Wolf Under Fire, page 10
Jes smiled, and once again he was taken in by those deep, dark eyes as they locked on his. “Well, I do have a top-secret security clearance,” she murmured, dipping her sandwich in mustard. “Your secrets are safe with me, so feel free to share anytime.”
Jake knew a line when he heard one, but it still made him laugh. At the same time, he also couldn’t ignore the little zip of electricity that surged through him at the thought of having someone like Jes he could actually talk to about stuff. Yeah, he had Zoe and Chloe, but there was stuff he couldn’t tell them. And Caleb or Harley…just no.
“Are your brothers in the military, too?” she asked.
He picked up his second sandwich and dipped it in ketchup and took a bite. The Double Gloucester was pretty good for grilled cheese. It had sort of a smoky favor.
“All four of them were in,” he said. “Dad, too. For our family, the military was a way to gain experience so we could come back home and get a job in law enforcement. All of my brothers either went in the army or the navy and became military police of one form or another. Then they came back and became cops in the Santa Fe area, either for the city or county.”
“But you became a SEAL.” She regarded him curiously. “Why?”
He finished the second sandwich and picked up another. “I wanted to do something different. I loved being a SEAL, but then that helicopter went down, and I became a werewolf, so I went back to Santa Fe and into law enforcement like the rest of my family.”
“Why didn’t you stay in the SEALs?”
He shrugged. “I was so busted up that the navy figured I couldn’t be a SEAL anymore and I didn’t fight them on it. All I could think about while I was lying in that hospital bed were the guys on my team who were gone.”
Jes nodded like she understood. Maybe she did. She’d lost her own team just a few days ago.
They ate in comfortable silence for a little while before Jes asked him more about his family and what they were like. So he made her laugh with stories about his brothers and their wives and his nephews that ranged in ages from five to fifteen. Then he completely blew her mind with the fact that his mom and dad had known each other since they were in kindergarten and dated all through high school and while she’d been in college and he in the military.
“Sometimes, I’m still amazed they knew it was the real thing all the way back when they were teenagers,” he said. “Can you believe they’ve never even held hands with anyone but each other?”
“That is pretty crazy,” she replied with a laugh. “What did your mom and dad think about you leaving Santa Fe to come work for STAT? Since all your brothers stayed in the area, I get the feeling your family is close.”
“We are,” he said. “Dad was disappointed I didn’t stay with Santa Fe PD, my brothers are jealous, even though they try to hide it, and my mom hates that her new granddaughters and I have to live all the way across the country. DC might as well be on a different planet as far as she’s concerned.”
“I feel you there,” Jes groaned. “I grew up in Pennsylvania, barely four hours away from DC, but my mom acts like it’s the other side of the world. She’s always wondering why STAT can’t transfer me somewhere closer.”
Jake opened his mouth to ask Jes about her family when footsteps interrupted him. He looked up to see Forrest and Harley coming into the kitchen.
“We heard voices.” Harley eyed their empty plates with blatant interest. “Then smelled food and figured we should come down to see what you guys were up to.”
“We just had grilled cheese sandwiches,” Jes said. “Jake and I can make you and Forrest some if you want.”
Harley looked longingly at their plates again. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not.” Jes got to her feet. “Sit.”
Harley took a seat beside Jake while Forrest pulled out a chair near the one Jes had just vacated. Finally getting the team—at least most of it—together for something completely unrelated to work like eating a meal was a win as far as Jake was concerned, and he jumped up to help with the sandwiches.
“How’s Misty?” he asked over his shoulder as he handed the loaf of bread to Jes and reached into the fridge for more cheese.
Forrest ran his hand through his hair and leaned back in his chair. “Finally sleeping comfortably, which is why I thought it’d be okay to leave her alone for a while. As soon as I eat, I’ll go back upstairs to check on her.”
That was a relief. After what happened at Darby’s, Jake had been worried about her. While it’d be great if she’d learned something helpful from Darby’s computer, her well-being was more important right now.
While Harley and Forrest ate, the mission was put on the back burner and they all simply chatted about regular stuff. Like Forrest wanting to someday own his own Rolls-Royce SUV like the one he’d driven tonight, Jes’s fear of heights and addiction to cherry Dr Pepper, and Jake’s trials and tribulations of finding an affordable three-bedroom apartment in DC. Even Harley shared a little bit of herself, telling them about growing up in the mountains of Colorado.
It was almost like they were an actual team.
Before Jake knew it, two hours had passed and the sun was coming up. Forrest and Harley offered to help clean up, but Jake waved them off. It was obvious Forrest wanted to check on Misty, and Harley still looked a little tired, despite getting a few hours’ sleep when they’d gotten back last night. Jake was ready to fall into bed, too, but no way was he leaving the dishes for Jes.
Even though he’d already accepted the house was going to smell like her while they were staying there, the scent of jasmine and fresh laundry enveloped him as she went up on tiptoe to reach over his shoulder and put a glass in an upper cabinet. It was all he could do not to groan in appreciation.
As if sensing the effect she had on him, Jes paused only inches away, her gaze meeting his. If either of them leaned in a little closer, they’d be kissing.
He took a step back, clearing his throat. “Thanks for the sandwiches. And for coming up to the third floor when I got into trouble at Darby’s place.”
Jes stood there silently, gazing up at him for the longest time. Part of him wondered if a woman like her could ever kiss a werewolf.
Shoving her hands in the pockets of her long cardigan, she backed away, then turned and headed for the door without a word. Just before slipping out of the kitchen, she stopped and looked back at him, her brown eyes warmer than he’d ever seen them.
“Thanks for catching me when I let go of the railing,” she murmured. “That was a long fall.”
Then she disappeared, heading down the hallway and upstairs before Jake could tell her it wasn’t a big deal. That anyone would have done the same. But then he remembered what Jes felt like in his arms when he’d caught her. She was firm in all the right places and soft and curvy in others.
Maybe it was a bigger deal than he’d realized.
Chapter 7
Jes glanced covertly at Jake out the corner of her eye as they drove through the city. Since they were supposed to be playing the part of London Metro detectives today, he was dressed in a suit and tie again, with a crisp white shirt underneath. She’d come to the realization last night she was a sucker for him in clothes like that. Not that he didn’t look good in his usual jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket, too, but as the song said: every girl’s crazy about a sharp-dressed man. Her included.
She realized abruptly that she also liked watching him drive. It sounded crazy, but she’d always thought you could tell a lot about a person from how they drove. In Jake’s case, it was obvious he was in total control of the vehicle even though they were driving on the opposite side of the road in traffic that rivaled New York City’s. She especially enjoyed watching the way his hand flexed as his fingers lightly gripped the wheel. She liked his hands. They were strong. Which made her suddenly wonder what it would feel like to have them caressing her body.
Her face flamed.
Okay, stop thinking stuff like that right now. You’re a federal agent, not a lovesick teenager.
“So, who’s the last person on our list again?” Jake asked, dragging her out of her daydream as he weaved the rental through the heavy traffic along this particular stretch of A206.
At least Jes was pretty sure they were still on the A206. Between the gathering gloom of evening, the absolutely crappy road signs, and her wandering mind, it was entirely possible they’d turned onto a completely different road at some point. She glanced at the map on her phone, relieved when it assured her they were still south of the Thames. That was the important part.
In the front passenger seat of the Audi four-door, Jes turned her attention to the collection of notes on her lap to check the name, but before she could reply, Forrest answered from the backseat.
“Evie and Henry Robinson,” he said, holding up a sheet of paper so the passing streetlights would illuminate it in the dusk. “Evie is the one on the list. They live right across the river in the Poplar neighborhood. She’s a concierge at the Lanesborough, an upscale, five-star hotel located at Hyde Park Corner. He’s a construction contractor who specializes in building restaurants. They have one kid, a four-year-old boy.”
Jake frowned. “Fifty bucks says Evie Robinson has no connection to Darby, just like everyone else on that damn list.”
Jes didn’t take that bet. Neither did Forrest. She understood Jake’s frustration, though. They’d spent the better part of the day driving back and forth across London, tracking down a collection of people who had no obvious connection to each other or Arran Darby. The only noteworthy thing about them—other than Misty had found their names on a list in Darby’s computer—was that they all seemed to be hiding the fact that someone in their family had been kidnapped. But what the hell any of the people had to do with Darby or why he might want to kidnap a member of their family was anyone’s guess.
Misty had woken up around nine that morning and immediately come downstairs asking for a pen and pad of paper. Forrest had pleaded with her to get some more rest or at least eat breakfast first, but Misty insisted she needed to write down everything she’d seen in Darby’s computer.
So while Forrest cooked Misty breakfast, Jes, Jake, Harley, and Caleb had crowded around the kitchen table, watching as Misty scribbled what seemed to be random numbers and letters on the page. As she continued, the randomness was replaced with peoples’ names, addresses, bank accounts, names of chemicals, and mathematical formulas.
In addition to being able to wander through electronic equipment, Misty also had a photographic memory. As that first page became two, then three, then a lot more, all Jes could do was shake her head. No wonder Misty had been slow to come out of the computer during the midst of the fighting. She’d been stealing the place blind.
Every time Jes or anyone else tried to ask Misty questions, she’d wave them off. “Don’t interrupt. I’m downloading.”
That was when Jes realized Misty’s eyes were completely white, which made her wonder if the technopath even realized what she was writing. It was amazing to see, but to be honest, it had also been kind of creepy.
By the time Misty was done writing, there was a mountainous stack of pages but one particular list of names that had attracted her attention the most.
“What’s so special about this one?” Jake had asked, looking at the page with nine names listed on it.
“Well, for one thing, this list was all by itself behind a Fort Knox of firewalls, encryption algorithms, and counter-hacking protocols,” Misty said in between bites of scrambled eggs and cheese. “For another, Jack Phillips, the MI5 agent with the missing daughter, is number five on the list.”
That got Jes’s attention, as well as everyone else’s. They didn’t recognize the other names, but with Phillips on the list, it was difficult to believe any of it was a coincidence.
It had taken McKay and the intelligence people in STAT—working with the support team there in London—less than an hour to come up with a background sheet for each person on the list. From there, it was a matter of splitting up the team and the list into two groups and heading out to do a little investigating. Jes had gone with Jake and Forrest, while Caleb and Harley had gone with Misty.
Since Jake couldn’t do a British accent to save his life, Jes suggested he let her and Forrest—who was something of a natural when it came to accents—do the talking. Pretending to be detectives with the Metropolitan Police there to talk to them about a string of break-ins in the area had been Forrest’s idea.
Not that it helped very much in the long run. By the time they’d talked to the third family on their list, it was obvious these people were all hiding something from them. The first family had shoved them out the door within the first five minutes, while the other two had put on polite faces but said nothing of value.
Jake had noticed the people’s heart rate and breathing were elevated, and at the third house, he’d picked up the scent of blood. Forrest had noticed small pieces of glass near the back door of the cottage, too, a sure sign of forced entry. Combining that with the fact that Jes had seen a few kids in the family photos on the walls but the kids themselves were currently nowhere to be seen, it wasn’t difficult to figure out Darby’s people had already been here and kidnapped them. It was equally obvious nothing she or Forrest said would get the families talking. They probably believed if they whispered a word to the cops, their kids would be at risk. Jestina couldn’t say she blamed them.
“Head north toward Blackwall Tunnel,” Forrest said. “It should connect to the A12 and take us straight into the neighborhood where the family lives. The Robinsons’ house should be pretty easy to find.”
The drive through the narrow two-lane tunnel was soothing, and Jes felt her eyelids growing heavy as she was lulled by the droning sound of the vehicles moving around them. Her screwed-up sleep cycle was probably finally catching up to her. Not exactly a good time for it.
As she hovered in that place halfway between sleep and awake, Jes found herself replaying what had happened in the kitchen last night over and over in her head. The first thing she’d thought about when she’d woken up that morning was how close she and Jake had come to kissing. There’d been a minute or two when she thought maybe she’d dreamed the whole thing, but all it took was the memory of how good Jake had smelled as they’d stood there, and all of the emotions of that moment came flooding right back. She’d wanted to kiss him, and she was certain he’d felt the same.
But then he’d pulled back and the moment had been lost. Embarrassed, she’d turned and gotten the hell out of the kitchen so fast she’d almost fallen out of the thick, fuzzy socks she wore whenever she was hanging out at home. She’d barely remembered to stop and tell him thanks for catching her when she’d let go of that balcony, sure Jake would be able to hear her heart thumping in her chest.
The crazy part was that she had no idea where the whole idea of kissing him had come from. One minute they’d been sitting in the kitchen, laughing and talking about themselves with their teammates, and the next, her pulse had been racing and the urge to be in Jake’s big, strong arms had been damn near overwhelming.
Jes had dated since high school, but she couldn’t remember ever having this kind of response to any of the men she’d been with. Not even the ones she’d thought were special enough to sleep with.
“There’s the A12 straight ahead,” Forrest announced, jerking her out of her introspection as they emerged from the Blackwall Tunnel. “It should be less than a mile before we get there.”
The sun had completely set by the time Jake parked in front of the Robinson’s house. He made no move to get out of the car after he shut off the engine, but instead gave her and Forrest a look. “Assuming we find out the Robinson kid has been kidnapped, I think we need to push harder this time.”
Jes couldn’t argue with that idea. If they didn’t get anything more from the Robinsons than they’d gotten from the three previous families, they’d be no closer to knowing what Darby was up to, which meant the entire day had been a waste. From the text updates Misty was sending, she, Harley, and Caleb hadn’t had much luck, either.
“What do you have in mind?” Jes asked Jake.
“Let them know who’s behind the kidnapping and see if that shakes them up enough to tell us something.”
Putting Darby’s name out there was a big risk. STAT was digging deep into the background of all the people on the list Misty had found, looking for connections to something that would interest someone like Darby, but there was a good chance they might not find anything. If she and her teammates didn’t come up with something, the best they could do was put surveillance on the people on the list and see if that led anywhere. There had to be some reason Darby selected them, kidnapped their loved ones, and terrified them so much they wouldn’t even consider talking to the police. Money definitely didn’t seem to be the motive. Mentioning Darby sounded like a good idea to her.
She nodded. “Okay, let’s do it. Forrest?”
He nodded, too.
Getting out of the car, they made their way to the closest row house, with its bay window and cute front porch. They’d just reached the steps when there was a crash from inside the Robinson residence. It was immediately followed by a high-pitched cry of a little boy in full-on freak-out mode, then a woman screaming in terror.
Reaching behind his back, Jake pulled his Glock .40 caliber with a curse. Unlike the weapons he’d carried to Darby’s charity event, this one was legitimate, registered with the FBI as an issued weapon for special access programs. “I smell blood.”
Running up the steps, he kicked in the front door so hard it flew completely off its hinges, bouncing loudly down the hallway of a short entryway before coming to rest against a coatrack.
