Burning Ache

by Adrienne Giordano

  She held up her phone. “Photos. But it’s Vegas rules. Technically, it’s not my case. I shouldn’t even be showing you.”

  “But?”

  “It’s in my jurisdiction and could impact me.”

  He’d been involved in plenty of top-secret missions. He understood the necessity of keeping one’s mouth shut.

  He glanced at Roni. “And you’re involved in this how?”

  Maggie knew he’d never go on record with an active case unless he understood who the players were. When it came to weapons, Way knew better than to string his ass on a line in front of strangers. All he needed to do was make a comment—on an apparently high-level case—have Roni-the-hot-brunette misinterpret what he said and before he knew it, his reputation was toast.

  Roni met his gaze. “Let’s just say Maggie and I have a mutual interest in this case.”

  No kidding. “Yeah. I get that. But I don’t know you and I generally don’t trust people I don’t know.”

  “Your sister knows me. Is that not enough?”

  Good one. She knew it, too, because she grinned at him. A spark of respect ignited. Ballsy women didn’t scare him. Particularly ones in male-dominated professions.

  “Way,” Maggie said, “please. Trust me on this one.”

  He trusted her. No doubt. Wouldn’t stop him from making calls as soon as Roni took her fine little ass out of his workshop.

  He drew his gaze from the firecracker and jerked his chin at Maggie. “Show me.”

  “Two nights ago—Sunday—a gang member got shot. Three to the chest with frangible ammo. The wound is…weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  She held the phone up so he could see it. “This is an autopsy photo.”

  Not only did his sister understand his ability to keep a secret, she knew he’d ceased being squeamish over gory dead body photos. He’d seen far too many limbs blown off to not have fallen numb to it all. Twisted, for sure, but emotional survival meant compartmentalizing.

  A lot.

  Maggie pointed to the screen while Roni looked on. “Here’s the entry wound.”

  “Is the slug still in him?”

  “No.”

  “Exit wound?”

  “No. Not even any fragments. All the bullet left is a hollow cavity. How the hell does that happen?”

  Shit. A vision of the ham he’d practiced on filled his mind. He peered down at the photo. Jesus, he knew what could create a hole like that.

  Acid.

  No way. Nuh-uh.

  Unless he got screwed.

  “Also,” Maggie said, “there’s bits of plastic in the area around the wound.”

  Oh, goddammit.

  Screwed.

  Way couldn’t look at her. His sister was a human lie detector.

  Instead he cut his eyes to Roni and her locked-on, but vacant stare. Head cocked, her features remained neutral. No studious pursed lips or sucked-in cheeks.

  Totally bland.

  Who the fuck did she work for? After they left, he’d get with Maggie, let his sister know he didn’t like being ambushed.

  “Way?”

  He shook it off and took a second to line up his thoughts. No exit wound, hollow cavity, bits of plastic.

  Tricky business here. If he said nothing, went with total denial, Mags would call bullshit. Not that he knew all about every form of ammunition, but she’d expect him, with his background, to have an idea what that bad boy was made of.

  Shaking his head, he forced himself to meet Maggie’s eye. Damn those eyes. “You’ve got frangible ammo.”

  “That, we know.”

  “This is different. There’s something inside the bullet that makes it eat away like that.”

  Not altogether a lie.

  “Like what?” Roni asked. “Acid or something?”

  Maggie’s mouth dipped to a frown. “Can you put liquid into a bullet?”

  I sure can. “Yeah, there’s a way.”

  Again, not a lie.

  “How?”

  Roni finally moved, shifting her weight and looking straight at him with brown eyes so dark he wasn’t sure what went on behind them. This chick unnerved him. Slowly, Way rubbed his forehead as he focused on the photo, on the effects of the bullet he’d designed. Seeing it now, for the first time on human flesh, made his chest seize.

  He’d known the ammunition was a game-changer in the spec ops world, where men and women fought wars civilians never knew about. Which made a bullet designed to disintegrate a valuable tool.

  No slug, no evidence.

  How the hell his design got to the street, he didn’t know.

  Maggie’s shoulders dropped. “Darn. I was hoping you’d know where something like this came from.”

  Oh, he knew.

  The dead last thing he’d do was drag his sister into it and put her square in the crosshairs of the government. He’d keep this to himself.

  At least until he figured out who fucked him.

  5

  When the associate deputy director of administration called, Roni answered. Even if it meant standing in Way Kingston’s driveway and shooing Maggie off.

  Business, Roni told her while quickly moving out of earshot. Being a smart cookie, Maggie didn’t question it, said her goodbyes, and drove off.

  “Good morning, sir,” Roni said into the phone.

  “I expect daily updates.”

  Karl’s voice blared through the phone, his tone firm and gruff enough to get Roni’s back up.

  “Daily updates are not a problem. In fact, I’d just finished meeting with Maggie Kingston when your call came in.”

  For now, she’d leave Way out of it. Coming to his place of business might have been pushing it. Much too in-your-face for an investigation supposedly on the down-low, but she’d had an opportunity to meet him and jumped at it.

  Plus, it took Maggie out of the middle. With the connection to Way established, Roni would feel free to contact him on her own. Whether he liked it or not.

  The man wasn’t stupid. She sensed it in his questioning.

  By now, he was probably scouring the Internet for intel on her. If the roles were reversed, that’s what she’d do. Plus, he had cousins Maggie had mentioned, who could hack just about any system.

  Lucky for Roni, her CIA status wouldn’t be easy to find.

  “You used discretion, I presume,” Karl said.

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. Check in tomorrow. Get us something on Waylon Kingston.”

  The line went dead and she checked the screen.

  Lord, she’d been at this less than twenty-four hours. Was she Wonder Woman now? Still staring at the phone, she let out a frustrated laugh. Had to love the suits. Guys who more than likely never investigated a sore toe, never mind a murder, and they wanted answers lickety-split.

  They expected her to compromise a friendship in service of the agency.

  Not happening.

  After the lack of meaningful relationships in Roni’s life, she considered every friend a cherished one. If the CIA wanted her to risk that, they’d have to give her rock-solid reasons. And so far, they hadn’t done so.

  She peered at the SUV parked mere steps away in front of the barn. Glancing around, she spotted a security camera mounted at the edge of the barn’s roof. Way obviously took preventative measures in case someone intended on breaking into his space and helping themselves to whatever weaponry he kept stored inside.

  Eh. She’d work around it. She tapped at her phone’s screen again, pretending to check it while she wandered a few steps closer to the SUV. If anyone inside were watching, they’d see a woman casually checking her phone while absently pacing the driveway.

  Still staring down at her phone, when she got close enough to the SUV, she leaned one hip against it, made a show of scrolling through her texts. A bird chirped—thank you very much—and she peered up into a sunlit sky. The little guy flew away so Roni helped herself to a look inside the truck. On
the rear seat was a box of plastic lined pads used for potty training puppies. Maybe Way had a dog.

  Except, with the pads was a bag of cat litter. And two giant-sized bags of dog food.

  “Who are you?”

  She snapped her head right and found Way, all long legs and broad-shouldered confidence, striding toward her. He wasn’t jacked with muscle, but his fitted T-shirt indicated the lean tightness of his body. And the way he moved? That catlike quickness fired something in her. Something primal and urgent. Ooohhh-eee this might be fun.

  “Well, hello.” Still leaning on the SUV, she tucked her phone into her back pocket and gave him a sassy smile. “I believe we just met, but in case your memory has failed, I’m Roni Fenwick.”

  He returned the sassy smile.

  Oh, yes, this would be fun.

  Three feet from her, he stopped and folded his arms across his chest. “I know your name. It doesn’t tell me who you are. And why you’re snooping in my truck.”

  “You have pets?”

  “No. Donations for the shelter. I’ll ask again. Who are you?”

  Didn’t that just take some of the wind from her sails. Here she wanted to find dirt on him and the guy was nice enough to donate supplies to a shelter. Damn him.

  “I’m Maggie’s friend. As she said, we were on a task force together.”

  “‘Were’ being the key word. You a fed?”

  Tricky question. Technically, yes, she was a fed. Not the kind he was thinking, though.

  “At the time, I was FBI.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “Why are you here?”

  She kept her gaze on him, considering how much to share. “We had a friend who was murdered in the line. I’m trying to figure out what happened to him. This gang member dying may have something to do with that.”

  “Why?”

  “Our friend was investigating a member of the Street Dragons. It’s a long shot, but the victim Maggie showed you might have something to do with our friend’s death.”

  “Lotta gang members in the world. It’s a stretch.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Plenty of cases have been solved by following a hunch.”

  He took one step closer. “Who are you?”

  Again with this? Dammit. The man was good. She hit him with another smile, this time dragging her gaze over his body as she took a step closer.

  When all else failed, Roni wasn’t above using every tool at her disposal. She’d become immune to men’s hungry gazes at fifteen.

  Distracting Way Kingston with her tits didn’t make her a whore. It made her good at her job. “I’m Roni Fenwick.”

  Way tilted his head, leaned his upper body close enough that she felt his minty breath against her ear. “When I call my military buddy at State, what will he tell me about Roni Fenwick?”

  Whoa. The State Department. Way above her pay grade. Good for him.

  He might be bluffing, backing her into a corner to evaluate her reaction.

  Too bad for him she’d been pushed into many corners in her life.

  She tilted her head up, mimicking his stance. “Make that call, Way, and find out. See what you can dig up.”

  Eyeing her, he stepped back. “There are two things that piss me off.”

  “Do tell.”

  “People that lie and people that fuck with me or my family. I don’t know you. I sure as hell don’t trust you. And I gotta wonder why, if you and Maggie are such good friends, I’ve never heard your name.”

  Touché. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t bulletproof. The fact that Maggie had never mentioned Roni did, indeed, sting.

  Bravo, Waylon.

  Except, to this day, Operation Smokeshop wasn’t intended to be public knowledge.

  “Maybe,” Roni said, “she didn’t want to compromise an operation. Did you think of that, hotshot?”

  He let out a hearty laugh. An honest-to-God amusement-filled bark that left her equal parts annoyed and intrigued. She loved a man unafraid of verbal swordplay, but she didn’t want to stand here wasting precious time. “Is something funny?”

  “You,” he said. “You’ve got balls, lady.”

  “You bet I do. Rock-solid ones. You don’t intimidate me. Let’s get that straight.”

  “Message received. You still haven’t told me who you are. Which makes you one hell of a spin doctor.”

  Again, she shrugged. “I’m a girl trying to figure out who killed her friend. That’s all you need to know.”

  Finally, he retreated, opening up the space around her as he walked around the front of the SUV, opened the door, and stepped onto the foot rail, staring at her over the roof. “I doubt that. I doubt that very much.”

  * * *

  Way stormed up the driveway to the Steele Ridge training center and parked in front of the building between his cousin Reid’s pickup and Micki’s Prius. He’d called her twenty minutes ago, requesting a favor, which they both knew meant some sort of hacking project.

  His cousin, the computer nerd, knew how to crack shit better than anyone the government had on staff.

  He hopped out of the Tahoe, hit the lock button out of habit, and headed to the door, where he tapped the newly installed buzzer. In the last year, after multiple crazy incidents, security around the property had become a priority.

  Way peered up at the camera mounted over the door and waved. A second later, a bzzzz-bzzzz preceded the thunk of the disengaging lock.

  The U-shaped reception desk within the glass-walled lobby sat empty. Reid had recently hired Nancy Wilkins, a stay-at-home mom looking for part-time hours, to man the desk when he had a training class in residence. Given the quiet, Way assumed it was an off week for training.

  Beyond the reception area, he hooked a right and pushed through the stairwell door, taking the steps two at a time to the second floor. After returning to Steele Ridge from a stint in Vegas, Micki now taught a cyber warfare class.

  The training center. Family affair.

  “Hey,” Way said when he strode into Micki’s office.

  Facing the window, she stood behind one of those variable height desks in her signature black skinny jeans. Her shaggy shoulder-length dark hair, the Chuck Taylors on her feet, and a white graphic T-shirt with the pi symbol completed Micki’s edgy badass look.

  She closed the browser on her laptop and lowered the desk while eyeing him over her shoulder. A whirring sound filled the office as the desk made its descent. “Hello, cuz.”

  “Thanks for letting me barge in.”

  “Anytime. It’s quiet around here, and Gage is in California so I’m trying to stay busy. What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She snorted. “Why does that answer always mean trouble?”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Good point. “I need a favor.”

  “What am I hacking into?”

  “I’m sorry to ask.”

  “No you’re not. I’m not sorry either. This sounds like it’ll be good. And might give me something to brag to Jonah about. Always happy to one-up my brother.”

  “You two are obnoxious with this hacking competition.”

  “I know. But’s it’s fun. We’re about even on who has the most requests.” She pointed at one of her guest chairs across the glass table she used as another desk and dropped into her own chair. “Sit and tell me what you need. If I can help, I will.”

  “Two things. A woman named Roni Fenwick. I need to know who she is.”

  Micki jotted a note. “That should be easy enough. Is she a criminal?”

  “I don’t think so. I think she’s a fed. Maybe undercover or something. Full disclosure, she’s a friend of Maggie’s. They just stopped by my place.”

  “And you’re not asking Maggie?”

  “I don’t want her involved. Yet. Something about this Roni rubs me wrong. If she checks out, no foul, and Maggie’s friendship stay
s intact.”

  Micki gave him the raised-eyebrow look that indicated he might be nuts. “And the second thing?”

  “Can you get into case files at the Waynesville PD?”

  Micki let out a whistle. “Wow,” she said. “Talk about burying the lede. You don’t mess around.”

  What the hell was he doing? Asking his cousin to risk herself by breaking any number of computer fraud laws. Hacking a police department’s system no less.

  Way couldn’t let her do it. He pushed out of his chair. “Forget it. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking you were out of your depth and couldn’t do it yourself.”

  “I’ll find another way.”

  Micki sighed. “Way, don’t be stupid. Sit down.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You don’t ask for help unless it’s important. Are you in trouble?”

  Was he? He didn’t even know. He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”

  “But you need to be sure.”

  “Yeah. It’s…sensitive.”

  He paused. Not only was he asking his cousin to break the law, he expected her to keep silent.

  She shook her head and smirked. “I have secrets on a good number of United States senators that I’ll never talk about. Not even to Gage. It’s my own personal security blanket that keeps a certain scumbag in Vegas out of my hair. I know how to stay quiet. Tell me what’s going on and I’ll get you whatever I can find.”

  Damn, she’d let him off the hook. “Thanks. Until I figure this out, I don’t want anyone knowing.”

  “Understood.”

  “There’s a case Waynesville PD is working on.”

  “What’s the connection to you?”

  “The bullets.”

  “Un-hunh.”

  Yeah. His cousin wasn’t stupid. A gunsmith had just marched into her office looking for information about ammunition used in a murder.

  Way rolled a hand. “Can you get me intel on the case? And maybe see if there are any similar ones.”

  “It depends. Are you in danger?”

  “No. I just need to know.”

  “Why?”

  He cocked his head. “If I could tell you, don’t you think I would?”

  “I suppose. You’re sure you’re not in danger?”