Suddenly Daddy and Suddenly Mommy

by Loree Lough

  Mitch measured the atmosphere, chatting amiably when he thought it appropriate, nodding somberly when he felt he should. At the conclusion of the long, leisurely dinner in the elegant dining room, Pericolo’s wife and children excused themselves, and Giovanni invited Mitch to join him for coffee in his study.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable,” he said, gesturing expansively toward twin bloodred leather chairs that flanked the massive mahogany desk.

  Mitch chose the chair on the right, where he could keep an eye on the door…and keep his back to the wall. Pericolo lifted the lid of a teak humidor. “Cubans,” he whispered harshly, tilting the box so Mitch could peek inside.

  “Never touch the stuff,” Mitch said, holding up a hand, “but thanks.”

  As Pericolo removed a long, fat cigar, Mitch said, “Mind if I ask you a question?”

  Pericolo sat beside him, gold lighter in one hand, hundred-dollar cigar in the other. “You can ask,” he said smoothly, his accent a bit thicker now that he’d downed a bottle and a half of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. Swirling the cigar’s mouthpiece between his lips, he ignited the lighter. “But I cannot promise to answer.”

  Mitch nodded and sipped his coffee. “What was the card game all about, Mr. Pericolo?”

  “We needn’t stand on ceremony, Sam,” he mumbled around a mouthful of cigar. “Starting tomorrow, you will have your nose in the pages of my most personal, ah, shall we say ‘affairs’? Please, call me Giovanni.” His lips popped as he drew air through the cigar’s tip. “Now, back to your question. You were referring to the card I asked you to pick, no?”

  Another nod.

  He lounged in the chair, broad shoulders nearly touching each curving wingback, shining black hair matting against the buttery leather. “Ah, yes,” came his satisfied sigh. “You’re sure you wouldn’t like to light one up?”

  Smiling thinly, Mitch shook his head.

  Pericolo blew a perfect smoke ring, poked the cigar’s glowing tip into its floating center. “I have asked many men to choose. Not one has asked me why.” His dark gaze bored into Mitch’s eyes. And then he laughed, a short staccato burst of snorts and grating snickers. “Perhaps that’s because so few could.”

  Crossing his knees, he took another thoughtful drag from the cigar. “You drew a red card. Queen of Hearts, to be exact.” Through cold-as-death, narrowed eyes, he studied Mitch’s face for a moment. Grinning, he slurred, “You are not satisfied with this answer?”

  Mitch shifted carefully in the chair, so as not to spill his coffee. “Ever since I was a boy, I’ve had this incurable need to know why.”

  “I understand completely. I have the same…shall we say…affliction.” He shrugged. “I have accepted it as a trait of intelligent, ambitious men.” He raised one eyebrow as his upper lip curled in a menacing snarl. “Still…it’s sometimes smarter…and safer…not to know the answer.” The well-practiced smile was gone, and his voice, which had been smoothly polite until now, dropped an octave, growled out as if his throat had been roughened by coarse sandpaper.

  To this point Pericolo had been the perfect host, generous, humorous, magnanimous. But this, Mitch knew, was the real Giovanni. He felt a bit like he’d walked unarmed into a lion’s cage, and found himself face-to-face with a recently captured, seasoned killer that the zoo-keeper hadn’t bothered to feed in a week. To meet the old beast’s golden irises meant certain death, for it could read fear in a man’s eyes just as certainly as it could smell it emanating from his body. The difference? The lion killed to satisfy his hunger; Pericolo killed because he enjoyed it. The similarity? Once their bellies were full, neither gave another thought to their prey.

  Mitch pretended to study the delicate rose pattern decorating his Wedgwood teacup. “Perhaps it’s because I’m an accountant,” Mitch continued, trying to appear nonplussed by Pericolo’s not-so-veiled threat, “that I’ve always believed the devil’s in the details. I like to dot all the is and cross all the ts.” He drained the coffee. “So if you’ll indulge me…why ask me to pick a card? And what’s the significance of the red queen?” Only then did he meet the beast’s eyes.

  Pericolo sniffed, gave a nonchalant wave with his cigar hand. “No significance of any importance, really. A man in my position must be careful…I’m sure you understand….”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Another chuckle. “Well,” he said, reclaiming his former suave, distinguished persona, “then allow me to explain. One inaccurate assessment of a man could mean—” He drew a finger across his throat. “It has been my experience that people seldom are what they appear to be.”

  Pericolo, he knew, had taken this roundabout tack to make him nervous. This wasn’t the first time he’d been eye to eye with a cold-blooded killer, but it was the first time he believed he might be killed just for sport. Mitch took a slow, quiet breath to ease his fast-beating heart.

  “I do as much checking of the backgrounds as I can when bringing a new man aboard,” Pericolo continued, shrugging one shoulder. “At best, it’s a fifty-fifty proposition. Some will be who they say they are, and others…” He shook his head, hands extended in a pleading gesture. “Despite my Oxford education—or perhaps because of it,” he said, laughing softly, “I’m a very superstitious man. The cards, if you’ll pardon the pun, are my ace in the hole.”

  “I’m a thickheaded Irishman, Giovanni,” Mitch said, feigning a jolly laugh at his own expense. “I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  Straight-faced, Pericolo reached out slowly, deposited the smoking Cuban into the foot-square ivory ashtray on the corner of his desk. Mitch found it interesting that, despite what this man did for a living, the hand did not tremble, not in the least.

  “Allow me to clarify it for you, then,” he began. Settling against the chair’s tufted backrest, he calmly folded his hands in his lap.

  “If you had picked a black card, you would be dead right now.”

  Pericolo spoke so matter-of-factly, he may as well have been reading yesterday’s baseball scores, or repeating the weatherman’s prediction. Mitch leaned forward to put his cup and saucer on the desk, more to have a moment to compose himself than because he’d finished the coffee. He had never been fooled—not about men like this. Every last one of them were capable of look-you-in-the-eye, drop-you-where-you-stand murder, but…

  “You are a lucky man, Sam.”

  His best bet, he decided, was to go for broke. “You would have killed me…for picking the wrong color?”

  Pericolo’s feral stare was all the answer Mitch needed. Yet the man felt inclined to add, “I have nothing more to say, Sam, except that life is fleeting.”

  Sitting back, Mitch leaned both palms on the chair, careful not to squeeze the armrests too tight, lest this proficient beast of prey sense his fear. “I’ve never been much of a card player,” Mitch said, grinning sardonically, “but I’ve suddenly developed a strange fondness for them. Red queens, in particular.”

  The sound of Pericolo’s boisterous laughter echoed in his ears long after Mitch went to bed.

  It was 9:05 when Bradley read the pink “While You Were Out” message on his desk. “Call Mitch’s wife,” Parker had scribbled. Frowning, Bradley wadded the slip of paper into a tight ball, tossed it neatly into the metal wastebasket beside his desk. He’d done the very same thing last night with the letter Mahoney had written to his wife.

  If Mahoney hadn’t put in for the same promotion, none of this would be necessary. As it was, he’d made himself the unwilling pawn in Bradley’s dangerous game against Giovanni Pericolo.

  Two for the price of one, he thought, slouching in his chair.

  Except for Buddy Kovatch, no one but Bradley knew where Special Agent Mitch Mahoney was right now. And Kovatch wouldn’t be doing any talking. Not if he wanted to stay out of prison. He clasped his hands behind his head and smiled. “Sure is nice, bein’ boss,” he said to himself.

  He didn’t like admitting that i
f his uncle hadn’t risen through the ranks to a position where he could pull strings, down in personnel, he wouldn’t be boss.

  His uncle’s hands had been tied by that very same string—too many promotions would alert the rest of the brass to what was going on downstairs. Mahoney was Bradley’s only competition for the upcoming administrative job slot, and there wasn’t much doubt in Bradley’s mind who’d get the job. Especially if the big dumb guy pulls off this case the way he’s pulled off others in the past….

  Well, Lady Luck had kissed Mitch Mahoney for the last time, Bradley thought, sneering. And if the fickle gal felt inclined to pucker up for him again, Bradley would be there to see that her lips never made contact.

  Bradley had gone undercover once himself, and knew from personal experience that an agent had better not let anything distract him from the task at hand. And nothing, he’d discovered, was more distracting than a rift with a spouse.

  His grin grew. Two for the price of one….

  He had no intention of being Mahoney’s message boy. Or his wife’s delivery man, for that matter. He wants to make fast tracks to the top, let him do it without my help!

  Mahoney would nab Pericolo, all right. Bradley would be surprised if he lasted three days after bringing in the evidence the U.S. Attorney needed to convict the Colombian. If Pericolo didn’t give the order—from his prison cell—to make a door knocker out of Mahoney’s head, Bradley had plans of his own for the Irishman….

  Two for the price of one….

  He snapped the mini-blinds shut, effectively closing himself into his ten-by-ten office. He propped the heels of his wingtips on his desktop and leaned back in his highback chair.

  His thin lips curled into a malicious grin.

  Two for the price of one….

  Chapter Three

  When he got the call and heard the agent say he was on his way home, Bradley knew he’d better act fast. As he made the forty-minute drive from D.C. to Ellicott City, he slammed a fist into the steering wheel. You should have done this weeks ago, he reprimanded himself. It isn’t like you didn’t have plenty of opportunity….

  Grinning crookedly, he recalled the many times he’d visited pretty little Mrs. Mahoney. That first time in particular stood out in his mind. It had been a week to the day after Mahoney went undercover. She’d looked like a high school kid in her faded jeans and oversize Baltimore Orioles T-shirt, long blond hair tied in a ponytail on top of her head. The whites of her big blue eyes were pink from crying, and there had been a box of tissues tucked under her arm when she opened the door. When he flashed his badge, she would have slumped to the floor for sure…if he hadn’t reached out to steady her.

  “I thought…I thought you were here to tell me he’d been…killed,” she’d stammered once she’d regained her balance.

  He’d given her a moment to calm down before explaining how things worked. “Mitch has left town, on…well, let’s just say…company business.”

  “Left town? But…but we were just married.” Several silent seconds passed before she said, “I suppose you sent Mitch because you had to. I mean, there wasn’t anyone else avail—”

  “Actually, Mitch volunteered. Seemed quite eager to go, in fact.” Shaking his head, he’d added, “I think he’s out of his everlovin’ mind, ’cause nothing could have made me leave a pretty little thing like you at home.”

  She had paid absolutely no attention to his blatant flirtation. Ciara’s bright eyes had brimmed with tears as she stood wringing her hands, trying hard not to cry.

  “Now, just to make sure everybody stays safe,” he’d continued, “there can be no direct communication between you two.” He had to sound convincing, because one thing Bradley didn’t need was a hysterical wife phoning the director, asking when her husband would be home.

  She could write letters to her husband, he instructed, as many and as often as she wanted, and Mahoney could answer, when and if his situation permitted. In any case, all messages would be written in Bradley’s presence…and immediately destroyed by him once they’d been read.

  Her eyes filled with tears again, and she’d looked so much in need of a comforting hug that Bradley gave her one. “I have a feeling you have what it takes to be patient,” he’d added, stroking her back.

  Even now, seven months later, he remembered how she felt in his arms. She’d trembled, like a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, felt so small, so delicate, that he had to force himself to hold her gently, taking care not to press her too close. Too bad she has to be part of the plan, he’d thought. But the reality of it was that without her, he couldn’t pull it off. It was as though she’d read his mind, because no more than a second, perhaps two, ticked by before she’d stiffened, wriggled free of his embrace. The look on her face reminded him of the time when, at sixteen, he’d been caught, red mouthed, kissing Mr. Cunningham’s daughter. Hands pressed to her tear-streaked cheeks, Ciara had seemed ashamed to have allowed another man to touch her, even in a gesture of comfort.

  Now, as he peered at his reflection in the window beside her front door, Bradley admitted that he’d told one truth that day. “If I had a woman like her waiting for me at home…” The memory of her pretty, sad-smiling face flashed in his mind. If she was your wife, he told himself, a lot of things would be different today….

  The hostility he’d harbored toward Mahoney intensified as he acknowledged that, yet again, he’d been bested. The grudge went way back, to the days when Mahoney outshot, outran, outscored him at Quantico. These months of watching his wife’s devout fidelity only served to sharpen his prickly envy. Would a woman ever love him that much? Bradley wondered. Never a woman like Ciara…beautiful, warm, intelligent, endlessly devoted to her man.

  He blinked, shook his head. You can’t afford to feel anything for her, he admonished. Not admiration, not respect, certainly not concern! It would mean letting down his guard, and to do that around a guy like Pericolo…well, he may as well put a gun to his own head.

  Two for the price of one, he reminded himself. Two for the price of one.

  Bradley straightened his tie, ran a hand through his reddish blond curls, nervously tugged the cuffs of his sports coat and rang her doorbell. As he waited for Ciara to answer, he rehearsed the plan…one more time.

  “Lieutenant Bradley,” Ciara said, smiling when she opened the door. “Please, come in.” Once he was inside, she asked softly, expectantly, “Is there a letter this time?”

  He could have said no and let it go at that. Could have shaken his head sadly, feigning commiseration. “I told you, this is just the way Mitch is when he’s on assignment.” Winking, Bradley lowered his voice. “He says if his babes worry enough, he’s guaranteed a memory-making homecoming!”

  Sometimes he got the impression that once he’d told her there was no word from Mahoney, she simply tuned out everything else he said. This time, Ciara’s silence—and the heat emanating from her blue eyes—told him she’d heard every word.

  “I’m sorry. Guess I shouldn’t have said that.”

  As always she shrugged it off. “Then…if there’s no news…”

  If there’s no news, why am I here? he finished, gritting his teeth. I was wondering how long it would take you to get around to saying it this time.

  The third or fourth time he’d visited her, Bradley had brought a bouquet of flowers. It had surprised him more than a little to discover that neither his corrupt behavior nor the people he’d been hanging around with lately had snuffed out his conscience. If she hadn’t been so doggoned sweet, maybe he wouldn’t have felt so bad about using her. Guilt had nagged him into popping for two dozen long-stemmed white roses. She’d thanked him. Said he shouldn’t have. And stuck the box on the foyer table. May as well have tossed that hundred bucks in the trash, he reprimanded himself, because he had a feeling the prickly green stems would never see water. Not because she was an ungrateful sort. Quite the opposite, in fact. Ciara Mahoney would consider it improper to display flowers given
by a man who was not her husband…particularly when that husband had vanished from her life like chimney smoke.

  A couple of months back, he’d brought doughnuts and coffee, hoping this less extravagant, more friendly gift would help her warm to him, even slightly. Ciara had arranged the treats on a blue-flowered plate, poured his coffee from the paper cup into a matching mug and placed a white cloth napkin beside it. Two bites of a cruller and a sip of coffee later, he realized she had no intention of joining him. She sat stiffly across from him, smiling politely, her gaze darting to the kitchen clock every few seconds, as if counting the minutes until he’d leave. She was too polite, too kindhearted to say it straight out, but Ciara Mahoney wanted no part of Chet Bradley.

  “Just stopped by to see how you were doing,” he said, forcing the bitter memories from his mind. He sighed resignedly as if his message wouldn’t be an easy one to deliver. “And to tell you that I saw Mitch again yesterday.”

  Well, you don’t have to look so all-fired pleased about it, he thought when her eyes lit up. You haven’t heard a word from that bum in seven months, but I’ve been here every week, like clockwork!

  “He looked great,” Bradley continued, “happy, healthy, well rested. Seems our boy is having a grand old time on this assignment, so don’t you worry your pretty little head about him, you hear?”

  He watched a myriad of emotions play across her delicate features before worry lines creased her smooth brow. “When will this nightmare ever end?” she whispered, and he suspected she hadn’t intended to ask the question aloud. Her shoulders rose on a deep breath. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Lemonade?”

  He plastered a practiced look of concern on his face. “Can’t stay. I only came by to make sure you were okay. Is there anything I can do? Something I can get you?”