Her fists clenched into tight wads of anger and frustration. Male humans had to be the worst mistake God ever made, right down to her father, who had given his only child to the Fratelli.
Vestavia at least treated her professionally and without any hint of improper intentions. So far. Hopefully, he wouldn't feel the need to rut one night just for a release.
But Basil had been right about one thing.
Vestavia did not tolerate failure.
Those who let him down did not die peacefully.
If she risked passing along information this time to thwart his plans, she laid her life at Vestavia's feet.
If she didn't pass the information along, she had a multitude of problems, Basil's threat to claim her only being one.
She pushed a couple papers aside to locate the last one, which stated, "successful completion of this phase of the mission will ensure casualties numbering no less than six figures."
The clock had to be male as well. It worked against her, refusing her time to think. She had to send an electronic message to the Bear now or miss her window.
How much should she tell him?
Chapter Twenty-two
Abbie limped into Hunter's cabin, ready to use the first thing she could find as a weapon to beat some sense into him.
Hunter closed the front door, cutting off the drafty air.
"Go to my office. On your left."
If he gave her one more order she might show him what it means to push a woman to her limit. But he had asked if she could make it under her own power. Her pride said, "Of course."
Hunter shouted, "Borys! Bring an ice pack."
She grimaced with each step into his office, where one wall of glass windows framed the spectacular sky and mountain-range view. Sit on the gooey-soft-looking leather couch or in one of the two side chairs? She dropped her tired buns into a chair that felt like being held by a cloud.
Her head was splitting and her knee hurt.
No more escaping for today.
She had weighed Hunter's words out on the mountain and decided to believe him. The worry she'd heard in his voice hadn't been for himself. He would face his own destiny without question, but he didn't like leaving her unprotected.
That knocked down the last of her resistance to sharing what she knew.
"Borys is bringing hot chocolate unless you want something else." Hunter entered his office, crossed the space to the chair facing her, and sat down. "We'll get you cleaned up as soon as we finish talking."
They hadn't been able to discuss much on the way, because she hadn't been able to hike uphill at this altitude and talk at the same time. "You think I want hot chocolate?"
"Course you do, 'cause I make da best in da west, babee. I'm Borys with a 'Y.' Nice to meet you." Borys was a compact man with a spring in his step. He sat a tray on the coffee table made from a thick slice of a giant tree. "I make thees with Ghirardelli chocolate and hazelnut liqueur. Figured you'd need a little shot of sometheeng after your walk, ma petite."
She took the ice pack he handed her and placed it on her knee.
"That's good, Borys." Hunter didn't sound appreciative. More like he was trying to hurry his man out of the room.
Her stomach growled at the rich smell of food cooking. "I hope whatever is cooking tastes half as good as it smells."
Borys poured her a large mug full and scooped two spoons of marshmallows on top. His outdated business suit seemed a bit formal with Hunter in jeans.
"What say we have jambalaya for lunch, eh?" Borys sniffed the air. "Ees ready."
"Borys." The warning in Hunter's tone should have been enough to draw immediate compliance, but Borys ignored him.
"Sounds wonderful. I'd love that," she cooed, smiling her appreciation.
"Gude." Borys had an infectious grin and thick lashes most women would kill for. "Tell you what--"
"Tell you what," Hunter said, standing up. "Get the hell out now if you hope to live long enough to cook the rice."
Borys tossed the napkin on the coffee table and headed for the exit. "Good thing you don't like women--"
"I like women," Hunter shot back with the power of a rifle blast.
"Didn't let me finish." Borys walked out, but sound traveled easily in a house with wood floors and ceilings. His parting shot came through loud and clear. "You don't like 'em to stick around for longer than a night."
"You're consistent if nothing else," she quipped, drawing the edge of Hunter's terminal patience her way. "Is he Cajun?"
He rolled his eyes. "About as much as I am."
"Is he Texan?"
Hunter sat down again. "Hell no."
"Well, what is he?"
"A pain in the ass on a good day."
She lifted her mug of oh-my-God-tasting hot chocolate. "Thought you were in a hurry to talk."
"I am." He settled his arms along the chair arms, more tolerant than she'd expected. "Start with the conversation you had with Gwen."
She reran the conversation quickly, but she was not letting him think he'd won the argument they'd had on the mountain about how to gain access to Kore's records. "I have to go back for my mother, then try to save my job. I have seven years invested at that television station."
Walking away from that wouldn't mean starting over in the television business. It would mean starting over with a new career and forgetting any chance of filming documentaries.
If things turned ugly after the Gwen shooting, she might not have a career to start over. Her dad's voice chimed in with "Don't borrow trouble." Got it.
Hunter calmly said, "You can't go anywhere near Chicago if you want to stay alive. Once the authorities realize a male left that message I gave the nurses, and you can't be found, they'll probably think you've been kidnapped."
"I have." She offered a smile that matched her sarcasm.
"I mean by the guy who held you at gunpoint."
The hot chocolate sloshed in her stomach at that reminder. "He won't be at the Kore center."
"What makes you so sure?"
She'd done her homework on the women's center. "Except for a few Wentworth doctors, all the other staff are women. Unless you think Peter Wentworth took a sniper shot at his own daughter, I'm safe walking in there."
Eyeing his watch, Hunter clenched his fingers at what he saw, then shoved a restless gaze at her. "I can get the information you want once you tell me what you need, but I need to know everything on how to get into the database. If I took you to Chicago with me you'd be vulnerable to the killer. I'm not willing to risk that."
"It's not your risk to take."
"You became my responsibility the minute I took you on that airplane. And if you don't end up in WITSEC very soon... your other choices won't be as nice."
She hadn't considered a yet worse scenario. "Like what?"
"If you just return to Chicago with no explanation for disappearing, the police are going to question why you left regardless of what happened in your apartment. If Gwen dies, the questions will become more intense. The chances are very good law enforcement tried to contact you again today."
"That's why I have to make some calls today. To my sister, who's probably freaking out at the hospital. And my boss will be looking for me." And not to congratulate me on dragging WCXB into the incident at the Wentworth party.
He lifted a hand, stalling her. "You can't talk to the media. I'll try to put you in touch with your sister. When I called the hospital this morning, both of your sisters had been with your mother individually and together."
Abbie could just hear the verbal beating she was taking in her absence. Hannah would cut her some slack, but Casey would pounce on the opening to point out Abbie's lack of support.
She had more important issues to spend her energy on than wasting time gnashing her teeth about Casey. Dr. Tatum was convinced the answers to her mother's illness were inside the Kore Women's Center. Abbie held the ace on accessing that information, but she needed Hunter's help to even get close.
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"I'm going out on a limb trusting you," she warned.
The tense edge around Hunter's face relaxed, as if he'd been waiting for those words. "I know it and I won't screw you over."
"Tell me one more thing."
"I will if I can."
"Are you really protecting national security?"
He tapped his finger on the armchair, thinking. Debating. Not wanting to say more. But in the end, he had to know she would give only if he did. "We believe there's information inside Kore that might lead us to a terrorist planning an attack on the U.S."
She hadn't seen that one coming.
Everything crashed in on her--terror from the day before, last night, and this morning, plus bone-deep fear of losing her mother. A part of her still vacillated over believing him, but she had a feeling he might be telling the truth since he'd faced down a crazy guy with a gun who had wanted to see Hunter's face. She couldn't in good conscience risk anyone else getting harmed while she waited to find out.
Abbie drew a breath and hurried to share what she knew. "You know my mom's history with Kore. I understand banking her own blood, but I wonder about the tests they ran."
"What type of tests?"
"Blood tests? Female tests? I have no idea. The Kore center has an extensive research wing used to study female growth and development issues. They donate a significant amount of resources to programs across the country but only accept women with rare blood issues at the center in West Chicago. They offer a lot of free medical care to women with rare blood in exchange for studying them. That's what Dr. Tatum told me."
"How sure are you about him?"
"He's been our family doctor since delivering my sisters."
"He didn't deliver you?"
"No." She cupped the warm mug, a slim defense against the chill invading her bones. "I've been over this a hundred times in my head, but it doesn't make sense. Dr. Tatum had just seen my mother three weeks back and gave her a clean bill of health. He said she was a great physical example of a fifty-six-year-old woman. Then she goes to the Kore center, comes home, and ends up in the hospital the next day with spleen failure. If her liver continues to deteriorate she'll need a transplant. Dr. Tatum registered her, but the odds are not good."
"I've got resources--"
"I doubt you'll find a donor who will match her rare blood. My sisters have normal blood types."
"What about yours?" He'd leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands clasped. The serious clip of concern in his voice washed over her like a warm breeze.
She needed someone to understand how hopeless everything felt. "I have HH, but I have a negative component that would seriously harm her. Tatum finally broke patient confidentiality this week and told me about her visits to Kore. He said he'd heard rumors through the medical community about questionable procedures the center ran in secret, but no one had ever produced evidence."
"But Tatum said he has evidence?"
"He told me that while my mother was still lucid she broke down and told him what she knew about Kore. She was terrified of dying and started telling him how on several visits she'd been taken to a special section housed in the genetic research wing where they put her under a local to be tested, but she never thought they would do anything to make her sick. Now she's not so sure. She also told Tatum she didn't think Gwen lost her baby in the way we all assumed."
Hunter's head lifted at that. "What do you mean?"
Abbie worked the lump down her throat, recalling how she'd planned to give that information to Gwen in exchange for Gwen helping her mother. "Mom told Tatum when she was coming awake in recovery from a procedure two years ago at Kore she could hear a woman scream, 'No, you can't take my baby, I won't let you... my father is Peter--' then silence."
"That's not conclusive."
She agreed but noted that Hunter hadn't scoffed either. "But Dr. Tatum says he has some kind of evidence that will support what Mom had told him."
"Such as?"
"Don't know. He said if I got the information on Mom and that information corroborated what he had in hand on the Wentworths he'd give me the evidence and tell me the rest of the story so I could blow it wide open. I could help other women in the same situation."
"What exactly would that situation be?"
"Tatum believes Kore is holding something over my mother, some kind of blackmail. He thinks they have the same power over Gwen." She sat back, zapped of energy. "I've told you what I know--"
"Not all of it. What was Gwen saying to you right before she was shot?"
Abbie squinted in thought. She rubbed her forehead, replaying those last tense seconds leading up to Gwen's shooting, which she'd tried to forget. "Let's see... told her I knew about secret tests... and I'd release the information if I didn't get what I needed for my mother. She said if I did they'd kill me and her--"
"Who would?"
"The Fras... or maybe she said friars." She replayed the words again in her head. "No, Gwen said Fras. I have no idea who or what that is."
Hunter kept his thoughts hidden, not letting on that he knew what a Fra was. Abbie had walked into the middle of a pit of vipers and shown them her jugular. The original target might have been Gwen, but if Gwen shared her and Abbie's conversation with anyone connected to the Fratelli the crosshairs would adjust to target Abbie's head.
His thoughts jumped back to Gwen being shot.
Why hadn't the sniper taken a head shot? The shooter hadn't missed and knew she'd be outside. And why had Gwen left the safety of her house without a guard? "Whose idea was it for you to meet Gwen outside to talk? Yours or Gwen's?"
Abbie cocked her head at the change in the direction of his questions. "Mine. Dr. Tatum told me I had to get Gwen outside to talk, that the house would be so wired with security and listening devices she wouldn't be honest with me inside."
That didn't track. He doubted the entire Wentworth house would be wired that way, and Gwen would know where she could talk privately indoors.
Hunter's suspicion swung to Tatum now.
Had the doctor been in on the shooting? Why else would the sniper have known to expect Gwen outside? She had a private patio with heating. If he knew she would be drawn outside to talk her private patio would be an easy guess on a chilly night.
"That's all I know." Abbie slumped in the chair, the down jacket billowing around her. As warm as it was inside, she still had to be cold not to have shed that. "I did my part, now you have to get me inside the Kore center."
Like hell. The last place she needed to go would be out in public anywhere. "Can't do it, Abbie. I'll pull everything I can find on your mother and bring it to you."
"I told you that you can't get a thing without me."
"Yes, I can." He had six minutes left to contact Joe, and the good news? He'd come up with a viable plan for entering the complex that didn't require covert insertion, but once he was inside he'd have to find a way to access the files. That would be one of those make-it-up-as-he-went plans he hated.
That had been Eliot's area of expertise.
Abbie wasn't arguing.
That should worry Hunter. He didn't want this conversation popping up again, so he finished with, "I'm trained to do this. You aren't. In fact, you'd be a liability."
"You're not listening. You can get inside the center, but I am the key to getting the information."
He didn't like the sound of that. "You've got thirty seconds to convince me."
She frowned but didn't waste time scrapping with him. "Dr. Tatum said the only way to access family records was by having a prior patient checked into the facility. On top of that, a staff member has to enter a code that changes daily."
"I'm not willing to involve your mother in her condition."
"Me either, but I'm not talking about her. I was born at Kore. I'm a prior patient of the clinic and I have rare blood. All qualifications to be admitted for testing." She took a steady breath, but the vein in her neck jumped with her rapid pulse. "You obviously
need something from the Kore center and must have skills to hack through computer files. You get me in there and I can gain you access to the database. There's one more step to accessing the database that requires my presence, but I'm not sharing why or how until you agree. Get me inside, then you can do your James Bond impression."
Good God. Hunter checked his watch. Less than two minutes to contact Joe.
And he hadn't thought this could get any more fucked up.
Chapter Twenty-three
Hunter waited for Abbie to go upstairs to take a bath, then made sure the house was locked and all alarms were on.
He'd figure a way around taking her with him.
She would tell him the last part of how to access the database by tonight.
Borys shoved a bowl of jambalaya at Hunter with a bottle of water, grumbling that he had no appreciation for his talents in the kitchen when he stalked off. Hunter locked the office door before setting up the videoconference connection with BAD again.
This time, Gotthard came on and had him wait until he'd routed Joe and Retter's computers into the conference since the other two were off-site.
All three faces appeared in boxes on Hunter's monitor.
"I have a solid plan for inserting into the Kore center and accessing the records by Friday morning," Hunter stated, opening the conference. "I'll offer a sizeable donation to the Kore Women's Center based on reviewing the facility in person. It's good timing after having just attended the fund-raiser. Let them think the donation is motivated by sympathy for Gwen. Once I've toured the facility I'll find a way to insert later that night."
"What about getting into the database?" Joe asked.
"The quickest access is through patient files, but that's only available while the patient is physically on the premises and checked into the system," Hunter explained. "It's a dual access that requires a staff member's code, and that changes daily. I'll breach the employee files to find out how they receive their individual daily code, then locate a current patient to tap their information."
That sounded so simple. It wasn't. Gotthard was the only one who might question Hunter for more specifics, but he didn't.
"How you going to get around after hours?" Gotthard had asked the question, but Hunter knew his friend was voicing what he'd expect Joe or Retter to be thinking.