On Her Master's Secret Service (Masters and Mercenaries #4)(88)

She giggled a little. “Alex, you don’t know how to work one. I could be standing up here slowly dying of caffeine deficiency for hours. Besides, I could use the little walk to wake myself up. Someone tired me out last night.”

He turned and had his lips on hers in a heartbeat. He tangled his hands in her hair, unloosing that bun, and gave her a proper good-morning kiss. “I’ll tire you out again tonight, angel.” He let his forehead rest against hers. “One way or another, this is all over in a couple of days.”

If Evans showed, Alex would try to take him down. If he didn’t, he was going to turn everything over to someone else because he didn’t want Eve in danger and Eve wouldn’t leave him, ergo he was off this case and soon.

Maybe it was time to let Ian just assassinate the f*cker.

“I know.” She got on her tiptoes. “I’ll be back in a second. Why don’t you make me some toast?”

He could do that. It was about all he could do in the kitchen, but he could use a toaster. “Okay.”

She turned and started out of the condo. He heard the elevator ding as she went down.

He went to the fridge as his mind pondered the possibilities.

There had been an awful lot of chance that went Evans’s way. He’d eluded capture multiple times when Alex should have had the man. Once, twice, he could deal with that, but he’d had prime information on Evans’s movements right after the DC bombing. He’d found his hideout and Evans was gone, a cigarette still smoking in an ashtray as though he’d known exactly when to bail out.

And then there was the escape. He could still remember how he’d felt when Warren had called to tell him that Evans was on the loose.

Chazz had been in that jail. He’d been pulled out of the actual cell when the bedding was brought in, but he’d been housed with Evans for weeks. He very likely knew exactly how Evans had escaped.

He might know if there was a connection between Evans and Carmen Garcia.

He might know if there was a connection between Evans and someone on his old team.

Was he ready to go heavy on Chazz? Right before Evans got here?

Did he have a choice?

“You are deep in thought. Are you trying to cook the eggs with your brain?” Adam asked.

Alex turned to him. “I need you to look into the members of my old team. The ones who are still alive. You’re looking for any connection between Carmen Garcia and anyone in the FBI.”

Adam’s eyes widened and he whistled a little. “You think someone on your team deleted that file.”

“Who else could have done it?” It didn’t make a lick of sense for someone on the outside to hack in and delete a file. “There’s no point to it. Anyone who knows the case at all knows that there were seventeen victims. So why do it here?”

“No idea. All a person has to do is pull up any news article and the full list is right there. I checked with the local district attorneys and they all have the proper files.” Adam stretched and yawned. “I’ll get on it. I need hazard pay for this assignment. Every time I clean up one of Ian’s little problems, another crops up. I got him off the no-fly list, but when I tried to book him a flight for the morning, all his credit cards are maxed out. He’s been doing a lot of shopping online apparently. Did you know Ian likes high-end lingerie and wears a 36 double D? He’s got several shipments from Neiman Marcus arriving tomorrow. And apparently he really has a thing for lacy boy shorts. How the hell am I going to tell him that?”

Alex snorted a little. “I’ll tell him.”

He turned back to his eggs. When he got back to Dallas, it looked like they would have a whole new issue to deal with.

“Guilt.”

Alex turned the burner up and glanced back at Kristen, who had been the one to speak. “Guilt?”

Dressed for work in black pants and a club T-shirt, she looked no worse for her previous evening’s work. “You asked why someone would do it. You couldn’t come up with a possibility, but I can. Sometimes you erase things because you don’t want a reminder of what you did wrong. It doesn’t work. You can get rid of pictures and whatever and you still remember.”

He scraped the eggs, scrambling them. “I’ll buy that. I have Adam trying to make a connection.”

“Good. When you find the connection, you’ll know. It could be as simple as she was a friend and whoever deleted the file felt he or she had let her down. Sometimes we don’t mean to hurt the people we love. Sometimes they just get caught in our crossfire and all we can do is pray they survive it. Maybe Carmen Garcia didn’t survive it.”

Or maybe it was something more sinister.

“I need to talk to Eve.” Something she’d said the night before was playing through his brain. He had no idea how it connected to anything, but suddenly he needed to talk to her about what Warren had said to her on the night that Evans had taken her. She’d said something about Warren bringing him back to her.

Warren never mentioned going home. Warren had been steadfast at his side.

We’re going to take this f*cker down together, buddy. You and me.

Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Warren had told her he would make damn sure Alex got home. Warren was talking about not letting him die and Eve took it as physically bringing him home. Surely.

When Eve came back, he would clear it all up.