Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Seth could feel Callie go still before he looked over and saw the whiteness of her skin. She was already pale, but this was the kind of pale that came with fear.
Rage boiled in his belly. He worked to keep his voice smooth. “What is it?”
“Mikhail. Or not Mikhail, rather. He says he’s in town and we need to meet.”
“Don’t answer it yet.”
“I didn’t intend to. I haven’t actually clicked on it so he—they—won’t get a notification I’ve seen it.”
“Good girl.”
He whipped a U-turn using a farmer’s driveway and aimed the truck in a different direction.
“Where are we going?” There was an edge of panic to her voice.
“The range.” He glanced at his watch, then hit the button on the steering wheel to activate the voice command and told the AI to call Ethan.
“Yo,” Ethan said.
“I’ve got you on speaker. Can you check the locator for Nikki Crowell?”
He felt Callie’s eyes on him.
“Just a sec… Car’s at the school.”
“Can you go early? Callie just got a text from whoever’s got Volkov’s phone, asking to meet. I’d rather be over cautious than not.”
“Copy that. On my way. Where are you?”
“Headed to the range. Give Gho—Alex a heads up, would you?”
He cursed himself for nearly saying Ghost, but to his way of thinking it’d been a ridiculous ask of them anyway. They were former military, guys who’d served in combat. It wasn’t unheard of for them to have code names. He got why they had to get used to calling each other by their first names, because that’s what civilians did, but the occasional code name shouldn’t surprise anyone.
“Stopping there now. I’ll shoot you a text when I’ve got a visual of the target.”
“Thanks, brother.”
The call ended and Callie said, very quietly, “The target?”
“Nikki. It just means she’s the target of observation. Military shorthand.”
“It’s kind of an ominous word, though. Isn’t there a better one?”
A glance at her told him she was keeping it together, but she was also thinking. Hard.
“I guess we could say client. I’ll propose it.”
He wouldn’t, because a lifetime of training wasn’t going to change so easily, but if it made her feel better, he’d tell her whatever she wanted to hear.
“You won’t,” she said, echoing his thoughts. “You’re just trying to make me comfortable.”
“Truth. Did it work?”
“Not really.” She dragged in a breath. “Okay, so Mikhail is dead, but his phone is still active and somebody just asked to meet as if they were him.”
She was frowning hard. Thinking, analyzing. He wanted to ask what she wasn’t telling him, but he knew if he did, she’d deny it. He’d get it out of her eventually, but he was going to have to ease it out.
“Did he usually text for a meeting?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes he called. He kept it all very casual until the last time when he gave me that cable and said I had to do what he asked or I’d regret it.”
Fury was the emotion boiling in his stomach.
“You always met with him?”
“I did. I felt a sense of obligation, I guess. We weren’t dating but I thought he was my friend. And he’d helped me get the job. I wasn’t comfortable with his questions, but I thought I owed him. I never refused to see him when he was in town. But that last time…” She shivered. “I didn’t tell him I couldn’t do it. I said it would take time because I wasn’t alone in the lab and I had to do it when nobody was looking. I needed time to think, to figure out what to do. Because I wasn’t going to be responsible for revealing government secrets like that. He told me I needed to hurry because I was nearly out of time.”
“Then somebody texted you from his phone three days ago and told you time was up.”
“Yes. I thought it was Mikhail. I said I couldn’t do it, that I’d be risking my career and jail time if I did. I asked him to please understand. I appealed to our friendship even though I suspected we didn’t really have one. That it’d all been in my mind. There was no response.”
“Then the lab caught fire.”
“Then the lab caught fire.” She turned to him. “I told you I was trapped in the office, but I didn’t tell you I swiped my card repeatedly and the door wouldn’t open. The sprinkler system was laggy too. I thought I was going to die in there, but the sprinklers finally came on and the firemen arrived.”
He knew about the door because he’d seen it in the badging records. She’d made twenty-two attempts before the door was opened by security.
“Did you swipe it too fast?”
“I thought I had, so I slowed down. Still didn’t work. I tried so many times I lost count. I was frantic, ready to claw my way through the door. Then the sprinklers started.” She shook her head. “When I was inside the lab, I had the uncanny feeling Mikhail was watching me. Except there are no CCTV cameras inside so he couldn’t be. Not to mention he was already dead.”
Seth knew it could be paranoia making her think so, but what if it wasn’t?
He and his team hadn’t searched inside the lab when they did the security assessment. Chance had gotten in and had a look around, but he hadn’t been able to remove ceiling panels or inspect the room for signs of surveillance equipment. His mission had been to replace the cables on two computers and gain access to the secure network, which he’d done. That had been their objective, and they’d achieved it. A primary and a backup. In and out. Surveillance equipment hadn’t been part of their plan—nor had searching for someone else’s equipment.
They should have put their own cameras in and fuck Washington. And they should have checked for others.
Maybe they still could. The lab was closed for repair. They could infiltrate the building and search in the early hours of the morning. If there were cameras inside, maybe having them would lead him to whoever put them there.
But he couldn’t be part of the team that went in. He’d have to let others do the work without him because he had to stay with Callie and Nikki. There was no excuse he could make to be gone for a few hours in the middle of the night, and there was nowhere for them to go that he considered safe.
Until he and the team knew what they were dealing with, he wasn’t letting Callie out of his sight.
There were a few cars at the range when they arrived. Seth parked around the side of the building where the staff usually parked and looked at Callie.
“Do you want to take Luna or do you want me to do it?”
She glanced behind her at the dog watching them both, her ears swiveling, mouth open in a pant. “I’ll take her. We need to get used to each other.”
They exited the truck and he waited for Callie to snap on Luna’s leash. Then she met him in front of the truck and the three of them headed for the building, Callie telling Luna to be a good girl as Seth held the door and they passed inside.
He led the way down the hall to the offices. Ghost was at his desk. He looked up, his expression giving nothing away as Seth stopped in the door.
“See you got a dog.”
“Yep. This is Luna. She looks like a killer, but she thinks she’s a lap dog.”
“Still, she’s a Malinois. They’ve got the instinct.”
“That’s what I thought,” Seth said.
“What do you think about having a dog, Callie?” Ghost asked, putting down his pen and coming around the desk.
Callie rubbed one of Luna’s ears. “Wasn’t in my plan, but she’s sweet and she needs a home. I think she’ll work out fine.”
“That’s good. So you got a text, huh?”
“I did.”
“Guess we need to figure out what to do next,” Ghost said, shooting a look at Seth. “Chance is range officer at the moment, but I’ll let the others know you’re here. Go ahead and sit. I’ll get them to bring more chairs and we’ll talk in here.”
Ghost disappeared down the hall while Seth and Callie took the two chairs in front of his desk, moving them to make room for two more.
“Luna, sit,” Callie said, and the dog dropped to her haunches beside Callie’s chair.
Kane, Ethan, and Blaze returned with Ghost. All of them fussed over Luna, who wagged her tail and pushed her face against their hands as if she’d won the doggie attention lottery. Which she probably had. But as soon as Callie called her back to sit, she sat, tongue out as she watched everyone in the room.
“The facts as we know them are this,” Ghost said. “Mikhail Volkov is dead. He worked for the Dashevsky Group, a humanitarian organization, as a translator. He recruited Callie to work at Griffin Research Labs, where he presumably had a contact who was able to make certain she was the person hired.”
Callie shifted in her seat. “I am qualified for the job. It’s possible I was the most qualified person who applied.”
Ghost nodded. “That’s true. Forgive me for suggesting you were only hired as a favor to Volkov.”
“I might have been, but it’s not the only reason anyone would. That’s all I meant.”
“Understood, and you’re right. I shouldn’t have assumed. We know Volkov is dead, but somebody has his phone and they’ve asked for a meeting with Callie. They haven’t admitted they aren’t him, just said they’re in town and want to meet. Obviously, if Callie were to go through with this meeting, she’d know it’s not Volkov. This person is either prepared for it, or they don’t care because they don’t intend to let her walk away.”
Beside him, Seth could feel Callie stiffen. He reached over and put a hand on her thigh, squeezed lightly. She turned big eyes on him, and he gave her a quick nod to let her know he was on her side. That nothing was going to happen to her.
“What we need to figure out is whether we want this meeting to take place,” Ghost finished. “What can we learn if we do? What are the risks?”
“Uh, the obvious risk is me,” Callie said, her voice soft. Seth could hear the undercurrent of fear, but he was also proud of her for speaking up. Not that he knew why he felt that way. Whether or not she spoke wasn’t going to change their handling of the situation. Still, she wasn’t sitting idly by and letting Ghost make the decisions.
“We wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” Seth said.
The others echoed him.
“If you take the meeting, the environment would be controlled,” Ghost added. “Unless you refuse, which is your right. If so, I’d still ask you to set it up, make this person think you’re coming. They might relax their guard, giving us a chance to intercept.”
“That sounds dangerous,” Callie said. “Shouldn’t we call the police instead? Let them deal with this person.”
“We can’t do that, Callie,” Seth told her gently. “For the reason you said. They are dangerous. And we’re more equipped to handle them than the police.”
She stared at him, her eyes searching his. He could see the doubt there. The disbelief. “You’re former military, I get that. But you aren’t police. And if anything happens—anyone gets hurt or there’s violence—they will get involved. Then what?”
Seth exchanged a look with Ghost. Ghost sighed and cleared his throat. “We know how to do this without leaving evidence. We weren’t just military. We were Special Operations. We did things for our government that required us not to be seen or heard or leave a trail. We’re uniquely equipped to help you deal with this situation, Callie. But you have to trust us.”
He could see the understanding begin to dawn. “Oh, you mean like Navy SEALs.”
A look of pained resignation passed over Ghost’s features. “Yes, like SEALs. All military special operators are trained like SEALs, though they get all the glory for some reason. People know what they are. There are TV series about them, but none about us. Still, I assure you, we’re every bit as capable. Maybe more so in some ways.”
“The police aren’t going to do anything yet,” Seth said. “If something happens to you, sure, they’ll investigate. But the Sutton’s Creek PD is a small operation, meant to take care of the citizens of this town. They have a tiny force and no detectives because the population doesn’t warrant it. They’d call in Madison or Huntsville PD for more resources, but it’s not going to help you by then. I think what Alex is getting at is that we need to set a meeting with this person and make a plan to either back you up or be there in your place. We want to know who’s threatening you and why, and we want to stop them. You came to us, and we’re committed to keeping you safe.”
Callie looked down at Luna, who’d dropped to her belly and put her head on her paws. She wasn’t asleep, but she was relaxed. Callie took a deep breath. Let it out.
“I’ve known you for less than forty-eight hours. But I trust you.”
She looked at him as she said it, no one else. He felt the weight of those words on his soul like she was a magician who’d bound him with a spell.
Seth couldn’t help but smile at her. “Glad to hear it. You won’t regret it.”
She dropped her gaze as if she couldn’t hold the weight of their combined stares any longer. Seth shot a look of relief at Ghost—and caught a frown instead of the approval he was looking for.
Blaze smirked. Kane and Ethan looked resigned.
“What?” Seth said because he wasn’t any good at keeping his mouth shut apparently.
“Nothing, my man,” Blaze replied.
The smirking continued.
For fuck’s sake. He got it now. They thought he was somehow enamored of Callie. That she was becoming important to him the way Emma was important to Blaze or Rory was important to Chance. He could see it in their faces now he knew what to look for.
Seth scowled at them all. “What do we do now? That’s what we have to decide.”
“Are you ready to text and find out when and where this person wants to meet?” Ghost asked Callie.
She nodded. “I can do that. But I really want my sister somewhere safe before I meet anyone. Mikhail knew where I lived, which means this person does too if they have his phone. They might be asking for a meeting, but that doesn’t stop them from showing up at my house anyway. I’d rather she’s not there, even with all of you around.”
“Nikki told me her trainer is going to Kentucky to look at some horses this weekend. Could she go with her?” Seth asked.
Callie chewed her lip and nodded. “Lisa already said she could go, but I told Nikki she was going to the show next weekend so she needed to stay home and help me do household chores, not to mention she’s not getting another horse. That was before the fire. I could make sure Lisa is still willing and let her go. Lisa has two German Shepherds she takes with her, and a couple of the other girls are going. Nikki would be in a crowd that went everywhere together. I think the plan was to leave tomorrow afternoon around four and be gone until late Sunday.”
“Tell me where in Kentucky and I’ll call a friend who’s with the FBI,” Ghost said. “He’ll make sure somebody keeps an eye on the group.”
“Lexington,” Callie said. “I’ll get the address of the farms she’s planning to visit and the hotel they’re staying in. Will that help?”
“Absolutely. The more information, the better.”
She looked as if a weight had been lifted. “When should I answer the text?”
“Answer it now,” Seth said. “See if they respond. We’ll want to direct the time and location of the meeting if at all possible.”
Callie took her phone from where she’d stashed it in her jeans pocket. Then she tapped out a few words on the screen that Seth could see.
When and where?
Short and to the point. He liked that. They hadn’t told her what to say because it needed to be natural to her.
The reply came back almost immediately.
Tonight. Bridge Street. Barnes and Noble, 8PM.
Panic flared in her eyes as she looked at him.
“Tell them you can’t tonight because you don’t feel well enough yet. They’ll obviously know about the fire. Suggest tomorrow night, same time.” He looked at his guys. Not one of them had a problem with the location. It was public, and that was good. “Same place.”
“What if they insist on tonight anyway?”
“We’ll worry about that if it happens.”
“Okay.” Callie typed and the message whooshed away.
The answer was swift.
Tomorrow then. Don’t cancel or I’ll come looking for you.
I’ll be there.
She set her phone on her leg and let her gaze slide over each of them in the room.
“I’ll go to the meeting. But I want to know how you intend to protect me and what I’m supposed to do when whoever I meet clearly isn’t Mikhail.”