Chapter Nine
Sasha glanced from the road to the screen as it froze and a pop-up message about the operating system being out of date flashed, preventing Nick from playing the evidence.
“Fuck. Pull over,” Nick commanded. “I’m not a typist and this is too hard to do in a moving car.”
Sasha was cruising down the middle of three easterly lanes. “Anywhere in particular?”
“There.” He pointed to the entrance of a parking lot to her right, leading to a Chipotle.
She changed lanes and did what he’d asked. The lot was starting to fill up, and she knew better than to park in the middle of the crowd, so she coasted around back, between two empty cars that probably belonged to employees, and put the SUV in Park.
As she did, he turned on his hot spot and hooked it up to the computer. When the device prompted him to download more updates, he cursed and pressed the button to begin.
Over his cell signal, the download moved slowly.
“I wish we could play the video already,” she said desperately.
“Yeah.” He spoke the word as if he understood exactly how she felt, as if he’d waited and hoped like hell vengeance was coming.
Her impatience spiked. In moments, the mystery might be solved. The endless days and nights of misery might be over. Sadness that she’d lost Mike mixed with triumph that she and Nick could actually solve his murder. Mike would be so proud of her.
But Nick might be her biggest surprise. Despite being Mike’s friend, she hadn’t known him well.
Nick had moved to Lafayette before she and Mike had begun dating.
He’d been burying his mother the weekend she and Mike married, so she hadn’t met him then, either.
Their introduction after Harper’s birth had been brief and oddly tense.
So when Nick had acted like a predatory jerk in the last thirty-six hours, Sasha had remembered Mike’s warnings and believed the worst.
Now that Nick had explained why he’d distanced himself and she had spent time in the circle of his protection and caring, she gauged him not by his words but through his actions.
He could have slammed the door in her face that midnight she’d come, begging for help.
He could have told her that he’d just gotten out of prison and didn’t want any more problems with Walter Clifford.
But he hadn’t. He’d risked life, limb, and freedom to give her and Harper a tomorrow.
Equally telling, Nick was denying himself something he wanted badly—her.
Apparently, he’d been doing it since the moment he set eyes on her.
He could have taken advantage of her twenty times by now.
After all, she’d agreed to be his mistress for a month, give him whatever kind of sexual payment he demanded.
But, despite being without sex for over a year, he’d refused her body both times she’d offered it.
Last night he’d bestowed dazzling pleasure on her without asking for anything in return.
Instead, he had done his utmost to respect Mike’s friendship and memory.
Even now, he tried to protect her, especially from himself.
His self-sacrifice struck her as both noble and sexy.
Sasha didn’t know everything he thought or felt, but deep down she knew he was a good man.
No denying he aroused her body in ways she’d scarcely imagined.
Yes, he could be gruff and foul-mouthed and blunt. But he was also smart and protective—and so much more than the dangerous criminal she’d believed him to be days ago.
Circumstance. Situations. Inevitability.
Fate. Whatever she called it, everything had led her to this moment with Nick.
The day she’d buried Mike, she’d felt as if she buried her heart with him.
But here it was, fluttering in her chest with hope, respect, and desire—all for the man sitting beside her.
Oh, goodness. She was falling in love.
When had that happened?
Finally, another pop-up announced the completion of the operating system’s update.
He flipped back over to the video player and clicked the button.
An image of Walter Clifford’s office filled the screen.
A little grainy, and the audio quality wasn’t great.
But Mike stood behind the desk, looking up nervously at the camera.
Sasha gasped. It was hard to look at her late husband—his familiar movements and mannerisms. That face she’d know anywhere. The cowlick at the front of his pale hair. The remnants of the sunburn he’d gotten after washing their cars without putting on sunscreen the previous weekend.
“I’ll be goddamned. Mike…buddy.” Nick sounded choked up.
Sasha stifled tears and reached for his hand. “It’s him. Oh, my gracious. What is he doing?”
“Inexpertly setting up a hidden camera in his boss’s office. Damn it, Mike. Why didn’t you ask me to wire that place for you?”
“Maybe everything happened too fast?”
“Probably. And because the one time I visited your house, he saw that I couldn’t stop staring at you.” Nick looked sheepish. “I’m so damn sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Look at the date stamp.” She caught sight of it in the bottom right corner, a number that faded in, flashed a few times, then dwindled away. “Wasn’t that the day after you got arrested?”
Nick squinted at the numbers, then nodded.
“It fucking is. He must have known that installing surveillance in Clifford’s office was dangerous.
I got out two days later.” After the police had magically forgotten to allow him a phone call, and the Santiagos had come looking for him.
Money talked, and theirs had helped him make bail quickly. “I would have handled it.”
By then, Mike’s fate had likely been sealed.
Sasha wasn’t even sure what to feel. Angry? Regretful? In the end, she settled for somewhere between sad and resigned since she couldn’t change the past. She could only move on from here. She would always miss her sweet, salt-of-the-earth husband.
But she was beginning to believe Nick Navarro might be her future.
Suddenly, Mike jolted and shoved something into a drawer, then hastily shut it before darting around the desk and heading toward the camera—and the office door. His footsteps sounded loud. As he crept closer to the camera, it picked up a sheen of sweat on his face and the nervous shift in his eyes.
“Damn it,” Nick murmured. “This is my thing. He sucked at clandestine.”
She couldn’t disagree. Had the honesty she’d treasured in Mike been one of the qualities that led to his demise?
“Porter. What are you doing here?” said a faint voice belonging to someone out of the camera’s view. But Sasha knew exactly who spoke. She’d heard Walter Clifford too often not to recognize his gruff tones.
“Looking for you. I wanted to give you an update on the Ector case.”
“Later.” Clifford sounded dismissive. “I just came back from lunch, and I’m late for a conference call. See me at four.”
“Of course.” Mike all but bowed and scraped as he headed for the door.
Watching him leave the screen cramped Sasha’s stomach with a physical pain.
He disappeared from the shot quickly, and it felt like losing him all over again.
There would be no more of Mike’s movements or smiles or complaints on a Sunday morning that the most important political shows shouldn’t be airing when people should be in church.
She wouldn’t see him rock his daughter, touch his smooth cheek, or hear him sing in the shower ever again.
He was gone.
“Shit,” Nick muttered beside her.
Sasha refocused on the screen and watched Clifford shuffle into view.
Balding, portly, pushing sixty, he looked far more like someone’s grouchy grandfather than a corrupt politician and criminal mastermind.
The man scowled and searched the room, seemingly suspicious, before he shook his head, plopped down behind his desk, and yanked the receiver of his phone to his ear.
Seconds later, he began hissing at whomever was on the other line.
“Has Mike Porter been sneaking around your office?” After a pause, Clifford gripped the phone tighter.
“Well, today is the third time I’ve found him snooping around mine.
I don’t like it. I’m pretty sure he overheard us fixing the evidence in that criminal dumping case against that fucking oil driller.
The moral stick up that church boy’s ass has become an antenna, and I haven’t been able to redirect him.
” Again, another hesitation while the other party—probably a sheriff or police chief—spoke.
“Fuck the money. We stand to lose our reputations and careers if Porter has evidence and he goes public.” Clifford swore.
“Let me find out what he knows. If he’s onto us, I’ll make sure he can’t talk anymore. ”
Beside her, Nick stiffened. And he looked at the screen like he hated Walter Clifford almost more than he could contain, like he had to swallow it down to keep it from spewing out, like he had to breathe through it or he might explode.
Sasha understood that. The same furious incredulity spread through her.
How dare that man leave a woman without her husband, a child without her father, a friend without his buddy?
But he’d talked about murder so casually, so thoughtlessly—as if he’d done it before.
After another hesitation during which the cop must have mentioned another problem, the DA scowled.
“Yeah? Keep that fucking P.I. Navarro in jail until we can figure out what he knows about my affairs. And for fuck’s sake, don’t tell the press who’s accused him of rape.
They’ll start connecting the dots, and the whole thing will turn into a PR nightmare.
My horny little niece will crumble under the pressure.
Fiona is a pretty girl…but not a bright one.
We’ll get this fucker’s case rammed through fast. Find out who Navarro’s attorney is and put the screws to him.
Make sure Judge Marburn presides when it gets to trial. He owes me. Don’t fuck this up.”