Up in Smoke (Crossing the Line, #2)(15)

The second person he’d felt responsible for had been his one-way ticket out of the SEALs. Coming to Chicago was supposed to mean a clean slate, leaving that shit in the past. He could sense impending disaster ahead when it came to the girl beside him. She was a wild card. An unknown variable. He couldn’t control her. Couldn’t keep her in one place without worrying if she’d vanish. Fuck, he couldn’t even touch her.

As Derek started talking at the front of the room, Erin smashed her nose against the side of his neck, breathed deeply, and sighed. He tried to ignore her when she pulled back to look at him, but the lure of her gaze was too strong to resist. Christ, she was even more compelling up close. She smelled like hair dye and matches, not exactly the most intoxicating of scents, and yet he couldn’t get it into his lungs quickly enough. A deep satisfaction rolled through him when he saw that the bags under her eyes were gone. She’d slept well in his sheets. Her hair spread out on his pillow. Unbelievable. The storm inside him had ceased with her near. It never happened this quickly, usually taking hours to subside.

“What?” he asked, needing a distraction from the kick of lust the image of her sliding around in his sheets had conjured.

“I drank all your orange juice this morning.”

“I noticed.”

She propped her chin on his shoulder. “Can you get the kind without pulp next time?”

How could he concentrate when their mouths were so close together? “Are you planning on making a habit out of drinking my orange juice?”

A beat passed. “If you stop buying it, I’ll know you don’t want me over anymore.”

“I’ll buy the damn juice.”

God, her smile. “I was going to come over anyway.”

Derek cleared his throat, drawing both of their attention. “I don’t repeat myself, so I’d suggest paying attention. Especially you, Connor. I can’t be here twenty-four-seven and it’ll be everyone’s ass if you don’t know what’s going on.”

Erin bristled. “I drank his juice.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Kool-Aid?” Austin drawled from his lean against the wall. “We’re all expected to drink that, apparently.”

Polly snorted and went back to inspecting her nails.

“Continue,” Connor bit out. Not even his time in the navy had made him comfortable with authority. “You were giving us a profile of Maxwell Stark, but hadn’t gotten to why.”

“That’s right. Stark.” Derek crossed his arms over his chest. “City treasurer for Chicago. He came up through the ranks quickly and we have a good idea why. He’s running for mayor at the end of his term as treasurer. We believe he used city pension funds to finance a private project in exchange for campaign donations.”

“A crooked politician,” Bowen said from his usual place behind Sera, who was busy taking notes on a legal pad. “The shock might kill me.”

“You said he moved up through the ranks quickly,” Sera commented. “This must not be the first time he has misused funds.”

Derek nodded. “Stark has done it once before. Once that we can prove, anyway.” He made eye contact with each of them. “Last year, his assistant Tucker May took the fall for him in a similar situation. Stark had accepted a bribe from AllStock Warehouse to support their proposal to open a store in Chicago. They had met a lot of resistance from local small business owners and council members, but they were ultimately approved. There was an internal investigation, and a sizable amount of money exchanged hands before they broke ground.”

Polly looked bored. “Doesn’t everyone just shop online now?”

“We kept an eye on Tucker May while he served time downstate,” Derek continued. “His cell mate turned informant in exchange for a reduced sentence—”

“Snitches get stiches,” Erin sang.

Derek hung his head a moment. “What do you think you are, O’Dea?”

“Oh yeah.” She waved him on. “Keep going.”

“Thank you. May confided in his cell mate that Stark knew about the AllStock Warehouse bribe money. Stark orchestrated the whole thing and pinned it on him with a second set of books, claiming he’d never been the wiser.”

Austin dropped into a chair beside Polly and winked at her. “Stark sounds like a real peach.”

“His father is a career politician at the state capital, so he’s been bred for this sort of thing,” Derek said. “And he’s smart about it.”

Sera shook her head. “What good does May’s cellblock confession do? He’s already been convicted. It’s his word against Stark’s.” Bowen laid a hand on her shoulder and she reached up to cover it. “It’s not unusual for a prisoner to proclaim his innocence. They all do.”

“That’s where it gets interesting.” Derek walked to the whiteboard and uncapped a blue marker. “May took the fall willingly. Stark promised to oversee his investments while he served his time, in addition to a bag of cash when he came home. But those investments failed under Stark’s watch. May wasn’t quite so ready to play ball anymore.”

“Wasn’t?” Bowen shifted on his feet. “Something happen to him?”

Derek nodded once. “May disappeared.”

“From prison?”