by Tee O'Fallon
“Following orders,” Hentz said. “Looking for his laptop and any other computer hardware and storage devices. Did either of you see any before you came up here?”
“No.” Matt looked at Trista. She shook her head, but there was a subtle gleam in the way she was eyeing him, the same one he’d seen when she’d lied about filing her incident report. She’d found something and was keeping it to herself. Atta girl. “Do you know this guy? Says his name’s Mitchell Hentz?”
“No.” Again, she shook her head. “I’ve never seen him before, but I don’t normally interact with operatives.”
“How’d you get the shiner?” Matt asked, gesturing to the discoloration beneath the man’s left eye.
“Got coldcocked the minute I stepped into the room.” He touched a finger to his swelling eye. “When I came to, I was alone with a dead body.”
That would explain the open kitchen door. When he and Trista arrived, they’d probably interrupted the other intruder, who’d escaped into the backyard.
Matt had been prepared to cuff the guy and arrest him as a material witness, but right now all he wanted was to separate Hentz from Trista and find out what she’d swiped. That, and there was logic in not calling the police right away.
The Russians could have connections anywhere, and the last thing he wanted was for Trista’s name to come up in another police report, leaving a trail of bread crumbs for whoever was trying to kill her.
“Get out of here.” He hooked a finger at the door.
Casting one last wary glance at Sheba, who sat panting with her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, Hentz slowly got to his feet and held his hand out to Matt. Not to shake it, Matt understood. To retrieve his weapon. Reluctantly, he handed it over. “You’re lucky I let you go without turning you over to the locals.”
Pressing his lips into a firm line, Hentz made for the bedroom door with Matt following to verify he left the house. On the way down the stairs, Hentz turned. “I’ll have to tell them she was here.” Then he was gone.
Matt returned to the bedroom and rested his fingers on George’s carotid. He adjusted his fingers, still not feeling a pulse. The man was definitely deceased, but the cause of death eluded him.
Next, he hustled Trista down the stairs. “Did you touch anything down here?”
“N-no.”
Again, he detected a faint note of deception, and it wasn’t because she’d stammered her response. “You sure?” When she nodded, he hustled her out the front door, pausing to wipe the knob clean of his fingerprints with the hem of his shirt, then shutting the door behind them.
As they walked briskly to his truck, Hentz was nowhere in sight. After settling Sheba in the back, he opened the passenger door for Trista, then went around to his side and got in. Ten blocks away, he grabbed the burner phone from where Trista had dropped it in the console. He punched in 911, reported a disturbance—shouting—at Thomas George’s address, then hung up without giving his name.
“Do you really believe Hentz didn’t kill that reporter?” she asked.
He stared out the windshield for a moment, silently recounting everything Hentz had said and done. “I don’t know for sure, but my gut says he’s telling the truth.” Too bad they waited so long to check on the guy. Then he pulled over onto the side of the road and held out his hand.
She raised her brows. “What?”
He let out an impatient breath. “I know you swiped something back there. Hand it over.”
“How do you know that?” She crossed her arms, twisting on the seat to face him.
“I’m coming to know every expression on your beautiful face. I know when you’re lying, and you were definitely lying to Hentz.”
Her jaw dropped, and she looked at him with something akin to shock. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“Very.” He leaned in close, feathering his lips over hers. “You take my breath away.” And he meant it. He took her mouth in a deep, wet kiss that lasted several long, sweet minutes. Then he reached behind her and tugged out a small external hard drive with a short USB cable that she’d tucked into the small of her back. “Where was it?”
She uttered an adorable little huff that made him want to start kissing her all over again, then to lay her out on the bench seat and strip off her clothes. Christ, he was hard as a rock.
“Taped to the underside of the big desk drawer.”
“So you did touch something in the house.” Shit.
“Worrywart.” She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t leave any fingerprints behind. Even when I went outside to puke, the door was still unlatched. All I had to do was shove it open with my forearm.” Her eyes lit with excitement. “I hope you don’t mind, but I grabbed your laptop and packed it in my bag. As soon as we get to the hotel, we can see what’s on this little baby.”
He should have known she wouldn’t go anywhere without a computer. Truth was, he was happy she’d brought one. He was just as eager to discover what was on that hard drive as she was.
Matt looked in the side-view mirror, then pulled back onto the road. He had just broken so many rules of police procedure he’d lost count. But losing his job was the least of his worries. He could be charged with all kinds of shit. Tampering with a crime scene. Stealing evidence. Leaving the scene of a crime—a homicide, no less. The list went on and on.
What he ought to do was haul ass back to George’s house to wait for the police and return the evidence, but the shit going down around Trista stank to high heaven, and it was getting deeper by the second. Keeping her off-radar was paramount. He didn’t know where any of this was going, but the more time he spent with her, the more he understood one thing with unerring certainty.
For her, he’d do just about anything.
Chapter Nineteen
Trista tugged the thick robe around her silk nightie and got under the covers. The digital clock on the hotel’s bedside table read nine p.m., and she was exhausted, yet sleep wouldn’t come. Images of Thomas George’s dead body kept flashing in her mind, making her tremble with anxiety. Focus on something else. Anything else.
An hour after leaving the reporter’s house, they’d stopped at a deli for sandwiches, although she hadn’t been able to eat much. Every time she’d taken a bite, her stomach roiled. Seeing a dead guy had totally taken away her appetite.
Before pulling in to a hotel, they’d found a dog park so Sheba could stretch her legs and do her stuff. Watching the K-9 interact with civilian dogs had been amusing and a welcome distraction from the ugliness of what she’d just seen. Sheba pranced, cavorted, and chased the other dogs as if she were a small child, leaving Trista wondering if the other dogs knew they were playing with a cop.
Despite the humorous thought, she doubted she’d ever forget that blank, dead stare in the reporter’s eyes.
Giving up on sleep, Trista pulled Matt’s laptop from the overnight bag he’d lent her, then lay back against the plush bed pillows, powered it up, and inserted the USB plug for the external hard drive she’d borrowed. As the icons began appearing on the screen, the shower in the bathroom came on, and she tried not to think about the pounding spray dribbling down Matt’s bare shoulders and back, or his ripped abdomen. She swallowed, imagining where that trickling water would go as it headed south below his waist.
The TV droning on about the upcoming presidential election just over a month away was a welcome diversion from her wayward thoughts. A reporter detailed the many interviews and festivities both candidates would be attending, probably many of the events Matt’s friends were detailed to for added security.
The bed started to shake as Sheba rested her head on the edge of the mattress, wagging her tail as she stared directly into Trista’s eyes. She patted the dog’s head, then clicked open the hard drive. Still the bed shook, and she looked down to see Sheba wagging her tail more forcefully, her entire body wriggling. She could no more ignore the dog’s obvious plea than she could drive by a wholesale computer outlet store without stopping.
She patted the mattress once, and Sheba leaped effortlessly onto the bed with the grace and agility of a wolf crossed with a ballerina. After making three tight turns, the dog snuggled against her side with a satisfied hmpf.
At first, she’d been taken aback when Matt had gotten one room for both of them, insisting that it was the only way he could keep her safe. But as he’d grabbed their overnight bags and made a beeline for the shower, something warm and tingly settled deep inside her. With both Matt and Sheba on her side, she’d never felt more protected. Or cared for.
With one forearm resting on the dog’s back, she began clicking open file after file with the same irritating result. Password-protected file. Enter password.
For the next ten minutes, she struggled to find the password or a back door to get her into the files. At some point, she realized Sheba was snoring and the shower in the bathroom had been turned off. Granted, there were two queen-size beds in the room, but the idea of sleeping in the same room with Matt was…
Exciting.
But it shouldn’t be.
Trista let her head fall back onto the bed pillows. Okay, so he kissed me. More than once, and not always a chaste, proper kiss. There’d been tongue. Lots of tongue, and she’d loved it. Loved what it did to her, how it made her body go warm and tingly in places that had never been warm and tingly. But that didn’t mean he thought of her in that way. Did it?
He was there with her—in the same room—to protect her, not to make love to her. The thought of him holding her, stroking her naked body with those big hands, then entering her was both intoxicating and frightening.
The screen suddenly filled, and she bolted upright, upsetting Sheba, who jerked her head and took quick, snorting breaths.
“Sorry, girl. Easy there.” She rested a hand on Sheba’s belly until the dog calmed and lowered her head back to the mattress, seemingly satisfied there were no threats in the room.
I got in.
This file was a scanned copy of a newspaper article detailing a homicide in Ridgeway, West Virginia. William Sands, 25, was found dead in his house from a fatal stab wound. His wife, Erica Sands, and son, William Sands Jr., were missing. Mrs. Sands was wanted for questioning. The article was over forty years old.
“Interesting,” she mumbled to herself, her heart beating a little faster as she used the same password to open up the next document, a police report, also forty years old. Some of the sections were redacted, completely obscured by thick black lines, but from what she could read, Sands had been found dead in his kitchen, lying in a pool of blood. The murder weapon, a large deer-gutting knife, had also been discovered. An all-points bulletin had been issued for Mrs. Sands and her son.
The next two files she cracked into were both West Virginia FOIA—Freedom of Information Act—requests, the second one specifically requesting the redacted portions of the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department report on the Sands murder.
For the next few minutes, she tried unsuccessfully to open another file, this one labeled Article-Third Draft and dated yesterday. But the password she’d used to open the other files wasn’t working on this one.
Taking a break, she absently stroked Sheba’s belly, smiling when the dog began kicking her hind legs in a jerky motion, tangling her paws in the bed’s comforter.
“You are such a pretty girl.”
Sheba opened her jaws. Arrrr, arrrr, arrrr.
“Yes, you are,” she murmured, locking gazes with the dog’s, giving her one more belly rub.
“What the hell are you doing?” Matt shouted.
“Nothing.” Startled, she sat upright on the bed, as did Sheba. “What’s wrong?”
“Sheba, kemne!” Matt pointed to the floor at his left side, and the dog bolted from the bed and sat obediently at his left side, leaning her head against his thigh, looking totally forlorn.
Trista guessed that by the heated tone in his voice, he was berating Sheba for some doggie transgression, but she didn’t really hear the words. How could she?
Though she’d seen him wearing nothing but jockey shorts before, her mouth went dry nonetheless. Sgt. Matt Connors stood before her wearing nothing more than low-slung jeans and a short towel draped around his neck.
He. Is. Beautiful.
Broad, thick shoulders tapered down to a slim, taut waist. Beads of water ran in rivulets through the grooves separating the six or eight or ten different packs of abdominal muscles. But it was the dark V of hair arrowing down from his abs to just above the button of his jeans that had her breath catching in her throat.
“Did you hear me?” He gripped both ends of the towel, his biceps flexing.
“Huh?” She shook her head to clear it of the X-rated thoughts racing through her mind. “What are you talking about?”
“My dog does not sleep on the bed.”
Sheba looked up adoringly at Matt, who ignored her, his eyes blazing into Trista’s. It was screamingly obvious all Sheba wanted was Matt’s forgiveness, and it was breaking her heart when he didn’t give it.
“Why not, Mr. Grumpy Pants?” Rising to her knees, she planted her fists on her hips. “She was keeping me company.”
“She can just as easily keep you company if she’s on the floor. Lehni,” he said, and Sheba slunk to her belly, resting her muzzle between her front paws, still looking up at Matt with the saddest eyes she’d ever seen on a dog. Not that she’d ever been brave enough to look into a dog’s eyes before Sheba. “I don’t want her going soft. The last time I let her up on my bed, it threw her off her game for two weeks. Instead of working, all she wanted to do was lounge around and get tummy rubs all day.”
“Don’t be mad at her.” She looked regretfully at Sheba. “It’s my fault.”
“Let me guess.” He whipped the towel off his neck, exposing a set of gloriously pronounced pectorals. “She rested her head on the bed and looked up at you with those big eyes until you invited her. Trust me, I know all her tricks.”
Sheba let out a breath that sounded more like a sad little whine.
Still, Matt scowled, looking all darkly handsome. “I can’t believe you lifted my laptop. You’re turning out to be quite the talented little thief. If this analyst thing doesn’t work out for you, you might have a future as an operative.”
“Hardly.” She rolled her eyes, finally able to think straight. Although that tingling in her belly had her craving his lips on hers again. “Me without a laptop is like you without your gun, or Sheba. It would be like a part of you was missing. Wouldn’t it?”
That got her a reluctant but agreeable grunt.
“Come see what I found.” She opened several windows to show Matt the files she’d cracked into. “I’ve been trying to understand why George was so fascinated with a murder committed forty years ago in West Virginia. He even FOIA’d the police report, but parts of it were redacted.”
When he sat on the edge of the mattress to get a better look at the screen, his arm and shoulder touched hers, and she regretted the thickness of the robe.
While Matt read the police report and the old news article, she inhaled the smell of soap, shampoo, and the musk of a half-naked man. A bead of water from his still-wet hair trickled down his neck, meandering in a fascinating line between his pectorals.
“I’ll call the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Department tomorrow. It’s only a slight detour from our route home. I’ll ask for the entire report. Maybe there’s something interesting in the redacted portions.”
“Will they really show you the whole report?” she asked. “If George had to FOIA it, won’t we have to do the same?”
“I’ll flash my badge and stroke the sheriff’s ego. When feds and locals collide, that tact usually works best.” His brows drew together in another scowl, but this one she’d come to decipher was his deep-in-thought scowl. “The question is, why would digging into a forty-year-old murder get the reporter killed?”
“We don’t really know that’s what happened,” she said. “The chat room wordi
ng was that George knew something that would ruin everything if it came out.”
“Can you open this one?” He pointed the cursor at the draft news article dated yesterday.
She frowned. “Not yet.” Darn, she was better than that. By this point, she should have had it open, and a few others, too.
“You’ll get it. I have complete faith in your clandestine file-cracking skills.” He winked at her, and her belly fluttered.
Their attention was drawn to the TV, on which a color map of the Arctic Circle was displayed while an anchor for a political news show, Bob Foster, talked in the background. Small boxes on the upper part of the screen indicated Foster was posing his questions to both presidential candidates, Governor Thomas Hughes and Senator Michael Ashburn.
“Senator, Governor.” Foster glanced at notes on his desk. “Both of you have previously vowed that, should you be elected president, you would dedicate U.S. funds to support Canada in rebuilding its military presence to counter any possible Russian incursion into the Arctic region.” Both candidates nodded in unison. “But Senator Ashburn, last week you backed away from that promise. The Associated Press quoted you as saying, ‘I plan to review the matter carefully and thoroughly before committing taxpayer dollars.’ Senator, this is somewhat in opposition to your original commitment to support the Canadians in this effort. Why the change of heart?”
“Well, Bob, since I made that statement over a month ago, additional information has come to light that I was not previously aware of. I owe it to the American people to fully consider both sides of any international controversy that involves American troops and a significant amount of taxpayer money.” Senator Ashburn smiled charmingly into the camera, playing on what Trista believed would probably win him a lot of female votes: his genuine smile.
“Recently,” the senator continued, “the Russian Department of Geography and the Environment met with Canadian officials in Iqaluit and presented compelling evidence to suggest that the Arctic Ocean’s resource-rich Lomonosov Ridge is part of the Asian continental shelf, which would give Russia primary control over most of the Arctic seafloor. Canada, however, still supports the theory that this ridge is an extension of the North American continental shelf, which would, instead, give Canada priority access to those resources. All I’m saying now is that before making a decision, I want to be as fully informed as possible.”