Mountain Investigation

by Jessica Andersen

  But that was the irrational part of him talking, the part that had gotten so caught up in guilting himself over their kiss that he hadn’t been at his post when the turncoat cop had abducted her from the hospital. And although that situation had worked out, thanks to a GPS and some major strokes of luck, it only confirmed what his rational, trained side had been telling him since that first moment he’d kissed her and nearly lost himself. Or hell, since the moment he’d plastered himself atop her out in the woods beyond the cabin, shielding her from discovery, and had been all but derailed by the feel of her body beneath his.

  She was trouble, and the two of them together were a bad mix.

  There was chemistry, yes—a whole lot of chemistry, though she was nothing like the soft, feminine women he was typically drawn to. And he was even tempted to like her from time to time, when he didn’t want to strangle her for being stubborn and insisting on challenging him at every turn. But none of that was pertinent to the case at hand, was it? He had to think like a special agent on this one. She was an asset, nothing more. The next time he forgot that and let her distract him, she could very well end up dead. And if she died without remembering what Lee wanted from her, then the next terror attack, and the hundreds—maybe even thousands—of lives lost, would be on his head.

  So instead of sparing her the sight of what her ex had done to her home, he stepped aside and beckoned her inside. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

  She moved through the front door and stopped short. Her eyes went blank for a second, then flooded with emotion. “Oh. It’s so…empty.” She looked around, her breath catching. “Where are all my pictures? The rugs are gone, the pillows, everything.” She turned to him. “Did the CSIs really need to take everything?”

  “They didn’t.” His voice came out flat as he forced himself to keep the necessary distance. “I had a cleaning crew come in and clear out everything that Lee and Brisbane wrecked while they were staying here. The damaged stuff is bagged and tagged outside.” According to the reports, that accounted for just about everything in the cabin except the furniture. “You can go through it later, but the cleaners said almost all of it was beyond salvage.”

  The men—or, most likely, in Gray’s opinion, Lee—had used the sofa cushions for target practice, smashed the photographs, urinated on the rugs, torn through her clothing and photographic equipment, and wrecked almost everything else that could be wrecked. The couch and chairs had taken some hits, too, but the cleaners had been able to remove the worst of the stains. It would be up to Mariah whether she wanted to keep those pieces.

  Not that she needed to know those details right now. The violation she was feeling showed in her eyes, and in the stiff tension in her body. She was wearing jeans and a pale amber sweater that earlier in the day had picked up the color in her eyes and the highlights in her dark, curly hair. Now, though, the color only served to emphasize the deathly pallor of her face, giving her an air of fragile vulnerability, and he was used to her being neither fragile nor vulnerable.

  For a second she looked small and delicate, which kicked at every protective urge Gray had ever possessed, threatening to override his better judgment. He’d actually taken two steps toward her before she turned and pinned him with a look.

  “No.” The word was soft, but underlaid with steel. Tears glistened in her eyes, but her voice held only determination when she said, “You don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to touch me when you feel like it, then turn around and tell me it’s all about the case. You don’t want to be attracted to me, don’t want to be with me. I get that. Well, guess what? Given a choice in the matter, I wouldn’t pick you, either. Which should make this much easier than it would’ve been otherwise.” She looked past him to the open door. “Are the others coming in?”

  He reached back without looking and swung the door shut. “Nope. They’ll form a perimeter outside.” It wasn’t SOP, but it was what Gray had insisted on. Not because he wanted to spend time alone with her in the small cabin, but because he’d thought it would be easier for her that way, without five other agents lurking in the cabin.

  She looked at him for a long moment, then surprised him by nodding. “Thanks. Good call. The more space I’ve got to myself, the more likely I’ll be able to remember what Lee said.”

  That was pretty much what Gray had been thinking, which made him wish he didn’t understand her as well as he was coming to. In his business, detachment was key.

  Needing some crucial distance, he pulled out his cell and checked the time. “It’s nearly midnight. We should move some furniture, get some sleep.” He prowled across the main room to check out the two back bedrooms. They were both equally small, but one was crammed full of furniture, while the other held only a bare mattress on a bed frame that was pushed up against the wall, right below a shiny new eyebolt that’d been screwed deep into one of the polyurethaned logs.

  Gray went rigid with raw fury as he pictured Mariah lying there, bound, terrified and chained to the wall, terrorized by the man she’d thought she loved.

  This time, he gave in to the urge to block the doorway. He turned and found Mariah close behind him. Scowling, he said, “You’ll sleep in the main room or the other bedroom.”

  He halfway expected an argument, halfway expected relief. He hadn’t expected her eyes to soften just a hint, or her lips to turn up at the corners in a sad smile.

  “I appreciate the thought. Seriously. But we both know the best way for me to remember is to put myself in the same situation I was in when I heard Lee the first time.” She nudged him aside, and Gray gave way because she was right, dammit.

  She moved to the center of the room, then stopped and stood, staring at the bed. The overhead bulb illuminated the scene in stark yellow light that did nothing to blunt the impact of a bedroom that had been turned into a cell.

  When she turned and looked at him, Gray saw the memories in her eyes, and the despair. “Mariah,” he began, but then stopped, because what could he say? She was right about a number of things, not the least of them that she needed to stay in that bed, and he needed to keep his hands off her if he didn’t intend to follow through on what was—or could be—between them.

  She nodded as if he’d said those things aloud. “Yeah. I know.” Squaring her shoulders, she said, “Did he leave me any sheets and pillows?”

  “I had an agent pick up supplies, bedding included. The advance team left the bags in the spare room.”

  “In other words, no, he didn’t leave me anything except the walls and some furniture.” She nodded as if she’d expected the answer, though her expression was bleak and her voice very soft and sad when she said, “Lee has a mean streak. Heck, that’s practically all he is—one big mean streak. I didn’t see it until after we were married. That’s going to haunt me, I expect, until the day I die. If I had seen it, if I had done something—”

  “Don’t,” Gray interrupted. He moved in closer to her, not to soothe, but so she would know that he meant every word. “First off, there was no way you could’ve known; he was playing a role, and he’s smart and ruthless enough to pull it off.” Gray knew that for a fact, having watched the bastard nearly charm a jury into acquitting him. “Second, if your gut had warned you off him in the beginning, he would’ve just moved on to someone else, used someone else. That would’ve changed your life, yes, but it wouldn’t have stopped the bombing. Al-Jihad doesn’t open himself to risk by having just one plan—he has backups upon backups. You were one piece of a larger whole. And third, if you’d figured it out and turned Lee in, there’s no telling what would have happened. Maybe the authorities would’ve traced him back to al-Jihad before the bombing. Probably not, though. And you know what one thing you can be sure of? If you’d turned him in, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

  He hadn’t meant to put it so bluntly, but there it was. She’d survived her marriage only because she’d withdrawn into herself and presented such a minimal threat to Mawadi’s plans that it hadn
’t been necessary to kill her beforehand. And then she’d gotten very, very lucky. On the day of the bombing, Lee had arranged to meet her at one of the Santa’s thrones. She’d been delayed by traffic just long enough so that she arrived at the mall late. She’d been in the parking lot when the bombs went off.

  “You’re right.” She nodded, pale but determined. “And I’m going to make him sorry he ever pulled me into this. I’d like to say he’s going to be sorry for what he’s done, but I don’t think he’s capable of that.” Features set, she headed out of the room. “I’m going to make the bed, at least. I may have to sleep in here, but I don’t have to do it on a bare mattress.” She turned back in the doorway. “You want the foldout in the spare room or the couch in the living room? If you want the foldout, we’ll have to shift some furniture around in the office. They certainly jammed stuff in there.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, but he could see the effort it took her to maintain that practical, no-nonsense front. He sensed that she needed to crumble, but she’d be damned if she’d do it in front of him.

  He wanted to soothe, but he didn’t have the right. So he dipped his chin, acknowledging all of it, and said, “I’ll bunk down on the couch.”

  Not that he’d be sleeping much. He could go days without sleep on assignment and intended to do exactly that on this job. It wasn’t that he distrusted the perimeter the other agents had set up, per se. It was more that he’d stayed alive up to that point by virtue of not trusting anyone but himself. According to Stacy, that was one of the things that had torpedoed their marriage, which by extension meant it had begun the domino effect that had put him and the others in Colorado for the bombings. But so what? His lack of trust might have indirectly put him in the current situation, but it was going to damn well get him out of it intact, and he was bringing Mariah out safely with him.

  Although she’d seemed to read his thoughts from his expressions a few times before, this time she took his words at face value, simply nodding and turning away. “I’ll go see what your agents left us.”

  Gray didn’t follow her out. He crossed the room, shoved her bed out of the way and went to work on the eyebolt. Cursing Mawadi to hell and back, he used the spare clip from his 9 mm as leverage to unscrew the hardware from its bite in the heavy log wall. The bolt resisted at first; it’d been driven deep with what he imagined had been Mawadi’s desire for revenge against the woman who’d dared to divorce him.

  But Gray was fueled by an equal measure of anger, and hatred for men like Mawadi, who killed because it entertained them, or like al-Jihad, who killed because their own warped, twisted sense of right and wrong demanded it. And, as the bolt finally came free of the wood and clattered to the floor beneath the bed, Gray knew he was currently being compelled by another, equally hot emotion.

  He needed to know that Mariah wouldn’t be staring at that damn eyebolt as she tried to remember what her ex had said to her.

  Stirred up, ticked off and feeling as though he were about to explode, Gray swept up the bolt from under the bed and stalked through the crowded spare room to the back exit, through which Mariah had escaped four days ago—four days that seemed like so much longer. He was aware of her watching him, wide-eyed, as he yanked open the door, waved for the perimeter guards to stand down, and hurled the eyebolt outside.

  Then he slammed and locked the door, and headed back out into the main room. Edgy, greedy need licked along his nerve endings like fire, and he knew if he didn’t get some space, he wasn’t going to like what happened next. But where the hell was he supposed to get space when he was locked in with just the person he needed to get away from?

  “Gray,” she said from behind him.

  He held up a hand to forestall whatever was coming next, but didn’t look back at her because he wasn’t sure what would happen if she kept talking. “Not now. Please, Mariah, not now. Just go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  He expected an argument, and a hard, hot piece of him might have welcomed it. But for the first time since he’d met her, she took the coward’s way out, saying only, “Good night, then.”

  He held himself still, standing rigid in the center of the main room until he heard her bedroom door close.

  Then he dropped down onto the sofa, put his head in his hands, and tried to remember his damn priorities. He wasn’t there for her. She was there to help him bring down Mawadi and the others, nothing more. There couldn’t be anything more, he reminded himself. Not until he’d taken care of the business at hand. And then? Well, then he and Mariah would go their separate ways.

  He knew from personal experience that physical attraction didn’t make a solid foundation for a lasting relationship when the two people involved had nothing but chemistry in common.

  MARIAH SLEPT FITFULLY, her slumber broken up by dream fragments and nightmares. Each time she awakened, she tried to relax, tried to lull herself into a state where she could call forth Lee’s questions, but to no avail. Maybe she was trying too hard. Who knew? All she knew for sure was that she was wide awake before dawn, physically exhausted but mentally restless.

  The knowledge that Gray was out in the main room kept her in bed for longer than she would’ve stayed there otherwise, partly because she didn’t want to wake him if he were sleeping, and partly because she didn’t want to deal with him, period. He made her feel so many contradictory things all at once, in one big messy knot of uncertainty. She felt safe with him, yet vulnerable; empowered yet weak; sometimes needy and feminine, other times practical and unsexy. She didn’t know who she was around him, didn’t know how to act.

  She lay in her bare bedroom, replaying the kiss they had shared, remembering the sensations he’d sparked, and the emotions.

  She had come into her marriage relatively inexperienced, and while sex with Lee had been pleasant at first, even exciting at times, those good times had quickly shifted to power plays and manipulation. It had taken her months to figure out what had changed, and longer than that after the bombings and her quickie divorce to separate out the guilt from the sex and rationally work through what he’d done to her, and how. She’d consulted a therapist, and though it had profoundly unsettled her to share intimate details with a stranger, the sessions had helped her find her center and her balance.

  She didn’t fear sex, she’d decided, but neither had she desired it for some time. The therapist had assured her that her libido would return eventually. It was just her luck the damn thing had decided to come back online now, and with a totally unsuitable man. Still, she couldn’t escape the memory of how his mouth had felt against hers, how his lips had felt on her skin. As they’d kissed, he’d been focused only on her, and on the heat they’d made together.

  And she so wasn’t getting any closer to remembering what Lee wanted from her, lying there thinking of another, far better—though no less complicated—man.

  Muttering under her breath, she got up, got dressed in yesterday’s clothes, used the bathroom and then headed for the kitchen, in need of a serious caffeine hit to counteract the effects of the long night and the preceding days.

  A light was on in the main room, though Gray appeared to be asleep, lying on his back in a sprawl of leashed male strength. He’d swapped his ruined suit for worn jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that gapped open at the throat, and he wore thick socks against the snap in the mountain air. His boots sat close at hand and his holstered weapon rested on an end table. The sight was more reassuring than intimidating, though Mariah found it a bit of both.

  “Bad dreams?” he said, sounding wide awake, though he didn’t open his eyes or otherwise move.

  She was grateful he’d kept his eyes closed; she didn’t want to start the day by being caught staring. Then again, the fact that she’d stopped dead in the middle of the living room had probably been a good clue.

  “I wouldn’t mind the bad dreams if they were at all productive,” she answered. Forcing herself to get moving rather than watching him any longer, she tossed over her shoulder, “Y
ou want coffee?”

  His jaw went tight, and something that looked like anger flashed in his eyes when they opened. “I’ll fend for myself.” He rose and headed for the bathroom, seeming to have come fully awake in an instant. When he returned to the main room, he pulled on his boots, donned his holster and grabbed the jacket he’d hung near the front door. “I’m going to check in with the others. Be back in a few.”

  “Will it bother you if I make enough breakfast for everyone?” she asked, having gotten a definite edge off his tone when he’d turned down her offer of coffee.

  “Suit yourself.” He didn’t look at her as he unlocked the front door, snapped a quick radio check at the team outside and left, closing the door behind him with an emphatic thunk of wood on wood.

  When he was gone, the air should’ve felt softer and less tense to Mariah. She should’ve welcomed the few minutes of privacy, the moment to be alone. Instead, the cabin felt empty, and the atmosphere hummed with the same tension as before, only worse now, as though her psyche were determined to make her acknowledge that things had changed, that maybe being alone wasn’t what she wanted anymore.

  But she’d fallen into that trap once before, following the urges to New York, and from there into marriage. She’d learned her lesson, hadn’t she?

  Working on autopilot, she made coffee, grimacing when she pawed through the grocery bags and checked the refrigerator. The brands weren’t the ones she would have chosen, the selection somewhat haphazard, serving to drive home the reality she’d been trying to avoid facing since the previous night, when she’d stepped inside the cabin and felt like the space wasn’t hers anymore. Lee had destroyed her photos and knickknacks. He’d eaten her food, sat on her furniture and done heaven only knew what else to her personal space. And whatever the crime-scene analysts hadn’t needed, the cleaners had taken care of. Her home had been stripped of character, her touch erased, leaving her to start over yet again.