Hot Target

by Marliss Melton

  * * *

  "Do you see him anywhere?" Juliet sent a nervous glance over her shoulder then looked back at the group of tourists thronging to the point ahead of them.

  "I think that's him right there." Tristan nodded toward a man seated on a boulder tying his shoe laces.

  As the man straightened, the shape of his silvery head caused Juliet's innards to lurch. "It is," she affirmed, switching on her surveillance device.

  Tristan's grip on her other hand tightened. "I'll leave you here with him and walk ahead," he said, his voice gravely with reluctance.

  "Thank you. I'll be fine," she promised.

  As they drew parallel to Coenen, he looked up at them. Tristan leveled him with a distinctly chilling glare, released Juliet's hand, and continued to forge the path alone. A bracing breeze rocked Juliet as Coenen pushed to his feet and closed the distance between them.

  The glimpse of his face at the window the day before had prepared her somewhat for the visceral shock of meeting him face-to-face. Still, his pale gaze seemed to run her through.

  "Hello," she said, managing a cool smile.

  With a scant nod of recognition, he cataloged her features wordlessly. Juliet imagined he was comparing how she looked to his memory of her mother.

  "Do I look that much like her?" She seized the opportunity to broach the real purpose of their meeting.

  Coenen's gaze jumped from her neck to her eyes. "I'm sorry?" He pretended not to know what she was talking about.

  "Like Anya, your old friend, the one you recruited for the Directorate."

  His pale eyes narrowed, concealing any reaction to her words. "I don't any Anya."

  Dismay pinched Juliet. She had hoped to startle a stronger reaction out of him, but his self-control was superb. Even his German accent was nearly gone. Juliet managed a condescending smile. "I know all about you, Mr. Coenen. My mother left copious notes," she added, exaggerating grossly.

  Thoughts might have flickered behind his carefully blank expression. He kept quiet, forcing her to fill the strained silence.

  Juliet's heart began to thud. She had only one more chance to startle a reaction out of him. "I was there when you murdered my parents, Mr. Coenen. I saw you look through the car window." She had meant to sound like a cool-headed interrogator, but the pent-up horror of witnessing her parents' deaths got the better of her. She heard herself continue to accuse him, all the while fighting to keep her voice steady and waiting for Coenen's stony expression to crack.

  "You see, I was there in the back seat. You looked right at me, but you never saw me. You didn't call for help, either. Why would you? It was you who masterminded the accident, jamming my mother's seatbelt, disabling the airbags. You thought of everything, didn't you?"

  The only indication he'd heard her was the subtle creasing of the lines on his broad forehead. Otherwise, Coenen held perfectly still while his trench coat snapped in the wind and his thin white hair fluttered. Juliet pressed on, determined to get a response that would betray his guilt.

  "You must have been monitoring their phones for some time to know their destination that night and when they'd be on that road. But you didn't know about a last-minute change in plans. You didn't know that I went with them. I saw you, Mr. Coenen. I know what you did."

  At last, a muscle twitched in his cheek, indicating she had struck a nerve.

  Juliet paused, sucking in the air needed to feed her hammering heart.

  "Sorry, miss." His voice could have frozen running water. "You've mistaken me for someone else."

  With those dismissing words, Coenen inclined his head and stalked past her, retracing his steps to the village in a swift but unhurried stride.

  Swallowing a scream of pure frustration, Juliet whirled and watched him retreat. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she battled the impulse to chase after him and pummel him until she exorcised her fury. Her thoughts went to her gun, which was, fortunately, in Tristan's hands.

  Turning to look at the point, she found Tristan heading her way, his gaze fixed and worried.

  With Coenen putting more and more distance between them and needing a moment to collect herself, Juliet started for the parking lot. As she walked, she switched off her recording device, crushed that what she'd filmed had in no way advanced her investigation.

  She had underestimated Coenen's professionalism. He had arranged for them to meet so he could feel her out while revealing nothing about himself, a skill he'd clearly perfected as an East German mole and later a police officer. All she'd managed to do was alert him to potential murder charges. Her calculated risk had backfired. Now that he knew why she was after him, he had time to manufacture an alibi, to find a good lawyer, maybe even flee the country, joining his sister in Chile, where Bergit might well still be, given she was wanted for murder in the states.

  Tears of frustration blurred Juliet's vision as she allowed herself an emotional moment. The shivering that had wracked her the day before started up again, forcing her to clench her jaw.

  "Juliet!" She could hear Tristan calling, so she slowed her step, composing herself as he caught up to her.

  She had just smoothed her features when he tugged her around. Taking one look at her face, he swept her into a consoling embrace.

  "You did great," he praised, hugging her so hard the pistol in his pocket gouged her belly.

  "I said too much," she admitted, suddenly angry with herself. "I only meant to rattle him, but I couldn't stop talking. Now he knows everything I know."

  She squirmed free of his embrace, but Tristan kept hold of her shoulders.

  "Give yourself a break, OK? What you did took some serious balls."

  His choice of words drew a short laugh out of her.

  "We'll call the FBI over lunch. We'll tell them what you witnessed as a kid and why you're sure Coenen was responsible."

  He sounded so eager for her to hand over her investigation that she nodded with reluctance. "OK." It didn't look like she'd be able to implicate Coenen on her own anyway. Worse than that, the man might feel compelled to hinder her investigation permanently—by quietly murdering her. A shiver of concern snaked through her. "What if he keeps following us?" she asked.

  "Already thought of that," Tristan answered. "We're going to change vehicles."

  "How do we do that?" she asked.

  "Easy." He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket. "I call Hertz, and they bring me one."

  She watched him thumb his keypad. "Why would they deliver a car to you?"

  Tristan winked at her. "'Cause I'm special."

  Listening to him introduce himself and spin a yarn about how the Camaro wasn't handling well, Juliet guessed that the people at Hertz still thought of him as the famous NASCAR racer. He even had the gall to request an Audi TTS.

  "Hour and a half?" He glanced at his tactical watch. That's perfect. "We'll meet you in the front parking lot. See you then. Thanks." He grinned at Juliet as he put his phone away.

  "Well, I guess you are special," she relented.

  He raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Are you mocking me?"

  As much as she wanted to keep him in his place, she had to admit she couldn't have faced Coenen without Tristan nearby. "Not this time," she replied.

  His smile grew as he waited for her to say more—possibly even to admit that she loved him. Yes, he was special, but there were limits to how close she could let him get.

  Tristan chuckled at her reticence. "Good enough," he decided. "You ready for lunch?"

  The thought of food turned Juliet's stomach. However, a quiet moment in an ocean-side restaurant was exactly what she needed to regain her poise.

  "Sure," she agreed. "And then I'll call the FBI."

  * * *

  Two hours later, Tristan eased their sleek silver Audi TTS onto California's CA-1, pointed in the direction of Monterey.

  "Why an Audi?" Juliet had asked him when the Hertz employee first pulled up in it.

  "Used to own one," he'd explained.
"I like the way it handles." He hadn't told her the real reason—that he was worried Coenen might come after them. If Juliet's life was in Tristan's hands, he wanted to have the fastest vehicle at his disposal, one he knew how to handle.

  He pictured a scene straight out of The Fast and the Furious, in which he executed a drifting maneuver around a deadly road bend, while the villain chasing them smashed into the guardrail, then over it, splashing into the ocean below.

  There was no sign of Coenen following them. All the same, Tristan wasn't going to ignore the cold sensation in the pit of his stomach. Jeremiah had taught him to pay attention to it. Hence a vehicle with a six-speed dual clutch and 292 horses under the hood.

  Glancing at his quiet companion, Tristan wondered if Juliet realized exactly how dangerous Coenen might be. If he'd worked for Goebel, he'd probably killed for him more than once.

  Sitting straight as a board in the bucket seat next to him, Juliet white-knuckled the purse on her lap. The vigilant look in her gray eyes suggested she was every bit as aware of the dangers as he was.

  If only she'd managed to speak with an actual FBI investigator. The call center had connected her with the voicemail of an agent where she'd left a concise but powerful message. Like every other federal employee in the country, however, the investigator was out of the office in observance of Columbus Day.

  Since the call, she'd turned tense and pensive. Tristan tried to think of something to lift her spirits; the best he could do was to deliver them as speedily as possible from Coenen's sphere of influence. Edging his speed to five over the posted limit, he hoped to convey them to Monterey by twilight.

  The terrain grew steep. Sunlight glanced off the hood of the vehicle as it zipped uphill, following the edge of a precipitous cliff. They came to a section of the highway called the Devil's Slide, named thusly for the eroding sandstone. A few years back, the state had transformed the most dangerous portion of the highway into a walking path. Two brand new tunnels funneled travelers safely through the crumbling escarpment to the other side.

  The north and southbound lanes split, each disappearing into their own brightly lit, one-way tunnel, with only a single lane of traffic. Tristan sped into the southbound passage. Hearing Juliet's indrawn breath, he looked over to find her glued to her seatback, eyes fixed on the curving cylinder ahead.

  What the hell? "You OK, honey?"

  "Claustrophobic," she bit out.

  Well, damn. The woman had a chink in her armor, after all. Wanting to alleviate Juliet's distress, Tristan accelerated, shifting into a higher gear until the lights along the side walls turned into a solid line.

  Within seconds, they tore out of the enclosure and back into the sunshine. Juliet heaved a sigh of relief. Tristan felt good for having rescued his damsel in distress, until a glimpse into his rearview mirror banished his satisfaction. Tucked into the shadows right outside the tunnel's exit, sat a black and white patrol car just waiting for some hotshot like him to come screaming out of the tunnel at well over the speed limit.

  Chapter 14

  Tristan weighed the benefits and drawbacks of a high-speed chase. Not even a turbo-charged police cruiser could keep up with him in the TTS. Tantalizing images about what he could do around turns tempted him to outrace the cop. Unfortunately, the plates on the rental would lead straight to Hertz, and then to him. He'd be charged with evading the law, which meant Tristan's task unit commander would call him into the office and chew him out until his ears singed. Totally not worth it.

  "Oh, crap." Juliet had noticed their predicament.

  Tristan prayed for the cop to let him go. Of course not. Blue lights flashed, and a siren split the quiet as the cruiser pulled out in pursuit.

  Tristan slowed and looked for a safe place to pull off.

  "It's my fault," Juliet stated, taking the blame for his speeding.

  "Relax, honey," he soothed, dropping two tires onto the soft sand at the side of the road. "Sometimes I can talk my way out of a ticket." He kept the car idling in the expectation of being able to do precisely that.

  "Wait, how do we know this guy's not a friend of Coenen's?" she asked, clutching her purse tighter and craning her neck to peer out the small back window.

  Tristan considered the possibility and dismissed it. "Coenen is SFPD," he reasoned. "This is California Highway Patrol—you know, like the seventies TV show, CHiPs. Watch Eric Estrada come walking up to my window and tell me I was going ninety in a forty-five," he added, hoping to humor her.

  Juliet didn't even crack a smile.

  A uniformed officer bellied up to Tristan's car door—literally. Standing maybe five feet tall, the man was no movie star. Barely an adult, with smooth cheeks devoid of facial hair and a build like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, the young officer regarded Tristan through a pair of dark sunglasses before scrutinizing Juliet.

  "You know why I pulled you over?"

  "Yes, sir." Tristan found it hard to use the respectful title for this boy officer. "How fast was I going?"

  "Eighty-six in a forty-five."

  "Ouch." That was going on his driving record. Pleading chivalry wasn't going to cut it with the frowning Dough Boy.

  "Is this your car?" the young officer asked.

  "It's a rental." Tristan pulled his driver's license from his wallet. "Honey, can you look in the glove box for the rental agreement?"

  "You in the military?" Dough Boy had caught a glimpse of Tristan's other ID.

  "Yes, sir." Tristan handed them both over. Sometimes a military ID got him off with only a warning, but it was never as effective as his old NASCAR membership card. Too bad he'd had to turn it in when he gave up racing.

  The officer studied both cards. "What do you do in the Navy, Petty Officer?"

  Tristan found it grating to be grilled by a man ten years his junior. "I'm a radar tech on a destroyer," he lied.

  Out the corner of his eye, he saw Juliet look at him sharply.

  "Where are you based?"

  "San Diego," Tristan said. Why make Coenen's job easier if this kid was, in fact, his puppet?

  "You're a long way from home," Dough Boy stated, taking note of Tristan's North Carolina driver's license.

  "Yes, sir."

  Plucking a pen from his breast pocket, Dough Boy scratched something onto his clipboard. He handed back both of Tristan's IDs, eschewing the rental agreement Tristan started to give him. "You can keep that. Better slow down, Petty Officer," he counseled. "There are some tight turns up ahead."

  Tristan just looked at him. "Yes, sir," he finally said. "Thank you, sir."

  If Dough Boy recognized his sarcasm, he didn't show it. Giving them a swift nod, he turned and waddled back to his car. Tristan watched him in his side mirror. It wasn't the first time his military service had gotten him out of a speeding ticket, but something felt different about this particular incident.

  Juliet sat stiffly back in her seat. "I can't believe he let you go like that."

  Tristan couldn't either. No patrolman worth his salt would have let him get away with breaking the law so flagrantly. Or maybe the officer was still so inexperienced, he hadn't known how to handle himself. Maybe Tristan's superior size had intimidated him. Tristan didn't think so.

  Dough Boy may have been tasked with finding out more about Juliet's partner. For all Coenen knew, Tristan could be working for the FBI.

  Keeping his suspicions to himself, Tristan boasted in response to her comment, "Hey, they don't call me the Golden Boy for nothing." Shooting her a careless grin, he eased their rental off the shoulder and back onto the highway.

  * * *

  "You really are a Golden Boy," Juliet admitted as they pulled away from the gate to the postgraduate school where Colonel Sigmund taught. Tristan had just convinced the guards standing watch that he was paying his father a surprise visit and he needed directions to the colonel's house, as Hilary hadn't been able to dig that much up in her research.

  When Tristan didn't answer, she regarded him more closely.
"You OK?" she asked as he pointed their vehicle toward Gary Sigmund's home.

  "Yeah, sure," he said on a distracted note.

  He was scared, Juliet realized. For the first time since she'd known him, he wasn't brimming with his usual confidence. For reasons that she didn't understand, his sudden insecurity tugged at her heartstrings.

  "It's going to be fine," she heard herself comfort. "He's going to love you."

  The vulnerable look he swung at her prompted her to stretch out a hand and place it on his thigh and rub it encouragingly.

  "What makes you so sure?" he asked.

  "Tristan." She laughed at the absurdity of his doubts. "Look at you. You're amazing. Anyone would want to claim kinship with you."

  Her words met with lengthy silence. Peering at the upcoming road sign, he changed lanes and slowed to make the turn. "What about you?" he finally asked her. As he picked up speed, he shot her a sidelong glance.

  She could sense where he was going with his question; still, she tried do dodge it. "We're not related."

  "We could be," he answered.

  His oblique reference to marriage made her pull her hand back. Her stomach cartwheeled. "We're not talking about us. We're talking about your biological father. Let's focus on him right now."

  "Right," he agreed, though his tone suggested he didn't see the difference.

  To Juliet's relief, he slowed in front of one of the larger homes in the housing area. Tristan parked along the curb and killed the engine. Dusk had fallen. Lights shone in the house's lower-level windows, and two cars sat in the double driveway, suggesting his father was home and that he wasn't alone.

  Without another word to her, Tristan rolled up out of his seat and rounded the car to collect her. He reached for her hand, relieving her worry that he might remain upset with her. Together, they crossed a sparse lawn to the covered porch. Juliet discerned the tang of the nearby bay. A televised sportscast playing in the house sounded over the chirping of crickets. Tristan's palm felt distinctly moist against hers. He blew out an audible breath, raised a hand, and gave the door a knock.

  Light steps sounded, and the door swung inward. A fit, middle-aged woman holding a beer bottle sent them both a welcoming smile.