The badge hanging around his neck didn’t do much to set her mind at ease.
So. He was FBI.
She remembered the power she’d glimpsed in his mind. Maybe she should have had a little more faith in him, but she’d operated on the information her mind had given her. She didn’t know him.
She could still remember that lapse she’d had. The dream, how she’d unconsciously reached out to him.
And his response. So flat, and cold. I don’t want you anymore.
Asshole. She couldn’t see inside his head, but she knew he could have looked inside hers if he’d tried. He just hadn’t bothered. So much for her being worth it. Tears threatened, but she shoved them back.
Not the time. Or the place. She’d break once she was out of this mess, in some place nice and private.
“Where is he?” he demanded, once he was close enough.
Of course, he didn’t stop. Four feet wasn’t close enough apparently. He kept coming until he was right in her space, just a few inches away, so that the warmth of his body reached out to tease hers.
“Who?” she asked. With a mean little smile, she rose up onto her toes and pressed her lips to his ear. “If you’re asking about my dearest fiancé, I’m trying to break up with him. But it isn’t going well. However, I can’t tell you where he is.”
“Not him,” he growled. “And you know it. Where is your sidekick? Tucker whoever?”
“Tucker . . . my sidekick.” She smiled a little. “Oh, he’d like that. Do I get to wear some sexy little vinyl suit? Can he wear vinyl, too? Black, I think. Or maybe dark gray. He’d look smashing in gray, especially with those eyes. Sleeveless, if we can, because I’m rather fond of his tats.”
A snarl quivered on his lips. “Dru . . . don’t push me. We need to talk to him. He’s part of the investigation.”
“No.” She leaned back against the fence, studying her nails. “He’s not. Anything he knows, I know. He was just here to help me if I got into a jam. Now he’s gone and I’ve no idea where you can find him.”
“Damn it, Dru!”
With a patience she really didn’t feel, she sighed again. “Yelling at me just isn’t going to help any, you know. Not at all.” She turned away from the fury burning in his eyes, but before she could move, the exhaustion she felt slammed into her and she swayed.
His hands, big and hard, caught her shoulders.
Shrugging him away, she tried to pull free. “Let me go.”
“Not likely.”
You don’t have a choice, she thought bitterly. She jerked away with a fury that surprised her, but her legs were clumsy, heavy, and she would have gone to the ground if he hadn’t caught her a second time.
“Stop it,” he growled. “You’re exhausted, about ready to pass out. When was the last time you ate a damn thing? When was the last time you slept?”
She curled her lip, fighting the urge to say something really, really ugly. Fighting the urge to hit him, but if she did, that hard skull of his might break her hand. Bastard. Fucking bastard. “It hardly concerns you, does it? My personal business? Don’t you have a job to see to, Agent Crawford?” she asked, keeping her voice as flat as she could.
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Now that’s where you’re wrong. It concerns me in all kinds of ways.” He raked her with a critical eye and then turned his head. “Kingsley!”
Somebody separated himself from the mess of people. “Yeah?”
“Get her a chair. And sit on her. If she tries to leave, cuff her.”
Dru narrowed her eyes. “And exactly what right do you have?”
Although she knew they had all sorts of reasons to detain her. Jerking his chain wasn’t going to do much good. Except . . . well, it made her feel better.
“I could start listing them, but we’d be here all morning, noon, and night,” Joss drawled. “And I don’t know about you, but I want to wrap it up here so we can focus on your fiancé.”
A look of disgust crossed his face as he said it. One that cut her to the bone.
She turned away, wrapping her arms around her middle. She’d done what she had to do. There was information she could present them with, and would. Once she was able to get to it . . . of her own free will.