by Pamela Clare
“And?” She gave him a go on look.
“First time, I was a rookie like you; only I was a street cop. I helped some detectives on my beat find a serial killer, big guy, ex-heavyweight champ, bigger than me. Abducted teenage girls in fast food parking lots and took them home. McKiller we dubbed him.”
He chewed, swallowed. “Guy dumped their bodies in abandoned buildings around L.A. once he got his rocks off. We got evidence tying him to three murders, had an arrest warrant, but the detective in charge was a scrawny guy. Called me in for backup to take out the front door and McKiller at the same time. From the evidence I’d gathered, I thought McKiller might have another kid in his house, possibly still alive. If we busted in, the girl might die. I wanted to sneak in through a basement window and try to save the kid first. Detective axed the idea, told me if we didn’t hit McKiller front and back doors, he might get away and more kids would end up dead. I took the front door, ended up chasing the guy to the basement. Took a healthy beating.”
“But you caught him?”
“Yes,” Cooper said, but hated admitting the rest. “But he killed the girl in the basement before I even got down the steps.”
“Damn,” Celina swore under her breath.
“Yeah.”
They sat in silence for a minute, the music from the guitar player and the conversation of the few scattered diners rising and falling around them. “That’s why you’re such a good boss,” she said. “You listen to your agents. Respect their gut feelings and don’t put them in no-win situations.”
It would have been easy to let her think he was the perfect boss she described, but it wasn’t true. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons through the years, Celina. Some of them the hard way, but the School of Hard Knocks is an effective teacher. The Academy teaches you what to do in the field. Hard Knocks teaches you what not to do in the field. Both are important.”
Celina tried out his salsa, spilling a drop on the table and another on her chin. She licked sauce off her bottom lip, and then reached for her drink. Taking a long sip, she blinked tears out of her eyes and wiped off her chin with a napkin. “Forester and Quarters put me on administrative leave when I questioned their motivation today.”
“On what charges?”
She ticked the offenses off on her fingers. “Incompetence. Defiance of a direct order. Entering scene of a take-down unarmed. Endangering life of another agent. Failure to announce to criminal I was FBI. Failure to instruct criminal to put down his weapon.” She grabbed another chip, pointed at the air. “That one really got me. When exactly was I supposed to instruct Jagger to put his weapon down? The moment he opened the door? The moment I jumped off the porch? I didn’t even know he was in there, much less that he had a weapon the size of Forester’s ass pointed at me.”
Cooper laughed. And then sighed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but they’re right on most of those counts.”
She bristled. “If I had known Jagger was in the house—”
“You still would have tried to offer yourself as a hostage for those kids.”
“Yes,” she nodded. “But I would have been waving a Maxim magazine instead of an Avon catalog.”
Her selfless bravery, even though misguided, impressed him. And equally scared the hell out of him. “Don’t make logic calls based on emotions. It will get you killed.”
“So save my own skin and let the kids become hostages.”
He wasn’t going to win this argument. Didn’t stop him from trying. “You plan for the worst-case scenario but you don’t walk in and cause it. Forget Jagger. What if Richardson had grabbed you, shot Ronni, and still held her kids in that house? Refused to let them go, knowing she had the upper hand, because now she had an FBI agent. She could have demanded whatever she wanted and, in the end, still killed you. The FBI and SWAT teams would’ve had to rush the house at some point and the kids might have died along with you. Your sacrifice would have been for nothing.”
Celina’s eyes were on the tabletop. She swirled her drink with the straw. Poked at the chips before teasing one out of the pile. “Okay, maybe I messed up. You’ve never done anything stupid based on emotion?”
Cooper didn’t want to talk about what had happened after the doctors told Dyer he’d never walk again, but he knew Celina was smart enough and connected enough in the Federal world to find out. “I punched out my unit chief right after you left town.”
Celina choked on her chip. “You punched out your unit chief,” she repeated deadpan.
“She didn’t take it well.” Cooper shrugged. “Got a little miffed.”
“She? Your unit chief is a woman?”
“Lana has a black belt and bench presses two hundred pounds without breaking a sweat. Don’t cut her any slack because she’s female.” Cooper took a swig of his beer. “She didn’t cut you any during the Londano operation. She had everyone convinced you were sleeping with Emilio to get the goods on him.”
Celina’s smile faltered and Cooper wish he’d kept that to himself. “It’s my fault Dyer ended up paralyzed,” he said, bringing the subject back on track. “From the information you forwarded to us from Emilio’s e-mails, we had the details of loads and money shipments of all his cocaine and meth cells working in the United States. We knew the how, when, and where of every batch, right down to the markings on the packages. We even had the necessary search and arrest warrants. What we didn’t have was the go ahead from above.
“As you know, it was a career-making case for people in both the FBI and DEA camps. The SCVC taskforce was ready to move in based on your first batch of information, but Lana wouldn’t let us. She wanted more evidence to be sure there would be a successful prosecution. I got fed up hearing that. I was obsessed about the case and I was worried Valquis was going to dig deep enough to figure out you weren’t Celina Mendez. After your second batch of info came through, I made the call to grab Emilio and I followed you instead of backing up Dyer. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“But why did you punch out Lana?”
The beer from his next pull tasted flat in his mouth. “After the case was over, I was at the hospital with Dyer. We knew he was permanently paralyzed, and there wasn’t much to say, but I went to sit with him, just to be there. I didn’t know how to say I was sorry, you know? And I didn’t want him to think I was deserting him.
“Anyway, not even ten hours after the doctors tell Dyer he’ll never walk again, Lana shows up with your section agent, Quarters. They weren’t there to see Dyer, to see how he was holding up. They walked into the room, Lana waving a piece of paper in my face and reading me the riot act. Seems my years of 24/7 work on the San Diego Mafia and the loss of my partner weren’t enough to warrant any slack from her. She hunted me down that day to bust my balls for forgetting to fill out an expense form.”
Celina made a face. “Ouch. Definitely insensitive on her part, but punching her out had to screw up your career plans, didn’t it, Cooper? You’re the best agent the DEA has in the Southwest quadrant in this century. You were on the fast track to becoming a unit chief yourself.”
Cooper dug into the chips and salsa again, hiding his annoyance. Lana had been so embarrassed, she’d hid the incident for the most part, stabbing him in the back instead. “I never wanted to be a unit chief. The taskforce is where the action is.” He chewed, swallowed. “And quit already with the brown-nosing. It’s not going to get you back on my team any faster.”
“Are you denying you’re that good?” she teased.
“No,” he answered. “I’m not denying that I’m good at what I do.”
“Let me guess, you’re gifted with some kind of primal gut instinct that never lets you down.”
Picking up his beer, he pointed the neck of the bottle at her. “That’s bullshit and you know it. Gut instinct only carries you so far. Discipline and constant training are the keys to staying alive out there.”
The hostess called Celina’s name and they gathered their drinks and followed h
er. She seated them in a booth at the far back corner, opposite the guitarist and near the back exit. Cooper maneuvered around Celina so he could sit in the booth with his back to the wall. “What’s good?” he asked, surveying the menu.
“If you want Mexican,” she said, picking up her own menu, “the arroz con pollo is pretty good, but since you’re in Iowa, I recommend the steak. You don’t get beef in California like you do here, no matter what the farmers claim.”
After the waitress took their order, they listened to the guitar music and talked about restaurants they knew from Santa Cruz to San Diego, the new governor, and the Padres latest losing streak. “Sounds like you miss California,” Cooper said.
She nodded. “Especially the ocean. I’d love to get back to Santa Cruz to see the migrating whales next year.”
“So come back. Looks like you have some time off right now. Be a good time to buddy up to Director Dupé. He always needs desk help with his cold cases.”
“Ha, ha.” Celina sighed, then met his gaze head on. “I want to come back and work for you.”
“I’m heading back to California tomorrow. It’s still too dangerous for you to work with me, but I’ll call Dupé if you want. See if I can at least help you get back to the area.”
Those beautiful eyes lit up, but before she could comment, their food arrived. The waitress refilled their drinks and left them to eat.
Cooper’s steak bled pink as he cut into the prime cut. “What are you scared of?” he asked, shoving a thick piece of the medium rare meat into his mouth. As promised, it was delicious.
Celina opened up her chicken wrap and stuck a strip of the grilled meat in her mouth. “What?”
“You said earlier there were only two things you were scared of.”
“Oh.” She licked her fingers. “That.”
Cooper chewed slowly and cut another piece. “So? What are the two things?”
She played with her food for a minute, salting her refried beans and scraping the chopped tomato out of the wrap with her fork. “I’m scared that Emilio will kill me.”
“He’s in North Platte with a life sentence and no chance of parole.”
Celina picked bits of jalapeño out of her rice. “Yeah, I know. But with his connections and his money, it wouldn’t take all that much for him to break out of prison.”
For someone with her Cuban roots, she sure shies away from the hot stuff. “Not his style,” he said. “It’d be easier for him to just pay one of his goons on the outside to do it.”
Mixing the doctored rice with her refried beans, Celina took a bite and shook her head. “I don’t think so. He would want to do it himself. Make it personal, you know?”
He did know. Cooper wasn’t afraid of Emilio, but he understood Celina’s fear. Somewhere down the road, Emilio could conceivably do his time and get out of jail. The California penal system was so full of prisoners, even murderers got out early on good behavior these days.
Adding a shot of hot sauce to his rice, Cooper took a bite, knowing that he would tear Emilio limb from limb if he ever so much as looked at Celina.
She exhaled and took a drink of her margarita. “I had to give a deposition for them to use in Emilio’s trial. I’d been here in Des Moines about three weeks when Dominic Quarters got a call from Director Dupé. Emilio wanted to see me. His lawyer had contacted the FBI office and told them Emilio was willing to give up information about some of his contacts in South America, but the only person he would talk to was me. I had to give my deposition anyway, so I went.”
Cooper stopped eating. Tried to sound entirely normal as his steak suddenly felt like a lead brick in his stomach. “You visited Emilio in prison?”
She stared at her plate. “I wasn’t given a choice.”
Cooper put down his fork, not sure who he was going to tear limb from limb first, Quarters or Emilio. “Did he threaten you?”
She shook her head slowly. After a glance at the dancing couple, she said, “He told me he loved me.”
Cooper tried to snort in disbelief, but found himself unable to force anything from between his clenched teeth.
Celina’s gaze met his briefly before she glanced away again. “I had taken several photos of him a few days before the arrest was made. Just a couple of black and white shots of him at his desk and one shot of him with some of the kids in his old neighborhood. He paid a guy to drive an ice cream truck through the streets and he paid for all the ice cream the local kids could eat. He was their hero.” Her voice drifted off, her eyes not seeing the couple on the dance floor. “That day at North Platte Correctional Facility, I looked at Emilio and saw a different man. His empire was gone. The business, the estate, all the people and things he cared about. He wanted copies of those photos to hang up in his jail cell. Reminders, I suppose, of all he’d lost.”
“And you sent them to him?”
“I had a set on me. To give to Dupé if he wanted them.”
The snort of disgust cleared Cooper’s lips. He wanted to slam his fist on the table at her naivety. “So you bought Emilio’s spiel and gave him the pictures.”
“No,” she said. “I traded them for information.”
That shut him up for a minute and turned his irritation into confusion. “Information on what?”
Celina shook her head. “I traded the photos for information on Enrique’s whereabouts.”
Hel-lo. Celina had just surprised him again. “You got the info on Mexico City.” Coming out of his mouth, it still seemed too good to be true. His rookie Fed was the mysterious informant that had helped him find Enrique’s hiding place. Why hadn’t Lana told him?
Unfortunately, Enrique had been dead by the time Cooper arrived. Toasted to a crisp in his house. Cooper guessed Petero Valquis had personally poured the accelerant on him before tossing the lighted match in his lap.
Celina smiled, the pink lip gloss gone. “It was too little too late, I’m afraid.”
Cooper waved her off. They ate in silence for several seconds. “So what’s the second thing you’re scared of?”
Celina’s hand stopped midway to her mouth. “That Valquis will hunt me down.”
“Val was killed in the skirmish outside Mexico City by two federales. He can’t hurt you, Celina. He’s dead, too.”
She twirled the liquid in her margarita glass. “Not in my nightmares,” she murmured. “In those, he’s still very much alive.”
Memories flashed through Cooper’s mind. A family of four whose father was a mule for the Londano operation brutalized and murdered. Dyer’s limp body. Enrique’s crispy remains. “Mine, too,” Cooper told her. “Mine, too.”
Chapter Seven
Celina never imagined that morning when she left her apartment that she’d be returning that night with Cooper Harris in tow. After her really sucky day, this was an unbelievably good thing.
Too good to be true, in fact.
It was past midnight; she and Cooper had discussed the San Diego operation during most of dinner. Over a shared fried ice cream, Cooper had entertained her with stories of some of his daring take-downs that she had no doubt he’d embellished, but that pleased her. He didn’t need to impress her—she was putty in his hands and he knew it—and yet he had tried to anyway. And then, when their waitress had politely asked them to leave since it was past closing time, Cooper had offered, without any goading, to see her home.
As she parked the Civic at the snow-packed curb half a block from the entrance to her apartment building, she did a mental scan of her one-room efficiency apartment. Bed: unmade. Couch: cluttered with Elle and Vogue and her camera. Kitchen sink: full of bowls and silverware. Refrigerator: one Diet Dew and a half-eaten yogurt. Bathroom: fairly clean except for the pile of clothes on the floor.
In her fantasies where Cooper came home with her, it was a warm Southern California night. Her place, two blocks from the ocean, was spotless and smelled like homemade chocolate chip cookies. The refrigerator held Cooper’s favorite beverage—Corona—and plenty
of fresh limes. A modest display of her best photographs were hung and spotlighted on various walls. The drawer of her bedside table contained a healthy stack of condoms.
She was dressed in a sexy, cleavage-enhancing black silk dress with a coordinating black lace bra and underwear. Cooper, so entranced with her beauty and wit, couldn’t keep his hands off her as she fumbled with her keys to unlock the door…
A knock on the car window jolted Celina back to the present. Cooper stood beside the car, snowflakes falling on his hair. The streetlight at the end of the block threw shadows on him but Celina could see one of his brows lifted in question. She yanked the parking brake and grabbed the keys out of the ignition.
“You okay?” Cooper asked as she emerged from the car.
“Fine.” Boy, if that wasn’t a total understatement. Every last one of her cells vibrated with anticipation. She was finally, finally going to have Cooper Harris all to herself, and she refused to worry about the state of her apartment or her mismatched underwear and bra. She’d missed him so much it hurt, and he was going back to California tomorrow. Today, actually. She had a few more hours with him. That would have to be enough for now.
He fell into step beside her on the sidewalk. Pushing the front door open to the entryway, Celina looked back over her shoulder at Cooper as she headed for the stairs. “Hope you’re up for a hike. I’m on the top floor and there’s no eleva—”
The word died on her tongue. Cooper wasn’t following her. He’d stopped in the doorway.
“It was good seeing you again, Celina.” His eyes took a slow tour of her body. “Real good. But I’m not coming up. It’s late and we both have a long day ahead of us, so I’ll say goodnight here. When you get back to California, come see me.”
Celina’s heart fell an inch in her chest. No, no, no. “But you…but I…” She couldn’t find the right words to make him stay. “You’re kidding me. Even after tonight, you’re going to walk away?”
“What? I’m not sure I follow.”
