Special Ops Affair (6 page)

She found the comment a little strange. “You know him?”

“Never met him. I’ve heard of him, though.”

“What’s your point?”

He smirked and rose to his feet. “Have a nice day.”

Did her association with TES make him nervous? Well, it should.

“Does the name Nigel Hersch mean anything to you?” she put out there for him.

He stilled just as she’d expected and then faced her beside the table, the blue of his fearless eyes streaming out between thick lashes.

When the silence stretched too long, she asked, “How much did Kate tell you about him?”

“How much did she tell you?”

She wasn’t going to tell him a thing if he wasn’t going to reciprocate. “What about Edward Ferguson? Ever heard of him?”

He shrugged and shook his head, noncommittal.

Odie had to force herself not to react. He knew. Why was he playing cat and mouse? Edward was her father. She would like nothing more than to catch his killer. And now Kate’s. Whose side was Friese on? Hers or his own? And why had he agreed to meet her? Was it really only to fish for information? To find out what she knew? Maybe now he wasn’t worried. She didn’t know enough.

“Did you love Kate?” she asked.

Emotion ravaged his eyes for a second or two. Strong emotion. Pushing its way to the surface, past his soldier’s armor.

“Good luck with your investigation,” he said, and walked toward the short line in front of the concession counter. He was going to get something to eat, as if their conversation hadn’t meant a thing. Only it had. It had been written all over his face.

Did he love Kate or hate her enough to kill her like his wife? Odie debated on whether to wait and continue to talk to him or take his dismissal and go. He wasn’t going to tell her anything. The fact that he’d done his homework and had pieced together where she worked convinced her. Surely he knew what she was capable of with TES behind her. If he was innocent, he could trust her. But he didn’t. And that could only mean he was playing his own side, not hers or anyone else’s. Guilty. He had something to hide. Was it murder? Was it the contents of Kate’s package? Both?

She stood and left the restaurant. Outside, she spotted Jag leaning against his rental car. Sunglasses on, light brown hair messy, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles. His biceps bulged in a short-sleeved dark green golf shirt and his lean thighs cupped his groin. Without even trying, the man did sexy like a Chinese fireworks explosion.

She stopped in front of him, smiling and unable to subdue the spark of excitement over seeing him. She caught him looking her over, too, saw the way his head moved down a little and then back up. She was in a white cotton T-shirt and white-washed jeans with Gore-Tex leather hiking boots. Nothing sexy about it, but he made her feel like she was in a little black dress.

“Get what you needed?” he asked with a hint of amusement.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, even though she already knew.

“Lucky guess.” He pushed off the car, straightening his tall frame. “You know, you’re going to have to start trusting me.”

Odie reached into her tote and pulled out the GPS device and handed it to him. He opened his palm for her to drop it there.

She tipped her head back, putting her face close to his. “I do trust you.”

A grin spread over his mouth, showing off straight, white teeth and putting creases around his eyes. He really had to stop with the sex appeal thing.

“Every time I think I have you figured out, you do something like this,” he said.

“Good.” She liked his straightforwardness and the way his ego wasn’t injured that she’d outsmarted him. Trying to cover her warming appreciation, she looked toward the spot where she’d seen the Lexus park. It was still there, driver behind the wheel. Not very good at surveillance.

“Who is that?” Jag asked.

“Don’t know, but he’s no professional.”

“I noticed. Want to see if we can get him to play?” He opened the passenger door for her.

Smiling back at him, she said, “Sure,” and got in.

Chapter 4

“W
ho’d you meet at the restaurant?” Jag asked as he drove. “The guy from the funeral?”

“Yes,” Odie told him easily. She knew it wouldn’t take him long to get to this. “Calan Friese.”

He seemed pleased that she’d told him. “What do you know about him?”

She hadn’t shown him the file Luis had given her and he hadn’t pressed her to. That both impressed and worried her. He’d given her the space she needed, but he was also confident enough to either learn what he needed on his own or take his time prying it out of her.

“An aimless ex-Delta, from what I can tell. Kept odd jobs on and off over the last few years. Ever since his wife was murdered. Throat was slit just like Kate’s.”

“Any motive?”

“Nothing that came up in the reports. For Kate, either.”

She waited while he digested that.

“Did you make any headway when you talked to him?” he finally asked.

“No. He didn’t give an inch.”

He glanced over at her, searching her face for a few seconds before turning toward the windshield again. He didn’t believe her.

“He didn’t tell me anything,” she assured him. “He was good. He even knew about Cullen.”

“Why’d he meet you?”

“He was feeling me out.”

“Lucky guy.”

That made her laugh briefly. “Ha, ha. That’s funny.”

He pulled into a parking space along U Street.

Odie looked around. “Where are we?”

“I’m hungry.” He looked in the rearview mirror. “Let’s see if our friend is, too.”

She was hungry, too. She got out and walked beside him down the sidewalk, seeing the Lexus pass along the street. He wore a hat and a jean jacket with the collar up. Another car passed, blocking their view.

“I can’t see the plate number,” Jag said.

“Me, either.” The Lexus was too far away now.

Two blocks later she spotted Jag’s intended destination, a narrow white-and-red building accentuated by a bold sign. Jag opened the door for her and she followed to the end of a moderate line of people. The 1950s décor looked original.

“I’ve always wanted to try this place.” She took in the booths and red stools with shiny metal frames.

“I come here every time I’m in town.” He kept looking out the front window for the Lexus.

“He’ll be easy enough to spot when we leave,” she said.

And Jag nodded. “That’s for sure.”

She started reading the menu above the busy staff behind the long diner counter. The kitchen looked well used for the better part of a half century and the staff wore T-shirts and jeans with dirty aprons that said
The Spicy Bowl.

“Not much of a fancy eater, are you?” she said, liking that about him.

“I can lift my pinky with the best of them, but I highly recommend the chili smother.”

She read that menu item. “Yummy, but fattening.”

“You’re concerned about fat?”

“A girl has to watch her figure.” Was she flirting with him? It was so easy. She eyed him, bewildered that he could do that to her.

“You don’t need to worry about counting calories.”

“You should see what happens to my butt when I don’t.”

“It’s a nice butt. Hard to do much damage to that.”

The woman in front of them turned to look at them, facing forward when Odie caught her.

“Why, thank you,” she said to Jag. She’d forget he was an operative for today.

Watching the workers behind the counter whip up chili concoctions, surrounded by people in the tiny café, Odie sighed and tipped her head back, smelling the aroma. “I miss Washington so much.”

“Roaring Creek doesn’t seem like your kind of town.”

Looking back and up at him, her head still angled, she wondered why all the operatives had to be so damn good-looking. “It isn’t. But Cullen fell in love with a mountain girl.”

“I thought it was strange a woman like you worked there.”

“What do you mean, a woman like me?” She didn’t think he’d noticed much about her. Not as a woman, especially one he might be interested in.

“Until I saw how much you respect Cullen.”

She checked to make sure no one was listening to this. The woman in front of them was ordering.

“Don’t get sappy on me.” She did not want to talk about her loyalty to Cullen. There was a reason for her loyalty, and she didn’t want the conversation to go there.

“Maybe there’s hope for you after all,” he said.

“Sappy…”

“You’re unapproachable to anyone other than Cullen. Maybe you can learn something from him.”

She spoke her mind and didn’t gloss over the truth. Did that make her unapproachable? To operatives, yes. Cullen was different. He was her friend.

“Scared you off, didn’t I?” She kept it light. Any thing to steer him clear of what had made her unapproachable.

“No, I’ve just learned to recognize the signs when a woman isn’t interested.”

That gave her pause. “You were interested? How could I have missed that? I never miss that.”

“I could tell. You were defensive.”

“I was not.”

“I think that’s why you come on so strong,” he said, confirming what she thought he’d seen in her and touching her at the same time. No one had ever noticed so much about her. “You scare them off before they have a chance to give it their best shot.”

She couldn’t even argue with him. She’d already teased him about scaring him off. “I was interested.” She said it before she realized what she was revealing to him.

Sensing his look, she didn’t turn to meet it. The woman ahead of them finished ordering. They were next.

“Two Reds,” Jag told the black man behind the counter.

Odie let him buy hers.

Taking their food, Jag led her to two vacant stools at the other end of the counter. She sat next to him and used a fork to take her first bite of the chili-laden sausage. Spicy chili and mustard and onions melted in her mouth.

“Mmm.” She closed her eyes and savored the taste.

“You didn’t seem interested.”

She stopped chewing to look at him.

“You didn’t think I was going to let that one go, did you?”

She couldn’t tell if he was flirting or leading up to something. “Just because I was interested doesn’t mean it would be good for me to explore it.” She wished she hadn’t let that slip.

“You do seem to keep a lot bottled up.”

What did he mean by that? Whatever he said next was what he really wanted to say.

“There are things about you that I doubt even Cullen knows.”

She stopped chewing another bite. Oh, he was so smooth. She was going to have to watch out for him from now on. “Like what?”

“Things you keep to yourself.”

He was using this nice time they were having together as a way of cracking her. All the enjoyment of flirting with him drained away. “Everyone doesn’t need to know personal details about me. I’m not an open book. So what?”

He didn’t seem to like that. His eyes hardened and no longer sparkled with amusement. “Did Kate find something on your father’s murder?” he asked. “Is that what you’re hiding?”

How the hell had he surmised that? “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Is that a no?”

“What do you know about my father’s murder?” she countered.

“Probably nothing close to what you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Five years is a long time for someone like you not to uncover something. Surely you’ve discovered something since then.”

She didn’t respond. What could she say that wouldn’t make her seem shady and dishonest? Nothing. Working for a man like Cullen, there was no room for that. Cullen would not understand. And neither would Jag. None of them would. She needed more facts, that’s all. Once she had them, then she could explain.

That nagging sense that maybe she was wrong threatened her usual aplomb like it always did when she thought too long on it. What if her father wasn’t as innocent as she’d always believed? She’d have to reveal what she knew, and what she’d withheld.

“What did you find out about your father’s gambling debt?” Jag asked, jarring her back to the present.

“How did you find out about that?”

“I read an old news article.”

An article that had speculated her father had been killed for nonpayment, but that wasn’t true. The police had confirmed it. “He didn’t gamble. That was a rumor started by a reporter who saw him in Vegas.” And she wondered if it had been deliberate, since it happened just before he was killed.

“But wasn’t his murder a professional hit?” he asked.

“Yes, but it wasn’t over gambling debts.”

“Then what was it over?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think it was over?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sharper tone.

“No? No idea at all? Nothing?”

She pressed her mouth closed. Damn him. He was relentless. “The intruder broke in and caught my father unaware. There was no sign of forced entry. No prints. No witnesses. Nothing.” Just like Kate.

“Why would anyone do that?”

She sighed her frustration. “Look, if I knew, I’d tell you, okay? I don’t.”

His amazing green eyes grew less menacing, her emotion reaching him. “Was he alone when he was killed?”

“Yes. My mother was out with her friends. Every week she went to dinner with them.”

“What was he working on at the time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” he asked gently.

If she told him the truth, he wouldn’t believe her. She didn’t know. Why would anyone want to kill her father? He didn’t have a single enemy. He was a good man.

“Does Cullen know he was murdered?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Do you think his murder is related to Hersch?”

Oh, how she wished she could just tell him everything. How nice it would be if she had someone to lean on. Ever since Sage had died, she’d never leaned on anyone. She’d been in a fight for survival. Cullen had helped her, but she’d been in a shell. How had Jag seen that about her? He was the only one other than Cullen, maybe, who ever had. And it touched her in ways she couldn’t organize in her mind. All she knew was that she was drawn to him.

As if sensing her turmoil, he turned her pivoting chair so that she faced him, using his knee on the outside of hers to keep her from swinging back toward the counter. “What are you so afraid of?”

Being wrong.
But instead of telling him the way her instincts were clamoring for her to do, she just looked into his eyes. Maybe he’d seen the truth there.

“Have you ever trusted anyone?” he asked.

“Have you?”

“Yes, one time too many.”

So they both had reason to guard their hearts. Odie found it oddly comforting. They had an understanding now. This didn’t come easy but the bond between them had strengthened. She could lose herself in this moment. He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers, a light and unexpected caress. But Odie wasn’t resisting. She was too caught up in the moment. He pulled back and she met fire in his eyes before he kissed her again.

The room lost focus. The buzz of voices faded. All she felt was him kissing her.

The reminder of why she had to be guarded seeped through her passion. He was an operative who worked for Cullen. He was a soldier first. Love came second.

Pulling away, she stared up at him, frozen. Why had she allowed this to happen? Why had he? She could see the same confusion coming from him. She didn’t welcome this sudden loss of control.

Pushing him, she freed enough room for her to swivel back toward the counter and then the other way. She jumped off the stool, walking as fast as she could to the door, ignoring stares on the way.

What was she thinking? How could she have let him kiss her like that? Did she want to fall for another man like Sage? No! It would kill her this time. She wouldn’t survive another broken heart. As tough as everyone thought she was, she was as weak as a kitten when it came to love. Sometimes she wondered if she was even capable of loving anyone anymore. Not after the first time. The first time she’d loved without reservation. She’d held nothing back. The love she’d felt for her husband had been whole and consuming. And she’d welcomed it. Given everything she’d had to it. To him.

That had been a mistake. Loving a man who could be killed in an instant had been the worst mistake of her life. She would never put herself in that kind of situation again. Because she never wanted to feel what it was like to have that kind of love ripped out of her chest. Never again.

Odie’s heart still hammered as she watched Jag stride toward the rental car where she waited for him. Looking up and down the street, he unlocked the doors with the fob he held. She’d already checked—the Lexus hadn’t waited. She climbed into the car, lifting a laptop from the floor where Jag had put it. Jag didn’t look at her as he started the car. His presence was like a generator, though, humming nearby, full of sexual energy.

She used the laptop for a diversion, activating the screen. “Huh,” she grunted when she saw the GPS tracking software. “You don’t waste any time.”

“While you were in the restaurant with him, I put a magnetic transmitter on his truck.”

Too bad they didn’t have one for the Lexus. She saw the indicator on the screen blinking. A street map with a blinking red dot showed Calan Friese’s location. “He’s on the move.”

“Where is he?”

“Looks like he’s heading out of town.”

Jag started driving. The silence in the car was deafening.

“Odie…”

“Don’t say it.” He was going to apologize. She just knew it.

“How do you know what I’m going to say?” He sounded annoyed.

“You were going to talk about it. You know…
it.
And I don’t want you to.”

“I was just going to say you don’t have to worry, it won’t happen again.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.”

“Good.” He sounded terse. “I’m glad you agree. The last thing I need is another go-round with someone who isn’t who she’s portrayed herself to be.”

“Hey—what you see is what you get. I don’t portray.” Who had he gotten involved with that had portrayed herself falsely? Whoever she was, she must have made quite an impact for him to bring it up.