Cutting Loose

by Tara Janzen

  He seemed to be having trouble coming up with something, so she helped him out, which also put her on comfortable ground—telling men what they were trying to say.

  “A Prius.”

  “Yes,” he said. “A Prius.” Amazingly, he made that sound like an insult, too—and to think she’d almost been interested in him.

  Well, she wasn’t now, that was for damn sure.

  “And I suppose you drive a—”

  “Viper.”

  Oh.

  Well, everyone knew the Marsh Annex people were overpaid and probably underchallenged, so they needed constant infusions of “newer, better, faster,” and she supposed a Dodge Viper gave him plenty of that.

  Still, she was surprised. He’d seemed so nice at first, with his lanyard and his DREAGAR 454 Subliminal Neuron Intel Interface.

  Gabriel took another breath and wondered what in the world he’d been thinking in Hart’s office, but he didn’t wonder long. He’d been thinking she was beautiful in an odd, angular, stunning way. She had very pretty strawberry blond hair, long and sleek, stick-straight to her shoulders with bangs and very sophisticated, like her dress and those shoes with the pompoms on them.

  He knew her by reputation, Cherie Hacker of Hacker International. Everybody in his field had heard of her, but no one had ever said she was so gorgeous.

  Maybe because they’d ridden with her in a car, and their brain cells had been so shook up from being lurched and jerked around they hadn’t been able to think straight. Or maybe the smell of a burning clutch had obscured their reason. Or maybe they’d gotten so exhausted watching her trying to find a gear—and she only used three—that their eyes had crossed.

  Because she was gorgeous. Or she had been up until she’d gotten so bossy.

  Or maybe other guys thought she was too skinny. Rhonda had used the word “elegant.” Either way, Gabriel didn’t know what was holding her dress up. Maybe she had it pinned to the inside of the motorcycle jacket—a fashion statement that was obviously no statement whatsoever on her risk-taking abilities. She not only stopped for the yellow lights, she slowed down for the green ones in case they turned yellow.

  He’d never seen anybody slow down for a green light. It was incredibly disconcerting.

  Stylish, Rhonda had also called her.

  After half an hour in the car with her, Gabriel was going to stick with bossy, and he still wished she would take off her sunglasses so he could see her eyes.

  “Yes, well, Vipers are very nice cars,” she said, opening the Challenger’s door.

  Nice was a ridiculous understatement, but he let it pass. His V-10 Viper kicked ass, and if she’d known anything at all about cars, like how to use fourth gear, for instance, she would have known that.

  “There’s one at Steele Street,” she continued. “Maybe you’ll have time to look at it when we’re finished downloading the DREAGAR files.”

  He doubted it. Once they got back to Steele Street, he and Dylan and Gillian needed to get to work, and Ms. Hacker could go back to grinding gears and endangering someone else’s life at twenty-five miles an hour. He honestly hadn’t known he could get an adrenaline rush at twenty-five miles an hour—not until he’d lurched across an intersection with her, praying to God they made it before the light turned red.

  “Please don’t touch anything while I’m disarming the security system.” She kept talking, and he just let her. He knew what he was going to do, and it didn’t have anything to do with what she had to say. “And please don’t touch anything once we get inside, not until after you’ve checked with me. My setup here will…uh, undoubtedly be different from what you’re used to dealing with, so it’s best if you let me take the lead.”

  Very bossy.

  But sure, if she wanted to do the work, he was fine with watching. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t designed the whole DREAGAR 454 system and knew it inside out, upside down, and backward better than anybody on the planet. He had, and he did.

  But if she wanted to stumble around with it and show off her setup, he’d stand back and watch—up to a point, and then he was taking over. The DREAGAR was his. The only reason she even had one was because she’d won the contracts on the 2Z8s.

  She got out of the Challenger, and he followed suit, keeping a step behind as she climbed the stairs up the outside of the garage. His mom and dad had been to Gillian’s place on the second floor a couple of times, but this was his first visit. No matter how much his sister was a part of his memories, she didn’t know him from Adam.

  Passing a dull gray, iron door on the second landing, with the name “Red Dog” spray-painted across it in red paint, Gabriel’s mood took another dip. A couple of years ago, when General Grant had mentioned he needed a new secretary, Gabriel’s first thought had gone to his sister. Recently divorced and back in Washington, D.C., she’d just gotten an apartment and was looking for a job. He’d thought it would be great to have her in the Marsh Annex, but she hadn’t been in the job very long before she’d fallen into the middle of one of Grant’s black operations and been irreparably harmed.

  She was never going to be what she’d been, and now she lived above a garage with graffiti on the door.

  It was her choice. He knew that. Dylan Hart had offered her one of the lofts at Steele Street, but she preferred being out here in the urban jungle.

  When they reached the third landing and a heavy steel door, he glanced around the area. It was bleak, very industrial, and looked like a crime spree could happen any minute, even at midmorning. A dry riverbed filled with junk and trash bordered the building to the south. Smokestacks from a factory a few blocks over jutted up into the sky.

  His gaze went back to Cherie Hacker in her expensive high heels and flouncy dress, trying to cover up a yawn and key in a code on the alarm system, and suddenly, he wished she would hurry the hell up.

  Two million dollars was going to bring every world-class cutthroat and gunslinger on the planet down on Gillian’s head, and more than a few of them would figure out to come looking for her here.

  And why, oh, why, hadn’t he thought of that while he’d been standing in Dylan Hart’s office? He could have gotten the security codes from Ms. Hacker and left her well enough out of it. Despite what she or Hart might think, there wasn’t anything she could have done to her DREAGAR that he couldn’t figure out.

  “Can you get back to Steele Street on your own?” he asked, as she finally, thank God, entered the last number into the system.

  “I get around Denver on my own all the time,” she said, watching a stream of equations scroll across a small screen at the top of the digital keypad.

  “Then as soon as you get the door open, I think you ought to go back. I’ll take care of everything on this end.”

  She mumbled something under her breath he didn’t quite catch.

  “Excuse me?” he said.

  “I’m not going anywhere, until we’re done here. If that’s what you were thinking, that I was going to let you into my shop and then you were just going to pack me up and send me home, you are mistaken.”

  “I don’t think being stubborn about this is in your best interest,” he said plainly.

  “Gee,” she said, still watching the equations roll by. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  He gave her a very perturbed look, which she failed to notice. They’d gotten off on the right foot, but it had all gone to hell pretty quickly. Maybe he’d been a little too blunt about her driving.

  “Can you speed this up a little?” He’d be happier once they were inside. He knew what his sister could do with an exposed target, and he and Cherie Hacker were sitting ducks on this landing.

  She pushed an alpha key twice on the eighth equation, and he heard the lock release. A second later, another lock released, and then another, and so on down the line through a series of seven, one after the other, until the door swung open—into Wonderland, a hacker’s paradise, a room so full of equipment, he felt instantly at home. There were w
alls of drives, and screens, and peripherals, rows of them, everything on, lit up, running code, and in the middle of it all was the DREAGAR 454 hard drive—in a couple hundred separate pieces, strewn from one end of a worktable to the other.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Saturday, 9:00 A.M.—Paysen, New Mexico

  They’d found it.

  Zach had looked for years, and more than once had thought he’d stumbled upon it.

  He’d been wrong.

  This was the real deal, right here: the middle of nowhere, Paysen, New Mexico, population 28, or so the sign said. If the number was true and correct, then the town was bigger than it looked. He’d counted population 5, and that was if he included the four coonhounds lounging in the dirt in front of the convenience store.

  He stepped over the one stretched across the entrance and wound his way through the rest of the dusty pack, carrying two bags of food and supplies.

  SB303 had said get off the interstate. Zach was pretty sure they’d gotten off more than that. Nothing but scrub, yucca, and a single narrow ribbon of asphalt stretched to the horizon in either direction. At the Road Runner Motel, Gas Station, and Grocery, they’d landed in the hub of Paysen’s commercial activity. There were two trailers baking in the heat on the other side of the road, both of them sporting canopies held up by lodge poles. One had a small pen with a few goats close by. The other had two picnic tables pushed together in front, in the shade. Neither had so much as a square inch of paint on it anywhere. The sun had cooked it all off a long time ago.

  He crossed the hard-pack parking lot, heading toward the end unit, number eight. He’d filled Charlotte’s tank before he’d gone in to pay for the room, then parked her behind the building, on the other side of a rusted-out tractor. Once he went inside number eight, the Road Runner would look as deserted as it had before he and Lily had arrived.

  Lily. Yeah, the beautiful woman he’d snatched out of her bathroom and her life this morning. Better not to think too much about her, not the way he liked to think about her. He’d paid for a double with all the amenities, which included a small fridge, microwave, and coffeepot. After he got patched up, and they’d both had something to eat, it would be best to get some rest.

  Best for everyone.

  Right.

  Once the sun went down, they’d be back on the road and heading for Denver in a straight-through drive. Alex could advise him then how he wanted to handle Lily Robbins.

  Possibly Alex would let her go to Montana, after she was debriefed, and then debriefed again, and probably again. For reasons outside her control, she’d become a major player in an international incident—but she wouldn’t be for much longer.

  Possibly he would put in a request to be the one to take her to the Cross Double R. He’d never been to Montana. He’d like to meet her dad, thank the man himself for what he’d taught his daughter.

  He knocked on the door to the room before he used the key to let himself in, just to let her know he’d returned. Inside, he set the grocery bags on a small table. She was at the back of the room, standing over the sink, splashing water on her face.

  “They had a couple different kinds of sport drink,” he said. “I got you both.”

  She turned, using a towel to dry her face, and she was perfect, standing there in her cowboy boots and low-slung jeans, with her water-splashed tank top and her midnight-dark hair damp and curling in tendrils around her face. Her skin was pale and creamy, with a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and onto her cheeks. Robbins—she looked black Irish. Lines of strain marred the easy beauty of her face, and he felt a pang of guilt just for the general hell of it.

  He hadn’t done anything since he’d met her except try to keep her safe, and somehow, he wasn’t quite getting the job done. Instead of being at home or headed to her family and the ranch, going about her days, she was here with him in this two-bit, run-down, flea-bitten dive of a motel, waiting for nightfall and a run for the border.

  “Thanks,” she said, finishing with the towel and setting it aside.

  She crossed the room, and his fascination with her increased with every slim-hipped, long-legged stride she took. It was ridiculous, and inappropriate, and absolutely impossible to ignore. She was so exquisite.

  He might have to go sleep in the car, and that was even more ridiculous. Plus, it would probably kill him. The temperature was well on its way to the hundred mark. Inside Charlotte, it would be another ten to fifteen degrees.

  And inside Lily, it would be so fucking sweet.

  “We’ve got soup, crackers, canned fruit, cheese, and the best candy bars money can buy in Paysen, New Mexico,” he said, so cool, so steady, so in control.

  Yeah. Right.

  He unloaded the groceries onto the table, including the paper bowls and plastic silverware he’d bought—the whole point being to get out of Paysen and the Road Runner without getting ptomaine.

  “What kind of soup?”

  “Chicken noodle, and uh…” He reached out and turned the second can around. “And chicken noodle. There were some sandwiches in a deli section of the cooler, but they looked like death in plastic wrap to me.”

  “You’re spoiled,” she said, opening up one of the cans of soup and pouring it into the bowls.

  He grinned.

  “Too spoiled to eat mystery meat on white bread,” he agreed. “You had Isidora’s croissants.”

  “Don’t remind me.” She let out a short laugh. “And don’t tell me you want this heated in the microwave.”

  She pushed one of the bowls in his direction and started to sit down at the table, but then paused for a couple of seconds and changed her mind, instead walking toward the back of the room and the bathroom. He watched her disappear inside, and didn’t think too much about it, going ahead and eating without her, downing a couple bowls of soup and half a sleeve’s worth of crackers with cheese. Partway through one of the cans of peaches, he glanced toward the bathroom and wondered if she was okay.

  There was plenty of food left. He wasn’t worried about her going hungry. He’d get her to eat something when she came out.

  Chewing another mouthful of peaches, he glanced at the bathroom again and swallowed. The air conditioner in the room rattled and whined and whirred in the window, throwing out a pitiful stream of barely chilled air, proving itself more of a noisemaker than a cooling device.

  Alejandro Campos had always stayed at five-star hotels. It had been one of the nicer perks of being a cocaine drug lord. But Zach had a feeling that was all in his past. Alex had been right to pull him out. He’d gotten in so deep in the last eight years, had so many suppliers, so many buyers, so many deals in the works, he might never have seen the end coming, the underhanded double cross, the unexpected turf war in a place he thought he had under control, the disgruntled cartel partner. The drug business was dirty and dangerous, and supremely violent.

  Yeah, it was good he was out.

  Without taking his eyes off the bathroom door, he picked up the peach can and drank some of the juice.

  Something wasn’t right, and under the rattle and whir of the air conditioner, he thought he heard what.

  Fuck.

  Setting the peaches down, he pushed away from the table and headed to the back of the room—and the closer he got, the worse he felt.

  Shit.

  He should have been paying closer attention. She was in there crying. Sobbing her heart out, from the sounds of it, and dammit, he couldn’t just stand out here and hope for the best, that she’d pull herself together, wipe off her face, and come out to sit down and eat with a smartass smile on her lips.

  That was Jewel, not Lily.

  Actually, it wasn’t Jewel. Jewel baby didn’t cry. Ever. She sure as hell hadn’t been crying when she’d walked out on him.

  He hadn’t been either, not really, no matter what it had looked like. He’d just felt like doing it for about five months. Okay, more like twelve. Scotch had helped get him through it, and i
f he’d been any less of a man than he was, he would have left the room and headed back to the Road Runner’s convenience store to see if he could get a pint of whatever rotgut kept people from shooting themselves in Paysen, New Mexico.

  Then he would have had a couple of shots before he came back, still hoping she’d pull herself together all on her own.

  He wasn’t a heartless bastard, not really. It was just the whole helpless thing with the tears and all. There wasn’t much a guy had to offer in these situations—and yeah, he kind of remembered Jewel telling him that was one reason she never cried in front of him, the futility of it.

  As he recalled, that was the day he’d starting winning points for his Asshole of the Year badge, one Jewel had been happy to award, though in his defense, it had taken her a while. He’d had to work at it to get her to walk out on him. She hadn’t left willingly.

  And maybe, just maybe, that was the first time he’d ever admitted that to himself.

  Well, great, a fucking epiphany in the Land of Enchantment. He was so glad he’d made the trip.

  Sure he was.

  And Lily was still in there, sobbing.

  Fuck. Sobbing was so much worse than crying.

  He took a deep breath, lifted his hand to knock on the bathroom door, then swore again under his breath.

  Looking down at his shoes, he knocked twice. Yeah. He committed. Acknowledging emotional distress in a woman was the first step off the cliff—and a guy only got one. He’d always thought sex was the first step, but Jewel had dissuaded him from that convenient conceit. He’d never had any trouble committing to sex.

  In response to his knock, there was a pause in the sobbing, and he used it.

  “Lily. Come on out and have something to eat. It’ll make you feel better.” It always made him feel better; not as good as Scotch, but better. “We’ll talk.”

  He paused with his knuckles just a couple of inches from the door again, wondering where in the hell that had come from. He hadn’t meant to say that, at least not and leave it quite so open-ended.