Page 34 of Lethal Game

He watched the fire for several minutes. "So, the person who took things out of the house earlier in the day might have set some timed explosives to go off later in the day."

"But why wait?" Flynn asked. "Why not just set it when he left?"

"Maybe he wanted some time to get away before the fire started," Savannah suggested.

"Can you send me a copy of the video?" he asked. "I want to show it to Alisa Hunt. I think that man is her father, the onewho's allegedly out of town. I don't know why he'd burn down his own house, unless it was to erase traces of the toxin that was slowly killing his wife. Although, I have to believe the poison in the house was something Mrs. Hunt ingested. If it was in the air, Dan Hunt would have had the same symptoms as his wife."

"That's true," Savannah said.

"I've been digging into Dan Hunt," Nick interjected. "His background prior to thirty years ago is fictitious."

His pulse jumped at that piece of information. "Seriously?"

"Yes," Nick said, meeting his gaze. "I found a photo of Mr. Hunt in his college yearbook and compared that to one taken for his teaching position last year." Nick tapped on the computer keys in front of him and put two photos on the monitor. "As you can see, the two men look similar: brown hair, brown eyes, similar build. But the young Mr. Hunt has a significant scar on his face and the older Mr. Hunt does not."

Nick was right. The scar that ran across the younger man's chin was definitely not visible in the second photo. The two men could pass for each other on an ID, but there were definite differences between their bone structure and features.

"I called an associate at the U.S. Marshals Service," Flynn interjected. "I thought Mr. Hunt might be in witness protection, but there's no record of him."

"When did he marry his wife?" he asked.

"Twenty-nine years ago," Nick answered. "Which leads to the question, does Pamela Hunt know who her husband really is? Or did he lie to her, too?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "She's difficult to read, and she has also been very ill, so I'm not sure how clear her head is. I'll talk to Alisa and her mother about all this."

"Anything else?" Flynn asked. "If not, it's been a long day. Let's regroup tomorrow and pick it all up again. Jason, why don't you hang back?"

He stood up as the others left the conference room. Flynn handed him keys and a piece of paper with an address on it. "Youcan take Miss Hunt here tonight. Do you want to stay with her? I'm short on other resources, but I can get someone else there tomorrow."

"I'll stay with her tonight. I need to find out more about her family, and she'll feel safer with someone she knows."

"Someone who saved her life twice," Flynn commented.

"Hopefully, there won't be a third opportunity to do that."

"What do you think about her? Is she innocent in all this? Is she holding anything back?"

"She has no idea what's going on," he replied. "She thinks her family is the most normal, most boring family on the planet."

"Sometimes, families that appear to be that normal are anything but."

"I agree. And knowing that Kashin poisoned her mother gives me no doubt that Alisa and her family are tied to Novikov. We need to find how they're connected."

Flynn nodded. "I agree. Be careful, Jason. Watch her back, but also watch your own. I don't want to lose the newest member of the team. You need to find Novikov before he finds you. I'm sure after what happened to your father, he knows who you are, and that might give him more motivation."

"I won't let him get away, not this time, not?—"

Flynn held up his hand. "Please don't finish that statement with the words if it's the last thing I do."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Alisa found her eyes getting heavy as she sat in a chair next to her mother's bed. The events of last night and today were catching up to her. It was only eight-thirty, but she felt emotionally and physically exhausted, too tired to even worry about what was coming next. She'd spent the past hour trying to figure out things that made no sense, like where her dad was, why her mother was being poisoned, who had wanted to kidnap her and then kill her.

With no answers to any of those questions, her mind moved to Jason, to the very attractive FBI agent who had suddenly become her protector and maybe the only person she could trust. Her father had deserted her, and her mother was lying about something. She had no one else she could talk to, except Jason.

He wanted answers as much as she did, although his interests were much broader than hers. She wanted to know who was trying to kill her mother and herself. He wanted to know that, too, but he also wanted to find a terrorist.

It still blew her mind to think she had somehow become the target of a Russian terrorist. She lived such a normal life. She went to work every day to a job she mostly liked. She had friendsto spend time with, although her big nights out usually involved a movie or dinner, maybe the occasional concert. She dated, although they'd all been duds, including Tim, her latest so-called boyfriend, who had never even responded to her breakup text. But other than that, she did nothing all that exciting.

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