Page 15

They Zoomed Nick. They could do that safely. Joe wasn’t going to say anything overt anyway. Nick was a smart guy, he’d catch on fast.

There he was. Walking along a street in DC. Nick was dressed in civilian clothes, wasn’t on duty. Not decked out in MultiCam camouflage, Kevlar helmet, armed with an HK416 assault rifle.

Metal took point. The two had recently worked together on an op that involved backpack nukes.

Nick smiled. His cell’s camera caught him from below, showing a jutting jaw with a dark five o’clock shadow though it was only fourteen hundred in DC. “Metal! My man! Wassup? How’s Felicity? She hacked into the NSA yet?”

“Nah. She’s working for us now and we keep her in check. Listen, Nick, we need your help.” Metal turned Joe’s monitor around so Nick could see Jacko and Joe.

“Jacko, Metal,” Nick said nodding. He brought the cell closer to his face. “Is that Joe Harris? Hey, man.”

Joe nodded his head and didn’t smile. Nick was no dummy. His smile dropped off his face, too. “Sitrep,” he said quietly.

“Not over an open line.” Joe looked at the camera directly. “It would be nice—it would be really nice if you could make it to Portland.”

Nick’s black eyebrows drew together. “Soon?”

“ Now. ”

Joe shifted the monitor so Nick could see both Metal and Jacko in close-up. He was glad he’d Zoomed because the seriousness of the situation could be read in their faces.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Both Metal and Jacko nodded.

Joe turned the monitor back. “Can you do it?”

Nick was checking his cell phone. “There’s a flight leaving in five hours. A red-eye. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

“Come to the office,” Joe said. “We’ll have a briefing.”

“I’ll be there,” Nick said and killed the connection.

“We need to tell Mystery Man.” Metal and Jacko nodded.

Mystery Man seemed to be keyed into Joe’s computer. Probably by malware. He’d been meaning to have Felicity secure his computer but hadn’t managed to get around to it yet. That was good news and bad news. If bad guys had access, he was in a shitload of trouble. However—if Mystery Man had access, presumably he’d gone through his hard disk for signs of other intruders.

Taking a deep breath, Joe keyboarded:

Tomorrow we’ll all be at ASI. Including FBI

After two seconds, words formed on his monitor.

Mancino?

Joe looked at Metal and Jacko. Metal gave a thumbs-up. Okay, they were going all-in with this guy.

Yes.

He checks out.

Yeah, by any measure Nick Mancino checked out.

Yes.

Give me number of encrypted satphone.

Joe sat back while Metal input a number he took from his cell. Felicity would have made the number untraceable and she would make sure the encryption was strong.

Four bells.

Four bells was 10 a.m. nautical time. A reference to the fact that he knew Joe was navy. Was this guy navy? Former navy? What the hell was he?

Four bells.

Joe confirmed and sat back in his chair.

* * *

Something happened when Joe and the guys went back to his house. They’d been laughing and teasing Joe about taking all their money when they left. When they came back, they were sober and quiet.

Felicity and Lauren picked up on it right away. The three of them had been laughing over the plot of the latest lame romcom, scarfing down the squares of double chocolate fudge Isabel had pulled from the freezer, when the guys walked in. Felicity and Lauren immediately quieted, watching their guys carefully. It was amazing to see. It wasn’t as if they were watching Metal and Jacko out of fear of a mood change. No, it was more as if whatever their guys felt, they felt.

Nothing showed Isabel more than this that they were couples. Teams. Jacko walked directly up to Lauren and whispered in her ear and Metal made a beeline for Felicity and put his arms around her.

Couples.

She was contemplating that when Joe walked in a minute or two later, carrying a duffel bag. He walked straight to her, eyes glued to hers, as if there was nobody else in the room. He opened his arms and she walked straight into them.

A couple.

Crazily, yes, they were a couple. It was the sex, sure, because that had been spectacular. The best of her life. But it was more than that. She was attuned to him, dialed in to his frequency. She was aware of wherever he was in the room. She looked for him, constantly. Joe did the same. When he walked in, he didn’t look anywhere but at her.

He felt it, too.

The embrace lasted a minute, the time it took to reacquaint herself with his smell, with the feel of him in her arms, to search out that specific spot where she nestled her head. His body was an extension of hers, part of hers.

It would have been frightening, this immediate connection, if it hadn’t felt so right.

But because she was so attuned to him, she realized that something serious had happened while he was gone. He was holding her too tightly. His muscles were harder than usual, tense and stiff. That reassuring heartbeat, a beat per second, like a metronome, was speeded up. His breathing was speeded up, too.

She could ask when the others had left. Or she could wait for him to tell her what was wrong. Because intimacy ran both ways. She hadn’t told him about the Massacre. About the hell she’d endured after.

It was still too painful to talk about, still jumbled up in her head. She had things she wasn’t ready to discuss. Maybe he did, too. Maybe this was a business thing and it was confidential.

One thing she knew, though. She trusted him. If he felt it was necessary to talk it over with her, he would. If he didn’t, there was a good reason. Joe was a straight shooter. She felt that down to her bones.

By the time she lifted her head, both Lauren and Felicity had their coats on. So did Metal. Jacko seemed perfectly willing to brave the cold dusk with only a T-shirt on, a light denim jacket over his arm. Looking at that dark, impervious face, it was as if nothing affected him, except Lauren.

Metal had a hand to Felicity’s back. He gave Joe and her a two-fingered salute off his forehead and Isabel had no problem seeing the soldier he’d been. “See you tomorrow morning,” he said to Joe. “Felicity’s going to do some research.”

Felicity looked up at him. “I am? On what?”

“Conspiracies,” Metal said darkly.

She smiled. “Love me a good conspiracy. I’ll search the darknet. That’s how I found out the aliens in Roswell are secretly vampires.”

“You know,” Jacko said as he walked Lauren out the door. “That doesn’t sound too far-fetched.”

Felicity stuck her head back in the door. “But we have a rain check on that dinner, right?”

“Right,” Isabel answered. “Whenever you want.”

She cupped Joe’s jaw briefly when they were alone. “You want to tell me what this is about? Something happened over at your place, didn’t it?”

Joe took her hand, brought it to his mouth. She felt his lips, warm and soft, against the palm of her hand.

“I’ll tell you, yeah. Not right now, though. Not until I have more information. Do you trust me?”

She pulled her hand away, letting her fingers caress his cheek. Her faith in everything had been broken, shattered. The Massacre had poisoned her faith in everyone and everything. But to her vast surprise, she trusted him.

“Yes,” she said softly.

The taut muscles of his face relaxed a little. He checked his wristwatch. “Do you know it’s been almost six hours since you fed me?”

She smiled, rolled her eyes. “That long? You should call 911.”

“I should.” He kissed her hand again. “So what’s on the menu for tonight?”

* * *

Christ, a fucking army coming out of the bitch’s place!

Kearns was dressed in a tracksuit and had dumped some water over his face to look like he was soaking wet with sweat. With a watch cap, yellow wraparounds, scarf around his neck and lower face, he was sure he was unrecognizable.

Kearns had run three times past her house at half hour intervals. Couldn’t even tell if there were people in her place. But there were three vehicles parked right outside the house on the street so she had people over.

He was walking slowly, pretending to have runner’s cramps, when the front door opened and two big guys—one tall, one not—came out with two lookers. The ones who had helped Harris put up security cams and monitors around Delvaux’s house.

The men were operators. Kearns could tell by how they handled themselves, the way they looked around. It was pure luck that he was coming up on them as they walked down the little sidewalk and got into their vehicles. If he’d already passed them, and turned to look at them, they’d have made him. These guys observed everything.

Shit, this was getting impossible.

Level of protection the bitch had, he’d need at least a twenty-man team, and here he was in Portland, all alone with his ass hanging out.

Blake should be paying him ten times what he was for this.

His cell rang. One of the guys—the shorter one but still a big bruiser—glanced over briefly. At least Kearns had a reason to stop.

Jogger getting a business call. Or maybe a call from the little lady. When are you going to finish that run? The food’s getting cold.

“Talk to me,” Blake said. He wanted a report.

Kearns swore he could feel his liver spurt bile. You send me out here with zero resources, no backup at all, I’m supposed to keep tabs on a chick that has navy SEALs protecting her?

He couldn’t say that, though. Because then Blake would want to know how long the SEALs had been around and he’d have to start defending himself.

Blake himself wasn’t scary. He was a politician and he was soft. Used to the good life. Had fucking drivers, probably had forgotten how to drive. Wouldn’t know how to mow his own lawn or fix his own car. But he had operators around him and those operators were scary. He was surrounded by guys who’d carried out the Washington Massacre. Almost one thousand people gunned down and blown up, one thousand Americans, and they did the job in ten minutes then disappeared slicker’n snot. Not even DNA left behind.

If Blake snapped his fingers there would be no place on earth for Kearns to hide, because that was another thing. Blake seemed to have unending money. Rivers of it. Oceans. World-changing money.

So he said what he had to say.

“Nothing’s changed. It looks like she hasn’t even left the apartment today.”

“It looks like ?” Blake said, his voice icy.

Fuck .

“I’m alone here. I make the rounds every two hours, but I can’t do more because someone is going to notice something. I haven’t seen her go out. And last time she did go out she was shaky. Today’s cold and there’s ice on the sidewalks. I figure she won’t go out when it’s this cold.”

“Next report, I want more facts. And make sure you brief me on any changes.”

“Roger that,” Kearns said evenly, keeping the resentment out of his voice.

No changes, asshole. Just a pack of navy SEALs. Nothing worth reporting.

* * *