Jae's Assignment (10 page)

Then Trevor’s lips descended upon hers. And she didn’t stop him. As his lips swept across hers, teasingly, he was shocked she hadn’t protested.

Trevor only intended to give her a brief goodbye kiss. But since meeting her, he’d wondered more than once if her lips were as delectable as they looked. They were that and more, he thought. Her lips were intoxicating. The hand that previously covered hers was now circling her waist, as the not so brief kiss intensified and became even more exhilarating. The kiss was real. She was real, and not like the dream he’d found himself having in the early morning hour that forced him out of bed to pack his belongings and leave that motel.

Careful of her injured side, Trevor slowly backed her to the wall. She didn’t hesitate or stop him. He took that as permission to fully explore her mouth more intimately and the heat coming off her body warmed him throughout. He didn’t think it was due to her elevated temperature. He also didn’t think it was the pain medication that allowed him to kiss her—and kiss him she did, with a hunger and desire that caused his knees to buckle.

The realization of what she was doing, kissing someone she most certainly shouldn’t, came and went through Jae’s mind like a bolt of lightning. It was immediately replaced with a thousand mini electric shocks running up and down her back, ending and beginning right at the spot where his hands massaged and stroked her.

Jae wondered if he’d lifted her off her feet because she was floating, amazingly and beautifully in his arms. She could only steady herself by tightening her hold on him—her hands were tight around his neck and yes, her legs were around his waist because he had indeed lifted her up in his arms. Jae couldn’t say when he’d done that.

Fleeting seconds turned into minutes. The sounds of their raspy breathing filled her bedroom as did their moans, unleashing a want and need each held in check for their own reasons.

“So…this is him, huh, Jae?”

Hearing her Aunt Maggie’s voice, Jae felt herself nose dive to earth, like a bird that had suddenly lost its wings. Adjusting her top after Trevor slowly released her until her feet touched the floor, she sidestepped around him on shaky legs to greet her aunt who’d been standing inside the doorway to her bedroom.

“Hi Aunt Maggie, um, you made it in early, how nice.” She struggled to keep her voice even; a hard task to do with a red-hot flame burning inside her—almost as red as her lips.

To make matters worse, as her aunt came into her room and they embraced tightly, Jae could feel Trevor’s eyes burning a path through the back of her pajamas.

“Yes, my flight arrived early so I went on over to the church. Jae, my dear, you’re gorgeous,” Aunt Maggie said, caressing her niece’s flushed cheek

“Oh, that’s nice. So you saw everybody, huh?” Jae managed.

Aunt Maggie laughed. “Yes, I sure did and your father was snoring on the front pew as usual,” she said, smiling broadly up at Trevor. “Well, hello,” she said.

Trevor smiled at her aunt, who bore a resemblance to her niece. “So you’re the Trevor I’ve just gotten an earful about in church, hmm? I’m Maggie, Jae’s aunt,” she said, lifting her hand, wrist bent with exaggerated graciousness.

“Hello, Maggie,” Trevor said, taking her delicate hand in his and bringing it up to his lips and kissing the back of it. “My pleasure,” he said, smiling at Jae as her eyes rolled behind her aunt’s back.

“So, this is your young man?” she asked turning to Jae.

“What? No! He…um, well, he’s…” Jae said, looking at Trevor. She was at a loss for words.

“We’re acquaintances, Maggie,” Trevor offered, smiling at both aunt and niece.

“That’s Aunt Maggie to you,” Jae bristled.

“Oh, hush up, Jae,” Maggie said, glancing from one set of eyes to the other. “Trevor, how did the two of you meet?”

“She asked me to dance,” he said, giving Jae a wink.

“Really, our quiet little Jae did that? I’m delighted.” Maggie beamed.

Trevor walked over to the window seat and collected his backpack and the bag of chips. “Well, I’m outta here,” he teased before turning to leave. “Thank you, Jae, for everything,” he said.

Jae bet he was referring to that kiss and made several attempts to pick up her jeans from the chair. Lightheaded and feeling somewhat off balance, Jae searched Trevor’s face, which was suddenly level with hers. “What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Sweetheart, the pain medication the
doctor
gave you was a tad bit stronger. You need to rest, Jae.” Trevor smiled as he practically carried Jae to her bed.

“Oh, that’s right! Elaine told me you had a fender bender,” Maggie said, coming forward to assist him in getting her into bed. “Can I get you something, dear?”

Trevor was quick to ask Aunt Maggie to get Jae a cup of peppermint tea. The second she hurried from the room, he turned back to Jae and she was pointing her weapon at him. “I no longer need your protection, Jae, and in your condition, you couldn’t keep up with me if you tried,” he said, sitting on the side of her bed.

“Don’t worry about my capabilities. You’re not going anywhere,” she said, using her feet in an attempt to move him aside so she could get up. Problem was he wasn’t budging.

“Jae, I knew at some point, your only option is going to be to lock me up and I can’t let you do that. I’m going back to square one and if I’m lucky, I get me back,” Trevor said, moving closer and stilling her feet. Searching her face, his eyes settled on the firm set of her lips. Raising his hand, he let his thumb trace the outline of her bottom lip.

When his mouth swooped down over hers, she told herself not to kiss him again but she did.

Only this time, she kept her weapon low and angled at his thigh.
A well-placed bullet will have to suffice
, she thought as a mixture of anticipation and dread filtered through her mind. That is, until she heard Aunt Maggie coming up the creaky stairs, forcing Jae to slide her weapon beneath her pillow.

Both of them ignored Aunt Maggie as she entered the bedroom and walked over to Jae’s nightstand. Jae wanted to throw up when she saw Trevor angle his head and send her aunt a sly wink before finally releasing her mouth. Then Jae watched him leave. Truthfully, that was all she could do because the full force of the medication hit her and all she could remember thinking was that Trevor owed her a bag of potato chips. Next, she heard the opening and closing of the back door, just as Aunt Maggie pressed her head to the pillow and adjusted the blanket over her.

And she couldn’t stop her fingers from reaching up to touch her still warm lips.

Chapter Eight

Assistant Special Agent in Charge Darius Hall and Special Agent Mike Coleman were once again complaining about their latest assignment. As the only Black men on the team, they often spoke more freely when by themselves, and out of earshot of McGuire Webster, Iverson Banner, and Amil Barrett, their White team counterparts.

Darius and Mike had a continuing complaint about their current assignment. It wasn’t the fact that they’d been sent to the mountains of Montana, which resulted in Darius developing sinus issues. It also wasn’t that they’d had to spend almost three weeks there. It was because they couldn’t reach Luke Grainger.

Granted, there was some suspicious activity surrounding the three men who’d been hiding in the mountains and detained for domestic terrorist activity. But as Darius had surmised minutes earlier, it wasn’t anything the local FBI agents couldn’t handle. He classified it as a bullshit assignment.

Mike held up his fingers and started counting, snapping Darius out of his thoughts. “Okay, first, we’ve done nothing more than stand around watching these mountain folks eat buffalo cooked thirty different ways. Second, we’ve had no contact with Grainger, third—”

“Third is, you haven’t been able to reach Jae,” Darius said and shot Mike a pointed look. Darius had discovered a while back that Mike had a thing for Jae, but Mike had been warned that she was off limits. “I’m sure she’s enjoying time with her family. Besides, Jae can take care of herself and if something was going down and she needed us—” Darius stood up and thumped Mike on the back, “—she would’ve called.”

Mike nodded.

“Darius, I’ve been thinking about that blip when we all lost network service to our cell phones. I’m still bugged about that.” The day after they arrived in Montana their work and personal cell phones were knocked off the network for several hours. “My phones are still jacked up with static. Probably interference from these damned mountains.”

“Yeah, mine too. Odd, considering the FBI has the most secure network systems. Hey, maybe the Bureau didn’t pay the bill, so it was disconnected.” Darius chuckled, stapling together his six-page report. “Okay, this is done and I included that since this assignment started my sinuses have been killing me, not to mention this assignment has been bullshit, as duly noted by Special Agent Mike Coleman.”

Both men were laughing when Iverson walked in announcing “wheels up”, meaning it was time to leave for the airport.

“I can’t wait to get back to Virginia so I can get a decent crab cake. Jae said she would fix some of that seafood pasta, too,” Iverson said, picking up his bag from the corner.

“You talked to Jae?” Relief flooded Mike’s cocoa brown face. “What’d she say?”

“She said we’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Said she’d called each of us a bunch of times. I told her I didn’t get any calls,” Iverson said. “She didn’t believe the network crashed.”

“Did something happen?” Darius asked, alarmed.

“She said she’d see us when we got in. I told her we’d probably get back in a couple of days, but since the homegrown terrorist twins are in custody, we’re out of here today. ”

The fourth team member, McGuire Webster, strolled in. “Hey, Iverson, did you mention that Jae sounded a little spooked?”

“What the hell does that mean, McGuire?” Mike asked, moving closer to him.

“She probably hooked up with a dude and now she’s in love,” McGuire snickered.

Just then, Darius said, “Come on, guys, let’s get out of here.”

* * * * *

Since returning to work two weeks ago, Jae spent much of the time compiling a profile on Trevor Grant. Thankfully the guys were on assignment, so she could focus without getting distracted. The problem was she kept coming up with dead ends and since she’d already turned over her file on Trevor following her sting in the doctor’s office, Jae was stumped that she could not find the file. Not even an electronic copy was available.

If I’m lucky, I get me back.
Trevor’s parting words constantly replayed in her mind. But it wasn’t the only thing that she found herself thinking about. The kisses they shared often found their way into her dreams and daydreams, distracting her.

She tapped on her keyboard to open the report she’d thought about giving to Deputy Director Roberts, Luke Grainger’s replacement. Her fingers halted over the keyboard. For some reason she didn’t believe the memo she’d received when she’d returned to work. In part, it indicated Grainger had volunteered for a special operations OP assignment. When she began asking around about her assignment, everyone thought she was joking and reminded her that she wasn’t on an assignment and that she was at a bridal shower and wedding. Not getting any answers, she decided to play along.

But Grainger would have told his team personally if he was leaving for any reason. So, in addition to investigating two newly assigned cases, she’d compiled a detailed, time-based recollection of her last two conversations with Grainger. And for the hundredth time she wished she’d been more focused on each call.

It nagged at her to no end. Could there have been a background noise she heard? Had he sounded different or had he said something significant? Whatever it was, it was just on the edge of her brain, but for two long weeks it had continued to elude her. Frustrated, she just couldn’t let it drop and flipped through her notepad. In the first call with Grainger, Jae recalled having to shift her conversation with him as a ruse to convince her sisters and cousins she was planning a romantic rendezvous.

Yeah, right. Like I get a lot of those
. She frowned.

But Grainger had been adamant that she keep quiet about the assignment, including telling her own teammates.
Why? It was a simple extraction, a no brainer
, Jae thought.

Before she’d returned to her field office in Virginia, Jae had called the secretary, Jeanie Walker, to get an update on her teammate’s schedule. She’d been dismayed when Jeanie said their assignment had been extended several more days. Sometimes assignments lasted longer than planned. It was just that Jae found the non-communication with her team for almost three weeks very disconcerting. It was out of their normal routine.

Then there was the data drive that Trevor had dropped into the pocket of her pajama top before that kiss.
Stop thinking about it!

Shaking the mental image from her head, Jae tried to focus. She’d become stumped when she couldn’t open the drive, not even with the arsenal of computer programs at her fingertips. So far, she was taking to heart what he’d jotted down on a one-inch Post-it Note stuck to the data drive. It read,
Don’t share this with anyone you don’t trust
.

So, she was staying mum until the guys returned. But a few more days seemed like an eternity especially when there was so much to tell them, like about her getting shot. In any case, Jae didn’t turn in the customary follow-up report. She did however complete it to remember the facts then buried it in a file folder to give to Grainger when he returned.

* * * * *

Lunchtime found Jae sipping the last of her orange soda pop when she looked up and spotted Agent Randy Cross about to come into the investigation unit. Lucky for her, he’d been stopped along the way. She’d avoided seeing him since returning to work.

She hoped he hadn’t seen her reclining in her chair in an attempt to relieve the painful ache in her right side. For the most part, she distanced herself from him because Randy was often unpredictable and erratic. He was a coil ready to spring. She’d seen it firsthand.

She hadn’t always felt that way about him. He’d been a good agent to emulate, initially. But over the past couple of years something about him changed, and she didn’t think he was a good person inside, despite having a sweet, although shy wife, Dana.

Jae watched him out in the hallway. She recalled the incident that happened a few months ago, when during an armed bank robbery attempt Randy had gone in with guns blazing. He’d overreacted and ignored direct orders to hold fire, killing the two teenage suspects and wounded the hostage.

When Grainger brought him in and demanded answers for deliberately disobeying orders, Randy became belligerent and confrontational, which led to his subsequent punishment for insubordination. Since then, he’d been confined to desk duty and stripped of any authority, pending the outcome of several investigations, including a lawsuit filed by the hostage who’d been injured by Randy’s careless actions.

When she and Special Agent Webster arrived on the scene, both were surprised and appalled by Randy’s lack of remorse at killing the two young men. To make matters worse, Randy didn’t believe he’d done anything wrong and that’s exactly what Jae put in her report that ultimately lead to Randy being mandated for a psychological assessment.

Watching him turn in her direction and stroll into her office, Jae sat upright. “Hi Randy.” With his unreadable eyes and his schoolboy he teasingly asked if he’d caught her napping. After sharing pleasantries, Jae told him she was still in vacation mode then warily watched as he sat on the edge of her desk.

“Ah, yes, you went home for your sister’s wedding, right?”

“Sure did and it was beautiful and magical.” She smiled, but really wanted him to leave. “How’s Dana?” She changed the subject away from her personal life.

“She’s stressing and worried about the investigations and the sharp drop in my salary.” Randy sighed. “What about you, Jae? You seem more pensive since you’ve returned.”

Reading the brooding expression on his face, Jae told him not to worry about the investigations and that everything would work out. “Hey, I was thinking about giving Dana a call. She wanted to see the wedding pictures and it’s about time for us to have another facial at that day spa, my treat,” she added hurriedly.

“She’d like that,” Randy said, pointing to a framed wedding photo from the desk. “So, is this the wedding party I’ve heard you bragging about?” He smiled and picked up the picture frame displaying the wedding party.

“Hey, I deserve bragging rights for hiring a photographer that made me look fifteen pounds thinner than I really am, but Ronnie was beautiful.”

“As are you, Jae,” Randy said, setting the picture frame back on the desk with care after hearing his name paged over the intercom system.

As soon as Randy left the office, Jae hit the space bar to disengage the screen saver and brought up the sketchy profile on Dr. Trevor Grant. It was her intent to find the agent who initially put him in witness protection, but even that led to a dead end. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to find an agent named Dan Willow or anything similar anywhere in the FBI personnel system.

Jae was more than alarmed that most of Trevor’s information had been obliterated from the FBI’s mainframe. There were no previous addresses, no income tax reports filed, no school records, and no pictures. There was nothing on either Trevor or Dan Willow. It was highly unusual to say the least. When she started checking Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, she hadn’t expected to find anything on him, but she did want to see if there was any mention of his research or something similar research, but she’d found nothing spanning six years prior. Thinking she may have misunderstood, Jae also checked other universities in and around Baltimore. Again, it led to another dead end.

“What the hell is going on?” she murmured, easing back in her chair again. “Not even one picture of the doctor either bearded or clean-shaven, anywhere.”

Reviewing her notes, two issues unsettled her. First, Luke Grainger’s sudden Special OP training. And second, Trevor Grant’s unwavering belief that some high-ranking officials, or organization, may have been involved and possibly responsible for the deaths of five Marines in response to what he truly believed was a botched attempt to create “supersoldiers.” To her, it had the ring of a sci-fi movie. Surely that was impossible, right?

But if it was true, then no wonder there was a target on his back. Yet, Jae wouldn’t go so far as to believe there might be a price on his head, as well. Then why was he in protection and why did someone fire a shot at him, not to mention the safe house being compromised?

She also checked flights that had arrived from Afghanistan on the date and time he’d told her about. Again, she found no information. She had to assume either it didn’t happen and he lied or it did happen and somebody powerful had issued an order to make everything disappear without a trace.

She had one more avenue to check and if that failed she decided she was dropping it and would wait until Grainger returned to give him her report. After dialing the telephone, Jae swiveled in her chair to face the window.

Jae reached out to a colleague at NCIS, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. After the call was connected and greeting shared, Jae asked her colleague to check the military flight records for a flight that departed from Afghanistan and arrived in Dulles or Reagan National Airport, and if there was anything unusual about it. She also wanted to know the exact time the flight would have arrived in Washington.

Within minutes of putting her on hold her colleague returned on the line confirming there was such a flight and there were only six on board, three pilots and three passengers: two MPs and one physician who returned stateside, escorted. She didn’t have names, but the flight arrived at the exact time Trevor told her it had, at 3:20 in the morning. Who had that kind of pull besides the FBI? No sooner had that question entered her mind than Jae wondered if Grainger was somehow connected to Trevor. It was an out of the box thought because Trevor denied knowing Grainger. Still, it warranted her covertly looking into the possibility.

After thanking the colleague and disconnecting the call, Jae stared blankly out the window. She didn’t think that exact time was just a coincidence and during her questioning of him, Trevor had been positive of the time that airplane hit the tarmac. “I’ve got to find him and fast,” she said aloud.

“Who do you have to find, Jae, darling?”

McGuire’s Southern drawl brought a smile to her face.