Wicked as Seduction, page 24
Trees tore out of the room, flipping off the overhead light, leaving the soft glow of the candles to ward off the dark. Back in the kitchen, his coffee, still sitting in the microwave, had gone lukewarm again. He didn’t give a shit at this point. It was caffeine. He needed to choke it down and be productive.
Snarling, he swallowed some of the black brew, wincing at its bitterness as he sat at Tessa’s computer. Two minutes later, he was behind her log-in screen and prowling through her files…trying to focus on helping Zy and off of touching Laila.
He broke into Tessa’s Gmail. Junk mail, correspondence from a sorority sister she hadn’t answered, a bill reminder from the electric company. Then a few days ago, a slew of emails from someone with an obviously computer-assigned handle.
Trees opened it to find a video of Tessa’s baby girl in a high chair eating chicken nuggets and a banana. Before he could figure out who had sent her the video and why, his phone dinged. Madison.
Are you awake? Something’s wrong!
His gut tightened. What?
Hallie isn’t in her crib. She’s gone!
What the hell? Trees started to call Madison when he caught sight of the text attached to the video of Tessa’s little girl. The words there made his blood run cold.
“Son of a bitch.”
His heart pounding, he dashed off a reply to Madison. On it. Stand by.
But the rest of her emails didn’t tell him much more, so he reached for Tessa’s phone. He had a hunch… Sure enough, she’d downloaded the Abuzz application. She hadn’t posted once, but she had DMs—all from the same shell account. Generic screen name, no picture, and no location listed. In other words, nothing to help him identify who it might belong to. But given the slew of messages this person and Tessa had exchanged over the last few days, the account was by no means inactive.
More images of Hallie were attached, along with messages confirming his fears.
He vaulted out of his chair, shoving the device into his back pocket, and ran hard for the bunker.
“Zy!” Trees banged on the metal lid.
Seconds later, his pal opened up. Trees jumped inside, only to find Tessa red-cheeked and barely covered in the quilt while Zy stood sweating, flushed, and emotionally wasted.
He scowled. “I guess you didn’t spend your time with Tessa finding out what the fuck has been going on.”
Zy cupped Tessa’s shoulders and helped her to her feet, glaring back at him. “Can it.”
No chance in hell, especially since Zy had no idea what Tessa was going through. Instead, he turned to her. “Why haven’t you told him? Why haven’t you told anyone?”
She reared back. “Y-you know?”
“Yeah, I do. And—”
“Know what?” Zy roared, looking back and forth between them. “Stop fucking talking circles around me and spill.”
Trees waited for Tessa to say something. She’d obviously suffered, but if she would just give Zy the truth, he’d do anything—everything—to help her.
Tessa blinked away her tears. “The man who accosted me in the parking lot on Tuesday?”
“Yeah, I remember. I’m still trying to identify him.”
“That night, he abducted Hallie. When I woke up Wednesday morning, she was…g-gone.”
Zy froze as the implications sunk in. He scrubbed a hand down his shocked face. “Oh, god. Tessa…baby. You’ve been passing on information to save Hallie’s life?”
Tessa broke down, tears flowing, her body wracked by sobs.
“Exactly,” Trees answered when she couldn’t.
Questions seemed to zip through Zy’s head, probably the same ones he had. If one faction of Tierra Caliente had Kimber, the other must have Tessa’s baby, but which had who? And why hadn’t Tessa told the team the minute she’d realized Hallie was gone? And the bigger kicker? If the child had been gone a mere handful of days, who had engaged in the espionage that had fucked EM Security for nearly a year?
“Tell me what you know,” Zy demanded.
“Not much since I didn’t get to finish the forensic deep dive on her devices…” Trees explained Madison’s texts and the kidnapper’s communications.
“Tessa, I’m so fucking sorry.” Zy lifted her grief-filled face to his. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because they threatened to kill Hallie if Tessa said a word to anyone,” Trees supplied.
When he whipped Tessa’s phone from his back pocket, he played the first video the abductor had sent for Zy, who seemingly watched in horror until the end. “You’ve been dealing with this, completely on your own, since Wednesday?”
“I couldn’t risk her by telling anyone,” Tessa choked.
“Oh, baby. If I’d known, I would have moved mountains to help you.”
“They’re watching me. They threatened… I didn’t know the bosses think we have a mole, but I knew some things hadn’t gone right. I’d overheard conversations that suggested information that shouldn’t get out somehow had. I was too afraid of what would happen to my baby if I opened my mouth.”
Zy tugged her stiff body close. Trees felt the device in his pocket vibrate and pulled it free. When he scanned the screen, he cursed. He hated to add to Tessa’s trauma, but he didn’t have the luxury of shielding her. Since her daughter was concerned, he doubted she’d want him to.
Trees nudged the phone in Tessa’s direction. “I know this is tough…but you’ve got a new message.” Then he turned to Zy with a pissed-off glare. “And I don’t have to tell you what app they’re using.”
“Abuzz? Fuck.” He sighed. “That cocksucker. I reamed him out once. He just never fucking listens.”
“Who?” Tessa’s hand shook as she took the phone and opened the app, looking terrified.
“Phillip Garrett,” Trees helpfully supplied.
She frowned, clearly confused. “The billionaire who owns Abuzz?”
“Yeah.” Zy sighed. “My dad.”
Trees knew he hated to mention the connection, hated people thinking he’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It didn’t shock Trees that Tessa didn’t know.
“Really?” Her eyes widened with hope. “He could help us track down or pinpoint the location of the kidnapper keeping Hallie.”
Zy snorted. “The Tierra Caliente cartel has been using the app to communicate for months. I warned him once, and if it’s still going on, they’re paying him to look the other way. He won’t help. Dear ol’ Dad is more interested in making a buck than doing what’s right.”
“It’s one reason they don’t get along,” Trees supplied.
“One of many.”
Tessa looked stunned. “You grew up with a billionaire?”
Zy winced. “And the billion problems that go with that.”
“You never told me.” She sounded hurt.
Zy didn’t respond to that. “The kidnapper sent a new message? What does he want now?”
Tessa’s fingers trembled as she opened the DM and fresh tears fell down her cheeks. “Something I don’t know how to give them.”
“Let me see. Let me help you,” Zy insisted. “You’ve been dealing with this by yourself for too long, and I can—”
“You can’t,” she screeched. “See for yourself.”
When she shoved the phone into Zy’s hands, Trees looked over his buddy’s shoulder and scanned the message.
Who is the mole leaking EM Security’s information to outsiders? You have twenty-four hours to provide information and proof or Hallie will pay with her life.
What the fuck? But the implications seemed clear. Whoever had kidnapped Hallie must not have been the same people paying the mole for information about EM Security missions—at least that seemed logical, but in a world of murderous thugs willing to sell deadly chemicals for cash, there probably was no such thing as loyalty. Anyone could be double-dealing.
“Can I see your phone again?”
Visibly shaken, Tessa passed it back.
Trees couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “If there’s a way to solve this, we will.”
Wordlessly, she nodded. But her terrified expression hurt.
Zy slung an arm around her, and Trees scrolled back through her Gmail. Bingo! The video of Hallie eating had come from a different address than the one the mole—someone other than Tessa?—had sent information about EM’s missions and Valeria’s whereabouts to.
Trees wasn’t sure who the players were, but they needed to figure it out fast.
“Let’s go inside. Tessa can get warm. We can dig more and game-plan.”
The couple agreed. No wonder, since everyone was drained. Tessa wanted a hot shower, and Trees agreed to meet Madison halfway between his place and town to pick up some necessities for her.
After a quick grab of items on the side of the road, Trees squeezed Madison’s shoulder in thanks. She gave him a tired smile and a kiss on the cheek.
“Go home and get some rest.”
“Do you need more help?”
She was loyal and selfless…and she would make some man an amazing wife someday. Trees didn’t know why he hadn’t fallen for her. On paper, she was perfect.
One thing he did know? He considered her a friend, and he didn’t want her any deeper in this. “We got it from here. Thanks for everything.”
With a nod and a wave, she was gone. Trees headed back to his place, trying not to look at the clock and think about all the hours of sleep he was missing.
As he parked in back of his house, he received a text from Zy. I have an idea. You going to be much longer?
With a wry grin, he pocketed his phone and shouldered his way inside. “No, buddy. I won’t be much longer at all.” Then he turned to Tessa, holding out the overnight bag. “Madison said this should get you by for a day or so.”
Tessa rose, gripping the blanket around her, and took the sack by the handles. “Thank you. And please thank her for me.”
“She said she was happy to do it.”
“I’ll go change.” Tessa headed to the bathroom.
“I’ll catch Trees up on our theory,” Zy called to her retreating back.
“Theory?” Trees asked once they were alone.
“We think we figured out who our mole is. Let’s call the bosses, so I can explain this all at once.”
They wandered to the kitchen together and sat. Zy dialed Hunter, who answered on the first ring. “You got something?”
“Yeah. You sitting?”
“Just a minute. Logan and Joaquin want to hear this, too.”
Trees wasn’t surprised they were all up in the middle of the night. Their lives had to be pressure cookers right now.
It wasn’t long before Hunter spoke again. “We’re all here.”
“Tell us what the hell is going on,” Logan demanded.
“Long story short?” Zy began. “Our mole is Tessa’s ex-boyfriend. Here’s our timeline. Last January, we think Aspen planted spyware on Tessa’s laptop since she was using the machine while Tessa was on maternity leave.”
Trees scowled. “How is that possible? She could barely find the button to turn the machine on?”
“The way I heard it, she wasn’t good for much but answering phones,” Joaquin drawled.
“It must have been an act.” Zy leaned in. “At the time, Colonel Edgington hired Aspen to temp after Tessa’s ex, Cash, recommended her.”
“Yeah,” Hunter confirmed. “I don’t think Dad knew anyone else.”
“That’s how the mission last March, the one in which I was injured, went south,” Zy explained. “Tessa returned a couple of weeks after that.”
“I reformatted her computer then, which wiped out whatever spyware Aspen put on it,” Trees added.
“Exactly. And every other mission went off without a hitch until August twentieth, when One-Mile was captured in Acapulco,” Zy said. “It’s no coincidence that Cash moved back in with Tessa to ‘co-parent’ Hallie on August ninth. Around that timeframe, emails started leaving Tessa’s computer in the middle of the night, when Cash was supposedly gaming for work, a job that seems like a bullshit cover.”
“Go on,” Hunter prompted.
“The mission in September to rescue Walker turned out okay because Tessa was in Tennessee when her father died. She’d locked up her computer at the office, where Cash couldn’t get to it. But Tessa was back and taking her computer home again when Emilo Montilla received the address and floor plan of Valeria’s safe house in St. Louis at the end of October. I helped Tessa boot the asshole from her house for good in mid-November.”
“That explanation makes sense, but there are holes,” Logan pointed out.
“Exactly,” Trees seconded. “Laila was nearly taken from what should have been a secure location in Orlando nearly a week ago. How do you explain that?”
“That’s the one hole in our theory,” Zy admitted. “I don’t know how to account for it.”
“Hang on. I think I might.” Trees reached for Tessa’s laptop, searched through the code on the back end, and found exactly what he was looking for. “The spyware is back. And this version is more advanced. It allows the user to search through our servers.”
Hunter Edgington swore something long and ugly.
“Cash must have reinstalled it.” Zy looked like he wanted to kill the motherfucker.
Trees wouldn’t mind getting in on that. The asshole had fucked Laila’s peace of mind for a buck.
“The little son of a bitch,” Logan spit out.
There was just one problem… “If they had every keystroke and could break into our servers, why did they kidnap Hallie and make Tessa cough up information?”
“What?” the trio of bosses exploded at once.
“On Tuesday, Tessa was approached in the EM parking lot by a man we can’t identify. He offered her money for information. She refused. She woke up the next morning, and her baby was gone. They’ve been using her to extract information from Tessa since.”
“So I’m asking why, if they can read every word we’ve ever stored electronically?” Trees reiterated.
“Because, knowing we had a mole, we kept the locations of our current safe houses out of all digital communications,” Logan said.
“So the cartel got desperate, I guess.” Zy shrugged.
“But they’ve already kidnapped Kimber,” Hunter pointed out. “So why take Hallie, too?”
“There are two different factions at work here.” Trees explained everything Laila had told him.
Silence fell.
Hunter finally broke it. “That makes a shitload of sense.”
“We’ve been wondering if Emilo’s death splintered the organization. The fact it has sucks ass. Now we have to fight a two-pronged war. We’ve hired Walker’s friend, Matt, temporarily to help us find Kimber. But we’re still short two operatives.”
“I know you’re working day and night to bring your sister back,” Zy said. “I have an idea on how to shut down Cash and the faction of the cartel that paid him while hopefully bringing Hallie home unharmed.”
After a bit more conversation and some refining of the plan, they ended the call.
Zy stifled a yawn. Trees stretched, feeling exhaustion tug at him. The strategy continued, but both were feeling the lack of sleep.
Tessa returned, clean and dressed in fresh clothes, so they caught her up on the plan. She looked rattled. “Do you think that will work?”
Trees was as reluctant as Zy to tell her the truth. It was a long shot.
“It’s the best plan we’ve got,” Zy hedged.
Tessa nodded, but she appeared crestfallen. She could read between the lines. Trees hurt for her.
“We should all get some sleep. It’s going to be a big day,” he pointed out.
Zy nodded, but he looked Tessa’s way, like they had unfinished business. After what the two of them had endured, Trees wasn’t surprised.
“I’m going to grab some shut-eye since it’s nearly five a.m.,” he told them. “The futon in the office is available. ’Night.”
“’Night,” Zy returned, then he focused on Tessa.
Trees took that as his cue to give them some space. He let Barney in through the back door for a couple hours of warm slumber. As the big dog always did, he made himself at home on the living room sofa.
Shaking his head, Trees tuned out the murmurs of Zy and Tessa’s argument and peeked at Laila. She hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d last checked on her. He ached to pick her up and take her to bed with him, but she still thought he was EM’s mole. He didn’t love that she’d chosen to stay here alone, but he wouldn’t ignore her wishes. But tomorrow, once the dust was settled, he’d be sitting her down and proving that he hadn’t betrayed her.
Proving that he never would would take more time. Question was, would she even let him try?
Laila woke with a start and jackknifed up, letting loose a startled cry. It was pitch-black outside. The overhead lights were dark. When had Trees extinguished them? Why?
Then she caught sight of the trio of faintly beckoning lights from across the room, and her heart rate slowed. Candles. Had he brought them in here for her?
She raked her hair from her face—then realized the chain he’d used to affix her to the bed last night couldn’t reach that far. A glance at her wrist, even in shadow, told her that he’d swapped out her cuff for a different one with a longer lead.
“Laila?”
Trees. She could barely make him out—big and shirtless in the doorway—but she felt his stare all over her as his deep voice wrapped around her, warming her even as she shivered. “Yes.”
“You okay? I heard you cry out.”
From across the house? “You did?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t get comfortable in my bed, so I’ve been on the sofa with Barney. I had to bring him in since it was so cold.” He ambled into the nearly dark room.
It sparked terrible memories, nightmares of past assaults where her only warning had been the sound of footsteps in the dark. She scrambled back against the headboard, breaths sawing nervously, as he approached.
