Candace glanced at Taylor, putting it all together.“And so you think maybe the site the guys found yesterday is possibly where this militia trains?Or that maybe March is using the old bunker systems?”
“We were told they were all destroyed at the end of the Cold War,” her grandma said, her gaze sliding from Taylor to Wade.
“You ever go back there, after it was destroyed?”Wade asked.
“No,” she admitted, looking pensive.
“Ruby, where did you say the entrance to the bunker system is?”Taylor asked.
“Somewhere around here,” she said, circling an area on the map with her fingertip.“Not too far from that rock formation I told you about earlier.”
“When’s the last time you were down there?”
“Right after the fall of the Berlin wall.We went there to help clean it out before they destroyed the complex.”
“Except they didn’t destroy it,” Wade said, face grim.“At least not the entire thing.”
Struggling to take all this in, Candace gaped at her grandmother.“Does my dad know any of this?”
“Course he does.He’s a senator.”
“Then why the hell am I just finding out about this for the first time today?I’ve still got my security clearance.”
Her grandma shrugged.“Never seemed important enough to mention before, and you never asked.”
Candace gave Ryan a disbelieving look.“Unreal.”
“What are the chances that anyone saw you?”Taylor asked, and the guys all got quiet.
Too quiet.
Ryan shook his head.“We split up and searched the immediate area before setting up camp.There was no one else out there.”
“You’re sure?”
Ryan hesitated a moment, and Candace’s heart sank.He glanced at Wade, then Jackson and Cam.“Not a hundred percent, no.It’s possible he had cameras or some other kind of surveillance equipment set up that we didn’t find.”
So then a domestic terrorist might have seen them looking in the area.
She reached for Ryan’s hand, dread squeezing her stomach.He twined his fingers through hers, gripped in reassurance but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“You gonna check it out?”Ryan asked Taylor, releasing her hand to wind an arm around her shoulders.She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his chest, told herself there was no reason for her to worry.
He nodded.“I’ll call it into my local FBI contact and do some recon.At the very least we’ll want to search the area and check out the site and the bunkers.”
“No need.”Maya pulled out her phone and stood.“I’ll call my boss right now.He’ll spread the word, get the right people in touch with you.They can have a team out here by morning.”
Taylor gave her a nod.“Appreciate that.”He glanced at the rest of them.“You’re all here for another few days, if we need more for the investigation?”
“Until Sunday,” Ryan said, running his fingers through the ends of her hair, the soothing motion doing nothing to stem her growing anxiety.
Taylor closed the file and stood.“Thanks for coming down.I’ll be in touch when I have an update.You all have a good night.”
As he left, Candace looked up questioningly at Ryan.He gave her a gentle smile and cupped the side of her face in his free hand.“Don’t worry, it’s fine.Nothing to worry about.”
There better not be.They’d been through so much together already.He was her beating heart, her whole world.Which was why she felt it so deeply when he hurt her.
Ryan kept his arm solidly wrapped around her shoulders as they walked back to their room together, but she couldn’t shake the worry that had taken root inside her.There was nothing she could do about that situation, but it increased her urgency to finish what she and Ryan had started yesterday morning.
