Mission: Impossible to Deny (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 7)

by Jacki Delecki

  “You answer the door. I’m taking a shower.” Her lips compressed into an accusatory and angry line. She marched past him without a glance.

  “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I forgot.”

  “Sure, you did,” she said under her breath, making it loud enough to make sure he heard. “Nothing to do with your plan to get naked.”

  He didn’t think she’d appreciate it if he pointed out they hadn’t gotten naked yet. He couldn’t deny he had hoped for a night with Darcy, but he wasn’t devious or desperate enough to have a master plan. But Miss Suspicious would never believe him or the fact that some humans didn’t have malicious intentions.

  And he was the biggest asshole because, despite his plea that he was as innocent as a choir boy, he turned to watch her fine body in a thong sway down the hall.

  Shaking his head, he moved to answer the door after checking the monitors. The security guard was at the front door and was most likely bringing Darcy’s Sig.

  Chapter Eight

  Darcy held the door for Reeves as they exited the Palo Alto police station. The information from the police chief had not been at all what she had expected. She was having trouble making the three hundred sixty turn on her investigation with all the implications. And if she was having difficulty, Reeves had to be in shock, spinning and confused.

  He followed her to their rental SUV and climbed into the passenger seat without a word. A silent Reeves was disturbing. When upset, Reeves reverted to rapid tech talk. On the way to the airport, he had tried to explain the difference between C++ and Java coding and their use in video games. As if she had an interest in the comparison.

  He filled in all the tense silence from last night’s little swim. He had tried to talk to her through her door after she stomped off. But if she stayed, she might have physically hurt him. She had been totally pissed, feeling as if she had been played. Once the adrenaline surge subsided, she appreciated his logic and pretty quickly let go of her anger toward him. She was still pissed but only at herself for how badly she had messed up.

  She needed to clear the air and make sure they returned to a professional relationship before they got in deeper with the investigation. She hated that this trip had become one shock after another for Reeves. He was a good man and didn’t deserve to have landed here. The aftermath of a brief hookup felt irrelevant when Reeves had to deal with so much.

  “What are the chances that the detective’s CI was wrong about Charlie?” He didn’t look at her but remained fixed, staring through the front window.

  He had dark circles under his eyes, and his beard was already getting stubbly despite shaving this morning. And even drained and exhausted, he still was able to make her stomach flutter. Her resolve to get back to platonic had evaporated the moment he came out of the bedroom for their flight. With his thick hair brushed back, emphasizing his prominent cheekbones, looking incredible in a tailored black suit that showcased his broad shoulders, he looked every inch the wealthy and sophisticated man that he was … and she was neither wealthy nor sophisticated. She sent an imaginary memo to herself. Not the man for you, no matter how gorgeous and wonderful.

  “Detective Barley was pretty confident that Charlie is alive and working with the Sureños. Do you believe him?”

  She wanted him to talk. Let it all out. Nothing about this was easy. She wanted to comfort him, but it would send the wrong message. He was an asset. And she had crossed the line with him. She owed him an apology.

  “Detective Barley is solid and seasoned. And his faith in his CI working undercover in the Sureños gang seemed deserved.” He shifted in the seat and stretched his long legs. “Does this mean that Tex had learned that Charlie was alive?”

  Darcy tracked the way the fabric hugged his lean, muscular thighs.

  “It’s all too much to take in. Now, Charlie is alive, and Tex is dead. I don’t have a clue about what’s going on,” Reeves said.

  She twisted to face him. “You’ve been hit with a lot in the last twenty-four hours. And we don’t have any definitive proof that Charlie’s alive. But if Charlie got in too deep with drugs, he might have staged his death to avoid a drug deal gone wrong. He couldn’t let whoever was after him find out he was alive.”

  “Why stage his death if he’s working for the drug dealers? The Sureños are a Mexican drug gang that associates with the Sinaloa Cartel. You heard the same explanation from Detective Barley. His CI reported Charlie because he overheard one of the gang members say the white dude was ‘loco’ because he wrecked his Lamborghini ride. He sold his tech skills for drugs or money. It must be for drugs. He didn’t need money.”

  “He might have been forced to work for the Sureños to pay off his debt to them. With a drug habit, he could have run through his money. Did he have a drug problem in college?”

  “No. But once we got our first big payout, he disappeared. He might have started self-medicating to either belong to the wealthy, cocaine-snorting Silicon Valley crowd or to escape the isolation.”

  “Isolation?”

  “Sure. There aren’t many people who can understand the pressures of being ‘gifted.’ Only others with the same talents, and they aren’t always the most socially engaging kind of people. And you know what kids are like if you don’t fit in? Adults aren’t any different.”

  She did. But being a genius versus having big breasts didn’t seem like a comparable situation.

  The only girlfriends she had in school were the ones who wanted to get to her brothers. Girls came over to her house but not because of a desire to be her friend. She was the chubby girl with big breasts who hid under oversized sweaters.

  And the boys only saw her for one portion of her anatomy. If she didn’t have tough-ass older brothers who protected her and cued her into the score, she might not have survived middle and high school.

  Had Reeves been bullied in school? He was so confident. Definitely attractive, he must have had tons of friends. Richard Dean liked and respected him. And so did Sophie Dean. She could see Dean wanting Reeves as his son-in-law even if she was with Finn.

  “If Charlie works for the cartel, he could have been the one to engineer the ransomware attack on the embassies. He could easily hack the game’s firewalls. But why does the Mexican cartel want CIA information in Africa?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. I’ll get my team to start looking for Charlie. They’ll run face rec to see if we can catch him in an airport or in public. He might have altered his face to avoid detection. He’ll have a new identity. And he wouldn’t risk making contact with his old connections. But we’ll find him.”

  Now was the time to apologize, with them sharing a common goal. It was on her to set their relationship straight. She had planned to do it on the one-hour flight. Just enough time to set the boundaries and move on to business. They needed to work as a team, not fight over stupid details like who would drive the rental as they had when they arrived in Palo Alto. Reeves conceded when she pointed out that she had defensive and evasive driving skills.

  “Before we meet with your professor, I need to apologize. I’m sorry I went off last night.” Her face flushed with her choice of words. “I was really angry about the whole alarm thing.” She didn’t think it was necessary to admit that she believed he had set the alarm because he assumed they’d be having hot sex all night. She would not regret that they hadn’t.

  “But in the end, it was a good thing. I’m here on assignment, and if there had been a real threat, I was frolicking in the pool and not doing my job.”

  “Your job isn’t to protect me. So, I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “The problem is that I’m on assignment to work with you. Not to sleep with you. If the Sureños are involved, this is going to get dangerous. I can’t be distracted.”

  “Ah … so, you admit that I distract you?” He grinned.

  And she hadn’t realized how much his humor and smiles lessened her constant need to be on, to be in charge. He made her laugh,
and for a moment, she forgot that the world was treacherous. But this wasn’t the time to weaken because of a beautiful man’s smile.

  “You know that you do. Please don’t make it harder than it has to be.” She wanted to say, don’t make me want you … make me regret not exploring this connection … don’t grin, don’t make ridiculous jokes, and don’t look at me as if I am special to you.

  He searched her face for clues to her feelings. He was good at reading her. She smiled, noting he had recognized her tell when she pressed her lips together.

  “You’re right. It is going to get dangerous. And we will both need to be on top of our game.”

  She reached to start the ignition. She wouldn’t let him see the hurt from the kick to the gut he delivered. Their relationship always had a short shelf life. It was what she wanted, but why the raw pain and the feeling of immediate loss when he agreed? He didn’t even try to convince her differently. She had hoped he would still want her, knowing it was just for the sex. She wouldn’t crumble over a little romp in the pool that meant nothing. She was a CIA officer and previously a soldier who served in Afghanistan. She could handle what was thrown at her, including irresistible Reeves Hewitt.

  “Was Professor Wainwright surprised to hear from you?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s a bit of the absentminded professor type. But he cleared his afternoon for us and seemed touched by my visit.”

  “I read up on him on the plane. Impressive bio. I didn’t see any red flags.”

  He laughed a low rumble that sent waves of need through Darcy.

  “Why is that funny? Anyone with his success must have an incredible drive. And universities can’t be that different than any workplace with in-fighting and dirty politics.”

  “Wainwright lives in a mathematical theoretical realm. He’s barely able to function in the real world. He’s always late, never remembers little details like eating or showering. He’s rather a cliché. But unlike many of the faculty, he was supportive to all of us. He was our advisor in the Theoretical Computer Science department. Academics aren’t usually interested in the students or teaching. They’re all about making a name for themselves and getting tenure. Students are a means to an end … assisting with the research, writing the papers to be published. But Wainwright didn’t need students to move up the food chain. He was the top in his field.”

  “Are we wasting our time if the professor doesn’t pay attention to the details of life?”

  “He pays attention to mathematical theory, and Charlie’s interest was always the theory of computation. Wainwright’s focus. And he’ll know what Charlie was working on at Berkeley and any other work. Tex and I were both more drawn to Lambda calculus and type theory.”

  “I’ve no idea what any of that means.”

  “We all were interested in the mathematical theory in computers.”

  “Thank you. So, Wainwright was closest to Charlie?”

  “Strange that you ask, I’ve never really thought about it. But you’re right. Though I doubt Charlie would have confided in the professor about his drug habit.”

  Chapter Nine

  Reeves stared straight ahead but tracked Darcy’s every movement as she drove to the Stanford Campus. Her curly hair was harshly pulled back in the same clip as when they first met. She wore the same navy-blue jacket and skirt. She had a fresh white blouse, the same style as yesterday. She probably owned a closet full of navy-blue suits and white blouses. He had only seen her in a suit and the heart-stopping, instant hard-on bikini, a vision that was burned into his brain for life. No woman would ever match sensual and strong Darcy Wilson in all her glory.

  She probably wore jeans and a t-shirt when she hung out. He’d like to see her in tight jeans hugging her round hips and ass. Her only feminine adornment was small gold hoop earrings, probably allowed as part of the CIA dress code. Meeting all the rules and recs, she was bundled in her bureaucratic uniform. But he knew the sexy woman who hid under that uptight outfit. He wanted to undo her hair and watch the curls spring as out of control as the woman who screamed his name, lost in pleasure.

  “You okay?” She glanced over at him, her voice warm with concern.

  She might act like a hard-ass, but she was a big softie. And she’d take him down if she ever heard him describe her that way.

  “Now that the shock is wearing off, I’ve got a few questions.”

  “Just a few?” She smirked.

  “Smart-ass.”

  How did his sense of foreboding ease by seeing her determined face relax into a smile?

  Why did women have to make it so difficult? How long would she keep denying the hot sparks between them? And what absolute bullshit that she had to focus on her job. The woman leaped out of a swimming pool, naked, to defend him against an attack. He had no doubt she could multitask. But she asked him not to make it harder for her. He wouldn’t now, but he planned to make it real difficult once the case was closed. Darcy Wilson didn’t like to be pushed, so he’d back off and bide his time. He might not be CIA, but he was “gifted” with a relentless focus on solving a problem. And his focus would be Darcy, and the problem would be making her happy screaming his name.

  “So, what’re your ‘few’ questions?” Her eyes briefly sought his to evaluate his mental state as the dutiful officer that she was. She wouldn’t be happy to hear his thoughts.

  “Why would the cartel torture Tex? Our theory that they killed him for information about Snakes Ahead isn’t holding up. With Charlie alive, they have no reason to torture him. Are you coming to the same conclusion that he was murdered because he was looking into Charlie’s death?”

  “They most likely wanted to know what had he learned about Charlie’s death and who he might have told.”

  “I’m still having trouble grasping that Charlie is alive and working with really bad guys.”

  “I am too. And he wasn’t my friend. Once we talk with Wainwright, I’m calling for backup. Now that we know that Charlie is alive and can tie to a motive to Tex’s murder, we need to proceed cautiously. We have to assume the cartel has an informant in the police department who reported that we were at Tex’s and made a visit to the police department. And although I’m confident of my abilities, I’ll need reinforcements to protect you from the Sureños.”

  “When did you plan to share your plan with me? Before or after you called the CIA?” He loved the flash of fire in her eyes. He would never stop wanting to annoy this woman. It was some strange neuroses that would only be cured by sex with Darcy.

  “I was trying to give you a little time to adjust to the shock of learning that you grieved for a friend’s death that doesn’t exist before I hit you with the protection detail.” Her skin pinked up, and her lips compressed. “I’m sure once I make the call, the Jenkinses will be alerted. I would have already done it if we hadn’t spent so much time at the police station. And I don’t want us to be late for the meeting with your professor.”

  He was grateful that she didn’t belabor the reason that the meeting with the police chief ran over was because of his shock at the chief’s revelation. He had made Detective Barley repeat the information several times. Reeves had to be convinced that his friend was alive before he left. First, he had to adjust to the idea that Charlie had been murdered, and now that Charlie wasn’t dead but most likely faked his death.

  After the car accident, Charlie had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance. He had been pronounced dead in the ER. The body had been immediately cremated, and his ashes spread over the ocean. The ER records, including the name of the private funeral home that picked up his body for cremation, had disappeared. And with only his drug addict mother as family, no one had questioned any of the details.

  “And I thought you’d be more amenable hearing it from your boss than from me.”

  “I’ll text Nick now. They’ll be rolling before we’re finished with Wainwright. Did I mention that the professor loves to talk? Don’t get him started on the computation theory of
the mind. But, on the upside, he loves good scotch.”

  He reached into his jacket and texted Nick. “Miss your ugly face, asshole. And nothing to Emily of why I’m in Palo Alto.” When had he become a Neanderthal like the Jenkins brothers?

  “How would I get Wainwright started on computational theory when I know nothing about theories of computers and how they relate to the mind? And don’t change the subject. I thought you’d fight me on the backup. Why the sudden change?”

  “Nope. I’m not a fool. I’ve had enough experience with organized crime and the cartels to know that no matter how skilled you are, you have to even the odds.”

  She would be royally ticked if she knew he was agreeing with the extra security to protect her. She was prickly about proving herself. Now that the threat had gotten real, he wouldn’t risk any harm coming to her. And the only reason he didn’t fight her reasoning about being distracted in her professional role was that he never wanted to be the reason that Darcy got hurt or felt that she failed.

  His phone pinged. He read Nick’s text. “What the hell? The Jenkinses are already in the air and en route to Palo Alto. Your boss sent Richard the ballistics report. The gun that killed Tex had previously been used in a Sureños execution. I’m kinda surprised that Richard hasn’t called me. I’m sure once he heard that the cartel was involved, he called in the troops. God, I hope it isn’t both Lars and Finn with Nick. The odds of not having a fistfight when three Jenkins brothers are in the same area code are slim.”

  Darcy’s knuckles turned white from her tight grip on the wheel. “That’s bullshit. I’m the field agent on the ground, and Richard Dean hears before me … and from the director. Marwick is micromanaging this because of your relationship with Dean.”

  Her phone pinged, and she glanced at her phone on the console next to her Sig. “I’m probably now getting the results.”

  “But if they knew you were in the meeting with the police chief, they went above you to get the security in place—to give you the protection you need to do your job and keep investigating.”