Deadly Disclosure. Meghan Carver

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СКАЧАТЬ and then punched a button on the wall.

      The garage door began to close.

      Derek signaled to her, and she crept toward the hood of the car, deeper into the garage, until she met him at the hood. He put an arm around her shoulders, a help to keep her steady and a strength to comfort her as they watched the door close. They were soon swallowed in complete darkness.

      She held her breath, the perspiration trickling down her back marching side by side with a tingle of apprehension, as they waited for the truck to come roaring through the parking lot and crash through the door. But all she could hear was her heart beating.

      “Is that it? Are we safe?” She kept her whisper so soft she could barely discern her own voice.

      “I think so.” Derek’s hoarse whisper tickled her ear, and another tingle traversed her spine, this one for different reasons but still full of apprehension. “Let me grab my phone.”

      The glow of the screen illuminated his face and the grim set of his mouth. With the tap of an icon, the phone’s flashlight illuminated their part of the garage.

      “Are they gone?” Derek lowered his arm, and a chill immediately set in to Hannah’s shoulders. “How did they find us?”

      “I don’t know yet, but I think you need to call your parents and let them know we’re coming. If you go see them in person, they might want to make sure their security is in order.”

      “What? No. I need to spring it on them in person. See their reactions for myself. That’ll get to the truth of the matter. And not to worry, their security is always top-notch. Besides, that truck is gone. We lost him.”

      He laid a hand on her arm, but this time it felt restrictive. “I still think you should call.”

      She shoved herself up to her feet. “It’s not up to you.” An angry tone entered, and she stopped herself. She didn’t want to be that person. With a deep breath, she tried again, this time more level. “I will drive myself to my parents’ house if I need to, leaving you here at the funeral home.” She gestured around the darkness. “Rather, in the garage.”

      Maneuvering in the dim light of his phone flashlight, she tiptoed around him and toward the driver’s door. “Hannah.” His tone was warm and wrapped around her like a thick quilt.

      A quaver crawled up her throat, and she swallowed hard to tamp it down. “I’m sorry. It’s just so much to process. You’ve never found out anything like this—that you’re adopted.”

      “No.” He stepped closer. “You remember. I was raised by my aunt and uncle after my parents were killed. But I’d like to think I have a little idea of what you’re feeling. Confusion. Betrayal. Curiosity.”

      “Oh, Derek. I do remember. I wasn’t thinking.” She had known he was living with an aunt and uncle, and he had mentioned, all those years ago, that his mom and dad had passed away. But she didn’t know any more than that. There was clearly more to Derek Chambers than she had realized. She placed a hand on his arm, a zing in the darkness striking to her core. “I’m sorry. We didn’t talk about it much.”

      She sensed, more than saw, his shrug. “It didn’t seem important at the time. I wanted to think about us and our future, not my past.”

      “Then you really do know what I’m feeling. You understand the importance of getting the truth.”

      “Yes. I do.” A steely determination had crept into his tone.

      She stepped again toward the driver-side door. “So, who’s driving?”

      * * *

      Derek glanced at the sign that read Union Street as he turned back onto the side street that seemed to widen out in the next block or so. He’d settled Hannah into the passenger seat, and now he was following her directions as she got her bearings in a town she didn’t know all that well.

      The scent of gasoline and death lingered in his nostrils from the funeral home’s garage. Maybe it was just his imagination, the idea of the scent of death. Maybe it was a memory from witnessing the murder of his parents. But even if it was, he still wiggled his nose in an attempt to eradicate the aroma before he could be inundated with images he had struggled to forget.

      His cell phone vibrated next to his hip, and he grabbed it from the holster on his belt. A square popped up on his incoming-call screen. His supervising agent’s code name for himself. So newly graduated from the academy that the protective plastic coating was barely pulled off his badge, Derek knew he’d have to check in frequently.

      He glanced at Hannah, relieved that she didn’t seem to be paying attention to his phone. Being around her again made him jittery, and he didn’t want to mess up in front of his supervising agent. “Go.”

      Square’s voice was hoarse in his ear. “Secure?”

      “For now.”

      “Did you acquire the subject?”

      The subject seemed a harsh way of communicating about the complex yet feminine woman who sat beside him. “Yes.”

      “Is there knowledge?” Square was asking if Derek had informed Hannah of her adoption and the identity of her birth father.

      “Affirmative.”

      Hannah looked over at him, a question in her wide, brown eyes. Derek shrugged but didn’t respond, an attempt to convey nonchalance. Hopefully, it would calm both of them.

      “Location?” The supervising agent would check in regularly with Derek for his first two years as an official FBI agent. But since Derek had just arrived in Heartwood Hill that afternoon, it seemed a little soon for an update. Perhaps that was because the supervisor had been unable to accompany him. Whatever he had to do to comply, though, Derek was willing. He was living his dream, and nothing would stand in his way, not even the beautiful creature who sat in the vehicle with him.

      “Sliding into home base.” It was summertime, and that meant baseball. Square would understand that Derek had Hannah in transit to her parents’ house.

      “Okay. Play ball.” His supervisor ended the call, and Derek understood that he was to proceed but with extreme caution.

      Hannah flipped her brown waves over her shoulder. “Everything okay?”

      Derek ran through what she must have heard from his end of the call. It wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary. “Yeah. Just checking in.” She understood the danger, of that he was sure. No need to dwell on it.

      As he continued to follow Hannah’s directions, the drive wound them through small starter homes to an area of ethnic grocery stores and soccer fields to an upscale mall and eventually to a section of town where Derek guessed the houses were a million dollars or more.

      “How long has it been since you’ve been home?” Despite the gloom of the evening, Derek still saw luxurious, large yards with winding drives, profusions of flowers and statues of footmen holding lanterns at the end of driveways.

      “Probably too long, but law school has kept me busy.” She pointed to the right. “Turn here.”

      “What do your parents know? СКАЧАТЬ