by Anna Perrin
She sighed and kissed him back.
Last time, he’d misjudged her comfort zone by moving too fast. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. It wasn’t a damn race, it was an experience to be savored. She was an experience to be savored. And he intended to show her he understood that.
He had to be doing something right because Claire kept up with him, kiss for kiss. Then she wrapped her arms around him. As her fingertips massaged his heated flesh through his shirt, he moaned in pleasure.
He was damn well going to make her moan, too.
He nibbled a trail of kisses along her jaw, then down her neck to her collarbone, marveling at the softness of her skin and her tantalizing fragrance. Near the swell of her breast, he slowed, not wanting to assume too much, but she threaded her fingers through his hair and urged him to move lower. Her breathing quickened in anticipation, and his heartbeat did the same.
She was beautiful, vibrant and passionate. And so very responsive to his caresses. Her nipples pebbled under her tank top, and she strained against his body so that he hardened until he ached.
His lips nuzzled her breast through the thin cotton. He slid a hand under her top and stroked her stomach.
It’s wrong to be making out with Claire while Sanderson’s killer is on the loose.
He sucked in a breath and pressed his hot face against her neck. Although he desperately wanted to keep touching Claire, the voice inside his head couldn’t be ignored. He had more important priorities than to satisfy his desires.
Before he could change his mind, he moved away.
Claire swayed in her seat, her mouth swollen from his kisses, her skin flushed with excitement.
“Thanks for cracking the code,” he said, keenly aware that his words sounded brusque and impersonal. “I have to get back to work now.”
She looked away, but not before he saw the hurt and confusion in her eyes.
Disgust lodged in his stomach. He shouldn’t have touched her, shouldn’t have allowed himself to forget—even for a moment—that his energies had to be directed elsewhere. She might not appreciate it now, but he’d done her a favor by stopping. He couldn’t give her the attention she deserved—even in the short term—and he’d never been a long-term kind of guy.
From this point on, he had to focus solely on catching Forrester and identifying Sanderson’s killer.
CLAIRE GRIPPED the sides of her chair, struggling for composure. The last time she’d felt like this, she’d been riding a friend’s horse when it had spooked and thrown her to the ground. Then as now, having the breath knocked out of her wasn’t the worst part. It was the sense of complete disorientation.
Why had Brent withdrawn from her just when things were getting interesting? To pay her back for shying away from intimacy before? Or had he decided making love to her would be a mistake? Both possibilities upset her. She’d finally accepted their relationship for what it was: an exciting, sexually-charged connection. That fell short of all that she wanted, but maybe it would grow into more if she took a chance.
Apparently, he wasn’t going to give them that chance.
Outside, the sun was setting, painting the lake and beach a glittering gold. Despite the turmoil in her life, she couldn’t remember a more peaceful setting. No wonder Brent and Pete had enjoyed coming here. Maybe if her father had had such a place to unwind, things would have turned out differently.
The old ache rose up, but she ruthlessly pushed it back down. The past was done, and no amount of speculation could change it.
Even though a relationship between her and Brent was a no-starter, she was worried about him. He had so much on his mind that he could delay coming to terms with his loss. But eventually there would be a lull, and then the pain and grief would strike him like a tidal wave. She hoped, when the time came, he had somebody to call on for support.
Too bad he wouldn’t allow that somebody to be her.
UNABLE TO SLEEP, Brent lay in the darkness, his mind jumping from one thought to another. The discovery of Forrester’s password had allowed him to open the CD’s files, but then he’d hit a wall. The contents were strings of letters and numbers whose meaning eluded him.
What he wished would elude him was his awareness of Claire. It didn’t matter how often he told himself to ignore her, he simply could not shut her out. Every move she made, every look she sent his way, fed his attraction to her.
He wanted to taste her and touch her again—not just her lips, but every inch of her. It was an urge he’d been feeling since they’d met, an urge that was harder to resist with every minute they spent together. Today, she had responded with heat and passion…until he’d shoved her away.
That seemed like such a stupid, hurtful move now.
He didn’t want her spending the night alone next door. He didn’t want a wall separating them. He wanted them to be in the same room, in the same bed, where he’d soon take away her hurt and make her feel like the most desirable woman in the world.
Stop it.
He’d lost sight of his assignment. He was supposed to protect her, not lust after her. Besides, she wouldn’t be content with a fling, and he couldn’t offer her anything more.
His stomach grumbled, and he decided a quick trip to the fridge might help him sleep. He padded barefoot through the hall but stopped when he reached the living room. Moonlight streamed through the window, showcasing a blanketed form huddled in a chair. Evidently, Claire couldn’t sleep, either.
He debated beating a retreat, but that was a coward’s way. He had to face her and tell her she hadn’t done anything wrong earlier. He just wasn’t the right man for her.
As he advanced into the room, only the soft curls of her hair and pale oval of her face were visible above the blanket.
“How long have you been awake?” he asked.
“An hour,” she admitted. “I can’t stop thinking about Mickey. One minute, he was standing there, perfectly fine. The next…” She pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I wish they’d let me ride in the ambulance with him.”
“He wouldn’t have known you were there,” Brent pointed out. “And once he reached the hospital, the doctors would’ve sent you away while they worked on him.”
“I know you’re right.” She let out a weary sigh. “I just wish I knew how he’s doing. The hospital won’t tell me much.”
“Gene called after you went to bed,” Brent said. “Langdon’s scheduled for surgery the day after tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“He has to have a few inches of bone removed so the skin can cover the stump.”
She shivered, and drew the blanket more tightly around her. “Poor Mickey.”
“His doctor said the prognosis is good. There’s no sign of infection, and he should be out of surgery in a few hours.”
“Thanks for telling me,” she said, her lips curving softly.
Maybe this was his chance to make amends. “Do you want to go to the hospital tomorrow? You could visit with him, maybe meet his fiancée. Gene said she wants to thank you in person for calling the ambulance and staying with him until it arrived.”
Her eyes glowed in the moonlight. “Thanks, I’d like that.”
Her gratitude sent a rush of warmth through him. Actually, her company often had that effect on him—and not only when he was kissing her.
The thought brought him up short. The late hour was probably to blame, but even so he shouldn’t be thinking along those lines. It didn’t matter what he felt when he was around Claire. It only mattered that he kept her safe until Forrester was in custody.
“We’ll go after breakfast,” he said.
Before Claire could respond, the ring of his cell phone intruded.
He glanced at the illuminated display, frowning when it showed Gene’s home number. He flipped it open. “What’s up?”
“It’s Langdon,” Gene said. “There was a blood clot.”
He swore softly. A blood clot could mean a dozen different things—none of them good. “How
is he?”
“He died an hour ago.”
Chapter Nine
The next morning Brent was up early, having spent the night tossing and turning. Langdon had died because Forrester hadn’t wanted anybody to discover the CD. What made the damn thing worth killing for?
He opened the first file and stared at the contents. The letters and numbers had to be a code. But how could he decipher it without knowing the key?
His cell phone rang. It was Ian Alston, the agent who had given him the flash drive. “You were right to question that ballistics report. The two slugs that were tested weren’t the ones that came out of Sanderson.”
“How the hell could that happen?”
“Somebody at the lab screwed up.”
“So the team has spent weeks searching for the wrong caliber gun?”
“Afraid so.”
He swore. “Let me know when the new results are available.”
“You got it.”
“Has anybody figured out who No Neck is?” The nickname had shown up on Sanderson’s PDA.
“He was a homeless junkie,” Ian said.
“Was?”
“The guy died last week. Massive organ failure.”
Brent crossed out his “interview pending” notation.
“There’s something else you should know,” Ian said. “During the Eddie Hola investigation, Sanderson ran surveillance on a guy named David Cantrell. Sanderson caught Cantrell cheating on his wife on film.”
“How is that relevant?”
“Cantrell received copies of Sanderson’s photos in mid-April. Soon afterward, he withdrew seventy-five thousand dollars from his bank.”
“What are you saying? That Sanderson was blackmailing him?” The idea was ludicrous.
“Lots of agents had access to the Hola files,” Ian said in a conciliatory tone.
“Has anyone talked to Cantrell?”
“He’s dead. Shot at close range. The money’s missing. A team is coming from the Oklahoma office to investigate.”
“Who’s under suspicion?”
“I was given a gag order on the names, but I think you can guess one of them.”
“Forrester.” The agent who had paid eighty thousand cash for the Trans Am. The agent who had already killed a colleague and wounded another.
“I’ll call if I hear anything else,” Ian said, and disconnected.
Brent returned to staring at his laptop screen. Could the strings of gibberish relate to payoff amounts? Partway down his laptop screen, he saw one ending with 75. Ian had said that Cantrell had been blackmailed for that amount.
Could this be the key he had been looking for?
He wrote “David Cantrell” on a sheet of paper, circling the two Ds, two As and two Ls. Next he copied the letters from the string. NKFSNMKXDBOVV. The presence of two Ns, two Ks and two Vs confirmed his suspicion. Forrester had transcribed Cantrell’s name by replacing the D with an N, the A with a K, and so on.
He spent the next ten minutes unscrambling the names in the files. Then he came to one that looked familiar. Jim Sharratt. How did he know that name? It took him an hour to locate the name buried in a report. Sharratt and Sanderson had met for an hour in late May.
Why would a name on Forrester’s CD match with someone Sanderson had contacted shortly before his murder?
He phoned Ian. “I need you to run the name Jim Sharratt through our databases.”
Ian checked the spelling, and Brent stayed on the line while the other man completed the search.
“Okay, here’s what I found,” Ian said. “Last year, the Bureau was tracking visitors to child-porn Web sites. Sharratt was on the list.”
“What happened?”
“Only those suspected of direct involvement with minors were arrested. Sharratt wasn’t one of them.”
“Who were the investigators?”
There was a short pause and the sound of keystrokes. “Heydon, Mills and Forrester.”
No surprise there. “What kind of background info do we have on Sharratt?”
“Born in 1934,” Ian said. “U.S. citizen. Owned a dozen successful companies but retired a few years ago. He’s worth megabucks and had a squeaky clean record prior to the Internet porn operation.”
Internet Porn Operation.
IPO.
Brent exhaled in a rush as Forrester’s cryptic remark finally made sense. “Thanks,” he muttered, and hung up.
A rich old man like Sharratt could afford to pay to bury his indiscretions. Had Forrester accepted money to keep him from being charged? Then there was Sanderson’s meeting with Sharratt. How had that come about? Had the Bloodhound uncovered new information about the case and questioned him? To stop further digging, Sharratt could have arranged for Sanderson to be killed.
Brent rolled his shoulders, trying to work out the aches in his tight muscles. Conjecture was only a starting point. What he needed was evidence.
As he was shutting down his laptop, Claire appeared. “Any progress?” she asked.
“Yes, but first I want to tell you that I made a bad decision yesterday. I should have gone with Langdon to open the unit.”
She looked horrified. “Why?”
“I might have noticed the lock had been tampered with.” Then he could have stopped Langdon, and the guy would still be alive.
“But if you’d missed it, the explosion could have killed you, too.”
She had a point. And if he died, he couldn’t protect her from Forrester.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me,” she said.
“What? Mickey’s death?”
“No, the bomb.”
“Looks cut-and-dried to me. Forrester didn’t want anybody to find the CD.”
“Then why not choose a different hiding place for it?” She moved to sit on the couch. “According to his neighbors, that car was Forrester’s pride and joy. Why would he risk destroying it? Especially when he paid a small fortune for it?”
“Okay, maybe the CD wasn’t his only concern,” Brent said. “Maybe he couldn’t tolerate others gaining access to his Trans Am. So he rigged the unit to explode if it was opened.”
“That’s a really extreme thing to do.”
“Fits with his other actions. Arson. Murder—”
“We can’t prove he did anything except escape from Ridsdale,” she pointed out.
“He’s the only logical suspect.” Claire’s reluctance to accept Forrester’s guilt irked him—as did the agent’s skill at covering his tracks. “This time he got sloppy. The bomb squad reported there was enough explosive material to blow up the whole storage facility and a chunk of the parking lot, but the bomb wasn’t properly rigged.”
“Does Forrester have explosives experience?”
“Yes, he took special training last year. But remember the manager said he saw someone take off when spotted. Maybe Forrester botched the job because he was rushed.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t Forrester. Maybe someone wanted to kill him and got Mickey instead.”
“That theory is a tough sell without corroborating evidence.”
She was silent for a long moment. “You said you’d made some progress.”
“I’ve figured out what IPO means,” he said, “and I have a suspect for Sanderson’s murder.”
CLAIRE LISTENED intently as Brent explained the files on the CD related to suspects in an FBI Internet porn operation.
“Forrester was part of the IPO team,” Brent added, “so he could have manipulated evidence to keep certain individuals from being prosecuted. I’m convinced he did that—for a payoff, of course.”
“But how does that relate to Sanderson’s murder?”
“One of the suspects, Jim Sharratt, met with Sanderson a few days before his murder.”
“I still don’t see the connection.”
“Sanderson must have sniffed out something and contacted Sharratt. Alarmed by what Sanderson knew or might figure out, Sharratt had him killed.”
“By Forr
ester?” she asked.
“That’s a definite possibility. Forrester wouldn’t have wanted his payoffs to be exposed.” He pulled out his cell phone and punched in numbers.
“Who are you calling?”
“Sharratt.”
“Wouldn’t your colleagues have talked to him already?”
“I know they have,” he agreed. “But the agents who interviewed him didn’t know about his tie to the Internet porn case or Forrester.”
He paced in front of the window, then spoke into the phone.
She heard him arrange to meet with Sharratt the next day. And although she knew she should feel optimistic about this new development, Forrester’s whereabouts were still unknown. That meant spending more days—and nights—with Brent.
She should be indifferent to his presence. He appeared to have no trouble shutting her out. Even if that changed, a relationship with him—no matter how exciting and thrilling—would ultimately lead to a dead end. Her awareness of these facts should act as armor, making her immune to his appeal.
And yet…
In spite of every argument her logical mind brought forward, she still wanted to be with him.
Explain that, doc.
JIM SHARRATT’S country estate included a sprawling stone house with elaborate gardens in the front and a swimming pool and tennis court around the back. Most people dreamed about retiring like this, Brent thought as he waited with Claire on the multitiered deck for their host to return with drinks. Still, most people would think twice about switching places with the guy if they knew he was an FBI suspect.
“I hope you don’t mind cranberry juice,” Sharratt said, as he emerged from the back of the house holding a tray. “I seem to be out of sodas.”
“Cranberry juice is fine,” Claire said, shading her eyes against the sun.
Sharratt set the drinks on a glass table, then lowered himself gingerly into a deck chair. “Ten years ago, I was strictly a Scotch man, but my doctor kept harping at me to take better care of my health. When I retired, I cut out booze, started eating right, and now I play tennis five times a week, although my knees have been giving me trouble lately.” He gave Brent an apologetic look. “But you didn’t come to hear me grumble about the hassles of getting older. You came to talk to me about Pete Sanderson.”