“Get away from her,” Blondie said, attempting to push the microphone away.
“You ever hear of the Fourth Amendment, bud?” Gene snarled at Blondie, and focused on the woman again. “Did you see a weapon?”
“No, I—no comment.” Still backing up, almost tripping over her own feet in their beige high heels, she sounded scared to death. Her knuckles went white as both hands seemed to tighten around the edges of the heavy-looking leather case.
Hell, she was scared to death, Sam realized with disgust, and felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness toward her. Getting up close and personal with the subject of a surveillance operation was not ordinarily something he tended to do, but unlike most, this one seemed to be an innocent caught up in events not of her making. And she looked so damned vulnerable.
“Did he have a weapon?” Gene persisted.
“Look, what part of ‘no comment’ do you not understand?” Blondie protested angrily. Gene went right by him, intent on his quarry. He and the cameraman were so close to Madeline Fitzgerald now that if it hadn’t been for the briefcase she was using to block them out they would have been right in her face.
“Please ...” she said from behind it. “Leave me alone.”
Sam had had enough. Under the circumstances, antagonizing this particular camera crew further was probably not the smartest thing he had ever done, he knew. He did it anyway. Shoving past Gene and company, he caught the woman by her arm. The briefcase slipped as she looked up at him with eyes as big as a startled fawn’s. They were the warm gold of honey beneath a lush sweep of feathery lashes; he’d noted their beauty the first time she had looked at him. Beneath her thin linen sleeve, he could feel her arm shake. It was a slender arm, firm but unmistakably feminine.
He didn’t much like the fact that he was noticing.
“Come on. Let’s get you out of here,” he said. Her eyes flickered, and she seemed to hesitate. Then she nodded jerkily, and her arm relaxed in his grip.
“Did you know your attacker? Recognize him?” Gene persisted, thrusting the microphone at Madeline again.
“Maddie ...” Blondie was looking at Sam’s hand on her arm.
“It’s okay,” she said to him, already moving at Sam’s side.
“Back off,” Sam growled at Gene. Something in his face must have told the reporter that he meant it, because Gene took a step back. “Get that camera out of here.”
He was moving as he spoke, taking Maddie with him. She stayed close to his side as he pulled her toward the car, clearly trusting him to get her out of there.
“Hey,” Blondie said, following. “Wait just a minute ...”
“Are you getting this, Dave?” Gene looked around at the cameraman behind him.
“Oh, yeah,” Dave replied with relish.
“You’re interfering with federal agents,” Wynne said, bringing up the rear.
“You’re interfering with the public’s right to know,” Gene retorted. Behind him, the camera followed Maddie’s every move.
“To hell with the public’s right to know,” Sam said as he opened the car door for Maddie and Gene darted forward. He blocked the reporter’s access with his body. “I said back off.”
“Are you taking Miss Fitzgerald into custody?” The microphone was thrust into Sam’s face instead.
“Back off.” Sam took her briefcase from her, thrust it down in the footwell, and bundled Maddie into the front passenger seat. Wynne and Blondie caught up just as he was slamming the door.
“What ...” Blondie began.
“Get in,” Sam said, opening the rear door. Blondie looked at Maddie in the front seat and got in. Sam was already rounding the front of the car as Wynne slid into the backseat, too, and slammed the door.
“Are they under arrest?” Never-say-die Gene yelled from the sidewalk as Sam opened his door. With a grim smile, Sam flipped him the bird, then got into the car, started it up, and pulled away from the curb.
EIGHT
Out of the frying pan, into the fire. That was what kept running through Maddie’s head as the car pulled into traffic, muscled its way into the far lane, and then turned a sharp left, leaving the TV crew and all the other witnesses to the debacle thankfully far behind. The problem was, she wasn’t exactly sure which was frying pan and which was fire. The reporter and his camera had been a threat to her. But then, so was the FBI.
“Smooth move,” Wynne said dryly to McCabe.
“Tell me about it,” McCabe replied. “Think we’re going to make the noon news?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“What the hell is this?” Jon demanded. His raised voice filled the car. “What’s going on?”
“Chill, man.” Wynne sounded tired. “Everything’s copacetic.”
“Good word,” McCabe said.
“The hell it is. Maddie, are you all right?” That was Jon again. He was starting to sound belligerent, which, in her experience, wasn’t like Jon. “Could somebody please tell me why there was a TV crew chasing you back there?”
Maddie had been staring almost unseeingly out through the windshield, with her arms wrapped around herself to combat the bone-deep chill that, she hoped, could be laid at the door of the car’s cranked-up air-conditioning rather than shock. The euphoria that had accompanied winning the Brehmer account was long gone. It was as though it had happened to someone else. All she wanted to do now was escape—but at the moment, escape wasn’t possible.
Suck it up, girl. I didn’t raise my daughter to be some little pussy.
She could almost hear her father saying it. Words to live by, Maddie thought wryly, and did her best to make him proud. She sucked it up, got a grip, and shifted positions, turning in the slick vinyl seat so that she could see the others. Besides Jon, who still looked as natty as he had while making his pitch to Brehmer’s, with nary a crease in his navy suit, his red tie still knotted perfectly, his white shirt spotless, and not so much as a single golden hair out of place, there was Wynne, red-faced, sweaty, his hairy, bare calves visible beneath the legs of rumpled khaki shorts, arms crossed over the hula girl on his chest, jaw working as he chewed on something that smelled like a grape Popsicle, and McCabe, still unsmiling, still unshaven, and about as natty as an unmade bed.
Shining examples of the federal government’s finest. God, she was in a car with a pair of FBI agents. This just keeps getting better and better.
“I’m fine,” she said to Jon, which was a lie. She was freezing, so cold she feared she might never get warm; her head ached; her throat hurt; and she was so scared, so worried, so appalled by what was happening that just pretending everything was relatively okay in her world was an acting job worthy of an Academy Award. But until she figured out what to do, she had no choice but to continue to act, so she added, with an assumption of ease, “You remember these guys. FBI. From the building.”
“Sam McCabe,” McCabe said to Jon with a quick flick of his eyes to the rearview mirror. He turned left again, onto St. Charles Street, and as he moved the wheel, Maddie could not help but notice the muscular flexing of his arm.
The combination of tanned skin and bulging biceps would have piqued her interest had they belonged to anyone else.
“E. P. Wynne,” Wynne said between chews.
“Jon Carter,” Jon said. Then his voice sharpened. “Is this about what happened to Maddie last night? Because it was terrible, and it scared the bejesus out of her, but she wasn’t even badly hurt. What is this, New Orleans’s slowest news day ever?”
“Something like that.” Then McCabe, with a quick glance Maddie’s way, asked, “Where to, folks?”
“The hotel, I guess,” Maddie said. She was looking at McCabe, who was negotiating the heavy traffic with careful competence. As they changed lanes, sunlight played over his profile, and she noted absently that his features were well proportioned, handsome even, if one ignored the general scruffiness. He blinked, and she focused for an instant on his lashes, which were black, thick, and stubby. Then he glanced her
way and she realized that she’d been staring and looked away quickly. She realized, too, that she wasn’t quite herself, to put it mildly. The one-two punch of terror and relief she’d just experienced had left her in something of a daze. Now it was starting to lift, and her brain was starting to fire on more cylinders.
“What were you doing out there on that street anyway?” Her eyes cut toward McCabe again. Her tone turned accusing. “Were you following me?”
There was the briefest of pauses.
“It just so happened we were still in the neighborhood,” McCabe said, and Maddie thought she caught a spark of what might have been humor in his eyes. Outside the window, one of the streetcars that was a prime New Orleans tourist attraction clanged its bell. Maddie jumped and looked around to ascertain where the noise had come from. Her nerves were still too jangled to permit her to calmly absorb unanticipated sounds.
“You were following me,” she said when she had recovered. “Admit it, you were.”
“If we were, and if that had been a man with a gun, we would have saved your life back there.”
Good point.
“But it wasn’t a man with a gun. It was a TV reporter with a camera, and now, thanks to you, I’m going to be all over the noon news.”
“Miz Fitzgerald, believe me, you would have been all over the noon news without me.”
A beat passed as Maddie thought that over.
“The man back there—the TV reporter—said there was another Madeline Fitzgerald attacked last night. He said it was a contract k-killing,” Maddie said slowly. With the best will in the world, she couldn’t help it: Her voice shook on the last word.
McCabe stopped at a red light and looked over at her. His expression was grim.
“We don’t know that it was a contract killing,” he said. “But right at this moment it looks like it might have been. Did you know her?”
“Know her?” Maddie took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice steady. “No. No, I didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”
His lips thinned. “Because you didn’t need to know.”
“Well,” Maddie said with a hint of bite, “now I do. So how about you fill me in?”
The light changed and the car started moving again. They turned onto Canal Street, one of the widest avenues that was open to traffic in the world, and the crush of vehicles increased. Outside the window, picturesque nineteenth-century commercial buildings with wrought-iron balconies and slatted shutters slid past on either side. Gold lettering on glass windows advertised such businesses as “Madame Le Moyne, Psychic, Open 24 Hours,” “Tarot Reading—Learn Your Future,” “Patisserie,” and “Le Masque Shoppe,” among others. Planters bursting with purple wave petunias, baby’s breath, and trailing ivy hung from the lampposts. The crowd here was more casually dressed, touristy-looking, with lots of Starbucks cups being carted around. It was Friday in New Orleans, and just about everybody in the city who wasn’t driving around seemed to be out there on the sidewalks, enjoying it.
McCabe glanced at her again and seemed to hesitate. Then he returned his attention to the road and said, “Okay. Here’s the story: There were two women named Madeline Fitzgerald staying at your hotel last night. Both were attacked in their rooms. One died. One—that would be you—lived.”
Maddie sucked in her breath.
“You wanted to know,” McCabe said.
“You’re kidding.” That was Jon from the backseat.
“Nope,” Wynne said. “I don’t think you realize how lucky you are, Ms. Fitzgerald. The other woman took two bullets to the head.”
“Oh my God.” Maddie felt dizzy. She remembered the sound of the bullets hitting the mattress, remembered what it was like to think she was going to be shot at any moment, remembered what terror felt like, how it tasted ...
The other Madeline Fitzgerald had died. Because of her? The thought made her go all light-headed.
“You okay?” McCabe asked.
Maddie supposed her face must have paled. Remembering who he was—what he was—was enough to snap her back to her senses, and she managed to push everything except her immediate situation out of her head. Only then did more ramifications of what he had told her begin to occur.
“You mean there’s a possibility that I was attacked by mistake?”
A beat passed in which no one said anything.
“You think there’s a possibility that it wasn’t a mistake?” McCabe asked. His tone was neutral—too neutral. He was probing for answers—and Maddie, catching herself up, wasn’t about to give any. Not by the hair of her chinny-chin-chin.
“Of course it was a mistake,” she said. “How could it not have been a mistake?”
McCabe’s eyes cut her way. “You tell me.”
“I thought it was just a random attack, kind of a sex thing gone wrong,” Jon said, frowning.
“I don’t think so.” McCabe glanced in the rearview mirror. “But the possibility is not completely off the table yet. What are the chances, though, two separate perps attack two different women named Madeline Fitzgerald on the same night at the same hotel? Completely unrelated?”
Nobody said anything. The answer, clearly, was not good.
“So what do you think happened?” Maddie asked.
“We think it may have been a paid hit,” Wynne said.
Maddie felt hope, that small eternal flame, spring to life in her breast.
“A paid hit on the other woman?” She took a deep breath and ran with the ball. “And the killer got the names mixed up and came to my room by mistake. When I got away, he somehow discovered his mistake and went after her. She was the target.”
The relief was so intense that she was almost limp with it. Please, God, please, God, please let that be the answer. Let it all have been a terrible mistake. Let it not have been about me at all.
What she wanted most in the world at that moment was for that to be true. If it was, she could put the whole terrible experience safely behind her and just go on with her life.
“Or maybe it was the other way around.” They stopped at an intersection, and McCabe looked at her as he spoke. “Maybe the killer went to her room first, killed her, figured out his mistake and came after you. Maybe it was you he wanted dead. Maybe you were the target.”
Doing her best to keep her face expressionless, Maddie met his gaze.
“Why?” she asked simply.
“Yeah, why?” Jon asked. “Why on earth would a hit man want to murder Maddie?”
“I have no idea,” McCabe said, and glanced at Maddie again. “That’s why I’m asking you one more time, and I want you to rack your brain before you answer: Do you know anyone, anyone at all, who might want you dead or have something to gain from your death?”
His gaze reverted to the road as the light changed and they started moving again. Maddie had no idea whether she had imagined the glimmer of doubt in his eyes or not.
What she did know was that her palms were damp. “No,” she said.
He didn’t reply to that. For a moment there was no sound in the car except the hum of the air-conditioning.
“Here we are.” McCabe swung into the semicircular drive that fronted the hotel. A waist-high hedge of hot-pink azaleas lined the drive. Beneath the white-columned portico, a uniformed bellman loaded luggage onto a cart. A black Honda with a parking valet at the wheel pulled away from the entrance as the couple who owned the car disappeared inside. The only sign of the previous night’s tragedy was the police car parked just past the entrance. “So, you two—you got plans for the rest of the day?”
“We grab our luggage and head for the airport,” Jon said as McCabe stopped the car. “That pretty much sums it up.”
“Want a ride?” McCabe’s question was directed at Maddie.
“No.” Maddie was already opening her door. “We’ll catch a cab. Thanks.”
“Hang on a minute.” McCabe leaned over and caught her by the wrist as Jon opened the back door. “I have something I
need to say to you.”
His hand was warm and dry, big, long-fingered. She’d always liked men with big hands, she thought in that first fleeting instant of surprise at being grabbed. Then she frowned. FBI agents with big hands, however, were in a whole separate category. One she didn’t want anything to do with.
She tried to tug her hand free without result. If anything, he tightened his grip. Her eyes met his, narrowed.
“It’ll just take a minute,” he promised.
“Look, I’ve got to go. What with security and everything, getting through the airport takes forever now.”
He didn’t let go. Jon, who had gotten out, was leaning down to look in at her through her partially opened door.
“She’ll be just a minute,” McCabe said to Jon. Then, as Jon frowned and looked like he was about to protest, Wynne walked up beside him and said something. Jon straightened to talk to Wynne.
“Close the door,” McCabe said. He was looking at her steadily, his expression serious, even slightly grim.
Maddie’s heart skipped a beat. Then she rallied, lifting her chin. “You’re good at giving orders, aren’t you?”
“Please.” His voice was very quiet.
What could she do? Maddie, keenly aware of a whole summer’s worth of butterflies taking wing in her stomach, closed the door.
“So what do you want?” she asked, just barely managing to keep the truculence out of her voice. She felt trapped, panicky, and the unbreakable hold he was keeping on her wrist was not making her feel any more relaxed. It reminded her of a handcuff. ... The image was unnerving, and she instantly banished it. The trick was not to let him realize just how very apprehensive she was. Did he realize? He was watching her, the faintest of frown lines between his brows, his expression unreadable.
“If you’ve got anything you want to tell me, anything at all, this is the moment. I thought you might feel more comfortable doing it if the boyfriend wasn’t here.”
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