The Unnaturals (The Unnaturals Series Book 1) Read online

  “Somebody’s got to,” the man replied. He took a step back, out of the shadows of the hallway and into the brighter office. It was then that Scott got a good look at his boss, and he was surprised by what he saw.

  Henry Cage looked exhausted, like he’d added ten years to his fifty-three in the eight months since Scott had seen him last. His dark blond hair was shot through with streaks of gray, and the creases by his blue eyes had deepened. His hair, normally neatly and professionally combed, was totally askew as if he’d been running his hands through it. His clothes were equally wrinkled and rumpled, and they seemed to hang off his frame, like he’d lost a noticeable amount of weight from his formerly strong build. He had the appearance of an overworked, exhausted businessman, so out of keeping with his normal appearance that Scott couldn’t help but wonder if he had been ill.

  “You could have rang the doorbell,” Scott said once he’d finished studying the man. His eyes swept the room and lit onto the window behind his desk. It was opened, and a cool breeze blew in, ruffling the papers on his desk. “You didn’t have to climb in through my office window. I do have a front door, you know.”

  “Now, what sort of spook would I be if I didn’t practice my skills occasionally?” Henry asked, setting the book he held onto the edge of the desk. Scott raised an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest, the revolver dangling from his right hand. Henry Cage was the last person in the Agency who needed to “practice his skills;” the man was one of the best trainers the Agency had and had invented half the techniques that agents were still being taught. But instead of saying that, he remained quiet and resolved to wait Henry out. If there was anything his time in the military and with the Agency had taught him, it was patience. He watched as Henry picked up a history book on World War II from the desk and studied the copy on the back. When he spoke again, he directed his words to the hardback instead of to Scott. “We have a very serious problem.”

  “One that obviously entails interrupting my leave of absence,” Scott said. He narrowed his eyes. “Ms. Walker isn’t causing problems again, is she?”

  Scott had never met the infamous Riley Walker, but he’d heard stories from Henry and rumors from other agents, and he’d read incident reports forwarded to Internal Affairs. The woman was the youngest ever recruited into their elite government “club”—by virtue of lying about her age, falsifying paperwork, and portraying herself as nineteen when she’d been only seventeen years old—and had become one of the best coverts in the Agency within her six-month probationary period. When Deputy Director Tobias Ismay caught on to her forged documentation—and that hadn’t taken long—rather than punish her outright like Brandon Hall had been for recruiting a minor, he’d sent her on a difficult assignment with the idea that she’d either get scared off the job and disappear or get killed; either outcome would have been tolerable, or so Scott had heard. Instead, not only had she accomplished her mission, she’d done it with flying colors; and now, at twenty-five, she had proven herself indispensable to the Agency. She was one of the best they had, never mind the fact that it took two handlers to deal with her and the damage control for her behavior while fulfilling an assignment. So long as it got the job done, the Agency’s Director didn’t seem to care about her often-unorthodox methods.

  “Ms. Walker is always causing issues,” Henry joked, though there was no mirth in his voice. “But no, this is nothing to do with her. At least, not directly.” He paused and set the book down on top of the other, tracing a finger along the spine. “A…special situation has come up. We want to put together a few people to deal with it, but we want to start with just a pair. A partnership to test the waters, so to speak.”

  “Test the waters for what, exactly?” Scott asked, straightening and trying to look attentive. The alcohol he’d spent the day consuming made it difficult. Whatever the Agency had in mind, he was going to be a part of it. Henry wouldn’t have shown up in his office in Backwoods, Minnesota, if that weren’t the case.

  “That I can’t answer yet,” Henry said. He ruffled the book’s pages and sighed. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed by now, but we need you to come in. We want you to be a part of this.”

  “I think I’d rather stay home and stay drunk,” Scott muttered. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed before continuing. “Believe me, I’m not ungrateful for the work, but do you mind telling me why exactly you guys want me involved so badly that you feel the need to track me down and haul me off my leave of absence?”

  “Because you’re one of the best,” Henry said. “And we can’t afford to not have the best involved with this project. I’d leave you be until your official return date if it were up to me, but that is unfortunately out of my hands.” He looked at his watch and ran his hand through his silvery hair before he added, “I need to get moving. So usual time, usual place. Your plane ticket will be waiting for you to claim at the airport. I’ll see you at headquarters.” He paused, glancing at a photo frame propped against a jar of pens and pencils. “I’m not sure I’ve said it yet, but…I’m sorry about Amy. I should have moved sooner.”

  And then, without another word, Henry turned and walked to the window behind the desk, climbing out through it and disappearing into the drizzle.

  Scott sighed and crossed the office with a cautiousness that was natural and automatic. He set the revolver onto his desk beside the abandoned history book and went to the window, staring out for several moments. Rain pattered against the bushes outside, splattering on the windowsill, misting into his face. He squinted, trying to spot Henry in the darkness. But he was gone.

  With a shake of his head, Scott closed the window and bolted it shut.

  Chapter Two

  Riley’s back was killing her.

  That wasn’t unexpected. The chairs in the white-on-white, overly sterile waiting room at the Agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., were uncomfortable, and whenever she was called in for a briefing, Brandon made her wait for at least an hour. She suspected he did it to test her endurance. Either that, or he was a giant dick. Normally, either option wouldn’t have bothered her one iota, save for the fact that the day before, she’d wrenched her back in her two-story drop in Colombia and smacked her head on a balcony railing. She had a splitting headache and a bruise on the side of her cheek that makeup wouldn’t cover. By themselves, they were enough to put her in a foul mood. Together, they made her the picture of “pissed off.” Apparently, “recuperation” was a word absent from Brandon Hall’s vocabulary.

  This better be important, Riley thought as she slouched in her chair, digging into the backpack on the chair beside her for the stash of candy bars she knew she had somewhere inside. The backpack was small, black, and battered, showing its age in its worn canvas and tears covered over by badly sewn-on patches. She’d had it for years, and while she was pretty sure she should have replaced it by now, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It’d become like a friend to her—one that she semi-jokingly called “Linus”—and she wouldn’t dream of tossing a friend in the trash and getting a new one. The chair’s bowed back dug into her kidneys and did nothing to alleviate the pain in her aching muscles. Ergonomic, my ass, she mentally snarled, finally locating a chocolate bar and tearing into it. “Thanks, Linus,” she murmured, almost inaudibly, and gave the bag a light pat.

  As she ate and waited to be called to Brandon’s office, she ran through her last assignments, wondering what infraction she’d committed this time. She didn’t think there was anything damning in her recent mission after-reports; sure, there had been that incident at the San Diego zoo and the other one involving a stolen police car, but crazy things were bound to happen in the course of carrying out her job. She didn’t think they were serious enough to warrant calling her out of the field.

  The memory of a smiling, dark-haired man crossed her mind, and she shook her head. There was no way it had anything to do with that assignment. That was long over with, six months past, and the Agency had dropped the inve
stigation and moved on. She hoped. She wanted to avoid another line of questioning that treated her like she belonged in the psych ward. But they hadn’t believed her story then, and they weren’t going to believe her now.

  The persistent ticking of the clock on the wall filled the air as Riley focused outward once again. She ignored the sound and looked to the man sitting in the bank of chairs across from her own. He sat with his feet planted at a distance that would make it easy for him to rise quickly, arms spread along the backs of the chairs on either side of him, eyes closed and head relaxed against the white wall in sleep. Dark hair hung into his eyes, falling across his forehead in a boyish cut, and his face was chiseled, with high cheekbones and a clear complexion; the lines at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth were the only indicators that he was older than he appeared on initial glance. His t-shirt was snug enough to hint at a musculature that suggested he was a fellow field agent.

  Riley had never seen him before. That wasn’t a surprise, though. The government agency she worked for had a lot of agents, many of whom were never required to report in to the main offices—certainly not as often as her—and none of them were accustomed to working with each other. Pairs of agents weren’t common in the Agency anymore, groups of them less so; she and Kevin Anderson had been one of the exceptions, the last time more than one agent had been used on a single mission. And that mission had been botched so spectacularly that those in charge had decided it was no longer worth the potential loss of trained agents. The Agency hadn’t believed a word of what she’d reported had happened to Kevin. They still claimed she was “muddled” and “confused” about the events she’d witnessed. They probably still thought she’d killed him herself.

  Riley was just finishing off her candy bar when the soft shush of a door opening drew her attention to her left. She turned her head to see Brandon’s secretary peering out through the foot-wide gap in the door. “Ms. Walker?” the woman questioned. When Riley nodded in the affirmative, the secretary added, “Mr. Hall will see you now.”

  It took everything in Riley to not make a snarky comment about “Mr.” Hall, but she managed to hold it in. It was likely that the secretary wouldn’t understand the joke or would take offense at her boss being insulted. But Riley and Brandon had developed an interesting mentor-trainee relationship in the eight years since he’d recruited her, and they tossed jabs at each other whenever they met. Riley cast one last curious glance at the man across from her as she rose to her feet and slung her backpack onto her shoulder; he hadn’t budged a fraction of an inch. Lucky bastard, she thought as she followed the other woman into the hallway beyond the door. She’d never been able to sleep in random, unsecured places. She’d been trained far too effectively to be comfortable doing that.

  As always, the office complex beyond the door smelled clean—a uniquely antiseptic scent that reminded Riley of a doctor’s office. Considering she didn’t like doctors and there was, in fact, a small hospital down one of the other hallways in the Agency’s complex—a facility with which she was intimately familiar—the smell didn’t do much to alleviate the tingles of anxiety nudging at the back of Riley’s mind. She tried to not fidget as she followed the tall, skinny woman down the hall to one of the glass-walled conference rooms, through the glass double doors, and to the glass-topped conference table. The secretary motioned to one of the black leather chairs surrounding the table with a sweep of her manicured hand. “Mr. Hall will be right in. Just have a seat,” she suggested.

  As the secretary turned her back, Riley dropped into one of the chairs and set her bag on the floor beside it, pulling a leg up to rest her foot onto the edge of the seat to help alleviate the pain in her back. She rested her arm against her knee and stared at the glass wall as the secretary departed, watching the hallway beyond and waiting for who-knew-what as she tried to quell her nervousness.

  The hallway was a veritable beehive of activity, men and women walking rapidly down the halls, barely speaking to each other, save for the occasional nod that acknowledged another’s existence. Secretaries spoke on Bluetooth headsets as they skirted around hustling agents, running errands for their assigned bosses. And standing at the far end of the hallway almost at the edge of Riley’s sight was the ringmaster of this ongoing circus. Damon Hartley, current Director of the Agency, stood an astonishing six and a half feet tall. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, and sporting a healthy tan, he had a commanding presence and could be considered imposing on a good day. Riley had certainly found him to be so on the one occasion she’d had the displeasure of being called to his office—at the tender age of seventeen, to answer for certain lies she’d been stupid enough to tell at the time. After staring at her with his almost black eyes for long moments, looking her up and down as if assessing her, he’d said, “I don’t see the problem here.” She hadn’t known it then, but that was his standard dismissal, his usual way of refusing to punish a transgressor. Those words had likely saved her life. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to count herself so lucky the next time she was summoned to his office.

  As Riley stared at him, Hartley suddenly turned and seemed to look right at her. She swallowed and averted her gaze, resisting the urge to duck under the table. Not that that would do her any good, as it was glass. Thankfully, at that moment Brandon Hall entered, two other men right behind him, and Riley couldn’t suppress the relief that flooded her as her attention was diverted from Hartley and to Brandon instead. She gave the tall, blond man a smile as she unfolded her legs to rise from her chair, but he put up a hand to stop her.

  “No need to get up, Riley,” he assured her. “You look comfortable enough already.”

  “Excellent,” Riley replied, giving him her best cheeky grin. Brandon didn’t reply, much to her surprise. He gave her a once-over and then settled into the office chair across from her. The two unknown men who had entered with him found their own seats, one near the end of the table and the other in the far corner where it was darkest. Riley raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment on it. She didn’t know either of the men, and it would have been her luck to say something smart-assed to one of them only to find out they were both from higher on the food chain than she was—and in a position to do something about her mouth.

  The man at the end of the table had barely been seated before he rose again and moved toward her. He was a tall, thin man that Riley placed in his late twenties. His hair was long, brushing his shoulders, and dyed a shiny, intense black. His eyes were equally intense, a bluish-green tint framed by thick, feminine lashes. His cheekbones were high and sharp, and his skin was unblemished, save for a thin, faint scar decorating his jaw. Despite his thinness, he looked fit and strong, and he had a pistol strapped to his thigh and a bladed weapon sheathed at his hip. He looked like no agent Riley had seen before, and she was overcome with curiosity as she examined him. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met,” the man said as Riley accepted his offer of a handshake. “I’m Zachariah Lawrence.”

  “Awful big mouthful of a name,” Riley commented, releasing the man’s hand. “Got something else I can call you, or is it just Zachariah?”

  “Just Zachariah,” he said. He glanced toward the man in the corner, as if expecting him to make his own introductions, and Riley followed his gaze. She couldn’t make out anything about the man from her position, and he didn’t seem eager to move into the light. When he didn’t offer an introduction, Zachariah shifted his eyes back to Brandon, returning to his seat. Riley mirrored his actions.

  “So what’s going on, Brandon?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you in just a few minutes,” Brandon promised. He set a file folder onto the table, and Riley smoothed both hands over the thighs of her jeans as her fingertips tingled with the desire to grab the folder and start digging through it. It was a red folder, and that meant only one thing: a new assignment. Considering how thick the folder was, it was going to be a good one too.

  “So what’s the hold-up then?” Riley asked. She held both hand
s out in a gesture that was halfway between a shrug and a flail. “I’m right here, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “We’re waiting on one more person to join us,” Brandon said. He glanced past Riley to the glass wall behind her, and Riley could see his eyes light up. “And here he is now.”

  Riley knew better than to turn in her seat. Gawking at the newcomer like a tourist wouldn’t do much for the confident demeanor she’d spent ages cultivating to combat the youthfulness of her looks—a youthfulness that while handy in certain circumstances worked against her in others. So rather than twirl around in her seat to check out the new guy, Riley waited for him to enter the conference room and settle into the chair beside hers before she turned her head to him. She wasn’t surprised to discover it was the man from the waiting room. He appraised her with warm, chocolate brown eyes and gave her a nod before focusing on the man across the table from them.

  “Okay, so he’s here,” Riley said without addressing the newcomer. “Now do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Brandon didn’t acknowledge her question. He opened the folder and smoothed both hands over the contents, and when he spoke, his words were directed to the papers in front of him. “The Agency has run into a little bit of a situation,” he began, “and we could really use your help with it.”

  Riley leaned forward in her chair, resting an elbow against the edge of the table. If Brandon and his men couldn’t solve a problem affecting the Agency—if Damon Hartley couldn’t—then it must have been a serious problem indeed. “What sort of situation?” she prompted when he didn’t continue right away.

  Brandon steepled his fingers and pressed them against his lips in a familiar gesture as he considered his next words. “We believe there’s someone out there who is targeting agents,” he began. “Setting them up and then taking them out. Effortlessly.” He reached into the papers before him and began to pull out photographs, dropping them one by one onto the glass table in front of Riley and the unnamed man beside her. The photographs made snapping noises as his fingertips left the edges. “All told, twenty-seven of some of our best agents have been targeted. None of them survived the encounters.”