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The depot had been out of use for some time. As he understood, the facility had been owned by the government and used for various purposes over the years. He didn’t stare into the shadows too hard. His dreams were already dark enough without adding the horrors these walls had seen to his collection.
At long last, he stepped onto a concrete floor. There were still grain husks here and there, inedible things that didn’t offer any nutrition to even the rats. He shone his light around the deep, dark hole in the ground.
What if Zora got pissed at him and left him down here?
Yeah, he’d mind what he said a little better from here on out.
He turned toward an open door. A light shone beyond it, beckoning him down yet more twisted halls until he came to a locked door. He wished he didn’t understand the need for all these misleading turns, but after the last few months, he did.
Harper lifted his hand and knocked against the secured door.
He’d followed the directions exactly, so where was he?
Somewhere, the wind whistled through the silo. The sound took on a life of its own, howling through all the halls and dark corners to stir things better left alone.
Creepy as fuck.
He shivered and almost jumped as the door’s lock creaked.
“About damn time,” he muttered to himself. Not too loud. He didn’t want to get his ass left out here.
The door slid to the left, revealing an almost white room beyond.
Zora Clark, head of the Task Force, stepped into view. She was a tall, elegant Black woman with wispy, short hair and a pale blue suit that offset her dark gaze.
“You’re here. Good,” she said by way of a greeting.
“What the fuck?” he muttered and stepped through the opening. He studied the wall and the bookcase that appeared to have moved. “You have a secret entrance in here?”
Zora gestured to the chairs in front of her desk. “Sit.”
Harper knew better than to expect an answer out of her. Zora was as tight-lipped as they came. He didn’t think a word left her lips that hadn’t been over-analyzed and weighted. That kind of calculated behavior exhausted Harper, but it wasn’t his life.
“We have a lot to discuss,” Zora said pointedly.
Harper offered her a winning smile. The type that usually got him numbers at the club. “Then start talking.”
Zora regarded him coolly for a moment. He didn’t actually expect her to warm up to him and his buddy, Tucker, had clearly already staked a claim to Zora. There was history between those two and Harper was dying to know more. But neither were sharing details, damn them.
He shrugged out of his coat and draped it over one of the two guest chairs before lowering into the other. Zora leaned against the front of her desk, probably going for a casual, confiding air.
“Tucker explained this to you?” she asked.
Harper studied her in return. “Harper didn’t tell me shit. He only asked if I was open to doing some under-the-table work not everyone else will know about.”
She nodded. “Then he has explained it to you.”
“If Tucker and I know, why not the others?” Harper asked.
It was a fair question. The Aegis Group team working with the Task Force was only five men, and they were tight. They’d been together long before this job. Harper was taking a risk in breaking the team’s trust by going behind his Team Leader’s back like this.
“Because Nadine had us,” Zora said simply.
Harper grimaced and shifted in his seat.
She had a point there he couldn’t deny.
Nadine Baker had been like a grandmother to all of them. The senior CIA operative had a good relationship with the entire core team, which was why they’d never realized she was the mole. She was the one blackmailed into killing people in federal custody. She was leaking their secrets. And she was why they’d all nearly been killed. If it weren’t for the complete incompetence of the men sent after them, Harper, Tucker, Logan, Evan, Kelsey and Felecia would be dead right now. They’d gotten lucky. Harper didn’t intend to rely on luck again.
