by Zara Chase
“Yeah, I hear you.”
As soon as Raoul got into his state-of-the-art office, he picked up his secure phone and called his buddies in London. It would be four in the morning there, but Milo wouldn’t mind about that.
Chapter Two
A jackhammer pounded away at the inside of Milo’s skull like it bore him a personal grudge. A jackhammer with a ring tone—that was a new one. What the fuck had they put in those damned shots? He groaned, pulling the covers over his head, trying to block out the pain and the noise. This was it. He’d played his luck once too often, had died, and gone straight to hell.
The pounding and ringing endured. Yep, definitely hell. He reluctantly forced his eyes open, and returned to a semiconscious state. Shit, his phone was ringing. He sat up and scrubbed a hand down his face, so wasted he now seriously wished he was dead. Hell hadn’t seemed all that bad. He peered bleary-eyed at the clock. Four thirty in the morning. What the fuck! He’d only got to bed—well, to his own bed—a couple of hours ago. Who would be calling him so early?
He reached for his phone and took the call without checking to see who it was. Anything to shut off the persistent noise.
“This had fucking better be good.”
“Evening, Milo.”
“It might be evening in fucking Wyoming, but it’s the middle of the night here. What’s so fucking urgent, Raoul?”
“Glad to hear your sense of humor’s alive and kicking.”
“About the only fucking part of me that is. What do you want that can’t wait until a more civilized hour?”
“Sister of a friend has gone and gotten herself arrested—”
“And that would interest me because…”
“They’ve taken her to Paddington Green.”
The fog inside Milo’s brain began to clear. “Ah, terrorist charges, I take it.”
“That’s what I need you to find out.”
Milo sighed, grabbed a pen, and prayed for his gut to stop churning. How much booze exactly had he and Hal put away earlier? No, better not to think about it, or the two chicks they’d hooked up with afterward. Big mistake, that. He’d only just escaped with his manhood intact when he’d insisted on returning home after they’d had their fun. Milo didn’t do all-nighters, and women universally appeared to have a problem with that.
“Okay, bud, hit me with the details.”
“The lady in question is known to you.”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t do it.”
Raoul laughed. “She’s Paul Bisset’s little sister.”
Milo’s sluggish brain clicked into a higher gear. “Not the kid we met a decade or so ago? The one who fell out of a tree, and nearly flattened the lot of us?” Milo managed a humorless laugh as he recalled the scene. Four hard-as-nails special services guys almost wiped out by a gangly kid. “Paul never stopped ribbing us about it.”
“That would be the one. Except she’s no longer a kid.”
Milo grunted. “If she got herself arrested on terrorist charges then she’s still thinking like one.”
Five minutes later Milo cut the connection, reckoned he could be excused for indulging in another aggrieved sigh, and then hit the shower. He was more than happy to help people in distress, when that distress was genuine. That’s why half the legal work he did was pro bono. But a poor little rich girl, playing with fire because she actually wanted to get burned, didn’t float Milo’s boat. He shook his head, resisting the urge to snarl. He owed Paul a favor, and could never say no to Raoul, otherwise…
In a foul state of mind, Milo knew he would be no good to anyone until he sobered up completely. He stood under the steaming hot jets, and closed his eyes as the water bounced off the top of his aching head and cascaded over the rest of him. He applied a liberal amount of bodywash to his hands and scrubbed his torso with considerable vigor, imagining the booze seeping out of his pores as he watched the grime accumulated during another pointless night flow down the drain.
It was a bit like the direction his life had taken, in some respects. He’d been restless since getting out of the SAS, and practicing law just wasn’t cutting it for him. Way too many rules and regulations in this fine country, all tilted in favor of the criminal. That’s why he’d been happy to sign on as one of Raoul’s merry band of vigilantes, but when doing so he hadn’t reckoned on being asked to babysit a poor little rich kid with more time on her hands than she knew what to do with.
“Whoa there, you’re jumping to conclusions,” he said aloud, but his instincts seldom let him down and he was pretty sure his assessment of Ms. Bisset was right on the money.
Feeling only fractionally better after several minutes of near sauna-like temperatures, he turned the tap to cold and endured the freezing spray for a full sixty seconds. Stepping out of the stall, shivering and swearing, Milo toweled himself dry and cleaned a patch of steam from the mirror with his hand. His expression reflected his annoyance, his eyes looked bloodshot, and he needed a shave. There was nothing he could do about his eyes, and he couldn’t be arsed to attend to his stubbly chin, or his attitude, either. He’d just have to do.
Milo pulled on a pair of worn jeans, padded barefoot and bare-chested into the main part of the loft he shared with Hal, and fired up his laptop. Then he typed in the name of his soon-to-be-client to see what edifying information St. Google could provide him with. While he waited, he thumped on Hal’s door. Hard. No response.
“Come on, mate.” He walked into Hal’s room, and was almost asphyxiated by the smell of stale booze. He waved a hand beneath his nose and moved across to the window, throwing it wide open. “Rise and shine. Sleep’s overrated.”
The mound beneath the covers groaned. “Fuck off!”
“We got a shout from across the pond.”
“Give Uncle Sam my best.”
Milo shook Hal’s shoulder. “We need to move on this, pal.”
Hal rolled over, and opened one eye that resembled the map of a small banana republic. He sent Milo a look that would have shrunk a lesser man’s balls. “You have got to be shitting me.”
“The client’s young, female, and hot.”
Milo was unsure if the hot bit was actually true, but it had the desired effect. Hal blinked, processed what Milo had told him, then pushed back the covers and made a manly effort to stand up. He managed it on the third attempt, his colorful language turning the stale air in his bedroom blue.
“Hit the shower, my friend. Your personal hygiene could use some work.”
Hal shot him the finger. “Give me five.” His blond hair stuck up from his head at unnatural angles. He ran a hand through it as he shuffled toward his bathroom, still mumbling and complaining. “And you’d better not be putting me on.”
“As if.”
Milo went back to his computer, but found precious little of interest about Jodie Bisset. He found a whole load of stuff about her father and brother, though, which got him wondering. Anyone with terrorist tendencies, living in England and known to the authorities, would be flagged, just like they were in the States. Raoul hadn’t been able to find anything on Jodie his end. Milo ran a program he wasn’t supposed to even know existed, much less have access to, and discovered that England’s security services didn’t have anything on her, either.
“Something ain’t right,” he said aloud.
“Yeah, like dragging me out of bed at five in the morning.” Hal wandered into the room, towel-drying his hair. “What’s happening?”
Milo filled him in.
“Sounds like a setup to me.” Hal helped himself to a mug of the fresh coffee Milo had just brewed. “Someone wants to discredit daddy dearest. English politics are a cake walk compared to the dirty tricks they get up to over there.”
“This chick, Jodie, is out to right all the world’s wrongs, apparently,” Milo replied, stifling a yawn.
“That young, eh?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Well, we’d best get over there and see what we can do for the idealistic little love,” Hal gr
umbled.
“I called the nick and told them I was her legal representative. They didn’t like it. Said she hadn’t asked for anyone, but now they can’t use the thumbscrews on her without us being there.”
“Why do I have to hold your hand? You’re the hot-shot lawyer. You could have left me in bed.”
“Because, if this is a setup, we’re gonna have to find out why, and who’s behind it. And you, Mr. Lewis, much as it pains me to admit it, are a kick-arse investigator.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
“No point in getting to the nick before seven. The people that matter won’t be there before then, so they’ll only leave us to kick our heels.”
“So why the fuck did you get me out of bed?”
“Need to use those contacts of yours, mate. See if you can find out what the charge is, and why Jodie was pulled in, who else was arrested with her, who gave the tip-off. She ain’t on the security services’ radar, so someone somewhere pulled a number.”
“How did I know that was what you were going to say?”
Milo sent his buddy a droll glance. “Lucky guess.”
An hour later, the two guys set off from their Battersea apartment, headed for Paddington Green, looking as though they’d just slept eight hours straight. That was what the tough training it took to be accepted into the SAS did for a guy. They had learned to eat and sleep whenever the opportunity arose, and knew how to be awake and alert—more or less—within seconds of that necessity arising. The only sign that Milo wasn’t at his most alert was a slight limp, which annoyed the fuck out of him. He had spent more hours than he cared to think about getting past a disability he refused to acknowledge, but sometimes it defied his best efforts to remain hidden.
They were now in possession of a lot more information regarding Jodie Bisset’s arrest, and Milo wasn’t happy about what he’d learned. It smelt like a clumsy setup, but just by getting herself arrested, the damage was already done for the Bisset family. Even if Jodie was subsequently acquitted, a question mark would always hang over her activities.
“Don’t forget,” Milo said as they stepped through the doors to the station. “You’re my assistant.”
Hal shot him a disgruntled look. “Assistant?”
Mil managed a brief grin. “Don’t get your panties in a wad. They won’t let you see our client unless you’re part of her legal team.”
* * * *
Jodie sat on the edge of the rock-hard bunk, cuddling her arms around her torso in a vain attempt to ward off the pre-dawn chill. Not that she was cold, but she couldn’t seem to stop trembling. The tiny cell assigned to her smelt of urine, fear, and desperation—and she could definitely relate to the fear part. How had this happened to her? What was she doing here in this crappy cell, accused of being behind all sorts of scary, subversive activities? She was shit scared, and knew her bluster hadn’t fooled anyone into thinking otherwise. She had no idea how long she had been here. It was early afternoon, she thought, when armed police—armed police in England!—crashed through the door of the Camden Town house where she’d been plotting the following day’s activities with the rest of the group. They had all been handcuffed, and frog-marched out of there, no explanation given, and bundled into the back of a police van.
When she was told they were being taken to Paddington Green police station, she almost peed her pants. This was serious. It was where they brought all the hard cases—the terrorists. She had gone through the humiliation of being fingerprinted, photographed, and strip-searched by an overenthusiastic butch female cop. Mercifully, she’d been allowed to keep her own clothes once they’d finished with her. She’d been asked lots of questions, but wouldn’t answer any of them, mainly because she couldn’t. The cops tried the old trick of saying her friends were talking up a storm, blaming everything on her. Jodie didn’t buy it because she hadn’t done anything for them to blame her for.
She insisted upon making a phone call, and rang Paul collect back in the States. He would know what to do. She blocked her father from her mind completely, caring as much about him as he ever had about her—as he had about anything except his precious career. Paul had said he’d get help for her, and she knew he’d come through. It was just a case of when. In the meantime, she continued to sit tight and remained tight-lipped. The cops eventually got tired of goading her, and sent her back to this cell.
They’d given her something unrecognizable to eat, but her stomach rebelled at the very thought of ingesting food. They gave her a weak liquid as gray as the walls of her cell, masquerading as tea. She hadn’t touched that, either. She was empty inside, frightened, alone, and a little bit angry—at herself for being so gullible—but she saved most of her anger for whoever had landed her in this mess. She didn’t believe any of her buddies were terrorists. They were just young people with strong views and consciences who wanted to make a difference in this world. What was so bad about that? Wasn’t it what young people were supposed to do, before they settled down, accepted the system, and became model citizens who criticized young people?
Okay, so one or two of her lot were very opinionated, but she would know if they had extreme tendencies, wouldn’t she? Still, how well did one person really know another? Wasn’t that how terrorist cells integrated themselves into the fabric of society?
Oh hell, was that what had happened to her?
Jodie told herself repeatedly that she was guilty of nothing more sinister than wanting to make the world a better place. The problem was, if someone had set her up to get to her dad, they would have had the clout to do a decent job of it. They would have planted a shedload of evidence against her, and no one would believe she was innocent. At least not until her dad’s chances of being elected to the senate were well and truly blown by his only daughter’s illegal activities. Mud sticks.
Jodie disciplined herself to stop panicking. Sleeping in this horrible place was out of the question, so she might as well apply her mind to the problem and try to figure out what was going on. She ran through her friends in her head, one by one, thinking hard about their backgrounds, and what she knew about them as individuals.
Not that much, when it came down to it. They all had the same ideals, were prepared to do what it took to get their campaigns noticed, even if that required them to flirt with the shady side of the law. They were committed, and that was all she’d ever needed to know. She didn’t particularly like some of them, and couldn’t imagine being friends with them, but that wasn’t what this was about. A couple of the guys had come on to her. She’d turned them down, and they didn’t seem to bear a grudge. Anyway, they’d been arrested along with everyone else. No, there had to be something else. Something she was missing.
She hadn’t gotten anywhere trying to figure out what it might be, when she heard the jangling sound of a bunch of keys. Obviously not more food then. That was delivered through a shoot, in the same way caged animals in zoos were sometimes fed. For some reason, that thought angered her more than her current dilemma. To be treated as though she was a dangerous animal whom no human could risk direct contact with was the ultimate humiliation.
An officer stepped into her humble abode, and looked her over with an expression of scathing contempt.
“Your brief’s here,” he said blandly.
“My what?”
“Oh yeah, you’re a Yank. Excuse me, your lawyer’s here.”
At last! Paul had obviously come through for her, but the damned lawyer had taken his time getting here.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Seven in the morning.” The officer leered at her. “Why are you so interested? Got somewhere you need to be?”
“What, and deprive myself of these salubrious accommodations?” Jodie resisted the urge to flip him the bird. “How could I possibly walk away?”
His leer turned into a smug grin. “I very much doubt if you’ll get the chance anytime soon.”
That’s what Jodie was so worried about. She stood up, trying t
o look unconcerned as she followed the officer from the room, along a dingy corridor, and up a flight of steps, pausing for him to unlock another door when they reached the top. They didn’t handcuff her, which was something, she supposed.
The officer opened the door to a small, windowless room and stood back to let Jodie walk through it ahead of him. He then closed the door, and Jodie found herself alone with two men. She glanced up and gasped. The taller of the two had a shock of thick black hair that fell across his brow. He wore a well-tailored suit over a black mesh T-shirt, and intelligent gray eyes assessed her, appearing to miss little. He was a very good-looking man, with a strong, square jaw sporting a day’s worth of stubble. His face hinted at tough resourcefulness, his hard body radiated animal vitality. He was the type of guy who would instantly make anyone feel less anxious. He was ex-military.
Of course he was.
Jodie knew it for a fact, and would have recognized him anywhere. It was twelve years since she had last seen him, but images of his handsome face had haunted her dreams ever since. She knew his name before he even introduced himself. Milo Hanson had ridden to her rescue, just as he had done so often in her aforementioned dreams. She hadn’t known he was a lawyer, but should have guessed it. She immediately felt a whole lot better. If anyone could help her, it was Milo.
Jodie felt grubby, and uncharacteristically unsure of herself, as gray eyes continued to assess her. And those eyes didn’t look particularly impressed by what they saw. She could hardly blame him for that, and was grateful he didn’t seem to recognize her. She was wearing comfortable old jeans, a tatty university sweatshirt, and hadn’t washed her hair in two days. Prison grime clung to her like a second skin, the difference between their respective appearances emphasized by his pristine clothing, and the firm set to his gorgeous lips. He clearly wasn’t happy to be here, and Jodie couldn’t entirely blame him for that.
She glanced at his companion, glad for a reason to avoid Milo’s hostile gaze. The second guy was a little shorter than his buddy—perhaps an even six feet—with fabulous dirty-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and, unlike Milo, a wayward smile that implied approval, imbuing her with a shot of much-needed confidence. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. Given the hour, he most likely had.