by Lucy Farago
He retrieved his phone off the desk. Monty was calling. “Hello.”
“Hello to you too,” Monty said. “You should know Ryan is looking for you. Something about hands in the cookie jar.”
Shit, did the whole team know? “He did not say that.”
“No, I cleaned it up. I hope she was worth it. He’s pissed. Irvine is a friend of his father’s, ergo, so is his daughter.”
“Who happens to be a grown woman.”
At that Grace looked up from her own phone.
“And you’re supposed to be a professional.” Monty laughed. “What is it with you guys? First Christian then Blake and now you. Working the front line should come with a warning. Danger, can seriously fuck with a man’s brain. Since when did ICU become a dating service?”
“Did you call to discuss your virginity or something else?”
Grace frowned and went back to what she was doing.
“Dang, you boys on the street are too funny. Shame about the neutering.”
He wasn’t going to get in to it with Monty. “Monty, out with it.”
At the mention of Monty’s name, Grace set her phone on the couch and came to stand beside him.
“I sent you pictures and a file. I found the kid,” Monty said.
“Why didn’t you start off with that?” Sometimes Monty needed a good slap. “Grace, would you mind getting my laptop? It’s in the bedroom.”
“Grace?” Monty repeated, drawing out her name.
“Shut up, Monty.”
“Sure,” she said and went to retrieve it.
“You were saying?”
“New York. Yonkers, actually. His name is Isaiah Lewis. He’s fifteen. I figured the kid must go to school. So I tried to match his face to a high school picture. You know those companies hired to photograph the students? They’re all online. Shitty security, easy hack. He’s a normal kid. Good student, plays basketball, comes from a good family. His mother, thirty-six, is a Jamaican immigrant who works for International Rescue Committee. His father, a Florida native, is ten years her senior and a public defender. Like the kid, normal. At first appearance, no connection to the Stantons.”
Grace returned. She set his computer on the desk and opened it for him.
“Hang on.” Cowboy put his phone between his ear and shoulder and booted up his email. “Okay, there’s got to be a reason Stanton had his picture.”
Grace looked over his shoulder. “What kind of username is Wolfman? Is that some stupid guy thing?”
Having heard, Monty laughed.
“It’s a long story.” One he wasn’t going to get in to right now.
“Cowboy. Wolfman. What the hell? Were you born with no name?”
He opened Monty’s file, wisely ignoring her question. A picture of a couple and Isaiah sitting between them on a bench in what looked Central Park popped up. “Nice family.”
“Regina Lewis volunteers at a home for unwed teenagers in Harlem. Zoom in on their faces.”
He did. “What am I looking for?”
“They don’t look anything alike.”
“Yeah okay, daddy’s white, mama isn’t, but so what? Maybe the kid looks like a grandparent.”
“Maybe and maybe not. I checked it out. Isaiah is her kid. She had him young, oddly while working at a home for unwed mothers in Atlanta. Hugh Lewis adopted the kid right before they were married. I’m trying to find out who the father is, but he’s listed as unknown.”
“You think that’s the connection to Stanton?” He thought back to the fuss Lyle Stanton had kicked up about a black minister, the drama he’d caused, and then the trouble he’d stirred. If someone in his family had fathered a racially mixed child, no way would he want to know about it. If anything he’d do his damnedest to shut it up. Was that it? Was he trying to find the kid for nefarious reasons. Could he be that vile?
“Those blood results you found, they point to leukemia.”
It clicked, what Monty was about to say next. “And if this kid is related, he’s looking for a donor.” Of course, he’d put skin color aside if it meant his life. Was this the same kid Grace had overheard Lyle saying he wanted found? The signs were pointing in that direction.
“But here’s the kicker. The kid and his family have disappeared.”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s going on?” Grace asked.
Cowboy held up a finger. “Monty, I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Is that a good idea?” he said.
He glanced up at Grace, watching him expectantly. “I trust her.” And he did. With this anyway. He pushed the speaker button. “Okay, go ahead.”
Grace kept her emotions in check. He didn’t trust her. He just wanted her to trust him again, and what better way to achieve that than by allowing her to listen in on an ICU conversation?
“Vanished,” Monty said. “Neither parent has showed up to work this week, and Isaiah is in some kind of special summer school program. They told their employers they were going on a family vacation, but no one knows where. Odd to pull a kid out of school, don’t you think?”
“Okay, but why? If Lyle is looking for a match and this kid is related, why not simply ask the family?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Grace said “but this is the kid Lyle is looking for?”
“That’s what we think,” Cowboy said.
“Normally I’d ask how this is related to Jessie.” Grace moved the lamp and sat on the desk. When her calf pressed against Cowboy’s thigh she forced herself not to move. “But did these people disappear?” she asked. “Or are they hiding? If they’re hiding, they must think Lyle is dangerous. Now Jessie stumbling onto something she shouldn’t have becomes more of a possibility.”
“Big question is why they think Lyle would hurt them.”
“Right,” Monty said. “Regina earned this big public service award. Not wanting to help a dying man, if it is Lyle, doesn’t make sense.”
“We need to find out for certain if it is leukemia and if so who has it. Monty, any luck breaking into hospital records?”
“Remind me never to get sick,” Grace muttered to herself.
“I got in, but the Stanton family records are sealed. It’s going to take me longer and quite possibly a little one on one. I have an afternoon flight if you want to meet me later tonight for drinks.”
“Sounds good. You staying here?”
“No, but close by. Dozier has a friend who has a place.”
“Is he meeting us too? I haven’t seen the man in months. I wouldn’t mind picking his brain.”
“Again no. He’s got a date,” Monty said, sounding disgusted.
“If you left that hidey hole for more than on-site hacks, maybe a girl would pass you a note at recess too.”
“Why, when I have so much fun reading yours? Told you being illiterate would catch up with you. All right, I’m out of here. I’ll let you know if I have any luck with the hospital.”
After Cowboy hung up, Grace gave him the stink eye. “He’s planning to break into the hospital’s record room?” She was curious to know how he’d achieved that particular feat.
“He didn’t say.”
“And there goes our trust.” That didn’t last long.
“This isn’t about trust. This is about protecting you. The less you know the better.”
“Original.”
“Your father is a cop. If he asked how Monty got his intel, would you tell him? Or would you lie?”
He was right—better she not know. “You’re protecting ICU. I respect that.”
“I’m protecting you.” He reached across and around her, splaying his hand on her hip.
Remembering that hand and where else it had touched her, she brushed off the memory. It was only sex and she would do well to remember that.
“I don’t want you to have to lie to your dad.” He sighed. “Maybe we should rethink this working together.”
“No,” she said, panicked he might follow through on the
threat. “We’ll let my dad worry about doing things by the book.”
He didn’t sound convinced and she knew she’d have to come up with something fast or she’d be out in the cold. “He knew when he hired you how ICU got its intel. He knew and still he hired you.”
“He wanted the best for his daughter. I’m the best.”
“Bullshit.” And the more she thought about the more it dawned on her… she was right. “There are plenty of security companies. Good ones. Many in Texas and yet he brings you in.”
“He called in a favor, Grace. He knows my boss’s father.”
“No.” She jumped off the desk, wanting to get away from his touch. Okay, not wanting but needing. “That breakin might have scared him but my life wasn’t in any danger. Whatever they were looking for had to do with Jessie. So hiring you was overkill. His hands are tied with the Stantons,” she said, all of it coming together in her mind. “They’re an extremely powerful political family in Texas and he has to go by the book. You don’t.”
“Are you saying your father planned all this?”
Why didn’t he look more surprised? Had he thought the same thing? “He didn’t plan on us sleeping together but the rest of it, yeah. I think he did. He’s complained about all the crap they’ve gotten away with for years. And he’s never come out and said it, but I think he believes they have a dirty cop working for them.” The more she thought about it, the more she believed she was right. Her father didn’t think she needed a watchdog.
“You wouldn’t happen to know who your father suspects is dirty, do you?”
“No.” She flopped herself down onto the couch. “I can’t very well ask him. Can I?”
“He wouldn’t tell you even if you did,” he said with certainty.
Yeah, he wasn’t surprised by any of this. “You know I’m right, don’t you?”
“Not a hundred percent, no. But let’s just say he didn’t deny it when I asked him.”
She sat up from the couch. “You confronted him?” Her father didn’t like having his back up a wall.
“Confronted is not the right word. I asked.”
“And he…?”
“The conversation was pretty much one-sided. Me asking, him grunting. He’s not going to accuse another cop of being on Stanton’s payroll without proof. It won’t do him any good to get fired. But if I understood our talk, you getting mixed up in all of this upped the ante, so he called an old friend for advice.”
“And you were the solution?”
“Pretty much.”
“So what now?”
“I’m not returning to the ranch until later next week, when the horse gets in. We have a few days. We’ll wait for Monty to get here to check into your dirty cop theory, but for now, we have to get something straight.” He stood and walked toward her, stopping just in front of her.
Grace had to strain her neck to look at him. He was like a towering god. Imposing, yet not scary. Because all she could think about was starting at the bottom and climbing her way up. She blinked and cleared her throat. “What?”
Thankfully, he folded that body beside her. “I know I didn’t tell you everything. And I was doing my job sounds like an excuse. I take what I do seriously, especially when it involves a human life. That meant keeping certain facts to myself. I never lied to you.”
“You told me you were a broker.” In her books that was a lie.
“I did and I am,” he agreed. “Every member of the team has…talents. I find things.”
“You…” She tried to think of the right word, his explanation making far too much sense for her liking. “You misrepresented yourself. Were you lying about the rodeo too?”
“No, but I will admit I let you believe what you wanted.”
“You told me your name was Daniel Bailey.” She had him there.
“On paper it is. You can’t open a bank account with Cowboy as your name.”
“Growing up on a ranch?” She scanned her memory for everything he’d said to her.
“True.” He grinned, a man confident he’d won this argument. “Nothing I said was a lie,” he repeated. He leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “Nothing. Not when we met and especially not last night.”
Chapter Fourteen
When a man of his height leaned into a woman it should, if not scare, at least intimidate her. She felt neither. And it had little to do with knowing she could take care of herself and more with trusting the SOB. That scared her. Who was she that she trusted him again? What the hell had he done to her? And how was she to undo it? With all the confidence she didn’t have, she put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him away, then stood, purposely sitting in the chair he’d just vacated. “Last night was last night. We don’t need to bring it up again.”
His head tipped to one side, his forehead crinkled as he regarded her. He seemed hurt, but that was ridiculous. Men like Cowboy, men in general, didn’t take sex seriously. His ego was bruised because she wasn’t making more of it. He probably thought it was a reflection on his sexual prowess. “Not that it wasn’t good,” she said, although why she felt the need to appease him was beyond her. “But it was what it was and we have more important things to focus on.”
“So, last night…”
“Like I said, was what it was.” Now could they get on with it?
“All right. If you’re happy to think of it like that. I need to know—”
“Wait, what do you mean ‘if I’m happy’? It’s what it was, two people satisfying basic needs.” It was just sex.
“Fine,” he said, humoring her. “Can we move on?”
Being spoken to like a child pissed her off. “Isn’t that how you look at it?”
“Absolutely.”
That condescending tone was going to get his head knocked off.
“Look,” he went on, “I gave up sleeping with women for shits and giggles a long time ago. If I don’t like someone, why would I want to wake up next to them? But I’m happy to go along with however you wish to think of it. I don’t want you to feel awkward or out of sorts when you’re around me.”
No way was he serious. “You’re full of shit.”
“Okay, I’m full of shit. Now can I finish what I’ve been trying to say?”
“When you stop doing that.”
“Doing what?” he said with so much sincerity it grated on her nerves.
“Stop making it like last night was…” She scrubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand, wondering if it was too early for a drink. “Stop pretending last night meant something. I don’t know what your game is, but stop it.”
He left the couch and headed into the bedroom. A few minutes later he returned with a flash drive in his hand. He showed it to her, then plugged it into his computer. Silently, he motioned her over with a crook of his finger. Curious, she complied. He pointed to the screen, clicked on an icon, and together they waited for a pdf file to load.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Why did you turn down being valedictorian for your high school?”
Her eyes darted from his computer to him. “How—”
He nodded toward the file that had finished downloading. Pushing him aside, she braced her hands on either side of the keyboard and read, mouth agape. Her father was going to get an earful. School records, employers, the gym memberships, right down to her parking tickets, all listed in black and white. Her father had even given him access to her banking information and, damn, she’d missed her Visa payment. She turned away from the screen. “I’m surprised my father didn’t give you a list of the men I’d dated.” An earful wasn’t sufficient. How could he do this to her—his own daughter?
“Those are on page four. Five men, most of them short term, all of them you broke it off, except for Josh, where it was amicable. Were they jerks, or are you not into relationships?”
Standing in front of a nearly seven-foot-tall man and seething wasn’t a good idea. Especially when her fist could easily connect with his crotch. She walked awa
y and stepped out onto the balcony. The afternoon air was warm and did little to cool her off. She felt exposed, violated even. How could he? What bloody harm was she in that her dad needed to expose her like that?
Cowboy joined her on the balcony.
She glanced over her shoulder. “If you think that file lets you know me, you’re wrong.”
“No, but what you didn’t read was the last page. It’s a profile created with all that data.”
“A profile.” Like she was a common criminal. “Will wonders never cease? And what does the profile say? That except for today, I pay my bills on time?”
“You’re not afraid of hard work but won’t do anything you’re not good at. You shy away from adventure. All of your after-hours activity had a purpose, nothing simply for the fun of it. Your shark-diving trip was out of character, but you will step out of the box and out of your comfort zone if you think it will make you a better person. Want me to go on?”
“Wow, when the cops do up a profile they go all out. I can’t believe my father went through that much trouble.”
“You’re mistaken, Grace. He didn’t give me the file. My team did.”
She fisted her hands because if she didn’t, he’d be on his ass. “There were things in there that weren’t public knowledge, things only my father would have had access to.”
“Anything can be hacked. Don’t misunderstand—the cops have a file on you, but only because of your dad. It’s more his security dossier than anything else.”
“So you knew all that stuff about me before we met.” When he took a step toward her, she took one back. He had a psych profile on her. No wonder he knew what to say and when to say it. Her back hit the wall. Reaching behind her, she folded her fingers over the warm metal when what she wanted to do might get her arrested.
“I can see your mind working overtime.”
“Yeah, I bet you can. Your bloody file spells it out.”
“Right, and maybe if I’d done my job, I’d have read it beforehand.”
She released the railing, flexing her fingers to encourage blood flow. “When did you?”
“This morning after you left. Funny thing, it didn’t much say what I didn’t already know. Except that valedictorian thing. I figured a high achiever like you would go for something like that. I do, however, have my own theory on why you passed up the chance to stand at that podium.”