Bluegrass Undercover (11 page)

She put her tools away and put the case back in her purse before opening the narrow door. Looking around, she took a cautious step forward into the darkness. The room was pitch black, and she pulled out her small penlight. Annie aimed the light onto the wall and gasped. It was lined with weapons. She found the switch and turned on the fluorescent overhead lights and froze.

Rifles lined one whole wall. She recognized the Army’s standard issue M24 Sniper along with an M40A3 and a very large M82A1 SASR. Wow, it was a beauty, a .50 caliber beauty. Along the other side of the wall were various handguns. There was an MK24, and oh, there was the new M11 also known as the SIG P228! She had always wanted to try one those. It was calling her name. She would swear to it in court if she got arrested for trespassing. She picked the M11 off of the wall where it was hanging and tested its weight and balance.

“
Oh, you are one handsome guy,” she cooed to it.

“
Why thank you.” The voice slid over her. She jumped, swinging the gun around and pointing it at her target.

“
You do know it’s not loaded, right Red?”

“
What are you doing here?!” Annie accusingly asked him.

“
I live here. What are you doing here?”

She heard the laughter in his voice and lowered the gun. Yeah, that’s right. She was the one breaking and entering.

“
You don’t seem surprised to see me. How long have you been here?” Was he here the whole time she was drooling over his guns?

“
Marshall called me from the Café and asked how I felt about getting married in April.”

Annie groaned and desperately wanted to hit the light switch and hide under the large wood table in the middle of the gun room.

“
I said I thought it would be lovely, but apparently my bride is in a rush and wants to get married in January.”

Annie eyed the rounds for the M11 on the shelf and contemplated ending this before she died of embarrassment.

Cade only felt kind of bad for her. He was having way too much fun embarrassing her though to take pity on her. He had been halfway home when Marshall called, wanting to know all the details of their hot night together and telling him Mom was expecting him to bring Annie home for dinner on Sunday.

He had found his house still dark when he drove up and her car empty. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was up to. He had quietly come in the house from the back door and found the faint glow from his arms room spilling out into his office. When he looked in the door, there was his dog, sound asleep at her feet. Annie was holding his favorite gun and practically worshiping it with her hands.

“
If you keep touching my gun like that, I’m going to be jealous.” His voice came out a little rougher than normal but her skilled fingers manipulating his gun was making him think of her using those fingers for something else. He was having a very hard time remembering he didn’t want a January wedding.

Annie practically threw the gun back onto the wall and he had to laugh. She was so jumpy that he bet he wasn’t the only one affected. “So, you like what you see, Agent Blake?” With a small wave of his arm he indicated his gun room.

He could see the momentary shock on her face when she realized he knew who she was, but she recovered quickly enough. He watched as she wiped her tiny hands on her jeans and then as she slowly raised her green eyes to meet his. When he looked into her eyes, he felt transported to pastures during springtime with the multiple shades of green fighting for dominance.

“I would ask you how you know who I am, but after looking around your house, I think there is a lot to you and your military record that was left out of the database.” Cade smiled and rocked back on his heels. “You could say that.”

Chapter Eight

Cade held the door to the gun room open for Annie. She walked into his office and leaned her hip against his old desk while he shut and locked the door. He had to look twice for the hidden panel to get the key out of in order to lock the door. Annie just looked so sexy in those tight jeans and simple white v-neck t-shirt that seemed to cling perfectly to her breasts, her hair haphazardly pulled back into a ponytail. It was driving him crazy!

Annie waited for him to finish hiding the key before asking him about his kidnapping. “So, what was amateur hour about?”

“
Actually, I was getting ready to come find you to talk about just that. I think I need your help.”

“
Did the big bad goons scare you?” she teased.

“
Ha! At first I had to go against my instinct to fight, but when I realized they were completely incompetent I had to fight from laughing. They tied loose knots and couldn’t even put on a blindfold. Good news, I know exactly where the home base is. They took me into Lexington to the Iron Club and Spa where I got to meet Trevor Gaylen.”

“
Great. I will pass this information along to my bosses and we can get some surveillance set up. Good work, Davies. Do you think this Trevor guy is the boss?”

“
No.” Cade shook his head. “He’s a thug in a suit brought over from Scotland.”

Annie looked at him and he could see the question in her eyes, “Then what did he want?”

“
He wants me to send the best boys on the team to the gym in Keeneston to train with an ex-NFL player by the name of Devon Ross. Furthermore, I’m to be in the locker room sparingly and no longer test for S2. In return, I get a championship team and you get to live.”

He watched as Annie narrowed her eyes as she took in his meaning. “Well, then you have nothing to worry about. As you know, I can take care of myself.” She smiled at him and his body went weak.

“
It’s not just you he threatened. He also threatened my mother and my dog.”

“
He brought your dog into it? Wow. That’s low.” Annie shook her head and thought about it some more. Cade was right. This wasn’t the boss man. The boss usually kept to the shadows. “We think the boss, whom we call the Scientist, is the actual designer of the drug. Did he say anything that would give clues to the boss?”

“
Trevor did say it was only temporarily illegal, that they were going to present it to the FDA,” Cade eagerly put in.

“
That way he can make two fortunes, one now, while they sell the drug illegally and then a second if it becomes approved by the FDA. That’s why I’m thinking the boss is younger, maybe late twenties, early thirties. It takes around fifteen years for a drug to be approved by the FDA, and my guess is he’s young enough to be able to enjoy both potential windfalls.” Annie knew she was mixing her personal views with what the DEA believed, but it felt like Cade would believe in her theories where the DEA didn’t want to speculate. She looked at Cade and saw him nodding his head in agreement.

“
That would make sense. An older person wouldn’t care about FDA approval. They’d just try to corner the street market. That would also make sense why the boss is keeping in the shadows. When they go legit, they’ll need a figurehead with a clean record.”

“
That’s right.” He got it! Annie almost jumped with joy. Her bosses kept telling her it was too much of a leap to narrow the profile down to younger people. Therefore, they had too many suspects to even make a start in the investigation.

“
But, S2 is not legal now, right?”

“
No. S2 is currently being made with an illegal synthetic steroid that was rejected by the FDA because it caused heart failure. We’ve run blood and tissue tests on all the victims over the past six months, and what we’re seeing is a slight change in the synthetic steroid from victim to victim.” Annie was getting excited now. She was talking about her investigation, her hunches, and her own thoughts on the case.

“
What does that mean?” Cade asked. She watched him cross his arms and take a seat in is black leather office chair.

Annie started to pace in front of the desk. She wanted to lay out her theory so he could understand, since it seemed like no one in the DEA seemed to. It meant a lot to her to have one person, just one, see reason in her theory.

“
See, I think the Scientist has taken the illegal synthetic steroid and is making tiny alterations to it to try to correct the direct link to heart failure. Why reinvent the wheel? The synthetic was perfect, except for the fact that it caused heart failure. So, if he can fix that problem, he’d have a remarkable commodity on his hands. I’m betting that the DEA scientists will find a different chemical makeup of the drug from Corey’s locker than from the drugs we took off the dealer in Miami. Somehow, I hope one of the changes will lead me to him. Maybe through a traceable chemical, something. He’ll make a mistake and I will be there to take him down.”

“
Why go through years and years of drug trials under the FDA rules and regulations when you could make a fortune just selling it as is now?”

“
I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Cade listened to Annie and felt the cold settle into the pit of his stomach. This guy was selling to kids, his kids, just to make money, and only found these heart problems to be a side effect. He didn’t like it, but he’d have to delay and play ball with Trevor Gaylen for a while. He needed to find the boss and take him out before any more kids were killed, and he would bet the farm on Trevor Gaylen being the key to taking the boss down.

He pushed off the arms of the office chair and stood in front of Annie. She seemed so small next to him. He just wanted to pull her to his chest and hide her from any danger she may be in because of his deal with Trevor. He stopped himself from reaching for her though. She would kick his ass if he didn’t treat her with the respect she deserved. She wasn’t the only one who had gone snooping after all. His perusal through her records showed him that she was very capable of taking care of herself. It was just hard for him to accept.

“
Come on. Let’s go outside and talk.” Cade watched her nod and walk through the office door and head straight for the back patio. He took a quick look around his living room and paused by the picture of him with his brothers and sister. It was slightly out of place.

Annie saw the second he saw the picture. She had angled it more than it originally had been. She saw that now. She also saw how he quickly scanned the rest of the area for any other signs of her search. She was so busted.

“
There is still one more question I have for you,” Cade said to her. His voice only hinting at the anger he was feeling.

“
Yes?” Annie straightened her shoulders. She wasn’t going to be intimidated by a little thing like feeling bad over an illegal search.

“
What were you doing in my house? I can understand my office and the gun room, but what were you looking for?”

“
I think you know what I was looking for.”

“
Well, are you satisfied that I am not dealing drugs to my kids, or do you need more time to search?”

“
No, I don’t. Thank you for offering though. I will make note of your cooperation in my reports.” She was being a brat and she knew it. She should just explain it to him and then maybe he wouldn’t get mad at her. It always seemed like a man was mad at her for doing her job, of course, and to be honest she never took the time to explain herself.

“
Look, Cade, I know you’re mad, but there is no reason to be. You know I have a job to do. You’re the only one who should understand my need to make sure you are cleared before I move on to the next subject. I know you weren’t selling, but I had to prove it.”

She watched as Cade processed her words. “Well, I guess that clears that up. How about we go outside and have a glass of wine. I believe you owe me an answer.”

“
An answer?” Annie asked, relief pouring over her. He understood… he actually understood.

“
I believe I asked you out on a date. Then Larry, Moe and Curly interrupted your giving me an answer. So, why don’t you contemplate your answer outside?”

Annie almost jumped at the ball of fur that popped up from behind the back of a chair in the living room at the word ‘outside’. She watched in stunned silence as he leapt out of the chair and ran toward the closed sliding glass door. He leapt up, his white furry paws hitting the sliding glass door at head level, his long, black coat swishing in the self-created wind as he leaned his whole body to the right. His big paws pushed the sliding door open as he fell from the air, the force of his fall pushing the door further open. Justin landed on the ground and put his black nose through the door, and with a twist of his head pushed the door the remainder of the way open.

Annie stared in amazement as Justin trotted through the door and disappeared into the darkness. “How?”

“
Yeah, it’s pretty wild, but he’s always been able to do that. He just jumps up and slides it open.”

“
He doesn’t look smart enough to figure that out. He kind of reminds me of a clown.”