“Where are we going?” Mickie asked, looking at Gray, then Dante, as she sat in a seat inside the helicopter and fastened her seat belt.  She pulled the strap tighter, remembering their last wild ride when they flew into to Galveston.

Anywhere away from here would be good as far as she was concerned.  She absolutely could not believe what they’d been through today.  She felt like she was on a roller coaster at the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, which was being controlled by the mob—and now a Mexican gang who was taking turns with them.  She was sure the feds would be wanting their turn soon, too.

When would all this be over?  Mickie was starting to wonder if it ever would.  With the feds wanting to arrest her now, unless she could find some proof of her innocence, she would likely spend the rest of her life in jail.

“Somewhere safe,” Dante mumbled as he squeezed through the aisle to get to the front of the aircraft, leaving her alone with Gray in the back.

Nowhere was safe for her right now. 

Despite the heat outside, Mickie shivered when Gray pulled the door shut and took the seat beside her.  Tears burned her pepper-spray swollen eyes and she let them roll.  Maybe that would help flush the final dregs of the spray away.

“You okay?” Gray asked with concern when he sat beside her and put on his belt. He turned to frown at her. “Why are you crying?”

“The pepper spray still burns,” she lied, the tears getting hotter and flowing faster.  Her nose joined the flow and she sniffled and swiped at it with her wrist.

Gray’s warmth and confidence soaked into her when he slid his arm behind her shoulders and pulled her into his side.  She loved Grayson’s protective instincts with her.  Actions spoke louder than words and his were screaming that he really did care about her.  She needed his comfort right now. Mickie had never leaned on a man before, not even her father.  She’d always been staunchly independent, even in college.

Right now, she needed to turn the wheel over to someone and she chose him.  She snuggled her face into his side and kissed his chest.  His heartbeat under her palm soothed her and a shuddering sigh escaped her as the aircraft lifted.

“Stay low to the deck until we’re clear of the tower!” Dante shouted, and she heard his voice even over the loud engine and rotors.

“Don’t tell me how to fly my damned aircraft!” Hawk shouted back just as loudly.  After a sudden drop that sent her stomach up to choke her, they leveled off and her body was pressed back into the seat.

“It sounds like your brother doesn’t make friends easily,” Gray whispered close to her ear, the vibration tickling the shell.

“He says he doesn’t need friends because he has enough enemies that he keeps close.”  Dante was pretty much a loner.  He had been most of his life, except for one childhood friend and a woman who broke his heart while he was deployed.  He lived a sad, lonely, and very mysterious life.

“I’m glad he came back to help you,” Gray said, surprising her. 

“You were doing just fine,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest, wanting to feel his skin against her face instead of the t-shirt.  “You found Teresa, right?  We’re making progress.”

“Definitely not enough progress.  Why didn’t you tell me the money was in your account?” Gray asked, his voice dark.

Mickie sat up and pushed away to look at him.  Was he expecting a different answer this time he asked that question? She was getting very tired of this.

“I told you I didn’t know it was in there and it’s not there now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have needed you to buy my coffee.  If I had that money, I assure you I wouldn’t have been living in a homeless shelter.”

“How’d you get to DC?” he asked quickly.

“I rode a bus for six hours,” she replied, resenting the inquisition, even though that question was a new one.  Knowing the answer was not going to help them resolve this situation.

“Who was your cousin going to meet in the city?” he asked, his voice a little looser.

“Someone named Blade, no last name,” she replied, folding her arms over her chest. 

Gray turned in the seat to spear her with his eyes. “How do you know that?”

“Because I saw his name on one of the emails with my cousin and noticed it was a dot gov email,” she replied, and his eyes narrowed.

“What agency?” he asked, twisting his body to face her.

“It was HLS, whatever that means, but had something else in the address string too…like black force or something.  I’m sorry, I don’t remember. Most of the other emails between them were from a yahoo.com email address, so that’s why that one stuck out.”

“What did they talk about in the emails?” he asked, his eyes intense.

“It was mostly planning to deliver a package of some kind.  The last email, from the government address sort of sounded like something went wrong, Blade sounded angry, and asked her to meet him at a coffee shop in DC. I assumed she went, that’s why I went to DC, but maybe she didn’t go.”  Grayson groaned and leaned his head back against the seat.  Mickie put her hand over his on the armrest.

“What’s wrong? Do you know Blade too?” she asked, her heart stopping.

He didn’t answer, but sat up in the seat to pull his cell phone out. 

“Dex, I need your help.  I need you to tap into the HLS email server and find a black team interdiction task force email for someone named Blade.  If you can’t find it there, check the FBI server.  Let me know what you find as soon as you can.”  He listened for a second. “I have no idea when I’ll be back.”

He disconnected the call, then turned to look at her again and sighed. “Can you possibly think of any reason your uncle or cousin might have been involved with a gun or drug running deal with a Mexican cartel?”

“Not to my knowledge,” she replied, her heart starting again, but at a rate that made her short of breath. “They were involved with the Mafioso, not a cartel.”

“Why would your cousin go to Acapulco, then?  That is cartel central and ruled by the Los Zetas gang.  She had to have a reason to go there, because it’s no longer a tourist destination. The fact she purchased a one-way ticket means she planned to stay there.”

“A few of the other emails I found were personal and it looked like she might have had a boyfriend.  His name was Spanish, so, I don’t know…maybe she met him there?”

“What was his name?” Gray demanded.

“Jose something—I can’t remember the last name. Rojas? Rosas? Raynos?”  Mickie was embarrassed that she couldn’t remember.  To her, it hadn’t been as important as her communication with Blade in DC. That was what she focused on with the little time she had in the office before she called the police about her uncle’s murder and ran.

“Romeros?” he supplied, looking like that meant something to him.

“You think she’s involved with that gang?” Mickie asked.

“I think something smells, and when that happens there’s usually a reason.  I need to get a laptop to find out.”

Grayson sat back in his seat and flipped through his phone until he found whatever he was looking for, then made another call.  With a curse, he left a message and hung up the phone. He dialed again, his face grim.

“Hey, Lou—we’re going to need Caleb and Levi for extra protection,” he said, then listened. “I don’t know where we’re going, but I’ll call again when we get there.  Just tell them to be ready for Hawk to pick them up.”

Mickie’s fear ratcheted up to epic proportions, and her eyes burned again. “I’m terrified now. You’re scaring me.”

“You should be scared,” he replied shooting her a hot look. “Because you didn’t give me all this information when I asked you for it, we’re behind the eight ball now.  This just got much more serious.”

Anger surged up to overshadow her fear, and Mickie spun in the seat to glare at him. 

“You didn’t ask me for all this. You only asked for the information on my uncle’s business accounts and associates.  Do you think I can read your mind, Mr. Jennings?”

“Oh, Jersey—be thankful you can’t read my mind right now,” he replied, his tone acid. “You definitely wouldn’t like what you found.”

“Dante told you the feds are involved—they want to arrest me! How is that news?” she asked, her frustration level at code red.  Could she do nothing right in this man’s eyes?

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Gray blew out a breath. “The feds I’m talking about are the ones probably connected to that email you didn’t tell me about.  They are likely with a special gang task force I worked with when I was with the bureau.”

“I had no idea,” she said, feeling guilty, but not knowing why.  This man made her feel that way most of the time…and stupid.  “How was I supposed to know that?” 

He studied her for a moment then his face softened.  “I don’t suppose you could,” he admitted, sitting back in the seat, making her feel at least a little vindicated.

“How does this affect my situation?” she asked. “Why is it worse?”

“The reason I am no longer a fed, Michaela, is because I helped the FBI bust a woman on that task force who had her hand in the gang’s cookie jar.  She went to prison, but there were others who got off scot free.  The agency weeded out a few others they thought to be affiliated, but I assure you there are still some bad apples on the task force.  It was a joint-agency task force with the FBI, HLS, ATF and ICE, so that’s a lot of apples to look through.”

“What are you thinking?” she asked, trying to piece together how all this fit.

“I think this Blade is one of the ones who was missed.  The members of Los Zetas are brutal killers, and they are trying to kill you.  That means, either the deal went sour with your uncle, or there was a double-cross of some kind.  Your brother believes the gang killed Vinny, and that makes sense.  They’re trying to tie up loose ends, which means killing you. They don’t know you don’t know anything. That means, if your cousin is in Acapulco, even if she’s involved in the theft, she may have been lured there so they can kill her too.”

“Were you one of the ones weeded out?’ Mickie asked, swallowing hard.

His head spun and he pinned her with hot eyes. “Hell no, I wasn’t one of the ones weeded out!  I could have been though, because the woman I helped put in prison tried to frame me.  In the end, I weeded myself out, because I couldn’t take the stress of not knowing who I could trust anymore.”

Her fear quadrupled.  “This makes no sense to me.  Why is the mob after me, then?  They were in DC and Lucinda, my neighbor, said they were definitely the ones who broke down my door.”

“I don’t think they want you dead, they want answers and their money.  Because you worked for Vinny, they don’t know you aren’t involved either,” Gray replied.

“We need to find my cousin before—”

“Before they kill her.  Otherwise, you have no one to vouch for your innocence and, as it stands, you’re definitely going to jail when the FBI catches up to you.” He huffed a breath and looked at her.

“Dio!” she moaned as she wilted in her seat. “This is so confusing to me. I wasn’t involved in any of my uncle’s business ventures.  I don’t know anything, so they just need to leave me alone. I really don’t care if they kill Teresa, because she deserves it!”

“That makes you the perfect target.  She had all of your financial information, your personal information, and your uncle did direct deposits into your account.  But we don’t know that happened either, and won’t until I can dig into your account, that journal, and those notebooks.  The only thing missing is access to Vinny’s business ledgers. I’m sure the feds confiscated his computers, so I’ll just have to work without that.”

“I’m sorry I’m so stupid, I didn’t think to get that too, before I left the office,” Mickie said, with that sense of hopelessness coming back. 

Grayson Jennings was one of the smartest men she’d ever met, but he wasn’t Superman.  And he was only one person.  How in the world could he ever untangle this and do it quickly enough to keep her alive and out of jail?

Gray put his hand on her thigh and squeezed it. “No, you’re not stupid, and you’re not alone.  This happens to a lot of people in the age of electronic banking and they don’t even notice.  If it happened to me, and I am an accountant, it can happen to anyone.  Don’t get worked up yet. It’s all supposition until I have proof.  I’ll get it, don’t worry.”

That was good because Mickie didn’t get it at all. But if Grayson Jennings still believed he could fix this, Mickie had no choice but to believe too.