Deadly Pursuit (SCVC Taskforce) (6 page)

Cooper stood there, eyes glued to the floor. “Dyer insisted I not tell you, Celina. He didn’t want your first major bust to be tainted by his accident.”

This is what she got for refusing to tune into the gossip always going around. But most of the gossip had been about her after the Londano operation and that stupid article.
Time
had even put her face on the cover, causing an uproar inside the Bureau. “And he didn’t think I would find out what happened eventually?”

Cooper lifted his head. “He wanted you to have your moment of glory for as long as possible.”

Her moment of glory. So fleeting. So useless.

Celina pressed her eyes shut. She remembered the rush she’d felt on the beach after nailing Emilio. Remembered how high she’d felt. Since then, everything had gone downhill. Her career thrown completely off track because of the media blitz, and now finding out Bobby was paralyzed from the waist down, she felt like it had all been for nothing.

She should have been more observant. Should have tried to find out what Petero Valquis was planning that night. But she’d been so intent on fooling Emilio, she hadn’t thought past her relief that Valquis was scheduled to be out of town. Guilt burned in her stomach.

Throwing the rest of the M&M’s in the garbage, she followed them with the bottle of soda. “I was part of your team, Cooper. You and Bobby should have told me what happened, no matter the consequences of my feelings.”

The pain on Cooper’s face morphed into anger. “I did what I thought was best for everyone,” he told her in his don’t-argue-with-me voice. “You may not agree with that, Celina, because God knows you’ve never agreed with any of my decisions as head of the SCVC, but you don’t have the experience I do. You haven’t been the leader of a team. Seen your best friend and partner lying in a hospital bed with tubes and wires like mutant spider webs running in and out of his body.”

Celina let her own anger wrap around her like a blanket. “You think I don’t feel guilty about what happened?” She watched his expression change to confusion. He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand her at all. “You are unbelievable.”

“Celina?” Ronni’s voice interrupted from the doorway.

Celina immediately noted her partner’s pale face behind her masklike expression. Ronni had been in Forester’s office, giving him and the Special Agent in Charge her official version of Richardson’s capture. From the tightness around her mouth, Celina knew Ronni had just had her butt chewed out in a royal way. The younger woman was, at that moment, trying to stay professional on the outside while her guts churned like a washing machine on the inside.

Celina knew the feeling. It wasn’t every day you got double-barreled by both the bad guys and the good ones.

“Chief Forester would like to see you, now.” Ronni’s gaze darted back and forth between Celina and Cooper.

For a split second, Celina saw Ronni in a wheelchair and felt her stomach bottom out. She couldn’t imagine what Cooper had felt over Dyer’s injuries at the hands of Valquis. How something like that would leave him unable to call her and talk about it. “Thanks, Ronni.”

As Ronni’s footsteps faded, Celina returned her gaze to Cooper. The air around him was still vibrating with his anger and hers. The anger was mixed with guilt. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly, tired of being angry, tired of being left out. Just tired, period. And sorry for him and for Bobby. It didn’t take Einstein to know that Cooper’s anger was simply a shield of armor to hide his true feelings. Shock, rage, grief.

No wonder he hadn’t called to check up on her. Knowing she would ask about Bobby and the other taskforce members, Cooper had blown her off to save himself from having to talk about the tragedy. How nice it might have been if he’d called and confided in her. She could have shared his anger and grief and helped him realize it wasn’t his fault. Instead, he chose to ignore her and take on all the guilt himself. Deal with the grief alone.

Typical alpha male, just like her brothers.

“I have to go. I’ll call Bobby later.” She stopped in the doorway. “Congratulations on getting your man,” she repeated, forcing more sincerity this time.

Cooper’s eyes held hers. His anger was gone now too. Was that regret shining in them? “Always do.”

Celina nodded, wishing he’d apologize.

But what she really wished was that she could draw a big red S on her shirt and turn back the Earth, turn back time, to the night of Emilio’s arrest. If only she could change what had happened.

Cooper was halfway to the hotel when he drove off the street and parked the rental car next to a Kwik Trip. Sitting in the Durango with the heater on high—damn it was cold in Iowa—and a local vintage rock station blaring in his ears, he mentally kicked himself soundly in the ass.

He should have told her. Plain and simple. While she’d only known Bobby Dyer a few weeks before getting caught up in the Londano operation, the two of them had bonded. At first, Cooper suspected Celina was dogging Dyer because he was usually with Cooper, which made it convenient for her to flirt with him. Later Cooper realized Celina went to Dyer for advice because Dyer talked to her and listened to her and wasn’t interested in getting in her pants. Unlike most of the other male members of his team.

Outside the Durango, teenagers enjoying a snow day pumped a few dollars’ worth of gas into their rusting cars and grabbed Cokes inside the convenience store. Dickie Jagger was on ice at the local sheriff’s department waiting for the judicial system to extradite him back to California, but the sense of satisfaction Cooper usually felt after nailing a perp was absent. While the rest of his team celebrated back at their hotel with pizza and Coronas, Cooper sat in the parking lot and gave himself one more mental kick. He’d screwed up. Royally.

How could he explain to Celina what he couldn’t explain to himself? How he’d let Dyer go off on his own to track Valquis. How he’d never suspected that Val was leading his best friend and partner on a wild goose chase, just to send Cooper and the rest of the SCVC unit a message. How he wasn’t there to stop the beating. How he hadn’t found Dyer in that hospital for three days.

Three fucking days.

Seeing Dyer in that bed, helpless, paralyzed and one step away from life support, Cooper had lost it. His hatred for Petero Valquis and Emilio Londano had warred with his feelings of total helplessness over Dyer’s condition. What he couldn’t explain to Celina, then or now, was how he of all people had let Dyer get hurt.

And that he couldn’t beg, bargain, or sell his soul to turn back time and make things right.

Cooper had picked up the phone a hundred times to call Celina, even when Dyer insisted he didn’t want her to know. And every time he’d had the phone to his ear, his pulse raced and words had evaded him. Even now, he could do little more than simply gut out the facts to her.

Closing his eyes to fight off the memories, he listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers gutting out their own angst. Dyer, being the man that he was, had told Cooper repeatedly to get over what had happened. Move on. He wasn’t happy about the wheelchair, but he was damn glad to still be breathing. He was back at work for the DEA, albeit at a desk now, and continued to take physical therapy. Dyer had never let anything keep him down for long. He’d given himself a whole week to work through his anger, depression, and grief over the loss of his legs and then he’d told Cooper one day to get lost.

“I’m alive,” Dyer had said, rubbing his hand over his newly grown bush of beard, “and I’m going to
live
, damn it. I’m not going to hold your hand and endorse your fucking guilt complex, Coop, so get the hell out of here and go save the world.”

Cooper smiled, opened his eyes.

Three girls in their early teens jostled each other, laughing as they filed out of the convenience store’s front doors. Each was dressed identically to her friends in tight jeans and puffy nylon coats. As they walked in front of the Durango, each carried a pop and a bag of M&Ms.

A high-def image of Celina’s full lips sucking blue M&Ms into her mouth rose up in Cooper’s mind. Jesus, she made him crazy. He’d put himself on the Jagger team just so he could come to Des Moines and try to see her, knowing exactly how he’d react when he did. Even after all these months she could do the simplest thing and send his libido into overdrive. All that flawless skin and those righteous curves.

And a superhero complex bigger than his own.

“…I had hoped to offer myself as a trade to Annie for her kids.”

A superhero complex channeling Mother Teresa.

“I just didn’t want those kids to get hurt.”

Shit. When he’d seen her, not in the rush of the adrenaline-fueled take down, but back at the Fed building, he’d so totally lost the ability for coherent thought, he’d stopped breathing and nearly grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her just to make sure she was okay. She looked so damned good in her simple black turtleneck and jeans. Those red boots. Her cheeks still rosy from the cold air…

Then, when she’d told him her plan to trade herself for Richardson’s kids, he’d almost grabbed her to shake some sense into her. What was she thinking?

But the worst thing about their reunion was how she went from flirting with him to despising him in a heartbeat when he explained—tried to explain—why he hadn’t told her about Dyer.

She was right. He was unbelievable. He should have told her. He should have called and checked on her.

Slapping the steering wheel, Cooper shoved the Durango in gear and pulled back out onto the highway. He couldn’t go back to San Diego without setting things straight. Couldn’t look at Dyer now without remembering the hurt and sadness and anger he’d seen in Celina’s eyes.

Cranking the radio up louder, Cooper pressed the accelerator and gutted it out along with the Peppers.

Chapter Six

Crossing the one-way downtown street, Cooper entered the complex that housed the FBI. The building was well-worn but architecturally interesting with gothic details all over the façade. He flashed his badge at the elderly black security guard and the man nodded, giving him a semi-salute with his hand. “Back for more?” he asked, his grin sporting a gold tooth.

“Can’t get enough of this place,” Cooper lied.

The guard chuckled. “Miss Celina makes it an attractive place to visit.” He winked at Cooper. “Stay outta trouble.”

At that moment, Celina burst out of the frosted glass door of the FBI office, a backpack on her shoulder and a box crammed to the brim in her arms. Her dark eyes were narrowed to slits and he thought,
uh-oh
.

Forester had his hand on her elbow, trying to keep up with her, but Celina walked faster, shaking off his hand. “I do not need an escort to walk twenty crappy steps out of this building.” She bee-lined straight for Cooper.

Cooper stopped in his tracks.

Forester tried to catch her. “Enough crap, Davenport.” His hand touched her elbow, grabbed for purchase, and somehow Cooper knew what was coming.

“You can’t quit over this,” the chief said.

Quit? “You quit?” Cooper echoed.

Celina’s narrowed eyes glanced at and dismissed him all in one motion. She stopped and Forester barely avoided crashing into her. His face was puffed up like a bulldog and he was breathing hard. He righted himself, but left his hand on her arm.

“I’m not the one who messed up.” Cooper recognized the dangerously low tone of her voice, and almost took a step back as she went for Forester’s throat. “And I won’t be the fall guy for you or Quarters. Your
big picture
mentality almost got two innocent kids killed today. I will be taking this to the Assistant Director in Charge and the Deputy Director, and if all else fails, by God, I’ll take it all the way to D.C. and Director Moeller himself.” She drew in a breath and let it out sharply, and Cooper was relieved that her hands were full. Her sidearm was in easy reach. “Now, get your hand off my elbow.”

Forester stared her in the eye for a second before releasing her. “You walk out of here, Davenport, and your career with the FBI is over.”

Oh, Christ. Don’t challenge her.

Celina’s chin raised a notch. She glanced at Cooper and back at Forester. “Then I’ll go to work for the DEA,” she said, and Cooper found himself taking the box from her arms as she shoved it at him.

Forester finally registered that Cooper was witnessing this exchange. The chief sent him a look that would have made a lesser man piss his pants.

Heading for the door, Celina hiked up the backpack sliding off her shoulder and blew a kiss at the security guard. “Take care, Lawrence.”

“You ain’t leavin’ us, are you Miss Celina?”

“Afraid so. Don’t forget to take your blood pressure medicine.” She pushed the door open with her butt. “Have Ronni remind you, okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” he answered, a hang-dog look coming over his face.

Celina waved at him as she walked out and shot one more round of daggers at Forester.

Forester stared at the closing door, then turned on Cooper. “Your supervisor’s going to hear about this.”

Cooper tried to raise his hands, found them full. “What did I do?”

“Go back to California where you belong, Harris, before you do something really stupid and find my shoe buried in your ass.”