Say Goodbye Read online

  “I didn’t visit him,” Tom said defensively. “It wasn’t me who scared him.”

  “I know. I meant ‘you’ in the sense of ‘you FBI guys.’ I won’t expose him. I promised.”

  “You also promised you’d live here with me,” he blurted out. “But you e-mailed me that you placed an ad for someone to sublet your side.”

  “Oh, that’s why you swore at me,” she murmured. “You saw my e-mail.”

  “I have to approve whoever you choose.” Now he sounded arrogant, but she could still hear the hurt underneath. “It’s in your lease.”

  She knew that, and it was a fair requirement. “If you don’t approve them, I’ll continue to pay the rent myself.”

  “And not live here?” he asked, stunned. “How can you afford to pay rent on two places?”

  “It’ll cut into my savings, but it’ll only be for a little while. I’ve applied for dorm housing starting in July and there may be financial aid for that.”

  “Liza.” Then he frowned. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘that’s why you swore at me’?” His face paled. “How long were you standing there? What did you hear?”

  “Long enough. And everything you and your boss discussed.”

  Twin red stripes rose on his cheekbones. His breathing ticked up. He was angry. But she wasn’t afraid. She’d never been afraid of Tom Hunter. She was only afraid of how he made her feel. And what she was willing to do to make him happy.

  “You had no right,” he hissed.

  “You’re right. I didn’t. I didn’t plan to overhear you, but I did. And now I know that they are hiring a nursing assistant at Sunnyside Oaks.”

  Tom staggered back a step, anger now mixed with fear. “You wouldn’t. You can’t.”

  “I will and I can. I’m qualified for the position.”

  “Liza, no.” His jaw went tight. “I forbid it.”

  She gaped at him. “You what?”

  “I. Forbid. It.”

  A tendril of temper unfurled in her chest and she welcomed it. Anger was a million times better than despair. “You can’t stop me.”

  He was in her space before she was aware that he’d started to move, his big hands gripping her upper arms. His grip was firm, but not punishing. She still wasn’t afraid.

  She was pissed off, but she didn’t shrug him off, because he was touching her and she was pathetically needy. She swallowed a whimper. Barely.

  “Watch me,” he said in a low growl.

  His face was close, his nose millimeters from hers. His mouth was unsmiling. Still, she wanted it more than she wanted to breathe. She swallowed hard, her gaze dropping to his lips. Would they be soft? Or hard? How would he taste?

  No, no, no, no. Stop it. Stop it now.

  She yanked her gaze up. And froze.

  Because he was looking at her mouth, too. For a moment she thought . . .

  She hoped . . .

  But when he yanked his gaze up, all she saw was shock. He was . . . appalled, and her pounding heart seemed to freeze in her chest.

  His hands fell from her arms as if she’d burned him, and he took a huge step back, so huge that he nearly tripped up the stairs. He shook his head hard, saying nothing. But his rejection couldn’t be clearer.

  “Well,” she said, wondering if he could hear her frozen heart shattering into tiny pieces. “I’m glad we had this chat. I’ll be going now.” She had her hand on the doorknob when he finally spoke.

  “Liza, wait.”

  She paused but didn’t look back. She could hear that he still stood by the stairs. He hadn’t moved an inch after that colossal retreat. “What, Tom?” she snapped.

  “You can’t apply for that job.”

  Not wanting to argue, she simply shook her head and opened the door, but the knob was ripped from her hand, the door slamming shut. Tom’s hand lay flat against the door, his big body close enough that she could feel his heat.

  “Pastor is there,” he hissed, his breath hot on her neck. “DJ will be there. If he sees you, he will kill you.”

  “It is a risk,” she allowed, because to deny it would be foolhardy. To deny that her heart beat faster at the thought would be a lie. But she wasn’t afraid, not enough to quit before she tried.

  If she could meet Pastor, talk to him . . . maybe she could get him to talk about Eden. Maybe even tell her where it was. Especially if he was hurt or in detox, which she assumed he was, because he was in a rehab center. People said things when they were in pain, things they might not otherwise say. And if he didn’t tell her directly, maybe she could overhear something useful.

  She only knew that she needed to try. “But a risk I’m willing to take,” she added.

  “It is a certainty.” He didn’t shout, not really. But his voice was so loud that she recoiled involuntarily. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, far more quietly. “I didn’t mean to yell again, but, Liza, this is madness. We had someone on the inside—one of Sunnyside’s nurses who’d agreed to work with us. She planted bugs in Pastor’s room. But DJ caught her.”

  Liza’s heart raced faster. “What happened to her?”

  “He dragged her out of the facility, drove her a few miles, lost our surveillance van.” There was a sudden pressure at the base of her neck, a few inches above her new tattoo. Tom’s forehead. He was leaning on her. “Then he pulled her out of her own car,” he whispered, “onto the back lot of a grocery store and shot her in the head. Twice. My boss wanted to storm the place and arrest the bastard, but I convinced him to wait. To use this time to get intel. To find Eden. So we recruited the nurse and she’s dead. I have to live with that, but I couldn’t live if you got hurt. So I forbid this.”

  Liza swallowed, wanting to assure him that she’d forget about Sunnyside, that she’d stay safe for him. But this was bigger than either of them. So many innocent lives lay in the balance. And she’d risked her life before, every time she’d entered a battle zone. She could and would do it again for Mercy and Abigail. They deserved to live without fear.

  “I’m sorry for the nurse who was killed. I really am. But I’m qualified and I’m careful. I won’t take stupid risks. If I even get the job.”

  The pressure on her back disappeared as his hands gripped her upper arms again, spinning her to face him. “Goddammit, Liza,” he cursed from behind clenched teeth. His eyes were wild. Afraid. And still angry.

  At least he no longer seemed appalled at the thought of kissing her. A small balm.

  She looked up into his face, the need to soothe outweighing the urge to run. She loved him. She always had. And even though he didn’t feel the same way, simply seeing him like this, so helpless and afraid, was devastating. She needed to fix him. Heal him.

  So she cupped his face in her hands, her chest hurting when he shuddered into her touch. “I survived three deployments. I was a combat medic. I’ve been shot at. I shot back, and I’m still here. I can take care of myself.”

  He closed his eyes wearily. “Why? Why would you do this?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “For Mercy and Gideon. Amos and Abigail. And for that young girl who’s pregnant, who must be so scared. This has to stop, Tom. I can help. I need to help.”

  He opened his eyes and now she only saw despair. “But why you?”

  “Why not me? I’m qualified for the job. I know about Eden. I’m not foolish. You can even wire me if you want.”

  His expression flickered, despair becoming fear. Fear for her.

  He stepped back, and her hands fell from his face to dangle uselessly at her sides. “We wired the nurse who agreed to work with us. She’s still dead.”

  Liza was too tired to debate with him any further. He wasn’t going to change his mind any more than she was going to change hers. “I’ll see you around.”

  And this time when she opened the front door, he let her go.

  S
EVENTEEN

  ROCKLIN, CALIFORNIA

  THURSDAY, MAY 25, 11:50 P.M.

  Tom stood staring at the door after Liza left. This had to be coming from her PTSD. Survivor guilt. She’d experienced enough loss. Her mother, her sister. Her husband.

  Tom hadn’t seen this coming. Because you didn’t ask the right questions. He’d known something was wrong, that she was experiencing PTSD, but he’d let it go on way too long.

  Well, that was history. From here on out, he was asking all the questions. Because I’m not going to let her undertake a damn suicide mission.

  You can’t stop me.

  Watch me. He could stop her. True, he couldn’t keep her from applying, short of putting her into protective custody. Briefly he considered it. Because the alternative was ruining her résumé, altering her references so that they gave her a bad review. He could do it.

  But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted to save her from herself.

  He locked the front door, resetting the alarm, then climbed the stairs to his office, his thoughts a whirlwind. Pebbles ambled after him, settling down in her preferred place against the wall.

  The sight of the dog curled up against what had been Liza’s bedroom wall had Tom’s eyes burning. “She’s not there,” he said, his voice breaking. Because she wasn’t coming back.

  Heavily he sat in his chair, all thoughts of her résumé fading as the words she’d whispered in pain echoed in his mind. I need more than that.

  Pebbles’s growl cut into his mental fog, the sound low and ominous. Her head was tilted, her uncropped ears pricking up. Then Tom heard it too, the quiet buzzing of an incoming call.

  It was Molina. Grateful for the respite of work, he answered. “Hunter.”

  “Agent Hunter, I’ve got Agent Raeburn patched in. We’d like to talk to you.”

  Tom frowned, not liking the sound of that at all. “Of course. Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Raeburn said. “In fact, I think something could be very right.”

  “I’ll cut to the chase,” Molina said. “Liza Barkley just called me.”

  Tom’s breath got stuck in his chest. “Wh-what?”

  “Liza called. She informed me that, through no fault of your own, she overheard a conversation she wasn’t meant to hear.”

  “Not her fault, either. She was bringing the dog in. I thought I was alone in my house.”

  “Tom,” Molina said overly patiently. “We’re not calling to hand out demerits.”

  Tom’s blood turned to ice as the implications sank in. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  “She intends to apply for the nursing assistant job at Sunnyside Oaks,” Molina went on.

  Oh my God. She did. His fury with her reignited and he had to draw a calming breath before he spoke. “You set her straight, I assume,” he said, grateful that his voice didn’t shake.

  “By setting her straight,” Raeburn said, not one iota of levity in his tone, “you mean we said, ‘Yes, please, and let us help you get that job.’ Correct?”

  Tom was speechless. “But . . .”

  “She said you turned her down,” Molina said. “She said that you forbade it. Which, just for your own edification, was a really stupid thing to say, Tom.”

  “Extremely stupid,” Raeburn added.

  Tom’s temper was about to explode and he had to remind himself that the two people on the phone were his bosses. That he had to remain respectful. “She is a civilian. It’s too dangerous.”

  “According to her résumé, which she’s already sent to me, she is a trained, decorated soldier who is also a trained, highly skilled combat medic,” Molina corrected tartly, then seemed to soften. “And she’s not our first choice, if that makes you feel better. We’ve identified two undercover agents who will also apply. You can cross your fingers and toes for them if you like. In the meantime, we want a virus that can be embedded in their résumés. When they’re reviewed by Sunnyside’s HR person, I want that virus to take over that person’s computer. Even if we can’t see the entire network, we can see employee records and we can follow the hiring process.”

  Goddammit, Liza. He couldn’t believe she’d gone over his head like that. He took a second to ensure he’d be appropriately respectful when he spoke. “When do you need the virus?”

  “One hour.”

  “What the f—?” He drew another breath. Started to say it was impossible. Then realized it was perfectly possible. And a good idea. For the other two applicants. Not for Liza.

  But it appeared that he’d been both outmaneuvered and overruled. “I’ll provide you with the embedded code in one hour with instructions on how to add it into the résumé documents.”

  “Thank you, Agent Hunter,” Raeburn said formally. “We’ll have all three résumés ready to be uploaded into Sunnyside’s application form on receipt of your e-mail.”

  “Yes, sir. I assume shutting down Sunnyside’s network, thus requiring them to call in IT support, is also still a goal.”

  “You assume correctly,” Raeburn replied. “I want the résumé viruses first. We’ve already developed identities and backgrounds for the two undercover nursing assistant applicants. We’ll have the same for an ‘IT support team’ sometime tomorrow. It’s possible that Sunnyside won’t hire any of our applicants. It’s possible that none of them will even be called in for an interview. However, if one of ours is hired, we still want support for them inside the facility.”

  “Any decent IT team will be able to fix the problem in an afternoon,” Tom said. “If one of ours does get the nursing assistant job, he or she won’t have support for very long.”

  “Then they’ll find a way to further sabotage Sunnyside’s network, requiring a longer presence,” Raeburn replied coolly.

  Tom swallowed a sigh of resignation. “Then I’ll get right to it.”

  “Thank you, Agent Hunter,” Molina said quietly. “Agent Raeburn, you’re free to hang up. I’d like to speak with Agent Hunter alone, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not,” Raeburn said. “Call me if you learn anything new, Hunter.”

  Molina waited until Raeburn had ended his connection. “You know,” she said, “I talked to Liza’s former commanding officer.”

  “You mean, in the army?” Tom asked, startled at the topic change. “When?”

  “The first time was before she and Mercy visited Ephraim Burton’s mother in that nursing home. I wanted to be sure that she wasn’t a security risk and that she had the skills we required.”

  Tom knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. Molina had accepted Liza’s involvement, had allowed her to know about Eden, had permitted her proximity to Mercy. He’d thought at the time that Molina simply valued his opinion and approved Liza’s involvement on his say-so. How naive was I? How arrogant?

  “What did he say?” he asked, a little subdued. “Her former CO, I mean?”

  “He said that we couldn’t have picked anyone better suited to shoulder the responsibility. That she was levelheaded in a crisis, that she employed diplomacy when dealing with delicate situations, and that she could shoot her way out when diplomacy was no longer an option. He said she was one of the finest soldiers that he’d ever had the privilege to command. And that her nursing skills were exemplary. Combat surgeons credited her with saving lives because she stabilized field wounds so well. Patients who might have otherwise died didn’t.”

  Pride swelled in his chest. He hadn’t known any of that. She hadn’t told him.

  You didn’t ask.

  God, I’m an asshole.

  “You said the first time. Did you call him again?”

  “Yes, after she started visiting me at home when I was recuperating.”

  “When she did your laundry and cooked for you?”

  “Yes. And sat with me, just chatting.”


  “Why did you call him a second time? And what did he say?”

  “I called him because I had concerns regarding her intentions. She was in my home, after all. He told me that Liza has a nearly limitless need to help and that it’s genuine. You know about the attack on her mission, right? The one where members of her unit were killed?”

  “She told me about it.”

  “Did she tell you that she saved the lives of four soldiers and five villagers that day, after they’d been shot? That doesn’t include the lives that might have been lost had she not grabbed her rifle and started shooting the rooftop snipers who’d attacked U.S. soldiers on a humanitarian mission and the villagers they’d gone to serve.”

  “No. I didn’t know that part. She told me that her . . .” He swallowed. “That her husband had thrown himself over her to shield her, and that he’d died.”

  “That’s true, he did save her life. But once she realized he was dead, she went into crisis management mode. Took out one of the snipers while a few other soldiers took out the others. Then she was like . . . how did her CO say it? Oh, yes. Like Florence Nightingale on speed, running from person to person, triaging, doing first aid. She took a bullet in the hip, kept on going.”

  “I knew about the graze, but not that she’d kept going,” Tom said quietly. And I should have.

  “It was enough of an injury that she was awarded a Purple Heart.” Molina made a sound halfway between a fond huff and a dry chuckle. “I tried to recruit her. She said no, that there was already one FBI agent in the family. She just wanted to be a nurse. If I could have her as one of my agents, I’d jump at the chance. Since she already told me no, I’ll take her involvement with Sunnyside Oaks. I only tell you all this because I know you’ll continue to worry.”

  “Of course I’m going to worry,” Tom snapped. “She’s already been in his crosshairs once.”

  “I know. But when that picture fills your mind, replace it with one of her grabbing her rifle and shooting rooftop snipers to save her fellow soldiers and innocent villagers.”

  He hesitated. “That sounds like personal experience talking.”