Under the Wire: Bad Boys Undercover (13 page)

“The sooner we get confirmation, the sooner we know what we’re looking for here.” Parker said the words nice and slow, as if explaining new information.

Reid understood how recon worked. The timing made sense. Everything Parker wanted to do followed protocol. But sometimes the playbook on these things missed the human toll.

“We need to get her out of here.” Reid emphasized each word in a not-so-subtle message to his friend and team partner.

“You know that can’t happen right now. We’ve got bodies stacking up and—” Parker’s voice cut off as he winced. It was as if he’d only just noticed how pale and close to the edge Cara looked. “Sorry.”

Finally.
Ignoring Parker, Reid turned to Cara. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. The stillness and the chill coming off her muscles worried him. “Your job is the same. Stand here. You’re our first warning.”

Tension pulled around the corners of her mouth. Stark pain showed in every line of her body and in those dark eyes. “What are you going to be doing?”

“Talking with Parker.” Possibly killing him for being so damn clueless.

“I have a feeling that’s a nice way of saying what you’ll really be doing,” Parker mumbled under his breath.

Damn straight.
But Reid didn’t want to startle her. Today had been a nonstop roller coaster of pain for her. He didn’t want to add to it.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Stay here.”

She nodded. “Don’t be long.”

“I’m not leaving you.” He meant right then, but he worried that he really was talking about forever.

“Okay.”

He gave her hand one last squeeze then forced his fingers to let go.

R
EID FOLLOWED
Parker back inside the house of death. He didn’t welcome the second trip, but this couldn’t be avoided. As much as he hated the idea of forcing Cara to look at photos, Parker was right. They already had so many unknown variables. If they could understand how many people they needed to find, that would at least give them an idea of how to use their limited resources.

“Fuck me.” Parker looked around as he wiped a hand through his hair. “This is some pretty horrible shit.”

Not the worst they’d seen. Not by far, which is the part that really sucked. Reid had lived most of his adult life being other people. He’d been undercover in CIA special ops. Pretended to be everything from a terrorist to a white pride nationalist. Literally watched a man get ripped apart while tied to two truck bumpers. Saw another get buried alive.

That didn’t even touch the endless parade of dead bodies, some of them at his hands. So many visions
haunted him, and he didn’t want that for Cara. “Now you know why I want her out of here.”

Standing there with his hands on his hips, Parker glanced over at him. “You sure that’s why?”

“Don’t be a dick.” They had bodies to handle and a mission where he still didn’t understand the end goal. The last thing he had time for was a game of verbal gymnastics about Cara.

“I’m just saying you two got back to kissing really fast.” Parker’s voice lowered as he took a step closer to Reid. “Be careful there, man.”

“You think she’s the killer?”

Parker shook his head. “You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Okay.”

“I think she will fucking flatten you if you don’t watch your back.”

“She weighs half of what I do.” Reid knew that’s not where his friend was going, but this was not the time for a discussion about his love life. There was never a good time for that.

“Emotionally, you idiot.”

The comment hit a little too close. When she’d walked out, he shut down that side of his life. Made a vow to keep things with women light. Make sure they knew the score up front and not get involved. Work was his priority. Staying in peak condition. Covering his team. Analyzing data.

It all sounded good until he’d gotten that call from Caleb. One suggestion that Cara might have walked into danger—again—and Reid blew every promise he’d ever made himself. He turned his life upside down and brought Parker along for the ride.

So much for swearing off women. For swearing off
this
woman.

“Does she look like she’s capable of doing anything right now but throwing up?” The look on her face, the vulnerability, ate at him.

“So, you’re going to swoop in, be all caring and shit, and then what?” When Reid started to respond, Parker talked right over him. “I’ll tell you. Boom! You’re knocked on your ass a second time.”

“I’m concentrating on the job.” Not that he even knew what that was. They’d come to Russia expecting one thing and walked into something very different.

“We don’t actually have an official mission.” Parker slipped his gun into the holster on his thigh and reached for the phone in his back pocket.

Reid couldn’t argue with that, so he went another way. “Do you want to go home?”

“Nah, that bullshit is not going to fly.” Parker crouched down and started taking photos of the dead. “You want me to get pissed off so we can trade verbal jabs and you can maybe throw a punch or burn off whatever is riding around inside of you.”

Parker might say odd shit but he was not dumb. Reid
had recognized that from the beginning. The guy had street smarts, and for being on the socially awkward side, could read people faster than most. “Do you know how many metaphors you just mashed together?”

Parker shuffled around the floor as he got each shot. “I barely know what a metaphor is.”

“You can’t sell the dumb hick thing to me.” Reid didn’t buy it at all. “Yetis, snowmen . . . I know you believe in some weird stuff, but you’re rock solid.”

Parker glanced up. “Do you know why I believe?”

“No clue.”

“Because when you see shit like this you should believe anything is possible.” Parker stood up. “If humans can do this to other humans? Hell, I’ll take my chances with Yetis.”

For the first time, Parker’s obsession with conspiracies made some sense to Reid. “Fair enough.”

“Now about Cara . . .”

“I’m not going to fall for her again.” Reid thought saying the words might make him believe them. Something about repetition making it so.

Parker smiled. “Too late. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to ask when you un-fell for her.”

“It’s been one day.” Had he really only been next to her again for a few hours? That didn’t seem possible. Within seconds they’d fallen into a rhythm. They argued and debated, but he enjoyed the challenge. Man, she messed with his mind. “A really long day, but still.”

“You never fell out of love with her.”

He had to be. He could not be so pathetic as to hang on after she left him and never looked back. “What do you know about it?”

“I know when a guy is about to do something stupid when I see it.” Parker flashed the phone’s screen. “Hell, you were already thinking about wasting valuable time by not having the one person who could make these IDs actually do it.”

“I wanted to spare her this.” Reid took one last look at the motionless bodies. “I mean, Jesus.”

“We’ve seen worse.”

And that was a fucking shame. “Which says a lot about us.”

“I need to know your head is on the mission. I count on that.” Parker thumped his fist against Reid’s chest. “Count on you.”

That trust went both ways. Reid depended on Parker to have his back. That’s why he needed Parker to understand about Cara. “It is, but we can make this work without exposing her to more danger.”

“We’ll see.”

Three sharp knocks sounded at the door. “Gentlemen, once again you forget I can hear you.”

Reid almost groaned. Her muffled voice from the other side of the closed door served as a stark reminder of how on top of each other they were. “Shit.”

“She’s got voodoo hearing.” Parker sounded impressed by that fact.

“No, just the normal kind,” she said.

Parker laughed. “I’ll grab the rest of the photos, what little forensics I can. You go handle her.”

Reid opened the door and almost slammed into her. She stood right there, frowning.

“You were listening in,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Actually, I tried to hear all of it but you guys kept whispering.” She rolled her eyes. “What? As if you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

The door opened again and Parker slipped outside to join them. “She has a point.”

“I could only pick up a few words, but I get that you’re ticked off.” She looked at Parker. “Why?”

“I’m supposed to be in Montana right now.”

She nodded. “Makes sense.”

Reid watched their back and forth. The practical science type and the conspiracy nut with a near perfect shot. They shouldn’t have gotten along but they seemed to understand each other. Reid had no idea what to think about that.

He switched topics, trying to pull them all back to the problem they needed to handle first. They could deal with all the other problems later. “We need a new safe house.”

“I can take care of that,” she said.

Reid ignored the idea of dragging her any deeper into this than she already was as he made a mental list of all they needed to accomplish and started assigning tasks. He looked at Parker. “You need to handle these bodies.”

Cara exhaled as she moved a few steps away from the front of the cabin. “That sounds awful.”

“We don’t want them sitting out here,” Parker explained.

She winced. “Them?”

“How many were on your expedition?” Reid asked, needing to clarify the number of bodies they needed to track down.

“Eight, including me. Only four of us were at the temporary site when whatever happened there happened.”

Parker glanced at Reid. “Eliminate Cara and Cliff and that Simon guy, and we’re still missing one.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

Parker joined her. “Here.”

Standing next to her, he flipped through the photos on his phone. Head shots only, but still gruesome. The looks on their faces, the blood. With each flick of Parker’s finger, Reid could see the color drain from her face.

When her balance faltered, Reid took a step in her direction. “Cara?”

“They are on my team . . . were.” She looked up at him. Her dark eyes were filled with sadness. Strain pulled at her mouth. She swallowed twice before listing the names of the dead men.

From experience, Reid knew the best way through this was to stick to the facts. He hoped she’d appreciate that idea. “That leaves two unaccounted for. Simon and—”

She filled in the blank. “Brad Byron.”

“At least we’ve seen Simon.” Reid turned that information over in his head, trying to figure out what that meant.

Simon wasn’t moving when they spotted him. Dragging around a dead body didn’t make sense. The attackers wouldn’t do that unless they needed him for something. That pointed to him being alive. But there were still so many unanswered questions.

Reid tried to mentally chart out the locations they’d been to. He thought they formed a triangle. If there was a bull’s-eye area for whatever was happening, they might be standing in the middle of it. Then there was Cara’s intel about the rumors of scientists being moved around out here with military escorts.

“Five dead and we don’t know exactly why.” He didn’t mean to say the comment out loud, but it wasn’t exactly a secret.

Parker nodded toward the cabin. “I’ll handle this.”

“What does that mean?” Cara asked.

“Tasha arranged for one of her contacts to meet me and take Cliff’s body. We’ll do that here, too.” Parker made the comment as if it answered everything.

From the way Cara’s mouth dropped into a thin line, Reid guessed it didn’t and rushed to explain. “We need to get them out of here. Home where they can be autopsied and then returned to their families.”

“That’s the worst sentence ever.” She shook her head
and walked even farther away from the cabin. Still close and likely not away from the smell that soaked through the walls, but as if she needed some mental distance from all the death.

Parker watched her for a few seconds before saying anything. “I’ll get in touch with Tasha, take care of this and get to the drop site.”

“What will we be doing?” Cara asked.

“It sounds like I do all the work, right?” Parker winked at her. “Because that’s true.”

Reid skipped over that and answered her question. “Finding a place for us to meet up and figure out where we go from here. Trace the steps, look at maps. It’s a lot of overview work.”

“You could listen to me.” Some of the color flooded back into her cheeks. “I told you I have a place.”

“In Russia.” He didn’t even fight to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“I’m a geologist. I know the area.”

Interesting that she waited until now to make that announcement. “We aren’t going to hide in a cave.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad.” Parker shrugged. “We’ve slept in places that make a cave look like a fancy hotel.”

She looked back and forth between the men. “Like what?”

Reid worried Parker might actually describe the scenes for her. “Not now.”

“Fine, then how about an abandoned mine?” From
her voice it was clear Cara thought she’d won this round.

And she had. Reid remembered something about mines, but she would get them there faster. That meant less time out in the open. He only hoped the attackers—whoever they were—hadn’t gotten there first.

Parker whistled. Looked even more impressed with her. “Even better.”

“You need to start trusting me.” She glared at Reid as she talked.

She might have good ideas, but they had a past. He wasn’t quite ready to forgive and forget. He didn’t move on as fast as she did. “Easier said than done.”

She stared at him for a second without saying anything. Eyed him up as if she were assessing his mood. “Then I guess I’ll have to earn it.”

One of Parker’s eyebrows lifted. “Are we still talking about finding a safe house?”

“Yes,” Reid said, because that had to be the case.

This time she shrugged. “Good question.”

C
ARA TRIED
to calm down. Her heartbeat kept jumping around and a headache pounded in her temples. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Cliff’s lifeless form. Now visions of the other men on her team played in her head.

The blood. The obvious beatings. She couldn’t even describe what Ken’s face looked like. As if the bone had disintegrated. Eyes open. Other eyes closed. The evidence of the horror was right there. A piece of it would stay with her forever.

She leaned against the tunnel wall within the abandoned mine and inhaled the stale air. Almost choked on the hint of mold she drew in with each breath. Her muscles shook, making the gun hanging loose in her fingers tap against her side. She could barely hold on to the thing and her hand refused to tighten around it no matter how many times her brain screamed for it to do so.

Reid had said to stay here while he ventured deeper
into the shaft. If that meant avoiding whatever new terror lurked around the next corner, she would listen. Never one to blindly obey, this time she was fine with it.

She looked up, following the line of the arching ceiling soaring above her head. The stone walls had been painted white in places. The color peeled away, revealing patches of gray. No matter the color, the walls trapped in the cold temperatures. A chill filled the air.

The glow sticks Reid dropped onto the dirt floor gave the place an eerie glow but let her see her surroundings. Wires ran the length of the wall and connected to lights above her head. The box attached to the wall across from her was rusted and the door hung half off its hinges. Streaks of orange stained the space around it.

She guessed water had touched and possibly shorted out the electrical panel at one point. A very bad thing, but there was one bright spot. No bodies. No sign of blood.

She wanted to call out for Reid but didn’t. Anyone else could hear and she didn’t want to invite company. Not without Reid standing right next to her, ready to shoot. He’d had to snap the old lock holding the main double doors to the mine so they could get in, but that didn’t mean they were alone in here. She didn’t trust any obvious sign anymore.

Instead of fidgeting or exploring, she waited in the main section of the mine. Just around a slight bend, so
the front doors were no longer visible and right before two tunnel openings into what she thought of as rooms. Within one of these, she could see a huge pool of water blocking further passage. An old mining cart stood in the entry of the other tunnel opening, which Reid had slipped past before disappearing into the darkness to hunt for potential attackers.

“Please don’t find any,” she whispered to herself as she pushed off from the wall. Nervous energy had her needing to move. She had to burn off some of this adrenaline before her mind started spinning and her imagination ran wild.

She picked up one of the glow sticks and walked toward the standing water. Something drew her to that spot. Maybe the creepy atmosphere or questions about the unknown. Sometimes she couldn’t turn off the scientist brain, the need to know and explore. To venture outside of her boundaries and test.

Her footsteps echoed through the damp space as she walked to the edge of the pool. The darkness hid most of the secrets of this tunnel. She held up the glow stick and looked across the dark water. The stillness haunted her. No ripples. No movement.

The pool was not the result of a leak. It was a huge hole, one intentionally carved into the ground, which likely filled with water from underneath. It stretched a good thirty feet along the sides and was cut into a perfect rectangle.

“Hey.” Reid whispered the greeting as his hand slipped under her elbow.

The whole scene should have had her jumping out of her skin and headfirst into the dark pool. But she’d heard him coming. She was beginning to pick out the difference between his quiet don’t-want-to-be-heard walk and the noisy-for-him version that tipped her off to his entry.

He wasn’t the type to intentionally scare her. He didn’t get off on seeing women cower in fear. She’d dated an asshole like that once. As if he needed to prove his manhood by showing he was so much tougher than she was. Not Reid. He didn’t play those games. Didn’t overwhelm her with his strength. He could probably pick her up with one hand and throw her over his shoulder, but he respected boundaries so long as he didn’t think her safety was at issue.

He seemed to prefer ordering her around. For some reason that made her smile.

It was Reid’s turn to hold up the light and study the tight quarters. He frowned as he did. “What am I looking at?”

“They flooded this shaft.” Not an unusual practice. It tended to dissuade trespassers and kids seeking excitement from plunging in. “They filled the space with water so no one goes down there looking for gold, or whatever they were fishing out of this mine before closing it down.”

The water could also signal a radiation issue. The Geiger counter in her bag wasn’t ticking. She’d turned it on to get a reading on the confined space and so far they were fine. But that didn’t mean she wanted to enjoy a long swim.

“Do you know what they were digging for here?”

“Could be anything.” She guessed coal, but gold and precious gems were just as likely. The mineral rich area provided what seemed like an endless supply. Once one mine dried up, they moved a mile or so to one side and started again.

“Let’s see what’s under there.” Reid threw one of the sticks into the water.

It floated on the surface, casting the pool in a green glow. The water was clear, deep. From one tiny light she could see a good distance down. The sides were carved into the stone and evened out. Stacks of what looked like wood and ladders sat in a junk pile just under the surface. Steps led down beneath the debris, with lights hooked to the wall to illuminate the way.

She pointed at the steps. “That must have been a way up and down, to go deeper into the mine.”

“I don’t see tracks for the carts.”

“The prisoners likely had to climb in and out.” She felt Reid staring at her and explained. “Most of these mines were built by the men trapped in the gulag system. The prison work camps.”

Reid nodded. “An endless supply of free labor.”

“Exactly. If a man fell to his death—and that happened all the time, I’m sure—the guards would grab another one and send him down in the deceased man’s place.” No one bothered to measure the human toll because they didn’t care.

“While the world ignored it.”

The comment sounded dramatic but actually wasn’t. The history books referenced the hard life of political prisoners and anyone unlucky enough to land on the wrong side of those in power but couldn’t really describe the horror. Records were falsified and information buried. “That’s why we have people like you now.”

He frowned. “Meaning?”

“I’m thinking if Russia started up a modern-day labor camp and used prisoners to mine or as subjects in weapons’ experiments, you guys would know.” For some reason, she slept better thinking that. Knowing he and his team were out there made her feel safer. Twitchy and more than a little concerned about his safety, though Reid was the most competent man she knew.

An expert with weapons. Smart in planning. Not one to rattle. While the bossy thing worked on her nerves, there was something very sexy about how in control he stayed under pressure.

“Which makes me wonder why the government sent scientists in to handle this rather than us in the first place.” He shook his head as he stepped back from the
edge. “We should have had dependable recon on this and set up protection before you and your team ever hit the ground.”

“There might not be anything to find.” Despite all the death and danger, she needed to conduct her experiments. She couldn’t imagine getting back to work, but she also refused to let her friends’ deaths be in vain.

He scoffed. “The dead bodies suggest otherwise.”

The reminder zipped to her stomach like a shot. “Right.”

He did a double take. In one step he stood back at her side. “Shit, sorry. Let’s go back out into the main area. At some point you need to eat something.”

At the thought of eating, she almost choked up the protein bar she’d forced down for breakfast. “That is not going to happen.”

“Cara . . .”

“I’ll eat when you agree to sit down and let me examine you, stitch you up, and give you pain pills.” She stared at him, challenging him. Waiting for him to blink.

“So, the timing is wrong for food.” He nodded. “I get that.”

She ducked her head and smiled as they walked out of the damp room and into the drier main entrance tunnel. “Did you see anything down the other opening?”

As he walked, rock-filled mounds of dirt and shards of wood cracked under his steps. “No.”

“Would you tell me if you did?” She stopped and
spun around until her back hit the cool, white-painted wall.

He balanced a palm against the wall right next to her shoulder. “We’re safe here. At least for now.”

“So, it’s okay for me to fall apart.” She almost hoped he’d give her permission.

“Do you need to?”

“Sort of.” She prided herself on holding it together, but she’d been down this road before and knew her mind could only handle so much strain. The kidnapping left her afraid to fall asleep for months. Back then Reid left the condo and she waited on the couch for his return.

She hid it all, of course. Pretended she bounced back without trouble. But even now, more than a year later, a stray sound could send her flying into the corner, holding her gun for protection. She’d taken lessons and practiced at the range.

For most of her life the only thing that helped to ease the tightening inside her, the churning panic that started in her stomach and could turn her entire body into a shaking mess, was to bury her mind in work. Run off the spiraling tension or hunkering down to review research. Fill her head with anything else.

Then she met Reid. With him she found the one thing that mattered as much as her work. The one person who could sweep her up and away. And that had scared her. Looking back now, she wondered if that’s
why she ran when Reid wouldn’t talk. Took the first opportunity to flee and dredged up every excuse to justify her choices.

The weight of all she needed to apologize for and explain nearly suffocated her. She was right to be frustrated with him. Thinking her love for him would just disappear had been the huge mistake.

“Cara?” His voice sounded so soft. So soothing.

It mesmerized her. Almost had her swaying. “Huh?”

“Fall, if you need to.” He leaned in and cradled her cheek in his palm. “I’ll be right here.”

“I thought men hated to see women cry.” Not that she planned to, but she probably could if she eased up on her self-control the tiniest bit.

“Some men are losers.”

She dragged her hand down the front of his jacket. Let her fingers linger over the zipper. “Not you.”

“I wish that were true.”

She felt the pang through every part of her. An odd sensation that made her desperate to comfort him.

“I didn’t leave because you were a loser.” And that was the truth. He had faults. They both did. But he was a good man. Better than he knew or would admit. With her single-minded focus, maybe better than she deserved. “You absolutely are not a loser.”

“You clearly left because I was such good husband material.” He pushed away from the wall, put a few feet between them.

She hated that. Grabbed a fistful of his jacket and drew him close again. “You really didn’t have any doubts about us? After the way we started out, hiding for days, all intense and dependent only on each other?”

“No.”

“We skipped over dating and went right to sex and then the engagement.”

His eyebrow lifted. “The one you never told your family about.”

She heard the thread of anger in his voice. A bit of disappointment seemed to linger there, too. “How did you figure that out?”

That hadn’t been an oversight but it wasn’t really on purpose either. She’d kept waiting to tell the big engagement news, thinking she’d get some sort of sign or her mind would just somehow
know
that he was the one. She felt it in her heart, in the way her breath sputtered every time she saw him, but she’d never been the type to believe in curl-your-toes love. When it happened to her, she discounted it.

Looking at him now, she wondered why she hadn’t fought harder for answers. That doubt never entered her mind before. Even though leaving him hurt—ripped her in two and had her fighting for air—she’d always needed to believe she made the right choice for
them
. Not just for her.

But now questions swirled. She wanted to blame the situation and the adrenaline, but the way her heart
flipped over from just seeing him told her those feelings she’d convinced herself were so shallow really weren’t.

“Caleb asked why I left you.” Reid’s expression stayed blank. Unreadable. “I didn’t bother correcting him or defending my choices.”

“He thinks we were dating and it didn’t work out.” Because that’s what she told her brother and her parents. Rather than bring home the lethal undercover operative no one expected, she kept him away and silently insisted she’d saved him from family drama.

All of those choices that seemed so right at one time now jumbled in her head. She spent most of her workdays analyzing data and coming to reasoned conclusions. She’d applied that same logic to her relationship with Reid. Now she wondered if he defied explanation. If he was the one variable she could not account for.

“I’m guessing you used my controlling behavior as the reason we broke up.” He didn’t sound judgmental as his hand brushed up and down her arm.

Cara pulled back. Almost slammed her head against the wall by accident. “Did Caleb say that?”

“He knew about the tracker.”

She refused to apologize for tattling about that. “You have to agree it was over the top.”

“I did it because you were still under a kidnap threat.” Reid’s fingers slipped along her chin. “Until all the men involved were caught, I needed to know where you were.”