Stolen. Part 18

"I appreciate you coming in the middle of this without knowing all the details. I'll fill you in as soon as possible. The basics? Sean is working deep undercover for me and a.s.sistant Director Rick Stockton, a case I've been involved with for nearly a year. I brought Sean in because of his relationship with Colton Thayer, a known hacktivist. But I can't have his cover blown, not yet."

"Lucy doesn't know?"

Noah shook his head. "I need your discretion, Suzanne."

"You got it."

It was late Tuesday night when Sean circled Colton's carriage house. He didn't see any police or federal agents, but that didn't mean they weren't watching the place. They might have learned a few tricks of surveillance. But he knew more. Confident there was no one with eyes on the back, he went up the alley and into Colton's backyard. He didn't care about Colton's cameras.

Sean typed in the security code on the back door. It opened into the long, narrow garage that could easily hold three cars. Colton had a cla.s.sic Mustang convertible, and it was parked in the middle, as usual. He rarely drove. The alarm panel beeped-Sean reset it, then called Colton's cell phone.

Colton answered. "You broke into my house." But his voice was humorous.

"Hunter is dead. I don't know if anyone is watching this place."

Colton paused. "I'm upstairs." All humor was gone.

Sean went up two flights to the main living area. Colton came down from his bedroom, followed by Carol b.u.t.toning up her jeans. She had on only a bra.

"What happened?" Colton asked.

"Hunter was murdered. In his apartment." Sean glanced at Carol. "We need to talk alone."

"I trust her."

Sean stared at him and remained silent.

Carol kissed Colton's cheek. "It's okay, C. I'll make coffee." She grabbed a shirt off the couch and pulled it on, glaring at Sean.

"The roof," Sean said. It was the only way they could have complete privacy.

"We're a team," Colton said, closing the sliding gla.s.s door behind him. "How dare you treat Carol like s.h.i.t. You're the one who walked away nine years ago." He was hurt, but Sean didn't want to talk about the past.

"Where are Skye and Evan?"

"In their rooms. You know I like to keep everyone close when we're working a job."

Sean pulled out his pocket computer and ran a jamming program. He didn't want anyone, good guys or bad, listening into this conversation. He didn't know if Colton's house was bugged or if someone had a long-range microphone aimed at the place.

Sean said, "What are you up to?"

"Me?"

"Yes. The more I've gone through this plan, the more I realize it makes no sense."

"What more do you want?"

"I want Hunter alive." His voice cracked.

"What happened?" Colton repeated. "Are you sure he's dead? How?"

Sean was usually good at reading people, but he couldn't tell if the grief on Colton's face was real. He had to push Colton for answers.

"Hunter called me tonight and said he found something that scared him. I went to his apartment and he was dead, a bullet in his head, sitting at his desk. His laptop's missing."

Colton sat down heavily. "He had our entire security plan. Everything on the PBM break-in."

Sean wanted to smack Colton. "He's dead!"

Sean paced. He couldn't help it. He felt like this whole thing was unraveling and he didn't know how to put together the threads.

"I trusted you from the beginning," Sean said. "I gave up everything, my brother, my business. I'm risking my relationship with Lucy, because you said you needed me. And you're the first person I ever had in my life who believed in me." As he said it, he realized it was true. Other than when his parents died, he'd been at his emotional lowest after Stanford. He'd gone from the high of his success in stopping the pervert to being in jail and meeting his brother's stern disapproval. It had taken years to rebuild that relationship, and then to learn that all the faith and trust Duke had in him had been a lie. Duke expected him to fail.

When Sean said, Duke, you have to trust me, Duke had said, I can't.

Yet here Sean had been lying to Colton from the beginning and Colton trusted him more than Sean's own brother.

Sean felt nauseous. He sat on a chair and put his head in his hands. Everything was so far out of control, he didn't know why he'd agreed to do this in the first place. He didn't like himself very much as he realized that he'd agreed to go undercover to get the protection of the FBI in case Paxton had evidence of Sean's long-ago crime. And he wanted to nail that b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a senator for his threats and blackmail.

You're a selfish a.s.s, Rogan. You used Colton just like Paxton used you.

"Sean," Colton said, sitting down next to him, "I didn't lie to you on Sunday when we met, but I found out later that day specifically what Paxton wants me to steal. I just decided after you told me about the federal agent following you that it would be best to keep it to myself. But-I can't believe Hunter is dead. No one is ever supposed to get hurt. We don't hurt people, Sean."

"We did. Nine and a half years ago, when Robert Martin killed himself."

"That wasn't your fault. I told you then, and I believe it now. He was a crook, and he would have been on some exotic island before the FBI ever caught him."

Sean believed it at the time.

"Nine months ago, Paxton hired me to hack into the Federal Bureau of Prisons and decipher their tracking code. That's when I first tried calling you, remember? Back in February. But you were in the middle of looking for your cousin."

"I remember."

"So Hunter and I figured it out."

"Hunter is just as good, if not better than me." Was as good.

"True, but he's easily distracted. Not as disciplined. Anyway, all Paxton wanted was information on how the prison system tracked and housed s.e.x offenders. I figured out how they were coded and, based on that, where they were housed within each facility. I researched specific prisoners, then extrapolated. I gave him all the data, coded."

Sean wondered if that was the information on the microchip he'd stolen from Paxton over the summer. Except what would prisoner codes have to do with a pharmaceutical company? And all Paxton had to do was get another copy from Colton.

"Then, a couple months ago, he called me about PBM. He said he had information about their research-he knew about Travis and that I was researching PBM drug trials. He said the information was there for the taking."

"And you hired me."

He nodded. "I didn't want to work for him again-honestly, I don't trust him."

"Good."

"But when we got in and saw that the information I need is outside of their network, I knew I needed Paxton's resources. All he wants is a set of files in Joyce Bonner's office. In her safe. And if there's a DVD, he wants that, too."

"Her safe," Sean said bluntly. He now understood exactly why Colton needed him. He'd been their safecracker. "s.h.i.t, C., I haven't cracked a safe in years." Not completely true. "I have no idea what kind of system it is, what tools I need-"

Colton pulled his wallet out and removed a card. "Paxton gave me the specs. I know it's something you can hack; it's computerized."

Sean reluctantly took the card with the specs on it. He knew the system. He could hack it.

But he didn't like being kept in the dark for so long.

"Who killed Hunter?" Sean asked.

"I have no idea!"

"Hunter called me, scared, about something he'd uncovered. That information got him killed."

"You don't know that." Colton was grasping at straws, trying to make sense of the impossible. Impossible only because they didn't have enough information.

"Someone outside of our group knows about what we're doing."

"No, that's not possible."

"You have no idea if Paxton is watching us, if he has his own spy inside."

Colton shook his head. "I trust everyone here. You're the outsider, Sean."

Sean's gut tightened. "I have a sick feeling we're being set up. We need to shut this down."

Colton grabbed his hands. "Sean-I can't do this without you. I need proof that Travis was killed by those drug trials and they covered it up. I can get it as long as I bring Paxton these files. It's more than a fair trade, considering how much money he's paid me."

It didn't make sense to Sean-if Paxton wanted files from Bonner, why not just ask her for them? He was her G.o.dfather! Did Colton know about their connection? And if not, should Sean say anything? If Colton became suspicious about how much research Sean was doing on his own, he might cut him out-and Sean would never know why Paxton hired Colton in the first place.

"I'll pay you anything you want." Colton sounded desperate.

"I'm not doing this for the money," Sean said.

"You never did," Colton said.

"Neither did you."

Sean took a deep breath, slowly let it out.

"I didn't expect to find the bio-weapon," Colton said. "We're going to expose them for what they are."

It was clear to Sean that Colton didn't care about the toxin. It was just one more reason on a long list to destroy PBM. "All right." Then he considered something. "Did you tell Paxton about the bio-toxin reports we found?"

"No. Absolutely not. Only our team knows."

"You, me, Evan, Skye, Hunter, Carol-that's a big team."

"And, possibly, whoever stole Hunter's computer."

Sean wasn't so sure about that. "Hunter has a fail-safe on his computer. I don't know that just anyone can break his code." He considered what Colton was telling him. "After our conversation on Sunday, I digged a little deeper into PBM. I just couldn't grasp what Paxton could be interested in."

"I told you what."

"Except he's Joyce Bonner's G.o.dfather. Long-time family friend."

Colton looked confused.

Sean continued, "So why is he willing to let you destroy PBM? Because if everything goes the way you want, PBM will be shut down. At the minimum, embarra.s.sed and under federal and legal scrutiny. And if we're right and they're experimenting with bio-weapons, the media will be all over it. I just don't understand why Paxton would hire you to break into a friend's business."

"Maybe they had a falling-out. Why are you checking into it?"

"Research. After our conversation-let's just say, I've had run-ins with Paxton and I don't trust him."

"I have us covered."

"No one can protect us if this goes south." Except Sean knew that he had immunity. His guilt simmered hotter. He didn't want to throw Colton under the bus on this. He'd gone undercover thinking what? That Colton, too, would get a pa.s.s? That once Rick Stockton stopped Paxton, he'd let Sean's old gang walk? They would all be in prison.

But what choice did Sean really have?

"Why did he want the prisoner codes?" Sean asked, almost to himself.

"I don't care. I just want to find the answers about my brother. I want to find out if they're developing a bio-weapon and expose them to the world. I want to make this company stop hurting people. Stop lying about their good works and getting all the benefit and money for things they don't do."

Colton looked physically pained, like it was his moral obligation to stop PBM.

"Paxton is using you," Sean said.

"I'm using him, too!"

"C., listen to me," Sean said. "Paxton doesn't do anything without thinking ten steps ahead and to the side."

"We go in; we get the files; we look at them before we give them to Paxton."

"This is not going to go the way we think."

"You told me nine and a half years ago after we returned the money Martin Holdings stole from the pensions that it wasn't worth looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives."

"It's not," Sean said.

"But you also said you didn't regret it. Do you now?"

He hesitated. Did he? Knowing what he had to do now to protect his relationship with Lucy? That he had to lie to Colton? That Martin had killed himself?

Then Sean thought of all the people, dozens of people, who would have lost everything. Not just their pensions but eventually their houses, their valuables, everything they'd worked a lifetime to earn so they could be comfortable and secure during their golden years. "No."