Chapter 13 #3
“Yeah. Hard to tell when his compound was hit, but the SEAL Team guesses he’s been gone at least a week.
Four guys, eight days ago, bought one-way tickets from Russia to Georgia and then rented a car.
The ID used to rent it was bogus, and the plane tickets must’ve been under aliases.
We think they took Teteruk and then drove him over the border and into Russia. ”
“No faces? Nothing to nail these bastards down?” he asked in a quiet voice since Sam was in the en-suite.
“The security cameras at the airport aren’t stellar. Pretty pixelated, and these guys did a good job hiding from them. I’m doing what I can, but I’m not optimistic.” Jess tightened her blonde ponytail before folding her arms.
“Teteruk’s photos probably ID’d our men.”
Jess cleared her throat when Sam exited the hotel bathroom.
He looked over to see that she was dressed for work in a red skirt, white silk blouse, and nude heels. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her skirt, and he tried to forget the soft, sweet flesh beneath the stiff fabric.
It hadn’t taken him long to discover this woman was just like him. Hard on the outside, but packing a lot more on the inside.
He could see through her walls, maybe because they were so similar.
“We should’ve been checking who had access to you and your father’s keys sooner.” Jess flicked her index finger at the notepad of names on the desk, drawing Owen’s attention back to the mission. “With everything else going on, we overlooked the obvious.”
Her father. He wondered how Senator McCarthy’s talk had gone with POTUS yesterday. Wouldn’t he be worried about continuing the event, with his daughter’s life on the line? Maybe he’d convince the president to, at the very least, postpone Wednesday’s benefit.
“We’ve all been a bit out of it,” Owen professed a moment later.
Last night, for instance, had taken an unexpected turn. One minute he had been observing security footage, and the next, he’d been confessing his feelings like a guest on some talk show.
After their heart-to-heart, he had jerked himself back to business, forcing his gaze onto the camera footage until he’d felt his eyes practically bleeding. But despite his efforts, his mind had remained stuck on Sam.
He gave an internal shrug as he thought about it. Maybe his response was some sort of self-defense mechanism. Nature’s way of preventing him from losing his mind with everything going on.
“Did you have a productive night?” Sam asked, directing her question to Jess.
Owen knew she wouldn’t answer with anything other than a generic statement.
“I made some progress on tracking the bug in the smoke detector, actually.”
And Brad and Jason’s murderer is gone. He couldn’t tell Sam about that, though—not in front of Jess. “What’d you discover?”
“Five vendors received bugs with that batch number. The thing is, those vendors feed into about one hundred other companies. I’ll work on narrowing down the list this morning.”
“Good.” Owen strode to the desk and pressed play on the footage he’d saved last night. “See this guy?” he said to Jess. “He’s in a hoodie, and he’s keeping his head down and away from the camera. He’s not quite as tall as the deliveryman, but he’s hanging back near the door, waiting to get in.”
He fast-forwarded a couple of minutes later to show one of Sam’s neighbors entering the building; the guy in the hoodie followed her in. “My money is on either her intern or this guy.”
“I’d prefer the intern since Hoodie Guy has no face.” She checked her watch. “Liam and Asher are downstairs waiting for you guys.” Jess turned to Sam. “Your intern should be arriving at your apartment by eight, right?”
“Yeah. He usually makes it to the office by eight thirty.”
Jess nodded. “Well, you guys will be inside waiting for him.”
Owen rose and stood alongside her. “I don’t think we’ll need four of us to face a twenty-three-year-old intern.”
“No, but it sure as hell will scare him.” Sam smiled. “The guy’s even intimidated by me.”
Owen cocked his head to the side. “Can you blame him?”
“If he knows something,” Jess began while jerking her thumb in Owen’s direction, “these guys will get him to talk.”
“If he’s innocent, which I think he is, what’s to stop him from telling the police about this chat?” Sam asked as she crossed to the bed to grab her phone.
When she passed by, he could smell her perfume. It was sharper and more distinct. Heavier. It must be the take-no-prisoners scent she wore to work.
He still hated the idea of sending Sam to her office later. It was too exposed. Even though he’d be watching, he knew the odds. What if someone got to her first?
All this risk because the president wanted her to publicly announce that her proposal now had his support.
“We’ll make sure Phillip doesn’t tell anyone about us.” Jess gave her a reassuring smile, smoothly covering for Owen’s silence. “Our people started cross-checking the other lists of names you sent me last night. Nothing yet, but we’ll keep at it.”
“Okay.” Owen turned to Sam. “Ready?”
Sam nodded, but hesitation flitted over her features.
She was a civilian, he had to remind himself.
She was a woman not used to being caught in the crossfires of a mission, even if she had originally joined her father’s team to get retribution for Brad—a gutsy move that most people wouldn’t have taken.
Owen forced his booted feet to the door. He needed to get out of that small room and breathe in some fresh air. If he could just clear his head . . . then, somehow, he could reset his focus.