by Mandy Baxter
“I suppose you think you’re hot shit, Deputy. But all you’ve proved to me is that you’re willing to risk national security by running off at the mouth.”
Landon didn’t need to look at Crawford to know the man was absolutely livid. Each word he spoke was clipped with barely restrained rage. And he knew Crawford hadn’t counted on Landon being quite as connected as he was. Well, to tell the truth, it was Galen who had all the fancy-dancey political connections, but Crawford didn’t need to know that. Besides, it wasn’t as though he was going out of his way to ruin Crawford’s operation. He wasn’t that big of an asshole. First and foremost, Landon was a professional. What he’d wanted to get from the strings he’d pulled was the chance to be close to Emma. To watch out for her. She needed someone who had her best interests at heart. Instead of being a hindrance, he wanted to be an asset to the investigation.
“Pull your Hanes out of your crack and try to settle down, Crawford. I didn’t compromise your mission. I just want in.”
“You want in all right, but I doubt it has anything to do with this operation.”
The innuendo in Crawford’s words ignited Landon’s temper, and he swung his legs down from the table, turning in his chair to face the other man. He leveled his gaze on Crawford and stood slowly, his fists clenched at his sides. “You make an insinuation like that again and you’ll be picking your ass up off the floor. I don’t give a shit who you work for or what kind of weight you can swing around. Get me?”
“Get this, McCabe,” Crawford said as he opened the door and held it open in invitation. “You step a toe out of line and I’ll show you exactly what kind of weight I have. You won’t be able to land a job as a security guard at the local mall when I’m done with you.”
Landon smiled as he walked out into the hallway ahead of Crawford. He’d like to see him try.
They headed down a long corridor into a section of the emergency room reserved for trauma patients. All around them, nurses and doctors hustled from one room to the next, machines beeped and buzzed, and no one paid them a bit of attention. For all intents and purposes they were ghosts. And Landon was willing to bet the SOG had little trouble maintaining their obscurity.
At the end of the corridor, Landon noticed a couple of Crawford’s men standing guard outside of a room. He moved out ahead of the other man, shouldering his way through the door, daring either one of them to make a move to stop him. Once inside, he stopped just shy of the doorway, his gaze drinking in every last detail of the woman seated on the hospital bed before him. Her T-shirt and chest were stained with red dye. Her curls were wild and disheveled. She was obviously worked over and exhausted.
And she looked damned beautiful.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded in response and gave him a wan smile. “I have no idea what’s going on, though.”
“Well, that’s not going to be a problem because we’re about to get down to brass tacks, right, Crawford?”
The door closed quietly behind them, and Landon gave Emma a reassuring smile.
“Thanks to your stubbornness and McCabe’s . . . resourcefulness, you’ve both created a problem we’ll be forced to deal with before we can even let you out of here.”
“Which is . . . ?” Landon asked without turning to face Crawford.
Crawford walked deeper into the room and settled down on a stool next to Emma. He propped his feet up on the rungs and leveled his gaze on Landon. “The whole point of orchestrating Emma’s death was to give the appearance that you—and the Marshals Service—were off her back. How am I supposed to explain your presence to our target and his associates? I can’t exactly have you hanging around.”
Emma’s expression went from zero to abject panic in less than a second, which told Landon that Emma knew even less about what was going on than he did. “Okay, let’s back up a bit.” Landon didn’t dare take another step closer to Emma because he didn’t know if he could keep himself from reaching out to take her hand. Her apprehension was palpable, and no matter how mad he was at her for keeping her damned secrets, he doubted she deserved what Crawford was putting her through. “We need to start from the beginning before we can even think about making a decision about how to proceed.”
“We don’t have all night, and now I’ve got to deal with debriefing not only the Portland chief, but Seattle’s as well. So let’s get to it before this whole plan goes to shit.” Crawford propped his elbows on his knees and leaned in toward Emma. “In digging for information to exonerate your dad, you inadvertently landed in the middle of an arms deal, Emma. And if Cesar Molina’s employer gets his hands on the weapon he’s trying to buy, a lot of people could lose their lives.”
“Wait.” Emma’s brow furrowed as her gaze darted to Landon for a split second. “Arms deal? What are you talking about? Cesar and his boss are human traffickers, not terrorists. They’ve been smuggling women out of Mexico for the past ten years and selling them into the sex trade. They used Mike Shanahan to launder their money through Mendelson. And when the FTC brought insider-trading charges against Mendelson, they framed my dad with some bogus story about extortion to divert the feds’ attention from finding out what they were really up to. I’ve got all of the records to prove it.”
Oh, shit, Emma. A renewed sense of anger boiled in Landon’s gut at the thought of how deep this went. And by nosing around where she clearly didn’t belong, Emma had landed herself right in the middle of an international terrorism investigation.
“I was getting ready to contact the FBI when they kidnapped my dad.”
Landon rolled his head on his shoulders in an effort to banish the tension holding his neck in a vise. “They couldn’t have known you were going to the feds, Emma. What did you do that would prompt them to kidnap Javier?”
She worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked askance at Crawford. Landon tried not to let her mouth distract him, but he couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away. “About six months ago, right after my dad got sick, he told me everything. He said that when the FTC and DOJ was investigating Mendelson, a man by the name of Teyo Sousa reached out to him. Apparently they’d grown up together and Teyo figured that my dad would do him a solid for old time’s sake. A grand jury was being convened to indict Mike Shanahan and more arrests wouldn’t be far behind. Sousa couldn’t afford for Mendelson to be investigated because it would lead back to his organization and money laundering. When he refused to help him, Sousa sent Cesar to visit my dad and he told him that if he didn’t throw out the case and the indictments, they’d make his daughter suffer. So Dad did everything they asked him to do. Then, to make sure he wouldn’t talk later down the line, they framed him, had him thrown in jail, and told him that I’d never be safe unless he kept quiet.
“But I couldn’t let Dad go to the feds without information to back up his confession. So I hacked Shanahan’s private files, looked into Mendelson’s finances and followed the trail back to Sousa. I can’t prove the human trafficking, though I know without a doubt it’s going on. But I have enough to put him and Shanahan away on money laundering and conspiracy. And I thought that with what I had, and the information my dad was going to give them, that the feds would negotiate his release from prison.”
“That’s not all, though, is it, Emma?”
A dark cloud passed over her expression as she said to Crawford, “I also hijacked all of Sousa’s financial records, siphoned the money from his accounts, and buried it so deep he’d never find it. I wanted him to pay for what he did to my dad and so I took something away from him that he cared about. His money. And”—she cringed—“I might have dangled the fact in front of his face to show him what it felt like to have something important taken away from him. I got cocky. Thought I had him right where I wanted him. I gathered up everything I had on Sousa, and he took my dad before I could go to the FBI with it.”
Landon thought his eyes might bug right out of his head. Holy fucking shit. Crawford gave him a look. The only reason Emma wa
s still alive was because she had a badass arms dealer’s money. And what she’d taken as the spoils of her personal war were now being used as ransom to secure her father’s safety.
“Emma . . .” Landon didn’t know what to say. Where to begin. “You’re lucky you’re not dead right now!” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but the gravity of the situation hit him with the force of a jackhammer to the chest. No wonder Crawford was wound up. This was a disaster! “Do you realize what you’ve done? Who you’ve pissed off? Jesus Christ.” The danger she was in was not only real, it was goddamned severe. Because they were dealing with a WMD, Crawford and his people would put Emma’s safety second to making an arrest. Their only concern was intercepting a bomb. In their eyes, she was an acceptable sacrifice. A casualty of war. And Landon had no clue how he’d manage to get them out of this mess in one piece.
Not when Emma was already in too deep.
“So with the Marshals Service bringing heat down on Emma, your guy on the inside suggested to Sousa’s number two that he could find a way to fake her death, am I right?”
Crawford nodded. “More or less. My undercover man was on the other end of that sniper rifle tonight. We were hoping to get to Emma before you did, but it didn’t work out that way. We certainly hadn’t intended to let you think someone was trying to kill you, Emma. You weren’t ever in any real danger tonight.”
Landon was thankful that Crawford was being more upfront, but he knew that he was intentionally leaving out more than a few details. He’d let Landon fill in most of the blanks and confirmed the truth when it was absolutely necessary. That way, he wasn’t offering up more information than he needed to, keeping the hows and whys to himself and holding just enough back that Crawford still maintained control over the situation and the safety of his undercover man.
“The buy is supposed to happen in less than a week. If Sousa doesn’t get his money back, he’ll miss his one and only opportunity to get his hands on the merchandise. They need Emma. Right now, she’s holding all of the cards.”
Landon expelled his breath in a single gust. “Yeah, she is.”
Their gazes locked and for a moment, Emma merely sat there. She was too damned smart for her own good and he was waiting for the moment when everything clicked into place for her and she lost it completely.
“What now?” Her voice was quiet, but not even a little unsure. Landon respected that. He’d always known she was stubborn, but she was also tougher than he’d given her credit for.
“Now, we put you up somewhere for the night. The PIO for the Marshals Service will be making a statement to the press soon, confirming that you were shot at your apartment this evening and died en route to the hospital. Once we make contact with our man on the inside, we’ll proceed. If we’re lucky, we can trade Sousa’s money and the information you have on him in exchange for your father. We’ll take it from there.”
Sounded simple enough, but Landon knew from experience that even the best plans were never as simple as they sounded. “Luckily, witness protection is sort of my business. My hotel is outside the city limits. It’s low-key, easy to patrol, and if it comes down to it, I could set up a security protocol with little to no effort. Emma can stay there tonight.”
“In your room?” Crawford cocked a curious—and not a little mocking—brow.
“Why not?” Landon kept his tone level, though what he wanted to do was pop Crawford in the face for his snarky bullshit attitude. “I’m already set up and no one will notice if I bring a woman in with me.”
Crawford let out a derisive snort.
“And what makes you think we’ll remand custody of Miss Ruiz over to you, McCabe? As far as I’m concerned you were trying to sneak her out of her building under your own people’s noses when we intercepted you. What’s to say you don’t take off with her the second we let you two out of here?”
Though he was sorely tempted to do just that, Landon knew that Emma would never abandon her dad. And likewise, he would never abandon his duty. “You’re just going to have to trust me, Crawford.”
“I guess I am.” Crawford stood and came at Landon head-on, poking a finger at his chest. “But if you step even a toe out of line, I’ll have your badge, McCabe.”
He might have been ready to throw down with Crawford earlier, but this was a completely different game now. Too much was at stake for him to be anything less than one hundred percent from here on out. “Not a toe, sir. You won’t have to worry about it.”
Chapter Twelve
Emma spent the drive to Landon’s hotel, the walk across the parking lot to the back entrance of the hotel, the short ride up the elevator, and the long—oh so long—walk down the hallway to his room contemplating the many downfalls of her current situation. One of which being how she was going to handle being locked up in close quarters with a certain deputy U.S. marshal for God knew how long.
Landon closed the door behind them, and Emma reached to pull the obnoxious blond wig that Crawford had made her wear from her head. It itched like crazy and made her entire skull feel as though it were encased in flames. Humid flames. Humid, itchy, hot, annoying flames. God, how do women wear these things?
“Hold up,” Landon said as he crossed the room and pulled the drapes closed. “We can’t run the risk that anyone will see you. You’re dead, remember?”
His harsh tone was salt in an open wound, and Emma didn’t appreciate it a bit. After Crawford’s come-to-Jesus, it had been another two hours’ wait for his people to get Emma a change of clothes, shoes, and a wig—which made her stand out even more in her opinion—before they let Landon take her to the hotel. She checked the clock on the bedside table, a little past one in the morning. It would be a miracle if she slept at all tonight, and though her mind raced with innumerable thoughts, her body was ready to go down for the count.
“I don’t know why you’re so bent out of shape, McCabe.” His attitude was getting on her nerves, all growly with his brows drawn sharply over his bright blue eyes. She didn’t like the Crankypants version of McCabe in the least. “You wanted to know the dirty details of my dad’s escape. Well, you got them. It’s not my fault the story wasn’t the one you wanted to hear.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “There was no escape. Javier was kidnapped because you stole millions of dollars from arms dealers.” Landon flopped down on the armchair in the corner of the room. “No wait, not just arms dealers. Terrorists. Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Emma?”
“I wasn’t going to keep the money.” Did he think she was stupid?
His eyes widened with disbelief. “This has nothing to do with the money!”
“I didn’t know they were arms dealers.”
Landon gave her a pointed look.
“Okay, so maybe I didn’t dig deep enough. But in my defense, I didn’t know what I was looking for.”
“Emma.” Landon’s frustration stifled the air, stole the breath from Emma’s lungs. “You shouldn’t have been looking at all!”
Jeez, why the sudden hostility? If he didn’t stop shouting at her, someone was going to call in a noise complaint. That’d help her keep a low profile. “You know, I’m starting to think that you’re just pissed off that I took your precious case away from you,” Emma spat. “Does it rankle the great Landon McCabe to know that you were wrong when you arrested my dad six years ago? That you were wrong when you rolled into town thinking you could scare me into giving him up? And that you were wrong in thinking that you were the biggest, baddest, most intimidating federal cop around?”
McCabe shot up out of his chair and crossed the space between them in a few long strides. Emma’s heart thundered and her stomach wrung itself into an anxious knot as she backed away from him, stopping only when the wall gave her nowhere else to go. She shouldn’t have tried to get under his skin, but he was so far off base in chastising her that he didn’t even have a foot on the damned bag. Did he not realize how scared she was? How utterly ashamed that she’d endangered not only her o
wn life, but her dad’s? She already felt like crap. She didn’t need McCabe to bring her even lower.
His large frame seemed to take up all of the available space, crowding her until Emma found it difficult to focus. Her head swam with his masculine, outdoorsy scent, and his breath feathered across her cheek, prompting her to look him square in the face. “You think that’s what this is about?” McCabe caged her in with one arm, bracing it on the wall behind her. His voice was low with a dark edge that heated Emma’s skin. “My ego?”
It had been a long night and Emma had reached her threshold. Any more stress and her brain might explode. McCabe’s face loomed above hers, his blue eyes sparking with anger. A muscle ticked at his cheek as his jaw clenched tight. Holy mother of God, he was the most beautiful man Emma had ever laid eyes on. Even in his anger, he was magnificent. Emma balled her fists at her side, resisting the urge to reach up and stroke her fingers along the strong line of his jaw and the rough stubble that shadowed his cheek. “Look, we’re both tired and wound up.” A shiver traveled the length of Emma’s body as his gaze all but devoured her, and she was shaken by the memory of how good it had felt to have his hands on her bare skin, his mouth, soft yet unyielding, on hers. “Let’s just drop it, okay?”
He reached up with his left hand and braced it on the wall right above her waist. She couldn’t move if she wanted to and they were standing so close, Emma could feel the heat from Landon’s body brushing against her, igniting all of her nerve endings to a state of hyperawareness. Her breath caught in her chest. Silence stretched out between them; the only sound in the quiet room was Emma’s own pulse racing in her ears. “McCabe . . . I . . .” Stringing two words together to form a sentence became a struggle as Emma’s mind clouded with erotic images. His hands groping at her flesh. His mouth, hot and urgent, as he kissed her. A rush of warmth spread between her thighs, and Emma’s stomach clenched tight with lust as she imagined what it would feel like to have his hard length buried deep inside of her. She shuddered. “I know this situation didn’t turn out the way you wanted, but—”