Hot Zone (Elite Force 2)

Waves pulled at the shore just as the tension radiating from him pulled at her while she listened, just let him talk.

“I promised her we would get one in the morning, but she couldn’t go back to sleep. So my wife and I went out to the backyard to see what we could find.” He looked at her for the first time, his raw eyes reflecting the moonbeams. “Did I mention we lived in Alaska and it was December?”

She smiled because he seemed to need that from her, but her insides burned with an ache for where he was going in his mind. Her hand fell to rest on Joshua’s back as he settled on the leaf bed, curling up with heavy eyes.

“My wife held the flashlight while I shoveled through the snow. I was determined my little girl would have the best rock in class. After tossing aside a half dozen ‘inferior’ stones, I found the perfect one—probably weighed about five pounds.”

Her hands circled on the baby’s back, the moment so quiet, and heavier than that five-pound rock.

“So the Christmas program rolled around. We walked in to find this table set up with a display of all the kids’ art-project gifts for their parents.” He cut his eyes at her, a smile tugging at his face so beyond perfect, it took her breath away. “They’d made pet rocks.”

“Oh, my,” she whispered, falling so hard into those eyes and that nostalgic grin from a world she’d never known.

“Yeah, the table was full of tiny painted cats and dogs and cows. And right there in the middle was my girl’s boulder, completely unrecognizable. It had glitter and feathers and blobs of paint. The label called it a pet gerbil.”

He laughed, shaking his head and she laughed with him, even though God help her…

Hugh Franco broke her heart.

He stirred up the sand at his feet, scooping and dumping, scooping again. “She and my wife died in a plane crash.” Sand drifted through his fingers. “Tilly… my daughter’s name was Matilda, and my wife’s name was Marissa.”

She looked into his eyes and for once hated the instincts that allowed her to perceive so fully what lurked under the surface. She’d thought of Hugh as Superman, going all the way to the edge, risking his life again and again for others.

And now she realized that he pushed himself to the limit out of a grief-filled need to chase his family to the other side.

Chapter 10

Throwing the Jeep into park beside the burned-out van, the Guardian leaped out from behind the wheel, engine idling in the crisp morning air. “What the hell?”

The utility vehicle was nothing more than a blackened hull against the palm tree, also charred. The pyre had offered a beacon to locate the missing van even when communications from Oliver and Tandi ended.

And speaking of Oliver and Tandi…

The Guardian sidestepped a log, work boots crunching along the foliage, and pressed a hand to the still-warm door frame and looked inside. A burned corpse was slumped in the front passenger seat, horridly disfigured. Unidentifiable. Nothing but melted flesh over bones remained.

The Guardian whispered a string of curses before walking around to the rear of the van. The back was empty, other than exploded glass from incinerated crates.

Damn it.

Informants had already clarified that there’d been a screwup at the hospital that resulted in the wrong child being taken. Something about the wrong file attached to the wrong basinet or playpen or whatever the hell they were using. The whole system was a hodgepodge mess, with patients dying, new arriving, faster than a makeshift, understaffed hospital could handle.

Excuses.

Punishments would be doled out later. Right now? Nothing mattered but ensuring the safety of the child they’d taken and protecting the identity of the organization.

A groan sounded from inside the bushes. A quick search through the leafy green underbrush showed… Oliver bound by his hands and feet, lying on his side. His face was bruised, his eyes both angry and fearful.

“What the hell is going on here?” A ridiculous question to ask, since the man was gagged with his own bandanna. Tearing off the hemp ropes and swiping away the rag from Oliver’s mouth, the Guardian asked again, “What happened here? Where’s the little boy? And the woman?”

When the van exploded, had Tandi or the extra woman they’d picked up died?

“Tandi… They…” Oliver swallowed and swiped his wrist across his mouth. “Tandi is dead. The others… got away.”

Got away? This wasn’t making sense. But the clearing was disturbed, undergrowth trampled from lots of foot traffic. And where were Oliver’s weapons? “You and Tandi were both overpowered by a woman with a child?”

Oliver stood slowly, stretching after being bound for so long. Except his unease seemed to be rooted in something else, something more. His eyes darted around like two bees unable to settle on a flower. “She, uh, had a man with her.”

Anger simmered through the confusion. “When you picked up the child, you kidnapped a woman and a man? And you didn’t bother to tell me this when you and Tandi checked in.”