Chapter Twenty-Five

Eric grit his teeth harder. “No. Hell, no.” He was a millisecond away from punching his fist through the wall.

There might be a mountain of insurmountable shit piled between him and Tess, but there was no way he’d let her turn herself over to Gant, especially now that he knew the extent of the horrors she’d endured as a child, and what she’d be facing if Gant took her back to Alabama.

Confused didn’t begin to describe what he was thinking and feeling where Tess was concerned, but it had been all he could do to sit there, listening passively as she told him that her own stepfather would have turned her over to a rapist. Jesus H. Christ. Jesse had already told him some of the story, but he couldn’t believe that kind of backwoods mentality still existed in this country. Despite Tess’s deception, he believed that part of her story. No one could make that up. But it couldn’t stop the painful beating of his naive, foolish heart.

“It’s our only option, and I already agreed.” She looked at him from red-rimmed eyes, and all he could stupidly think was how beautiful and selflessly courageous she was. “I’m meeting him tomorrow at nine a.m. He insisted that I come alone.”

“No! We’ll find another way.” What way, exactly, he didn’t know, but his mind was already working on another option.

“There is no other way,” she insisted with a shake of her head. “You said so yourself, you lost Pritchard and the others, and that ammonium nitrate is just useless fertilizer now. Without me, you’ve got nothing. I’m your only connection to Gant, and I’ve got a lot to make up for. I lied to you about not knowing him. I was going to tell you before you found out, I swear it. Maybe if I’d told you sooner, somehow you could have figured out where they were making the bomb. I can’t sit by and do nothing. You have to let me do this.”

Fear—for her—clawed at his gut so much he could feel it ripping his insides apart. He couldn’t believe this was happening. The entire operation had gone from one over which he’d had total control to one that was spinning completely out of control faster than a tornado.

“Eric?” Dayne took a step into the room. “She’s right. We’ve got nothing without her.”

“Dammit, Dayne! Don’t you think I know that?” This time, he couldn’t stop himself. The lid that had barely been keeping his emotions in check exploded like the top of a volcano, and he slammed his fist against the wall, leaving behind a one-inch dent in the sheetrock. Pain shot from his knuckles up his arm, but he barely felt it.

He hated her idea. Hated it because it would put her life in incredible danger, and it had to be a trap. She might have ripped out his heart and stomped on it, but he didn’t want to see her get hurt. Despite what he’d told her, he couldn’t automatically flip a switch and completely shut off his feelings.

Eric stared into Tess’s vivid green eyes. “You can’t believe for one second that he’d actually let you go.”

“No. I don’t,” she agreed solemnly. “He’ll either take us both back to Alabama, or—”

“Kill you,” he interrupted, finishing her sentence. A new rush of heated emotion welled inside him. There was so much to say, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice a damn thing. He just needed more time to process the revelations that were tearing him apart.

“That’s where you come in,” Tess said. “I have to get my brother away from Gant. You need me. I need you.”

Christ, he did need her. In so many ways he was only now truly coming to understand. That was, until she’d yanked the rug out from beneath his feet.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Dayne said. “Gant knows you and Jesse are working with us, so why would he risk meeting with you at all? He has to know we’d monitor your every move.”

“Harley’s never forgiven me for running away. No one gets away from him, but I did. I didn’t know what he was—a sovereign citizen cult leader—until years after I left Alabama.” She turned to Eric. “My leaving made him look bad in front of his followers. I’m an embarrassment that has to be rectified. Or erased.”

Unable to stand still a moment longer, he clasped his hands behind his head and began pacing around the room in tight circles. “This is an insane idea.”

“Agreed,” Tess said. “Do you have a better one?”

No. He didn’t. He unclasped his hands and stopped pacing. There had to be another way.

Dayne gave a subtle shake of his head. “She knows what’s inside Gant’s head better than anyone.”

“Here’s where I’m meeting him.” She pulled a slip of paper from her skirt pocket and handed it to him.

He stared at the address. It was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t pinpoint why, and he couldn’t fathom Gant’s rationale by giving her the location so far in advance of the meet. “Then he already knows we’re coming. We’re being manipulated like puppets.” He handed the paper to Dayne. “This has to be a trap.”

“Eric,” Tess pleaded as she stood, “he has my brother. I don’t have a choice. I have to go.”

Judging by the determined look in her eyes, she would go with him or without him. More gut-deep emotions hammered his skull so loudly he had to shut his eyes to process other viable options, but he was still coming up empty. The only way to Gant was by putting Tess in so much danger he didn’t know how he could possibly handle it.

“Okay.” He snapped open his eyes and glanced at his watch. “We need a plan, one with leverage to counter whatever Gant is orchestrating. We’ve got seventeen hours to figure something out.”

“We’ll need to run this up the chain.” Dayne canted his head in the direction of the other conference room.

Tess clasped his forearm, staring up at him. “I’m sorry. You’ll never know how much.”

Their gazes met and held. After all her lies, how could he still want her with every breath he took?

Unable to answer his own question, he refocused on the here and now. Stowing every goddamn feeling inside him was the only way he could move forward.

This was as fucked up a situation as he’d ever encountered, so he had to think outside the box. Way outside the box, because if Gant or Pritchard got their hands on her again… The thought was so horrific he wanted to vomit.

He honestly didn’t know if he could ever forgive her for keeping a secret so colossal from him, but he’d never allow them to get their hands on her. He’d die first.

Before the end of the night, he had calls to make, one in particular to counter every federal agent’s nightmare. The worst-case scenario. Which this pretty much was already, but he wasn’t about to give up.

Someone clearing their throat had Eric turn to find Joe Eden standing in the doorway next to Dayne. In his hand were several sheets of paper.

“Remember that offline search you had me keep running for stolen or missing nitromethane?” Eden asked.

“Yeah.” Eric eyed the documents Eden was holding. Things were about to get worse.

“We got a hit.” He held out the sheets. “It came in an hour ago.”

Eric grabbed them, scanning them quickly. The snowball of shit they were facing had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

He glanced at Dayne. “The drag strip in Englishtown filed a police report for missing nitromethane. The PD thinks it was a guy who worked at the Flemington Speedway.”

Dayne cursed under his breath. “How much?”

“Six full barrels.”

“Jesus,” Dayne whispered.

“What does that mean?” Tess asked, looking first at Dayne, then Eric.

“It means”—Eric clenched the sheets in his fist—“whatever size bomb they’re building could be big enough to take out half a city.”

…

Tess woke with a start to find Tiger standing on the far end of the sofa, circling on the cushion, trying to find room to lie down.

“Hi, Tiger.” She tucked in her legs and patted the cushion, urging him to snuggle against her.

Hours earlier, Eric had escorted her to a small break room in the back of the ATF office to wait while he and Dayne met with their supervisors. A quick check of her cell phone told her she’d been sleeping for several hours and it was nearly midnight. The sandwich Agent Eden had brought her sat untouched on the nearby table.

With a throaty hmpf of gratitude, Tiger flopped down beside her, resting his head on her hip. Dogs had an uncanny way of inherently knowing when their love and companionship was needed. It was definitely needed now.

Rising on one elbow, she stroked his velvety ears. Almost immediately, an unexpected sense of peace enfolded her. Tiger tilted his head to give her better access to one particular spot behind his right ear that he loved having massaged. Happy to comply, she swirled her fingers against the soft coat and was rewarded with a groan of pleasure, confirming she’d found just the right place.

“He’ll never forgive me.” Tiger flicked his ears, listening in that silent way only dogs could. “I don’t blame him. I just wish… I wish…”

“Wish what?” Dayne asked from where he now leaned against the refrigerator.

She’d been so self-absorbed she hadn’t heard him come in. Like Eric, for such a big man, he moved as silently as a spider.

“That I could do most of my life over again,” she answered honestly. Especially the part where she’d lied to Eric about Harley. Although, the more she went over and over that moment in her mind, she’d made the right choice at the time. Helping Jesse out of a jam had been all that mattered. Then. Now, Eric mattered to her, too. As did the countless lives she might have unwittingly put in terrible jeopardy.

“Join the club.” He pulled a chair from the table, spinning it around before straddling it and resting his forearms on the seat back. “I thought my childhood was twisted. Yours makes mine seem like Disneyland.”

For the first time since meeting Eric’s darkly handsome, brooding friend, Tess sensed a soft side to the man. His sharp green eyes had always conveyed wariness and censure, yet his expression now was discernibly sympathetic.

I don’t deserve his sympathy. I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy.

She pushed to a sitting position, and Tiger groaned at the disturbance until she resumed massaging his ears.

“Do you think he’s right? Did we really endanger people by not telling you and Eric about Harley?”

Dayne’s dark brows bunched. “Don’t know for sure. Eric already had a pretty good idea who was behind those drums. Had we known earlier—I doubt we would have done much differently.”

“If I’d told you,” she countered, “you might have had eyes on Harley and Pritchard earlier.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t kill yourself over what-ifs.”

“I’ll never forgive myself if that bomb goes off before you find it.”

“If it does, it won’t be your fault. It’ll be Gant’s fault, and the fault of the people who follow his warped rule of morality. Keep it real and don’t forget that.”

She shook her head, still feeling guilty. “It’s hard to do that.”

Tiger’s rumbly snores had her turning to see the dog’s eyelids flicker. Doors opening and closing filtered into the break room. Part of her yearned to see Eric again, while the other part was disappointed that he hadn’t understood. No matter how much she’d explained her actions, he would never be capable of forgiving her. He hated Harley and would always see her as being tainted, soiled by her affiliation with him.

“We’re just about done. You can leave your car here for the night. Eric’s making one last phone call, then he’ll take you home.”

“Home?” She’d assumed there was no way he’d want to be anywhere near her. “He hates me.”

Dayne surprised her by chuckling. “He cares about you.”

She shook her head. “I doubt that.”

“I’m not wrong.”

She slanted him a skeptical look. “How do you know?”

“Whatever he’s feeling, it’s not hatred. Probably the opposite.”

“How do you figure that?” Because she couldn’t. Not in a million years.

“You hurt him. That’s how I know. Eric doesn’t hurt easily. Emotionally, he’s got a steel backbone. The entire time I’ve known him, the only person who ever hurt him is you. But your motives were well intentioned. You were protecting your little brother. Revenge is one of the strongest motivating forces there is, and it’s been at the forefront of Eric’s mind for a very long time. His friends died right in front of him. He needed closure and he never got it. When that moment happens for him, then he’ll be able to think clearly.”

“If only that were true,” she whispered.

“Don’t doubt what I said. He already knows you went through hell just like we did.” Dayne’s beautiful emerald eyes went hard then he shifted his focus to the floor, as if he was recalling something—a memory—that he didn’t much like.

Like we did?

She didn’t know Dayne had suffered in his life. In the few days she’d known him, the man had barely spoken to her. He was a man of few words, one with a cold, granite-like exterior that kept people from invading his personal space. Maybe she and Dayne were more alike than she’d realized, and that was why he could understand.

“Thank you,” she said, amused when his startled gaze flicked back to hers.

“For what?” A corner of his mouth lifted.

“For the talk.” She grinned and was rewarded with a dazzling white smile that completely shocked her. “So, what’s your story? Did you have psycho parents, too?”

The smile on his face faded. His jaw went hard again, and his eyes darkened, reminding her of the murky depths of the lakes she used to fish in Alabama. Whatever the man’s childhood, it couldn’t have been pretty.

Tiger lifted his head, his body rigid as he stared at the empty doorway. A second later, Eric came in. His hair was completely mussed, and his eyes were tired. “The judge wouldn’t sign the warrant.”

Tess sat up straighter. “For Harley’s arrest?”

“No.” He rubbed his eyes. “We definitely don’t have enough PC—probable cause—to arrest him. Yet,” he added. “We can’t prove he had anything to do with the ammonium nitrate Jesse drove to New Jersey, and we have no evidence that Jesse was taken against his will.”

“I don’t understand. With everything I told you, why isn’t that enough?” Not that she knew much about probable cause required to arrest someone, but she’d hoped—no, prayed—they could arrest Harley on the spot.

“All the drums have legal quantities of AN. Without any other components, it’s just fertilizer, and those drums haven’t moved.”

“What about the stolen nitromethane and the explosives out of Montana?” Dayne asked. “Doesn’t the judge understand the significance of all this happening at the same time?”

“He does, but he’s a stickler for procedure, and we have no evidence connecting Harley, Pritchard, or anyone else with the theft. There were no witnesses, no cameras, and we don’t even know where the nitro or explosives are located.”

“Then how do we handle this tomorrow?” Dayne asked.

Eric sat on the edge of the sofa, so close that she could smell the remnants of his aftershave and the soap he’d used on her naked body after they’d made love in the shower. Her heart constricted as she remembered how his hands had stroked her wet skin and how he’d kissed her before taking her so thoroughly and completely against the shower wall.

He held up the folded piece of paper she’d given him. Nothing in his demeanor gave her any indication whatsoever that her nearness was affecting him in the slightest. “The address Gant gave you is a brick mansion sitting in the middle of twenty acres of old apple orchards. It’s for sale and up until three days ago vacant. We sent teams there tonight to watch the place from a distance. There are no vehicles outside, but there’s a three-car garage and the lights are on inside the house.”

Dayne pointed to the paper. “Considering who owns that house, I’m not surprised Gant’s using it.”

Her fingers stilled on Tiger’s ears. “Why? Who owns it?”

“Vincent Mangano.” Dayne readjusted his forearms on the back of the chair. “A mob boss who’s been in prison for the last five years. The FBI investigated him for nearly a decade before nailing him on racketeering charges. I bet that house could tell some stories. There were rumors it was a hidey-hole for all kinds of illegal things, but they were just that. Rumors. We never did get a search warrant for the place.”

“And we’re not there yet.” Eric raked a hand through his hair. “After tomorrow, we might be. The judge said that if an explosives K-9 hits on the place he’ll sign the warrant.”

“How will you get an explosives dog close enough without Harley knowing it?” Tess asked.

“I have no intention of hiding.” Eric’s lips curved into a crafty smile. “When you go to meet Gant, Tiger and I are walking in the door with you.”

“It won’t work,” she warned. “I told you already, he specified that he won’t let me set foot inside the door if anyone comes with me.”

“Then we’ll be right outside the front door in plain sight.”

“But—”

“No buts.” Eric got in her face, leaning down so close he could have kissed her if he wanted to. She knew he didn’t. “If he wants you so badly—and it’s clear that he does—he’ll have to deal with half a dozen armed agents on his front lawn. That’s my part of the deal, and that’s not open to negotiation.”

For an instant, his gaze lowered to her mouth. Her pulse ticked faster. Please, please kiss me. Hold me, do something so I know you still care.

He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. When his eyes shuttered, she understood precisely what was happening. He needed to widen the physical and emotional barriers between them. He was slowly, painfully slipping from her life.

Get real, girl. He’s already gone.

“Tiger, hier!” he practically yelled as he headed out the door.

Tiger hopped off the sofa, pausing to nudge her hand with his wet nose before following Eric.

When she stood, Dayne rose and dropped an arm across her shoulders, urging her into the hallway. “Have faith. He’ll come around.”

She wouldn’t have believed that her heart could sink any lower, but it did. Even if he did somehow manage to “come around” as Dayne assured her he would, she’d be long gone by then.