Chapter 7 #2
I never would’ve been able to live with myself. So really I would’ve been as miserable as I was now, only I’d also have guilt weighing heavy on my conscience.
“I’m not a federal asset and I found Theo and asked him for help,” I cut in.
“And you think that makes it better?”
“No, what I think it makes it is none of the Marshals’ business. I gave them a shot at protecting me and they failed. I was found. I no longer want their services.”
“You want Theo’s services?”
I wanted Theo, period, but I wasn’t going to tell the asshole Zane Lewis that.
“I want to stay alive and the only person I trust to keep me that way is Theo.”
“Bummer,” he weirdly mumbled.
“You’d rather I die?”
I couldn’t keep the hurt from my voice. I didn’t imagine I was someone Zane would say he liked and I was sure there were times I’d been a pain in his ass while he was having his men guard me before I testified, but I was nowhere near bitchy enough for him to consider me expendable.
“Fuck no.”
“He’s just salty because he won’t be able to give Theo shit,” Easton explained.
Why would Zane want to give Theo shit?
“No,” Smith contradicted. “He’s salty because his sidekick is going to be gone a week and he’ll have no one to laugh at his stupid jokes and he won’t be able to give Theo shit because he’s already made up his mind and so has Bridget.”
I turned my head to see Theo’s reaction to the conversation going on around us. I’d expected frustration but instead he was smiling.
“What can I say? I’m smarter than the rest.”
“That’s what they all say right before they come crying to me asking how to keep the woman they were too dumb to hold close,” Zane snarked.
Some of Theo’s smile faded.
“Never been accused of being dumb, boss,” Theo remarked.
“No, but that mountain of misplaced guilt will be your downfall.”
Zane’s words caused an immediate reaction from Theo. The temperature in the room seemed to plummet. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the windows frosted over with the icy stare Theo aimed Zane’s way.
“Don’t,” Theo spat.
“Sorry I’m late,” a new voice sounded from the door.
When I turned to the newcomer I vaguely recognized him.
“Bridget, this is Garrett,” Theo introduced us. “He’s our information specialist.”
“Hey, Bridget, nice to see you again.”
“You came to the safe house to deliver my prep.”
I’d only met Garrett once. He’d stopped by with a stack of testimony prep from the state attorney’s office.
He was only there for a few minutes and had said nothing to me but had pulled Theo into the garage to speak to him in private before he left, using the side door in the garage.
At no point during that exchange did Garrett look friendly.
A far cry from the smiling man who’d just said hello.
“Yep, that was me,” he confirmed and placed a folder in front of Zane.
“Did you find anything?” Zane inquired.
“I found a lot. And the more I dug the less sense it made.”
Zane sighed and opened the file.
“Just once I’d like a case to come across this table that’s straightforward and not full of bullshit I have to wade through to find a hint of the truth.”
“Bullshit,” Garrett tossed back. “You’d be bored to tears.”
Zane’s grin clearly communicated Garrett was correct. I knew that feeling well—not the part about cases but the bored-to-tears part. WITSEC wasn’t all it was cracked up to be especially when you had to leave behind the job you loved.
“Before we go over what I found I think we should go over Bridget’s attack.”
This was the part I was dreading.
I didn’t want to relive that day.
“I already told Theo,” I explained to Garrett.
“I can imagine this is hard for you but the rest of us need to hear it direct from you.”
Theo had kept close to me since we left the hotel.
At first it made sense; someone had tried to strangle me to death so I figured he was being cautious.
But he remained close to my side when we were safely inside the Z Corps office.
And when we’d all sat around the conference room table he’d scooted his chair close to mine.
Throughout all of that he had not touched me—until now.
I felt his pinkie hook around mine and give it a shake.
I glanced to my left to find him staring at me.
“If you need time, take it. There’s no rush,” he gently told me.
It wasn’t his soft command to take my time that bolstered my confidence. It was his nearness, the sweet gesture, the calmness in his tone.
I could do this.
I could relive the attack one more time then shove it to the back of my mind and never think about it again.
With a deep breath I retold my story. This time I remembered something I must’ve blocked out when the pain of my attacker’s blows got to be too much.
“He’s got a mark on his neck.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
I glanced back at Theo and explained. “I didn’t remember it until now. The pain was so overwhelming I was trying to do Lamaze exercises and breathe through the pain. I totally forgot about the mark.”
“Lamaze? You don’t have children.” Zane noted with authority yet still flipped through the file in front of him.
“I went to birthing classes with a friend back home. Her husband was a firefighter and she was sure he’d be on a call-out when she went into labor so I was her backup plan.”
“What kind of mark?”
I was grateful for Easton’s question. Over the months I’d done my best not to think about the friends I’d left behind. Not that it worked.
“Bridget?” Theo gently called.
Shit .
“Um, I don’t know. It was mostly under the collar of his shirt. A big mole or a birthmark maybe. It didn’t look like a tattoo. It was raised and a brownish black color.”
Easton nodded and jotted something down on a pad in front of him.
“A birthmark?”
Garrett’s question had me glancing his way.
“Or a mole.”
“And no accent?”
“No. He sounded American. Not Southern or Mid-Western or Northerner. Just boring ol’ American.”
“Right.”
I knew Garrett was done with his questions when he opened his laptop and the big screen on the wall came on displaying what looked like his desktop. I found I was right when I watched the cursor move around and a file was clicked open.
He found the file he wanted and opened that as well.
A familiar map of the Mojave Desert popped up.
“This was the first test site for the Sparrow, correct?”
The Sparrow was the smallest UVA that Raven had produced. It was a micro-drone still in the early prototype phase. By the time Mark had been arrested the Sparrow still hadn’t been ready to market.
“Correct. The first tests were done there, then we moved East to the Dead Man’s Wilderness Area.”
“Why the move?” Easton joined.
“We were testing different terrain. Maneuverability of the UVA.”
Garrett switched maps and my stomach did a somersault.
Clifton, Arizona.
A beautiful small town I never wanted to see again.
The place where my life had imploded.
“Why the move to Clifton?” Garrett continued his interrogation.
“Have you ever been to the Mojave Desert or the surrounding areas?”
“No.”
“Right, well to say it is hot would be a gross understatement. More like it’s the closest you’ll get to hell without actually going to the bad place.
You sweat and not just in the normal places, in all the places.
Your fingertips sweat. Five minutes outside and it feels like your skin is melting off.
Zero out of ten stars, do not recommend visiting unless you’re feeling the need for a body detox to sweat out the demons.
And even then I’d tell you to keep the demons and save your epidermis.
The heat advisories were insane and meant we could only test for a few hours a day.
Not to mention the Sparrow was continuously overheating. ”
I had never been so happy in my life as the day Mark announced he was moving the team to Eastern Arizona.
My happiness was short-lived.
“When you were in Clifton, did you ever test near the mine?”
“Mine?”
“The largest copper mine in the US is just outside of Clifton,” Garrett unnecessarily told me.
You couldn’t be in Clifton for more than five minutes without knowing about the copper mine. It was the largest employer in the county and surrounding counties.
“I know the mine and no, we never tested anywhere near it.”
A strange look came over Garrett, one that stated plain he didn’t believe me.
“Did you know that Mark had been in contact with Kathy Cobb?”
Before I could tell Garrett I had no idea who Kathy Cobb was, Theo cut in. “Where are you going with this, One?”
Theo’s harsh tone drew my attention to him.
His scowl had my pinkie in his tightening.
His posture made me scramble to answer Garrett and move this along.
“I’ve never heard that name before. Who is she?”
“Senior vice president of operations for Dusk Mining Company.”
“Why would Mark be in contact with anyone from the mining company?”
Garrett changed the image on the screen to a newspaper article dated from a year ago. The headline read: Local man still missing. Police have no leads.
The picture accompanying the article showed a man wearing a hardhat and a polo shirt with the Dusk Mining Company logo on it. The man was also smiling huge like he was proud to work at the mine.
“This is Jeff Goetz,” Garrett informed me instead of answering my question.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“He worked at the mine before he went missing.”
I was lost.
I had no idea what the mine or these people had to do with me.
“What’s the connection to Shillings?” Easton asked.
“He was blackmailing Dusk Mining Company.”
Now I was really lost.
“This Jeff guy was blackmailing—”
“No, Mark was.”
I glanced at Zane and declared, “I’m with you.”
“Come again?”
“I wish this was straightforward and not full of bullshit. I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”
It was then Garrett dropped the bomb.
“Drone footage captured a fight. Three men on DMC property. One man pulled out a gun. One man dropped. Kathy Cobb can be seen in the footage as two men dragged the dead body away.”
Drone footage.
Shit .