Trying to keep the exchange normal, not give Crandall any reason to think he could get away with treating him like anything other than an equal, Wyatt said, "I apologize for not being here yesterday when the new case came in. I was, as you know, out of state. I'll look forward to seeing the details on it."
Crandall didn't respond, just watched him in silence, staring right into Wyatt's eyes. Wyatt had absolutely no problem holding that stare, maintaining his calm, aloof demeanor. He had faced men far more intimidating than Deputy Director Fred Crandall, and if the man thought he could browbeat him, he was sorely mistaken.
Crandall had exactly one weapon he could use against Wyatt. One card he could play that would bring him to heel and have him doing whatever the man wanted. Fortunately, though, he did not yet know that one weapon was still alive.
If asked directly, would Wyatt have lied about it? Said he didn't know if Lily had survived, or where she might be? Considering his aversion to lies of any sort, he wasn't sure. Thankfully, he'd been spared from having to decide because the question had not come up.
A knock on the closed office door was quickly followed by someone opening it and stepping in uninvited. "I heard you were meeting. I think I should be a part of this."
Tom Anspaugh. The agent, with his ill-fitting suit, his crooked tie, and his red-rimmed eyes didn't look well. In fact, he looked like someone who had filled a lot of long, sleepless nights with a lot of cheap liquor. But he had apparently begun to work his way back into Crandall's good graces by bringing news of Wyatt's secret investigation to the deputy director's office.
"Oh, excellent," Wyatt said, forcing himself to nod politely at the other agent, whom he had disliked for a long time, but truly loathed after he'd left Lily unprotected and vulnerable. "Deputy Director Crandall was updating me on the new information you've received about my case."
He didn't know who looked more shocked at his gall, Crandall or Anspaugh.
"Your case?" Anspaugh finally snapped. "I'm working this case now."
Ignoring him, Wyatt addressed the deputy director. "Is there some problem here? Didn't we just agree about the Internet aspects of these murders?"
"Yes, but-"
"Then why is this even being discussed?" He tossed a disdainful look Anspaugh's way. "I mean, Special Agent Anspaugh has most recently been working on bankruptcy-fraud cases, hasn't he?"
The other agent's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. He didn't like being reminded about his loss in status.
Crandall, however, needed the reminder. In his zeal to screw with Wyatt, he'd somehow managed to forget he'd made Anspaugh a fall guy as well.
"Look, Blackstone " Anspaugh said, "you're out of this thing now. I got the call about Lil. You can't very well investigate one of your own employees for murder."
Wyatt managed to convey a look of complete surprise. "Excuse me?"
Crandall cleared his throat and frowned at Anspaugh. "To be clear, we're not assuming Agent Fletcher is a suspect. We're not even assuming she is actually alive, despite the evidence to the contrary."
"You have evidence that she is alive?"
"The badge-"
"Was obviously taken from her by the man who shot her and drove off with her in the back of that van last January. Who knows where it ended up after that night? Besides, even if she were alive, do you really think she'd be stupid enough to leave her own badge behind at a crime scene?"
Anspaugh, beginning to appear nervous, shot off his mouth again. "Look, maybe she's not actually alive, but this case involves her somehow. And her last boss can't be the one investigating it."
His tone silky smooth, Wyatt replied, "As I recall. Tom, on Lily's very last assignment, she was under your supervision." Pure, unadulterated anger must have shown through his eyes, because Anspaugh almost imperceptibly drew back under his stare. "Your protection. You did promise me she'd be protected, remember?"
The other man's neck worked as he swallowed, hard. "We couldn't have known."
"Anybody knows you don't leave two inexperienced agents used to doing only electronic surveillance alone in a van with no backup." Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest, needing to hide his hands, which were clenching into fists. "Kowalski was a computer specialist, just like Lily, not a field agent. They should have been covered at all times."
Crandall tilted his head back, his disdainful mood now focused on Anspaugh as much as on Wyatt. Anspaugh had been crucified in the investigation, and Crandall hadn't forgotten the black eye it had given him, as well.
Apparently seeing he was losing ground, Anspaugh jumped right back in the fight, stubborn and belligerent. "Look, Blackstone, we all know her body was never found and she could be alive. If she is, then she's gone rogue, turned into some kind of vigilante. And you know as well as I do that rogue agents aren't investigated by the Cyber Division."
A slight smile touching his lips, Wyatt addressed Crandall. "Excuse me; I was under the impression that Agent Fletcher's employment with the bureau expired when she did."
He didn't have to go on. Crandall's frown and the sneer on his lips said he understood. An FBI agent suspected of a crime would require an internal-affairs investigation. A former agent? Now it got sticky.
Anspaugh gave it one more shot. "Come on, I've done a lot of work on this____________________"
"Since yesterday?" Wyatt asked, lifting one brow. "I can't imagine how you could possibly have more information on this case than I have accumulated in the past several weeks. Especially considering I was on the scene of all of the first three murders, two of them before the bodies were even removed."
Another argument Crandall could not deny. This time, he didn't even try to stall, or wait for Anspaugh to throw up another false objection. He merely waved a weary hand in the air, gesturing them both out. "Fine. Get back to work. Blackstone, I want to be kept apprised of this situation every step of the way."
Tom Anspaugh shot to his feet. "But I need to be part of this! I lost everything because of Fletcher, the stupid little-"
Before he could even form the final word of his vicious comment, Wyatt leapt up as well, leaning in until his face was two inches from Anspaugh's. The fury he'd felt toward the man for so many months made his voice shake and every muscle in his body contract. "Don't you blame somebody else because you couldn't manage to keep your own people alive during your fucked-up undercover operation." He stepped closer, lowering his voice to a near growl. "Don't you even dare."
Then, knowing Crandall had to be as shocked as Anspaugh appeared to be, Wyatt spun around and strode toward the door, not casting a single look back at either of them.
In the old days, by four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, Will Miller would be parked on a stool at his favorite bar, having had an appetizer of Bud while he worked his way toward the main course of Wild Turkey, with a few shots of schnapps in between strictly to cleanse the palate.
Not anymore.
"We've come a long way, baby," he told his young grandson as he unbuckled the car seat he'd just bought for the kid from the car he'd just bought for himself! This weekend, he would take his daughter out and buy her one, too. Nothing ritzy or glamorous, something reliable and used like this one. He had money to spend, but not millions. He wanted it to last, to give them all a chance at a better life.
Whatever she drove would be an improvement on the bus. Even better, if he had his way, she would soon be driving it to the community college, to work on the degree she'd given up on when she got pregnant. Getting her to quit that lousy job at the diner was his number-one priority.
"She's gonna ask us questions about the money, isn't she?" he asked little Toby. 'Can you say lottery? Lot-ter-y."
The kid babbled something, his stuffed-up nose making the gibberish even more impossible to translate. The medicine he'd just picked up for him would fix that.
"Mommy's gonna be happy, isn't she? She thought I was just babysitting you today, but we surprised her with a trip to the clinic, didn't we?"
His grandson would be healthy and his daughter would get to go back to school. He'd move them both to a decent place, out of this ratty, run-down neighborhood. Will was finally going to be able to pay back the people who'd stuck by him.
For once, his life was really looking up.
Toby wrapped his chubby arms around Will's neck, twining his slobber-wet hands in the short gray hairs behind his ears. And Will's heart welled up, the same way it had many years ago, when he'd first started to see the real person his own firstborn son was becoming, after months of looking in a crib and seeing nothing but a crying lump.
This little guy had personality. He was also just about the cutest baby anybody had ever seen-even the nurse at the clinic said so.
"I'll keep you safe, buddy," he whispered.
Safe from sickness. Safe from poverty. Safe from bad people…
Jesus. His thoughts had taken him there again. Right to the place he'd tried so hard to avoid going in the past few days, ever since he'd gone into a lawyer's office and sworn in an affidavit that some guy named Jesse Boyd had been drinking with him in a bar on one specific night a few years back.
If he'd done some research, if Will had gone on the computer to look up the guy's crimes, would he have still gone through with it? What did it say about him as a person that he'd lied, for money, to help set a goddamned child molester and murderer free?
"Pop-pop-pop-pop," Toby said with a sleepy smile, mumbling the words Will had been teaching him every day for a week.
God forgive me.
A little kid. A little boy not much older than Toby. Boyd had taken him. Hurt him. Killed him.
If there was a hell, Will would someday be there with the man he'd helped set free, both of them sitting front row, center.
"Pop-pop."
"That's right, I'm your pop-pop," he said, kissing the tousled blond curls on the top of the baby's soft head. "And I'll always be there for ya, kid. I'm gonna watch over you, take care of-"
A loud noise cut off his sentence. Pop! Pop! Something hit him, then something else, bang-bang, two in a row.
The bullets struck hard, pain erupting in his lower back, and in his left shoulder. He stumbled forward from the impact, staggering onto the sidewalk, dropping to his knees. Even as he fell, he was careful to hold the baby up so his tiny frame didn't smash onto the cement.
The sharp pain from each gunshot rapidly expanded, spreading throughout his body before merging to create one enormous torrent of anguish. He'd never known a person could hurt so much.
"Toby." The word lingered on his lips. As he started to fall forward, knowing he was going to land on his face, he gently pushed the boy to the side, out of harm's way.
"Help," he whispered, not even sure he understood what had happened. "Help."
Toby began to whimper. Then to cry. But his cries were drowned out by the sound of a car's engine, revving up and roaring away, the tires spinning and screaming on the blacktop as the vehicle tore up the block.
"Pop-pop?"
Will reached for the boy, his own flesh and blood, the kid who was supposed to be his chance to make everything right, to do it all over again. He wanted to touch him, to stroke that hair, brush his fingers against that little cheek, and promise it would all be okay.
But his fingers were bloody and his arm was weak and he was dying, and Will could only stare at the child as the world went dark and he headed for his front row, center seat.
Chapter 14
Though Lily knew her former coworkers had been informed of her miraculous resurrection and wouldn't be caught by surprise as Jackie had been, she couldn't contain her nervousness as it drew closer to seven thirty. That was when the other three men she had worked with, all good, fine agents, would be coming over to Wyatt's to help work on Lily's case. Late this afternoon, Wyatt had called Dean Taggert, Kyle Mulrooney, and Alec Lambert into his office and had told them the whole story. He'd given them a choice: Walk out and pretend they had never heard a thing, staying out of the mess that was almost surely headed their way. Or help.
All three of them were on their way over here to help.
Though Wyatt, Jackie, and Brandon swore the new members of the team, Christian and Anna, could be trusted, Lily had made the decision not to bring them in. She didn't know them; they didn't know her. Why should they have any loyalty to her, especially if it could hurt their own careers? It was better that they remain in the dark. More of that plausible deniability. And as Brandon said, at least there would be two members of the Black CATs still employed if this went down badly.
Oh, God, please don't let it come to that. What an awful repayment that would be for the sacrifices and the loyalty, the friendship, and the never-ending support these people had offered her.
That support could make all the difference. Because with those brilliant minds working on both cases, something would happen. It had to. They would all take on different assignments, providing backup, doing legwork, chasing down clues, leaving Wyatt free to pursue their one hot lead: Roger Underwood. He intended to go back down to Williamsburg the next day, to try to surprise the bastard's widow at her home, see if he could shake her story and get any more information out of her. At the very least, confronting her about her lies regarding her husband's voice on the tape should get a reaction out of the woman.
She'd obviously lied about the voice in order to protect her husband. But did she know what she had been protecting him from? How far would someone go to cover up for a loved one? How much would a person do out of love for someone else, a husband, a brother, a son?
Wyatt wanted to know. So did Lily.
"Would you stop pacing?" Wyatt asked, interrupting her.
"You're sure they aren't angry with me?" she asked him again as she prowled the huge living room, which encompassed the front half of the downstairs. Every time she passed one of the windows, she peered out, looking for a dark-colored sedan, and a familiar handsome face emerging from it.
'if they're angry, it's at me for not bringing them in and letting them help long ago," Wyatt insisted. "Not you. Never you."
"Unlike Anspaugh."
"Unlike Anspaugh," he admitted.
Wyatt had told her all the details about his meeting in the deputy director's office today, leaving out nothing. Afterward, she had come around to his way of thinking-coming forward now, today, would land her in jail, not in a witness stand testifying against Jesse Boyd. Besides, as he reminded her, if she wanted to maintain any credibility as a witness whatsoever, she couldn't get up there and be introduced as a suspected serial killer herself.
She'd clear her name, then go after Boyd. Even though the delay nearly killed her.
Tense, Lily perched on the corner of a chair, sat for a moment, then stood and resumed her pacing. Wyatt finally stepped closer, put both hands on her shoulders, and ran them up and down, warming the skin she hadn't realized had grown cold. "It's okay."
His hands, so strong, solid, and tender, brought not only warmth but calm. It was as if with each inch his palms slid against her skin, another bit of tension was pulled free from her, replacing worry and fear with comfort and calm.
Lily's eyes drifted closed and she remained very still, letting him touch her, stroke away her cares. She swayed a little on her feet, until her hip brushed against his, and the tips of her breasts scraped the front of his jacket. She tried to hide the intense pleasure she got out of not just his touch, but that Wyatt was the one touching her. Wyatt, the dream man she'd once thought so out of reach, Wyatt the hero, the savior, the friend.
She wanted him to become Wyatt the lover.
It was crazy-Jackie was in the kitchen throwing together some dinner, and the others would be arriving at any minute-but Lily couldn't stop herself. Her eyes slowly opening, she lifted her hands, sliding them onto his shoulders, the tip
s of her thumbs caressing his neck. Held back by nothing, not pride or fear or intimidation, she looked up at him, silently asking him for the world, or just the little part of it he inhabited.
He smiled faintly, shaking his head. But he wasn't saying no. That expression told her that as crazy as it might be, the answer was yes.
"When this is over," he whispered.
"Tonight's meeting?" she asked, intentionally misunderstanding.
He barked a quick laugh. "You know what I mean."
Now it was Lily's turn to shake her head. "No."
"Yes, you do."
"I meant no, that's not acceptable."
"It's not, huh?"
She leaned closer, rising up onto her tiptoes so their mouths shared the same inch of air space. Then she eliminated it, pressing her lips onto his in a kiss so fleeting, so soft, that if not for the way her mouth tingled, she wouldn't have been certain she'd kissed him at all.
"If there's one thing the past few years have taught me, Wyatt, it's to take nothing for granted. Don't put off something you want for a future date, because for all you know, your future might not extend beyond today."
He opened his mouth to reply, and she didn't know whether he was going to start with another warning about why this was a bad idea, inform her he couldn't take advantage of her, caution that he was older, had been her boss, blah, blah, blah. She'd heard it before.
"I don't give a damn," she whispered before he got a word out.
"You should," he told her. "There are some things you don't know."
"Sweet man, all the things I don't know about you could probably fill the hard drive on my laptop. But there's one thing I do know, and it's all I need to know." She smiled. "I'm alive not only because of you, but merely because I am with you."
"Lily." He thrust a hand through his thick, dark hair, shaking his head. "You don't understand. There are issues we need to clear up before you decide to do anything." He appeared almost mournful as he added, "I've done things for the right reasons that have ended up hurting people. Even you."
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