35. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Five
“This is a bad idea,” Gibson said. “You almost died last night.”
“He wouldn’t have killed me,” Kathleen answered, but she wasn’t so certain.
She had seen the Hound in Finn’s eyes; he hadn’t recognized her at all. She didn’t know if there was anything of Finn left.
“He tried to kill me,” Gibson countered.
“But he didn’t.” And that fact—that the Hound had chosen not to hurt Gibson—gave her hope. It made her believe that somewhere in there, Finn still remembered.
If only she could break him out of it.
Kathleen thought she had seen a flare of recognition in his gaze after she had shot him, but that might have been wishful thinking. Seeing him there, in pain—pain she had caused—almost broke her. But she remembered his words. I can’t stand the idea that I might hurt you.
Kathleen knew he, as Finn, wouldn’t be able to live with hurting her. So she had hurt him instead. He could withstand bullets far more readily than anyone else. Her gut still twisted with the worry he might be dead.
That was why they were here, on a stakeout in Gibson’s F150, parked down the street from Cloverton House.
According to official databases, Cloverton housed a clerical arm of the US government, providing financial advice to all government agencies. In reality? The tracker she had planted on Finn that had led them here told them it was much more than what appeared on paper.
"I spoke to the Captain about that triad shooting down in the warehouse district," Gibson said, casually.
"Oh yeah?"
"Seems it was rival gangs."
"Go figure," Kathleen said. Yet when she exhaled she felt the tension leave her shoulders. One less problem to deal with.
“I was thinking I might need to build an extension onto my house,” Gibson said.
Although Kathleen was in the passenger seat, she had taken control of the rearview mirror and positioned it so she could see the entrance of Cloverton House with a glance. She was only half paying attention to her partner’s words.
“What?”
“To house all the shelving for the many, many bottles of liquor you now owe me.”
“Seriously?”
“Stakeouts are the worst. Stakeouts when I’m not even getting paid? Right up there with soggy breakfast burritos and stale pizza.”
“You have some problems, Gibson.”
“Glass houses, Harper, glass houses.”
Well, shit. He had her.
“So,” Gibson held up the large rifle. “Is this uber-tranquilizer still the play?”
He sounded doubtful. The tranquilizer gun was something they had borrowed from the station. It was used in rare cases where officers had to deal with wildlife—there had been a couple of black bear incidents in the last two years. It was, according to the manual, exceptionally dangerous for humans. But Finn wasn’t entirely human anymore. Kathleen was hoping not to have to test it out on him, but it beat trying to shoot him repeatedly and hope he fell unconscious.
“Tranq is still the play.”
“Because I was kind of hoping you’d come up with a better idea in the…” Gibson checked his watch. “Ten hours we’ve been here.”
“Hey, I told you earlier you could go home.”
“And I told you to go fuck yourself. I’m not leaving you.”
There was something in Gibson’s voice that made her look at him. A hardness in his eyes, a tension in his mouth.
“It’s not your fault,” she said gently.
“What?”
“Finn taking you out. I’m just glad he didn’t kill you.”
“Yeah, lucky me.” Gibson rubbed at his throat. Ugly bruises were appearing there already. “Though I do get a sexy husky voice for a bit, so, upside.”
“I have to believe it was deliberate. That he recognized you. We… talked about you.”
“I hope you praised my typing skills to the deadly brainwashed assassin.”
“Gibson.”
“Sorry. Irreverence under pressure is my default, you know that.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m the one that dragged you into the middle of this.” Kathleen let out an uneven breath. “I’m glad to have you watching my back, Gibson.”
“Always.”
What she felt in her gut wasn’t like the heated warmth she felt for Finn, but it had shades of that. Finn wasn’t the only one Kathleen needed to learn to open up to and trust more. She struggled to voice any of it, even as she became aware.
“Heads up,” Gibson said, straightening. He was looking at the side mirror.
Kathleen’s gaze snapped to the rearview mirror as a handful of cars exited the parking garage beneath Cloverton House. She lifted her camera, taking several quick shots as they exited. As the vehicles passed, she used the digital zoom, her breath catching. “Shit.”
“What?”
“This guy in the third car, I recognize him. He met with Wilson a bit over a week ago.” She pulled out her phone and flipped through it, locating the picture of the same man talking with Wilson in a place Wilson had no business being. “We got him. A direct connection between Wilson and Command.”
“Let’s see where he takes us,” Gibson said, pulling out into the traffic.
The dark sedan took them on a meandering tour through east DC, and Kathleen wondered whether he was onto them. Turned out the man was just naturally paranoid, and eventually, he pulled into the driveway of a two-story brick house off a tree-lined street in Marshall Heights. The chain-link fence blocked off an empty concrete slab covered in leaves and dirt. There were houses on either side, but they were all set back on their properties to allow for the illusion of privacy.
She and Gibson researched while they waited for it to get dark. The property was registered to one Michael Milford, whose driver’s license matched the man Kathleen had seen. He had a spotlessly clean record, not even a driving infringement. That level of clean suggested some intervention—or a solid citizen. It was hard to imagine anyone who worked for Command was the latter, though.
They went their separate ways without saying a word thirty minutes after the sun had set. Gibson went toward the front, and Kathleen, her rifle strapped to her back, circled to the rear of the house. In contrast to the front, the backyard had trees and was well taken care of. A vegetable patch was lit by the faint light spilling out of the kitchen windows.
Kathleen couldn’t see any movement, and she eased along the side of the house. None of the windows gave to her tugging. She pulled a trash can to the side of the house and used it to pull herself up onto the window ledge above, breathing hard. She tapped her earpiece and heard three answering raps at the front door. It opened, and Gibson identified himself, indicating he was conducting an investigation. As he distracted the occupant, she eased open the second floor window and climbed in.
She was in a study. There was a dark mahogany desk and shelves of books, but the room was dominated by the large tank that glowed with heat and light. Nothing moved inside the tank, but she didn’t linger to watch.
Kathleen descended the stairs, and Gibson saw her over Milford’s shoulder. “Can I come inside and ask you some questions?”
“I don’t think,” Milford never finished the words because he felt it.
The press of the muzzle of her gun at the back of his neck.
“Invite me in,” Gibson repeated.
Milford went tense, considering how to play this, but his voice remained unconcerned. “Come in, detective.”
Gibson moved forward, shutting the door behind him. He patted down Milford, extracting two guns, unloading both, and setting them down on the table near the door.
“Let’s sit down and have a talk,” Kathleen said.
Milford’s shoulders tensed, and he looked sharply over his shoulder at her for the first time.
Then he laughed.
“Keep moving, shithead,” Gibson growled, grabbing at Milford’s arm and shoving him toward the kitchen.
While Kathleen covered Milford with her gun, Gibson cuffed the man to a kitchen chair. Once he was secure, she lowered the weapon, keeping it in hand. Gibson settled a few paces behind Milford, out of his line of sight.
“We have some questions,” she said.
“I bet you do.” Milford was far too amused. She didn’t like it one bit. “Let me guess. Are you having dreams? Nightmares?”
The jolt that went through her was involuntary. Gibson looked at her strangely.
“Thought so,” Milford said with a satisfied grin.
“We’re not here to talk about me, asshole,” Kathleen said as she holstered her gun. “Finn Kingsley. Command. We know all about it.”
“Do you really?”
“Truth is.” She leaned over to draw a kitchen knife from the stand on the counter. “We could use a little more intel.”
A flicker of fear surfaced on Milford’s face, there and gone. It told her he was someone who feared pain and would do anything to avoid it. Good news for her.
“I always knew you and the Hound were too tightly joined not to find each other again. It’s why I washed you out of the program. You could say I did you a favor, cutting you loose,” Milford said. His mouth twitched. “Even though you had the makings of a very… compliant… Agent.”
Kathleen had always been able to tell when people were lying to her. It was a skill set she’d picked up over the years, and she’d never been wrong. But this was different. She had no idea if Milford was lying to her or not—yet the sharp pounding of her heart and the tightness that banded her chest spoke volumes.
“Harper?” Gibson asked, and she shook her head. She had no answers.
“You can feel it, can’t you? It eats at you. The truth dancing just out of your reach,” Milford said with a knowing chuckle. “It’s why I had them scar you before you left. I couldn’t have you bearing the Hound’s children. Wouldn’t that be a mess?”
Kathleen’s breath seized in her lungs. She felt the truth of it burning through her, turning to fury. Before she could think, she lunged forward. This time, there was no fear in Milford’s eyes.
She learned why a second later.
Kathleen’s forward momentum was roughly halted as someone seized the back of her jacket and flung her across the room, the knife tumbling from her hands. She smashed into the top layer of cupboards, the rifle biting into her back. She cried out at the searing agony as she slammed onto the floor.
Kathleen’s body was in shock. It wanted to lay there and recover, but she heard Gibson’s grunt, and she looked up in time to see her partner punching Finn.
No… not Finn. The Hound. The differences were apparent to her as the Hound smoothly sidestepped the attempted assault and slammed his fist into Gibson’s face, sending him flying back across the room and into the door. Gibson slumped down, unconscious.
The second she saw the Hound take another step toward Gibson, she dragged herself to her knees. Everything was fucking agony, but she couldn’t let him hurt—kill—Gibson.
“Finn, no!”
Kathleen couldn’t afford to hesitate. She swung the rifle from her back and fired, the tranquilizer darts flying toward Finn.
Finn spun impossibly fast, evading both shots. Tension clawed up her throat as she fired again, but he was at her side before she could depress the trigger. Effortlessly, he wrenched the rifle from her hands, slamming the butt of the weapon directly into her gut. The impact pushed all the air out of her, and she crashed onto the ground. Kathleen tried to draw another breath, but she couldn’t get a deep enough lungful of air.
The Hound advanced on her, his blue eyes cold and emotionless. There was no recognition in him, and for the first time, Kathleen felt genuine fear.
“Hound,” Milford said. “Free me.”
Instantly, the Hound turned back to Milford. He reached down and pulled the handcuffs apart like they were paper rather than metal.
Milford stood, grinning as he picked up the knife she’d dropped earlier, staring down at her with a bright, too-content smile.
“Hound,” the Handler said. “Return to Command.”
Finn pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the kitchen with no evidence of hesitation.
Kathleen watched him go, her protest sticking in her throat. He wouldn’t leave, would he?
“Finn,” she breathed out faintly.
There was no reaction. Finn wasn’t there anymore. Only the Hound remained.
“Hound, wait.” Milford’s smile deepened, a visible anticipation in his eyes. “I changed my mind. I want you to kill her.”
This time, Finn stopped. He turned, blue eyes settling on her again.
Kathleen recognized the look in his eyes. It wasn’t the warmth and wonder she had come to associate with him; it was the cold-blooded killer she first met.
“No,” she whispered.
Finn stalked toward her, and she scrambled to her feet, trying to put space between them. He wasn’t Finn, and she couldn’t stay. She ran like her life depended on it, fear—for him—cooling in her belly. If he killed—if he killed her—she knew there was no way he would ever come back. She had to escape.
She hadn’t even made it as far as the doorway when a weight slammed into her from behind, knocking her into the wall. Kathleen’s head hit the brick, a shooting pain lancing through her forehead.
Hands grabbed her roughly and turned her, and she saw Finn—no, the Hound—staring at her impassively. She opened her mouth, but his hand closed tightly around her throat before she could voice anything.
Adrenalin beat a pulse through her, all too late. Kathleen slammed her steel-toed boots into his shin, and he barely reacted. The second time when she kicked out, he took a step forward, pinning her against the wall with his body. At first, she hoped this was a ruse. Choking someone to death took minutes. If he wanted to kill her, he could have done it in seconds.
Yet her certainty wavered as her lungs burned. Kathleen tried and failed to breathe. There was no recognition in his eyes. His gaze was the cold, steely blue of the Hound.
And he was going to kill her.