by Michele Hauf
Jude had heard about her. Who hadn’t at TES? She was the hydrogeologist contractor Cullen had rescued from Afghanistan.
Cullen opened the conference room door and waited for her to step down the stairs. Jude saw her emerge into the rich light of the secure area, completely at home and looking classy in silky shorts and a matching top. She went to Cullen, her tall frame dwarfed by his hulking body. He kissed her, both of them unabashedly open to the public display. Jude had never seen anything like it before. Love radiated from them. It was in both of their eyes, and in the way Cullen ran his hand up and down her arm.
“Sabine, this is Jude. Jude, my wife.”
“Ma’am.”
She smiled and handed him his itinerary. “Kansas, huh?”
How much did she know of her husband’s work? Enough, or she wouldn’t have handed him his itinerary.
Would he ever find a woman like that? Not in Kansas. Not online, either, with the way his luck was going.
Chapter Two
Evie Cabrera couldn’t take another minute of her date’s monotone voice or the movement of his thin, flaky lips. He needed lipstick or something. Plastic surgery? And his skin. He was in his mid-thirties and his skin was pasty and already starting to show signs of deep wrinkles. When he smiled, his mouth and pale green eyes reminded her of a cartoon character on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Men aged better than women, but on him those lines and pale skin spelled u-n-h-e-a-l-t-h-y. Maybe he’d lied about his age. Maybe he was really fifty-something and on his way to renal failure.
A friend of hers had said that men frequently lied in their online profiles. See if she ever went on another date through Catchem.com...
She’d tuned out what he was saying. He was still talking. He sure liked to listen to himself. Tucking her naturally curly red hair behind her ear, she remembered she’d gotten it cut yesterday and there wasn’t much to tuck anymore. Long, curly hair was harder to maintain than the chin-length, Meg Ryan style she had now.
Her self-absorbed date glanced somewhere to his left. He’d done that several times. His gaze would pass over the diners and then return to her without missing a word. Except when he looked at her, he wasn’t seeing her. She was a warm body, there to be his sounding board. She couldn’t take it anymore. Enough was enough.
“Excuse me.” She stood, enjoying how he stopped talking midsentence. “This isn’t working for me.”
He gaped at her.
“Enjoy your dinner.”
Maybe he’d stay and finish his one-sided conversation. She turned from his blank and incredulous stare, green eyes too close together on his head. He must have never been with a woman who interrupted him like that, much less one who’d leave him in the middle of dinner.
Evie wasn’t one to mess around. Wasting time wasn’t her thing, and Mr. Hobbit Eyes back there had sure wasted hers tonight. She’d been told her attitude could use some fabric softener. But her attitude only came out in the company of rude people. So, in her mind, it was justified.
Nearing the exit, she spotted a man leaning against the bar. A real man. Oh, mama! Olive skin. Green eyes that lasered in on her. Neatly trimmed light brown hair. And can anyone say lips? She unabashedly took him in, from worn jeans that weren’t too tight, to the panels of his chest and muscular forearms and shoulders. He was magnificent. No picture on Catchem.com compared.
He turned his head and looked away. Not interested.
But then he moved. Sudden. Instantly in action as though he were going after someone. She stopped as he weaved between tables. Where was he going?
Seeing her date walking toward him, Evie turned to watch. Things became decidedly more shocking when her date brushed aside his suit jacket and revealed a gun. A gun! He wasn’t looking at the man approaching him. He was fixed on another man seated at a table not far from the one she’d just left. The seated man’s back was to him. He had short-cropped silver hair and wore distinguished glasses. He was conversing with two other men at the table, forking a dinner-sized salad, unaware that someone behind him had a gun. One of his table companions noticed, and started to say something.
The man who’d leaned against the bar intercepted her date just before he reached the table. But her date had already drawn his gun and was aiming it at the silver-haired man.
The sexy man drew his own gun and fired. It was all one smooth, quick movement. He lifted his hand and fired. Evie hadn’t even seen when he’d pulled the weapon out. He may have concealed it at his side as he approached.
Her date dropped to the floor as people started screaming and scrambling for an exit. The table of men scattered while the sexy man knelt beside her dead date and began searching his pockets, removing a cell phone and then a wallet. He checked the wallet and then dropped it onto the body.
What was left of the diners and waitstaff cowered on the fringes of the room, some crying. The silver-haired man began to move forward. Only then did Evie realize he stood right next to her.
The man who’d shot her date straightened. Stepping over the body without any further ado, he tucked his gun away and strode toward the front of the restaurant. He was leaving. He’d just shot a man and made sure he was dead and now was leaving the scene.
Frozen, Evie could only stare as he disappeared out the doors among the rushing crowd of diners. He’d just shot her date. Her date would have shot the silver-haired man. What the hell?
The silver-haired man stood over the body, studying it as though trying to place whether he recognized the man.
Sirens announced the arrival of police. Evie debated leaving as the sexy man had. Not sexy anymore. Scary. He was the scary man to her now. She’d had dinner with a killer. And the scary man had shot him. Before she could organize any more cohesive thoughts, police swarmed the restaurant.
Chapter Three
Jude sat in his rental, parked across the street from the restaurant, watching the police crime scene unfold. The SUV had tinted windows. Between them, the night and where he’d parked, he’d be out of sight. The woman who’d been with Chad Nichols hadn’t left yet. She also hadn’t been arrested. From his vantage point in the restaurant, it had appeared the two were on a dinner date, and from the looks of the woman, it was a first date. And she hadn’t been very impressed.
He resumed searching through Nichols’s cell phone, so far finding nothing telling. There were some recently received calls but no one in his address book. He’d have Odie check them out.
Movement in front of the restaurant caught his attention. The woman emerged with an officer, nodding her head as he spoke. The officer handed her a card. She took it and he let her walk toward the parking area.
Jude watched the woman unlock a little blue Fiat and get in. Sporty and full of spunk. He bet her personality was like that. She’d walk out on a date if he wasn’t interesting enough.
The man who’d almost been shot emerged next. He got into a BMW.
Setting Nichols’s phone aside, he picked up his own and dialed Odie, starting the SUV and driving out into the street after the Fiat. The hands-free device switched on and he put his phone down as he drove.
“I’ve got two plates for you to run.”
“Okay.” He listened to her get her computer ready and then gave her the man’s plate first.
“First plate is registered to a Dallas Benson.” She ran off some vitals. “CEO of Patriot Bank. Do you think Nichols knew him?”
Her sarcasm said she didn’t think so. Financial executive. Extreme leftist group. Nichols and his friends with The Stand were up to something.
“I don’t know what kind of statement he could hope to make like that,” Odie said.
“What about the other plate?” Maybe the woman could tell him something.
“Checking.” Jude heard her working on her computer, tapping away on her keyboard, the sound filling the SUV from the speakers.
“Evie Cabrera. Thirty-two.” She tapped away on her keyboard some more. “Single. No kids. Currently a human resources direc
tor for High Plains Insurance Company, which is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas.” More typing. “She’s been there three years. Was with a restaurant chain before that, her first job out of college it looks like.” She paused. “Let’s see.” She typed and clicked, accessing her numerous resources. “Family in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Mother, father and older brother all live there. Brother has a wife and daughter. Brother is an attorney like his father. Checking another screen,” she said in a singsong voice. “No police record. Credit score in the eight hundreds. Owns a home. Retirement looks fat and happy for a thirty-two-year-old. Parents must have taught her well. The brother, too. He’s got more money than her at forty.” Odie sighed. “She’s perfect.”
Jude grunted derisively. “Definitely not the type to date a domestic terrorist.” He couldn’t argue she was perfect, though. Perfect body.
“You said it was probably their first date.”
“Which is why she couldn’t have been involved.”
“Agreed. Maybe he was using her for a prop.”
“Yeah, probably took one look at her online profile and said, ‘Hello, Little Red Riding Hood.’” Just like the song that had been going through his head while Odie recited her findings.
“You’re so imaginative sometimes.”
Odie always had a wisecrack ready to dole out. “What now?”
“Well, Cullen’s going to be pissed when he hears you killed our only lead.”
“He was going to kill the CEO of Patriot Bank.”
“You could have knee-capped him or something.”
“Then I’d have risked him getting away.”
“If he was knee-capped?”
Jude took a breath for patience. “And then I’d have had to explain to police why I was there.” He couldn’t take any chances exposing TES, or the mission.
“Oh. Silly me. You’re right, of course.” Odie followed his logic without him having to tell her. “We can’t have you explaining you work for a secret organization that targets animals like Nichols. I think Cullen will support your decision, although you know he’s—”
“Yeah, yeah. Concerned that I shoot first before asking questions. I’ll let you know if I learn anything from Little Red Riding Hood.”
“Be nice to her. She’s an ordinary girl.”
Odie could go all day with this banter. Time to cut her off. “I have Nichols’s cell phone. Can you run some numbers for me?”
“Absolutely.”
He read them off to her. “See? We still have a lead.”
“You hope. These numbers may not mean anything.”
“Good night, Odie.”
She disconnected and the SUV speakers went silent.
Jude had familiarized himself with the map of Overland Park. He saw Evie’s taillights and kept two or three cars away from her. She followed the same road for a few minutes, then turned off onto a side street. Another turn later, she led him into a quiet neighborhood. Old midwest houses lined the street, Victorian in style. The architecture reminded him of the northeast coast. At a dark house—steel-blue trimmed with white—she pulled into the one-lane driveway and stopped before a detached garage that appeared to have an attic. The front lawn was a rectangular patch of grass with a single tree in front. White daisies bloomed in two flower beds on each side of a small covered porch.
He drove past, seeing her get out of her car without noticing him. A short distance away, he made a U-turn. He parked two houses down, made sure his gun was on safety and alighted from the rental.
She’d never answer the door after the night she’d had. He was a stranger. He’d shot a man in front of her. She’d probably call the cops, too. Sneaking in didn’t seem any better. He’d have the upper hand, but she’d be scared.
Checking all the houses and the street, he waited for a car to drive by before he veered onto the grass and took cover in the deeper shadows of the tree in Evie’s front yard. Not stopping there, he went between the houses and opened the gate to her backyard. A water fountain flowed on her stone patio. Other than grass and a wire fence that was a cut above the average chain-link, she had no other landscaping. There were no houses behind her. Only fields and a hill formed the horizon under a starlit sky. The lights next to the double French doors were on an automatic switch. Motion detection.
A woman who ran her home was one thing. A woman who did yard work and other physical chores dangled charms of temptation. He’d bet she was going to landscape the backyard as soon as she had time.
Leaning against the side of the house, he tripped the automatic lights and waited. A clematis vine concealed him, but he could see the doors through the thinner upper branches. It helped being tall. When she didn’t come to the back door, he tripped the lights again. It took four times before she noticed and came to the back door and opened it.
She peered into the darkness. Jude stepped out from his hiding place. Seeing him, she gasped and started to close the door.
“Wait.” He stuck his foot in the door frame, stopping the door from closing.
Chapter Four
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Jude held up his hands as he slowly entered the kitchen. “I just need to talk to you.”
With eyes wide and darting for an escape—or maybe a weapon—she pivoted and ran. He went after her, catching her at the bottom of white wood stairs. Slipping free of his gentle grip, she swung her fist. He admired her gumption but he easily caught her with his hand. Turning her so that her back was against him, he wrapped his arms around her, pinning her. She stomped on his foot, which didn’t do much because he was wearing steel-toed boots. When she went for his shin, he dodged her.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated, speaking into her ear. “I saw who you were sitting with at the restaurant.”
“What are you doing here?” She wiggled to be free. “Let go of me!” She tried to kick him again.
He easily avoided her and held her firm. “My name is Jude Curran. I work for an agency the FBI hired to investigate the man you had dinner with. I followed him to the restaurant.”
Her wiggles subsided and she went still as she looked up at him. “What?”
“Chad Nichols.”
“Who is Chad Nichols?”
“He lied about his name? Not surprising.” Nichols had intended to use his date as cover. Maybe he didn’t want her to find his website.
After she grasped the fact that her date had lied, she met his eyes again. “Why are you here? Why did the FBI want you to follow him?”
Cullen trained all his operatives to be as honest as they could be. Obviously, they couldn’t talk about TES. The organization was classified. But lying wasn’t Cullen’s way of doing business. Jude admired him for that. He’d learned that he didn’t have to lie to operate above the law.
“He’s a suspected domestic terrorist. The feds want to keep it quiet until we know more.” He let her go and she turned to face him.
He saw her begin to waver. Finally. He was making headway with her.
“You left before the police arrived,” she said, voicing what still made her hesitate. “You ran. What kind of agency do you work for? The FBI didn’t hire you and you’re not an investigator. Who are you?”
Standing in that sexy black dress with one hand on a tiny hip, she snagged his baser instincts...the same way she had the moment he’d seen her at the restaurant. “I’m telling you the truth. I came here to investigate Chad Nichols.”
“And the feds want to keep it quiet?” she scoffed. “If you were legit, you wouldn’t have run away from a crime scene.”
“I’m the good guy in this.”
“I’m going to call the cops. The real cops.” Dropping her hand, she walked toward the kitchen.
Jude stepped into her path. “I told you, the FBI sent me.”
She planted her hands on his chest and shoved. “Get out of my way.”
He didn’t budge. The green of her eyes magnetized him. Her wild curly red hair made him think of sex. He sure
did like her vigor.
“I’ve told you all I can.” Probably more than he should have, like the FBI’s role in this. But she needed some convincing, and nothing short of the truth—or as close to it as possible—was going to work.
“Why would a secret agent be sent to catch a terrorist? Isn’t that what you are? Some kind of secret agent?”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
Her pretty eyes wandered all over him. “You came here alone?”
“This was supposed to be an intel mission. I was sent to find out the extent of his association with a leftist group called Stand Together, or The Stand. We weren’t expecting Nichols to try and kill anyone.”
“Are you Delta or something?”
“No.”
Again she contemplated him. This time when she put her hands on his chest and pushed, he stepped aside. “Would you like something to drink?”
He watched her rear as he followed her into the kitchen. “I’m fine.”
While she passed a commercial grade stove to reach into a white wood-trimmed glass cabinet, he closed and locked the back door, scanning what he could see of her yard to make sure no one was there.
When he faced the room again, it was to her slender form pouring water into a glass full of ice. She had long fingers and soft skin. Her breasts were demurely exposed—just a hint of cleavage, ample enough to tantalize, moderate enough to be proportioned with the rest of her body. Realizing where his thoughts were trending, he quickly squashed the desire. This was no time for fooling around. Besides, she lived a vastly different life than him.
Leaning against the granite countertop, she stared at him. Wary. About to call the cops. But attracted. Just like him.
“I need to ask you some questions and you can’t tell anyone I was here,” he said.
“Oh.” She nodded, sarcasm dripping from her tone. “Okay.”
“How did you meet him?”
“Online. On Catchem-dot-com.”
He was momentarily stunned. That was the same site he’d used, at the request of his mother. The online service was nationally recognized, so it really wasn’t all that amazing she’d been on it, too. It was just the connection that struck him. They’d both gone online to find dates.