5:30 P.M.
1000 Eighteenth Street
“Go home,” Pierce announced.
Every agent in the conference room absorbed the order. No one wanted to go home. They wanted to find Martin Fincher and see that he paid for causing the death of then SAC.
It didn’t seem possible that Agent Worth was gone.
ASAC Talley had given over complete control to Pierce. He felt too close to this to be objective.
Vivian settled her attention on McBride. He had drawn that “don’t give a shit” shield around himself. His expression was blank, his posture indifferent. If he got the chance, he would drink the last twelve hours right out of his head. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.
But they needed to be doing something to find Fincher.
When she would have said as much, Pierce added, “There’s an APB out on Fincher. Birmingham PD has roadblocks on all the main thoroughfares leaving the city … at the airport … bus terminals. There’s nothing else we can do this evening. We need sleep, so we’ll all be fresh in the morning. Be back here at eight sharp. You’ll get a call if anything comes up before then.”
Vivian pushed up from the conference table, grabbed her purse and holster, and headed for the door. Pratt, Aldridge, and Arnold filed out ahead of her. Schaffer had returned and was assisting Talley with the updating of the timeline board. Her lime-green cowboy boots were about the only thing Vivian had seen this crappy day that made her want to smile … reminded her in spite of the worst man could do to man life went on.
“Hold up, McBride,” Pierce said.
Vivian turned back to see what Pierce wanted with McBride. If he planned to rake him over the coals again, she was going to call Pierce on it. If her statement of the way things had gone down in that elevator shaft wasn’t clarification enough, then he would just have to do what he would. But he wasn’t going to beat McBride down about it.
McBride hadn’t asked for this.
He wasn’t the one to let Worth go.
She was.
“What do you want, Pierce?”
The silent standoff lasted long enough for her to visually weigh the differences between the two. It went way beyond the physical. There was a kind of movement about Pierce even when he was perfectly still … as if he were constantly analyzing or roving around whatever subject his attention latched onto. His words were chosen carefully. McBride, on the other hand, said exactly what he thought when he bothered to interact verbally. Unlike Pierce, McBride gave off a sense of utter stillness that even now scared her to death and attracted her like a potent magnet.
She pushed away Pierce’s confession. How could she have missed that? Maybe she had been so focused on her training that she just hadn’t noticed.
Or maybe because of what had happened to her, she had been in denial.
“Talley has requested added security for your room as
well as Grace’s town house just in case Fincher tries to have his revenge.”
“Anything else?” McBride wanted out of there. The tension was evident in those wide shoulders and the set of his square jaw.
Pierce didn’t answer right away, he glanced at Grace as if he wanted to be sure she heard this. “I realize your options were limited today. Both you and Agent Grace did all you could to save Worth. That’s all anyone could ask.”
McBride didn’t say thank you but he didn’t tell Pierce where to get off either. He just walked away.
Vivian strode past Pierce without a word, then hastened her step to catch up with McBride in the corridor. “Just so you know, I’m taking you home with me. You’re not staying in that hotel alone tonight.”
McBride glanced at the others waiting for the elevator and made a turn for the stairwell. Vivian was with him—she wasn’t sure she would ever take another elevator. Maybe in a decade or two.
“I don’t need a babysitter.” McBride shot her a look before starting down the stairs.
She had to hustle to keep up with him. “Good. Because I wasn’t planning on babysitting.”
Another of those suspicious glances cut her way as he rounded the landing for the next flight down.
What was she planning?
She hadn’t exactly gotten that far. She had just a minute ago made the decision about not allowing him to be alone.
Or maybe she didn’t want to be alone. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see Worth slipping from her fingers … falling.
Being alone wouldn’t be good.
The instant she and McBride hit the asphalt he lit up, walked to the far side of her SUV, the side the press couldn’t see, and then leaned against it.
She took a spot next to him. “We should eat,” she said,
though she wasn’t hungry. But eating was necessary to survival. Going through the motions would keep her from ruminating about those moments in that elevator shaft. “Maybe have some wine to … help us relax” Yeah, that would work. Wine usually helped her to relax.
His interest locked on her but it was more suspicious than curious. “What’re you angling for, Grace?”
Time to confess. Today was, apparently, the day for confessions. Pierce had confessed to her, had even complimented McBride—in an offhand way.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight, McBride.” She couldn’t bear the idea of going home by herself. Dammit. She just couldn’t be alone.
Since he was the last one to drive her SUV, he pulled her keys from his pocket and hit the remote to unlock the doors then pitched the keys to her. “I guess I’m going home with you then.”
The drive across town took an eternity. McBride didn’t say a word. But then, neither did she. Her entire body and soul felt drained … empty. As wiped as she was, those final seconds in that damned elevator shaft started playing again … like a scratched DVD that kept bouncing back and going over the same track time after time.
She’d held on as tight and as long as she could. Dropping Worth was the last thing she had wanted to do. An ache tore through her chest.
“Just let go, Grace … Just let go.”
She bit her lips together, fought the urge to cry. All those times she had been so damned mad at Worth. And all he had wanted was to protect her. She was a damned rookie and she should have respected his concerns about her ability to take on cases … Instead she had fought him at every turn. She had wanted more. Had a goddamned point to make.
He had still been protecting her in the end. “ …or we’ll both end up dead.”
Pierce had been right. She had been running away from the past, pretending it hadn’t happened. Her determination to prove she was as good or better than any other agent had been foolhardy and an unnecessary pain in the ass for Worth.
Now he was dead.
Fury tightened her jaw. She was going to find Fincher. He would not get away with this.
The guard at the gate of her secure neighborhood waved her through. She drove the short distance to her place. Birmingham PD was already parked at the curb in front of her house. She took the turn into the alley behind the row of town houses and headed for her garage.
A poke to the button on the overhead console sent her garage door into the open position. Each town house had its own garage tucked beneath the deck that overlooked the security fence and woods. With her beefy SUV, it was a tight angle, but she had done it so many times that maneuvering between the support pillars and in through the door wasn’t so bad. She pushed the gearshift into park and shut off the engine. Another stab of the button and the door lowered once more.
She thought about getting out, but moving suddenly seemed too monumental a task.
Food would help. Maybe have something delivered. The clutter on the shelf-lined wall directly in front of her had her trying to recall the last time she had cleaned up out here. Just one of those things she never took the time to notice.
There were a lot of things she ignored. Her parents. Her personal life. It was easier to remain focused on her career. Less complicated. Less painful.
And in the blink of an eye it could all be gone. Just like that … she mentally snapped her fingers … over. As if to prove the point, the resignation on Worth’s face as he fell out of her reach flashed in front of her eyes.
She blinked it away. “I think I’ll order in Chinese.”
“I hate Chinese.”
The lack of enthusiasm in McBride’s voice matched her own.
“What about Japanese?”
“Same thing.”
Well, hell. “Pizza?”
“Don’t have the taste for it this evening.”
Okay, he was being a shit. She turned her head so she could look at him. “So what do you have a taste for?” She had to make some effort to move past this place.
“What’re we doing here, Grace?” He pointed his assessing gaze at her. “I don’t think this is about food.”
Frustration jammed into her chest Of course it was about food. “We have to keep up our strength. Be prepared …” She looked away, felt that weight of frustration and fatigue pressing harder against her sternum. “How else are we supposed to catch Fincher?”
“What do you want from me, Grace?” McBride choked out an abrupt sound disguised as a laugh. It wasn’t pleasant or amusing. “I told you the legend was dead. This is as good as it gets.”
Fury knocked the frustration out of first place. “You’re an asshole, McBride.” He was right. The legend was dead. But, by God, he was all she had.
“That should come as no surprise to you, Grace. A guy who’d fuck you in a public bathroom can’t be counted on for much.”
As if the resurfacing of that dark attitude had been a cue the light in the garage door opener timed out, leaving them in total darkness.
She reached for the door handle, opened her mouth to tell him where he could take his smart-ass disposition, and a realization dawned. Watching McBride in action these past five days had taught her something about him. He wasn’t the jerk he pretended to be. That screw-you attitude
was about self-preservation. He wanted to keep his distance. Wanted everyone to believe he could never be that legend again. That way nobody could get hurt because of him.
Too late.
She was already hurting.
Agent Worth was dead and three people, including a child, had been terrorized.
She needed that fucking legend and she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“You will eat, McBride. You’ll eat and then you will get some sleep because we’ve got a job to do. If you can’t muster up any semblance of the man you used to be, then fake it.”
He grabbed her by the hair, pulled her face to his and kissed her hard. She clenched her fingers in his shirt and kissed him back just as brutally.
Without breaking the contact of their lips, he tugged her closer … she scrambled across the console. Her knees settled on either side of him and her fingers threaded into his silky hair. She loved his hair … that beard-shadowed face … the broad shoulders … the lean waist … all of him … every damned inch.
His hands claimed her thighs, worked her skirt up around her hips and cupped her bottom, then squeezed. She cried out, the sound lost in his open mouth.
He hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded breathlessly. He couldn’t stop now. She wanted this, dammit. She needed it.
“This is a real shame, Grace.”
His rumpled bedroom voice reached through the darkness, caressed her in spite of her need to be furious that he’d suddenly stopped doing what she needed him to do. How the hell did he make that surly arrogance so damned sexy?
“You see,” he continued, turning her on all the more by
merely speaking, “I used my only condom the last time. No condom, no sex. That’s my one rule. I never break it.”
She practiced safe sex. He practiced safe sex. She didn’t see the problem.
She reached for his fly, wrenched it open. “Then I’d suggest you don’t look.”
Her fingers closed around him and he groaned. Hard, hot, smooth, she slid her fingers down then back up that rigid length. His fingers tangled in her panties, pulled them aside, and she eased downward, taking him … all of him in one deliberate push.
For ten, hot frantic seconds they both held perfectly still. The filled-up sensation was incredible.
His hands bracketed her waist and he shifted his hips just enough to send himself deeper. She gasped, reached up to brace herself against the roof and started to rock back and forth, each movement plunging her closer and closer to release. With him this deep she wasn’t going to last long.
The waves started. She cried out … didn’t try to stifle the sounds. Her movements grew more frantic … his pelvis lifted, tilted, grinding against hers and driving him even deeper.
And then she went over the edge … couldn’t wait another second. His hips lifted off the seat, down, up, down, up, until he came too.
She collapsed against his chest. Didn’t want to move.
“Grace,” he murmured against her hair.
“Hmmm?”
“At some point we’re going to have to change our strategy and try this with our clothes off.”
She smiled against his chin, liked very much the feel of his whiskers tickling her lips. “The only thing I want to change is positions.”
He powered the seat into a deeper recline, rolled her onto her back, and took her again … hard and fast
There were no guarantees in life. She had allowed
tragedy to rob her of her youth … of her ability to trust … to feel.
No more pretending.
She was going to start living again and feeling every moment of it.
But first, one way or another, she was going to get Fincher.