Too Hard to Handle, page 28
“What?” She blinked, confused.
“It was Patti,” he said at the same time she leaned closer, examining the design. Sure enough. The ink had faded, the tattoo obviously years old, but underneath the heart, inside a waving scrap of ribbon was his wife’s name: Patti.
“She spelled it with an I,” she mused almost to herself. “Just like I spell my name.”
“She did.” Dan nodded, watching her closely.
“Weird coincidence,” she said. Then a thought occurred. A terrible thought. An ugly thought. She was the first woman he’d been with after his wife. And his wife’s name was Patti spelled with an I. And her name was Penni spelled with an I. “Is that why you gave me that nickname in Malaysia?” she asked, her voice wobbling, her heart pounding. The room spinning and spinning and spinning.
Something flitted across his face. Something that made her breath catch. “Penni,” he said, “I—” But then he just stopped, snapping his mouth shut, the muscle in his jaw twitching spasmodically. He wasn’t going to lie to her.
“Oh my God!” She slapped a hand over her mouth and jumped from the bed. “You were afraid you’d call me by the wrong name, weren’t you?”
“Penni…” He reached for her, his eyes imploring.
She stumbled back, uncaring that she was standing there stark naked and blowing like she’d run a race. A chasm opened inside her. A huge, yawning void that swallowed her heart, her lungs, her ribs. It widened, pushing out until she was totally consumed by it. Lost in it until she was adrift in a gulf of pain and disappointment.
With a sigh, he curled his fingers into a fist and dropped his hand into his lap. “Please don’t be hurt. It’s not a reflection of you. It was me. I was thinking that I shouldn’t… I didn’t want… You were just so… Jesus, I’m fuckin’ this up.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face, his eyes searching the footboard like maybe down there he would find the words to make it right. Forget about it. There were no words to make it right. She thought he called her Brooklyn because of her accent, because it was cute and sweet and special and—
But it was so he didn’t mix her up with his dead wife! The horror! The absolute horror!
“Look,” he finally said. “You’re right. I gave you that nickname ’cause you were the first and ’cause I was scared I’d slip up during the heat of things. And I didn’t want to do that, Penni,” he implored. “I didn’t want to hurt you. You’d been so…wonderful. And I—”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A heavy fist landed on the door, making Penni jump. Her skin felt like she’d run through a clutch of stinging nettles. Her heart felt like it had exploded in that void that had become her chest. She needed to cry, but couldn’t. Felt like pulling her hair out, but didn’t. She just stood there, staring at the door as every hope she’d had about what she might mean to Dan was crushed into dust.
A rebound. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“You two figure you can stop testing each other’s suspension long enough to come down and listen to what Rock has to say about Winterfield?” Boss’s booming bass sounded through the door. “We’re gathering at the conference table in five…”
When she turned back, Dan searched her eyes, his own pleading for her to understand.
She swallowed the tears burning up her throat, swallowed the cry lodged in the center of her chest, and squared her shoulders. “We’ll be there,” she called, stumbling into the bathroom to grab her clothes. Hoping beyond hope that she could keep her shit together for just a little while longer.
Chapter Twenty-one
Black Knights Inc., Second Floor
Saturday, 3:52 p.m.
Zoelner was a ball’s hair away from drilling Ozzie in the face…
“Are you going to write me up for sexual innuendo?” Ozzie asked Chelsea, who was sitting across the conference table from them. She and Ozzie had been trading banter for what seemed like an eternity—although, in actuality, it had probably only been a minute or two.
“No.” Chelsea was grinning coquettishly—there was just no other word for it. “But I will grade you very strictly. I expect nothing but the best when it comes to flirtation.”
Zoelner’s back teeth set so hard he thought it a wonder he didn’t lose a filling.
“Good thing I was always a straight-A student.” Ozzie wiggled his eyebrows.
“If you two don’t cut it out,” Zoelner warned, “I’m liable to revisit those two hot dogs I ate earlier all over this conference table.”
“Gross, dude.” Ozzie frowned.
“My thoughts exactly.” Zoelner leveled him with a look that included Chelsea.
“Aw.” Ozzie batted his lashes. “Are you jealous again? I told you there’s enough Ozzie to go around. Come here, you big lug.” Ozzie hooked an arm around his neck and dragged his head over. “Let Ozzie give you some more lovin’, huh?”
When Ozzie went to kiss his head, Zoelner shoved his hand in Ozzie’s face, pushing him away and ducking from under his arm. He was grinning despite himself. Ozzie always had that effect on him. One minute he wanted to kick the bastard in the pork sword, the next minute he was trying not to laugh.
The sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs heralded the arrival of Dan and Penni to the party. “Penni…” Dan’s voice echoed around the corner. “Wait a goddamn minute, I—”
Dan was cut off when Penni breezed into the room and asked Ozzie cheekily, “So how was the date with the reporter?”
Zoelner tilted his head, frowning. There was something weird about Penni’s face—besides the beard burn that pinkened her cheeks. It was her smile. It looked forced. Brittle. He imagined if someone flicked a sunflower seed at her teeth, every single one of them would shatter. Curious, he glanced behind her to see that Dan was looking… What was that exactly? Distressed? No. Maybe distraught came closer to describing it.
Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise. Though what could possibly have happened to pop all those heart-shaped bubbles that appeared over Dan and Penni’s heads when they were in the same room together was a mystery. From the sounds he’d heard coming from Dan’s bedroom not too long ago, the pair should be moony-eyed and lethargic with postcoital bliss.
“Pssht. I had Samantha Tate eating out of my hand,” Ozzie boasted, oblivious to the strained atmosphere accompanying Dan and Penni. “Who wants to bet she’ll be phoning me up, asking me to bury my bone by the end of the week?”
“She better not,” Boss boomed upon exiting his office. “When it comes to sex with reporters, I’m instating a no-tolerance rule.”
“What? Why?” Ozzie ran his hands through his hair like that was the most outrageous thing Boss could have said. When he lowered his arms, his too-long hair was standing out, making him look a little Einstein-esque. “It’s the best way to keep her from nosing around here again.”
“How do you figure?” Becky asked, skirting Boss’s back and grabbing a seat near the head of the conference table.
“One night with the Oz-Man and she’ll be too distracted with thoughts of repeating the process to worry about what she thinks we might be hiding here,” Ozzie bragged.
Becky snorted. “I swear, just when I think I’ve seen the outer limits of your ego, there’s so much more to be discovered.”
“Thank you,” Ozzie said, doing his best Elvis imitation. “Thank you very much.”
Zoelner realized with a little start that he’d missed the Knights in the last three months. He hadn’t been with them from the beginning, having only signed on with the outfit a couple of years back. But in that short time they’d become more than teammates and coworkers. They’d become…friends. Family even.
He blinked, a little thrown by the thought.
He’d never really had much of a family before. His mother had died when he was too young to remember her. His father was a bastard and a half. And his younger brother? Well, Zoelner had spent so much of his life trying to keep the little shit out of trouble—all to no avail—that he’d never really had the chance to develop any sort of familial feelings beyond duty and responsibility.
“I need coffee!” Rock’s southern drawl traveled up the stairs before he did. “Tout de suite!”
Becky jumped from her seat and rushed over to grab the pot and the stack of Styrofoam cups sitting on a cart by the wall. She filled one cup and handed it to Rock when he appeared at the top of the stairs. After a nod of thanks, Rock grabbed a seat beside Chelsea. Vanessa came out of Rock’s office the moment she heard his voice and sat next to him, her expression concerned.
“No worries, ma chérie,” Rock assured her, squeezing her hand. It was no secret Rock hated doing interrogations. “This one was a piece of cake.”
“Good.” Vanessa blew out a breath, waving off the cup of coffee Becky offered her. “No thanks. I don’t think my stomach lining has recovered since the last time I drank that swill.”
“I’ll take some,” Zoelner told Becky, having grown accustomed to the motor-oil-strength java Boss liked to make.
“Dare I?” Chelsea asked him, eyeing the pot in Becky’s hand.
“Depends,” he told her. “How strong is your constitution?”
She blanched and shook her head, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I think I’ll follow Vanessa’s lead and take a pass.”
“Probably wise,” he agreed, thanking Becky when she handed him a cup. He breathed in the slightly muddy aroma of coffee beans that’d had the shit brewed out of them, but Penni diverted his attention when she sat in the chair next to him, fisting her hands in her lap until her knuckles turned white. He frowned at her, then lifted a brow at Dan, who grabbed the seat at the end of the table. Dan just closed his eyes and shook his head, a classic guy move that said, I fucked up, so don’t ask.
Zoelner offered him a sympathetic grimace before turning to watch Boss click on the triangular-shaped conference-caller in the center of the table. Boss dialed a number, and after the first ring, an officious-sounding woman answered, saying without preamble, “Please hold for the president.”
“The president?” Chelsea squeaked, her eyes wide behind the lenses of her glasses.
She knew the reporting structure for BKI, but as a true blue, wrapped-in-the-flag Intelligence agent, she found it a little awe-inspiring that they had a direct link to the commander in chief. Zoelner knew just how awe-inspiring from experience. The first time President Thompson arrived through the secret tunnel to have a meeting with the Knights, he had sat there blinking at the president, feeling like he’d fallen down a rabbit hole.
“I’ve got General Fuller with me,” Thompson’s presidential baritone echoed from the speakers. General Pete Fuller was the head of the Joint Chiefs and the man the Knights reported to. “Who all am I talking with in Chi-Town?” Thompson asked.
Every conference call with Thompson began this way, with a roll call. Boss was the first to make his presence known, followed by Becky. Around the table it went until finally Chelsea said, “Special Agent Chelsea Duvall at your service, Mr. Thompson. I mean, Mr. President. Uh…sir. Shit. Oh, sorry, sir. I mean Mr. President.”
President Thomson chuckled and said, “At ease, Agent Duvall.”
Chelsea groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. A deep blush stole into her cheeks. God, she’s adorable. When she blinked her eyes open, Zoelner sent her an encouraging wink.
Ozzie leaned over and surreptitiously whispered, “That woman is a tornado and you, my friend, are a trailer park.”
“Meaning what?” Zoelner whispered back, frowning.
“Meaning I see disaster ahead.” Ozzie nodded like it was a foregone conclusion.
Zoelner’s frown deepened, but even if he’d wanted to argue or make Ozzie explain himself further—which he didn’t—the conference call was getting underway and he was forced to turn his attention to the topic at hand.
“…able to find out from Winterfield, Rock?” Thompson was asking. “Anything?”
“Oui.” Rock nodded, taking a fortifying sip of coffee. “Quite a lot, sir.”
“Really?” General Fuller’s deep base echoed through the speakers. “That surprises me. I would’ve thought he’d clam up and start making demands before he’d agree to talk.”
“Well”—Rock adjusted his green John Deere ball cap and sat forward, resting his elbows on the table—“he does want some assurances before he’ll give us the details about what all he stole and who all he sold his information to.”
“There you go,” Fuller said, disgust heavy in his voice.
“What assurances?” the president asked smoothly, ever the professional politician.
“He wants the death penalty taken off the table,” Rock drawled.
“Typical,” Fuller snorted.
“And he doesn’t want to be put in with the general population when he’s imprisoned,” Rock continued.
“What?” President Thompson asked, curiosity lacing his tone. “Why?”
“Accordin’ to him, Spider will be sure to have someone on the inside who’ll kill him.”
Spider? Zoelner wondered if that was the ubiquitous “him” Winterfield had been screaming about when they were in the van. And now his curiosity was piqued.
“Spider?” President Thompson asked. “I’m assuming we’re talking about a person and not an eight-legged creature.”
“Yes, sir.” Rock nodded. “Apparently, this Spider person was the one pullin’ Winterfield’s strings, the reason the sorry sonofabitch went rogue.”
“Explain,” Fuller demanded. Just the one word. Patience was not the general’s forte.
Rock blew out a breath and settled back in his chair. “First of all, let me state for the record that I’m pretty sure Winterfield’s cheese done slipped off his cracker.”
“He’s nuts?” Boss asked.
Rock nodded, then realized el Jefe and the general couldn’t see him and said, “As my daddy would say, he’s nuttier than squirrel shit.”
“So you can’t believe anything he says,” Fuller grumbled.
“Well, you’d think so,” Rock mused. “But Winterfield’s crazy leans more toward paranoia and emotional instability, and not so much toward delusions or hallucinations. I think the tale he told me was the truth.”
“And what tale was that?”
“It all starts five years ago when Winterfield was runnin’ an op in Iraq,” Rock began, and by the way the Cajun leaned back and laced his fingers across his stomach, Zoelner knew they were in for a long tale. “He had an asset inside the local al-Qaeda group named Marnia Sultana,” Rock continued. “It seems Winterfield developed a little crush on her, and one thing led to another. Durin’ pillow talk one night, Winterfield let some sensitive information slip about a shipment of weapons we were handin’ over to the Iraqi military. Turns out Sultana was a double agent and she gave that information to her al-Qaeda handlers. An assault on the shipment resulted in the loss of thirty-two American lives, hundreds of weapons, and thousands of rounds.”
“I remember that fiasco,” Fuller mused. “It happened just outside Mosul. We never could figure out how al-Qaeda knew about the shipment.”
“Well, now ya know.” Rock scratched his chin. “But this is where it gets weird. Accordin’ to Winterfield, two weeks after the disaster he was contacted by a mysterious man who went by the name of Spider. The guy, I’m assumin’ it’s a guy, had a video confession from Marnia Sultana fingerin’ Winterfield with the blame. And Spider used this video to place Winterfield under his thumb, forcin’ Winterfield to funnel top secret information to him whenever he came askin’ for it.”
“And Winterfield never thought to come clean?” Again, Fuller’s voice was heavy with disgust. The general didn’t suffer turncoats lightly.
“I don’t get the impression Winterfield, even when he still had all his marbles, was a man who was fettered by conscience,” Rock said. “I suspect even back then his moral compass didn’t exactly point true north. He liked bein’ a CIA agent. And, if ya ask me, I think he liked the thrill of passin’ along information and not gettin’ caught.”
“So what changed?” President Thompson asked.
Rock tsked. “He got greedy. He figured he was doin’ all of that, takin’ risks that could get him strung up, stealin’ information that was worth millions, all just so this Spider character wouldn’t out him for what happened with that weapons shipment. Winterfield took it into his head that he could do a fair bit better on his own and decided to make a break for it. But all the runnin’ and gunnin’ has since gotten to him. He doesn’t strike me as a terribly stable individual to begin with, and I think the stress of it all tipped him over the edge.”
“So you think the guy at the airport in Cusco, the one who took out the ground crew and the Russian FSB agent was one of Spider’s men?” Fuller asked.
“So says Winterfield,” Rock concurred.
“Interesting,” the president mused. “I suppose now the question becomes, who the hell is this Spider?”
“Ya got me,” Rock said. “And you got Winterfield too. He never met the man, only ever talked to him on the phone. Winterfield doesn’t even know Spider’s real name, although Winterfield says he has an English accent.”
“English, huh?” Thompson mused. “Do we have another Jihadi John on our hands here?”
“He’s more than that,” Chelsea piped up and Zoelner lifted a brow. “Uh, Mr. President. Sir,” she added after a beat.
Adorable. Damnit.
“I’m assuming by the litany of titles being thrown my way that it’s Agent Duvall speaking,” President Thompson said.
“Yes, sir, Mr. President.” Chelsea nodded, her color riding high again.
“Go on then, Agent,” Thompson said. “Tell us what you know.”
“Nothing, really.” Chelsea wrinkled her nose. “Just that a couple of times over the years the name ‘Spider’ has come up in Intelligence gathering. And not just in connection to al-Qaeda. I ran across a reference to him when I was looking into a human trafficking case. And then another time when I was collecting Intel about an organized crime syndicate that was operating out of Warsaw. But I could never find anything more about him, and since he wasn’t pivotal to either situation, I chalked up both references to coincidence. I told myself the third time is the charm and swore that if I heard about him again, then I’d get interested in finding out more.”
