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We sat side by side on the stools that pulled up to the large square butcher block island that sat in the middle of the kitchen, and the tension roiled off both of us in waves. We weren’t there very long before heavy footsteps echoed on the stairway and Agent Greer came through the door.
“They’re finishing up and are ready to transport,” he said, eyeing the coffee.
“Would you like a cup?” I asked.
“If you don’t mind. There are a few things we need to talk about, Sheriff Lawson. Doctor Graves can stay if you wish, otherwise we can take this to your office and handle this there.”
I looked back and forth between Jack and Agent Greer and I couldn’t interpret whatever silent communication was happening between them.
“I don’t understand.” I put Greer’s cup in front of him and took my seat beside Jack. “What does any of this have to do with Jack?”
“Because Dean Wallace was one of mine. And I’m going to assume there’s more to this than just collecting his body and getting out of our way.”
I heard the clank of the elevatorand more footsteps on the stairs, and the body was taken out of the kitchen and out to one of the waiting SUVs. They all moved with an eerie silence as if they didn’t need words to communicate.
“You’d be right about that,” Greer said, pulling a thick file from his briefcase. “Staying or going, Doctor Graves?”
“She stays,” Jack said. “We’reengaged to be married.”
Lauren Rhodes made an appearance at the top of the basement stairs at that point and I saw the surprise on her face before she quickly masked it and moved to the barstool beside Agent Greer.
The air expelled from my chest at the news that Jack still planned to marry me, and my grip tightened on my coffee cup as I tried to get hold of my emotions. I knew a woman like Lauren—a woman that saw something she wanted—would exploit whatever weakness she could find until she achieved her goal.
“Congratulations,” Greer said. “I didn’t find that information in your file.”
Lauren’s eyes cut to my vacant ring finger and I didn’t have to interpret the arched eyebrow before she turned her attention to Jack.
“We just got the details worked out today. It took me a while to talk her into it,” Jack said, his mouth quirking. “She’s stubborn.” Jack gave all pretense that he was relaxed and in a good mood, and it would fool anyone but me, but I could see the tension. I wasn’t that good an actress, so I spent most of the time with the coffee cup held in front of my face and the sent of whiskey tickling my nostrils.
I felt bad for not offering Lauren a cup of coffee, so I offered to get her some.
“I don’t drink coffee, but I’ll take water if you have it.”
I decided I might as well try to be friendly. I just wanted the night to be over. “God, how do you survive without coffee?”
“It makes me jittery, but I practically live on Diet Coke.”
I handed her the bottle of water I’d taken from the fridge, but I was distracted by the photographs Agent Greer was lining up on the table.Crime scene photographs taken from somewhere, a mass killing by the looks of things.
“Six years ago, a seven-man team attempted a heist on the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington DC. From the intel gathered, we know they had a top notch electronics guy, someone working inside the bank, a cop, a security expert, a demolitions expert, and the money men to fund the operation.”
As soon as Greer mentioned the Reserve Bank heist I took Jack’s hand in my own and held tight—the anger between us forgotten for the moment. I knew that had been his last mission as a SWAT cop and all I knew after that was it had taken him months to heal from the wounds.
“The team went in just at closing,” Greer continued. “The bank guards were all killed instantly and twelve employees were executed. They didn’t need help getting past the vault security because whoever was running the electronics knew the system and managed to hack past all the government walls that had been built up.”
“SWAT was immediately called to service and a ten-man unit went in the Reserve building with only one goal—to eliminate the threat. You were the Commander, Sheriff Lawson.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. I think my memory is probably better than whatever you have there in your notes.”Jack’s voice was steady and he looked Greer straight in the eyes. “What your file doesn’t mention is the stench of fresh death. Of stepping over the body of a man in uniform who was curled over the body of a heavily pregnant woman, both so riddled with bullets that there was no way to step around the blood. Only through it. You have the reports. You have the photographs.” He put his finger over the image he’d spoken about and pushed it back toward Greer. “I’ve already made my statements.”
“I have what was written bythe agent who initially did the investigation. I want to hear it from your own mouth.”
I shot Greer a look of censure and wanted nothing more than to tell him where he should shove his request. Jack had done his time and paid a price. But Jack turned his head and looked at me, and I could see the resignation on his face. There was no way to get out of this. So he weaved his fingers tightly with mine and gave his report.
“We already had quite a bit of intel by the time we mobilized. We had accurate blueprints and we were able to see heat signals as they moved around. We knew there were no living civilians and we knew the suspects were heavily armed.
“It was a relatively fastjob. We went in hot and silent, and I was the last inside because I was team leader. We broke off into two lines of five and then did our jobs. Our orders were to kill, not apprehend. As we made it farther into the building and began taking them out, my team went through our usual patterns, what we’d been trained for. We broke off into smaller groups of two and secured the areas.”
“But something didn’t go as planned?” Greer said.
