Leaving her doorway, she crept toward the stairs, still listening intently for any noise that might indicate another human presence.
One stair at a time. She moved with the stealth of a cat down the long staircase, hearing only the knock of her heart against her rib cage.
At the bottom of the stairs she paused, her gaze finding reassurance in the darkness that greeted her on the bottom level.
She padded lightly across the foyer floor and into the living room where the moonlight sliced through the darkness and cast shadows across the walls.
She wasn’t afraid of shadows. What she feared was a living, breathing person like Adam or worse, Burt. Even the taciturn Ramona could cause problems if she caught Cassie sneaking through the house in the dark.
A faint illumination coming from Adam’s office stopped her in her tracks. Was Adam working? The illumination in the room was too strong to be moonlight, but too weak to be a desk lamp.
Drawing a deep breath, she peered into the room and relaxed as she saw that the light shone from his computer screen and there was nobody in the room.
Apparently Adam’s arrogance was so huge, he felt assured that nobody in the house would betray him, nobody in the house would enter his study and access his files.
He hadn’t counted on her. She crept into the office and peered at the computer screen. A screen saver was up and running, sending tropical fish swimming across the flat screen monitor.
She punched the enter button and the screen saver disappeared. “Damn,” she breathed under her breath as she saw the amount of files contained in the system. It would take her a year to go through the content of all the files he had stored.
Instead of trying to look at each one, she quickly entered the Windows program and read the title of the files. She looked for any that might point to a file containing the information she sought, any entitled Blue, or Miranda, or some key word that made sense.
On her first cursory glance, there was nothing…nothing that caught her eye. Quickly, aware of the minutes passing, she closed down the program and accessed his e-mail.
Again she mentally cursed at the number of e-mails contained in folders. Did the man save everything? Didn’t he know what the delete button was for?
Again she scanned subject lines to see if anything sounded an alarm in her head. One subject line caught her attention. It read: Enter Drawing to Win Blue Explorer.
Although on the face of it, it sounded like one of the thousands of unsolicited advertisements users had to put up with on a daily basis. But she wasn’t leaving anything up to chance.
It wasn’t an advertisement and her heartbeat quickened to an almost painful pace. The e-mail was from a sender named Whitegirl. Cassie knew White Girl was a nickname for cocaine. She was able to click on the e-mail so that it showed in the frame below. She could read the message that way without actually opening the e-mail and alerting Adam that it had been used. The note said: Expect delivery of your shiny blue vehicle at the arranged location on July 4th.
The Fourth of July, that was less than three weeks away. She closed the message, then froze. A noise…the distant sound of somebody coughing.
With frantic, trembling fingers she pulled up the screensaver, then raced out of the study. She’d just stepped into the kitchen and taken two steps toward the large refrigerator when the overhead light clicked on.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Burt demanded.
Chapter 10
Cassie threw a hand over her mouth in a gesture of surprise. “You scared me to death,” she exclaimed.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” Burt eyed her suspiciously, then looked across the doorway toward the study.
“I got thirsty.” She dropped her hand from her mouth and instead crossed her arms over her breasts as Burt’s beady eyes swept the length of her.
“Mr. Mercer doesn’t like people sneaking around the house in the middle of the night.”
“Then he should have a refrigerator in every room.” Aware of his gaze still burning into her with distrust, she walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. She spied a carton of orange juice and pulled it out, figuring she’d better find a glass instead of drinking from the carton.
“I could have shot you as a prowler,” Burt said. “I could beat you to death right now and tell Mr. Mercer I mistook you for a robber.” There was a depravity in the gleam in his beady eyes, as if he’d thoroughly enjoy beating the heck out of her.
“What is your problem, Burt?” she asked impatiently. “You’ve been a jerk to me every since we met.” She opened first one cabinet door, then another seeking a glass for the orange juice.
“I don’t like you.” The Elvis snarl was back, curling one corner of his upper lip in a gesture that did nothing for him. He walked over to a cabinet, pulled a glass out and slammed it on the counter.
“Is it something personal or do you just hate women in general?” She poured the juice into the glass and returned the carton to the refrigerator. She was grateful to see the suspiciousness gone from his eyes. Apparently he believed her story about wanting something to drink.
“I don’t hate all women.” Once again his gaze swept over her, lingering on her scantily clad breasts, then down to the long length of her bare legs.
She didn’t try to cover up. Let him look, the creep. Even though his gaze made her skin threaten to crawl off her body, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know it.
“I don’t like women with attitudes…smart asses, and I think you’re a smart ass,” he said.
She smiled cheerfully. “And I think you’re a dumb ass.”
He glared as she quickly drank her glass of juice, then placed the glass in the sink. “And on that note, I think I’ll say good-night.”
She started to walk past him but he stepped in front of her, impeding her exit through the door. “You’d better sleep with one eye open.”
Cassie sighed, weary of his macho posturing. “I just want to go back to bed, Burt. I’ll try to stay out of your way if you stay out of mine. Deal?”
He stepped aside. “I’m watching you, Blondie.”
Cassie passed by him, smelling the rank odor of stale sweat that emanated from him. She was aware of him following her out of the kitchen and felt the burn of his gaze on her as she climbed the stairs back toward her bedroom.
It wasn’t until she’d reached the privacy of her room and had locked the door that she began to tremble. She sank on the bed and allowed the tremors to sweep through her.
If she’d taken one second longer in the study, she would have been busted. And there was no doubt in her mind that Burt would have killed her.
She got in bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin, her mind racing. She believed she’d gotten one important detail…the date of the delivery of the tainted drugs.
The buzz of the alarm awakened her at six-thirty. She wished she could just get dressed and take off, find Kane and tell him what she’d learned. But her game wasn’t over yet. She had the when, but she didn’t have the where and the how.
A long hot shower erased any lingering sleep and by seven-thirty she went down the staircase and headed for the sunroom where Adam had told her he’d meet her for breakfast.
The sunroom was empty, but she heard Adam’s voice coming from his study. She crept toward the office hoping to overhear something that might fill in the blanks.
“I don’t give a damn what kind of problem you’ve run into,” Adam’s voice held a cold fury she’d never heard before. “Fix it or I’ll find somebody who can. Nobody in this operation is irreplaceable. Don’t call me again with problems. Call me with results.”
Cassie crept backward, back toward the sunroom. She’d just sunk into one of the wicker chairs at the table when he appeared.
Clad in a crisp white pair of slacks and a turquoise and white short-sleeved shirt, he looked elegantly cool and completely collected. There was no hint of the intense fury she’d just heard in his
voice apparent on his features.
“Good morning, my dear.” He kissed her on the forehead, then took the seat opposite her at the glass-topped wicker table. “I trust you slept well.”
“Like a baby, although I did get up at one point and came down here for a glass of something to drink.” She figured she’d better mention it in case Burt had already told his employee about it.
“I hope you found what you needed?” he asked.
She smiled. “Orange juice. I’m an orange juice addict.”
“Now that’s a healthy addiction to have. I instructed Ramona to fix a big, country-style breakfast this morning.”
“You shouldn’t have her go to all that trouble,” she protested. “I would have been satisfied with coffee and toast.”
“Nonsense. What’s the use of having a cook if she doesn’t cook? Besides, I was in the mood for a big breakfast.” Ramona entered the room carrying a tray with a silver coffeepot, two cups and saucers and cream and sugar.
As with the dinner the night before, she served them silently, but efficiently, then disappeared back toward the kitchen.
Adam served the coffee from the pot and chatted about his household help, explaining to her who was in charge of what and how smoothly things ran.
Cassie nodded when it was appropriate, but her mind was busy trying to figure out a way of sneaking into Adam’s computer one last time before he took her home. But it was looking like there would be no more opportunities on this particular visit.
Breakfast was huge, in typical fashion—eggs and thick slabs of ham, hashed browns and biscuits and gravy. Cassie ate with gusto and when they’d finished breakfast she told Adam she really needed to get back home.
“I just didn’t plan on spending the night anywhere and I made lunch arrangements with one of the waitresses from the club,” she lied.
“Of course,” he agreed smoothly. “Actually I have some work to attend to this morning as well. If you don’t mind I’ll have Sebastian drive you home.”
“Thank you, that will be fine.”
Within minutes after the meal, Cassie was ensconced in the back of Adam’s Lincoln being driven back to her apartment. He’d sent her off with a passionate kiss and the promise to see her that evening at the club.
The moment Cassie entered her apartment she made two phone calls. The first call was to Dana, who had given Cassie her phone number the second night that the two had worked together.
She set up a lunch date at exactly noon at the small café across the street in the city market. If by some strange chance Adam was having her watched, then he would see she hadn’t lied about the lunch date.
The second call she made was to Kane. She told him to meet her at the city market at eleven-forty. With the most urgent details taken care of, she spent the next hour working out.
At eleven she took a quick shower, pulled on a yellow sundress, then headed out of the apartment and across the street to the market place. Even though it was a Tuesday morning, the place was packed with people.
Cassie walked up and down the aisles, chatting with vendors and buying more fruit and vegetables. Although she appeared intent on her buying, her gaze never stopped scanning the area, looking for a familiar face who might be tailing her for Adam. She knew Adam probably had hundreds of people on his payroll and wouldn’t be stupid enough to use somebody she might recognize.
She was checking out a display of huge green peppers when she became aware of somebody standing a bit too close to her.
“Two for a dollar,” the eager vendor said to her.
“Nothing better than stuffed peppers,” a familiar male voice observed.
She cast a glance sideways and swallowed a chuckle of surprise. Clad in a pair of worn jeans and a short-sleeved plaid shirt, a straw hat on his head and a piece of straw dangling from his lips, Kane looked every inch the Missouri farm boy. A handsome…sexy farmer.
“Personally I like them cut up in salads.”
“If you like salad they got a nice display of lettuce over there,” he gestured to a more congested area of the market.
“Three,” the vendor exclaimed. “Three for a dollar and you pick the biggest ones I’ve got.”
“Done.” Cassie picked out three peppers and paid the vendor, aware that Kane had moved away from her side. She took the sack from the vendor then moved toward the display where Kane awaited her.
She moved next to him, not so close that they would be mistaken as acquaintances, but close enough that they could converse without shouting.
“Got news.” She grabbed a head of lettuce and pretended to examine it.
“You spent the night with him.” Kane’s voice was flat, displaying no emotion at all.
She shot him a quick glance. “We slept in separate rooms.” She put the head of lettuce down and picked up another one. “Which gave me a chance to sneak into his study and access his computer.”
Kane walked to the next vendor who had bushels of corn on the cob spilling out of baskets. She waited a minute, then followed.
“So what did you find out?”
“A date,” she replied. “Fourth of July.”
“What a sick lunatic to turn a national holiday into a day of death. What else?”
“That’s it. I had to stop. Burt almost caught me at the computer.” She motioned for the seller to give her six ears of corn. When she glanced at Kane she saw alarm in his eyes.
“Cover intact?”
“Fine.”
“Are you sure? Maybe we should pull you out.”
“Don’t even think of such a thing,” she hissed beneath her breath. “I’m in and I’m fine and it would be stupid to pull me out now. Don’t go soft on me, McNabb.”
There was a long pause. “Don’t worry, I did that once and didn’t like the consequences.”
She felt the flush that swept over her as again the ghosts of their shared past rose up between them. “I need to stay in long enough to get the rest of the information we need. Just the date doesn’t help us a bit.” She grabbed the corn from the vendor and when she turned to look at Kane he was gone.
She cursed under her breath, not because he’d disappeared but rather because he’d made her remember vividly the last time she’d seen him when she’d quit the agency five years before.
During the time they had worked together Kane had always seemed bigger than life to her. His passion and drive and energy lit her up inside. His determination and commitment to the job encouraged her to be the best that she could be.
The last time she’d seen him he’d been without passion, without drive or energy. He’d been clinging to life by a thread, lost in a hospital bed hooked up to a bevy of machines working overtime to keep him alive.
She’d stared at him from the hospital room doorway in horror, knowing she was responsible for his condition. He’d gone soft on her and she’d allowed it, encouraged it.
Assured by the doctors that he would survive, she’d left his room and had never looked back. Until now. And she’d never questioned her decision. Until now.
She and Kane had shared something and when she’d left, she’d walked away with a hole in her heart. Never had that hole been as apparent as it was now, with him back in her life even on a strictly business level.
She consciously shoved these disturbing thoughts aside and checked her wristwatch. It was time to meet Dana.
Dana made an entertaining lunch date. She was smart and savvy, but also had a sweetness of spirit that intrigued Cassie. Under different circumstances they might have been friends. Other than Asia’s wife, Cassie really had no other female friends.
She found most females difficult…game players or vapid or murderously competitive. Maybe it was because she’d had no real female influence in her early life except for eleven years with her drug-addicted mother.
Cassie enjoyed talking with Dana about clothes and men and the other waitresses at the club, even if she had to lie about the men part and let Dana chatter most abou
t fashion. They both ordered sinfully chocolate desserts and lingered over coffee.
Afterward Cassie went back to her apartment and took a nap, knowing she would need to be mentally and physically rested for the night to come.
Adam stood at his office window and stared out at the manicured grounds of his home.
“I don’t like her.”
Adam turned around and smiled with amusement at Burt. “You never like any of them. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were a misogynist at heart.”
“I don’t hate women. I just don’t like her,” Burt replied with a mulish expression. “I was right about Nicole, wasn’t I?”
Adam walked across the floor and sat at his desk chair and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the lovely Nicole. She’d been beautiful, with a lush body and an eagerness to please he’d found attractive.
Adam had been quite smitten with her. He’d even moved her into his house for a month, and for a while he’d believed she was perfect for him and his future plans.
He sighed and looked at Burt, who was seated in the chair opposite his desk. “Nicole was a real disappointment,” he agreed. “But Jessica is different. She’s much brighter than Nicole was, yet more innocent.”
“I just don’t want to see anything get screwed up,” Burt said. “We’re too close to success.” He rubbed his hands together as if already feeling the money that would flow into his palms.
Adam smiled. “Nothing is going to screw things up. Trust me, Burt. I have everything under control. Now, I’ve got work to do here and you’re keeping me from it.”
Burt stood, a hulk that darkened the opening of the room. “I hope you’ve got everything under control because I’ve got a lot of men who are going to be pissed off if this thing doesn’t come off as planned.”
“I told you it’s under control.”
Burt nodded and left the office. Adam turned to his computer and retrieved his e-mail messages.
Burt was getting nervous, as he should be. Burt was betraying a lot of important drug lords and street gang members. If any word leaked of their plan to distribute tainted drugs, Burt’s life wouldn’t be worth anything. It was no wonder the man was starting to get nervous.
Get Blondie Page 12