Scorched (4 page)

She shook her head and looked away. “I should have
known I’d be wasting my time trying to talk to you.”

He bristled. “Hey, you came to me, babe. Don’t blame me for wasting your precious time. And what does it matter now, anyway?”

“It
matters
because I’m working on something that could be important.” She picked up her beer and took a sip. She looked flustered now, and he didn’t know whether it was because they were fighting again or because this was a touchy subject. She plunked the bottle down and looked up at him. “I was hoping you might give me a little information so I don’t make a fool of myself raising a stink about something that could be nothing.”

“I can’t talk about operations. You know that. You need information so bad, why don’t you ask Blake?”

Kelsey’s
fiancé
worked counterterrorism. And Gage could tell by the look on her face that she’d already asked him.

“What, 007 wouldn’t talk to you? So you decided to try me? Maybe you thought I’d bend the rules just to do you a favor?” He leaned closer to her. “Sorry, babe, no can do. You want someone to bend the rules for you, go ask your boyfriend.”

She looked away and muttered something.

“What?”

“You know, I predicted you’d be this way.”

“That’s me. Mr. Predictable.”

“You know what’s really disappointing, Gage? I’d hoped we could be friends now.” She stood up and collected her purse. “After Joe and everything and all the crap that happened, I’d hoped we could at least have that.”

She pulled out her wallet and left some bills on the bar. Gage caught sight of her hand.

“Hey.” He grabbed her wrist as she turned to leave. “Where’s your ring?”

She jerked her hand back and glared up at him. “I left it at home.”

Kelsey moved for the door, and Gage’s shit luck continued as Callie picked that exact moment to slide onto the vacated stool. “Come on, Gage. We need you to come play.”

She rested a hand on his waist and gave him a coy smile. It was a smile that had worked on him before, and he could tell Kelsey knew that as she glanced back and then stalked out the door.

•   •   •

Kelsey’s flight was late getting into San Antonio, and it took nearly an hour for her to claim her luggage and retrieve her car from long-term parking. As she steered her Chevy Tahoe onto the interstate, she checked her watch. After nine already, which meant she was going to be up past midnight doing laundry.

It was either that or wear a bikini to work tomorrow instead of underwear. It wouldn’t be the first time. Laundry was always the first chore to get scratched off her list when life got hectic, and these past few months her life had been hectic in the extreme.

She shifted into the far left lane and tried to make up some of the time she’d lost on the tarmac in San Diego. Her shoulders ached and she had a knot in her back from hauling boxes for the past five days. She couldn’t wait to go home and stand under a scalding-hot shower, then throw on a fuzzy bathrobe and flop onto the couch
for some mindless television between laundry loads. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so beat.

She’d underestimated how much work it would be to pack up Joe’s two-bedroom bungalow. Yes, the place was as spartan as Kelsey remembered it. His home exhibited the meticulous order of a lifelong military man. But it had been just Kelsey doing the work. Grandma Quinn was nearly eighty, so Kelsey had set her up on Joe’s sofa and brought her things to look at as they decided which papers and mementos and personal items would go where. Joe’s entire closet had gone to Goodwill, and any furniture her grandmother didn’t want—which was most of it—had gone to the resale shop run by the church. Kelsey had packed a shoe-box of stuff for herself. It contained photos and a few personal items, including a glossy clay “bowl” Kelsey had made in an art class her freshman year of high school. It was lopsided and hideous and decorated with purple peace signs, but Joe had kept it in a prominent place on his dresser and used it for loose change. Kelsey got misty-eyed the moment she saw it.

She still couldn’t believe he was dead. She’d been numb at the funeral, both from jet lag and shock. But for the past few days with her grandmother, Kelsey had been living completely in the moment. And the moment sucked. Day after day, she’d watched her grandmother grieve for yet another son she hadn’t expected to bury. And Kelsey had been forced to confront the stark truth that she had very little family anymore—with Joe’s death, just her mother and Grandma Quinn. Kelsey was accustomed to having a small family, but it had never seemed so lonely before.

Just last weekend she’d been to a birthday party for a friend’s little girl. Kelsey didn’t know much about parenting, but even she could see that the horde of toddlers and the snow-cone station and the bouncy castle were completely over the top. Still, she’d experienced a pang of envy as she’d watched a crowd of aunts, uncles, and grandparents gaze on adoringly as the little princess blew out her candles. Kelsey would never have that. Even if she met someone who truly wanted to spend his life with her—and she was 0-for-2 now—she would never have one of those obnoxiously big families that so many of her friends were lucky enough to have.

Her thoughts went to Gage. Seeing him at the bar had stirred up her emotions. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone. But she really
had
wanted to give him the photograph and she’d also wanted his take on Joe’s work in the Philippines.

Which of course was a sore subject. Gage had always refused to talk about work with her, and his silence drove a wedge between them. Just their brief conversation the other night had brought her old resentments bubbling to the surface.

Along with other feelings.

She pictured him back at O’Malley’s. He’d looked good, but that was no surprise. He’d always been a magnet for women with his powerful build and his piercing blue eyes. Since she’d first met him, he had a way of looking at her that made her tingle from the inside out. She’d once made the mistake of telling him what that look of his did to her, which was obviously why he’d been using it on her back at the bar.

But that was about sex, not a relationship. They’d
always been good at the sex part—it was everything else that had given them trouble.

Kelsey swerved around an eighteen-wheeler doing a plodding sixty in the left lane. Her phone chimed from the cup holder. She eyed it suspiciously, almost certain she knew who was calling.

She checked the screen. Yep, Blake.

She sighed.

Was it personal or business? Or personal disguised as business? She wouldn’t put it past him to call her with some issue about a case they were working on and then slip in a few questions about her trip. And Kelsey knew that even if she dodged his inquiries, he’d manage to glean some detail that would somehow answer his real question—namely,
did you see your ex while you were in California?

Blake had a jealous streak when it came to Gage, and Kelsey didn’t blame him. But that didn’t mean she owed him answers. Not anymore. Their engagement was off and she was determined to keep their relationship on a purely professional level from here on out. They were mature adults. Surely that was possible.

Her phone kept chiming. She muttered a curse and answered it.

“Hi.”

“When’d you get back?”

She took a deep breath. “Just now. What’s up?”

“I got those test results back—the DNA you asked me to send to Quantico.”

“Wow.” She was surprised by the news, as well as the fact that this
was
evidently a business call. “I thought it would take longer.”

“I thought it would, too. The lab’s usually pretty backed up, but they managed to get to it. And guess what—you were right.”

Her stomach tensed. “About what?”

“This guy
was
in the system. Not only that, he happens to be on our terrorist watch list.
And
he happens to be American, which you also predicted. His name’s James Hanan aka Ibrahim Antel. So, now you’ve got some explaining to do. How the hell did you know that?”

“I didn’t. I just had a hunch.”

Silence. “You care to elaborate? I could put that in my report, but it might raise a few eyebrows.”

“The stature, for one,” Kelsey said, getting comfortable now that she was talking about work. “He was significantly taller than the average Filipino male, so I doubted he was native. And his dental work told me he spent much of his life in a first-world country.”

“That doesn’t explain why you thought he’d be a criminal.”

“That was mainly because of the implants.”

“Implants?”

“Cheek implants. And I saw evidence of recent rhinoplasty. Not only that, it looked like he’d had his jaw sculpted.”

“You can tell he had a nose job?”

“From the bone scarring at the top. I could tell he’d had a nose-narrowing procedure in which the surgeon removed the nasal bones on either side, reshaped them, and then repositioned them. There are tiny marks visible where the bones have been reset.”

“Sounds like he spent a lot of money to alter his
appearance. Still, he could have been a tourist who wandered off on a hike.”

“He could have,” she agreed. “But I heard some rumors while I was down there about extremist groups training in the jungle, so it seemed to fit.”

“Hmm,” he said, and that one sound confirmed Kelsey’s suspicions. “I’m impressed. And I know some other people who are going to be, too, soon as I pass this up the chain. I’ve been doing some investigating. You know, we thought this guy was in Jakarta. His turning up in the Philippines is going to cause some concern. We’ve been learning about increased activity there—training and recruitment. But it’s been tough to get good intel. We’re going to be interested to know exactly where you found him. I’m hoping you have some maps?”

She did. They were in the case file in her carry-on bag—along with the other files she’d been reviewing on the plane. But she was
not
going over to Blake’s tonight.

“Kelsey?”

“I do.”

“Any chance I could get a look at them? Also, I need to get a statement from you about cause of death. You mentioned a gunshot wound, but we’re going to need specifics.”

Damn it, he wanted a meeting. She should have expected this.

“When?”

“I’m working on a brief for the assistant director for CT, Rick Bolton. I was hoping to have it by tomorrow.”

Silence stretched out as Kelsey raced down the highway. He wanted to notify the
head
of counterterrorism
about what she’d found. That had been her goal ever since she’d first seen those bones and realized what they meant. To hold up that process because of personal issues seemed ridiculously petty.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got company,” he said, clearly interpreting her hesitation for what it was. “Trent’s on his way over to work on another case.”

In other words, Blake wasn’t going to try to talk her into bed while his coworker was sitting there. Kelsey checked her watch and sighed. Blake knew her weakness. A case needed her, and she’d never been able to say no.

She was definitely going to work tomorrow with a purple polka-dot bikini under her clothes.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said.

“The gate’s open.”

She took the next exit and made a U-turn under the freeway, locking her doors as she did because she had to cut through a seedy part of the city to get to Blake’s neighborhood. He lived downtown, near San Antonio’s River Walk, which when they’d first started dating, Kelsey had thought was romantic. But it hadn’t taken her long to realize his choice of neighborhood had nothing to do with a fondness for the tree-lined riverfront where tourists like to stroll and shop and drink margaritas. No, his choice had been purely practical—one of his coworkers had been getting divorced and had offered him a deal on the condo. And although Kelsey liked the condominium itself, parking her SUV anywhere near it was a challenge. She circled the block twice before spotting an empty space.

Kelsey did a quick appearance check. She wore her
typical weekend combo of jeans, T-shirt, and Nikes. She glanced in the mirror and saw that her hair was limp. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her makeup had worn off, and her freckles were on prominent display. She looked like a woman who’d spent the past ten hours in airports, and the cherry Chapstick in her purse would do little to rescue her—which was probably for the best. This was business. She got out of the car and went around to the back to retrieve the case file from her bag.

The brown accordion folder had been steadily expanding since her return from the Philippines. Those unidentified remains had become her pet research project. She tucked the folder under her arm now, slung her leather purse over her shoulder, and headed for Blake’s.

Kelsey had made a career out of identifying anonymous bones. All too often, the remains that came through her lab belonged to people who had been murdered, and since the vast number of murder victims were killed by someone they knew, getting an ID was crucial. Kelsey’s work at the Delphi Center helped investigators identify the victim, narrow the suspect pool, and ultimately make an arrest.

Forensic anthropology wasn’t just a job to her—it was a calling. From the moment when she’d held that first human skull in her hands and stared down into those sightless eyes, she had known it was her mission in life to give a voice to people who couldn’t speak for themselves.

Kelsey neared Blake’s condo and glanced around for Trent Lohman’s car. She didn’t see it, but she hoped he was here. The gate to the courtyard Blake shared with his neighbor stood open. Kelsey mounted the Saltillo
tile steps leading to his door. The condo had a split-level floor plan, with the master suite down and the living area and guest room up, overlooking the River Walk. The festive sounds of a mariachi band drifted up from a restaurant as she rang the bell and waited.

Blake opened the door with his BlackBerry pressed to his ear. Typical.

She stepped in without comment and noticed the rolling suitcase parked in the hallway. Was he coming or going? His travel schedule was no longer her business, so she didn’t ask. She walked into the living room, where his laptop sat on the glass coffee table beside a half-finished Heineken.