“Not really.”
She moved to stand in front of him and block his view of the rest of the room. “He’s right. You are on the same team.”
“Something about him sets off my alarm bells. I don’t know what it is yet.” His lack of love for the guy wasn’t exactly a secret. Ford had told Ward from the start something smelled wrong with the tall Brit.
They were all burnable assets. Expendable, if it came down to either of them versus the world. Ford accepted it. With Harlan’s background, Ford guessed the other man did too. But none of that made the stink go away.
“Well, try not to piss him off in the meantime. Despite the refined accent, he’s deadly,” she said. “He also ranks above you.”
“Technically.”
“No, in fact.”
Ford conceded this round to her. “Understood.”
“You need to know I think Ward is taking a risk by keeping you on this assignment.”
“No, he’s not.” The denial shot out of Ford while a sudden flash of anger burned in his gut. “And if you’re so worried, why haven’t you tried to kick me off?”
“ ‘Tried’?”
It was never a good idea to challenge her authority. He didn’t intend to do that anyway. “That was the wrong word.”
“Because I think you being invested in something other than your wallowing is a good thing.”
Yeah, the cryptic side of Tasha he didn’t like so much. “Meaning?”
“Between the odd T-shirts”—she pulled at his sleeve—“and bitching at Harlan, your sole focus for the last few months seemed to be on causing trouble.”
“That’s not true.” Damn, he hoped that wasn’t true. No question, regret ate at him, stealing his sleep and ruining his focus, but he hid it. He showed up and got the job done, even with bad intel.
She broke eye contact for a blip then returned again. “I worried your last CIA assignment made you—”
“Wary.”
“Self-destructive.”
Ford preferred his word. “I’m fine.”
Images flashed on the biggest screen as Ward stood at the end of the conference room table with a file. The guard’s face and the crime scene photos appeared. Now Ford knew what Ward had been doing for the last half hour—preparing the briefing on the guard and his suspicious death.
Tasha ping-ponged between watching Ward and watching the photos on the screen. “Hmmm.”
“What is that sound about?”
“I’ll remind you of this moment and how fine you were when we have Trent in custody or on a slab and the assignment is over.”
“You mean after I catch the bad guy and separate him from his deadly toxin.” Because that was the only answer here. Trent had to be stopped and the toxin collected. No matter what. And he and Bravo team would be the ones to do it.
“I mean after Shay knows you played a part in bringing her cousin down.”
The words cut through Ford, pinpointing his weakness and drilling in there. “He’s a terrorist.”
“Possibly.”
Ford didn’t see any other scenario that made sense. “If he is, I don’t have a choice.”
“I wonder if Shay will see it that way.”
So did he.
18
SHAY THOUGHT about calculating how much time she set aside each day to handle plumbing problems. She didn’t even want to know what the building’s residents kept shoving in the toilet. Whatever it was required her to make weekly visits to one unit or another. She now dreaded any sentence with the word “toilet” in it.
With plunger in hand, she unlocked unit ten and stepped inside. Ron was at his job on Capitol Hill, but an assistant or secretary or someone with a female voice had called and asked that the toilet be in working order by six. The job fell to her unless she found that it blew past her regular, limited expertise.
Lucky her.
Floorboards creaked under her feet. Since she wore light sneakers, the unexpected sound made her stop. No way would Ron’s downstairs neighbor tolerate that for very long. She made a mental note to figure out what kind of handyman she should call to correct this newest issue.
But one disaster at a time. This afternoon’s focus should be on water. Still, the squeaking grabbed her attention. She crouched down and tapped on the wood. A hollow thud greeted her.
Another knock and a creaking sound echoed back at her. Not from where she stood. From the short hall leading to the bathroom and bedroom.
“Ron, are you here?”
She strained, trying to peek past the corner of the wall. The lack of lighting cast the part of the hallway she could see in shadows. “Hello?”
If he were there, he’d speak up. Ron was the chat-by-the-mailboxes type. When you asked him how he was, he actually took ten minutes to tell you. He loved to hear himself talk. No way would he not walk out and say hello on his way to complaining about the toilet issue.
That meant something else was at play. Unease zipped through her. She tried to calm the acrobatics in her belly, but sitting back on her heels, vulnerable and waiting, sent her into a full body shake.
With her palm on the floor, she scooted her body closer to the front door. A quick glance back and she measured a rough eight feet to hit the doorway and get out of there. Her brain clicked into action as she tried to mentally explain away the noises and focus on the fact the door had been locked when she arrived. Thanks to her uncle’s insistence and a good portion of his wallet, this was not an easy building to break into.
Something thumped and the tip of a shoe appeared. She didn’t wait to reason that out. She jumped to her feet at a dead run. Footsteps hammered behind her but she didn’t waste time looking back. Every self-defense class she’d ever attended talked about getting in front of people and screaming her head off. She planned to do both things.
Sweaty and shaking, her hand slipped on the knob. She fumbled, finally getting it open when a solid weight crashed into her back. She kicked out and yelled. Banged on the door. Anything to get someone’s attention even if it was the middle of the workday.
Her body slammed into the door as a hand covered her mouth.
“Hey. Stop.”
She heard the male whisper. Rage and terror whipped through her as she flailed and bucked. She tried to throw off the attacker’s hand and shove her body back against him to throw him off balance.
“Shay, for God’s sake. Stop.”
The voice registered then and she fell limp against the door. “Trent?”
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“How did you get in here? What were you . . .” She spun around, planning to shove her hands against his chest as she lectured him about scaring women. Then she saw his face, drawn with an unkempt and scraggly beard. Gone was the smooth skin and glint that trumped the geeky side of him and attracted young women everywhere he went. A mousy brown had replaced his previously blond hair.
She put her hands on his shoulders as she looked him up and down. “Oh, my God. What happened?”
This had to be about more than a girl. She couldn’t believe this was a case of lovesickness gone ballistic. He wore a heavy jacket she’d never seen and looked like he hadn’t had a meal in weeks.
“I’m in trouble.”
She didn’t need his brains or advanced degrees to ferret that part out. Her mind went to drugs. To a lot of bad choices and wrong roads she could see him taking. “What kind?”
“At work.”
The place where he practically lived. She couldn’t believe performance was the issue. He gave every task his all. “I thought you took a few days off.”
His hands were still on her forearms, and he tightened his hold. “Days? I haven’t been there in weeks.”
Wrapping her fingers around his, she tried to loosen his stranglehold before
he bruised her skin. To peel his fingers away one by one because much more of this pressure and her wrist would go numb. “How is that possible? Your boss said—”
“I had to get out of there.” Trent dropped his hands and started pacing. He somehow missed the boards that made the noise earlier.
For a second her mind zoomed to how she’d ended up in this unit. “Did you set this up?”
“A woman in the diner made the call for me.” Trent glanced around as if he thought someone was about to attack from behind. “I needed to talk with you.”
He’d lured her. He somehow broke in. It wasn’t a stretch to think he set up the floorboards as some sort of early warning system. Sure, the idea had a Hollywood bent to it, but it fit with the secrets and multiple stories in this circumstance.
But none of it fit with the story Anthony told her. “This is all because you fell for a woman in your lab? I’m sorry, I don’t know her name.”
Trent stopped and threw her an open-mouthed stare. “What are you talking about?”
“Your dad said you were in Charlottesville nursing a broken heart.” The explanation sounded as dumb now as when she’d heard it the first time.
“That’s . . .” Trent shook his head. Looked confused as hell, too. “That never happened.”
If that story was a lie, then she had to wonder what else Anthony had said to appease her. He’d sold the infatuation-gone-wrong story. She’d never quite bought it, which turned out to be a good thing. “You haven’t talked with your dad?”
“Shay, listen to me.” Trent’s hands went to her biceps. This time he shoved her hard enough for her back to hit wood and her head to bounce against the door. “I’m being set up.”
She fought off a wave of dizziness. She didn’t have room in her head for anything but confusion. Keeping up the divergent stories proved hard enough. “For what?”
“There’s some missing stuff at work and everyone thinks I took it. Serious, really bad stuff.”
The comment was such a convoluted mess, too vague and almost meaningless. But the way his voice bobbled and he glanced around the room every two seconds suggested he believed something had gone very wrong.
She tried to get him to calm down and focus. “I don’t—”
“I need you to help me throw people off my scent.” He shook her, then let go again. When he took off pacing a second time, his moves were jerky. He rubbed his hands together and stared at the floor.
“This isn’t . . .” She stepped in front of him and forced him to look at her. “Trent, I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”
“Money and an alibi.” He punctuated the first and last words.
Two words she heard on television cop shows but never in real life. They spelled trouble, and Trent appeared to be in a load of it.
She ran through the possibilities in her mind. If not an imploded romance, then maybe drugs were the answer or he’d messed up a project at work. Being so smart, people sometimes forgot his age and clamped down hard when he made mistakes. No matter what it was, she was sure they could work it out . . . if he would just settle down and tell her the issue step by step.
But she couldn’t wade through this alone. “We should talk to Uncle Anthony.”
“No.” The word came out as a slap. That old anger clicked back into place, and for a second his scared facade fell.
Whatever ate at Trent had him spinning and snapping. Her mind zipped back to the possibility of a drug issue one more time, and the life drained out of her. The family had been lucky on that score. Not on any other, but addiction hadn’t hit their radar. If that was the issue, she’d read up on it, talk to experts, do whatever Trent needed to help him get clean and well.
She had to get him to a place to accept help first. “Trent, I can’t—”
“I’ll figure out a way to contact you in the next few days. You need to go to different banks, cover your tracks. You can take money off credit cards.”
The comments sounded crazy. She turned them over in her head and couldn’t make sense out of the rampant paranoia. He hadn’t been right for months but now she feared he’d unraveled and she’d missed it.
When he grabbed for the knob, she put a hand against the door to keep it shut and him trapped inside with her. “Trent, listen to me—”
“Do not tell anyone you saw me.”
“This is—”
He yanked on the door and managed to move her body a few feet out of the way. “And don’t let me down.”
Then he disappeared down the hall at a run and was gone.
19
FORD PUT the last of the dinner plates into the dishwasher and threw the towel on the counter. Night had fallen. Except for the streetlight outside the window over Shay’s sink, darkness blanketed the side yard.
They’d eaten in near silence, which only added to his unease. The surveillance video from yesterday showed her roaming all over his apartment. Hell, she’d even dug around in his coat pockets. Good thing he’d stuck with protocol and didn’t keep anything other than items relating to his cover in the condo.
There’d purposely been nothing for her to find, but that wasn’t the point. She went looking for something and that spelled trouble. Ward sure thought so. Ford still wasn’t sure how the response to his request for a video review ended up on Ward’s desk first.
Ford tried to sell a story about Shay checking to see if he was cheating. The frown on Ward’s face had suggested he didn’t buy the ploy at all. Reviewing the tape meant telling the team. They took it well, except for Reid, who announced he could have held cover and kept Shay satisfied without causing a problem. Ford landed one hard shove before West stepped in and broke up the potential testosterone battle. It was a shame since Ford welcomed the energy release.
The back and forth with Reid had been a way to burn off tension and nothing more, but the problem remained. Shay had doubts. Ford knew his cover could blow the op, which should have been the most important issue. For some reason, all Ford could think about was the shitty possibility of having to break it off with her before it was too late.
He leaned against the counter and eyed her. She bit her lip and stared into space. Gone was the rapport from their restaurant date. Her mind wasn’t there, in the room with them.
Reading women was not his strength so he didn’t even try. “You okay? You seem distracted.”
She lifted her arms and flipped her hair around into a ponytail, then she was on the move again. “Long day.”
Not the most helpful answer. “Were you able to fix the plumbing problem?”
“What?” She stopped staring at her hands and shifting around inside the U-shaped area of counters.
“You texted that you had another leaky pipe issue.” Not something he would normally have to remind her about. She tended to chatter about her day the minute he walked in. He found it endearing even though it sometimes took him a few minutes to catch up. “I’m thinking your uncle needs to spend some money to upgrade some of the basics around here.”
“He doesn’t really open his wallet all that willingly.” She reached over and picked up the towel Ford had dropped. She matched up the ends and folded, then undid it and tried again.
He took the material out of her hand and hung it over the bar to the oven door before she accidentally strangled herself with it. “Would he rather the building fall down around you?”
“Good question.”
Ford wasn’t even clear on what they were talking about anymore. Pipes and towels and nothing that got to the heart of her being here in body only. “You sure you’re okay?”
She looked at him and some of the haze cleared from her eyes. It was as if she’d forced her mind to snap out of whatever world it had landed in and come back to him.
“I’m thinking we should go to bed early,” she said.
That sounded good, but the usual heat that flushed her skin was missing tonight. “And bed means . . .”
She smiled. “Bed.”
Well, damn. “Ah, okay.”
“Sorry.” She gnawed on her lips again. “I understand if you want to go back to your place.”
“I’m not an animal, Shay. I can go without sex for one night.” He took a step and brought her into his arms and against his body. His hands linked at the base of her back. The tension finally left his muscles when she relaxed against him.
“That hasn’t been my experience with you so far. Not that I’m complaining. I was a very active participant in those nights.”
“I’ll be happy just to hold you.” Strange thing was, the holding worked fine for him. Sure, he wanted more from her, but he liked the quiet moments, too.
She snuggled into the space under his chin and rested the side of her face on his chest. “That sounds good tonight.”
He liked the position more than he wanted to admit. Naked and screaming his name still ranked as one of his favorites, but it felt right just to hold her. To give her comfort because tonight she seemed to need it.
He rubbed a hand up and down her back. “Maybe by morning you’ll tell me what’s really wrong.”
“With a good night’s sleep it will all be fine.”
Ford rarely found that to be the case, but he let the comment drop. She’d find out soon enough. Then they’d both pay for his job choices.
Ward sat on the bench in front of Ford’s locker outside the Warehouse gym. He’d seen Ford working out and knew he was nearing the end of his hour-long routine of punishing weight-lifting and modified push-ups that would have made a Marine proud.
Ford turned the corner, spied him and stopped. “Ah, damn.” He slammed an open hand against the metal lockers, making them rattle. Not the most subtle of reactions, but exactly what he expected.
“Good to see you, too,” Ward said.
Pushing past Ward in the small space, Ford reached for his lock and spun the dial to enter his combination. “Is this lecture time about the video? Because I’m not really in the mood.”
Playing Dirty Page 18
