Facing Fire Read online

  “Your uncle was a hard man to reach, Josiah.” A harsh laugh followed the line. “But I did. I couldn’t get him to admit he knew you. So proper. So dedicated to protocol and keeping your identity secure. It’s a shame your actions killed him.”

  Mike swore under his breath. “This guy sure does like to hear himself talk.”

  “I started with Josiah but you’ll all get a turn.” The figure they assumed was Benton shifted as he used the toe of his shoe to push the body at his feet to the side like nothing more than garbage. “Some of you will not be able to hold on to your secrets.” He made an annoying tsk-tsking sound. “And you should know once I kill those you care about most I’ll start again and keep going until the head of everyone you know is splattered in pieces against a wall.”

  “Next time I’m putting the rocket launcher right up his ass before I fire,” Mike said to the empty room.

  “See you soon.” Benton delivered the line, then the screen blinked out.

  For a few seconds they didn’t move. Didn’t talk. Alarms blared inside the Warehouse and monitors not already on sparked to life all around the room. Josiah heard a thunk as the lock on the main doors disengaged. The sound of voices as team members flooded in.

  “They won’t catch him.” The police could surround the house and lock it down, and Benton would get out. Josiah didn’t doubt that for a second.

  “No, but we will,” Mike said, making every word sound like a guarantee.

  “Right.” Josiah stared at the dark screen. “We’re coming for you, asshole.”

  2

  SUTTON DAHL blinked but she still didn’t understand the words swimming on the page in front of her. She’d been watching this office, the one next to the empty one where she’d set up her impromptu surveillance and hid out most days for the last two weeks. Marking every entrance and exit next door. Tracking the few people who came close to the entrance, in addition to the only two who ever went inside. Even arranging to “accidentally” run into the businessman who supposedly occupied the space.

  Ryan Bane was a supposed reclusive bigwig in the pharmaceutical industry. That might explain his rampant paranoia and the overly intricate security for a small three-room office with little more than a safe and a desk in it. Would if Ryan Bane actually existed as anything more than an elaborate but fake paper trail.

  Sutton didn’t know what the guy really did for a living, other than scam and con his way through a cycle of identities, but he did not run companies. Every reference to him online traced back to empty shell companies and false leads that looked real on the surface but fell apart after a few levels of serious digging.

  Not amateur stuff either. No, to track Bane she had to pull favors from an FBI friend and another in cyber security. People who knew how to investigate these things and not to leave digital footprints. Bane’s identity, while full in terms of records, traced back to a carefully laid trail. It took her a year to find the right string to pull. When she did, a small piece unraveled. A fake pharmaceutical company. This one, at this address.

  In the end, Bane turned out to be exactly who she always assumed he was. A pathetic creep of a man. A rabid liar. The same man she’d been tracking for years. A killer who got away with an unspeakable crime, then seemingly disappeared from the Earth to be reborn as someone new.

  But he’d never been off her radar. She’d been tracking him through the only photo that seemed to still exist that tied him back to the man he was before. A partial of his face. She found the evidence in her mother’s safety deposit box—the one she’d opened under an assumed name years ago—along with a handwritten list, half burned and in a man’s heavy scrawl, that read like how-to directions on establishing a new identity. According to her mother’s notes, he’d had slick answers back then for all her questions. Thank goodness her mom stayed skeptical.

  Every week Sutton ran the photo through every database she used in her regular work as a private investigator in Baltimore, Maryland. Some through the front door and some through the back with passwords she wasn’t supposed to have. But no luck. But when her target popped up in Paris, she’d moved in.

  Now she shifted the papers around on his desk. The ones from the file she took from his safe. That’s what happened when you trusted the safe that came with the place instead of having a new one installed. Very easy to pick, especially since Sutton had one just like it in her place next door and had been practicing for a week, looking for a way to get in it.

  Not a mistake she’d expect from someone like Bane, but then again, he didn’t act like he believed someone had sniffed out his trail. Though he did remain careful. He didn’t use any kind of cleaning service, which would have made breaking in easier. No, she’d had to depend on new tech tools that deciphered security codes in seconds and some old-fashioned lock-picking ones. The tiny camera she planted in the fancy heating grate in the hallway helped with the rest.

  After all that work and all that planning, the file in front of her didn’t make any sense. It didn’t connect to anything. Just a cover sheet with a random list of names. Pages with photos and what looked like lines of gibberish to her. Possibly a code of some type. But this was the same file he’d protected and hid in the safe. The only thing in there other than money, both dollars and euros, and keys to something. That pointed to the information being important.

  She read through the first few lines, committing them to memory, but decided that wasn’t enough. She slipped the small camera out of her jacket pocket and snapped a few photos. Got a few more on her phone, because duplication helped to avoid surprises.

  She’d hoped for something bigger. Sure, the idea of a diary of a madman outlining his crimes sounded more Hollywood than realistic. Still, a note that hinted as to his actual residence or the scam he was working on now would have been nice. He’d lost every tail she tried to put on him to follow him to the place where he slept. But his driver, or assistant, or henchman—whatever the actual job description of the big bald dude who rarely left his side might be—could give lessons in getting lost in a crowd or in traffic.

  At least this gave her somewhere to start, which meant it was time to leave. She pocketed the small flashlight she’d been holding in her mouth and moved around in the shadows. The outside streetlamps provided a little bit of a guide, but she mostly maneuvered based on memory. First to the safe to dump off the file. Then . . .

  She heard talking. The low hum of a man’s voice. Only one, so maybe on a cellphone. She couldn’t make out the words or even the tone. It all sounded so faint. But Bane could not be here. He never returned this late. The man stuck to a schedule and a late-night visit to the office wasn’t normally on it.

  Anxiety built and bubbled in her stomach, but she pushed it down. She had to get out without being seen. The one entrance proved to be a problem. So did the small area. Her gaze flicked to the window, then back to the door again. No way could she step out on a tiny ledge. Heights were not her thing.

  Her heart raced and a flash of heat warmed her face. It took several beats before she could breathe again. Panic. She recognized the sensation crushing her. She’d dealt with the debilitating emotion in her regular job. Had learned to push it down and hide it. Work around it and keep going. But that proved a lot easier when collecting adultery evidence for some client’s divorce than facing the possibility of getting caught breaking into a killer’s secret office.

  Looking around, she took stock of her options. Sparse furnishings, an open room to one side and a bathroom to the other. That was about it. So no real place to hide. The closet, but that struck her as risky.

  Her heart thundered in her chest. She could feel it thump in her ears. She inhaled, nice and deep, trying to get her misfiring nerves back under control.

  The voice grew louder and she heard the jingle of keys. In two giant but quiet steps, she slipped into the next room. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, her gaze shot to the couch, then to the window. The other door
likely led to a closet. The fear of heights and fear of being shot drove her to pick that imperfect option.

  The alarm chirped and the sound of the front door echoed through the near-empty place. She didn’t waste one more second. She opened the slim door and made out a pile of clothes and a stack of boxes in the closet. She slid in the small space between the edge of the cardboard and the wall and ducked under the hanging bar.

  Curled into a pretzel, she waited. Inhaled to fit as she pulled her knife out of her pocket. She couldn’t bring a gun into France without questions and problems, but she’d use the knife if she had to.

  Her heartbeat ticked up until she half expected to see it pump through her shirt. She’d spent most of her career dodging drug dealers and angry husbands. Once had a dead rat delivered to her office. None of that came close to the tension racing through her now. She was so close to revealing Bane for the disgusting piece of garbage he was. Her life’s work could not end like this. He could not win again.

  The footsteps clicking against the parquet floor told her what she needed to know. The slight slide of one side meant Bane. Something had left him with burn scars and an almost imperceptible limp. She liked to think one of his victims got in a good shot. She just hoped the person lived to tell about it.

  The steps grew closer. He was in the room with her now. Close enough that she would have sworn she heard him breathing. Energy flowed through her, fueling her to fight off the potential attack. She tightened her hand around the knife’s handle and felt it dig into her palm even through the gloves she wore.

  He walked around the room. She could hear the moves but not see them. Being basically blind made her stomach roll. She pushed through the waves of doubt and terror. Focused. Called up every awful memory. Mentally paged through those photos from the long-ago crime scene, steeling her nerves for what could come next.

  A light flicked on. She could see the shine under the door, watched it reach to the very edge of her shoe, and fought the urge to shift away.

  The scraping sound rattled around in her brain. She tried to place it. The heel of a boot, maybe? A thump.

  She inhaled and held her breath. Blood pumped through her and she couldn’t believe he didn’t hear the whooshing sound. Then the footsteps started again, only this time they retreated. Grew softer. The light clicked off. After another few sliding steps, the sound of the front door opening rang back to her. The alarm chirped again, as if being reset.

  The air rushed out of her lungs in relief. She bit back a cough and a gasp. Rested her forehead against the back of the closet door as she tried to restart her brain and move it out of fight-or-flight mode.

  Careful not to make any noise, she opened the door, just a sliver, to see if what happened in the room matched how she’d built it in her brain. The dark room greeted her. No sign of Bane. A quick glance around told her everything looked the same. She didn’t question the noises or Bane’s odd visit. She slipped out, keeping her back to the wall as she moved across the room.

  A tingling sensation crept up her spine and she stopped in the doorway to look back over the open area. The couch seemed closer. No longer set against the wall, it was almost as if it had moved a few feet. But she didn’t have time to assess. The need to get out of there drove her.

  She nearly bolted for the front door. Only a quick flash of common sense had her peeking out the peephole first. No one stood there. Even through the distorted lens she could see parts of the hallway on either side of the door.

  She entered the code and winced at how loud the alarm sounded as it bounced off the walls of the still room. Itching to be out and away, she stepped into the hallway and heard the door automatically lock behind her. She made it all of eight steps, almost to the edge of her doorway next door, when Bane appeared at the end of the hall. He ducked out of the elevator alcove and faced her.

  Her heart dropped. She actually felt it go into freefall as a breath jammed up in her throat, refusing to come out.

  They stood maybe thirty feet apart and she could feel his intense, dark-eyed gaze from that distance. Those eyes narrowed as he headed down the hall toward her. With each sliding step her anxiety rose. She fumbled with the knife in her pocket, ready to stab. Absolutely prepared to scream.

  He stopped right in front of her. A looming presence even though they nearly matched in height. “I heard my alarm.”

  Her brain raced to find the right answer. “That was mine. I just stepped out of my office.”

  “What are you doing here this late?” The strain in his voice made the words sound scratchy.

  She skipped over asking him the same thing and forced a smile. “A late night working.”

  “What is it you do again?” he asked as if they’d ever had a real conversation before.

  Her mind jumped to the first thing that came to her in connection with Paris. “Fashion.”

  That qualified as the worst response ever. She wore all black, pants to jacket. On a Parisian woman the outfit might come off as stylish. Not her. Some days she forgot to comb her hair.

  He must have questioned the answer because he watched her. She refused to break eye contact. No squirming. No fidgeting. She just stood there and stared at him, careful not to let her gaze linger too long on the puckered skin to the right of his mouth or red patches on his neck that disappeared under the collar of his shirt. He kept his right arm bent at an angle and close to his body.

  She wasn’t clear about the extent of that injury, but the fake news trail included a tragic story of the house fire and losing his wife. As if any sane woman would marry this guy. Those cold eyes spoke to the lack of human emotion underneath. She could only hope whatever happened to him hurt like hell.

  He shifted his stance, seemingly taking up even more of the hallway. “Did you hear anyone else out here?”

  So something tipped him off. That certainly didn’t make her happy. “Just me.”

  Then she waited. Wanted to see his next move. He simply nodded and gestured for her to pass by him.

  The idea of letting this guy get behind her set alarm bells ringing in her head. Still, standing there would be weird, and he was weird enough for both of them. And now wasn’t the time for a confrontation. She needed to figure out his plans. Find evidence that would convince the police back home to look into him. All of that required measured surveillance designed not to spook him.

  She eased around him, careful to maintain eye contact to the last second, then zipped past him. She could feel his gaze on her. The heat of his unprovoked anger. She glanced back over her shoulder as she walked. Met his gaze and flashed him a big smile.

  He looked away without returning it and went back to his door. Ran his hand along the doorjamb. Let his fingers linger over the alarm code keys.

  The whole thing freaked her out. It was as if he could sense she’d just been in there. Either that or her cameras weren’t the only ones trained on his place. The one in the hallway. The other one in the upper corner of his window, just outside. Both set up to beat any detection protocol he might run.

  He was a savvy criminal. But she was smarter.

  Her hands didn’t stop shaking until she got to the elevator. Even then she didn’t let up on the death grip on her knife. The bell dinged and she stepped inside. Tension made her punch the lobby button over and over until the doors finally shut, locking her in there without him.

  As the car started to move, the names from that file in his office floated back through her mind. She had photos but she didn’t take those for granted. She repeated the information over and over, making sure it stayed with her. Several were unusual names. Some were not.

  She remembered the look of the page and the heading at the top. Delta something. The file also had contained photos and what she thought might be street names even though they weren’t written as addresses, and lines that didn’t make sense. Words that didn’t match up but were strung together in what looked like sentences.

  She lived ten minutes away. A quic
k walk, then the search could begin. She’d poke around, test a few names. Then she’d run them with “Delta” and see what came up. Not the most exciting evening ever, but it worked for her.

  She’d come to Paris to find the man who’d killed her mother. Now she had.

  3

  THREE DAYS later Josiah stood on the grounds of his uncle’s vast estate. Nothing but miles of open land, lush trees, and immaculate landscaping painstakingly tended by a staff of gardeners. Little had changed except for his gruesome death, news of which had been splashed in the press, from television to tabloids, all centered on the fable about a random gas explosion.

  A “horrific accident that took the life of one of Britain’s finest men,” or whatever wording the few government and intelligence officials in the know agreed to say. The innocuous and untrue version meant to prevent full-scale panic over an unnamed terrorist attack. To Josiah the false descriptions stood as an echo of his failure to save his uncle.

  Josiah walked into the maze of hedges and stared up at the pale blue sky. This part of the country, seventy miles outside London, had been rocked by the unexpected death of his uncle. Josiah knew the truth. His team knew the truth. His father knew the truth and placed the blame for it all squarely on Josiah’s shoulders.

  A shuffle of footsteps fell behind him. He didn’t have to reach for a weapon or duck to avoid an attack. He knew these visitors. They’d arranged to meet here, now.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Josiah.” Tasha Gregory, former MI6 and current head of the Alliance, delivered the comment as he turned around.

  He nodded because that’s all he could manage before his brain shut down. The revenge? Now that he was ready to undertake. “What do we know?”