Edge of the Heat 3 (16 page)

Oh yeah, condom. damn. I almost forgot.
She opened her eyes and looked at him worriedly. Was he going to have to get up and go get one? He held up his hand which had one in it, and smiled at her. “I had one in my pocket.”

She smiled and he ripped it open, then slid it on quickly. He leaned back in to her and she felt relief again as he pressed his body against hers once more. “Shirt,” she told him, tugging at it. He pulled it over his head and flung it on the floor. She smiled and touched his chest, then rid herself of her own shirt so their skin could touch. All she had left on was her long flowy skirt, which puddled around her waist. Kneeling over her, she felt his cock nudging at her sex. His eyes locked on hers, and she felt lost at the heat she saw in them. He reached down with one hand and touched her again, gently, softly, like a breath, or a ghost. She felt her eyes closing with pleasure, but forced them open, wanting to stay lost in his gaze forever.

He entered her slowly, while rubbing her gently. Soft waves of pleasure began to overtake her, building up then receding, building up, then receding, but never receding quite as far as they did before. He continued on so slowly, stretching her deliciously, until he could go no farther. The tension was at a crescendo for her. Her body cried out for release. She knew they were only getting started though, and didn’t want to give in.

“Jesus Vivian, you are so perfect,” he told her, taking her in with all his senses. His words sent her over the edge and she came, a soft wail building in her throat with the pulsing contractions that shook her mind free from its foundations for a few lovely moments.

He held perfectly still, spearing her, stroking her at gently as possible with his thumb, and enjoying the feeling of her innermost muscles clamping down on him and then gently releasing.

When she was done, returned to this world, she looked at him shyly. “Sorry,” she said.

He smiled. “Sorry for what? For being perfect? For enjoying yourself? For showing me how much I please you? Those are not things to be sorry for Vivian.”

Again, Vivian was struck by his sensitivity, his thoughtfulness. What man talks like this? None that she had ever known. None that looked like him. God he was perfect. And with that thought, her fire returned, like it had never left, never been released. She didn’t know how many of those she had in her, but she bucked her hips fiercely against him, guessing at least one more.

He bent forward, meeting her resolve with his. He thrust into her, creating that perfect sensation of fullness, too-much-ness, again and again. He bent forward and caught her nipple with his lips, making low noises of approval in the back of his throat.

Suddenly Vivian felt ... animalistic. Dirty. Raw. Powerful. Like she wanted to bite him and make him bleed. The primalness of this act with this man was enough to push her to the edge of her humanity and untether what was left of her civilized nature. She fought the feeling and welcomed it at the same time, baring her teeth at him and nipping at his shoulder. She met each thrust with her own, feeling the tension inside her build again.

He thrust faster and harder, sweat beginning to form at his temple. Vivian watched it, fascinated, loving him and loving his strong body with everything she had.

“Vivian. not much longer,” he forced out. “Can you come again? With me?”

She tensed her legs and pushed towards that edge, falling over it almost immediately. This one was just as forceful as the last which caught her unaware. The wail built and discharged from her throat again, her eyes rolling back and her whole body tensing. Hawk gave a final, mighty thrust which made her gasp and then his head dropped too. She could feel his pulsing release inside of her, even through the condom.

“Unnngh,” came through his gritted teeth and then he collapsed on top of her, his hot breath moving her hair.

Vivian knew he’d have to get up and she’d lose his heat in a few short minutes, but for now, she smiled. They’d been one for a precious time and it had been better by far than she’d ever been able to imagine.

C
raig was right; Lionel didn’t have any fight left in him. In fact, Lionel seemed absurdly eager to help them, eager to do the right thing. Craig wondered for the 5th time how exactly this polite, mild guy had gotten mixed up with Norman Foster. Well, they’d get to that.

Once he had figured out the computer wasn’t booby trapped, and wasn’t even erasing files, but just basically had been meant as a sort of distraction, he had sat Lionel down and gotten right to business. It was obvious Lionel wasn’t going to give him any trouble, so he’d released Dennis back to his mountain of closing work, turned on a camera to record everything they were doing, and had Lionel take him step by step through every job he’d pulled for Foster.

Craig felt his excitement mount higher as more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Lionel didn’t know who Foster had been working for, but Lionel was a smart guy (obviously). He’d taken to keeping an electronic journal of exactly what he had done for Foster each time, plus things Foster had said or alluded to. When Craig asked him why he shrugged his shoulders and said “I was always afraid I was doing something worse than just erasing a few files, like he said. I wanted to remember everything in case I had to pay for it one day.”

Craig mulled this over. It was an awfully moral statement for someone who was hacking police files to make. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

But he didn’t think about it long. Excitingly, he finally had positive evidence of several of Norman Foster’s misdeeds. Foster had erased files pertaining to the disappearance of a few vehicles and several hundred thousand dollars in cash from the impound lot and evidence locker. Those may or may not have had anything to do with Oberlin though. What Craig was really interested in were the 14 cases where Foster had tampered with files that pertained to the repeated arrest of a thug named Wayne Serg. Serg was a gun runner, but somehow he evaded federal prison again and again. Craig and Hawk’s investigation of Oberlin had yielded numerous indications of money laundering and bribery and some extortion and reasonable (they thought) ties to a few murders, but they’d always known there was something bigger, something more that was going on and until now, they hadn’t been able to find it.

Looking at these bits of information that had been snipped here, cut there, Craig had a pretty big hunch that the pièce de résistance to these horrors was going to be guns. And that made his stomach curdle, since he knew the Senator was running for president on an anti-gun platform. In fact, he was crying from the rooftops that he would bring about the strictest gun regulations the country had ever seen. And that under his rule, gun crime would become a thing of the past.

Of course, those in law enforcement could see that his policies would do nothing but explode the black market for guns. Americans loved their guns, and they would have them, regulations or no regulations, policies or no policies. Especially criminals. What the hell did a criminal care about regulations, registrations, and policies? Not a fig, that’s what. Craig wandered idly behind Lionel, who was digging into a secret database to restore some exact wording he had deleted 8 months ago, and thought about what all this meant. Money. It all came down to money for Oberlin. That much was obvious. But why would he care about the gun runner Serg? Unless? Craig thought hard and deep about Oberlin’s policies, and how they could benefit him outside of possibly riding them to the presidency. The dichotomy between protecting a gun runner, and pushing tougher gun laws. And then he knew. The pieces fell in to place. He thought of Lucy, and wondered for the billionth time, exactly what she’d seen, exactly what she’d run across that had cost her her life. He didn’t have the finer details, but he knew Oberlin was somehow profiting off the run on illegal guns. This was Oberlin’s big game soon to become bigger game if he managed to push through all of his
policies
. Everything else was secondary.

Craig peeked over Lionel’s shoulder. He didn’t know as much as Hawk about computers, but it seemed to him Lionel was doing exactly what he asked him to. Good. He needed to call Hawk.

He got out his throwaway phone, his only link to Hawk, and dialed. 7 rings, 8 rings, 9 rings. What in the world was Hawk doing that he was so far from his phone? A tiny worm of worry niggled into Craig’s chest. Hawk picked up finally at 12 rings, and he sounded out of breath.

“You ok?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Busy. What’s up?” Hawk was uncharacteristically short, even for him.

Craig relayed what he had found so far, and spelled out his theory.

Hawk livened up at once, taking the ball and running with it. “I bet you’re right. And here we’ve been focusing on what’s been going on in town forever. When it’s all likely small fry. No wonder we could never figure out where the money was coming from.” Hawk’s voice was taking on new excitement. But then it fell.

“Now that we’re starting from square 1 again, we’re going to have to uncover something big, fast, or we’ll never be able to put together a coherent, convictable case before he’s elected president, assuming that happens.”

Craig nodded. “Yeah, and if he does get elected it’s all over for us. We’ll be fired or dead before he finishes his inauguration speech."

“Don’t I know it, partner. I sure would like to talk to him, interview him. Knowing his character, I think he’d fold pretty quickly. But I know that’s not going to happen any times soon. Ok, it’s time to get serious. I’ve got some angles to look up, but I can do that from here. What are you going to do with Erwin?”

“Lionel? Don’t worry, I’m going to take good care of him,” Craig said, and hung up.

Lionel called him over, showing Craig the latest results of what he had asked for.

“Lionel, how’d you get caught up doing Norman Foster’s dirty work, anyway?” Craig asked, generally curious. Lionel seemed like a nice kid. A
good
kid. Not a criminal.

Lionel shook his head, his lips pressed painfully together, dismay painfully etched on his face. Craig didn’t push. Not now. The kid looked like he was going to break if he asked again.

Instead, Craig looked around. The dark room was painfully devoid of anything except technological gadgets. There was one small couch, then two long tables with laptops and computers lining them. There were a few pictures on the wall right in front of Lionel but no other decorations. The first picture was of what looked to be a happy family. Lionel at 15 or so, and his mother, plus a young girl of about 7 in front of a picturesque mountain. Lionel’s sister? All had happy smiles on their faces. Another picture of Lionel and the girl when they were a few years older, the girl 11 or 12, with beautiful doe eyes and long brown hair. Lionel had his arm slung around her shoulders and she was looking at him with obvious affection and maybe a little hero worship. The lowest picture, right at eye level was a picture of just the girl, looking wasted and thin but with a sad smile on her face, in a hospital bed.

Craig’s heart hurt a little bit. He hoped desperately that he hadn’t just found the reason Lionel was caught up in this mess.

Craig walked over to the camera and pressed stop. He wanted to ask one more thing from Lionel before he talked to him about putting him in protective custody, at least until Norman was caught again. He couldn’t have the camera record this part though. Not unless he wanted to be put in jail himself. He’d thought long and hard on this over the last few days and had decided yes, it was worth the risk. Now he just had to see if Lionel would agree to it. He hoped so, for all their sakes.

C
raig paced the floor outside of their headquarters building, willing his phone to ring. He’d been on the line all day, alternating, with the DEA deputy administrator, and Hawk’s boss, the Western Regional Director of the FBI. He checked the time. 5:15. Emma was going to start freaking out soon. They were supposed to be at the Senator’s mansion in an hour and a half, and he hadn’t even left work yet. But he couldn’t leave. He was so close to getting the heat off Hawk completely.

Lionel had done great work the day before, assuring him that getting a peek into Special Agent Donahue’s personal banking records was no problem, and even that gaining access to his DEA files was doable. Then he’d proved it. Lionel hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary going on in his banking files. Craig was only partially discouraged by this. He could have easily been paid off in cash, if indeed he was the rat who had planted evidence and created files on Hawk. But Lionel had given him another idea.

Craig shook his head. Lionel was truly a genius, and what he could do with a computer was amazing. When Lionel figured out what Craig was looking for he wrote a program on the fly to search all available databases for a company or trust started by Donahue or Donahue’s wife in the last month in any state. After a few minutes of searching, his program reported that Donahue had started a corporation in Delaware called Arsenal Incorporated and $290,000 in cash was the only asset the company had. Craig had wanted him to see where the money came from, but Lionel hadn’t been able to figure that out. So far. Craig and Hawk owed him one already. Craig tried to start paying up by taking him to a safe house, with his computer, instead of just carting him off to jail for his protective custody. An FBI safe house that Norman probably didn’t know about, and if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get in. Craig almost liked Lionel, and when he had more time, he planned on finding out exactly what had turned him into a criminal.

Lionel also had spent most of the night working on getting in to the DEA files. Craig had almost called him off around 2 in the morning, but Lionel wouldn’t stop. He had asked a few questions early on, and when Craig told him that this was part of an investigation into a dirty cop, Lionel seemed driven.

Craig had experienced a few moments of explosive irony and guilt inside his head, using the same hacker he was going to bust Norman Foster and Frank Oberlin with to dig into a few files illegally himself, but he squashed them. They would get the stuff legally once they knew what they were looking for, and if not doing it meant Hawk losing his job or going to jail, Craig knew the risk was worth it. He wasn’t beating people up or stealing their possessions or their lives. Anyone who wasn’t breaking the law and trying to personally screw over his best friend had nothing to fear from him.