Zachari, CA
Sunday, 7 p.m.
Scott had the stunned look of a man who’d been hit with a two-by-four. She could almost see his mind spinning as he questioned everything he knew about his role in her “escape.”
Welcome to her world.
He hadn’t deserved to get dragged into this, but there wasn’t much she could do for him even if he was a pawn. He was still trying to decide if he could trust her, and she was trying to figure out how to beat her boss when she was only now catching on to the complexity—and thoroughness—of Duncan’s plan. She’d played right into his trap.
What did he expect her to do next? What could she do instead? And where did Scott fit in? Until he made up his mind about her—and she, him—he was a wild card. She needed to keep up her guard.
“As much as I’d like to explore that more,” Scott finally said, “I think we need to get off the beach, off the streets, and find a place to lay low where we can keep an eye on the news.”
“Won’t the cops be searching the hotels? Especially the sleazy, cash-only ones.”
He pushed up his cap and rubbed his forehead. “Maybe.” Pulling the hat down again, he said, “You’re probably not even on the cops’ radar yet, but once they figure out who Suresh…was, you will be.”
That familiar pain sliced at her chest. Jay. She took a deep breath and imagined her sorrow as a black square. She squished it up really small, shoved it into an imaginary jar, and screwed the lid on tight. That jar in her head held some doozies, and if it ever broke, she’d probably end up on the floor as a puddle of goo.
“If I check us in,” Scott said, “we should be okay. They won’t be looking for me.”
“You were there too. And you called it in.”
He nodded. “Yeah, but I haven’t been on the news. Who would recognize me?”
“You’re assuming Duncan won’t tell the police you’re part of this.” Clearly, Scott was still struggling to believe the man who’d funded his paycheck would implicate him.
“That would put him under scrutiny too,” he said.
“Yeah, but there’s no need to consider him a suspect when I’ve been the perfect patsy. The fact that you still think I might have done this just proves how well I played into Duncan’s hands. And so have you.”
Scott cut her off with a sharp jerk of his chin. “Enough. Let’s table this until we have something more than speculation.”
She clamped her mouth shut. It was easy to forget that his unassuming surfer boy exterior concealed a dangerous man.
“Let’s go,” he said, waving her to standing. “There’s a hotel a few blocks down that should work for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get my van if the area’s clear.”
“Do I have a choice?” She held her chin high and looked him in the eye.
He stared back, his expression giving away nothing. “You chose to trust me before. Has something changed?”
“Then, it was either you or the cops. Now that I’m free of the sports bar, why shouldn’t I take off on my own?” She stood and crossed her arms. “For all I know, you’re planning to give me up to Duncan.”
“If I give you up to anyone, it’ll be the police.”
Her laugh came out low and bitter. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
He held her gaze. “Look, I agree something’s fucked up about this whole scenario. Until we figure it out, I’m not inclined to hand you over to your boss or the cops.” Leaning in, his gorgeous blue eyes earnest as hell, he said, “I’m also not inclined to let you navigate this on your own. I can protect you.”
“And if you decide I’m guilty?”
“I’m a patriot, Valerie,” he said. No blink, no flinch, no apology. No further explanation necessary. If she had committed treason, he’d drop her on the feds’ doorstop and never look back.
Oddly enough, it was his candor that made her decision.
“Then I guess I’d better figure out how to prove I’m innocent.”
Twenty minutes later, Scott entered room 11 of the Waves Motel, which offered free color TV and FM radio—what a deal—unlimited adult movies, and three hours of rent for under thirty bucks. Exactly the kind of place the police would expect them to go for, and just as craptastic as one would imagine.
A faded pink tropical-print bedspread clashed with turquoise carpet riddled with bare patches and bleach spots. The room smelled like disinfectant and mold in equal measure.
Three light taps on the hotel room door caused him to abort his reluctant check of the bathroom, but the black stains around the edge of the tub had already convinced him a shower wasn’t in his best interest anyway. Maybe a combat wipe-down if the washcloths weren’t disgusting.
He checked through the viewer and opened the door to Valerie, stepping back so she could enter. “I wasn’t sure you’d show.”
“You have my money.” She swept inside, the faint floral scent of her shampoo hitting him straight in the gut.
The more time he spent with her, the more he believed she was innocent. Which made him…what? He’d basically stalked her for weeks. Not illegal—PIs did it all the time—but he still felt lower than a slug. His one justification had been her betrayal of the U.S. Without that, Scott had nothing. The more he learned, the more he believed his real purpose had been to make her appear guilty.
He swallowed past the bitter taste in his mouth and shut the door, fastening the rickety security chain.
Valerie made a beeline for the bathroom. A couple minutes later, she emerged, shaking her head. “This place is pretty gross, but the towels smell like bleach, so that’s something.”
Small favors.
She stood next to the queen-sized bed, holding her elbows, one hip cocked to the side to support the weight of her flowered bag. “I don’t suppose this place has WiFi.”
“Not free. I’m guessing that’s not usually a priority for pay-by-the-hour clients.”
Her gaze strayed to the bed, and she shuddered.
“We’d need a credit card to activate it. That’s a risk we can’t take.”
The flowered bag landed on the wobbly faux-wood nightstand with a light thud. “Not a problem,” she said. “I have a couple of Visa gift cards in my wallet for just such an occasion.” She started digging.
Hot damn. He studied her with renewed appreciation.
But maybe that meant she’d been planning this for months. He shook his head and turned to the large television perched precariously on a beat-up dresser missing its top drawer.
“Let’s hope this thing plays more than porn,” he muttered, pressing the power button. The screen sprang to life, showing a naked, muscular Black man splayed on a couch, getting sucked off by an equally naked blonde. Her enormous tits jiggled back and forth with her enthusiastic efforts, and a second man behind her was—
Scott stabbed the channel button on the remote, rapidly scanning past the adult movies lineup. Thank God the TV was muted. Not that it kept his dick from taking notice. Fucking perfect. As if being in close quarters with Valerie wasn’t difficult enough. Especially now that he was starting to believe she might be the real victim.
Finally, he landed on a local evening news show giving their bottom-of-the-hour recap and turned up the sound. After a lead-in about some kind of scandal with the city council, the Barbie-like brunette got to the story Scott wanted.
“Police are investigating a murder at Good Old Days Bar and Grill on Harbor Drive tonight after a man was found dead in the parking lot. Rick Montoya has the details.”
Valerie’s footfalls approached from behind him, and Scott stepped aside to let her see the screen.
The view shifted to a dark-haired man standing across the street from the bar. He spouted what little they knew about the victim and the shooter. “Police are trying to track down the man who called in the attack. They’re also looking for this woman”—Valerie gasped as her picture appeared in the upper corner of the screen—“Valerie Sanchez, who’s wanted in connection with the murder of two federal agents in Virginia during her arrest on suspicion of espionage. Sanchez was seen arguing with the victim just moments before he left the restaurant.”
“Bastards,” she whispered with heat. Scott glanced at her. No tears, but her cheeks were flushed. “There was a small part of me that hoped…”
“I was lying?” he asked.
She nodded and sighed. “So, I guess I’m on the radar now. The kitchen staff saw us leaving together. It won’t be long before they’re looking for you too.”
“Guess I should ditch the hat.”
“And maybe shave,” she suggested.
“In this germ-infested hole?” He removed his ball cap and dropped it into a small metal trash bin. “No thanks.” Moving into the bathroom, he wet down his hat-plastered hair and splashed water on his face, watching it run down the rust-stained drain. Framed just so in his camera lens, the chipped porcelain might appear artsy, but in person the effect was ruined by the musty scent and peeling linoleum.
The limp white towel on the rack smelled of bleach, so he dried his face and hair, and snuck a peek at Valerie through the doorway.
The more he thought about it, the more he believed she was telling the truth. How much did he know about her employer, the man who’d hired Steele Security to watch her?
Kurt Steele, Scott’s boss, had done his due diligence on Aggressor and Hollowell. Both had good reputations, and Hollowell had friends in high places on Capitol Hill. But the thing with Suresh was not a mugging, not a random attack…
And Scott had told Hollowell where to find the guy not ten minutes before.
If he’d known someone had intended to take out Suresh, he would have—
What? What would he have done? Walked out on the job?
Bloodshot eyes stared back at him in the mirror. Hell, yes. Some would call him a hypocrite, but the targets he’d eliminated in the line of duty—or working for Steele—had been clear threats to innocent lives or his teammates. He’d take them out again in a heartbeat. No thought required.
But how had Suresh been a threat?
If Suresh’s story gave credence to Hollowell’s assertion that Valerie and Suresh were working together—or even proved that Valerie had been working on her own—then the old man needed him alive. Should have been desperate for his testimony. Killing the other hacker only made sense if he was a risk to Hollowell and/or Aggressor.
Fuck me. Scott rubbed both hands down his face.
He finger-combed his hair and flipped off the bathroom light. Valerie had pulled back the bedcovers to expose threadbare-but-clean sheets and sat against the headboard with her computer in her lap.
“Any luck with the WiFi?”
“I’m in,” she said, without looking up.
“If you start digging into shit, won’t someone be able to track our location?”
She gave him a patronizing smile. “Uh, hacker. Remember?”
He gave her his best “unimpressed” look.
Rolling her eyes, she said, “I’m using a special browser that runs my traffic through multiple layers of anonymous servers. And a few other tricks. You want more details?”
If her sparkling eyes were any indication, she was enjoying having the upper hand for a change. The combination of that look and her being in a bed made it hard for Scott to focus.
At least she hadn’t started rattling off a bunch of computer jargon. That might have helped cool his libido, but he didn’t want a reminder that compared to her, he was a dimwit.
He shook his head. “I’d like to hear your side of the story.”
She glanced up in surprise. “Why now?”
Leaning against the wall—because he sure as hell wasn’t joining her on the bed, and there was no place else to settle—he crossed his arms and studied her. “Look, I’m not some unthinking pawn for your boss. And I don’t like being played. Right now, all I know is what he told me and what I’ve witnessed. It’s not all adding up, and I’d like to hear your version so I can make my own decision.”
She closed the lid on her laptop and held it with both hands. “You probably know my pa… my father was a hacker, right?”
“And that he went to jail.”
A shadow crossed her face.
“But you don’t have to start at childhood,” he said. “I’m asking about the last few weeks.”
Valerie stared at her bare feet. At some point after arriving in balmy southern California, she’d painted her toenails—and fingernails—an orangey pink that looked great against her light brown skin. Tasty, like a tropical fruit.
Head in the game, Kramer.
“I think he’s the reason I’m in this mess.”
“Explain.”
She crossed her ankles and rested her head against the wall. “Hollowell knew my background. I learned almost everything about hacking from my papá, and I helped him with his cons until my early teens. He went by DarkHand in his phreaking days, and there are still plenty of people out there who would recognize that handle. He was a bit of a legend,” she said, with a mixture of distaste and reverence.
“Freaking?”
“Phreaking with a P-H. Phreakers cracked the phone networks, mostly to make free long-distance calls. Anyway, who better for a scapegoat than the girl whose dad is a famous black hat hacker in jail for running a massive credit card fraud site, among other things? I’m the obvious choice.”
She was right. If Hollowell—or someone else—had set her up, she was the perfect scapegoat.
“I’ve been following you for nearly a month. Let’s cover that time frame.”
She looked away with a frown. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I’m good at my job.”
“Were you ever inside my apartment?” Her voice rose, thin and tight as she met his gaze again. “Or my house here?”
“No.” If he wanted her trust and honesty, he had to give it. “I did go through your trash.”
“Why?” Her nose wrinkled.
“Looking for clues about your plans. Trying to figure out who you were working for.”
She shivered. “I still feel violated.”
What could he say to that? He had absolutely invaded her privacy. Still, he wasn’t going to apologize. If she was guilty, he had no regrets. And if she wasn’t, he couldn’t change the past.
“Were you really a Marine, or was that just part of your cover story?”
He nodded. “I was a scout sniper. Scott Kramer is my real name, but I don’t work at Aggressor. That was my cover. I work for Steele Security, a contractor in Arlington. Hollowell hired me specifically to follow you.”
Valerie shook her head slowly and stared unseeing at the tacky wood paneling on the far wall. “I can’t believe he went to all of this trouble. And those poor FBI agents and Jay…” Tears shimmered in her pretty brown eyes. “There must be some serious money at stake.”
Either she was a stellar actress, or she was actually innocent. Although, considering her background running scams with her father—what kind of nutcase would call himself DarkHand, for Christ’s sake?—she might just be snowing Scott completely. “For the kind of information we’re talking about, hell yeah.”
She sighed. “He seemed like such a patriot. I mean, he started Aggressor after he left the army because he wanted to keep fighting in any way he could. I’d like to think money wouldn’t be enough to sway him.”
“Maybe it wasn’t.” Her attitude toward money gelled with his impression of her from the start. But that proved nothing. “Blackmail and extortion are pretty effective too.” But they were getting too far off track.
“The part that I can’t get past is your rescue,” he said. “Two good men are dead because someone wanted you to run. That’s pretty damning.”
Her jaw tensed. “I agree, but I have no idea who would have done it.”
“Your buyers would have a vested interest in your escape. At least until they got what they were looking for.”
“If I had buyers.” She let loose a long sigh and dropped her head into her palms. Was he imagining the slight tremble in her shoulders? “How do you know the sniper wasn’t trying to kill me too?” she asked, her voice muffled.
“Because he didn’t. You were wide open, and none of his bullets even came close.”
Her head lifted and she nailed him with her solemn brown eyes. “You were there?”
“Yeah.”
Recognition dawned on her face. “Green Parka. I thought you were another attacker.”
He nodded, ignoring the pulse of regret in his chest. He’d run flat out, but he hadn’t been fast enough to save the agents.
“So, by helping me escape,” she said, “the shooter made me look guilty. As if someone outside the law needed me alive.”
“However it went down, it definitely made you appear guilty.” If she was innocent, her escape from the FBI also deflected suspicion away from whoever actually stole the files. “Tell me about your offshore account.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Okay.” Scott had taken the old man at his word. There’d been no reason not to believe him. But could he believe her?
“Besides, if I did, no one would be able trace it back to me.”
He didn’t understand her world and what she was capable of, so she could be bluffing, but her assertion seemed plausible. If she could hack into Westgate Defense Systems, surely she could work some sleight of hand with a bank in the Caribbean.
Then again, criminals never expected to get caught. Sometimes they got cocky and did stupid shit.
“If the audit team didn’t find an offshore account, then what triggered Hollowell to have you followed?” Scott asked.
“I discovered that someone had been compromising our past clients using the same vulnerabilities I’d already identified. I told Duncan I thought someone was intercepting my reports, maybe leaving out one of the potential security holes so they could access it later.” She dropped her head to her knees. “That was my first mistake. As soon as he knew I was onto him, he must have put his plan in motion. It wasn’t until the next day that I found out our so-called clients had never actually hired Aggressor at all. I’d been working on bogus accounts all along, digging myself in deeper with every job.”
She punched the bed. “He had us illegally cracking accounts without even knowing it, and since Jay and I never dealt directly with the clients, we were none the wiser. I worked so hard to go legit and now…”
Scott rubbed his forehead with two fingers. The Aggressor job had sounded like such a sweet gig—shadow a quiet hacker chick for a few weeks and keep his stalking skills sharp—but now? Total clusterfuck. “So you’re the perfect fall guy because of your history.”
She nodded. “And I’m thinking you’re perfect because of yours.”
“You mean as a sniper?”
She frowned and pointed to the TV screen, which displayed his passport photo, in which he was clean-cut and clean-shaven and about a million years younger.
He strode forward and jabbed the volume UP button.
“…that Kramer, a security specialist from Virginia, might be working with Sanchez,” the man-on-the-scene reporter said. “The former Marine sniper is wanted for questioning in the death of the two FBI agents who were killed when Sanchez escaped their custody. Police are assuming the pair is armed and dangerous. Central Coast residents are cautioned—”
“A sniper shot the FBI agents,” Valerie said, talking over the reporter. “You were in the area. You’re a sniper. Now you’re here with me. Who wouldn’t think you’re guilty?”