Off the Grid Read online

  What was going on here? This guy was clearly not a professional hit man—or any kind of hit man.

  “What the fuck?” John said to the soldier he’d exchanged a glance with.

  Brittany assumed he was the head honcho. He looked at one of his guys, who said, “I thought he had a gun.”

  Someone else came forward, holding something up. “It was a camera. It fell to the ground when we pulled him from the car.”

  “If that lens is damaged, you’re paying for it,” the man they’d pulled from the car said.

  “What were you doing out here?” John demanded. “Why were you in that car with a camera?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  John took a step toward him. “Try again.”

  The guy looked at the men circling in around him, and his pale face lost some of its defiance. “I’m meeting someone, and I saw the car pull up. I thought it looked suspicious—”

  John didn’t let him finish. He reached down, grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, and lifted him a few inches off the ground as if he weighed no more than a wet cat. “Maybe you don’t understand the seriousness of your situation right now. But if I were you, I’d think about the next words out of my mouth.”

  Brittany shivered at the cold menace in his voice. The guy’s eyes bulged, and whatever bravery he’d shown dissolved comically fast. “I’m a PI. I was hired to follow her.”

  “Hired by who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  John tightened his grip and lifted him higher so they were almost eye to eye and the private eye was hanging a good foot off the ground.

  “One of her coworkers,” the PI couldn’t say fast enough. “She gave me a fake name, but it was Nancy something.”

  Brittany was completely floored. Paulie she might have believed, but Nancy? “Why?”

  The PI looked at her. “She wanted to know where you were getting your information.”

  “So you broke into her apartment?” John growled.

  The guy nodded nervously. “Looking for her laptop or documents. But I didn’t find anything. The woman told me to make it look bad.”

  Nancy had gotten what she paid for. Brittany was still too stunned to process it all. Her friend—the woman she’d tried to help—had hired someone to spy on her? Terrorize her with scary messages in lipstick?

  “And you followed her to Europe?” John said.

  The guy shook his head, obviously confused. “No. The woman didn’t pay me enough for that. She didn’t pay me enough for any of this.”

  John questioned him a little longer, but it was obvious the guy was telling the truth. It was also obvious that they’d made a mistake. What had happened to Brittany wasn’t connected to John’s platoon and what went wrong in Russia at all. This was about a jealous coworker trying to discredit her or get the jump on her story. The attack in Norway was what Brittany initially thought it had been: an attempted mugging.

  She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or happy. No one was trying to kill her, but neither were she and John any closer to finding out who was responsible for setting up Team Nine and killing her brother.

  She had one more idea, but she knew John wasn’t going to like it.

  Twenty-four

  “No.” John was furious even at the suggestion. Brittany had waited until after they’d gotten back to her apartment and he’d called the LC to fill him in on what had happened to spring her “idea” on him. “What I told you was in confidence. You swore that you wouldn’t print anything.”

  “I said I wouldn’t print anything that you told me,” she said. “And I won’t, but I think you should listen and think about it before you say no. It could be a way to shake things up and see what comes loose.”

  John couldn’t believe it. He’d thought she understood. He’d told her the information in confidence. He didn’t want to hear her rationale, even if it made some sense.

  Although the LC had Kate helping them, a full-scale investigation from a “leak” could lead to an answer much faster. And even though the LC didn’t think they could trust anyone, John could think of plenty he would trust with his life—including Colt Wesson, Kate’s ex-husband and John’s ex-chief.

  But it wasn’t just his life; it was the lives of the five other men who’d survived with him. And it wasn’t his call to make.

  “It could also put a target on my head.” Not to mention the other survivors.

  “I don’t have to say there were survivors. But I could say that it looked like a setup. That the Russians knew you were coming. It might start an investigation.”

  “No, damn it! You aren’t going to say anything!”

  John didn’t realize he was shouting until she took a step back and looked up at him with a wounded expression on her face that made him want to crawl out of his own skin. “It was only an idea. I was trying to help. But if you don’t want me to say anything about what you told me, I won’t.”

  “I don’t want you to say anything at all.”

  She didn’t respond. But he knew. He fucking knew. “You’re still planning to write another story, aren’t you? I can’t believe it. After everything that just happened?”

  “But that’s just it. Nothing just happened. I’m not in any danger. What happened at my apartment and in Norway had nothing to do with you. I can’t put this aside.”

  “Yes, you can. Very easily. You just don’t write the damn story. Simple.”

  “This is my job, John, and I owe it to my brother to uncover the truth and see that who is responsible is punished.”

  “So this is all about lofty ideals? It doesn’t have anything to do with you making a name for yourself? Or maybe I should say remaking a name for yourself. This is a great story. It would do a lot to get back some of your lost credibility. You’ve already used intel you saw on that doc in Brand’s room.”

  She flushed with anger. And maybe a little guilt. “I explained about that. It was already a not-very-well-kept secret.”

  “But you made it not a secret. How do I know you won’t rationalize the same thing with what I told you?”

  She looked struck—and hurt. As if the accusation had wounded her. “I would never betray your trust. You should know that.”

  “What I know is that you have a one-track mind when it comes to uncovering ‘the truth’ and that nothing else matters when you think you are onto something. But you’ve let your search for justice for the people who are dead interfere with the living. First with your parents and Brand and now with me. You are so busy looking behind you that you don’t think about what you are doing. Not all cover-ups are bad cover-ups. Sometimes there are things more important than the truth.”

  She was clearly furious. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “I know a hell of a lot more than you do. You were wrong to turn your back on Brand. You should have trusted him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shouldn’t have said anything. “Nothing.” But he couldn’t leave it there. “Sometimes justice isn’t meted out right away. Sometimes it takes longer.”

  “Like the justice for my parents? I’m still waiting for that, John, and it’s been twelve years. And while you’re lecturing me about living in the past, what about you? At least I care about something and don’t mind showing it. Your mom died and you acted as if it were no big deal. Just like you did with Brandon and the others you lost in Russia. Just another day at the office, right, Johnny?”

  A flash of white heat shot through him as fierce and riveting as a lightning bolt. He stiffened. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me, Brittany. You aren’t my—” He stopped.

  But she guessed what he’d been about to say. Girlfriend. Wife. Someone who had a right to intrude.

  He hadn’t said it, but that didn’t seem to matter. She looked just as crushe