The Ultimate Betrayal Read online

  After the drama of the day—being followed from the airport, being shot at, meeting Brandon Garrett and his friends, and escaping a possible tail, she should have been exhausted, and she was. Still, she couldn’t seem to fall asleep.

  Every time she started to drift away, she saw Bran’s perceptive blue eyes and wondered what he thought of her. Wondered if he found her attractive. It had been months since she had been interested in a man. After Jordy, none of her attempts at a normal relationship had worked out, and eventually she had just given up.

  But Bran intrigued her. She knew what it took to become a Special Forces soldier. Knew Danny and Bran had both been Delta operators, the most elite soldiers in the world. You had to be way beyond smart, had to speak several languages and pass a battery of physical and mental tests. Their missions were so top secret it was as if Delta soldiers didn’t actually exist.

  She also knew that getting involved with Bran on a personal level was a terrible idea. He was exactly the heartbreaker Danny had warned her about. He was also ex-military, an adrenaline junkie who loved to be in the middle of the action. Guys like that never changed. Just as before, her judgment sucked.

  As she plumped her pillow and tried to get comfortable, Jessie vowed that for once she would take her brother’s very sound advice and keep her distance from Bran.

  Unfortunately, now that they were working together, it would be nearly impossible to do.

  Two hours later Jessie still lay awake. The sound of wind racing past the windows was usually comforting, but tonight it seemed ominous instead of relaxing, sending her thoughts back to the shooting and what she and Bran might face ahead.

  Since she badly needed some sleep, she pulled on her short white terry cloth robe and padded down the hall toward the kitchen, hoping to find some chamomile tea or warm a cup of milk. The door to Bran’s study stood open, and she spotted him still sitting behind his computer.

  He glanced up as she paused in the doorway. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked. His hair was mussed, and the shadow of a beard darkened his jaw.

  Jessie shook her head. “You either, I guess.”

  “No. Come on in.”

  She walked over to the desk. “What are you working on?”

  “I’ve been going over the file you gave me.” He tapped the thin manila folder. “I was hoping to find more in it.”

  “I wish I had more. The truth is, I waited too long to start digging. My dad’s death hit me hard, especially after losing Mom and Danny. I couldn’t seem to pull myself together. Once I did, I got angry. I knew in my heart Dad wasn’t guilty. That’s when I went to work.”

  Bran rose from his chair, file in hand. “Since we’re both still awake, we might as well get started.”

  Jessie followed him over to a sleek dark walnut meeting table in the corner surrounded by four matching chairs. A fire flickered in the gas fireplace built into one wall. They each pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Bran opened the file. “I read the initial report of the investigation—brief as it is.”

  “It’s brief because the CID asked for an extension to delve more deeply into the charges.” CID stood for Criminal Investigation Division Command, like the FBI of the military. “Because of the seriousness of the crime and the threat it posed to national security, my dad was confined to the military stockade while the balance of the investigation was completed.”

  “It says here, a civilian employee who works for Weidner, guy named Charles Frazier, discovered the missing munitions. The details have been redacted in the copy of the report you received.”

  “It’s classified. As I said, being an outsider, it’s hard to get information. They don’t want anyone to know the quantity of chemical weapons that were stolen.”

  “According to this, Frazier was a computer specialist working in the division of Weidner in charge of inventory. He discovered a discrepancy and reported it to Colonel Kegan as commander of the depot.” Bran glanced up from the page. “It says Colonel Kegan waited instead of reporting it. Frazier got worried. On the morning of the third day, he went directly to your father’s superior, Brigadier General Samuel Holloway, at CMA.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. Holloway is the director of Chemical Materials Activity. He oversees both the Alamo Depot and the Blue Grass Depot in Kentucky.”

  “According to your father’s comments, he waited to report the missing weapons because he wanted to be sure the discrepancy wasn’t just a clerical error, an accounting mistake of some kind. Which is what he believed, at least at first. He also stated he wanted to be sure he had all the facts. Once he was satisfied the theft was real, he planned to move forward, to find whoever was responsible and bring them to justice, which was why he began an internal investigation.”

  “That sounds reasonable to me,” Jessie said.

  “It does. Until you add the fact that Charles Frazier decided it was too dangerous to ignore the theft—which he believed the colonel was doing—and went straight to Holloway with the information. A few days later your father was apprehended—”

  “Military jargon for arrested.”

  “And confined to the stockade at Fort Carson.” Bran set the file on the table. “Apparently, CID investigators discovered an offshore account in your father’s name. They also found deposits totaling a hundred thousand dollars.”

  Jessie felt a jolt of indignation for her father. “Someone set him up. I spoke to Charles Frazier. Since the number of missing munitions was classified, he couldn’t tell me the quantity, but he said on the black market, they would be worth a great deal of money. I got the impression it was a lot more than just a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Frazier tell you anything else?”

  “He said it was a fluke that he discovered the theft at all. Some glitch in the system that turned up a discrepancy that most people would have missed. He followed up, and that’s when he realized the weapons were no longer in storage. If he hadn’t discovered it, the perpetrators would have gotten away clean.”

  “Why do you think Frazier went over your father’s head directly to the CMA?”

  “I don’t know. Frazier wouldn’t say, and no one I talked to was very helpful.”

  Bran tapped the file. “After reading this report, I have a hunch the reason they aren’t being helpful is the same reason the quantity of missing weapons is redacted. The theft was a lot bigger than they want anyone to know.”

  Jessie felt a chill. Exactly what she was afraid of.

  FOUR

  Thin rays of sunlight washed over the flat Texas landscape the following morning. Bran sat at the controls of the sleek white twin-engine Beechcraft Baron G58 parked in front of its hangar at the Dallas Executive Airport, south and a little west of downtown.

  He had learned to fly after he’d left the military. Barely recovered from the bullet wounds that had forced him to leave the army—one in his thigh, one in his abdomen, and another that had taken out part of his spleen—he’d been bored and unhappy to have lost the job he was trained for.

  He’d been trying to figure out what to do with his life when Chase suggested he take flying lessons. Once he’d started, he’d liked it so much he’d considered getting a plane of his own, maybe something like the single-engine Cessna that Hawk Maddox flew.

  Chase had come up with the idea that Bran and Reese should share the one he owned, since it didn’t get used that often. It was a beautiful plane so Bran had eagerly agreed. Once he discovered private security work was the answer to his career dilemma, the plane had come in handy.

  “You belted in?” he asked Jessie.

  She nodded. “All set.” She settled back in the fawn-colored leather copilot’s seat and glanced around the interior. “This is really nice.” Besides the two people in the cockpit, the plane was equipped to carry four passengers in comfortable club seating.

  “It hasn’t g
otten a lot of use lately. We’ve all been pretty busy.” He started the preflight, checking the electrical system, looking for any warning lights, checking the GPS navigation, checking the oil and fuel levels.

  He’d already done the walk-around, inspecting the body for damage, looking for fluid leaks: oil, fuel, hydraulics.

  “We’re all set.” He put on his headphones and waited for Jessie to put on hers. Settling back, he got on the radio and spoke to the tower, then began taxiing into position on the runway.

  Once cleared for takeoff, the plane began to roll down the tarmac, the propellers humming as the engine picked up speed. Jessie studied the landscape outside the window as the plane lifted into the air and climbed to flying altitude. She didn’t say much until the city of Dallas disappeared in the distance behind them.

  “As a rule, I’m not crazy about flying,” she said. “But I have to admit this is great.”

  He smiled. “Glad you’re enjoying it. For me flying’s mostly a convenient way to get around. Helluva lot better than going through all the hassle at the airport.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  It was an easy flight, just a few thunderheads beginning to develop, which he was able to skirt by slight course alterations. The patchwork quilt of farmland below held Jessie’s attention, giving Bran a chance to study her.

  She really was pretty, he thought, and she was smart. There were plenty of beautiful women in Texas, but when you added brains and a dynamite figure, it was a combination Bran found hard to resist.

  But he owed a debt to Danny Kegan that he could never repay. A one-night hookup with his sister or anything remotely similar was out of the question. His sigh went unnoticed beneath the hum of the engines.

  Near the halfway point, he landed at a small executive airport in Amarillo and had the fuel topped off while they went into the terminal restaurant for a pit stop and something to eat. Sandwiches and soft drinks and a couple of bags of chips and they were airborne again. A short flight north and a little west and he landed at Cutter Aviation, a private airport a few miles west of Colorado Springs.

  The executive terminal, where he’d made arrangements for a hangar to store the plane, was housed in a log building furnished with brown leather sofas, photos of the surrounding snow-capped mountains, and bronze sculptures of wildlife, a place perfectly suited to its location in the Rockies.

  Bran had a rental car waiting, a big dark gray metallic Ford Expedition. He grabbed the handle of his carry-on, tossed the black canvas duffel that held his gear over one shoulder, and urged Jessie, towing her own suitcase, toward the parking lot.

  “I booked two rooms for us at the Holiday Inn,” she said as he loaded their luggage into the back of the vehicle. “I hope that works for you.”

  He paused to take the Glock out of his canvas duffel, clipped the holster to his belt and pulled his Henley out to cover it, then loaded the bag into the back.

  “Call and cancel,” he said. “I’ve got a suite for us at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. It’s up in the hills not far from Fort Carson.” Apparently she hadn’t figured out that separate hotel rooms weren’t an option. People had been shooting at her. He wasn’t letting her get that far away.

  “It’s an hour drive from there to the depot,” he said, opening the passenger door. “But we’ll also be spending time at the base, which is fairly close, so we might as well stay somewhere nice.”

  “You’re spending a lot of money. I didn’t expect that. I’ll find a way to repay you.”

  He stopped walking and turned back. “I told you before—I owe your brother my life. You don’t owe me anything and especially not money. I’ve got plenty of it, far more than we’ll need.” He stared down at her. “All right?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so.” She was a foot shorter than he was, petite, but she wasn’t frail. He usually went for tall, buxom women. They just seemed less fragile, a better fit for a guy his size. But there was something about Jessie that drew him.

  “No more talk about money,” he said to make the point. “Okay?”

  Her chin went up. “Fine.”

  He bit back a smile. She was really cute. Too bad she didn’t look more like her silver-haired father and less like her brother, whose good looks had appealed to women around the world.

  They belted themselves into their seats, and he started the engine.

  “You don’t want to talk about the money you’re spending,” she said. “So what do you want to talk about? The case, I hope.”

  He grinned. “Why don’t we talk about why you don’t have a serious boyfriend. That should be interesting.”

  Instead of the snarky remark he expected, Jessie’s face went pale. She glanced out the window. “It’s not a good story.”

  Bran silently cursed. Dammit, he hadn’t intended to make her uncomfortable, and it was really none of his business. “Hey, I’m sorry. I was just kidding around. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  She fell silent and he didn’t press her, just set the nav system for the Cheyenne Mountain Resort and drove out of the parking lot.

  Following GPS directions, he found US 24 East and headed for the hotel.

  “Something happened three years ago,” Jessie said as the SUV rolled along. “I started corresponding with this guy I met through an online dating site. His name was Jordan Duran.”

  “Why the hell would you need to go online to meet someone? Any guy with eyes in his head would want to ask you out.”

  Jessie gave him the faintest smile. “I thought I might meet someone more interesting than the men I seemed to attract.”

  He kind of got that. Having sex with a good-looking woman wasn’t the same as actually enjoying her company. He didn’t do relationships mostly because very few women understood him and the kind of life he led, and he rarely understood them.

  Jessie leaned back in her seat. “Jordy came from a family of teachers, nice, down-to-earth sort of people. Or at least that’s what he said in his emails. He had a way of making me smile, and I really liked that. According to his bio, he was thirty-four, six feet tall, four years of college, looked good in his photo. We were going to meet for lunch but the night before, a man followed me out of the grocery store. I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.”

  The muscles across Bran’s stomach clenched. “What happened?” Because it sounded as if—Jessie being Danny’s sister—it definitely was his business.

  “I guess he used something to knock me out. I remember struggling, remember him pressing something over my mouth and nose, then nothing. The next morning, I woke up bound and gagged, locked in a basement somewhere. That night and the next, the guy showed up in a ski mask. He...touched me. He described in detail what he was going to do to me after we ‘got to know each other better.’”

  “Christ, Jessie.”

  “To make a long story short, the third day, I managed to escape. The police caught him and put him in jail. End of story.”

  No way was that the end, but he didn’t say that.

  “So you can see why I don’t have a boyfriend and why I don’t like to talk about it,” Jessie finished.

  Oh, he saw, all right. And the fury he was feeling wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon.

  He turned onto CO 115 and kept driving. “One last question.” He had a thousand but for now he’d settle for one. “Was this the same guy you met online?”

  “Yes. Jordy wasn’t his real name. His real name was Ray Cummings, but it was him.”

  His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “So where the fuck is this guy now?”

  “That’s two questions,” she said. But his hard look convinced her to answer. “He’s serving ten years in prison—where my testimony helped put him. I wasn’t the first girl he kidnapped, but I was the last. Now can we change the subject?”

  H
e didn’t want to. He wanted to know more about what had happened, what the bastard had done to her, wanted to be sure she’d come out of it all right. But he had upset her enough for today.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s talk about the case.”

  She settled in the seat and her shoulders relaxed. She understood he was letting her off the hook. She didn’t know he was far from finished with Jordan Duran/Ray Cummings.

  In time, she would figure it out.

  For the moment, Cummings was in jail, and they needed to find a load of missing chemical weapons. First things first, he always said.

  FIVE

  The resort, nestled at the base of the Rockies, was a lovely spot, Jessie thought as they walked into the suite they had been assigned. Built on two hundred acres, it offered its guests a golf course, tennis courts, a fitness center, hiking trails, and beautiful views of the mountains.

  The suite was big and roomy, with a rock fireplace, comfortable overstuffed furniture, and a wet bar with a refrigerator. A coffee maker sat on the counter. Windows wrapped around the living room, overlooking the golf course and mountains beyond.

  “You take the bedroom,” Bran said. “The sofa unfolds into a bed, and I need to sleep out here where I can keep an eye on things.”

  Her mind went back to the shooting, and a shudder ran through her. She wondered if the men in the black SUV were still in Dallas. It didn’t seem likely they would know she had left with Bran Garrett and that she was currently back in Colorado Springs.

  Of course, as soon as she returned to the base and started asking questions, her whereabouts would be more than clear.

  Bran pulled the file out of his carry-on, carried it over to the dining table, and pulled out a chair. Jessie joined him. He opened the folder, shuffled aside the investigative report he had read last night, picked up her father’s autopsy, and studied the pages.