Chapter Nineteen
After two days, I gave up trying to reach anyone using my burner cell. My men would maintain radio silence until the team was out of the field and back on US soil. And no, I wasn’t jumping to conclusions to assume they were in a foreign country, even without the Leland-in-Mexico variable. The CIA couldn’t conduct operations in the fifty states without joint assignment with the FBI, and Jena hated those fuckers.
I tossed my phone into my grab bag, and went out to the backyard for some quiet and to think. Staying indoors with the anxiety twisting my gut made me feel like a caged animal. Inaction in a crisis wasn’t part of my DNA. Not being there to command my men in whatever this mofo mission was, was driving me half insane.
Sitting in my chair and staring at the ocean, I fought to keep my thoughts on the immediate issue—what the hell had Jared allowed my men to sign on for without my permission?—and not Leland and what I suspected to be some sort of dangerous, or in the least criminal, enterprise with the Ramoses.
I swallowed to clear the hard lump in my throat, but there was nothing I could do to stop the raging pain in my heart and the sickness in my stomach.
The same five thoughts turned around and around in my head: Damn it, Lee. How could you become involved in something that risked everything? Risked us? Risked me? And why the hell didn’t you come to me and let me help you?
The fear churning with love was like reliving those waiting hours when I was eighteen before my sister, Olivia, was found left for dead by those bastards who kidnapped and raped her. Is that how this was going to end? My waiting in agonizing silence and Lee somewhere near dead without me?
I swept my hands across my face and used my fingers to block out the too fucking happy view of the beach. Dampness. God damn it, this was fucking humiliating and not what I wanted.
Streams of wetness rolled down my cheeks. I’d only cried before Leland for Olivia, and though I loved Lee with a completeness that was frightening, I sure as hell wasn’t used to crying because of him. But with all the thoughts tormenting me that I couldn’t shut down came an extra punch: He hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me everything and now I couldn’t be there to help him. Worse was the self-doubt that followed that realization: Was that because of who I was or because of him? Or who we were together?
Had I ever even known Lee?
I hadn’t believed for a half second in the interrogation room that day with Jena that he’d been the man in the middle of the cartels and the terrorist brokering a deal. Now I couldn’t escape the worry that he was and what that meant.
No, it wasn’t possible Lee was part of the enemy. I couldn’t love a bad man. Leland was many things, but he wasn’t a bad man.
Reckless? Yes.
Ambitious? Yes.
Ruthless? At times, when it warranted it.
But a traitor to his country? Not fucking possible.
I exhaled. So how did he fit into the puzzle I couldn’t bring into a full picture?
The sound of footsteps abruptly halted my mental and emotional gymnastics, and I turned my head, expecting to see Patricia. Instead it was Skyler Mathews strolling across my lawn.
Crud.
I was an idiot to have trusted him to do something requiring stealth and to follow directions without fucking it up.
What the hell was he doing here?
I hadn’t sent for him and I’d told him not to try to contact me. That I’d check in with him. As I had twice a day since I put him on Operation Hacking. I trotted over to his house a.m. and p.m. with the pretense of borrowing junk Patricia needed, since Agent King remained unmalleable about letting her go to the grocery. Each time, I left Skyler’s house without any sort of useful update on our data search and mining.
And what the fuck was he wearing? A pink pastel t-shirt that read: Live Hard. Live Free. Live Freely Hard.
Yep, that was inconspicuous.
He was made for cloak and dagger—not.
Fuck my life.
I sprang from my chair and intercepted him halfway to the patio. “What the fuck are you doing here? Damn it, Skyler—”
He disentangled himself from my fingers clawed on his shirt. “Calm down. I hopped the fence. Agent King doesn’t have a clue. I’ve been doing it for the past few days to check in on Patty and, I should point out, without even you knowing it.”
Yep, I should have sensed Mom had something to do with Skyler not doing as he was told.
I shook off my thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
He lifted his shirt and there against his cut abs were some papers. “I printed out everything I could before I got shut out,” he said, handing the sheets to me.
Rapidly I scanned each page.
Whatever my men were doing it was for our government.
Yes, Jena had assembled my team.
No mention of Leland.
Nothing I hadn’t already deduced on my own.
Oh wait. New intel. Bogotá. Leland had been traveling there for months. And apparently the CIA knew it and had a man on him there.
Hmm, what was going down was going down in Colombia. Part of my team’s old stomping grounds. No longer a surprise Jena risked giving the contract to Black Star even with me part-owning the company.
Last page. Shit, nothing about what was going to happen in Colombia or to whom.
“This is it? This is all you could get in two days? What the fuck have you been doing, Skyler? Taking a break to play with your cock every hour?”
He glared, offended. “I’m hunting in deep cyberspace and trying not to go to jail for treason. I’m a ghost moving invisibly through their highways. I’m stealing data from government servers. I embedded a virus to do the hunt for me and when I get a hit it prints and moves on. No fingerprints. No giant data dump that even the piss-poor techies at the government might notice. Digitally wiped clean before those assholes even know I was in there. It’s not the fastest way, but it’s the smartest.”
I wanted to argue that, but couldn’t because I didn’t know shit about the how-to of cyber warfare and I despised that I had to defer to Skyler’s knowledge.
I pushed away my annoyance of him and refocused. “Have you been able to get a GPS location on any of them? All this shit says is Bogotá.”
He shook his head. “No. And I won’t be able to. No point in trying.”
“Why not? I told you to do it. Get an eye on them. Ping or pong or whatever the hell you do to find someone electronically and do it now.”
“I can’t. Damn it. Jared had me redo our security systems so no one could track our men in the field. I’m so good I can’t even crack it. I left a back door—all good programmers do—but he’s locked me out.”
I frowned. “Locked you out?”
He nodded. “Jared knows we’re close friends. Maybe he thought you’d figure out what was what and reach out to me. Clearly he doesn’t want you a part of this.”
Close friends? Not my word for it. His meaningful relationship was with my mother.
Reach out? Hello, you work for me, Skyler.
Doesn’t want me a part of this? I was going to punch the daylight out of Jared for being a lousy friend and business partner if he made it home safely.
“I’m sorry, Skyler. You’re doing one hell of a job. It’s not you. I’m just—”
I clamped my mouth shut in the nick of time. Oh God, was I about to open up in a “friends” way with my ex-cock-stalker? Crud, this waiting for news and feeling useless shit was the ruin of a man.
Skyler patted me compassionately on the shoulder and I nearly visibly flinched. “It’s all right, Graham. I get it. These are your guys. It must suck not to be in the field with them and have their back. Try to remember, Jared must have had a good reason to keep this on the down-low with you. He wouldn’t just cut you out unless he had to.”
Great, that was all I needed at this point.
I nodded as my jaw clenched.
Skyler walked across the yard and scaled our six-foot fence with the vigor of a twenty-something man. That was the fucking cherry on my cake, because it reminded me I wasn’t in my twenties anymore, and that illogically caused me to wonder if I was still up to the task of protecting Lee when I reached Colombia.
The thought of Lee sent a power blast through my limbs I felt in each muscle. Yep, even at thirty-seven, I was the best of the best, and could get the better of anyone. Even my own team that I’d trained to my high standard.
The only thing left to do was to figure out how to get to Bogotá and then to find Lee. And for that, I couldn’t depend on cyber espionage. This required being in the field and getting free of my FBI friend on the porch.
First task: how the hell to slip out on Agent King?
Second task: where do I stash Patricia and Ella? It had to be somewhere safe, someone who could keep Patricia contained, and someone willing to do me the mother of all favors.
My eyes flared.
I knew just the spot, safer than the Vatican, and equipped with a man who’d never met a woman he couldn’t manage.
Time to bug out.
Inside the house, I found Patricia and Ella in the living room, sitting side by side reading since we’d lost TV when the Feds knocked out the Internet.
“Mom, I want you to pack a bag for you and Ella,” I ordered on a hushed tone. “Only what you need and get right back here pronto and wait for me.”
“It’s about time.” She slapped shut her book. “We’re making a run for it, aren’t we?”
Fabulous, she was excited and pumped. That was all I needed. One wrong step; can you say FBI holding cell?
Mental note: check Patricia’s bag for a concealed weapon before loading her into the car. The FBI might have taken her .44, but I was certain she had a weapons’ cache somewhere.
From my bedroom, I grabbed my gear, made a fast stop at the gun safe to load up even more than I was already packing, took my burner cell from the charger, and returned to the living room.
Patricia was waiting with two small totes and Ella in hand. You couldn’t beat Mom in a crisis.
I gestured them toward the patio doors. “We’re getting out of here the same way Skyler visits you. Over the fence. And don’t think we’re not talking about you sneaking your friends in here behind my back.”
She gave me that tilted head and chiding eyes expression belonging to mothers throughout the ages. “You should be thanking me for that, not threatening to lecture. I saw you talking to Skyler in the yard. And now you’ve come up with a plan. High time. I’ve had all I can take of house arrest and Agent King.”
No point correcting her.
It was better she thought this was a lark.
I smiled. “Me, too, Mom.” I scooped Ella up with one arm and balanced her on my hip. I touched my nose to hers. “Sweetheart, we have to be very quiet, quiet as a mouse, until Poppy says you can talk again.”
My saying Poppy made her smile and brought instant obedience with a brisk nod. I was getting good at this parenting thing. I kissed her on the cheek and followed Mom to the patio.
At the fence, I set Ella on her feet, set down my case, and then lifted Patricia up and then down in Skyler’s yard. Over the top of the wood, I whispered. “You ready, Mom? I’m handing you the bags and then Ella. You hole up for me.”
One bag.
Two.
I kissed Ella on the cheek again—good behavior even escaping the FBI required positive reinforcement—and slowly lowered her to Mom’s waiting grasp.
I scaled the fence in one move. Like hell I was too old to get in the mix in Bogotá and save Leland’s ass.
“Now what?” Patricia asked enthusiastically. “I bet Skyler will loan us his car. Do you want me to ask?”
“No. Too close to the house. Agent King might see us. Does Margie have a car?”
Patty nodded. “Yes, but I don’t think she’ll lend it to us. She’s very possessive of Inga. I tried to borrow it once, and can you believe it? She refused. Some nonsense about my driving—”
“Mom, please! Can you talk less and move faster?” I pleaded, trying to hurry Patricia across Skyler’s backyard before he saw us.
We went out the side gate, and trotted across the driveway to Margie’s front door. Patricia stopped me before I could knock loudly with my fist.
“Graham, please. Don’t be rude to my friend. Use the bell.” She shook her head, annoyed, and punched it in a staccato with her index finger.
After a minute or two—or ten—Margie appeared in front of us. “Patty Carson, I’m not speaking to you. Nearly a week, no calls. No texts. You missed our Friday lunch. You don’t answer me on Facebook. Don’t think—”
“Margie, it’ a family emergency. May we borrow your car?” I asked forcefully.
Her thin brows shot up. “My car.” She crossed her arms. “No way. I’ve been telling Patty to get that heap of hers checked for months. Besides, what’s wrong with that gas-guzzler, air-polluting beast you drive?”
Really? “The battery is shot,” I said, deadpan.
“Not surprising. It seems neglecting vehicle maintenance runs in your family.”
“Please, Margie, it’s important. You see, I didn’t diss you. The FBI turned our house into practically Gitmo—”
“Mom, hush!” I tried to stop Patricia but she was wound up and there was no stopping her. She continued talking right over me.
“—I can’t believe you haven’t noticed the agent posted on my porch to keep us in isolation. That’s why I haven’t talked to you. The FBI won’t let me. Even our phones don’t work. We’re escaping the FBI, Margie, and going…I don’t know where we’re going, but I’m sure Graham has it all worked out. You can trust him with Inga.”
Oh, someone shoot me now…
“You wait here,” Margie directed, still a touch too peevish after that long-winded speech of Patricia’s. “Let me grab my purse and my keys. You’re not borrowing my car, but I’ll drive you somewhere.”
Well, that was something.
“Thanks, Margie,” I forced myself to say. “Can you hurry it up?”
Once Margie was out of earshot, Patricia said, “That is Margie hurrying. And beggars can’t be choosers, so don’t complain. There just aren’t that many friends you can depend on to help you escape the FBI.”
“You’re right, Mom. I really appreciate Margie coming through for us.”
Mom nodded approvingly, and I leaned back against the exterior wall and smiled. If my Uber app worked, we wouldn’t be doing this.
The garage door opened and out rolled a cloud of dark exhaust fumes. A car slowly backed into the driveway.
Inga—the hits just kept on coming.
I picked up our bags in one hand and Ella with my other arm. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Patricia arched a brow. “Hideous, isn’t it? You’d think it was a Porsche. But no. Margie is stingy over a 1980 Hornet.”