Shatter (30 page)

“Hallelujah.” Kai popped the disk and handed it over his shoulder. “Pays to hang with the geniuses.”

“I’m interested in links to Schaeffer running this mess,” Mitch told Cash. “Anything we can use against him. The formulaic details can come later.”

“Got it.” Cash retreated to a recliner in the corner, propped a laptop on his thighs, and got to work.

Mitch gave the last disk to Kai and met his gaze. They exchanged a
this-is-it
look and Kai pushed the disk into the slot.

“More video,” Kai said, looking at the file types. “Is there more surveillance?”

“Young said she only took the tapes from four weeks before she left.”

“Those were on the other disk.”

Mitch clenched his teeth. His stomach twisted with a sickening mixture of hope and dread.

“Where do you want me to start?” Kai asked.

“Skip to the middle. The earlier surveillance snippets were weak.”

Kai clicked on the sixth of the twelve video clips in the file. Mitch sat back, crossed his arms, and fisted his hands against his body. He had no idea what to expect.

When the image first came on-screen, he was disoriented. It took him a moment to realize the video was taken from eye level. Or rather, below eye level. Maybe shoulder level. Movement displayed the inside of a scientific lab. The camera had been tilted down, toward a dark gray countertop covered in instruments, chemicals, supplies, beakers, test tubes. A notepad and pencil sat off to one side, a laptop off to the other.

Jerky movements jiggled the camera. Muffled taps and scrapes made Mitch’s heart jump.

“There’s audio,” he said, excited. “Turn up the sound.”

Kai tapped the sound controls and the quick rasp of breathing filtered through the speakers. Then hands appeared in the image. Female hands. Halina’s hands—Mitch knew those long, graceful fingers. She had beautiful hands. She was wearing the tennis bracelet he’d bought her on a weekend trip to Vermont early in their relationship. The weekend, he remembered, he’d fallen deeply in love with her.

But the memories dissipated with the frantic movement of her hands on the video. The way her shaking fingers yanked open a drawer and slid the notepad in, then jerked open another and, with a sweep of her arm, dropped all the chemicals on the counter out of sight.

Just as the drawer slammed shut, a voice blasted, “I told you to handle it, Halina.”

The camera jerked up from the counter and their computer screen filled with Schaeffer’s image as he approached from across the room. Halina backed down the counter away from him.

“It’s like a helmet cam,” Keira said softly from the side of the group.

“She must have worn something in her hair,” Mitch said. “She always put it up for work. In a twist or a ponytail.”

“You said you could do that.” Schaeffer stood only a few feet away. With the camera tilting along with Halina’s head, Mitch had the sensation of literally standing in Halina’s shoes. He saw the menacing look in Schaeffer’s gray-brown eyes. The snide curl of his thin lips. The disgusting shake of his double chin when he spoke sharply. And he heard the threat in Schaeffer’s voice. The innuendo thick in his undertone.

He instantly knew a jury would salivate over the chance to punish Schaeffer for his harassment and intimidation. But also knew that kind of charge wasn’t enough to end his sick games. Wasn’t enough to keep the team safe.

“No, I didn’t,” she countered, a shake in her voice. “I’ve been telling you I have
no
control over him, but you don’t listen.”

Him.
Mitch’s mind twisted, contemplating all the possible players this
him
could be—Rostov, Gorin, Saveli. Hell, even Abernathy and Young popped into his mind.

Schaeffer’s hands jetted toward the camera, then disappeared from view while the whole image shook violently. The fucker had obviously put hands on Halina. Schaeffer was so close to Halina now, his bared teeth appeared crisply in the image, in all their imperfect, brown-edged glory.

“Don’t talk back to me,” Schaeffer rasped, low and threatening, spittle clinging to the sides of his lips as he spoke. “Just
do
what I told you to do.”

“I . . . I . . .” The high-pitched panic in Halina’s voice tore at Mitch. “I’m trying. I—”

“Trying isn’t good enough, Halina.” Schaeffer leaned closer. The whites of his eyes carried fine red lines. The area around his mouth was tightly wrinkled. “Get your boyfriend off Classified’s ass. And I mean
now
.”

Mitch’s gut fisted. This was what Halina had told him on the plane. No, not told him as much as confessed after he’d uncovered it.

“You’ve already had him fired from his job,” she said, clearly through gritted teeth, though there were tears of desperation in her voice now. “I’ve done everything I can think of. But he’s . . . he’s so . . .
driven
. I’ve gotten rid of his home files, but he’s still got some on his comput—”

Already fired him?
She’d told him she’d been trying to
prevent
him from getting fired.

“Then crash it,” Schaeffer yelled on the screen. “For Christ’s sake, you’re a fucking genetic scientist, Halina. Use your brain.” He shook her hard again and she whimpered. “I don’t care how you do it, but do it. Classified is getting spooked. As long as Foster is on their ass, they won’t process our chemicals, which means we can’t continue this project. They’re losing millions. We’re losing billions. America is losing lives.”

Schaeffer pushed her back with a jerk. The camera shook hard and Mitch clenched his fists, found himself wanting to reach for Halina to steady her—that’s how real this video was. And when her fast, harsh breaths filled the computer speakers, Mitch’s matched them.

“We’re not going to let one man stand in the way of all that.” Schaeffer dipped his chin, gave her a heavy-lidded glare and pointed at her. “You get him off Classified, Halina. If we have to do it, you’ll never see him again. You’ve got forty-eight hours.”

Mitch pulled in a sharp breath. Time seemed to freeze for a long moment while his mind
click-click-click
ed pieces into place. “Holy. Shit.”

“Please,” Halina begged on-screen. “I need more time. I need—”

“You need to do what you need to do to end this. Or we will. Permanently.”

Schaeffer turned, stalked across the lab, and exited.

Around Mitch, several long, heavy breaths exited his teammates. But he continued to watch as the camera shook with Halina’s muffled sobs. Watch as the camera panned down the cabinets with Halina’s slow slide to the floor. Watch as the camera tilted toward the floor, then her feet, then went dark when she pressed her head to her knees.

And listened as her wrenching, hopeless sobs hammered from the speakers.

She hadn’t been trying to save his fucking job. She’d been trying to save his goddamned
life
.

His mind tried to scatter in half a dozen different directions, scrutinizing the new connections that suddenly made sense. All the inconsistencies in her background. All the paradoxes between who she’d been and who she’d become. All the resistance to Mitch’s interference. All the jealousy over other women when she’d been the one to leave him.

“Oh my
God,
” he murmured.

Kai stopped the video. The room was silent—even Kat had stopped chattering, which left an eerie emptiness to the space.

Mitch’s gaze blurred over the screen, his abdominal muscles rigid in protection against the punch after punch he’d taken watching those videos. Sitting forward, leaning on his elbows, his pressed his thumbs to his lips. Inside, chaos reigned. He couldn’t imagine the fear she’d suffered. The confusion. The stress.

He was sliced up the middle with pain. One side dying over the abuse she’d taken to protect him. The other twisted over her keeping it all secret.

“He wasn’t after Halina,” Quaid said. “He was after you. He just used Halina to get to you.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Luke said. “She might have lied about why she ran back then, but Abernathy is after her research now. And we know she was the third scientist. Let’s watch some more—”

Mitch waved the idea away and rubbed both hands down his face. “Do it somewhere else. I can’t see any more of that.”

Kai picked up the laptop and moved to the table. He put earphones in and watched more video.

Mitch sighed and pressed his fingers to his eyes, trying to reconcile his emotions and thoughts. But it wasn’t working. He pushed off the sofa to pace and stared down at the carpet, hands on hips.

“What is your issue?” Alyssa asked in that you’re-being-an-idiot-again, big-sister tone. “She not only saved your life—more than once—she’s given up hers to keep you safe.”

“Which is completely selfless, I agree,” Mitch said, turning toward her. “And I’m beyond humbled anyone would sacrifice to that degree for me—”

“I’m beyond shocked,” Ransom muttered.

Teague held up his hand and added, “Beyond scandalized.”

Kai took one earplug out and said, “Beyond disgusted.”

Mitch sighed, looked at Cash. “Would you like to throw yours in before I go on?”

Cash’s eyes, usually sharp and bright, had a dull haze over them this morning. He shrugged. “Beyond . . . envious? You should start looking at what you have instead of what you fear you don’t have.”

Mitch set his stance and pushed his hands into his hips. “Well, someone’s tune has certainly changed.”

Cash had already dropped his head back into that damned notebook again. But he lifted it to pin Mitch with a suddenly clear gaze. “That’s what happens when someone risks their own life to save my kid’s. She didn’t have to think about ordering Dex to protect the kids. Didn’t have to pull Mateo into that huddle when she went down. Doing that added an extreme amount of risk to her own life.”

Cash gestured with the hand holding the pencil. “You can measure people’s sincerity, integrity, and character in a million different ways, and maybe it’s because of my military background, maybe it’s because of what I went through at the Castle, but when someone is willing to risk their life to save someone else’s, they get an A plus in my book. That’s the kind of character that comes from the soul. You can’t teach—or fake—that shit.”

Mitch’s shoulders slumped. He lifted his hands out to the side. No point in debating the point of whether the means justifies the end. Because in this case, of course it would have been justified. Mitch just had to suck it up.

“Well.” He let his hands fall against his thighs. “This is all moot, isn’t it? That leaves me with one question.” He pulled out his phone, opened the picture of Halina he’d just taken, and handed the phone to Keira. “Is she going to leave me?”

Keira glanced at Luke, who met her gaze for a moment, then shrugged. Keira took the phone and put her fingers to the glass, tracing the image. Mitch waited a moment, but finally turned his back and rubbed his forehead.

He tried to realign his mind with the case and turned to Kai. “Anything different on the other footage?”

“No,” Kai said, expression solemn. “Just a lot of threats to kill you if you exposed Classified. And to kill her if she failed to stop you.”

He dropped his head back and let his gaze blur over the ceiling for a moment. Then drew a breath and turned his gaze to Keira.

The moment her eyes met his, he had his answer, and his stomach ached from the hit. “She’s going to run again,” he said, his voice rough. “I can see it on your face.”

Keira nodded. “She is . . . possessed . . . by the need to get away.”

 

Gil flipped news channels to try and catch every angle of what the media was calling “the chemical conspiracy of the decade.” Whoever had released that bomb in Syria had killed over a hundred people and left another couple hundred with radiation burns over most of their bodies. They would soon be added to the casualty list.

“Dumb fucks,” Gil swore at the screen.

A knock sounded on the door, but it didn’t open.

“Go away,” Gil yelled and flipped to another news channel.

The door creaked open an inch and the face of a young girl peeked in. Behind her one of the Secret Service agents pushed the door open.

The girl was about sixteen, wore bright blue scrubs, and carried a bouquet of flowers.

“What the fuck is this?” Gil asked, making the girl’s smile fall. She glanced over her shoulder at the agent.

“Flowers, sir,” the agent said with a use-your-eyes tone. “I’ve checked them for explosives and bugs. They’re clean.”

“I don’t want any fucking flowers. Where’s Peggy? She shouldn’t have let this come through.”

“Peggy’s on her dinner break, sir,” the agent said. “The other nurse is in another patient’s room.”

“It’s o-okay.” The girl’s face had gone white and she backed out of the room, right into the agent. “I’ll . . . j-just bring them to the children’s ward—”

“Get the card, Agent,” Gil said.

The girl pulled out a clear plastic stick holding the card and the agent took it from her shaking fingers. She scurried away as the agent walked to Gil’s bedside and handed him the card.

“Great security in this place. Who the hell knows my alias?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Go find out how this happened.”

The agent left the room and closed the door behind him. Gil looked at the front of the card—the gift shop downstairs. He knew who it was from. She’d done this a couple times before. Fury burned beneath his skin as he pulled the card from the envelope and read: