Chapter Eight

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Marise sat at the desk in Slade's lake house and stared at the face of a dead man. Or rather she stared at his photo anyway.

Not Rosa.

It was Stephanie's lover, Carlyle Hutton.

The man had died from a single gunshot wound to the chest and had then been dumped in a shallow grave about twenty miles outside of San Antonio. It was a rural area that apparently didn't get a lot of traffic so his body hadn't been spotted for nearly two weeks.

At least that was the initial estimate from SAPD.

Which meant Hutton was never actually a missing person but rather a murdered one.

Marise felt plenty of relief that it wasn't Rosa's body that'd been found, but the relief didn't extend to Rosa himself since the colonel was still missing. And after Sonny's phone call, Marise had to believe that along with Slade and her, Sonny also had the colonel in his sights as well.

While Slade paced and had yet another phone conversation—this time with Officer Lopez from SAPD—Marise read through the latest report Ruby had just sent them. Slade had told Spock to put it on the huge wall monitor, probably so he could scan through it while he talked to Lopez.

Hutton's photo was front and center.

Not of his body but rather of the last known picture taken of him that Ruby had managed to cull from the network of various cameras throughout San Antonio. This shot had been caught by a traffic cam and showed Hutton behind the wheel of his white BMW.

Very much alive.

And perhaps heading to the Rosa's house.

Perhaps.

Hutton was certainly on the correct street to get him to that particular destination, but apparently when the cops had questioned Stephanie, she'd claimed Hutton hadn't visited her on that particular day.

Marise figured the woman was lying.

And with Ruby's timeline, Marise could piece together what she thought might have happened. Hutton had arrived at the Rosa's, there'd then been some kind of altercation that'd left Hutton dead. An altercation the colonel had likely witnessed and one that Sonny might have been responsible for creating.

Unfortunately, Ruby hadn't been able to locate Rosa or Sonny to ask them about that. Nor had she been able to confirm the exact timing of Sonny's visit to see the colonel. Of course, they only had Stephanie's word that such a visit had happened. There were no traffic cameras near the house to either confirm it or prove that Stephanie had been lying about that as well.

Marise continued to scan through the report and stopped when she saw a familiar name. Annalisa Hutton, Carlyle's wife. She wasn't surprised that SAPD was questioning Annalisa about her husband's murder. After all, if Annalisa knew about her husband's affair with Stephanie, that was motive.

Motive for Rosa, too.

Maybe even Julian if he had been protecting his boss from either a scandal or some kind of confrontation from Hutton.

Of course, Stephanie would be questioned as well, especially now that the cops knew about the affair. Ruby had seen to that.

Marise went on to the next report from the obviously efficient and thorough Ruby. In this one, Ruby had ruled out any connection between Colonel Rosa's disappearance and Wally Neville, the veteran who'd befriended Rosa and then abruptly left Patriots' Retreat. Ruby had learned that Wally's sister was having some serious domestic problems with her spouse and had left to help her.

So, that was one puzzle solved.

However, the next report did no solving whatsoever. Somehow, Ruby had gotten access to Rosa's recent medical tests. The ones that'd been done on him after he'd been admitted to the hospital. The lab had found nothing. No drugs of any kind.

Of course, that didn't mean there hadn't been something in the glass of water. It simply meant it was no longer detectable in Rosa's system by the time he'd gotten to the hospital.

Marise stopped reading when she heard Slade finish his phone call, and she swiveled around in the chair to face him. Judging from his expression, he didn't have good news.

"No one saw Rosa leave the hospital," Slade spelled out for her. "But Rosa did manage to get a neighbor to confirm that Sonny did visit the Rosa house, and the neighbor believes it was the same day that Stephanie had the colonel admitted to Patriot's Retreat."

So, it was all connected. Then again, Marise had figured it had to be if the visit had actually happened.

"This neighbor is reliable?" Marise had to ask.

"Ruby believes he is. His house is across the street from the Rosa's, and he was home that day. Across a very wide street with his house set far back on a large lot," Slade emphasized. "Which means the neighbor didn't hear the sound of a gunshot."

Too bad about that because if he had heard, that could point to Hutton having been murdered at the Rosa's. And that might or might not have happened during that visit from Sonny.

"I'm guessing the cops want to talk to Sonny about Hutton's murder?" Marise asked.

"Oh, yeah," Slade confirmed. He went to her and sank down on the chair beside her. "About that and the attack on us. If Sonny's smart, he'll go underground until some of the heat dies down."

She agreed, but Marise had also heard what Slade hadn't said. "But you don't think he'll do that. You believe Sonny will come after us."

Slade nodded. Then, cursed. "Spock, access the most recent file on Sonny McKenna."

The screen went blank for a second, and when it popped back on, Hutton's picture was gone, and Sonny's was in its place.

"Ruby has ruled out that Sonny is staying with the handful of people he considers friends," Slade explained, touching the screen to scroll down to possible locations. One of them jumped out at her.

Stronghold compound.

The place where Slade and his brothers had been raised and where their mother had died.

"You really think Sonny would go back there?" she asked.

Slade lifted his shoulder. "Most residents have a strong distrust of cops. Added to that, there aren't many phones or ways to communicate with the outside world. Still, if he's there, he's probably lurking somewhere outside the actual compound. Jericho is checking that as we speak," he tacked onto that.

She hadn't expected that last part of the explanation. "Jericho's back from his mission?"

"Back and ready to pitch in and help now that he has his fiancée, Rachel, tucked away safely at the training facility with Caroline." He turned to her. "You could stay there as well."

"So could you," she pointed out.

That resulted in a staring contest that ended with her sigh. "Look, I know I'm not a trained operative, but it doesn't feel right to put all of this on you. Sonny has his own bone to pick with me, something separate from whatever his deal is with Rosa. Separate, too, from the son he wants to avenge."

Slade kept his attention pinned to her. "And the bone he picks with you could lead to an attack. With gunfire. With you possibly getting hurt or worse. Or with you having a full-blown panic attack."

She'd already considered all of that. Every crappy bit of it. The panic attack was always on her radar. Always stalking her like some demon hitchhiker from the deepest level of hell. It was relentless. Ready to strike at any moment.

And Marise was tired of catering to the greedy bastard.

"It's a pisser needing to do the right thing and worrying that you'll royally screw it up because of old baggage," she muttered.

He nodded, leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. "Your old baggage has solid roots. You saw and experienced too much shit."

"So did you," she was quick to point out. "And you don't have panic attacks."

"No. I just stew in my own juices while it eats away at me."

The confession hit her right in the gut. Hell. She didn't want this for him. For either of them. They'd just been doing their jobs.

Jobs they'd failed at that one time.

But one time was all it took.

The images came, avalanching toward her. The stench of blood. The heat. The bleached-out sand rubbing her skin raw.

And the bodies.

So many of them.

Slade's team of Combat Rescue Officers, CROs, and some combat medics, including her, had arrived on the scene in time. They'd been in place to get the survivors to a waiting Pave Hawk chopper. Then, it'd gone to hell in a handbasket with another attack.

No survivors after that.

Some more casualties, too, with one of the combat medics and a CRO.

Marise couldn't fight off the images of Slade and her being pinned down. With the sounds of the fight all around them. Him, trying to shield her, and her trying to do the same to him. That had gone on for more than an hour. Sixty-plus minutes of time where the images, sights and sounds had imprinted on every part of her body.

But Slade had imprinted, too.

He'd been there with her. Had stopped her from totally losing it. Had anchored her so she could live. Then, she'd had to return the favor when he'd gotten hit, and she'd used her medical training to save him.

Marise latched onto that now.

Not the shitstorm. Not the hellish sixty-plus minutes. But the ending of it.

"I didn't panic after the attack," she said, and Marise knew he understood what she was talking about.

Not Sonny shooting at them. But the other attack that'd happened thousands of miles from here.

"You didn't," he verified. "You ended up stitching up my side then." He managed a slight smile. "And my ass."

"Your fine, superior ass," she qualified. She enjoyed the flutter in her stomach from the light moment, but it didn't last. "I think if I'm in a situation like that again, I won't panic."

Maybe that was wishful thinking, but Marise wanted to hold onto the belief that if it came down to it, she, too, could be a hero.

"Who knows, I might get the chance to stitch your other ass cheek," she managed to say.

He did that almost smile thing again and continued to look at her as if trying to figure out what to say or do to keep her safe. There was nothing he could do that wasn't already being done. If Sonny was hellbent on coming after her, then it didn't matter where she was, he would find a way to get to her.

She reached out and touched his mouth. Just a brush of her fingertips over his lips. "I would kiss you now—and God, I need some TLC kind of kiss—but you and I both know it wouldn't stay in the TLC wheelhouse."

His nod was quick. "Is that a threat or a promise?"

Marise laughed. "Both," they said in unison.

Slade was the one who continued. "I have this argument with myself a lot whenever I'm around you. Kiss Marise and cross a line that can't be uncrossed. Then, I have to remind myself why the line crossing would be bad."

"Same here," she admitted.

And she felt the heat begin to stir.

Heat that trailed down from her mouth to the center of her body.

"Sometimes, like now, I have a hard time remembering… everything," she settled for saying.

Everything in a nutshell was that need for friendship. But there was another component to this resistance, too.

"Roots and wings," she reminded him. It was something Slade always brought up, and he considered it the main barrier to him ever having a relationship that lasted more than a month or two. "I've got the first. You've got the second. Hard to make things work when one stays put and the other is gone more often than not."

They'd had this discussion so many times that Marise knew it was time for Slade to make his usual sound of agreement.

But he didn't.

"I used to believe that," he said instead. "Then, Jericho hooked up again with his first love. Rachel's as grounded as… you are. Jericho is still with Maverick Ops."

Marise frowned. "And they make it work?"

"They do."

Those two words repeated in her head while she stared at him, and she felt some crumbling of the barrier they'd put up between them. A barrier that likely needed to stay in place because there was still that whole friendship aspect of it. But even that, as potent as it was, didn't stop her from leaning in.

This time, she didn't use her fingers to touch his lips.

She used her mouth.

Despite the alarm bells going off in her head, she sank right into the kiss. And Slade did some sinking of his own.

He made a sound, part protest, part grumble, and it came from deep within his throat. If she'd relied just on that sound, Marise would have thought he was ready to put a quick stop to this.

But nope.

Just the opposite.

His hand went around the back of her neck, and he hauled her closer. In a flash, he took the kiss out of the semi-friendly, semi-hot zone and all the way to scalding. Leave it to Slade to accomplish something like that.

Her body was mighty pleased with his reaction. With the hunger she felt inside him because it matched her own hunger. Her own need for him.

He moved his mouth over hers as if he knew every one of her erotic zones. He was clever and didn't just use his mouth either. His hand slid down her throat and to the front of her shirt.

That need skyrocketed when he deepened the kiss. When she tasted him. And when that taste raced through her like wildfire.

So, this was what it was like to be swept away on a tide of heat. No cares. No doubts. No regrets. Those very well might come later, but for now, it was all about the heat, the need and the possibility of what might come next.

Her body wanted sex to be next, and she wanted it now.

But thankfully, there was still just a glimmer of sanity left, and that glimmer reminded her of something huge.

No, not that part of him that she thought might already be straining against the zipper of his jeans.

But rather his injuries.

Yeah, those.

Slade had been beat to hell and back, and he had stitches. This couldn't be good… she lost the train of thought when he flicked his tongue over her bottom lip just as his thumb did the same to her right nipple.

Oh, the pleasure of it all. So consuming. So demanding.

Still, she fought for some sanity right along with her breath. Slade had robbed her of both of those things, and the robbing continued when he hooked his uninjured arm around her waist and pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap.

All in all, a good place to be for her to feel all that straining going on in his zipper region. If she'd had any doubts about how much he wanted her, that would have rid her of them. The want was there. He was primed and ready. And she might have said to hell with it and unzipped him.

But the sound stopped her.

"You have a visitor at the gate, and he's requesting admittance," Spock announced in his flat tone. A real contrast to the furnace war going on inside her.

"Who the hell is it?" Slade snapped.

"Image is on the screen," the AI program supplied.

Even though her vision was a little hazy, Marise turned and looked at the screen. So did Slade.

And there he was.

Colonel Rosa.

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