A Beautiful Lie (19 page)

Garrett cringed at the overly sweet sound of Parker's voice.  She had been pissed at him since they sat down in here.  He knew he'd taken it a little far with that kiss, but it's not like she'd stopped him.  Once his mouth was against hers, Garrett forgot all about the guilt he should have been feeling about kissing his friend and just reacted. 

Garrett looked at his watch and wondered how much longer they would have to wait for a minute alone with Fernandez when the man in question walked over to where Garrett and Parker sat.

"Mr. and Mrs. Miller, come, walk with me."

He turned on his heels and walked towards the door leading to the hall.

Parker and Garrett looked at each other in shock and jumped up off the couch.  Parker set her cup down on the closest table, and the two walked quickly out in the hall to Fernandez.

They found him standing in the hallway staring up at a painting.  Garrett and Parker walked up to his right side and looked at the picture with him.

"This was my mother.  My father had this painting commissioned on their honeymoon," Fernandez explained.

"She's very beautiful, sir," Parker told him.

"In their time, marriages were contractual agreements.  The parents of the bride searched high and low for a suitable partner for their beloved daughter.  They found the perfect man for her a few towns over.  He was a local business man and quite wealthy."

"Your father, I presume?" Garrett asked.

Fernandez laughed.

"Not quite.  My mother was rather enamored with a young man that worked on their farm.  They grew up together, playing in the fields since his parents had a small home on the edge her family's land.  He was her best friend and the love of her life."

Fernandez turned and began walking slowly down the hall, hands clasped behind his back, Garrett and Parker walking with him.

"It turned out they were both in love with the other, but were afraid to admit their feelings.  So time went on and my mother found herself being dressed for her wedding to the businessman.  She was left alone before the ceremony when her friend, the farm-hand burst through the door.  He professed his love for her, and they sneaked away and ran off to be married."

Parker slipped her hand around the inside of Garrett's elbow as they walked and she tried not to let the story seep into her heart and squeeze it too hard.

"My father often told me he fell even more in love with my mother than he ever thought possible on their honeymoon," Fernandez finished as they got to the end of the hallway near the elevator.

Garrett wondered irritably what the point of this story was.

"That's a wonderful story, Mr. President.  Shall we find somewhere quiet where we can sit down and begin the interview?" Garrett asked as politely as he could.

Fernandez threw his head back and laughed, bringing his hand up to pat Garrett on the back.

"Oh, Mr. Miller, how you amuse me!" he said with a smile.

"Tell me, Mrs. Miller, does your husband keep you in stitches every day?"

Parker chuckled to hide her sarcasm.

"Absolutely.  The things that come out of his mouth just make me want to scream...in laughter," Parker replied.

Garrett felt like he was missing something.

"I think it's very important for a couple to have some time alone after they are married to discover one another, as man and wife.  You can't really do that in your own home with day to day interruptions.

Even Parker was confused at this point, having no idea where Fernandez was going with this.

"I would like you and your lovely wife to come back here tomorrow evening.  You can spend the night in the guest quarters on the second floor where my staff will cater to your every need."

Parker and Garrett's confused expressions equaled one another.

"Mr. President, that's incredibly generous but..."

Fernandez interrupted Garrett.

"Nonsense, I insist.  The two of you have a passion that deserves to be unbound in celebration of your love.  It would make me very happy to offer up my palace as a place for you to consummate your marriage in luxury. The following evening after you are well rested, we'll meet over dinner and conduct that interview you're so anxious about."

Fernandez said goodnight to Garrett and Parker and told them he would send a car to their hotel tomorrow evening.  He left them waiting for the elevator while he went back to the rest of his guests.

Garrett and Parker didn't speak until the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside.

"Did the President of the Dominican just tell us he'd give us the interview if we stayed at his palace and had sex?" Parker asked, the shock clearly evident in her voice.

Garrett, equally amazed, nodded his head.

"Yep, I'm pretty sure that's what just happened."

Chapter Eleven

Garrett and Parker pretended the kiss from the previous night never happened, on the outside at least.  Internally, they were both thinking about it, constantly replaying it over and over in their minds.  Parker didn’t want to talk about it because she was still hurt Garrett so cavalierly brushed it off as no big deal, and Garrett, like a typical man, figured if he just ignored the problem, it would go away. 

If he ignored how much he wanted Parker, if he ignored how much he ached to feel the touch of her breath on his face and the taste of her lips on his tongue, eventually it wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

At four in the morning, when he still hadn’t fallen asleep because listening to Parker’s gentle breathing and quiet moans every time she rolled over had made him hard enough to cut glass, he knew this was a problem that had no intention of ever leaving him.

They both got out of bed exhausted, neither one in much of a talking mood.

They met for breakfast in Austin’s room since he had already ordered enough food to feed a small army and sat down at the table in the corner of the room and dug into the food.  Austin gave them a breakdown of what they found when they scouted the locations from the list Parker had given them the night before. Brady was late for breakfast and Austin informed them he was printing something off in his room and would be there soon.

Austin explained that the three men went to each of the eleven businesses on the list. Every building was closed for the night and locked tight, but that didn’t stop them from finding a way inside to search the files kept on-site. They found no mention of Fernandez or anyone working for him. 

Garrett wanted to bang his head against a wall as they continued to hit dead ends.  No one was this perfect.  People made mistakes all the time.  They just had to find one of Fernandez’s and then everything would unravel.

Brady walked into the room at that point and handed Garrett the print out that made him late.  It was an address and directions.

“Is this it?  Is this for
The Target Agency
?” Garrett questioned.

Parker leaned towards Garrett to see what was on the paper while Brady poured himself a cup of coffee and sat on the end of the bed.

“Well, we don’t know exactly what that address is for,” Cole answered from his seat across from Parker.  “The last business we went to was the insurance company.  I found a few pieces of forwarded mail in one of the trash cans under the receptionist’s desk.   Mail from that address...” Cole pointed to the paper Garrett held “...was forwarded to the insurance company.”

Just barely reaching six feet, Cole was the shortest on the team, and he never failed to overcompensate for that fact by eating, sleeping, and breathing his job.  With his short blonde hair and chocolate colored eyes, he was easily forgotten about in a crowd which made him the perfect candidate for undercover work.  Much to his parent’s dismay, as soon as Cole turned eighteen he ripped the silver spoon from his mouth, threw it as far away as possible and did the exact opposite of what they wanted.  Their constant nagging about him getting a
real
job as a doctor or a lawyer gave Cole all the incentive he needed to do every single job to the absolute best of his ability.  He didn’t need anyone or anything but his SEAL brothers, and he would always make sure they came first.

“I just got off the phone with the post office, which is a huge clusterfuck by the way, and according to them, the forwarding order was a typo in their system,” Brady jumped in to explain. “It turns out they are updating all of their software and it reset a bunch of forwarding requests from years ago.  The request to have mail from the address I printed sent to the insurance company was from eight years ago.”

Garrett and Parker glanced at one another.  Eight years ago was when
The Target Agency
first opened—and when Parker became CIA.  Neither one of them understood why everything was starting with correlate to that point in time.  It left them feeling more than a little unsettled.

“The forwards lasted for two days before the post office caught the error and stopped them,” Brady finished, forcing Parker and Garrett’s attention back to him.

“I’m assuming whatever was in the envelopes wasn’t anything important?” Garrett asked.

Cole shook his head.

“Nope, just some junk mail.  We figured the two of you would want to check out the address yourselves.”

Everyone finished up breakfast, then Garrett and Parker headed out to the parking lot to get one of the rental SUVs while the guys stayed at the resort in case they needed something looked up on the computer quickly.

On the drive, the big fat elephant in the car, the sleepover they were supposed to have at the palace that night, was shoved into the trunk and never brought up.  Instead, they discussed possibilities of what they might find once they got to the address.

After a few wrong turns, Garrett drove down a long dirt road for about three miles until they came to an old abandoned warehouse in the middle of a field.

Garrett parked the car and they both got out.  Parker turned in a circle, looking every which way.

“There is absolutely no sign of life anywhere around here.”

Garrett glanced around and nodded his head in agreement.

The only sounds that could be heard were the rustling of trees when a breeze blew and the cry of a bird every so often.  They were so far off the main road you wouldn’t even be able to hear cars driving past. Not that the building was located on a busy road, though.  Garrett and Parker hadn’t seen any other vehicle on the main road the entire fifteen minutes they drove on it.

“Nice. Secluded place where no one would hear a thing,” he said as he stepped away from the car and slammed his door closed.  “I do not have a good feeling about this.”

Parker agreed as she shut the passenger door and began walking towards the building.  It looked like it could have been a factory at one point, but the busted windows, overgrown weeds, and chipping paint indicated it hadn’t been used as such in quite a long time.

Garrett walked a few feet behind Parker and watched her navigate the weeds, downed trees, and rocks littering the way.  When they got to the door of the building, Parker reached behind her with one hand and lifted up the bottom of her shirt a few inches until Garrett could clearly see the Glock stuck into the waist of her jeans in the middle of her back and enough of her creamy skin to make his mouth water.  He stopped in his tracks and watched her use the opposite hand to pull the gun out and get into the Weaver stance, a defensive shooting position.

Parker twisted her neck to look behind her as she held her gun and aimed at the door.

“You ready?” she asked Garrett quietly.

He stood there staring at the gun in her hands, not moving.

“Yo, McCarthy, wake up!” she whispered loudly.

Garrett jerked out of his trance and put a halt the internal scolding he was giving his body about settling down.

He quickly reached down to grab the Beretta out of his ankle holster.  When he stood, Parker was still looking at him with her eyebrows raised.

“Sorry, you holding a fucking gun is still messing with my mind,” Garrett said irritably as he motioned for her to proceed.

It took everything in him not to turn into a caveman, shove her out of the way, and go in ahead of her so she’d be kept out of harm’s way.  Garrett knew without a doubt that if he did that, she’d knock him flat on his ass...and maybe even shoot him just for the hell of it.  He had to show her that he trusted her and had faith in her abilities.

Parker finally turned away from Garrett and his weird behavior.  She walked up to the door and tried the handle, finding it locked.  She shook it a little and pushed on it with her shoulder.  It didn’t budge. 

“Here, let me,” Garrett said as he came around Parker’s side and tried his hand at slamming his shoulder into the door. 

“Problems, McCarthy?” Parker asked as the door remained firmly closed.

“Not at all, Parker,” Garrett replied without turning around.

Garrett lifted up his knee and projected all of his power through his leg as he kicked his foot out and connected with the locked door.  It flung open and banged against the inside wall.

It was Parker’s turn to stand there with a stunned expression on her face.  She’d seen him train, she’d seen him at the shooting range, she’d imagined him in every different type of dangerous scenario over the years, but nothing compared to standing next to him and watching him put his skill to the test in a real life situation while he was gripping a gun.

Everything about Garrett made Parker’s body’ stand up and take notice from the way he trusted her to take the lead up to the building to the way he barreled his foot through the door like a battering ram.  She knew he was strong; she’d seen him work out and had been a witness to his six pack abs on more than one mouth-watering occasion.  But seeing him right that moment in a pair of jeans that hugged him perfectly and a t-shirt that showed off his sculpted arms, she felt the power of his strength pouring off of him in waves.  He stood calm and sure next to the door, and she had never felt safer in her entire life.  She had always been the one in charge during missions, always the one who rushed in head first and ensured the safety of everyone on her team.  She was at the top of her game in a man’s profession, which meant she had to work twice as hard and be just as ballsy to earn the respect of her teammates.  It was unnatural for her to hand the reins over to someone else.