Chapter Five
They walked silently back to the gray rental car. Derek’s pickup was parked around the corner. At the end of the block, a pair of bored-out-of-their-minds feds sat roasting in their vehicle.
Elizabeth’s shoulders drooped and she seemed defeated, but Derek knew that was temporary. She wouldn’t stay down for long.
“Why’d you tell her about the FBI tail?” She looked up at him.
“Girl thinks she’s going crazy. Give her a break.”
She sighed. “She doesn’t look good.”
“Better than last time I saw her.”
“She’s not sleeping.”
Derek glanced at her. “She told you that?”
“Her house told me that.” She stopped at the bumper and looked up at him. “You think she was being straight with us?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked back at the house. “I think she was holding something back.” She pulled open the driver’s-side door and tossed her purse inside.
“So where to?” He rested his arm on top of the door. “How about dinner?”
She gave him a quick half-smile that told him she’d been expecting the question. “I’d love to, but I’ve got a ton of work to do tonight.”
“How ’bout you forget about work and have dinner with me?”
“I really need to report in.”
He nodded. “Report in, and then have dinner with me.”
She cracked a genuine smile now. Then she shook her head. “I thought you had family waiting for you in Texas.”
“They’ll keep.”
She looked away. A breeze whipped up, picking up the loose wisps of hair.
He eased closer. “What are you scared of?”
“I’m not scared.”
“You’re afraid to go out with me.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
He stroked his finger down her sleeve and caught her hand. She didn’t pull back, just looked up at him with those clear blue eyes he’d been thinking about. “One dinner, Liz. Then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.” It was a flat-out lie, and she knew it. She looked away again, and a warm feeling spread through him because he knew he had her.
“I’ve got to make a phone call first.” She met his gaze. “I’m staying at the—”
“Marriott by the airport, I know. I saw the tag on your dash.” He smiled and dropped her hand. “I’ll pick you up in thirty.”
She suggested the sports bar across from the hotel so he wouldn’t have to drive and she could get back to her laptop at a moment’s notice. Sitting in a booth, surrounded by wall-to-wall televisions and the spicy aroma of chicken wings, she felt guilty. The rest of the task force was back in Houston now, and she doubted they were getting much of a dinner break. Gordon was driving everyone hard. The potential threat to the nation’s fourth-largest city had Homeland Security’s full attention, and people across all agencies were doing everything possible to investigate without tipping off the media.
A voluptuous young waitress delivered their beers. She flashed a smile at Derek as she reached across the table to arrange his Shiner Bock just so on a little napkin.
“Your dinner will be right out.”
Elizabeth’s beer came with a curt nod.
She glanced around the restaurant, noticing all the women eyeing her table with interest.
“So,” she said when the waitress was gone, “you were right about Hailey. She was glad to see you. Not sure I would have had the same reaction from her.”
Derek tipped back his beer without comment. He’d seemed almost embarrassed by Hailey’s response. It was a completely new look for him.
“I appreciate your help with the interview,” Elizabeth continued. She was determined to use this time to touch on everything she needed to cover with him so he wouldn’t have an excuse to call her. “It was very helpful, but I want you to know that the task force has a handle on it. We can take it from here.”
The corner of his mouth curved, but he didn’t look amused. “Why don’t I believe that?”
“Okay, fair enough. Some mistakes have been made in this case. But Homeland Security—”
“Homeland Security fucked up, big time. They should never have let Khalid go.”
He was right, but she tried to downplay it. “Khalid wasn’t talking.”
“He’d been in custody five minutes.” He set his beer down. “Sometimes you have to sweat ’em out a little.”
She glanced over his shoulder at the baseball game playing on one of the screens. She didn’t want to talk about the mistakes of the CIA or the Bureau or anyone else. What was done was done. They had to focus on what they had.
“I get the feeling something’s off with Hailey,” she said. “That something’s going on with her.”
“What, you mean besides being kidnapped, raped, and beaten?”
“Yes.”
Derek looked away and seemed to think about it.
He was very observant, and he’d talked to plenty of people under extreme duress. She wanted his impressions.
“She seemed protective of Khalid.”
Elizabeth felt a wave of relief. She hadn’t been imagining it. “I thought so, too.” She paused. “Maybe he was nice to her.”
“You’re thinking Stockholm syndrome?”
“It happens,” she said.
The waitress reappeared with two enormous platters of wings. She’d brought extra ranch dip, per Derek’s request, and he thanked her with a wink. When she was gone, he looked serious again.
Elizabeth dipped a wing in sauce. “You think it’s possible?”
“Possible.” He chomped into a wing. “But I’d say not likely.”
“Why?”
“I’m not getting that,” he said simply. “Not based on what I saw.”
She watched him, wishing he’d provide more to back up his opinion. But he would probably never reveal all the details of that or any other mission. He could be very evasive when it came to his work—yet another reason he was difficult to know. How could you really get to know a man who wouldn’t discuss the very thing that was the focus of his life? It was one of the many issues she’d had stuck in her brain for the past year, especially in December, when he’d called her and tried to reconnect.
“Well, maybe I’m wrong,” she said now. “Maybe it’s just that Khalid was kind to her. In her debriefing, she mentioned him bringing her water and sometimes food.”
“What a host.”
She wiped her fingers on a napkin and leaned back against the booth. “You know, the Afghan police suspect him of stealing the uniforms used in a spate of suicide attacks, ones where the bombers walked into a secured area dressed as police officers. Khalid may be young, but that doesn’t make him harmless.”
“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir.” He nibbled his bone clean and added it to his growing pile. He’d ordered the jumbo platter and wasn’t having any trouble putting it away. “I’ve seen kids younger than him planting IEDs. Not to mention it runs in the family. His older brother’s been linked to several attacks in Kabul. And this guy Rasheed? Expert bomb maker. His handiwork’s been identified in at least three roadside bombings along Khyber Pass.”
She watched him uneasily. “You seem to know a lot about this network.”
“Honey, SEALs know a lot about a lot of things. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”
“I’m serious. Why do you know so much about this case?”
He added another bone to the pile. “It’s my business to know.”
“Because of Sean Harper.”
“Because of Sean, yeah. And because I want to see that this gets handled right.”
“Sean was in your BUD/S class?”
His brown eyes turned somber. “We were in the same boat crew.”
Last summer he’d told her all about BUD/S training—the sleep deprivation, the never-ending beach runs, the night swims and log PT. He’d told her how it systematically broke men down, day by day, hour by hour, and then—for the few who withstood it—built them back up again. The training forged relationships, and the men who endured it together became a brotherhood.
She’d seen their unusual brand of loyalty up close when she’d tried to get Derek to turn on his teammate Gage Brewer, who was suspected of murder. She’d poured her heart and soul into the effort, but it had been a waste of time. The brotherhood these guys talked about wasn’t just a slogan—it was something very real.
So the man sitting across from her now with the edgy, restless look in his eyes had lost a brother last week. It explained a lot.
“I’m sorry about Sean,” Elizabeth said, feeling totally inadequate.
He nodded. “I appreciate that.”
The waitress reappeared to clear their plates away, and Derek gave her a smile, but it seemed forced. He glanced around the bar. If he noticed all the women sneaking glimpses in his direction, he didn’t let on.
He looked at her. “How about some darts?”
“What, now?”
“No, tomorrow.” He smiled and stood up, obviously ready to change the subject.
Not to mention the mood.
He left several twenties on the table and then put his hand at the small of her back and steered her to the bar. Just that light touch of his fingers made her nerves flutter. He was treating her like his date, and she liked it.
A lot.
He peeled off another twenty and handed it to a bartender in exchange for darts and another round of beers. Elizabeth watched him, pulse thrumming. He had a confident way about him that she found way too attractive. His gaze settled on hers as he passed her another beer.
She’d known this would happen. He’d invited her to dinner, but he wanted way more than dinner. He wanted the same thing he’d wanted last summer when she’d been investigating his best friend.
He wanted sex.
And he wanted information.
And he wanted sex.
Almost a year had gone by since then, and she’d spent many solitary moments thinking about him. And the situation hadn’t changed. He was using her. Not in a malicious way, really. In fact, she understood it. He had an unshakable sense of mission. But he was using her just the same.
“You ever played cricket?” he asked, claiming an empty board.
“Think I remember it.”
“Ladies first,” he said, and handed her the darts.
She stepped up to the board and paused a moment to get her head in the game. Then she took a deep breath and made her first throw.
She smiled. “Triple twenty.”
“Not bad.” He tipped back his beer. “Looks like you spent some time on frat row when you were in Charlottesville.”
She glanced at him.
She’d never mentioned she went to the University of Virginia. He’d been checking up on her, and he wanted her to know it.
“Not me.” She sipped her beer and rested the bottle on a ledge beside him. “I was the geek always holed up in the library.”
“Who taught you darts?”
“My dad.” She threw another one. Outer bull’s-eye this time.
“He must be good.”
“He was. Darts, pool, fishing. He taught me all of it. I was the son he never had.” She glanced over and saw by his expression that he’d noticed the past tense. “He died when I was twelve.”
“It’s a shame he never saw you graduate from the Academy,” Derek said. “Bet he would have been proud.”
Derek was right. As a public prosecutor, her dad probably would have been pleased to see his only child go into law enforcement.
“My mom was there,” she told him. “And my stepdad.” Which wasn’t nearly the same, because she didn’t even get along with her mother. She made her last throw. Triple twenty again. He watched her, obviously expecting her to say more. But she didn’t like to talk about her family.
She wrote the score on the chalkboard, ignoring his expectant look.
Ever since her dad died, she’d had this feeling of being adrift. Her mother had felt it, too, and she’d run straight from her grief into the arms of an older husband. For years, Elizabeth had felt so much anger toward her for replacing her dad so quickly. And for giving into such blatant insecurity.
Elizabeth had tried to create her own security, using good grades and hard work. She’d set goals for herself and then stubbornly pursued them. She recognized the same trait in Derek—his relentless need to push. His tenacity. She doubted he’d be like that in a relationship, though. He was a SEAL. It defined him and dominated his life, and he couldn’t truly commit to anything more.
But so what? Since when was she looking for commitment?
Derek watched her over his beer as she plucked the darts from the board. She knew the gleam in his eye, and it put a familiar tingle in her stomach. She’d never aspired to be one of his one-night stands. But there was something thrilling about the idea, too. She imagined spending an entire night with him and not letting herself regret a minute.
A cheer went up across the bar. She glanced at a TV as the Diamondbacks scored a home run.
She handed over the darts, and Derek stepped up to the board.
“So this task force you’re on,” he said. “You managed to narrow down the target yet?”
“You mean in Houston?”
“I grew up in Houston.” He threw a sixteen. “It’s a pretty target-rich environment. You’ve got the ship channel, the refineries, a former POTUS. And then there’s about six million people who’d be affected if someone managed to get a dirty bomb into the country.”
“You know, now that you’re stateside, this isn’t your job anymore. That’s why we have this little thing called the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“So you haven’t narrowed it down.” He threw another dart.
“We’re working on it. You don’t have a lot of confidence in our people, do you?”
“People make mistakes,” he said. “Even feds.”
“Happens in the military, too.”
“Absolutely. Thing is, in the military you make a mistake, maybe you get your foot blown off. People learn to pay attention. Err on the side of being cautious.”
“You don’t think we take this seriously?” She was getting annoyed now—not only by his attitude but by the fact that she’d allowed herself to be lured back into this conversation.
Once again, he was using her for information. And by being here with him, she was allowing it to happen.
“Your friend Potter—”
“He’s not my friend,” she said. “He’s down from Langley. I met him yesterday, same as you did.”
“Okay, that proves my point.” He finished his turn. “He’s not a field man.”
She sighed. “How about we don’t talk about work anymore?”
He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “Fine by me.” He retrieved the darts and updated the score. “What do you want to talk about?”
She had no idea.
He propped a shoulder against the wall, and his mouth curved as she stepped in front of the board again.
“What?”
“Nothin’ at all.” He said it with the low drawl that had bothered her when she first heard it. But she’d learned to like it, especially when it was accompanied by that slow half-smile.
She ignored his look as she focused on her throws.
Another cheer from the bar, and he glanced at the TV. “This is what I miss most,” he said.
“Losing at darts?”
“People out, watching the ball game, having some brews.” He lifted his bottle. “This stuff’s not easy to come by in some of the places we go.”
And women? Did he miss them, too? From the moment they’d stepped in here, he’d been turning heads. Maybe he was used to it, and it didn’t even faze him anymore.
She finished her turn and handed the darts over to him.
“Must be hard being away so much,” she said. “I can’t even imagine it.”
“I can’t imagine anything else.”
She tipped her beer back and watched him as he threw a bull’s-eye. Even playing darts, he looked athletic.
“So you ever gonna tell me about that scar?” He glanced at her.
“We said we weren’t going to talk about work.”
His gaze narrowed. “That happened at work?”
“It’s a long story.” She turned her attention to the ball game.
“I’m listening.”
She looked at him, at the laser-sharp focus of his gaze. I’m listening. Just the thought made her chest tighten. He was listening. And she felt the urge to let her guard down, to let him in. But she knew where that would lead.
One kiss. That was all it had taken to get her in this much trouble. They hadn’t even slept together, and somehow he’d managed to shake up her world for an entire year.
He’d wanted to sleep with her in San Francisco. He’d been very upfront about it, inviting her back to his hotel room after they’d gone drinking at a pub following what—at that point—had been the single worst day of her career.
Sometimes she wished they’d gone through with it. She’d probably be embarrassed now, but at least she’d be able to place him solidly in the category of Drunken Mistakes. As it was, whenever she thought of him, she felt this burning curiosity.
What would it have been like?
She might never know, because instead of sleeping with her, he’d tucked her into bed and crashed on the sofa. In the morning he’d pulled on his cowboy boots and acted like it was no big deal.
He was still watching her, waiting. I’m listening.
He really was. And it felt so good to see him, to be near him. She felt more alive and awake in the last hour than she had in months, and she knew it was him. He had this effect on her. But if this was what it felt like just being near him, how would she feel if he ever really touched her?
Heat sparked in his eyes, and he stepped closer. “Liz . . .” He slipped his hand around her waist. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Looking at me like that.”
Noise and people swirled around her as she gazed up at him, and they may as well have been the only people in here.
“When you look at me that way . . .” His hand trailed up and settled on her shoulder. He was going to kiss her, and she watched him, heart thudding.
Her phone chimed, and she stepped back. She looked around and spotted her purse under the table. Fishing the phone out, she found a text from Jimmy Torres.
“Shit.”
Another message came in, this one from Gordon. Her stomach knotted as she read the words.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
She glanced up and started to tell him. Then she clamped her mouth shut.
“Nothing.” She dropped the phone into her purse. “I’m really sorry, but I have to go.”