Page 50 of Barbed Wire and Burglary
“If you’re trying to make me jealous, it’s working,” he growled.
“Don’t be.” She touched his cheek. “After college, mydating life became nonexistent, and you are definitely the only guy who’s ever offered me a grenade clip.”
“Kiss me,” he begged again.
“Please don’t underestimate what we have.” She tugged his head down to drop her forehead against his, twining her arms around his neck. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever allowed to put a ring on my finger.” She’d turned down all the other offers.
“Good.” He swooped in to claim her lips, apparently tired of waiting for her to get around to it.
He kissed her like he always did—like he meant it, like she mattered more to him than anyone else, and like he was never going to stop.
He made her heart race and put her on a precarious teeter-totter between tears and laughter. No one else had ever made her feel this way. No one else had ever loved her with such deep-seated passion. Aaron came the closest, but only in a brotherly way. This was different. It was potent and all-consuming. It was a claiming.
As quickly as their kiss had begun, it ended. A.J. touched his forehead to hers like she’d done to him earlier. “We should get going. Your brother’s probably wondering why we haven’t yet made contact and reported anything back to him.”
“I don’t mind putting it off a little longer,” she sighed. “I can assure you he’s not going to like what we tell him.”
A.J. raised his head. “Sounds like you have something to share.”
“Yes, from an hour ago,” she reminded. “You asked me to wait to tell you since it’s not life threatening. At least not imminently.”
“Lay it on me.” He stepped away from her to close his laptop and grab the keys to their rental car.
She pressed a hand to her heart, not sure what to think about her latest discovery. “I spend most of my time on the road, but I can remotely access the system at Diamondback.” She swallowed hard, since she’d never done it for personal reasons before. “I usually just log in, file my reports, and log off; but not this morning. I took the time to poke through files I’ve never poked through before and ended up running across something I really, really, really wish I hadn’t.”
“Oh?” He paused, frowning, on his way to the door.
It was a good thing he’d stopped, because the words she’d kept bottled up until now were already tumbling out of her. “Our Uncle Cary had a life insurance policy on our parents, just like they had one on him.” It wasn’t unusual for business partners to do that when there were major financial assets at stake. “What I didn’t know before this morning was that he received payouts on them.”
“Man, Aurora!” A.J. walked back in her direction, immediately understanding the significance of her revelation. “Are you okay?”
“I am.” She was, because she’d already accepted that her parents weren’t coming back. “But my brother won’t be when he hears about it.” The pounding of her heart escalated. “Uncle Cary would’ve needed to present death certificates for the payouts, which would indicate our parents’ remains were recovered after all. I’m not sure why he withheld something so important from us.” In doing so, he’d left Aaron clinging to the hope of finding them alive when there was, in fact, no hope left. It was insensitive and cruel.
A.J. took her hands in his. “I know we agreed to withhold judgment ahead of the evidence, but this doesn’t look good for your uncle.”
“I know.” But she still found herself mentallyscrambling for a way to defend him. “It’s just so out of character for him. He’s reclusive, nerdy, and a bit on the paranoid side, but he’s always loved us.” She’d never doubted it.
A.J. tugged her closer. “Sometimes, when you think you know someone, you don’t,” he reminded gently. The rocky start to their own relationship was proof enough of that.
She nodded reluctantly, not at all at peace with the conclusion he was drawing. She, too, saw where the evidence was leading, but it didn’t feel any more right than it had the first time Uncle Cary’s name had been mentioned as a possible suspect.
“We should get to work.” She patted her pocket to ensure the zip drive she was bringing along was still there. “It’s the only way we’re going to get to the bottom of this mess.”
As they headed out the door together, she reminded, “Once we’re inside the office, I’ll be jabbering a mile a minute with meaningless small talk for all the obvious reasons.”
“Understood.”
For all they knew, the place would be wired from the baseboards to the ceiling rafters with spy cameras and listening devices. “If anyone is watching, all they’re going to see is Diamondback’s lead security analyst catching up on a little work while she’s in town.”
A.J. stepped into the hallway ahead of her and looked both ways. Then he beckoned her to follow him.
The warmth of his hand pressing against the small of her back as they walked to the parking lot was the most wonderful feeling in the world. It made all the dark things swirling around them seem further away.
Since there was solittle information about Diamondback online, A.J. had been blown away to discover it was located on Wall Street, of all places. Aurora had waited to drop that bomb on him until after their flight was en route. He could tell she wasn’t comfortable divulging those kinds of details, not even to him.
He understood why. Being able to hold his own in a conversation without divulging any personal information about himself had become second nature to him, as well. It was simply part of the job. It was what kept people like the two of them alive.
They parked two blocks away and walked the rest of the way there on the crowded sidewalk. A.J. paused with Aurora in front of the building, thoroughly impressed by the old world elegance of the high-rise that housed Diamondback’s home office. It wasn’t one of those newfangled glass and chrome monstrosities. It was four stories of stone carvings and arched accoutrements—the kind most builders didn’t build anymore.
