Assassin's Promise, The Red Team Series, Book 5 (8 page)

Her mom’s tax returns showed they’d been living in the same house from Remi’s birth until she left for college. The whole package had fit so neatly until that detail; the house listed on her tax returns hadn’t been built until Remi was ten.

He looked up her mother’s employers over the years. All were small businesses that had existed for less than three years. He called up her driver’s license. It was issued the year they showed up in northern Colorado.
 

He blew the picture up and stared into the eyes of Remi’s mom. Joan Chase. A chill scraped his spine. Eerie how much she looked like her daughter—he recognized the fear in her eyes. The photo was seventeen years old. She was, in this pic, only a little older than her daughter was now.
 

What happened to her? She disappeared from all records when Remi graduated from high school.
 

Remi was as much an enigma as her mom. She moved on to Colorado State University after high school, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She took her masters degree in Sociology from Stanford and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton.

Why sociology? Who the hell picked sociology if they hoped to support themselves after school? Maybe her goal all along was to be a professor. She certainly was passionate about her field.

Greer got up from the computer in the ops room and walked away, moving absently through the hall and into the big conference room. He rubbed his face. The eyes of his dream flashed through his mind, sounding an alarm.
 

Remi didn’t exist. Not on paper, only in the flesh. Someone set up her identity. He went back to his computer, determined to find out who she really was.

Six hours later, he had found what he needed to know. He went upstairs through the den. Owen and Kit were there, talking quietly.
 

“S’up, Greer?” Kit asked. “You look like you have bad news.”

Greer frowned. “I checked out the professor. Her identity is an illegal one her mom purchased from a black market vendor seventeen years ago when they left the Grummond Society.”

Kit leaned back in his chair in front of Owen’s desk. “What’s the Grummond Society?”

“A polygamist group in southern Colorado.”

Kit looked at Owen, then back at Greer. “Are they connected with the Friends or the WKB?”

“No.”

“Didn’t she need a criminal background check before the university hired her?” Owen asked.

“Possibly, but she’s been in her false identity since she was fourteen. It would have passed inspection since she doesn’t have a criminal record in that ID or any other associated with her fingerprints.”

“Does she know her identity’s bogus?” Kit asked.

“Not sure,” Greer said.
 

“Maybe Jafaar Majid knows,” Kit mused. “Maybe it’s what he’s blackmailing her with so he can force her to be the ‘butterfly’ he told Rocco about. If her university finds out, her career is over.”

Greer shrugged. “It’s a stretch to think she’s the mole. I went to her. She didn’t come to us. They couldn’t anticipate that connection before we’d made it. She doesn’t want anything to do with our investigation. She’s unwilling to expose her data and reveal the confidential sources of her research. If she were being blackmailed, she’d be a whole lot more willing to be helpful so that she could get inside.”

“You could be right,” Kit said. “We just heard back from Val. He said Ivy’s waitress is hiding something. Said she was hyper-vigilant during their chat, kept herself on alert the whole time.”

“We have no idea who Jafaar’s butterfly is,” Owen said. “Could be more than one person. May not even be female. Hell. It could even be Lobo’s new boss. Let’s just keep our eyes open and be aware.”

Greer nodded. “Could be false info he’s feeding us to distract us or to see where it washes out in our network.”

“Or that.” Kit stood up. “If you think your professor has some useful info, get the scoop on what she knows of her identity.”

Chapter Seven

Greer repositioned himself on the ridge overlooking the Friendship Community. He’d come back out to continue observing the Friends, trying to get a sense of their behavior patterns. It was past one a.m. The community had rolled up its figurative sidewalks hours ago. They didn’t spend a lot of time awake after dark, he’d learned—if he were to judge by the few cottages that were lit after sunset. In the daytime, they were busy in their gardens and fields, doing laundry, cleaning their cabins. Or baking. Geez, the sweet scents from their kitchens wafted up to his stand every day.
 

He checked his watch. It was time to rendezvous with the team. The place he’d picked for the meetup was near the community’s entrance. The spot was accessible by their SUVs via a forest service road; it would be easy for the guys to get in and get out. He stood and slung his pack over his shoulder.

Something triggered his inner alarm. He went still, channeling all of his attention to what he was hearing…or not hearing. At all hours of the day and night, the woods were alive with large and small game. The forest never slept, but tonight, it was silent.
 

He wasn’t alone. Needles pricked along his spine. Aw, Christ. Not here. Not in the dark nether world of the woods. He watched and waited, calming his rapid breath.

He definitely had picked up a ghost somewhere along the line.
 

His grandfather had taught him how to calm his pulse, quiet his breathing, open his senses.
They can hear your thoughts, you know, the people you’re tracking,
he’d told Greer.
Thought waves go first, tickling the senses. Empty your mind. Silence it,
his grandfather had warned.
 

Same held true for ghosts.

He and his grandfather had spent an entire summer on self-control. His mind, his thinking, his bio impulses. His grandfather had begun mentoring when he was eight. Puberty had wreaked havoc with more than his body; he’d had to relearn the lessons of an eight-year-old once he’d started his shift into adulthood. The mental facility of a child was far shallower than that of an adult, and the lessons in puberty were intense. Everything that had come before was like kindergarten compared to the real shit his grandfather set loose when Greer’s body had reached its full size and power.

And now, in moments like these, he could become nothing—nothing sentient anyway. Just air and shadows, seeking the source of the disturbance he’d felt, protecting himself from the ghost. He heard a breath, felt a chill on his skin. The temperature in the woods had dropped twenty degrees. A movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.
 

Someone was out there. A woman, maybe. He’d seen a flash of clothes before she slipped behind a tree. A sleeve, or the edge of a skirt. It happened too fast to say. He waited a second, polling his senses for anything else that might be near.

Everything was silent and still.
 

He moved in the direction of the woman. He caught another flash of clothing, long hair, pale-looking in the moonlight. They were heading down a hill, away from the village. She was moving quickly, as if something had spooked her. Maybe she’d seen his ghost.
 

Greer sped up, determined to catch her. Why had one of the girls from the village run away? Where was she going? He looked behind him to see if anyone was after her. They were going up a hill now. He topped the ridge and came to an abrupt halt.
 

A different woman—one that was flesh and blood—was scrambling down the hill, her flashlight bouncing like a laser show. She stumbled once. Greer hurried to help her, but she got to her feet and continued down the hill. They were headed toward the forest service road. When he saw her car, he knew who she was.

What was Remi doing here in the woods at night?

She hadn’t come far from her car. Standing in front of it, arms folded, legs spread, were three of the guys. She came to a full stop. Helluva welcoming committee. She flashed her light at them, then turned it on him. She stood to the side, trying to keep herself from being sandwiched between them.

“Greer? That was you?” she asked, relaxing just slightly.

“Yeah. What are you doing here?”

“I was just leaving—I’ve been here all day.”

He hadn’t seen her, but he’d spent most of the afternoon in the woods between the WKB property and the Friends’.
 

“I was almost to my car when I thought I saw a girl.”

“You saw her, too?” he asked.

Remi nodded. “I lost her though. I thought, maybe, she was running away. Who are these men?”

He moved closer. “Friends. Val, Kelan, and Angel—meet Remi Chase.”

She gave them a long look, then switched her attention to Greer. “Your team?”

“Yeah. Part of it, anyway.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Scoping things out.”

“You’re on Friendship land.” She gave him an injured look. “Greer, don’t do this.”

“What?”

“Be here…anywhere near here. Please. You put all my work in jeopardy.”

“We aren’t engaging the Friends.”

She put a hand on her hip. It was dark and hard to tell, but she may have stomped her foot. “Greer Dawson, your hand’s in the proverbial cookie jar. Don’t you dare tell me the Friends aren’t why you’re here.”

“Actually, ma’am,” Angel said, “we were going to do some night fishing.”

“Want to join us?” Val asked.

“No,” she snapped, then looked at him. “This is not a game. If the Friends catch you, they’ll think I brought you here, that I’ve sneaked you in behind their backs.”

“I’ve been here on and off for a week. No one has seen me yet.”

He heard the shocked breath she drew. “So that’s it? The hell with everything I’ve worked toward? The hell with three years’ effort?”

He stepped toward her. “Bring me in.”

“No. They aren’t your enemies. They aren’t anything to you.”

“Let me see that for myself.”

 
“No. Dammit, Greer. No.” She moved toward her car. Angel was blocking access to the driver’s door. She glared up at him.
 

“Let her go,” Greer ordered.
 

Angel turned sideways, but stayed in her space. She unlocked her car with her key fob, then quickly locked it again once she was inside. They watched as she pulled out of the small parking lot and headed back down the long dirt road.
 

“Why’s your woman prowling around the Friends at night?” Angel asked.

Greer shook his head. “She’s not my woman.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Say, did you guys see her go up the ridge? How far up had she gotten?”

“About where you met her,” Kelan said. “Why?”

“Because there was someone else in the woods. She and I both saw her. A girl. I thought she was running away from the village, like most of their teens seem to. I wanted to catch her. She came straight this way. Didn’t you see her?”

“There was no one but your little professor.” Val hooked his thumbs in the corners of his front pockets of his cargo pants. “You said you wanted to give us an overview of the village?”

“Yeah. This way.” He’d had the guys come out so that they could see for themselves the layout of the village. He’d found the best vantage point, the perfect spot for a sniper, should things come to that.

Greer looked over his shoulder to the dark woods down the ridge. Maybe he and Remi had both been mistaken. Could have been the backside of a mule deer they’d been chasing. She—it—ran over the ridge right where the professor was standing. It must have darted away just before breaking out of the woods.
 

Then again, maybe Remi had scrambled his head more than he’d like to admit.

* * *

Two police cars were parked out front of the campus building that housed the University of Wyoming’s sociology department when Greer arrived the next morning.
 

He went up the three flights of stairs to the fourth floor. There were several small clusters of students and staff clogging the hallway. He wove his way around them as he headed toward Remi’s office. The cops were inside, one interviewing the doc, the other talking to a younger man. The doc’s office had been wrecked. Piles of books and papers spilled out of drawers and shelves, furniture was toppled, bits of broken glass crunched anytime anyone moved.

Greer drew back and dialed the team’s ops center. He could have used his comm unit, but that would have drawn unwanted attention.
 

“Go,”
Max said on the other line.

“Someone hit the professor’s office. Looks like it happened overnight. Cops are here taking statements. Can you take a look at their cameras, see what you can find out?”

“On it.”

The cops went past him. Some of the people in the hall cleared out, following her assistant, who’d been with the professor. Greer stepped inside her office. Remi was on her knees gathering a pile of papers. She looked over at the metal filing cabinet they came from. The thieves must have used a crowbar to pry the thing open; it was completely unusable. She shook the papers free of glass fragments and looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw him there.

A dozen thoughts raced through her eyes. He felt each of them.

He knelt on the debris in front of her. “Remi—”

She shook her head, stopping him, then resumed grabbing papers.

He started to separate papers from glass, too.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I wanted to apologize for scaring you last night.”

She paused and looked up at him. Her forest-green eyes seemed to be holding back a monsoon’s worth of tears. If he ever wanted to slay dragons, it was hers. Jesus, he wanted to fucking shred them.

“I think you should go.”

Greer lifted the corner of her desk and used his booted foot to push some papers out of the way. “I can help clean up—” His eyes begged her to let him.

She shook her head. “I’m in enough trouble. I’ve been summoned to the provost’s office. I don’t know why all of this is happening, but it won’t be good for me if the university finds Homeland has an interest in it, too.”