Cam moved along the sofa so she was closer to Blair, but did not touch her. “Can you tell her part of it, and leave out anything about Valerie for now?”

“She’s not naïve, Cam—she might ask me about Valerie. What shall I tell her to do if Valerie calls?”

“Tell her to talk to her as long as she can.”

“You’re tapping Diane’s phone?” Blair asked incredulously.

“We’re tracing it back through her cellular provider. It’s not perfect, but it gives us a starting place.” Cam placed her hand flat on the sofa between them. “I’m sorry, Blair. It has to be done.”

Blair was silent for a moment, then took Cam’s hand and cradled it in her lap between both of hers. “This must be hard for you.”

“I…not as hard as it is for you. I wish I could change that.”

Blair shook her head. “No. One of the things I love about you is how clear you are about the right and wrong of things. About what should be done, no matter the cost. But there’s nothing clear about any of this, is there?”

“Nothing has been clear to me since the moment I saw one of my own agents standing outside your door pointing a gun at your heart,” Cam said bitterly. “I don’t even know how to begin to think about that.”

It was so very rare for Cam to voice her pain and disillusionment that Blair had to struggle not to pull her into her arms. Instead, she leaned close and kissed Cam’s cheek. “I’ll talk to Diane. It will be okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. You shouldn’t be. Not for doing what must be done.” Blair rose. “You will be careful with Valerie, won’t you?”

Cam stood. “She’s a victim in this too. I’m sure of it.”

“I trust your judgment. I do.” Blair skimmed her fingers along Cam’s jaw. “But you’re the one thing in my life I can’t do without.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Blair smiled gently. “See that you do.”

Chapter Twenty

Cam tilted her chair back and scrubbed her face. A glance at her watch confirmed what she already knew. It was late, almost 9 p.m. Felicia and Savard looked just as exhausted as she felt, but neither had complained despite twelve hours of nonstop work at the computers. The rest of the guest house was dark, the only light coming from the computer monitors and a few muted lamps. She appreciated why so many government buildings had so few windows—the less intrusion from the outside world, the easier it was to become lost in the work to the exclusion of everything else. Even the important people in your life.

“Where are we?”

Savard deferred to Felicia, who had the most expertise in terms of computer investigation. Felicia shrugged.

“Between the files at Quantico I’ve been able to access and our own scans of Matheson’s academy records, we have solid IDs on all four of the gunmen at the Aerie. We have names for the faces now and we’re digging deeper.”

“What does that give us in terms of Matheson’s connection to the Company and Valerie’s handler?”

Felicia shook her head. “Nothing yet. These men were all too young to be contemporaries of anyone who might have recruited Valerie.”

Savard said, “If Valerie was recruited as a teenager, then we’re probably looking at someone Matheson’s age as her handler.” She spread her hands in frustration. “He could be anyone.”

“We have to work from the assumption that Valerie’s handler and Matheson are tied together. It may turn out that they’re not, but that’s a more probable scenario than postulating that Valerie’s contact within the Company reported the plans for the raid on Matheson’s compound to someone else who then relayed the message to Matheson.” Cam stood up and walked to the window, rolling her shoulders and trying to work out some of the stiffness from the previous week’s injuries and the tension of poring through files all day. The first floor of the main house was alight, and she wondered what Blair was doing. “I don’t believe in coincidences. The only person outside of our team who knew about the raid was Valerie. She reported to her handler and Matheson was tipped off. A plus B equals C.”

“Matheson has had a lifetime to build up a network inside the system,” Felicia said. “We’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Maybe. But men like Matheson know that the most secure network is one that’s small and built on personal loyalty.” She turned away from the window and the reminder of the rest of her life to face her agents. “What creates the greatest loyalty?”

“Chain of command,” Savard said immediately.

“Family,” Felicia replied.

“Start with Foster and the other four men from the assault on Blair, and find their brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers, grandfathers— every male relative who might have been associated with Matheson or Matheson’s brothers, uncles, father, whatever.”

Savard frowned. “What about the women?”

Cam shook her head. “Not likely. Matheson runs a military academy for boys. All of the assailants were men. All of the paramilitary personnel at his compound were men. He doesn’t entrust women with authority.”

Felicia’s eyes flashed. “One of his many mistakes.”

“Agreed,” Cam said with quiet satisfaction. “He’s going to regret underestimating us.”

“I was wondering when you were going to surface,” Blair said when Cam walked into the kitchen a little after 10 p.m. She pulled the red sweatband from her forehead and let her hair fall free on her shoulders. She’d just come from a run on the beach and still wore sweatpants and a cutoff T-shirt. “There’s chicken in the oven.”

“Thanks, but I’m good. Tanner had sandwiches sent in for us.” Cam opened the refrigerator and extracted a beer. “Want one?”

“I’ve got wine.” Blair waited until Cam sat down at the table and took several swallows of beer before moving behind her to massage her shoulders. “Long day.”

Cam leaned her head back against Blair’s body, briefly closed her eyes, and sighed. “Yeah. How was yours?”

“About the same. I painted a little this afternoon.”

“Anything I can see yet?”

Blair smiled. “Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”

“I won’t forget. What else is new?”

“Tanner’s people took Emory back to the city. Steph is going to stay with her for a day or so just to be sure she’s okay.”

“Good. How’s Diane?”

Blair’s hand stilled. “Upset.”

“I’ll talk to her as soon as I check in with Mac and Stark. Hopefully they had better luck sorting out what happened at the hotel last night than we had today.”

“No progress?”

Cam sighed. “Some. I have no doubt that given enough time we could track the various threads back to the hub, but I don’t think we have that much time. Not when Matheson can put together assault squads like he did at the Aerie, people who don’t care if they die.”

Blair went back to working on the muscles in Cam’s neck. “You think it was a suicide mission?”

“I doubt they framed it that way, but the probability was overwhelming that none of the assailants would survive.”

“You think he’ll try again.”

Cam fell silent, wondering if spelling out her concerns to Blair was fair.

“Don’t try to decide what’s good for me or not, just tell me what you think,” Blair said.

Cam looked up into Blair’s face. “Yes, I do.”

“Well. He’s not so smart, then, is he? I just hope he does it soon so we can get this over with.” Blair kissed the top of Cam’s head. “Why don’t you take a shower and change into something more comfortable. Your back is one big knot.”

“Are you going to come with me?”

Blair laughed. “No, not unless you intend on spending the rest of the night in the bedroom.”

“Sounds good to me.” Cam grinned, tilting her head further back against Blair’s stomach. “I missed you today.”

Blair traced Cam’s eyebrows with a fingertip, then leaned over and kissed her mouth upside down. “I’ve been thinking of this morning all day. I love that position, but next time I want it to be your mouth under me.”

Cam groaned and nosed Blair’s T-shirt aside so she could kiss her bare middle. “Let me finish up a few more things, and I’ll take care of that wish. I can shower later.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“Anything?” Cam asked as she strode into the operations center. Stark, Mac, and—to her surprise—Wozinski were reviewing printouts. “Hi Greg. Things finished up in Boston?”

Wozinski shrugged. “The feebies are handling it. Need I say more?”

“Other than things are moving slowly?” Cam grinned. “What do you have?”

“Shooter’s name was Allen Strassmann, and as we already knew, he was on Constantine’s watch list. He’s also on half a dozen other lists under watch—all right-wing, pro-Christian, pro-life, ultraconservative groups.”

“On the surface,” Stark said, “it looks like Dr. Constantine was the target.”

Cam leaned against the door jamb and folded her arms. “You disagree?”

“If the doctor was the target, it seems pretty stupid to try to take her out when she’s with Egret, who everyone knows would be heavily guarded.”

“Maybe it was simply a matter of opportunity,” Cam said.

“Possible. But how did they know that Constantine was in the hall with us? It was a spur of the moment decision to leave then.”

“Maybe Strassmann was in the banquet hall or had someone watching Emory’s movements who could alert him, the same as we postulated might be the case if Blair were the target.”

Stark nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. “If I were going to take a shot at Emory Constantine, I would plan to do it when she was leaving the hotel after the event—in the parking garage, maybe, or even in the crowd coming out of the banquet hall. There’d be a much better chance of getting away with it—and getting away, period.”

“Do we have any indication that this guy Strassmann might have targeted Blair?” Cam joined the others around the table.

“We don’t have anything in the files about this guy—or any organization he’s involved with—contacting her, issuing statements, or posting inflammatory messages on any of their message boards regarding her. Nothing ties him to her.”

“I’m not surprised. If I were going to choose an assassin, I’d want him, or her, to be someone anonymous.” Cam shrugged. “That assumes there was someone behind this other than Strassmann himself.”

“It would be a damn big coincidence,” Mac said as he sat down with coffee, “if someone just happened to take a shot at Emory Constantine when she just happened to be with Egret. Despite the evidence, or lack of it, it’s too big a coincidence for me.”

Stark nodded. “I agree.”

“So do I.” Cam stood. “Keep working the Strassmann angle and assume his target was Blair. See if you can find a relationship between him and any known Matheson connections—maybe he’s related to one of Matheson’s men captured at the compound.”

“Will do, Commander.” Stark hesitated, as if she were about to say more, then fell silent.

“Chief?” Cam asked.

“Nothing, Commander.”

“No,” Cam said as if the question had been asked. “We didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of progress, but we’re still digging.”

“We really need Valerie Lawrence to come in if we’re going to find the link to Matheson,” Stark said.

“I’m working on it.” Cam surveyed the group. “Until then we carry on.”

Cam leaned into the living room and tapped on the partially open French door that divided it from the hallway and the first floor bedrooms. Diane was curled up on one end of the dark brown leather sofa in front of the fireplace. A half empty glass of wine sat on the end table beside her. She’d changed from the jeans she’d been wearing earlier into black slacks and a fitted, white scoop neck top with three-quarter length sleeves. She looked remote and very much alone.

“Can I talk to you?”

Diane glanced over her shoulder. “Of course.”

Diane turned back to the fire as Cam sat down next to her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to warn you about the newspaper article before you saw it,” Cam said.

“Would you still have released it if I had objected?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for letting me make the phone calls this afternoon. My sister and my office manager were very relieved to hear that I wasn’t seriously injured.” Diane added sharply, “Of course, I stuck to the script Stark provided me. The one you approved, I assume.”

Cam winced. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like a conspirator.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“It’s complicated—”

“That means it’s about Valerie.”

“Yes,” Cam admitted. “She won’t come in to protect herself, but she will to protect you. And we need her.”

Diane shifted, studying Cam with no apparent trace of her previous anger. “That’s emotional blackmail, don’t you think?”