He was the monster who’d smiled enough that people had forgotten how sharp his teeth were. “There are some new people who have suspicions. I probably shouldn’t have killed Gemma Wells’s ex-fiancé the way I did.”
Seth’s lips kicked up slightly. “Ye old internal decapitation?”
“Force of habit.” He cringed even as he said it. A man’s habits shouldn’t include a favored method of murder. He didn’t want to be this man. “Are you feeling okay? I know how the cartel treats people it wants information out of.”
He’d been on the receiving end more than once.
“It was awful, and now my future wife knows exactly how serious I am about her. She knows I’ll do anything to protect her, even take a beating.” Seth always found a way to look on the bright side of a situation. “It’s weird. I think it was way harder to sit there and let them beat on me than it would have been to do what you did. Not that I could have. Really it was best that I was the one tied to a chair.”
“You did everything perfectly. You gave Logan time to come get me.” He didn’t want Seth to think for a second he’d been less than heroic. “I was proud of how you held up.”
“Thanks. I knew Logan would save us. It was good to have faith. I haven’t always had it, you know.” Seth turned serious. “But you didn’t come here to recap yesterday. We need to talk about what’s going to happen.”
It was exactly why he’d come here today. Seth had told him a little, but he’d been in pain and then on drugs. “How bad is the situation?”
“The cartel definitely knows you’re alive. According to the man who tortured me, they found a…somebody who worked at a bar.”
Henry nodded. “Yes, there was a man who owned a bar in Bolivia. He was paid to tell the police what we wanted them to hear. I worried that there would always be rumors. So the cartel knows I’m alive and they connected me to you.”
“They’ve gone high tech. They managed to find the number of the phone you used shortly after you died. You called me,” Seth explained.
Guilt threatened to eat him alive. “Like I said. I shouldn’t have brought you into this. You were a kid.”
Seth snorted at the thought. “If you hadn’t called I would have tried to track you down. I was completely fascinated with you. You underestimate my stubborn will. In the months you were gone, I’d already managed to put some stuff together about you. I had a whole file.”
His heart clenched. “That could have gotten you killed. You’re lucky you didn’t get the Agency on your doorstep. They don’t like having their operatives looked into.”
“Hence it was good you decided to come back and you needed my help. You should take it again now because if you don’t, I’ll try to do it all myself, and it could go poorly. I had Logan bring me my laptop and I did some investigating this morning. This Jones guy, he was looking for information. I have no doubt if he’d found you, he would have taken you in,” Seth explained. “But he clearly didn’t want to be wrong. I think I’ve managed to trace him back. I checked his phone records. He’s had no communication with his employers in the past week. He was a guy looking to move up in his organization. He wanted to walk back into the office with you as an offering.”
“So Jones knew where to look, but no one else knew what he was doing.” He went over the possibilities in his mind. “I assure you if the cartel knows I’m alive, they’ve got feelers out. If they’re looking, eventually they’ll find me.”
“Jones got lucky. I can hide you. He didn’t know the name Henry Flanders. He was only here in town because I was. I think it’s time for John Bishop to resurface.”
He knew Seth wasn’t talking about him going back into business. “I take it you mean to put some rumors on the Deep Web? Maybe fake some pictures of me in another country. If you do that I’ll have more than the cartel looking.”
“The Agency?”
Henry sighed and sat back. “Yes, though I suspect they’re already looking. I assure you the Agency still watches the cartels, especially the ones that work more closely with jihadists. If the Agency knows I’m alive, they will want answers I’m not willing to give them. Or they might simply send someone to kill me.”
And Nell could be caught in the crossfire.
“Let me poke around a bit,” Seth said. “I have a lot of government contacts. I also have contacts that I probably shouldn’t. Don’t do anything right now except watch your back. If someone has eyes on you, anything out of the ordinary could tip them off.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. “I’m out of practice.”
“Then let me help you. Unless you want to reach out to old friends. How about that guy in Dallas? The one you said I should work with when I had that corporate spy problem.”
Seth had been the only one he could talk to over the years. “Taggart. He thinks I’m dead. Ian is oddly the most reasonable of my former…students. I worry I would be dragging him and his family into something they shouldn’t be involved in. He’s got kids now. I think it best I leave him out of this. I’m going to do some research.”
He’d already decided to do it the previous night. He’d gotten next to no sleep, merely sat in bed watching Nell and wondering if he was going to lose her.
He needed to get a lay of the land. He’d completely washed his hands of everything having to do
