by Barb Han
Dash shook his head, praying his actions with Talia hadn’t brought this down on her.
* * *
MAKING COFFEE GAVE Raina something to do. She would have just been pacing the floor otherwise, wearing a path in Layla’s expensive rugs. The images of a fire engulfing her apartment, her best friend in jail and now her mother in jeopardy raced through her thoughts no matter how hard she tried to force them out.
There were other images that kept at her. Ones of her and her best friend’s brother locked in a passionate kiss. She could still taste him. If she took in a deep breath, his spicy scent was everywhere. Kicking that image out of her head was taking a whole lot of effort.
Learning about his mother’s story wasn’t helping. The randomness of her death shattered all Raina’s preconceived notions that taking a safe job meant a longer life. The truth was that there were no guarantees, which was scary and oddly freeing at the same time. She was beginning to realize how much losing her father had shocked her system.
Had it become easier to risk less of herself too? Stay in a “safe” zone with relationships so she didn’t have to “lose” anyone? When she heard the thoughts run through her mind, she couldn’t help but realize how silly it all sounded to her now. In order to protect herself from pain, she’d been stopping herself from living. Would never loving someone fully be worse than keeping her heart wrapped in Bubble Wrap and never knowing the kind of passion she felt anytime she was near Dash?
To be fair, she’d never experienced a pull so strong that her heart ached at the thought of never seeing him again. What if they decided to go down that path together? And that was a big if. Dash seemed just as gun shy about taking the next step as she was.
But this was an important moment anyway. Last week, she could never see herself truly opening up to another human. No one made her feel strong and beautiful in the way Dash did. No one even came close. So maybe there just hadn’t been anyone in far too long who got her blood pumping hotly in her veins or made her want to push past her fears and see what the next step of a relationship might bring. She’d dated enough men to realize what she didn’t want. Now, she would be willing to try for the right person.
Dwelling on this was a distraction from her bigger problems—problems like making absolutely certain her mother was safe and then thinking about the mess the fire had made.
She fixed three cups of coffee and took the first two into the living room, where Liam and Dash were studying his old phone.
“What’s going on?” She set the mugs on the coffee table and dropped into a crouching position.
“We pulled up the security footage on your mother’s facility,” Dash supplied. He tilted the phone toward her. “Would you like to see?”
She studied the split screen. On the left was the front door to the facility. On the right was the back near the trash cans. There were two small eyes near one of the bins. The way the tiny animal slinked when it walked in the shadows made her think it was a cat. Maybe feral and in search of a meal. Poor thing.
“Miguel texted that a team would be there in a matter of minutes using a chopper. They’re sending five people. One for each entrance and three to perform the actual extraction. Two of those carry your mother, if it comes down to it.” The plan Dash described was well thought out.
“Can I talk to her? She isn’t going to know what’s going on, and she might end up scared. I hate for her to feel alone.” She heard the shakiness in her own voice. What could she say? Even though she wasn’t a crier, the thought of her mom feeling scared or alone had the power to bring Raina to her knees every time.
Do anything to her and she could take it. Come after her mother and that was a whole different story.
“The team will give her a shot to make her sleep. She’ll wake up in a protected environment. They will work with the management to decide which staff member she has the best relationship with, and that person will accompany her until she’s settled.”
Wow. Just wow.
Raina was blown away. She figured Dash had something to do with ensuring her mother’s comfort in addition to her safety. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to have another day with either one of my folks. Consider paying it forward, but there’s no debt owed with me.” There was something honest and raw in his voice that made her fall a little bit deeper into him.
She reached across the coffee table and squeezed his hand. The link, although firing electricity through her fingertips, was also comforting. There was something about being in Dash’s presence that had a calming effect on her, despite his kisses tilting her world on its axis.
It wouldn’t be smart to get too caught up in the moment. Once this case was over, they would go back to their lives—a life she needed to pick up the pieces of now that her home was damaged. Raina had no idea how badly yet and she needed to circle back and ask. She wasn’t quite ready for more bad news. Her apartment used to feel like home prior to spending time with Dash. Now, being with him felt like home.
As much as she wanted to chalk it up to the fact that he was her best friend’s brother—and therefore, familiar—what she experienced with him was in an orbit of its own.
So, how was that for keeping her emotions in check?
Raina hopped up and headed back to the kitchen to the chorus of thank-yous for the mugs she’d set down. Caffeine would clear the cobwebs, yet she doubted there was a cup large enough to force Dash from her thoughts. Speaking to her mother right now was a bad idea. She would hold off on making the request until she could radiate calm.
The ceramic mug was warm against her palms as she rolled it around before taking a sip. Something was bugging her, niggling at the back of her mind, and she couldn’t figure out what it was. She went over the possible suspects again in her mind. The timing of the fire was suspect, but was it related or a casualty of her being seen with Dash?
His ex seemed intent on making certain he didn’t date anyone again. She’d tried to ruin his career. She’d threatened his future relationships. It was a no-brainer she started the fire. She also complicated matters.
Talia might get in the way. She would have gotten to Raina’s mother, and there was still a possibility that could happen. One that Raina couldn’t put a whole lot of stock into if she wanted to keep her sanity until confirmation arrived that her mother was in safe hands.
“I have something on the monitor. The team has arrived,” Dash said, as though on cue.
Raina exhaled for the first time in what felt like an hour. She joined Dash and Liam in the living room. Her nerves were shot.
“How do you guys do this on a daily basis?” she asked.
He shot her a confused look while Liam kept tapping away at the keyboard he’d set up.
“Sit around and wait for something to happen? Not know if a plan will go well or not until it might be too late?” There were half a dozen other questions that came to mind.
“I know that my actions help people when they have had one of their worst days. I lock people up who then can’t turn around and hurt someone else. There’s a lot of satisfaction in my career. It’s part of why I left the corporate world. I make a difference here,” he explained. “To be honest, most of my cases are dealing with people I’ve never met. Doing this for someone I care about has me twisted up too.”
Did he just say he cared about her? On some level, she knew. They just hadn’t spoken much out loud except to say this couldn’t happen between them. What this meant was anyone’s guess. She knew in her heart she could never again have a casual fling with Dash, even if Layla approved—and she wouldn’t. She would not want to be in the same room with them after the breakup—a breakup even she would know was imminent. Besides, she worked too hard to keep business in one box, friendship in another, and family in yet another. Mixing worlds wouldn’t go over very w
ell.
Raina’s feelings ran too deep for the man, and they hadn’t even gotten off the ground. So toning it down wouldn’t be in the realm of possibility. She also realized she was distracting herself with this internal conversation.
Whatever had niggled at the back of her mind was back, and it was driving her crazy. She needed to figure it out because it suddenly seemed like a crucial detail to pass along to Dash and his team.
Chapter Nineteen
“Your mother is safe. No hiccups.” Dash waited until confirmation had arrived before showing Raina what happened moments after the team left. He tilted his phone toward her so she could see the screen and then hit the play button on the video he’d recorded.
Raina came around the coffee table and sat next to him. She gave him a look that said she wondered if it was a good idea to watch this.
He played the video of the female figure, clad in all black, slipping through a window without alerting a soul.
“Talia?” she asked.
“Looks like it.”
Raina gasped. Her hand came up to her chest. “What about the others?”
“She won’t bother anyone else. She’ll slip right out the minute she realizes your mother isn’t there.” This confirmed that Talia was behind the fire at Raina’s apartment. He put the camera back on live in time to see her slip out the back door and disappear.
“Why didn’t anyone stay behind to catch her?” Raina said as sirens sounded. “Is that your team?”
“Local jurisdiction.” He shook his head. “She’ll get away from them, though.”
“My mom is safe, and she didn’t bother the other residents. Those are big wins in my opinion,” Raina said.
Dash fired off a text to Miguel, letting him know what had just happened with Talia and asking if anyone could be sent to do a sweep, possibly find a strand of hair or DNA left behind that could link her to the crime.
Of course, she had only slipped in and out, so technically no crime had been committed. A trespassing charge would be a stretch. It was a rehab facility, and people came and went. Unless the local law enforcement picked her up—and he highly doubted they’d be able to—getting anything to stick would be like cooking on Teflon.
“Do you want me to wipe your old phone?” Liam asked.
“I already did.” Dash suddenly remembered the other video he’d taken at the café. Alec.
“I have something stored in the cloud we should take a closer look at.” Dash pulled that video up. He played it a couple of times, trying to lip-read. The problem was that Alec’s back was to the camera, and he was very animated. He kept glancing around, a telltale sign he was doing something he didn’t want to be caught doing. “What do you make of it?”
Liam shrugged. “I can play around with it on my laptop. See if I can enhance the images.”
“Take a stab. See what you can do.” Dash sent the link.
“Where do we go next?” Raina asked, leaning back into the couch and massaging her temples.
“Let’s stick around here, eat something and see what we can come up with on the video.” He didn’t want to remind her of the risk she faced now that Talia knew who she was. He also didn’t want to tell her that her safest bet would be to stay right here with Liam while Dash followed up with the investigation after ordering a late lunch. He also figured she wouldn’t have any of it. Raina wasn’t the type to back away from perceived danger, and her loyalty to his sister was akin to the kind of bond he’d shared with the men in his unit while he was in the service and now with the BAU. After getting out of the military, he’d attained a computer science degree and had gone into a “safe” job. Safe in terms of finances. Having been in the service, he knew a beat cop wasn’t the right job for him. As much as he loved and respected his father, Dash had known right away he wouldn’t follow in the man’s footsteps.
In some small way, he was honoring his father’s memory by working in law enforcement. This job pulled on all his strengths, and he liked using his computer skills to solve cases. His degree gave him more tools to use...
And that got him thinking. Could he and Liam use software to lip-read? It was worth a shot. He grabbed Layla’s laptop and bypassed the operating system, pulling up Linux instead.
His fingers danced on the keyboard as she watched. She seemed to be catching on, and she offered a couple of suggestions for the program he had to write.
The only break he took was to order lunch for the three of them. At two o’clock in the afternoon, he was about to chew his arm off from hunger.
He ordered a pair of pizzas, liking the synergy they had when they combined efforts. He also liked her clean, citrusy scent filling every breath he took as he sat next to her. He wanted more. Was she forbidden fruit? Or was this real? Was it even possible to think they could...what?...go on a date after this?
That was almost laughable. They knew each other far too well for that. Hell, they’d kissed with the kind of passion that could only happen with someone he knew beyond basic greetings. It would be impossible to dial back time and start over.
Where would they start? If they could?
Pizza delivery was left in the downstairs lobby. He darted down and got back in two seconds before passing out slices.
No one seemed to want to stop working, so they ate at their respective spots.
“Bingo,” she said, and there was enough pride in her voice to know that she’d finished the work well. Programmers wrote code. They tested. They never truly knew if an app was going to work the way it was intended until it went live. Then they could work out the glitches.
“Let’s try it out and see what happens.” He opened the video in the app they’d cowritten and studied the screen.
Nothing.
“Back to the drawing board,” she said after a sigh.
They were doing something, not just sitting around watching paint dry. So that was helpful to kill the time before he headed out for a second round of interviews. He scrolled through the lines of code, looking for the mistake as Liam dozed off. No doubt, he’d been working nonstop since yesterday morning’s meeting.
A thought occurred to Dash: Alec knew how to write code. Maybe they should request a sample from him. They had a sample from Sheldon already, so that was going to be easy to check against the code responsible for making millions of dollars disappear from the bank and causing his sister’s arrest.
While Dash didn’t exactly have a warrant to seize Alec’s work computer—or home computer, for that matter—he could make a simple request. Innocent people usually cooperated with federal agents and law enforcement in general. There were times when an innocent person lawyered up, but those times were rarer than one might think.
Liam’s head dropped back, his mouth open. He snored about as loudly as one could without having sleep apnea.
It was comical, and Dash couldn’t help but laugh. Raina caught on and laughed too. She had one of those genuine belly laughs that would make even the grumpiest person smile. They both tried to contain their laughter, but the recent stress must have caught up to her because she couldn’t stop.
In fact, next thing he knew, she was rolled on her side on the sofa in stiches. It was pure and basic tension relief. By the time she sat up again, she had to wipe the tears from her face.
“That was so good. I needed that. Thank you, Liam,” she said and then laughed at her own joke.
It was good to see her smile. And, yes, this was part stress, part exhaustion, but that didn’t mean her laughter wasn’t real. Dash thought she looked even more beautiful when she relaxed.
He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why she wasn’t in a relationship. There had to be plenty of guys in line trying to get her to go out with them. Layla shrugged when she brought up the subject of her friend, saying Raina was picky when it came to men. He figured there was a whole lot more to the story, a
nd he surprised himself in realizing he wanted to know the answers. He wanted to know more about Raina and what made her tick.
The fact that she dedicated a good chunk of her salary to her mother’s care said all he needed to know about her character. There were far too few female programmers. Based on the code they’d written together just now, he knew how good she was at her job. But then, Layla would get bored hanging around someone who couldn’t keep up with her intellectually.
Which made even less sense why Layla had fallen for Calum. The guy had a great job, and most would consider him good looking. He had those two things going for him. But what his sister saw in the man other than those qualities was beyond Dash.
Then again, the guy had to have some charm for Layla to be willing to go out with him.
“What else do you know about my sister’s dating history with Calum?” he asked when Raina sat up straight again.
“Only what she told me after the fact,” she admitted.
“Did she talk about him? Say why she was infatuated with him in the first place?”
“Not anything specific. She just asked me not to tell anyone when I confronted her about why we weren’t spending as much time together. I got the sense she was protecting someone.” She flashed her eyes at him. “You know Layla. She’s tough on the outside, and it’s near impossible to break through her shell. But, man, if you do, you’ll never have anyone more loyal on your side,” she said.
“To a fault sometimes, I’m afraid,” he said.
She nodded. “So few people ever get through. It doesn’t happen a lot.”
“No. And it’s probably best that way. My sister has a tendency to go all in, and I hate how much he hurt her. I could see it in her eyes, and it took all the self-discipline I had not to charge the guy.”
“What do you really think about his wife?” she asked.
“Ice queen. She has a lot to lose if she ends up divorced. She runs with a set of people who would take that as a mark against her. It could potentially cut her out of certain social circles. Someone like her might view her marriage as a contract—one she has every intention of ensuring her husband kept his side of. She might have decided to make sure no monkey business went on between her husband and my sister. Having my sister locked up in jail bans her from the industry and keeps her away from Calum at the office.” There was motive. Bitty might have had access to the office, which would give her opportunity. Revenge and protecting one’s homelife were two powerful motivators.