Dangerous Games

by Tess Diamond

  “Do it, or I won’t even wait for the shock to set in,” Uncle Sam said. “I’ll slit her throat.”

  “But—” Senator Thebes said.

  There was a click—and then the dial tone.

  “Dammit!” The senator slammed the pay phone down so hard it bounced off the receiver and swung there as he ran an agitated hand through his hair, his feet shuffling like he wanted to pace.

  Well, Maggie wasn’t going to let any narcissistic indecision enter into this. If she had to fight the senator while she was trying to find Kayla, it’d get the girl killed even faster. Her mind made up, she opened the door and jumped out of her car, striding up the sidewalk. It was chilly outside, and she drew her peacoat tighter around her. She needed answers, and she needed them now. She didn’t care who he was, how much power he had, or what he’d done to bring this nightmare about. Kayla was more important than all of that.

  The senator still stood in the phone booth, his slumped back to her. He seemed wholly defeated, deflated, staring down at the ground like a broken man. Now was the best time to confront him, really, Maggie thought coldly. People don’t lie as well when they’re distraught. She’d be able to get at some of the truth behind his facade now.

  “Senator,” she said.

  He whirled around, his eyes widening in shock when he recognized her.

  “Ms. Kincaid,” he said, trying for short and clipped, but the hoarseness of his voice, weighed down with guilt, skewed his aim.

  “I think it’s time we have an honest talk,” Maggie said.

  “I think it’s time you get in your car and go home,” Thebes snapped. “You’re off this case. I’ll inform Frank immediately.”

  Maggie drew herself up and stared him down. She knew men like him well—men who thought they could bully and muscle their way out of things. And she knew just how to deal with them.

  “Senator, we’re going to get in your car, and you’re going to tell me what the hell is really going on here. Or I’m going to get ornery.”

  His eyes didn’t just widen, they almost bugged out of his head at her hubris. The senator was a privileged man—a man that not a lot of people said no to.

  Lucky for Kayla, Maggie wasn’t cowed easily.

  “Do you know who I am?” he demanded, stepping toward her, trying to use his height to intimidate. Refusing to flinch, Maggie stared steadily back at him. “I could ruin you.”

  “And I could have you arrested and in an interrogation room in twenty minutes,” Maggie said flatly. “Complete with cameras, an official record, and reporters waiting for you on the drive out of headquarters to your very own jail cell. So you might want to think for a second before you threaten me any further. I could ruin you, sir. To the point where you’d never recover anything you have. Not your job, not your friends. Your wife would leave you. Your kid—whose life you’re gambling with, for whatever reason—won’t ever speak to you again . . . If she gets through this. You’d just be another washed-up, corrupt politician. You’d never get your shot at the Oval Office. And I’m starting to think that’s what you care about, more than Kayla’s safety. I can’t imagine your being so corrupt that you’d risk your daughter’s life just to protect your political career.”

  He stared at her, wordless, furious, practically vibrating with anger. For a moment, she was afraid he might try to hit her, but she continued, heedless. She could restrain him if things got ugly.

  “Weigh the pros and cons, why don’t you?” she hissed. “Your family . . . your daughter’s life. If you care about them at all, you’ll do what I say.”

  Maggie folded her arms and settled back on her heels, fixing him with a harsh look. She wasn’t going to back down. She wasn’t some cowering sycophant. She was Kayla’s advocate. Her lighthouse. And she was going to get that girl home.

  “Your move, Senator.”

  Chapter 17

  Jake swore under his breath, one eye on the monitor set on his passenger seat. A red dot was sitting on Fifth Street and had been for a good fifteen minutes. Wherever the senator had been going, he’d parked his car.

  After his second talk with Kincaid that afternoon, Jake had put a tracker on the Lexus. He just couldn’t shake the feeling there was something off about this whole thing. And late that night, when he saw the red dot move, indicating that the senator was leaving the house, he knew he was right.

  He would have been able to keep on Thebes’ tail if he hadn’t gotten pulled over for not signaling a turn. The cop had let him go as soon as he flashed his credentials, but it’d given Thebes a head start.

  Dammit. Jake wrestled his way through traffic, annoyance growing with each minute that passed. He finally turned onto Fifth, slowing as he saw the parked Lexus with nobody inside. Jake gunned it up the block, and then back down. Then he caught sight of them.

  Damn. Maggie Kincaid was standing there on the sidewalk, arguing with Senator Thebes. Of course she’d gotten the jump on him. He smiled reluctantly. She would lord this over him, he just knew. At least she’d be cute as hell doing it, he thought, his smile widening. This woman was all passion and trouble. And Jake had always been irresistibly drawn to both. She’d call him on his shit and then some—and you couldn’t say that about a lot of women. Especially ones who got caught up in the whole “military hero” thing.

  Maggie Kincaid was someone who wasn’t going to be impressed by anything that had happened years ago—she was focused on the now. On this case. The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to. And not just so he could stop her from getting the drop on him.

  When he saw Maggie leading the senator back to his car, Jake pulled over and got out of the SUV, walked back down the street, and knocked on the Lexus’ tinted window. Might as well make this a party.

  The window opened a crack, and Jake smiled neutrally at the guilty-as-hell look on Thebes’ face. “Senator,” Jake began, “I’ll be getting in the back, if you don’t mind.”

  Without waiting for permission, he opened the back door and slipped into the back seat.

  Maggie shot him a look that said “You? Again?” but Jake just grinned at her. She turned away and continued talking to Thebes.

  “You need to tell me what’s going on,” she insisted, fixing the man with a penetrating glance. “I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if you’ve done something wrong or illegal. I’m not a member of the FBI anymore. I couldn’t care less about any laws you’re breaking or underhanded political deals. I’m not here to punish you—I’m here to save your daughter.”

  The senator sighed, lifting his glasses for a moment to rub his eyes. Then he started to speak. “There—there are documents that have . . . special . . . levels of classification. Documents that only certain senators on certain committees are allowed to see. Because of their sensitive nature, there’s a reading room we use. It’s completely private. No notes can be taken; we’re not allowed to bring aides or cell phones. He wants me to take a file from that room.”

  “Well, can you do it?” Jake asked.

  Senator Thebes shook his head. “I can’t. It’s illegal.”

  Jake frowned, and when he caught Maggie’s eye, he saw that her expression mirrored his. The man’s daughter was in the hands of a kidnapper—and he was concerned about breaking a law? Something here was off—way off.

  “Senator, what document does the kidnapper want? What’s in it?” Maggie asked.

  “I can’t tell either of you,” Thebes replied brusquely. “Neither of you have the clearance on national security matters such as the ones in that document.”

  It was a lie, and a bad one. And even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. Maggie took a sharp breath, and Jake could feel anger tightening in his chest. Jesus, did this guy care about his kid at all? If someone had grabbed his kid, Jake would move heaven and earth to get her back. And then he’d tear the bastard kidnapper apart with his bare hands.

  “That’s garbage,” Jake said, and Maggie’s eyes widened when she heard the disgust in his v
oice. “If this was a national security issue, there are hundreds of people you could go to for help instead of trying to deal with it on your own. The NSA would be all over it. So would the military and Feds and probably the spooks, incognito.”

  Thebes glared at him, and Jake suddenly understood. He felt that tightness in his gut that meant he was right. “Whatever’s in that file Uncle Sam wants is embarrassing . . . maybe career-ruining. You’re just covering your ass.”

  “Nonsense!” the senator said. “I have no reason to lie. But I have every reason to protect our national security. The FBI is the one that’s bungling this investigation.” He shot Maggie a meaningful look.

  “I’m not bungling anything,” Maggie replied angrily. “You’re the one who’s hiding vital information from the case. You need to get your priorities in check, Senator,” Maggie went on. “Are you really going to put your daughter’s life at risk because of something that might hurt your career?”

  “I have done everything that has been asked of me,” the senator said, not meeting her gaze. “We shouldn’t even be in this situation. Your techs should have found a way to trace his calls. SWAT should have rescued my baby girl already.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Senator,” Jake said. “Not with this kind of criminal.”

  But there was a grim resolve in Senator Thebes’ eyes as he stared back at Jake. “O’Connor, you’re not here to think—you’re here to take orders.”

  He finally looked at Maggie. “I appreciate your insights, Ms. Kincaid. But I cannot break my oaths as a political official and put dangerous information that could risk our national security in the hands of a madman. I have more than Kayla to think about. Getting her home safe is your job. My job is to protect my country’s national security.”

  It was a clear, cold-blooded dismissal. Maggie knew she wasn’t going to get any more out of him. Not tonight. She needed to regroup, figure out what this meant. Figure out a way around this man who didn’t even care if his own child lived or died. She stifled a shudder, realizing that she was facing a man who was even more monstrous than the kidnapper who’d stolen his child—the child he was so willing to toss away to preserve his career.

  “O’Connor,” the senator barked. “I’m going back to the house. I need my rest. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. I’ve decided to take Max’s advice and hold a press conference. It’s time to take control of the narrative.”

  Maggie sighed. “You’re making a mistake,” she said, pulling the car door open and stepping out.

  As soon as Jake had followed her out of the car and onto the sidewalk, the senator backed up the Lexus and screeched angrily away. Jake glanced at her, taking her in as she stood there, furious, her hands on her hips and her blue eyes stormy as she watched the car vanish into the distance. She yanked her phone angrily out of her pocket, dialing a number.

  “Frank, it’s me,” she said into it. “The unsub contacted Thebes privately. This is more complicated than we thought.” She paused, listening in the phone, nodding. “Okay. I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  She hung up the phone, glaring at it.

  “Is Edenhurst gonna toe the line?” Jake asked. He hadn’t struck him as the kind of man who would acquiesce to the pressure of powerful men, but you never knew.

  Maggie snorted. “Frank’s too cranky and too close to retirement to play nice,” she said. “Thank God. It may be the thing that saves Kayla if her father’s going to get in my way like this.”

  “What’s the game plan?” Jake asked.

  “The night shift’s taken over, monitoring the phones. But our unsub isn’t going to call in the middle of the night. Now that we know he and the senator are in contact, that gives us a whole new angle on his calls to us.”

  “How so?”

  “It makes them more like a performance. He’s not really making deals or negotiating with me, he’s just pretending for an audience. He doesn’t think I can give him what he wants—he’s convinced only the senator can. Frank wants to regroup in the morning, figure out what this means to our approach to the case.”

  “Thebes is going to stand in your way,” Jake said.

  “I know, and it’s bullshit,” she declared, looking at him like she expected him to argue with her.

  But he shook his head in disgust. “I’ll say,” he replied.

  In her surprise, she stepped back, her gaze traveling from his face all the way down to his boots and then back up again. When she met his eyes, he raised an eyebrow, hoping it’d make her blush.

  But instead she said, “Well, since we can’t do a damn thing about it until tomorrow morning, let’s go get a drink.”

  His fury at Thebes fading for the moment in his shock at her sudden shift of focus, he could feel the beginning of a grin tugging his lips.

  “I know a place,” he said.

  Chapter 18

  He took her to his neighborhood bar—a quiet haven inside an Italian joint that served the best lasagna he’d ever had. Giorgio’s was small and dimly lit with that fifties Old World ambience Jake got a kick out of.

  He watched as Maggie took the place in—the candles in wine bottles, the checkered tablecloths, the autographed eight-by-ten glossies of Frank Sinatra hanging on the wall, and Giorgio himself, standing proudly behind the bar, his starched white shirt gleaming in the flicker of the candlelight.

  For a second, he thought she’d hate it . . . that the kitsch was too much. Had he underestimated her? Was she the kind of woman who demanded bottle service and Michelin stars?

  But instead of looking horrified, her lush lips broke into a wide smile. “This place is great!” she said. “Whoa . . . is that a gold-plated meatball?” She pointed to the glass case at the end of the bar, where there was indeed a single golden meatball on a plate.

  “It is,” Jake said.

  “Please tell me there’s a story behind it,” Maggie said.

  “Well . . . it’s a gold-plated meatball,” Jake said. “That’s kind of a given.”

  She laughed, and the sound tugged at him deep, a soothing balm to his tired soul. “Okay, I’ve got to hear this,” she said as they walked toward the bar.

  “Giorgio tells it best,” Jake said, nodding to the man behind the counter.

  “Jake, nice to see you,” Giorgio said. “Who is this lovely lady?”

  “Giorgio, Maggie. Maggie, Giorgio.”

  “A pleasure,” Giorgio said, taking Maggie’s hand and kissing it with a flourish.

  “Maggie was wondering about the meatball,” Jake said.

  Giorgio’s mouth twitched into a smile under his black mustache. “Some things, they are just too perfect to eat,” he told Maggie very seriously. “One day, my chef puts this meatball on a plate. And I’m not sure what it was—but I was sure in that moment that it was the most perfect meatball to ever exist.”

  “Without even tasting it?” Maggie asked, shooting a sly look at Jake.

  “I didn’t have to!” Giorgio declared grandly. “My instincts, you see.”

  “So you’re a man of instinct.”

  “Always trust your gut,” Giorgio said, tapping his rather rotund one. “Anyway, I swept the meatball away, much to my chef’s chagrin. She’s always arguing with me.”

  “She managed to stop arguing with you long enough to marry you,” Jake pointed out.

  “This is true,” Giorgio said. “My wife, she has a gift with food. I wanted to memorialize that gift. Give her something special she would have forever. A tribute worthy of her talent.”

  “So you gold-plated the world’s most perfect meatball,” Maggie finished.

  “For love!” Giorgio said passionately. “And for posterity!”

  “He gave it to her for their anniversary,” Jake added.

  “Oh, dear,” Maggie said. “How did that go over?”

  “I slept on the couch for only a week,” Giorgio said with a grin. “But it’s grown on her.”

  Maggie laughed. “You’re a unique man, Gi
orgio.”

  “So they tell me,” he said, pulling out a bottle of wine and pouring them two glasses without prompting. “This one—” he gestured at Jake “—he’s one of a kind too.”

  “Is that so?” Maggie asked, turning in her seat to look at Jake, assessing him.

  “A soldier’s never one of a kind,” Jake said. “Just one of a unit.”

  Giorgio scoffed. “Who else would bother to help me with those delinquents who were tagging the windows of every business on the block? Or drive my bartender home so she doesn’t have to walk home late at night? This one . . .” He clapped Jake on the shoulder. “He’s one of the good ones. Hang on to him.” He winked at Maggie.

  “Oh, we aren’t—” Maggie started, but she was interrupted by a clattering from the kitchen and a female voice calling Giorgio’s name.

  “Duty calls,” he said with a bow. “Let me know if you two need anything else.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen, and Jake turned to Maggie.

  “So this is your regular place,” she said, looking around.

  “Yeah, I live a few blocks away,” he said. “And they have the best garlic knots.”

  “Not much of a cook?” Maggie asked.

  “Not unless you count grilled cheese,” he said.

  Her blue eyes softened. “I’m not so hot either,” she admitted. She took a sip of wine. “So, we should talk about the case,” she said.

  Back to business already. He couldn’t blame her—time was of the essence—but he’d enjoyed the glimpse of her lighter side as she teased Giorgio. She’d seemed almost relaxed—which was new.

  He tried to focus on what she’d asked, instead of all the ways he could get her to relax more.

  But she was damn distracting, just inches away from him, her skin glowing in the candlelight, her fingers wrapped around the wineglass. He found himself focused on her nails, of all things, for a moment. He liked that they didn’t have any polish on them. She had the kind of hands that had gun calluses. It was an oddly alluring thought, the capability it spoke to.