“A lesson.” Maybe. Michael knew he had some thinking to do before he talked to Claire again. Cruz’s advice could stew in his brain while she cooled down. “In the meantime, we need a plan for this operation. I didn’t want to do it, but it looks like we have no choice.”
“You mean the ledger?” Cruz tested the coffee Michael had poured him. “Ah, not as good as Cuban coffee, but every bit as strong.”
“Yeah, but I want to make absolutely sure Claire is safe.” Fear for her chilled his blood, twisted his guts in a climber’s square knot. “The Group Supervisor’s suppressing crucial information could have killed Claire. Probably did kill her cousin. We can’t afford any more mistakes.”
“So,” Cruz said, blowing on his coffee, “like we discussed before, we have to set a trap. Only now we know who it’s for. Boss wanted the widow in the dark. Does she know?”
Michael considered. “No, I’m certain she doesn’t. She knows about El Halcón’s goons, though.” She deserved to know about the stalker, but could he bring himself to tell her?
Working out the operation chewed up the rest of the day.
Once word leaked that Santerre’s widow had a ledger detailing his drug smuggling, they’d have a team of DEA and customs agents ready to arrest whoever came to Claire’s house to retrieve it.
At nine o’clock Michael and Cruz left the DEA offices.
“Until the widow takes pity on you, you can probably get a room at my motel,” Cruz said as they strode through the building’s parking garage to their vehicles. “Coffee shop has dynamite blueberry muffins and a hot little waitress who slips me seconds when her boss isn’t looking.”
“Waitress, huh?” Michael said. “I thought you were seeing that blonde from CID headquarters.”
“Quinn, you’ve never been a party animal, and now that the widow’s reeled you in and wrapped you up, you want everybody else to be tied down. When have you ever known me to ration myself?”
“Lost my head.”
Only a smattering of cars remained in the garage. Their pace slowed as they neared the Cherokee. Michael fished out his keys but looked at them as if he’d never seen them before. The urgency to go to Claire, for himself as much as for her, gnawed at him.
Instead of continuing to his rental car, three spaces away, Cruz halted. “Look, I’ve been trying to cheer you up,” he said, “but I see you’re worried about your lady.”
She wasn’t his lady anymore. If she ever had been. “I don’t like leaving her in that house all alone.” Michael nervously twirled his keys. “She could be in danger even tonight. Can this office set up protection until her cousin’s funeral?”
“Consider it done. I’ll do it myself if these guys are all busy. Remember, buddy, it’s New Year’s Eve.”
New Year’s Eve. Michael had forgotten. A new year, a new beginning for them both, he had hoped. But this development changed everything. He and Cruz would accompany her to the funeral, and afterward he would find the right words to explain. The hole he had dug for himself suddenly seemed deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Then what his partner had said hit him. “New Year’s Eve. What am I thinking? Cruz, don’t tell me you don’t have a date.”
The raven-haired agent ambled back toward the elevator. “I don’t do dates on New Year’s Eve. That midnight kiss seems to give them ideas about commitment. Something I’m allergic to.” He grinned. “I’ll see she’s safe.”
Relieved, Michael said, “Thanks. I’ll feel better with someone outside the house.”
Amiable and self-assured, his partner had another side in the face of danger. Cruz’s marksmanship nearly matched his own, but his lanky build and navy SEAL training allowed him to melt into shadows invisibly where Michael’s bulk would stick out like ugly on a bad guy. He would trust no one more than Ricardo Cruz with his life. Or Claire’s.
“Didn’t you say using the ledger to trap the gang was her idea in the first place?” Cruz said.
“It was, and I tried like hell to talk her out of it then. Too dangerous. I still think so, but we’ve put the ball in motion and time’s running out.”
In spite of accepting that he couldn’t control what other people did, fear of a third failure and fear for Claire gave him the cold sweats.
Two days later, at three o’clock in the afternoon, two vehicles pulled up in front of Claire’s house. A leaden sky hung over Weymouth, and forecasters predicted flurries.
Peering out the sidelight, Claire saw the men. Not Michael, no. Her heart tripped on itself. What was he doing here? The agent named Ricardo Cruz had said he would escort her to Martine’s funeral. She couldn’t bear it if Michael went, too.
Dragging her feet as if summoned by the Inquisition, she snagged her coat on the way to answer the doorbell. She steeled herself to remain calm. Cool but polite, that was it.
“Good morning, Ms. Saint-Ange,” Cruz said with a charming smile. “There’s been a slight change in plans.”
“What do you mean?” She fixed her attention on Cruz, but her words formed automatically, her mind straying to the man beside him. Involuntarily, her eyes flicked to Michael.
She’d never seen him in a suit. He always wore either khaki trousers or jeans and casual shirts, attractive enough on his muscled physique. In the navy suit, crisp blue shirt and dark tie, he was devastating. The gabardine suit had to be custom tailored. No off-the-rack suit would fit those broad shoulders and massive arms, then taper so perfectly to his trim hips. Acute longing welled up within her. She’d thought him honorable and decent. She’d been wrong.
Before he could catch her staring, she tried to attend to what Agent Cruz was saying.
“—used to seeing Quinn with you. If anyone’s watching,” he said, “they’d suspect I was an agent.”
A flush heated her cheeks as she strove to control her discomfiture. “You told me you would accompany me to the cemetery, Agent Cruz.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He ran his tongue around his cheek, and his eyes slid toward Michael, who stood by silently. “But this is Quinn’s assignment. He knows some of the people who’ll be at the funeral, and they know him. And Raoul—that’s El Halcón’s man—has seen him with you.” He shrugged as if that said it all.
“So, Agent Quinn, you plan to accompany me?” she said, eyeing him as coolly as she could manage. He’d hurt her deeply, but she wouldn’t let him know that.
“To guard you and to watch for suspicious strangers, anyone who shouldn’t be at the cemetery,” he said. His familiar deep rumble flowed through her like a warm river.
She supposed she could survive if they weren’t alone. “Will you accompany us, Agent Cruz?”
He nodded vigorously. “Ma’am, I’ll be there just outside the gates.”
“I can go by myself, and both of you can wait outside the gates. I’ll be perfectly safe at the cemetery,” she said, with more confidence than she felt.
Cruz flashed her a dazzling smile. “Yes, ma’am, that might work if we frisked everyone before they went in.”
“If we spot Raoul or one of his men—or anyone else suspicious—I’ll radio Cruz to follow them,” Michael put in. He stepped to the side and angled one arm. “Are you ready?”
As ready as she could be under the circumstances. There was no way to avoid Michael’s escort.
Shunning his proffered arm, Claire swept down the porch steps and to the Cherokee. She was strong. Look how much she’d already survived. Grief for Martine and the critical scrutiny of everyone at the cemetery would demand so much of her, she’d have little time for concern about the nearness of the man who’d betrayed her love.
Chapter 12
Michael found the Weymouth Cemetery north of town on a winding country road. By the time they arrived, he had to park at the end of the long line of mourners. He slipped on his parka and opened the passenger door.
Crossing the icy ground, Claire allowed him to take her elbow, but she studiously avoided his gaze. During the drive, she didn’t say
a word.
Doubt that he could get her to listen to him tightened a knot in his gut. He had no right to expect anything from her, especially under the circumstances. Because of potential danger in this unknown crowd, he forced himself to set aside his feelings. Until later.
They passed three cracked and mossy headstones that dated further back than the Revolutionary War. Toward the center of the venerable burial ground, they stopped on a slight knoll beneath a bare-branched maple tree. The Farnsworth family plot encompassed a house-size space in a corner.
“This is close enough,” Claire said softly. “I don’t want to attract attention, and Newcomb wouldn’t welcome my presence.”
At the rim and to one side of the hundred or so mourners, they had a good view of the ceremony. In the plot’s center rose a monolith, ornately decorated with wreaths and medallions, a one-story Washington Monument. The new grave, draped in fake green turf, yawned to the right of it. The family sat beneath a canopy in front of the coffin, where a priest read from a prayer book. A light snow fell, casting a veil over the proceedings.
Michael cast a sideways glance at Claire. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. Clad in a new long black coat and matching wool hat, she stood dignified and solemn. A few people near them turned to stare with expressions of disapproval and contempt. She ignored them. Her gaze, he noted, focused on the two children in the front row of seated mourners. Martine’s children.
“Perhaps you could speak to them after this is over.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”
He asked her to identify the people around them. She named all those she knew and pointed out others who looked familiar. Behind Farnsworth and his children sat an older woman she didn’t know. Judging from her simple garb and deferential demeanor, a housekeeper or nanny, she told him. No one attending seemed out of place.
Usually during winter, bodies were stored until the ground thawed. Apparently Newcomb Farnsworth’s influence extended to excavating frozen soil. This was merely the committal part of the funeral. Even with Farnsworth’s antagonism, it was odd that Claire didn’t attend the entire ceremony. “Why didn’t you go to the church?”
Her lips thinned, and the hand clutching her small leather purse twitched. “I couldn’t. As long as God has cursed me, I cannot set foot in his house.”
Before Michael could question her about that amazing statement, his pocket radio beeped. He stepped behind the tree to answer Cruz’s call.
After he finished talking to his partner, he said, “Cruz saw a suspicious character nosing around the vehicles. When the guy took off in a tan pickup, Cruz followed him.”
She drew a deep breath of relief, but her mocha-colored eyes still looked haunted, with violet smudges beneath them. “That’s it, then.”
“Let’s hope.” Michael ached to hold her, to take her away where she’d be safe. Where he could convince her of his honor, his sincerity. But that was impossible.
Cold prickles, like icy knife tips, had him rubbing his nape. Experience warned him not to ignore this premonition of danger. Until he returned Claire safely to her house, he’d stay on the alert. Surreptitiously, he reassured himself that his sidearm rested safely at his back.
At the graveside, the ceremony ended, and people were drifting away toward the cars. The lowering sky continued to spit out great clumps of wet, starry flakes, some as large as saucers. The air smelled fresh and clean, with the salty tang of the nearby ocean.
When Michael saw Claire tense and her eyes widen, he knew why. Farnsworth and his children headed their way, the most direct path to the limousine. He slid his arm around Claire, but she shook him off and straightened her shoulders.
Aristocratic head held high and eyes on his destination, Farnsworth would have swept past them without a word. But when Robert and Adele spied Claire, they broke rank and sprinted to her. A sob breaking from her lips, she enfolded the children as if they were her own.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you both!” She kissed Adele’s cheek and Robert’s in turn.
Adele hugged her cousin with desperation, murmuring her name and sobbing into her coat. Robert, at twelve less spontaneous, merely held Claire and allowed her to hold him. His brown eyes, huge with grief, betrayed his emotions.
Immediately their father snatched them from Claire’s arms and hustled them away with the nanny. Robert turned back for a moment, puzzlement on his brow.
“How dare you show your face here!” Farnsworth spat.
“At least you haven’t turned your children against me, Newcomb,” she said quietly and evenly. “They know I would never harm their mother.”
Without a word, Farnsworth stalked off to join the bewildered children in their fancy limousine. Michael understood how the man must feel, but did he have to make an ass of himself? How anyone who knew Claire would believe her capable of murder was beyond him.
She turned to Michael and slipped her arm through his. “I’m ready to leave now.”
Surprised that she deigned to request his touch, he quickly understood. Against the dark background of her coat and hat, her face was ashen and drawn, as pale as the snow falling more heavily around them. When he noted her unsteady gait across the rough ground, he started to wrap his arm around her.
“No,” she said shakily, “I’m all right.” A woman on the verge of falling apart, but she was all right.
After an eternity of slogging through the deepening wet snow and past the curious and reproachful gazes of the other mourners, they reached his Cherokee.
The danger might have passed, but the timing stank. Fear edged into Michael’s heart with a sharp blade. Putting it off too long might mean losing the chance to square himself with her. If he drove around for a while, she’d have to listen to him.
Claire collapsed in exhaustion on the bucket seat. Waves of pain and sorrow built in her chest. Letting the anguish wash through her, she lay there.
She had tolerated a great deal—sneers, snubs and outright hostility. The most wrenching part of the whole ordeal was seeing Adele and Robert, so alone, so sad. Her heart ached for those poor, poor children, with only their coldly businesslike father and a strange nanny to shepherd them through the most traumatic time in their young lives.
She had vague impressions of Michael starting the sport utility van, turning it around and pulling into traffic on the quiet road. Nearly everyone else had left.
How foolish she’d been to think having Michael with her would make this day harder. If anything, his support, his mere presence gave her the strength to endure it. She wanted to tell him, but she had to keep her attitude cool, not allow herself to be drawn into any emotional situation. There could be nothing between them. That was over.
“Quinn, I want to thank you for helping me endure that scene with Newcomb.”
“You may not thank me when you hear what I’ve got to tell you.” He stopped the Cherokee at an intersection, then proceeded to the right on an even narrower country lane.
At that, she sat upright. “What do you mean?”
His gaze wary, he glanced toward her momentarily. “The day I…left, do you remember I went to DEA headquarters?”
She sighed. Did she really want to hear this? “Yes, you said there was more they weren’t telling you. So?”
He nodded, his expression grim. “There are things you need to know about the operation. What it’s really about.”
“Does it really matter now?” She folded her arms and stared straight ahead. “It’s a case of too little too late.”
“Claire, whatever you think of me, it’s important that you understand the facts.”
They wound their way leisurely through the hilly fields of the area. So far the roads weren’t hazardous.
She distracted herself by gazing at the intricate patterns of the snowflakes on the windshield. It didn’t work. Her sensitivity to Michael’s presence—his nearness beside her in this vehicle, his warmth, his scent, the rumble of his voice, his gray ey
es—all kept her off balance. Maybe that was his aim.
“Why you?” she said, more irritated at herself than at him. “Why didn’t Agent Cruz explain everything to me when he contacted me about protection?”
“Because you’re not supposed to know this.”
“Then don’t bother.” How dare the man try to placate her with official secrets, if that’s what they were.
Ignoring her dismissal, he continued, “I learned that day that I had been assigned to you as bait. I was the rabbit the greyhounds chase, the live lure for the big fish they wanted to catch. The agency sent me there to draw someone into the open. It was their web, not yours, that was spun.”
She couldn’t help but gape at him. She heard resentment in his voice and perceived rage in the set of his jaw. So he’d been a pawn as much as she. “Now you know how I felt. And just who was this master criminal?”
“The man who wouldn’t want the murders of your husbands and fiancé investigated in too much depth, the man who wouldn’t want you to remarry or even be involved with someone.” His voice ground out harsh and bitter, as if the person were an old foe.
“The stalker. You know who he is? What’s his name?”
“Paul Santerre.”
At first she didn’t think she heard him correctly. “Paul,” she repeated.
“We believe he faked his death.”
“Tu es tombé sur le crâne! You’re nuts!” she shouted. Or she was going crazy. This was too much to be believed.
“Claire, it’s true. With the DEA on his trail, he had to disappear. The DEA has suspected for a long time that the new player on the drug scene wasn’t new after all. He had too many pieces in place, had deals set up too quickly after Paul died for it to be anyone else. Think about it.”
“How could he fake his death? I buried him. They wouldn’t let me see him, but his body was identified.”
“You buried a body about his size and weight and wearing remnants of Santerre’s clothing,” he said. “Why didn’t they do DNA tests?”
She let out a huff of annoyance. “There was no reason to believe it wasn’t Paul. If the DEA thinks he’s alive, why didn’t you exhume the body and order tests?”
Dangerous Attraction Page 18