Sharpshooter (Shadow Agents 3)
Page 101
“Are we clear?”
Cale nodded.
“Good.” Mercer flashed a smile that Cale was sure had made plenty of men shudder in fear. “Then get your bags packed, because you’re going to Rio.”
* * *
THE DOOR CLOSED behind Cale Lane. An interesting man. A dangerous man.
A man who’d better be the right choice for this mission.
Mercer opened his drawer. Carefully he pulled out the file for this case. He flipped through the dossiers, then paused when he saw her picture.
Cale had better be the right choice.
Because if this mission went wrong, if anything happened to his daughter...
“I will make you regret it the rest of your life.” Cale had no idea just what hell he’d bring down on him.
Because Mercer never made threats.
Just promises.
* * * * *
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Chapter One
Winter had come to Bitterwood, Tennessee, roaring in on a cold, damp wind that poured down the mountain passes and shook the remnants of browning leaves from the sugar maples, sweet gums and dogwoods growing at the middle elevations. Delilah Hammond remembered well from childhood the sharp bite of an Appalachian November and dressed warmly when she headed up the winding mountain road to her mother’s place on Smoky Ridge.
Reesa Hammond was on day three of her latest hop on the sobriety wagon, and withdrawal had hit her hard, killing her appetite and leaving her shaking, angry and suffering from a persistent headache no amount of ibuprofen seemed to relieve. Frankly, Delilah was surprised her mother had bothered trying to stop drinking at all at this point, since her previous eight attempts at sobriety had all ended the same way, five fingers deep in a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
Delilah didn’t kid herself that this time Reesa would win the battle with the bottle. But Reesa had taken a hell of a lot of abuse trying to protect Delilah and her brother, Seth, from their sick creep of a sperm donor, so a little barley soup and a few minutes of company wasn’t too much to offer, was it?
Her cell phone beeped as she turned her Camaro into a tight curve. She waited until the road straightened to answer, aware of how dangerous the mountain roads could be, especially at night with rain starting to mix with sleet. “Hammond.”
“Just checking to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.” The gruff voice on the other end of the line belonged to a former leatherneck named Jesse Cooper, the man who’d been her boss for the past few years, until she’d given her notice two weeks earlier.
“I haven’t,” she answered, tamping down the doubts that had harassed her ever since she’d quit the best job she’d ever had.