Page 40 of Master of Lies

She put the thermal imaging goggles back on, and studied the cliff face. Back and forth…back and forth…andyes.A faint glow of heat in the shadowy recess beneath the overhang. It had to be Freya Masters, huddled in a hole like a frightened rodent. And Nicole was the eagle, swooping down for the kill. She felt the absurd, unprofessional desire to giggle, but squelched it, getting on the handheld again.

“Wex, good news. Freya Masters is hiding in a cave in the cliff face, right under the overhang. I’ve got her in my sights. I could waste her right now, if we wanted.”

“We don’t want,” he snapped. “We need her. Kill Clearwater. Not her.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nicole muttered, rolling her eyes. “There’s a rope. A scrub oak tree, right near the edge of the cliff. That’s how she came down. After we bag Clearwater, we could just wait her out. She’ll come crawling up when she gets hungry or nervous.”

“Keep your eyes on her,” Boer said.

“So I kill Clearwater as soon as I see him?”

“No,” he said sharply. “Wait. I want to talk to him.”

“Play with him is more like it, right?” She tried not to sound disdainful. Wex was so predictable that way. He had to fuck around with his victims, just to prove his dick was bigger, before he took care of business and got on with it. So childish.

“I need information.” Wex’s voice was defensive. “I need to know what he knows. Who he’s told. How long he’s been hooked up with this bitch.”

“She’d be an easier mark to interrogate than he would,” she said, studying the top of the cliff. “From where I’m looking, it looks like you could get down to Masters from above and drag her out. If you wanted to entertain yourself with her. Could be fun.”

“Where?” he demanded. “Give me a reference point.”

“See that big round rock with the flat diagonal one leaning against it? Go around the diagonal one to your right until you’re right in front of it, and she’ll be right below you. If she poked her head out, you could grab her by the scruff of the neck.”

She saw the flash of movement in the trees across a canyon, and focused the rifle scope on it. It was Boer, moving around the back of the house. Going toward the rocks.

The crosshairs were right on his chest. Her finger quivered on the trigger. The scope, wavering on his face, his chest. His groin.

Not yet. Wex had his uses. She still needed his resources. They ran through personnel at a very fast clip, and he had the contacts to replenish them swiftly.

She had no reason to feel put upon. She’d taken Wex Boer’s measure the second she’d laid eyes on him. All he saw in her was a body to use. Her mind, her intel, her skills, all of that was secondary.

That made men like him so vulnerable. Because they never knew who they were dealing with until it was too late. And it surprised the living fuck out of them.

That part was always so entertaining.

CHAPTER16

Freya

Ihuddled in my shallow cave, shivering and watching the snowflakes swirling in the air outside. I was acting like prey. Expecting to be eaten.

Well, duh. That was because Iwasprey. Get real.

It was freezing in my little aerie. There was very little real shelter, and wind rushed down the canyon, whistling in the rocks above. A bleak, miserable sound, like the howling of the damned. The wind managed to sweep in the biggest, clammiest, coldest snowflakes and smack them against my exposed neck and face.

I wished I had my own coat. This one was a lot warmer, of course, but my own had my Freya phone, and I was aching for the options it gave me. Like calling Ethan, in a worst-case scenario. Wow, what a memorable conversation that one would be. Hoo, boy.

At least I had the blanket, the hot tea, the snacks, the gun. Thanks to Jed.

The contradiction between my data sets about Jed Clearwater was confusing the living bejesus out of me. My mind hurt, trying to reason it out. What was I supposed to think? Who was I supposed to believe, or root for? I didn’t want to meet anyone like the guys from last night in the Dew Drop parking lot. God knows, they were no friends of mine. So who did I trust, if I wanted to survive?

Oh, crap. Probably no one, when it came right down to it. How depressing.

Truth was, I didn’t want Jed to be the one who had betrayed Shane, and I never had. I wanted him to be the man Ethan and Shane trusted without question during their Army Rangers days. The man Shane started his security company with. One of the Unredeemables. Brave and honest and incorruptible.

After what Jed had done for me, saving me in the parking lot, hiding me from whoever was driving up that hill, giving me a gun…I was tempted to think he wasn’t my villain at all, and never had been. He’d compromised his own safety to keep dippy, useless, irrelevant Sandee safe. Bad guys just didn’t behave like that.

Boom.

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