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“Yeah,” Terry said softly, his eyes glittering with accusation. “It doesn’t undo the illegal act, though.” He shifted his gaze between Hunter and Pete, as if looking for clues to the crime in their faces and trying to determine which one was doing the hacking and which one was paying the bill. “And if I ever catch the person doing it,” Terry said, “I’m bringing him down.”
“Lighten up, Terry,” Pete said with a laugh and a playful slap of the agent’s shoulder. “It’s probably a couple of kids having fun at your expense.” Pete’s smile developed an edge. “Of course, with your poor skills, whoever it is should consider themselves safe from detection.”
The insult hung in the air, and none of the three men made a move, as if each was waiting to see what his adversary would do next.
“A few of us are meeting up at the bar tonight.” Terry’s gaze swept back to Carly. “If any of you guys want to catch up, reminisce about old times...” his grin was positively derisive “...stop by.” And, with that, he headed into the crowd.
Carly’s mind twirled in the aftermath. It was too much information to be processed quickly, and as she watched the FBI agent walk away a million questions swirled in her head. Her curiosity was so sharp she couldn’t decide where to start. With the reporter comment? With the history of the animosity between the three men? Or perhaps with who was hacking the hotel computer and stiffing Terry with the bar bill?
But when she turned to speak with Hunter...he was gone.
* * *
Hunter sat on a chair in the corner of his hotel room, thick curtains blocking all but a thin swath of the dying embers of the setting sun. After his aimless wander along the noisy chaos of the well-lit Vegas strip the dim light and silence of the hotel room was a relief. Out on the sidewalk he’d passed three Elvis impersonators, four superheroes, and a gold-painted human statue of Midas. Carly would have loved every one of them. He shouldn’t have left her so abruptly, but he’d needed time to regain control of his anger.
Nursing the same bourbon he’d poured when he’d returned to the room an hour ago, Hunter stared across the posh penthouse suite. In his days as an FBI agent, a government employee on a limited budget, he’d been assigned one of the cheapest rooms on the bottom floor. Now he could afford the best of the best at the top. A massive room, lavish with plush furniture, thick carpeting, and a well-stocked bar that deserved someone who drank more than him. Since his drinking binge following Mandy’s defection his taste for alcohol had waned.
Running into Terry had triggered an avalanche of troubled emotions Hunter had battled for eight years. At one time the salary slur he’d tossed at Terry would have left Hunter satisfied, knowing that he could buy and sell the man’s life ten times over and never pull a financial muscle. But in reality it was an empty win. Hunter hadn’t minded the cheap rooms, the basic government-issue cars, or the limiting lifestyle of a G-man on a G-man’s salary. The work, the satisfaction of his job had supplied him with all that he’d needed: a sense of purpose. A calling he believed in. And—the real chocolate frosting on the plain vanilla cake—the thrill of outwitting the crooks and beating them at their own game.
Until his integrity had been called into question.
The acrid memories of those dark days burned—the shame, frustration and humiliation of going to work while the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility had scrutinized his life. Being investigated like the criminals he’d been tracking for two years.
He clutched the cold tumbler in his hand, bitterness twining around his every cell, tightening its grip. Choking him. And twisting the knife still buried in his back.
A rustling came from the hall and Hunter tensed, not yet fit for human interaction. But the sound of a card swiping the outer lock was followed by the door opening, and a soft click as it closed.
Carly.
TEN
Relieved she’d finally found him, Carly paused, caught between her incessant need to know what had just transpired between Hunter and his old colleague and her intense longing to ease the expression on his face. She’d seen the Hope Diamond once, and his eyes resembled it now. Blue. Hard. Frozen. Though hope was hardly an apt description. There was such an underlying sense of...emptiness about him.
After the last few days with Hunter it was hard to adjust back to the elusiveness he’d exuded in the beginning. But the wall had returned, taller and stronger than ever, and his expression was sealed off—tighter than any super computer responsible for national secrets.
