"Here?" Amber clicked and both sets of screens once again flashed black and populated the nonsense they'd seen before. "Wow. That's impressive."
"It doesn't do anything but run on a loop, but if anyone was to come into the house, they wouldn't see our surveillance feed, they'd see our 'work'. The van has the same program installed. It has saved our bacon a time or two when nosy city workers showed up."
"Okay, so we're set?" Amber pushed away from the desk and looked at him.
"I believe we are. Control, do you need anything?"
"Negative. We have food, drink and a porta-john outside. Life doesn't get any better than this." Anvi Patel's voice through the earwig made him smile. He was damn glad the woman had their six. She was razor sharp and a great asset.
"Roger. We have a meet and greet with the neighbors at 6:30. You'll see us head to their residence through camera three." Brody waited for acknowledgement before he removed his earwig and put his mic on mute. He pushed away from the desk and stretched.
"You clear?"
She clicked off her mic and took out her comms. "Clear. What's up?"
"Shower time." He held his hand for her and helped her from the chair. "Do you want to check on Gage before we get ready for the night?"
She glanced at her watch. "No, but if we get home in time, I want to call him and tell him goodnight. Get the rundown on his day."
"We can do that." Brody leaned down and kissed her.
The feel of him so close sent a shiver through her. She reacted not only to the sexual chemistry, which they had in spades, but to the emotional closeness that enrobed her in warmth, security and a sense of purpose. His presence in her life filled a dormant need in her soul. She'd closed the door on the hope that the love that had once grown there would ever revive and flourish again. However, life had given her a second chance, a re-emergence of what had once been, coupled with what was yet to be. Together.
"We. I really like the sound of that."
"So do I." He took her hand and led her into the master bedroom. She'd unpacked their toiletries earlier, and she’d made sure to set up his sink the way he liked, or rather the way he used to like it. His razor on the left-hand side. Toothbrush and toothpaste on the right. Comb behind the tap along with his deodorant and cologne.
He turned and enfolded her into his arms. "When we're done here, will you and Gage move in with me?"
Whoa. "What? Are you sure?" A host of thoughts hit in a gale-force slap of reality. She wanted nothing more, but she needed to make sure he was certain.
"I am, and I think you are, too."
He dipped down and took her lips, but she leaned away. "What about your family?"
"I told you Blay was buying the apartment on the second floor."
He lowered again, and she bent backward to avoid the kiss. "But Gage's school, you're not in the same district."
"We can drive him and pay tuition so he can finish the year. Then transfer him next year."
"Dawn?"
"Is a big girl who probably would relish her life back."
Oh. True. She'd actually worried about that for years, but... "I can't. I mean, what is Gage going to think?"
Brody held her with one arm and reached into his pocket. He extracted a dark red ring box from his pocket and flipped it open with his thumb. "He'll think his Mom and Dad have finally figured shit out and decided to get married." He held the box so she could see the ring.
"It's not the same one." Why those words fell from her lips was beyond her, but the ring situated on the blood red cushion wasn't the small solitaire he'd offered her ten years ago. This ring had two sapphires on either side of the square cut diamond.
"I sold the other ring. I thought it was cursed. I picked this one yesterday and had it sized." He took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. "Amber Swanson, will you finally marry me?"
She waited, but none of the terror, none of the claustrophobic loss of freedom, and not a whisper of her mother's voice pierced her happiness. She removed her hand from his and placed it against his cheek. "I'd be honored to marry you."
Brody's smile was huge, "If Gage agrees."
"Gage doesn't get a vote on this one, I'm afraid. If there is one thing I've learned it is when the man you love asks you to marry him, you say yes." She pulled him down and whispered the yes against his skin. The kiss they shared buoyed her heart as it healed and promised, fed and nourished the parched place at the very core of her being. There was no rush, no desperate scramble to find skin; only a slow, gentle love. The kind of love she'd never thought she'd have again. They slide-stepped to the corner of the room, and as one, they slowly lowered to the air mattress.
Long, deep kisses broken by a slow slide of fabric filled her with a single fixation. Brody. He swamped her senses. His taste and smell surrounded her as certainly as his hard muscles surrounded her and shielded her from the outside world. How had she ever doubted this man or his love? Unbidden tears flooded her eyes.
"Hey, what's this?" His fingertip traced an escaped tear.
"I'm so sorry." The emotion of this second, with him, splintered her into a million shards.
He pushed her hair back away from her face and his eyes penetrated her soul. The honesty of his searching stare took her breath away. "We're past that. All is forgiven. We have each other. We have our future. We live in the here and now."
"Then no condom. I'm on the pill. I want all of you." Pieces of the past evaporated in the moment; carried away on his absolute forgiveness and love. He lowered to kiss her and entered her at the same time. She clung to his shoulders and arched under him. Oh, yes. This was heaven. Her heart shattered, but not in pain this time. Brody had obliterated what remained of her heart, but with each touch, kiss, and breath he restored her. Each fragment built on the next. The past annihilated, the future renewed.
His breath left goose bumps when it moved across her overheated skin. There was an absence of words, but not a lack of communication. He spoke in the way he touched her, and her answers were composed by her responses to those gentle hands, lips, and tongue. Unfettered and unrestrained by the past, she focused all her attention on the man who still loved her.
They climaxed together and, completely spent, drifted for several long moments before he whispered the words that set her world on its axis and made the stars shine in the heavens.
"I loved you then; I love you now, and I'll love you and Gage, unconditionally, until the day I die."
Chapter 17
Brody shook Erik Edelman's hand. "Nice to meet you."
The guy was as tall as he was, and he looked damn tired. The luggage he was toting under his eyes could be used as steamer trunks.
"And you." Erik returned. "Sorry for being late tonight, but business has been crazy. The boss is in a snit, which makes telling him things he doesn't want to hear difficult." The man rolled his eyes. "He's on a tear, and thankfully, I made it out of the meeting intact." The man downed half his beer in one go.
"I take it his bite is worse than his bark?"
"Oh, hell yeah. But, enough about me. What is it you do?"
They moved to a large wrought iron table and scooted the chairs away from the table to sit.
"We have a couple businesses. Digital storage and website design." He took a drink of his beer and prayed Erik didn't have a clue about either.
Erik shook his head. "I use computers as a tool. I can muddle through all the programs, but if you ask me to go farther than that, I'm lost."
"Which keeps me in business." He hoisted his beer in Erik's direction. "So, what do you fly?" He pointed to the hangar.
Erik's face lit up. "My Piper? Clare calls her my girlfriend. She's a beauty. Would you like to see her?"
"Definitely." He caught Amber's eye as she talked with Clare and nodded to the hangar. Amber smiled and waved at him, drawing a knowing smile from Clare. The women laughed as they headed down the flagstone path. Erik had a spring in his step as they walked toward the flight line.
"Ah, is that the famous greenhouse?" He pointed to a large glass or Plexiglas building, perhaps sixteen feet long and ten feet wide.
"Yes, it is. It's a kit, believe it or not, and it only took three weekends to put together. She loves her plants. Hell, she can plant a dead stick and make it grow. That's her hobby, and this is mine." Erik disabled the alarm and opened the door to the hangar. He reached in and flipped on the overhead lights.
He whistled. "Nice." He walked up to the plane. "Three blade, constant speed propeller?"
"Damn straight. She's got a 350 HP engine and pressurized cabin up to twelve thousand feet."
Brody nodded. "Light emitting diodes." He indicated the exterior lighting. "Exterior storage?"
"Some in the underwing radome and another in the tail, but I don't need it. Take a look at this." Erick opened a clamshell door and motioned for him to enter. He used the stairs Erik retrieved from the cab and entered the aircraft. Tan leather seats, cream carpeting, and bonus points, the seats were adjustable.
"She's a sweetheart, isn't she?"
"Oh, yeah, definitely. Did you modify the seats?" Brody could actually sit up straight in them, which at six-foot-five was unusual. Most seats in these smaller planes were manufactured for a shorter person.
"You know your stuff. Yeah, I did. There is a modification kit for this baby, otherwise I wouldn't have bought her. I can't fly her if I can't sit down comfortably."
He admired the interior of the plane. "What is your maximum?"
Erik smiled even wider, if it was possible. "I can go thirteen hundred nautical miles if I have no passengers and full tanks, but I've never had to stretch it. It's a good jaunt from here to Jacksonville or Atlanta, but she handles it fine."
"You work in both cities?"
"Yeah, mostly Jacksonville now. The boss has a special project he's trying to get off the ground and I'm his conduit. Shit the man comes up with." The last words were mumbled as Erik pointed to the multi-function display. "Instrument approach, which is invaluable. I don't ever want to fly a fixed-card ADF approach again. Not after this little beauty."
Brody laughed with Erik. "She's gorgeous. Do you put plastic down when you bring Clare the plants?"
"You bet. I know she loves those things, but I'm not going to let anything dirty touch my plane."
"Erik! Brody! Dinner!" Clare's voice from the doorway swung both their heads.
Erik raised a hand in acknowledgement. "Let's get going. Clare makes the best grilled fajitas."
Brody disembarked and waited for Erik to close up his aircraft before accompanying him through the yard and back to the patio.
"So, what do you fly?" Erik handed him a plate.
Brody grabbed a couple of tortillas and answered, "I have a SF50 Vision."
Erik stopped with a tong full of grilled chicken halfway to his plate. "A Vision is a two million-dollar jet."
"I got a good deal on it, and it was used." Brody shrugged and nodded to the chicken. "You going to eat that or suspend it in mid-air."
Erik blinked at him but dropped the chicken on his plate and then likewise dropped the tongs. "Why are you living here?"
Amber snorted. "Because he has a million-dollar plane."
Clare's laugh was contagious, and thank God, Amber kept the conversation rolling. The FBI's little gift of a jet could have put a serious rift in the new 'friendship'. Some people can't see their way past money. Thankfully, Erik and Clare didn't seem to be that type.
Brody sat down and handed the coffee around the table. The meeting was the second one they'd had with their team as others monitored the neighbors from the van. The last twenty-one days had been productive, but the productivity wasn't on their case. Together he and Amber had been going through information the JDET personnel had mined from the streets, interviews, and testimony in court cases involving their collars. They'd carefully pieced together two viable leads, and Terrell and the rest of the team had moved forward on them. At least they were advancing the team's objectives while playing house, but their case was going nowhere.
"It's been three weeks." Captain Terrell spoke as he reached for the cream. "We have nothing on the Dawes couple. They do pro bono work, but it would seem they have taken a hiatus there as well. They bought a puppy and are walking it twenty times a day." He snorted and stirred his coffee. "They are vying for the most boring couple on the face of the earth."
Rayburn grabbed one of the scones he'd bought. "Edelman flies all the time."
Amber took a sip of her coffee and glanced at him. He passed her the biscotti he'd bought for her before Rayburn or Watson could grab it. A quicksilver flash of a smile was his reward. He internalized their secret connection as he turned to Rayburn.
"He does. Mainly to Jacksonville. So far, our contact in Jax hasn't been able to validate where he's landing. We only have two more airfields. We knew it would be a process of elimination."
"Did digging into their background show anything?" Amber asked.
Terrell shook his head. "Not much. Clare Edelman was Clare Washburn. She was raised by her parents until they died in a factory explosion down state. She had no family, so she spent four years in foster care. She stayed with the same family for all four years. She went to college on scholarships, worked at a large nursery for four years before she married Edelman. Erik was born to an upper middle-class family. His parents are still alive. He works for T-7 Consulting and has for the last four years. Recently promoted and moved to this new housing area. He is in debt to his eyeballs, or he was, until recently."
Brody stopped his boss. "How did you get a look at his financials without a warrant?"
"I didn't." Terrell leaned forward. "You can learn a lot about a person from his or her mail carrier."
Watson leaned forward, "Say what now?"
"I happened to run into the postal worker and struck up a conversation. I told her I was thinking about moving to the area but wasn't sure about the neighborhood. We talked for fifteen minutes. When the Edelmans first moved here, a lot of past due and last notice mail was forwarded from their last address, but they don't receive them anymore. The Daweses are staunch Democrats, and their next door neighbors, the Logans, are huge Republican backers. She didn't know anything about you, thankfully."
"Damn, Captain, I forget you were a good detective before you started flying a desk." Rayburn's comment earned him a middle finger from his boss.
"Speaking of flying, have you flown the FBI's plane yet?" Watson asked before he took a sip of his coffee and literally moaned in appreciation.
He chuckled at the man's orgasmic expression. He got it. Coffee was what jump started his heart every morning. Well, that and fantastic morning sex. He capped the thought right there. He wasn't going to have lewd thoughts about the woman he loved in front of his team. He leaned forward and answered Watson as he reached for an apple fritter. "No, I'm not rated on this particular aircraft, and it was only supposed to be a stage prop."
"It's going to be suspicious if you don't fly it pretty fucking soon." Terrell sighed. "Damn it, I'd hoped we'd have more information before now."
"I can call someone I know. Someone who is rated and can fly it. Legally." His cousin Jason would know if there were any pilots in the local area who could go up with him. He needed someone in the co-pilot seat who was rated, so he could log hours and let his neighbors see him fly the damn thing.
Terrell picked a bear claw. "Call them. We need to find something soon or we're going to have to pull the plug. In the last three weeks, we have forty-seven confirmed overdoses, all pointing to this shit Peña is bringing into the city. Fenton is telling anyone who will listen that JDET is ineffective and inept."
"Yeah, and Detective McBride said there are a rash of deaths at the Cottages from the shit. It started with the one user they assumed died from H. They confirmed Gray Death." Brody added the information from Kyle's latest call.
The table was silent for a moment. "Fenton is pissed because we're starting to get some
of the money from the shit we seize, isn't he?" Rayburn asked.
Terrell narrowed his eyes and glared across the table. "Where did you hear that?"
"From Merlene Talbot in Public Relations. She said the board unanimously approved the allocation. They're going to run an article about it in the Hope City Journal. Bet the memo sent Fenton over the wall." Watson answered for his partner who'd stuffed half a cinnamon roll in his pie hole. Odds were good Rayburn could have stuffed the entire thing in his mouth.
"He's not happy." Terrell leaned back in his chair. "This is the skinny. We need to put Edelman with Peña, or we need to move on. I've been given a week. This time next Wednesday, if we don't have anything, we're pulling up stakes and moving on."
Damn it. He knew Peña was bringing Grey Death into the city. This had been their best lead and although he loved playing house, they needed to push on if they couldn't tie either the Daweses or the Edelmans to Peña. For all intents and purposes, the Daweses had been eliminated, although they were still being watched. The pup was kind of fun to watch, but the older couple were as Terrell had said, boring as hell. He glanced at his boss. "I'll call in a favor or two, take up the jet. Probably Friday. I hope." He could explain the urgency to Jason. The man would get it.
"Has this guy Edelman done anything, anything at all, that pings you as cartel related?" Terrell took a bite of his bear claw while staring at him.
"No. All appearances make him a hard worker and a great husband. He brings home trays of flowers for the wife."
Amber added, "He's every wife's dream. According to Clare, Erik does dishes, helped with her gardening hobby by building her a greenhouse, does all the shopping and makes a weekly run to the recycle center because there is only a garbage service in the housing area."
Rayburn chuckled, "A regular Ward Cleaver."
"Ward didn't do housework." Amber reminded him.
"Fine. He's Mrs. Doubtfire." Watson chimed in.
Amber shook her head, "No dresses."
"Burt in Away We Go?" Terrell countered.
Brody (Hope City Book 3) Page 17
