Dangerous to Know (24 page)

“Our ride home,” Mercer informed her.

In the distance, a pair of helicopters was hugging the line of hills.

“So, we're done bugging out?”

He nodded. It was a short, hard motion of his head. He'd slipped his mirrored sunglasses on again, making it impossible to judge his mood. The tamales were suddenly not sitting so well. Her belly knotted as the helicopters swooped in and hovered a foot off the ground.

Mercer cupped her nape, making sure she bent over as they approached the aircraft. The wind whipped up, dirt flying in her face as he guided her into the machine.

She stumbled into the backseat, fumbling with the body harness as Mercer pulled on a pair of headphones and she watched his lips moving as he spoke to the pilot. He glanced back at her, checking to make certain she was buckled in.

And then … his attention was on the mission. Completely.

The observation hit her like a punch to her solar plexus.

From the moment she'd met him, she'd suspected what he was. Spent a lot of time mentally trying to pull his cover story back because she just knew it wasn't right.

This was right.

It was what he was.

There was a beauty in it and confirmation that their time together was limited.

Well, live in the moment, girl.

 

CHAPTER SIX

Harley let out a squawk when he saw her.

Zoe stepped away from Mercer, relieved to have a reason to pull her arm from his grip. The house they were in wasn't the Malibu Cliffside location. They were somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. But once inside the house, they might have been anywhere on the globe. Once again, the windows were dressed to look normal from the street—but they were nothing but plywood boxes on the inside, so that she couldn't see out. The artificial light lent a stale, prison-like feeling to the structure. The guns Saxon and his team members wore reinforced that feeling. She reached for the parrot cage door, desperate for affection, or at least some remnant of her life.

She opened Harley's cage and let him step up onto her hand. She shook as he rubbed beneath her chin.

“Told you he was a kitten.”

It was Thais who spoke, her voice still as dusky and alluring as Zoe remembered. Even without makeup, the femme fatale looked amazing. Zoe rubbed beneath Harley's wing and felt grubby. She fought the urge to fuss with her hair while Saxon and Greer were sizing her up.

“I get along with the bird just fine,” Saxon informed his teammate drily.

“If you call needing stitches just fine,” Thais shot back smoothly.

Zoe peered at the team leader, but Saxon only curled his hand into a fist in response. “Enjoy your trip to the mountains, Ms. Magnus?”

“Helped me tighten a few things up, that's for sure.” Her entire backside felt like stone.

He choked on a sound that might actually have been a laugh. She wasn't 100 percent sure, though.

“We found the intel.”

She felt like the blood was draining from her face. “That's not possible.”

He gestured her toward Thais, his expression confident.

Thais had turned a dining room into a workshop once more. Zoe stared at it all, more than a little in awe of the way the house had been so quickly transformed into a technical command center. She slid into a chair and laid her fingers on a mouse. The screens flickered to life, showing a complex digital display of the information on the hard disk from Zoe's home computer.

“This hard drive is from your system. I had to bring in a language specialist to help me with it but it's clean. Your friend Roni is right, you need to get out more. You spend an insane number of hours working.”

“Like you clock out at five on the nose.”

Thais sent her an amused look. “Point taken.”

She clicked on one of the screens and brought up another image. “Here's the hard disk from the parrot party laptop.”

The screen was full of images of maps, broken up by pictures of Harley on kids' arms. It was a grotesque collage.

“Clever really,” Thais said as she scanned the information on her screen. “See … right here … you can see where the information is and where the pictures began to be written over it. Graphic files take up a lot of storage. Since you're using this for parties, you delete files and write over the hard drive multiple times. Very clever way to try to cover up the tracks.”

“Since the laptop was in the van, we missed it when we swept your house,” Saxon said.

Zoe felt like someone had punched her in the gut. She needed air but couldn't seem to make her lungs work. All she could do was stare in horror at the screen.

Thais rubbed her eyes. “It's going to be a bitch to piece together. There are only fragments of the intel, but it's there.”

“It … can't be…” Zoe muttered, her brain in complete denial. She felt the weight of Mercer's hard stare. His body had tightened up as he took in the information being displayed.

“Your prints weren't the only ones on the keys.”

She snapped her head to look at Saxon. “Excuse me?”

The team leader was a very unlikely candidate for a savior. As in, never in a million years. Her brain just couldn't absorb it. She blinked, trying to understand him.

“Tim's were. He used the laptop.”

“He doesn't do the parties,” she blurted out, trying to think the situation through.

“We know.”

Saxon's voice sounded like a gavel pounding. Of course they knew. Investigating was what they did. “Does he have a key to your house?” Saxon asked.

“Yes.” Her brain was working at a frantic rate. Harley snapped at her when she rubbed him too hard. Zoe jumped and put the parrot down. “In case something happened to me and Harley needed to be taken care of. He and my dad go way back.” She turned to stare at the screen again. “I … can't believe it.”

“Not many others will believe it, either,” Saxon said. “Not yet. This is circumstantial at best.”

Zoe whipped around to stare at him. But it was Mercer who answered her stunned look.

“It still happened in your home, Zoe. Unless we get a confession out of Tim, you're as likely a suspect.”

“Except that I was with you when the last intel was intercepted,” she argued.

“Intel that surfaced while you were in custody,” Saxon replied.

“What?” Zoe demanded, her brain finally shaking off its paralysis. “If that's the case, aren't things becoming sort of clear? In my favor?” She wished she could be happier, but she wasn't.

Saxon shook his head. “Might be a clever way for your partner to take the fall for you. An older guy would do that for the right person. Like a lover.”

Her brain was right back to feeling like it couldn't deal with things again. Saxon offered her no mercy, studying her from behind a stony expression.

“You'll be staying here until we decide how to shift the fact from fiction. It's in your best interest to cooperate.”

“Fine.”

She tightened her jaw and straightened her back. There was no way she was going to let any of them know how defeated she felt. Saxon looked like he was trying to peel away her facades and didn't really care if she ended up a babbling mess on the floorboards.

Not that she could really blame him. She looked back at the screen, absorbing the harsh reality of lives being reduced to a dollar figure. It had to stop and her comfort wasn't more important.

She looked back at Saxon and Mercer. “So where do Harley and I bunk?”

That earned her a reprieve from the team leader's intense stare. “Third door on the right,” he answered while shooting Harley a glare. “That thing throws more food on the ground than he eats.”

“He hates to dine alone,” she shot back.

The team leader's lips twitched before he turned away. “Your problem now.”

Zoe grabbed the cage, intending to pull it down the hallway. Harley was still on top of the cage and didn't care for the unexpected motion. He opened his wings and beat the air while telling her what he thought about it. She picked him up and soothed him. Mercer pulled the cage down the hallway while she was dealing with the bird.

The bedroom was furnished only with the basics. A double bed and a single dresser with an overhead lamp. A door opened to a bathroom. At least the lack of furniture allowed lots of room for Harley's cage. Zoe put him down on the perch on top of the cage to let him get used to his new surroundings.

“You're still in custody, Zoe.”

Mercer was watching her from the doorway. He'd crossed his arms over his chest, the stubble on his chin making him look downright mean.

“I got that part,” she said.

His jaw clenched but he had his shades on so she was left wondering what his mood was.

“We're protecting you, too.”

“I need a shower.”

The disgust in his tone from the night before was still ringing in her ears. It kept her from losing her focus and melting at his feet. Just another thing she'd wished for but wasn't so happy to be receiving.

She eased Harley into his cage and locked the door, checking it to make sure it was secure before turning her back on Mercer.

It hurt.

It shouldn't have.

Well, that about summed up her relationship with the man. So many things that shouldn't be and still were. She flipped on the shower and stood under the hot water, trying to let it wash away the tension eating at her. All she ended up doing was losing the battle against her emotions. Tears slid down her cheeks, the water washing them away.

Too bad it didn't make her feel any better.

*   *   *

She needed to call Bram.

Zoe woke up thinking about her brother and his call to her. Harley was greeting the morning and demanding that she take the blanket off his cage. Although with the way the windows were boarded up, the light of day was just a gray sort of haze inside the room.

“Your dad called it right. That bird does wake up at first light.”

Zoe jumped and blinked at Mercer. He was leaning against the door frame, looking mouthwateringly good again. It really should have been impossible for anyone to look so damn fine in nothing but plain blue jeans. Mercer made her heart skip a beat. She felt like the air tightened in the room. Like some sort of a switch was being flipped inside her.

“What are you doing in here?” she demanded. “Wait. How did you know my dad said that about Harley?”

He didn't change his position or expression. She really should have been used to his over-the-top confidence but it still grated on her nerves. She was so sick of being his target while he was disgusted by her.

“We've got your cell phone transcripts,” he said. “It's really for your own good.”

“Yeah.” She got out of bed, grateful for the fact that the only thing she'd found to sleep in was a man's sweatpants and T-shirt. She was swimming in them.

But she still felt exposed.

The first ripple was startling because of the intensity. It started at her nape and slid down her spine, awakening a hundred thousand nerve endings on its way to her tailbone.

“Don't be stubborn, Zoe.” Mercer abandoned his lazy stance in the door frame. Although it was more of a position. He never did anything as normal as leaning. The damn man was calculating to the core.

And it turned her insides to molten lava.

“I didn't argue with you,” she said, trying to rip her gaze away from the way he moved. He didn't really walk. His stride was more purposeful than that. It qualified as a prowl. Predatory.

And part of her was very interested in being his prey.

“I know your body language, baby.”

Arrogance edged his tone. It resonated with her, striking a target deep inside her core. Heat was surging up from her belly, twisting through her veins as she fought to control it.

“I told you … don't call me that.”

He was closing the distance between them. She felt him bearing down on her. Turning her back on him felt impossible, but sometimes the wiser choice was to avoid contact. She pivoted and headed for the bathroom.

Mercer shot his arm out, clotheslining her. She ran straight into it. He cupped her shoulder and turned her around so that he could flatten her back against the wall.

“What's wrong, Zoe? Afraid to be alone with me?” he asked softly.

She was caged between his arms, his hands flattened on the cream drywall. She had precious little left of her pride. Parting with it made her rebel. She worried her lower lip as she stuck her chin out at him. “Not interested in listening to you whine about me turning you on. Better retreat before I put you in the position of being disloyal to your buddies.”

He sucked in his breath, his eyes narrowing as a muscle along his neck began to throb.

“Damned if your stubbornness doesn't make me want you even more,” he said.

Want? Yeah, I like hearing him say he wants me.

Her insides twisted, the scent of his skin filling her senses. It was overwhelming. He cupped her chin when she started to look away. One last attempt at maintaining self-control.

The look in his eyes was her undoing.

A little moan got past her lips half a second before he claimed her mouth.

It was a hard domination. He took her lips, covering them with his own before unleashing a hard kiss that shattered her illusion of what kissing was.

But it wasn't bruising. He held her head, framing her face with one large hand and somehow managing to control his strength perfectly. It was aggressive without being biting. Controlling without crossing the boundary into force. It set her senses reeling and her thoughts scattering.

She reached for him, opening her mouth and kissing him back with a fury that singed her.

“My baby…” he growled against her lips. He held her back when she would have followed him, holding her prisoner for one spine-twinkling moment. “
Mine
. All mine.”