If she were being fair, she would call it what it was: inexperience with a heavy dose of exhaustion. After several nights of sitting up with a sick two-year-old, she didn’t have the brainpower to be practical.
Reaching for the one photo on her desk, she outlined the smiling face of her son with the tip of her finger. Gabriel had the flu and he would be fine by tomorrow, but leaving him this morning was so hard and the guilt ate away at her.
There were so many days from Lexie’s childhood she had no one to look after her, no one to care if her stomach hurt. While she might not be the best engineer, she was a good mother. No one on the planet loved her little boy like she did. What he needed most was a stable home, and that meant she had to work.
Coffee. That would do the trick. She reached for her mug and headed toward the break room. Halfway across the lab, she stopped and returned to her desk. Opening the top drawer, she removed four quarters from the small dish. Chocolate and coffee.
The break room was empty, and as always, so was the coffee pot. She took the carafe off the burner and rinsed it out. Four minutes later, she was at her desk with a half-eaten candy bar in one hand and a steaming mug of aromatic heaven in the other. Settling her spine against her desk chair, she closed her eyes as she chased down another bite of the candy bar with a swig of coffee.
The air shifted, and a shadow loomed over her. Keeping her eyes closed, she said, “I just need one more minute and I’ll be right as rain.”
“Lexie.”
She jolted upright, her eyes wide open. The deep baritone, all-male voice from her most erotic dreams mixed with the caramel, nuts, and chocolate clogging her throat. She let out a very unladylike cough. The face that met hers had always captivated her: the slight dimple in his chin, wide cheekbones, square jaw, and sexy, piercing hazel eyes that expressed his every emotion. Right now, Mac wore his pissed-off face, and from the way he was glaring at her, he was pissed at her. Again.
“What the hell, Mac?” She slammed her mug onto the desk. “What are you doing here?”
Lexie glanced behind him. Several agents from the bank robbery stood by the elevators, along with two men from security.
“We need to talk.”
“Well, I’m working. If this is about the day at the bank…”
“It’s not. We need to talk, now.”
Lexie scanned the office. Every set of eyes was on her, including Steve Riker, her boss. Keeping her head down, she eased her hand over her mouse and said through clenched teeth, “You and I have nothing to discuss. Just go away.”
He tugged the mouse from beneath her hand. “Lexie, this is serious. For once, do what I say.”
“I don’t know how you got up here, but—”
“Stand up and move away from your desk, Mrs. Trevena. If you so much as touch your computer, I’ll be forced to put you in cuffs.”
Lexie went dead still. In all the time they had known each other, Mac had never talked to her in that hard, callous voice. As her heart drummed between her ears, she raised her head. “This isn’t funny.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
Steve approached her desk. Heat from the blood boiling within her veins rose up her neck into her cheeks.
“Lexie, what’s going on?” He glanced at Mac. His features changed, as if he recognized Mac’s authority right away. He held out his hand. “I’m Steve Riker, project manager. What can I do for you?”
“Special Agent McNeil,” he said, and shook Steve’s hand. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“My office.”
Mac walked around to the back of Lexie’s desk and placed his hand on her chair. “Up.”
“I think I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind.”
“Now, Lexie, and for God’s sake, cooperate. I’m on my last nerve.”
She couldn’t help but notice the curious, judging stares from everyone in the office. Shock and embarrassment spiked through her. Not knowing what else to do, she followed Steve toward his office.
The instant she cleared her desk, the agents with Mac moved on it like piranhas to a stab of meat. “Wait, that’s my computer. What the hell are you doing?”
Mac grabbed her elbow and practically shoved her into Steve’s small office. Steve closed the glass door, but Lexie had no problem seeing what was happening to her workstation. She swung around and slammed her hand into Mac’s chest. “This isn’t funny, Mac. What the hell are you doing here?”
He grabbed hold of her wrists. “I’m going to release you and then you are going to sit. Got it?”
Every impulse in her screamed to tell the arrogant buffoon to go to hell, but whatever was going on, he wasn’t playing. This was Special Agent McNeil in full bad-ass mode.
Yanking her wrist free, she sat down and clutched her hands in her lap while every ounce of energy zeroed in on controlling her emotions. Something horrible was about to happen, but the man in front of her wasn’t going to know what this was doing to her.
Steve cleared his throat. “Okay, McNeil, start explaining.”
“This morning, one of your drones was stolen from the test facility.”
“We’re all aware of that. What does that have to do with Lexie?”
“Hours later, that same drone fired a missile into Senator Ramirez’s home.”
Steve gasped. “We haven’t been briefed yet. The top floor has been shut down tight since I got in this morning. Again, what does any of this have to do with Lexie?”
Lexie kept her eyes on her lap. The surrounding air grew thick, making it hard to take in a deep breath. It was as if she were smack in the middle of a train wreck and she couldn’t move to get out of the way.
“The drone was launched from this office.”
Lexie shot up from the chair, her eyes darting toward her desk. No, not possible! Mac’s next words blasted her life to shreds.
“And it’s being controlled from Lexie’s workstation.”
Six
Lexie’s eyes blurred with unshed tears as she dug her nails into her palm. Taking in a shaky breath, she held it for a count of ten, then let it out slowly. The panic didn’t subside but rose into her throat, choking her. The stark industrial feel of the conference room amplified just how much she had to lose.
Gabriel! What would happen to him if she couldn’t find her way out of this mess?
Her own company’s security team, along with Mac and his agents, escorted her from her building, everyone in the vicinity, dropping whatever they were doing to watch the procession. Once outside, Mac opened a back door to an SUV and nodded for her to get in, slamming the door before she settled in her seat. She held her spine straight and chin up even after the other agents crowded into the vehicle as Mac walked away from her.
That was six hours ago. But this wasn’t the first time she was bone-scared. All she had to do was stay focused until she had a chance to run. But where would she run?
“Mrs. Trevena, do you need a break?”
Lexie rose from the chair and wiped her hands over the side of her skirt as she paced in front of the large window. The agent who removed Gabriel from the bank during the robbery several days ago leaned against the wall by the entrance to the conference room. The man questioning her sat at the head of the table. Agent Díaz. Lexie disliked him on sight.
After a quick glance at her watch, she placed an arm around her middle. She was going to be sick. God, don’t let me be sick.
For hours, Agent Díaz had drilled one question after another, and with each question, she shoved the panic down, answering the best she could until her voice grew raw. Her answers were not what they wanted to hear, and no matter how many times she told the agents she had nothing to do with the drone attack, they kept asking her the same questions over again.
Lexie yanked out the clip holding the chignon at her neck and ran a shaky hand through the long strands of hair. Where was Mac?
“I don’t need a break. I need to go home, Agent Díaz. I have a two-year-old, Gabriel, a
nd he’s never spent a night away from me.”
“I understand that, Mrs. Trevena. I told you that your son,” he glanced down at the tablet in front of him, “is with your neighbor, Cole Guzman. He’s fine. You, on the other hand, are in a lot of trouble. Again, you need to cooperate with us.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know. For the hundredth time, I had nothing to do with the drone attack. I wouldn’t even know how to do that, for God’s sake. It is beyond me how your tech person can think I would do something that horrific. I like Senator Ramirez and even voted for the man. Why would I want to—”
“Money. Greed. People do all kinds of things for a buck.”
“Well, not this people. I. Didn’t. Do. It.”
“You still haven’t explained how the large deposit just appeared in your account last night.”
“Because I don’t know how it got there.”
Díaz flipped through the photos on the table and chose an ATM surveillance photo of Lexie. “We have proof to the contrary. This is you, right?”
“Again, yes.”
“If you didn’t access your ATM account last night, then how do you explain this? Check the timestamp. What were you doing? Checking to make sure they deposited your fee?”
In the right-hand corner of the photo, the time was stamped, 12:00am. “I couldn’t be there because I was asleep by ten on the floor next to Gabriel’s bed. That’s what you do when your child has the flu.”
“The photo tells another story.”
“I can’t explain any of this. I don’t know who deposited $50,000 into my account.” She crumpled the photo in her fist. “Ask me as many times as you want, but I will not change my answer to fit what you want to hear.”
She tossed the wad on the table and dropped into the chair. “Where are Mac and Jason McNeil? They’ll tell you I’m not the kind of person… that I couldn’t have done this.”
Lexie didn’t have a clue which straw just broke her, but the dam holding back her emotions split wide open. Covering her face with both hands, she was helpless stopping her shoulders from shaking as sobs consumed her.
The damn bastards. God, how she hated everything to do with the FBI.
Hate. Concentrate on the hate.
Agent Díaz slid a box of Kleenex across the table with a bottle of water. She tugged several tissues into her palm, swiped her eyes before taking small sips of water.
“If I’m not under arrest, then let me go. I want to go home to my son―Special Agent Rico Trevena’s son. This,” she said, spreading her hands out in front of her, “would never be happening if he were alive. Rico wouldn’t let you treat me like this.”
“Mrs. Trevena, I had enough evidence to book you hours ago. It’s because you are Rico’s widow that I haven’t.”
He paused and studied her for what seemed like a lifetime. She studied him right back. He was tense, leaning forward, his features harsh, but she got the impression that he believed her, even felt a measure of compassion for what he was putting her through. Agent Díaz may pull off that jackass FBI exterior, but his eyes told another story. They occasionally softened, revealing the real man.
He turned a page in the file he held in his hand. “Tell me again about the loan application.”
So, the one person she was hoping against hope could get her out of the mess was the person who nailed the last spike into her coffin. Mac overheard the bank officer deny her loan request.
Better to look like a completely paranoid mom than sit across the table from Agent Díaz one more hour.
“It was a loan request. I needed the money, but I didn’t have the salary to support that amount, end of story. I went home and took care of my sick son, the same child who spit up all over your bank robber. Oh, and that’s right, the bank robber I took down for you. I didn’t go home and morph into a drone-killing assassin because I was turned down for a damn loan.”
“No one takes out a loan for that kind of money without having a good reason. If it was just a loan, no big deal, then why ask for it?”
Lexie clamped her hands together, again digging her nails into her palm. If she didn’t explain why she needed the money, they would keep her here until they broke her completely. Rico had told her how this game was played. Focusing on the vent above the door, she imagined an invisible wall surrounding her soul. Maybe Mac didn’t pound the last nail after all.
“You know all about me by now.” She nodded to the file. “You also know that I didn’t give birth to my son.” A tear slid down Lexie’s cheek and she brushed it away as she lowered her eyes to the table. Another stupid moment revealed for the world to witness.
“A week ago, I received an email from the lawyer who handled the adoption paperwork. Gabriel’s mother is back in the country, and she requested a meeting.” Lexie held her hands so tightly, her fingers were losing feeling. “I can’t lose my son. I’m the only parent he knows, and even though I didn’t give birth to him, he’s mine.” She peered through her eyelashes at the agent. “You can understand that, right?”
The only response was a slight nod of his head.
“I went to see a lawyer, just in case Gabriel’s mother wants custody. You’ll find his card in my wallet if you don’t believe me. He told me a custody battle would cost a small fortune.”
Agent Díaz flipped through another page in the file. “You have a large sum of money.”
“That’s Gabriel’s money from his birth mother. She couldn’t raise Rico’s son, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help support him. I took the money and set up a trust fund in Gabriel’s name. I won’t use it to raise him. He’s my son, my responsibility. And before you ask, I didn’t whore myself out and betray my country to pay for a custody lawsuit that hasn’t even been filed yet.”
“Is there a lawsuit in the works?”
She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. “No. The fear is all in my head, Agent Díaz. The email didn’t even imply that Gabriel’s mother wanted custody. I couldn’t sleep worrying about what could happen, so I wanted to see what I had available if one day it came to that.” She pinned the agent with a stare. “There are ways that a good lawyer―an expensive lawyer—can twist my life, my childhood, and prove that I’m not the best person to raise Gabriel.”
Lexie tried everything she had learned over the years to shut down her emotions, but nothing worked. “Being Rico’s widow gives me no rights over Gabriel’s birth mother. All I have is my love. I fell in love with my son with everything I am the instant I held him in my arms. I promised him the day I buried his father that history wasn’t going to repeat itself. I would go to hell and back for that kid if anyone threatened to harm him. But I didn’t launch the drone, and last night at midnight, I was asleep on the floor next to Gabriel’s crib. I have no answers for any of this.”
After several uncomfortable moments, Díaz shut the folder, rose, and walked out of the room.
“This is hell,” Mac murmured in the quiet office.
The moment Lexie broke and tears streamed down her cheeks, Mac picked up the crystal paperweight off his desk and almost hurled the thing at the wall. One of the agents grabbed it out of his fist, replaced it on the desk and left Mac alone with his temper.
Lexie Trevena didn’t cry. She fought back. While Mac respected the fact that Díaz had a job to do—and despite how it looked, he was being gentle with her—the damn interrogation ate at him. He hated how Lexie’s shoulders shook with uncontrollable sobs the instant Díaz left her alone. She was right. Rico would be on the warpath. Mac was doing a bang-up job of honoring his friend’s dying words. Rico gave his life for Jason. He deserved better than this.
They had it wrong. Lexie didn’t do this, but someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like she did. The bastard was still out there while Lexie curled in on herself, feeling beaten down and alone.
Mac stood and stormed to the door. It was blocked by Díaz.
“I thought you would still be here.” The man nodded to the screen
. “You watched?”
“Yes.”
“And your take on it?”
“Everything points to her, sir, but she didn’t do it. No one is that good an actress.”
“Are you sure your emotions for her aren’t in the way?”
“Maybe, but this is bugging you just as much as it’s bugging me. I can’t explain it any more than Lexie can. We have the wrong person, and I’ll stake my career on it.”
Díaz entered Mac’s office and dropped into one of the two chairs, stretching his legs in front of him. “No need. I agree with you. The drone may have been launched from Mrs. Trevena’s workstation, but Sarah is looking for any evidence that someone found a back door into her system. It’s a long shot, but my gut tells me that all Lexie Trevena is guilty of is being a worried mom.”
Mac moved behind his desk and brought up the surveillance video from the testing facility. “These guys are well trained, and they are working from a playbook. What I can’t wrap my head around is why did they pick Lexie?”
“That’s easy. She’s somehow connected to them. Maybe a revenge angle? A jilted boyfriend gave her up?”
Mac shook his head. “Her next-door neighbors told Jason there has been no one in her life since Rico. They have tried to set her up, but she isn’t interested.”
“Can’t blame her there,” Díaz murmured. “What Rico did was, in my book, unforgivable. She’s raising his kid, and from all appearances, is doing an amazing job at it. I sent Andrew and Michaels to pick up the boy.”
“Sir, you can’t call in Child Protective Services. That would kill Lexie.”
“McNeil, I’ve read her file, too. Someone is out to destroy Lexie’s life. Gabriel is going into protective custody. Jason offered to stay with him.”
“He has his hands a little full right now.”
Díaz shrugged. “Jason knows Gabriel. He stops by a few times a month to check up on them.”
“And Lexie allows this? She hates—”
“Just you, Mac. She likes your brother. Rico died saving Jason’s life. I guess that means something to her.” He rose, rolling the tension from his shoulders. “So, let’s switch gears. Get your team to take apart Lexie’s life from another angle. Let’s see who wants to hurt her, or who will gain with her out of the way.”
In the Shadow of Pride Book 4 Page 5