Breakpoint (12 page)

“Although he wasn’t your enemy, you had to know your commander well enough to know how to present your evidence in a way to keep the situation from ever getting beyond your initial Article Thirty-two investigation process.

“And no”—he cut her off when she opened that luscious mouth to argue—“I’m not saying you tampered with your evidence. Or even slanted it. But presentation is everything. And the way you presented it, your commander would have had to have been Captain Queeg to take the case to trial.”

“Interesting that you’d say that,” she murmured. “For the record, it’s a decidedly minority opinion.”

“Only among people who don’t know you.”

“And you do?”

“When you spend three days locked in a room with someone, unless you’re deaf, blind, and stupid, you get a handle on them,” he said. “Even people as good as you are at not giving away any clues.”

“Well.”

She seemed suddenly vastly interested in the view outside the side window. And, although it was a flat-out fantastic view, Dallas had the feeling she was mainly distancing herself while she mulled that over. Her control was such that he doubted she’d be all that thrilled with someone reading her as well as he had. Of course, he’d had a lot of time to think about her.

Too much time.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” she said finally. She was still looking out the window, giving him a view of the back of her glossy blond head.

“You don’t have to say anything. We’ve got a job to do, Julianne.” Although he still thought it was too formal for how he liked to think of her, Dallas used her full name to show her exactly how seriously he was taking this conversation.

“Like it or not, we’re going to be partners,” he said. “Suicide’s always a supersensitive situation. Especially in the military. More so these days with PTSD running rampant.

“But if the pilot’s death turns out to be murder, that’ll be a helluva lot worse. If it turns out to be terrorism related, then the shit’s really going to hit the fan. We need to go into this investigation battle being on the same team.”

“That’s pretty much understood. Given that we were assigned to work together.”

“Didn’t you ever have to work with someone you didn’t like? Or respect?”

“Of course.”

“And how was it?”

She’d turned back to him, and although he couldn’t see her eyes because of those damn sunglasses, he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Less than ideal,” she admitted.

“Well, then.” Because he could no longer be this close to her without touching her, he skimmed a friendly hand down her hair. “Since I both like and respect you, if you’d try to see fit to return the favor, we can helo out to that ship—boat—tomorrow, sail through the investigation, and close it in time to return back here for some celebratory R and R in paradise. When was the last time you took a vacation?”

“I can’t remember.” She pulled her head back, but did not scoot all the way across the seat. Which, Dallas figured, was progress.

“Me neither. Which means we’re due.”

“We have to close the case first.”

Again, he liked that she wasn’t tossing his R & R suggestion back into his face. He was getting to her. The way she had him. He’d just been a little quicker on the trigger when it came to admitting it.

“Absofuckinglutely,” he said.

The driver of the naval staff car following the two government agents wasn’t worried about being noticed. Oahu was crawling with staff cars from the naval base, MCBH, or Hickam AFB. What significance would one more have?

Although he’d had to switch plans after the flyboy and the former JAG LT didn’t stay in BOQ on Pearl as intended, years of military training had taught him that the plan always disintegrated on first contact with the enemy. And make no mistake about it, former Sergeant O’Halloran and JAG Lieutenant Decatur were definitely not friendlies.

But he’d come up with what he’d thought was a workable solution. Until, damn it all to hell, they’d stopped at the fucking E-5 bar and picked up dinner. Which meant they’d be eating in their rooms. Which, in turn, meant that the chances of getting his man into those rooms in the MCBH lodge had just been downgraded.

Still, he considered, as he continued past the base gate when their car turned in (no way was he going to follow them past the gate and end up on the daily log), as his overmuscled SEAL frogman brother-in-law was always saying, the only easy day was yesterday.

So they’d experienced a few setbacks.

Okay, maybe the entire mission looked as if it was on the verge of becoming an ultimate goat fuck.

The key was not to panic.

He’d think of something.

Because he’d worked too hard, and the stakes were too damn high, to allow a few snafus to screw things up.

Not wanting to risk some random cell phone picking up his conversation over the airways, he pulled into the parking lot of an Island Mini Mart to use the pay phone.

Because failing to plan was planning to fail.

And failure was no way, no how, an option.

The rooms, which were connected, were typical for transient military. There were a bed, chest, sofa, desk, and table with four chairs, along with a kitchenette along one wall, which wasn’t necessary, since they were only going to be spending the night, and after years of her having eaten in Navy messes, nuking a frozen dinner was pretty much the apex of Julianne’s culinary abilities. The framed pictures on the wall, which seemed to change from posting to posting, were, unsurprisingly, of island scenes.

“Your place or mine?” Dallas asked after she’d used the key to open the door.

“Excuse me?”

He lifted the bags. “Dinner. No point in eating alone, and we can discuss the case while we eat.”

“You were going to go Googling,” she reminded him. “Because there doesn’t seem to be much of a case to discuss at this point.”

“You never know what you can find if you do a little digging. Like the fact that the dead pilot’s husband just happens to be a Marine. Whom the shore patrol arrested last year for domestic assault.”

She stared at him. “That arrest is nowhere in the file.”

“Like I said, I got there before you did. I did some digging after the commander was called out of his office for a few minutes.”

“You went through his files?”

She should have been surprised. But, knowing what she did about Special Ops, she wasn’t. But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t annoyed that he’d already gotten one step ahead of her.

“Of course I didn’t. That’d be against the law.”

“Like that would stop you.” But she was relieved he hadn’t. “If you’d gotten caught—”

“Concerned about me, Juls?”

“I’m concerned about solving this case. Which would be more difficult if I had to wait for THOR to assign me a new partner.”

“Well, you needn’t have worried. Because I didn’t touch his files. You’d be amazed what stuff you can find on the Internet with a smart phone.”

“You hacked into DoD records?”

He leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. “Well, I could have filed a mile-high stack of request forms seeking the info we needed. And just maybe, if everyone up the line cooperated, we might know something by, oh, say, the next millennium or so.”

“Look,” she said, struggling to bite back her exasperation, “I understand you’re not a lawyer. But surely even you’ve heard of the legal concept regarding fruit from the poison tree?”

“Sure. That any information obtained illegally is thrown out of court.”

“Yet that didn’t stop you?”

“No. Because while there are admittedly many less than pretty aspects of the Homeland Security and Patriot acts, one of the handy things is that they give THOR pretty much carte blanche when it comes to what it takes to get the job done. We’re the blackest black there is.”

He was right. She’d read the description of the agency when she’d signed. Which made her wonder . . .

“If you can get this so-called ‘stuff,’ why can’t anyone else?”

“Because no one else is as good as me.”

Other men might say something like that with a swagger. His tone was merely one of casual confidence. Even though she had the feeling he wasn’t exaggerating, Julianne worried that there might be someone else out there who could also hack into the system. One of the really bad guys.

“That’s why we’re not going to write anything down on a computer. Or send any e-mails, even if they’re encrypted,” he said. “Because, trust me on this, sometimes you just can’t tell who’s wearing the white hats, and who’s got on black.”

“Like that Australian journalist whose life you saved? The one who made you a poster boy for American imperialism on every terrorist Web site and network on the planet?” The one who, she’d figured out, had been at least one of the reasons he’d left the Air Force.

“That would be one recent example.”

Apparently no longer willing to wait for an invitation, he strolled into her room as if he had every right to be there and put the bags from the bar, along with the Cokes and beers they’d bought at the Island Mini Mart, onto the table.

Deciding that it only made sense to discuss what he’d found while they ate, Julianne began unbagging their dinner.

At first she thought the sound of the ukulele must be her imagination, brought on by being back in the islands. But when she opened the drapes and looked out onto the wide expanse of grass and the lanai and communal barbecue behind the building, she realized the music was real.

“Cool.” He came over to stand next to her. “Looks like we’re getting ourselves a luau anyway.”

“It appears so.”

From the CONGRATULATIONS banner strung up between two palm trees, it appeared to be a private party.

“Wanna crash it?” he asked.

“Of course not.” She’d never crashed a party in her life. She also doubted that there was any party this man wouldn’t be welcome at.

“Ah, we’re back to rules.” His eyes were laughing at her again. “If it doesn’t come with a gilt-edged RSVP card, it’s not an invitation.”

“That’s not true.” For some ridiculous reason, the accusation stung. Telling herself it was only jet lag, she pulled out a chair, sat down at the table, and, ignoring him, popped the top on her can of Coke. “You make me sound rigid. Boring.”

“Darlin’, you have never bored me.” He unscrewed the top off his brown bottle of beer. “Frustrated me, maddened me so much at one point I was tempted to put my fist through the wall of that interrogation room we spent three days in, and definitely turned me on, but ‘boring’ just doesn’t fit anywhere in my description of you.”

“You wanted to hit the wall?” She wasn’t going to touch that turning-him-on assertion. Especially since it had been all too obvious when he’d been teaching her the tricks of pinball machines back at the bar.

“Being questioned in a court-martial proceeding isn’t exactly a picnic.”

He pulled up a chair across from her. Although he wasn’t all that tall—six-one, she guessed—his legs were long enough that their knees bumped beneath the small table.

“Yet you never showed any anger.”

“Well, duh.” He opened a foam box, pulled out a coconut-coated piece of shrimp nearly as large as her fist, and bit into it. “Like my flying off the handle would’ve helped my buddies’ case.”

“It probably wouldn’t have had any effect on it,” she allowed. “Though since we were both being watched through that two-way mirror, putting a hole in a Judge Advocate General’s office probably would’ve earned a black mark against you.”

“Like I cared.”

He tossed aside the tail and bit into a fry. His teeth were strong and straight and white and, heaven help her, suddenly had her imagining them nipping at the inside of her bare thigh. Or the back of her knee. The way they’d done on her earlobe, never mind what he’d said about merely “nuzzling.”

“However,” he continued,“we need to move past that. It’s bygones. We’re partners, and we’re going to kick ass and take names and wrap this case up in time to take in some surfing, do some sightseeing, drink some Mai Tais on the beach, and attend one of those overpriced touristy luaus at the Royal Hawaiian before going back to the States.”

The veggie burger was okay. Better than okay, actually. But it appeared that some hungers triggered others, and she found herself snagging a cheese-covered fry from the cardboard box between them.

“Ah, yes, we’re now back to that vacation idea.”

Damn, the French fry was really good. She considered asking him to share his coconut shrimp, but hated thinking of herself as one of those women who ate off her date’s plate.

Not that this was a date.

“We’re both due.” Displaying an unnerving ability to read her mind, he shoved the white box with the shrimp toward her. “You’ve got to try one of these.”

She did not need a second invitation. She dipped it into the piña colada sauce, took a bite, and nearly moaned.

“Okay,” she admitted when she finished chewing. “That’s better than the burger.”

“We can share,” he said magnanimously. “There’s plenty.”

“I could probably use some time off,” she allowed, getting back to the topic of the proposed R & R. What the hell, now that she’d fallen off the healthy-eating wagon, she might as well go for one of the wings. “But talking about vacationing together suggests that you see us becoming more than partners. Like friends.”

“To know me is to love me.”

Damn. She didn’t even want to think about how many women had fallen under the spell of those melted-chocolate eyes and his dimples.

“Ah, but I don’t know you.”

“We can take care of that.”

She ignored the provocative suggestion, which was rife with cocky male arrogance, and instead turned her attention to the dancers out on the lawn.

“You said you lived here?” he asked.