Her silence should have been warning enough. She finally just listened to his instructions on how to contact him if she had any problem, nodding in reply. He’d kept up a steady monologue, trying not to let his face show how the pain scarring her eyes shredded his insides.

He avoided the topic humming between them like an angry wasp with no place to land.

She had trusted him not to hand her over to strangers and he’d wrecked that trust when he told her she couldn’t go to her mother after they left Kore. God knows he didn’t want to hand her over.

He’d never wanted to keep anything more than he wanted to keep Abbie, but more than that he didn’t want her harmed.

Which was why he hadn’t wanted her inside Kore tonight, but she’d trumped his moves with needing her blood to access the database. She’d pressed her point by reminding him she’d be safe with Kore’s tight security.

Abbie would walk into a burning building if that’s what it took to keep someone dear to her alive.

She loved without restraint.

What would it feel like to be loved that way?

Was that what Eliot had felt for Cynthia? Cynthia hadn’t dated since Eliot died, living quietly with her son.

Had she loved Eliot just as fiercely?

Hunter scrubbed his hand over his face, wiping away things he couldn’t be cluttering his mind with right now. His eyes strayed to his watch, which refused to help by moving any quicker. Three more minutes until he could walk into Kore.

Abbie was safe in there. No men walked around.

No windows on the first floor. The closest buildings were two-story office complexes.

Where was that killer? Hunter had decided Abbie was telling the truth. She didn’t know this psycho, which was why he had to figure out how the killer knew her. The JC killer had left his mark at four places tied to Abbie now that the Montana cabin had been added to the list. How had the killer found Hunter’s place that fast?

He needed Gotthard’s computer skills and Rae Graham’s puzzle-solving ability. If he hadn’t gone off the reservation hunting this killer he’d have their help and the full power of BAD behind him.

His watch alarm beeped. Hunter told the driver, “Drive me to the door.”

When the car reached the curb, Hunter straightened his jacket and stepped out, pausing long enough to tell the driver, “That’s all I need for tonight.”

He didn’t know how he was going to stay inside Kore all night to watch over her and access the computer system, but he was not leaving Abbie until they released her tomorrow morning.

Chapter Thirty-five

Jackson finished carving another titanium spoon with a laser cutter and eyed the piece for any flaws.

None. Testing the needle-sharp point of the three horns on the Jackson’s Chameleon head at the end of the spoon handle was tempting, but that would be dangerous.

He put the spoon down, lifted a terry cloth to wipe his hands, and walked upstairs in the temporary apartment in downtown Chicago he’d taken for a month. He walked past the windows of the luxury unit facing Wacker Drive and eyed boat traffic moving along the Chicago River twelve stories down. Jackson consulted his watch. Closing in on seven. The city would hum with nightlife soon.

Sitting down at his laptop, he clicked on the website he checked twice daily for a new image. When he’d viewed the site this morning it had still displayed sixteen photos of the Brown family in Austin. Snapshots of kids, dogs, and parties in suburbia. The bogus Brown family.

The photo of a rabbit running around a toy-decorated lawn had been added since this morning.

A new image loaded up, signaled that an electronic file had been added to the backside of the website.

Jackson opened the secret file with instructions for him to be in Boulder, Colorado this weekend to receive instructions on a hit that would start a chain reaction of bomb detonations. He scanned quickly and slowed at the side note reminding him what he was to do if caught. To take extreme measures before subjecting himself to interrogation.

He shook his head at the insult. Caught?

If that happened he had a plan. He lifted a pinky into view, eyeing how the nail was an eighth of an inch longer than the others and sharp as a razor. The metal implant had been painted to look as natural as the others.

He had only to slice his wrist.

Reading further through his instructions, he located authorization for each necessary death, a Fratelli reference. He could understand why the Fratelli had such limiting rules when it came to dealing with an organization made up of humans who couldn’t be left to their own decision-making.

But Jackson didn’t care for limitations on a job.

No matter what, he’d fulfill his duty.

He smiled over being green-lighted to terminate Abbie, then frowned at the reminder that he could not terminate the operative protecting her.

The Fratelli wanted to first find out who the operative was working for.

Why did it matter?

Jackson smoothed his hand over the slick skin on his head. His Chinese masters had removed every hair from his body, creating a perfect killing machine that left no DNA. The Fratelli should trust his training. Why would the identity of the operative shielding Abigail matter? CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, mercenary contractor… the list could go on and on. Did the Fratelli expect to identify every undercover operator?

Termination prevented problems created by loose ends.

Jackson could not allow Abbie’s protector to live. Survival depended on never leaving a loose end and he never brought anyone in alive. That created complications no one wanted.

Jackson had not been trained for intelligence gathering.

He’d been trained since birth to kill.

Had taken a baby spoon from his chest of possessions before he turned eight, sharpened the handle, and performed his first kill-an instructor who had bested Jackson in an exercise.

The satisfaction of proving himself with the unnecessary kill had been worth the discipline he received-a painful beating, though it did not break his skin-but he never broke the rules again.

The other nine boys who trained with him fell into line much more quickly. Jackson understood the need for order. Without discipline there was chaos. What the other nine did not figure out was how to function within the scope of Fratelli rules.

His superior never questioned an accidental death, because Jackson was a strategist as much as a killer. He knew the goal for each mission and made sure any deaths-sanctioned or accidental-supported the plan.

He would deliver the necessary deaths.

As for those not authorized?

If someone were to choose death over life to protect another person, who was Jackson to stand in his way?

Time to visit the Kore Women’s Center.