All those thoughts and more tossed around in his head as the private charter climbed to a cruising altitude.
Claire had opened her laptop the minute they’d settled in their seats.
Without looking up from her computer, she said, “You do know you’re staring.”
“I have to soak you in now.”
She had long eyelashes. How had he not noticed them before?
“What are you thinking about?” Claire asked, still typing.
“Your eyelashes.”
That made her look. “My what?”
He loved her smile. “When you sleep it’s like they’re resting on the pillows of your cheeks.”
She gave up on work and put it away.
After several moments of silence, Claire turned her head and looked out the window.
“Does anything about us . . . scare you?” she asked.
“I was more afraid there would never be an us.”
“Now that there is?”
He shook his head. “What scares you?”
“Losing our friendship.”
“That’s never going to happen.” He said his words fast, as if doing so would guarantee the outcome.
Claire’s smile waffled. “Lewis will never be Jax’s friend. Sex changes things.”
Cooper leaned forward and took her hand in his. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one. Besides, it sounded like Jax’s relationship with Lewis was only about the sex. That isn’t us.”
She met him in the middle of the table, pressed her lips to his. “We’re pretty amazing at the sex thing.”
“I haven’t even started to show you what it’s like for a man to worship your body.”
“I think you made a pretty good start.”
It was his turn to ask for a kiss.
“Should we make some rules?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if you wanted to see someone else—”
“That’s not going to happen.”
She gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him. “In case you wanted to.”
Maybe she didn’t understand the six years of absence was enough to tell him what he wanted. Then it dawned on him. What if she wanted to keep their relationship open? The thought was enough to drive him mad.
“I stopped seeing two women at the same time when I left the military. Maybe it’s too soon for us to be talking about exclusivity . . .”
“It is?”
“Isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe for people who aren’t friends first?”
He found his smile again. “Okay. Just you and just me.”
Claire squeezed his hands and smiled. “Can I wear your letterman jacket?”
He laughed. “I never had one.”
“If at some point, even if you think it’s not going to happen, you meet someone you want to explore something with, we talk first,” Claire said. “Same for me.”
“I think that goes without saying, but if you want to write up the rules, by all means.”
“I don’t have to write them down.”
He laughed at that. “Yes, you do. And you’ll do it in five languages.”
They drove directly to headquarters.
The team was there and looked like they had been the entire weekend.
Jax jumped up from her computer when she saw them, walked over to Claire, and pulled her in for a hug. “We all listened to the interview. God, that must have been awful.”
“Satisfying, but not fun.” Claire looked at Cooper, giving him credit for her not breaking down.
Jax stopped hugging her and narrowed her eyes. “You look very relaxed.”
“It wasn’t all work.”
“How you doing, Yearling?” Lars asked.
Claire realized everyone was looking at her . . . well, all but Sasha, who rolled her eyes before focusing on the computer she was in front of.
Neil looked her in the eye. “Great job getting her to talk.”
“Having the track team photographs was key.”
“Smart,” Sasha said.
“Is she going to be safe?” Claire asked Neil directly.
“I have eyes on her. If something looks out of place, I’ll assemble a team.”
“What do you mean, ‘eyes’? Is there a team in Seattle you aren’t telling us about?” Claire asked, half joking.
“Not a team.” Neil stared down at her, eyes unwavering.
In that moment Claire’s mind flashed to the ICU. The staff moving around the unit . . . the housekeeper that had pushed a cart through the door. “Oh my God . . . Olivia.”
Neil’s lips pushed together.
“You’re kidding me,” Sasha said, turning to stare at Neil.
“In the ICU.” Claire looked at Cooper. “When we were talking to Phelps, she was disguised as a housekeeper.” Claire could see her clearly now. Olivia was ex-Richter. Only she didn’t escape the clutches of evil that the school harbored.
“I don’t remember,” Cooper admitted.
Claire returned her stare to Neil. “It was her, wasn’t it? She’s the one keeping an eye on Marie?”
Quiet filled the room.
Olivia was an assassin. Or had been, before Neil and the team tore apart the fabric that cloaked Richter.
Neil’s silence confirmed her suspicion.
Who better to watch out for an assassin than someone who’d been in that role in the past?
“Marie will be safe” was all Neil added.
Cooper rubbed Claire’s back before walking to the front of the room. “So where are we at?” He stared at the situation board, hands on hips.
It took a few seconds before the shock that Olivia was not only alive but working for Neil wore off.
Jax answered Cooper’s question. “Marie positively identified Big Brian Contreras.”
“That’s a huge check on the board,” Claire said. “What about Mykonos?”
“Mykonos Sobol,” Sasha reported and handed Claire a picture. “Extended family with money and power. They are the kind of family that goes to jail for tax evasion instead of prostitution and murder.”
“Russian mafia,” Cooper said, deadpan.
“Affirmative.”
Lars picked up from there. “Vegas vice has been wanting to bust him for years, but no one talks. Two times he was booked, both times the witnesses recanted and later disappeared. Marie’s testimony is exactly what Vegas needs.”
Every time Claire heard Marie’s name, she worried more for her safety, felt better knowing the person protecting her.
“Any direct link between Mykonos and Milo?”
Isaac spoke up. “I’m working on that now. So far, nothing.”
Claire’s mind flashed with the pictures of the bodies in the police report. “Do we have the autopsy reports yet on the two deceased?”
“I’m told we’ll have them tomorrow,” Neil told her.
Cooper pointed to a new photograph on the board. “I’m guessing this is Ice.”
“Detective Phelps already got back to us on him,” Lars informed them. “Marie gave a positive ID. Similar to Brian, he was headed toward his third strike when he and his guys cleaned up their act. The running theory is when Marie was sent there to learn her lesson, Ice needed to make sure she did. When she got busted, she wasn’t going back to Vegas directly to Mykonos, so Ice was told to kill her. But instead of doing that right away, he makes more money off of her, then lines up all of his guys and makes them participate in all the brutality before the girls are set on fire.”