by Paula Graves
Caleb just kept grinning.
“What about Endrex?” Mallory spoke for the first time since they’d convened in Quinn’s office for a final debriefing. They’d spent several hours that afternoon recounting their story to Ridge County Sheriff’s Department investigators before the agency’s legal team descended on the station and extracted them all without too much pushback from the deputies.
Jack was a little surprised that Quinn hadn’t invited any other agents to this little powwow in his office. Mallory had mentioned something about a mole in the company, hadn’t she? Was Quinn hesitant to speak freely in front of his agents?
And more to the point—was Mallory still in danger?
“Endrex is safe,” Quinn said, crossing to stand in front of Mallory. His expression softened, just a hint. “Now we need to make sure you’re protected, as well. I think you should go to a safe house.”
Mallory shook her head. “No.”
“I can’t assign someone to you 24/7—”
“I don’t need a bodyguard. I just need to get my life back.”
“You may not have a life if you don’t take precautions—”
“Wyoming,” Jack interjected.
Mallory and Quinn both turned their gazes in his direction. “Wyoming?” Quinn asked.
“It’s a long way from Tennessee. She’s got no family there. No friends that anyone knows about. She can stay with a friend of Riley’s.” Jack looked at his brother-in-law, who gave a swift nod. “The guy is a small-town chief of police. Solid as a mountain. Has a nice wife who’s tough as nails, a really cute kid and another on the way. And they live in the middle of nowhere—she could stay there for weeks and probably nobody would ever know she’s there as long as she didn’t go into town.”
“Wyoming.” Mallory gave him a considering look.
“I have family up that way. Haven’t seen them in a long, long time.”
Her lips curved in a faint smile. “And the snows are mostly over this time of year.”
“Okay,” Quinn said after a moment’s pause. “We can arrange that.”
“What about the evidence?” Riley asked.
Quinn’s sharp gaze lifted to meet Riley’s. “It’s safe for now.”
“You didn’t give it to the cops?” Jack asked.
Everybody in the room looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Or not,” he added, feeling like a greenhorn.
“I’ve contacted someone we’ve dealt with before,” Quinn answered. “A senator who’ll make sure the information gets into the right hands.”
“Blackledge,” Hannah murmured.
Quinn shot her a sharp look. “He won’t let it fall through the cracks. He may be a manipulative bastard, but he takes the integrity of the office seriously. He’ll make sure Albert Morris goes down, and hopefully what’s left of Cortland’s crime organization is going to learn the meaning of the term ‘congressional investigation.’”
“When do you go see him?”
“He’s already on a flight down here. I’ll hand over a copy before the night is over.” Quinn turned back toward the window, his posture dismissive. “You all need to get some sleep. I suggest you do so.”
“What about Mallory?” Jack asked as they all rose to leave. “Her home is gone.”
“It was never my home,” she murmured.
Quinn didn’t turn around. “Mallory is free to go where she wants. With whom she wants. She’ll do it anyway, regardless of my opinion.” There was no censure in the man’s tone, only a soft resignation.
“It’s not personal, Quinn.”
“Trust is a fragile thing. I know.” He gave a nod, still not turning to look at her. “Watch your back, Mallory.”
Mallory looked up at Jack, her cobalt eyes brimming with fearlessness. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
Jack held her gaze, bolstered by her show of confidence. She trusted him, he realized. And if he was correctly reading the wicked gleam flitting around behind all that certainty, she wanted him, as well.
Not a bad place to start.
Chapter Seventeen
Outside the ranch house, a light snowfall scattered a dusting of accumulation on the scrub grass in what passed for a front yard on the sprawling prairie. Mallory tugged her jacket more tightly around her, even though the house was warm and cozy inside.
“Cold?”
Jack’s voice sent heat flooding through her long before he wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his cheek against hers.
“No,” she answered, leaning back against him. “I’m just not a fan of the cold.”
He brushed his lips against her temple. “Then Wyoming’s probably not the state for you.”
There was a bleak tone to his voice that made her stomach hurt. Turning around in his grasp, she slid her hands over his chest soothingly and met his gaze. “I can adapt, you know. It’s not cold here year-round, is it?”
His lips curved. “No, not year-round.”
“You do have summer, don’t you?” She faked a suspicious glare.
“Yes, we do have summer.” He laughed, tugging her closer. “And nobody says we have to stay here forever. We just need to keep you under the radar for a while, until Blackledge and his congressional investigation can mop up Albert Morris’s mess.”
“And we couldn’t do that from the Bahamas?” She stroked his neck, letting her thumbs play lightly along the edge of his jaw. “Just picture it. Under the radar...in a bikini.”
His eyes fluttered closed. “You are a wicked, wicked woman.”
Rising on her tiptoes, she brushed her mouth across the cleft in his chin. “It’s your favorite thing about me.”
He kissed her, deeply at first, drinking her passion as if he was dying of thirst. But before they generated enough heat to light up Canyon County, he pulled back, finishing up the kiss with a couple of soft nips of her lips. “If you want to leave Wyoming, we can. Anytime.”
She shook her head. “I don’t really want to leave. I like the Garrisons. And Jane’s so close to her due date. I’d love to see little Emily say hello to the world.”
A hint of melancholy darkened Jack’s smile. “So would I.”
“Joe told me Emily was a really special person. I wish I could have met her.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she rested her cheek against his shoulder, feeling sad for them both. They’d both lost sisters to violence, and not even the happiness they had found with each other could erase those losses. “Life isn’t fair, is it?”
He rubbed his chin against the top of her head, mussing her hair. “No. But sometimes it can be really beautiful.”
“I heard from Quinn this morning, while you were gone.”
He drew back to look at her. “What did he want?”
“He’s got a freelance job for me if I want it.”
Jack let her go and stepped back, frowning. “He’s got a lot of nerve.”
“He wasn’t the one who got me in the middle of all that trouble, Jack. You know that. And if he and Riley hadn’t happened to cross paths at the right time, neither one of us might be alive right now.”
“You’re going to take the job, aren’t you?”
“I want to,” she said, taking his hands in hers and drawing him back to her. “He needs my help looking into the backgrounds of a couple of his agents.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because other than Quinn, they’re the only ones who knew my real identity. But somehow someone in cyberspace found out where I was and what I was doing.”
“And Quinn thinks it could be one of those two?”
“He wants to know if it was. He wants me to do a little digging.”
“What if he’s right? What if the person who tried to set you up figures out what you’re up to?” Jack tugged her closer. “I just found you, Mallory. And I can picture myself with you for the rest of my life. You and me, learning things about each other, learning new things together—I’ve never
wanted anything as much as I want that future with you. I thought that’s what you wanted, too.”
“I do.” She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hard, trying to communicate with her touch what she’d never find words to tell him, no matter how hard she tried. “You know I do.”
“But?”
“But someone came really close to killing both of us.” She touched his face. “You could have died out there. And I’d never have had a chance at that future you like to woo me with.”
He shot her a lopsided smile. “Woo you with?”
“You’re a good wooer.” Tugging lightly at the top button of his shirt, she smiled up at him. “Among other things.”
“Look at you, distractin’ the big, dumb cowboy with your sexy talk.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “Okay. You want to catch the son of a bitch who tried to kill us. I guess I approve. Under one condition.”
She leaned back to look at him. “Careful, cowboy. Don’t start slinging around ultimatums. You know those get me hot under the collar.”
“Promises, promises,” he murmured in her ear. “All I want is for you to include me in this investigation. I know you’ve been used to going it alone for a long time now, but—”
“Being used to something and liking it are two different things,” she said. “I need you to have my back on this thing. Absolutely.”
“Always.” He stroked her cheek. “When do you need to give Quinn an answer?”
She made a face. “I sort of already did.”
He sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because you’re not really a big, dumb cowboy.” She tugged him with her toward the window, turning so that she could lean back in his embrace again. “You’re a big, smart, sexy cowboy.”
“Careful, sweetheart. You’re giving this cowboy some naughty ideas.”
She tugged his arms more tightly around her and turned her head to look up at him, smiling as he dipped his head to kiss her. “Believe me, it’s entirely intentional.”
* * *
“SO, WHAT EXACTLY does that mean?” Nick Darcy rose from the chair, a scowl darkening his face as he bent over Quinn’s desk, his hands flattened on the shiny wood surface.
In the other chair, Anson Daughtry sat very still, ignoring Darcy’s agitation in favor of meeting Quinn’s gaze without changing his expression.
Most people, observing the two men for the first time, might have expected the opposite reaction from each. Darcy, with his clipped accent and neat grooming, his expensive, well-cut suit and Italian silk tie, came across as the urbane professional, unflappable and focused, but he was the one snapping in anger and using his height and size in an attempt to express his displeasure at Quinn’s decision.
Daughtry, on the other hand, remained calm and contained, despite looking for all the world like a hillbilly, dressed in faded jeans, a plaid shirt over a white T-shirt and a blue baseball cap covering his shaggy brown hair. He answered Darcy’s question in a Tennessee drawl that wouldn’t have been out of place at any backwoods honky-tonk in Ridge County. “What it means, Nick, is that Mr. Quinn here is puttin’ us on suspension because somebody in this place has been leakin’ our secrets to the bad guys like a rusty old johnboat.”
Darcy’s sidelong glare held all the haughty annoyance of an aristocrat. Which, thanks to his British mother’s impeccable lineage, he came by honestly. “Thank you so much for explaining, Anson. I wouldn’t have been clear on Quinn’s intentions if not for your enlightening rusty-boat metaphor.”
To his credit, Daughtry managed not to roll his eyes. “I get it, boss,” he said. “You’re not in the trust business.”
“No, I’m not,” Quinn conceded. “Nor am I in the business of making accusations without evidence. Which is why I’m putting you both on paid leave pending our internal investigation. You’ll need to turn in your security passes and any keys you have in your possession. If either of you needs to visit the premises for any reason, you’ll be allowed to check in and out as any visitor would.”
“And be escorted everywhere by another agent, I presume?” Darcy asked, pushing back from Quinn’s desk. He sank back in his chair and crossed his arms in front of him, clearly annoyed.
“I don’t want to believe either one of you is the mole,” Quinn said. “And it’s possible neither of you is.”
“But we’re the only ones who knew the truth about Mallory Jennings’s identity.” Daughtry glanced at Darcy. “And you think one of us tipped off somebody who used that computer hacker she was looking for to lure her into a trap.”
Quinn nodded. “I have to eliminate the obvious.”
“And we are the obvious,” Darcy murmured, looking ill.
“I have to do this, Nick.”
Darcy’s gaze snapped up at Quinn’s use of his first name. But his lips twitched at the corners, the first hint that his anger was starting to fade to a sort of bemused resignation. “You’re beginning to frighten me, Quinn. I wasn’t aware you even knew my first name.”
Quinn rewarded Darcy’s mild gibe with a smile, though humor was about the last emotion he was feeling at the moment. “I’ll oversee this investigation myself. And I’ll get through it as quickly as possible.”
“Who’s going to know we’re in the hot seat?” Daughtry asked, showing the first sign of unease since Quinn had told the two agents they’d been put on administrative leave.
“I can’t reveal who I put on the investigation. You know that,” Quinn said with genuine regret. He’d been on the receiving end of internal investigations before. They were humiliating and stressful, and he didn’t enjoy inflicting the same pain on Darcy or Daughtry. “They’re good agents, they have no agenda except finding the truth and they will be fast and thorough.”
“I suppose I’m in no position to demand more,” Darcy said, subdued.
“It’s up to you what you want to tell your coworkers if they ask where you’re going,” Quinn leaned forward, twining his fingers as he met their gazes, first Darcy, then his brash young IT director. “The agents involved believe they’ll be able to finish the investigation within a couple of months.”
“A couple of months?” Darcy pressed his fingertips to his forehead. “God.”
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. “Truly.”
Daughtry gave a brief nod and unfolded his lanky limbs from the chair, starting to dig in the pockets of his jeans. “Who gets our security passes and keys? You?”
“That will be more discreet,” Quinn agreed, taking the security pass and the set of keys Daughtry handed to him.
With a tip of his cap, Daughtry left the office in an unhurried, loose-limbed stride.
“How long have you known me, Quinn?” Darcy asked in a low, tight voice.
Quinn met the other man’s baleful gaze. “Since Kaziristan.”
“We survived a siege together. We’ve worked other cases, both for the government and for this agency. I had a real career, once. I could have sailed through the Foreign Service, climbed the ladder the way my father always intended, but I didn’t want to be the kind of man who went along to get along. You know that. You hired me because of it.”
“I did,” Quinn conceded, refusing to give in to the niggle of guilt twisting his gut. He wasn’t a man who dealt in emotions like guilt or doubt. Decisions had to be made. Most of the time, he was the one who had to make them. Second guesses were a sign of weakness. “I will make this as quick and as painless as possible.”
Darcy just stared back at him, his dark eyes blazing with fury. He rose and walked out of the room in stony silence.
The door to the storage closet behind him opened, and a tall, long-legged blonde emerged carrying a small video monitor in one hand and a set of earphones wrapped around the other. She wore a satisfied smile. “That played out exactly as I expected,” she murmured in a warm contralto as she settled in the chair Anson Daughtry had vacated and crossed her long legs. “Appearances can be truly deceiving. It’s why so many people end up
playing the fool.”
Quinn flashed a quick smile at her enthusiasm, enjoying the view without being obvious about it. He was too old and too jaded for a woman of her age and spirit, but he found no harm in looking, nor in enjoying her invigorating energy.
“Do you have a feeling one way or the other?” She shot him a curious look. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Might taint the investigation.”
He gave a nod of approval. “You’ve chosen your team?”
She nodded, setting the monitor and earphones on the desk so that she could reach inside the jacket of her pearl-gray silk blazer. She pulled out a flash drive and set it on the desk blotter in front of him. “These two agents are the best fit for what you have in mind. They’re uniquely suited to ferret out any vulnerability either man might have.”
Quinn’s smile faded. While he never dealt in guilt or doubt, he didn’t enjoy this particular part of being the decision-maker in a world gone mad. It was possible, even probable, that neither Darcy nor Daughtry would ever trust him again. He might be losing two damn good agents to this internal investigation, even if neither one was guilty.
But it was a chance he had to take. A bad actor had wormed his way into the heart of The Gates, putting the agency’s integrity—and the lives of its clients and agents—at risk.
It was time to find the mole and bring him down for good.
* * * * *
Paula Graves’s thrilling miniseries, THE GATES,
continues next month with KILLSHADOW ROAD. Look for it wherever
Harlequin Intrigue books are sold!
Keep reading for an excerpt from SEDUCED BY THE SNIPER by Elizabeth Heiter.
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Intrigue story.
You crave excitement! Harlequin Intrigue stories deal in serious romantic suspense, keeping you on the edge of your seat as resourceful, true-to-life women and strong, fearless men fight for survival.
Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Intrigue every month!
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!