disturbed. A clean pair of freshly pressed dress pants were shaken out, and jerked on. Socks. Black. Calf-length so no ankle showed.
By the time he was completely dressed, his movements were smooth, his thoughts focused. Only then did he pick up his BlackBerry and punch in Sam’s number.
No answer.
After leaving a voice message, he booted up his laptop and logged onto Hauberk’s VPN.
“Dear Sam, I respectfully request to be transferred…” No, that wasn’t right. “Sam, I need a favor…”
Not once had he asked to be taken off a case. Not with the FBI and not with Hauberk. So, damn it, he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
A half hour-and numerous deletions-later he finally hit send.
An hour later, he was checking his email for…well, he’d given up counting how many times he’d hit “check mail”, when there was a knock at the hallway door. Before he could respond, it opened and Troy walked in.
“Thought you’d like to know the extra men just arrived.” Troy closed the door behind him and rested against it. “I’ve handed out the rotation you drew up. Everything should be good to go.”
“Thanks, but I could have handled it.”
“I know but I was there checking out the cameras and everything else, so I took care of it.” Instead of leaving the way Chad had expected, Troy stayed in place. He tilted his head to one side as he considered Chad. “You okay, mate?”
Ah. So that was the purpose of visiting in person. Chad nodded. “I admit I was surprised to see her.”
His answer didn’t satisfy Troy. “Sorry I couldn’t give you any more warning than I did, but-”
So he hadn’t known it would be Lauren he was escorting either. “It’s okay. You were following protocol. You couldn’t call me. I understand.”
Troy pushed away from the door and wandered into the room. “Helluva a shock for me too when I recognized her.”
He’d recognized her? “How did you know her? You’ve never met her before.”
There was a long pause. When Troy responded he didn’t look at Chad, and he kept his voice low. “I know about the picture you keep in your desk.” He finally looked up. “I wasn’t trying to snoop but you were off somewhere-at some meeting with a client or something and we needed a file. Sandy wasn’t there so I went through your desk.”
Ah. Here he’d been thinking…who knows what he’d been thinking. “Don’t worry about it.”
There was another pause. “Are you leaving in the morning?”
In other words, was Troy to take over?
Would Troy keep Lauren safe? Of course. So why the hesitation in telling Troy he’d already asked to be transferred? “It’s under consideration. I tried to get a hold of Sam earlier, but I haven’t heard back from him yet.”
“Maybe he’s trying to smooth things over with Rosie for cancelling their vacation.”
Which meant they were probably jumping each other’s bones on the desk. Or in that fucking huge shower.
Maybe he was just jealous that Sam’s love life had finally come together. Damned stubborn bastard had been closing himself off since Jill’s death; it was good to see him finally find someone to love again. Which brought Chad right back around to his original hunch-he’d been set up. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Chad closed his eyes. “Fuck.”
He opened his eyes and shot Troy a hard glare. “Is this some way he’s come up with to try to force me to get over her? Or get her out of my system or something?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, mate.” Troy met his gaze evenly, his voice unaffected. If he’d been anyone else Chad would swear he was telling the truth, but Troy was a consummate liar.
“Why would Weir come to Hauberk if he knew Lauren and I had been married? No one in their right mind would go to an ex-husband to protect a woman.” He ran through their conversation again. “No. It’s too coincidental.”
“And you don’t like coincidences.” Troy took a deep breath but not once did he break Chad’s gaze. “I know you don’t believe me right now but swear to God, I had no idea it would be your ex that I’d be escorting.” Instead of shutting the fuck up, Troy continued, “You’re a better man than me. If it had been my ex, I would have shown her the gate and told her to fend for herself.”
He’d considered it. Seriously. Heaven help him if he had to be around her another day. Now he’d had a taste of her, a reminder of what she felt like around him, his dick had taken over his thinking and was seriously planning the various ways he could get her horizontal next time. Not good. “Look, since you’re planning on hanging around a couple extra days anyway, why don’t I just head back to D.C. now?”
Troy’s gaze might have been a laser beam from the look he shot him. “You still fancy her, don’t you?”
Fancy her? He’d just jerked off fantasizing about her; that was a big affirmative. “We’re divorced.”
“That’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it?” Troy tapped his chest. “But here, inside. That part of you wants another go at her, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
Annoyed at the line of thought Troy’s questions were taking, he stomped into the bathroom and picked up his razor, packing it neatly in its case. When had he decided to leave in the morning whether he’d heard from Sam or not?
“From the looks of your neck, I’d say you may have already had another go at her.” Troy had followed him, damn it, and now leaned against the doorframe.
A glance in the mirror revealed Lauren had left a mark on his neck. Damn it, why hadn’t he seen that earlier? Because he was too damned busy whacking off. He grabbed the toothpaste and toothbrush and tucked them into their compartment. “Why are you so interested anyway? What the fuck is it to you?”
Troy moved aside when Chad pushed past, trailing him to the bedroom like a goddamned lost puppy. “I may not have been married, but I do know a thing or two about women and how they wind up a man’s guts.”
Maybe Troy knew about fucking them, but he knew jackshit about keeping them. Then again what did Chad know? He was batting O for one right now, wasn’t he? “I’m not about to go crawling back on my hands and knees. She was damned clear she didn’t want anything to do with me. She thought…”
Troy waited a long moment before prompting, “What did she think?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does, though doesn’t it? Otherwise you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Unwilling to slog through that emotional swampland, Chad shrugged one shoulder. “She put up with a lot of shit when we were married. Not to mention how the press dragged her through the mud right along with me. Everyone at the bureau thought she’d known what I’d done and had helped cover it up. They made it impossible for her to work there anymore so she ended up having to quit. Even in our personal life-friends she’d had since high school dumped her because of what the press was saying about us.”
He’d already lost her by then. She’d pulled away from him after Emily’s death. He’d not realized why until that last big fight. By then it had been too late to do anything.
“I’d say they weren’t good friends if they walked away when she needed them.”
It took Chad a moment to realize what Troy was talking about. “It doesn’t matter. Lauren was right. It was my fault the marriage didn’t work.”
Chad walked to the window and stared out, assessing the guards patrolling the grounds. What were the guards he couldn’t see doing? Were they alert to their surroundings? Or were they goofing off, texting their girlfriends or playing some game they’d downloaded on their cell phone?
“Do you really believe that? That it was your fault?”
“I’m the one who fucked up. I’m the reason she ended up with her picture splashed over the fucking tabloids.” How they’d managed to get that video of the two of them in their bedroom he still hadn’t discovered.
“Bugger that,” Troy snarled. “Stop feeling so goddamned sorry for yourself, man. From what I’ve heard, there was nothing you could have done to have saved your daughter’s life. People die and most times there’s nothing you can do about it but suck it up and move on.”
Chad whirled to face him. “You’re preaching to the choir about death. I know all about it. My father was killed
