Hidden Hearts

by Susan Kearney

“Not on the phone.” Normally Roarke would have let his friend complain and elaborate, but they both knew who owed whom. Roarke had saved Carleton Jamison’s FBI unit. In thanks, Carleton’s wife Natalie had named her first-born son after Roarke.

  “Meet me at the phone booth at Main and Ninth with your gear. You do still know how to use it?”

  “Very funny. What happened to your kit?”

  “Lost it when I got carjacked.”

  “Yeah, right. With your luck, there’s a lovely lady involved.”

  “Of course. I’ll introduce you if you like. Give my love to Natalie.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Hey, Carleton.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep your eyes open.”

  During the thirty-minute ride to meet his friend, Roarke explained to Alexandra that Carleton worked in the FBI’s Jacksonville forensic lab, searching for clues on dead bodies to track down drug runners. His friend worked mostly nine-to-five and stayed home on weekends with his family.

  Roarke parked next to the phone booth on the totally deserted street amid abandoned warehouses, apartments and junkyards. “Alexandra, this is Carleton.”

  “Nice part of town to bring a lady, Roarke,” his old friend teased, then his eyes widened as he took in Alexandra’s slim beauty. “You’re lucky I’m married, ma’am. Or I’d steal you away from him.”

  Alexandra raised a brow. “A faithful husband? I like that in a man.”

  Roarke kept his voice low. “You two don’t need to be getting cozy. Alexandra, take that gun out of your purse. Shoot only as a last resort.” He turned to Carleton. “I need prints. Some time today might be good. I need the identity of the man who used this phone earlier today.”

  “You after him?”

  “He’s dead,” Roarke’s tone was grim. “I want his boss.”

  Carleton took out his fingerprint dusting kit. “Was he wearing gloves?”

  “Nope. I had a clear view of his hands from the trunk.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t see the number he dialed.”

  “I’ll get that information from the phone company. He made the call at half-past noon.”

  Carleton held up his hands. “Don’t tell me any more. I don’t need to know.”

  Roarke knew his friend ran a squeaky-clean operation. Carleton never broke the law. He never even skirted the edges of the law. And he slept well at night. But then he had Natalie and three charming rugrats at home.

  “Getting anything?” Alexandra asked while the two men worked slowly, paying special attention to the receiver.

  “We’re getting too much.”

  “There are prints all over,” Roarke explained. “But we’ll run them through a computer file and see who has a record. He leaned over Carleton’s shoulder and used a tool to jimmy the coin box.

  “Hey,” Carleton protested. “That’s stealing.”

  “Not if I put the coins back after you take prints off them it isn’t.”

  Carleton shook his head. “Alexandra, I should warn you, this man makes his own rules.”

  “He’s saved my life twice. Maybe three times,” Alexandra said softly. “That counts for a lot.”

  “You don’t have to pay him back by falling for his smooth-talking charm,” Carleton advised her. “I didn’t.”

  Roarke chuckled, accustomed to Carleton’s frank talk but curious about how Alexandra would take the remark.

  “That’s good advice, Carleton. I’ll remember it.” Clearly Alexandra wasn’t offended. In fact, she seemed amused. “I take it from your warning that you don’t think Roarke is husband material?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You better be damn careful what you say,” Roarke threatened.

  Carleton wasn’t the least bit intimidated. “Roarke hasn’t been ready to take on a woman since Sydney died. But I think you’ve rattled his cage.”

  “I’m going to put you in a cage if you don’t shut up,” Roarke complained, but somehow he couldn’t put any sting into his words. Carleton must have caught the vibes between Alexandra and him the moment he’d seen them together.

  And Alexandra was good for him. Dreams that had died were starting to come back to life. He was once again thinking about his future. The question was what he intended to do about it.

  ALEXANDRA LIKED Roarke’s friend Carleton. The man had an innate honesty about him that appealed to her. That Roarke had such a friend corroborated her own good opinion of her bodyguard and increased her trust in her own judgment about men—which had been sadly lacking since she’d parted with Patrick.

  Carleton had headed to his office to compare the fingerprints they’d found in the phone booth with the FBI’s extensive files. Roarke would call his friend from a pay phone every hour or so for an update.

  Meanwhile, she and Roarke were heading to the phone company to see another of Roarke’s contacts. Alexandra had been surprised to learn that while regular office hours were nine-to-five, many of the utility’s operations stayed open around the clock.

  When Roarke pulled into a drive-through at a fast-food place, Alexandra realized that her stomach had been rumbling for hours. He handed her a burger, fries and a chocolate shake, and she bit into the food with relish, not minding in the least that if she’d gone to St. Augustine she could have been eating gourmet food in one of the city’s fine restaurants. She’d much rather be here with Roarke.

  Watching him work intrigued her. He was so self-contained, so confident and smooth. Observing him thinking on his feet and unraveling the mystery surrounding them was akin to watching Tiger Woods putt or Pete Sampras serve at Wimbledon. Roarke was a professional who played for the highest stakes—their lives. And he wore the responsibility with style, comporting himself with the confidence of a superstar athlete.

  After their very long day, he didn’t look at all weary. He still held his posture ramrod straight, his eyes still checked the car’s rearview mirror every thirty seconds, and he did his job while noticing the tiniest of details about her.

  He handed her a napkin. “You have ketchup on your bottom lip.”

  She wiped her lips and popped a French fry into her mouth, chewed and swallowed before speaking. “How do you stay so alert?”

  “Habit.”

  “Aren’t you feeling sleepy?” she asked curiously.

  “A catnap might be nice.”

  Catnap? She’d like to sleep for twelve solid hours. Roarke had unusual stamina, and she hoped she wouldn’t slow him down too much.

  He pulled into the facility and at the gate handed the guard identification. The guard waved them right through, asking no questions.

  She gazed at him curiously. “Come here often?”

  “Regularly enough to know that if I slip the guard a hundred-dollar bill, he’ll let me inside.”

  “If we get caught, are we going to be arrested?”

  “Probably.” The prospect of spending a night behind bars didn’t seem to faze him. “Are you wishing you’d stayed in a safe hotel?”

  “I’m wishing you might tell me, in advance, what kind of trouble you expect.”

  He parked the car, walked around and opened her door. “I don’t expect any trouble. Who’s going to catch us? The guard who just took my money? I don’t think so.” He took her hand and tugged her toward a side door. “It should be unlocked if Carleton remembered to call Rosa for me and tell her that we’re coming.”

  “Rosa?”

  “She’s a sweetheart. Has a voice like an angel.”

  She could tell by Roarke’s tone he was really fond of the woman. She could also hear from his teasing words that he wanted her to be jealous. No doubt Rosa would turn out to be sixty-five years old.

  But again, Roarke surprised her. He opened the door and led her down a brightly lit hallway to a door marked Records. He knocked twice and a beautiful Hispanic woman let them inside. Lush curves matched a luminous smile and huge, wide-set brown eyes. She wore a plain blue dress with only a deli
cate gold crucifix around her neck for flash, but even in rags she would have been knock-down gorgeous.

  The woman threw her arms around Roarke’s neck and kissed him right on the mouth with a happy squeal. “It is about time you came to see me.”

  Not the least bit embarrassed at the sultry greeting, Roarke placed his arm over the woman’s shoulder. “Rosa, I’d like you to meet Alexandra Golden, a client of mine.”

  Alexandra held out her hand to shake.

  Rosa ignored it and embraced her, kissing each cheek in the European manner. “I am happy to meet you, Alexandra Golden. What can I do to help?”

  Alexandra sensed a story here. The beautiful woman had the manners of an aristocrat, the regal bearing of royalty, yet she worked in the phone company? With Rosa’s looks, she could have modeled in Paris or New York. But now was not the time to ask questions. And surprisingly, Alexandra didn’t experience the slightest twinge of jealousy. While she suspected that Roarke had helped this woman in the past, and Rosa would help Roarke any way she could, she appraised him through the eyes of a fond sister, not a lover.

  “You have been working too hard again? Si?”

  Roarke nodded, his blue eyes piercingly honest. “Perhaps. Someone is stalking Alexandra. We need phone records from a booth on Ninth and Main from between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. today.”

  “Let me make you a printout. While I work, help yourselves to some coffee.” Rosa pointed toward a kitchen area for employees that was currently vacant.

  Alexandra led the way and poured coffee into throwaway cups. She took a seat at a table opposite Roarke and pushed sugar and cream his way. But like her, he preferred his coffee black.

  She sipped the coffee and looked at Roarke over the brim of her cup. “Where did you meet Rosa?”

  Roarke stared into his coffee, his voice dark, yet even. “I helped break up a sex-slave ring in Central America. She had been taken captive by a general.”

  “You freed Rosa?” Alexandra guessed.

  “We fled out the front and were fortunate to escape. Another agent and Rosa’s twin sister had died trying to go out the back.”

  Alexandra could hear the sorrow in his voice and realized anything she might say would seem trite. Roarke took failure hard. Any failure. She supposed his caring so much made him very good at his job, yet she wondered if he slept well at night. Did nightmares rise up to haunt him?

  “Rosa could find work on a Paris runway as a model. Why is she working here?”

  “She’s still hiding. She can never go home. Never see her family again. She may have to hide for the rest of her life.”

  “The general?”

  “Is obsessed with finding her.”

  “And where is this general now?”

  “He’s vice president of his country, and supreme commander of the army.” Roarke’s tone implied he wished he could put the man six feet underground in an unmarked grave.

  The click of Rosa’s heels interrupted their conversation. She swept into the room, a paper fluttering in her hand. “As usual, you are very lucky. Only two phone calls were made during the timespan you specified.”

  Rosa handed the printout to Roarke who stood and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.”

  “You are welcome, my friend. Be careful, and go with God.” As they walked out of the building, Roarke looked at the phone numbers. Alexandra leaned over his shoulder and read along with him. The first called a taxi. But the second call went to Rome.

  “Rome? I don’t understand.” No credit card or phone card had been used. She didn’t remember a huge number of coins dropping into the phone. “Did that man put enough money into the phone to make an international call?”

  Roarke shook his head. “His call was rerouted through several satellites.”

  “So the call can’t be traced?”

  “Not with the equipment available to Rosa.”

  Alexandra walked to the car and stopped to look at Roarke. “What kind of criminals have the ability to reroute calls?”

  “Sophisticated ones.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Some government agencies routinely reroute their calls and encrypt the messages.”

  “You mean like the military?”

  “Or the FBI or the CIA.”

  A shiver of fear shot down her spine as she climbed into the car. All along he’d kept telling her they might be up against a government agency, but she hadn’t really believed him—until now. The phone printout had just confirmed their suspicions. More than ever, she wanted to give up the documents before someone was killed, but from the look of determination on Roarke’s face, she knew she had her work cut out to convince him to see things her way.

  “We need to make one more stop before we turn in for the night.”

  She bit back a groan of protest. “Where are we going?”

  “Just to a pay phone to call Carleton. Let’s see if those fingerprints turned up anything useful.”

  “GOT ANYTHING GOOD for me?” Roarke asked Carleton.

  “Five hits.”

  Roarke held the phone receiver so Alexandra could hear, too. “Tell us more.”

  “The first two guys are in the minor leagues. Then we’ve got an ex-con wanted for murder and rape, another for grand larceny. And then it gets real interesting.”

  Roarke could hear the excitement in Carleton’s voice, and his hopes of solving this puzzle rose. “Our last fingerprint came off a quarter and belongs to one Simon Smithee.”

  “So?”

  “He worked for the Agency twenty-five years ago.”

  Roarke figured Smithee was one of the men he’d killed that afternoon. Obviously Smithee had quit the Agency for more lucrative work. It happened sometimes. Good men went bad under the pressure. Roarke didn’t understand Carleton’s excitement.

  “And here’s the kicker.”

  Next to him Alexandra held her breath.

  “My records say that Smithee died during a wet assignment in the Soviet Union over twenty-five years ago.”

  But Roarke had killed him that morning!

  “So who was the guy in the phone booth?” Alexandra asked.

  “Ah, that’s the million-dollar question,” Carleton told her. “If Smithee had died two decades ago and someone else took his identity, the fingerprints wouldn’t match. So either Smithee faked his death, and he was still alive to make that phone call earlier—”

  “—or your records are wrong,” Roarke finished for him.

  “It’s always a possibility,” Carleton admitted cheerfully. “I tried to check who he worked with and which division he’d been assigned to and came up with classified codes I can’t break. Sorry.”

  “Hey, you’ve been a big help. Thanks.” Roarke hung up the phone, his mind swirling with endless possibilities. Twenty-five years ago, the Agency’s record-keeping system was in the process of being switched from paper to computer. The likeliest possibility was that Smithee had died and the records were wrong. And yet…Smithee would have been an operative at the same time as Alexandra’s parents. A connection too coincidental to ignore—especially since her mother’s papers had included a picture of a known CIA spy. Besides, Smithee had bragged about killing Alexandra’s biological father.

  “Don’t you have contacts in the CIA who could check on this Smithee guy?” Alexandra asked as they drove toward a safe hideout Roarke had used before.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to set off any alarms. We don’t know if this is a legitimate operation or someone freelancing on the side. And since we don’t know who is involved, asking the wrong person could get us killed.”

  “So now what do we do?”

  “Let me sleep on it. I do still have some friends I trust. I’m just worried that if they start asking questions…” Roarke ran a hand through his hair. “I wish I could talk to your brother. Compare notes.”

  Alexandra’s voice filled with worry. “Do you think it’s odd that he hasn’t shown up yet?�
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  “Not if he’s undercover. I wouldn’t worry about Jake. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He hired me to protect you, didn’t he?”

  His comment, as he’d intended, brought a smile to her lips. “That’s what I like about you.”

  “What?”

  “You’re so modest.” She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Camping.”

  Her eyes popped open. “Camping?”

  “Camping. To spend a night outdoors.” He defined it for her, a teasing lilt in his tone.

  “Are you talking about camping—like in a tent?” She didn’t sound pleased. In fact, she sounded downright miffed.

  “It’ll be too easy for someone to find us at a hotel—”

  “—which would have hot and cold running water.”

  “—and I’m much too tired to drive across state lines into Georgia—”

  “—I could drive,” she volunteered.

  “—and so are you.”

  When she didn’t utter any further protests, he swallowed a grin of approval. Still, he couldn’t resist teasing her a little more. “Haven’t you ever gone camping?”

  “Once.”

  From her tone he figured the episode had turned out to be a complete disaster. “Tell me.”

  “I must have been about eight and had a friend over for the night. We camped in the backyard.”

  How dangerous could that have been? “Did you get mosquito-bitten?” he teased her, thinking about his snug tent. The only thing he’d let bite her tonight was him.

  “Mom and Dad cooked us hamburgers and we had a nice fire. We roasted marshmallows over the flames and burned our tongues on the gooey insides. We took our flashlights with us to our sleeping bags and zipped up the tent. We told each other ghost stories and fell asleep.”

  “Sounds peaceful enough.”

  “Well, it was until I woke up in the middle of the night with a creature standing on my chest.”

  “What kind of creature?”

  “A raccoon must have smelled the marshmallows still sticking to our faces. I shoved the raccoon off me, and my friend was bitten by the raccoon’s mate.” Her tone became grim as she finished, “She had to go through the series of rabies shots. It was pretty awful.”