Page 108 of Final Exit

“You’ve thought of someone, haven’t you?” she asked, watching him.

He shook his head, carefully schooling his features to not give anything away. “I’m still thinking it through.” He drained the last of his bourbon, then held the glass up. “Looks like you’re ready for another beer. Can I convince you to get me another bourbon while I’m lazy out here?”

“We’re not finished with this conversation,” she warned. “I’ll be right back.” She headed into the condo, then disappeared into the kitchen.

Bailey smiled at the two women standing by the kitchen sink. One of them had red hair, like her, that hung almost to her waist. Tessa maybe? The wife of one of the Buchanan brothers that she’d met earlier. The other woman was a very short brunette that she couldn’t remember at all.

“Hi, Bailey,” the brunette called out, offering her a warm smile.

Damn.“Hi.” Bailey drained the beer bottle, then put it in the recycle bin in the pantry before setting Kade’s glass on the granite kitchen island. She grabbed one of the bottles of whiskey sitting in the middle and was about to pour some when the woman who’d spoken put her hand on Bailey’s arm, stopping her.

“If that’s for your guy, Kade,” she said, “this is the one he got earlier.” She picked up a different bottle and set it in front of Bailey.

“Um, thanks. And he’s not my guy.”Was he?

She laughed. “Yeah, I’ll be sure and remind you that you said that at your wedding. I’m Madison by the way, in case you forgot. My husband is the good-looking Buchanan.” She braced her elbows on the island, and didn’t even have to lean over to do so. “I’ve never met a female assassin before. What made you want to do that? Did you just wake up one day and say, hey, I’d like to kill some bad guys?”

The redhead groaned and grabbed Madison’s elbow. “Sorry, Bailey. I’d tell you that Madison has had a little too much to drink tonight. But, honestly, she just doesn’t have a tactful bone in her body. Come on, Trouble. Let’s leave Bailey alone. She’s obviously preoccupied.”

Madison grumbled something to Tessa but obviously wasn’t really upset at her since she smiled at Bailey over her shoulder.

“We’ll talk later,” Madison promised, before she was practically dragged out of the room.

Thoughts of the two women faded as she poured the bourbon into Kade’s glass. She had something more important to do before taking Kade his drink.

Surf the net.

Kade had thought of someone when they’d been brainstorming earlier. She was sure of it.

And so had she.

There were only two names she knew of in relation to people he’d worked with who were now at another agency—Robert Gannon, and Kendall. Unfortunately, she didn’t know Kendall’s first name. But she was still curious what she might find in a search. Maybe it would be enough to pressure Kade to tell her the whole truth.

The search on Kendall was a bust. But the search for Robert Gannon yielded one extremely interesting fact—he lived in Boulder, not far from this condo. That would make it pretty easy to check him out and see whether he had anything to do with Faegan’s machinations.

With a fresh bottle of beer in one hand and Kade’s drink in the other, she headed out to the balcony. Her heart sank when she found it empty. After a quick search of the condo, she couldn’t deny the obvious.

Kade was gone.

Chapter Twenty-five

Friday, 10:02 p.m.

Kade ducked down behind the air-conditioner unit outside Gannon’s house as a car drove past and headed down the street. When the car turned at the stop sign, he straightened and continued around to the back. The house was a brick two-story—maybe three thousand square feet—but nothing overly outlandish or fancy for this neighborhood. Gannon was a smart guy. He wanted to fit in, not stand out. He was a master at staying below the radar, which was part of the reason that Kade had never even suspected his involvement in everything that had happened until the evidence was right in front of his face.

There was no fence around the backyard and Gannon didn’t have any plants up close to the house, either. Kade was completely exposed as he went to work on the security system that was hooked into a utility box bolted to the brick wall. All he could do was hope that none of the neighbors looked out their windows until he made it inside. But even if they did, he wasn’t all that worried. He didn’t need more than a few minutes to accomplish his goal. Even if someone called the police, it was unlikely they’d arrive in time to stop him.

The alarm took longer than he’d hoped to disable and bypass. Gannon had installed a state-of-the-art system that would foil most burglars.

But Kade wasn’t a burglar. And he had more incentive than most.

He eased through one of the back French doors into a mudroom and took his time, carefully “clearing” the kitchen, then the ornate dining room with its fancy place settings that Kade would never have expected of a bachelor like Gannon. The agent must have hired a decorator, because nothing here reminded him of the man he’d once known. Gannon was a minimalist, fond of straight, clean lines, and very little clutter. This house looked like something out of a magazine.

Kade hated everything about it.

The next room over, toward the center of the house, was what should have been a family room, meant for watching football games with friends in front of a sixty-inch monstrosity on the back wall. Instead, there wasn’t a TV in sight, just more elegant, stuffy-looking antiques. He shook his head. Gannon had changed, really changed.

A massive winding staircase led to the second floor, but it was the open doorway near the front of the house that had Kade freezing in his tracks and bringing up his pistol. From his vantage point, ten feet away, he could see a wall of bookshelves on the left-hand side of the doorway, but little else. A light was on, its soft-yellow glow flooding out into the two-story hallway. And he could hear a one-sided conversation, as if someone was talking on the phone. The side he could hear was a voice he recognized.

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