Diesel (The Mavericks Book 13) Read online

  “Nationality?”

  “American,” she said. Then she frowned. “But his wife’s Chinese.”

  “His wife is Chinese?”

  She nodded. “And she’s a scientist too.”

  “And where does she work?”

  “She’s on the board of directors,” she said. “She doesn’t come into the lab anymore.”

  “Any idea if she had anything to do with this?”

  “But I don’t know why she would.”

  “Right,” he said, staring out in the distance. “I just feel like something else is involved.”

  “I’m sure there is,” she said with a nod. “How will we ever find out what that is? And to find it out before I go back to work? And, of course, we could be looking at it completely wrong. And accusing people having absolutely nothing to do with this.”

  “And that’s always the challenge, isn’t it?” Jerricho said. He looked at Diesel. “I’ll pick up on the research.”

  He nodded. “I will too.”

  Both of them grabbed their laptops. Both jumped into the Mavericks chat window and asked for information about the company, her boss, and the boss’s wife, looking for connections, looking for any thread that would lead back to the lab in China. Immediately Diesel was sent links to portfolios and articles that he sat and devoured. An amazing amount of information about the company and about the boss was here. But very little about the wife.

  Until he caught one little line which said that she had been born and raised in mainland China and came over only after meeting the boss at a conference. He highlighted that and sent it both to Jerricho, who was sitting beside him, and to Shane on the other end of the chat.

  Jerricho looked at it, one eyebrow raised. “Are you thinking this might be it?”

  “It’s hard to say,” he said, “but what if she’s a mole? What if she came to recruit what the lab in China needs? In China, what she did was work in the lab all the time. And yet, since coming to the US, she hasn’t.”

  He looked over at Eva to find her engrossed in her TV show. He hesitated to ask her and to raise more suspicions, but just then Jerricho pulled up an article and turned his laptop so Diesel saw it.

  He quickly picked up the laptop from him and read it, and nodded. “That’s interesting too.”

  Because right there, in black-and-white, was the woman’s brother. He worked at the same Boston lab as Eva did. Diesel frowned at that, wondering if that made any difference. Was it wrong? Or was it just a typical family affair? He knew many families hired within to keep the business flowing that way. It’s hardly illegal, and normally it certainly wasn’t even suspicious. As his laptop buzzed, he looked down and said, “Believe it or not, it’s time to go.”

  She smiled and said, “Yay!” And she hopped up, walked to the door, and said, “Come on. Come on. Let’s go. Our future’s waiting.”

  “Our future is always waiting,” Diesel said as he got up. “The fact of the matter is, we have to make sure that the right one is waiting for us.”

  She waited impatiently, as he packed up his gear, and soon enough they were all heading down to the car, taking them to the airport. The whole way he kept checking in on a Spidey instinct to see if anything was setting off alarms. And there wasn’t, but it didn’t stop that one nagging suspicion from being a bit of an irritant. As they got to the airport and had to wait before going through clearance, he checked with Shane on the Russian agents’ progress.

  Both of the Russians we had tagged via facial recognition leaving the Chinese lab have been scanned returning to Russia.

  Anyone with them?

  No. They came home without their operative after we informed them of his death prior to their arrival.

  Good. Any idea what the airport shutdown was all about back in Manila?

  We’re hoping it’s because of the Russians, but we don’t know. They didn’t go through the main airport, so their method out of the country is unknown.

  Well, like us, I’m sure they had another way out entirely.

  Chapter 14

  When the trio finally landed on US soil, Eva stopped for a moment, inhaled the smog-filled air outside New York, before he whisked her away to another airport and another flight. “Why couldn’t we have stayed there?”

  “Again, decoy,” he said. “I always try to keep people hopping.”

  “Wow,” she said, “you’re really going to great lengths to keep me hidden.”

  “Absolutely,” he said with a smile. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  There was just that note in his voice that made her believe him. “Aww, that’s so sweet,” she murmured.

  “Hardly,” he said.

  “You just don’t want all the time that you invested in keeping me safe to go to waste,” she said, with a chuckle. He squeezed her fingers. She looked at him in surprise. “Hey, I was just teasing,” she added gently.

  He nodded. “Of course you are,” he said, “but I would not be happy to lose you.”

  And, at that, she smiled and said, “Got it.”

  If she thought that the trip was almost over, they weren’t done for another seven hours. When they finally came into the airport at the outskirts of Wisconsin, she stood in disbelief. Because there, in front of her, was her father. She cried out, “Oh, my God,” and she raced forward into his arms. He held her tight, and she felt the tears just pouring down her cheeks.

  “They didn’t tell me,” she babbled. “They didn’t tell me.” Her father hugged her close, just rocking her gently, until she calmed down. Finally she pulled back and looked up to see tears in his eyes, and she wiped the tears in her own. “Oh, my God,” she said, “he didn’t tell me.”

  Her father smiled and said, “And he didn’t need to either. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  “See? I’ve been traveling for days,” she cried out, feeling the exhaustion in her own voice.

  “I know,” he said, gently pushing the hair off her face, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek. “I’m so glad you made it,” he whispered.

  “It’s been so rough,” she said. “And yet, at the same time”—she smiled and looked back at Diesel and Jerricho, who just stood there, allowing the two to have a moment alone—“it’s been really good.”

  “I hear that.”

  She looked at him in surprise and said, “Did you talk to him?”

  “I’ve have spoken to Diesel a couple times.”

  She spun and stared accusingly at Diesel. “All this time and you didn’t tell me!”

  “I thought it might be a nice surprise,” Diesel said in a mild tone.

  She glared at him and then realized that he would do what he thought he should do, and it didn’t really matter. Neither did it really matter in this instance. She turned back and hugged her father hard. “We were coming to you, you know?”

  “I know,” he said. “And rather than surprising me, I decided to surprise you.”

  She smiled, hugged him again, and turned to look back at Diesel with a glaring look.

  And he just smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”

  She thought about it, burst out laughing, walked over, and gave Diesel a big hug. “Thank you so much,” she whispered. “It’s so good to see him.”

  “Well, we were coming to see him anyway,” he murmured, “so …” And then he stepped forward and shook her father’s hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Greg.”

  “Likewise,” Greg said, eyeing Diesel up and down. He looked over his daughter. “Well, I can see why you waited this long.”

  She looked at him in confusion.

  “To find the right man,” he said. “This is obviously the right man.”

  She flushed bright red. “Maybe,” she said, “that remains to be seen.”

  He laughed, whispered in Eva’s ear, “That man there took care of your brother, put him in rehab, so he gets points in my book.”

  She was stunned into silence, looking from her dad to Diesel.

&n
bsp; “Come on then,” Greg said. “I’ve got my truck.” With that, everybody piled into his vehicle, and he drove them back to the cabin on the lake. As she stared out the window, all the images brought back memories, and she smiled. “I forgot … how peaceful it is,” she said.

  “Take the men down to the lake,” he said, “then you’ll really see some peacefulness.” As they drove, she pointed out landmarks to the two men.

  “How often do you come here?” Jerricho asked her.

  “Not enough,” she said, as she feasted her eyes on the small town, as they drove through it. They drove for another couple miles to a turnoff, and she said, “I forgot how much I loved it here.”

  “She used to come here when her mother was still alive,” her father said, “when she was just a kid. Her roots are here.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “Why didn’t you come back and live here?”

  “Well, I had to make a living,” she said with a laugh.

  “Do you still though?”

  “I don’t know. It’s one of the things that I have to reassess, isn’t it?”

  “If you want to stay,” her dad said, “you know you’re welcome.”

  “And that would be a welcomed respite from the mess that I’ve just come out of,” she said.

  “I’m perfectly capable of keeping you safe,” Greg said.

  “Well, I don’t know about that in this instance.” As soon as they got to the cabin, she hopped out and said to her dad, “I’ll walk down to the lake.”

  “Take Diesel with you. I hear he likes to fish.”

  “I do,” Diesel said, “but I’m not the fisherman you are.”

  Greg looked over at Jerricho. “Do you fish?”

  Jerricho admitted, “I’ve never had a chance to try.” Her father stopped in shock and stared at him. Jerricho gave him a wide grin. “But I’m happy to try now.”

  “Damn right you are,” Greg said. “First lesson is, we have to clean a bunch.” He explained further, “I was out this morning, so we’ll have grilled trout for dinner.”

  She laughed at that. “And you’ll have it for breakfast, and you’ll have it for dinner again too,” she said. And she headed down toward the lake. She knew Diesel would be behind her, even if she hadn’t necessarily invited him. And, sure enough, as she got to the dock, he came up right behind her.

  “Are you trying to get away?” he asked curiously.

  “Nope,” she said, “but I had to trust that you were behind me the whole way.”

  He smiled and nodded. “And you’re right.” He looked at the lake and smiled. “Now this is beautiful.”

  “I know,” she said. “We’ve had this property … I think it’s been in the family for generations.”

  “And it’s worth hanging on to,” he said. “It’s lovely.”

  “It’s a great place to come and visit,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m necessarily ready to live here though.”

  “I get it.” He nodded. “You could also be closer though.”

  “Again, that’s all in that possibility of what do I want to do with my life now,” she said. She held his hand and said, “Let’s walk down to the end of the pier. It’s my favorite place.”

  And as they walked to the end of the dock and stepped down one more level, so they were on the dock that floated on the water, they made their way to the very end. She loved listening to the birds and to the water lap up against the shore.

  “This,” she said, “is stunning.” She stood here, watching as the sun slowly sank on the hillside across from them. “And I didn’t think I’d actually get here.”

  He closed his arms around her, held her tight, and said, “I promised.”

  “You did at that,” she said, “and thank you. I’m so grateful to be home.”

  They stood here in a moment of quiet contemplation. She turned in his arms, looked up at him, and kissed him gently. “And that’s not out of gratitude. Then she stopped and said, “Okay, so that one’s out of gratitude.” Then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard. When she finally broke free, she said, “That one wasn’t.” She smiled when she realized his breathing was unsteady and his gaze had gone dark.

  He pulled her back into his arms. “Well, that’s a damn good thing,” he said, “because this is a little bit too passionate for gratitude.”

  “Hey, whatever works,” she said, chuckling.

  He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her long and deep, until she was a wet noodle clinging to him. “That,” she said, “was lovely.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re staying at your dad’s place now,” he said. “It’s hardly private time for us.”

  “Actually,” she said, “we’ll be staying in another cabin all on our own. Dad has the main cabin, but I always stay in a little cabin off to the side.” She turned and pointed.

  He looked at it, smiled, and said, “Now that is an idea I can get behind.” She laughed, and, with a last look at the lake, they headed back up to the main cabin.

  Diesel looked around. His heart loved the scene, but the guard in him said it was too open, and yet there were too many places for somebody else to hide. And, as he studied the cabin off to the side, he realized it was perfectly private, which would be absolutely wonderful for them for the night, but it would also be a place where he didn’t want her on her own. They could have a predator in there in no time, and she wouldn’t have a chance to fight or to argue. And nobody would know of the attack, if her father were out fishing all day on the lake.

  As they walked into the kitchen, Jerricho looked up with a big grin and said, “Hey, my first fish.” He pointed to the cutting board.

  “Good,” Diesel said.

  “Tomorrow you can try catching your first ones,” her father said. “Up at the crack of dawn. Hope you’re an early riser.”

  Jerricho looked at Diesel and asked, “You or me first in the morning?”

  “You go,” Diesel said.

  Jerricho, with a knowing look, said, “That works.” He added, “Apparently I’m sleeping in the main cabin.”

  “Right,” Diesel said. “Then Greg can wake you up that early.”

  “Works for me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Good. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Dinner was a lighthearted affair.

  Diesel’s heart was gently delighted to see the relationship between father and daughter. A lot of affection, lots of little touches, hugs, as they went around each other. Both happy that each other was safe and content to be here. By the time dinner was over, she was yawning. He shook his head. “Time for bed again.”

  She grinned at him. “You’ve been telling me that for days,” she protested.

  “And every time I turn around, you’re falling asleep over your food,” he warned.

  Her father nodded. “She’s always been like that. She’ll go, go, go, and then, all of a sudden, she’ll drop.”

  “I am not that bad,” she said.

  “Yes, you absolutely are,” Jerricho said, “but because I’m getting up at five in the morning, I won’t stay up late myself either.” And stepping outside, the two men sorted out their four-hour watches. “What do you think? Do we need to stand on watch?”

  “It’s really hard to know, isn’t it?” Diesel said. “We’re home. She should be safe. It should be over with. But it doesn’t feel that way.”

  Jerricho nodded. “No,” he said, “my gut says it’s bad news.”

  “Mine too,” he said. “If you want to take first watch, I’ll stand second.”

  “The trouble is,” Jerricho said, “I’ll be awake, and you won’t be sleeping.”

  And, with that, Diesel laughed and headed back inside. Diesel looked over at Eva, who was falling asleep on the chair. He walked over, bent down, and scooped her up in his arms. She protested but was mumbling. He shook his head, looked over at her father, and said, “Is there plumbing in that little cabin?”

  He n
odded. “There is actually. We put it in just before my wife passed away.”

  “Good,” he said. “I might as well get her there, while I can still see the pathway.” And, with that, he headed out the door, Jerricho with him, carrying their bags. As they got to the other cabin, Jerricho stepped in first, did a quick search, came back, and said, “You’ll be fine here.”

  Diesel carried her in and laid her on the bed, and she just rolled over, pulled the pillow under her head, and crashed.

  “She always like that?” Jerricho asked.

  “Apparently,” Diesel said. “Every time we tell her it’s naptime, she just crashes.”

  “Must be nice,” he said.

  “Yeah, I hear you.” At that, they turned and headed back out again.

  “I’ll send you a message at two a.m.,” he said.

  “Sounds good.” Diesel walked back inside the cabin, tired despite himself. It was only ten p.m., but, if he could sleep now, that would be the best. He quickly used the facilities, brushed his teeth, gave his face a good scrub down, and then headed into the bedroom. As he looked at Eva, he realized she hadn’t even shifted. She was sound asleep, fully dressed. Well, that would not end up well.

  He took off her shoes and socks, rolled her onto her back, divested her of her jeans, and then half-sitting her up, with her mumbling and protesting the whole way, he managed to get the T-shirt off her. He would have left the T-shirt on, if he could get the bra off, but, as it was, it was that much harder to get any cooperation out of her. Finally he just picked her up, tucked her under the blankets, then quickly divested himself of his clothes and crawled in beside her.

  As he lay here on the bed, his arms under his head, he thought about everything they’ve gone through and how far and how slow they had traveled, and he realized that there was absolutely no reason for anybody to be following them, but he still couldn’t shake that weird feeling. He rolled over, pulled her up against him, and closed his eyes. He slept solid and deep until he heard that whistle.