Page 83 of The Woman Left Behind

Mac pulled his arm free. “That’s why you’re going with me.”

“Fuck,” Butcher said with quiet viciousness. “Where are we going?” He already had his phone out, sending a text to his team. Mac didn’t even have to ask, because he knew the way they worked. The address Mac gave him was too close by; he and Mac would arrive way before the team could get there to provide backup. The D.C. police department possibly could, but they were civilian, and best kept out of things like this.

He headed toward his car, but Butcher said, “We’ll use my truck, it’ll take more damage if things go sideways.”

There was truth in that, because the damn thing looked like a tank.

“This is a bad idea,” Butcher said.

Mac knew it was; not planning was always a bad idea, as was not being in control of the meeting. But Graeme Burger had mentioned a name that Mac couldn’t resist, because he’d been hunting for the son of a bitch for almost two years now. Devan Hubbert was the alias of the Russian operative who had infiltrated the GO-Team organization and was helping Joan Kingsley and her husband feed info to the Russians. He’d escaped, and no whiff of him had surfaced in those two years; Mac had assumed he’d gone back to Russia. Maybe he had, maybe he hadn’t, but what Mac wanted more than anything was solid info on the son of a bitch.

Butcher’s phone dinged and he looked at the incoming text. “My guys are on the way but they can’t get there in time, unless we stop and wait for them.”

“Can’t do that. Burger said he’d wait fifteen minutes, no more.”

“Cutting it close, given what D.C. traffic can do.”

Mac didn’t reply. Butcher then sent another text, forget about all the safety concerns about driving and texting at the same time.

“Who are you texting now?”

“Jina.”

“Who?” Mac scowled. Shit was going down fast and Butcher was texting some girl?

“Jina Modell. Babe,” he elaborated briefly, because Mac might not know their given names but he knew every damn one of their nicknames.

“Fuck’s sake, why? Cut through there,” he said abruptly, pointing, because the traffic in front of them looked as if it was snarling and a parking lot looked like the better option.

Butcher wheeled the truck one-handed, shot across the parking lot, avoided both a pedestrian and a car backing out of a lot, and two-wheeled it into the cross street.

“Because she’s a trained team member,” Butcher said. “She’s close, can get there right behind us, and she’s armed.”

Jina didn’t bother excusing herself, explaining, or anything else that would take even a second. Levi needed her and the situation sounded dire, because he’d told her to bring her weapon, which was easy because it was in her car. He had re-armed her almost immediately after arriving back in the States from the disastrous Syrian mission. She bolted from the building, her heart hammering. What was going on? Mac had come running out of nowhere, commandeered Levi, and they were gone. Now just minutes later Levi was shooting her an address and telling her to come armed, and be on high alert.

“This isn’t my gig!” she yelled furiously when she was in the car and no one could hear her and think she was crazy. She had no idea where the stupid address was. Quickly she put the info into her traffic app, asking for turn-by-turn instructions. “Shit!”

She knew why he’d texted her. The rest of the team was at the training site, and couldn’t get to this address as fast as he needed. GO-Teams didn’t call the local cops, because the repercussions could be splashed all over public media and they were very much dark and off-the-books.

Okay. Okay. Whatever situation she was walking into, she could handle this. Levi wouldn’t have texted her if she couldn’t. He and the guys had trained her, she knew how to use her weapon—not as well as they could, but she was competent.

If this was some kind of stupid surprise party, for whatever moron reason, she’d kill them all.

To her surprise, the address was a house in a not-very-good neighborhood. Levi’s truck was parked at the curb, but neither he nor Mac were in sight. There were no other vehicles parked at the house, which might mean something and might mean nothing. She drove past, neither fast nor slow, and pulled her Corolla into the first open space she came to. There were bound to be some people around, in the other going-downhill houses, but she didn’t see a single soul. The sticky, hard-to-breathe heat and humidity didn’t lend itself to outside activities, but surely there should be a kid or two around? But maybe not. Maybe the neighborhood housed mostly elderly people, a formerly neat place going downhill as the residents aged and were no longer able to take care of their properties.

She got her weapon from the console and slipped it inside her waistband, pulled her shirt down over it; that was the best she could do. She looked around, then got out of the car and closed the door as quietly as she could.

The neighborhood even had a slightly decayed scent to it, a sign that it was dying. Once most of the driveways had been concrete, but now huge patches were missing and weeds were taking over. She moved quietly around the house beside the one where Levi was parked, darted a quick look around the corner, didn’t see anyone. No one poked a head out and asked her what she was doing. Maybe this house was deserted; no, there was a coiled water pipe beside the minuscule back porch, and a bedraggled potted plant, wilting in the heat.

She slipped across to the target house, planted her back against the wall, checked around her for anything that might trip her, then darted her head around the window frame to see what she could see.

Nothing. It was a small bedroom, empty.

Okay, that made sense. She was on the back corner of the house, where a bedroom would normally be. Disappointing, but logical.

She moved on around the back, where she found the same tiny porch like that at the neighboring house. There was no plant, no water hose, but other than that basically the same. A tattered screened door hung halfway open. Silently she stepped up on the porch and leaned over to look in the kitchen window. The kitchen too was empty, but through a short, cluttered hallway into what looked like the living room she thought she saw part of a foot.

Okay. Now she knew where they were. She didn’t know what was going on, or what she should do, but at least she had located them.

---