Chase

by Sidney Bristol

  “Uh, wow. Going out?” Nikki didn’t mean to stare, but Roni’s sequined, body-hugging dress was a huge change from the shorts and crop top she’d worn earlier.

  “Yeah, do you mind?” Roni clenched the doorknob in one hand and a tiny clutch in the other.

  “Not at all. I’m just going to shower and crash.”

  “Cool. Don’t wait up.” Roni stepped through the door, and a moment later the locks clicked into place.

  The silence of the condo was absolute.

  She was alone.

  Nikki buried her face in her hands and dug her toes into the rug. Pain sliced her to the bone, cutting so deep she trembled. But it was all in her head. Wasn’t it? She rubbed her chest and shambled to her room. There was no one around to put on a show for. Wallowing in self-pity was completely allowed. She dumped her bag on the floor with every intention of showering, but when she pulled Gabriel’s threadbare shirt out of her suitcase, she couldn’t. There was no more fight left in her.

  She buried her face in the fabric and inhaled the long-gone scent of his cologne. That smell she’d never been able to shake from her memory or reproduce. Slightly spicy, with hints of sandalwood, musk, and something else. Something that was uniquely Gabriel.

  Tears pricked her eyes.

  Fuck it.

  Yes, she’d thought it.

  “Fuck it,” she said out loud.

  Nikki stripped down to her panties, slid his shirt on, and crawled into bed. She hugged one of the pillows to her chest, buried her face in the other, and let the first sob shake her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and let the floodgates open. It was time to say good-bye to that secret wish she tried to not admit to even herself.

  She still wanted Gabe in her life. She wanted to love him, to be loved by him and finally be let in. But he’d moved on. Hell, he probably had a girlfriend, too. She couldn’t blame him. They’d split four years ago, and a lot had changed. She’d changed. Still, he was possibly the first man she’d truly loved, and it hurt to close the door on what they’d had. After so many years without closure, she had it now. And it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

  Besides, what kind of pathetic sap held on to the idea of a man she’d loved years ago still wanting her? Working in Washington the last two years had toughened her up, but apparently not enough. When she dreamed, it was still about a man with arms strong enough to hold her, dark tanned skin, and a broken nose.

  * * *

  Gabriel tipped the Classic Rides coffee mug back and gulped the thick, bitter coffee. It hit the back of his throat and went straight to his veins.

  “Yuck. What is Madison putting in this?” He peered into the bottom of the cup.

  “She didn’t make it.” Aiden tossed a thick folder onto the desk in the back office of the garage and sank into the rolling chair.

  “Morning.” Julian stepped into the office carrying a similar mug.

  “Close the door, and don’t drink that.” Aiden waved his co-owner into the other guest chair. They might be co-owners of the garage, but it was Aiden who did the heavy lifting around the shop.

  “Do I want to know?” Julian set his mug on the desk and flopped into the too-small chair.

  Gabriel remained standing. He couldn’t sit, sleep, or stay put, not after the hell of last night.

  “Roni made it. I took Madison to Emery’s to keep her out of this.” Aiden gestured to the folder he’d flipped open.

  “Where’s Nikki?” Gabriel asked. He’d been late to work because he’d decided to take the GTO for a joyride and had lost track of time.

  “Roni has her helping on that oil change.” Aiden shifted papers around on his desk.

  “’Scuse me?” Gabriel glanced between Aiden and Julian, who merely shrugged.

  Roni wasn’t the play nice with others type, so what was up?

  “I’m not asking.” Aiden held his hands up. “Emery wants Tori to help him, so that leaves me shorthanded in the garage. If she’s working, I’m happy. Now, Nikki will probably poke her nose in here any second. I told her I had to wait to talk to you before we made a move this morning.”

  “About this morning . . .” Julian sat forward, elbows on his knees.

  “Oh, what now?” Aiden scowled and dropped a pile of invoices into a tray on one corner.

  “I’ve got that debrief in the field office with Merlo.”

  “Shit. Let’s deal with that later.” He switched his attention to Gabriel. “First thing. Find out anything?”

  Both Aiden and Julian stared at him.

  Despite being a former spy, he still had connections. People who didn’t mind answering a few questions, so long as it wasn’t a habit.

  “I talked to some of my buddies. Everything Nikki is saying about herself is on target. She has a reputation for being good in the field.”

  Julian sniffed his coffee, made a face and put the mug back down. “Is she hot for you? Think you could—”

  “No.” Gabriel shook his head.

  “Hey man, I had to ask. She’s still easy on the eyes.” Julian leaned back in his chair.

  “I get you two have history, but that’s why we need you on her. She can’t screw us over like the rest of them, not now,” Aiden said.

  “I get it.” Gabriel glanced away. He doubted Nikki would intentionally. She wasn’t like that, but sometimes it was just the nature of the bureau. People got shafted.

  A light knock was all the warning they had before the office door swung inward. Nikki leaned a shoulder on the door frame and tilted her head to the side. Gabriel’s mouth went dry. She was wearing the damn shorts again, but this time with an Invasion Car Show tank top and her hair tucked under a bandanna. She’d clearly been under a car already from the smudges of dirt and grease.

  “Starting without me?” she asked.

  “Come in. We were just going over our manpower.” Aiden gestured to the empty chair. “We’re a little understaffed today. Madison and Tori are working with Emery, gathering intelligence. Julian has a debrief that will take him out for most of the day. That leaves you, John, Gabriel, Roni, and me to follow up on Emery’s leads. Did he send them to you?”

  “I was reviewing them this morning.” Nikki perched on the edge of the remaining spare chair, hands in her lap. She hadn’t looked at Gabriel once. “Is it possible to split up? Interview the families?”

  “Unfortunately, I’ve still got a garage to run.” Aiden spread his hands, but there was nothing apologetic in the man. “I’ve got two appointments in the middle of my day that I can’t reschedule, and another guy flying in to look at a car. Work here has piled up. I can’t afford to shut down.”

  “Then what do you propose?” Nikki asked.

  Aiden nodded at him, and Gabriel’s stomach sank. He knew Aiden wanted him glued to Nikki’s ass, even if it was the last place he wanted to be.

  “You and Gabriel start interviewing those families. Once Julian wraps his stuff up, I can send him and Roni out to hit what you haven’t made it to yet. It’s not ideal, but after today I should be able to move appointments around to keep us more flexible.”

  Nikki turned toward him and lifted her chin. He didn’t know if he wanted her to avoid him or if it stung that she was so over him that working together didn’t even faze her. Then again, she had her walls back up, so there weren’t a lot of ways to really get into her head.

  “Are you ready to get started?” she asked.

  “We’re just interviewing families, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, do a normal, looking for my buddy, approach. These guys are all military. Maybe drop their unit number, say you’re looking to reconnect. Might open some of these people up more.” Aiden held up his copy of the files. “You need this?”

  “I’ve got everything on my tablet,” Nikki replied.

  “Then we’re good. Vamos.” Sweat broke out along his spine. He didn’t know how many people they were trying to track down, but chances were, he was looking at spending the entire day with her,
and that was after she’d been in his thoughts all night. It was a special kind of hell Aiden was throwing him into, one made just for Gabriel.

  Chapter Five

  Nikki flipped to the first list of names, keeping her eyes on the tablet screen instead of the man striding toward the car. She wished they could take something else less showy, but he’d insisted his GTO was the only option. There appeared to be some sort of macho car code going on she didn’t understand. What she did get was that this car was all him. The leather even had that signature scent she hadn’t been able to reproduce. Sitting in the passenger seat was like having a bit of Gabe wrapped around her.

  She could see him strolling closer out of the corner of her eye.

  Last night she’d dreamt about him and the things he used to do to her, how he made her feel. Waking up was a nightmare of reality checks. She hadn’t even bothered to ask Roni, still wearing her sequined dress, if she’d been to sleep yet. If Nikki had to guess, the other woman had been up all night and wasn’t interested in chitchat.

  The driver’s door opened and Gabriel folded himself into the seat. He tapped the stereo display and the radio muttered in the background.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “I’m mapping the locations.”

  “Let’s start with the ones farther away, that way when Julian and Roni hit the road they can cover more ground.”

  “Okay, one second. We can make a loop on the south side of Miami. Here. This address.” She turned the tablet to face him.

  He frowned at the address for a moment.

  “Got it.” He shifted and the car rolled forward.

  “Ever need to use a map?” She set the tablet in her lap and watched the colorful storefronts as they passed them.

  “Nope.”

  She smiled. Gabriel had always been the perfect navigator. He was a living, breathing GPS. His recall was only good for maps and roads, but it was a valuable skill he’d been born with.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Cutler Ridge?” Gabriel swung his head around to look at her from behind his sunglasses for a moment. She stopped breathing. “It’s nice, gated communities, young families. Not really the kind of area I’d peg your guy Wilson to be in.”

  He looked back at the road and she inhaled.

  “He probably isn’t there, you’re right. A guy like him would stick out.” She made a little note on the file for the sake of doing something.

  “Read some of those other addresses to me?”

  She did as he asked.

  “Homestead.” Gabriel tapped the steering wheel as he merged onto the highway. “I bet you we find out something in Homestead.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It was mostly destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in ’92 and has been in recovery since then. People fight over what to do with the land. There’s a lot of rural property out there. Places to hide a group like Wilson’s. What do you want to bet that’s where he’s at?”

  “I don’t know. What should I bet?”

  There was a discernable shift in the atmosphere within the car. Gabriel glanced at her.

  “An answer. Bet me an answer.”

  “Okay.” She focused on breathing slow and even. What kind of question couldn’t he ask her? “If nothing is in Homestead, you have to help me convince Aiden to go along with this.”

  “Deal. He is being a joda, isn’t he?”

  Nikki chuckled. “Is he normally like that?”

  “No, usually that’s Julian’s job.”

  “I see.” She glanced over the addresses. “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “Thirty minutes.”

  She peered at the odometer. “Going the speed limit?”

  “Probably closer to forty-five.”

  Half an hour at least, trapped in this car, with him.

  Nikki stared at her tablet without seeing it.

  She’d cried herself to sleep last night, promising herself today she would be over him. Too bad she was a great liar.

  “What have you been up to the last couple of years?” Gabriel asked.

  She blew out a breath. Where to start? She’d worked all over the country, with so many police departments and officials she couldn’t keep them all straight.

  “In the field, mostly. At least until I took the promotion.”

  “You always wanted to be in the field.”

  He’d done his best to keep her behind the lines. Did he realize how much of a dick he sounded like when he told her to stay away, stay safe? She hadn’t felt secure enough in their relationship to ever have it out with him over that little issue. Now, well, it wasn’t his business what she did or where she did it.

  “And you?” she asked to get the focus off her.

  “After rehab I came here. You read the file.”

  “Not really. I wasn’t lying when I said I went for the high-level overview only.”

  “I didn’t say you were lying. You might be many things, but a liar was never one of them. It’s one of the things I always respected about you.”

  “What else am I?” She shouldn’t ask, but he just kept prodding her.

  “Stubborn.” He chuckled.

  “That’s hardly a sin.” Her determination had won her the respect of many of her fellow agents. She’d learned that from her father. “How bad was rehab?”

  “After what I’d been through? Easy. If I was an actual addict it would have been harder. For me, it was more like a rough indoctrination to civilian life.”

  “Talk to your mom?”

  “Yeah, she’d love it if she knew you were here.”

  “But—”

  He held up his hand. “I won’t tell her. She always did like you more than me.”

  Nikki picked at the edge of the tablet with her nail. Gabriel’s mother was loud, she laughed a lot . . . and the hugs. Nikki couldn’t remember anyone hugging her as tight as Gabriel’s mother. Nikki wasn’t supposed to have met her, but a scheduling mix-up put them face-to-face once. In the bigger picture, the meeting could have potentially put Mrs. Ortiz’s life at risk. Deep down, Nikki was glad she’d met her. She was different from Nikki’s mother, a by-the-book woman who’d set out to marry an influential and wealthy man. So long as she got to play house in the right neighborhood, drive the right car, and wear the right clothes, she didn’t mind what else happened. Gabriel’s mother was salt of the earth, family meals and manners.

  “You dating anyone?” Gabriel asked.

  Nikki calmly folded her hands in her lap while she imagined throwing herself from the car. She’d rather hit the asphalt at seventy plus miles an hour than talk about her lack of a dating life, but she couldn’t tell Gabriel he’d been her last, stable relationship.

  “Here and there,” she replied.

  “Yeah, it’s hard, doing what we do.” Gabriel draped an arm over the wheel.

  He didn’t even bat an eyelash at the implication she’d had other men in her life since him. But why should she expect anything? Years had gone by. By all rights, she should be happy without him. And until she’d stood in that garage and faced him down, she’d thought she was.

  They drove in silence, broken only by the radio personalities talking about the news or sports or whatever it was he listened to.

  There were different kinds of happiness. Nikki had known that going into the FBI meant her professional happiness was the one that mattered most. Going home at night, alone, was just how it was. But she couldn’t hold on to an idea at night. Part of her wanted to hate Gabriel for shining a light on that lonely part of her soul, even if he hadn’t intended to.

  “We’re here.” He eased the car up to a guard shack and pulled out a little black box.

  “What’s that?”

  “A transmitter and code breaker in one.” He pressed something on the screen and waited. “It’s not like we have a code to get in. It’ll just take a second to get it . . . There.”

  The metal gate slowly retracted. Gabrie
l waited until there was just enough room for the GTO and accelerated through the space.

  “Your design?” She held out her hand and he gave her the slim, black box.

  “The first one was. Emery’s improved on it since then.”

  Gabriel hadn’t been her first undercover gig, but he’d been her best. He wasn’t just a good actor, he was innovative. Losing him hadn’t just hurt her, it had hurt the bureau. But the agency didn’t have feelings like she did.

  “That one.” She pointed to one of many uniform brick houses. It was easily big enough to fit five or six of her little apartment inside the one structure. “David Swiss. Thirty-seven. Army. Medical discharge after taking a bullet to the throat.”

  “The throat?” Gabriel turned his head, brow wrinkled.

  “That’s what his file said. How are we handling this?”

  “Not sure yet.” Gabriel killed the engine and got out.

  She had to scramble after him up the walk. He flashed her a quick smile and knocked on the wooden door bracketed by two long panes of frosted glass.

  “Got a plan yet?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  Movement on the other side of the glass indicated more than one person was home. Her pulse kicked up and she wished she’d brought her gun that was back in the car. Or pants. Pants would have been great.

  The door cracked open and a woman with curly salt-and-pepper hair peered out at them.

  “Hi, ma’am. I don’t mean to bother you. We’re just looking for David. Haven’t seen him in a while and we were getting worried.” Gabriel spoke with a slow drawl and an easy smile that caught Nikki by surprise. It was rather charming, if she didn’t already know him.

  The woman opened the door farther, glancing between them, her penciled brows arched and her mouth formed a little o. Another woman stood at her back, wisps of orange-red hair framing her face and blue liner accentuating her eyes.

  “Are you from the VA?” she asked.

  “Not officially, we just know David from the VA. We were both seeing the same doctor. You know where he is?” Gabriel leaned an arm on the door frame and his smile widened.