CHAPTER 29 #2
He adjusted his hips, nudged himself slowly inside her, and the pleasure began again. But this time he took it slowly, his gaze never leaving her face, as he brought her to a second shattering climax, his groans mingling with her cries as he at last claimed his own release.
AFTERWARD, THEY TOOK a long, hot shower together, getting water all over the marble floor, Zach feeling more alive and more at peace with himself than he had in years.
While Natalie dressed and made breakfast, he checked in with Rowan, who told him Quintana was being transferred to a more secure federal facility—this one run by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement—within the hour.
He’d be available for interrogation by early afternoon.
Zach found Natalie setting the table, the scent of her cooking making his mouth water. She was wearing a short denim skirt that showed off her legs, together with a lacy V-neck tank top that made the most of her beautiful breasts, her dark hair still damp, her sweet face free of makeup.
She glanced up and smiled, those adorable dimples appearing in her cheeks. “Hungry?”
He held her gaze, grinned. “Starving.”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “I hope you like eggs Benedict. I made sausage, grits, and fresh coffee.”
“Mmm.” He sat, unable to take his gaze off her while she poured the coffee then sat across from him.
How in the hell had he gotten so lucky? She was smart, brave, beautiful, sexy as hell, had a playful side in the bedroom—and she could cook. No man deserved all that in one sweet package, let alone him.
Don’t question it, McBride. Just go with it.
He took a bite of the eggs and another. “Delicious.”
She smiled, clearly pleased. “I’m glad you like it.”
He jabbed his fork at what looked like a thick, white pool of Cream of Wheat. “So this is grits?”
“You’ve never had grits?” She gaped at him. “How did you get to be thirty-three years old without ever tasting grits?”
Amused by her reaction, he scooped some onto his fork and tasted it, nodding in approval. “Tastes like . . . corn?”
“That’s what it is—a corn mash or corn gruel.”
So the mystery of grits was solved once and for all.
They ate their breakfast slowly, talking about everything and nothing at all, the moment so like Zach’s fantasy from early this morning that it was like waking to find himself living in his own dream. But dreams rarely lasted.
He washed the last bite of eggs down with a gulp of strong black coffee, then glanced at his watch. “They’re transferring Quintana to the ICE facility outside town this morning. I’ll go in this afternoon to continue interrogating him.”
The sunshine left her face, her expression anxious, shadows in her eyes. “Will you be gone late?”
He reached over, took her hand. “If you want me to arrange for someone to be here with you while I’m away, I can do that. I don’t want you to be afraid.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. Okay, well, it’s partly that. But also, I just hate to think of you being anywhere near him. I don’t know how you keep from beating the tar out of him after what he put you through.”
“It’s not easy.” Then Zach told her about yesterday’s fruitless interrogation and how he’d allowed himself one punch to the bastard’s gut before reining in his rage.
He didn’t tell her what Quintana had said to him.
“Sometimes I want to forget that I’m supposed to be one of the good guys.
If I ever get my hands on Cárdenas . . . ”
He let it go, the subject clearly upsetting to her.
“Tom called while you were on the phone. He wants to know what I’m working on. I had to tell him I didn’t have anything. That’s the first time that’s happened.”
“He doesn’t expect you to put out the same amount of material while all of this is going on, does he?”
She picked up her coffee. “I guess I could try to work something up about the forensic accountant’s report, even though she—”
“You heard back from her?” Zach didn’t know anything about this.
Natalie looked over at him. “I didn’t tell you?”
He shook his head. “I guess you didn’t get a chance.”
“She didn’t find any smoking guns, but she says the school’s endowment is very high for a private high school. And she’s right. I poked around the Internet and couldn’t find another private girls school in Colorado or anywhere else for that matter that came anywhere close to it.”
“That’s why you were logged onto the school’s website last night.”
“I was trying to figure out where the money came from, looking for major donors, hoping to compile a list you could check for ties to the Zetas—or that’s what I started doing.
” Her lips curved in a sad smile. “I got caught up looking at photographs. They have a slideshow of photos that reminded me of my years at McGehee.”
Zach stood and walked into the kitchen to refill his coffee cup.
“That list of donors is good thinking. I’ll definitely run it.
In the meantime, I’ll see whether Rowan wants to assign someone to dig into the school’s endowment.
She’s not as convinced as I am that the school is tied into this.
Are you done with that dossier on Cárdenas or do you—”
Glass shattered behind him.
He turned to find Natalie staring at nothing, her eyes wide and startled, the plates she’d been carrying in shards on the wood floor. “Natalie, are you—”
“That’s it! That’s where I saw him!” She met his gaze. “Find the dossier! That’s the connection!”
HER HANDS SHAKING, Natalie turned the pages in the Cárdenas dossier, looking for one particular photograph. “I know it’s here! I saw it! Why didn’t I remember—”
Zach took her hands, held them in his. “Breathe, Natalie. It’s okay.”
She drew a deep breath, calmed by the reassurance she saw in his eyes, her heart still beating hard. With his help, she went through the pages one by one again, more carefully this time, until she found it.
A younger Cárdenas stood in the foreground holding some kind of assault rifle, wearing aviator-style sunglasses and a broad smile on his face. In the background, also smiling, stood another man, a bit older. Both were dressed in camouflage, a military vehicle parked behind them.
Natalie pointed toward the man in the background. “That’s him. It has to be.”
“That’s who?”
“You’ll see.” She reached for her laptop, typed Whitcomb Academy into her browser, misspelling it three times in her haste. “Damn!”
Finally, she made it to the school’s website and launched the slideshow she’d watched last night. The photographs drifted by one at a time—happy girls playing volleyball, camping, working in a science lab, studying in a library. And then . . .
“See. That’s him.” She paused at the photograph of the girl receiving her award, pointing to the image of Edward Wulfe.
“Look at him. He’s older, yes, but it’s the same person.
Look at the gap between his front teeth.
Look at the helmet hair. And his face—so bland, so plain. That’s why I couldn’t remember.”
“Give me that.” Zach took her laptop, looked back and forth between the two images. “I’ll be damned. You’re right.”
“He and Cárdenas must be using the school to launder drug money.”
“That’s a good guess.” Zach set her laptop down on the coffee table and set the dossier beside it.
He stood, drew out his cell phone, and dialed.
“McBride here. I need everything you have on one Edward Wulfe and his past association with the Americas Institute for Tactical Training, often abbreviated AMINTAC. That’s Wulfe—Whiskey-Uniform-Lima-Foxtrot-Echo . . . Yeah, thanks. As fast as you can.”
He disconnected, walked toward the patio, and stood looking out at the city, his leather shoulder holster making a dark X against the white of his shirt. And for a time, he just stood there.
She stood also, his silence making her uneasy. “What is it?”
“Just something Quintana said yesterday.” Zach turned toward her. “ ‘Your enemy follows no rules, while you are bound by many,’ he said. Now I know what he meant by that.”
“Tell me.”
Zach turned to face her, his expression grim.
“AMINTAC is the bastard offspring of the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. If Wulfe worked for AMINTAC, he’s almost certainly former CIA.
He knows all the tricks, has access to all the latest technology, not to mention connections and inexhaustible cash. We are in such deep shit.”
Natalie felt chills shiver down her spine.
Zach’s phone rang. “That’s Rowan’s office, calling to tell me Wulfe’s file is missing or encrypted.” He answered. “McBride . . . What the fuck? How did that happen? . . . Goddamn it!”
Natalie’s mind swirled with a thousand terrible possibilities.
Something had happened to Julian, Marc, or Gabe.
Zach had been removed from the case by the people in Washington who’d been investigating him.
Wulfe had hacked into the USMS system, found out where she was, and was on his way with Cárdenas to kill her.
By the time Zach ended the call, her pulse was racing. “Wh-what is it?”
He met her gaze, black rage on his face. “A U.S. marshal convoy was hit on its way from the Denver jail to the ICE detention facility. Rowan’s chief deputy was shot and killed. Four other DUSMs were wounded in a shoot-out. Quintana has escaped.”