Page 36 of Ground Truth

He said nothing.

Experience had taught him to wait for trouble instead of running toward it.

“Every day we receive and repel potential threats to our operations around the globe,” Hedinger continued, as if he were revealing closely held secrets. Which he probably was. “One of the entities we monitor is searching for your dead wife.”

Brand felt his heart stop abruptly. His breath stopped, too.

He felt dizzy, cold, and clammy pain in the center of his chest.

Darkness gathered around him like a total eclipse of the sun.

He muted the phone and forced himself to take deep breaths to stave off a fit of hyperventilating.

Hedinger demanded curtly, “What’s going on, Doctor?”

Brand took another deep breath and unmuted the phone. He forced his voice to reply as evenly as possible. “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

“Someone is investigating your wife and you didn’t know,” Hedinger said, slightly incredulous, as if this answer was worse than Brand’s full awareness of the situation could have been.

“I can’t imagine why anyone would do that,” Brand said, continuing to focus on getting air into his lungs and out again. His reply walked the fine line between candor and deadly consequences. “What do they hope to find?”

“You tell me,” Hedinger said. He paused as if he were expecting a solid answer.

Brand replied, “I would if I could.”

A longer pause followed.

“I have many enemies, Brand. Your association with me could well be the cause. Perhaps these people are fishing for something to use against me instead of you.”

Brand waited, hoping for a lifeline.

“We’ll investigate further.”

“Good.”

“Meanwhile, the new client and his donor will arrive separately within the hour. We can discuss this further when I see you.” Hedinger paused and then continued, “Until we resolve this business with your wife, carry a weapon at all times. Be ever vigilant.”

A moment later, Hedinger hung up.

Brand closed the connection on his end and tossed the phone onto the bed.

Be ever vigilant. What the hell kind of advice was that?

-

Chapter 19

Atlanta

Flint had never been the wallowing type. His concussion was improving, although slower than he’d prefer. Every day he felt slightly less nausea.

Dizziness and headaches were the worst of it, but he put some of that down to the blurred vision. When the vision issues improved, he expected the others to improve, too.

Drake’s Hanna Campbell matter was helping. The case gave Flint a not-too-taxing problem to focus on until he could get back to his own work. It also gave him a reasonable excuse for not following up on Marilyn Baker’s DNA.

The Campbell case was straightforward. Either Greta Reed was dead or alive. If she was alive, then finding her shouldn’t be too difficult. Flint made his living locating people after others had failed.

He boasted that he could find anyone, anytime, anywhere, dead or alive. Which was true. He’d never failed. It might take him a while, but he would not allow the Greta Campbell Reed case to be his first.

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