“Yes. I still have it,” she finally responded.
I smiled internally knowing she kept my gift as well.
“I bet it has less than one-hundred thousand miles on it,” I retorted.
She smiled and shrugged. “What can I say? I spent four of my seven years of my military career in the desert and since you…” she paused “…since getting out of the Army, I’ve spent a lot of time overseas. Plus, I bought my own car. I have an Audi.”
I raised my eyebrows, impressed. “I taught you well.”
“You wish,” she waved me off and turned towards the shiny black BMW. “Are you sure you don’t mind me using one of your cars? I can just get another rent—”
I held my hand up, cutting her off. “Why would you want some rental? God knows how many asses have sat in the driver seat. Why not just take my barely used baby right here?” I pulled the key out of my pocket. I had a feeling she would choose the Beamer. I felt safer with her driving one of my cars because I knew none of these had been touched by anyone but me and all my cars were equipped with gps tracking that went directly to my phone. I left out that last part, though.
“Alright. I’ll use the BMW. I’ll be here for another two to three weeks tops, anyway, and I don’t think I’ll be driving too much,” she shrugged.
That tightness in my chest began to build at the mention of her leaving. My phone vibrated in my pocket, interrupting my thoughts. I pulled it out and nodded at the message I just received.
“Great, and it looks like Mitch has just arrived to go with you to the junkyard.”
She crinkled her brows at me. “Why would Mitch go with me to the junkyard?” Her voice was laced with a hint of warning and irritation.
“Because someone broke into your hotel suite last night and until we figure out who, Mitch will be escorting you wherever you go if I’m not with you,” I answered honestly. Did I know Coral could take care of herself? Yes. Should she have had to? No. That’s why Mitch was here.
“Did you forget who the security specialist is here?” she asked, hands on her hips, head cocked to the side, eyeballing me.
“Sweetheart, I haven’t forgotten anything. I also haven’t forgotten the feeling of my heart pulsating with terror at the thought of anything happening to you.”
Her eyes widened, and I could tell she wasn’t expecting that.
“I don’t need an escort.”
“You’ll have one anyway,” I insisted. “My woman is not going around town investigating murders and corporate cover-ups without someone watching her back at all times.” I damn near growled the last part.
“I’m not yours,” she retorted.
That declaration pissed me off. In two quick steps, I was in front of her and wrapped my arms around her waist. “You’ve been mine since we were eighteen years old!” I actually growled that time before taking her lips in a possessive kiss. I used my tongue to outline her lips before diving in fully and taking possession of her mouth. She tried to resist at first, but soon gave in and kissed me with just as much emotion. Her body knew where it belonged, even if she refused to accept it.
“See, even your body knows,” I gloated once I pulled back. We were both panting heavily, and I could feel my erection beginning to strain against my pants. I didn’t mind being a little late for work…
“Mr. Bennett.” That thought was interrupted when Mitch called out from behind me. I told the security gate to let him in, a decision I now regretted.
Coral quickly stepped back, snatching the key from my hand and going over to the car. “Mitch, we’ll be heading over to the Morrison junkyard. Do you know where that is?” she asked, doing her best to avoid looking at me. I knew she was not as unaffected as she appeared to be. I could make out the outline of her nipples protruding through her sweater.
“Stubborn woman,” I mumbled. “Make sure you keep a close eye on her,” I warned Mitch, pausing to make full eye contact. “There are two people I care about most in this world—my daughter and that headstrong woman over there,” I motioned towards Coral. “She’s tougher than you and smarter. She may try to lose you, but it’s your ass if anything happens to her.” I looked him straight in the eye, so he knew I was not bullshitting. I could tell he was a little shocked by the underlying threat in my tone, but he needed to know I meant every word of what I said.
He nodded. “Yes sir, Mr. Bennett. Her safety is of the utmost importance.”
“Good.” I turned to see Coral now in the driver’s seat. I moved to the wall and pressed the button to raise the garage door. As it rose, I strolled over to the car and tapped the passenger side window. “I’ll see you in my office around one for lunch. One o’clock,” I said with finality when I saw she was going to object.
She rolled her eyes as she mumbled, “Whatever.”
I stepped back in time to get out of her way as she pulled off, exiting the garage.
“You better catch up,” I said, turning to Mitch.
He hurriedly exited the garage to get to his own vehicle and follow Coral. I pulled out my phone and activated the gps tracker.
“I can’t wait until this shit is over,” I said to myself, thinking about the first meeting I had scheduled.
Chapter Twelve
Coral
“Ouch!” I squealed as Mitch stepped on the back of my heel, yet again. He was sticking to me like white on rice and I had no doubt it was because Li told him to. I looked over my shoulder and saw the worried look in Mitch’s eyes, and I knew Li probably even threatened him. At six feet, with a bulky muscular build of his own, one wouldn’t think Mitch would be intimidated by many, but then again, you hadn’t seen Liam’s threatening glare. I’d seen more men than I could count cower in the face of it.
“You know, Mitch, you don’t have to be so close. I’m not trying to make a break for it or anything.” I glanced at him over my shoulder again as we continued to walk down the row of damaged and battered vehicles. Mitch took the hint, and he gave me a little more breathing room. I sighed as I still saw him out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t believe Liam had actually assigned me a damn bodyguard. Then again, that was a lie. I could believe it. He’d always been protective; even though he was very much aware, I could handle myself.
I stopped as we approached a dark blue 2014 Lexus. I pulled my cell out my pocket to pull up an image of Larry’s car and matched the license plate number.
“X21...” I mumbled, reading off the license number. Sure enough, it was a match. Of course, the wreckage in front of me was nothing like the car in the picture. It was obvious the car was in a horrific accident, and there was no way anyone in the driver’s seat could have survived. I made my way around the mangled vehicle, pulling out my Nikon to snap pictures from every angle before touching it. I made my way to the front of the car to lift the hood.
“Hey, Mitch, can you see if you can reach in and pull the lever to release the hood?”
“Sure thing.” He moved to reach through where the driver’s side door used to be. The door had to be removed by the Jaws of Life to cut Larry out. By the time rescuers got to him, it was too late. Thinking about Larry took me back to my own mission. I remembered my team members who’d never made it home to their loved ones because someone had been after me. I clenched my fists thinking that whoever killed my teammates might also be behind Larry’s death. Whoever this bastard was, he needed to be stopped.
“How’s that?” Mitch’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
I moved to raise the hood, and after a few hard pulls, I was able to lift it. “Got it. Thanks,” I told him. Looking over the contents of the hood, I did a quick scan of the different parts; aside from the mess of the wreckage nothing looked out of place. Thinking back to police pictures of the scene, I recalled not seeing any skid marks, which was highly suspect in an accident. I reached my hand down to feel for the brake line. I ran my hand along it and sure enough, just as I suspected, there was a tear. I snapped a quick picture before closing the hood.
/> I moved to the passenger side of the car where the door was dented. Mitch helped me pull it open, and I managed to squeeze inside, looking around for anything out of the ordinary. I looked over at the driver’s seat where Larry’s dried blood still stained the leather. I’d dealt with enough gory scenes in my life that the sight of blood did nothing to me.
Reaching under the dashboard, I felt around before opening the dashboard’s compartment and found it emptied. However, I got the nagging feeling there was something inside. Larry’s accident supposedly occurred after nine at night while he was on his way home from work. A few days prior, he’d scheduled a meeting with Liam and Jeremy about the company’s books. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.
Just as I had this thought, my fingers ran along the underside of the driver’s seat. I felt something. Gripping it, I could tell it’d been stuck to the seat with duct tape. Pulling it off, I saw it was a flash drive.
“Bingo!” I whispered excitedly. I knew this flash drive held whatever Larry wanted Li and Jeremy to know. “Mitch!” I called out, exiting the vehicle and closing the door. “We’re done here. We can tell the junkyard owner he can now destroy the car.” I left the junkyard with the feeling we’d just reached a major break in the case.
****
“Ms. Coleman, Mr. Bennett has been expecting you,” Li’s assistant informed me as soon as I entered through the glass office doors. “He said to tell you to go on in as soon as you entered.” I knew by the way she was rushing me that Li had probably been asking her every five minutes if I’d arrived.
“Thank you,” I told her as I walked past her desk to Li’s door. I knocked a couple times before entering.
Li glanced up at me as I walked in. “Yeah Richard, I hear you,” he said.
I listened intently, realizing that Li was talking to his father. He and his father never really got along. Richard Bennett was always more worried about power and money than the actual well-being of his son. As soon as I met Liam’s father, I knew he didn’t care too much for me. Didn’t bother me because the feeling was mutual.
“Listen, Richard; we’ll talk more when I’m in Austin later this week. I have to go.” He hung up abruptly.
I raised my eyebrows at this news. I had no idea Liam was going to Austin. “How is the governor these days?” I asked, closing his office door behind me.
Li snorted derisively. “Still breathing,” he mumbled to himself so low I barely caught the words. “You’re late.” He glared at me accusingly, changing the subject.
I shrugged. “It’s not like you didn’t know where I was. I’m sure your trusty gps told you the BMW had been parked in the garage for the last forty-five minutes.” I smirked as I strolled over to his desk and plopped down in the chair across from him.
Li grinned and sat back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head.
“Didn’t think I’d realize you were tracking my every move?”
“No, I knew you’d figure it out eventually. I just wanted to see how long it’d take,” he said, giving me that cocky grin of his. It was funny how different his demeanor was now than less than five minutes ago when he was on the phone with his father.
“Took me all of five minutes. Of course, I would have realized sooner if I hadn’t been distracted by other...things,” I admitted thinking of that kiss he planted on my lips right before I got in the car.
“Oh yeah? Like what?” he leaned in.
“You don’t need your ego stroked anymore. Anyway,” I said standing and relocating to the couch in the office. “I’m hungry. Feed me so we can get on with other matters.”
“You wouldn’t be so hungry if you had brought your ass here at one o’clock like I said,” he admonished as he stood from behind his desk. “It’d serve you right if I’d already eaten and left you to fend for yourself,” he frowned down at me.
Damn, I love that face.
Whoa! Where the hell did that come from?
“Whatever, Li. We both know what happens when I get too hungry, so there’s no way you’d leave me hanging. Where’s the food?” I said to distract myself from my previous thoughts. We both knew I turned into your worst enemy when I hadn’t eaten in a while. I’d been known to go off on someone more than once when hungry.
Li walked backed to his desk and pressed the speaker on his office phone. “Darla, can you send our lunch in, please? Thank you.”
A few minutes later, we sat across from one another munching on chicken salad sandwiches and kettle chips.
“What did you find?” Liam asked as he sipped from his bottle of water.
“How do you know I found anything?”
The bottle paused halfway to his mouth, and he gave me a “don’t play with me” look, which of course caused me to smirk.
“You spent a few hours at the accident sight and the junkyard, and then you were here for at least forty-five minutes before you came up to my office. I know you found something.”
“Damn GPS,” I muttered. “Well, for one, I’m one-hundred percent convinced we’re dealing with a murder. This was no accident.”
Liam lifted an eyebrow at me. “Tell me,” he insisted, sitting forward in his chair, leaning in closer to me.
“It was raining hard the night of Larry’s accident. I checked the weather records and the police report. They put down the freezing rain as the cause of the accident. But, the lack of skid marks on the road led me to believe one of two things.”
“Either he was incapacitated at the time of the accident or someone fucked with his brakes,” Li stated, interrupting me.
I cocked my head to the side, eyeing him. “Can you not interrupt me?”
He grinned. “I’m sorry, CeCe. Continue.”
“Thank you. Anyway, I went to the junkyard and checked out the car. Took pictures, checked under the hood, and felt the brake line and sure enough—”
He nodded knowingly. “It was cut.”
“Yup. Someone wanted Larry dead and…” I reached in my pocket and tossed the flash drive into Liam’s hands. “I’m betting whatever’s on here is the reason.”
“Where’d you find this?” he asked, staring at the drive.
“Taped underneath the driver seat. If Larry was as smart as I believed he was, we may not even need to get into his laptop. Everything we need may be on the drive.”
His tone was a little surprised. “You haven’t checked it out yet?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. When I went to the junkyard, the owner told me a man had stopped by a couple days ago to see Larry’s car. When he refused him, he said the man became agitated. But the owner was under strict instructions from your office to not let anyone who wasn’t cleared first to see the vehicle.”
“Did he give you a description of this guy?”
I nodded as I took another sip of my water. “Said he was around five-ten, stocky, looked Hispanic.”
Li paused and looked me right in the eye. I knew this was coming.
“Yeah, so I came back here and had Ron do a “follow-up” interview with Rodrigo,” I said, using air quotes around follow up. Rodrigo was one of the building’s nighttime security guards. The description the owner of the junkyard gave immediately brought Rodrigo to mind. So, I had Ron do another interview to ask Rodrigo if he saw Larry the night of his death. I made sure not to mention anything about what I found at the junkyard.
“And what’s your read on him?” Li asked.
“He knows something. His guilt was plain as day. I’m just not sure how much he knows.”
“Motherfuck!” Li cursed, slamming his water bottle down on the table.
“Li,” I said in my calming voice.
“No, fuck that, CeCe. These bastards work for me. These are supposed to be my people. We’re supposed to be doing some good here. Who the fuck is behind this?” He looked me straight in the eye.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” I insisted.
“No!”
“No? What do you mean no?�
�
“I mean, this shit has gone too far. They killed Larry. Broke into your hotel suite. Now you’re going around half-cocked investigating all by yourself. No. You’re putting yourself in harm’s way.” He stood seething as he paced.
I paused, squinting as I look at him. “Li,” I called. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he refused to look at me. “Liam,” I called more sternly, the second time, standing.
Finally, he turned to look at me.
“Where the hell do you think I’ve been the last five years? Out to lunch? Relaxing on the beach of some exotic island?” My voice became louder.
“CeCe.”
“No,” I held my hand up stopping him. “I’ve dealt with killers, war criminals, terrorists, for more than a decade of my life. Even after leaving the agency. I don’t need you getting in your feelings about safety. I know what the hell I’m doing which is why Jeremy called me in the first place.”
“Dammit, Coral. I know better than anyone how capable you are of getting this done.”
“Then what the hell are you talking about?” I demanded, placing my hands on my hips.
“I’m talking about keeping you safe. I’m talking about the fact that I don’t know if I could breathe if something were to happen to you. As close as I am to...” he paused, running his hand through his thick hair.
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