[BAD 07] - Silent Truth (24 page)

And if her mother died while he held Abbie hostage?

Fuck.
Moving back to his plan, Hunter said, “I can figure out a cover to access the Kore Women’s Center.”

“I hear ze female vaxing is vorst form of torture. Only for real men,” Gotthard deadpanned, eyes creasing with mirth. He allowed his German accent to surface when he relaxed.

“You need a humor makeover. Tell Joe to give me some time to come up with a plan. If he doesn’t like my plan then send a female, but if the Kore security is as tight as I think, it’s going to take more than inserting as staff.”

Eliot could bypass anything. Could have.

Gotthard’s eyes thinned, sending Hunter a visual message to heed him. “This may not be something one agent can do alone.” When Hunter didn’t reply, Gotthard turned to his right, clearly listening to Joe, who would have heard everything, then Gotthard faced the screen. “You have two hours to hand Joe a plan.”

Hunter signed off and shut down the computer. Time for Abbie to tell him everything she knew. He strode
over to his office door, opening it to shout into the foyer. “Borys?”

Boot heels clicked across the buffed cherrywood floors. Borys appeared at the door that led to the kitchen. “I’m busy.”

“Tell Abbie I want to talk to her.”

“She’s not with you?”

Hunter walked over to the stairs and shouted up, “Abbie!”

“I coulda done that.” Borys crossed his arms. “I just looked everywhere for her. She’s not in the house.”

Where the hell is she?” Hunter yelled at Borys, who stomped to the front door of the cabin.

Like Abbie would be sitting on the cabin’s front steps?

“Front door alarm is still active,” Hunter told him, and swung around to the coat closet.

“Door’s still locked, too, but if she ain’t in here, she has to be outside.” Borys punched the wall monitor, clearing the alarm system, then ran up the stairs. “I only stuck my head in her bedroom earlier. I’ll search it, but she ain’t here.”

“Goddammit!” Hunter slammed his fist inside the closet and hit a panel in the only spot that would make the hidden shelf drop down to reveal a Kahr K9 9mm. He shoved the stainless steel weapon inside his waistband at the small of his back.

“Climbed out the window with sheets,” Borys yelled, pounding back down the stairs.

“Who turned off the upstairs security?” Hunter roared, snatching a down jacket from the closet.

“Me! I like to crack the damn windows sometimes.” Veins stuck out on the sides of Borys’s neck, pulsing. “We never set the upstairs goddamn security! She couldn’t’ve gone far.”

“I activated the traps on the way in last night.”

“Ah, shit. What the hell were you thinking? You never do that when you have a guest. She could be laying out there with a broke neck.”

“She’s not a guest!” Hunter snapped. Borys was lucky he didn’t have time to strangle him. He wanted to kill something right now. “Stay here in case she comes back and don’t fucking let her out if she does.”

“How about fucking telling me what the deal is next time you bring a woman home so I can keep her hemmed up? You must’ve really pissed her off—”

Hunter slammed the door and stared at the frozen landscape. Miles of treacherous terrain so chewed-up a bear would be tough to track. He narrowed his choices down to the least-steep direction leaving the cabin. She couldn’t have hiking boots… unless she stole some from Borys that fit. Would she take the sharp downhill incline ahead?

No. She was going for the Jeep.

He rounded the cabin to where the land sloped away less aggressively with breaks that might look like paths squiggling between swatches of pines that stair-stepped down the mountain.

An innocent-looking route.

Except for several narrow chasms where loose rocks and land would break away unexpectedly.

A fall out here could be fatal.

If she didn’t fall on her own she wouldn’t know to sidestep traps he’d set to stop anyone who made it past his outer security perimeter undetected.

If that didn’t worry him enough, the trails down this side led to where he’d found a mule deer killed by mountain lions.

Joe waited on Gotthard to finish at the computer terminal, wishing this private room, which connected to the electronic surveillance and research division for BAD, had more than fifteen feet square of open area so he could pace. But the room had been constructed specifically for small groups and private meetings within their mission headquarters beneath downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The building affectionately known as the Bat Tower housed an insurance company front for Bureau of American Defense, connected to the underground operations center by a warren of tunnels.

Gotthard finished closing a file he’d opened while videoconferencing with Hunter and swung around. He propped his meaty elbow on the edge of his desk and rested his chin on his thumb. “Opinions?”

Joe had several but preferred to hear his men out first. He turned to Retter, his most dangerous agent and the only other person Joe had allowed to listen in on the videoconference.

Retter’s chest barely moved with a breath. Black hair hung to his shoulders, still damp from showering. He scratched his freshly shaven chin, his guarded gaze studying the floor. The decision weighed on all of them, but Retter had taken the lead on watching Hunter. He leaned his butt against the edge of a stainless steel table adjacent to the one Gotthard sat at where monitors and electronic equipment lined one wall. Retter finally shook his head. “I never saw any change in his normal demeanor all the time I’ve shadowed him on ops for the past four years. Same hard-ass attitude, proficient as he is lethal. He had me convinced he’d moved past Eliot’s death… until now.”

“Me too,” Gotthard agreed. Disappointment slumping his shoulders said even more.

Joe rubbed his temple, willing the headache not to turn into a migraine. “Shit, I believed he was over Eliot’s death, too. But I can’t be sure. Hunter didn’t exactly take the bait about the connection between the JC killer and the attack in Kauai. Hard to say for sure what he’s up to right now.”

“If you could have read him that easily over a video monitor, he wouldn’t be working for BAD,” Retter pointed out.

“I know.” Joe gave up on his aching temple and pushed his hand into his front jeans pocket. “We need him if he comes up with a viable plan to get inside the Kore Women’s Center.”

“I’ll second that,” Gotthard interjected. “We don’t have the time to build a profile to get someone in the front door and any agent we sent in wouldn’t have backup.”

Joe asked Retter, “Korbin’s sure he saw Hunter leave with Blanton from her apartment? He’s not letting his dick talk after Hunter punked out Rae in the mission room, right?”

“No.” Retter gave a quick shake of his head. “I questioned Korbin myself. He’s solid. Besides, no one on this team would put a target on an agent who didn’t deserve it.”

“Didn’t say they would.” Joe didn’t pull punches and wouldn’t now, but there was no reason to take the head off one of the men helping him sort through this mess.
“We still have to confirm Hunter’s tracking the killer on his own. In the meantime, we’ll give him two hours.” He took in the grim faces of both men. Not a thing any of them could do yet. Not until Hunter made a clear move across the line Joe drew for every agent the day they entered BAD. Elite operatives couldn’t use their skills and intelligence access to fulfill vows of vengeance. “If Hunter has a viable plan, we let him go through with it.”

“If not?” Gotthard asked.

Joe never minced his words. “Then I’ll give him one chance to bring in the girl and turn himself in before I send a team after him.” He never wanted to take down one of his own, but he would give the order to drop a rogue and every agent knew it.

Abbie picked her way carefully between snow-crusted evergreen bushes and scattered boulders blocking the easiest route off this frozen mountain. She’d traded in her oversized flight suit from last night for a less oversized pair of worn-but-clean jeans, two long-sleeved T-shirts, a dark green cotton sweater, thick socks, and boots a size too large she’d found in a bedroom down the hall from the one she’d slept in.

The bedroom Hunter had shown her to early this morning when they arrived and ordered her to stay put until he came to get her.

Yeah, that always worked well with her.

Did he really think she’d just sit there for a week or more? He might have all kinds of time, but she didn’t.

First, her mother was dying, dammit.

Second, what about her job? Stuart would be foaming at the mouth by now, fielding questions from other media outlets, and the board and slow-but-not-stupid Brittany wouldn’t be far behind wondering why he’d given Abbie an invitation to the Wentworth event.

Third, what if the police wanted to ask more questions about Gwen’s shooting? Would they think Abbie had skipped out or would they think she’d left against her will?

Fourth, fifth, sixth… her mother was dying, dying, dying.

She kicked a loose rock that disappeared in a
snowdrift. A beautiful but desolate landscape she could better appreciate with a down coat. She might have hunted for one before leaving if the sun hadn’t been shining outside and she hadn’t been worried over getting caught sneaking around downstairs. If she’d gone to that trouble she’d have left by the front door instead of climbing down a knotted-sheet rope like a teen on a hormone adventure.

No alarm went off when she opened her bedroom window on the second floor. Landing in a pile of snow had been fortunate, except for ending up with wet jeans.

And if she didn’t get out from under these evergreens and back into the sun she was going to turn into a Popsicle.

Suck it up and keep moving before Hunter found her missing.

He wouldn’t be happy, but that was his fault.

When she arrived at his cabin last night, she’d asked when she could get back to her mother. Hunter’s blunt “Not any time soon” had severed her last patient nerve. But, not to go off half-cocked, as her dad would have warned, she’d asked what he intended to do with her. He’d answered, “Depends on how much information you give me.”

She kept coming back to one thing.

He was a trained operative of some sort. He could have been lying to her about everything last night and manipulating her by pretending not to hand her over to WITSEC. She had little information left to trade, so the minute Hunter figured that out, what would he do with her?

He couldn’t let her just walk away after what she’d
seen.

Her best bet was to locate the Jeep. Soon.

Pushing a branch out of the way, she dodged the clump of snow that smacked the ground, then she carefully moved forward, stepping on dirt patches and testing snow-covered areas for a hard bottom or ice before she put her weight on her foot.

If Hunter had been reasonable she wouldn’t be out here freezing her bottom off.

She wanted to be angry with him for everything that had happened and blame him for the crazy guy in her apartment, but that guy had called her Abigail. He’d said she did a good job and admitted shooting Gwen, so was he thanking her for getting Gwen outside? That might have been coincidental if he hadn’t known her name. He hadn’t known Hunter by name, though.