Page 9

CHAPTER 8

Two days later…

“We come bearing gifts.”

Slade kept his hand on the door he’d just opened as Bones and Falcon stared back at him from where they stood on the porch.

“What’s that?” He eyed the two bulging bags Bones was holding at his sides.

But rather than waiting for an invitation, the other man took it upon himself to squeeze his way past.

“Lunch,” his teammate answered only after he was fully inside.

While he put the bags onto the rustic dining room table, Falcon shot Slade a look and an unapologetic shrug. Slade sighed, moving further to the side to make room for the former Army Ranger to enter.

“We have food here,” he grumbled as he shut the door and reset the alarm.

Bones reached into one of the bags and pulled out something wrapped in deli paper he recognized on sight. “Yes, but do you have these? ”

“You brought us Petruccelli’s?”

His initial annoyance at their unannounced visit all but vanished with the ill-timed growling of his stomach. A small, family-owned deli not far from where they worked, Petruccelli’s was one of Charlotte’s best-kept secrets.

“I got you the Porchetta, of course.” Bones handed him the wrapped sandwich still in his hand. “I wasn’t sure what Shadow would want…” He reached back into the sacks and began pulling out the remainder of the food. “So I picked up a meatball sub, focaccia caprese, and an Italian hoagie sub.”

“Speaking of, where is Shadow, anyway?” Falcon’s gaze scanned the parts of the cabin within their view.

“Upstairs.” Slade set his sandwich down onto the table before turning and heading that way. “I’ll go get her.”

But before he could even make it to the first step, a bellowing Bones yelled her name to get her attention, instead.

“Hey, Shadow!” The other man cupped both sides of his mouth as he shouted for her again. “Come on down and get yourself some grub!”

“Jesus, Bones.” Slade faced his teammate with a deep scowl. “I said I was going to go get her.”

“I know.” Bones shrugged. “But why waste all those extra steps when hollering for her works just as well?” Right on cue, his gaze slid to the top of the stairs. And when he lifted a hand and pointed in that direction, the medic flashed him an I-told-you-so grin. “See?”

He looked toward the top of the stairs at the same time Shadow appeared. She looked first to him, but as she’d done the last two days, her beautiful gaze quickly skittered away.

“Hey, guys.” She turned her attention to Bones and Falcon as she started down the stairs. Her focus shifted to the food set out on the table. “What’s all this?

“Petruccelli’s,” Bones responded proudly. “We figured after being stuck out here for the past few days, you’d be ready for a change.”

Appreciation lit up her gorgeous face. “Are you kidding? I love that place!” Her steps quickened to cover the distance between her and the food at a faster pace.

“The sandwiches are marked,” Falcon informed her. “Dig’s is the Porchetta, but the others are up for grabs. Bones and I aren’t picky, so whichever two you don’t want, we’ll take. Oh, and there are bottles of water in the bag on the left.”

“Thank you so much.” She grabbed the Caprese and a bag of chips before plopping down into one of the table’s six chairs.

The scent of strawberries lingered in her path, and Slade hated how much he was coming to love the fruity, sweet scent.

Bones picked up one of the remaining sandwiches before sitting in the chair closest to where he stood. “Our pleasure.” He began to unwrap his selection.

“We also figured y’all might be getting a little stir-crazy.” Falcon chose the chair across from where Slade sat. “Thought you could use a change in company for a couple of hours.”

“Why would you think that?” Shadow looked to him before shrugging a shoulder with an overzealous smile. “We’ve been getting along splendidly. Haven’t we, Digger?”

Digger.

She’d only referred to him as that since the night they’d almost crossed the line between co-workers and lovers. And though he’d been the one keeping her at arm’s length ever since, Slade would give anything to hear his given name fall from her lips again.

“Yep.”

He took a big bite of his sandwich, chewing and swallowing his food completely before opening the water Falcon had just slid his way. As he tilted his head back to accommodate a long, big gulp, he did everything in his power not to look the sexy blonde’s way.

Slade wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but he also couldn’t afford to let himself become lost in her gaze. Because if their eyes met for more than a few seconds at a time, he feared he’d never again be able to look away.

“Okay, then,” Bones responded as his attention bounced back and forth between Shadow and Slade. “That’s…good. Great. Glad to hear it.”

The other man’s words and tone were both hesitant in nature, as if he didn’t quit believe their corroborating claims.

“Did you guys just come here for lunch and conversation, or did you find out something new we can use to take down Senator Stanton?” Shadow asked.

“We’re still working on it,” Falcon told her.

The disappointment Slade caught from the corner of his eye reached into his chest and grabbed hold of his tightly guarded heart.

“So that would be a no,” she guessed.

Bones’ empathetic eyes softened at her obvious frustration. “Don’t worry, Shadow. Trust me, I get how hard the waiting can be.” He looked over at Falcon who was nodding his head. “We both do. But if we’re going to go after the bastard, we have to be patient and smart.”

“He’s right,” Slade supported his teammate, forcing himself to look Shadow’s way. “If we want to take him down, we have to do it the right way.”

“It’s been twenty-six years,” the brilliant woman bit back. “I think I’ve been patient long enough.”

“You only just figured out it was him a few weeks ago,” he quickly argued her point.

Totally misunderstanding the meaning behind his words, she abandoned her sandwich and rose to her feet.

“Right. Because if I’d remembered sooner, maybe he wouldn’t be walking around a free man. Is that it?”

What?

“No.” Slade gave a vehement shake of his head. “That’s not at all what I was trying to?—”

“Thanks for the food you guys.” She turned her troubled gaze first to Bones and then to Falcon as she gave a quick lick of her lips. “But I’m not really all that hungry anymore.”

“Ah, come on, Shadow.” Bones did his best to appease her. “Don’t be like that.”

“I’m not trying to be like anything. I just…” She gave a quick shake of her head. “I didn’t sleep all that well last night, and I think a nap would do me some good.”

Shadow’s claim of being tired was just an excuse to put some distance between herself and him. Slade knew this to the depth of his bones, and yet when the clearly frustrated woman left the table and started making her way back up the stairs, he didn’t say or do a single thing to stop her.

“Well, then.” Bones fell back in his chair. “That didn’t exactly go as planned.”

“She’s just stressed.” Slade heard himself making an excuse for a woman who’d rather hide away in her room rather than stay in the same room as him.

“Can’t say that I blame her,” Falcon muttered low. “Poor woman loses her mom as a kid and nearly three decades later discovers the man who killed her might be our country’s next leader. That would be a tough pill for anyone to stomach.”

Running a hand over his jaw, Slade used it to hide the way his teeth were clenching tightly together. Dammit, the last thing he wanted to do was upset her. He sure as shit didn’t want her thinking he blamed her for letting a killer get away.

“Yeah, I don’t know.” Bones frowned, his knowing eyes searching Slade’s a little too closely. “I mean, I get that we’ve only recently met her in person, but we’ve known that woman a good, long while.” The man’s southern drawl grew thicker with every new word. “She’s gotten us through some pretty hairy situations, and never once have I ever heard her jump that quick to anger.”

When his gaze narrowed with a hint of suspicion, Slade’s defenses immediately rose.

“What the hell are you looking at me for?” He shot his teammate a deep scowl.

But Bones simply lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug.

“You tell me,” the other man instructed. “You’re the one who’s been locked away with her the last few days. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but there seemed to be a healthy dose of tension in the air between you two. I don’t suppose anything has…happened with you guys. Has it?”

“What did you just ask me?”

Keep your cool, Garrison. Keep your fucking cool.

“Easy, Dig.” Bones lifted a defensive palm. “There’s no judgment here. Good lookin’ guy like yourself trapped here with a beautiful, funny, intelligent woman like Shadow…” He let his words trail. “Lord knows it wouldn’t be the first time a member of Tac-Ops mixed business with pleasure.”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Shadow,” he vowed. Technically, it was true despite how much he wished it wasn’t.

“So you two haven’t?—”

“No.” Slade’s throat worked a swallow. “We haven’t. Not that it would be any of your fucking business if we had.”

Falcon chose that moment to jump back into the conversation. “I think what our well-meaning friend is trying to say is that if this…arrangement isn’t working, one of us can spot you and stay with Shadow instead.”

Like hell, you will.

I don’t need a fucking spotter.” He made that point crystal clear. Turning his full attention back to Bones, Slade added, “And whatever you’re thinking about me and her…don’t. I’m here to do a job and nothing else. Got it?”

Bones waited a beat before raising both of his hands as a show of defeat. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Okay, then.”

The silence that followed was rigid at best, but a few seconds later, Falcon quickly—and thankfully—changed the subject.

“Owens said to tell you he spoke with his most trusted contact within the CIA. Apparently that guy’s getting Owens everything he can find on Stanton’s time with the Agency.”

Slade huffed out a breath. “That’s all well and good, but I don’t see how a bunch of redacted case files and reports are going to help us with?—”

“We have to go!” Shadow’s frantic voice sounded from the top of the stairs.

All three men swung their gazes her way, and when Slade saw the look on her face, his stomach filled with a strong sense of dread.

“What is it?” Slade shot to his feet, his chair nearly toppling over backward in the process.

He rushed her way as she ran down the stairs, Bones and Falcon falling right in line behind him.

“Ashley just called.” She referred to their office manager as a well of unshed tears covered the blues of her eyes. “She said my dad’s in the emergency room at Atrium Health Mercy. She said…she said he collapsed during a meeting with a client.”

That dread he’d been feeling churned into full-blown concern

“Rafe?” Bones came to his side. “What the hell happened?”

“Ashley said the paramedics think it’s a heart attack. She said they had to…” Her voice cracked preventing the rest of what she was going to say from coming out.

“Had to what?” he asked as he and the others followed her to the cabin’s front door.

The woman who had him tied up in all sorts of knots turned her frantic gaze his way, and when she did, her chin began to quiver. “They had to shock him, Slade.” Shadow had never sounded so small. “She said he went into v tach shortly after the ambulance got there, so they had to…oh, God. What if he?—”

“He won’t,” Slade promised despite having no control whatsoever when it came to his boss’s fate. But the woman was on the brink of falling apart and…selfishly…that was something he didn’t think he could bear to see.

“You said Ashley told you they took him to Mercy?” Falcon double-checked on their way out the door.

Shadow’s long ponytail bounced up and down as she nodded, her short legs working overtime as she practically ran down the porch steps.

“We’ll follow you there,” Bones announced, the four of them splitting off to their respective rides.

The first several miles of the drive passed by in relative silence. When Slade did speak, it was to offer the woman next to him lame platitudes and more empty promises he couldn’t guarantee.

To her credit, Shadow never fully broke down or told him to take a flying leap. The truth was, Slade would have welcomed that far more than the stark silence coming from the passenger seat.

“He’ll be okay, Shadow,” Slade told her again after more miles passed without a single shared word between them.

When she didn’t respond, he found himself reaching a hand across the console to cover her knitted fists twisting together in her lap. Her movements froze, and for a moment, he thought he’d made yet another mistake where the amazing woman was concerned. But then she slowly turned one of her hands palm-up and linked her fingers with his.

“I can’t lose him, Slade.” Her voice was soft and filled with a worry he’d do anything to take away. “He’s the only family I have. If I lose him, there won’t be anyone left.”

“You’re wrong.” He gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “We may not be blood, but me and the team…we’re your family, too, sweetheart. And we’re not going anywhere. No matter what.”

* * *

Shadow raced into the emergency room entrance at Atrium Health Mercy. She didn’t stop until she was standing in front of the intake desk connected to the ER’s main lobby.

“Rafe Owens,” she blurted her father’s name as if that explained everything.

The nurse behind the desk glanced up from her computer monitor and smiled. “Hi, can I help you?”

“Rafe Owens,” she bit out the repeated name, barely holding on to the last strings of her patience. “He’s my father. I got a call he was brought here with a suspected heart attack.”

Between the unending tension that had been present since that confusing night with Slade, the mess with Stanton, and now this…

A woman can only take so much before she loses her shit and goes full-on postal.

“Let me see which room they’re treating him in.” The young nurse’s fingers began to fly over her keyboard. “You said the name was Owens?”

“Yes.” Shadow spelled out both her father’s first and last names.

The other woman frowned. “I’m sorry, but I’m not seeing him in our system.”

“What do you mean he’s not in your system? He was just brought here by ambulance less an hour ago.”

“Maybe it’s a glitch in the system,” the well-meaning nurse offered. “Let me check again.” A few seconds later, she shook her head, the look of sympathy in her eyes making Shadow want to scream. “I’m sorry, but there’s no record of a Rafe Owens being brought here. Are you sure this is the right hospital?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” She turned to Slade who hadn’t left her side. “Ashely told me it was here. She specifically said Atrium Health Mercy.”

“Is there any way you can check to see if he’s at another Atrium hospital?” Bones chimed in with a belatedly added, “Just in case Ashely was mistaken.”

There were several Atrium medical facilities scattered in and around Charlotte, so maybe Ashely had gotten it wrong. Maybe the ambulance took him to one of them, instead.

But with the next shake of the nurse’s head and the regret filling the woman’s brown eyes, Shadow knew the answer before she parted her full, pink lips.

“I’m sorry, but that name isn’t showing up anywhere in our system. I wish there were something more I could do to help.”

Shadow’s heart dropped into her churning stomach as she and the guys stepped out of the way of another incoming patient.

“This is ridiculous.” She shoved her hand into her pocket and pulled out her cell. “I’m calling Ashley. Hopefully she can straighten this whole thing out.”

But before she could even unlock her phone, Falcon had already beaten her to the punch.

“Hey, Ash, it’s Garrett.” Falcon held his own phone out, putting the call on speaker for them all to hear.

“Hey, Garrett,” Ashley greeted him with her usual, friendly charm. “What’s up?”

Shadow frowned at the other woman’s casual tone.

What’s up? Seriously?

They weren’t calling to have a chat about the freaking weather. This was her father they were talking about. And as of right now, the man was MIA.

“We’re at Atrium Mercy,” Falcon responded in a rush. “We left the safe house to come straight here right after you called Shadow, but they’re saying Owens isn’t here.”

“Mercy?” Ashley sounded genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

Shadow quickly inserted herself into the confusing conversation. “When you called me, you said the ambulance took Rafe to Atrium Mercy. But we’re here, and they’re telling us he’s not?—”

“I never called you, Shadow.” The other woman’s tone did a full one-eighty, going from friendly to serious in the blink of an eye. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but you and I haven’t spoken today, and Mr. Owens is in the conference room right now, meeting with a client.”

“You’re sure he’s there?” Bones asked, his face twisted with the same look of confusion Shadow knew matched her own.

“I took him and the other gentleman a fresh carafe of coffee two minutes before you called, so…yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

A wave of relief left Shadow’s knees feeling weak, but then the reality of what had happened fully sank in. “Someone cloned Ashely’s voice.” Her eyes flew to the man standing to her immediate right. “Whoever it was got access to my phone number, and then they disguised their voice to make it sound exactly like Ashley’s. And they know…” Her throat worked a painful swallow before she cleared it and tried again. “They know I’m Owens’ daughter.”

“Stanton,” Digger rumbled the name as if it were a curse. “It has to be him.”

“But why?”

“To force you out of hiding,” Bones answered somberly. He started looking around, as if he expected the murdering son of a bitch to appear right there, in the middle of the emergency room lobby.

“He’s right.” Digger put a protective hand to her lower back and began guiding her toward the exit. “We need to get you the hell out of here. Now.”

“And go where?” Shadow’s steps quickened to keep up. “If they accessed my phone, then they probably know where the cabin is.”

“Good point.” He didn’t miss a beat as he grabbed the device still clutched in her hand.

The second they stepped through the automatic doors, he dropped it onto the concrete below. And then, he stomped his booted heel down hard in the center of its screen.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared as the glass broke beneath the weight of his foot. Digger bent down, scooped up the phone, and then he used both hands to nearly break the thing fully in half.

He tossed the destroyed device in the trash. “I’ll buy you a new one,” he offered with a low, angry mutter. Slade took her hand in his and began leading her to his car.

All three men kept their heads moving in constant swivels as they walked. Shadow, too, because the threat could come at them from anywhere at any time.

And because she hadn’t questioned the validity of what she now assumed was an AI-generated call, they’d walked themselves right into a killer’s trap.

Their cars were parked next to the no-parking curb about twenty yards from the emergency room entrance. As they marched down the long sidewalk toward the two vehicles, Digger used his free hand to retrieve his keys from his pocket.

“So what’s the plan?” Bones asked from a few steps back.

“I’m taking her to the office,” he announced curtly. “We’ll talk with Owens and decide our next steps from there.”

“Sounds good,” Falcon agreed. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Shadow remained quiet, her thoughts running in twelve different directions. She was relieved beyond words to know her father was okay. But on the flip side of that, she was positively livid knowing she’d fallen for Stanton’s obvious trick to bring her back out into his sights.

Her steps quickened even more, and soon she was inching her way into the lead. Keeping a protective hold on her hand, Digger lifted his other to point the fob toward the spot where he’d parked. He pressed the button to remotely start the vehicle’s engine, and then?—

The air around her erupted into a giant ball of flames.

Shadow felt herself being lifted off her feet as she was thrown backward through the air. Though she tried to hold on, her hand was ripped from Digger’s with an unstoppable force.

She was tossed into a nearby patch of manicured grass, her body landing hard against the unforgiving ground. A flash of pain struck as her head bounced with what felt like a crushing blow, and she thought she may have heard Digger call out her name.

But then the darkness prevailed, and her eyes fell shut. And after that, there was…

Nothing.