Chapter One

 

 

Dillon leaned against a sturdy tree trunk with his phone in his hand and watched as two of his men passed by with the loaded wheelbarrow. Normally at this stage of a job he was in full vigilant mode no matter how many men he had watching the site. Right now, however, he was too preoccupied to act as sentry to their security situation.

He paid only partial attention to the men as they dumped the wheelbarrow’s load on top of the pile of gasoline-soaked wood they’d built earlier for this purpose. In the sunlight, the plastic containing the body parts glinted. He didn’t worry about burning them in broad daylight. Not out here.

One lit match, and whoosh, the whole pile went up in flames. The wave of added heat hit him even over where he stood fifty feet away.

Dillon wiped his sleeve over his sweaty face. Wasn’t even May yet and Houston was already sweltering, the humidity clinging to his skin like a film and making it hard to breathe.

God, he hated this place. Wouldn’t have come back at all except for this job…and the recent lead in the investigation he had to follow up on.

He bit back a sigh, wishing there was another way. It wasn’t like him to procrastinate about something like this. When it came to business, there was no room for hesitation, and he always did what had to be done, without any twinges from his conscience.

This time was different.

While the remains of his biggest business rival burned before him in the small clearing, he stared at the prepaid phone in his hand, the stink of charred human flesh mixing with the acrid tang of smoke and gasoline. Back in the early days it would have made him puke. Not anymore.

Still, he wasn’t entirely dead inside.

He couldn’t be, because he dreaded what he had to do next. Had been putting it off for the better part of two days now. Since he was at a dead end, he was growing desperate. He couldn’t hold off any longer, no matter how unpleasant the task he had to undertake, and this was the only possible way he could find her now.

Letting out a slow, deep breath, he pushed aside the guilt threatening to resurrect what was left of his withered conscience, and locked it away where he couldn’t feel it. From memory, he dialed a number he’d learned years ago, let his mind go blissfully blank for the few moments while it rang and a plume of dark, oily smoke rose into the sticky air.

“Hello?” a familiar female voice answered, slightly raspy with age.

Thank God the old woman was still alive, because she was his best chance now. “Janet? It’s Dillon.”

A moment of stunned surprise filled the line. “Dillon! Oh, honey, how are you?”

Bittersweet pain arrowed through his chest. She’d always been so warm and sincere, had truly cared about him, for whatever reason. “I’m good. Sorry it’s been so long since I called last.” He forced his voice to be light, playing the part. It was good to talk to her again, but the purpose for the call ruined it.

He shot the shit with her for a few minutes, catching up while being vague about his activities until a natural pause happened. “So I was wondering, have you heard from Taylor at all recently?” he finally asked.

“As a matter of fact, I just talked with her about a month ago. She called me out of the blue one day, saying she’d moved out of the state.”

“Where did she move to?” Last he’d heard, she was still here in Houston. That had been a year ago, though.

“Washington.”

He tensed. “The state?”

“No, as in D.C. She started a new job there.”

“Really?” Long way to move for a job, although it synched with the rumors he’d heard. “Is she not doing accounting anymore?” He was fishing, but hopefully not in a way that Janet picked up on.

Of all the social workers he’d dealt with in his earlier life, Janet was the only one he’d liked. She was one of only two people on this earth who had ever truly loved him. And he had no choice but to betray both of them. Not if he wanted to stay alive.

Thinking about all the ways she’d gone above and beyond for him, even to the point of taking him into her own house when he needed a safe place to go, made him feel like shit that he was using her this way now.

“I think so, but now she’s working for the government or something.”

His stomach clamped tight. No. Were the rumors true, then? He didn’t want them to be.

He waited for Janet to elaborate, but when she didn’t he was forced to fill the gap to keep the conversation going. “Oh, that’s great, good for her. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, thought I’d try to get in touch with her again. When I tried her old number, it wasn’t in service anymore.” And now he understood why his search hadn’t turned up any leads here in Houston.

“I think she’d love that,” Janet said, her voice full of warmth. “You two were so close, I always hoped you would stay in touch.”

He squelched the twinge of guilt. He didn’t have time for it. “Would you mind giving me her number?” He would have asked if she had Taylor’s address, but didn’t want to come on too strong and arouse her suspicion.

“Sure, I’ll text it to you. Tell her I said hi.”

“I will.” After ending the call, he waited for the number to come through while his pulse thudded in his throat. When it popped up on the screen of his burner phone, that unfamiliar apprehension began to surface again.

This time there was no shoving it aside. Of all the evil things he’d done in his life, this was surely going to be the one that landed him in Hell.

 

****

 

“You are worthy.”

DEA Special Agent Taylor Kennedy stared into her own eyes in the bathroom mirror as she repeated the same words she’d said to herself every morning for the past three years. Somewhere between that day and now, they’d lost their impact, but she was a creature of habit who thrived on routine and refused to stop simply because the message didn’t resonate with her these days as much as they once had.

“Okay. Moving on,” she muttered in annoyance, giving her light brown, shoulder-length hair a final fluff before exiting the bathroom. Taylor had a busy day ahead of her, helping her friend Charlie unpack at the new apartment she’d just moved into with her boyfriend.

On the way through the kitchen she snagged her phone from where it was charging in its little station she’d set up on the counter, and paused to glance around. A sense of peace and satisfaction filled her at the sight of the spotless kitchen. No dishes in the sink, countertops gleaming, glass cooktop scrubbed clean. Everything in its place, and a place for everything. Exactly the way she liked it.

Exactly the way she needed it, in order to function mentally at an optimum level.

She pulled her shoes from the little basket she kept beneath the padded bench by the mudroom door and grabbed her coat and purse from the panel of mounted hooks she’d installed on the wall.

In the midst of setting her alarm, her phone rang. Not recognizing the number with the out of state area code, she didn’t answer, set the house alarm and hopped into her car in the neatly-organized garage.

Charlie’s place wasn’t going to look like this when they were done with it, so Taylor had to make an effort to scale back her anal-retentive control freak tendencies today.

Fifteen minutes later she knocked on Charlie’s new apartment door. Her friend pulled it open, gave a big smile and enveloped Taylor in a tight hug. “So glad you’re here! Help me,” she said, grabbing Taylor’s hand and towing her inside. “I’m so overwhelmed I don’t even know where to start.”

A mountain of moving boxes filled the hallway, kitchen, and spilled into what looked like the living room. “Oh, wow…” Taylor didn’t know what else to say. It was worse than she’d imagined.

“I know, right? Worst timing for Jamie and the team to get called out of town.”

“Yeah, another day or two later would at least have let you guys get settled in.” They’d just moved into the two-bedroom unit together yesterday.

Charlie turned sideways to squeeze past the boxes blocking most of the hallway, her long, dark brown hair hanging damp between her shoulder blades. “I figured I’d start in the kitchen, since I’m gonna need food sooner or later. Though we managed to get the coffee pot out this morning before he left.”

“Good thinking.” Taylor’s phone rang in her purse. Fishing it out of its little pocket, she checked the number and put it back again when she saw the same number as before. Very few people had her number aside from her coworkers, so she assumed it must be a wrong number.

She followed Charlie into the surprisingly spacious kitchen—well, it would be once they got all this stuff unpacked and put away—and took a quick survey. “Do you care how it’s organized?” Because there was a right way and a wrong way when it came to organizing things in order to make a functional space. Not that Taylor would say that aloud. She tried not to fly her OCD freak flag high in public.

“No, but I know you’re the queen at that sort of thing, so have at ‘er.”

Oh, thank God, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. “Deal. Let’s start over here with this pile.” She gestured to the one marked “dishes and silverware”.

They started with the one nearest them and tackled the mountain from there. Taylor quickly decided where everything should go to maximize functionality and convenience, and Charlie went with it. Within two hours they had the kitchen and master bedroom all squared away, and Taylor was fully invested in finishing the job.

Charlie’s phone rang. She answered, chattered away for a minute from the depths of the master walk-in closet, then poked her head out. “That was Piper.” Charlie’s soon to be sister-in-law, engaged to the youngest of Charlie’s three brothers, Easton, who was also a member of FAST Bravo. “She’ll be here in twenty minutes, with pizza.”

“I was so craving pizza.” Taylor left the boxes in the master bathroom for Charlie to deal with, since she didn’t want to invade her friend’s privacy by rummaging through toiletries and other personal items. Instead she headed out to the hallway to start unpacking linens. “How did you guys get all the furniture moved in here so fast, anyway?” she called over her shoulder.

“The team guys all helped,” Charlie replied from the master bedroom. “Three of them loaded the trucks, two of them drove the trucks over, and Logan and Easton helped us carry everything in.”

Logan.

At the mention of that name, two distinct and opposite images of the incredibly sexy Bravo member popped into her head. One from the night of their fake “date” a few weeks ago, when they’d been doing surveillance while Jamie and Charlie were at dinner during an undercover op. He’d sat across the table from her in the swankiest restaurant in midtown Manhattan, in a dress shirt and slacks, his blue-green eyes fixed on her in a way that had made her aware of every masculine inch of him.

Too aware.

The other was of Logan the next day in full operational mode, M4 in hand as he burst from the van she and the other members of the surveillance team had occupied in Long Island. In those moments, he’d been nearly unrecognizable to the man the night before, transforming from laid-back to lethal warrior in the blink of an eye.

She couldn’t decide which version was sexier, but the combination of the two, knowing he was both of those men, was hot as hell. Their paths had crossed a few times since then and he’d been friendly enough, but she’d maintained a careful professional distance from him, unsettled by her instinctive reaction to him.

“That was nice of them,” was all she said. She didn’t want Charlie to suspect she was attracted to him. When Charlie got wind of something like that, she turned into a damned bloodhound.

“Yeah, they’re all great.” Charlie emerged from the bedroom and stepped into the hallway with some empty, folded moving boxes.

“Any idea where they are now?” Probably out of the country.

“Somewhere down in the Caribbean, I think. Jamie couldn’t give me details,” she said, making a face as she set the boxes aside. “I should be used to it, after all the deployments and missions my brothers have gone on, but it’s different when it’s your man.”

Taylor couldn’t relate, but she could imagine and sympathize. “I’ll bet.”

Charlie stopped to fish her phone out of her pocket, smiled as she looked down at it. “Speak of the devil. Hey,” she answered. “Everything good?”

Taylor mostly tuned Charlie out as she went through the next box, organizing the linen closet into four sections. One for sheets, one for extra pillows, one for quilts and the other for towels. Probably wouldn’t stay all neat and tidy for long, but at least it would start out well. And what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“Yeah, Taylor’s here helping me, and Piper’s on her way over.” Charlie’s brown eyes shot to her from down the hallway, and she winced before pulling the phone from her ear, turning it toward Taylor. A male voice was shouting something out of it, but Taylor couldn’t make out a single word. “Logan says hi.”

“Oh.” He did? “Um, say hi back.”

But Charlie thrust the phone at her, gave her an admonishing look when Taylor started to protest.

Feeling all kinds of awkward, Taylor took it. “Hi.”

“Hey, long time no talk to,” Logan said, his deep voice sliding over her like an invisible caress. “How’ve you been?”

She had no idea why he even wanted to talk to her right now, and her awkwardness was worse with Charlie right here. “Fine, just busy working. You?”

“Same. Any big breaks in the case yet?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Not for lack of trying though. As the lead forensic accountant in her department, she’d been putting in ten to twelve hours a day since that terrifying afternoon in Long Island, and had little to show for it.

“Well, I’m sure you guys will crack it open sooner or later.”

“Hope so.” Seriously, why had he asked to talk to her? They weren’t friends, and hardly knew each other. Was he bored? On a layover?

“We never did get a chance to talk after the op. We should grab dinner together sometime after I get back. Want to?”

What? She blinked. “Do you?” The way she remembered it, their previous dinner “date” had been forced and uncomfortable and weird, and she’d been certain he’d hated every minute of it. Had she missed something?

He laughed, a low, amused chuckle that set off a flutter deep in her abdomen. Oh yeah, the man was dangerous all right. “Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. I meant to tell you that you handled yourself damn well under pressure, getting the response team organized to back us up.”

Please, she’d done jack, making a series of phone calls while he and Jamie had rushed headlong to mount a rescue on their own. “Which you didn’t end up needing.” By the time the help she’d called arrived, it had all been over.

“We were lucky. So? You in? No pressure.”

So, not a date, then. Just so she was clear. She pushed the ridiculous disappointment aside. “I…sure.”

“Great. Well, duty is calling. Hang on, I’ll put Jamie back on.”

“Okay.” It was on the tip of her tongue to urge him to be careful, but that seemed too personal. “Bye.”

She handed the phone back to Charlie and whipped around before her friend could see the blush trying to work into her cheeks. He hadn’t asked her on a date, it was just to catch up and talk about the Long Island op. No need to be nervous about it. Or wish it could lead to something more.

Charlie finished up her conversation with Jamie just as the doorbell rang. “Oh, I gotta go. That’s Piper. Be careful, okay? Love you.”

Taylor carried an empty, flattened packing box into the kitchen just as Piper stepped inside in a whirl of energy, and smiled at them both. “I brought sustenance. And wine.”

“Yay for wine,” Charlie exclaimed, grabbing the bottles from Piper’s hands. “We’re making pretty good headway already.”

“I’m impressed,” Piper said, her blond ponytail swishing down the middle of her back as she carried the pizzas into the kitchen.

“It’s Taylor’s doing. You two are like peas in a pod when it comes to organizing stuff,” Charlie said, already in the process of uncorking one of the bottles. “And I just talked to Jamie. The team’s just about to head out, wheels up in twenty minutes. He said he’ll text me a thumbs up when the op’s over, so I know he’s okay, just like Easton does with you.”

Piper smiled. “It helps me stay sane when he’s gone, so I don’t worry as much.” She switched her attention to Taylor, her expression curious. “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

“Me? No.” No time for that BS. Dating wasn’t her thing. She wasn’t good at it, and the past few disastrous attempts confirmed that. Charlie had saved her during the last one a few months back by sending a fake emergency text about an hour into dinner.

Taylor grabbed some paper plates and napkins from the pantry and set them on the counter. “Thanks for the pizza,” she said to Piper.

“You’re welcome. Let’s eat.”

“How is Logan, anyway?” she asked Charlie, trying to sound casual and not overly interested.

“He’s good.” Charlie snagged a piece of pizza and dug in.

“How well do you know him?” He was the newest member of the team, had only been with them a couple months.

Charlie stopped mid-bite, her teeth sunk into the pizza, then hurriedly chewed and swallowed. “Not that well. Why?”

Taylor shrugged. Damn. She was at risk of overplaying her hand. “No reason.” She’d spent some time with him during the op, but not enough to get to know him well. Still, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit she was intrigued by him and would like to get to know him better.

And of course that had nothing to do with why he’d been featuring in her fantasies recently.

“He’s been over a few times since Jamie and I got together. Seems like a nice enough guy. You’ve spent more time with him than I have. And you’ve been on a date with him too,” Charlie added in a wry tone.

“A date?” Piper asked, looking all interested.

Taylor made a face. “Don’t remind me.” She’d felt like a total dork all night. “It was for work. Not my best moment.”

“Oh, come on, it couldn’t have been that bad. He just made a point of saying hello to you, and he asked me how you were doing yesterday during the move,” Charlie said, her gaze probing.

He had? Taylor snapped her head around to stare at her. “What did you tell him?”

A slow, startled smile curved her friend’s lips. “I told him you were having a wild fling with a guy you picked up at a biker bar last week.”

She gasped, horrified. “You didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. But I should have, to see what he would have done.”

Taylor scowled. “He wouldn’t have done anything.”

She and Logan were about as opposite as two people could get. He was friendly and outgoing, oozed confidence and charisma.

He also reminded her of a sexy lumberjack—he was from Maine, after all—with those broad shoulders and muscular build, the dark auburn scruff on his chiseled face. A rugged man’s man, who probably had to beat away women with a stick. Hence the fantasies.

Yeah, he was her polar opposite in every way except that they both worked for the same agency—though in very different ways. She spent her days poring over spreadsheets and following money trails, and he spent them kicking in doors and arresting the most dangerous criminals in the narcotics world. She liked to play it safe, to play by the rules, and he liked to live life on the edge. Not her type at all, and yet…

The truth was, she’d been thinking of him a lot more than she should over the past couple weeks since the op, and not in a professional manner. It was just… She was so impressed with how Logan had just taken charge of everything and covered Easton while he went to pull Jamie and Charlie out of the excavation pit at the building site the cartel money launderer had taken them to.

“I’m betting it was the worst date he’s ever been on, and I’m pretty sure he dates a lot, so that has to be saying something,” she said.

“I don’t know if he does or not, but it’s not like he has a ton of downtime to put much energy into that kind of a social life.” Charlie’s brown eyes held an interested gleam as she regarded Taylor. “Want me to find out for you?”

What? “No! No. I was just asking.” And now she was going to shut the hell up.

Thankfully she was saved from more embarrassment by her phone ringing once more. The same number again, but this time whoever it was left a voicemail. Since it would give her an excuse not to continue the awkward conversation she wished she’d never started, Taylor listened to the message.

“Hey, Taylor. It’s Dillon.”

She blinked in astonishment as shock detonated inside her. She would never in a million years have recognized that masculine voice, way deeper than she remembered it.

“I was talking to Janet and she gave me your number. It’s Saturday, but knowing you, you’re probably in the office. I’m in D.C. for another few days on business and wondered if you’d maybe like to get together to catch up. It’s been a long time. Anyway, hope to hear back from you. Take care.”

A torrent of emotions hit her, vivid memories flooding her brain like jagged, vibrant shards of stained glass.

She hadn’t heard from him in years. Hadn’t seen him in nearly twelve, and she’d made the decision to cut him out of her life back then because he’d been into bad shit she’d wanted no part of. Now that she was working for the DEA, she was even more reluctant to reestablish communication.

Maybe it was stupid, but knowing he’d reached out to the social worker responsible for rescuing them in order to find her tugged at her heartstrings.

When she lowered the phone into her lap a moment later, Charlie and Piper were both staring at her. “You okay?” Charlie asked with a concerned frown.

“Yeah, fine.” Except she felt like she’d just seen a ghost. Or at least heard a ghost’s voice.

“Who was it?”

“An old…” Not a friend.

That was too simple a term for what she and Dillon had shared, and it didn’t really fit now anyway, after so many years without seeing each other. More like the closest thing she’d ever had to a brother. An older, protective one.

“…acquaintance of mine,” she finished.

Taylor couldn’t believe it. Incredible as it seemed, Dillon was in town, and he wanted to see her. She’d never expected this. The logical part of her was tempted to ignore the message because of her job, but the greater sense of loyalty won out.

Bottom line, she owed him. Would always owe him for what he’d done, and the truth was, she desperately wanted to see him again.

Not ready to talk to him yet, she texted back instead.

Hey! Would love to meet up.

She suggested a place they could meet for dinner the following night. Just so she didn’t seem overly eager to see him. Does that work?

Taylor hadn’t even put the phone down when he replied.

Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing you.

A part of her was conflicted about seeing him, but she shrugged it off. It was only one dinner. What harm would it do to meet up for a few hours for old times’ sake?