Dear God, she was damp again. Cantara opened her eyes wide and made a superhuman effort to pull her thoughts away from the erotic direction they appeared determined to take. She blamed her guys for that, of course. How was she supposed to concentrate on the matter in hand when they kept distracting her with displays of raw musculature? Anyway, Raoul was right. They had earned this moment and she intended to make the most of it.
“I had a feeling that’s what you would say,” Raoul said, “and so I called in a few favors.” Had he? That was news to Cantara. Raoul leaned over his desk and extracted a piece of paper from a drawer, winked at her and handed the paper to Parker. “This is a copy of the order in question.”
Hassan leaned over Parker’s shoulder and read it. “This says Levi was required for joint questioning by the task force. My name’s cited, but I knew nothing about this.”
“Because the questioning would never take place,” Zeke replied. “It was a ruse to break Levi out of custody because the real traitor knew the evidence he’d planted wouldn’t hold up. He screwed up there, not being as proficient at computer hacking. Levi could have proven he wasn’t having an affair, and even if there was still any doubt, no one who knew him would ever believe he’d left evidence laying around where anyone could find it. You didn’t believe it, did you, colonel?” Zeke asked, addressing the comment to Hassan.
“No, not for one moment, but when it looked like he had absconded, I no longer knew what to think.”
“Which is precisely why it was made to appear as though he’d gone on the run. Guilt by association.”
“I knew nothing about this, either,” Pool said, sounding rather desperate. “I didn’t sign that order.”
“Yeah, you did, but you weren’t the traitor.”
“Romney,” Hassan hissed.
“Exactly right, colonel. We would have put it together sooner, but for the fact that we didn’t know he was married to Pool’s daughter.”
The air left Pool’s lungs in an extravagant whoosh and he fell back into his chair.
“You kept that one quiet,” Hassan said, clearly seething.
“You knew Romney hadn’t covered his tracks well enough to fool anyone for long, and so cleaned up for him. I suspect not for the first time,” Raoul said.
“Why did Romney do it?” Parker asked.
“He was badly in debt to some very unforgiving people,” Zeke replied. “We have his financials that show those debts mysteriously disappeared shortly after Cantara did.” He fixed Parker with a significant look. “But I’m probably not telling you anything you didn’t already know.”
“It’s all circumstantial,” Pool blustered. “If Levi’s so innocent, why doesn’t he step forward?”
“My thoughts precisely,” Raoul said, opening the door to the den, through which Levi walked, shoulders back, head held high.
“Hello, Colonel,” he said, offering his hand to Hassan.
Hassan grasped it in both of his and then engulfed Levi in a back-slapping hug. “Why didn’t you contact me?” he asked.
Levi explained all that had happened to him, and the part Pool had played in it. Especially the threats against his family.
“Which is why I couldn’t take the risk,” he finished. “Until I heard Cantara was safe. Then I came here, hoping Washington and Orion would hear me out before killing me, which they did.”
“It’s his word against mine,” Pool said. “A distinguished colonel—”
“Distinguished?” Zeke threw Pool a disbelieving look.
“A distinguished colonel with a spotless record against an adjutant who can’t keep his pecker in his pants.”
Raoul smiled at Pool’s bluster. “Once Romney’s been picked up and interrogated, his financials soured, my guess is, we’ll soon know who’s telling the truth.” He held Pool in a death glare. “Sure you wanna go there? There’s still time to distance yourself.”
Pool appeared to shrink in his chair and suddenly looked years older as he dropped his head into his hand, clearly realizing he couldn’t bluster his way out of this one.
“We’ve pieced it all together,” Zeke said, “but would like to hear it from you, Colonel.”
No one spoke, but every pair of eyes in the room was trained condemningly upon Pool.
“Everything I’ve done has been done to protect my daughter,” he said in a defeated voice. “I want you to believe that. She and her kids are the only people I have left in the world worth living for. I warned her against Romney when she first started dating him. There was something about him I didn’t trust, but she was smitten and there was nothing I could do to stop them from marrying.” He looked up and grimaced. “She’s still smitten, by the way. No matter how badly he treats her, she stands by him. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve offered to look after her and the kids, but she won’t even consider leaving him.”
“And so when he didn’t meet the criteria for any of the elite corps he wanted to become a part of, you got him a job close to you where you could keep an eye on him?” Zeke suggested.
“Pretty much.”
“How could you cover up for him when you knew he’d probably gotten me killed, and could easily have gotten Raoul and Zeke killed, too?” Cantara demanded to know. “You swore an oath, didn’t you?”
Pool spread his hands. “You were determined to go in there. Your brother-in-law would have gotten you, no matter what. I don’t condone what Romney did, in fact I nearly broke his damned neck when I found out. But in the end, all he did was tell those people you and Washington were married.”
Raoul shook his head. “I can’t believe your stupidity, although I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. Salim was obsessed with Cantara. When he found out she’d married me, it tipped him over the edge with jealousy. She suffered way more at his hands because of that and because he knew we had her back, he was able to lay a trap for us.”
“We would have been able to get her away from Salim, if we’d followed her as planned and knew where she’d been taken,” Zeke added in disgust.
“Yes,” Pool said in a tired voice. “I don’t doubt it for a moment. I just haven’t wanted to admit it to myself.”