She picked up a comb from the vanity and raked it through the tangles in her hair. “I’ll figure a way around it.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I’ll figure out a way, okay?” But this time her words weren’t quite so calm or so quietly spoken.
“Oh, yeah. That’s really convincing.” Riley caught onto her arm and whirled her back around to face him. “Once we’re inside that facility, Tessa, you might not be able to refuse it. Hear me? If you do, Fletcher might get suspicious and try to kill you.”
Which couldn’t happen. It couldn’t. He refused to lose another partner. Just the thought of it turned his stomach.
“So, what are you saying? You want to call off the mission?” Tessa asked. That was obviously a rhetorical question since she didn’t give him a chance to answer. “You want to let Fletcher walk because of a contingency that may or may not arise?”
“No. But I don’t want you to get pregnant, either.”
She paused. Mumbled something indistinguishable under her breath. And combed her hair again. “There really is little chance of that happening.”
Just because she said it with such certainty, that didn’t convince Riley. “If you’re thinking about using some form of birth control, it’s too risky. Lab tests would detect—”
“Trust me. It’s not an issue.”
He was about to say something along the lines of I beg to differ, but there was something in her tone that stopped him cold.
“This isn’t about birth control, is it?” he asked cautiously.
“No.” And that was all she said for several long moments. Tessa slowly put the comb back on the vanity, aligning it with the soaps and other bottles of cosmetics. “If you must know, I had endometriosis when I was a teenager. It’s a problem with tissue growing where it shouldn’t. I had surgery. But the damage had already been done.”
Since he had no idea what to say to that, he just stood there and listened.
“I have slim-to-none odds of getting pregnant even under ideal circumstances,” she continued. Not easily though. Her bottom lip trembled. Just a little. And her voice wavered slightly. It was more than enough for him to realize this was no well-healed wound. “So Fletcher’s procedure poses no risk whatsoever. For once, Murphy’s Law is on our side.”
Ah, hell.
Riley thought about reaching for her. Maybe even a touch to her arm. Some kind of human contact to let her know he was here for her. It’d make him feel better, that was for sure, but he didn’t think it’d do a thing to help Tessa.
“That’s the nerve I hit,” he mumbled.
Her gaze lifted, meeting his. “Excuse me?”
“In the limo when I was talking about people screwing around with Mother Nature to get a baby. Or not get one. I hit a nerve.”
She dismissed that with a shrug.
Riley knew better.
There was no way to dismiss the pain in her eyes.
“It’s old baggage,” she mumbled. “A dream about recreating a childhood, my childhood, with the child of my own. A dream where mothers don’t leave one day and never come back.” Suddenly looking disgusted with herself, she cleared her throat. “The kind of dream that sends people into therapy.”
Oh, yeah. Definitely wounds.
“The bottom line is, the only thing I’ve ever wanted more than being an SIU agent is a baby, and I can’t have one. So, there. You know all my deep, dark secrets.” She flexed her eyebrows. “Guess that means I’ll kill you now.”
Her attempt at humor didn’t diffuse anything.
Riley disregarded his veto about touching her and slipped his arm around her. Before she could protest, or before he could change his mind, he hauled her to him. Right against him.
“Don’t,” Tessa said, already trying to break out of his grip.
Riley held on. “This isn’t sexual, Tessa.”
She pulled back and faced him. “It’d be safer if it were,” she countered.
That was one hundred percent true.
Riley still didn’t let go.
“Does your father know about your infertility?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Okay. It took him a moment to get his teeth unclenched. “And he let you come on this mission anyway?”
This time she did step away from him. But Tessa didn’t just put some distance between them, she stared at him with accusing eyes. “Don’t blame him.” She hitched her thumb against her chest. “I lied to you this morning. I did have a choice. But I wanted to do this. For Colette.”
“And for him,” Riley added.
Her mouth tightened. “Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it. You don’t want dear old dad to have an unsolved case on his docket. Don’t get me wrong. It’s admirable, especially since clearing that case will mean getting Colette’s murderer.”
Still, this went above and beyond duty to father, to country. This was a side to Tessa Abbot that he wouldn’t have thought existed.
A side that made him feel…
Riley refused to let the rest of that thought enter his head. There was no place for personal feelings here. Live and learn. He’d already made that mistake once.
“Don’t you dare question my ability to do this mission,” she snarled. Gone was the wavery voice and the uncertainty in her eyes. Now, this was a look he was familiar with. Agent Tessa Abbot, the gung-ho, pain-in-the-ass operative who put duty above all else.
The facade might have worked, too, if only moments earlier she hadn’t given him a glimpse of her heart.
“No questions or doubts, Tessa. Because it’s my guess you have enough of those for both of us.”
Tessa would have almost certainly denied that if the phone on the vanity hadn’t rung. She reached over and jabbed the speaker button. Her father’s image appeared on the small screen attached to the phone.
“Is this a good time to talk?” John Abbot asked.
“It’s safe,” Tessa told him. She paused only long enough to take in a breath. Probably so she could give the briefing her own personal slant. “We have a rendezvous time with our suspect. Per his instructions, in three days we’ll be taken to a clinic and then to another medical facility. Both are unspecified locations. By then, we’re anticipating you’ll have a way for us to transmit any information we might find.”
“There’ll be off-site video and audio-feed capabilities. That’s as much as we can risk with Fletcher’s security. And we’ll have a secondary team follow you to the locations for surveillance and backup.” Abbot paused. “We’re not sure if this is a problem yet, but Fletcher might have dug a little deeper in your records than we originally thought.”
That was not what Riley wanted to hear. “Are our covers intact?”
“Yes. From all indications, they are.”
But it wasn’t a hundred percent. Of course, in their business, nothing was.
“There are also some indications that Fletcher is setting up some thermal infrared equipment so he can scan the estate,” Abbot added.
Definitely not good. Visual eavesdropping. And a royal pain because there’d be few breaks from deep cover. In other words, it would require Tessa and he to touch. A lot. Or, at least, they’d have to be close enough to each other so they could pretend to touch.
Yet one more concern to add to Riley’s growing list of concerns.
“Until we’ve heard any indication to the contrary,” Abbot went on, “things will proceed as planned. Let me emphasize—your mission is to locate and retrieve evidence. According to Fletcher’s profile, he’ll probably keep detailed records in his personal computer or on surveillance tapes.”
“You don’t think he’ll still have the tape of Colette’s murder, do you?” Tessa asked.
“No. At least not at the clinic where he’ll be taking you. Elsewhere, perhaps. But it’s possible Fletcher will mention Colette, and there’ll be either a computer record or tape of that. He’s an arrogant man who likes to boast about his…accompli
shments. That arrogance will almost certainly help us bring him down.”
Riley could only hope. And if Fletcher’s arrogance wasn’t his Achilles’ heel, then he’d find another way to get that evidence.
“Once you’ve completed the assignment,” Abbot continued, “and we have the two of you out of the facility, then the FBI will move in and make the actual arrest.”
Riley would have preferred to cuff the doctor himself, but he didn’t mind passing that honor along to his fellow law enforcement officers. As long as they nailed Fletcher, it would be a successful mission.
Too bad there was an if that threatened the success.
Riley waited a couple of seconds to see if Tessa would complete the briefing, but it soon became apparent she’d decided to leave out a critical detail.
“Do you plan to mention that part about Phase One of Project Ideal Baby?” Riley asked her. “Or should I?”
That earned him another of her lethal glares. However, her glare relaxed significantly when she turned back to the screen to face her father.
“Our suspect indicated that he’d be performing a routine, nonanesthetized procedure on me when we arrive at the first location.”
Man, talk about breezing right over the problem. “What Tessa’s trying to sugarcoat is that the doctor wants to inseminate her before he takes us to the second location.”
If her jaw tightened any more, she’d probably chip her pearly whites. “And what Riley and you both know is that there is no chance of my becoming pregnant. Without the insemination, we won’t be able to get inside Fletcher’s organization or gather evidence about the murders. In other words, our mission will fail.”
“I don’t want that any more than you do,” Riley firmly reminded her. “But your father needs to know what you’re up against. It’s still a medical procedure. And even though I suspect Fletcher’s whole operation is a scam, you have no idea what he might do to you, all under the guise of inseminating you. You’ll be at his mercy, and believe me, I don’t think you’ll care for Fletcher’s brand of mercy.”
“Is the operation a scam?” Abbot questioned.
Tessa nodded.
So, she’d picked up on the inconsistencies, as well. No surprise there. She was smart and probably better versed in fertility issues than he was.
“Evade the insemination if possible,” her father instructed. There wasn’t any change in his tone to indicate he was even slightly concerned about his daughter’s well-being. “If the suspect insists that it be done, then it’s your call as to whether or not to continue the mission.”
Your call. Translation? You’re a serious wuss if you wimp out because of an almost-nil risk. Even if “almost nil” amounted to something significant because Fletcher would be able to do pretty much anything to her under the guise of a simple insemination.
Tessa wouldn’t wimp out.
That full-steam-ahead, push-for-success mentality would have normally pleased Riley. But there wasn’t much that was normal or pleasing about this. That said, it wouldn’t stop him from doing this job, either.
So, the number-one solution was to avoid the insemination.
Somehow.
Even if it meant calling Fletcher and renegotiating the whole deal. Maybe he could convince the doctor that Tessa had a phobia about such things. After all, the Tates were supposed to be neurotic and self-absorbed, so he’d try to get some mileage out of that.
“Contact me with your situation report at 0800 tomorrow,” Abbot concluded, and the screen went blank.
“How did you know Fletcher was running a scam?” she asked Riley when she clicked off the phone.
“Lucky guess.” He waited a moment. “But yours probably wasn’t a guess, huh?”
“Not really. Fletcher’s procedure of flushing and then replanting an embryo is possible, though illegal in this country and most others. But the technology to genetically manipulate a human embryo doesn’t exist. So I doubt he’d bother with the former when he can’t do the latter.”
Riley nodded. That was his theory, too. “So, basically he just uses insemination to impregnate his clients and pretends to do his DNA manipulation thing. The women walk out of his facility with a lot less money than they had when they entered, and they’re pregnant with babies they could have conceived the old-fashioned way.”
He winced at his choice of words, but Tessa merely dodged his gaze and resumed combing her hair. “By the time the couples realize they don’t have the perfect child,” she said, “it’ll be too late. Fletcher will have closed up his operation and skipped town.”
Or else the couples would be so attached to the kids that perfection no longer mattered.
Riley kept that part to himself. And he didn’t get to renew the insemination argument, either, because there was a knock at the bathroom door.
“We have a visitor,” Agent Ingram relayed through the closed door. “It’s Dr. Fletcher. He’s here.”
Adrenaline slammed through Riley. Not good adrenaline, either. “What does he want?”
“He says there are some questions about your records and he needs to see you right away.”
Great. Just great.
“Oh, and he’s not alone,” the agent added. “There are two men with him and both are carrying concealed weapons.”
Riley cursed
So did Tessa.
And they both reached for their guns.
Chapter Four
“Where’s Fletcher now?” Tessa cracked the door open and asked Ingram, who was waiting on the other side for further orders.
“I left him and his two assistants outside on the front veranda. I told them that I couldn’t let them in until I got the okay from you.”
Good. So, they weren’t actually in the house. That was something at least.
If Fletcher had been let in, he could use the opportunity to plant some kind of listening device. That would precipitate a thorough scrub-down of the place. A scrub-down that would take hours for Riley and her to do. But even if that hadn’t been an issue, Tessa was glad Fletcher was still outside. There was just something unnerving about being under the same roof as the murdering doctor, and she wanted to delay it until she was ready to face him.
“Stay out of sight,” Riley instructed Ingram. “We’ll be downstairs in a couple of minutes.”
Her father’s warning raced through her head. Fletcher might have dug a little deeper in your records than we originally thought.
If the doctor had found nothing, the fact that he was still looking wasn’t a good sign. An equally bad sign was that he’d made an impromptu visit barely an hour after Riley and Tessa had left his office.
“You think Fletcher’s suspicious?” Tessa asked, hurrying. She peeled off her bathrobe and grabbed her leather shoulder harness. Beside her, Riley did the same.
“Maybe. Or maybe this is just what he considers first-class service to his clients. Either way, stay alert.”
Tessa had no plans to do otherwise. “What about our weapons? If Fletcher has his thermal scanning equipment up and running, he’ll be able to see that we’re armed.”
“Possibly. But it won’t necessarily be out of character for the Tates. Remember, they’re paranoid about security. They’d probably consider Glocks and other 9 mm weapons to be proper accessories.”
True. But it could also make Fletcher’s suspicions about them skyrocket.
Together, they went into the dressing room. As the shower, it was easily large enough for several people, but Riley had a unique way of occupying space. Not his size, necessarily, since he wasn’t overly muscular. It was just his presence. Even with the rush of adrenaline, even with her nerves zinging from Fletcher’s unplanned visit, she noticed.
And she was sorry she had.
Tessa blamed it on that ridiculous heart-to-heart chat they’d had just minutes earlier. She’d said things to Riley she hadn’t intended to say. Ever. To anyone. Things that could have easily dissolved barriers that were best left between them. Thankf
ully the mission and Fletcher’s visit would put those barriers back in place. Because there was no room for personal feelings here.
Now, she only hoped her body understood that.
If not, she’d make it understand.
Tessa held on to that thought until she saw Riley’s boxer shorts land on the floor, mere inches from her feet. The boxers were obviously damp from the shower. So was her own underwear. Since it would have been ridiculous not to change it, she made sure her back was to him before she peeled off her bra and panties.
“Are you okay?” Riley asked.
She risked glancing over her shoulder at him. Yep. He was naked. Well, almost. He was in the process of putting on another pair of boxers to cover his incredibly toned backside. On a scale of one to ten…well, there was no scale to rate it. Backsides such as his defied traditional ratings.
She forced her attention elsewhere. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she countered.
Their gazes met. For just a few seconds. It was more than enough time for Tessa to grasp what Riley meant. And it wasn’t her involuntary reaction to his backside. Judging from the sympathy in his eyes, they were right back to the one subject she didn’t want to discuss.
“I’m fine,” Tessa snapped.
Annoyed and irritated that Riley apparently thought she was some fragile creature to be protected, she riffled through her clothes and located a garnet-colored silk lounging set and a matching robe. There were other garments in the closet that were more fitting for visits with a doctor, but this particular outfit was bulky enough to conceal her shoulder holster.
In this case, that took priority over fashion.
If Fletcher wasn’t running infrared scans over them at this very moment, then there was no reason to advertise that they were armed.
When she finished dressing, Tessa stepped into a pair of slippers and whirled around to face him. She wanted to settle this issue once and for all before they met with Fletcher.
“Let’s get something straight, McDade. My infertility problems will have no effect on this mission.”
Mommy Under Cover Page 4