Mission: Her Justice
Page 5
The door opened, but when she looked up, it was Callie, not Jonah. The woman’s face was cool.
“I want to check your wound.”
Evan nodded.
The medic did her thing with brisk, competent hands.
“Thanks,” Evan said. “For helping me.”
Callie’s gray eyes were unreadable. The woman leaned forward. “If you hurt Jonah, or any member of my team, I’ll take you down.”
Ahh. No love lost here. “I’m trying to help your team.”
Callie grunted and rose.
“It’s the truth,” Evan insisted.
“I’m not sure people like you, who’ve learned to lie so well for a living, know the truth. I’m watching you.”
The door closed with a click.
Feelings boiled up inside Evan. Shit. They didn’t trust her, and they probably never would.
As always, she was on her own.
Only this time, that realization hurt.
“Brennan has a long career with the CIA.” Brooks leaned back in his chair. “If he’s dirty, he’s good at hiding it.”
“He’s veteran CIA.” Jonah paced. “Of course, he can hide it.”
“Fletcher’s rep was shiny, too, until a few weeks ago. She was one of Brennan’s best.”
“I remember her from a training session.” Seth leaned against the wall, his brow creased. “She’s smart, thinks fast, and uses ingenuity. Saw her take down guys far bigger and stronger than her.”
“So, she’s good at her job, risks her life for her country,” Brooks said. “Then, she goes rogue? Selling arms to really nasty dudes?” Brooks shook his head. “It doesn’t add up.”
Blair crossed her arms, her face set. “It happens. She burned out, got sick of the bad guys living in their mansions with their fancy cars, while the good guys struggle to pay their mortgage.”
Lachlan elbowed her. “Thinking of going rogue, Mason?”
Blair sniffed. “I wouldn’t mind a mansion.”
Jonah wasn’t worried. Blair was honorable to the core. She would put her life on the line to save innocent people. She’d done it numerous times before.
“Anything in Evan’s background that raises any red flags?” Jonah asked.
“The opposite.” Brooks looked up from the computer screen. “Her mother raised her. Mother’s retired and lives in Florida. Father was killed when Evan was six. Get this, in a terrorist attack. A bomb blast in Texas.”
Jonah paused, turning to stare at the screen. Evan was raised by a single mom. Like him.
“So, she doesn’t have any motivation to sell weapons to terrorists,” he murmured. “In fact, the opposite.”
“Exactly,” Brooks said. “I’ve set a little bug on Brennan’s system. If he does anything irregular, I’ll pick it up.”
“He can’t detect it?”
Brooks shot Jonah an affronted look. “No.”
“What do we do with our guest in the meantime?” Lachlan asked.
“We’ll keep her here,” Jonah said. “We’ll keep collecting data, and I’ll question her on what this artifact might be.”
“I’m running the codenames she mentioned through some searches.” Brooks shrugged. “Leo and Poseidon have hundreds of meanings. It’s a long shot, but we might get lucky.”
“She’s dangerous and skilled,” Callie said. “And probably feeling helpless and cornered. I think we need to put a guard on her.”
Oh, Evan would love that. Jonah stuck his hands in his pockets. She wouldn’t be very receptive to opening up to them. “I’ll take the first shift.” Gazes were traded between his team. He scowled. “What?”
“We’re worried you can’t be…objective enough,” Lachlan said.
Blair snorted. “You have the hots for her.”
Shit. Jonah’s scowl deepened. “I will do my job. I take any risk to this team seriously.”
“Fine,” Blair muttered.
“Brooks, keep on those searches. I’ll go and ask Evan some more questions.”
Brooks tossed him a casual salute.
“Who needs more coffee?” Axel asked.
“You aren’t making it,” Blair interjected. “It’ll taste like sludge.”
“I like it strong.”
Jonah headed toward the holding room where Evan was, his team’s casual banter fading away behind him.
Damn, Blair was right. He was fiercely attracted to Evan. He paused. She was beautiful, intelligent, cunning, and determined.
And he understood the position she was in. Knew the frustrated helplessness she was feeling.
He opened the door and his chest locked.
Impossible.
The bed was empty, the ties hanging loose.
It took him seconds to check the room. The windowless, locked room.
She was gone.
Evan limped down a back street in North Las Vegas.
She’d escaped Team 52’s bunker using every bit of her experience and ingenuity. Then she’d gotten clear of the airport as fast as she could. After that, she’d hitched a ride north. Her friendly truck driver had also given her his cap.
She tucked her hair under the hat—that smelled faintly of tobacco and sweat—and tugged it down low over her face. Her painkillers were wearing off and she winced. She ached just about everywhere.
Spotting a payphone, she stopped, dialed the number for a collect call.
“Evan.” Her mother’s smoky voice came on the line.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Shit, doll. I got your text and figured something bad had happened. You still in Vegas? You okay?”
“Yeah. Brennan found me.”
Evan’s mom let loose with a string of impressive curses.
“I’m okay. Bullet winged me.”
“I’m coming to Vegas.”
“No!” The situation was too dangerous, and Evan’s mom could be…unpredictable. “I’m all patched up.”
“I can hear the pain in your voice, Evan Marie. You can’t lie to me.”
“I’ve lied to you loads of times. And you lie to me all the time.”
Her mother made a harrumphing sound. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I just need to regroup.”
“That team helping you?”
Evan paused. “They don’t trust me, yet.”
“Idiots.”
“The director…he might be coming around.” Although she suspected Jonah would be well and truly pissed that she’d given him the slip. Again.
Evan couldn’t help a small smile at the thought of that.
“You like him,” her mom said.
“What? No.” Sometimes it was super annoying that her mother was so spooky observant.
“I know my daughter. What’s he look like?”
“A man. Two arms, two legs.”
“Evan.”
She blew out a breath. “Tall, black hair, some Native American heritage. Wears suits.”
“Hmm, a suit-wearing hottie. The most devastating kind. Although a well-built man in fatigues is pretty hot too.”
“Mom.” Evan didn’t need to know anything about her mom’s love life.
“Personally, I do prefer a bit of grit to pretty.”
“Jonah isn’t pretty.” That word didn’t even begin to describe him.
“Jonah, is it?”
“Mom, while it’s nice chatting, I need to go.”
Her mother laughed. “I know, doll. Look, I have an old cache in Las Vegas. It’s at a storage place. Untraceable. Go, take care of yourself.” Her mom rattled off an address and a code.
A wave of love hit Evan. “Thanks, Mom. And don’t come here.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Mom!”
“Love you, Evan Marie.”
Evan set the phone back in the cradle. Okay. She needed to get to New Space Storage. She pulled up a mental map of Las Vegas. It was a bit of a walk, but not too far away.
By the time she got there, her entire body throbbed with pain. She us
ed an access code to get into the storage place, and then to access the storage unit, itself. She closed herself inside the small unit.
Two large, heavy-duty cases rested against the wall. She pulled one open—cell phones, cash, IDs—for both her and her mom—and a medical kit.
The second case was full of clothes, toiletries, and weapons.
Damn, she loved her mom. Raquel Fletcher had been a legend at the CIA in her time.
First up, Evan swallowed some painkillers. She pulled out a new ID, money, and picked out a Ka-Bar combat knife and a SIG Sauer handgun. She changed into black jeans and pulled a black top on. She wrapped a blue cardigan around her waist. It helped conceal her weapons.
Finally, she pulled on a short, black wig. It was a bob style, with bangs.
Nice. She put everything she needed into a backpack, locked the unit, then headed out.
She hit the street. Right. All she needed now was a place to stay while she formulated her next plan of attack.
She headed down the sidewalk. She’d find a new motel to stay at—
A sleek, dark-green Jaguar pulled up beside her. She tensed.
The window opened and Jonah’s face looked back at her.
Ah, hell.
“Get in,” he said in a clipped tone.
“How did you find me?” He must have put a tracker on her. Damn, he was good.
“Get in or I’ll put you in.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You can try.”
“Evan.”
“Fine.” She slid into the car.
Chapter Six
Wow, Jonah’s penthouse apartment was very nice.
Evan followed him in, taking in the sleek, modern furniture and the views. It didn’t feel cold—just masculine and classy. A gorgeous painting on the wall caught her eye. It was an abstract cityscape that merged into majestic mountain peaks. It suited him.
“I guess being head of a covert black-ops team pays better than my job.”
His green gaze flicked her way. “I’ve made some good investments.” He strode into the big kitchen, with its dark-brown cabinets and island big enough to seat a football team.
Evan wandered past some shelves, and lifted a small hunk of polished rock off the shelf. It was heavier than it looked. Representative of its owner—shiny on the outside, something else underneath.
His place was a hundred times nicer than hers. She had a boring, bland apartment in D.C. that she rarely used. She barely had any furniture. She also had a smaller, crummy place under a different name where she kept a few of her things—clothes, a few photos of her and her mom.
Evan set the rock down. She’d never felt a lack before while she was working, but now that her job was gone… Well, she was reevaluating a few things.
“Sit.” Jonah pulled out a stool at the island.
“I’m fine, I—”
“You’re bleeding again. You were supposed to rest, not run off.” There was a sharp whip to his voice.
Someone wasn’t happy. “All right.” She sat.
She spotted movement out of the corner of her eye and tensed. A sleek, black cat sauntered into view. It studied her like it had already judged her and found her lacking. It had eyes almost as green as Jonah’s.
“You have a cat?”
Jonah cast a glance at the animal. “I’m pretty sure Kowi thinks this is his place, and that I belong to him.”
“Kowi?” She matched his pronunciation that sounded like koi.
“The Chickasaw word for cat. My mother was part of the Chickasaw Nation.”
“You travel a lot. Who feeds him?”
“My housekeeper. And I’m pretty sure Kowi prefers it when I’m gone. I get in his way.”
Jonah shifted closer and jerked the hem of her shirt up.
“Hey.”
“The bandage needs changing.” His jaw was tight.
She looked down and saw he was right. Blood had soaked through it.
He came back with a first aid kit. “Are you in pain?”
She shook her head. “I took some painkillers before.” It was down to a dull throb.
As he changed the bandage, those long fingers touched her skin, and her senses went haywire. She sucked in a breath and looked at his dark head bent over her.
For a second, she imagined him bent over her doing other things.
Crap. She just couldn’t get this desire under control.
“How did you get the scars on your fingers?” she asked.
He stilled for a beat, then kept working. “Helicopter crash. Glass shredded my fingers.”
Darkness bled into his voice and she was sorry she asked.
“There.” He pressed a fresh bandage in place and looked up. “Are you hungry?”
She frowned. “Aren’t you going to lock me up?”
“Not right now.”
“Tie me up?”
His lips quirked. “No.”
She huffed out a breath. “You don’t trust me. I escaped—”
“Not for very long.”
“You have a tracker on me somewhere. I’ll find it.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Grayson—”
“Call me Jonah.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get you.”
“Evan, flying into combat taught me to trust my instincts. Often well before I had data to back them up.” He sat on the stool beside her. “I think you’re trying to help me and my team. I think you’re trying to stop something bad from happening. And I think you could do with some help.”
God. It was like he could reach inside her and touch places she’d kept locked up for years. “You can’t be naïve enough to just trust me.”
He studied her face, something shifting behind his eyes. “After flying with the Night Stalkers for several years, I was recruited into a covert group called the Flight Concepts Division.”
She sucked in a breath. The FCD was whispered about behind closed doors. The best of the best pilots who flew experimental, stealth aircraft. The Navy SEAL team that had taken down Bin Laden had been rumored to be flown by FCD pilots. The stealth helicopter had crashed during the mission and they’d been quick to destroy it before it could fall into enemy hands.
“One of my fellow pilots, a man I’d flown with for years, who I trusted with my life, tried to kill me,” Jonah said.
Pressure built in Evan’s chest.
“He’d been radicalized by the enemy, seen too many shitty things.” Jonah rubbed his jaw, an old sadness on his face. “He brought down our aircraft, killed several good men, and tried to steal classified aircraft designs.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up in the twisted wreck of our helo. I’d broken a leg, my hands were cut up, and I’d broken ribs. I pulled another pilot out.”
He’d saved someone else, with a broken leg and bad injuries.
“We were rescued, and the traitor was caught.” Jonah cocked his head. “He tried to frame me and make it look like I was selling our country’s secrets to the enemy.”
Evan’s throat tightened.
Jonah pressed a warm hand over hers. “I understand, Evan. I know how it feels when everyone turns their back on you, and people you trust betray you.”
“But you were cleared?” she whispered.
He nodded. “It didn’t take long, thankfully. But my combat flying days were over.”
Evan fidgeted a little. This man had been through his own horrible nightmare. “I suck at asking for help. And working with other people. And sometimes I’m not nice.”
He smiled—a killer, gorgeous smile. “So, you’re human, then?”
“Why aren’t you mad at me?”
“I think you’re doing the best you can. Now, how about I cook us some dinner? After, we’ll go over everything you have on Brennan, the artifact, and his accomplice.”
Jonah Grayson believed her. Evan’s throat tightened. She wasn’t alone. “I hate mushrooms.”
“No stroganoff, then.”
From the island, Evan watched him, sipping on a Diet Coke he’d poured for her. Had she ever watched a man cook before? She wasn’t sure she had. It was sexy as hell.
She watched his hands with those long fingers, his strong wrists. So damn competent. “I like your watch.” It was chunky, but still elegant. It looked expensive. Something else that suited him.
He glanced her way and held out his wrist. He touched a button on the side of the watch, then pulled.
A slim garotte wire slid out.
She raised a brow. “Nice.” Once again, shiny on the outside, deadly underneath.
He finished cooking—draining the pasta and plating the meal.
“Here.” He set down two placemats and cutlery on the island. Then he followed with a plate of delicious pasta. Her stomach grumbled.
“So, Brooks is running the codenames through some searches and hoping he might get a hit that could lead us in the right direction,” Jonah said.
She put a forkful of food in her mouth and stifled a moan. She swallowed. “You won’t find anything. Brennan is smart.”
Jonah ate some of his own meal. “You have the files you took off his computer?”
She nodded. “In the cloud. A private, untraceable account I pay a small fortune for.”
He rose. Then he came back with a sleek, black laptop. “Pull them up. We’ll see if you missed anything.”
“I never miss anything.”
“A fresh set of eyes can always help.”
They finished eating and pored over the files.
Finally, Evan growled. “Nothing. I told you.”
His lips flattened, and she could see he was deep in thought.
“I have a wraith program in his system,” she said. “It’s a stealthy little spider that’s sneaking around. If it finds anything, we might get a lead.”
“So, we wait.”
She wrinkled her nose. “My least favorite thing to do.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
She turned on her stool to face him. “Why aren’t you married? Why no wife or girlfriend in this very nice place of yours? You’re easy on the eyes, and have impeccable manners.”
“I’ve never met the right woman. Never fallen in love.”