by Diana Palmer
“I’m sorry,” he told Colby bluntly, “but my department doesn’t make a habit of dishing out personal information about our workers, to anyone, even in security.”
Colby looked at the man as if he suspected his sanity. “We’re looking for a drug smuggler,” he told Vance, and he didn’t smile. “We can’t allow the corporation to be brought up on charges of aiding and abetting criminal activities.”
Vance shifted and looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, that’s my rule.”
Colby cocked an eyebrow. He opened his cell phone, dialed Hunter, and waited. Watching Vance, he began speaking in Apache.
“This guy won’t let me look at the files,” he told the other man. “I think he’s hiding something.”
“Want me to come down and help you convince him?” Hunter asked amusedly.
“Why not?”
He closed the flip phone and pocketed it.
Vance stared at him nervously. “What language was that?”
“One of several,” Colby replied nonchalantly, “that I learned while I was working for the CIA.” He didn’t identify the language.
The look on Vance’s face was priceless. “You worked for the CIA?” he stammered.
Colby didn’t reply. It was a deliberate snub, giving Vance time to consider how dangerous it might be to deny the other man access to those files. He couldn’t afford to bring suspicion down on his own head.
Vance was obviously reconsidering his position about the time that Hunter opened the door without knocking and walked in.
Hunter handed the man a sheet of paper which contained the names of the suspicious employees and some damaging information about criminal acts in their pasts. Vance ground his teeth as he read them.
“Now you’ll open those files,” Hunter said quietly. “Or you can explain your reluctance to the DEA. I can have one of their senior agents over here in five minutes, along with Eugene Ritter and one of our corporate attorneys.”
Vance swallowed. Hard. He cleared his throat and sat down at his computer. His hands were unsteady on the keyboard.
“I’ll print them out for you,” Vance said meekly.
Hunter looked at Colby and had to fight a grin. “See how it works?” he asked Colby in Apache.
“Yeah, well the mighty warrior there looks as if he might need to change his trousers when we leave,” Colby replied.
Vance, in the dark because he didn’t speak the language, retrieved two sheets of paper from his printer and handed them over.
“Naturally,” he told the men, trying to backpedal, “privacy is a great concern to us here.”
“And I’m sure the drug dealer’s employers will thank you for your efforts to shield them,” Colby said. But he said it in Apache.
Hunter caught his arm and propelled him out the door before he had the opportunity to say it in English.
“Nice going,” he told Hunter with a grin.
“When you’ve been in the security game as long as I have, you learn to deal diplomatically with hardheads like Vance,” Hunter told him, grinning back. “It isn’t much different from interrogation technique, but it works well on white collar types. I’ll tutor you. Now, if you’ll pick up two cups of coffee from the canteen, I’ll go down to the warehouse and check this information out with the supervisors.”
“I’ll meet you in your office,” Colby replied with a chuckle. Despite his background, he wasn’t much more than a beginner in this sort of civilized verbal warfare. Most of his work had been done with an automatic weapon.
MINUTES LATER, Sarina was walking past Brody Vance’s office when she heard him curse.
“You can’t do that!” he exclaimed. “I’m already under suspicion…”
Sarina kept going, her eyes on a file that she’d opened, appearing oblivious to everything except the paper she was reading.
Vance noticed her passing by his door and suddenly broke into fluent Spanish and continued, unabashed. “I had to give them the information! I can’t afford to get fired, and they’re suspicious of me already. No. No, you can’t get into the warehouse. They have it under constant surveillance. Yes, of course there are cameras!” He paused. “What do you think I am, an electronics engineer?” Another pause. “Well, I’m not sticking my neck out again. You ask Chiva. No, she’s in Corpus Christi. Yes, you do that.” The phone went down.
Sarina was excited. She knew she’d overheard something crucial, but how was she going to exploit it?
“¿Ha oido algo de que hablaba yo?” Vance said at her back.
She did understand what he’d said in Spanish, but she didn’t dare react to the question. She kept walking.
“Miss Carrington?”
She turned, faking surprise, to find Brody Vance standing at his office door. “Yes, Mr. Vance?”
“Did you want to see me about something?”
She blinked. “Sorry?”
“Did you hear what I was saying?” he persisted.
She managed a dumb look. She held up the file. “I was going over this material because I have to get it to Mr. Ritter by quitting time. Sorry, but I wasn’t paying attention. Did you call to me?”
He seemed to relax. “No. It was nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were happy with your job.”
“Very happy,” she said, smiling. “This is a nice place to work.”
“Yes, it is. Well, don’t let me keep you,” he added. He smiled and went back into his office.
Sarina hurried down the hall, her eyes darting behind her to make sure she hadn’t been followed by Brody Vance. She’d tell Hunter. He could notify the appropriate people. She was excited. Their first break!
But he wasn’t in his office. She went toward the small cubicle where Rodrigo usually worked, but he wasn’t there, either! With a muffled groan, she turned and started back around the corner when she ran, literally, into Colby Lane.
“Just the man I’m looking for,” she said, taking him by the sleeve to tug him along into her own office.
“What’s going on?” he asked, surprised.
“I overheard Brody Vance on the phone,” she said at once when she’d closed the door behind them. Her dark eyes were sparkling with intrigue. “He was talking to a woman, by the sound of it. He said that he’d given information to somebody, that he couldn’t help it, and that she couldn’t get into the warehouse because there were surveillance cameras! He also said that he wasn’t an electronics engineer, so I gathered she wanted him to disable them!”
He smiled. “Damn, you’re sharp!” he exclaimed, delighted to know that they’d spooked Vance into using his phone. They could get a trace and find out who he was talking to. He caught her by the waist and pulled her against him, grinning as he bent to catch her soft mouth under his in a quick, hard kiss. He laughed at her surprise. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist it,” he said softly, letting her go. “I’m proud of you.”
She flushed helplessly. The soft, quick contact rattled her.
He saw that, and his dark eyes began to glitter. “You’re wasted on clerical work,” he mused. Then he frowned. “Vance must be gutsy to make a statement like that out in the open, especially after what Hunter and I did to him.”
She didn’t understand what he meant. He didn’t elaborate.
“He was speaking in Spanish,” she corrected, and he recalled that she was fluent.
“Did he see you?”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know I speak Spanish,” she replied with a grin. “I was apparently reading a paper and didn’t even look at him.”
“You’ve put us ahead of the game,” he said with genuine praise. “I’ll get Hunter and we’ll see what we can do with that tidbit of information. Maybe we can flush him out. Thanks, Sarina,” he added gently. “You’re a wonder.”
“No problem.” She hated the pleasure the praise gave her.
He cocked his head and studied her. “You might consider coming to work for me,” he murmured, not altogether joking. “It’s more exciting than typing up requ
isition forms.”
She averted her eyes. “That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.” He left her in her office and went looking for Hunter. This might be just the break they needed to find that drug shipment.
CHAPTER FIVE
HUNTER WAS TALKING to an accountant near the front entrance when Colby found him.
“Something wrong?” Hunter asked.
Colby grinned. “Nothing major, just a little snag we need to discuss.”
“Sure.” Hunter excused himself and joined Colby farther down the hall.
“We spooked Vance,” he said with barely contained glee. “Sarina heard him talking to a woman. He switched to Spanish when he saw her, unaware that she’s fluent. He said he had to give us the names, and she asked if she could get into the warehouse. He said no, because it’s under constant surveillance.”
“Good for Sarina!”
“She’s wasted in clerical work,” Colby scoffed. “What a dead end job for a woman with her potential!”
Hunter groaned inwardly. He couldn’t give her away. “Well, she does like the work,” he said evasively. “We can have the number that Vance called traced,” he added, working out strategies.
“Do you know someone at the phone company?” Hunter asked wistfully.
“I have my contacts. Later on, I’ll share them,” he promised when Colby looked frustrated. “Listen, I know you feel like I’m deliberately keeping you in the dark. But I can’t buck Cobb. This is his operation. He’s been working on it for a long time.”
“That’s not a problem,” Colby assured him. “I’ve been in the same position you are, from time to time.” He pursed his lips and frowned. “I really need to stick that wire in Vance’s car, in case he decides to meet personally with his evasive girlfriend.”
“There’s going to be a staff meeting this afternoon,” Hunter mentioned. “He’ll be tied up for at least an hour.”
Colby’s dark eyes twinkled. “What a lucky break.”
HE HAD THE WIRE in Vance’s car in minutes, as well as a homing device under the trunk. It would be a backup, in case Vance somehow discovered the wire. But since Vance didn’t think he was under suspicion, Colby mused, he probably wouldn’t even look. Now, all they had to do was wait.
He’d planned the next day to spend some time monitoring Vance’s movements on his way to work. The weather put a hitch in the plan. Rain started coming down in buckets and didn’t stop. Parts of Houston were prone to extreme flooding. Fortunately Colby’s apartment house wasn’t near a river.
But when he got to work, Hunter met him in the hall.
“You’ve got an SUV, haven’t you?” he asked the younger man.
Colby nodded. “Why?”
Hunter hesitated. “I know you and Sarina have your problems, but she and Bernadette are stuck at their apartment and can’t get to Sarina’s car. The water’s up to the fenders. I can’t leave because Ritter’s coming over with Cobb to discuss a new development. We’re all supposed to meet in the conference room later this morning, including you. Can you go and get them and drop Bernadette off at her school?”
“Sure,” Colby said easily. That kiss he’d exchanged with Sarina had rattled her. He still felt it on his mouth. Bernadette was warming to him as well. He thought that Hunter could have as easily asked Rodrigo to fetch them, and he grinned. He was one up on the Mexican. He hated knowing how close the man was to Sarina and the child. He didn’t quite understand why he felt that way.
“Don’t forget the staff meeting at ten,” Hunter cautioned.
“I’ll be back in plenty of time for that,” Colby assured him.
IT WAS TRICKY getting near the apartment’s parking lot. Most of it was underwater. Colby parked several yards away on the narrow paved road above the apartment complex and got out the hip-high wading boots he used when he went fishing. He pulled them on. He had a feeling Sarina and her daughter would have to be carried out or spend the day with wet feet.
The building was old. Sarina’s apartment was badly run-down. The steps were cracked and there was peeling paint on the door. One screen on a window was loose. The unit needed painting. Some of the other apartments were in worse shape, though. It was really a low-rent area. His keen eyes caught signs of gang graffiti on the side of an adjacent unit, marking their territory. Hunter had taken him around town and alerted him to the different markings, just in case they had any gang involvement in the smuggling operation. This was not a good place for a woman and a little girl to be living. The only attractive thing about it was probably the low rent, he considered. It made him uncomfortable to see the poverty in which the two of them lived. The child was sweet, and had such promise. This area had running gun battles, gang graffiti, and probably drugs as well. Sarina had to cope with all that as well as supporting her child alone. He was furious when he considered how little Bernadette’s absent father had done for them.
He waded up to the door and knocked.
There was a pause, before Sarina opened it, her dark eyes wide and curious.
“Hunter said he was coming,” she faltered.
“Not his fault,” Colby replied. “Cobb’s on his way there with Eugene Ritter. Hunter couldn’t get away, so he sent me.”
“Oh.” She seemed disoriented for a minute. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she hadn’t had much sleep.
Colby’s black eyes lingered on her slender figure in the beige suit she was wearing with high heels and a very becoming flowered scarf around her neck. Her hair was long, draping over her shoulders like corn silk. He remembered suddenly, reluctantly, the feel of it against his bare chest…
“We’d better get moving before the water gets any deeper,” he said curtly, trying to curtail the memory. It was arousing.
“Come on, Bernadette,” she told the child. “Got your raincoat?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
The child was wearing a yellow slicker. It was stained and looked as if it had come from a yard sale. Sarina didn’t have a raincoat, apparently, because she was clutching a ratty-looking umbrella. Odd, he thought, how the sight of their financial condition hurt him.
“Oh, hello,” Bernadette said, brightening when she saw who’d come to rescue them.
“Hello,” he replied, trying to sound pleasant. He smiled, too. He’d given the child enough heartache as it was. He had a lot to make up to her. “I’d better take her first,” he told Sarina.
She hesitated. “She has to go in the backseat, if you have a passenger-side air bag,” she told him.
He looked blank. “I beg your pardon?”
“If the air bag deploys for any reason with a small child in the front seat, it could be fatal,” Sarina explained.
He shook his head. “We learn something new every day.” He bent down. “Ready?” he asked the child.
She nodded, holding her book bag over one shoulder.
He swung her up easily with his right arm. The feel of her small arms clinging to his neck trustingly made his heart melt. “Hold on,” he said softly, smiling. “I won’t drop you.”
“I know that,” she told him, grinning. Her arms tightened.
He turned and walked up the slope past the parking lot to where his black SUV was parked.
“That’s a very big truck,” Bernadette pointed out. “Can you carry a horse in it?”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so. Why?” he teased. “Are you thinking of buying one?”
She laughed, too. “I wish I could. We go to Jacobsville to see a friend of Rodrigo’s who has a ranch there. He lets me ride his horses. I just love them!”
“I have a friend in Jacobsville who has a ranch myself,” he murmured without naming Cy. “I used to have horses, too, when I was younger,” he recalled. “I still love to ride.”
They reached the truck. He opened the door and put her gently inside. “Fasten your seat belt,” he told her.
“I always do. Mommy said I must always wear it.”
He smiled at her. “Mommy’s right. Watch your fingers.” He closed the door gently and went back for Sarina.
The rain had slackened to a mist. She closed the umbrella and looked at him uncertainly. She knew that the prosthesis he wore, however high tech, would never support her weight.
He hesitated, feeling grim. He hated his disability.
“I could take off my shoes and walk,” she said, gently so that she didn’t bruise his ego. He looked so wounded. She moved closer to him, her dark eyes eloquent. “It’s all right,” she said softly.
He hated the compassion. He hated his weakness. His eyes blazed.
She looked up at him. He was a stranger, for all that they’d been close years ago. She didn’t know what to say, what to do, to make things easier for him. “One of my coworkers lost his legs in Iraq, back in Desert Storm,” she said. “He has two artificial ones. They’re not high-tech, like your prosthesis,” she continued gently, “but they’re so functional that nobody in the office can outrun him in intra-unit competition.”
He focused on that at once. “Intra-unit?” he wondered, because he knew there was no such competition at Ritter’s business.
Her eyes flashed at the slip. She cleared her throat and thought fast. “Back in Tucson,” she said quickly, “we had team competitions in sports.”
“Oh.” He drew in a slow breath, his eyes steady and curious on her hair in the elegant upswept hairdo, her body clothed in a simple beige suit with an off-white cotton blouse. He remembered her in silk. His hand went to the collar of her blouse and touched it lightly. “The first time I saw you,” he said absently, “you were wearing a blue silk blouse with white slacks. Your hair was in a pigtail. You were playing with that golden retriever you had…”
Her gaze fell as she recalled with bitter pain what had happened when her father kicked her out of his house.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sensitive to her moods.
“My father had her put down, when he threw me out,” she bit off.
He remembered her love for the sweet, obedient animal. Her father had been a monster! The remembered pain was visible in her eyes. Involuntarily his arms slid around her, pulling her close. He wrapped her up tight in his embrace, and rocked her. The expression on her face had hurt him, as so many things did now. His eyes closed as he drank in the faint rose-scented cologne she wore, the clean herbal scent of her hair under his cheek. “I’m sorry,” he whispered deeply. “I know how much you loved her.”