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“Maverick is very protective when he needs to be, but he deserves your respect after saving your life back at the station,” she said.
“All right, then. Maverick. Easy to remember. He’s not going to growl at me every time I’m around, is he?” Baker looked around the room as though expecting her K-9 partner to appear out of thin air.
“He just needs a couple minutes to get to know you. Maybe take in a good crotch sniffing.” She tried to keep her smile under control, but the outright terror contorting Baker’s face was too much.This.She’d missed this. The bickering, the smiles and private jokes. She hadn’t gotten to experience it in a long time. Not since before her last tour. “I’m kidding.”
Baker’s exhale outclassed a category-one tornado. The tightness around his eyes smoothed after a few seconds. Wow. The man acted as though he’d never heard a joke before. This was going to be fun. “Oh. Good. In that case, I’m not really sure what we’re supposed to do now.”
“I think this is the part where you hike down to the cafeteria and get me one of those enchiladas you were just talking about. You know, seeing as how I’m injured and you’re...” She motioned to the entire length of him. “Just sitting there with barely a scratch.”
“You haven’t seen the inside of my lungs.”
A mere crack of his smile twisted her stomach into knots. Well, look at that. It did exist.
Baker pushed to stand, in all his glory. “I thought all you Socorro types ran on nuclear power. Never stopped or slowed down for anything when you took on an assignment. You’re like that weird pink bunny with the drum.”
“You’re thinking of Cash Meyers, our forward scout, when he took on the cartel a few weeks ago.” Made a hell of a mess in the process. Destroying Sangre por Sangre headquarters in an effort to recover a woman who’d become the obsession of a cartel lieutenant. His personal mission had been a success, too. Cash had brought the entire organization to its knees for the woman he loved.
A flare of pain bit into her heart at the memory of what that felt like. Of not being able to save the people you cared about the most.
Nervous energy shot through her. She couldn’t just sit here. That gave the bad feelings permission to claw out of the box she’d shoved them into at the back of her mind.
Jocelyn threw off the covers, only acutely aware of the open-backed gown she’d been forced into upon admittance. She grabbed for her singed pants and slid them on with as much dignity as she could muster. Which wasn’t much given she was still attached to the damn monitors. “I happen to run on powdered sugar, a whole lot of butter and melted cheese.”
Baker handed off her jacket as she pulled the nodes from her skin. Such a simple gesture. But one that wasn’t coated in sarcasm or negativity. Progress. “Not sure anyone has ever told you this, but your idea of an enchilada sounds disgusting.”
WHATTHEHELLhad he been thinking agreeing to this?
Baker notched his head back to take in the height of the building as Jocelyn pulled into the underground parking garage. Sleek, modern angles, black reflective windows—the place was like something out of an old spy movie. Half-built into the canyon wall behind it, Socorro Security headquarters swallowed them whole. He was in the belly of the beast now. Who knew if he’d ever make it out.
Jocelyn navigated through the garage as though she’d done it a thousand times before. Which made sense. As far as he could tell, she, like the rest of her team lived, worked, ate and slept out of this building. No visitors as far as he’d been able to discern in his spurts of surveillance. If the operators employed here had personal lives, he hadn’t seen a lick of it, and Baker couldn’t help but wonder about the woman in the driver’s seat as she shoved the SUV into Park.
She took out what looked like a black credit card. Heavy, too. Aluminum, if he had to guess. Maybe an access card. The bandages wrapping the blisters along the backs of her hands and wrists brightened under limited lighting coming through the windshield.
“I get one of those?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t think accessing the elevators was high on your priority list of things to do today. Otherwise I would’ve had one made in your honor.”
“What? No access to the secret vault?” He watched her pocket the card.
“Sorry. That’s reserved for VIP members.” Her laugh burned through him with surprising force as she climbed out of the vehicle. The flimsy fabric the hospital staff claimed was an actual piece of clothing was gone. She’d somehow managed to get herself dressed without much distress. Guess that was the upside of painkillers after getting stitched up.
While the EMTs had been forced to remove her Kevlar vest to get access to her wound, it seemed she carried an extra. As though she expected an ambush at any moment. In fact, Baker couldn’t think of a time when she didn’t have that added layer of protection. Even at the Christmas bake sale.
“You’ll have to pay extra for that tour,” she said.
He followed close on her heels, absorbing everything about the parking lot he could with barely visible lighting and cement walls. Most likely designed that way to confuse anyone stupid enough to try to breach this place. Though Jocelyn seemed to know exactly where she was going. Still, collecting as much information on these people as he could get would only prove his theory about military contractors’ lack of interest in protecting towns like Alpine Valley.
“You been with Socorro long?”
She pressed the key card to a smooth section of wall off to her left and stepped back. “Six months. Signed on a little after my last tour.”
Elevator doors parted to reveal a silver car.
Jocelyn stepped inside, holding the door open for him as he boarded.
His limited knowledge of gender representation in the military filtered through the catalogue he was building on her in his head. “Air Force?”
“Army.” The small muscles in her jaw flexed under pressure. “Logistics coordinator. Same job I do for Socorro.”
