CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Cole
At some point during the call with Detective Waller, I’ve unhooked my seatbelt and I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, my elbow on my knees, a wide expanse in front of me compliments of the private plane. I’m aware of Lori watching me, waiting for me to tell her about the call with the detective. Hell, I’m always aware of everything with this woman. She’s climbed inside me, pushed past every vow I’ve ever made to remain unattached, and latched on. Of course, she then proceeded to leave me, blue-balled and obsessed, with no way to find her, but that’s past history, and I intend to keep it that way. For now, though, I don’t look at her. I don’t encourage her questions, and won’t, until I’ve made a few wise decisions about how to best protect the both of us.
I punch in the auto dial for the investigator Reese hooked me up with last year when I was handling Tara’s father’s case. Royce Walker, of Walker Security, answers on the second ring. “Cole Brooks,” he says. “Why did I know I’d be hearing from you?”
“Because you’ve obviously seen the news.”
“I have,” he says. “Are you offering legal counsel to Tara like you did Jerome?”
“Her father doesn’t automatically earn her my counsel, but I’ll get her through the initial interviews, and we’ll go from there. I’m on a plane waiting for take-off now.”
“Obviously you need me. How?”
“After talking to the lead detective on this case, I’m of the opinion there’s more going on here than meets the eye.”
“Payback for taking down a few of his own?”
“Exactly. The detective on the case—Josh Waller is the name—I need to know his story, and I need to know if there’s anything I can use to rein him the fuck in.”
“You think he’s dirty?” Royce asks.
“If he’s protecting ‘his own’ and that means the dirty cops we ousted, then hell yes, but I’m not going to assume he knows the real story. I need to know what side of the coin he falls on.”
“I’ll check him out and look for movement in law enforcement as it relates to Jerome and Tara Knight as well.” Considering his ex-FBI background, and his team of experts that range from ex-CIA, to law enforcement, to special ops, that statement goes a long way toward ensuring I get the answers I need.
“Where are you staying?” he asks.
“Not a fucking clue,” I say, “but I’ll be there about six in the morning. I meet with the detective at noon.”
“Got it. I’ll call you before that meeting.” Royce disconnects, and I stick my phone on the armrest.
“What just happened?” Lori asks, setting her computer aside and unbuckling her seatbelt to scoot to the edge of her seat, right beside me.
I glance over at her. “My gut tells me I’m headed into trouble.”
“Revenge?” she asks.
“That’s where my head is.” My hand goes to her leg and I angle toward her. “Which is why I’m going to speak to you right now as both your boss and the man in your life. I need you to get off the plane.”
She blanches. “What? No. Why would I get off the plane?”
“I swore to you that I would protect you, sweetheart. That isn’t a statement restricted to our personal life bleeding into your career. It’s broad. I will protect you in all things and I have a target on my chest. I’m not putting one on yours.”
“That’s all the more reason why you need me. I’m a good researcher. I can find dirt on dirty cops if there is dirt to be found.”
“I just called in Walker Security to help.”
“You need personal protection?”
“No,” I say. “The name is deceiving. They do far more than security. They’re the best of the best at intel. They’ll get me the ammunition I need to protect myself should this become a real problem.”
“I’m not getting off this plane,” she insists, her jaw settling hard.
“For all the reasons you worried about us—your career and your mother—you need to stay here, woman. Let me repeat, I’m protecting you.”
“Outside of my unwillingness to desert you, my law career is just another reason I have to stay. You told me yourself, I can’t walk away from something because it’s hard. And I don’t want to walk away from corruption ever, most certainly not corruption that could hurt you.”
“Consider this an order: Get up and get off the plane.”
“Fire me, but there are two sides of our relationship now. That means what happens to you matters to me. Employer or not, I’m still going with you.”
“Holy fuck, woman,” I growl. “This is not—”
She presses her lips to mine and I tell myself to stand her up and walk her off of this plane, but damn it to hell, this woman makes me crazy. Proven by the fact that I don’t walk her off the plane. I cup her face, and kiss her, a punishing, hard kiss, that ends with the yelp of the flight attendant. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I just—I need to let you know we’ve been delayed another fifteen minutes.”
Lori surprises me by showing zero remorse for being busted by twisting around to look at the flight attendant. “Thank you, Katy,” she says. “Is it possible to get food while we wait? I haven’t eaten all day and I can’t fight with this man and win without some energy.”
She laughs. “I think you’re winning.” She tries to straighten up her face. “I mean, of course. Coming right up.” She disappears, and Lori turns back to me. “You don’t get to declare us all in, and then be half out, Cole Brooks.”
I cup her face. “Sweetheart, I have never been all in with a woman like I am with you.”
“I can help,” she whispers. “I want to help, and we can—”
“If I let you stay on this plane, you will do what I say, when I say it. Agree or I swear to you that I will carry you off this plane right now.”
“As it relates to the job, I agree,” she says.
My lips curve. “You had to clarify that, right?”
“Yes. I did.” She shoves on my chest. “Now tell me what happened on those calls.”
“There’s not much to tell.” I kiss her and release her.
“There’s something to tell,” she insists, both of us settling back into our seats. “You just tried to kick me off the plane.”
“Sometimes it’s just a gut feeling.”
“But you think the detective is out to get you?”
“I don’t think he’s an ally, that’s for sure.”
The flight attendant reappears with two boxes in her hand. “Each has finger sandwiches, cookies and chips. I can do something fancier in the air.”
“You’re a goddess Katy,” Lori says, accepting her box. “Thank you. Do you have bottled water?”
“I do,” she says, pulling one from her apron and offering it to Lori, before handing me my box as well as an additional water.
Katy departs and before she’s even shut the curtain, Lori has taken a bite of a cookie. “Isn’t that supposed to come last?”
“Why?” she asks.
I laugh. “Indeed. Why?”
“I’m a rule breaker,” she says. “You didn’t know that?”
“You’re a contradiction on that topic, sweetheart, but I like it.”
“I’m not a contradiction,” she says. “I simply choose where to be daring.”
“Such as my hotel room?” I tease.
“No,” she says sobering immediately. “What happened there wasn’t about a room or a night.”
She has my full attention and I lean closer. “Then what was it about?”
The flight attendant chooses that moment to reappear, “We’re a go for take-off this time. I don’t need to gather your items, but I want you to know we’re lifting off in ten minutes.”
She’s gone again, and Lori pulls out a sandwich. “You,” she says. “My daringness that night was about you.” And before I can reply or demand her meaning, she changes the subject. “Do you think the detective is setting up the starlet to get to you?”
“I’m letting you change the subject,” I say, “but I’m going to ask for clarification later. As for the detective and our starlet client, I do think he’s using her to get to me.”
She seems to consider that a moment. “But what can he really do to take you down?”
“You’d be surprised what a dirty law enforcement agency can do. And as for the question of what that will be, the unknown is always the elephant with fangs in the room.”
We talk back and forth, debating ways law enforcement might come at me, and how I go at them while, of course, stuffing our faces. During this brief process I’m struck by how well we bat ideas back and forth. By the way I can hit back, and Lori is right there, giving me what she’s got, undeterred by me downing an idea or placing a roadblock in front of her.
We’re cut off when the engines roar to life and Lori’s lips clamp shut while her empty box goes under her seat to allow her to buckle back up. The plane starts to move and I follow her lead. “Did I mention I don’t like to fly?” she asks, gripping the arms of her seat.
I cover her hand with my hand. “Any notable reason for that fear?”
“I didn’t say fear,” she corrects. “I simply said that I don’t like it.”
“Any notable reason not to like it?” I ask, trying not to laugh at that correction.
“Just the fear of crashing.” She laughs and looks at me. “I just admitted to being afraid.”
“Yes,” I say, and this time I laugh with her. “You did.” The plane starts to pick up speed.
“I really hate take-off,” she pants out, looking out of the window.
I squeeze her hand. “Look at me again.”
“Not right now,” she says.
“Now,” I say, reaching across her and pulling the shade.
“I need to see,” she says, reaching for the shade I hold in place.
“If you can’t see take-off, you can’t see what you can’t control. Trust me. It works. Leave it down. Try it for me.”
She inhales and lets it out. “Okay. But you better be right.”
“I am right,” I say, sinking back into my seat. “Now, look at me.”
She inhales again and turns her apprehensive, green-eyed stare on me. “You’re beautiful,” I say.
“You’re trying to distract me,” she accuses.
“Yes, but I’m doing it by telling you the truth. That’s exactly what I thought that day when you ran into me on the street. She’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
“You ran into me.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“Okay well, I’m damn glad you ran into me.”
She laughs. “You’re impossible.”
“For everyone but you, apparently. How many times have you flown?”
“Three miserable times,” she says. “And I want to get over this. I do. I want to see the world, but this is a real problem for me.”
“I’ll teach you to fly,” I say. “You’ll get over your fear.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to learn to fly.”
“You’ll have to or how will I take you to see the world?”
“We can’t see the world together until I can pay my own way.”
“You can’t make that a rule, sweetheart. I was born into money. If I want to enjoy it with you, I want to enjoy it with you.”
“How do you know I don’t want you for your money?”
“Because you want me for my body,” I joke.
“I do like your body,” she teases, but her laugh becomes a choked sound when the plane lifts off and she looks away, squeezing my hand with all her might as she does. We hit turbulence and she yelps. I reach over, pull her close and when her mouth is almost on mine, we rumble about a bit in the clouds. “Oh God,” she pants.
I kiss her, a deep stroke of tongue that allows her no escape, and soon she has turned toward me, and is kissing me back. The plane starts to level off and I unhook her seatbelt. “What are you doing?” she asks, panicked.
“Bringing you to me,” I say unhooking my seatbelt as well, and hitting the button to lower the seat to a bed. “Where you belong.” I pull her close, those words on my mouth unfamiliar, but right. This is where she belongs. With me. And she is perhaps the best thing that could happen to me on this trip and the worst thing that can happen for Detective Waller. Because I will protect her at all costs.