Identity Crisis

by Rochelle Paige

  “I’m not used to sugar-coating my words, Delia. I call ‘em like I see ‘em and sometimes I can be a dick.”

  This wasn’t news to me, not after the way he’d ended our conversation this morning. “Is that supposed to be an apology?”

  His chest shook as he laughed, the sound wrapping around me as I felt the reverberations on my cheek. “More like a heads up. You wanna do this thing with me, you better be prepared to brace and take me as I am—in bed and out.”

  “This thing?”

  “Baby, you just gave yourself to me. When you got on your knees and crawled over my body so I could eat your pussy while you sucked my dick? That was the start of something between us. I’m not sure what to call it. Words are your thing, not mine. Feel free to put a name to it.”

  A loud knock on the door interrupted us, a startling reminder that Brody was in the other room. “I hate to interrupt your fun, but I think I found something.”

  “Do you think he could hear us?” I whispered, horrified, thinking about how loudly I had screamed when I came.

  “Yup,” Brody answered through the door.

  I rolled away from Blaine and pulled the sheet over my face, groaning in embarrassment.

  “We’ll be out in a second,” Blaine called to Brody before rubbing my back. “I should have warned you, his hearing is crazy good. It saved our asses a time or two, but it sure as hell can make things awkward in close quarters.”

  “Please tell me he’s not staying here. He has another suite, right? One which doesn’t share a wall with this room?” I panicked, my words bursting from me in a rush.

  “He’s not just here to help gather intel. He could do that just as easily from Vegas. I asked him to come because you were shot and I need someone I trust to have our backs. Which means he stays close and rides the couch ‘til this is over.”

  “No more orgasms for me,” I sighed, disappointment coloring my tone. As wrong as it might have been, considering the situation, I’d been looking forward to spending more time between the sheets with Blaine—and soon. My climax had been good, but I knew it would be better with him deep inside me.

  “You want me to take the time now to prove how wrong you are about that?” The promise in his gravelly voice had my pussy convulsing.

  “No,” I answered, even though it was the exact opposite of what I really wanted.

  “You sure? Because I’m up for the challenge.” He gripped my hand and slid it down his body, wrapping my fist around his hardened length.

  “You don’t have screaming orgasms with your friends listening right outside the door.” My protest was a half-hearted contradiction to the motion of my hand as it glided up his shaft.

  He moved until his face was within an inch of mine, trapping my hand around him with his own and squeezing gently. “Wrong, baby. I’m not going to wait until he’s gone to feel your pussy wrapped around my dick. When I’m inside you, you will scream my name, and I don’t give a fuck who hears us. Neither will you.”

  “Arrogant bastard.”

  “It isn’t arrogance if it’s true.” He dropped a quick kiss on my lips before climbing out of bed and pulling his jeans on. “I’ll prove it to you later. Right now, we better go see what Brody found before he decides to come in here and I have to kick his ass for seeing you naked.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be the reason you beat up your best friend.”

  Blaine picked up the shirt I’d been wearing and tossed it at me. “Wouldn’t be the first time one of us punched the other and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the last.”

  He grabbed a t-shirt from his bag and pulled it over his head, waiting until I was dressed before opening the door. “I’ll be out in a second. I need to brush my teeth.”

  His gaze dropped to my mouth and heat flared in his eyes. I had no doubt he knew exactly why I wanted to brush my teeth. The wicked gleam in his eye and smug tilt of his lips warned me he was about to say something bound to piss me off again. “Out!” I ordered, pointing at the door. “As much fun as it seems to be for you, I don’t have the energy to get into another argument right now.”

  “Maybe later,” he murmured before the door shut behind him.

  “That man is going to drive me insane,” I muttered to myself. “But holy crap it would totally be worth it.”

  ****

  By the time I made it into the living room, the guys were standing at the kitchen counter staring at Brody’s laptop. I took a moment to appreciate the sight of the two of them together, their broad shoulders almost touching as they leaned against the granite countertop. My eyes were drawn to Blaine, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate the eye candy that was Brody Slater. He was a couple inches shorter than Blaine, but filled out a pair of jeans just as well.

  “If you’re done ogling, you might as well come over here and join us.” Brody’s voice was filled with humor, but my eyes jerked up to catch Blaine glaring at me. I’d obviously been caught checking out Brody’s ass.

  The moment I made it over to them, Blaine tossed his arm over my shoulder, pulling me close. It was a territorial move, one that clearly staked a claim.

  “Why don’t you just pee on her leg and get it over with?”

  “Fuck you,” Blaine muttered without any heat. Looking up at him, I was surprised to find his cheeks tinted red with embarrassment—he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who was fazed by much.

  When he didn’t loosen his hold, I settled into his embrace and nodded my head toward the laptop. “What did I miss?”

  “I found some suspicious activity online. Looks like the boyfriend was dirty,” Brody said.

  “What kind of activity?”

  “Regular visits to a bitcoin exchange, some activity on the deep web. Places your average person wouldn’t know about let alone visit online,” Blaine replied.

  “And it might explain why I haven’t been able to trace the source of his income yet.”

  I felt like they were speaking in a different language. “Deep web?”

  “There’s a part of the internet where people can remain anonymous. It’s called the deep web,” Brody explained.

  “And bitcoins? That sounds techy too.”

  “Bitcoins act like a currency or commodity. You can have bitcoins just like you can have gold or cash. The difference is bitcoins exist electronically rather than physically. So, if you have bitcoins and you want dollars, you have to find someone who has dollars and wants bitcoins to make a trade. That’s where the exchanges come into play.”

  Brody’s explanation was clear and concise, easy enough for even me to understand. “Sounds like you’ve had to give that explanation before.”

  “He’s used to translating his tech talk into English for me.”

  Brody looked at Blaine and shook his head. “You understand more than most of the other guys, don’t play dumb now.”

  “What about Serena?” I asked.

  “Everything I’ve found so far indicates she was clean.”

  “Brody’s being generous,” Blaine growled. “I’d like to think she didn’t know what her boyfriend was into, but we don’t know that. I really hope she didn’t know he was dirty. She sure didn’t seem to mind him spending his money on her and I would hate to think she’d changed so much that she didn’t care where the money came from.”

  Blaine’s voice was filled with pain. I turned in his arms and hugged him tightly, wanting to offer comfort and take away some of his hurt. “She knew how honorable you are, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it stands to reason she wouldn’t have pulled you into this if she was one of the bad guys. Why ask for help from a hero when you’re wearing a black hat? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Even though she was the kind of woman who wanted the sweet life, it doesn’t mean she went dark to get it, brother,” Brody added.

  “I hope you two are right,” Blaine sighed.

  “How about we assume the best but prepare for the worst when it comes to Ser
ena’s involvement in this?” I suggested.

  Blaine’s arms tightened around me. “SEALs are always prepared for the worst.”

  “What else can we do to prepare? How about we try to talk through everything we know?”

  “Blaine and I have worked the problem over and over again. I don’t see how walking through it again with you is going to help,” Brody grumbled.

  “I may not have been a SEAL, but I’m a woman. I have an advantage when it comes to thinking like Serena,” I pointed out.

  “Definitely a woman,” Blaine murmured, the heat in his eyes letting me know he was thinking about our time in bed together.

  “And I’m an author,” I pushed forward, resisting the urge to drag him back to bed to prove exactly how much of a woman I was. “So I’m pretty good with plotting things out. Maybe if we tackle this like a book we’ll be able to come up with something you guys can follow up on.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Blaine conceded.

  “You’re lead on this one. If you want to go through it again with Delia, then I guess that’s what we’re going to do.” Although Brody seemed easygoing at first, I was beginning to think there was more than what met the eye with him.

  “So, what are the facts as we know them?”

  “Serena knew she was in trouble. She had time to get away from whoever was after her. She reached out to Blaine for help via text. He couldn’t make it to her fast enough so he sent her to a guy I found online who presumably got her a credit card and identification in Delia’s name so she could check into the hotel. At some point between when she left her home and the morning Blaine arrived, someone broke in and tore the place apart. They managed to locate her at the hotel, beat the shit out of her, and shot her multiple times before the kill shot to the head,” Brody said, beginning the rundown of information.

  “What about the timing of her boyfriend’s death?” Blaine asked.

  Brody pulled something up on his computer before he answered. “The initial estimate by the medical examiner places his death around the time you got the first text from Serena.”

  “Maybe she witnessed his murder and somehow got away?” I asked.

  “No, that doesn’t fit the details of their deaths. Her boyfriend was a clean shot to the head, execution style. No signs of torture, but there was a call from his cell phone to her office line a couple hours before she texted me.” Blaine filled in some more gaps.

  “I did a little more digging into his cell phone records. That call was made from Macon, where his body was found,” Brody added.

  “So, it could have been a warning from her boyfriend that made her run?” This rundown was a good idea. It allowed me to listen to the facts at hand with a certain degree of detachment and play them through my head like the plot of a book. “They were looking for something at her apartment. What about his place?”

  “Blaine didn’t search his home, but the cop on the boyfriend’s murder didn’t mention anything in his notes about a break in,” Brody answered.

  “Do I want to know how you have access to a cop’s notes?” I asked.

  “You don’t.”

  “Plausible deniability,” Blaine added.

  “Okie dokie. If the bad guys searched her place but not his and tortured her but not him, what does that tell us?”

  Brody’s approving look and Blaine’s quick squeeze made me thankful I’d forged ahead and ignored the fact that the source of their information was illegal.

  “She had something they wanted,” Blaine answered. “How the fuck didn’t I think of that already?”

  “And, if I had to guess, they haven’t found it yet,” Brody added.

  “Or they wouldn’t have been outside her office.”

  Realization finally struck. “Where they saw me, thought I was Serena, and shot me?”

  “Yes, it’s the most likely scenario,” Blaine confirmed.

  I shook my head, trying to focus on the topic at hand instead of dwelling on the fact I’d gotten shot because the bad guys thought I was someone else. “Whatever they were looking for, it couldn’t have been in her house or the hotel room. She might have told them where it was during the beating, but that doesn’t make sense. Why would they have been at her office?”

  “Unless she hid it there and they went to retrieve it,” Brody suggested.

  “No, that doesn’t fit,” Blaine disagreed. “If she’d told them where to find whatever she was hiding, they would have been certain it was her they’d killed in the hotel room. They wouldn’t have had any reason to shoot at Delia.”

  “Where the hell did she hide it then?”

  An idea popped into my head, but it was so crazy, it didn’t seem like it could even be possible. “She liked my books. Thought of my name when she needed a way to hide herself away from the bad guys. What if she used something from one of my books to hide whatever they wanted from them?”

  Blaine turned me in his arms and looked down at me, confusion clear on his face. “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know what she was hiding from them, but if it was small enough, she might have thought about a scene from one of my books. The hero knows the bad guys are closing in on him so he mails himself the evidence he needs to take them down in case he can’t get away from them.”

  “That would never work in real life,” Brody scoffs. “Too many things could go wrong.”

  “Did it work in your book?” Blaine asked.

  I nodded in response, too irritated to answer because Brody’s disbelief stung my pride. Blaine’s head lifted and he looked at Brody. “Serena wasn’t a trained operative. She would have made decisions like a civilian and for one reason or another, Delia seems to have been in her comfort zone. Just like I was.”

  Something passed between the two men before Brody sighed deeply. “Shit. It’s going to be like looking for a needle in a fucking haystack if it hasn’t been delivered yet. And we’ll have to avoid the police. The Macon cops are bound to be looking for Serena by now since she was their victim’s girlfriend and the last call he made was to her.”

  “Maybe not,” I interrupted. “The hero in my book—he didn’t mail the package to his home or work. He knew the bad guys would search those places if they managed to kill him.”

  “Where did he mail it to then?” Blaine asked.

  “A hotel where he’d stayed several times and the front desk staff knew him. He’d been there often enough he knew they’d hold onto it until his next stay.”

  The disbelief on the guys’ faces would have been comical had we not been discussing murder and mayhem.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Brody asked Blaine.

  “Yeah, if she sent something to the Hilton, we’re going to have a hell of a time getting our hands on it.”

  It was a problem we spent the rest of the day and night working on, finally coming up with a solution Blaine wasn’t thrilled about but eventually agreed was the best plan—one that involved me staying behind. The risk of someone at the hotel recognizing me was too high.

  Chapter 11

  Blaine

  The last time I entered this hotel, I’d expected to meet Serena, talk to her about some problem she was probably exaggerating, and help her solve it in no time flat. Now, Brody and I were walking in, fake badges clipped to our belts, in the hope our wild guess was right and we’d somehow be able to locate a clue she may or may not have left behind before she died.

  “We’re really gonna do it this way?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he sighed. “Chill out, brother. There’s a difference between winging it and going in with a plan to see what happens. Nobody in there has any reason to question the story we’re going to spin for them. We go in, see if the front desk is holding a package under Delia’s name, collect it as evidence for an ongoing investigation, and then we get out.”

  “Our plan sounds an awful lot like winging it to me.”

  After he hadn’t been able to find any mention of a package in the police r
eports, Brody had hacked into the hotel’s system to see if he could find a record of one. When he came up empty, he hatched this plan and floated it to me. It sounded like crap to me, but when Delia woke up and heard the plan, she sided with Brody. She was persuasive in her argument, and the two of them managed to sway me to their way of thinking. The next thing I knew, Brody had procured badges and a couple suits were delivered to the suite. Then Delia handed her keys over to me so Brody and I could head over to the hotel.

  There wasn’t much traffic, which wasn’t a surprise since the sun hadn’t risen yet. I was the one who had insisted we hit the hotel early, when the front desk would be staffed with the fewest employees. I didn’t expect there to be many guests downstairs this time of day, so it was our best bet to get in and out cleanly.

  As we got out of the car, Brody flashed his badge at the valet. “Leave the car where it is. We won’t be here long.” His voice held authority and the valet accepted the order for what it was. “Here’s to hoping the front desk staff is as easy to con as that guy.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”

  “You know I prefer to be both,” Brody retorted as we reached the front desk.

  “Good morning, gentlemen. Welcome to the Hilton. How can I help you today?” The girl was young, pretty, and her eyes were locked on Brody like she was picturing him naked. He flashed me a smirk before turning his attention to the girl.

  “Morning, beautiful. My partner and I were hoping you could help us out,” he drawled.

  “Partner?” she repeated, her gaze darting to me before returning to Brody.

  “Not like that, darlin’,” he scoffed, flashing her the badge he’d acquired. “Atlanta PD, homicide division.”

  “Oh.” Her sigh was relieved. “I’m not sure how I can help if this is about that author. This is my first day back from vacation.”

  “Vacation? Don’t break my heart and tell me you went away with a boyfriend.”

  Brody’s tone was as flirtatious as his words, and the girl was quick to blush and tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. If there was a package back there with Delia’s name on it, I had no doubt she’d happily hand it over to Brody. I stood back, kept quiet, and let him work his magic.