The Price of Grace (Black Ops Confidential 2)

A short time later, he pulled up to the curb. The car door unlocked with a click. Yanking it open, she slid into the seat, strapped on her seat belt, and saw the jammer settled between them.

Her eyes rose and searched his. He shrugged. He’d saved her? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Well, grateful. And something else. Something she’d think about later. Right now, she was also really annoyed. He pulled away from the curb and began to drive.

She adjusted the vent toward her. “You put a tracker on me?”

“Inside your phone case. Last night at the bar.”

She closed her eyes. Hopefully disguising how much that hurt her feelings. And insulted her professional expertise. She knew he was after her family; how had she forgotten that? It was all that damn hotness and fun. And look where it had landed her.

Where had it landed her? Seated next to him in an air-conditioned car that smelled pleasantly of Dusty’s aftershave. Probably something called Ocean Breeze. She refocused on the jammer. “You ran interference?”

“Yeah.”

He wasn’t very chatty tonight. “I’m going to need you to stop tracking me.”

“I’m not sure I can agree—”

“Promise. Right now.”

He shifted in his seat. “Okay.”

That made her feel better. Stupid, but he sounded authentic. “I need to call my sister.”

“I saw your car take off. Not sure who was behind the wheel. She looked young.”

She leaned her head against the headrest. “She is. She doesn’t even have a license.”

His hands tensed around the steering wheel as the car slid to a stop at a light. He said nothing. Not chatty at all. She dialed Cee’s number.

Her sister picked up right away. “Gracie, are you okay?”

“Yeah. How’s the driving?”

“I can’t move the seat back, but it’s okay. I’m”—she paused as if checking something—“forty minutes from your club.”

“Okay. I’ll be there about forty minutes after you. Don’t talk on the phone and drive.”

She hung up.

Dusty accelerated with the light change and turned up the air conditioner. Felt great. She was drenched in sweat and stank of it. “Thanks.”

“I’ve got you.”

Now why did that comfort her? Like she wasn’t alone. Like he really cared. She closed her eyes, waited for him to say something, question her. He didn’t. He adjusted the radio to a country station, and they rode with the twangy music playing around them.

After a short time, he whispered, “It’s okay to sleep.”

The man was some kind of magician, or vigilante whisperer, because her body relaxed instantly, and she drifted off.

She woke later when she felt his warm fingers against her cheek. Her eyes blinked open. Her head was turned in his direction, and he was close enough to kiss. Smelled good enough to kiss. Like man, that Ocean Breeze, and heat.

As if hearing her thoughts or seeing them in her eyes, he leaned forward, kissed her lightly on her lips.

Fire shot through her body. Something in her called out for more. He pulled back, watched her. His sunburst eyes held her. There was kindness there. And more.

She had to know. “You didn’t ask. Not one question.”

His lips quirked, a little sadly. “I didn’t want to get into it. Not tonight. You know?”

Strangely, she did. She didn’t want to play the game either. The one where she lied and he lied. And they both pretended that the lies, even though the other knew they were lying, didn’t matter.

Without her permission, her heart softened a bit. “Thanks.” She swallowed, but her heart still felt too full. “For helping me. For not asking. Thanks.”

She moved toward him, toward those lips.

There was a knock on her window. His eyebrows lifted. Gracie turned. Cee.

Chapter 27

Stretched out under the plush white comforter of her bed, in a room with air conditioning set to arctic cold, Gracie blinked open crusty eyes. She had no desire to get up. Her handcrafted California king, a gift from Momma, was hard to leave on the best of days. Today wasn’t the best of days. Her body ached.

Mmm, the smell of pancakes and bacon. Her stomach grumbled. With her stiff arms complaining, she dragged off her summer-weight goose down, exposing her white tank top and green silk boxers.

She braced and wrenched herself out of bed. Her legs screamed. Her back screamed. Her butt screamed. Time to head back to the gym.

After going to the bathroom and splashing cold water over puffy eyes, she shambled out to her family room.

Cee had had to sleep on Gracie’s sofa. She felt bad about it, but she didn’t have an adult-sized bed in her other bedroom. Just a crib and tiny toddler bed shaped like a car.

The blanket and pillow she’d given Cee were folded and piled on the arm of the silver leaf couch. In the kitchenette, the white cabinets were ajar. Dishes, bowls, a frying pan, an egg carton, and pancake mix took up the limited counter space. Gracie usually cooked downstairs.

Cee had done the hard work of cooking over an electric stove with only two small burners. And then setting up all the food—orange juice, plates with pancakes and bacon—on the breakfast bar.

Cee sat on a swivel barstool, feet propped on the stool next to her. She was dressed in Gracie’s white cotton T-shirt, staring at her phone. Her hair was jet black, so dark the recessed lights made streaks of purple in it.

Gracie nudged Cee’s legs out of her way and sat next to her with a hiss escaping her mouth and a hot you suck from her thighs. “Good morning,” she said.

Cee lowered her phone. “What took you so long to get home last night?”

Oh, I don’t know. I was busy trying to avoid being captured. Gracie took a strip of overcooked bacon and began to chew. “Don’t cop an attitude.”

Cee’s sharp jaw extended as she pursed her lips. “I thought cop meant ‘police.’ Cop also means ‘to have’?”

Whoops. She kept forgetting English wasn’t the kid’s first language. “Yeah.” Gracie took a couple of the scorched pancakes and added them to the plate in front of her. “Where’s the syrup?”

Cee blinked at her. “I couldn’t find it.”

“It’s in there.” Gracie pointed at the fridge. “I can’t stand without shock waves, so do you mind?”

Cee got up, walked around the bar, and retrieved the syrup. She put it down and flounced back into her seat. “You might need some better conditioning.”

Said the kid who ran a quarter of what she did. Still, she hadn’t been to the gym in…well, since Tony. They’d trained together most weeks.

Gracie poured syrup on her pancakes. “You’re welcome for the rescue, by the way. Who were those people last night?”

Cee began to fill her own plate. The kid had been waiting for her to eat? Kind of sweet.

“Six months ago, the two men you saw drugged and brutally raped a girl. Someone who went to their college. She was lured by a friend, the girl you saw last night. That is their way. They use a girl to lure another. The girl who’d been raped tried to go through normal channels, but she was drunk and using that night. So that disqualifies her from humanity and justice.”

Gracie cut her pancake. “How’d you find out about her?” She put a piece of pancake into her mouth. Not bad.

“Someone who went to the Mantua Academy happened to know the girl. She told Jules about the case. When I heard about it, I did some research. I organized the mission.”

Jules. Another sibling. She and Cee were in the same unit—so they trained, learned, shared a hall, formed a bond. And though Cee was acting like it was all her idea, she doubted that was true. Cee didn’t have the computer skills to pull this off. More likely it was her, Jules, and Jules’s twin, Romeo. Swallowing another bite, she said

, “That’s against the rules.”

“Research showed the victim had filed a police report. The police had interviewed her. It seemed it would move forward, but then was dismissed. My research also uncovered more. The proof I left on the floor of that house. This is not, how you say, a single incident.”