Shatter (22 page)

“Trust me.” Mitch lifted the baby toward her. “Put your nose beside his head and breathe deep.”

With her brow drawn, she gave him a skeptical look, but, curious, did as he directed. Brady was warm and soft against her cheek, and she closed her eyes at the yummy feel of him, at the way her belly went liquid. Then she pulled in his baby scent. So . . . unique. She didn’t even know how to describe it. He smelled warm and new and clean. Sweet and innocent and . . . she straightened and breathed out on a sigh. “Oh . . . he’s just so . . .”

Mitch’s eyes twinkled with a kind of joy she hadn’t seen in him . . . maybe ever. “Yeah.”

They both simply stood there and stared at Brady again in silence. Emotion and anticipation hung heavily between them, unspoken. They could have had this if she hadn’t run. They could have this now, at the worst possible time.

She let out a long, anxious breath. “Mitch, I can’t go to Washington.” She spoke soft and low. Her earlier anger over his assumptions and manipulation were gone and she didn’t want to upset him. She wanted him to understand. “I have a long road ahead of me to build a new identity.”

His eyes went dark, his mouth stern, and her panic started to slip out.

“You’ve never done it,” she said. “You’ve never lived it. You don’t know what it entails. A complete and total change of habits. I’ll have to change what I eat and where I shop. I’ll have to retrain Dex to respond to a new name and language. I can’t practice Krav Maga anymore. I’ll have to get rid of my Heckler & Kochs and buy another type of weapon.

“When I go to gun ranges, I’ll have to start out looking like an idiot and build up to my current ability. I’ll have to find another job, now not only outside genetics, but outside vaccine research. I’ll have to build a new background. It takes
months
. Over
a year
to know the cover is solid. Everything I do, everything I say, everywhere I go could potentially give me away. It’s
exhausting
. And what you’re putting me through is draining me.”

“Halina—”

“You have them, Mitch.” She gestured toward the hall. “You have a million contacts, people who are indebted to you, friends, family. I have no one.
No one.
The longer you draw this out, the worse my chances are of building an impenetrable wall.”

He repositioned Brady in the bend of his arm, the joy gone, replaced by frustration. “First of all, you’re the one who hid those files. You know exactly where they are. Second of all, you’re not safe on your own, Halina. They’ll find you. If not Abernathy, someone else. Maybe Schaeffer’s guys, maybe another Abernathy, trying to take over. But they
will
find you. And they
will
kill you. When these guys want you, they get you. It doesn’t matter what kind of face you put on, what kind of wall you build. That’s why you’re here, Halina. Not only because you can help, but because you’re safer here. And if you’d give it a little more time, you’d see we’re going to get rid of Schaeffer’s threat and there will be no need for you to hide anymore.

“Isn’t that what you want, Halina? To live a normal life again? To be
you
? Do what you want, go where you want, eat and shop and play the way you want? What’s the point of living if you can’t enjoy your life?”

“You probably never heard the words ‘you don’t always get what you want’ growing up, did you?”

“Sure. Heard ’em all the time.” A smile broke over his face. “And I lived to prove them wrong.”

She dropped her head and rubbed her temple. “God. Your poor parents.”

Mitch took her chin in his fingers and lifted her face until she was looking into his eyes again. “Together we’re strong.”

“Together, I’m putting the rest of you at a much higher risk.” She crossed her arms, shook her head. “One loss versus a dozen, Mitch. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be near you or any of these people.”

He gripped her bicep in an aggressive move so totally at odds with the innocence he held gently in the other arm that Halina startled.

“Halina.” Her name was a harsh reprimand. “You are not dispensable. Your life is not worth any less than anyone else’s, and I don’t ever want to hear that come out of your mouth again.”

He clenched his teeth and when he spoke again, his tone leveled. “Seven years ago, you should have trusted me. You should have told me what was happening so we could have dealt with it
together
. You didn’t give me the chance to prove I wouldn’t let you down.
I want
—” He stopped, took a breath. “I’m
asking
. . . for that chance now.”

 

Bruce Abernathy wound the beaten truck over the firebreaks of Tahoe National Forest along the east border of Teague and Alyssa Creek’s property in Truckee, California.

His leg ached like a sonofabitch. Every dip in the road shot so much pain through his pelvis and up his back, he was sweating and panting. Working alone, he wasn’t set up for all this confrontation or chase. He should have gone in for the hard kill right away. Hit with shock and awe and pulled Beloi out. He’d underestimated both Foster and Beloi, but he was done screwing around.

Nearing the heavily wooded spot he’d chosen after scouting via satellite and referring to weather maps, he focused in on the snowflakes as they hit the windshield and melted, then whisked away by the wipers. Damn, this was beautiful country. Maybe he’d get a place here when this all finally paid off. Once he had Beloi, everything would snap into place. He’d have those crazy-ass smart soldiers on the ground within a year. Good-bye Taliban. Good-bye North Korea. Good-bye Anonymous for that matter. Americans would be safe from threats both outside and inside the nation. And he would finally reap a financial reward equal to his sacrifices for this country. He’d sure as hell left that in Schaeffer’s hands too long.

He parked at the rear of the thickly wooded ledge and unpacked his gear. Before he found his way to the edge of the cliff, open to the opposite end of the meadow facing Creek’s home, he climbed into the ghillie suit he’d thrown together specifically for this location. With white ski pants and jacket layered with brown netting, heavily taped with local pine and manzanita branches, once he took position, he’d blend right into the forest floor. For now, his ghillie provided camouflage for setup.

The canopy went up first—an expanse of burlap spray-painted white and forest green to blend with the snow-coated trees and hung in the branches above. Couldn’t make a good shot with snow blocking a lens. Once cover was in place, he tossed down a dirt-brown plastic tarp and broke out the rifle.

Within twenty minutes, he lay belly down on the edge of a two-hundred-foot ledge looking over a snow-filled mountain meadow. Across that meadow, the Creek home nestled among the trees. Its A-line face with those amazing floor-to-ceiling windows gazed out over a view that had to be as stunningly picturesque as the one he stared at now. He pulled in a breath of the icy air and it scraped his lungs.

A stillness filled his chest. Migrated to his head. His hands.

Pristine. Peace. Perfection.

Damn, that felt . . . unbelievably
right
. More right than anywhere on earth he’d ever been—and he’d been to every godforsaken corner of this planet.

Yeah. He definitely needed a place here. The sooner, the better.

To get a clear view of the target, without so much as a pine needle between his barrel and the house, he edged forward from the manzanita thicket beneath the towering pines. He found a position and slid the rifle out in front, across an exposed section of flat river rock. Squinting at the house across the frozen meadow, he reached forward and released the bipod, giving the rifle legs and stabilizing his aim.

Something rustled the brush behind him. Flash fire burned in the pit of his stomach. He tensed, waited. When the sound faded, he trained his breathing back into a shallow, measured rhythm. He swiped snow off the rock face, lay a swatch of fleece down, and pressed his cheek against it, gazing through the scope.

After sweeping the area with his rifle scope, he homed in on the vast expanse of glass and flipped down a magnifier. And suddenly, he was in the living room with them. A ghost floating among them. Whispering at their ear with the barrel of a rifle. And they were oblivious.

Adrenaline swirled and eddied in his veins. He’d almost forgotten the force of these emotions. How moving control and power could be. How intoxicating.

He slowly panned the living room and kitchen beyond, pausing to center each face in the crosshairs of his scope. The wooden beams between windowpanes created blind spots, but he waited for the perfect shot, and when he had it, just for the satisfaction, he punctuated each satisfactory aim with, “
Click,
dead.”

Luke Ransom, Keira O’Shay-soon-to-be-Ransom, Kai Ryder, Cash O’Shay, and Alyssa and Teague Creek. And even though he hated killing kids, that talented Mateo would have to go too. He knew as much as the rest of them, and, with time, would probably more dangerous than all the current adults combined. But the man he wanted to kill most, Mitch Foster, wasn’t in the room. And Beloi was missing too. As were Q and his wife, Jessica.

He’d only get one shot at sending Foster’s brains across the room. Only one chance for Beloi to witness the event that would give her the incentive to cooperate. The next time he confronted her, he didn’t want an ounce of resistance. Honestly, in his condition, he doubted being able to win. And he never went into a fight at a disadvantage—not if he could help it.

Discipline. Patience.
He could wait.

 

A
ll she wanted to do was run. But at least Mitch had gotten her mind to bend in another direction. If she could open up, if she could trust him, and if he could forgive . . .

There were a lot of ifs in there, but for another shot with Halina, ifs were better than nos.

He led her into the living area where all the rooms were open to each other. Kai mixed drinks in the kitchen on the left, Keira and Luke sat at the dining room table straight ahead, each with a computer and a notepad, Cash beside them furiously scribbling on another pad, his fingers pulling absently at his hair. To the right, a huge sectional sofa and several club chairs delineated the living room, but the entire space flowed together without any walls.

Mitch tried not to let the sour note between him and Halina darken the joy of holding Brady. For a moment, a crystal-clear, painfully sharp moment, he could have sworn he and Halina had connected on a level nearly as deep as they had all those years ago. Looking at Brady with the very real possibility of having a child of their own . . .

Every time he thought of it, a bolt of lightning shot through his belly. He wasn’t sure if it was more fear or more excitement, but both were definitely present.

Mitch hovered over Cash’s shoulder, but couldn’t read anything on the paper. “You close to figuring that out yet?”

Cash made a frustrated sound and continued to write.

Mitch’s gaze shifted to a pile of shards on the table where some type of stone had been shattered with a hammer. “What’s that?”

“Something Quaid’s been messing with,” Keira said. “Something having to do with energy something-or-other. You know how Quaid is.”

Yes, he did. Quaid was still a little . . . off . . . from his time in captivity. His mind seemed to drift on tangents. He went deep into himself when he delved into some newly discovered aspect of his powers. The shards of something glass or ceramic on the table was only one in a long line of projects he’d vanish into.

“What’s he working on?” Halina murmured by Mitch’s side, but she was looking at Cash, not the table.

“Halina?” Kat came up to them with Dex beside her. “Can we take Dex in our room to play?”

“Of course.” She glanced at Alyssa. “If it’s okay.”

Alyssa nodded and Kat and Mateo scurried off to the back of the house, both of them calling some warped form of
prikhodit
that made everyone chuckle. Dex trotted behind them and sent Halina one last glance before he disappeared.

“When Cash was imprisoned at the Castle,” Mitch said, “Schaeffer had him developing a superskin for the military. Think Gore-Tex meets neoprene with ten times the strength of body armor.”

Her gaze turned on Cash, though he didn’t notice. “Did you do it?”

He turned his head to glance at her, then returned his frown to the pad. His jaw shifted sideways. Knee bounced and he didn’t answer.

That was a strange reaction. Mitch was just going to ask if he was okay when Cash tossed his pencil down and rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said with an irritable edge, “but I ate the final notes to get rid of them so Schaeffer wouldn’t get the formula. I’m trying to re-create them now.”

Cash rested his chin in his hand, but didn’t meet Halina’s eyes. Something was definitely up with him. Out of the group, Cash was one of the nicest, despite his years isolated in prison. Since the team had rescued him and the man had been with them every day, he’d been polite, congenial, considerate, easygoing.

Halina definitely put a burr under Cash’s skin. And Mitch realized he might just have to eat the promise he’d made Halina before coming into the house. He hadn’t imagined anyone in the team holding a grudge after they all knew how manipulative Schaeffer could be.

But Cash’s wife had been murdered by Schaeffer’s men. Cash had lost three years of Mateo’s life when Schaeffer had put him in prison. Out of everyone, Cash had lost the most.

“And now,” Cash said, the edge in his voice growing toward anger, “after getting my brains banged around my skull during the escape, I can’t remember what I did.”

Mitch put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

Cash looked up. When their gazes met, Mitch saw both realization and understanding pass through Cash’s blue eyes.

His voice leveled when he told Halina, “But I’m getting closer.”

“You . . . ?” Halina started, confusion clear on her face. “
Ate
them? What does that mean?”

“I, you know,” Cash picked up the pencil and pulled the notebook back in front of him. “Ate the paper the notes were on. I didn’t have any other means of disposal.”

Halina’s eyes rounded in shock.

“
Mission: Impossible
style,” Luke said, grinning at his soon-tobe brother-in-law, drawing a lopsided smile from Cash.

“If we try hard enough,” Kai said from the kitchen, “we can fit every part of this mess into a television series.
Mission: Impossible, The Pretender
—”

“Let’s not try,” Mitch said.

“Are you in another bad mood?” Kai asked. “Let me make you one of my smoothies—”

“No smoothies,” Teague said from the sofa. “Brady is finally happy. If you turn on that blender, I’m going to stuff your head in it.”

“Good point,” Kai said.

“The formula will be powerful leverage against Schaeffer,” Mitch told Halina.

“How?” she asked.

“We can sell it back to him,” Mitch said. “Tape the exchange and get his confession. Pull in the FBI for a sting if we can arrange it.” Mitch turned his attention back to Brady and lifted the baby’s tiny fingers with his pinkie until they encircled it. “He’d expose himself as participating in Millennium’s business while acting as a senator and sitting on the Armed Forces Committee.

“Though we’re not even a hundred percent sure we’d get backing from the FBI because not all interactions with a politician’s business are illegal while he’s in office. We’d have to prove a few things along with his offer to buy it, and his confession of holding Cash against his will.”

“It’s all such a long shot,” Halina murmured, gaze going distant. “The formula, the papers, collecting this foggy evidence . . .”

“But it’s better than nothing,” Cash said. “And it’s better than life in a cell.”

Halina’s eyes clouded with guilt. They turned the color of smoke against the ocean and Mitch was caught between wishing he could help her and thinking he should be relishing a sense of vengeance. But he couldn’t find a desire for revenge anymore. All he wanted now was to shine light on all the shadows and move forward without any monsters in the closet.

“Kai’s right,” Alyssa said, coming up beside them and sliding her arm through the bend of Halina’s elbow. “Mitch has lost all his manners. This is Keira, Luke, and Cash, Keira’s brother.” Alyssa turned toward Teague, who was sitting on the sofa. “You’ve met Teague and our daughter, Kat, and Cash’s son, Mateo.”

“I didn’t forget my manners,” Mitch said. “I was going to let her enjoy that view,” he gestured toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a frosted mountain meadow from the living room, “for a minute before throwing you all at her.”

Kai set a couple drinks on the dining room table for Keira, Luke, and Cash, then dropped into a chair. He stretched out his long legs, crossed them at the ankles, and folded his arms over his chest. “So, tell us how your power works . . . this precognition.”

“That right there,” Mitch pointed at Kai, “is what no manners looks like. Let the woman relax for a few minutes, Ryder.”

Mitch wandered toward the windows, appreciating the view as he ran the back of one finger over Brady’s petal-soft cheek. He loved the feeling of peace he had here. Especially now, holding his nephew. He gave up on the scenery to stare at Brady. His mind drifted to the thought of his and Halina’s possible child. What their baby would look like. If he or she would resemble Brady. Thought of how the cousins would play together the way Mitch and his cousins had when they’d been kids.

He’d had such a great life. Fantastic parents, great brothers, best twin he could have hoped for, loving supportive extended family. More friends than he’d ever imagined.

He wanted to share it all with a child.

He wanted to share it all with Halina.

He’d adored bringing her to his family’s house in San Diego for holidays. She’d endured his brothers’ teasing, his mother’s third degree, his father’s endless chats. And she’d fit in like she’d already been part of the family.

Those had been some of the happiest days of his life.

“It would be helpful to be able to know what’s coming next,” Kai said, breaking into Mitch’s thoughts, his voice moving back toward the kitchen. “Especially when I can feel Abernathy close.”

Mitch pivoted toward Kai. “
What
? How close? Why didn’t you tell us before?”

Before all his questions were out, Mitch was already calculating scenarios and travel times. If Abernathy had somehow gotten his leg wound patched up and driven all night . . . this was one relentless bastard.

“What do you mean you can feel him?” Halina asked Kai.

“I don’t know how to explain it other than a sixth sense,” Kai said. “Like when you hear something in your house at night that triggers an internal alarm. I feel that anxiety or dread or whatever you want to call it when someone is targeting our team.”

He turned to look at Mitch. “And I didn’t tell you because I’m just now picking it up loud and clear. You know I don’t know anything about—”

“Distances or time frames,” Mitch said, disgusted. In his arms, the warm bundle squirmed and squeaked unhappily. “All of you and your limitations.” He looked down at Brady, shook his head as he gently bounced the boy, which wasn’t working for the kid a second time around. “They’re killing me, Brady.
Killing
me.”

“You’re not going to be able to fix this problem, bro.” Alyssa came over and took Brady from Mitch. “He’s hungry.”

Mitch wasn’t ready to let Brady go and felt a little lost without his nephew in his arms. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched Alyssa cuddle beneath Teague’s arm on the sofa and toss a baby blanket over her shoulder to take the baby to her breast discreetly.

Teague murmured something in Alyssa’s ear and she glanced up, grinning with a ridiculous amount of love. A mix of joy for his sister and jealousy for the bond she and Teague shared twined in Mitch’s chest.

The sentiment was more a feeling than a thought. One that echoed through him. And he found himself hoping Halina was pregnant even though he clearly saw the trouble that would cause down the road.

“Abernathy must have gotten discharged,” Keira said.

“Discharged from where?” Halina asked.

“I started calling the emergency rooms in the Olympia area, said the FBI was looking for a fugitive who’d come in with a gunshot wound to the leg. When nothing came up, I fanned out and finally found the jerk going by the name Steve Carpenter at the emergency room of a community hospital outside Portland.”

“Portland?” Halina said. “Are you sure it was him?”

“The slug he took out of the guy’s leg matched the caliber of Mitch’s gun. The patient matched Abernathy’s description. He had Abernathy’s tattoos.”

“Tattoos.” She turned to Mitch with an accusatory tone. “How did you know about his tattoos? You said you didn’t know who he was.”

Annoyance rippled across Mitch’s shoulders, but he smoothed it down. “Quaid knew about Abernathy’s tattoos—” A soft ding echoed through the house. Everyone’s attention shifted toward the foyer and the new voices coming from that direction—Jessica’s smooth and soft, Quaid’s much deeper.

“Speak of the dual devils,” Kai said, coming out from behind the counter and walking into the foyer.

Halina looked at Mitch again and a spark of panic burned in her eyes.

Kai returned through the hallway, followed by Jessica, her deep red hair up in a sleek ponytail. The new color in her face and life in her eyes reminded Mitch of the importance of this work. Of the significant changes their successes thus far had created in everyone’s life. That he wasn’t torturing Halina for the hell of it, but to set things right.

Kai, Jessica, and Quaid paused a few feet from Halina. She drew herself up and shot one angry look at Mitch before Jessica held out her hand in greeting. Mitch noticed the tension in Jessica’s face, the tightness of her shoulders, the rigid line of her arm extending the hand toward Halina. And the way she edged protectively in front of Quaid as if Halina would take him.

“I’m Jessica,” she said. “Quaid’s wife.”

Just as much tension radiated through Halina, only hers was defensive. She reluctantly shook their extended hands, Jessica’s first, then Quaid’s as they were introduced.

In that moment, when Quaid took Halina’s hand, the atmosphere in the room shifted. A sensation as intangible as mood, but far more serious. Quaid held on to Halina’s hand too long, his expression growing serious. Dark.

Halina’s jaw tightened, her eyes grew both scared and fierce, the combination oddly intimidating. With one small shift of her body, alarm kicked to life inside Mitch as visions of her striking out pushed him forward. He put a hand on Quaid’s arm and squeezed. “Ease up on that grip, man. You’re killing her blood supply.”

Halina shot Mitch an irritated, uneasy look as if she weren’t sure whether to plead for help or kick him in the balls. The room had gone quiet. Quaid’s gaze was deeply intent on Halina, who continued to look between Quaid and Mitch.

With the unspoken choreography of people who’d worked together in tenuous situations before, Mitch eased closer to Halina’s side while Jessica came in behind him, replacing Mitch’s hand on Quaid’s arm.