Crimes of Passion

by Toni Anderson

  Marsh knew that Moody was as surprised as the mob that a woman had led the sting on the Bilotti’s. Ron still had a hard time dealing with women on equal terms.

  Marsh gripped the arms of the chair so he didn’t lash out. He kept his voice level, reasonable. “You screwed up, Ron.” He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the mob or Ron’s bureau credibility. “You sacrificed an agent, my agent, who’d repeatedly risked her life for your cause.”

  His agent. His friend. A woman he’d dragged into the bureau when she’d been too young to know better. Marsh clamped down on the self-recrimination that tormented him. He should have looked after her. And she should have damn well known better.

  Ron stared back at him with small dense eyes, rat-like—scheming and barely hiding it. The Organized-Crime Unit had used Elizabeth like a tissue and discarded her like garbage. His molars clamped together so tightly his jaw ached. Placing one palm on each thigh, he pressed them down with the full weight of his shoulders. All to keep from punching Ron in the face.

  It would definitely make him feel better.

  But it might not get him what he wanted.

  “Look, Hayes, I know DeLattio is pissed at Elizabeth right now, but he has more important things to worry about than revenge. He still doesn’t know she’s an agent. Was an agent,” he corrected quickly. “He just thinks she’s a vindictive bitch with more money than sense.”

  “Who else knows she was working undercover?” Marsh asked. He’d insisted the information had remained need-to-know. His department relied on long term undercover work that unwary agents could blow with a single careless action.

  “McCarthy. A couple guys in the DA’s office.” Ron picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk, on his coffee mug, on his knee. “Johnston may suspect. He’s sharp. And his partner, Valdez. The rest of the office thinks she turned state’s evidence.”

  “She thinks you’ve got a leak in your division, Moody.”

  “That’s bullshit, Hayes, and you know it. We rounded up the mob guys without a hitch. If we had a leak, word would have gotten out.” Ron leaned back, sweat once again glistening on his brow.

  Marsh didn’t agree. He took another drink of coffee and placed the cup back on the floor beside his chair. Leaks could be as low level as a typist or service tech, even the janitor if the agents got sloppy. Or it could be a smart agent knowing when to push the boundaries and when to hold fire.

  “Look, I know you’re angry, but it’s not my fault she bolted.” Ron rubbed his bald spot, irritation showing through with each jerk of his hand. Ron Moody wasn’t used to placating anybody. His voice was a low rumble as he leaned forward, his eyes narrow beams of annoyance.

  “The bottom line is that more people want Andrew DeLattio dead than Jews hate Hitler. If the mob gets him, he ends up drinking the East River. So he testifies, gets a face transplant courtesy of the U.S. government, and lives out the rest of his miserable life in WITSEC.” Moody’s shoulders dropped as he rested back against his fancy chair and took a slurp of his coffee. “He doesn’t have the time or the resources for vengeance.”

  Marsh rapped short fingernails on the arm of his chair. DeLattio had been bred for violence. Despite his ivy-league education, he’d lived and breathed it, every day of his life. He must have stashed away millions at some point—he’d have been a fool not to. DeLattio didn’t strike him as a fool.

  Marsh’s eyes narrowed.

  Ron owed him.

  The press coverage had blown two-years of solid undercover groundwork; Elizabeth’s life, both undercover and real, was fucked. He stared at Moody without blinking. A cheap trick, but he wanted Ron off-balance.

  Ron ran a single digit around his shirt collar. Marsh didn’t crack a smile.

  “Look, I know the press and the mob want a piece of her, but our sources suggest they don’t know any more than we do.” Ron hesitated and Marsh knew he was hiding something.

  “Spill it,” Marsh said.

  Ron stared down at his hands that were now on the desk, strangling a pen.

  “Rumor has it Peter Uri flew into La Guardia the same day Agent Ward disappeared. We don’t know for sure that she was his mark, but we’re pretty sure he flew on to Mexico.”

  “And you just let him go?” Marsh sat up straighter in the chair, too wise to the games of the bureau to be surprised, but horrified just the same. The implications...

  Uri was one of the most wanted professional assassins in the world, a shadowy figure with a reputation that was clinical, ruthless and deadly.

  “It was only a rumor.”

  Marsh leaned forward. Grabbed Ron by his fat blue tie and dragged him halfway across the desk with papers flying. Ron knocked his mug, spilled his coffee, eyes pin-balling the damage as he yelped. “Those were my orders, okay? You wanna know why? Go ask your pal Lovine!”

  Brett Lovine was the youngest director the FBI had ever had. He was Marsh’s boss, but he was also a close personal friend of the Hayes’ family. And without Marsh’s father, General Jacob Hayes’ personal backing, Brett would never have made it past Assistant Director.

  Damn straight Marsh would ask him—in private.

  Marsh released Ron. His top lip curled with disgust at the sight of the man before him. Ron made him want to put his fist through a wall.

  “So what are you going to do now, Ron? Sit on your fat ass and contemplate promotion?”

  “What do you want me to do, Hayes? Take off after her myself?” Ron’s ruddy jowls wobbled with indignation. Maybe he’d do them all a favor and keel over dead of a coronary. “Special Agent Ward was offered protective custody, but she refused. She resigned. I couldn’t detain her, for Christ’s sake. We even offered her Witness Protection. Your precious agent told me to shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

  “You offered her the same protection you offered DeLattio?” Marsh leaned forward, smelled Ron’s sharp and acrid fear. “You miserable little prick.”

  “Now you just listen to me...” Ron spluttered, trailed off, remembering the ease with which he’d been overpowered earlier.

  Marsh held perfectly still. He waited as anger bubbled and popped below the surface of his skin, raised an eyebrow to make sure he had Ron’s full attention. “No, you listen to me. I want every piece of information you have on Special Agent Ward’s disappearance. Every photograph, report and sound-bite. And I want it today, before I leave this building. Before I talk to Director Lovine.”

  Ron’s Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively, like he was swallowing string.

  Marsh felt no pity. This man had left his agent at the mercy of a monster. Elizabeth could have easily ended up on a slab in the morgue with the protection Ron had offered her—maybe she would have preferred that.

  Ron managed a sickly smile. “No problem.”

  Marsh knew better.

  Ron stood up and pulled on his crumpled jacket. Marsh followed him into the inner sanctum of the largest field office in North America.

  THREE

  Quantico, Virginia, April 3rd

  I want to know where that bitch is and I want to know now.” He slammed his fist into the metal table, wanted to pound it into the floor. Wanted to crush and twist and damage it so desperately he could barely think.

  Beware the fury of a patient man.

  Give him ten minutes alone with her, and he’d carve the letters onto her flesh.

  The email message Charlie had passed on had to have come from her.

  Who the fuck did she think she was?

  His Italian suit was rumpled and grimy, his tie and belt removed for personal safety reasons. His scalp itched. His unwashed hair was greasy, and three days worth of beard stubbled his chin. Andrew rubbed the uneven bridge of his nose, remembering. It had hurt like fury when he’d finished with the bitch, but not all the blood had been his.

  And he still wasn’t done with her.

  He made his lips curve. The skin on his face crinkled around his eyes, even though he wanted to maim.

  He
’d first spotted Juliette Morgan at a gallery opening by some up-and-coming nobody from the Lower East Side. To him the pictures had looked no better than blood splatters on a wall. He’d kept his opinions to himself, smart enough to know that the feds were chasing him harder than ever now he was on Wall Street.

  He leaned back in his chair. Examined his fingernails; cleaned them with the edge of his teeth.

  She’d been smiling at some fat art critic, but not for long. The critic had scuttled away when Charlie had told him to get lost. The critic had known who Andrew DeLattio was. Juliette hadn’t had a clue.

  He pushed dried cuticle down his thumbnail. Bit away the dead skin. The bitch had looked down her perfect nose at him, elegant eyebrows raised in inquiry, looking like a freaking movie star.

  And he’d wanted her. Totally, mindlessly. In every fucking way. He slammed his fist against the table, lowering his eyebrows to hide the hate. She’d hooked into his bloodstream like opium and the more she’d spurned him, the more he’d been determined to have her.

  Andrew kicked back on the orange, plastic chair, one foot balanced on the metal table in front of him. The ugly table and chairs provided the only furniture in the utilitarian room. He was being held at Quantico in the heart of the American justice system, protected from his friends and family by Marines.

  The irony might have amused him if his uncle, second-in-command of the Bilotti crime-family, hadn’t put a contract on his life for a cool five million. Right now Andrew was glad of the protection.

  He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.

  His life was ruined because Juliette had opened her big fat mouth, and to think he’d once wanted to marry the bitch. Blowing smoke from his cigarette, he narrowed his gaze at his lawyer. The man treated him like a recalcitrant schoolboy rather than a millionaire businessman with mob connections.

  “I’ve already told you, Andrew,” Larry Frazier repeated slowly, like he worked for a dim-witted child. “Juliette Morgan has disappeared without a trace. The FBI has said so, and so have your own sources,” the calm tones continued. “Let’s move on here, we’ve a lot of ground to cover.”

  “You seem to forget that you work for me, Larry.” Andrew’s temper flashed to mercury and he stabbed his finger into his chest. “I am telling you to find out where that bitch is hiding.”

  He’d grown up with stone-killers for best friends and gangsters for family. The strong ruled, and the weak bent over and took what was coming to them. His birdlike lawyer needed to know that.

  “My job is not that of a lackey, Mr. DeLattio, nor that of an accessory.” Larry sat back primly in the hard, plastic chair.

  Andrew watched the lawyer shuffle his papers with offended efficiency. As if Larry had any real power. As if he could threaten him. Andrew leaned forward, almost amused. The old man was dynamite in the courtroom, but he still didn’t get it. Andrew would never get near a courtroom.

  Placing his hand over the lawyer’s arthritic one, he spoke in a low conversational tone, like an old, trusted friend. “How is Dorothy, Larry? How’re the grandkids?”

  The man’s movements stilled, his watery blue eyes slowly rising toward his client.

  “My wife and grandchildren are fine, thank you, Mr. DeLattio.” Subtly he tried to break the grip that stayed his hand.

  Andrew smiled with genuine amusement.

  “I’ve seen pictures of your girls, Larry,” Andrew said. “They look real cute. Your wife is a little old for my taste, you understand...no offense.” Fingers crushed bone, releasing a wave of satisfaction that made Andrew’s heart pound and the cigarette in his other hand tremble. “You have to take real good care of your family, Larry, especially those cute little girls. Something could happen, something really bad.”

  He took a drag on the cigarette as the old man’s joints cracked under his grip. His lawyer’s skin was parchment thin, and felt like it might split if Andrew pressed too hard.

  Control was the key.

  Larry’s gaze faltered. Words locked inside a mouth that opened and shut quickly. Larry had reviewed all the evidence the FBI had on him and knew what he was capable of. Well, some of it.

  Andrew always kept his promises, something Juliette Morgan was going to find out. He’d promised to slit her throat if she said a word to the cops.

  Larry nodded, his fear palpable, which pleased Andrew more than anything had in a long time.

  “I’ll do what I can to find out Ms. Morgan’s whereabouts, Mr. DeLattio. Now you’ll have to excuse me, I have to go. I have a court appearance at one.” The words were stuttered, voice high-pitched.

  Andrew released his lawyer’s hand, watched him nurse his sore bones against his chest.

  “We still have some time left.” Andrew laughed, easy now he’d flexed his muscles, used his power. “We have to go through a couple of things first.” He crushed out the cigarette and kicked back in his chair. There was one set of business associates that he hadn’t given up, nor would he.

  “I want complete immunity from prosecution before I say another word to the F—B—I.” The letters were stretched out mockingly. “Signed by a federal judge.” Andrew smiled like a shark, showing plenty of teeth. “For all the crimes I’ve committed, prior to today.”

  ***

  “What’s she like?” Ryan caught up with Nat long enough to ask.

  Only a full-blown inquisition would satisfy his brother, so Nat kept right on saddling Winter, his white Morgan, and Morven, a quiet bay mare, and shrugged his shoulders. “She’s okay.”

  After an early morning visit to the hospital, he’d gotten a late start. His mother was fine, but now he had cattle to check before dark and the twins were like a couple of dynamos when it came to nosing around for gossip. He’d already had a bellyful from Sas.

  “Okay hot or okay ugly?” Ryan asked, rubbing Winter’s thick snowy mane and peering at him from under the rim of an old felt hat.

  Nat tipped his hat low enough to cover his eyes and prepared to mount up. “Plain, mousy,” he lied straight-faced, “not your type.”

  Ryan looked disappointed and kicked a stone that skittered along the frozen yard.

  “Looking for an easy lay, Ry?” Nat tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Since Becky had died, Ryan had backfilled the emptiness with beer and sex. While it wasn’t for him to judge, some days he figured his little brother needed a good kick up the ass, for his daughter’s sake if nothing else.

  “Hell,” Ryan said, pushing his hat to the back of his dark head. “Couldn’t hurt.”

  Nat swung onto Winter’s back with an easy stride. “Yeah,” he grunted, “like you don’t get enough.”

  His gut tightened at the thought of Ryan getting it on with Eliza Reed and he didn’t know why. No way was he jealous.

  “Look somewhere else, Sunshine,” Nat told him. He took a deep breath and tried to let go of the tension he couldn’t shake. “Hitting on the customers is bad for business.”

  That sounded reasonable. He let the idea sink in while he checked out the sky. Snow was on the way and he had to get moving.

  Eliza Reed bothered him. He didn’t have time to start chasing around after some city girl and that bothered him too. He wasn’t a monk, so when had life gotten so freaking grim?

  About three years ago—chasing around with some other city girl.

  Damn.

  “She’s bad-tempered,” Nat said, letting a hint of a smile escape. He tapped a finger against the side of his skull. “Maybe a little crazy.”

  Ryan squinted up at him, as if the snow was too bright, hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. “Why’s she still here then?”

  “We need the money.” Nat’s sigh was big enough to make the horse flick back its ears. “Last night, she claimed she thought I was a bear.” Nat paused for a moment, adjusted the reins and rubbed a fleck of mud from Winter’s withers.

  “A bear?” Ryan’s attention locked onto him.

  “Yep,” Nat looked
over toward the house and nearly groaned as Sas escorted Mizz Eliza Reed out onto the porch. Nat sighed. “Or a wolf.”

  With the exception of her woolly hat, jacket and boots, Mizz Reed was decked out in his clothes, reminding him he’d forgotten to take her bags up to her room last night. Instead he’d stuffed everything back in the cargo hold of the Jeep. Not that it mattered, her figure filled out his old denims better than he ever did. His heartbeat kicked up a notch and nerves that hadn’t twitched for years, started to dance. Her body was curvy, but lean, dark hair pulled back from her face emphasized her bone structure and she was as leggy and sleek as a cat.

  Hell, she looked good enough to eat.

  Sas handed their guest a pair of riding gloves and waved him over.

  It looked like he had no choice but to spend some quality time with Eliza Reed. The ranch hands were out fixing fence-lines down by the reservoir and Sas was on duty at the hospital in a couple of hours. After the conversation he’d just had with Ryan, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him entertain their visitor.

  Nat turned Winter with pressure from his calf muscles and led Morven out of the paddock toward the main house.

  “A wolf, huh?” Ryan’s tone was dubious. Climbing onto the bottom rung of the paddock gate, Ryan swung on it as it closed shut. Finally he laughed and shouted just loud enough for Nat to hear. “So you’re a wolf, and she’s plain and mousy? I’m just trying to figure out which of you is more short-sighted.”

  ***

  “Can I ride?” Elizabeth muttered as her eyes shot darts into Nat Sullivan’s broad back.

  He’d stared down at her from that beautiful, gray horse and issued a challenge she’d just had to accept. She’d sent him a look designed to quell any more stupid questions.

  ‘Of course I can ride,’ the look had said, ‘do I look like a dummy?’

  She sniffed. Dug a tissue from deep in her pocket and blew her nose. She was an idiot. A teenager having weekly English-style riding lessons on well-trained hacks, in heated indoor arenas in Ireland, was a far cry from riding western through the frozen wilderness of Montana. She stuffed the tissue back in her pocket and kicked the horse on.