Page 9 of Zero Hour

“It’s a weekday,” he muttered, thinking out loud. “Why isn’t she at work?”

“I’ll call the hospital and find out,” Anna offered. “She’s married. Or was. To Adam McCarthy—a scientist for the Department of Defense Research Institute.”

Pat nodded, they were funded by the Pentagon. “I know it. They conduct military R&D.”

Blade stepped past Anna into the room. “So, the husband has access to classified intel?”

“More like he knew how to build a bomb,” she replied, darkly.

“Knew,” Pat asked.

She gave a quick nod. “He died two months ago. Suicide.”

Pat frowned. “Let me get this straight. A top government scientist kills himself, and his wife disappears. Then, two weeks later, she moves in with one of the most dangerous terrorists in the country?”

Anna took a step back as Viper strode in.

“That’s what it looks like,” she said.

“What the hell is going on?” Pat muttered, under his breath.

“She could be involved,” Blade suggested. “Maybe her husband was working with the Falcon, and now she’s taken his place.”

Viper spoke up. “I pulled the coroner’s report. Adam McCarthy hanged himself at their townhouse. Jasmine is the one who found him.”

Pat exhaled sharply. His mind flashed back to the woman’s bright green eyes staring up at him in the restaurant. What on earth was going on? How could she be working for the Falcon after finding her husband’s dead body only a fortnight earlier?

He didn’t have the answers, but she was the key.

Pat was sure of it.

CHAPTER 4

Jasmine chopped the onion, her eyes streaming. It was the first time she’d cried since this nightmare began. First Adam’s confession, then his suicide.

Finding him like that . . .

She shivered and shoved the memory out of her mind.

She was good at that—compartmentalizing.

It was a skill she’d learned young—growing up with an abusive father. She’d taught herself to shove the worst parts of her life into a little box, tie it up tight, and never open it again. At school, she acted like nothing was wrong. Smiled. Laughed. Pretended.

After a while, she’d almost believed it herself.

It had been the same with her marriage. She’d ignored the cracks. Turned a blind eye to the truth.

She had pursued her psychology degree partly to understand her father—to figure out what made a man do the things he did. Turned out he’d been suffering from undiagnosed PTSD ever since he came back from a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. Something she was now an expert in.

Yet, here she was, shutting out her own trauma. Refusing to face it. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Damn onions.

A door opened. Voices drifted down the hall.

She stiffened. Amir, and his cousin, Riad. The two of them had been holed up in Amir’s study for hours. It was completely soundproof, so she had no idea what they were discussing.

“I’ve never heard of them,” Riad was saying.

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