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Warwick stopped reading to rub his tired, burning eyes for a moment before sitting back against the old, tattered couch cushion and staring at the glowing screen of his laptop.
He’d spent the past few hours going over everything he could remember that might be linked to the threat against him, then made a list of everything and everyone he thought might be involved in the current threat facing him and Marley. Had racked his brain for every detail and recorded it all, even things that seemed insignificant or unlikely.
He still couldn’t put the pieces together. Was still no closer to finding out what the hell was going on and who was after him. There was no obvious thread to tug on. No common links that might explain what had happened.
The only thing that made any sense was at the top of his list. Home Front was still active in the area despite recent FBI and other law enforcement efforts to break the organization and shut down local cells. It was still his best guess as to who might be after him. But why target him specifically? How would they know he was here?
He thought of the men he’d seen following him in Durham. It was possible that someone linked to Home Front in the UK had tracked him there initially after Grey was killed, and had someone pick up his trail from Portland. And he still wasn’t certain whether the drive-by car was the same one he’d seen at the waterfront previously. It was possible there were more people involved in this than he’d first imagined.
It didn’t seem likely he’d been followed without picking up on it, but if it was true, it meant he’d been inexcusably careless at some critical point. And now Marley was paying for it along with him.
He shut the laptop, plunging the room into instant darkness. It was just after midnight but there was no way he could sleep.
Glancing down the hall, he saw there was no strip of light coming from beneath the master bedroom door. Marley must have turned it off in the past hour or so while he’d been preoccupied. She’d done her best to avoid him all night and was probably asleep. Or at least pretending to be.
Standing, he made his way down the hall with silent treads. Paused within reach of the master door.
All around him, the house was silent. He could hear the wind outside, sighing in the trees surrounding the property. A steady barrage of raindrops drummed on the roof.
They were alone. Safe. That should have been enough for the moment.
But all he could think about was Marley lying in the bed on the other side of this door.
All he could think about was climbing into it with her. And what a selfish bastard he would be if he did.
There was a zero percent chance that he could lie next to her and not touch her. Not draw her to him, wake her with kisses, slide his hands beneath covers and clothing to find her smooth, bare skin.
And not stop until he was buried as deep as he could get inside her. Until they were joined as intimately and completely as humanly possible and she was crying out in the throes of orgasm. More than once before the night was through.
He was starving for her. Had been starving for her for almost a year and a half. Their kiss this morning told him she still wanted him too.
His body tensed, knowing she was right here, right on the other side of this door...
With a mental curse, he turned around and forced himself to walk back down the hall for the air mattress Beckett had left inside the front door. Partway there, he paused. The guestroom was right beside Marley’s. Inflating that thing now would surely wake her, no matter how quiet he tried to be.
So the sofa it was.
Back in the living room, he winced as he folded up his tall frame on the worn cushions. His side throbbed where he’d taken the impact of that boot. But that was nothing compared to the current ache he felt inside.
The rain continued to patter on the roof as he lay there, the wind gusting through the trees and around the eaves with a low moan. Tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep. Too amped up, too uncomfortable, too caught up in his head about Marley and how the hell he was supposed to get them out of this.
He desperately wanted to break through the wall she’d put up between them. To bring it crashing down so they could recapture the way things had been between them before. So he could have another chance to make things right. Build a future with her once this was done.
That was like wishing for the damn moon.
He tossed and turned for hours on his lumpy, uncomfortable bed while the wind turned from a moan to a low howl along the eaves. Finally, toward dawn, he drifted off at last. Only to jolt awake when his mobile buzzed on the low table beside him. He reached for it automatically, winced as his bruised side protested, and squinted at the screen.
Ivy was calling and it wasn’t yet seven. “Areet, Ivy?” He kept his voice low. The house was still quiet, Marley still in her room. Either asleep or determined to keep avoiding him as long as possible.
“Hi. Did I wake you?”
“No, it’s alright.”
“How’s Marley?”
Something about her tone told him she was fishing for intel about the two of them. He put a stop to any speculation now. “Still asleep in her room.”
“Oh.” If he wasn’t mistaken, she sounded a little disappointed. “Cracked your email mystery overnight. The sender wasn’t that sophisticated about trying to hide their location. Whoever it was bounced the email off a different server inland, but it wasn’t hard to trace it back and then triangulate to find the origin.”
“Which was?”
“Crimson Point. Right on the northern edge of town from a house up on the hill. I looked up the address and it’s listed as a rental. I hacked into the host company’s site and got the credit card number used for the booking, but if this guy’s really a pro like you think he is, then it won’t go anywhere. Name on the account is Chris Stringer.”
She was a bit scary with what she could do on her own without being caught, but in a cracking way, and this sort of thing was child’s play for her. “Don’t know anyone by that name.” Probably a stolen card or an alias anyway, but he would find out who’s staying at the property.
“I’ll keep digging. Or I’ll get Amber on it, because Walker and I have meetings at CPS starting first thing this morning.”
“Marley’s brother has an interview there this morning too. Not sure what time.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for him while we’re there. You guys need anything else?”
Short of finding the bloke who’d attacked him, no. “No, everythin’ you’ve already done is more than enough. Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure. Has the sheriff’s department uncovered anything yet?”
“No.”
“Not surprising. They’re a small unit with limited resources. I’ll look more into this later when I get back and update you if I find anything else.”
“Cheers.” He ended the call, sat up and opened his laptop, thinking hard. Ivy or Amber may yet uncover something that would give him a solid lead to follow. But as of right now, he’d exhausted all the resources currently available to him and was no further ahead.
Restless and needing something to do, he got up and checked the perimeter of the property for any sign that someone had been here overnight. The rain had left the ground soft, but there were no footprints or vehicle tracks near the house.
Satisfied that all was as it should be, he went back inside. Marley’s door was still shut. At this rate she might be planning to stay in there until she was on the verge of starving to avoid him. It was making him mental.
The kitchen hadn’t been touched since he’d tidied it after eating with Marley yesterday. He put on coffee for her and filled the kettle to make himself a cuppa of the strong Yorkshire tea Ivy had bought him. After downing two cups and updating and reviewing all the notes he’d compiled so far, almost two hours had passed since Ivy’s call.
An online search on Chris Stringer didn’t turn up anything helpful. The next step was to do recon on the actual rental to see if he could get a look at the person staying there, but he wasn’t leaving Marley here alone and didn’t want to put her at further risk by bringing her. He would need Ivy and Walker’s help to uncover more.
The cursor blinked at the end of his notes, waiting for him to add more. But with the holes in his memory blocking his efforts to put them together, everything he’d thought of was a dead end.
There was nothing more he could do to crack this on his own. No other threads for him to pull on. It was time to reach out and ask for help from further afield.
He found the number he needed in his contact list and dialed it. “Commander,” he said when the man answered. “It’s Warwick James.” He was one of the few people who had been there for him while he was in hospital.
“Warwick? God, it’s been a long time. How are you?”
He could hear indistinct voices in the background. “I’ve been better, to be honest.”
“Why, what’s going on?”
“I need your help.”
“Yes, of course, anything you need. Where are you, anyway?”
“It’s a bit of a long story.” Taking a deep breath, Warwick told him the gist of what was happening. He left out Marley’s name but explained everything else, including the attacker, the email and where it had been sent from. “Cardholder is listed as Chris Stringer. That name mean aught to you?”
A pause. “No, I’m afraid it doesn’t. How certain are you that this has something to do with the Grey case?” More voices in the background, muffled. As if his former commander had stepped into another room for privacy. Warwick pictured him standing at his office window overlooking the London traffic moving across the Thames.
“I’m sure.” Nothing else seemed plausible.
“Ah. Well. That’s good enough for me, then. Where are you, exactly?”
“Somewhere safe.” He wouldn’t disclose the location directly, even to him.
“Good, good. Listen, I have a meeting right now, but I’m going to look into this as soon as I’m done and get back to you. All right?”
“Aye. Thank you.” Any help at all would be appreciated.
“No need to thank me. We’ll get to the bottom of this together, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, a measure of relief sliding through him. With his former commander and Ivy helping them, things were bound to start moving soon.
****
Roland shot off a quick text and tucked his phone away when he entered the meeting room on the top floor of Crimson Point Security, put on a smile for Walker and Ivy in spite of the renewed sense of alarm coursing through him as they both stood from their seats at the conference table. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I had to take an important call.”
And send an even more important message.
“Not at all,” Walker said.
“Thank you for meeting with me. It’s nice to see you both in person.”
“Likewise,” said Walker as they shook hands.
He turned to Ivy, shook with her too. She was decidedly cooler, her expression unreadable.
Releasing her hand, he pulled out a chair for himself, unable to shake the feeling that she was assessing him. It didn’t help that her background was a complete blank for him, even after his enquiries. Whoever she really was, the Americans had gone to a lot of trouble to hide her true identity. “Well. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this company recently.” He glanced around the room, past Ivy and Walker to the view of the sea beyond the large windows lining the west side of the building. “Not a bad spot for headquarters, if a bit unconventional and off the beaten track.”
“We like it,” Walker said, his posture relaxed. Deceptively so. From what Roland knew about him and the events in Durham, Walker was not only a skilled interrogator, he wasn’t someone you would want as an enemy. “So, what brings you to Crimson Point?”
“I’m on my way to Seattle from San Fran for more meetings and thought I’d stop in to see you both in person to thank you again for everything you did to assist with the Grey case. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve spoken but security services in the UK are still working hard on identifying people linked to him and Home Front. We’ve made several key arrests as well.”
“Yes, we’re aware,” Ivy said, reminding him not so subtly that she was able to stay apprised of sensitive intel all on her own without official permission or any kind of security clearance. A bit disconcerting, but at least they were on the same side.
“How are the cleanup efforts going in Durham?” Walker asked.
He and Ivy had a good cop-bad cop dynamic going. Roland couldn’t help but feel like he was in a kind of subtle interrogation. “Slowly coming along. Engineers are reinforcing the last section of the tunnel right before the crypt. They’re still unsure whether there’s enough structural integrity in the vault itself to allow it to be saved. But we’re hopeful that it can. After all the press since the Grey op, there’s been massive public interest in the city. Reopening the tunnel and crypt would be a great tourist draw for the region.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t be going back in there anytime soon,” Ivy said.
“Understandable. You all had a close call down there.”
“Several close calls, actually.”
“Yes. And then there’s James, who was nearly killed by another of Grey’s devices last year. Have either of you heard from him since you got back, by the way? I reached out to him but he never responded.”
“No, we haven’t heard anything,” Walker said. “But if we do, we’ll let him know to get in touch with you.”
“I’d appreciate it. Maybe he’s on a well-deserved holiday somewhere then, eh?” Roland smiled, trying to figure out if they were lying to him. Both were impossible to read, even for him. Neither gave away a single clue with their body language or eye movement. But the chances that James would travel all the way here to this small coastal town where they lived and not make contact?
Zero as far as Roland was concerned. He knew James was digging for intel about what was happening. Were they protecting him?
A subtle buzz in his pocket signaled he had a new message. He was anxious to see if it was what he’d been waiting for but would check it in private. “Well,” he said, straightening in his chair. “I won’t keep you. I need to be in Seattle by lunchtime.”
“Thanks for making the trip to stop in and see us,” Walker said as he and Ivy both stood in a movement that was almost synchronized.
He shook hands with them both and took his leave. On his way out he went through the reception area. His heart jolted when he saw the young Asian woman sitting on a bench at the side of the room. Long black hair. One side of her face marred by bruises.
She glanced his way for a mere instant then looked right past him, absently massaging the back of her neck.
His muscles unlocked. They’d never met in person, but it was definitely her.
He kept going, said goodbye to the executive receptionist who had arranged the meeting for him and continued to the elevator. Once downstairs and outside the secure building, he waited until he was in the backseat behind the privacy of the SUV’s tinted windows before checking the message on his mobile.
The PI had sent him an address and a map. And it wasn’t far from Crimson Point.
I’ve been following the cop, the accompanying message read. Was able to put a tracker on his vehicle. Took me a while to get anything useful because he’s alert and almost spotted me once. But there’s this place he went yesterday in an isolated area. Really isolated, down a long dead-end road. I couldn’t get close enough to verify everyone there without being seen, but after the cop left, I saw Walker drive past me coming from the same place. Might be worth having your guy check it out.
The sheriff and Walker both stopping at an isolated property outside of town soon after Warwick had escaped from Simon yesterday? No way that was all coincidence.
Elation surged through him. He relayed the intel to Simon immediately. There was no time to lose.
Wherever James was, he knew something. Roland was sure of it. James now knew for certain he was being targeted. Law enforcement would be involved. The FBI might be brought in. The possibility that James knew something was too great a risk to take now.
Nerves prickled along his spine. The danger to him was only increasing the longer this thing dragged on. He could almost feel the walls closing in.
This couldn’t wait any longer. He had no choice now. There was only one way to protect himself.
James had to die.
He composed a message to Simon. Hesitated only a few seconds before pressing send. It had to be this way. There was too much at stake otherwise and he couldn’t take the risk of being exposed.
His driver got into the vehicle, reversed and steered out of the parking lot. Roland stared out the window at the restless, churning waves as they drove along the waterfront, lost in thought.
He set aside the guilt burning in his stomach with a mental shove. Ridiculous to feel guilty or have second thoughts now. As difficult as the decision had been, it was necessary. His message had already set the wheels into motion. No going back now.
Just like the explosion that had nearly cost James his life and compromised his memory, he would never see this one coming either.
