Danica Winters - Hidden Truth

Then again, yesterday had been full of them—at least when it came to Trevor. She glanced down at her phone and his picture. The photo was sharp, black-and-white, typical of the FBI. And yet it didn’t really capture the man she had met. No, in real life he was far less imposing than he seemed in the picture. The photo failed to show the way it felt to stand there encircled in his arms, and then to realize that he had been playing her from the moment they met.

She flipped to the email from her handler, Agent Mike Couer, and stared at the man’s instructions. She’d have to play nice, get along and then get out of there. If she didn’t screw this up, she could be in and out without the Martins even knowing who she was or what she did. She’d made it this far; as long as she didn’t get wrapped up in another set of arms, she’d be just fine.

For a moment she considered calling Mike and telling him about the body they had found, but she stopped. There wasn’t enough evidence to track this back to the family. Sure, she could probably take Trevor down for the murder, but that wasn’t what she was here for; no, she was here for them all. They had to be stopped before they put any more weapons into the hands of terrorist organizations…and that was to say nothing of the lives that they themselves had snuffed out. This family was likely responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, if not tens of thousands.

The thought made the anger bubble up inside her. These days that feeling, that fire, was her only constant companion. Without it, she wouldn’t know who she was. It was that feeling that propelled her forward, past the crap in her personal life, and helped her to focus on her prime objectives. Her life wasn’t hers to live. Her life belonged to the people of the world, people who deserved to be kept safe and out of the line of fire of the Martins.

Stuffing the phone back into her pocket, she made her way into the house.

She just needed to get her hands on as much information about the incident in Turkey as possible. There were reports of photos, pictures proving that the STEALTH team had been involved in the illegal gun trade, and during the event civilians had been shot and killed. If she could just prove it, or find evidence that the family was part of organized crime, not only would her past indiscretions at the agency be forgiven, but she might also find her way out of the remote offices and back to DC.

The house was silent as she weaved between the moving boxes. Trevor and Chad had been vague in their plans for the day, but she expected nothing less. No doubt, they were at the shanty taking care of their mess. She should have been out there with them, getting information about their possible involvement with the dead man and his family, but she hadn’t found a way to get herself invited along. And really, even if she caught Trevor red-handed with this murder, where would it get her?

He was good at keeping people in the dark, but his family wasn’t as good as they thought they were. She’d get what she needed. She always did.

Trevor’s bedroom door was closed, but his room seemed like as good a spot as any to start. She opened the door. The room had nothing but four boxes, a desk, and a mattress and box spring on the floor. At the head of the bed, there was a rolled-up mummy bag sitting on a large body pillow.

Apparently, even though he had nothing, he was a man who still liked to make his bed in the morning.

Grabbing a box, she set it on the bed and pulled off the tape. As it opened, the scent of sand and sweat rose up and met her—the smell of war.

Well, she could fight, too.

She pulled out a set of fatigues. They were green and brown, a throwback to what Americans once wore in the jungles of Vietnam—not what she would have expected from desert warfare. The last time she’d seen an operative wearing this was in northern Africa. Some of the insurgents there loved to use the fatigues almost as their own personal calling card. They had even taken to calling themselves al-Akhdar, or “the Greens.”

It didn’t surprise her that this man would have found himself alongside such an infamous group. From what little she knew about them, the Martins had a way of being in prospective war zones even before the leaders of the country knew they were under fire.

She lifted the uniform out of the box and hung it up in Trevor’s closet. Though she never had time to clean her own apartment back in Washington, coming in undercover as a cleaning lady had its benefits. She could almost openly go through whatever she wanted under the guise of her newfound job.

It didn’t take long to empty the box and move to the next, putting away things as she came across them. Though she hadn’t expected to find much in the boxes, she had hoped that maybe he’d tucked something away—a picture, some sentimental token—but there was nothing. In fact, aside from his picture and the few boxes that were in the room, there was little to prove that this man truly even existed.

The only things she’d been able to glean so far, thanks to what she’d managed to overhear from the brothers this morning, was that the rest of the family—Zoey and Jarrod—would be arriving sometime soon. When they got there, she would have little time alone in the house. She’d have to work fast.

After going through what amounted to four boxes of random clothing and a set of encyclopedias that she was sure dated from the 1980s, she folded up the boxes. Carrying them under her arm, she stepped toward the door. As she moved, she noticed a gap between the head of the bed and the wall. It wasn’t much, just a couple of inches.

Making her way over to the gap, she pulled back his pillow, exposing a long black gun case.

Now we’re talking.

She pulled out the case, gingerly setting it on the bed and clicking open the tabs. In the belly of the case sat an M107 .50 caliber. She’d only seen a few of these in her days, and they were always in the hands of snipers—army snipers, to be exact. She snapped a quick picture of the gun and its serial number, but made sure not to touch the weapon. She sent a quick message to her people at the Bureau, hoping that one of them could pull up something.

He had played her when he’d brought up Schofield. He must have been testing her. Which meant there had been something about her that made him think that she couldn’t be trusted. Or maybe he mistrusted everyone. She racked her brain trying to think of something she had said or done that could have blown her cover, but nothing came to mind. She’d played it pretty cool…except for the girlie bit.

Or perhaps he wasn’t Army after all. If his family had in fact been running weapons, as they assumed, then maybe this was just one from their catalog. There was little reason for Trevor to have such a specialized weapon out here in the Middle of Nowhere, Montana. Unless he feared for their safety, or he thought he was one phone call away from having to kill someone.

She was probably right in assuming he was the type who was always looking over his shoulder. It probably came with his kind of game.

Maybe it was that she simply saw some of her own life mirrored in his. Over the last year, thanks to her little slipup—okay, major setback—she had been away from home and the Bureau nearly the entire time. In fact, there had been only three days that she was in the office. One when she went in to see him , one when she was called into her superior’s office and told she would henceforth be working remotely, and then when she was packing up her desk. Ever since then, she’d been living out of hotel rooms around the world. Everything in her life had been temporary and single-use.

She ran her fingers through her smooth hair. Since she’d taken residence at the Widow Maker Ranch she’d finally gotten the chance to buy and use real shampoo again, and not be stuck with the cheap stuff that was always in the guest basket at the hotels where she stayed.