A mocking smile curled her lips. “Let me guess, you didn’t get that little message? Let me ask you this one, did you get the audio file of his death?”
Somehow, she knew he hadn’t. Cabal knew he hadn’t, just as he knew that Jonas hadn’t received it.
“You brought it with you?”
There could be clues in an audio file. Clues they could use to find the killer. Not that he expected that this particular killer had left much in the way of clues. He had been too smart so far.
“Did I say I brought it with me?” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Don’t play games with me. I want to know what you’ve found here, and I want to know who the hell the killer is talking about when he says that the last one to die is one who was dead and will die again. What the hell kind of game is being played here, Cabal?”
CHAPTER 19
Anger was a horrible emotion. It stayed, lingered, brewed and built inside until Cassa felt as though she were going to explode.
Two days after the discovery of Cash Winslow’s death, she watched the news report of the supposedly fiery car crash he had been involved in while driving from D.C.
His vehicle had hit ice—plausible, there was a light snow in the mountains—and plunged through the guardrail to explode at the bottom of a treacherous mountain cliff.
Dozens were mourning the loss of the security advisor, the reporter related. The ex-government agent was suspected to have been drinking and driving.
“Could you have used anything more clichéd?” she muttered as Cabal paced the room behind her, his narrowed gaze drifting to the reporter before turning back to her.
“It’s clichéd because it works,” he growled.
She shrugged nonchalantly as she continued to watch the news report, her gaze keeping track of the time at the corner of the television screen.
Two days. She’d slept in her own bed during those two days, alone. He’d taken her, but if any dared to call it making love, then she would have become violent. Not that that made it much different from the first time, or the times after it. She was merely noticing that there was definitely more and more Cabal was holding back.
Was it tenderness? He was always gentle with her, always careful . . . Perhaps that was it. He was too careful. Too conscious of each touch, while keeping her helpless in a sensual maelstrom that didn’t allow much of a chance for her to assert her own sexuality.
Mating heat and a mission that Cabal was refusing to allow her to be a part of weren’t going hand in hand here. And she was tired of bitching over it. She hated to whine, and begging wasn’t her style.
“I have a meeting to go to.” The deep rasp of his voice sent a thrill of response down her spine.
Of course he had a meeting to go to. Jonas was waiting for him two floors above, along with whatever evidence they had taken from her computer and the latest crime scene.
“Figures.” She gave another shrug and kept her attention on the television, carefully controlling her response to him as well as her own plans.
“I’ll be a while.” There was an edge of impatience to his voice now.
“Take your time.” She waved him away, allowing just enough of her own anger to show to allay any suspicions that she might be hiding something or have a meeting of her own planned.
Text messaging was a wonderful, wonderful invention. And Dog was so sneakily efficient that he even avoided messaging while Cabal was in the room with her. That was damned scary. It made her wonder if he had an eye in her room, or an ear, that Cabal might have overlooked.
She glanced over at her mate to catch him watching her silently. On second thought, she doubted he’d missed anything, especially not an electronic bug in either of their rooms.
“Look, Cassa, I know you don’t understand my need to protect you . . .”
“Don’t start.” She held her hand up in a halting motion. “I’m not fighting you any further.”
His lips thinned in irritation. For the past two days she had refused to discuss his stubborn insistence that she wasn’t a part of this investigation. She wasn’t arguing anymore.
“We’re going to have to discuss it.” The words came from between gritted teeth. Poor little Bengal, at the rate he was going he wasn’t going to have any molars left by the time he left Glen Ferris.
By the time she left him.
“You mean I’m going to have to agree with you and turn my independence over to you sooner or later,” she retorted sweetly. “Nope, sorry, my pretty striped tiger, it’s not gonna happen.”
A frown jumped between his brows at her mocking pet name for him. He hated any references to those sexy-as-hell stripes. Too bad, because she rather liked them herself.