Beyond Limits (5 page)

The suits filed out, and Derek watched Elizabeth, trying to catch her eye, but she managed to avoid him. Perfect. He had a few opinions for the investigators involved in this case. But something told him she didn’t want to hear them.

E
lizabeth splashed water on her face and checked her reflection. She looked even worse than she felt.

Seeing him had been harder than she’d expected. People always said absence made the heart grow fonder, but she’d had a different experience. Derek’s absence had made her heart grow smarter, and she’d thoroughly convinced herself that staying away from him was a wise decision.

Seeing him, though—even for a few minutes—had turned all of that logic on its head.

Nearly a year had gone by, and still the mere sight of him made her skin tingle. He had the power to make her forget every other thought in her head with just a look. She’d been surrounded by colleagues and matters of great importance, and
still
that warm, steady gaze of his had managed to completely distract her.

This trip was tougher than she’d imagined, because now she knew that he hadn’t changed at all. He hadn’t lost his touch, not one bit.

She looked at the mirror, studying her tired eyes and dull skin, the direct result of way too many weeks living with way too much stress and way too little sleep.
He
might not have changed, but she certainly had. So much had happened since she’d last seen him, and she didn’t even think of herself as the same person now. She patted her face dry with a towel as her phone chimed.

She froze. Would it be him?

Of course it would. Derek was nothing if not persistent, and there was no way he’d let her sneak out of town without a conversation. She crossed the room to the dresser, where her phone was charging. Lauren’s number on the screen brought an unsettling mix of disappointment and relief.

“Hi.”

“Where
are
you?” Lauren asked.

“San Diego.”

“What’s in San Diego?”

She returned to the bathroom in search of an aspirin. “Long story.”

“Hmm . . . and the plot thickens.”

She pictured her friend flopping onto the sofa in her apartment and tipping back a glass of merlot. Lauren was one of only a handful of female agents in Elizabeth’s office, and they’d bonded from the very first day.

“So how come you never told me you knew the legendary Gordon Moore?” Lauren asked.

“It’s no big deal,” Elizabeth said, rummaging through her purse. Over the past forty-eight hours, she’d managed to pop every aspirin in her vicinity.

“You’re on a first-name basis with the assistant director of counterterrorism,” Lauren said. “That, my cupcake, is a big deal.”

She remembered Lauren had been in the bullpen when Gordon summoned her into Maxwell’s office. “It’s a temporary assignment,” Elizabeth told her. “It’s not like a promotion or anything.”

Lauren snorted. “You wait. I hear they’re staffing up his whole department in D.C.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Around. Just don’t forget the little people, okay?”

Score
. She found a chipped ibuprofen at the bottom of her makeup bag. She popped the pill and grabbed one of the cups beside the sink to guzzle some water.

“Don’t forget the venti lattes, the swapped shifts—”

“Give me a break.”

“—the cheeseburger Happy Meals hand-delivered to your car while you were on stakeout.”

Elizabeth slipped off her heels and tossed them beside her suitcase near the window.

“Seriously, I’m happy for you,” Lauren said. “Maxwell’s been riding you. You needed a change.”

“It’s temporary.”

“Well, do a kick-ass job, and maybe it won’t be.”

A knock at the door had Elizabeth spinning around. She crossed the room with a flutter in her stomach and peered through the peephole.

For a moment she just stared. Square jaw, erect posture, ridiculously muscled body. In her memories, she’d made him less impressive, more average-looking. But of course, that was wishful thinking. There was nothing average about this man, and he was standing outside her hotel room, refusing to go away.

He looked directly at the peephole, and her heart skittered. He knew she was gawking. She pulled open the door, and her heart did another little dance. She’d forgotten his eyes, too—whiskey brown with gold flecks. The look in them now was pure determination.

God help her, he’d come here on a mission.

“Listen, Lauren, I have to go.”

She opened the door wider, and Derek stepped inside.

“See? It’s already happening,” Lauren quipped. “Catch you later.”

Elizabeth closed the door and tossed the phone onto the bed.

He wore a plain black T-shirt over faded jeans and scuffed brown cowboy boots that brought a fresh wave of memories. She lifted her gaze. His dark, longer-than-regulation-length hair curled at the nape of his neck, and his beard had to be going on day two.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

“How’d you know where I was?”

“Asked around.” His gaze scanned the room and then settled back on her. He propped his shoulder against the wall. “What’s it been, a year?”

“Almost.”

“You don’t call, you don’t write.” A smile curved at the corner of his mouth. “How the hell you been, Liz?” The smile was teasing, but his tone was serious. He was taking her to task for pointedly ignoring the messages he’d left for her back in December.

“It’s been a busy year. I was assigned to a major case . . .” She let the thought trail off. He didn’t really want to hear about it, and she definitely didn’t want to tell him. “How are
you
?”

Dumb question—the man had just lost a close friend. But he shrugged it off. “Pretty hungry. We just finished a training op. Thought I’d stop by, see if you wanted to grab dinner.”

“Actually, I just ate.”

He eyed the PowerBar wrapper on the desk and lifted a brow. “Okay, how ’bout a drink, then?”

Temptation pulled at her. He probably thought she was being stuck-up, but that wasn’t it at all.

The truth was, he terrified her.

Since meeting him, she’d devoured everything she could get her hands on about Navy SEALs. She’d learned about their dangerous missions in hot spots around the globe. She’d learned they spent ten months a year away from home, either deployed or training. She’d learned they had big egos, and rightfully so. She’d also learned that they had groupies, women who flocked to bars near the bases, desperately hoping to get picked up.

Elizabeth’s stomach twisted as she looked up at him. Derek Vaughn was smart and confident and impossibly attractive to women who liked their men a little rough around the edges. But he knew it, too. And she couldn’t stand the thought of becoming one of those forgettable women. It was high on her list of Reasons Not to Go There.

Another reason was that she had a case to work, possibly the most important case of her career. And a muscle-bound SEAL with a sexy gleam in his eye was sure to be a huge distraction. Elizabeth felt incredibly lucky to have been picked for this assignment, and the last thing she wanted to do was slip up.

“Come on. Lemme take you out.” He stepped closer.

Her phone chimed, and she lunged for it. “LeBlanc.”

“You hear from Moore?” It was Jimmy Torres, who was staying in the room next door. Last time she’d seen him, he’d been on his way to dinner.

“I haven’t talked to him. Why?”

Derek sauntered around the room, pretending not to eavesdrop.

“He wants a meeting.”

“Now?”

“Five minutes, his suite,” he said. “Bring your laptop. And I need Potter’s number. I’m supposed to call him.”

She glanced at Derek, who stood beside the desk, where she’d spread out her files. She ducked into the bathroom and fished through her purse for the business card Potter had given her when they’d met. She rattled off the number as she returned to the bedroom and slipped back into her shoes.

“Okay, see you in a few.”

Derek was leaning over the desk now, unapologetically reading her files.

“This our guy?” He glanced up.

She eased closer to see the photo. He smelled like soap now instead of saltwater. He’d obviously cleaned up, and she felt a twinge of guilt for rejecting his dinner offer.

“Omar Rasheed. He’s from a wealthy family in Dubai.”

“He’s in the deck.” He tapped the photo and glanced at her. “The most-wanted terrorists. We call it the deck of cards. Who’s this?”

“Ahmed Rasheed,” she said, studying the picture. “Omar’s brother. He’s dead, though. Killed in a drone strike two years ago in Kunar Province, where he’d been meeting with Al Qaeda leaders.”

“Elizabeth.”

She glanced up, and the flirty look was gone now, replaced by utter seriousness.

“You want to tell me what you’re really doing here?”

“What do you mean?”

The way he held her gaze made her heart thud. She could tell by his expression that he already knew what she was going to say. So there was no use lying—not that she could get one past him, anyway.

She cleared her throat. “When Gordon told you Khalid had stopped talking, he was a little vague.”

Derek’s jaw tightened.

“He’s not talking because he’s no longer in custody.”

“Whose custody?”

“Anyone’s. We turned him over to the Afghans because he was wanted in connection with an attack in the capital. Two days later, he escaped.”

He tipped his head back. “Jesus Christ.”

“They’ve been searching for him, but no luck.”

“Yeah, don’t hold your breath on that. Those guys are so corrupt someone probably walked him right out the jail. What the fuck were they thinking turning him over?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did they at least question him first?”

“He wasn’t talking.”

Derek shook his head. “Unbelievable. The one living person we had in custody who could shed some light on this plot, and we let him go.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “We lost a man on that raid, Liz. He took a bullet loading out this intel.”

“I know.” She touched his arm. “And I’m so sorry. I—”

A rap at the door had her turning around. She glanced at Derek, then went to answer it.

It was Torres, wearing the rumpled remnants of his business suit and holding a McDonald’s cup.

“You ready?” He glanced past her, and his expression darkened.

“I’m coming.” She scooped up her computer bag, then gathered the files from under Derek’s nose and slipped them in with her laptop.

Derek took his cue to leave.

“Sorry I can’t talk more,” she said, stepping out of the room. “We’ll catch up later, maybe? After this case.”

He eyed her computer bag, then looked at Torres. “Yeah, good luck with that. You guys have your work cut out for you.”

Stepping into Gordon’s suite, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed. Big surprise. Whether it was anger or frustration or simple nerves, Derek always managed to stir up her emotions. Had Torres noticed? How could he not? And what did he think about finding her alone in her hotel room with one of the SEALs they’d come to interview?

Maybe she should strike up a conversation and mention that she’d met Derek the previous summer. But it was really none of his business. The main person whose opinion she cared about was Gordon, and he was well aware that she knew Derek, because he’d been in charge of the murder investigation in which Derek’s SEAL teammate was a suspect.

Everyone was gathered around a table, and Elizabeth claimed a chair beside one of the Washington agents, Gordon’s expert in all things technical. He had his laptop open and looked to be setting up a secure Internet connection. He glanced at Gordon.

“We’re good to go, sir.”

Gordon scooted his chair forward. “Okay, some new developments. First, you’ve all been sent an e-mail from our team at headquarters, which has been working on visuals of Rasheed.”

Elizabeth booted up her computer. Her colleagues were doing the same. The group Gordon had picked to accompany him to California was a mere fraction of the group he had working on the case. Most of the others were back in Houston, the presumed site of the intended attack.

“They’ve created these pictures to show you how he might look with an altered appearance,” Gordon said, “which we can assume he’d need to get through immigration.”

She clicked open the attachment to find a clean-shaven, Americanized version of the missing terrorist. He was shown with various looks: bald, long-haired, with glasses, without glasses. One version even showed him with a false nose.

“This wouldn’t really cut it, though, right?”

Elizabeth glanced at Torres, who was studying the pictures on his screen.

“You’re right,” Gordon told him. “Our facial-recognition software is designed to see past simple disguises and even plastic surgery. It’s based on distance between pupils, earlobes, nostrils—physical characteristics that are nearly impossible to change. Which brings us to our next problem.”