Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (12 page)

If I wanted his help, I had to give Lucas something. Based on the past fifty-nine hours, I was reasonably sure he wasn’t involved in my kidnapping.

“Jamie Hunt.”

“What?”

“You heard what I said,” I answered. Jeez. The guy bugs me for two days and then isn’t paying attention when I finally give in.

“With an I or a Y?” He tapped something into the computer.

“I.E.”

“Short for anything?”

“No.”

“Middle name?”

“Jean.”

He rested his hand on my forearm. And just like the first time he’d touched me, a powerful shiver rippled through me.

I kept my gaze on the road, but I could feel him watching me. He leaned over, his breath warm on my cheek. His lips caressed the soft skin below my ear. “I know how hard that was for you.”

“I’m...cautious.”

He laughed, warm and rich and pleased. The rumble caused little quivers along the back of my neck. “No kidding? I would have never guessed.”

I swatted him away. His actions rattled my brain and I needed to focus. Now that I had given something, he owed me.

“Can you look up a name for me?”

I could feel his gaze upon me. I imagined some censure but I must be wrong. You didn’t get something for nothing. He’d worked for the FBI, he knew how the game was played.

The FBI. Cousins. All of the sudden his earlier comment,
I worked with your cousins in Counter-Terrorism
, clicked into focus.

I jerked the van onto the shoulder in a spew of rocks and dust. The headlamps shone over an expanse of empty highway.

I forced the words through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. “You listened to my conversation.” With Carson. My private conversation. The sense of betrayal caught me by surprise.

“Yeah. I did.” He took the opportunity to lean over and kiss the curve of my neck.

“Stop trying to distract me with sex.”

“This isn’t sex.” Lucas jabbed the button for the interior lights. The look on his face was pure frustration. “This is a connection.”

“Hah.”

“Don’t you feel it?”

“Not a thing.”

“You are
such
a liar.”

Of course I was. That was what I did. I lied to everyone. All the time. Sometimes...I even lied to myself.

Lucas curled his palm against my cheek. “Every day is a gift.”

I humphed.
Every day is an obligation.

His gaze bored into mine, intense and unwanted. “In your line of work, life is a gift. You should know that as well as I do. Connections, intuitive understanding like this doesn’t come along every day. Hell, sometimes it doesn’t come along in a lifetime. But right here, right now, we have a connection.”

I ignored him. I didn’t do connections. I didn’t have relationships. I did one night stands. I purposely directed my gaze out the window.

“Do you really think that I would have ridden halfway across the country for just anyone?” Lucas turned my face toward him, his eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “We have something here.”

I scrunched my eyes shut.

“Something that transcends mere physical attraction. And to ignore that is a criminal waste.”

“If this is your way of talking me into bed again, it won’t work.” Stronger, more persuasive men had tried.

And failed.

Of course, I’d never felt the pull I felt with him. “When did this miraculous connection occur? When you were trying to find your missing boy?”

He was silent for a minute, then said softly, “Somewhere between you sneaking out of the hotel room and trying to take me down in my garage.”

I snorted.

“Do you really think that I slept with you to get information about Johnny?”

Yeah. I did. He had a boatload of guilt about this kid. I might not know why but it was clearly there. And as much as he wanted to find the kid, he was afraid of the answers. “Actually, I believe sleeping with me was a pretty good way to delay getting information.”

I scored a direct hit with that one. But somehow I didn’t feel so great.

“That is exactly what I am talking about.”

“What?”

“You know me.” He thumped his chest. “Me.”

I didn’t want to know him. Beyond how he could help me, I didn’t want to know him at all. He was a distraction. An inconvenience.

And to want someone like I wanted Lucas was bad. That kind of wanting got people hurt. Even killed.

So I ignored him and pushed away all the longing his words invoked. I couldn’t afford to have needs or wants.

I shrugged him away. “How?”

Disconcertingly, he understood right away. “The radio has a two-way deal.”

“Show me.”

He reached over and pressed the volume knob twice. “A parabolic microphone transmits to a small ear piece.” He pulled a tiny listening device out of his shirt pocket.

“What kind of a range does it have?”

“I managed to scavenge through the racks at Bargain Barn while you were on the phone.”

Pretty far.

Lucas toyed with the tiny earpiece in his callused fingertips. “Who were you talking to?”

I’d spoken to Carson in code. Lucas clearly had understood part of the conversation since he referred to my cousins. But he shouldn’t be able to extract any more information than that.

I pulled the van back on the highway. Toward Maryland. Ending the conversation.

I had to protect my sister. That was my life. My purpose. My obligation.

“I guess that means you aren’t going to share with me.” He ran a finger down my arm. “When you’re ready. I’ll be here.”

I wanted off of that topic right now. If he’d listened to my conversation with Carson then he knew I’d asked about Johnny. So it was fair game to ask about Bella’s IM guy. “Georgetown chat room. Screen name: Donny Boy.”

“We will talk about this again.” Then he huffed out a short sigh. “You looking because of your cover? Or yourself?”

I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him. Not right then. So I didn’t answer. I wasn’t going to have Lucas anywhere near Bella.

He sighed. “Let me see what I can come up with.”

I should be trying to find some link between myself, the other abductees and the kidnappers. But my hands were tied until I got back to NSA Headquarters in Maryland.

My impatience built.

Whenever I got too impatient, I imagined myself in Bella’s life. This new boy was definitely important. I spun a fantasy of Bella as a radiant bride with a white tulle wedding gown while strains of Pachabel’s Canon played by a string quartet. She’d have a perfect life. Two children and a house in the country with a porch swing and flowers by the front door.

If he checked out.

We’d been traveling for over twelve hours today. And when I started imagining Bella’s perfect future, I knew it was time to take a mental break.

“Got a name.”

Excellent. Was he going to share?

“Donald Christian.”

That was fast. “What else can you get for me?”

“Basic background check--Initial information, credit problems, address, arrest warrants will come up right away. If you want more detailed information like an asset check it will take a day or so.”

He waited. Patiently.

“Detailed, please.”

“Initial info, coming right up.”

Lucas twisted on the radio. Dave Matthews wailed about the space between wrong and right while Lucas punched away at his laptop.

“Huh.”

That didn’t sound good.

“We’ve got a small problem.”

Shit. “What?”

“There are two Donald Christians at Georgetown. Do you have any other information?”

“No.”

“You want a check on both of them?”

“Yes, please.”

“That was easy.” He punched some more keys, then said casually, “So you going to let me help you with your other problem?”

“I don’t have any problems.”

If you didn’t count the fact that someone, either within the government or with covert government backing, had kidnapped me and planned to shoot me up with mind altering drugs.

“I’ll offer you my take on the situation,” he said calmly. “Your abductors were Feds.”

By my count, I’d most likely been tracked by at least three separate agencies. The agency who nabbed me originally, no clear indication of which one. Then the DEA dropped me off in Seattle.

And the guys in the bus station were likely local Secret Service. It made sense. Their office was on the Embarcadero just a few blocks away.

That kind of multiple agency, tag team surveillance took high level coordination. And approval. The only pair in the whole equation who didn't fit were the man and woman in the warehouse. They'd let me escape far too easily.

“With access to the frequency of your personal homing beacon.”

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I definitely had problems. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

“I guess we aren’t going to talk about this,” Lucas said. “You want me to drive?”

“Not yet.” I wouldn’t sleep now. Too many questions. “Why don’t you get some more rest.”

I didn’t want him looking at me, probing, testing for weakness. Showing me we did have some sort of connection. That he really could pick up on my thoughts, my emotions. Me.

“I’m pretty much wired.” He took another sip of Coke, then started messing with his computer again. “Can I borrow your phone, Sarah? I want to check messages at my office.”

“Sure.” I tossed him the cell phone. His request intrigued me. “Is it just you?”

“Yeah.”

A loner. Like me.

“How do you do surveillance?”

“If I need to, I contract out with another friend of mine. Most of my cases are internet tracing.”

“Really?”

“I can work from anywhere. And I get most cases through referrals.”

“So, you like it?”

“Pays well.”

“Beats a government salary, huh?”

“Yeah.” But his voice had a closed off sound. Hidden pain.

Another thought occurred to me. If he did most of his work on the computer...“Why the van?”

He shrugged. “It’s a toy.”

Men and their toys?

“So is internet searches what you’re working on now?”

“I’ve closed out most of my current cases. It usually only takes a few hours to a day to trace these back to their source.”

“You have a lot in the pipeline?” I wanted to get a handle on how he had the time to drive to the East Coast--unless that was his intent all along.

“No.”

I should try and finesse the answer but I didn’t think that would work with Lucas. “Did you plan this trip?”

“Well--”

I waited, cruising along the mountains of Wyoming. I wasn’t sure but I thought he was trying to figure out how to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

“I knew this wasn’t a half day fix.”

“Did you consciously clear your schedule?”

“The answer to your questions are...sort of and no.” He stopped punching numbers into the cell phone and shifted to face me. “I had hoped finding Johnny wasn’t going to be as difficult as I imagined.”

“You were wrong?”

He blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

“Have you checked out the kid’s associates?”

“His mother didn’t have any last names.”

“None?”

“Nope.” He hesitated. “I’m running lists of first names from his school and the gym he works out at but it’s a slow process.”

“Anything at his home?”

“His room was clean.” He rubbed a hand over his face, his fingers rasping along the dark blond stubble. “Too clean.”

“It had been wiped?”

“No incriminating scraps of paper. His laptop was gone. His desktop computer was too clean. Someone had obviously taken the time to go in and delete anything that could be traced back to them.”

“It could have been Johnny.”

“I thought of that but his mother thought someone had been in the house
after
Johnny had his accident.”

“Huh.” It sounded slick. Too slick.

“These guys are organized and efficient.” He dialed. “That’s why when Staci Grant started making purchases and being seen, I jumped on a plane. Fast.”

Which really did explain how we’d hooked up.

Lucas said, “I need to see Staci Grant’s file on Johnny Wishbone.”

“I promise you. I did not get that boy out of the hospital.”

“I know that.”

“But we need to figure out who did,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Your only lead is Staci Grant?” The woman I’d been impersonating.

“Staci Grant, a dead woman,” he said intently.

Definitely dead. She’d been decapitated. “According to the reports.”

“So someone out there is impersonating Staci Grant.”

“More than someone.” I thought of myself. “Two someones.”

FOURTEEN

I’d slept like the dead.

Lucas had let me sleep far longer than I’d asked. Again.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that hard and the cot in the van was far from comfortable. I refused to acknowledge that I’d felt safe in his company.

Absolutely refused.

I’d had sleep deprivation training and I’d still hit a wall last night. “What is the deal with you?” I sat up in the cot and glared at the back of his head. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“I need very little sleep. Always been this way.” He bit into some sort of biscuit with egg and sausage. It smelled fantastic.

We were parked at a truck stop somewhere in Nebraska. Flat plains and acres of wheat fields gave way to a morning sky and wide open space.

“Most of the time it’s a good thing.” Lucas fell silent.

I knew what he meant. Usually, I could take or leave sleep. Sometimes staying awake gave you too much time to think. About the decisions, the mistakes. In the dead of night, when silence surrounded and darkness crept in, doubts, regrets and hindsight could make you question every moment in your life.

Fortunately, the dawn came every day without fail.

As the sun climbed over the road, wisps of rose and sunshine yellow bled into an expanse of blue, and possibilities lived.

Possibilities for peace, possibilities for hope, possibilities that today would be different.

“Yeah.” I crawled up into the passenger seat. Jeez, I wanted a shower. “How about we stay at this truck stop and grab a quick shower?”