Oh, mercy. The caller had to be the mole. And it couldn’t be Bobby because he was there with them. Of course, the call could perhaps be a ploy to throw suspicion off Bobby, but Danielle was beginning to believe the young CSI was innocent.
“Is there any way to trace this?” she mouthed to Bobby.
Bobby shook his head.
“When this is said and done,” Boyd continued, “you won’t have badges trying to hunt you down. So, don’t talk to me about risks.”
Obviously, he was having a few differences with his mole. Now maybe Boyd would slip and call the person by his name so they’d know who they were dealing with here.
“No way,” Boyd said. “You want me to kill Forester and the doc for you? I don’t think so.”
Danielle pressed her fingers over her lips to suppress a gasp. Despite the shooting incident, this was the first time she’d ever heard anyone say they wanted to kill her.
Colin put his hand over hers. His muscles were hard and tight. As was his expression.
“You want ’em dead, then kill ’em yourself,” Boyd challenged the mole. “After I’m out of here, they’re all yours.”
“‘KILL ’EM YOURSELF’?” he repeated. He cursed. “Didn’t you hear what I said, Boyd? I already tried to kill them, and you saw where that got me.”
“Well, nobody told you to go after them like that.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” He took a moment to calm himself down. He was literally racing down the side of a mountain in his car, and the last thing he needed was an accident. “Look, Boyd. I need money. Lots of it. And you know that.”
“I know you played a few too many blackjack tables when you shouldn’t have. That’s a nasty habit you got there.”
“Yeah, yeah. And watch your words because you damn well know they’re listening to you.”
Boyd laughed. “I do at that. But a guy’s gotta find fun wherever he can. I’m bored with all this waiting and looking.”
Damn. Bored? The kidnapping had alerted every agency in the state. The man was a lunatic. This wasn’t the time to play mind games, especially with a federal agent listening in. Colin Forester was no dummy, and he could dissect anything Boyd was saying, and even the smallest clue could come back to bite them in the butt.
And that’s why this entire conversation was a mistake. He’d gone to Boyd for help, and the only help he was apparently going to get was some of Boyd’s smart-mouthed remarks.
“All I need you to do is sneak down to the guesthouse and take them out. They’re loose ends as far as I’m concerned because they might have seen me when I was shooting at them,” he confessed.
“Really?” Boyd sounded more curious than alarmed.
“Really. And to make matters worse, the head of the crime lab is running background checks on any-and everyone who works in the lab or has visited recently.”
“I see where you’re going with this. She might find out about all that money you owe…people.”
Well, thank God he hadn’t said Callie or Nicky Wayne’s names. But Nicky was only part of the problem. He owed others a lot more than he was in debt to Nicky. And he couldn’t pay those others off with bits and pieces of information he got while in the line of duty. No.
These men would demand every drop of his blood.
“The interest on the so-called ‘loan’ has tripled,” he told Boyd. “And now I owe nearly ten million dollars. If I don’t have that money within four days, I’ll be dead.”
“Sorry to hear that, but it sounds like a personal problem to me.”
“A personal problem?” He didn’t bother trying to keep his voice down.
Boyd had obviously forgotten they were on the same side here. But what had he expected from a glorified killer? Boyd was an animal, not capable of thinking of anyone but himself.
Well, now he knew where they stood.
They might be working for the same man, but he wouldn’t get any help from Boyd. Hell, even if by some miracle Boyd found Del Gardo’s missing money, then there were no guarantees he’d share it as promised.
So, that left the medals.
It’d been a bad mistake to tell Boyd about them. He should have kept it all to himself, but he’d thought that if Boyd knew what was at stake, he’d be willing to take care of Colin and Danielle to ensure there were no witnesses and no one to interfere with his finding the medals.
Now, he had to get all three of the medals before Boyd made any arrangements to do the same.
It hadn’t been easy, but he’d managed to plant a bug in the attorney’s car when he’d visited the crime lab the day before.
That bug had led him to a gold mine.
So had Elliot’s personal e-mail accounts that he’d accessed with Nicky Wayne’s help. His part-time boss had a host of “experts” on his payroll, and through one of those experts, he’d learned that Elliot apparently had orders to personally deliver the letter to Callie on this specific day. The anniversary of the date that Del Gardo had learned Callie’s mom was pregnant.
How touching.
Of course, Del Gardo had probably wanted to wait until his estate was settled before telling Callie she was his daughter and that he had left her a ton of money in the offshore account. Too bad though he hadn’t just given her the account number, but then Del Gardo hadn’t been a man who trusted easily. He probably thought all these measures were necessary.
And they were.
Because if they hadn’t been in place, he would have already gotten the account number and the cash. He still would get his hands on it, but it would take some doing. At least he knew who the recipients of the medals were: Dylan Acevedo, Ben Parrish and Tom Ryan.
Tom and Dylan’s medals would be fairly easy to get. He’d just break into their houses while the two were tied up with searching the tunnels at the back of the Vaughn estate.
But that left the third medal.
Once he found Ben’s, he’d have all the numbers so he could drain that offshore account before anyone realized what was happening.
Then, he would walk right into the guesthouse and kill Colin and Danielle himself. No more loose ends. No one to tie him to the shooting on the mountain. No one to tie him to the medals that would save his life.
Finally, he had a way out.
Chapter Ten
Yawning, Colin forced himself to get up off the sofa. He needed to hit the bathroom before he went back into the tunnel to relieve Bobby.
Well, if you could call it that.
Relieving Bobby meant the young man stayed put in the tunnels where he took a nap. Since he hadn’t wanted Danielle down in that tunnel alone with Bobby, it meant Colin was the only one who was doing relief duty.
Of course, Bobby wasn’t their number one suspect now that they’d heard the conversation of Boyd talking to the mole. But Colin wasn’t taking that call at face value because Boyd could have faked it to throw suspicion off the young man. For that reason, Colin had taken the extra ammunition and weapons while Bobby was sleeping and hidden them in one of the kitchen cabinets. If the lab tech planned to attack them, he would have to do it without a gun.
Half asleep and more than half exhausted, Colin stumbled into the bedroom to make his way to the adjoining bath, but he came to full stop when he saw Danielle.
She was on the bed, face down, no doubt the way she’d landed after finally agreeing to get some sleep. Her skirt and shirt were both hiked up, exposing a lot of skin. Her midsection. The backs of her thighs. Even a bit of her left butt cheek.
The sun was just rising, and the golden rays spewed through the edges of the blinds and seemed to spotlight her. Not that he needed anything to do that. He would have noticed her without the well-positioned light.
He walked to the bed and eased down her top. He reached to do the same to her skirt, but Danielle moaned, rolled over and peered at him through her squinted left eye. The corner of her mouth lifted, she closed the eye and pulled him onto the bed with her.
Well, not exactly
onto the bed.
She pulled him onto her.
Right between her legs.
“Mmm,” she mumbled.
He knew that sound. Had heard it frequently. Right before Danielle and he had had some great first-thing-in-the-morning sex. Colin knew for a fact it was one of her favorite ways to wake up. She liked it rough and fast and even though it wouldn’t last long, it would leave them both sweaty.
And very satisfied.
“Danielle,” he whispered.
He was about to tell her she was dreaming, or something, but she kissed him. Oh, man. Not just any old kiss, either. She used her tongue, and while she was occupying his mouth with his weak spot of foreplay, she wrapped those long legs around his hips and maneuvered him into a great position.
If they’d been about to have sex.
But they weren’t.
Colin kept reminding himself of that.
His body wasn’t listening. It was reacting as if he were about to get really lucky. She felt so good in his arms. Like old times. Well, almost. She’d apparently put on some weight, and she was curvier in her hips and middle. He liked that.
Colin tried to move off her, he really did, but her legs tightened, and she mumbled something really dirty that she wanted him to do. He wanted to do it to her, too. Hard, rough and fast. But she was caught up in the sleep and their old routine of morning sex.
“Danielle,” he tried again.
He levered himself up just a little, just so that mind-blowing body contact with her panties wouldn’t weaken resolve that was fading fast. But Danielle only used the space to run her hands between their bodies.
She unzipped him.
And took him from his boxers.
“Danielle!” Colin ground out, though how he could manage speech, he didn’t know.
She opened one eye. The left one, again. And he could see her trying to focus, but her hands didn’t stop while she did that. She shoved down her panties. Thankfully, she couldn’t get them far because he was lying between her legs. But she shoved the front of them down.
Just enough.
For the tip of his erection to slide an inch or two inside her.
Colin cursed. And bit his lip. If he could have hit himself in the head with the lamp, he would have. Anything to cause pain so he’d stop this. More than life, more than his next breath, more than anything, he wanted to be all the way inside her.
The next sound she made wasn’t mmm. It was more like huh?
“Yeah,” he said when her eyes fully opened. He didn’t have a clue what it meant. Or what he should say. He was still trying to talk his brainless erection out of doing something really stupid.
But highly enjoyable.
Even with his response, she didn’t move. Neither did he. They lay there with him as hard as granite and partly inside her.
It got worse.
He actually saw the debate in her eyes, and because her legs were still wrapped around him, he felt her muscles tighten as if she were trying to stop herself from thrusting her hips up. And if she did that, well, sex would happen.
“Yeah?” he repeated, waiting.
“Uh,” she said. And her muscles relaxed. Her butt went back down onto the mattress, easing him out of her.
Colin still didn’t move. He couldn’t.
“Sorry,” Danielle added. “You know I’m a hard sleeper.”
Yes, he knew all about hard.
He fixed his pants, shoving himself back into his boxers, and grimaced at the extreme discomfort. His body was punishing him, and he needed a cold shower—bad.
“Needless to say, I’m out of it.” She adjusted her panties and shoved down her skirt.
“Well, that’s what getting only a couple of hours of sleep will do to you. You didn’t get to sleep until past three, and you’re exhausted.”
He’d meant it as a wise explanation to what had just happened, but the wisdom went south when her gaze drifted down to his erection. Her body certainly wanted him. Well, her body wanted sex from him anyway. Her mind was probably screaming for her to run the other direction.
Danielle looked away from him, rolled to the side of the bed and got to her feet. “You probably noticed that I gained some weight.”
“A little. It looks good on you.” Really good. Her breasts were bigger, and she had more curves.
Colin had to tear himself away from the stored images that his male brain was suddenly providing of her breasts. There was nothing wrong with his memory.
Or the rest of him.
“I need to hit the bathroom,” he said, and before he could change his mind, or hers, that’s where Colin went.
Since his body was burning, he stripped down and got in the shower as fast as he could. The water was ice-cold. Just what he needed, though it might take a decade or two for him to forget the sight of an aroused Danielle lying beneath him. When they were together, he’d taken mornings like that for granted. He knew now that each one had been a gift.
Colin had hardly had time to take a miserable trip down memory lane when there was a knock at the door. “Yeah?” He turned off the shower so he could hear.
“Bobby just came up,” Danielle said. “Boyd’s on the phone with Nicky Wayne.”
“Again?” Boyd had already called his boss three times throughout the night.
Since that could be a bad signal of a million things he didn’t want to consider and because Colin wanted to hear what he could of the conversation, he hurriedly dried off and threw his clothes back on. He grabbed his boots and decided to put them on in the tunnel. Danielle was ahead of him, racing down the steps.
Colin heard Boyd’s voice right away. The man sounded as tired as Colin felt. Obviously no one had gotten much sleep.
“No. He claims he doesn’t have any of them,” Boyd said. “Between you and me, I think he’s lying. That’s why we gotta act fast.”
“Does this call have anything to do with Boyd’s not going through with Luke’s release?” Colin asked Bobby while he put on his boots.
“No. The opposite. From what I can tell from the other two calls, Nicky wants Boyd to end this hostage situation as soon as possible.”
Good. Because Boyd might need some prodding to finish this, and Nicky was probably the best guy to do that.
“You don’t already have one of our men in the area?” Boyd asked his boss. Another pause. “Well, we obviously can’t send him.”
Him. They were almost certainly talking about the mole. Boyd and Nicky Wayne needed something done, and they couldn’t send the guy already on their payroll. Why? Maybe because the something that needed to be done would expose the guy as a mole.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get it, but in the meantime, get somebody down here to deal with our desperate rifle-shooting friend.”
Another reference to the mole? If so, Nicky and Boyd no longer trusted him. That was good. Well, unless the mole was about to go renegade and come after Danielle and him again.
“You want me to leak his name to the badges?” Boyd asked. “They’ll take care of him.”
Colin would love for that to happen. After all, it was most likely the mole who had nearly killed them.
“You’re right,” Boyd said a moment later. “No leak. If the badges got him, he’d just spill his guts. And we can’t have that. God knows what kind of stuff he’d tell them about you.”
Even better. They could bring down Nicky Wayne and at least one of his hired guns. Of course, if Boyd did indeed know they were listening in on his conversations, he could be feeding them only what he wanted them to know. And he could be doing that to steer them in the wrong direction.
“Okay. I’ll get the ball rolling,” Boyd continued, and then he ended the call.
Colin was about to speculate what that conversation might have been about, but his phone rang. It was Boyd. The man was certainly having a busy morning.
“I have one more chore for the doc and you,” Boyd greeted when Colin answered.
Colin automaticall
y scowled. “The last chore nearly got us killed.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Boyd said, as if that clarified everything and negated the fact they’d nearly died on that mountain. “Only a few hours until this ends, Colin. But it could be less than that if the doc and you do good on this one last errand.”
That didn’t ease Colin’s suspicions. “What’s the chore?”
“Ever heard of Ben Parrish?” Boyd asked.
Well, Colin certainly hadn’t expected that name to come up in this conversation. “He’s an agent and he’s missing. Know anything about that?”
“Not me. But my boss says there might be something at Ben’s house that he wants. If he gets it, I’ll move up Luke’s release.”
That grabbed Colin’s attention. He’d consider anything to get Luke out of there sooner. “What does your boss want?”
“I can’t say, exactly. We don’t intend to go broadcasting stuff we need to keep secret, but if Parrish has it, it’ll be something that somebody gave him in the last couple of months.”
Colin shook his head, not believing this conversation. “Who might have given Parrish this something?”
“I’d rather not say, other than it’s connected to Vincent Del Gardo’s money.”
“You mean the fifty million he hid at the Vaughn estate?”
“Let’s just say, he might not have hid it here after all. He might have entrusted it to the care of one Julie Grainger.”
That turned his blood cold. “The agent you murdered.”
“Now, now. You can’t prove that, and besides, that’s not exactly what we’re talking about here.”
Colin didn’t want to get into a contest of words about that, but the FBI could prove it. Boyd would be charged with Julie’s murder. It was just a matter of time.
“How is this something connected to Julie Grainger?” Colin asked.
“It might be something that Julie had and she sent it to Ben. But it wasn’t really Julie’s to send.”
Colin glanced at Danielle, who had folded her arms over her chest and was shaking her head. Oh, yes. This sounded fishy.
She’s Positive Page 11
