by Layla Reyne
Aidan’s mind jumped to the most vulnerable. “Is our family safe? Katie?”
“Yes,” Mel said. “There are cars on the compound.”
“And the two that escorted me here?”
“Are headed up there now.”
“Irish.” Jamie’s voice, his heat, were suddenly closer, and Aidan whipped his face around to find him less than a foot away. “Please, let us explain.”
Aidan hated those words, but prefaced by “Irish” in Jamie’s drawl after weeks without it, tempered his rising ire. As did the confused, about-to-bolt look on Hall’s face. Whether from the case or the personal dynamics, Aidan didn’t know, but he was sure the analyst’s head was about to explode.
“Should she be here?” he asked, voice low. “Do we really want to bring someone else into this?”
“You already did that,” Mel said. “And she came to Jamie with the latest information. We need her for what I’m thinking.”
“How much does she know?”
“Enough.” Mel’s face was stern. Final.
Reserving argument for a winnable battle, Aidan gritted his teeth and headed to the table. “Hall, good to see you.”
“You too, Agent Talley.”
“They explained the risks to you?”
She nodded.
“She needs a gun,” he said to Mel.
Hall swept back her jacket, exposing a Colt 1911. “Got that covered.”
He took a sip of bourbon, considering the surprising addition to their party. “Lot of heat for an analyst.”
“I’m tiny. It’s not.”
At least she’d be good for breaking the tension.
Jamie skated a hand across his lower back, and Aidan repressed a shiver. “Let us show you what we’ve got.” Aidan took the chair across from Hall, and Jamie sat between him and Mel. “Lauren came to me earlier today with evidence Renaud was in the Bay Area. Based on the picture you had her analyze earlier this year, she’d set up an alert for any matching persons on government security footage. It pinged TSA at SFO.”
Lauren Hall. Another person who’d helped Aidan investigate Renaud, and he’d forgotten to include her on his list of people to protect.
Jamie stretched his arm across the top of Aidan’s chair. “All of us have protection,” he said, reading his stress.
“What’ve you found?” Aidan asked.
They gave him the rundown, and when they reached the part where Renaud, as Peter Wald, worked at Pearl Investments, Aidan fell back in his chair, into Jamie’s offered comfort. His partner’s thumb traced circles on his back, the only thing grounding him. “Was he there the last time I was?”
“According to Wald’s travel records and pay stubs, yes,” Jamie said, then to Lauren, “Show him the picture.”
Lauren withdrew a photo from a folder and pushed it across the table. “This is what Renaud looks like, in disguise as Peter Wald.”
One look at the photo and Aidan’s stomach roiled. “Oh, fuck.” He propped his elbows on the table and hung his head in his hands. “We ran into him once. Gabe and I were down a car and he gave me a lift to the office. I introduced him to Wald as a friend, not my husband, to preserve the cover.”
Jamie’s hand came off the chair to lie fully on his back. “You couldn’t have known who he was then.”
“Ai, don’t go there,” Danny said.
He dropped his hands, letting them fall to the table on either side of his glass. “How can I not? I put him in Renaud’s path.”
Mel covered his hand. “No, Robert did that. Not you.”
“Well, I gave him a fucking shortcut.” He drained his whiskey, slammed the glass down, and fled to the short hallway, seeking privacy for his meltdown.
Hall’s voice carried from the dining room. “I think I’m gonna need more details.”
Another chair scraped back.
“Off the record,” Mel started, then the rest of her words faded as blood roared in Aidan’s ears. He leaned his head against the wall, eyes closed, gulping in air.
Shuffling footsteps cut through the panic and another memory sparked. Jamie approaching the same careful way the night after the accident in Galveston, the night they’d first made love. Memory crashed into the present as Jamie, here and now, spread his hands over his back, skated them under his arms, and curled them around his chest, hugging him from behind. Aidan leaned back into the familiar hard body, catching his breath in his partner’s arms.
Jamie rubbed his stubbled chin against Aidan’s temple. “It’s okay,” he murmured in that deep, soothing voice.
“No, it’s not.”
“Even if it’s not, what can you do about it now?”
“I just—”
Jamie turned him in his arms and lifted a hand to his cheek. “Focus, Talley,” he said, soft but stern. “You have to protect yourself and your family.”
“And you. And Mel. And Danny. And now Hall too.”
“Don’t worry about Lauren. She’s a Mini-Mel in training.”
Aidan’s laugh surprised him. “I’m a little frightened now, even if she is pint-sized.”
Jamie teased the upturned corner of his mouth. “There you are.”
The comfort and distraction had worked, expertly drawing him out of the looming panic attack. The last of Aidan’s anger fell away, and he angled his face into the gentle touch. He needed his partner. “Jamie, I—”
Jamie’s thumb slid from the tip of Aidan’s smile to the center of his lips, sealing them. “After,” he said. “First, we plan our attack.”
* * *
Jamie dropped his hand and forced himself to step back. It was almost as hard as letting Aidan walk out of his house six weeks ago. But Aidan was still undercover and he needed to stay under to get to Renaud. The only way Jamie was going to be able to let Aidan walk out of the Tavern tonight was if Jamie denied what he wanted.
Even if Aidan wanted it too.
The darkening autumn eyes, the turn of Aidan’s face into his palm, everything indicated Aidan missed him too. Not to say it couldn’t be wishful thinking on Jamie’s part, or a moment of weakness on Aidan’s. If Jamie pushed for more—for the dance he couldn’t help remembering, for the kiss he’d wanted so badly that night—he risked pushing Aidan further away, and that was the last thing he wanted.
“Do me a favor?” Aidan said.
“Anything.”
Aidan’s smile made Jamie want to reach for him again.
“Touch base with Kevin.”
“Currie?”
Aidan nodded. “I could have sworn I saw him at Pearl today.”
“No reason he’d be there.”
“And the IT guy said it was someone else, but check for me?”
“Sure thing.” He pulled his phone out and sent KP1013—Kevin’s hacker tag—a quick encrypted message. When he looked back up, he stood alone in the hallway, Aidan already halfway to the table. Leg aching from the long day on it, and the missed PT appointment, Jamie limped over to join them.
“Lay it out for me,” Aidan said.
“We have to solve for why,” Lauren replied. “And then how.”
Aidan glanced over, a mischievous, attractive spark in his warming eyes. “You’re wrong, Whiskey. She’s a mini-you.”
Danny herded them back on track. “This is Renaud’s ‘home,’ then?”
“It’s home for Peter Wald,” Lauren said, sounding and looking less confused now. “According to his driver’s license.”
“He’s not there, though,” Mel said. “We rode out to the listed address before coming here. Twentysomething renters.”
“Is Wald Renaud’s real identity?” Aidan asked.
“No,” Lauren said. “The real Peter Wald died in seventy-nine.”
“Renaud stole it,” Jamie added. “The way Renaud silo’ed things, the assassin in Cuba likely didn’t know about Wald.”
“Meaning this probably really is Renaud’s home,” Aidan finished his theory. “We need every piece of info we can get on Wald since Renaud assumed the identity. And get an APB out on him.”
“Issued already,” Mel said. “But with a do-not-approach order.”
“Why the hell did you do that?” Danny nearly shouted.
“You’re setting a trap,” Aidan said.
Mel nodded. “He’s a master at disguises. He can easily slip a roadblock. We have a better approach. At Pearl. Aidan’s in a position to gather the evidence we need to nail him and to identify his next target.”
Jamie laid his arm back atop Aidan’s chair, fingertips tracing his spine. He hated dangling Aidan out there, right under Renaud’s nose, but Mel was right. “Renaud doesn’t know we know he’s there. We’ve got the advantage for once.”
“I need a hacker, then,” Aidan said. “And you—” he glanced back over his shoulder “—can’t go in there. Too recognizable.”
“Hall starts as your new assistant tomorrow,” Mel said, and talked right over Aidan’s objection, directly addressing Lauren. “You’ll be deputized to full agent status for this assignment.”
Short of Jamie being embedded there himself, which, as Aidan correctly noted wouldn’t work, Lauren was the next best option. He’d checked her out. She had the computer skills to make it work, and she already knew some of what was going on. Better than adding yet another person to the dangerous circle. “I can’t have your back,” he said to Aidan. “But I trust Lauren to. And you were the one who trusted her first.”
“Why is he even at Pearl?” Danny asked. “If he was there before Ai...”
Aidan sank back into Jamie’s touch, the both of them starved for it, and Jamie fought to concentrate. “He’s targeting and infiltrating financial services firms. That makes sense with why he got Gabe and Westley involved.”
“But his first attack was bioterror-related,” Danny said.
“As a distraction,” Mel reminded them. “His real target was the port and the cruise ships.”
In light of their new leads, a different possibility came to Jamie’s mind. “We thought Renaud was after maximum damage.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “But what if there was a specific target onboard one of those ships. Or maybe the cruise line, itself, was the target, or more to the point, one of their financial backers.”
Mel turned to Danny, who was already tapping away at his phone.
“On it.” As COO of Talley Enterprises, Danny could leverage his shipping contacts for manifests faster than they could obtain them through official Bureau channels.
“Back up a second.” Aidan shifted to match his posture, their shoulders brushing. “Where are we on Westley?”
“He’s in the wind still,” Mel said.
“No body found?”
Across the table, Lauren blanched. Not a detail Mel had filled in for her.
“Nothing,” Mel answered. “And no one matching his description.”
“I’ve got an alert set,” Jamie said.
“If he’s a master of disguises, could Renaud be Westley?” Aidan asked.
Jamie shook his head. “Height and body mass difference is too extreme. And he would have had to have been in two places at once on multiple occasions.”
“Fine,” Aidan said. “But we have to keep following that lead too. Renaud uses his henchmen to apply leverage. If Westley is in the Bay Area, and Renaud is too now, Westley could lead us right to him.”
“Cards and IDs have been tagged for alert.”
“All of which are probably fake.”
“Agreed, but if he uses one, we’ve got him.”
Lips thin, Aidan was unimpressed with Jamie’s acknowledged long shot, but it was the only one they had.
“Can I rewind?” Lauren said, interrupting their stare-down.
Jamie tore his gaze from Aidan’s and focused on the analyst, whose face he recognized as a mirror of his own. She was no longer confused or scared; she was trying to solve a puzzle.
“We still haven’t answered why,” she said. “Why is Renaud, or whatever the fuck his name is—” she caught herself too late, lips sealing comically shut, eyes darting to Mel, before she continued in a higher-pitch “—after financial services?”
“Anti-tech, lost money, lost job,” Jamie rattled off.
Aidan glanced between him and Mel. “Does any of that strike you as what we know about Renaud? The lengths he’s gone to. The deaths he’s orchestrated.”
The next piece of the puzzle fell into place. “Financial markets chaos,” Jamie said. “It could be devastating, particularly for Silicon Valley.”
Aidan nodded, and a tense silence descended on the table, only breaking when Lauren mumbled, “Dun-Dun-Dun.”
Everyone but Danny laughed, and with enough time, Jamie thought maybe even she could break through Danny’s surlier-than-usual mood.
“The bad handshake...” Aidan murmured.
“Bad handshake?” Jamie said.
Aidan side-eyed Lauren.
“Oh, is this something I’m not supposed to hear?” She covered her ears with her hands. “Earmuffs.”
Aidan rolled his eyes, and Jamie laughed, jostling his shoulder. Aidan jostled back and warmth filled Jamie’s chest.
“With this messaging system I’m auditing,” Aidan began, “both ends are encrypted. A user can’t reply to a message unless the other user’s encryption recognizes the sender’s encryption from the directory.”
“Aurora,” Lauren said, dropping her hands. “I read about this.”
“Those earmuffs worked real well,” Danny snarked.
“You shouldn’t be here for this part either,” Mel countered, and got a harsh “Bite me” in return. Surly ratcheted up to outright hostile, and Lauren, whose eyes were darting all around the table, recognized it too. Jamie began to doubt whether she could break through that dark storm cloud still raging between Danny and Mel.
Maybe Aidan’s separation idea had been a good one; they seemed closer to reconciliation than Danny and Mel, especially as Aidan slid back in his chair, relaxing against the arm Jamie had stretched across the top of it once more.
“Tell me about this bad handshake?” Lauren said, wisely redirecting. “One of the encryption keys didn’t register?”
Aidan nodded. “They had to do off-schedule resets today.”
“Renaud trying to hack the directory?” Jamie asked.
“IT shrugged it off as hungover i-bankers.”
“Let’s go with Jamie’s theory,” Lauren said, and Aidan seemed to agree by his nod. “Back to why, then?”
“To send false tips, information, trade orders,” Aidan speculated. “Anything that could trigger a sell off, maybe even a collapse.”
“But they only put Aurora in place a year ago,” Mel said. “Renaud’s been there longer.”
“Maybe he knew it was coming,” Lauren said. “Beta test?”
“Let’s dig into that. Founders and funding up the chain.”
“I need to get eyes on the encryption activity,” Jamie said.
“I’ve got full access, as Legal Compliance.” Aidan withdrew his phone and brandished it in the narrow space between them. “And I have just the thing.”
“The monitoring program.” Grinning, Jamie wagged a finger at Lauren. “Earmuffs again.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh please. I’ve got so much illegal software on my—” Her hand went back over her mouth. “I didn’t say that,” she mumbled through her fingers.
Mel broke into a rare smile. “Aidan’s right. She is a mini-you.”
Jami
e couldn’t argue, and knowing a mini-him with a big gun was Aidan’s Cyber backup going into a Renaud-infiltrated Pearl made him feel a hell of a lot better. “Swing by the office tomorrow before you head in,” he told Lauren. “I’ll get you set up.”
Danny stood abruptly. “All right, then, if we’ve all got our marching orders, I’m going to Mom and Dad’s.”
Mel stood and reached out a hand, beseeching “Daniel.” He sidestepped both and stormed out the door.
“Give him time,” Aidan said. “He’s keyed up, mostly worried about the family.”
Her dark eyes swung from the door to him. “Mostly?”
“You were the first person he got serious with. And you betrayed him. He needs more time.”
Jamie wondered if he was talking about more than just Mel and Danny.
She nodded and stepped back from the table. “Jamie, Lauren, do you need a lift back to the City?”
“Yeah,” Lauren said. “I mean yes, please.”
As amusing as that car ride would be, and despite the fact Jamie knew he should take Mel up on her offer and let Aidan go back to his cover without pressing for more, Jamie read Aidan’s posture, still leaned back against his arm, as an invitation to stay. “I’ll take a car up.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Lauren said to Aidan. “Mr....?”
“Talbott. Hayden Talbott. And you?”
“Lori Hawthorne.”
“Easy enough.”
They said their goodbyes and Lauren followed Mel out.
The door swung shut, and after an achingly long moment, Jamie moved his hand off the back of Aidan’s chair. He skated it up Aidan’s back to the lip of his collar, palming the base of his neck, fingers tickling warm skin. “I’ve missed you.”
Aidan rolled his head back into the touch. “I’ve missed you too.” But he made no other movement. Didn’t turn his face or gaze toward Jamie, didn’t close the distance between them. “But I don’t know if I’m ready.”
More time, Aidan had told Mel. And Aidan had been betrayed far worse than Danny. Jamie could give him more time. He’d already gotten more tonight than he’d hoped for. Aidan in his arms earlier, Aidan nuzzling his palm, Aidan at his side, as partners once more. He wondered, though, if he could get one more thing. A few more minutes of Aidan in his arms to soothe his aching heart. He stood and held out a hand. “Can I at least have a dance?”