by Katie Reus
Her mouth curved up, making him wish he could capture it with his own, tease his tongue past her lips… “I will. And the same goes for you. If you learn anything new, I want to know about it.”
He set his own mug down and rounded the island top. “I’ll contact you as soon as I can.” Despite the lingering tension in the air, he reached out and gently wrapped his fingers around one of her hips.
She set her fingers against his chest. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Nothing. Just wanted to touch you before I left.”
“When you say stuff like that, you drive me crazy.”
“Good crazy?”
Sighing, she set her forehead against his chest and mumbled, “Yes.”
He inwardly grinned and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll call you soon.”
Stepping back, she nodded, her expression unreadable.
The drive to the rented office where they were meeting the Fed didn’t take long. Leighton had thought it best that they meet somewhere neutral, and since Brooks owned a couple commercial buildings that weren’t currently in use—while waiting for updates and renovations—they’d chosen a place close to the harbor. The last time it had been rented out, it had been a café.
Some of the tables were still there, which was all they needed to have this discussion. Brooks recognized Gage’s truck as he pulled up. And there was a plain black four-door sedan with a Virginia license plate—definitely the Fed’s.
The little bell above the door was still in place so when he stepped inside, it jingled. Leighton leaned against the dusty glass-front countertop. Gage was sitting at one of the small square tables, his laptop open, and a woman who didn’t look like most Feds he knew was swiping her fingers across her cell phone at warp speed.
She looked up when she saw him enter, nodded once, and returned to her phone. Her jet-black hair was pulled back into a bun at her neck and she had on cargo pants, a button-down, cargo-style shirt in the same pale green, and boots. After a moment, she shoved her phone in her back pocket and turned to look at all of them, hands on her hips. “I’m going to get straight to the point. I just got off a long flight, and I know who you are,” she said, nodding again at Brooks, “so I don’t need an introduction. And—”
“This is Special Agent Hazel Blake,” Leighton said dryly. “She won the personality of the year award three years running when we served together.”
Hazel just snorted, but her expression softened slightly as she looked at Leighton.
Brooks frowned. The ban on women in combat—in the Marines—hadn’t been lifted until a few years ago. “You two served together?”
Leighton nodded. “She provided CAS for us more than once.”
Close Air Support. That meant she’d been a Cobra pilot. He nodded once at her in respect. “Nice.”
Hazel cleared her throat. “As I was saying, I’m going to get straight to the point of everything. We know who Semyon Markov is. He’s loosely linked to a man named Alexei Kuznetsov.” She paused for a moment and looked between the three of them. “And none of you seem surprised by that. You know who he is?”
All of them nodded.
She frowned at that, but continued, “We’ve also been watching Oleg Polzin. Or he’s on our radar, at least. Suspected of a few crimes.”
That was vague enough that she wasn’t giving them any real details. Not that he was surprised. She and Leighton must really have a tight bond if she was here at all, listening to them. Or at this point, she was just talking. But she was here, and that mattered.
“Markov hasn’t been on our radar. Not seriously anyway. We thought about trying to get to Kuznetsov through him, but from what we can tell, they aren’t close. They have occasional business together, but… Anyway, now, what you guys are telling me is that he might be planning a bombing of a school? How reliable is the witness who overheard the conversation?”
“Reliable. She’s soon going to be the sister-in-law of Markov’s son,” Brooks said, even though he knew that Leighton had already given the Fed the basic facts about Darcy. “She has a good relationship with her sister, likes her sister’s fiancé, has never suspected anything strange going on with the family. And she is not prone to a wild imagination.” Plus I’m in love with her, so I’ll do any damn thing it takes to protect her.
“Okay, good. I’m going to want to talk to her.”
“You can do it at my house, then.” There was heavy security at his ranch, and it was so far out of the way that no one would see them meeting.
“Fine. Now you guys are going to answer some questions for me, like what the hell it is you do?” She shot a sharp look at Leighton.
“I already told you what we do. Consulting.”
“And I don’t buy it. I need to know more about what you’re doing and whether or not I trust you.”
At that, Leighton shoved up from the counter, a real spark of emotion rolling off him. Anger. One of the first emotions Brooks had seen from him in a long damn time. “Really? You’re not sure you trust me?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I had one of my guys try to hack your system,” she said, completely unapologetically. “And you have some serious encryption.”
Gage stretched out in his seat, crossing one ankle over the other, obnoxiously casual. “Damn straight we do. And you guys tried to recruit me once upon a time.”
“Why do you even need to bring us into this?” Leighton asked Hazel, his voice neutral. “You have a witness. And it will be easy enough to leave her out of it. All you have to do is say you received an anonymous tip.”
She was silent for a long moment, and Brooks had a feeling that had been her intention all along. So why the hell was she here? “Where did you get the information about the specific schools?” she finally asked. “Because according to your story, the witness didn’t overhear those details.”
Ah, that was why. Well, Brooks certainly wasn’t answering that question. He wasn’t going to tell a Fed they’d broken into a cop’s house and stolen the info.
“Good guess?” Gage murmured, trying to hide his grin and failing spectacularly.
“Bullshit. Did you guys break into Markov’s house?”
“No,” Leighton said immediately.
She narrowed her gaze at him. “You’re telling the truth. But you didn’t get that information legally.” Not a question.
No one said a word. Even if Leighton trusted her, they weren’t going to admit they’d broken into someone’s house and stolen information. Finally Brooks said, “You’re here, so the information must be good.”
“Off the books, I had one of my guys run Polzin and Markov’s faces through different programs.”
“Let me guess,” Gage said. “You found Polzin around a couple of the schools in the last few months. It’s not obvious what he’s doing, but to people like us, he’s been doing recon.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she nodded. “As soon as I get the okay from my boss, we’re going to check out the schools.”
Brooks called bullshit. With the urgency of the situation he was fairly certain she’d already gotten the okay and had people either in place or ready to go. Or she wouldn’t be here. “You want something from us.”
She nodded at him. “Even if we find any explosive devices, unless we get lucky, nothing links us back to Markov or Polzin.”
That wasn’t exactly their problem, but no one said anything.
She continued. “I want to talk to your witness about potentially wearing—”
“Nope.” Brooks knew exactly where the woman was going with this. “If you even mention that she wears a wire, we’re done here.”
Her jaw tightened slightly. “It doesn’t have to be anything big, just a small recording device on her person while she’s at the Markov residence. I’ve looked into her too. Her sister’s wedding is Saturday, and she’s going to be there for the next three days straight, basically. It wouldn’t hurt to—”
“No,” Broo
ks said. “We gave you a gift. Take it but leave her out of it. And if you try to go around us, you’ll regret it.” He didn’t care if he was threatening a federal agent. If this woman tried to convince Darcy to do something like that, he would lose his mind.
Leighton nodded. “I’m with Brooks on this. We gave you solid information. What you do with it is up to you. You have a lot of resources, and I have no doubt that if they are planning something, you’ll be able to stop it. But don’t put the woman in danger. If you do, you and I…” He trailed off, and Brooks wasn’t certain what the implied threat was.
The only thing he knew was his friend had his back. And he hadn’t been sure Leighton would, not with the way he’d been looking at the woman covertly. Knowing that Leighton was on board completely with keeping Darcy out of this eased the band of tension around Brooks’s chest.
“Fine. The woman stays out of it. I still want to talk to her, eventually. But for now, I have a shitload of work to do.”
“You could say thank you instead of grumbling.” Leighton actually smiled, sort of, for the first time in almost a year.
She nudged him with her hip. “Thank you. Seriously. And I will definitely keep your witness out of this. So far, I’ve got a small team ready to go. No matter what we find, I’ll cite an anonymous tip started all of this. If we get what we need…” She rubbed her fingers against her temple and for the first time, Brooks could see she was exhausted. “Hopefully it’ll be enough to get warrants.”
“Well, you might not need one for Turner’s place.” Gage turned his laptop around. “The detective was killed last night in a gas station robbery gone wrong. The clerk was killed too. Place was trashed and cash registers emptied out.”
Hazel cursed as she looked at Gage’s screen. “Well isn’t that just convenient.”
It was possible it was simply a coincidence but Brooks didn’t think so. If the detective had been murdered by Markov, or more likely Polzin on Markov’s orders, they were likely cleaning up before the bombing. Which meant it was very likely that bombing would be in a couple days. Shit.
“I’ve got to run,” she said.
“Where are you staying?” Leighton asked her.
“Bureau’s putting us up in a place, not that I’m going to spend much time there,” she muttered. “I’ll text you later.”
Leighton nodded once. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. And I’ll let you know…if we find anything.”
Technically she shouldn’t let them know anything. And the Feds could be sticklers about rules. This one maybe not so much. Brooks just raised an eyebrow at Leighton as the Fed left. “What’s your history with her?”
Leighton simply shrugged. “She’s solid. If they find a bomb, she’ll let me know. And her word is good. Darcy won’t be brought into anything.”
That wasn’t an answer, but Brooks let it go. Whatever his friend’s history with the woman, it wasn’t important right now. He turned to Gage. “Did you hear anything from the bugs in Turner’s place?”
“No. But I think we should probably get those listening devices out of there now.”
Brooks nodded in agreement. He’d worn gloves when he’d broken into the detective’s home, but it was better to not leave any trace of themselves behind. “I can head there now.”
“We’ll go with you,” Leighton said. “If no one is there yet, we’ll be able to get in and out in less than five minutes.”
There might be LEOs there already but Brooks doubted it. The detective hadn’t been killed at his house. But they needed to move ASAP. “Let’s roll,” Brooks said. Now that the FBI had taken over everything, this job wasn’t theirs anymore.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be protecting Darcy.
Chapter 15
—I’m starting to question why I got out of bed this morning.—
Darcy jumped when Emma silently stepped out from behind the door that led to the wine cellar and into the kitchen, her reaction having more to do with her being on edge than actually being surprised.
“Hey, Darc, hope I didn’t scare you.”
“No, I’m good.” A lie, considering her racing heart. But it had nothing to do with her sister and everything to do with wondering and worrying about the meeting Brooks was at right now. He might have left already, for all she knew. But she hadn’t heard from him and he’d promised to contact her.
Her sister set a pricey bottle of red wine on the counter. She grinned at the bottle. “Peter’s dad told us to take it.”
Darcy let out a low whistle. “Part of your wedding gift?”
“I guess.” Her sister shrugged and pulled out one of the seats. “So, what’s going on with you and Brooks? And don’t think I’m not annoyed that you’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“I haven’t been avoiding your calls. I’ve been texting you, haven’t I? I’m busy with wedding stuff, in case you forgot.”
Her sister let out a disbelieving snort. “You think I don’t know you? You can ignore texts but you can’t lie to my face. So what’s up with you guys?”
Darcy didn’t want to lie to her sister so she decided to be vague. “Things are complicated.”
“That’s not vague or anything.” Her sister’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And you’ve been weird the past couple days. What’s going on?”
“Maybe I am being weird. Honestly, this whole thing with Brooks really is complicated. And I don’t want you to think about it for one second. You’re getting married in two days. Your rehearsal dinner is tomorrow. Those are the only things you need to be thinking about.”
“That’s what I have you for, so I don’t have to worry about that stuff. Come on, you’ve forgiven him, I take it?”
“Yes.” Even as she said the word, she knew it wasn’t a lie. Because she had forgiven him. She was just all twisted up about the two of them.
“Peter’s dad said something about Brooks. Apparently, he really likes the guy.”
“Brooks is very likable.”
“Yeah, but if he breaks your heart I’m seriously going to kick his ass.”
She laughed at her little sister’s tough talk. “You’re very scary.”
“I can be when I want to. And I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him for everything.”
“Well, have you forgiven him enough to let him be my plus-one?”
Emma’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe you even asked that. Of course you can bring him. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t even be having such an amazing wedding. I just…want to make sure that you’re okay. It’s not like you to be so tight-lipped about things.” There was a touch of hurt in Emma’s voice.
Darcy’s heart twisted. She rounded the island and put her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “When I have something to tell you, I promise I will. Honestly, I’m so confused about him right now. I don’t even know what to say where he’s concerned. We slept in the same bed last night but didn’t do anything except talk.” Falling asleep in his arms had felt so natural, and when she’d woken in the morning she hadn’t felt weird about it either. Confused, yes. But that was about it. Because she didn’t have any regrets. Just fear where he was concerned. She wasn’t sure she could take getting her heart broken by him again. It would crush her.
Emma laid her head on Darcy’s shoulder. “Do you still love him?” she asked quietly.
Oh yeah, she was not answering that question.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes. What’s holding you up about him?”
“Fear of getting hurt again.” And there it was, the most honest she’d been to herself since Brooks barreled right back into her life.
“I get that. I never told you, but Peter and I broke up once.”
Surprised, Darcy stepped to the side so she could look at her sister. “When was this?”
“In the beginning of our relationship. Way before we got engaged.” Her sister tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.
Darcy pulled out a seat next to
her. “What happened?”
“Long story short, I did the same thing I always did with boyfriends before him. I wouldn’t trust him—for no reason. I was creating conflict that wasn’t there and he called me on it. I called him a jerk and he told me that when I finally decided to have a grown-up relationship to call him. Or something along those lines.” Emma’s lips curved up slightly. “I was stubborn and wouldn’t call him. I figured he was just another loser I’d gotten rid of. But…he decided I was worth it and refused to let me go. He also called me on my bullshit and made it clear that he’s not my father, and never will be. I knew that in my heart, but hearing him say it… I don’t know, it was like a wakeup call.”
“Wow.” Her sister had definitely grown up a lot since she’d started dating Peter so her story didn’t surprise Darcy. She just hoped that he wasn’t like his father. Something she didn’t want to think about right now. She was supposed to act normal and keep this wedding running smoothly.
“I know, right. I think about how different my life would be if he hadn’t fought for me, come after me.”
“Well I’m glad he did. You’re a different person with him.” It was as if her sister had let go of all of her anger toward their father in the last year. Or maybe not let it go so much as she’d stopped letting it control the way she reacted to the world.
“I don’t know how you let things go with our sperm donor.”
Darcy let out a sharp laugh with no humor. “I’m not sure that I let it go. I just refuse to let him take up space in my head. He’s not worth it. Speaking of, he called me a few months ago.” She hadn’t told Emma because she hadn’t wanted to upset her, but figured now was a good time to tell her. “I think he was fishing around for an invite to your wedding. And I’m pretty sure he was impressed by the man you’re marrying.” Peter was successful in his own right.
Emma shook her head. “Talk about ballsy.”
“Right? What an idiot. Brooks told me that he got fired from his job a year ago.” Darcy left out the reason why because it wasn’t important. “And apparently he’s been blackballed in the industry. Brooks might have had something to do with it.”