“Neither,” he quickly shot out and peered at her, his gaze condemning.
“Neither,” she repeated lamely. “But I’m…attracted to you and…”
Her hands searched in the air as if she might pluck her explanation from there, but could find nothing better than, “I like you. I want to get to know you. I thought I could do this right now, only—”
She didn’t get to finish as he suddenly resumed where they’d left off—kissing her with his lips and tongue until she moaned, and he finally eased away. “We need to take this a little slower, right?”
“Definitely,” she confirmed and smiled. “Sometimes you can’t rush things.”
“Right,” he said and picked up his glass. “Like a good wine—”
“It takes patience and…nurturing,” she finished for him.
“Caring,” he surprised her by saying, and, for a moment, it seemed as if he’d surprised himself by admitting it, so much so that there was almost a physical reaction on his part as his body tensed and he sat up straighter.
“Aidan?” she asked and he forced a smile.
“This is…new for me,” Aidan replied. It wasn’t a lie. It was new for him on so many levels. He had never lost control with another woman before as he had with Elizabeth. He had never lost his perspective while on an assignment, but here he was, clearly in jeopardy of doing so. Or maybe he had already, since he found himself reviewing over and over again all the things he’d learned about her in the past few days, trying to weigh them against the evidence that he knew pointed to her being the Sparrow.
When she gave him a shy smile and the blush of the sun’s kiss deepened on her face, it became even harder thinking of her as an assassin.
“It’s new for me, too,” she said.
He nodded in resignation, uncomfortable with where this was leading. “Let’s finish up and head back.”
“Let’s,” she said as if sensing that to push more right now would only cause problems. “The coast road is beautiful during the day, but at night it can be a little difficult.”
He had been so distracted by her, he hadn’t realized how much time had gone by and how quickly dusk was coming upon them. Perusing the shoreline, he caught glimpses of the road they would take back to town. It wound wickedly along the coast. In spots, the road hugged the edges of the rocky palisades before it led downward toward the two towns nestled at the base of the harbor.
He helped her put away the food that remained and fold up the blanket. Once everything was carefully stowed in the trunk, Elizabeth got back behind the wheel of the car and he slipped in beside her. As she started up the car, he said, “I had a nice time today.”
Grinning broadly, she replied, “I did, too, but the day’s not over yet. You’re going to love the views on the road home.”
He was kind of loving the view right now, he thought, but didn’t say so. It would just embarrass her. Instead, he contented himself with watching her out of the corner of his eye as she steered onto the road and they began the downward trek along the coast.
It was as beautiful as she had said: the harsh imposing cliffs and rocks against the cerulean blue of the ocean and baby blue of the sky, Elizabeth in her pink a vibrant contrast in the foreground.
She handled the car well, maintaining a controlled pace along the downhill road with its constant curves, some of which came precariously close to the rocky edges of the cliffs. They were about halfway down the road, along a stretch that was a little straighter, when an SUV suddenly appeared behind them.
Aidan was a bit surprised he hadn’t noticed the car before, or maybe it had just turned onto the road behind them. Something bothered him about the car. Okay, maybe more than one thing. The windows were tinted so darkly it was impossible to see inside. The black of its oversized hulk loomed behind them as it picked up speed, getting closer and closer.
Elizabeth had noticed the car, as well, and muttered, “Wonder where he’s going at that speed. It gets kind of hairy up—”
She didn’t get to finish as the SUV suddenly lurched forward and bumped them from behind. The Gaston swerved wildly as Elizabeth battled for control, but she quickly regained it and centered the car in her lane.
Aidan gripped the wooden dash with one hand, Elizabeth’s seat with the other as he braced himself for another possible impact. He looked back and noticed that the SUV had fallen behind by at least a car length. Elizabeth had sped up to avoid the other vehicle.
But a second later, the black SUV hurtled forward like a battering ram, smashing into their back bumper once more. The sickening crunch of metal and tinkling of glass sounded. The impact whipped them back and forth within the car, which fishtailed once more with the blow.
Elizabeth, however, didn’t panic. If anything, a determined glint came into her eyes. Her jaw set into a tight line. She expertly steered out of the fishtail and into the middle of the road. This time, she kept dead center, ignoring the white lines for the lanes as if to give herself room to maneuver.
Aidan looked back and out of the corner of his eye, noted Elizabeth using the rearview mirror to keep the SUV in sight while staying aware of the road ahead. A road that was veering sharply to the right. To the left—nothing but sky and sea. Not even a guard rail.
Shit, he thought, until Elizabeth—looking more like an Indy race-car driver than a chef—downshifted and hit the gas. Wheels squealed as they shot around the curve and created a few car lengths of good distance on the bulkier SUV, which barely managed to stay on the road.
Dirt kicked up as the driver of the other vehicle skirted the warning edge along the coast side of the road, but then they were into another short straightaway and the SUV picked up speed.
So did Elizabeth.
“Elizabeth,” he called out to her, for the wind was rushing past them, noisy and wild.
“Hold on, Aidan,” she screamed at him before she steered confidently through another curve, increasing the distance between them and the SUV, which fishtailed before coming through the curve more slowly.
But as before, on the straightaway the SUV made up some distance until it was nearly on their tail.
And then Elizabeth did the unexpected.
With another cliff-edged curve before them, Elizabeth pulled over hard to the right, did a one-eighty into a switchback and stopped, tires skidding on the soft shoulder.
Surprised and unprepared, the SUV shot by them and then Elizabeth became the chase vehicle, pulling out and staying close to the SUV as it now tried to outrun them.
“Get the plate numbers,” she called out to him, but the car in front had no plate.
As soon as she realized that, she dropped back, slowing down as their attacker increased the distance between and then finally, after one last barely controlled turn on a curve, the SUV sped out of view.
Elizabeth pulled over then. Her hands were fisted against the steering wheel, her knuckles white from the pressure. She was breathing roughly, as was he, he realized. “You okay?”
She nodded, obviously unable to speak.
“Would you like me to finish the drive?” he asked and she nodded, popping out of the driver’s seat.
He got out of the car and met her halfway, at the back of the Gaston where she had stopped to look at the damage. Tears filled her eyes and she wrapped her arms around herself tightly.
Embracing her, he winced at the dented chrome bumper, scratched and bent trunk, and the jagged glass shards that remained of her taillights. Her father’s pride and joy, he recalled, and trying to comfort her, said, “We can fix it.”
She nodded brokenly and tears finally slipped down her face as she replied, “But it will never be the same.”
Chapter 13
Aidan hated leaving her, but she insisted she was fine.
When he mentioned calling the local police to report the incident, she had grown agitated and insisted that it made no sense. They had no ID of the driver and no plate number.
All good reasons, except that any
normal person would think that the police just might be interested in an attempted murder. But Elizabeth was clearly not a normal person, he thought as he walked back to the hotel and recalled the professional way she had handled herself at the wheel.
Back at the hotel, both Lucia and Walker were waiting for him.
Lucia jumped out of her seat and stalked over to him. She gesticulated wildly with her hands as she demanded, “Is there some reason you’ve been incommunicado all day?”
Aidan cursed and stopped her hands in midair. He reached into his jacket pocket for the earpiece that he had taken off when he’d realized they were beyond its range. Hoping he would get up close and personal with Elizabeth, he had not wanted to risk her seeing it. “Sorry. We were out of range.”
“All day?” Walker asked and examined him carefully, anger darkening his normally blue eyes to a slate gray. “You look…confused.”
Aidan plopped himself down on the couch. Lucia and Walker joined him, sitting on the chairs opposite him. “It was an odd day.” He recounted what they had done, leaving out some key personal parts. Finally, he provided a detailed account of the SUV attack.
“Tinted windows. No plates. Sounds like someone was intentionally after you,” Lucia said, and then added, “Any idea on the make?”
“Big. Relatively fast. Might have been a Hummer. It was dark and too much was happening too fast.”
Lucia added her two cents. “I’ll check through the island’s DMV records and see what I can dig up.”
“But there’s more that’s bothering you, isn’t there?” Walker asked, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his thighs as he clasped his hands together. “Want to tell us what it is?”
Aidan slumped down into the cushions of the sofa and looked up at the ceiling, unable to meet Walker’s discriminating gaze. Afraid the psychiatrist might see too much. “Everywhere we went, people were so happy to see her. She seemed to really take an interest in them.” He then recounted the talk about the prince and after, the one about honor and still believing in it.
“But she refused to call in the police. She had something to hide,” Lucia reminded him before Walker piped in with his opinion.
“The Sparrow is a stone-cold, remorseless killer. A pathological liar who is unable to form commitments of any type, but can fool people exceptionally well. Classic antisocial behavior.”
“Elizabeth seems to have lots of commitments: her friends, all those people we met today.” He didn’t add that for a moment there, she seemed to have been getting committed to him.
“These kinds of killers are by nature glib and superficially charming. If it came down to it, the Sparrow would do as she pleased with little regard for that supposed friendship or affection,” Walker reminded him.
“Like Mitch,” he said out loud and finally met Walker’s gaze.
“Or like you, Aidan. Don’t let this woman trip you up with her charm and beauty,” Walker warned.
“What made her like this?” he wondered aloud, still trying to reconcile what the Sparrow had done with the woman who was getting a little too close to his heart. Who threatened his mission.
“If she’s a psychopath—nothing. She was born that way. But I think Elizabeth is likely a sociopath, slipping into this behavior due to the deaths of her parents.”
Aidan recalled Elizabeth putting up the walls whenever talk turned to her parents. Her tears about the car came to mind. The tears hadn’t been about crunched metal and broken glass. Certainly their deaths still plagued her. “You may be right about the why,” he admitted. “She’s still deeply affected by her parents’ murders.”
“You need to be careful around her,” Lucia reminded, clearly concerned that he had lost perspective.
And maybe neither she nor Walker were all that wrong. Elizabeth was making him doubt who she was. Making him want to find a reason why she did what she did if she was indeed the Sparrow. A reason he could understand—like wanting revenge. He could comprehend that one well. It was what should have still been motivating him—avenging his friend’s death.
He sat up and rubbed his hands along his thighs. “Lucia, were you able to get into the safe and the locker?”
She smiled emphatically. “Your little gadget worked like a charm. Broke right into both, only…There was no foot locker in the safe.”
“She got it out of there without us seeing it? How?” he questioned sharply.
Shaking her head, Lucia answered, “There was nothing on the cameras. I can’t explain how she did it. And as for that secret pathway, it led into a series of tunnels which might take weeks to explore.”
He turned his attention to Walker and suddenly recalled the evidence bag in his pocket. He tossed it to the other man. “Here’s your foxglove. Maybe the DNA will match. Did the photos help at all?”
Walker admitted that they had, but motioned to the phone on the coffee table. “I think it’s better that we get Xander on the line for this one.”
Alexander Forrest, Xander to his friends and colleagues, was the Lazlo Group’s DNA specialist and resident botanist. Lucia used her laptop to connect with Xander and his image filled the computer screen. After the preliminaries, he toggled the window on the monitor to display the photos Aidan had taken with his PDA.
“I assume you want a rundown on the Sparrow’s flora,” Xander said.
“Yes, please, Xander,” Aidan confirmed and then the three of them settled back to listen and watch Xander’s report. With swift strokes of his mouse, he instructed them on the assorted plants in Elizabeth’s garden.
“The lady has a veritable pharmacy of poisons and medicines in her little gardens,” he began. “These low-lying flowers are nasturtiums and completely edible.”
He circled the bright orange and yellow flowers.
“But right next door and not so good—Lily of the Valley. Poisonous to cats, dogs, goats and, of course, humans. Next and a little further back, delphiniums. Likewise poisonous. But again, mixed in with this, there’s some chamomile—good for stomach upsets. And some…”
Aidan listened and watched as the screen was slowly filled by Xander’s strokes as he identified one plant or another. When that screen was filled, he went to the next shot and likewise detailed a number of other edible, poisonous or medicinal plants: calendula, valerian, echinaecea and peppermint.
Aidan had already been familiar with the latter since Elizabeth had shown him where he could get peppermint to use for drinks at the bar.
Last but not least, Xander flipped to the snapshot of what Aidan had suspected was the foxglove.
“Digitalis purpurea subspecies mariana. More commonly found in Portugal. Great choice for rocky areas prone to drought. Flowers are closer to rose than purple. But no matter how you use it—leaves or seeds—still deadly,” Xander confirmed.
“So this garden—”
“Chock full of all kinds of plants that one could use for either good or bad,” Xander interrupted.
Something went cold inside Aidan at Xander’s words. Up until now, Elizabeth’s actions had almost had him convinced that she wasn’t what he suspected. That she might not be the Sparrow. But now…this was just one other thing to add to the ever-growing list of evidence against her.
First, her obvious presence in so many of the areas where the Sparrow had had a kill attributed to her.
Her physical condition and martial arts skills, not to mention her driving abilities.
Now the deadly garden plants. As he remembered his first day in the kitchen, he recalled her nimble handling of the knife. A killer’s way with a knife.
If Elizabeth wasn’t the Sparrow…
“Walker’s got some leaves I snipped off the plants. Will you be able to do anything with that?”
Suddenly Xander’s face filled the screen again. He held up a test tube. “I’ve already done the PCR testing on the sample our crew lifted off the prince’s marble coffee table. Seems that’s where he decided to do the lines of coke.”
&nb
sp; “So we were able to get more evidence at the crime scene?” Lucia asked her colleague.
Walker was the one who answered. “Our unit collected some remnants of coke, but no fingerprints, hair or fiber other than the prince’s.”
“What about fluids?” he asked, interested in a perverse and decidedly personal kind of way in whether the prince had shared himself with the Sparrow before biting the dust.
Walker looked at him and saw past the professional reason for the question. “No fluids at the scene,” he replied, concern lacing his words.
“What about on the body?” he pressed.
“No indication of sexual activity,” Xander advised over the speaker and Aidan glanced at Walker.
“What about good ol’saliva? I can’t imagine that the prince would have had someone as attractive as the Sparrow in his room and not have traded spit.”
Walker glared at him coldly. “Is that opinion based on personal knowledge?”
He stood, tired of Walker’s and now Lucia’s scrutiny. “You expect me to crack the Sparrow. That isn’t going to happen unless I use everything at my disposal. Everything.”
With that comment he started to walk from the room, but as he neared his door, he paused and faced Walker. “And may I remind everyone that I’m the lead agent on this assignment. While I appreciate your concerns, I need to do what I think is right to crack the Sparrow.”
With that, he grabbed hold of the knob, but as he opened the door, Walker said to Xander, “Make sure we’ve got swabs of the prince’s mouth. And if we don’t, get them pronto.”
Chapter 14
As usual, Elizabeth was up bright and early, flitting around the garden like a beautiful butterfly or a vicious little bee. Snipping here and there. Filling her basket with murder and mayhem, Aidan thought.
It was a trifle early for him to go to work, but there was little reason for him to hang out in the hotel room. Grabbing the special surveillance equipment Lucia had used to crack the safe and locker, Aidan stepped out into the suite where, as ever, Lucia vigilantly perused the monitors while typing away on her laptop.
More Than a Mission Page 10