Hunted, A Romantic Suspence Novel (23 page)

“But I want it too, Matt. Truly, I do.”

With determination he released her shoulders and gently secured the belt of the robe back in place. “I know you do. But now isn’t the time or place for us to be together. When it is, I promise neither one of us will take advantage of the other.”

“Hey, Matt. We need Katie down here to talk to the sketch artist on the phone,” Luke called from the first floor.

Confusion of a different kind crossed her face. “Sketch artist?”

“I only got a glimpse of Gideon. No one else saw him at all. Castello couldn’t see through the pandemonium that broke out.” Matt brushed his thumb across her jaw. “You lived with Gideon for years and know what he looks like. We need you to give them a description, and any distinguishing marks you can remember.”

“Hey, you two coming, or do I need to bring the phone up there?” Luke sounded closer.

A soft groan of frustration escaped her.

“You’d better go ahead. I’ll join you in a few minutes.” Matt released her and stepped away from the door, giving her room to slip into the hall. “I need a moment to calm things down.”

Katie took a few steps, then stopped and turned, a mischievous smile on her lips. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“I’m wrong? About what?”

“When you decide the time is right for us to be together,” she pulled the top of the robe closed, and took a step backward, “I intend to take full advantage of you.”

“Height?” Fifteen minutes later, dressed in the jeans and sweater Sami had sent with Luke for her, Katie leaned against the kitchen counter and stared into space, trying to determine Gideon’s height. Since she stood just an inch above five feet, almost everyone seemed taller to her.

Matt walked through the door, and she motioned him closer. Holding the phone away from her, she asked, “How tall are you?”

“Six feet, three inches.”

He reached past her to pull a glass from the cupboard. She inhaled the spicy scent of his aftershave again. His body heat brushed past hers, sending tingling awareness across her skin.

When the woman on the phone’s other end said her name, she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. “Excuse me?”

“Do you know the suspect’s height, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes. He’s over six feet tall. Maybe one or two inches.” Heat filled her cheeks. Katie turned away from Matt, forcing herself to concentrate on Gideon’s description as the woman continued to ask her questions. “Blue eyes, very crystal clear blue eyes. Hair color? Blond, but I’m not sure. He might’ve changed the color.”

“The man I saw had white hair, and he wears a short military cut,” Matt said, then drank long and slow from his glass of water.

Katie swallowed hard as his neck muscles worked then she repeated what he’d said into the phone. “Distinguishing marks? He has a scar from his right ear to the corner of his mouth. No, ma’am, the scar is a very old one.”

When she couldn’t provide any further information, the artist promised to send a copy to Marshal Castello later that evening. After hanging up the phone, Katie joined the trio of men who were digging into the box of fried chicken and biscuits on the table.

“Who cooked?” She sank her teeth into the tender chicken. Still warm. That took care of number two on her list. Now all they needed was a plan.

“Luke went out for it while you were in the tub.” Matt offered her some french fries. “He’s always good for food, if nothing else.”

Luke grinned at her between bites of chicken. She glanced at Castello who was listening to someone on his cellular phone as he ate. For the first time since they’d left the cabin that morning, she relaxed.

“So, Katie, why does Strict want you dead?” Luke sat back in his chair, his plate completely clean. “I mean besides the whole you-got-him-convicted thing. Why now?”

Katie almost laughed at the comical way the younger brother ignored the glare Matt shot across the table. “You mean why now, when he’s had ten years to find me and do it?”

Luke nodded.

She considered his question a moment or two, logically. This time she didn’t feel any of the panicky need to run and hide like she had the past few days.

Why now? Good question.

Katie wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “I guess because Strict has this need to control everything. His ego is so dependent on always succeeding, always being a step ahead of everyone else. If he can’t keep the government from killing him on New Year’s Eve, then he’ll settle for making sure the girl who betrayed his cause doesn’t outlive him. The fact that I’m female makes it an even bigger slap to his pride.” She took a long drink of her iced tea. “Women are lower than dogs on his hierarchy of evolution, you know.”

“Okay, that explains why you feel your death is on a time limit,” Matt said, focusing his attention solely on her. “But now that we know who the hit man is, I think there’s another puzzle piece we need to establish.”

“What?” Curiosity and apprehension filled her. Where was Matt going with this? She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“If Gideon was Strict’s right-hand man, why did Strict hide the fact that Gideon survived the Federal Building blast from his own people? Why has Strict kept Gideon hidden from everyone and everything for the past decade?”

“Because he wanted to use him to hunt for Katie?” Luke answered.

Matt shook his head and laid a hand on Katie’s. “Didn’t Strict announce to the clan that all three men died in the blast before you left and turned them in?”

Katie nodded, her appetite suddenly replaced by nausea. “He labeled all three as martyrs for his great cause. That was when I decided I had to leave.”

“And Strict strikes me as a man who never does anything without a reason behind it, right?” Matt asked.

Again, she nodded.

“So, maybe, Strict had other uses for Gideon. Some other plan he intended him to carry out?” Luke asked, following his brother’s line of thought.

“It could be you’re on to something, Edgars.” Castello closed his phone. Anger, hard and tense, etched lines around his mouth. “Gideon is apparently leaving no witnesses behind.”

The nausea in Katie’s stomach turned to cold fear. “Why?”

“We’re pretty sure who the informant in our division was.”

“Was?” Luke asked, all humor gone.

“They found my personal secretary dead in a storage locker.” Castello swallowed several times before continuing. “She’d been tortured, just like Pete.”

“You’re sure she’s the leak?” Matt asked.

“She sent a text message to my captain, tendering her resignation and that she was responsible for Pete’s death. They traced her cell phone GPS to the storage locker where they found her.”

“Why would she leak information to Gideon? She didn’t even know me.”

“Money?” Luke asked.

Castello shook his head. “Leslie didn’t live extravagantly. Seemed a sweet kid with a boring life outside of work when she came to work for us a few years back. Hell, she didn’t have any access to any information about you, Sar..er..Katie.”

Katie smiled softly at his stumble over her name. “Then how did she know about me or where I was?”

“She didn’t.” Matt said.

“Then how did she blow my cover?”

“She didn’t blow your cover. She blew mine and Pete’s.” Frank locked gazes with Matt.

“My guess is she was a plant. Once they figured out they couldn’t get any information about Katie’s whereabouts,  they started following  the movements made by you and your partner.”

“Shit. And we eventually led them straight to Katie.”

“I take it this lady was on the task force?”

“Stupid rookie mistake. I assumed the leak had to come from someone with clearance to access files.” Castello rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze meeting Matt’s.
“Leslie’s and Hagen’s deaths means our man’s making sure no one can identify him.”

Matt slid his arm around Katie.

“What’s this guy up to, besides filling the local funeral homes?” Luke asked.

“Preparing.” Katie’s one word pronouncement caught all their attention.

“For what, sweetheart?”

“This has all the earmarks of some big plan of my stepfather’s. I would almost bet that my death is not Gideon’s only assignment.”

“Do you know what they might have planned?” Castello asked.

She shook her head. “No, but it’ll be big, I guarantee it. The Prophet always said he would be immortal. What better way to make people believe it, than to strike from beyond the grave.”

“Damn, I wish we knew what he was planning.” Castello stood and paced the room.

Katie felt Matt studying her.

“You’re sure you don’t know what Strict might be planning?” Matt asked.

“No.” She swallowed hard. The answer was so obvious and so frightening. “But I bet I know where to find the answers.”

“Where?” Castello and Luke asked simultaneously.

“No.” Matt shook his head. “I’m not letting you go there.”

“We have no choice, Matt.” She laid her palm on his cheek. Suddenly, there was no one else in the world but the man seated next to her. His pain at knowing what she had to do touched her very core. He alone understood what this would cost her. “The answer has to be buried there.”

“We’ll send someone else to get it. I don’t want you going back to that nightmare.”

“No one else can find it. I have to go.”

“What are you two talking about?” Castello asked.

Luke stood and started cleaning the table. “Papers Katie stole from Strict and hid ten years ago.”

“Where do you have to go to get them?” Castello asked.

Matt shook his head again trying to convince her to put the idea out of her mind.

Katie stared at Matt and slowly nodded her head, willing him to understand one more time.

Not taking his eyes off her, he slowly bit out the words. “She has to go to Strict’s compound, the Bunker, in Pennsylvania. Back to her nightmares.”

Four hours later Matt drove the SUV on I-70 across the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. He and Katie were headed to Strict’s Bunker in the farmland of Western Pennsylvania to retrieve the papers she’d hidden on the compound years earlier.

“This plan sucks,” he muttered for the hundredth time.

Katie quit answering him at least an hour ago, which only increased his agitation. She wanted to dig around the compound immediately, get the papers and get out. The only flaw in her agenda was the fact that they would reach the compound after dark.

No matter what she said, he wouldn’t allow her to search through her nightmares in the cold and dark. He also wouldn’t let her spend the night out there.

Anger and something close to fear settled in the pit of his stomach.

Every time she delved into her memories of her time with the Family, it tore her apart just a little more. He didn’t know how much more he could witness or how much of the woman he’d come to love would survive the process.

He glanced at her still, quiet figure in the passenger seat. With every mile they closed in on the Bunker, she withdrew further. Tension radiated from her. She looked so frail and fragile, like spun glass hanging by a thread. If he touched her, he feared she’d shatter into a million pieces.

“When you get to the I-76 junction, take State Route 119 north.” Tension laced her voice. She didn’t consult a map.
You never forget your way into hell,
she’d said.

“How much farther?” He focused on the highway. Fat snowflakes fell before the car’s headlights. Semi-trailers and the occasional pick-up truck were their only traveling companions on the highway.

“I’m not sure. I lost track of time when I left the Bunker behind me.” She glanced at him and he knew she already remembered the fear she’d felt that night. “It seemed like forever at the time.”

“You’re safe with me, Katie.” He laid his hand over her entwined fingers in her lap. “Strict can’t come after you tonight.”

“But Gideon can.”

He squeezed her hands tighter, trying to infuse some confidence in her. “As far as we know, he’s still in Columbus somewhere. If Castello is right, with the secretary dead, Gideon will have no way of knowing where we’re headed or why.”

“I wish I could believe that.” Her gaze met his. Nothing but despair filled her face.

“Last time you were in Strict’s compound, no one was there to help you or fight for you. This time, you have me. I intend to stick to you like white on rice.”

A quick, hesitant lift to her lips let him know she appreciated his effort to lighten her mood. It disappeared as quickly as it came.

“Do you think the secretary was the leak in the Marshal’s task force?”

“Probably. The question remains, was she the only leak?” He released her hands to grip the steering wheel with both of his. “The way your hit man is leaving dead bodies behind him, unless Castello finds another member of his task force dead, it’s more than likely she was Gideon’s main source of information.”

Katie shook her head. “I never met her. I did meet Pete’s first secretary a few times.”

“You did?” His hands tightened on the wheel.

“She was very nice. The morning the FBI agents brought me to the Marshals as a witness for them to protect, she served me hot tea at her desk.” Katie’s voice caught, like she was trying not to cry. “I kept thinking my mom would’ve liked her.”

The same mother who put her in the hands of a monster?

He glanced at her. A tear ran down her cheek.

“Why are you crying for that woman? She put your life in danger.”

“
Castello told me when she died in that car accident three years ago. Do you think it was an accident?
”

“You can’t possibly think her death was your fault.” He took his foot off the accelerator as he came to the turnoff to Route 119.

With a soft grunt, she closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “I know I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you mean. But if the Devil wanted someone to take her place, then her death could be because of me.”

Matt tried to rein in his anger. He wasn’t going to let her take the blame for this. “If, and I’m not saying he did orchestrate her death, the first woman’s accident was intentional, you are not to blame. Strict and this Gideon are.