[BAD 07] - Silent Truth (40 page)

Hunter waited inside the sedan, watching Abbie walk into the front doors of the Kore Women’s Center in southwest Chicago. Once she convinced him there was no way to breach the computer system without her, he’d called Kore an hour ago and let Abbie speak to the staff to arrange for her admission.

Simpler than ordering a hamburger at McDonald’s for a woman with a rare blood type who was already in Kore’s files and willing to donate blood.

“Park across the street at that pharmacy and angle the car so I can watch the entrance to Kore,” Hunter told the driver, a longtime Thornton-Payne employee who chauffeured for Hunter’s father and Todd. One of the two drivers who could be trusted not to speak of anything that went on during a drive.

Hunter kept an eye on the entrance, fighting to stay in the car and not rush inside to keep Abbie in sight.

He thought he might never get over the look of shock on her face when he questioned her. She couldn’t have been more hurt if he’d backhanded her.

Her answers could be construed as suspicious if he wanted to lump Abbie in with all the women he’d known.

She was in a category all her own. His gut told him so.

What was he going to do with her after he got the files out of Kore?

Gotthard’s warnings pounded in the silence, but Hunter couldn’t make himself believe she was involved
with the killer. He should have told her so before she stepped out of the car, should have kissed her to let her know the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

Instead, he’d sat unmovable as a rock, unable to give her words of comfort. Gotthard’s intel had clouded his ability to see beyond the mission.

Abbie had pulled back after the questions, unwilling to let him touch her in any way, not even to help her from the ambulance to the sedan when they reached the parking lot. He’d refused to consider her suggestion that she pretend to be ill so he could stay once she was admitted. He’d been too angry at the idea of having to let her enter unprotected to realize he was slamming door after door between them.

Her silence should have been warning enough. She finally just listened to his instructions on how to contact him if she had any problem, nodding in reply. He’d kept up a steady monologue, trying not to let his face show how the pain scarring her eyes shredded his insides.

He avoided the topic humming between them like an angry wasp with no place to land.

She had trusted him not to hand her over to strangers and he’d wrecked that trust when he told her she couldn’t go to her mother after they left Kore. God knows he didn’t want to hand her over.

He’d never wanted to keep anything more than he wanted to keep Abbie, but more than that he didn’t want her harmed.

Which was why he hadn’t wanted her inside Kore tonight, but she’d trumped his moves with needing her blood to access the database. She’d pressed her point by reminding him she’d be safe with Kore’s tight security.

Abbie would walk into a burning building if that’s what it took to keep someone dear to her alive.

She loved without restraint.

What would it feel like to be loved that way?

Was that what Eliot had felt for Cynthia? Cynthia hadn’t dated since Eliot died, living quietly with her son.

Had she loved Eliot just as fiercely?

Hunter scrubbed his hand over his face, wiping away things he couldn’t be cluttering his mind with right now. His eyes strayed to his watch, which refused to help by moving any quicker. Three more minutes until he could walk into Kore.

Abbie was safe in there. No men walked around.

No windows on the first floor. The closest buildings were two-story office complexes.

Where was that killer? Hunter had decided Abbie was telling the truth. She didn’t know this psycho, which was why he had to figure out how the killer knew her. The JC killer had left his mark at four places tied to Abbie now that the Montana cabin had been added to the list. How had the killer found Hunter’s place that fast?

He needed Gotthard’s computer skills and Rae Graham’s puzzle-solving ability. If he hadn’t gone off the reservation hunting this killer he’d have their help and the full power of BAD behind him.

His watch alarm beeped. Hunter told the driver, “Drive me to the door.”

When the car reached the curb, Hunter straightened his jacket and stepped out, pausing long enough to tell the driver, “That’s all I need for tonight.”

He didn’t know how he was going to stay inside Kore all night to watch over her and access the computer
system, but he was not leaving Abbie until they released her tomorrow morning.

Jackson finished carving another titanium spoon with a laser cutter and eyed the piece for any flaws.

None. Testing the needle-sharp point of the three horns on the Jackson’s Chameleon head at the end of the spoon handle was tempting, but that would be dangerous.

He put the spoon down, lifted a terry cloth to wipe his hands, and walked upstairs in the temporary apartment in downtown Chicago he’d taken for a month. He walked past the windows of the luxury unit facing Wacker Drive and eyed boat traffic moving along the Chicago River twelve stories down. Jackson consulted his watch. Closing in on seven. The city would hum with nightlife soon.

Sitting down at his laptop, he clicked on the website he checked twice daily for a new image. When he’d viewed the site this morning it had still displayed sixteen photos of the Brown family in Austin. Snapshots of kids, dogs, and parties in suburbia. The bogus Brown family.

The photo of a rabbit running around a toy-decorated lawn had been added since this morning.

A new image loaded up, signaled that an electronic file had been added to the backside of the website.

Jackson opened the secret file with instructions for him to be in Boulder, Colorado this weekend to receive instructions on a hit that would start a chain reaction of bomb detonations. He scanned quickly and slowed at the side note reminding him what he was to do if caught. To take extreme measures before subjecting himself to
interrogation.

He shook his head at the insult. Caught?

If
that happened he had a plan. He lifted a pinky into view, eyeing how the nail was an eighth of an inch longer than the others and sharp as a razor. The metal implant had been painted to look as natural as the others.

He had only to slice his wrist.

Reading further through his instructions, he located authorization for each necessary death, a Fratelli reference. He could understand why the Fratelli had such limiting rules when it came to dealing with an organization made up of humans who couldn’t be left to their own decision-making.

But Jackson didn’t care for limitations on a job.

No matter what, he’d fulfill his duty.

He smiled over being green-lighted to terminate Abbie, then frowned at the reminder that he could not terminate the operative protecting her.

The Fratelli wanted to first find out who the operative was working for.

Why did it matter?

Jackson smoothed his hand over the slick skin on his head. His Chinese masters had removed every hair from his body, creating a perfect killing machine that left no DNA. The Fratelli should trust his training. Why would the identity of the operative shielding Abigail matter? CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, mercenary contractor… the list could go on and on. Did the Fratelli expect to identify every undercover operator?

Termination prevented problems created by loose ends.

Jackson could
not
allow Abbie’s protector to live. Survival depended on never leaving a loose end and he never brought anyone in alive. That created complications no one wanted.

Jackson had not been trained for intelligence gathering.

He’d been trained since birth to kill.

Had taken a baby spoon from his chest of possessions before he turned eight, sharpened the handle, and performed his first kill—an instructor who had bested Jackson in an exercise.

The satisfaction of proving himself with the unnecessary kill had been worth the discipline he received—a painful beating, though it did not break his skin—but he never broke the rules again.

The other nine boys who trained with him fell into line much more quickly. Jackson understood the need for order. Without discipline there was chaos. What the other nine did not figure out was how to function within the scope of Fratelli rules.

His superior never questioned an accidental death, because Jackson was a strategist as much as a killer. He knew the goal for each mission and made sure any deaths—sanctioned or accidental—supported the plan.

He would deliver the necessary deaths.

As for those not authorized?

If someone were to choose death over life to protect another person, who was Jackson to stand in his way?

Time to visit the Kore Women’s Center.

Abbie tried to think about anything but the blood running out of her arm. She swore she could smell her blood.

Focus on the landscape print hanging on the wall. Not on how much she wished Hunter was here. She wished she could smell him when she closed her eyes. But she was the one who had said she felt safe enough inside the Kore Women’s Center.

She hoped Hunter figured out how to stay inside tonight, hoped the police didn’t put a notice out on the news that would alert someone here, hoped they could break into the files… the list grew hourly.

More than anything, she hoped Hunter would find a way to believe in her. The drive over to the Kore center had been private with the security glass up, but she and Hunter might as well have been two strangers talking. She could let a lot of things pass and assign his cautious behavior to being some kind of undercover agent, but she still had a hard time getting past the feeling of betrayal. He was going to hand her off to his people or law enforcement.

Still, she didn’t want to leave things the way they were when she walked away from him.

“All done.” The ID badge on the nurse working on her left for the past hour said Leigh something. Leigh pulled the needle from Abbie’s arm and covered the hole with cotton and a Band-Aid.

“What time is it?” Had to be dark by now, but Abbie had lost track of time since entering this windowless building.

“Just about eight.” Leigh moved efficiently, polyvinyl gloves on her long fingers. Her white turtleneck and peach-colored scrubs were crisp and neat. Much like her perfect shoulder-length auburn hair and straight bangs. Not a voluptuous female, but she’d been kind and hadn’t hurt Abbie when she stuck her. “I’ll give you crackers and juice. When you think you can eat more I’ll order your dinner.”

Would the Kore center’s food be any better than that at her mother’s medical center? Abbie bet Hunter wasn’t eating in the cafeteria. He was supposed to have toured the facility with a senior vice president, then discussed the donation over dinner.

She didn’t care what he ate and shouldn’t be missing him after the way he’d questioned her, but she did miss him.

“Here’s your apple juice and crackers.” Leigh placed both on the tray, then stayed busy tidying the room. “I’m leaving soon to meet with my knitting group. We make blankets for the Kore’s nursery center.”

She chattered on in her high-pitched voice while Abbie crunched crackers and drank juice from a plastic cup. Pale skin along Leigh’s arm peeked out between the long sleeve of her scrub top and the polyvinyl gloves on her hands. Her face looked narrow behind funky oversized eyeglasses tinted a dark shade.

Donating blood after two extremely stressful days was hammering Abbie. She blinked against a wave of dizziness. Exhaustion pulled at her. She drank the rest of her
juice.

“We go on yarn-buying trips.” Leigh continued in a monotone, then looked over at Abbie and smiled. “You’re looking wrung out. Let me ease your bed back so you can rest. You’ll feel better soon.”

Abbie tried to focus on the woman’s mouth, because Leigh had a quirky smile she tried to place. Abbie’s eyes drooped. She wasn’t sleepy so much as lethargic. Her muscles didn’t want to listen to her brain telling them to hold the cup. Her head ached. The cup slipped from her fingers.