Chapter 3 #2
Cate didn’t tell him she wouldn’t continue the mission without him. After what had happened that night, she’d be a fool to go it alone. So, she pulled up her big girl panties, lifted her chin, and met his gaze directly. “We have to have ground rules.”
“Name them,” he said, with a touch of relief.
She crossed her arms over her chest and stared down her nose at him—well, as much as she could, a foot shorter than the man.
“This is my case. I’m the lead. I choose what doors to knock on, who we interview, and I conduct the interview.
This is what I do. I’m good at it, and I don’t need anyone trying to manage me. ”
Draco dipped his head. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to argue?”
“No argument here,” he said. “My turn.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re in charge of the investigation,” he repeated.
“I’m in charge of safety. I decide where we sleep, how we move, if we need to walk away when something doesn’t feel right.
When I say we’re leaving. We might not have time to argue.
You can get mad at me, as long as you move out smartly. Yell at me later, but we leave first.”
“If I disagree?” Cate said, her chin rising.
“I’m fine with that, as long as we’re moving.”
Cate felt like they were in the middle of a standoff, each used to being in charge but neither wanting to give up that control.
“This idea seems problematic from the get-go,” she said.
“Most definitely.” His lips quirked on the corners. “You said rules. What else you got?”
She lowered her arms to her sides and curled her fingers into fists.
“Don’t lie to me. Not about the case or about your thoughts.
Don’t think you have to spare my feelings.
And that includes lying by omission.” Her lips pressed together.
“I’m a grown-ass woman. I can handle bad news.
” It’s the not knowing that nearly killed me.
Draco remained silent for a moment and then nodded, his eyes softening. “Deal.”
Cate’s heart contracted when she realized he meant it.
“Any other rules?” he prompted.
She shook her head. “I only had two.”
“I have one more.” He crossed the room, grabbed the chair and carried it to the door. After setting it down to face the window, he sat, stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles, looking like he had every intention of being there until the sun came up.
“You take the bed.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his head toward the single bed.
When Cate opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head. “That’s nonnegotiable. I’m not being a gentleman or being noble. In the past two weeks you haven’t had much sleep. You need to be sharp, on your toes, ready for anything.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Besides, you snore.”
Cate let out a snort. “I don’t snore.”
“You did on the drive from Vienna, sacked out on the back seat of the van, like a chainsaw that needed oil.”
Cate grabbed a pillow from the bed and flung it at him. “Liar!”
He caught it and shoved it behind his head. “I promised not to lie.”
For a long moment, she stood, staring at the man who’d broken her heart more than she’d cared to admit. She wanted to throw more than a pillow at him to make him hurt like he’d hurt her.
That she wanted to throw her arms around him scared her even more than the attacks of earlier.
“Go to sleep, Marsh,” Draco murmured.
Cate flopped onto the bed, fully clothed, lying across the covers, staring up at the ceiling, absolutely certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Too much had happened. She was afraid that if she closed her eyes, images of the driver’s back or the attacker’s dark hulk would rush in and overwhelm her.
With her eyes on the ceiling, she focused on the sound of Draco’s steady, deep breathing.
Grey light filtered through the slits of her eyelids, nudging her awake enough to smell the rich aroma of coffee and hear the low murmur of strained voices.
Cate opened her eyes as Draco entered the room, carrying two mugs and a paper bag.
“It was all I could do to keep Frau Bieri from busting in to see if you were alive,” Draco said.
Cate sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Why would she think otherwise?”
Draco handed her a mug. “I told her you’d had a rough night. She thinks I was the cause.” He set the bag on the bed beside her. “She’s not the touchy-feely kind of woman. She’s more like the kind you want on your side in a brawl.”
Cate curled her hands around the mug, absorbing its warmth. “I think I like Frau Bieri.”
“Apparently, everyone likes Frau Bieri. She just doesn’t like me.” Draco dropped into the chair and took a sip of his coffee. Despite having slept upright in a hard wooden chair, he appeared disgustingly sexy, his hair only slightly mussed and his chin sporting a heavy beard shadow.
Cate finger-combed her hair in a hopeless effort to smooth the tangles but gave up after her fingers caught for the fourth time.
“Frau Bieri sent up some kind of strudel thing.” He tipped his head toward the bag on the bed. “You should eat it so you don’t insult her.” He sipped more of his coffee and pinned her gaze with his. “And then you can tell me the part you left out.”
She frowned. “What part?”
“The part you left out when you briefed all of us about what happened in London.” His gaze didn’t waver, giving her no escape.
“You followed an address, never made it there, and suddenly, you’re in Zurich.
You said something about poking around and thinking your supposedly dead man might be alive in Europe.
” His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “What did you find in London, before or after, that you haven’t told us? ”
Cate set her mug on the tiny table beside the bed, her brow furrowing, unsure what to say or whether her hunch was even valid.
“You can’t lie to me,” Draco said softly. “Even by omission. It was your rule.”
“My rule was for you not to lie to me,” she said in a pathetic attempt to deflect his question.
“Hmm.” His eyebrows rose. “Seems that rule should go both ways.”
She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a cell phone.
Draco’s brow dipped. “Where did you get a cell phone?”
She gave him half a smile. “When you stepped into the restaurant hallway, Dmytro handed it to me. It’s loaded with numbers to Hammer, Dmytro, my father, you and other members of the Brotherhood Protectors International.
The nice thing is that it’s a smartphone.
I was able to connect to my email account.
” She ran her thumbs over the screen’s keyboard without looking up.
“Are you calling someone now?” he asked.
“No,” she said and continued going through different screens.
“Like I said in front of everyone at Hammer’s office, I never made it to the freight office in London.
I was in the car park when I was taken.” She frowned at the cell phone and focused on what she was doing.
“They took my cell phone, passport, wallet, laptop and luggage...basically everything.”
“And?”
She gave a twisted smile. “I’ve been a private investigator for several years.
I learned a long time ago that pictures, documents and any kind of evidence can be lost or stolen.
First thing I do when I find something is to take a picture of it, make a copy, store it in my database and send it to myself in an email.
Sounds like overkill, but it’s saved me a number of times.
” She touched her thumb to a button on the cell phone and held it up to Draco.
“I did that with the bill of lading I found in the photo frame in Dana’s house.
I took several pictures of it from all angles, front and back, stored it in my database and sent it to myself in an email.
What you see is the image of that bill of lading from the email I was able to access once Dmytro handed me the smartphone. ”
On the screen was a photo of the creased document laid flat across Cate’s kitchen counter.
Draco leaned close to study the image.
Cate moved and enlarged a portion of the image by touching her fingers to the screen.
“The shipper is the company in London that forwarded the freight, the one on the bill of lading’s letterhead.
The consignee is Alpenhorn Relief Logistics.
” She moved the document to display a different part.
“The description of the cargo caught my attention.” She pointed at the words.
“Emergency shelter units. Water purification tablets. Field medical kits.”
Draco shrugged. “Humanitarian supplies. So?”
“Marcus Calloway had signature authority over that specific category of supplies. He was in charge of contracts for humanitarian supplies—writing specs, approving vendors and certifying delivery.”
Draco’s gaze met hers. “You think he moved the cargo he contracted through a freight company he had personal contact with?”
“That’s how it appears,” Cate said and moved the image, zooming in on the bottom portion.
“While incarcerated in Teuling’s factory, I had two long weeks to think.
No television, radio, computer or people to talk to until Marta came along.
I went over and over what I’d seen on that bill of lading in my mind and kept coming back to the payment reference.
Every bill of lading includes a clause that tells the forwarding company who’s paying the freight charge.
What I found strange was that this one didn’t reference a US government disbursing office. ”
“Which made you question its legitimacy.” Draco looked closer. “What does it reference?”
Cate glanced up. “An address on the Bahnhofstrasse, a twenty-minute walk from here. I looked it up. It’s a private bank.”
Draco went still.
“I was sitting in the car park at the freight company when I saw the address. It would’ve been my next stop after talking to Freddie.”
“Only you never got to talk with Freddie.”