Hannah's Truth (Cypress Security Book 4), page 6
She recovered quickly, stepping closer and closing the door. “Definitely.” She purred the single word and he was instantly hard for her. The bathroom wasn’t spacious, but it was starting to feel more like a sardine can. He backed up, running out of room as he hit the vanity, but she leaned in closer.
“We can talk in there,” she whispered, her voice calm and steady.
He resented her detachment just a little. She walked into his life and the atmosphere changed. Inside and out. He’d never realized how quickly her soft, feminine scent could overwhelm a room. Granted it was a small room, but he’d felt it in the diner. Even when she’d first entered the crime scene out back, if he had to be honest about it.
“We could have talked in the car,” he replied at last. “You couldn’t wait ten minutes?”
“We’re newlyweds who’ve been apart for six weeks. Let’s give them what they expect.”
He glared down at her, but she didn’t move. “Did you find a video feed?”
She shook her head.
“Then give me some room before I break the agreement we made in Vegas.” He put his hands on her arms and gently moved her back, but she winced at the contact.
He jerked his hands back, reminding himself her response wasn't personal. He needed to know exactly how she'd wound up on ‘injured reserve’ before her arrival in Virginia.
“Off with the jacket,” he said, not bothering to whisper. “Come on,” he coaxed, trying to sound like a horny husband. “You’ve got me at a disadvantage here.” He pushed the jacket off of her shoulders, let his hands cruise lightly down her arms to her wrists, and tugged the cuffs free. He shifted to the side, hanging the jacket on the peg behind the door.
When he looked back, she had that silky gray shirt off already and he openly admired the view of the black lace bra against the creamy swells of her breasts.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dressing almost as quickly as she was undressing now. He wasn’t sure he could remember how to remove his pants. He needed a distraction like a life preserver.
She was apparently all too willing to play her part to the hilt. It shouldn’t surprise him, he’d known from the start she was a dedicated type-A agent.
Agent, he reminded himself. This was business for her. His brain, clearly hampered by the lack of blood flow, took a few too many seconds to spot the bandage on her upper arm. He reached out, stilling her near-frantic movements. “What happened?”
“It’s nothing.” She jerked her head toward the shower. “I’ll tell you all about it. Later.” She rattled the curtain on the rod. Still wearing her bra and a scrap of matching black lace that barely met the definition of panties, she stepped into the tub.
“Wow.” Just what his subconscious didn’t need—more to fantasize about.
She shot him a look that clearly told him to get a grip. He wanted to grip something. Something more interesting than murder and drug cases.
Talking business in the shower. Her brain was obviously still functioning while he could take his pulse in his pants. “Did you bring more of that?” He didn’t really regret asking the question, though he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
“You’re all talk,” she said, her voice dripping with temptation. “I’d like to see more action. Get in here.”
He was all something. He started to climb in after her, but remembered Tim’s notebook at the last second. When he’d done his own search while waiting for Wallace, he really had found it—taped to the back of the desk drawer in the kitchen. Like the one on Tim’s body, the notebook was full of abbreviated daily supply notes, but the location indicated its value to Tim.
She frowned at his hesitation. He couldn’t take the pants off without giving her incontrovertible proof of what she did to him and he couldn’t risk ruining Tim’s notes as it might be their only clue. Choosing the lesser of two evils, he stripped off the pants and carefully folded them over the shower rod to protect the notebook.
Her eyes dropped to the erection pushing the limit of his boxers, then back up to his face. She gave him an exasperated look and he shrugged. “Can’t help it. Have you seen yourself lately?”
She ignored that and got straight to the point.
“I was grazed by a bullet about a week ago.”
Finally, an effective turn off. “Let me see.” He extended a hand for the edge of a bandage.
“It’s old news,” she repeated, twisting away from his touch. “It’s just sore to touch.”
Having never been in a shower with a woman for the purpose of conversation, he wasn’t sure what the hell to do with his hands. “I hope you nailed the bastard who did it.”
“Not yet.” Steam billowed around them and water beaded on her skin as they stood face to face just outside the reach of the spray. “I was meeting with a potential witness and the Mexican cartel caught us. Three against one didn’t go my way.” She pulled off the damp bandage, showing a healing groove across her upper arm from the bullet’s path. “They kidnapped her.”
There was more. More he knew he wouldn’t like. The cartel was notoriously violent. And thorough. It explained her sudden departure from Baltimore, but he felt an irrational spurt of anger that she’d taken the risk of traveling alone.
“They tortured her before they killed her,” Hannah said. “She turned up in the dumpster behind the DEA office building.”
“Let me guess, no security video.”
She shook her head. “My witness wasn’t part of the entourage. She was the leader’s woman.”
He gave a low whistle. “Bold move to try and turn that one.” Leaders got to the top the hard way amid the sea of power-hungry thugs looking to make a statement. Bart had executed some daring missions in his career, but assignments like Hannah’s ended one of two ways: wildly successful or tragic failure.
Clearly, this one had landed in the latter category if she was desperate enough to run to him.
Hannah looked up to the ceiling and her breath hitched, drawing his attention to those lovely breasts again. They had to change the venue before he did something truly stupid. Like jump her.
“She came to me,” Hannah said. “I’d become a regular customer at the nail salon where she worked. It’s one of the legit operations the cartel maintains in Baltimore. You know how it goes.”
Her eyes pleaded for him to understand.
“I get it,” he said. “The cat and mouse thing between people on either side of the law. You go in to make a point, hope to catch someone mouthing off when they shouldn’t.”
“Exactly.” She swiped water or a tear from her cheek. “There was a dust up at the house that ended with a few dead lieutenants. She was scared, wanted out…” Her voice trailed off.
He’d seen that lost look before, in the eyes of men who’d lost friends in battle. He waited patiently for her to come back to the present.
She cleared her throat and went on. “Her name was Krystal. She was pregnant.” Hannah hiccupped. “Six months along,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. “They tortured her.”
Dear God. He pulled her into his arms and she let him, her hot tears streaking down his chest.
“It’s my fault, Bart.”
“No.” He held her close, smoothing her hair, rocking her gently. “No it isn’t.” He’d never been good at this kind of thing, but he held on, let her cry it out while he envisioned an appropriate revenge if he ever got the chance to exact it.
There were some things that were universally off limits, some actions that were positively unforgivable, and some situations that could never be reconciled within an acceptable casualty rate. Pregnant women topped that list in Bart’s mind.
“Who is this bastard?”
She stepped back from his embrace. “Carlos Gonzales.”
The name wasn’t familiar to him, but that didn’t mean much. Bart’s work relied more on watching for people behaving oddly. He rarely heard conversations that included real names.
“They put me on a desk when she was kidnapped,” Hannah continued. “This morning they told me I had to relocate. We all know the cartel won’t let me live. They’ve successfully managed to eliminate any agent who’s gotten too close to their mobile meth lab pipeline.”
He wanted to know why they hadn’t turned the tables, but building cases wasn’t his thing. Action and apprehension had been the focus of his career. The legal stuff happened long after.
“They couldn’t have wanted you to relocate here.” Although the truck stop gave her options. It would be easy for her to catch a ride somewhere else without being followed. She wasn’t the sentimental sort who would have come running to him based on one night in Vegas.
Until this moment, he wouldn’t have pegged her as agent who’d break down in tears over a dead witness. Not that she wasn’t compassionate, she was just more of a… professional, he decided, unable to come up with a better word.
“I did ask for the Virginia office, but they said absolutely not.”
He understood the often-contrary nature of people. “Which made you all the more determined to come here.”
“It was a factor,” she agreed, not quite meeting his gaze. “But when they showed me the file on Krystal, I saw a recent wiretap order for the truck stop.”
“That’s nothing but a snipe hunt. You know I run a clean place.”
“I know it, but it would seem your local DEA office has a few doubts. Your house is bugged, Bart. Someone is gunning for you.”
“Not the first time.” He pointed to her shoulder, afraid to touch her again. “Now that you’ve warned me, we need to get you out of the cartel’s reach.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not ready to drop this case yet.”
“You’re still on the case?”
“Not officially.”
Well, that was a line he too had crossed more than once. “You think the cartel killed Tim.” It wasn’t a question. “That his death is related to Krystal and your case in Baltimore.”
“I think there are too many similarities.” She shivered. “I think it’s you and me against the wall here.”
He wanted it to be, but he had a more literal interpretation in mind. Scrubbing at his face, he knew it would be one more image to keep his dreams interesting.
But Hannah appeared oblivious to her effect on him.
“It’s obvious my boss didn’t want me in Virginia because it would keep me too close to this case. The cartel has a new mobile meth lab system—”
Now he understood why she’d gone with the husband-and-wife thing. “And you could only stay close enough to work it yourself if they believed we eloped on our Vegas trip.”
She nodded. “I know it was a lousy lie and it puts you in a bind.” Her long lashes, spiked with water, framed golden eyes filled with doubt and sadness. “Thank God for Eva. I’m sorry to abuse our friendship this way.”
How could a man be angry over anything when a woman looked at him like that? In black lace lingerie, no less. “It’s fine. We both know it’s temporary.”
“Right.” She looked away again. “We still have to make it believable. I knew my boss would figure out where I’d gone when I ditched my protective detail.” She swallowed. “To be honest I’m surprised he didn’t have Suter and Kellerman waiting to haul me in when I arrived. And I did consider the fact that I might be leading the cartel this way—”
“But it seems they’re already here.” He thought of Tim’s notebook and he wanted to pound something. “A mobile meth lab system going through my place? That’s beyond offensive,” he growled. “We need to get to work—”
“When is Kyle visiting again?”
“He’ll stay with his mom until we’re clear,” he said, feeling defensive. “It was my first call after notifying the sheriff’s office about Tim.”
She nodded, clearly relieved. “Good.”
“I know how to protect my kid.”
“Of course you do. You’re a great dad.” Hannah gazed up into Bart’s brown eyes, shadowed by that dark scowl, and wondered why her concern for his son offended him. “I don’t want my problems to complicate your time with him.”
Her problems. What an understatement. She resisted the urge to lay a hand on her belly. Who knew what would happen when he found out she was pregnant? She had the perfect opportunity to tell him a moment ago, but she hadn’t been able to get the words out when her throat was choked with tears and sorrow for Krystal.
Hopefully her unpredictable emotions would even out once she’d told Bart everything. But not now. It couldn’t be now. They had to focus on the case and judging by his reaction over her witness, he’d ship her off to the moon before allowing her to help if he knew she carried his baby.
Not that she blamed him. It was instinct, and she understood it. She didn’t want to take unnecessary risks either, but the cartel wouldn’t back off until they were forced to back off.
And Tim might be their best hope for a lead if, like Maria had suggested, he’d been tracking something that related to the cartel.
Based on the condition of his body and that gang tag on the dumpster, she knew he was tied in somehow.
Bart shifted closer to the shower head and reached for the waistband of his boxers. “If you don’t mind, I really do want to clean up.”
“Sure. Right.” She had to drag her mind away from the tempting prospect of watching him bathe. She hadn’t missed his aroused state when they’d been talking. Or when he’d held her. Clearly, it wasn’t personal, just a natural reaction to a nearly naked woman. Not that she wanted personal.
“I’ll go find a towel.”
Quickly she stepped out onto the bath mat before she did something stupid and acted on the desire pooling low in her belly. Behind her she heard the wet slap of fabric as his shorts hit the floor of the tub and she could all too easily picture him nude under the spray of hot water.
She trembled, but it had nothing to do with being cold. On the contrary, she felt damn near feverish.
She peeled off her wet bra and panties and, desperate to put more distance between them, she grabbed the small hand towel and blotted her skin dry.
In the bedroom, she rooted through her duffel and dressed quickly so he wouldn’t catch her naked. It wasn’t the first time she’d been attracted to a man who hadn’t been equally attracted to her, but experience never made this kind of situation easier.
She heard the water shut off as she hurried into dry lingerie and she was tucking her t-shirt into her jeans when he opened the bathroom door.
“You okay?”
She picked up her thirty-eight revolver and checked the load, anything to keep from making eye contact. “I’m great.” She hoped that sounded more like a satisfied wife than a nervous imposter. In either case, it was true, she realized. The morning sickness had faded and telling Bart about Krystal seemed to relieve a measure of the guilt and stress she’d been carrying since the cartel had attacked them.
“Did you decide where we’re going?”
“Would it be okay if we had dinner down in Richmond?”
She risked eye contact and found him grinning at her. Good, he understood she was trying to manipulate whoever was listening in. She wanted them to believe they would have time to search the apartment, or make a move on the supply line.
In reality she had a completely different destination in mind, but they could discuss it on the way.
Chapter 6
Haleswood, South Carolina
Eva Battaglia swiveled in her chair as she waited for Ross, founder of Cypress Security, to show up with their friend and third business partner, Rick.
They’d been tasked with finding some common ground in a string of inexplicable ATM robberies in Greenville, South Carolina and she thought she had that about sewn up. At least enough to send Rick out to ask a few questions and verify her theory.
But the call from Hannah, combined with the news report about a murder at the Virginia truck stop owned by their friend Bart, had just leaped to the top of their case load.
The stairwell door at the end of the hallway banged closed. The Cypress Security was the only business on the third floor of the Haleswood court house, so whoever wandered up here had but one destination.
During the remodeling required after a sniper had attacked her office before Christmas, someone asked her if she wanted that stupid hinge replaced, but she declined. The noise was almost a comfort now, giving her ample warning when someone was approaching.
Low voices in the hallway approached her door and she smiled. After years of working as an analyst guiding their Special Ops team through dangerous operations in the field, she recognized Rick and Ross before they opened her door.
She blew off the typical greetings, but held out her hand for the extra coffee cup in Rick’s hand.
“Not until you say something nice,” he said, holding it out of reach.
“Good morning. Gimme.”
They both knew he wouldn’t get anything else out of her until she wanted to share, so he handed it over.
Ross shook his head. “I take it you found something on the robbery case?”
“Yes.” She pushed two files across her desk, one toward each man. “Those are the hard copies. Thought we should go over the high points before I send an update to the Greenville P.D.”
Her toes tapped in her boots, but they couldn’t see that and therefore couldn’t give her crap about fidgeting. It was all she could do to wait them out as she moved the mouse to open the window she had set up to show them the real reason she’d called them up here.
Ross closed the file and looked to Rick. “You can spend the weekend in Greenville?”
“Sure.” Rick leaned forward and put the file back on Eva’s desk. “You want me to piggy back the security feeds?”
“Nah. We only need your usual stake out and assessment skills.”
Rick nodded and winked at Eva. “I’ll bring you my receipts.”
“Hooray and glad you approve, et cetera, et cetera.” She turned her monitor to face them. “We have a bigger problem. Or rather, Bart does.”
