Page 5

Hawk pushed open the tall, thick glass door, and he and Remy stepped into Every Last Child’s reception area. The head receptionist, Rebecca, sat at a wide, wooden desk behind an elevated counter, talking to someone on the phone. She looked up and held up a finger to indicate she’d be right with him.

“Yes, I understand, bu—” She rolled her eyes at being interrupted by the caller. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not at liberty to provide that information. If you’d like, I can transfer you to—” She flinched, tapped her earpiece, and muttered, “And a wonderful day to you, too.” She smiled at Hawk, as if someone hadn’t just hung up on her. “Good morning.”

“Does that happen a lot?” he asked.

“What? Getting hung up on?”

“Yeah.”

“Not too often.” She slid her drawer open, grabbed a dog treat from a plastic bag, and slid the drawer shut. “I have something special for you, Remy.” She stood, hurried around the desk, squatted down in front of his dog, and let him take the treat from her palm.

Of course, Remy didn’t even bother chewing it.

“How you doin’ today?” Rebecca scratched the sides of his neck.

He closed his eyes and made a little groaning sound when she rubbed his ears the way he liked.

Hawk and Remy had been to ELC multiple times, and everyone loved seeing his dog. For Remy, it was a toss-up about which he liked best—the snacks or the attention.

“The guy on the phone was asking questions about a couple of the children that were recently rescued.” She stroked Remy’s head one last time, stood, and returned to her seat. “And, as you know, maintaining confidentiality is the only way we can protect the people we help.”

“You guys track those calls, right?” OSI provided Dulce’s organization with all of its security services, both technological and human.

“We definitely do.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m sure our security team is already fast at work tracing the number.” A satisfied smile broke across her face. “You’re here to see Dulce and Cole, right?”

“Yeah, but I’m a few minutes early.” His father always told him that if he was on time, he was late.

“I’ll let them know you’re here.” Rebecca tapped one of the many buttons on the phone console.

“Thanks.” Hawk and Remy strolled over to the wall covered with a collage of different-size candid photos of children of all ages and ethnicities. ELC had played a part in liberating or helping every single one of them.

They were just a few of the children rescued since its inception a few years ago. He wasn’t sure what the official number was, but it had to be getting close to five figures.

They were all smiling—visible proof of the success of the great work Dulce and her foundation were doing all over the world.

He recognized one little boy by the scar on his chin and his missing two front teeth. He’d been in a group of kids the Dark Ops Team rescued near the US and Mexico border. He was a cute kid, very chatty, with a pronounced lisp. He’d lost his teeth and gotten the scar trying to protect his little sister from their trafficker. Unfortunately, they were separated, and his sister was still missing.

As part of the Dark Ops team, Hawk had participated in numerous missions on behalf of ELC. One in particular had hit especially close to home for him, literally.

About a year ago, before he’d started working with Remy, two teenage girls disappeared from the same reservation Hawk grew up on. OSI tracked them to a seedy casino and strip joint just off the Vegas Strip. Their uncle lied and told them he was taking them to a concert by their favorite singer. He’d offered them beer, and they’d happily accepted, not knowing he’d drugged it. He then drove to Vegas and handed them over to the owner of the club to cover his thirty-five-hundred-dollar gambling debt.

Thirty-five hundred dollars for two teenage girls. The depth of human depravity knew no bounds.

Shortly after dumping them at the club, the uncle was killed by a guy who didn’t like the way he was looking at his girlfriend. If it hadn’t been for the text message one of the girls sent to her mom about him taking them to the concert, and the cheap, disposable lighter with the logo from the club found in his pocket, those poor girls might have never been found.

When the team went in to rescue them, they found three other teenage girls that had been missing. All of them had been kidnapped from various reservations across the country.

The asshole club owner had put the word out that he catered to a particular niche market that was “into native girls” and was willing to pay top dollar.

Hawk was sort of known for being quiet, with a great deal of self-control—something his father and grandfather had instilled in him growing up. It was part of what made him such a good tracker. But when he’d heard the owner talking about those native girls like they were merchandise, his teammate, Eddie, had to pull Hawk off of him.

He turned away from the photos on the wall just as Charlotte Cavanaugh came through the main door. She had what looked to be a full messenger bag hanging across her body and appeared to be somewhat frantic as she hurried to the front desk.

Remy noticed her, too, and stood, waiting for permission to go say hi. Apparently, his dog had a thing for the pretty redhead, too.

Today, she wore loose-fitting blue jeans, a dark green T-shirt that hugged her body, and a pair of brown-and-tan lace-up hiking shoes. He’d only ever seen her in professional attire, not that it mattered.

Hawk would like Charlotte in anything … or nothing at all.

It had been a while since she’d been to their facility, and he’d missed seeing her.

“Good morning, Rebecca.” Her hands shook as she unclipped the flap on her bag and twisted to wrestle a large poly envelope free and set it on the high counter.

“Good morning, Ms. Cavanaugh.” Rebecca smiled up at her.

“Please, call me Charlotte.” She slid the envelope closer. “I’d like to leave this for Dulce, please.” She looked nervously over her shoulder toward the door.

Hawk followed her gaze but didn’t see anything unusual.

“She’s already on her way up here.” Rebecca started to slide the package back to her. “If you’d like to wait a moment, you can give it to her yourself.”

“Oh … no, thank you.” Charlotte glanced toward the door again. “I … I have … um … another appointment I have to get to.”

She turned to leave and stopped when she locked eyes with Hawk. She chewed her bottom lip, dropped her chin, and hastily headed toward the exit. Her fingers had just curved around the door handle when someone called her name.

“Hey, Charlotte.” Dulce approached the front desk with Cole at her side.

Charlotte’s eyes closed for a few seconds. She smiled and turned back to Dulce.

“Hi, guys.” She gave Hawk a quick sideways glance and walked over to them.

Yeah, something was definitely troubling her. But what?

She always seemed skittish around him, and the last thing he wanted to do was make her more uneasy. So he remained in place and continued watching her.

“Ms. Cavanaugh … sorry, Charlotte left this for you.” Rebecca handed Dulce the envelope.

“You don’t have to look at it right now.” Charlotte tried to sound casual, but whatever was in that envelope made her very anxious.

“I’m too curious to wait.” Dulce accepted the letter opener from Rebecca, sliced open the envelope, and looked inside. “What the heck?” She gave Charlotte a confused look and handed the envelope to Cole.

“There’s a … a note inside that explains everything.” She was wound tight as a sailor’s knot, and he half-expected her to bolt for the door any second.

Cole glanced into the envelope, and his entire body became more alert than usual.

“How ’bout you just tell us yourself.” His tone was gruff and intimidating.

“It’s … it’s kind of a long story.” Charlotte’s voice quavered, and she clenched and unclenched the strap of her messenger bag.

A surge of protectiveness flooded through Hawk. He was just about to come to her defense, but Dulce beat him to it.

“Stop doing that.” She swatted Cole’s arm.

“Doing what?” He scowled down at her.

“You’re being all”—she waved her hand up and down in front of him—“big and scary.”

At six feet eight with long, wavy dark hair and a full beard, not to mention a scar bisecting one of his eyebrows, her husband was the literal picture of big and scary. Except with Dulce and their nine-month-old son, Carter. With them, he was a huge, mushy pushover.

“Come on, Charlotte.” Dulce took her hand. “Let’s go back to my office, and you can tell us what this is all about.”

Charlotte gave Hawk a fast glance, and Cole hung back as the two women headed toward the executive offices.

“Hawk.” His boss tipped his head to the side to call him over. “I’d like you to sit in on this.”

Gladly , he thought. Because whatever was in that envelope was enough to scare Charlotte, startle Dulce, and piss off Cole.

“Remy,” Hawk said, and his partner moved to stand at his right side.

They left the reception area and Cole stopped at a wide door where he tapped his access card to a pad on the wall. He leaned down, placed his eye over a retinal scanner, and waited for the beep before he opened the door leading to the executive hallway.

Neither Hawk nor his boss were big talkers, so they made the trip in silence. The only sound was the rubber soles of their tactical boots and the click of Remy’s nails on the wood floor.

They stepped into Dulce’s office.

“Charlotte, if you don’t mind, I’ve asked Hawk to join us.” Cole closed the door behind them.

“Um, okay.” She didn’t look at Hawk.

“Why don’t we sit down.” Dulce pointed to a massive conference table on the other side of the room, then strolled over to a mini fridge tucked away in the corner of her office. “Would anyone else like a bottle of water or soda?”

“Water would be great.” Cole accepted a bottle of water from her.

“No, thank you.” Charlotte’s grip was tight on the strap of her bag.

Remy walked over to her, nudged her elbow with his nose, and she smiled down at him.

“Hi, Remy.” She squatted down and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.” She kissed the top of his head, and when she stood, Hawk noticed her hold on the bag had loosened.

Good job, Remy.

“Go lay down, bud.” He pointed to an area beneath the large window where the sun shone down on the carpet.

Remy’s tags clinked against his vest as he walked over and sprawled out on his side in the sunny spot. He puffed out a breath and quickly fell asleep.

Cole sat at the head of the table, Dulce took the seat to his right, and Charlotte sat on his left. Hawk would’ve preferred sitting next to her but chose to sit across the table so he could focus on her body language.

He’d spent time with Andi O’Halleran, learning some of her techniques and methods. Hopefully, they would come in handy right now.

Andi also worked for OSI and specialized in reading people’s facial expressions, speech patterns, and analyzing written statements to determine the veracity of what people were saying. Basically, she was like a human lie detector. She was also one hell of a fighter and was married to Jonathan O’Halleran. Together, they ran OSI’s PacNW training facility up in Whidbey Cove, Washington. Though she could often be found knee-deep in a covert operation.

“Babe, do you still have those rubber gloves?” Cole asked his wife.

“Oh, yeah. Let me grab ’em.” She hopped up from her chair, hurried over to a cabinet near the door, and pulled out a box of extra-large disposable rubber gloves.

“Charlotte, did you touch the knife?” Cole asked.

Knife? What the hell?

“I did, but I was careful to use a tissue, and I only grabbed the tip of the blade, just in case.” She lifted her bag over her head and set it on the chair next to her.

If there were fingerprints or DNA on that knife, Beatrice would find them. She was a world-renowned forensic scientist who ran OSI’s state-of-the-art lab.

Hawk popped a couple of gloves from the box and stretched them over his hands. Cole did the same, reached into the envelope, and slid out a stack of papers and what looked like a portable hard drive. Next, he dragged out a plastic grocery bag and set it on the table.

He reached into the bag and carefully grabbed the end of the handle of a black knife with two fingers and slid it out. Sunlight poured through the large windows and glinted off the blade. It was a large chef’s knife made by a well-known company called Wüsthof. They probably manufactured and sold thousands of them each year.

Hawk could’ve sworn Charlotte recoiled slightly when Cole leaned forward to set the knife on top of the plastic bag.

“I know you included a note, but why don’t you just tell us what this is about?” Dulce’s voice held concern for her friend.

Charlotte rubbed her forehead, then began telling them what had her so spooked.

“A little over two months ago, I was entering a case number—which is a sequence of letters and numbers—into our system at work.” She set her forearms on the table and threaded her fingers together so tightly, her knuckles turned white. “I was in a hurry when I typed in the code, and what appeared on the screen was not the case file I was looking for. Not even close.” She shifted in her seat. “It was a list of names of people showing how much money they’ve donated to Human Rescue Alliance. But this wasn’t our typical donor list—it was much worse.” Her throat moved up and down on a swallow. “It included details of the … in-kind services the donors received in return for their donations.”

She snatched a pair of gloves from the box, put them on, and shuffled through the documents on the table, careful to avoid the knife.

“Here is a printout of what I found.” Charlotte handed it to Dulce.

Her eyes widened as she looked through it.

“Holy shit.” She slid it over to Cole.

He flipped through the pages, his jaw rippled, then he handed them to Hawk.

There were four pages, five columns on each page. The first column consisted of the names of twenty-eight individuals. Twenty of them were bureaucrats or powerful politicians currently in office. There was a former vice-presidential candidate, a retired Speaker of the House, two tech company creators, a CEO of a major international investment firm, two well-known singers, and two successful movie producers. At the top of the list was the name A. Pennington with the number “3” after it.

The second column header read DONATION , with large dollar amounts running down the page. In the next column, titled ASSET , each cell had a series of numbers and letters followed by an age—the oldest of which was only fifteen. Column four, ASSET SERVICE , was probably the most disturbing. It was populated with the type of services performed by the Asset. VALUE OF SERVICE was the header for the last column, and below it was the dollar value for each service.

“Is A. Pennington who I think it is?” Cole pointed at the name at the top of the list.

“If you’re thinking it’s Ambrose Pennington the third, you’re probably right.” Charlotte rubbed her hands down her thighs. “He’s on our board of directors.”

“That son of a bitch.” Dulce turned to Cole.

“Wait, are we talking about the former White House chief of staff? That Ambrose Pennington.” Hawk wasn’t much for politics, but anyone who even glimpsed the news would recognize that name.

Charlotte nodded. “That’s my guess, Hawk.”

He smiled at her use of his nickname, happy that she was finally comfortable enough to use it.

“My dad was right about that guy—he is a snake.” Dulce sneered.

Her father, Sebastian Houldcroft, was dialed into everything in DC. He was well-respected and a man of great moral character who had the ear of the president. Rumor was, he’d been the one to convince the president to jettison Pennington from his cabinet.

“There’s something else.” Charlotte looked from Cole to Dulce, then to Hawk. “I’m pretty sure someone knows I accessed the file.”

“What makes you think that?” Cole asked.

“Some strange things have been happening.” She rubbed her forehead again.

He noticed she did that whenever she was worried or hesitant, like she was searching for what to say or how to say it.

“Strange things?” Hawk sat forward.

“What kinds of strange things?” Dulce asked.

“Well, like, my garbage has been dumped all over my yard twice. My back gate was left wide open. And two nights ago, when I got home from work late, I was sure someone had been in my house.”

He exchanged a look with Cole.

“I looked all around but didn’t find anything weird, and it didn’t look like anything was missing or out of place.” She turned to Dulce. “It was just a … a feeling, ya know. So, I spent that night at my mom’s house.”

“Oh, believe me, I know all about that feeling.” Dulce had been kidnapped and dragged to Colombia by the son of a drug cartel boss. Cole and the rest of the team had flown down to rescue her.

“But then … last night, I stayed late at my office to finish downloading all of this stuff. When I was done, I walked out to my car in the parking garage. Everyone else had already gone home by that point.” Hawk wasn’t thrilled to hear she’d been walking around a parking garage alone at night. “Anyway, when I got to my car, I discovered all four of my tires had been slashed, and when I opened the door”—she dipped her head toward the knife—“that was sitting on the driver’s seat. It’s from my kitchen, and I never even noticed the stupid thing was missing.”

Son of a bitch.

“Give yourself a break, Charlotte.” Hawk maintained his outward composure, but inside, he wanted to tear down the world to find the person responsible for tormenting her. “You’ve obviously been under a great deal of stress.”

“Why would someone write all of this sensitive information down and then keep it on the HRA system?” Dulce asked. “Seems pretty careless to me.”

“I’ve wondered that myself.” Charlotte picked up the list.

“Perhaps whoever created that list planned to use it for leverage or to cover their own ass.” Hawk warmed to the idea. “If that information ever got out, every single person on there would be destroyed.”

“Exactly, so why leave it where anyone might stumble upon it?” Cole smoothed his palm down the side of his beard.

“Maybe they thought it would get lost in the crowd of the thousands of other case files HRA has on the system?” Charlotte’s shoulders bobbed up and down.

“Do you have that file number, the one that gave you access to all of this information?” Cole slipped his phone from his back pocket.

“It’s right here.” Charlotte pointed at a series of eight letters and numbers printed at the top of the page. “The system always includes it on printouts unless you specifically check a box that says not to.”

“Perfect. Excuse me for a minute.” Cole took the papers, rolled his chair back from the table, and stood. He pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and put it to his ear. “Hey, Sammy.”

He gave his wife’s shoulder a gentle squeeze before walking over to the far corner of the room where they couldn’t hear him.

Sammy Joslin was OSI’s lead tech person. The things she could do with a laptop and access to the Internet were legendary.

“I knew you guys would know what to do.” Charlotte’s back was rigid, and this close, Hawk noticed the shadows beneath her eyes. She’d lost weight, too.

“You didn’t have to drop it off.” Dulce reached over and placed her hand on Charlotte’s forearm. “I’m always happy to see you, especially about something this serious.”

“I know how busy you are, and I didn’t want to disturb you,” Charlotte said.

“You’re my friend, Charlotte. You’re never disturbing me.” Anyone who knew Cole’s wife would tell you she was one of the most approachable humans alive, and she was fiercely loyal to her friends.

Charlotte was definitely holding something back, and Hawk had an idea of what it was.

“You were planning to run, weren’t you, Charlotte?” He tilted his head to one side and watched her across the table, wondering if she would lie to him.