Elle turned to the menacing man dashing in. Dark hair, beard. Piercing, ice-cold blue eyes. Her jaw dropped. Oh my God. “Jack?”
He didn’t address her. He stepped in between her and the detective and growled, “Back the fuck off.” He didn’t scream, but the threat in his voice was so evident Hensen staggered back before regaining his ability to speak.
“She’s in big trouble and—”
“I said back the fuck off. I won’t repeat it a third time. You put a finger on her again, you lose it.”
Jack watched through the two-way mirror as Elle lay curled up in the chair of the interrogation room, finally asleep, after running herself ragged, pacing up and down for a long while.
“Who is she to you?” Mullen, the FBI agent in charge asked, after approaching.
Jack pondered his response. The bane of his existence? A pain in the ass? The woman responsible for his permanent hard-on and his permanent bad mood?
“My godson’s aunt,” he answered finally. The last person he’d thought he’d find in that interrogation room. As soon as Mullen had informed him that they had a witness tying Maldonado to a murder, Jack had rushed from Puerto Rico to Miami, ready to squeeze that witness mercilessly and use him to get the drug lord. Until he’d seen who the witness was. Then all his protective instincts had kicked in. That Elle had thrown herself at him and hugged him tight, hiding her face in the crook of his neck, trembling, hadn’t helped a bit.
“Can you vouch for her? That what she’s telling is true?”
“Yes,” he said resolutely, not having to think about it. Whatever Elle was, she wasn’t a liar. And that little trick of switching IDs had Elle written all over it.
Leave it to her to come to Florida for a couple of days, do some dumb shit, cross paths with the likes of Maldonado, who’d just recently moved to the US, and end up with all the three-letter security agencies in the country and then some, fighting to claim jurisdiction over her.
It seemed that the case was going to be turned over the Feds, which was a stroke of luck, because Mullen and his men owed him.
“What the fuck was Maldonado doing in a plane to Cuba with a tight-ass politician like Aalto?”
“My guess? Maldonado was taking Aalto on a friendly trip to share a cigar and talk business. Something happened and the friendly trip was cut short. Aalto’s latest proposal was to tighten travel restrictions and drastically limit tourist visas, which Maldonado’s men depend upon to come and go from the US. Maldonado’s infrastructure would have suffered. He was probably trying to influence Aalto, get him to lighten up.”
“Why throw Aalto off a plane?” Jack asked. “It doesn’t make sense. There are easier ways to get someone to disappear.” Not that making the politician disappear made much sense either way. Killing a high-profile public figure was never a good move. Especially if you wanted to sway his decisions.
Mullen shrugged. “It was probably unplanned. Strong winds yesterday. Maybe they miscalculated and thought the body would fall into the sea, never to be found again. You know Maldonado’s got a temper.”
Even though Elle was asleep, Jack could see the reflex movement under her lids. She looked exhausted, but jumpy too. With her hands under her face, she snuggled into the chair as if she were cold. Of course she’d get arrested wearing nothing but a tight dress just slightly bigger than a fucking bandage and smelling like a distillery.
Hensen stopped next to them, his greedy gaze on the two-way mirror. “She’s out of options. I say we use her as bait to draw Maldonado out. Fine piece of ass like that, she wouldn’t have problems—”
Jack turned to him, blocking Hensen’s view of Elle and crossing his arms over his chest, then stared straight into the guy’s eye.
“You don’t talk to her. You don’t look at her, and you sure as fuck don’t use her for anything, especially not bait.”
“Who put you in charge?” the asshole demanded.
Jack smiled predatorily. “Way above your paygrade. And clearance. When it comes to Maldonado, you do as I say.”
“Or?”
“You’ll be the next one skydiving from a plane.”
“Jack, for fuck’s sake,” Mullen growled, stepping in between the two men.
That was the good part of not being under the direct command of the FBI, DEA, CIA, or NSA. Jack didn’t have to obey anyone there. And they knew it.
“Hensen, leave us,” Mullen ordered, then turned to Jack after the detective walked away. “And you, calm the fuck down, will you?”
Jack didn’t look at the special agent, his gaze back on Elle. “I’m calm.”
“You know that under the National Defense Authorization Act we can keep her for as long as we want? And Hensen’s idea of using her as bait has its merit. We spread rumors about a witness, drop her name, and we just sit back and wait for Maldonado’s goons to appear. Or better yet, we put a microphone on her, make her contact Maldonado to blackmail him, and get him to admit his involvement in the killings. Risky, but she would have to go along with it, seeing as she’s facing major jail time for the airport stunt.”