Negotiation Tactics (20 page)

“Eat.”

Without a word, Jennie took the plate and handed the letter to Chad. He looked at it and looked back at her.

“Where’d this come from?” he asked.

“I’ve been carrying it around in my purse.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You just opened it now?”

Jennie laughed and brushed at her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m slow. But apparently he knew that.”

She nodded at the letter. Chad looked at her for a second but then began to read.

“Bugsy?” he asked with a smile.

Jennie smiled and nodded, biting into the hot toast as Chad continued to read.

“He was a smart man,” Chad said when he finished the letter. “You should listen to him.”

Jennie laughed and they sat quietly while Jennie ate and Chad waited. When she finished, Chad took the plate from her hands and set it on the table next to the bed. He pulled Jennie onto his lap and held her tight. She wasn’t crying anymore. She held onto Chad and let all the heartache and pain she’d been holding in for so long seep from her body. She’d never felt more emotionally drained. But, she also felt better than she had in a long time. She felt lighter, as if she’d finally lost a great load she’d carried for far too long.

She knew it was time to let Kyle go. And, she didn’t need Kyle to tell her to fall in love with Chad. She’d fallen in love with him a long time ago. She had just needed Kyle to tell her it was okay to feel that way. To let Chad all the way in.

“I love you, Chad,” Jennie said. “I think I always have.”

She felt his head nuzzle her neck and he held her even tighter but didn’t say anything for a long time. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to say anything at all, he finally spoke.

“I’ve loved you forever, Jen. I always have and I always will,” Chad said.

“You’re gonna marry me, right Chad?” Jennie asked.

This got a bark of laughter from Chad.

“No.”

“What?” Jennie asked. She sat up and put both hands on his face, pulling his head up to face her. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not allowed to propose to me, Jennie. That’s my job. Besides, you did it wrong. You don’t have a ring or anything. You’re supposed to be down on one knee with a ring when you propose.”

“I’d look silly if I did that.” Jennie leaned back and looked at Chad. “You chauvinist pig. That’s, that’s... You can’t do that. You’re turning me down? You’re not going to marry me?”

“Nope.” Chad smiled and touched her lips with his finger, gently. He brushed his lips to hers. “I’m turning you down.”

“What! You can’t do that. You love me. I’m having your baby. You have to marry me!”

Chad grinned and shook his head.

“I’ll let you help me name the baby if you marry me,” Jennie said, opening the negotiations.

Chad laughed and flipped Jennie under him, coming down on top of her. He kissed her long and hard, erasing her indignation. Erasing all thoughts from her head, ending all negotiations. Chad quickly stripped Jennie of her clothes, following with his own. He turned her on her side and lay next to her, slipping easily into her folds, plunging slowly but deeply into her. He drew gasp after gasp of pure pleasure from Jennie as he took them both to climax in the gentlest lovemaking Jennie had ever felt.

And, Jennie felt whole again. The pieces of her life that had been so torn apart had been put back together. The end product didn’t look the same as it once had, but that was okay. Jennie knew she would love this life as much as she’d loved her life with Kyle. And she knew Kyle would want it that way.

Chapter Thirty-four

Jennie watched Chad get ready for the fake meeting with Burke and Mike. After hearing about the arson attempt, Agent Burke told Chad he planned to fly up and take Jennie’s statement personally. Chad and Mike weren't sure whether that made him seem more or less guilty. It was possible he wanted to be here to make sure his witness was safe or it could mean he wanted to be here to be sure Bandon got the job done and took Jennie out.

Either way, they decided not to take any chances. Jennie would be nowhere near the meeting. She’d stay locked away at Chad’s condo while they went to see Burke. They considered moving her to a hotel, but Chad’s condo had doormen on twenty-four-seven who wouldn’t let a soul up into the condo without his or Jennie’s permission, and none of the stairwells or elevators could be accessed without an electronic keycode. It would be much harder for anyone to access than a hotel where people could come and go and blend in with ease.

Jennie felt tears burn behind her eyes as she kissed Chad good-bye.

“Hey,” Chad said, tilting her head to force her to meet his eyes. “I’ll be right back, Jen. I promise. A couple of hours and I hope all this will be over.”

Jennie nodded, but she could tell she was about to lose her battle with the tears. When she tried to speak the tears fell.

“I can’t lose you, too, Chad. I can’t go through that again,” she said, panic rising in her lungs, threatening to suffocate her if she didn’t get it under control.

Chad wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the floor, holding her tight.

“You won’t lose me,” he whispered in her ear, his voice husky. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I’ll be back here, forcing you to eat healthy meals and bugging you about having too many pastries before you know it. Hell, you’ll be so tired of me, you’ll probably be kicking me out of my own house by tomorrow night. I promise.”

Jennie nodded but held tight for a few more minutes, arms and legs wrapped around him, memorizing the feel of him, his steady, quiet strength.

She kissed him hard and let go, letting him walk away, but praying he'd be back and this would all be over soon.

***

Chad pulled into the hotel parking lot. They’d fed the location to Burke the day before so Burke would have plenty of time to get the false lead to Bandon. Only Burke’s direct supervisor, AUSA Waters and those involved in the sting knew the location was a setup and Jennie would be hiding at Chad’s house instead of showing up for the meet. The agents at the sting had been handpicked by Mike, and Chad trusted Mike not to use anyone he wasn’t one hundred percent sure about.

Chad knew that Burke and Mike should already be waiting in the room the bureau had rented for the meeting. Since Burke and Bandon had never met Jennie, it had been easy for Mike to find a smaller female agent with red hair to play the part of Jennie.

Agent Kirsten Danners sat next to Chad in the cab of his truck, a bullet-proof vest under her clothing, ready to put her life on the line to draw out a killer. Her hair was too red to be Jennie, but it would have to do. It would be close enough to fool anyone who had a general description of Jennie and happened to be watching them enter or exit the building.

Chad scanned the parking lot as they entered the building and he knew Agent Danners would do the same. His eyes flicked to rooftops, windows, and surrounding cars. No sign of anyone suspicious, but he did spot the two backup agents they had planted outside. One agent was up on a telephone pole, his position as a fake repairman giving him a good eagle-eye view of the surrounding area. The other was dressed as a maintenance worker and pushed a cart from trash can to trash can emptying the garbage liners and picking up any litter on his route.

The arsonists Bandon had sent to Jennie’s parents’ house were pretty inexperienced guys. Just hired muscle following directions, but so far, they weren’t spilling anything to the police. Chad was hoping Bandon would show up to do the job himself this time instead of sending anyone else who could screw it up again.

As Chad walked across the parking lot with Danners at his side, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Something didn’t feel right about this, but Chad couldn’t put his finger on what it was. His eyes roamed the area once again. Nothing had changed. No signs that anything had gone wrong, but Chad couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.

Chad and Agent Danners knocked on the door to the hotel room and waited for Mike to open the door. When he did, Chad stepped through first, quickly taking in the room. Only Agent Burke sat in the room. The curtains had been drawn and Burke had a notepad in front of him ready to take notes.

“You cleared the room?” Chad asked Mike, knowing the answer but needing to ask anyway.

Mike nodded and then introduced Chad and Danners to Agent Burke, introducing Danners as Jennie Evans. Chad kept a protective hand on Danners as he guided her to the sofa, as he would have if Danners were Jennie.

Chad watched Burke closely, assessing his body language. Burke didn’t bat an eye when the agent was introduced as Jennie. Burke appeared to have no idea this wasn’t the real Jennie.

Mike and Agent Danners sat on the sofa across from Burke but Chad stood, watching Burke.

Burke leaned forward, appearing earnest as he started his interrogation. He didn’t bother to try to set his witness at ease before jumping right into questioning her, but he was gentle in his questioning. 

“Before we go into the details of your trip to Florida, I want to talk about last night a bit, Jennie. We need to get to the bottom of who tried to set your parents’ house on fire,” Burke said. When he continued, he looked up at Chad and then back to Agent Danners. “Who knew you were coming home last night?”

As Agent Danners answered him, feeding him the information she’d been given for her role, Chad watched Burke. There wasn’t a single clue that he was being anything other than honest in his line of questioning. No eye-blocking behavior like lowering of his eyelids or rubbing an eye. He didn’t engage in any pacifying behaviors like tugging at his collar or rubbing the back of his neck. It didn’t mean he wasn’t lying, especially since he would have received training in the area of body language and deceit as an FBI agent, but Chad was pretty damn good at spotting a lie. He wasn’t seeing anything but honesty as he looked at Burke.

Chad caught Mike’s eye and he knew Mike was thinking the same thing. Burke was questioning Agent Danners as if he genuinely wanted to get to find out who was behind the attempted arson the night before. If he’d been the one to leak the information, it was unlikely he’d raise the issue first. It was more likely he would have had an ambush out in the parking lot that Danners and Chad would have had to deal with on the way in.

Mike spoke up, breaking into the conversation Burke was having with Danners. “If you don’t mind my asking, Agent Burke, I think we need to follow all possible avenues here. Who did you contact after hearing from Chad about Jennie’s whereabouts last night?”

Burke’s eyes shot to Mike first then to Chad and all Chad saw was genuine shock, followed by anger. Mike diffused his anger by holding up a hand in appeasement.

“I only ask because we need to trace all possible avenues of a leak. We need to know who you passed the info on to, so we can track those leads,” Mike said.

Burke nodded and the anger seeped from him but you could still see a hint of indignation at having another agent question him. Mike outranked Burke as a Supervisory Special Agent, so Chad knew Burke wasn’t likely to argue.

Mike’s phone rang as Burke opened his mouth to speak. Mike glanced at the screen before taking the call with an apologetic look to the group. They listened as he grunted a couple of responses then looked up at Chad with startled eyes.

“What is it?” Chad asked as soon as Mike ended the call.

“I had one of my people running down anything we could find on the two men who tried to start the fire at Jennie’s parent’s house. They’re out on bail on charges of grand larceny in an auto theft ring in Florida. The AUSA on their case is Caroline Waters,” Mike said.

Agent Burke cursed. “I only told three people of your whereabouts. I left a voicemail for the Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven field office to see if she could send a field agent out to Torrington to take Jennie’s statement. I sent an email to my supervisor and I copied AUSA Waters on the email. If she gets her emails on her phone like I do, she would have seen it shortly after you contacted me,” Agent Burke said.

Chad didn’t wait to hear any more and neither did Mike. They moved in tandem toward the door as Chad took his phone out of his pocket. “We need to get to Jennie.”

As Mike drove, Chad tried to reach Jennie on her phone, but she didn’t pick up. He hung up and sent a text telling her not let anyone in. As soon as that went through, he tried calling again.

He couldn’t lose her now.

Not now. They’d only really just found each other.

Chapter Thirty-five

Jennie paced Chad’s condo, walking from one room to the next. She’d settle for a bit in one room, pick up a book and try to read or pull out a carton of milk and a glass to pour a drink, before abandoning it and moving to another room. She couldn’t seem to settle herself at all. She knew the smart choice had been for her to stay behind, but waiting for Chad to come back to her wasn’t easy. It was probably the hardest thing she’d had to do in the nightmare that had become her existence since she’d met the Masters brothers.

She knew Chad would call or text as soon as they had either Burke or Bandon or both men in custody so she stared at her cell phone relentlessly. Realistically, she knew it wouldn’t ring for at least a couple of hours, if that soon, but she watched it just the same, willing it to ring. She just needed to hear his voice and know he was safe, know he was coming home to her.

Jennie startled when the landline rang in Chad’s condo a half hour after he left. Jennie knew the landline was actually only there for the doorman to call up to Chad’s condo. Though it wasn’t used for anything else, she still worried that someone was calling that number to tell her something had happened. That things had gone wrong and Chad wouldn’t be coming home to her.

Fear clenched in her stomach as she crossed to the wireless phone that sat in its cradle on the kitchen counter.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Ms. Evans? It’s Bernard from downstairs.” Jennie let out a breath as she recognized the doorman from Chad’s building. “There’s a Caroline Waters here to see you. She’s with the United States Attorney’s office. She has credentials and she said Mr. Thompson sent her to sit with you. She said you would understand why. Do you want me to send her up, Ms. Evans?”