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“An unexplained surge in the power grid took down three blocks for five minutes,” Chandler confirmed my hunch. “We can’t track Jared anywhere from then on.”
My mind wrestled with what it all meant. Was Jared being set up to cover Craig’s ass? Or was Jared the traitor? And why did the idea of Craig being innocent disturb me so much?
“We’ll touch base after the interrogation with Craig. Carter, I know you’d like a word with him as well, but in light of the situation with Jared, the President would like to hold off on you speaking with him until we have more intel.” His remark added more fuel to the fire, and my fuse had already been lit by the news that Craig was either not guilty, or he was going to try and walk away a free man by framing Jared.
“Fine.” It wasn’t like my standard questioning techniques would work over a web call anyway. “But I will speak to him at some point.” I sure as hell hoped I’d made myself clear to both men on the call.
After a quick update about Diana, Gray shared the conversation we’d had prior to the call.
“If China’s not behind any of this, and it’s not sounding that way based on intelligence, we need to narrow down our suspect list to who has the means and motive to pull this off,” Chandler said at the end of our back-and-forth speculating.
“Narrow it down?” I scoffed. “We don’t have anyone other than China on the list.” Which was a problem, because I was with the Secretary on doubting this was the Chinese government’s doing. They’d have gone in for a clean and precise hit if they knew about the labs. No evidence left. No leads to track down. No one left alive.
“Then I guess you better do what you were tasked to do. Use your contacts with the underground criminal world and get me a goddamn list,” Chandler shot back, exhaustion heavy in his voice. He more than likely had as much sleep as we had. “Be in touch.” He ended the call, and Gray apologized for his father’s tone, not that he’d needed to.
When Gray started for the door, presumably to fill in the others, I wrapped a hand over his shoulder to stop him. “Diana can’t know about the fire. If those three people were her friends . . .” We still needed positive IDs on them, so why preemptively put her through hell?
“She’ll be distracted and in mourning if she knows. I hate keeping this from her as much as you do, but you’re right.”
“There’s a lot of people counting on us, and you have a pregnant wife back home on top of things. We have to pull this off.”
Gray’s shoulders fell. What was it now? “Jack’s wife called him earlier today to let him know she’s expecting as well. She was planning to wait and tell him once he got home, but with the news we’d be here for a bit, she was too anxious to wait. He may be a bit tense now. Just thought you should know.”
I scrubbed a hand along my jawline, happy for them but now also worried about his focus. “That’s good news for them, though.”
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “We should fill the team in on everything else.”
“I’ll need you to do that without me.” I couldn’t face Diana right now and lie, knowing at some point later she might hate me for it.
55
DIANA
I sat up in the bed, resting against the black leather headboard. Dallas was curled up on top of the covers by my feet. It was three in the morning, and we were way past due to sleep, but we were making so much progress, so I didn’t want to stop. I had a top-notch team, and after tonight, I had the confidence to believe our plan was truly doable.
Although, my confidence was going pound for pound in the heavyweight department with my anxiety. After everything Gray had shared that evening, while Carter had been curiously absent from the meeting, how could I not be even more anxious?
Not two enemies. Just one and a fall guy (or guys).
Then there was the fact I’d more than likely been one of their main targets all along. And not just because I was the Secretary of State’s daughter, but because they believed I was capable of shutting down their real goal: launch an attack with a weapon they—whoever “they” were—already had on U.S. soil. So, that’s why they’d been spying on my dad weeks before the attack. They had contingencies for their contingencies, including making use of their insiders planted inside both my lab and the White House.
They just hadn’t counted on Carter Dominick, or his obsession with me.
Now that same man—who’d practically dragged me from the room to force everyone to get some sleep—was standing on the other side of the bed, shirtless, staring at it as if it were made of nails instead of the fluffy cloud of heaven that it was.
His thumbs rested on those sexy slanted lines that disappeared beneath the waistband of his black sweats. “Dallas doesn’t normally sleep on the bed. This is going to create a habit I’ll have to break.” I highly doubted that gruff tone had anything to do with the sleeping arrangements for Dallas.
“I think having him on the bed will help us behave and actually sleep, don’t you? I mean we’re both probably too wiped out to cross the lines, but just in case, he could play defense.” Carter’s brows drew together, his eyes cutting back to me as I added, “I do want you to hold me, though. So, on the bed, but without him between us, is what I think is best.”
He lifted his hand, sliding the pad of his thumb along the underside of his lower lip. “You do, hmm?” I nodded my answer since his gaze, so intensely pointed at me, rendered me mute. “I am tired. Wrecked, to be exact. Frustrated on top of it. Hating that Craig’s lying through his teeth, and your mother’s boyfriend is being tossed under the bus, and?—”
“We don’t know for sure if Craig’s lying. He could be innocent.”
That comment had his jaw ticcing. He wanted a reason to kill him, didn’t he? Of course, in Carter’s mind, he probably already had a hundred. Just touching me that day in the limo seemed to be enough. We still had to circle back to the whole him-murdering-Craig thing at some point, but we’d cross that bridge when we had to, I supposed.
“Let’s not talk about Craig right now,” he bit out.
Yeah, good idea.
