The Ultimate Betrayal

by Kat Martin

  “Try twenty-five million dollars. Five mil up front, the rest on delivery.”

  Bran scrubbed a hand over his face, rasping over the dark scruff along his jaw. “So someone has twenty-five million dollars’ worth of chemical weapons. Enough to kill hundreds of people or maybe start a war.”

  “A thought that gives me nightmares,” Tabby said.

  “It’s got to be terrorism,” Jessie said. “I wonder why they haven’t used them already.”

  “An attack takes planning,” Bran said. “Planning takes time.”

  “So all we have to do is find the buyers before they’re ready to execute their plan,” Jessie said, drawing a grim look from Bran.

  “Believe me, I’ll stay on it,” Tabby said.

  “Listen, Tab, there’s something else we need. There’s a guy named Weaver. No first name. It looks like he’s a leader in the Aryan Brotherhood. Ex-con, most likely. Could be connected to the military. Chance he’s in Colorado somewhere, but there’s no way to know for sure.”

  “Pretty tall order,” Tabby said. “Finding a guy with only one name.”

  Bran smiled. “Yeah, but you’re up to it, right? No challenge too big for the Tabinator.”

  Tabby laughed.

  “I’ll send you a couple of photos, Vladimir Petrov and Harley Graves. Graves has an Aryan gang tat on his neck. Might get lucky, turn up a connection to Weaver.”

  “All right, I’ll see what I can find out. If that’s it, I need to get to work. Stay out of trouble, you two.” The line went dead.

  “I wonder how you get someone to give you five million dollars in exchange for weapons you don’t have,” Jessie said.

  “Good question. Might not be that hard if you have something the buyer really wants.”

  “Like a truckload of chemical weapons.”

  “Yeah.” Bran rose from his chair. “I’m going to shower. If you need the internet, now would be a good time.”

  She just nodded and watched him walk away, all broad shoulders, long legs, and a sexy male behind. She couldn’t help wishing last night had gone differently.

  She sighed as she sat down at his software-protected computer to check her email. Knowing her best friend in Denver would be worried, she dropped her a note. She and Hallie Martinez had been best friends since college, both students at the U of Denver. They had met when they dated two men who were close friends, discovered they had a lot in common, and stayed close over the years. They hadn’t seen each other since Jessie had left for Dallas in search of Brandon Garrett.

  Jessie told Hallie she was back in Colorado, still working to prove her father’s innocence, now with Bran’s help.

  When she finished updating her friend, she worked on her article for Kegan’s Korner, the blog she wrote for the digital website, Factfinders.com. Several other sites also usually picked up her work, which was how she made her living.

  The article she’d been writing before her father had died concerned a small Colorado town with an aging water system similar to the one in Flint, Michigan. Many of Drover City’s health problems were the same. Her research was completed. She just needed to write the last few pages and summarize her conclusions. With everything that had happened, she had put it off far too long.

  At least money wasn’t a major factor. Her dad had left her a small inheritance, giving her the freedom to work at her own pace. It also gave her the time she needed to find the men who had murdered him and stolen twenty-five million dollars’ worth of chemical weapons.

  She needed to finish the article and send it off so that she could get back to the urgent job of trying to save lives—hers and Brandon’s included.

  Jessie put her head down and went to work.

  FIFTEEN

  Showered and dressed in jeans and a clean dark brown Henley, Bran returned to work on his laptop while Jessie sat at the opposite end of the table, typing away. At the moment, finding Weaver was his priority.

  Bran searched Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, all the social media websites, trying to find someone named Weaver connected to the Aryan Brotherhood. Coming up with zip.

  He looked up at the sound of Jessie’s chair sliding across the vinyl floor. He could smell her soft perfume as she walked up behind him, something slightly sweet but sexy enough to stir his blood. Sweet and sexy, that was Jessie. The last time she’d been this close, she had ended up in his arms half naked. His groin tightened before he could push the lust to the back of his brain where it belonged.

  “I assume we’re calling the CID to tell them what Tabby found out,” she said. “We can’t risk letting the buyers use those weapons in a chemical attack.”

  “Yeah, well, that sort of poses a problem. Tabby doesn’t exactly go through channels. Technically, there’s no way we could have accessed the info she gave us.”

  She cocked a reddish gold eyebrow. “Technically? I’m guessing that means legally.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sighed. “We need someone on the base we can trust. I think we should take a chance on Agent Tripp. He wanted to go deeper into the offshore account. Maybe he’d be willing to overlook where the information came from in favor of getting important facts.”

  “Maybe. Then again, maybe he’d have us all arrested.”

  She blew out a breath. “There is that.” Wandering over to the counter, she poured herself another cup of coffee from the fresh pot she had brewed. “You want another cup?”

  What he wanted was to take up where they’d left off last night, but that wasn’t going to happen. “I’m good.”

  She sipped from her mug. “So where do we go from here?”

  Bran reached over and picked up the file he’d been constructing, took out the list of people who had visited the colonel while he was incarcerated.

  “I’ve been going back over the visitors list your father’s attorney gave us.”

  “Good idea. With so much going on, it’s kind of fallen to the bottom of our priorities. Did you find anything interesting?”

  “There isn’t much. Mostly just lawyers and investigators we’ve already talked to, a couple of officers who were the colonel’s friends.”

  “I talked to them when I started my investigation. They didn’t know much about the charges. They just came by to support my dad.”

  “Unfortunately, the orderlies who brought his meals aren’t listed, neither are the EMTs who took him to the infirmary. But there is one thing we can check out.” He glanced in her direction, tried not to look at the curve of her ass in her skintight jeans.

  “Remember the name Mara Ramos? You said your dad had never mentioned her.”

  “I’ve never heard of her. I was going to see if I could find out something about her, but then Petrov and Graves were trying to kill us, and I never got around to it.”

  He turned the computer so that she could see the screen. “According to Mara’s Facebook profile, she’s forty-five years old, a retired schoolteacher, no husband, no kids, lives right here in Colorado Springs.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  Mara’s profile picture highlighted her long, thick black hair, black eyes, nice smile. Jessie was right. Mara was a very pretty woman.

  “I’ve got her phone number and street address. We could phone her, but I think we should make a house call.”

  “Great, I’ll get my purse.”

  It wasn’t far from the hotel to Mara’s unimposing apartment on Sandalwood. Bran parked in front of a sprawling three-story, gray-and-white building complex, and to save time headed for the manager’s office.

  A stout gray-haired woman in a flowered dress and house slippers answered the door. “May I help you?”

  “We’re looking for apartment 13-C,” Bran said. “The tenant’s name is Mara Ramos.”

  The woman looked back over her shoulder. “Cyrus! You got a nice young co
uple here looking to rent 13-C.”

  “I’m comin’! Just need a minute to fetch my readin’ glasses.”

  “I’m sorry for the confusion,” Bran said. “We aren’t here to rent the apartment. We’re looking for the tenant, Mara Ramos. Are you saying she doesn’t live here?”

  Cyrus walked up to the door, early seventies, snow-white hair and small wire-rimmed glasses.

  “This is my husband,” the woman said. “He’s the manager. He can help you better than me.” She waddled a few steps away, but stayed within hearing distance, eavesdropping clearly her primary source of entertainment.

  “If you’re lookin’ for Ms. Ramos, she moved out a couple months back. Took a job in a city somewhere. Denver, I think...or maybe it was LA.”

  Interesting timing, Bran thought. Just after the colonel’s death, and no mention of the move on her Facebook page. “She leave a forwarding address?”

  Cyrus shook his head. “Nope. Just packed up, dropped off her key, and moved out one day. Had to charge her credit card an extra month’s rent, her leavin’ without givin’ her thirty-day notice.”

  “How long did she live here?” Bran asked.

  “Only here a couple months, real nice lady.”

  Jessie took her wallet out of her purse and slid out a photo of her father. “Did you ever see this man around her apartment?”

  He nodded. “Sure did. Thirteen-C is just over there.” He pointed to a building across a small, grassy open space. “Some military guy. Started coming round to see Ms. Ramos a month or so before she moved out. Spent the night so I guess he was her boyfriend.”

  Bran almost smiled at the look of horror on Jessie’s face, like she couldn’t believe her dad could possibly have a sexual relationship. If the colonel was anything like his son Danny, a high sex drive was in his blood. If the implications of Mara’s sudden departure weren’t so dark, it would have been funny.

  He tipped his head toward Jessie. “The military guy you were talking about? This is his daughter. We’d like to find Mara if we can. I don’t suppose you’d have a copy of the credit card receipt you have on file for her? I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Cyrus shook his grizzled head. “Sorry. Company policy. We gotta destroy the records soon as a tenant moves out. Don’t want to end up in a lawsuit, you know.”

  Bran sighed. “I get it. These days you can’t be too careful. Could you at least tell us the date she moved?”

  “I’ll check.” Cyrus ambled back into his apartment, then returned a few minutes later. “It was August 18. Housekeeping shampooed the carpets the next day.”

  Bran glanced at Jessie, whose shock was now tinged with anger. Colonel Kegan had died just a few days before Mara Ramos packed up and left town. The coincidence was worrisome at the very least.

  Of course it could just be coincidence.

  If he believed in coincidence, which he didn’t.

  “Thanks anyway, Cyrus.” Bran waved at the older man over his shoulder as they left, then stopped a few minutes later at the rapid sound of footsteps shuffling after him.

  “Wait!” Cyrus called out. “Wait just a second.”

  Bran turned to face him. “What is it?”

  Cyrus took a couple of winded breaths. “Just remembered. I got her license plate number. Had to put it on the application so she could park her car in the lot.” Cyrus handed him a piece of paper: 6EQS505. “Don’t know if it’ll help, but I thought it might.”

  Bran smiled. “You did good, Cyrus.” He took out a fifty and handed it over, and the old man beamed.

  “Now I can buy my Betty somethin’ nice for our weddin’ anniversary. Be fifty years. Fifty years puttin’ up with me, she deserves somethin’ nice.”

  “Glad I could contribute,” Bran said, smiling.

  The old man shuffled back the way he had come.

  “I can’t believe Dad never mentioned he was seeing someone,” Jessie said, still looking dumbstruck as she clicked her seat belt into place and Bran pulled away from the curb.

  “He’s a man, honey. And as you said, Mara is a beautiful woman.”

  She hooked her fiery hair behind an ear. “Odd timing, though, her leaving just days after he died. You think the plates will help us find her?”

  “Maybe. I noticed there weren’t any recent posts on her Facebook. Now I think I know why. I’ll text Tabby with the number, see what she comes up with.”

  “CID was trying to find the missing chemicals. They would have interviewed everyone on the visitors list. I’ll call Agent Tripp, see if he’ll tell me what Mara Ramos had to say.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Jessie sighed. “I wish we knew more about her.”

  Bran flicked her a sideways glance. “Oh, we’re going to. You can count on that.”

  * * *

  The afternoon slid into evening. Agent Tripp was out and hadn’t yet called her back. She had ordered a pizza, but by the time it was delivered to the hotel, it was cold, which didn’t really matter since Jessie’s appetite was gone.

  She still couldn’t believe her father had been involved with a woman and hadn’t told her about it. Surely he would have said something if Mara Ramos was anything more than a sexual fling. Her dad’s sex life wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on, but there was an aspect of it she couldn’t ignore.

  Her gaze slid to Bran. He was sitting at the dining table, but he wasn’t working on his computer. Instead, all evening, his intense blue eyes seemed to seek her out wherever she was in the room.

  She had the strangest feeling he was thinking about last night, thinking about what it might have been like if she hadn’t rejected him. Dear God, watching him all evening, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else.

  She clamped down hard on the desire she didn’t want to feel and forced her mind in another direction. “Do you think Mara Ramos was involved?”

  Bran leaned back in his chair. “My instincts say yes. I think she might have helped whoever planned it set your father up. She was sleeping with him. That would give her access to his military ID, his social security number, credit card information, things that a bank might require to open an account.”

  “God, I hadn’t thought of that.” She got up from the sofa and walked toward him. “Do you think it’s possible she could have...? I mean, a woman as pretty as she is could seduce a man into doing things he...um...otherwise would never consider.”

  “Like stealing chemical weapons? If you’re asking me if I think Mara Ramos seduced your dad into going along with the theft, I’m going to say no. I didn’t know your father that well, but I knew Danny. He had a will of iron, and he would never break his code of honor, not for a woman he cared about or anyone else. From what Danny told me about your dad, I have to think he’d feel the same way.”

  Relief swept through her. “My dad was the most honorable man I’ve ever known.”

  Bran rose from his chair, his lanky strides crossing the distance between them, coming up behind her.

  “A man will do a lot for a woman he wants.” He set his hands on her shoulders and began a gentle massage. She could feel the heat of his body and warmth slipped through her, settled in her core.

  “A man might be willing to trust a woman he cares about in a way he usually wouldn’t,” Bran continued. “He might do unexpected things for her. He might ask her to trust him in return.” He turned her into his embrace. “Kissing’s okay, right?”

  Her body flushed with heat and unconsciously she moistened her lips.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Bending his head, he settled his mouth over hers. It was a gentle kiss, no pressure, giving her every chance to pull away. The soft touch of his mouth over hers brought the sting of tears. She wanted him so badly, and yet she knew his tender seduction was going to fail.

  “I can’t,” she said, breaking the contact. “I�
��ll only let you down again.”

  He kissed her once more and she let him, responding to the hunger he kept carefully controlled, fighting the same hunger in herself. She wondered if she had ever wanted anything as much as she wanted Bran Garrett.

  Bran just kept kissing her, softly but firmly, a gentle demand that made her desire swell until she trembled. His hands slid into her hair to cup the back of her head, holding her in place as his lips moved hotly over hers. He kissed her until her body burned and her legs felt as if they were going to give way at any moment.

  “He never kissed you, did he?” He kissed the side of her neck.

  “No...” she whispered.

  Bran kissed her again, long and deep, a scorching kiss that had her quietly moaning.

  “I want you,” he said. “So much.”

  “Oh, God, Bran.” She rested her palm against his cheek. “I wish I could give you what you want, but—”

  “Do you trust me?”

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat and managed to nod. He was Danny’s best friend. Of course she trusted him.

  “Say it. Tell me you trust me.”

  “I trust you, Bran. But I—I don’t think—”

  He cut off her words with another deep kiss. By the time he stopped, her palms were under his shirt, pressing against his warm skin. Hard muscle bunched everywhere she touched, and her body heated and dampened even more.

  He reached for the hem of his long-sleeved T-shirt and stripped it off over his head, letting her look at him, stare at all that hard male muscle, as she had wanted to do since the morning she had walked in on him nearly naked in the living room.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said, trailing a finger gently down her cheek. “But I need you to trust me.”

  She stared at his chest, his gorgeous pecs, six-pack abs, the fine dusting of dark hair that arrowed down and disappeared into his jeans. She reached out to touch him, ringed his bellybutton with her finger, and he groaned. She wanted to press her mouth there, trace the indentation with her tongue.

  She looked up at him, read the blazing desire in his eyes. And his iron control. “I trust you,” she said.