Chapter Thirteen #2
Well, that had gone about as poorly as it could.
Kala eased Cooper’s unconscious body into what seemed like a comfortable position, gently maneuvering his head onto a pillow she fashioned from her jacket.
Her heart ached. It felt like it had broken utterly, but she kept her expression calm. There would be time later to cry. Alone. She wouldn’t call Lou or her sisters. She wouldn’t contact her mom.
She would deal with this alone because that was how she was going to be for the rest of her life.
“Are you okay?”
Zach asked like he hadn’t betrayed his team and walked out and oh, never mentioned he had ties that they couldn’t imagine. Also, he was a dumbass because he offered her a hand up. “He didn’t mean any of that, you know. He was overwhelmed.”
She calmly took the proffered hand and allowed Zach to haul her up. Then the minute she was on her feet, she used her other hand to punch him right in his nose. Hard.
He groaned and winced. “Damn. I should have seen that coming.”
“Zach?”
Joyce asked, pointing the tranquilizer gun toward Kala.
That was not happening. “I will fucking end you if you tranq me.”
He waved a hand his aunt’s way. “Don’t. She’s the reasonable one. And honestly, I deserved that punch and more.”
He stared down at Cooper. “I know you won’t believe me, but I never meant for him to find out. Certainly not that way. I guess somewhere in the back of my head it would come out one day and he would be happy about it. That’s never going to happen.”
She wasn’t so sure. “Cooper can be very forgiving. I think once he calms down and you explain the situation to him, he’ll want to talk. He’ll certainly be curious.”
“Yeah, but I think he’ll be talking to you,”
Zach returned. “He didn’t mean a word of that, Kala. He loves you. I’ve always known that.”
But he didn’t. He was pretending she was something she wasn’t. Or maybe there was a softer part of herself that he brought out, but she couldn’t shove the rest of her soul away and become some chick who hid behind him during a fight.
The sad part was she couldn’t even argue with Cooper. He knew her. He was right about most of it. She was ruthless. She did put the op first. If he’d been carried out of that house in Toronto and she’d thought he was dead, she would have broken inside, but no one would have seen it. Not until her whole team was safe. She owed it to the op and her team to keep her personal feelings hidden away. And for Cooper that meant she didn’t have any.
He was so lovely, and she’d been right all these years. They couldn’t work. He was holding on to someone who never existed.
He thought she was capable of betraying him. It was the most ridiculous accusation, and if he thought about it for two minutes, it wouldn’t have come out of his mouth. But it had. When he didn’t think, didn’t plan his words, he told her what he truly thought of her.
Her whole soul felt heavy. The tears were right there, waiting to come out in a torrent.
And then she could be done with them. This would be the last time she would cry for Cooper McKay. He made the decision for her, and there was a piece of her grateful to him for doing it.
She took a long breath and looked up to Zach, who was still holding his nose. “Did I break it?”
His head shook. “Nah. You pulled your punch. Or you were too impatient and didn’t wait until you were solidly on the ground. Want to go again?”
No one ever said Zach wasn’t fair. She actually believed the man would stand there and take the punch. And not because she was a girl and it wouldn’t hurt. This was precisely why she thought Cooper was being too emotional. If he hadn’t been, he would have seen how calm Zach was. “I’ll pass. You going to give me hell? I meant what I said. If you use one of those darts on me, there won’t be a place on earth you can hide.”
He holstered his Glock, slipping it under his arm. “Auntie, stand down. She’s not going to freak out on us.”
Joyce was crying as she looked down at Cooper. “He looks like my granddad. I saw it the minute he walked into camp. Does your momma know he’s here? Zach, something’s happening. Something you’re not telling me.”
Zach sent Kala a “see what you’ve done”
look. “Pretty sure Mom knows nothing, but then I’ve barely talked to her. Finding her is one of my problems. How much has Kala figured out?”
“Enough to know she’s the bombmaker.”
Apparently he hadn’t been listening the whole time. “Did she make the bomb you put on Rebecca’s car or did you learn how to do it, too?”
Zach’s head fell back on a groan. “I should have known this would get heinously fucked up. The truth of the matter is I panicked when I screwed up with Tris. If I’d been thinking and not worried about losing my friends, I could have saved it. You want a beer? There’s also whiskey, but it’s not what your dad drinks.”
She stared down at Cooper. “What was the dosage?”
She wanted to know if it was meant for a man or a bear. If it was a bear dose, she needed to get him to medical care.
Zach moved to the cooler, pulling out two longnecks. “Kala, I wouldn’t hurt my brother. It’s precisely why my aunt is carrying a tranquilizer gun with man-dosed darts and not something with real bullets. She’s an excellent shot, but she can be paranoid at times.”
“It’s not paranoia, son,”
Joyce argued. “The damn Agency walked into my camp in the middle of nowhere looking for you. So it’s not paranoia. But he is right that I can shoot first and then really wish I’d asked some questions. Though I don’t think I would have seen that face and shot.”
So Cooper would be okay, and that was all that mattered. Now she had a job to do. She took the beer and pulled the cap off. She should throw it back in his face since the last drink she’d taken from an actual bartender had been drugged. She stared at it for a moment.
“It’s not the same as Canada,”
he said quietly, tipping his own beer back and taking a long drink. “That asshole got you because you like super-bougie vodka. You watched him open the bottle. Watched him make the drink. If you weren’t so fancy, the bottle wouldn’t have had a cork that makes it easy to drug.”
“I also tested the fucker.”
He was right, and honestly, if he wanted to drug her, the rifle was still loaded. Deep down she trusted this man. “How was I supposed to know Huisman spends his time developing new ways to rape women? Asshole.”
Zach tipped his bottle her way before taking a seat. “With you, sister. Now tell me what’s going on with Devi.”
She sat across from him and rolled her eyes. “Sure. Let’s gossip about my cousin. No, Zach. You either talk or I call Henry Flanders right now and maybe you get away. Don’t think I’m not serious. I just wrecked the only good relationship I’ve ever had. I would rather you tell me what I need to know than fight you.”
Zach sighed. “It’s two against one. I know you’re good, but I might have been holding back on you.”
Yeah, she got that. “I think I can convince your aunt to help me out since you didn’t talk to her about what’s going on. Joyce, your nephew has been working with the Agency for years. Now I believe he worked his way on my team because he knew about Cooper, but he’s also used that position to protect his mother, who is an illegal arms dealer.”
“Is this true?”
Joyce asked.
“She’s not a dealer,”
Zach returned. “She doesn’t want to be in this world, but once you’re in it’s hard to get out. She didn’t realize what Disrupt would try to do with her bombs.”
A laugh huffed from Kala’s chest. “She didn’t realize they would use bombs to blow shit up? Really? Do they have another use? Like an anxiety-inducing footstool?”
“You know as well as I do that sometimes war is necessary,”
Zach replied evenly, his eyes on her. “She’s not what you think.”
“Shannon is a good girl deep down.”
Joyce sniffled but kept that rifle close. “She thinks she’s helping people.”
Joyce was delusional, but she wasn’t about to argue with the woman. From what she could tell, Shannon and Zach were the only family Joyce had in all the world. Well, apart from her sleeping Prince Charming. Who’d lost all his charm.
He’d said all the right things, and she’d fallen for it. Because deep down she was just a pathetic girl who wanted some man to love her. Wanted a particular man to love her.
But she didn’t have to be. Lena could help her become something else. Lena could help hone her into the weapon she’d always dreamed of being in her darker moments. A weapon for good, but who didn’t have to feel this awful cloud over her head all the time.
How could he think she wanted to hurt him?
Because everyone sees you as the villain. It might not be fair, but with your talents, they always might.
It hadn’t been the happiest thing she’d heard in therapy, but at least Lena didn’t hold back. Kai was always soft and gentle with her. He never would have put the hard truth out there. Kai asked questions. Lena gave truth.
“My mother has done some things she’s certainly not proud of. She did them to survive. Auntie, you start packing up.”
Zach sighed and sat back, scrubbing a hand over his slightly shaggy head. He’d let his dark hair grow out and was now sporting a beard.
How had she not seen the similarities in their faces? Cooper and Zach had the same basic coloring, but almost identical jawlines and lips. “With the kind of information I’m sure she has, she could have come to the Agency at any time. Or the FBI.”
“She’s had enough of prison,”
Zach said. “And I can’t convince her she can make a deal. I can’t justify everything she’s done. I can only tell you she didn’t want to be involved with Huisman. She’s been working with a couple of groups in Africa and Southeast Asia.”
Joyce started to move, throwing her possessions into a ragged old backpack.
Kala concentrated on the discussion at hand. “Let me guess. Rebel groups.”
“Yeah. She became friends with a woman in prison who was active with a group trying to free her home country from an authoritarian leader. It became her cause. When she got out of prison, she went underground, and I didn’t hear from her for years,”
Zach explained.
“So you didn’t go into the Army in order to gain a position you could help her from?”
She was still trying to grasp where this story intersected with finding Cooper. It was obvious now how Zach had been trying to get close to his biological brother. Zach had encouraged Coop to spend time with him, hanging out and going to the movies when they weren’t on a mission. When he’d gotten close to Devi, they’d gone out a couple of times. Cooper had begged her to go with him so he wasn’t the third wheel.
She’d gone because it was fun to pretend for a moment that she was with him for real and they were a couple out with friends and family.
Devi was going to be devastated.
“I’ve been honest about why I went into the military. I got a full-ride scholarship to a local college, but the job market when I came out wasn’t great. I went into the military because it was the only way to get out of the trailer park I grew up in, no offense, Auntie.”
“None taken. I got out, too,”
Joyce replied as she took apart her water filtration system. “I always wanted better for you and Jonny. For you and Cooper.”
“Did you know what your mother was involved in when you went into the military?”
Kala took a sip of the beer. It was cold and cheap, and she would probably be drinking on her own soon, so she should get used to cheap. “I want to know when you decided to infiltrate your biological brother’s life, and how did you know since the secrecy around it has now been well established?”
She didn’t believe her father would know and not tell his best friend. She didn’t believe Alex McKay would know and not tell his son.
She wished Cooper had the same faith in her and her family.
“I knew because I found pictures hidden in my aunt’s closet.”
Zach stared into the distance, like he was lost in memory. “I was twelve and looking for blankets, but I pulled it out and the box fell on my head and spilled everywhere.”
“I should have watched him more, but I had to work so he was alone a lot,”
Joyce admitted.
“You did the best you possibly could,”
Zach assured her before focusing on Kala. “I asked about why there were pictures of my mom with a baby who wasn’t me. I had seen all the pictures of my birth, so I knew it wasn’t me. There was also a medical bracelet with the name Jonathon Reed. I confronted her when she got home from working twelve hours, and she broke down and told me everything. Including the plot to ensure my brother was adopted by Alex and Eve McKay.”
“I also told him it was to protect…Cooper. To protect him,”
Joyce said with a firm tone. “We never meant to bother him again. He wasn’t supposed to know we existed.”
“And I screwed that up. I honestly didn’t mean to ever seek him out. I hadn’t heard from my mother in years at the time.”
His eyes got that far-off look again. “And then I heard some news. My unit had been working with some Agency operatives, and I was in a debrief at Langley and I overheard a conversation about a new team that was forming. They were looking for a military liaison. This particular group I’d worked with before, and they asked my opinion. They were worried about giving this Big Tag guy too much power. Well, I knew that name. I was curious. I offered to check it out, and then I found out who was on the team.”
He’d likely seen the name McKay, done some research, and figured this was the way to meet his brother. “You should have come forward.”
“Why? I never meant to tell him. Ever. I meant to be his friend, his brother in everything but name,”
Zach explained. “I thought the danger was probably past, but I didn’t want to wreck him. He loves his parents. He didn’t seem to need to know more, so I let it be. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t grow to love him. He’s got a huge family. I do not. Yes, I wanted to be close to my brother. I still do.”
She wasn’t getting into this with him. Let the shrinks do their jobs. It was enough to know her father had no idea. He would have looked into Zach, but with no reason to question the connections, why would he have found them? Her father wasn’t a god, no matter what that T-shirt he wore said. “When did your mother get in touch with you?”
His eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them again, there was a certain amount of resignation there. “During the investigation into The Jester. I was working with Tristan on another team, so she had no idea about Cooper. She’d been dealing with The Jester, and when she refused to make bombs for the Disrupt group, he threatened to out her. At first she was afraid of going to jail again.”
She knew how this ended. “And then she was afraid of Huisman.”
“Yes. I managed to take out The Jester, but Huisman is smart and he has connections no one in our world has,”
Zach admitted. “I thought she would be safe with Tristan pretending to be The Jester. I thought I could manipulate the situation, but at some point, Huisman figured out her name and he started to look for Shannon Reed. He figured out I’m her son, and here we are.”
Kala glanced over, and Joyce was making quick work of the camp.
“Huisman didn’t care about Tris and Carys, did he? He didn’t give a shit about me.”
Bitterness tinged Kala’s words. “We were all incidental to the one he was trying to get. You. Huisman always wanted you. Hell, he even got the wrong sister. He wanted Tash because he knew you would do anything for Tasha.”
“I would do anything for you,”
Zach rasped out. “He had me the minute he took a member of my team. Kala, I would never betray my team that way.”
“No, but you’ll lie to us,”
she shot back. “You’ll keep pertinent information. If we knew, we would have been on guard.”
“And I think about that every single day and twice as much at night. I know I broke trust, but she’s my mother.”
She was going to have to make a decision and soon. The truth was she could probably take Joyce and force Zach to come with her. But she wasn’t sure that was the way to go. They needed to lower the temp, not raise it. “You made your choice. I respect it. Are you going to respect mine?”
A chuckle came from his throat. “I’m glad it was you. Yeah, I’m going to respect it, but I need more time. You can force me to come with you, but everything falls apart the second I’m in custody. Let me figure out where she is. I’m the only one who can get her out of hiding. Once she’s safe, I’ll come in. I promise, Kala. I just want her to be safe.”
“We can ensure that.”
Well, the team could since she would likely be on her own by then.
His head shook. “Somehow I think your father will ensure I’m in prison. Which I’ll be willing to do after I finish what I have to.”
“This isn’t merely about finding your mother, is it?”
He was definitely hiding something.
His head shook. “It’s best that I leave you out of it.”
“Or you can bring me in and I can help you.”
His lips curled up slightly as he took another sip. “I know you would. But it’s too dangerous, and quite frankly, my brother would be pissed if I dragged you into it.”
She wasn’t going to let him bring Cooper into this. “Your brother made himself plain.”
“No, my brother had a hissy fit that he will be deeply apologetic for later on, and you know it,”
Zach pointed out.
She knew his brother better than he did. “In vino veritas and all that. In this case the rage was the wine.”
“There’s no truth in rage and you know it.”
Zach’s gaze softened. “Kala, this isn’t about him. He was put in a terrible position and freaked out. It wasn’t the best reaction, but it could happen to any of us. This is about you. He said the wrong thing and now you’re retreating. Don’t.”
She could turn this around on him. “Says the guy who ran away and broke my cousin’s heart.”
He flushed. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Did you get close to Devi so you could stay close to Cooper?”
Their time was almost up, and her decision was pretty much made. But there was still intel to be had. “Since Tasha friend zoned you, and you’re definitely not Kenzie’s type since she only likes douchebags.”
Zach leaned in, his eyes steady on her. “Abso-fucking-lutely not. Kala, I’m crazy about Devi. I meant everything I said to her. I meant to come back after the op and move in with Coop and start a damn life. I was ready to throw in the towel when it came to my mother. I figured saving her from The Jester could be my last act as her son, and walking away from all of it could be my first act as Devi’s man. That’s what I wanted.”
“You had a funny way of showing it.”
Although now that she thought about it… “The bomb on Walsh’s car was a warning.”
“Of course it was. I had to get you guys to take this seriously. I know you are, but you’ll get more backing if they think Dr. Walsh is in real danger. Which she is,”
Zach insisted. “They all are now that he’s out in the open.”
“He’s not exactly out in the open, is he? Do you know where he is?”
The most important question she would ask all day.
Would it be easier to find him without the encumbrance of a team? She could focus entirely on hunting Huisman down and then her family would be safe. It might ease her conscious about leaving them, though she knew it was for the best.
His expression went dark. “If I knew where he was, I’d be there. And then he wouldn’t be in this world any longer. I think if I present his head to Big Tag, I might have a better chance of coming out of this with my own still on my shoulders.”
“That chance gets better if you come in with me now,”
Kala offered.
He seemed to think about it for a moment. “I can’t because the minute I come in, it’s not just up to your parents. If it was, I might never have left. If you think I wouldn’t love to shove this problem on your dad, you’re so wrong. I hate this. I got too used to having a team. I fucking miss all of it. But you have to let me do what I need to do. I can find my mother and get the intel we need to take down Huisman, but I can’t do it if I’m still working for the Agency. I didn’t plan for things to turn out this way, but here we are, and I have to find the silver lining.”
“Of being on the run? You have to know we’re not the only ones looking for you.”
The whole Agency wanted Zach brought in. “They sent a shrink out to talk to all of us so she can profile you. They’re serious about catching you. So is the military.”
“Yeah, that career’s down the drain.”
He finished off the beer. “It’s all gone, Kala. My career, the family I wanted, Devi… Let me do one good thing. Let me figure this out. I can’t do that from a prison cell. I’m close. I’m meeting with an old friend of my mom’s in a couple of days, and I think he might have some actual intel for me. I swear I’ll find a way to share it with you, but I have to be out in the field. I have to look like a rogue CIA agent.”
“You are. A rogue CIA agent, that is.”
There was no way around that particular truth. “You built the bomb?”
He nodded. “From some of my mother’s notes. The Jester had a bunch of her research, and that was one of the things he was planning on selling. Obviously I’m the one who took his laptop. I’ll send you what I have if you let me go, and I’ll stay in contact with you. Only you.”
“Or you could play me and never see me again because I was dumb enough to let you go.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t do it to him.”
He glanced over to Cooper. “If you believe nothing else about me, know that I love my brother.”
She did believe him, and that was why she had to do what Cooper would never forgive her for. Let Zach go. She stood. “I’m calling my contact and getting out of here. You’ve got maybe twenty minutes after I make that call.”
Zach went still. “You’re letting me go?”
“Are you going to call me when you have what you need?”
“Yes.”
He stood and walked to her, bringing his hands up and then stopping. “Can I touch you?”
She’d never noticed it before. Zach was a touchy-feely guy, but he was always cautious with her. She appreciated it. There were times when it was too much to be touched without knowing it was going to happen. Not with Coop. She was used to him, but everyone else. Even her family sometimes. “Yeah.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Kala, thank you. I know this might cost you. I won’t let you down.”
“How do you know? To ask if I want to be touched? I try to look normal.”
Maybe she wasn’t as good at it as she thought she was. She’d gotten used to burying the flinch she sometimes got when she was younger. “It’s not anything against you.”
Zach’s eyes shone with tears as he gently pulled her in for a hug. “I know. It’s how you’re wired. I know because Coop told me. I know because he spends so fucking much of his time trying to make the world easier for you. I love you. I never used to say those fucking words until I got on this damn team. Didn’t even think I knew how to love. I blame your parents. And his. Please don’t give up on him.”
She was not fucking going to cry. “I think it’s best if I do. I don’t belong. Not really.”
“You do, sister. You don’t understand it right now, but you are the center of the freaking universe for so many people. I know sometimes it seems dark, but I’m here for you. Whether or not you give my brother a real shot.”
“No you won’t. You’re going to be running around the world chasing down a bombmaker,”
she said, trying not to sniffle.
He chuckled. “Always so literal. I meant it in a metaphorical fashion. Also, I promise I’ll get a phone and call you. I’ll find a way to keep you updated.”
“If it helps, I think running around the globe trying to chase down a dangerous person sounds like fun.”
She kind of wished she could go with him.
But she had to ease out of her situation. If she didn’t, her parents would be hurt.
And confused. A confused Ian and Charlotte Taggart could prove difficult to deal with. She had to make the transition work.
Or her dad would be pissed she’d had Zach and let him go and maybe she wouldn’t have to worry about it.
He squeezed her gently and then stepped back. “I assure you none of this is fun. I need you to tell Devi if she doesn’t start taking her security seriously, I’ll be forced to do something about it.”
“I already talked to her.”
How would he know? “Do you have eyes on her?”
“I love her. Of course I do, and she’s behaving in a reckless fashion. I have to hope Huisman doesn’t know about her, but it might not matter since her last name is Taggart,”
Zach said gravely. “He wants to hurt all of you. You have to be careful.”
“She’s got a bodyguard,”
Kala explained, stepping back. Damn but she’d missed Zach. She hadn’t realized how much because she’d been so involved with Cooper. She’d been lost in how good it felt to be close to him and hadn’t considered all the other people around her.
“She’s pissed and reckless, and I don’t think whoever you put on her can handle her,”
Zach admitted. “Just tell her to take the threat seriously or she’ll have to deal with me.”
Kala kind of wanted to watch that throw down.
“I’m ready,”
Joyce said. She stood near Cooper’s sleeping body, looking down on him. “I don’t want to leave him like this.”
“We have to,”
Zach said with a frown as he hefted his pack. “Hopefully someday he’ll forgive us.”
Zach and Joyce walked into the thick woods and Kala pulled out the sat phone, making the call she needed to make.
Then she sat down and held Cooper’s hand.
For the last time.