Ianucci walked past him to stand directly in front of Mary Katherine. Unwillingly she raised her gaze to his and felt the heat intensify. The look he gave her was tinged with disapproval but was, for the most part, disinterested. “As you’re aware, Miss Monroe, this—” with one elegant gesture, he indicated her, Chance and the sofa “—is grounds for termination. You’re welcome to whatever liaisons you want on your own time, but on my time, I expect you to work.”
She bit back the insane impulse to point out that she was on her dinner break. It wouldn’t make any difference and just might convince him to fire her anyway.
“However, this must be your lucky day. You obviously weren’t breaking the rules alone. If I fire you, I’ll also have to fire Chance, and he’s too valuable an employee to lose merely because he’s developed a…a passion for you. I rarely give warnings. I find them a waste of time. But I’ll make an exception this time. Consider yourself warned.” His cool, dispassionate gaze swept over her again. “Make yourself decent. We’ll wait for you in the hall.” Once more he gestured, and Chance and Clyde Ebert followed him from the room.
Quickly she shrugged out of the coat, tugged her costume back into place, then repaired the damage to her hair. When she was as decent as the costume allowed for, she folded Chance’s coat…and felt the hard bump of the flash drive. Curiously she pulled it out, stared at it a moment, then, without considering her actions, she tucked it inside her costume where the gathering at the waist helped camouflage it. Whatever was on the drive was important enough to Chance to risk his job for it. Maybe it would tell her something about him she didn’t know—such as that he really was one of the good guys. That, like her, he had ulterior motives—good motives—for being on board the Queen.
If nothing else, maybe she could blackmail him into confiding in her to get it back.
It took more courage than she’d known she had to open the door and walk out into the well-lit passageway. The security guards were all gone. Only Chance, Ianucci and Clyde Ebert waited. “Don’t forget, Miss Monroe. This is your first and last warning,” Ianucci said coolly. “If there’s a next time, you will be terminated. Consider it a warning to you, also, Chance. You’re valuable…but you’re not irreplaceable.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Chance grinned ruefully. “She does that to me. But it won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.” Ianucci walked away, with Ebert on his heels.
Taking her arm, Chance pulled Mary Katherine in the other direction. He didn’t speak until they were outside and the heated, muggy air on the bow was the only thing around them. There he pulled her around to face him and gave her a controlled shake. “What the hell were you doing there?” he whispered even though there was clearly no one to overhear.
“Are you a cop?” she whispered back.
“No! Jeez, get over it, angel, will you? You’re shacked up with an ex-grease monkey who works as a security guard and carries a gun. All the wishful thinking in the world isn’t going to turn me into your perfect Mr. Right.”
He was wrong, she thought as she gazed at him. All she needed to make him Mr. Right was his assurance that he wasn’t one of the bad guys. Her heart told her he wasn’t, and so did her head, but when he kept arguing with her, it was hard to be one hundred percent sure.
Glaring at her, he asked once more, “What were you doing in Casey’s office?”
“Nothing.”
He released her with one hand to drag his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “Damn it…don’t play games, Mary Katherine. Mr. Ianucci is not someone you want to make angry. Do you understand?”
“You told me he was an honest businessman. A wonderful husband, father and boss. A paragon of virtue. Now you’re suggesting that he might…what? Kill an employee who has the misfortune to be wrongly accused of cheating? Or one who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
The taut look that crossed his face disappeared almost immediately, giving way once more to anger and frustration, but it lasted long enough to make her breath catch in her chest, to send a cold shiver down her spine. “You believe he had Paul Baker killed, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe anything without proof,” he said flatly, but he couldn’t meet her gaze when he said it.
“Oh, God.” She pulled away from him and went to stare out over the river, hugging her arms—and his folded coat—tightly to her middle. Anthony Ianucci was a murderer, and she’d just put both Chance and herself in a dangerous position with him. Granted, triggering the alarm had been an accident, but that was small comfort if they lost their jobs—or their lives—over it.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind. Acutely aware of the flash drive tucked in the folds of her costume, she kept his coat where he couldn’t feel a thing if he wandered into dangerous territory. “Go home, angel,” he said wearily. “After this cruise, pack your bags and go back to Jubilee where you belong.”
The idea was tempting, even if it meant telling Granddad he was out of luck. But leaving Chance…possibly rousing Ianucci’s suspicion further… “Do you think he believed our excuse for being in the office?”
“I don’t know. I think so. While we were waiting in the hall for you to get dressed, he said he admired my taste, though he faulted my judgment.” He sighed heavily, stirring her hair, then asked the dreaded question yet again, this time in a worried, almost pleading tone. “Why were you in Casey’s office, Mary Katherine? What were you looking for?”
She tried the same lie again. “I didn’t even know it was Casey’s office. I saw you go in and—”
“Damn it, don’t lie! You weren’t following me! No one followed me. I made sure of it.”
“Why? What were you looking for?”
He forcefully turned her to face him. “What’s your real interest in the Queen, Mary Katherine? You didn’t come here looking to make money. You have plenty of money. You could have found any number of more suitable summer jobs that didn’t involve kids, libraries or reading. You could have found a hell of a lot more suitable adult companionship at any one of those jobs. You chose the Queen for a reason, and I want to know why.”
She stared stubbornly at him. “You can never have too much money. And maybe I wasn’t looking for a suitable summer job. Maybe I’m sick to death of everything being suitable. Maybe I wanted something unsuitable, something wicked, different, fun. Maybe just once I wanted to feel like an attractive woman with something to offer a man besides a decent education for his kids.”
“And maybe you’re a liar.”
For a long moment she simply looked at him. Then her mouth curved into a cool, disdainful smile. “Well, you’d know something about that, wouldn’t you, Chance? Everything I know about lying I learned from you.”
He stared at her, his green eyes intense. “You’re up to something that’s liable to get you in more trouble than you know how to deal with. I can’t make you tell me, but I can tell you this—you stay hell and gone from Casey’s office and every other office on this boat, and stop asking questions of the other employees, or I’ll have you fired. One word to Sara, and you’re outta here.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Try it and see.”
“You are a smug, arrogant man,” she said with a scowl.
“And you’re in way over your head.”
She studied him a moment, then summoned a careless smile that was all fake. “You get me fired, Chance, and I’ll tell Ianucci what you were really doing in that office. Don’t you think he would be interested in knowing that one of his valued employees was sneaking around in the night downloading computer files?”
Second after second ticked by as they stared at each other. She regretted the threat almost immediately, first because he didn’t believe her and, second, because it gave him a more-dangerous-than-usual air. After long seconds he moved closer to her, backing her against the railing, leaning so near that their noses almost touched, and he
said in a soft, silky voice, “Don’t play games with me, either, Mary Katherine. Ianucci’s not the only man around here who’s dangerous when angry.”
For a moment, or five or ten, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t that she was scared. She honestly wasn’t, though she was convinced that he meant business. She was also convinced, however, that his “business” would never include doing her harm. No, she was turned on. Aroused. Hot. The man was threatening her, and all she could think was how she wanted to grab his vest, yank him closer for a kiss and find some privacy in the shadows to get naked.
For the first time in her life she felt just a little bit wicked.
Of course, she didn’t follow through.
With the air around them actually humming with tension, she took a breath, found her voice. “I—I’d better get back to work.” Carefully she eased out from between his body and the rail and started for the stairs. A dozen feet away, she laid his coat over a deck chair, then glanced back at him. He was watching her with a hint of resignation, a bit of bewilderment and other emotions too complex to sort out.
After a detour by the locker room to leave the flash drive in her purse, she returned to work in the saloon ten minutes early. She pretended not to notice when Chance came in ten or fifteen minutes later, pretended not to be aware of him, brooding at the bar, through the next three hours. When he finally left minutes before the boat docked, she gave a sigh of relief.
The end of the cruise had been a long time coming, but at last, gratefully, she headed for the locker room with the other waitresses. Too tired for words, she changed clothes, grabbed her purse and locked her locker again, then went out into the passageway to find Chance waiting, still brooding. He didn’t speak to her as they left the boat. She couldn’t think of anything to say as they drove to her house. When he parked out front, she gave him a sidelong look, wondering if he was going to come inside, hoping he planned to spend the night.
But he didn’t shut off the engine or look at her or make any move at all. Disappointed, she cleared her throat. “Thanks for the ride.”
He nodded once.
She got out, walked up the sidewalk, up the steps, to the door. The powerful purr of the Cuda’s engine almost drowned out the creak of the screen door. It vibrated the floorboards in the hallway and pulsed through the door when she opened it, closed it, leaned against it. Feeling unsettled, her emotions in a tangle, she went to the front window. The Cuda still sat at the curb, engine rumbling, and Chance leaned against the front fender.
Logic told her he couldn’t see her—the only light on inside was the dim bulb above the stove—but emotion told her he was looking straight at her. She could feel his gaze as surely as if she stood in a spotlight five feet in front of him.
She couldn’t estimate how long they stood there, looking at each other. Five minutes? Ten? Twice that? After a time, though, he finally moved—not to shut off the engine and come inside to her, but to slide behind the wheel and slowly drive away. Regret seeped in until she was filled with it. Disappointed, she went to bed.
Alone.
Chapter 7
The loud jangle of the phone jerked Chance from a restless sleep. Rolling over in bed, he felt blindly on the nightstand before finding it and muttered a barely intelligible hello.
“Sounds like you had a rough night—or maybe a damn lucky one,” Jake said in place of a greeting. “Should I call back after she’s gone?”
“No. I’m alone.” Chance sat up and rubbed one hand over his face before squinting at his wristwatch. If he’d guessed how long he’d managed to sleep last night, he would have said maybe three or four hours, but according to his watch, he’d been in bed more than twelve hours. It was nearly six-thirty, and he felt like hell. “What’s up?”
“I understand you had a close call last night.”
“Yeah.” He related how Mary Katherine had shown up in Casey’s office, how she’d hit the light switch and activated the alarm instead.
“The alarm system is tied into the light switch?” Jake asked.
“You go into a room, the first thing you do is turn on the lights, right? Well, if you have a legitimate reason to be in one of those offices, you know the first switch on the plate sets off the alarm and the second turns on the lights. If you don’t have a reason to be there, you assume the first switch turns on the lights and you get yourself caught.”
“So where’s the flash drive? You didn’t give it to Jimbo last night.”
“It’s in my coat pocket. I thought, under the circumstances, I’d better wait until today.” He figured Jake would assume by “under the circumstances” that he meant practically getting caught and not wanting to risk further attention for himself. Truthfully, he was referring to Mary Katherine snooping in Casey’s office. He’d thought it better to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t pull any other brilliant stunts before they got back to port.
“What explanation did she give for being in the office?”
Chance scowled as he stuffed the pillows behind his back and leaned his head against the wall. “None at all that was halfway believable. You have any ideas?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. We ran her against the Queen’s guest list and got a hit.”
A knot formed in Chance’s gut and he rubbed it absently with one hand while the other tightened around the receiver. An investigation like this was far-reaching. The FBI’s interest was not only in Ianucci and the Queen, but also in all her customers, employees and suppliers. To that effect, part of Jimbo’s job, both for Ianucci and the bureau, included identifying every person who boarded the Queen. No one set foot on the gangway without getting logged in first, including vehicle information where possible.
Somehow, Chance managed to sound only mildly interested when he prodded his boss. “You planning to share this hit with me?”
“Does the name Patrick O’Hara mean anything to you? Older man? Goes by Paddy?”
“No. Who is he?”
“He was a visitor to the Queen a month or so ago. Came as a guest of the esteemed and corrupt Judge Montgomery Edwards. He had a bad night, though—lost his life savings of forty thousand dollars—then went home and told everyone the game was crooked.” Jake paused before adding the final bit of information. “He’s Mary Katherine’s grandfather.”
“Aw, hell.” Squeezing his eyes shut, Chance rubbed the ache settling in his temple. “So that’s what she’s up to. Finding—justice? redemption?—for her grandfather.”
“Looks like. Ole Paddy’s something of a legend in Jubilee,” Jake said with a chuckle. “By all accounts, he’s a bit of a rascal. He’s always up to his neck in something and it’s never his fault. He gets misled, taken advantage of and snookered by every fast talker in the state, but no matter what the scheme, he’s always as innocent as a babe in his version of it.”
Chance wasn’t amused. Sweet damnation, she was flirting with death merely to prove that her grandfather’s gambling losses weren’t his fault? He was not only going to get her kicked off the Queen, he was going to have Jake lock her up in a padded cell somewhere for her own safety until this case was closed. And then he was going to take on the full-time responsibility of watching over her—and protecting her from her grandfather—himself, even if it meant marrying her.
Especially if it meant marrying her.
“You there, Chance?”
For just one moment he allowed himself to consider the all-too-sweet prospect of marriage to Mary Katherine, then he took a deep breath. “I’m here.”
“How do you want to handle this?”
“I don’t know. Warning her doesn’t always do any good.” But telling her the truth might. If she knew he was a special agent with the FBI, if she understood the very real danger she was placing both of them in, he was relatively sure she would back off.
But if she didn’t… That could be even more dangerous for them both.
“Well, you need to decide quick, ’cause, son, another day or
so, and you’re out of there. The U.S. Attorney’s decided to present the case to the grand jury next week. The tape regarding Paul Baker’s murder was the icing on a very big cake. With everything else you’ve gathered over the past fourteen months, he feels confident he can put Ianucci, Ebert and the others away for a very long time.”
Another day or so. There’d been times when Chance had lived for the day he could walk away from the Queen, but now that it was actually going to happen, he didn’t want to go. He couldn’t go, not until Mary Katherine was gone, too. Not until she was safe back home in Jubilee.
“In fact,” Jake went on, “you’ve probably taken your last cruise. You’re off today and tomorrow, right? And the U.S. Attorney will want you in Oxford a day or two before he presents the case to the grand jury. You can start packing your bags.”
Chance stared at a water stain on the ceiling. Mary Katherine was off today and tomorrow, too. He could use that time to persuade her to quit, to pack her bags and move her home or into protective custody, whichever she made necessary. And if he couldn’t persuade Jake that there was a legitimate need to place her in protective custody—and he doubted he could—he would devise his own version of it. He had favors to call in, people who would help out.
Inside his coat, tossed on a chair across the room, his pager started beeping. His headache worsening with each beep, he stretched the phone cord so he could reach it and checked the number. “Jimbo’s paging me 9-1-1,” he said. “I’ll see what he wants and get back to you.”
He hung up, laid the pager on the nightstand and dialed the guard shack.
“Mr. Ianucci wants you in,” Jimbo said. “The Queen’s doing an unscheduled private cruise this evening. Seems Mr. Hamilton from Atlanta had a free evening and decided he wanted an elegant dinner and a few hands of high-stakes poker with some of his equally well-heeled and bored friends.”
The private cruises weren’t unusual. Ianucci made the Queen available to any number of his regulars, who, in turn, made it worth his while. The short notice was a little odd, but not unheard of. The sort of wealthy people the Queen catered to had the ability to make things happen quickly, no matter what the price. Still, Chance felt…uneasy. And with good reason.
Who Do You Love? Page 21