Fatal Pursuit (The Aegis Series) (3 page)

All that guilt she’d felt five years before came rushing back. But she swallowed it down and told herself she was doing the right thing now. “Where can I reach you?”

“You can’t. I’ll call you. Just hurry, Marlene. Get to Colombia as fast as you can. I need to get out of here. I need . . .” He hesitated, then his voice dropped to a whisper. “You’re my last hope.”

The line went dead in her ear. Marley pulled it away, looked down at the phone in her hand, and swallowed hard.

Yeah, she’d agreed to help him, but she wasn’t stupid. Colombia wasn’t exactly the safest place for a single American female to travel alone. She couldn’t go by herself. She needed to take someone with her for safety. Jake’s irritating face popped into her head, but she immediately dismissed him. He’d made it clear tonight that he didn’t need her, so she definitely wasn’t turning to him for help. She could ask one of the other guys at Aegis, but they all gossiped like schoolgirls. Even if one of them agreed to go with her, it would inevitably get back to Jake, and she didn’t need any kind of lecture from him. Especially not when it came to her personal life. That left her father, but Gray had said something had happened between the two of them and that he didn’t trust the man.

She bit into her bottom lip and glanced around the dark parking lot, the damp pavement illuminated by a shimmer of lamplight from above. She loved her father, but she knew how Mason Addison worked. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and screw the consequences or what it meant for anyone else. In that respect, he was a lot like Jake Ryder.

She pushed thoughts of Jake aside and ran through her options. There was only one person she could trust with this. The only question was whether or not he’d agree to help.

Screw it. She was out of options.

She paged through her contacts and dialed. A male voice answered on the second ring. “Hamilton.”

“Hey, Ronan. It’s Marley.” She hesitated, praying the whole time that he’d say yes. “I know it’s been a while, but I need a favor.”

“
I’m done with this.”

Jake Ryder slammed the door of his Escalade and crossed the parking lot toward the back entrance of Aegis headquarters. A light fog hovered over the damp ground and snaked through the barren limbs of the tall oak and hickory dotting the rolling Kentucky farmland in the morning light, but he barely noticed it. All he could think about were Marley’s words from last night.

He tugged his jacket up to ease the cool March morning chill and stepped around a pile of dirty snow pushed up against a light pole from last week’s storm. What did she mean by that—I’m done with this? Done how? And why wasn’t she answering his calls? He’d left her a voicemail, but she’d yet to respond. Nor had she responded to his handful of texts.

Annoyance pushed at him from every side as he unlocked the rear door in the east wing of the twenty-thousand-square-foot monstrosity that used to be his father’s house. He keyed in the security code, then moved up the back steps toward the Aegis offices on the second floor, his confusion growing thicker by the minute. She’d said no last night when he’d told her to come in early. She never said no to him. Yeah, he knew she was ticked he’d changed the op without telling her, but in the three and a half years she’d worked for him she hadn’t once flat-out said no about anything he’d asked her to do.

He slid his hand into his jacket pocket and fingered the small white box holding the sapphire teardrop pendant he’d talked Wilson into selling him. The last thing he needed was for Marley to get the wrong idea, but he’d bought the pendant as a peace offering—a bonus really, for all her long hours and hard work. But as he reached the office level and heard her opening drawers and slamming them, rolling her chair along the hardwood floor and muttering under her breath, he wondered if instead of trying to keep the peace, the safer move might be to slink out of the building altogether.

“I’m done with this.”

No. He didn’t like what those words implied, and he definitely didn’t like how she’d said them. Regardless of everything she did for the company, the decision for how the ops were run still fell on his shoulders, and she had no right to be upset with him. Tugging his hand from his pocket, he decided not to give her the pendant just yet. Instead they needed to have a chat about the whole employer-employee dynamic.

“Marley,” he said loud enough so she could hear him, “my office. Now.”

He turned for his office door, twisted the handle, and pushed the right side open with his hip.

“She’s not here,” a female voice called from the direction of Marley’s office. “And where in the name of all things holy does she keep extra print cartridges? I can’t find a damn thing in this place!”

Jake’s brow lowered. He dropped his coat on a table near the door, then marched toward Marley’s office. Evelyn Wolfe sat behind the massive desk, rummaging around in a drawer, her chestnut hair falling over her cheeks.

He looked around the empty room. “What are you doing here, Wolfe? And where is Marley?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Eve snapped the drawer shut, blew the bangs out of her face, and reached for the drawer to her right. “She called late last night and asked me to cover for her for a few days. God Almighty, all I want is freakin’ ink for the printer.” She shoved the drawer closed, rose, and moved to a cabinet along the wall.

Jake stepped farther into the room as he watched Eve rifle through Marley’s supply closet. “She didn’t tell me she was leaving. Where did she go?”

“Hell if I know.” Eve’s head disappeared inside the cabinet. “There. Finally. Of course it’s way in the back.” She reemerged with a box of cartridges. “I feel like I just struck oil.” She swiped at her forehead. “And, Christ, I’m sweating.” She waved the box at Jake and moved back for Marley’s chair. “You both owe me big time.”

A low hum kicked up in Jake’s ears as Eve sat, swiveled toward the printer, replaced the cartridge, then whipped back to the computer and started typing. “What exactly did Marley say?”

Eve didn’t bother to look his direction. “Just that she had a personal family situation she needed to deal with and that she was taking a few days off.”

“I’m done with this.”

That hum intensified, and Jake’s hands grew damp. Marley never took time off. In all the years she’d worked for him, she’d only taken two weeks off total. And then only when he’d insisted that she needed a break. She was forever worried someone would screw up her filing system or mismanage an op for the guys or that the place was going to fall apart without her. So the fact she’d up and vanished, with no advance warning, didn’t just strike him as odd, it told him something was seriously wrong.

He stepped closer to the desk. “Did she say when she’d be back?”

Eve’s fingers stilled on the keyboard, and she shot him a frustrated look. “It’s not like she left me a schedule. I’m not her personal secretary, you know.” She held up a finger. “And I’m not your personal secretary either, so don’t get any funny ideas.” She resumed typing. “This is only temporary. I suck at office work, as you will soon find out. Archer should be doing this shit. Not me.”

The buzz grew to a screaming roar in Jake’s ears. He turned out of Marley’s office and headed back for his. After flipping on his computer, he sat behind his desk and stared at the screen.

Where would she go? And why hadn’t she told him she was leaving? Was she off pouting somewhere because of what had happened yesterday? What kind of personal situation would make her drop everything and disappear with no warning?

He tugged the cell out of his pocket and dialed. He knew there was a chance Olivia Miller wasn’t at work yet, but he hoped maybe she could give him some insight. Luckily, she picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, Jake. You’re up early this morning. Are you calling to talk to Landon? He should be on his way in to the office already.”

Landon Miller, Olivia’s new husband, was a former DIA officer and one of Jake’s best operatives, but this had nothing to do with Landon. “Hey there, Olivia. No, I was actually calling to speak with you. Are you at work yet?”

“Yep, just got here. What’s up?”

Olivia had recently started working as a trainer at Omega Intel, Marley’s father’s security company in Lexington. “Is Marley there by any chance?”

“No, not that I’m aware. Is she supposed to be?”

Jake sort of hoped so, because if she was in Lexington with her dad it would make his life a helluva lot easier. Something in his gut, though, told him his life was about to get way more complicated. “What about Mason? Is he around?”

“Yeah, I just spoke with him five minutes ago. He’s in a meeting with a client. Do you need to talk to him?”

“No.” Not yet, anyway. “So everything’s normal over there? No family drama going on?”

“I don’t think so. Everything’s the same as it always is. What’s up, Jake? Why are you asking these questions? Is everything okay?”

Jake hesitated. If there was nothing going on with Marley’s dad, it meant her so-called personal situation didn’t have anything to do with family. Marley didn’t have any other family. And that meant she’d lied to Eve. His worry kicked up another notch.

“Everything’s fine, don’t worry. Thanks, Olivia.”

“Jake—”

Jake hit End on his cell and pushed the intercom button on his desk phone. Eve answered with a huff. “I’m working, Ryder. Wilson’s secretary needs a full invoice before she heads to India in like five flippin’ minutes, and I only just found the damn file.”

“I need you to hack into Marley’s credit cards. Business and personal. I want to know where she’s using them.”

“Oh my God. Are you freakin’ losing it? You can’t just track an employee’s credit cards because she took the day off. That’s illegal.”

“We do illegal shit ten times a day, Wolfe, and you know it. Marley never takes time off. Something’s going on here.”

“Well, gee. If you flip out like this on a normal basis, I can totally see why she cut and ran without telling you. In fact, I’m surprised she didn’t do it sooner.”

Jake’s jaw ticked. “Just do it.”

He hung up and stared at his computer screen again. Eve was right. He was bordering on losing it, but Jake didn’t care. Marley’s words from yesterday wouldn’t leave his head.
“I’m done with this.”
Done how? He had to know where she was. Why she’d left. When she was coming back.

He sat forward and opened a web browser. After typing in his cell phone carrier, he logged into Aegis’s account and searched for Marley’s number. He paid her cell phone bill. This wasn’t an invasion of privacy. It was business. He pulled up her recent activity.

She’d called Eve late last night. A number he didn’t recognize in Memphis. And his cell several times yesterday. None of her outgoing calls looked suspicious. He flipped screens to see her incoming calls. Another number he didn’t recognize sat at the top of the list. He followed the line across the screen to see the location of origin: South America.

An odd tingle slid down his spine. He sat back in his chair and stared at the screen, confusion drawing his brows together. His intercom buzzed.

Leaning forward, he pushed the button while he continued to stare at the screen. “What did you find?”

“She went to REI yesterday,” Eve answered. “Bought new hiking boots, a backpack, a canteen, energy chews, and matches among other things. Sorry to ruin your conspiracy theory there, Alex Jones. Looks like she took off camping. The world is not about to end.”

“Call the airport. I want to know if my plane is still in the hangar.”

“Jake, seriously? She didn’t take your stupid plane. She went camping. Leave the poor girl alone. Employees are allowed to take vacation days, even from misers like you.”

“Call the damn airport, Eve.”

He released the intercom button, but he could still hear Eve bitching through the open office doors. Ignoring her, he paged back up to the top of the screen, then stilled when he saw Marley’s cell phone plan.

International.

Her plan was domestic. She didn’t travel overseas like the rest of the crew. On the rare instance she had to travel for Aegis, she changed her plan. But she always changed it back as soon as she was home to save the company a little money even though Jake told her not to worry about it.

International. South America.
I’m done with this . . .

A hard, tight ball of worry rolled through his belly as he pushed out of his chair and headed for Marley’s office. One that mixed with the sudden fear coursing through his veins. Fear he did not need to be feeling right now.

“Okay, thanks,” Eve said into the phone. She replaced the receiver in the cradle and looked up as he entered the room.

“Well?” He stopped in front of her desk.

“You were right.” Eve pushed to her feet. “Your plane’s gone.”

Sonofabitch
. “The pilots had to file a flight plan. Where did she go?”

Eve pursed her lips. “You’re not going to like this.”

“Where, Eve?”

She blew out a long breath. “Colombia. South America.”

Marley swiped the damp hair away from her face and tapped her palm against the desk bell. She was sweaty, tired, and in serious need of a drink, but she was also desperate to see Ronan. And she didn’t want to give him any reason to leave by being late.

A chubby Colombian man who had to be in his sixties rushed out from a back room. Fans turned lazy circles above the lobby of the Hotel Chilimaco, but it did little to ease the oppressively humid heat. Late afternoon sunlight streamed across the white tile floor, warming the room even more.

“¡Buenas tardes, señorita!
¿Le puedo ayudar?”

“Buenas tardes. Tengo una reservación.”

“Muy bien,”
the man said. “You American?”

“Yes.” Marley dropped her backpack on the ground at her feet. “Sophia Alvarez.”

“Welcome to Puerto Asis.” The man opened a book and scanned a series of handwritten names. “Ah,
sí
. Here it is.”

He reached for a key from a series of hooks along the wall behind him while Marley fished out cash from her pocket. After she paid for the night, she hefted her backpack onto her shoulder, scanned the small empty lobby again that housed a couch, a couple of tables and chairs, and the oldest TV she’d ever seen. “I was supposed to meet someone here. Tall guy, American, dark blond hair, sharp blue eyes. Has he checked in yet?”