Free Beyond Limits by Laura Griffin Page B

threw at him. He was a SEAL, for Christ’s sake. He thrived on challenges.
    His phone rattled in the cup holder, and he smiled as he picked it up.
    “Hey.”
    “Hi, it’s Elizabeth. Looks like I missed your call? I was in a meeting.”
    Her voice was all business. And she probably had no idea that he’d spent a good portion of the last twelve hours dreaming up ways to get her naked.
    “So . . . did you make it home yet?” she asked.
    “Almost. Decided to take a little detour first, drop in on a friend.”
    She got quiet, and he wondered if she’d take the bait. Male friend or female? Was she even the slightest bit curious? Come on, Liz.
    “Listen, I’m glad you called,” she said. “I wanted to apologize for rushing off last night. It was one of those things.”
    “No problem. What about you? You make it home yet?”
    “Ha. Not unless Home Suites counts as home. But I made it to Houston okay.”
    “Any progress?”
    Silence as she debated what to tell him. “With regard to the target, no. But there have been other developments.”
    He didn’t respond. Sometimes the most convincing argument was none at all.
    “I can’t share the details,” she added, “but it looks as though someone on the terrorist watch list may have managed to slip through the border and—”
    “Who?”
    “I can’t—”
    “ Who? ”
    Another pause. “Omar Rasheed.”
    “There’s an international manhunt on for the guy. How the hell’d he get in?”
    “I can’t discuss details,” she said, “but it basically looks like he came through a back door.”
    “Meaning Mexico.”
    “He was spotted at a truck stop in Del Rio—that is, if it is him. The footage is a little blurry, so we’re relying on facial-identification software.”
    “You check the surveillance cams? Get a look at his contact?”
    Another pause. “I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer. And I can’t go into all this with you.”
    “If he got out at a truck stop, he probably had a contact there waiting,” Derek told her. “Or he used the stop to get a message out. ‘I’m here, pick me up at the bus depot,’ or whatever.”
    “We do this for a living, you know. We don’t need you to—”
    “Fine, all right. I don’t want to fight with you. But Rasheed’s in Texas? Jesus. That’s not good.”
    Someone started talking in the background, and he heard her muffled response.
    “I have to go,” she told him. “Enjoy your leave. I hope you get a chance to relax. Take care, okay?”
    And that was it.
    He hung up, pissed. And not just because she’d managed to blow him off again.
    Relax? Was she serious? One of the most-wanted terrorists in the world was in his own backyard, and the supposedly best law-enforcement agency on the planet didn’t have a goddamn clue what he was doing there. Dread tightened Derek’s gut as he continued up the drive.
    He caught a glimpse of his destination through the trees. It sat high on a hill. The gleaming white building looked like a Greek monument that had been airlifted into the heart of the Texas Hill Country.
    The Delphi Center.
    Besides being home to some of the country’s brightest forensic scientists, the place was a decomposition research facility. Derek watched a buzzard swoop down into some trees and guessed he hadn’t lucked into a squirrel. No, they studied people here. The very dead kind.
    Derek pulled around to the back of the building as he’d been instructed. He turned into a service lot and spotted the woman he’d come to see, who happened to be his best friend’s wife.
    Derek parked his truck and got out. He barely had the door shut when Kelsey threw her arms around him in a tight hug.
    “Hey, Kels.”
    “I’m glad you’re home.” She choked on the last word, and Derek got a lump in his throat as he stepped back to look at her.
    “I’m so sorry about Sean,” she said as her eyes filled with tears.
    “Me, too.” He glanced over her shoulder at the woman standing beside