Her brow furrowed. She looked at the box and then him. “Did you know I was coming to the office today?”
He stepped up on the porch and stepped closer than necessary to hand it to her.
“No. I haven’t been surprised like that in forever. Why?”
“You can’t get these on the East Coast,” she said as her fingers trailed over the glossy box. “I have to order them online, or friends from California bring them to me.”
It had taken some doing, that was for damn sure. But getting his hands on some See’s butterscotch suckers was a quest that was worth it if it gave her this much pleasure. “Liam, I can’t believe you remembered.”
Their bodies were inches apart. He looked down into her gray eyes. The box of candy was the only thing that separated them. “You would be amazed at the things I’ve remembered.”
Her lips parted and her eyes dilated. The idea of tasting butterscotch kisses again made his pulse pound.
“I remember things, too,” she sighed. “I better put these inside for later. I know the rules. No eating in the car.”
Liam slid the box out of her hands and extracted a sucker. “Go get your purse and this will be waiting for you when you come back out. I want to sweeten you up before dinner.”
“You’d really let me suck on this in the car?”
It took everything he had not to groan out loud at her words.
Addison blushed. “Ah, hell. I’ve been out of the Navy too long if I said something that stupid.” She bit her lip. “I need to go get my purse.” She spun around and practically ran inside.
That was not the reaction he’d been hoping for. This whole day was not what he’d been expecting in any way, shape, or form. His eyes narrowed as he waited for her maroon door to open. Had it really only been ten days since he’d been in the jungle?
Liam rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. He needed to get his head on straight. He had a sick feeling about this investigation, and after twenty-eight years going on live overseas missions, he knew he had to listen to his gut. He’d read Conroy’s report about Addison’s work. She was good. Throw in the degree she’d taken the time to get, and she was a powerhouse.
He couldn’t believe some of the filth she’d had to deal with in her tenure with the CIA. And it hadn’t all been with her butt in a chair at Langley, she’d done some fieldwork, too. She’d gone head-to-head with her bosses to be part of the missions. It had only been twice, but one of the jobs had been more than ugly. But his Addison had manned up.
Liam grinned. She’d hate that term if he was ever stupid enough to use it in front of her.
He looked down at the paver stones again. What were those all about?
He stood up straight as the door opened. He held out that sucker for her.
“Thanks,” she smiled brightly as she took it from him.
Dammit. It was a fake smile.
“You know, it’s going to be a lot easier tonight if we’re just ourselves,” Liam said as he opened the passenger side door for her and held her elbow as she sank into the low bucket seat.
“I agree.” She said in a false tone of voice.
He waited until she buckled herself in before he closed the door. He looked to the summer sky for patience and then walked to his side of the car and got inside.
“Where are we going?” Addison asked as they pulled out of her little neighborhood.
“Not far. I asked one of my buddies who lives around here where we could get good scallops. Do you still like them?”
He heard her sigh. “Yes. Still like scallops. Are we going to Antonelli’s?”
Liam grinned. “So, you know it. Is it good?”
“The best.” He saw her fiddle with her purse. He didn’t see any kind of shading on her finger that hinted that there had ever been a wedding band on it. At least not recently. Conroy had offered to create a personal profile on Addison, and Liam’s response had been swift and harsh. Laird had thought it was pretty funny.
Liam didn’t want anyone doing any kind of snooping on Addison’s personal life. If he wanted to know something about her, he’d do it the old-fashioned way. He’d ask. Or maybe he’d look really hard at her ring finger.
Liam dragged his eyes back to the road.
Concentrate, McAllister.
See’s candy?
Scallops for dinner?
Pinot Grigio?
Why was he pulling out all of the stops? It made no sense.
Heck, Liam had even remembered to ask for butter with the bread when they’d brought just olive oil. He was killing her.
“Addison, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she smiled. She forced herself to pick up a piece of fragrant, hot bread and put it onto her plate. Liam frowned when she didn’t take a bite.
“It’s going to be a long meal if we don’t talk. Come on, we were going to trade stories. You were going to tell me all about the quotes, I was going to tell you about the drive out from California, remember?”
“I thought we were going to discuss the investigation.”
“We’ll get to that. I thought we could just spend some time getting to know one another again. It’s really great to see you.”
The lines at the corner of his eyes only enhanced his smile.
She sighed. “You’re right. I’m feeling a little sideways. So, tell me why you needed alone time to drive. Was it because you left the Navy?”
He took a sip of his wine and a wistful look passed over his face. “No, I moved here three years ago. I’ve only been out for six months. Nope, the big thing was coming out here and knowing I was going to be so close to family. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was just feeling out-of-sorts. I had always considered my teams my family. But there’s something about Van, Mary, and his kids.”
“And Declan? Is he special?”
“He’s a pain in the ass is what he is.”
She coughed out a laugh.
“What about you? Do you want to tell me the meaning of the paver stones?”
“It’s a longish story.”
“We’ve got time.” There he went again with that deep rumbly voice that made mincemeat of her defenses.
“Thirteen years ago, my cousin Rachel and her husband Ray, I know, Ra-Ray, right?” she shrugged her shoulders and Liam gave her an encouraging smile.
“They were killed in a car crash.” She took a deep breath. Even thinking about it now made her heart ache. “Their son Brody is my Godson. He’s everything to me. He was eleven when they died.”
“Jesus, I had no idea.” He reached out and covered her hand.
“Anyway, they lived out here in Maryland. I immediately moved out here. That’s their house, I just moved in and took over. I couldn’t uproot him. Everything needed to be about him. He needed to stay in the same school and have the same friends, you know?”
Liam nodded.
She thought about those first weeks and all of the tears.
“And the paver stones?” Liam asked.
“Those came two months after they died. He hated going to the cemetery, and pictures of his parents were killing him. Somehow, he needed some kind of memoriam that he could be a part of, something that would be there every day that would make him smile. I must have read about the idea somewhere.”
“Are you sure?” Liam asked.
“Well, I couldn’t have come up with it on my own. Anyway, we worked on this for months. Every time that Brody found a saying he liked, or came up with something he wanted to say, we had a paver stone commissioned.”
“Did it help?”
“I think it did. Now that he’s twenty-four, he says it did.” She laughed. “Can you believe I basically have a twenty-four-year-old quasi-son?”
“How about your dad, what does he think about being a quasi-grandfather?”
“About the same as being a dad, I guess. You know him, he’s too busy being a professor half the time to notice. But he’s made an effort, and that’s the best I could
hope for, I guess.”
“I really wish I’d been there for you, Addison.” He squeezed her hand.
She pulled away from his hold. The moment was lost. “Yeah, well, we kind of lost that connection, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did.”
“So, tell me more about the team. How did you get to know Laird? Was he a SEAL?”
“No, he was in the Army Rangers. He and the rest of the motley crew you met, except for Conroy, all served together at one point or another.”
“And you worked with them?”
“It’s a story for another day. Let’s just say we crossed paths a couple of times overseas.” He looked over her shoulder and she realized their food had arrived.
They both started eating in silence, but she could feel his gaze on her. “What made you decide to take a career with the CIA?”
“Expediency. They were looking for people with military experience, and it was close to where I was living. It was a match made in heaven.”
“I still can’t believe how much I didn’t know about what was going on in your life,” Liam said as he took another bite of his food.
“How could you?” she asked tightly. “It was two years after we broke up.”
“After you left,” he corrected.
She clenched her fist so tight beside her plate she thought her nails would break the skin of her palm. She saw Liam looking at it.
“Dammit, that was a stupid thing for me to say,” Liam said roughly.
“Ya think?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Addison regretted them. She had sworn not to let any of her hurt or bitterness show. She was over this. She was over him.
“I know I was at fault,” Liam said softly. He reached over the table and traced his fingers over her fist until her hand softened, then he tangled his fingers with hers. Addison felt herself melting, then pulled her hand away. She picked up her fork again and speared a scallop.
Liam gave her a wry smile. “You’re not making this easy.”
“What? There’s nothing to make easy. We’re co-workers. That’s the extent of our relationship, Liam. We have a job to do.”
“This is going to be intense, we need to be able to trust one another.”
Her lips twitched at that. “Do you hold Laird’s hand?”
Liam chuckled. “Point to you.”
She took a bite of her food and watched him do the same. “Tell me about Brody. What’s he like today?”
She smiled. “He’s wonderful. You’d really like him, Liam. He’s just finished a double major in mechanical and electrical engineering. He’s being recruited by Boeing, Apple and BMW.”
“Which way is he leaning?”
“He’s cautious. He’s trying to think about what will look good on his resume. He knows he can live lean and save money, no matter what part of the country he ends up. So right now, it’s what kind of work they’ll have him do and how it will broaden his horizons.”
Liam frowned.
“What?” she asked.
“You were never really cautious. You always lead with your heart. So, where did he get that from? His parents?”
“It was having them die. He knows that your world can be ripped apart at any given moment. It changes a person.”
Liam picked up his wine glass and sat back in his chair. “I imagine it would.”
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” He tipped his glass at her and she frowned.
“What?” she asked again.
“Addison, it really is nothing. I’m enjoying having dinner with you. Let’s finish up. We can talk about the investigation, Brody, the CIA, or living on the East Coast versus the West Coast. I don’t care. I just like listening to you talk.”
She felt herself relax. Good. This she could do.
“Do you want to order dessert? They have crème brulee.”
She stilled. She saw him notice. Dammit, he needed to stop being aware of every little thing she did. Hell, she needed to stop being aware of him! This whole thing was a freaking mess! There was no way in the world she was letting him past her defenses. She’d laid her heart, her soul, every molecule of her being at his feet fifteen years ago, and he hadn’t cared. He had done everything in his power to push her away.
She’d promised herself she would never let herself be so emotionally vulnerable again. And she hadn’t. Except for Brody, but that didn’t count. But for a man? She hadn’t. She’d stayed closed up. And she would. Especially with Liam Herne McAllister, who had left her broken.
4
“Conroy, I pinged you hours ago. What took you so long?” Addison asked irritably when she picked up her phone. She’d been at her computer for the last four hours checking and cross-checking information.
It was three days since the dinner with Liam and this was Addison’s third late-night call with Conroy Lake. She’d been getting cranky. She liked to be more methodical and precise as she worked through an investigation, but he worked by the seat-of-his-pants. Hence the late-night calls.
“Get to your computer,” he demanded. “We need to SKYPE.”
“I’m already at my computer,” Addison growled. She hit the SKYPE app and called up Conroy’s avatar then hung up her phone. She was still looking at the information on her main monitor when Conroy’s face came up on her laptop.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked.
“CPO, Caroline Jakes out of Whidbey Island. She just went missing late last night. I sent you that info, so of course I see it.”
“She fits the profile of all the others. We need to get out there and follow whatever trail they might have left.”
“You do realize that we could be wrong.”
“Who cares? It’s the first real break in the case. We’ve been doing nothing but waving our dicks around with nothing to show for it. Brannon and Cooper tracked down that one guy of Riaz’s who’d made it all the way to Belize, but he was useless.”
“That’s not true,” Addison protested. “He gave us something.”
“Bullshit. All he could tell them was that it was an old white guy who showed up. Like we couldn’t have guessed that on our own.”
“Conroy, he gave us more than that. He told us that he came with others. That two others dropped off the weapons. He also called him the devil and he seemed a hell of a lot more scared of him than he was of Riaz. That tells us a lot.”
“What does that tell us?”
“We have someone who just visits occasionally and manages to put the fear of God in hardened criminals that are already dealing with a boss who butchers women. What the hell was he like to do that? Yeah, he was evil with some special sauce.”
Conroy snorted out a laugh. “I like that. I’m going to use that line. Okay, he’s a monster. But the dumbass couldn’t say for sure that those two peons were there the same time when the old fuck brought the women. Sure, I’ve been checking out the serial numbers on the guns that Laird and the others found. They were all supposedly marked as received in the system over in Afghanistan three years ago.”
“So basically, those weapons never made it overseas, right?” Addison asked.
“Right. The shipment was diverted from Long Beach, which is a hell of a long way to the Yucatan.”
“All of the women have been taken from CONUS, we’re dealing with East Coast and West Coast, South and North. This guy travels.”
“Do you see him being able to abduct a woman and getting her into the Mexican jungle on his own?” Conroy asked. “I mean, you’ve done a hell of a job on the profile and what he more than likely does with them when he gets them down in his hidey-hole. But how do you think he’s doing it?”
“I’m an analyst, not an agent. I’ve only worked in the field once and I’ve never been paid to put together a profile.”
“Sell it somewhere else. I know you got your degree last year at Ferrum in Criminal Justice, and that includes classes in creating profiles.”
“Conroy, I’m not selling myself short. As far as I’m concerned, my profile is tight. I just want to be above board.”
“Duly noted, Ms. Eagle Scout. Shit, Liam must have loved you.”
Addison figured she could have won an Oscar for keeping her expression so neutral after Conroy’s wise-ass comment.
“So, what is your brain telling you?” Conroy asked tiredly. “I know what my gut is saying.”
“He hates the idea of relying on anybody. He would only do it if he has some kind of power over them. He wants adoration or abject fear, those would be what he feeds off of. I can’t figure out the dynamic with his partners. So, I don’t think those two peons that Riaz’s guy mentioned were just helping with the weapons—they were involved with getting the girl for our monster.”
“Monster. I like that. Let’s call him Frankenstein from here on out. So, Frankenstein has two peons, who are either really scared or really adoring, who help get the women over the border. Do they help with the killing and whatever else he does?”
“If it’s fear, then no. If it’s adoration, then he might let them participate, but not much.” Addison saw Conroy nodding.
“Are either of them the person who is sourcing the women?”
“Not in my opinion. Are you having any luck with that?”
“Yes,” Conroy brightened. “At least I’ve narrowed down some things. One, it isn’t the same person doing the transfers for all of the women. So that’s out.”
“But is it someone who’s done most of the transfers?” Addison asked.
“Not even close. There were ten different people with their hands in the pot. But I have figured out the two different systems that would have the personnel records of family background and transfer info. I am running a search to see who has access to both of those systems and has been with the Navy for the last fifteen years.”
“Sweet!” Addison unwrapped a sucker and popped it into her mouth. “What’s going on to find out how the weapons were stolen and by who? That might be able to help us backtrack to Frankenstein’s peons.”
SEAL at Sunrise (Silver SEALs Book 12) Page 4