Savage Angel

by Stacy Gail

  She whistled, impressed. “Why such a big show of force?”

  “Noah’s got money and he knows a lot of influential people in the state. It’d probably be an embarrassment if he wound up dead. It’s a game of CYA to send as many people as possible to show they’re doing a bang-up job.”

  Sara sighed. That sounded like the government. “I get having a social worker on your team to deal with the victims involved in an investigation. But a priest? That’s weird.”

  “From what little Agent Tuttle was willing to divulge, there’s apparently some sort of religious overtone to the case. He kept asking Noah about personal religious affiliations, where he goes to church, if there’s anyone new in the congregation, if he mixed his politics with his religious views. That sort of thing.” William grimaced as they rounded the edge of the rose garden and aimed for the front veranda. “Considering the victims have all been transplant patients, it could be the Feds are looking into the possibility of an extreme offshoot of a Christian Science faction.”

  “With something like that on their list of possibilities, maybe we should be thankful they’re not forcibly removing Noah into protective custody.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’d already be doing that if it were legal. As it is, they’ve promised hourly drive-bys from the local PD, and to keep us informed of any developments on the case if and when they have the time to do so.”

  Sara didn’t even bother rolling her eyes. “How civil of them. Are you on your way back to Florida now?”

  “With this latest killing so close, I’m going to risk sticking around for a few more days, so we’ll catch up later back at the office. You should know Marcel has chosen to stay up at the main house with Noah and his son for the time being. I get the feeling he’s determined to be your backup for this mission whether you like it or not.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  Sara’s sure steps almost stumbled. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember a personal question ever coming from her father while she was in the field. “I...of course. Are you okay?”

  “The problem is that you’re too much like me,” William sighed without really answering. “You’re focused, you’re single-minded, and you go into combat-mode whenever there’s even a hint of danger. And in our line of work, there’s always danger. We’re hard-wired to take it in stride, but the other parts of life...well.” He grimaced. “We’re not so hot when it comes to anything that doesn’t have to do with weaponry or hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Has my performance been substandard—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Sarafinah.” The look her father gave her somehow managed to both chastise and praise. “You know I think you’re perfect, even when you’re not. I just wanted to know if...if you were okay with who’s at the house now.”

  This time she let the eye roll fly. Being forced to tell her father about the one and only intimacy she’d ever had—and the obvious mistake it was—had been embarrassing enough for both of them. But to revisit it now made her want to dig a nice deep hole and hide in it until the whole absurd mess blew over. “There’s no problem on my end, I assure you. I’m locked onto the task at hand, and nothing will distract me from it. Noah is safe with me.”

  “That wasn’t what I was asking, but I suppose if our roles were reversed, that’s exactly the sort of answer I’d give.”

  Sara smiled up at him. “Maybe I really am too much like you.”

  “No maybes about it.” He hugged her shoulders before movement on the veranda above them brought their attention up to the group of Feds filing out, with Marcel bringing up the rear. William stepped forward, gesturing toward Sara. “Agent Tuttle, this is my daughter and team leader for Noah Mandeville’s security detail, Sara Savitch.”

  Agent Tuttle looked like he’d been put together with blocks. His head was a cube sitting on shoulders without a discernible neck in between. His bristly hair had no real color and was styled in a flattop so that it looked like his head had edges and corners. His thick torso was blocky as well, with squared-off shoulders and no hips, a squat sort of shape made that much worse by an off-the-rack suit in an unspectacular shade of woodlike brown. A reedy man next to him took the keys Tuttle handed him, while another man and woman in suits so similar they could have been bookends flanked Tuttle. Bringing up the rear was a short, moon-faced Hispanic man in the uniform of the clergy, the white tab collar stark against his olive complexion as he slid a pair of aviator glasses on.

  Game-face firmly drilled into place, Sara nodded her greeting at the group before focusing on their blockish leader. “Agent Tuttle, if LSI can be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to contact me personally.”

  The group descended the steps as one, with Agent Tuttle offering his hand. “A pleasure, Ms. Savitch. These are my colleagues, Alice Brookfield and Zach Marston of the special murder investigations unit, Father Antonio Vargas, professor of ancient religions at Saint Mary’s University and consultant for the FBI, and the young man getting the car is Felix Sampson, a behavioral scientist fresh from Quantico. We’re heading the investigation on the transplant patient killings, and I can assure you that we’re tracking down every possible lead. We’ll put this case to bed, but in the meantime it would be best for your client if we put him in protective custody.”

  “I have no doubt your people would be able to keep him safe, Agent Tuttle, but over the last century LSI has built a reputation that has no equal in the field of personal security. Like the FBI, we are more than capable of keeping Mr. Mandeville safe, but unlike the services you provide we are capable of offering personal security for our client while he remains in the comfort of his own home.”

  “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” The priest, Vargas, smiled, seemingly content to drink in the view from his place at the rear of the group. “Though from the sound of it, your family has every right to be proud of what they’ve built. Has LSI always been run by the Savitches?”

  “My grandmother was the one who founded Lynchpin,” William responded in his even, never-ruffled tone. “Rest assured we know our place in this endeavor. We’ll stay on the sidelines while doing all we can to protect our client. The rest is up to you,” he added, looking back to Agent Tuttle. “I think we can all agree that capturing the killer is the most effective way to protect Noah Mandeville from harm, so we know not to get in your way.”

  Just don’t get in ours. Even after the Feds had driven off and Sara and her father had done one last perimeter check before William also headed out, the unspoken words rang in Sara’s head. Naturally Lynchpin had dealt with various law enforcement agencies in the past, and while LSI agents were schooled to keep things cordial, it always wound up being a pissing contest. It was a drain of energy and a distraction no one could afford, so the best thing to do was let them go about their business while she focused on hers.

  She was confident they’d done everything possible to turn the Mandeville estate into an impenetrable fortress, a veritable prison in the reverse that kept Noah in and whoever was hunting him out. It might not be fair—hell, it was about as unfair as it got—but if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was how to protect those who could not protect themselves. She only hoped her client, and his son, would put up with it.

  As she moved up the veranda steps, she almost snorted at how her brain nimbly avoided Gideon, like he was a painful hangnail she didn’t want to bump. But damn it, she just couldn’t figure out how to shut down the conduit of emotion that was still attached to him, no matter how insufferable he was. Maybe it was because he was obviously in pain, hurting from a wound she couldn’t begin to fathom. Or maybe it was because something inside her was stupid enough to cling to her first impression of him—that he was a man worthy of her trust.

  Too bad that feeling wasn’t mutual. Gideon obviously didn’t trust her to protect his father, any more than he trusted her to fly to the moon. In his eyes she was a p
erson who was easy to conquer. After all, he’d done it without even trying.

  Talk about embarrassing.

  The corners of her mouth drooped, and she forcibly wrestled the thought out of her head. Thinking that way was a waste of time. Noah’s safety was in her hands and she would do her best to make sure no one got near him while the authorities tracked down the killer. The one thing she wouldn’t think about was Noah’s son. Like how her breath came to a halt whenever their eyes met, or how her heart fluttered like a mad thing whenever he was near. Or how his touch was the most fulfilling form of delight she had ever experienced.

  No. She wouldn’t think of those things. Not if she wanted to stay on top of her game.

  Marcel, Noah and Gideon were in the formal entryway, speaking in quiet tones, when she pushed through the door. Though she nodded to the group at large, her gaze zeroed in on Gideon like a magnet to steel, a fact which irritated her no end. Control had been drummed into her from the first moments of life, so this baffling breathlessness was absolutely intolerable. She had to get a grip on her messed-up priorities before she completely lost her mind.

  “The property is online and everyone is in their place,” she announced after dragging her attention away from Gideon. “No one can get in or out without us knowing about it.”

  “No person, maybe, but there’s still a way in.” Grim-faced, Gideon took a shoebox-sized parcel from Marcel, and she mentally kicked herself for being so dazzled by his presence that she hadn’t even noticed it. “Your people found this in the mail just now. It would seem my father’s location is compromised.”

  Without a word, Sara closed the distance and looked inside. A white dove with a broken neck lay within, along with a tarot card with an angel blowing a horn depicted on its front.

  “Judgment,” she murmured, reading the card’s title. But her gaze drifted back to the placid face of the angel, and in the silence her stomach twisted itself into acid-filled knots.

  Chapter Six

  There was no one on the planet more stubborn than Noah Mandeville, Gideon decided as he headed for the garage to close it up for the evening. It was obvious his location was now compromised, but would he leave? Hell, no. When the man should be considering a nice, long trip overseas, he instead dug in his heels and insisted that Lynchpin and Sara were all he needed to be safe.

  Sara.

  A rough sigh escaped Gideon as he stared blankly at the security pad by the garage’s main door. Time and again the memory of trying to eject her from this job flashed through his mind, and every time the memory of her stricken expression sliced him like a blade. She’d recovered almost immediately, as there didn’t seem to be anything that knocked her sideways for long. But it had been there. He’d made her hurt, deliberately, for no other reason than he’d wanted to be in control of something. So he’d tried to control Sara.

  Big mistake.

  She’d come way too close to the truth when she’d accused him of focusing all his energies on her, and it grated that she knew him better than he knew himself these days. And it wasn’t fair, especially when he knew zilch about her. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise, Gideon knew it was the worst kind of stupid to pretend Sara Savitch was the source of all his problems. He was the source, damn it. And if he didn’t get his head screwed on straight he’d not only make a dangerous situation even worse, he’d alienate her right out of his existence.

  Isn’t that the point?

  Gideon scowled as the thought surfaced. It was true; a day ago that was exactly what he’d wanted. More than anything he’d wanted to be alone for the rest of his foreseeable life. Even now the thought of the ugliness that was his soul spilling out to contaminate the people around him filled him with bleak despair. It was better to push her away before he became addicted to having her in his life.

  Except...

  Pushing her away was feeling more and more like running away. And God help him, he was sick of feeling like a coward.

  “Gideon.”

  As if his thoughts had conjured her out of thin air, Gideon turned to find Sara standing a few feet away in the near-dark, and he was amazed yet again that such a tall woman could move so silently. He was also amazed at how luminescent her skin was, even in the encroaching gloom. Her slanted dark brows and wide, too-kissable mouth stood out against the starkness of her pale skin, her eyes great, dark pools of fathomless mystery. She seemed almost unreal as she stood there in the light that was neither night nor day, as if even the slightest wrong move would make her vanish forever.

  No more wrong moves, dumbass.

  She held out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a copy of all the new security codes, as well as a list of my team’s cell phone numbers that you can call at any time. Your father has a copy of this list as well. I would like to encourage you both to memorize the codes as quickly as possible and input the phone numbers into your personal phones, then destroy that list.”

  He took the paper without looking at it, far more interested in the dark gray of her eyes. “Understood.”

  “Please keep all security-sensitive texts, cell phone calls and emails down to the barest minimum. If you have any pertinent security questions, issues with Lynchpin procedure or personnel, or unexpected schedule changes for either yourself or your father, my team and I would appreciate it if you’d write them down or meet with us face-to-face, rather than share this sensitive information electronically. Do you have any questions?”

  She was at parade-rest, looking so unreachable it struck a hollow chord somewhere deep inside him. But it was better for her to avoid him like the plague. Better... “How badly have I screwed things up with you?”

  The surprise that bloomed in her exotic face mirrored his own. That wasn’t what he’d planned on asking at all. Then the impassive mask she seemed to be in the habit of wearing clamped down tight. “There’s nothing for you to be concerned with, I assure you. Whatever unfortunate history we share is meaningless in the face of my duty to protect your father. Nothing will distract me from—”

  “Sara.”

  It was like someone had hit her internal pause button. Or maybe the longing he could hear vibrating in his tone had somehow severed her ability to move. Whatever it was, she stilled with a thoroughly uncharacteristic deer-in-the-headlights look, and that rare flash of vulnerability unraveled his resistance. He wasn’t good enough to be around a class act like Sara and never would be. He knew that. But...

  His hand raised on its own volition to her cheek, following that same instinct to touch her that had overwhelmed him when they were in his kitchen. Admittedly that hadn’t ended well for him. She’d moved so fast and with such precision that about the time his hand was making acquaintance with his shoulder blade, it occurred to him that he might not know what he was dealing with when it came to Sara Savitch. But he didn’t care. She fascinated him in a way no other woman ever had, and made him harder than any woman ever could. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t good enough for her, or that she should run a country mile to get away from him. He didn’t want her to run away, any more than he wanted to let her go.

  She turned her head away from his hand with a swish of her glossy ponytail, her steely gaze glued to the darkened horizon. If snubbing were an Olympic event, this one would have earned her the gold.

  “I see.” Gideon’s voice was rougher than he’d intended. Small wonder. The longing to touch her, taste her, was rising like a rogue wave to drown out the dead certainty that this could only be bad for her. “I guess I should thank you for giving me an honest answer.”

  A muscle in her jaw jumped as she kept her face averted. With the greatest care—because pulling back a bloody stump was a real possibility—he traced the taut muscle with curious fingers before palming it. “I... You’re imagining things. I know I’m not good in dealing with people, but even I can figure out when I’m not communicating with them. And right now I’m choosing not to communicate with you.”

  He had to sm
ile at that. “But you are. Sort of.”

  She turned her head further away. If she went any further she’d give herself a crick in the neck. “No.”

  “Right now you’re letting me know you’ve just about had it with me. Just about...but not quite.”

  “Oh, really?” Her tone was as remote as the moon. “Pray tell, how am I telling you that?”

  “Body language.” With a tenderness he’d believed he was no longer capable of, Gideon caressed a thumb over her cheek to rest at the corner of her wide, made-for-kissing mouth. “You’re not moving away from me, and you’re not knocking my ass to the ground like we both know I deserve.”

  “Don’t tempt me.” There was a bite in her tone, but it was as weak as a kitten’s. That rallied him enough to inch closer, until he could breathe in the ginger-spicy scent she favored as his body rubbed, feather-light, against hers.

  Feather-light or not, where there was friction there was a danger of igniting a spark. A tiny intake of breath whispered from her, telling him in no uncertain terms she wasn’t immune to the allure of the flame. With a compulsion that should have worried him if he’d slowed down long enough to think about it, he devoted himself to the task of wringing that fluttery sound of arousal from her again.

  His free arm curled around her waist to press against the small of her back. It didn’t come as a surprise to find her stiff and unyielding. But miracle of miracles, she wasn’t blasting him into the next zip code. His eyes closed, savoring the moment before his lips glided a tentative caress against the arched line of her neck. When he’d been overseas he’d spent countless hours lying awake in his bunk, fighting the devouring darkness inside him with hardcore daydreams about Sara. They’d been filled with exploring her silken skin in ways he’d been too greedy to do when he’d raced to bury himself inside her on their first meeting. His desperation then had been understandable; the most knock-’em-dead woman he’d ever met was suddenly smack in the middle of his path mere hours before he was to be shipped off to the world’s foremost hellhole. With that kind of pressure hanging over him like an axe about to fall, it wasn’t any wonder he’d hastened things along.