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the three of you?”
“We had plans for lunch with my aunt Phyllis on Thursday.” Her mother’s sister lived in Gainesville, Georgia. They usually tried to meet her for lunch or dinner at least once during each trip. Annie guessed they hadn’t made it to lunch, if the last time she and her parents had been seen was on the nineteenth.
“Your aunt is the one who reported you missing,” Hartman said.
Braddock looked at the other man. Annie got the feeling he’d prefer that Hartman stay quiet.
“I really don’t have anything else I can add,” Annie said.
“I think you probably know more than you realize. We’d like to take you back to Quantico with us. There’s a hospital on base that can see to your medical needs, and the staff psychiatrists can help you work on recovering more of your missing memories.” Braddock’s voice was gentle and encouraging, but Annie realized, with alarm, that she didn’t believe a bit of it.
These people were not here to help her.
“We’ll need you to sign the transfer papers for the hospital, so they’ll release you. We can transport you tonight.”
Don’t go with them. Whatever you do, don’t let these men get you alone. The voice she heard in her head wasn’t her own. It was her father’s, the low, gravelly coastal Carolina drawl she’d always loved so much.
“I don’t have any clothes—they cut them off of me in the E.R.”
“We’ve brought you some clothes to wear.” Hartman put the duffel bag on the bottom of her bed and stepped back.
“You thought of everything,” Annie murmured. She faked a smile. “Okay, then. I need a few minutes alone to get dressed,” she said quietly. “That will give you time to finalize the transfer with the hospital staff. Then I’ll sign the papers, and we can go.”
Braddock and Hartman exchanged glances. “Okay,” Braddock said with what she supposed was meant to be a gentle smile. The expression looked predatory.
To her relief, they left the room, closing the door behind them. She slumped back against her pillows, her pulse pounding a cadence of agony in her head. With shaking hand, she reached for the phone on the small bedside table and pulled it onto the bed next to her.
Opening her hand, she looked at the slightly rumpled card she’d held in her tightly clutched fist during the meeting with Braddock and Hartman.
Wade Cooper. Cooper Security.
She picked up the receiver and dialed the number.
Wade Cooper answered on the first ring. “Cooper.”
“They want to transfer me to a hospital in Quantico,” she said without preamble, keeping her voice low, in case the men were just outside the room, listening in.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“No,” she answered flatly. “I think you need to get me out of this hospital. Right now.”
Chapter Three
Two men in dark suits flanked the door to Annie Harlowe’s room. Annie had said they’d told her they were going to coordinate the release papers with the hospital, but Wade had a feeling they already had plans for how to remove her from the hospital without going through any channels. If she was right—if these men were imposters—the last thing they’d want to do was deal with hospital red tape.
What he needed was a distraction.
He slipped back inside the waiting room. “Two men guarding her door. Possibly armed—can’t tell from a look.”
Aaron and Melissa had joined the three of them, arriving just as Annie was calling Wade. He felt a hint of relief at having his younger cousin around for whatever came next. His position as a deputy, not to mention the Smith & Wesson M&P 40 he wore in a belt holster beneath his green Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department jackets, added a heartening amount of heft to their makeshift rescue operation.
“We need a distraction,” Megan said.
Jesse had been across the room on the phone. He returned, his expression grim. “They’re not A.F.O.S.I. Mason Hunter just checked with a friend of his who’s been working this case for the Air Force.” Hunter was a fellow Cooper Security operative who had once been an Air Force major. “Nobody there has heard anything about finding Annie Harlowe.”
Wade grimaced. “Until now.”
Jesse shook his head. “Mason was discreet. Treated it like a routine touching-base thing.”
“So like I said,” Megan said, “we need a distraction.”
“I can get security to take them off for questioning,” Aaron suggested.
“They’ll flash badges and tell security to stand down,” Jesse disagreed.
“Or say to hell with the charade and start shooting,” Wade countered.
“If they’re not A.F.O.S.I., who are they?” Megan asked.
“Do you really have to ask?” Aaron growled.
“S.S.U.” Wade grimaced.
“We have to assume it’s them,” Jesse agreed.
Wade wished he could believe otherwise, but bitter experience told him there were few other possibilities. The collapse of MacLear Security, once one of the top private security contractors in the world, should have been the end of the company’s Special Services Unit—the S.S.U. It had been the illegal actions of that secret army of ruthless, corrupt mercenaries that had brought down the once well-respected, legitimate security company.
But some of the S.S.U. had avoided indictments and joined forces as a band of guns for hire. Cooper Security had come across the S.S.U. several times in recent months, each encounter more alarming than the last. Left to their own devices, without the need to maintain an air of legitimacy, the S.S.U. agents had become bolder and more ruthless than ever.
“We’re certain the S.S.U. was involved in the abduction of the Harlowes, aren’t we?” Megan asked.
“As sure as we can be without hard evidence,” Jesse agreed.
“They were trained by former feds at MacLear,” Megan said, “so they certainly would know how to pass themselves off as federal agents.”
Meanwhile, Wade thought, the clock was ticking. He had to get Annie Harlowe out of that hospital room without those two men in suits catching him. But what would coax them away from the door?
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the last number, Annie’s hospital room. She answered on the second ring, her voice cautious.
“Braddock and Hartman are standing right outside your room,” Wade told her. “We need them to go somewhere else for a while. Here’s what I want you to do.” He outlined a plan he hoped would work.
She was silent a moment, then said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Wade hung up the phone and turned to his sister, who gazed up at him with a grin. “I’ll go find some scrubs,” she said.
* * *
T HE MINUTE SHE ’ D HUNG UP the phone with Wade Cooper, Annie began to second-guess herself. What made her think the stranger who’d found her in the woods was any less dangerous than the two men who’d just left her hospital room? He had secretive eyes, and unlike the man who’d just flashed his badge at her, Wade hadn’t shown her anything but a slightly rumpled business card. Anyone could print up business cards.
She looked down at the card: Cooper Security. The name sounded familiar. Something to do with a recently indicted former State Department official named Barton Reid. Someone at Cooper Security had been involved with gathering evidence against him, right?