One Wrong Move Page 10

  She slumped. Each motion was like a slow, agonizing last breath. Feeling defeated, she stepped inside the room, and he turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I sleep in a small apartment out back. These people are my landlords. It’d look funny if I sleep in the same house with them.”

  “Won’t it look funny if I do?” she asked.

  “Would you rather sleep with me?” His devilish grin hammered fire into her skull. What a jerk! How dare he leave her alone after what just happened? He was using her, more than likely, for the information that he’d taken from her apartment.

  Maybe he wasn’t a drug dealer, but he was still a jerk.

  “You’ve got to go back for my cat.”

  “Beacon is fine for the night. He probably found a better hiding space that we did.”

  Air hissed between her teeth, and she fought to keep from bawling. The fact he remembered her cat’s name made him even more of an asshole right now.

  “No one will know you’re here,” Camden said. “You’re safe. We’ll make plans for your future later.”

  Future? She was beginning to think she didn’t have a future. Maybe God was playing a horrible joke on her.

  She still couldn’t grasp what happened tonight. Camden had, more than likely, saved her life. He was a DEA agent. He’d barely touched her tonight, and she’d had the most erotic orgasm of her life.

  ***

  A few hours later, after tossing and turning without really sleeping, Rayma tiptoed to the kitchen and searched the cabinets. There had to be something in here to eat. Breakfast was usually a big thing for her. She found bread and plunked it in the toaster. It’d do.

  Maybe she should sneak off. Maybe she shouldn’t even try to eat, just leave before everyone woke up. She was peeking out the window to check that possibility when Camden walked in.

  “What are you doing?” He wore athletic pants and a tank top, revealing broad shoulders and a physique carved like a Roman god.

  Rayma ignored him. She hated him for no other reason than he looked so damn good.

  So he wasn’t a drug dealer. Neither was he a chef, but he could cook better than anyone she’d ever known. So he was a good guy, trying to bust a criminal. That didn’t make him great.

  “You’re not getting out of here, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Camden opened the refrigerator and grabbed the milk.

  She was used to getting up early for work, but now she had no work to go to.

  “You can’t stop me.”

  “I work for the U.S. government. I can do whatever the hell I want. You’re under my protection now—”

  “The hell I am,” she said. “I didn’t ask for your protection.”

  “No, but you damn sure needed it.”

  She wheeled away and stomped toward the back door. Okay, so she’d either have to steal his car or hitchhike, but she would get out of here.

  The door wouldn’t budge. She pushed it away from her, she pulled it toward her. She jiggled the lock. Nothing moved. She kept jostling the door to and fro with no results. Her eyes burned. She wanted to break something—preferably the door standing between her and freedom.

  She’d been so scared last night. So scared. Camden, breaking in while she was bathing, hiding her in the attic. Doing crazy, wonderful things to her body. Leaving her alone. She was supposed to be safe here in Hammer Bay. Safe.

  Camden stepped behind her and pulled her away from the door. “You have other options. I can take you into a different kind of protective custody. The kind with bars. Or you can stay here a few days until things settle down.”

  Rayma lurched away from him. “Go to hell.”

  “What’s going on?” Lacey walked in, wrapped in a robe with a towel around her head. Rayma couldn’t help the bitter twinge making her wonder why Lacey even bothered with a towel around her head. She didn’t have much hair to begin with.

  At least she had a shower. Fresh clothes. Her teeth were probably brushed.

  Moore stepped in right behind Lacey and it was like he’d been listening to their conversation the whole time. “Camden’s right. You’re staying at the safe house.”

  “The safe house?” Rayma asked. “It’s a home, without even a security gate to block someone’s entrance. What makes it any safer than my apartment complex, which has a security gate and requires a key to get in?”

  “I didn’t have a key last night,” Camden said.

  “You’d be surprised,” Lacey said, as she stood near the stairs and filed her nails. “The place is surrounded by agents that no civilian could possibly notice.”

  “So place them around my apartment. Won’t Dare’s people be suspicious if I don’t follow my routine?”

  “You don’t exactly have a routine anymore, seeing as how you got fired from your job for being so careless about your blog.” Lacey’s derisive comment rang in Rayma’s ears, and she swallowed the urge to lash back.

  “Lady, you have no idea the manpower we’ve used so far to save your ass,” Camden said.

  Lady? He wanted to insult her by calling her ‘lady’? No, they hadn’t had sex but they’d come damn close. If they’d kept seeing each other, they probably would have.

  And were they all out to fire word-missiles at her? Make her feel guilty for something she had no idea she was doing wrong? She knew posting the blog was risky, but she thought she’d suffered her punishment by getting fired. How could she know there was an undercover operation underway?

  “You butted your little nose where it doesn’t belong,” Camden said. “You almost fucked up our operation. You’re here until we can cart your ass off somewhere else, or until Darrell is behind bars.”

  “Screw you.” It was the only expletive she could find at the moment. Camden merely smirked and gestured a ‘whatever’ motion by lifting his shoulders.

  An angry growl curled in her throat, but tears held it back. He’d been assertive with her before, but never crass. She had no idea where this attitude had come from. “I have to get my cat and some other things from my house.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “I can’t leave Beacon there. Please.” She hated the whine in her voice, but her emotion was real. Her cat was like her child.

  “I’ll bring Beacon to you tonight,” Camden said, “and pick up some things for you.”

  “I need to check my computer. My email. My blog.”

  “No can do.”

  “It’s been deleted,” Moore stated.

  “What?” She whirled to face Moore. He hadn’t said much to her yet, but she could tell by his tone that he shared the others’ sentiments about how she’d screwed everything up and their failed mission was all her fault. She didn’t care.

  “Your blog was deleted last night.”

  Her mouth soured as she fought back everything she wanted to say. He had no right to delete her blog or revoke any type of access she had to it. She didn’t give a shit whether he was the U.S. Government or not.

  “Were y’all up all night trying to destroy my life? Just because of a blog post that most people won’t ever read?”

  “We don’t get much sleep around here,” Lacey muttered.

  “It means something to a very powerful man,” Moore said. “Someone who could have you killed with the mere nod of his head. Someone who already tried to have you killed.”

  “But didn’t,” she interjected.

  “Thanks to me,” Camden said with a twist of arrogance.

  “Did you delete the post, or the whole blog site?”

  “All of it. It doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “You know, deleting that blog is only going to make him more suspicious. Especially because I up and disappeared the night he wanted to have me killed. Unless the killers lie and say they took care of me. Which I can’t see happening if he’s as scary as you make him out to be. I have a lot of faithful followers. He offered to let me interview him. You should let me continue to post. I can make s
tuff up, provide misinformation, pretend I moved. Something.”

  “We’ll see,” Moore said.

  “What else am I supposed to do all day?” Rayma spat. “File my nails?”

  Lacey shot Rayma a condescending look. “You’re not stuck inside. It’s safe outside as long as you stay around the perimeters of the house. The beach is right outside our doorstep, there’s a gym you can use, and I have plenty of nail polish you can borrow.”

  “How long am I stuck?” she asked, emphasizing Lacey’s word.

  Lacey turned her glare on Camden. “I’ve been here almost a year.”

  A year? That’s how long it had taken? No, no way. She’d already given up a year of her life after Keegan, trying to transition back to normal. She’d given up too much control of her life, and she wasn’t about to do it again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rayma was sitting at the kitchen table, contemplating her life and her fingernails, which she wasn’t in the mood to file.

  “I believe we got off to a bad start,” Lacey announced as she waltzed into the kitchen, her words grating on her nerves.

  Lacey had been gone all day. Shopping, from the looks of things. She threw a bag at Rayma’s feet.

  “I bought you a few things. We’re about the same size. Well, almost.” Lacey glanced at Rayma’s much flatter chest, and Rayma fought the urge to roll her eyes. “Plus, you’re taller, but it doesn’t matter with shorts.”

  “Thanks.” Rayma glanced through the bag, relieved to find a toothbrush, soap, a long T-shirt and shorts. The pants were starting to feel clammy on her legs.

  She was hot, she stank, and she was pissed off at the world. Camden had taken the bag of information from her and planned to give it back to Darrell after agents made copies of everything inside. He needed to get on Dare’s good side.

  She’d bet all these clothes Lacey brought that Camden was already on Dare’s good side.

  “You want to go outside, enjoy the sunshine?” Lacey asked. “You look a little down.”

  “Would you blame me?” Rayma asked.

  “Hey, I’ve been living here for almost a year and haven’t had sex in, well, almost that long. I don’t even know my real name anymore, and I can’t get in contact with my sister, whom I heard through the grapevine is pregnant.”

  “I’m sorry. That must be hard,” Rayma said. Although she didn’t talk to the majority of her family anymore, she couldn’t imagine not speaking to Caitlyn or James. They were her real family now.

  Lacey opened a cupboard and pulled out a large bottle of wine. “You want to have a drink outside?”

  A drink sounded like a great idea. Getting drunk sounded even better. And if she was going to live with Lacey for any amount of time, she better at least put in an effort to like her.

  “Sure. Let me get changed.”

  The shorts were way too short for her comfort, but the long shirt made up for it. Lacey was waiting outside, sipping wine under an umbrella covered chair and looking spiffy in a bikini. Rayma wondered if Lacey had intentionally bought her clothes that didn’t fit well.

  She grabbed the glass Lacey brought and poured some wine. “What does Moore do all day?” she asked as she sat on the lounger. She hadn’t seen Moore since this morning, but every time Rayma tried to escape outside, an agent appeared to keep her in.

  “Makes plans, watches tapes recorded at the warehouse. Listens to tapped phone lines hoping he’ll pick something up. Takes direction from his boss, the one he doesn’t like to acknowledge.”

  “What about you?”

  “Oh, I pretty much do all the grunt work. Run errands, do the laundry for all the agents, make sure they eat. You know, the things women do best.” Lacey downed her wine, poured another glass and downed it, then sipped on a third.

  “I think you might be the one who’s depressed.” Rayma grabbed the bottle and poured another glass for herself. “Have you talked to Moore about this?”

  “Are you kidding? ‘You knew what you were getting into when you signed up for this,’” Lacey mimicked, using a deep but mousy voice to mimic Moore. “‘If you can’t handle it, we’ll get another agent in who can.’ It’s not that I can’t handle it,” she continued in her own voice, “but I’m going crazy here with all this inaction, watching the waves crash against the shore, making sure all the agents get fed. I’m completely losing my identity.”

  “What about Camden?”

  “What about him?” Lacey turned to face Rayma, a scowl written across her features at the mention of his name. “He’s perfect, he never screws up. He keeps his first name to keep his sense of identity. He’s charming, a great chef, good-looking, and yet it’s still taking him a year to do this job. He’s still not on the inside.” Lacey used her finger to make quotes and deepened her voice.

  “Why is he the only one involved?” Rayma asked.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” Lacey splashed more wine into her glass. Rayma held up her near-empty glass and Lacey filled it until it overflowed. Rayma licked it off her fingers and Lacey held up the bottle to indicate it was gone. “Oops,” she said as she dropped the bottle.

  Rayma felt a twinge of pity for Lacey, but wasn’t quite sure what to think of her. The waves gurgled in the sand as if taking their last breath, spinning in lost circles trying to find their way back to the ocean. She’d regret it later, but she polished off the glass of wine.

  “Camden’s been on this job for nine months and got nothing,” Rayma said. “I just recently starting looking into it and got almost all the information you need to crack this case.”

  “Damn right you did.” Lacey tipped up her empty glass in a salute. “I think you should go undercover.” Her words had begun to slur. “Ever since Fletcher was killed, Camden is now the lead. Well, Moore is the boss, but Camden is the top guy, the right hand man to Dare.”

  The name was familiar. “Who is Fletcher?”

  “He was the lead investigator on this case, but Dare killed him. Or more likely had him killed.”

  Rayma’s stomach dipped to her toes. The wine curdled in her stomach and burned. “He…was killed?” Bill Fletcher, Dare’s chauffeur, had been an undercover agent?

  “Yup.”

  Fletcher had been killed. She’d accused Camden of being on the inside with Dare, but she’d never really believed that. “What if this Dare guy kills Camden?” she asked, voicing her concerns. She’d wanted to pretend the risks weren’t there, but she knew from experience that wasn’t true.

  “It could happen. That’s why they need to put me on the case.”

  ***

  Camden

  The army green canvas bag over Camden’s shoulder contrasted with his white shirt, and he gained a few stares from Dare’s sentries as he trudged down the long and narrow sidewalk leading to the man’s home. The house was situated far from the road, and even after he’d been granted entrance through the gates and parked, he felt like a prisoner.

  He waited inside the massive entry while the maid went to fetch him. The area was stark and sterile with only a window bringing color to the room. Camden assumed Dare didn’t want to comfort most people awaiting his appearance. That could explain the lack of plants, color, and energy.

  “Camden, my man.” Dare walked in, slapped him on the back, and took his hand in a light grasp. Although he was hospitable, the tightening of his mouth indicated he didn’t appreciate his company. He glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t you be getting to work soon?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “You could have talked to me at work.”

  “This is too private for work.”

  Dare gave the woman a pointed stare. She made a small curtsy, pivoted, and left the room.

  “I don’t normally receive visitors without an invitation.”

  “I’m sorry, but like I said, I didn’t want to discuss this at work.” Camden glanced around the room. Though they were completely alone, the space made him uncomfortable. Too many angles
for someone to sneak up on him. “Maybe somewhere a little more private? This is something we shouldn’t discuss in the open.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  Dare turned, and Camden followed him into an office replete with leather and wood. Despite the warmer color, the stilted décor choked him. He loosened the tie around his neck so he could breathe.

  “What’s up?”

  “I went out with that girl on the news, the one with the blog. Rayma. I went out with her last night. I stole this from her apartment. I thought you might be interested in what she has on you.” He tossed the bag on the desk. Everything in it had been copied last night, and agents had been going through it ever since.

  Dare sat and stared at the bag as if waiting for it to explode and reveal the contents. Camden tore it open and whipped out the documents, then dropped them on the table to show him.

  “What the hell?” Dare muttered as he grabbed some of the papers and thumbed through evidence of his illegal activities. He glanced at Camden, who stood on the other side of the desk. “Where is she?”

  “She spent the night with me.” He wriggled his eyebrows. “She’s messed up, though. Pretty depressed. She got fired from her job because of her blog.”

  “Serves her right.”

  “I thought so,” Camden lied.

  Dare opened his drawer. Camden froze, expected a gun in his face. Instead, Dare pulled out a cigar and rolled it between his palms. “Why are you bringing this to me?”

  “Because I thought you might want to know what’s out there.”

  “You think this is about my business?”

  Camden remained standing. Dare hadn’t indicated he sit, and he preferred being on his feet. He could defend himself better on two feet. Dodge bullets. Run. Tackle. Any offensive or defensive moves.

  “Yes, sir. I do.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’ve worked with you almost a year, sir. I see the signs.”

  Dare’s eyebrows drew together as he studied him. As he continued to roll in between his palms, the cigar crackled like wood tinder about to ignite. “Signs?”