Dangerous Games

by Tess Diamond

  Chapter 13

  Frank was waiting for Maggie at the entrance of the FBI headquarters, his suit jacket thrown over his arm. From the sixties, the building had a retro feel with its block concrete construction and windows lining the two sides facing the street.

  It was strange to be standing on the sidewalk, looking up at it again—she hadn’t been back since she quit. Frank had sent over the things in her office at her request.

  She’d been avoiding this moment. Having to walk inside, to face who she’d been before Sherwood Hills, and who she was now, after. She didn’t want to see her former colleagues, endure the accusatory or, worse, pitying looks. She hadn’t been able to cut it. Maggie, the most promising student in her class at Quantico, had failed.

  The dread churned inside her like choppy waves in a storm. God, she didn’t want to go inside.

  “Told you I’d get you back here,” Frank said, smiling and holding out a visitor’s badge.

  Maggie took it, clipping it to her blouse, trying to tamp down the apprehension building in her stomach.

  “You can have your real one if you want,” Frank said. “All you have to do is come back to work.”

  Maggie shot him a stern look. “No thanks, Frank,” she said. “I don’t want to be here, and I’m not joining up again. This is a onetime favor, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Frank muttered, holding the door open for her. “Ruin my dreams, will you?” They passed through two metal detectors and a full-body scan before being allowed access to the area where suspects were questioned. As Maggie walked down the corridor, she could feel eyes following her. It made her skin crawl. She tried to ignore it—these people’s opinions didn’t matter anymore—but then she caught sight of Mike Sutton, one of the SWAT team leaders, standing outside a room up ahead.

  Her step faltered, just for a second, before she continued down the hall.

  “Well, well, well.” Mike turned and grinned at her. “Look who’s back in the game.”

  “Sutton.” Maggie nodded curtly.

  Mike leaned against the wall, sticking his hands in his pockets. “You in on this one, Kincaid? They actually letting you out to play after the mess you made? Better watch her, Frank. But I guess my boys did all the hard work for you. We took Macomb down in twenty seconds. Smooth sailing. Not like Sherwood Hills, you know? You really screwed the pooch on that one. Good thing the grown-ups were there to take care of this pool guy. Otherwise we’d have another mess on our hands.”

  Maggie’s fingernails cut into the flesh of her palms as she forced herself to stay quiet. She didn’t have time for male ego. Mike was the kind of man who enjoyed stomping on people to get to the top—especially the women he had little respect for. She had more important things to do than battle him—she had to find Kayla.

  “Sutton, don’t you have some paperwork to do?” Frank asked pointedly, glaring at Sutton with a powerful kind of anger.

  “Don’t worry about it, Frank,” Maggie said coolly. “Mike, it was nice seeing you.” Without another word, she left him behind, looking bewildered, and strode up to the door of the interrogation suite ahead as Frank scrambled to catch up with her.

  Like most of the interrogation suites, there was a soundproof observation room for the agents, a few chairs scattered here and there, with a large one-way mirror cut into the wall, allowing them to watch the interrogation. Paul and several other agents were grouped around the window, watching in silence.

  “Who’s in there with him?” Maggie demanded, pushing forward to see.

  Randy Macomb was a muscle-bound beach boy with a perfect tan. A stereotypical musclehead, he was even wearing an oversized tank top. His thick black eyebrows scrunched up in confusion as the agent inside shot question after question at him, his voice rising with each one when Randy didn’t give him what he wanted.

  “You liked talking to Kayla, didn’t you?” the agent asked. “Thought she was pretty?”

  “Kayla’s a nice kid,” Randy said, eyes widening in horror. “But she’s a kid, man! That’s sick! I’ve got a little sister her age.”

  “You resented working for the senator all the time. I know I would have. All those long weekends he called you in,” said the agent.

  “My job’s the best.” Randy shook his head in frustration and glanced at the window, mirrored on this side of the room, as if he expected the senator to leap out of it. “I get to be outside all the time, thinking up lyrics for my songs. It’s the life, man! And the senator’s a chill guy for an old dude.”

  “What about Mrs. Thebes?” The agent leapt onto another line of reasoning with such speed that it made Maggie’s head spin. Who the hell had taught this guy interrogation?

  Dear God. This was embarrassing. And unproductive. There was no time for this with Kayla’s life on the line—she needed a real lead, not a half-assed interrogation by a guy who sounded like he had watched too many detective movies.

  Maggie had had enough of this incompetence. She whirled around and strode to the door, flinging it open before Paul and the others could protest.

  Both men looked up when she entered the room. “I can take it from here,” she said brusquely to the agent. He glared at her, but she met his eyes coolly, daring him to argue.

  “You’re in charge,” he said, a hint of disgust in his voice as he rose from his chair and left the room.

  Maggie sat down across from Randy, smiling gently at him. “Hi, Randy. I’m Maggie.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said immediately.

  “Why don’t you just tell me where you were yesterday?”

  “I was in Baltimore, visiting my ma.”

  “Can you prove it? Do you have gas receipts? Bus ticket?”

  “Um, you could call Ma.”

  Maggie looked over to the two-way glass. “Could someone call this guy’s mom?” she asked. She turned back to Randy. “What about your cell phone, Randy?”

  “I lost it the other day.”

  “You lost it,” Maggie repeated, knowing already that this confirmed what she had suspected all along.

  “Yeah, I’ve been looking all over,” Randy said. “I keep having my buddy call it, but I never hear anything.” When Maggie didn’t respond right away, he said, “Why, do you have it?”

  Maggie shot a pointed look at the window. They’d need to follow up on all this, but she knew—and they did too—there was nothing here. They’d arrested the wrong man.

  She thanked Randy and left the room, heading out of the suite without saying anything to anyone. She needed to get the hell out of here before she ran into anyone else. Before she was hit full force with bad memories.

  “Kid,” Frank started to say, but she shot him a quelling look. “Come here,” he said softly, pulling her into a side hallway, away from the group of agents who’d brought Randy in.

  “We follow every lead—you know that,” Frank said, when she crossed her arms, refusing to say anything. “I know it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s what we do.” He looked her up and down. “When was the last time you ate?” he asked, his bushy eyebrows scrunched together in concern.

  “Well, I was going to eat breakfast after my run, but this old geezer accosted me and insisted on cashing in on this favor I owed him,” she said dryly.

  He grinned ruefully. “Take an hour,” he said. “We’ve got to regroup, anyway. Get some food in you. Then come back and we’ll kick some ass.”

  He was right. She should eat. Damn him.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go get a burger at Sal’s. But if there’s any movement—”

  “You’re my first call,” he promised.

  “I’ll see you in an hour,” she said.

  They parted ways, and she was almost to the elevator when she heard someone calling her name.

  “Maggie, wait,” Paul called.

  Whatever calm Frank had soothed into her disappeared in a second. She turned, frustration mounting. “What?” she asked.

  “Don’t be mad,” he star
ted.

  “I’m not mad,” Maggie said. “I’m frustrated time’s been wasted. Kayla is a high-risk victim. You understand that, right? Her diabetes makes this situation even more dangerous because even if the kidnapper makes every effort to keep her alive, he could screw it up out of inexperience with the disease. It was clear from the start Randy wasn’t involved, but you just had to cover your bases. The second you laid eyes on that guy, you should’ve known. He could barely string four words together without injecting man in there. Criminal mastermind, that one.”

  “We’re not all like you, Maggie,” Paul said, and it startled her, that for once, he seemed frustrated. He’d been so patient lately. Like he was waiting for her to change her mind and want him back.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she said.

  “You’re gifted,” he said. “A natural. It doesn’t come as easy to some of us, the instinct.”

  Maggie stared at him, horrified. “You think this is natural?” she said, her voice lowering, a surefire sign she was about to cry. God, her instinct wasn’t natural—it was born out of horrible experience and fear . . . out of blood and terror and loss. It’d been forced on her at twelve, and she’d never recovered that part of her, that innocent part. She had never got her sister back either. And he was telling her this was her gift? She felt sick.

  A moment too late, Paul seemed to realize his mistake. His blue eyes widened, and he reached forward automatically, but she stepped back, unable to even look at him. “Maggie—”

  She held out her hand, stopping him. “I’m leaving,” she said.

  Maggie turned on her heel and hurried away, thankful that he at least had the sense not to follow.

  Chapter 14

  One eye on her watch, Maggie drove a few blocks down to her old haunt, Sal’s Lounge. After parking across the street, she darted down the asphalt, dodging traffic. Sal’s was a hole-in-the-wall with a neon sign that sputtered weakly and crumbling concrete block that had seen better days, but Maggie always had a fondness for it.

  She hadn’t been inside in a long time—she’d taken pains to avoid this part of town—but the long, polished oak bar, well worn and well loved by Sal, the owner, was still the same, as was the low light that was as comforting as it was seedy.

  “Maggie.” Sal, a broad woman with long silver hair braided down her back, smiled at her. “Long time no see. Jameson on the rocks?”

  “Just a burger.” Maggie sat down on one of the ancient leather stools, leaning forward, her elbows on the bar. God, this day. When she got ready for her run this morning, she couldn’t have begun to imagine Frank would show up and reel her in to work a case that was all too familiar, threatening to shake her hard-won stability. And with Paul and Jake tearing at her emotions in different ways, her nerves were on edge, and she felt like she was falling apart.

  Sal slid a glass of water down the bar and Maggie caught it with her hand, taking a long drink. “You on the clock?” she asked.

  Maggie nodded.

  “I’ll get the burger started for you quick, then,” Sal said.

  “Thanks,” Maggie said, absently pulling her hair out of the bun she’d put it in that afternoon on the way to the Carmichael Academy.

  “Looks like you’re drinking alone.” A man with slicked-back hair and an ill-fitting suit sidled up next to her. “I can change that.”

  Maggie shot him a disgusted look. This was the last thing she needed, on top of everything else. “I’m not drinking at all,” she said. “And I’d rather keep doing that alone.”

  “Aw, sweetheart, don’t play hard to get.” The man leaned into her space, his palm grazing her thigh. Maggie grabbed his wrist in a vise grip, bending it backward—hard. He yelped.

  “No means no,” she hissed. “Get lost.”

  He scuttled away, his tail between his legs.

  Maggie took another sip of water. Frank had been right to send her to cool off for an hour. She had had her fill of machismo today. She could practically smell it, sticking to her like a cheap cologne. First she’d had to deal with Paul’s stubbornness and Jackson’s ego, plus the senator’s skepticism and his advisor’s naked ambition, only to run right into Mike Sutton’s bullshit at headquarters. The only man she wasn’t feeling entirely annoyed with right now was Jake O’Connor, though that morning when she’d first met him, if she’d been told she’d feel that way by the afternoon, she would never have believed it. And now . . . how odd it was that she’d felt more comfortable bouncing ideas off him than off people she’d known and worked with for years.

  What was his deal, she wondered. When she met him that morning, he’d challenged her and told her she was doing it all wrong, but that afternoon, as soon as she came back from the academy, all of a sudden, he was willing to listen, to meet and even elevate her theories; use them as a springboard. What had changed his mind? Did this case feel as off to him as it did to her?

  She’d eat her most expensive pair of heels if Jake O’Connor didn’t have some kind of military background. It was obvious in the way he carried himself; how when he followed her out into the mansion’s foyer this morning, he instinctively checked and double-checked visuals of all the exits in mere seconds. Most combat vets do that. All the field agents she knew did it. Hell, she did it too. It became a habit, a part of you, to calculate an escape route, just in case.

  Maggie hadn’t learned that trick in the FBI or the military, though. She’d learned it the night she and Erica were taken. It was a lesson learned too late, but she’d never forgotten it.

  What lessons had Jake O’Connor’s life taught him? A man like that, with that body, paired with his cocky country-boy-done-good personality, would have gone over well in the service. A natural leader. He wasn’t used to taking orders—she figured he was the guy who gave them. She could tell from the way he’d tried to take the reins from her this morning. But then, later, he’d proven to be flexible. Helpful, even.

  He was confusing, that’s what he was. Confusing . . . and way too attractive. But she was relieved he was on her side, even if he did still want to go rushing in as soon as they found Kayla’s location. She could understand that, really. She didn’t blame him for it. There were times she felt that way too. She had just learned the hard way to ignore it.

  Maggie ran a hand through her curls, taking another sip of water as her phone buzzed. She jumped a little, but then saw it was a text message from her friend Grace, a profiler at the Bureau.

  Heard you were at HQ. Where are you now?

  Maggie sent her a text back:

  At Sal’s.

  A few seconds later, her phone buzzed.

  On my way.

  Sal came bustling out of the kitchen then, a basket with a burger and steaming, golden fries in her hand. She placed it in front of Maggie, who took a bite, trying not to moan.

  She was so hungry that, by the time Grace arrived a few minutes later, she’d almost finished the entire burger.

  Grace entered the bar in a cloud of expensive perfume—the kind that was a scent specially blended for her in Paris—her Manolo Blahnik heels clicking on the bar’s cracked tile floor. The guy who’d tried to hit on Maggie—Mr. Handsy—looked up at the sound, his eyes glazing over a little as he took in Grace. Luckily, Maggie had taught him his lesson, so he kept his distance.

  Grace Sinclair was the kind of beautiful that got deeper the longer you looked at her. Her black hair was thick and straight, falling to the curve of her waist. Her tall hourglass figure was always clad in the latest designer clothing. It boggled Maggie’s mind to think how much Grace must spend on shoes alone. Grace’s heart-shaped face was sweet and open—deceptively so. It was one of the reasons she made a fantastic profiler. People underestimated her intelligence because of her high-fashion appearance, and she used that to her advantage. Being one of the few women in the boys’ club that was the FBI isn’t easy—you have to use every tool and talent you’ve got to make it to the top. Grace knew that, and so did Maggie. It had bonded th
em when they met, Grace fresh out of Quantico, Maggie only one year into being an agent.

  Grace brushed at the stool next to Maggie before sitting down. Her dark blue linen dress had an asymmetrical neckline that reminded her friend of an alligator’s teeth, and the trumpet skirt flared out at the knees, allowing her more freedom of movement as she perched on the stool, crossing her long, slim legs. Her heels seemed lethally high—the spike stilettos so sharp they could pierce a vital organ if the woman was determined to do so.

  Maggie knew how determined Grace could be. The first case they worked together was a bank robbery where two unsubs had taken a lobby full of people hostage. Grace was shadowing another profiler who had little respect for her, Maggie, or women in general. He kept cutting Grace off when she suggested something, but instead of letting it cow her, Grace just kept going until Maggie started asking her questions instead. Grace had ended up delivering a profile of the unsub’s partnership that helped Maggie establish a deep enough connection with the submissive partner that he rebelled against the dominant partner, shooting him and giving SWAT a window of opportunity to move in and get the hostages out safely.

  “You and this place,” Grace sighed, looking around disparagingly at the shabby, dimly lit dive. “What’s wrong with the wine bar on Second Street? They have jazz on Tuesdays.”

  Maggie smiled. Grace loved jazz. She couldn’t even keep track of the number of times Grace—who was as beautiful as she was unlucky in love—had dragged her to some dark smoky hole-in-the-wall to listen to whatever jazz quartet she’d discovered. But as much as she loved Grace, Maggie wasn’t going to step foot in a bar where she couldn’t get a beer. That was asking too much, even for a good friend.

  “Sal’s has something better: personality,” Maggie insisted.

  “So, did Frank put you on a time-out?” Grace asked.

  “He ordered me to go eat,” Maggie said, dipping a fry in some ketchup. “He caught me in the park early this morning. We’ve been nonstop since. I made first contact with the unsub, plus interviews at the school, and Paul decided to chase after the wrong suspect even though I told him it was a dead end. So today’s been great.” She stabbed a fry a little too hard into the ketchup.