Sweet justice, p.7
Sweet Justice, page 7
He swallowed a bite and wiped his mouth. “Was I that bad?”
“There was talk behind your back. Mostly the team wanting to help if they could, but of course, you refused to let anyone in.”
Finn let the part about not letting anyone in go without comment and latched onto the other part. “Mostly?”
“There were the few who threatened to cuff you, hold you down, and see if they could pull the extra-long stick out of your ass.”
“Extra?” Finn laughed. Even though he and Shondra were in a good place now, having his marriage fail still stung, and being able to laugh about it helped a bit. “I’m sorry I was more of an asshole than usual.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us. We were a team. We would have been there for you. We would have picked up as much of the slack as we could.”
“It wasn’t your slack to pick up. That was on me.”
“And you’re not an asshole. Mostly. I enjoyed working with you on the task force. Leaving was the hardest decision I’d ever made.”
“Yet you did.”
She hesitated as if deciding how much she wanted to reveal. Something shuttered behind her eyes, and he knew whatever came out of her mouth next would be the sanitized version—a partial truth. “It was time for a change of scenery.”
Finn let her end it there. They finished their breakfast, his having gone cold, the bread stale, and the sausage rubbery. His stomach churned, but he choked it down because he had no idea when they’d next get a chance to eat.
After cleaning up their breakfast, Soto got out her laptop to keep familiarizing herself with as many aspects of the case as she could while she had the chance. Finn made mental notes of what he wanted to do when they landed. Securing a rental car and driving out to the scene being the first of many things.
If he got lucky, he might know one of the federal investigators and be able to get some information. It would be easier that way, but he’d do whatever he had to do to ensure all leads were followed.
It might all be a goose chase, but Ali was worth the effort of finding out.
Soto jerked awake in her seat, her eyes opening, then drifting closed again. She hadn’t had much more sleep than he had, and she was obviously on fumes. She would be no good to him if she didn’t at least shut down for a short period of time.
He stood in the aisle and tapped her on the shoulder. She woke, and he held out his hand to her.
Though sleepy and a bit confused, she trusted him enough to put her hand in his. “Where we going?”
Her sleep roughened voice shot to his groin, and he had to remind himself, yet again, that it would be best to keep things between them professional.
Is that why you had her take your hand? To keep it professional?
He ignored his inner voice and led her to the back of the plane as she rubbed her face and tried to wake up. He opened the rear cabin door and let Soto precede him inside.
“Oh, wow,” she said, brushing her hand over the luxury bedding in the jet’s single room.
It had a bed larger than a twin but probably not even full-sized. It had windows on either side with the shades already drawn. It had a couple of nooks in the headboard to hold a cell phone or a book, but not much else.
She turned and sat, her eyes trying to close again though she fought it.
“Get some sleep. We’re going to have to hit the ground running.”
She toed out of her shoes and snuggled into the pillow, not even trying to talk him out of it. Her eyes opened, and she said, “You need some sleep, too. The bed’s big enough for the two of us. We can draw a line down the middle like siblings in a car if that would make you feel better.”
By that stubborn set of her jaw, she was only half kidding about the line down the middle.
As tempted as he was, he turned her down. “I’ve got… work,” he decided on. Even though as tired as he was, he could probably sleep standing up.
Finn settled in his seat, his laptop open to his case files. He started reading a file he’d read a hundred times before.
But still, he read, hoping that he might catch something he hadn’t noticed before, something that would break his sister’s case right open.
Wishful thinking, but maybe one of these days, it would come true.
A bump of turbulence jarred him awake. Glancing at his watch, he realized he’d only returned to his seat fifteen minutes before. He closed his laptop and scrubbed his hands down his face, already feeling the crick in his neck.
He glanced at the rear of the plane. The sliding door to the cabin stood open, the empty side of the bed inviting him in.
What would it hurt to lay down and get a couple of hours of sleep?
She’d offered. Could he allow himself that much?
Did he dare?
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust himself. It was that he didn’t trust himself not to want more.
Finally, his exhaustion won out over his good sense. Maybe he would find it again once he got a little sleep. One could only hope.
At the cabin door, he slipped out of his shoes, hung his suit coat up in the tiny closet, and stretched out on the bed beside her, the mattress dipping under his weight. In the few minutes since she’d laid down, she’d curled up on her left side, facing away from him.
He laid flat on his back, careful to maintain the little space between them. As soon as his head hit the pillow, his eyes drifted closed, his mind going directly to the place he didn’t want it to… images of him and Soto in the bed, but this time, neither one of them had clothes on, and that carefully maintained space between them had been obliterated, their bodies now slick with delicious sweat as they both chased their climaxes.
7
Maria awoke to a ping on the PA as the plane’s engine speed slowed a fraction at the beginning of its descent. The pilot announced they would be landing in thirty minutes.
Behind her, Finn groaned and stirred. Sometime during the flight, he’d come to bed, thrown his arm around her waist, and tugged her into him… and his erection.
Not that she was complaining, but if he knew that he’d snuggled up against her while he’d slept, he’d probably have a bit of a freak-out. Which in Finn speak meant that he’d grumpily pretend like nothing happened when something had.
Not that Maria expected anything to come of the close contact besides more awkward silence, but at least she had physical proof to back up Finn’s words when he said he was interested.
To be fair, this wasn’t the time to start something that she didn’t think he was capable of finishing, despite his interest. They had a potential contract killer to find and a cold case to solve.
She peeled his arm from around her waist, trying not to wake him until she could get further away. He stirred and shifted, his erection tucking tighter into her ass. His body stiffened, and she turned her head in time to see his eyes snap open.
He rolled away and stood, trying to adjust himself inconspicuously, which only made the move more conspicuous.
“I didn’t—” Finn visibly struggled for words.
Maria raised her brows when he cut himself off. I’d like to see you explain this.
Red infused his cheeks, and she didn’t think she’d ever seen him quite so embarrassed before.
“I mean—” He gestured between them as if that conveyed what he wanted to say. Fun fact… It didn’t. “You know.”
Maria could have let him off easy and could have pictured a time with the task force not too long ago when she would have. But that was the old her. The her before she’d been shot. The her when he’d apparently pretended he wasn’t interested in her. Now? She didn’t have the time or the patience for that.
Finn took a deep breath and cleared his throat, the calm, cool, collected special agent taking over for the flustered one.
“My apologies. I didn’t intend for that to happen.”
“Trust me. No one was more surprised to feel your dick pressed against my ass than I was.”
And just like that, flustered Finn returned, crimson flashing up his neck.
Before he could apologize again and make a bigger deal out of it than it was, Maria decided to go easy on him. “I worked undercover as a sex worker, Finn. I’ve had plenty of dicks pressed up against me.”
That line re-formed between his brows, the line he always got when he had to fight hard to keep his temper in check.
“Why did you let—”
Oh, no. He didn’t get to say that to her.
“I didn’t let, asshole. But it still happened. It’s hard to sell yourself as a sex worker if you never let people put their hands—and other things—on you. And you might want to check yourself before you let any more words drop out of your mouth without thought.”
Then she took a piece of her own advice and checked herself before she said something she couldn’t take back. Before saying something that might give him too good of an idea of what working undercover as a sex worker had been like.
He stretched a kink out of his neck, but Maria didn’t allow his apparent new, calm demeanor fool her. She’d seen the way his eyes narrowed. And it reminded her of the ass chewings she’d received early on in her career when she’d joined the task force, deserved as they were.
“I don’t recall seeing any reports of sexual contact crossing my desk.”
Mierda. Her and her big mouth. Her mother always said she never knew when to keep quiet.
Sometimes speaking your mind wasn’t such a good quality.
Maria tried to minimize what she’d revealed. “There wasn’t much to report.”
And really, what she’d endured was all in a day’s work. “It’s not like I had sex with any of the johns,” she carefully qualified.
She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Not that she’d been traumatized, but because… because…
Because you don’t want him thinking bad about you? Think bad about you for doing your job?
She brushed past him, snagging her shoes off the floor as she went to take her seat.
With a mental shove, she pushed her negative thoughts aside. She didn’t need to slut shame herself for doing her job—and a damn good job at that.
And if Finn were the type of man to slut shame her for that, then he wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Finn followed her to the seats and buckled in across from her, quiet as he took her advice and carefully considered what he would say next.
“Why wasn’t this brought to my attention?”
“Because no one would have taken me seriously if I dissolved into a pool of tears every time someone grabbed my tits, ass, or rubbed their junk up against me.”
“That was never part of the scope of work.”
Maria let out a bitter laugh as the plane banked on its approach to the airfield. “Tell that to the brass. Those men have no idea what it entails to stand out on a street corner late at night and pretend you’re a sex worker. At least if you want to make your cover believable.”
She didn’t give him a chance to speak now that she was on a roll. “We never would have gotten where we did on that sex-trafficking case if I hadn’t been out there. You know it. I know it. And I hope to hell the brass knows it.”
She stared out the window as they dipped below the clouds and D.C. came into view. Her chin came up, and her eyes narrowed at him when she turned back to him and said, “I’m not ashamed of the work I’ve done. The same way I’m not ashamed to admit I liked waking up to you curled up behind me.”
Setting her jaw, she almost dared him to contradict her.
“I liked it, too.”
Maria’s jaw almost dropped into her lap. Finn looked startled at the admission. She didn’t know which one of them was more surprised.
The landing gear clunked and locked into place. Finn cleared his throat. “About the undercover work… as much as I hate that that happened, as much as I wish you would have reported it to me, we would still be trying to close that case if you hadn’t done what you did. I’m proud of you and what you accomplished. I wish there had been a better way.”
His voice dropped with his last declaration, and Maria felt a buzz in her belly as warmth spread through her chest.
“I wish I could have protected you from that,” he said.
Though she appreciated his words, she wasn’t his to protect. She could damn well take care of herself.
If you were his, would you even let him?
Honestly, she didn’t know. She’d grown up pretty much having to stick up for herself from day one. So much that she had a hard time visualizing what being protected would look like. Would she feel supported or smothered?
The plane landed with a bark of the tires on the concrete. The flaps on the wings flipped up, slowing their speed. She let her end of the conversation drop, not knowing what to add after he’d admitted he’d liked to wake up beside her as much as she’d liked him being there.
But him being man enough to admit it, even knowing he didn’t want to pursue anything with her because of his perceived notion of impropriety if they became involved, went far in her book.
Maybe inside the rule-follower was a rebel fighting his way out.
They stepped off the plane into pissing rain, of course. Finn couldn’t have expected the weather to hold out and make the trip less miserable.
Between packing up their gear, getting their luggage off the plane, and picking up the keys for the car he’d asked to be dropped off and waiting at the municipal airport, Finn had been able to set aside the realization that he’d revealed way too much of his interest in Maria than he’d ever wanted her to know.
It was hard enough ignoring that interested part of him when she hadn’t known, but now he worried he had one less thing holding him back. He didn’t need this complication in his life right now. Not when he needed to focus on his sister’s case to ensure that another opportunity to find her killer didn’t fall through his fingers.
He hung up his rain-splattered suit coat on a hanger behind the driver seat, got behind the wheel, and plugged Congressman Fitzhugh’s address into the map app on his phone.
Maria glanced at her phone when it pinged with an incoming text. She answered it. “That was Wyatt. I’d let him know we landed. He wants me to keep him in the loop as much as possible. He said Massey offered support if you need it while we’re here, though, with their stakeout situation, he may not always be able to get the information we need promptly.”
“Any little bit of help we can get, I appreciate. Though I’m not sure there’s anything pressing we need from him. Right now, we need to see what information we can get from the agents on the scene if they’re willing to talk to me.”
“You think they’re still processing the scene? It’s been what, two days since he died? You don’t think they would have finished already?”
“Most likely,” Finn said as he started the engine and pulled out of the airport parking lot. “But with it being a congressman, a congressman on the house appropriations committee, I’m hoping that they’re being extra careful and processing every last cat hair, mouse turd, and minuscule sliver of evidence they can find. If it turns out to be an accidental death or a suicide, then all that effort may seem like overkill, but it’s hard to go back to a scene and get clean, usable evidence after it has been released back to the family.”
They fought their way through lunch hour traffic in the heart of D.C. to get to the congressman’s house. Finn sighed with relief when he’d had to show his credentials to the uniformed officer at the gate and sign himself and Maria in. The crime scene truck in the circular drive in front of the congressman’s house was a welcome sign. If he were lucky, he might be able to sweet-talk whoever was in charge of the investigation into letting him and Maria inside.
The congressman lived in a neighborhood without sidewalks. The high walls and imposing gates around the properties told the people on the outside that only the privileged were allowed in.
The house was some sort of bastardized version of colonial style. Finn couldn’t tell if it was really old and had been fixed up or if it was a new construction made to look like it had been there since before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Like at the front gate, a uniformed officer stood outside the front door. At a crime scene, you didn’t want every swinging dick walking through the door and potentially contaminating your crime scene.
He flashed his badge to the officer, even though he wasn’t there on official FBI business. But he’d hoped to gloss over that part until he could get to the agent in charge of the case.
“I’m special agent Oscar Finn, and this is…” His words trailed off as he turned to Soto, the realization hitting him that she no longer had a badge.
“Maria Soto,” she said with a disarming smile as she reached out a hand for the officer to shake. She didn’t bother to say what part of the federal or local alphabet soup of agencies she belonged to since she couldn’t do that without flat out lying and misrepresenting herself.
Ronan might be giving Finn some leeway, but he’d come unglued if Finn tried to pass Soto off in any official capacity. As it was, Finn was on the edge of a very thin line.
The door opened behind the officer, and a woman and two haggard men in rumpled suits stepped through the door. The men he’d never seen before.
The woman was another story.
She was a petite, vivacious woman who’d taught him the tough lesson that office romances could be disastrous. Besides having a history that went way back, Finn would rather square off with a heavyweight MMA fighter than Anita Quan, any day.
What she lacked in stature, she more than made up for in shrewd intelligence and dogged determination. She drew up short at the sight of Finn standing in front of her.
The two men nearly bumped into her.
The scowl on Quan’s face only deepened. “Finn. What the fuck rock did you crawl out from under?”
