by A. C. Arthur
“It’s time to board,” Devlin said, interrupting her thoughts.
Bailey stood quickly, thankful beyond words for the fact that it was time for them to get on the plane. She had no idea why her thoughts had traveled to Devlin, her and children. It was a ridiculous notion. They weren’t in a relationship, she thought as she picked up her duffel bag and headed for the boarding line.
If she were really honest with herself, Bailey would admit that she had no idea what she and Devlin were doing.
A quick glance at his watch told Dev it was close to eleven o’clock at night. Definitely too late for dinner at a nice restaurant which was exactly what he’d thought of doing with Bailey.
After the quiet hour long drive from the resort to LAX, Bailey had seemed distant while they were on the plane. Dev wondered if that was because they were taking a commercial flight across the country. While he had no problem with their mode of travel, he was very well aware that Bailey was a Donovan and as such used to flying in the Donovan jet. As Trent had mentioned when Dev had spoken to him on the phone earlier today, Dev had the number to the jet’s pilot. All he had to do was make a call and state that Bailey was ready to travel. In fact, the reason Dev had that number was because during his hunt for Bailey he’d been afforded the luxury of the private jet as well. But despite who his traveling partner was and the fact that their trip centered on a Donovan family issue, Dev had decided a commercial flight was better.
He hadn’t told Trent or anyone else where he and Bailey were going and he’d instructed her to keep their secret as well. Walking along the airport corridors with thousands of other people and boarding one of many domestic flights from the west to the east coast, was part of the low cover he wanted to keep. Dane Donovan was a powerful man in his own right, else the man would have never been able to put his sister in a medevac and then leave no trace of where she was now. Dev didn’t plan to underestimate Dane or his mother this time around.
The hotel he’d selected was in the middle of Times Square, another move on Dev’s part to keep what they were about to do as under the radar as possible. Now, that might sound ominous, bleak and possibly even scary. For Dev, however, it was routine.
“Where are we going now?” Bailey asked as they stepped out of the hotel and into the waiting taxi.
Dev slid onto the back seat beside her and gave an address to the driver.
“We need to eat,” he told Bailey.
She gave a slight nod as she looked out the window. “You think about eating a lot don’t you?”
He only shrugged. “The body craves sustenance.”
“And the waistline grows,” she remarked.
“You’re not one of those people that are obsessed with their weight, are you?”
She turned to him then with an odd look on her otherwise very pretty face. “You’ve seen me eat, Devlin. There’s no way you can call me obsessed about weight when I had just as many pancakes as you did this morning. I’m just saying that you’re making sure we don’t skip any meals on this mission.”
“No,” he told her. “You, especially won’t skip any meals.”
Because he had no idea how many meals she’d been denied lately. If reminding her about eating felt a little too domestic, well, Dev planned to dismiss that thought entirely.
“It’s a good thing the hotel has a gym,” she replied.
Dev had noticed that as well, and at her words a picture of Bailey working out flashed quickly through his mind. The punch of lust that soared immediately through him at the thought of seeing her tight little body in black spandex took his breath away. By way of dismissing that intense reaction, Dev reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He’d turned off his regular cell phone when they’d left the hotel. But it was stored in his duffel bag back at the hotel. The burner phone was now in his hand and he checked it to see if he had any emails.
“Are we doing the right thing?”
Dev looked up at her question and saw she was staring at him. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and nodded.
“We’re doing what needs to be done,” he replied.
“And what’s that?” She looked from him to the back of the driver’s head and then continued in a lower tone, “What are we actually planning to do? Kill Roslyn?”
The sound of gunshots and the knowledge that Bailey had been standing beside him without any weapon to defend herself as they’d fired inside the cabin was a stark and horrifying memory. For a man who had seen so much worse in his lifetime, that scene was one he wouldn’t soon forget.
“It’s late,” he answered. “Let’s just grab something quick to eat and then head back to the hotel. I’m sure you’re tired from traveling all day.”
“Not really,” she said. “But I am hungry so I hope wherever you’re taking me has cheeseburgers.”
The pub they stopped at definitely had cheeseburgers and fries and the onion rings she’d requested, even though she’d only eaten two.
“Too much breading,” she’d said when Dev had stuffed the last one into his mouth.
“Never waste food,” he replied when he finished chewing. “If it’s on your plate, you eat it.”
She crumpled the napkin in her hand after wiping her mouth. “I had two brothers who ate much faster than I ever did. So when they thought I should be finished, they had no problem helping themselves to whatever I hadn’t touched on my plate.”
“And you didn’t retaliate,” he commented. “I’m shocked.”
Bailey was a fighter. Dev had seen that in her the first time he’d met her. She’d stared Trent straight in the eye and dared him to lie to her about what had happened to Gavin Lucas on their tropical island. Of course, Trent hadn’t told her everything, but Bailey hadn’t been fooled by what he did tell her either. The sight had been one of the biggest turn-ons Dev had ever experienced.
“I learned early on how to pick and choose my battles with them. Besides, I hated broccoli and Brussel sprouts and for some odd reason they both loved them. It was a good compromise.”
She smiled then, a slow and full smile that lifted her already high cheek bones and had her hazel eyes shimmering beneath the soft light hanging low over their table. The pub was small and fairly busy for this time of night, but he’d managed to secure a table in the back where he could sit facing the door. A bell hanging over the front entrance rang each time a new customer came in, or one went out. A hostess slipped off the stool where she sat at the end of the bar a few feet from the door to greet the newcomers. She stayed seated but smiled and waved at the departing customers. There were two bartenders at the bar, an older white guy with a buzz cut and a scraggly graying beard. The second man was younger, slim, black, and friendlier with his diamond stud earrings and high-pitch laugh.
“What about you? Any siblings around to continue torturing you?”
Dev easily shifted his gaze from just above Bailey’s shoulder, to her lovely face once more. She really was a startlingly beautiful woman. The type of woman he would expect to see in expensive clothes, stepping out of limousines and walking the red carpet. Or perhaps in a boardroom wearing a chic designer business suit and sexy as hell high heels. Either way, she would command attention by her intelligence, beauty and the sexy curves of her body. The fact that the woman sitting across from him was neither a Hollywood star nor a successful businesswoman, but was, in fact, a trained investigator who had graduated tops in her class at the police academy, appealed to Dev much more.
“I was an only child,” he replied to her question and lifted his glass to finish the last of his water.
She sat back in the chair, her hands resting on the edge of the table.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Brooklyn,” he replied.
“Did you like it there?”
“It was as good as any other place.”
She tilted her head then, two-toned hair that Dev now knew was very soft to touch, moving with the action.
“Did you play a
ny sports in school?” she asked as if she were going down a long list of questions in her mind.
Normally Dev didn’t mind questions, as long as they weren’t about him.
“I wasn’t really a team player,” he answered and then looked around her in search of the waiter.
“Neither was I,” she continued. “My mother thought I’d be a great cheerleader because I was loud and boisterous, she said. So when I was nine she dragged me to the football field at the middle school and signed me up for the local cheer and dance squad. After two practices in what they called the rookie bracket, one of the team leaders that had gladly taken my mom’s check when we first arrived, had a quiet conversation with my mother explaining why I wasn’t cut out to be a Starlette on the field or in the statewide competitions.”
“Why was that?” he asked, intrigued by her story.
Or was it because of the spark of humor he’d seen in her eyes when she talked?
She shrugged, but gave a mischievous look. “Hey, it’s not my fault those goody-too-shoes girls couldn’t run worth squat and hated that I could do hand stands and back flips better than all of them, including the coach.”
“Those sound like excellent traits for a cheerleader,” he replied.
“Exactly!” she quipped. “Only I wasn’t supposed to be better than them because I was the newbie. And I didn’t want to do the stupid sleepovers or let them put that ridiculous glitter mousse in my hair. They were a pretty mean group of girls until you knocked one of them down. Then they all fell like dominoes.”
She’d ended with a triumphant smile that Dev couldn’t help but admire. He’d almost smiled back in return. Almost.
Instead, he shook his head. “I’m assuming they didn’t expect you to be a kick-ass type of cheerleader.”
“Guess not,” she replied and then smiled at the waiter as he approached and dropped a black billfold on the table.
Dev and Bailey reached for it at the same time. The tips of their fingers touched and Dev immediately stared at them. She had a much lighter complexion than his. Her hands were smaller and softer. His were large, strong, and deadly.
“You don’t have to keep feeding me,” she said. “I do work. I have some money you know.”
“Your wallet was still in your gym bag, in your car at that garage where they took you from,” he said and immediately regretted his words.
The light and laughter drained from her face instantly.
“I took the bag back to your apartment in Greenwich,” Dev continued and slid the billfold across the table toward him, as her grip on it had slackened.
“You were in my apartment?” she asked quietly.
Dev looked down at the check and then reached into his pocket to pull out some cash.
“I retraced your steps and talked to all your neighbors. The woman two doors down said she saw you leave to go to the gym. That’s why I went to the garage. When I found your stuff, I took it back to your place because I didn’t want the local cops taking it into their custody.”
He stopped talking after closing the cash inside the billfold. When he looked at her again she seemed to be studying him. He didn’t like it.
“Why did you go through all of that?” she asked him. “Sam and Bree both have keys to my apartment and my car. They’re the closest I have to family in Connecticut. When I moved there my father was adamant that someone be able to help me should I lock myself out. My family takes overprotectiveness to a new level, especially my father and brothers.”
She began shaking her head. “But you’re not family. So why did you do it?”
“You were missing,” he answered quickly, refusing to think any longer or harder on her questions. “Add Trent to your father and brothers and they were all going crazy wondering where you were.”
“So you thought you’d be helpful and find me for them?”
“If you say so,” he replied with a shrug and stood.
“The fact that we’ve been sleeping together on and off for the last year had nothing to do with it, huh?”
He stilled at that question and then gritted his teeth. They never talked about what they were doing together. Never asked any questions or required any explanations. Dev liked it that way. In fact, he preferred it.
The bell sounded and he looked to the front door. A group of rowdy guys came in, laughing and stumbling over each other as if they should have been heading home instead of to another place where they could purchase liquor. Across from them the man wearing the New York Giants jacket was still sitting alone in his booth nursing that same beer he’d ordered right after Dev and Bailey had sat down to eat.
“What is it?” she asked then, her voice a little hushed as she’d stood from her seat in front of him.
“Nothing,” he replied after another second of looking around and then returning his gaze to her.
“Liar,” she snapped. “You’ve been casing this joint since we walked in. Watching that front door, memorizing every detail about every person from the tables on the left side to the bar on the right. Something is going on and it makes more sense to just tell me now, so I can be on the lookout as well.”
Dev thought about her words for a couple seconds. He thought about Jaydon shooting that gun and finding Bailey tied up in that room and his fingers clenched at his sides.
“Seems like you’ve been on the lookout whether I told you what was going on or not,” he replied tightly. “Come on. We’re going back to the hotel.”
He took her hand and led the way as he moved through the crowd. Once outside Dev hailed a taxi and immediately shuffled her into the back seat. He then gave the driver the name of their hotel. When Bailey opened her mouth to speak again, he touched her lip with one finger.
“Not here. Not now,” he whispered.
She wisely obliged and sat back amicably.
That wasn’t going to last long, he knew. Bailey was inquisitive by nature, an investigator by trade. He’d brought her along under the pretense of needing her to work with him to get to Roslyn Ausby. The fact that he thought she might be in danger because of him had no doubt, never crossed Bailey’s mind. But she was smart and intuitive and no amount of keeping quiet or ordering her around was going to keep her from picking up on things a normal person wouldn’t bother to notice. For that reason, Dev had to hurry up and figure out who was sending him those text messages. For another, dark and regretful reason, he knew he would have to put an end to the person once he found him.
The fact that his killing instincts were on high alert while a part of him had begun to feel something in distinct contrast to the way of life he’d lived for so long, was of no consequence.
It couldn’t be.
Chapter 6
The next morning Dev used the charger cord to plug his old phone into his tablet. When they were connected, he logged into the backdoor link he had to the Navy’s intel application. While other citizens could use Google reverse phone number searches to find the number and sometimes the name of the owner of a phone, this system was far more in-depth. It could trace even burner phones which could easily be purchased without the owner divulging any personal information. Once inside the system, Dev entered his old cell phone number into the computer and waited while the tracing software ran. In minutes he would have the number and location of each cell phone that had sent him a text message in the last two days.
He’d checked the old phone the moment he shut the door to the bedroom and was alone in the sitting area of the hotel room. There were no new text messages and Dev felt a small measure of relief. Still, he knew that his instincts were to be trusted. Always.
It was just before dawn and Bailey was still sleep. She was lying in that bed, soft and quiet with the blankets pulled up to her neck in the chilly room. The urge to go back and slip into bed beside her was strong and had Dev cursing.
The numbers he was looking for appeared on the screen amongst a list of other numbers. Dev recognized all but two and he immediately clicked on them. A
minute or so passed and Dev set his own burner phone on the table beside his tablet. He had yet to use his new phone to call anyone. His conversations with York had moved to his secure email and Dev made sure to log into his email using an array of different internet hot spots. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was or what he was doing.
So why had he still felt like someone was following him and Bailey last night?
Each of the two text messages had come from a different number. But the identification code for each number ran consecutively. Dev continued to frown. This meant the phones were most likely part of a batch purchase. After the rise of terrorist attacks and the connection between members of terrorist cells making bulk burner phone purchases and using the phones to either, communicate with each other once and toss the phone away, or as bomb detonators, lawmakers had begun to introduce legislation banning the sale of bulk purchases. Just last year there was a report of the sale of more than fifty phones from one retail store. The purchasers had been traced but could not be held on any criminal charges, but the incident once again proved laws needed to be revised to require that bulk purchasers be made to leave more information besides a name and address when buying these phones. That law was now buried in some committee.
The application Dev was now using was bypassing the store location purchase and singling out the identification codes on each phone, matching the pings from the cell tower that were hit when the text messages were transmitted and giving Dev the location, time, and name of purchaser. With this information he could then run a national security map search which would zoom in on a picture of the person as they had been sending the message.