by T. J. Kline
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She squeezed his hand. “It happens.”
“You’re disappointed.”
“I’m not,” she lied, not wanting him to feel guilty for doing his job. She hoped Leo would do the same from him when their roles reversed.
He paused at the door, his eyes gleaming with mischief. Leaning down to her ear, his lips plucked at her lobe, sending a delicious shiver down her spine. She wasn’t a woman easily aroused but Leo could take her from 0 to 60 in a breath.
“Liar.”
“You can't know for sure.” She fought to catch her breath.
“You have a tell. Right here.” He pressed a kiss to the column of her throat, his tongue tracing where her pulse raced. His tongue caressed the spot, the rasp of his whiskers abrading her skin, and her limbs turned to lava.
She pulled back and smiled up at him. “I do not.”
She was an FBI agent. While he’d been pounding the pavement as a beat cop, she’d trained to work under deep cover and never had it blown, not once in the last four years. If anyone could hide a tell, she could.
He shrugged a shoulder. “Guess I’m good at my job.”
“Or you know me,” she argued. He returned her grin when his cell phone rang chirped with a notification. He rolled his eyes as he tugged it from his pocket.
Toni saw the desire in his eyes doused as he grew intent on the message.
“Anything I can help with?” The ability to assist one another, even if it was only as a sounding board, was one benefit of them both being in law enforcement.
“Another missing girl.” Leo shook his head as he ran a hand through his short hair, making it stand up in short spikes. “The third one this month.”
She ran a hand over his head, brushing his hair back down. “Want me to call in some favors? See what I can find out from our end?” she offered.
He seemed to consider her proposition. Leo narrowed his eyes, scratching his jaw, reluctant to answer. “Not yet. I'm not sure if this one is related to the other two.”
There was more to it than that. She could hear it in his voice. “But?”
Leo let out a sigh before he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “I may have you check on a hunch in a few days. They could be runaways who don’t want to be found.”
Toni narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. Look, I’ve got to go.” He took a step back, glancing at his watch, before stepping around her and reaching for the door handle.
“Leo, is this a new case?”
He paused with his hand on the door and bowed his head. It was all the answer she needed. It also confirmed her reasoning to take the trafficking case. If he would continue doing his job, so could she.
“I was offered a new case. I’m going to take it.”
He turned back toward her. “Undercover?” She nodded. “You're joking, right? We’ve talked about this. We decided that—”
“Really?” She couldn’t hold back the acerbic laugh. “You can take a new case but I can’t?”
“This may be related to my other cases and my cases don’t put my life in jeopardy.” He couldn’t look her in the eye when he said it.
“I’m not the only one with a tell,” she pointed out.
“Toni,” he began, his voice holding a warning note, sounding more like a teacher with a wayward student. He cleared his throat and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You want to have this discussion, now? When I have to leave?”
“There’s no discussion. I'm being honest with you.”
“And I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want you going undercover anymore. You promised your mom and sister.” He reached for her hand but she pulled away before he could grasp it. “You promised me.”
“We promised each other,” she reminded him. “Both of us. But is that what you want? A desk job? We agreed long before we knew what was ahead in our careers. This is who we are, Leo. Neither of us would be happy behind a desk, in an office, away from the action.”
Leo closed his eyes, inhaling before letting out the breath and rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. He looked like he wanted to argue but then his shoulders sagged.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “But I can’t stand by and watch the woman I love get herself killed. I love you too much for that, Toni.” His gaze lingered on her face, as if he were trying to take in every line, every expression. “I just can't.”
“What does that mean?”
Leo opened the front door and looked back at her. “It means I’m ready, Toni, and you’re not. I love my job and I do love being in the middle of the action, but I’d ask for a transfer for us, because I love you more than my job. I can’t fault you for not wanting to.” His thumb brushed over her chin, caressing her jaw. “You said I know you. I do. You love the risk, the danger, the satisfaction of the win.”
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes but she blinked them away. “You took another case too.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled before opening them again. “We both know mine isn’t dangerous. It’s a missing persons case. Every time you go undercover, I worry it might be the last time I kiss you. The last time I hear your voice.”
“Leo,” she protested.
He lowered his mouth to hers, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth. “You need to take time to decide which you want more, Toni. Me or this part of your career.”
“Don’t make me choose,” she whispered. “Let me finish this one last case.”
She felt his sad smile against her lips. “There will always be one last case, Toni.”
She watched him walk out the door, left wondering if she’d just let the only man she’d ever loved walk out of her life. Neither of them was ready to bend. Maybe they never had been.
Leo ducked his head and entered the police station amid a flurry of activity. News stations camped outside, waiting for the press conference and clamoring for a soundbite from each official looking person who passed them, involved in the case or not. They were still there from the yet unsolved missing girl case from last week.
Most of them kept someone with their ear on the police scanner around the clock but, shit, this circus was too much. How were they supposed to get any work done?
He passed an office midway down the hall where a middle-aged couple talked to his C.O. The woman sobbed while a man rubbed his hand over her back. The missing girl's parents. He continued down the hall, to the break room, between the two missing girls he'd been searching for the past two weeks, now this one and the bomb Toni dropped on him as he left her house, he needed a second to get his head on straight. Leo closed his eyes and rubbed the tense muscles at the back of his neck.
Undercover. Again?
They'd been on this Merry-Go-Round ever since they began dating. They met while Toni was working undercover as a prostitute to bust a mid-level ring using hookers to mule X over the border. When he tried to cuff her, she'd almost ended up dropping him to the ground. He hadn't believed her when she told him who she was; she was that convincing as a hooker, but her story checked out and the rest was history.
It wasn't a question of whether or not he loved her. He had from that first moment. How could he not? She was fire and ice rolled into one extraordinary woman who could make his blood boil with desire and annoyance simultaneously. Although she didn’t let people see it often, he’d seen the tenderness in her - in the way she consoled a victim’s family, in the tears he’d seen her shed in secret over her father's recent heart attack and the way she sacrificed for her family since. Toni was a lioness. The fiercest, most vibrant woman he’d ever known and those same qualities would kill her.
“Yo! Castellano, you on this missing girl?”
He glanced up as Delgado, one of the other detectives poured a second cup of coffee and passed it to him. Leo thanked him and reached for the sugar.
“Looks that way. Didn’t expect that circus outside though.”
; “Man, you get all the good ones.” Leo arched a brow and Delgado gave an embarrassed chuckle, rolling his eyes. “You know what I mean.” He stirred his coffee and took a quick sip. “They're out there because someone tipped them off that this case is connected to the other two girls.”
“Are we sure?”
He shrugged. “Appears that way. Same M.O. Hell, the girls could pass for sisters.”
Leo sipped his coffee as he thought about what he’d discovered about the other two girls, and it wasn't much. Fifteen, blond, both picked up outside their part-time jobs by a man in a white truck. Until the last month neither had trouble at school and maintained good grades. Then they both fell apart. Fights, arguing with teachers, both talked about running away although neither had a good reason.
“What the hell is going on? Same school?”
“Nope, this one was from across town. But her best friend mentioned that she has a boyfriend who drives a white Ford that matches the description.”
Leo dumped the crappy coffee in the sink. “Is he here?”
“Nah, but a couple uniforms just left to pick him up. I gotta head out but the Captain wants to see you.” Delgado clapped him on the shoulder as he moved past.
“Stay safe out there tonight,” he called after the other officer.
“You know it.”
If this turned out to be the guy they were looking for, they might be looking for bodies instead. If not, they were at another dead end. They dealt with a lot of runaways in Vegas, both coming and going, and he'd never seen so many disappear without leaving a trace the way these three had. Leo rapped his knuckle against the doorframe of the Captain’s door.
“You wanted to see me.” He closed it behind him as he entered.
He met Captain James when he started with the Las Vegas Metro PD eight years ago. She’d been a detective when he’d first joined the force but she'd been right there to show him the ropes. In fact, James was the one who encouraged him to switch into her division. The other detectives appreciated her candor and attention to detail in a place like Vegas where anything could, and did, happen.
“Have a seat, Leo.” She finished writing in the file she was working on and closed it, shoving it to one side before folding her hands on her desk, her chin tipping down and her lips pursing. “We’re bringing in the boyfriend of the latest girl to go missing.”
“I heard.”
“I want you to take point on the interrogation.”
“Me?” His brows shot up. “I just got here and haven’t seen the file yet. Those were her parents in the other room?”
James dug through the stack of files at her elbow and tossed one across her desk at him. “Here you go. You have about thirty minutes to become as familiar with it as you can.”
He flipped through the file, skimming the contents and reports. There didn’t seem to be anything here out of the ordinary. In fact, it was almost identical to the last case. “What do I need to know that isn’t in here?”
“Off the record?” She steepled her fingers, pressing them against her lips as if she were debating whether to say anything else. “I don’t think this is a runaway. I think all three cases, and the three missing girls from summer, are related.”
“How?”
“I thought you might be the best one to provide that information.”
It was unlike her to be so cryptic. He studied the file, scanning the statement from the missing girl’s best friend, not the most reliable source but better than nothing. “She was meeting with a boyfriend?”
“His car matches the description of the truck the other girls were last seen in.” She eyed him. “Is your girlfriend still with the FBI?” Leo clenched his jaw, realizing at what James had been hinting at. As if reading his thoughts, she went on, “I mean, she might have access to—”
“She doesn’t.”
He refused to use his relationship with Toni to help him solve a case. If he still had a relationship. Besides, they didn’t bring the FBI in unless it was absolutely necessary. This wasn’t a Federal case. At least, not unless they found out the girls had crossed state lines. Until they did, it was still Las Vegas jurisdiction and his case.
“Why are you asking me to do this now? There's nothing to indicate that—”
“I have every news crew in the county outside my station right now expecting answers and we have nothing. Do you want to be the one to walk out there and tell them that?” Her voice rose with each word, her desperation palatable. “There are six girls missing. Do you realize what that does to a community like ours? Vegas earns enough bad press.”
“I understand, but—”
“But nothing,” she barked. James blinked, taken aback by his brusque response. “This isn’t simply a case of missing girls, Leo. I don’t know what it is. It could be any number of things from drugs to prostitution…the FBI has resources we don’t. If we bring them in on this—”
“At least let me talk to this guy first, to see what I can find out before you call the Feds.”
James rubbed a hand over her eyes. “We’ve gone this route already and come up with nothing.”
“Then why did you call me in on this? To make it easy to get in touch with Toni? At least give me the opportunity to—”
She sighed and held up a hand, leaning back in her chair. The springs creaked in protest and Leo felt the muscles in his neck tensing. It would be nice if she let him finish a full sentence before interrupting him.
“Fine, but if you don’t find out something tonight, I’m not waiting for another missing girl before I call in the reinforcements.”
With the news crews breathing down her neck for answers, parents in Vegas afraid their child might be next to disappear and nothing concrete to go on, Leo understood her order loud and clear: Do your job or we’ll find someone who will.
3
Toni sat, curled up on the cushy leather sofa in her father’s library, sipping a cup of mint tea as the fire crackled nearby. She’d always loved it in here, had always picked this room to do her homework, while her father sat in the corner, reading or going over his cases. The spicy musk of the cologne he’d worn lingered in the air as much a part of the room as the wood paneling and hardwood floors. It was a relaxing environment and, any other time, she might have enjoyed it. But tonight, she couldn’t help but think about her argument with Leo as she tried to study the file detailing her new identity.
She had to push aside the emotions roiling in her, tying her stomach in knots, and concentrate. It was imperative she focused on her role and immerse herself into the performance fully. Pretending wouldn't be enough; she had to become the woman on the pages in front of her to be convincing.
Casey Miles. Twenty-one-year-old college student at ULV, Poly-Sci major, ambitions of becoming a senator. Former model and pageant participant. Clerk for Judge Blades.
Toni choked on her tea. How was she supposed to pull off looking twenty-one? She might not look every one of her twenty-seven years but she doubted that, with the stress of her job, she looked six years younger. And a model? She didn’t sport the waifish appearance that seemed to be so “in” for fashion models. Her limbs were too toned from hours spent either in the gym or from sparring. Regardless, she’d figure out some bullshit reason if anyone asked about it.
At least they'd added that she worked for her late father. It gave her an excuse to keep driving her own Mercedes. She really didn’t want to give up the car her father had given her for one of the Bureau's crappy unmarked cars.
“You okay?” Rose’s soft voice carried across the massive room. The fire hissed before popping loudly in the fireplace and Toni considered pretending she hadn't heard her sister’s question.
“That didn’t sound like a pleasant goodbye.”
Toni closed the file and set the folder aside. “Nope.”
Her sister eyed the file on the desk, her brow furrowed marring her perfect features. “New case?”
Toni hesitated, knowing how her sister felt
about her promise to step down, before choosing her words. “If I take it.”
“Is that what happened? You told Leo you were taking the case?” Toni arched a questioning brow and Rose pursed her lips, rolling her eyes at her twin. “We both realize you'll take it.”
Toni didn’t argue. Her sister knew her well. “That was part of it.”
Looking back, there were at least twenty ways she might have told Leo about the case without starting an argument. But he’d pissed her off with his alpha male, me-Tarzan-you-Jane double standard. She hated when he used that superior attitude with her like he was more competent at his job than she was. He’d only been at his position a few years longer than she had and she’d been going undercover since before they’d started dating. He'd met her on the job so understood what she did and what her job entailed. How could he suggest she stop now?
“I’m assuming you didn't ease him into the news?” Toni chewed at the corner of her mouth. Rose rolled her eyes as she came closer, dropping on the cushion next to her. “At least tell me you didn't just blurt it out.”
A self-deprecating chuckle bubbled out at her sister’s suspicion. “Am I that predictable?”
Rose shrugged a shoulder. “For me, you are.” She picked up the folder from the couch and dropped it on the marble coffee table. “What is it this time?”
Toni rubbed her fingers over her fatigued eyes, debating crossing the room to pour herself some of her father’s favorite scotch still nestled on the bar. No one had touched the liquor since his funeral last month and his favorite self-medication technique tempted her, offering to silence the doubts clamoring in her head. She had a tendency to over-think things and, between her trafficking case, trying to convince her mother they needed to downsize from this massive house now that her father was gone, and her argument with Leo, her mind was reeling.
“He’s good for you, you know. He gets you.” Rose’s comment broke through the whirlwind of thoughts clamoring for priority in Toni’s mind.
“Leo's great, but he’s not perfect,” Toni pointed out.