Reclaim: A Recovered Innocence Novel (18 page)

“I don’t know. When Mr. Nash calls me back I’ll ask him. Maybe the FBI can set something up for her. Some sort of protection on the inside.”

“I hope she’s okay. What if something happens to her?”

“It’s not like the movies and TV. It’s not easy to get to a prisoner. There are cameras and security everywhere.”

“I hope you’re right.”

He puts his hand over mine. “It won’t be long now before Billits gets what’s coming to him and Carla is freed.”

“And we stop working together.”

He threads his fingers through mine. “Yeah, that too.”

“We won’t spend as much time together.”

“No.”

“I’m going to miss that.”

“Me too.”

“Maybe we’ll work together on a new case.”

“Maybe.”

I rise from the bench and go to him. He shifts so that I can step between his parted legs. I put my hands on his shoulders and look down at him. His hands go to my waist, his eyes full of all of the things he wants to do to me. I lean down for a kiss. Instead of coming at him like a starved, crazed animal as I usually do, I take it slow with gentle, coaxing kisses. He responds by running his hands up my back and drawing me closer. I melt into the ease of being with him. He’s all I can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. He’s all I want filling up my senses.

He stands slowly, melding his body to mine. The feel of him up against me and around me always shocks me with how damn good it is. It’s like his body was made to fit mine. We connect at every important point in a way that is at once overwhelming and intoxicating. When we’re like this I wonder why we’re ever apart. I know it will feel even better skin-to-skin. The memory makes me want to rush to get to that part like I would normally do, but I force myself to go slow, to enjoy
this
moment,
this
kiss.

A growl rumbles from his throat and vibrates through every part of me. He takes his time, kissing me thoroughly, leaving me panting and clinging to him. This is what I missed all those other times in my hurry to get to the good stuff—the anticipation, the leisurely buildup. I let him control the pace. He’s good at the slow stuff. He doesn’t go for the cheap grope, touching me in a way that’s both intimate and chaste. It’s a slow burn and I’m dying to be consumed.

We peel each other’s clothes away a piece at a time with long intervals in between. The sensation of his bare chest against mine makes me tremble. It feels like this is our first time, which is silly because we’ve already done all manner of things to each other. I’m learning his body in new, unexpected ways with my hands and my mouth. A shudder goes through him and his fingers flex into my flesh when I lick a sensitive spot just below his ear. So many new discoveries.

We topple onto the bed at the back of the RV, our limbs tangled together. Touches become more desperate and demanding. I’m going to die if I don’t get him inside of me soon. I tell him that and he chuckles darkly as he dips his head to take my nipple in his mouth. I can’t stop telling him how I feel and what I want him to do to me. The words just pour out, becoming dirtier and dirtier. I shock myself.

Nolan makes a deep, throaty noise at the back of his throat and looks up at me from between my legs. “You’re making me crazy here, woman.”

“Your mouth should be a registered weapon.” I widen my legs, inviting him to finish what he’s started. “You’re killing me.”

“I’ve barely gotten started.” The end of his sentence is a rumble on my oversensitized flesh.

He’s good at a lot of things, but he’s a fucking master at oral. By the time he lets me come my legs are shaking and I’m begging him for release. My orgasm slams into me sideways and a scream rips from my throat. He kisses his way up my body and opens his mouth over mine in an intense, soul-surrendering kiss. I’m his. I’m owned and he lets me know it as he eases inside me, his mouth fused to mine. He rocks into me as though he has all day. Lifting my leg, he changes the angle and hits deep.

I cling to him, wrapping around him. I need something from him, but I don’t know what. Everything he’s doing isn’t enough and yet it’s too much. Our bodies become slick with sweat and still he thrusts in and out slowly as though he’s memorizing every inch of me. I bow under him, craving something that doesn’t have a name, chasing it as though my life depends on it. Digging my fingers into his flesh, I throw my head back. He hooks his arms under my legs, forcing them up, driving even deeper into me.

I’m crazed now. My screams echo off the walls and mingle with his grunts and the slap of flesh on flesh. I come on a hoarse cry. Burrowing his face in my neck, he follows, pressing me down hard into the thin mattress. My heartbeat is a throb through my whole body. Running my hands everywhere I can reach, I can’t stop caressing him. He moves his head and finds my mouth. Something’s changed between us. I can’t put my finger on exactly what, but it’s a subtle shift, hardly noticeable except that the ground is more even and I can breathe a little easier. Does he feel it too? I don’t dare ask. Maybe I’m making more of it than I should. It could just be my imagination.

He leans up on his elbows and looks down at me. His gaze traces the lines of my face like a touch. I try not to squirm under his scrutiny and smile up at him. He smiles back. We stare at each other for a long minute. He looks different to me somehow. More attractive maybe, or more familiar. I don’t know. I feel like I know more about him than any other man I’ve ever been with. That’s a strange thought to have and not at all appropriate with him naked on top of me and still inside me.

He lifts a lock of hair from the corner of my eye with a finger. “You’re really beautiful.”

I find that hard to believe with my makeup all sweated off and my hair a rat’s nest under my head, but I can tell he means it. Knowing that turns my insides all melty and liquid. I’m practically a puddle beneath him. I can only stare up at him doe-eyed and a little awestruck. He makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. Mostly he makes me want things I never believed I could have.

He shifts to pull out of me and stills. “Shit. No condom.”

“Oh.” I look down between us. “That’s okay. I’m on birth control.”

“I’m clean. Just got tested a few months ago.”

“Me too. I’m all good.”

He flashes me that quick luminescent smile. “Thank God, ’cause that was amazing.”

“It really was.”

“So are we going without from now on?”

“We can. I want to. I mean, we’re exclusive, right? So it should be okay.”

“More than okay.”

“All right then.”

He rolls off me and gathers me against him. We lie in silence for a while. An odd emotion has lodged itself under my rib cage. I want to give it a name, but I’m afraid. It feels like happiness. I’ve learned the hard way that it doesn’t last. So I ignore it and snuggle deeper against Nolan’s warm, hard body. I’ll stick to the physical. The emotional is too fraught with changes and disappointment. I drift off to sleep, not at all confident that I can maintain that distance.

I don’t know what’s come over Lila. She seems—I don’t know—calmer somehow. We’re in the middle of all of this chaos, but she’s gone strangely Zen on me. I don’t know if I should be wary or glad. I’m kind of a strange combination of both. She settles in the bed next to me with a content sigh like we didn’t just outwit the bad guys and go into hiding. Like we’re not going to talk to the FBI about a possibly corrupt DA and she didn’t just reveal her biggest, darkest secret to me. Like we didn’t just have earth-shattering, life-altering, deeply committed sex.

Maybe this is the calm before the storm.

I wish I could crack her head open and peer inside to find out what she’s thinking and get a glimpse of how her mind really works. Just when I think I’ve got her figured out she throws me a curve. She didn’t come at me like she usually does when she wants sex. She let me have the lead and set the pace. That’s new. Maybe she finally accepted the fact that we have something here that demands our attention. She can’t keep ignoring it or pretending it’s only about sex.

She shifts closer to me, her body growing heavy. This too is new. We’ve never lain together like this before. Our post-sex routine has always been about her reestablishing boundaries and putting space between us. She’s definitely not doing that now. Her breathing grows even and steady. She’s falling asleep. Next to me. In a bed. Must be exhaustion. It’s been a bitch of a day. I can’t pay too much attention to what’s happening. It’s likely a one-off and the buildup of everything we’ve been through. It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. Don’t read too much into it; just enjoy it for however long it lasts.

And then there’s the condom thing. I nearly blew it there. Her behavior shocked me so much that common sense totally left my head and all I could think about was how to keep things going exactly the way they were. She didn’t freak out the way I thought she might. Thank God she’s on birth control. My screwup could’ve been a total fuckup. I can’t predict how she’d react if she got pregnant, what she’d decide or what would happen to us. We need to take this very, very slowly. Any jumps ahead could scare her away permanently.

If we’re going to end I’d rather it not be over an unplanned pregnancy or other scare—something
I
could’ve prevented.

When I’m sure she’s asleep I let myself drift off. It occurs to me just before all conscious thought stops that I’m falling for her and that might be my biggest fuckup yet.

The ringing of a cellphone jolts me awake. I don’t recognize the ring and then I remember that Mr. Nash was supposed to call me back on the burner phone. Lila shifts in my arms. Her warm naked body wakes up other parts of my anatomy. I want to forget the phone call and roll her over onto her stomach and enter her from behind. Unfortunately that’s not going to happen.

Sitting up, she flips her hair out of her face and squints down at me like she can’t quite believe I’m there. She glances around the cramped space of the RV. I can see the moment her memory clicks everything into place for her. She yawns and stretches, her breasts lifting invitingly. I ignore the siren call of her body and flip back the covers to get out of bed.

I answer the phone call on what has to be the last ring. “Hello?”

“Nolan.” It’s Mr. Nash. “I have some news.”

“Yeah?” I stifle a yawn and turn to watch Lila climb out of bed. Damn she’s gorgeous.

“Carla Ruiz was found hanging in her cell.”

His words jolt me fully awake. “What? When?”

“Last night. She’s in ICU. It doesn’t look good. They were able to bring back her heartbeat, but they don’t know how long her brain was deprived of oxygen.”

“Jesus. How did that happen?”

Lila comes to my side and looks up at me with a concerned frown. “What happened?”

I hold up a finger for her to wait so I can hear what Mr. Nash is saying.

“Suicide attempt,” he says.

“No. That can’t be. There’s no way.”

“Tore a strip of her bedsheet and fashioned a noose. They only found her when they did because the woman in the next cell from hers had the flu and was throwing up. Her yelling for a guard is what alerted them. When they walked past Carla’s cell that’s when they saw her. They cut her down right away and started CPR. Her cellmate claimed she was asleep and didn’t hear anything.”

“You don’t believe that?”

“Do you? The other end of the sheet was tied to the top bunk. Someone’s kicking and flailing and hitting your bed and you don’t wake up? No. I don’t buy it.”

“You think her cellmate might’ve had something to do with it?”

Lila grabs onto my arm and goes to her toes to get my attention. “Is it about Carla?”

I nod.

“What happened?” she demands.

“She’s in ICU. They think she tried to commit suicide.”

She shakes her head. “No. No way. There’s no way she’d do that.”

“Her cellmate’s been questioned and released back to her cell,” Mr. Nash says. “There’s nothing to prove she was involved. All the same the prison officials aren’t convinced.”

“What was her cellmate in for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you find out and let me know?”

“I can try. You think this might have something to do with the DA?”

“I’m wondering if she got a deal or is in some way connected to Billits.”

Mr. Nash lets out a low whistle. “That’s some accusation you’re making, son.”

“The timing is suspicious, don’t you think?”

“It’s awfully convenient for him, yes.” After a pause he says, “I got you a meeting with the special agent in charge at the San Diego FBI office at eight sharp. Bring everything you have on the case.”

“Wow. I was expecting to meet with an agent, not the man in charge.”

“Let’s just say he owes us after what went down with Beau and Vera and we have a strong track record with him. Plus this is a
very
delicate situation you two stumbled on. It needs to be handled cautiously. There’s a lot more at stake here than what’s going on with Carla Ruiz. Every case Billits’s office prosecuted will get looked at. The FBI has some skin in the game. Billits’s office handled some pretty high-profile federal cases. The feds are going to want those convictions to stick.”

“We’ll meet you there with everything we’ve got on the case.”

“See you at eight,” Mr. Nash says and ends the call.

Lila immediately throws one question after the other at me. I fill her in on everything Mr. Nash said. When I’m done she wraps her arms around me.

“I don’t believe she did this,” Lila says. “There’s no way. She wouldn’t give up so easily. Carla’s a fighter. She knew what we’d find. Why would she go through everything she did to get her case considered by The Freedom Project and then give up before we’ve even started the legal process to free her? We didn’t tell her what we’ve found out about Billits or our suspicions about Diego. No. She didn’t do this. Something’s very wrong here.”

“I agree.”

“What if Billits goes for her again at the hospital?”

“She’s under guard.”

“A fake nurse or doctor could get into her room. The guards aren’t going to check out medical personnel. Their job is to make sure she doesn’t escape. They’re not there to protect her.”

“I’m sure Mr. Nash has thought of that. Just to be sure I’ll call him back. Why don’t you get dressed? We have to be at the FBI office in a little over an hour.”

She gives me a quick squeeze, then gathers her stuff and goes into the shower. I throw on some boxers and sit at the table going over everything we have on Carla’s case, adding new notes about what happened last night and the phone call this morning on the tablet I keep in my bag in my car. I already had Fred’s Wi-Fi password keyed in from when I stayed here before so I add the notes to the copy of the case file I keep in my cloud server. We should have everything we need to convince the FBI to look at Billits’s business dealings along with what happened in Carla’s case.

Lila comes out of the tiny bathroom with a towel wrapped around her that barely meets. I get a glimpse of bare thigh and hip before she heads back to the bedroom to put her clothes on. I wish we didn’t have such a tight schedule. I’d rip that towel off and tumble her back down onto the bed. Instead I take my turn in the shower. By the time I get out Lila is dressed and waiting for me in the dinette area munching on a granola bar. She hands one to me and we gather up what we need to take with us. It’s not much. All of our physical files are at my place, but we have enough stored in my cloud server to present our case to the FBI.

I just hope they see it the way we do.

Lila’s quiet on the drive to meet Mr. Nash at the FBI building, but as soon as we got in the car she grabbed my hand and hasn’t let go. That’s a bold move for her. She’s not the most demonstrative person. I try not to think about what it might mean for us, if it means anything at all. She could just be scared and looking for comfort and I happen to be handy and willing.

The FBI building looks like a normal multistory office building. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe something less ordinary and ugly. Something fortress-like and impenetrable. Instead it looks like a bunch of accountants and lawyers lease the place. If Lila has an opinion on the building and what we’re about to do she’s not giving it. She’s stayed fairly quiet and to herself since we got the phone call about Carla. She took the news hard, like she blames herself. I’d tell her it’s not her fault, but I know her well enough to know it would be a wasted effort.

I catch her hand as we walk side by side. She gives me a quick surprised glance but doesn’t pull her hand away. I could be in some trouble with Mr. Nash over it. I’ll find a way around it if I am.

Mr. Nash is already in the reception area when we walk in. He takes in our clasped hands. His face reveals nothing. I don’t know him well enough to know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. His son and Cora met during a case, as did Beau and Vera, so there’s some precedence here. Plus she’s not a client. That will hopefully work in our favor.

“You must be Lila Garcia,” Mr. Nash says, extending his hand and forcing me to drop Lila’s so she can take his. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Brent McMahon.”

I don’t know if Mr. Nash is making a point about mentioning Lila’s boss at The Freedom Project or if he’s just making conversation.

“He’s had a lot of great things to say about you and your agency as well,” Lila tells him. “From my experience on this case it’s all true and then some. Nolan’s been a tremendous help. I don’t know where we’d be without him.”

“I only hire the best.” He turns his attention to me. “Bet you never thought taking this case would lead to being questioned by the FBI. Great work, Nolan. Really great work.” He shakes my hand and claps me on the back. “I’m proud of you, son.”

“Thanks. We got more than we bargained on for sure. I just hope Carla is okay.” I glance at Lila, then back to Mr. Nash. “We’d really like to see her get her freedom.”

A woman opens the door that leads to the offices. “Mr. Nash? The special agent in charge will see you now. Please follow me.”

We trail behind her to a set of elevators. Lila puts her hand in mine as we ride up to the fifth floor and doesn’t let go until we’re escorted into a conference room. We take our seats and wait. A few minutes later an older Asian gentleman joins us. Mr. Nash stands up and shakes his hand, then introduces us to SAC Charles Fung.

“Thank you for seeing us, Agent Fung,” Mr. Nash begins. “I told you a little bit about what Nolan and Miss Garcia found. I’m going to hand it off to them to tell you the rest. Nolan?”

I start and then Lila joins in. We take everyone through the steps we went through and how we connected the dots from the information Carla gave us to Martin’s disappearance and possible death to Lila’s friend who interned at the DA’s office and everything we discovered on our own. SAC Fung and Mr. Nash ask questions along the way. I don’t hold back about how we obtained some of the information even if it might get me in trouble. When we finish SAC Fung sits back in his seat, rubbing his chin. Lila and I exchange worried glances. He must be killer at poker because his face betrays nothing. Mr. Nash, however, is beaming like a proud papa.

“You skirted the law pretty cleverly,” Fung finally says to me. “We won’t be able to use some of what you found in our investigation because of how it was obtained.” He glances at Mr. Nash, who shrugs as though he doesn’t care that my tactics weren’t entirely on the up-and-up. “But we’ll eventually get it and more by other means. We’ve got someone on the inside of his organization and have managed to identify Billits. But we don’t have enough to connect him for an arrest. None of the people we’ve picked up will talk. I don’t know what Billits did or is doing to engender that kind of loyalty, but we’ve been unable to break it.

“We’ve got Carla Ruiz under restricted guard. Only preapproved medical personnel are allowed into her room, with law enforcement present. Her statement would give us the link we need to get Billits. Even if statutory rape is the only charge we can get him on, it’s a start. Once we have that we can get a warrant to exhume Miss Ruiz’s son’s body for a DNA sample to prove paternity. We’re hoping she’ll be the break we need to tie Billits to the prostitution ring and will give us enough to make some arrests.

“Miss Ruiz is the first person to break ranks with Billits. There’s no doubt in my mind that he tried to have her killed. Her cellmate was transferred into Miss Ruiz’s cell the day before she allegedly tried to hang herself,” Fung continues. “We’re looking into how that happened and who made it happen. We’re hoping to catch a break there.”

Fung glances between Lila and me. “Do the two of you have a safe place to stay until this is all over?”

“Yes,” I say. “It’s not fancy, but we’ll be okay.”

“I’ve got a car I want you to drive,” Mr. Nash says. “They’re going to be looking for yours. We need to make it as difficult as possible for them to find you. You should also change your appearances and try not to go out in public as much as possible.” He directs his next comment to Fung. “I’d hoped the FBI would approve some protection for you, but apparently that isn’t going to happen.”