Authors: Karen Anders
“She lied to us,” Chris said, his voice a growl. “We’ll need her back in here.”
“The captain gave me the footage you requested.” She pulled the flash drive out of her pocket. He took it out of her resisting fingers. “It would have been nice to know you requested access so I don’t look like an idiot.”
“Just like you withheld the autopsy from me?” He shot the words back at her like a bullet from a smoking gun.
She shrugged. “It’s not the same thing.”
He snorted. “Yes, it is. You admitted you still blame me. That’s the real reason you’re chafing at my control of this case. Admit it.”
Sia brought up her arm to press her fingers against her suddenly throbbing temples. The man had a way of giving her a headache.
He grabbed her wrist. His eyes were stormy. “You’re bleeding.”
“What?” She looked at him as if she’d gone dumb.
“Your arm. You’re bleeding. What happened?”
The concern in his eyes was genuine. After all they had been through and were still going through, Chris never changed. She felt the warmth of his body, the strength that poured effortlessly out of him, while he did nothing more than stand there. And she wanted to wrap herself in it, just for a moment or two, just long enough to draw strength from him and get her bearings back. But genuine or not, there was too much between them for a simple tug and hug. “I got pushed—again.”
He scowled. “Then the first time was no accident.”
She tried to get her wrist back, but he wouldn’t let go. “No, it wasn’t, and when I looked up I caught a glimpse of yellow.”
His eyes flashed. “Like Cotes’s yellow tunic?”
“Yes.”
“Be careful, you’re going to smear it all over your uniform.” He pulled her over to a first-aid kit.
“You know, I can handle this myself,” she said wryly.
He shrugged off her words and opened the kit, selecting a small, square package. Ripping it open, he unfolded the small pad inside. “It’s in a hard-to-reach place on your forearm. I’ll get it.”
He wiped away the blood with the alcohol pad and it stung a bit. Sia went to pull away, but his grip was too strong. “What were you talking to McBride about?”
“I asked him to compile a list of all pilots who have died aboard the
McCloud
. Everything, including deaths ruled as accidents.” He placed a bandage over the cut, his touch branding her with little licks of fire. “She lied about sending Washington notes and I discovered from Ensign Brant in air traffic control she was previously in that position and had been his training officer.”
He raised his head from his work and looked at her, understanding dawning. “So she’s familiar with radar.”
The pain diminished to a dull throb now that the cut had been treated. Sia was happy to put some distance between them. “Yes, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I was going to look at her file more closely.”
“We can do that now.”
“No. That’s going to have to wait,” Sia said.
“Why?”
“Senator Washington is here and he wants to meet with us in the captain’s conference room, now.”
Chris sighed. “It’s counterproductive for him to come here and demand answers when we haven’t finished the investigation.”
“We both know that. But he’s grieving, Chris. We…we both know what that feels like. I can’t say that I don’t sympathize with him. In his shoes, I’d want answers, too.”
“All right, but I want to come back here afterward and look up her file.”
“We need to look at that footage, too, before we bring her back in here.”
“Agreed. Can we agree on something else?”
“What’s that?”
“You stick close to me or, at the very least, call for a master-at-arms if I’m not available or we have to split up?”
“All right. That’s something I can agree to.” When they reached the conference room, Chris knocked on the door. The captain said, “Enter.”
Sia and Chris walked through the door. The senator was sitting at the head of the table, his two aides on either side of him. One was working on a laptop and the other one was speaking to the senator in low tones.
Sia stood at attention until the captain asked her and Chris to sit down.
“I want to know what progress you’ve made on the investigation into my son’s death. I can’t sit in Washington anymore and get no report.”
“Sir, as Commander Soto has told you, we are working on some solid leads.”
“What are these leads? Did someone murder my boy?” His voice was authoritative, but underlined in raw sorrow.
Sia shifted uncomfortably. She remembered what had happened at the graveside when her father had verbally and physically attacked Chris. She knew he was remembering that day. He had to be.
She just hoped he didn’t lose his cool, as he had back then.
She expected Chris to close down, to get tough, but instead his eyes went soft, filled with a knowing sympathy. “Sir, I know how you feel. I’ve been there. But at this time, we can’t really reveal what we know because we haven’t fully investigated what we have.”
“You damn well will tell me what you know! You’ll tell me now!” the senator bellowed.
When Chris didn’t answer immediately, the senator rose. “Are you refusing to tell me what you know?”
“It’s more complicated than that, sir.”
“Complicated? Either someone killed my boy or not! There’s nothing complicated about it and I want to know who it is.”
Sia understood why Chris was being closemouthed about their leads. It wouldn’t be conducive to the investigation if the obviously agitated senator went after Susan Cotes before they could question her.
“We have a suspect that we have identified.”
Snarling, the senator rounded the table. Chris rose to face him. The senator jabbed at Chris’s sternum hard with his forefinger. “I’m going to ask politely once more.”
“Senator…”
“You stay out of this, Captain.”
Sia rose, too, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Chris.
Chris’s voice sliced the thick air like a lethal knife. “With all due respect, Senator Washington, that information will remain confidential until we have gathered all our evidence.”
The senator, fueled by grief and anger, shoved Chris hard against the bulkhead. Both aides and the captain went to intervene, but Chris held up his hand to them. Softly he said, “I know what you’re going through. But if you push this, you could ruin the investigation, taint our suspect and derail our interrogation. The suspect could walk. I know you want justice for Eli. That’s what we want, too, and we’ll do everything in our power to make it happen. We think Eli is worth that consideration and time. Do you?”
Everything inside the senator crumbled. The anger that had cloaked him vanished, leaving him naked and vulnerable.
“I just want my boy back,” he whispered. The captain ushered the shocked aides out of the conference room and shut the door behind him.
Sia put a hand on the senator’s arm. His face crumpled and tears ran down his face. Sia’s heart squeezed tight and she wrapped her arms around the inconsolable man.
Her eyes met Chris’s over the senator’s shoulder. He was the one she wanted to hold. The bleak look in his eyes told her that keeping information from the senator about his son’s possible killer had taken a toll. But the courage and the skillful way he’d defused the situation made her heart catch in her chest. Hollis surely had been right.
It only made Sia more ashamed of how she’d treated him six years ago.
After seeing the senator to the helo and assuring him that he would have answers soon, Chris and Sia watched him take off. They headed back to the legal office, but found Billy had a few people inside that made it a bit crowded. Since Chris was bunking with a roommate, Sia suggested they go to her stateroom.
Once inside, Sia booted up her computer to check for emails. “Nothing from him yet.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, damn. He’s probably gone home. I’ll check with him tomorrow. Let’s review the footage.”
Sia plugged the flash drive into her computer and started the file. They watched as the jets approached. It was easy to see which plane was Monroe’s and which one was Washington’s. It was clear the second plane’s pilot was in distress. Monroe landed his craft without incident, just as he’d said.
“Washington is flying too low,” Chris said. He watched closely as the jet clipped the edge of the ship and skidded.
As she watched Sia couldn’t help thinking about her brother. How it must have been for him at the end. Seeing the crash also made her think of Chris. How it had been for him when his jet had collided with her brother’s. Tears gathered in her eyes and she quickly brushed them away. She minimized the footage.
She looked at Chris, but instead of the emotion she expected to see, he looked puzzled and unsettled. She replayed the footage and paused it just as the jets came alongside each other, their wings almost touching.
She could almost imagine the plane on the right was her brother’s and the one on the left Chris’s. She could also imagine how they must have collided.
Back then it had seemed cut-and-dried. Pilot error. But now in light of the two pilot deaths, Sia wasn’t so sure anymore.
* * *
Chris snapped out of his reverie and stared at her. His eyes sharpened. He reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand, wiping away the telltale tears.
He looked at the computer and gently closed it. The image of the jets winked out.
He wondered if his heart could take any more. If he could, as he had said so many times, move past this source of pain and guilt in his past, in her past. He wanted to let loose the feelings that were still locked up in his heart, but he was afraid of the consequences of her rejection.
And the sight of those two jets so close in the air. Milliseconds away from disaster. Facing death each time he jumped into his cockpit had been easier.
Easier than looking into Sia’s eyes and seeing her pain, her loss, seeing that she was holding on to something so desperately her knuckles were turning white. And deep down it hurt that she needed his exoneration, needed to have a reason to believe he wasn’t to blame for Rafael’s death.
And sometimes, he wondered if it really mattered. Rafael was dead. Dead and gone. But they were here, warm, living flesh. He wanted her. As unreasonable as it might seem, he wanted her. Still.
He went to pull his hand away, not sure if he could offer her any comfort she would accept. When her hand quickly rose to curl around his, his heart twisted with a painful longing that had multiplied for six long years.
“Don’t,” she said softly.
He could feel the tremors in her as the tears fell freely from her eyes and he wasn’t sure if they were now for Rafael or for all they had lost.
Her hand rose along his arm, to his shoulder as she leaned in closer to him. With a soft, low cry, her trembling lips met his, and then covered them, moving gently, sweetly.
Chris was drowning in hunger, fighting a need that rose swiftly, was banked ruthlessly. He didn’t want her to just react to him. A ragged sense of honor kept him motionless when instinct dictated he haul her into his arms. It was the memory of the pain in her eyes only a moment ago that kept him from giving in to those urges, that had shouted clearer than words that she was still conflicted about him.
Her mouth moved to his jaw, and he clenched it, hard, when her lips dragged over the stubble. His lungs dragged in the scent of her in a guilty, greedy swallow, and his muscles quivered with the force of his control.
She didn’t need this. The thought hammered in his head, keeping rhythm with the pulse in his veins. He didn’t know what drove her, but he knew she was vulnerable in a way she hadn’t allowed herself in a long time. Knew that even her well-worn defenses must have limits.
And, he had to admit, so did his.
And he was equally certain given time they’d be firmly back in place. She was still reeling from all the memories this case had brought back and adding him to the mix only made it more complicated. He tried to remember that as she caught his bottom lip between her teeth, bit down gently. He had to admit this would be folly for both of them. Keeping their relationship professional was the wiser choice, but where Sia was concerned he seemed to lose his focus, set aside his own pain. But there’d been emotion in her answer, in just that single word. And it was apparent in her kiss. Each touch crumbled his control a bit further.
Her fingers skimmed over his chest. His muscles jumped beneath her touch, quivering. His hands went to her hips, intending to put her away from him. In a moment. This must be a special kind of hell reserved just for him, for offenses committed.
When her mouth touched his again, his arms slipped around her waist, and he kissed her back with a crushing desire that should have worried her. Should have had her pulling away. Instead it served to scorch them both.
His fingers tunneled in her hair and he held her head still, consumed her mouth. And he imagined just for a moment what it would be like to make love to her without fearing the inevitable moment when her defenses would snap back into place. Keeping him out and the memories locked away.
No barriers existed between them now. The certainty shimmered between them, tempted with a heated promise. And the knowledge was sweet, perhaps made more because he knew how rare the moment was.
He could feel her heart race, keeping pace with his. His tongue pressed at her lips for entrance, and they parted in a provocative way that made him groan. He dragged her closer, one hand sliding beneath her serviceable khaki shirt, skimming over her smooth back. She arched against him, and the last remnant of his control gave way under the weight of his need for her.
After so many years apart, he took his time, reveled in the freedom to touch and savor her. He snagged the hem of her shirt, drew it over her head. Skin against skin, warm and vibrant, made him unravel a bit more. The silk of her bra against his chest was sensual, charging his blood to a torrent. The smooth skin of her shoulder beckoned his mouth, his muscles tense. Breathing hard, he paused to get the surging passion under control.
The bunk was close enough that he could add just the right amount of pressure. They would end up where he wanted her, where he could explore her to his satisfaction, every inch of their bodies touching. They could give their passion free rein, forget all thoughts, all doubts.