Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 51

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

T hey drove back to Quentin Savage’s townhouse in separate vehicles. She could see Cas’s headlights as he followed her.

At the complex, she pulled on the long blonde wig and dashed through the incessant rain that seemed to have followed them from one coast to the other. She was getting heartily sick of the disguises and subterfuge, not to mention the weather. She wanted to bring Scanlon in for questioning or at least knock him off his game by confronting him and seeing what he did when he saw her alive. Force him to make a mistake.

But tugging a tiger’s tail when they still didn’t have any proof was a bad idea, especially when his seven-year-old daughter was the person who might be on the receiving end of any retaliation.

It was well after midnight as they headed inside the door.

They tossed their bags in the entranceway and closed the door on the wet night. Cas grabbed her hand and spun her up against the wall. Then he lowered his mouth slowly to hers, and she melted on impact.

His hands were undoing the buttons on her shirt when her cell rang.

She pulled away reluctantly. “I have to get that.”

“Let them call back. ”

She laughed and considered it for a second. Then she dug into her pocket, and Cas rested his forehead against the wall and cursed in Spanish.

“It’s Yael. Let me quickly see what she wants. Hello?”

“Delilah? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Why?”

“You haven’t heard?”

At the other woman’s tone Delilah straightened away from the wall. Cas watched her like a sparrowhawk. “Heard what?”

“Nicole Zimmerman was shot to death outside the hospital where her husband worked.”

Delilah reached out for the wall and found herself being supported by Cas’s strong arms. He maneuvered them to the couch, and she put the call on speaker. “When?”

“Around five. I know you were out there. I saw your cell signal data. What happened?”

Delilah looked at Cas, whose yellow eyes were shining with concern.

How she’d missed him.

“I went out there to try to talk her out of sending her daughter to Louisiana because I thought the kid might be in danger. I never imagined—” She covered her mouth as the horror of what had happened swept over her. “She was pregnant.”

“I know.” Yael sounded shocked.

“What about the husband?”

“He found her. Rushed her into the ER, which was only feet away, but it was already too late. What did she say to you?”

“She seemed to think we were overreacting, but we should have been more forceful. She didn’t think Scanlon was a genuine threat. She was looking forward to her Hawaiian vacation too much to even stop and contemplate she might be in danger.” Delilah squeezed her eyes shut.

“There’s a task force meeting at 9 a.m. at SIOC to discuss this latest development.”

She opened her eyes at that. “What about the little girl? A lot can happen overnight.” Delilah could hear the noises of what sounded like a TV in the background of the call.

“We can’t do anything about the kid. I have both Scanlon brothers on video at the airport picking her up when she arrived. He had a meeting with his parole officer before then, and his brother was with him the whole time. All very public and on camera in several places. I believe local cops plan to inform him about his ex-wife’s death first thing in the morning.”

“That sonofabitch is already well aware.” Delilah knew it was him. Knew it as surely as she knew the color of Cas’s unusual yellow eyes. “He set this up. He’s collaborating with someone?—”

“I agree. I’m working on it, I promise.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.” She cradled her forehead. “You should be enjoying your weekend.”

“So should you. I’ll call you in the morning. Alex wants me at the meeting as I’m in DC anyway.”

“What about me?”

There were a few seconds of awkward silence. “Trainer didn’t mention you. Right now, he doesn’t know where you were today. Nor Demarco. You should both try to keep it that way.”

Delilah sighed, her frustration audible.

“I’ll keep you in the loop. You just promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“Define stupid?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Oh, one thing. Scanlon’s brother has a pilot’s license like you suspected. The family business has a Cessna 414A registered to it, but the plane didn’t go out yesterday. I checked. I am looking into where it’s been flown recently, but records aren’t centralized. Shane thinks Scanlon could easily have learned to fly a plane like that in the Navy. Alex had me try to hack his Naval records, but I haven’t managed yet.”

“Don’t we have access to them?”

“That’s not the point,” Yael said wryly.

It was scary how this group operated. Thank goodness they were on her side .

“Joseph has groomed his brother to be the perfect replica so that when he got out, he could easily move around while pretending to be Virgil.”

“An identical twin would be a useful commodity for most would-be criminals,” Yael agreed. There was a murmur of conversation in the background. “Shane says tell Demarco ‘Hi’ by the way.”

“Tell Shane Demarco says he better treat you like a princess.”

“Ha. Well, this princess needs some beauty sleep, which are not words I have ever uttered at this time of night before but, you know, coffee deprivation.”

“Thanks again for the call.”

“You betcha.”

Yael hung up, and Delilah collapsed over her thighs, holding back tears. Nicole Zimmerman hadn’t been a fan of hers and hadn’t expressed a lot of empathy at her supposed death, but it didn’t change the fact that Nicole shouldn’t have died today. Nor her unborn baby.

The FBI had known about the potential danger. Now that little girl had lost her mother. Why hadn’t Trainer put Nicole and the kid in protective custody?

Because Nicole wouldn’t have gone willingly, and Scanlon had an alibi for every murder—except hers and David’s.

“It’s not your fault, Delilah.” Cas rubbed his hand over her spine. “You tried. Even when other people didn’t think Nicole was in danger and ordered you not to get involved, you went to her and tried to make her understand.”

Her brain felt fuzzy with exhaustion and defeat. “He’s running circles around us, and we’re following the crumbs and failing to find any definitive proof.”

“We’ll get our proof. He’s not infallible. He’ll have made a mistake. But you know it takes time. We have to do it properly, so he goes to prison and stays there this time.”

“He’s smart enough to have a solid alibi every time someone he has a grudge against dies. He hasn’t even breeched the terms of his parole as far as the law is concerned.”

“We’ll find the holes in his alibi. The task force and Parker’s company are going to find the evidence we need to make the case. We already know he’s involved. We simply need to figure out who is working with him.”

The wait was frustrating, especially now that a child was on the field of play.

“That poor little kid.”

Cas’s arms squeezed her. She knew he felt it too.

“Did we ever get the list of ex-cons who were tight with him in prison and were recently released?” she asked sitting up.

“I don’t know, but right now you and I are going to get some sleep and regroup in the morning.”

She shot to her feet and began pacing. “I can’t sleep. I have so much energy racing through my system there’s no way I can sleep.”

“Fine.” He climbed slowly to his feet, and she watched him stalk her like a predator hunted prey.

She narrowed her gaze at him. “What are you?—?”

She yelped when he hoisted her over his shoulder and marched her into the bedroom and then dropped her carefully onto the bed.

“Are you serious, right?—”

He grabbed her ankles and pulled her to the end of the bed. Tugged off her boots. Socks. Pants that he had to peel down her legs, along with her Glock 23, which he carefully placed on the bedside table. The fight went out of her. She lay there looking up at him. Quiet now. Staring at this beautiful man who’d risked his career for her today.

She knew what that meant to him.

He dragged the long sleeve T-shirt he wore over his head and tossed it aside. Then watched her eyes as his hands went to his pants buttons.

“You were saying? ”

She couldn’t remember what she’d been saying. She only knew she wanted to forget everything that had happened today.

“Nothing.” She shook her head and watched him. She wanted to etch the memory of his face, his body, his passion on her soul in case he left her again. She blocked the thought. Like so many others right now, it was too unbearable.

“Make love to me, Cas.”

His expression was sober as he came down over her. “I always do, Lilah.” He kissed her lips. “I always do.”