Touch of Betrayal, A (19 page)

He let loose a beleaguered sigh that almost melted me. Almost.

“Yeah. About that,” he said, running his hands over his cheeks. “I was supposed to bring you with me. As bait.”

Pierce snarled.

Annie glared.

I gave him an absent nod. “You didn’t even tell me about it, much less buy me a ticket—wait. It’s Maddie’s first birthday in two weeks. You knew nothing could keep me away from her party, so you didn’t have to do anything.”

The little remaining color drained from his face. “Yeah. It’s a regular assignment from my usual military contact. I haven’t found a link between the two groups yet, but it scares the hell out of me they could be working together now. I wanted a definitive answer on that before I said anything to you.”

“You’re running on borrowed time, Hunt.” Pierce’s words upped the tension in the air, and a knot of fear skidded along my spine.

I grabbed Mitch’s hand. “Coming here? It put your life in danger?”

He wouldn’t look at me. “No one knows you’re here, so, not really.”

Annie sputtered a delicate snort. “Uh-huh.” And then she pinned Pierce with a glare. “Is there any record of your flight?”

The skin around his eyes crinkled into laugh lines when he smiled. “Of course. Unidentified aircraft get noticed by the FAA. I try to avoid that.”

Annie gave him an exaggerated eye roll. “But there’s no record of Everly leaving North Carolina, or arriving in Honolulu?”

“Right. At the moment, she’s invisible.” Pierce’s gaze trailed to the pocket where I’d tucked my ripped-off weapon.

Was that why he let me keep it? Because I’d been skirting under the radar since leaving home?

Annie inhaled loudly, checking the baby monitor. “My vote is we end this here and now. Preferably before Sean gets back from the big island, and before Maddie turns into a one-year-old. I’m going to have to share some of this with him, and then talk him down so he doesn’t walk off the arson job to protect Maddie and me. But I can only hold him off so long before—”

“What’re we going to end?” Adam asked, banging the door open as he stepped into the kitchen. “I could use a cup of that coffee.”

Annie poured. “I’ll make sure there’s a record of Everly Gray Hunt on a flight from Raleigh to Honolulu today. The rest is up to the four of you.”

Pierce nodded. Once.

Mitch shuddered.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and cradled my weapon.

NINETEEN

Pierce swiveled one of Annie’s
beech wood chairs around and straddled it close to the kitchen table. Adam propped his lean, muscular body against the counter, and Mitch faced the two men who used to be his friends.

Shivers settled in the pit of my stomach. I hated that it had come to this, but that old cliché about ends justifying means wasn’t worth squat in this situation. Mitch would have to earn their trust from ground zero. The ache in my chest confirmed that it would be a long time before I could trust him either. If ever.

“I’ll report in as soon as I get a new phone and am back on task.” Mitch’s words were strung together with tension. Mine would be, too, if I had to face down Tynan Pierce and Adam Stone at the same time.

Annie pushed Mitch out of the way, slipped into his chair, and positioned the laptop in front of her. She started clicking keys faster than an Irish step-dancer taps.

Adam blew across the rim of his coffee cup, his focus on me. “First off, Annie, Pierce or yours truly will be with Everly at all times.”

I shot a sideways glance at Mitch. He’d wandered across the kitchen to get a glass of water and stood looking out the window. He hadn’t turned around at Adam’s announcement, but his shoulders hunched tightly around his ears. The love thing fluttered around my heart. I hated that he hurt, and since I knew he wouldn’t hurt me… physically, anyway, I opened my mouth to object to Adam’s statement.

Adam cocked his chin in my direction before any words spilled out of my mouth. I shut up, but couldn’t keep from squirming in my chair. Aside from him cutting Mitch out of guard duty, there was an implied threat behind Adam’s posture, and it was directed at me.

If he wanted a promise that I’d hide from the situation and stay within the security of Annie’s property, he wouldn’t get it. My defensive mode kicked into high gear. “So far I’m interpreting the plan like this. After Annie completes her hacking job and I officially arrive in Honolulu, Mitch will meet me at the airport, move into my room, and report back to his employer on my activities. Pierce will plant some of his infamous bugs on the suspected rogue agents, and Adam will stay close to Annie and Madigan as backup. Have I got the gist of it?”

Blank stares.

“Okay. So, I simplified things a bit.” I turned to Mitch. “Do they track all your calls? Tape them? Listen in? What?”

He leveled a shrewd gaze at me. “I’ve been going with the worst case scenario, so I assume they do all of the above, and in real time.” His voice was raw, like he’d been through months of torture. It fit. And my heart ached for what could have been.

Pierce pointed at Mitch. “We’ll use that.”

Mitch nodded. “Annie, I need Everly’s flight details as soon you have them. Gotta check in with my handler before noon.”

I turned away from Mitch, dismissing him because it hurt too much to see the pain in his eyes. It swallowed me whole. On the other hand, confronting Pierce scared the stuffing out of me. But I could hold my own, and even confront the blue inferno raging in
his
eyes. “What about the link to Xifeng, Pierce? You’re going to have to include me in that part of this op, since I’m the one with the genetic connection to the magic toxin-slash-miracle drug she’s after. Don’t even think you’re gonna keep me away from that meet.” I jabbed my finger into his chest. “She.” Jab. “Belongs.” Jab. “To.” Jab. “Me.”

Annie held up her hand. “All right, I got El on a flight. Have her leaving Raleigh at six-ten this morning, and arriving in Honolulu at three-twenty this afternoon. I can’t guarantee how long it’ll be on the flight roster. They have amazing security, and I’ve slipped her in, uh, as quietly as I could. But it probably won’t hold for more than a couple hours before someone spots the anomaly and wipes her name. You going to pick her up at the airport, Mitch?”

“Yeah. I’ll send texts to both of you about the demise of my phone, and to confirm Everly’s arrival time.”

Pierce’s gaze drilled into me. “You okay with Hunt bringing you back here?”

I glanced at my husband. The lines etching his face hadn’t been there twelve hours ago. “Yeah. Mitch would protect me with his life.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they were true. He’d proven himself less than trustworthy, but to physically hurt me or allow anyone else to—nope, wouldn’t happen. He’d screwed with my emotions, and severed any possibility that our marriage would recuperate, but he did love me in whatever strange way he defined love.

Pierce blinked, deliberately and slowly, not shifting his gaze from me. “Can you drop her off, Stone? Follow them back?”

Adam drained his coffee, rinsed the mug, and put it in the dishwasher. Either Annie’d trained him well, he had a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or it was a trait inherent in gay guys. My expression must have broadcast my thoughts, because he winked at me. “I can cover that, no problem. Today’s free for me, unless the department gets hit with multiple homicides.”

Warmth surged into my cheeks. Adam and I hadn’t ever talked about him being gay, and it made me nervous, ’cause I didn’t know what to say. If anything.

His lips twitched, hiding a grin. We would definitely be discussing this on the way to the airport. Oh, goody. Locked in a moving vehicle, just the two of us, no place to hide. It was the perfect opportunity for me to make a complete fool of myself.

I brought my errant thoughts under control, braced myself for the despair radiating from him, and then turned to face my husband. “What are the chances you’re not the only agent they have spying on me? Someone could have been watching me sneak into my grandfather’s maze. Your handler will be wondering why you didn’t report that.”

Mitch shook his head, eyes bleak. “I’m the only person assigned to you, and I had you contained while you were in North Carolina. Protected.”

I bristled. “How can you possibly know you’re the only person? There could be an entire army out there. And about the protection gig? You kind of went overboard there, and look where that got us.”

He gave me a self-deprecating smile. “Bit me in the butt. I have to get moving. Don’t want to take a chance on raising anyone’s suspicion, not when we’re so close to ending this.”

The sadness clouding his eyes got to me, and I gave his hand a squeeze—without shields. Love, regret, and dismal fatigue swamped my senses. Picking up stray emotions had always been the hardest part of my gift to cope with. A few images flashed on my internal monitor—how I’d looked curled under the covers when Mitch had first entered the guest room, and the beauty he saw in me.

But it was the love flooding his heart that almost undid me. I jerked my hand away. “Stay safe, Mitch.”

His eyes sparked with momentary relief. “You, too, Sunshine.”

And then he was gone, leaving Annie’s kitchen alive with tension, and an uncomfortable ache growing in my chest.

Adam settled into the chair next to me, a whiff of his soap tingling my nose. “You smell good,” I said, taking a deep sniff. Anything to take my mind off the danger Mitch was stepping into.

He grinned. “Some kind of fancy soap Annie got me for Christmas. Don’t know what she was thinking, because I can only use it on days I don’t have to work. It’s too, ah, fragrant…even for me.”

A whimper came from the baby monitor, and Annie bent to punch Adam in the arm on her way to the stairs. “Love you, too, little brother. Don’t discuss anything important until I get back.”

An interesting half snarl, half grunt erupted from Pierce. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. “Back on track, people. I have the two names from A.J. to check out, and a possible location on Xifeng.”

“You think she’s here?” Adam asked.

Pierce gave me another one of those hot, penetrating looks. What was with him today? “She’ll want to be near Everly. And she believes capture is imminent.”

I shook, the raw edge of fear blasting through me, sending me into bitch mode. “How could you possibly know what Xifeng is thinking?” The idea that she was trying to trap me for her personal use just flat-out pissed me off. On top of that, I hadn’t come to terms with my healing gift yet, and having this deviant, fanatical woman putting me on her most-wanted list was just plain annoying. And scary. “How can you trace her, Pierce? Is there anything I can touch that would help?”

He lifted one shoulder in an impatient shrug. “Not yet. I’m working on it. There has to be a Hawaiian connection, because she’s been trailing Aukele. Or Harlan. And I know how she thinks, because we’re a lot alike, Belisama.”

Good thing I was sitting, or my ass would have landed on the floor. Alike? A sick, damaged, fanatic was like Pierce? Not possible.

And then the similarities shaped into reality. They were both driven people, both had rock-solid goals, and both of them wanted me. Holy bison patties. Pierce still
wanted
me. He’d been so careful to hide it since I married Mitch.

“That isn’t possible,” I whispered, my mind spinning with ideas on how to track Xifeng. The Pierce thing—I’d squashed that into the deepest, darkest corner of my mind where it would be safe from prying eyes, especially mine.

Annie came back in the kitchen, Maddie balanced on her hip. “Brunch time for the daughter, and then I can run some traces on Xifeng for you, Pierce. If she’s not on island, someone close to her is.”

Madigan chortled a hello to her Uncle Adam, and squirmed to escape Annie’s hold. With a sly grin, she shoved her daughter into her brother’s arms. “Better idea—you feed her while I work on finding someone for Pierce to question.”

I gave my surrogate niece a finger wave that started a competition between us as to who could wiggle the fastest. She would have won, but lost interest in me when her mother put a bowl of goopy breakfast cereal in front of her.

Adam stood quickly, securing Maddie under one arm, and scooping up the bowl with his other hand. “High chair would be a better place for this, seeing as these are the only clean pants I have.”

“Whatever works for you, bro.” Annie closed her laptop and tucked it against her chest. “I’m going up to my office. This search requires a couple of computers and some other equipment that isn’t attached to the laptop. Shout if you need me.”

Adam and Madigan were involved in a complex feeding ritual, so I slipped out the back door—or tried to. Adam’s voice stopped me. “Text Annie that you’re going out so she knows to keep an eye on the outside surveillance monitors.”

I obediently sent her a message, and made a mental note to explore the upper level of Annie’s house sometime in the near future. When I visited right after she and Sean moved in, she’d walked me through the house, but managed to avoid showing me her office. I’d been aware of the extensive electronic communications center she had hidden in her North Carolina townhouse, but Pierce had dismantled it when Annie moved to Hawaii. At the time, Annie’d made it clear she was not only going to remain in retirement from her former employer, but she had ostensibly cut the single remaining dotted line between them. She was
supposed
to have given up all freelance spy work when Maddie was born. I lifted an eyebrow. “Guess you can’t ever take the spy out of the woman.”