King and Maxwell (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 6)

She stiffened, her eyes instantly filling with apprehension.

Grant gently removed the tape covering her mouth.

She said breathlessly, “What are you doing?” She looked around. “Why did you bring me here?”

“To talk.”

“You drugged me, tied me up, and now I’m lying on a metal table. You could have just called, for God’s sake.”

Grant could tell the woman’s courage was returning.

She tried to sit up. He put on a pair of leather gloves and forced her back down on the table. With her legs and arms bound it was not a difficult thing to do.

“Please let me up.”

“Not until we’ve talked. I need a debrief.”

“Where are we?”

“In a safe place.”

He pulled up a chair and sat next to her.

“Can I sit up, please?”

He put an arm under her back and helped her to a sitting position.

She eyed him warily. “What do you want to know that I haven’t already told you?”

“For starters, why did you leave?”

“Tyler hired these detectives. I got nervous.”

“You left without permission. You signed on for the mission. You can’t change the rules midway through.”

“I understand that, Alan, I’m sorry. But conditions on the ground change. And I had to change with them. These detectives—”

“I have that under control. Your leaving has complicated things. Tyler is now with King and Maxwell. I lost three men to them. This all could have been prevented if you had spoken up and controlled Tyler. If he hadn’t gotten suspicious he wouldn’t have hired anyone. He would have believed what the Army told him and that would be that.”

“Wingo sent him an email.”

“Which we know about. But it could have been sent by anyone. Not necessarily his father. Again, if you had stuck to the script, which had this contingency built in, it would have been taken care of.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Every plan does not go smoothly.”

“Mine did. Until now.”

“What, did you bring me here to torture me? Or kill me? How is that going to help things?”

Again, Grant could tell she was nervous but trying to cover that with bravado.

“No and no. And it wouldn’t help things. I just want to see if you have any useful information to convey. Then I will redeploy you. But you need to understand that you screwed up. There have to be consequences, Jean.”

“I think I more than carried my weight. I got designated as Wingo’s ‘bride.’ I carried this whole thing pretty flawlessly the last year. The kid never warmed up to me. And Wingo was Wingo. It hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park.”

“I understand that. Just tell me anything you might have learned and we can head back to town.”

“I left the house when things started to get hairy. I called you and told you what I was doing.”