She’d finished cleaning, had dropped their containers in the dishwasher, and now wiped the granite counter. Long seconds ticked by. Cam remained motionless by the sink. Finally, she paused and faced him, sighing hard enough to blow those wisps of hair off her face.
“Tell me more.”
Chapter Seven
Audrey couldn’t sleep. Thoughts of Brett hunting her down, along with images of various terror cells from her past research, danced in her head like twisted sugar plums. So did Brett’s words after he knocked out Harris. “What’s already in motion can’t be stopped,” or something like that. And last but not least, the rugged, six-foot Army CID special agent sleeping on her family room couch. But those visions were markedly different. Embarrassingly different.
She rolled over and stared at the bedside alarm clock. Nope, sleep wasn’t blurring her eyes any. The red numbers glared 12:45 in the morning. Ugh. This was ridiculous. Flopping on her back, she decided to review the discussion she’d had with Cameron Harris and the ridiculous decision to let him sleep on her sofa instead of out in his truck, like he’d threatened.
After dinner, they’d retired to her sectional, beside the glass coffee table her laptop usually resided upon. He’d sat next to her, appearing too comfortable in his surroundings, her home, while he explained that he felt she was Brett’s main point of focus, and therefore Cameron’s reason for coming to her. He hoped she could shed some light on what Brett was after.
Rotating on her side now and staring at the moonlight glittering between the wood blind slats, Audrey contemplated Cam’s suggestion that Brett could have hidden something with her. His cryptic parting comment to a nearly unconscious Cameron implied more than revenge on her. Maybe he had planted something on her. While the idea held more merit than any other reason, she couldn’t figure out what it could be. Brett hadn’t come to her very often. She’d moved in with him.
Regardless, she’d searched her purse and jacket pockets as soon as she’d returned to her room. Nothing in them except lint or a spare cough drop. She didn’t know what she was looking for, either. Terrorists used microchips, bugs, paper. The possibilities were endless. Nothing suspicious had shown up here, and she knew the CID had been all over Brett’s apartment at the time, too. Cam was going to have to go back to the drawing board or accept the fact that maybe Brett was actively involved in something bigger, like she was wont to believe.
She’d told Cam as much before going upstairs. He’d cocked his head, those chocolate eyes lasering through her. She’d fought the urge to squirm, and even now, several hours later, all her female parts tingled and heated at the memory of his alert expression, his unwavering attention, all on her, the bruises on his face only adding to his piratical good looks.
When she voiced her off-the-cuff opinion, Cameron had met her suggestion that her ex-boyfriend was really playing puppet master in some grand terrorist scheme with cautious acceptance. What had followed was a Q and A that rivaled Quantico interrogations. Once she saw that Harris was doggedly returning to his own suppositions, she’d thrown in the towel, telling him he could sleep on her sectional and that she slept with a gun on the nightstand. “I would expect nothing less,” had been his amused reply.
After handing him some sheets and a blanket, she’d taken her laptop upstairs, where she’d spent time searching her files for something she hadn’t placed there. When she came up empty, she cruised the news sites’ archives, looking for terror cell articles that involved the people he’d leaked info to. She didn’t know what she was searching for beyond that. She just knew that Brett wouldn’t spend his freedom on revenge. He had to have an ulterior motive.
And here she was, hours later, contemplating the results of her searches and trying not to think of the man one floor below, whether he was sleeping in his clothes or had undressed to his undershirt and boxers. Was he even a boxers guy? Maybe he wore briefs, the kind that stretched across his ass and cradled his—
Oh shit. She had to stop thinking of him sexually. She hadn’t realized until now that she had an itch that needed scratching. She wasn’t like Elena, who did casual hookups whenever the mood hit her. Audrey buried herself in her work. At least, until CID Special Agent Cameron Harris showed up. Now all she seemed to think about was what he looked like without his shirt. Or those corded arms that seemed long enough to wrap around her—
Crash!
The sound of glass breaking downstairs had Audrey rolling from her bed, grabbing up her Beretta along the way. Her military training kicked in as she commando-crawled across the wood floor to her bedroom door, wondering if Harris had somehow managed to break her glass coffee table.
A flurry of noise from below sent her scrambling out the bedroom door.
“Harris!” she hissed as she reached the landing.
There were a couple of thuds like fists hitting a body, accompanied by grunts. Cameron wasn’t alone, and he was too busy to answer. Someone had broken in. Not hard to imagine who. Audrey hugged the wall as she ran soundlessly down the carpeted stairs in her bare feet. Her breathing sawed out of her mouth as adrenaline kicked in. Damn Brett.
She reached the bottom of the stairs just as a clatter of objects crashed in the kitchen. “Harris,” she shouted, announcing her presence without giving a damn. Just as she skidded around the wall leading into the kitchen, a gunshot blasted her eardrums. The picture on the wall beside her splintered into a thousand pieces, and a hot, stinging pain seared her upper arm.
“Damn you, Brett,” she roared, flattening her body against the wall, chest heaving. She gave a mental three-count, wondering if Harris was unconscious. He was too quiet. Had the broken glass lacerated him? Was he even now bleeding out in her kitchen? Or had Brett, because it could only be him, clocked the CID agent? It seemed like that was her ex’s specialty lately. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she braced for what she would find when she rounded the corner.
She took a deep breath, letting it out in a whoosh when she heard her back door bang open. She launched from her hiding place behind the wall in time to see Cam Harris make an impressive tackle over the threshold of her back door. Both shadowy figures crashed to the ground, half in, half out of her house.
Glass littered her kitchen floor, and she, like a total ninny, was barefoot. She raised her Beretta, but the only body she could see was Cameron’s. Brett, if it was him, kicked free of Cam’s grip on his ankle. His footsteps disappeared into the night.
Cam sprang to his feet and gave chase. Audrey swung around and raced through her living room to the front door, yanking it open hard enough that it slammed against the wall. Maybe she could head Brett off.
Leading with her gun, she ran to the sidewalk and scanned the street where Cam had pursued her home invader. Without streetlights past her row of townhouses, she couldn’t see much.
She gulped air to calm the angry trembles coursing through her body. Damn Brett! Damn him to hell and back. He was making good on the courtroom threat she’d brushed off.
She tensed as two shapes appeared through the foggy shadows. Raising her gun, she immediately recognized one of the figures as Cam. He was pulling the other person along by the crook of that person’s elbow, wrists bound behind him by…Cam’s belt?
The prisoner wasn’t Brett. Even though she couldn’t see his face, his build was too slight, his walk more like a street thug’s than a soldier’s. Confused, she dropped her arm to her side and started forward. They gathered beside Cam’s truck within the glow of the streetlight.
“Do you know this punk?” Cam yanked the hoodie off his captive’s head. The kid—he barely looked eighteen—gave her an insolent kissy face, which won him a body shake from Cam. She cocked her head. Her invader had over-long, curly hair hanging in his eyes, a stubbly chin, and a scarecrow mix of clothes draping his thin frame.
This was their intruder? “Where’d Brett scrounge you up from?” she asked the kid.
>
The wail of sirens in the distance brought her gaze to Cam’s.
“I didn’t recognize him, either, so I called the cops. Answer the lady,” he barked in the kid’s face. His lightning-quick change of tone impressed Audrey. So far, she’d only seen the civilized side of Cam. His masterful command was sort of a turn on. And wasn’t that just too weird?
She averted her attention to the kid, who mouthed the words “suck my dick, bitch,” in response. Cam yanked the kid around to face him and gave him a sharp jerk. “You wanna try that again, asshole?” His brows lowered, and his jaw clenched so tight that he spat the words. His measured tone was at odds with his thunderous expression.
A sneer crawled across the kid’s face, but the arrival of two police cars roaring up and slamming to a stop behind Cam’s truck froze the expression before it completely formed. His eyes darted right then left. Just before they got there, Cam shoved his captive to his knees, then raised his hands so the officers could see them. Audrey did so as well, after placing her Beretta on the ground.
Once the cops had secured the scene and the prisoner, as well as verified she and Cam were who they claimed, they pushed the kid into the backseat of the squad car, closed the door, and one of them returned to Audrey and Cam. The other remained by the car, most likely running the perp’s info, as well as theirs.
Audrey’s neighbors on either side peeked out their doors and windows before disappearing back inside. She sighed. So much for keeping a low profile. She’d be the most popular kid on the block tomorrow, for sure. Damn Brett. He might not have done the physical break-in, but she knew he was behind this. Somehow, somewhere, he’d gotten this kid to do his dirty work.
“The kid is clean. No priors. His address is a shelter in Oakland. Says he’s been homeless since he got out of school.” The older cop stopped beside them.
“Oakland? What’s he doing out here in Abbottsville?” Audrey frowned.
“He says some guy gave him money when he was panhandling, so he got on the bus and rode it as far as he could go. Said he was tired of the city. He was wandering around, saw your place, and thought he might crash for the night, maybe get some food.”
“Sounds like a lot of bullshit to me,” Cam commented, meeting Audrey’s gaze. She nodded. They were in accord. Brett, or the terror cell he worked for, had hired this kid to break in and locate whatever it was they needed, because the kid couldn’t be traced to anyone. He might even be a new cell convert. She’d love to interrogate him Army-style, but he was property of the cops now.
Audrey swallowed the frustrated scream as it rose in her throat. Whatever they did, it wouldn’t be telling these officers they thought the kid was a terror cell recruit. She and Cam would be riding into the station right beside the youth if they did that. This was their task to solve. On their own. Still, Audrey had to point out the obvious.
“My place isn’t even on the end of my complex. You can’t believe him, can you?”
The cop shrugged. “It’s not a matter of what I believe. We’ll take him down and book him for attempted burglary, but, since he didn’t get anything…” His voice trailed off.
“He’ll plea down to trespassing and get community service?” Cam shared another look with her. While she was fighting the urge not to yell “that’s so unfair,” he was holding it together remarkably well. He must’ve learned all that patience as CID. Or else he’d always had it.
“Something like that. I’m sorry, folks. You can take him to court for damages to your home, though his being homeless won’t win you much, if anything.”
“At least now he’ll have a record,” Audrey grit out, ready to go inside. The cop nodded. She felt Cam’s gaze on her as she finished up with the officer. Once the cops pulled away, she made her way back to him in the yard.
“Let’s talk inside.” He paused any conversation by pressing his hand to her arm, urging her forward. She was hyperaware of his touch. They walked slowly, she in bare feet, he in his standard issues, crossing the grass with a swish-swish sound.
He shut and locked the front door, an unnecessary action when the back door gaped wide open, its upper glass window shattered. Audrey flicked on one of the table lamps and turned to Cam.
Leaning against the door, he studied her silently. The shadows in the room cast his face into planes and valleys, a relief map of his handsome features. She could make out those ridiculously long lashes, even the slight bruising from Brett’s first attack.
His short hair was tousled, and she realized he’d never taken off his uniform to go to bed. His dog tags dangled on the outside of his shirt, which he’d unbuttoned to an unprofessional vee, but that was his only concession to comfort.
The white T-shirt he wore underneath his uniform dismayed her, and the fact that it did irritated her. The man should not be her type. He was squared away, a soldier who had his shit together and was exemplary in everything he did. Brett had been the same—until his act of treason—so what did that say about her taste in men? She couldn’t trust her choices. She’d been there, done that already.
If she took Harris’s uniform out of the equation—and what an image that choice of words produced—there was still her lousy ability to trust. She tried never to think of her informant in Kandahar, but he was always there, lurking in her subconscious, sabotaging her every decision.
If she had to play Whack-a-Mole with her hormones to keep herself in check, she’d do it.
When his gaze dropped to her lips, and her pulse sped up, she realized it would be an uphill battle.
He crossed his arms over his chest, drawing her attention to the way the sleeve of his shirt bunched over the rippling muscles of his arms. She forced herself to look at his face.
“Well, what are your thoughts on tonight?” She threw the question out there, partly to get his view, and partly to get him to stop focusing on her mouth. So why was she disappointed when he met her gaze?
“I think tonight circles back to the terrorist group Brett was selling to. Or is working for. He’s got to be working with a cell or a team of some sort. He was pretty desperate to get free. Hiring that asshole was a stroke of genius. He can’t be traced back to anyone.”
“He was probably recruited in college. Kids there are easily influenced.”
Cam snorted. “I wouldn’t know. I got my degree online while serving. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t have talked to a woman like that back then. Or now.”
Audrey nodded, wondering what kind of kid Cam had been at that age. Serious? A jokester? Somewhere in between, more like it, although he’d been nothing but serious and courteous so far around her. Very disciplined. What would make him lose control, show emotions she knew simmered under the surface of his calm facade?
The thought had sexual undertones she shied away from for the moment, especially after how she’d been thinking of him earlier in her bedroom. Now wasn’t the time to ruminate about her houseguest in a salacious manner, not when her home had been broken into. Cam continued.
“Whoever he’s working with, they must believe pretty strongly that you have something they need, enough to break in while you’re in the house. Something big is going down, and what they’re searching for is the key.”
Their gazes met and held for long seconds. She’d left terrorists, terrorism, and Brett all behind in her old life. She’d made a new one, a peaceful one that she loved. She liked the person she’d become since she’d left the Army and Brett. But it had all come crashing back tonight.
Her heart rate accelerated. Her breaths became shallow. She wasn’t prone to panic attacks, but this sure as hell felt like one. She tried to take a deep breath and saw Cam cock his head. He was too observant. She didn’t want him to see any weakness in her, so she headed toward the kitchen to clean up, anything to keep busy until she calmed herself. The next instant a strong, muscled arm wrapped around her waist, and she was lifted off her feet.
…
Cam spotted Audrey’s bare feet right before she stepped into the window glass, and he reacted quickly, hooking her around the waist with one arm and hauling her off the floor. Her body was wiry, her muscles tightening in response to his restraining hold. Yet all his attention zeroed in on the softness of her breasts resting on his arm. She obviously wasn’t wearing a bra under her thin sleep shirt.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Of course she struggled against his hold, which only brought him into closer contact with those unfettered body parts. He carried her out of danger, into the family room where there was no broken glass.
He dropped her to her feet and wiped a hand down his face, reeling in his wide-awake libido. He tried not to notice how pale her skin was or that the baggy pajamas she wore couldn’t camouflage her curves. He’d already accepted that he was attracted to her and just as aware that she didn’t feel the same. He was here to do a job, which was to keep her safe, catch Brett, and find out the bastard’s agenda. Copping a feel wasn’t going to help him in his job, though he’d enjoyed the brief contact.
“There’s glass on the floor. Wait a sec. You’re bleeding.” He stared at the crimson line oozing down her arm and then squeezed his eyes shut, hoping he was mistaken. But no, it was still there, marring that translucent skin. He frowned as he gently turned her to the side to better see the wound.
“What?” She glanced at her arm and the slim line of blood trailing down her skin. “Well, I’ll be damned.” She tried to pull free from his grasp, tilting her head to study the injury. He tightened his grip and leaned in to figure out what had caused her to bleed.
“Did you get shot?”
She glanced at the oozing wound and shook her head. “I think one of my picture frames shattered when the gun went off.”
He studied her wound a bit longer. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything in it,” he concluded. “Got any bandages?”
Zone of Action (In the Zone) Page 7