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She was apparently all too willing to play her part to the hilt. It shouldn’t surprise him, he’d known from the start she was a dedicated type-A agent.
Agent, he reminded himself. This was business for her. His brain, clearly hampered by the lack of blood flow, took a few too many seconds to spot the bandage on her upper arm. He reached out, stilling her near-frantic movements. “What happened?”
“It’s nothing.” She jerked her head toward the shower. “I’ll tell you all about it. Later.” She rattled the curtain on the rod. Still wearing her bra and a scrap of matching black lace that barely met the definition of panties, she stepped into the tub.
“Wow.” Just what his subconscious didn’t need—more to fantasize about.
She shot him a look that clearly told him to get a grip. He wanted to grip something. Something more interesting than murder and drug cases.
Talking business in the shower. Her brain was obviously still functioning while he could take his pulse in his pants. “Did you bring more of that?” He didn’t really regret asking the question, though he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
“You’re all talk,” she said, her voice dripping with temptation. “I’d like to see more action. Get in here.”
He was all something. He started to climb in after her, but remembered Tim’s notebook at the last second. When he’d done his own search while waiting for Wallace, he really had found it—taped to the back of the desk drawer in the kitchen. Like the one on Tim’s body, the notebook was full of abbreviated daily supply notes, but the location indicated its value to Tim.
She frowned at his hesitation. He couldn’t take the pants off without giving her incontrovertible proof of what she did to him and he couldn’t risk ruining Tim’s notes as it might be their only clue. Choosing the lesser of two evils, he stripped off the pants and carefully folded them over the shower rod to protect the notebook.
Her eyes dropped to the erection pushing the limit of his boxers, then back up to his face. She gave him an exasperatedlook and he shrugged. “Can’t help it. Have you seen yourself lately?”
She ignored that and got straight to the point.
“I was grazed by a bullet about a week ago.”
Finally, an effective turn off. “Let me see.” He extended a hand for the edge of a bandage.
“It’s old news,” she repeated, twisting away from his touch. “It’s just sore to touch.”
Having never been in a shower with a woman for the purpose of conversation, he wasn’t sure what the hell to do with his hands. “I hope you nailed the bastard who did it.”
“Not yet.” Steam billowed around them and water beaded on her skin as they stood face to face just outside the reach of the spray. “I was meeting with a potential witness and the Mexican cartel caught us. Three against one didn’t go my way.” She pulled off the damp bandage, showing a healing groove across her upper arm from the bullet’s path. “They kidnapped her.”
There was more. More he knew he wouldn’t like. The cartel was notoriously violent. And thorough. It explained her sudden departure from Baltimore, but he felt an irrational spurt of anger that she’d taken the risk of traveling alone.
“They tortured her before they killed her,” Hannah said. “She turned up in the dumpster behind the DEA office building.”
“Let me guess, no security video.”
She shook her head. “My witness wasn’t part of the entourage. She was the leader’s woman.”
He gave a low whistle. “Bold move to try and turn that one.” Leaders got to the top the hard way amid the sea of power-hungry thugs looking to make a statement. Bart had executed some daring missions in his career, but assignments like Hannah’s ended one of two ways: wildly successful or tragic failure.
Clearly, this one had landed in the latter category if she was desperate enough to run to him.
Hannah looked up to the ceiling and her breath hitched, drawing his attention to those lovely breasts again. They had to change the venue before he did something truly stupid. Like jump her.
“She came to me,” Hannah said. “I’d become a regular customer at the nail salon where she worked. It’s one of the legit operations the cartel maintains in Baltimore. You know how it goes.”
Her eyes pleaded for him to understand.
“I get it,” he said. “The cat and mouse thing between people on either side of the law. You go in to make a point, hope to catch someone mouthing off when they shouldn’t.”
“Exactly.” She swiped water or a tear from her cheek. “There was a dust up at the house that ended with a few dead lieutenants. She was scared, wanted out…” Her voice trailed off.
He’d seen that lost look before, in the eyes of men who’d lost friends in battle. He waited patiently for her to come back to the present.
She cleared her throat and went on. “Her name was Krystal. She was pregnant.” Hannah hiccupped. “Six months along,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. “They tortured her.”
Dear God. He pulled her into his arms and she let him, her hot tears streaking down his chest.
