She reached the gas station within ten minutes and pulled the matchbox from her pocket, although by now she had the number memorized, having stared at it so long before she got up the nerve to call the first time. She crossed to the phone set into the stations brick facade, sparing a glance at the lanky attendant teetering on the back legs of a metal folding chair and fanning himself with a folded piece of cardboard with a motor-oil logo peeking out of one end.
Sure is hot for March, he muttered halfheartedly and closed his eyes, showing no signs of wanting to start a conversation.
She murmured agreement and reached for the pay phone. But before her fingers touched the receiver, it began to ring. She grabbed it on instinct. Hello?
There was no answer, just the sound of a cars engine. The caller must be in a car.
Hello? she repeated.
Whos speaking? a familiar voice asked.
The voice that sounded like Rick Coopers.
Her hand trembled. Whos calling?
After a pause, the caller said, Sigurd.
Amanda slammed the receiver back on the hook, the tremor in her hand spreading like wildfire to the rest of her body.
The gas station attendant looked her way, his expression mildly curious.
Wrong number, she managed to rasp out. She wheeled and started walking away, her stride fast and purposeful.
The mans last word echoed in her head. Sigurd.
The phone behind her started ringing again.
Hey, its ringing again, the attendant called out.
She ignored him, walking faster. She heard the scrape of the attendants chair against the cement, and a moment later, the phone stopped ringing.
She kept going, her mind racing.
If the call was a message from Quinn, it made no sense. The CIA cut her off almost three years ago. She had no operational value to anyone, friend or foe.
Surely shed misunderstood the caller. Hed said something else. Anything but Sigurd.
After all, who would send an assassin after her?
Chapter Two
As Rick passed through Maryville, heading east, he checked his phone to make sure it was still working. Hed left a message earlier to let Jesse know about his change in plans, but so far, his brother hadnt called back for any details.
Not that Rick had any details to give him.
Thurlow Gap didnt even show up on the map hed looked up on his phone, but the drawling local whod answered the phone the second time gave him directions from Knoxville. Hed also shared what he knew about the woman whod answered Ricks earlier call. She was a freelance artist named Amanda Caldwell. At least, that was the name she was going by now. But after hearing her voice on the phone, Rick knew better.
She was the woman hed known as Tara Brady.
Tara had been a dry-witted, leggy blonde working out of the U.S. embassy in Tablis, Kaziristan. Hed been in the Kaziristan capital supporting a joint force investigating allegations of American citizens of Kaziri descent fighting with anti-government rebels north of Tablis.
Tara had never told him she was CIA, but he knew it, and she knew he knew it. It should have kept their interactions limited and circumspectmercs and spooks didnt get involved.
But he and Tara had.
Their affair had been brief but torrid. Lingering glances led to stolen moments of intimacy, then a few nights of frantic, amazing sex in a flea-bitten hotel on the outskirts of the city. Hed never fallen for a woman so fast or so hard in his life.
But of course, it had to come to an end.
He put the memories out of his mind and concentrated on the winding drive east through the rolling foothills of the Appalachian chain. Ahead, the expansive cloud-tipped peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park spread before him in hues of jade, turquoise and sapphire.
Tara loved mountains. Shed hoped one day to cross the Timrhan Mountains, the craggy, unforgiving border between Kaziristan and Russia to the north. Hed laughed at her bravado. Shed told him not to underestimate her.
That had been their last night together.
He reached the Thurlow Gap city limits around four-thirty. Though the sun was still high in the sky, nightfall hours away, the town already looked buttoned up for the evening. The gas station was still open, but the only person around was a buxom woman behind the cashiers counter near the front window.
Rick refilled the Chargers tank before approaching the womanpeople often responded more openly to nosy questions if you asked them while handing them money. He added a package of cinnamon breath mints to the tab and asked her if she knew Amanda Caldwell.
Who wants to know? the woman asked in a whiskeyed rasp, eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.
Im an old friend. Rick Cooper.
The womans brow creased further. Cant say she ever mentioned you.
She called me earlier today, but I didnt ask for her address. I was in the area so I thought Id drop by to visit.
She dont get many visitors.
Not surprising, Rick thought. No significant other?
The woman gave a loud snort. Hell, the girl dont even have a dog keepin her company.
He couldnt quell a glimmer of satisfaction at the womans words, though shame followed fast on its heels. What right did he have to wish her a life of solitude? When his hand was forced, hed chosen a mission over her. Shed made a similar choice. Things between them ended abruptly, and apparently shed never looked back. He hadnt, either.
At least not that hed ever let anyone see.
His coming here to talk to TaraAmandawasnt personal, even now. He just wanted to know why a CIA master spy like Alexander Quinn was pulling his strings where she was concerned.
The clerk inclined her head. Come to think of it, I reckon maybe shed like seein an old friend, at that. Especially a good-lookin fella like you. Her lips quirking, she lifted a sun-leathered arm and pointed down the road. She lives in a house a few blocks down Dewberry Road. On the left. The house is set back a bit, but you really cant miss itshe has a big black mailbox with the number 212 on it. She winked at him. Tell her she can thank me later.
Rick smiled and thanked her, heading out to his car. As he slid behind the wheel of the Charger, his cell phone rang. It was Jesse. He considered not answering but finally thumbed the connector. Hey, Jesse.
Why the hell are you heading north?
I cant tell you that yet.
You cant tell me? Irritation edged his brothers drawl.
Not yet. But its important or Id be on my way back to the office. Rick started the Charger.
The pause on Jesses end was thick with annoyance. You may be family, but that doesnt mean you can keep pushing the envelope quite so hard, Rick.
And you know as well as I do that some things happen we have to deal with on the q.t., Jess. This is one of them. Ill explain everything later, okay?
Jesse sighed. Stay in touch. He hung up.
Rick checked to see if he was safe to pull out. A black Toyota Land Cruiser turned into the gas station and pulled up at the pump behind him, leaving him in the clear.
As he waited for traffic to open up enough for him to take a left onto Dewberry Road, his gaze drifted back to the pumps, where a sandy-haired man wearing a black T-shirt and black trousers unfolded himself from the Land Cruiser and reached for the pump handle. He met Ricks glance briefly before his gaze settled on the gas pumps fuel gauge as it rang up his purchase.
As he waited for traffic to open up enough for him to take a left onto Dewberry Road, his gaze drifted back to the pumps, where a sandy-haired man wearing a black T-shirt and black trousers unfolded himself from the Land Cruiser and reached for the pump handle. He met Ricks glance briefly before his gaze settled on the gas pumps fuel gauge as it rang up his purchase.
Something about the sandy-haired man dinged Ricks internal radar. He didnt recognize him; Rick had a good memory for faces, and hed never seen the man in the Toyota before. But something about him just didnt fit here in Thurlow Gap. There was a foreignness to him. As if he didnt belong.
Heading east on Dewberry Road as the clerk had directed, Rick met his own gaze in the rearview mirror. Brown eyes stared back at him under dark, quirked brows.
Theres a foreignness to you, too, Rick Cooper.
Hed been away from home entirely too long.
AMANDA SCRABBLED THROUGH the closest box, cursing herself for falling into willful complacency. There was nowhere safe in the world, not even Thurlow Gap, Tennessee. No paradise was safe from murderous rage.
She should have prepared better for this moment from the second she set foot in this town.
Her former life came with baggage, but stupidly, shed shoved that baggage into a bunch of boxes stacked haphazardly on metal shelves in her basement and told herself that she was safe enough with two dead bolts on the front door and a cheap alarm system shed installed herself.
Shed thought the danger was over in this paradise of mountains and forests and friendly neighbors. Three years of mind-numbing normalcy had lulled her into a false sense of peace now shattered by a phone number on a matchbox and a single word spoken by a man shed once thought she might love.
She should have had a disaster kit handy. Forget her past with the CIA; she lived within fifty miles of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for Gods sake. She should already have been stockpiling food and water and batteries.
At least she had her savings. Shed driven to Maryville an hour ago and withdrawn all but a hundred dollars from the savings account. She had twelve grand in cash to work with. She could buy a lot of peanut butter and bottled water with money like that.
Buying a brand-new identity would be pricier, but at least she knew how to make that happen. She just had to make it to a big-enough city.
By four forty-five, shed packed two duffel bags full of survival provisions, including two of her three handgunsthe Walther P99 and the SIG Sauer P238and nine boxes of ammo. Upstairs, her Smith & Wesson M&P 9 mm was already loaded, with an extra round in the chamber.
Shed also packed a gym bag full of underwear, jeans, T-shirts and a denim jacket. All that was left now was packing a box of nonperishable foods and shed be ready to go.
To where, she wasnt sure.
She looped the canvas straps of the duffel bags over her arms, grunting at the weight as she started up the stairs. As she hauled the bags through the door into the kitchen, a high-pitched beeping sound started echoing through the house. It took a second to realize what it was.
Someone had tripped her perimeter alarm.
She dropped the bags on the kitchen floor and raced down the short hallway to her bedroom. A red light on the alarm systems control panel was blinking with each beep.
She hit the code and stopped the alarm from sounding before a call went out to the local police. Whatever happened next would have to happen without putting anyone else in danger, including the local law. The good old boys who wore the uniform of Thurlow Gaps police department wouldnt be prepared for what theyd find here.
She grabbed her Smith & Wesson from the nightstand. The heft of it in her hand gave her a renewed sense of control, easing the rapid-fire cadence of her pulse. She crept down the hall to the front of the house and moved to one of the windows looking out on the shaded front yard. Sliding the curtain aside an inch, she peered out at her driveway but saw nothing.
Still, something had tripped the perimeter. Might have been an animal.
Might not.
She took a couple of deep breaths to brace herself and scooted through the doorway into the kitchen to check out the side window. But when she peeked through a space in the curtains, all she saw was movement to her right, a flash of charcoal disappearing around the side of her house, heading toward the front.
She started toward the front door, then froze when three loud raps rang through the silent house.
An assassin who knocked first?
She moved away from the door, her footfalls whisper-soft against the hardwood floor. It might be a ruse to bring her to the doorway. Even peering through the fish-eye security lens was too dangerous; any large-caliber ammunition would penetrate the wood door. Shouldve replaced it with a steel-reinforced one, she thought.
Shouldve, couldve, wouldve. Too late now.
Knocks sounded on the door again, louder this time. She backpedaled, old instincts kicking in. She ran to the kitchen and grabbed a box of ammunition for the Smith & Wesson. Tucking the box in her waistband, she headed out the back door, hoping her visitor would keep knocking long enough for her to reach the woods behind her house. She could set up a defensive position there, her familiarity with the terrain an advantage.
She had barely reached the carport, however, when she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the flagstone walk toward the corner of the house. She raced around the back of her car and crouched behind the front fender.
The footsteps continued a moment, then fell silent. Amandas pulse thundered in her ears. She tightened her grip on the 9 mm and held her breath, waiting for his next move.
Tara?
The voice, deep and familiar, sent a shiver down her spine.
Sorry, its Amanda now, isnt it? Rick Cooper asked.
She remained silent.
I know youre out here. I can feel you.
Her stomach knotted, inconvenient tears stinging her eyes.
His footsteps made a scraping sound on the concrete as he walked slowly toward her car. I saw Alexander Quinn not two hours ago. Have you spoken with him?
Stop there, she commanded, pleased at the steadiness of her voice, considering how hard her heart was pounding.
He stopped.
She dared a quick peek over the hood of her car. Rick stood about ten feet away. His coffee-brown eyes met hers, his lips parting.
You called me earlier, she said.
His mouth quirked. Technically, you called first.
Did Quinn tell you what to say?
Not exactly. You know how damned inscrutable he is.
But he did tell you to say Sigurd?
He told me to remember the word. I chose to say it.
As Quinn had known he would. Manipulative bastard. What have you been doing since MacLear went down?
Working.
She sat back on her heels. Doing what?
Security-threat analysis. My brother has an agency.
I didnt know you had a brother.
I have two of them. And three sisters. I didnt just hatch out of a rock somewhere, you know. Ricks gaze focused on the barrel of the Smith & Wesson. I really dont like having a weapon pointed at me.
Too bad.
He pressed his lips in a tight line. Very well. What does Sigurd mean?