A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(48)

Garrett didn’t mock her because she wasn’t able to open the door herself, even though she’d practically rubbed her abilities in his face a handful of times in the past few days. He just took charge and got the job done.

And now he was standing next to the open door waiting for her to go in first. Everyone knew the first entrant was always the one that faced the most danger. Parker could see how at war he was with himself as the emotions played across his face: fear, worry and finally, acceptance. She knew it was killing him to let her take the lead because he feared for her safety. But he was doing it because he trusted her. Parker knew it was time to give a little of that trust back to him.

“You go first,” Parker told him as she motioned towards the door with her gun.

Garrett looked at her in confusion for a moment before quickly taking action. Parker watched as he crouched down and extended his arms out in front of him with the gun secured in both his hands. She had to remind herself that they could be entering into an extremely dangerous situation, and it was not appropriate for her to be fantasizing about one little bad guy jumping out from behind the door just so she could watch the muscles in Garrett’s arms constrict as he threw a punch straight to the man’s face.

As Garrett walked through the doorway, he cleared either side of the entrance, sweeping the gun in front of him from floor to ceiling on both sides.

Parker knew that in all her life she would never see anything sexier than Garrett walking into a building with his gun drawn prepared to do whatever it took to protect her.

Garrett took a few more steps into the building, the gun following wherever his eyes darted, looking for trouble. With all of the windows the building had, the sun shined through them and lit up every corner of the place, making the search for trouble much easier.

Parker followed behind Garrett, mirroring his motions as she double checked for enemies with weapons pointed at their heads. When they’d cleared the room, she came to a stop beside Garrett and lowered her gun, staring in confusion at the same thing he was.

“Why are there bunk beds in the middle of a vacant building?” she asked

“I have no idea,” Garrett replied as they both began walking towards the fifteen or so bunks clustered in the middle of the expansive room. They stepped over trash littering the floor and looked at graffiti covered the walls. There was scaffolding handing from the ceiling that looked like it would come crashing down with the loss of just a few more screws, and the place smelled like death.

“Who in the hell would want to live in this shithole?” Garrett asked as they stopped next to the beds.

Parker shoved the gun back into her waistband holster under her shirt and bent down to look under each of the beds while Garrett walked around and checked out the top bunks.

Under one of the beds, Parker found an article of clothing and pulled it out.

“A homeless woman maybe?” Parker responded as she held up a dirty, yellow sundress that had seen better days.

Garrett shrugged his shoulders and began lifting up mattresses to see if anything was hidden under them.

“Right. So Fernandez is running a disgusting, broken down homeless shelter when he has more money than God?” he asked.

When Garrett didn’t get a reply, he turned around and was met with no Parker. He started to panic until he saw her emerge from a room back by the door they came in.

Garrett understood Austin’s nickname for Parker now. She really was like a ninja, and he had no idea how she got over to that room, looked around, and was already walking back towards him in the five seconds it took him to lift up a mattress and ask her a question.

Parker made her way over to Garrett from the small bathroom she noticed during her initial sweep of the building. She had found a travel size bottle of shampoo and a woman’s razor inside of a toiletry bag in the bathroom.

“Catalina Olvera.”

Garrett looked at Parker quizzically.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Parker walked up to him and handed him the toiletry bag, opening it up and showing him the inside.

“That’s the name written on the inside of this bag. And hopefully someone who can give us more information about this place,” she told him.

Garrett called Brady using the high speed satellite phone and gave him the name so he could run a search on it. While they waited for him to call back, Parker told Garrett about the words she’d overheard Fernandez say to his VP at dinner the night before.

“Girls, money, and boat? Add in the words coke and booze and that sounds like someone looking for a party,” Garrett said.

His cell phone rang before Parker could reply.

“What do you have for me?” Garrett answered.

Parker stood in front of him with her arms crossed, watching Garrett nod his head and listening to his side of the conversation which included a lot of “Uh-huhs and okays.”

“Last known address?” Garrett asked.

He waited a beat.

“Text it to me. Good work, Marshall.”

Garrett hung up the phone and slid it back in his pocket.

“Catalina Olvera was a sixteen-year-old runaway. Her body was found two months ago in an alley. Raped and beaten.”

Parker sighed. “Son of a bitch.”

Garrett and Parker headed out of the warehouse and drove to the address Brady had sent.



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