Jeremy burst out laughing, and even Jess gave her a begrudging chuckle right before she punched Jer in the stomach. He grunted and handed over her panties. With a flip of red and black pigtails, she marched toward the front desk.
Through it all, Rixey couldn’t stop watching Becca. The way she laughed and smiled, the ease with which she teased and joked with Jeremy. Rixey remembered back to when she’d first walked through Hard Ink’s front door. He’d thought her sweet and innocent. The girl next door. And maybe a part of her was those things. But she was also the woman who’d come at him with a knife, who’d resisted a significantly bigger man attempting to abduct her, who’d tried her hand at boxing without any self-consciousness. The woman who’d kissed him. The first woman he’d kissed in over a year. And the woman who made him want so much more.
Too bad he didn’t deserve any of it, though that didn’t stop him from wanting her comforting touch, her warm body, her light chasing away his dark. Selfish bastard.
“Hey, Nicholas,” Jess called, knowing he disliked his full name. “Miguel’s on the phone.”
Becca turned to him with a grin. “Nicholas?”
He arched a brow and made for the office. “It’s Nick. Or Rixey. Or ‘Hey you.’ ”
“Or asshole,” Jeremy offered, stripping off his now dirty gloves and returning to his client.
“Preferable to Nicholas,” Rixey said over his shoulder. As he turned into the office and lifted the receiver, he wondered why the hell Miguel was calling him on the landline. “Hey, Miguel.”
“Hi, Nick. Wanted to let you know I got held up with an issue with one of my clients. I’m still coming over, it’ll just be a while.”
“That’s fine, but why are you—”
“Calling on the landline? Because I didn’t want to delay getting you some information before I can get over there and fill in the details. And this is more secure.”
If someone was so inclined, it was much easier to pick up a conversation from a cell phone. The fact that Miguel was taking precautions against that meant he was worried. Rixey pushed the office door closed. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“I called my guy at BPD to report the break-in and find out who’d covered the scene the day before. Report hadn’t been filed yet. He couldn’t even readily put his hands on who the lead investigator was. And none of the evidence was in the database. So I asked about the missing persons investigation on Charlie Merritt—”
“Let me guess. They’re not taking it seriously.” Rixey sank into the desk chair.
“No. That one hadn’t been filed either.”
Rixey sat forward, suspicion prickling over his skin. “Are you shitting me?”
Miguel heaved a breath that made its way down the line. “I wish I were. I don’t want to speculate about what this means before checking out a few more things. Speaking of which, do you know if Becca called nine-one-one during any of this?”
“Twice that I know of. When she found the break-in at her brother’s and last night when she realized there was an intruder in her house. Why?”
“I want to look into something. I found her home number online, but do you have her cell, too?”
“Yeah. Hold on.” Rixey fished through the recent dials on his cell and recited the number.
“Listen, just hold tight. I’ll help you work this if that’s what it comes to.”
“Thanks, Miguel. See you when you get here.” Nick replaced the receiver and sank heavily against the backrest.
This snafu was spinning out of control. One missing person, three break-ins, a kidnapping, and, at best, noncooperative police? All of which might also have something to do with Frank Merritt? Way more than he could handle on his own, even with Miguel’s help.
Rixey knew what he had to do.
But it was gonna suck ass to make the ask. At this point, his former Special Forces teammates owed him a whole lotta nothing. It was possible they wouldn’t even listen. But if they did, it was shit to call needing a favor after falling out of touch. He was going to have to own that, though, and choke down whatever grief they wanted to give him.
And, damn it all to hell, if they agreed to help, they might very well have to do this outside the technical confines of the law.
That was a fucking lot to ask from anyone.
But if Frank Merritt was at the bottom of this mess, he and his men might have a shot at not only protecting Charlie and Becca but also restoring the honor of everyone on the team. And Rixey would give just about anything to make that happen.
He just hoped he wasn’t alone.
Chapter 12
The first one Rixey had to talk to was Shane McCallan, not just because they’d been close but also because Shane had made so many attempts to reach out. The intelligence specialist could curse you out in more languages than you’d ever heard of and had medic training to boot. He and Nick had served together in the Army Special Forces for six years, much of that time in Afghanistan. Until the day their A-Team’s convoy was ambushed under highly suspicious circumstances and they were all blamed for the deaths of seven men in a cover-up of mind-boggling proportions.
Now Shane worked for a defense contractor in Northern Virginia. He had landed a lot more squarely on his feet than Rixey, and Nick was truly glad that his onetime best friend seemed to be doing a helluva lot more than getting by.
Nick placed the call.
Each ring reverberated against his innards, making him shift in his office chair. These conversations were likely to be as comfortable as an eyeful of sand, which should have the upside at least of distracting him from the fact that Becca had decided to soak in a hot bath down the hall—
Someone picked up. Then there was a long pause that made Rixey press the phone more firmly to his ear. “Nick,” Shane finally said. “Long time.” There was nothing welcoming in the man’s voice. His words were clipped so tight they even hid his usual hint of a southern drawl.
Rixey expected nothing less. “Shane. I know. And I’m sorry for that—”
“Save it.”
Shit. Rixey blew out a breath. “I fucked up.”
“You calling to walk down memory lane?”
In for a penny . . . “No. I got a situation.”
Shane’s humorless laugh was like a fist to the gut. “You calling me for a favor, Nick Rixey?”
No sense beating around the bush, not when the damn thing was on fire and throwing off sparks all over the place. “Yeah, I am.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Pretty much. Will you at least hear me out?”
“You’re seriously asking me that question?” Rixey had to pull the cell away from his ear. “After months of refusing to answer a single one of my phone calls or shoot back an email? Hell, a message saying ‘Fuck you very much’ would’ve been better than the friggin’ silent treatment.”
“You’re right.”
“Damn straight I am.”
Shane was entitled to every bit of his anger, but Nick didn’t have time for the kind of venting his friend would require before they could ever have a chance to be squared away. Time to cut to the chase. “My situation has something to do with Merritt’s extracurricular activities.” At least that was the conclusion his brain kept coming back to when he tried to make sense of what Charlie’d told Becca. And now with Becca’s police reports conveniently disappearing from record? Man, that took him right back to the cover-ups after the ambush.
An arctic blast made its way down the line. “I’m listening. For now.”
It was enough of an opening. The rest of the story should blow it wide. “Fair enough. Somehow that shit spilled stateside and landed on Merritt’s kids. Son’s missing. Daughter came to me for help and was nearly kidnapped today. Both their houses have been tossed. Someone’s looking for something.”