by Lakes, Lynde
“There are ways to make you beg me to take that box off your hands, Ms. Collins,” he said, in his deepest, most threatening voice. “You’ve stumbled onto something very sinister. A smart woman like you ought to be able to figure that out.” He picked up the gun and checked the safety.
She turned her head away. Great. She was afraid of guns. And in spite of her effort to hide it, afraid of him. “Hand me your purse.”
Her shoulder bag still dangled at her side. She removed it and slid it across the table. “It isn’t in there.”
He dumped the contents out and rifled through them. “We’ll see. The house had a good going over, but you came in with this purse after the search was made. Stand up and come over here.”
She did as he asked. He frisked her, lingering diligently over her ample breasts. “Sorry,” he said, swallowing past a strange thickness in his throat. “A bra makes a good hiding place.” She didn’t flinch. One would have thought she was used to having some gangster-type feel her up every day of her life. She was entirely too gutsy for her own good.
“You can sit down now,” he said, sitting opposite her and keeping his hand on the gun. Rusti stared at it and shifted in her chair.
“Is it outside? In your car, maybe?”
“It’s in a safe place,” she said. “I’ll take you to it after you tell me what I want to know.”
Her cool gaze told him that she thought he wasn’t worth the proverbial two-cents. But that wasn’t what moved him. He saw something in her, some quality that told him she didn’t need to be protected from the truth. And if he wasn’t so damned used to lies and subterfuge, so used to manipulating people, using them to his own advantage, he’d have seen that long before now. All things being equal, she was probably safer knowing exactly where she stood. “You win,” he said.
She blinked—her eyes glistened with surprise. “Meaning what?”
“It means I can’t bring myself to blow your sweet, wily brains out.” He smiled, hoping to disarm her further. “It might surprise you to learn I’m not the gangster you think I am.”
“Yes, that would surprise me. “With that ridiculous name, what else could you be?”
“My real name is Marc Devaux. FBI. Undercover ISCB agent.”
“ISCB?”
“Illegal Substance Control Bureau.”
She laughed in his face. “Government agents don’t break into people’s homes and hold them at gunpoint.”
“Don’t they?”
“Who shot you? And that other man?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. And I’ll find out who killed René. You can count on that.” He slid his gun back into his leg holster. “My two main goals at the moment, however, are to find that box and keep you alive. You’ve become involved in a very dangerous game, and as soon as the killer knows you’ve got that microfilm you’re as good as dead.”
“Microfilm? There was nothing in that box but those drugs. They are drugs, aren’t they? And what about René?”
“René was my contact. I gave her the information and she passed it on to another agent.” Rusti looked puzzled, and he waited a moment for his words to sink in. “René didn’t use drugs, if that’s what’s worrying you. The pills were aspirin, part of our cover. If someone intercepted the box, they’d think it was merely a dancer’s fancy little pillbox. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“But you were registered at the hospital as Razor Jones.”
“In L.A., I am Razor Jones. Drug kingpin Terrilla’s surrogate son, his confidante. I’ve lived this identity for over two years. No one locally, except my team, and now you, knows who I am.” He paused and searched Rusti’s eyes, gauging her reaction to all this. “Not even the police. There’s an unknown informer in the P.D., and if my cover is blown, I’m a dead man. By telling you this, I’m putting my life in your hands. And for both our sakes, you must go on thinking of me as Razor Jones so you don’t slip up and use my real name.”
“If you are who you say you are, why not just go to the authorities?”
He laughed at the irony. “I am the authorities.”
“Show me your ID.”
“That won’t help. It says I’m Robert LeRoy Jones. I even have a birth certificate with that name. And a Social Security number. Razor is a nickname, of course.” He lifted a brow. “Satisfied?”
“No. How can I verify what you’ve just told me?”
****
Rusti fought to hide her surprise when Razor handed her the phone. “Tell the operator to connect you with the FBI in Langley, Virginia,” he said. “Ask for Buck Williams.”
Rusti hesitated. “It’s 2:00 A.M. back there.”
“Don’t sweat it. He needs to know what’s going on.”
Razor dialed O for her. Rusti asked the operator for the FBI, then waited while someone in Langley patched her through to Chief Williams. “Williams, here,” a deep voice finally said.
“Sir, my name is Rusti Collins. I’m René Bartlett’s twin sister. She’s dead, murdered, and—”
“Murdered?” Buck’s voice sounded tight, shocked.
“Yes, and I’m standing here with a man named Razor Jones, some kind of local gangster. He tells me he’s really Marc Devaux, an ISCB agent, and that you’re his boss. Can you verify this?”
There were several seconds of tense silence. Finally, in a choked voice, Buck Williams asked, “Where are you calling from?”
“L.A. René’s condo.”
Razor moved closer and whispered, “Tell him someone ransacked the
place.” Warm breath feathered over Rusti’s ear, sending shivers down her spine.
In a voice thick with emotion, Buck said, “I’m sorry to learn of your sister’s death, Ms. Collins. She was one of our finest agents.” He paused a moment. “Very sorry.” There was another pause as he cleared his throat. “If you have a speaker phone, Ms. Collins, please switch it on.”
Rusti pressed the speaker button with a trembling finger and told Williams he was on the speaker.
“Is Marc Devaux right there beside you?” he asked. The sound of Buck’s voice wasn’t very clear, but he could be heard.
“Yes, but he said I was to keep calling him Razor.”
“You catch on fast—like your sister.” Buck paused then and said, “Razor, what the hell is going on out there?”
Razor briefly explained what had happened. “I’ll call in a full report once Ms. Collins turns over the evidence,” he said, giving Rusti a look of subtle intimidation. She let it pass unchallenged only because she was caught up in the intrigue.
“You still tight with Terrilla?” Buck asked.
“Yeah. He called me in the hospital to see how I was doing. Sent flowers. I’ll see him tonight.”
“Watch yourself. Any idea who the shooter is?”
“Terrilla thinks he’s a rogue from a rival gang without official sanction, someone either Bull or I rubbed the wrong way. Something is definitely up; René’s murder proves there’s at least a suspicion about the microfilm.”
“Payback,” Buck said. “It’s always part of the equation with those bastards. Don’t make any more enemies.” The line crackled with static. Rusti turned off the speaker and gave the hand piece to Razor. He leaned his head toward her, inviting her to share the line. He smelled of soap and musky sweat. His beard felt like sandpaper.
“I’ll set up a meet with a safe receiver for you,” Buck was saying. “Get that evidence and be ready to hand it over. Call in for the time and place.” He repeated his condolences to Rusti and signed off.
“Now are you satisfied?” Razor asked.
She wasn’t. Not entirely. The whole thing was too unreal. And Marc Devaux, alias Razor Jones, still had a long way to go before she’d trust him completely.
****
Henry “Buck” Williams sat a long time at his desk, his head in his hands. He’d lost René. He’d been her mentor all through the training. Handpicked her for this assignment. She’d been perfect for it
. But he’d let her down by not canceling the whole thing the minute her twin found her. He’d suggested locating the twin six years ago when René applied to the academy, but she hadn’t wanted to stir things up, hadn’t wanted to become involved with a sister she didn’t know just when she was starting a career that could get dangerous.
First Agent Kincaid, and now this. The twin had jinxed it. René would be alive today if he’d followed his hunch and called the whole thing off. And now they had this frightened and grieving schoolteacher on their hands. He turned the sign on his desk around and stared at it. THE BUCK STOPS HERE. René had given it to him. He closed his eyes to let the pain pass, then closed his mind to all but the job at hand.
He had to proceed with caution. Until he could call off the mission it was up to Razor to maintain the integrity of his cover and quietly help Rusti handle her sister’s burial. Later, the Bureau would give Agent René Bartlett a suitable memorial service. Pipes and drums—the works. An honor guard. But for now Devaux had to win the sister’s confidence. She could blow the whole thing.
Damn! He slammed his fist on the desk. Gutsy René, tender René. He’d once thought…but it was too late for that now. And he hadn’t seen her since their week at Idyllwild, just before the twin appeared. When she had all but said yes. He should have known better; it happened every time an operative got emotionally involved. He’d fallen for her and now she was dead. And he couldn’t even go to her funeral.
He opened a drawer, pulled out a picture of the saucy redhead and traced the outline of her smiling face with his finger until his eyes blurred. René.
Chapter Seven
Still uneasy, Rusti led Razor to her car and retrieved what he called the evidence-in-question. No one but a cop would talk like that, she thought, remembering Dane, her lost love. So honest, so decent, so different from this dark, nefarious-looking FBI agent standing here beside her, oozing sex and danger from every pore.
No matter what she’d heard over the phone, that call might have been rigged. It seemed authentic, but… Still, Razor’s story made a crazy kind of sense. If René really was an undercover agent for drug control, it would explain her secretiveness, her taciturn reserve, she thought as they headed back to the house and reentered the kitchen.
Rusti plunked down at the table, feeling a jumble of emotions. She studied Razor’s features, thinking of all that had transpired since she’d first met him, trying desperately to come to some definite conclusion.
“I need a little tool of some kind,” he said. “A metal nail file…never mind…this will do.” He took a small knife from René’s wooden knife-block. Rusti cringed at the sight of the gleaming blade. If only she could erase the image of a knife buried to the hilt in René’s still breast.
“You wanted to know about your sister’s role in all this,” he said, pressing the knife tip into an indentation on the back of the pillbox. “It took nearly two years to get all the players in position for this assignment; Buck chose René because her belly dancing fit into the scheme of things.” Razor paused and raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t unusual for a customer to tuck a tip into a dancer’s belt. It seemed like the perfect setup. Until the flub up.” He pressed the knife tip into another nearly invisible groove and the back sprang open.
“Ah!” Rusti said. “A false bottom.”
Razor removed a tiny roll of film. “There’s enough evidence here to put Terrilla and his gang behind bars for a long, long time.”
“Doesn’t it worry you that you don’t know why René asked me to take her place—or where she went?”
His expression darkened and a fleeting tic winked at the outside corner of his right eye. “More than you can imagine. Unknowns lead to freshly dug cemetery plots.”
Rusti saw him wince at his choice of words, so she didn’t fault him for his insensitivity. “Now what?” she asked.
“You call the police and report the break in. They mustn’t find me here, but I’ll be close by.” He stroked his chin. “I’m trusting you not to say a word to anyone about what I’ve told you. Anybody could be the mole. Even Detective Baxter. If we work together, we can both stay alive.”
“Like René?”
His expression darkened. “If we’d known yesterday what we know today, René would be alive and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. As Don Quixote said, ‘Forewarned is forearmed.’”
Rusti hoped they weren’t tilting at windmills. “It seems you don’t have a tight grasp on the situation. Either that, or you aren’t telling me everything.”
“To get more information you have to give it. You found her body. Did you notice the fingernails on her left hand?”
“You’re really an insensitive clod, aren’t you? René might have been more flashy than tasteful, but there’s such a thing as generosity of spirit, and so far you’ve displayed precious little of that.”
“You’ve got it all wrong. I know René was just playing her part. But if you noticed her fingernails, I won’t have to risk raising suspicions by going to the morgue to check them out. Come on, help me out here. Were they painted silver, with gold triangles and rhinestones pasted on?”
Rusti’s anger faded, moved by the sincerity in Razor’s voice and her own strong curiosity. “Yes. Does that mean something?”
“It was our hold off code—telling me not to pass any information. Apparently René suspected she was being watched. But by whom?” He paused as though considering a list of possibilities. “How about the fingernails on the right hand?”
“I don’t know. They were all bloody.” Rusti fought the blur of tears. Razor handed her his handkerchief. It had a clean soapy scent.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can only imagine how hard this is for you. I wouldn’t ask these questions if it wasn’t necessary.” He met her gaze with such intensity that she couldn’t look away. “I’ve trusted you with my life, Rusti. Can you trust me with yours?”
Rusti wiped away her tears and cleared her throat. “Meaning?”
He studied her carefully, as though measuring her courage, her loyalty. “I mean we have to trust each other, work together on this. Like I said before, my life is in your hands. And your life might very well be in mine. If you should cave in and spill to the cops, we could both end up like René.”
A whole field of red flags went up for Rusti. His warning sounded like a threat. He was very scary when he wanted to be. And his arguments were powerful. Still, she couldn’t allow him to persuade her to follow some course of action that served only his purpose. “You and René may have had the same agenda, but it’s different with me. Nailing some crime boss isn’t one of my priorities and I’m not willing to die for it. And I wish with all my heart that René hadn’t been either.”
Razor just stared at her, his expression unreadable. So she raged on, “You’re a very dangerous person to be around. People close to you seem to end up dead.” She pointed to the microfilm. “Besides, now you’re the one who has what the killer wants, Mr. FBI man. Not me.”
Razor shook his head. “You’re not thinking straight, Rusti. He doesn’t know that.”
Rusti felt herself withering under his piercing gaze. It wouldn’t help the situation to let him beat her down. She straightened her back and readied herself for his next barrage.
Rather than lay into her, he spoke very softly. “I know you’d be a lot happier if I just disappeared. But that’s not going to happen. You know too much. And denying the danger you’re in won’t make it go away.”
Unable to stand his scrutiny any longer, she turned her face away. He went to her and drew her to him. Feeling the heat and fervor of his touch, she stiffened and backed out of his reach, not wanting to give him the wrong idea.
“It’s okay, I know you’re scared,” he said in a deep reassuring tone.
He scribbled a number on a slip of paper and handed it to her. “If you need me, leave your number on my pager.”
She just stared at him, unable to speak past the constriction in her
throat.
Gently, he withdrew his handkerchief from her grasp and wiped down everything he’d handled, erasing all evidence that he’d been there. He looked at his watch. “It’s 10:30 now. You’d better call the cops, but keep my name out of it.” He moved close again, put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up toward his. She felt herself disintegrating under his gaze, and for one crazy second she thought he was going to kiss her. “Ask for protection,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
****
Rusti was aware of Razor pausing in the doorway until she finished calling Detective Baxter, then without another word, he disappeared out the door.
Now, seconds later, she stood in the dark on the small brick patio, watching the man who had both warned and threatened her climb into his car and drive away. Would he wait somewhere nearby until the police arrived? He’d promised to protect her, but what could she expect from a man who’d held her at gunpoint? A man who makes up his own rules as he goes along?
She still found his story difficult to believe. And the call to Langley had been almost too convincing. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have a reason to be suspicious; everything about this whole double-identity business was unsettling. Instinct told her to run as fast and far as she could. Let Razor Jones have his drug bust, all she cared about was catching René’s killer.
Oh, God. René. Rusti couldn’t bear to think her sister had died for nothing. If Razor Jones could make her death count for something—Razor Jones, Mark Devaux—his names were interchangeable. But who was he really? He’d told her he’d been playing the Razor Jones role for over two years. This meant he’d been part of a gang who lived off the pain and weakness of others. At least that’s how she’d seen him at first, and his sudden transformation into Marc Devaux hadn’t entirely destroyed the earlier impression.
That might be because he’d tried to frighten her into compliance. It might also be due to the way he stirred feelings in her that had been absent since her fiancé died. That scared her—Razor scared her, but she wasn’t scared senseless. She didn’t need anyone to think for her. He might see her only as a kindergarten teacher, but she wasn’t the ingénue he took her for.