by Angela Foxxe
“I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” he said, standing in front of them with tears in his eyes and the same smile he’d had plastered to his face since he’d first laid eyes on Etienne. “My little girl is practically a woman now; I thought I would never see her again. I have you to thank.”
Senora held out her hand to shake his, but he pulled her in and hugged her tight, kissing her chastely on the cheek before letting her go.
“I’ve never met a human like you, but I’m glad I did. If you need anything at all, ever, you let me know. My wife and I will owe you a debt of gratitude for the rest of our lives.”
“I’m just doing my job,” Senora said, but Francis was already shaking his head in vehement opposition.
“Don’t diminish what you did. You are an angel on earth, and you have mended our broken hearts. We will never forget you.”
Senora thanked him, then hugged him once more before leaving.
“Our door is always open,” he called out as Ty drove away, and Senora waved.
Ty drove down the street and around the corner then pulled over and put the car in park. Senora looked at him and burst into tears, embarrassed by the flood of emotions that always overtook her at the end of a case like this.
Ty unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her into his lap, holding her tight as she fell apart. The last week had been so hard on her. Finding Addie dead, then rescuing Hannah and her friends before taking off for Denver to rescue the people she thought were the enemy had taken a toll on her. She was overwhelmed, and the happiness at seeing Etienne so happy had proved to be her breaking point.
They stayed like that for the longest time, Ty quietly reassuring her that her feelings were normal and healthy, and that he wasn’t going anywhere until she let it all out. His fingertips brushed her hair out of her face and smoothed down her cheek, a gesture that had become all too familiar. She thought briefly about giving into the urges that had been plaguing her, but she knew that she couldn’t jump into bed with him every time her feelings were too big to manage. It was a bad habit to get into, and she was already trying to convince her heart that she didn’t have feelings for him beyond what was professional.
And her heart was having a hard time believing her lies.
As long as Ty believed her, she would survive.
She nuzzled her cheek into his shirt, and his arms tightened around her. There was no place as safe as Ty’s arms; of this, she was certain. His large hand rubbed her back, and his soft, continuous stream of comforting words soothed her down to her soul. She could breathe again, and soon, the tears had dried to her face and she was feeling like herself again.
She had just sat up when her phone rang, the ringtone shrill in the quiet, confined space.
“That’s J,” she said. “I have to take that.”
He nodded, and she slipped off his lap and back into her seat. She cleared her throat and answered the phone, pulling out a pen and notepad from the glove compartment just in case.
“This is Agent Edwards,” she said, though she knew it was J.
“You need to pack your bags and head home,” J said, the computerized voice somehow curt and short as if he was mad at her.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re coming home.”
“I thought I was working with Ty until-”
“Until further notice,” J said. “This is further notice. Your flight from Pueblo leaves in an hour. I trust you’re still close enough to the airport.”
Senora’s stomach sank, and she knew that this was it. She didn’t know why, but it wasn’t her place to argue, and she knew that she would be going back to her old life and her old office someday. She just didn’t think it was going to be so soon.
J had been so adamant that this would be a longer partnership, and she didn’t know why things had changed.
“I’m close enough,” she said, switching her voice to the cordial yet no nonsense tone she used at work. “I’m already packed.”
“Good. I expect you in the office on Monday. That will give you some time to relax before you have to get back into your normal routine. Oh, and Senora?”
“Yes, J?”
“Excellent work. Better than expected.”’
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, but he’d already hung up.
“Is something wrong?” Ty asked.
“I’m going back to D.C.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He said I did an excellent job, but something about the way he said it didn’t sound right. I hope I’m not in trouble for taking Etienne like that.”
“There’s no way it got back to him that fast. I’m sure they just need you on the cases you normally work.”
“I guess. My flight leaves in an hour.”
“From Denver? We’ll never make it.”
“From Pueblo. I guess he’s tracking my cellphone. It is a bureau phone, but I still feel a little like I got caught doing something wrong.”
“So what now?”
Senora shrugged.
“I guess you take me to the airport, and we say goodbye.”
The car was dark, and his face was in shadows, but Senora knew that Ty was upset, maybe even angry. She scooted the rest of the way into her own chair and clicked her seatbelt as he turned around in the middle of the street and headed for the airport.
They rode in silence while Senora struggled to find the words to say that would fix everything. But she knew that Ty wasn’t upset with her, and he knew that she had no control over this.
When the bright lights of the airport appeared on the horizon, Senora groaned out loud.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said, not sure what else she could say. “I wish I knew what was going on.”
Ty didn’t take his eyes of the road, and his voice was flat when he responded.
“They have their best agent out in the field working on other cases. Maybe they had a few more come in that fit your normal criteria.”
“Except I’m not leaving from here to the next assignment, and J doesn’t expect me in until Monday. I don’t know about you, but to me, that doesn’t scream ‘new case.’”
“What do you think it means?”
“We screwed up somewhere. Maybe not you, because you don’t work for the FBI. But somewhere, we stepped on someone’s toes. Maybe Kaden was being followed, and the agents who ransacked his room were really working for the FBI and not former agents gone rogue.”
“That’s a possibility. It would fit the timeline better than assuming that the group home in Boise City had already caused issues. I’m sure you’re right about it being related to Kaden.”
Ty pulled off the freeway and pulled into a deserted parking lot more than a mile from the airport’s entrance. He put the car in park and looked at her.
“Do you think that they’re after his laptop?” he asked her.
“I was thinking that. But why wouldn’t J just ask for it?”
“Maybe they don’t want me to know?”
“Or maybe they didn’t tell J what they were after. There’s a lot of posturing between departments, which could explain why he was so terse with me.”
“How do you even know he’s terse? Doesn’t he use the voice over software all the time?”
“He does, but there’s something about the way he was typing that made the sentences seem shorter and a little angry. I’m sure it’s subconscious, and he didn’t even notice he’d done it. But no matter what, he’s upset, and something I did or was involved in is the reason. What if he doesn’t want me to come in until Monday because he’s going to fire me?”
The thought, once voiced, terrified her. Her job was everything, and she couldn’t see herself doing anything else.
“He’s not going to fire you,” Ty said. “But I do think that you’re in danger if you take that laptop on the plane with you. I’m not sure why, but I have a feeling that you won’t even make it to the office with it if you try to take it with you.”
She look
ed at him, his face still in the shadows, the eerie green glow from the dashboard making his words seem even more ominous.
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch, but I feel it in my very soul. Please, don’t take the laptop with you.”
“What if something happens to you?”
“Then, you’ll know it was the laptop.”
“I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger like that.”
“You’re not asking me,” he countered. His gaze was fierce, his resolve unwavering. “Please, leave it with me. At least for now.”
She held her breath, a million scenarios running through her head before she finally nodded and let out a heavy sigh.
“I think you’re right. I don’t know why, but something just feels wrong.”
She didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath, waiting for her answer, until he let out a huge sigh.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet. This might be the worst decision you ever made.”
She got out of the car and went to the trunk, grabbing her overnight bag and coming back to the passenger seat. She rummaged around, digging out her own laptop from the protected compartment in her carryon and putting it in the laptop bag in place of Kaden’s. Aware that any of the buildings could have video surveillance, she carefully slid Kaden’s laptop under her seat, all with her body hunched over the bag, preventing any outside camera from seeing what she was doing.
“What are you doing?”
“If I get out of your car without a laptop bag, you may be followed. This way, it looks like I have it, and you can leave to Silver City and get your truck.”
“I’m supposed to leave this car at the rental place at the Denver Airport.”
“I wouldn’t do it. Silver City is less than eight hours from here. I would go straight there, get in your truck and leave the car at the Silver City Airport. They’ll find it eventually and go get it.”
“What about your laptop?”
“It’s a work laptop. Every time I power down, I encrypt the day’s work, put it on a flash drive and upload it to the secure server. If anyone takes my laptop and tries to open it with the wrong password, the hard drive is instantly wiped clean. I’ll have a secure laptop on my desk Monday morning.”
“You’re cute when you’re paranoid,” he said, leaning over and kissing her quickly on the mouth before putting the car in gear and heading for the airport.
“You know I’m right,” she said. “If I’m not right, at least I’m right to be worried. Something isn’t right, and I want to get to the bottom of it before I let my guard down.”
“Smart move. I’m going to let you out at the curb and drive off. I don’t want to draw too much attention to us. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and they’ll think I’m a hired driver.”
“We can dream, but I wouldn’t count on it.” She squeezed his hand. “Keep your eyes open. I’ll try to call when I can.”
“You watch your back, too,” he said. “I won’t be there to protect you.”
“And I won’t be there to protect you,” she teased.
He slowed down, and she gathered her bag and the laptop bag, kicking beneath the seat to make sure that Kaden’s laptop stayed where it was.
“I’ll be in touch,” Ty said, reaching out to touch her shoulder one last time before he pulled to a complete stop and she opened the door.
“Thank you for everything,” she said and closed the door, turning quickly and getting her bearings.
She heard the car pull away from the curb, and she felt her heart clench. This wasn’t how she’d expected to say goodbye to him, and the suddenness was almost too much. She pulled out her phone and tried to distract herself with her flight information. As expected, J had texted her flight number and boarding pass, along with the gate number.
Situating the laptop on her shoulder, she grabbed her overnight bag and headed to the gate, head held high, keeping her steps even and her expression calm.
Everyone she walked by seemed suspicious. From the man standing with a newspaper held up in front of his face to the woman with a bundle held against her chest that didn’t look big enough to be a real baby. She felt like she was being watched, even if she couldn’t pinpoint who was doing the watching.
The TSA whisked her through the security line, bypassing the long line of travelers that waited to go through the machines. That earned her some grumpy looks from the passengers that had been waiting a while, but she couldn’t stand in the line and wait or she would miss her flight.
She made it to her gate in time to pre-board, settling into her seat and closing her eyes. She had her overnight bag and the laptop bag stuffed under the seat, though they barely fit. She wasn’t surprised when a member of the flight crew showed up to inform her that one of her bags would have to be stowed in the overhead compartment. She pretended to argue a little bit, though not enough to get kicked off the plane. After a few minutes going back and forth and brandishing her badge, she begrudgingly let the stewardess put the laptop in an overhead compartment a short distance away since the compartment above Senora’s seat contained the fire extinguisher and defibrillator. Senora was sure that her seating assignment had not been an accident.
When they landed a few hours later, Senora watched with cool indifference as the airplane’s aisle filled up, obstructing her view of her laptop across the aisle and several rows closer to the front. She watched in the small gaps between the other passengers, keeping an eye on the laptop bag as much as she could and almost smiling when the crowd moved and it was gone. The man beside her still sat in his chair, insisting that there was no point in getting up until the plane was empty. Senora had met people like him, but she knew that he was one of them, placed beside her to keep her from getting to the laptop before someone could sneak it off the plane.
They were going to be furious when they discovered that they had the wrong computer, but by then, she would be long gone.
A text message came through as she was disembarking, and she responded to her best friend, letting her know she would be outside in a few moments. She hurried past baggage claim and out the door, going straight for the Dodge Charger that was parked at the curb.
“Hey, girl,” Jen said as Senora hopped in and put her carryon on the floor between her feet.
Senora buckled herself in, looked her friend dead in the face and smiled.
“I know what that look means,” Jen said, revving the engine and all but peeling out when she left the curb. “Where to?”
“Your house will be fine,” Senora said. “I have a feeling that I shouldn’t go home for a while.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jen said, laughing and punching down the accelerator, heading out of the city and toward the countryside where Jen lived.
They were almost there when Senora’s phone rang.
“Agent Edwards,” she answered.
“Senora,” J said, the typing in the background faster than normal. “Did you happen to bring an extra laptop home with you?”
“No,” she said innocently.
Jen’s smirked but remained silent.
“It seems that there was a laptop taken from the hotel in Denver. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“A couple of agents ransacked the room before I could get in there to look around,” she said truthfully. “The front desk told me that they showed FBI credentials, and I assumed that they were legit. Is there an issue?”
“No,” J said. “They thought maybe you had the laptop with you.”
Senora shook her head, not even surprised that J didn’t try to hide the fact that he’d sent agents to steal her laptop. What in the world was going on?
“I didn’t take anything from the room,” she said, once more being completely honest.
“I believe you, Senora,” J said. “I’ll be in touch on Monday.”
“See you Monday,” she said, but he’d already hung up.
She’d be there on Monday, but she’d be watching her back closely from now on. She didn’t know how J factored into this mess, but there was something shady going on, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to find herself swept up in it. There was no one she could trust but herself, Jen and Ty from this point on.
And she was willing to bet her life on it.
To Be Concluded
* * *
Ready for the final part of the story?
Dear Reader,
I want to personally thank you for taking your time to read “The Wolf Code Reloaded” I really hope you enjoyed it and the good news is there is MORE to come!
“The Wolf Code Forever” is available now so click the below link and keep reading the series!
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See you in the next book :)
Angela Foxxe x x
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