Chapter Ten #3
She glanced at Andre, who nodded. Riley turned back to her boss, whose eagle-eyed stare clarified she wouldn’t be able to avoid the question.
No choice, she realized. This wasn’t the time to protect herself from embarrassment or judgment by her teammates.
They either accepted her as she was or they didn’t.
The only opinion that truly mattered to her was Andre’s. “Miles Thomas.”
The boss stared at her. “I should have thought of him before now.”
Elias frowned. “Who is Miles Thomas and why haven’t we heard of him?”
“I didn’t want to talk about him.”
The former cop tensed. “He hurt you.”
“He tried to hurt me.”
“What happened?”
Riley gave him the short version and ended with, “Thomas’ wife and teenage son stopped him before he got farther than jerking the covers off my bed.
He had his hand inside my pajama top when his family ran into the room and pulled him off of me.
Even though his attack didn’t get far, I lived in fear for years that he would find me and finish what he started.
I don’t know why I was so terrified of him.
Thomas was in prison while I lived in a homeless camp and then attended college. I never saw him again.”
“Is he still in prison?”
“I don’t know.”
Andre grimaced. “He’s not. Thomas was released two weeks ago.”
“Find him,” Maddox said.
“Planned on it, sir.”
“The resources of Fortress are at your disposal, Andre.”
“Thanks. How is Christopher?”
The boss chuckled. “He’s having the time of his life with my daughter and Rex. Chris hasn’t asked when he’s going home. That’s telling. Rowan told me she wanted to keep him as long as possible. I’d like to make that happen for her.”
So did she. The not-so-subtle hint was a good sign that she needed to get back to the search.
Riley wrinkled her nose. Sure. She’d get right on that as soon as she tracked down the person targeting her and the one who was after Andre.
Too bad days weren’t six hours longer. She needed more time to work on her computer.
Maddox headed for the door. “Keep me updated. Report every four hours. If anything happens, I want to know about it yesterday.”
“Copy that, sir.” Andre turned to Riley. “Nice job with our buddy Joe.”
“I learned little from him.”
“He knew little,” Elias said. “We learned he’s a contract killer and, like most of them, he didn’t know who his employer was.”
“How does that help?”
Andre held up his hand and lifted one finger. “First, he knew your name, so he came for you specifically.”
“Yay, me. What else?”
“Second, you’re enough of a threat to trigger a contract. That means this person has the money to hire a hitman.”
“That’s not saying much considering the quality,” Elias said. “Joe isn’t the best hitman we’ve encountered.”
“True. Now that we know who he is, we can research him, find his work accounts, and build a case against him like we did other perps when we were on the job. If we’re lucky, the account funder paid good old Joe part of his fee for taking the job.
If he has, we can trace the money back to the original kill account and drain it. ”
“What will you do with the money?” Riley asked.
“Depends. If we can build a case against him, the cops will need to know about the account plus have a record of the money flowing in and out of there in order to arrest him for murder for hire.”
Iona sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. “How does that help Riley besides putting Joe on ice? Other killers for hire will take the job.”
“That’s why we’ll drain the account,” Elias said.
“If his employer is determined to kill or kidnap Riley, what’s stopping him from putting money in another account?”
“He can’t do that if we track him down and turn him over to law enforcement.”
“That’s the goal,” Andre said. “We want to make sure this guy won’t keep targeting Riley by sending hitmen after her or coming after Riley himself.”
“We also need to narrow down the suspects looking for you.” Riley thrust her hands through her hair, rumpling the long strands. “We can’t forget Zane’s information. Someone is after you too, Andre.”
“You are the priority, babe. You’ve already evaded two kidnapping attempts. So far, I just have someone sniffing around, looking for me. He or she hasn’t made a serious move yet.”
“It’s coming.”
He inclined his head. “We’ll deal with it when it comes.”
“We have a few hours of peace if you want to take a nap.” Iona rose and poured coffee into a mug and sipped. “I would take advantage of it while I had the chance if I were you.”
Riley shook her head. “There’s too much adrenaline running through my body.”
“Then you should crash soon.” Andre held out his hand to her. “Come on. I’ll find something slow and boring on television and turn the sound low.”
“You think that will do the trick?” That technique had never worked before.
Nights like this were when Riley ended up back at Fortress, volunteering to do programming for Zane.
When she was on assignment, Riley usually ran four or five miles to burn off adrenaline.
Since neither choice was an option, she slid her hand into Andre’s.
If nothing else, she’d enjoy spending a few minutes alone with Andre.
“We won’t know unless we try.” Andre led her to the living room. “Any preferences?”
“Surprise me.”
They sat on the sofa, and Andre picked up the remote. After scrolling for a minute, he settled on a series about couples searching for their dream houses. “Is this okay?”
“It’s perfect.” She turned her head toward him. “Did you know that my secret addiction is watching the tiny house program?”
He chuckled. “No, I didn’t. Will you be able to shut your mind down and rest with this program running in the background?”
“Absolutely. This will be fun to watch if I’m awake. Otherwise, this program will be good white noise to quiet my mind.”
Andre snagged a blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over both of them, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
Little by little, Andre’s body heat along with resting close to the operative proved to be the magic ticket to dreamland. Riley snuggled closer to Andre. “Are you comfortable like this?”
“Are you kidding? This is the best I’ve felt in days.”
“I don’t want to aggravate your wound.”
“Baby, I’m not feeling anything except you right now.” He squeezed her shoulders briefly. “Rest.”
“You do the same.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Riley closed her eyes, positive she wouldn’t sleep a wink. She woke to the scent of freshly brewed coffee and toasted bagels four hours later.
“Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty.” Elias set the bagels and coffee on the coffee table.
“I can’t believe I slept that long.” She sat up. “Where’s Andre?”
“Shower. Andre woke up ten minutes ago. He should be down any minute.” He motioned toward the table. “Eat while the bagels are hot. If you want more, just sing out. I’m not a chef, but I can toast bagels with the best of them.”
“Thanks, Elias.”
“Yep.” He left the room.
Man, Riley couldn’t believe she’d slept at all, much less so peacefully. Must have been Andre who made the difference. Perhaps she needed to know she was safe on the subconscious level or, more likely, she needed to be sure Andre was safe in order for her to rest.
She was grateful for the extra hours of sleep. At the moment, she felt surprisingly good despite her interrupted night’s rest.
Riley picked up a bagel slice and took a bite. “Anything happen on your shift?”
Elias shook his head. “I figure we have a few more hours before Joe’s employer suspects something went wrong and hires a new hitman to take care of business.”
Her appetite disappeared.