Chapter Thirteen
Her legs felt weak, her heart a hammer against her ribs, as Dylan opened her door and helped her out of his truck as if they were on a date.
That sensible side of her kept yelling Stop! You don’t know this man.
This isn’t you.
No, it wasn’t her and there was something liberating about that.
But why now? Why under these circumstances, seven months pregnant in the middle of a triple murder investigation?
Because life threw curves.
It had taken Taylor.
It had brought Dylan Walker into her life.
All he had to do was look at her and she went weak with desire.
She wanted desperately to see where he could take her.
Her instincts told her she was in for a wild ride, one that her old self had secretly longed for.
He found the key where it was hidden and opened the door.
She barely noticed the spectacular view of the lake with the sunlight on the clear water or the array of colored rocks shimmering beneath.
The scent of pine and water followed her inside the cool darkness of the house.
She turned as Dylan came in the door behind her.
She hadn’t known what she was going to say until the words came off her lips.
“I trust you.”
He looked at her, his gaze on hers as if searching for the truth before he smiled and took her in his arms.
The kiss was a promise even before he said the words, as if he could tell that she was scared on so many levels.
“We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.
Nor will we do anything that might harm the baby, I promise.”
Then he swung her up into his arms and, kissing her, carried her deeper into the house.
Dylan broke the kiss to lay her down on a huge bed that seemed to float in front of the window overlooking the lake.
She pulled him down next to her.
“I love looking into those eyes of yours,”
he whispered as his hand cupped her cheek.
“I saw your intelligence the first day I met you.
I was a little intimidated by it.
I still am.”
She chuckled and shook her head.
“Did you know we were going to end up here today?”
“No.
If you’re asking if I planned this, definitely not.
I had no ulterior motives asking you to come with me today.
Except that I wanted you with me.”
“When did you know you wanted this?”
she asked, her gaze holding his.
“When I saw how hard it was for you to ask the state crime team for help, when I saw how it hurt you.
I wanted to make you feel better.
I love your smile and wanted the ability to put it back where it belonged.”
“And now you think you have that ability?”
He blinked.
“You’re challenging me?”
He laughed, smiling down at her.
“You want me to prove it.”
She nodded and kissed him seductively, feeling nothing like her old self.
She didn’t know this woman, but she wanted to get to.
Dylan took that challenge as he deepened the kiss, burying his fingers in her hair, pulling it free to fall around her shoulders.
Shivers of desire rippled over her skin.
His skill reminded her of how long it had been since a man had made love to her.
Just the thought of her husband brought with it a deep sorrow.
She’d told herself and Dylan that she and Taylor hadn’t had children because they’d been too busy.
Now she could admit that they had been growing apart from the years together.
They hardly ever made love, both involved more in other things than each other.
Dylan pushed her over onto her back.
He met her gaze, holding it.
She nodded and smiled, even as he noticed what she hadn’t.
He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
“Is it too soon?”
She shook her head and pulled him down for another kiss.
This time when he pulled back, he seemed to see the desire in her eyes, the need, and the pain that came with that naked need.
He kissed her behind her ear, then trailed kisses down her throat.
As he did, he unbuttoned her shirt.
Goose bumps rippled over her flesh as he met her gaze and drew out her right breast.
Bending over it he sucked the taut nipple into his mouth, making her moan as desire shot through her.
She wanted this.
Wanted it desperately.
She arched against him as he withdrew her left breast, and pressing them together, sucked her nipples into hard, aching points.
She moaned, her hands cupping his head and he worked his way further south.
His tongue trailed down over her stomach to the V.
Again, he looked at her as if waiting for permission.
She spread her legs, making him smile as he slid further down the bed and lifted her.
His tongue tentatively touched the aching part of her.
Cat could hear herself as she writhed to the movement of his tongue, her moans growing louder and louder until she cried out as the intense release came in waves of pleasure.
Gasping for breath, she drew him back up to her and started to unbutton his shirt, when his hands stopped her.
She looked up into his face.
Her heart was still pounding, her body weak and still vibrating with the intensity of her climax.
She met his gaze in a questioning one of her own.
Dylan shook his head.
“Maybe next time, if there is one.
This time was about you.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her close.
She pressed her face into his warm shoulder, torn between laughing and crying.
“That was…”
She couldn’t even formulate words.
“That was just foreplay, Cat,”
he said with a laugh, then pulled back a little to look at her.
“Was there anyone other than your husband?”
She shook her head and waited for him to ask if Taylor had ever… “Not like that,”
she said, burying her face again.
She felt him chuckle.
“Glad I could be the first.
Do you mind?”
he asked as he put his hand on her belly.
His eyes lit up as her daughter gave him her version of a high five.
“She all right?”
“We are both more than all right.
I can have sex, you know.
We just have to be careful.”
Dylan nodded.
“Like I said, maybe next time.”
He drew her close again.
Cat felt as if she could stay right there forever.
The sunlight on the lake threw shadows on the coffered ceiling of the bedroom.
“This is your brother’s place? I guess I’m surprised you still have it.”
She felt his hesitation before he finally spoke.
“I haven’t been able to sell it.”
Her cell rang.
She pulled away just far enough to reach her phone where it had fallen out of her jeans.
It was JP.
“I’m sorry,”
she said to Dylan.
“I need to—”
“Do your job,”
he said smiling as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“I would expect nothing less of you.
I’ll give you some privacy.”
He left the room.
Cat answered the call.
“If you tell me that there’s been another murder,”
she said as she reached to pick up her discarded clothing, not even remembering when it had come off.
“Thought you’d want to know.
We have an ID on the dead woman found with the bogus fed.
Her name is Lindsey Martin.
Isn’t that the name the pregnant woman gave you?”
“It is.
It’s her mother’s maiden name.”
He let out a low whistle.
“No doubt the cases are connected, is there.”
“No,”
she said.
“But we still don’t know what’s going on or who else is involved.
At least now DCI is on it.”
She’d told them what she’d found out about the adoptions and the women involved.
They knew as much as she did now.
“So, you’re still working the case?”
JP asked.
“I got a call about you finding a car connected with a woman named Patty Cooper.
The lab did a preliminary test on the blood found on the passenger seat.
It’s Athena Grant’s.”
“I suspected it would be.”
She’d managed to get dressed as she talked.
“The FBI is involved as well, but I probably don’t have to tell you that.”
“Guess they all have it covered.”
She’d never quit anything in her life.
Wasn’t that why she was having a hard time with this? Just like she would have never thought of leaving Taylor.
But life’s curve had her husband gone, her pregnant and now passing off her first job and falling for one of her former suspects.
“I have to go, JP.
Thanks for letting me know.”
She hung up and turned to see Dylan standing in the doorway.
From just the expression on his face, she knew something was wrong.
Then she saw a man she recognized behind him.
The second fake FBI man was holding a gun to Dylan’s head.
Cat could see her own weapon out of the corner of her eye.
It lay on the bedside table almost within reach.
But Dylan saw her look in its direction and gave a slight shake of his head.
Dylan had been trained in hand-to-hand combat.
But the moment he’d seen the man holding the gun and realized he wasn’t alone, Dylan wasn’t going to take a chance with Cat’s life and that of her baby’s.
He hoped that wasn’t a mistake.
Now he just had to keep Cat from doing anything dangerous until they found out what was going on.
Clearly, they’d been followed.
If he hadn’t been so anxious to get to his brother’s lake house and make love with the acting sheriff, he would have been more careful.
Then again, it had been a while since he’d had to worry about being followed—let alone killed.
He was out of practice.
He’d thought when he moved out here that he’d never have to worry about watching for a tail again.
“Someone wants to talk to us,”
he said carefully to Cat.
“It appears we have little choice, so let’s hear what he has to say.”
“Without your weapon, please, Sheriff,”
the man said.
He motioned her into the living room where she and Dylan were ordered to sit on the loveseat and not move.
Dylan reached over and took her hand, squeezing it gently, hoping to reassure her.
The man who’d been standing by the door stepped forward.
He was tall, slim and dressed in a suit that spoke of authority.
He introduced himself as Brian Fuller, an officer with the regional intelligence agency as he took a seat on a chair across from them.
“Intelligence? I’d like to see some identification,”
Cat said.
“No offense, but your associate presented himself as FBI and isn’t, and now he’s holding a gun on us, making it hard to believe that either of you are who you say you are.”
Fuller smiled.
“Jason is homeland security.
If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll have him put his weapon away.”
He pulled out his credentials and tossed it to Dylan.
“I believe Mr.
Walker is familiar with my type of identification.”
Dylan felt Cat watching him as he studied the ID, then tossed it back.
“You followed us here, your associate broke in and held a gun to my head,”
Dylan said.
“Is that the way your office operates?”
Fuller sighed.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you that we use any means available to us when necessary.
Sorry for the unpleasant tactics, but I need to ask you both a few questions, especially you, Mr.
Walker, about your…friend, Rowena Keeling, and I wanted to do it in private.”
Dylan didn’t hesitate.
“She’s not my friend.
She’s an unwelcome houseguest who’s been detained in the area because of the recent murders.”
“I have a few questions myself,”
Cat said, speaking up.
“You wouldn’t be here unless you knew more about what was going on than we do.
Who killed Athena Grant and her adoptive mother?”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff Jameson, but I’m asking the questions,”
Fuller said.
“How long have you and Mr.
Walker known each other?”
“In other words, you want to know how much we already know,”
Dylan said.
“Ms.
Jameson and I met after Athena tried to contact me, and failing, she went to the sheriff for help.”
Fuller nodded.
“Since then, we discovered four women who were born in Russia, adopted to parents living in Denver, who we believe became friends—or at least seem to be in league together—including possibly my deceased wife.
We also only recently found two more Russian-born adoptions out of Missoula.
We believe they might be spying for Russia.”
Fuller sat back in his chair, his expression giving nothing away.
“We are right, aren’t we,”
Cat said.
“Is your agency responsible for killing them?”
“We don’t operate that way, Sheriff Jameson.”
“Do you know where Athena’s baby is?”
Cat asked him.
“I’m sorry, I do not at this point,”
Fuller said.
“Are you telling us we’re right and that they are Russian spies?”
she asked.
“Part of a sleeper cell?”
“He’s obviously trying really hard not to tell us anything,”
Dylan said.
Fuller smiled at that.
“It’s true, the Russian traditional counterintelligence threat continues to loom large in our country.
Spies live among us.
We estimate there are one hundred thousand foreign agents from not just Russia, but other countries as well, spying on us.
Washington, DC, has more spies than any other world city.
Often the way we catch them is a tip from a friend or spouse.”
Dylan felt Cat’s gaze shift to him as he asked, “Are you saying my wife came to you?”
Fuller sighed.
“I can’t reveal my source.”
“Wait, you’re saying you were aware of what was going on?”
Cat asked.
“That’s our job,”
the officer said.
“We’ve been trying to find the people responsible for the car bombing that killed your brother and wife, but also find out why.”
“Was Ginny double-crossing her friends?”
Dylan asked.
Fuller looked tight-lipped.
“We focus on specific priorities.
State agencies, the military and companies working on sensitive technologies as prime targets for foreign espionage.”
His gaze met Dylan’s.
“And protecting our asset.”
“I’m no longer one of your assets,” he said.
“No, but we believe you were caught up in a honey-trap operation,”
Fuller said and turned to Cat.
“Honey-trap operations use sexpionage by a foreign female agent known as a sparrow to compromise an opponent sexually to elicit information.”
Dylan swore.
“If you think that is what Rowena Keeling is doing—”
Cooper Walker, the man said.
“What are you talking about?”
he demanded.
“We have it on good authority that Ginny Cooper obtained the names of those we have working in the same capacity you did during your years of service.
She was threatening to expose them—and you—when she was killed.”