Into the Fire (43 page)

Hannah climbed the back trail up to Patrick’s cabin, acutely aware that if someone had come here before her, she wouldn’t hear them. They could be hidden in the woods around her. She wouldn’t hear the gunshots that killed her, even if the first one missed.

A bird flew up from the brush in front of her and she dropped to the ground and rolled to cover, heart pounding. God
damn
it.

She lay there, knowing that she was breathing too loudly, straining to hear something, anything instead of this freaking nothing. And she knew that the longer she lay here, the harder it would be to get back up. She had to do what she’d done at Steve and Paul’s. Just keep moving.

Hannah brushed herself off with shaking hands and headed back up the trail, trying to be as small a target as possible, cursing Murphy. It was his fault—he’d gotten her all paranoid.

As if the Freedom Network didn’t have better things to do than track her down. If they hadn’t bothered to stake out Steve and Paul’s apartment—which they hadn’t—there was no way they could have tracked her here. Certainly not through Patrick’s car with its out-of-state plates, now being held in some Sacramento police station lot.

Besides, she hadn’t helped Murphy kill Ebersole. If Murphy
had
done it, and the Freedom Network had proof? They would go after him, not Hannah.

It was a good theory, albeit slightly flawed.

Murphy had said that the first shot fired outside of Steve and Paul’s had been at Hannah. Which meant they’d either pegged her as a co-conspirator or…

Or the Freedom Network had a different reason entirely for wanting her and Murphy dead.

That was ridiculous, since it went against the KISS or
keep it simple, stupid
model of investigative reasoning.

Didn’t it?

As Hannah climbed the trail, approaching the clearing where her cabin stood, she realized that the KISS method applied, perhaps even more aptly, to a different conclusion.

Just because she and Murphy were intensely aware that he may, indeed, have gone into the Freedom Network compound last March and fatally shot Tim Ebersole, the Freedom Network didn’t necessarily know that. Hannah hadn’t, after all, been wearing her
My lover shot Tim Ebersole and all I got was this stupid T-shirt
T-shirt.

The only thing Hannah and Murphy could be one hundred percent KISS certain that the Freedom Network knew, was that two outsiders had trespassed onto the Sacramento West compound early yesterday morning. The Freedom Network also knew that those outsiders had tripped an alarm near the location of one of their freak-show ceremonies, and then temporarily taken out two guards as they’d escaped over the back fence.

And in doing so, had created a situation of high alert.

What was it Dave had said?
Ten
Freedom Network vehicles had left the compound in a rush.

So going with that assumption—that the Freedom Network
hadn’t
recognized Murphy as Tim Ebersole’s shooter—why else then would Craig Reed expend so much energy and expense to chase them down and attempt to kill them?

And there the true KISS-simple answer was—in the camera that Hannah still carried in her daypack.

Not only had Hannah and Murphy seen something that they weren’t supposed to see, they’d taken photos of it.

Except, okay. It was possible that the Freedom Network didn’t know about the photo part for certain, although Hannah
had
distracted the guards at the electric fence by pretending to be a journalist, waving her camera.

If the ceremony that they’d seen, and the photos they’d taken,
were
something that the Freedom Network would kill them over, well, her current step-one should be to get those pictures to the FBI.

Which was bound to be a little awkward.
Hey, you know the way you questioned me for several hours and I absolutely failed to mention the fact that Murph and I broke into the Freedom Network compound two nights ago?

And didn’t it figure that Hannah hadn’t had this epiphany until now, when there wasn’t a handy-dandy FBI agent nearby? But she’d been so focused on ending the interview and getting Murphy’s letter. She’d been focused on the still-likely possibility that Murphy had killed Tim Ebersole. She’d assumed that revenge was the motive behind the shooting outside of Steve and Paul’s apartment.

So okay. She’d blown her chance at an easy hand-off of her camera. Which meant her current priority had to be downloading the pictures onto her computer, and e-mailing copies to everyone she knew—including their FBI brother or sister.

The next step would be to take her camera, with copies of the photos, back to Dave and the FBI, along with Murphy’s letter.

Except, shit. She’d taken her laptop to Sacramento. It was in the trunk of Pat’s VW Rabbit, in that police parking lot, two hours north.

But…all was not lost, because Murphy’s laptop was up with the rest of his gear, in the cabin’s loft. She’d get it set up and start downloading the pictures while she dug through the boxes in the closet and found his letter. She’d be on her way back to Sacramento well inside of an hour.

Hannah slowed her pace as she approached the back of the cabin. Movement caught her eye out by her garden, but it was only a butterfly.

Her plan was to keep within the cover of the trees and brush, circling around to the front and…

Shit.
Someone had been here, hiding in the underbrush. Recently. There were scuff marks and even a footprint made by someone with a very large-sized boot. Large, but not quite as large as Murphy’s. And okay, that print wasn’t two-minutes-ago fresh, as she’d first heartstoppingly thought. It was definitely starting to decay.

Hannah forced herself to breathe because Dave Malkoff had said he’d been in Dalton, looking for Murphy. He’d brought a team with him, and no doubt some of them had been up here, staking the place out, hoping that wherever she and Murph had gone, they’d soon return. It was entirely possible that these footprints belonged to the good guys.

But it would be foolish to assume that without further observation.

Nothing moved up by the cabin, and the driveway was empty.

Which, of course, didn’t mean a thing. If she were waiting for someone to come home so that she could kill them, she wouldn’t park her car near the house, either.

Trying to move as silently as possible, Hannah got one of the bagged handguns from her pack. She wasn’t even sure if the thing would fire, coated as it was with grease and french fry oil, but it would, at the least, be an effective visual aid.

Praying she was being silent, she crept through the brush, moving closer to the front of the house and…

A car was coming.

Hannah felt the vibration and saw the light reflecting off the windshield mere seconds before the vehicle—a midsize sedan—pulled up the driveway, and she flattened, weapon held at ready.

The driver was an elderly woman with white hair, as was the person sitting beside her in the front passenger seat. Neither were what Hannah would have expected from a Freedom Network strike force, but she’d learned through experience as a police officer that nothing was impossible.

The passenger turned as if to speak to someone in the backseat. And the driver put down her window. The car’s back door opened and a young woman got out. Dark hair, medium height, very pretty.

And heavily pregnant.

Whoever she was, she pulled a duffle bag out behind her, shaking her head to something the driver had asked. As Hannah watched, she lugged the bag right up the stairs to the cabin’s porch. Without hesitation, she reached under the rocking chair, where Hannah hid the spare key. She pulled open the screen and unlocked the door. Waving to the sedan’s driver, who’d clearly waited to make sure she got safely inside—as if this wasn’t already weird enough—she dragged her duffle into the house, the screen slapping shut behind her.

And the twin grannies in the sedan drove away.

What the hell?

The pregnant woman was much too young to be one of Patrick’s girlfriends—wasn’t she?

But whoever she was, she’d clearly been here before.

Hannah stayed down, prone in the brush, for a good long time, just watching the cabin, wishing that she could hear whether or not there was a conversation going on inside, wondering if this angelic-looking girl was part of a team sent to kill her and Murphy.

S
ACRAMENTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

“I’m sorry, sir.” Danny Gillman had the enlisted man’s talent of making
sir
sound like an insult, even over the phone. “Hannah’s gone. She put pillows in her bed to make it look like she was there, but…You had Jay and me guarding an empty room.”

Subtext: It was Dave’s fault.

And it was. He should have known better.

And okay, in his defense, he’d checked with the nurses’ station, where he’d been told that Hannah had been given pain meds that would, indeed, make her want to sleep. So he’d assigned Gillman and Lopez the task of guarding her door while he went downtown to check on Murphy.

“Okay,” Dave said, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Okay. How long of a lead does she have on us?”

Gillman made a disgusted noise into his end of the phone. “You should have a better idea of that than we do. She left on your watch.”

Which was…Dave looked at the clock on the wall of the FBI reception area…At best, two and a half hours ago. “Unbelievable.”

“Yup,” Gillman said. “She could be anywhere by now.”

“She went to Dalton,” Dave told the smug bastard. He had no doubt whatsoever that Hannah would be able to get her hands on a car. If she wasn’t in Dalton already, she’d be there soon.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the mysterious letter of which Murphy and Hannah had spoken contained evidence of Murph’s unstable state of mind on or around the time of Tim Ebersole’s murder.

An FBI agent was coming down the hall, his shoes clicking on the tile. It was Jules Cassidy, and he was clearly coming to talk to Dave.

Gillman was not convinced. “You know for a fact—”

“Hang tight,” Dave said. “I’m going to call you back.” He cut the connection and quickly dialed Sophia’s number, holding up one finger to Cassidy. “I’m sorry, sir, one minute, please.”

Sophia answered on the first ring, speaking softly as if she didn’t want to be overheard. “Still no sign of Nash.”

“Are you still in Dalton?”

“Yes, we are,” she said. “Well, Tess and I are. Tracy had to go back to San Diego for some crazy thing called
work.
”

“Put Tess on the phone,” Dave ordered.

“She’s taking a nap,” Sophia informed him. “She didn’t sleep at all last night and…We’re going to check out at noon—”

“Wake her,” Dave said. “Now. I need you both to go over to Hannah’s. Is Tess armed?” He answered his own question. “It doesn’t matter, there’s a gun rack in the cabin. Have Hannah unlock it—I have reason to believe she’s on her way over there. Arm yourselves, help her find what she came to find, and get out, all right? Murphy thinks the Freedom Network is going to go there, looking for them. On the off chance he’s right, I want you in and out.”

The FBI agent sighed. “I probably shouldn’t have heard any of that,” he said as Sophia asked, “Is Hannah going to cooperate?”

“Heard what?” Dave said to Cassidy, turning away slightly to tell Sophia, “Yes, but be careful. She’s not expecting you, she’s deaf, and she’s on edge.” He lowered his voice even more. “I’d also bet my next paycheck that she’s already armed, so be extra cautious in your approach.”

“Got it,” Sophia said.

“Call me when you connect with her, okay? And text message Nash. Tell him where you’re going, what you’re doing, and why. Tell him you need backup, because it’s going to be two hours—at least—before I get there.”

“Wow,” Sophia said. “You know, that was an
awesome
imitation of a team leader—”

“Ha,” Dave said, “Ha. Be safe, Soph, okay?” Hanging up he turned to Cassidy.

Who’d clearly heard it all and wasn’t happy. “Hannah Whitfield’s gone AWOL?” he asked, obviously to confirm he’d heard correctly.

“You got it,” Dave said.

“Shit,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Murphy’s going to be pissed,” Cassidy said, as if Dave hadn’t figured that one out for himself. The FBI agent laughed his exasperation and disgust as he ran his hands down his face. “This complicates an already complicated situation.” He sighed again. “You’re going to hate this. You ready?”

Wonderful. “No,” Dave admitted. “But go on. Hit me.”

“We don’t have enough evidence to hold Murphy,” Cassidy told him, “because the Freedom Network’s been uncooperative. We have reason to believe they’re conducting their own investigation,
and
that they have security camera footage that clearly identifies Ebersole’s killer. Their intention is not to find him and turn him over to the authorities, but rather to execute him on contact to avenge Ebersole’s death.”

He took a deep breath. “Gail Deegan, the local agent in charge of this investigation, thinks Murphy did it. Personally, I’m not so sure. But I do think
Murphy
thinks he might’ve done it. And I think it’s entirely possible, after yesterday’s shooting, that the Freedom Network thinks Murphy did it. I’ve been trying to convince Murphy to go in for a series of psychiatric evaluations, during which time he’ll be in FBI custody.”

And thereby protected from being executed by the Freedom Network. Dave nodded. “What does he have to do to…?”

“It involves a voluntary commitment in a mental health facility,” Cassidy said, “which includes a four-day minimum lockdown.”

Dave was already shaking his head. “He’s never going to agree to that.”

“Yup,” Cassidy agreed. “Certainly not now that Hannah’s AWOL. Thanks so much for that.”

“I can’t not tell him,” Dave said.

“I knew you were going to say that.” Cassidy was resigned. “You
do
understand that when he walks out our door, he’s a target. And if he’s the man they’re looking for? They’re going to go for him, Dave. I have no doubt of that.”

Dave nodded. “Well, it’ll be over my dead body,” he told the FBI agent.