Authors: Misty Evans
“Nah, just me and Ruby on this floor. Mrs. Lieberman is one floor below mine. She’s a nosy old gal, but nice enough. She’s out of town for the weekend. Was packing up her car when I saw her this morning. Said she was going to visit her sister in Michigan.”
Damn. “Who lives in the apartment below Ruby’s?”
Dan urged Woodstock into the apartment and half slid into it himself, blocking the doorway. “No one that I know of. It’s been vacant for a few weeks.”
“All right, thanks. Do you have a number for Mrs. Lieberman?”
He shook his head, edging the door closed. “She doesn’t have a cell and I don’t even know her sister’s name. Sorry.”
The door shut, leaving him alone in the hallway. Somehow Jax had the feeling Dan wasn’t sorry at all.
He was the nosy one from what Jax could see, but Jax almost believed the guy had been out cold while Ruby’s place was being tossed.
Still. Wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on him. Run a background check.
Ruby was fresh from the shower, dressed in a white blouse and faded jeans, when he got back inside. “What were you doing?” she asked.
She smelled like some flower and looked ten years younger with all the makeup scrubbed off her face. “Asking Dan a few questions. What’s his last name?”
She pulled sunglasses out of the purse hanging over her shoulder and propped them on her head. “Why?”
“Last name is Hughley. He’s clean,” Rory called from the kitchen where he’d set up his laptop on the tiny table. “I already ran facial rec and got his name. Nothing in his background but some unpaid parking tickets and an arrest at a protest march against gun violence in DC in 2000.”
Well, that fit, didn’t it?
Ruby crossed her arms and looked at Jax dubiously. “You suspect Dan is in on this?”
“Doesn’t hurt to vet those around you, and I wanted to know if he saw or heard anything suspicious last night.”
“Did he?”
“Nope. You ready?”
Emit held up a hand and spoke to Ruby. “I called Timms and explained what was going on—not the details, since we’re not sure who we can trust—but enough for him to give you some space. Whatever story you’re going to tell him, I’d appreciate being privy to it since he may decide to confirm it with me.”
“Copy that,” she said, pulling out her car keys. “I don’t plan to tell him any more than necessary at this point.”
Ach. He had to ride in that blasted sardine can again. If only he’d grabbed his car at the club. “We’ll be in touch as soon as she’s done with Timms.”
Emit nodded. “We’ll lock up.”
Ruby and Jax headed out, Jax following her down the stairs and outside.
“Are we really going to see Director Timms?” he asked.
She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. “Nope,” she said as he folded himself into the car and buckled up.
“Didn’t figure.”
She handed him her phone with the red pin still dropped in the same place on her GPS map. “We’re going to find Elliot and figure out what the hell is going on.”
Chapter Nine
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R
UBY
S
LOWED
T
HE
car to twenty miles an hour and leaned forward to look through the windshield at the abandoned building looming off to her right. “Are you sure this is the place?”
Jax held up her phone where the red pin sat almost directly over the pulsing blue circle that represented her car. “We’re here.”
Pottersville, population 613. Nearly two hours west of the city and a good twenty minutes from any reasonable suburb. They were in the boonies, complete with endless cornfields and county roads.
Overhead, the skies had turned dark, grey clouds roiling like bubbling smog. Here and there, lightning popped, followed by the deep bass of thunder.
The car’s headlights lit up the metal side of the Potter Feed & Grain Mill, the red writing on the building faded to a dull rust as Ruby turned into what had once been a parking lot but now was overgrown with weeds.
Jax was poking at her phone with his long, lean fingers. “According to the Wiki page on this town, the two biggest attractions are the cemetery and a Christmas tree farm.”
A good place to hide out if you wanted to disappear. “Long way from Chicago,” Ruby muttered out loud.
“Wouldn’t Elliot want to get away from the city?”
“How’d he get here? Stolen car?”
Thunder boomed in the distance as Jax shrugged. “Hitching a ride is risky when your face has been on the news. You think he turned Little Gus loose and hotfooted it here?”
Her phone rang. Jax showed her the screen. “The Colonel” showed on caller ID.
Speaking of having your face plastered all over the news.
“Don’t you think you should answer this?” he said. “The guy’s called you twice since we left your apartment.”
“Let it go to voicemail.”
Which was a bad, bad decision. One she would get her ass kicked for.
“Who is he?” Jax asked. “Boyfriend?”
She’d wondered when he was finally going to break down and ask her. “My boss. The real one. The CIA’s director of operations.”
“You call him Colonel?”
“Only behind his back.”
She drove around the north side of the building where the parking lot ended. No other vehicles were anywhere, but then she didn’t expect Elliot to leave his getaway car in plain sight.
Jax hit the decline button and the call went to voicemail. “Why?”
She parked close to the back door and killed the lights. A fat rain drop splattered on the windshield. “You know how in the Navy, you have your basic seamen, then the next level of experienced seamen, and on and on up the ranks until you get to the highest level, the SEALs?”
“Yeah.”
“We have something similar, a graduated level of operatives. The highest one is sort of secret army, like the SEALs. We call our boss Colonel as an inside joke.”
“A secret army, huh?” He smiled. “That’s cool.”
“It
is
cool, but the Colonel doesn’t like screw-ups, and after my mug was all over the morning news, he’s not calling to tell me my probation is over and I’m back into his elite group.”
“Ah, shit,” Jax said, as if it were only now dawning on him. “You’re blown, aren’t you?”
Ruby sighed. “I had a lot of makeup on last night, but yeah. I’m guessing since a few million people in the Windy City alone have seen my face in connection with the shooting last night, which has now gone to the national news channels as well as all over the Internet…” She drew an imaginary knife across her throat. “My undercover days are most likely over.”
“Well, that fucking sucks.”
Was he smiling? “You don’t believe that,” she accused. “You’re happy my UC job is in jeopardy.”
He met her gaze head on. “It’s risky, dangerous work. You’re a good operative, but I can’t say I’m not relieved that you won’t be going undercover again for awhile.”
She wanted to be pissed at him, found she didn’t have the energy. “Let’s just find the GPS tracker.”
Jax popped his door open. “And Elliot.”
Right. And Elliot.
She didn’t really believe El was inside. He’d no doubt found the tracker and dumped it here to lead her on a wild goose chase.
If that was the case, she was out of ideas. Unless she could find Augustus Nelson, her leads were gone.
Stepping out of the car, she took her gun from a shoulder holster and checked the chamber. Several cold raindrops fell on her face, her hands.
Across from the abandoned feed mill, acres of cornfields stretched out, most of them unplanted. A tall silo, shedding tiles from its sides, stood like a sentry over the dry fields of old broken stalks and weeds. One lone oak tree stretched dead branches toward the sky, its massive trunk still solid and sturdy, while a branch the size of a small tree had broken off and lay at its base.
Jax naturally fell into the lead position, which annoyed her, but as she pointed her gun upward and sidled up to the opposite side of the door, she was glad for once to have him with her. Tiny town, deserted old building, a storm moving in. Being out here alone, with no way of knowing what was on the other side of this door, would have been unnerving.
Jax’s big body moved with grace, his face calm. He glanced at her, did a couple of hand signals to let her know his plan, and when she nodded her understanding, he nodded back.
But he didn’t move, three fingers in the air, ready to count them down.
She waited. Still he didn’t move, his eyes locked on hers, intense, powerful, earnest. Heat shot across the couple of feet between them into her chest, down her legs. She reminded herself to breathe.
Lightning flashed in her peripheral vision, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. Jax was there. He would keep her safe regardless of the threat, just like he’d done last night in the club. Just like he’d done that morning, cleaning up her apartment, interrogating poor Dan.
One side of her lips lifted. She couldn’t help it. As annoying as he was, he was also one of the bravest men she’d ever met.
He saw her half-smile and returned it. One by one, his fingers fell.
One.
Two.
Three.
She expected him to try the door handle, but he didn’t. Instead he kicked in the door, barreling through and sweeping his gun from side to side as she followed.
Dark. The interior was too dark with little outside light able to get in, even with the broken windows.
And it smelled. Badly.
Before her eyes could adjust or she could reach for her flashlight, Jax turned his own on, illuminating the open, barn-like interior.
Someone had gutted most of the machines, although a few still stood anchored to the back wall and concrete floor. Another wall held various tools, chains, and shelves of rusted cans and miscellaneous stuff. A pile of pallets domed in the center of the floor, a weird red ball sat off to the side, as if a child had been in here playing and had suddenly run away.
A chill played tag up the vertebrae of Ruby’s spine. “Elliot,” she called. “It’s me, Ruby. We know you’re in here.”
Her voice echoed in the space, bouncing off the high ceiling and loft, falling back onto her.
A beat passed. Another. Not a sound except those coming from Mother Nature outside.
She knew there wouldn’t be an answer. Elliot was too smart for his own damn good.
Where’s the go-bag?
Perhaps he’d simply removed the hidden GPS tracker and hid it somewhere. Dropped it into the mess of pallets or stuck it in one of the machines.
“I’ll check upstairs,” Jax said, heading for a set of steps at the back of the building.
Ruby dug out her flashlight, flicked it on, and began examining the lower floor more carefully. The place smelled of mold, old wood, decay. Mice had made the place their palace, leaving droppings everywhere.
No wonder it smells
.
A desk, chair, and bulletin board in one section had been the office. There were still papers on the desk, a bulky computer screen from the early 90s. A wastebasket full of candy wrappers and Mr. Pibb cans. Probably something had died in there, its rotted smell adding to the place’s fragrance du jour.
Behind the desk was a file cabinet. An old-fashioned, three-part receipt book lay open on top, the pages aged and yellowed.
Moving around the room, she heard the sound of Jax’s footsteps progressing softly above her in a similar right to left trajectory. Rain came down harder, pelting the metal roof. Wind whistled through the broken windows high above, driving in rivulets of water that ran down the walls.
Sweeping her flashlight over the shelves, she kept an eye out for her bag. There were feed sacks and rags, pieces of rope and tools she couldn’t name.
She moved to the back of the building, swiping cobwebs out of her way and looking over the first machine. Jax appeared at the top of the stairs. “You better come see this.”
His tone ignited an unsettled twisting in her belly. “What is it?”
He didn’t answer, disappearing into the loft’s shadows.
Please don’t let it be Elliot. Please…
The stairs groaned under her feet as she took them as quickly as her vision allowed. She hit the landing at full speed, but pulled up short. The smell was more intense up here, a hint of metal mingled with the scent of fresh, rain-soaked air.
Not metal.
Blood.
Jax was standing in the corner, flashlight spotlighting something on the floor. She couldn’t see over a collection of cardboard boxes and giant metal canisters between them, but as lightning flashed outside, it lit up the loft and she saw the look on Jax’s face.
Oh no.
It was the same look she’d seen that night in Marrakech when they’d discovered Al-Safari’s body, Elliot bent over it.