Sherrilyn Kenyon - Whispered Lies

He sighed and withdrew a cell phone.

Report first. Find transportation next.

His boss was not going to be happy.

GABRIELLE’S NECK HURT. Her arms hurt. Everything hurt.

A dream shouldn’t hurt, should it?

She fought through layers of drowsiness, struggling to open her eyes. Sleep pulled at her, but some annoying sound kept poking at her to wake up.

…cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo.

The clock. How many times had that bird chirped?

Her brain flickered to life. She lifted her head from the desk. She swallowed against the icky taste in her mouth and rubbed her sore eyes, blinking to focus. Fish swam across the monitor screen on her laptop. Life should be so happy and free.

The smile she started to indulge vanished.

Computer. Bulletin boards. Mandy!

She reached for the mouse, moved it, and tapped, bringing up the message board. She read quickly. Thank God.

They-whoever had received her first warning on Mandy-had asked for more help last night, specifics on the château and the Anguis. She couldn’t add anything new on the château, but after convincing herself Mandy’s life was worth the gamble, she’d shared a little more of what she knew on Durand that must have helped. The message posted to the bulletin board at just after ten this morning now read, “Babe in safe hands.”

Would have been nice if she’d received that at six this morning when she’d finally crashed at the computer. She could have slept in a bed.

Gabrielle squinted to focus on her cuckoo clock. Almost four o’clock? Light leaked into the room through cracks in the blinds. So, that would be four in the afternoon? Monday. No wonder every muscle ached. She’d only slept a handful of hours in the past three days and that had been bent over the desk.

A bath, some food, and she’d go back to bed for a while.

Food first or she might not make it through the bath. She scrounged around the kitchen, considered having food delivered, then changed her mind when she found Thai leftovers and a glazed doughnut for dessert.

The bath was almost as refreshing as brushing her teeth. She spent every day in T-shirts and sweatpants, what she called frumpy comfort. But to sleep she slid on a silk camisole and lace panties, her little self-indulgence. Never having to think about her appearance was just one perk of living in seclusion. A sad chuckle escaped at the sarcastic logic.

Gabrielle whipped back the covers on her bed, snuggled down beneath them, and drifted right off to deep sleep.

An annoying noise infiltrated her swirling dreams.

She tried to ignore the sound. Her body pleaded for her to ignore it, but the stupid sound wouldn’t leave her alone.

She’d have to disconnect her clock.

Ding, ding. Silence.

Ding, ding. Silence.

Gabrielle’s eyes flew open. Not the clock.

The security alarm.

CARLOS GRABBED HIS bag out of the overhead bin and filed into line exiting the airplane and headed for customs at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

He checked his cell phone for the local time-4:00 p.m.-then keyed a text message to headquarters, informing the director he’d arrived and would head to Nashville as soon as he made a stop at home.

Calling the expansive four-bedroom cabin in the north-Georgia mountains home was a stretch since he didn’t own or rent it, but that was all he had. Telling lies about his past, such as that he’d grown up in Bolivia instead of Venezuela, hadn’t protected his identity. He’d even kept an apartment in Nashville at one time, until the Anguis soldier recognized him three years ago. After that, he stored his few belongings in the cabin, which served as a safe house. The only possession he truly cared about-the photo of him and his little brother when they were kids-was in the cabin’s safe. A rival of the Anguis’s had shot his brother to retaliate for a slight by Durand the day before the kid would have graduated, with honors, from college.

The cabin served as one of their many secure residences where any agent could spend downtime or take a prisoner temporarily.

All Carlos needed for a home.

All he’d ever risk having.

He scrubbed a hand over his cheek, scratching at the whiskers, too tired to bother shaving when he’d showered eleven hours ago. And if he didn’t get a haircut soon he’d have to start pulling his hair back into a ponytail. The yawn caught him off guard.

He’d stolen a catnap on the flight back from Charles de Gaulle Airport in France, but it hadn’t been worth a damn. His mind had refused to let him forget the lifeless feel of Mandy’s body when he’d carried her onto the helo…or the gruesome image that blossomed when he’d cut her out of the snowmobile suit. The sharp scent of blood had clashed with biting-cold air. He’d sucked in a breath at her washed-out skin and blue lips, the makeshift bandage soaked with what had appeared to be every drop of blood from her body.

A sick ball of failure had crashed through his gut.

But miraculously she’d still had a pulse. The medics started an immediate infusion and kept her alive until they reached a secure facility outside Paris where he’d left her.

Mandy’s prognosis sucked, but she hadn’t died in his arms.

She had a chance.

Gotthard would send word on Mandy as soon as he landed in Nashville. Korbin and Rae should be hitting D.C. and New York about now, everyone returning on separate flights for security.

Carlos stepped up to the customs desk and gave all the standard answers to wary-eyed officials. Did they practice looking suspicious in mirrors?

Welcome to the United States. Don’t even think about chewing gum the wrong way.

He maneuvered around pockets of weary passengers flowing toward the exit like a lazy stream and had reached the upstairs main terminal when his cell phone started buzzing.

When he flipped it open, one message popped up.

Call office immediately. Translation: Urgent.

Carlos keyed the speed dial.

“You through customs?” Joe said without any salutation.

“Yep.” Carlos pushed through the glass exit doors of the terminal. Smokers flooded the humid Atlanta air with nicotine as they sucked on either their first or last cigarette.

“We found the source.”

Mirage.

Last Carlos had heard before flying home was that BAD had traced the IP address to a computer in Russia, where Joe had extensive contacts. That could mean anything or anyone. A UK team from BAD had also been closing in on a London location right before his airplane lifted off. Which one found Mirage?

Carlos snapped to attention. He checked his watch, calculating the possibility of catching an international flight at this time of day.

“Great. Fly to Gatwick?” Carlos strode quickly to the other side of the airport thoroughfare where traffic flowed between the parking garage and the terminal. He could be headed anywhere in the world since the post had been bounced to a hacked computer system in Romania, then Russia. But the minute BAD had pinned down the Russian IP and gained authorization to trace the path from there, a team of agents on the ground and in BAD’s headquarters had waited on Mirage to make a mistake.

“No,” Joe told him. “That’s why I sent an urgent message. The bulk of our immediate resources were shipped to the UK as a starting point since language data programs we ran the posts through indicated our source could be from there, but that might have only been to throw us a curve.” Joe was saying the informant was either not in the UK or not from the UK.

“Where?” Carlos shook off any last exhaustion with that word, ready to track the bastard down.

“Georgia. Peachtree City.”

“Are you serious?” Carlos spun around and rushed up the ramp to the parking deck.