Barefoot With a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover Book 2) (35 page)

Maybe he would let Gabe make up a new life for him. But she’d need one, too. And they’d have to live far from her family, and she would never do that.

Not even for him.

Maybe for him.

Had he lost his mind?

Though surrounded by metal, he could hear the exchange between Alana and the guard. A gruff, unfriendly man asking typical questions even though he had to know her. And Alana answering, light and quick, lying like a pro he knew she was. Not CIA, but damn good…unless her kids were in physical danger. Then she crumbled.

Finally, the van moved, and he closed his eyes, remembering the layout of the employee parking lot. She drove north, toward the admin offices. Camp Delta was off to the east, nearly empty now. He knew every cell in the place.

Camp No was just outside the northern perimeter, but still on American soil. In there was the CIA facility commonly known as Penny Lane, where so much torture had taken place. And beyond that, in the darkest, farthest corner of the deepest secret in Gitmo, was the small group of cells he had guarded in his undercover role, where Gabe had lured terrorists to the other side, and where Roger Drummand had called the shots.

The van came to a halt, sudden and sharp, jerking his shoulder right into the iron wall that surrounded him. He sucked in a breath and touched the dried blood stuck to the wound. He was probably covered in blood, which made him hope to hell no one was around when he tried to get into wherever the hell she was taking him.

Hurry, Alana.

As if she’d read his mind, the back door of the van lifted up with a squeak, and she opened the hot box.

“I came around to the far side of admin,” she said. “No one is here, and I can get in the back door.”

He urged her toward the building. “Come on. I’m a blood-covered sitting duck out here. Where will he go?”

“My office.”

“And he’ll take Chessie there, because he probably knows damned well she has the ability to hack into a bank account.”

“She doesn’t have your fingerprint or password.”

“She doesn’t need either one.” They entered a dimly lit hall, a good fifty feet of offices away from the admin headquarters where Alana worked.

At the door of a kitchenette he gave her a nudge inside. “You’re staying here,” he told her, starting off.

“Mal! Wait!” She ripped a corner of a paper towel hanging on the wall and grabbed a pen from a cup on the counter. “The original account. Drummand’s account. If you ever get into it…” She scribbled something on the paper towel and shoved it into his hand. “Here’s the password.”

He took the paper, then checked to make sure the SIG’s safety was off and stuck the Glock from Ramos in the back of his jeans.

“Don’t leave this room,” he said as he left and headed down the hall, stopping at the door with Alana’s name on it. He pressed his ear and listened, hearing nothing. No keys clicking. No talking. No nothing.

Very slowly, he turned the lock and opened the door, his weapon poised to fire.

The room was empty. A tidy office, an empty desk with a computer. He walked around to the screen, tapped a mouse to flicker it to life, picking up the last screen where she must have left it in a hurry.

Place finger on scanner to enter account.

His account? Of course, she’d gotten this far with Drummand and stopped because they needed his fingerprint.

Slowly, he touched his index finger to the small scanner next to the mouse.

Balance $523,694.58

Holy shit.

Could he do something with that money now? Move it? Transfer it to the government? Prove it came from Drummand? With this password Alana gave him, he might be able to.

He slid the tiny corner of paper towel under the edge of the keyboard and—

Suddenly he heard the sound of boots pounding on the linoleum. Guard boots. Instantly, he cleared the screen, just before the door flew open, and Mal was face-to-face with three M16s.

Son of a bitch.

“Drop your weapon,” one of the guards demanded.

“And get away from the computer,” another man yelled from behind.

No, not another man. Roger Drummand.

Mal slowly lowered his weapon as his gaze met the blue-eyed slits of his nemesis. Where was Chessie? What the hell did he do with her?

“In here, Francesca.” Drummand turned, but not before he sent a smug look to Mal, who was already surrounded by the sergeant on patrol and two other men.

“Francesca…” The word slipped out, a little desperate, a lot relieved.

The SOP shifted his attention to Chessie as she came in from the hall a second later, dirt on her face and the beach cover-up, her hair a wild mess, her eyes…hard. Cold. Focused.

“This is my technical assistant,” Drummand said to the SOP. “We need some privacy to see what damage this thief has done to the computer system.” He nudged Chessie to the computer.

And she practically flounced to the keyboard without so much as a glance to Mal.

“This man needs to be put in a cell,” Drummand said. “Immediately.”

“Should we take him to Delta?” the SOP asked. “Or medical?”

“Take him to the north block,” Drummand said. “First floor.”

Camp No. As in
no one knows where it is
, and it would be completely deserted. At least he wasn’t going to the third floor for a waterboarding date.

“Yes, sir.”

Drummand put a possessive hand on Chessie’s shoulder, guiding her into the seat in front of the now darkened computer screen. “Francesca, can you please find that missing file now?”

“Of course,” she said, settling into the seat with her fingers on the keyboard.

She turned to glance over her shoulder. “I can find anything.” For one millisecond, her eyes grazed Mal, telling him nothing.

Except that she was so damn good in the field, even he might buy this act.

He realized he still held her glasses in his left hand. Reaching out, he offered them to her. “You’ll need these. So you can see clearly.”

“I can see perfectly.” She took them, but their hands brushed in the exchange. At the electric touch, her gaze flicked to his, a millisecond of eye contact, long enough for her to communicate that she had a plan.

But a plan wasn’t going to keep her alive. He squirmed as the guards surrounded him and grabbed his arms, preventing him from scooping her up and getting her out of here. Instead, he was led away like a dirty prisoner, powerless to protect the only woman he ever…oh, hell, why fight it? The only woman he ever loved.

* * *

Blood. Caked to his T-shirt sleeve. Splattered all over his chest and stomach. Dripping down his arm and smeared on his face.

Chessie’s stomach turned as she remembered how defeated Mal looked, and her heart stuttered with fear at how much blood he’d lost and where they could be taking him to lose even more.

She wanted to scream and throw her arms around him, but this was a mission and she had to play her role or they both would die.

She had to clear his name. Had to.

She picked up her glasses as though his smeared fingerprints were their only connection. She didn’t need them to see what she was about to do, but if she had to make a quick getaway, she sure did.

First, she had to find the proof—or create it—that Roger Drummand committed the crime that put Mal in jail, and get that proof into the hands of someone who could, and would, do something about it. Then Mal could be free…for her.

Holy crap, that was a lofty plan and impossible goal under these circumstances. But it had to be done, by her fingertips, on this computer. She had the power now, and she had to use it.

She touched the screen, and while it flickered to life, glanced around the neat office, her gaze falling on a picture of a family. Four kids and a mother. She recognized Alana Cevallos as the woman she’d been spying on in the bushes. Those must be her children. But there were four. Mal had told her Alana had three kids.

One of them must be Gabe’s son.

She reached for the photo and brought it closer to look at the smallest child in the photo.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. He was a carbon copy of his father. The same blue eyes, the same black hair, the very same mischievous smile and teasing tilt to his head, even though he was maybe a year or fifteen months in this photo.

But now he was dead.

She set the picture down, remembering the pain that the last hour’s adventure had numbed. She had to fight through that, and think.

Think, Chessie, think. This is what you do.

But she also made fake deals with criminals and pushed cars out of ditches and jumped on crop dusters and sneaked out of rooms half naked.

They’d been through so much…only to discover little Gabriel Rafael was dead. This mission couldn’t be a complete failure. She had to clear Mal’s name and kick Drummand’s sorry ass to jail in the process. She
had
to.

“What are you waiting for?” Drummand demanded, coming up behind her.

To be alone. “Where’s Alana?”

“Never mind. Start working.”

“No, not never mind,” Chessie shot back. “Mal was in her office, on her computer. She might be hiding because there are men with guns everywhere, but what’s to stop her from getting in our way?”

“The fact that I locked her in a janitor’s closet.”

“Oh, that. Is she okay?”

“What do you care?”

Think, Chessie
. “But what if someone comes in here? Anyone. Those guards. What if she makes noise or gets out? Check on her,” Chessie demanded. “Make sure no one is in the hall. We don’t need a witness, Rog.”

He took a slow breath, rattling his nostrils, before he finally turned to step outside. “I’ll watch. You work.”

He’d have to come around the desk to see what she was actually typing, but she still wanted him out of the room.

“You can do this, can’t you?” he asked when she hesitated.

“Not with you in the room instead of watching out for witnesses.”

“You think I’m leaving?”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” She flicked her fingers in the air, wishing she could actually hit his face. “You are not dealing with a rookie, Rog.”

He shook his head. “A family curse, all right. Hurry up. We don’t have much time.”

“I’m not putting my fingers on this computer with that door open,” she said. “Close it and stand outside. Knock if someone’s coming.”

At his hesitation, she threw her chair back and her hands in the air. “Fuck it, Rog. Find your own damn money.”

The bluff worked. He walked out and closed the door. Chessie brought the screen to life again and started to dig through the bank website.

Bank IP address. Wait and scan. Credits transferred to that IP. Wait and move that information to a file. Find the ACCNO number. Get out of one page and to the next. Save logs. Move them. Delete logs. IP scan.

The door popped open, and she gasped.

“Do you have it yet?” Drummand demanded.

She just glared at him until the bastard backed away. God, this would be fun if her life wasn’t on the line. And Mal’s.

Refusing to give in to the little squeeze of anxiety that thought caused, she focused on the screen, determined to prove the man outside the door was the mastermind of this whole half-million-dollar embezzlement.

Her fingers were shaky, but with each new keystroke, each fallen firewall, and each file logged and copied and moved, she felt closer.

Finally, she found her way to the original account, where the money had first accrued. Dropped in over a two-year period, taken from government accounts using what she was certain were bogus invoices that got lost in the bureaucracy.

Invoices submitted by a company—a shell company, no doubt.

Her gaze moved to the picture a few inches away, focusing on little Gabriel Rafael Rossi Winter. Finally, the screen flashed, and a new name and account appeared.

Roger Drummand, Primary Account Holder. Please enter password.

The door popped open, and Drummand marched around the desk, staring at the screen. Then the pistol smacked the side of her head, hard. Then again, twice as hard, knocking her right off the chair. She couldn’t help grabbing the side of her head now as waves of pain ricocheted around her brain.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

She looked up at him, vaguely aware that blood trickled from her mouth. “Moving money into your account.”

“No, you’re not.” He yanked her up from the floor and tapped the screen to life. “Where is it? Where is the money?”

Tucked away in a temporary account she’d just made. But first she needed to get into his original account and get a screenshot of the embezzlement proof. She wouldn’t quit until she had it. He pushed her further aside, the gun still on her as he tapped the back arrow and landed on the temporary account. “What’s the password?” he demanded.

She shook her head.

He stuck the gun in her face. “One second to tell me the password or you die.”