Silent Truth (B.A.D. Agency #4)(40)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

He took the paper, which was another reason this had to be in person. He wanted no electronic trail to her. “I need some time to recon your new location.”

“No, you’ve done enough. I can do this on my own.”

He didn’t want the irritation rising inside him to reach his voice, but he was too tired and had too little time to battle over this. “Eliot wouldn’t want you to move without me checking it out.”

She didn’t flinch at hearing her dead husband’s name, as she had before, and calmly replied, “Eliot would know that I’m capable of taking a new job, moving my home, and raising his son on my own. We discussed this when he found out I was pregnant. You’re the one who feels like you have to do this, the one who can’t get past his death.”

That verbal backhand stung.

“Guess you’ve gotten over his death then.” Hunter wanted to give himself a knuckle sandwich the minute he said the words. He hadn’t meant to strike out at her, but she’d hit a nerve by telling him to get over Eliot’s death.

He’d waited four years to find Eliot’s killer, only to meet the bastard, then let him escape.

She grumbled something low, shook her head, and looked at Hunter with steel in her gray eyes. “Eliot told me once that you can be the biggest a**hole when you’re watching over the people you care about. I don’t know where I rank on your care meter, but I’ll let that slide.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “You’ve always been polite, but I knew you were angry with me. News flash: I was angry with you for a long time, too. I blamed you for his death.”

“I know. You have every right to blame me.”

“No, I don’t. I insult Eliot by thinking he’d have worked that closely with anyone he didn’t trust with his life. And you’re insulting Eliot by assuming I trapped him into marriage when I got pregnant. Think about it. Would the calculating and precise Eliot we both knew leave anything to chance?”

Hunter considered what she was saying and couldn’t argue her point. Eliot might have acted goofy when he wanted to make you laugh, but he was careful and meticulous with anything important. And having a baby would have been important to him. “Eliot intentionally got you pregnant?”

She nodded slowly. “We talked about it. He told me you handled all the danger but said everything in life came with risks. When I came to terms with how precarious his life could be, I finally agreed. I told him I was willing to have a baby with him, so we stopped using protection. The next time he came home I was pregnant. He couldn’t have been happier.” Her eyes glistened. “Couldn’t wait to get married.”

“Eliot shouldn’t have done this.” Hunter argued, but he shouldn’t have blamed Cynthia. He’d jumped to the conclusion she’d trapped Eliot, needing a target for his anger over losing his best friend. Cynthia had been too handy, just as Hunter had been too handy for her. Now he was irritated at what Eliot had done. “Bad enough to marry you and leave you, but to leave a child—”

“See, that’s where we differ, Leroy, or whatever your real name is, because I seriously doubt you’re a Leroy.” Her voice held no recriminations or undercurrent of hate any longer. She sounded sad and wistful. “I thank Eliot every day that he left a piece of himself with me. I love our son and I’m a good mother raising him. He’ll be four in a few months. I didn’t want to move him when he was so small, but I want to get him settled now before kindergarten.”

“Why move? Is someone bothering you here, or do you need a better place to live, or…” His natural instinct to protect surged to the surface.

She smiled. “I can’t stay here. I need to move away from the grocery store where I shopped with Eliot and the restaurants where we ate and the house that’s too quiet without him. I need to be somewhere it won’t break my heart to wake up every day in the room we shared so much in. Eliot will always own a place in my heart. It’s just too painful to look for him around every corner or to think I hear his footsteps on the carpet. If I had it to do over I’d still have spent that time with him and had our son, because I’d rather have had those two years with Eliot than have never met him. Life has no guarantees. He could have been killed in a traffic accident or I could have died from an unexpected illness. We accepted the risk of loving each other.”

Hunter had no argument for that. He’d spent as little time as possible in Montana over the past four years because he missed Eliot so badly when he visited the cabin. This time he pressed in a gentler tone, “I still want to check over your new location before you move.”

“Can you do that in the next three days?”

“No, I—” His gaze strolled over to the limo, where more problems waited. “I’m a little pressed for time this week.”

“I’m moving Monday.” She held up a hand when he started to say more. “I don’t need you to recon my neighborhood. It’s a nice, safe place to live. I want you to come meet your godson.”

Hunter lifted the paper she’d given him and memorized the address since he planned to destroy the paper immediately. “Be careful and stay close to home once you’re settled. I’ll let you know when I’ve been there.”

She sighed. “You’re welcome to stop in whenever you want. You be careful with whatever you’re doing. You may not be ready to forgive me, but I’ve forgiven you. I want you to be part of Theo’s life, to help him know who his father was.” Cynthia leaned forward and kissed Hunter’s cheek, then turned away.

He fought a lump in his throat as Cynthia strolled through the markers and disappeared in the direction of Eliot’s grave. She had a core of iron and had held nothing back in loving his friend. He was starting to understand how easy it would be for a man to lose his head over a woman like Cynthia.

The way he’d lost his head over Abbie.

Turning away from the memorial, Hunter started back to the limo that held the one person who’d made him feel anything since meeting Eliot.

But Hunter couldn’t be as cavalier about life when it came to Abbie even if there was no chance of seeing her again.

After telling the driver to find a restaurant, Hunter slid onto the backseat.

“Old nuisance?” Abbie asked casually, but she was annoyed.

“No. Wife of a friend of mine.”

“Does he mind you seeing her now?” she asked tartly.

He shouldn’t enjoy the jealous sting in her voice, not when he would lose her all too soon. “She’s his widow. He expects me to keep an eye on her. She was only kissing my cheek.”

“Oh, well, shoot. Sorry. How was I supposed to know?” she mumbled. “Not like you introduced us. But that makes sense because you don’t trust me, right?”

“I don’t trust anyone to know her identity or location.”

Abbie closed her eyes. “You’ll never trust anyone period.”

He hadn’t thought he could feel worse than he had after he’d left her unprotected at Kore and she’d almost died, but hearing her disappointment cut deep.

She cared for him.

Hell, he cared for her. Talk about stupid on his part.

But her disappointment in him would make leaving him easier for her when they separated.

Not for him.

The day she walked away she’d take a piece of him with her he’d never replace.

His cell phone buzzed. It could only be Gotthard. Hunter answered, “You get the files?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

“Why?”

“Joe wants you to come in.”

“I’m following a lead on something from the Kore center.”

Gotthard sounded whipped. “It isn’t a request.”

“I know. Thanks for the heads-up.” Hunter disconnected the call.

The hunt was on.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Who would have thought riding around in a limousine would become tiresome, but Abbie was over touring through Illinois. “When will we get to Chicago?”

“By two o’clock. About twenty minutes,” Hunter answered politely. He’d been nothing but accommodating since leaving the cemetery. She didn’t think he cared much for her “You’ll never trust anyone” comment, but if he wouldn’t let her meet his friend’s widow Hunter clearly would never trust anyone.

Including her.

“Can I call my brother again?” she asked.

“It’s not quite two o’clock yet.” Hunter handed over his phone.

He had a point. “I’ll call Hannah to see how Mom’s doing then.”

“Go ahead.”

She wanted to shake him out of his granite-tough reserve and see something alive in his eyes again. But she had the feeling that one call he’d taken on the way out of the cemetery hadn’t gone well. Hunter had told the caller he was tracking down a lead from the Kore center, not that he was playing keep away with his people to give Abbie a chance to find her brother.

How much trouble was Hunter getting into by not bringing her in and not going to meet with his people? She didn’t know and he wasn’t going to confide in her.

Not in a prisoner.

No matter how he might color it, she was headed for some form of incarceration. She had to make the most of her mobility while she could. Punching the speed-dial number he’d programmed in for the medical center, she kept pushing buttons until she reached her mother’s room.

A woman who had been moved into her mother’s room answered the phone.

“May I speak to Mrs. Blanton?” Abbie asked.

“She’s gone.”

“Where?”

“To ICU. She’s not doing so good,” the lady told her.

“What happened?” Abbie clutched her throat.

“I don’t know. Your mama was gone when I came back from having an X-ray. Nurse just said she had a bad spell.” Abbie thanked her and hung up, then called the ICU desk. She inquired about her mother and found out Hannah was in with her.

When she ended the call, Hunter asked, “What’s happened?”

“Mom’s heart is beating irregularly. Her liver hasn’t gotten worse, but it’s not improving either. She had a bad night and ended up in the ICU.” Abbie lifted the phone and pressed the buttons for her brother, waiting through two rings.

This time someone answered before the third ring. A shallow male voice said, “Hello?”

“Hi.” She was so unprepared to hear a voice she didn’t know what to say. “Is your last name Royce?”

“Yes. Can I help you?”

That encouraged her. “I’m Abigail Blanton. I, uh, am calling because we’re related. We have the same mother.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised and curious but pleasant.

“Do you know who your mother is?”

“Sort of. I have photos. She died when I was born.”

He’d been as lied to as Abbie had. Was their biological father some kind of heartless bastard or what? He might be worse than she suspected. “Your mother’s not dead.” Yet.

When her brother didn’t speak, Abbie rushed on. “None of us knew you existed. I just found records of your birth. You and I were born—”

Hunter touched her arm. She understood the warning to share as little as possible and nodded before going on. But she was desperate. “We were born at the same place. I never met our father. Did you?” She still didn’t hear her brother. “Are you still there?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just in shock. No, I never met my father. I was told my mother died in childbirth so I ended up in an orphanage.”

All she’d learned about her biological father from the Kore files was that his initials were S. J., but she didn’t need records to figure out she’d been lucky not to know him. That didn’t erase a bazillion questions she had for her mother. “I’m so sorry. You have family, more than you realize, and—”

“I hate to cut you off, because I’d really like to talk to you more, but I’m due to take a conference call in a few minutes. I work out of my home. I’ll be around this afternoon. If you’ll give me your number I’ll call you back.”

“Are you in Chicago at…” She gave him the street address Hunter showed her on the handheld computer.

“Yes… how did you know that and how did you find my phone number?”

“It’s a long story and I’ll be happy to answer questions if you’ll let me come by to see you.” Please say yes.

“You don’t have a cold or anything, do you? My resistance to germs is not the best, which is why I work out of my home. I have weak lungs and have to be careful not to expose myself to a lot of people.”

“No, I’m perfectly healthy.” She tried not to sound like a panicked stalker, but she had to see him today. “I can be there in thirty minutes. Just a short visit, okay?”

“I suppose that will be all right. Call when you get downstairs and I’ll clear the security so you can come up.”

Abbie hung up feeling like a huge weight was beginning to lift from her chest. Hope was taking the place of fear. She handed the phone to Hunter, so excited she wanted to hug him and hating the fact that she hesitated. “You heard. He’s going to see me when I get there.”

Hunter pocketed his phone. “I hope he agrees to help your mother.”

She knew the word “today” was at the end of that sentence in Hunter’s mind. She understood that he had an important job of some sort to do, but she had to get her brother to help.

No matter what it took to convince him.

Chapter Forty

Linette had six more steps until she could get inside her office and shut the door.

She’d been given the time for the bombing. Saturday—tomorrow—at 2200. She’d asked if that was Eastern Standard Time and Vestavia said he’d been told it was, but he hadn’t sounded convinced.