Blood & Lace Page 2
Clumsy fucker.
Those were the only thoughts that gave him even a modicum of relief. It was the closest he ever came to fantasizing.
Special Agent Pierce flexed his fingers, making a tight fist and releasing it repeatedly until Agent Lydia Ramirez reached over and touched him gently on the shoulder.
“Maybe you should take a break, Pierce.”
He didn’t know if she meant a short one like a fifteen-minute lunch, or an extended one where he never entered this eight-by-ten room in the Los Angeles field office ever again.
Both sounded like a good idea.
But how could he take a break, even for fifteen minutes, when he knew what a difference that could make to sexually abused and exploited victims? Gage didn’t know how. He had no clue how to shut off the job. When he went home he pulled out his own laptop and dove right back in, as if the drive to a new location had simply been a circumstantial technicality. Besides the caseload currently assigned to him, there were always plenty of cold cases he could work on privately while off duty.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll take a break in a bit,” he agreed, returning his attention to his screen.
He’d been a skilled Internet hacker who had been given the choice of joining the military or going to jail when he turned eighteen. After four years in the SEALs, the FBI had recruited him. He assumed they’d figured it was either hire him or lock his ass away for breaking into secure government files online.
When his assistance proved instrumental in taking down a plot to plant explosives in a major government office, he’d been offered a legitimate position with the bureau. He’d had a successful run since his start and had recently taken down the largest human-trafficking ring in California, but lately catching bad guys had become even more difficult. Mostly because they’d found new places to hide. But Special Agent Pierce was relentless in the pursuit of criminals, and his diligence was rewarded with a larger caseload.
The higher-ups with the FBI had taken notice when he’d successfully infiltrated a terrorist sleeper cell during a training assignment at Quantico. It had taken two years of specialized training, but he’d found that he had a knack for impersonating all types of people online. He paid attention to the habits of others, to the nuances of how people of different ages, races, and cultural backgrounds communicated. Now his primary undercover assignment was online, as a teenage hacker who went by the call sign Black Knight. Everyone who knew him online believed him to be a sixteen-year-old potential school shooter on a self-made computer in his grandma’s basement, where he also put together pipe bombs in his spare time.
But that was just his main identity. He had several others, some even female, depending on the case he was investigating.
Some days Gage struggled to remember who he really was underneath it all.
“Pierce,” a sharp voice barked into the confined space. He looked up to see Special Agent Eli Fitzgerald standing in the doorway. “You have a visitor. A ‘Chloe Sterling’ from Boston. She’s waited nearly an hour to see you.”
Gage frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone, much less a “she,” unless it was someone from the medical examiner’s office or the lab bringing him evidence he’d requested.
“Who?”
“Chloe Sterling,” Eli said with a shrug. “Visiting from Boston. Says her twin sister is missing and the local PD won’t listen but she has evidence of foul play.”
“No other agents were available to take her statement?” He gestured to the computer in front of him. Gage had better things to do than listen to some chick complaining about her sister not wanting to hang out with her.
Eli gave him an odd look, raising his eyebrows and grinning. “She requested you specifically. Guess you’re in high demand now that you’ve hit the big time.” A slight edge of jealousy could be detected under his tone.
Gage rubbed his temple with his right hand. The media attention from taking down the human-trafficking ring had given him a D-list-level celebrity-type status. He was over it. He didn’t consider that case a success, no matter how the reporter had painted him as a hero.
Kate Connors was still dead. He was still to blame.
“I have a feeling about this one. Something tells me she isn’t going anywhere until you see her.”
“Tell her I’m tied up at the moment and—”
“I’m not your secretary, Pierce. You don’t want to deal with her, she can sit there all day for all I care. She doesn’t make for bad scenery, to be honest.” With that, Agent Fitzgerald turned and left.
Gage sighed and stood. He didn’t have time for pointless meetings, but he didn’t want the poor woman to be subjected to Eli’s leering either.
He strode purposefully to the lobby and scanned it quickly. Eli caught his eye from a nearby desk and jerked his head toward a chair in the corner.
Gage made his way to the blonde who sat with one long leg tucked beneath her and the other extended to the ground, where her foot bounced steadily.
Immediately he could see what Eli meant about the scenery. And for some reason, the other agent commenting on her attractiveness pissed him off a little.
Not that he didn’t agree, because a man would have to be without a pulse not to notice the perfection that was Chloe Sterling.
Blond strands peeked out from a messy updo of some sort, wide green eyes narrowed with purpose, full bee-stung lips jutted out in a sensual pout. Gage made a mental note to stop neglecting his dick as soon as possible. This woman was temptation on legs.
“Ms. Sterling,” he said as she stood. “I’m Special Agent Gage Pierce. How can I help you?”
She shook his hand firmly enough that he was impressed by her grip and turned on by her touch.
“Agent Pierce, thank you for seeing me. I know it’s not typical for someone to barge in on the FBI and demand a meeting, but I have a friend at the Times and she mentioned an article she’d written about you recently. My sister is missing, and I’m hoping you can help.”
Gage studied her carefully for several seconds. The friend would be Alexis Hayes, then. She’d written the article about him breaking up the trafficking ring in a way that made it seem like he’d done it single-handedly—something that he felt bitter about due to it overshadowing the mention of Agent Connors’s death and creating a noticeable amount of competitive animosity between him and his fellow agents.
“I’ll be sure to thank Ms. Hayes for the referral next time I see her,” he said curtly.
“Look, I know you probably have a caseload a mile high and I don’t want to waste your time. But the local police aren’t taking my sister’s disappearance seriously and I think she’s in danger.”
Her exotic emerald eyes burned into his. Whether she was right or wrong, it was clear she believed what she was saying with every fiber of her being.
“Come with me. I’ll find an empty conference room and take your statement.”
He led her to the end of the hall to the smallest of the four conference rooms on the third floor. He gestured to a seat and turned on the recording device in the room.
Once they were both seated and she’d declined his offer to get her a cup of coffee or water, Gage logged into the laptop on the table.
“How about we start at the beginning.”
Chloe began detailing how she and her sister had made plans for her visit about two weeks ago. He detected a stutter over the mention of taking a “short sabbatical” from her job as a crime reporter with the Boston Tribune, and made a note of it in his file.
She continued, explaining that her sister hadn’t been home when she arrived and hadn’t been in touch once in the couple of days Chloe had been there. She named a Detective Callahan with the LAPD who had filled out the missing person’s report with her, but said he’d been quick to cling to the theory that Eden had used her disposable income to take a last-minute trip out of town with a lover. Apparently she’d exhibited that type of behavior in the past, and Chloe had been honest with him about it.
Her voice was almost as intoxicating as her clean, vaguely floral feminine scent. Gage struggled to remain focused as he filled in the electronic forms with her information.
Once he’d decided Eden Sterling wasn’t actually a missing person, Detective Callahan had returned Chloe’s evidence, a black scrap of lace fabric that Gage initially thought was an undergarment in a plastic bag but turned out to be a mask.
“Look. Right there,” Chloe said softly, pointing at a corner of the mask she’d handed him. “That’s blood. They tested it at the LAPD lab but said it was a trace amount and too small to make a definite ruling.”
Believe me, her pleading gaze implored him.
He wanted to. But he’d been doing this for a long time, and things were typically anything but as simple as they seemed.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he told her, dropping the plastic bag containing the mask into a manila envelope. “But I have to tell you, Ms. Sterling, based on this alone, I can’t guarantee that the FBI will devote a great deal of time or resources to your sister’s disappearance.”
She nodded as if she’d expected his lack of confidence. “I know. It’s not much to go on—a lace mask with a trace amount of blood and my gut feeling. I don’t expect the FBI to turn the earth upside down to find my sister.”
His brow creased due to his confusion. “Then what exactly are you doing here?”
She leveled him with a penetrating stare. “Alexis gave me her notes, the ones she made on the article about you. I know you work cold cases in your spare time.” When he didn’t immediately connect the dots, since her sister’s case wasn’t even a case, much less cold, Chloe Sterling narrowed her eyes impatiently at him. “I don’t want the FBI, Agent Pierce. I want you.”
3
I want you.
Chloe wanted to crawl in a hole and hide. She blamed sleep deprivation.
Or maybe it was just that Agent Pierce’s crystal-blue, ocean-water gaze hypnotized her into a Freudian slip she could never take back.
The other agents who had passed by while she waited might as well have been faceless. But when Gage Pierce strode toward her like a fierce warrior going into battle, untamed and radiating barely contained energy, her head had snapped up and she’d been in a strange trance since he spoke his first word to her.
His scent, his stare, his presence—it was an overwhelming combination. For a man tasked with doing such dark work, he had a light inside of him that was so bright it was almost difficult to look directly at him. Almost.
She did want him—for the case, to help her find her sister. But as they’d sat close together in the confined space, she’d been shocked to realize she wanted something else.
She wanted to know what the short stubble on his masculine jawline would feel like beneath her fingertips, if his lips were as soft as they looked, and if those strong hands and long fingers could push the buttons all over her body as easily as they did the keyboard he was masterfully playing like a musical instrument.
When she was reading the article and the notes her friend Alexis had sent over, she’d pictured the man described as a studious computer-geek type: skinny, glasses, pocket protector, and messy hair that had never seen more than a seven-dollar haircut.
Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Special Agent Gage Pierce.
He did not, in fact, wear glasses. Nor was he skinny by any definition of the word. And there wasn’t a pocket protector within fifty feet of him.
His hair was short, cropped close to his head, and he looked like he spent a million hours in the gym. He wasn’t some Internet guru as described in the article. He looked like he should be playing professional football or posing shirtless for the cover of GQ instead of working for the FBI.
As she’d tried to recover from her verbal mishap, Agent Pierce smiled. If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes lingered for a few extra seconds on her mouth.
Chloe felt like she’d been hit with a stun gun.
Surely he could see that she looked like death. Her hair was up in a messy, twisted knot. The threadbare maroon Boston College sweatshirt she wore had faded gray letters and was a size too big. It kept falling haphazardly off her right shoulder. Her black tights were stretched out from the many different sitting positions she’d been in while she’d waited.
She figured she’d probably imagined him checking out her mouth. Wishful thinking, maybe. His face remained passive, emotionless, as he listened to her detailed account of her time in California. She wondered if this was something he’d learned in training.
After she’d given her rundown of the time since her arrival and blurted out that she wanted him, Chloe did her best to remain calm as Agent Pierce asked her a myriad of personal questions.
“Did you and your sister get along? Any rivalries or jealousy issues?” Agent Pierce inquired.
Whatever he wanted to know, if he thought it would help find Eden, she was willing to tell him.
“My sister is a professional model, Agent Pierce. Fashion shows, runways, lingerie, magazines—the whole bit. So while that lifestyle isn’t for me, I do vow to eat healthier and spend more time at the gym toning my thighs every month when the Provocative Inc. catalog arrives. Not that I ever follow through because I like doughnuts and pizza and sleeping in on weekends far too much.”
Amusement lit his gaze, but Agent Pierce cleared his throat and continued with his questions as if reading from a predetermined list. “Ever been in a physical altercation with your sister?”
She told him in vivid detail the story of the time she pinched her eleven-year-old sister so hard it resulted in a bruise because she’d hidden her hairbrush on school picture day.
Maybe that story was irrelevant but it was true. Hell, if Agent Pierce had inquired about her last menstrual cycle, bra size, or sad lack of a sex life, she would have promptly supplied him with more details than he ever cared to hear.
She hadn’t slept in three days and she’d had more cups of coffee than she could count. She’d been fingerprinted and frisked today alone just coming there to see him. But she didn’t care. This was Eden, and Eden was in trouble, and Chloe was going to find her sister come hell or high water.
If hell came, she’d wrestle the devil her damn self. And if high water came, she’d swim like she’d never swam before. But nothing, not people refusing to believe her, not tireless, seemingly pointless questions, not incompetent police officers or field agents, and sure as hell not the pathetic human need for sleep and food was going to stop her from finding her sister.
She was a crime reporter. She knew the odds of someone being alive after they’d gone missing went down significantly every twenty-four hours. Sleep and food were luxuries she didn’t have the time to afford.
While her mind remained steadfastly on the reason she was there, her body was acutely aware of every move Special Agent Pierce made. Where his eyes were, if his mouth turned up or down, how the well-defined muscles in his arms battled for position beneath his shirt.
“I think that’s all I need for now,” Agent Pierce told her abruptly.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help find my sister. I’m staying at her place in Los Feliz. I’m available twenty-four hours a day and my experience with investigative reporting in Boston has prepared me for just about any—”
“I’ll be in touch.” Her gave her a tight smile and quick nod of his head. “Like I said, I can’t make any promises. But I’ll see what I can do. Here’s my card.”
The interruption caught her off guard, and she was surprised to find that Agent Pierce’s eyes had darted briefly to the exposed skin on her shoulder. She watched as his appreciative gaze traveled up her clavicle to her neck. Before
she could blink, he returned his attention to her blatant stare and resumed his professional demeanor and unaffected expression.
“Um, thank you.” She took the rectangular card from his long, masculine fingers.
Maybe she’d imagined his slip just as before. But the way he’d taken in the sight of her skin looked a lot like . . . desire. An unfamiliar tingling sensation began to unfurl deep in the pit of her stomach. It was spreading quickly and she began to panic.
What the hell?
She needed food. And sleep. That had to be all it was. But something in the way he observed her—something she could tell he was trying hard to keep her from seeing during his covert perusal—made her wonder if maybe she needed something else.
A brief flash of him above her, inside her, wringing out every last drop of tension from her wound-too-tight body appeared behind her eyes. She did her best to shove it out of her mind, but the damage was done.
She couldn’t unsee the fantasy no matter how hard she tried.
“I’ll see you out,” he prompted. He stood and she did the same, trying to clear the lust-filled fog from her brain.
As they left the small conference room and exited the building, Chloe stepped into the warm afternoon air and felt the full effects of going without food and sleep beginning to take a toll on her. Walking on pavement felt more like floating on clouds, and her own voice sounded foreign and far away in her ears as they made their way to her car.
“T-Thank you, again, Agent Pierce. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me.” Something about this man rewired her usually sensible circuits. Her brain felt like it had vacated her skull and was being scrambled on the sidewalk.