“Who?”
She didn’t say. “Or maybe I don’t have all the files.”
He walked over to her and reached for a stack of documents. They were intel communiques of some kind, memos about Ali Al Zahrani. On the back, each was stamped “Classified” in bright, bloody red. “Where did you get these?”
Laura’s head snapped up, her gaze colliding with his, an unmistakable look of guilt on her face. “Uh . . .”
“Did McBride leak these to you?”
She took the pages from Javier’s hand. “I can’t reveal my source.”
He saw the envelope on her desk, recognized it—and it clicked. “Agent Killeen. She gave them to you. They were in that envelope that you found on the floor when we got back home last night.”
Laura glared at him. “You can’t breathe a word to anyone, especially not Zach.”
Javier was an expert at keeping secrets, but he wasn’t used to keeping them from his team, and for the moment, McBride and the others were his team. “What are you hoping to do with all of this?”
She sat down, began to arrange the piles. “I just want to understand. I need to know how a good kid like Ali could wake up one morning and decide to be a terrorist. What could make him suddenly turn his back on his family, his community, his life?”
“Maybe it wasn’t as sudden as it seems.” In Javier’s experience, the seeds of terrorism were planted early in a kid’s life.
“His browser history was full of searches about video games and topless Hollywood stars, and then two months ago, he created a new subdirectory on his computer and started searching for information on jihad and how to mix ANFO.”
“The kid moved from boobs to bombs fast.”
“Too fast.” Laura tucked the papers back inside the envelope and turned to her computer. She opened her browser, typed in a URL. “My gut tells me something must have happened to send him over that edge, and I need to know what it was. I want to create a list of the stories I was working on a couple of months ago. Maybe I wrote something that offended or provoked him.”
Javier sensed the tension in her. He could feel how hard she was fighting to be tough, to hold herself together. He bent down, looked at her computer screen, and saw that she was on the
“His mother said he cried when he thought I’d been killed. So why would he try to kill me himself three years later?”
“Who knows?” Javier sat on the edge of her desk, caught her hands, and held them, turning her to face him. “Are you sure this is a good idea,
“I have to
“Would it fix anything? Would it?”
Her gaze dropped to the floor, worry on her pretty face. “I . . . I don’t know. I hate unanswered questions, and I think his parents deserve an answer. Don’t you?”
Sure, he did. “When it comes to shit like this—kids getting radicalized, wanting to kill and die—there are no easy answers.”
Her chin went up, that defiant look coming over her face. “I’m going to do my best to figure it out.”
“What do you think McBride will have to say about you digging through classified, leaked documents and working your own angle on his case?”
“Who’s going to tell him?”
Javier opened his mouth to speak but said nothing.
Her lips curved in a deliberately sweet smile. “That’s what I thought.”
She clicked Print. “I also need to find out how Derek Tower is tied to this.”
“You heard about that.”
She took a few sheets of paper from her printer tray. “Gary told me. I called the hospital. Tower is still in ICU in critical condition.”
Chapin again.
How Javier hated that
“I hope he makes it.” She stood, the defiance she’d worn on her face moments ago crumpling. “I need this to be over. I need it to end.”
He drew her into his arms, kissed her hair, savored the feel of her, her fear and vulnerability rousing a fierce protective instinct inside him. “What you said earlier about waiting for Al-Nassar’s goons to get it right and kill you? That won’t happen. I won’t let it happen.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Javi. You’ve missed out on time with Nate and put yourself in danger for my sake, and now you might be facing a disciplinary hearing. You’re sacrificing so much—
How could she think that she didn’t deserve him? If anything, it was the other way around. “Let me worry about that, okay?”
She looked up at him. “I feel bad saying this, but I’m so glad you’re here. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Then she stood on her tiptoes—and kissed him.
A jagged bolt of heat shot through him, stirring up the hunger he’d spent the past week trying so hard to suppress. He’d told himself he wouldn’t let this happen again, his pulse like thunder as she brushed his lips with hers, teased their outline with her tongue.
If only he didn’t want her so damned bad . . .
And she seemed to want him, too.
CHAPTER
18
LAURA HAD MEANT to kiss Javier’s cheek, a quick kiss to thank him for all he’d done, to show him she cared. Instead, her lips found his, the fleeting contact sending a warm shimmer through her, stealing her breath, making her worries vanish. She heard Javier’s quick intake of breath, felt his body tense as she kissed him again.
He began to kiss her back, submissively at first, letting her take the lead, ceding control to her. But Laura knew from experience that Javier was not a submissive man. He’d been the only man she’d ever had sex with whose drive matched hers, the only man she’d known who was strong and skilled enough to top her and bring out
She wanted to feel alive again, exhilarated, vibrant.
She drew his head down, brushed her lips across his, whispered, “
With a groan, he began to kiss her back, slow and deep, one big hand sliding inch by inch up her spine, the other splayed across her lower back, drawing her closer, his body so hard against hers, strong and male.
Laura’s blood seemed to ignite, a bolt of heat piercing her belly, raw need for him making her pulse skip, delight surging inside her like a sunrise, driving away the darkness.
He drew back, looked down at her through warm eyes. “Do you feel that—the way your touch makes me shake? God,
His mouth claimed hers again, this kiss as fierce as the first had been gentle, his hand fisting in her hair, his
