Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)(68)

Half a dozen images popped on the screen. Harper with a champagne flute. Harper lying on a table, prettily kicking her feet. Harper at some sort of photo shoot poised on a couch and pouting at the camera.

“And my favorite,” Bug announced.

An image filled the screen. Harper giggling, her hair, bright yellow blond, pressed against Adam Pierce, who was looking hot and bothered in his trademark leather. He had one arm around her.

“When was this?” Mad Rogan asked.

“Four years ago,” Bug said.

The video resumed and we watched Harper and the bank employee walk to the elevator. They moved slowly, the banker speaking and moving his hands, as if explaining. The doors of the elevator opened, and they disappeared from view.

“And down they go to the safe-deposit box room,” Bug announced.

“She got the grand tour,” I guessed. “All she had to do was tell them she was interested and set up an appointment, and they showed her the bank, including the safe-deposit vault, where she could’ve marked the right box for Gavin.”

“Do you have her number?” Mad Rogan asked.

“Yes, Major. Sent to your phone.”

When Bug said Major, he said it in the way people usually say sir. Until now, I would’ve sworn Bug had no idea what word respect even meant.

Mad Rogan swiped his phone and held it to his ear. “This is Mad Rogan. Meet me in the Galleria by the fountain at Nordstrom in an hour.”

He hung up and looked at me. “Would you like to come?”

“Sure.”

“Front door in fifteen minutes.” He turned around and strode out.

I glanced at Bug’s face on the monitor. “When I met you, you told me you’d rather drink sewage than work with a Prime or anyone from the military again.”

Bug bristled. “So?”

I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder. “He’s a Prime and ex-military.”

“You don’t understand,” Bug said. “He’s . . . he’s Mad Rogan.”

“Oh spare me.”

He waved at me and Bern. “Kid, I’ll be moving soon. If you want the M9, you can have it.”

“That’s mighty big of you,” Bern said. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. I’m getting something better, so don’t go thinking I’m being nice. It just saves me from having to torch all this junk.”

The screens went dark.

“Did Mad Rogan just recruit Bug?” I asked.

“Appears that way,” Berg said.

We stared at each other.

“Did you get anywhere with the ornament?” I asked.

“No. It’s an odd shape. I got a hit on a Japanese dragonfly brooch, but I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “The pattern is slightly wrong.”

“Will you please keep looking? I know it’s like looking for a needle in the haystack, and I really, really appreciate it.”

“Of course,” he said.

“I just don’t trust Mad Rogan. We need to figure this out.”

“Don’t worry,” Bern said. “We’ll get it. Here, I’ve got something for you.”

Bern opened a drawer and pulled out a Ziploc bag containing a metal doohicky. “Found this on your car. A standard GPS transmitter.”

That’s how Mad Rogan had known I’d gone to meet Adam Pierce at the arboretum. I sighed.

“Are you okay?” Bern asked.

“Yes,” I lied. “I’m going to get dressed.” And get my gun.

“Nevada,” he called after me. “That M9 would be really nice! Do you have a problem with it?”

“If you can make a deal with Bug, go for it. Just try not to owe him any favors you can’t repay.”

I stepped out the front door of the warehouse and did a double take. Mad Rogan waited in the driver seat of the perfectly intact Range Rover. It had been a charred wreck only a few hours ago. It couldn’t be the same Range Rover.

I saw him looking at me through the window. His eyes were very blue this morning. A by-now familiar feeling zinged through me, two parts lust, one part alarm, and the rest frustration with myself. The impact of all that masculinity should’ve faded by now. I should’ve become inoculated and immune. Instead he again knocked my socks off.

Chains, I reminded myself, as I got in. “Do you have more than one Range Rover?”

“I have several,” he said, his voice calm.

“So I guess it’s not a big deal that Adam blew it up?”

“I have several because I like them.”

I looked at him. His jaw was set. His mouth was a straight, hard line. His eyes under the dark eyebrows had acquired a cold, steel-like hardness and I saw anger in their depths. Not the loud, ranting kind of anger, but a bone-chilling determined fury. My instincts screamed at me to get out of the car. Get out now and back away with my hands in the air.

“That particular Range Rover was the one I liked best,” Rogan said, his voice and expression still calm and pleasant. “When we find Pierce, I’ll take it out of him.”

Out of him? If this wasn’t personal for him before, it was definitely personal now. “We need Adam Pierce alive,” I reminded him. “You promised me.”

“I remember,” Rogan said. His tone suggested that he really didn’t like it. Maybe I would get lucky and Adam would lay low today, because if Rogan ran across him now, he might murder him and really enjoy it.