Ice Cold (29 page)

“Cut to the chase, Navarro, I don’t give a shit about the tangos. What did she
do
?”

“Her behavior was—
odd
. She’d always used her sexuality as a weapon, but on that trip, the seductive ‘charm’ was off the charts. She came on strong, and when I refused to engage, she flirted hard with the others. God only knows, I’m no prude, but her behavior was highly inappropriate, especially while on duty.”

Honey slumped back in her chair. “You should’ve sent her skinny ass back to HQ for severe disciplinary action.” “We were in flight,” he responded dryly. “I took her aside, gave her a dressing-down. She laughed it off. I figured that once we were on the ground and engaged, she’d get her shit together. We made camp a couple of clicks from the rebels’ stronghold and waited for dawn. We had no order to engage. Just take out the rebel leader and his first lieutenant. In, out, gone.”

“Smoke. Love it.”

“She snuck out that night, entered the rebels’ camp, bold as brass, did the two men. Returned to base, covered in blood. All within a couple hours.”

“Did?”

“Claimed she fucked them both, then slit their throats right as they orgasmed. The action was unsanctioned and sure as hell unauthorized. When I threatened disciplinary action, she laughed in my face.”

“I hope you did a hell of a lot more than threaten!” Honey’s cheeks pinked up as her temper rose. Intriguing, since Rafael wasn’t aware she had a temper. Still water ran deep.

“Still covered in their blood she calmly ate her meal, bragged about her coup, then proceeded to try to drag
me—at gunpoint—
into her shelter for sex.”

“Jesus, Rafael! You’re pretty damned sanguine about it!
Gunpoint?
”

“Not conducive to a night of love, I assure you. But with Savage, it wasn’t about what she perceived as love or sex. It was about the win. I refused to be a notch on her belt.”

“I just can’t imagine . . .” Honey’s voice trailed off and he wondered what she was remembering.

“When she jumped me, tackling me to the bed, I knocked her out. She went a little crazy after.” He sighed. “A lot crazy. We had to take her back to the airfield in restraints. She raved at me all the way there.”

“What did she have to be angry about? She’d attacked you and gone off the assignment.”

“Tanalgo was tasked with guarding her. I couldn’t look at her. A part of me was relatively certain she had something to do with Rachel’s death, despite her clearance.”

“I would have killed her. Your restraint, Navarro, is admirable. I don’t blame you for staying clear of her.”

“She kept yelling for me, manic, as if I had to come and save her.” He gritted his teeth. “Tanalgo drugged her, finally, to shut her up.”

Honey swallowed, her face pale. “She’s evil down to her black soul.”

“Yeah.” He rolled his shoulders. “She was so damn talented, and her skills in the field made it easier to excuse her behavior. But that trip was a real eye-opener for me. She’s one sick puppy with some classic signs. Spontaneous and intense? Dangerously so. Had to win at all costs? Hell yeah. A liar? Check. Delusional? Check. The woman was never wrong, never admitted guilt. She’s textbook.”

“I don’t care what you call it—she’s our enemy.” Honey’s eyes burned with fury and a tint of shame. For believing in Catherine’s humanity?

He gave her an even look, having raked himself over the coals for years for trying to believe the same damn thing. “She’s a sociopath. Lying is what she does and she’s an expert at it. It is not personal, Winston. Clear?”

Honey nodded and lowered her eyes.

“We deal with psychos and other nut jobs every day of the week. Dealing with Savage is no different, right?” He put his hand on her arm, offering comfort when he hadn’t realized any might be needed. The two women had been friends, when Honey didn’t trust very easily. Betrayal sucked.

Honey’s brow furrowed. “Actually, she
is
different.” Pulling her tote bag onto her lap, she whipped out her computer, a weapon in her capable hands. “We can access all her medical records and scan all her ops. Build a better profile on her than a stray tango.”

“You won’t be able to access that deep into her personnel files—” He saw her expression. “Are you saying you
can
access all her files and medical records?”

Honey flexed her hands and grinned like the cat that swallowed the canary. Satisfied. Confident. Sexy as hell. “That and more. Give me a minute here . . .” Her fingers flew over the keys, and Rafael could tell she wasn’t even aware he was in the same room.

Hell. He shouldn’t’ve mentioned Rachel. Rafael rarely, if ever, talked about his wife and
never
to another woman. They’d been married five months, and in that time they’d spent less than twenty-three nights together. They hadn’t even scratched the surface of who they were as a couple.

Then she’d died. Short—and not that sweet.

Rachel had wanted to be the love of his life, and he’d built her up to be that because he’d never been in love before he’d met her. Rafael wasn’t sure he’d even loved her
enough
—let alone having the kind of love she needed. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure if they’d’ve made it through the long haul.

Nevertheless, he resented the hell out of not having the chance to find out. Savage had stolen that from him too—his wife, his future, and his ability to trust a woman.

The guilt he felt over Rachel’s death still haunted him, always there in the back of his mind; what he could’ve, should’ve done. He should’ve realized sooner she hadn’t been in the building, should have found the warehouse faster, gotten there faster. Defused the bomb faster— The what-ifs and guilt had been like a rock in his gut for years. He was used to carrying the weight, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Okay,” Honey said briskly, getting to her feet and putting the computer on a nearby table. “That should net us some interesting results.” She gave him a compassionate look he didn’t want or need. “I’m going to grab a shower. I want to go down early, walk around, get the lay of the land. It’s one thing to see the blueprint but it’s better to walk it.”

“I was going down now, want me to wait?” He had no idea why he told the lie. Maybe because he wanted her to ask him to stay. To give some kind of indication that she needed him. Fucking insane. She didn’t
need
anyone. They both knew it. She was as autonomous as a self-contained, portable explosive system, and more than capable of defending herself should the need arise.

He had an itch on the back of his neck. An itch he’d felt the second they’d landed in Prague, and it hadn’t gone away since. Everything about this op was just a little off kilter.

Honey’s theory about Savage liberating herself from the supermax in Colorado made a whole helluva lot of sense. It
felt
right. He was a bomb man. He trusted his instincts.

He wasn’t leaving her alone. Not with Kobevko on the premises. Not if there was an outside possibility Savage was anywhere in the vicinity.

“No need to wait,” she said with a small shake of her head, making the silky strands of her hair glimmer pale and ethereal against her black sweater. She looked mouthwatering in black, better in nothing at all, but she should wear color. Soft, feminine pastels, blues to match her eyes and soft pinks to match the flush of her cheeks.

He wanted to see her that way, in pretty colors, with her hair down, and that always tightly leashed tension gone.

He took his hands out of his pockets and flipped his commlink in his hand like worry beads, so he wouldn’t lunge across the room and grab her. Problem was, he didn’t want fast. He wanted slow and leisurely.

It was good to want things.
Keep telling yourself that.

There wasn’t a damn thing overtly sexy about her. Slender and strong, sleekly muscular rather than soft and curvy, with those pale, Alaskan husky eyes that frequently bored inside his brain like an ice pick—she shouldn’t appeal to him at all; she wasn’t his type.

She did more than appeal. She dove into his soul and flipped on a too-bright light, illuminating spaces that were better left in darkness.

“Go ahead,” she told him, shimmying unself-consciously out of her jeans and folding them before placing them on the foot of the bed. “I’ll meet you in the bar.”

He gave her a cocky smile. He wanted his hands on her, wanted her mouth under his, wanted to bury himself deep inside the slick wet heat. “You may need help in the shower—”

She pulled her sweater over her head, revealing the skintight Lockout that made her look as though she’d been dipped from throat to ankle in matte black paint. Static electricity made her hair stand on end, and she put a hand up to control the pale halo. “Don’t push your luck, Navarro.”

Neatly folding the sweater, she stacked it on top of her pants. No ripping off her clothes in wild abandon for her. Not now, anyway. She spread her feet shoulder-width apart, as if she was about to take him down. Rafael welcomed the idea. She merely gave him a polite look as she reached for the hidden closure on her shoulder. “Go.”

Wrong answer. “How long do you need? An hour?”

The fastenings undid with a quick brush of her fingers, leaving a triangle of tantalizingly fair skin and her clavicle for him to enjoy.

“Please,” she scoffed, turning, one hand on the jamb of the bathroom door. “Twenty minutes tops.”

“I’ll wait then. We can go down together. I’ll take another look at the hotel blueprint and report in.”

“Suit yourself.” Without a backward glance, she went in and the bathroom door
snicked
shut, a second after he got a quick glimpse of a pearly white shoulder.

“I always do,” Rafael told the firmly shut door then went into the other room. Pouring a finger of fine Scotch, he stood sipping it as the shower in the bathroom turned on.

Joining her in the shower was another activity he looked forward to. Someday. Preferably someday soon.

Get a grip
.

He shook his head, and instead of indulging in wet, soapy sex, he spread the hard copy of the blueprint on the coffee table, sat his ass down, and went to work.

Which brought him back full circle. Whether Honey liked him in that position or not, Rafael planned being by her side until Savage was taken into custody. He could see no other way to keep her alive.

Why Savage was bombing banks, and why she seemed to have it in for Honey, he had no fucking idea. Until he did, he was going to stick to Winston like gunpowder residue.

The door connecting the lounge area and the bedroom was open. Not an oversight. He knew Honey too well. He hadn’t heard the
snick
of the lock on the bathroom door either. With a wry smile, he toasted his showering lover.

Kobevko would know the building well. In anticipation of discovery, he’d know every exit and hidey-hole of his environment like the back of his hand. He’d never allow himself to be trapped. The casino would be no exception. Rafe knew he had to be on top of his game. Dredging up memories of Rachel, putting two and two together to give him Savage at their present location, and anticipating the capture of Kobevko so they could put all of this together, took his imagination away from a sleek and wet Honey.

His comm rang in the bedroom. Probably Nielson. Rafael got up to go get it, then realized when he picked it up it was Honey’s device, not his own. The abbreviated message, because Nielson never used six words when one would do, read: “IMPOSTER ID CONFIRMED. SHIVED. DOA. SAVAGE IN THE WIND. WATCH BACK.”

No shit and no surprise. Honey was right.

She was in more danger than he’d anticipated.

Listening to the shower running as he stood right outside the bathroom door, Rafael absently scrolled through previous texts in case Nielson had anything else to offer. He saw the two from Savage while he was at it. For a second, just a nanosecond, he wondered if Honey and Savage were working together on whatever this was. But he immediately dismissed the notion. Honey was too straightforward and by the book to go off the reservation this way. It wasn’t her MO.

The bathroom door opened, emitting a cloud of steam. “All yours,” Honey shouted. By the time she walked into the bedroom, he was on the sofa, twenty feet away. Stretching his arm across the back of the sofa, he turned at the sound of her voice.

She, of course, wasn’t playing fair. Face shiny and freshly scrubbed, a white towel wrapped around her head and another wrapped around her body, she looked like every man’s wet dream. Gift-wrapped.

Getting to his feet, carrying his empty glass, he circled the sofa. “You got a text from Nielson.”

“Oh, yeah?” Head upside down, she started vigorously towel-drying her hair. “What did she say?” Fascinated by the precariousness of the towel wrapped around her clearly nude body, it took a moment for him to answer.

“Comm’s over there, but in a nutshell? You were right. Inmate number 765432 positively IDed as
not
Catherine Seymour. Woman was knifed. Dead when Nielson arrived at the prison.”