CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The oversized SUV maneuvered onto the narrow street in Del Ray Alexandria.
Large trees, sparse with the remnants of brown leaves that hadn’t fallen, watched protectively over the parked cars and cute houses that sat sleepily on the cold, rainy night.
Amelia watched as Camden circled the block.
“For all the evasive maneuvering tactics I’ve been trained on,” he said, “nothing helps when trying to park this beast in this neighborhood.”
He turned again and found a postage-stamp–sized parking spot.
She had her doubts as he threw the vehicle into reverse, but with two quick moves, Camden had parked at the curb.
They stepped out of the warmth and into the blustery night.
She immediately missed the close proximity to Camden.
She felt they’d been sheltered safely from the world and stepping outside would ruin it.
He grabbed her overstuffed carry-on bag and led the way through the quiet neighborhood patchworked with small bungalows and craftsman houses.
Some were brimming with personality, with art in the yards and windows.
Others were neat and tidy without personality.
But none of the homes were the same, forming a mismatched masterpiece far different from her boring condo complex.
“I’ve held events in Del Ray a couple times,” Amelia said as she kept pace with his ground-covering stride.
“There are fun restaurants and bars to rent out for small weddings or corporate cocktail hours. Especially if the client is trying for a non-DC vibe.”
“I’ve never been here before. I just asked not to be in a swanky DC hotel.”
They walked up to one of the generic houses with the shades drawn tight on the windows.
A No Soliciting sticker had been placed above the doorbell.
He turned the key in the door and led the way into the dark.
Camden locked the door behind them and hung his keys on a hook.
He turned on a light switch as they went in and dropped her bag at the bottom of a staircase.
“Make yourself at home.”
Amelia did a quick inspection from the entryway.
“As safe houses go, this seems to be what I’d expect.” The furnishings were generic and decidedly bachelor-pad–esque: sprawling leather couch, big-screen television.
A football sat on a coffee table.
Maybe he was a sports guy.
“Did that come with the house?”
He laughed, scooped up the ball, and tossed it to himself before he turned on another light in the living room that opened into a kitchen.
“It flew here with me.”
He flew here?
Her debt to him was only growing.
That was the moment she should thank him again profusely and excuse herself.
He hadn’t signed up to socialize.
Just to be her rescuer.
This saint of a man had gone above and beyond to help when she had no one in her corner.
Yet she didn’t walk away.
She couldn’t. She felt a pull to learn more about him.
“Where are you from?”
“I grew up in New Jersey.”
“Are you more of a Jersey Shore type or Hoboken?”
He tossed the football overhead and caught it.
“What makes you think I’m either?”
Amelia shrugged and admitted, “Those are the only two places I know anything about. I took a shot.”
Gently, he lofted the football her way.
Somehow, she caught it and marveled at herself, surprise widening her eyes.
His grin hitched. “Good catch.” Camden leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over a chest as wide as the northern seaboard.
“I’m from a town north of Trenton—pretty industrial, where there’s not much except for hardworking people working harder than they probably should.”
He didn’t say those were his people, but she thought they were: hardworking and with an ethic that didn’t quit—the kind of moral code that would find her when she needed help.
She ran her finger along the lacing of the football.
“You and Hailey don’t work for the same people, right?”
“No. We’re… in the same orbit, but you couldn’t even call it the same industry.”
“You answered the phone number she told me to call.”
“Sometimes our assignments cross, but we have different employers.”
She didn’t know what to make of that.
She couldn’t compare it to the way corporate event planning interacted with all industries.
Or could she? She didn’t know enough about him to hazard a guess.
Outside, the wind picked up, and a low gusting howl smacked against the windows.
She turned toward them.
The pulled blinds blocked the view, but Amelia could imagine the large, nearly bare trees waving their branches as the storm picked up.
Sheets of rain pummeled the house.
It made her feel very alone with this larger-than-life man.
He’d earned her trust, but she didn’t know if she’d made the right decision.
“You should tell me who you work for,” she said.
He gave her a funny look and walked toward the refrigerator.
“How come?”
Because she was staying in the house with a stranger and essentially knew nothing about him.
By his facial expression, she guessed he wasn’t allowed to share the name of the supersecret employer that had the ability to pluck her from prison.
“How about this: What’s your last name?”
“Brooks.”
“Camden Brooks from New Jersey. Family?”
He laughed.
“Yup. I’ve got one of those.”
“I don’t.”
He faltered.
“I didn’t mean…”
Amelia set the football on the kitchen counter.
“It’s fine.” She twisted her fingers together.
“My parents died in a car accident.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I really didn’t mean—”
“Honestly, it’s fine.”
She didn’t like the pity in his face and looked beyond him.
The kitchen was tidy.
She didn’t suspect he’d cooked while staying there.
The counters were empty except for the football and a toaster.
The hand towel looked as clean as the day it left the store.
She took a seat on a barstool at the counter as he opened the fridge, pulled out two bottles of water, and took the other barstool.
Camden cleared his voice and said, “Hailey and Jonathan worked for an agency that was breached. No one knows still the extent of the problem, but at the time, their agency issued an all hands on deck. Anyone who could—”
“That’s you. A different agency.”
“We’re probably considered contractors in this situation.”
“Oh.”
He set one of the water bottles in front of her and cracked open the other.
After a long pull, he added, “My company was able to help when the request came in. I was assigned to pick up the phone if any calls were routed our way, and that’s how we came to meet.”
“Serendipity, I suppose.”
“I suppose.” He chuckled and rolled the water bottle between his hands.
“What else do you want to know?”
Oh, about a million other things.
If this is a safe house, where do you usually live?
Do you normally travel, rescuing people out of prison?
She couldn’t imagine a day job like that, but she hadn’t imagined extraordinary day jobs really existed.
His chiseled jawline shifted with a curious half grin.
“Nothing?”
“I have questions… but I don’t know where to start.”
He nodded as though he understood.
“Start with the basics.”
“All right.” She opened her water bottle and took a small sip.
“So you’re not with the government?”
“Correct.”
“But your vehicle had government plates.” She cocked her head.
“How does that work?”
“The government contracts with my company. It’s their show and, for the most part, their resources.”
“Who do you work for?” she tried again.
That time, he offered without hesitation, “Titan Group.”
Amelia raised her shoulders.
“Doesn’t ring any bells. Guess they don’t plan galas or networking happy hours.”
His lips quirked as though she’d asked if his company flew rockets to Mars or trained ballerinas.
“Nope. Not unless your events need hostage negotiators or armed reconnaissance.”
“Oh…”
Amelia suddenly saw where Camden fit in the world.
It wasn’t chauffeuring prison releasees through the suburbs or reassembling her tossed furniture.
He was the type of person who jumped from helicopters or scaled enemy-covered mountains.
He was the type of person who helped spies and spooks and civilians who were in far over their heads.
Her throat had gone dry at the revelation, and she sipped her water again.
“It hadn’t occurred to me to offer those services to my clients.” Her mind reeled as more pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, but she tried to downplay the eye-opener.
“Maybe that’s a niche I should look into. Clients in need of hostage negotiators. ”
He laughed, sounding casual and cool, like nothing he’d shared was a big deal.
“You don’t want the headaches that come when we have to show up.”
That raised the question of where had he come from.
“Where did you fly in from?” she asked.
He rolled the water bottle between his hands then capped it.
“The Middle East.”
Her lips parted, and she blinked.
He’d come all this way to help her out.
What were Hailey and Jonathan involved in?
“Really?”
He nodded.
She waited for him to elaborate.
More than a dozen countries existed in the Middle East. “Is your location a secret?”
“Do you know what a ghost team is?”
Her lips pursed as she thought the phrase over.
There was surely a joke to be had about the supernatural and zombies, but she didn’t have the energy to find it.
“Nope. That’s what Titan Group is? A ghost team?”
Ghosts floated through walls.
They weren’t seen unless they wanted to be, and they yelled boo .
Camden was handsome—sexy, if she was being honest—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be scary.
Shadows lay behind his dark eyes, not to mention his size.
His presence projected the distinct possibility that he could morph into something scary.
“How to explain a ghost team.” He ran a hand into his hair and mussed it as he thought.
“There are a lot of moving parts to Titan.”
Her eyebrow arched.
“Well, that’s not vague or anything.”
He grinned.
“It’s a privately held special ops company that focuses on military and security issues. We have multiple teams. Some are considered ghosts. We’re more off the books than other teams.”
“Oh… so no happy-hour schmooze fests?”
“Yeah, no. We’re not known for networking.”
She laughed.
“There’s a US-based team that is more the face of the company. They’re not all that far from here.”
“But they weren’t the ones to help me out.”
He shook his head and didn’t offer an explanation.
Amelia peeled at her water bottle label.
She couldn’t find the edge of it and turned the bottle, lost in thought.
She dragged her nail along the wrapper.
“Can you tell me more about ghost teams? What do you do? Specifically.”
“Sure. It’s pretty simple. Just a group that works together on security projects.”
“That doesn’t sound very ghostlike.”
He nodded, amused.
“We get in and out. No connections. No loose ends. No assignments that can be tracked to anyone else.”
Like Hailey and Jonathan.
“That’s very… interesting? Terrifying?”
He laughed.
“Both? Guess it depends on who you ask.”
“You and I live in very different worlds.” Though she wasn’t living in her own anymore.
Amelia had passed all the responsibility to Veronica and hadn’t had a moment’s desire to check in.
Veronica would understand that all Amelia’s thoughts had been focused on her sister.
Where was Hailey? Was she scared?
Hurt? Was Hailey hoping that Amelia had called the phone number that would fix everything?
“Do you know how to find Hailey?”
“There are people working on that.”
That wasn’t an answer.
She glared. “You’re certain about that, Cam?”
His expression faltered.
“Because they’ve done a lot to prove she’s dead. Why?” She shook her head.
“What on earth would be the reason to arrest me? To build a bullshit case.” Amelia pressed her fingers to her temples.
“My arrest wasn’t based in reality. So why? Who are they trying to prove Hailey’s death to?”
Camden raised his shoulders.
“I have no idea. The details that were shared with me were… sanitized.”
“ Sanitized ?” She snorted.
“Everything is smoke and mirrors and lies and—” Her stomach turned.
She’d had the same thought more than once, but maybe Camden would confirm it.
“Did they work for the CIA?”
“It’s not my place—”
“Camden. Come on. Tell me the truth. Or as much of the truth as you can tell me. Please?”
“The begging is killing me, sweetheart. Knowing a specific agency won’t change—”
“You’re the only one who has been truthful. You’re the only one I trust right now. Tell me.”
He held her gaze for an eternity.
She didn’t know if answering would break the law or if he didn’t think she could handle the truth.
“They did.” Camden’s eyebrows rose as though to ask if that made any difference.
The CIA. Hailey and Jonathan worked for an intelligence agency.
They lived their lives one way and secretly worked on projects they’d never uttered a breath about.
“I knew that had to be the case. Nothing else made sense.”
The wind howled around the house.
The lights flickered.
Amelia finally found the edge of the water bottle wrapper and tore it free from the glue.
She unwound the wrapper and studied the naked bottle, tilting it to one side then the other, watching the water catch and fill the bottle’s creases.
“I really didn’t know them as well as I thought I did.”
His eye met hers and wouldn’t let go.
“They were the people you knew them as. I promise. The professor. The researcher. The sister and brother-in-law. They were very much those people you knew.”
“I’m not—”
The lights went out.
The slow hum of appliances quieted.
She shivered. They sat in the dark.
He made no move to find a candle or use the flashlight on his phone.
Amelia appreciated the cloak of darkness.
Right then, she wanted to stay hidden.
Camden eased off his barstool.
“You okay?”
“I’m not scared of the dark, if that’s what you’re asking,” she half joked.
“Stay put a second.” He pulled out his cell phone, turned on the flashlight, and opened two kitchen drawers before extracting an elongated lighter from a drawer and a package of four short, fat candles.
“A well-stocked safe house always makes life easier.”
He lit two candles and left them on the breakfast bar between them then placed the remaining two on the coffee table.
He lit them and returned to the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?”
She shook her head.
The turkey sub had filled her up, and since she hadn’t had much of an appetite for prison food, her stomach wasn’t in a rush to digest it.
Camden made a peanut butter sandwich and polished it off before he cleaned up his mess, putting the knife in the dishwasher and peanut butter in the cabinet.
“You’re efficient,” she pointed out.
“And you note things people do and then tell them.”
She laughed to herself.
“Guess I do. I never noticed that. Yet somehow I missed that my sister, the person I’m closest to, worked for a bunch of spies.”
The wind picked up again.
Camden leaned against the sink counter.
Candlelight danced across his features.
“It was their job to hide their work from you. They were trained to keep you in the dark.”
“I guess.”
“You sound like you don’t like what they did.”
She shrugged.
“It’s not that. It’s the lying.”
“You can’t take offense to it. The people who do their kind of work are looking out for the greater good in the world. You know what I mean? They wouldn’t sign up for that kind of trouble and make sacrifices that we’ll have no idea about if they didn’t want to leave the place better and safer than they found it.”
When he put it like that…
“Our parents died when we were young, and I think it killed Hailey that she wasn’t old enough to charge out into the world and take care of us.”
“How old were you?”
“I was nine. Almost ten. She was twelve.”
“You said they were in a car accident. Want to tell me what happened?”
Amelia toyed with the water bottle.
“Someone was trying to find a gas station and playing with the GPS on their phone while it was raining. Their choice changed the course of so many lives.”
“Damn. I’m sorry.”
That was a dark time, maybe almost as dark as right then.
Amelia was hoping Hailey would be found.
There wasn’t even a scant hint of hope when their parents died.
It had been complete and utter devastation.
“We lived with some family member that CPS found and we’d never heard of. I think she took us in for the stipend the state paid.” She balled up the water bottle wrapper in her hands, making it crinkle.
“It wasn’t easy, coming from a life so ideal it could’ve been on a postcard to then living with someone who literally didn’t care. But we did it. What choice did we have?”
“Not much, I guess.” He opened the refrigerator and retrieved two beer bottles.
Camden held them up.
After she nodded, he uncapped and handed one over.
“Thanks.”
They took long pulls of the cold beers.
She couldn’t have imagined how her day would turn out when she woke up that morning in solitary confinement.
Safe and warm, drinking a beer during a power outage wasn’t something she could have dreamt up.
“What about your family?”
He smiled.
“It’s a big, loud family. Lots of brothers. A dad who’s a good sport about it all and a mother who’s impatiently waiting for grandchildren.”
“None yet?”
“Nope. The woman raised a hell of a brood that would be hard to tie down.”
Amelia laughed.
Tied down sounded like an awful punishment, yet she knew exactly what he meant.
She had orchestrated many weddings at which she didn’t think the couple had a snowball’s chance in hell of survival.
Then Amelia thought about Hailey and Jonathan.
They were perfectly matched.
Tied down? More like tied together.
“Maybe no one’s tied down when it’s the right match.”
His index finger tapped against his beer bottle.
Camden rolled his bottom lip into his mouth then took a long drink. “Maybe so.”