Silent Pursuit (6 page)

F
our hours later, having nibbled on a turkey sandwich and chips provided by his host's cook, Ian sat back and rubbed his burning eyes. He'd checked on Gina right after lunch, and she'd been stretched across her bed, sound asleep.

Ian had decided to let her catch up a bit on her rest and returned to his phone calls and information gathering. Unfortunately, he'd not managed to acquire much of anything new, a fact that left him feeling frustrated and helpless. Tossing his pen down on the notepad, he groaned out loud and stood to pace over to the window.

Waves crashed silently beyond the other side of the glass as the sun dipped to touch the water.

It had been a long day.

And they still didn't know much.

“Hey.”

He turned with a start to find Gina standing in the doorway blinking away remnants of sleep. He fought the urge to go to her and pull her into his arms. Instead, he cleared his throat and asked, “Do you feel better?”

She stepped into the room and gave a pointed glance to the paperwork in front of him. “Yes, if a bit guilty that you've been working all this time.”

He waved away her concern. “It's fine. You've had a few stressful moments lately. You needed the sleep.”

A crooked smile curved her lips. “Yes,
stressful
would be a good word.” She slipped into the chair next to him, close enough for him to catch a whiff of the scent that was uniquely her—a mix of cinnamon and some kind of spice. She smelled like Christmas. He concentrated on her words.

“So, I take it you've made a few phone calls.”

“A few.” He nodded.

“What did your old commanding officer, Mac, have to say?”

“That he knew of a few things Mario was working on but would have to get back to me. He was taking a short break to visit his son.”

“His son?”

“Yeah, Jimmy.”

“I've known Mac for a while now. How did I not know he had a son?” She tried to remember if the subject had ever come up.

Ian looked up at her. “It's not something he talks about a lot. Jimmy's twenty-five or-six now and lives in an adult group home. He's a mentally challenged adult. Down syndrome, I think.”

Gina asked indignantly, “Is he ashamed of him?”

“No, that's not it. I think he just feels guilty that he doesn't spend more time with him. And talking about it reinforces that fact. So he just…doesn't say anything.”

“Amazing.”

“What?”

“That you can know someone and—not know them.”

“In addition to not spending a whole bunch of time with him, I think Mac also feels a little guilty about putting Jimmy
in the home. His marriage fell apart then when his ex died a few years ago, he didn't have any relatives stepping up to help out and he still had to make a living….” He shrugged.

“Poor Mac.”

“Jimmy's fine. The home is some swanky ranch-type place where they have a lot of animals for the clients. Jimmy's happy and I think Mac made the right decision. He thinks he did, too, and is getting used to the idea. But he goes out there just about every chance he gets to visit.”

“So, that's where he is now.” She spread her hands, palms up. “We hurry up and wait?”

“Something like that.”

Gina blew out a sigh and pulled out a piece of paper. Laying it on the table, she smoothed it out, pressing it, running her fingers over the crinkles.

Ian raised a brow. “Is that the letter?”

“Yes.” She kept her gaze on the words in front of her.

“Do you mind if I look at it?”

She lifted sad eyes to his. “No, I don't mind.” She passed it over to him, her fingers grazing his as he took the letter from her. Emotion speared him at the brief touch. His gaze held hers. “I'm not a traitor, Gina, no matter what you think.”

She blinked but didn't break eye contact. “It doesn't really matter what I think. Mario trusted you in the end, so that's all that matters.”

Raw grief nearly cut him in two, and the strength of it shocked him. He wanted to tell her why he had left, wanted to with everything in him, but…now wasn't the time.

She might not believe him anyway.

And the truth might send her running from him, which would cause a whole new set of problems.

Like how he would keep her safe if she refused to be around him.

No, he'd wait to tell her his heart. Possibly forever.

 

Time passed slowly for Gina as they worked on trying to discover what Mario had been up to right before his death. Ian spent every waking moment on the laptop or the phone Jase had delivered to him, and Gina knew he was desperately searching for any information on Mario.

The next day, they finally caught a break. Mac Gold called with news about something Mario had been working on.

Ian activated the speakerphone button so Gina could listen in, too.

“Go ahead, Mac. I've got Gina here with me.”

A heavy sigh sounded over the line and Gina shot Ian a worried look. He covered her hand with his, and she sucked in a breath at the unexpected contact. But her heart warmed at his attempt at comfort. She gave a tremulous smile and turned her attention to Mac's words.

“Look, it's not pretty and I can't confirm a lot of it—yet. But it looks like Mario was working on some kind of a gunrunning investigation.”

“I don't understand,” Gina broke in. “You were his commanding officer. Wouldn't you know what he was working on?”

A slight pause. “Not if he was doing something on his own.”

Ian closed his eyes and rubbed them. “All right, so he got some information about gun runners, then possibly went undercover to make sure it was right. They caught on to him and tried to kill him, but he got away long enough to put Gina's life in danger. But why wouldn't he ask for help? That's the part I don't get. Why wouldn't he bring the team in on it?”

“I don't have the answer to that question. But you do have a reasonable theory. However, it could be that somehow he was involved with these guys, made them mad about something, possibly took something that didn't belong to him, and now they're after it.”

“Mario wouldn't betray his country, Mac.” The steel in Ian's voice surprised Gina. The man truly didn't believe Mario would do anything illegal. Relief flooded her. She so wanted Mario to be innocent of any wrongdoing.

Mac's voice echoed through the room. “I don't want to believe it either, Masterson, but I don't have enough proof to go either way. He wasn't under my command with what he was found to be investigating. That raises a red flag for me.”

“Right.” Ian sighed and said, “What did the others in the unit have to say? Did they tell you anything more?”

“Not much. Just confirmed what I just told you. I did all this via phone, since I'm still out here with Jimmy. I'll be back in my office in a few hours, and I'll be able to keep pressing from there. I'll talk to each of my men face-to-face but don't know that I'll be able to turn up much of anything else.”

“Okay, thanks, Mac. Tell Jimmy I said hello.”

“Will do. Good luck and call if you need anything. I'll be in touch.”

They hung up and Ian turned to Gina. “What do you think? Does any of that ring a bell?”

She shook her head and shifted in her chair. “No, none of it. But that doesn't surprise me. Mario would never share details of a case with me. Ever. Not even when I asked.”

Ian rubbed his chin. “No, he wouldn't. Of course he wouldn't. All right, then, let me show you one more thing I did.”

“What?”

She leaned in closer while he tapped on the keys of the
laptop in front of him and breathed in his clean scent. He'd taken the time to shower.

You're not here to notice how good he smells. Focus.

Ian brought up a series of letters and numbers on the screen. “I accessed my high-security clearance account and input the letter Mario left you. I was looking for some kind of code.”

“A code?”

“Sure, we come across them all the time in our line of work. It wouldn't have been any trouble for Mario to come up with one off the top of his head and leave it for you to find. Plus, you know how he loved puzzles and such. I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that.”

“Okay. And?”

“And nothing. I ran it through the military-grade software for code breaking, so to speak, and nothing.”

“So what does that mean?”

“It means that the letter is just…a letter.”

“So, no code?”

“Nope, no code. Unless it's in the wording and something only you can understand. Which is what I've thought from the very beginning. So the ball's back in your court. It's up to you to find any hidden meanings in Mario's words.”

She took the letter from his outstretched hand, this time careful to make sure she had no contact with him. The knowing look in his eyes made her flush, but she ignored it and her reaction to him by looking down at the familiar handwriting. Guilt pierced her. Here she was trying to elude someone who wanted her dead, working on figuring out what her fiancé had been up to, and she found herself attracted to a man Mario had actually cursed.

Gina stood and walked to the door. “All right. I'll just, um,
take this back to my room and study it some more.” Which would be a waste of time, since she had the thing memorized at this point, but she needed to escape and it was as good enough an excuse as any other she might try to come up with.

“Right, you do that. After supper, Nicholas has volunteered to go over some of this with me tonight and see if his fresh eyes can spot something mine can't.”

“Go over what?” She paused, hand on the doorknob.

“He going to dig into some legal stuff, court cases and bad guys that Mario helped bust. He had an idea that whoever is after you might be a family member, or something, of someone Mario either, um, killed or put in jail.”

Darkness seemed to shroud her for a moment. “I know something was haunting him, something that just wouldn't leave him alone…. And he didn't know what to do with it.”

Ian stood and avoided her eyes. “Yeah, we all have stuff like that.”

Gina retraced her steps back across the room to touch his arm. “I'm sorry, Ian.” Then she left and made her way to her bedroom, her thoughts racing, the words from Mario's letter burning in her mind.

What could he have meant? She flopped onto the bed, ignored her growling stomach, and studied it one more time. What kind of message could he have hidden in this straightforward-sounding letter?

Line by line she went through it again. Time passed as she concentrated, trying to put new meaning to the words.

Nothing. She closed her eyes and tried putting a picture with each line in the letter. Tried to visualize it.

“Close to your heart. Keep her close to your heart. Close to…”

Her hand flew to her throat in sudden realization. She
grabbed the necklace, held it in her suddenly unsteady fingers, and wondered. Could it be?

It had to be.

Practically tumbling from the bed, she got her feet under her and raced for the door.

“Ian! Ian, I've got it!”

I
an heard her yell and bolted from the conference room. They rounded the corner at the same time, sending her crashing against his chest. His arms came up protectively and held her tight.

Or tried to.

She scrambled back but grabbed his forearms and said excitedly, “It's the locket.”

“What?”

She grabbed the necklace around her neck and pulled it out for him to see. “The locket. The letter. The clue. Oh, come on.” She dragged him back into the room and fiddled with the clasp on the chain, trying to release it. Finally, she dropped her hands and said, “I can't get it. Can you?”

Gina pulled her ponytail up and off her neck and Ian swallowed hard. With hands that held a slight tremble and a sudden propensity to sweat, he told himself to get a grip. This had to do with Mario. She'd figured something out.

“This is pretty heavy. Doesn't it hurt your neck to wear it?”

She gave a shaky chuckle. “No, I guess I'm used to it. Mario loved to see it on me, and I finally just quit taking it off except at night. You wouldn't believe the compliments I get.”

Finally the hook released and the necklace wilted into her
palm. She sat at the table and with shaky hands managed to hold on to the locket while she slid a thumbnail between the edges to open it.

A younger version of Mario stared back at them from one side, and a girl of about ten years old from the other.

Gina traced a finger over the pictures. “This is Mario's sister, Patrice. She died on a mission trip in South America when she was sixteen.”

“Yeah, he told me about her. I remember he was torn up about it. She and two others were killed in some kind of cross fire between guerrillas and the Colombian military.”

“He never got over it,” she murmured.

Impatience crawled through him. “Okay, so how does this tie in with what was in Mario's letter?”

She frowned. “In the letter, he said, ‘Thank you for keeping her memory close to your heart.' So, it got me thinking that maybe he meant this…that there was something more than just keeping her memory alive…. What if he meant…” She held the locket up to the light, squinting at the piece of gold metal. “Something…like…this…right here. Does it look like it opens again?”

He took it from her. “Maybe. Some kind of secret compartment?”

“Exactly. Can you get it open?”

“Yes, hold on one second. Look, it's a little switch.” He pressed it and the bottom opened up.

A small key fell out and Gina gasped. “You found it.”

He smiled at her. “No, you found it.” He studied the small item. “Now we just have to figure out what it goes to.”

Racking her brain, Gina paced the floor of the conference room. “I don't know, Ian. The first thing that comes to mind is a safe-deposit box.”

He nodded as he examined the key, turning it one way, then another. No identifying marks stood out. He looked up at her. “You're right. That's exactly what it is. Mario would expect you to know what it was to if he hid it in the necklace.”

“Yes, he would. Okay—” she shrugged “—it's got to be where he banked.”

“So, we'll call and find out if he's got a box there.”

“Um, I don't know which bank. I know he had accounts at two different ones. One in Georgia where he was stationed at the base and one in Spartanburg.”

He looked at the clock. “It's too late to call today—they're closed. We'll try first thing in the morning.”

“Okay.” Out of habit, she touched the spot below her throat where the locket usually rested. Ian was looking at her hand. She followed his gaze, wondering if she had dirt or something on it. “What?”

“Huh?” His eyes snapped up to hers.

“You've got a funny look on your face. What?”

He reached out and took her hand in his. Heat zipped through her arm and up into her neck. Why did he affect her so? She focused on his words. “You're not wearing your ring.”

Gina snatched her hand away and clasped it with her other. “No. I took it off.” She stalked back to the window.

“Why?”

She tossed her hands up. “What does it matter?”

He shrugged, “I guess it doesn't, but it just struck me as odd.”

She stamped a foot. “Oh, if you must know, I took it off in a fit of anger. When all this started and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I realized Mario had done something to lead these guys to me…” she swallowed hard. “I was mad at him. Mad at him for whatever he'd gotten
himself into, mad at him for getting himself killed—and mad that he left me to deal with the fallout.” Ian looked stunned at her outburst, yet understanding flitted across his face.

Abruptly, she spun around and said, “I've got to call my parents. They've probably already called my brother, Joseph, and reported me missing—and I can just imagine what he thought when he saw my house…. Plus, I need to warn them….” She trailed off and sucked in a deep breath. “They need to be cautious. I didn't call them before because I didn't want the people after me to think that they might know where I was…. But I just can't stand the thought of them worrying about me.”

He thought about it a minute. “You're right to be careful. But Joseph's FBI. He can take care of himself—and your family. You should call him and he can decide what to tell your parents, if anything. Here, use the encrypted cell.”

She took the phone from his outstretched hand and gave him an embarrassed smile. She should have just said she'd taken the ring off and left it at that. Grateful that he let her get away with the topic change, she said, “Thanks.”

Thirty seconds later she had her brother, Joseph, an FBI agent in her hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, on the phone.

He wasn't happy. “Gina? Where are you? What's going on? I went to your place and it was trashed! Why didn't you call me?”

She held the phone a few inches from her ear. Ian's raised eyebrow indicated that he had no trouble hearing Joseph's explosion.

“Breathe, Joseph. Calm down.”

“Calm down? I get a call from Dad that no one's seen or heard from you in days and you tell me to calm down?
We've got a missing persons report filed with the police department, and Mom's just about ready for a straitjacket. Don't you tell me to calm down!”

She winced. “I'm sorry. I should have called earlier, but I was afraid the people after me might…” She blew out a breath. “Look, I've…run into some trouble.”

“And you don't think I might have been the person you should have called? Why
didn't
you call me?” His growl rumbled through her and she paused. Why hadn't she called Joseph? She looked at Ian leaning back in the comfortable leather chair. He made no effort to hide his interest in the conversation.

“Because Mario told me to call Ian Masterson.”

“Ian? Ian? The dude who deserted his unit? The one Mario was so furious with? And how—and when—did Mario tell you to call Ian?”

Gina blew out a sigh. It did sound bad when he put it that way. “It's a long story, but yeah—that one. And he told me…”

“Look, never mind. Where are you?” he interrupted.

“I can't tell you.”

Gina braced herself for another eruption; then Ian took the phone from her hand.

“This is Ian. I'll be taking care of the situation.”

She watched, stupefied, as Ian smoothly handled her brother and his worried insistence that he come to help. In the end Ian won, reassuring Joseph that he had everything under control and saying he would call if he thought Joseph could help.

Gina cleared her throat when Ian hung up the phone with a bemused smile on his face. She shrugged. “He loves me.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling.”

She blinked. “Huh?”

He flushed as he realized what he'd implied. “I have a sister, too, remember?”

Her face flamed. “Oh, right. Carly. Yes. Well. Um…”

Ian grinned at her and she threw her hands up.

And the laughter rolled out of both of them.

When they caught their breath, Gina looked up at him. “It really wasn't that funny.”

“Maybe not, but I needed the laugh.”

She sobered. “Yeah, better take it while you can.”

Who knew when the next opportunity for a good belly laugh would present itself, given their current circumstances?

 

“Gina.” The whisper and a rough shake of her shoulder jerked her out of a sound sleep. Terror shot waves of panic through her as a scream clawed to the top of her throat. A hand covered her mouth and blackness greeted her eyes. For a minuscule second she flashed back to the moment she'd stepped into her house and the blindfold had been slapped on her face. Now she struggled and tried to scream but nothing escaped the rough palm clamped over her lips, rough fingers digging into her cheek.

She couldn't breathe!

Her heart fluttered like a butterfly held by one wing. Gathering her wits, she struggled against the grip, then whimpered as a large head descended toward her.

“Shh.” The whispered warning rolled from her like water from a duck. Fear overwhelming her, she continued her useless attempts to escape her captor.

He said again, “Gina, shh. Be quiet.”

His voice penetrated her fog of horror. Then she smelled his familiar scent. Peppermint.

Ian.

She ceased all movement and went limp against his hand. He moved it and said in a voice so soft she almost didn't catch it, “Follow me.”

“What's wrong?” Instinct made her whisper. Then she punched his arm—hard enough to make her wince at the pain that shot up from her knuckles. “Did you have to scare me to death?”

“I'm sorry. I couldn't take a chance on you screaming when I woke you up. Someone's breached security. Nicholas's taking care of things on his end, but I've got to get you out of here. Now, no more questions until we're safe, okay?”

The fear she'd felt only moments before returned in triplicate. “Right.” A quick glance at the bedside clock told her it was 3:00 in the morning.

She slipped from beneath the covers, thankful she'd dressed in sweats. “I need shoes.”

A sound outside the door had him hurrying her even faster. “No time.”

So, once again, she would be making a run for it barefoot. “Why don't I hear an alarm going off?”

“It's a silent alarm. Now, hush.”

She hushed and held tight to his warm hand, following closely on his heels. She had no idea how they would get out of the house without running into whoever had tripped the alarm, but she'd just have to trust Ian to keep her safe.

He led her away from the door where they'd heard noise and out of the second door that led into the hall, gun gripped in his right hand, funny-looking glasses now covering his eyes.

Night vision goggles. Of course.

Another right turn. A left.

Then he abruptly turned and pulled her into the room to the right.

Her breath came in pants; her heart thundered in her ears so loudly she was sure Ian could hear it. And where was Nicholas? Was he in danger? Were the cops on the way?

As if in answer to her question, sirens sounded in the distance.

 

Ian easily made out the figure at the end of the hall just before he pulled Gina into the room behind him. A pro. Dressed in army fatigues—and an M16 assault rifle held comfortably in his hands.

One of his own? Another Ranger? Dread crawled through him. These guys were serious.
Mario, what have you done?

Gina shifted behind him and he could hear her desperately trying to quiet her breathing. Fortunately, the bad guy was far enough away that he couldn't hear her.

Okay—Ian thought quickly, new plan.

He looked around. The balcony. Motioning for Gina to stay put, he scurried over to look out. A tree stood close enough, and if he were by himself, he'd be over the rail and down the tree in minutes. However…

He looked over at the scared woman, trembling where he'd left her—yet with a look in her eyes that said she'd go down fighting.

Good. She'd need that spirit. He moved back to the door and listened. Footsteps sounded to his left. Soon they'd be here to search this room.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the balcony. In shock, she noticed it was raining. Sometime during the night, the clouds had released their burden. Leaning next to her ear, he whispered, “How are you at climbing?”

Fear shot through her eyes, but she shrugged it off. “Guess we're going to find out.”

He looked at the limb, then the ground below. “Hold on.”