Hot Target

by Marliss Melton

Tristan tipped his head to consider her question. "Maybe he just didn't think it through. You're beautiful, so he grabbed yours wanting to know more about you."

  "Maybe." Except the only person who'd ended up learning more about Juliet was the cop, who'd been polite and profusely apologetic. "I wonder if that police officer ever worked on the force with Hans Coenen."

  Tristan's eyes narrowed. "You're not thinking Coenen had anything to do with that kid grabbing your bag."

  Juliet shrugged one shoulder. "I'm finding it a bit of a coincidence that the thief would target me, specifically, and when he failed, there was the cop—who may or may not have worked with Coenen—asking for my driver's license."

  Tristan sat beside Juliet and threw a casual arm around her. "That's what cops do, honey. How would Coenen have known we went to Fisherman's Wharf?"

  "Maybe he followed us. It's not like our yellow Camaro is hard to see," she drawled.

  "True, but I think you're stretching the limits of plausibility."

  She expelled a breath. Tristan was probably right. Given her rough day, Juliet allowed herself to lean into him. She even laid her head on the plane of his pectoral and closed her eyes. That felt better.

  "I'm sorry." Tristan followed his soft apology with a kiss on her forehead.

  She pulled back to look at him. "For what?"

  "I said I would protect you, but I let some kid almost rob you and a bus almost run you over."

  "Oh, please." She frowned at him. "None of that is your fault. I can't believe I fell off the curb."

  At that moment, her phone chimed, signaling the arrival of a text. Springing out of Tristan's embrace, Juliet went to collect it.

  "It's a text from Hilary," she announced, resuming her seat next to him.

  Tristan leaned closer, trying to read the small print.

  "She and Hack have found something." As she skimmed the long text, Juliet's enthusiasm immediately waned only to lift again when she reached the end. "OK, so get this." She summarized the highlights. "Coenen emigrated from South Africa around 1990, accompanied by his little sister, Bergit. They lived in Arlington, Virginia, where Coenen was hired by the police soon after becoming a U.S. citizen. But in 1995, a warrant was issued for Bergit's arrest involving a homicide. Oh, wow. There went big brother's prospects for promotion. That same year, Hans moved to California after being hired by the San Francisco Police Department. He worked for them for the next twenty years, retiring only ten months ago. Interestingly, he left the country last week to visit Chile, where key figures of the German Democratic Republic happen to have fled following reunification!" Juliet looked at Tristan, amazed at how neatly the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. "Hilary thinks Hans and Bergit were my mother's friends," she finished. "If they were, they had every reason to seek revenge."

  "It sure took them a long time to find her," Tristan commented.

  Her parents had been in witness protection for almost two decades. "That's the reason WITSEC didn't suspect foul play," she agreed.

  "Know what I find interesting?" Tristan turned on the bed to face her. "That Hans and Bergit lived in Arlington before Hans moved here. That's where your grandmother lives, where your father was from. I bet they watched his parents' house for years, hoping to find Anya that way."

  Juliet swallowed hard at the frightening thought. "I wonder why Hans went to Chile last week." A sudden thought occurred to her. "Wait a minute. A while back, Hilary mentioned one of Goebel's paintings was up for sale at an auction house in Santiago, Chile. You think he went there to buy it?"

  "Why would Coenen want Goebel's artwork?"

  Tristan's skepticism slowed her runaway imagination. True, it was Goebel who loved his art collection, not the spies who worked for him. Looking at her phone, Juliet skimmed Hilary's long text a second time, formulated a response, and texted her back.

  Find out who bought Goebel's painting at the auction in Santiago last week. And see if Bergit Coenen ever showed up in any records after the warrant was issued.

  Juliet's phone chimed as she sent her reply. It was Hilary, adding one more piece of information.

  "Stu—that must be Hack—is trying to find out where Goebel went after the CIA offered him asylum," Juliet relayed.

  When Tristan didn't answer, she looked up to find him frowning. "What are you thinking?"

  "That we should get out of the area."

  His surprising answer had Juliet lowering her phone to her lap. "Why?" How could she leave now when all evidence pointed to Coenen being her parents' killer?

  "If you're right about Coenen masterminding today's purse-snatching—and I'm not saying you are," Tristan was quick to qualify, "he had to have recognized you as Anya's daughter. Which means he must have known your mother. Naturally, Coenen would want to know more about you. He could have asked some thug he once arrested to grab your bag. And it would be easy for a former cop to ask a colleague to make an appearance at the scene to get your personal information."

  "So now you think it's plausible," Juliet pointed out.

  "I don't know. After hearing Coenen's history, though, I'd rather err on the side of caution. Is the information on your driver's license current?"

  "Unfortunately, yes." She'd been living in her current apartment for some time.

  "Damn. Coenen might have your name, license number, and street address. He could easily find out everything about you."

  Worry sprouted roots in her mind.

  "If he murdered your parents, Juliet, he's going to want to take measures to protect himself," Tristan added on a grim note.

  She swallowed hard at the thought.

  "Let's do something different." Tristan pushed to his feet to drive his point across. "Coenen has connections here. Let's go somewhere else—like Monterey, for instance. He's got your fake insurance card. If he wants to communicate, he can call your messaging service."

  The mention of Monterey reminded Juliet of Tristan's father, whom he was anxious to meet. She'd been so caught up in tracking down her parents' killer she'd forgotten all about Gary Sigmund. Guilt made her quick to agree to Tristan's suggestion. "That's a great idea. Let's go to Monterey and meet your dad."

  "Great." Tristan looked ready to walk out the door right then. "Should we pack?"

  "Um, I'm already stuck with the bill tonight," Juliet hedged, cringing at the thought of how much money she would forfeit if they left right then. Her body also felt too stiff and sore to sit in a car for several hours. "How about we leave first thing in the morning? We still have to get our tour of the city," she added, nodding toward the television.

  "Right." Tristan visibly wrestled with the idea of staying where they were.

  "Tell you what." Juliet stuck her phone back in her purse and pulled out her Ruger. "I'll leave my gun loaded and ready. If Coenen tries anything tonight, I give you permission to defend me." Slapping the magazine into place, she laid her pistol on the nightstand. "Good enough?" she asked, turning to face Tristan.

  "I'm going to need some more incentive," he said, shaking his head. "Can you take your clothes off for me?"

  "Hah." Tristan's innocent question made her laugh. "You take your clothes off," Juliet countered. "I don't strip for just anybody."

  "You'll pay for that." He shook a finger at her, but his eyes twinkled devilishly. "Lucky for you, I have no such reservations. Want to see?"

  Of course she did, but she wouldn't appease his ego by telling him so.

  Not waiting for an answer, Tristan started swaying to the cheesy music on the Pay-Per-View channel. Proceeding to strip, he lifted his T-shirt slowly over his abs, spinning it over his head before sending it flying. With a look of exaggerated sexiness, he freed the button on his jeans and tugged the zipper down slowly.

  In spite of herself, Juliet started to chuckle. "Oh, my God. Please tell me you don't moonlight as a Chippendale dancer."

  "Oh, but I do," he insisted. "Because I have so much free time." With the fly hanging open, Tristan worked his pel
vis back and forth until his jeans dropped to his ankles. He kicked them away.

  Juliet doubled over, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. But when Tristan's stance morphed from that of an entertainer to a predator, she straightened. Her laughter abated suddenly.

  "Pay up time," he whispered.

  With a squeak of alarm, Juliet tried scrambling across the bed to safety. Quick as a whip, Tristan caught her by the ankle and dragged her back. Seizing her waistband, he flipped Juliet over, deftly dodging the foot she raised to push him away.

  With the look of a satisfied buccaneer clad only in cotton jockey shorts, Tristan straddled Juliet's hips and proceeded to undress her, releasing the buttons of her blouse to expose her cream-colored bra. Her pulse raced at the prospect of a sex marathon like they'd enjoyed in Mexico. The aches and pains in her body mysteriously disappeared.

  "God, I love you," Tristan rasped as he gazed down at her.

  The unexpected words made Juliet's ears ring. Wait, what? Did he just say "I love you"?

  But he was already bending over her, freeing her breasts in order to suckle their tips, and Juliet allowed her pleasure to distract her from what he might have said.

  If he'd said the L-word, he'd probably uttered it in the heat of passion, and it didn't mean anything. Besides, Tristan had probably said it to a hundred women.

  Thrusting that unwelcome thought aside, she concentrated on the present moment, humming her approval as Tristan transferred his attention from her breasts to her lips, plundering her mouth in a way that portended a slow and thorough ravishing. Her very bones seemed to melt.

  The man could do things with his tongue that ought to be illegal. As if to illustrate, he worked his way slowly down her body, licking and nipping as he went. The traces of adrenaline still lingering from her close call that afternoon seemed to enhance every sensation. It felt so good to be alive, to have Tristan's hands gently shackling her to the bed as he forced her to endure his unique brand of torture.

  Freeing one hand, she finally managed to assert herself, using her lips, tongue, and teeth to make him groan.

  By the time Juliet climbed atop Tristan, impaling herself on his straining sex, it only took the feel of him filling her for her to come undone. He smiled at her loss of control, letting her melt over him. As Juliet floated down from bliss, Tristan flipped her onto her back and launched her into another frenzied state, where more of him was never enough.

  It could have been fifteen minutes later—or an hour—before they fell into an exhausted stupor. Lingering sparks of pleasure flitted over Juliet as she hooked one thigh over Tristan's smooth hip and pulled an errant pillow under her head. Hearing his rhythmic exhalations, she turned her head to study his handsome visage in the late afternoon light and realized he'd fallen asleep.

  God, I love you.

  The memory of his out-of-the-blue declaration warmed Juliet like a summer's rain shower. Why would it please her to hear him say those words? She wasn't his girlfriend. She'd never been in a long-term relationship with anyone, and she wasn't about to start now.

  "Please don't love me," Juliet whispered, too quietly to disturb him but just loud enough to let her conscience say she'd warned him. The last thing she wanted was to hurt Tristan when their lives went back to normal. With a heavy heart and a soft sigh, she yielded to her physical contentment and slid into slumber.

  Chapter 12

  "So what's your story, Stu?"

  They sat on Hilary's sofa, slouching comfortably in the movie's aftermath. With the lights off, she had to rely on the amber glow of the lights in the parking lot to see him. They had analyzed the movie's plot, the futuristic technology, and the players. Stu's insights had filled Hilary's head with ideas about future innovations and the fate of Planet Earth. She found herself wanting to mind-meld with him, the way Spock had done with Kirk on the Delta Vega. However, being fully human and not Vulcan, the only way for Hilary to get to know Stu was to ask questions. Unfortunately, Stu, who stroked the cat comfortably settled in his lap, didn't answer.

  The fact that Mitzie had cozied up to him, when any other human made her run and hide, made up for his reticence. Still, Hilary needed to know more. She had hoped the one glass of wine he'd consumed with the lasagna she'd baked earlier would loosen his tongue.

  "Where are you from?" She tried again, reframing her question to make it more innocuous. "You have an accent I can't put my finger on."

  "Vermont," Stu answered, swallowing the "t," in what was apparently a dialectal trait.

  "Brrr." She pretended to shiver. "I bet you can drive in the snow, can't you?"

  "Oh, sure," he said. Mitzie purred beneath his stroking fingers.

  Getting the man to open up was like pulling teeth. Hilary tried a different tactic—talking about herself first.

  "I grew up in Europe, mostly," she volunteered. "Germany and Italy, so I'm pretty good at skiing but not driving in the snow. Can you ski?"

  "Somewhat. We didn't do it often, though. Skiing is expensive."

  She pounced on the morsel of information, inferring from the comment that he'd grown up poor. "Who's we?"

  Stu hesitated. "Mom, me, and my three siblings."

  "Four kids," Hilary exclaimed, noting the absence of a father though not commenting. "I'm an only child," she confessed.

  "Must have been nice."

  She twisted onto her side to study him more intently. He had yet to touch her, not even to hold her hand during the movie. Oddly, after spending the entire afternoon and evening with him, Hilary felt more at ease in Stu's company than she'd felt with any man she could name. Even the dozen or so men she'd had sex with, some of whom she could not name.

  "Nice?" she queried. "What makes you say that?"

  "Peaceful, I mean," Stu amended. Because she'd requested clarification, he added, "No brothers and sisters fighting over stuff."

  The loaded statement gave her sudden insight into his childhood. "Being an only child is lonely, actually," she corrected him. "My dad was gone a lot, so it was just my mom and I most of the time. I wish I did have siblings."

  "No you don't," he said with certainty.

  Hilary frowned at Stu. "Why not? What was it like?"

  He heaved a rather desolate sigh and kept quiet.

  Fearing Stu would stonewall her, Hilary backtracked and broke her questions into more manageable units. "Were you the oldest?"

  "The youngest."

  That surprised her. She had envisioned Stu as the protector.

  "And the genders of your siblings?" she pressed.

  "Two brothers, then my sister, then me."

  She imagined him, small and spindly, observing his older siblings through the eyes of a genius. "What happened to your father?" she asked softly.

  Stu's hand stilled over the cat, which bumped his palm, urging him to continue.

  "Took off when I was a baby," he finally replied, resuming petting Mitzie.

  Hilary sat up straighter and searched Stu's shadowy profile. "You don't remember him?" Considering how lonely it had been when her own father was away, she could imagine the burden Stu's mother had borne.

  Stu shook his head. "No."

  At least he didn't miss his father the way she still did hers, although..."That must have been so hard on your mom."

  "Yeah." The single gruff syllable conveyed deep empathy for his mother's plight. Hilary waited, wishing Stu would elaborate, and he suddenly did, in a quiet voice that had her straining to catch every word.

  "My older brothers weren't much help. They got into fights at school, in the neighborhood, and with each other. They broke things in the house. My mom was afraid of them, so she never did anything about it."

  "Oh, my God." Hilary could picture it so clearly—Stu cringing as one of his big brothers broke a chair over the other brother's head.

  "What about your sister?" she asked.

  He was quiet for so long she thought he might not answer. Meeting her gaze in the dark, he said, "She slept around,
got pregnant. Married and divorced. I think she's on her third marriage now."

  The fact that he didn't know for certain implied that Stu and his sister weren't close. No wonder he'd been reluctant to talk about his dysfunctional childhood. And suddenly it made sense why Stu turned out the way he had. Being the youngest and blessed with his incredible intelligence, he had likely retreated into a world of his own, if only to escape the chaos and to give his hardworking mother a reprieve.

  "You didn't get into trouble, did you?" Hilary asked, wanting her assumptions corroborated.

  Stu's mouth quirked with amusement. "Well, I'd like to say I didn't but, I'd be lying."

  Disappointment tugged at Hilary. Served her right for idealizing the man.

  "In high school, I hacked into the local gas company and altered my mother's heating bill so we wouldn't get our service turned off. I didn't know how to cover my tracks back then, and the juvenile courts sentenced me to house arrest. But the good news was, I managed to delete the records of my mother's usage, so she didn't have to pay her bill."

  Her faith in Stu's heroism came surging back. "Yay!" Hilary cheered his vigilante efforts.

  "The courts confiscated my computer, so I ordered used parts and built myself a new one."

  "Of course you did." Hilary expected no less of him.

  "All that time at home certainly gave me more time to think. I'd heard rumors about the mayor, so I hacked the server at the municipal building and found some seriously incriminating photos he was storing there. I tried to finger him anonymously. However, since the cops knew my MO and I had a rap sheet, they got a warrant for my arrest and seized my new computer, which was all the evidence they needed. Luckily, the judge took into consideration that I'd caught the mayor distributing child pornography. He gave me a choice—go to jail or join the military. I chose the military, and it changed my life for the better."

  Stu fell suddenly silent as if realizing he'd said more in a minute than he usually did in the course of a day. Also, Hilary was grinning at him, which had to be making him self-conscious.

  "So you are a bad boy," she concluded.