Beneath the Secrets, Part Two (Tall, Dark & Deadly)(4)

Blake pressed her hands over her head, nipped her lip. Damn, he loved her mouth, full and soft, and wickedly feminine. “I should cuff you to the steering wheel and keep you here until you tell me what I want to know.” His free hand raked over her naked breast, tweaking the nipple.

“No time,” she panted, arching her back. “Ignacio’s waiting.”

“He’s waiting because I want him to wait. If I see him in my current state of mind I might kill him before I get the proof I need to justify it.”

“Is that what you’re looking for with me? Proof I’m some sort of traitor so you can kill me, too?”

“I don’t want to kill you.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “But make no mistake. If you give me a reason to, I will and so will they. Get out while you can. Go and never look back.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, no hesitation. Two simple words etched with a world of pain and desperation.

He pulled back to look at her, trying to read her expression through the shadows in the dimly lit garage. “Why? What does the cartel have on you?”

She turned away, giving him her profile. Still holding her hands over her head, he reached up and framed her face with his free hand, pulling her eyes back to his. “What does he have on you?”

“Nothing. He has nothing.”

She was lying. He heard it in the quiver of her voice and he suddenly didn’t want to know the truth. He didn’t want her to be the enemy. He released her and sat up, sliding behind the wheel and running a rough hand through his hair, his nerves so on edge his skin was twitching. He cut her a sideways look. “No matter how good you think you are at keeping a secret, I’m ten times better at uncovering them. I’m going to find out what you’re hiding. You can count on it.”

***

Kara slid into a booth at Shivers, a Chili's-style restaurant that drew big crowds, while Ignacio claimed the seat directly in front of her. Blake eased in beside her, settling his leg intimately against hers, and she tried not to think about his confident promise to unveil her secrets. She had to stay focused on the here and now, and hope they might get a tour of the back warehouses she’d been unable to find a reason to get inside. If she could locate the cameras, and the various entrances, then she could enter again without being seen and get a closer look.

“What can I get you to drink?” a waiter asked, stopping at their table with supreme speed.

Ignacio started speaking to the man in Spanish and Kara’s gaze shifted beyond his shoulder, to a corner booth where a young, twenty-something blond female in a waitress outfit huddled with the restaurant manager, Eduardo, a bit too intimately to be his employee. Kara’s nerves prickled and her fingers curled into her palms. Women had a way of disappearing after coming to work at this location, and it was all she could do not to go yank the girl up and send her home before she got into trouble, or worse, dead. Mysteriously, their HR files were deleted after they went MIA from their jobs, as if they never existed. And the HR person actually claimed they never existed. Kara couldn’t push without raising suspicions, but she’d taken to copying every file for the employees as they were made. No one else was going to just disappear without her having proof they’d existed.

“Kara?” Blake’s voice snapped her back to the table, and when her eyes met his, she felt that familiar flutter of awareness he so easily created in her.

“Yes?” she answered, barely finding her voice as the memory of being beneath him in the truck swept over her.

“What do you want to drink?” he asked softly, a warm quality to his brown eyes saying he hadn’t shaken off their intimate encounter anymore than she had.

“Drink. Right. Yes.” Kara cast the waiter an apologetic look, her senses reeling as Blake’s hand settled on her leg, heat pooling low in her belly. “Sorry. Coffee, please.”

The waiter departed and Ignacio’s gaze settled on Kara, his lips twisting snidely. “I thought I was buying you a drink?”

“I prefer a clear head,” she replied tightly. And a steady hand on my gun.

“Talk to me about the staff here at the restaurant,” Blake said, pulling Ignacio’s attention to him, and Kara had the distinct impression it was intentional. He didn’t like Ignacio focusing on her. That made two of them.

Ignacio stared at her several more seconds that felt like an eternity before shifting his attention to Blake. “What do you want to know?”

“Who’s in the know about the true nature of the operation?”

“The restaurant runs like any other with a staff who know no differently. Eduardo, the manager, and the entire warehouse staff are, as you say, ‘in the know’.”

“How many does that make?”

“Thirty, mostly non-English-speaking illegals who do our handling.”

“What time do the daily shipments go out?”

Kara watched Ignacio’s jaw flex, a subtle sign he didn’t like to be questioned. But then, no one had questioned him in a long time. “Ten. That allows us the coverage of restaurant traffic.”

“And who’s in charge of overseeing the product making it to the pier?” Blake asked.

“Eduardo signs it out and I personally sign it in.”

“Every day?” Blake pressed. “Seven days a week?”