Smoky Mountain Setup (15 page)

“Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of run-ins with members of the Blue Ridge Infantry. And a few of their drug-dealer and anarchist buddies.”

“I’m not sure the FBI’s files on these groups are as detailed.”

“The BRI has become really savvy about covering their tracks. We can outline how we think they’re committing crimes, but producing evidence of their involvement is another thing altogether.”

“I know. I was part of a task force trying to round some of them up, remember?”

“Right.” She gave him a sidelong look. “You never told me how you were working with the BRI. I know you weren’t sanctioned to get involved with the BRI undercover while you were on that task force. When Quinn got us involved in trying to keep McKenna Rigsby safe, we did a lot of digging with our FBI sources and we found out that much. But you ended up working with them anyway. How did it happen?”

“The contact fell into my lap. A guy who lived in the apartment next door was doing some jobs for them. Transporting contraband, that kind of thing. They made a mistake with him—he wasn’t a meth head, but he was a drinker, and when he got drunk, he liked to talk. I figured out that I could pick his brains easily enough if I made sure to be his designated driver. So I ended up spending my nights at his favorite bars, looking for a chance to scrape him up off his bar stool and take him home.”

“What kind of information did he give you?”

“Upcoming runs for the BRI. When they’d be moving drugs from one place to another. I went to Chang and told him what was up. I figured we could interdict the next run, if that’s the way they wanted to go, but they didn’t think there was sufficient evidence to warrant a raid.” He frowned at the memory.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, sounding confused. “What was their reasoning?”

“They didn’t say. And I wasn’t in any position to push them on it, given my shaky status with the Bureau.” He shook his head, angry with himself. “I should have pushed anyway. I knew there was something hinky going on. But I just—I just didn’t much care at the time.”

“You must have started caring at some point, if you ended up working with the BRI anyway.”

He nodded. “I did.”

“What happened?”

“Rigsby disappeared.”

The curious look she sent his way was tinged with suspicion. “I knew you were part of the team running her undercover op, but I wasn’t aware you’d become close.”

He almost laughed at the thought. “We weren’t close. But I knew she was a good agent. She certainly didn’t go rogue for the hell of it, so I knew something had gone really wrong. And I might not have been running on all cylinders as an agent, but my gut told me that whatever had gone wrong had gone wrong on the FBI end of the operation.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to get Chang to let me go undercover and see what had gone wrong. I had a ready way in, through my neighbor, and I was still pretty new to Tennessee, so it wasn’t like anyone in the BRI would know my face. At least, that’s what I figured. I didn’t know about Boyle at that time.”

“Chang said no?”

“He ran it up the Bureau chain of command and came back with a no,” Landry corrected her. “I think he might have contacted the Knoxville field office and got the no-go from Boyle. He was the Knoxville liaison person.”

“So he would have known you were trying to go undercover. He must have tipped off the BRI.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t think he told them anything. At least, not at first.” Snow crunched beneath their boots as they hiked through the woods, stretching their limbs. Landry’s legs were still a little sore from their long hike over the mountain, but the exercise helped loosen the aching muscles and tendons.

“It must have suited his purposes for you to go undercover,” Olivia mused. “Do you know why?”

Landry shook his head. “When Rigsby called me to meet her at the Econo-Tel, I had a gut feeling I shouldn’t follow protocol. But I just didn’t trust my instincts. Instead, I went through proper FBI channels. I called our task-force liaison to report the contact.”

“Darryl Boyle.”

“I knew when he told me not to contact anyone else, something was wrong. I even tried reaching Chang, but I never got through.”

“So you called the number Rigsby had used to contact you, trying to warn her about Boyle.”

He nodded. “I got Nick Darcy instead. By then, Boyle was already on his way to the other meet site Rigsby set up, along with some of his BRI buddies.”

“So you knew then that whatever contacts you’d made in the BRI were compromised.”

“I knew I couldn’t trust Boyle. So I went home to pack some things. I knew I couldn’t stay there anymore. I went to the bank and got a few thousand dollars out. Stashed it somewhere safe where I could access it if I needed to. I contacted my landlord and broke my lease. Told him to keep the deposit for his trouble.”

“That made you look like you were on the run.”

“I was.” He looked at her. “I had no idea who to trust. Or if there was anybody left at all who could help me.”

“You could have contacted
me
.” The look she gave him was half fury, half dismay, as if she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to give him a whack upside the head or burst into tears.

“I wanted to. I knew you were working for The Gates, so I knew where to find you. But I made a mistake.”

“What mistake?”

“I gave the FBI another chance.”

Chapter Fifteen

“Who did you contact?” Olivia asked, dread settling in the pit of her belly. Since leaving the FBI, she’d taken her share of emotional blows where the people she’d worked with were concerned. First Boyle. Then for a while, she’d come to fear that Landry was a traitor, too.

“I went over Chang’s head,” Landry answered. “Called someone at FBI headquarters instead. Dallas Cole.”

Her eyebrows lifted a notch at the name. Dallas Cole? “The visual-information specialist at headquarters?”

Landry smiled at her surprise. “Yeah. Exactly. I figured, who would bother to corrupt a guy who designs brochures?”

She tried to picture upright Dallas Cole taking a bribe. “You’re not telling me someone did.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t tried to contact him again to see what happened, for obvious reasons. He was always a pretty straight arrow—maybe he didn’t listen when I told him to skip the chain of command and go straight to Assistant Director Crandall to tell him where to contact me.”

“Actually, the Dallas Cole I remember wouldn’t break chain-of-command protocol for anyone,” Olivia said. “And if Boyle had thought ahead and made a few calls...”

Landry sighed. “Cole would have reported my contact and they’d know where to find me. Which must be exactly what he did. Because it wasn’t twenty minutes later, while I was waiting for a call back from Crandall, that a bunch of big, bearded guys ambushed me and hauled me off for interrogation.”

Olivia touched his arm, horrified by the pictures his words painted in her mind. “No wonder you didn’t think there was anyone in the FBI you could trust.”

“Now you know why I didn’t turn myself in to the authorities when I got away from my captors.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you felt so alone. That you didn’t feel there was anyone you could trust.”

He touched her hand then gently removed it from his arm and took a few steps away. “We should probably get back.”

“Wait.” She tugged him around to face her, not ready to let him leave. Not before she told him what she’d spent most of the night before thinking about. “You know what we said last night, about the wisdom of trying to recapture what we had together?”

He met her gaze with wary eyes. “Yeah?”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t think we should try.”

His eyes flickered, as if she’d caught him flat-footed. “Oh.”

She realized he didn’t get what she was saying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t say that well. What I mean is, we aren’t the same people. I know I’m not, and I think you’d agree that you’re not, either. Right?”

His expression shuttered. “Right.”

He started to turn away from her, but she was still holding his hand.

“So let’s not try to recapture our relationship.” She caught his other hand in hers and stepped closer until her heat enveloped him. “Let’s make something new.”

She let go of his hands and rose to kiss him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders to pull him closer. As Landry tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her flush to his body, the cold dissipated. The rustle of wind in the trees disappeared, swallowed by the thunderous pounding of Olivia’s pulse in her ears.

It was so easy to let herself be swept up in the memories of their time together, the whirlwind of crazy hours, high-octane SWAT missions and stolen moments of pleasure in a world sometimes gone insane. They’d lived on passion and adrenaline, glossing over the missing pieces of their relationship as if they didn’t matter. Things like trust and commitment, the building blocks of a relationship that had lasting power.

No wonder it had all fallen apart.

As if he sensed her sudden doubts, Landry’s grip on her loosened, and he drew back to meet her gaze, his green eyes troubled. “What’s wrong?”

“We made so many mistakes before.”

His lips pressed flat as he nodded. “I know.”

“I don’t want to make those mistakes again.”

He let her go, turning so that his profile was to her. “Okay. I get that. We should probably go back to the cabin and get back to work anyway.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She moved closer to him, missing the heat of his body. “I want it to work this time. Don’t you?”

He turned slowly to look at her. “Of course.”

“We never thought past the next day.” She shook her head. “Hell, most of the time we never thought past the next hour. We lived in the here and now, and we thought it was enough. But it wasn’t. Was it?”

“No.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t nearly enough.”

“If we do this, I don’t want to settle for less than everything.”

“You mean marriage and kids and mortgages?” His expression shuttered, and she felt the first hard flush of dismay.

But before she could answer him, she felt a quiet buzz against her hip. “Damn it.” She pulled her vibrating phone from her pocket. It was Alexander Quinn, of course.

“What, does he have you wired for sound?” Landry muttered as she pushed the answer button.

“Hello?”

“Carver showed up at home, a little scuffed but okay.”

Relief swamped her. “That’s amazing news! Did he escape?”

“Carver?” Landry asked softly. She nodded.

“Yes, but I’m not a hundred percent sure they didn’t let him go.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he came back with a message. And I think maybe it was one they wanted him to deliver.”

“What kind of message?”

Quinn’s voice lowered. “You’re not on speaker, are you?”

Olivia glanced at Landry. “No.”

“Carver said the men who took him told him there’s a reason Cade Landry came out of hiding and sought you out. That the story he told you about being a target is true. But it’s not the Blue Ridge Infantry who’s after you.”

“Then who?”

“It’s Landry.”

* * *

S
OMETHING
WAS
WRONG
.
Very, very wrong. From the sudden shift in Olivia’s posture to the blank expression on her face, Landry knew that whatever Quinn was telling her had hit her like a brick bat.

Was it something about Carver? Had something bad happened back in Purgatory?

“That’s not possible.” She spoke in a careful tone, still looking at Landry even as her expression remained frozen in neutral.

Whatever Quinn said to her didn’t do anything to improve her demeanor. She finally looked away, her gaze going south toward the guest cabin barely visible through the trees.

“I understand. You don’t have to worry.” She hung up the phone and took a deep breath before she slowly turned to look at him.

“Carver’s okay?”

“He escaped. He was a little beat up, but Quinn says he’s going to be fine.” Something in her voice suggested she wasn’t telling him the whole story, but she turned and started walking toward the cabin before he could ask anything else.

He hurried to catch up. “Wait a minute—what else was Quinn telling you? What’s he worried about?”

“I’ll tell you when we get to the cabin,” she answered, picking up her pace until they were almost jogging through the trees.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as she beat him inside and disappeared almost immediately into her bedroom and closed the door. Adrenaline pumped into his system, feeding his rising alarm.

Get the Kimber
, his instincts screamed.
Get it now.

He pushed down the rising fear, held it in check. This was Olivia. Whatever had gone down between them, she wouldn’t hurt him. Not without reason. He had to believe that, or he had nothing at all to believe in anymore.

Remaining where he stood in the middle of the front room of the guest cabin, he waited, his ragged breathing slowly subsiding and his pounding heart easing to a slow, steady beat.

When the door of her bedroom opened, the click of the latch sent a little jolt through his nervous system, but he fought against the fight-or-flight instinct and made himself remain still while she slowly emerged from the hallway and walked back into the front room.

She was holding her Glock in her right hand, the barrel facing the floor. Moisture glistened in her eyes but she wasn’t crying. He could see the effort it was taking not to let the tears fall.

She didn’t look at him as she spoke. “Quinn thinks the BRI let Carver escape on purpose. He said that Carver overheard something his captors said, and Quinn thinks they planned it that way. They wanted to give us a message without delivering it directly.”

Landry swallowed with difficulty. “What message?” he asked, though he had a sick feeling he already knew.

“He heard them say they’re not the ones who are after me.”

The cold certainty deepened, rippled like an icy breeze down his limbs, scattering goose bumps. “Then who is?”

Olivia’s gaze lifted and locked with his. “You. They said it’s you.”

He saw pain in her eyes, and his heart contracted. Did she believe Quinn? Was that why she was carrying the Glock?

For her protection against him?

She lifted the Glock and he braced for whatever came next, knowing he couldn’t do anything that might hurt her, no matter what she did next. When she set the Glock on the top of the glass-front cabinet that stood against the wall and dropped her empty hands to her sides, he released his pent-up breath.

“Landry, the one thing I know, the one thing I believe with absolute certainty, is that you didn’t come in from the cold in order to hurt me.”

Relief rolled through him, threatening to make his knees buckle.

She took a step closer, her gaze holding steady with his. “I’m not sure what the BRI is up to by sending a message through Carver the way they did. Maybe it’s an attempt to turn us all against each other. Or maybe whatever operation you overheard them planning that day through the bedroom vent wasn’t a sanctioned BRI operation, and this is their way of letting us know. I honestly don’t know. But I know you. No matter what went wrong, no matter how many problems we overlooked instead of fixed, no matter how much time we’ve spent apart, I know you. You won’t hurt me, because it would kill you. Just like I won’t hurt you.”

He glanced at the Glock she’d laid on the cabinet and forced a smile. “I have to admit, I wasn’t so sure you weren’t going to hurt me the other day when you pulled your shotgun on me.”

She smiled back, the tears welling in her eyes trickling down her cheeks. “I had the safety on. You didn’t notice?”

“I couldn’t see past the barrel stuck in my face.” He took another deep breath and let it out. “So the BRI is spreading the word that I’m the big bad, huh? I guess Quinn was pretty quick to buy into it?”

“Quinn’s not exactly the trusting sort.”

“You don’t say.” He walked back to the front door of the cabin and looked outside, scanning the yard. The sun was already high in the sky, hot enough despite the chilly temperatures to melt away half the snow that had been in the yard that morning when he woke. “Does the BRI have any idea where we are?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think they have every inch of the Appalachians under surveillance.”

“How much do you trust Quinn?”

“Enough,” she said after a moment’s thought. “You asked if he believes this story about you. I think by calling me, he gave us the answer.”

“He believes it.”

“Actually, no. I don’t think he does. He gave me the choice of what to do by calling me. If he truly believed you were the bad guy in this scenario, he and a dozen other agents from The Gates would have shown up without warning and gotten me out of here before calling the FBI to come get you.”

“So that call was about giving you the facts at hand and trusting you to make the right decision?”

“That’s how Quinn works. He says he has to be able to trust his agents to make the right decision in the field.”

“So what’s your decision in the field?”

“I think we’re about as safe here, for the moment, as we’d be anywhere.” She looked around the cabin, her eyes narrowed as if she were assessing the cabin’s utility as a fortress. “I wouldn’t mind shoring up our defenses a bit, though.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Short of building a moat?” She flashed him a grin that made his heart flip-flop, and for a second, he felt as if he’d been transported to three years earlier, when they had still been together, still partners. Still lovers.

He forced himself back to the present. She had been right earlier, when she’d said it was folly to try to recapture the past. The past, for all its delights, had also been riddled with mistakes and lost opportunities.

They had a chance to start fresh. And that was what he planned to do.

“How much do you think we can trust Rafe and Janeane?” he asked.

“Seth Hammond trusts them. And he’s a pretty good judge of character. He made his living off being able to read people, you know.”

“Interesting choice of hires for The Gates,” he murmured.

“Quinn’s a pretty good judge of character, too.” She crossed to him and took his hand. “We’re going to figure all of this out. You’re not going to spend the rest of your life running. Do you hear me?”

When she said it, he could almost believe it. “I hear you.”

“We’ve just got to figure out a plan. Something more proactive than hunkering down and hoping nobody finds us. Making this place or any other place a fortress is the same as making it a prison. I have no desire to live the rest of my life in a prison.”

She never had been the wait-and-see type, he thought. It didn’t seem that the time they’d spent apart had quelled her propensity to take action.

Waiting had never been one of his strong suits, either. Which was why he’d spent the previous night working out potential plans of action in his head when sleep proved elusive.

Putting his life in the hands of the FBI wasn’t something he was willing to try again, even if it was unfair to the thousands of honest, trustworthy agents and staffers in the Bureau’s employ. He didn’t know who could be trusted, so he had to work on the premise that he could trust none of them.

But Olivia was right. He may have escaped BRI captivity months ago, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still trapped behind the invisible bars of life on the run.