Locked and Loaded. HelenKay Dimon
was incomplete, didn’t reach back much further than the trial prep and police file. It was hard enough even getting that much since her identity was tightly protected. “What about it?”
“I broke it.”
Her shoulder had to be throbbing and now her back. Guilt racked him. He could have been more careful. Maybe not when the gunmen were firing, but certainly when he was trying to get her to listen to him. “When?”
She looked up at him. “When my former boyfriend threw me off a building.”
Chapter Four
Trevor Walters leaned back in his chair and stared at the man sitting on the other side of his desk. If Trevor had his way, John Tate would disappear. Just step into a hole in the earth and never be seen again. It was tempting to make that happen.
If John were a different man, one with less powerful friends and a less visible career, he’d be gone. His pseudowealth and puffed-up overconfidence wouldn’t save him.
The man had all the obvious trappings Trevor despised. Everything about John screamed poor taste wrapped up in a bundle of new money. Passable suit. Shiny watch. Big government title. And not a clue about the danger he invited into his world when he came up against Trevor.
John was the deputy director of the Justice Department’s Office of Enforcement Operations. He handled intricate government surveillance and held all the power in the witness protection program, including having the final say on who got in and who didn’t.
But Trevor was more concerned with the man’s side job: newly minted blackmailer. That was the position that would get John killed. Trevor vowed to make that true.
“I have to wonder where you got the men to fight this particular battle against the Recovery Project,” Trevor said.
“Why?”
“Seems they were not very successful against Adam Wright and Maddie Timmons. One could say they were ill prepared for what they found in West Virginia.”
“This time.”
Trevor predicted the answer was more like every time. “I would have thought you would ask to use my men.”
Not that he would have agreed. Orion Industries was his baby, a legitimate government-contracts firm he built from nothing. The business specialized in threat management, whether that meant assisting fledgling foreign governments or working for his own. He was not about to ruin Orion’s stellar reputation by dragging it into John’s mess.
“I didn’t realize you’d been successful fighting the Recovery Team agents.” John made a show of brushing something off his charcoal dress pants. “From what I remember, every time you’ve gone against Recovery you’ve had to make up a story about an accident in training exercises and call your men’s next of kin. That’s not exactly a stellar history either, now, is it?”
Not that Trevor needed a reminder of that fact. His losses had been high enough for him to enter into an informal deal with Luke Hathaway, Recovery’s leader: Trevor would leave Recovery alone and vice versa. After all, there were only so many men on his payroll qualified and trustworthy enough to do the dirty off-the-books job and he was running low.
But John didn’t know any of that and Trevor was not about to fill him in. “I am smart enough not to full-on fight with Recovery, but if I did I assure you I would most definitely succeed.”
John smiled. “I wonder if your brother counted on that fact.”
Trevor curled his fingers into fists to keep from reaching for the gun taped under his desk. “Leave Bram out of this.”
“Why? The Recovery agents killed him.” John smacked his lips together in mock concern. “I still don’t understand why you’ve refrained from seeking revenge.”
“Because I am civilized?”
“You could have unloaded. Bram was, after all, a highly respected congressman. At least in the public’s view. Though we know better, don’t we?”
Trevor had kept the real circumstances of Bram’s death quiet to preserve his brother’s legacy. Trevor hoped the Walters brothers’ involvement with the WitSec money-for-information scheme would end at Bram’s grave.
It might have if John hadn’t gotten his hands on the tape that changed Trevor’s life. That made him a target instead of a leader. “Maybe you should focus your attention on keeping your moneymaking plan quiet instead of on my private life.”
“But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
John never did have grasp of the obvious. “You happen to be in my office.”
“This time.” John’s mouth twisted in a snarl as he said the words. “I won’t tolerate being ordered around again.”
But he would. Trevor would make John do it over and over until Trevor got bored with the cat-and-mouse game.
“I will do what I have to do until you realize you do not own me.”
“But I do…unless you want a certain tape to go public.”
Trevor mentally pledged to redouble his efforts to get that tape. If he couldn’t find it, he’d do things the hard way. Maybe start with John’s pretty little wife.
Trevor would have a file on her by morning. “It is interesting how a man who has sold out WitSec particpants’ locations for cash is trying to use blackmail and threats of public-image destruction to get his way.”
“Nothing in those deaths points to me. Since the identities were secret, the deaths aren’t even public knowledge. No one knows to investigate the losses, such as they are.”
“Interesting.”
It appeared John was not smart enough to realize every conversation in the office was recorded. Even his underling Russell Ambrose got that, and Russell was dumb enough to get himself killed at the Recovery agents’ feet.
The public didn’t know why Russell died in a shoot-out for fear the news of a witness handler selling information would upend the program, but powerful people in government now knew. A top-secret investigation into WitSec was all but assured, which Trevor assumed was why John wanted the loose ends tied and tucked.
“I will concede the men I sent to retrieve Ms. Timmons failed in their quest,” John said.
“Apparently.”
John leaned forward, his smarmy self-satisfaction abandoned in favor of fevered whispers. “We cannot afford to have her welcomed into the protective bosom of the Recovery Project.”
“We?”
“She is with one of their agents.”
Adam Wright. Trevor knew all about him. About all the agents. “I have read the intel on your failed mission. I know the facts.”
“Then you know we are at a turning point.”
Trevor could smell the desperation on the other man. The weakness disgusted him. “Meaning?”
“You need to step up and play your part.”
Trevor shifted in his chair. The leather felt comfortable again now that he was back in control and his unwanted guest was squirming. “This conversation would work better if you would stop talking in wild generalities and asking rhetorical questions.”
“You need to terminate Adam Wright and Maddie Timmons.”
“That will just bring the entire Recovery team to my doorstep. No, thank you.”
“Then kill them all.”
Just when Trevor thought John could not get more reckless, he did. “I think law enforcement would notice a mass murder within the D.C. metro area.”
“Then you better be careful in how you do