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Even though Cate knew it was there, she couldn’t actually see Callahan’s trap until Liam pointed at it silently, and when she saw it was intact she let out the breath she’d been holding. She started to speak, but again he put his finger to his lips, indicating silence. His left hand pulled her close and he pressed his lips to her ear.
“Even though there’s no one in the trap, something still feels off.” It was uttered in an undertone, not a whisper. “It’s probably nothing, but stay here just in case. I’m going to reconnoiter a bit. If everything’s okay, I’ll come back and get you.”
He tugged the keys to the agency’s SUV from his pocket and started to press them into her hand, but then he must have remembered she couldn’t drive and a look of frustration crossed his face as he shoved the keys back into his pocket. Then he said in that same undertone, with his lips next to her ear, “If you hear gunfire, run back toward the SUV but keep going until you hit the main road. Don’t stop for anything.”
She started to protest that she wasn’t going to leave him if he was in trouble, but he put his hand over her mouth before she could utter a word. “Please, Cate. Just do it, okay? It’s the only way you can help me.”
She struggled with her heart, but knew she had to do this for him. “Okay.” She mouthed the word against his hand.
He slid his watch from his wrist and handed it to her. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, gunfire or no gunfire, run like hell. Promise?”
She nodded, then glanced down at the watch to see what time it was now. When she looked up Liam was gone. Her heart had already been pounding, but the minute he disappeared from sight it kicked into overdrive. She tried to calm her heartbeat by taking several deep breaths and watching the second hand on Liam’s analog watch tick around one full circuit, then two. But watching the second hand only made her more anxious, so after another minute she stopped and looked up instead.
A sound from the path behind her made her whirl around. Her heart skipped a beat, then accelerated into the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire.
Evil incarnate confronted her. “Hello, Caterina,” Aleksandrov Vishenko said. Then he raised his pistol.
Chapter 17
Liam crept around the cabin’s perimeter, easily avoiding Callahan’s traps. Thanking God silently he knew the location of every single one. The only sounds he heard were natural to the forest, and there was no movement from the direction of the cabin. But he wasn’t convinced. His sixth sense still had him on high alert. A burst of speed brought him to the steps at the bottom of the back porch, his SIG SAUER raised, his finger on the trigger.
When there was still no sound or movement from the cabin, Liam mounted the steps slowly, cautiously, placing his feet where the nails bound the cross boards to the supporting beams, so they wouldn’t creak. Then he was at the back door. He peered through the window and spied a blonde woman sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of something, with her back to the door.
Suddenly the barrel of a gun was pressed against his temple, and a rough voice said, “Federal agent. Move and you’re dead.”
Adrenaline jolted through Liam’s system—the body’s natural fight-or-flight response. But then he realized with shock he recognized the voice. Incredulous, he said, “Cody?”
“Liam?” A large hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around. Then his brother-in-law cursed, long and low. “What the hell are you doing here?” Cody demanded.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“You’re supposed to be halfway to Casper by now.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Then Liam got it. “Callahan. Callahan told you. What the hell is going on?”
Cody reached around Liam and shoved open the kitchen door, then pushed him inside. When he did, the blonde turned around, and Liam’s startled eyes met his sister’s beneath the blond wig that was remarkable in its resemblance to Cate’s hairstyle. “Keira?”
“Damn it, Liam, what are you doing here?” she threw at him. “You’re not supposed to be here. Where’s Cate?”
Like the wheels on a slot machine spinning round and round, then falling into place one by one, everything suddenly clicked for Liam. “It’s a trap,” he said slowly, knowing the truth of his words even before it was confirmed by the expression on Keira’s face. “You set a trap for Vishenko with Cate as the bait. And you’re Cate.”
He whirled on Cody. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cody shook his head. “Need to know,” he said softly. “This is an agency op...and you’re DSS, not one of ours. You weren’t supposed to be here, so you didn’t need to know.”
