Page 52 of Long Past Deadly

Her relief was ridiculous.

They drove the entire twenty minute ride and he didn’t say a word.

Which led her back to why had she questioned what happened? She had better sense. The truth was she’d stunted her own growth after Mercer attacked her. She’d stuck close to home, studied and studied, worked two jobs, and went to college. There she flirted with alcohol to manage the pain, but that left her even more vulnerable. So she’d abstained from alcohol, drugs, sex, and partying along with every social aspect and focused on school, work, and staying alive.

Her background did not leave her prepared to handle a man like Quaid. She knew her way around being law enforcement, but being a woman – she had no idea how to date or be at ease with anyone, from flirting male to bestie woman.

She needed some strategies for dealing with Quaid that handled her growing feelings for him, too. Oh God, and she had no tools, and no idea how to find any.

“Calm down.” He leaned close, but didn’t touch her this time. The words stayed between them, which she appreciated, but he could read her spiral and that left her raw and vulnerable. His arms around her in the night came into sharp focus.

She shifted in her seat so she could see his eyes – flat, with no emotion. Floundering, she opted for the truth. “I’m out of my depth with this. Can we talk later?”

One nod was all she got.

&&&&&&&&&&

Okay, he was back in ass mode. Quaid followed Alanna into Operations, trying and failing to check his mood. He thought they had more trust between them than that. His conscience bit back. She’s been in your life less than three weeks, close and personal only four days. What did you expect? That it would occur between gunshots?

The office was quiet. Early morning hours were for coffee and update meetings. Celissa and Elizabeth were behind closed doors with Elizabeth’s aide, and Operations had just changed shifts.

In casual clothes, Hunt stood in Harrison’s office doorway in the corner of the large room, eyeing all the monitors and people and assessing security risks. Occupational hazard. Quaid usually took to his workstation in the other corner, but today he’d prefer to get what Hunt had and retreat to his business office. Alanna stayed silent and followed him.

Hunt offered a hand. “Dr. Williams. We didn’t get introduced, but I figured it out.”

Alanna shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Commander.”

Quaid berated himself. Sorry day when Hunt had better manners than him. That wasn’t a slam on Hunt, it was one on him. When you had money, you learned manners fast.

The door opened and Mackey strode into the room. “I have downtown San Diego memorized better than the cops. You found something. How much of it can you tell us?”

Quaid moved the group to an empty workstation with a computer displaying the company logo. Harrison’s office wasn’t big enough and Quaid’s workspace was too open. Both those had to go on the list of things to correct. Harrison supervised the core of the company, and Quaid liked the hum of activity in Operations for real work. The space wasn’t accommodating that.

Hunt leaned an elbow on the light blue partition. “Not the mission itself, but some pictures.”

“Where?” Alanna had crossed her arms, declining to sit.

“Spain. Can’t explain why we were there, but terrorist activity.” He handed a thumb drive to Harrison. “You may remember this.”

Harrison loaded the drive, and Hunt pointed at the file. It opened into a frame on the desktop. Mercer in black with a beard.

Harrison groaned. “I remember now. Almost doesn’t look like our guy.”

“I had our intelligence people compare to your photo. It’s him. His real name is Anders Barton, U.S. Army, left the service in 2007.” Hunt tapped the screen. “That file has his military records.”

“How did you identify him?”

“Oh, our people have worked on this ID for several years. He killed the asset we were in Spain to protect, and dropped another military member at the same time. He isn’t someone we are going to quit trying to find. He’s got several other assassinations, for each one, intelligence added more info until they figured out his identity.”

“When was this?” Quaid had let Alanna take the lead, but something about the information niggled at his memory.

“Fall 2016.”

Quaid eyed the picture. In Fall of 2016, he’d been in Afghanistan mired in an undercover CIA mission.

Alanna rubbed her forehead. “When I first saw him, that was years prior to this.”

Hunt pointed at another file. “Also, his service record. Once you gave me Whit’s name, I crossed matched their service record, and confirmed names and units.”