Dangerous to Know

by Merline Lovelace

  The vice president chuckled. “I believe you. All right, where do you want me to start?”

  “Let’s start with Stoney Armstrong, since I’ll be meeting him in L.A. tomorrow. You dated for almost six months, didn’t you, Mrs. Grant?”

  “Taylor.”

  At Maggie’s surprised glance, she smiled. “I can’t bring myself to share the most intimate details of my love life with someone who addresses me as ‘ma’am’ or ‘Mrs. Grant.’ Please, just call me Taylor.”

  No wonder Adam had developed such a close friendship with this woman, Maggie thought. The power of her office hadn’t diminished her charm or charismatic personality.

  “What do you want to know about Stoney?”

  “For starters, what’s behind his studio image of a muscle-bound, over-sexed, gorgeous hunk of beefcake?”

  “A muscle-bound, oversexed, gorgeous hunk of beefcake,” Taylor responded dryly.

  “So it wasn’t his, ah, intellectual prowess that attracted you to him?”

  Absently the vice president plucked at the fringe on one of the sofa pillows. “No, it wasn’t. But at that point in my life, I didn’t need the challenge of a rousing debate on domestic politics or international affairs. I needed, or thought I needed, Stoney Armstrong.”

  She stopped playing with the fringe and glanced across the coffee table at Maggie. Her remarkable eyes filled with the gleam of laughter that had made her the darling of the international press corps.

  “Every woman should have a man like Stoney in her life at some point or another, if only to remind her that great sex is highly overrated as the foundation for a permanent relationship.”

  “True,” Maggie replied with an answering laugh. “But it’s certainly not a bad place to start.”

  Twenty minutes later, Lillian Roth knocked on the sitting room door, then poked her head inside. She glanced from Maggie to the vice president for a moment in startled confusion.

  “Yes, Lillian?” Maggie asked, testing her skills.

  The dresser’s birdlike black eyes narrowed. She studied Maggie for long, silent moments, then switched her focus to Taylor. Giving a little sniff, she spoke slowly, as if not quite sure of herself.

  “Buck just called on your private line. They’re just starting the shift change. You have to go, Mrs. Grant.”

  Pleased with the fact that she’d managed to fool the dresser, at least for a few seconds, Maggie rose.

  The two auburn-haired women faced each other. Mrs. Grant—Taylor—held out her hand.

  “Good luck, Chameleon.”

  “Thanks. I’ll need it! I just hope I don’t do something stupid and totally ruin your image in the next couple of weeks.”

  “You won’t. Besides, I don’t worry about my image when I’m in the Sierras. That cabin is the only place in the world where I go without makeup, don’t bother with my hair, and bundle up in layers of flannel and wool. You just have to make it through a couple of brief public appearances, then you’re home free.”

  “Right.” Maggie laughed. “One huge benefit at the Kennedy Center tonight, and a dinner for two hundred of your closest friends in L.A. tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry. Stoney will make sure all the media focuses on him tomorrow. And tonight…well, tonight you’ll have Adam at your side.”

  There it was again, that easy, familiar Adam. Maggie’s grin slipped a bit.

  As Taylor eased into her coat, her amethyst eyes took on a distant, almost dreamy expression. “I’ve been wanting to invite Adam up to the cabin for some time. If it weren’t for these treaty negotiations…”

  “Yes?”

  The cool note in Maggie’s voice drew the vice president’s gaze.

  “Well,” she finished after a moment, “let’s just say that Adam’s the kind of man any woman would want to have around whenever she was in the mood for a stimulating intellectual debate…or anything else.”

  At that moment, the foyer door opened and Buck Evans slipped inside. His rusty brown hair, worn a little long on the sides, didn’t quite cover his half-chewed ear.

  “You ready to go, Mrs. Grant?”

  “I’m ready.”

  He paused with one hand on the knob and gave Maggie a hard look. “Officially, I’m on leave while Mrs. Grant is in California.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be with her every moment at Camp David. Have your people contact me there if you need me.”

  “Roger.”

  The Secret Service agent’s eyes narrowed. “Just for the record, I think this subterfuge is ridiculous. Every man and woman on this detail has sworn to protect the vice president with their lives.”

  Maggie didn’t answer. The decision to keep the switch secret from everyone but Buck Evans had been made by the president himself. She wasn’t about to engage in a debate, public or private, about it. But she saw the total dedication in this man’s fierce, protective stance toward Mrs. Grant, and understood the depth of his anger.

  “Let’s go, Buck,” the vice president said quietly. “We’ve only got an hour before the others begin arriving at Camp David.”

  With a final nod to Maggie, she followed the agent out the door.

  Lillian closed it behind them. Clearly unhappy at being left behind, she scowled at Maggie, then reluctantly assumed her duties.

  “Have you had dinner?”

  “No, there wasn’t time.”

  Her small mouth pursed into a tight bud. “I’ll call down to the kitchens for a tray, then run your bath.”

  “Fine. In the meantime, I’ll look around the suite.”

  “Humph.”

  The dresser turned and marched out, her back rigid. Lillian Roth possessed not only the disposition of a drill sergeant, Maggie decided, but the carriage, as well.

  A short time later, a scrubbed and powdered Maggie tightened the belt of a fluffy terry-cloth robe. Wandering into the sitting room, she sat down at a small table pulled up to an armchair. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation as she lifted a domed silver cover.

  In some consternation, she stared at the four stalks of an unidentifiable yellow vegetable. They were arranged in solitary splendor on a gold-rimmed plate bearing the vice-presidential seal. Swallowing, Maggie poked at the stalks with the tip of her fork, then cut off an experimental bite.

  At the taste, her face scrunched up in a disgusted grimace. Laying down the fork, she pushed the tray to one side. Maybe she could sneak a bag of peanuts or a candy bar at the Kennedy Center during intermission, she thought hopefully.

  She soon discovered that the role of vice president of the United States didn’t include any intermissions.

  Chapter 3

  “Lillian, have a heart! Not so tight!”

  As Maggie’s protest pierced the well-engineered quiet of his sleek black Porsche, Adam glanced down at the gold watch on his wrist. The faint pattern of her voice had grown stronger and stronger as he neared the naval observatory. Now, less than half a mile away, it came through the receiver built into his watch with startling clarity. As did Lillian Roth’s tart reply.

  “Suck it in. Mrs. Grant is a perfect size eight, you know.”

  “Well, I’m not a perfect anything. Loosen the straps a bit.”

  “Humph.”

  Adam smiled to himself as he swung the leather-wrapped steering wheel, following the curve of Massachusetts Avenue. He had to agree with Maggie on that one. She was far from perfect.

  Of all the agents he directed, Maggie Sinclair, code name Chameleon, was the most independent and the least predictable. There was no denying her fierce dedication to her job. Yet she approached it with a breezy self-confidence and an irrepressible sparkle in her brown eyes that had alternately fascinated and irritated Adam greatly at various times in the past three years. What was more, she possessed her own inimitable style of operating in the field.

  His hands clenched on the steering wheel as he remembered a few of the impossible situations Chameleon had extricated herself from. Adam knew he would
never forget the way she’d blown her way out of a Soviet nuclear-missile silo with the aid of a terminally klutzy physicist. He’d noticed the first streaks of gray in his hair when Maggie returned from that particular mission.

  She hadn’t been any more repentant over that incident than any of the others he’d taken her to task for. Although respectful—most of the time—Maggie Sinclair was by turns cheeky, irrepressible and so damned irresistible, that Adam didn’t know how he’d managed to keep his hands off her as long as he had.

  If he wasn’t OMEGA’s director… If he didn’t have to maintain the distance, the objectivity, necessary to send her into danger…

  The thought of touching Maggie, of tasting her, of burying his hands in that sweep of glossy, shoulder-length brown hair and kissing her laughing, generous mouth, sent a spear of hot, heavy desire lancing through Adam.

  “Lillian! For Pete’s sake!”

  Willing himself back under control, Adam pressed the stem on his watch, cutting off Maggie’s indignant protest. His jaw tight, he turned off Massachusetts Avenue onto the approach to the U.S. naval observatory.

  Sited on what had once been a hilly farm well outside the capital, the sprawling complex still functioned as an active military installation. A battery of scientists manned the round-domed observatory, which tracked celestial movements and produced navigational aids. More experts maintained the master clock of the United States, accurate to within thirty billionths of a second.

  In addition to its military mission, however, the complex also served as home to the vice president. Since 1976, the occupant of that office had also occupied the fanciful Victorian mansion built at the turn of the century for the superintendent of the observatory.

  The entire facility was guarded by an elite branch of the marine guard, one of whom stepped out of a white-painted guard post at Adam’s approach. The granite-jawed gunnery sergeant bent to shine a high-powered beam into the Porsche’s interior.

  “Evening, sir. May I help you?”

  “Good evening, Gunny. I’m Adam Ridgeway. Mrs. Grant is expecting me.”

  He handed over the pass issued by the vice president’s office. The plastic card looked ordinary enough but concealed several lines of scrambled code. After running a handheld scanner over it, the marine squinted through the window to compare Adam’s face to the digitized image on the scanner’s small screen. He returned the pass, then punched a button on his belt. Heavy iron gates swung open.

  “Go on up, Mr. Ridgeway.”

  “Thanks.”

  As he drove the tree-lined drive, Adam searched for signs of the highly sophisticated defensive security system that supplemented the military guards. He saw none, but knew that canine patrols roamed the area and electronic eyes swept the grounds continuously, particularly along the approach to the vice president’s residence. The mansion itself was wired from attic to subbasement. Even the food, purchased from a list of carefully vetted suppliers, went through chemical and infrared screening before cooking. The security surrounding the woman who stood only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office was almost as heavy as that around the president himself.

  For that reason, Adam believed that whoever had called Taylor Grant in the early hours of yesterday morning wouldn’t try to make good on his threat here. The attack, when it came, would occur when she was most vulnerable. At a public appearance. Or on the road. Or in that isolated cabin of hers high in the Sierras.

  Whenever and wherever it came, Adam intended to be there.

  Another guard stopped him at the gate in the wrought-iron fence surrounding the residence. After scrutinizing his pass once again, the marine stood back.

  Adam drove up a sloping drive toward the Victorian structure, complete with wraparound verandah and a distinctive round tower. White-painted and green-shuttered, the mansion rose majestically above a rolling blanket of snow, a picture postcard of white on white.

  Adam pulled up under the pillared drive-through and shifted into park, but left the motor running. Having escorted Taylor to several functions in the past, he knew the drill. A valet would park his car around back, a safe distance from the house in the unlikely event it had been tampered with and now carried explosives. He and the vice president would ride to the Kennedy Center in her armor-plated limousine, preceded and followed by Secret Service vehicles. The agent in charge would sit beside the driver in the limo and remain a only few steps away after they arrived at their destination.

  Adam and Maggie wouldn’t have a private moment the entire evening. Theoretically.

  He pulled his overcoat from the front seat, nodded to the valet and strolled up the wide front steps. A navy steward showed him into a paneled sitting room and offered a choice of drinks while he waited.

  “Hello, Adam.”

  He turned at the low greeting. The heat that spiraled through his stomach had nothing to do with the swallow of Scotch he’d just downed. This was a Maggie he’d never seen before.

  In the past three years, she’d gone undercover in everything from a nun’s habit to a slinky gold mesh halter that barely covered the tips of her breasts. That particular article of clothing had cost Adam a number of hours of lost sleep. Yet it hadn’t carried half as much kick as this elegant, deceptively demure black velvet gown.

  On second observation, Adam decided it wasn’t the floor-length skirt, slit to the knee, that caused his knuckles to whiten around the heavy crystal tumbler of Scotch. Or the tunic studded with jet beads that shimmered seductively with her every step. Or the feathery cut of her auburn hair, framing a face that bore an uncanny resemblence to Taylor Grant’s.

  It was the gleam in her violet-tinted eyes. That sparkling glint of excitement, of shared adventure. And the conspiratorial grin that vanished before the cameras in the downstairs rooms could record it—but not before Adam had felt its impact in every part of his body. Carefully, very carefully, he set the tumbler down.

  Stepping forward, he brushed a light kiss across her lips. “Hello, Taylor. You look ravishing tonight.”

  She stared up at him, startled by the intimate greeting, but then her mouth quirked upward in the vice president’s distinctive smile.

  “Thank you. You look rather delectable yourself.”

  Actually, when she recovered from the surprise of that brief kiss, Maggie had to admit that Adam looked more than delectable. He looked delicious. Good enough to eat. Which was, she realized immediately, an unfortunate metaphor. The mere thought of digesting anything, Adam included, made her stomach growl. Loudly. Embarrassingly.

  He lifted a dark brow.

  “It’s getting late,” she said, her cheeks warming. “Shall we go?”

  As if on cue, the woman designated to serve as agent in charge during Buck Evans’s absence stepped into the reception room. Promoted only a week ago from her position as head of the Secret Service’s Chicago field office, the sandy-haired Denise Kowalski was brisk, efficient and still very new to vice president’s detail. Buck Evans had vouched for her personally.

  In keeping with the occasion, she wore a chic red plaid evening jacket that disguised the weapon holstered at the small of her back. Her black satin skirt was full enough to allow her complete ease of movement if she had to throw her body across the vice president’s. Which, Maggie sincerely hoped, she wouldn’t have to do tonight. Or any other night.

  “Your car is at the front entrance, Mrs. Grant.”

  “Thank you, Denise. We’ll be right out.”

  The agent nodded and went to get the rest of the team into position. The heavy oak front door swung open behind her, its leaded glass panels refracting the light of the brass lanterns mounted on either side of the porte cochere. Golden light flooded the covered drive, but beyond that, blackness beckoned. Beyond that, a possible assassin waited.

  Maggie stared at the open door, pysching herself for her first public appearance as Taylor Grant. She drew in a slow breath, and suddenly the Kevlar body shield didn’t seem to bite into her flesh quite as m
uch as it had before.

  Moving to her side, Adam lifted the silk-lined black angora cloak she carried over one arm. He held it out, and when she’d wrapped herself in its sybaritic warmth, he rested his hands on her shoulders for a moment.

  “I’m glad you invited me to join you tonight,” he murmured.

  Maggie gave him her best Taylor-made smile. “Me too.”

  “Ready to go?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Maggie had been to the Kennedy Center several times before. In fact, she’d taken her father to a performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera just last week. Red Sinclair had thoroughly enjoyed both the lavish production and the spectacle of jeans-clad students and camera-snapping tourists rubbing elbows with socialites dripping mink and diamonds.

  But this was the first time Maggie had driven to a private performance in an armor-plated limousine. Or stepped out of the car into a barrage of TV cameras and bright lights.

  Adam turned to help her alight, shielding her with his broad back while the Secret Service agents fanned out to open a corridor through the crowd. The smile he gave her caused a ripple of murmured comment among the onlookers and a shock of sensual pleasure in Maggie. Her fingers curled in his before she reminded herself that they were playing to the audience.

  The elegantly dressed crowd parted before them like the Red Sea rolling back for Moses. With Agent Kowalski a few steps ahead, Maggie and Adam made their way toward the grand foyer at the rear of the marble-walled structure.

  Since tonight’s concert was a special benefit to raise funds for a flood-ravaged province in India, the guests had been invited by that country’s ambassador. The Secret Service’s Office of Protective Research had run all two thousand names through its computerized list of “lookouts.” Reportedly, none of the persons present tonight had triggered a flag that would identify a potential threat to the vice president. Nevertheless, by the time Maggie and Adam reached the short flight of stairs leading down to the red-carpeted grand foyer, her heart was thumping painfully against her body armor.