Hot Pursuit (34 page)

“Brianna knew he wasn’t dead.” She remembered
what Bree had said on the docks—
you’d be surprised
—but she
hadn’t understood it at the time. “And she still hasn’t called. Do
you think David got to her? Maybe he killed her. Maybe he hid her
body in my mother’s house before blowing it up.”

David hadn’t admitted to setting the
explosion. He’d said he was inside the house looking for the disc
when someone else arrived and he had to get out. He also said he
hadn’t chased them afterward. She could imagine a lot of things
from him, but she couldn’t imagine him killing anyone. She’d been
wrong about him once before, though.

Wrong enough that she would never believe a
word he said again.

Matt shrugged. “It could mean a lot of
things. But we better get to work figuring out what’s on this disc
if we want to find out.” He kissed her again, then sighed in
frustration. “Damn, I’d like to be inside you right now. Just ten
minutes, that’s all I need.” He blew out another breath. “But we
can’t.”

“When this is over.” She pushed away and
stood up to slide into the seat across the table. “You’re mine for
twenty-four hours.”

She thought maybe a flash of regret flickered
in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure.

“You’re on. We aren’t getting out of bed
except to eat. And even then, I think we’re gonna do it naked.” He
set the laptop on the table and powered it up, then slid the disc
into the drive. His fingers clicked across the keys. “Yep, here it
is. Along with your songs, there’s a compressed file.” A frown
creased his face. “Password protected, of course. Any idea?”

“Try ‘lying snake.’ Kidding,” she said when
Matt looked up at her. “I’m not sure. Maybe his birthday.” She
rattled off the date, miffed on at least one level she could still
remember it.

“Nope.”

She suggested a couple more things—his
mother’s name, Helen, and his favorite drink, absinthe—both of
which came up negative. Oddly, she began to realize she hadn’t
really known that much about him. He liked to surf, so they tried
various “surfer dude” combos. She didn’t know if he had a sister, a
favorite color, or even a favorite food. Strange, considering she
was a chef and cooking was her business. She’d never thought to ask
David what he liked to eat. He ate the food in the restaurant, but
she’d never known if he had a favorite.

“You’re thinking too hard about something,”
Matt said, jerking her back to the present.

“Sorry.” She leaned her cheek against one
palm. “I was just thinking that I didn’t know him very well for a
guy I dated for two months.”

“I’m sure he didn’t want you to know him. He
told you what he thought you wanted to hear.”

“You’re sweet, but I think I tend to have
lousy taste in men. It’s an inherited trait.”

Matt grinned. “Thanks,
chère
, I
appreciate the compliment.”

“You aren’t lousy, but you aren’t good for me
either.” She smiled when she delivered it, yet she meant it
too.

“Why’s that?” He looked genuinely
puzzled.

“Because you aren’t available. You’re already
married to your job. Nothing and no one comes before that, I
think.”

“Yeah.” He looked troubled, but then the look
passed and determination took its place.

“See,” she said brightly, “I’m cursed with
the family gene.”

“You’ll find the right person. It just takes
time.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” Her throat ached.
“Everything worth having takes time.”

She heard him tapping on the keys again. “I
need to get this file to Kev. We won’t figure it out by trying
different combos of stuff. The Kid can crack it for us.”

He picked up his phone and punched a button.
She was grateful for these guys even if she never got to thank them
personally.

“Got another file for the Kid,” Matt said
after the preliminaries were finished. “An encrypted data file.
This is the info we were looking for, Big Mac. I need this as fast
as he can get it done, top priority. I’ll owe him one, believe
me.”

A minute later, he finished the call and then
got to his feet. “We need to move. We can’t sit in one place too
long.”

“Do you really think anyone is looking for
us?” Who could be out there trolling the lake for the Girard yacht?
The police, maybe, but not if their hands were still full with what
had happened at the house earlier. She pictured it again, one wall
blown away—in the kitchen, of course—and the flames eating at the
rest of the structure. All of her childhood memories were gone with
that blast. The pictures, the ridiculous things she’d saved—the
movie ticket stub from her first date, the candy wrapper from the
bar Matt gave her in class once when she was in her full-blown
crush mode. She’d saved so much silly stuff, never bothered to toss
it out or take it with her when she left, and now it was all gone.
Everything, ruined.

“We can’t take a chance, Evie. We don’t know
how many people are looking for us, or how long it’ll take them to
figure out the yacht’s gone.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ve been
out for nearly two hours now. Someone’s noticed, believe me.”

“Where are we going?”

He paused in the doorway to the rear deck.
“I’m taking a different finger of the bayou, a deeper one, where we
can get into the cypresses and wait. Hopefully, we’ll hear
something from Kev soon.”

“When was the last time you took this thing
into the bayou?”

“Years ago.” He held up a hand to stop her
protest. “I know it’s changed, that the hurricanes have silted the
bottom, but we only need a few feet. We’ll be okay.”

He disappeared through the door and scrambled
up the ladder. Evie laid her head on her arms while he fired up the
engines. She hoped he was right about the depth because if he drove
this beast into the bottom, they’d be sitting ducks.

* * *

“Goddammit,” Brianna swore, throwing
something that hit the deck with a clink.

“You aren’t helping any, you know that?” The
guy she called David looked angry.

Sarah wanted to laugh it was so damn funny,
but she didn’t want to call attention to herself. What if they
decided to toss her into the bayou after all? The gators were out.
They’d already seen the glow of eyes lurking above the surface when
David turned the spotlight on to figure out where they were in
relation to land.

They weren’t, of course. The swamp stretched
around them, nothing but cypresses, Spanish moss, and duckweed as
far as the eye could see. The mosquitoes were murder. Sarah
hunkered into a ball. She couldn’t cross her arms against her body
because of the handcuffs, so she shook her arms as much as she
could to drive the bloodthirsty things away. It didn’t really work
and she could feel the welts rising. Her skin itched like crazy,
but there was nothing she could do about it.

Her only consolation was that her two idiot
companions were as miserable as she was. The boat drifted silently,
the motor having died several minutes ago. It was probably the fuel
pump, but she wasn’t telling them. Not that it’d do a bit of good
anyway if they didn’t have a spare on board.

“Why’d you have to switch to this anyway? The
motor boat worked perfectly well.”

“Airboats are faster, and they can cross
land,” David said.

Idiot. They
could
ride across land,
but you’d damn well better know what you were doing. Airboats
didn’t have brakes and idiots shouldn’t be at the tiller. He’d
rented it or stolen it, no doubt from Bubba Boudreaux’s. Probably
watched a movie or something and thought it’d be a breeze,
ha-ha
, to operate. If these two didn’t kill her on purpose,
they’d probably all end up dead out of sheer stupidity.

“This one doesn’t seem to be faster,
Einstein. In fact, I’d say it’s dead. So now what the fuck are we
supposed to do? Wait for someone to rescue us?”

“You know, I’m beginning to regret this
deal.” His voice was a hard growl.

Brianna didn’t seem to care. “Yeah, well you
need me now, so don’t get any funny ideas. Ouch!” She slapped
herself to dislodge a mosquito. “Where are the paddles?”

“Give me a few minutes. I’ll figure this
out.”

“Fine, you play mechanic, I’m finding
them.”

David didn’t say anything else while Brianna
flipped open compartments.

“Here they are. Thank God.” She pulled two
paddles from the storage locker under the deck and tossed one at
Sarah. “Make yourself useful, kid.”

Sarah struggled to position herself at the
side of the boat and dipped the paddle into the dark water. She
thought about dropping it accidentally on purpose but rapidly
discarded the idea because Brianna would probably make her go in
after it.

Still, she wasn’t in any hurry to paddle
quickly or well. They inched forward at a snail’s pace while
mosquitoes ate her alive and her muscles screamed. She began to
think that falling in and drowning would be preferable to even a
single second more of this torture.

* * *

Kevin MacDonald rocked back in his chair and
rubbed his eyes. The strain of sleepless nights was beginning to
burn deep, but he couldn’t seem to stop them. He couldn’t quit
thinking about that last mission. Matt was going to take the heat
for the whole damn thing, but he shouldn’t have to. It wasn’t his
fault. Wartime was different. Things happened. Things you weren’t
always prepared for.

A fifteen-year-old traitor wasn’t something
any of them were prepared for. Not that the kid had a choice,
probably, but the information passing through him had been reliable
before. It wasn’t Matt’s fault it was a setup this time. Wasn’t his
fault he wanted to save the kid and his family and ended up losing
two of their own instead.

Marco and Jim were gone. Kev slid a hand
through his hair. He’d liked Jim well enough, but Marco had
probably been his best friend in the world. They’d gone through
Hell Week together when they were trying out for the Special
Forces, and they’d been best buddies since.

Kev tried not to think about that last day
when the tangos had taken Marco and Jim away and made an example of
them. He would have given anything to save them both. Marco had a
wife, for fuck’s sake. Lucky San Ramos wasn’t answering the phone
these days. Hadn’t answered his calls since they’d returned, and
he’d tried to make sure she was okay and to tell her he was
sorry.

When he went around to Marco and Lucky’s
place that one time, no one was there. A For Sale sign tilted
crookedly in the yard, the only indication Lucky still owned the
place. He’d tried a couple of times, but she was never home.

At another terminal, Billy Blake’s fingers
flew over his keyboard while he worked at cracking the password.
Kev didn’t know too much about it, but he knew it was only a matter
of time. The Kid had programs that cracked passwords with amazing
speed. They’d been at this one only a few minutes because they’d
had to badge back into the building, pass through several layers of
security, and get to their desks. Kev glanced at his watch. Nearly
four a.m. now. Colonel Mendez wouldn’t be in for another two hours
at least.

Kev picked up the phone and dialed by rote.
The answering machine kicked on, spooking him as usual. Marco’s
voice sounded so alive as he announced they weren’t available so
please leave a message. He started to hang up, but when the beep
sounded, he tossed a glance at Billy and lowered his voice.

“Hi, Lucky,” he said. “I, uh, hope you’re
okay. Let me know if you need anything, okay? I’m really sorry. Um,
call me if—”

If what, fuckhead?

What could he possibly say that would ease
her pain? Jesus God. Kev stabbed the disconnect button and dropped
the phone onto the desk. His gut roiled. It was unfair as hell that
Marco was gone. And there was nothing he could do about it, nothing
he could say to ease Lucky’s pain or his own guilt.

Billy grunted and Kev spun in his chair. “You
got anything yet, dude?”

“Close, but no. I thought I had it for a sec.
I’ve got the hashing done, but it’s still trying to work out the
plaintext word from the hash.”

“Yeah, whatever you say.”

Billy turned to grin at him. “It’s easy, B.
Just load the program and let it go to town. Hey, you okay,
man?”

Kev pinched the bridge of his nose and
yawned. “Yeah, just got a lot on my mind.”

“You talk to the psych yet?”

The military psychiatrist they were all
required to talk to after returning from a mission. He’d meant to.
Had to if he ever wanted to go on another mission. “No, not yet.
Next week.”

“You talk to Lucky at all?”

“No.”

“Man, it was a bad trip this time. Fucked us
all up. Wish we could have been here for the funeral, though. She’d
have appreciated it, don’t you think?”

Kev ignored the question. “We’re going to
lose our team leader over this.”

It was the first time any of them had voiced
it aloud, though they’d certainly all thought it. Hell, and if they
got caught doing what they were doing right now, they’d find
themselves at Fort Leavenworth along with Matt. And Kev just damn
well didn’t care. If he could do anything to save Matt Girard’s
ass, he’d do it. If he could take the fall for the guy, he’d do it.
If he had to go down with his team leader, he would.

Billy tapped a key, then folded his arms. “I
hate to see Richie go, you know? I’d follow him anywhere.”

“We
have
followed him anywhere, man.
We’re still following.”

“Yeah, guess so. Damn,” Billy said, thudding
his fist on the desk. “Almost had it.”

“Almost had what, sergeant?”

Kev closed his eyes for only a second before
rocketing to his feet and snapping a salute. Beside him, Billy did
the same. Colonel Mendez eyed them both, his gaze flinty. The
Colonel was imposing in his Army Combat uniform, even though his
nose wasn’t quite even with Kev’s chin. At the moment, he looked
about ten feet tall and angrier than a wet cat.