“Let me have a look. Lorraine Cameron, American citizen, degree from Cornell, summa cum laude, woo woo, smart cookie. Fluent in six languages, yada yada, appears to have lied about her professional experience on her job application. Hmm. Maybe Lazar didn't care once she showed him her tits. How are her tits, by the way?”
“Fuck off,” Seth snarled.
“Lighten up,” Connor replied. “You know, when this babe first showed up, I thought maybe it was good for you to have something to think about besides Jesse. But it's out of hand. You're obsessed.”
“Spare me the pop psych bullshit, please.”
“You're a bomb set to blow. Not that I care, but I don't want you to take me and my brothers with you.” Connor shoved back his shaggy dark blond hair and rubbed his forehead, looking weary. “You're wound too tight, Mackey. I've seen it happen. A guy gets that look you've got on your face, then he fucks up, then he dies badly.”
Seth schooled his face back to an indifferent mask. “Don't worry” he said, through set teeth. “I swear I'll keep it together until we flush Novak out of his hole. After that, whatever. Lock me in a padded cell if you want. I will no longer give a shit.”
Connor looked pained. “That's a very, very bad attitude, Mackey.”
“I've had a bad attitude since the day I was born” Seth wrenched the blonde's file out of Connor's hand and shoved the Juan Carlos e-mail into it. “Don't take it personally. And don’t step on my toes.”“Don’t be an asshole,” Connor said. “You need me, and you know it I have the contacts you need to make this work.”
Seth glared into Connor's cold, narrowed eyes. He wanted to deny it, but it was true. Seth had the tech know-how and the money to launch their private campaign against Lazar and Novak, but Connor's years in various law enforcement agencies had garnered him a formidable local network of informants. Problem was, Connor and he were both bossy, arrogant and accustomed to command; both by nature and by profession. It made for an uneasy partnership.
“Speaking of contacts, I was down at the Cave today,” Connor said. “I played up my limp. Made like I don’t know what to do with myself on disability leave. Nobody has the heart to tell me I'm underfoot except for Riggs. He told me to go get my ass to a tropical beach, drink some mai tais. Watch the bunfloss bikinis walk by. Get laid, if I can.”
“Did you tell him to fuck off?”
“Nah,” Connor said mildly. “I'm not as casual as you are about burning my bridges. Not until I get this thing sorted out”
Riggs. Seth sorted through his memories of Jesse's memorial service. He'd lurked in the back with a miniature video camera hidden in his coat, filming the faces of Jesse's colleagues and speculating upon which one was the bastard that had sold his brother out. He remembered a thickset, balding man who had read some vapid thing that would have made Jesse puke laughing. “Was Riggs the potbelly and glasses who made the stupid-ass speech at Jesse's service?”
“I was in a coma at the time, but the stupid-ass speech has got to be Riggs,” Connor replied, pulling a bag of tobacco out of his pocket “You got any more of those warehouse raids planned?” He fished for his rolling papers, his casual tone belied by the hopeful gleam in his eyes.
Seth snorted, “You McCloud boys really get off on that, huh?”
“It's a blast,” Connor admitted. “Better than sex, messing with Victor Lazar's head. Maybe I missed my calling. A life of crime has its charms. God, what a rush.”
Seth shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that phase of the operation is over.”
Connor's eyes narrowed. “Lazar's taken the bait?”
“Yes.” Seth did not elaborate.
Connor waited. Seconds ticked by. “And?” His voice was steely.
“I'm going to Lazar's corporate headquarters tomorrow morning,” Seth admitted. “He's invited me to explain to him why Mackey Security Systems Design is the solution to all his problems. The cover story to his staff is that I'm here to design a radio frequency GPS inventory tracking system, so tomorrow's meeting is just theater. Then the day after tomorrow, Lazar and I are meeting privately out at the warehouses to discuss the details of a full-out TSCM sweep.”
“Ah.” Connor's eyes narrowed. “TSCM. Don't tell me, let me guess. That stands for... technical surveillance...”
“Technical surveillance countermeasures,” Seth finished impatiently. “Debugging.”
Connor pulled out a pinch of tobacco, his face expressionless. “Wow. One hell of a stroke of luck, that he called you, hmm?”
“Not luck,” Seth said. “It's called planning. Lots of people in the field owe me favors. I made sure he would hear about me and my firm when he started looking around to solve his security leak problem.”“I see” Connor stared down at the snarl of tobacco nestled in the fold of the rolling paper, “And just when would you have gotten around to mentioning this development to me?” His voice was soft and cold.
“As soon as you needed to know,” Seth countered smoothly. “You aren't planning on smoking that in here, of course.”
Connor finished the cigarette with a deft twist of his fingers, and scowled at it. “It's raining outside.”
“Tough,” Seth said..
Connor sighed, and stuck the cigarette into the pocket of his coat. “You blame me for Jesse's death, don't you?”
The brutal facts behind Jesse's death lay between them, heavy and cold. Someone at the Cave had tipped off Lazar to the investigation and blown Jesse's cover. Seth meant to find that person and rip him limb from limb. But that person was not Connor, who had been Jesse's best friend as well as his partner. Connor had almost died in that disastrous fuck-up. He would carry the scars for the rest of his life.
“I don't blame you “ Seth said, feeling suddenly weary. “I don't want to make the mistake Jesse made.”
“Which was?”
Seth shook his head. “Letting too many people know his business. Ever since he was a little kid. I never could break him of it.”
Connor was silent for a long moment, his face somber. “You don't trust anyone, do you?”
Seth shrugged. “I trusted Jesse,” he said simply.
They watched the blonde wander into her kitchen and stare blankly at her freezer for a minute, as if she'd utterly forgotten what she had planned to do. She shook herself out of her daze, took out a frozen dinner and stuck it into the oven.
“We'll find the mole, Seth,” Connor said finally.
Seth swung around in his chair. “He's mine.”
Connor's eyes were as full of ghosts as Seth's own. “Take a number and get in line, man,” he said softly. “You're not the only one who cared about Jesse.”
Seth broke eye contact. He had plans for that traitor and for Novak and Lazar as well, plans that had nothing to do with due process of law. Which was why he didn't concern himself overmuch with the legality of his investigation, or rather, the total lack thereof. Once he got his hands on Novak,he needed no help from anyone in bringing him to justice. Same with Lazar. But that was nobody's business but his.
A grin dawned on Connor's face. “Check it out. The concubine's doing her exercise routine. Whoa. The guy has good taste in babes. This one's even hotter than Montserrat”
Seth looked back at the screen with elaborate nonchalance.
She was sitting on the carpet, legs spread impossibly wide, slim back straight. She flung her hair back and bent from the waist until her chest touched the ground, as graceful and flexible as a dancer.
“I don't think she’s fucking him,” he said suddenly.
Connor gave him a dubious look. “How do you figure?”
He shrugged, regretting the impulsive comment With Connor's keen, thoughtful gaze fixed on him, it sounded stupid and improbable. “She never goes anywhere. She sleeps here every night. Goes straight to the office and home and back again. And he's never visited her here.”
Connor shrugged “He’s a busy guy. Maybe he bangs her in his office on his desk.”
“He has
n't,” Seth countered “I've covered his office. I've processed that tape. She's never been inside his personal office.”
“Oh, really?” Connor’s eyes gleamed with quiet amusement. “That interested, are we?”
“I'm interested in everything that has to do with Lazar.” He bit the words out, cold and clear.
“Praiseworthy of you,” Connor remarked. “One thing's for sure, though. If he booted Montserrat for her, she must be damn good with her mouth. Give me a call if she blows him. I'll log on for that episode.”
Seth grabbed the mouse and clicked the window shut The blonde disappeared, replaced by a little icon in the shape of a pair of glasses.
Connor shook his head in disgust. He fished the cigarette out of his pocket, lit it and took a deep, defiant drag. “Fine,” he said coldly. “She's all yours, Mackey. Looks like your fantasy life is pretty much all you've got, so I'll leave you to it.”
“You do that.” Seth spun around as soon as the door slammed shut and called the image back.
She was curving her spine with catlike grace, hair tumbling voluptuously over her face. Then she reversed the process in a rippling movement until her back was arched, ass raised. Curve, arch. Curve, arch, in a slow, pulsing rhythm that made him dizzy and feverish,God, he was glad that Lazar hadn't visited her. Watching that rapacious bastard grunting and sweating on top of his dreamy, soft-eyed blonde would not be pleasant. In fact, it would ruin his whole day.
He cursed into the screen, helpless to look away. Watching her made him feel alive again and he'd gotten strung out on the feeling, in spite of the fact that it threw off his precarious balance, leaving him wide open to spasms of pain he thought he'd learned to control. In spite of the fact that he betrayed Jesse every moment he spent staring at her.
Less than three weeks ago, his first waking thought every day had been on how to destroy Lazar and Novak. The risk hadn't bothered him. He just felt like an empty husk anyhow. Nothing inside him but an endless, burning thirst for revenge. With Hank gone five years now, and Jesse gone, too, there was no one left to mourn him. Or need him. It wouldn't be such a bad way to go, if they took him out with them in a blaze of glory, chapter closed, big sigh of relief from all concerned.
But since the blonde showed up, he had realized that there actually were a couple more things he wouldn't mind doing before leaving this earthly plane. Like find out if she really was any good with that full, sexy mouth of hers, for instance.
The fantasy took him by storm: her naked on her knees in front of him, his hands buried in her hair, guiding her as his swollen cock slid in and out of her lush, pink, bee-stung lips. God, that would be sweet. Now she was doing a back bend, her body taut like an arched bow and quivering with effort, her hair coiled under her head in a luminous pool. Her sweatshirt had slid up, snagging on her breasts and exposing the soft curve of her belly. It looked velvety and vulnerable, softened by barely perceptible white-blond fuzz. He wanted to nuzzle it, rub his cheek against that smooth, fragrant warmth, memorize the scent of her lotion and soap. And tomorrow he was going to Lazar's corporate office. Tomorrow he would find out exactly what she smelled like.
The blast of excitement that accompanied that thought ratcheted him up another notch toward total sexual overload. He slammed his hand down against the desk. Pain jolted up his arm. The keyboard jumped. Empty beer bottles toppled and thudded onto the dirty gray carpet that covered the floor.
Calm down, he told himself. Concentrate. Tomorrow was all about luring Lazar deeper into the web that he had spent so many long, patient months spinning for him. Tonight was all about preparing for tomorrow. And right now, he was going to click that tantalizing blonde out of existence and get to work processing the latest data retrieved from the gulper mikes. It was going to take most of the night to filter all of it, and it was time he got started. Right now. This minute.
He tried, but his finger wouldn't push the button on me mouse.
The series of exercises was long and slow, but he never got bored.
Chapter 2
Images from this morning's dream shimmered in Raine's mind as she maneuvered through early morning traffic. The dream images seemed far more vivid and substantial than the drab, lonely half-life she was living here in Seattle. She was good at analyzing dreams—God knows she'd had plenty of practice—but ponder as she might, she couldn't come up with a plausible meaning for this one.
She was tiny, swimming in a glass aquarium. Light rippled across the fake colored rocks that covered the floor. She swam slowly through little sprays of coral, over a miniature plastic castle and a sunken pirate ship. She was naked, and terribly conscious of her nakedness. She tried to wrap her long hair around herself, but it just kept floating back up around her face in a pale, swirling cloud. A black pirate flag waved languidly in the water. The skull and crossbones insignia on it was the last image she brought to waking consciousness as the alarm dragged her awake at 5:30 A.M. Just as the blaring horn of a Ford Explorer behind her jolted her into awareness that the light was green. She had to stay in the waking world and concentrate on the rain-slicked street in front of her.
She'd been having this dream often, as long as she had been staying hi the house that Lazar Import & Export had assigned to her. Staying, as opposed to living, because she couldn't get comfortable there, despite the fact that it was a beautiful place, already furnished and far too luxurious for a lowly executive assistant It made her nervous. She had enough problems without feeling ill at ease in her own living space. She meant to look for an apartment of her own as soon as she had a second to breathe, and to hell with the extra expense.
Dreaming of herself as naked, trapped and helpless was not confidence-inspiring. She wished that she could dream of herself as something bold and fearless for a change. A pirate queen, brandishing a cutlass and yelling out her battle cry. But she shouldn't complain. The aquarium dream was a hell of a lot less stressful than the bleeding tombstone dream. It didn't leave her gasping for air, hollow-eyed with terror, aching with grief for her lost father.
Still, the skull and crossbones bothered her. There was always an image of death in her recurrent dreams. Lucky girl, she thought, with grim amusement. Way to start the day off right, with a dripping dagger, a nest of snakes, or a mushroom cloud. That daily squirt of screaming adrenaline into the bloodstream was better than coffee.
Her stomach fluttered as she pulled into the underground garage of the building that housed the corporate offices. Jeremy, the flirtatious parking attendant, gave her a wink and a wave, and she barely managed a wan smile in return. She'd gotten her job at Lazar Import & Export under false pretenses, and every day the price she paid for that deceit got higher. She'd researched the huge, diversified company exhaustively, tailoring her resume to fit them, fabricating an employment history that she thought would appeal to them. She'd soothed her qualms by telling herself that she was justified, that it was for a noble cause. Still, Raine had never been good at lying. It made her stomach hurt. Breakfast would help, but there was no time, not even to grab a pastry.
God knows, Lazar Import & Export would be a stressful place to work even if she weren't lying through her teeth every day. It was the most vicious, spiteful, back-biting workplace she'd ever experienced. There wasn't a chance in hell of making friends with her co-workers. She stared critically at her reflection in the cloudy mirrored walls of the elevator. She'd lost weight. Her skirt was riding too low over her hips. But who had time to eat in Lazar's lair? She was lucky if she could find a moment to pee during the course of the day.
The elevator stopped and pinged on the ground floor as she was freshening her lipstick. The door slid open, a man stepped in, and the door rolled shut behind him. The elevator seemed suddenly very small. She shoved her lipstick into her purse, a light, tickling awareness rippling across the surface of her skin, like a breeze rustling long grass.
She was careful not to look at him directly, mindful of elevator etiquette, but she gathered considerable in
formation out of the corner of her eye. Tall, maybe a little over six feet Lean. Darkly tanned skin, she noticed, sneaking a furtive glance at the big hands that emerged from the cuffs of his suit—his very elegant, very costly suit Probably Armani, she concluded, peeking at the cut of-his sleeves. A summer hanging out in Barcelona with that shameless clotheshorse Juan Carlos had taught her a lot about the subtle nuances of men's fashion.
He was looking at her. She felt the weight and heat of his gaze against the side of her face. She would have to look straight at him to confirm it For once, her curiosity was stronger than her fear.
Maybe it was the skull and crossbones in her dream that suggested the image, but the thought blazed through her mind the moment she raised her eyes to his.
He had the face of a pirate.
He wasn't classically handsome. His features were too harsh and craggy, his nose bumpy and crooked. Midnight-black hair was cropped short. It stuck straight up, like a velvety black scrub brush. His broad cheekbones jutted out, with deep hollows beneath them. His eyebrows were thick, black slashes and his mouth was both grim and sensual. But it was his eyes that shocked her. They were black, heavy-lidded and exotic. They stared at her with searing intensity.
The eyes of a marauding buccaneer.
His gaze slid down over her body as if he saw through her prim gray suit, through her blouse, her underthings, right down to the shivering flesh beneath. His appraisal was bold and arrogant, as if he had every right to stare. The way a pirate captain might look at his helpless captive ... before he dragged her down to his cabin for sport.
Raine tore her eyes away. Her overactive imagination promptly went crazy with the pirate metaphor, erasing the Armani and dressing him in pirate's garb; flowing blouse, tight knee breeches that showcased his... his assets, a cutlass thrust into a crimson sash, a golden hoop in his ear. It was ridiculous, but she felt flushed, panicky. She had to get out of this elevator before the mirrors steamed up.
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