Take the Key and Lock Her Up (15 page)

Well,
hate
might not be the right word.

He made her feel . . . good,
really
good—a first-crush/first-love, tingle-of-awareness kind of good that tightened her
skin and set every nerve ending on fire just to hear the rumble of his deep voice
or watch the fascinating flex of muscles in his arms. She longed to score his biceps
with her nails and feel his muscles bunch beneath her hands, slide her fingers across
that sexy scruff along his jaw. She wanted to pull his mouth down to hers and—

The high-pitched whine of a horn sounded behind her. The light had turned green. She
waved an apology in her rearview mirror and accelerated through the intersection.
Her body flushed with heat at the realization that she’d lost all track of her surroundings
while fantasizing about a man she barely knew. A man full of secrets. A man her intuition
told her was dangerous.

Was that sense of danger because she’d seen him in action, seen how efficiently, effortlessly,
he’d killed Hawley’s abductor? She’d like to believe that was the only reason she
had doubts about him. Because then she could pursue her heady rush of attraction for
Devlin. He certainly hadn’t shown any reaction to either Shannon Fisher’s photograph
or the sketch she’d shown him earlier tonight. That should have reassured her.

It didn’t.

The sixth sense that made her a good detective told her there was something sinister
behind those secrets Devlin was trying so hard to hide. Her instincts were rarely
wrong when it came to ferreting out the truth. So she wasn’t going to ignore them
now.

The only thing she was nearly certain about was that he’d purposely tried to steer
her toward believing his father was the killer’s real target. As Shakespeare would
say, he “doth protest too much.” Devlin’s warnings about his father being in peril
made her even more suspicious that he was trying to redirect her investigation away
from himself.

The last light turned green, allowing her to make the final left turn down her street.
Her one-story Craftsman bungalow normally shined white beneath the streetlight in
front of her yard. Not tonight. The light was out. She’d have to notify the city tomorrow
so they could replace the bulb. She pulled into her driveway and reached up to click
the garage door opener mounted to her visor but paused with her finger on the button.

What would she do once she was inside? Pace the floor all night thinking about the
case? She was exhausted but keyed up at the same time. She had a feeling sleep wouldn’t
come easy, if at all. Unanswered questions hammered at her skull, begging to be explored.

She dropped her hand from the garage remote. Right now, more than anything else, she
needed to know who Devlin
really
was. Because he sure as hell wasn’t a simple tour guide, no matter how
extreme
the adventure. Which meant the company he worked for, EXIT Incorporated, might not
be what it seemed.

The CEO, Cyprian, had been all flowers and sunshine when she’d begun her earlier phone
call with him. Her assassin theory had evoked laughter and a humiliating request to
quote her in their next brochure. He seemed to think clients would get a kick out
of such a ridiculous notion.

Yeah, that call had gone peachy. She hoped her boss wouldn’t hear about it.

She hadn’t had time today to perform any in-depth Internet searches on the company.
And even though her call with the CEO had been painful, it hadn’t raised any red flags.
The company could be exactly what it claimed to be. But with her questions about Devlin
still niggling at her, why not dig further into EXIT to see what turned up? She wouldn’t
have to tell anyone she was researching the company, except maybe Tuck. He was her
partner and she wasn’t going to keep her ideas from him, no matter how much he might
tease her. Because too many times those ideas, after being vetted with him, had turned
into nuggets that broke a case wide open. And one thing was for sure: this case needed
to be broken wide open, fast, if anyone was going to save the missing women.

She threw the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway.

C
OUGAR PEERED THROUGH
the thick bushes beside the garage and watched the gray Ford Fusion drive away. With
the streetlight broken, the yard was cast in darkness. Even knowing he wasn’t alone,
he could barely make out the darker shadow that separated from the row of hedges by
the front door and slid like a wraith beside the garage to join him.

“Did she see you?” Ace’s gravelly voice held a lethal undertone that had Cougar straightening
and turning to face him. This man wasn’t like his usual handler. He wasn’t someone
he felt comfortable having at his back even though they were supposed to be working
together.

Cougar shook his head. “I don’t think so. She just sat there a minute, like she was
thinking about something, then backed out of the driveway. Should we wait until she
returns?”

Ace’s dark eyes glittered in the sliver of moonlight.

“No. We’ve wasted too much time as it is. We’ll return to the hotel. Make new plans
for tomorrow.”

Cougar hesitated.

“Something bothering you, rookie?”

The “rookie” label had Cougar stiffening. This wasn’t his first mission. He’d be off
probation soon as a full-fledged enforcer. “She’s a cop, sir.”

“And?”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. There were very few rules enforcers had to follow:

Rule #1: Enforcers’ families are not to be harmed in any way.

Rule #2: Never kill a fellow enforcer.

Rule #3: Never kill anyone in law enforcement.

The only exception to any of those rules was if EXIT itself was in danger, which usually
meant an official EXIT order had been issued. Cougar hadn’t seen an EXIT order for
the detective. Had she done something to compromise the company? Something that required
immediate remediation rather than going through the EXIT order process? Cougar didn’t
know and wasn’t even sure why they’d been watching the house. This new handler wasn’t
much for sharing information.

“I was just wondering, sir, what the detective did to endanger EXIT. Because if she
hasn’t done anything that . . . well . . . the rules forbid us from, I mean . . .”
He stuttered into silence as Ace drew closer, like a snake curling in on its prey.
The frost in his obsidian gaze made Cougar shiver.

“I’m well aware of the rules and the threshold for an exception. Your job is to follow
my orders, unquestioningly.” He studied Cougar, as if sizing him up. “If you aren’t
ready for fieldwork, I can call your usual handler and have someone else assigned
to this mission.”

Cougar straightened away from the wall.

Ace hissed and shoved him back before glancing through the hedge toward the street.

Chagrined at the reminder to be careful not to be seen, Cougar hunched down. “I
am
ready,” he whispered. “It’s an honor to be chosen for this duty. It’s just that,
staking out a cop . . . surprised me, that’s all.” He laughed nervously. “I shouldn’t
have questioned you, sir. It won’t happen again.”

He waited, growing increasingly uneasy. Ace emitted a sense of danger so strong it
made Cougar want to gag. He swallowed hard, barely resisting the urge to flex his
fingers by the gun holstered on his hip. He tried to keep his expression carefully
blank as he waited for Ace to say, or do, something. Anything.

Ace’s gaze swept down to Cougar’s fingers, as if he knew what Cougar was thinking.
His lips curved in a smile that didn’t come close to reaching his eyes.

“I’ve got to check on a few things. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” Ace strode off
into the darkness, in the opposite direction of their van.

Cougar slumped against the house and brushed a shaky hand across his brow. His stomach
rumbled. He whirled around and threw up his fast-food dinner in the hedge.

D
EVLIN PAUSED IN
the doorway of his bedroom. Technically, just barely, it was still Friday. But it
felt like the hours had dragged on for days. Other than his brief stop here earlier
to drop off his luggage and shower before heading to Alex’s house, he hadn’t been
home in months—not that this place had ever really felt like home. This house was
just somewhere to go between missions, his official address. Situated deep in the
woods on the opposite side of Savannah from where his family lived, it was his safe
place, where he could retreat when he needed to regroup, replan, or reload.

Hidden panels in the walls contained a vast collection of weapons, including ones
he’d designed himself. Nearly every room had at least one go bag of survival gear
that could sustain him for weeks. And the underground garage with its camouflaged
entrance contained a Porsche and a Maserati, fueled and ready to go.

In and around the city he had other vehicles in strategic locations, including several
parking garages downtown. And he had two other homes similar to this one hundreds
of miles away. No one else knew about them, not even his best friend, Gage. Those
houses were his fallbacks, his nuclear options if he ever needed to disappear.

He’d purchased them as soon as his first big paychecks from EXIT had started rolling
in, over a dozen years ago. Each estate had a caretaker and a healthy bank account
for its upkeep, established under an alias buried beneath a trail of dozens of corporations.
Odd that he would think about them now, because he rarely ever did. But after today,
he was rethinking
everything
.

He strode into his bedroom and stopped at the far wall, opposite the bed. He didn’t
expect any security issues. But as was his habit, he slid a panel back to reveal an
electronic screen and quickly checked the security camera views. Satisfied, he closed
the panel and moved in front of the large painting centered on the wall.

It was something Madison had helped him pick out from an exhibit at the Savannah College
of Art and Design. His artistically inclined sister-in-law adored SCAD and had insisted
that he go there with her to find something special for his house. Somehow she’d seemed
to know exactly what might appeal to him and had steered him toward this particular
piece.

Of all the paintings he owned—and he owned quite a few—this one was his favorite:
a night sky full of bright stars that reminded him of the view from his father’s deck.
He pulled the picture back on its hinges, revealing the wall safe behind it. One quick
press of his thumb on the scanner and the lock clicked open.

Bundles of money in foreign currencies, passports, and IDs lay amid other documents
that supported his many aliases. He reached past those and pulled out an inch-thick
rectangular metal box that was just a little longer and wider than a typical piece
of paper. He set it on the dresser beneath the painting and popped open the lid.

Dozens of photographs lay on top. He flipped past the favorites of his family, the
most recent one of Matt and Tessa at their wedding a few months ago. As much as Matt
had chased Tessa over the years, Devlin would have expected him to be confident and
grinning like a fool at the altar. Just the opposite was true. Matt had been the nervous
one, as if he couldn’t believe he’d finally gotten the woman he loved to marry him.
It was his bride, Tessa, who’d grinned the entire time, and teased Matt about how
pale he looked beneath his tan.

After setting the treasured photos aside, all that remained was a half-inch-thick
binder of dossiers on the enforcers who worked for EXIT. The dossiers were supposed
to be secret, protected by firewalls and accessible only by Cyprian and his close
associates. Devlin could appreciate why his boss wouldn’t want this information to
get out. But Cyprian was a little too careful sometimes in what data he shared, which
had put Devlin at a disadvantage the last time he’d hunted a rogue agent, and had
nearly gotten him killed. After that, he’d used some of the computer tricks his brother
Matt had taught him and hacked into the EXIT computer system to obtain the dossiers
on all of the agents.

Every few months he hacked back in through the same security loophole and updated
the information in his binder, until about four months ago, when new security features
were added to the system. Since then, Devlin hadn’t been able to get back in. But
the information was current enough for his purposes today.

He carried the binder across the room and sat at the desk by the window. Each page
was dedicated to one enforcer. At the top were pictures. Beneath those were legal
names, known aliases, and the monikers some preferred to use, such as Ace, Diesel,
or Cobra. The second half of the binder contained summaries of each mission the enforcers
performed.

He flipped through, stopping when he saw the picture of Gage Thomas. He’d joined the
company for one reason: to earn enough money to provide for his little sister, Nancy,
after their parents were killed. He’d bought a big white farmhouse outside of town.
Nancy, enamored with
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
that summer, had christened the house Jackson’s Island, just like in the book, because
the house was surrounded by a “river of grass.” She drove Gage crazy calling him Joe
Harper and herself Tom Sawyer all summer long. Gage had complained about it to Devlin,
not realizing Ace and Kelly were nearby. Of course after that, for months, Ace and
Kelly had teased Gage by calling him Joe Harper. Devlin grinned at the memories.

Nancy was a sophomore in college now, which should have made Gage happy. But her insistence
on majoring in criminal justice had caused a deep rift between them. His secret role
in EXIT had him convinced his sister would become his enemy and a threat if she continued
down that path. He’d criticized her major and demanded she change it, threatening
to cut her off financially. Nancy, knowing nothing about EXIT, couldn’t understand
her brother’s hostility. Rather than change her major, she applied for a scholarship.
And won it.