Page 11 of Dangerous Mission

“Hello.”

“Axel, I messed up.” Terri’s voice shook as it came across the phone. “In hindsight, I should’ve woken you up, but I was worried about my friend. He’s—”

“I’ll be with you in a second.”Axel jumped out of the SUV and ran across the lawn.

“Thank you. I’m not sure why I called you. Honestly, I can’t believe I still have your number in my phone, and it worked. Which should be insane, since you’re the person who lied to me years ago.”

He wanted to point out he’d never lied, only left without telling her, but kept his mouth shut as she continued to ramble. “I received a direct message on TikTok, and I tried to contact my hacker for him to look into it. When he didn’t answer, I was worried the person was after him. He always answers.”

A wave of jealousy washed over Axel, because she reached out to someone else. He had no right to have those feelings, but he also couldn’t control them. He pushed the door open with his shoe and kept his hand on the butt of his gun. “Where are you?”

“I’m at one-three-four Rainbow Road. It’s north of the h—”

“No, in the house?” he asked, cutting her words off.

Her breath hitched. “You followed me? Of course you did. Not sure whether I should be pissed or happy.” Terri’s voice became louder as she walked into the living room. The white shirt she’d taken from the bedroom had a couple of specks of blood on it.

“Are you hurt?” He pointed at the blood.

She glanced down. “No. Come with me.”

Terri walked down the hall and turned in to one of the bedrooms. The owner had turned the small room into a computer lab. It looked similar to the one Cy had in his house. Six monitors lined one wall. Axel had always wondered how someone could look at so many monitors at the same time. But the things that worried him at the moment were the splash of blood across the keyboard and the small puddle of blood on the floor.

“What did you touch?” He didn’t want the police to find her prints.

She glanced at the computer mouse and the screen. “I wanted to see his last search, but everything on his computer is clean. Nothing. No files. Whoever took him deleted everything.”

From the man’s setup, Axel knew he was a hacker. “Is this how you got information about the woman tonight? This guy gives you leads, and you go act like some vigilante in the night?” He couldn’t stop how harshly the words came out.

Terri put her life in danger for no reason. “Why didn’t you give this information to your father or the police?”

Terri took a step forward and poked her finger in the middle of his chest. “You live a different life. I bet the second you tell someone information, people listen. You know what they do when I give info? I get a pat on the head and I’m told to stay out of it. I’ve taken info to the FBI, the police, and even my father. Every single one of them blows me off and tells me it’s nothing. What I saw tonight wasn’t nothing.” She threw her hands into the air. “This isn’t nothing. And Hex disappearing isn’t nothing. He even tried to go to the FBI and was blown off.”

If the police came to the scene, Axel would lose the evidence. There was a chance the info on the hard drives could be recovered, since the main desktop was on the display. It took more than cleaning out a deleted folder to permanently erase data from a hard drive. “I’m going to help you find your friend—on one condition.”

“Anything. He’s only trying to help.”

“No more running. And you listen to every word I say.”

She scrunched her nose. “I agree to no more running. The second part, you have to agree to negotiate. I’m not going to do everything you say when I don’t agree.”

“You are the most frustrating woman ever.”

She shrugged. “The same can be said about you.”

Axel pulled out his phone and tapped Xavier’s number.

“Don’t you people sleep?” The mercenary grumbled into the phone.

“I was trying, but Terri decided to take an early-morning drive and check on a friend. Said friend was her hacker and is now gone. I’m at his place. There’s blood on his keyboard and a stain on the side. It looks like someone erased the files on his computer but not the drives. Terri touched a few things, so I can’t call the cops.”

He glanced around the room one last time before pulling her toward the front door.

Xavier let out a frustrated sigh. “Life would be so much easier if we could tie people up and stick them in a room until the threat was cleared. But no. Customers complain about you being rude when you do that. Well, running off to a crime scene makes our job easier.”

Axel smiled as he listened to Xavier rant. He wondered if the former CIA agent had ever tied up a customer. It wouldn’t surprise him. Not much surprised Axel anymore.

“I’m not going to tie her up. She bites and knows how to get out of ropes. She probably knows more escape maneuvers than anyone on your team.”

---