Bear cursed under his breath. What had Mateo or Waller done that would’ve led to his death? This guy was a genius, the person Mateo had been relying on to build all his green technology for him. If he was dead now, there had to have been a damn good reason. Was this Hughes, or was it someone who had gotten a little trigger happy?

  Bear knelt and looked at the wounds in Waller’s chest and gut. They weren’t bullet holes. His best guess was that they’d surprised him at the front door, gutted him with a couple knives, and then dragged him to this position while he bled out. Maybe they’d interrogated him while he still had some life in him. Or maybe he’d died within a matter of minutes. Some people couldn’t handle the shock of knowing they were about to die.

  The creak of a floorboard above him alerted Bear to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Whoever had killed Waller was still in the house. They could be searching for more information. Or maybe they were just trying to figure out how to hide the body. Either way, Bear wanted to know who had carried out the deed. They’d killed his one good connection to Mateo.

  The knife wound told Bear these guys were trying to keep a low profile. They hadn’t wanted to attract the attention of the neighbors by firing off a gun, but that didn’t mean they weren’t armed with something other than the knife they had used to kill Waller. Bear kept his Glock out but decided he’d only use it as a last resort.

  Waller’s house was smaller than Bear had been expecting. It was built up rather than out. This probably wasn’t Waller’s main house. Maybe it’s where he came to get some work done. Or maybe it’s where he came to avoid the real world and throw parties that lasted for days on end. Didn’t matter now.

  Bear crept up the first set of stairs, keeping to the outside where the steps were likely less noisy. The music got louder, and he started to pick up on a couple of voices. He couldn’t make out the words, but they both seemed calm enough. They had no idea there was another person in the house.

  As Bear placed his foot on the final step, there was a small pop of the wood. The voices cut off. Bear only had a few seconds to launch himself across the hall and into the first open room he could find, hoping no one was inside. It looked like a spare bedroom, full of boxes and plastic tubs. A quick scan told him no one was hiding in there.

  A voice floated out from the hallway. “I definitely heard something, man.”

  “Think it was Waller?”

  “No, you idiot. Did you lock the door?”

  “Uh, well, I—”

  The first man groaned.

  “I had my hands full?”

  “Someone else could be in here.”

  The two men were standing at the top of the stairs now, their backs to him. He peeked around the corner and was happy to see the only weapons they had out were a pair of knives. Both looked considerably smaller than him. Whoever they were, they were built for stealth rather than strength.

  Good thing Bear had both in spades.

  He was standing right behind them by the time the first guy felt his presence. When he turned around, Bear brought a knee to his groin and sent the man to his knees. When the second guy turned around, Bear relieved him of his knife by grabbing his arm and twisting it until the man dropped it. Then Bear sent him sprawling down the stairs.

  Bear turned to the first man just in time to jump out of the way of his knife. The blade was serrated. It would’ve shredded his skin and left huge blotches of blood on the carpet. That wouldn’t do. Bear needed to get out of the house without being detected if he had any hope of staying off Hughes’ radar.

  So, instead, Bear held up his gun and pointed it directly at the man’s face. His opponent halted, his eyes going wide. He looked from Bear’s gun to the staircase, as if judging whether he was faster than a bullet.

  “I wouldn’t try it,” Bear said.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “A concerned citizen,” Bear said. “Who are you?”

  The man shook his head. He looked terrified. So much for being a hardened criminal. Did these two really kill Waller, or had they just shown up to take advantage of the situation? Bear decided to find out.

  “You do that downstairs?” he asked.

  The man nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Orders,” the man said, like that explained everything.

  And maybe it did. Bear looked more closely at the man in front of him. His stance told Bear he was a soldier at some point in his life. The hunting knife could’ve been from anywhere, but something about the man’s simple dress told him otherwise. Bear thought he caught a glance of a necklace around his opponent’s neck. Dog tags?

  But the track marks up and down his arm put the final piece of the puzzle into place. Hughes was hiring former soldiers to do his dirty work. He was choosing those he could control, if not ones that he could rely on. Did he pay them with money, or did he just hand them the drugs outright?

  Bear saw him take a step forward, and Bear matched the movement. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Several emotions passed over the man’s face. Fear. Pain. Anger. Determination. When it landed on the last one, Bear knew what to expect. One minute, the man was standing there, and the next he was charging at Bear, brandishing his knife.

  Bear didn’t shoot him. He stepped to the side and used his gun to block the attack, knocking the knife from his opponent’s hand. While the man stumbled and scrambled for his weapon, Bear wrapped one of his arms around his neck and squeezed. The man struggled for a moment before going limp.

  Bear had a decision to make. Did he kill him and his buddy? They had murdered a civilian. They’d also attacked Bear. It was well within his right to end their lives. Self-defense. Good citizenry. And one more way to get back at Hughes from a distance.

  Why was he hesitating?

  He looked back down at the man in his grasp. He saw the marks on his arms and knew what he was going through. Some people don’t adjust back to civilian life. It’s not like Bear had done a good job living a nine-to-five life.

  Bear let the man drop to the floor. He’d be awake again in less than a minute. Bear dragged him to the bedroom and ripped the sheet off the bed, tying it around the man’s hands, then around his chest, securing him to the bedframe.

  If nothing else, keeping these men alive and putting them in custody would be a bigger thorn in Hughes’ side. Bear doubted either of these guys knew where their orders had really come from, but maybe they’d talk enough to leave a paper trail. It was worth the effort.

  Bear leaned over the railing and looked for the second man. He’d landed next to Waller’s body, smacking his head against the wall and breaking one of his legs. He wasn’t going anywhere fast, so Bear elected to leave him for now.

  He had more pressing matters.

  11

  Bear wasn’t in a rush. The first man wasn’t going to get out of his bonds, the second man still hadn’t come around, and no one knew Waller was dead. Bear basically had the run of the house until he called the cops and told them something was wrong.

  He was methodical in his search. This was the first major connection to Mateo, and Bear didn’t want to miss a single piece of information. If he was lucky, he’d find something that would link both of these men back to Hughes. Bear didn’t have high hopes, but it was worth checking, regardless.

  He started from the bottom and worked his way up. The basement was where Waller seemed to hold most of his parties. It was full of liquor and craft beer, drugs, and trophies of all his accomplishments.

  The first floor was basic. There was little food in the fridge. The cupboards were basically empty. The washer and dryer weren’t even hooked up. It confirmed Bear’s theory that Waller didn’t live here. The boxes upstairs told him that Waller had either recently moved some stuff in—perhaps after beginning his work for Hughes—or he’d never unpacked after he bought the house.

  The second floor was initially much more promising. It held three bedrooms, a couple bathrooms, and a few spare rooms. Bear started to look through the boxes in the room he’d hidden in but gave up after ten minutes or so. It was all junk. Literally. There were various parts and pieces that Bear couldn’t identify but which were probably like an infinite playground for someone like Waller.

  Bear checked the room where he’d tied up the first guy. He was awake now and struggling against his bonds.

  “Don’t bother,” Bear said. “You’re not getting out of this one. It’s for your own good.”

  “Please,” the man begged. “They’re going to kill me.”

  “The cops will pick you up before that. You’ll be safe with them.”

  The man laughed, but there was a hint of hysteria to it. “You really have no idea what’s going on here, do you?”

  “Probably not.” Bear wasn’t even looking at him at this point. He was methodically going through the drawers in Waller’s dresser. “Want to fill me in?”

  “Please,” the man said again. “Please, just let me go.”

  But Bear had already made up his mind. “Can’t do that.”

  He left the room, leaving the man’s begging and screaming behind him, and walked up the last flight of stairs to the top floor.

  Jackpot.

  This was clearly where Waller had done all of his work. The walls had been knocked out to make one large, open space. It had been filled with lab tables and equipment. Office chairs peppered the area. Even at a glance, Bear could tell there were different sections for different projects. In one area, it looked like Waller had been building a robot. In another, he was fiddling with a solar panel.

  The lab was haphazard at best, but if Waller was like any other scientist Bear had ever met, it meant everything was in its place. Organized chaos. That was good news for Bear. It meant he’d find what he was looking for if he nailed down the right spot.

  But what was he looking for?

  Bear entered the area and started opening drawers and sifting through papers. He didn’t know exactly, but he’d know it when he found it. He wanted to get an idea of what Waller was working on for Hughes. If he could tie Waller to Mateo and then Mateo to Hughes, they’d have enough of a paper trail to work with.

  Bear moved from one table to the next until he was at the far end of the room. Something felt different here. The table was further away from all the others, and there was more safety equipment out. Goggles. Gloves. A fire extinguisher. There was even a burn mark on the wall. Waller had been working on something dangerous.

  All the desk drawers were locked, but like the good scatterbrained scientist he was, Waller had left the keys dangling from one of the keyholes. Bear twisted the key in the lock and pulled the drawer open slowly. He half expected to hear ticking.

  Instead, he found a stack of papers full of diagrams and scribbled notes. Bear pulled them out and set them on the desk. A lot of it went over his head, but a few keywords jumped out at him.

  Easy assembly. Metal-free. Blast radius. Remote trigger mechanism.

  Bear took a minute to take it all in. From what he could gather, Waller had been working on a bomb that could pass through metal detectors. It would come in separate parts so as not to raise suspicion. Then, the bomber would just put the pieces together like a puzzle, place it and remotely trigger the device.

  Technology like this had existed before Waller, but Bear had never seen anything so small and powerful. He had figured out how to create an incredible amount of devastation with something that could fit in your pocket and was nearly undetectable.

  Bear no longer felt bad that Waller had died. Maybe he wasn’t as innocent as he had initially thought. Was Waller being pressured to create this device, or had he come up with the design himself? Was he a willing volunteer?

  There was no way of finding out now, but it wasn’t the most pressing question in Bear’s mind. He had seen a couple of notes where Waller had planned on asking Mateo for his opinion, particularly with regard to the price of production. How many would they need, and was there a way to cut costs so they could make more?

  Bear was disgusted.

  Creating this kind of technology was bad enough, but hiding it behind green technology and the premise of helping the environment was low. Bear wouldn’t have been surprised if they had manipulated grants from the government to fund this research.

  But this was the kind of connection Bear had been looking for. He knew Waller was working on a new kind of explosive device. He also knew Mateo was or would eventually become aware of it. Now, Bear just had to get in touch with Mateo and convince him to give up Hughes.

  For the first time since he’d talked to Jack, Bear felt like they had a chance to get ahead of this.

  Bear finished clearing the room, but the other tables only held bits and pieces of projects. It was obvious Waller had abandoned his other pursuits in order to make the bomb his priority, but whether that was voluntary was still a mystery.

  As Bear headed toward the staircase, he took one last look at the room behind him. There was a lot more to search through here, and it was likely that he’d never have access to it after he called the authorities, but he was happy with what he had found so far. Besides, he didn’t know if Waller was expecting company. He probably had associates. If someone were to come around to check up on him, Bear didn’t want to be here.

  A glint of something caught his eye under one of the desks. When he walked closer, he noticed that it was a cellphone, probably knocked to the floor and unknowingly kicked into the shadows when Waller was running around making explosive devices.

  Bear grabbed the phone and flipped it open. It was a burner like his, only Waller didn’t seem to get the concept. It was full of names and numbers. The recent call list hadn’t been deleted. The numbers went back as far as a month ago.

  Waller could’ve afforded a better phone, so why did he have this one? Did someone give it to him, or had he purchased it to avoid watchful eyes?

  Any interest in answering that question flew out the window when Bear noticed the most recent number that had called Waller. Out of everyone he expected, the name Cara Bishop was the last one he would’ve guessed.

  Cara hadn’t included Waller’s name in any of her notes. He assumed she had no reason to believe Waller had been involved, but in hindsight, any good journalist would’ve made note of a dead end. She was obviously keeping information from Bear.

  But why?

  That was a question for a different day. For now, Bear had more pressing matters. There was one number that occurred more than any of the others, and it belonged to none other than Thomas Mateo. Bear finally had a direct line to their number one lead.

  Bear hit the number and waited. It only rang once before Mateo picked up.

  “Mitch?” Mateo sounded halfway between worried and annoyed. “Where have you been? I’ve left you, like, a dozen messages.”

  Bear stayed silent.

  “Mitch? Are you there? We need to talk. I’m afraid something bad is about to happen.”

  That was Bear’s cue. “Something bad has already happened, Mateo.”

  “What? Who’s this? Where’s Mitch. If you’ve hurt him—”

  “Sorry to say Mitch now belongs to the dearly departed. The people who did it will be held accountable. For now, that should be the least of your worries.”

  Mateo’s voice was much smaller now. “W-who are you?”

  “You’ve done something really fucking stupid,” Bear said. “And I’m the asshole who can get you out of it.”

  12

  Setting the meeting up with Mateo was easier than Bear had expected. Just from their brief conversation over the phone, Bear could tell the other man was in way over his head. His childhood friend was dead, and it’d be next to impossible to deliver on his promises without him.

  He was in deep shit.

  Bear told him he could help. Said he had the blueprints for the device. He’d exchange them for information on who he was working for. Mateo agreed, but only if he picked the location and they arrived alone. A simple exchange, Mateo had said, with no theatrics. No backup. No bullshit.

  Bear agreed.

  He wasn’t too concerned about Mateo. From the research Bear had conducted, Mateo seemed harmless. He liked earning money and he liked spending it. Most of the controversy he’d been wrapped up in was tied to Waller and his friend’s party antics. Usually Mateo was criticized for thinking too big. His visions weren’t exactly realistic.

  Bear still wondered why Mateo would’ve agreed to work with someone like Hughes. Was it really just about the money? Mateo had plenty of it, as far as Bear could tell, which meant there had to be something more. He’d make it a point of asking the man when they met.

  But while Bear wasn’t too concerned about Mateo, he was concerned about what Mateo’s money could buy. Would he have hired thugs with him? Was Bear walking into a trap? Would Mateo tip off Hughes in order to gain favor following Waller’s death?

  Bear doubted it. The man sounded shaken up. He wasn’t a hardened criminal. He had cared about Waller, and now his best friend was dead. Whatever was going on here, it sounded like Mateo was having a harder and harder time believing it was all worth it. That would be Bear’s opening.

  They had agreed to meet in Chicago the following day. Waller had a warehouse outside the city. It was discreet, and only a handful of people knew the location. Mateo was one of them, and after a couple quick directions, Bear was added to that list.

  After he hung up with Mateo, Bear called the cops and left the two henchmen to their own devices. The one in the bedroom would live—for now—but the one Bear had kicked down the stairs had suffered head trauma. He might not make it.

  Bear had a hard time caring.

  He left the house, checking to make sure he didn’t have any blood on his clothes, and caught up to his cabdriver, who had made it a considerable way through his book by the time Bear returned.

  “All good?” the man asked.

  “Yeah,” Bear said. “Just had to pick something up from a friend of mine.”

  “Good deal,” the man said, driving away from the curb.