“Someone hacked into the security cameras and crashed the system. I never got a good look at him. His cap concealed his face, 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 be trained, maybe a military pilot, 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’ve thought it was—”
“Impossible?” Sarah said from the threshold. “So, did I. And since the jerk detonated devices loaded with explosives throughout the building, it will be awhile 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 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. The shower seemed to have revived him.
He set the coffee cup next to her. After taking a deep sip, she asked Sarah, “Is there any more information about the second attack?”
“News crews have swarmed the border from all over. The drone didn’t return to the place it was launched. Hopefully, it will send out a location signal before it’s shut down.”
“Could the traffic cameras ID the person with the drone?”
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. Whoever we are dealing with, they know their stuff.”
“Okay, where do you want me to begin?”
“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 Marcus’s place captured her image, 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.
Sarah had labeled each person, 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 something on a deposit slip.
“The ball cap is the same. Is that Ryan? There are cameras all over that lobby. One of them had to pick up an unobstructed view of his face.”
“That’s what should have happened.” Mac’s voice came out harsh, but it wasn’t directed at her. “He approached no one 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 was she 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 hands 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 we’re absolutely 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.”
“We found him at his desk this morning. He shot himself.”
“Dear God.”
“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 deposited in your account, then the bells start ringing like crazy,” Jason added.
“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 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 his chest. After several deep breaths, her lungs filled and her heartbeat settled 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 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 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…”
“
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. “He hacked the system to get it to match up with only you. As soon as the date was set up, he removed all evidence.”
“But Ryan didn’t set up the date with me.”
“Lexie, what are you talking about?”
“Cole and Marcus thought I needed to get out, have some fun. They enrolled me in the site, set up my profile, and found Ryan, arranging the date behind my back.”
Dear God, he knows! She had to swallow before the terror choked her.
“If Ryan came into the FBI to keep me from identifying him, what will he do to Marcus and Cole?”
“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 or did she just say a couple of friends? 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’re safe. Ryan’s will not get to them.”
“He walked into the FBI. How are they safe?” Lexie dropped into the chair. “And, Ryan put something in my phone. He was supposed to be giving me his number, but I’m sure that was another 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, which is what I’m running at work. If malware could run on your smartphone, it wouldn’t be very effective unless—”
“I have been charging and backing up my phone on my computer at work…”
“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 workstation. This is my fault.”
Ten
“Don’t you dare take the blame for that psychopathic asshole.” Mac wanted to hit something, hard. “That’ll really piss me off.”
“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.”
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 the calmest and most sensible of my brothers.”
“Shut it, Jason.”
Sarah 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. 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.”
“We are not doing this now.”
Her body slammed him against the wall and charged toward the stairs. Without thinking, he grabbed her at the waist and swung her around. “I said, don’t walk away from me.”
Everything in him shouted to let her go and not push any further, but his hands had a mind of their own. As they glared at each other, Mac couldn’t miss the hurt in her eyes.
“Why do you think I hate you?”
She eased away from him, and he countered, easing in closer. One more move like that and she would be stuck between him and the wall. “Please answer my question.”
“No. I’ve answered enough questions today. Move.”
“It’s against the law to strike a federal officer.”
“The law doesn’t apply to a dead woman, moron.”
Mac couldn’t help letting out a hard laugh. Spunk. And it was part of Lexie’s personality he enjoyed most about her. She never took his shit, never backed down, defining in-your-face at a whole new level. But, then again, if she wanted a fight, he would not let her down.
“I’m waiting. It’s time we cleared up a few things between us.” He planted his hands on the wall behind her. The hint of lemon and a spicy floral scent assailed his senses. He still didn’t touch her, but she wasn’t going anywhere. “Talk to me.”
“Back off first.”
He inched closer. At this distance, he could almost hear the pulse of her heart rushing through her veins. “I don’t hate anything about you, Lexie Trevena. Not one damn thing.”
Mac’s lips brushed against the tender skin right below her left ear. That simple contact aroused his senses and left him wide open for a well-placed knee. But instead of losing a vital part of his anatomy, she swallowed and a single tear broke from the corner of her left eye.
“Lexie, don’t do that.”
“Why wasn’t I good enough for Rico?”
The question hit hard. “What are you talking about?”
“Forget it… it doesn’t matter.”
“Like hell it doesn’t. Where did you get that idea?”
“Moments before Rico and I were to walk down the aisle, you told him he shouldn’t marry me.”
“How…?”
“The walls between the rooms at the church were thin.” A weak fist struck his chest. “You didn’t even know me. What did I do… what did I say to make you dislike me so much?”
Mac cupped her face. “No, you misunderstood, and again, jumped to the wrong conclusion. Rico wasn’t good enough for you. Not the other way around.”
“I loved him and you were asking him to leave me at the altar.”
“I knew Rico. I didn’t want him to hu
rt you.”
“So, you hurt me first?”
“Rico wasn’t a bad man, but he would’ve never settled down and become the husband you deserved.”
Lexie’s eyes changed―from hurt to anger, then disbelief. Mac had seconds to decide if he would openly lie to her. It was also time she met the real Rico, but shit, not after the day she had. “There are things you need to know.”
Her body trembled as she shook her head slowly back and forth. “Rico loved me.”
“Yes, in his own way he did, and he wanted your marriage to work.”
Again, the room grew still, but this time, an icy current settled over both of them.
“You didn’t ask him to go undercover, did you?” Lexie shut her eyes tightly and covered her face with her hands. “It was his idea all along, wasn’t it?” Gut-wrenching pain edged into her voice. “Why—”
“Why did he volunteer for the damn assignment? I don’t know. He went over my head to Díaz and pitched the op to infiltrate the Réinanos cartel. He dragged Jason with him.”
Lexie seemed to close in on herself. Her head dropped to his chest and her body shook with sobs. Mac wrapped his arms around her waist and held her against him. It shocked the hell out of him that each tear seemed to sear through his heart. She treated him like shit most of the time and had been nothing but a pain in his ass from day one.
“It wasn’t you, Lexie. It was just who Rico was.” Mac kissed away the salty moisture down her cheek. “There’s not a thing wrong with you. You’re beautiful, sexy as hell, loving, and… I loved him like a brother, but he should have treated you better.”
Hating what the memories were doing to both of them, he did the only thing he could think of to shatter the pain. He lowered his head until his lips just touched hers. When she didn’t pull away, he gently caressed her lower lip. Hot, explosive jolts charged through him, and he captured her mouth as his need took charge.
She tasted of ripe oranges—sweet, tangy. Every muscle, every cell screamed for more of everything. Lexie didn’t have a timid bone in her body and matched his need with her own.
Lifting her against him, he deepened the kiss, aching to allow his hands to roam. He had to know the soft, silky feel of her skin. He inched his hand under her T-shirt. Her breath hitched the second his hand brushed over her stomach.
In the Shadow of Pride Book 4 Page 8
