The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  “We’re good,” Sara said, placing an arm around Celina and turning her to face the mirror.

  “Are you Cuban?” Celina asked.

  “No, I’m a mishmash of a bunch of things.” She pulled an FBI cap out of a backpack and stuck it on Celina’s head, snugging it down low over her eyes. “Stay with your security detail at all times.”

  Celina shook Sara’s hand. “Watch your back.” She took a deep breath. “Emilio will not be happy if he figures out we’ve tricked him.”

  “If you catch him before I do,” Sara said softly, “put a bullet in him and be done with it. He doesn’t deserve to live.”

  Celina opened the door for her and thought again about Ronni and the others. Emilio deserved more than one bullet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In Celina’s top ten nightmares, she never imagined anything as horrifying as spending the night in a hotel with Chief Eugene Forester. Still dressed in Sara’s clothes, she sat on the single king-size bed and wondered if things could get much worse.

  Celina had insisted on staying in Carlsbad. Forester had insisted on driving her to the hotel. All through L.A., he’d swerved and sworn and Celina had held on to the Jesus handle in the Taurus rental as if her life depended on it. She wondered how her security tail managed to keep up with them. To make matters worse, Forester wouldn’t let her sit in the car while he picked up the key cards at the front desk for the room reserved for them. He’d insisted Celina never be out of his sight, even though her security guards were sitting directly beside them in the hotel parking lot.

  She tried unsuccessfully to convince the chief to get two separate rooms, but he wouldn’t cooperate. It wouldn’t have mattered; the hotel was booked with the exception of one room—a single, king-size bed with not even a pullout couch. Celina sat on the bed now debating the merits of sleeping in the straight back desk chair or the bathtub.

  Sleeping outside with the security guys held more appeal.

  What she really wanted was to sleep with Cooper. He was outside the hotel somewhere; she could feel it. He’d told her he was going to the Carlsbad satellite office to catch up on paperwork and assign the team members he could spare to follow up on the hotline calls, but that wasn’t all he was up to. Like he’d told Forester, he was assuming the position of bodyguard. He might have been out of sight, but he was keeping close tabs on her as he lay in wait for Emilio.

  While the security detail and a couple of local cops formed a circle around the hotel, Cooper watched their circle. He worked like that, thought in layers. A single security layer was easy to breach. Every layer added to the circle made it harder for the perp to break through without getting caught. Emilio had become quite adept at slipping by trained law enforcement officers, killing those who stood in his way. It wasn’t his style, his MO, but then like Cooper had told the group in the conference room, prison changed a man.

  The Cooper on duty outside didn’t fit the Cooper she’d witnessed today with Lana. The woman was competitive and mean-spirited, but Cooper’s version of her was ridiculously exaggerated. Celina couldn’t believe he was so immature as to make up outlandish stories. There was something more between them, she’d bet her pink polka-dot underwear on it.

  Underwear. She went to her carry-on bag and rummaged through the clothing. As soon as Forester was out of the bathroom, she was going to run a big tub of hot water and take a soothing bath. Get out of Sara’s clothes and relax. She’d been on such a whirlwind for the past twenty-four hours, she needed a few minutes without distractions to think about Emilio and figure out what he was really up to.

  Her hand stilled in the clothes as her mind circled a mix of images. There was something about that video from the safe house in Des Moines that kept popping to the surface. Something about the way he looked or moved that was wrong. It was him, but it wasn’t. Why couldn’t she place it?

  Just like his new smoking habit, something in his mannerisms had changed.

  Making a mental note to discuss her intuition with Cooper, she went through her clothes again. Normally, she slept in as little as possible. Under the current circumstances, that was obviously out of the question.

  Settling on yoga pants and a T-shirt, she went to the patio doors where she pushed the curtains aside. The room was on the top floor, facing the courtyard below. No patio, just a railing nailed across the outside of the glass to keep guests from using the patio doors and taking a big fall into the part-tropical, part-desert garden below. Mixed in with the palm trees and gardenia bushes were succulents the size of a car and cactus plants that sported spines as long as her thigh.

  The hotel curved in a U-shape so that most of the rooms had an ocean view. An ocean view that, Celina decided, craning her neck to look around the leaves of a palm tree waving in front of her window, could only be seen with binoculars even on a clear day. Outside the courtyard was the front drive. Beyond that, the coastal highway, then the boardwalk, and beyond that, in the distance, the Pacific Ocean. Since it was dark, the most she could see were the flashing stoplights on the highway.

  Flipping the lock on the patio door, she slid it open and took a deep breath of cool air. She could almost smell the ocean. She strained her ears, listening, and in between cars on the highway, she heard the waves. Closing her eyes, she imagined standing in the waves when this was over, and felt some of the tension drain from her shoulders.

  She was stuck in a hotel room that featured a patio door without a patio, her oversized, gruff-as-a-linebacker ex-boss, and no clean underwear. But being on Emilio’s list was the real nightmare, one she had to bring to an end soon, before anyone else got hurt.

  “Davenport,” Forester barked behind her. He was finally out of the bathroom. “Get your fanny away from that window.”

  Drawing in another deep breath, Celina stepped back, shut the door and closed the curtains.

  Turning, she froze, staring at her boss in total disbelief.

  Her boss, sans shirt.

  “Don’t you have any sense?” Forester asked her.

  “Don’t you have any sense of decency?”

  His hands went to his hips. “What? You’ve never seen a man bare-chested before?”

  Oh my god, Celina thought, and went and locked herself in the bathroom.

  Long, hot soaks in the tub weren’t normally her thing. She was always running late and preferred showers. But every once in a while, when her mind was in full ADD-mode, a hot bath slowed her blood pressure and reduced her mental pressure to a manageable spin.

  Forester was on his cell phone when she emerged from the bathroom. He was also flipping channels on the TV back and forth between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News and eating a slice of pizza. Celina was relieved to see he’d put a shirt on.

  His gaze flicked to her, sized her up in her yoga-wear, and returned to the television. He grunted something into the phone, snapped it shut, and motioned with his head at the plate of pizza on the desk. “I ordered room service. And your friend dropped off some soda for you, but I’m guessing he mostly wanted to check on you. Wouldn’t let me interrupt your bath, though.”

  He said ‘friend’ in a way that meant Cooper. The smell of sausage and mushrooms fired up her stomach. She was starving. “He’s a good agent.”

  “Punto’s improving. The lung the surgeon fixed is hanging in there and the prognosis is good. She’ll need some time to recoup and maybe some physical therapy, but she said to tell you hi.”

  “She’s awake?”

  Forester nodded. “Her family’s there. I talked to the sister. She said Ronni doesn’t remember what happened yet. Doc claims it’ll come back to her once they ease her off the sedatives and pain medication. Be a few days.”

  Celina nodded, glad for the update as she sat in the chair and ate pizza. It was still hot, and tasted delicious.

  “You’ve been on all the news channels.” Forester pushed a button on the remote. “Lead story.”

  “That was the plan,” Celina said, licking grease off a fing
er.

  “Dupé seems less than happy about your plan.”

  “He’ll be happy when we catch Emilio.”

  Forester grunted and changed the channel.

  There in full color was Cooper leading her away from the house in Des Moines. Celina scooted the chair forward and scanned the crowd as the camera panned the property. She was looking for anyone wearing a red ball cap. She saw no one.

  “You’re lucky Dupé likes you,” Forester said, scanning the crowd like she was. “You seem like trouble to me. I’d have fired your ass after that Time thing.”

  The clip ended and the news anchor appeared with a head shot of Emilio hanging in the air to her right. It was a copy of a picture Celina had taken. He looked intelligent and confident. The news anchor dispatched the nationwide manhunt information.

  “You’re letter of the law,” Celina said, eyeing the chief. “I’m more essence of the law.”

  Forester made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat, rose from the edge of the bed, and grabbed another slice of pizza. “The law is the law, Davenport. Don’t hide behind some mumbo jumbo ‘essence’ crap.”

  Celina chuckled. “So I’m a little unconventional. I get the job done. That’s why they stuck me on the SCVC taskforce.”

  “Huh.”

  They sat in silence, chewing. Another minute and the pizza was gone.

  “How do you multitask so well when you’re driving?” Celina asked him.

  Forester raised an eyebrow.

  “You know,” she said, “that thing you did the first day I arrived in Des Moines. I had to ride with you to the bank robbery for my initiation. You used your knees on the steering wheel while you were loading your shotgun. Talking on the radio while you took a corner doing ninety. Cooper does that too.”

  Forester almost cracked a smile. He grabbed a glass from the mini-bar and opened one of the Cokes room service had delivered with the pizza. “Practice.”

  He offered Celina the other soda, but she grabbed a Dew instead. “That’s what I told Ronni. I just need more practice.”

  Forester drank some soda, picked up a chocolate candy mint with the hotel’s logo on the wrapper and broke it in half. He handed one tiny piece to her.

  Celina accepted the mint and studied the chief. Anyone who shared a piece of chocolate wasn’t all bad. She raised her quarter inch of the mint to him. “Here’s to the successful capture of Emilio Londano.”

  Forester raised his glass, having already inhaled his portion of the mint, and took a big drink. “You sleep with him?”

  She choked. The mint stuck in her throat. “Of course not!”

  Forester gave her a nod. “Good. Let’s get some sleep. I’ll take the floor.”

  Cooper was six seconds from falling asleep when Thomas said, “I can handle this, Coop, if you want to catch some zzz’s.”

  The partners were situated five hundred yards southeast of the hotel on an overpass that eventually hooked northbound traffic up to the Pacific highway. Construction work had closed the outside northbound lane, but the construction workers were long gone and Cooper had moved a few barricades and squeezed his Tacoma into the perfect vantage point. He and Thomas were protected from any late-night traffic flowing up the overpass, and could watch the back of the hotel.

  It was only midnight, but they were still sleep-deprived, jet lagged, and hungry. They’d analyzed everything about Londano that had been discussed during the meeting at FBI headquarters: his means of transportation, whether or not he had a fake ID and was therefore able to fly, how soon he’d reenter California by plane, train, or automobile. They also went over a few things that hadn’t been discussed in the meeting. Like what he might do to Celina if he kidnapped her.

  That last discussion still grabbed Cooper by the gut.

  Taking the night-vision binoculars away from his eyes, he rubbed a hand down his face. He fed his gut check with an image of Londano getting near Celina. It kept him awake better than the six cups of coffee he’d downed in the past two hours. “I want this bastard. I personally want the satisfaction of nailing him when he shows up.”

  The younger agent stretched out on the passenger side, stifling a yawn. “You haven’t slept in days. You’re a walking zombie.”

  “You haven’t had much yourself.”

  “Yeah, but I’m young. Doesn’t bother me.”

  Cooper took his focus off the hotel for a second. “You see that railing, Hawkins?” He gestured with his chin at the concrete and metal outside Thomas’s door.

  “What about it?”

  “You keep it up with the disrespect and you’ll be dangling by your toes from it.”

  Thomas chuckled. “I have no doubt you’d throw me over the side without an ounce of remorse, sir.” After a minute, he glanced at Cooper. “You know, you scared the shit out of me when I was assigned to the taskforce.”

  Cooper returned the binoculars to his eyes. “Obviously that’s changed.”

  “That first month, I really believed you had some kind of super human powers. Celina kept throwing herself at you, but you ignored her, shut her down. The rest of us were all like, how does he do that? Why does he do that? Then that whole takedown with Londano and the arrests. The Dyer thing. Man, you were like a machine.” He yawned, sat forward, and drummed his hands on the dashboard in a quick rhythm. “Des Moines changed that though.”

  Des Moines changed everything. Cooper ground his teeth together.

  Thomas rolled his head around on his shoulders. “You became human just like the rest of us poor pathetic schmucks, Coop.”

  Cooper grunted.

  “Oh, don’t worry, we still know we’re not worthy to kiss the boots of The Beast, but now, you know, we don’t feel like such losers.”

  Cooper tried to work up annoyance over the comment, found he felt a touch of relief instead. “Shut up, Hawkins, and quit squirming.” He gave the agent a hard, disdainful glare that even in the dim light from the street, Thomas should feel to his bones. “We’ve got a job to do here and a woman’s life depends on it.”

  “Forester got the good job. Being Celina’s personal bodyguard, getting to sleep in a nice hotel room, order room service. Tell me again why we didn’t volunteer for that assignment?”

  Thomas was right. Forester had suddenly become a leech. A leech that got to sleep in the same room with Celina. Cooper drew a breath, prepared to swear, but his cell phone chirped, interrupting him.

  Caller ID told him it was fugitive recovery agent Sara Rios. “We received a call,” she said, bypassing the normal hello. “Our man’s in your neck of the woods. The Palomino Apartments in Carlsbad, fourth floor. Landlord there saw the man’s face on the ten o’clock news. Says the guy’s home. You know the place?”

  Cooper threw the binoculars on the seat and started the SUV. The Palomino Apartments…why did that sound familiar? “We’re less than a mile from it.”

  “SWAT team’s on their way. Thought you might want to be in on the takedown.”

  Cooper moved the phone from his mouth and instructed Thomas to alert the agents in the inner circle to stay alert, they were following a lead. Then he slammed the vehicle into gear and shot out of the barricaded lane. “Damn straight,” he said to Sara. “We’ll be there.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  A sharp, rhythmic buzzing woke Celina from a deep sleep. Heart thudding, she slapped at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It didn’t stop, and it was so loud, it echoed in the room. The previous night’s occupant had forgotten to turn off the alarm setting, or housekeeping had accidentally knocked the switch on. She sat up, fumbled with the buttons on the clock, sure the neighbors next to her were cussing her out.

  The room was dark and Celina searched for the light switch on the lamp next to the bed. The digital read out on the clock read 4:14 a.m. as she turned the switch.

  No light.

  “Chief,” she said, over the blaring noise. She turned the alarm clock over, kept trying buttons. “I can’t get this thi
ng to shut off.”

  No answer.

  Celina ripped the cord from the wall. Still the buzzing continued. Battery-backup, she thought and fumbled for the battery case. It was empty.

  Celina looked around, her brain finally registering the sound.

  Not an alarm clock. Fire alarm.

  “Chief,” she called again, all her instincts on high alert. She didn’t smell smoke, but she was on the third floor. The fire could be on another floor. Her eyes adjusted somewhat to the dark room and she wondered why the auxiliary lighting hadn’t come on. Did the hotel have a generator? Had it malfunctioned?

  Had someone tampered with it?

  She felt around the nightstand for her cell phone. It wasn’t there. She’d fallen asleep with it in bed. Running her hands over the tangled blankets, she still couldn’t locate it.

  The warning bell in her head matched the clanging of the fire alarm. She grabbed her gun from the nightstand and took a deep breath, readying herself. Where was Forester? Why didn’t he answer her?

  Inching her way around the end of the bed, she strained her vision, checking everything she could see. The door was closed although she couldn’t tell if it was still locked. The curtains were drawn. Skirting the bed, she saw the white sheets and tan blanket piled on the floor where Forester had bedded down.

  The chief was gone. She swept her gun in controlled arcs around the room, looking for any out-of-place shadow or sudden movement.

  Her back to the wall, she slid around the armoire that held the television. Then the desk, making it to the curtains. As she yanked one side back from the other, soft light slipped in. Keeping herself hidden, she peeked out. All looked normal except for the people gathering below. No fire trucks. Celina scanned the windows and doors of the hotel within her view and saw no smoke.