Betrayals (Black Cipher Files series Book 2) (7 page)

I’d been captured not long after that email.

I’d known he was keeping things from me. I’d hoped they were not similar omissions to my own, but as the pieces fell into place now I wondered. Had I been wrong? Could there be some more sinister explanation for his reticence?

I remember the first time I saw him at the podium in the lecture hall. A study in contradictions; a warrior’s body, muscled and sleek, encased in a scholar’s garb, an unrelenting black suit of extremely fine wool gabardine. A collarless, fine linen shirt, black, of course, clung to a chest better suited to an action hero than a think tank geek.

The lecture had been...a whim. Something to do on a slow Wednesday night. Professional curiosity. He’d been speaking about non-violent alternatives to counteracting terrorism.

Our meeting couldn’t have been engineered, could it?

To Neli, I said, “I need a favor. Go over there.” I laid out specific instructions for what I wanted her to ask. “Keep him in the living room or on the patio and get him to face this way.” I’d be able to read his lips through the scope on the rifle in my bag.

“What you doin’?” I could feel her start of surprise. “You don’t think he did that to your house? Not your man.”

No, I didn’t think he’d trashed my house. But the question remained...what the hell was he doing in the Bahamas? The bag over my shoulder hung like a carcass on a hook, the old rifle inside weighing the bag down. I couldn’t get the damn thing out until I got rid of Neli.

“He didn’t trash my house. I just need to find out why he’s here.”

She licked her lips slowly. “He isn’t dangerous, is he?”

To me, just maybe
. “Not to you.”

Jordan detested collateral damage. It was one of the reasons he’d left the FBI.

“After you’re done with him, go on home. Don’t linger in the house, don’t contact me again.”

“But....”

I patted her hand, willing her to leave so I could start assembling that weapon. “I’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I think it’s safe to go back into the house. But don’t go back until I tell you it’s okay.”

“You don’t want to see him?” she asked slowly.

I never thought I was vain about my appearance. I appreciated luxury in my textiles, my clothing, my possessions, but I’d always thought myself above the narcissistic beauty of my own looks.

As I catalogued my injuries, the maimed toe, the hideous, still-healing scar on my leg, the various burns and cuts strewn over my body, I acknowledged I’d been fooling myself for a very long time.

I was a mess. Outside and inside. My emotions were all over the place and my body was not the one I’d left home with. We were over, and I’d rather he remembered me the way I was than be thankful he’d dodged a bullet.

That wasn’t fair to him. He hadn’t been with me because of my looks. But I sure didn’t want to find out they mattered to him as much as they turned out to matter to me.

And if he did have something to do with my current predicament, I sure as hell didn’t want him to know how well they’d succeeded in tearing me down.

If I ever saw him in person again, it would be when I was strong, whole, and invincible.

Ruthlessly I pushed down the wish to have a moment. Just a hug. A minute in his arms, wrapped around him, absorbing his warmth, his comfort, his sheer bulk.

“No. I don’t want to see him,” I lied.

“God spare life, be safe.” Neli scurried out the door and jumped on her bicycle.

I reached into the drawstring bag slung across my shoulder and quickly pulled out the metal pieces, then began to assemble the ancient sniper rifle.

Jordan was here
.

Through the last few weeks, I’d held him in my mind like a talisman. I didn’t contact him so I could protect him, keep him safe.

I locked the bore into place.

Except, just maybe, he’d been the missing piece of the faction out to kill me. How could I even be thinking about a hug from him?

I shoved the clip into the magazine with a little more force than necessary. Had he set me up? Had he, all this time while I’d been protecting him, been searching for a way to destroy me?

My heart cried, no! But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed possible. As I ran through everything, I realized I was a fool not to have factored him into my suspicions. He had the connections, he had the tactical knowledge, and he’d been angry before I left.

I screwed the scope onto the top with quick jerks. Dammit.

Liquid splashed on my finger.
One. Two. Three
.

Shit. With the heel of my hand I wiped away the perspiration. I refused to be crying as I did this. I took a slow, deep inhale.

Since my imprisonment, I couldn’t seem to apply the same detached, unemotional reasoning that was the cornerstone of my work and my life. I used to look at all the angles, calculate gains and losses in a way that made sense, and decide on a course of action.

But now, my empathy level had gotten skewed. I couldn’t figure out if it was due to the torture...or the general loss of myself, but my decision-making process was off.

Clearly, I’d been remembering our interactions with a romanticized view.

At this point, I couldn’t trust anyone. If Jordan was the person who set me up, I’d have to deal with it, deal with him. I fingered the barrel slowly. The Springfield was for shorter range shooting than the Remington Jordan had used in the FBI.

But it would get the job done.

I wondered if he’d trained with one. Probably. I wondered if he would be able to feel the crosshairs along the nape of his neck.

If he’d played me, he’d played me well. The cold possibility of betrayal tore through me. All the longing, yearning I’d done. I felt a fool.

I lifted the weapon slowly to my shoulder and stared down the sight, keeping my finger away from the trigger while Neli made her way to my house.

The butt rested coldly against the bare skin of my shoulder. I steadied my hands, hoping my body could support the weight of the old weapon. Praying I wouldn’t have to use it. If necessary, if it came down to him or me, I would kill him....

But I might hesitate.

EIGHT

September 13

Nassau, Bahamas

What the hell was he doing here?

If he could just get one clue, one shred of proof Staci was alive and well, he’d let it go.

Go home and conclude their damn relationship had been slated to fail from the moment they met. Just because the woman in the picture wasn’t Staci didn’t mean she was still alive. After all, she hadn’t contacted him since that last awkward email.

Maybe she really was dead.

Except, he'd found out someone was watching her townhouse in Virginia.

If only he could get rid of the feeling she was in grave danger, satisfy himself that his worries were irrational.

Staci could take care of herself. And obviously wanted to...if she was alive.

Her mother’s amulet burned in his pocket. He fingered the carved stone, as if rubbing the small memory of her would cause her to appear like a genie from a bottle, and he paused to let his eyes adjust from the bright Caribbean sunshine outside to the shaded cool interior.

Even before his vision cleared, Jordan knew his problems had just gotten a lot worse.

His heart stopped as he took in the destruction of her beautiful, peaceful retreat. He stepped cautiously into the open floor plan and surveyed the damage.

The house had the stale, stagnant air of a home closed up for some time, overlaid with the stench of decay in a humid tropical climate.

Please God, don’t let it be rotting flesh.

Jordan tore through the house, the kitchen, the great room, the bedroom, the bathroom, frantic for any sign she was here.

Alive.

Anything else was unthinkable.

He returned to the entry-way, leaned against the fake stone pillar, his breath sawing through his chest, scraping at his insides like a dull Ka-Bar. Someone had completely trashed her house. Not in a ‘I’m robbing you to get money’ way but a ‘Where the fuck is it?’ way.

“She isn’t here. She isn’t dead.” He repeated the mantra as if by saying the words over and over he could make them true.

The house was a study in neutrals. White, beige, cream, tan and wood tones. Before this violation, her home had been extremely soothing. Now, every item had been ripped apart and discarded like garbage.

He had to investigate, look for any clue as to what had happened. Finding anything was unlikely. He’d been part of enough search warrant teams to believe any evidence of significance was history.

No one had been here since the ransack. Which was odd. He knew from his visits here, that Neli usually came in once a week to clean and keep the place immaculate. He’d called Neli every day, hoping maybe Staci had made her way to the Bahamas. So why hadn’t Neli mentioned she hadn’t been to Staci's house?

Jordan began his search in the kitchen and noted details with a sense of calm he was far from feeling. The oven had been pulled from the walls, the ice maker disassembled, the refrigerator unplugged.

The rotting smell was worse in here. The refrigerator contents, the usual condiment jars, had been dumped into the sink and left, contributing to the stink.

The freezer held one package, plastic ripped open, of some indefinable meat, which had begun the decay process. That was the source of the awful stench.

Thank God
.

He rested his forehead against the wall and waited for his heart to settle into an easier rhythm, listening to his breath as relief swept through him.

After a minute, Jordan kicked through the mass of goose feathers on the living room floor and made his way to the bedroom in a trail of white fluff.

In the bedroom, metal coils poked out from piles of mattress stuffing. The sheer curtains lay in shreds on the bedroom floor. Every single lamp had been taken completely apart, bulbs smashed.

Good thing the house was furnished in island spare.

Standing in the doorway, he gazed at the bamboo platform bed and tried not to let memories overwhelm him. They’d tangled in those sheets, wrestled and laughed and loved with a passion he had never imagined. But now the linens were slashed and ripped. He smoothed a rough finger along a strip of what was left of the pristine white cotton.

He and Staci had been here in August.

Before. Before everything turned to shit. When he’d really thought they had a future. He hadn’t told her about his father, but he’d been thinking about it.

If only he could have let go of the nagging little niggle that something was wrong, something was off.

His instincts had been right.

In the bathroom, the lingering smell of gardenias assaulted his senses, taunting his memory.

She’d playfully lured him into the open glass shower, the floral scent on her body, in her hair. She lathered the soap and run her slick, teasing fingers over his body. They’d explored each other with murmured laughter, the rest of the world locked far away, unable to intrude.

Now, the fixtures lay in pieces on the cream granite floor; the showerhead, the jets from the tub, towel bars, toilet paper bar, all disassembled and strewn liked broken shells on the beach.

He flexed his arms, fisted his hands and thought he would welcome the chance to have a little one-on-one with the person responsible for this mess.

Deliberately, he unclenched his fists. Anger would get him nowhere. He needed to channel his rage into a cool, calm, analytical assessment of the facts.

He drew on his HRT training. No value judgments, no moral quandaries.

Emotions had no place in a sniper’s world.

The search destruction was meticulous and all-encompassing. Professional all the way.

The devastation had only one good message: they didn’t have Staci. If they did, there would be no need for the complete annihilation of her property.

Jordan realized he couldn’t let go of the idea that if he could only restore the house, then she would come back as well.

The thought was stupid and futile.

But he couldn’t leave until the place was clean.

He started in the bedroom by pulling the rest of the batting from the mattress and stuffing a garbage bag with the cotton. His mind wandered as he did the menial work.

Gaining access to the house would have been easy. Half the houses on this tiny inlet were only occupied a few weekends a year and rarely at the same time.

He heard a noise at the front door. On instinct, he reached for his weapon. A year out of the field, and he still followed training.

But of course he wasn’t carrying.

He knew that Staci kept a weapon in the bedside table. Based on the thoroughness of the destruction, odds were the small P229 was gone.

It wouldn’t hurt to check.

Carefully, Jordan put down the garbage bag and eased toward the night-stand next to the bed. He slid the drawer open soundlessly. Empty, except for an open box of condoms and some outdated Vogue magazines.

No weapon. Which meant, the ransackers had stolen it. Through the crack in the door, Jordan had a clear line of sight.

“Oh, dear Lordy.”

He heard the whispered epithet, recognized the voice of Staci’s housekeeper, and relaxed his ready position.

“Neli?” he called softly, hovering in the shadows, peering though the slit, waiting until she showed herself.

In case she wasn’t alone.

“Dat you, Mister Jordan?”

“Yeah.”

Neli tentatively tread into the living room. There she stopped, pivoted around in a slow circle. “Did yuh make this mess?”

“What do you think?”

She shook her head slowly back and forth, as if she couldn’t believe the devastation. “My poor beautiful house,” she wailed.

He waited another beat before deciding she was alone and not guilty, then walked cautiously into the living room. “This the first time you’ve seen it?”

She stared at him, anguish in her gaze. “It’s awful.”

 Jordan thought about possible surveillance measures on the house. Thought about the methodical precision with which every single item in the house had been stripped and destroyed.