by Cindy Dees
“Nah. Hotel security forbade it,” he answered in disgust.
She glanced at him in surprise. “And you actually followed the rules?”
He snorted. “I sure as hell won’t from now on. Who’s the dead guy?”
“Dunno. His name badge says he’s conference security. Goes by Claude Dufresne. He looks European.”
He raised a skeptical brow. “And how does a European look?”
She answered absently as she rummaged in the dead man’s pockets. “Bad teeth covered with nicotine stains from unfiltered cigarettes.”
Okay, he’d give her that one. A certain group of Europeans certainly fit that set of parameters.
She continued under her breath, “His credentials look legitimate. I think he actually was conference security.”
“We’ll have to verify that. If this meeting is compromised, we’ve got a big problem on our hands.” A huge problem, in fact. “It’ll be a mess if the conference has to be delayed or rescheduled—”
She interrupted his train of thought as he started to spin out the alarming possibilities if this economic summit failed. “Tom, you’ve got a bigger problem than that. Someone just tried to kill you.”
“You don’t know that for sure—”
She cut him off briskly. “I was looking directly down the bore of this guy’s weapon. The back of your head was his target.”
“I didn’t hear a shot.”
“He had a silencer on the weapon. I saw the sideways flash when he fired.”
He frowned, still skeptical.
She added with scant patience, “The cops can recover the round and do a ballistics analysis to confirm it. But in the mean time, I’ve got to get you undercover. Have you spotted the second shooter?”
“Nope.”
“We’ve got to assume he’s still out there, then. Stay low and follow me.”
He jolted. Follow her? She could follow him. He retorted, “I’ll go first.”
“You’re the target. I’ll go first.”
“You’re the girl—”
“Shut up, Rowe.”
Well, okay then. He tried another tack. “You’re not exactly dressed to crawl around out here.”
“I’ll survive. Let’s go.”
He watched in shock as she hiked up her ball gown around her hips and commenced scrabbling along in a shockingly efficient low crawl, her belly barely an inch off the ground. It took huge strength do that. Where in hell did Paige Ellis develop that kind of power? He knew male Special Forces soldiers who couldn’t do it that well.
Shouting voices in the distance sounded like they were approaching. The cavalry coming to the rescue, no doubt. Paige stopped in front of him in the shadow of an overhanging banyan tree. He pulled up beside her, elbow to elbow. The length of her thigh pressed against his, strong and slender. And damned if she still didn’t smell good.
She glanced sidelong at him, a glint of humor in her eyes. “Wanna stick around to talk to the authorities? The way I hear it, you like them about as much as you like journalists.”
He snorted. “Snakes or lizards—take your pick. I suppose you’re going to want to dust yourself off and jump in front of a news camera and cover this, aren’t you?”
She frowned. “It’ll be a hell of a breaking story. Unfortunately, I have somewhere else to be this evening.”
He matched her scowl, inexplicably irritated. “You got a hot date or something?”
“Or something.” She pushed up to her hands and knees and then to a standing crouch. “You have fun evading the cops, Tom.”
“You’re leaving me?”
“Now that every security guy on the island is converging on this garden, I expect you’re about as safe as you’re ever going to be. Our shooter is either bugging out right now or is already gone. He won’t stick around for the entire French Polynesian police force to surround him.”
She was right, but for some reason, he didn’t like the idea of her leaving him. There was something electric about her presence. She stood upright and commenced dusting off her gown. “Need help with that?” he asked.
She glanced at him. “Lay a hand on me and you’ll withdraw a bloody stump, buddy.”
He snorted with laughter. “Big words from a little girl.”
She turned and stalked off into the shadows. He glanced down, perplexed. Barefoot. Again. She’d been barefoot on the beach this morning, too. He’d noticed then that she had nice feet. High arches and pretty toes with sassy red nail polish. He jogged after her and caught up. “Where are you headed?”
“Back to my place. Thought I might clean out my refrigerator.”
“Ah.”
They walked quickly back toward the hotel, dodging the bulk of the security personnel streaming toward the source of the gunshot. Without warning, Paige grabbed his arm and yanked him off the path into a stand of bushes that had some sort of sharp, prickly frond.
He murmured under his breath, “I knew you were attracted to me, but I had no idea you were this desperate.”
She glared at him and whispered, “They would spend all night questioning us, and meanwhile you wouldn’t be getting any safer. I need to get a security perimeter set up around you.”
A pair of police officers raced past them. Another pair. Lots of shouting erupted behind them in the vicinity of the dead man.
Paige stalked back out to the path and took off toward the hotel without waiting to see if he caught up with her. A security perimeter, huh? It kinda made a guy feel loved. This could turn out to be an interesting conference, after all. Not to mention, damn, she was fun to tease. She rose to the bait so easily for him.
They’d almost reached the brightly lit hotel before he broke the charged silence by asking, “Who’s coming to collect Ando?” Maybe now that someone had tried to kill him, she’d be a little more forthcoming with him. And indeed, she was.
She answered, “An American forensics team. They’ll try to determine cause of death and look for anything else on the body that might help catch the killer.”
“This is going to make a hell of a story for you.”
She threw him an exasperated look. “If I was going to break the story, I’d have done it this morning when I found that bag on the beach.”
He countered, “There’s nothing to stop you from breaking the story now.”
“Yeah, except national security interests and the safety of everyone at this summit.”
He stared. “Are you telling me you actually have a conscience and think about these things?”
She rolled her eyes and merely strode along faster.
He lengthened his stride to keep pace with her as the hotel loomed.
She muttered, “We shouldn’t be seen together. I’ll walk around to the front through the gardens. You can go inside here and kiss whoever’s butt you need to.”
He grinned. “They mostly kiss mine.”
She retorted dryly, “Well, you enjoy that then.”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. She veered away from the ballroom, which appeared to be in an uproar and was emptying quickly. He veered with her. The gardens in this area were crowded with guests and he murmured under his breath, “I’ll give you a ride back to your place.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I never said it was. Nonetheless, the offer stands. My car’s over there.”
Although she glared at him when he took her by the elbow and steered her into the parking lot, she made no further protest. He escorted her to the passenger side of his Jeep and steadied her as she swung into the vehicle. Her ball gown hung up on the door and their hands collided as he reached for the satin to release it. His gaze snapped up to hers.
Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. And something flared in his gut in response. It was lust. Just lust. It had been quite a while since he’d been with a woman. Truth be told, until Paige showed up, he’d been cruising the party in search of a female who’d go for a little meaningless sex. Plenty of women at these aff
airs knew the score. A few nights of mutual pleasure, no strings attached, no promises. A nice piece of jewelry when it was over, and everyone went their own way. But here he was instead, driving away from the hotel with a virago who’d bite his head off if he even hinted at the idea of jumping into the sack with him. He sighed.
Thankfully, for a busybody, she was capable of keeping her mouth shut now and then. The short ride to her cottage was quiet.
He turned off the beach road and stopped abruptly, flipping off his headlights. “I see lights on at your place. How do you want to play this?”
She studied the pair of large, dark SUVs parked in front of her cottage for several seconds. “I’ll take care of it. You head on back to the hotel. And thanks for the ride.”
Did she seriously think he was just going to toss her to the sharks like this? Without comment, he watched her climb out of the Jeep and square her shoulders. Leaving the lights off, he backed up the vehicle and pulled away. But he only went to the beach road before he pulled over and tucked the Jeep behind a stand of palmettos. His tuxedo wasn’t exactly ideal for sneaking around in the bushes, but it would have to do. After a mental apology to Giorgio Armani for ruining his tux, Tom plunged into the dense undergrowth.
With every light blazing in her little house, it was an easy matter to make his way unseen practically to her back door. Three coplike guys who sounded American were clustered in front of the open door of Paige’s refrigerator examining the bag stuffed inside it.
Four more suited men, who sounded local, were standing by glaring and muttering among themselves. One of them turned to Paige and snapped, “Why were we not informed of this discovery immediately?”
“Monsieur Martine,” she answered evenly, “I notified my government immediately. They deemed the security of the summit more vital than following the exact letter of police procedure.”
“You have interfered with a police matter, madame. You face serious criminal charges.”
Tom watched with interest as Paige’s gaze went the temperature of an arctic glacier. She responded in that same measured tone of voice, “You face a much more serious problem than me, monsieur. When word gets out to the members of the summit that one of their own was murdered, you’re going to have a wholesale flight of many of the delegates from the island. And how will you explain to your superiors that your failure to protect the delegates and or to keep a lid on this security breach caused the collapse of an important international summit? Not to mention the negative impact it’ll have on tourism revenue to your island when I break this story. Every wire service in the world is going to pick it up. There will be a feeding frenzy over it.”
The police inspector blustered and broke into angry French that required no translation. Paige crossed her arms to wait out the guy’s tirade. Tom couldn’t help but notice the spectacular things the pose did to her cleavage in that low-cut gown. The blue satin had seen better days after tonight’s adventures, but the dress was still magnificent on her.
Paige finally interrupted Martine. “Which is it going to be? Am I breaking the story of Ando’s murder on my network within the hour, or are we all going to be discreet and cooperative with one another about this?”
More grumbling from the inspector, but the guy was weakening.
Paige continued in a cool voice. “Inspector, unless you’re planning to arrest me, I need to go to my news bureau. I have a story to file.”
“And exactly what story will that be, madame?” the inspector demanded.
Paige shrugged. “For the record, I am under no obligation to answer your question. But as a courtesy, I will tell you that I do not plan to mention the tragic death of Mr. Ando just yet. His family should have a chance to be notified in private before they hear of it on the TV news. I do, however, plan to broadcast the story of tonight’s attempted shooting of Thomas Rowe.”
Tom jolted. He couldn’t be splashed all over the news like that! If her network broke the story, the others would be crawling all over him before long. He had to stop her. At all costs. He couldn’t afford any publicity. Not here. Not now. She’d ruin everything.
Chapter 5
Paige sailed out of the cottage and sagged against the porch railing as her bravado abruptly evaporated. She had no intention of publicizing Ando’s death—her role in it was suspect for one, and secondly, it really could cause a panic at the summit. The United States was committed to seeing this economic conference come off without a hitch, and to that end, she wasn’t about to rock the boat.
The shooting at Rowe, however, was an entirely different matter. He was a private citizen not attached to any delegation. He was also high-profile tabloid fodder. A shooting at him was the stuff of sensationalism, not necessarily serious news or a threat to the summit. She had no compunction about splashing him all over the news.
Who had the second shooter been? Was he or she a threat to the summit, too? Did she break the news story first or proceed with a military investigation of the shootings? Be a reporter or be a soldier?
Swearing under her breath, she headed for her car. Thank goodness she’d taken a cab to the ball earlier and her MINI Cooper had still been at her cottage. Pointing the tiny car back toward the hotel, she came to a decision. Report the story now while the police were still crawling all over the ballroom and the gardens. Later, when the excitement had cooled down, would be soon enough to go forth and do her Special Forces thing.
She turned her attention to composing her news story’s lead off. “Shots taken at American billionaire on eve of summit.” Or maybe she could get away with, “Billionaire bad boy shot at.” That would get Rowe’s goat. She grinned just imagining the expression on his face if she used that line. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot of details on the dead shooter. She’d have to go with a simple breaking news angle. Admittedly it would open up the investigation of who’d shot at Tom to all the news media, and she hated to give up her current advantage over her fellow journalists. But better that another network solve the mystery of why someone had tried to kill Tom than have him end up dead.
She blinked. Stared at the road unfolding before her headlights in minor shock. Was she actually concerned about Thomas Rowe’s well-being? When had that happened? She pulled into the hotel parking lot and hurried to the World News Network’s temporary bureau in a conference room on the resort’s ground floor. Her boss, Greer Carson, was in the room, a cell phone plastered to each ear as usual. How he held two conversations at once like that was an abiding mystery to Paige.
She sat down at the lighted table, yanking a brush through her hair, fixing her ruined makeup and cleaning up her dress as best she could. Her disheveled ball gown was a little low cut for a broadcast, but it would do for a short breaking-news segment.
In the mirror, she watched Greer hang up both phone lines. She talked fast as she applied powder to her face to knock down the glare of the camera lights on her skin. “Greer, you’ll never guess what happened tonight. I was dancing with Tom Rowe when a sniper took a shot at him. Barely missed him. I can be ready to go with a breaking-news bit as soon as you have a live feed up to the network back home.”
“Yeah. About that…” his voice trailed off.
She pivoted on her stool, alarmed. She so didn’t like that tone of voice. “What? What’s going on, Greer?”
“I gotta kill that story.”
“Why?” she burst out. “It’s huge. It’ll be a scandal back in the States. He’s one of the most eligible bachelors in America—heck, maybe in the whole world.”
“Sorry, kid. Can’t do it.”
Paige stared at him in shock. Then she choked out, “Who got to you?”
Carson shook his head at her. “They played the national security card on me. Nothing I can do about it.”
They. She hated They. Who was They, anyway? They never had a name but was responsible for just about everything that went wrong in the world, it seemed. Her gaze narrowed. In this case, though, she had a darned good idea just wh
o They was. Or more accurately, “He.”
She slammed the powder brush down on the makeup table. “Gee, Greer. Thanks so much for your underwhelming support. Since when did you lose your spine?”
And with that, she stormed out of the newsroom. She probably wasn’t being entirely fair to Greer. After 9/11, the U.S. government had been granted broad powers to curtail the media in the name of security. It was possible that Rowe hadn’t killed the story at all. But not probable. It made her furious to think that anyone was interfering with fair and unbiased reporting of the news.
A twist of guilt in her gut took her by surprise. It wasn’t like she had any room to talk on that subject. She’d interfered just as badly with the reporting process when she’d stuffed Takashi Ando in her refrigerator and not broken the story. She’d told Vanessa Blake she would be a reporter and a Medusa simultaneously. But her boss had been right after all. On her very first assignment to wear both hats at the same time, the worst had happened. She’d been forced to choose.
She’d been a journalist for a long time. Was she ready to set aside her professional standards as if they didn’t count for anything? Frowning, she slowed her reckless charge through the hotel lobby. She spotted a deep armchair in a quiet corner and headed for it. Could she do this Medusa thing after all?
She thought about it for a long time, weighing the pros and cons. She loved being back out in the field as a journalist. She loved chasing a story, trying to figure what was happening and why, the adrenaline and pressure of it all. But she loved being a Medusa, too. She’d gotten a rush out of chasing down the first shooter, knowing how to respond in a crisis, not panicking and freezing up in a life-or-death situation. No solutions were forthcoming, however, and fatigue weighed down her eyelids.
Paige must have dozed off because she blinked awake some time later. The lobby was quiet, mostly deserted. She glanced at her watch. Nearly five o’clock. She went into the newsroom and pulled out the bag of exercise gear she kept there and changed into running attire. Then she headed down to the beach and put in a hard six miles in the sand as the sun began to rise.