by Paige Tyler
That wasn’t a promise he could make. He had no idea when he was going to leave, since he still needed to help Sage, but he couldn’t ignore the risk he posed to Zarina and the other people around him. At some point, he’d lose control at the wrong time, and someone he cared about would pay the price. He refused to stay here and let that happen.
But before he could tell Zarina that, she suddenly leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tightly. He froze, shocked by the move. But after a moment, he enfolded her in a hug.
“Don’t answer right now,” she whispered. “Just think about it for a while…before you do anything.”
Tanner closed his eyes, holding her like he’d wanted to for so long, torn that it couldn’t always be like this. But he wasn’t the man Zarina needed in her life. At some point, she was going to have to figure that out.
Chapter 4
Alina stepped out of the shower and absently dried off with the fluffy towel she took from the rack as she tried to figure out what was going on with Thomas Thorn. She’d found it strange enough that the man had been lurking during her initial interview with Dick Coleman, but now that his name had shown up in connection with the bombing, she had no idea what to think.
Tossing the towel in the hamper, she slipped into her standard bum-around-the-house-and-chill-out clothes—yoga pants, a tank top, and a cardigan. Considering it was summertime, she didn’t really need the sweater, but cardigans were soft and cozy, and she liked wearing them regardless of what time of year it was. Forgetting about work wasn’t really an option right now, though.
As she walked through the living room and into the kitchen, she went over everything she knew about Thomas Thorn, which wasn’t a lot. Not that there was a reason she should know much about the man. She’d spent the past twelve years of her life buried in the CIA, where she’d focused on international threats—and Wade. She’d never been interested in DC politics. Hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d voted.
Even so, she knew the obvious stuff. Thorn had been a senator up until a couple of years ago, when he’d stepped down to run his international defense corporation. He was filthy rich, owned more homes than she did shoes, and still wielded a tremendous amount of influence within political circles. She was also fairly certain he could have stepped into almost any executive-level job in the government if he’d wanted. Heck, she could see some president tapping him to be secretary of defense in a heartbeat. He was that well connected.
Which made her wonder why he’d been there that morning when she’d talked to Dick. From the looks the director had thrown Thorn’s way, it was obvious he had some influence within the DCO. Why a man as powerful as Thorn would bother getting involved in a small covert organization that no one else in the world had ever heard of didn’t make a lot of sense to her.
Then there was the stuff Trevor had said about the former DCO director attempting to send Thorn to prison. Her new partner had implied it was the real reason behind the bombing that had killed John Loughlin.
That was a pretty serious claim, and she would have appreciated Trevor getting into the details. Unfortunately, he’d refused to discuss the subject. She’d spent a good portion of the drive up from Bowling Green badgering him for information, and all she’d learned was that her new partner couldn’t be badgered. She hadn’t been ignored like that since she was an awkward teen in high school. Crap, Trevor could be irritating as hell when he wanted to be.
She walked over to the island in the kitchen and picked up the picture Cody had made. She couldn’t help smiling. It was sweet of him to give it to her.
On impulse, she walked over to the stainless steel fridge and moved a few takeout order magnets around until she’d made a space for the picture, then used the magnets to hold it in place. She stepped back and admired it. The picture definitely brightened up her rather drab kitchen. Then again, she hadn’t known her kitchen was drab until she’d put Cody’s picture up.
Alina suddenly found herself thinking about how her life would have been different if she’d turned left instead of right after college and gotten a normal, ho-hum job, met a nice guy, settled down, and had kids.
She laughed at how crazy that was. Even though she’d had this apartment in Del Ray for years, she typically wasn’t there more than a week or two at a time. She’d spent most of her time traveling around the world, sleeping in hotels, on planes, and in the backseats of cars while surveilling targets. The biggest factor in renting in Del Ray was because it was so close to Reagan National. If she was going to spend half her life at the airport, she might as well live close to it.
The notion that things could have been different, that she could have been a wife and a soccer mom with two-point-three kids and a minivan was fun to imagine. Looking at Cody’s picture on the fridge, she wondered if she’d be the kind of mother who’d keep kids’ artwork taped all over her kitchen. Probably.
She was just digging through the freezer for a frozen pizza that wasn’t encased in frost older than the last ice age when she heard a quick knock immediately followed by the sound of the door opening, then the scrabble of doggy nails on the hardwood floor.
“You decent in there?” her friend Kathy McGee called as Molly bounded into the kitchen with a silly grin on her face.
“Yeah,” Alina called. “In the kitchen.”
Dropping to her knees, she gave her beautiful baby a big hug. Molly was a blue heeler cattle dog she’d rescued during a snowstorm five years ago. It was probably crazy for a woman doing fieldwork for the CIA to have brought in a stray, but there was no way in hell she was going to let the dog freeze to death. And once Molly had gotten comfortable in her apartment, it hadn’t seemed right to give her to someone else. Fortunately, her next-door neighbor Kathy had offered to babysit Molly anytime Alina needed.
“How’re you doing, girl?” She playfully ruffled Molly’s long ears, then ran her hands through the short fur covering the dog’s flanks. “Did you have a good time with Kathy today? Did you behave yourself and play nice with Katelyn?”
Katelyn was Kathy’s cat and, against all rational explanation, Molly’s favorite playmate. Which worked out well, considering how much time Molly spent in Kathy’s place.
Her dark-haired friend came into the kitchen and leaned one shoulder against the wall but didn’t try to interrupt the happy reunion, which pretty much went the same way regardless of how long Alina had been away. Kathy’s presence didn’t stop Alina from talking to Molly like she was a two-year-old.
“Did you miss your mommy?” she said in her best baby voice.
Molly let out a soft bark, then butted her head into Alina’s hands, demanding more attention and pets. Alina couldn’t help but laugh. Then again, that’s what dogs were all about. They made you happy.
“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”
Molly let out another soft bark. She wasn’t a noisy dog, but she always got talkative when Alina acted all goofy. Alina had a sudden vision of Trevor watching her kneeling down on the floor, talking like this. He’d probably think she was a big dope.
“Molly wanted to come right over and find out how your first day on the new job went, but I told her she had to wait until you had a chance to clean up and relax a little,” Kathy said.
Alina gave Molly one last pat on the head, then stood. “Oh, so Molly’s the one who’s all eager to hear about my first day at the office, huh?”
Kathy smiled and nodded, her blue-green eyes teasing behind her glasses. “Definitely. But if you’re going to tell her about it, I guess I can hang around and listen in, too.”
Alina gave up on the idea of nuking a frozen pizza and instead grabbed a box of Cheerios from the cabinet, a carton of milk from the fridge, and a bowl and spoon, then headed into the living room with Kathy following close behind.
“So tell me! How was your first day?” Kathy asked eagerly, kicking off he
r slippers and getting comfy on the couch.
Alina almost laughed at the excitement in her friend’s voice but restrained herself. Kathy worked from home selling socks on the Internet and often said she lived vicariously through Alina’s covert adventures.
Kathy was more than a next-door neighbor and her best friend. She was Alina’s confidante, the only person she’d ever been able to talk to about her life in the CIA. She’d never told her friend anything classified of course, but Kathy was familiar with the stuff that had happened to Jodi and the other members of Alina’s team. She’d also known how much Alina had come to dislike her job at the Agency. In fact, Kathy had been the one to convince her to accept the DCO’s offer.
Molly hopped up between them on the couch and did a few circles before lying down with her head near Alina’s hip. The dog immediately closed her eyes and went to sleep, happy as a clam now that she was with her mommy.
Alina dumped some cereal into the bowl, then added milk. “If I had to sum today up in one word, I guess that word would be…interesting.”
Kathy tucked her sock-covered feet underneath her. “Okay, interesting is a good start. Tell me everything—starting with what your new partner is like. You did meet whoever it is today, right? Is it a man or a woman? Or are you part of a team with several hunky guys? Please tell me that’s it.”
Alina did laugh this time. Kathy could be a bit melodramatic.
“Yes, I met my partner. His name is Trevor Maxwell.”
Kathy leaned forward expectantly. “And?”
“And what?” Alina knew exactly what Kathy was asking but figured she should make her friend work for it a little bit.
Kathy glared at her. “Don’t even try it. You know exactly what I’m talking about. What’s he like? Is he nice, good-looking, well built…married?”
Alina shook her head. “Kathy, he’s my partner.”
Her friend made a face. “Seriously? I sit at home all day looking at socks on the Internet, and you think I’m going to let you get away with that nonanswer? I’m not buying it. Spill!”
Alina laughed. “Okay, okay. I admit, I may have noticed that Trevor is attractive. He has dark hair that seems permanently tousled and dark eyes. He’s maybe a year or two older than I am, isn’t married that I know of, and is funny in that sarcastic, dry-wit sort of way. Oh, and he’s definitely tall and well built.”
“How tall and how built?” Kathy asked.
Alina shrugged. “Six four, two hundred and twenty pounds maybe.”
“Whoa.” Kathy’s brows rose. “He sounds hot.”
Alina didn’t say anything as she spooned cereal into her mouth. She couldn’t help wondering what her friend would think if she knew Trevor had claws and fangs.
“So I’m guessing you two hit it right off?”
Alina grimaced. “Unfortunately, no.”
“Really? Why not? Did you get into a fight or something?”
Alina shook her head. “I wish it was as simple as that. But I don’t think you can consider a complete lack of trust in each other a fight.”
In between eating, Alina described her first day at the DCO, starting with the meeting she’d had with her boss.
“The man flat-out told me Trevor was involved with the murder of the organization’s previous director,” she said. “He as much as said the reason he hired me was because he thought I’d be able to dig out the traitors behind the conspiracy—Trevor being at the top of the list of suspects. My boss wants me to spy on my own partner the first day on the job.”
Kathy didn’t bat an eye at the mention of murder and spying. She’d listened to Alina talk for so long that stuff like this was old hat to her. But she did grimace at the fact that the DCO was asking Alina to do the very thing that had made her quit the Agency.
“I don’t remember you mentioning this as part of the job description when I suggested you take this job,” Kathy muttered.
Alina shook her head. “I think this falls under the category of ‘additional duties as assigned.’ The worst part is that it’s obvious Trevor knows I’ve been assigned as his partner simply to keep an eye on him. He’ll barely talk to me.”
“Okay, that sucks,” Kathy said. “Do you think your boss is right? Is Trevor involved in murder? Do you trust him?”
Alina considered that. “I want to trust him.”
“You know that’s not really an answer, right?” Kathy pointed out. “To any of the questions I asked.”
Alina sighed. “I know, but the reality is I don’t know what to think of Trevor. He’s my partner, and working with him is going to be tough if we can’t trust each other. But after what happened with Wade, I’m not as quick to trust people as I used to be.”
“That’s understandable,” Kathy said. “Let me ask you something. Besides your boss’s suspicions about Trevor being involved, is there anything you’ve personally seen or heard that has you doubting him?”
Alina wondered if her friend had been a shrink in a previous life, because Kathy was definitely good at getting her to look at situations from a completely different perspective. But after replaying the day’s events in her head, she realized Trevor had actually given her a few reasons to trust him, first by opening up about shifters, then telling her why they were going to see Seth Larson. Despite that, there was still one thing hanging over their partnership that made her reluctant to have faith in him.
“I suppose the thing that’s bothering me the most is this gut instinct I have that Trevor is hiding something from me,” she told Kathy. “I have no idea exactly what it is or why he’s doing it, but I’m having a hard time putting my faith in someone when I know they’re keeping secrets from me.”
Kathy nodded. “What are you going to do?”
Alina didn’t have to think about it very long. There was no way she was going back to the Agency, and she wasn’t yet ready to walk away from the DCO. She wasn’t sure why, but the same instincts warning her that Trevor was keeping stuff from her were also screaming that she couldn’t bail on her new job.
Alina shrugged and set her empty bowl on the coffee table. “I’m not making any decisions one way or the other right now. Not until I have more information to work with.”
Kathy’s brow creased with worry. “What if you and Trevor have to walk into a dangerous situation? How do you do that if you don’t trust him? Isn’t that begging for trouble?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Alina flopped back on the couch. “But right now, I don’t have any other options. Until I know who the good guys are in this situation, I’m going to have to cover my own back.”
* * *
Shit, he was tired.
Not surprising, Trevor thought as he walked upstairs to his Woodbridge apartment. Between Dick putting him back out in the field with Alina and discovering the Seth Larson lead wasn’t likely to go anywhere, things definitely hadn’t gone the way he imagined when he’d woken up that morning.
Which was probably why he didn’t realize there was someone in his apartment until he unlocked the door and pushed it open. Normally, someone breaking into his apartment would have had him reaching for his weapon, but in this case, he knew who his visitor was. The steady heartbeat combined with a complete and total lack of scent meant it could only be one person—Adam.
Closing the door, Trevor tossed his keys on the table inside the entryway. Adam stood in front of the big window in the living room, gazing out at the jogging path behind the building. He turned as Trevor flicked on the light, his hazel eyes quickly adjusting to the sudden brightness. Tall, with dark-blond hair and angular features, he wore a long duster even in the heat of summer. Considering it was August, Trevor should have been able to pick up the smell of sweat coming off the shifter from across the room, but he couldn’t.
After the secretive shifter had shown up at his place for the first time weeks ago, Trevor quickly
figured out the man wore some kind of cloaking spray that made it nearly impossible for him—or any other shifter—to pick up his natural scent. The only way Trevor could smell Adam’s odor was if he got really, really close to him.
Not that it helped much. Adam didn’t smell like any other shifter Trevor had ever been around. He smelled like a lizard. Thing was, Trevor had never heard of a reptile-based shifter. Then again, Trevor had seen the man’s eyes shift once, and the pupils had been slitted.
Freakiest crap he had ever seen.
“You know, if you’re going to break into my apartment, you could at least make dinner,” Trevor said drily as he walked around the peninsula that separated the living room from the kitchen.
Adam lifted a brow. “Would you really eat anything I cooked?”
Considering Adam had been an assassin in his former life, probably not. “Good point.”
Opening the fridge, Trevor grabbed two bottles of beer, then gestured at Adam. When the other shifter shook his head, Trevor shrugged and put one back.
“How was your trip down to Bowling Green?” Adam asked.
Trevor unscrewed the cap and swigged his beer. How the hell had Adam known where he and Alina had been earlier that day? He hadn’t even known he was going down there until after lunch, and as far as anyone else knew, they’d been in Fredericksburg, not Bowling Green.
He didn’t bother asking, knowing Adam wouldn’t say. Besides, he was more concerned with other things—like the fact that Dick had bugged his apartment. He motioned around the room, then pointed to his ear.
“I’ve intercepted the audio going to our friends on the other end of the wires,” Adam said casually. “They think you’re watching ESPN while you make dinner.”
Of course. Trevor wasn’t sure why he worried. Adam had known his apartment was bugged before he had.
Adam had first shown up three days after John’s murder, letting Trevor know Landon, Ivy, and the others were safe, then asking him to be his eyes and ears in the DCO. The other shifter had said he and the former director were friends, and that they’d devoted the past decade to putting Thorn in prison. Trevor had spent most of his adult life catching spies and traitors, so he was good at knowing when people were lying to him, and his gut told him Adam was on the level.