by Trish Loye
But she’d been at Rollins’s condo, not trying to escape the country.
“I think she’s innocent too,” Mack interrupted his thoughts from her place by her monitor.
He and Dante faced her. Dante cocked his head as if he saw something intriguing. Mack’s cheeks flushed a little.
“Why do you think that?” Dante asked. “The evidence seems stacked against her.”
“Seems is the correct word,” Mack said. “It’s all circumstantial.”
“Except for the files,” Ryan said.
Mack shook her head. “Why would a super smart woman leave incriminating files on her hard drive? They weren’t even encrypted.”
“A lot of criminals are incredibly arrogant. Maybe she thought no one would ever suspect her,” Dante said.
“She’s innocent. It fits her profile.” Mack lifted her chin, as if daring them to contradict her.
Dante crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re that sure of your profile? That seems a little...arrogant.”
Lexi snorted from behind them. Ryan just watched, knowing that these two had to sort out their issues now before a crisis happened. Like any team members, they were feeling each other out. He’d step in only if he had to.
Mack mirrored Dante’s stance and it made Ryan think of a kitten facing off against a lion.
“I may not look it, but I have a lot of experience,” she said.
Ryan gave Dante kudos because he didn’t smile. “I can see it in your eyes,” he said.
Her gaze narrowed. “You actually believe that.”
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
Mack smirked. “And do you always tell the truth?”
“When I’m not on an op, yeah.” He shrugged. “Why would I lie? I don’t care what other people think.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re...you’re telling the truth.”
Dante looked at Ryan with an is-she-for-real expression. “Should we get onto my task here?”
“But,” Mack interrupted. “Everybody lies.”
Dante gave her a cold stare. “I don’t.”
“But—”
“Are we gonna have a problem, miss?” he asked.
“You....you don’t—”
Lexi grabbed her friend’s shoulders and turned her around. “No problem, Dante. Good to have you on the team.” She pulled Mack back to her workstation, talking to them all the while. “She’s a human lie detector. And she’s just never met anyone who doesn’t lie.”
Mack frowned at Dante over her shoulder, as if she expected him to sprout antenna or scales. “People lie,” she whispered. “But he wasn’t lying when...maybe he believes he—”
“Time to stop talking,” Lexi said to her. “Oh, and boss? McRaven’s on the move. Should I have the team grab her?”
“No. Have them hang back. Let her go. We have the tracker.”
“You sure, sir?” Mack asked, completely professional again. “McRaven is tricky. She might know about the bug and just be fooling you.”
Ryan thought about that. “No. She really did believe she’d gotten the upper hand on me. She didn’t suspect a bug.”
“You must be a good actor,” she said.
A good actor? Hardly. More like a man lost in lust. He’d barely remembered what he’d been supposed to do when in Sutton’s embrace. But this time, he’d find out everything she knew and he’d bring her in.
He grabbed an earpiece and radio. “Dante, you’re with me. Lexi, can you track on the move?”
She nodded and grabbed a radio and her laptop. “I’m ready.”
“Mack, you’ve got HQ. Stay on top of the police traffic.”
“Copy that.”
They left at a run. It was time to bring Sutton in.
8
Sutton had taken a circuitous route to the cemetery, using buses and cabs. She was sure no one followed her when she walked into the main entrance. She needed a map or directions. There were thousands of dead service men and women buried in Arlington Cemetery, with burials going on every day. The place was huge.
Within moments, she’d found a visitor kiosk and tapped in Mark’s last name. There were five Rollins buried here. But only one was from the World War Two era. It would be a bit of a jaunt to walk to it, but the day was nice and the air crisp. She should also have a good view of her surroundings.
She left the building without feeling any prickles of warning that someone had eyes on her, but she stayed sharp and walked within the trees as much as possible. It took her about fifteen minutes of fast walking to get to the grave she needed.
Euclide Nelson Rollins. A lieutenant when he died at age twenty-five. So young. She paused a moment and thanked him for his service.
She lifted her head and glanced all around. Nothing but lines of white tombstones in every direction on a seemingly unending green field. No one near her. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been followed, just that she couldn’t see them. The skin on the back of her neck started to prickle with unease. She always followed her gut instinct and right now it told her she was too exposed.
After another glance around, she studied the tombstone in front of her. A small green plastic vase attached to the side held some daisies. They still had their petals, so they weren’t too old. No gravesite held dead flowers. The caretakers saw to that.
She knelt and examined the base of the stone. “What the hell am I looking for, Mark? Did you bury something?”
Omigod, please let me not have to dig up his grandfather.
That would mean breaking in to the cemetery at night and she really didn’t want to do that. The idea felt not only sacrilegious, but also dishonorable. Her fellow brothers- and sisters-in-arms deserved their peace.
She crouched in front of the tombstone and ran her hands over it. There couldn’t be a secret drawer in it, could there? Then she snorted. Like Mark had time to carve it out? She sat back on her haunches, which brought her eye-to-petal with the daisies.
Mark hadn’t died that long ago. He must have brought the flowers. If he’d been here within the last few days then the flowers would still be alive. She stood up, yanked the daisies out and peered into the plastic vase.
Nothing but water.
She crushed the stems in her grip. Something scraped her palm. She shook the flowers just a little and a slender gray flash drive separated from the stems. She smiled.
Nice wo—
“Get down!” Ryan shouted from a distance.
She didn’t question. She dropped to the ground.
Crack!
A chunk of tombstone blew apart.
Fuck! Someone was shooting at her. She scurried behind a headstone. Where was Ryan? That had been his voice warning her.
She pulled her Glock from her shoulder holster and chambered a round. From the look of the bullet hole in the headstone, the shooter would have to be in the trees not far in front of her. Ryan’s voice came from her left.
She could either move toward him and safety, or away and see whether she and Ryan could corner this asshole.
She took a breath and rolled right.
Crack!
The shot hit a headstone to the left of where she’d been. The shooter had expected her to go the other way and hadn’t had time to compensate. One point for her.
“Ryan?” she called out.
“Yeah?” His voice came from the left, closer to the trees.
They could get this sucker.
“Do you remember that time in Kabul?”
“Why the hell did I know you were going to say that?”
Another shot rang out. This time far to the left. The shooter was trying to pick off Ryan now.
“Sutton, just stay put. My team is almost here and so are the cops.”
Which meant she had to leave now.
“On three,” she yelled back. Please, Ryan, do this for me.
“Damn it, Sutton.”
“One,” she yelled.
“Sutton!” His voice was th
e snap of a whip.
“Two,” she called.
She could hear his cursing.
“Three!”
She threw herself from her spot and fired in the direction of the shooter while she sprinted farther away. From the echoing of shots, Ryan did the same. He’d come through for her.
Sirens wailed in the distance. More gunfire joined the first. She couldn’t stick around. She took a chance and just sprinted full out away from the action, leaving Ryan and his team to deal with it. The slick stone wall of the cemetery rose in the distance, tall and imposing. She’d never make it over with someone firing at her.
The gunfire stopped. She slowed just a little because this might turn into a long run and she needed to pace herself. A whisper of sound behind her was her only warning. She dodged but too late.
Someone tackled her, taking her to the ground. Someone muscular and large. He rolled just before they hit so she landed on him instead of the ground. She recognized the feel of that hard chest.
“Ryan.” She pushed herself up and off him. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” She stayed in a crouch, scanning the area behind them.
“You shouldn’t have run, Sutton.” Ryan stood and crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge under the long-sleeved T-shirt he wore. “The shooter took off. My team is trying to intercept him.”
She stood as well. “This proves I’m being set up.” She casually started to walk through the headstones. He let her get five feet away before he started to follow. She needed more distance between them. She wouldn’t win a fight by kissing him today. Her only hope was to outrun him and for that, she needed a head start.
He scowled and matched her pace. Not coming any closer but not letting her get any farther either. “If you’re innocent, then you should stick around.”
Now it was her turn to scowl. “And get shot?”
“What did you find in the vase?”
She didn’t flinch but it was close. She shrugged. “Dirty water and daisies.”
“Damn it, Sutton. I’m trying to help you.”
She glared at him. “No, you’re not. You’re a retired SEAL commander, hired by DHS to do a job. And that job is to apprehend me. Whether or not I’m innocent.”
He’d moved a step closer while she’d ranted. She took a calming breath and kept backing up. She couldn’t let her emotions rule her. “Let me go,” she said. “I’ll find the killer. Then you can bring me and him in.”
“Do you have a lead?”
“I’m obviously on the right track,” she said. “Or else someone wouldn’t be shooting at me.”
Shouts and sirens seemed to echo around them.
He sighed. “I’ll take care of this. And then I’m coming for you.” He jogged back the way they’d come.
She made it over the wall safely, but the confidence of his last words made her feel anything but safe.
Sutton took a circuitous and long route to the apartment, continually checking for any tails. How had she been taken by surprise? A yawn overtook her. Only getting a few hours’ sleep here and there in the last forty-eight was affecting her. And affecting her judgment. She made it to the safe house and tromped upstairs.
The first thing she did was plug the flash drive into her laptop and download all the files. A backup was always useful. She groaned when she opened the files.
Encrypted.
“One problem after another, Mark,” she muttered.
She rubbed at her dry eyes and yawned again. The adrenaline rush had taken more out of her than she’d thought. Time to get some sleep and then she’d tackle the encryption.
She undressed and slid between the sheets for a short nap.
Too soon, her eyes snapped open. The light in the room had changed. She estimated she’d been asleep for about an hour. Not long enough, but it would have to do.
She frowned. What had woken her? There was no noise in the silent apartment and the street sounds were muted through the glass of the windows. Something niggled at the back of her mind, demanding her attention. She let her thoughts wander over to it and around it. She’d missed something important, her instinct said.
How had Ryan come to be at Arlington Cemetery? She’d bet her life she hadn’t been followed. But he’d known to be there. She might have suspected him of something nefarious, except he’d saved her from the shooter. She frowned. So how had he known to be there?
Shit!
She sat straight up in bed, and the sheet fell to her waist. He must have bugged her when they’d had that fight.
“I’m so freaking stupid!”
“I wouldn’t call you stupid, Sutton,” Ryan drawled from the hallway. “Just a little slow sometimes.”
She squeaked and pulled the sheet up to her chest. Double shit! Ryan was in the apartment.
His smug face appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. He lost his smirk and his eyes darkened when he gazed at her, sitting in the middle of the bed with the sheet just covering her chest.
“We need to talk,” he said gruffly, but he didn’t look away, capturing her gaze with his.
Her heart beat harder in her chest, aware of her partial nakedness beneath the thin sheet. Only a few steps and crumbling willpower separated them. Neither of them moved.
Yet.
Memories of the earlier kiss made her skin heat. The sheet felt rough against her suddenly sensitive skin. She licked dry lips and Ryan’s gaze followed the movement of her tongue.
A sense of power uncurled inside her. A feminine power that promised dark things, sensual things, if only she’d let it out.
Ryan still hadn’t moved.
She let the power fill her and she dropped the sheet, revealing her chest. His gaze widened and he sucked in a sharp breath. But he still didn’t move. She wanted him to move.
She slid from the bed and stood before him in just her black underwear.
He groaned and stepped closer as if pulled against his will. Triumph shot through her. Not triumph because she’d won, but because her body had. She wanted Ryan and now knew he wanted her too. She was safe for now. Couldn’t she take a little time to reacquaint herself with the man she’d loved?
No. He broke your heart. Not to mention you have a murder to solve and there’s a killer after you.
She stopped short. She must have made some kind of movement because Ryan jerked and then did an about-face.
He squeezed his hands into fists. “Get dressed. Then we’ll talk.” He shut the door oh-so-carefully behind him.
Sutton released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Tension left her shoulders and she slumped onto the bed. What had she been thinking? She couldn’t sleep with Ryan. That would be a catastrophe.
Time to get her head on straight. For all she knew, Ryan had his team waiting outside. She parted the window blinds. Nothing unusual on the front street. Her gaze narrowed on one car where a woman with abundant dark curly hair waited in the driver’s seat, sitting patiently like a dog, gazing at the door to her apartment building, as if waiting for her owner to come out. Had she missed her earlier? Or was she Ryan’s partner?
First things first. She searched her clothing and found a tiny transmitter stuck in the back pocket of her jeans. She cursed herself, dressed hurriedly, and strolled into the living room while she braided her hair. Ryan had her laptop open, as she’d known he would.
“I’m surprised you don’t have backup,” she said, tying off her braid.
“Oh, there’s someone outside,” he said, without looking up from the laptop’s screen. “As I’m sure you already know.”
So he wasn’t lying to her. Yet. “Why are you here?”
He sighed, but still didn’t look at her. And wasn’t that interesting? “I think that’s pretty obvious,” he said.
“No. I mean why are you here alone. Still hoping I’ll come peacefully?”
He set the laptop aside, squared his shoulders and faced her. She arched a brow when he visibly relaxed. Did he think she was goin
g to walk out naked? She almost laughed.
“I want to know what happened at the cemetery,” he said.
“And I think that’s pretty obvious. Someone tried to kill me.”
He scowled and rubbed his face. Oh, she was getting under his skin. This was almost fun.
“Yes,” he said. “But were they after you specifically, or just sitting on the grave for the first person to show up?”
She began to pace. That feeling itched at the back of her neck again. She was still missing something. “Whoever killed Mark wants this flash drive. If they’d known it was at the grave, then they’d have taken it before I could get there.”
“So they were after you.”
“I wasn’t followed,” she stated emphatically. A feeling of dread curling in her stomach. She flicked the transmitter at him. “And you only found me because of the bug.”
“Could the killer have bugged you as well?”
She shook her head. “I just went over everything. Yours was the only transmitter I found.”
“Fuck,” Ryan said. “Just fuck. You know what that means?”
She did and it didn’t bode well for either of them. All thoughts of teasing Ryan left. “It means Mark’s killer has access to DHS information. Your information.” She flopped in a chair. “Shit.” She sat up straight as all the ramifications sunk in. “This apartment is compromised.”
The urgency that had been ticking away at the back of her brain exploded in an adrenaline rush. “Grab the laptop,” she ordered and ran to the bedroom to retrieve her pack and weapon.
Ryan’s phone buzzed. “Marchetti.” He listened and then strode for the glass balcony door, peering behind the curtain. “How many?”
Her senses went on alert and her muscles tensed. She took the laptop from Ryan and slid it into her pack. She chambered a round in her Glock and kept an eye on the door.
“Be ready for us.” Ryan hung up and slid the phone into his pocket. “Four armed men.”
“Uniforms?”
He shook his head. “Lexi said they look like street fighters.”