Ultimate Courage (True Heroes Book 2) (14 page)

Briefly, she leaned her forehead against the door and laughed. Quietly. This had been a day of ups and downs, and her heart might not survive the crazy flip-flop moments interspersed with bad scares. But this taste of the ridiculous was kind of fun.

Alex had done her a big favor leaving Souze with her. Beyond the security he provided, the company was invaluable. And she could not thank Alex enough for the amount of consideration he’d given her since the moment she’d met him. If she thought back, so many of his actions had been kind and generous, even when he hadn’t any idea of who she was or if he’d ever see her again. There’d been no good reason for him to invest the effort.

Despite his intimidating exterior, he was a good man. Maybe that was why her gut told her she could accept Alex’s help while her logical thought process repeatedly reminded her how much trouble it could get her into.

There was a lot of anger in him. She’d seen it a couple of times. And she absolutely could see it a mile away. That ability had developed over the last few years with her ex as a survival skill. But Alex kept it on a tight leash, controlled, and never directed it at his daughter as far as she could tell. Boom didn’t show even the slightest fear of her father. If anything, Boom was the kind of bright and energetic child who might be allowed somewhat more license to go wild than she should be. So far, Alex hadn’t directed his temper at Elisa, either. He’d stopped himself a couple of times, even. Visibly struggled. But hadn’t exploded.

If anything, knowing it was there made him more trustable in her eyes. She’d rather see it there, below the surface, than completely hidden and likely to burst out without any warning.

Besides, his anger wasn’t the only way Alex Rojas burned hot.

The memory of his kisses was enough to send her into the shower. As the water ran over her, she remembered how much she’d enjoyed his mouth on hers, and it wasn’t quite as embarrassing. No idea why, but there it was. The only issue was the way her imagination ran away with the remembered feel of his hands on her shoulders, her back, and took it further. She wanted him to hold her, slide his hands over her, and use his mouth all over.

Reaching out, she turned the taps to a cooler temperature. She could keep imagining things and maybe even give herself some relief. Nothing wrong with that. But then she’d be wobbly getting out of the shower and there was also a really big dog between her and the bed.

She was fairly certain he would absolutely know what she’d been up to. And the thought squicked her out.

When she did finally open the door to the bathroom dressed in her sleep clothes, Souze was still sitting there. His mouth was open and his tongue lolled out a little.

“Please tell me you’re not laughing at me.” She walked past him and repacked her overnight bag. No idea how long she’d be staying, but if her bag wasn’t packed and ready, if an emergency came up, she’d have to leave things behind.

Luckily, she had what was left of her savings with her in her shoulder bag. But she needed to brainstorm a few ideas as to where she could keep emergency money in case she had to leave
everything
and make a break for it.

“It’s only been forty-eight hours or so and Alex has already taught me way more than I realized I didn’t know when I decided to leave.” She started to turn down the bed, addressing Souze over her shoulder. “I mean, I got a few pamphlets, so I had an idea of what to plan to do before I left. Really left. But he’s had a lot of good suggestions, too.”

When she glanced back at Souze, he was still giving her his doggie grin. His tail swept the carpet back and forth once.
Tock-tock
.

Tail wagging was a good sign, as far as she knew.

Encouraged, she kept talking. “So I’ll follow his example and keep trying to think of the worst-case scenario.”

She climbed into the bed and turned out the small lamp on the nightstand. Through the darkness came the soft, reassuring sound of Souze panting.

“Then I’ll have to come up with ways to anticipate those scenarios and plan actions to mitigate the circumstances.” Yeah. It could be a promise to herself. A way she could act on her own fate.

“Good night, Souze.”

B
oom good for the night?”

Rojas nodded tiredly, joining Forte and Cruz in his living room. Forte handed him a beer. “She’s gotten pretty far with her poster boards for her project. Apparently, the paint just has to dry and then she can work with Elisa tomorrow to fold paper into planets and light them up with earrings.”

Cruz almost spit beer. “Come again?”

“Hey, it was Elisa’s crafty plan.” Rojas waved his beer bottle in the general direction of Revolution MMA. “She can come over tomorrow and show Boom how to do it.”

“Elisa is good people.” Cruz leaned forward and opened up his laptop.

Forte grunted agreement. “The dogs like her.”

Rojas nodded. “I left Souze with her.”

Forte raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

Rojas shrugged. “They’re not leaving the one room, and he’s not going to have to go out before morning. He’s housebroken and more than qualified for guard dog duty. She doesn’t have any of the nervous tics that’d make him snap at her. Should be fine.”

“He’s not taking to the bite work readily.” Forte leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “We’ve been giving him some time, but we’re going to need to think of alternative careers for that dog.”

Generally, alternatives meant they either found a home for the dog in question or sold him to a private buyer. With his training, Souze was valuable and could still live a long life as a guard dog. Preferably, a guard dog in far better circumstances than his initial environment. They took care to place any of their dogs in good homes.

“Maybe.” Rojas didn’t want to commit. He’d grown attached to the bruiser. Even if he didn’t want to admit it. “It’s not like he’s all that sociable.”

“Try not at all.” Cruz snorted. “That dog had next to no socialization before he got here.”

“But he got along with Elisa.” Both Forte and Cruz looked up at him incredulously. He amended his statement. “In a standoffish sort of way.”

Both men looked away again, Cruz to his laptop and Forte to the ceiling.

After a moment, Cruz spoke. “You’re getting attached to him.”

Tough part of training dogs for a living was risking the attachment. A trainer wanted to develop enough of a bond to train the dog well, prepare him for a tough job, and give him enough positive experience to bond well with a future handler. But some dogs got a little deeper.

Rojas didn’t want to talk about Souze further. Not with more pressing points of interest to discuss. Instead he shared the information Elisa had given him about the additional reasons why Joseph Corbin Jr. was trying so hard to get a hold of her.

After an appropriate amount of cursing, Rojas looked at his partners. “What have you got from the camera feed?”

Cruz gave him a long, knowing look, then tapped his laptop. “We’re lucky Gary and Greg are tech addicts even if they don’t always keep their systems at optimal performance. They have good-quality cameras so their captured feed is in high resolution. I was able to capture a few stills from the video feed. Good enough to take to the police and see if they get any hits on him. Chances are he placed surveillance equipment intending to track her the next time she drove somewhere. She’s too valuable to just blow the car up with her in it.”

Rojas nodded.

“We’ll also run the images around to a few personal friends still active in the information business.” Cruz popped a few pictures up of the man so they could see his face in profile and head on. “He’s good enough to seem casual but not skilled enough to spot the less obvious security cameras like the ones Gary and Greg like to use. Probably your average hired help. Maybe a civilian private investigator or similar.”

Considering their last round of excitement had involved ex-Navy SEALs, Rojas was glad to hear the good news. The three of them could more than handle themselves. They’d been through hell and back multiple times each, deployed overseas. Serving together had made them brothers. But they didn’t like to go head to head with anyone if it wasn’t necessary.

“That said, private investigators cost money.” Forte leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “What else do we know about our Elisa’s ex besides what he was up to?”

Rojas shot Forte a look. Part of him, the thug evolved from caveman part, wanted to clarify that Elisa was his. But Forte remained relaxed and lifted his beer to Rojas.

Asshole. Forte was jerking his chain on purpose.

Cruz, probably aware of the interchange, chose to ignore them both. Easy for him. He had a steady sex life. Love life. Whatever. Cruz was happy, and he deserved to be.

“Our new friend, Joseph Corbin Junior, runs a tight ship over at Corbin Systems as the Chief Information Officer.” Cruz pulled up a couple more windows on his laptop’s screen.

Rojas didn’t lean in to look. Unless there was a picture of the guy, Rojas would do better hearing the briefing as opposed to trying to read it on the limited real estate of the laptop screen.

“Looks like his business is definitely in information systems and content management,” Cruz continued. “There’s a wide range of publicly disclosed projects, but the company also holds a fair number of government and military contracts.”

And obviously there were a few pet projects.

“Elisa did mention security clearances, didn’t she?” Rojas briefly pondered, getting himself a notepad, then discarded the idea. He’d lose the notes anyway. Better for Cruz to keep it all organized and Rojas could review the information later on his own computer. His strengths were in active situations, and he’d had to review briefing data in the past. He could do it again.

Cruz only nodded before pulling up the next set of information. “Junior himself graduated Ivy League, high honors. Recommendations on his online professional profile all describe him as extremely detail-oriented and a strong leader.”

Amazing what those professional networking sites could tell you about a person nowadays.

“His work history is all with Corbin Systems. Started at entry level and worked his way up in Daddy’s company. Learned the business from the basement up to the corner office.” Cruz straightened for a minute and rolled his shoulders before leaning in to the laptop again. “Good old Dad is still the CEO, but Junior runs the company in all but name, looks like.”

“So we’ve got a man used to being the leader, no questions asked.” Forte tapped the top of his beer bottle to his chin as he thought through the possible conclusions. “Probably a control freak, since most stalkers are, and Elisa wouldn’t have bailed if it hadn’t gotten bad.”

Cruz tapped another couple of keys. “She did try to make a couple of police reports. Just like she said, they got buried. Counseling was recommended, but all of those counselors were affiliated with Corbin Systems’ human resources division. Saves on insurance fees, apparently.”

“He kept her fairly well corralled.” Forte sounded impressed. “Family thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread and dismisses her as having anxiety issues. She herself has got some heavy-duty confidence problems now, too.”

“I think she’ll bounce back given the chance,” Rojas tossed out.

“I don’t doubt it.” Forte nodded. “She’s like a whirlwind in the front reception area. All of our clients like her, and she’s reduced our paperwork to a fraction of what it was. The only complaint she voiced to me was a need for matching pens. Good pens, with blue or black ink.”

There was a beat of silence.

“So our Elisa is somewhat detail-oriented herself,” Cruz ventured. “And apparently, she started at Corbin Systems at entry level, too. By that time, though, Junior was a VP. He had some heavy-duty influence already, aside from being the CEO’s kid.”

“Enough to get HR to look in the other direction.” Forte was enjoying piecing the story together. A lot of it was conjecture, but all three of them were used to piecing together fragments of information to visualize an overall image.

Chances were, they were right.

“So Elisa finally decides to leave.” Rojas took up the story at the key turning point.

“And she’s successful,” Forte added.

Impressive on its own.

“But Junior keeps finding her.” Cruz brought up a few less publicly available files, from the color of the headers on the windows.

Rojas recognized the color system because Cruz tended to use the same categorization they used back when they’d all been active duty and reading their way through briefing reports.

“Some of it is his company resources.” Cruz began scrolling in the file. “But some of this…I’m not seeing exactly how he found her jump out at me. Elisa is a quick learner, and she doesn’t seem to make the same mistake twice.”

“If she did, he’d have her back by now.” It made Rojas angry to point it out.

“I can see him locating her by IP, even tracing her phone since he’s got some influence with the police in his area.” Cruz sat up and his eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “But he’s found her several times, and he likes to play cat and mouse. He’s gotten her number even when she hasn’t checked her e-mails, based on what I can find in her back trail.”

Cruz was an impressive IT specialist himself. Rojas didn’t doubt Cruz had been able to backtrack through the Internet to see where Elisa had come from and thus also see how her pursuers were finding her.

But Elisa had family, and even if they hadn’t believed her, supported her, she seemed too caring a person to leave them worried about her. “Can we pull her call records?”

“I can’t with the databases I have access to. Hacking those could draw federal attention.” Cruz shook his head. “But the police might be able to with a warrant if we can convince them to be somewhat more open about investigation than they normally are. We’d need to call in a few favors.”

They’d supplied K9s to several of the police departments in the surrounding region and others across the country. Those officers would at least be starting points.

Forte finished his beer. “It’d be good to see who Elisa tends to call.”

“I’ll ask her tomorrow, too.” Rojas preferred to get his intel direct from the source, and he didn’t think Elisa would hide it from them. Or if she did, they’d have to reevaluate the situation.

“We’ll look into it from this end, anyway.” Cruz typed a few notes to himself on his laptop. “She might not realize she’s following a pattern.”

But humans were creatures of habit. Her ex was exploiting Elisa’s patterns. The difference, the break in the pattern, was that Elisa had met Rojas.

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll take Souze around the shopping center area and parking lot. I wanted to see what we got out of the video before doing a direct sweep and we won’t stand out as much during the day if he’s keeping an eye on the shopping strip. At the very least, we’ll see if Souze can tell if the same scent by the car is anywhere else in the vicinity.” Rojas paused. “Even better if we can find a piece of fabric or some other souvenir our snooper might’ve left under the car. We’ll see if he actually left something for surveillance and remove it if he did. His scent should be all over it.”

He’d take one of those fake rocks sold to hide house keys just in case he did find something and put the device in there. Then he’d leave it under the car so Elisa’s stalker would think it was still on her car. If they needed to move her car in a hurry, they’d be able to without having to worry about a potential tracking device.

“I’ve redirected the video feed from the school to our network so we can keep real-time watch on the location, both outside and inside the school. Elisa’s fine, by the way. Hasn’t left the room.” Cruz brought up a few video windows showing dark night and dimly lit areas. “I copied some older video streams from last month into the cache directory. If her ex or his employees get nosey enough to hack into Revolution’s system, all they’ll see is normal footage. No sneak peeks of Elisa. I renamed the files so it’d look like the cached feeds from this week. I’ll update them daily. Somebody might hack in, but they won’t know the video feeds are from a prior month.”

“Nice.” Rojas lifted his beer to Cruz.

“So do we leave Elisa there?” Forte studied Rojas. “Our response time is going to be slow if she needs us.”

Rojas frowned. He hadn’t liked leaving her there tonight, even with Souze. Sure, he’d given her reassurances about police response time and the proximity of Gary and Greg, but it wasn’t the same as direct intervention by him, Forte, and Cruz.

Rojas hesitated. But damn, Boom liked Elisa already and it was better than leaving her far away. He wanted her close and they could protect her best with her near. “She could come stay here.”

Both Forte and Cruz stared at him.

True, he’d never welcomed a stranger into his home here at Hope’s Crossing. He never brought a woman on the property, for damned sure. He hadn’t ever wanted to put Boom through added stress after her mother died, especially if he wasn’t ever serious about the occasional woman he did see. Hell, even Sophie rarely came into his house. Mostly Sophie ran riot through the main building and Forte’s place. But what else could he do for Elisa?

“I’m good with that plan if you are,” Forte said slowly. “I want to gather more intel on stalker-ex tonight.”

“Let’s ask her whether she feels safe here, too.” Rojas took his first sip of his now warm beer. “I’m thinking she’s had enough decisions made on her behalf. I think we can give her options but ultimately, she’s got to decide on her own.”

They all nodded in agreement.

“This is a lot of effort for a new administrative assistant.” Forte set his beer on the table with a clink.

“Yeah, well, Cruz set the bar high when he brought in a supplemental training consultant,” Rojas drawled. “Anyone good enough to work at Hope’s Crossing is going to take some investment to make sure they stay.”

Cruz held up his hands. “Hey, Lyn runs her own consulting business. She lends a hand nowadays, but I didn’t request her in the first place.”

Forte grinned. “I’m going to tell her you said so.”

“Do and prepare for serious consequences,” growled Cruz.

Lyn had a fairly formidable personality of her own. The best trainers always did, especially with the types of dogs they worked with. Considering the level of dominance and aggression working dogs had, a trainer had to have the kind of personality to not only dominate but win the dog’s trust.