“She told me.” Adam slumped down in a chair. “They hadn’t been married very long.”
“Less than a year,” Nestler agreed. “Looking at what we know from this perspective-that Tracy is unaware her daughter is alive-” . Adam interrupted, so furious his voice shook. ‘.“Keener didn’t want to share the company fortune with Abby. So he adopted her to negate her status as Matthew’s heir.”
Nestler looked to Janet, who nodded. “We checked state law and, in Louisiana, you can’t disinherit your children. Will or no, Matthew’s assets would have gone to Abby-less fees, bonds, and separate inventory expenses. Considering the estate is worth millions, that would have been a lot of money.”
“Paul stole from his brother’s widow and from his niece-all he had left of his brother.” Adam grunted his disgust. Two minutes with the sick son of a bitch. Just two minutes. To hell with the dark alley. Maybe Keener had resented Tracy for marrying his brother, but to do this Adam stiffened, grabbed the chair arms. “Where is she?”
Janet answered. “Abby is in New Orleans.”
“She lives with Paul Keener?” Adam asked in a disbelieving near-shout.
“No. Not with Keener, but nearby. He owns a plantation just north of New Orleans. She lives there with a housekeeper.”
“I’m going to get her.” Pushing against the chair arms, Adam hoisted himself out of the chair.
Nestler halted him with a hand to Adam’s shoulder. “Not yet.”
Adam glared at him. “The bastard stole her baby. She’s mourned five years. Isn’t that long enough?”
“It’s five years too long.” Nestler’s eyes shone with compassion and pity, yet his grip on Adam’s shoulder tightened. “But we have to resolve the issues here first or he’ll bury them so deep we’ll never get to them. There’s a lot at stake, Adam, and Abby isn’t in any more danger today than she was yesterday. She’s Paul’s legal daughter.”
“Not for long,” Adam vowed.
“No, not for long.” Nestler looked at Janet. “Get Mark on this, Janet. I want that adoption set aside-stat. And get him to file an order to freeze Keener’s assets. I think under the circumstances, any judge will agree that Abby must challenge her father’s will.”
“Yes, sir.” Janet sprang out of the chair and to the phone. Within minutes, she was reeling off the general’s orders to his special counsel.
Adam worried, “If Hackett pushes Keener too hard, he could get desperate. And if he finds out about the asset freeze, he could harm Abby.”
“This will be wrapped up before he knows anything about it. Right now, she’s no threat to him, son.” Nestler’s voice went soft. “I understand your concern, and your devotion to Tracy and her child is admirable, but.
don’t let it get Tracy killed. She is a threat to Keener. That’s why he wanted to marry her. Wives can’t be forced to testify against their husbands. it seems reasonable to me that if she had married him, he could have brought Abby back into her life and Tracy would have held her silence to protect her child.”
The truth in that had Adam scowling, and rebelling. “Any man capable of stealing his brother’s child is capable of killing her.”
“And any mother who learns her daughter isn’t dead could kill the man who had stolen her. That could get Tracy killed. She’s skilled, but with words, Adam. She’s not survival-or Intel-trained, and a two-hour crash course can’t possibly prepare her for something like this. Adding this kind of pressure is asking more from her than she’s capable of giving.”
Hard knots punched through Adam’s stomach and he swallowed back a geyser of frustration. He worked at it, tamped his emotions enough to talk without ranting. “What do you recommend?”
“We let Tracy do her job without this added pressure. God knows, she’ll be taxed enough. Then, after we’ve got the evidence we need on Keener, I suggest you take Tracy to New Orleans and introduce her to her daughter. Adam looked to Janet. She was Tracy’s friend. She cared about Tracy the woman, as well as Tracy the Air Force captain.
“He’s right, Adam.” Janet shrugged. “I love Tracy, okay? But she isn’t cut out for covert work. She’s too straightforward and honest.,She doesn’t love easily, but when she does, it’s with her whole heart. I never quite understood-why she would allow Keener to adopt Abby, but then I decided Tracy would do it if she thought it was best for her child. With her in the military, subject to all the less-advantageous perks that go with it, and with Keener being rich, I figured Tracy felt Abby, being Matthew’s daughter, too, deserved the financial advantages Tracy couldn’t give her. I should have known better, but I didn’t. I was wrong about that, but I’m not wrong about this. If you tell Tracy what Paul has done before she confronts him on the retrosarin, she’ll either kill him or get killed trying to kill him.” He wanted Valid points. Adam couldn’t dispute them. to-God, how he wanted to-but he couldn’t.
“One last thing,” Janet said. “You’re going to have a hard, hard time getting Tracy to New Orleans without first telling her the reason for going.”
“Why is that?”
“Because she hasn’t been back since she recuperated from the accident.”
Janet looked down at Adam. “She’s sworn never to set foot there again, and three years ago, she refused a Plum assignment because it was in New Orleans. Her commander pushed her to take the job, but she flatly refused, saying she’d put in her papers and get out of the Air Force. He backed down.”
Strong feelings. Ones Adam wasn’t comfortable with. Did they run so deep because of all she’d lost there, or because she was still in love with her dead husband?
She’d said she had accepted his death, but this didn’t sound like acceptance to Adam. And that left him at a loss. He could compete with a man for her. But he couldn’t compete against a memory. Time had made.her memories of Matthew perfect. What imperfect man could compete with perfect memories?
And if Adam waited to tell her about Abby, would Tracy consider that an act of honor, or one of betrayal?
The caterer delivered a gourmet dinner to die for. One Tracy had no intention of sharing with Paul Keener or Colonel Robert D. Hackett, though she did go through the motions of setting the table, chilling the wine, and Oak&;, arranging a bouquet of flowers as a centerpiece for the table. But if she sat down with those two and actually tried to swallow a thing, there was no doubt in her mind she would choke to death.
After pulling one last inspection to make sure everything was ready, and that the listening devices she’d planted in the centerpiece and in a potted plant near the sofa in the living room were functional, she showered and dressed in a simple black sheath and heels, did her makeup, and then paced the ‘floor for the next thirty minutes until Hackett and Paul were due to arrive.
Hackett arrived first, wearing his uniform. He stepped into the living room boldly appraising her with his infamous interested but unconcerned Jack Nicholas look.
The sight alone made her squeamish. “Colonel. Thank you for coming.”
“You made refusing impossible, Captain.”
She smiled. “Yes, I suppose I did.” Amazing what conclusions a man will jump to when he’s wagging around a guilty conscience.
He noticed that the table had been set for three. “Are we expecting another guest?”
“Just my brother-in-law.” She gave Hackett an innocent smile. “He lives in New Orleans, but on occasion he comes to Grandsen. I enjoy seeing him whenever possible.” Hackett looked uncomfortable. Tracy couldn’t resist the urge to watch him squirm a little. “I hope you don’t mind. My husband and Paul were very close.”
“Not at all.” Hackett gave her the obligatory response.
By the time she seated him in the living room with a gin and tonic, Paul arrived. She had his drink ready. Scotch on the rocks.
After retrieving it from the kitchen, she walked back into the living room. The men were sitting on the sofa, urgently whispering back and forth, their expressions as tense as their hushed voices.
Tracy sat across from them in a padded chair, her nerves coiling tighter and tighter. After a few moments, she steered the conversation around to Adam Burke’s case, and played the trump card she had been instructed to play. “He was set up,” she said. “It was all a plan to get hard data on the performance of a chemical called retrosarin. Ever heard of it?” She looked at Hackett, doing her damnedest to stay calm. Inside, she was shaking like a leaf.
Hackett said nothing, just stared at her. She riveted her gaze to Matthew’s brother. “Paul, surely you’ve heard of it. After all, Keener Chemical is producing the chemical. Or, it would like to produce it-provided Project Duplicity gets funded.”
The men looked at each-other, then thin-lipped, Hackett stared at her. “What do you want, Captain?”
“I haven’t yet decided. First, I want to know why you did this, Colonel.”
“I don’t have to answer to you.”
“Oh, but you do. You see, I have enough evidence to put you both behind bars for the rest of your lives. That might not be long, actually. Treason typically carries the death penalty.”
Hackett jumped to his feet. ‘you stupid bitch. You have no idea what you’re doing.”
She sat back, casually crossed her legs at her ankles. “By all means, enlighten me.”
“Terrorists have used a similar chemical against the general populace in Japan. Iraq has used it against Iran.”
She lifted a finger in his direction. “That’s supposition.”
“In some circles, yes, but not in mine. The point is, Captain, we need retrosarin, and to get it, we needed hard data. Without that data, the project would never be funded.”
Tracy folded her arms over her chest. “So you got it, by killing four of your own men.”
“And saved how many?” He fisted his hand at his side. “I despise you do-gooders. Simple, small-nlinded pains in the ass. That’s what you are. You think every path is straight and narrow, that there’s on Well, here’s a news flash, Captain. Life is crooked. The path forks over and over again. You want to survive?
Then you’d damn well better find out where the forks are before you run into them. Without this project, innocent people are going to die. You can’t count how many will be saved by it, only the ones who die if you don’t do it. So you tell me. Are the lives of four men dedicated to protect and serve worth countless lives?”
:“So you killed them for a noble cause.”
“I did what had to be done to protect the freedom we enjoy. Freedom you enjoy, Captain. You’re damn right I did, and I’d do it again.”
He believed this. That truth settled over Tracy like a smothering shroud. Saddened, appalled, wondering how someone who had done so much right had become so twisted, she looked up at him. “What about the Pacific assignment? Are you going to tell me you didn’t intend to sell retrosarin to enemies of the United States?” The blood drained from his face, and he said nothing.
Guilty as hell. Tracy swallowed hard, stared down at her hands in her lap, and then pulled together the remnants of her courage to face Paul.
“I’m not noble,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was an excellent business opportunity so I took it.”
She couldn’t believe it. How could he and Matthew be related? “It didn’t matter to you that people would die?”
“People are going to die anyway, darling. None of us are immortal. You certainly should know that.”
She was looking at a stranger. This couldn’t be the same man who had protected her and nurtured her back to health after the accident. The man who had mourned her loss with her, who had asked her to marry him as a selfless act to protect her., This man wouldn’t commit a selfless act.
Had he committed one back then? Or, as Adam proposed, had Paul committed an act of hatred and revenge because she had preferred Matthew to him?
“What are you going to do with this evidence of yours, Captain?”
She swung her gaze to Hackett and then stood up.
going to turn it over to the OSI, along with the tapes I’ve made here tonight.”
The men looked at each other, and Paul gave her a slow smile that chilled her blood to ice. “You mean the listening device you hid in the plant?” An icy shiver crawled up her spine.
“Or maybe you mean the one you planted in the flowers on the table.” A third man’s voice sounded behind her.
She looked back. Gus O’Dell stood in the doorway, sniffing.
Oh, God. She was in over her head. Guns blasted out on the range, as if agreeing with her. The floor under her feet vibrated.
Hackett slid her a feral smile’ “A war-readiness exercise is under way out in Are ‘
a Fourteen, Captain. Poetic justice, don’t you agree?”
She glared at him. “There’s no justice involved.”, “Sorry to disappoint you, darling.” Paul stood up. “But we suspected You wouldn’t join the team. So we’re going to have to remove you as an obstacle. Don’t concern yourself with making threats of this evidence going public if anything happens to YOU, or if you don’t contact Burke by a specific time. We know better, and we’ve taken care of everything.”
The equipment had failed. She was . her own. Totally vulnerable. Adam had warned her against doing this alone, knowing Hackett and Paul were too cleaver, that they would spot a trap.
And they had.
O’Dell grabbed her arm and squeezed. Tracy kneed him in the groin. He doubled over.
Someone grabbed her shoulder, spun her around. Hackett. She saw his fist, anything for her chin. The impact jarred her teeth, snapped her neck, and knocked her back across the chair onto the floor.
Hackett issued a crisp order. “O’Dell, sweep the place.”
“Already have, sir. Ran a double-check, too, while she was showering. No evidence of any kind, and no more bugs. Captain Keener is on her own.”
“Fine.” Hackett looked surprised to hear that, but infinitely pleased. “I’d say a little training is in order, Major. See to it.”
Training? What kind of-Oh, God.
They were going to kill her. To kill her, and she couldn’t even put up token resistance, much less fight them. Regret washed through her and, unable to lift her arm, she mentally grasped her locket, imagined the warm metal pressing against her palm. Something brushed against the tip of her nose. She tried to open her.,eyes, to see what it was, but failed. Its pungent smell burned her nostrils. They stung like fire.