Running (20 page)

“
I’m sure he is. I need to
see him. See that he is ok. Please. Get me in.”

Her brother placed her back
on her feet. He stared at her for a moment, then grabbed her chin.
He turned her face toward the light. “He do that?”

“
No. But someone did when
we were forced off the road. And we need to find out
who.”

“
I’ll walk with
you.”

Like a big guard dog, he
stayed at her side until she reached the first interrogation room.
It took them a while—everyone in the bullpen wanted to speak to
her, it seemed. She understood it. PAVAD took care of their
own.

Mick didn’t bother knocking
on the door, just turned the handle and pushed it open. With a bit
more force than was necessary. Al smiled; her brother was ticked,
and about to make his presence known.

Mick was fanatical about
FBI agents following the rules. It was why he did IA.

She saw Sebastian first,
and though he didn’t react too outwardly she saw the flick of
surprise and relief on his face. He nodded. She understood,
they
would talk
later.

There was another man by
the window, dressed in the most severe business suit she’d ever
seen on an FBI agent. She looked at him once, then forced herself
not to do a double take. The third brother. His hair was shorter
than Sebastian’s, and his face was harder than both Sebastian and
Seth’s.

He was one icily terrifying
man. He stared at her, no change in his expression.

Mal was far more careful
pulling her into his hug than Mick had been. She wrapped herself in
the scent of her brother. It took all she had in that moment not to
cry.
Mal
would
always mean safety for her. Always. “Love you, bub.”

“
Glad to see you in one
piece.”

Al pulled away. There was
one man she still needed to see. Nerves hit her.

Would he want to see
her?

He stood across the room,
arms crossed and that arrogant look on his face. No, to her he
definitely didn’t look like his brothers.

“
Well, Blondie, looking
good.”

“
You know I always look
good. Glad to see you’re alive.” She wouldn’t make an emotional
fool of herself. She wouldn’t. She’d been trained better than that.
“A little more beat up than when I last saw you,
though.”

“
Eh, I’ve been patched up.
Almost good as new. Except for my broken heart. Shameful woman.”
His mouth quirked in that particular goading smile of his. It drove
her crazy—this time was no exception. “You’re just as dangerous as
you look.”

“
About time you understood
that.”

He moved then, rounding the
table. He stopped in front of her. “Well.”

Was there anything else to
say? She would
not
reach out and touch him. “Well. Found the answers
yet?”

“
No. And you said this unit
of yours was the closest thing to the Justice League of America.
Not seeing it.”

“
That’s because you’ve not
been looking in the right spots.” He didn’t try to touch her. And
she didn’t try to touch him. Now was not the time for that. She
stepped back, then looked at Sebastian and Mal. At Ed Dennis. Three
men she trusted beyond measure. “We need to close ranks around the
CCU. Top agents only.”

Ed took her at her word. He
always trusted his people. Because they’d earned it.

She felt truly honored to
work for this man. “Boss, something’s going on, and the person
behind it is
here.
In our city, possibly in our very building.”

“
And you know this
how?”

“
Because someone has been
one step ahead of us. They ran us off the road, and I think they
tipped IA and Barnes off where to find us.”

She resisted the urge to
look at him again.

If she did, she’d break
down. And she had too much to do before that happened.

Chapter
Forty-Three

***

He’d never seen a better
sight than Blondie standing there with her brothers on each side of
her.

“
So tell me, babe, where
the hell have you been? Thought we had a date tonight.”

She looked up at him, and
her eyes were blank. Carefully so. Professionally so. But her lips
trembled. Blondie was holding herself together nice and tight.
“Went for a ride on a Greyhound bus. Hopped a flight back home in
time for lunch. Then decided to stop by Smokey’s for some onion
rings. Ran into a friend there. She gave me a lift. How’d you get
here?”

“
Funny thing that. Ended in
the back of a Bureau sedan. In the seat this time.”

“
You’ve moved up in the
world, then.”

The men around him,
including Sebastian, were on their phones. Gathering their troops.
Sebastian hugged Alessandra and Seth had no difficulty seeing the
affection between them. Should he be jealous?

He wanted to touch the
damned woman so bad his hands hurt from resisting.

Blondie got slaps on the
back as they walked through the small crowd of about two dozen
people lining the hallway between the interrogation rooms and
wherever they were going. Close friends, then.

***

The silver haired guy who
ran the show called for everyone to sit down. His people took their
seats at the tables arranged for maximum clear view. Alessandra
stayed standing at the front of the room. Seth knew the
drill.

The older man turned toward
Alessandra. “It’s your show. Run with it.”

“
Thank you.” She looked at
Seth for a moment and nodded. Then she faced the others. Six people
were in the room in addition to them and Dennis. He looked over
when the door opened.

Cody was there and a woman
with red and purple
hair. Not what he was
expecting.

Hellbrook looked around the
room, then back at Dennis. “This is it, I take it?”

“
Let’s get started,” Dennis
said. “Alessandra, you have new information, I take it?”

“
I have a list of last
names and first initials. Carrie needs to take a look at it. See
what she can make of it. And I don’t know what Seth has told you
about his friend Riaz?” She looked at him and Seth nodded. He
hadn’t told them much but Hugh had. “Agent Riaz’s murder is somehow
connected. We need everything we can find on him. And I’m pretty
certain that the person responsible is somewhere in this building
or across the street in the St. Louis field office.”

Ed Dennis nodded at the big
redheaded man. “Hell, you’re taking the front position on this.
With Sebastian’s family connection—and Alessandra’s—Teams One and
Two need to be periphery. Let Dan be lead, though. Since Carrie’s
your agent. Other than that, work quickly people. And work quietly.
I’ve some things I need to get together on my end.”

Chapter
Forty-Four

***

She didn’t get a chance to
talk to him. Somehow she thought she would. But one hour led into
the next, and each team went into hyper drive, doing what they did
best.

They split the list of
potential victims—and there were more than a dozen—and with the
help of the computer analysts started running down a list of
possible names. It would take a few days, but they would find out
who the victims were, and from there the blackmailer.

Anticlimactic, she could
definitely call it that. But that was the way
most
of their investigations went.
Impersonal, anticlimactic, heavily paper-trailed, ninety-nine
percent of what they did was just that.

Seemed like the only cases
that were dramatic and dangerous were the ones that ended up being
personal.

But wasn’t
this
personal? How could
it not be?

She didn’t know if he was
avoiding her, but somehow he ended up with Hell’s team, while she
was back where she belonged.

Sebastian was worried about
her—his glances in her direction were full of concern and he seemed
to be making a point of pairing her off with him for anything that
might be too taxing. Why?

Did he know or suspect what
had happened between her and his brother?

Finally around eight that
evening the teams started breaking up. Theoretically she understood
Sebastian and Hell’s decision. They had been through several rough
days, and she and Seth were still sore from running off the road.
And how long had they been going on little to no sleep?

She’d lost count of that
days ago.

Suddenly the thought of her
own bed, in her own house, with her own family sounded like the
most wonderful thing in the world. And that was all she wanted. She
grabbed her bag—it had been found by the forensics team and kept
for her—and her laptop. Home.

She’d find one of her
brothers and that was exactly where she was headed.

But what about
Seth?

If he hadn’t said much to
her, he’d said far less to his brothers. How could he do that? And
why hadn’t Sebastian, at least, tried to make an effort? Was
Sebastian still angry over him involving Carrie? She could
understand that.

But where was Seth going to
go for the night? Should she offer him the guest room in her
home?

How could she just push him
out into the cold?

“
Seth?”

***

Blondie was looking at him
and he knew what she wanted. Damn, he wanted that too. He wanted
all the people surrounding them gone. He wanted a quiet place where
it was just the two of them and they could figure
this
out.

Whatever
this
was.

What the hell did
he
want?

With that blue-eyed female
staring at him all he could think about were things he knew he
would never need. Things he would never be able to give
her.

“
Hey, toots. Guess this is
it. We’ll finish this up tomorrow or the next day and you can get
back to the life I interrupted. Pretend I never existed, how’s
that?”

He didn’t miss the hurt
that hit her face. Hurt he never meant to cause. But still, wasn’t
it better to cut the ties
now
rather than later, when the million ties between
them had tripled?

Clean break. Fast and easy.
Before anything more developed.

But
why
did he feel that
more
already?

He just didn’t get
it.

“
Sooner the better. You’ve
been nothing but a pain in my backside since the very
beginning.”

Yeah, he definitely had.
Poor kid.

She’d be well rid of
him.

Chapter
Forty-Five

***

“
Far cry
from what I expected.” Seth tossed his duffle—still full of
Sebastian’s spares—onto the brown leather couch in his temporary
apartment less than an hour after Alessandra had left with her
brothers. He’d been dragged along with Sebastian, and he wasn’t
entirely certain it was by
his
choice. Or his brothers. But Carrie and Cody had
teamed up and insisted. Fucking weird, that—both of Sebastian’s
wives looking at him that way. Had to be even weirder for his
brother to have them team up on
him
. “You sure the owners won’t
mind?”

“
Carrie owns it. It was her
idea. The renter was killed in Afghanistan last month. He had no
family. We’ve packed up his personal belongings to donate. But the
furniture stays.”

“
Poor bastard.” Seth
remembered his own days in the navy. He’d missed Afghanistan by
only a few weeks. He and Sebastian had both been honorably
discharged right before their units were sent. “How
old?”

“
Twenty-two. Far too young.
Listen, we’re on the top floor, if you need anything. Dinner will
be in an hour; you’re welcome to join us. Get to know Carrie
without kidnapping her first. It’s spaghetti.”

“
Granma’s
recipe?”

“
Is there any other?”
Sebastian stared at him for a moment. “Glad you’re not
dead.”

Seth was half expecting the
fist rammed into his gut. He
had
carjacked and abandoned his brother’s woman,
after all. How would he feel if it was his Blondie? It took him a
moment to be able to speak again. “Yeah. That’s obvious, there,
bro. Still punch like a girl.”

“
I’m taking it easy on you.
Besides, Mick beat me to what I really wanted. How’s the
lip?”

“
Damned bastard must be
part machine. Fist of titanium.”

“
I really
was expecting him to kill you. Unlike his sister or brother,
that
Brockman isn’t
exactly nice.”

Seth had full recall of how
the
other
brother—Malachi?—had banged his head off the restroom mirror
when Alessandra had been missing. The guy hadn’t exactly
been
nice
about
it.