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A taut silence passed, then Miles asked, “Are you with Isabel?”
“No. The techs are there and I needed some sleep and a shower. Since she has people there to watch over her and the kids, I came back to the house.”
“Good.” Miles blew out a breath and started to talk.
Isabel clutched theglass of whiskey in her hand and watched him over the rim, her face pale and strained, eyes glimmering diamond-bright in the last fading rays of the sun.
“Let me understand this right,” she said in a voice taut with anger. “Stephen apparently had a stroke after contracting COVID in prison a couple of years ago. He’s spent the past two years trying to get moved to a lower security area because his stroke made him less of a risk—according tooneof the doctors at the prison, but two other doctors disagreed. A couple of months ago, there was a riot at the prison. The warden and her second-in-charge are hurt—one of them fatally and the other seriously enough that she’s been in a coma for almost two months. The man now in charge haslessexperience than others in the facility and he has yet to be replaced by somebody withmoreexperience. A month ago, one of the regular doctors at the prison just ...disappeared, but there’s been little news about this anywhere, even in Kentucky. The regional director in charge of the prison system there has been strangely unaware ofallof this fucked-up shit, so somebody has really been working hard to cover things up there. A few days after all this went down, Stephen ended up gettingcompassionate releaseeven thoughtwo doctorsdisagreed with the doctor who stated his stroke was severe and disabling. Oh, and he missed his first check-in with his parole officer and that’s been brushed under the rug, apparently. Was he evenevaluatedby somebody who specializes in strokes?”
She finally stopped to take a breath and after a couple of ragged inhalations, she tossed the whiskey back, then resuming glaring at him.
“Not that Miles has been able to uncover,” Travis said in a flat voice. “The acting warden has a lot of hard questions to answer. Miles has two agents en route to question Beresford’s family because whoever was involved in this had money to spare and then some, not to mention contacts. Beresford’s family checks all the boxes—his mom has ties to political thinktanks and you already know the connection between ... ” Travis’s words trailed off as she nodded, her knuckles stabbing sharp against her skin from how tight she clutched her glass. “The regional director is already on his way to the federal prison in Sandy Hook to meet Miles there and two more agents from the local field office are joining in.” Travis’s expression was grim.
Isabel shoved to her feet and walked, stiff-legged, to the railing of the house.
Travis’s phone buzzed, a familiar pattern, and he pulled his phone out, activating the security app that let him view the camera feed just in time to see a dark-colored sports car pull into the driveway next to one of the agency vans.
A message on his secure app popped up next. It was a familiar contact and he opened it, read it.
“One of the security guys is here,” he said in a tight voice. “I’m going to go talk to him.”
His head was a mess.
How could he leave Isabel now, knowing how well thought out Beresford’s escape had been? They had to have been planning it—for years. According to the information Miles had passed on, Stephen had been evaluated in the hospital following a short bout of COVID after reporting neurological symptoms—they diagnosed a mild stroke, which had been in the reports Miles had received. Those medical details were still considered private but due to the long-reaching human-trafficking schemes Beresford had been involved, and considering Beresford’s ever-persistent attempts to be moved to lesser secure facilities, it had been deemed the federal government—namely Miles—had a vested interest in the general details.
All the doctors had deemed it a mild stroke—except foroneof the facility’s in-house physicians.
And that one had been involved in Beresford’s compassionate release.
Brooding over the fucking mess he had in front of him, Travis rounded the house to find a whipcord-lean figure leaning against the hood of the sports car.
The bright lights shining out the windows fell on the man’s face and the freelance security specialist shifted his misty green eyes toward the porch. “I take it there’s no immediate threat?”
“What do you think?” He held out a hand. “Good to see you, Rye.”
Rye Phillips was so pale, one might think he never saw the sun, but that was just his complexion. Too much time without sunscreen, he’d told Travis, and he’d turned lobster-red. His hair was midnight black and his eyes a soft, dreamy green. He was pretty enough to be on the cover of one of the filthy romance books Travis’s twin wrote under another pen name, not that he would ever tell Rye that—he liked his teeth where they were.
Rye grabbed his hand, squeezed and tugged him in for a hard, fast hug. “Heard you were getting out. Going to miss you.”
“It’s time.”
“Travis?”
At the sound of Isabel’s voice, he turned and looked at her.
The wind toyed with her air and the hem of the oversized t-shirt she’d pulled on and his breath trapped in his throat.
“Damn, son,” Rye said in a low voice. “Get that hook out of your mouth before somebody sees it.”
“Fuck off.” But there was no heat to it. Glancing at Rye, he said, “Come on.”
As they approached the house, Rye took in the lay of the land and Travis knew he was assessing vulnerabilities, weaknesses. “The windows are all bullet-proof, doors reinforced. Once the locks are set, it won’t be an easy entry.”
“She been expecting trouble?”
Travis knew Miles wouldn’t have had time to fully brief the assets he’d brought in. “It’s complicated.”
After introductions, Rye looked at him. “I heard you had to take off for a day, maybe more. Ace is supposed to be here within the next ninety minutes. I should be fine once I familiarize myself with the property. Miles can update me when I call him in about twenty.”
