“You are a complete nutter!” Christian wailed.
“Never said I wasn’t.” There was laughter in Emily’s voice.
“Holy duck fuck!” Chelsea heard Ace shout. “Either you two cut the shit, or I’m going to call Don King and go ahead and make this an event.”
There was a beat or two of silence following that outburst. Then Emily huffed. “Men… They’re impossible.” In a conspiratorial whisper, she added, “And British men are the worst.”
“Uh-huh. Right. Keep telling yourself that, sister,” Chelsea said. If her day hadn’t put her in a terrible temper, and if she weren’t terrified that she had lost Dagan for good, she might have enjoyed Emily and Christian’s banter. As it was, it only gave her a headache.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Emily demanded.
“Nothing. I really need to go. Stay safe, Em. Stay away from the cameras when you can. Hopefully once Z and I”—was it her imagination or did Dagan flinch when he heard his nickname?—“are back stateside, we’ll be able to get this mess cleaned up and it’ll be safe to call you all home.”
After they’d said their good-byes, and after Chelsea had returned her phone to her pocket, the car once again filled with silence. There was only the hum of the Renault’s engine, the howl of the wind through the broken window, and the slight whistle of the heat blowing through the vents.
Chelsea was reminded of the Silence Charm Hermione Granger had used on a Death Eater during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. When she couldn’t stand it a second longer, she finally said, “Thank you.”
Dagan didn’t look at her, but thank goodness the Silence Charm had been broken. “For what?” he asked.
“For back there on the beach. For saving my ass. Again.” For the record, she was still obeying his edict. She was only talking about the mission.
Muscles ticked in his jaw, causing the Beard to twitch. His moonshine voice no longer sounded smooth and distilled. Now, it was dark and harsh. “Just doing my job.”
Annnnddd there they were again, words so cold they left a thick layer of ice around her heart.
She turned the vents more fully toward her, trying to get warm. It was a wasted effort. She would never be warm again. Dagan had taken the fire of his passion, the heat of his love from her, and all that was left was a cold, aching void.
Chapter 49
Chicago, Illinois
Ten hours…
That’s how much time had passed since Chelsea hopped on the flight that had spirited her and Dagan across the Atlantic from Paris to Chicago. Ten hours of not sleeping, even though her eyes were filled with sand and her whole body was one big, exhausted ache. Ten hours of not talking because Dagan had claimed a sofa on the private jet, stretched out, and closed his eyes, effectively shutting her out.
Even after they had landed in Chicago and Becky Knight, a tiny wisp of a woman who had a penchant for lollipops and blowtorches—the latter no doubt developed over the years she had been building and designing the custom choppers that kept the Black Knights’ covers intact—had picked them up from the airport and drove them to BKI headquarters, Dagan hadn’t said more than a few perfunctory words to Chelsea.
And now? Well, now they were sitting in front of the bank of computers on the second floor of the old menthol cigarette factory that had been converted into the living quarters, a shop, and ground zero for all things BKI and clandestine, and Dagan continued to give her the cold shoulder. Anytime she tried to catch his eye, he quickly looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
Everything Chelsea had feared for so long—losing his respect, his support, his friendship, and more recently his love—had come to pass. She had known it would hurt. But Lordy, she hadn’t been prepared for just how bad it would be.
It felt like someone had ripped open her chest, torn out her heart, and tossed it on the floor. It was difficult to breathe. Difficult to think past the pain. Difficult to—
“This cockthistle doesn’t know what’s about to hit him,” Ozzie crowed, his fingers flying across his keyboard.
Ever since she had planted the virus in Morrison’s computer, BKI’s computer whiz had engaged in a series of cyber battles with someone from either Morrison’s camp or Spider’s. And according to what Ozzie had muttered to her when she arrived and asked how he was coming along, his nemesis was good. He’s faster, Ozzie had said. But I’m smarter by at least two standard deviations.
Now, even though Ozzie’s brow was knitted in concentration, there was a smile on his face.
“Making headway?” Chelsea asked from the rolling desk chair beside him. Becky was occupying herself by cleaning a transmission on the conference table behind them, and Dagan was in the desk chair on Ozzie’s opposite side.
“I’m almost in,” Ozzie declared, and Chelsea’s heart lurched. Maybe there was a way to salvage her mission yet. Maybe it hadn’t all been for naught.
“You go get him, my hunka hunka burnin’ lover,” Samantha Tate, Ozzie’s fiancée, said as she entered the room, steaming cup of coffee in hand.
She set the mug beside Ozzie’s rattling keyboard, and Ozzie thanked her. Then, without taking his eyes off the screen, he lifted his mouth for a kiss. Samantha obliged, giving him a loud, smacking one before pulling a spare rolling chair up behind him so she could massage his shoulders.
There was such adoration in Samantha’s eyes when she looked at her man, such love and respect. Chelsea had to glance away.
Samantha and Ozzie had an improbable love story. Samantha was an investigative reporter whose sole mission in life was to drag secrets into the light. And Ozzie was a covert operator who lived and worked cloaked in some of the world’s deepest, darkest shadows. But somehow, someway, they made it work.
It was impossible for Chelsea to look at them and see happily ever after written all over their faces when she knew she would never have a happily ever after of her own.
As if sensing her distress, Peanut, the notch-eared, crooked-tailed tomcat that acted as BKI’s mascot, placed his front paws on her knees and meowed up at her. His yellow eyes looked solemn, sympathetic.
A lump formed in her throat. Figuring she could use all the comfort she could get, Chelsea pulled the big cat into her lap. It took some effort. Peanut was far from a dainty thing. In fact, she’d put him at close to twenty pounds.
She reckoned her legs were sure to go to sleep in no time when he curled up into the familiar cat-loaf on her lap, all his legs tucked underneath him. But she didn’t mind. Especially when he began to purr.
The sound was loud enough to compete with the noise the steel-and-chrome beasts made when Becky tested their engines down in the shop on the first floor. Chelsea found it soothed her as much as anything could.
You know, what with my heart lying on the floor.
“I got him!” Ozzie pumped a fist. “Take that, you sorry sonofabitch!” His screen flashed from eye-crossing lines of code to reveal the classic Microsoft desktop screen.
“Is that Morrison’s system?” Chelsea asked, scratching behind Peanut’s ears. She leaned closer to the screen.
“You betcha.” Ozzie nodded. “Now just let me…” He trailed off as he scrolled through the directory.
Unfortunately, there were no files named “Spider” or “Accounts that link me to Spider.” But one file folder caught Chelsea’s attention. She pointed to it. “What’s that one? The one titled Bad Things?”
Ozzie clicked on it, and there was a collective gasp heard around the room. Becky, who had come to stand behind Chelsea’s chair, whispered, “Dear sweet Jesus.”
Bile climbed into the back of Chelsea’s throat as one image after another flashed onto the screen. All of girls just entering puberty. All showing the subject either bound or gagged, or both. All so grotesque and heartrending that Dagan’s voice sounded shredded when he hissed, “Close out of there. For fu
ck’s sake, Ozzie. I can’t take any more.”
Ozzie shut down the file, and for long moments no one said a thing. Even Peanut sensed the tension in the air. He stopped purring, and his ears flicked nervously.
“He’s a pedophile.” Chelsea was in shock. She’d known Morrison was a sick shit, but this… She’d never expected this.
“A dead pedophile,” Dagan grumbled. “Which is the best kind, in my opinion.”
“Fuckin’ A” was all Ozzie said as he stared stony-eyed at his screen. Then he shook himself and leaned toward the keyboard once again. “Okay.” He blew out a breath. “Okay, so there’s that. And I…well, I don’t have any words. Truth to tell, I’m a little nervous of what other horrors might pop out at us.”
“Hopefully Spider’s true identity and how he’s tied to Morrison will pop out at us,” Becky said.
“Right.” Ozzie nodded and went back to scrolling through the computer directory.
Chelsea’s phone came to life inside her pocket. When she pulled out her cell, the number for the director of the CIA glowed on the screen.
Back in Paris, she had called to let him know she was on the plane. But she had forgotten to phone him and tell him when she had landed and when she had made it to BKI headquarters. She blamed the oversight on emotional turmoil.
“Sir?” she answered, carefully dumping Peanut from her lap and walking away from the group gathered around the computer bank. “I’m sorry I forgot to—”
He cut her off. For a couple of seconds she listened, her heart pounding in her chest, then she said, “Of course, sir. Right away, sir,” before thumbing off her phone.
Becky was the one to turn to her, a sleek blond eyebrow raised. “Well? I take it that was Director Russell. What does he have to say?”
Chelsea swallowed. “Given all the press back in the UK, and given it won’t be long until Morrison’s murder and my face are splashed all over the news stations here, he wants me back in Langley. He says I need to lie low until we can get this thing straightened out and clear my name.”
“Probably smart.” Becky nodded. “We’ll keep you apprised of anything and everything we find.”
“Thank you.” There was a heartbeat in Chelsea’s throat as she looked at Dagan’s back. She desperately wanted him to turn to her, to say…something. Anything. But he didn’t.
“I…uh…I could use a ride back to the airport. Director Russell has a plane waiting for me,” she said.
Dagan did turn to her then. She hoped he would volunteer. If only she could get him alone, then maybe she could—
Her hope died on the spot when she saw his unblinking, incisive stare.
Becky glanced back and forth between them, brow furrowed. Finally, when it became obvious Dagan wasn’t going to offer Chelsea a ride, Becky said, “I’ll take you, Chels.”
The backs of Chelsea’s eyeballs were on fire when she managed a wheezy, “Thank you.”
Ten minutes later, with Becky at the wheel, they drove through the big wrought-iron gates in front of Black Knights Inc. HQ. Chelsea felt like in place of her heart, there was a stone. It sat hard and cold in the center of her chest as she glanced in the side mirror at the big brick facade of the factory building.
Will this be the last time I see it? she wondered. Will it be the last time I see him?
The hard stone in her chest crumbled to dust at the thought.
Chapter 50
Three days later, Dagan sat on the leather sofa in BKI’s third-floor den, sipped his Goose Island IPA, and gave the CNN anchor on television half an ear as he waited for the most recent news to break. He hadn’t seen Chelsea since she left Black Knights’ headquarters to head back to Langley. But even though they were half a dozen states apart, he’d been unable to avoid her pretty face. It had been splashed all over the news.
Morrison’s murder and Chelsea’s “wanted” status had topped the headlines the world over. Speculation was wild. The newshounds were slavering over what few juicy details were available. But tonight, the whole truth—or at least the version the CIA director and the Black Knights had agreed upon—would be revealed.
“Breaking news!” the anchorwoman said right on cue. Her blond hair, styled in a sleek bob, barely moved when she pressed her earpiece and nodded. “We have an update on the Chelsea Duvall and Roper Morrison story.”
Chelsea’s photo appeared beside Morrison’s on the screen. But Dagan’s eyes were glued to only one of them.
Three guesses which one, and the first two don’t count.
He wasn’t sure where or when the picture of Chelsea had been taken. But she was in a small aluminum johnboat. The sun glinted in her golden eyes, and the smile on her face was pure and genuine and so…Chelsea that it made his chest ache.
“The CIA has just released a stunning statement,” the anchorwoman continued. Her eyes barely moved as she read the words streaming across her teleprompter. “They claim Chelsea Duvall, a former employee of the Bureau of Land Management and more recently media mogul Roper Morrison’s personal assistant, is in fact one of their agents. According to a CIA spokesperson, Agent Duvall was sent by the agency to infiltrate Morrison’s household and search for evidence tying the British billionaire to Pattani separatists in Thailand.
“The Pattani separatists are a terrorist group responsible for the 2016 bombings in the resort town of Hua Hin. They are also known to keep sex slaves and deal in the human trafficking of underage girls to the United States and the UK. The connection between Roper Morrison and the Thai terrorists was first discovered in the Panama Papers.”
That was a lie. The Panama Papers had pointed from the diamond mine in Angola to Spider, which had then pointed to Morrison because, as it turned out, Morrison was laundering money for Spider’s diamond mine venture—and many more of Spider’s ventures—through his legitimate businesses. But it had been decided that would be kept on the down low. The evidence Ozzie found on Morrison’s computer of Morrison traveling to Thailand to have sex with the underage girls the Pattani separatists kept in the middle of the jungle—when Dagan thought about that he wished he’d been the one to put the bullet in Morrison’s sick, twisted brain—was the information the CIA had determined would be given to the press to validate their involvement in Morrison’s takedown.
The anchorwoman continued. “The CIA spokesperson went on to say that when Morrison discovered Agent Duvall’s true intent, she was forced to flee the country, taking along evidence she had collected of Morrison’s perversions. During her escape, Morrison and his employees caught up with her first in Folkestone, England, and then again across the English Channel in Calais, France. She had no other choice but to use lethal force to save herself from being captured and killed.”
Lethal force. It was such a nice way of saying someone’s guts or heart or brain had been introduced to a ball of lead traveling 2,500 feet per second.
“Two of the dead men, including former British SAS officer turned security specialist Steven J. Surry and an as-yet-unidentified man, were both gunned down by the same weapon. But the bullet fragment pulled from Roper Morrison did not match. When reporters questioned the CIA spokesperson about the conflicting sets of ballistics and whether that meant Agent Duvall had help from a third party during her escape, the spokesperson said, quote, ‘That’s classified information, which I’m not at liberty to discuss at this time.’”
The anchorwoman smiled, revealing a set of capped teeth so white they were nearly blinding. “So there you have it. Agent Chelsea Duvall, not a murderer and thief, but a true American hero. Stay tuned to CNN for more updates on this explosive story as they become available.”
Dagan blew out a relieved breath when Chelsea’s picture disappeared from the screen.
“So”—Ozzie spoke from behind him—“Chelsea’s name has been cleared, huh?” Ozzie walked around the sofa, plunked beside Dagan, and twisted the top off
a fresh beer. Through his jeans, Ozzie massaged the wound on his thigh that had come courtesy of an incendiary device and clinked the long neck of his bottle against Dagan’s. “I’d say it’s a job well done, but we still don’t know who Spider is, so I’ll just say it’s a job partially done.”
By the time Ozzie had managed to hack into Morrison’s files and locate the accounts and transactions that seemed linked to Spider, all the money had been moved. To where? And by whom? And how? Those were the million-dollar questions.
“I take it that means you’ve had no luck locating any of the missing money or finding clues that might point us to Spider’s identity,” Dagan said.
“I haven’t given up.” Ozzie shook his head emphatically. “There are still a few more rabbit holes I can look down. I hope to have a lead soon. But I have to tell you, this Spider asshole is proving to be unbelievably crafty.”
Spider’s craftiness certainly wasn’t lost on Dagan. After all, he’d spent months trying to bring the bastard down only to come up empty-handed. Well, not empty-handed, necessarily. Roper fuckin’ Morrison was no longer in the picture—or on this earth. And that was something.
“Is anyone shaking the government trees over in the UK to see what monkeys fall out?” Dagan asked. “Neither Morrison nor Spider found us on their own that day. They had help.”
“The director of the CIA knocked some heads together. According to Scotland Yard, they began reviewing CCTV footage the moment Morrison called with his claim that Chelsea had stolen something from him. Morrison being such an important and powerful man and all, they had jumped to help. But that’s the most they’ll cop to. I suspect Morrison had or Spider has some folks on his payroll over there. They’re busy covering their asses.” Ozzie dragged a hand through his messy blond hair. “But I care less about that and more about the fact that all these questions, all this attention, will make Spider go to ground.”
Fuel for Fire Page 27
