“Audience?” Um, what? He looked annoyed with himself for his word choice. Perhaps her hands sliding down to his abs had done a much better job of distracting him than she’d realized and he was just confused.
“I’m pretty sure we’ve got the Irish outside on a roof, and Homeland Security are across the street in their SUV. This isn’t counting the buyer’s people, if they tracked you, or my own men outside, and to be perfectly honest,” he kissed the line of her jaw, “I’d like our first time to be private.”
Her foggy brain just wasn’t keeping up. “Hey, I know you’re all Super Agent Guy and protective—but all of those people are in a place we civilians call the outside and we are on the inside, and there’s bulletproof glass and a security system that would keep out God, so we’re okay. Unless you think Nina’s got cameras up in here or something, but I’d kill her and she’d have had sense enough to warn me. So see?” She unbuttoned the top of his jeans. “Completely private.”
“No,” he said, but he paused to kiss her stupid as he pressed her into the bed. Every part of her body caught fire. If she could just get a little closer and a whole lot more nekkid . . .
He stopped himself, rolling away, lying on his side to face her. “Jesus, Sundance, the world goes away too easily when you’re around. But we have to stop. You don’t want to do this in front of cameras.”
Cameras? For real? She studied his expression and crap, he was serious. She sat bolt upright. “How in the hell did they get cameras in here? Past Nina’s security? And why are we still here? And—”
“Whoa. Slow down. Not in here, per se.” He sighed. Dammit, Trevor was not a “sigher.” “They’ll probably have thermal optics.”
“Hang on . . . thermal-whats?”
“Optics. They allow the viewer to see heat signatures through walls. Anything that generates heat will show up, glowing red, while everything else remains black.”
“That sounds like something they made up for the movies.”
“It’s very real, and some of the units are pretty sophisticated.”
“How sophisticated? What all . . .”
“People, animals . . .” he hesitated, then a sexy grin spread across his face, “. . . appliances.” She followed his glance over to the big armoire Nina had in the corner—the one they’d discovered housed all sorts of sex toys for Nina’s S&M magazine modeling shoots—and then she made the connection he implied, from Nina’s toys to her own, remembering just what was in her top dresser drawer back at her trailer. An item which generated a helluva lot of heat. Amusement lit his sinful blue eyes.
“So,” she stammered out, grabbing for a sheet to cover herself more. “You’re telling me that you used thermalwhatsits on me . . . at my trailer . . . and . . . and . . . you know all about . . .” She gestured back at the armoire, indicating the toys, not actually able to say the word “vibrator.” Oh, sonofabitch. She jumped out of bed like she’d been hit with a 220 volt of electrical current, and she didn’t know what to do or where to run. Instead, all she could manage was to gape at him, open-mouthed. It didn’t help that she was standing there in front of him, dressed in skimpy pjs, with Trevor grinning at her with a dead sexy grin as if this was all funny and just—dammit! She threw the nearest thing she could lay a hand to—a candle—straight at his head. He ducked, the bastard. Laughing.
“It wasn’t always in your dresser drawer,” he growled. She narrowed her gaze, and he moved his SIG to the other side of where he sat, out of her reach. “Though I didn’t realize what you had gotten out of the drawer the first time—and only time—I saw what you were doing. You made my life a living hell. I had to force myself to turn off the thermals whenever you went near that dresser. Talk about killing a man.”
Had her head spun entirely off her shoulders? Had she completely levitated, while her head rolled across the floor? Because it felt like it had. So this was how he always knew all of the right little things to do to seem so intuitive about her, like buy the damned chili dogs. Or exactly where Nina lived, without her having to tell him. Or a dozen other little things he’d done that made it so comfortable to be with him. Her inner fourth-grader wanted to kick him.
“You spied on me. Gathered . . . data? And probably made reports.”
“Not about that,” he said, nodding toward the armoire, indicating the vibrator they had managed not to name thus far. “Never about that. But pretty much everything else, yes.”
She couldn’t believe how nonchalant he was. Who in the hell was this guy? Where did he get off?
Oh, baaaad word choice, and she blushed all of the way to her ears.
“Sundance,” he said, sitting forward, closing into her space where she stood beside the bed, “you were the focus of the attention of a master money launderer—he had your name as the owner of that tiara a long time before he put your brother’s kidnapping into play. You were a big variable, and it’s my job to know the variables. My job was to investigate you while I was working for him; we had to know where you stood, ethically, what kind of person you were, especially if you could be bought.”
“Like I’d betray my own brother.”
“You’d be surprised how many people would. Look,” he said, standing, “I know you’re uncomfortable with this. I know how much your privacy means to you.”
“Well, I guess you would, now, wouldn’t you?”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When? When you had me in bed, knew all of my secrets while not telling me any of yours? You’ve used information to make me comfortable. To manipulate me. How am I supposed to know if all of this”—she gestured between the two of them—“isn’t just so you can keep track of me and the diamonds. Keep me close, get your hands on them.” And then a realization dawned on her. “Or that guy, MacGreggor? You knew he was here, looking for the diamonds! So you conveniently show up, all sexy and hot and romancy and Jesus! I fell for it.”
“You’re pissed off.”
“Well, isn’t that a firm grasp on the obvious. You should look into being a spy or something.”
“This,” he said, gesturing between them as she’d done, “is not about this case. Or any case. I want you.” She blinked, shocked at his bluntness. “I want you for you. Not for any other reason. And I think you know that.”
“How in the world do I know that? I don’t even know you.”
“Like hell, you don’t.” He stepped closer, inches away. Had she done it again? Believed in smoke and mirrors, believed in something that was just, simply, not true. Of course he was arguing his position—he still needed her for the case. If there was a reality TV show for the World’s Worst Judge of Men, she’d win, hands-down. “We,” he said, leaning into her, “are nowhere near done. I care about you more than you know.”
“Very pretty words, Trevor. Well rehearsed. They almost sound real.”
His cell phone rang from the nightstand, shrill, and she jumped from the noise. He glanced at the screen, then back to her. She could tell he wanted to say something, but he pulled on his t-shirt instead, grabbed the phone and, just when she thought he was going to leave without saying anything else, he spun, yanked her to him, and kissed her.
Hard.
She tried pulling away, but he held her tighter, and holy Mother of God if the man didn’t know exactly how to make her completely insane with lust. Even though she hated him. (That’s when Hormones piped up with the argument that they were perfectly okay with being a slut while hating him.)
She pushed him away. “I am so not falling for you.” Shit. For that. She meant to say falling for that.
He raked her with a gaze, up and down, and watched her blush again. “Wanna bet?”
He left the room, and she sank down on the bed, her head spinning. Fact, fiction, everything blurred. It was Alex, the gunrunner’s web of lies, all over again. Wasn’t it? She sat there for a few minutes in a fog of fury when she heard someone pounding on the front door. He must’ve gone outside and forgotten the code to get back in, a
nd she realized she actually wanted him to come back so they could finish that argument. Because now that she’d had time to adjust to the fact that their entire relationship was based on lies—or omissions, rather—she was ready to tear his ass to pieces. The sonofabitch had spied on her.
She jumped up, dropped the sheet, grabbed a robe, and hurried to the front door, only to see it opening. She slid abruptly into the sofa, trying to scramble backward as she realized the hair of the man coming in her front door was much darker than Trevor’s, and shit, she needed Maimee’s Glock from her purse, and it was over on the table. . . .
And then she realized she was looking at Cam, who was about as livid as she’d seen him in a long, long time. Which probably meant he was going to be awarded a Guinness Book of World Records entry for “most pissed off in one person.”
Just perfect. Apparently, sometime in the middle of the night, she’d taken the express elevator to the second level of Hell, Know-It-All Asshole Division.
Cam wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there just inside Nina’s front door when a hand smacked him in the chest and he realized Bobbie Faye was standing so close he could smell the shampoo in her hair, that stupid fruity stuff he’d liked so much. He could tell she hadn’t blown her hair dry after her shower because it was curly, framing her face as she looked up at him expectantly. Jesus, this was a bad idea. He should have sent Benoit. Or hell, even Jason from dispatch would have been better at questioning her without being distracted, especially with this freaking headache, which would have made normal conversation strained, and just added a layer of refried pain on top of their conflict.
“Cam?” There was panic in her voice. “Is something wrong with Stacey?”
“No.” He shook himself out of his stupor. “No, she’s okay. I checked on her before I left for work. Mom said she was a little wired last night—after you called, Stacey wrangled too many cookies and didn’t want to fall asleep, but she’s having fun.”
She pulled her hand away, and he could feel the heated imprint through his cotton shirt as if she’d branded him. Then he felt something at the back of his neck, almost like a wisp of smoke, and he had his gun out as he spun to face the kitchen archway; Trevor stood leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, gaze narrowed at Cam. The bastard hadn’t even flinched when a gun was drawn on him, and Cam and the agent stared at each other over the barrel of Cam’s gun.
“Nice to see you, too, Detective,” Trevor said.
Cam lowered his gun. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Staying in a safe place, I thought,” Bobbie Faye answered. “I had this wacky concept, call me crazy, that if the door was locked, people would stay on the other side and knock.”
“For someone trying to stay safe,” Cam sidestepped the issue, “you’re being stunningly sloppy. I could have been anyone barging in here.”
“If you had been anyone else,” Trevor said, “you’d have been dead before you stepped in the door.”
Bobbie Faye glared at Trevor. “The phone call. You knew he was on his way up here, and you didn’t tell me.”
“We were a little busy,” Trevor said, and Cam snapped his attention to the agent, and back to Bobbie Faye. He wasn’t sure of the meaning, since the agent remained poker-faced, but Bobbie Faye’s expression was steeped in anger. “Breakfast in ten.”
“At least he has sense enough to keep you out of the kitchen,” Cam muttered, and Bobbie Faye smacked him on the arm.
“That toaster had it in for me, it is not my fault it caught your kitchen on fire, so quit bringing it up. And back to the point, what the hell are you doing? Specializing in breaking and entering now? Have you lost your mind?”
“I need to speak to Bobbie Faye,” he told Trevor, but Cam’s gaze stayed on her face. Cam understood, then, from the way she returned his gaze, that she hadn’t just been referring to him barging into Nina’s with her “locks” comment—she must have seen him breaking into her trailer. He turned back to the agent. “Privately.”
“Well, that would be new,” Bobbie Faye countered, glaring at the agent.
Trevor nodded to Cam and left the room as quietly as he’d entered.
Benoit squatted at the entrance to the alley where Sal had been shot; the remnants of the police tape fluttered from the streetlight a few feet away. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to find that might help Bobbie Faye. The PD and crime scene techs and FBI had all been over the alley with meticulous precision. He had low expectations of finding a single clue, much less something that would help his friend, but he’d resolved—somewhere in the tug of war between duty and instinct—that he ultimately had to side with the fact that he’d known Bobbie Faye since high school, and she couldn’t be a murderer.
The scene looked so entirely different in the early morning light than it had on the surveillance footage. He slowly scanned the turn-of-the-century buildings which had been refurbished just a few years back; rustic, faded red brick warehouses that sported the patina of more than a hundred years of weather made the place warm and welcoming, while simultaneously, the updated tinted windows, freshly painted trim, and extravagant moldings gave the place the feeling of luxury.
As he looked over the area, he paid particular attention to where the two surveillance cameras that should have captured the activities in the alley were located.
Interesting.
He walked over to where the murderer had stood, and looked back at the cameras, double-checking his theory: the murder had taken place in the direct line of sight of both cameras. Ten feet deeper into the alley, and only one camera would have caught the activity. Another five feet, and the murder would have been out of the range of vision of both cameras.
If the woman brought a gun and shot the man in cold blood—which she’d clearly done—did it make any sense that she wouldn’t have at least cased the place prior to the event? It didn’t look like a crime of passion, or a spontaneous decision, and it was clearly not self-defense. So, then, if she’d walked the alley even once to scope out the security, surely she would have noticed that she could have lured the jeweler a little deeper into the alley without risk of being caught on camera. The streetlight—located at the entrance of the passage—hadn’t illuminated the back part of the area, if Benoit’s memory served him. In fact, he mused as he walked farther to the back of the road, the murderer had nodded to someone who’d remained in the shadows right here . . . so was it intentional that she chose to stop where she did to shoot Sal?
Why bother to fake Bobbie Faye’s identity if the murderer hadn’t known, for certain, that she’d be recorded? She could have just worn a cap or hat, or some sort of disguise to cover her head and face, and she would have remained anonymous, especially if she’d chosen the shadows. And if this line of thinking was correct . . . then how angry was she now that the two surveillance tapes had disappeared without exposing the Bobbie Faye identity to the police? If someone had set that up as a frame, what would they do next?
And not a single bit of this reasoning helped Bobbie Faye.
Benoit looked at the case from the point of view of a cop, as well as that of the DA, who was also his friend. Bobbie Faye had a reputation for helping people out of jams, even if that meant bending and breaking the law. She’d skated off the last disaster without being charged (and there were a multitude of charges which could have been levied, starting with destruction of public property to reckless endangerment . . . crap, the list was too long to think about); he suspected the only thing that had saved her ass then was Cam and, possibly, the Fed, Trevor, pulling strings. (Of course Cam, the idiot, hadn’t told her he’d called two senators on her behalf.) Even without a clear-cut motive, a good DA—and his friend was damned good—could argue that she habitually allowed the means to justify the ends, that she had grown accustomed to the law not holding her accountable, and so she’d come to the point where she believed that she could get away with killing Sal.
For what reason? Benoit didn’t know, but with the
sheer number of crises involving Bobbie Faye yesterday, he was willing to bet his badge that something major was up. It wouldn’t be all that hard for a DA, and probably most any jury, to leap to the conclusion that anything that would drive Bobbie Faye as hard as she was driven the day before was probably extremely compelling, and if she’d mangle a house and blow up a bridge, was murder all that hard to believe?
John watched through the sights of his scope as Bobbie Faye talked to the asshole cop, Cam. They both looked over at someone else in the room, but that person remained out of John’s sight. Now they focused completely on each other again. Arguing, it looked like. They were usually arguing, though, so it was no surprise.
He didn’t have a shot. Neither did the men he’d hired.
It had taken a couple of hours from the time he’d made the call to the time his assistants had arrived. Once he had the operating budget wired into his account from the buyer, John worked fast, hiring the best he knew in the merc business. There was a brief moment when he thought about going after the diamonds himself, but he’d decided he’d rather not turn into the target. Besides, the rewards were going to be significant: enough freaking money to live on for a couple of years and getting even with Bobbie Faye.
The two hours he’d waited for the mercs to arrive had been passed scouting out where Bobbie Faye had gone after she left Marie’s. Lake Charles was a small town, and there weren’t that many hotels to check. Discreetly spreading around cash got him past the morals of a host of hotel clerks, and since every one of them had been a dead end, he moved on to Bobbie Faye’s friends. Nina was the closest friend, and her place wasn’t on any four-one-one, but John knew a couple of the models Nina used for her agency. Now, if Bobbie Faye would just move into his sights, everything would be perfect.
Nina had no intention of going to sleep—she’d get her job done there in Taormina and wrap things up with the photo shoot in the villa, both of which would probably take a couple more hours. There was a corporate jet fueled up on the runway at Catania; thank God it was a military base—she’d get first preference flight out. Flight time back to Louisiana was about twelve hours, if they pushed it, and she had a feeling she needed to be home. She dialed Bobbie Faye’s phone number, only to smile when she heard her friend’s extremely grumpy hello.
Girls Just Wanna Have Guns Page 13