of crackers he’d set on the nightstand.
He got there first, pulling open the airtight packaging and holding it out for her to retrieve a couple of crackers. “Sometimes. I ran into Maddox Heller a few years ago in the Caribbean.”
“Wow, that’s a blast from the past.” She nibbled the edge of one of the crackers. “Y’all so shafted him after the siege.”
Darcy’s expression tightened. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Right. It was all Barton Reid, I guess?” She grimaced. Marine Security Guard Maddox Heller had saved dozens of lives during the siege in Tablis, but the State Department had made him a scapegoat for the security mistakes made at the embassy.
“It wasn’t all Reid’s doing. But he was the instigator, yes.”
“I knew he was a snake. Didn’t shed a tear when I heard he got life for his crimes.” She sipped some more broth. “How was Heller when you saw him?”
“He was living life as a beach bum.”
She winced. “That bad?”
“Beach bum is perhaps an exaggeration.” Darcy’s lips curved, almost forming a smile. “He’d inherited a good deal of money and invested well. But he dressed atrociously, worked questionable jobs and frequented shady establishments, so—”
“The horror.”
His lips tilted farther upward. “He’s married now. Moved back to the States to be with the woman. Has a young daughter.” There was more to Maddox Heller’s story he wasn’t sharing, she saw, but she didn’t push. Another lesson she’d learned from her year in Kaziristan—some secrets needed to remain unspoken. Lives could depend on it.
“Good for him.” She made herself swallow the remaining broth in the thermos cup before she set it on the nightstand next to the flask. “How’s Quinn?”
“Largely unchanged.” A hint of irritation edged his voice.
“He’s the one who put you on administrative leave?”
His gaze snapped to meet hers. “How do you know about that?”
“We’re the FBI. We hear things.”
The annoyed expression that came over his face was so familiar she could barely suppress a smile. “There’s an internal investigation into an information leak.”
“Right. A leak about what?”
He arched an eyebrow. “I’m not the leak.”
She reached across the space between them and put her hand on his arm. His gaze darkened, but he didn’t look away. “I know you’re not.”
He pressed his hand over hers briefly, then moved her hand away and stood. “I’ll leave everything here in case you get thirsty later. Call out if you need me. I’ll be listening.”
“Thank you.” A sense of calm reassurance swamped her suddenly, making tears of relief prick her eyes. She hadn’t been sure, even to the last second before Darcy opened the door, that she’d made the right decision coming here. But now she knew her instincts had been correct.
Nick Darcy might not like her very much these days. He probably didn’t trust her, at least on a personal basis, at all.
But he was still the only person she trusted to have her back in a crisis.
* * *
HE WAS HARBORING a woman with bullet wounds in her side. An FBI agent, to be exact, a woman who now claimed that someone in her own agency had targeted her for murder and nearly succeeded.
“Bloody hell,” he murmured, dropping onto the sofa in his study and sinking into the comfortable cushions, his mind racing a mile a minute.
His first instinct, he realized with some surprise, was to call Alexander Quinn. Only a few years back, his instinct would have been quite the opposite.
The trill of his cell phone sent a jangle of nerves jarring their way up his spine. He grabbed the phone from the nearby desk and shook his head as he saw the name on the display. “What is it, Quinn?”
“I’ve received notice of an APB out for an FBI agent suspected of aiding and abetting a domestic terrorist group.”
Darcy went still. “And you’re telling me this because?”
“We know her. From Kaziristan.”
There had been only one female FBI agent in the legat in Tablis. “McKenna Rigsby?”
“That’s the one.”
“Aiding and abetting a domestic terrorist group how?”
“The information I received didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.” Quinn’s voice deepened. “She attended that law enforcement conference the Blue Ridge Infantry infiltrated a few months ago. Maybe they had more people on the inside than we realized at the time.”
“And you’re telling me all of this now because?”
“Because the last time anyone saw her, she was crossing Killshadow Road, about a mile from your place.”
Darcy tightened his grip on the phone, his skin prickling with alarm. She was spotted so near? It must have been a recent sighting. Searchers were probably close by.
Would they want to search his place?
“I haven’t seen her since Kaziristan,” he lied. “And I doubt she’d care to see me again, considering how strained our acquaintance had become by the time we parted ways.”
“You never told me what happened.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You will contact me if you spot her?” Quinn asked.
“You’re first on my speed dial.”
If Quinn noticed his reply was hardly an affirmative answer, he didn’t respond. In fact, he said nothing else before he disconnected the call.
Darcy released a pent-up breath and set the phone on the desk as he rose and crossed to the window. Killshadow Road was the only regular road leading into this part of the woods. Gravel and dirt roads branched off the paved road for a stretch of five or six miles, some leading to occupied cabins, while others ended in grown-over plots of land where cabins had once stood.
Back during the boom period for the area, when the Smoky Mountains became a tourist destination for people in the southeastern United States, entrepreneurs had tried to capitalize on the desire for short-term mountain living, and tourist cabins and resorts had begun to dot the landscape for miles just outside the national park’s perimeter. Some of those resorts had thrived, especially those easily accessed from the interstate and major highways.
Others, like Purgatory, Tennessee, had never caught the imagination of the tourists.
It was a shame, Darcy thought, because there was a lot to recommend the little town in the middle of nowhere.
“Was that Quinn on the phone?”
The sound of McKenna’s faint voice sent a little thrill of awareness rushing up his spine to spread like tingles through his brain. He turned and saw, with dismay, that she was as pale as a winter sky and barely upright, leaning against the door frame.
He crossed quickly to her side and wrapped his arm around her waist, taking care to avoid the site of her wounds. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“He told you, didn’t he?” Her breath warmed his neck and stirred the hair behind his ear, sending a different sort of tingle coursing through him. He ignored the bad timing of his libido and helped her back to the bedroom.
“If you mean he told me you’re wanted by the FBI, then yes. He did.”
She slumped back against the pillows, looking defeated. “You