Chapter 17 #2
The former profiler nodded. “True, but I don’t think he was.”
“Why not?” Ian asked.
“Something was off in his profile. Hiller never really dated, or at least he never talked about it. The CIA used that as a sign that he was obsessed with Eloise. He was obsessed with the work they were doing, that is all I could find.”
The disdain in her voice made his mouth twitch. “I take it you don’t have respect for The Company?”
She rolled her eyes. “They are very good at spy things. Not profiling.”
He couldn’t argue with her there.
“Either way, Hiller hadn’t had a regular date the whole time he worked for the CIA.”
“Sometimes you don’t have time for that, even as an analyst,” Eden said.
“Even more so for Hiller. If he were trying to prove himself, he would probably work overtime to gain Eloise’s respect,” El said.
“Still, he was a healthy, young man, and hookups in the spy game happen, right?” Miko asked.
He knew she was trying to get to a point, but she was taking such a long route to get there, Ian wanted to scream.
“Can you get to the point?” Ian demanded.
“Hold that thought,” Emily ordered as she popped up out of the chair. “Thanks for the coffee, Jenner.”
She splashed a lot of cream and some sugar into the mug and settled back down.
“So, when I talked to Miko, I thought I could find something nefarious in his interactions. Maybe there was an operative who honey trapped him. He was young and impressionable. But there’s a reason a lot of this was swept under the rug. Well, actually two.”
She sipped her coffee and her eyes widened. “You make coffee as strong as my Mama, but then she’s a Marine.”
“I thought your parents had retired from the Marines,” El said.
“There’s no such thing as a retired Marine,” she said with a laugh. Jenner’s mouth twitched.
“Can we get back to the subject at hand?”
“Okay, okay. Well, our newbie was sort of what they would call a nepo baby, CIA style. A lot like Eden and El.”
“His parents worked for the CIA?”
She shook her head as she brought up a picture. “An uncle. One he was really close to.”
Eden and El looked at the man. “Well, hell, that makes sense that they buried the crime if they thought Hiller the culprit.”
“Does someone want to fill the rest of us in on this dude?” Jenner asked.
“That is Dean Browning. He was one of the highest-ranking CIA officers at the time. Not a political appointee,” Eden said. “He worked his way up the ranks.”
“Which means he did everything to protect himself and his family,” El finished. “He buried the information.”
“So, we have a favored uncle who buried the idea that Hiller was responsible for the bomb. That doesn’t mean the man didn’t kill the Underwoods.”
“I’m getting to that,” Emily said with a huff.
“His uncle wanted to cover up the crime, so even though they were convinced a CIA family had been targeted, they didn’t really investigate it all that well.
The public were told there was a gas explosion, and everyone went on with their lives.
There is one thing that made it an obsession, at least one that would explain why Hiller wanted Eloise and Michael dead, completely moot. ”
“For the love of God, just tell us,” Ian demanded, as the back of his neck prickled. Emily was brilliant, but she was very dramatic at all times.
“Hiller was gay.”
There was a beat of silence in the kitchen. He glanced at Miko. “You thought this might be the case?”
“Well, there were two scenarios. One was that he had been turned by a foreign operative. The other was a lifestyle he didn’t want to talk about. Hell, most of you spies don’t like talking about anything personal. It might just be that he was simply really private.”
He glanced at Emily. “And yes, I found information to support this. Our guy had a boyfriend. It took a lot of digging, but I found these pics loaded up.”
Sure enough, Hiller stood behind another man, both of them smiling into the camera and Hiller had his arms around the other man.
“So, either scenario doesn’t work? What if he were a bisexual?” El asked.
“That wouldn’t work because the person pushed to annihilate the object of his obsession wouldn’t have time for a real relationship.
Or at least one this deep. And truth is, if he were bisexual and hiding that from the CIA, he would be more likely to kill off the same sex partner, rather than the female he was obsessed about. ”
“Wait, wasn’t there DNA found?” Eden asked.
“Yes, there was, and they were all identified that way,” Emily said. “But it wouldn’t be hard for a man like Michael Underwood to slip into the computer system to change that.”
The puzzle pieces were linking together and he looked at Miko. “You think he was the killer?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “He actually fits the profile of a family annihilator very well.”
She was keeping her voice low and modulated, something he appreciated. If this theory proved to be true, Lila had a lot more to deal with.
“Since I don’t have the background any of you all do, can you explain that?” Jenner asked.
Miko nodded. “And the spies have no idea what I’m talking about. They think they know everything, but they do not.”
“Fine, explain it to all of us then,” Ian said.
“Family annihilators are always the kind of guys that most would say he was such a good family man or woman. They seemingly support their families, but inside the family, they are much different. There is little support for the spouse or children behind the scenes.”
“I went back through some of Lila’s school records. Her father never showed up for any parent-teacher conference. Which, sometimes that means that parent might not have a job he or she can take off to come to the meetings,” Emily said.
“But her mother was the higher-ranking analyst, right?” Jenner asked.
“Yeah, and let’s be honest,” El said. “If the dude wanted off, he could get it. He wasn’t in the field. He had what could be considered a somewhat normal high level DC job. They are encouraged to act like they have a regular government job, meaning they show up for things.”
“And her father didn’t,” Miko said. “So, when I was profiling Lila, I started to see a pattern. She praised her mother. She barely mentioned her father. Then there were the money problems.”
“The Underwoods were in a lot of financial trouble. Well…Michael would have been if Eloise divorced him. I wondered why they kept all their money separate. They’d been married about fifteen years,” Emily said. She was raised in a very tight knit family, so he understood the disbelief in her voice.
“I know a lot of people who do that in the business,” he said, glancing at Eden, who nodded.
“So we have a man in financial trouble, a marriage that was falling apart thanks to his arrogance—”
“How do you know that?” Jenner said interrupting Miko.
“I read his performance reports. His superiors were questioning his loyalty.”
“To his country?” Ian asked. Lila might not have picked up on it, but she was twelve. What do you notice about your parents at that point in your life?
She nodded. “You know spy organizations will flag any money issues because that could make the subject open to blackmail.”
The back of his neck tingled once more, but he ignored it. He was becoming obsessed with Lila. The only way to protect her was to keep his head in the game.
“This is all interesting,” Jenner said in a voice that told Ian he did not, in fact, think it was interesting. “But what does it have to do with our case?”
Emily made a noise of irritation. Ian looked at her. “What?”
“The initial blood typing showed the person who died in the bomb—the adult male—had B-positive blood.”
“And?” He asked the question even though he knew the answer.
“Michael was O-positive. All of the Underwoods had the same blood type.”
“But they changed it?”
She nodded. “The report was changed to reflect the DNA match.”
“That can happen?” El asked.
“No. Blood typing has been around for a long time. One of the best labs in the country is not about to get it wrong, not something like this. There was one person who had B-positive though.”
“Hiller,” Ian said, looking first at Emily, then at Eden. This just got really bad.
“Oh, and someone who looks very similar to her father, or how he would look with a little work, has been all over this island. I used facial recognition. He’s even been in the building where Dillon is headquartered here.”
Ian walked over to the laptop. He watched a man in his sixties walk into the building. You could tell that he had had a little work done, but there was no doubt in his mind that was Michael Underwood.
“Fuckin’ bold walking in that way,” Jenner said, as he watched the screen.
“Arrogant,” Miko said. “And I’m sure he’s a narcissist. There is no doubt in my mind.”
“We have to find him,” Ian said.
“I have a facial recognition program running in some places. Dillon, the traffic cams…I’m going to try to trace him to see where he’s staying.”
The moment she finished her sentence the sensor alarms went off.
That tickle at the back of his neck was a full punch at the moment.
He was already moving when the lights shut off in the house.
Ice coated his spine as he made his way down the hallway.
He needed to see Lila to make sure she was alright.
Keeping his back against the wall, he slinked down the hallway with Jenner right behind him.
El and Eden, along with Emily, were doing what they could to contact the overwatch and call in the breach.
This should not happen, ever. But Michael Underwood knew computers and he knew how to fuck with things.
Even as fear had his throat closing up, he approached the door. He wanted to breach it immediately, but he knew that might be a mistake. If someone had hold of Lila, they could accidentally hurt her. Ian could not have that.
He glanced back at Jenner, who nodded.
“Lila?”
There was no noise. The house hadn’t been completely wired with cameras in the rooms, but that would do them no good without electricity anyway. Avoiding the part of the floor that always squeaked, he leaned closer and pressed his ear up against the door.
“We’re coming in.”
Still nothing. The knob turned without resistance and he opened the door. Even before he saw the room, he knew what he would see. Or at least not see. As he stepped into the room, panic spiked. He could barely swallow past that knot in his throat.
Jenner checked the bathroom, but Ian walked to the opened window. That had not been open before.
Ian glanced back at Jenner, who shook his head. Ian knew she had been taken. He looked down at the window ledge and saw a little blood.
Pushing away the anxiety that had him by the bollocks, he strode back to the kitchen. He was going to find her and kill the bastard who thought he had a right to touch his woman.
Emily was there with Miko. The light off of Emily’s laptop gave an eerie glow to the room.
“Nothing?” Miko asked.
“Do you think she just left? She does have the skills to do that,” Emily said.
He shook his head. “There were a few drops of blood on the windowsill.
As the lights flickered back on, he pulled out his phone and called in the calvary. He knew Dillon had trackers, but he had family in the business.
“This better be good. The sun isn’t even up,” Seth said.
“I need your team. Lila’s been taken.”
“On or off the books?”
Yeah, he could trust his brother-in-law. He might be a true-blue kind of guy who liked to do things by the book, but for family, Seth would always come through.
“I don’t give a fuck. I just need to find her.”
“You got it. Send me the location and we’ll meet up.”
Then the phone went dead.
Terror filled him, but he pushed it back and called on the ice he needed to complete the job.
Lila woke slowly, her head pounding. She knew without looking that her hands were zip tied, so she kept her eyes closed.
If she pretended to still be knocked out, she could gather information on her abductors.
She had been showered and just dressed when something happened.
She couldn’t remember, but since she was waking up on a hard floor with her hands zip tied, it couldn’t be anything good.
“I think you gave her too much,” a man said, his voice carrying the tone of the islands. He was definitely a local.
“I did not.” Another man and another local. They couldn’t be the person after her, so she was dealing with the muscle.
She kept her eyes closed, her muscles lax.
“I don’t get why the bastard has such a hard-on for her.”
Rude, but she would like to know that too.
A door creaked open and she heard heavy steps.
“She’s still out,” the first guy said.
The person who entered said nothing, but she heard the retreating footsteps of her abductors. When the door closed, she sensed the person moving closer.
“I know you’re not sleeping, Delilah,” the man said. A man she knew.
She didn’t want to open her eyes because facing reality was painful. Still, she was the granddaughter of Judith Eddington and the daughter of Eloise Eddington-Underwood. She’d been taught to always be rational.
Blinking, she opened her eyes and found her father looking at her.
“Hello, Delilah. It’s been a long time.”