Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Frank glanced around the reception area of Triple Canopy. I knew by his posture and the way his lips curled he was going to be a dick.
I was too tired to stop him from putting his foot in his mouth. Further, I was too nervous to care if he made a fool out of himself. It was a miracle I was even vertical this morning. I was running on fumes and coffee. But fear not, if the coffee wore off before the meeting was over I had plenty of anxiety swirling in my belly to see me through. To say I wasn’t ready to face Tucker again was an epic understatement. Not even the mystery of what happened to Beatrice Collins could stop my mind from wandering to my dinner with Tucker.
I should explain . Behave like a grown-ass woman and tell him the truth. We could get back to a place where we could work together on this case. After that we’d be done and part ways. This time I’d say goodbye.
Liar. Saying goodbye would be too hard, too final. You’d run again.
“So this is what the private sector buys you?” Frank snickered, pulling me from my depressing thoughts.
To her credit, the receptionist, a woman called Lauren, didn’t so much as narrow her eyes at the asshole comment.
“Everyone’s waiting for you in the conference room,” she said smoothly, repeatedly ignoring Frank. “If you’ll follow me I’ll show you back.”
Frank and I fell in step behind Lauren as she led our way to the conference room, Frank doing a damn good impression of a tourist, peeking in every open doorway we passed. I was too busy attempting to get my heartbeat under control and my breathing regulated to look around. Lauren could’ve been walking me front and center to a firing squad and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Instead of walking me to my death, Lauren was escorting me to Tucker.
My Tucker.
No, not my anything. And there was my problem, the reason I couldn’t be friends with the man. The reason I wasn’t going to explain why I’d bailed. The reason I couldn’t work a case with him. After all I’d done to avoid him since Tucson, he showed up again. I could practically feel my heart breaking all over again.
Before I was ready to face the man, Lauren stopped outside an open door and gestured in.
“There’s coffee, tea, and water.” She waved her hand in the direction of a well-appointed credenza. “Please, help yourselves.”
I fought the urge to grab ahold of the pretty receptionist and beg her to help me escape. I’d barely made it sitting across from Tucker at dinner. I was fairly certain this meeting was going to send me over the edge.
One whiff of his spicy cologne had opened the floodgates. Memory after memory of our night together raced through my mind. What made it worse, those were chased by the memory of a long-ago friendship. One that I had valued and lost. Some nights I’d lain awake wondering what hurt worse, losing Tucker’s friendship or the realization he’d never be mine.
“Special Agent Monroe, nice to meet you. I’m Carter Lenox.” a very attractive man introduced himself.
I knew a Carter Lenox, but he was much older than the man in front of me.
“Please, call me Liza. It’s nice to meet you, too. This is Frank Delco, my partner.”
I glanced to the side to see Frank had already helped himself to coffee. He held up the mug in front of himself like a salute.
Seriously.
Total douche.
“Nice office you have here.”
Much like Lauren, Carter kept his features neutral even though he didn’t look impressed.
“Can’t take the credit. My father and uncles started Triple Canopy.”
I was off my game. I blamed being in the same room with a certain six-foot-two heartbreaker for my lack of brain function. Of course, Carter Lenox was the Carter Lenox’s son.
“I met your father once,” I told Carter, smiling at the memory. “I was straight out of basic on my first deployment. Wet behind the ears and scared as all hell. He stopped me before we loaded out, looked me straight in the eyes and told me to pull my shit together or I’d get someone killed. He told me I had two choices—to fear up and use my adrenaline to focus and accomplish my mission, or let the fear own me and fail.”
“That sounds like my dad.” Carter proudly smiled.
“Never forgot him and I’ve used his advice throughout my career.”
“I didn’t know that,” Tucker piped up.
My gaze journeyed across the room to Tucker.
God, why does it still hurt to look at him?
He must’ve mistook my pain for confusion.
“Not you being in the Army, but you meeting Lenox.”
Of course he knew I’d been in the Army. The sad truth was, he knew most everything about me. We’d spent countless hours getting to know each other.
Until one night ruined everything and I couldn’t pretend anymore.
“You two know each other?” Frank asked.
For a man who was trained law enforcement, Frank had zero situational awareness.
Before I could answer with a simple, ‘yes’ and leave it at that, Tucker answered.
“Liza and I go way back.”
Why did hearing him say that feel like a thousand tiny pinpricks piercing my heart?
Thankfully, Carter didn’t dally making the introductions to the rest of the room.
Jason Walker, Nick Clark, Brady Walker, Dylan Welsh, and Liberty Hayes rounded out the Triple Canopy team.
After we’d taken our seats Jason got straight to it.
“I’ve spoken to your Branch Chief, Shannon O’Conner.”
This wasn’t news I wasn’t aware of. Shannon had called me bright and early to give me the bad news. Tucker was indeed her pick to go undercover with me. She’d consider Frank at my recommendation but she had her reservations.
“Tucker said he briefed you last night,” Jason continued.
“He gave me a very brief summary,” I confirmed.
“Wait,” Frank interjected. “Last night. Why didn’t you call me?”
That was actually a fair question. Why hadn’t I called my partner when Tucker showed and started to discuss the case? Of course I could reason that Frank was pretty much useless, but that wasn’t the real reason. I wanted to be alone with Tucker. As painful as it was, I still craved his attention.
The thought had my heart thudding out of control in my chest and I could practically feel my mental health flying out the window.
“It was more of a catch-up than a business dinner,” Tucker unhelpfully said.
Frank’s gaze darted back and forth between me and Tucker sitting across from us.
“There’s a mindset and how to use the power of positive thinking to manifest change seminar in two weeks. We’ve secured tickets for Tucker and Liza,” Carter explained.
As for me, I sat there silently wondering if there was a way to manifest my way out of this situation. If I wished it hard enough would Tucker vanish from the room? I didn’t know the first thing about manifesting but I did know the last thing I wanted was to attend a lecture on the topic with the only man who I’d ever truly loved. The one person on earth who understood and had accepted me—fully and completely. He wasn’t threatened by my ambition, he matched it. He never thought my assertiveness was too much, or too bossy or overbearing. He respected my position in the field, he valued my input, and he never had a problem showing it. And there was the problem—or rather, my problem—Tucker the DEA agent was a great partner. Tucker the man was a great everything else. I could barely handle being in the same room as him without the threat of my heart pounding out of my chest. I’d never survive working alongside him.
“I thought I was going under with you?” Frank smiled at his almost innuendo. But like most things Frank did, it missed the mark by a mile.
“How many times have you been undercover?” Tucker asked.
His tone was conversational, yet the question was antagonizing. I didn’t see good things. Frank could be a hothead, another one of his traits I wasn’t fond of.
Just like I knew would happen, anger tinged Frank’s cheeks before he begrudgingly admitted, “I haven’t actually had an undercover assignment.”
At his tenure with the ATF that said something not so great about his previous superior’s confidence in his abilities. And I knew where Shannon stood on giving him an undercover assignment. She’d rather outsource it than send him in.
“I’ve spent approximately seven out of the last ten years undercover. Most of those assignments lasting more than eighteen months. I get we all gotta start somewhere but this is not the assignment for you to cut your teeth.”
My eyes snapped to Tucker. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking back to Tucson. He’d just come out of a twenty-month assignment that had shaken him to his core. There was no question Tucker was good at his job, probably one of the best agents the DEA had when it came to undercover work. His skill and mental toughness were never in question, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have two weaknesses—women and children. I would never forget the look on his face when he told me how his case had pivoted to sex-trafficking.
“They’re a bunch of hippies cooking meth and using Dremel tools to finish off eighty-percent lowers. Any moron with YouTube can figure out how to do either of those things in less than a week. Not to mention we’re not even sure if there are weapons on the premises.”
He wasn’t completely wrong. A person could buy an eighty-percent lower receiver and with some effort could finish the last twenty percent and build an off-the-books gun.
However, his attitude was all wrong and Tucker jumped at the chance to point that out.
“And there’s your problem, Frank. Just you calling them hippies, disregarding the danger they pose means you’re out. I don’t give a shit if they’re circus clowns moonlighting as drug manufacturers. They’re criminals and criminals are dangerous when their rackets are threatened.”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Yes, you did. You’ve already made up your mind this will be an open and closed easy job. There’s no such thing. You never know what you’re walking into. You never know where a case will take you or how long you’ll be under. A case like this is fluid and you need to be prepared to follow where it takes you, not the other way around.”
I needed to stop this back and forth before it turned any uglier. The problem was, to do that I’d be sealing my fate. Before I could figure out a way to finesse this without committing myself to an operation that included spending a lot of time with Tucker, a man appeared in the doorway.
He was older now, his dark hair had threads of gray that in my humble opinion only added to his good looks. But it was the green eyes I’d never forget that had me pushing my chair back from the table.
“Specialist Monroe,” Lenox drawled.
“ Sarnt ,” I smoothly returned, falling back into Army slang.
The good ole days when everything was easy.
“I heard you were coming in, couldn’t miss my chance to see you.”
“I can’t believe you remember me.”
A handsome smile tugged at his lips.
“Forget the woman who saved my life?”
“I think that’s a wee bit of an exaggeration.”
And it was. I hadn’t actually saved his life, I was just the first person who called out the sniper.
“Wasn’t me who saw the glint of the scope on the rooftop.”
“My angle was better than yours,” I reminded him.
One could say my first time out of the Green Zone had been enlightening. It was my first lesson in battle tactics. Within the first hour I’d learned more than I had all the previous months of training. Lessons that had served me well.
No plan was foolproof. Humans were unpredictable. There would always be disruptions in the field, no one could foresee how enemy combatants would behave.
“You were Army?” Liberty Hayes inquired.
“35M.” I quickly amended to explain, “Human Intel.”
Liberty nodded but it was Lenox who spoke, “My niece was SF.”
The man’s beaming pride couldn’t be missed.
Back when I served, a woman in Special Forces was unheard of. Since then and only in recent years had any woman passed the Q Course. With a fifty-percent attrition rate, either gender passing selection was impressive.
Before I could think better of it my question slipped out, “Do you miss it? Damn, that was rude, sorry.”
“Not rude.” She smiled. “And yes, some days I miss spinning up. I thought I’d be a lifer, but…things change. Priorities change. I’m lucky I had this.” She waved a hand around the room. “It made transitioning into civilian life easier. It also helps my dad and uncles are all military and my husband is a former Teamguy so they understood and guided my way. Do you miss it?”
This conversation had turned oddly personal. I had never been a sharer, so to speak. Allowing people to know your inner thoughts and private feelings gave them insights they could later use against you. It was better to keep people at arms’ length.
“In the beginning,” I admitted but offered no more.
Liberty didn’t push for more either, sensing I’d redirect or evade. Or she didn’t have time to frame a leading question that would get her the response she wanted, since Frank cut in.
“I didn’t know you were in the Army.”
There was a lot the jackass didn’t know about me. First because he never asked; not that I’d tell him much but his self-centeredness didn’t lend itself to getting to others.
“Never came up,” I semi-lied.
The lie was, even if it had come up, I wouldn’t have told him.
“I’ll let you get back to your meeting,” Lenox rejoined, reminding me I was still standing. “It was great seeing you… dare I say it, all grown up.”
The bark of laughter that escaped surprised me. I wasn’t in a laughing mood but damn if Lenox wasn’t right. I was a kid the last time he saw me.
“Twenty-plus years has a way of doing that.”
“Don’t I know it.” He paused to look around the room. “Good I planned ahead, so now my family does all the heavy lifting and I get to enjoy my old age.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Carter put in. “He’s supposed to be retired, they all are, yet they still read the dailies and make notes.”
“Two is one, and one is none,” Lenox recited an old SEAL adage.
“Well, Dad, seeing as the reports go through six sets of eyes, I think we’re covered.”
Lenox smiled again as he made his way toward me, hand extended.
“I think that’s my son’s way of kicking me out.”
I took his offered hand and we shook. Before he let go he gave my hand a tight squeeze.
“I hope you’re well, Liza. And again, if I didn’t thank you then, I’m thanking you now. You saved a lot of lives that day and I’m not just talking about the sniper. Straight out of the gate you were impressive. I see you’ve honed those instincts and you’re putting them to good use.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Lenox, darlin’. We’re equals here.”
“Lenox.”
“Good luck with your assignment. My son will tell you the same but I want to say it first—whatever you need.”
Damn. Now I couldn’t say no to Tucker going undercover with me.
“Thank you.”
With another squeeze and a nod he let go of my hand and made his way to the door.
“Tucker, before you leave for the day, I’d like a word.”
With Lenox’s parting shot, my gaze flew to Tucker.
“I’ll find you,” Tucker confirmed.
Shit .
This was going to hell and we hadn’t even started the planning phase.
The human element, the great disruptor, it was what always screwed you.