by Lexy Timms
“Spying? Really? You have the balls to ask me that? Who’s paying for that apartment? Who’s paying your salary? You’re there on our time, buddy, and you are not, I repeat, NOT going to blow the biggest and most expensive case in the last five years because you can’t keep it in your pants around her!”
Luke said nothing because, right then, his first instinct was to ask for a rating on his lovemaking and whether Randy had any advice as to his technique. He also suspected snarky remarks wouldn’t go over real well. He knew Randy; he was a friend in as much as a superior can be a friend. Better to bite his tongue and wait him out.
“Just…” Randy said softer, almost conversationally, “just tell me you’re not in love, okay? Please tell me that much.”
Luke said nothing. He’d stood like this as a soldier during basic, waiting for the drill instructor to burn himself out, standing until he’d gotten the nickname of ‘The Mountain’ for the way nothing moved him. Like this wouldn’t move him now, though inside he felt a million potential answers pound against his teeth, just daring him to open his mouth and let them out.
“Shit.” Randy sighed, long and loud. “We just talked about this, Luke, remember? Keeping your head in the game? You realize that just because of your… because of any relationship you have with this girl, the entire investigation is compromised? A good attorney could have the whole thing thrown out. And, just so you know, I’m pretty sure that $23 million will buy a damn good attorney.”
“She’s not a suspect,” Luke said, but it sounded weak even to him because how much did he really know her? She’d been not only naked in his arms last night, but she’d gifted him with her vulnerability as well.
“That’s hardly the point, is it?” Randy countered. “Now, tell me this, Romeo, what happens if she is a suspect? What happens if you find out she’s up to her tits in this and she’s aiding and abetting?”
“Her father?” Luke scoffed and forced his feet into his shoes, already relaxing, thinking that the worst of the lecture was over and done with. “Not damn likely.”
“But not impossible,” Randy pointed out. “You leave me no choice, Luke. We’re pulling you.”
“No!” He’d been expecting it, had even told Dani that it would happen last night. Shouting now wouldn’t solve anything, would in fact only bring into the room the one person he needed to stay out, at least until this particular conversation was over. He gritted his teeth, looking uneasily at the door. From the kitchen he heard utensils clatter, the sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing.
“Answer one question, lover-boy,” Randy said, his voice harder than he’d ever heard before. “Are you angry about losing the mission, or losing the girl?”
Luke held the phone to his ear, and no word could escape from the tightness in his throat.
“Yeah,” Randy said, “what I thought. Pack your shit, show’s over. Come in for debriefing within the hour, or expect us to come get you. Your choice.”
Luke stood holding the phone to his ear, with no one on the other side of it. The smell of bacon wafted in from the kitchen.
I never should have promised her.
One hour.
He was absolutely fucked.
“Smells good,” Luke came out of the bedroom and threw a leg over one of the stools by the counter. He perched there and enjoyed the view, adamant that she wasn’t going to see so much as a hint on his face that everything wasn’t hunky-fucking-dory.
Dani had taken it upon herself to make the meal in his absence. The eggs were steaming on a plate and she was flipping the bacon with an expertise that actually surprised him a little. He hadn’t pegged her as the domestic type.
“You could do something useful,” she said, and pointed over her shoulder at the coffee pot. Luke jumped down and set to work on it, considering that part of coffee was water, and water was gotten from the sink right beside the pretty girl wearing only a t-shirt and panties, made all the sexier for some reason by the fact that she was wearing his t-shirt. Odd how Led Zeppelin never looked anywhere near that good on him.
She jumped the first time he brushed against her, but soon seemed to enjoy the feel of his hand on her as she cooked. For some reason, he couldn’t resist—a touch as he leaned past her to fill the carafe with water. A hand on her shoulder to steady himself as he reached past her to grab a plate from the shelf just over her left shoulder. Maybe it was the fact that in an hour…no, forty-five minutes now…everything would change. He would likely be taken back to some office somewhere for a debriefing. Once he disappeared, would he ever see her again?
He looked at her, feeling the tragedy in his eyes, and had to work hard to school away the sadness. Mountains didn’t weep, plain and simple. He needed to focus on the here and now. To savor the companionable silence they enjoyed as they toiled side by side in the kitchen.
Soon enough, too soon for his choice, they had finished, and sat down at the table with eggs and bacon between them. If they were a normal couple this would be a comfortable meal, where neither seemed pressured to speak. She seemed dreamy. Thoughtful. Looking at him shyly over each forkful of eggs. She’d changed last night, in opening up the way she had. Sure, there had still be tension over her brother, but that was something they’d have to work through—
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Acting like there’s a tomorrow.
Each bite of eggs nearly choked him; the bacon, an impossibility.
He saw her left hand idle on the table and reached out to take it with his. She smiled. God, that smile.
It broke his heart.
So what do you do, moron? In twenty-three minutes they’ll come bursting through the door, consequences by damned.
“It’s possible I may have to leave for a while,” he said carefully, tearing off a piece of bacon. She stopped, her mouth full of eggs, and pulled her hand free. She used it to lift her mug and clear out the eggs with a sip of coffee, but Luke felt like she was using that to buy time, to figure out her response.
“What do you mean, leave?” she asked, her voice testy. “Leave where? When?”
Already he was losing her. Her eyes had become hooded. Wary.
“There’s a good chance that I might be able to catch him…”
Dani tossed her fork down hard enough that the dish rattled when struck. She stood, shoving back her chair so hard it snagged on the carpet and nearly tipped over. Without another word, she stalked into the bedroom.
“What?” Luke threw down his bacon and was after her in a second. She was already pulling on her shorts and jamming her feet into shoes.
“I cannot believe you!” Her eyes positively blazed when she turned her gaze upon him. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected more from you. Why should you be different from any other man?”
“What the hell?” Luke leaned against the doorframe, not wanting to have this conversation, not wanting to say these words here. The room was likely bugged; someone somewhere already knew all the sweet nothings that had been whispered in that bed the night before. But any hesitation he had on speaking his heart didn’t matter. Even mountains could crumble, given enough time. Let the authorities record every word of what was in his heart and mock as they would. He wasn’t about to let her go without a fight. “Can’t you trust me even the littlest bit?”
“Trust you?” Dani stood, not even bothering to tie her sneakers, and stalked to him like a very angry leopard. “Trust?” She poked his chest with all five fingers spread out. It was enough force and at the right angle that he nearly fell backward.
“All that bullshit about wanting to help David, trying to get me to join you to ‘save David’, and you’re every bit as bad a liar as every other man in my life. You stick your nose into the lives of my family and then, when I could really use the help, you run after the old man like a baying hound and leave David alone with whoever is TRYING. TO. KILL. HIM!” She spat the last four words at him like an epithet.
He’d had it by this point. Like he had any choi
ce in the matter. He’d thought he had, but obviously he’d been an idiot. He’d thought he’d been close enough that it would count for something. “It’s not really my choice!”
“No, no, I’m sure it isn’t. It’s the job. It’s what you have to do. I get it. I grew up with it’s the job. My mother died, and no one was there, because it’s the job. I am well aware of THE JOB.” She was halfway through the door and spun back long enough to look at him with all the hatred and anger that up until now had only been reserved for her father, he suspected.
“I’ve been recalled,” Luke said, trying to be reasonable. He stepped toward her, hands open like he was trying to calm an angry dog. He didn’t even see the open palm, but she struck his cheek with enough force that his head whipped around; he twisted, lost his balance, and landed on his ass at her feet.
“So, what?” Dani said, matching his tone. “So, what? So now, the job won’t let you keep your word? The job won’t let you help me protect my brother?”
“Did it ever occur to you,” Luke rubbed his face from his awkward position on the floor, where he wondered angrily if this one would make the FBI blooper reel for the annual Christmas party, “that maybe David isn’t as innocent as you think he is?”
Dani’s eyes flashed, but her mouth fell open.
Not that he was about to let her say another damn thing about her fucking brother. “Listen to me,” he said, leaning back against the dresser and crossing his arms across his chest as though he had fucking chosen to sit on the floor. “He wasn’t at all concerned at the party when he got a threatening note on his jacket. Not one bit!”
“He thought it was joke!” Dani yelled, though something flickered in her eyes. A hint of uncertainty perhaps?
“No, he didn’t! Remember? That was your father who made that up. David was looking around, as though trying to determine where the note had come from.”
“That means nothing!”
“Fine, then, rock climbing. When the graffiti was etched into the car, he wasn’t pissed.”
“He was, too!”
“NO, HE WASN’T! He’s not that good an actor! He was pissed after you determined to call your father. He was pissed when the party was over, but when that empty box was found under the car…”
“Oh, I do not have time for this!” Dani turned her back on him. He could see her in the living room, headed for the door.
“He wasn’t surprised it was empty!” Luke shouted to her retreating back, still making no move to get up.
The slam of the door ended the conversation. He hadn’t even had time to bring up Katie.
Luke pulled himself to his feet. He had about ten minutes left before they sent a team in after him. ‘Debriefing.’ It was administrative double-speak meaning “finding blame.” Well, there sure as hell was plenty of that to go around. He looked around the room, trying to determine if there was a thing in the place that he needed to take with him. Then realized painfully that there wasn’t. There wasn’t a thing he cared about right now in the whole place, save the Led Zepplin t-shirt that Dani had just taken with her right out the door.
It figured.
He was turning to go when he saw it on the floor.
A USB stick.
One that most certainly wasn’t his.
Chapter Seventeen
Dani hit the street in what could charitably be called a power walk. It was rage combined with humiliation, and she beat the sidewalk under her feet into submission to refocus that rage. Whoever was fronting Luke’s expenses certainly hadn’t sprung for a nice neighborhood, but that just as well. A deep and feral part of her would welcome a good hard fight right now. She eyed a couple of guys on the corner, all leather jackets and pants down around their knees, and practically dared them to say something, anything. She’d take great delight in pantsing them both.
When that failed to manifest, the gentlemen in question fading back into a shadowed alleyway, she even allowed herself to imagine scenarios, an ambush from that parked car over there. Or an attack from that particular doorway. Her muscles wanted to respond to her mood and to her imagination. She could feel the twitch of her arms and legs as they tried to kick and hit hypothetical foes.
So lost was she in her own world of punches and kicks that she almost took out the sideview mirror of the car that pulled up next to her.
“Excuse us, Miss,” the man on the passenger side said. “We can get you home.”
It was the same two men who’d brought her to Luke’s apartment the night before. She stopped. The car slowed to a halt. The man, a tall skinny guy in a dark suit, jumped out and, with some reverence, opened the rear door for her.
“You were out here all night?” she asked him, realizing that for all the dapper attire, the suitcoat looked somewhat slept in.
“All night,” the driver answered, a balding man of middle age. He hung a long time on the word “all,” indicating a rather unpleasant time of it, adding a look at his partner as if to underscore the magnitude of the patience required of him to do this particular job.
“All part of the job, Miss.” The skinny guy cleared his throat, leveling a glare right back at the driver.
Dani snorted. The job. It’s the job, all part of the job, just doin’ my job. And here it was again, only this time their job was to sit and wait on her. “Tell me, do you gentlemen have families? Wives?” She looked at them for a moment, then figured she wasn’t being politically correct. “Husbands?” She crossed her arms. “Kids?”
The last came out a little ominous and she found that she was ready to do battle for these imaginary children already, lost in a world where people worked and raised the idea of ‘the job’ to such legendary levels as to render unimportant things like duty to family. To the raising of the next generation.
“Uh…yeah.” The driver glanced at his partner, uneasy. She could see the panic blossoming in his eyes.
“Uh…” the man holding the door said. “Yes, ma’am, we both have families.”
“Don’t they get sick of waiting for you to come home?”
“It’s the job, Miss,” the man said before the driver could answer. “It’s just the job.”
“Yeah.” Dani climbed into the back of the car. “We all have a job to do, don’t we?”
The two men looked at each other, but declined to answer. There was no answer to that. The trip back home was a study in complete silence.
Dani spent that time deep in thought. It had been Luke’s promise to help David that had drawn her in. But then he’d gone back on her, on everything he’d said the night before. He’d said he had no choice, it was the job. Was he in trouble with his superiors? He’d seemed unsure of that last night. What if he’d had to leave because of her? Wasn’t it possible that if push came to shove, someone like Uncle Benny could make a strong case of entrapment against Luke, and get any charges against him cleared should it come out that she’d known about the investigation, and she and Luke had been seen as working together?
It was a reasonable worry. One that would…not quite but almost…absolve Luke from having to leave. Right?
But does that have to mean that he has to leave me?
The thought cut through her thoughts as a childish wail, a cry of abandonment that left her shaken and angry all over again, furious that a particular sick feeling in the pit of her stomach should ever have surfaced at the hands of another man.
Or, in short, she was being a fool. A complete and utter fool.
Which brought her right back around to the Job. She’d spent her whole life hearing about ‘The Job,’ what it requires, what it prevents. There were a few things she’d done that weren’t proud moments, that she would rather not remember, but they, too, were under the confines of The Job.
So she thought of those days on the drive home. She thought about it even as she got out of the car, silent as a ghost, wandering across the driveway and up into the house, ignoring the men who drove away before she’d even gotten the front door closed behind her.
She guessed their job was done. Maybe they could go home to their families.
I wonder what I’m going home to…
But the house was quiet. No men in dark suits lingered in the corners. No butler at the door. The whole place was eerily quiet.
Maybe everyone’s still in bed…
Uncertain but too tired to care she headed for the stairs, wanting nothing more than a hot bath and nap herself. Maybe not in that order.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard a crash in the study, loud enough that the banister beneath her hand vibrated. She paused and listened, but heard nothing. No pounding of feet, no armed guards bursting out of the woodwork.
But someone was most assuredly was home.
Reaching for the gun she wasn’t carrying, then cursing herself for not carrying a weapon—still—even after everything that had happened, she eased herself down the steps. Lifting each foot with great care, she moved noiselessly until she stood right outside the door.
Silence.
I know I heard something.
She crossed to the closed door and put her ear to the wood. There was movement, furtive, frantic movement. Maybe her dad had returned home, probably having forgotten something. Either that or his temper tantrum had worn off.
Good, with him back things can get back to normal again.
She smiled at that. In her own strange way, having him back was a welcome thought. She even felt some measure of relief, if not satisfaction, thinking that by now Luke was probably halfway across the country or already on a plane to Bora Bora or some such place while her father was right here under his very nose.
Not that he didn’t deserve punishment if he’d been doing something illegal, right?
It was a strange, conflicting feeling. He was her father, after all. And was moving money around a crime? Well, yes, obviously, or Luke wouldn’t have been there, but was it so bad, say, compared to the kinds of people she’d been fighting overseas? There were people in the world who used a great deal of power to hurt, to destroy. This was just numbers on a computer screen going from one bank account to another, wasn’t it?
