20. Nightmare #2
Curled onto her side.Dark hair across the pillow.Eyes closed.Chris leaned against the doorway.And watched her.Something inside his chest softened.After last night, she somehow looked even more dangerous to him.Not because she was Mateo Vargas’s sister.Because she’d seen him.Really seen him.Not Roman.Not the sarcastic driver.Not the criminal Mateo believed he’d hired.She’d seen Chris Walker wake from a memory that still had enough power to make his hands shake.And she’d done nothing with it.No interrogation.No suspicion.She’d simply held him.Chris rubbed a hand over his face.
“Fuck.”He needed to get dressed.Needed to go to the Bureau.Needed to tell Mercer everything he’d heard.Needed to find out whether Salazar was connected to the shipment.
Needed to become Agent Walker again before Roman had to return to Mateo’s estate.But looking at Camila—he didn’t want to leave.That realization frightened him.Chris crossed the room quietly.He sat on the edge of the mattress.Camila didn’t move.He brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek.
“Sleep.”Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead.He stood.
Walked into the bathroom.Closed the door.The shower turned on.And Camila opened her eyes.She didn’t move.Not immediately.Her heart was beating too fast.
She stared toward the closed bathroom door.She’d been awake.The entire time.
From the second Chris had slipped out of bed.She’d heard the vibrating phone.
Heard him searching for it.Heard:Sloan.
A woman’s name.Then the conversation.
Not all of it.Chris had moved into the kitchen.His voice had been low.But she’d heard enough.”You missed check-in.”
“I have company.”
“Camila?”Then Chris:“I’m not discussing this.”Her stomach twisted.
Who was Sloan?A woman?Someone Chris worked with?Someone from whatever life he refused to explain?Camila closed her eyes again as she replayed the fragments.“When are you coming in?”
“Later.”
“Mercer wants you here before ten.”
Mercer.Another name.Then the part that bothered her most.Chris’s voice.Different.
Not Roman’s lazy sarcasm.Not the playful man who stole kisses in Mateo’s kitchen.Not even the shaken man she’d held after the nightmare.Controlled.Sharp.
Authoritative.The same voice he’d used during the attack.The voice that had ordered her down.Camila stared at the ceiling.She should ask.She wanted to ask.
Who is Sloan?What check-in?Where are you going?Who is Mercer?Why do you have a phone I’ve never seen?But then she remembered last night.Chris shaking.
The scars.The gun beneath his pillow.
His whispered admission.I thought I was going to die.There was something in Chris’s past.Something bad.Something he wasn’t ready to tell her.Maybe Sloan was part of that world.Security.An old employer.
A current job.Whatever Chris did when he disappeared for hours.Camila heard the shower running.She made a decision.
Not today.She rolled onto her side.
Closed her eyes.A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened.Chris walked quietly through the bedroom.Camila kept her breathing slow.He stopped beside the bed.She felt him looking at her.For a long moment, nothing happened.Then his fingers gently moved hair away from her face.His lips touched her forehead.Camila nearly opened her eyes.Nearly grabbed him.
Nearly demanded the truth.Instead she stayed still.Chris whispered:“I’ll be back.”
His footsteps disappeared.The apartment door eventually closed.Camila opened her eyes.Silence.She sat up slowly.
Looked toward the living room.Then toward the chair where Chris had hidden the strange phone.He’d taken it with him.
Of course he had.Camila pulled the sheet around herself.Last night, she’d thought she’d finally met the man beneath Chris Roman.This morning—she realized there was still another layer underneath.And for the first time since she’d fallen for him, Camila wondered whether Chris was hiding something much bigger than a painful past.She just had no idea how close she was to the truth.
THE TRUTH IN THE DRAWER
Camila lasted twelve minutes.Twelve minutes after Chris left his apartment, she sat alone in his bed telling herself she wasn’t going to snoop.It wasn’t her business.He had trusted her enough to bring her here.He’d let her see him vulnerable last night.He’d told her about the nightmare.Well—some of it.Camila stared toward the bedroom door.Then she thought about the phone call:You missed check-in.Sloan.Mercer.Chris whispering because he didn’t want her to hear.A phone she’d never seen before.And the voice he’d used.Not Chris Roman teasing her.Not Chris Roman kissing her.Not Chris Roman arguing about stolen sunglasses.Something else.Someone else.
Camila threw the covers back.“Don’t.”
She stood.“Don’t do it, Camila.”She grabbed Chris’s sweatshirt from the floor and pulled it over her head.“Trust him.”She walked into the living room.The apartment was quiet.Normal.Painfully normal.She looked at the chair where he’d taken the mysterious phone from his jacket.Nothing.
Chris had taken the jacket.Of course he had.Camila folded her arms.“This is insane.”She should go home.She should call a car.She should wait until Chris returned and ask him directly.Who is Sloan?What check-in?Where did you go?
She turned toward the bedroom.And stopped.The dresser.Camila stared at it.
“No.”She took one step.“Absolutely not.”
Another.“I’m not that woman.”She reached the dresser.“I am apparently that woman.”Camila opened the first drawer.
Socks.She almost laughed.“Very suspicious.”She closed it.Second drawer.
T-shirts.Boxers.Nothing.Camila exhaled.
Good.See?She was being ridiculous.She reached for the third drawer.Pulled.It stopped halfway.Something heavy inside shifted.Her expression changed.Camila pulled harder.The drawer opened.She stared.Two handguns.Boxes of ammunition.Her stomach tightened.
“Jesus, Chris.”One gun under the pillow had been enough.Three?She didn’t touch them.She moved several folded shirts aside.
Something underneath.A file folder.Thick.Camila’s heart started beating harder.Don’t.She knew she shouldn’t.But every strange thing about Chris came rushing back at once.The driving.The scars.
The fighting.The way he watched exits.
The way he recognized a tail.The hidden phone.The missed check-in.Mercer.Sloan.
Camila reached for the folder.Something was wrapped beneath it.A dark T-shirt.
She pulled the folder free.The shirt caught.Something heavy slipped from the fabric.It hit the hardwood floor.CLANG.
Camila jumped.“Shit.”She bent down.
Not a gun.Metal.Black leather wallet.
She reached for it.Picked it up.Turned it over.And the entire world stopped.Gold.
Blue.An eagle.Letters stamped into metal.Three of them.FBI.Camila stopped breathing.“No.”Her fingers started shaking.
She opened the leather credential case.
A photograph stared back at her.
Chris.Younger.Short blond hair.Clean-shaven.Serious.Wearing a dark federal uniform.And beneath it—his name.
Not Roman.
CHRISTOPHER JAMES WALKER
SPECIAL AGENT
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
Camila’s mouth opened.Nothing came out.She read it again.Christopher Walker.
Again.Christopher Walker.Again.Her brain refused to understand what her eyes already had.“No.”She dropped herself onto the edge of the bed.The badge remained in her hand.“Chris Roman.”Her voice shook.
She looked at the photograph.“Chris… Walker?”And then everything slammed into place.The driving.Federal training.
The gun.The scars.The fighting.The exits.
The surveillance awareness.The nightmares.The mysterious disappearances.The second phone.
The morning check-ins.Sloan.Mercer.
His refusal to answer questions.The driving.Where did you learn to drive like that?Silence.What exactly is your occupation, Chris Roman?Keeping you safe.Who are you?You know who I am.
Camila stood abruptly.“Oh my God.”She stumbled backward.“Oh my God.”Her hand covered her mouth.Then she looked toward the dresser.The file.No.No, no, no.She didn’t want to open it now.She already knew too much.But her brother’s name was visible on the tab.VARGAS, MATEO — ORGANIZED CRIME / NARCOTICS
Camila froze.Her entire body went cold.
“No.”She grabbed it.Opened it.Photographs.Mateo leaving restaurants.
Mateo entering warehouses.Mateo’s vehicles.License plates.Addresses.Dates.
Times.Associates.She turned the page.
Diego.Photographs.Background information.Known movements.
Vehicles.Another page.The mansion.
An aerial photograph of her home.
Entrances marked.Security cameras.
Gate locations.Guard rotations.
Camila couldn’t breathe.She turned another page.And saw herself.Her own photograph stared back at her.CAMILA VARGAS.“No.”Her hands shook violently now.She read.Family connection.Known employment.Vehicle.Routine locations.
No confirmed participation in criminal activity.Potential proximity to primary target.Camila threw the page away from herself as though it had burned her.“No!”
She stood.Papers spilled across Chris’s bedroom floor.Mateo.Diego.Men who worked at the mansion.Cars.Businesses.
Restaurants.Warehouses.Then—the garage.The auto shop.The place where she’d first seen him.The place where she’d walked inside and found a gorgeous blond stranger beneath the hood of a car.Something interesting?Not anymore.
Camila stared at the photograph.The garage had been part of it.From the beginning.“Oh my God!”She screamed it this time.Her hand flew to her mouth.
Tears immediately filled her eyes.
“No.”Chris hadn’t accidentally entered their lives.He’d been placed there.The jobs.
Mateo.The chase.Her.All of it.She found another page.UNDERCOVER IDENTITY: CHRIS ROMANCamila’s knees nearly gave out.There it was.The man she’d fallen in love with reduced to a heading on a federal document.Chris Roman wasn’t a person.He was an identity.A lie.She backed against the dresser. “No.”Tears spilled down her cheeks.
She thought about last night.Holding him after his nightmare.His head against her chest.His hands shaking.His whispered confession that he’d thought he was going to die.That had been real.Hadn’t it?The bullet scars were real.The nightmare was real.His fear had been real.But what else?