Hero Under Cover

by Suzanne Brockmann

  She began to move on top of him. His eyelids slid halfway down again and he smiled, his dark eyes molten with desire.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” he said into the telephone. His gaze strayed downward, caressing Annie’s body. “Really fine,” he said to her.

  But she wanted to see him squirm. She leaned forward, leaving a trail of light, feathery kisses up his neck to a little extrasensitive spot she’d found right underneath his ear—

  “Uh!” Pete said, then covered it with a cough. He wiggled away, pushing her back up, keeping her at arm’s length. “No, no, I’m all right,” he said into the telephone, flashing Annie a look of surrender. “Okay, but we need an hour.” There was a pause, then he said, “Tough. Go eat a doughnut. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  He hung up the phone, then pulled Annie down, kissing her hard on the mouth.

  They made love slowly, tenderly, in the morning light.

  “Who was on the phone?” she asked later, lying back, satisfied, in his arms.

  He kissed the top of her head. “A guy named Scott, from the bureau.”

  Annie sat up, turning to look at him. “Bureau? As in Federal Bureau of Investigations? As in the FBI?”

  Pete nodded. “Yeah. I called them last night while you were in the shower. I thought they might like to know the plate number of the car that tried to flatten us. At the same time, I figured we could use ’em for a safe ride up to Westchester this morning. That was what they were calling me about. They’ve got a car ready, down on parking level one.”

  “You actually got a look at the license plate of that car last night?” Annie said, her eyes wide. “And you remembered it? I’m impressed.”

  “Just doing my job, ma’am,” Pete said a little too modestly. He swung Annie up, pushing her out of the bed. “In about twenty-five minutes, there’s going to be a swarm of FBI agents knocking at the door, ready to escort us down to the car. I recommend taking a shower now, because when we get back to your house, we’re going to have to give them a detailed account of the hit and run attempt. It could take some time.”

  “Don’t I know,” Annie muttered under her breath.

  She took a quick shower, then eased her blue jeans on over the scrape on her knee. She sat on the bedroom floor and rummaged in her overnight bag, pulling out a well-worn T-shirt and a pair of socks and her sneakers, and quickly got dressed.

  There was a pile of weaponry on the table—Pete’s guns. Bemused, she counted three different guns. Why so many? she wondered. In case he dropped one?

  A loud hammering at the door made her jump. Startled, she scrambled to her feet, backing toward the bathroom door.

  Pete was still in the shower; she could hear it running. But the water shut off as the pounding was repeated.

  The door to the bathroom was ajar, and Annie pushed it open. “Pete?”

  Steam swirled in the small room, fogging the mirrors, curling around Pete as he stood naked on the bath mat, drying his lean, athletic body. He looked up at her, reading her face swiftly and accurately as usual. “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s at the door.”

  He swore under his breath, giving himself a few more swipes with his towel before he wrapped it around his waist. Annie followed him out into the bedroom, and Pete motioned for her to move to one side as he grabbed one of his guns and approached the door. Obediently hanging back, Annie watched as he looked out into the hallway through the door’s peephole. The tension in his shoulders and neck visibly decreased, and he pulled the chair away from under the doorknob and opened the door a crack.

  “You’re early,” Annie heard him say.

  “Brought ya breakfast,” she heard a man’s voice say. “A bag of doughnuts and coffee. Figured you could probably use the extra energy more than I could.”

  “Give me ten minutes,” Pete said, “and we’ll be ready to go.”

  “Take all the minutes you need,” the man said. “No one’s going anywhere for a long time.”

  The tightness returned to Pete’s shoulders. “What’s going on?”

  “You’d better open the door, Captain,” another, different voice said.

  Captain, thought Annie. Now why the heck would they call Pete that?

  He shot a quick look over his shoulder at her, then moved closer to the door, saying something in a low voice.

  “To hell with your cover, Captain Peterson,” the first man said. He pushed his way through the door, into the room, his eyes falling on Annie. “This entire investigation’s over,” he said, waving a folded document in the air. “I’m holding a warrant for the arrest of Dr. Anne Morrow.”

  Annie stared. “What?” she said. She looked at Pete. “Pete, what’s going on? Who is this man?”

  “It’s simple, lady.” The man smiled at her from behind a thick pair of glasses. “I’m Whitley Scott, with the FBI. You’re already familiar with Captain Peterson, here. He’s CIA.”

  Pete had taken the paper from Scott’s hand and was reading it, his eyes quickly skimming down the pages. He looked up to meet Annie’s shocked gaze.

  “No,” Annie breathed. But she knew it was true. She could see the guilt in Pete’s dark eyes.

  “And you,” Scott continued, “are busted. We’re charging you with five different felonies, including robbery, conspiracy, felony murder.” He turned to Pete. “You wanna Miranda her?”

  “Oh, God,” Annie said. Pete was CIA….

  “No,” Pete said, his voice low.

  “Collins,” Scott addressed one of the other men who had come into the room with him. “Read her her rights and frisk her.”

  “No,” Pete said, his voice sharp. “She’s clean.”

  “You know it’s gotta be done,” Scott said.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Collins began to drone.

  “I’ll frisk her,” Pete said.

  “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  “Nice room,” said Scott. He looked at the unmade bed, at the condom wrappers that still lay scattered on the floor. He smirked. “Must’ve been one hell of a night, eh, Peterson?”

  “Oh, God,” Annie said. Pete was CIA….

  Pete took her arm, and she looked up at him, startled by his touch. “You son of a bitch,” she said, pulling away from him.

  “You have the right to an attorney,” Collins said.

  “Annie, I don’t know what this is all about,” Pete said, talking low and fast, “but I’m going to find out. Right now you need to stay calm.”

  “If you cannot afford an attorney,” Collins said, “one will be appointed for you at no cost.”

  On the other side of the room, Scott opened the curtains and the gray light of a rainy October morning did little to illuminate the room. “Nice view of the park,” he said.

  “This has to be done,” Pete told Annie, “and I’ll do it as quickly as I can, but you’ve got to help me.”

  “Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?” Collins said.

  “Spread your legs apart and put your hands on your head,” Pete said.

  Woodenly, Annie obeyed him.

  “Dr. Morrow,” Collins said. “Do you understand these rights?”

  “Yes,” Annie whispered. She closed her eyes as Pete’s hands moved methodically and impersonally over her body. Oh, God…

  “She’s clean,” she heard him say, his voice tight, clipped.

  Everything he had told her was a lie. His name was Peterson, not Pete Taylor. He wasn’t a bodyguard. He probably wasn’t even half-Navaho, probably had never even been to Colorado. He’d only been using her to get information.

  He didn’t love her.

  It was all a lie. He didn’t love her….

  “I’m going to be sick,” Annie said, lunging for the bathroom.

  Collins and the other FBI agent moved to follow, but Pete blocked the door. “I’ll handle it,” he said.

  He went into the bathroom, closing and locking the do
or behind him.

  Annie knelt on the floor in front of the commode. Her face was pale. Taking a washcloth from the towel rack, Pete ran it under cool water and handed it to her.

  “Pete, how could you?” she asked, reproach in her eyes. “How could you use me this way?”

  His clothes lay in a pile near the shower. He pulled his shorts on under his towel, then used the towel to dry his hair. “There’s something really wrong here,” he said, almost to himself.

  “Captain Peterson,” she said, looking at him with new horror in her eyes as he pulled on his jeans. “You’re that horrible man who was behind the mirror window at the airport, aren’t you? And I slept with you. You bastard—”

  “Annie, I meant it when I said that I loved you,” he said. “You’ve got to believe that. And you’ve got to trust me until I figure out what’s going on.”

  She laughed, a dull, hollow sound. “You’re kidding, right?”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her up to her feet. “You made me a promise,” he said, shaking her slightly. “You promised not to forget that I love you, so don’t forget, damn it.”

  She pulled away from him. “I made that promise to Pete Taylor, and you’re obviously not him.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she fought them back. “You can go to hell, Captain Peterson.”

  She turned and walked out of the bathroom, closing the door tightly behind her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE INTERROGATION ROOM HELD ONE table and some stiff-backed wooden chairs. The walls were a dull, ugly shade of beige, and the floor was cheap, industrial linoleum tile. This is what hell looks like, Annie thought, fatigue washing over her as she looked around the table at the myriad of FBI agents that sat looking back at her. She was even willing to bet that Satan wore a dark suit exactly like the ones these men had on.

  She clasped her hands tightly in front of her on the table. “If you can’t get more specific with your charges,” she said tightly, “then you better release me.”

  Scott leaned back in his chair. “So you’re saying that you’ve never been in possession of these artifacts, and you don’t know how they got into your house.”

  Annie glanced down at the pictures for the hundredth time in the past few hours. They were antiquities—some she recognized, most she didn’t. But none had ever been near her house, much less in her possession. “I told you I don’t know how any of this happened,” she said, not for the first time.

  Scott nodded, obviously not believing her.

  She leaned forward. “Tell me, Scott,” she said. “Why in God’s name would I become involved in some idiotic art robbery? Why would I bomb museums? I’ve got an impeccable reputation, I make a decent living, I’m respected by my peers—why would I risk all that?”

  “You tell me.”

  The door opened and Pete came in. Captain Peterson, Annie corrected herself, trying to numb the pain that seeing him brought. He was wearing a conservative dark suit exactly like all the other agents, and Annie almost didn’t recognize him. Almost. He looked around the room, and one eyebrow went down very slightly in his version of a frown. Annie’s stomach hurt. She could read his face so well, even now. How was it that she hadn’t picked up on his lies?

  “Where’s your lawyer?” he asked Annie.

  Scott answered for her. “She’s waived her right.” He grinned. “She says she’s not guilty, so she doesn’t need an attorney.”

  “Get her one,” Peterson said coldly.

  “She doesn’t want one,” Scott said. “I can’t force one down her damned throat.”

  Annie was looking at Pete as if he were something that had crawled out from under a rock. “I don’t want him in here,” she said to Scott. “Make him leave.”

  Scott shrugged, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “Can’t do that,” he said. “Captain Peterson’s as much in charge here as I am.”

  Pete set a file down in front of Scott and sat down across from her. Annie turned away, not looking at him.

  “All right,” Scott said to Annie, opening the file and shuffling through the papers. “You want to get specific?” He pulled out a piece of paper, and began to read it.

  “’Two packages were observed on a counter in the laboratory of the suspect’s house. They were open, and contained articles numbered one through eight. The articles, in plain view of the investigating officers, matched the description of those articles missing from the English Gallery. The packages were seized in accordance with the warrant blah blah blah.’” He pushed the report across the table to her. “Read it and weep,” he said.

  The room was spinning. Annie leafed through the pages of the report, describing the room-by-room search, the description of the artifacts…

  “What gave you the right to search my home?” she asked quietly.

  “The warrant was obtained as a result of evidence gathered over the course of this investigation, and a tip—”

  “Who?” Annie demanded. “Who gave you this tip?”

  “This information came to us anonymously,” Scott said.

  “Oh, terrific!” Annie threw up her hands. “Obviously a reliable source—”

  “It certainly turned out to be, didn’t it?” Scott said, leaning across the table. “Especially when we found materials to construct explosives in a desk drawer in your office.”

  “What?” Annie gasped. Her eyes moved involuntarily to Pete’s face. He was expressionless, his dark eyes watching her steadily. “This is some kind of setup,” she said. The enormity of the situation crashed down around her, and she realized for the first time that she was in serious trouble. The stolen artifacts, the explosives…“I want a lawyer.”

  She looked back at the report in front of her. “Two packages were observed on a counter in the laboratory of the suspect’s house.”

  On a counter in the laboratory of the suspect’s house.

  In the laboratory!

  Yes!

  Pete had been in the lab with her before they left for New York City. He’d seen that the counters were clean, everything put away. He had locked the place up as they left the house, and had been with her ever since. He could confirm her story. He would tell them she had nothing to do with this!

  Yes!

  “Pete,” she said, excitement vibrating through her voice. She handed him the report. “You were with me when I went into the lab to turn off the lights before we went out last night, remember? The lab was all cleaned up—the counters were clear. You were right there in the doorway.”

  Pete glanced up from the report. His eyes were expressionless, his face guarded.

  “Remember?”

  He had to remember. Of course he’d remember.

  “Nick was waiting for us outside. You told me I looked beautiful.” Suddenly she looked down at her hands, and blushed at the memory. But she had to go on; she desperately needed him to stand with her now, no matter how humiliating. “You were looking at me—” she swallowed and looked up at him “—like you wanted to kiss me.”

  Pete met her gaze for only a second before looking back at the report, his eyes narrowing as if in concentration.

  “Remember?”

  He handed the paper back to Scott, glancing briefly at Annie, his eyes cold, detached. “No.”

  She stared at him, shock draining the blood from her face, leaving her pale. Oh, God, he was part of it, part of the setup….

  Pete stood up, careful not to meet her eyes. “I’ll go make arrangements for a lawyer,” he said, leaving the room.

  Annie stared down at the table, forcing herself not to cry as what was left of her heart shattered into a billion tiny pieces.

  ANNIE WALKED UP THE DRIVEWAY to her house. Her thin formal jacket was wrapped tightly around her, but it did little to keep out the rain on the long, cold walk from the train station. There were no lights burning in her windows, nothing to welcome her home.

  Home. Lord, she couldn’t believe she was actually here. Once her attorney had arrived, the end
less interrogation had stopped and bail was set. She’d been ready to call her parents to ask for help in posting the quarter-million-dollar bail when she found out that bail had already been paid by an anonymous source. Her father, she thought gratefully. Somehow he had found out she was in trouble even before her call, and he’d come to her rescue.

  The trial date was set for three months from now, and her license was revoked until that time. She couldn’t work, couldn’t even finish the work she’d started.

  With a disparaging laugh, she remembered the phone call that had told her not to touch the golden death mask, warning her that Stands Against the Storm’s evil spirit would harm her if she did. As a result, her life would crumble.

  You win, Stands Against the Storm, she thought. Her life had indeed crumbled.

  Keying her authorization code into the outside alarm control panel, she waited for the light to go from red to green. Unlocking the front door, she sighed. First thing in the morning, she’d have to pack up everything in her safe, ship it back to all the owners….

  She turned the alarm back on and climbed the stairs in the dark and went into her bedroom. Was it only last night that she’d been so happy? Dancing with Pete, making love to him—How could she have been so stupid? He must be laughing at her now.

  She dumped her bag on the floor. Shivering, she went into the bathroom, turned on the light and quickly stripped off her wet clothes.

  Steam from her hot shower soon fogged the mirror, and she washed herself, washed off the very last trace of Pete’s scent. Closing her eyes, she let the water run over her face, disguising the tears that she couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “ANNIE, WAKE UP.”

  She opened her eyes to find Peterson sitting on her bed, looking down at her. She didn’t move, she just stared.

  “Are you awake?” he asked. The morning light coming in behind the curtains dimly lit his face. He looked tired, his eyes red and bleary, as if he hadn’t slept. He had changed out of that dreadful dark suit and back into his familiar blue jeans and T-shirt.

  “No,” she said. “I better not be. I better be dreaming. You better not be sitting here in my room like this.”