Page 36 of Deadly Hope
“Every month.” Kenji confirmed, pulling up his own analysis. “Like clockwork. Since a year after—” He stopped, glancing at Olivia.
“His death,” she finished, voice hollow. The room went still.
Axel snapped his fingers suddenly, the sharp sound making them all jump. “Ten-thirty.” His expression hardened. “It’s not a date pattern. It’s a code.”
Ronan stopped pacing.
“Old school distress signal,” Axel added. “Danger.”
The revelation sucked every bit of strength from her legs.
Axel guided her to a chair, his touch professional but grounding. She barely felt it through the roaring in her ears. For three years she’d tried to come to grips with James’s suicide. Now this—proof that someone from his world had been trying to get her attention.
Warning her about what?
The thought sent ice through her veins. James had always said if you couldn’t spot the threat, you were probably standing right in the middle of it.
The team exchanged looks that carried volumes of unspoken communication. Finally, Axel crouched beside her chair, his voice careful. “Tell us about his last days.”
The memories rose like smoke—James pacing her office. Agitated. Paranoid. “He was ... different. Kept checking the windows, asking about my military clients.” She swallowed. “I thought it was PTSD. Should have known better. He was special forces, trained to?—”
“To hide it better,” Axel finished. “What else?”
“He was found in his car.” The words came mechanically now, clinical. “Gun in hand. No note. They said ...” She frowned. “They said military protocol required immediate cremation. I never even ...”
“Never saw the body,” Zara murmured, fingers flying over keys. “Kenji, cross-reference the ping origins with?—”
“Already on it.”
Axel’s hand tightened fractionally on the chair. “Is there any chance your brother was trying to warn you about something specific?”
She started to say no, then stopped. Remembered his last visit. The way he’d gripped her shoulders.Some cases, Liv. Some trauma patterns. Promise me you’ll be careful with those files.
Olivia’s hands shook as memories crystallized. “The last time I saw him ... he was so specific about certain cases. Trauma patterns that didn’t quite fit standard PTSD profiles.”
“What kind of patterns?” Axel’s voice remained steady, but his posture had shifted to high alert.
“Gaps in memory. Selective dissociation that ...” She stopped, blood running cold. “That matched classified mission parameters. Oh no. The key.”
“What key?” Several voices asked at once.
“James gave me a key. Made me promise to keep it safe. I didn’t understand—he was so intense about it. Said ifanything happened to him ...” Her voice cracked. “It’s in the wooden box. The one they knocked over in my condo.”
“We need that key.” Ronan’s announcement was immediate.
“She’s not going,” Axel’s response was equally quick.
Kenji was already pulling up weather radar. “Major system moving in. Two hours, tops, before the passes are completely snowed in.”
Axel stared out at the snow. “We’ll have to wait. Roads will be chaos with the storm coming. Perfect cover for an ambush.”
“That key could be exactly what they’re looking for,” she argued, standing. “We have to?—”
“Which is precisely why we’re not walking into a tactical nightmare.” Axel’s jaw set. “Multiple hostile elements, limited visibility, compromised location?—”
Conditions their enemies would have to face as well. “Hostile elements who could be retrieving that key while we sit here arguing,” she countered.
“Olivia’s right,” Zara murmured, not looking up from her screens. “If they’ve decoded the same pattern we have ...”
