Page 184 of Snowbound Threat

Beckett is well protected, but every minute away from her feels like an eternity.

The café is dark, the lighting barely bright enough for me to see where I’m walking. There are two dozen or so tables scattered through the place, though most of them are empty. The ones that aren’t have two or more people sitting in them, except one.

Toward the back, a lone man sits at a table. A baseball cap is pulled low on his face, and he’s wearing jeans and a black sweatshirt. He doesn’t look anything like Lucian Creed, but when he lifts his face and I see him, I know that’s exactly who he is.

Without acknowledging him or ordering a coffee from the waiting barista, I head toward the back and slide into a chair. “No bodyguards?” I demand.

“There’s no time for you and me to banter back and forth,” he replies. “I need you to keep your voice down and pay attention. We have maybe fifteen minutes before I need to leave.”

His tone is different.

His expression is painted with impatience.

“Who are you? Really?” I ask because there’s no way this guy is the head of a criminal organization.

“Reid Kellar,” he replies. “DEA.” As he reaches into his jacket, my hand hovers over the weapon holstered at my back. When he flashes me a badge, I drop my hand.

“DEA.”

“Yes. I’ve been undercover for nearly two decades as Lucian Creed. So long I barely even remember my own name.” He runs both hands over his face.

“Any particular reason you want to meet with me now?”

“Beckett Wallace. Did she survive?”

A chill runs through me. “You knew she was targeted?”

“Not until the hit was carried out. I couldn’t investigate it myself without blowing my cover, which is why I contacted you.”

“She survived,” I say. “Barely. Who ordered the hit?” I demand, ready to hunt them down and do to them what they tried to do to her. Anger sings in my veins, wrapping around my heart and squeezing.

“A guy named Thomes,” he replies. “I’ve been after him for years. He’s the last in the long line of criminals I was taskedwith bringing down, but no one even knows what he looks like, making him untouchable. It’s why we brought in Paul Jameson.”

“Brought him in. Heworkedfor you?”

“I told you as much.”

“No.” I shake my head. “You told us he worked for Lucian Creed. You have Beckett believing she was married to a criminal.” My anger shifts direction now. If he’d just been honest with us— And then I force that thought away. This is so much bigger than me and Beckett.

Telling us would have broken the mission and been a stick of dynamite in two decades of undercover work. Honestly, this meeting is a risk he shouldn’t have taken—though I’m certainly glad he did.

“Yes. Paul was a private pilot who was hired by Thomes to fly some businessmen from Seattle to Boston, then back. When we found out he was coming into Velocity Airfield, at Thomes’ request, I contacted him personally as Lucian and offered him private accommodations if he’d simply keep me apprised of Thomes’ movements.”

“And he accepted.”

“No, actually. He turned me down and said he didn’t want to get involved. It wasn’t until I told him who I really was that he agreed to help. Paul Jameson was a good man who didn’t deserve to die.”

A good man who didn’t deserve to die.For some reason, that statement brings a wave of guilt crashing down on me. Here I am, falling in love with another man’s widow while helping her look into his death.

I shake it off.

“Paul flew all over the country for me, listening in on conversations between guys no one could build a case against, all while we waited for Thomes to show his hand. Guy helped me take down more criminals than an entire team could have in thetime he worked for me. But Thomes was the only one we couldn’t get to.”

“And you believe he’s at the helm of this?”

“Yes. But I think you might have accidentally uncovered his identity yesterday.”

“How so?”