by Mallory Kane
He lifted his head and took a ragged breath. His eyes were soft, questioning. His erection pulsed against her, leaving no doubt what he wanted.
She nodded and pressed her lips against his collarbone.
“Rina…”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He lifted her and laid her on the bed. With a conciseness of movement, he was in her. She gasped and arched her back as she felt the familiar, unbearably erotic sensation of being filled by him.
“Oh, Rook,” she breathed. “I’ve missed you so much.”
He stopped her words with his mouth as he pushed deeper.
Irina couldn’t control herself, and it was obvious Rook was having the same problem. He thrust deeply, desperately, sending her to the apex of sensation within seconds. He stopped and pressed his face into the curve of her shoulder, breathing harshly.
She pushed her fingers through his hair.
The phone rang.
She jumped as the shrill noise cut through her erotic haze, and pushed at his chest.
He rolled away.
She crawled across around the bed and picked up the handset. “Yes?” she said coldly.
“Mrs. Castle, this is Dan Taylor. I apologize for bothering you, but I need to speak to Colonel Castle.”
Irina held out the handset without looking at him. “It’s for you.”
Rook took the phone from her hand. “Castle,” he said shortly.
Irina got up and folded her arms across her revealing nightgown. She felt naked and exposed.
Rook rubbed his temples as he listened. Then he shook his head and muttered a curse. “When?”
The tone of his voice told her something had happened.
“Where are you? Where is he? I’ll be right there.” He hung up and turned.
“I have to go,” he said, his voice tense and carefully even. He started toward the door, adjusting his pants and picking up his shirt along the way.
“What’s wrong?”
He turned back to send her a warning look. “I’ve got to get out of here. I’ll wash up across the hall. You stay here. Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone but me. Brock’s been shot.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER, Rook headed downstairs. A long, shaky breath escaped his lips. Dan’s phone call had interrupted something that shouldn’t have ever happened.
He’d known the instant he laid eyes on Irina that if he touched her, he’d be lost. He’d told himself a hundred times that he had no right.
But, dear God, he’d missed her. He’d missed that mouth, that body. He’d missed the way she opened to him, welcomed him. He’d missed being her lover.
He knew by the look in her eyes as he’d closed the suite’s door that she felt abandoned.
But Brock O’Neill, the man he trusted most after his oath brothers, had been injured, and no matter what his personal feelings, he had a responsibility.
He headed through the house and out the front door. Immediately, he saw Dan Taylor standing beside the open passenger door of an idling black SUV. Taylor spotted him and climbed in. The SUV pulled up beside Rook and he got into the backseat.
“What happened? Did you catch the shooter?”
“I don’t have specifics. Captain O’Neill notified one of my men via push-to-talk.”
“What was Brock doing on that ridge?”
“Lieutenant Parker suggested a few days ago that the specialists patrol the perimeter, just to be sure that the remote areas of the ranch weren’t breached.”
Taylor continued to fill Rook in as he drove to the ridge. “I called and dispatched Major Hathaway over there immediately, since she has medical expertise, and sent two agents to meet her. Then I called you.”
“Fiona’s here at the ranch?”
Dan nodded. “I assumed you knew. She came in earlier this afternoon, according to my gate guard.” He paused for an instant. “Timely.”
The single word held a wealth of meaning. Rook sent him a sidelong glance. “You’ve added her to your suspect list.”
“Just making a comment.”
As soon as he got out of the car, Rook saw Fiona and Brock. Brock was sitting in the open door of an SUV, and Fiona was taping his upper arm.
“Fee, Brock,” he called as he sprinted over.
They looked up. Brock’s usually impassive face held a sheepish expression.
“Rook!” Fiona gasped, as the roll of gauze dropped from her fingers. Her hands covered her mouth. “Oh, my God. Brock told me, but—” she shook her head “—I can’t believe you’re here. You’re—Oh, my God.”
“Don’t faint on me, Fee,” he said gently. “It’s good to see you.”
“Oh, my!” She threw her arms around him and hugged him, then pushed back to look at him again. “It is great to see you! I don’t know what to say.”
“Just hearing that you’re glad to see me is enough.”
He met Brock’s gaze. “Didn’t take you long to get into trouble.”
Brock’s sheepish expression etched more deeply into his face. “Never does,” he said wryly.
“What happened?”
“I was out patrolling. I caught a glint of light on metal and came over to investigate. It was a booby trap.” He looked at his upper arm in disgust.
“A booby trap?” Rook repeated. “How in hell—”
“Hold still,” Fiona snapped at Brock. She’d unwrapped the roll of gauze and was positioning it over the bandages.
She spoke to Rook without taking her eyes off her handiwork. “The bullet went through the meaty part of his biceps. I’ve sterilized the wound and I’m wrapping it. It missed the humerus, or it would have shattered. He’s lucky he’s still got his arm.”
“I’ll tell you who’s lucky,” Brock growled. “Whoever rigged that rifle. But his luck’s going to run out once I catch up with him.”
“Stop fidgeting,” Fiona snapped, as she wound the gauze around one last time and taped it. “Let’s get you to the emergency room.”
“No. We don’t have time for that nonsense,” Brock growled. “Rook, I want to examine the area before those guys stomp all over it.”
Rook looked at Fiona, who raised a perfectly shaped brow. She wanted Brock’s arm looked at by a physician. “We’ll try to keep it clean for you.”
As he rose, he caught the victorious glare Fiona threw at Brock.
“Taylor, can you spare a man to take Captain O’Neill to the ER? Fiona, go with them.”
Taylor nodded and gestured to one of his men.
“Now, where’s the booby trap?”
“Over here, sir,” one of Taylor’s agents called. “It’s a pretty simple setup. The brilliant part is the placement.”
Rook saw what he meant. The trip wire was placed so that anyone getting close enough to trip it would be dead in line with the barrel. The weapon used was simple—a .22 with a silencer, very reliable and very deadly at close range. It was a miracle that Brock wasn’t dead.
Actually, he amended to himself, it was a testament to Brock’s uncanny awareness of everything around him and his lightning-fast reflexes.
Rook looked around. From where he was standing he could see the front of the ranch house and the roofs of the guesthouses. A high-powered sniper rifle in the right hands could pick off anyone.
“And take a look at this,” the agent said. “The rifle’s trigger mechanism is hooked up to a cell phone, probably prepaid.”
“A cell phone?”
“Yes, sir. It was rigged to call a number, almost certainly another prepaid cell. Someone was notified that the trap had been tripped.”
“Can you trace that phone? Find out where it was bought? Or trace the numbers by area code?”
Taylor walked over. “We’ll do what we can, but it’s pretty unlikely. If they have any sense at all, they wouldn’t have bought them anywhere near here. Besides, you can get all the anonymous phones you want over the Internet.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the ranch house. “What’s the poin
t of a booby trap? It just calls attention to itself.”
“Hang on a minute, Fee.” Brock’s voice came from behind them. He walked over to stand by Dan. “We were taking shifts patrolling the perimeter. My guess is—” he swept his uninjured arm through the air “—they were planning to set up a sniper’s nest up here. Think about it. They already tried to pick off Rafe and Aaron in the hospital parking lot. I’m guessing the trap was set up to kill anyone who found it, and the cell phone notified them to come remove the rifle and the triggers before anyone found the body.”
“So the plan was that whoever got too close would die, and they could swoop in, grab the evidence, maybe even the body, and get out. Sounds like they didn’t expect you to outrun the bullet,” Rook commented.
Brock’s lip curled up. “I lost an eye, but I’ve still got two good ears. I heard the wire sing just before it tripped.”
Rook clapped his friend on the back. “Glad your hearing works. Now get to the hospital and get patched up.”
Dan stepped over to Rook’s side and held out his hand to Fiona, who was putting away her first-aid kit. “Major Hathaway? I’m Special Agent Dan Taylor, with the Secret Service.”
She took his hand. “Special Agent Taylor. Glad to meet you.”
“My agents told me you’d arrived. I understand you have a newborn baby.”
Rook met Brock’s gaze and both of them winced.
“Is my child a part of your investigation, Special Agent Taylor?”
Dan’s cheeks brightened. “No, ma’am. Of course not. I—”
“Then I fail to see the pertinence of your statement.”
“Fee,” Rook broke in. “Make sure that Brock rests for a while when he gets back. Now you two need to get going.”
Fiona’s golden brown eyes shot daggers at the Secret Service agent, but she nodded. “Come on, Brock. Get in the car like a good boy.”
Then she turned back to Rook. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more glad to see anyone, but I hope for Irina’s sake that you had amnesia or something. She’s been shattered without you.”
He nodded, not meeting her gaze.
As the SUV pulled away, Rook studied the view of the ranch buildings below and then assessed the ridge. He walked back and forth, measuring with his eyes.
“Sir?”
He held up a hand, still concentrating, then he saw it.
“Here.” He stood back, squinting, then stepped over to the suspicious-looking area. Leaves had been scattered artlessly over the flat ground.
“Take a look.”
Dan followed his gaze. “What am I looking at?”
“That blanket of leaves. That tree limb. Take a closer look. I’ll bet the smallest branches have been cut or broken off.”
“You think it’s—”
“The sniper’s nest. He hides behind the limb and uses it as a brace for his rifle. Another two minutes and Brock would have seen it.” Rook crouched and looked downhill. “I don’t want to disturb any evidence, but I’m betting that if you sight just above the level of that fallen branch, you’ll see the front door of the ranch house.”
Rook bent down and sighted along the trajectory. “This is very well done. Well thought out. Hidden in plain sight. I agree with you about the booby trap. Why did they bother? Why not just leave this as is? Very few people would figure out at a glance what it is.”
“Hey, Dan,” one of the agents called out. “Come take a look at this.” He was standing a few feet behind the booby trap.
Dan walked over. Rook followed him. The agent hadn’t moved. He pointed.
Rook saw another blanket of leaves, thicker than the sniper’s nest.
“What is it, Ferrell?” Dan asked.
“See that? Under the edge of that bush?”
Then Rook spotted it. “Something metallic. Right there.”
“I didn’t want to disturb anything until you’d seen it,” Ferrell said.
“Check it out, but be careful. If that’s what I think it is, this area could be booby-trapped, too.”
Ferrell worked carefully and smoothly. After a minute, Rook could see that the hidden piece of metal was a sniper rifle. After Ferrell uncovered the rifle, he dug out a pair of high-powered binoculars from underneath.
“Okay, so this is the reason for the booby trap, I take it,” Rook commented. “But still, the hiding place was good enough to fool anyone who wasn’t combing the area.” He propped his fists on his hips. “Now I have two questions. Why booby-trap a hiding place this good? And for that matter, why leave the equipment here at all? Seems as if these guys were begging to be caught.”
Another agent came hiking up the ridge from behind them. “Dan, we’ve found the breach in the fence where they got in. It’s a tiny break, back that way.”
“That’s an old farm road back in there,” Rook said. “Hardly used anymore.”
Dan nodded. “Probably exactly why they chose it. I’m guessing they didn’t want to haul the equipment in each time they came, in case they were spotted.”
Rook nodded. “Carrying a super-long-range rifle and state-of-the-art binoculars wouldn’t be easy to explain. Without them, they could say they were lost and looking for someone to help them.” He straightened.
“Get Deke over here to take a look at this. I’m not familiar with that model, but he knows all of them. He might even be able to give you a short list of shooters. There aren’t many who are good enough to make a shot this long.”
Dan nodded. “Ferrell, get the kits. See if you can lift any fingerprints or shoe prints.”
Rook walked back over to the sniper’s nest with Dan beside him. “Get Deke and Brock to look at this, too. Brock can give you a good estimate of the height and weight of the sniper, and Deke just might know him. And listen. I’d like for you to hold off disturbing the scene until Brock has a chance to go over the area. If there’s any trace here, he’ll find it.”
“Sir, I have a crime scene expert on my team.”
“A good one, I’m sure. How much experience?”
Dan took a long breath. “Five years.”
“Impressive. Brock O’Neill has been tracking and hunting in these mountains since he was old enough to walk. So he has thirty years’ experience.”
“All due respect, sir, O’Neill is still a suspect—”
Rook leveled a gaze at the young Secret Service agent that had silenced four-star generals. “Fiona will have Brock back here within a half hour. Use him. You and your expert will learn a lot.”
The sound of boots crunching unevenly on grass and twigs caught Rook’s ears.
He whirled, pulling his gun. At the same time, Dan and three of his agents did the same.
“Whoa. It’s just me.” It was Rafe Jackson. He spread his hands. He couldn’t exactly hold them up because of his crutches.
Dan lowered his weapon and sent his men a quick nod. “Mr. Jackson, what are you doing here?” he asked. “Everyone was ordered to stay in their quarters.”
Jackson smiled. “I didn’t get that message. Sorry. I saw the activity up here and thought I’d investigate.” He gestured with his head. “If I’d realized how steep that grade is—” He stopped, craning his neck. “Is that a rifle over there? Was someone hurt?”
Dan shifted slightly, just enough that Jackson would have to move to see beyond him.
Rook holstered his weapon and crossed his arms. “Special Agent Taylor asked you a question. What are you doing up here?”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed and his jaw muscle flexed. “I saw the activity and was curious about what was going on.”
“Saw the activity from where?”
“Down there. The guest quarters.”
Rook looked down. From his vantage point so close to the booby trap, all he could see was the roof of the guest quarters.
“Mr. Jackson,” Dan said. “An agent will escort you back to the guesthouse. I hope it won’t be a problem if we search your rooms. We’ll be searching the entire guest quarters.”
Jackson’s gaze wavered then. “Search? If you’ll tell me what you’re looking for—” He stopped and laughed wryly. “Strike that. Of course, Agent Taylor. No problem whatsoever.”
He planted his crutches and turned. A slight grimace marred his face, but he recovered immediately. “G’day, Colonel Castle.”
Rook nodded.
Dan stood beside Rook, not speaking, until the agent and Jackson had started back down the hill.
“His leg is hurting. You could have had the agent drive him,” Rook commented.
“I know,” Taylor replied. “What do you think about him?”
“Hard to say.”
“Nice for them, if they have someone on the inside that could check on their booby trap.”
“What will be nice is if we can prove it.”
Chapter Nine
After informing the agents that Brock and Deke would be handling the preliminary examination of the sniper’s nest and booby trap, Dan and Rook headed into town. They left the ranch via the driveway from the underground garage to avoid any reporters who might be hovering around the front gate.
On the way, Rook called Deke, finding him at the hospital, visiting Mindy and his baby, and told him about Brock, the booby trap and Rafiq Jackson.
“Sure,” Deke said. “They got spotlights out there? I’ll head out right now. You really think Jackson could be Novus’s mole?”
“Right now he’s looking pretty good for it,” Rook replied. “See if you can see the site from the house. At the time he got up there, we hadn’t turned on the spotlights yet. And see if anyone else noticed the ‘activity’ that Jackson noticed. I want to know what you think about the booby trap, too. Is it rigged to kill, or to just look like it could kill?”
“What does that mean? Are you thinking Brock could have set it up and then shot himself?”
“We can’t afford to rule out anyone at this point. Three of our four agents have been wounded. I’m making the assumption that we can eliminate Fiona, since she was having a baby when Irina called off her search and alerted Novus Ordo. That means if it’s any of the other three, then they had to have taken a bullet on purpose. And I’m here to tell you, nobody does that without a lot of soul-searching.” He swallowed. “I mean, would you rather be grazed at the temple by a long-range sniper shot, take a chance on bleeding out from your femoral artery or have confidence that you’re fast enough to dodge a rifle shot at close range?”
