Most Wanted (The Red Sky Conspiracy, Book 1) Read online

Was she sure? Of course she was sure. She could visualize every inch of the office from memory. She didn’t know how that was even possible, but everything was suddenly crystal clear, as if she were back there again.

  Ross in the corner…

  Porter behind her, using her as a shield...

  The cold polymer plastic of the Glock against her nape...

  The warmth of Porter’s breath as he leaned close to her and whispered...

  “Now, this is the part where you get down on the floor and don’t look up.”

  “Quinn,” the man without a face said, his voice intruding in on her memory, “is that everything? Is that all Porter said to you that night?”

  Yes. That’s all he said before the explosion.

  Wasn’t it?

  “Now, this is the part where you get down on the floor and don’t look up,” Porter had said.

  Yes. That was it. That was all Porter had said before he used the explosives Gary had smuggled in for him to blow a hole into the alley next door. That was everything—

  No.

  No, it wasn’t everything.

  Porter had said something else. Before the explosion.

  What?

  What had he said—

  “They’re going to come after you. They’re going to want to find out everything I said and did in this room. And when they’re done with you, they’re going to kill you. I’m sorry, but you’ll be on your own. Good luck. Now, this is the part where you get down on the floor and don’t look up.”

  Porter’s voice, ringing in her ears like listening to a recording. She repeated it out loud, word for word, even every small pause that Porter took.

  How was she able to remember everything so clearly?

  “Is that it?” the man asked when she was done. “Is that everything Porter said to you last night?”

  “Yes…”

  “Are you sure?”

  I don’t know…

  “That’s it, that’s all she knows,” the man said. He wasn’t talking to her. “Let’s get it over with.”

  The man who had been interrogating her turned and walked into the shadows, and Quinn heard a click as the door opened and then closed. The third man, whom she couldn’t see earlier, appeared at the right side of her bed and reached for one of the wires connected to her drip bag. The new face that looked back at her flickered uncontrollably, the eyes slashing from side to side, indistinguishable from the nose and forehead and the rest of his face.

  “It’ll be painless,” the faceless man said.

  “What?” she managed, the question coming out slurred.

  The man might have smiled, but that was impossible to tell for sure, because his face wouldn’t stop moving.

  “Are you done?” a voice asked. Another faceless man, this one hiding in the shadows near the door the entire time. His face, too, was blinking rapidly when he stepped slightly into the light.

  “Almost done,” the third figure said.

  “Done what?” Quinn asked.

  “Go back to sleep,” the man next to her bed said. “You won’t feel a thing.”

  “Feel what?”

  “Just do it; I don’t wanna spend all night in this place,” the one who had taken up position at the foot of her bed said. “I hate hospitals.”

  No! she screamed, but the defiance was lost inside her head.

  The man next to her bed had taken out a syringe and was about to inject it into the clear see-through tubing when there was a loud bang! He staggered backward, a look of shock spreading across his face as he reached down to his stomach, just before he seemed to fade out of existence.

  What’s happening?

  She was still trying to process what the loud sound had been when the man at the foot of her bed reached for something at his hip, but before he could get to it, there were two more thunderous noises that were just as loud as the first—bang! bang!—and this man also seemed to disappear into the darkness that claimed half of the room.

  Quinn had trouble understanding what was happening. Where had the men gone? And what were those three large, booming noises?

  Then someone screamed, though Quinn was pretty sure it wasn’t her.

  Maybe…

  Chapter 4

  “They’re going to come after you…”

  “Agent Turner, are you listening to us?”

  “Yes, sirs. I’m listening.”

  “These are very serious allegations being levied against you.”

  “I’m very aware of how serious all of this is, sirs.”

  “Then you should pay attention.”

  “I am, sirs.”

  “They’re going to want to find out everything I said and did in this room...”

  “Then what’s your answer?”

  “I’m sorry, but what was the question again?”

  “The question was: Why did you shoot Special Agents Brown and Sterling?”

  “I…”

  “And when they’re done with you, they’re going to kill you…”

  “Agent Turner? Answer the question, please.”

  “I don’t know, sirs.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Explain.”

  “I’m not sure I can, sirs.”

  “Try anyway.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll be on your own...”

  “I didn’t even know I had shot them until Special Agent-in-Charge Foster told me what I had done when I woke up this morning.”

  “You’re saying you slept through the shooting?”

  “Not exactly, sirs.”

  “Then what, exactly?”

  “I…can’t explain it, sirs.”

  “You should try very hard. There’s more than just your career on the line here, Agent Turner.”

  “I’m very well aware of that, sirs.”

  “Eyewitnesses outside your room heard three very loud gunshots. If they could hear it out there, how could you possibly sleep through them? According to your attending nurses, you hadn’t been given any sleep sedatives.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, sirs.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I…don’t know what I’m saying. It’s…confusing right now. You’ve just accused me of murdering two of my fellow agents.”

  “But you’re saying you didn’t do it.”

  “I…don’t know, sirs.”

  “You don’t know if you shot two men in your room last night or not?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  “You don’t remember taking Special Agent Sterling’s gun and shooting him once, then firing twice at Special Agent Brown?”

  “I don’t, sirs.”

  “And you expect us to believe that?”

  “I don’t know, sirs. I don’t believe it, either, and I’m the one living this nightmare.”

  “These are very serious allegations, Agent Turner.”

  “You don’t have to keep telling me that, sirs. I know how serious this is. Believe me, I know.”

  “Then let’s start again.”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to help.”

  “No?”

  “You can ask me the same questions as many times as you want, but the answers will still be the same. I don’t know what happened last night.”

  “Let’s start again anyway. From the beginning...”

  “Good luck.”

  He had said that to her.

  John Porter.

  Anarchist. Killer. Bomber. Kidnapper. Number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

  He had told her “Good luck” before blowing away the back half of Gary Ross’s office and escaping into the night, nearly killing two FBI agents in the process. Which meant Porter as of today had nothing on her because she had killed two more FBI Special Agents than he had.

  Or, at least, that’s what they told her; among other things.

  Sterling and Brown.

  She didn’t know the names and didn’t reme
mber ever having met them. But according to everyone, including Ben, that changed last night when she killed Sterling with his own gun, then shot Brown.

  She had done that—or, at least, that’s what they had told her she had done.

  The only thing no one could tell her was what happened before the shooting: The three men who had come into her hospital room to interrogate her. They had asked her about Porter and they had done something to her—doped her, maybe—to make her remember things that she couldn’t on her own.

  “They’re going to come after you. They’re going to want to find out everything I said and did in this room. And when they’re done with you, they’re going to kill you. I’m sorry, but you’ll be on your own. Good luck. Now, this is the part where you get down on the floor and don’t look up.”

  Porter’s voice whispering into her ear, every single word of it coming back to her in full clarity, as if she were reliving it all over again.

  No, that wasn’t exactly true. She wasn’t reliving it all over again because she hadn’t even remembered them the first time. Something had happened—maybe it was the concussion (concussions?)—but she had forgotten almost everything he had said until last night. Until those men came into her room…

  “Good luck,” Porter had said.

  Those two words reverberated in her head now as she watched Ben enter the room.

  Here we go…

  Ben Foster had always looked tired for as long as she knew him, but it was more pronounced today. An entire morning and afternoon of interrogation, men and women she’d never met repeating the same questions over and over again as if she would suddenly know the answer if they just asked them enough times, had drained her. Looking at Ben as he picked up a chair and walked slowly over to the foot of her bed and sat down, she could easily believe all of this was worse for him.

  And maybe it was. Ben was more than her boss, more than a mentor. Ben was…everything. And in a lot of ways—all the ways that matter to both of them—she was the same thing to him. It was an odd relationship, this thing between them, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

  I really screwed up, didn’t I, Ben? I don’t think even you can save me this time.

  As uncomfortable as Ben was sitting on the too-small metal chair, at least he wasn’t handcuffed to the railings of a bed in a secured wing of the hospital. The bed was the same one she had woken up in after the nightclub; they had simply rolled her up five floors and deposited her into a new room far removed from the civilian population. Besides the bed, there was nothing remotely comfy around her, and even the formerly reassuring beeps of the machines were gone. There were men outside her door, and even the nurse that came in periodically to check on her was an FBI agent—a young woman named Pender, who looked barely out of the academy.

  That makes the two of us, she remembered thinking.

  Ben hadn’t said a word since he came inside, and the silence was like a physical weight crushing her to the bed.

  Unable to bear it, she finally said, “I’m sorry, Ben.”

  “Don’t apologize to me,” Ben said. “In fact, from now on, don’t apologize or talk to anyone. Even when the yahoos from Internal Affairs come back tomorrow morning, you need to keep your mouth shut. We should have done that earlier. We shouldn’t have trusted them.”

  “No, Ben, I’m not talking about…what they’re accusing me of. I mean, I’m sorry for letting you down.”

  He gave her a curious look. “When did you let me down?”

  “The nightclub. Losing my gun to Porter. Everything that’s happened since you stuck your neck out for me.”

  There. Everything that had been roiling around inside her head between trying to remember all the words Porter had said to her and the never-ending questions about why she had shot two FBI agents last night. She had been holding them in for so long that just being able to say them, directly to Ben, made her feel lighter somehow.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong at the nightclub, kiddo,” Ben said.

  “I lost my weapon, Ben.”

  “To Porter.”

  “Does it matter to who?”

  “It matters, because Porter isn’t just anyone.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m sorry, Ben.”

  “Stop saying that.” He sighed, showing the first overt sign of fatigue on his fifty-six-year-old frame. Despite his age, Ben had always been the toughest man she knew, if not physically then mentally, but he seemed less so this afternoon. “I don’t want you to say anything to anyone else, but I need to know, kiddo. Why did you shoot Brown and Sterling? Tell me you had a reason. Tell me it was a damn good reason.”

  “I would if I could, Ben.”

  “But you don’t remember,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember doing it. I didn’t even know they were FBI agents until you told me.” She paused, then, “Maybe you were wrong about me.”

  “Wrong how?”

  “Maybe I’m not cut out for the FBI.”

  “Bullshit.” She saw a flash of anger in his eyes—another rarity. “The only thing you lacked was the belief that you could do it. Why did you think the suits barely batted an eye when I wanted you in the field so soon after Quantico? They saw your scores. The things you could do, even when you were just a kid.” He shook his head. “No. I was right about you. You earned that badge.”

  “Maybe…”

  “Don’t doubt yourself. This isn’t the time. Understand?”

  She nodded, but she could tell that he didn’t believe her.

  “Understand?” he said again, more forcefully this time.

  And she nodded again. “Okay, Ben.”

  “Push aside the doubts. There’s no time for that now.”

  That’s all I have, Ben. Doubts. That’s all there is.

  “You said three figures came into your room last night and asked you questions about Porter,” Ben said.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Two of them turned out to be Brown and Sterling.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” she said, and thought, There was something wrong with their faces, Ben. There was something very wrong with their faces.

  But she didn’t say those thoughts out loud. How do you tell a man you respected, whose opinion of you mattered more than anyone else’s in this world, something like that? Something so…ridiculous?

  It was the drugs. They doped me with something. That’s why I couldn’t focus on their faces.

  It had to be a side effect of the drugs that they gave me, to help me remember what Porter said…

  “There was gunpowder residue on your right hand,” Ben was saying. “Your prints were on Sterling’s issued Glock.”

  “They told me.”

  “And you don’t remember reaching for it last night?”

  “No.”

  “Jesus, kiddo. This is a real mess.”

  “What about my blood test? Did it come back?”

  “You said they gave you something before they asked you questions?”

  “I don’t know what they used, Ben, but it has to still be in my system. Tell me the lab results confirmed it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s impossible…”

  “The tests came back clean. There was no drug in your system that couldn’t be accounted for by the hospital staff.”

  “Ben, I swear to you, they gave me something before they started asking me questions. I felt like I was swimming in mud during the whole thing. I could barely move.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. The reports…” He shook his head and let the rest trail off.

  Quinn stared at him even as images of the three faceless men from last night ran through her head for the hundredth time. No, they weren’t faceless exactly, but there was something wrong with their faces. She wanted to tell Ben, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. He might have believed her, but what if he didn’t? Then what? She needed Ben on her side. S
he needed him in the worst way, just like she always did.

  “You said they asked you questions,” Ben was saying.

  She nodded. “About Porter. About the nightclub.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Did what work?”

  “The drug they gave you. Did you remember more from that night that you didn’t tell the interrogators this morning?”

  She didn’t answer him right away.

  “Kiddo,” he said, leaning in closer, “did it work? Do you remember more than you did before?”

  He was watching her closely, and maybe it was the way he had asked the question, but Quinn couldn’t help but flash back to last night again, to the faceless men who had invaded her room. She remembered the one standing at the foot of her bed in particular; the one who did all the questioning. He had been wearing a black blazer and black slacks, just like Ben was right now, and they had the same narrow shoulders…

  “Hey, Quinn,” Ben said, snapping his fingers in front of her face to get her attention. “What else did you remember?”

  “Nothing,” she lied, and regretted it almost immediately.

  This was Ben, after all. If she couldn’t trust Ben…

  “I told them everything,” she finished.

  Ben sat back and let out a frustrated sigh. “All right. Okay.” He paused, looking lost in thought, before continuing: “But you need to tell me when you do remember something, understand? Because I’m going to need more than this to help you, kiddo. You’re in deep. The evidence they have…”

  “I know. I know, Ben.”

  She sounded defeated to her own ears, and hated herself for it. But it was hard to face the situation with any sense of hope when it seemed like she was alone, even with Ben sitting inside the room with her.

  If I lose Ben, too…

  He stood up and walked to the window and absently flicked at the blinds to let what little sunlight still remained outside invade the too-gloomy room.

  “What’s happening out there?” she asked.

  “The Bureau’s trying to keep it in-house, so there won’t be any media attention unless someone shoots their mouth off, which will probably happen sooner rather than later. Before that happens, you’re going to need a real lawyer. Someone without ties to the Bureau, who’s going to fight for you. Really fight for you. Because you’re going to need them, kiddo. The things that’s going to come down on you…”