Part 13 (1/2)
Shay walked beside him, but her kicks were no doubt dragging. ”You're expecting a lot on faith from me. You tell me we need to make a quick stop before you take me back to work, but you won't tell me where or why.”
”Will it help if I tell you this involves your teens?”
She looked up at him sharply, the morning sun glinting off her golden brown hair sc.r.a.ped back in a short ponytail. ”Okay, you've hooked me, but my trust only goes so far. I'm not going on some cross-country junket with you.”
With those few words, he wanted to take her up in a plane. He could see it, her adventurous spirit, winging this earth girl up to touch the heavens. But not now. Probably never. ”We're only going to sit in the plane and have a conversation with some important people.”
She shaded her eyes with her hand, looking ahead to the innocuous-looking plane. ”Who are the other guys inside?”
”A few of my friends.”
Her arm fell to her side. ”Did you hook up with some others for your road trip?”
”Could you hold your questions for fifteen minutes? Then I will answer anything you ask.”
About the mission, anyway.
His past was as off-limits now as it had been then. As a teen, she wanted to use him to get back at her father. If she got to know him better now, she would see what a mess he was inside, always wondering if today would be the day he stepped over the edge like his own father. He liked to think he'd channeled his inherited aggression into his job. He got to push boundaries, break rules even, all for a positive result that wouldn't land him in a military prison.
Walking across the tarmac toward the parked plane, she had a regal way about her, even in jeans, long legs slowing with each step.
He needed to throw her a line. ”I have some people who want to meet with you about your upcoming congressional testimony.”
Her brown eyes widened. ”How are you tied in with that? Have you been tapped to testify, too, as a success story about making it out of that kind of life? You're certainly a poster child for someone who's pulled himself up by his bootstraps.”
”Biker bootstraps, huh? Guess the image works.”
”Don't laugh this off. You have a chance to witness to these teens.” She grabbed his forearm, her touches so rare it more than caught his attention. ”I may have problems with my father, but I respect what he's done for kids. He didn't save them all. No one can. But lives changed because of what he did.”
”Believe me, I know that. But that's not what we're all here for.” He offered her his hand to steady her on her way into the plane.
She ignored his hand and hauled herself inside.
Vince gestured to his three workmates inside the aircraft, all wearing civilian clothes. ”Their hideous fas.h.i.+on taste aside, these are top-notch guys from my squadron, and in spite of the casual shorts, we're not here on vacation.” He palmed Shay's back as he guided her to the copilot's seat. ”Guys, this is Shay Ba.s.sett. Shay, the guy in the Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt is Jimmy.” He pointed to his lanky friend folded too tightly into a seat in front of a monitor. ”He's a pilot, too.”
She stayed quiet, her pert nose scrunched in confusion.
He pointed to his somber pal behind a computer screen. ”Berg is a top-notch navigator and fire control officer. He's a man of many talents, although right now he's knee-deep in seeing what your teens are up to on Facebook.” He gestured to the last guy, lounging back in a pink s.h.i.+rt. Somehow the player managed to make the color work for him. ”And Smooth is our flight engineer. He monitors engine health. In a pinch he's one h.e.l.luva loadmaster.”
Smooth winked, leaning forward to extend a hand. ”Pleased to meet you, Miss Ba.s.sett.”
Jimmy clapped Smooth on the back. ”How's your girlfriend? I enjoyed meeting her last time we were back in Vegas.”
Smooth just laughed and leaned back. Vince gestured for Shay to sit while he took his place at the keyboard, bringing the screen to life with an empty room. Don Ba.s.sett strode across the monitor image, their gateway to the teleconfer ence where all would be revealed soon enough.
Shay stiffened in that way Vince had come to realize was customary when her father showed up, even if only a virtual arrival. She shot Vince a tight-lipped look before gluing her attention to the screen.
Could she resent her dad because of the problems between her parents that seemed to have started long before their divorce? He didn't consider himself ber in touch with his feelings, but he'd once dated a woman who had what she'd called ”abandonment issues” because her father walked out. Those issues of hers had made for plenty of problems between them whenever he had had to go dark and couldn't call her for a few days.
These days, it wasn't unusual to go dark for weeks.
Not that he was looking for a relations.h.i.+p with Shay. He just couldn't figure her out, which frustrated the h.e.l.l out of him. He liked answers, order, fixing puzzles and engines.
For her safety, he needed to ignore the attraction and focus on the job.
Don took his seat as the Fed they'd been working with entered the room as well. She stepped up to the microphone. ”Good morning, gentlemen. h.e.l.lo, Miss Ba.s.sett, it's nice to finally meet you face-to-face, even if long distance. My name is Special Agent Paulina Wilson. I'm with the FBI, and we believe you could be the target of a terrorist attack.”
TEN.
Two hours later, Shay walked toward her car, working like crazy to keep her temper from exploding and to keep from falling to her knees in abject terror.
Barely, just barely, her steps stayed even with Vince's on her way across the community center's parking lot to get her car. She'd held her silence so far, but she wasn't sure how much longer she could seal the lid on her feelings if she didn't get away from Vince very soon.
For days, he and her father had been keeping her in the dark about an unthinkable danger lurking. She'd been deluding herself by imagining Vince might be here to put the past to rest, to make peace.
To reconnect with her.
Her feet pounded the steaming asphalt even harder.
Idiot.
All those warm fuzzy moments of sharing back in the hotel had meant nothing to him. He'd simply been distracting her to keep her off track until it suited him to bring her in the loop.
And oh G.o.d, if she started thinking about possible terror attacks at that hearing, she would hyperventilate.
Vince's arm shot in front of her to stop her, his eyes shaded behind bada.s.s wraparound sungla.s.ses. ”All right, spill it. What's p.i.s.sing you off? And don't bother denying it. I'm developing a BS-ometer of my own.”
She pivoted on her ridiculous gladiator sandals she'd put on with him in mind. Only a dozen more steps, and she would have been home free, cranking her car for her big escape. ”I have no intention of denying a thing. I was only paying you the common courtesy of not blasting you in front of your work friends.”
”None of them are here now. Blast away.”
She hadn't expected him to agree. Shay looked around to make sure n.o.body was listening, privacy ramping up to a whole new level. Other than a few stray cars and the old lady across the street painting over the side of her white brick building, everyone else must be sleeping in on Sat.u.r.day morning.
But still. ”Let's sit in my car.”
Striding away, she thumbed the Unlock b.u.t.ton, Vince's biker boots thudding behind her. She settled behind the wheel, waiting until Vince slid into the pa.s.senger seat, folding his bulk into her compact. She considered turning on the engine and cranking the AC, but the morning hadn't heated up the inside yet. Vince waved for her to continue.
”So you and your friends are some kind of special flyers,” she blurted. What the h.e.l.l? She wanted to know more about the threat, about her kids, not about him.
He paused, obviously measuring his words.
”d.a.m.n it, Vince.” She lowered her voice if not her anger. ”I get that there's a big investigation going on, and I'm supposed to help the Feds by spilling my guts about these teens after I've spent years doing everything I can to get them to trust me. But I'm still a little confused on what you're doing here.”
He thumbed the cracked dashboard. ”My friends and I are pitching in with surveillance. We belong to a test squadron that brings new aircraft and equipment into the military's a.r.s.enal. Sometimes we're called upon to use those toys in conjunction with other governmental venues.”
”Like my CIA daddy.”