Page 82 of Night Fall (The Quantico Files 1)

“Look,” he said to Monty. “There’s the road the old man told me to take.” Monty slowed the car, although it continued a few yards after he touched the brake. “Let’s go down this road a little way. If we don’t see anything, we’ll turn around and drive until we have cell service or we make it back to that convenience store.”

“If it’s still open. It’s getting pretty late.”

“I’m thinking Elmer lives there. I noticed an area behind the store with lights on. If he’s closed up, we’ll knock on his windows until he lets us in. Then we’ll use his phone to call Harrison and ask for help.”

“Okay. But we can’t drive too far down this road. We could get so stuck we might not be able to get out.”

“We won’t go too far. I promise that if we don’t see a house with lights on, we’ll go back.”

Monty shrugged. Logan knew he was worried. He was concerned too, but he couldn’t just leave Alex out here.

Monty put the car in gear and turned down Waywind Road.

Harrison tried again to reach Alex, but the number went immediately to voice mail. Frustrated, he called Logan and then Monty. The same thing. He’d received Logan’s voice mail message and was worried.

He’d come back to the CP after the operation with the KCPD. They had no idea if they’d prevented Walker from kidnapping a woman for his last sacrifice. They’d shown up at most of the town’s churches with Sunday evening meetings, making sure they were seen in an attempt to scare him off. Then after the meetings, they showed Walker’s photo to the people leaving, but no one remembered him. One woman at a large church said he looked slightly familiar, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t have enough information to help them.

Every law enforcement officer in the area had a photo of Walker and a sketch of what he might look like now, but no one had seen him. Harrison hoped they’d at least been successful in deterring the monster, but there was no way to know.

Logan had said they were taking the rest of the day off, but he would have left his phone on. They all would. What if they’d taken Alex’s suggestion seriously? Ice from the storm was coating the area, and road conditions were dangerous. If they’d defied him and gone to Lake Lotawana trying to find that cabin, they could be in serious trouble.

He stared at the dry-erase board. What if Walker really was in a cabin out there? These agents were trained behavioral analysts. Maybe they were right. He picked up the phone and called the police chief. If he was going down dirt roads in the dark while an ice storm raged, he wanted SWAT with him.

Alex couldn’t believe her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said slowly, horrified to feel tears filling her eyes. Mike was her friend. How could he be involved with something like this? And why hadn’t she seen it?

“You’re probably wondering if I’m part of the Circle. I am. And you’re why I joined,” Mike said. His expression changed from one she recognized to one filled with rage. “You left,” he said, clearly angry. “You just left. Not a word before you took off. If we’d really been friends, you would have told me you were leaving and where you were going. But apparently I wasn’t worth the time.”

She had to think quickly. What was the best way to handle this? “I’m sorry, Mike. I didn’t want Willow to know where I was. I ... I just wanted a new life away from her. I realize I should have told you. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just so ... confused.”

“You thought I’d tell her where you were? I did everything I could to help you. I even got you a gun.”

“I know. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Willow was really upset when you left. You always had her wrong, you know. She might have been a little different, but she wasn’t a bad person.”

“She stood over my bed with a knife. You know that. What kind of human being does that to her niece?”

“The rest of the time she was kind to you.”

Alex realized this argument was going nowhere. Willow hadn’t been kind to her. But Alex couldn’t show her anger now. She didn’t want to set Mike off.

“Look, I should have talked to you before I left. I really am sorry. You were a good friend. In fact, you were my only friend. I was wrong.”

“I’m glad you two are having such a nice reunion,” Walker said loudly, “but we have something important to do here. Let’s get on with it.”

“Mike, are you really going to let him kill this innocent woman? The Mike I knew would never have allowed something like that.”

“The Mike you knew is gone, Alex. I visited Willow often over the years, at first to comfort her, then just because I cared about her. Around ten years ago she finally told me about the Circle. I joined, and it’s brought fulfillment to my life.”

“So you and Jimmy Gedrose really never met?”

“He’d just left the Circle when I joined, which might be one of the reasons Willow finally decided to recruit me. He visited her a lot after he quit, but I made sure our paths never crossed. He was helping your aunt, but he was no longer part of our group.”

He cocked his head toward Walker. “Adam had been to Willow’s Circle meeting not long before Jimmy left, which was how Jimmy recognized his photo. But I didn’t meet Adam until a few years ago, through a wider Circle connection. He intrigued me. Later, he convinced me he was called to fulfill the prophecy. I wanted to be part of that. Something important.”

She frowned at him. “But you’re an FBI agent. That’s something important.”

He shook his head, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m stuck in a resident agency in Wichita. I tried and tried to get transferred somewhere else, get a promotion, but I was told I’d gone as far as I was ever going to go. Then Adam gave me an opportunity to be involved in something ... magnificent. I could finally be someone.”

---