by Angi Morgan
This was all her fault. She couldn’t stop encouraging him. She slipped her shoes back on her feet, admitting two things. No matter how expensive the shoes were, they could never be worn in public again. And she didn’t want to stop whatever attraction she had for this man.
“I really shouldn’t have involved you in this.”
“Better than paperwork.” He shrugged. “No need to beat a dead horse, Therese. I’m here. I’m involved. Let’s deal with it and get out of here.”
They’d both been talking in a loud whisper, but noises from the trees had them shutting their mouths and running—even in heels along the train tracks. Hitting the old wood slats was much faster than trudging through the washed-out gravel, and they could avoid the risk of stepping in a hole and turning an ankle.
“We’re almost at Westmoreland Road,” she told him over her shoulder.
“Your friends are catching up. Will they shoot?” Wade’s question was answered with a couple of rounds from a handgun.
“Head for the far trees,” Wade yelled.
To hell with the shoes. She kicked them off, leaving them as they ran full out for the trees to their right. She couldn’t be bothered with how much the gravel hurt her feet. If she stopped, Rushdan’s men would capture her. She might survive to be taken back to the slimy pig, but Wade probably wouldn’t. He’d die before he let those men take her.
That was the kind of guy he was. Honorable. Trustworthy.
“Stop whatever you’re thinking and head down the tracks. We’ll never make those trees,” he said. “I’ve got this.”
“How?”
“I came prepared. Just run to the right once you hit the street.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket.
More shots.
The industrial area allowed them only one direction left to run. They were boxed in by the grove of trees behind and on either side businesses with eight-foot fences and razor wire on top.
Rushdan’s men were too close behind them. The only direction left was the open area along the railroad tracks until they crossed Westmoreland Street. Then where?
She hit the sidewalk and turned right as Wade instructed. He stopped at the fence pole—as if that would stop a bullet—and fiddled with his phone.
“Keep moving to the intersection!” he told her.
The men following shot again. “Come on.” She tugged on his elbow.
“Get going. I’m right behind you.” He waved his hand holding the cell and leaned around the poll.
She was out of breath and her feet were hurting enough to make her scream, but she ran the long block to the intersection. Still half a block behind her, Wade waved her forward.
“Go on! Cross!”
The light was in her favor, so she ran...again. And kept running to the brick wall of the small convenience store. Wade received honks from the cars he darted in front of. Rushdan’s men didn’t follow him.
“Where to now?” She gulped air into her lungs. “Were you calling for backup or 911? Do you think anyone else did?”
“Our ride’s here.” He waved his phone at a sedan pulling into a parking space.
“This is a bad idea. We can’t involve a ride-for-hire driver.”
“It’s only a short distance. Or would you rather run? Your friends are probably getting into their cars now.”
“This is really dangerous.”
He blocked her from view and tilted her face to look at him. “Do we blow your cover?” he asked in a whisper.
“Over three years of undercover work...” She hesitated.
“I don’t think anyone has seen us, but we’ve got to go. Now.” He drew her to him and gave her lips a quick kiss as if they’d known each other for years.
“Take the car and get as far away from me as possible. Leave town. Go on vacation. Let me talk my way out of this with Rushdan.”
“Isn’t he the one who sent these guys to take you out? You gotta let me help with this, Therese.” He laced his fingers through hers and opened the car door, helping her inside.
“Evenin’,” the driver said. “You going to the Westin at the Galleria mall?”
“That’s right,” Wade answered.
“Wait a minute. Isn’t that a hotel?” She remembered his promise. And by the twinkle in his eye, so did he.
“Funny you should mention that.” Wade winked.
“They’re going to find out where we’ve gone,” she told him.
“I’m counting on it. But to give us a little time...” He tapped the front seat to get the driver’s attention, then showed him his credentials. “This is going to sound weird. I need you to take the long way through downtown.”
“Whatever you want, but it’ll cost more.”
“If someone asks where you dropped us, just tell them. There’s no reason to be a hero. Okay?”
“You got it. But how long of a ride are you talking?”
Wade tugged her securely into his arms and tilted her lips to his. “As long as it takes.”
“Sure, man. Anything for law enforcement.”
“This is insane,” she whispered against his lips. “Are you seriously going to neck with me in the back seat of a rideshare car while Rushdan’s men try to find us?”
“As soon as I use the credit card in my wallet, they’ll know where we are. Besides...when’s the last time you had some fun in the back seat?” He pulled her onto his lap and devoured her mouth until she gently pushed against his chest.
“You know we’ll most likely be dead tomorrow. Since this is the last bit of pleasure either of us will ever enjoy...I’m in.”
Chapter Five
“This won’t work,” Jack MacKinnon yelled through the phone.
“Sure it will. You’re mainly angry because you’ll have to work all night to make it happen. Give me some bad debt, add a couple of reprimands to my file—Okay, a couple more reprimands. It’ll give me a reason to need money. I’ve got the setup from last year when that stuff with Megan went down.”
“I think they hit you one too many times on your head. That stuff is when they tried to kill you. Remember how these same people were going to drop a building on top of you as your tomb?”
He rubbed his ribs. “It’s hard to forget.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“I keep telling him that,” Therese said from beside him.
“You’re on speaker. She insisted on listening in,” he told his partner. “I’ve got a hunch that you’re giving in, Jack. You know it’s a good idea. It’s logical and if you get the finances falsified, Rushdan Reval will be completely suckered in.”
“Your hunches have been close to getting us both killed, pal.”
“You’ll do it?”
“You two can’t be serious. You’re both crazy.” Therese walked away from the phone, throwing up her hands and heading to the bath. “You are crazy, Wade. Major Clements will never go for this,” Jack said.
“He will if you plead the case. What can I do? She’s the woman who saved your girlfriend and me. Remember? Don’t you think you owe her?”
A long, indecisive sigh from his partner filled the dead air. “You know that favor you owe me, Wade?”
“What favor?” Yeah, he knew full well what Jack meant.
“Remember when you asked me to pick a woman up from the airport. No big deal, you said. Keep her out of trouble, you said. Out of sight until I hear from you again. No big deal.”
Wade took him off speaker. He knew exactly what Jack was recounting. Therese did, too, since she was the person who’d asked him to protect her friend.
Out of the blue, Therese had asked for a strange favor. After all was said and done, the Company B Rangers had discovered that Megan Harper’s life had been in danger. Jack had saved her. Sure that Therese had been in trouble, Wade had searched for her, gotten c
aught and been beaten within an inch of his life.
“Look how good that turned out for you, Jack. You met your future wife.”
Wade’s occasional banter and favors for Therese had become an obsession to find her. But she’d really disappeared.
“Ha. I think it’s time for me to redeem a favor from you.”
“Yeah, I remember owing you a favor. But I thought you’d ask me to pay for the limo at your wedding or something.” He had to dig deep in order to convince Jack to help. Time to make the big man feel indebted. “Okay, I sort of promised I’d never mention this again. But Therese is the one who saved you from MS-13 when your dad blew your cover.”
“How? I thought you said... Dammit, Wade. You never mentioned where that helicopter came from. Therese was the one who arranged it?”
“I didn’t ask who it belonged to. She didn’t say. I just found out she has access to privileged information. That’s when I knew. Now you do, too.”
“She saved my hide and then Megan’s.” Jack sighed again. “And yours.”
Wade looked around at the closed bathroom door. “She won’t admit it, but I think she’s in trouble. Big trouble. She’s afraid to go to the FBI or any other backup she has.”
“Is she afraid of a breach?”
“Jack, why else would she have come to me?”
“Right. She trusts you. I get it. I’ll get Heath onto your finances. He’s going to love working all night. What kind of problem do you want? Gambling would be the easiest.”
Gambling. It hit a nerve he’d kept buried for a decade. He didn’t want to slip back into the familiar world. But he could to save their lives.
On their way to the hotel they’d shared a lot of kisses and a few whispers of how to convince Reval not to kill them. It was up to him—and a fake financial background—to prove he was dirty. A dirty Texas Ranger who needed quick cash and was willing to do anything for anybody. Including the man who’d ordered his death last year.
It turned his stomach, but it would work.
“Sure. Just as long as Heath can—and will—make it all go away. I’m going silent. I’m locking my stuff in the safe. Send someone to pick it up.”
“Watch your back.”
Wade turned his phone off. It was the best he could do.
“About that explanation...” He poked his head between the bathroom door and the frame.
Therese was under the streaming water, naked like she should be for a shower, her long hair flowing down her back. Her arms were raised to her face just enough for him to see the curve of her breast and lots of smooth skin.
“Sorry.” He averted his eyes to the bottom of the towel hanging on the wall rack. “I heard the water running and expected the shower curtain. Not clear doors.”
“No need to be embarrassed. I think our relationship is far beyond professional. Don’t you?” She turned the interesting parts of her body toward the back wall.
He could see the outline of her legs and her beautifully shaped derriere. Had he just thought all the interesting parts were facing the other way?
“You know that I didn’t mean that stuff about the hotel. Right? I’m fine sleeping in the chair.” He stepped backward to give her privacy and to stop acting like an ogling lecher.
“Maybe we should talk about this in a minute? You’re letting in a cold draft.” She laughed at him.
“Got it. I’ll order us some food.”
“Or you could join me,” she teased.
Against every desire he had, he managed to close the door. The first time he made love to Therese, it wouldn’t be while they waited on Reval’s men to take them to the second-rate crime boss. He ordered two steaks and the works, hoping that the woman he’d been kissing for the past hour wasn’t a vegetarian. He didn’t know a thing about her.
“Oh, man, I feel better.” She was wrapped in a towel, her wet hair slicked back, and her bare arms raised to pat the long strands dry with a second towel. “I am so starved. I had to skip lunch today.”
She looked at the dress, now with several tears on the sides. The towel slipped. He lost his concentration as she caught it, tugging the end back into place.
“What food did you order?” she asked, laughing as she sat on the edge of the bed next to him.
He jumped up. “We should probably keep some distance between us.” He pulled his dress shirt from his shoulders and handed it to her.
How did she stay cool about being naked under that towel? A little towel that would drop from her body with a gentle tug.
“Such unusual modesty as he takes his shirt off. This coming from the guy who just necked with me for the half-hour drive.” She bent her arm and hooked her long hair that was beginning to curl behind her ear.
Did she have curly hair?
“This is different,” he finally got out.
“You could have fooled me. Our rideshare driver had a lot of fun watching.”
God, he loved her laugh. She didn’t do that enough. He turned his back, shutting his eyes tight while she put his shirt on.
“Maybe you should tell me about Reval and how he fits in with Public Exposure? Yeah, I connected those dots. Last time I saw you we just took down part of that domestic terrorism group. Is Reval working for them or vice versa?”
“You’re right. We’ve had credible intel for quite a while—”
“The beginning, remember?” he interrupted. He wanted every piece of information she had. “Who’s ‘we’? And how long have you been under, working with that scumbag?”
“I’ll save the real beginning for another time. Sharing this amount of the intel will probably get me fired.”
“Hey, it won’t matter if we’re dead like you keep telling me.” He wished room service would knock on the door. He wanted a beer in his hand.
“That’s true. But since you’ve put yourself in the middle of everything, you probably should know what’s going on.” She covered her face with her hands, then crossed her fingers on both sides of her face with a very fake smile. “I sure hope you’re a good liar, Wade Hamilton.”
“I can fake it when necessary.”
“Great. If you can’t, we really don’t stand a chance.” She stood. “Turn around.”
He obliged but saw an arm extend through a blue sleeve.
“All done.” She wandered around the room examining fliers and hotel info, straightened the lamp and discovered robes in the closet. A robe she didn’t put on until room service arrived.
When the robe was safely around her body, relief washed over him along with the smell of food. His stomach growled as he signed for the feast. They settled on either side of the bed with two trays set between them.
“Back to our story,” he urged. “From the beginning.”
“I was at the police academy in San Antonio. I guess I fit the profile of someone the FBI needed. Honestly, I don’t know why they chose me over anyone else,” Therese said between bites.
“Is that where you met Jack’s girlfriend, Megan?”
“Yes. Everyone was told that I was forced to drop out after cheating or something. The Bureau used that when Rushdan—or anyone else—checked out my background.”
He knew that partly from Megan, partly because it was so prominent in any report on her that he’d initiated. “So you went to work for the FBI?”
“They wanted to discover where Rushdan’s money came from and who his contacts were.”
“Let me guess, a little drug running, real estate fraud, night clubs, prostitution and money laundering.”
“You did your homework.” She clapped softly.
“I have a tendency to obsess over people who try to kill me.” Was it too soon to say he’d actually been looking for her?
“Did your research mention that Rushdan Reval has been brokering illegal deals? I never discovered how he go
t into it. But last year, when his real estate fraud fell apart, he began contact with Public Exposure.”
“That’s how a low-level fraud group got into the domestic terrorism business?”
“When Megan and Jack stumbled on Rushdan’s real estate fraud, it stalled my involvement. At least with his Dallas group. I mainly played go-between on the phone with several of his business representatives in San Antonio.”
“That’s stating it nicely.”
“True.” She stuffed a yeast roll in her mouth, swishing it down with a cola—not the beer.
“Let me guess... Enter FBI agent Kendall Barlow and her husband Texas Ranger Heath Murray, investigating claims about Public Exposure’s fraud.”
She pointed at him. “Yes! Bonus points for the man without a shirt. They really are a good team. Almost too good, since they practically dismantled the Brantley Lourdes end of this thing.”
“Brantley Lourdes. Isn’t he the guy in charge of Public Exposure? And what do you mean almost? We retrieved the algorithm, obtained confessions and nothing happened after all the threats that Dallas citizens would die.”
“That’s the problem. Rushdan just brokered the deal for Public Exposure. He only had a copy. Someone else developed the algorithm. Sources have verified that he’s improved it and bidding for the improved version has begun. We’re no longer certain what the algorithm is capable of.”
“Son of a biscuit eater!” He picked up his roll. “Lourdes wouldn’t tell you who created it? I thought this case was wrapped up. I haven’t seen any alerts from local, state or national authorities. Why are your bosses being so secretive?”
“Do you really not know after one of the FBI’s Dallas agents was caught in the middle of this?”
“I get it. There might be another traitor around. But you trust me, right? I could have been helping discover who Reval plans to sell to.”
“I’ve already explained why working with you wasn’t possible. Besides that information isn’t what we’re after. We need to discover what it does now. In addition to capturing the geeks who designed an algorithm that can take down a city’s electrical grid.”