by Cathy Pegau
“Genevieve,” she said in a hoarse whisper. The emotional upheaval of events from six months ago played across her face. Sasha only knew Genevieve Caine as an employee of Guy Christiansen, Sasha’s ex-lover and drug dealer. She’d been told Gennie had taken part in her rescue from Guy, along with Sterling’s sister, but hadn’t seen or spoken to the woman since. No one had until Gennie found Natalia. All Sasha knew of Gennie—all Natalia had known of her until recently—was her association with the amber dealer.
“Miss James,” Gennie said. The twins came alongside of her, clinging to her waist. She reached down and stroked their hair. “These are my children, Branson and Melaine.”
Sasha’s gaze flicked between Gennie and the twins, as startled as Natalia had been when she’d learned the notorious Genevieve Caine was a mother.
Sterling joined them as Mickelson closed the door. “Have a seat at the table, Natalia,” he said. “Mickelson said you were injured.”
“It’s not that bad.” Well, it wasn’t debilitating, though it hurt like hell.
“Sasha, why don’t you take the kids out back to meet Holly,” Sterling said. He opened the medkit and removed a few items.
Sasha quirked an eyebrow at him, and Natalia couldn’t help but smile. She’d do as he asked, but not because he gave an order. “Come on, kids.”
Branson and Melaine glanced at their mother. Gennie encouraged them to go.
“Who’s Holly?” Branson asked as Sasha led them down the hall.
Natalia didn’t hear the reply, but she heard the kids’ excited gasps and laughter. A wonderful sound after the last twenty hours.
“Who’s Holly?” She sat in a chair diagonal from Sterling’s and gingerly rolled her sleeve away from the knife wound. Not a lot of blood, as suspected, but the exposed muscle and sinew seeped fluid around the burned tissue. She couldn’t move her fingers without pain shooting down her arm and up into her shoulder.
“Dog.” He searched the medkit. “Puppy, really, about eight months old.”
“You have a dog?” Sasha’s influence, Natalia figured. As far as she knew, he hadn’t had a pet since becoming an agent. Probably not before that either.
Gennie sat on her left and shucked her coat. Mickelson took the remaining seat.
Sterling shrugged. “Keeps her company when I’m gone.” He opened a foil packet of antiseptic wipes and looked at each of them in turn, ending with Natalia. “I’m out of foam, so this is gonna hurt. Distract yourself by telling me what the hell’s going on.”
Natalia hissed as the antiseptic touched the open wound. If she could feel pain, it probably meant the nerve damage wasn’t extensive. Gennie held her left hand under the table, out of Sterling’s line of sight. But he hadn’t missed it.
Natalia started with meeting Gennie—not the entire story, of course, just that Gennie was looking for help getting the Reyeses off her back. She told him about their time at Grand Meridian, again leaving out intimate details. She explained what Williams at the lab found in the fungus and that the yttrium compound might be used as a bioweapon. How breathing it in could be dangerous.
Gennie’s hand tightened on hers. “Natalia.”
She squeezed back. “It’s not contagious.”
Anger and worry flared in her eyes. “I’m not asking for me. What about you?”
Sterling tended her arm, his focus on the wound, but he had to have heard the concern in Gennie’s voice. Mickelson was concentrating on his comm, though surely his ears were wide open.
“I’ll be all right,” she replied. “I’m going to a medico as soon as I present my inquiry.” She searched Gennie’s face, her upper body, as if she could see any of the offending bacteria through her clothes and skin. “How about you? Are you having any problems?”
Gennie shook her head. “Promise me you’ll get looked at.”
Warmth seeped into Natalia’s chest and she smiled. “I promise.”
“If the two of you are done,” Sterling said, “I’d like to know why you were in Grand Meridian without the CMA’s blessing.”
Here we go.
Natalia cleared her throat and looked her partner in the eye. “I was put on administrative leave, pending an Internal Review Board investigation into alleged bribery charges.”
Sterling’s hands stilled and his eyes flashed. “That’s impossible.”
Support from her partner, even after not keeping him appraised of her situation, relieved the tightness at the back of Natalia’s neck.
Gennie’s fingers squeezed hers, and Natalia squeezed back.
Natalia explained what had occurred with Garces and Director Matthews, while Sterling slathered her arm with antibiotic quick-heal to seal the wound then wrapped a sterile bandage from elbow to wrist. He didn’t say it outright, but Natalia knew he was disappointed, and maybe a little hurt, that she hadn’t come to him.
“I’m sorry, Nathan,” she said. “I was too embarrassed and my pride was wounded. I should have told you.”
He finished with her arm and closed the medkit with a snap. “Yes, you should have. No more of that, got it?”
“Got it.” That would be the last they’d speak of it, unless one of them held back again. Natalia had no plans of doing any such thing. “But I’m not sure how my mess ties into Garces’s name being on some Grand Meridian documents.”
Sterling frowned. “Just because Garces signed those HSA permits doesn’t mean he sent someone after you.”
“Who else would it be?” Was her dislike for Garces making her jump to conclusions? Seeing a conspiracy where there was none? There was no proof of any wrongdoing on his part.
“If he’s the one who sent the man with the knife,” Gennie said, “why attack you in broad daylight? There were a hundred people on the walkway who saw what happened.”
“Because he can’t afford to have Natalia disappear.” Mickelson had been quietly absorbing information from his end of the table. He glanced up from his comm screen. “You were looking for information on Garces through the CMA system. It’s likely he set up a mirror on your SI or scanned your access records. If he’s in cahoots with the Reyes Corporation, he wouldn’t be too keen on you having or sharing that information. I’m betting someone was detailed to watch you and instructed to stop you if it looked like you were going into hiding.”
Natalia mentally kicked herself for not taking that into consideration.
He turned to Gennie. “Do you think the Reyeses followed you to Natalia’s?”
She shook her head, though doubt clouded her eyes. “I don’t think so. I ditched my car as soon as I could and used cred chits to take public transport.”
“Then your being at the Hub Station was probably an unfortunate coincidence.”
Mickelson may not have appreciated fieldwork, but he had excellent analytical skills, disturbing as they were.
Silence throbbed between them in time with the pain in Natalia’s arm. From the yard, the whoops and laughter of the twins as they played with the dog didn’t match the sudden heaviness of the air in the room.
“Would Garces put a hit on his own agent? That’s insane,” Gennie said.
“But effective,” Sterling replied. He rose and stored the medkit in a cupboard. He spoke to Natalia. “Garces has no qualms about you losing your job, or worse.”
“He was an ass to me well before I agreed to help Gennie and found the Reyes connection.”
Sterling shrugged. “That’s just because he’s an ass. I’d reckon he didn’t like the way you showed him up to the director.”
Natalia curled the fingers of her right hand. They made a half-closed fist before she winced. “What are you talking about?”
The senior agent leaned a shoulder against the wall. “The Hirahm case was sitting idle until the director insisted he send you in. You got the evid
ence she needed.”
That did explain Garces’s animosity, to a degree. He’d dragged his feet getting to the case and was torqued to have the director get on his ass. “But Hirahm’s got that bullshit vid that says I was taking bribes. DNA and iris pattern for account security matches and everything. They pulled me off the case.”
“Gee, lucky him,” Mickelson said, scoffing. Natalia and the others stared at him. He regarded them as if they were missing the obvious. “As supervisor, he has access to your file. There are policies and firewalls to prevent unethical search and use of data, but it wouldn’t take much for him to glean it and set up a false account.”
Natalia felt like she’d been jabbed in the gut with a sharp stick. “Why? Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he’s not just greasing things for the Reyeses,” Sterling said.
There was no love lost between Garces and Sterling, and Natalia’s last few weeks with him had been more combative than cooperative, but to suggest he had his fingers in several illegal operations was pushing the limits of reality.
“If he found the one project fairly safe to falsify,” Gennie said, “it isn’t a far stretch of the imagination to have him try others. Money does that to people.”
Natalia gave her hand another squeeze then rose. She felt her pulse along her arm. “I have to think on this a while.”
Sterling reached into another cupboard and tossed her a bubble pack. “Take a couple of these and go lay down. We’ll figure it out. First door on the left.”
Natalia nodded, feeling mentally numb even before the painkillers crossed her lips. She found the lav, downed two pills with a glass of water then retreated into Sterling’s spare room. She’d pulled off one boot when someone knocked softly on the door.
“Come in.”
Gennie entered and shut the door behind her. Natalia hadn’t turned on the light. She sat, resting her hand on Natalia’s left thigh. “We could be wrong.”
Natalia dropped the other boot next to its mate. “I think you may be right. The question is, how high up does it go?”
Gennie tucked a strand of hair behind Natalia’s ear and kissed her cheek. “We’ll worry about that later. You need to rest and heal.”
The meds kicked in, making Natalia feel light as a feather. Her arm didn’t throb as much. She lay down and made room for Gennie to stretch out beside her. Gennie lay on her side, elbow bent and her head resting in her hand. She stroked Natalia’s cheek and shoulder with the other hand. Her touch was soothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Garces?” Gennie asked.
“It wasn’t—” She hated the words that came to mind, but they were as truthful as when Gennie spoke the same ones in Grand Meridian. “It wasn’t your concern.”
“Wasn’t.” Gennie brushed her mouth across Natalia’s. “Is now.”
Warmth enveloped her body and Natalia closed her eyes. “You should check on the kids.”
Gennie kissed her again. “I don’t have to check on them. I can hear them well enough. They’re having a lot of fun with that puppy.”
“Kids and dogs just go together.”
“I have a feeling that will be high on the request list.”
Natalia chuckled. Then she pictured the scared twins huddled in the back of the taxi. “I don’t want them to think I’m trying to take you away from them. They need you.”
“You need me,” Gennie whispered. Natalia tried to respond but couldn’t move as the sed took full effect and she drifted. The last thing she heard was Gennie’s soft voice. “And I need you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Natalia woke in the dim room, disoriented and thirsty. Where the hell was she? Last thing she recalled was standing in front of the Hub Station with Gennie. Then fiery pain in her arm. Were Gennie and the kids all right?
Panicked, she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, blinking away most of the fog. Right. Sterling’s house. She’d taken some meds. The chrono on the bedside table read after thirteen hundred. A good three hours had passed since they’d descended on Sterling and Sasha.
She donned her boots and worked the kinks out of her shoulders. Her right arm throbbed. The house seemed quiet for having two small children and a dog in it. Out in the hall, she heard quiet conversation from the main room.
Sterling, Sasha and Gennie looked up at her when she came in. Gennie’s eyes lit up, and Natalia smiled at her. Sterling wore his typical stoic expression.
“Let me get you something to drink,” Sasha said, rising. “Coffee okay?”
“Perfect. Thank you.” Natalia sat in the empty seat diagonal from Gennie and across from Sterling. She kept her bandaged arm in her lap. “That was some pain med you gave me.”
Sterling sipped his drink. “Left over from when we were recovering.”
It had taken Sterling and Sasha a good two months to regenerate the nerve damage they’d suffered during a shootout with Guy Christiansen. Sterling was still on half time at the CMA because of periodic numbness. Natalia wondered if she’d have the same problem.
“How are you feeling?” Gennie asked. The concern and care in her face warmed Natalia from head to toe.
“Better. Still throbbing, but not burning like it did.”
“You’ll have a helluva scar,” Sterling said, “if you don’t get it tended by a good cosmetics medic.”
Sasha set a cup of coffee and a sandwich in front of Natalia. “Eat now. Worry about scars later.”
Natalia thanked her. “Where are the kids and Mickelson?”
“The kids are watching a vid in the other bedroom.” Gennie grinned. “They wore out each other and the dog. I wouldn’t be surprised if all three were sleeping.”
“I sent Mickelson back to work,” Sterling said. “He’s ready to help from that end if need be. So what now?”
Sterling, ever the practical, let’s-get-this-done agent.
Natalia ate and drank a little while the others waited for her reply. She was the SAC on this case, it seemed. “I go see Garces and make him a deal.”
Sterling nodded. Sasha shook her head.
Gennie’s jaw tightened. She leaned toward Natalia, arms folded on the table. “What sort of deal?”
Whatever happened on the case directly affected her and the twins. Natalia wouldn’t make a move without consulting her.
“Give him the opportunity to come clean, maybe reduce his punishment if he helps us nail the Reyeses.”
“He’s already implicated you in a bribery charge and tried to kill you. What are you going to do, walk into his office and chat him up?” There was no mistaking the doubt and anger in Gennie’s tone.
“Essentially.” Natalia laid her good hand on Gennie’s folded arms, not caring if Sterling and Sasha saw them. “If I can get Garces to turn on the Reyeses, they’ll be indicted faster. You can leave Nevarro. You and the twins will be safe.”
Neither of them moved or spoke for a few seconds. Neither tried to cover what they were feeling. Natalia suspected the same bouts of worry swirled in Gennie’s gut as well.
“You need backup,” Gennie said. “I’m going with you.”
“No, you aren’t.” Natalia and Sterling spoke at the same time.
Gennie glared at the two of them and glanced at Sasha as well. Sasha kept her thoughts to herself, but a knowing grin quirked her mouth.
“It’s too dangerous,” Natalia said. “You need to be here for Branson and Melaine.” She turned to Sterling. “You’re not going either. If this blows up in my face, I don’t want you and your career jeopardized.”
He’d insulated her from his personal vendetta ag
ainst Guy Christiansen so it wouldn’t affect her career; she’d do the same. And yes, it was personal now.
“You’re still my partner,” Sterling said with a scowl. “Besides, I want to see Garces squirm.”
“I’ll send you a vid.” Natalia faced Gennie again. “I can handle Garces alone.”
Her dark eyes burned into Natalia’s. “This isn’t just your fight, you know. I appreciate all you’ve done, but I’m not about to sit back and let you fix everything for me. That’s not the way this works.”
Natalia rose. “Will you excuse us, please?”
Gennie slid her chair back across the tile with a screech and stalked out of the room. The back door didn’t quite slam shut.
Damn the void.
“Not their first quarrel, I’d wager,” Sterling said.
“Probably not going to be their last, either,” Sasha replied.
Natalia ignored them and followed Gennie. She found her leaning against the outside wall, arms folded to ward off the cold.
“I’m only thinking of you and the kids, you know.”
“And I’m thinking of you. You have one working arm. I can give you two more.”
“I don’t expect to need hand-to-hand in the middle of the CMA building.” Natalia grinned in wry amusement at the thought.
Gennie raised a slender eyebrow. “Yeah? I wouldn’t have expected someone to try to knife you in the back at a crowded Hub Station.”
“Good point.” Natalia sighed and stepped closer. She caressed Gennie’s folded arm from elbow to shoulder. “You aren’t going to take no for an answer, are you?”
“I rarely do.” She took Natalia’s hand. “I don’t like the idea of seeing him, of offering him a way out.”
“It could get the Reyeses off your back.”
“And keep Garces on yours.” Gennie squeezed her fingers, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “I have another suggestion. We go to the top. We go see your director.”
Natalia’s immediate reaction was to say no. She didn’t have the full report from Williams yet. Without all her evidence laid out and indisputable, Matthews would chase her out of the office. Garces could catch wind of it, and if he did they’d be dead.