She’d done this a million times before. On instinct. On nerve. On nothing but timing and confidence.
Cara checked her reflection in the rearview mirror, tousled her hair and smudged her makeup just enough to give herself the look of a woman who’d had a few drinks and terrible judgment.
One last steady breath and she stepped out of the van already in character.
30
Gabe hadto force himself not to tense. The math wasn't complicated.
He was barely ten feet from the back room, flanked by two heavies who knew how to make people disappear, on his way to the start of a very bad night. At the best.
The boss waited in the doorway. Mid-fifties, hard eyes, the weathered face of someone who'd spent decades doing things that left scars. Gabe recognized his voice from the factory.
Gabe’s Glock was accessible but useless. Too many civilians. The bartender. The men at the pool table. Starting a firefight would get innocent people killed.
He’d have to badge them and talk his way out. Disappearing a special agent would not be high on this guy’s list of preferred activities.
But these men had called Chief Hale. They had official cover for whatever they were about to do. His FBI badge might just accelerate the timeline.
The bigger man on his left had a hand near the small ofhis back. The one on his right kept shifting position to block sight lines from the main bar.
This was going to get very bad, very fast.
Then the front door burst open with enough force to make everyone look.
A woman in dark clothing stumbled through the entrance, overcorrected, and crashed directly into a bearded guy holding a beer near the door. The glass tipped, spilling liquid down her front.
Beer splashed across her hoodie and jeans. "Oh no. I'm so sorry." She grabbed napkins from a nearby table, dabbing frantically at the mess, but making it worse. "I'm such a klutz, I'm so sorry?—"
The bearded man grunted something and moved away. She was still apologizing when her eyes found him across the bar. "GABE! Th-there you are!"
Every muscle in Gabe's body locked.
Her hair was mussed, makeup smudged, eyes bright, grinning sloppily. Was she…drunk?
She wore the same clothes she'd had on earlier but somehow looked completely different. Younger. Reckless. Exactly like someone who'd made questionable decisions and was about to make more.
She weaved toward him through the bar, the stupid smile growing wider. "I've been looking EVERYWHERE for you!"
Gabe fought to process what his eyes were seeing. She was supposed to be at the bakery. With Wade. Safe. Not here. Not stumbling toward him while these men—the same men who'd searched the warehouse last night—watched her approach. His stomach dropped. They might recognize her.
They'd been hunting through that warehouse less than twenty-four hours ago. If they'd gotten a clear look at her face— But they hadn't. The warehouse had been dark. They'd been on the third floor behind machinery. The searchers hadnever gotten close enough for clear identification. And Cara looked completely different now soaked in beer, playing drunk, radiating chaotic energy instead of the controlled energy she'd shown in the warehouse. Different context. Different presentation. Different person entirely.
The muscle flanking him watched her with the wary assessment of men dealing with an unpredictable drunk woman, not the recognition of men identifying a threat from the previous night.
She was counting on that. Had to be.
Squeezing straight between the goons flanking him as if they didn't exist, she lurched into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing hard. The yeasty smell of beer enveloped them like a cloud.
Gripping his biceps, she pushed herself back, giving her hair a big toss and zooming in on the man in charge. "Is he bothering you? He does that sometimes when he's had a few drinks. Gets all intense and whatever."
Her hand on his arm felt warm through his sleeve. Grounding. Real.
"I met him at O'Malley's, you know? In Ferndale?” She swiveled her head, taking in the room, then grabbed Gabe tighter. “Whoa. Spinning. Anyway," she continued, the story tumbling out with the kind of detail that made lies believable. "It’s a total dive. Not like this place. So Gabe here was asking around about some guy. Missing person or something, right babe?" She looked at Gabe with exaggerated affection. "I thought he was cute, we got to talking, had a few drinks..."
The boss's eyes narrowed, assessing this new variable.
Cara kept talking, filling the silence with exactly the kind of chattiness that drunk people used to make friends. "He said he had to check one more place, and I maybe had a few more drinks after he left and thought..." She giggled, upper body swaying. "I know, I know, it's lame, but he's just so..."
