"Thanks." He swallowed half the juice in one gulp. "Honestly, I'm not sure how to begin."

"I'd suggest the beginning," Dallas said, leaning back and extending his feet even while keeping his eyes on the other man. "But that's just me."

"Are you familiar with the name Silas Ortega?"

Dallas sat up straighter. Apparently when Bill decided to cut to the chase, he went right to the heart of it. "I am. Jane told me about him." That much was true. What he didn't tell Bill--and what Bill certainly didn't know--was that Deliverance had learned about Ortega as well.

"I told her she could," Bill said. "His incarceration was classified, but considering the information he provided--"

"A Sykes kidnapping," Dallas said coldly. "Yeah. I heard about that, too."

"Dallas, we can find who did that to you."

To you. Dallas drew in a relieved breath. Jane had once told him that she'd never revealed anything about her kidnapping to Bill. Apparently, that still hadn't changed. As far as Bill knew, Jane wasn't taken at all.

"Dallas," Bill urged. "We can help." Bill's voice was soft. Soothing. And Dallas wanted to smash his face in.

"I haven't asked you to do that." Dallas tried to sit still. To keep his hands on the arms of the chair and just sit calmly.

To hell with that.

He got up, paced the length of the room and back. "I haven't asked it," he repeated. "And I don't want you to."

"It's not your call," Bill said, his voice irritatingly level. "It's not even Eli's call," he added, referring to Dallas and Jane's father. "Although I'm going to talk to him, too. Professional courtesy. Family courtesy, too."

"Courtesy? You think it's courtesy to insert yourself where you don't belong? It's been seventeen years, and Ortega--" He snapped his mouth shut before he jammed his foot right into it. Dallas knew damn well that Ortega had been killed in custody--and that his death had been labeled a suicide. He also knew damn well that the government was keeping the death quiet. It was locked up tight and classified, sealed with a nice shiny bow.

Which meant that the playboy department store heir Dallas Sykes couldn't know about it. And Bill couldn't know about Dallas Sykes, the founder of Deliverance, who had his own means of obtaining that kind of information.

"What about Ortega?" Bill pressed.

"Just that--you have him in custody. He's going to say whatever he thinks you want to hear," Dallas improvised. "And since it's been seventeen years, the odds are pretty damn good he doesn't know anything useful. But he can make all sorts of shit up and send you on a wild goose chase. And that may keep your agents earning their paychecks, but it's going to wreak hell with me and my family." He took a beat to calm down. "Just let it go, Bill. I have."

He closed his eyes, thinking that every single word was a lie. A deception. And that he damn sure hoped that it worked.

"You're right that it's a risk," Bill agreed. "Ortega might not have anything relevant to reveal. But I think he does."

Dallas narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out Bill's angle. The man knew Ortega was dead, so what kind of game was he playing?

He debated between feigned disinterest and another plea for Bill to just drop the issue on the one hand, and a request to know exactly what information the supposedly still alive Ortega might have on the other.

He knew he should try to push the topic of the investigation away. But he was too damn curious. "What? What do you think he knows?"

Bill sighed. "This is top secret, Dallas, but Ortega was murdered in prison. Murdered right after revealing that he would disclose information about a Sykes kidnapping in exchange for leniency. That's a bold stroke, and highly risky."

"Which is why you believe what Ortega said--that there really was a Sykes kidnapping."

"Exactly," Bill said. "But there's more. Security was tight around Ortega. Damn tight. No one outside of WORR, the FBI, or UNODC should have been aware of the information he was providing," he added, referring to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, with which WORR worked closely.

"So you have a leak," Dallas put in. He didn't say that Bill himself was the leak, albeit an unknowing one. Dallas hadn't realized it at the time of Ortega's death, because he hadn't known about Colin. Now that he did, Dallas understood what happened--Bill had told Jane. Jane had told Colin.

And Colin had arranged the kill.

Dallas fought the urge to close his eyes against the truth that pressing in against him. Sure, he could be wrong about Colin. About all of it. But more and more he feared that Colin was at the heart of it. And when Jane learned that her conversation with Colin led not only to Ortega's death, but had also triggered WORR's investigation into the Sykes kidnapping ...

Well, it would rip her apart.

He had to tell her. But how the hell could he tell her?

Tags: J. Kenner SIN Erotic
Source: readsnovelonline.net