Taste Me Deadly (Sensory Ops) (9 page)

Aidan and Tyler shared a grin. Tyler looked back down at his tablet. Aidan cleared his throat. “It’s a good one. Though I’ll say again it’s one I should’ve known, given that we shared a womb.”

“You knew before anyone else,” Liam shot back. “Let that be enough.”

The door opened. All conversation stopped when Grey and Kieralyn stepped in. Both women looked from Liam to the rest of the team sitting on the edges of the spare bed and the chairs they’d pulled around the bed.

Kieralyn leaned close to Grey. “I think they were talking about you.”

Grey slid her gaze to Kieralyn and chuckled. “I think that’s what they call an understatement.”

Liam moved to Grey and turning his back on everyone in the room met her gaze. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She nodded to the group in the room. “Though I’m pretty sure you’re about to test that theory.”

Liam moved so he stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. “Grey, you’ve met my brother Aidan, Tyler, who is our tech God, Kieralyn, with charms even the NSA couldn’t resist.”

“Well,” Kieralyn said with a wink, “one NSA guy in particular. Unless we want to also count Dante.”

Liam continued. “Breck is our team lead, and Ava is the colorful one of us, her past that is.”

“Spy, killer, call-girl, empath, FBI agent.” The dark-haired beauty shrugged. “I’m the complete package.”

Grey lifted a hand in a wave. Liam pressed his thumbs lightly into the back of her shoulders. “This is Grey. My wife. She’s been in WitSec until her sister, Ruby, was hospitalized. Now she’s back, without U.S. Marshal protection, and we’re pretty sure the man she’s supposed to testify against knows.”

“Jessup.” Breck nodded.

Grey’s shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. Liam imagined she was frowning, but his way was the most expedient. Everyone needed to know what they were getting into. Breck needed to know why they should take on the case. He’d given them all the necessary answers quickly.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ava asked.

He could spell it out so many different ways, but didn’t want any blowback landing on Grey. “She didn’t think it would be right to ask me to go into protection with her.”

“And you couldn’t risk coming into our world,” Kieralyn addressed Grey directly.

Grey shook her head in answer to Kieralyn.

Aidan crossed the room and stood before Grey. With a smile, he pulled her away from Liam and hugged her close. “Welcome to the family, sis.”

When Aidan released her, Tyler was there for a hug. Then Breck and Ava and finally Kieralyn. They each welcomed her, and with every hug the tightness Liam hadn’t noticed released from around his heart. He’d known they would step in and help her, but their automatic acceptance of her meant more to him than he’d thought it could.

When Kieralyn released Grey, she passed her back to Liam. He ran a hand along Grey’s arm. “Sorry I didn’t warn you.”

“I’ve lived with enough lies. It’s fine.”

His sisters had always been supremely pissed when claiming things were
fine
. Grey’s tone didn’t hold the same edge, but neither was she pleased. He would have to think about that later, though, because he wasn’t inviting an argument in front of the team. “They had to know.”

“And they couldn’t know part without knowing all.” She nodded. “I figured that out in the stairwell with Kieralyn.”

Tyler got down to business. He led Grey to the corner chair and placed his tablet in her lap. He tapped the screen a few times and called up a gallery of images. “Tell me if any of these men look familiar. To enlarge…”

He trailed off when she double tapped the screen and then began flipping through the images with a flick of her finger. “I took the description Kieralyn gave me and ran it against known associates of Jessup.”

“I didn’t see his men often, only once that I remember, but he gives off a kind of eeriness that’s memorable. And from what I heard, he was entirely devoted to Jessup.”

Tyler left her to her search and talked with the team. “The warden says Jessup’s maxing out his Internet time each week, and he’s had an increase in people trying to visit.”

“He’s running his business from inside,” Breck stated, “and damn if it doesn’t sound like he’s planning something.”

“We need to know what, though.”

“That’s easy,” Grey said from where she scanned images. “I’m the only thing keeping him in prison. He wants me dead.”

“Well that’s not happening.”

Liam looked over to Grey, who was still flipping through pictures. It wasn’t enough that she told them whom she’d seen. She needed to ID him visibly without any prompting. They needed evidence. “Marshal Carpenter said their entire case hinged on her testimony.”

“Who?” Breck asked.

“The U.S. Marshal assigned to Grey until she left the program. When she left Vegas to come here he called.”

“Why?”

Liam watched Grey, measuring her reaction to his answers. “When I ran her name a few years ago I triggered their system. He thought we’d been looking into Jessup so he gave me a head’s up. He didn’t seem to know we’re married.”

“Why’d you run her name?” Aidan asked.

“Because she left him as fast as she married him.”

Liam’s gaze snapped to Ava. As an empath she was good at reading people, but not their minds. Grey spoke before he could.

“I didn’t know he was a Fed when I married him. I saw his badge and Miami address and freaked.”

“Because you and Jessup are from here,” Liam said.

“I never mentioned you to Micah. To anyone.”

Grey nodded and thankfully that seemed to be the end of the questions about their history.
 

“So this is all a trap,” Breck stated. “Is that the theory we’re working on?”

“Yes,” Grey answered without looking up from the tablet. “At least it’s Micah’s.”

“And if he’s not helping Jessup, the man we saw could be vying for position of top dog,” Kieralyn tacked on. “And he’d need Grey out of the way as much as Jessup.”

“Because he can’t know she won’t name him during the trial,” Ava finished.

Tyler pulled out a second tablet, and set his fingers to work. “I read most of the file the Bureau has on Jessup—it’s a big one filled with circumstantial evidence. I’ve sent a request to the other agencies to see if they have anything.”

“Is there anything we can use that we haven’t already discussed?” Aidan asked.

Tyler shook his head. “Not that I’ve found. We need to focus on identifying the players and keeping these women safe so Grey can be at the trial.”

Grey approached them and laid the tablet on the bed by Tyler with the full gallery showing. “Fifteen is the man I saw in the elevator and stairwell. If he’s not in charge, then number twenty-two would be my guess. I saw him more frequently. Number seven is also vaguely familiar. Maybe he ran a delivery or two at the shop.”

“Delivery?” Breck asked.

“Drugs.” Grey stuck her hands in her pockets and stood rigidly near Tyler. “They had a whole system worked out with the Matoots. I got in the way.”

Tyler took the tablet and after a few taps had no doubt initiated detailed searches into the men she’d identified.

Liam leaned against the wall, struggling with the boundaries he had to obey now that the team was looking into the case. He’d seen the lingering damage of whatever she’d seen, and he didn’t want to ask about it, but they needed to know and she’d have to talk about it at trial. “What did you witness, Grey? How often did you come across Jessup? Can you explain their system?”

She turned to him but didn’t meet his gaze. “I told you about learning to work with chocolate in the pastry shop.”

“Yes.”

“Before that I mixed the batters for our products. Sometimes I helped package stuff for the retail outlets we sold to.”

“And Jessup?”

“The owners introduced him as a customer. We had several local stores that sold our mixes. He looked and acted the part, and all the men who did pickups for him wore the same uniform. There was no reason to doubt the story.”

“What changed?” Liam prompted.

“Everything we made for Jessup was for a standing order. Turns out he was the dealer and his product was hidden in the packaged mixes. An employee took one of the mixes and a kid died from an overdose. When the cops started looking at the Matoots they contacted Jessup and demanded he find another way to move his merchandise.”

She rolled her shoulders, rubbed her neck. Liam’s palms itched to comfort her, but he resisted. She needed to know she was strong enough to get through the retelling, because that would help her move past anything else she faced.

“I had gone back to clock out after making a delivery, and I walked in to see Jessup holding a gun to Mrs. Matoot’s head. He demanded that Mr. Matoot change his mind, that he agree to continue distributing. Mr. Matoot refused so Jessup pulled the trigger. He gave Mr. Matoot another chance to comply. Instead, he fell to Mrs. Matoot’s side and refused again. Jessup shot him the same way.”

She spoke mechanically, as if she was divorcing herself from what had happened. If she could maintain that, it would help her stay calm on the witness stand when the day came. “From what I heard, the weapon hasn’t been recovered so there’s nothing to tie him to the murders. All the orders were verbal, payments were made in cash. There was no record of a store receiving those deliveries.”

She didn’t mention the part about the woman being stabbed and raped. The evasion made Liam more certain she was the woman.

Breck ended her retelling by standing and doling out tasks. “Tyler will do what Tyler does, running the men Grey identified. If there’s a paper trail he’ll find it. Aidan, do you mind talking to Lana?”

Aidan scoffed. “Yes, but it won’t matter. This is the kind of story she’s most attracted to. If I bring her in I can at least convince her to hold off before writing anything.”

Aidan’s willingness to talk about work with his journalist fiancée was becoming more commonplace, but it was strange. The only thing that made it seem normal was knowing they still argued at every turn about how cases and stories should be handled.

“Ava, could you reach out to Simon? He’s good at finding information people don’t want found. Maybe he can help.”

“He’s watching Ruby tonight, but I’ll call him. Then I need to follow some leads on a few other cases.”

Breck nodded. Simon was a private investigator who’d tracked down and then kept hidden some of the best-hidden people and then he’d tracked others through those connections. He’d also, unexpectedly, become close friends with Ava’s fiancé, H.

“Kieralyn and Liam, you two keep an eye on Grey and Ruby. Liam, I’ll cover you on the cases you’ve been working. And I’ll talk to the director.”

Breck, Aidan, Ava and Tyler gathered their things and with a final round of welcomes and assurances for Grey said good-bye. Grey stopped Tyler when he placed a hand of support on her shoulder.

“Tyler, you’re already doing so much, but could I ask another favor?”

“Name it.”

She looked at her sister, licked her lips and asked, “Would you look into Ruby? I’m curious what her life’s been like. If she had anyone we should find a way to contact.”

He flicked a glance at Liam before looking back to her. “We’ve already started. I’ll make sure to send Liam the latest information.”

“Have you found anyone?”

Tyler shook his head. “It appears as if she’s kept to herself the last several years. She works from home and aside from the grocery store she rarely goes out.”

“So she’s been alone.”

Sorrow pinched Liam’s heart at the guilt in Grey’s voice. Tyler didn’t tell her she’d made the right choice, that she’d kept Ruby and herself safe for five years. Kieralyn and Liam also remained silent, because they couldn’t really know she’d made the right choice. They could only hope for the best.

Tyler nodded and made his exit, leaving Liam alone with Grey, Kieralyn and Ruby. Liam wanted to pace, to run, to pound his fist into someone until they were bloody and bruised. He wanted to release every ounce of hindering helplessness. But he needed to be steady for Grey, so he suppressed his wants and focused on the next step.

Grey walked to Ruby’s bed and lifted her sister’s hand. She sat on the side of the bed, cradling Ruby’s hand in her lap. Her shoulders shook as she leaned forward and laid her head on Ruby.

“I’m sorry I left you,” she whispered to her sister, “but I’m here now.”

Liam swallowed the urge to go to Grey. Instead, he nodded for Kieralyn to follow him. Stepping into the hall, he left Grey to confront her guilt in privacy. When they got home, though, he would pull her close and find a way to begin putting her heart back together.

Chapter Eight

The ocean was about ten minutes away from Liam’s home, but its breezy scent reached clean and heady through the car’s open windows. Grey had asked about driving her own car, but Liam insisted on taking his, which left her little to do except watch him and the passing scenery.

She inhaled, pulling the peace of the ocean’s scent deep into her—muscle, cell, bone. She’d missed the smell and the crash of the waves. Times like these she would have visited her favorite sandy haven to clear her head. Now, a visit was out of the question, since she had to avoid her favorite spot.