On Her Master's Secret Service (32 page)

Sean stared at the screen, his hands on the bar. “He’s really alive. Fuck. I hoped he’d managed to get himself horrifically murdered somewhere along the way.”

There was a ding and the door opened. Kristen walked in, her red hair rumpled and a streak of blood on her face.

“What the hell?” Adam asked, standing up from his computer screen.

Kristen staggered to the couch. “It’s nothing to worry about. I got into a little fight.”

Eve rushed to the kitchen and wrapped some ice in a towel. She hurried back. Kristen was pulling back her hair. There was a nice knot on her forehead. “Is your cover blown?”

She took the towel. “I don’t think so, but I have a dead bouncer in my trunk. He caught me coming out of
Chazz’s
office. He thought I was trying to steal something. He made an offer to not turn me in.”

Eve could guess what that had been. “So you jumped him when he got you alone for sex?”

“Is anything broken?” Sean asked.

Kristen shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was a heavy fucker. I had to stuff him out a window so no one could see. It was really only my innate knowledge of pulleys and levers that saved my ass. Well, that, and a perfectly placed stiletto through his eye socket.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “You killed him with your heel?”

“No, dummy. I was talking about a knife. I told him I would do him in one of the private rooms. I have weapons hidden all over that club.” She held the ice to her forehead. “Damn it. I promised myself I wouldn’t kill anyone again. Jerk-faced asshole couldn’t respect my fake need for vagina. No, he had to prove what a man he was. He promised he would turn me straight.”

Sean smiled knowingly at her. “Which agency do you work for? Look, I’ve got my smiley face on so I’m not angry at all. But if you’re trying to tell me you’re a mild-mannered journalist who just happens to be able to shove a thin blade in precisely the right way and with the right amount of force to kill a man, then you don’t have much respect for my intelligence. Are you domestic or foreign?”

Kristen closed her eyes. “Sean, I’m not what you think I am.”

“He thinks you’re Agency. I kind of do, too,” Adam agreed.

“I am not a spy. I am no one’s operative,” Kristen said in a low voice. “I am not now, nor have I ever belonged to, any government agency and certainly not the CIA.”

Eve kind of believed her. There was more than one reason to learn how to really defend oneself. “But you’ve been hurt before.”

Kristen’s eyes found hers. “Yes, in ways you can’t imagine. I learned how to defend myself at a very young age. I had to. I don’t hide weapons because some CIA handbook taught me to. I hide them because growing up I knew if I didn’t have a way to defend myself, I would very likely not see another birthday, at least not one where I was whole. Can we move past my
shitastic
childhood and talk about what I found?”

Sean’s jaw was a stubborn line. “Fine, but I’ll figure you out and I probably won’t be wearing my smiley face when I do. And I swear to god, if you hurt anyone on this team, I will make sure you pay.”

“I’m sure your brother would be right behind you,” she said absently.

“You know he would. Think about that before you make your next move.” Sean had gone positively arctic.

“You think I don’t think about it every fucking day?”

Eve needed to chill them out before Sean and Kristen went after each other. Despite the fact that she didn’t know a damn thing about the woman, she trusted Kristen. “What did you learn, sweetie?”

Kristen’s eyebrows rose, and she turned to Eve. It was so easy to see the eager puppy on her face. She wanted to be one of the girls. She so deeply wanted friends. Eve watched as Kristen stopped herself, drawing her hands together and folding them on her lap. If Eve had to bet, she would say Kristen had wanted to reach out, to hold Eve’s hand. “I got into
Chazz’s
office. I knew I wouldn’t have long. I got in. I looked at his calendar. I got out.”

Eve moved toward her, offering her the affection she so clearly longed for. She held out her hand. “And what did you find?”

Kristen leaned forward, reaching for Eve’s hand. “He’s got the day after tomorrow circled. It says he’s meeting with
Mikey
. We can get him, Eve. I’ll help you. I’ll be right there beside you.”

Nothing in her eyes made Eve think she was lying. Eve threaded their fingers together. This was what Kristen so deeply desired, a sisterhood, a family. “All right. We’ll wake Alex up early and let him know. We’ll be ready for him.”

She had a day to profile him, to figure out how best to go after him. She wouldn’t sleep. It wasn’t her job to be the avenger. It was her job to give Alex and Sean every bit of information they needed to know.

And Kristen. She just knew it. Kristen would be a warrior. Kristen needed to help.

Sean frowned. “All right then. Are you hungry?”

Kristen shrugged. “I could eat.”

Sean shook his head and walked back into the kitchen.

Adam yelled after him. “Hey, you’re willing to cook for the woman who won’t tell us who she really is but not me?”

Sean didn’t look back, just started buttering bread. “She didn’t try to sleep with my wife.”

Kristen shrugged. “I haven’t seen her. Who knows? I might.”

Sean just chuckled.

Kristen leaned in, whispering. “I really wouldn’t. I really do still love the man I lost. I can’t…I can’t think of anyone else.”

Eve smiled, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay. You did…good.” She gave Kristen’s words back to her. She looked down at the file folders. “And thank you for these. I’m not looking forward to staring at the seventeen bombing victims, but I think it will be helpful.”

Kristen frowned. “What do you mean seventeen? There were only sixteen folders.”

Eve looked down at the folders in front of her, quickly counting them. Kristen was right. Sixteen folders. There were seventeen victims. Why did the FBI only have sixteen folders?

She moved back to the bar. “You didn’t get them all.”

Kristen was mistaken.

The redhead sat up, letting the ice pack down. “I took everything they had. If the FBI had a file, I hacked it.”

“I know this case. There were seventeen dead. If you count my kidnapping, there should actually be twenty, but my folder that includes Leon and Tommy is considered ancillary.”

“You’re in there,” Kristen said. “I just didn’t count you among the dead. According to the FBI, there are sixteen dead from the bombings, two murdered agents and one rape and kidnapping victim. You.”

Adam moved to his computer. “I’m on it.”

She knew this case like the back of her hand. She knew the victims by heart. She played through them in her head. Brewer, Davies, Duncan, Foster, Clemmons, Johnson, Wilcox, Schroeder, Flynn, Betts, Gale,
Hardison
, Garcia,
Kapoor
,
Ellig
, Gilliland, and Foster.

The names were tattooed on her brain. Though she couldn’t remember everything about each victim, she knew their names. Who was missing?

“There were only sixteen files.” Kristen stood behind her, peering over her shoulder. “I pulled everything I could. Did I miss something?”

Garcia. There was no file for Garcia. “
Uhm
, I think you missed Carmen Garcia’s file. She died in the last bombing. The one in DC.”

It had been the bombing that forced Alex to make that fated move. Evans had bombed a free clinic that offered women healthcare. Four people had died in that bombing including a doctor who worked for nothing to make sure the women in the neighborhood had routine checkups and prenatal care. Dr.
Kapoor’s
file was here. Where was Carmen Garcia’s?

It was probably just an oversight. Files got lost sometimes. Though not typically in the computer age.

Kristen winced a little as she moved to one of Adam’s three computers. “May I?”

Adam nodded, not looking up from his keyboard. “Sure. I’m going to hack into the fed’s system. It could take me a minute or two. I’m going to route this system through another fifty so they’ll have a hell of a time working the knot out. I don’t want the feds on my doorstep.”

“Don’t you mean you don’t want them on your doorstep again?” Sean asked as he placed a perfectly golden sandwich in front of her.

Damn.
She was hungry. Despite the way her every instinct was telling her something was wrong, her stomach rumbled. “I thought Adam didn’t get caught anymore.”

Adam shrugged. “There’s always a way. No matter what a hacker does, if the investigator is tenacious enough, he’ll find you. I just have to make it not worth their while.”

“Shit.” Kristen groaned as she looked down at the computer. “That will teach me to do all my research from government files. I pulled up the press on the last bombing. There she is. Carmen Garcia. Twenty-two years old. Pretty girl. She was a law student at Georgetown.”

“That’s right. I always thought it was odd that she was in that clinic. Her parents had money. She wasn’t a scholarship student. She was from a fairly prominent family in San Antonio,” Eve said. She hadn’t fit the typical profile. Most of the victims were doctors or nurses or indigent women, women who had no other means of health care. “She would have to drive a long way to get to that particular clinic.”

“She had a history of volunteer work,” Kristen mused. “Maybe she was helping out.”

“Her volunteer work all had to do with legal work and politics. The survivors didn’t remember ever seeing her there before, and all the paperwork was lost in the fire. She had to be identified by dental records.”

“I’m in.” Adam got that focused look he had when he was working on a problem. This was Adam’s world. Oh, he could shoot and wield a knife with the rest of them, but when Adam was at a computer, his magnificent brain processing, that was when he was at his deadliest.

Sean put a second plate in front of Adam, proving that most of their animosity was for show. Or that Sean couldn’t resist showing off because that was an amazing grilled cheese. Eve bit into hers and couldn’t help but sigh. The man could cook. “As Kris would say, I didn’t even poison it. Do you want fries with yours? You have a couple of potatoes I could fry up.”

His eyes were hooded, a little wary, as he looked at Kristen, who shook her head slightly. “Nope. Just the sandwich, but brown bag it for me, please. Lugging Jersey Carl’s corpse around made me a little queasy. Maybe after I find a place to dump his body I’ll be ready for a snack. I was thinking of weighing him down a little and dumping him in the ocean. It’s a nice night for it. There should be a current around here, right?”

“I’ll check,” Sean said, obviously resigned to being her accomplice. “Do you have a boat?”

“I do not have a boat, but I do have two good hands with which to borrow one without the owner knowing, so the glass is truly half full. I’ll go clean up a little before we go. I know a little harbor down the road where the night guard is usually asleep by this point in time.”

Sean started to clean up the kitchen as Kristen walked off.

“Are you all right with this?” Eve asked. Sean was a dad now. He might not want to become an accomplice to probably justifiable murder.

Adam shook his head. “Has she done this before? Why would she know about when the night guard at a harbor sleeps? Is she Dexter?”

Eve snorted a little. “She’s not a serial killer.”

Sean shook his head. “I don’t think she is either, but she does seem to pay very close attention to her surroundings.”

“If she grew up in an abusive household, she very likely had to,” Eve mused. “But really, are you all right? I could wake up Alex and we could go with her.”

“Nah. I’d rather keep an eye on her. And I buy her story about Carl. I’ve only worked with the asshole for a week and I saw him harassing most of the waitresses. They’re afraid of him. The kitchen staff, too. I think he’s blackmailing some of the illegals, telling them he’ll call in immigration if they don’t turn over a cut to him. He was also carrying, so one less asshole we have to worry about. Maybe Chazz will lean more heavily on Alex now.” Sean glanced back toward the hall where Kristen had disappeared. “She knows more than she’s saying. One of us needs to get closer. She seems to like me.”

She remembered the last time Sean got close to a female involved in an operation. They had a baby together. “Sean, you can’t.”

He rolled his eyes. “God, Eve, I’m not going to seduce her. I might top her a little, though. You can do that without ever touching a woman. She’s hiding a lot behind her sarcasm. Maybe I can get her to open up a little, figure out what she’s really doing here. What’s wrong with you? I’m not the one who tries to screw around with women who don’t belong to him.”

Adam groaned. “I swear I would kill him if he wasn’t such a good cook. He has the memory of an elephant.” Adam’s eyes went wide. “Got it. I pulled the files straight from the feds. Sixteen. No Carmen Garcia. Could they have classified it? Why would they do that?”

Eve had absolutely no idea.

“Why are you up?” Alex asked, walking out of their bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of sweats. Adam could keep his perfectly cut suits. She loved Alex just the way he was. He didn’t need a suit to make her drool.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Nor could she help the little sigh that came out of her mouth. Such a lovely Master with his sleepy eyes and broad shoulders.

“Then I didn’t do my job. Come back to bed, angel.” He held his hand out. “I can’t sleep without you.”

And she just left everything. It would still be there in the morning. The fact that a file was missing was very likely a mistake on the government’s part.

“Did I miss anything?” Alex asked.

Eve filled Alex in. “Adam thinks he’s found Evans in New York. Kristen got a look at
Chazz’s
day planner and thinks Evans is going to be here the day after tomorrow. Oh, and Kristen killed a bouncer.”

“Was it Carl?” Alex asked, seeming perfectly fine with every single piece of news she’d given him.

“Yes.” She really should have paid more attention to Carl.

“Good for Kris. Who’s on corpse duty? Tell me she has the body.”