d.a.m.n straight. Bryan knew that firsthand. Sa.s.sy was tough, and he'd bet she was feisty as the devil in this particular situation.

"I want her back without any more b.u.mps or bruises. What do you want in exchange?" What Bryan was willing to trade for her safety right now should have frightened him.

Johnson didn't hesitate. "This is a discussion better held face-to-face. Meet me in Atlanta tomorrow at noon. I'll contact you in the morning with the address. I don't need to tell you to come alone."

"Of course." Bryan ended the call. Weak-kneed with relief, he sat down hard on the ground beside the scorched boulder. He'd allow himself this moment.

Sa.s.sy was alive. She wasn't dead. She was alive and right now possibly giving someone h.e.l.l about what they were doing. He couldn't believe it. This time he was happy to feel the hot tears scald his cheeks. He shook his head as the knowledge sank in.

She's alive. No matter what happened, no matter the cost, he planned to keep her that way.

Chapter Twenty-five.

December 30 Late afternoon Sa.s.sY WAS ENVELOPED in cotton, clawing her way out of a suffocating coc.o.o.n. She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't move. Despite her rising panic, she kept telling herself it was all a dream as she swam her way back to consciousness-not because she wanted to, but because someone in the room was prattling on and on and wouldn't shut up. She longed to tell them to be quiet and to let her rest. But when she was finally coherent enough to understand what she was hearing, reality came rushing back, along with an excruciating headache.

She'd been in the car with Rivera. There'd been an accident. Then . . . nothing? There was a hazy memory of fire and someone screaming-another dream, perhaps? She took a deep breath, and the scent of singed hair and smoky clothing a.s.saulted her nostrils. Her eyes flew open. That was no dream.

Her heart rate sped up as she took note of her surroundings despite the pounding in her temples. She was alone in a huge bed, facing a balcony window with a stunning view of the sunset over a ma.s.sive lake. Treetops were at eye level, and mountains shrouded in mist were painted brilliant oranges and purples in the dying light. She wasn't sure if she was in a hotel or a private residence, but she heard what sounded like the engine of a small plane in the distance, although the plane itself was invisible in the twilight.

She turned her head, aware of an overwhelming need for a bathroom. Her vision swam. She closed her eyes until everything stopped spinning and cautiously opened them again.

The room was spectacularly decorated in antiques. A large television was on, tuned to a twenty-four-hour cable news channel. At last she'd located the source of that incessant chatter.

She tried to sit up-big mistake-and her head felt as if it were sliding off her shoulders. She lay back down and closed her eyes once more, willing the agony to subside. Even the light from the sunset hurt. But the need for the toilet won out over the headache and she stood, spying the sumptuously appointed bathroom from the bed. Surprisingly, once she was upright, her head felt markedly better.

Where was she? Why was she here and not in a hospital after that accident? Who had her?

She headed for the bathroom and took care of the most pressing issue first, then washed her hands and face. When she finally braved glancing in the mirror, she was sorry she had. Her hair was matted along the side of her face, and she was working on a pair of serious black eyes. She looked as if she'd been in a bar fight. How long had she been out?

Despite her dirty face, the bandage from her st.i.tches in South Carolina had been changed. She had a huge b.u.mp on the back of her head and a new small cut above her eyebrow, but no memory of hitting her head. It had to be from the accident but . . . G.o.d, why couldn't she remember anything?

The effort of thinking about that, plus the bathroom lights, were making her headache worse. She made her way back to the bed and was just lying down when she heard the door open. She lay very still with her eyes closed, trying to peek out between her lashes.

A man moved into the room, but she couldn't tell much beyond that. He stopped beside the bed, and she could practically feel the impatience rolling off him in waves.

"It's no good, Ms. Smith. I know you're awake. I heard the water running earlier." The accent was pure Boston, with a definite nasal tw.a.n.g.

Sa.s.sy exhaled and opened her eyes. The man staring down at her was of average height and build. With his thinning gray hair and unfashionable gla.s.ses, he looked like an accountant. Probably somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five, he was completely innocuous looking until she got a closer glimpse at his clear blue eyes. The lack of emotion there was startling. His lifeless expression made her want to burrow under the covers for warmth.

"Who are you?" Her voice sounded rusty. She had a pretty good idea of who this was already.

The man studied her a moment, his cold stare giving nothing away. "My name is Ford Johnson."

Sa.s.sy froze, and Johnson smiled faintly. "I see you've heard of me."

She didn't reply. Instead she listened, maintaining a blank expression. She'd never been much of a poker player, but she had learned a lot over the years about lying to men. She was an expert when it came to hiding her true feelings.

"Sit up. We need to talk."

Sa.s.sy slowly pulled herself up in the bed. "Is Rivera dead?" she finally asked.

Johnson smiled more broadly this time, his eyes actually taking on some warmth. "Yes, he is. He and his driver died in the aftermath of the car crash."

"Aftermath?" Sa.s.sy remembered s.n.a.t.c.hes of the ride and swerving on the road, but she had no real recollection of the crash itself. Her blinding headache was bound to have something to do with that.

"The fire," said Johnson. While his eyes had warmed, his voice was still quite cold.

She wasn't a fan of Tomas Rivera, but what a horrible way to die. "How did I . . ." She didn't remember anything about a fire beyond those hazy dream images.

"How did you survive?" Johnson finished for her.

She nodded, but the motion had her closing her eyes against the fresh wave of throbbing pain in her temple.

"My men pulled you out of the car."

"Could they not get to Rivera and his driver in time?" she asked.

Johnson shrugged. "I didn't ask them to. I only needed you. I didn't realize you were with Rivera until we'd arranged for the accident. And I knew you could be of much better use to me alive."

Sa.s.sy tried not to visibly shudder. This man was a monster. She'd known it intellectually after talking with Nick and Leland, but to hear him speak so casually of people's usefulness and living and dying was stunning, nonetheless.

"I need you to do something for me that only you can do, Ms. Smith."

If her head wasn't already spinning, the casual segue to her doing a favor for him would have made her dizzy. "I don't understand." She stopped herself just in time from shaking her head from side to side.

"I need you to write a news story for me."

Sa.s.sy pulled back as a bizarre sense of dej vu settled over her. How surreal that Johnson would want a story whereas Rivera had asked her to stop one.

"What kind of story?" she asked.

"Oh, something like what I imagine you were already writing for your editor . . . but with a twist."

"How did you know I was working on something for my editor?"

Johnson stared and shook his head. "You don't think I could get access to your online storage account?"

She sighed. Of course. With his resources, hacking her account would be child's play.

"The story you've written is quite good, but I need a few things tweaked."

She frowned and felt the zing of her headache when her brow crinkled. Tweaked? She truly hated that word when someone was applying it to her writing.

"What kind of things do you need 'tweaked'?" she asked.

Johnson settled a hip on the edge of the bed. "I've discovered that the public will forgive quite a few sins in the pursuit of the war on drugs, but some things will not fly. s.e.x trafficking is one."

Sa.s.sy frowned. "But the main point of my news story is the human trafficking in Africa."

He nodded. "I understand. This is where the adjustment comes in. I want you to present evidence that AEGIS used their resources to cover up their own involvement in human trafficking in order to frame me."

"What?" This time she forgot about her headache. Raising her eyebrows merely intensified the pain once again.

"It's quite easy. Bryan Fisher kidnapped you in New York after you found out what AEGIS was doing. You barely managed to get away from him after the train wreck in South Carolina, but tragically an older couple was killed in the cross fire."

She stared at the man in shock. Ford Johnson was a diabolical liar and possibly a bit mad. But there was just enough truth in the story he wanted her to fabricate to make things believable. Just enough truth for a twenty-four-hour news cycle that wouldn't fact-check the details too closely before putting out this version of the tale.

"You don't honestly think you can keep your job, do you?" she asked.

"Stranger things have happened. At this point, I only need the government to hesitate in firing me. Consider this story a way of buying me time."

He shrugged as the realization dawned on her. Of course he'd keep his job.

"The U.S. government won't care that I used drones illegally in Mexico, as long as I neutralized the two biggest cartel kingpins and didn't run any kind of guns."

"But you killed a baby, crippled a mother, killed a young woman, and were complicit in wrongfully incarcerating a U.S. citizen in Mexico."

"I understand Rivera called the judge about your brother. I believe he will be released despite Rivera's untimely departure."

"How-"

"We're tapping that particular judge's phone." Johnson leaned closer. Now his eyes held a maniacal light that frightened her. "I can undo Rivera's call to the judge just as quickly as Rivera made it. Don't f.u.c.k with me. Write the story. Fisher will be here later, and you can go home with him. It won't matter to me where you go after the story is released."

He turned off the television and studied her. She stared back in silence. A plane buzzed in the distance.

This felt like some kind of dream-that someone else was asking her to change the story, that everything could shift so fast, that Trey could be set free, that Bryan was coming to take her home. Though she wasn't really buying that last part.

This couldn't possibly be as easy as Johnson made it sound. For one, she'd need to get that slight change in focus for the story past Howard Spear, plus she'd need that elusive source. But she wasn't going to worry about that now.

"You were behind it all, weren't you? From the very beginning."

Johnson's gaze never wavered from hers. "I believe you already know the answer to that."

Sa.s.sy sat up straighter in the bed. "You set up Ellis Colton and his family to make him look like a drug runner, didn't you?"

Johnson tilted his head. "You're very well informed. That was a necessary evil. We had a transportation issue with a shipment and needed a credible distraction. The Coltons were unfortunate collateral damage."

"And Nick Donovan's father, ten years ago?"

Johnson shook his head. "I'm not going into this with you. Write the story as I've asked, or I'll simply kill you, have someone else write it, and put your name on it before sending the file to your editor. Doing it my way means you get to live. h.e.l.l, you can leave with Fisher as soon as the story goes public. Although for his sake, I'd suggest someplace out of the country with no extradition."

"You don't worry that I could tell them what you made me do?" she asked.

"Given your present circ.u.mstances, that would sound a bit fantastic, wouldn't it? After you write a story about being kidnapped by AEGIS . . . only to write of being kidnapped by me, a respected government official, all while being wanted for murder yourself? You'd have a significant credibility issue and be like the little boy crying wolf."

He was right. The convolution of facts and the way he was twisting it all around was crazy. But he would come out smelling like a rose, because the indisputable fact was that two of America's most wanted cartel leaders were dead on Ford Johnson's watch.

Sa.s.sy, on the other hand, would sound like a lunatic conspiracy theorist if one story was released then she claimed something else. It could all be cleared up eventually with a thorough investigation into her cloud storage account. But that would take months, and Johnson would be long gone.

She was stuck. Johnson had access to her and her story. And he could do whatever he wanted with it.

Arguing was pointless. She was going to do this, because she wasn't going to die for the job. The idea might sound n.o.ble, but she wasn't a writer willing to die for her craft. She'd rather live with her brother free from a Mexican prison and with Bryan. . . .

She shut down that train of thought. Any kind of relationship with Bryan most likely wasn't going to happen after she wrote this story. It would have been one thing not to write about Johnson, but to craft a story hanging all the blame on AEGIS-he'd never be able to get past that.

h.e.l.l, was any of this even possible? Was Johnson going to let her go?

After all this, it would be anyone's guess. Cooperating would buy her time, Trey's freedom, and a chance-however small-to figure out what was going on with Bryan. He had left her yesterday. Perhaps he truly was on his way to get her today.

G.o.d, she hoped so. She didn't normally allow herself to hope like that.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"Towns County. Lovely, isn't it?" Johnson stood at the window and gazed toward the water and the rapidly darkening sky. "I'd been planning to retire here. The builder just finished this place. That's Lake Chatuge." He pointed toward the gla.s.s. "Those are the Blue Ridge Mountains. There's quite the posh resort in the next cove."

"Is this Georgia?"

He nodded.

"What day is it?" she asked.

He chuckled, but it wasn't a pleasant sound. "You got quite the head shot there, didn't you? It's December thirtieth. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. 'Auld Lang Syne' and all that."

Sa.s.sy fought the feelings of helplessness and nausea that simultaneously swamped her. Suddenly she knew. Johnson was lying.

While he might leave Trey's release alone, and Bryan could very well be looking for her this instant, Johnson would never just let her go. Sa.s.sy knew too much. As soon as he got what he wanted, she was dead.

She would only speed that time line up by saying she wouldn't cooperate. She was on her own to get herself out of this. She swallowed hard. She needed a plan. Now.

"Could I have some paper, please?" she asked.

Johnson stood and opened the drawer beside her bed. He handed her a yellow legal pad and pen.

She froze but recovered quickly. Was it just yesterday she'd held a yellow pad in her lap and worked on this story at Bear's computer? "Exactly what do you want me to say about AEGIS in the article?"

Johnson began to dictate. He started with the night of the Ellis Colton bust, blaming Leland Hollis for the mistake that brought a SWAT team down on the innocent civilian's family. He outlined how Leland was part of a group of former DEA and ex-CIA operatives who had used their knowledge to set up a s.e.x trafficking network with Gavin Bartholomew heading up the entire operation.

Johnson could have been a novelist in another life. He twisted the facts and crafted a remarkably credible narrative that was bound to sell papers and launch numerous investigations into AEGIS. In defiance of her pounding headache, Sa.s.sy took careful notes. When he had finished talking, she leaned back against the headboard.

If she followed Johnson's directive, she would have to do a complete ax job on Bryan and AEGIS. It could all be straightened out over time, but the reputation of AEGIS and its employees would be forever tarnished.