And with that gruffly barked reprimand, Abbot motioned for them to sit. It wasn’t a request, either. Riley took the chair on the left; Tessa sat on the other side of the table. Directly across. Probably so she could still glare at him.
Abbot volleyed glances at both of them. Paused. Mumbled something. “Is it necessary for me to remind you two that you’re posing as a happily married couple who desperately want a baby?”
Riley looked at her.
Tessa looked at him.
“No reminder necessary,” Riley assured their boss.
Even though they might have to remind each other.
“Good.” Abbot turned his attention back to the computer screen where he was no doubt scanning the latest intel report. “Judging from what we’ve been able to hear with our monitoring equipment, you can expect to establish your first face-to-face contact with Dr. Fletcher this afternoon at fifteen hundred hours. He’ll probably go over the records we’ve created for you, but beyond that, we’re not sure what’ll be asked of you. Some lab tests, maybe. Perhaps more.”
It was that “more” part that had given Riley a few uncomfortable thoughts. Mainly because he didn’t know what “more” would entail. With Fletcher, it could be just about anything. Still, that wouldn’t stop him.
“I take it there are no pictures in the records you created for us?” Tessa asked. But there was a little too much hope in her tone for it not to set Riley’s teeth on edge. She obviously hadn’t given up on ditching him.
She was wasting her time.
“No pictures,” Abbot confirmed. “The Tates are supposed to be camera-shy recluses because they fear kidnapping attempts. But there are some fake bios in the records and the lab results from the tests Fletcher’s staff ran on you earlier this week. Plus, there are probably some extensive background checks that Fletcher had done.”
Tessa’s eyebrow lifted a fraction, the lift apparently aimed at Riley.
“I’ve studied the mission folder,” Riley volunteered. “I know what I’m supposed to do.”
“I’m sure you do,” Abbot interjected, pausing barely a second. “Neither of you will be able to carry a weapon or a communication device inside the clinic. With Fletcher’s extensive security measures, it’d be too risky. But we’ll have a team in the area monitoring you, and if something goes wrong, they’ll respond as needed.”
In other words, evasive measures. And there was absolutely no guarantee that those evasive measures would be effective, enough, or in time. If their cover didn’t hold, it could turn ugly.
Just as it had the day Colette was murdered.
That reminder was like a sucker punch. Riley quickly shoved it aside to concentrate on the briefing.
“Any indication that Fletcher is suspicious of us?” Tessa asked.
Abbot shook his head. “Just the opposite. From what we can tell, his people have dug no further than the records we provided.”
That was something at least. It meant they weren’t walking into a trap.
“While you’re at the clinic, Fletcher will arrange a time for the second appointment that should happen within the next seventy-two hours,” Abbot went on. “Well, hopefully he’ll do that. For that appointment, Fletcher will take you to an unspecified facility where we believe he’s been performing the medical procedures.”
Not a simple in vitro or insemination for couples having trouble conceiving. Oh, no.
During these medical procedures, Dr. Barton Fletcher would supposedly manipulate the DNA to get the made-to-specs designer babies that rich, self-absorbed couples wanted.
And it was that made-to-specs part that made what he did highly illegal.
If Riley couldn’t pin a murder rap on the doctor, then he’d see how long he could put Fletcher behind bars for performing illegal medical procedures.
“One more thing,” Abbot added. “Riley will be the team leader for this assignment.”
Okay. Riley hadn’t thought there’d be any more surprises today, but obviously he’d been wrong.
Tessa pulled in a hard breath. “But—”
“Riley’s had more experience in deep-cover ops.” There was an unspoken “I won’t budge on this” at the end of Abbot’s comment. “And deep cover is exactly what I want the two of you to maintain once you leave headquarters. Remember, after you arrive for your appointment this afternoon, Fletcher will almost certainly keep you under tight surveillance.”
In other words, continue to play the part of the loving couple. No easy task since they were practically at each other’s throats.
“Questions?” Abbot asked, standing. “Doubts? Concerns? Complaints?”
As if they would actually voice any of that to him. They’d both already fulfilled their complaint quota for the day. Maybe for their entire careers as federal agents.
Tessa and Riley shook their heads.
Abbot closed the laptop, got up and headed for the door. But then he stopped and turned back around. He aimed his attention at Tessa.
“The chief is still considering your promotion. I’ll make my recommendation to him after this mission.”
With that, Abbot made his exit and the door swished closed behind him.
“A promotion?” Riley mumbled. “And it probably hinges on this ops. No pressure there, huh?”
Tessa was already reaching for the mission folder, but her hand stopped in midreach. “And do you think that makes this ops more, or less, important to me?” she countered, throwing his own words right back at him.
Riley couldn’t help it. He had to smile. “Dare I use the P-word? As in personal? Seems to me that you have a problem with agents going into an ops when there’s something personal at stake.”
“This is a mission,” Tessa informed him, sounding very much as if she were trying to convince herself. “And I don’t bring personal issues into a mission.”
He was betting she would this time.
Tessa and he had both been friends with Colette. That made it personal. Added to that, they had to spend the next few days in close, intimate quarters pretending to be a loving, married couple.
And they had to do it with a killer watching their every move.
Oh, yeah.
That was just about as personal—and as dangerous—as things could get.
Chapter Two
Thanks to some road construction, the limo was crawling through the congested Dallas traffic. The stop-and-go snail’s pace didn’t help the tension that had settled in the back of Tessa’s neck. Of course, she couldn’t blame that tension solely on the traffic, the circuitous clandestine flights they’d taken from D.C. or even the mission itself.
No.
That tension had a lot to do with the man in the black cashmere sweater who was seated shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
Her partner.
Her husband.
And the absolute last agent she wanted to be paired with for this mission.
Tessa had planned for a lot of contingencies, but Riley McDade sure wasn’t one of them.
She wanted a quick in and out. No complications. Nothing to extend the length of this ops.
And especially nothing to interfere with its success.
With his renegade tendencies, personal chip on his shoulder and badass attitude, Riley McDade put all those things in question.
“The fictional Aston Tate was born in L.A.,” she heard Riley say. Not to her. He was obviously going over the undercover identity info stored on his PalmPilot. “He’s twenty-nine—just two years younger than me, so I shouldn’t have a problem with that. He collects Civil War memorabilia—I’ll have to fake that part. He’s a huge L.A. Lakers fan—won’t have to fake that. And he’s a jackass.”
Tessa glanced at the PalmPilot he had cradled in his hand. “It says that in the file?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s my opinion. Anybody who’d go to these lengths to have the perfect heir is a jackass. He should be satisfied with what Mother Nature intended him to have. Or not have.”
That tension in her neck went up a notch.
Tessa decided it was a good time to sit quietly and stare out the limo window. Maybe that way she wouldn’t have to respond to Riley’s comment, but her silence didn’t do a thing to ease the deep ache in her heart.
“I’m pulling into the parking lot of the clinic now,” Chris Ingram, the limo driver and fellow SIU agent, informed them through the intercom.
It was almost show time. Tessa took a deep breath. Steadying herself. And hating that steadying herself was even necessary. Why had fate chosen her for this assignment anyway? Talk about rubbing salt in a wound.
A baby mission.
One where she had to pretend to be a hopeful parent who desperately wanted to conceive the perfect child. Well, at least she wouldn’t have to fake the desperately-wanted-to-conceive part. All she had to do was open a vein and let her true feelings flow. In that respect, she was the ideal agent for this ops.
Tessa clung to that.
And hoped it was enough to get her through.
Because in another respect, she was as ill-suited for this as Riley was.
Maybe even more.
Both of them had more than enough emotional baggage to sink this mission before it even got off the ground. And for her, it was emotional baggage that she should have gotten rid of years ago. Bottom line: a baby couldn’t change what had happened in her own childhood. It couldn’t change what her father and she had endured because her mother had walked out on them when she was a child. It couldn’t change any of that. But the emotional baggage could definitely interfere with what she needed to do now on this mission.
If she let it interfere, that is.
She wouldn’t.
Riley clicked off the PalmPilot, essentially erasing its memory. A necessary security precaution. “Want to practice your bio?” he asked.
“Not really.” She already had it committed to memory. Isabel Tate. Twenty-nine. Tessa’s own age. No hobbies. No real life—something that Tessa could definitely relate to. Isabel was essentially the reclusive trophy wife of an equally reclusive trophy husband. A marriage of new money and blue blood.
“There’ll be lots of personal contact between us when we’re in there,” Riley commented. “And afterward while we’re at the second appointment.”
“I know. Loving couple and all that. I understand what we have to do, Riley.”
He nodded. Paused. And otherwise continued to grill her with those storm-gray eyes. “You haven’t been in a deep-cover situation like this before.”
That improved her posture. He’d better not be questioning her abilities. Or reminding her that her father had appointed him as team leader.
“Are you trying to make conversation or a point?” she asked.
“Definitely a point. At a minimum, we’ll probably have to kiss while Fletcher has us under surveillance.”
Oh, that.
She’d thought about kisses all right, along with other intimate behavior that might be expected of a happily married couple.
Embraces.
Long, lingering looks.
Caresses.
It wouldn’t be especially comfortable. Or easy. But then, there wasn’t much about this assignment that would be easy. Still, she’d do it. There were a lot worse things than kissing Riley.
With that reminder, she glanced at his mouth. Sensual, she supposed. After another glance, Tessa took out the supposed. Yes, his mouth was sensual, and why the heck she’d noticed it, she didn’t know.
“Well?” Riley prompted when they stepped out of the limo.
“Well, what?” Tessa asked, already worried that her daydreams about his mouth had caused her to miss something important.
He mumbled some profanity and wiped his hand through his stealth black hair that fell several inches down his neck. The swipe and the gusty October wind only mussed it more, but it still managed to look fashionably disheveled. A term that actually described his overall appearance.
“You understand what we might have to do in there, right?” he asked, obviously irritated.
“It’s not an issue,” she assured him, tossing that irritation right back at him. “If the situation dictates a kiss, then kiss away.”
But both knew it might not be limited to just a kiss.
After all, they were about to enter a fertility clinic. Where virtually anything could be expected of them. Anything. And the man who’d be expecting it was the very person who’d created a dark cloud over the Special Investigations Unit. He’d killed one of their own and gotten away with it.
So far.
As long as Fletcher was free, the dark cloud would stay. Over Riley. Over her father. Over the entire department.
And she could do something about that.
She could finally rid her father of the one black mark on his otherwise spotless career record: his failure to close out Colette’s murder.
Maybe then…
“Where are you right now?” she heard Riley whisper. There was yet more annoyance in his voice. He slipped his arm around her waist and eased her closer to him. Not exactly a loving gesture, either. He gave her a nudge.
Tessa glanced at him and was on the verge of asking him what he meant, but those raised questioning eyebrows said it all.
“I’m focused,” she assured him.
He made a sound to indicate he didn’t believe her.
She made a sound to indicate she didn’t care what he thought.
It was going to be a long mission.
They entered the brownstone building and Tessa paused in the doorway. To get her bearings. To observe. To make sure she was indeed focused.
She counted three security cameras in the reception area. Not two, as stated in the intel report. That meant the surveillance team hadn’t known about the recent modifications in the clinic.
Tessa silently cursed.
She’d already had enough surprises on this ops without adding yet another.
“Camera in the corner above the fake Picasso,” Riley muttered.
“I saw it. And I don’t think it’s a fake.”
Definitely not the decor or security measures for a typical fertility clinic. But then, Dr. Barton Fletcher was nowhere in the range of being typical.
There were no other patients. Just a brunette receptionist whose brass nameplate on her practically bare, glass-topped desk identified her as Beatrice Holden. The woman was almost certainly a hired gun. Tessa noticed the faint outline of a shoulder holster beneath her loose mocha-colored jacket.
“The Tates, I presume,” Beatrice concluded, her more than mildly curious gaze raking over them. She hitched her shoulder in the direction of a hall. “Follow me.”
They did. Down the wide corridor that Tessa knew from studying the floor plans would end at the sitting area outside Fletcher’s office. They passed no other visible doors along the way, but there were some concealed ones behind the judge’s paneling that didn’t quite go with the rest of the decor. Likely spots for escape routes.
Or security guards.
The fact she didn’t have a weapon suddenly made Tessa very uncomfortable. Riley must have felt the same way because the muscles tensed in his arm that he had curved around her waist. Because of Colette and his obsession with getting revenge, there was no telling what kind of emotional wringer he was going through at the moment.
As they neared the end of the hall, the doctor stepped out from the sitting area and flashed them a slick smile that sent a chill snaking down her spine.
Tessa hadn’t been sure how she’d react to Barton Fletcher, but she was a firm believer in instincts. In this case her instincts confirmed what everyone already suspected: the man was a killer.
Too bad the justice system required more than her instincts as proof. And too bad that hard evidence was the very thing they lacked. Of course, that was what this mission was all about—gathering evidence to bring a killer to justice.
Like the reception area, the sitting room outside his
office was plush. Decorated with original artwork and a Turkish rug that was probably worth six figures.
But that wasn’t all.
On one wall there were framed black-and-white photos. Artistically done. Precisely placed. All of babies. Lots of babies. Some were newborns snuggled into blankets. Others were slightly older with round smiling faces.
Tessa cursed herself when she had to take another deep breath.
That deep breath sent Riley’s gaze sliding in her direction. “Are you okay?” he whispered. Lovingly whispered. He pressed a husbandly kiss on her cheek.
It was time to open that vein a little.
Not that she could have possibly kept it closed anyway.
Tessa tipped her head toward the photos. “Aren’t they beautiful?” She made sure her voice cracked a little. It wasn’t difficult to do.
Riley nodded, his interest not on the photos but still on her. His stare, along with his slightly tightened grip, was a subtle question. What the heck was wrong with her? But it was also a subtle warning for her to keep her attention on the mission.
“The babies are a few of my many success stories,” Dr. Fletcher volunteered.
Thankfully, the doctor’s voice dragged Tessa back to where she needed to be. She forced aside the old wounds, the old issues, and reminded herself that she couldn’t do anything about the past, but she could do something about the future.
The doctor led them into his office. Fletcher obviously had expensive taste and his workplace wasn’t the only thing that reflected it. His clothes were flawless, along with being pricey. Somehow, the classic conservative Italian suit didn’t clash with the eraser-size diamond stud in his right earlobe.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Fletcher offered.
“We wouldn’t have missed this.” Riley eased onto the sofa across from Fletcher’s desk. Tessa followed and stayed close. “Our future son is our number-one priority.”
“Your future son is important to me, as well.” Fletcher sat at his desk and typed in something on his computer keyboard. “When I meet with potential clients for the first time, I start with the basics. Many couples come to me for enhanced conceptions, but because my time is limited, I’m selective about those I agree to help.”
Mommy Under Cover Page 2