Chapter Eleven
“Are you going to talk to me?” She sounded calm. Rational. As though he was a tired child in need of a timeout and she was the forbearing parent determined to make a teachable moment out of a tantrum.
“Not now.”
“When?”
“Later.”
“Really? So we’re just going to drive around aimlessly until you decide it’s time for us to have a conversation we should have had hours ago? Are you waiting for some mysterious signal from the heavens? “
“Yep.” Satellite, actually. He’d made a call to Mitch from the clearing while Mia was asleep in the car. He’d been unable to resist Neville’s entreaties for a game of fetch, so had had to relay his information in bursts while the dog was far enough away that the bug wouldn’t pick up the conversation. Even so, he’d managed to give Mitch an update of events and his suspicions about Mia, and was waiting for the man to get back to him. So far his state-of-the-art encrypted satellite phone had remained stubbornly silent.
“I don’t think you understand what’s at stake here, Hudson.”
The nerves bundled into a tight knot of anxiety and disappointment in the pit of his stomach said otherwise. “Not now, Mia.”
Not only had he walked away from his assignment for her, but she’d also made it very clear that his belief that romance and police work don’t mix was spot on. She’d wormed her way all the way under the layers that had protected him for so long—just like she’d said at the hut. But unfortunately for him, he’d fallen for a fake. Someone who was even better at playing the game than he was.
She tucked her leg beneath herself on the seat and turned to face him. “I really need to tell you—”
“Not. Now.” He increased the volume on the radio. She reached out to turn it down, and he grabbed her wrist and threw her hand back into her lap.
She lifted her hands, palm outs, and tilted her head to the side. “Okay, fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t fine at all. His fingers were burning with the imprint of her skin and his mind was replaying memories of their time back on the mountain, her straddling him on the narrow bed. Giving every bit as good as she got. Even knowing that she’d most likely pulled the wool over his eyes in a way that would haunt him for the rest of his career—if he had a career after this point—he knew that memory would be the last thing he saw as his life drained away. No trip down memory lane for him, no flashbacks to an idyllic childhood and milestone moments as an adult. All of those had been variations on a lie for him.
She’d been so right. When his father had walked away and his mother had made it clear she couldn’t stand the sight of him, he’d started putting on a character for everyone in his life. He’d done whatever he’d had to—been whoever he’d had to be—to ensure he had shelter, protection, food to eat. It was just a bonus he’d fallen into a job that prized those skills so highly.
He’d actually started to wonder if there was a real person at the centre of all the other identities. But he’d let Mia in, and she’d found something underneath. She knew the real him. And she was going to use that knowledge against him.
Enough already. She wanted to talk? He’d let her talk. He made a hard right onto a rural road and small stones pinged off the car’s undercarriage. Mitch could catch him up later, but a morbid curiosity was taking hold and he suddenly wanted to know how far Mia would take the charade. Would she give it up when he confronted her? Tell him the truth? Or would she just keep spinning filaments of falsehood hoping something would stick?
The waterfront cabin looked like something out of a horror movie. Shutters hung from odd angles and the porch had given way in one corner, giving the whole front aspect of the place a menacing leer. He slammed his foot on the brake and felt an immediate flare of remorse when Neville yipped from his new location on the floor in front of the backseat. Mia had braced herself on the dash, but turned toward the centre console to check on Neville the same time Hudson did.
Their faces were an inch apart. Mia licked her lips and his heart picked up. Her pupils started to expand, and his libido was suddenly trying to wrest control from his brain. Not going to happen. He released his seatbelt the same time he opened the door and was out and up the porch steps before his next breath.
He found the key right where it was supposed to be and let himself into the safe house. He crossed the foyer in two long strides and pressed the corner of a panel set into the wall. It sprang open, and he verified on the sophisticated sensor display that there had been no unauthorized attempts at entry since his original visit just before he’d started working to find a way in to the gang.
He shut the panel and returned to the car. Mia had popped the trunk but wandered away to check out the property with Neville. He managed to hoist all their belongings up the rickety stairs and into the house in one go. Then he returned to the car and swung it around the side of the house where the garage was cunningly disguised as a dilapidated shed.
Mia was on the porch, peering uncertainly across the threshold when he returned.
“Get inside. Neville, too.” His tone was abrupt, but her face was blank, impressively so. He just hoped he was as good at hiding his feelings when he was on the job.
She called Nev and walked into the cabin. He followed on their heels and locked the door behind him. A muted beep sounded from behind the panel and Mia looked around, searching for the source. Nothing in the abject poverty slash early decay decor of the place spoke to technology and security, but he didn’t feel the need to enlighten her.
Neville paced quietly through the space, completely at home, as he’d been everywhere they’d ended up in the past few days. Mia was looking far less comfortable. She was rubbing her hands up and down her arms as though she were cold and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Can we open a window?”
“No.”
Her hand strayed to the end of her hair and tugged. “Can we at least open the shutters on the outside?”
“No.”
Neville crossed the room to sit in front of her. She dropped her hand to his head. “I think Nev needs more exercise. We’ll be back in a few.”
She made for the door, but Hudson moved into her path and crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”
She tried again, but Hudson shifted casually to block her. “You wanted to talk, Mia. It’s time to talk.”
“Yes. Sure. But I really do need to take Neville out. Can you move? Please?” Her knuckles pressed against her skin, stark and white where her hand had latched onto her hair again, and she was chewing mercilessly at her lower lip. An obvious show of distress. She was good. “Seriously, Hudson, I’m not good with closed-in spaces. I need a minute.”
Good, but not good enough, now that he was on the alert to her machinations.
“You’re not going anywhere. Have a seat.”
He stepped into her space and she reeled backward. She sat with a thump on the edge of an overstuffed couch and he sat opposite in a hard-backed chair that was about as yielding as he was feeling at that moment. Neville jumped up beside her and laid his enormous head on her thigh, peering up at her under a furrowed brow. She ran her hands through his fur, and closed her eyes for a minute. He could see her nostrils flaring slightly as she breathed rhythmically. He forced down the twinge of conscience and leaned forward, propping his forearms across his thighs. If she was lying about her claustrophobia, she didn’t deserve his compassion. And if she was telling the truth, it was something he could use against her.
“Who do you work for, Mia?”
Her eyes popped open and her hand stilled on Neville’s back. “You know who I work for.”
“Answer the question.”
“I’m a wildlife biologist. I consult for the government and companies that need an environmental assessment for their projects.” She spoke slowly and clearly, as though he were simple. “Who do you work for, Hudson?”
His jaw was tight and he could feel the beginnings of strain at the back of his neck, but he moved his chair closer, farther into her bubble. She leaned back, eyes flicking toward the door.
“And you crossed paths with a psychotic tree hugger in your youth who’s been traumatizing you for years?”
“Yes. Hudson, you know all this—what the hell is going on?”
“You really expect me to buy that despite all the incidents you believe he’s responsible for, you decided to return this close to where you met, just for a job?”
Colour was rising in her cheeks. Was she getting flustered?
“I told you. There hadn’t been any flowers or any contact at all for the last couple of years. I thought it was safe to come back, and it was a very lucrative contract. It was enough to…” She sank her teeth into her lip, and he filed the slip away. He’d need to come back to whatever she’d just avoided saying, but at the moment he had more pressing questions.
“So there’s been no contact for years, yet a man gives a mechanic a thousand dollars in cash, wrapped in a copy of your warrant, to borrow his truck to come up the mountain and fix your car.”
Her eyes narrowed and she pushed herself onto the edge of the cushion, reclaiming her space. He automatically started to lean back, then held his ground.
“Well, see, Hudson? That’s exactly what I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. Exactly how much do you know about Cain?”
He felt his eyebrows shoot up, but quickly got himself under control and went back on the offensive. “I’m the one asking the questions.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Doesn’t mean I’m answering them.”
Her annoyance seemed to be winning out over her claustrophobia. He squeezed the back of his neck. Okay, change of tactic.
He turned on the smile and then silently cursed himself as her chin pulled back and she rocketed to her feet and headed for the door.
#
“Mia.”
His hand was clamped around her arm and she was still a foot from the door. Neville paced in front of her, uncertain what to do. She tried to pull away. “Let go of me.”
“I can’t.”
She turned on him and he adjusted his grip, but didn’t let go. “You can’t? Really, Hudson? You drop uninvited into my life, introduce me to some truly charming individuals who threaten to kill me, force me to hike up a mountain to meet a dead pilot and schlep a load of drugs back down to those same thugs who’re still waving their guns around, and you think there’s more I owe you?” Her face felt like it was on fire, but her hands were icy cold. “Let. Go. Of. My. Arm.”
He yanked her closer instead, and she could see how tightly his pupils had constricted beneath his lowered eyebrows. “Is that what happened? Awfully coincidental that there was someone already on the mountain who could help find that crash site. How long has he known I’m a cop? What was the plan? Were Raj and Gio supposed to take me out, then help you bring down the drugs? I wouldn’t have thought Raj would have dirtied his hands. Or was the hit supposed to be yours?”
His grip tightened, and she put her hands against his chest and shoved. He didn’t move an inch. “What happened, Mia? Lose your nerve?” He pulled her even closer and squinted down at her. “Or are you Cain? Is that it? Were we wrong about Raj?”
She gaped at him. Fatigue was evident in the shadowing under his eyes and the tightness around his lips, but that didn’t seem to be quite enough explanation for the insanity spewing from his mouth.
“What’s gotten into you? Where did you get these crazy ideas? I was stuck under a rock the first time you saw me. Do you really think I would have planned that?”
His eyes widened a fraction, and she could almost see beyond them to the gears moving in his brain.
“And of course I’m not Cain. I don’t know who Cain is—okay, well, I’m almost positive I do know, but seriously, Hudson, I think you need to get some sleep.” She’d been gently pressing him back as she spoke and his hand fell away from her arm as the back of his legs hit the couch. He sprawled backward and scrubbed his hands over his face.
“You can’t really have thought I was involved in all this from the beginning. What gave you the idea?” Her earlier frantic movements and the weight of the gun were pulling her pants farther and farther down her hips, and she reached behind her and pulled the 9mm free.
Hudson leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling and started talking. “You still haven’t told me why that fake mechanic had your warrant, or why Neville is bugged—I checked his harness. It’s not there. You actually implanted a bug in your dog, Mia. You don’t think that’s suspicious behaviour?” He suddenly sat upright. “What do you mean you know who Cain is?”
She lifted the gun and he froze, then raised his hands. “Damn, you’re good.” He shook his head. “I really hope this is where you tell me you’re also law enforcement and we just got off on the wrong foot. Otherwise I’d really appreciate a minute to write an email or two. A wise woman I met on a mountain top made me see some home truths, and I’ve got some apologies to make before I die.” He launched the smile at her, but instead of physical revulsion, this time all she felt was a weary amusement.
“Well, if I did shoot you, at least I’d never see that smarmy-ass smirk again.” She reached over and took the barrel with her left hand, then presented him with the gun, butt first. “You’re an idiot.”
He took the gun, saw that it was safe, and held it loosely in one hand as he massaged his temples with the other. “The evidence at hand would seem to suggest that, yes.”
She kicked his ankle gently and he pulled back his legs enough for her to move to the other end of the couch. She let herself fall into it and noticed there was no dust cloud when she landed. As decrepit as it looked from the outside, the interior was liveable, which made sense if it were a safe house. Her claustrophobia had eased while the adrenalin flowed. A quick scan of the sealed up room elicited only a mild increase in her heart rate. Most of her brain was busy processing what had just happened and apparently couldn’t see the point in getting uptight about a few closed windows.
Neville sauntered over to them and looked hopefully at the small space left on the couch. At Mia’s nod, he climbed up, yawning widely. There were a few moments of a blur of tongue and fur as he made tight circles between them, and then he flopped, head in Mia’s lap, rump in Hudson’s.
“The bug,” she prompted. She thought he’d understood the hints she’d given him when they were in her truck, but apparently not. She needed to work out what he thought so she could make him see the sense of her logic.
Hudson looked at her guardedly. “The detector at the storage locker. It wasn’t your truck that set if off, it was Neville. I checked his harness while you were asleep in the car and it wasn’t on that.”
Mia thought for a moment, running through the possibilities, then lifted Hudson’s hand and placed it between Neville’s shoulder blades. “Feel that?”
His hand passed over the dog’s fur, and he sat up and bunched a fold of Neville’s coat between his thumb and forefinger. His eyebrows pulled together. “Microchip?”
She shook her head. “The standard microchip is passive and can only be read by a scanner passed close to the body. Basically, your dog has to be found and taken to someone who can read the chip before he’d be returned to you. Nev has one of the first generation implantable GPS trackers. I take him out in the field with me all the time, but I can’t always bring him into the sensitive zones I’m most interested in. He’s excellent about staying where he’s told, but I never wanted to take the chance on losing him. The chip emits a frequency that can be picked up by a tracker. Maybe that’s what set your scanner off.”
He leaned back and exhaled. Neville’s fur fluttered in the breeze. “Makes sense. And the warrant?”
The limited bits of information Mia had, had been flitting around in the back of her mind unattended, but now a picture was emerging. “You don’t actually know who Cain is?”
Hudson’s lips pressed flat for a second, and he tapped the back of her hand with his index finger. “First things first. The warrant, Mia.”
She tapped his hand right back. “It’s all related, Hudson. Why don’t you know who Cain is?”
He blew out another breath. “Fine. I’ve broken cover and bailed on an op, I may as well give you protected information. The most sophisticated criminal organizations use a cell structure. Each player knows only who he needs to know to do their part of the job. That way, if someone is turned, they have less information to give up, which protects the integrity of the larger group. My intel going in was that the head of the organization was probably Raj. All communication from ‘Cain’”—he made air quotes—“came through Raj. No one else has ever claimed to talk to him, or see him, but everyone does whatever Raj says. And if Raj isn’t happy, whoever he’s unhappy with has a tendency to disappear.”
“But why wouldn’t he want people to know who he is? Don’t losers like that get off on the notoriety? The glory? The lifestyle?”
“That’s why the guy became a priority. He plays it a lot smarter than most. Keeps a low profile so he doesn’t stand out in the community and uses a different name to distance himself if the ring ever does go down. I’m hoping he finally made a mistake and we’ll be able to track the helicopter hire back to Raj—proof that he’s at the top of the food chain.” He pulled out the string of condoms he’d rescued from Gio earlier and passed them through his fingers like rosary beads.
He looked at Mia, and Mia looked at the condoms. Her thighs tightened involuntarily, but then her brain took over again. “Later. Let’s get this sorted first.”
His eyebrows arched and then a slow smile stretched across Hudson’s face. A real one. Nothing smarmy or fake in it. Just pure, unadulterated lust—and maybe a little surprise. Her own lips stretched in response, but she forced herself to look away. “Okay, so you don’t actually have any proof that Raj is Cain.”
“Just this.” Hudson held up the condoms again. Jeez, the man was impatient. He smiled gently, then flipped the roll over and showed her the slice in the top of one of the packets. He folded it back and paper peaked out through the gap.
Oh. That was why…he’d stowed his information in the condoms. No wonder he wanted them back from Gio—and no wonder he’d hauled them out a minute ago. He wasn’t suggesting sex, just showing her his evidence.
Heat dotted her face in pinpricks until the glow joined together and she might have been standing in the middle of a bonfire.
“So.” Hudson ripped off the condoms above and below the carrier pocket. He slid that one back in his pocket and tossed the others on the coffee table in front of them. “Plenty left.” His voice was quiet, but it set her muscles twitching, and when her eyes met his, there was no mistaking the heat there. She may have misunderstood, but she wasn’t wrong.
“So.” She cleared her throat. Later. That could all happen later. Right now she needed to lay out her puzzle pieces and see if Hudson thought they made the same picture she did. “The warrant. I think Abe planted it with the mechanic intentionally.”
Hudson frowned. “Abe? How in hell would he be tied to this?”
“He was the one who borrowed the service truck. It was him up on the mountain.”
“You’re sure? Jesus, Mia, why didn’t you say something?” He stopped abruptly and held out a hand as she started to remind him he’d been refusing to let her speak for hours. “Never mind. Go on. You think Abe works for Cain?”
She took a deep breath. “I think Abe is Cain.”
One eyebrow lifted. “Explain.”
“I wondered, after, why Abe had ever gotten involved in that protest. I saw him, Hudson,” She pressed a hand over her stomach. Even the memory of that night made her queasy. “It wasn’t just that he wouldn’t let me stop the guard when we had a chance. He enjoyed watching that man die. He enjoyed making me watch it.”
She shuddered, swallowed hard. “And the way he kept finding me and taunting me those first few years. He killed that other protestor, Hudson. That’s not normal behaviour for anyone—but especially not for an environmentalist, who tend to be more on the crunchy granola, tree hugging, non-innocent-people-killing side. There has to be another reason he got involved. Something that was important to him.”
Hudson rubbed a thumb along his jawline. “I can see that.”
“So, I kept an eye out for anything newsworthy coming out of the area, and later that fall, when the investigation at the site had been wrapped up and the survey work finally started, there was a story about a huge outdoor marijuana farm that had been found right along the work route for the pipeline.”
He leaned forward. “Yeah, I remember that. It was in the briefing they gave me before I went undercover here. Work crews found the site and the local force went in to cut it down the next day, but the truck transporting the entire harvest was hijacked. The truck and the exhibit custodian driving it both disappeared off the face of the earth. They never did figure out who passed the information to the grow’s gardener. They estimated the street profit would have been over a hundred thousand.” He was quiet for a moment, then gave her a slow nod. “That’s definitely a solid motivation. And the investigation into the equipment operator’s death extended the delay even more—giving him more time before he needed to harvest, and an even better crop.”
“And if he made that work, why not build an empire? He obviously has someone on the inside of the police force looking out for him. If he was on the radar for the murder, he’d want to stay out of the limelight, but with the other witnesses running scared—especially if he sent them the same kind of message I got—he was probably feeling pretty secure.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s all reasonable.” He let his hand bump hers as he reached up to stroke Neville’s spine. He turned his over and she laid hers on top. When he closed his fingers, she felt a surge of energy zinging through her arm.
“Mia, I’m sorry. I should have trusted you. I just…” He shrugged and leaned his head back. “I work alone. I live alone. I keep people at a distance so I’ll never have to be forced to be alone because someone walked away and left me in the dirt.” He rolled his head to the side and smiled sadly. “You were right about that. Being with you these past few days has been the first time in my life I’ve ever felt like I’ve had a partner. Someone who really knew me. When I thought I’d misjudged you, I freaked out a little.”
Mia squeezed his hand. Her earlier lust was mixing with a genuine feeling of tenderness that surprised her. Hudson wasn’t the only one used to being alone. She felt like she should say something. Like the silence was stretching too long, but she was worried anything she tried to say right now would turn into an emotional, gushing bout of verbal diarrhoea. She thought of telling him that she’d considered taking off in his car when he was on the phone in the middle of nowhere but changed her mind, but she wasn’t sure how he’d take it—she wasn’t entirely sure how she was taking it—so she said nothing.
Hudson slid her hand out from under hers and smacked Neville’s rump lightly to get him to move. “I’m going to call Mitch and get him to start working on the Abe as Cain angle. Can you give me the names of the other two you were with that night?”
He had his game face on again. She saw it briefly before he ducked his head down over the pad he’d unearthed. Mia recited the names and all the details she could remember about her fellow protesters. Hudson took quick notes and made his way to the door without looking at her again.
She tried. She really did, but when she opened her mouth to tell him the last few days, in addition to being some of the worst she’d ever experienced, had started to give her hope she might eventually have a real home, a real partner, a real life—all the things she’d dreamt of before that night, her tongue twisted and stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“Back in a sec,” he said.
She nodded, mute. Her stomach was sinking, and she had the distinct feeling she may have just missed an opportunity that would never come again.