Page 21 of Justified Lies (TFH Team Bravo #3)

Eden: Don’t. We all missed it.

Sam: We have another problem. Marv is missing.

“What’s wrong?” El asked as he stood.

“Marv is missing.”

She started thinking back to her last weeks working as an asset. There had been some resistance to her relationship with Kap due to Marv’s boss, David Scott. And now, as they drew closer, Marv disappears?

“That would be Marvin Bellows?” Del asked.

She nodded. “Sam is saying he left work yesterday, and no one has seen him since. His car was found abandoned on a back road in Prince William County.”

She kept reading the messages from her friend.

“Anything else?” Conner asked, his voice intense.

Sam: Phone found, damaged, Marv nowhere to be found.

She raised her gaze to El’s. “He’s missing, phone left behind. This isn’t good.”

“Would someone use him to get you to come out?” Del asked.

She looked at the TFH Commander. “Yeah. He’s a family friend. We call him Uncle Marv. He knew my mother before she met our father, so our relationship with him started before birth.”

“Is there an APB out for him?”

She shook her head. “Not sure.”

“Well, we’ll handle that.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded as he headed out the door.

“How are you two holding up?” Conner asked.

This is why she worked for Dillon. He could be a hard ass and a bit of a Boy Scout about rules, but he always had their backs.

“Fine,” El said. “It’s been a pain being moved around, but other than that, it’s been okay.”

“We are going to figure this out,” Conner said.

She nodded, even as an impending sense of doom weighed down on her. It felt as if there was a massive clock ticking away, counting down to the next murder. She sent a prayer up that no one else was hurt before they could catch the bastard.

Kap was rolling his shoulders, trying his best to rid himself of the energy that had built up.

It was annoying not to be doing anything.

This was the one part of the job that he hated.

Even when he was with NCIS, he hated waiting around.

Of course, there was an added layer of irritation because he knew this was killing Eden.

She had been in direct contact with Sam for the last hour on and off. They were both hunting down leads but coming up with nothing. Marv Bellows was still missing, and he knew that weighed heavily on her as well.

He watched as she paced back and forth on the far side of the room, talking to Sam.

“She’ll be fine,” her brother said from behind Kap.

Kap turned to look at the man. “I know that. Your sister is the strongest woman I know, besides my mother, of course.”

His mouth twitched. “Yeah. Us Southern boys and our mamas.” His smile dissolved. “She’s always been the stronger of the two of us. No matter how many times I tell her that, she doesn’t believe me.”

“Those forty-eight hours…”

He sighed. “I knew she would come for me. Even in the worst of it, I knew that my sister would find me. And in that, I could go on. If I didn’t have her, I probably would have told them everything.”

“Naw, you wouldn’t have.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you have the same DNA as that woman. You’re right, she’s stronger than both of us, like most women. But even knowing you have backup, a lot of people give in to torture right away. And I know that you were both trained to be agents, but you were never meant to be, am I right?”

He nodded.

“I’ve heard of agents that gave over info right away.”

“I’m still puzzled about why they kept me alive. I know they were trying to get her there, but they didn’t have to keep me alive for that.”

That had been bothering Kap as well. The twins seemed to be the exception to the rules, which was worrisome. It was as if whoever was in charge treated them differently. With a bastard like this, that wasn’t a good thing.

“We have another problem,” Eden said as she strode over to them.

“What now?”

“Scott is missing, too. So, now we have Marv missing and the boss we don’t trust missing also.”

“Do you think that Marv might have put his foot down and refused to help him?” Kap asked.

“Not sure if he would,” El said.

“He might have. I got on the phone with Mom.”

“I thought we weren’t telling them anything,” El said, irritation rolling through his voice.

“First, I didn’t tell Mom, but she knows something’s up. You know how she is.”

“And she knows about Marv?”

She nodded. “Marv got passed over for a promotion. He was supposed to be moved up to a position that would oversee operations in the Asian theater.”

El whistled, and Kap put the pieces together.

“You think that Scott passing him over was the straw that broke the camel’s back?” he asked.

“Might be. Mom agrees. Marv found out about being passed over late yesterday. The fact that he disappeared off the face of the earth is probably not a good thing.”

“He might have been in contact with people who would investigate Scott. We both know that Marv has a real petty streak,” El said.

Her phone buzzed and she looked down. “Sam said that there were a few texts sent out to a staffer for the Senate Intelligence Committee from Marv’s phone.”

“Fuck, that asshole,” El said.

“What’s going on?” Seth asked.

They gave him a rundown on everything that happened.

“Dammit. Sam said they found blood…a lot of it in Marv’s car.” Her face was pale, worry darkening her eyes. “I had my issues with Marv, but I need him to be okay.”

She was right. She had good reason to never talk to Marv again after what happened three years ago, but he was like family, so he understood.

Her phone went off again, and she looked down at it.

“Eden?” Kap asked.

She drew in a deep breath and looked up. For a few moments, she looked lost, as if everything in her life was about to be ruined. Then, he saw her straighten to her full height. “Just more details on the car. None of it looks good.”

He nodded.

“I need a sec.”

“Are you okay?”

She smiled. “I’m fine. Just need to splash some water on my face and clear my mind.”

“Sure thing.”

He watched her head off down the hall that led to the bathrooms, then he rejoined the discussion.

“There isn’t much we can do from here. First, it didn’t happen here in Hawai’i,” Del said.

“Our other problem is that we don’t even know if this has anything to do with our investigation,” Adam commented.

As they went round and round about what this meant for the investigation—which he knew in the end would lead to nothing at the moment—Kap’s gut started to churn.

Something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He glanced at the clock and realized it had been close to fifteen minutes since Eden had walked off.

He frowned and started off in the direction of the bathrooms. Even without turning around, he knew that El was following him.

“What’s up?”

“Your sister has been gone for a while.”

El grunted but said nothing else as he followed him. He knew he couldn’t just barge into the women’s bathroom, so he knocked. The door opened to reveal Nikki.

“Is Eden in there?”

“No. It was empty when I came in.”

Fuck. He whipped around and pulled up their security cameras.

They all had access to them. Flicking through the history, he found the door that would allow Eden to slip away unnoticed.

She even glanced up at the camera, her eyes sad, her expression telling him she was sorry.

Of course, she knew that he would see it.

“Get hold of Sam,” he told El as they hurried back into the common room. “Ask her to find your sister.”

He was on the phone, already waiting for an answer.

“What’s wrong?” Seth asked. Everyone turned around.

“Eden’s missing.” Panic threatened to choke Kap. He beat it back, barely, but he knew he had to keep his head screwed on straight. Eden needed him. She needed all of them.

“What do you mean her phone is on?” El shouted into the phone. And while Kap could understand that he was freaking out--they needed Sam’s help.

He snatched El’s phone out of his hand.

“What the fuck, Hanson?”

He ignored Eden’s brother. Now was not the time to deal with his freak-out. Not when Kap was freaking out enough for the two of them.

“Sam, it’s Kap.”

“Well, thank goodness. El is losing it. Okay, her phone is on and she’s walking. She didn’t take a car.”

“Of course. She doesn’t have a car.”

“Please. Dammit. Her phone just turned off, and I have a feeling she didn’t do it.”

“I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Okay.”

He clicked on the speaker phone. The only sound they all heard was the keys tapping.

“Do you need anything from our end?” Seth asked.

“Maybe get into her cloud. I assume Dillon and Warner are still in the office?”

The two men in question looked at each other, then back at Kap. Dillon nodded.

“Yes.”

“Have them tap into her cloud. She didn’t have the contact phone on her person. I think she left that at her house when she bugged out. I’m tapping into the traffic cam history, so I can track her movements.”

Dillon pulled out his phone and stepped away. Every little bit of surveillance they did sent Kap’s panic higher. Sweat trickled down his back, and it wasn’t even hot in the office.

More clicking.

“Sam,” El said.

“I know. I’m hurrying.” The tension in the office ratcheted up a notch every second that went by.

“Thanks, Em,” Dillon said as he came back to the group. “Send it to my phone.”

Then he hung up. The only person she texted with was Ian, according to Emily.”

His phone buzzed, and his eyes narrowed. “Dammit, they used Ian.”

He showed Warner, then he turned the phone so the rest of the room could see it. It was Ian, and he looked like he’d been worked over. His lip was split, and blood trickled out of his nose. His eyes were closed, and his hands were zip-tied.

“Shit,” Autumn muttered. “I’m going to kill whoever put their hands on my brother.”

“What is happening?” Sam said, all the while he heard her working on the keyboard.

“It’s Ian. He’s been taken.”

Silence reigned. She wasn’t even tapping on the keyboard.

“Sam?” Kap asked.

“Was it at his apartment?”

Autumn stepped closer to study the picture. “Yeah, that’s his apartment.”

“She was headed in that direction when her phone turned off.” She started working again, from the sound of it. “Ian is like one of us, El.”

Kap looked up at El.

“I didn’t think about that. I was thinking US agents.”

“What?”

“The idea that it was people with familial connections who were targeted. Ian’s father was MI-6. Sam, we need to see if Ian has a contract on his head.”

Damn, they hadn’t even thought of that. And someone had used her connection with Ian to lure her out. Of course, she went. Eden would never leave a partner behind to deal with a monster.

“He has several, or did, but most of them expired.” She hadn’t looked that up. She had already known. “You know agents are always in danger of that, especially someone like Ian.”

“Let’s go,” Kap said, handing El the phone and striding out of the office. Eden’s brother was hot on his heels.

“We need a plan,” Seth said.

“We save Eden and Ian and arrest the bad guy if he’s still alive.”

“Hanson,” Seth said, grabbing him by the arm. “You need to keep your head cool. Don’t go in with your guns blazing.”

As much as he would want to do that, he wouldn’t put Eden at risk. He nodded, and Seth let go.

“Sirens off when we get close, folks,” Seth said, as both teams of TFH strode out of the office. Eden and Ian were considered family in a way, and one thing TFH understood was taking care of their Ohana.