Dangerous Protector (Aegis Group Book 5) (16 page)

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

There were three, small, blue cylinders that looked like shrink-wrapped, miniature batteries. A green board with bits on it. Blinking lights. It didn’t make any sense to him.

“Marco?”

“What?”

“Why would a portable charger need a motherboard?” She pointed to the green, cracker-shaped thing.

“I…don’t know…?”

“Bring me my laptop, please?” She was too calm, too quiet.

He brought the laptop case over to her. She set up the laptop, brought out a USB cord, plugged one end into one of the ports on the charger, and the other on her laptop.

“Fiona, what are you doing?” He eyed the setup, wishing Ghost were there.

“Be quiet.”

If there was one thing Marco knew, it was that his realm of expertise only extended to killing and putting people back together again. This? Whatever techno-magic she was doing? Was out of his skill set. He perched on the edge of the bed where he could see her screen. Her fingers flew over the keys and she never once hesitated. Windows popped up and down faster than he could read them.

They sat like that for ten or so tense minutes.

Fiona sat back in the wooden chair, one hand over her mouth. The TV still played softly in the background.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s more of Scott’s work.”

“Okay, spell it out for me…”

“He had some sort of spyware on my cell phone. I guess whenever I was near the charger it…collected it? And sent it to him? Or maybe all those times he was using it, he was pulling the data off here? It’s going to take me time to break the encryption on it all.”

“Is it anything we can use?”

“Mostly…it’s email, I think.” She turned toward him, eyes round. “What are we going to do?”

If only he had an answer. Duct tape and WD40 weren’t going to fix this.

He needed real help. He needed Aegis, except he couldn’t exactly ask them to engage in possibly illegal activities.

“We’re going to stay here for now. Lay low. I’ll make contact with Ghost in two hours. By then we should have a better idea what we’re up against. Tonight, sometime after midnight, we’ll hit the road again, swing by my place and pick up some gear, then go off the grid. We’ll disappear.” It would kill him to know his family was worried, but he’d made this bed. He’d put Fiona in so much danger her life was on the line. Besides, if he disappeared his family wouldn’t be at risk. Or at least not as much.

Being on the run with Fiona wouldn’t be so bad. He liked her. She was…fun. She dove into life with enthusiasm. Her innocence though, she’d lose that. And he’d hate it, but if it kept her breathing. He’d give up everything to keep her safe, his job, his family, his…everything

“I can’t do that.”

“It’ll be hard at first, but—”

“Marco.”

They stared at each other.

“I can’t go with you,” she said. The rejection stung, but he wasn’t ready to give up.

“These guys just tried to snatch and grab you. They doctored security footage in a way that’s…beyond believable. We have no idea what we’re up against here.”

“I’m going to the police. I…I have to, Marco.” The way she was staring at him…it was like she was willing him to understand something else.

“No.” He stood up and paced to the wall and back. Either she agreed or…or…he’d make her. She might hate him for a bit, but when she had time to process things she’d see he was right. Nothing was more important than keeping her alive. “No, I’m not letting you do that, Fiona.”

“Marco—I’m in the Witness Protection program. I can’t just disappear.”

He stared at her, stunned.

Witness Protection program?

So many pieces clinked together.

Her lifestyle.

The complete lack of history before ten years ago.

Holy shit.

He’d really fucked up.

16.

Fiona shouldn’t have said
it, but…it was out there now.

Her hands shook. She hadn’t said those words to anyone. Ever. Not that it mattered now, because when the Marshalls saw the news and the Missing Person Alert, her life was as good as gone. Or at least this one was. Her face was on the news. Nova—and others—would be looking for her. She didn’t think plastic surgery would hide her identity at this point, not that she wanted to go under the knife. Or could.

She wasn’t safe. She’d just been exposed in the very worst of ways. Sure, knowing someone had seen her moments of passion with Marco in her very home was a violation of her privacy, but this was an exposure that could kill her.

“You…what?” Marco continued to stare at her.

“I’ve been in the Witness Protection program since I was nineteen.” She rubbed her palms over her knees. How much should she say? How much could she tell him? She’d begun. It was had to figure out where to stop except…the ending.

“Why?”

“Long story.”

“Start at the beginning.”

“Marco, people are going to be looking for me now. My face is out there. I’m not safe.” She stared at him, pleasing for him to understand, to comprehend the danger she was in.

“Who’s looking for you?” He swallowed.

“It’s…I…” She blew out a breath and closed her eyes. “I was involved with a group of hackers. Activists. I thought…I thought we were doing something good. Something the law wouldn’t be able to touch. We were going to shut down this website. It…people paid money to look at little kids. Bad pictures, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“We…we did it a few times with smaller sites and set-ups. To be allowed access to these sites, a lot of times someone has to be cleared. Vetted. One person in our circle would get cleared. Once they were in, we’d have access to their database, and we’d shut them down. Bombard the system, wipe it, the end.” Her hands shook. She stared into the darkened corner behind Marco, as if all her worst secrets lived there.

“Who was he? There was a
he
, wasn’t there?” He practically snarled the questions. Marco knew her so well, and yet he hardly knew her. The real her.

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes. “I was recruited by a guy I met at a café named Heath. He was…he seemed like a good guy. Older than me. Nice. He’s how I got involved. We’d talk about what was fucked up in the world and he’d go on about wanting to change things. Looking back, that’s how they got us. Most people were recruited on-line, but Heath…he found me in person. I was eighteen. Mom was dead. I was angry and alone. Heath…was someone to love and together we believed in something. Or I thought we did.”

Marco’s hand wrapped around hers, grounding her in the present. She squeezed back, needing that connection. There was betrayal…and then there was Heath. He’d known what he was doing from the beginning. And she’d taken the bait and spread her legs, all in the name of love and passion.

“The guy in charge was called Black Nova. We all had handles, to protect our anonymity, but the core group, Nova and Heath and the rest, they knew who we were. Our socials. Our addresses. It was how we were supposed to be kept honest. In reality…”

Her mouth worked for a moment. The betrayal still stung, even after all these years.

“They were stealing our identities and racking up credit card debt. The whole thing was for money. While myself and the lackeys were attacking these sites, Nova, Heath and the others were stealing bank account numbers and draining them dry. I thought we were doing a good thing. I told myself it was okay, because we were stopping molesters. When, really? I was the problem. We did it for…a year. More than a year. And this was just when I was with them. They’d been doing this way before me, but they never got found out because who is going to admit they got their bank account stolen on a website that caters to pedophiles? Only, it wasn’t just them. These sites, they’re often hosted alongside something normal and the law abiding people never know. Turns out, we cleaned out a dozen different charities, too.”

She blew out a breath and opened her eyes. Marco stared at her, as unreadable as ever.

“The FBI picked me up from where I was working, laid the whole scam out for me, and made me an offer. I don’t…I’ve never felt bad for what we did to the pedophiles, but the rest of it? That’s on me. I…had to help. Since I could identify half the inner ring and had the kind of access to identify the other half—if I used Heath’s rig—they made me a deal.” She swiped at her cheeks. The people she’d hurt, the wrongs she’d done, she’d never make up for it all.

“What was the deal?”

“Testify against them. They went really easy on me, probably because I was a fucked-up kid in their eyes.”

“What happened after?”

“They rounded up seven of the eight core members over six months.” She swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. “It was…it’s been hell. They’ve changed my name, hair and life five different times.”

“Ever think about surgery?”

“No. Even if I wasn’t allergic to heavy sedatives—just…no. I’ve lost so much of who I am, if I lose this,” she gestured to her face, “I won’t even know me.”

“What about the last guy? The one they didn’t find. What about him?”

“Black Nova. They’ve never caught him. Heath and the others never met him.”

“How do you know he’s still out there?”

“He keeps my old pictures on-line. There’s this site, sort of like the internet’s most wanted list, and…I’m there. There are four sites for hackers that list me. With a bounty, if someone can track me down, harass me. Kill me, even. It’s not just Nova. It’s others. Some of the core group, Heath even, were released. If they ever find me, Marco…” She pushed her hands through her hair. “I can’t go with you. If I do, they’ll find me. Or, what if running and hiding means that if they ever catch Nova, I can’t be part of the trial? I can’t…I can’t run. I have to…figure this out.”

“Then we get you to the Marshalls. Right?”

“They’re the ones who told me to go back to NueEnergy. Act like nothing was wrong.”

“They didn’t know. You have a number you can dial? A contact?”

“Yeah, but no one is answering. I haven’t been an active case in several years. Not since the last time some wanna-be-hacker saw me and outed me. It sort of gets you pushed to the back.”

“Yeah, there was a big Cartel case hitting the courts this week. I imagine they have their hands full.” Marco stared at her, his dark brown eyes seeing too much.

She wanted to cover herself, crawl under the table, anything to escape this moment.

She was a fraud. A fake. A criminal.

“I just wanted to make everything better, you know?”

“Been there.” Marco sighed and scrubbed a hand over his jaw.

“If…I wish…I almost wonder if I couldn’t get back into NueEnergy. Expose them for what they really are, you know?” That was her old self talking. The hactivist. If she’d never been caught she’d have probably joined up with one of the bigger hacking groups like Anonymous or something, because that was who she was. She believed in things bigger than herself.

“What would you need? In theory…and talk to me like I’m dumb.”

“Access to the NueEnergy system. But we can’t get close to them, and the way things are, you have to have proximity to one of their…doors. The stuff I had on the wall in my closet? That made my house a door.”

“So if you could…say…get close to one of their facilities you could, maybe, get access to their system?”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Huh.”

“What are you thinking?”

“NueEnergy kicked my grandparents off their land because they were too close to the facility they built to pump junk into the ground. Their house is literally in the shadow of the smoke stacks.”

“Shut up…”

“We could do it, but it’s dangerous.”

“Yes,” she said without pausing to think. She was herself now. Not the fake-Fiona, but herself. BadassBrat. And the Brat did what she wanted.

Marco opened his mouth to speak, except his cell phone buzzed. He grimaced and pulled it out of his pocket.

“It’s my dad, I should probably take this.” He let go of her hand and stood, answering his phone. His strides took him from one side of the room to the other, wearing holes in the carpet.

What had she done to deserve this man in her life? Now, of all times? At any other point in time, he’d be gone already. They’d have had their thrills, she’d have checked an item off her bucket list, and they’d never see each other again. Someone upstairs was looking out for her when they put Marco in her path.

“No, Dad, no. That’s not what’s going on… I get that. Yes, yes, that’s how it looks, but I swear to you…No.” He paused, eyes closed. She could pretty much hear him counting to ten. “Here’s my suggestion, Dad. Get everyone together, go to the reunion. Take a long weekend. When you come over, it’ll blow over. Dad—Dad—will you listen?”

The conversation went in circles, with more of the same back and forth.

Fiona excused herself into the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the tub behind the closed door. She gripped the edges, still listening to Marco’s muted voice, and breathed. Her body shook and the knot of anxiety inside of her was threatening to do some awful things to her stomach.

What had she done?

What was she doing?

If only she had a time machine so she could make everything right.

Scott sat shotgun in
the SUV, but Lila’s goons were ignoring him. He was fine with that. It wasn’t like these idiots understood anything he was saying. What they were able to comprehend extended to asset recovery, or put crudely, kidnapping.

He peered down the road once again.

Two cars pulled out.

The setting sun threw light through the interior, silhouetting at least four people in each vehicle.

The Benally rats were jumping ship, no doubt thanks to the news coverage that had all but named Marco as a kidnapper. Scott couldn’t blame them, but he doubted they’d get far. What with all the news coverage, the net around Brat and her two helpers had to be closing.

After getting a hit on her in Denver, Scott didn’t have any more resources to locate her. One thing he and Lila agreed on was that Marco would come back here. At the very least, he’d want to ensure his family was gone before he did whatever the hell it was he was going to do.

“That’s the last one.” Goon #1 shifted the SUV into drive and eased out from behind the juniper tree they’d parked behind. They drove down the dead end dirt road.

Each house along the way was dark. No cars sat in the driveways.

They went to the last house on the left, sitting farther off the road than the others. Goon #1 pulled the SUV around behind the house into an empty shed they’d scouted earlier.

Now all they had to do was wait, and hope Marco came home to roost.

Marco gripped the steering
wheel with both hands. He had very little idea of what to expect, who might still be at home or if the police here were mobilized and out to get them. Ghost wasn’t answering, which meant they were on their own, and they needed supplies. Plus, Marco couldn’t go to ground without checking on his family, though doing so might put Fiona at risk.

It was a no-win situation.

“What do we do if someone is here?” he asked. Again.

“Run to your parent’s house, get on the ATV, and head for the biggest rock on the horizon,” Fiona repeated his words down to the pauses for emphasis.

“Good. And?”

“And then call Aegis.”

He could see her glance at him from the corner of his eye. She was probably biting her lip. He was becoming well-versed in her expressions, the way she looked when they discussed her real past, versus her fictional one.

If he could go back in time and put things back the way they’d been, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Ghost had warned him there would be consequences, but Marco hadn’t listened. All that had mattered was his family and what had been taken from them. He’d never really wrapped his head around the fallout until he’d been in Fiona’s arms, felt her heart pulse, her breath catch.

“I don’t see any lights on,” she said.

Marco eased the car onto the dirt track. The headlights were off, so as not to giveaway their approach.

He checked the time.

It was late enough that a lot of the family would be in bed, but not everyone.

The only reason for a total blackout like this would be a mass exodus. Even if the power went out, his parents had solar panels on their roof that would supply some energy.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

The family would be safe.

Marco twisted in his seat, scanning the desert for signs they were being watched.

Out here there weren’t many places to hide. Law-abiding officers would be bound by rules. They’d have to stay off the fragile cryptobiotic soil, a black, crusty looking substance that formed over the desert’s surface and was the primary source of nutrients for growing things. Without it, all life in the desert would die.