by Vicki Tharp
On the way back to the station, she chugged her soda and stuffed crackers into her mouth and tried to get her head back into the game. She knew Spinks wasn’t done with her, and if she wanted to keep her job, she needed to have her shit together.
Tessa strode into the station and brushed past a couple of sheriff’s deputies heading the other way. There was a general buzz in the station, the kind that you get when things have gotten a little exciting, and in a tiny Wyoming town, where moose and bear and drunk tourists were sometimes as heart-stopping as it got, a gun bust was electrifying.
She walked through the station’s bullpen, where a few deputies were hanging around. One of them gave her a chin bob as if to say, ‘good job.’ She nodded back but didn’t have the time nor the inclination to stop and chat. She had other, more important, things on her mind.
She walked down the hall to the rooms the task force had been assigned. Spinks’ office was closed, his blinds overlooking the hallway shut tight. A raised voice came from inside. Not Spinks’. Great. Looked like she wasn’t the only one who was due for an ass chewing.
Tessa walked into the converted conference room where many of the agents had their desks. Gil was already there, hunched over a keyboard and typing away. He glanced up, gave her a quick “hey,” then went back to typing.
It was the first time she’d seen him since that morning. She hadn’t known what kind of greeting to expect, but the casual way he treated her surprised her. But really, what would she expect him to do in front of their colleagues? Jump up, wrap her in a big bear hug and tell the boys they’d be right back? No. Gil wasn’t that kind of guy. Good thing. In fact, Gil acted like she would have wanted him to, but a little recognition, a secret smile, something, anything, that said they had shared a moment might have been sweet.
Along with Gil, Quinn and some new task force pup were also there, all hard at work. Tessa assumed the rest of the agents were out working the case. Tessa slid into a chair at an open desk and logged into the system to write her report.
She hadn’t heard an update yet on the guy the task force had taken into custody, or on the gun truck with the tracker that had driven away, but that wasn’t really part of her job description. She was a pilot. Not an investigative person on the task force. Her job was to fly them in and fly them out, nothing more. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to know.
“Lieutenant Sterling,” Spinks hollered from down the hall, making Tessa’s back go stiff and sweat pop out on her upper lip.
Taking a deep breath, she rolled her chair away from the desk. Quinn stood and waited for her at the door.
Gil glanced up and gave Tessa a wink. “Give ‘em hell, lieutenant.”
Right. She’d be lucky if Spinks didn’t skin her alive. “Thanks.”
Quinn followed her out. Tessa stopped and pulled him aside. “Where are you going?”
“Same place as you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, recognizing and understanding that Quinn had gone into protective brother mode. She’d been on the receiving end of a lot of that in the Army. But this screwup was all on her, not Quinn. “I didn’t hear Spinks call your name.”
Quinn shrugged and continued down the hall, leaving Tessa to follow him. He entered Spinks’ office first as if he could protect her from Spinks’ wrath with his body. She stepped out from behind him and said, “You wanted to see me, sir?”
Spinks glanced up from his computer screen. “You. Not him.” Spinks eyed Quinn, but was talking to her when he said, “You always let your subordinates fight your fights, lieutenant?”
Quinn stood taller. “Sir, I—”
“I wasn’t speaking to you, Powell. In fact, you shouldn’t even be here. You should be home, catching up on your sleep.”
“I’m finishing up my report, sir. Then I’ll be headed home.”
“You’ve got ten minutes to get that report on my desk and get your ass out of here. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Spinks dismissed Quinn, who gave Tessa a half shrug as he left as if to say, “I tried.”
In his squeaky chair, Spinks leaned back, his hands locked behind his head. Before he could speak, she took ownership of her actions. “I know I was out of line, allowing Brant on the flight and disobeying orders, sir. I’ll do my best not to let it happen again.”
Spinks dropped his hands to his desk. He didn’t have a smile on his face, but his features softened a tad, making it read as one. “You’ll do your best? But you can’t promise me you won’t violate a direct order again?”
Tessa didn’t answer right away, not wanting to lie straight to the SAC’s face. “No, sir. I can’t promise. I know going against a direct order is grounds for termination, but I did what I thought was best for everyone involved. That’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. If this is where you tell me I’m off the task force, or out of a job, I understand.”
Please don’t fire me. Please don’t fire me. Please don’t fire me.
Sweat formed at the base of her spine. What the hell would she do if she got her ass fired? No doubt Bradley would find a way to take advantage of her problems and use that against her.
“Disregarding a direct order is a serious concern. I can respect your honesty and the way you own up to your responsibilities. But let there be no mistake,” Spinks leaned forward, the tension back on his face, his jaw jutting, his voice stern. “You disobey me again, and it won’t matter how good of a pilot you are, you’ll be off this team and be lucky to find a job hauling tourists over the Tetons. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir.” Tessa managed to keep the tremor out of her voice. Mostly.
“I want your report on my desk ASAP. Then I want you catching up on your sleep, lieutenant. You look like hell, and I won’t have my pilots flying on no sleep.” Spinks leaned back in his chair. “Dismissed, lieutenant.”
Tessa had almost made it out the door when Spinks added, “This is your one and only warning. There’s no three-strike rule here. One more mistake, one more screw-up, and you’re done.”
Her throat tightened, but she nodded her assent. She didn’t do being in trouble well. In the Army, she’d never been written up. Her parents had never grounded her. Never had a reason to. Now she was one screw-up away from losing all that she’d worked extremely hard for.
She wouldn’t let Spinks down. She couldn’t let herself down. Most of all, she couldn’t let Jack down.
By the time she made it back to the other conference room, Quinn and the other agent had cleared out. Gil sat at his desk, deep in thought as he plucked at the thin black hair tie around his wrist. Her black hair tie. She didn’t ask for it back. She liked that he’d kept it. Liked that maybe their time together had meant something to him.
Gil glanced up. “You still have a job?”
Tessa huffed out a laugh and plopped into the chair at the desk behind him. “Barely.”
Gil spun his chair around, and wheeled himself over to her, trapping her between the wall and the desk. “Don’t let Spinks get to you. He’s a hardass, but even he knows you did the right thing, the only thing you could have done. That’s why you’re still here.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t want to think about it, much less talk about it. She pointed at the computer. “I’d better finish my report.”
“Sure,” Gil said, turning back to finish his own work.
After she’d hit Send on her report for Spinks, she scrubbed her hands over her face. Sleep, she needed sleep. She groaned, thinking of the mess back at her house that she didn’t have the energy to clean up.
Spinks had been clear about her getting some rest. That’s what she’d do. She’d drag her mattress back onto the bed frame, she’d dig up some clean sheets, and she’d sleep like the dead until it was time to pick up Jack.
The springs on Gil’s chair squeaked, and she glanced up to see him watching her. He tilted his head and gave her the once-over. Not like he was undressing her with his eyes—because there was nothing sexy abou
t the old pair of jeans and the wrinkled T-shirt that she’d pulled out of the crumpled mess of clothes on her floor—more as if he was assessing her and trying to determine how well she was holding it all together. “What’s up?”
She guessed that meant she didn’t pass inspection.
Tessa picked up a paper clip off the desk, straightened it, then bent it in thirds, debating what she was willing to say. Everything that had to do with Bradley was like this vortex of trouble, and she didn’t want any other innocent bystander to get sucked up into it. She went with the obvious. “I can’t afford to lose my job.”
“I get that. But that’s not all that’s bothering you.”
She did a double take which was enough to tell Gil he was onto something. He probably hadn’t needed to be a trained agent to figure that one out.
The paper clip was utterly mangled now, nothing more than a twisted hunk of wire. Gil took it out of her hand. “Spill.”
The last thing she wanted to do was drag Gil into her personal mess with her ex. Gil was supposed to be a little fun. A distraction. Not someone she brought into her inner circle. But what Gil was supposed to be, and what he was turning out to be, were two entirely different things.
“You promise you’re not going to go all special agent on me?”
Gil raised a brow and considered her. She figured he hadn’t managed to stay alive all that time undercover by speaking without thinking first. “Well…when you put it like that…definitely not.”
Uhhh…she needed clarification. “No, you don’t promise?”
“Hell, no.” No anger. Gil wasn’t a rash man. “But now you have to tell me.”
She didn’t, but it wasn’t like she could keep it a secret for long. As soon as one of the deputies came out to her house to file a report, word would get around the station. Best if he heard it from her. “Someone broke into my house.”
“What did they take?”
“Nothing that I know of. More of the same. Vandalism. Television trashed, couch cushions cut, drawers dumped, dishes destroyed. Petty stuff.”
“What do you mean, more of the same?”
Crap. Tessa hadn’t meant to say that. Leave it to an undercover guy to pick up on the little things. He leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, his eyes searching hers for answers.
She glanced at his lips, remembering how they’d felt on her as he licked and sucked and brought her pleasure. All she wanted was to sink into him, to go back to that morning when Bradley and Lang and Rivera were, for a few glorious minutes, the last things on their minds.
Gil had the beginnings of a caught-ya smile on his face. “Focus, Tessa.”
She nabbed a new paper clip off the desk and proceeded to murder it. “I think it was my ex.”
Gil bowed up and before he could say a word she said, “I’m still not telling you his name.”
“You could get a protection order.”
“Not on suspicion and supposition, I can’t. Besides, an order of protection only works on guys who follow the rules. My ex doesn’t. You don’t build the kind of business he does in such a short amount of time by sticking to the letter of the law.”
“What kind of business?” The way he asked was casual as if he was only asking to be polite.
She almost spilled the beans, that’s how tired she was, and that was how talented Gil was. “I’m not saying. You don’t think I know that if I did, that as soon as I left this room, you’d be on your computer hunting down every possible business trying to hunt him down?”
He looked affronted. Tessa was pretty sure he wasn’t. “I’d never—”
Spinks popped his head into the conference room. “Sterling, what are you doing still here?”
She popped out of the chair. “I was just leaving.”
Gil laid a staying hand on her arm and to Spinks said, “I need a few minutes of your time.”
Spinks glanced at his watch. The knot of his tie was loose, and his eyes were bloodshot. Like the rest of the task force, he wouldn’t have gotten any sleep. “I have to get to the hospital. The suspect is finally awake enough to talk. Make it quick.”
After Spinks left, Gil let go of her arm and said, “I don’t want you going back to your place alone.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
“Do the doors lock?”
“The back door was damaged, but I was going to put a chair under the doorknob.”
“Perfect. No one has ever gotten past a door with a chair under the knob.” He laid on the sarcasm thick as sorghum syrup. “You got a gun?” A muscle twitched by Gil’s right eye, the only outward indication that he was losing his cool.
“No. But—”
“That’s gonna change.” He said it like he had a say in the matter.
“I’ve got a kid—”
“We’ll make sure he can’t get to the gun. Until then, go to the ranch, crash at my cabin. I’ll call Mac and tell her to expect you.”
If he was trying to get on Tessa’s good side, ordering her around wasn’t the way to do it. She would deal with that later because the thought of not having to go back to her place eased the knotted muscles between her shoulder blades. Besides, she was too wrung out to argue anyway. “What about you?”
“I have some things I need to do here, and I want to hit the hospital, see how Lang and Rivera are doing.”
“That’s a long drive on little sleep.”
He shrugged. “That’s what coffee’s for.”
She took a step to leave, but he caught her hand and tugged her back to him. He glanced out the door, but he must not have seen anyone because he stood and pressed a kiss to her lips. “I’ll catch up with you tonight.”
6
Gil watched Tessa leave, not sure what he wanted to do more, kick her ass or kiss it. A little of both, he decided. He shook his head as he walked to Spinks’ office. Put a chair under the door. What the hell was she thinking? There was no way she was going back to her place before he got Boomer to fix her back door.
He rounded the corner of Spinks’ office. Since he wasn’t officially back on duty, he hadn’t been updated on what had happened in the case. But being out of the loop was about to change if he had anything to say about it.
Spinks was on the phone and motioned for Gil to take a seat. He did. Spinks didn’t even get the phone back into the cradle before Gil leaned forward and said, “I want in on this. I’ll go to the interview with you. I’ll type up reports, or hell, put me on the damn phones if that’s all you’ve got, but I want those bastards who stole Lang’s legs.”
“You’re too close to this.”
“Fuck that, SAC.” Gil popped out of his chair, paced to the door and back again. “We’re all too close to this. You’ll have to put together a whole new task force to find anyone who isn’t. We are the ones you want out there finding these guys. No one is more motivated than we are.”
“You tried to give me notice, and now you want in? I don’t need someone on my team who doesn’t want to be here or who wants to be here for all the wrong reasons.”
Gil held Spinks’ gaze, not willing to beg, but not willing to back down either.
Spinks let out a begrudging breath. The first indication he might relent. “That was Finn on the phone.”
Oliver Finn had been the FBI agent in charge of a joint task force between the FBI, and the DEA when Gil, as a deep undercover ATF agent, had been shot and almost killed a few months before. Finn was one of the top interrogators on their side of the Rockies. “Finn was close to the hospital, and since the information is time sensitive, I had him go to the hospital and lean on the guy the gun runners left behind.”
“Seriously? You called in the FBI?”
“Finn. Not the FBI. He owes us one.”
“Who is this guy and what did he say?”
“Drew Ross is his name. Ex-Army from what we’ve been able to dig up. Dishonorable discharge. Waiting on the particulars. Long and short, the guy’s too afraid someone will go after his fa
mily to talk. We’re looking at the idea of leaking to the media that he died from his wounds. Get some heat off the guy, maybe he’ll feel like talking. From what Ross has said, Finn thinks he might have found a way to get an agent on the inside. But nothing definite yet.”
Gil’s mouth dried up. One of the reasons he wanted out of the ATF was because of all the undercover work. He was good at it. Very good. Which was why he’d continually been tasked with it. He was an accomplished liar and had come to not like what that said about him. But this was Lang they were talking about.
For Lang, he could do it.
For Lang, he could dance with the devil one last time.
“What about the weapons? What did they find in the truck that got left behind?
“M-4s, mortar rounds, a couple Stinger missiles, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft guns, enough ammo to supply an army. Surplus from the looks of it. We’re working on the tracking numbers.”
“That’s a lot of firepower,” Gil said. “You thinking homegrown terrorists?”
“Possibly, but if the other two trucks were similarly packed, you can’t rule out export to other countries. Somalia, Syria, Yemen. Many options.”
“When you have something definite on getting an agent on the inside,” Gil ordered his boss. “You come find me.”
“You only recently got out of a long stint undercover. I’ve done my share of undercover work in my time. I’m not insensitive to how tough of a life that is. You sure you’re the right guy for this?”
“Can you think of anyone on this team who would be better?”
When Spinks didn’t answer, Gil turned to leave.
Spinks said, “Not so fast.”
Spinks pushed a sheet of paper at Gil. “Sign this.”
Gil stepped over and picked up the paper. “What is it?”
“Papers saying your medical leave has ended and you’re back to full duty status.”
He hadn’t passed a physical yet, but Spinks was fully aware of that. Gil grabbed a pen, then noticed the date. “This is backdated two days before the shooting.”