Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Liza’s eyes had yet to come unglued from my left hand.
The kind thing would’ve been to put her out of her misery and explain.
But fuck, the woman was killing me. The indifference was like a stab to the heart. She wanted to pretend like she didn’t know me, I’d remind her how well she did.
Me.
Tucker.
Not Tim. Not any of the other names I’d assumed.
Me.
She wanted to play, we’d play. But this time, I wasn’t losing.
“I didn’t…I had no idea.” Liza stopped to clear her throat. “Congratulations.”
Total lie. She didn’t mean that any more than I’d meant it when I’d met her douchebag husband and spat that exact word.
I wasn’t ready to let her off the hook and tell her the truth—she would be my wife for this assignment.
“The seminar is in two weeks. Mindset and manifesting. The four pillars of mindfulness and how to use the power of positive thinking to manifest change in your personal and professional life.”
Her nose scrunched.
Time to remind her how well I knew her.
“My thoughts exactly. Positive thinking only goes so far, and without hard work it’s meaningless.”
Her gaze lifted and she frowned.
“How’d…” She stopped, shook off that thought knowing exactly how I knew that’s what she’d been thinking. I knew her, the same as she knew me.
“Still wanna sit there and lie to me there’s no us?”
Seeing as I hadn’t corrected her on my marital status that was the wrong question to ask.
“Are you freaking serious, Tucker Mitchell?”
The way she said my name was full of hurt and disgust.
Knowing what her ex had done to her, I had to come clean.
There was playing dirty then there was being cruel. I was down for the first but I’d never do anything purposeful to hurt the woman sitting in front me.
“Honest to God, woman, you think I’d be sitting here if I was married?”
Her eyes dropped back to my hands.
“You can keep checking, Liza, but a ring’s not gonna magically appear. Though in two weeks when we attend the seminar together we’ll both be wearing bands.”
Her gaze shot to mine.
Confusion morphed into panic.
“I’m not?—”
“It’s me or Frank,” I interrupted her. “I spoke a handful of words to the man before I went into the interrogation room. I could be wrong, and the man just sucks at first impressions, but my gut says that’s not the case, and he’s just a plain jackass.”
Liza’s lips pinched together.
This was an active ATF investigation, Triple Canopy was only consulting. She could call her boss, request her partner be sent undercover with her, and more than likely she’d be granted the request. The choice would be hers.
Spend weeks or months pretending to be Frank’s wife or pretend to be mine. Not that I’d allow her to go in alone with Frank. In the five minutes I talked to him he’d explained he was getting coffee to protect his ass while Liza broke protocol—leaving Liza swinging. That wasn’t a partner, that was a turncoat.
Yeah, quite the conundrum for my girl.
“I read the reports, Lizzy.”
I let that hang, knowing I didn’t need to elaborate. There were three dead bodies, no arrests, and a cache of ghost guns loosely tied to Nu Dawn stashed in the house of one of the dead men. Liza needed the ‘loosely’ taken out of that sentence. And now that she had a witness claiming there were drugs on the compound, her case would start to tighten.
But she still needed a way in.
“I must ask again, how’d you get internal ATF reports?”
“I already told you, I’m not answering that.”
“You think I’d turn you in?”
At this juncture, I figured she’d do anything to get out of having to work with me. If that meant turning me into the powers that be and have me—or actually Dylan Welsh—arrested to get Triple Canopy off the case, yes, she’d report the breach to her boss.
“Agent Liza Monroe, yes. My Lizzy, no.”
I watched a cloud of the reminder of who she once was pass through her. Even if it had never been official, she’d always been mine. She could play it off now, try and deny it, but from the very beginning there’d been something between us. A bond that had to change when she’d been married, a bond I’d mourned thinking I’d lost it. Now that I had another shot, I wasn’t going to fuck around and waste it.
The time had come to make it official.
I would’ve said that time had been a few years ago but her skipping out on me said otherwise. The only reason I wasn’t pissed she’d left me hanging was I figured she needed time to find herself again after her husband had cheated on her. Time I wished she’d allowed me to help her navigate. But that story wasn’t ours; this was, and I’d play as dirty as I needed to, to make her remember who she was to me and what we had. I’d even go as far as forcing her hand and inserting myself into her case.
“Tucker—”
“I’m not telling you how I stumbled upon your files,” I interrupted her. “What’s important is Jessica reached out to TC. We facilitated a meeting, using our police contacts. Obviously, your team was alerted, my boss has since been in contact with yours.”
Unfortunately I had to stop speaking when the server brought out our food. This gave my smart girl enough time to think about what I’d said. She didn’t delay in sharing her thoughts.
“And I suppose you had a hand in alerting my team.”
“You’d be correct,” I confirmed.
The moment our IT guy and resident hacker Dylan had dug into Nu Dawn, he’d found an active investigation. A few keystrokes—or maybe it was a few hours later—he had the case file. As soon as I saw Liza’s name I had a word with my bosses, Nick Clark and Jason Walker. They agreed our best play was to reach out to the ATF and tell them we had intel, and not only that but an insider.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what, having dinner with a friend?” I lifted a brow daring her to deny our friendship. When she didn’t I went on, “Or why did I come here to talk to you—so we can clear the air so when we go under as husband and wife, we don’t blow our cover in the first five minutes because you can’t look at me without scowling?”
“The second,” she spat. “Why are you insisting to get involved?”
Because I can’t continue living without you.
“Jessica contacted?—”
“So, that’s how you’re gonna play it?” She tossed my words back at me.
Damn right.
I didn’t bother answering Liza, instead I asked my own question, “Are we gonna clear the air or are we going under as a couple with marital problems?”
As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted them.
“I’ve had my fill of marital problems,” she mumbled.
“Damn, Lizzy, I didn’t think before I said that.”
She waved away my concern like she was swatting a gnat away from her face. With her gaze firmly on her chicken fingers she asked, “Did you know?”
Fuck .
“Did I know Arnie was a dick?” I dodged her real question.
“That he was cheating.”
I could play word games and ask her to clarify her timeline but that would only prolong a topic I was sure was still painful.
“Did he ever tell you I ran into him in L.A.?”
That got her attention.
“When you were undercover?”
She knew I’d worked a case in California. She also knew what had started out as a DEA investigation into Lorenzo Kelly, a drug smuggler, had bled into something arguably worse than drugs. Since I was already embedded and had earned the trust of Lorenzo when he’d invited me to join his father’s members-only sex club, my assignment morphed and my time under had extended even though I had more than enough evidence to take Lorenzo down for importing drugs from Mexico. Word was, women were being sold and one had been murdered. The rumors had been true; Lorenzo had turned his father’s legitimate club into a buyer’s safe haven.
“Yeah.”
Her face paled.
“Did you see him at the club?”
“No, baby, not at the club,” I rushed out to assure her, not that what I had to tell her was any better. “I saw him having dinner with a woman.”
I left it there hoping she wouldn’t ask me to elaborate, knowing it was in vain because Liza didn’t let anything hang.
“Go on,” she invited.
“I was with Lorenzo, couldn’t approach but I made sure he saw me and I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing.”
“If he would’ve approached you…” She trailed off.
I would’ve been fucked. He could’ve blown my cover, but seeing him cozied up to a woman that was not Liza had me seeing red.
“The chance of him approaching me knowing he’d be facing my wrath was zero. To answer your question, I suspected but didn’t know until you confirmed it in Tucson. And before you ask, I didn’t mention L.A. that night because there was no need, you knew what you knew and you’d already got shot of the dick. And I hope you know if I could’ve found a way to confront him, I would’ve.”
One side of her mouth tipped up.
“I know you would’ve. I know where you stand on cheaters.”
More proof she was mine and always had been. I’d never spoken about my father’s cheating to anyone but her. My father cheated, my mother found out, he apologized, she took him back—rinse and repeat. That was their life.
“Have you, um, talked to them recently?” she cautiously inquired.
I dipped my chin to indicate her food.
“Eat, Lizzy. You hate cold fries.”
I saw the disappointment in her eyes. She didn’t think I was going to answer, and maybe I shouldn’t have until she explained why she ditched me. Unfortunately I was a sucker for the woman and had never been able to deny her.
I waited until she dipped two fries into her ranch before I told her, “I talked to my mom a few months ago. She called to tell me she kicked my dad out and asked if I’d come over to help her change the locks.”
“Come over? As in fly all the way to New Mexico to change the locks?” She paused then followed up with, “They still live in Santa Fe, right?”
“Yes and yes.”
Liza picked up a chicken strip but her attention stayed parked on me, waiting for more of the story.
“I told her I couldn’t make it out for at least a week.”
“Let me guess, she called you a few days later to cancel because he’d moved back in.”
I didn’t have to confirm; Liza knew my parents MO. My mom kicked my dad out only to let him come home. It was a dysfunctional dance they’d been doing since I was a child.
“I’m sorry, Tucker.”
“It’s their life.”
Liza’s pretty hazel eyes held mine when she repeated what she’d told me numerous times in the past.
“But it bleeds into yours.”
She wasn’t wrong, which was why I went to great lengths to stay out of their lives. After years of declining my father’s calls, he’d stopped his feeble attempts at mending fences—not that there was a relationship to mend, he’d burned that particular bridge when I was still a teenager. My mother was a different story. I might not understand why she stayed with a serial cheater but I loved her despite her participation in the dysfunction.
“Only when I allow it,” I reminded her.
With a nod she went back to her food.
The ease of which we’d slipped back into a personal exchange wasn’t lost on me. It was a testament to who Liza was to me and who we were to each other. Pointing that out would do me no favors; her stubborn would rear its head and she’d have a bullshit excuse as to why we’d had a conversation about something so private. Liza was even more closed off than I was, unless she’d done a complete about-face in the years since she’d stopped taking my calls, she wouldn’t openly talk about her ex with just anyone. Proving I still meant something to her even if she didn’t want to admit it.
The silence didn’t last long before Liza broke it.
“You’re right,” she softly told me.
I felt the side of my mouth curving up around my mouthful of burger. Thankfully, I caught myself before Liza caught me smiling.
“About?”
“Frank.”
Now I didn’t feel like smiling.
“Care to elaborate on that?”
Liza poked a fry into her ranch dressing before she tossed it back on her plate and glanced around the mostly empty bar.
“He’s lazy…and rude…and a total nightmare to work with.”
No, my first impression of the guy wasn’t wrong.
“How long have you worked with him and what happened to Steve?”
Steve Nolan had been her previous partner. Good guy, smart and loyal with great instincts.
“His wife got a promotion,” she said, with a bright, genuine smile. And there went my breath . “He rightfully decided it was time for him to follow her instead of the other way around. Did you know they’d moved three times in his fifteen years with the ATF?”
I didn’t know Steve all that well, never had met his wife, but I did know they had three children.
“I didn’t know.”
“Different opportunities for Steve over the years meant Janis quit her job and packed up the kids for her husband. She’s a great gal. Very supportive of Steve. I was sad when he left but happy for Janis.” She paused, attempting to suppress a wry smile. “Is it horrible I’m no longer happy Steve gave his wife something she needed now that I’m stuck with Frank?”
Her joke had my dislike for Frank turning into concern.
“I know that look,” she muttered.
“What look?”
“The one you get before you do something you know I’m gonna like.”
And…there it was—more proof. Not that more was needed but it was there all the same. The woman could read me.
“Whatever plan you’re conjuring up in that head of yours, you should stop now. He’s my partner, I’ll deal with him. Just to say, I’d be more than pissed if you involved yourself in my work. I’d be irate, actually.”
I lifted my hands in surrender but only because that mask of indifference she wore had slipped. The smoke show had lifted and her fiery personality shone through.
Fiery and passionate. Two things I loved about her—both out of, but especially in, the bedroom.
The one night we’d spent together had been an education. The woman didn’t have sex, she didn’t fuck, she consumed—nails digging in as she held tight, sucking as she tasted, teeth biting. And she did with a wild look in her eyes that stated plain she would devour every moment and beg for more. Which she’d done. Begged and cried out in pleasure and gave as good as she got. Her desperation had mirrored my own. Yet, I’d stupidly walked away, not ready to admit she was the one. I still had fire in my gut. I wasn’t ready to stop chasing the high of undercover work. Infiltrating the enemy, taking down organizations, stopping the flow of drugs. I didn’t regret my work; what I did regret was losing Liza in the pursuit of it.
“Just tell me his laziness doesn’t put you in danger.”
“He’s too lazy to put me in danger.”
Her response had my chest tightening.
“Lizzy—”
“He’s incompetent, I’ll give you that. But no, he doesn’t put me in danger. It’s this.” She pointed to the ceiling. “He’s upstairs in his room probably watching YouTube instead of looking into Tate Archer or Beatrice Collins. Two names I briefed him on after we left the station. But, why would he when he knows by morning I’ll have a report ready to send in. He doesn’t care that two sets of eyes are better than one. He has no concept of teamwork or how to bounce theories and concepts around. He’s the least interesting or interested person I know.”
I had no idea how Liza worked with Frank. She had little patience for stupidity—under-skilled and unqualified were two of her least favorite qualities.
“Nightmare,” I repeated her earlier assertion.
“Yes. Complete and total pain in my ass.”
Begrudgingly, I let that conversation go and moved us back to a topic that was less likely to make me want to tear into her jackass partner the next time I saw him.
“We have fourteen days to prep for our assignment,” I started but got no further.
“Can we table that discussion for now?”
I took in her tired eyes and wary expression and gave her that play.
“Make you a deal.” My offer was met with skepticism. Not that I blamed her; if I was in her position—meaning on her back foot with a bevy of issues she didn’t want to discuss—I’d be on guard as well. And as much as I wanted the air cleared and answers, now was not the time to push. “You take Beatrice Collins and I’ll dig into Tate Archer.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief.
Don’t get too comfortable, Lizzy, there will be a coming to Jesus soon.
“I’m sure you have better things to do with your night.”
The only better thing I had to do with my time was to spend it with her up in her room. But I knew that option wasn’t on the table.
“You gonna keep me company while I drink?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“No.”
“Right, then I got nothing better to do. Divide and conquer. This saves us both time doing the same work.”
“Fine,” she breathed her agreement.
I picked up my beer and shook my head.
“I see you’re still oh so gracious with accepting help.”
That comment earned me a lip twitch and shoulder shrug.
“You know me…” she let that hang, and popped her abandoned fry into her mouth.
Yeah, Lizzy, I know you.
Now if I could get you to a place where we could move forward we’d be in the chips .