by Misty Evans
“But I didn’t know that, did I? You never discussed it with me.”
She wanted to add just like last time, but based on Mitch’s narrowed eyes and pinched mouth, she guessed she’d hit her mark. Still, a little piece of her broke away. Taming Mitch Monroe shouldn’t have to bring him pain. Knowledge, yes. Pain? No. She didn’t want that.
Fix this. “Before we have a blow-out here, all I’m trying to do is make you understand. You’ve been alone and on the run for a long time. You’re used to working solo. Right now, we’re partners. What happens to you, happens to me. And to Brice. Please, work with me. Control your emotions and work with me. I’ll never hurt you or betray you. You have to know that.”
“I do know that. I just…” He circled one hand, then dropped it, letting it flop to his side. “I don’t want to be responsible for you losing your career. I don’t care what happens to me. You’re a different story.”
“I’m a big girl. I willingly joined you on this. My career is not your responsibility. That’s on me. But if we’re going to help each other, we need to communicate. You can’t just decide how it’s going to be and jump in.”
An orderly cruised in with a wheelchair. “Hey, folks.” He grabbed her chart, then checked her wristband. “Okay, Caroline Foster, your ride is here. Sir, I’ll have her back as soon as they’re done. Might be thirty minutes or so.”
“I’ll be here.” He reached his hand to Caroline to help her out of the bed. “I’ll be waiting for you. From now on, I’ll always wait for you. Whatever it is.”
Like a magic password to her heart, the words released a rush of…something. Relief? Hope? Fear? Maybe all of it. Before that moment, she hadn’t realized how long she’d waited to hear that. Years probably. She just hadn’t known it. For every man who’d ever taken her on a date or even managed a second or a third, none of them did this to her.
None had given her the password.
She squeezed his hand, blinked a few times to chase some ridiculous moisture away. “I know,” she said. “And I love you for it.”
Chapter Eighteen
After the ER doc declared her face sufficiently banged up but unbroken and wrote her a prescription for pain meds, Caroline considered this hospital detour complete.
Back to work.
Mitch opened the passenger door of the beat-up truck and offered a hand to help her out. True to his word, he’d waited for her to return from x-ray and discussed his plan with her. Haza. Baby steps were sometimes monumental. The plan included driving all over town to ditch any possible tails and then meet up with Brice—and Maria—at yet another crummy motel.
As with the last motel parking lot, The Raceway offered poor lighting, outside entries to all the rooms, and allowed pets.
While Brice unlocked the motel room door, Caroline rubbed her eyes. Almost midnight. This day felt like a month. She needed sleep. And a shower. As in now. The painkillers overrunning her system only added to her fatigue.
But sleep and the shower would wait. Apparently, Caroline getting accosted nudged Maria to admit she had information regarding their case. As soon as they got that information, Caroline would sleep. Long and hard.
Slumber would clear her mind, bring her sluggish thinking back to its normal snapping pace just in time for Donaldson to meet with the ATF supervisors.
Caroline stepped into the motel room where pukish Berber carpet gave the whole place a depressed feel. Add to that the floral bedspread featuring every color known to man and—wow—the place needed an overhaul.
“What year is it?” Mitch asked.
“It’s ugly,” Caroline shot, “but it’s not a time warp.”
“Thank you. I expected my grandmother to walk out of the bathroom wearing cold cream.”
Brice snorted. “Hey, you want the Ritz, you pay for it.”
“It’s fine,” Maria said. “I shared a double bed with four sisters until I was sixteen. This is luxury.”
Mitch pointed to one of the two vinyl chairs at the small veneer table. “Sit, Caroline.”
Gladly.
Maria took the other chair and Mitch parked on the low dresser. Brice glanced around, but opted to stand rather than sit on the bed.
“What’s up, Maria?”
Mitch, Mr. Compassionate. Caroline sighed, but couldn’t summon the energy to shoot Mitch one of her don’t-be-an-inconsiderate-dumbass looks.
Apparently, her sigh conveyed the same message. He held up his arms. “Oh, excuse me. Let me rephrase. Maria, how can we be of service?”
That made Caroline laugh. What a smartass. If she didn’t shoot him first, she’d love him forever. Mitch grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows.
“Swear to God,” she said, “you’re begging to get shot.”
Maria hunched her shoulders. “You people are cray-cray.”
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said. “Long day.”
And I need a damned shower and clean clothes and a soft place to rest. To go home to her normal life. Whatever that was before finding out the government wanted to sacrifice a good agent. And if they’d do it to Tommy, they’d do it to her. At some point, she’d have to reconcile that. If she even could. Prior to this, she’d been a Bureau Woman through and through. Sure there were some bad seeds, but she had the vision, the dream, the silly ideals that came with wanting to make a difference.
Maria clutched at her purse, working her fingers over the worn leather strap. Her gaze moved from Brice to Caroline to Mitch, where she lingered a few seconds, studying him as if some recognition sparked. Odd.
But Mitch had that way about him, the rough, tough bad boy always drawing a woman’s attention. Even women who couldn’t decipher if he was a lunatic or not.
Maria kept her eyes glued to Mitch. Caroline gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay quiet. To not rush the process. I’m so tired.
“I knew him,” Maria said.
Mitch flipped his hands palm side up. “Who?”
“Tommy.”
Relaxed Mitch evaporated. Even from across the room, Caroline noticed the transformation, the stiffness. “Knew him how?”
“He was…um…kind and gentle.”
Her voice hitched, just a little, but enough to send Caroline’s feeble brain to full speed. She reached across the table, laid her hand flat, but Maria didn’t move. Just kept working the strap on her purse. Something is in there. “Maria? We’ll help you. Whatever it is.”
“I was with Jesse one day. My car was in the shop and it was my day off. He took me to the grocery store and to the bank. Stupid errands. He got a call and told me we had to make a stop. Business that couldn’t wait. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but what could I do?”
“Where’d he go?” Brice asked.
“We drove to a strip mall. He parked and told me to stay in the car while he went into the coffee shop. I didn’t like the sound of it. He’d always been a decent kid and tried to stay out of trouble, but in a lot of ways—his friends, his attitude, his obsession with money—he was straddling the line. I followed him into the shop.”
Mitch shifted his weight causing the dresser to creak and they all glanced at him. “You saw him with Tommy.”
“Yes.”
She half smiled and that small hitch of her lips, that little bit of movement, forced Caroline to hold her breath. How was it that one gesture could be so miniscule yet stuffed with regret? “What is it, Maria?”
“His hair was long, his clothes a mess. He looked like someone my brother shouldn’t be hanging around with.”
“Did you know he was an undercover agent?”
She shook her head. “Jesse jumped up and we left. Just like that. I knew he was up to something, and I kept asking him, but he wouldn’t tell me. I was scared he was doing something illegal and I kept hounding him about it. I guess he couldn’t take it anymore and told me he was helping the government. That the man he met with caught him buying a gun for someone else and told him if he agreed to give him some information, the man
wouldn’t arrest him. I didn’t believe it. I thought that was craziness. A few days later, Tommy showed up at the hospital. He found me in the cafeteria on my lunch break.”
This time it was Caroline’s turn to be shocked. “He broke cover?”
Maria thought about that. “I guess he did. He told me who he was and to leave Jesse alone. That he was a good kid doing the right thing. He gave me his card. Told me to call him if I ever needed anything. Jesse too.”
“Did you ever call him?”
“No.” She slapped both hands over her eyes and burst into tears.
“Maria?” Caroline urged. “It’s okay. What happened?”
She looked up. “He started showing up after my shifts. The first time, it scared me. He was in his car, parked two down from mine. I almost had a heart attack when he got out and said he wanted to make sure I got home okay. After that, he showed up most nights, and each time…well…”
Her lips broke into a shy smile, and Caroline’s gut bottomed out. She knew that look. That very feminine, telling look. No. It couldn’t be…
Mitch crossed his arms over his chest. “Each time what?”
Maria sighed, her gaze going to the window. “I fell a little more in love with him.”
Mitch’s first reaction? Holy shit. Subsequent reactions were the same.
Immobile and speechless, he stared at Maria. She looked scared now as silence reigned in the room. There was a lot of eye contact between her, Brice, and Caroline, but eventually all eyes landed on him.
Maria was the woman Tommy had mentioned. Maria, Tommy’s informant’s sister.
Goddamn. What the hell had his friend been thinking? Breaking cover, sleeping with his informant’s sister, getting himself killed—it was enough to make Mitch want to put his fist through the wall.
Maybe Maria was lying. JLo Junior had probably watched too many Fast and Furious movies. “So you and Tommy…” He had to think of some way to make sure she wasn’t dicking them around. “You spent some time together, right? He told you about his childhood? His friends? His family?”
Maria met his gaze straight on. “He told me about you.”
“Oh, yeah? What about me?”
“He said there was a fine line between being a criminal and a cop. That if it hadn’t been for you, he would have ended up in juvie, maybe even prison.”
Pressure rose in Mitch’s throat, burned behind his eyes.
“He said you were his best friend. You and Kemp Rodgers. He said, ‘those asshole training instructors at Quantico labeled us the Three Musketeers. Thought we’d hate the nickname, but we didn’t. Any of us. Mitch twisted it around and nicknamed us the Holy Trinity, just to take a stab back at them.’”
Mitch held himself still. Maria was the real deal. She couldn’t know all of that unless Tommy had told her.
He’d promised Caroline he would control his emotions, and no matter what, he was keeping a lid on the pressure cooker inside him.
Control came at a price. Caroline raised an eyebrow at him, and when he tried to speak, his voice was locked inside his chest.
Maria continued. “We had to be careful about our relationship. He never parked in my driveway and always came in the back door. Sometimes we met in places similar to this motel.” She glanced around at the awful interior. “Made the most of our time together.”
“Did he discuss the case?” Caroline asked. “The one involving Jesse?”
Maria fingered the strap of her purse. Her voice dropped a notch, sounding resigned. “He preferred not to, but I could tell toward the end—before he was killed—that things were eating at him. Things he wanted to talk about but couldn’t. I was afraid for him, and for Jesse too, but he told me Jesse and I would be all right, no matter what happened. He’d make sure of it.”
Caroline coaxed her on. “Do you know what made him think you and Jesse were in danger?”
The woman’s ponytail swung as she shook her head. “He never gave me specifics, just that he was poking around and upsetting members on the taskforce. And their bosses. He told me…”
When she hesitated, Caroline leaned forward and rubbed Maria’s arm. “It’s okay. You’re not in any trouble, and nothing you say will shock us, believe me. The more we know, the better off we are. You may hold the key to clearing Tommy’s name and bringing the men responsible for his death to justice.”
Good thing Caroline was there. If Mitch had said the same thing, it wouldn’t have come out as caring or patient. Maria’s shoulders fell as if she were done holding the weight of the world on them. She reached inside her purse, grabbed something, and withdrew her hand in a balled fist.
Her dark eyes rose to meet Mitch’s. “Tommy told me to give you something if anything happened to him. I was devastated when I lost him. Scared and worried, too. Not for me, but for Jesse. I hid it for a few weeks, then I tried to find you and couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”
Finally, his voice returned. “What did he give you?”
She glanced at Caroline who nodded. Slowly, Maria opened her fist.
In her palm lay a keychain. A round, gold keychain with a fleur-de-lis etched in the top. A symbol used by France and other countries, armies, and religions. It was also a symbol between Tommy, Kemp, and Mitch referencing the Musketeers.
A keychain? Tommy wanted him to have a goddamn keychain?
Caroline held out her hand. “Can I see that?”
Maria handed it to her. Caroline flipped it back and forth, eyeballing it. She ran her fingers over the symbol, around the outsides, then got up and walked to the lamp and held it under the light. There, she took a closer look. “Aha.” She pushed the raised band at the bottom of the symbol.
Caroline held it up for Mitch and Brice to see.
Bingo. A silver USB drive had popped out.
Adrenaline pumped through Mitch’s veins. He reached out and took it.
This was it. Tommy had left him a message, or files, or something that would explain this case and maybe why he’d been shot.
“I couldn’t find you,” Maria said to Mitch, “so I tracked down Kemp Rodgers. I didn’t know if I could trust him with that.” She pointed at the USB dangling from Mitch’s fingers. “But since Kemp was part of your group, I copied a few files from it to a separate drive that I gave him. He was nice and thanked me for coming forward. Said he’d call me as soon as he had a chance to look at the files. Then I came home and waited for him to contact me. I found out the next day that he was dead too. That’s when I got really scared. The news said he was murdered and that you were a person of interest. When you showed up at my door, I didn’t know what to do.”
A fresh rush of adrenaline tightened the muscles at the base of Mitch’s neck. “When did you meet with Kemp?”
She clasped her hands in her lap and bent her head. “The night he was killed.”
Caroline sat forward, squeezing Maria’s hand. “Did you see who did it?”
“No!” Her head snapped up. “I didn’t see anyone. He didn’t know I was coming—I wanted to surprise him, see how he reacted when I told him I knew Tommy. Tommy had given me his contact information, but every time I called his office I got the run around. So I used money from extra shifts I’d worked last month to buy a plane ticket. I went to his office and the receptionist told me he’d left for the evening. Tommy had told me what a health nut Kemp was, that he drove an ugly green Volkswagen hybrid, and that he did a daily run at Rock Creek Park. I didn’t know Washington D.C. at all, but the car I’d rented had GPS. It took me nearly an hour to scan all the parking lots, but I found his car. I was nervous, but I waited. He came out and I approached him. He probably thought I was a stalker or a serial killer, but we talked. I told him I needed to know he was trustworthy and I gave him the USB I’d copied two of the files onto. I told him if he wanted the rest, he needed to help me. Get my brother immunity or whatever.” She worried her bottom lip. “You don’t think he was killed over those files, do you?”
Damn right,
he was killed over these files. Or at least what someone believed was in them.
“You’re lucky the killer didn’t off you too. He probably heard you tell Rodgers that all the files weren’t on that USB.” Mitch closed the keychain and stuck it in his pocket, heading for the door. “Brice, stay here with Maria. Caroline and I are heading back to the RV. We’ll have a look at these files and be in touch.”
Brice looked less than pleased that he was babysitting again. “Why don’t we look at it here on my laptop?”
Because I need to look at them alone. “As soon I know what’s on it, man, I will call you.”
He went out the door before Brice could argue further, Caroline on his heels.
“One more thing I think you should know,” Maria called.
Mitch turned back and focused on Maria still planted in the chair. “Tommy said he never told you, and he always wished he had, but you were like a brother to him. The only person he ever considered family.”
Mitch was quiet.
That alone obviously concerned Caroline because she kept looking over at him. Analyzing him like he’d turn psycho at any second. All he wanted was a few minutes to get his head together. To compartmentalize the emotional crap sawing him in half.
Twenty minutes into the ride to the RV, Caroline finally spoke. “What do you think is on that USB?”
Mitch, for once, was driving. He needed something to occupy his mind and Caroline was too doped up to complain. “Tommy knew he was in some deep shit, otherwise he wouldn’t have secret files that he entrusted to his girlfriend. Whatever information is in those files, it’s worth killing over.”
“You don’t really think Kemp was killed because Maria gave him a couple of those files, do you?”
He glanced at her across the seat. She was still pale and her eyes tired. So tired, in fact, she looked like she could barely keep them open. “You think it’s coincidence? Come on, Caroline.”
“Remember what I said about going off half-cocked and letting your emotions get the better of you?”