Easy Target (20 page)

“They’ve got trouble back home.”

“What kind of trouble?” She scraped the hair away from her face and bent over at the waist. They weren’t shy around each other, and she treated Gavin more like a brother than a former lover at this point. Their whole setup here felt wrong and simultaneously so right that it scared the crap out of him.

“Nick and Leland are being arrested at my lake house as we speak. Bryan and Sassy are wanted for questioning in the murder of a DEA agent in South Carolina. It’s time for you to go home.”

Risa stopped in the process of wrapping her hair in the hotel’s threadbare towel. “You sure? I thought you were going to try to get to Sierra Leone to investigate the information you just got about the Yarborough girl.”

“I’ll do it on my own. If you don’t leave Algeria now, you may have trouble getting home, depending on what happens with the quarantines.”

“What about you?” Risa asked with her husky voice.

He looked at her, really studying her, and felt the slow burn he always did when he looked at Marissa Hudson for more than a few moments. Like staring at the sun, gazing at Risa for too long had always singed him a bit.

Lovers long before Marissa had introduced him to Kat, they’d peeled the paint off the ceilings of quite a few bedrooms together. But once Gavin had met the woman who would become his wife, that was over. He’d taken one look at Kat Deveraux and he’d been a goner, head over heels.

That should have made his current relationship with Marissa awkward and weird as hell. But since Risa had made it more than clear she never wanted to marry him, they had been okay. Comfortable to the point that they’d all remained very good friends, with him and Marissa even opening their security consultant business together.

Because even though Marissa had never wanted a permanent sexual relationship with Gavin, business-­wise they were a perfect match, and the physical didn’t enter into running AEGIS.
Thank God.

Yet slipping back to that old pattern and comfort would be entirely too easy right now, and completely unfair. Because Gavin was hurting like he’d never hurt in his life. And the thought of taking solace in their physical relationship, no matter how brief, was incredibly seductive. But he wasn’t that big an ass. At least he hoped he wasn’t. Until now, anyway.

He cleared his throat. “They need you back home. To get their butts out of jail if nothing else.”

She flipped her head up and twisted the towel, tucking the edges under in a move that puzzled and fascinated him at the same time. He never could quite figure out how women managed to do that thing with the towel.

“What makes you think my butt won’t end up in jail as well?” she asked.

“You’re too quick and your connections are too good. Whoever’s behind this would have to have an awful lot of clout to put Senator Hudson’s daughter in the pokey.” He grinned to soften the message that he wanted her to leave.

She gave an indelicate snort. “I wouldn’t count on that. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to Sierra Leone and try to confirm the information on Yarborough.”

“You really think that’s possible . . . or even necessary? She’s dead, Gavin.”

He stood. “Maybe.”

She stared at him without speaking, and God help him, he felt like squirming.

He swallowed. “Okay, probably. She’s
probably
dead. I don’t have much else to do right now, since going back to the U.S. is off the table.”

She studied him a moment longer but never moved close enough for him to feel she was being the least bit inappropriate or suggestive.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He gave a half smile. “Define
okay
.”

“Hmm . . . That’s what I thought.”

He shook his head. “Risa, this is hard as hell. I miss Kat every minute of every day. My only remedy is staying busy. Getting arrested would be disastrous for me because I wouldn’t be able to move around and do something to keep my mind off how bad I fucking hurt. I’d be stuck, unable to think about anything but the pain. I can’t handle that yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to handle that. So yeah, I’m going to try and find out what happened to Yarborough. Was she really trafficked here from Mexico? And if so, how did she end up in a mass grave of Ebola victims?”

Risa was listening, and not disagreeing. “Where will you start?”

“I’ve still got contacts here from my DEA days. I’ll get into Sierra Leone somehow. For now, I need you to go home. They need you.”

And that was true. The AEGIS team needed her to work her magic and get them out of jail. He knew she wasn’t happy about leaving him, but it was time.

They didn’t need to be together. They didn’t belong together. An intimate relationship at this point in both their lives would be disastrous. They had just enough history together to screw each other up but good.

So she had to leave. Now. Before he did something they’d both regret, something that would make it impossible for them to work together anymore.

She tilted her head and studied him a moment longer. “I’ve known you a long time, Gavin. I never figured you for a coward.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d figured out what he was thinking. But she had. Stunned and a little embarrassed, he didn’t know how to respond. Then the opportunity was lost when she turned and headed for the bathroom in that slow saunter that had him wondering why in God’s name he was sending her away.

She paused in the doorway and glanced back over her shoulder with a sad smile. “Don’t worry, your virtue would have been safe with me.”

His laugh was wistful, rueful. “Perhaps. But yours wouldn’t have been with me.”

He didn’t wait for her reply as he headed back to his own room to make arrangements for her flight home. He simply shut the adjoining door with a firm snap.

Chapter Twenty

December 28

Evening

Bear’s cabin

S
ASSY SAT IN
stunned silence, unable to believe what had just unfolded on the screen in front of her. What was happening to Nick, Jennifer, Leland, Anna, and Zach right now? Would they be all right? Were they safe?

What were she and Bryan going to do? She knew what she could do. A story. And not just any story but one that an editor would take and run with.

“Bear, are you sure you got this recorded?” she asked. “How far back did it start?”

He was looking straight at her when she asked, so she caught the hesitation in his eyes. She suspected that under the beard there was a flush in his cheeks.

“I recorded the whole thing,” he said.

“But . . . What?” He’d only come over at the end of their video conference and hit record.

Bear put his hands in his pocket and shrugged. The blush was undeniably there. She could see it on his cheekbones and forehead. Despite his size, the man looked like a little boy who’d gotten his hand caught in the cookie jar.

“You never know when you’ll need something. This conversation seemed really important, so I recorded it. If Bryan hadn’t needed it, I would have erased it afterward.”

Bear leaned over the computer screen and hit a ­couple of buttons, and the last few moments of the chat replayed: Leland and her discussing Juan Santos and the mention of Ford Johnson, Nick telling them to call Gavin to get help figuring this out, the sound of the authorities beating on the door.

After that the audio was garbled because there were so many ­people talking at once, but it was clear what was happening. As Leland fell, she could see the look of horror on Anna’s face. The screen froze there.

Sassy fought to detach herself from the nightmare of this happening to ­people she knew. She had to see it strictly as a news story. It took a few moments to unhook her emotions, but years of practice got her there.

Yes, Howard, her editor, would love the story.

And if Trey’s case could be linked to this?

“Bryan, I’m so sorry. I—­” She turned to face him and stopped. His gaze was on the screen, but his mind was far away. His eyes had turned a chilling ice gray.

“Bryan,” she repeated.

He blinked and refocused on her face, but his expression was glacial. She kept talking, because at that moment she had no desire to be privy to the dangerous thoughts swirling behind his emotionless gaze. This was the Bryan she no longer knew. The boy who’d grown into the lethal man she didn’t understand.

“I can work with this. I can write something that will help your friends at AEGIS and Trey. Particularly with the video. The idea of dirty cops and dirty feds. It’s tantalizing to the media and to the public. That mixed in with what was . . . with what
is
just a hot mess in general . . .”

She leaned toward him. “It sounds crazy, but we can make this work to our advantage. We might even be able to get some viral traction with the right story and that video.”

Bryan’s expression changed as she spoke, and she didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that he hated the idea. His feelings were now obvious from the look on his face. Still, he said nothing. Instead, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

She kept talking. If he balked, they were out of ideas. “I understand you may not care for the story premise, but I can’t think of any other way to do this.”

He opened his eyes and the internal struggle was gone, no sign of any hesitation visible. He hid it so well, she might have imagined what she’d seen moments before.

His tone was cool and unaffected. “I hate it, but you’re right. We need publicity and a lot of it if we’re going to sway public opinion. We can’t let Johnson do this in the dark, and that’s exactly what he’ll do unless we have some way of letting ­people know what’s happened.”

She nodded, relieved at his change of heart, and looked for paper on the desk to take notes. “Nick said something during the conversation about his father’s death. Tell me what that was about.”

“He told me about it in Algeria. His father, Reese Donovan, died ten years ago in a car accident along with Nick’s mother. Afterward it came out that Reese had been embezzling from his clients. In Africa, Nick learned that his parents’ car accident wasn’t an accident. They were murdered by Juan Santos on orders from a cartel member. Apparently Reese was working with the federal government trying to gather evidence against the same cartel that he was laundering money for. When the cartel found out what he was doing, they had Reese killed. Santos told Nick that someone outside the cartel ordered the hit.”

“Do you think this is related?” she asked.

“I don’t know if it’s even true. We are talking about Santos, the habitual liar. If there is a dirty DEA agent in our mess, it could
possibly
be the same dirty agent that was operating ten years ago. But not necessarily. Still, with either the Riveras or the Vegas involved, the chances of it being the
same
dirty DEA agent go up exponentially.”

Sassy felt the spike of adrenaline that came from working a story that was suddenly coming together. Despite the circumstances, a tingle of anticipation was there. She’d caught the main thread of the idea. It was going to require some digging, but she could unravel this. She knew it.

God, this kind of story would be huge. Beyond huge. Drugs, human trafficking, dirty DEA agents ordering hits on American citizens? This story would be massive, with the explosive effects rippling out through multiple branches of law enforcement.

And it had just the kind of tie-­in they needed to help Trey. Years ago, she’d given up feeling guilty about the excitement she felt in this kind of situation. She craved finding answers. It must be a lot like what a detective felt on a murder case when he pulled all the pieces together. While part of her was sick over the circumstances, another part of her was so damn jazzed to have figured it out.

She just had to make sure she got everything on paper with the right tone and inflection so it didn’t come off like conspiracy theory tabloid sensationalism.

“Bear, can I access the cloud from here without being picked up by everyone looking for us? I have some notes I took in Africa that I stored there.”

He bit his lower lip before he answered. “I’m not sure. Let me look at your application. We can probably figure out some way to access your account anonymously, but it may take a while.”

“Okay.” She needed to let this all percolate a little more before she started writing, but she was so keyed up and excited about the possibilities.

Bear glanced at Bryan, then back to Sassy. “Why don’t you get some rest?” he suggested. “Hollywood and I will take turns with a watch. I’ll be up a while figuring the encryption out for your account.” He sauntered back over to the kitchen to finish eating.

She glanced at Bryan and could tell from just looking at him that he was still far away, thinking hard.

“Thanks.” She looked around the desk once more but couldn’t find anything to write with or on. “Bear, can I get some paper before I go upstairs? I need to make some notes before I try to sleep.”

“Of course.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a yellow tablet and a pen.

The drawer screeched a bit as it closed, and Bryan’s eyebrows snapped together. He was back from wherever he’d been.

“You’re going to work now?” he asked.

“Just a little. I want to make sure I have everything straight in my head while it’s still fresh from the conversation.”

A bit distant, Bryan nodded, and she turned to walk upstairs. What was going on with him? She had no idea. And if she focused on it, something she could do nothing about, she’d make herself insane. Things were already crazy enough.

She got up to the bedroom, slipped off her shoes, and crawled into the middle of the bed with the yellow notepad in her lap. She was still so revved up that at first she wasn’t sure she’d be able to write.

She scooted back to lean her head against the headboard. A ceiling fan mounted on a long bronze pole stirred the air overhead, keeping the temperature evenly distributed. She stared back down at the paper, took a deep breath, and started. After a few sentences, the ideas began to flow, with the narrative practically writing itself.

The stories Leland, Anna, Nick, and Jennifer had told individually were compelling. Together they created a startling bombshell. The big picture had only emerged after everyone had sat down together, albeit online, to share those individual pieces of the puzzle.

She’d been working for the better part of an hour when the air seemed to change. She looked up to see Bryan at the top step, watching her. His intense gray gaze was different from earlier, when they were downstairs. More like the old man’s eyes that she’d become accustomed to over the past six months. Still, there was something else in his expression that she couldn’t identify, and that mystery bothered her.

“Hi,” she murmured, suddenly shy.

He nodded.

“I didn’t hear you,” she added.

“I figured.”

“How long have you been standing there?” Her unease at not being able to identify his mood grew.

“A ­couple of minutes. You were really . . . involved. I need to talk to you about this story.” He walked toward the bed, and it was her turn to nod.

This was something she was comfortable talking about. And maybe, just maybe, they weren’t going to revisit what had happened up here earlier. Particularly if she could get him involved with another topic.

“Yeah, I get lost in this. I usually set alarms for myself if I’m working at home, or I lose track of time completely.” She glanced down at her notes. “I’ve got the beginnings of a good story here. My editor will take it. I know he will. I just need to clarify some things, but after that . . .” Her words trailed off. She was babbling, while Bryan continued to study her with that inscrutable expression as he stood next to the bed, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Sassy, I need you to promise me you will not go off on your own as we do this.” His voice was insistent, urgent, not unlike the way it had been a ­couple of hours ago when he’d made love to her. That realization had a shudder working its way down her spine.

“I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean?” She stalled for time, hoping to distract him.

Her usual methods no longer worked. But that look on his face was warming her in places she didn’t want to be warmed, unless she was up for a repeat of earlier. Not that she didn’t want to go to bed with him again, she absolutely did. But it was a terrible idea.

If she didn’t stop herself now and figure out how to guard her feelings, she’d become too attached. As if she wasn’t already. So she had to be careful, or she’d get her heart stomped on all over again. And Bryan would never know he’d done it.

“You know what I mean. You’re used to doing everything yourself. To taking care of yourself in some pretty rough places. I know that. But I need you to promise that you’ll work with me here as we figure this out. I want to be able to trust you.”

Her brows furrowed as her temper spiked. His words were the perfect remedy for the warm feelings she’d been harboring. “I’m not going to leave my brother twisting in the wind just to keep you informed.”

Bryan sighed. “This is not just about your brother. It’s about my friends, too. They’re up to their necks in this, and while they’re not in a Mexican prison, they are in a very dangerous position. I believe the man responsible for all of this is in charge of the investigation. There is no telling what he could do to them before we get it all unwound.”

“I don’t think—­”

Bryan interrupted, and the irritation was obvious in his tone. “That’s right. You don’t always think, and you don’t know all the details involved. What you don’t know could get you and others into deep trouble.”

Now she was mad. “Well, tell me what I don’t know.”

“You don’t understand. None of us knows what we don’t know. There are layers to this thing we’re just uncovering. I’ve told you all I can, but there are issues at play here that go far beyond what I understand at this point. So don’t go off half-­cocked. I know you. I know your temperament.”

Even as she wanted to be angry at his assessment of her “temperament,” she couldn’t be. He was right; and with that knowledge, her chin dropped. She could no longer stare belligerently into his eyes.

She did tend to be a “me against the world” kind of girl. But she didn’t like to think that she’d purposely put others in danger. It hurt that he would think that. And it brought up a whole different kind of emotional storm.

To her surprise, she felt tears pricking at the edges of her eyelids.
No.
No damn way was she going to cry. Not in front of him. Not now. Not after everything that had happened. She’d rather die. She picked at the bedspread, refusing to look up even when he spoke to her again.

“We need to talk, you know. About earlier.”

Yes, she did know, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to discuss what losing her virginity with him meant. Didn’t want to examine why what had seemed such a good idea two hours ago was pretty much the worst idea she’d ever had. Most of all she didn’t want to think about why she still felt the need to protect herself, even after everything she’d laid bare earlier. Exposing her real self was too frightening, too risky. Even with Bryan.

But he was standing right there in front of her, and she knew she had to face him sooner or later. She took a silent breath and glanced up before cutting her eyes back to her notebook. Tears fell in earnest off the end of her nose, splattering onto the ink-­filled pages.

She couldn’t believe this. She swiped at her eyes and felt the bed give way as Bryan sat on the mattress edge beside her. Then he was pulling her into his arms.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “It’s okay. It’s going to be alright.” He gathered her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. His heartbeat was steady and strong below her cheek, and he smelled like wood smoke from the fireplace downstairs. Wood smoke and man.