“Of course, I do,” Nik bit off. Did he need to spell it out for him? Realizing he’d been clenching his hands in fists, he shook them out.
“You okay?” Leo asked.
“No.” Of course, he wasn’t okay. He was in love. He grunted at Leo’s snicker. “I hate this.”
“The waiting?”
“The feeling. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t care about the people I’ve rescued, but it’s more abstract, distant. Getting the job done is the goal and protecting the people is merely a part of it. But protecting Thea is all I can think about. At first I tried viewing this whole thing with her as a job, you know—keep her in a box—but she keeps hopping out. Did I tell you she took my knife?”
“Seriously? Coop better watch out now that kitty’s got a claw.”
“It was on my dresser. She left me an IOU,” he huffed. “I’m glad she has it since her Glock is still locked in the gun room, but fuck, I don’t like her thinking she needed it. She better not fucking need it.” Nik rubbed at his chest, annoyed with the tension. He clenched his hands. He’d put a fist through his wall if they weren’t all made of log. Pressing his knuckles into his eyes, he let out a groan. “Damn it. I should’ve gone with her.”
“She’s safe with Coop. You’ll be back with her soon.”
“I don’t want her with Coop. I want her with me.” He closed his eyes, picturing her sweet body tangled around his. But it wasn’t just her body he wanted again. It was everything about the woman. All the smiles. All the soft. All the sweet. All the sass. All the sexy. He wanted… All. Of. Her.
And that was a first.
“I’ve never felt so fucking out of control. Is this what being in love is like?”
“Hate to break it to you, but if it is love, you’re going to need to get used to not being in control.”
“Get used to this? Ha!” Nik would rather be stuck in a Panama jungle with swamp rot and those giant .50 cal-sized ants gnawing on his balls. “Why am I even asking you? You’ve never had a serious relationship, either.”
“I haven’t?”
“You’ve been in love?”
“Yes.”
Nik’s brows jumped. In all the years he’d known Leo, he’d never had a girlfriend. Girls, yes. Models and actresses were always hanging off him. But now that Nik thought about it, Leo usually pushed them his or Coop’s way. Was it because there’d been someone else?
“How did I not know this?”
Leo grinned. “I don’t tell you guys everything.”
“Well, tell me now. Maybe it’ll help me keep my mind off this.”
“Another time.” Leo glanced down at his phone. “They’re almost at the gas station. Time to head to the park.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Coop reached over, yanked out some pages from the middle of the file and dropped them on top. I stared down at my lap and the photograph of an attractive man with pale blue eyes. The stranger Coop would be handing me over to. My fiancé.
My heart plummeted into my gut. I swallowed, in a futile effort to ease the gripping tightness in my throat. My fingers trembled so hard on the file, I could barely read the information. The only thing standing out for me was I was engaged to someone I didn’t know. Someone who I not only didn’t love, but wasn’t the man who I did.
My mouth went dry and my heart twisted at the thought. The implication. I fished through the papers in my lap again, my stomach knotting and cramping. My mind whirling too fast to even comprehend the information. “Does Nik know about all of this?”
“Not everything in the file, but he’s the one who told me you were engaged. He’s known for a while.”
I closed my eyes tight. The replay of Nik rebuffing my kiss spun through my mind like the twister, shredding my heart. What if knowing I was engaged meant he’d indeed intended for this to be goodbye? What if he and Coop had cooked up this entire plan to get rid of me? No. It couldn’t possibly be true. I refused to believe it. Just like I refused to believe I’d ever loved anyone the way I did Nik.
“I’m not engaged.” I thrust the words out, not knowing exactly where they were coming from. “I wasn’t wearing a ring. So if I was ever engaged to this person, I wasn’t when Nik found me.”
“I believe you, Thea. This isn’t about your current relationship status or any past one. It isn’t even about Nik or you. Look back at the autopsy report. Who identified the body?”
“Clay Kenyon. He’s an FBI agent?”
“As are you, but we’ll get to that later. As your fiancé, sorry, ex-fiancé, shouldn’t he be able to identify your body? There are vague similarities between you and this woman—age, height, weight—but it’s doubtful he could’ve mistaken her for you.”
I studied the autopsy photos again. The red hair was the wrong color and length. He could claim I’d dyed and cut it. The overall bone structure of her face was too narrow and short, her features more delicate and pinched. The woman had sustained brutal injuries possibly distorting her facial structure, though. Most telling were the phoenix tattoo on her forearm and a distinctive scar on the side of her breast to the left of her sternum. From the photograph, I couldn’t quite make the marking out, the blackened skin looked harsh and puckered, unlike the smooth lines on the Phoenix. “On her chest? What is this? Another tattoo?”
“It’s a brand. The angles represent six wings forming a circle. It symbolizes a seraph—the burning one. In Medieval Christian theology they are the caretakers of God’s throne. It’s also the symbol you drew on the red door at Animal Control when you busted Titan out.”
“What does it have to do with all of this?”
“It ties a few things together. It is a symbol used in the branding of Ardent Oils. The essential oils are part of a legitimate multilevel marketing venture which is under the same umbrella as the leadership series Aimee pitched you on. But the branding on this woman is very reminiscent of a cult.”
“Aimee gave me some of the oils to try.” I fished the bottle out of my purse. “It doesn’t have a seraph on it, see?”
“Did you use them?”
“I don’t know. I opened the bottle and remember smelling them, but then I must’ve fell asleep. I’ve been falling asleep a lot though.”
Coop reached back into his backpack again and fished out a plastic bag. “Drop it in here.”
“Why?”
“It’s evidence now.”
I did as he asked then turned to look out of the window. I didn’t want to believe Aimee would hurt me. I didn’t understand why any of this was happening to me. I just knew I had to find a way out.
“This deceased woman has fingerprints, right? Can we find out who she is and clear me that way?”
“Kenyon probably swapped them in the database. I’m sure if we ran yours, we’d learn who the Jane Doe really was.”
“DNA?”
“If he had access to swap the fingerprints in the Fed’s database, he could do blood type, dental records, whatever he needed to. Plus, he authorized a quick cremation of Jane Doe without a full autopsy. A little suspicious, but he could’ve explained it away because the tornado was most likely the cause of death and it’s not like you had family to consider regarding burial preferences.”
“So he’ll get away with it?”
“There’s more. Surveillance camera footage at Animal Control in Wichita shows a man with Clay’s description dropping a German shepherd off the afternoon of the tornado. The signature isn’t legible on the authorization form for Titan to be euthanized, but the notation says the request was made by an FBI agent and the reason cited an attack. No police documentation, by the way. Last I checked, the Feds don’t involve themselves with dog bites, not that Animal Control would question anyone flashing a badge. And Clay’s flashed his badge a lot this week.”
“I don’t understand—why would he be so obvious?”
“You’ve uncovered something that has him spooked and desperate enough to be rash. Plus, I imagine he’s got some pull or he�
��s crafted a believable enough story to ensure no one would bother looking too hard into your death. The tornado helped him out there, but I’m guessing his original plan was to make it look like a suicide.”
My original annoyance, okay, downright anger, at Coop for not going through with the plan we’d agreed upon dissipated. Clearly he’d done a lot of research and knew better than I who and what I was up against.
My mind worked to understand the puzzle from the facts he’d given me, but there were still too many missing pieces. Having zero memory not only made it impossible, but also would look like a convenient excuse. “No one is going to believe I’m innocent, not with all the instability of my past and especially now. My memory loss will look like a lie.”
“Your amnesia might’ve worked to Clay’s advantage early on, but when he falsely ID’d your body, he went all in. The only proof you need now is being alive. But you die and he walks free. And if that wouldn’t be bad enough, I don’t think I could hold Nik off from going after him. Murdering a federal agent in cold blood—”
“I know.” I cut him off, not wanting to hear how entwined Nik was in my problems. “Even dead, I’m a burden.”
“So you stay alive. Got it, Thea?”
Staying alive meant staying on the run. Dying meant condemning Nik to living with the consequences of my retribution. There had to be another angle to this.
“You’re turning me over to a man who wants me dead. Please tell me there’s more to this plan.”
“I have a contact with the Feds. There’s enough proof he used FBI resources to fraudulently declare you deceased to open an investigation on all the rest.”
“Open an investigation? That’s all?”
“What did you expect? I can’t gun down a federal agent no matter how corrupt he might be. We don’t even have proof he intends to harm you, though it’s pretty obvious he does.”
I didn’t want to rile Coop up by questioning his plan, but clearly if it revolved around a contact at the Bureau, it was full of holes. After all, Clay couldn’t be trusted, so why would I trust anyone else there?
“Assuming all this works, what happens with me?”
“The best thing you can do is go have your head looked at by a doctor and see a specialist on memory loss. I can get you some references. If you’re not ready to go back home, I’m sure Nik will let you stay at his place for the next couple of weeks. When he gets back from the island, y’all can figure things out.”
“Couple of weeks?”
“Look, Thea, it isn’t personal. This isn’t a trip we’re going on, it is a job. My employer isn’t going to let someone’s girlfriend tag along. It’s not how these things work.”
Coop’s proposal sounded logical. And perhaps it was irrational for me to be so attached to Nik. But I couldn’t help the scrape of fear at being left behind while so many questions remained unanswered. I sure as hell didn’t feel safe simply because Clay would be under investigation. Whose investigation? Someone he might be working with? No. I didn’t like this plan at all.
I fought my instinct to text Nik and beg him to come get me. But we were already entering Boulder city limits. There wouldn’t be enough time. I’d have to figure something out on my own.
“Can we stop and get something to eat?”
“What?” Coop sputtered.
“I’m nervous. I think eating will help. Fast food will be fine.”
“No, we can’t stop to eat,” he scoffed. “I need enough time at the meeting site to ensure there aren’t any surprises. You can eat at the gas station.”
“Gas station food?”
“It’s no Buc-ee’s, but it’s one of those big convenience store places with lots of snacks. You’ll find something.”
I didn’t know what a Buc-ee’s was. The only gas station I had any real familiarity with was the one that landed on me in Kansas. But as I followed Coop into the Pump-N-Go, I realized he hadn’t been kidding. It was a veritable smorgasbord of snacks and I intended to hit them all. Hard. Anything to get my mind off the stress of trusting this plan of his.
Coop fished a burner phone out of his back pocket and checked in with his Bureau contact. He had three phones. The personal one he used to communicate with Nik he’d left in his truck. The business one he’d been using on the deck back in Estes was in his front pocket and connected to his earpiece. Every so often I’d catch his lips subtly moving as he spoke into it.
He kept a gun tucked in a holster in the front of his jeans, but with his cobalt-blue oxford untucked it didn’t show. Neither did the one at the small of his back along with a pair of handcuffs. I imagined he carried a knife like Nik’s in his pocket and maybe a second one inside his boot. An assault rifle was under a blanket in his truck and I’d bet he had other goodies in his glove box.
As he leisurely maneuvered throughout the convenience store, his body language was so languid no one even questioned how dangerous he was. If anything, they noticed the blue of his shirt setting off the sapphire in his eyes.
Finishing his call, Coop jammed the phone back into his pocket. Shoveling a thick hand through his hair, he approached me at the frozen yogurt bar. Those eyes of his were pretty impressive in this light, especially as they widened catching sight of the three mini spoons loaded up with various concoctions balanced between my fingers on one hand, while I raised a fourth to my mouth with the other. “What the hell are you doing?”
“The cashier said it was okay.”
“To taste all of them and the toppings?”
“I’m restless. And I didn’t know what Macadamia Nut tasted like with sprinkles.”
If Nik were here, he’d understand. Heck, he’d already be setting up at the Slurpee station for round two.
I shoved the spoon into my mouth.
“Well, Edward Yogurt-hands, how is it?”
“It’s awful,” I sputtered. “Macadamia Nut is good and sprinkles are good, but together they’re pretty nasty.”
Coop grunted as he grabbed up a large cup, dumped a couple spoonfuls of chunky brown stuff in the bottom, and topped it with a whitish frozen yogurt. He finished off by drizzling dark chocolate syrup, adding a dusting of brown sprinkles, and dropping a pinch of tan chips on top. After having it weighed and paying the cashier, he handed it to me.
I eyed the tasty looking concoction. “What is it?”
“Brownie bottom cheesecake with dark chocolate sauce, milk chocolate sprinkles, and peanut butter chips. My fro-yo game is pretty legendary. Think it will hold you until I get back?”
I took a taste and sighed. “Oh yeah, I’m all good now.”
“Okay. See those?” He subtly eyed a camera behind the clerk’s counter and one in the corner by the hallway leading to the bathrooms. “Always stand where you’re in line of them, okay? Don’t talk to strangers. And try to leave some snacks for everyone else.”
“I can’t promise about the snacks.”
His intense eyes met mine. “Just promise to be here when I get back.”
I couldn’t promise him that either. My Plan B was down the long hallway by the restrooms which led to an employee area. There, sunlight streamed through an ajar exit door like a beacon. Instead of tipping Coop off, I took a big bite of fro-yo and nodded like the good girl he expected me to be.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Pump-N-Go had been bustling since Clay had taken position catty-corner in a McDonald’s parking lot thirty minutes prior. Despite the busy intersection, he’d spotted exactly what he’d arrived early to catch. Thea. No way they’d risk trying to nab him without even having the bait on site. He shot off a text telling Aimee the plan to meet with Thea at the park in Estes had been a bluff and to wait at the cabin for further instruction.
Through his binoculars, Clay followed Thea as she strode into the convenience store ahead of her little bodyguard. The other guy, the one from the mall, had to be around somewhere as well, but Clay sensed there was more to this meetup. The memory loss story had been convincing, especi
ally combined with Aimee’s description of Thea’s odd behavior at the mall. But the whole thing was too convenient, too easy, and he’d known better than to trust it…trust Thea.
He scanned each car, truck, and SUV in the area until he found the catch. When he did, he dropped his binos and sank back in the driver’s seat of the car he’d lifted. Amnesia, my ass.
Did Thea really expect him to waltz right into a trap with Todd fucking Coleman?
The guy was one of the most straightlaced agents at the Bureau. He typically handled internal affairs, so most agents gave him wide berth. Clay didn’t have anything on him to jeopardize his career, but he did have dirt. A certain Dutch prostitute Clay had set him up with a few years back when Coleman’s marriage had been on the rocks. Not that Coleman had even known she was a pro, much less who’d paid the buxom beauty to step into his self-destructive path. But maybe now would be a good time to drop that bombshell, along with the photographic evidence. Let’s see how interested Coleman was in getting involved in he and Thea’s private matters then.
What had Thea already told the prick? Fuck. Probably too much given he’d hustled his ass all the way out to a gas station in Boulder, Colorado. At least he appeared to be alone. Easier to manipulate. Other than the evidence Thea had recently uncovered on his sex-trafficking activities, which in and of itself could be dismissed as a desperate attempt of hers to discredit him, Clay had made sure his ass was covered. The only loose end was falsifying her death.
With what Clay had on Coleman, he should be able to talk his way out of mistaking Thea’s body. And if talking didn’t work, the graphic photos he had, ones which would be particularly upsetting to Coleman’s wife, would. Add in everything else he had on Thea, like framing her for the murder of her psychiatrist, and Coleman should be eager to dismiss whatever she’d told him in a heartbeat.
It wouldn’t be enough, though. Thea was too close to uncovering everything with Sera and the Six. There’d be no talking his way out of his connection to them, and he didn’t want to. The Ring was the only place where he could unleash his true self and have absolution all at the same time. But keeping his job at the Bureau was critical to ensuring their organization operated under the radar.
Twist My Heart Page 26
