by Lori Wilde
“Sex? I always—”
“No, your parents.”
“Starved for conversation?”
“Ha! You’re never at a loss for words, at least not until yesterday.”
It was his turn to sigh. “I find myself having a hard time just now.”
“Well, stop it.”
“Okay.” With that fierce blue gaze boring into his, how could he not? With her warmth so close and accessible, how could he let the past turn him cold?
“Though you’re liable to use my words at some point to boost an ego that already seems inherently healthy, hear this, Carr Hamilton.” She held him in her sights as surely as any target at the end of her pistol, and her voice was as hard and true as any bullet. “You’re a good man. And though your parents may be idiots and your grandmother gone and your moral advisor a bit too committed to black and white, I need you. I’ve needed your help with this case. I’ve needed you to introduce me to your sort-of-law-abiding friends. And I’ve especially needed you to challenge me and remind me of what’s at stake.”
With that pronouncement, she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly against her.
“Glad to be there,” he managed to say gruffly into her hair.
The one person’s approval he wanted, he had. What else was there?
The future would come, and choices would be made, but right now he had it all—the way he dreamed he might if he changed his life for the better.
“You’re taking a big chance,” he said a few minutes later, “moving on Jack like this.”
“Sure, but my way is the only way, remember?” She leaned back and planted a firm kiss on his lips. “Besides, I’m tired of playing it safe. I may even wear a red suit.”
12
“COME ON, Rafton.” Malina spoke harshly, shaking her head as she stood in front of the terrified insurance agent. “We know you’re in this up to your greedy, bloodshot eyeballs.”
“I—” Jack Rafton cast a panicked glance around his office, where several armed FBI agents, sheriff’s deputies and crime-scene techs were milling around, talking in low tones while they either studied him or gathered evidence in plastic bags and packed up all his computer equipment. “You’re wrong.”
“Judge North feels differently,” Malina said, waving the search warrant.
“Y-you could be bluffing.”
“Could be.” Malina laid her hand deliberately on the butt of her gun. “But I’m not.”
“But I—”
“Do you honestly think that I’d bring my team in here without cause? You think the Bureau is just sitting around, waiting to pounce on private businesses ’cause we got nothin’ better to do? We have terrorists to hunt. And, yet, we came in here, armed and ready, bulletproof vests in place, because we know you’ve hooked up with some seriously bad dudes. We were ready to shoot if provoked.” Malina lurched forward, bracing her hands on the desk chair where he sat. “Do you have plans to provoke me, Jack?”
“N-no.”
“I understand you’ve got a nice island here, lovely vacation spot. How do you think your fellow citizens are going to feel when word gets out that you’ve brought these thieving scumbags to their shores?”
“Agent Blair,” Carr said, his tone disappointed, “you said you’d keep this matter quiet.”
“And I will.” Never looking Carr’s way, she sent Rafton a glare. “As long as I get what I want.”
“B-but…” Rafton blustered. “I have rights. Don’t I have rights, Carr?”
Carr laid his hand on the other man’s shoulder and returned Malina’s glare. “Of course you do.”
“Please, Hamilton.” Malina rolled her eyes, and though they’d agreed to this plan of action it still bothered her to see the hurt briefly cross Carr’s face. “Don’t give me any of that bleeding-heart crap.”
Carr had offered moral support, not legal representation, but it was clear Rafton relied upon his judgment anyway. Malina had a team of agents watching Simon Ellerby to make sure he was on his yacht and wouldn’t pop in to find one of his compatriots was being interrogated by the cops and thereby ruin the operation. Everything was moving along as they’d anticipated. If only they could drive Jack to the edge where he’d turn on his boss….
“We know about the Lotus, Rafton.” Malina shook her head as if disappointed. “Pretty reckless. Didn’t you go to any of those helpful classes at the last Smugglers International Convention?”
“I’m not a smuggler!” he squeaked.
“Oh, yeah?” Malina pointed at the landscape painting on the wall beside his bookcases. “What’s that?”
Rafton turned sheet-white, and Malina’s heart jumped. It had been a wild stab, but after Carr’s observations of the crates coming off the boat, plus Andrea’s speculation that Rafton had to be passing over more than diamonds, Malina had begun to wonder just how long the list of stolen goods was liable to wind up being.
“Well, well,” Malina chortled, pacing around him. “The gang’s just floating in illicit merchandise.”
“There’s no gang,” Rafton said desperately. “I didn’t steal any diamonds—or paintings. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Be smart, Jack,” Carr said in a low, soothing tone. “If any of this is true, your cooperation could go a long way to keeping you out of federal prison.”
“Prison!” Rafton jerked to his feet. “You’re out of your mind! I’m not going to prison.”
Malina leaned back against the desk and made an effort to look bored. “Sure seems that way to me.” She paused significantly. “But then it’s not you we want.”
“Who then?”
Approaching him, Malina stopped mere inches away. “Simon Ellerby.”
Based on Rafton’s reaction, she decided—though she’d already suspected—that the insurance agent would make a lousy poker player.
She angled her head. “Listen, Jack, you don’t have the stones for this. You’re drowning. And when we offer a deal to Ellerby, you can bet he’ll jump on it and screw you to the wall.”
Rafton drew his shoulders back. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“You went to a party on his yacht last week,” Carr interjected.
“No kidding?” Malina forced surprise. “Isn’t that interesting? What exactly went on at this party?”
Rafton winced. “Carr, please.”
Carr shrugged. “You can’t pretend you don’t know him, Jack. Lying to the federal authorities isn’t going to help the situation.”
They worked him for more than an hour, but he simply alternated between panic and denial.
He admitted nothing.
Malina took to clenching the butt of her pistol. Her finger twitched many times toward the trigger, and she silently recited federal penal codes as a way of distracting her from her instincts to break ninety-nine percent of those codes.
While Rafton bent his head, Carr, who stood just behind him, looked at Malina and lifted his eyebrows.
Time for the secret weapon.
Since she could hear the words as clearly as if he’d spoken them aloud, she scowled.
But what choice did she have? Moving quickly on Ellerby was essential.
She turned away from the two men and started out of the room. “Mr. Hamilton, get your friend a glass of water. I’ll be back.”
Outside in the bright sunshine, a brisk wind whipping off the Atlantic, Malina walked to her car, parked at the curb. The idea had come to Carr in the middle of the night—he’d literally woken Malina up out of a dead sleep to give her this last, fail-safe tactic.
If the dog-napping case had given her office ridicule, she couldn’t wait to find out what humiliation this latest, unconventional strategy was going to bring.
As she opened the passenger side door, she noted the woman inside was knitting, gathering together strands of blue and green yarn from opposite sides of her lap. “We’re going to need you.”
Sister Mary Katherine glanced up, her
expression calm as she nodded and set her yarn aside. “I anticipated as much. Jack was in Sister Agatha’s Sunday studies during high school, and she assured me he was an attentive student.”
“Yeah, he’s a prince, all right,” Malina said as she helped the nun out of the car.
Sister Mary Katherine pursed her lips. “The Church can redeem everyone who’s lost, everyone willing to change their life.”
“As Carr will undoubtedly attest.”
“Are you angry with me, Agent Blair?” the Sister asked as they headed toward the office door.
“No. No, of course not,” Malina added, barely suppressing a wince. She wasn’t exactly religious, but she had great respect for those who willingly devoted their lives to the greater good. “I just—” She stopped and whirled to face the nun. “Carr’s a good man.” She flung her hand in the direction of the office. “He’s not Jack Rafton or anyone in his gang. He tried to help people. Is he a criminal because he made a lot of money?”
The nun folded her hands in front of her. “No one said he was a criminal.”
“But he thinks he is!” When a couple of guys who were hauling computer equipment from Rafton’s office paused on the sidewalk, Malina ground down on her temper. “I don’t appreciate you, or anybody else, putting him down.”
“You are angry.”
She was. At least part of her. She knew the good Sister wasn’t the villain here, but she didn’t appreciate anybody who didn’t see Carr’s need to help others. And she wasn’t exactly sure where Sister Mary Katherine stood. “Do you know his parents abandoned him?”
“I do.”
That wasn’t a surprise really. It was a small island after all. But the sadness in the nun’s eyes took Malina aback. Her vision of nuns was tough love and rulers smacking on knuckles. Clearly a stereotype that wasn’t worthy of the woman before her.
How many times had Malina busted stereotypes of snipers and marksmen? Ahem, women.
Well, hell, she and the Sister had something in common.
Okay, maybe not hell, exactly.
“He’s not morally ambiguous,” Malina asserted, still uncertain where the Sister stood regarding Carr.
“Well, no.” The Sister laid one hand over her heart. “He’s the exact opposite. At least now. There was a time…”
Malina pressed her lips together to keep from shouting. “Do you honestly think the people he won cases for cared about his motives for helping them?”
“I have no idea. But he cares about his motives. Carr feels the need to make up for his past.” Sister Mary Katherine held up her hand to forestall Malina’s interruption. “Whether or not it’s required by you, me or anyone else doesn’t matter. This is something he’s compelled to do.”
“Something you encouraged him to do,” Malina insisted.
“My only goal over the last two years has been to help him find a way back to his roots and the reason he started off for the glories of city in the first place.”
Well, hel—er, dang. The Sister knew what she was about, and it was very clear she had deep affection for Carr. “To prove to his parents that he was worth something,” Malina said on a sigh.
“You understand him so well.”
“Same goes.”
“Frankly, I could use four dozen exactly like him.”
“Me, too.”
Sister Mary Katherine reached out and grasped Malina’s hand in her own. “I’ve been trying to soothe his soul, but you’ve healed him.”
Malina found the sensation of holding the nun’s vein-covered hand disconcerting, but she felt pulling away would insult her. “Oh, ah, well, I don’t know about that.”
The Sister’s face broke in a wide smile. “How lovely.”
Malina glanced behind her, and the Sister laughed. “Me? How?”
“That’s not what I meant—though you’re very attractive and have remarkable eyes. I meant how lovely that you don’t yet realize how much you mean to him.”
“Who?”
“Carr. He’s in love with you.”
There was absolutely no answer to that absurd statement.
Sister Mary Katherine tilted her face upward and kissed her cheek, a surprising gesture that brought a glow to Malina’s heart. “You’ll see. Now, should we go take care of this thieving ring?”
In a fog, Malina led her to the door. Carr loved her?
No. No way. They were having a simple, fun affair, which was bound to end when she was transferred back to FBI headquarters in Quantico, back to the excitement of Washington where she belonged. The good Sister might know her Bible verses and soul-soothing, but she was completely off base about this conclusion. Wasn’t she?
While Malina pondered the implications, she led the nun into Rafton’s office. She had no idea if this “secret weapon” plan would work, but she figured they had nothing to lose by trying.
Sister Mary Katherine walked serenely toward their suspect, who immediately stiffened. “Jack, I think we should talk.”
AS HER COFFEE MUG CLANGED against the others, Malina smiled. “He cracked like the proverbial egg.”
Andrea nodded. “The Sister has always had a way about her.”
“Her way,” Tyler asserted.
Carr sipped from his mug. “Which has worked, by the way.”
Sometimes Malina worried that those three were just a bit off center, but since the SAC had complimented her operation and had approved laying a trap for Simon Ellerby, she wasn’t about to criticize her investigative team, as unconventional as they might be.
They’d gathered at Andrea and Tyler’s house, just down the beach from Carr. Like Carr’s place, the back side of the house was mostly windows, but the design and decor were completely different. The modern steel and cool colors were replaced by shades of gold and wood floors, and the curves became more angular and traditional.
The resulting effect was more casual and homey, but Malina greatly preferred Carr’s house. Because it was both welcoming and lonely? Or simply because it belonged to him?
She was fighting not to think about Sister Mary Katherine’s assertion on Carr’s feelings for her. Part of her wanted to panic; part of her wanted to smile.
The rest of her knew she was completely out of her element for the first time in her life.
“So, this ends on Wednesday?” Andrea asked.
Malina nodded. “Based on Jack’s information, another shipment of stolen gems—emeralds this time—is coming in early Wednesday morning. After Jack makes his panicked call to his leader, we’ll intercept the gems and take them to Simon Ellerby. Ellerby will be forced to deal with us because we have the merchandise.”
“Which we’ll part with for a small handling fee,” Carr added.
“The whole exchange will be recorded by the FBI, who’ll be holed up in a van in the marina parking lot.” Malina saw twenty different ways the plan could go wrong, but it was still the best opportunity they had. “The merchandise exchange and Jack’s testimony will be enough to make an arrest.”
“So you’ll have Rafton and Ellerby,” Andrea said. “But what about the rest of the gang? There are more than two people involved in this operation.”
“Oh, we’ll get Ellerby to tell us about them. He’ll never go down alone. His ego’s too lofty.”
Andrea looked doubtful that everything would be so simple.
Carr laid his hand over Malina’s. “She’s pretty fierce in an interview. I don’t think getting Ellerby to rat out a few colleagues will be much of a stretch.”
Malina shifted toward him and let her gaze linger on his. “We all have our little gifts.”
“Great.” Tyler stood. “The island will be safe for nuns, children and democracy. Who’s up for video games?”
Since Andrea and Carr simply exchanged a silent glance, and Malina had been on this end of one of Tyler’s abrupt segues before, she felt it was up to her to ask, “Ah…what?”
Tyler clapped his hands together and headed toward the living room. “Video
games. You know, preloaded disks, plastic controllers, simulated action on a TV screen.”
“Uh-huh.” Sipping coffee, Malina leaned back in her chair. “You guys have fun with that.”
“You don’t know how to play, do you?” Andrea asked, clearly amused.
“I don’t play video games,” Malina said, barely resisting a sneer.
Carr cleared his throat.
Knowing he was thinking of the shooting range, Malina glared at him. “I don’t play. I train.”
“How disappointing,” Andrea said as she rose to follow her husband. “Tyler was bragging the other day about this military mission game, and how he could totally kick your butt on it.”
Malina flicked a glance at the woman she’d been bordering on considering an actual friend. “Are you trying to distract me from the semidangerous operation that’ll take place in less than two days, or are you seriously challenging me?”
Andrea spun, moving her head right, then left. Her blond ponytail swung with each twitch. “Both.”
Malina set aside her mug. “I’ve killed people cuter than you, you know.”
“Oh, yeah?” Andrea pulled a plastic pistol—eerily similar to the ones Malina used at the driving range—from a box beside the TV. “Let’s see it.”
Between her and Tyler’s skill and wildly competitive instincts, the game was the most fun Malina had had in a very long time. She didn’t relax often. She worked, she thought about work, she slept, ate, then worked again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something so normal as play video games. She’d never do this in Washington. She had no friends to play with.
“You’re very scary,” Carr said as they left via the back door and headed down the beach toward his house.
“The Bureau has an excellent training program.”
“And very hot.”
“Only for you, Counselor.” Grinning, Malina hugged him to her side. “Now let’s nail these jerks.”
WHEN CARR and Malina stepped aboard Ellerby’s boat, the yacht captain was considerably less hospitable than he’d been the first time.