Texas Temptation

by Kathryn Brocato

  “Mommy’s crying.” His small hand reached up and touched her eyes.

  “I missed my sweet boy.”

  “I played with Jason, and he let me hold the babies.”

  Lexie couldn’t help smiling. The innocence of children. That was how it was supposed to be, and she would fight to make sure Gabriel’s life stayed that way. She tucked his blanket around him and kissed him on the forehead. “You need to go back to sleep. It’s still nighttime.”

  He wiggled his nose. “You stink like Cole’s cigars.”

  She lowered her head and took a good whiff of her blouse. “I stink worse than Cole’s cigars.” She brushed a finger over his eyebrows. “Now close those eyes. As soon as you’re asleep, I’ll take a much-needed shower.”

  “I want Giraffe.”

  Lexie’s heart punched. Gabriel had never been without his favorite stuffed animal. “Giraffe is home in bed. Cole and Marcus will take care of him for you until you get back.”

  Gabriel tried to sit up but she placed a hand on his chest and gently eased him back onto the pillow. “Why can’t we go home now?”

  “I need to talk to Jason and Mac first. Close your eyes, and I’ll read Giraffe’s story to you.”

  Her son raised his hand. “No book.”

  “I don’t need the book.”

  Squirming down into the soft cushions, Gabriel closed his eyes, then instantly opened them. “You’re staying with me, right?”

  “Yes, sweetie. I’m not going anywhere.”

  That seemed to calm him. He turned on his side. For the next five minutes, she recited Gabriel’s favorite book, word for word, until his breathing grew heavy. She lowered her tired body to the floor and rested her head on the sofa cushion, her eyes never leaving her son’s peaceful face.

  Lexie had experienced a few horrible days in her life, but this one topped the list. The only thing that kept her going during Díaz’s questioning was Gabriel. She swallowed a sob as she took her son’s hand in hers. He was her lifeline. The world around her might be falling apart, but at that moment, the only thing that mattered was she was back with her son.

  A hand touched her shoulder, and she couldn’t help the tremor that sliced through her body. Without opening her eyes, she whispered, “Leave me alone, Mac.”

  He knelt next to her. “There’s been another attack.”

  Lexie lifted her head, almost banging it into Mac’s jaw. “What?”

  Keeping his voice at a whisper, he said, “The drone just fired a missile at the border into Mexico.”

  “Good God. Why?” She pinned Mac with a stare. “You don’t think I had anything—”

  “No, of course not.”

  He reached for her hand, held it for a second, then released it. He looked exhausted, and his face was covered with soot. Lexie brushed a finger over her own face and wasn’t surprised when the tip of her finger came back soiled. “Besides a long shower, what can I do to help?”

  A hint of a smile touched his eyes. “Do you know you just willingly volunteered to work with the FBI?”

  Before she could say anything, he held up his hands. “Sorry for the dig. Couldn’t help myself.”

  “Next time, try harder.”

  The smile evaporated and his eyes turned serious. “I know you are dead on your feet, but we need something on Ryan.”

  “I know next to nothing about the man.”

  “That’s more than we know. How acquainted are you with Jason’s wife, Sarah?”

  “I consider her one of my friends. Why?”

  “Sarah has a way of extracting the most obscure details and finding valuable information we can use. If you don’t mind, we would like you to go over everything you can remember about your date with Ryan. There may be something we can use to figure out who he is.”

  “He was in the building where there are cameras at every corner. Can’t you use facial recognition to ID him?”

  “Someone hacked into the security cameras and crashed the system. I never got a good look at him. His face was concealed by his cap, and he kept his head behind yours. I couldn’t even tell you his eye color.”

  She rose and moved away from the sofa. “Ryan’s eyes are a light amber. Drones may be unmanned, but they don’t fly themselves. The person operating the drone would have to be trained as a military aviator, and he would need a highly trained tech crew to monitor the cameras to see what’s happening around the plane.”

  “The men who broke into the testing facility moved like soldiers. We may be looking at a band of disgruntled, lethal ex-military wanting to prove some point.”

  “How did Ryan get into the building? I would have thought it was—”

  “Impossible?” Sarah said from the threshold. “So did I. And since this jerk detonated devices loaded with explosives throughout the building, it will be a while before I can get inside to figure it out. Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”

  “Can I take a five-minute shower first? I stink like smoke, burnt rubber, and something I don’t really want to identify.”

  “Since there’s an extra bathroom, please take Mac with you,” Sarah said.

  Lexie had to wash her hair three times to get the smell of smoke out of it. Sarah had laid out leggings and a T-shirt on the bed, and luckily, they fit. Brushing out the last tangle in her hair, she glanced longingly at the double bed.

  The wall clock chimed. Midnight, the witching hour. The worst day in her life just came to an end. Even though she prided herself on having a glass-half-full outlook, she couldn’t muster up the faith that this new day would be any better. With the last bit of strength, she squared her shoulders and left the guest room.

  The wonderful aroma of coffee met her as she entered the kitchen. Mac rose and poured her a cup, nodding at the chair next to him. She settled at the table and studied his movements. Mac’s shower seemed to have revived him. The soot and grime on his skin was gone, and his sexy stubble was shaved clean from his chin. He looked like a new man.

  He set the coffee cup next to her. After taking a deep sip, she settled the nerves racing through her system and asked Sarah, “Is there any more information about the second attack?”

  “News crews have swarmed the border from all over. We should have something soon.”

  “What we do know is the drone didn’t return to the place it was launched. Hopefully, it will send out a location signal before it’s shut down,” Mac added.

  “Aren’t there any traffic cameras to help locate whoever launched it?” She glanced at Mac. His expression told her what she needed to know.

  He pointed to the city map of Brownsville, Texas. “The drone came online here. All the traffic cameras two miles from the border were down. Sarah is backtracking several miles. I don’t think she will find anything. Whoever we are dealing with, they know their stuff. After twenty hours, we know absolutely nothing.”

  Lexie let out a noisy sigh. “Okay, where do you want me to begin?”

  Jason cleared his throat and reached for her hand. “You know this isn’t like this afternoon, right?”

  It felt exactly like it—familiar faces and nicer setting, but her heart still pounded against her chest wall and she couldn’t seem to get enough air in her lungs. “I want to find this guy as much as you do. Dig away.”

  Sarah turned her laptop screen around so Lexie could see the image. “Is this you and Ryan?”

  The security cameras in front of the Marcus’s place captured her imagine, but Ryan’s back was to the camera.

  “Yes, that’s the patio in front of my friends’ café.”

  “And you have never met him before this date?”

  “That was our first meeting and I thought our last.”

  Sarah brought up another image. “Do you recognize this lobby?”

  She glanced at the screen, then shot a stare at Mac. “That’s my bank’s lobby, taken during the robbery. Why are you looking—?”

  “I found something really interesting.” Sarah took her
cursor and roamed over the people in the photo.

  Every person was identified, including Lexie and Gabriel. Only one man on the far side of the lobby didn’t have a name. He wore a ball cap over his eyes and hunched his shoulders while he wrote down something.

  “The ball cap is the same. Is that Ryan? There are cameras all over that lobby. One of them had to pick up a clear view of his face.”

  “That’s what you would think, but there’s not one clear view,” Mac said, the frustration clear in his tone. “He never approached anyone in the bank, so there’s no clue why he was there. You are still the only person who has—”

  “Wait, I don’t understand. What made you look for Ryan at the bank?”

  Lexie straightened her spine. Words meant nothing when actions screamed louder than anything else. Their tactics were different, but she was exactly in the same spot she sat this afternoon. They didn’t believe her. Only one other time in her life did she feel this isolated, trapped.

  Her heart slipped back several years. She had just turned sixteen and her mother actually bought them tickets to see a Springsteen concert. When Lexie opened her backpack at security, the guard pulled out a sandwich bag with an ounce of meticulously rolled joints. Her mother, instead of admitting they were hers, faded into the crowd and disappeared. That wasn’t the first time Lexie had taken the fall for her mother’s sins, but it would be the last. The moment her arms were cuffed behind her back, Lexie began building a thick wall to protect her heart. Everything in her screamed out to do the same now. “My God, how long have you been tracking me?”

  “It’s not what you think, Lexie,” Mac said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  She couldn’t face him. Why was this happening? To think she was worried two days ago about the possibility of Gabriel’s birth mother disrupting their lives.

  “You said you believed me.” Lexie bit down on the inside of her lip and dug her nails into her palms to keep her emotions in check.

  “The only thing I’m sure about is that you don’t have anything to do with this, Jason cut in.”

  “Then why are you looking at the bank tapes from several days ago?”

  “Do you remember Mr. Greene?”

  “Yes, he’s the loan officer.”

  “He was found dead at his desk this morning. He shot himself.”

  “Dear God.”

  Jason rose and grabbed a bag of chips off the counter. As he took a handful, he said, “In his note, he admitted to a gambling problem and apologized for embezzling funds. The death by itself doesn’t set off any alarms. If you add his contact with you and the influx of cash placed into your account, then the bells start ringing like crazy.”

  “The café may be the first time you met Ryan, but that doesn’t mean that was the first time he got close to you,” Mac murmured.

  Lexie stood, covering her face with her hands. The idea of that man watching her, and, God, watching her with Gabriel was too much. The mother of panic attacks was coming on, and she didn’t know what to do to stop it. Her frantic pacing brought her repeatedly to the living room where Gabriel slept, but her nerves were too raw for even the slightest caress. “Gabriel … what if he goes after him next?” Her lungs screamed for oxygen.

  Mac came up behind her and eased her back against his chest. “I won’t allow anyone to hurt you or Gabriel.” His arms tightened around her.

  The pressure of someone being this close to her in the middle of a panic attack should have exacerbated her anxiety. But Mac’s strength, the tender way he held her, eased the pounding of her heart. She twisted in his arms and focused on Mac’s chest. After several deep breaths, her lungs filled and her heartbeat settled back into its natural rhythm.

  “I’m okay. Sorry.”

  “Breathe in and out a few more times.”

  After doing what he suggested, she lowered her arms from around his waist to her side and stepped back. “I’m better.”

  “Maybe you should hear the rest from here,” he said, drawing her back into his arms as he gently massaged her spine.

  “There’s more?”

  “I found your bio on the dating service,” Sarah said. “After searching through hundreds of men, I found a few who match Ryan in height, coloring, and build. Can you take a look at them?”

  For the next few minutes, Lexie glanced through rows of photos. Nothing.

  “Are you sure these are all that match Ryan? Maybe you missed some.”

  “If Sarah came up with those, that’s it. If you erased your bio from the site, it would still exist. It was as if his account was never there,” Mac said.

  “How could that be?”

  “He hacked the system to get it to match up with only you. As soon as the date was set up, he hacked it again and removed all evidence.”

  A chill sliced through Lexie. “But he didn’t set up the date with me. Cole or Marcus enrolled me in the site. They set up my profile, and then arranged the date. They know what he looks like. If he came into the FBI to keep me from identifying him …”

  She had to swallow before the terror choked her.

  Mac exhaled slowly. “Lexie, what are you talking about?”

  “Cole and Marcus thought I needed to get out, have some fun. When I got cold feet and wanted the bio taken down, they found Ryan and set up the date behind my back. They both know what Ryan looks like, and he knows it.”

  “How would this guy know that?”

  “Because I blurted it out.”

  The instant the words were out of her mouth, another thought hit her. She darted up from the table and began to pace again. Had she mentioned Cole’s and Marcus’s names? For the life of her, she couldn’t remember.

  At the end of the kitchen bar sat a cell phone. Without even asking if she could borrow it, she had it in her hands and was dialing. Just as she punched in the last number, Mac grabbed the device from her hands.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t call them. You’re dead, remember?”

  “If Ryan can hack into an ATM and make it look like I stood in front of it when I was home asleep with my son, it would be child’s play for him to figure out who set me up on the dating service. Cole and Marcus are my friends, my family. I have to warn them.”

  “I have two agents on them. They are safe. Ryan’s not going to get to them.”

  Lexie sank back into the chair. Mac stood near her but didn’t reach out this time.

  “Ryan put something in my phone. He was supposed to be giving me his number, but I’m sure that was just a lie. What if he did something to my phone?”

  “Like what?” Jason asked.

  “Sarah, my focus in college was in mechanical engineering, not computers. I only took the required classes in computer science. I know smartphones have good virus protection software. It’s possible to infect a computer with a smartphone, right?”

  “Smartphones have incompatible operating systems with Windows. If malware could run on your smartphone, it wouldn’t be very effective unless—”

  “I have been treating my phone like a thumb drive…”

  “If you had a Windows malware on your phone and plugged it into your computer, and the autorun was on, then yes, the malware could infect your machine.”

  “The first thing I did when I got to work was plug my phone in to charge. That’s how the bastard took control of my work station. This is my fault.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Don’t you dare take the blame for that psychopathic asshole.”

  Lexie’s attitude made Mac want to hit something, hard. “That’ll really piss me off.”

  Lexie glared at him. “What else is new? Everything I do pisses you off,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “You hate everything about me. Got it. I’ve stopped caring what you think of me, but if you wake up my son, we will have a problem.” Her voice broke but she didn’t back down. “He’s been through enough today and doesn’t need to hear a hot-headed jerk yelling at his mother.”

&nb
sp; It didn’t matter that he stood a good foot taller than Lexie and outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She stood up to him, matching his stance.

  “Lexie?” Jason’s voice was calm, almost tender. “Maybe you should come over here and sit down. Mac doesn’t mean to sound like an ass. He’s usually a nice guy.”

  “Shut it, Jason.”

  Sarah stood and reached for her husband’s hand. “I guess we’re done here. Did you hear that?” She glanced toward the stairs even though the baby monitor stood inches from her. “The twins … yes, now I’m sure they’re awake.” She touched Lexie’s arm. “You and Gabriel are in the guest room at the top of the stairs.” Sarah eased around Mac. Before she passed him, she whispered, “Bury that McNeil temper.”

  Jason carefully picked up Gabriel and followed Sarah up the stairs.

  The room grew still, but the tension was thick. Mac hadn’t a clue what button she pushed this time. The idea that she was blaming herself for that bastard’s sins did something to him. He let in the anger because he wasn’t quite ready to look deeper into what was really bothering him. “I’m not always angry at you.”

  When she turned away, he reached a hand out and blocked her path. He wasn’t actually touching her but he sure as hell wanted to. “Lexie, don’t walk away from me.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m going to check on Gabriel.”

  “He’s fine. Jason won’t leave him alone.”

  “I take care of my son.”

  “I know you do.”

  Each time Lexie tried to get around him, he moved his body, cutting off her exit. Her hands fisted at her side and a tightness settled around her eyes. It was obvious she was holding onto her temper by a thread. But Lexie’s temper was what he wanted. For two long years, he had been walking on eggshells around her, and he was sick of it. No more.

  “You don’t know a damn thing about me, McNeil. Don’t pretend you do.”

  “And why is that, Lexie? Hard to get close with a door in the face.”