Page 107 of Hidden Agendas (Tempting SEALs 4)

“Kira indicated no before she closed the door,” Kell stated, remembering Kira’s nod that all was clear before she closed the door.

“How did you know there was trouble?”

“Kira’s fucking blood running from beneath the door,” Kell snapped.

Kira would be lucky to pull out of this. The shot was too damned close to her heart. Someone had aimed to kill, not wound.

“No one knew about this tunnel,” Markwell informed him as they rounded another bend. “I hadn’t even told Catherine about it when I found it. I just had the gates welded closed and forgot about it.”

“Shut up, I can’t hear anything.”

It was an excuse. He could hear too damned well, and the problem was, there was nothing to hear. Not a whimper or conversation or the sound of orders.

In this tunnel sound would travel far.

“Is there another exit?”

“Nothing,” Markwell answered quickly.

The women had been in the ladies’ room for close to fifteen minutes. The kidnappers would have a vehicle waiting. Goddammit, he wasn’t going to get to her time. Once again, he wasn’t going to be able to save the woman he loved.

He would kill Fuentes himself, Kell swore. If Emily sustained so much as a damned bruise then he would go hunting when all this was over. When it was over and he had Emily in his arms, in his bed. When she was safe.

He couldn’t consider anything less. God help him, if he lost her, he would never survive it. He couldn’t live with the knowledge that he had let her down, that he hadn’t protected her well enough.

Visions of Tansy raced through his head then. Her fragile body twisted on the old mattress where he had tried to hide her.

Had she screamed his name? He knew she had. Sometimes he heard her voice in his nightmares, screaming for him, begging him to save her. He couldn’t add Emily’s voice to those demonic dreams.

He couldn’t let it happen. She was his life. She was every dream he hadn’t dared to allow himself and couldn’t keep from reaching for.

Glancing at the sandy dirt of the tunnel, his brows drew into a frown. Sand. When he had stared down at Kira’s body he had seen sand on Jansen Clay’s shoes. Not a lot, so little that his gaze had at first passed over it. But it had been there. And beside Kira’s body and beside Elaine’s he had seen the same sand.

Jansen Clay would have known of every move Kell and his team were making. Even if Richard and the admiral hadn’t informed him about the exact nature of what was going on, he would have been smart enough to figure it out. An ex-Navy SEAL, and one of the best, Jansen could have accessed via his position at the Pentagon on Homeland Defense whatever he hadn’t figured out himself.

“Macey.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and activated the radio.

“Copy,” Macey snapped into the receiver.

“Where’s Clay?”

“His limo just left. Mrs. Clay finally came around and he was taking her to their private doctor.”

“Where are you?”

There was a heavy silence.

“Macey?”

“I’m at the wash, Kell. There are no vehicles, no bodies, but evidence that both were here. They’re gone.”

Kell snarled. “It’s Clay.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Markwell muttered behind him.

“Got your laptop?” Kell asked Macey.

“It’s in the limo, heading back there now. Do we turn on the tracker?”

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