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“This morning. ”
“Did you find the money they were missing?”
His head swung around briefly, his gaze hidden behind the dark glasses now.
“Not yet. ” Clipped, dark, his voice sent a shiver down her spine. “Why?”
“He seemed to think I had it. That was what he said to me: ‘Where’s my money, puta?’
Evidently, he’s not the only one that considers me a—”
She swore he growled. Crista compressed her lips at the silent snarl that pulled at his lips.
“What else did he say?” he snapped out.
“He didn’t have time to say anything else. You splattered his blood all over me less than a second later. ”
“It beat seeing your fucking blood staining that damned warehouse. ” Violence filled his voice before Crista watched him forcibly rein it in with a tight grimace. “Did you hear anything else? See anything else?”
She shook her head slowly, feeling the terror that had risen inside her the night before beating at her head again. Dawg had relieved the horror of the event the night before, strangely enough, with his obnoxious blackmail demand. But now it was beginning to set in.
The fact that she had nearly died. That if she had just gone to Dawg before, this might not have happened.
She licked her lips nervously. “Look, this is probably totally unrelated, but before this, weird things were happening anyway. So weird that when I told Alex about them, he just about ordered me to call you. ”
“What things?”
She went through them briefly: missing clothes, the feeling that someone was following her, watching her.
“Do you think it had something to do with last night?” she asked as she finished.
Dawg didn’t think; he knew. He could feel it burning in his gut and itching along the back of his neck. Primitive possession roiled through his mind as he glanced at Crista and realized that somehow, for some reason, someone among the crew they had rounded up last night had known to use her.
It was far-fetched; he would do better to suspect her of being involved to begin with, but his unruly dick refused to let him consider it.
But, if someone had been trying to throw her into the mix, then it was because they knew of his obsession for her. And there were very, very few people who knew that Dawg couldn’t forget one Crista Ann Jansen.
He wiped his hand down his face and considered his options. They hadn’t caught the one female of the group who they knew had been involved. The mediator between the buyers and sellers had been a woman; the vague description the team had of her resembled Crista. And if she was telling the truth about the buyer, Aaron Grael, then the woman had made off with half down on a two million dollar deal.
He blew out a rough breath as he glanced over at her. She was watching him worriedly, her chocolate eyes filled with indecision and a hint of fear. But there was no guilt. Over the years, hell, even before he joined the Marines, he had been able to spot most lies a mile away. He couldn’t see anything in Crista’s gaze but her worry and her discomfort.
“You haven’t answered me. ” There was a snap to her voice that assured him that she wasn’t frightened enough to have forgotten her earlier anger with him.
“Let me check into a few things and talk to Natches about this,” he finally said, his voice rough.
There was too damned much money missing to discount any of it. “But my best guess is that it’s all connected. Somehow. I just have to figure out how. ”
“If you’re undercover, as I assume you are, because I haven’t heard anything about you working with the DEA, then someone would have to know the truth to know to use me,” she said hesitantly.
He had to give her credit for being smart. No one had ever accused Crista of being without her own sense of intuition.
Too bad he wasn’t really working with the DEA; his problems might be easier at the moment.
“Natches and I both are undercover,” he finally said. “The deal we broke up last night had been in the works for over six months. We pulled in everyone except the buyer I killed and one more player. We
’re looking for the other person now. ”
She didn’t say anything for long moments.
