Elite Ops: Black Jack Part 9

"What did you do?" Her mother almost whispered the words, as though terrified of the answer.

"I found her with Travis Caine," Desmond informed her. "He has a house here in Hagerstown as well. Your daughter somehow acquired a rather racy motorbike and she broke several speeding laws to meet him at a bar, and then followed him to his house."

"Caine?" Wide-eyed, Angelica turned to Desmond. "My G.o.d." She turned back to Lilly.

"He's a suspected terrorist, a man known to a.s.sociate, if not partner with criminals!

Victoria . . ."

"Lilly." Determination surged inside her. She hadn't been Victoria for six years. She was Lilly.

"Why are you doing this? Do you want to be taken from us again?" Her mother ignored the reminder. "You'll be arrested for sure!"

"I rather doubt there's a warrant out for my or Travis's arrest," Lilly objected.

"There's a warrant for your arrest in China, should you ever reenter their sovereign borders again, for theft of a government artifact, which they can't prove to America. There's a warrant for your and Caine's arrest in Iran for the suspected death of a militant who was related to the current ruler. There's also a warrant to bring you in for questioning in Spain for the death of a Spanish militant suspected of being part of a radical extremist group protesting against the government."

Had she killed?

She had. Lilly felt that knowledge bleeding through her, bloodred and stained with guilt.

Had she killed in cold blood? She couldn't imagine that. She had a healthy respect for life, more for others' than for her own. At least, that was the thought that flitted through her head.

How would she know these things? And why was she suddenly so frightened at the thought of her mother or her uncle knowing the full truth about her?

"From what I'm hearing, if I did kill, then it was no one that didn't deserve it," she informed them both with an air of unconcern.

She was aware that she would have never made such a statement six years ago.

"Victoria . . ." Horror rippled through her mother's voice.

"Mother." Lilly shook her head as she leaned forward. "I don't know what happened to me.

I don't know who I was, or what I did. But I do know I wasn't a criminal."

"I have the report on you, Victoria," her uncle said. "The governments may not have proof, but I have enough evidence to substantiate, at the very least, a strong suspicion that you did kill."

There was something in his gaze then, some thread of compa.s.sion, perhaps?

Understanding? What was she seeing there, and why did it bother her so much to see it?

Lilly wanted nothing more than to run now. To escape the judgment and the disapproval she could feel coming from the mother.

She didn't know if she could live much longer without somehow figuring out who or what she had been and why she had killed.

"I want this report you have on me." She rose to her feet and stared at her mother and uncle. "Then, I want to know how the two of you ended up married, and why the h.e.l.l my father's murderer was never found."

That was the source of her anger. Her father was dead, murdered, and his killer had never been caught. From what she gathered since she had been back, the search for his killer had been less than enthusiastic.

With that last warning she strode from the living room, ignoring her mother calling out to her, and her uncle's almost silent curse.

She needed answers. She needed to know what had happened and why. And then she needed to figure out just why the h.e.l.l Travis Caine felt more like a lover than a trainer, more like a friend than an enemy.

Travis sat in the underground room Wild Card had been a.s.signed as the Harrington's driver and listened to the confrontation as it played out in the Harrington living room.

Wild Card, a.k.a. Noah Blake, sat at the small table across from him, earbud attached to his ear, listening as well.

Travis watched the small, portable monitor as Lilly stalked from the room.

"Have the file sent up to her." Lilly's mother rose jerkily from the couch, her expression and her tone icily furious.

"Angelica, she doesn't need the file yet." Desmond sat forward, his expression concerned now. "She's barely healed physically. The shock could be detrimental."

"And what of the shock to the family?" She turned back, her pale face furious. "She's determined to bring this family down to the same level she's existed at for the past six years.

Let her see the damage she's risking by continuing along this path."

Travis's lips thinned at the judgment in Lilly's mother's voice.

Desmond sighed wearily. "She's been through a lot, Angelica."

"And you think I don't realize this?" Angelica's voice roughened. "My G.o.d, Desmond, the thought of that report destroys my soul. Why? Why did she allow us to believe she was dead?

Why live the life she lived rather than returning to us?"

"That's a question only Lilly can answer." Desmond rose to his feet. "And the doctors fear it's a question she will never be able to answer."

He glanced back at Angelica as he made his way back to the bar.

"She was always so d.a.m.ned stubborn," Angelica stated, tears filling her eyes. "I tried to tell Harold that if she were not dealt with properly when she was a teenager, then she would only harm herself."

Desmond seemed to stiffen before turning back to her.

"The clinic was not the answer, my dear," Desmond sighed.

"You are as ineffectual where she is concerned as Harold was," she snapped.

Desmond's voice hardened. "This is not an argument I will have with you tonight."

"You never wish to discuss it," Angelica said. "It's as though you want nothing more than to bury your head in the sand and pretend this situation does not exist."

Desmond stared back at her coolly. "I can think of nothing better than burying the entire matter for good."

With that he tossed back his drink, slapped the gla.s.s on a table, and stalked from the room.

A throttled, furious scream erupted from Lilly's mother's throat as she flung her gla.s.s at the door and watched it burst into fragments.

A tear slipped down Angelica's cheek as Travis turned from the scene and leveled a look at Noah. A soundless whistle pursed his lips as Angelica left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Travis pulled the earbud from his ear and dropped it to the table as Noah activated the cameras throughout the house, tracking Angelica's movements.

She stalked to her bedroom; minutes later, a manservant knocked. Angelica appeared at the door, handed a thick file to the servant, and pointed to Lilly's suite.

"h.e.l.l of a thing for a woman to have to face at four in the morning," Noah stated quietly.

"At any time," Travis growled.

He hated that d.a.m.ned report. h.e.l.l, he had never agreed with the cover those girls had been given. They were called security "escorts." Military trained, exceptionally lovely, and dangerous as h.e.l.l. They were "hired out" to men who required beauty and brains in a deadly package.

They were rented to legitimate businessmen as well as criminal bosses and cartel leaders.

s.e.xual services were not part of the package, but few of the men who paid for their services admitted that. They thought they were hiring discretion and protection. They had no idea they had hired highly trained operatives who reported back to an agency created for secrecy and efficiency.

To the world, though, the girls Santos Bahre and Rhiannon McConnelly handled were no more than well-armed wh.o.r.es.

And that's what Lilly would read in that file.

Would she believe it?

"Everyone is now in their respective rooms," Noah reported as he continued to scan the house. "Nik is slipping through the garden now."

Travis stood with a quick nod and moved to the single bed where he'd placed his bag earlier.

Noah eased the door open, stepped into the hall, and waited, while Travis quickly packed the gear needed into the pockets of his mission pants.

As he pushed a small tool pack into the pocket at the knee of his pants, Nik stepped into the room ahead of Noah.

The door closed silently as Noah stepped back inside. Nik carried a small backpack, filled, Travis knew, with the electronics needed to finish bugging the house for sound.

He handed the bag off to Noah and moved to the table where the portable monitors waited.

Travis slipped out of the room with Noah, moving silently through the house to the office both Desmond and Angelica Harrington worked from.

They had yet to get camera or audio in the room. Each time they had attempted it, Harrington or his bodyguard, usually both, had been too close, if not in the room itself.

This time, the office was empty.

Moving to the door, he attached the security device to the lock, activated it, and waited as the alarm was bypa.s.sed.

When the green light blinked, he turned the doork.n.o.b and they slipped in.

He reattached the device on the other side, reactivated the alarm, and then he and Noah went to work. Noah began installing video and audio while Travis moved to the desk.

There was no time to check the computer, that would come later. Picking the lock to the file drawer at the side of the desk, Travis began searching files and papers instead.

The drawer held nothing of interest. The desk was scrupulously neat. Working silently, Travis searched the room. There were business logs, files, contracts, all as boring as h.e.l.l.

Rifling through them, Travis was ready to move on when he glimpsed a thick narrow envelope tucked into a file regarding real estate in the D.C. area.

Pulling the envelope free, he opened it quickly and pulled out several pictures and a three-page report dated a little more than a year before. The report wasn't signed. It was handwritten. The last line held an account number.

Travis pulled a small digital camera from his pants and quickly snapped pictures of each page as well as the pictures.

Pictures of Lilly.

Each one had been taken in a different location for a different a.s.signment. If he wasn't mistaken, part of the report also held the name of the plastic surgeon who had supposedly changed Lilly's face.

The same doctor who had been killed the day before Lilly had taken a bullet to the side of her head.

Desmond Harrington had known Lilly was alive long before he had been contacted by the hospital. Renewing his search through the files, Travis found two more similar envelopes, recorded the contents, and quickly replaced them.

It was nearly dawn before he and Noah finished. They were moving for the door when the sound of the alarm being deactivated had them racing for whatever cover they could find.

Noah headed for a heavily curtained windowseat while Travis ducked into the closet to the side of the desk.

Isaac Macauley stepped into the room silently, closing and locking the door behind him before moving to the desk.

Through the cracks in the folding doors, Travis watched as the bodyguard opened a drawer, pulled a device free of the desk, and opened it.

Well, now, there was a problem. That particular device was extremely difficult to come by and could block even Noah's little electronic bugs.

Activating the device, Isaac pulled a satellite phone from inside his jacket pocket and keyed in a number. An international number if the amount of keys he hit was any indication.

"Harrington gave her the file," Macauley stated, his voice low. "There was no chance to delay it."

Macauley waited for whatever response came.

"Not as far as I can tell," he answered moments later. "She appears less than stable now that Caine has shown up."

Travis's brows lifted. He thought Lilly was very stable.

"I've advised Harrington to deal with the mistake," he reported after another silence. "He seems a bit squeamish at the idea, though."

Strange, Macauley's reputation was impeccable. This didn't sound like an innocent conversation, though.

"I'll take care of it," Macauley stated. "I'll let you know when they arrive."

The call disconnected.

Macauley stood still and silent for long moments afterward before replacing his phone and deactivating the blocking device he had used.

Replacing it in the desk, he turned and left the room, reactivating the security behind him.

Travis moved from the closet as Noah met him at the desk.

"Let me check this," Noah hissed as he pulled the device free again. "This b.a.s.t.a.r.d will screw with my electronics."

"Why here rather than his room?" Travis mused, wondering why Macauley didn't have the device in a place he wouldn't be caught using it.