Kitabı oku: «Mountain Investigation», sayfa 3

Chapter Three

“I prefer to be called Gray. Not that it matters much to you, I’m guessing,” he said, seeing displeasure flood her face, no doubt due to the way he’d treated her and her family during the investigation. Which was too bad, because as far as he was concerned he’d done what needed to be done.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he was thrilled to see her, either. He hadn’t been about to let Mawadi grab her and drag her back inside, but rescuing her had complicated the hell out of the situation. He’d planned to wait for the five o’clock meet and move in then, when the motion detectors were down, but now there were going to be more men, and they would be searching the damn forest, which shot that plan to shreds.

No, the best thing for him to do now would be to get the woman down to the city and hand her over to Johnson and his crew. The SAC would be furious that Gray had disobeyed orders, but he’d be forced to send a team up to the cabin. Gray knew damn well that by the time they got up to the ridgeline, Mawadi and the others would be long gone. But, unfortunately, as tough as Gray might be, he was just was one man with a 9 mm, and that was no match for a terrorist cell on high alert.

Muttering a curse, he rolled off the woman, banishing the sensory memory of how she’d felt beneath him—all soft, curvy and female. He so wasn’t going there.

Once this was all over and al-Jihad and the others had been brought to justice, he’d allow himself to live again. But at the moment he had no intention of letting himself be distracted by a woman. Besides, even if he had the inclination, there was no way in hell he’d be going for this woman. There was a physical connection, yes—it had been there from the first moment he saw her. But she was a witness at best, a conspirator at worst, and she’d been married to one of the bombers.

She was a means to an end, nothing more. The fact that her glare suggested that she hated his guts made it that much easier to ignore the fine buzz of tension running through his body as they faced each other in their small hiding space.

Her eyes were dark and bruised in her pale face, her full lips trembling, though whether from fear or cold or a combination of the two, he didn’t know. It didn’t much matter, either, because he needed to focus on getting them the hell away from the cabin and down to cell phone range ASAP.

Shucking out of his camo jacket, he shoved it at the woman. “There are mittens in the pocket. Put them on your feet and follow me. And for crap’s sake, don’t make any noise.”

She started to snap in response, but shut her mouth when he pulled his gun from where he’d tucked it at the small of his back, and racked the action to the ready position, just in case.

He waited for a second, watching to see what she was going to do. When she pulled on the jacket without comment, then felt in the pocket and covered her bloody feet as best she could with the mittens, he nodded grimly. “Good call.”

Then he turned his back on her and led the way out of the small copse, moving as silently as he could, but traveling fast because the light was fading. Already, the sky had gone gray-blue, and the world around them had turned colorless with the approaching spring dusk. So he jog-trotted downhill, hoping to hell they’d get lucky and make it down the ridgeline undetected.

The first half mile was tough going through a hilly section of deadfall-choked forest, made more difficult by the fading light. At first Mariah moved quietly, but as they kept going, Gray heard her breathing start to labor, heard her miss her footing more and more often.

He turned back, ready to snap at her to be quiet if she wanted to live. But one look at her waxy, pale face, which had gone nearly white in the fading light, had him biting back the oath and cursing himself instead.

He crossed the small gap between them and caught her as she crumpled, sweeping her up against his chest.

She was feather-light in his arms, though his memory said she’d been solid, bordering on sturdy before. The change nagged at him, making him wonder exactly how long she’d been bound in that cabin, and what Mawadi and the other man had done to her.

Guilt pinched, but Gray quickly shoved it aside, into the mental refuse bin where he consigned his other useless emotions, few and far between though they might be.

After only a few seconds of unconsciousness, she roused against him, pushing feebly at his chest. Her eyes fluttered open. The dusk robbed them of their color, but he knew they were amber, just as he knew he couldn’t trust the stealthy twist of heat that curled through his midsection when their gazes locked. She moistened her lips and swallowed, and he was far too aware of those simple actions, just as he was far too susceptible to the tremor in her voice when she whispered, “Put me down. I can walk.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, the words coming out more roughly than he’d intended. He yanked his gaze from hers and pressed her closer, not in comfort, but so he wouldn’t be looking at her face, wouldn’t be thinking of how her body felt against his, flaring unwanted heat at the points of contact.

Gritting his teeth, he shifted his grip so he could shove the 9 mm back in the small of his spine, then took hold of her once again and headed downhill, moving as fast as he could while still keeping quiet. His four-by-four was maybe another mile farther down, and as he hiked, he forced himself to focus on the case, not the woman. The case was important. The woman wasn’t.

By now, Mawadi and the second man would have gotten in touch with the other members of their cell. If Gray could talk SAC Johnson into sending choppers and search teams up to the cabin, they might get lucky. They wouldn’t get al-Jihad, of course; he was too smart to come up the mountain now. But they might get Mawadi, might get some idea of why the terrorists had returned to the area.

As Gray put one boot in front of the other and his back and arms began to ache, though, it wasn’t the terrorists, his boss or even revenge that occupied his mind—it was the woman in his arms. And that could become a problem if he let it.

MARIAH WOULD HAVE held herself away from Gray, but she lacked the strength to do anything but cling, with one arm looped over his neck and her face pressed into the warm hollow at his throat. She despised surrendering control to him, hated that her safety was in the hands of the FBI special agent who had been a large part of making her life a living hell more than two years earlier, and whose relentless questions had put her father in the hospital, nearly in his grave.

But at the same time, the man who held her easily, walking with long, powerful strides, was so unlike the picture in her mind, it was causing her brain to jam. This man was warm to the touch rather than cold, and when their eyes had met, his had blazed with an emotion that she couldn’t define, but had been far from the detached, sardonic chill he’d projected during the investigation.

His warmth and steady masculine scent surrounded her now, coming from the jacket he’d given her and from the solid wall of his body against hers. She’d hated the man who had interrogated her, hated what he stood for and how he treated people. But she didn’t know how to feel about the man he’d turned out to be—the soldier who’d come up to her cabin alone and had been there when she’d needed him in a way that nobody else had for a long, long time.

Confused, weak with drugs and exhaustion, she was unable to do anything but give in to circumstances beyond her immediate control. Closing her eyes, she leaned into her rescuer, anchoring herself to his warmth and strength.

She must’ve dozed—or maybe passed out—after that. She was vaguely aware of Gray loading her into a large vehicle and strapping her in tightly. Through the fuzzedout fog her brain had become, she knew that he was white-knuckle tense as he pulled the vehicle out of its hiding spot and headed it down the road. It was full dark; he wore a pair of night-vision goggles he’d retrieved from the glove compartment and drove with the truck’s headlights off, muttering a string of curses under his breath as he kept the gas pedal down and steered the vehicle along the fire-access road leading down from her cabin. Then they flew through the gate, which hung open, and turned onto the paved road headed toward Bear Claw.

He decelerated, shucked off the goggles and flipped on the headlights before glancing over at her. “We got lucky. No sign of your husband’s reinforcements.”

“Ex-husband,” she corrected him, the faint echoes of warmth and gratitude dispelled by irritation because he’d made the same mistake a handful of times during the initial investigation into the prison break. It annoyed her that he kept insisting on the undoubtedly deliberate gaffe, and that she couldn’t stop herself from correcting him each time.

He nodded, his eyes not quite the cold steel of Special Agent Grayson, not quite the fiery resolve of the soldier he’d been up on the ridgeline. When his gaze met hers, she felt a click of unwanted connection and a shimmer of fear. What next? she wanted to ask him, but didn’t, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what his answer would be.

So, instead, she turned away from him, settling into her seat as the truck accelerated, heading for the city. While he drove, he made a call on his cell, tersely reporting the situation, and what he’d seen and done. Mariah didn’t add anything to the conversation. There was nothing she could do to change her situation; she was too weak, too confused. And, bottom line: whether it was logical or not, she was heart-sore.

Being around Lee again hadn’t only been terrifying, it had also brought to the surface of her mind things that she’d thought she’d managed to bury years ago. Seeing him had reminded her of the good times—or at least the times she’d thought were good ones, when Lee had courted her. He’d brought her flowers and silly gifts; he’d made her feel as though she were the center of his universe, that she was special. And when he’d proposed, dropping to one knee and promising that they would be together forever, she’d believed him.

But those memories were overlaid now with the pain of remembering the months after their marriage, when he’d gradually changed, growing cold and distant. After a while, his petty cruelties and outright manipulations had made her grateful for the nights he didn’t come home, and had made her start to think she was losing her mind. It was only later that she realized that he’d purposely broken her down, little by little, undermining the defenses she’d built up over a lifetime of being an outsider. Then, once he’d made her completely vulnerable by promising her forever, he’d started beating her down further, stripping her of her worth until she’d been nothing but his wife, his plaything. Simply because he could, because it amused him.

She knew the authorities thought of Lee as a follower, a patsy. She knew different; he might follow al-Jihad’s orders, but when it had come to their marriage, he’d been the one in control.

Despite the months of subtle torment, though, she’d retained a tiny core of strength. It had been too little, too late back then. Would it be enough to see her through whatever came next?

The bang of a car door startled her, jolting her awake, though she hadn’t realized that she’d been dozing.

She squinted against the sudden glare of lights. When she finally focused on the scene, she recognized the walled-in parking lot of the main police station in Bear Claw City. A tingle of unease and ill will shimmered through her at the memories of being interrogated in the station, then rushing her father to the nearby hospital, where he’d nearly died, not just because of Gray’s heavy-handed questioning, but because of the decisions Mariah herself had made, the horror she’d brought into her parents’ lives.

That was her shame. One of many.

There was a crowd gathering outside the truck; it seemed to be made up of equal parts cops and suitedup Feds, with the latter group gathering around Gray as he climbed from the vehicle. In his flannel shirt and camouflage pants, with his short brown hair bristled on end and his face and clothing streaked with dirt and sweat, mute testimony of their harrowing escape, he should’ve looked at a disadvantage compared to the other agents, neat and clean in their dark suits. To Mariah’s eye, though, he looked like a man of action, one who could break the others in half, and might do just that, given the provocation.

She saw him visibly brace himself as he squared off opposite a salt-and-pepper-haired agent who wore an air of command and a deep scowl. It took Mariah a moment to place the other man, but when she did, nerves bunched in her midsection.

SAC Johnson, the FBI special agent in charge of the federal arm of the jailbreak investigation, had struck her as a pompous ass far more concerned with his own on-camera image than the actual investigation. There was no way she wanted him calling the shots when it came to her cabin…and potentially her life. Because that was one of the things that seemed painfully clear: she didn’t need to protect herself simply from Lee’s personal revenge. The terrorists apparently wanted something from her, which meant she was going to need help staying safe, whether she liked it or not.

Not liking it one bit, she pushed open the truck door, unclipped her seat belt and dropped down from the vehicle, hissing in pain when she landed on her injured feet.

A young, uniformed Bear Claw City cop appeared at her side almost instantly, and took her arm. “This way, ma’am. Agent Grayson said you’re wounded. We have an EMT-trained officer who’ll take a look at you while we wait for the paramedics.”

“Not yet.” She pulled away, focused on the group of FBI special agents, where Gray and SAC Johnson were arguing in low voices, their faces set in stone.

She took a couple of hobbling steps toward the knot of suits, pulling Gray’s camouflage jacket more tightly around her shoulders. As she came closer, she heard Johnson snarl, “Were my orders somehow unclear?”

“No, sir.” Gray’s square jaw was locked, his eyes cool. But underneath that coolness, Mariah thought she sensed an undercurrent of hot anger. For the first time, she started to wonder whether the chill of his demeanor was designed to hide something entirely different, something more in line with the soldier he’d been up on the ridgeline.

And you so shouldn’t be thinking about that right now, Mariah told herself as she moved to join the men.

Johnson glared at his subordinate. “So my orders were clear, yet you deliberately disobeyed them by performing reconnaissance near Ms. Shore’s cabin.”

Gray nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Which explained why he’d been alone. It also reinforced her initial impression that Johnson was more focused on protocol than results, whereas Gray was…well, she didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t anything like his boss.

“If Agent Grayson hadn’t been up at the cabin, acting on orders or not, I’d probably be dead by now,” Mariah said, coming up beside Gray. “And you wouldn’t have a clue that Lee and the others are back in the area, would you?” When the older man’s attention locked on her and his scowl deepened, Mariah lifted her chin and met his glare.

Johnson must’ve seen something in her eyes, because he brought his attitude down a notch, nodding and holding out a hand. “You may not remember me, Ms. Shore. I’m Special Agent in Charge Johnson.”

“I remember.” She shook because there was no reason not to, then said, “Please tell me that you have men on their way to my cabin.”

“They’re already on scene. The cabin shows signs of having been abandoned in a hurry.”

Gray bit off a curse. “You searched the woods?”

“Of course. Mawadi and the others are gone.”

“What about—” Gray began.

“The investigation is proceeding appropriately,” Johnson interrupted with a sharp look in Gray’s direction. “That’s all Ms. Shore needs to know.” He returned his attention to Mariah. “Obviously, we’ll need to ask you some questions.”

Mariah nodded. “Of course.”

She hoped none of them could tell how much she dreaded the next few hours, how much she wished she could rewind time by a week, to when she’d been at home in her cabin, safe in her delusion that Lee couldn’t get at her there. But she wasn’t back in her cabin. She was smack in the middle of the city, in enemy territory.

She’d dealt with the FBI’s idea of “some questions” twice before. The first time, she’d been weak and soft, and they’d bullied her and her parents until they’d nearly broken. The second time, just after the jailbreak, she’d been in shock, dazed and disconnected, and her flat affect had put her under suspicion, making them think she was hiding something, maybe even that she’d been in contact with Lee. In the aftermath of that second round of questioning, she’d vowed never to make those mistakes again, never to be the victim again.

Lee might have captured and victimized her, but she wasn’t his victim, wasn’t anyone’s victim. If the agents wanted something from her, they could damn well give something back this time.

So she met Johnson’s eyes and said, “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I have conditions.”

Beside her, Gray muttered a bitter oath, but she couldn’t take her eyes off his boss, couldn’t correct what she suspected was a deep misapprehension. There would be time for that later. Maybe.

There was no humor to the wry twist of Johnson’s lips. “Of course you do.” He paused, waving over two uniformed officers.

Mariah stiffened when they flanked her and urged her away from the agents, away from Gray. “Wait!” she cried, unconsciously reaching for him.

Gray drew away, and when he looked down at her, his eyes had gone even colder than before. He said, “They’re taking you inside where it’s safer, and where they can clean up your injuries, find you some shoes and socks, and something else to wear. They’ll get you some food, something to drink. I’d advise you to take them up on the offer. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night for all of us.”

Even wearing camouflage, he’d gone back to being the no-nonsense agent she remembered, and she hated the change. But in a way it was a good thing, because it forced her to step away from him, made her remember that they weren’t friends, that there was no real connection between them. He might have gotten her off the ridgeline, but that didn’t make him her white knight.

She nodded and took a big step back. “Thanks for the rescue,” she said, which didn’t even begin to encompass what she was feeling just then.

His eyes went hooded. “Sorry I didn’t get there a couple of days earlier.” He turned away before she could process the flicker of emotion she thought she’d seen in his eyes, the one that suggested she wasn’t alone in feeling a spark of attraction where none should exist.

Part of her wanted to ask him to stay with her, but what sense did that make? He might have rescued her, and he might have disobeyed orders in the process, but that didn’t mean he was on her side. Far from it, in fact. Because how could she forget what he’d done to her father? Gray had hammered at him with the same questions over and over again, implying that her father had known about Lee’s plan, that she and her whole family had knowingly helped the terrorists. Which was so wrong it should’ve sounded preposterous, only it hadn’t, coming from him. And as the first hour had turned to three, he hadn’t eased up, hadn’t given up, even when her father’s color had started to fade. Eventually, he’d let them go, but not without a stern warning to stay available, that there would be more questions to come.

By nightfall, her father had been in the cardiac ICU. By the next day, he’d been undergoing bypass surgery. All because of a not-so-civil servant on a mission to uncover an imaginary conspiracy. In the same vein, Gray had been up on the ridgeline, not to rescue her, but because he’d been suspicious of her. Again.

She couldn’t trust him, couldn’t lean on him. And she’d do well to remember that.

Chest aching with a hollow sense of disappointment she knew she shouldn’t feel, Mariah turned to Johnson. “As I said, I’ll cooperate, but I’ve got conditions.”

“We’ll see.” He gestured to the men flanking her. “Take her inside, let her clean up and call counsel. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

The uniformed cops escorted her to a small, spare room where a pair of paramedics waited for her, equipment at the ready. One was a pretty, light-haired woman with kind eyes; the other an older, heavyset man who looked like he’d rather be napping.

Mariah held up both hands. “It’s not all that bad, really. Just some cuts on my feet, and a pellet-burn on my calves.” And a hell of a headache, and some serious room spins, thanks to the residue of whatever Lee and Brisbane had been pumping into her system. When she listed it like that, she started to feel worse by the second.

The light-haired woman shook her head apologetically. “We’ll treat your injuries, for sure. But first the CSIs want to collect your clothes and photograph you. We’ll need a blood sample, too.”

Two and a half years earlier, Mariah would have—and had—done whatever the cops had asked. Older and wiser now out of necessity, she said, “Then I’m going to want to call my lawyer first.”

She was done being a pushover.

OVER THE NEXT EIGHTEEN hours, Gray fought to get himself put back on the case and lost, fought to keep his active-duty status and lost that battle, too. Johnson was furious that he’d disobeyed orders. More importantly, the SAC was embarrassed that Gray’s breach of protocol had yielded a badly needed break in the case. As far as Johnson was concerned, the new intel didn’t cancel out Gray’s insubordination, not after he’d been specifically warned to stay away from Mariah.

Those conversations took place in snatches, amid the information storm that followed the new developments. The response team reported back with little new information from the cabin, and the infrared helicopter sweeps failed to turn up anything but wildlife and a few hardy preseason campers up on the ridgeline. There was no sign of Lee Mawadi or the other man, whom Mariah hadn’t yet identified from among al-Jihad’s known associates. More, although Mariah was convinced Lee had tried to question her, and had called al-Jihad for help when she’d proven resistant, she claimed to have no idea what they wanted from her.

It was possible that the forthcoming detailed forensic analysis of the cabin might yield some clue as to where the terrorists were going, where they’d come from or what they wanted with Mariah. However, it would be days at the earliest—more likely weeks—before the relevant clues were teased out from among the normal detritus of a lived-in home. The Bear Claw crime scene analysts were excellent, and had strong ties to the federal investigators, but they weren’t miracle workers.

Meanwhile, the members of the prison break task force, who had scattered over the past months when the investigation had moved away from Bear Claw, were being reassembled. As before, the investigation would be headquartered partly at the FBI’s Denver field office, partly at the Bear Claw City PD. However, Gray wouldn’t be part of the task force at either location. Johnson had made it crystal clear that he didn’t want to work with a renegade, couldn’t afford to risk a court appeal if one of his agents used questionable methods during an investigation. The SAC had offered Gray a transfer or a desk to ride, but they both knew he wouldn’t take either. The offer had been an empty formality, nothing more.

Which was why, at just past noon on the day after he’d rescued Mariah and broken the news that Lee Mawadi was back in town, Gray was in his Denver office, packing his personal effects. His service weapon and badge were on the desk, weighting down his letter of resignation.

He didn’t feel grief at the decision, didn’t feel relief. He felt hollow. Determined. He might be off the task force, but he wasn’t off the case. Not by a long shot.

He piled his things haphazardly into a box, leaving the official stuff behind and taking only the few items he cared about. The first was a bifold frame containing a picture of his parents and him at his academy graduation a decade earlier on one side, opposite a more recent shot of his whole extended family, cousins and all, taken last Christmas. The latter photo brought a spear of the pain he suspected would always accompany thoughts of the holidays, but he hadn’t let that keep him away from family doings. Christmas was important to his parents, and therefore it was important to him. He’d gone to the annual get-together and pretended to enjoy himself, and had ducked the inevitable questions about his love life, reminding himself that his family members meant no harm. Even though most of them were cops or married to cops, they didn’t fully understand that he had things to take care of before he could move on.

Thinking of those things, he set the bifold frame in the box and picked up a smaller photo of a laughing man grinning up at the camera, his arms wrapped around a flushed-faced woman who held a small baby.

“Grayson,” SAC Johnson’s voice barked from the doorway, stanching the impending flood of memories and setting Gray’s teeth on edge.

Gray didn’t even look over at his soon-to-be-ex boss, just placed the photo in the cardboard box and gestured to the pile of papers on his desk. “The letter of resignation’s right there. Go away.”

“I want you to reconsider.”

Of all the things Gray might’ve expected, that didn’t even make the list. Frowning, he turned toward Johnson.

And saw Mariah standing behind him.

She looked very different than she had the day before. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders in soft waves, and she wore a green turtleneck sweater, jeans and boots that made her look like a model out of an upscale outdoorsy catalog, simultaneously sexy and practical.

Although he’d always before gravitated to fussy, feminine women, Gray felt something inside him go very still and hushed, the way it did just before he got the “go” signal on a major op, when his body was poised equally between fight and flight, his blood surging with adrenaline and survival instincts. This wasn’t an op or a fight, he knew, but he had a feeling that if he let it, his association with Mariah could become just as messy. So it was up to him not to let it go there.

Straightening, he nodded to her. “Mariah.”

“Gray,” she acknowledged, her expression giving away nothing. She pushed past Johnson, then hesitated just inside the office doorway. “I need to talk to you.” She threw a look over her shoulder and said pointedly, “Alone.”

Johnson muttered something under his breath, but nodded. He shot Gray a warning look, one that said, “For crap’s sake, don’t screw this up,” then retreated, shutting the door at Mariah’s back.

A tense, anticipatory silence filled the small room until Gray broke it by grabbing the box top off his desk and fitting it into place, sealing in the memories. “I expect Johnson told you that I don’t work here anymore.”

“Yes. Right after I told him I’d let the FBI use me to set a trap for Lee, but only if you act as my bodyguard.”

Gray had thought he was beyond surprise when it came to this case. Apparently, he was wrong. “Why me?”

“Because you don’t play Johnson’s game.”

That got his attention. “What game would that be?”

She was still standing just inside the door, as though she might slip away at any moment. She didn’t leave, though, didn’t move a muscle. She just stood there, her eyes locked with his, as though she were trying to figure out how much to tell him, how much to trust him. After a short pause, she said, “The game where he does and says exactly the right thing, the defensible, by-the-book thing, even when it’s the wrong choice under the circumstances. Let me guess…he wants to be governor some day.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure he’s got his sights set on Congress.” Gray was reluctantly impressed, though. Not too many people saw through the SAC’s act, at least not until they’d known him for a while. Moving around the desk, he crossed the room to stand very near her, close enough that he could see the flutter of her pulse at her throat. “You want me guarding you because my boss doesn’t like me. Any other reason? Not to pry, but I didn’t get the impression you liked me very much, either, especially after what happened with your father two years ago.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” she said, surprising him again. At his startled look, she glanced away. “I didn’t get much sleep last night, for obvious reasons. It gave me an opportunity to think a few things through. One of the conclusions I came to was that the outcome would’ve been the same even if you’d been all sweetness and light in the interview. My father was furious with himself for not seeing Lee for what he was. He was in the process of being forcibly retired from his company because of his involvement in the bombings, and he was trying to deal with a boatload of guilt. The interrogation just brought all that to the forefront at once, and his heart couldn’t take it.”

Something in her voice suggested that wasn’t the whole story, but Gray didn’t call her on it. Instead, he cleared his throat and waited for her to focus on him. Then he said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about how it played out.” He’d called the hospital to check on her father, but didn’t think she needed to know that. In a way it’d probably be better if she saw him as the enemy, especially since he was getting the idea that they hadn’t yet seen the last of each other. Still, he found himself asking, “How’s he doing?”