The Midnight Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

somewhere and it would be just a matter of time before the agency or the boys over at DEA tracked him down. And when that happened he was determined to make sure Cross never lived to spend even one stinking day in jail. He would not be satisfied until he avenged Sandy's death.
    Drake's hand tightened around the cup he held, trying to rid his body of the anger that seeped through his veins whenever he thought of Sandy and how she had perished in that explosion. For a long time he had blamed himself for allowing her to go on the mission and not keeping a closer eye on her. No amount of therapy and counseling the marines had mandated that he undergo had been able to erase the sounds of her screams in that burning building just moments before he'd been knocked out cold by a flying piece of wood when the place had exploded. They were screams that he could not erase from his mind no matter how he'd tried.
    Afterwards, he hadn't wanted to see a therapist as Hawk had suggested. He hadn't wanted to talk to anyone about the tragic event and had faced his hell alone. There had been the nightmares that would leave his body drenched in sweat, and the hours he would spend awake, reliving every detail of that day and refusing to let anything or anyone break open the wall of grief that surrounded him. Instead of facing his emotions, he threw himself into his work, using that as a way to purge the unforgiving emotions that were eating him alive. He had witnessed such a horrendous amount of ugliness and brutality that it was hard to get a grip on how life could possibly be for him again.
    Closing his eyes briefly as tension seeped through him, he slowly opened them moments later after he'd gotten his mind and thoughts back on track. It was then that he noticed he stunning-looking woman was gone. He was again hooded with an unfamiliar feeling. There was something about her that had piqued his interest and already he had marked her as someone he intended to get to know.
     
    He would definitely make it his business to find out who she was.
    Tori stepped into the elevator cautious and alert. Her senses were seldom off and for a few moments while standing in the lobby she had felt someone watching her, although when she had glanced around she had seen no one.
    Because Diamond Bay was set up like an actual resort, the first five floors were exclusive-looking condos used as temporary housing for agents coming and going on assignments. The sixth through the tenth floors were where the administrative offices were located. Diamond Bay's sister resort, The Blue Topaz, was located on the West Coast right on the Pacific Ocean in San Diego. The two resorts also housed new recruits for training.
    Tori wondered about the summons she had received to cut her vacation a month short and return immediately to Diamond Bay for this urgent meeting with her new boss, CIA Station Chief Ronald Casey. Casey was Hawk's replacement and she hoped he was at least half the man Hawk had been.
    Hawk had known the agents who worked for him like the back of his hand and had always been open to their ideas and suggestions and oftentimes it seemed he had the ability to read their minds. He also understood the dangerous demands some missions could make on a person. Most of the senior agents who worked for him had once served under him while in the marines and although they knew he was tough, they'd always known he was fair.
    From Tori's last conversation with Hawk when she had talked to him on the phone from her home in Stinson Beach, California, he had told her the Agency had decided to bring in Casey, a man who had headed up an operation on the West Coast instead of going with Hawk's recommendation of the man who'd been second in command under him. That announcement hadn't set too well with Hawk but he felt that things would eventually work out.
    He told her he would be retiring to a ranch he had purchased years ago in New Mexico and had given her his phone number just in case she