Shadow Fall (Tracers Series Book 9) (5 page)

M.J. came back. “Brought you a snack,” she said, holding up a pack of powdered-sugar doughnuts.

“How’d you know?” Tara slid behind the wheel. She opened the doughnuts and demolished the first in two bites. The sugar dissolving on her tongue seemed to dissolve some of her bitter mood.

“Okay, new plan,” Tara announced, firing up the Explorer. She started to pull out, then jabbed the brakes. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?” M.J. glanced up.

“Hardware store. Black pickup.”

Tara watched the man as he loaded lumber into the truck bed. Tall, lean, mirrored shades. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she recognized the military-straight posture.

“It’s him.” She looked at M.J.

“Who?”

“Liam Wolfe.”

M.J. leaned forward and squinted. “How can you tell from here? I can hardly see his face.”

“Trust me.”

Tara watched, riveted by the sight of him. His size, his moves—the man oozed confidence from every pore. He strode around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.

Tara drove to the opposite end of the lot as the black pickup pulled into traffic.

“You’re going to follow him?” M.J. sounded alarmed.

“Sure, why not?”

Tara pulled out but hung back, allowing a few cars between herself and the truck. She didn’t need to get close because she knew where he was going. He got on the highway and headed south toward Dunn’s Landing.

“But the ID isn’t confirmed yet,” M.J. said. “What if the victim isn’t Catalina Reyes?”

“Either way, she’s missing, which is why we’re here. Liam Wolfe’s her bodyguard.”

“
Was.
”

“He might have some ideas for us.”

Tara tailed the truck, which looked like so many others on the road. She would have expected more of a statement—something with souped-up hydraulics or maybe a Hummer. But it was your basic black pickup, one of countless in the Lone Star State.

Tara studied the truck, memorizing the taillights, the chrome toolbox, the tinted back windows. The Chevy Silverado was a few years old. Loaded with lumber, it rode low to the ground.

“You think he’s spotted us?” M.J. asked.

“I sure hope so. He’s a security consultant.”

The miles ticked by as they moved south on U.S. 59. Tara closed the gap and tried to read the license plate, but it was impossible to see with the wood hanging off the back.

He shifted into the right lane and put on his turn indicator. Tara’s gaze narrowed. She’d never met the man, but she got the distinct impression that he was being a smartass.

He exited the freeway and passed the old sawmill, then hooked a right. Tara stayed behind him, wending her way along the gravel road just like before. Only this time, when she reached the end, the black gates magically parted.

Tara followed him through.

T
he gates slid shut behind her. Tara kept about thirty feet off his tailgate, close enough to watch his reflection in the side mirror.

“Cameras,” M.J. said.

“Where?”

“Up in the trees.”

Tara wasn’t looking at the trees. Her attention was fixed on that mirror, but once again sunglasses concealed his eyes.

The trees gave way to a grassy clearing, and he swung a left. A house came into view.

“Wow,” M.J. said.

It wasn’t a house, really, but a lodge made of rough-hewn logs. One story, weathered wooden shingles. A wide breezeway connected two separate sections, each with a limestone chimney at the end. He drove past the building and pulled up to a row of trucks and SUVs with mud-caked tires.

Tara went to the end of the row and parked beside a battered Suburban with a swamp-camo paint job.

M.J. looked at her. “I hope you have a plan.”

“We’ll improvise.”

Tara slid from the Explorer and walked over to the man now getting out of the pickup. Black T-shirt, faded jeans. Not combat boots, as she would have expected, but shit kickers.

“Liam Wolfe?” She strode up to him. “I’m Special Agent—”

“I know who you are.”

He watched her, his expression unreadable. Tara didn’t usually look up at men, but this one was tall.

He glanced at M.J., then back to Tara.

“You’re here about Catie,” he said. “There’s been an ID?”

“Nothing definite.” Tara paused, gauging his reaction. His eyes were still hidden behind mirrored shades. “Probably by tomorrow.”

Something shifted in his posture, a subtle bunching of muscles. Almost as soon as she noticed it, he looked relaxed again.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” M.J. said, stepping up beside Tara. “Is this your company headquarters or—”

“That’s right.”

M.J. smiled. “Mind if I look around while you two talk?”

The sunglasses shifted to Tara.

“I just have a few questions,” she explained. “It shouldn’t take long.”

“Look around all you want,” he told M.J. “Jeremy can take you.”

They turned to see a man standing behind them—six-three, two-thirty, brown hair, blue eyes. He wore Army green fatigues and heavy black boots that Tara had somehow failed to hear crunching on the gravel.

M.J. thrust her hand out and introduced herself with a smile.

“Jeremy Owen,” he said briefly, shaking hands with both of them and then giving Liam a look that seemed loaded with secret communication.

Tara shot M.J. her own secret look.
Are you okay with this?
M.J. answered with a subtle nod before walking off with the big commando. He led her across the clearing to a corrugated metal building, where he held the door open as she stepped inside. A wooden sign above the doorway read
SEMPER FI
.

Tara returned her attention to Liam Wolfe. “Like I said, I just have a few questions.”

“And I have things to do. Hop in.”

He turned away, and she stared at his back, startled. After gritting her teeth for a moment, she trekked over to the passenger side of his truck. The instant she pulled the door shut, he was moving.

“So, Mr. Wolfe—”

“Liam.”

He glanced over, and she noticed he’d finally ditched the shades. His eyes were deep green, the color of the woods around him.

“How did you hear about Catalina’s disappearance?” she asked.

He steered his pickup over the gravel road. “David called me.”

“David?”

“Her husband.” He darted a look at her, probably wondering why she didn’t know this detail about the woman she was supposedly investigating.

“He called you Wednesday night or . . . ?”

“Yesterday morning. They notified him after her car turned up.”

Her car. Interesting. Hadn’t David Reyes already known his wife was missing when she didn’t come home that night? Maybe he’d been away for some reason.

Tara looked around the truck. No fancy stereo or expensive gadgets. It was toasty warm inside and smelled of wet earth. She glanced in back and saw muddy work boots on the floor. Size thirteens, if she had to guess.

She looked outside. They were no longer on a road through the trees but simply
in
the trees, following a route he seemed to know well. Tara listened intently and then buzzed down her window.

“Is that—”

“Our firing range,” he said. “Straight west of here.”

It wasn’t pistol fire she was hearing but rifles. “How long’s the range?” she asked.

“A thousand yards.”

She tried not to look impressed. “How many acres you have here?”

“Twelve hundred.”

“And people?”

“Here, only a handful. I keep most of my guys in the field.”

His guys. Again, she tried to mask her reaction. A twelve-hundred-acre facility, plus vehicles and employees. It was a large operation for a man who looked to be thirty-five, tops. Evidently, private security paid better than government work.

She turned to study him. Athletic body, peak condition. Ripped, as M.J. had said. His wide shoulders seemed to fill up the spacious cab.

He pulled over, and Tara’s window buzzed up as he pushed open his door.

“Stay inside if you want,” he said. “It’s more comfortable.”

Tara hadn’t come here to be comfortable. She got out and zipped her jacket against the cold. They were deep in the woods, and it was dark as dusk. A layer of pine needles carpeted the forest floor. She walked around to the back of the pickup where he was unloading wood.

Tara grabbed a pair of two-by-fours and carried them to a growing pile at the base of a tall wooden frame. Someone was constructing a tower, it looked like. For rappelling? She stacked the wood and glanced around, noting the group of tires arranged on the hard-packed path. Farther down the trail she saw parallel bars and a wall made of logs. Nestled out here in the woods, the PT course reminded her of the one at Quantico.

“You train your people here?” she asked.

“Yep.”

She returned to the truck. He scooped up an armload of two-by-fours like they were Styrofoam pool noodles. Tara grabbed two. “What are you building?” she asked.

“A cargo net.”

She gazed up at the frame. “What is that, sixty feet?”

“Seventy.” He looked at Tara, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “SEALs train on a sixty. Can’t be outdone by a buncha frogboys.”

A warm tingle filled her. Something about his eyes without the sunglasses, especially when he smiled. She looked at the frame again. “Impressive,” she said.

There was no point in denying it. Liam Wolfe was impressive. His operation was impressive.

But she hadn’t come here to be impressed.

He hauled the last of the wood as Tara stood there shivering. He seemed immune to the cold in his thin T-shirt. His muscles rippled as he stacked the lumber, and Tara watched him, suddenly struck by the certainty that he’d killed men before, probably with his bare hands.

“You used to be a Marine?” she asked.

“Retired.” He looked at her. “There’s no ‘used to.’ ”

“Mr. Wolfe, what sort of threats was Catalina Reyes concerned about?”

“Liam.” He slammed the tailgate on the now-empty truck bed. “And I don’t know.”

“Weren’t you her bodyguard?”

“Security consultant.”

She crossed her arms, annoyed by more semantics. “What’s the difference?”

He leaned back against the truck. “In some cases, life and death.”

“Okay, so you were her security consultant for how long?”

“We worked together about six months. She terminated the arrangement after she lost the election.”

“You were her security consultant for six months, and you don’t know what kind of threats she was worried about?”

“Lately? No.”

She tipped her head to the side. “I find that hard to believe.”

“That doesn’t much bother me.”

She watched him, trying for a read, but his body language didn’t offer many clues.

He wasn’t defensive. Or evasive. Or nervous. He seemed relaxed but alert. And she somehow knew he was keenly aware that he was being interviewed by a federal agent who might consider him a suspect in the disappearance—and probable murder—of a woman he knew.

Yet he seemed calm.

Tara looked over her shoulder at the path snaking through the trees. They’d been here ten minutes, and not a single trainee had come pounding down the course. They were alone, with only the chirping of birds and the distant pops of gunfire coming from the range.

Tara looked at him and caught him checking her out. His gaze lifted, and she felt a hot flush of sexual awareness.

“How’d you meet Catalina?” she asked.

“A referral from a client.”

“Mind if I ask who?”

“Yes.”

She arched her brows.

“My clients are confidential.”

She looked at the trees again, struggling not to let her impatience show.

This was a casual conversation, and he was having it willingly. She was lucky to be here. He could have asked to have a lawyer present or made her get a warrant to set foot on his property, but instead he was being cooperative.

Mostly.

“When was the last time you talked to her?” she asked. “Do you know that much?”

He lifted an eyebrow at the edge in her voice. “Probably a few months ago. I’d have to check a calendar to know for sure.”

His tone was cool and businesslike. But there was nothing businesslike about the way he was watching her now. The simmering look in his eyes put a warm flutter in her stomach, and she had to remind herself that he was a suspect.

“When she called, do you remember what you discussed?” Tara asked.

“She had some concerns about her security system. I talked her through it.”

Just the sort of info Tara had been hoping for. “What, she didn’t think her system was up to par?”

“It was,” he said firmly. “We installed it. She needed someone to explain a few things, put her mind at ease.”

“Was there a specific threat she mentioned?”

“No.”

“Was she having marital problems that you know of?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” He paused, watching her closely with those green, green eyes. “Every married person I know has marital problems. Catie wasn’t different.”