had rolled into one another until they’d become one long, unending nightmare.
The only reason he hadn’t told his inquisitors what they’d wanted to know was because he hadn’t known. He was certain they’d known that, too.
For a moment fear touched him intimately. It was strange how he’d accepted his death after the first few days of imprisonment yet had been more filled with fear after he’d returned home. Well, not home exactly. After being released from Walter Reed Hospital, he’d tried to go home and ended up renting that summer home in Jacksonville.
He’d gone armed every day. Even though he’d tried to sit in the sun and find that piece of himself that hadn’t been shattered by his experiences, he hadn’t been able to. He’d been more at home in the night and in the bars.
Come back, he told himself. You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re helping a friend. Stick with the program.
The gnawing pain in his right knee helped him focus. He absently reached down and massaged it. Kneading the flesh was hard to do through the orthopedic brace he wore.
“Are you doing okay?” Allison asked.
Rafe was embarrassed and irritated at the same time. She’d caught him. He didn’t like dealing with weakness or infirmity. The injuries he’d sustained had kept him out of active duty.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Are you still taking your meds?”
Rafe blew out his breath slowly, aware that she’d be able to pick up the sound over the earwig if he didn’t keep it quiet.
“Yes,” he lied.
A buzzer rang in his ear.
“Wrong answer,” Allison said. “I checked with Medical. You haven’t refilled your pain pills. If you were using them the way you should have been, you’d have run out forty-one days ago.”
Despite his irritation, Rafe had to grin. Only Allison would know so much. Or would even think she needed to know so much, he amended.
“The pills weren’t working very well,” Rafe said. But that was a lie. The pills had been working entirely too well. He’d only noticed that problem when he’d started using alcohol with them. When he’d caught himself doing that, he’d poured the pills down the drain and hadn’t touched so much as another beer. He’d seen what liquor and pills could do to people.
“Maybe you need something different,” Allison suggested.
Maybe I need to work again, Rafe thought angrily. Then he realized that Allison’s favor had been a chance to do exactly that. He relaxed a little when he figured out that she wasn’t passing judgment on him. She knew exactly what she was doing. More than that, she’d figured him out, too.
“Why are you smiling?” Allison asked.
“Man, that camera is good if you can see that well in the dark.”
“I’m running a vision-enhancement-package upgrade on it that I designed. The software takes the available picture, repixelates it based on available light and light sources and reinterprets images.”
“Very techie.”
“Very techie,” she agreed. “The hardest part was collapsing the size of the program so it would run in real time. By the way, you evaded the question.”
“Have I told you how much I appreciate you letting me do this?”
“You’re doing me the favor.”
“Seriously, I think it’s the other way around.”
“Even if it turns out to be a glorified babysitting job?”
“If you’d thought it was going to be a glorified babysitting job, you wouldn’t have asked me to look into this.”
Allison sighed. “You’re right. So stay sharp out there.”
“I think I’m going to recon the bar.” Rafe checked the pistol in its holster. When he thumbed the restraint aside, the weapon came free effortlessly. He opened the door and got out. The leg ached, but it moved easily and held his weight just fine. That was encouraging. Of course, that was with the leg brace—and the NSA wouldn’t have cleared him for fieldwork while wearing it.
“Getting antsy?” Allison asked.
“It’s been twenty-three minutes. Aren’t you?”
“Twenty-two minutes. And, yes, I am.”
Rafe pulled at the black beanie that covered his dark hair. Gold-lensed wraparound sunglasses covered his eyes. He’d left the semibeard he’d been growing the last few weeks. He wore jeans, boots and a loose gray chambray shirt over a Toby Keith concert T-shirt. Totally suburban ghetto rat. He blended into the neighborhood.
He tucked an expandable Asp baton into the holster on the left side of his belt. Closed, the baton was only seven inches long. Under his shirt it wasn’t noticeable.
“Be careful in there,” Allison cautioned.
Rafe smiled again as he crossed the street. “You’ve got my six. How much trouble can I be in?”
“The scary part is, I don’t know.”
Rafe thought about that. I don’t know wasn’t something often heard from Allison Gracelyn.
Chapter 2
Drago moved his hand up from Shannon’s neck and grabbed her chin. He turned her face up to his. She felt his breath hot against her cheeks. He stared into her eyes. Once again she was reminded how lizardlike his green eyes were. They were cold and incredibly clear, like the eyes in a taxidermist’s shop.
“You don’t have a clue who you sent me after, do you?” Drago asked.
Shannon didn’t answer. She hated to admit ignorance. The only reason people with secrets kept talking to her was because they wondered how much she knew of what they were hiding.
“It was somebody big,” Drago said. “And they’re buried deep within an infrastructure I couldn’t even begin to get through. And I’ll tell you right now that they don’t build firewalls I can’t get through. Not until this one.”
Excitement escalated within Shannon. Over the last few years her mysterious benefactor had supplied tips regarding political cover-ups, insider trading, blackmail and other problems involving political and economic leaders. Truthfully Shannon owed a big part of her career to whoever that person had been.
Had.
Shannon didn’t know why she kept thinking of the person in the past tense. There was nothing to indicate anything had happened to that person except for a months-long silence.
Until June, the contacts had been sporadic, but they’d been there. After weeks of wondering about it, and starved for a juicy story, Shannon had left New York City and taken a meeting with Vincent Drago. She’d hired him to investigate
