Untraceable. Janie Crouch
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he’d be unable to avoid seeing the subject of his troubled dreams—his ex-partner, Juliet Branson. Although avoid wasn’t really accurate. Evan never tried to avoid seeing Juliet; the opposite, in fact. He’d been trying to talk to her for eighteen months, with no real success. Today, Juliet would be unable to avoid seeing him.
Evan drove to Omega Headquarters, thankful that the early hour at least helped shorten the notoriously ugly commute. He pulled into the secure parking garage of the nondescript building that housed Omega Sector—a covert interagency task force made up of the best personnel the country had to offer. Evan had worked here for eight years, ever since his recruitment out of the FBI when he was twenty-seven.
The heaviness from this morning’s dream lingered as he walked through the doors of Omega’s main building. Strange how these halls had once thrilled him, how he had loved everything about his job as an undercover agent. But since Juliet’s...incident he couldn’t seem to find the same passion he’d once had for the work.
Passionate or not, he was going back under. And he wasn’t looking forward to the team meeting that would take place later today, when Juliet would learn the details of the assignment. Evan rubbed a hand over his face. He knew Bob Sinclair, his undercover persona, was a name Juliet would never want to hear again. Nobody blamed her for that.
Omega Headquarters stood largely empty at this hour except for the security personnel. Evan passed through the extensive checks to confirm his identity, then jogged down the stairs into the large gym area. State-of-the-art workout equipment stood side by side with old-school metal weights, a fitting metaphor for Omega: the best blend of new and old techniques, working in unison. There were also rooms for sparring, for yoga, and a full-size track for running. Evan left his gym bag in the locker room and walked into the main workout area.
Sparring definitely topped the agenda for this morning. Evan decided he might as well take his aggression out on the almost-human plastic dummies and leather punching bags, since the individuals he really wanted to take his aggression out on were well beyond his reach.
He grabbed a pair of gloves meant to save his knuckles from the worst of the damage, and was reaching for the doorknob of the sparring room when he heard noises from someone already in there. Who the hell would be up and going at this hour?
Evan let the door shut and walked around the corner so he could see through the small window of the room. Juliet Branson...
Evidently he hadn’t been the only one with nightmares this morning.
Evan couldn’t help but watch, enthralled, as she danced among the targets with grace and precision. The black tank and tight workout pants she wore gave her the freedom to move as she wanted, stopping sometimes midair and pivoting in a different direction. Her five-foot-four-inch frame was average in height—at six-one Evan was a full head taller than her—but the way she fought belied her smaller stature, the litheness of her muscles evident. Her long blond hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail, so as not to impede her actions.
The power behind her kicks and punches was impressive. Had these dummies been live people, each would’ve fallen to the ground, gasping for air. She showed them, and herself, no mercy. Rapid-fire strikes. Over and over, at a punishing speed and rhythm. Sweat dripped and flew with each of her assaults. You’d never be able to tell she’d been out of the field for the past eighteen months.
Evan watched from the shadows of the hallway, where she wouldn’t be able to see him. As a trained operative, he recognized and appreciated Juliet’s talent in close-quarter fighting like this, although admittedly, fighting dummy targets was completely different than fighting a real opponent.
She attacked the dummies as if she were warding off a demon army from hell. Evan’s arms hung at his sides and his shoulders slumped. Fighting demons was probably an apt description for her actions.
He wished he could fight them for her. Or at least with her, but Juliet had no interest in being anywhere near him. Not that he could blame her. A partner was supposed to have your back, to protect you, even in dire circumstances. Evan had failed her in the worst possible way. And Juliet had paid a horrible price for his failure.
He turned and walked the other way, leaving her to her battle. Entering the room would just cause her to tense up and rapidly vacate, anyway. But not before fear and distrust suffused her features when the door first opened. It wasn’t just him she distrusted, Evan knew, but he hated the look, anyway.
Plus, he’d be seeing it soon enough, later today in the conference room, when he mentioned Bob Sinclair.
Evan headed up the stairs to the indoor track. It seemed as if he would be trying to outrun his own demons today rather than fighting them. But no matter how fast he ran, he knew they’d still be there when he finished.
* * *
JULIET SWUNG HER LEG around in a powerful round-house kick, hitting the target one last time. She took satisfaction in how hard the dummy fell to the ground before its weighted bottom slowly brought it back to a vertical position.
Yeah, she could take down a target dummy like a champ. Too bad that didn’t really do anybody much good. In a fight with a real person these days, she was damn near useless.
Of course, Juliet wasn’t an active agent anymore, so it wasn’t as if she was going to use her hand-to-hand fighting skills anytime soon. But it would be nice to know she’d have them if she needed them, rather than freezing up or cowering in a corner if a real person came at her.
Juliet backhanded the dummy again for good measure.
She grabbed a towel and mopped up her sweat from the past hour of pounding everything in sight. It was now just before 5:00 a.m., and there’d be other people around soon, if not already. Dedicated Omega workers—agents and otherwise—would come in to get a good workout before going upstairs to their jobs.
Juliet would like to think that was what she was doing, too. That she was here at Omega HQ sometimes eighteen or twenty hours a day because of her dedication to an important job and stellar organization. That she worked long hours because she wanted to do her part in keeping her country safe from criminals and terrorists.
Not because of the fear that seemed to pour over her like some sort of suffocating ooze every time she left this place.
It was so much easier to stay here at Omega than to go home alone to her house. Juliet felt safe here, even when she was by herself. There was no chance someone was going to throw a sack over her head and drag her out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night. Of course, there was very little chance that would happen at her home, but Juliet couldn’t quite seem to convince her mind of that as she lay awake at night, terrified, remembering. So she stayed here at Omega as much as possible.
It had been eighteen months since her attack. Things should be getting better, not worse. But that wasn’t the case.
She glanced down at her phone, which had begun vibrating in her hand as she walked toward the locker room. Her stomach rolled when she saw the screen.
A new email. Not for Juliet Branson, but for Lisa Sinclair, an undercover role Juliet had played in her last mission as an active operative. The one where she’d lost nearly everything.
Sweetheart, I’ve been thinking about you all night. Soon we’ll be together, just the two of us. Sooner than you think.
As usual, no signature or notification of who’d sent it. Juliet leaned against the wall for support and brought her hand up to her suddenly aching head. This email was benign compared to the graphic nature of some of the others. She closed her eyes briefly, pushing those thoughts away. She couldn’t let this overwhelm her, not today.
But she knew she’d be thinking about the message all day. And the fact that the emails were starting to come more frequently and become more personal.
Juliet had given the emails to Omega tech support, of course, but they hadn’t been able to provide any insight about where or from whom they were coming. Never the same IP address—it seemed to bounce around all over the world.
And