by Lisa Harris
He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet, then didn’t let go as he moved to the window. “Go. You first.”
Hollis looked at the door to the office. She needed to get the flash drive in the computer. It was what she had to do to save Frankie. Who knew when she’d get another chance? Or how long it would take her to get him back before she could finally do what she’d planned and leave town for good.
“Come on.”
“I need to—”
He grasped her arm and gently tugged. “Whatever it is, leave it.”
She stepped on the closed toilet lid, hauled herself back up, and climbed out. With a little help from Phil.
She jumped down onto the gravel. She still had the flash drive at least.
“Good thinking with your jacket.” He landed beside her.
“I hope it’s not ripped. I love this jacket.” She pulled it from the window frame and looked at it. Like the condition of her leather jacket was the point here. She held it to her front. “Are you okay?”
“Thanks to you.” He leaned close and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you. You might’ve saved my life.”
“Oh. Well.” She pressed her hand against the jacket, feeling for the flash drive. Where had she put it? Which pocket was she feeling, the left or the right? She needed to—
“Hollis! Will!”
She frowned as Sergeant Basuto ran toward them. Conroy came after him. The sergeant wore his uniform, and the chief, his customary suit. Both their expressions portrayed serious concern. She felt the same. Not only was the diner likely destroyed, but she still needed to do what she had to in order to get Frankie back.
Conroy said, “You okay, Briar?” But he was looking at Phil.
Before she could correct him on Phil’s name, he looked at her. “Are you okay, Hollis?”
“Yes, you—”
Phil cut her off. “Two guys tied me up and set fire to the place.”
Conroy frowned. “Can you ID them?”
“Yeah.”
Sergeant Basuto slapped Phil on the back. “Never a dull moment for the FBI, am I right?”
Hollis frowned. What was he talking… She took a breath, and had to cough it out. “I need to—”
Phil cut her off again. “EMTs?”
Conroy nodded. “You should both get checked out.”
The men glanced at each other. Hollis saw there was something they weren’t telling her. “What is it?”
Maybe they knew something about Frankie that Conroy hadn’t wanted to say earlier.
She turned to Phil. “I’m so sorry someone tied you up and hurt you.” This weirdness had to be about everything that was going on.
He winced. “I’m good. Let’s go get checked out, okay? We both inhaled a lot.” He reached for her.
Hollis took a step back. “Not until you tell me what’s going on. Is it Frankie?”
Conroy frowned. “What makes you think this is about your stepdad?”
“I…” She didn’t know what to say. “There are things I need to do. In my office.” Hollis waved at the building. “I need to know when I can get in there. As soon as I can get in there.”
He nodded. “I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
Conroy dipped his head to the side. “Let’s go, Basuto.” Then he said, “You guys, right behind us.”
Phil said, “Copy that.”
Words she’d never heard him say before. She twisted to face him straight on then and saw he wore jeans and a sweater with buttons at the collar and long sleeves that showed the muscle definition in his biceps. She’d never seen him in anything like it before. He always wore slacks and button-down shirts with a pen in the breast pocket. Now he looked…rougher. And not just because he’d been soaked with gasoline and pushed around. Though that definitely contributed.
“Phil,” she began.
He winced.
“What?”
“We need to go see the EMTs.”
At the end of the building, two firefighters rounded the corner. “Heard you were here,” one called out. “You okay, Briar?”
“Yeah. We’re good.”
She frowned at Phil’s words and glanced between him and the first responder. “What is—”
“My name isn’t Phil Tilley. That’s just an alias I’ve been using so I don’t have to be a biker all the time. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a biker. I just wanted to be someone…nice for a while. Not Hammer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My name is Will Briar.” He paused for a second. “I’m an FBI Special Agent here undercover.”
And he’d…
This man had…
Whatever had overcome Hollis during the visit with her mom—whatever had caused her to swipe her mom’s glass from her hand and shatter it—showed up again.
She lifted her hand, open palm, and slapped him across the cheek.
Chapter Six
“Hollis!”
She didn’t stop. Just kept going, moving with long strides down the side of the diner toward the front.
Will pushed out a long breath. His head pounded, and his throat felt like he’d swallowed a packet of razor blades. Every exhale brought with it a coughing jag.
“You okay?”
Will waved off the firefighter and bent forward. He laid his hands on his knees and coughed until he’d gotten the phlegm out, then spat. As he straightened, something snagged his attention over by where Hollis’s purse lay on the ground.
A flash drive.
He pocketed it and then went after her, ignoring what that said about him—considering she was the chief suspect in his criminal conspiracy case. The one in which everyone else was either dead or missing, and he had little to no evidence. But he still wasn’t going to give up. Will didn’t do that.
Especially when he’d come up against a woman as good as she was at pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.
He’d half expected Conroy to apologize to her. Will was the one who’d been tied up and beaten, then nearly burned alive. Hollis had rescued him. Which pretty much just proved his point. Regardless of how Conroy forced the people who worked for him to prove themselves, as evidenced by the way he demanded they get him everything he needed wrapped up in a neat bow, Will wasn’t going to submit to that.
Ask his FBI handler. Will rarely submitted to anything.
Then there was Hollis. So much concern on her face, even when she’d probably known exactly why he’d been there.
“Hey.” The EMT stepped in front of him.
Will pulled up short. “I’m…” He tried to finish with, “fine” but had to cough half a dozen times.
“You’re fine?”
Will pressed his lips together and made a face.
The EMT chuckled. A woman, and she had a nice laugh. Beyond her, Hollis sat at the edge of the ambulance. The other EMT was looking at her elbow.
All while she glared daggers at him.
“Let’s take a look at you.”
“That’s all I need.” Certainly not a hospital visit. Not when he had Hollis right there in his grasp, and it would be so easy to get a confession out of her.
“You’re not the one who gets to decide that. I get it that all you alpha types are the same, but if there’s reason to take you in, I will.”
She walked him all the way to the ambulance and Hollis shifted to the side. Will climbed in, followed by the female EMT. He sat on the stretcher, and the EMT knelt beside him, using her gloved fingers to feel around his face. He took her hand and put it on the spot where he’d been hit, on the back of his head. She met his gaze, something in her expression, like interest.
Will felt nothing in return.
Phil had been slightly besotted by Hollis, so that wasn’t surprising. Will looked at Hollis now as she sat on the edge of the open doors, and she turned to look at him. She’d clearly seen him touch the EMT, and the look they shared.
Or there was another
reason she now looked disgusted by him.
He called over to her, “We both know there wasn’t any more between you and I than simple attraction. It isn’t like it was a serious thing between us.”
They’d dated for only a few weeks, didn’t talk much, and never deeply. They hadn’t shared those important things that couples should.
Though, given his relationship history—and any he’d seen in real life outside Last Chance—Will didn’t exactly know how it was supposed to go. But he knew that Phil and Hollis hadn’t had anything more than a lukewarm attraction.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to justify the fact that you lied to me.” She turned away from him.
“I’m the one that lied?”
The woman was hiding her involvement in a criminal empire, and she wanted to give him a hard time about being one of the good guys? So, he hadn’t been able to tell her his true identity. So what? That was part of the job. He wasn’t supposed to get romantically involved. But could you call a few dates and a couple of chaste kisses involvement? He didn’t.
Whatever you need to tell yourself. Her words rang between his ears. Warning bells he didn’t like hearing much.
“I have no idea what you’re insinuating,” she said, “but considering I told you from the beginning that my name is Hollis—my real name—I think I’m entitled to be offended. Mr. FBI Special Agent.” He could tell there was more she wanted to say. She shook her head. “Guess now I know why it felt like you were holding back.”
He snorted. If there had been any of that happening, it was from the woman hiding a criminal enterprise. After all, she’d pretended she was interested in him. Why do that if it wasn’t in order to continue the ruse? Get nice Phil Tilley, poor unsuspecting traveling insurance salesman, into a relationship so that no one would think she was up to any illegal activity.
The entire diner had the stink of money laundering all over it. No way could she sustain a business on breakfast and lunch alone and manage to pay all her employees the good salary she gave them. And, on top of that, he heard she’d given a young, single mom in town two grand a couple of months ago. Just as a gift, to help her through a rough patch.
He just needed to prove his suspicion.
There was no point dwelling on how soundly he’d been played. Love didn’t come without earning it. He should’ve known it was all a ruse when she’d accepted his invitation for that first date straight out, never once making him work for it. But he’d been too stupid to figure it out.
She’d probably even sent those men to her diner just to throw him off her trail.
Will said, “You need to come to the police station and answer some questions about who might’ve gone through your office, and what they were looking for.”
She sputtered. Before she could say anything, Conroy appeared beside the EMT who was looking at the palm of her hand. The police chief said, “He’s right. We need a statement.”
“I thought it just caught fire.”
Will said, “They poured gasoline on me.”
She gasped, shooting him a look of concern. It was too late for that. He knew what she was up to. Trying to act all sympathetic wasn’t going to work. Fool me once. He was the pro at this, not her. Will had been working undercover for years. There were few better than him. He’d more than proven his worth to the FBI. But still, in a lot of ways, it felt like there was so much more of a mark for him to carve out. Continue making a name for himself.
“Will needs to ID the men that did this,” Conroy said, “and I’d like you to look at the pictures.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded small. “I’ll drive over there.”
Conroy nodded. Will started to object, since letting her out of his sight didn’t sit well with him. The chief shot him a look and shook his head.
Will swallowed. He was working with the Last Chance Police Department at their invitation. If he screwed up the relationship by pushing too hard, he would lose the standing he had.
Hollis pulled on her jacket and walked off. Conroy watched her.
The EMT handed over an ice pack. “Nice...your friend.”
Will didn’t care what she thought. “You obviously know nothing about her.” He climbed out of the ambulance and touched the ice pack to the back of his head.
He felt Conroy’s eyes on him.
“What?”
Conroy shook his head. “Nothing. I’m driving.”
That was fine with Will. He could get a ride and pick up his car later. He felt in his pockets for his phone and realized he had left it back in his car. His fingers closed around his keys and the flash drive he should’ve already given back to Hollis.
Though, technically, he didn’t know that he actually needed to give it back to Hollis at all. It had been on the ground. Maybe she dropped it out of her purse, or when she bent to pick up her stuff. Or maybe someone else had dropped it. He didn’t know for sure that it was hers. Might belong to anyone, for all he knew.
Will shut his eyes all the way to the police station, just so he’d have a few minutes to collect his thoughts and Conroy wouldn’t feel the need to talk to him.
When they pulled into the chief’s parking spot, he half expected Hollis’s car to not be there. But it was.
Will strode into the entrance lobby. Hollis broke off her conversation with Kaylee who worked the front desk. Usually she was cordial. Today she looked like she wanted to spit fire at him.
Hollis didn’t look much happier than that. “Will, is it? Will Briar.”
“That’s my name.”
“The one your mother gave you.”
Will shrugged. “Let’s get inside, where we can get some water.”
“Coffee would be good.”
Conroy came up behind them. “Coffee does sound good. Kaylee?”
She hopped off the stool. “On it.”
Will led the way to the empty desk he’d used a couple of times. He needed to talk to Eric, tell him he’d been made—which the FBI agent probably already knew. He also needed to tell his FBI handler that his gun had been stolen. It wasn’t his duty weapon, but they didn’t want a gun given to an undercover agent to show up who knows where. Used in the commission of a crime.
Not good PR for the bureau. And something he tried to avoid.
“You’re really sticking with this?”
Will looked up at Conroy, standing beside the desk.
“She saved your life.”
“I can be grateful, but I don’t owe her.”
Conroy shook his head and wandered to his office. Probably planning to call Eric and tell him all about how Will continued to be a monumental screw up. People did that a lot, mostly in small towns like this. Usually because they lacked the patience to see what he came up with.
Will had to move fast.
Before he pulled up the local mug shot database and looked for those two men, he plugged the flash drive in.
Hollis set a mug beside him.
He glanced up at her, much like he’d done with Conroy. She pulled over a chair. When she sat, she put both hands in her lap. Her chin was set. Determined not to let on how she was really feeling.
Because he’d figured her out, and she knew it.
“Thank you.”
She sipped her own drink and said nothing.
He told the computer he wanted to look at the files on the flash drive. “Any idea why someone would be rooting through your file cabinets and desk drawers?”
She shook her head. “I probably had half a pack of gum in there.”
“I doubt they were looking to freshen their breath, Hollis.”
“I know that, Will. I’m not stupid. They burned down the diner.”
He wanted to reach out and touch her hand, but didn’t. “I’m sorry.”
The flash drive loaded. Will clicked through the folders and found a bunch of PDF documents. He pulled up the first one, an invoice for new napkins for the diner. The total price was twenty-four thousand dollars and was dated last mont
h.
“How often do you purchase napkins for the diner?”
“That’s a weird question, but I’ll bite.” She said, “Every two months or so.”
“At twenty-four thousand dollars?”
She lowered her mug before she even took a sip. “How much?”
“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
Hollis started to speak.
“No. Don’t bother. Even I know napkins don’t cost that much. What you likely don’t know that I know, is how businesses can hide money laundering in purchases so everything looks above board. Bonus, you can write off the expense. It’s a win-win. Right?”
He clicked the next file and felt his eyebrows rise. She had a vendor receipt that proved she’d been in the city when an illegal deal went down, which also meant he could place her in the vicinity. If that didn’t scream, “proof” she was West, then he didn’t know what would. “Conroy!”
The chief hung up his phone and came out of his office. “Is there a reason you’re screaming across this office, Special Agent Briar?”
“I just thought you’d want to know.” Will stood and pulled out a set of cuffs. “I’m arresting Hollis for criminal conspiracy.”
Chapter Seven
Hollis gasped. she stood up so fast the chair rolled backward, and she heard it hit the desk behind. “What are—”
He was around the desks and in front of her before she could finish, lifting one of her hands and slapping a cold metal cuff on it with a clink.
“Phil—”
He snapped the other on. “It’s Will.”
“You know what I mean.” She shook her head. “What are you doing?”
Her hands were cuffed in front of her now. Arrested. This was crazy. What on earth? One second she was preparing to give a statement, and then all of a sudden, the very next second, she had cuffs on.
“I was almost fooled.” As he spoke, the cops in the room stood listening. “But this proves the truth.” Will pointed at the monitor where he’d been sitting. “A flash drive with your financial records.”
“Mine?”
