“I’m not the only one. Didn’t you just reconnect with some guy you were crazy about in high school? A cop?”
Scout’s shoulders drooped. “Quinn’s more wishful thinking. We only just got back together when I bumped into him on my last furlough. We hadn’t made any promises. But you and Coulter…”
Neve’s chest tightened, the air thinner, as if the truth had sucked up all the available oxygen. “You heard what they said. I’d make all of you a target. Losing him to a cause is one thing. If Finch killed him, got to us because of me… Because I wasn’t strong enough to let him go…” She swallowed, nearly choked when it wouldn’t go past the lump in her throat. “That would break me.”
Wynn shifted closer. “Maybe you can see him once this is over. Explain.”
“Explain what? That I didn’t have enough faith in him to tell him the truth? That I didn’t give him the chance to decide what was worth risking his life? That maybe I just didn’t love him enough? Because it all feels pretty unforgivable.”
She swiped at a few tears that slipped free. “None of which matters. You’re right. We can’t allow Finch to do this to other teams. To hold the world hostage. We bring him down, or we die trying.”
She pushed off the table, opened the door, stepping out with her team flanking her as the three men turned, waited, gazes locked on her. She took a breath, aware she was burning her one chance at love into ashes. “We’re in. But if we’re gonna take down Finch, we’re gonna need supplies. A lot of them. And no’s not an option.”
Gus grinned. “Kane warned me about your stubborn side. Give me a list. I’ll do what I can to make it happen.” He turned, headed for the stairwell up to the cabin, before stopping at the bottom, looking at them over his shoulder. “Effective immediately, Echo team has been retired. Time to put you all on a new one.”
He tapped an old sign positioned above the exit that looked as if he’d rescued it from some old mine. “Welcome to Black Hollow.”
CHAPTER THREE
One month later…
Blackridge Security facility, outside Hope, BC.
The interior door opened on a soft whoosh, the dim light from the emergency exit sign casting deep shadows along the adjoining hallway as Captain Coulter Barrett shoved the code reader and lock picks into his back pocket. Third damn door he’d had to bypass, and he hadn’t even reached the facility’s server hub.
Footsteps sounded parallel to him, a large figure crossing up ahead, the man’s shadow projected on the floor, stretching out toward him before vanishing as he continued down the hall.
Coulter shouldn’t be there. Not because it was illegal. Because he was putting his career — his life — at risk. But becauseshewouldn’t want him to be.
Coulter pushed down the punch of grief, the echo of her voice in his head, following the corridor down two more junctions, then up three levels. He paused at the top of the stairs, glanced at the map his best friend Troy Thompson had sent him, a flash of pain tightening his chest.
It had been three days since Coulter had received the call regarding Troy. Mugging, the officer had said. A tragedy, just like Neve’s training accident. The kind of loss that clawed at Coulter’s soul. Threatened to destroy him from the inside out. And he’d bought it.
The reports.
The photos.
The dog tags they’d handed him along with that fucking folded flag. Her fifteen years of service pared down to one moment he couldn’t erase.
Couldn’t fix.
Until Coulter received an encrypted message from Troy the day after he’d died...
“If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead... It’s about that team that died in Bralorne… Neve’s team...”
And in a heartbeat, everything had changed.
Coulter tucked the thoughts away. He only had a limited amount of time before the files Troy had saved in his dead-man packet triggered an internal alarm and the system purged them.
Before any chance at proving both Neve and Troy had been murdered, vanished.
Coulter checked the location, then struck off. Steady. Confident. Barely glancing down branching hallways as he headed for the main server room. The kind of tunnel vision that got good men killed. Except a part of him didn’t care. Prayed for some kind of altercation.
An ounce of payback before he slipped into the abyss.
The hum of the HVAC played in the background, the occasional scuff of boots on concrete breaking the quiet as he neared the room. He stopped across from the doorway, waited for the camera in the far corner to pan right, then slipped out, swiping the keycard Troy had sent him through the slot.
The light blinked red, then green, the lock tumbling over with a soft click. He pushed the door aside, slipped in and closed it before the camera panned back. The scent of stale coffee and ozone clogged his throat, the temperature about five degrees cooler. He headed straight for a small desk positioned against a bare patch on the far wall, slid into the chair, then hit the keyboard.
