Dead No More (4 page)

Lily studied the man in front of her. “Fair enough. But why not pull in someone else who’s still on 67’s payroll?”

“Easy. I don’t need anyone else.” He settled into his chair and drilled her with his steely gaze. “I need you.”

She squirmed in her seat. Wow, she needed a life. Or a boyfriend. Or both. She knew he meant her skills, not her body. But still...

“Well?”

She cleared her throat, banishing the sexy thoughts romping through her brain. “I’m done—”

He reached across the table, grabbed her hands and grinned at her appealingly. “Please. Don’t make me beg.”

The same jolt that rushed through her the last time he’d touched her surged again. She slowly withdrew her fingers from his grip, but couldn’t help noticing the thrill of the game rush through her. He’d piqued her interest, captured her attention and drawn her in.

How had this stranger managed—in less than twenty-four hours, no less—to do exactly what Director Kennedy hadn’t been able to do over the past thirteen months?

“What do you want me to do?” She sat back. “If...I’m interested. Which I’m not saying I am.”

Yeah, right. Who was she kidding
?
Clearly not the man sitting across from her, who was doing his best—and failing miserably—to conceal the grin that spread across his face. A deep dimple appeared as his smile grew. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her own grin from escaping onto her lips.

“I want you to do what you do better than anyone—get close to my client’s partner, Rowland James.”

“That’s it?” She tipped her head to the side and eyed him. “Why do I get the feeling there’s more to this story?”

“Because there is.”

His transparent, candid nature both fascinated and shocked her.

Derek glanced around. “But I can’t go into details here.”

And there it was: the tight-lipped, possessive behavior she’d grown tired of before walking away from the agency. “Why not?”

“First, you haven’t agreed to anything yet. Second, and more important, there are too many ears.” He crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side. “Would you go into details now, in this place?”

He’d nailed her. She’d never talk a case here—not with so many unknown people. And she wouldn’t share everything with him, even if they worked together. She wouldn’t do that again.

Not after last time.

“Fair enough. But at least throw me a bone.”

“We’ve intercepted some chatter that might or might not involve a national security breach. I can’t get close enough to Rowland to confirm or refute the chatter. My IC team is working around the clock, but they continue to come up empty. He’s a bit of a ladies’ man, and I figured...”

“You figured what? That I’d whore myself out to get information?” Lily’s face—and temper—flamed, all thoughts of Derek’s charm and sexiness gone. “Clearly you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

She got up, knocking the wooden chair against the desert sand-colored wall. Her whole body trembled with anger as she glared down at him. “Forget you found me. If you don’t, I promise you, you’ll regret it. I mean it, Derek. Don’t underestimate me. I’m not the same woman that you’ve read about in my file.”

Without another word, she stalked toward the door and slammed it on her way out.

CHAPTER SIX

Tuesday, September 16, 3:00 p.m.

W
ELL
,
THAT
WENT
WELL
.
Derek rubbed the back of his neck and watched Lily through the glass window until she got to the streetlight and rounded the corner, disappearing from his line of sight. He chuckled. She was going to make him work for her involvement, but he was up for the challenge. That brunette bombshell was totally worth it.

The file he’d pulled on Lily didn’t do her an ounce of justice. Not in her capacity. Not in her looks. Not in her feistiness. He’d enjoy working with this one—if he could get past that barrier she’d constructed around herself.

He reached for his phone and dialed.

“Is she in?” Director Kennedy asked without preamble.

Typical.
Derek ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t say that, no.”

“What happened?”

Throwing out the “ladies man” card with her was a jackass move. Derek should’ve known it would rub Lily the wrong way. Nothing in her file indicated that she’d ever used sex to complete a mission. At first he’d scoffed at that. What agent didn’t use sex as a weapon, even as a last resort? But after watching her over the past few months and building his
own
jacket on her, he imagined that aspect of her to be true.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “She might or might not have walked out on me.”

“I told you she wouldn’t be easy to bridle,” the director snapped. “The girl’s got more sass in her little finger than most people have in their entire bodies. She can’t—make that
won’t
—be manhandled.”

“I definitely misjudged the sass quotient,” Derek muttered. Which was the understatement of the century. Lily Andrews was a firecracker of epic proportions. He’d never seen anyone—aside from his feisty Irish mother—go from calm to boiling in a single breath. If Lily wasn’t such a vital part of his case, he would have laughed at her explosion...and enjoyed the view as she left.

But he needed her. Without her, this mission would go to hell and he’d be screwed.

“Don’t underestimate her,” the director said. “She’s your equal. Treat her as such, and she’s yours. Don’t, and she’s as good as gone.”

“Yes, I gathered that.”

Kennedy sighed into the phone. “Hate to tell you this, but if Lily walked on you, you might have lost her for good.”

Derek wasn’t about to let her off the hook
that
easily. He just needed to regroup. “I haven’t lost her.”

“What’s your next move?”

“Circle around. Come at her from another angle.”

“Good luck, and keep me posted.”

The line went dead.

Derek tossed the phone on the table. His 67 cover within the intelligence community as a profiler with the BAU wasn’t his first choice, but he’d learned how to read people better than anyone he knew—and Derek had picked up on the tightness in Kennedy’s voice. Why? What was eating at him?

Derek scrubbed his hands over his face. He craved movement, a shift, anything that would get him closer to completing his mission and moving the hell on. After his recent experience in Seattle, Omaha lacked the adventure he thrived on.

But Director Kennedy had specifically asked for him.

Turning down a “request” like that wasn’t an option, not as a 67 agent. So here he was, landlocked in the middle of the country, spinning his wheels like a freaking hamster on a wheel, going nowhere fast. And it was getting old.

His mission in Omaha was a bit more complicated than what he’d just revealed to Lily. And when she’d asked if Kennedy knew Derek was speaking to her, he thought he’d blown it. The fifteen seconds she took to contemplate his response were the longest seconds in his life. He wasn’t there to gather intel on Rowland James alone—the director had specifically asked Derek to keep an eye on Lily—to ensure she didn’t inadvertently stumble into the crosshairs of a killer—issuing a gag order on that latter half of Derek’s happy little assignment from hell.

Simple enough, right?

Hardly.

Nothing was simple when it came to Lily Andrews. He knew what haunted her long into the evenings. What pushed her to pace in front of the tall windows of her loft late into the night. And he couldn’t blame her. Losing a partner to treason, and having no answers to the million questions whirling around, would shake even the toughest, most seasoned agent.

He’d tracked and memorized her mundane routine within a week: Keystone Café, running trail, shooting range, home. She’d switch up the order occasionally, especially after burning the candle into the early morning hours, but never the activities.

Which Derek appreciated.

It simplified his objective: keep watch over Lily.

The only problem? The more he watched, the harder he fell. Which was trouble.
Lily was trouble.
Without knowing it, she’d gotten to him, settled into his bones and turned his world upside down.

He looked up, caught Ben’s steady gaze and nodded in his direction. The tall, bald man didn’t return the gesture.
Great
. How was it possible that he’d pissed off both of them? Derek could engage with a tree. He knew no stranger. It was part of what made him so good at his job, yet here he was grasping at straws.

Time to do some serious damage control, because he’d just crashed and burned. Twice. Derek rose from his chair and made his way over to the counter.

Ben didn’t move.

Derek knew exactly who was staring him down, and Unit 67’s infamous Benjamin Tinsdale was
not
the man you wanted to go up against in a brawl. Of any sort. Derek swallowed his grin. Now was not the time to go toe-to-toe with this alpha.

“Good work on the shop.” Derek glanced around. “I like it in here.”

Ben crossed his arms over his barrel chest, tucked his hands under his armpits, didn’t smile. “What can I get you?”

Fantastic.
He’d significantly angered this mountain of a man when he’d ticked Lily off. “Doppio macchiato.”

Ben turned toward the espresso machine, glanced into the mirror behind the coffee bar and watched Derek as he pulled the caramel-colored shots. “Be careful with that one.” He spoke in a low, deliberate tone.

What the hell?
Derek caught that underlying threat. He hadn’t expected Ben to go there. This guy wasn’t messing around. Derek filed that away and switched gears. “It was just a friendly conversation.”

“Yeah, and I’m the fucking Dalai Lama.” Ben passed Derek his coffee. “I’d advise you to find someone else to have a friendly conversation with.”

Derek handed Ben a five-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Moretti.”

The hair bristled on the back of Derek’s neck. Legend or not, Ben was no longer active and had no say in what Derek did or did not do on a case. Derek took a deep breath, toned down the internal sarcasm before he answered the man glowering at him. He needed Ben on his side, not as an enemy. Might as well learn to play nice. “I’ll take that into consideration.”

Like hell he would. With the undercurrent at ARME Industries rapidly shifting and the tension between his boss and Rowland James heating up, Derek really needed to read Lily in on this case. And sooner rather than later.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tuesday, September 16, 8:00 p.m.

W
HAT
A
NIGHTMARE
.
Every time Lily closed her eyes, she could see the blue of Derek’s. She could feel the warmth of his hands, his lips. Her heart raced at the sheer
memory
of his touch. She sat at the baby grand, her fingers flying over the smooth ivory. Her form of therapy. When everything around her seemed to fall apart, she’d lose herself in the soft melodies of Chopin. As her fingers raced, her mind flew to the past.

To who she had been.

She was 67’s best agent. And how could she not be? Both her parents had served Unit 67 before their untimely—and classified—deaths. Though it had snatched Lily’s family from her, she’d never given leaving this life a second thought—she’d been part of the black-ops world since her birth. It was part of her, entangled in the deepest recesses of her DNA. Had she been studied by psychologists, she would have blown the whole nature versus nurture argument straight to hell, because she wasn’t just one, she was
both
. She knew it well, becoming another person. Transforming to learn vital information, in order to protect and to serve.

Lily had loved every second of it.

Until Jackson.

The lonely melody of the piano matched her mood.

She let the last note slip quietly into the night, then reached for the goblet of Merlot and let the tart liquid wash over her tongue. She closed her eyes and opened her heart to remember her father’s calm voice.
Once an agent, always an agent, sweetheart.

Lily swirled the crimson liquid in her glass. She wished things were different. But they weren’t. She wished
she
were different.

She wasn’t.

Dakota leaped to his feet, growled and rushed the front door. Setting the wine down, Lily grabbed the .45 sitting on the edge of the piano and flipped the safety. Gun drawn, she moved to the wall monitor and peered into the screen. George’s face stared back at her. Strange. Why hadn’t he just called up? She lowered the gun and pulled open the door. “George, what’s up?”

He held out his hand. “Another note from our friendly little stalker.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.” She took the note, her curiosity sparked. “What did he say this time? Another apology?”

“He walked in with roses—”

“Roses?” Lily managed to choke out.

“I pitched them.” He smiled, his dazzling white teeth a stark contrast to his deep brown skin, and winked. “Didn’t figure you’d want them.”

She snorted. “You figured right.”

He grew serious. “He wanted to see you. I told him you weren’t available. The guy simply nodded, handed me the flowers and asked that I make sure you got them.”

“Ballsy.”

“I talked to Ben.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed. Of course they’d talked. They were both former 67, but the lifetime commitment that most agents made ran true in both men. Unit 67 trained them to be lone rangers, to think on their own and for their own, but every so often, a tight-knit group of lone rangers banded together—and Lily had found herself in the middle of one such phenomenon.

George—giant, scary-as-shit George—decided Ben Tinsdale, his newest trainee, was part of the family when the twenty-something, pissed-off ex-ranger had shown up at Unit 67, hell-bent on avenging the death of his unit. Ben had been looking for a fight, but instead, George introduced the young warrior to Lily’s parents, and just like that, a family of misfits had formed. It wasn’t unusual for them to check in with each other, especially when it came to her.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. And I don’t like it, or this Moretti guy, for that matter. This place—” George gestured into her loft “—has been off the radar far too long for some maverick to come along and jeopardize life as you know it.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Lily leaned against the door frame and let him talk. The man was worse than a Sidewinder missile when he’d locked on to something. Which, by the determined look in his eyes, was now.

“George, I know.”

“Your father would be livid to know his daughter’s safe house had been compromised.”

Oh, dear lord, how long was he going to go on about this? She’d figured Derek dropping in on her would rattle George just as much as it had her, but she was a grown woman...and a trained operative. “I get it. And I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, are you going to?”

“I don’t know.” And that was the honest answer. She didn’t. “But it beats the alternative.”

“Which is?”

“Sitting on my ass for the rest of my life. I loved my life, loved everything about it, and though I will be forever grateful for you and Ben, I can’t sit back and do nothing. Jackson may have boxed me into this corner, but maybe this thing with Derek is my ticket back into the game.”

“Do you trust him?”

She considered that for a moment. “Kennedy may be on my personal shit list for making me stand over Jackson’s fake grave, but I still trust him. If he sent Derek here, then he trusts him, and one thing I know about Kennedy is that he knows how to read people.”

“Except Jackson.”

She cringed. That would always be the one black mark in
all
their files. “We all fell for Jackson. I can’t fault the director for that, not when I fell for it, as well.”

“I still don’t like it.”

Lily pushed off the door frame, stood on her tiptoes and kissed George on the cheek. “I hear you.”

He nodded and grunted an acknowledgment, turned and walked away.

She shut the door, then reached for the tiny note tucked in the envelope. Tugging it out of its hiding place, she read the smooth, controlled handwriting.

For the second time in just as many days, I apologize. I didn’t mean to insult your character or your intelligence. If you aren’t interested, I understand. But if for some strange reason you are, you know where to find me.

Derek

Lily flopped down onto her oversize white sofa, let its soft, brushed microsuede envelop her. As angry as she was for the disruption in her quiet—granted, ridiculously mundane and yawn-inducing—life, a feeling that had been a stranger to her for the past year reemerged.

Excitement.

Suddenly feeling energized, she stalked to her room, threw the note onto her bed and went to work on her computer.

She spent several long hours back-channeling into 67’s computer mainframe, researching and vetting Derek Moretti, filling the recesses of her mind with every detail she could find as her eyelids grew steadily heavier. She finally signed off her computer, padded to the bathroom and flicked on the lights, and stared at her reflection in the mirror.

“You took an oath to serve and protect.” She dared the soft hazel eyes returning her gaze to disagree. “Who are you kidding? This is your chance to get back to the life, and work, you love...without having to crawl back to the director with your tail between your legs. You’d be an idiot not to take it.”

* * *

D
EREK
WAITED
UNTIL
the lights in Lily’s loft went off before moving from his perch. He yawned and stretched, then checked his watch. Two-thirty.
Damn, woman. No rest for the weary, eh?
She had no doubt spent the past several hours drilling down into his file as far as she could go—which, knowing her, was down to whether he wore boxers or briefs.

Rubbing his hands over his face, Derek walked into the kitchen, searched for a glass and, once finding a clean one, filled it with water. His computer had pinged every time she’d broken through the next level of his encrypted files. It had only taken her four hours to track down just about everything. He downed the water and set the glass on the counter.

He hoped she liked what she saw. If she didn’t, his mission was dead in the water.