Page 42

So. Piper didn’t like another woman hanging all over him did she? Well, well, well. Would wonders never cease? He glanced at her as he silently opened their hotel door and held it open for her. She slipped past him with a distracted nod of thanks. Looked a little lost in thought, there.

He moved over to the minibar in the corner, pulled out a glass, and emptied two mini-bottles of vodka into it. He carried the drink over to her where she stood staring out the window at the distant Strip.

“Don’t overthink it,” he said quietly as he thrust the vodka into her hand.

“Overthink what?”

“Us.”

“What is there to overthink?”

“I dunno. I’m not overthinking it,” he replied, with a hint of humor in his voice.

She smiled reluctantly at him. And then to his vague surprise, she downed the double shot of vodka in a single toss of the wrist. She coughed, and he pounded her back until she caught her breath. He steadied her as she righted herself, his hands resting on her shoulders.

Don’t be stupid, McCloud . Not only was this woman his partner, but he didn’t even know if he could trust her or not.

Although it wasn’t like he’d trusted her the first time he’d fallen into the sack with her, either. Apparently, he liked an edge of danger in his serious relationships with women. Which made him officially an idiot. Or drunk. Or both.

“Thanks for coming to my defense against the peroxide super villain back in the bar,” he murmured.

“And thank you for taking on Mount Marine in my behalf. He’d have killed you if it had come down to a fight.”

“T-Bone? Nah. I’ve taken him before.”

She blinked up at him, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah. And last time I wasn’t motivated to defend my woman from the bastard.”

“Your—“ she breathed, breaking off abruptly, as if the notion shocked the hell out of her.

God knew, it shocked him. Was that how he thought of her? His woman? In spite of everything she’d failed to share with him before? Sonofabitch.

“Whew. That vodka’s going straight to my head,” she muttered, swaying just a little.

“Didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to mix beer and hard liquor? It’ll knock you on your ass.”

She giggled a little. “My daddy thinks anything stronger than milk is the devil’s drink. Whiskey’s only for cleaning wounds in his world.”

“Boring bastard. How’d he ever manage to land a woman and have two kids?”

“My mom was hot. I look like her—but not as sexy as she was. That’s why my father hates me. I remind him of her.”

She might not be officially drunk, but apparently the vodka was making her a little more brutally honest than usual. Or maybe it was her promise to be honest to him kicking in.

Letting down his guard around her was a mistake. His rational self knew it as surely as he was standing here. She could still be lying to him. Could still be trying ti distract him from thinking about her family and what they were preparing to do.

But he was contemplating stripping her down and crawling into the sack with her as surely as he was standing here. Dumb idea, McCloud .

Damn. Maybe he’d had more to drink than he realized. Or maybe the stress of the past few months had finally caught up with him. Either way, he felt an irresistible urge to cut loose and make love with her.

Sleep. They both needed to sleep off the booze they’d imbibed. His head would be clearer in the morning.

“Bedtime for Piper.” He lifted her plain white t-shirt over her head. “If it came to a choice between me and your father in a firefight, which one of us would you save?”

“Duh. You.” Her voice was muffled by the cotton and he gave a quick yank. Her face, partially covered by mussed hair, popped into sight.

“Seriously? You’d choose me over your family?”

“Love is thicker than blood.” She punctuated the statement by poking him in the chest with her index finger.

“Love, huh? You drunk, Roth?”

“Not nearly drunk enough. Where’d you get those little bottles of vodka from?”

“I have a better idea.” He swept his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his chest. “Let’s get drunk on each other.”

What the hell was he doing? This was madness. The last thing he needed to do was further complicate an already complicated relationship by sleeping with her again. Crap. How drunk was he?

She laughed and looped her arms around his neck. “I’m always a little drunk on you. As soon as you touch me, boom. There goes my brain.”

He totally knew the sensation. She did the exact same thing to his brain. He grinned down at her. “Good to know. Any other classified information about yourself you’d like to divulge to me, seeing as how I won’t remember it in the morning?”

“I like it when you go all alpha male in bed.”

“Yeah? What else?”

“I like it when you hold me afterward. It makes me feel like you care about me and not just the sex.”

Was that true? Did he have feelings for her beyond the gratification of the moment? God knew he’d put his neck on the line for her more times than he cared to think about. “Continue.”

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

That made him draw up sharply and stare down at her in the neon glow of the city outside. The original badass chick was scared of anything? “Scared of what?”

“That I’ll die—that we’ll die—without ever finding out if what we have between us could be more.”

“More than what?” His throat was inexplicably tight when he spoke the words.

“You know. More than fantastic sex.”

Fantastic? That was how she rated their sex, huh? He wouldn’t disagree with the assessment. “Why might we die?”

“What if we get exposed to the virus? We’re in Las Vegas. What if this is where the virus was released? We could both already be infected.”

He stared down at her, appalled. “Wouldn’t there be only a limited number of people who were right next to the virus when it was turned loose? They’ll get sick first and start spreading it to other people, right?”

“God, no. Any viral weapon worth its salt will go contagious before its carriers become symptomatic. Surfaces and food sources and the air all over town could be saturated with the virus by now. It’s been, what?

Three or four days since Yusef could have been here in Vegas?

At least half the town could be dead men walking. ”

He looked over at the air conditioning vents in panic. “We have to get out of the city!”

“Too late. That blonde kissed you, right? If she’s exposed, you’re toast.”

“You kissed T-Bone,” he declared, appalled.

“Did not. He kissed me. And I kissed you, too. Yup, we’re all toast.”

“How can you be so relaxed about this?” he exclaimed.

She draped her arms over his shoulders and ran her fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck. “I figured the only way to stop this virus would be to get close to it. I pretty much expected to die once I realized what we’re up against. Didn’t you?”

Hell, no, he didn’t! He had stuff to do with his life. A wife. Kids. Hell, grandkids. Dammit, he wasn’t ready to die! “You seriously think you’re going to die on this op?” he asked her in disbelief.

“Well, yeah.” Her words were starting to blur. That vodka she’d slugged was catching up with the beer. “I’m throwing myself on my sword to redeem the family honor. Someone’s gotta make up for what my dad and brother are doing.”

Was that what she was doing? Sacrificing herself to even the karmic scales of her family’s crimes? His cell phone rang and he disengaged from her. Saved by the bell .

“Yeah?” he said irritably into the device.

“Agent Starkohl, here. FBI Los Angeles bureau chief.”

Ian went on full battle alert. “What have you got? Did Abahdi break and talk?”

“No. But his daughter did.”

Ian shoved his free hand through his hair in distress. Jesus. The FBI was breaking eight-year-olds, now? He understood the necessity, but it didn’t sit well with him. She was just a kid. It wasn’t her fault her mother had died and her father had lost it.

The FBI agent was talking again. “She says they flew into Mexico and drove into the States in the back of a big truck. Her daddy took her to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday at, and I quote, the most wonderful circus ever. With clowns and elephants and pretty ladies. End quote.”

One of the big hotels on the Strip was circus themed. Ian swore under his breath. “The virus? Where did he dump the coolers?”

“She said he left with the big white boxes right before they left the shiny city. When he came back to the hotel room, apparently, he didn’t have the boxes any more. Las Vegas is the target. I repeat. Las Vegas is the target. And the virus has been released.”

Ian sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

Piper, who’d lain down while he was on the call, curled around him, mink-like.

She was warm and sleek, and he wasn’t going to get a chance to find out if she was being honest with him.

If he could forgive her and trust her again.

They were sitting at ground zero. If they weren’t dead yet, they could be, soon.

The FBI agent spoke heavily. “We need you to find out when, where, and how the virus was released and give the CDC any support it needs to manage the outbreak.”

“Do you guys have any idea how bad this is going to get?” Ian demanded. “There are thousands of tourists in this town, and they’re all potentially exposed.”

“Make that hundreds of thousands, McCloud. We estimate that 220,000 people have passed through the city in the past three days. Effective now, the city is quarantined. You’re the only special operators we have on the ground, there. You’ll spearhead our efforts inside the quarantine zone.”

“And die?”

“We’ll do everything in our power to come up with an antidote, and the two of you will be at the top of the list to receive it.”

“Whatever,” Ian retorted. He knew full well the odds of scientists coming up with a cure for this killer virus in the next few days. “What do the powers-that-be want us to do?”

“Help with crowd control.”

“We may have a bigger problem,” Ian announced. “My partner and I believe the virus is only the first part of a two-pronged attack on the city. With your permission, I’d like to pursue investigating the other angle we’ve uncovered.”

“That’s a negative. You’re more useful there, dealing with the known crisis. Widespread panic is likely. We need you to help keep people calm and show that the government is in control of the situation?—“

Ian hung up on the FBI agent before he could say something he truly regretted.

The government was fucking not in control of anything.

Hell, if he and Piper were going to die anyways, it wasn’t like they needed to worry about disobeying orders.

The PHP had yet to drop the other shoe in this drama, and he’d be damned if he’d sit around twiddling his thumbs while those bastards knocked out all the power to a city already in crisis.

A vision of dead girls with blood red eyes stared back at him out of the darkest corner of the hotel room.

“C’mon, Piper. We’ve got to go.”

“But I’m tired.”

“Right now, baby. Las Vegas is about to get quarantined, and we’ve got to slip out before all the roads are closed.”