your brother’s stuff to trace where the money had gone.”
“Like the memory card.”
Brett’s smile was slow. But then he had reason for his satisfaction. NCIS had identified the guy with the tattoos and flipped him, then used him to take down the entire ring of thieves.
There would be no more American deaths because of stolen naval weaponry.
The only question the memory card had left them with were those strings of mystery numbers.
But if that first bank account number had been linked to Mitch, then his banking records had physically tied him to the sale of those weapons too. Between the bank records and the videos, he wouldn’t have been able to weasel his way out of arrest and prosecution.
Sean really had managed to take him down. Posthumously, maybe, but he’d done it. The realization brought sorrow and pride. And then another question.
“I wonder why this anonymous thief didn’t take the money earlier. Why wait for so long?” If that person really had been working with Sean, it had been almost two months between her brother’s death and the transfer of Mitch’s ill-gotten gains. Why wait so long and chance Mitch transferring the money out himself?
Brett cradled her against his side. His hand settled on her thigh and squeezed. “They must have known another sale was in the works. A 1.2-million-dollar deposit went in just before the money disappeared from the account. If they’d transferred the cash before that deposit hit, the original account would have been shut down and a new, unidentified one opened. Since the withdraws indicated Mitch had already paid his associates from the earlier sales, he would have simply continued doing business. But by waiting until the next sale hit Mitch’s account, and then transferring the money before Mitch had a chance to pay his partners, whoever did this effectively shut Mitch down.”
Right. Sarah nodded. She’d even wondered why Mitch had stiffed his partners. That had seemed the height of stupidity. The kind of foolishness that would have put him out of business or planted him in the ground rather quickly.
“Did Devlin’s friend track down who took the money?” She cuddled into Brett’s chest. Feeling his heat seep into her, warming her from the outside in, practically melting her into a boneless puddle in his arms.
“No. He said the hacker’s a ghost.” Brett’s voice was absent now.
But the hand that skimmed up her thigh to her hip and then her abdomen to cup her breast was anything but absent. No….it was full of sensual intent. So were the lips that zeroed in on the side of her neck.
She shivered, her breath catching. Goosebumps peppered her arms and marched down her spine. She tilted her head to the side, giving him better access to that sensitive patch of skin. He knew exactly where and how she liked to be kissed. Where to nip. Where to nibble. Where to suck.
He knew exactly how to make her come undone.
She should tell him to stop, that they needed to wait, that he’d barely been out of the hospital for three weeks, that he was only a month past his surgery and the doctor had been adamant that he needed to give himself time to recuperate before doing any strenuous activity.
And sex with Brett had always been strenuous. Gloriously vigorous.
“We…should…” Her voice caught as he rubbed her puckered nipple through her blouse and bra. “Wait?”
But then the halfhearted question spurred real concern. Her wound had healed up days ago. She never even felt it anymore. But he’d been in much worse shape. Four weeks might be too soon.
Other than the first few days after their trip home, he’d never exhibited discomfort. But then Brett was good at hiding what he was feeling—and that included physical pain. And while she knew for a fact his exterior wounds were all healed up, as she checked them every day, what about the path the bullet had taken beneath his skin? Had he healed internally? After all, the bullet had done enough damage to collapse his lung.
That kind of injury must take a while to recover from. Maybe even more than a month.
“Trust me. I’m good. Five by five. Hell, ten by ten even. All revved up and ready to fly.” His voice was a raspy growl in her ear.
She knew that five by five meant good to go, or as he often put it—ready to rumble? But…
Ten by ten…?
Her lips twitched. Was that shorthand for claiming he was ten times better than good?