Wicked Ties (Steele Security Series) (7 page)

“There’s no one here by that name.  I live here alone,” the man answered.

“Maybe she left a forwarding address?” Bull continued his line of questioning.

“No, I think you must have the wrong address.  I’ve lived here the last ten years,” the man stated firmly, looking back and forth between Bull and Chaise.

“That can’t be
right—I am sure it was
this
house.  I remember these red bricks on the driveway!” Chaise argued, confused and irritated about why the Chinese man insisted Mrs. Perez didn’t live there.

“There are many houses in Hialeah Gardens with this kind of driveway,
Miss.  There’s no Mrs. Perez here.  Goodbye,” he smarted as he stepped back in the house and closed the door in her face.

C
haise was quiet on the drive to pick up her company car from the beach area.  Bull didn’t have to say anything.  She could tell exactly what he was thinking from the disbelieving look on his face.  He made no attempt to spare her feelings with the look that he gave her.  He thought she was making everything up.  Glancing out the window, she saw that Rebel and Shadow were still following them.

“Why are they following us?  We’re just going to pick up my car, right?”

“Yes,” Bull answered briskly without any further explanation.

“So, why are they following us?” Chaise pressed.

“Safety precautions,” Bull answered. 

Chaise knew better than to believe that excuse.  Bull was keeping tabs on her because he didn’t believe her and the Chinese man didn’t help her case at all.  “Well, I guess I should be completely safe then, right?”

“That’s right,” Bull snapped.

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on
, but that’s the house I went to and that’s the house where I talked to Aura’s mom.  I’m not making this up!”  Chaise could no longer hold in her frustration. 

“If you say so,” Bull responded with less sarcasm than before. 

Chaise angrily huffed in response and was infinitely glad that they were arriving at her car.  Placing her hand on the door, she readied herself to jump out and get away from the infuriating man beside her.  It was just her luck that he burst that little bubble of hope before he came to a stop beside her car.

“Follow me back to my house.  Shadow and Rebel will be directly behind you.  You need to be on extreme alert for anything suspicious between here and my house.  We will all be watching you,” Bull informed her resolutely. 

Chaise knew his message held the information she needed to be kept safe, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the same message was intended to
keep
her, period.  They were following her and watching out for her, but they were also watching her and doubting her.  Meeting Bull’s eyes, Chaise felt the familiar butterflies in her stomach—the ones she got when she felt his stare penetrating deep into her thoughts.

Can he read my mind?

“Okay, I will follow you back to your place,” she agreed, placating him and avoiding any arguments.  Chaise lived by the motto to choose her battles and this wasn’t one she wanted to fight with Bull.  She would eventually have to talk to him about going back to work the following day.  She knew how that would go over, though—about as well as trying to reason with an actual bull.

Back at Bull’s house after an uneventful ride, Chaise popped the trunk of her company car and started removing all the contents.  Bull, Shadow
, and Rebel watched with curious and dubious gazes.  When she started tugging on the spare tire, Bull wordlessly stepped in and removed it for her.

“Thank you,” Chaise said in all sincerity.  Bull simply nodded and placed the tire on the ground.

“What are you doing?” he finally asked.

Reaching under the jack, she retrieved a small, black cartridge and handed it to
Bull.  Upon inspection, he realized it was a tiny flash drive.

“That’s the file that I was researching when I found all the discrepancies.  I highlighted the missing girls I found online but there are plenty more to be researched,” she explained.

Bull handed the flash drive to Shadow who was already on his cell phone calling his confidential contacts to start the investigation.  When Bull turned back to Chaise, she could still see the apparent distrust in his eyes.  Releasing a sigh of resignation, she started putting the contents of the trunk back together as Shadow and Rebel walked inside, leaving Bull and Chaise alone.

Unable to stand it any longer, she turned to
Bull and stated firmly, “I am not lying.  I’m not making this up and I’m not crazy.  I don’t know what’s going on but I
need
you to believe me.  Even if it is for no other reason than to help me find Aura. 
Please
.”

“All right,” Bull responded, sensing her sincerity, “but I still have questions you haven’t answered yet.  Simple
questions—like your last name.”

“Colton, that’s not as simple as you think,” she quietly explained, looking down at her hands.  Meeting his sharp gaze again, she continued, “What else can I do?”

“I don’t know, Chaise.  I guess we’ll have to take it one step at a time.”

As Chaise and Bull entered his house, Rebel told them that there was too much information in the flash drive for them to digest all at once.  He and Shadow would take it back to Steele Security headquarters to get Brad and the other technology guys to help them pull the information together and devise a game plan.

“I strongly suggest you two lay low until we get back with you.  It may take a day or two for us to get everything in order,” Rebel said.  Turning to Chaise, he directed, “And you need to stay off the radar completely until we get this sorted out.  This is nothing to mess around with.”

Chaise nodded in agreement, “I will call and take the week off next week. 
I’ll make up something, but I don’t think I can stay away from work past that.”

***************
*

The next several days seemed to drag by for Chaise.  She called the general manager of
Viboro and told him she had the flu and would be out a few days.  She added a couple of fake coughs and made her voice sound gravelly and rough.  He apparently bought her act as he told her to feel better soon.

The tension between Bull and Chaise continued to build over those days they spent alone in the house.  Chaise enjoyed the time she spent with Bull, getting to know him as well as he would allow it.  They had exchanged several heated glances and lingering touches during their internment.  When their bodies brushed in the hallway, the heat between them was almost enough to start a fire.

Bull was almost to his breaking point when Shadow called and said they were on their way over with the data.  His thoughts were betraying his sense of duty and his commitment to his job.  His professional demeanor was waning and he was running out of excuses to keep avoiding his attraction to Chaise.  She had made it painfully clear to him that she was interested.  He only had to accept her invitation.

Chaise knew the distance that Bull had kept between them was intentional.  She kept trying to break down his walls and he kept resisting.  Part of the reason was because he didn’t trust her.  The other part was his professionalism
, both on the job and in his life.  When her open attempts failed, she resigned herself to accepting it could not be.

When Shadow and Rebel arrived at Bull’s, they immediately opened the computer with the files the tech guys had dissected by the time Bull and Chaise joined them in the den.  Shadow was busy clicking away on the secure laptop and chatting on his phone with his former CIA friends while Rebel was on the phone with Brad, the technology expert at Steele Security. 

Their animated discussions centered on the information Chaise had provided.  They were able to verify most of what she had already told them and linked many open cases to the girls’ names on Chaise’s spreadsheets.  Bull raised his eyebrows at the two men and they both nodded affirmatively back at him. 

“What was that all about?” Chaise asked.

“What was what all about?”  Bull responded.

“Come
on—I saw that.  What’s going on?”

“They just confirmed your
story—or part of it anyway,” Bull explained.

“Does that earn me any trust?” Chaise asked and Bull didn’t miss the hopefulness in her tone.

“Some,” he responded ambiguously.  This earned him a full-watt smile from Chaise and he again felt the unfamiliar pull in his chest.  He had to admit that their confirmation of her story removed some of his apprehension about her. 

Relaxing his stance, Bull placed his hands on his waist and took a moment to simply observe her as she moved around his house.  She moved with a fluid grace that was mesmerizing.  Her long, lean body completely captivated Bull and pulled his thoughts from where he should be focused.

She walked between Shadow and Rebel, listening to their conversations and pointing out information over their shoulders as they talked about the names and the information on the lists.

“Ask them about Aura Perez,” Chaise whispered to Shadow urgently.

“Yeah, can you run a check on an Aura Perez, nineteen-year-old female, University of Miami student?  Thanks, man,” Shadow said into his cell phone.  Chaise waited on pins and needles, wringing her hands and pacing back and forth in the three feet of space directly in front of Shadow. 

When Shadow shook his head ‘no’ at Chaise, she pacing abruptly halted as she buried her face in her hands.  Bull intently watched her every move, memorizing her body posture, her respirations, and her skin color.  When she dropped her hands, he saw true fear and pain in her eyes.  Chaise was sincerely worried about Aura
Perez—it was no act.  Seeing this, she earned another minute amount of his trust.

He waited for Shadow to finish his call before asking for an update, “What’s the word, man?”

“Chaise is right—a lot of these names are tied to missing persons cases.  Here’s the interesting part, though.  Several of these girls
used
to be listed online—pictures, fliers, everything—but now, almost all them have been taken off the internet.  I had to get a friend to hack into some servers and pull their restore files from a few weeks back to retrieve the information,” Shadow explained gravely.

“What about Aura?  What did they say about her?  Did they find her missing persons report?” Chaise asked excitedly.

“There’s no record of an Aura Perez—not at the college, not at Viboro, and not anywhere online.  There’s no missing persons report—not even one that’s been deleted like the other girls.  Either she never existed or she gave you a fake name,” Shadow answered.

Bull watched Chaise’s reaction to the information Shadow had obtained about Aura. 
She sat down hard on the sofa, confusion engraved in her face, looking around but seemingly not seeing anything in particular, then the tears started flowing uncontrollably.  Before he realized it, Bull was at her side, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, and pulling her into him to console her.

“I don’t
understand
wh
a
t’s happening,” Chaise cried into Bull’s chest.  “She was my intern.  Her mom was so distraught.  Nothing makes sense!”

Bull tightened his hold on her, lightly rubbing her back as he lowered his voice to speak softly to her.  “We’ve just started, Chaise.  Don’t give up hope yet.”

When she wrapped her arm around his waist and hugged him tight, Bull was astonished at how
right
it felt to hold her in his arms.  She fit perfectly against him, her soft but muscular body pressed to his as if she were cast from a mold that was meant only for him.  The soft, sweet scent of her perfume enveloped him with her every movement. 

Her soft cries into his chest propelled his protective instincts to new heights.  She was his keep now and he would see
things through to the end. Strange thoughts permeated his mind—thoughts of wanting her to still be around at the end of the case, to stay with him and make whatever attraction that lingered between them become a living, breathing thing.  Whether its breath held fire or ice was yet to be determined.

Chaise’s body became rigid when she realized she was wrapped around Bull and she was holding onto him tightly.  Fearing she had far overstepped her bounds, she tentatively pulled away from the safety of his comfortable embrace to look into his eyes.  Both afraid and anxious to see what message they conveyed to her, she held her breath as their eyes finally met.  In them, she saw desire and
compassion—not the cold, unfeeling detachment she was certain she’d find.  Her heart melted at the sight, and without conscious thought, her hand slowly drifted to his jaw line.

“Thank you, Colton,” she whispered, “so much.”

Without speaking the actual words, they both knew her appreciation was not only for how he consoled her or his oath of not giving up.  No, they both knew the unspoken gratitude was also for the trust he was giving her—the chance that Bull rarely gave those he didn’t know and never gave to those who hadn’t fully earned it.  He was taken an unheard of chance with Chaise and her outrageous story.

Their faces were so close
; their warm, sweet breath coated each other’s faces and their lips were almost close enough to touch.  Had they been alone, Chaise knew she would make the first move, certain that Colton would not do so while he was on the job.  She was thankful for the support that Shadow and Rebel were providing in researching the information she obtained, but she wished with all her might that they would suddenly disappear from the room. 

They at least did have the good manners to keep their backs turned to them while they reluctantly unfolded from their embrace.  Once they were again upright on the couch, Shadow and Rebel gathered their possessions, telling Bull and Chaise they would soon be in touch again, and Bull walked them out.  Chaise took a moment to use the restroom and try to get
herself under control.