Lindsey.” He shook his head. “It’s worse than that. So much more dangerous and threatening.”
At least he understood that much about the place that starred in her nightmares. That was more than her father ever understood. “Okay, then.”
His shoulders dropped a little, as if the tension stiffening them had ratcheted down. “So, we’re good?”
No way was she going that far. Not yet. Probably not ever. “Let’s just say I’m willing to hear you out.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
She let the hand with the gun drop to her side but didn’t let go. “Talk fast.”
Holt felt the tension ease from his shoulders the second she dropped the gun. The close call would teach him to break protocol. He’d overheard two New Foundations bruisers talking about grabbing Lindsey and snapped into action. Gone to her house and the rest was a combination of pure luck and timing.
Not that he usually dropped cover. He rescued for a living. That was what the Corcoran Team did. Worked undercover in off-the-books operations, preventing kidnappings before they happened and when called in too late, being the first to rush in and get victims out. Hired by governments and corporations, they performed work others couldn’t.
His three-man team moved constantly but reported back to the main office in Annapolis. Connor Bowen owned the company and ran the show, including the four agents who worked out of Maryland. Holt only had to check in with one person—Connor—and the boss would not like how this assignment had spun out.
Holt could hardly admit getting his head turned by a pretty woman. And Lindsey Pike definitely qualified as that. She possessed a girl-next-door prettiness. The shiny brown hair with streaks of blond. The big green eyes. The confident way she moved around the town of Justice, Oregon, the most ill-named town ever.
She’d intrigued him from day one, and hearing she was in trouble tonight got him moving.
Now he figured he had about ten seconds to convince her that he was one of the good guys or see her whip out that gun again. Actually, from the frown, maybe more like five.
“Tell me exactly why you’re here.” Her expression didn’t change. Those lips stayed in a flat line as a sort of grim determination moved over her.
No shock. No panic. That told him she knew exactly how dangerous the folks at New Foundations were. Maybe she’d expected them to hunt her down. Maybe she’d been poking at them. Either way, she appeared to possess the type of intel he needed.
In cases like this, with the adrenaline still pumping, the simple truth tended to work, so he went with it. “There were orders to bring you in.”
“From?”
He had a feeling the call came from high up, but he couldn’t pinpoint it yet. “I don’t know.”
If possible, her frown deepened. “Of course you do. Who told you to come after me?”
That explained it. She still viewed him as attacker, not rescuer. “No one. I overheard men talking at the compound and got here first to warn you.”
“Compound.” She scoffed. “The place almost sounds nice when you say it that way.”
Not what he’d seen. Sure, on the surface, everything ticked along fine. The camp operated as a retreat. Cabins lined up in a serene wooded area. Communal gardens and shared meals in a dining hall. Staff had the option of living in less private bunkhouses a few hundred feet from the main area, behind the yoga studio.
It all seemed peaceful, the perfect place for people who were tired of being plugged in and those sick of government regulations or city life. But on the inside something festered. Groups of men would leave for hours at a time. The gun range had a steady stream of customers. So did the makeshift village built on the back of the property. The one where people practiced drills storming houses and learning how to fight off attacks.
But none of that worried Holt like the sheer amount of firepower he’d seen brought onto the property. He recognized the crates and couldn’t come up with a single reason a retreat that featured yoga would also have grenade launchers.
Corcoran had been sent in after information leaked. But finding former members proved difficult. People went there and stayed, which had government officials thinking cult. That was what Holt had expected on this assignment, but now he knew better. New Foundations had the makings of a homegrown militia.
He stepped carefully with Lindsey now, hoping he’d finally found a thread he could pull to bring the place down. “Apparently you ticked off someone at the retreat.”
“You have no idea.”
But he wanted to know. With her, he guessed the direct question might not get the job done, so he verbally walked around it, hoping to land on the information he needed. “Were you a member?”
She tightened her grip on the gun. “For now, I think I’ll ask the questions.”
The woman played this well. He admired her refusal to get sucked in. “Why do you think I’ll agree to that?”
“You are in my house. You dragged me out of bed, stripped down and—”
“Fine.” Round One to Lindsey. “Go ahead.”
Using the hand with the gun, she motioned for him to sit down on the couch. “What’s the Corcoran Team?”
He settled for leaning against the armrest because he had a feeling he needed to be up and ready to fight with this woman. “Can’t tell you that.”
She stood right in front of him, close but not close enough for him to grab the gun or get a jump on her. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she’d been trained. And if he was right that she’d spent some time at the retreat and lived to talk about it, her survival instincts might rival his own.
“Are you with the government?”
“With?” He knew what she was asking but didn’t know if she knew.
“An FBI agent or something.”
The out waited right there and he took it. “Or something.”
She sighed at him. Threw out one of those long-suffering exhales that women did so well when men ticked them off. “I feel like we’re going backward here.”
“We’ll get to all that, but first we’re going to contact the police.” He should have made the call as soon as the attackers left.
“No.” That was all she said. A curt denial.
People generally didn’t question his orders. Probably had something to do with his size and no-room-for-debate scowl. His sister said he’d inherited the look and demeanor from their dad. Holt knew that wasn’t exactly a compliment.
“Excuse me?” He kept his voice deadly soft in an attempt to telegraph
