Kentucky Confidential

by Paula Graves

  Darya smiled. “It was. My mother made it.”

  “The embroidery work is exquisite.”

  “Thank you.” Darya looked pleased by the compliment.

  “Oh, I bet you’re the girl Con was telling us about.”

  Darya’s dark eyebrows lifted as she finished jotting down their drink orders. “Con?”

  “Connor. A friend of ours who was in town earlier this week. He’s the one who recommended the restaurant to us. I think he was here the other night—maybe Tuesday or Wednesday? He couldn’t stop talking about the pretty waitress he saw—he said she was beautiful, like a bright flower.”

  “Wow, I don’t know if he was talking about me.”

  “Well, you’re definitely not the other waitress he mentioned,” Iris said with a laugh. “That woman was about nine months pregnant.”

  “Yasmin,” Darya said, her smile fading. “Yes.”

  “Is something wrong?” Iris put her hand on the young woman’s arm. Her fingers trembled, and Darya gave her a curious look.

  “I’m a little worried,” Darya admitted. “Yasmin was supposed to work the past two nights but she didn’t show, and she’s not answering her phone.”

  “Do you think she had her baby?” Iris asked, dropping her hand away from the young waitress’s arm. She slanted a look at Maddox, her light brown eyes dark with meaning.

  Darya gave Iris a troubled look. “I don’t know. Farid—our boss—tells me not to worry, but it hasn’t really made me feel any better. I wish I knew what happened to her.” She cleared her expression deliberately, flashing them a smile that wasn’t quite convincing. “I’ll be back in a few minutes for your order.”

  Maddox waited until Darya was out of earshot before he leaned across the table toward his wife. “Well?”

  “She’s tense. Definitely worried about Risa. If there’s a terrorist plot cooking in this town, she’s not part of it.”

  “Then maybe she could be an ally,” he murmured.

  “Maybe,” Iris agreed. “But I think the person who can really tell us the most about what happened here Wednesday night is her boss.”

  Maddox glanced across the room, where Farid Rahimi stood talking to a couple sitting at a table in the corner. From this angle, he looked vaguely familiar.

  Where had he seen him before?

  * * *

  AS WEARY AS he was, after the past two eventful days, Connor found that sleep was elusive. Beside him, Risa had fallen into an occasionally restless slumber, lying on her side, her body curled up around her pregnant belly as if she were protecting her child, even in slumber.

  He lay on his back, gazing up at the ceiling, where the faint thread of light seeping in through the motel room curtains cast odd shadows on the water-stained Sheetrock.

  Something wasn’t right. Actually, a lot wasn’t right, but the one thing that continued to bug him was how quickly their pursuers had found them at the Christmas-tree lot.

  They’d guessed that the tracker might have been added to the car when they stopped in Lexington. But how had anyone found them in Lexington if they didn’t already know where to look for them? He was pretty sure he hadn’t been followed out of town, at least once they hit the long stretch of highway between Cincinnati and Lexington. So either someone had spotted them leaving together in Cincinnati, seen the direction they were going and made a calculated guess about their route, or...

  That’s where he hit a wall. What was the “or”? Was there any other way someone could have put a tracker on the car before they arrived at the safe house?

  “You’re still awake, aren’t you?” Risa’s sleepy voice rasped softly in the dark.

  “How did someone put a tracker on the Tahoe?”

  She rolled over, propping her head on her hand and looking at him. “You said you thought it was when we stopped in Lexington.”

  “But how did someone find us in Lexington that fast? Yes, I know I used my credit card, but we were gone within a few minutes after that transaction was processed. No way did anyone have time to reach our location and put the GPS tracker on the Tahoe that quickly.”

  “You’re right,” she said, her voice sober. “So someone was either expecting us to be in Lexington, at that place we stopped, or...”

  “Or someone had already put the tracker on the Tahoe in Cincinnati.”

  “But it’s Quinn’s car.”

  “I know.” He rolled over to face her, a light shiver running down his spine as he studied her features in the dim light. She was so familiar to him, and yet, somehow after these seven months apart, she seemed like a stranger. A beautiful, intoxicating, very pregnant stranger.

  “Maybe someone was tracking Quinn.”

  Possible, he supposed, though his new boss was known for his fanatical security measures. “I don’t think they would have been able to put the tracker on the Tahoe until Cincinnati,” he murmured. “Quinn would have had the vehicle checked before he left Campbell Cove. But someone could have spotted him when he arrived and put the tracker on his vehicle then.”

  “So maybe it’s really someone after Quinn?” she asked hopefully.

  “Maybe.” But he didn’t think so. Whoever had disabled the generator at the tree lot had to have known that Connor and Risa were the people in the SUV. He growled. “I can’t make this make sense. Even well-organized terrorist groups don’t have the resources to be so Johnny-on-the-spot with surveillance. Do they?”

  “No,” she agreed. “They’re more and more technologically savvy these days, yes, but what you’re suggesting would have to be...” She frowned, shadows falling over her eyes as her brow furrowed.

  “It would have to be a government,” he finished for her. “And Kaziristan sure as hell doesn’t have that sort of capability.”

  “No. But people in our own country do,” she said soberly.

  “You think our own government could be behind this?” It seemed to physically hurt to say those words aloud. He’d dedicated the better part of his adult life to serving the government of the United States. And while he certainly didn’t trust every member of the bureaucratic behemoth that was the federal government, he couldn’t believe his country would target a woman who had given most of her own adult life in government service.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t want to believe it, but it wouldn’t exactly be the first time someone in government went rogue, would it? Barton Reid’s treason wasn’t that long ago, after all. Ask Maddox Heller.”

  Barton Reid had been a State Department official who’d played terrorists and other enemy elements against the US government for his own financial gain. A lot of damage had been done before the man was taken down and sentenced to life in prison for his treachery.

  Could the attempt on Risa’s life have been ordered by another government official gone rogue?

  “But why would you have been targeted?” he asked. “What were you working on last? Is it something you can tell me about?”

  “The last thing I was working on was pretty mundane. And kind of gross.” She rolled over onto her back, gazing up at the ceiling, a smile playing at her lips. “I was tasked with doing basic background analysis and surveillance on a group of Kaziri entrepreneurs who were planning to start an agri-tech company. Their goal was to research and implement the best agricultural practices for Kaziristan’s climate and ecosystem. You know, selecting drought-resistant crops and livestock that have the best chance of thriving in Kaziristan. They were looking for UN grants as well as grants from the US and the government of Kaziristan.”

  “That sounds...fun.” Connor’s tone sounded skeptical.

  “Actually, they were nice guys. Young, forward-thinking. Well-educated and hoping to pull even the rural parts of Kaziristan kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. They wanted to improve the chance
s of profitable agriculture in Kaziristan that didn’t include growing poppies for warlords to turn into drugs to fund their turf battles.”

  “Did you turn in your final report before the crash?”

  “If things had gone smoothly, I would have been able to give them a green light, but something came up at the last minute that was going to require more investigation. I was supposed to meet with another agent when I got back to DC, but...”

  “But you didn’t get there.” He nodded. “So, what was the holdup?”

  “One of the big things the guys wanted to do was harvest bat guano from the caves in the mountains. From a chemistry standpoint, it was showing great promise as an affordable, effective fertilizer for some of the crops that needed extra nutrients not available in the soil. But the guys discovered that some of the bats in the area they were targeting had started coming down with a hemorrhagic disease. At the time of my investigation, the disease hadn’t jumped into another species as far as we could tell, but there was a very strong concern that the disease might spread to livestock or even humans through the guano.”

  “That doesn’t seem as if it should have put a stop to the project,” Connor said. “It was just one source of fertilizer, right?”

  “Yes, but it was a pretty significant part of the cost-control aspect of their plan. Other sources of fertilizer, like cow and goat manure, weren’t naturally occurring the way the bat guano was.”

  “That’s what you were coming back to DC to discuss?”

  “Yes. I was supposed to meet with someone in the CDC to determine if there was a way to test the guano on-site to ascertain whether the bats in the area were diseased, and what kind of costs that might incur. Also, I was hoping to meet with some people in the Department of Agriculture to see what protocols for food safety might be involved.”

  “And they say a career in the CIA is mostly a big bore.”

  She smiled. “I know it sounds kind of dull, but if these guys were able to accomplish their goals, it could mean that hundreds of thousands of people in rural Kaziristan could live vastly improved lives.”

  “Well, it certainly doesn’t sound like anything that would put you on a hit list,” Connor agreed. “But I guess it’s something we should look into.”

  “How do you propose we do that? How do we look into anything at this point?” Her voice was tight with frustration. “Do we dare risk trying to contact Quinn if someone’s out there tracking your electronic trail?”

  “I have enough cash to buy a burner phone. Nobody will know to track it, and we can reach Quinn that way.”

  “Unless they’re tracking Quinn’s electronic trail, too.”

  “Quinn is pretty savvy. It would be hard to track him without his knowing it.”

  “It’s still a risk,” she warned. “But since we don’t have internet access at the moment, he may be our only option to do a little digging into that possibility.”

  He turned over, facing her. “We can’t do anything before morning. So why don’t you try to stop those wheels in your head from turning and get some sleep?”

  Her lips twitched up at the corners.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Remember how you used to help me go to sleep when my mind wouldn’t stop running in circles?”

  He did. Vividly. “I could give it a try.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

  “Turn over.”

  She stared at him, her dark eyes gleaming in the low light. Then she rolled over to her other side and went very still.

  He shifted until her body was spooned against his. She felt small and deliciously warm, tucked against him beneath the blankets. He could feel the tension in her body, as tangible as a low-level electric current running through her muscles.

  Starting with her neck, he pressed his thumb against the taut muscles, rubbing firmly but gently, trying to work loose some of the tension. Moving relentlessly downward, he followed the curve of her arm, down to her hand, where he massaged each finger. Then he traced the curve of her hip, gently massaging the muscles of her outer thigh.

  “Helping?” he murmured, struggling to hold his own body in check.

  “Mmm,” she answered with a guttural groan of pleasure.

  So not what he needed.

  His fingers trembled as he sat up and worked his way down her calves, kneading the knotted muscles.

  “Don’t,” she whispered as he reached her ankle. She turned onto her back and sat up, turning to look at him. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling beneath her thin T-shirt. “You forgot how these moments always ended.”

  He curled his hand behind the back of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair. He tugged her closer, whispering against her lips. “I didn’t forget.”

  Her lips parted, her breath hot on his mouth as he kissed her.

  He’d kissed her hundreds, thousands of times before, but this felt strangely new somehow, as if it was the first time. She darted her tongue lightly across his lower lip, tasting. Testing.

  He ran his hands down her sides, letting them settle lightly over the bulge of her belly. He kissed her again, more deeply. With more intensity. Reacquainting himself with the taste of her, with the sweet headiness of her scent. She responded with eagerness, curling her fingers in his hair as she rose to her knees and took control of the kiss with a fierce passion that made his head spin.

  “I missed you. Every day.” She kissed her way across his jaw and down the side of his neck, nipping lightly at his skin. “Every night.”

  He was losing all control. Had this been what he’d been hoping for when he offered to help her get to sleep?

  She lowered herself until she was straddling his hips, the heat of her body enveloping his. Claiming him all over again.

  Branding him with her need.

  He had lost all restraint now, his body surging with desire as she pressed herself harder against his erection.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered against his throat. “This doesn’t have to mean anything beyond this moment.”

  Her words worked like an ice bath, cooling his runaway ardor. He found the strength to pull away from her grasp, to put distance between them on the bed until he was able to recapture his breath.

  “I’m not ready for this,” he admitted. “I can’t just pretend it doesn’t mean anything. I can’t act as if everything between us is okay now.”

  She sank back against the pillows, her breaths coming fast and harsh. “I know.” Her hands moved to her belly, stroking, soothing, as she struggled to get her breathing back under control.

  “I’m not saying never,” he added, even though a part of him wished he could. The raw, vulnerable part that wanted to pretend that if he didn’t let her back in his heart, he’d never be hurt again. But he knew better now. There was no escaping what he felt for her.

  He was just going to have to find some way to deal with it.

  “I understand,” she murmured, her hands playing over her round belly.

  He rolled over on his side, his back to her. Needing what little space, what little distance, he could put between them in this tiny motel room.

  * * *

  FARID RAHIMI LEFT his apartment building around seven the next morning, dressed in sweats and a thick fleece jacket. The North Face, Maddox noticed. High end, top quality. The restaurant business must be doing well for him. Or he had another source of income.

  He couldn’t shake the sense that he’d seen the man before. But it hadn’t been in Kaziristan, when Maddox was working as a Marine Security Guard at the US Embassy in Tablis.

  It was somewhere else, more recently.

  “Still can’t remember where you know him from?” Iris sat beside him in the passenger seat of the truck, wrapped up against the cold and sipping a hot cof
fee.

  “No. It’s not from my time in Kaziristan, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Any word on the background check?”

  Maddox gave himself a mental kick and checked his phone. There was a new email from Kyra Sanchez at the office. The subject line read Background.

  He opened the email and scanned the contents. “Hmm.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Rahimi held a job in Mariposa at the American Consulate for a couple of years.”

  “Maybe that’s where you know him from?”

  “Maybe.” He started the truck and began following Rahimi, who was now jogging up the street toward Washington Park. He found a place to park the truck on the street and kept an eye on Rahimi as the man started running a brisk circuit of the park.

  “Interesting that a Kaziri man ends up working in the US Consulate on a tiny Caribbean island,” Iris murmured. “And Quinn worked there, too, didn’t he?”

  Maddox dragged his gaze away from Rahimi long enough to look at his wife. “What are you thinking?”

  She took another sip of coffee, her dark eyes meeting his over the rim of the cup. “Wouldn’t be the first time Alexander Quinn was running an op without telling you about it.”

  He looked back at Rahimi, taking in the trim physique and strong running form. Not the kind of fitness he’d normally associate with your average middle-aged restaurateur.

  He picked up his phone and dialed a number. Quinn answered on the first ring. “Quinn.”

  “Heller,” he snapped back. “When were you going to tell me that Farid Rahimi is on our payroll?”

  “Need to know, Heller.” Quinn’s voice tightened. “We’ve got a bigger problem. The McGinnises have dumped the tracker on the Tahoe. They’ve gone rogue.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’ve been thinking about the Tahoe,” Risa said over their breakfast of cheese crackers and sodas from the vending machines next to the motel office.

  “You think we need to ditch it somewhere.”

  She nodded. “If there’s any possibility we’re being tracked by someone with access to government resources, we need to take measures to thwart them.”