FEARLESS (17 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Lara worked around the Corcoran conference table with the men for two more hours, meticulously dissecting every detail, going line by line. Previously she’d viewed them as weapons experts and nothing more. They were the guys you called in when you needed muscle and a way out of an impossible situation. Necessary but limited in their role.

She’d forgotten, or maybe she’d never realized, that for their work to be successful, it required research, planning and strategy. The job dealt with puzzles, human and otherwise.

They sifted and analyzed data and none of those skills had to do with shooting a gun. Somewhere along the line she’d sold them all short. She vowed not to do that again.

The process continued without deviation. Each of them looked at a file. They checked, double-checked, then checked again. When they passed it around and all took a look, they passed the file to her for a final look from fresh eyes. Untrained eyes that might see something they’d skimmed over.

Being included, working side by side with Davis instead of being left behind, thrilled her. She never lost sight of the fact they were dealing in human lives, but she could move that to the side and focus on the piece in front of her.

Her head shot up.

That was it. All Davis’s talk about facts over bodies, all his arguments about the job consisting of more than chasing and shooting—she’d never got it until now. She wasn’t sure it was possible to mentally sort it all out unless you lived through it. Now she had.

Davis slid his fingers over to hers. “Are you okay?” Concern lit his eyes and his concentration suddenly centered on her.

This wasn’t the right time or place. The reality was that she needed more time to work reality out in her mind. But for the first time in a long while, something flickered in the distance. A tiny dancing flame of hope she thought had been snuffed out months ago.

Last night she’d felt love and passion. In this minute she saw a possible future. So many land mines lay buried in the path, but the breath of understanding gave them a place to start.

She smiled at him, caressing every inch of his face with her gaze. “I’m fine.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked ready to say something when Ben thumped his fist against the table.

“I think I got it.” He turned the document around for all of them to see. “A dead girl miles away from Annapolis on the last weekend of summer before junior year.”

Lara read the headline. “College Girl Found at Beach.” It actually hurt to say the words because the meaning was so horrible.

She didn’t see the direct connection, but she noticed how Davis smiled as he scanned the lines. The black-and-white photo attached to the article on the front page showed a girl, pretty and young. The first paragraph pointed to her background—rich and privileged. Her father was the head of some company and she’d attended a private high school before going to the University of Virginia.

Lara didn’t understand why any of that mattered. None of the people in the case went to that school. And why was the young woman’s school even relevant? The article should focus on who she was as a final sign of respect. She’d had dreams and a future and it all had died with her.

She glanced up to see Ben’s nod of satisfaction, but she still didn’t get it. “Okay, so...”

Davis pointed to paragraphs farther down as he read an edited version out loud. “‘She overdosed at the beach and was left to die. Evidence at the scene suggested multiple footprints and a parked car gone by the time the police arrived.’”

The poor girl made Lara take back all those complaints she’d had as a teen about not having many friends. She’d pick alive over popular any day. “That’s terrible.”

Davis kept going. “‘The police believed other kids were there for the party but they left.’”

Joel flipped his chair around to face his computer. “That might be a stretch but it’s worth looking into.”

“Especially because there’s a woman named Colleen Bradford referenced in the article.” At Ben’s words, spoken in a clear, booming voice, all eyes focused on him. “The reporter caught up with Colleen at the memorial service. She says she didn’t know the young woman who died but talks about how she saw the story in the newspaper and had to come out of respect.”

Since no one else asked, Lara jumped in. “Who is Colleen?”

Davis shuffled papers. “The name is vaguely familiar.”

Ben smacked the back of his hand against the file. “Because for one semester, she was one of Nancy’s roommates.”

The light popped on in Lara’s head and refused to blink out again. “They were all there.”

“Nancy, Martin, Steve and Ronald, the deeply screwed deputy director. I’m betting we dig and we’ll find some ties between them and the dead woman. Or, more likely, we’ll see a profound absence of ties—even things that would be natural coincidence will be missing because someone scrubbed the records clean,” Pax added.

Davis rubbed his thumb over the back of Lara’s hand. “Well, that kind of secret certainly could be an interesting basis for the shaky Coughlin marriage.”

The idea made Lara’s stomach flip. Tying your life to someone out of guilt was bad enough. Having a pact revolving around some poor girl’s death was the ultimate marriage made in hell. “If it’s true, they deserve each other.”

Davis must have sensed her anxiety or heard the anger in her voice. Without looking at her or saying a word, his hand tightened around hers. The touch, so basic and freely offered, was about comfort, not sex, and the fact he knew the difference confirmed she’d picked the right man for the right reasons.

“I wonder why Steve started talking after all these years.” Ben tapped his pen against the table. “There were numerous times when it would have mattered. I’d think Ronald getting the NCIS deputy position would have rung a bigger bell in Steve’s mind.”

“Guilt, or maybe he got sick of everything working for Martin and not for him. Martin and Ronald remained friends. Steve could have resented their bond.” Pax threw up his hands. “Really, it could be anything.”

Lara glanced at Joel’s monitors and the big screen with the names and photos of all the suspects. The screen showed normal people who had kids and the usual worries about traffic and other mundane things. The kind of people she passed in the grocery store all the time.

The evil lurking underneath was what scared Lara. “So, which one of these folks is the actual bad guy here?”

Davis barely spared the monitor a glance. His face screwed up in an expression that spoke to his disdain. “If they left that girl to die, all of them.”

Lara didn’t disagree but her concern was more immediate. “I mean, who’s writing the checks to the hit man?”

Joel shook his head. “I don’t see anything in their personal finances to reflect big payments.”

The smile that spread across Davis’s mouth was slow and satisfied. “Then check the business one.” He looked over at Ben. “You did say Nancy ran a company, right?”

“Why, yes, she does.”

* * *

B
Y
LATE
AFTERNOON
,
Davis had checked in with Connor, who was on his way back from D.C. They were on a half-hour break. When Lara disappeared up the stairs, shooting him a sexy wink over her shoulder, he’d planned to race up after her. Connor’s call had stalled that.

Sitting now at the computer with all of Joel’s fancy programs and password-detection software in front of him made Davis think about the things he didn’t know. Not about Martin and those other clowns, but about Lara. There were months unaccounted for, that time while he was away and running for his life and the month or so after she’d left when he’d pretended he didn’t care about her.

He’d been an idiot. It took only a minute of honesty for him to realize she’d never leave his head.

After a quick look around to make sure he was alone, he started typing. It took only a minute for data to fill the small screen on the left.

“What are you doing?” Pax’s voice came from behind Davis’s shoulder, but the disappointment lingered.

Davis hit a button and the screen went blank again. “When did you start sneaking around?”

“That indignation would be more convincing if you weren’t stalling by answering a question with a question.” Pax put his mug next to Davis’s keyboard. “You use that trick a lot.”

“I’m checking something.”

Pax’s mouth formed a thin, disapproving line. “I got that part already.”

“Something Connor said.” Davis wiped a hand through his hair and tried to explain something he didn’t really understand. “He suggested I go back to the breakup and figure out what else was happening. It’s been bugging me since he said it. I’ve watched over her since we’ve been apart but I don’t know what happened in those three weeks.”

“We were away and she got sick of it. That’s what you told me.”

Pax wasn’t giving an inch and that didn’t surprise Davis. Pax and Lara had always been close and Pax had a soft spot for women. When Davis was slow to trust, Pax jumped in.

“There’s something else, Pax. Has to be.” Davis was honest enough to admit that he didn’t know what he was doing.

Guilt crashed over him and his mind raced with excuses, but the bottom line was this check felt more invasive than anything he had done before. The rest of the investigation had been about keeping her safe and making sure the danger of his life hadn’t seeped into hers. This was about picking her privacy apart.

Pax balanced a hand against the desk and leaned in. “What happens when you find it?’

“Meaning?”

The muscles in Pax’s face dropped. “I’m going to let the answer-with-a-question thing go this time, but know that tactic isn’t helping your case. Think this through. You’re back together with Lara.”

Davis wanted that to be true. Even as the guilt ate away at his insides, he justified his behavior by saying he needed the information for them to finally, once and for all, put the sordid parts of their relationship behind them. “Maybe...I’m hoping. I don’t know.”

That wasn’t quite true. He knew what he wanted. He knew they loved each other. He didn’t know where all of that put them.

Pax shook his head. “Wow, she has you chasing your tail.”

“Get to your point.”

“If things are back on track and you have a shot of convincing her to give you guys a second try, whatever you find—hell, the fact you’re even digging around in her life—might mess your chance up.”

It was all so logical but carried such a huge risk. The real issue was the way Pax said the words. They seemed to be carefully chosen and placed.

“What do you know?” Davis asked, dreading the answer he might get.

“Nothing about what happened then, but I do know you love her and should be with her.” Pax dropped to his haunches with his hand across the back of Davis’s chair. “Look, we haven’t exactly been lucky in the women department, but somewhere along the line she broke that cycle. She’s the one. Don’t lose her.”

That qualified as the most impassioned speech Davis had ever heard his brother give. The words came alive under the force of his voice. It was as if he wanted to bend Davis to his will.

He wanted to shrug it off. More than that, he wanted to stand up and not research. But at that moment he couldn’t choose. “I’ll think about it.”

Pax’s chest fell. “You mean you’ll ignore it.”

“If you were in my place—”

He glanced down to the floor. “I’d be on my knees begging her to come back.”

“That seems extreme.”

Pax stood up again. “I’ll remind you of that if she leaves when this case is over.”

After Pax skulked from the room, Davis put his hands on the chair arms to get up. In midpush he glanced at the blank screen. Then to the keyboard.

He balanced there trying to decide what to do.

A second later he slid back into the chair and hit the space bar.

* * *

T
HE
INFORMATION
C
LIVE
received about the security codes and hidden cameras at Davis’s house made him nervous. Not that Clive thought he would get caught or that he couldn’t break the system. He was too good for that.

No, the worry was that his boss had put together a competent double cross. Hard to imagine, but the man sat in a position of power and that didn’t happen without some skills, even if those skills amounted to nothing more than having an impressive address book.

It was entirely possible his boss fed wrong information in the hopes of landing a new person to blame for the Wasserman murder and all the fallout that came after. Clive had no intention of going to jail, regardless of whether he actually committed the crime.

To prevent that possibility, Clive took the direct approach. He’d staked out the neighbor, a Mrs. Winston. She was the older, nosy type. No real family and few visitors. She collected government benefits and somehow survived on that pittance. But the character trait that interested him the most was the nosy one.

Perfect.

Clive lingered near Davis’s front door. Even ventured around the side, making a big show of trying to see if anyone was home. The goal was to look as if he belonged there. Last thing he needed was for her to call the police.

“May I help you?” Mrs. Winston’s shaky voice came to him only a few minutes later.

Clive smiled. There was nothing better than when a plan fell together. He turned around and lowered his gaze. The lady stood all of five foot nothing, wearing what looked like a robe and a heavy dose of blush.

He shot her his most genuine smile. He practiced often enough. “I was looking for Davis.”

Her eyes narrowed as the grip on her cell phone tightened. “He’s out of town.”

“I talked to him a few days ago.”

The older woman waved the comment off. “He comes in and out.”

She also looked around, hesitating when her gaze fell on the camera hooked to the wall on the side of the house facing hers. She could stare all she wanted because he already had taken over that video feed and was even now running an endless loop to make it look as if nothing was happening in the yard.