Life had returned to somewhat normal since they'd come back to Last Stop. There'd been two funerals the month of August, and it had mostly kept Tess preoccupied. She'd changed since their mission-it was impossible not to-and he noticed she watched things differently now. There was no longer the small-town naïveté.
Miller hadn't noticed Tess's brief absence from the funeral home since she'd been holed up in her house on a deadline, but the rest of the town noticed. By the time they returned home, her voicemail was full and there were notes stuck to the door asking if everything was all right. They'd barely been gone three days.
Tess had also returned home to find that her mother had come back, without Carl, and she'd opened the salon as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Theodora had brought Tess back a snow globe from the casino and given her a sweet hug before flitting away to do whatever Theodora spent her time doing.
Tess had become more comfortable moving in and out of the carriage house, though one of them still had to let her into the restricted areas, and she couldn't be left alone in classified areas. But she'd not slept a night out of Deacon's bed. Though some of that had to do with the fact that her suite was a construction zone.
Eve had been pleased with Tess's translations-as much as Eve was pleased by anyone, and because there were so many issues with the Russian Mafiya in power at the moment, she'd had her listening to recordings from surveillance equipment and translating them.
Deacon had given Tess a watch like the one he and the others wore, and explained that if she was ever in distress all she had to do was press the little button on the side and they'd all be alerted. Once she pushed the button, in case she was injured the watch would automatically begin to take her vitals and relay the information.
When her workday was through at the funeral home, she'd sit at one of the corner workstations at HQ for hours, headphones over her ears, typing furiously.
Deacon looked over from his own work area in time to see her stretch and take the headphones off. She stood and did a couple of yoga poses, as she did every hour or so, and it never failed to make his mouth water and his body ache for her.
She caught his stare and smiled, a secretive, Mona Lisa smile that made him wish they could escape upstairs. He wanted her alone. He just wanted her. Period. She was still dressed in her work clothes of black leggings and green blouse that made her eyes seem even more vibrant than usual. The weather was still miserably hot in early September, and the air conditioner was cranked high. She had her hair piled high on her head, and little tendrils had escaped at the nape of her neck.
She came toward him and he squeezed her hand, just a simple touch, but he'd come to treasure those small moments of connection between them.
"Any news?" she asked.
"Egorov and Levkin are here in the United States somewhere," he said, getting to his feet.
He was frustrated. They all were. Because it felt like the enemy was just within their grasp.
"They're together," he said. "Which is why there's been silence. They don't need to communicate through code any longer. They're talking directly to each other. But where the hell are they?"
He could feel the countdown looming closer, and the frustration of knowing they were skirting the edges but hadn't found what they were looking for was weighing on him heavily. The others stopped to look at him.
"They've put too much time and money into trying to direct all traffic into Texas," he insisted. "It's going to be here. My gut says it's here."
"Your gut is good enough for me, mate," Axel said.
Deacon appreciated the vote of confidence. "Pull up every major event in the city for the next few weeks," he told Axel. "Events where attendance numbers are in the thousands-concerts, sporting events, amusement parks, festivals.
"Dante, I want you to search satellite imagery. Let's see if we can locate a few potential hot spots. We'll be looking for locations with warehouses. Once they've delivered the XTNC-50, they'll need room to equip it to whatever detonation device they're using. They'll want plenty of space. The more remote they are from civilization, the better. Use thermal imaging and satellite to watch traffic patterns. There's going to be a lot of in-and-out activity."
"If Egorov and Levkin are both here already," Axel said, "we should assume that they were able to bring in smaller quantities with them as backup. But they'll need the larger shipment to carry out plans of that large of a scale. They have an unending supply, as XTNC-50 was created by Russian scientists. We just need to figure out how it's crossing our borders."