Jaworski spun the frame around to fully face him. “We’d have figured it out.”
Ungrateful ass. Don looked at his daughter to give her an atta-girl, then stopped. “You seem surprised by what you’re seeing, Shay.”
She was really working to make that hair stay behind her ear. “I just wouldn’t have thought he would be the one. Other than his drug use, he doesn’t fit the personality type of someone who’s suicidal.”
Suicide. Just the word slammed him back in his seat. He wasn’t sure he wanted this peek into his daughter’s psyche, but had to ask, “What do you mean?”
She tipped the frame toward her, tapping the zoom in on the partially revealed face. “Brody doesn’t seem depressed or isolated. The times I’ve spoken with him face-to-face, I didn’t pick up on any verbal cues. Of course, I could be wrong.”
What cues? Because God, he wished he’d known what to look for and couldn’t hide from the fact he might need to learn so he didn’t screw up again. “Could the hotline calls be a setup? Maybe the kid really doesn’t want to die.”
Maybe Shay hadn’t really meant for it to go so far back then, in spite of what the doctor had said.
Vince rested a hand on the back of her chair. “Your dad may be onto something. A setup to get to you somehow. Put you on edge. Maybe they plan to call right before the hearing. They’ve got you carting your cell phone around with you, taking calls from the kid no matter what’s going on. What would you do if a call came in right before the hearing?” He tapped her shoulder absently. “No need to answer.”
“Sure, it’s possible, but there was still such helplessness, desperation even, in this boy’s voice.” Shay pivoted toward Vince as she made her point.
Very close. Vince’s wrist was still draped over the back of her chair, almost touching her.
Don eyed the two, and sure enough, their body language spoke loud enough it didn’t take a trained agent to see something had shifted between them. Although he’d thought there was something between them years ago and had been dead wrong about that, too.
Shay traced the outline of the image with one finger. “Brody’s more reckless, in your face. When I caught him behind the Dumpster toking up during the bomb threat, he totally didn’t care.”
Jaworski tapped his club absently. “That could be the drugs talking.”
Don felt a tickle in the back of his brain. Something about the Dumpster . . . He shot upright in his seat. “The night I stumbled on the two bodies—Kevin and the student—I smelled marijuana by the Dumpster. There were stubs all around.”
Shay scooted her chair back, as if putting distance between herself and the image of Brody.
“Oh God.” She clapped her hand over her mouth.
Vince’s hand on the back of her seat slid to massage her neck lightly. “That evening of the bomb threat, Shay said something about Apocalypse being after the Mercenaries because of a tag getting dissed. Then there was Mercenary talk of that just being retaliation.”
The cop pulled his PDA back in front of him. “So let’s say Kevin disses a tag, signs his work. Mercenaries up the stakes by painting over Apocalypse art and killing the original tagger. The college student was just collateral damage.”
Don lined up the clues and events in his mind. “That feels right. All this activity makes me even more certain they still plan to go through with disrupting the hearing, even with one of their key players—Kevin—dead.”
Jaworski turned off the digital frame. “The time has come for me to pick up Brody for questioning. Maybe we can even get a DNA match off those blunts left at the Dumpster.”
“Just you?” Don could already imagine the steam rising off Paulina if she was shoved aside in the investigation. And if she was dismissed personally? He knew her temper well. They would have to talk soon. “We brought you this information. The murderer will pay in good time. For now our focus has to be security at the hearing.”
Jaworski snorted. “Don’t piss on my shoes, and I won’t piss on yours.”
Vince stepped in. “Officer, it doesn’t appear as clear-cut as picking up this Mercenary kid. Sure, the cell phone network my guys are putting together starts with Brody, but already we’re building a larger pool of numbers that includes far more Apocalypse members. The calls are each cryptic individually. Yet Brody’s the one who made the bomb threats. Both groups are clearly at work here. The question is, are they actually working toward the same end? Or are there two plans in motion?”
Jaworski’s eyes lit. “Then let’s start rounding them up—”
A cell phone interrupted the standoff, a generic ring that sent Jaworski unclipping his cell from his belt. “Excuse me for a moment.”
He flipped open the phone and tucked into a corner, mumbling low before he turned back around, scowling. Not good news.
“You win, Agent Bassett. That kid Brody is going to be a piece of cake to watch. He was just found in an ER waiting room, passed out and beaten to a pulp. He’s in surgery now.”
Still rattled, Shay curled up in the overstuffed chair in her hotel room, stroking her fingers back and forth along her laptop keyboard. She’d been reviewing her speech, but she wanted to be at the hospital. If life hadn’t gone so wildly insane with all this security, she would be there now checking on Brody, sneaking a peek at his medical chart.
Sitting in a hotel room with her butt nailed to this stupid chair made her want to scream.
Except that would freak out her current protector, Vince’s crewmate Smooth, otherwise known as Mason Randolph. The young sergeant was watching over her while Vince slept.
At least Smooth never lacked for anything to say. She just let him talk while her mind tumbled with confusion. She still tried to reconcile Brody’s face with the voice on those calls. It didn’t make sense. Of course, none of what these kids were doing made any real sense. Did they have any clue about the terrorist involvement, or were they so oblivious to what was going on they unquestioningly followed orders, no matter what the higher-ups requested?
Right now she was just grateful Brody hadn’t died.
Knowing the two Congress members leading the forum were only a few doors down made her all the more eager to scoop up her laptop and plead her case now.
Smooth snapped his fingers. “You still with me? Do you need a nap? I can stop talking.”
Go to sleep with him in the room? She trusted him, but ewww. She needed this fishbowl feeling to end. “I’m wide-awake.” In spite of the soothing mug of decaf tea in front of her. “So, Smooth . . . uh, do you prefer to be called Smooth or Mason? I never thought to ask.”
He flashed a grin. “Smooth or Mason, either is fine by me.”
“Okay, Mason.” Calling him by a real name made things feel more normal. “I’ve heard Vince called Vapor by the crew. I thought he and his friend Jimmy were Hotshot and Hotwire.”
“That’s more of a recent joke.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, penny loafers and jeans, bare ankles, seeming casual except for the tense flex of his shoulders and the way he always kept himself between her and the door. “For now anyway, his call sign is still officially Vapor, and Vapor it will stay, unless there’s a keg party renaming ceremony.”
“But why is he called Vapor?”
“A number of stories are out there. For a big guy, he walks spooky softly, like vaporizing from one place to solidify in another. Or when he’s had enough of the world he gets on his bike and roars out so fast there’s nothing but vapor left behind.”
“Enough of the world?” She cupped her mug with both hands, the AC chilling her back. “Vince has always been so easygoing.”
“He’s laid back, sure, and God knows there are days when his humor hauls us through. There are also days it’s impossible to joke. Some people think that when we watch through a camera, we’re distanced from what’s happening. Physically, that may be true.” He tapped his temple by a thick head of gorgeous hair that did absolutely nothing for her. “But when it comes to the head
games? This isn’t like parking yourself in front of a television.”
She could only imagine what they’d seen in combat. Or worse yet, what they’d seen over a monitor and been powerless to intervene.
What her father had seen?
Her mother had said for years that he must have some form of PTSD. Shay had even mentioned it to the shrink who helped her put her life back together in college. Not that her dad had ever joined in a session for her to have a peek into what he might or might not feel.
She tuned back to Mason, grateful yet again that he liked to talk. Grateful for these insights into her father, who never spoke, and Vince, who joked so much it was tough to tell what he actually felt. Shay sipped her tea, inhaling the soothing minty smell, complete with three sugars.
“We all know this is real, the people are real. The stakes and dangers are real.” One of his penny loafers started to twitch. “People who’ve never even set foot in a church before will find God fast. Most folks get this impression of Vince because of the bike and tats, like he’s scary.”
She stared into her mug, guilt tweaking. She’d almost run screaming from him that first night he’d come back. “I know that bikers go to church, too.”
“Good. But the difference with Vince is that when he prays before combat, he’s not praying for himself.”
She looked up at him. “He’s tight with you guys. I can see that.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re all one big happy family, but that’s not what I meant.” His twitchy penny loafer went stone still. “He prays for the other guy. The one he’s looking at in the camera.”
His words curled through her veins much like the warm tea heating her system. As if she wasn’t already confused enough about her feelings for Vince.
“Well, Mason, for a guy who supposedly hits on every woman in sight, you sure are doing your level best to sell me on your friend.”
“Shhh . . . That’ll be our little secret. As much as I enjoy a kegger, I want to keep my call sign.”
She turned the imaginary key on her lips and tossed it away. “I won’t rat you out.”
“Smart lady. When you get an inside track, it’s always wise to cultivate your contact.”
“Sounds like you prefer those assignments that call for category three grooming codes.”
“Hell yeah.” He stroked his own contoured beard growing in. “Hey wait. How did you know about that? Hey, you’re really good at that espionage crap. You must get it from your old man.”
“Thank you.”
His perfect smile faded. “It’s not a good thing, not if you want to have a relationship with Vince. We do things we can’t talk about. We go places you’ll never know. The wives and girlfriends who can’t be at peace about that end up leaving.”
The already frigid temperature dropped in the room by at least ten degrees. “Who could ever be totally at peace with that kind of life?”
“My point.”
A knock on the door cut through the silence. A knock in code.
Vince was awake.
Vince waited outside the hotel room, his gift for Shay tucked under his arm.
Smooth opened the door. “Hey there, sleepyhead. What do you have there?”
Vince shouldered past, his grip loosening as the dog—Shay’s gift—leapt free to race across the room.
“Omigod!” Shay jumped from her chair to kneel down and scoop up Buster. “I’ve missed you, buddy.”
She nuzzled the dog’s neck, talking more nonsense phrases and looking totally beautiful doing it. Her brown eyes glimmered with more life than he’d seen in her all day.
And he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. “Eyes off, Smooth.”
The flight engineer held up his hands. “Why does everyone always assume I’m after their woman?”
“Because you are.” Vince clapped him on the shoulder with a bit of extra force on his way to the vanity. He filled up an ice bucket with water for the dog and set it in a corner of the bathroom.
“You are so toast,” Smooth said low.
“Stick it, my friend.”
“You brought her dog, dude. That’s better than flowers.” He winked. “I should know.”
Vince gripped the doorknob. “If you hang around much longer, you’ll end up walking this mutt instead of the bell-boy I paid off.”
Smooth waved on his way out. “Heading to work as we speak.”
“Hey, Smooth?” Vince stopped in the doorway. “Thanks.”
His crewmate shot him another wave over the shoulder on his way down the carpeted corridor. Vince closed and triple locked the door. He’d actually taken the dog with him to the hangar to pull his shift watching the screens, logging numbers and forwarding them to Wilson’s people for the Feds to link together.
Part of him wanted to work through the night. The other part knew his crew had it under control, and he’d gone beyond bleary-brained an hour ago.
Shay pressed her cheek against Buster’s head. “How did you get him and manage any sleep?”
“I caught a catnap.” A lie, of course. He’d been working before he picked up her dog. He was supposed to be sleeping now.
Vince looked at her open laptop. “Do you have your speech ready?”
“I’ve been ready to give this talk for months.” She stood. “I’m just glad to finally have the chance.”
Buster leapt from her arms and into the chair.
She laughed low. “Apparently he hasn’t missed me as much as I’ve missed him.”
Her laughter hung in the air, tempting him as much as her long legs. “I would imagine he feels safe now that he’s with you again.”
“Ah, you’re turning into a regular dog whisperer.”
He laughed. She laughed again. The sounds echoed lightly, then faded, leaving just the two of them alone in a room with a bed and not much else.
A cart rattled outside the door, louder, sending him on alert until it passed. Buster hadn’t even flinched. “You really ought to think about getting Buster a pal, preferably one with some guard capabilities.”
“I would probably wreck that dog, too. I spoil pets.” She settled on the arm of the chair, her leg swinging.
“Have you considered obedience school? Or at least watch those dog training reality shows.”
“He’s perfectly obedient. He’s just too sweet for his own good.” She stroked Buster’s neck as if soothing herself as much as the dog. “What about you? What kind of pet do you have?”
He leaned back against a wall, arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t.”
“Why not?” Her hand slowed, her fingers long and graceful like the rest of her. “You obviously love animals.”
He was in serious trouble if he was getting turned on by her fingers. Except he remembered well how high those fingers could take him. “Heavy travel for my job doesn’t permit.”
“That sounds like a cop-out from committing to me.”
Commitment talk. “I’m away seventy-five percent of the time. How fair is that to a pet?”
“Seventy-five percent?” Her eyes went wide.
Way to go, dumb ass. Was he subconsciously trying to sabotage any chance of getting her into bed? “Between field tests and operational missions, it doesn’t leave much time at home.” He dropped into the other chair. The bed was apparently off-limits for now.
He knew how he wanted this night to end. How he needed it to end, given that tomorrow looked so unsure. But with her life on the line, her needs had to be top priority.
She held his gaze. “That can’t leave much time for a social calendar.”
“That’s part of why those of us in the squadron are close. We spend so much time together.”
“Is anyone married? Does anybody even manage a relationship?”
There she went with talk of relationships again. What had happened to the woman pulling away as fast as she could pull on her pants? “It’s possible. Our squadron commander is a recent widower, but before that, he and his wife had one of those perf
ect marriages. Berg is married, rocky, though. They have small kids, which makes the separations tougher on his wife.”
“And dating?” Her chest rose faster, her breasts outlined in that pretty pink shirt.
“Jimmy Gage—Hotwire—met someone a couple of months ago. They’re working out the commuting deal until she can move to Vegas.”
“Two whole months. Wow. Serious long term stuff there.”
He shrugged. “They seem intense about each other, but time will tell.”
“What about you?”
Well, she couldn’t be blunter than that. Of course they probably should have had this discussion before they ditched their clothes. “I don’t have a girlfriend tucked away in Vegas, if that’s what you mean.”
“You’d better not, if you’re sleeping with me. But actually, I was asking about your past.”
“Oh, hell. Okay.” He worked to keep up with her words when all he wanted to do was look at her legs. Naked. “Wait. We’re sleeping together?”
SIXTEEN
Vince’s stunned look stayed put long after his words faded.
Shay bit her lip. Had she really said that part out loud? Of course she had. Since the conversation with Smooth, she’d gone soft inside over the peek into Vince, a peek that left her hungry to know more about him.
“I said I wanted to hear more about your past. Back when we were teenagers, we were so busy trying to be cool, we didn’t spend much time talking about things that mattered. You, in particular, were tight-lipped about anything but jokes.”
“Maybe I had good reason.”
She’d spent most of her teen years fantasizing about his hot body and most of the present avoiding any feelings for him because of past rejections. Hiding out in the dark not only covered her scars, but it also kept her from clearly seeing the person in front of her. “I would like to hear that reason.”
His eyes took on a predatory gleam. “Would it increase my chances of getting you in bed?”
“Saying things like that sure won’t.”
He relaxed back with a laugh. “Fair enough. History of Vince coming up. I was the first in my family to graduate from college, a shocking accomplishment in and of itself. Nobody would have thought I stood a chance at getting a master’s.”
Hotshot Page 18
