Bulletproof & Locked, Loaded and SEALed

by Cynthia Eden

  A sob escaped her lips and fogged the glass of the window.

  Austin touched her knee. “Are you thinking about Dr. Fazal? He was a good man—honorable, courageous. We were both lucky to have known him.”

  The sincere tone of Austin’s voice washed over her like a soothing balm, and a tear welled up in one eye. Only Dr. Fazal had been able to make her cry. Now if she let herself go, she’d never stop—and she already knew tears did nothing but signal your weakness to the world.

  She clenched her teeth and dragged in a breath through her nose. Rubbing the condensation from the window with her fist, she said, “He was a great guy…and I’m going to have to find another job.”

  She could feel Austin’s gaze boring into her, and then he removed his hand from her knee.

  She tossed back her hair. Let him think she was a cold bitch. She’d opened herself to Dr. Fazal and he’d left her…just like everyone else had. Not that it was his fault. He never would’ve abandoned her.

  “Next?”

  “What?”

  “Right or left?”

  She jerked her head up. She hadn’t even been checking the mirrors. She bolted up and grabbed the visor.

  “It’s okay. I’ve been watching.”

  “Left.”

  She trapped her cold hands between her knees and took a deep breath. “Why are you here? You were responsible for getting Dr. Fazal out of Pakistan and, what? You kept tabs on him?”

  “Me personally? No.” He cranked up the heat in the car. “US intelligence? Yes.”

  “CIA?”

  “Sort of. There are intelligence organizations under the umbrella of the CIA that are deep undercover.”

  “You work for one of these organizations?”

  “I’m a United States Navy SEAL.”

  “But one of these organizations contacted you, right?”

  He nodded once.

  She hunched forward, stretching her fingers out toward the warm air seeping from the vent. “Are you revealing too much? You’re not going to have to kill me now, are you?”

  He raised one eyebrow without cracking a smile at her clichéd joke. “You’re in the middle of this. You deserve to know.”

  “Am I? In the middle of this?”

  “Fazal’s killers put a tracking device on your car and tried to pull a gun on you. What do you think?”

  The warm air blowing from the vent couldn’t melt the chill stealing across her body. She snuggled into Austin’s jacket and the comforting scent from its folds. “I think I’m in the middle of it. These intelligence agencies must’ve known Dr. Fazal was in danger since you showed up at the precise time he was murdered.”

  Austin’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I failed him.”

  “Had you been watching him?”

  “I just got to Boston this morning. I read the file on the plane. I read about you, your job, your car, even your address.”

  Checking the mirrors again, she slumped in her seat. “So much for privacy.”

  Her paranoia about authority hadn’t been misplaced all those years. They really were out to get her. Did Austin also know about her messed-up past?

  He snorted. “There is no privacy.”

  “You knew all that, but you hadn’t seen Dr. Fazal yet?”

  “I showed up at the office building minutes after the first responders did. Then I located your car in the parking structure and waited for you.”

  “You were supposed to protect Dr. Fazal?”

  “I was.” His jaw formed a hard line.

  “Those intelligence organizations don’t sound very intelligent. They should’ve called you in sooner. You could’ve done something then.”

  She didn’t know why she wanted to make this supremely confident man feel better. Maybe it was the clenched jaw showing that he was human after all. He clearly felt as if he’d failed Dr. Fazal—and she knew all too well what failure felt like.

  “Maybe. Or maybe his killers made their move today because they knew we were on to them.”

  “Who are they? Who killed Dr. Fazal?” She tapped on the window. “Turn right.”

  “It depends on the motive. If it was revenge for working with us to capture the terrorist we’d been tracking, then we know it’s that terrorist group, but if it’s something else…” He shrugged.

  “What else could it be?”

  “You tell me. Why’d his killers search his office? Why’d they come after you?”

  She turned to him, her mouth gaping open. “You expect me to know that?”

  “You worked with him. You were close to him. He treated you like a daughter. We know that.”

  Her throat felt heavy and she cleared it. “He told me very little about his life before. He always emphasized looking forward.”

  “You said you noticed something different about him in the past few weeks. Was he nervous? Jumpy?”

  “Yes.” They’d had a dinner planned and he’d cancelled it. He never canceled plans with her because he knew how much stability meant to her.

  “How so?”

  “He was secretive. He took a few phone calls behind closed doors. He also saw some mysterious patient. He gave me his file, but he never included the person’s information in the regular patient database.”

  “Is this your street?”

  “The apartment building at the end of the block on the right.”

  “That behavior was unusual for him?”

  “It was in retrospect. If he hadn’t been murdered today, I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it—except for the dinner.”

  “What dinner?” He pulled the car alongside the curb in front of her apartment building and left the engine running.

  Did he expect her to hop out and go up to her apartment by herself while he left her car at the curb and loped off into the night? Hadn’t he assured her he’d keep watch tonight? Of course, he owed her nothing.

  She coughed into the sleeve of his jacket. “We had dinner at least once a month, and he canceled this month.”

  “He never canceled before?”

  “Never. I mean, I did once or twice, but once Dr. Fazal made plans he kept them.”

  “If they’d just killed him, that would’ve been the end of it. But why the search?”

  This time she knew it was a rhetorical question, as Austin stared out the window at nothing.

  He reached for the ignition. “Should I park here or do you have a parking spot?”

  She released a breath. He wasn’t ditching her—yet. “If you go up ten feet, there’s an entrance to our underground parking garage. I’ll direct you to my spot.”

  They rolled into the garage and she pointed out her parking space, which she’d left what seemed like a lifetime ago but had only been that morning.

  “I’ll go up with you just to make sure everything’s okay, and then I can check your security and monitor the front of your building and watch the elevators.”

  “A-all night?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  He said those three words with such conviction, she had a feeling Austin would always do whatever it took.

  “Thanks.” Was that enough? What did you say to someone who’d just saved your life? She hadn’t even thanked him for that. “A-and thanks for saving me from the man with the gun back in Cambridge.”

  “Of course.”

  She slipped out of the car and he was beside her in a second. When they got into the elevator, she pushed the button for her floor. “I’m on the third floor.”

  As they passed the second floor, Austin pulled a gun from his waistband and crowded her to the back of the car. He raised his weapon and the door opened—on her empty floor.

  She huffed out a breath, feeling d
izzy with relief. “My place is on the left, smack in the middle of the floor.”

  She held out her hand for her key chain but he shook his head.

  When they reached her door, he tucked her behind his body and dangled the keys from one finger. “Which one?”

  She tapped her front door key and he inserted it into the deadbolt lock above the door handle and unlocked it. Then he opened the door, and stepped inside, leading with his gun.

  “Wait outside the door for a minute.”

  She held her breath as he stepped inside, continuing to lead with his gun.

  He disappeared inside and her heart skipped a beat. “Everything look okay?”

  “Just a minute.”

  His voice sounded muffled, and a picture flashed in her head of Austin going through her closet and personal effects. Gripping the doorjamb, she leaned into her small living room. “Nothing looks out of place in the living room.”

  Austin emerged from the hallway, his gun still out but dangling at his side. “I wanted to make sure no one was hiding in the back.”

  “First time I’ve ever felt good about my small apartment.”

  “Nothing’s out of place?” His eyes flicked over the sparse room, devoid of personal photos and treasured mementos.

  She pulled back her shoulders and marched to the console that housed her TV and a few books and placed the cracked photo of her and Dr. Fazal, which had been stashed in her purse since she’d left the office, on a shelf.

  “Everything looks fine in here. Nobody under the bed?”

  “Or in the closets or hiding in the tub behind the shower curtain, but only you can determine if anything’s messed up.”

  Again that quick glance around her sterile living room. Could she help it if she traveled light? She’d always had to pick up and go at the drop of a hat, so she kept her possessions at a minimum.

  “I’ll check the bedroom and bathroom—good thing there’s only one of each.”

  Austin trailed her as she took a few steps down the short hallway and turned into her bathroom. A small row of bottles stood at attention on the right-hand side of the vanity, her electric toothbrush claiming the left. She tugged open the mirrored medicine chest that contained toiletries, no medicine. She didn’t believe in drugs.

  When she closed the cabinet, she met Austin’s green eyes in the mirror. How had she missed those eyes before? Probably because this was the first time she’d seen him in full light. Even the bar in Cambridge had been dark.

  “All good.”

  She pointed to the shower curtain dotted with blue seahorses. “You moved that, right?”

  “I swept it aside and back again.”

  “Next room.”

  She kept her distance as Austin awkwardly backed out of the bathroom. His presence overwhelmed the small space—overwhelmed her.

  He stood aside, flattened against the wall as she brushed past him on her way to the bedroom.

  She walked into her room and surveyed the matching bed, nightstand and dresser, and a little smile curled her lips. She’d just bought the matching set two months ago—her very first matching furniture, her very first new furniture.

  She passed by the bed and ran her fingertips along the green-patterned bedspread. Then she tripped to a stop as a wave of adrenaline washed through her body and a strangled cry twisted in her throat.

  “What’s wrong?” Austin placed his hand on the small of her back.

  She turned toward him and had the strongest desire to throw herself against his solid chest. Instead she dragged in a long breath and whispered, “Someone was here.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Austin’s gaze dropped to Sophia’s trembling bottom lip and he had the strongest desire to take her in his arms and make this all go away for her. But a woman like Sophia—prickly and independent—wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. Would she?

  “How do you know?” He flicked a lock of her black hair from her eye and she jerked back. He dropped his hand.

  “It’s the bed. Someone was on my bed.”

  His gaze skimmed the neatly made bed covered with a green floral bedspread and fluffy pillows stacked against the headboard. “How can you tell?”

  “Look at the center of the bed.” She tugged his sleeve. “There’s an indentation. The pillows are flat…and the smell.”

  He lifted his nose to the air and sniffed the faint perfumed odor. He’d figured it had come from a candle or room freshener. It was that faint.

  “What is that smell?”

  “It’s men’s cologne. I hate men’s cologne.” She grabbed one of her decorative pillows and pressed it against her face. “And it’s all over this pillow.”

  He took the pillow from her, dipping his head to the pillowcase covering it. He noticed a spicier, slightly musky scent now and raised his eyebrows at Sophia. She’d make a great detective, but she was perceptive just about her own possessions. The occupant of this apartment could be a monk if he didn’t know better. Everything had a place. Fazal’s killers couldn’t have picked a worse apartment to try to get away with a covert search.

  “They were very careful. This guy—” he motioned to the bed “—must’ve had a temporary lapse or maybe he just got tired after a full day of killing, stalking and searching.”

  Sophia sucked in a breath and grabbed his sleeve again. “What does this mean? Nobody followed us from Cambridge.”

  “They already knew where you lived, Sophia. Probably knew all about you, like we did.”

  “What are they looking for?” Her head cranked back and forth, taking in the bedroom.

  “The same thing they were looking for in Fazal’s office when they killed him.”

  “Why do they think I have it?” Her eyes widened even more. “Do you think Ginny, Morgan and Anna could be in danger, too?”

  “The receptionist and the nurses? I don’t think so. They didn’t have the same kind of relationship as you did with Dr. Fazal.”

  She hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know what they think I have or what I can tell them. Dr. Fazal wouldn’t confide anything like that in me. Sh-should I just talk to them and tell them that?”

  “No!” He took her by the shoulders, his thumbs pressing against the creamy skin above her sweater. “You don’t want any contact with these people. Do you think they’ll just question you and release you? They’ll question you, all right, but it won’t be pretty.”

  She clamped both hands over her mouth, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry.” This time he did pull her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. “But that’s a really bad idea.”

  Her body stiffened, and he loosened his grip to allow her an escape. Sophia Grant would always need an escape. She surprised him by leaning into his body, although she kept her arms dangling at her sides.

  “What should I do now? They obviously broke into my apartment without any great effort and without anyone seeing them.”

  “Right this minute?” He took her hands. “You’re going to call the police and let them know what happened. The Boston PD has a criminal investigation open in the case of Dr. Fazal’s murder, and you’re going to let that play out.”

  “You don’t think the cops will ever find his killers, do you?”

  “No, but given who the victim was in this case, the FBI will be moving in shortly, anyway.”

  She broke away from him and swept her arm across the bed. “And what do I tell the cops? I noticed a wrinkle on my bedspread? You believed me because you know who we’re dealing with. They’ll just think I’m crazy—been there, done that with the cops.”

  “Your coworker and friend was just murdered today and you found the body. I think the officers will be understanding.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know the cops
like I do. And you won’t be here to back me up, will you?”

  “No, I can’t be here, but you need to report this and get it on record—whether they believe you or not.”

  She backed away from him and fell across the bed, flapping her arms like she was making a snow angel. “This’ll make it a little more believable.”

  “You could’ve just contaminated some evidence.” He eyed the rumpled covers.

  She peered at him through the strands of hair that had fallen across her face when she’d collapsed on the bed. “C’mon, Foley. You and I both know the guys who broke into my place didn’t leave any evidence behind—just the smell of some cheap cologne.”

  His nostrils flared. Did the aftershave he used smell like cheap cologne? Good thing he hadn’t shaved this morning.

  “Then call the cops and I’ll take a walk around the neighborhood. They’re going to ask you if anything’s missing. Is there? Computer?”

  “I take my laptop with me to work, and it’s still in the trunk of my car.”

  “Not a great idea to leave it there.” He snapped his fingers. “Why don’t you give me your keys so I can go down and get it? You can call the cops in the meantime, and while they’re here I’ll take a look at your computer—if that’s okay.”

  Hoisting herself up to her elbows, she asked, “Look at my computer? What for?”

  “To see if I can find out what Fazal’s killers might be looking for. Maybe you do have something from Hamid and you just don’t know it.”

  “I really don’t want anyone going through my computer files.”

  “I understand.” He held up his hands. Not that he didn’t already know a lot about her life.

  She studied his face as if reading him. Then she bounced up from the bed. “Okay. You can look through my computer, but stick to my emails and a folder on my desktop called Work. Anything Dr. Fazal sent me went into that folder.”

  “Got it.” He followed her into the living room, where she swept her key chain from the table by the front door.

  She dangled it in front of him. “I’m going to call the police right now. You don’t have to come back up here.”

  “They might ask to see your keys.” He tossed the key chain in the air. “Call them now, report the break-in and make it known you found Dr. Fazal’s body today. They’ll come out for that. I’ll return your keys and hang around until the cops get here, so you don’t have to be afraid.”