“Thanks for the tip in Baton Rouge, by the way,” he said to B now, unable to keep the sardonic edge from his tone. He’d received an anonymous text with the target’s name, along with an address and a cryptic From one of the good guys. At the time he’d mistakenly assumed Rycroft had sent it.
Her eyes flashed up to his a moment, then she nodded in acknowledgement and looked away.
All these weeks later, Matt still didn’t know what to make of her or her actions that night. Al-Tunisi had been a critical, high value target. When Tuck’s team had finally gone in to get him that night, they’d found him dead on his bathroom floor with his pants around his ankles, a double tap to the chest and one to the forehead. Later, when they’d done satellite analysis of someone seen climbing the outside of Al-Tunisi’s house, he’d been stunned to identify her features on screen.
So he didn’t find the idea of her taking out Ramadi that surprising.
“I’m gonna give you some lidocaine to freeze this before I stitch you,” Schroder told her, already prepping a syringe. B said nothing but finally broke eye contact with Matt when his medic began injecting the topical analgesic into the wound.
He watched her features go flat as Schroder stuck her with the needle and began stitching her up, clearly not wanting to betray any hint of pain. She’d have been trained to hide that or any other weakness.
Matt resisted the urge to drag a hand through his hair. This entire situation was frustrating as hell. She knew as well as he did that they were on the same team. She also had to know that her cover was blown, at least for this op. He was going to find out who she was and who she worked for, whether from her or someone else. It’d been a long day and there was a small mountain of paperwork ahead of him so he’d just as soon skip the bureaucratic bullshit and find the truth out now before he turned her over to Celida and Travers for more questioning.
Schroder was inserting the fourth stitch—and she was gonna need at least ten more to close the worst of that wound, by the looks of it—when Matt’s phone rang. He pulled it out, saw the “unknown number” message and answered. “DeLuca.”
“I need to speak to the woman you’re holding,” a clipped female voice said, her tone urgent.
He almost snorted at her nerve. Like hell. “Who is this?”
“Alex Rycroft informed me of what happened. This is time-critical. I need to speak to B right now.”
“Again, who are you?”
“Call me Lily.”
He’d bet his left nut that wasn’t her real name.
“Put her on. It’s urgent.”
Matt fought for patience. “Schroder. Give us a minute, will you?”
The medic looked up at him, clearly surprised at the order to leave in the middle of stitching her up. “Uh, sure.” He took B’s hand and pressed it to a sterile bandage he placed over the wound. “Keep pressure on it ‘til I get back.” With a questioning glance at Matt he got up and left the command unit.
“I’m putting you on speaker,” Matt told Lily and hit the button. “Okay, she can hear you.”
“B, it’s Lily.”
Something flashed in B’s eyes, the only change in her expression as she pushed up farther on her elbow. “Hey.” Her voice sounded slightly husky. Relief?
“What’s your favorite ice cream?”
B glanced up at Matt for a moment and he clearly read the indecision in her eyes. Then she looked away and answered. “Maple walnut.”
“Good.” Lily sounded relieved too. “Okay, tell me what’s going on. Rycroft said you were shot.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, her pallor and the blood seeping through the bandage belying her casual tone.
“Who shot you?”
Again, those dark, fathomless eyes met Matt’s. “I don’t know. Never saw them, but the intel I got said no one was supposed to be anywhere near here tonight, including the Feds.”
Matt stared right back at her, finding that tidbit very interesting.
“What the hell’s going on, Lily?”
A pause. “I don’t know. Who else knows about this?”
B raised an eyebrow at him in silent question so Matt answered. “Nobody outside of my team, you and Rycroft.”
Lily grunted. “I don’t like this, not at all. Only a handful of others had the intel I sent you, B. So you’re going to enact emergency plan Charlie immediately. Got it?”
B’s face tightened at the news. “Okay.”
What was emergency plan Char—
“Agent DeLuca.”
He blinked at the woman’s commanding tone. “Yes?”