Читать книгу: «Torn Loyalties»

ONE

Under the cover of deep darkness, Madison McKay slid on her belly in the dirt, lifted the binoculars to her eyes, then peered through a break in the thick woods and studied the distant top secret facility known as the Nest.

It had grown. A lot. In her days as an analyst there, the majority of the structures, a labyrinth of bunkers, had been built underground. Now, not one but four large buildings jutted into the night sky. A wide stretch of asphalt surrounded them, forming a clearing that ensured any approach would be noticed. Armed guards stood posted every twenty feet on the ground near concrete barricades, their backs to the buildings, and more soldiers were staggered on the rooftops. Obviously the commander expected something unusual to happen.

An attack? Unlikely. Only a handful of people assigned to the military installation surrounding the Nest knew the facility hidden at its core existed. So what had the Nest on high alert?

Her stomach burned; her fingers tingled. Northwest Florida had pretty mild winters, but being out in the woods, exposed to stiff winds and lying flat on the cold ground was enough to numb her gloved fingers and the tip of her masked nose. The stomach burn was acid due to sheer nerves.

Getting caught on the base without authorization would be bad, but getting caught on the perimeter of the Nest...

Not daring to think about the consequences, she cut off those thoughts, and kept watch.

Hours passed. Her eyelids grew heavy, then heavier, lulling her to doze off. She fought the temptation. Stay awake, Madison. Of all places, here—must stay alert.

Her resolve redoubled, she kept her breathing shallow, hoping that the mask would keep her exhaled breaths from fogging the air. Even something that slight from this distance could be noted. She kept watching, kept waiting.

Dawn threatened. Soon it would expose her, and in the past four hours, the only noteworthy observations she’d seen were changing of the guards. The soldiers had been relieved and replaced every hour, and that frequency proved telling. Whatever event or threat they expected hadn’t yet passed and the commander wanted the soldiers fresh, sharp and on their toes.

In the year she’d been stationed at the Nest, they’d only been on high alert once, for a practice drill in a readiness exercise that had lasted less than two hours. A string of forty-seven eighteen-wheelers had been stopped at the main facility’s outer gate. Soldiers had driven the trucks into the Nest, parked at the loading docks and unloaded boxes. The trucks were then returned to the outer gates and their drivers departed with them. The installation had been deemed ready.

Ready for what? No one, not even Madison, who analyzed delivery efficiency of the boxed contents defined only by one-word codes like Seeds or Purifier, had a clue.

But this alert was different, and two facts proved it: the absence of activity during the alert negated it being a readiness exercise drill, and the tension in the guards proved whatever initiated the alert was not ordinary.

The first signs of dawn pierced the horizon, tingeing it with a thin, pale streak that would soon thicken to daybreak. Her instincts told her to stay put, but she didn’t dare. If discovered, she’d never be in a position to expose the truth. The commander would see to that...and possibly to a lot more.

Disappointment battered her. Tonight, after the St. Valentine’s ball, she’d try again. Whatever happened here would happen at night.

The wind gusted. Madison’s eyes teared. She blinked hard and fast. If the commander and/or his vice commander had done what she suspected, she had to be vigilant and cautious. She was the only thing left standing between them and their possible actions, and those actions could not happen again. Not on her watch. No more lost ones could be sacrificed here. They must find their way home....

Tonight. Tomorrow night. Six months of nights—whatever it takes, Madison promised herself, then rose to a crouch and scanned the woods. Stealth and hyperalert, noting nothing unexpected, she moved from bush to tree through the thick woods, stepping lightly to avoid creating magnified sounds of dry leaves and twigs crunching underfoot.

With a scant fifteen minutes to spare before daylight exposed her, she left the restricted area and reached the public highway, then sprinted in the woods alongside the road to the sheltered spot where she’d parked her car to hide it from view.

Something odd was definitely going on out there. Whether or not it was connected to her case, she had no idea—yet. Bitterness filled her throat. Swallowing it, she eased into her silver Jaguar still hidden by darkness and shut the door.

“You want to explain what you’re doing out there?”

Madison’s heart rocketed. A man in her car. Oh, no. She’d been caught!

* * *

Madison squinted in the half-light, trying to identify the deeply shadowed silhouette of the man in her passenger seat. She recognized him.

Grant Deaver!

Her heart rate shot off the charts, and she inwardly groaned. Given the choice of a firing squad of the guards or this man, she’d take the firing squad. Them, she knew she couldn’t trust. But Grant? The jury was still out on him. “You want to explain how you got into my car?”

He held up a key. “I used this.”

She should have picked up on his cologne as soon as she opened the door. But she’d been so lost in thought that she’d missed it. Bad mistake. “Funny, I don’t recall giving you a key to my vehicle.”

“We’ve been dating since October, Madison,” he reminded her. “Totally plausible you did and forgot it.”

She hadn’t forgotten a thing. He’d found the spare key she stowed in a magnetic case under the back bumper. “For the record, while you’re endearing, your being here is not.” He’d scared ten years off her, though she didn’t mention it. She’d learned the hard way that exposing vulnerabilities was often interpreted as giving others a license to use them against you. Yes, they were dating. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But she strongly suspected he was under orders to spy on her and her staff. Of course, she kept him close. How else could she protect her staff or herself? That she found him attractive anyway, well, that was a challenge she just had to fight. “Why are you following me—and where’s your car?”

“No car.”

“You walked all the way out here?” It was ten miles into North Bay proper. Why would he do that? And how had he known where she’d be? Fair questions she needed answered after she got away from this facility. She cranked the engine and pulled over the deep shoulder and onto the road.

“My transportation is insignificant.” He frowned at her. “And gauging by what I’ve observed—you pulling surveillance on an off-limits, highly classified military installation—you’re hardly in a position to ask anyone questions.” He lifted an irritated hand. “Dressed in covert operation gear with greasepaint smeared all over your face.” She passed him her binoculars. “What are you doing out there at all, much less dressed like that? Are you trying to get yourself shot?”

She lowered the mask, let its strings loosely loop her neck and braked to a stop at the traffic light. The office or home?

Definitely not home. Not with him in the car. She’d shower and change at the office. It’d be hours before anyone else arrived. She hung a left and cruised past the sign to North Bay. “Since this is my car and you’re in it uninvited, I’m perfectly positioned to ask whatever questions I want.” She spared him a glance. “Why are you following me and how did you find me?”

Concern and anger feuded in his eyes, shone in the reflective light from the dash. “You were edgy all day—even more so than usual, which is saying something. You denied anything was up, so I had a friend drop me off.”

So now two people had followed her and knew where she’d gone. Oh, definitely not good. “So because I chose not to answer you, you have the right to shadow me?” She slid him a mild frown. “If I wanted to disclose, I’d disclose.” Inside, a part of her felt pleased he was concerned and wanted to protect her. Not surprising; he was a Christian, but one in an awkward position. She buried her emotional pleasure under the real facts. No way did she dare trust him. “Who brought you out here?”

“Mrs. Renault.”

Her assistant. Pins of betrayal pricked and peppered her skin. “You’re kidding me.”

“She knows the danger, Madison.”

She did. She’d been married to the former base commander. Still, telling Grant where Madison was and bringing him out there? What had Mrs. Renault been thinking?

“Don’t get knotted up at her. I was worried about you and so was she.” He paused and lowered his voice, not bothering to remove the sarcasm lacing it. “Worry. That’s something normal people do when they care about someone—in between the times they’re questioning their sanity for caring for someone as stubborn as you.”

She opened her mouth to object. Before she got out the first word, he cut her off.

“You know what? Don’t even bother. This has gone on long enough.” He sighed irritably and dragged a hand through his short brown hair. “What’s it going to take for you to trust me, Madison?”

That trust question had simmered unspoken between them from the start. She’d wished a hundred times in the past four months she could just drag the matter out into the open. But now that it was in the open, all she wanted to do was shove it back into the shadows.

Instead, she clicked her blinker with her pinkie, signaling a left turn. Trust was hard for her, maybe impossible, and for just cause. Once betrayed, twice shy. Still, he deserved an answer, so she gave him the only one she could. “I don’t know.”

“Since I hired on with you at Lost, Inc., you’ve put me through test after test—and you’ve poured on even more of them in our personal relationship.” He lifted a warning finger. “This is not the time for you to say we don’t have a personal relationship.”

She’d like to deny it, but she couldn’t. First, it wasn’t true. They did have a relationship. A mostly adversarial one, but after four months under horrific conditions, she had to admit there was also a spark between them that promised they could be very good together...maybe. Eventually. And, keeping it real and fair, she had tested him to the max professionally and personally. Every single time, he’d passed with flying colors. Yet even that hadn’t removed her doubts and resolved her trust issues.

“Not disputing the relationship,” he said. “That’s progress. Yet you don’t know what it’s going to take to trust me. And if you don’t know, then obviously I can’t know.” He sighed again. More deeply. “So let’s try a different question. How about keeping it simple—just tell me about this jaunt of yours tonight?”

Boldly stated, and a fair question. Right after the agency’s open house during the annual Fall Festival back in October, she’d been invited to the military installation and quizzed about a security breach at the Nest. It had been easy to see they were after someone to blame. She’d countered by hiring Grant. He’d just left active duty working in the Office of Special Investigations for the very commander and vice commander who had questioned her, and she needed to keep an eye on him. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Commander Talbot and Vice Commander Dayton were also the reason she was watching the Nest. She strongly suspected those two men had links to two civilian murders that unfortunately everyone except her deemed solved. The cases had been officially closed.

That was her initial connection to Grant Deaver. And while he hadn’t sold her out—yet—he had reported Lost, Inc., events back to Talbot and Dayton, purportedly defending her agency. Still, the commander had a security breach at the Nest, and he and his vice commander were trying their best to blame it on someone at her agency. With Grant reporting to them, how could she trust him?

Tempted to blast that question at him, she fingered the Purple Heart medal in her jacket pocket to steady herself. This would be a dangerous time to lose her temper. Trust him with the truth? Oh, how she wished she could. “I can’t answer that, either.”

He grumbled under his breath. “How can you be attracted enough to me to date me but not trust me at all? I don’t get it, Madison.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted, hating being put on the spot like this. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be attracted and I’d never put you on my payroll—”

“I think I’ve just been insulted.”

Two hundred pounds and six feet of bruised male ego she did not need. “That came out wrong.” She glanced at him then back at the road. “Of course I’m attracted to you. What woman wouldn’t be? What I meant was there’s something about you that gets to me, but I wish it didn’t.”

“Because I’m on your payroll.”

“Not really.” Oh, she didn’t want to get into this. Weary already, she didn’t want to resurrect old wounds.

He flicked at the door handle with his fingertips. “You know, I’d really like to get out of this car, walk away from you and never look back—”

Panic threatened. “Grant, don’t. Please.” She didn’t want him to go. She wanted... She didn’t know what she wanted, but she wanted him with her.

“I won’t.” His frown deepened to a scowl. “Because as unfair as this situation is, I understand, and I’m as conflicted about you as you are about me.”

The attraction was mutual...and mutually disdainful. That pricked more than her pride. It pricked her heart. “Sometimes God has a bizarre sense of humor.”

“Apparently.” He lifted a finger. “Watch that deer.”

Spotting it on the edge of the road, Madison slowed and veered into the other lane to give the animal a wide berth. “Listen, I admit that this case has me worked up, and I’m touchier than usual because of it. It’s also been a really long night. Can we talk about this later?” After she thawed out would be good.

“‘This case,’ you said. So you were at the Nest because of the David Pace and Beth Crane murders.” Grant’s frustration showed in his expression.

David Pace and Beth Crane were both reporters who’d been murdered after asking questions about the Nest. No one outside a very small group even knew the Nest existed. Pace and Crane were not in that loop. That much both she and Grant knew. She didn’t confirm or deny Grant’s suspicion.

“Madison, those murders were solved. Gary Crawford confessed to killing them both. What more do you need to let go of this obsession that Talbot and Dayton are responsible for their deaths?”

She pulled into the office parking lot, then turned in her seat to look into the face of the man she cared more for than any man in her life and trusted less than any man she’d ever let get within shouting distance. “I need the truth. I believe David and Beth were sacrificed. I’ve been sacrificed, and I won’t stand by and let it happen to them, too.”

Grant’s expression softened. “They’re not lost, Madison. They’re dead.”

Her heart clenched. “The truth about what happened to them and why it happened is lost. That’s just as bad. Their families deserve to know the facts.”

His mouth flattened to a slash and he stared out the windshield.

“Grant, you have to understand.” Her mouth went ash dry. Weary or not, she forced herself to open old wounds anyway. “When I was on active duty in Afghanistan, I was on a mission that went south. Because of my job, my superiors sacrificed me. You know I was taken prisoner, but there are things you don’t know.”

He knew she’d worked in the intelligence realm, and asked, “Like what?”

She worked hard to keep the anger still simmering inside her out of her voice. “They knew I was alive but classified me killed in action, anyway—to avoid an international incident, I was later told.” She cocked her head. “We can’t admit we have spies out there, you know.”

“That’s standard operating procedure.”

“Except when it happens to you.” The back of her nose burned. “I gave everything and I was disposable. Just one of many, and leaving me behind was expedient—”

“You were treated no differently than anyone else. Everyone in Intel knows that’s the way it works.”

“Exactly. Operatives and agents know, but my parents didn’t sign on to that. They’re not in Intel and they didn’t know. My family should have been told the truth—I believed they would be told the truth—but they weren’t. They were told I was dead.” A hard lump lodged in her throat. Her eyes stung. “For the next eighteen months, I was a POW and they mourned my death.”

“Eighteen months. I knew you’d gotten a Purple Heart, but I had no idea you were held that long.” Grant stilled. Stared at her. “How did they finally get you out?”

Her heart twisted. “Did you not hear me? They did nothing but forget me and leave me to rot in a four-by-six cell.” She hiked her chin. “I got myself out. I watched, waited and learned. They had me working in the kitchen, which included going to market. I studied everything, watched everyone, looking for weaknesses and information I could use. There was one guard who was particularly slow on the uptake. He’d escort me to the market now and then. One day when he did, I spotted an opening, and I took it. I escaped.”

“Totally on your own?”

“Totally.” The bitterness at that surged in her. Mingled with the anger, it proved too strong to fight. “It took me four months to make my way back to the States.

“No one would officially help me, Grant. I didn’t exist.”

“So you had no money, no papers, and yet you managed to get back home?”

“Money can be earned and papers bought.” It hadn’t been easy. Parts of the ordeal had been horrifically dangerous and difficult. Getting out of Pakistan had been a nightmare, and the ship... She shuddered just thinking of the ship. Old and moldy—she was posing as a young man and working as a deckhand—it had been awful. And yet she had prayed through it and made it. “I prepositioned funds and papers but it took time and finesse to get to them. Yet that’s not the point. The point is that for all the time I was held captive and trying to get home—until the moment I knocked on my parents’ front door and my mother answered, my parents thought I was dead.”

Never would Madison forget the ravages of grief in them, their utter shock at seeing her, or their overwhelming relief of her still being alive and coming home to them.

“I can imagine their relief.” He frowned. “You’re cold.” Reaching over, he adjusted the heater to take out the chill. “So what happened when you showed up at headquarters?”

“They gave me a Purple Heart and offered me a promotion with a stateside slot.”

“You kept the medal but departed the fix.”

She nodded. “No way was I staying active duty after they abandoned me. But the medal was different.”

“You’d earned it.”

It’d taken months for her physical wounds to heal. But the emotional ones cut even deeper and some remained raw. “I did earn it, but no.” She let him see the steel in her gaze. “I still believe in the spirit it embodies. I trust that spirit and the medal reminds me that there are others out there like me.”

“That’s why you opened Lost, Inc. To bring the lost home.”

She nodded. Now maybe he’d understand why she couldn’t just drop the Pace and Crane murders.

“I’m sorry you went through that.” Grant clasped her hand.

“Me, too.” She gave him a bittersweet smile. It was a time of trials but also a time that solidified her faith. She’d done the impossible then, and no one knew better than she that she couldn’t have done it alone, though she was still working at not being bitter that God hadn’t spared her from the trial.

“I understand why you want the truth on the murders, Madison, but I believe you already have it. What I still don’t understand is you going out to the Nest.” Grant squeezed her hand. “I mean, what can you learn by staring at the outside of the facility that will prove anything?”

Madison stiffened, and bit her tongue. Speak it in anger, regret it in calm. She’d eaten enough words in her war of wits and wills with him already. “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t have to go out there, would I?” She left the car.

The slammed car door signaled Grant to follow her.

She opened the office door, turned off the alarm, flipped on the lights and headed upstairs to the kitchen. Hot coffee would be good.

“I’ll do that.” He took the coffeepot out of her hands. “You go get cleaned up before anyone else gets here. Out there all night, you’re probably half-frozen. A hot shower will thaw you out.”

Why did he do that? Just when she wanted to bark his head off, he turned around and did something thoughtful and caring. “Thank you.” She walked to the door, then paused and looked back at him, shrugging out of his coat.

Tall and broad shouldered, he was in great shape and obviously had kept up his physical training regimen. Her stomach clutched. Looking at him did crazy things to her. It always had. From the very first time she’d laid eyes on him, without a word or an ounce of effort, he’d begun chipping away at the protective barriers she’d studiously built around her heart. She resented that but seemed helpless to stop it. Still, she was determined. Caring about a man she couldn’t trust was absurdly foolish, and she was not a foolish woman.

She shoved back the black hoodie covering her hair. Long silver-blond strands fell loose down her back. “Are you ever going to tell me why you really followed me?”

“I did tell you.”

“No, you gave me a line about me being edgy and you being worried.”

His square jaw tightened. “It wasn’t a line.” He draped his coat on the brass tree, poured water into the coffeemaker, flipped the switch and then turned to answer her. “I followed you because I don’t want you to end up dead.”

What exactly did he mean? He’d followed her to the Nest, but he hadn’t interceded. He’d waited in her car. So where did he sense danger to her? His expression had never been more sober or serious, or more closed, giving nothing away. “You agree with me, then? You think Commander Talbot and Vice Commander Dayton are involved in a cover-up, too?”

Grant frowned and hedged. “I think if you get caught spying on the Nest, you’re going to get shot.”

Madison frowned back at him. “How can you ignore Talbot and Dayton when you know they’re trying their best to blame someone at my agency for the security breach?”

David Pace and Beth Crane had been reporters for WKME, a local TV station. Separately, three years apart, they’d gone to Talbot to confirm tips from sources they’d been given about the Nest. The facility buried in the woods in the center of a military installation so highly classified that even those assigned to the base didn’t know the Nest was there—that Nest. Talbot had denied David Pace’s and Beth Crane’s tips and in short order, both had been murdered. But their tips had been accurate. And that meant someone definitely had breached security.

“I’m not ignoring anything or anyone.”

But he was. Commander Talbot was up for a congressional appointment. Vice Commander Dayton was up for Talbot’s job. A security breach by someone under their command could ax those promotions. In short, Talbot and/or Dayton needed a scapegoat and they intended to find one at Lost, Inc.

“They have to look at everyone in your agency, Madison, and you know it.”

Lost, Inc., was a logical, rich target. Everyone working for her was former military and had served at least one assignment at the Nest. None of them would breach security, but as they were no longer under Talbot’s or Dayton’s command, any one of them would serve the purpose of taking the fall and keeping the commanders’ promotions safe.

Serial killer Gary Crawford had supposedly killed David Pace. Beth Crane had been deemed the victim of a home invasion until Crawford’s apprehension, when he’d confessed to killing them both. But Madison wasn’t buying it. Serial killers confessed to everything to embellish their legacy and incite fear in others. Beth Crane and, three years later, David Pace had exposed the security breach by asking Talbot for confirmation of the Nest’s existence, and Madison was sure that’s how they’d ended up dead. “You know no one here would—”

Grant leaned back against the counter, and crossed his arms. “What I know is that if you get caught out there spying, you’ll lose more than your career.”

The finality in Grant’s tone signaled he was finished talking about this, and so was she. How could she convince him with no more proof than her instincts? Her challenge was that simple.

And that complex.

* * *

Madison showered, then dressed in black slacks, a teal sweater and flats. She left her hair down, applied lotion to her wind-chafed skin and then returned to the kitchen.

Grant sat at the table drinking a cup of coffee from a camouflage-print mug. He cast her a weary, pensive look but said nothing.

Her favorite Minnie Mouse mug sat on the counter beside the coffeepot—he noticed and remembered everything about her, even her preferred coffee mug—and she filled it, then joined him at the table. Did he remember details about her because of professional or personal reasons? His profiling training or a genuine affection for her? Unsure, she sipped, then said, “You’re pretty steamed at me, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “I’m worried. I want you to promise me you’ll stay away from the Nest.”

“I can’t do that.” She wouldn’t even stay away if she trusted him with all her heart. “I’ve made my reasons clear. I’m stalled on my case until I find new information or until Talbot releases the satellite images under the Freedom of Information Act.” Hopefully, he’d do that before she died of old age. She’d requested them two months ago, during the Christmas cruise she and Grant had taken with a group of friends.

Grant knew as well as she did that those images of David Pace’s exploded car would prove whether or not it had been placed where it had been found before or after the explosion, which would prove whether or not David Pace had been in it when it had blown up. His medical file was sealed. Why? Right after Gary Crawford’s arrest and confessions, she’d received a tip that Pace’s body hadn’t been burned. Why that tip? Why to her? People didn’t take those kinds of reporting risks without reason.

Grant lifted a hand. “The man died from natural causes. An embolism. You saw the coroner’s report.”

“So did you. It was a lie. It had to be a lie, or the embolism had to be induced.” Grant couldn’t be buying into that report. “There were no signs of anything like that in his medical history—nothing that points to there being any problem. He was young and healthy.” And Grant knew as well as she that inducing an embolism was a military tactic. Carrying out a kill order? Emergency termination? She shuddered.