Chapter 12 #2
“Did he attack her in his hotel room?”
Jordan frowned. “She was never in his hotel room.”
“Did you attack him in a fit of jealousy? I’ve heard she’s quite the handful.”
Daisy was beyond a handful.
“I never went to his hotel room either, ma’am.”
“Maybe he didn’t fall from his room. Maybe he fell from hers, and you helped cover it up.”
He’d forgotten the new director was a former prosecutor.
“Then he must have had a hell of a wingspan as he landed fifty-feet away on the other side of the building. Surely the hotel security feed told you he was never in her room?”
Her lip curled. “In an amazing feat of coincidence, the camera feed from the time of Tremblay’s death is missing.”
Did he admit to knowing this? That would pull Cisco in, and he had no desire to get her into trouble, and she might blab about the real reason he’d been in Mexico.
“I might know who interfered with the security footage, but it wasn’t part of any clandestine mission that I am aware of.”
Rhodes looked unconvinced.
His patience ran out. “Would you like me to tell you what happened, or shall we keep on playing Twenty Questions and hope we get there in the end?”
The director looked as if steam was about to blow out of her ears. “Fine. Tell me what happened.”
He talked her through it, only rather than watching Daisy on the beach with Francois, he was sitting beside her in the sand. And, as the conference was over and they were leaving the next day, rather than following Daisy up the stairwell to her room, they walked there together as a couple.
“Why on earth would you voluntarily climb seven flights of stairs?”
“She’s claustrophobic. Not to a crippling degree. She can take an elevator if she has to. But she avoids them when possible.” He shrugged. “Plus, it’s good exercise.”
That seemed to piss the director off all over again, probably because her office was on the seventh floor, and he bet she never used the stairs.
“This next bit is what I didn’t tell the locals.”
She leaned infinitesimally forward. “Go on.”
“We reached our floor, but when I heard someone come out on to the stairwell below, I glanced down—habit, I guess—and saw a man heading downward, moving fast. He had a cut on his head which was bleeding. There was something familiar about him that made me pause, so I told Daisy to head to her room and that I’d join her there shortly.
“I followed him, and when I reached the lobby, I saw a large crowd of people, and everyone is walking around in shock. One man tells me Francois Tremblay fell from his fifth-floor hotel balcony and his brains are all over the patio. I catch a glimpse of the bald guy exiting the hotel, so I cut through the crowd to follow him.”
Her sharp brown eyes judged him. “Who was it?”
This was where she fired him on the spot or put him on leave for psychological evaluation.
“He looked like a Russian arms dealer I’d worked undercover to put away back in Chicago when I first joined the Bureau.
But that’s impossible. Konrad Bocharov was supposed to be dead.
So I called out his name as he was climbing into the back of a car. I swear he recognized me.”
He swallowed hard, knowing it sounded crazy. “The face was wrong, but the eyes, body shape, height, the gait, the accent, the voice, the language—shit, even the shape of his ears and skull was right. Everything matched, except for the face.”
And faces could be changed.
Jordan felt all the eyes in the vehicle watching him, judging his sanity.
A crinkle formed between the director’s brows. “Bocharov was reported blown up by one of his own grenades shortly after he arrived back in Moscow after fleeing Chicago,” the director stated.
He leaned back in his seat. “That’s the story.”
“You think someone was lying?”
“Yes,” Jordan said shortly. “I was told they shoveled what was left of that sack of shit into a bag and DNA comparisons confirmed it was Bocharov. That’s the only reason I didn’t go to Russia to find him and get payback.”
“Taking the law into your own hands, Operator Krychek?”
He flicked her a contemptuous glance. “Talk to me after someone locks everyone you love into a house and deliberately burns it to the ground.”
Her gaze wavered under his.
“It took time, but I was able to get past it with counseling.” Hell, he’d even convinced himself of that lie, enough to pass the polygraph before he returned to duty.
“But the fact I saw Bocharov—or any Russian bleeding from a head wound—entering the stairwell off Tremblay’s floor seconds after the Frenchman apparently took a nosedive out of a window?
That’s too big of a coincidence to ignore.
That’s why I left the hotel with Daisy ASAP.
I’d made a tactical error letting the other man know I’d seen him.
” The realization annoyed him, but how else could he have looked the man in the eye?
“I headed back to the room and a few minutes later the Mexican police were knocking on the door.”
“Witnesses say they saw Daisy and Tremblay on the beach in what looked like a romantic assignation.”
“You know how reliable eyewitnesses can be. I was there too but wearing dark clothes and I prefer not to stand in the spotlight.” He jerked his shoulders. “Gossips like to see what they want to see. You said the Frenchman had a reputation.”
“Enough for you to throw him off a balcony and make up some story about seeing a dead Russian arms dealer if he hit on your girl.”
“Firstly, she’s not a girl. She’s a grown woman.
Second, we’re having some fun, not planning a wedding.
Thirdly, Daisy chooses who she spends time with.
Fourth”—He held Ursula Rhodes’ gaze and let her see the trained killer hiding within—“if I’d decided to take Francois Tremblay out, trust me, no one would have found the body.
Finally, why make up a story guaranteed to make me look either paranoid or insane? ”
Her mouth pinched but she looked thoughtful now. “You think it was a Russian hit? Why?”
“I don’t know, but the FBI needs to investigate the hell out of it. That was a nuclear engineering conference not a fucking makeup convention.”
“I am well aware. How long have you been sleeping with Daisy Montana?”
He pulled a face. “Really?”
“She’s a convenient cover to be at that conference should someone want to get rid of a certain French professor.”
“There is nothing convenient about Daisy, and I don’t know enough about the professor to warrant killing him. Plus, I don’t work off-book missions.” Aside from acting as an unofficial bodyguard. “We have the CIA for that shit.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “I need proof this isn’t an act, that you and she are actually involved…”
“You want to watch next time?” He shook his head and then relented. “Look, we’ve been keeping it low key for reasons which have nothing to do with national security.”
“Her father.” The director’s gaze pieced him. “Prove to me it’s real.”
“How?” He frowned. “By telling you I get tied in knots when I speak to her? Or that she smells like lemons and she looks feminine and sweet but is also incredibly resilient and resourceful?” Not to mention cunning and determined.
“Tattoos?”
“No tattoos. No birthmarks. Today’s panties are green, and yesterday’s were cream to match her dress if that’s any help.”
The director was texting. “What else?”
Jesus. He forced himself to remember her naked body which he’d tried so hard to forget.
“She has a mole on her right hipbone and another darker one beside her right nipple.” And she comes like a rocket being launched into outer space.
He scrubbed his face as he tried to get the memory of that out of his brain.
The director texted, and he realized she was giving the info to whoever was with Daisy.
“Are you going to strip search her?” His stomach hit his toes.
“You better make damned sure you get a female agent or medical professional and her permission to verify.” She was going to go ballistic.
Her father would go ape-shit. “I’d rather face whatever bullshit punishment you decide on than subject her to any more of this.
She doesn’t deserve to be treated like a common criminal. ”
Rhodes shot him a look. “I could just ask her father.”
Jordan gave her a dead-eyed stare. “Then why don’t you?”
Her lips pursed as he called her bluff. “What do you think he’ll say when he finds out about the two of you sleeping together?”
“What do you think he’ll say when he finds out the organization he dedicated his life to treated her like shit?
” But Jordan’s mouth went dry. Kurt was probably going to throat punch him and cut off his dick.
“Look, Daisy is a grown-ass adult, and so am I.” He looked out of the window as they passed through Quantico. “Are we done now?”
Her phone dinged, and her eyebrows rose.
She cocked her head. “Well, I guess that saves us time.” She pointed her screen at Jordan, and he saw a photo of a familiar chest, bra cup covering her nipple but mole on full display as Daisy mugged for the camera.
Then a second one of the mole on her hip and the top of her green panties.
Blood heated his skin. Anger made his heart beat harder. He reminded himself this was all for her protection. “The asshole who took those better delete them. They don’t need to be entered into some bullshit evidence file. My word should have been enough on this.”
Rhodes smiled slowly. “If nothing else, I believe you’ve seen each other naked and you’re jealous as hell, but give me one good reason to believe you about Bocharov?”
This was the heart of it. Not Daisy’s privacy. Not his promise to Kurt. The crux was Konrad Bocharov, where he was and what evil he planned to do.