Dangerous Secrets (16 page)

***

A half hour after Julie had left Luke on the corner, she sat at her desk, her stomach growling, thumbing through a case file and the silence was deafening to the point of creepy. The creek of the wooden floor in the lobby actually made her jump.
 

“Hello?”

Julie walked to the lobby to find one of the guys from the mail department who ran errands holding a bag of food. “Ms. Harrison?”
 

“Ah yes.”

“Got food for you and a note that I put inside the bag.” He set it down on the desk and Julie could see it came from the Mexican restaurant she and Luke had been headed for when she’d left. “Paid in advance including the tip.” He waved and backed away. “Gotta run. More stops.” He took off for the hallways.
 

Julie’s stomach and her nose applauded the wonderful smells coming from the bag and she quickly went to find the note.
 

I planned to eat this with you, but Blake called and has something he wants me to see regarding that situation we discussed. I’m not calling because I’m going to pick you up from work and if I call you can tell me not to.

Luke

PS Lock the lobby door.
 

Julie leaned on the desk. Luke hadn’t let her walk away.
 

Chapter Thirteen
 

Leaving Julie when there was so much tension between them was killing Luke, but keeping her safe had to come first. Twenty minutes after sending her the lunch order and note, Luke sat behind his desk on his computer at Walker Security, waiting for Blake to arrive and trying to figure out how Elizabeth Moore’s sister had gotten his phone number. And there it was. A proposal Royce had submitted for several charity events involving Elizabeth Moore that included Luke’s phone number. That was how the sister had gotten his number. She must have Elizabeth’s computer or charity documents. Nothing overtly sinister and he hoped like hell that was the case all together. After reading the journal, he wasn’t so sure.
 

Blake walked through the front door from the street, with two men on his heels, both stiff, in slacks and button downs, with faces made from stone. Cops or some type of law enforcement, Luke decided instantly. He didn’t get up. It wasn’t that he didn’t respect those who protected the innocent. He’d simply been around the track enough times to know everyone who was supposed to be a good guy wasn’t, and many who were still pulled the power play every chance they could find.

“This is Brian Murphy,” Blake said, indicating the stocky black man who stood at his right shoulder. “He’s ATF and he saved my ass a time or two.”

 
Murphy won Luke’s immediate attention and his respect. Luke dropped his feet to the floor and pushed to his feet.
 

Murphy, who looked at least ten years older than Blake, laughed low and hearty as he extended his hand to Luke across the desk. “Yeah, the kid was wild, but he kept things interesting. We miss him.”
 

Luke rounded the desk, accepting Murphy’s hand. “He’s still wild, trust me. He doesn’t seem to understand that red sports cars, motorcycles, and women by the bucket come with some downsides, like danger.”

Murphy chuckled and ran his fingers over his chin. “I think that might be exactly what he likes about those things.” He indicated the tall man standing next to him with sandy brown hair and closely set untrusting eyes. “This guy here is Tom Hendrix.”

“DEA,” Blake said, “and I haven’t worked with him but he’s on a task force with Brian that you’ll find interesting.”

Luke gave the man a quick once over and a nod, crossing his arms without an offer of his hand. Hendrix wasn’t eager to offer his hand either. Luke didn’t like him, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t good at his job.
 

“Ex-SEAL, I hear?” Hendrix asked.

“That’s right,” Luke said, and then motioned to a few chairs. “Why don’t we sit and you can fill me in on this task force.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Blake said, claiming a chair. Murphy sat down next to him. Hendrix leaned on the desk across from Luke. Luke stayed as he was, arms still crossed, legs in a V.
 

Blake pressed the conversation onward. ”I used some connections to check out the names in the journal you were given. Dragonfly pulled up nothing, but Paul Arel gave me a hard agency hit.”
 

Luke arched a brow. “I’m listening.”

“He’s a French-Canadian Citizen who owns a jewelry store he uses as his excuse for travel,” Murphy said. “He’s also the leader of a cartel that is a little too good at the money laundering used to hide their drug and weapons operations. We haven’t been able to nail them.”

“We need to have enough hard evidence to take him down and keep him down,” Hendrix said. “And it sounds like this Ms. Harrison has a way in through the doors we need open.”

Luke didn’t like the sound of this. “How exactly is that? She’s got a journal with names. Nothing more.”

“Arel is a big art fanatic,” Hendrix said. “Not only is he suspected of having some highly-sought stolen pieces in his personal collection, but he buys expensive, even rare art, with illegal money, and then transports it across international lines.”

“Then resells it here on this side of the border for the cash,” Blake added. “The illegal money becomes perfectly legal.”

“And the connection Julie has is Judge Moore,” Luke said, thinking there was no way he was letting Julie snoop around for these guys.
 

“That’s right,” Hendrix said. “And as of this morning, Ms. Harrison agreed to take over a charity event that Judge Moore’s wife was supposed to host tomorrow night.

Luke didn’t let his surprise show, but damn it, he’d told her to stay away from Moore. “And you know this how?”

“We have the judge well monitored,” Hendrix said.

As in wire taps, Luke assumed. “She’s not playing bait or even snitch, so don’t ask.”

“Look, Luke,” Murphy said. “I know this woman matters to you. But if she is on Arel’s radar, which I suspect she is, then she isn’t safe until he goes down.”

“If she’s on his radar,” Luke said. “She won’t be an easy source of information. And surely you have agents inserted close to her.”
 

“We do. Well, we did.” Tom ran his hand across his jaw. “We have an agent missing.”
 

Silence filled the room. After a long moment, Luke said, “How close are you to getting someone new inside?”

“They aren’t,” Blake said. “That’s why they want Julie to help.”

“And a new agent will need time to build trust,” Murphy added, “that we don’t have.”

“There’s more at stake here than you know,” Blake said, “or I wouldn’t even have brought them here. They’ve linked tainted drugs to these guys. The stories in the news about the rising cases of teen overdoses the past few months? They aren’t overdoses. The drugs they’re taking are tainted. Arel has to go down.”

Luke walked to the window and stared out at the street without really seeing it. He didn’t want Julie in this and he only knew one way around that. He turned back to the men. “I’ll get inside the operation.”

“How the hell are you going to do that?” Blake asked.

“I’ll attend the art show and convince the judge that I have a secret hobby to support a few expensive habits.”

“And that would be what?” Hendrix asked.

“I acquire art that no one else can get their hands on…for a price.”

A slow smile slid onto his brother’s lips and Blake leaned back and slid his hands behind his head. “Pretty smart, for a SEAL.”

He’d convinced his brother he had a good plan. Now, he just had to convince Julie that not only was this a good plan, but that he was a good plan for her. Every second he was with her, he was more certain. The problem was, the more certain he became about her, the less she seemed to be about him. It would bother him if he let himself think about it, and even mess with his head. He’d never put himself on the line like this with a woman as he was with Julie. But he couldn’t let it mess with his head, any more than he could let her push him away, because she needed him, even if she didn’t know it. She was deep into something dirty and dangerous that could easily turn deadly.

***

It was nearly nine at night by the time Julie stepped onto the elevator after a partner meeting to head back to her floor. She texted Luke as she’d promised and let him know she was almost ready to leave, despite a long list of things to do. The worst thing on that list was the absolute need to take off the next afternoon to handle the charity event. She loved doing charity work, especially for kids, but the timing and the complete lack of preparation the judge’s email had indicated made this one a small crisis at a bad time.
 

She exited the elevator and walked past Gina’s long-abandoned desk, drawing up short at the sight of Luke waiting on her in her office.
 

“You trying to starve me or what?” he asked, shutting his laptop he had open on top of her conference table.
 

She would never get used to how her skin heated just from seeing this man. “How long have you been waiting?”
 

He indicated the wrappers on the desk. “Long enough to eat two Snickers and a bag of crackers and be hungry all over again.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you were going to wait until I texted you. I’ll grab my purse and we can eat. I’m starving, too.” When she would have walked to her desk, he pulled her into his arms.
 

“I’m starving, too,” he said. “For you. Did you miss me?”

His voice was low, his breath a warm, teasing trickle against her lips and from anyone else, at any other time in her life, that question would have led her to a fun, flirtatious retort. With Luke, it was filled with implication, and still she found herself saying, “Yes. Yes, I did.”

The air in the room thickened instantly and crackled with a spark that could easily turn to outright fire. “Good,” he said, his thumb stroking her cheek. “Because after you left me out there on the sidewalk I wasn’t so sure.”

“You’re very good at making me do crazy things I shouldn’t do.”

 
He smiled. “So it was my fault?”

“Of course,” she teased. “Everything is the man’s fault, unless he’s my client or you feed me. Seriously. I’m starving.” She kissed him and pushed out of his arms. “I’m getting my purse.”

Twenty minutes later, they’d walked a few blocks down the road to one of New York’s many wonderful hole-in-the-wall pizza joints, many of which Julie frequented probably too often.
 

“We have the place to ourselves,” she said, settling at one of the tiny white tables with her giant slice of cheese pizza.
 

Luke joined her with two equally giant slices of pepperoni. “So,” he said, watching her fold her pizza like a sandwich and take a big bite. “Tell me about the charity event tomorrow night.”

She almost choked, and grabbed her drink to swallow. “How could you possibly know that?” she asked, when she finally recovered.

He leaned in closer. “The judge’s phones were tapped even before we planned the same.”

“So the police suspect he killed her?”

“It’s even bigger than that,” he said, and she listened as he recounted what he’d learned that day.
 

Cartel. She was involved with a cartel. Julie sat back. “I’m suddenly not hungry. I don’t know how I got in the middle of this. I’ve always tried to stay out of the way of trouble.”

“More importantly is how we get you out of it,” he said. “And the best way to do that is to get me inside this thing and back you out.”

“How?”

“I’ll go as your date,” he said. “You introduce me and I’ll pull him aside, make it clear you don’t know what he has going on or what I have going on. Then, I’ll make sure he, and his connections, know I can get those elusive pieces of art their hearts desire, for a price.”

She felt outright sick now. “You’re going to put yourself in the center of a cartel to get me out of it.” She’d been around the Walker brothers enough to know how they operated. They were protectors. So much so that she wondered if that wasn’t what was really drawing Luke to her now. Maybe this was sex, and some manly duty. He’d already given her the ‘we’ll stay friends no matter what’ lecture. And with any other man, she would have said, ‘perfect’. A sexy affair and no strings, no emotional bonds.
 
And no chance of getting hurt.She swallowed hard.

“Julie,” Luke said, drawing her gaze from where it had settled on her slice of pizza.
 

She nodded. “Yes?”

“I’m getting you out of this, yes, and I won’t pretend that isn’t a huge motivator to me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
 

“I know,” she said, her throat threatening to close. God, who was she? Nothing used to rattle her. Nothing but…Luke.
 

His eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”