Chapter 13 #2
“You’d need a key fob to get into the building unless someone buzzed you in.”
“Those can be easily replicated. Or, hell, anyone could wait near the entrance and slip in behind a person going in.”
“Okay, point taken. My parents have a key. Emily, and one of my interns because he drops off my dry cleaning.” She held up a palm. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t let my intern do grunt work, but—”
He shook his head. “That’s a lot of territory to cover.
I need a list of everyone who comes into regular contact with your mom and father, as well as you.
” He grabbed a notepad off her desk. “We need to check to see if any of those people ever entered your apartment without you. It’ll be someone who knows your schedule, too. ”
Five minutes later, she handed him a list of names; he snapped a picture of it and texted Jess the photo. “We should focus on Emily and your intern and see when they’ve been in and out of your building while we wait for Jess to look over the list.”
He eyed his watch. A SEAL Team would be hitting Teteruk’s compound at 7 a.m.—not even eight hours from now. He’d give his left nut to be there. Surely Teteruk was already gone, but still.
“Tell me about Emily’s boyfriend. How long have they been dating?” He set his laptop back on the desk, and they began looking over footage together.
“Hm. Maybe four weeks. His name’s Blane Davis. I already did a background check on him, though.”
He peered at her out of the corner of his eye. “Come again?”
“Emily doesn’t make the best decisions when it comes to guys. So I had my friend Javier look into him.” She innocently lifted her shoulders. “He came up clean, minus a few parking tickets.”
Shit. That made him like her that much more.
Maybe she misunderstood his expression because she replied, “What? Wouldn’t you do the same for a friend?”
“None of my friends date. Well, not until recently.” Not until Luke up and fell in love, on an operation no less.
“No? Too busy? Too dangerous, given the covert work you do for the president?”
“I—” Swallowing the retort, he hung his head, and a smile found his lips. “Funny.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She blinked her long lashes a few times.
“Bat those eyes all you want. I’m not falling for it.”
She offered a nonchalant shrug. “I guess that’s a dose of truth you can’t deliver, huh?”
He grumbled and pointed back to the computer, hoping to quiet the sudden onslaught of thoughts that battered his mind—thoughts of his team, of the people he’d lost .
. . of what he was giving up for his country.
A real home—a woman to love . . . But if Luke could do it, maybe it was possible to find a balance?
“Let’s focus,” he said, more so as a command to himself.
“Are you thinking this deliveryman had someone else plant the bug and camera?”
“I’m not sure, but we’ll figure it out, and hopefully, soon.” He paused the screen a moment later. “Who’s that?”
She leaned closer to the computer. “My intern, Phillip. He’s the one who delivers my dry cleaning every Monday morning.”
He sped up the tape. “Why would it take seven and a half minutes to drop off your clothes?”
“I, uh . . . don’t know.”
“Will he be delivering your dry cleaning tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but there’s no way someone got to him. He was vetted by the FBI to gain clearance to work with my team.”
“Everyone has a weakness. This game is all about finding and exploiting it.”
She was quiet for a moment, staring at him. “And what’s your weakness?” Her voice had dipped lower at the question.
His palms landed on the desk as he gathered his thoughts and tried to slow his pulse, which began to peak. “I think it’s fairly obvious.” He stood and strode to the window, then peeled back the floor-length drapes to view the city he’d spent every waking breath to protect.
“Your brother?”
He caught her gaze in the window’s reflection and fought the urge to bow his head and hide his eyes like a coward. “Him.” He paused. “You.”
Her long fingers drifted to the nape of her neck.
“Ever since you bumped into me in Mexico, my mind has been all kinds of messed up,” he admitted.
“I’m guessing learning the truth about Jason didn’t exactly do wonders for you, either.”
He faced her and crossed his arms, leaning against the window.
Words were unnecessary.
He watched as she bunched her hands at her sides and lifted her gaze toward the ceiling.
“I was doing fine until that picture showed up.” She faked a laugh.
“I mean, I was getting pretty good at appearing to be fine, I should say. I was a hot mess at first after Brad died—with the partying and drinking—but then I redirected my focus on revenge.” Her eyes briefly fell closed. “On justice.”
When she opened her eyes, he could almost see right through her, to the very core of her being.
“When my dad became the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I thought maybe that was my chance. I could use his clout to access classified intel—to find out if there was any news or hope that the terrorist who’d killed Brad and Jason would be taken out.
” She gave a half-hearted shrug. “So, I pulled myself together and worked my ass off to land a position with him.”
And your dad knew the truth, all that time. “That’s why you ditched being a lawyer, huh?”
“Yeah, at first.” A long sigh left her lips. “But every time I tried to look into the operation, my dad shut me down. So, I started to redirect my attention. I guess it was unhealthy to have such an obsession over revenge, anyway.”
The truth about her father was on the edge of his tongue, but Sam had already been through the wringer. Could he really deliver the blow right now? Maybe he was beginning to understand why she’d kept her identity hidden from him for so long.
“Anyway,” she said, tipping up one shoulder, “I started traveling and visiting areas hard-hit by war, and it made me realize I had to move on. Other people needed me.”
He knew how that felt, but doing it was easier said than done. “And then you got the picture.”
She gave a slight nod. “And it blew my glass world to pieces,” she said, her voice a mere whisper of sound.
He wasn’t going to tell her about her dad right now.
Instead, he took a breath—and a chance. “I was always the adventurous one. My brother was the book-smart kid who stayed out of trouble. And when he told me he was going to try and make it into the SEALs, I honestly didn’t believe him.
I thought he was trying to prove something to me.
He was the older one, so he was ‘supposed’ to be the tough guy.
Maybe he thought he had to look out for me.
” He shook his head. “But he needed someone to look out for him, too.”
“You couldn’t have saved him.”
His gaze pierced right through her. He was actually talking about his brother. He never did this. Not with the shrinks. Not with his friends. Not with anyone. And yet . . .
“I thought if I joined the Teams, I’d be able to get justice for him. Sort of like you, I guess.”
Maybe they had more in common than they’d realized—way more than what they’d discovered during their flirty rapid-fire questions down in Mexico, which felt like ages ago.
“Some similarities,” she admitted. “Only you went into combat zones to fight, and I went to war-torn countries once the dust had settled.”
He offered her a fleeting grin. “Not so much at first. Flying hawks and jets wasn’t enough. I needed to be on the ground in case the green light ever came to catch Jason and Brad’s killer. I needed to be one of the guys called in to take down the terrorist.”
The quiver in her bottom lip gave him pause. His eyes remained focused on her mouth for a long moment.
“I gave Jason a hard time when he was in BUD/S, but in truth, I was worried about him. Worried about him going to war. And damn, when I joined I almost missed the cut-off age—I was the one who barely made it.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“I’m just lucky.” He shrugged. “I’ve always been the lucky one. But I wish I could’ve given all of my luck to him.” An unfamiliar lump of emotion gathered in his throat. “I’d trade my life for his in a heartbeat.”
“Of course you would.” She took a hesitant step his way. “That’s the kind of man you are.” Her palm rested over his heart, which began to pound harder. “The kind of man I’d expect you to be.”
He tried to shake off her words, but she lightly tapped at his chest. “Jason would be proud of the man you are.” Her voice shook, and then he realized something inside of him was shaking, too.
“I was flying when he died. I was in the air, and I know it sounds strange—but damn, it was like I could feel him pass through me—going up.” He wasn’t sure if he believed in the afterlife, but he also hated the idea of there just being nothing, which would mean his brother was truly gone. “When I landed, I was told he’d died.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
A hardness in his chest had him gasping for breath, and then she did something . . . something that had him locking his biceps tight at his sides.
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug.
He wouldn’t cry.
He was a thirty-seven-year-old man.
He was a SEAL.
But fuck if his chest didn’t hurt.
He scooped his hands free of his pockets and pulled her even tighter against him.
“You’re supposed to hate me,” she said through a broken laugh a few minutes later when she pulled back and swiped at her cheeks.
“Yeah.” He nodded and found her eyes, his palm cupping her face. “But you’re making it really hard.”
“They tossed the place, but someone had already got to him.” Jess’s words took Owen’s breath away.
“Any blood? Sign of a struggle?” He rose from his seat and cupped his mouth, as the possibilities raced through his mind.
He wanted Teteruk to live.
He needed him to still be alive.
Then, he could kill the bastard himself.