Girls Just Wanna Have Guns (28 page)

“It’s not just Bihari that’s the issue now,” Yazzy said. “She indicated HS was involved.”

“I know.” When he caught her puzzled expression, Trevor explained, “Homeland Security.”

“Crap. You mentioned them earlier and I got distracted. Why in the hell is Homeland Security following me around?”

“They probably think you’re working with MacGreggor,” Trevor said, and Yazzy blanched.

“You told her?”

“She saw him. We don’t have time to debrief—where are the keys?”

“You’re in way too deep, man,” Yazzy said as Bobbie Faye looked around to see what the keys Trevor requested might be for. Then she saw the motorcycle parked a half a football field away.

“How—”

“Backup plan,” Trevor said, cutting off her question. So that’s what he’d been texting on their way to the mill that morning. “And I’m fine,” he said, addressing Yazzy’s comment. But there was something about the way they glared at each other that didn’t really scream “fine” and she looked back and forth.

“He’s not supposed to get involved emotionally with a Confidential Informant,” Yazzy said, not taking his eyes off Trevor. “Jeopardizes the whole case, not to mention it’s illegal.”

“Unless it’s been cleared that there was a relationship before she became a CI,” Trevor said, his voice strained with fury. “Which I did.”

“When?” she asked.

“The evening after your brother was kidnapped.”

Her head spun. She was exhausted, bleeding, she ached in places she hadn’t known could hurt, and she ought to be thinking about a million other things instead of Trevor’s
timing. Maybe she was just too damned numb to process anything else, because all she could do was watch Trevor’s expression and think about that timing.

That was after their first melt-her-clothes-off kiss, but long before their conversations. Before she’d even thought he might really want to date her. So the question was, how does a man know to notify his superior that there’s a relationship, when there isn’t one yet? He could only do that if he planned to start one. But . . . why? After all, the only thing they’d done, interaction-wise, was blow up parts of the state and nearly get themselves killed. Which meant that the next question was, did he plan to start one because it was something he wanted to do, or because having a relationship with her was merely an extension of his undercover work and his surveillance? How far ahead
had
he known about these diamonds and that note in Marie’s day planner?

She was losing the little fractured pieces of what was left of her mind . . . because if she couldn’t tell what was truth vs. a lie, how could she trust her own instincts after this?

“The helicopters are landing,” he continued, “and we’ve got to get out of here. The last thing she needs is to be plastered on TV right now or arrested. Keys.”

Trevor held out a hand and, for a minute there, Bobbie Faye thought the other agent was going to refuse. He finally handed Trevor a set of keys before he spun and ran off toward the house and sirens.

She crossed her arms, hiding her shaking hands. It was all too much to comprehend, especially with a fire raging. She focused, instead, on Trevor, on his sure movements toward the bike, on the certainty in how he put his hands on the small of her back.

“Do you always have a backup plan?”
How much is seducing me a part of that?
she wanted to ask. It was right there, tip of her tongue, jumping on the edge of the diving board, too freaking scared to go ahead and attempt that half-gainer into the water. Bravery scuttled back off the
board and hid under a towel and Self Mockery was having a stellar moment, making clucking noises.

“Not when it comes to you.”

Trevor pulled her to him, and she rocked against the hard planes of his body, which was just so wrong to think about with everything going on around them, but felt so freaking
good
.

They were a pair. Both cut and bruised, bloody and standing alone in the world, all sound falling away; she trumped him with the blue dye, but he had burns and scrapes that tied her in the crazy-looking department. He didn’t seem aware of any of it. Instead, he kissed her, lacing one hand through her hair, and the kiss was gentle, startling her. She leaned back to see that same expression of fear and hunger and loss and something else, something more, like he’d had when she went over that catwalk rail. He kissed her again, savoring, she thought, melting into his lead. He kissed like a man who’d made up his mind, who knew what he wanted, and never in her life had she been kissed like this. Thorough. So very thorough, she forgot completely where they were or what had happened. She forgot that she was standing there, bloody, aching, heart breaking for her family—forgot everything but his mouth tasting her, tears mixed in their kiss. Forgot everything except his hands, gentle in her hair, her body pressed the length of his. And then they heard the click of another freaking gun.

The voice, that cold-blooded Irish sonofabitch voice, said, “Which just fuckin’ proves you can depend on women to fuck you up. I think we’ll take her from here.”

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

FROM THE DESK OF JESSICA TYLER (JT) ELLIS

ASSISTANT TO THE UNDERSECRETARY OF THE UNDERSECRETARY OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ASSISTANT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HOMELAND SECURITY

NEW ORLEANS, LA

Re: progress report stats

(to be filed under field notes, personal,
only
)

Textiles which originated with Marie Despré to be seized for suspicion of acting as a method of smuggling diamonds. Textiles include but are not limited to: purses, belts, shoes, and accessories. Please note that suspect’s other hobbies in clude sculptural art—all known pieces are to be searched, galleries plus private collections. Various offices around the country, including FBI, tasked to help.

Aiden glanced at his boss to his right as they all—he, Sean, Mollie, and Robbie—held guns on the couple. More accurately, they held their guns on Bobbie Faye, whose back was to them.
Special ops
, Sean had said when they saw the guy bail out of the silo and keep Bobbie Faye from falling to her death.
Needs to die
had been all he’d said after that, which sucked for the spec ops guy, because when Sean wanted ’em dead, they ended up dead.

The man looked over Bobbie Faye’s shoulder at them, poker-faced, though Aiden knew he had to be pissed off for letting them sneak up on him; had he not stopped to kiss her, they might not have found ’em in time.

“You don’t want the girl shot,” Sean said, smiling, “so let her come over here and I’ll return her when I’m done wit’ her.” The man couldn’t draw his gun on them without putting her in immediate harm’s way, so Aiden and Robbie swept out from Sean; spec ops was as good as dead as soon as she stepped away. “Or,” Sean continued when neither of them moved to comply, “I can hurt her and make her work t’rough the pain. Your call.” Sean let his gaze drift over her backside and he grinned as she turned slightly and looked over her left shoulder, her right hand still around the man’s waist.

“I thought you wanted me to find the diamonds and bring them to you. Why the change?”

“Let’s jus’ say I’m not happy with everyone slowin’ you down,
álainn
.”

“I think,” the ops guy said, “that you’re asking for a lot more trouble than you realize. She’s a handful.”

“There you go again,” Bobbie Faye said, and Aiden saw anger flash, and something else as she recoiled away from the man, “always insulting me to the bad guys the split second things . . .” she whirled, throwing a knife, “. . . get nasty.”

Fuck, the woman was talented with knives, and the ops guy always had one . . . they’d forgotten that in their satisfaction of having them cornered and outnumbered. Aiden heard Robbie’s muffled groans and realized the woman had impaled his right shoulder against a tree. And in the moment they’d all followed the knife’s trajectory, the ops guy had his gun out, shooting, winging Mollie, and everyone scrambled. Aiden popped a few shots in the couple’s direction, but he couldn’t get a bead on the asshole ops guy without killing the woman, and Sean didn’t want her dead.

Yet.

The woman had a Glock—fuck—grabbed from her purse as she and the ops guy shot back, the ops guy managing to nick Aiden in his side and leg. They hurt like a sonofabitch, but it wasn’t fatal, and at least the injuries weren’t to the point of leaving him lame, because the last thing he wanted was to be a drag on the team and hear Sean humming “There’s a Hole in My Bucket.”

The gunfire drew one of the news helicopter’s attention and it flew toward them. They didn’t have time to stay and grab the woman here.

“Regroup,” Sean commanded, seething.

Cam scrutinized the chaos at the mill, knowing there was nothing useful for him to do. One of the first responding officers jogged over to him—Luke James, good kid, fresh out of the academy.

“Sir, no one seems to know where Miss Bobbie Faye is. But they seem . . . odd.”

“Odd, how?”

“Well, I can’t say exactly, but when I asked if they thought she had died in there, most of them avoided looking directly at me and were too nonchalant in their answers. The really bad actor guy—the one in those commercials?” Cam nodded. Donny. “He started to act all sad, like she’d died, and he was totally overselling it.”

“Which sounds like . . .” He couldn’t say it. He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the headache away. “Good job, Luke. You get anything out of the other guys?”

“Nope. They clammed up. They’re supposed to be bikers but there’s something weird about them.”

“Put everyone in a squad car and haul them in. Call the captain and tell him we’re going to need several rooms cleared for questioning.”

As Luke headed back for the cousins and the bikers clustered in the broiling sun near one of the squad cars, Cam spied Reggie near one of the fire trucks, bugging the hell out of Jordan, from the grimace Jordan sported. She was smiling—always a bad sign. He strode toward her. There was a decent possibility she’d gotten footage of Bobbie Faye going into, and maybe coming out of—

“Sir,” another patrolman called out, jogging over to Cam. “Overheard one of the newscasters say there was some shooting out in the trees way in the back of the property just a minute ago—one of the stations tried to get some footage, but it’s all trees back there and they had no real visibility. Something about a motorcycle racing away, maybe had a couple riding it?”

Cam’s gaze immediately went back to the motorcycle parked in front of the house. One Harley. He glanced over where Luke had corralled the cousins and the two extra men. Two. One bike. Both guys looked like bikers, and he doubted one of them was riding bitch. There was a GTO with tires shot out, and Trevor had been with her just that morning.

He looked back at that single bike again. Two minutes later, he’d commandeered the keys.

From:
JT

To:
Simone

What do you mean,
lost
her? Like
lose
lose? As in dead? Or just misplaced? Please, God, tell me you just misplaced her. Go look in the silo. Maybe she’s only singed a little around the edges.