Hunted (5 page)

“Just bought it four weeks ago when I got back to the States. I may never drive a car again.”

“A pickup truck and a dog. You’re sort of a country song.”

He turned his head and she switched the flashlight from the road to his face for just a second. He was smiling. “All I need is a cheatin’ wife.”

She didn’t think he’d ever married. Every once in a while, over the years, she’d make a casual inquiry of Mack about the marital status of his two best friends. Brody had come close but his fiancée had left him practically standing at the altar. Ethan, it seemed, had been married to the military and had hardly come home much after his mother died many years ago. She remembered Mack mentioning that Ethan was such a talented helicopter pilot that the army was quick to take him up on his offers to defer his leaves and remain available for flying.

“No cheatin’ wife for you,” she said, verifying her suspicions.

“Cheatin’ or otherwise,” he agreed.

How nice.

Too bad they had to meet again after all these years under these circumstances.

After what seemed like forever, they finally reached the highway. The back end of the truck slid back and forth as tires grabbed for pavement. There had to be several inches of snow already on the ground. Ethan flipped on his headlights. She could see a fire truck approaching, its lights flashing and its siren blaring. Not far behind it were two SUV-type emergency vehicles with lights blazing.

Once they were safely past them, she said, “We should stop soon if we’re going back.”

“It might be best if we keep going,” Ethan suggested.

He was probably right. But she didn’t want to leave Crow Hollow without seeing the damage firsthand. And he’d been confident that he could get back undetected. “I need to go back.”

He didn’t argue. “There’s a house up here on the next hill,” he said. “It sits back a good half mile off the road. I’ll pull into the lane.”

She waited as Ethan slowed before coming to a stop on the highway. He killed his lights and then backed the truck into the dark lane. He pulled in a hundred yards and turned off the engine.

She felt invisible and it was a great relief. She heard him shift in his seat and knew that he was waiting for the explanation she’d promised.

“I lied earlier when I said that carelessness caused me to have the accident.”

“Okay.”

“A car bumped into me. Three times. On the third time, it was hard enough to send me flying. I sort of bounced off the mountain wall and went skidding off the side.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. When he spoke, his voice was hard. “Do you know who was driving this car?”

“No. I think it’s possible that it was a vehicle that passed me, coming from the other direction. Then it turned around to follow me. If it was, then I think it was some kind of SUV, one of the bigger ones. I wasn’t paying that much attention when I first saw it. I think there were two people in it.”

“So the vehicle hitting you was definitely deliberate?”

“Oh, yeah. A few minutes after the accident, someone was up on the road. I’m sure it was the people from the vehicle that hit me. I could only hear one of them clearly. It was a man. He was convinced I was dead and he was happy about it.”

“I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to hurt you, Chandler?”

She sighed. “It might be helpful if I give you some background. Almost everyone at my work has either secret or top secret security clearance. The work we do for the Defense Department is pretty specialized.”

“What exactly do you make?”

She hesitated. Old habits were hard to break. Maybe easier for some. It was beginning to look that way. But she still felt bound to the confidentiality agreement that she’d signed.

“Let’s just say that we specialize in stealth technology.”

“Now who’s the super-duper spy?”

She shook her head, knowing that he couldn’t see her. “I’m the computer geek. Unfortunately, sometimes the computer people see more than they should.”

“And you saw something that has people wanting to force cars off the road, to blow things up?”

“That’s what I’m not sure about. It all happened so fast. A couple nights ago, we upgraded several of our computer servers. One of the servers hosts our email system. I was troubleshooting a problem and in the process, looked at some emails that had come in to various people in the company.”

He didn’t respond.

“I have top secret security clearance,” she explained. “But still, I know that information is always shared on a need-to-know basis. So I tried to pick emails that seemed very innocent. I clicked on one titled Strawberry Shortcake Recipe.” She paused. “I like desserts.”

“And...”

“And it was set up like a recipe, with ingredients and cooking instructions. But the quantities looked odd. I’m sort of a math geek in addition to being a computer geek. So I started looking at it closer.”

“What was it?”

“It was written in code. There were a couple pieces that I wasn’t able to figure out. But I think it was a confirmation of delivery.”

“For?”

“That’s what I’m not sure of. But...”

“But what?”

She hesitated. “I’m fairly confident it was confirmation of a delivery of raw materials and product specifications for one of our most advanced systems.”

He whistled softly. “Someone in your company is selling secrets to the enemy. And the means to reproduce technology that could be used against Americans.”

“I think so,” she said, her voice soft.

“Who was the email addressed to?”

“That’s the problem. It was addressed to somebody who no longer works for the company. An administrative assistant. Her in-box should have been deleted but the Help Desk must have missed that. But it doesn’t make sense that this person sold the data. She would never have had the security clearance necessary to see this information in the first place.”

“Did you know this person well?”

“Not well. She had worked for Claudia. She left the organization without much notice a few months ago. I didn’t know of any way to reach this woman, plus I didn’t necessarily think it would be a smart thing to do. I tried to search the sender but all I ran into was a dead end.”

“What did you do then?”

“I started digging.”

“Understandable,” he said simply.

“Our system, like most computer systems, electronically stamps every action that is taken. Every keystroke. Every transaction. It’s a clean audit trail.”

“And you found something?” he asked.

“I found something that was interesting, to say the least. You see, it’s only been recently, with the latest software upgrade, that we’ve been able to audit viewing.”

“Viewing?”

“Yes. Viewing is when somebody pulls up a screen but doesn’t take any action. Simply looks at the data. Just recently our system began stamping that activity and can tell us how long the person was viewing the screen.”

“And you found that somebody had recently viewed the specs on this particular product?”

“Two people. One was another analyst, just like me. His name is Marcus White. The other,” she said, unable to keep the misery out of her response, “my stepmother, Claudia Linder McCann. She’s the CEO. She’s always been the CEO. She’s only been my stepmother for the past year.”

She heard his soft hiss.

“Dicey,” he said finally.

She laughed, glad that she still could. “It’s not as if she doesn’t have permission to look at data. She owns the company. She can look at any data that she wants. But she doesn’t. That’s not her job.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“No. But I ran a report of all the other screens that she’d recently viewed. There were twelve of them. Every screen was related to this one product.”

“So then you went to your stepmother?”

“No. Maybe I should have. But you have to know Claudia Linder. There’s always been something about her that made me uncomfortable. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I didn’t really care when she was simply the CEO. I started to care more after my father fell head over heels in love with her.”

“But you said that someone else also accessed the screens.”

“True. And it’s possible that Marcus would have needed to do it for his work. He’s the analyst supporting a couple of the engineers who are working on this project. There’s really no reason for him to be looking at the screens, but maybe he was troubleshooting a problem. I just don’t know. I do know, however, that he was recently really upset at work. He applied for a promotion and didn’t get it. I really thought he would go get another job somewhere else. He’s very talented. But he stayed.”

“Stayed with bad intent, perhaps?” Ethan offered. “Your stepmother or Marcus White. Two choices.”

“Yes, I would think that Marcus would have been aware of our new ability to track viewing. Probably not Claudia. That’s sort of in the weeds for a CEO. Anyway, I was trying to decide what to do when I realized that there was some hidden code. Code that I hadn’t written. But somebody had, creating a program that ran in the background. I think it was basically an early warning system, designed to let somebody know that somebody else had accessed the screens. I got the heck out of the system but realized that if they were savvy enough to have set up that program, then they were likely savvy enough to track my IP address―my computer address,” she added.

“I assume Marcus White would know how to set that up. Would your stepmother?”

“She could have asked another analyst to do it for her.”

“Did you tell anybody?”

“No. I shut down my computer, grabbed my purse and my backpack, and was halfway back to my apartment when I decided to come here. And if I’m right about what happened tonight, I think that somebody tracked the activity back to my computer and maybe realized I’d figured out what’s going on.”

“Your company was designing this product for the government, right?”

“Yes.”

“If you’re right and this information was sold, that’s treason.”

The silence hung heavy in the air.

“Worth killing for,” she said finally.

“I’d say so,” he answered. “Your stepmother would have known about the cabin. Would Marcus White have known?”

“I’m not sure. I may have mentioned it to him. We’ve worked together for over five years. His parents live in Grand Junction, which is quite a ways west. Still, he probably knows the general area. Would certainly have traveled Interstate 70 between Denver and Grand Junction many times. Plus, if the Help Desk had deactivated the administrative assistant’s username, which they are pretty good about doing quickly after someone leaves, Marcus would have had the capability and access to reactivate it.”

“Okay. Earlier you said that you grabbed your purse and your backpack. You didn’t get out of the car with them.”

“I know. They’re still in the car. I probably should have tried to grab them when I exited through the backseat but I was too scared that a wrong movement would tip the car.”

“You did exactly right,” he said. “You got out safely. That’s always the first priority.”

She turned to him. “What’s going to happen when the authorities find my purse and other things in the car and I’m not there?”

* * *

T
HE
FIRST
THING
they would do, Ethan figured, was track her name and car registration back to her house. “Do you live alone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He felt an absurd sense of relief.

“Well, the cops will probably talk to a couple of your neighbors. Do they know your father?”

“Some of them do. After he retired, he used to come over and cut my grass for me. The woman next door was always inviting him in for lemonade.”

“Well, then, I suspect it won’t take long for the news of your accident to get to your dad.”

He heard her quick catch of breath and knew that her first instinct would be to call her father, to make sure that he didn’t worry about her. “Call your dad. Tell him what’s going on.”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t happy about my father’s wedding. Dad and Claudia had had a whirlwind relationship. And I was worried that Dad was moving too fast. I did try to be happy for him but I don’t think I hid my concerns all that well.”

It had been difficult getting used to the idea that Claudia, the CEO that rarely interacted with the employees of Linder Automation, was now her stepmother.

And unfortunately, the more she got to know her, the less Chandler had liked her.

“My dad and I had a big argument shortly after he and Claudia got married. He was upset because I didn’t attend an awards ceremony where Claudia was getting an award. I tried to tell him that she never invited me but she’d told him something different. I guess he believed her.”

“So you can’t go to him with accusations that your stepmother is committing treason and tried to run you off the road unless you’re sure of it.”

“Exactly. I just hate that he’ll be worried. Me missing and the cabin blown up. None of it will make any sense. He’s going to call Mack and it will drive Mack crazy, especially if he’s out of the country working.”

If he knew anything about his best friend, Mack would plow through hell or high water to get back to the States.

He’d protect his sister with his life.

And he’d expect Ethan to do the same.

Chapter Five

“This is a mess,” she said.

It was hard to argue that. But it wasn’t necessarily
her
mess, and that was weighing on Ethan’s conscience. Maybe the explosion at the McCann cabin had nothing to do with Chandler and what she’d stumbled upon at work.

Maybe it was because of him.

But to explain that, he’d have to explain the whole crazy situation. And how safe would she feel with him if she suspected that even a portion of the charges the military had brought against him were true?

How would she feel if she suspected that he’d sold out his buddies, causing eight to die?

Might be enough to send her running off into the night. Without protection. Without a fully loaded gun and someone who knew how to use it.

So he kept his mouth shut. And told himself that he was doing it for her. Certainly not because he was afraid of what he’d see in her pretty green eyes if she knew the truth.

“You’re sure it’s safe to go back?” she asked.

He regretted telling her that. But he was confident that they could go back in on foot which would allow them to approach quietly, from an unexpected direction. They could cut across the fields and it wouldn’t be much more than a mile.

He wasn’t concerned about finding his way, even in the snow. He, Mack and Brody had walked this area every summer day for years. A few fences may have been put up since he was a teen but he doubted there was anything that he couldn’t navigate around, even in the dark.

But even a mile could be a long way in several inches of snow. It was going to be a wet, slippery, difficult walk. He had on boots but she had just her loafers. And she had an injured shoulder. But he didn’t think there was a chance in hell that she was going to let him go in alone. And he wanted to see it. Wanted to know whether he’d been the target. Wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for that would confirm or deny that but he wanted a look.

“We can get there,” he said. “Here’s what I think is going to happen. The emergency response folks are going to make sure that the fire is out. They’re going to light that area up and while your car is some distance from the cabin, I think it’s possible that somebody will see your car. If that happens, some brave soul is going to get a ladder and very carefully climb up, in an effort to assess the status of the people in the car.”

“And when there’s nobody inside?”

“I imagine that they’ll search the immediate area. When they don’t find anything, at daybreak, a massive search will ensue. The first assumption will be that a body or bodies were thrown from the car. They’re going to think that they’re working against the clock, that someone who is injured and caught up in a tree or lying on the cold ground is living on borrowed time.”

She was quiet for a minute. “As bad as things are, I’m feeling pretty lucky right now.”

“You’re right. You got out of the car and neither of us was in the cabin. We both got lucky.”

“Do you believe in luck running out?” she asked, her tone soft.

“I believe that luck favors the prepared.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“The people who did this probably aren’t going to be satisfied until they know for sure their mission is accomplished. They’re going to want to be close enough to know that a body was recovered. That may work to our advantage.”

“We’ll be watching for them and they won’t necessarily be watching for us,” she said.

“Right. But it may not be easy to pick out the bad guys. While the cabins are pretty isolated, it was a big blast. Some locals may come to see what’s going on.”

She wiped the palms of her hands on her blue jeans. “Nothing is ever easy. Let’s go.” She opened her door.

He took an extra minute to grab the gun and ammunition that he’d shoved under his seat. When he had first gotten back to the States, he’d had a quick layover in Oregon. Had visited his mother’s grave and gone to the storage locker where he still kept some things, including the handgun, which he’d purchased many years earlier. He’d told himself that he was headed toward the mountains, and everyone carried a gun there. But he’d also felt better knowing that he was armed, in the event that some fool really believed that he could possibly have sold out his friends, his country, and came after him.

When he’d realized that Larry Donovan kept a fully loaded shotgun at the cabin, too, he’d felt even better. And he’d brought it along for extra insurance. But for right now, the Glock felt just right in his pocket.

He got out of the truck and walked around the front of it. Chandler had gotten out and was standing next to her door. He shone the flashlight on her. It was snowing hard and her dark hair was catching the fresh flakes. Under any other circumstances, it would have made a beautiful picture.

“Let me get one more thing,” he said, reaching into the box in the back of the truck and pulling out the binoculars that he’d tossed in at the last minute.

They weren’t military quality, but would certainly be better than nothing. He strung the lanyard over his neck. He started to shove the lid back on the box and stopped. He grabbed his duffel where he’d thrown his extra jeans, shirts and underwear. He pulled out a pair of thick white socks. “Your shoes are going to get soaked and your feet are going to get cold. Not much we can do about that. I’ll take these so at least you’ll have a dry pair to put on later.”

The minute he said it, he knew he’d screwed up. Her pretty green eyes filled with tears.

“What? I’m sorry. You don’t have to wear them.” He stumbled over his words. Chandler had been a rock up to now, taking everything that had come her way. And he’d made her cry with socks.

She put her hand on his arm and he held perfectly still, not wanting to lose the connection.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For getting me out of the tree. For taking me to the Donovan cabin. For getting me away from the fire. For caring that my feet are going to be wet and cold. I’m grateful, Ethan.”

She leaned across the foot that separated them and kissed him. Her lips were soft and warm and he desperately wanted to pull her into his body, to have her wrapped around him.

But he forced himself to just stand still, and when the kiss ended and she pulled back, he was proud that he didn’t beg her not to stop.

She didn’t say anything.

He wasn’t sure his throat would work.

After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, he pulled his hood up and started walking.

* * *

F
OR
THE
MOST
PART
, she kept up pretty well. There was no conversation as they walked, him leading, her following close behind. She figured he was concentrating, trying to make sure that he had his bearings. She simply focused on putting one foot in front of the other. She was bordering on exhaustion and her shoulder hurt like hell.

But even that couldn’t keep her from thinking about what it had felt like to kiss Ethan Moore.

It had been impulsive and a little awkward. At the same time, it had felt completely right.

Not that he’d seemed to feel the same way.

Maybe he’d been embarrassed. It was hard to say. Certainly, he hadn’t seemed inclined to discuss it, and that hadn’t changed over their mile walk.

He’d been right about the emergency crews. There were flashing lights and voices calling out to one another, their language indiscernible, their presence on the normally quiet mountain horribly intrusive.

While she didn’t know the terrain nearly as well as he did, she wasn’t surprised when she realized that they were approaching the property from the rear, where a bluff butted up to the McCann property. It was the most logical vantage point.

That worried her some, because what if someone else had the same perspective and with each step, they were closer to stumbling over the creeps who had pushed her off the road and most likely firebombed the cabin? It was almost enough to make her run the other direction. But she didn’t. She had Ethan next to her and he made her feel safe.

When they were still a little ways away, he held up his hand, stopping her. “Close enough to see. Far enough away not to be seen,” he said quietly.

“Is it safe?” she whispered back.

“The only way up onto this bluff is the way we came. You have to know the property really well to know that. It’s the best place for us.”

He looked through the binoculars, studied the scene for a long moment, then slipped the lanyard off his neck and handed the binoculars to her. She assessed the situation below.

The snow was so heavy that it was difficult to see. But it appeared that her family’s cabin was destroyed. Whatever had caused the explosion, it had been effective. The modest structure had imploded, with side walls and ceiling collapsing upon one another. There had been a fire, that was evident, but it appeared to have been contained within the structure.

The emergency vehicles they’d seen were gathered around the perimeter. One firefighter continued to douse the structure with water coming from the tank. The others were standing around, talking to one another.

She couldn’t stand to look at it one more minute. She handed the binoculars back to Ethan and closed her eyes, trying to block the horrific image. What was she going to tell her father?

She opened her eyes when she felt Ethan shift. He had the binoculars up to his eyes.

“What?” she asked.

“Activity,” he said. “One of the guys just answered his cell phone and suddenly, everybody is running for their vehicles. The two smaller vehicles are leaving. If I had to guess, I’d say somebody just reported your car in the trees. I suspect they’re going to leave the fire truck here to make sure the fire doesn’t reignite, and the other two are going to the scene.”

“Can we get to the car from here?”

She heard him sigh. “Yeah. But we can’t take the path we took earlier. It’s too close to the road and someone might see us. We can circle around but that means we’ll have to cross the creek.”

She was already pretty wet. How much worse could it be? “Let’s go,” she said.

“Your feet have to be cold.”

“Of course. But I’m not stopping now.”

“I thought that’s what you were going to say.”

It was another ten minutes of slipping and sliding through the snow before they got to the creek. She stopped, catching her breath, while Ethan ran the flashlight up and down the banks. The water was covered by snow. “It’s usually only four or five inches deep,” he said, “but with all the rain we’ve had this week, I’m betting the water level is higher than usual. Plus, there’s probably some current that we’ll have to fight.”

“We should probably hang on to each other.” She held out her hand.

He shook his head. “I’ll carry you across.”

She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“I’m not being ridiculous. There’s no need for both of us to get wet.”

She thought about that. “What about your gun? You can’t carry me and it.”

“I’ll carry you piggyback. The way Mack used to,” he added.

She remembered how her brother would let her climb onto his back. Then he’d race around the yard and she’d squeal until he dumped her off.

It might work. “What if you drop me?” she said.

“Then you’ll get wet,” he said nonchalantly.

He clearly wasn’t planning on dropping her. “I really don’t think this is necessary,” she said.

“Take off your shoes,” he instructed.

“Why? They’re already so wet and muddy that I’ll have to throw them away.”

“But at least they’re some protection for your feet. I don’t want you to lose them in the creek and then you’ll be barefoot. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

It was not worth arguing about. She took off her loafers and stuffed one into each of her sweatshirt pockets.

He put his gun and his flashlight down on a stump. Then he squatted, she jumped, and his very capable hands were suddenly under her upper thighs, adjusting, settling her.

It was oddly intimate, even though they were both wearing wet blue jeans.

“Okay?” he asked.

Oh, yeah. Ethan Moore asked me to stay over and within hours, I had my legs wrapped around his waist.
Her entry into her teenage diary was getting better by the minute. “Ready when you are,” she managed, trying to stay still. He’d been unresponsive to her kiss. A squirm here or a thrust there might send him into a catatonic state.

He picked up his gun and flashlight and they half slid their way down the bank. She heard his boots break through the ice and splash in the water.

It took just seconds to cross the narrow creek. Still, she was terribly grateful for the sweatshirt that he’d given her and glad that it had escaped getting wet. Something that wouldn’t have happened if she’d tried to walk across the creek.

He bent at the knees and she slid off his back.

“What’s your favorite pie?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“All the way across I kept thinking,
I owe Ethan big-time
. In those circumstances, my go-to solution has been to make a pie.”

He was silent for a minute. “Cherry,” he said. “Warm. With vanilla ice cream.”

“I didn’t say anything about ice cream.”

“I know. There should always be a bigger goal.”

“Vanilla is kind of boring.”

“Traditional. Comforting. Dependable,” he countered.

It was a silly conversation to be having. Especially in the middle of the night, on foot in the mountains, in a blinding snowstorm. And wet to boot.

And after somebody had tried twice to kill her.

No wonder it felt good to engage in the ridiculous.

“Okay. Vanilla ice cream, too,” she said.

“Excellent. You know, that’s what your hair smells like.”

That stopped her in her tracks. “Vanilla ice cream?”

“Not just that. Like wild cherries with a little vanilla. I like it.”

Ridiculous had just turned hot. He liked the way she smelled.

“Good shampoo,” she said weakly.

He laughed. “Well, I didn’t think it was pie filling. Let’s get going.”

Her face warm, she pulled her loafers out of her pockets, put them on over her wet socks and started walking.