Special Agent's Perfect Cover (9 page)

“Spirit sounds good,” Patterson agreed.

“Right about now,
anything
sounds good to him, Bledsoe,” Rosenbloom explained as he turned back to the meal that was almost ready. “I think he’s getting cabin fever.”

Patterson had been the last of the four of them to arrive here.

“After only twelve hours?” Hawk asked incredulously. They hadn’t even gotten their feet wet yet. And while he was hoping that he could find enough evidence to quickly wrap up the case, he was too realistic to pin his hopes on that.

“Doesn’t take long,” Patterson volunteered. “You forget, I’m a city boy. What the hell do people do around here for entertainment—besides watching paint dry and grass grow, I mean.”

“I don’t know about ‘other people,’” Hawk told him, “but you’re going over anything we can find on Samuel Grayson. That includes his background from the minute he was born as well as the people he’s associated with since then.”

Patterson glanced toward the front window, and Hawk could almost read the other man’s mind.

“And under no circumstances,” he went on to warn, “are you or Rosy or Jeffers to go into Cold Plains. Strangers stand out like sore thumbs there. I don’t want Grayson getting it into his head that I didn’t come alone.” They didn’t have much going for them, so this at least gave them the element of surprise if they needed it. Every little bit helped.

“What about supplies?” Rosenbloom wanted to know. “I can’t make this stew last for more than a couple of days, Hawk.”

“No one’s asking for the miracle of the fishes and the loaves,” Hawk replied, walking into the alcove for a moment. He nodded at the stove. “Where’d you get those?”

“Little town thirty miles south of here,” Rosenbloom answered. “Hadleyville, I think it was called.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar to him. “Then that’s where you’ll go to get anything else. Cold Plains is full of grinning zombies. I could use a little leverage on my side, and it looks like you three are going to be it.”

“Zombies?” Patterson questioned with a touch of confusion.

Hawk snorted. “They might as well be. From what I saw, they look like the only thoughts they had in their heads were the ones put there by Grayson.”

“Is everyone on board with this guy?” Patterson wanted to know.

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Hawk answered, then added with a grin, “After I have some of Rosy’s stew, of course.”

“Coming right up, Fearless Leader,” Rosenbloom sang out. The next minute, he walked into the living room, using a makeshift tray he’d created out of a board of wood to carry four bowls of hot stew.

The warm meal didn’t quite wipe away the cold, tight knot that had formed in Hawk’s stomach the moment he had seen Carly, but he had to admit that it did help. Some. At least he now felt ready to face the very definite possibility of seeing her again.

Chapter 6

A
week went by.

A week involving what turned out to be mostly painstakingly fruitless observations and smoldering, growing frustration. Though he would have been the first to say he’d severed all ties to Cold Plains, the truth was that Hawk did
not
like what he saw happening within the town he’d once called home. The more he watched, the more annoyed he became.

He grew more convinced that, at the very least, Samuel Grayson was out to line his own pockets at the expense of the weak-minded sheep who had so easily fallen under his spell. It was as if they had no backbone, no will of their own.

He continued to try Micah’s number at least once a day, with the same frustrating results. Micah wasn’t picking up and he was nowhere to be found.

Hawk’s bad feeling continued to escalate.

He and the three special agents who comprised his team went on gathering information both on Grayson and on anyone in the man’s employ. They relied on both covert, firsthand observations as well as doing intense research as they went over old records and current databases.

Every night, before he finally returned to his hotel room in town, a hotel room he was certain Grayson had bugged, Hawk would find himself driving over to the farm where Carly still lived.

The farm that had come between them because she had remained to operate it for her father and sister, and he had left to find his true destiny.

All the other nights, he had just driven past it, glancing to see if the lights were on.

They always were.

But tonight, tonight was different. Instead of continuing on his way, he’d stopped. Not slowed down as he’d initially intended, but stopped dead. He turned off his engine.

Hawk leaned back in the driver’s seat, willing the knots out of his shoulders. He told himself that he was here because he had questions for her. Questions about what was going on in town. Questions that pertained to the five murdered women.

After all, if she hadn’t left town, hadn’t moved on in all this time, who better to talk to about Cold Plains and the changes that had taken place than Carly? She was an observant woman, she should have insight into these things. The fact that he’d had feelings for her shouldn’t matter.

Shouldn’t.

But it did.

Because he still had feelings for her. He hadn’t realized just how much or how strong until the second he’d seen her a week ago.

Hell, the whole damn world had just stopped dead on its axis, freezing in place. The only sound he’d heard for a split second was the sound of his own heart banging against his rib cage, fit to kill.

So much for telling himself that he was over her. That he would
ever
be over her, for that matter.

Hawk squared his shoulders. Well, he wouldn’t get any questions answered like this, sitting inside his car, watching darkness creep in and surround her house.

He allowed anger to get the better of him. It got his blood pumping, and that, in turn, forced him to get out of the car.

She’d been home for over half an hour now. That was how long he’d sat out there, watching the house. Debating his next move.

He’d followed her from the school, where she’d remained far longer than her students had. Though he told himself not to be, he had been consumed with curiosity about what she was doing and what had kept her there until almost seven, practically four hours after parents and school buses had shown up to transport students back to their homes. Was she grading papers? Talking to other teachers?

Spending time with Grayson?

A flash of something hot, unwieldy and unreasonable shot through him. Hawk refused to identify or put a label on it. Jealousy was for other people, not him. Certainly not now.

For a second, he focused on Grayson. He knew that Samuel Grayson and Micah, his missing informant, were twins, and at first glance, the two men did look alike. But while Micah was a natural for his chosen line of work, a methodical, keenly observant man of few words who could terminate a man’s existence with a minimum of moves, Samuel was outgoing, gregarious and not only played up but relied on his looks.

No matter how you dressed him up, Samuel Grayson still reminded him of a snake oil salesman. And from what he’d heard, Grayson actually
was
selling something. Grayson had his people collecting, bottling and preparing half liter bottles of “healing” tonic water.

The water in question came from the creek behind the community center. Legend had it that the water had immense healing powers and that, some said, it actually had some of the elements of a fountain of youth in it, as well.

Bottles of this “healing water” were placed on sale—“offered” at twenty-five dollars a pop—in the community center. The water that flowed in the creek was no longer available to the citizens of Cold Plains except through Grayson. He had seen to that, buying the land on both sides of the creek and turning it into private property.

Not only were bottles placed on sale independently, but they were also on sale at the weekly seminars that he gave. Regular attendance was mandatory if those in his flock wanted to remain in good standing with both Grayson and the rest of the “community.” Purchase of the bottled water was mandatory, as well. And with each purchase, Grayson’s coffers became a little fuller.

The man had a hell of a racket going for him, Hawk couldn’t help thinking. He could understand how a lot of the people who lived here had gotten ensnared. They’d been trapped by dreams of well-being and contentment that Grayson seemed to be able to market so effortlessly. The people of Cold Plains had had so very little to cling to, and Grayson dealt in hope. Albeit unrealistic hope, but when a person was truly desperate, any hope was better than none at all.

That was their excuse, he thought, dismissing the other citizens he’d seen herded into Grayson’s “meeting center.” But what was hers?

Carly had never been a woman to wallow in self-pity or one who allowed herself to be sidelined or defeated by dwelling on worst-case scenarios. When they were growing up, she had always been the one to buoy him up, to make him feel as if he could put up with it all, because there was a better life waiting for him—for them—on the horizon.

Granted she’d dashed it all by telling him that the one thing he had clung to—that she loved him—was a lie. But even that wouldn’t explain why she had been transformed from an independent, intelligent young woman to an obedient, mindless robot.

He couldn’t have been
that
wrong about her, Hawk told himself.

Finally climbing out of the car, Hawk resisted the temptation to slam the door in his wake. Instead, he merely closed it, then strode over to her front door—just the way he had done so very many times in the past.

He ached for things that lay buried deep in years gone by.

Hawk rang the bell—and heard nothing. No one had ever gotten around to fixing the doorbell, he realized. It had been broken when he used to call on her.

Some things never changed.

Too bad that other things did.

Raising his hand, he knocked on the door. Then goaded by impatience, he knocked again. He’d just raised his hand to knock for a third time when the door finally opened.

Carly, with her hair pinned back from her face, stood in the doorway. She wore frayed jeans and a T-shirt that had seen one too many washings.

She’d never looked more beautiful to him.

He saw surprise, instantly followed by uneasiness, pass over her face. Her eyes darted from one side to the other, as if checking the area. Then rather than asking him what he was doing here or what he wanted, she ordered sharply, “Get inside,” and stepped to one side to give him access.

All but yanking him in, she scanned the darkening, flat terrain one last time, then quickly closed the door behind him.

Whirling around to face Hawk, she finally spoke. “What are you doing here?”

The question was tersely asked and no empty, mindless smile accompanied her words. She wasn’t smiling at all. Instead, she appeared agitated.

That was more like it,
he thought. But was she agitated? Did it have to do with finding him here—or was Grayson behind her display of uneasiness?

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded. “And what the hell happened to you?”

“You don’t answer a question with more questions,” she informed him, snapping out her words. It was a defense mechanism. Because she was afraid where this would wind up taking her.

Taking them.

“I don’t want an English lesson or a grammar lesson, Carly,” he retorted in the same exasperated tone she had just used. “I want an answer.”

All promises to hold on to his temper had flown out the proverbial window. He cut the distance between them from several feet down to less than a few inches.

He was in her space and she in his, and the air turned hot and sultry between them, despite the fact that outside, the April night was crisp and clean. And more than a little cold.

“Damn it, Carly,” he shouted at her, “this isn’t you.”

“This is me,” she countered stubbornly.

Hawk’s brown eyes darkened as they narrowed. “I refuse to believe that.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, you don’t have a say in it. It is what it is, no matter what you say to the contrary,” she maintained stubbornly. “Besides, you’ve been gone for ten years, you have no idea what kind of transformations have been going on and taking place here,” she pointed out.

“Maybe not.” He agreed to the general principle she’d raised. “The town looks like it’s gone to hell in that handbasket our grandmothers were always talking about.”

She would have smiled if this wasn’t so serious. “The town has prospered,” she contradicted, dutifully spouting the party line. For all she knew, he was now in Grayson’s employ, too. He was out here to trip her up for some reason she hadn’t figured out yet. “Just look around the next time you’re on Main Street.”

“I have.” His expression told her that he was far from impressed with the changes. She would have been—had they not come at such a high price. “It’s like they all made a deal with the devil.” He paused, his eyes pinning her. “Did you do that, too, Carly? Did you make a deal with the devil?”