t privy to. She’d always assumed his continued silence meant he was still dug in. “What happened to Reynolds?” Asking the question brought a knowing feeling, a sick sensation that the answer was about to tilt her world yet again.

Tate stared out the door toward daylight and the pasture beyond, but it was clear he saw something else. “Reynolds was overseas, gathering intel on a terrorist posing as a contractor. He was outed by Craig Mitchum and killed by a group of insurgents working for the terrorist.”

Meghan took a step back, the news a blow to the chest. She steadied herself on the truck’s frame, trying not to sway on her feet. Jacob Reynolds was one of those guys who was always smiling, who had your back whether the situation was a shoot-out in a foreign country or not enough change in your pocket at the fast-food counter. He didn’t deserve to be cut down by a traitor. “How?”

Tate didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at her.

“No. You don’t get to hold out on me now.” Their team was a family, a family she’d been cut out of, obviously, and one losing members without giving her a chance to grieve.

Tate pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly, his green eyes dark with barely sheathed anger. “He was taken off an outpost during the night. Tortured before he was killed.”