Cove's Blind Date Blows Up

by Jen Talty

  “I didn’t do it on purpose, sir.” Cove held out his hand. “Both times I was minding my own business.”

  “What case was that?” Rachel put her hands on her hips, widening her stance.

  “And you are?” Cove asked.

  Oh. Not a good idea, but Serenity couldn’t say a damn thing, so she’d have to let Cove dig his own hole, and knowing his reputation, it would be a deep one.

  “Special Agent in Charge Rachel Pickett and Serenity’s boss.” Rachel cocked her head.

  “I see,” Cove said. “Well, if you must know, I was taking a walk through Central Park with my dad when some asshole with a gun held his wife and kid hostage.”

  “I remember that case,” Rachel said. “I also remember reading about the arrogant man who recklessly inserted himself into the situation and could have gotten himself and innocent bystanders killed.”

  “But he didn’t,” Wilmont thankfully interjected.

  Serenity understood why Rachel was being difficult, but what was done was done. “Not that I like to give anyone else credit, but if it weren’t for Cove, this could have gone down differently.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Cove let out a long breath, shaking out his hands. “Both Serenity and Hanson here were amazing. They had everything under control. I just did what they asked.”

  Except for leaving, but now that she had some time to think about that, Serenity was damn fucking happy he hadn’t.

  But what threw her was his humility. Not something he’d been known for.

  “Well, thank you for your service,” Rachel said. “Now if you will excuse us, I need to speak with my agent, Officer Hanson, and Captain Wilmont.”

  “Sure thing.” Cove gave Serenity a slight nod before heading toward the ambulance where Jessica was having her vitals checked.

  “I don’t think I have to tell you what a shitshow this could be if the media finds out he was a part of this operation.” Rachel tucked a piece of her short hair behind her ear. “You could have brought over another officer or one of my agents.”

  “Let’s not beat a dead horse,” Wilmont said. “Hanson, what can you tell us about the bomb?”

  “A toddler could have made it.” Hanson slipped out of his protective gear. “Very simple and easily Googled. But very unstable. We’re lucky it didn’t go off before we got here.”

  “All right,” Rachel said. “But why did the bomber send a fake one to Serenity at a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen and then choose this bank where a robbery had gone bad, involving Serenity, to strap an innocent woman to a bomb?”

  “That is the million-dollar question,” Serenity said. “I questioned Jessica. I got a fairly decent description, but it means nothing to me. Nothing this woman said to Jessica jumps out at me. The only thing that does smack me in the face is the fact this is where Roger Nimitz fucked up a hostage negotiation and people died. He tried to blame me; he’s now in jail, and he blames me for that too, as well as his impending divorce.”

  “Have you talked to his soon-to-be ex-wife?” Wilmont asked. “What’s her name?”

  “Sarah,” Serenity said. “She’s trying as best she can to move on with her life.”

  Serenity hated what had happened to Sarah. Having a husband who was supposed to be one of the good guys turned into a bank robber couldn’t have been easy.

  “I don’t work with coincidences,” Rachel said. “What about Big Mike’s Crew?”

  “But this wasn’t a robbery, so why would he be involved?” Hanson asked.

  “To fuck with Serenity,” Wilmont said.

  “It’s pretty obvious that this is about me.” Serenity had known Big Mike was out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike again. “But I’m struggling to connect the dots. I will need some time to look through all my cases.”

  “What about him?” Rachel asked, nodding across the street. “Could this be about anything he’s done?”

  “I doubt it,” Serenity said. “The box was addressed to me, and the only people that knew I was going out with Cove was his sister and her husband.”

  “Can you be sure of that?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes.” The only way either one of them would agree to the date was if it was tossed at them last minute, but Serenity supposed it was possible that her parents knew.

  Or maybe his parents.

  But she doubted it, and it wasn’t necessary to tell anyone. As soon as she got home tonight, she’d start pulling up past files, looking for any past case that this might connect to.

  “I want him in my office first thing in the morning,” Rachel said.

  “I’m sure that can be arranged.” Serenity didn’t like the sound of that, but she wasn’t surprised. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to interview a few other witnesses.”

  “Be my guest,” Rachel said.

  Serenity sucked in a deep breath and made her way back to the other side of the street. She had no idea who she wanted to talk to; she just knew she needed a few minutes to compose herself before talking to Cove.

  Of course, he was nowhere to be found.

  3

  Cove leaned against Serenity’s building in the northwest quadrant of Hell’s Kitchen. He glanced at his Apple Watch.

  Nine thirty.

  He switched the bag of food from one hand to the other. He pulled out his phone and tapped the message icon.

  Cove: How goes things?

  Serenity: Where the fuck did you go?

  Cove: I was hungry. R U hungry?

  Serenity: I’ve got a pizza in my freezer with my name on it. You shouldn’t have left. We need a statement.

  Cove: I’ll go to the office tomorrow and give one.

  Serenity: OK. Talk later.

  Cove: On your way home?

  Serenity: Yup.

  If he asked her how far away she was, she’d wonder why he cared. The whole idea was to surprise her, but he was starting to feel like a complete idiot, and this might have been the worst idea he’d ever had.

  A white Honda Civic pulled up to the circle in front of the building. The rear passenger door opened, and Serenity stepped out of the vehicle.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

  It would have been nice to see a smile.

  “I brought dinner.” He held up the bag, wishing he’d made it to the liquor store before it closed to get a bottle of wine, but hopefully she had one. “Fried chicken with all the fixings. It’s not as nice as what we would have had earlier, but it’s better than frozen pizza.”

  “I love fried chicken,” she said, punching some numbers on the keypad at the door.

  “I remember.”

  She pulled open the door, glancing over her shoulder. “Seriously? I’m shocked. You never paid any attention to me and your sister in high school, much less what we ate during our late-night munchie sessions.”

  “Trust me, I was observing more than I should have been.” He followed her through a posh lobby toward the elevator, watching her hips sway left and right. He groaned.

  “For the record, if I wasn’t starving, I’d be kicking you to the curb because I’m pissed you just disappeared on me, leaving me to deal with my boss and Wilmont on my own.”

  “I talked to Wilmont on the phone an hour ago. We’re cool. He thought it was smart I left considering the way your boss is.”

  Serenity pressed the button for the eighteenth floor, which happened to be the top level of the building.

  Impressive.

  Now if she had a view of the river, that would really knock his socks off.

  He lived in a shoebox studio apartment in Brooklyn not far from the base. It worked for him since he didn’t spend much time stateside.

  And on the rare occasion he had a woman in his life, he went to her place.

  Like tonight.

  But Serenity wasn’t in his life.

  Yet.

  The elevator rattled, reminding him that he didn’t do relationships and t
hat this was a bad idea. He’d eat his dinner, have some wine, and leave. That was the right thing to do.

  Of course, if she wanted a short fling, he would entertain the concept, but he had to consider the ramifications for his sister and her friendship with Serenity.

  Fuck. This is why they had their stupid pact and why he shouldn’t have gone on this date in the first place.

  “My boss isn’t cool. She’s pissed, and if you don’t show up before we unlock the doors in the morning, she’ll have my badge.”

  “I’ll make sure I’m there, but she’s seriously got a stick up her ass,” Cove said.

  “You ain’t kidding,” Serenity said. “However, her father is high up in the FBI. It would be like if I attended West Point. It was hard enough on my brothers having my dad there, but imagine what it would have been like for me as a woman and my dad being the head of the history department.”

  “It would have been ten times as hard for you,” he admitted. He’d graduated with five women, all of which had to deal with shit he couldn’t have imagined. West Point had been tough on all levels, and sadly, it was still an old boys’ club. Sure, it was making large strides to change that, and it had come a long way, but women still struggled in the male-dominated environment. “Unfortunately, your boss wears her issues on her sleeve instead of using them to her advantage.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean by that. I face some of the same struggles as a woman in the FBI.”

  The elevator doors dinged open. If his assessment was correct, Serenity’s apartment absolutely overlooked the Hudson River. and he just hoped she had a decent balcony. “Simply put, she acts like a bitch because she thinks she has to, but in reality, if she was more like her authentic self, people would respond better.”

  “As in you wouldn’t have disappeared?”

  “I might have stuck around,” he admitted. “But she’s the one who dismissed me, and she didn’t tell me I needed to stay, so I didn’t.”

  “That’s semantics.”

  He followed her down the hallway and around the corner. She stopped in front of a door and tapped her finger on a keypad. It made a clicking noise, and the door popped open.

  His pulse kicked up a notch, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he had butterflies in his stomach. A sensation he hadn’t felt since his junior year in high school.

  She snagged the bag of food and ducked into a small galley kitchen while he made his way into a family room that might be fifteen by twenty feet. The apartment was small. Tiny actually. But it had a fucking fabulous view of the Hudson River.

  “I don’t think I want to know what you pay for rent.”

  “Don’t you live in Brooklyn? Pretty pricey over there,” she said.

  He stood in front of the sliding glass doors with his hands on his hips and stared at the moonlight dancing on the water below. “Yeah, but it’s basically Army housing, and it’s a studio, not a one-bedroom.”

  “Want to eat outside?” she asked, holding a tray with a couple of plates and the food on it.

  “Absolutely.”

  “There’s wine over there.” She nodded toward a small wet bar under the television. “Pick out a nice red, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m all over it.” He found a nice bottle of Pinot Noir and snagged two stemless glasses and slipped out onto the patio. It wasn’t very big. As a matter of fact, it barely had enough room for a table with two chairs, a chaise lounge, and a plant. But it was screened in, so it would keep the bugs out, and the warm June air rolled in off the water. He uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses while she served the food.

  “Thanks for this. I do appreciate it,” she said.

  “It’s the least I could do considering I didn’t get to buy you a real nice dinner at a fancy restaurant.”

  “Fancy is really fucking overrated.” She lifted a piece of chicken with her fingers and bit into it. “And while I love steak, cold fried chicken is a close second.”

  “I remember you and my sister sitting in the basement with a bucket of KFC and a bottle of Diet Coke filled with some Jack you swiped from my folks’ liquor cabinet.”

  “Those were the days,” she said, licking her fingers. “But how the hell did you know about the Jack?”

  “Because I got blamed for it.” He dug into his food, trying to ignore the images bombarding his brain of her in a tiny pair of shorts and one of those spaghetti strap white tops with no bra. His sister had a lot of hot friends, but none were quite like Serenity, and she’d been the only one he ever considered breaking their pact over.

  But every time he gave it some serious thought, one of his buddies would make a comment about his sister, and that put an end to it.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know that.”

  He shrugged. “I covered a lot for my little sister. That’s how I ended up at West Point, which turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Only once you went there, you basically never came home.”

  “Aww, did you miss me?” He winked.

  She laughed. “It drove your sister nuts that every girl in school looked at you as if you were a lollipop that needed licking.”

  He choked on the piece of chicken he’d just plopped into his mouth.

  “Oh. That didn’t come out right,” she said. “But you get my drift.”

  He nodded before taking a sip of wine and massaging his throat. “I had a similar problem with my sister, and I watched your brother Tavor get into a tiff with Hector Johnson after he told half the locker room what your boobs looked like.”

  “Fucking Hector. I can’t believe I went out with him. What an asshole.”

  “I can’t believe you showed him your breasts.”

  She laughed. “He saw more than that.” She held up her glass. “And don’t tell Tavor. He’s always hated Hector.”

  “I haven’t talked to your brother in two years. How’s he doing?”

  “Well, Tavor’s still at Fort Bragg, and he’s still a crazy motherfucker. Ledger is stationed in Germany, but that gig is up next year, so we’re hoping he at least ends up stateside.”

  “And what about your two little brothers? Last I heard both Neor and Malachi were at Fort Benning.”

  “Neor is still there, but Malachi is in Alaska. It’s tough on my mom, but what are you going to do when you’re in a military family?” She pushed her plate aside and held her glass to her lips. The moonlight caught her blue eyes, making them sparkle. “Sorry about tonight.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “I’m just glad no one was hurt.”

  “That could have gone really sideways.” She turned and faced him. His gaze was intense and filled with fire. “If it weren’t for you, I fear things might have been very different. Especially considering we found out that our trigger bomb was actually on a timer, but we just couldn’t see it.”

  “What?” His heart skipped a beat.

  “Once we disarmed it, the timer stopped, but had you not cut the wire and tripped the fake bomb, the other bomb would have gone off fifteen minutes later.”

  “That’s about the time we shaved off the fake one.”

  “The bomb would have gone off just as I arrived at the scene.”

  “So, tell me about this bank robbery gone bad and the negotiator that fucked up,” Cove said. “Because it sounds like someone wants you dead.”

  “Everyone involved but one is behind bars, and that would be Big Mike.”

  “Who the fuck is Big Mike?”

  “We don’t know, but he’s taken credit for a few bank heists as well as some other criminal activity. The few people we have in custody won’t give up his real identity or say anything about him. We don’t even know if he was at any of the robberies. We just know he’s behind them, and my boss is thinking he’s behind this.”

  “Sounds like that’s the logical assumption.”

  Serenity exhaled loudly. “I don’t deal in assumptions. I’ve arrested a lot of people in my day as a field agent. I’
ve pissed off some pretty powerful criminals. I’m sure there is a long list of assholes who wouldn’t mind seeing me dead.”

  Cove took a gulp of his wine. He didn’t like hearing that coming from her pretty little mouth, but he understood her job was dangerous. He saw that firsthand tonight.

  And he had to admit, watching the way she handled herself was a bit of a turn-on.

  “But how many people would know to send you to that bank?” he asked.

  “Probably more than I’d care to admit since that day made the news, and not in a good way. But there are some other things that are troubling, like my discussion with Jessica, the chick strapped to the bomb.”

  “Yeah. And what did she tell you?”

  “She gave me the description of the woman who put the bomb on her, and that bothered me.”

  “Why?” he asked, topping off their wine. Nothing like a little buzz sitting on a balcony overlooking a body of water with a beautiful woman while discussing some explosives.

  The odd things that made his heart tick a little faster would give a shrink a good payday.

  She arched a brow. “Are you sure you want me to answer that? It’s all shop talk.”

  He nodded.

  “All right.” She pulled her hair over her shoulder and twisted it with her fingers. “The description reminded me of Cruella de Vil.”

  He chuckled. “I picture a sophisticated woman with white hair, a black-and-white coat, and high heels, walking a dog through Central Park.”

  “Pretty much,” Serenity said. “One thing we never informed the press about was that Big Mike always left a calling card, and it was always something from a Disney movie.”

  “Well, that’s interesting.”

  “But other than the description she gave me, there’s no calling card.”

  “That could be enough, though subtle.”

  “I don’t know.” Serenity let out a puff of air. “I’ll put it in my report and see what my boss says.”

  “What does she make of the Big Mike connection?” Cove asked, absolutely terrified that if he ended the conversation, she was going to ask him to leave, something he wasn’t ready to do just yet.