Wild Encounter (20 page)

She knew personally every one of the WildLyfe employees and volunteers living on three continents, and half of them were here in Zambia. None of them would risk their career—not to mention going to prison—for something like this. She was sure of it. More to the point, none of them had access to the collars.

They had been using these collars for years, from the same supplier in upstate New York. She knew Reg Preston. He did engineering work for the military, too, and must have a mountain of security clearances. She just couldn’t imagine it being him.

“It’s not possible.” She shook her head. “No one else has access to the collars. Only the supplier and me. I do the orders and collect them myself.”

“You picked up the last batch?”

“I pick them all up. And fly them here.”

He regarded her steadily.

Her stomach dropped. Ice water rushed in to fill the void.

Surely, he couldn’t think—

Her spine straightened and her heart grew cold. “Really?
That’s
where you’re going with this?”

“I’m sorry.”

Blinding hurt radiated from the hole in her heart that his detached look had pierced right through it. He reached for her hand and she batted him away violently. “I’m a
suspect
?” she choked out. “What did I do, kidnap myself?”

He dropped his voice again, something indefinable in the tone. “You’re not a suspect, but you’re not entirely in the clear. You couriered the stolen documents into Britain. And your signature is on the order form.”

She reached for the table edge to steady herself. “Of course it is. I told you I’m the one who orders them.”

“We need you to come to London for interview—”

“Like a thief?”

His expression was grim. “Clare, I know you. Know you weren’t—”

“You fucked me,” she snapped. “You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing.” Her throat tightened. Pain bubbled up inside her like a hot geyser. Only the proximity of her colleagues kept her from scorching her palm across his handsome face. The face blurred in the tears she refused to shed.

He started counting off fingers. “You’re a foreign national, Clare. The collars are part of your job description and your signature was on the order for the double-housing. You weren’t supposed to be in the transporter—you volunteered at the last minute. What better cover for a covert meeting than to be taken by the hijackers? And then you miraculously escaped—”

“It was not
miraculous.
I paid for every moment after I went back into that farmhouse.” Baldy’s punch. Boot’s filthy paws all over her.

He wasn’t listening. Almost as if he’d never get going again if he stopped. “That’s what a good prosecutor could imply.”

But it wasn’t some lawyer, it was what
he
was implying.

She shoved him with both hands but he barely staggered. Agent Amazon immediately stepped up. Tim matched her.

“You were there, Simon,” she said hoarsely. “You
saw
what I went through. You’re telling me you think I faked that?”

He looked at her impassively. “You faked parts of it, by your own admission. For your own sake, you need to get cleared of any wrong-doing. Work with us,” he beseeched. “Come with me back to London and work with us.”

That was close enough to a
yes
for Clare.

She turned abruptly and stalked away from him, stripping her field gloves and tossing them on the table. If she spoke she couldn’t be held responsible for what came out.

“Clare. I know you didn’t do it,” he said from behind, pursuing her. “Yes, I was there. And yes, I saw what you went through,” he agreed. “But my objectivity has been questioned. To the prosecution this looks like a classic strategy—sleeping with the enemy.”

She snorted. “That goes both ways. From my side, it’s called entrapment.”

He made a noise of frustration. “The Crown needs more than just my gut feeling that you’re innocent. An official statement and interview, combined with the negative results on the customs search of your luggage—”

She whirled to face him. “You searched our luggage?”

Which explained the unusually fast check-in security procedure at Heathrow. Their checked bags had gone through to the back area straight into the hands of Simon and his cronies. Suspicion bloomed in her mind.

“Simon, when did you fly in to Africa?” He didn’t answer, but the twitch of a muscle in his jaw was telling enough. “You were on our flight. Why didn’t we see you?” she demanded.

“We were allowed to deplane first, so we could monitor your luggage through to the connecting flight.”

The delays at Jo’burg before they disembarked. Of course. “You were tailing me!”

“Tailing the whole team,” Simon corrected.

“My ass, you were. Your surveillance was for
me
.” Everyone but Nadia had flown into Zambia a day ahead of her.

Clare clenched her fists to disguise their shaking. After everything they’d been through together…

Done with each other

And been to one another.

It hurt to breathe.

Simon opened his mouth to speak, snapped it shut, and shrugged. “Does it matter who I was watching? We were monitoring all aspects of the customs procedure. That included the WildLyfe personnel.
All
of them.”

Clare ran a trembling hand through her hair. A soft
whuffing
drew her attention to the sleeping dogs. One of the pups was seeking its mother, even in its unconscious state. She walked over and gently moved it more firmly against the mother’s body.

Then she gave herself a mental shake. There was no time to think about all this other crap now. The dogs were waiting. The transporter and trucks still needed to be packed with the tents and bags and all the equipment. Mitch and Luka came over to check on Jambi and the other dogs, and the rest of the team stood waiting for her order to start loading up.

She took a deep breath and looked back at Simon. Swallowing down the incredible hurt.

“So what happens now?”

“I take you back to London.”

“To implicate myself or someone I work with?” Her voice grew thick and she whispered, “These people are my family, Simon…”

The twitch of his eye was almost a flinch.

“And what about the dogs?”

“You can finish transporting the dogs. As long as Mac and I are with you.”

Captivity all over again. Fabulous.

Her heart curled up in a ball to protect itself. A position it had plenty of experience with.

“Fine,” she said, feeling dead inside. “We have a lot to do. If you’re finished dropping your bombshells?”

His eyes darkened to slate. The last time Clare had seen them that color, he’d been looming over her, naked.

“There’s one more thing…”

She quashed the image. Prepared herself.

He blew out a long breath, and every instinct told her she was not going to like what came next.

“Just say it.”

“Your psychiatrist, John Douglass, works for SIS.”

Clare’s world ripped out from under her. With horror, she relived their many, many appointments. Their long discussions about her trauma, her fears, and the nightmares she’d had for months.

Her most secret feelings for Simon.

Her impassioned denials when Douglass suggested those feelings might not be real.

“My
psychiatrist
?” She swallowed back the acrid taste that rose in her throat. Every intensely private thing she’d told him… Every secret, ugly, stupid thing. Was all of it captured somewhere in an SIS case file? Or worse, had he recorded theirs sessions? With Simon’s name littered liberally through it.

How they all must have laughed at her pathetic attachment to her false captor.

The sound of Craig’s mocking laughter echoed through her mind.

Fury froze into solid ice as she stepped up to Simon and got right in his face. She would not be
any
one’s fool twice. “Is there anything you despicable people don’t control? Any line of decency you won’t cross?”

His expression was grave, gray eyes swirling with dark, ominous shadows. “It’s a matter of national security—”

“That’s bullshit—”

“Clare?” Luka called out to her. “We really need to get going.” The sedatives would only last a certain amount of time. No one wanted the animals to start waking up during transit.

“Yeah. Coming.” She turned back to Simon, holding her unsteady palm up to stop any more truths that might spill from his lips. “Nothing more. Do you hear me?”

He gave a short nod and stood aside so she could return to the others. She forced herself to pick up a new collar from one of the boxes they’d brought with them to Africa—one of the boxes Simon had undoubtedly thoroughly searched—and brought it over to where Luka and Tim hovered over the sleeping leader of the wild dog pack.

He didn’t interfere. He just stood back with arms crossed over his chest…watching her every move.

Clare worked in the screaming silence around them. No one had missed the exchange or the accusations. They had probably heard every last word. Across the Hessian blanket that unconscious Jambi lay stretched out on, curiosity blazed in Luka’s eyes, but it was impossible to know whether the speculation was over the intimate relationship that her argument with Simon had revealed, or over whether she was guilty or innocent.

Whether she was a liar and a fraud and a thieving criminal.

She pulled in a ragged breath and concentrated on the sedated dog. A dozen sets of eyes bored into her back. She couldn’t bring herself to meet them. Couldn’t stand to see her friends become her enemies.

Accused again.

Betrayed again.

Alone again.

Chapter Fifteen

“Get down from there, Clare.”

Simon’s cool voice rose just slightly.

“I’m driving the baggage truck.” She stood her ground. “I won’t go in the transporter.” Words she never imagined herself saying.

“Musai’s driving the baggage truck.”

“Fine. I’ll ride with Musai.”

Tim’s deep voice cut through the tension. “I can ride with Clare.”

“No. Clare rides with me.” Firm and unequivocal. Ordinarily she would have admired that. Now it infuriated her. Simon turned to her. “You know why.”

Yeah, and so did everyone else.

She rounded on him, ready to spit nails. Although, she wouldn’t be sorry not to have to deal with Tim’s well-meaning but irksome questions for three hours. “Who’s going to be guarding the dogs while you’re babysitting me?” she asked, her voice arctic.

“Mac’s in the transporter.”

“She knows nothing about wild dogs. She may fulfill your security concerns, but her presence does diddly for my animal welfare concerns. No offense,” she tossed at Agent Amazon.

The blonde lifted one brow. “None taken.”

“I’ll go in the transporter,” Mitch volunteered. “I know the dogs, I know dog behavior, and I’m the only other person authorized to use the sedatives.”

Simon caved. “Fine. Whatever.”

Clare climbed reluctantly into his SUV, turning her face toward the window the moment he got behind the wheel. The trucks ahead rumbled to life. The Nissan’s engine stood silent. At length she broke down and looked to see what the holdup was.

“As if I was going to let you ride with anyone else,” Simon said, low and steady, his hand resting on the ignition.

She exhaled, so not interested in anything more he had to say. “Protocols.”

He actually winced. “I don’t believe you’ve done anything wrong, Clare. But I have a job to do.”

“Right. Just following orders.”
The coward
. She turned back out to stare into the distance where their hired crew of locals was already dismantling the pens and the camp.

Simon sighed and started the SUV.

Ten minutes later they were on the highway headed northeast, following the equipment-laden Land Rover with Nadia at the wheel and Tim riding shotgun. The transporter carrying the dogs, McKenzie, and Mitch rumbled ahead of them, and beyond that, Musai in the jeep. Luka and the WildLyfe SUV was vanguard, leading the way on the hundred-and-fifty mile journey north. Other than Simon’s additional vehicle, it was exactly the same configuration as the convoy six months prior.

Except this time the transporter wasn’t a target.

The road curved toward the Kafue Flats and Clare glanced at her side view mirror, watching the familiar landscape recede behind them. Her chest squeezed, thinking of the memories she wished she could leave behind, too.

Once again she and Simon were on opposite sides of the law. But now
she
was supposedly the bad-guy.

And he’d been ordered to prove it.

The convoy turned onto the main highway that cut through the Kafue Flats toward Lusaka. Slowly, the terrain morphed into the typical mix of scrub and grasses she’d been absorbed with on the journey out. She glanced at the mirror again.

“Relax, Clare,” Simon said. “No one’s following us.”

Not what she’d been thinking. Until now… “Do you know where we are?”

He glanced at her. “Yeah, I do. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

A disturbing flutter started up in her chest. “Why? Is there a bounty on my head that you’re gunning for?”

His lips thinned. “Yeah. That’s what I’m interested in.”

His gaze cut to hers across the small space between them, and they fell to silence again. He returned his focus to the road. She returned hers to the mirror.

A battered up van was coming up behind them. Her muscles instinctively tightened.
Get a grip
, she scolded herself. The van was pretty typical of this part of Africa, so unless she planned to get hysterical about every vehicle that came their way, she needed to—however grudgingly—take Simon’s advice and relax.

There was no reason for anyone to hijack the convoy. No more chips in collars. Nothing left to steal or retrieve.
Thank God
.

To think, all that time the only thing her captors had wanted was the collars. The stolen information inside them, stashed there before they shipped out of the States. It seemed so impossible that Reg could be corrupt. He’d been a communications engineer for the NYPD. And he had ongoing contracts with the military. Surely, they’d have checked him out thoroughly?

But if not Reg, and not her, then
who
? No one else worked with the collars, and they shipped directly from Reg’s workshop to her to be—

The fine hairs rose on the back of her neck as an awful realization dawned.

She sneaked a peek at Simon, irrationally fearing he might hear the direction of her treasonous thoughts.

Only one other person had the authority to order design changes in the collars.

Artie
.

My God. Her
boss
.

Artie
had
been involved with the collars for this project. By special arrangement. Clare was the only person who’d known about that arrangement.

And what had happened to Clare…?

Her blood ran cold.

Maybe Artie was as thorough in covering his tracks as he was with his written reports.

She thought of the enormous care he’d taken of her after her return from Africa. Almost too much care. As though he had something to make up for. She’d thought he’d felt guilty for sending her to Africa. But maybe it was a different kind of guilt altogether… And before that, how hard he’d pushed the Zambian government to get the initial release moving.

As though none of them could possibly wait two long years.

And even before that his special request that she fly in to London for some pre-departure publicity. London, the city where the collars were supposed to have been hijacked.

Simon glanced at her and she strived to appear normal, even as her mind raced, flooding with the shock and dismay of her realization. The van behind them kept pace but hung back, unable or unwilling to pass a five-vehicle convoy, and its presence gave her the illusion of even more protection.

She closed her eyes and waded through her thoughts to an informal meeting she’d had with Artie eighteen months ago, when he expressed a frustrated desire to be more hands-on with the projects his organization was running. He’d bemoaned the fact that his role as head of WildLyfe had become so administrative, saying he craved an opportunity to be of more practical use. He’d asked to work on some aspect of her wild dog relocation project just as a one-time thing, to try his hand at something different. Looking back, it had seemed a little out of character for the polished corporate mogul. Artie had never liked to get his hands dirty. But his proclaimed desire to be useful had so neatly fit Clare’s own values, she’d never questioned it.

She suggested the logistics work for Africa, but he’d casually suggested—

She squeezed her eyes tighter.

The collars.

Her breath caught as the ramifications hit her fully. All the projects, all the goodwill… If Artie was arrested, or even if word just leaked out, there was no way any reputable corporation would touch WildLyfe with a ten-foot pole—or a ten-dollar donation—ever again. Let alone the millions they needed to run their projects all over the world.

She sagged in her seat.

Artie Lyfe was a criminal. A thief and a smuggler.

Not of wildlife, thank all the angels in heaven, but information. Stolen records from some mega-corporations that exposed millions of their customers. And the British Secret Intelligence Service was just a few conversations away from having what they needed to arrest him and put him away forever.

A tour bus whizzed past, going the other way.

Clare rested her head on the window, thinking about all the projects she’d visited through WildLyfe, all the people and careers and livelihoods involved. The hundreds of animal species desperately in need of help. And Artie had just betrayed every single one of them. WildLyfe would be destroyed.

And with it, Clare’s entire world.

Only if they know,
a voice whispered in the back of her mind. She was the only person alive who could connect him to the data chips in the collars because even Reg wouldn’t have known the design changes came from him and not her.

If she said nothing, Artie would get away with his crimes, with what he did to her, and Lord knew what other illegal activities he’d been up to. Could she seriously walk away knowing that if she did, something similar to what had happened to her could happen to someone else down the line? Someone who might not be able to get away safely, as she did?

Plus, if she said nothing,
she
might become a suspect, guilty in the eyes of Simon and the rest of the world.

But her dogs… Her work… They were her whole life, and without them there’d be nothing left in her future.

Nothing.

The realization bit deep and hard in her chest. Her heartbeat raced in time with the trees flicking past as they sped down the Trans-African Highway.

Simon glanced at her several times before finally speaking. “I’m sorry, Clare.”

She looked at him as blankly as her thumping heart would allow.

“I know that you’re upset about Douglass. I want you to know that it was my decision to get him assigned as your shrink.”

Of course it was. That just completed the nightmare. The trees zipped by hypnotically.

“Why?” she whispered.

“So that you would have support. Someone to help you deal with your trauma. To help put things right. I worried that you’d try to go it alone.”

She frowned. “How is violating my right to doctor-patient confidentiality helping me?”

He glanced at her, surprised. “The reports are sealed, Clare.”

“They still exist.” And seals, like hearts, could be broken with the stroke of a finger. “How do I know someone won’t end up reading them? That you won’t.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you. Betray your trust that way.”

The insane urge to laugh swamped her. How high would the excuses stack up before she acknowledged them? How many different ways could he put his job before her? And why did she expect anything different from him?

“Besides,” he went on. “They’re probably safer as sealed MI6 files than the confidential files of any other psychiatrist.”

She hated how often he was right.

“So what happens now?” she asked after a long breath. “After we release the dogs?”

“Best case scenario, I escort you back to London where we’ll question you more and get what we need to officially rule you out.”

Being escorted out of Africa by armed government personnel was the best case? What the hell did he imagine worst case was? “What do you mean, officially?”

He looked at her long and hard. “I watched your face as I showed you the second chip. You’d never seen it before. McKenzie will back that.”

She stared at him and probably should have been pleased. “Great.”

The SUV ate up the miles and the next road sign told them they were approaching Kasanka National Park. Low, jagged mountains poked up among the trees and brush.

“Kasanka,” Simon said. “Why do I recognize the name?”

Her answer was automatic. “Dr. Livingstone’s heart is buried there.”

Simon looked at her, brow raised. “The Dr. Livingstone? As in ‘I presume’? He’s buried there?”

“Just his heart.” His confusion was evident and she went on. It was better than talking about Artie or, worse, themselves. How
not
an item they would now be. “The rest of him went elsewhere.”

“They cut it out?”

“At his request. And they buried it under a tree he specifically requested somewhere in what is now the park. I think it’s quite…” She searched for the right word.

“Romantic?” He looked at her strangely.

“Fitting.”

Gray eyes scanned the raw, rugged beauty of Zambia that she knew so well. Simon nodded. “I think I can understand his desire to leave his heart in the place that had come to mean so much to him.”

I certainly left mine here
, Clare thought. And would again.

In a rush, she realized she’d missed something in all her ponderings about her dogs, her life, her job. What about
Simon’s
job? Years of work on his part, three months of deprivation undercover with some of the lowest human beings ever to walk the earth. All of that would be wasted if the right culprit wasn’t caught and convicted.

Could she withhold what she knew about Artie just to protect her own interests? When so much was at stake for Simon, too?