Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  I pushed the gas nozzle into the tank, then slipped behind the SUV, checking to be sure he was inside the store. I opened the back door of the vehicle and opened the thin plastic cover over the compartment that held the jack, slipping my hand inside to pull out a small prepaid cellphone that was kept there for just this sort of situation. I knew someone back at Gray Wolf's office was tracking the credit card purchases, that they were tracking the movements of the SUV. But I needed the reassurance of a human voice.

  I needed to know everyone made it out of that building alive.

  I slipped the phone into my back pocket and finished gassing up. I was just setting the nozzle back on the pump when Clint rejoined me.

  "Powered donuts," he said, tossing a bag at me.

  "Milk?"

  He smiled, holding up a small bottle of whole milk. "I'm a cop, remember?"

  I laughed, the idea of a cop with self-deprecating humor more amusing than the joke itself. I tossed the keys at him.

  "Bathroom break."

  I felt a little guilty as I pulled the phone out of my pocket in a bathroom stall and dialed the number they'd made us memorize the first day on the job. But he was following his training and I was following mine. Surely, he could respect that.

  "595924," I barked into the phone at the sound of the beep, giving the code I was also given on the first day of work. I hung up and waited, the phone buzzing less than a minute later.

  "Babcock!" the voice on the other end, a male voice with a soft southern accent, said. "You took your sweet ass time checking in."

  Kirkland. I would have known his voice—and those stupid southern quips—anywhere.

  "I'm not alone. I've got Detective Clint Barrow with me. He's been shot."

  "How bad is it?"

  "A through and through. I was able to sew it up for him."

  "Good. But we've noticed that you're heading south?"

  "He thinks the ambush was the work of an insider. He's demanding I take him to Denver to someone he can trust."

  "Who?"

  "I don't know."

  "You need to come back to Wyoming, Babcock. We need everyone on hand right now."

  "What if he's right, Mr. Parish?" I asked, chewing a fingernail. "What if there is a rotten egg in our ranks?"

  "It's always a possibility. But we can't find the bad egg without everyone on deck."

  I dragged my fingers through my shoulder length hair, brushing it back from my face. This was my job. This was my biggest assignment so far—though it wasn't really an assignment. I wanted to prove myself, wanted to be a good operative. But I believed Clint, too.

  "I can't come back. I need to help the detective find out who snitched us out."

  "Ash is missing. Two FBI agents have disappeared, another cop. Donovan took a bullet to the shoulder, Grainger took one to the leg. And Kipling McKay is in the ICU fighting for his life." Kirkland was quiet for a long moment. "I need as many people as I can get, Ryan, in order to find Ash."

  "I understand."

  My heart hurt a little for the exhaustion and the concern I could hear in his voice. I wondered how Sutherland was holding up, how Grainger's wife was dealing with the whole thing. But I couldn't look at this from that angle. I had to look at it like a cop, like an operative. That was what they paid me to do.

  "There's a mole who is close to Ash," I said. "We believe that whoever did this, knew everything about the plan, including alterations made at the last minute that only Ash and a few others were aware of. That means whoever the mole is knew that Ash was the target all along."

  "Ryan," Kirkland said, his tone a warning.

  But it was all coming together in my head. And it seemed so obvious.

  "The Mahoneys knew Ash was on their trail, knew that Ash couldn't resist coming up here personally to be a part of the raid. They were after him, planning on taking him down. This was all about him."

  "Ryan, it's not your job to hunt for snitches."

  "But it is. Don't you see that? This detective knows something we don't. I have to let him have a little slack so that I can see where he's taking us."

  Kirkland was quiet for a long moment. "I can't send you backup."

  "I know."

  "If something happens to you..."

  "I'll be alright. If this doesn't look like it's going to pan out, I'll come back."

  I disconnected the phone a moment later, sliding it back into my pocket. I washed my hands and headed out, shaking the excess water away because there were no paper towels. Clint was waiting for me behind the wheel of the SUV.

  "Thought you'd like a break," he said.

  We hit the road again, making our way back toward the highway thanks to a paper map—didn't even know they sold those things anymore—he'd bought inside the store. I sat back, my feet on the dashboard, and ate my donuts, making happy sounds with every bite. He glanced over at me and laughed.

  "You sound like a child eating junk for the first time."

  "I am. This is my secret indulgence that I rarely allow myself to have."

  "Running for your life is a good excuse, I suppose."

  "It is." I glanced at him. "Is that what we're doing? Running for our lives?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know, to be honest. I don't know exactly what happened back there."

  "You were inside, though. You would know better than anyone else."

  He shook his head. "All I know is that they were waiting for us."

  "Where are we going? Why Denver?"

  He was quiet for a long moment, his form tense. He looked over at me, a darkness coming into his eyes that was familiar. He'd looked at me that way when I left the strategy meeting with that uniform cop.

  "We're going to FBI headquarters in Denver. That's probably the only place we can go where there aren't people working for the Mahoneys. They haven't set up shop in Colorado yet, so there's no reason for them to have a snitch there."

  "You know a lot about the Mahoneys."

  "I worked for the DEA before joining the Casper P.D."

  I stopped, a donut halfway to my lips. "Who was she?"

  He cocked his head, clearly caught off guard with that question.

  "It's always a woman," I said. "A man doesn't make such a drastic change in his circumstances without a woman being involved."

  That seemed to satisfy him. He refocused on the road, his foot pressing harder on the accelerator.

  "I needed a change. A quieter life."

  I laughed. "You clearly got that."

  He chuckled a little, too. "I knew the Mahoneys were working up here, but I didn't anticipate getting pulled into their circle out in Casper. It's not really their kind of town, you know? But I guess it was just a twist of fate."

  I ran my fingers through my hair. "I'm supposed to be working the streets of Seattle right now. Writing traffic tickets and saving kittens from trees."

  "What happened?"

  I shrugged. "I got in my own way."

  He looked over at me, his eyes sliding slowly over the length of my body. I blushed, moving my feet back down to the floorboards, sitting up like the proper young woman my mom fought so hard to turn me into. He reached over and touched my knee, his fingers just barely grazing the knobby curve.

  "I'm sorry about what happened back at the motel. I was caught up in my own shit and... I guess I took it out on you."

  My blush deepened, but I wasn't sure if it was some sort of appreciation for his comments, or if it was more about the shame of being with someone I barely knew. I could still feel his hands on my body, his length deep inside of me. It hadn't all been unpleasant and I'd be a hypocrite if I pretended it was.

  We reached a place in the road where there were a couple of curves, forcing him to keep his eyes on the road. It allowed me a moment to study him, to memorize the curve of his jaw, the tendons in the back of his hands. I had no idea how old he was—must have been in his early thirties at the least—but he no longer seemed old, not like he had the other day. There was a
youthfulness in the amusement that danced so often in his eyes. But there was also some sort of ancient wisdom that radiated from him, some sort of darkness that had tainted him at some point in his life. I found myself wondering what it was, if it was more than just the darkness that came with his chosen profession.

  And then my mind began to run toward the erotic, my eyes moving over his thighs, the way his shirt stretched over his chest. The flex in every muscle of his impressive form.

  What was wrong with me? Why did I suddenly have sex on the brain?

  Again... I supposed two orgasms might have something to do with that.

  When we'd passed the curves in the road, those intense green eyes fell on me again.

  "You got quiet."

  "I'm just wondering what the hell we're doing and if it's going to do anyone any good."

  He took a deep breath. "You want to get on a bus and head back to the ranch?"

  "Aren't you curious who else got hurt? I don't know what happened to my friends, to my boss... Sutherland and Lance were out in a truck in front of the building. Grainger was on the street just down from me, but he disappeared right before I found you. I don't know if he survived, or if he was shot down like you."

  His hands flexed on the steering wheel. "You think I didn't have friends in that building? I may not have worked with those people for long, but long enough that I don't want to think that I left them bleeding on a stairwell somewhere."

  "I didn't mean..."

  I didn't know what I meant to say. I ran my fingers through my hair again, biting down on my lip hard enough to taste a little blood. I couldn't tell him that I knew Grainger was okay, but he had a bullet in his leg. I couldn't tell him that I knew Ash was missing and Kipling was in the hospital fighting for my life. And I couldn't tell him that I knew there was a relationship between Sutherland and both those men and that, even though I didn't know her well, I knew her to be fiercely loyal and I was concerned how this was impacting her.

  I'd only been with Gray Wolf a few weeks, but these people had welcomed me into their circle and made me a part of their family without question. I hated that I wasn't there to help in their time of need.

  He pulled the SUV to the side of the road, the transmission in park but the engine idling. He stared at his hands on the wheel for a long moment, his hands flexing again, opening and closing around the thick plastic. Then he was suddenly turning toward me, those same hands wrapping themselves around my jaw.

  We kissed, roughly, a need that had been humming quietly just under the surface suddenly screaming. It was insane, ill-timed, and completely irresponsible, but seatbelts were released, clothing pulled and tugged out of place, hands seeking and searching every crevice, every inch of warm, heated skin. I climbed in this lap, not sure if his hisses were of pain or pleasure, not taking the time to figure it out. He lifted my shirt over my head, buried his face between my breasts, his hot breath burning me in a most delicious way. I ran my fingers through his hair, glad I was a small person who could manage to slip out of a pair of jeans in a tight space. I wanted him, wanted him inside of me.

  We moved together, our bodies locked in passion, his mouth sliding over my throat, his tongue leaving a trail that was hotter than anything I'd ever felt. I rocked my hips, my lower belly tightening around his erection, the beginning tingles of another orgasm not far away. My eyes were closed and I was so close, so close...

  "Fuck!"

  I thought for a moment his exclamation was just part of the moment, thought he was as close as I was. But then he pressed a hand to the back of my head and rolled sideways, forcing us both down across the console and the passenger seat. A second later, the driver's side window exploded.

  "Stay down!"

  He ordered as he struggled to disengage himself from me while reaching for the gun he'd stowed in the glovebox. He was still fixing his pants as he rolled into the backseat, moving to the side windows to try to catch sight of the shooter. I had to reach into the floorboards in front of the driver's seat to retrieve my gun where it was still strapped to my jeans. No time to get dress, no time for the false dignity that might cover up my inability to control my libido.

  What the hell was the matter with me? Why was I indulging in this ridiculous behavior? If he hadn't spotted the shooter, we'd both have a bullet in our heads right now.

  I peeked over the dashboard and the windshield immediately imploded. I fell down into the cubby in front of the passenger seat, holding my arms over my head in a futile attempt to keep the safety glass out of my face.

  "He's coming around the side," Clint hissed.

  I thought to press the button that would lock the doors a second too late. The door was wrenched open, my finger still posed over the spot where the button had been. Heavy hands reached in and grabbed at my wrists, my arms. I fought, baring my nails. I heard cursing, but the grabbing didn't stop until Clint fired his gun, twice, in quick succession.

  The sound was deafening in the confined space. It took me a second to brush away the disorientation it caused. I sat up and leaned over the seat, saw the body lying in the ditch beside the road.

  I didn't recognize him. He was a tall, dark man, thick through the waist and just about everywhere else. If I had to guess, I'd say he was Italian, Greek maybe. Not Irish. But did that really mean anything in this modern age of criminal equality?

  "Stay the fuck down!" Clint hissed, grabbing my upper arm painfully, pushing me back into the space under the glove box. "I'm going to go make sure he was alone."

  He opened the back door of the SUV and stepped out, his footsteps moving slowly away from the vehicle. I waited, half expecting the sounds of gunfire. But, again, I hadn't heard a shot until Clint fired his weapon. Had our attacker had a silencer? If so, why? We were in the middle of nowhere, still miles from the interstate. Who was he expecting to hear us?

  Who the hell was this guy? How did he find us?

  And then it started to make sense.

  He was sent by the mole and the mole had access to Gray Wolf's computer systems.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  Clint was right. Whoever the snitch was, whoever had told the Mahoneys we were coming, was part of Gray Wolf.

  Chapter 9

  At the Ranch

  Sutherland sat back and rubbed her eyes, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her. It was a little after dawn. She'd been awake for a full twenty-four hours, yet it felt like she'd accomplished a lot less than she'd hoped. She had just studied the same security footage over and over for three hours, but hadn't seen anything new, hadn't seen anything that could help them figure out which direction the Mahoneys had taken Ash. She couldn't even be sure Ash was in the footage at all.

  David placed specialized cameras all around the target building before the raid, miniscule cameras that it was impossible for anyone outside of Gray Wolf to recognize as cameras. Yet, the smoke perfectly obscured the view of each camera, blocking what Gray Wolf was able to see as the operation unfolded. Sutherland, Lance, and David had been in the dark the entire operation, listening to the communication between their operatives, the cops, and the FBI, but useless to help them. Backup arrived quickly, within five minutes of the first steps of the operation, but by the time they got there, it was over. Ash was gone, Ryan was gone, Ash's FBI contacts gone, and two cops completely vanished. And the Mahoneys were nowhere to be seen. The people who were supposed to be in the offices upstairs... gone. It was like none of it had happened except for the fact that there were a dozen wounded cops, FBI agents, and Gray Wolf operatives.

  Sutherland had to call her good friend Eve and tell her that her husband had been shot in the leg. It was a call she had never wanted to make and a call she hoped she would never have to make again.

  The moment it was over, the FBI cut ties with Gray Wolf. They wanted nothing to do with this disaster. They had lost enough when it became public that one of their agents was not only an informant for the Mahoneys, but was related to the head of the organized c
rime group. They didn't want this blowing back on them, too.

  The Casper Police Department was shaken. They were a small force that rarely dealt with crime on this scale. They didn't know how to handle the fallout, the number of injuries their men had suffered, the public outcry. They were stepping back from Gray Wolf, too.

  Gray Wolf had gone from highly respected security firm to hack private detectives overnight.

  Sutherland kept running it over again and again in her mind, wondering where she'd gone wrong. Surely it was her fault because she was the only one on the team who didn't have experience in this sort of thing. Kirkland, Ash... they had been doing this for years. It had to be on her shoulders. She couldn't find that one thing she could point to, though, that thing that said, this is what went wrong.

  They were trying to focus on finding Ash. David hacked into the police department's system when they refused to share their traffic cam info with them, but discovered the cameras in that area had inexplicably been turned off during the time that was most important. He hacked private security systems for one of the liquor stores across the street, but discovered the same thing. The cameras had malfunctioned, but only during that small stretch of time. And when Lance went around to the businesses in that area on foot, when the business owners weren't completely uncooperative, he found that their cameras had also malfunctioned.

  Someone didn't want them to see what those cameras might have captured.

  It was damn frustrating.

  Kirkland came into the conference room where she'd gone to hide, a big smile on his exhausted face.

  "Found Ryan."

  "You're joking!"

  "Nope." He came over and dropped into a chair beside her. "She called in using one of the burner phones. She's with that detective, Clint Barrow. They're on their way to Denver."

  "Why Denver?"

  "I guess he's convinced there's some sort of snitch and he thinks they can get help from an independent source there."

  Sutherland shrugged. "Maybe he's right."

  Kirkland's eyebrows rose like she'd offended him. "If there's a snitch, it's the FBI's problem."