Sounds to Die By: Sensory Ops, Book 1

by Nikki Duncan

  “If they have cops on the payroll and know that no one is on to them why would they need to move them?” She huffed out a frustrated breath. “I have to bring my team in on what we’ve learned. I’m thinking that since they came after me they at least suspect that they’re being investigated.”

  “Logical.”

  “I have to tell them about your father and the possible link between the cases.”

  “Goes without saying.” He considered the situation. “Will you advise them of the possibility that he’s still undercover?”

  “I can do that, but I can’t guarantee how things will go down.”

  “Understood.” Ian stood and pointed toward the phone. “Call your team. I need to…feed Maximum.”

  They would likely argue that she was rushing the case, but Ian understood her need to act fast, and he wouldn’t let her confront anyone without backup. He forced himself to walk calmly from the room to give her privacy. His gut told him that whatever happened with the case, regardless of how soon it took her team to move in, today would be his last with Kieralyn.

  She’d stopped being the woman who fell apart at his touch. The woman who undermined his control with her sexy moans and the wiggle of her hips had vanished when she walked into his lab that morning. The untouchable FBI agent, determined to save her friend and prove herself to her team, sat in her place.

  He turned the corner into his apartment and leaned back, resting his head against the wall. He closed his eyes and listened to the steady rhythm of her heart. He ached for the loss of the sensual lover he’d discovered, the spunky woman willing to spar with him. Kieralyn was the first woman to make him see the lighter side of life, to make him remember the pleasure of a simple laugh. She was also a woman who couldn’t be his.

  “Damn it.” Kieralyn slammed her hand against the desk, wishing she had something she could plant her fist into. “I’m surrounded by closed-minded bastards.”

  “Present company excluded?”

  She spun around to find Ian leaning against the door with his head tilted. Maximum sat at his side with his head tilted the same as Ian’s. It might have been comical if she hadn’t just slammed into the brick wall of the men on her team. “They won’t move in until we know Isaacs has the women, and where.”

  “They’re right.”

  “Bullshit!” She jumped from her chair and paced the floor. “What is it with men? Why can’t anyone take what I have to say as valuable information?”

  “Um—”

  “I didn’t get to mention your father. They didn’t give me the chance. What is it about me that makes people not see me?” It had always been the same thing. Ever since she’d been abandoned as a young child, left with nothing more than a bag of clothes and a paper with her name and birth date, she’d never managed to stop being a charity case for more than short bursts of time.

  Lana had been the one person who hadn’t looked down on her or belittled her. Even though she hadn’t gotten into that college group, Lana had taken her reports seriously and covered the story. How could she not do everything possible to save the first real friend she’d had? She couldn’t let a group of arrogant men keep her from answers. Keep her from helping the only person who’d valued her.

  “You don’t let them.” The rough timbre of Ian’s whisper scraped her nerves.

  “Excuse me?” It was her fault that people treated her the way they did? Did that make it her fault that her team didn’t put any stock in her investigative skills?

  “You don’t let people see you.” He pushed off the wall and walked to the desk where she’d been working. Reclining against it, he crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Whatever has happened to you, whoever turned away from you, you’ve given them the power to control your life.”

  “I control my own life.” He couldn’t know what had happened to her.

  “You hold yourself distant behind a protective shield. You say you want to be accepted, but how often do you let people know the real you?”

  “As if you know the real me.” Ugliness swelled in her gut. “We only met two mornings ago.”

  “And I’ve witnessed your protective streak even as you resent expressing it.” His tongue swept across his plump, kissable lips. “I’ve felt you melt beneath the influence of genuine affection. You want to be liked, even loved. You crave acceptance and friendship. You just don’t trust yourself to be able to give the emotions back. You think they’ll make you soft.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “Keep telling yourself that while you continue blaming the men you work with for your professional difficulties. Hell, Kieralyn, if you treat them like you have me since you walked in that door the first time, you make it an uphill battle littered with lethal landmines to find anything likeable about you.”

  “You seem to like me well enough in bed.”

  “For some perverse reason, there’s nothing about your smartass bitchiness that I don’t like.” He rushed her and pinned her against the desk. “Hell, maybe it’s because I don’t have to deal with you daily. Maybe it’s because you keep things entertaining. Or maybe it’s because I find immense pleasure in witnessing your loss of control at my touch and the way you quiver when I kiss you.”

  She braced her hands on his chest and shoved him back. Her hands shook as she walked to the control panel he’d commanded. Hoping to drown him out, not that she could nudge his words from her mind, she cranked up the volume on the listening devices they’d planted on Sanders and Danielson.

  “Sanders, get the van and prep it. Danielson, get the women ready to move out.” Isaacs ordered the men as brusquely as a drill sergeant. No one would dare cross him.

  Ian snapped to attention and joined her. Tension vibrated off him. They were running out of time.

  “Yes, sir. When do we move them?”

  “El Dogo will be here within the hour.” Something clinked noisily as Isaacs spoke.

  Shit. She had to get her team together, which would no doubt lead to another argument.

  “We haven’t discovered the identity of the woman who was asking questions. We can’t afford to take chances that she’s with the cops.”

  “You have cops in your pocket. Can’t they find out?”

  “If only I’d thought of that.” Disdain dripped from Isaacs’ voice. “Since you fumbled the task and failed to get anything helpful like her plate number while you followed her, I’ve got nothing to go on. I can’t ignore the possibility that the reporter got a message to someone.”

  “Right.”

  They didn’t know she was a fed or that they were being listened to. Some luck was on her side. She could use more. Like a verification of where they were and the right approach to get her team to back her up.

  “What if the woman pops back up?”

  “Then she’ll join the others on their trip.”

  “The guy she was with?”

  “He’ll never see the bullet coming.”

  “They’re on guard.” Ian’s fingers drummed his leg. “That can work for or against us.”

  Me. Not us. Her suspects didn’t know who she was. They likely didn’t know Ian was blind, but they were right about his chances against a bullet. Adrenaline kicked through her. As good as Ian was with hand-to-hand, she had to keep him away from the danger. She had to get away from him.

  Ian snapped his fingers. Maximum, who sat facing them, rushed to the main door and sat in front of it. “Grab what you need. We’re moving out.”

  She glanced around looking for a way to leave him behind. Problem was… “Do you know where they are?”

  “Yes.” He stepped around her, opened a drawer, and pulled out a handheld pocket PC sort of device. “We’ll call your team on the way.”

  “Where are we going? The club?”

  He angled a smile her way and shook his head. “If I tell you now, you’re only going to try to find a way to leave me behind.”

  “So?” She grabbed her phone and bag. “You heard the
m, Ian. They will kill you if they see you.”

  “And you will be shipped off to wherever with the other women. You want to find Lana, but I don’t think you’re willing to pay the price of being some man’s slave.”

  “I’m doing my job!”

  “You’re being impulsive! I’m not letting you go in without knowing that backup is with you.” He slipped the device into his pocket and faced her. “Besides, how are you going to know if they change their plans? How are you going to know what’s going on inside of wherever they are, so that you know the right time to move in?”

  She tapped her foot. She could jump him. If she moved fast enough she might be able to surprise him enough to knock him unconscious and get the device he’d slipped into his pocket—likely a portable listening device. Then she recalled how he’d fought those men. And he’d helped her. The least she could do was make sure he stayed safe.

  “If you manage to knock me out, Maximum will never let you out of here.”

  “Sure, you can hear my thoughts now?”

  “No, but considering that protective streak I mentioned earlier, it’s logical that your mind would go there.”

  “Fine. If you get shot, it isn’t my fault.”

  “Fine.” He grinned and turned his back on her to walk to the door. “Get your ass moving.”

  Her lips quirked into a smile. Arrogant prick acted as if he had a right to order her around. As if they were more to each other than two agents from different agencies working on a case. She wanted to be angry that he’d thwarted her intentions of going in alone. She wanted to knock him out and deal with things herself. To walk away from him and all the mixed up emotions he had churning around inside of her. “Do you have anything we could use to talk to each other?”

  “Because you’ve decided that having me in the car to be your ears isn’t a bad plan?”

  Admitting he was right, that she needed his help, irritated her. She absolutely couldn’t reconcile her desire to keep him close as long as possible. “Pretty much.”

  “In the drawer below the one I was just in, there’s a black case.”

  She opened the drawer and found three cases. Black, white, and gray. “Why are they different colors? I would’ve thought you’d describe it to me based on the location.”

  “It’s easier to tell a sighted person to get the black box than the middle box on the right side of the second drawer in the third bank of drawers.”

  “Both ways work.” Grinning, she grabbed the box and closed the drawer.

  “My way uses fewer words.” He bent down and put Maximum’s harness on him. “When you’re finished being a smartass, we can go.”

  “You enjoy it.” She joined him at the door. “Don’t pretend otherwise.”

  He leaned close and brushed a kiss just below her ear. She shivered before she could brace herself. “Do you want to talk about what we enjoy? What I enjoy?”

  “No.” She pushed him back and opened the door. Now was not the time for distractions. No time was great for the distractions Ian seemed so intent on providing. Too bad her traitorous body didn’t agree.

  Chapter Nine

  Kieralyn pulled her car under a giant tree in the parking lot across from Jazz on the Rocks and cracked the windows in hopes that the breeze would diminish the cloying heat inside of the car. It only stirred up the outdoorsy scent of Ian beside her.

  The morning sun pounded the parking lot concrete, glinted off the mirrors and windows of the other cars parked around. The club’s back door opened. “A man’s coming out. He’s heading to a cargo van.”

  “That’s Sanders.”

  “How can—”

  He tapped his ear and then his chest before smiling.

  She rolled her eyes. Sanders opened the driver’s side door and popped the hood. “What are your limitations?”

  “Obviously, I can isolate and identify sounds better when it’s quiet.”

  “Yet, you were able to pick me out of the crowded street on a Friday night.” Sanders climbed in behind the steering wheel and started the van. Kieralyn straightened in her seat and reached for her phone. “You knew the secret of the couple at the bar, and you identified Isaacs as the owner of the club despite everything that was going on.”

  “Kieralyn.” He cocked his head and smiled. “If I didn’t know better I’d almost think you were beginning to get used to me. Maybe you even like me a little.”

  Sanders turned off the van, got out and headed back inside. She relaxed back into the seat and put her phone on the dash.

  “I’d hope you aren’t a betting man, but I think we both know you are.” Damn if he hadn’t grown on her, though, with his quick wit and sense of humor. Predictability clung to him. Everything around him was structured. The way his furniture sat, the color-coded order his shoes and clothes were lined up in his closets, and that he faced his toothbrush north in his home and apartment at work were just a few examples. As regimented as he, and his life, seemed to be, she never knew what he would say or do next.

  “It depends on the odds and the stakes.”

  Like that. He indulged in spontaneity more easily than she did without losing his grasp of the possible consequences. She couldn’t get her balance, so why bother trying? Focusing on work was more her speed.

  “Speaking of odds—” She pulled her gun from her bag and sat it on her thigh. “I’m going to go improve the ones for the women inside that club.”

  Ian grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?”

  “Sanders just checked the van to make sure it was ready to go.” She took the ear piece out of the black box sitting between them. “I’m going to go disable it.”

  “How?”

  “Like you, I’m more than a pretty face.”

  He grinned as he ran a finger along the scars on his face.

  “Ian?”

  He shook his head and dropped his hand. “How?”

  Wherever his mind had gone it had pleased him, but she couldn’t think about that now. “Distributor cap, spark plug wires. They’re equally effective.”

  “So when they’re ready to move the women—”

  “They can’t.”

  “This isn’t right. You should wait.” He looked into her eyes as if he could actually see her. She narrowed her eyes and studied him. Intensity and concern shone in his gaze.

  She took out the second earpiece and placed it in his ear. “Don’t worry. You’ll be able to hear everything from the two men and me. Besides, I’m just running across the street.”

  “You need backup. You need to call your team before you move.”

  “Fine.” She picked up her cell and called Breck. After giving him the thirty-second overview of where they were and what was going on, she hung up. “Happy?”

  “You didn’t tell him what you’re planning because you knew he would tell you to wait.”

  “The women in that building are counting on me. I’m doing this.” Arrogant jackass. “Besides, Breck will have the team here in less than ten minutes. They’re just a few blocks away at the gym.”

  “It only takes one minute for you to be hurt.” He sat the mini PC on the seat. “Let me go in. I can distract them until your team shows up.”

  He was trying to take this from her. “Can you defend yourself against a bullet?”

  “No more than you.”

  “Can you disable the van?”

  He grinned. “Never saw the point in knowing how to fix a car. Let alone disable one.”

  “Well, I can.” She grabbed her gun, opened her door and darted across the street before he could argue anymore. “Keep your ears peeled.”

  “You’re a foolish woman, Kieralyn.”

  She shrugged off his grumbled chastisement in her ear.

  “Be careful.”

  Shrugging off the impression that his voice deepened with intensity and fear for her safety wasn’t easy.

  Keeping an eye on the door that Sanders had gone into, she tucked the gun in the back of her jeans a
nd hustled toward the van.

  “There’s a car approaching.”

  “I’ll be done in a jiff.” Quickly and quietly, she opened the door and popped the hood. Grateful for the first time that one of her foster dads had forced her to help him in his garage all the time, she jiggled a spark plug wire loose.

  “Shit,” Ian said into her earpiece. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Almost done.” Smiling with satisfaction, she reached up to lower the hood. “Who?”

  “Not sure. Hurry up,” Ian urged. Anxiety shook his voice.

  A hand brushed the small of her back. An instant later, her gun had been taken and the barrel was pressed against her temple. “Time’s up.”

  Shit. Another ten seconds and she’d have been headed back to the car. To Ian. She swallowed and held her hands out beside her head.

  “Shit. Kieralyn it’s—”

  “Turn around.” The man stepped back.

  “El Dogo.” She choked down the irritation that she’d been caught. The anger that she’d depended too heavily on Ian’s help that she’d been oblivious enough to her surroundings to have her weapon taken. She lifted her right heel, placing her weight on the ball of her foot. Using her left foot to control the move, she spun around and grabbed for the man’s arm.

  He stepped out of range quickly and cocked her gun. “You complicate matters, Agent Beckett. Don’t make it worse by getting shot with your own weapon.”

  Shit. Shit. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her stomach shook violently.

  Ian’s eyes, older and harder, glared down at her. Evil. Sweat broke out at the base of her spine. She struggled to keep her hands from visibly trembling. “You must be the infamous El Dogo.”

  She’d been discovered and he knew who she was. Did he know about Ian? Or that backup was on the way?

  “Agent Beckett, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He tilted his head as he regarded her, like Ian did when he listened. “You should have stayed away.”

  “You know who I am.”

  “Your reporter friend has a big mouth.” He grabbed her arm and jerked her away from the van. “I know more than you can imagine.”