Chapter Eleven

Link

Link tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, looking out the windshield at the gloomy skyline. More rain was predicted, which wasn’t all that odd for this time of year.

He sighed. Thinking about the weather was a whole hell of a lot less confusing than thinking about what had happened in that motel room.

And why the fuck had he said that to Eagle? He hadn’t meant it, but he figured it was a way out for both of them if they kept it that way…casual and shit.

This was bound to happen. He’d been fighting his attraction to Eagle way too long. The man was both sexy and irritating; was it no wonder he lost his reserve when Eagle was around him?

And his temper. Yeah, he couldn’t forget that. Eagle set him off like nobody’s business.

Eagle slipped into the passenger seat and closed the door. The scent of soap and leather filled the space between them, and Link’s jeans grew tight.

The words he’d said to Eagle back there had been a fucking lie.

Link had been a coward and the lie had seemed like the best thing to say to move forward.

Only, it hadn’t moved them forward, and Eagle now wore a stone mask that drove him fucking nuts.

Eagle’s hooded gaze gave no indication of what he was feeling.

Link cleared his throat. “We need to hurry. SWAT is meeting us at the Carsons’ place.”

Eagle nodded and snapped his seatbelt and grabbed the door when Link punched it out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

“You do that just to give me a heart attack,” Eagle grumbled, but his tone wasn’t mad sounding, and it gave Link hope.

“A little blood pumping never did any harm.” Link cackled through his sigh of relief at the lack of anger in the man’s deep voice.

Eagle shook his head and braced a foot on the floorboard.

Rolling up to the scene ten minutes later, he parked behind the SWAT vehicle. Tactical officers stood around and Link approached.

“Who’s in charge?” Link said.

“That’d be me.” A tall, muscled officer came forward dressed in full tactical gear. “SWAT Commander Jones.”

“Agent Beckett,” Link said. “And we’re standing around because…”

“That,” Jones said and pointed.

Link spun and was faced with a ten-foot-high chain-link fence that surrounded about five hundred square feet of land.

Empty land. Like, a fucking empty corner lot.

“That’s the address?”

“Apparently. That’s the last address they lived at,” Jones said.

“Crap.”

Commander Jones nodded. “I have officers canvassing the area, trying to find out any details. Call us if you find another address.”

“Will do.”

The SWAT team loaded up and took off down the street, engine roaring. Link gazed around the neighborhood. Most of the homes on the street were in good condition, but there was the occasional one here and there that had overgrown lawns and broken-down cars. He squinted at the vacant corner lot.

“Whatcha thinking?”

“Are they living on the streets?”

“Could be. Parents are dead,” Eagle said with a nod.

“Officer?” a high, thin voice called from across the street. A woman stood there; stooped and gray with a cherry cane in her gnarled hands. She looked to be in her eighties.

“Yes, ma’am.” Eagle didn’t correct the woman and headed across the street. With their tactical gear and FBI badges, her calling them officers wasn’t a stretch.

“Are you looking for the Carsons?”

“Yes, we are,” Link said, stopping by Eagle’s side on the cracked sidewalk across from the vacant lot.

“That house had been going to hell for several years,” she said, and Link smothered a smile at her cursing. She reminded him of Eagle’s aunt, Mary.

“What do you mean?” Eagle said, and when the woman gestured to her narrow walkway and began moving slowly in that direction, Eagle cupped a hand beneath her elbow.

Eagle was a gentleman to his core. The trait was sewn into the marrow of his bones. He was slow talking, calm, and understanding. That was why Link was always taken aback when Eagle lost his temper. To be fair, Eagle hadn’t lost his temper in the motel room. And compared to their fight at the man’s aunt’s house last year…today had been nothing close.

They reached the end of the sidewalk and started up the walkway to her home.

Flowers threaded along the concrete path to the woman’s brightly colored home, painted in a sky-blue shade with pink trim, all with a white picket fence. He’d dreamed for a moment that he and Eagle would have the picket fence.

“I watched through the years as the house caved in. You need to replace the roof every once in a while, but Carson would rather drink than spend his money on that house or his boys.”

“When did they demolish the house?” Link asked when they reached her steps. She didn’t answer him until Eagle had guided her up the steps.

“Last year. Damned tractors woke me up out of my sleep.”

“What happened to the boys?”

“I don’t know. They were here that day, and then gone,” she said.

Link figured she’d just wanted to talk because she hadn’t said anything really all that useful.

“Thank you for your time,” Eagle said in a soft, rumbling voice, and she smiled up at him.

He and Eagle reached the end of her walkway before she called out.

“I did see the youngest boy, Tyler, when I was taking the bus downtown. He was standing outside of the homeless shelter on Second Street.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Eagle said, and Link would have sworn the guy would have tipped his hat if he had one, and that would have gone perfectly with that exaggerated sexy drawl.

“Jordan, you copy?” Link said into the comms.

“Go ahead,” Jordan responded.

“Can you check and see if Tyler was entered in the foster system?”

“Give me one…second…” Jordan drew out the words. A few moments went by.

“Yes, he was put into foster care once about six months ago, was there for two days, and disappeared.”

“Thanks, Jordan.”

Link turned to Eagle. “He probably went back to living with his brothers.”

“It can’t hurt to go by the homeless shelter on the way back,” Eagle said.

“No way we get that lucky.” Link snorted and slid behind the wheel.

“Stakeout?”

The last thing he wanted was to stay trapped in the cab with Eagle sitting next to him. It was bad enough when they spent a few minutes, but hours?

“Link?”

“Yeah, okay, we can stake it out until nightfall and then we get back to the bomb site,” he muttered. “But I need coffee first.”

“And fast food.”

“You can’t be hungry.” Link rolled his eyes and started the SUV. Eagle had eaten enough for five at the buffet this morning.

“I can’t?” Eagle laughed and shot him a glance, but Link kept his eyes on the road—struggling to get his dick under control at the sound of that deep chuckle.

No way in hell was he looking over.