by Emmy Curtis
He tried to catch Missy’s attention, but her eyes were on the ground. What was she thinking? He knew what she was thinking. Like him, she was realizing that if they came clean, they would be fired, and if they didn’t, they could go to jail anyway. Unless she really did know something.
He managed to stroke his thumb over her hand as they were led away. She raised her eyes to his and frowned.
CHAPTER NINE
The general’s hands clenched in his lap.
“It’s okay. I’ll have someone deal with this,” Danvers said.
“You’ve dealt with enough,” the general ground out through clenched teeth. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him.
He couldn’t believe that after a career of following the laws and serving his country, just one occasion of bending the rules could lead to this. He was neck deep in a shit show and he couldn’t see a way out. And now TechGen-One had Eleanor in their sights. If she was still alive. Emotion choked him, and he had to concentrate to breathe.
“I told you not to allow your daughter to fly at Red Flag. I knew it would be a needless complication. I told you that, didn’t I?” Danvers said, slowly walking to the front of his desk, picking up things from his desk and looking at them, as if he owned them. Owned him.
He did.
“She deserved it. She worked hard for this,” he said. It was true she was the best, most instinctive pilot he’d ever seen fly. But his attempt to maybe make her not hate him as much had all but signed her death warrant.
“Well, I think it’s clear now who the boss of Red Flag is. You do what I say or suffer the consequences. You can’t touch me without ruining yourself. If you decide to talk, I will take you down with me. There’s nothing noble about a maximum-security prison. And don’t think for a moment I will be joining you. My support network goes right up to the West Wing. Does yours?”
Daniels couldn’t believe that he had let himself get caught in the crosshairs of this monster. He thought he was going to be seen as a hero when a business associate offered to pay the operational costs of Red Flag. Then he’d stupidly accepted some company shares and an interest-free loan to pay for a large, secure beach house. And at no point had he thought that it was too good to be true. He had served his country for thirty years; he deserved it. He deserved the good luck, the recognition, the vacations, share portfolio, and the villa by the sea.
And it wasn’t until three weeks previously, when he had been asked to secretly allow modifications on certain aircraft, that he realized he could not get out of the noose that Danvers and TechGen-One had around his neck. He was in too deep.
“You see what you’ve done? Your daughter told Missy about your conversation. She is now a loose end, like Eleanor was. You’ve left me with another mess to take care of. You want to be careful, General, because if you cause too many problems, you, too, will be a loose end.”
He didn’t reply.
“I suggest you plan on returning to the Pentagon. And leave me here to tidy up.”
The general knew it wasn’t a suggestion. And he knew that by leaving, he would be casting suspicion on himself. It was Danvers’s way of showing him the slippery slope he was teetering at the top of right now.
CHAPTER TEN
Missy had no idea what had happened to her life. One second she’d been getting closure before transferring, and the next moment she was getting arrested for something she couldn’t prove she didn’t do without giving up both her and Conrad’s careers. What sweet hell was this?
They were both frog-marched over to the old barracks building and handed over to two TGO men, who wore polo shirts and ostentatious sidearms.
The building had peeling paint—lead paint? she wondered—and smelled like a hundred young airmen had left their dirty laundry there for ten years. The men’s bathroom also added an acrid note to the heady bouquet even with its door shut.
Conrad was separated from her as they walked through the building. She kind of hoped he’d be housed closer to the men’s restroom than she was.
She was 100 percent convinced that the men in the hangar, the accidents today, and the fact that she’d been sent to the slammer as soon as she mentioned the conversation Eleanor had had with her father were all connected along a line that had TGO running straight through it.
She’d tried not to engage Conrad on their short walk there. She didn’t want him thinking he had to be the hero to save her or to sacrifice his career to be her alibi. In fact, he couldn’t be her alibi since she left without him noticing. She shrugged as she sat on the small cot—the only furniture in the room. She guessed that was the night for her. The sun was setting, and clearly no one was coming to say, “Oops—we made a mistake.”
Closing her eyes, she allowed herself a moment to remember the previous night. Conrad had touched her. Touched something primal, something so deep inside that it scared her. She had to get away from him. If their night together had taught her nothing else, it was that she had to escape him and his spell over her. She was in too deep and couldn’t bear the thought of him talking about a waitress he’d bedded, or a nurse, or a fucking gymnast. No. Way. That was done.
She shrugged to herself and lay down on top of the dark green blanket that had been folded on the cot. She was either going to jail, transferring to MacDill, or…yeah, she didn’t have any other options. It wasn’t as if she could go crash with her parents, because (A) she doubted they had anywhere for her to crash, and (B) she had no idea where they were—or even if they were still alive. She paused for a second, probing her heart for feelings about that, but found none.
There was a knock at the door. She felt stupid saying “come in” since she couldn’t open the door herself, nor was she at liberty to say who could come in or not. A key rattled in the lock and it swung open to reveal a senior airman holding two bags of what looked like fast food. A TGO employee stood behind him.
“Sergeant Cripps sent me here with food for you and Colonel Conrad, ma’am, but it seems as if they’ve already released Colonel Conrad. I guess you can have both of these.”
“Thank you,” she said, but her mind was processing the fact that they’d let him go. So the focus was really just on her. What had Conrad said to them that made them release him? Had he just left her there?
The airman backed away and the TGO guy sneered at her with his hand threateningly on his sidearm. What a douche. She could take him so easily if she wanted. Hell. She could have taken him before she joined the air force. She winked at him, and he slammed the door, but not before she clocked the look of annoyed confusion on his face.
Considering herself a weird POW, she decided to eat everything on offer, in case it was a while before she was fed again. She ate a burger and fries and some kind of fruit pie. She was so full by then that the thought of eating Conrad’s dinner, too, made her feel ill. She was about to stuff the wrappers back in the paper bag when she saw grease-stained handwriting on the inside. She ripped the bag open.
I’ll come for you.
She rolled her eyes. Dramatic much? Conrad watched too many movies. But she couldn’t deny that her heart beat just a little faster at the thought of being rescued by him. Damn. Maybe she’d watched too many movies.
If she was going to be here all night, she may as well get comfortable. She banged on the door and demanded a bathroom break—although it being an old building, it was barely more than a latrine. Still the sink had running water and she was able to clean herself up after the afternoon flying in the heat of the desert. She walked barefoot back to her room, holding her boots and ignoring the push the TGO guy gave her when he opened the door to her room.
“You better behave tonight,” he said, his breath floating on the already stale air.
“Or what?” she said, because she couldn’t help herself.
“We’ve been authorized to use force.” He grinned. “And I’m looking forward to it.”
She slammed her foot on the floor as if she were reaching for him, and he jump
ed back, immediately furious that he’d shown his fear.
Missy winked at him again, and again, he slammed the door and locked it.
She was having flashbacks to her teenage years, when she was all piercings and bad attitude. In fact, now that she thought about it, she felt as if she was regressing to her behavior back then. When she was scared, and fight or flight kicked in, she never, ever took flight. She always stopped and fought. Always won, until everyone in the neighborhood was scared of her, except her parents. They floated off, leaving her alone in the house for days, and then would come back stoned. But they’d been the only constant in her life, and it had taken her years to leave them behind. She had no idea where they were now. And she didn’t care.
She took off her uniform pants and shirt and lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling. She could feel strains of the old Missy returning. For years now she’d been the good Missy. The totally by-the-book, squared-away Missy. The top-of-the-class Missy. No one here knew her as the Missy-from-a-bad-home, or the truant Missy, or the didn’t-graduate-high-school-the-first-time Missy.
Until today, she had forgotten that Missy. That Missy had disappeared the day the judge forced her into boot camp. But now she remembered who she really was. If she wanted to keep her career, she had to be the good Missy on the outside but keep the old, wary, suspicious Missy on the inside.
The good Missy. She allowed herself to succumb to the tiredness that made her eyes heavy and drifted away into an uncertain future.
A knocking awoke her. She was alert and upright immediately. The room was still dark and undisturbed. She looked around and stifled a gasp when she saw a face at the window. Damn him. It was Conrad.
She shook her head. He mimed at her to open the window. The windows opened? She undid the latch and the window swung out. Jesus. She could have gone back to her own room to shower and then sneaked back in again.
“Yeah, the barracks weren’t designed to be secure,” Conrad said with a shrug and a satisfied grin on his face.
“What are you doing here? What time is it?”
“Oh-two-hundred, give or take. I’ve come to provide you with a little less solitary confinement and a little more information. Are you coming? This place isn’t secure, but someone’s going to find me eventually standing here.”
She hesitated for a second. But unless they shot her, she couldn’t figure anything else going worse for her than they already were. “Let me get dressed.”
“There’s no time. Besides, I’ve seen more of you at PT.” He opened his mouth again after a pause, and then closed it. She knew he was going to make some reference to the previous night but had decided against it. It was the right decision.
“Come on, come on. Seriously, the guy who patrols here has just gone inside to get a cup of coffee.” He stood back from the window and beckoned her. “Hurry.”
“I need my boots.” She turned back into the room.
“Jesus, when did you get this bad at obeying orders? Just climb the fuck out of the window.”
She slithered out headfirst. He caught her and shifted her onto his back.
“Put me down,” she hissed.
“In a minute,” he replied, looking around them, and then ran across the road and across the athletics track. His shoulder dug into her stomach, and she felt every mouthful of her fast-food dinner swirl angrily around.
“Conrad! Put me…”
He lowered her carefully onto a swing at the children’s playground. She blew her hair out of her face and watched as he took the swing next to hers. “You take me to all the nicest places,” she said.
“But at least I bring beer.” He grabbed two bottles from a cooler he’d obviously stashed there earlier.
She clinked the neck with his. “Well, then, all is forgiven.”
There was a moment of silence as they watched the old barracks building. One office had a light on, but the rest were dark. She could see one person patrolling the circumference. “I wonder if there are any other prisoners,” she said.
“Nope. It’s only you. Okay. This is what I’ve heard so far. TGO has found the wreckage of both aircraft…”
“Wait a minute. Why aren’t the pararescuers out looking for them?” That was the deal every service member made—not just U.S. service members, but all allied military. That if something happened to them, the pararescuers would go get them. They were the best in the world.
“Apparently Eleanor’s father gave away the house when TGO brought their money to Red Flag. They were allowed complete operational control—which they only took after the accident.” Conrad took another swig of beer. “This whole thing smells off to me, and I don’t like that you’re in the middle of it.”
“You and me both,” she said. “After we saw that TGO golf cart come out of the hangar, I recognized the man who was on it. He approached me when I was…” She paused. “Coming to lodging to pick you up to go to the hangar. I pretended I didn’t know him, but he followed me into the hotel and up to your floor.”
“What? Why didn’t you say something?” Conrad stopped swinging and turned to her.
“You didn’t give me much chance.” She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. “And in the morning, it didn’t seem to matter that much.”
“What did you do in the morning? I woke and you’d already gone.”
She looked away from him and started to swing. “I went to the hangar to mess up our beds, so it’d look like we’d been there all night. But when I got there, I figured I’d play a joke and leave your cot alone so that you’d have to do some quick thinking when you came in. It was supposed to be funny.” She paused again. “I got there just before dawn, and the hangar was really dark, but I swear I felt that someone was there. You know, when you feel the air disturbed around you?”
“You sure you weren’t feeling a disturbance in the Force?” he quipped.
She ignored him and took another gulp of the cold beer. Damn, she would probably need to pee again when she got back to her room.
Conrad spoke again. “Do you think someone was there? In the hangar? It could have been someone working on Eleanor’s F-16. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Are you kidding? They’re accusing me of sabotage, and I blame it on an invisible person I thought may have been in the hangar? Talk about seeming obviously guilty of something. And then how exactly do I explain why I only came into the hangar just before sunrise? Do you want to lose your job?”
He turned his swing around and grabbed the chain on hers. “I don’t want to lose you to this craziness. Something is going down here, and you seem to have been set up as the scapegoat. All I have to do is come clean, which I’m going to do in the morning. I’ll tell Colonel Cameron what happened—”
“Nope. That wouldn’t even work. His first question before firing us would be ‘and were you with her all night?’ and you’d have to say no. And then you’d have to admit that you didn’t know what time I left your room or what I did when I left. The only thing you’ll gain from that is having to beg TGO for a job.” She didn’t want to admit it, but a warmth spread through her at the thought that he’d put his whole career on the line for her.
“Firstly, I’d never ask TGO for a job. Nothing about that company feels good. But I am going to see Colonel Cameron. I trust him—I’ve known him for years, and he knows me. We were in the same squadron before he moved here to run Red Flag.”
She shook her head. “I don’t see any of this ending well for us.”
“I promise I’ll provide conjugal visits if you end up in the slammer,” he said.
“You’ll provide them? Like, you’ll send someone? Do I get to pick…?”
He grabbed her chin and made her face him. “No one gets to touch you except me. Not on my watch.” He hesitated after he said the words, and she wondered if he realized how cheesy-movie he sounded.
She tried not to laugh, and his eyes narrowed at her effort. In less than a second his lips were on hers. Rampant desire flooded her body
as his tongue thrust into her mouth, dominating her. Damn.
She dropped her beer bottle into the sawdust at her feet and kissed him back, matching him touch for touch, stroke for stroke. Without skipping a beat, he knelt in front of her and put his hands around her back to stop her from swinging away from him.
He angled his head, almost punishing her mouth with a ferocity that set her on fire. She grabbed his head and pulled him even closer, reveling in the burst of desire that turned her thoughts to mush.
His fingers grasped the bottom of her T-shirt and yanked it over her head. Her nipples hardened at the contact with the cool air.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful in moonlight,” he whispered as his lips descended to her breasts. He tongued each nipple, sending spirals of excitement through her body, and then bit them, making her back arch and her head tip back in surrender.
He pulled at one nipple as his hands dragged her underwear shorts down and off.
God help her; she was naked, on a swing, on Nellis Air Force Base. And she was supposed to be under house arrest. The frisson of terror and excitement set her nerve endings on fire. She felt every waft of breeze on her skin as if it were someone’s fingers; every breath she took felt as if she were inhaling freedom and inhibition.
Conrad picked her up off the swing—a feat of strength that surprised her—strode across the playground with her in his arms, and carefully put her down on the picnic table.
Missy stretched across the hard, rough surface of the wood, relishing in the indiscretion and blatant offering of herself to him. She raised herself onto her elbows and held his gaze. This was so different from the night before. She was so different. “See something you like?”
His eyes widened as she deliberately let her legs fall open, but only for a second.
“I don’t know,” he said, trailing his fingers gently down from her cleavage to her stomach. One finger lightly touched her between her legs, before scooting away again, to make patterns on her stomach.