Sex, Lies & Black Tie

  SEX, LIES & BLACK TIE

  Sex and Lies Book Six

  A Moonlight and Magnolias Novel

  Kris Calvert

  © Copyright 2016 Kris Calvert

  EPUB Edition

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material form the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at www.calvertcomm.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Cover by jim@insigniadesign.com

  Edited by Meg Weglarz and Molly J. Kimbrell

  ISBN: 978-1-943180-11-0

  Calvert Communications, Lexington, KY 40515

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Books by Kris Calvert

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1: Mac

  2: Mac

  3: Samantha

  4: Mac

  5: Mac

  6: Samantha

  7: Mac

  8: Mac

  9: Samantha

  10: Mac

  11: Mac

  12: Samantha

  13: Mac

  14: Samantha

  15: Mac

  16: Samantha

  17: Samantha

  18: Mac

  19: Mac

  20: Mac

  21: Samantha

  22: Mac

  23: Samantha

  24: Mac

  25: Samantha

  26: Mac

  27: Samantha

  28: Mac

  29: Samantha

  30: Mac

  31: Samantha

  32: Mac

  33: Samantha

  34: Mac

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon: Sex, Lies & Diamonds

  Connect with Kris

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to Meg and Molly for being wonderful even when the manuscripts aren’t, and for turning me in the right direction when needed. You are the two best editors and grammar girls around.

  Thank you to the ladies who lunch for always making me smile and for being my friend.

  Thank you to my anonymous hacking friend for telling me more than I ever wanted to know about the online world, and for not telling me some of the things I wanted to know.

  Finally, thank you to my adoring husband, Rob and the two greatest accomplishments of my life, Luke and Haley. I love you all, with all my heart.

  Books by Kris Calvert

  Sex, Lies & Sweet Tea – Book One

  Sex, Lies & Lipstick – Book Two

  Sex, Lies & Pearls – Book Three

  Sex, Lies & Lace – Book Four

  Sex, Lies & Bourbon – Book Five

  Be Mine – a Valentine’s Day Novella

  Sparks Fly – an Independence Day Novella

  Roses are Wrong, Violets Taboo

  Witchin’ in the Kitchen – Magic and Mayhem Kindle World

  COMING SOON

  Sex, Lies & Diamonds – 2017

  To Love’s End – February 2017

  The Jane Doe Series – 2017

  My Soul to Keep – 2017

  www.kriscalvert.com

  For John

  Who talked me into working in the IT world years ago.

  BY KRIS CALVERT

  November 2010

  I wiped the perspiration from my brow and watched my hand quiver. This was everything I’d been waiting for. Graduation was two weeks away but my instructor, Special Agent Harlan Jackman, liked me enough to include me in the briefing sessions at the apex of a year-long quest to break up a credit card hacking ring. I’d noticed anomalies in the code we were studying and now here I was, ready for a takedown as part of a special taskforce of the FBI.

  Jackman, like me, was a southerner, complete with a Georgia accent and the shit-kicking attitude of a man raised on whiskey and sweet tea. With two tours in Iraq and Iran, he was a tri-lingual American hero who spoke Farsi and Arabic. When I’d asked him once why he signed on for a second tour, he simply replied, ‘If you can’t beat ’em, you should join ’em. And I’m not ready to join ’em.’

  He’d taken a shine to me, once saying he saw himself in my resolute demeanor. I’d shown what I was made of not only in my Cyber Crime classes, but in all areas. Here I was a month later, not even off the Farm yet and on my first raid. I walked a little taller around my classmates after Jackman asked me to join his team. It was hard not to be excited, but now my body pulsed with surges of adrenaline. I’d trained for all kinds of scenarios but none of it felt this real. Now that I was in the moment, all I could think was, what if I have to pull the trigger?

  It wasn’t that I was afraid. In fact, I’d been one of the best shots in my class. It was the thought of using force on a live human and not a simulated target. Shooting a paint gun at an agent trained to be a criminal or using simulation software was a far cry from taking a human life.

  I hid my anxiety, purposely holding my chest tight when drawing a breath. Leaning into the crumbling brick wall of an old warehouse, I knew from the briefing they were forging credit cards inside—cards so accurate fraud prevention departments of the biggest worldwide banks couldn’t identify them as fakes.

  A strong hand gripped my left shoulder forcing the other into the wall, knocking sandy mortar from the deteriorating building on my sleeve. “Shit, Callahan. Breathe.” His voice was like gravel—low and full of Georgia grit.

  “Yes sir,”

  “Hell, son. Every agent’s a little tense before he pops his cherry. Stick with me. You’ll do fine.”

  The full-fledged agent in front of me turned to give me a bro-nod as if to say, it’s cool. Or maybe he was silently mocking me. I nodded, but didn’t look back. I was anxious. Anxious to take down a criminal, anxious to get in on my first case, anxious not to only think about being an Agent for the FBI, but act like one.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Ready to kick some ass, sir.”

  Jackman chuckled, tossing his half-smoked Lucky onto the broken pavement before rubbing it out with the toe of his boot. He, like me and the other members accompanying the SWAT team, was dressed in full tactical gear. Even though I’d worn it while training, I wasn’t as comfortable in the ninja suit as the regulars—especially Jackman. He was the kind of guy who lived for taking criminals down. It was a controlled rage you couldn’t see in his face, but behind his eyes I knew he was twitchy, eager—ready for anything and everything. The man was a damn animal when it came to sniffing out Cyber Crime and loved flexing his physical muscle during the takedown as much as he relished in showing off his intellectual acumen. It was a mental state I’d need to master if this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

  A bead of sweat rolled down my nose, hanging on the tip as I stared at the spray painted door—the target for our breach. I was hiding under a faux cloak of confidence, but honestly had no idea what we’d find on the other side. Whatever it was, I felt better about it just being with the men and women surrounding me.

  We’d received our orders while riding in the bogus ice cream truck we used to roll into the neighborhood of Queens Chapel outside of D.C., and I followed Jackman and the team along the side of the building
, exactly as I’d been instructed.

  After borrowing some software from the NSA in order to track the untraceable IPs that had kept the team going in circles for months, here we were. The boys at the NSA weren’t too happy about helping, but I’d learned early on that powerful politicians and people with money could get a lot of things done in Washington—even if the CIA, FBI and NSA didn’t share a lovefest for one another.

  One day with the Black Widow software, and Jackman’s team had found what they were looking for—a string of code in the deepest part of the Internet—the dark web. Rife with illegal activity, child pornography, drug deals and the selling of identities, it was a new frontier in crime. Perpetrators active on the dark web treated it like the Wild West—get away with what you can while you can.

  Jackman cocked his head with purpose, giving us the move ahead signal. It was time. My heart raced and my hands steadied. Following the others up the narrow concrete stairs by a battered loading dock, we stopped in our tracks at the metal door waiting for the Go sign.

  Quietly, Jackman eased open the door to the warehouse and motioned for us to trail him. One by one we left the sweltering heat, following him inside. The bright sunlight and warmth of the unexpected Indian summer changed to near frigid air and total darkness.

  Adjusting my eyes and scanning the space, I, like everyone else, looked for anything—at all. In my head, I’d pictured a slick operation and a room filled with card making machines and unsuspecting hackers toiling away over keyboards and lighted computer screens.

  Gripping my weapon, I followed the others through the narrow hallway that lead to the open warehouse—the open and empty warehouse.

  Without saying a word, I watched the tension fall away from the shoulders of not only the lead SWAT, but Jackman himself.

  “Mother fuck,” Jackman hissed, dropping his firearm to his side. “Whoever was here has closed up shop and moved on.”

  Everyone cursed under their breath, relaxing their posture.

  “Spread out and see what you can find.” The frustration in Jackman’s voice was palpable and I couldn’t tell what he was more pissed off about—that we’d missed our mark, or that he’d need to ask the NSA for help—again. “I don’t care if you find a damn gum wrapper, bag it as evidence!”

  Holstering my Glock, I took off my helmet after watching Jackman do the same. Half the team took the rusty stairs to the open level above, while the rest of us searched the first floor of the run down warehouse. I had no idea what we were looking for, the building was deserted. I was, at the very least, thankful for the cool air that continued to rush through the building.

  I followed the draft twenty yards into the dark, looking for anything left behind in what seemed a hasty departure. The rest of the team was merely a muffled sound in the distance by the time I reached the back of the building where the air was even colder.

  A steady stream flowed over me from above, and I looked up to find a round, industrial sized duct forcing frigid air from the massive line that seemed to cool only the back of the warehouse.

  Taking two steps back, I started to join the others when I saw it. From the corner of my eye, light broke through the darkness via a thin crevice to my left. The ramshackle bathroom door had a faded men’s room decal and someone had taken it upon themselves to draw a set of balls and a penis on it in Sharpie. Instinctively, I reached for my gun and moved in. Plastering myself against the wall—a shadow floated back and forth under the doorway. I had him.

  Rocking my gun, I rested my trigger finger along the slide. Eerily calm, I knew in the moment, this was what I was made for.

  I heard the click of the light switch from inside the door and took a deep breath. Go time.

  Matching the speed of the opening door, I extended my weapon and waited.

  “Get down! Get down!” I roared. “FBI! This is a raid!”

  The tall man wearing jeans and a hoodie was long and gangly from behind, but collapsed facedown, his hands in the air without a fight.

  His voice cracked with desperation. “Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot!”

  “Where are the others?” I shouted. The entire team was yelling and making tracks to the back of the warehouse.

  “There aren’t any!” he screamed, his face now flat against the concrete floor as I placed a knee in his back to holster my gun and cuff him with lightning speed.

  “Someone check out the back!” I shouted, looking to Jackman with a nod. “I found him in the bathroom.”

  “Please don’t hurt me. Please,” the man pleaded.

  “You should’ve thought about that a long time ago, buddy. Now, who else is here?” I shouted.

  “I’m begging you.” His voice fractured and for a moment, I thought he might be crying.

  Turning him from his belly to his butt, I propped him against the wall and stepped back to fully take in my first arrest as Agent Jackman came to my side.

  “What the fuck?” Jackman asked, his deep voice echoing off the empty walls.

  I did a double take to make sure I was seeing what was in front of me. Dark hair, glasses, acne and braces.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I relaxed my stance, squatting to look him in the eye. “You’re just…a kid.”

  1

  MAC

  I scratched a doodle on the pad of paper in front of me while listening to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Molly Molloy, ramble on about the case she’d asked me to revisit. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Madam Secretary.”

  “I want you to cut the bullshit and shoot me straight. And for God’s sake, call me Molly.”

  To be clear, Molly Molloy was a woman who didn’t get to her position in Washington by pussy-footing around anything. A single mom, she was raising two of her own biological children as well as three former foster kids. She didn’t take anything off anyone. And she didn’t have a problem letting them know it either.

  “I see nothing that would constitute reopening this case. Look, I agree your suspect is an asshole.”

  “He’s worse than an asshole. He’s abusing children.”

  “I know this is the kind of crime that really gets under your skin, Molly, but you’re going to need to let it go. There are times when the big dog won’t hunt.”

  “What is that? Aw shucks advice? Let me give you some of my own. I’m stickin’ to this until the last pea is out of the pod. Got it?”

  “I hear you loud and clear, Molly” I said with a chuckle as my wife Samantha waltzed into the room. “Let me know if I can do anything else for you.”

  “You know I will.”

  Hanging up, I watched Samantha move about with an inquisitive eye, following the evening breeze that blew from an open window of my study at Lone Oak. What she was looking for was beyond me, but I enjoyed the view. The pink sundress she wore showed off her bare shoulders and taunted me. She made it hard to concentrate on my work at hand—writing a summary and review of the old case Molly wanted reopened. It had been two years since I’d semi-retired and I missed the action. I missed the action every day.

  For too many years, I’d been wired for Bureau work. Even though being a dad turned into much more work than I’d ever imagined, I longed to be back in the fray. I missed the guys. I missed using my experience and knowledge to take someone off the street—someone who was hurting innocent people. Mostly, I missed being a force in the world for good. I knew it was my ego talking—telling me I was washed up. It all seemed to matter a great deal until Dax or Katy showed up in my office to play or throw their arms around me. Funny how that worked. Being a father was the last thing I’d ever dreamed I would be and now that I had the privilege, I realized how important the role was.

  My father and his before him were all proud men—proud Callahan men. My dad taught me how to be a man, and now I had the joy of teaching my six-year-old son Dax the same. Katy was nearly two and already a little southern lady, throwing endless tea parties in her room to which I’m almost always invited—a
lmost. Her biggest worry of the day is whether her mother might force her to remove her favorite pink tutu at bath time.

  I’d traded a firearm for fancy make believe parties in my baby girl’s bedroom and dangerous raids for a ball and mitt in the backyard with Dax. The only stakeout I participated in these days was holding vigil by one of their bedsides when they were sick.

  My gun was locked away deep inside our home, Lone Oak, and I only occasionally spoke with my old friends about my former life in D.C. Even that seemed strained and foreign to me most days. I was a different man, and although I loved my life with Samantha and the children in Shadeland, Alabama, I fought off the same feeling every day. I was restless.

  I placed my pen on the old desk, giving Samantha my full attention. She’d already tucked the children in. It was my turn to hear prayers and kiss both kids goodnight. But watching her put me in an early evening trance. “What are you looking for, darlin’?”

  She brushed her long chestnut hair from her tan shoulder and gave me a fleeting glance as she climbed the small ladder that slid along the circular room filled with books. Standing on her toes, her calf muscles flexed and I heard myself moan in approval.

  Running two fingers across my lips, my mind went to the place I couldn’t help but go. Loving Samantha was like going down a rabbit hole I never wanted to escape. I’d been a player for many years, falling into the trope that being with one woman in a committed relationship would get boring. Too many men I worked with had confessed that a few years into their marriage they had to practically beg for sex. But I knew from the moment Sam nearly gave me a concussion with her box of office supplies in the middle of the nursing home my mother shared with her grandmother, she was different. And I was right. Our sex life hadn’t become rote, it kept getting better and better. And for that very reason, I couldn’t keep my hands off her. Ever.