Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

The information on Cass’s screen wasn’t anything she hadn’t been expecting but seeing it there had a ball of fear forming in her belly.

She looked up and found Irish watching her intently, the question in his eyes easy to interpret. “The car was stolen, but the person who owned it filed a police report. She said that both the perpetrators had tattoos on their hands.”

“The cartel tattoo?”

“Yep. She thought the circle around two diamonds design quite interesting.”

He snorted. “Wonder what she’d think about it if she knew what it actually symbolized.”

“Probably freak out.” Somehow joking with Irish eased a little of Cass’s fear, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that the cartel now had a picture of her.

“Or demand that the police do something to rid them out of the world,” he said.

“Maybe.” She refocused on the screen, wishing there was a way to find out who those people were. “I need to find them,” she muttered, pulling up her access to the traffic cameras.

“Why?”

Cass arched an eyebrow at Irish’s question. “Why do you think? If we can find them, then maybe, they’ll lead us to where Gomez is.”

“I doubt he’s here. I’m sure he’s still in Mexico. Whoever these goons were, they were tasked with a job and have fulfilled it.”

Those were the words she didn’t want to hear, even though they were likely true. Why couldn’t she have gotten a better parent lottery? One where she wasn’t connected to a horrible family?

Who was to say that her genetic lottery would’ve been any better if she hadn’t been born into the Ramirez family?

“You’re probably right, but if we can find who these guys are, then we can at least keep an eye on them.”

“This is true. What can I do to help?” Irish asked .

“You could get me some food. I’m starved.”

“Pizza?”

“Yeah, that works.” Cass turned her attention back to the screen as he retreated to order food.

Was it wrong of her to treat him as if he was her servant? Because that was basically what she’d done, but she needed him out of the office to make this phone call.

One she’d been putting off for a while now. However, she needed to make it, if she wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery of her missing two years.

The question was, would her “mother and father” answer her truthfully? No wait, they weren’t her parents, they’d been her care givers. Her watch team.

What did it matter what they were? They’d done what they’d been assigned to do, and Cass supposed she should be grateful they hadn’t been awful toward her. Resentful that they’d been lumped with this kid who wasn’t theirs.

She grabbed her cell and dialed the number she’d assumed she’d never ring again. Funny how their number was imprinted into her mind, as though it had been burned into her brain cells.

“Cassandra, I’ve been expecting your call.” Agent Sue Whitehall’s voice was as crisp as always .

The way she’d answered her call hadn’t surprised Cass at all.

“Hi, Mo—um, if you were expecting my call, I guess someone from the company contacted you about what I’ve been doing.”

No point in beating around the bush. Cass wanted answers, and Sue Whitehall had never been one for banal chitchat.

A sigh sounded down the line, as though her “mother”—heck changing that mindset about the woman wasn’t going to be easy—cared about her and what she was feeling. If that was the case, then she could’ve told her who she really was when Cass was old enough to understand.

“They did. I’m not sure I can give you anymore answers than the ones you’ve probably found.”

Cass snorted. “Answers? You think I have all the answers I want and need? There was nothing but the basics in that file, and you know it. Same with the one that detailed the operation of how I was kidnapped by the United States government and used as a pawn for a mission that went pear shaped from the beginning.” The bitterness was hard to keep out of her voice and honestly, she didn’t care that her mother heard it.

What did her mom think? That she’d be happy with the breadcrumbs she’d been given ?

If she did, she didn’t know Cass at all. Which wasn’t a surprise really.

“I can’t give you any more. You were assigned to Hal and me, and we did what we had to do. You didn’t want for anything, and you got a good education. More than what you might have gotten had you stayed with your real father.”

Anger and sadness slammed into her with equal force. Anger that this woman believed they had given Cass everything she’d needed. Material things—yes. Emotional support—a big fat zero.

Not to mention, dissing her father. Sure, Cass might not have known the man, but she’d read the surveillance reports associated operation, and it had listed all the times her father had taken her with him. Also, there were the vague memories she had of him hugging and laughing with her.

The anger trailed into sadness because she’d never know if her real father had loved her like her memories and the reports suggested.

Arguing with her “mother” about what she thought was a waste of time. Cass’s skin crawled.

“I’m not going to engage with you about that, but I want to know what happened to me between the ages of six and eight. From the time I was taken—no, that’s not right— kidnapped from home to the first day of third grade. My first childhood memory.”

Silence met her demand, and it dragged on for so long, Cass convinced herself the call had dropped, but she checked the screen and the call was still connected so she quashed that idea.

“Mother, what do you know that you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing,” the woman eventually said. “I know nothing. Two days after we called into our supervisor’s office, we brought you to our house. I don’t know what happened prior to that.”

Could she believe Sue?

Cass wished she was having the conversation in person and not over the phone. At least if she were sitting opposite Sue, Cass could search for small tells that would suggest her “mom” was lying. Or only giving a half truth.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Then that’s on you because I’m telling you the truth.”

Cass laughed harshly. “How can I trust that when you’ve lied to me my whole life?”

“That’s something only you can work out. But I am telling you the truth. I don’t know where you were or what you did from the time you were picked up to the time you were presented to us.”

Somehow, deep down, she believed her. Believed her “mom” didn’t know. Which meant the phone call was a waste of time.

“I would say it’s been good talking to you, but that would be a lie. And lying isn’t what I do,” Cass snarled down the line, unable to keep her emotions under control.

“I do wish I could help you,” Sue said quietly. “You are a remarkable woman, Cassandra. I am proud of you and to know you.”

The call disconnected before Cass could say anything else. Shock from the parting words doused the anger seething inside her.

She’d almost sounded…sincere. The last thing expected from Sue Whitehall.

Maybe she really had meant what she’d said. She’d never know because she had no plans to ever speak to the woman again.

Irish stood outside Cass’s office, wanting to go in and support her but understanding she needed to do have the conversation by herself.

From the second he’d walked up to her office and heard her talking, it’d taken him all of two seconds to work out to whom she was speaking.

From the one side he heard, it sounded as though Cass wasn’t getting the answers she wanted. Perhaps it would be better for her not to know what happened to her in those two intervening years.

Better not to know what the CIA had put her through. Better to let the memories stay hidden because once they were unlocked, they couldn’t be shoved back inside.

When the silence had lasted longer than a pause between one person speaking and the other responding, he strolled into the office. “Pizza will be here in twenty. I also ordered some garlic bread.”

Cass glanced over her shoulder at him. “Okay.”

The deep furrow line between her eyes had him moving. Once Irish reached her seat, he placed his hands on her shoulders and massaged them. The muscles beneath his fingers were tight.

She carried so much stress. If only he could take it away for her .

What was more burden on his shoulders than what he already carried?

“Have you had any luck?” he asked as he kept up the pressure.

“Yeah, I put in the intersection before we turned off, and once I’d found our car and got an eye on theirs, I was able to follow it all the way to a rundown-looking house near Skid Row.”

Skid Row, the area Astrid had been when she’d come across members of the Ramirez cartel arguing and, eventually, eliminating someone who’d thought he could best the cartel.

Stupid mistake—no one bested the cartel, but they would. Irish would ensure that everyone in the Ramirez cartel would know Cass was off limits, and if they even tried to come close to her, he’d make them pay.

“I’m guessing you’ve passed the address onto Ox?” he asked, intentionally keeping his voice light.

“Yeah, I sent him a message. He said he was going to send Deal and Hound to check the place out.”

At least they had extra hands now to be able to watch over the scum who’d taken Cass’s photo.

“Good.” He patted her shoulders, since they weren’t quite as tense as they had been, but if he didn’t get her away from this desk, what little release he’d achieved would be gone in a flash. “You’ve done as much as you can tonight. Let’s go sit and watch a movie or something.”

She threw him a look as if he’d sprouted an extra head.

Her disbelief wasn’t too much of a shock. Not once had Irish ever suggested they sit and watch something together. Then again, it wasn’t as if they’d spent a lot of time together.

After their one night so long ago, he’d put as much distance as possible between him and Cass, but he’d been drawn to her anyway and now that her past was closing in on her, he had no plans to leave her alone to face it by herself.

“You want to watch a movie?” she asked, her delicate eyebrow even higher than before.

Irish chuckled. “Yeah. Or we could see if a game is on tonight. I don’t care what. Baseball. Basketball. Ice Hockey. Football. Racquet ball. Whatever.”

“So long as it’s got ball in it, you’ll watch it?”

“Ice hockey has a puck, not a ball.”

Cass laughed, and it warmed his soul to know he’d been able to drag her from her dark thoughts.

“Semantics. I have no idea what sports ball is on at the moment.”

“We don’t need to watch sports. We can do whatever you want. After all, it’s your house. You control the remote.”

Now both brows rose. “Really? You’re going to let me put on whatever I want?”

“Yep.” Honestly, Irish didn’t care what they watched. The purpose of the exercise was to get her away from the computer and to make her forget all about her conversation with her mother.

Also, it could be helpful to distract her from calling him out on not finishing the conversation they’d been having at the beach. Although, he’d eventually have to have it with her. He could trust her with the truth.

Beeping came from Cass’s phone, and he stilled his hand going to his side when it hit him that he’d put his gun in her gun safe when they’d come home from the beach.

“It’s okay. It’s just the pizza guy.” Cass patted his arm as she drifted past him and headed toward the front of her house.

What would’ve happened if it hadn’t been the pizza guy?

What if it had been the cartel coming to claim her, and he didn’t have a weapon on him?

Sure, Irish had hand-to-hand combat skills and could kill a man many different ways with his bare hands, but a gun was more effective and he could eliminate more enemies with a few bullets than he could with his hands.

He vowed right then and there that he’d always have a weapon on him. Whether it be a gun strapped to his ankle. Or a knife sheathed to his calf.

Irish wouldn’t leave Cass vulnerable to a possible attack ever again.