Smoky Mountain Setup (4 page)

“You’re looking at me as if I’m crazy. Is that what you think?”

“Of course not.” Her grip softened, her fingers sliding slowly down his arm to his wrist, where they settled against his scars. “I just need to know why you stayed away so long. Where have you been?”

“After I got away from the guys who took me, I headed east into North Carolina.” He gave a little tug of his arm and she let go of his wrist.

“Why east?” she asked.

“Because when I got out of that hovel where they were keeping me, that’s the way I was facing. So I ran and didn’t look back.” He looked down at his scarred wrists.

“Until now. Why did you come back now?”

He looked at her, saw the curiosity in those summer-sky eyes and blurted the truth. “Because you’re a target. And you needed to know.”

Chapter Four

“That’s why you’re here? You thought we didn’t know we were on the BRI’s hit list?” Olivia shook her head, not buying it. “I told you already. We know—”

“I don’t mean The Gates is the target,” Landry said in a quiet tone that made her chest ache. “I mean
you
, Olivia. The BRI is trying to get their hands on
you
.”

She stared at him, trying to read past the mirrorlike calm of his green eyes. “How would you know this? You said you hadn’t had anything to do with the BRI since your escape.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She thought for a moment and realized he hadn’t. She’d assumed it, given that the BRI had taken him hostage and, according to what he had told her, beaten him terribly to get information out of him.

“Maybe you should sit down and tell me what you know.” She waved at the sofa and sat facing him on the coffee table, crossing her long legs under her. “How do you know I’ve been targeted?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The action brought him close to her, close enough to touch. All she’d have to do is reach her hand toward him and—

“I got away from the BRI. But I still know some people who lurk around the edges of that group. People who aren’t on the inside but are close to men who are.”

A cold tingle rippled through her. “Women, you mean. The groupies.”

“A couple. Also a few guys who sympathize with the stated goals of the group but don’t like their methods or trust that they’re what they say they are. There are a lot of people in these parts who’ve seen the mess government interference has made among their kinfolk and neighbors. You have multiple generations who’ve known nothing but life on welfare.”

“The draw,” Olivia murmured. At his quizzical look, she added, “That’s what people here call it. ‘The draw.’”

“They can’t live without it, but some of them hate what it’s turned them into, too.” He stood up and paced toward the fireplace, leaning toward the heat as if he’d felt a chill. “It makes it very tempting to hook up with people like the BRI.”

“I know.” She’d grown up poor herself. Had struggled to escape the cycle of poverty and bad choices that had haunted her family for a couple of generations. “People don’t want to feel victimized. Being part of the BRI gives them a sense of power.”

“There’s a young man I got to know over the past couple of months. Little more than a kid, really. We worked a few day labor jobs together over near Cherokee. His uncle is part of the Blue Ridge Infantry, but this kid is smarter than that. They keep trying to recruit him, but he resists. He’s saving up all his money, planning to go to a technical college over in Asheville.”

“He’s the one who told you the BRI is targeting me?”

“Not exactly.” Landry crossed to the coffee table and sat on the edge, facing her. He leaned closer, his gaze intense.

Once again, the desire to reach across the narrow space between them hit her like a physical ache. She curled her hands into fists and kept them in her lap. “Then what, exactly?”

“He got me into a meeting where they were planning their next move in the war against The Gates.”

She stared at him. “You were in a meeting with the BRI and they didn’t shoot you on sight?”

“Well, they didn’t know I was there,” he said with a grin that carved dimples in both cheeks, sending her heart into a flip. “The meeting was at his uncle’s place, and there’s a big vent in the den where they met. My friend lived with his uncle’s family for a while when his mama was in rehab a few years ago, and he found out that if you listen through the vent in his old bedroom, you can hear what they’re saying in that den clear as day.”

“He let you listen in? Does he know who you are?”

Landry shook his head. “I told him I was thinking of joining the BRI because I was tired of how the federal government was taking over every aspect of our lives. He sympathized, but he told me the BRI wasn’t the way to go. They were nothing but trouble and he could prove it.”

“By letting you listen in on a meeting.”

“Yes.”

“And you overheard them making a threat against me?”

“Not by name.”

“Then how do you know?”

“They called you Bombshell Barbie.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “And that told you it was me?”

“No. What told me it was you was that one of them said you were dangerous as hell and wouldn’t go down without a fight. The combination of the two—the nickname and the statement about your fighting spirit—that’s what told me it was you.”

She stifled a smile, not sure she should feel quite as complimented as she did. “Bombshell Barbie, huh?”

He held up his hands. “I didn’t come up with it.”

“I know. I’m pretty sure a guy named Marty Tucker did. He was up to his nasty eyeballs in the BRI until he shot himself trying to escape a colony of bats.”

“Bats?”

“Long story. He lived. Now he’s in state prison, serving time for kidnapping and other assorted crimes. Sadly, he’s chosen to keep all his secrets about the BRI to himself, so we’re not any closer to bringing them down than we were before.” She frowned. “Matter of fact, they’ve been really quiet recently. No chatter coming out of there at all that we’ve heard.”

“Until now.”

“Until now.” She cocked her head. “How long have you known about this target on my back?”

“Two days.”

“And you didn’t think to call and warn me?”

He slanted a look at her. “You’d have believed it was me on the other line?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“I knew you’d need proof.”

“What kind of proof?”

“An audio recording of the BRI’s plans.”

An electric pulse of excitement zinged through her. “You have that?”

He shook his head. “Not on me. I didn’t want to risk getting caught with it. I put it in a safe place.”

“Where?”

“I can’t tell you that. Not yet.”

Her spine stiffened, and angry heat warmed her face. “You can’t tell me? I’m the one in danger and you can’t tell me?”

His gaze flicked around the cozy room. “How do you know this place isn’t wired for sound?”

“I check it periodically for bugs,” she said flatly, trying to control her frustration.

“Using what equipment? Something you got from work?”

“Yes.” She met his questioning look without flinching, even though she knew where he was going with the question. “And yes, I realize Quinn probably has a way to get around a bug detector he himself supplied. But I trust him with my life.”

Landry’s eyes narrowed and he pulled back. “Really? Well, I don’t.”

She bit back a protest and counted to ten. Landry had no reason to trust Quinn, after all. Or anyone else, she supposed, considering what he claimed he’d been through over the past few months. “Fair enough.”

“It’s safe for now.”

“But the BRI is still after me?”

He nodded, easing forward again. “I don’t know the timing of what they have in the works. I know only what they’re planning to do. What you need to look for.”

Another chill washed through her, raising goose bumps on her arms and legs. “Do you mean to keep that a secret, too?”

A small flicker in the corner of his eye was his only reaction to her blunt question. “No, of course not.”

“So what do I look for?”

“First, it’s not going to be your standard hit. No sniper shot, nothing like that.”

She had an unsettling sense of unreality, listening to Landry speak of her impending death as if it was just another case to be investigated. “Is that good news or bad news?”

His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “None of this is good news.”

“Right.”

He suddenly reached across the space between them, closing his hand over hers. As if he’d read her earlier thoughts, in an urgent tone he added, “This is not just another case for me, Livvie. No matter what happened between us two years ago, you will never, ever be just another case for me.”

As she stared at him, heat spreading through her from the point where his fingers had closed around hers, he let go and sat back, clearly struggling to regain his cool composure.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Go on.”

“They’re going to take you when you’re alone. So you need to make sure you’re never alone.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Look, I know your boss offered you the chance to stay at the office with some of the other agents. Maybe you should do that.”

She looked at the whiteout conditions outside the cabin window. “Too late for that.”

He followed her gaze. “I’m sure your boss could come up with some way to get you out of here.”

She shook her head quickly. “Landry, I’m safe enough here. For now, anyway. I’m armed and it’s not easy to get here in the snow. And you’re here, right?”

He nodded toward the rolltop desk. “But I’m unarmed.”

She met his warm gaze, trying to be objective, to put everything from their past, good or bad, out of her mind and just assess the situation as an agent.

He’d shown up unannounced, after having disappeared for nearly a year, and told her that he’d been working with the same dangerous militia group he now said had made her a target for assassination. But he’d come alone and warned her of the danger against her. He’d had the opportunity to hurt her earlier, when he’d got the drop on her with her Mossberg shotgun, but he’d done nothing to hurt her.

Was he trying to pull some sort of scam? Was this story about hillbilly assassins part of some bigger plan the BRI had hatched?

Or was he telling her the truth?

“Why?” she asked finally.

His eyebrows twitched upward. “Why did I come? I told you—”

She shook her head. “No—why has BRI targeted me specifically? Do you know?”

“They didn’t say. At least, not the part of their discussion I was able to overhear.”

“What about your friend? The kid whose uncle is a BRI member. Would he be able to find out why they’ve targeted me?”

“If I could get in touch with him, yes. But that’s very dangerous. Even more so for him than for me. He took a big chance letting me sneak in to eavesdrop on the meeting. If either of us had been caught...”

She quelled a shudder as her mind finished the sentence for him, in vivid, brutal images. She’d seen the lengths to which the BRI would go to carry out a plan. “I get it.”

“After the snow thaws, I’ll see if I can reach him. But I’ll have to be very careful.”

She pushed to her feet, nervous energy getting the better of her. “There has to be something I can do while we’re waiting. Research or something—”

He stood and crossed to her, closing his hands around her arms and pulling her to face him. His expression was fierce at first, but it softened when she met his gaze.

“I’ll tell you everything I can remember from what I overheard,” he said in a tone so earnest, so familiar, it made her heart ache. “This all has to be confusing and disturbing—”

“Don’t do that,” she murmured. “Don’t handle me.”

Slowly, he dropped his hands away from her arms, but the sensation of his touch lingered, making her feel jittery and unsettled. “Let’s sit down, okay? Take a second and breathe.”

He was still handling her, but at least he wasn’t touching her. She returned to the armchair, and he sat on the coffee table in front of her.

So close. So palpable a temptation.

“They managed to get someone inside The Gates—Marty Tucker, I presume—but he was inside before you got there. They don’t assume their limited success with Tucker can be repeated, especially since you’re still there, sniffing out any possible traitors in your midst.”

“How do they know that?”

“They said Quinn’s not trying to hide that information. In fact, he made sure it got out through some of the information channels the BRI already knows are compromised.”

Olivia straightened, alarmed. “Quinn put information about me and my role at The Gates out there for the BRI to hear? Deliberately?”

“You didn’t know?”

She shook her head.

“See why I’m not sure we can trust your boss?” he asked softly.

She pressed her lips to a thin line, not ready to speak ill of Quinn to anyone, especially Cade Landry. But Quinn should have warned her, damn it! He’d deliberately made her a target by putting the information out there about her role at The Gates.

Was her life a bargaining chip in his plan to take down the BRI?

“He set you up as bait.” Landry’s voice was a soft growl.

“
If
you’re telling me the truth.”

“I am.”

She wished she could say she didn’t believe him. But the truth was, setting her up as bait without warning her was exactly the kind of thing Alexander Quinn would do. He was always,
always
about the bottom line. Get the job done whatever it took.

Even if what it took was putting one of his employees in the line of fire to set a trap.

“So they’re targeting me? Do they think he won’t find someone else to do what I’m doing?”

“They’re not going to kill you.”

“But you said I was a target.”

“You are. But remember when I said they were going to take you? I really meant take you. They’re looking to take you captive.”

“Why?”

“They seem to think they can use you to break someone.”

She frowned. “Someone? Who?”

Landry dropped his gaze, his expression enigmatic as he silently studied his hands for a long moment. When he finally looked up again, an unspoken question darkened his green eyes. “After listening in to Quinn’s conversation with you this afternoon, I think they’re planning to use you to get to him.”

“Why? Why do they think that would get them anything?”

He held her gaze, the questions in his eyes multiplying. “You tell me. I asked you this before, but you didn’t really answer. Is something going on between you and Quinn? Are you lovers?”

“No,” she answered bluntly. “I mean—”

His eyebrows quirked. “You mean?”

“We’re not lovers. But there have been times—” She swallowed with difficulty, suddenly overcome by the acute awareness that Alexander Quinn might have her cabin wired for sound. She took a bracing breath and continued. “There have been times I thought he wanted to be.”