To tits and ass?
Max held up his free hand in defense. “Never pretended to be immune, but I noticed you as soon as I walked into the ambassador’s office, so I think I get a free pass on this one.”
Her eyes acknowledged the truth in that statement, and a little of the starch went out of her form.
“As a student of human behavior, I do recognize when a woman does not want to be complimented on her appearance,” Max added tactfully.
She snorted. “Score one for the Bureau.”
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable when I asked you to accompany me in street clothes.”
Max was easygoing until he had to arrest or kill someone. He didn’t like the idea he’d upset this woman who seemed particularly vulnerable, although growing a pair never hurt anyone.
Lucy’s hazel eyes were once again devoid of expression when they met his. She’d gotten herself under control and was back behind the mask where she appeared to be happiest. Max was content to let her stay there. For now.
They arrived at security, picked up his luggage, and exited through the side door while he followed a silent Lucy Aston along the asphalt until they came to her car—a British racing green Mini Cooper S 5 Door with two white stripes down the bonnet.
Max fell in love on the spot.
She popped the boot, and he tossed his suitcase and bags inside.
“My first car was a Mini—the old kind, so cramped I had to drive with my knees up around the steering wheel and my head touching the roof, which was fine until I went over a pothole.” He climbed in, moving the passenger seat as far back as it would go, thrilled he could stretch out his legs.
That earned him a warm glance. “I’m surprised you fitted in at all.”
“You should have seen people’s faces when five hulking soldiers climbed out of the thing.” He smiled. A happy memory. He needed to remember more of those. Not the deaths that had followed. Or the spiraling sense of heartbreak, outrage, and betrayal.
She put the car into gear, and he was surprised to see a manual transmission, but he decided not to insult her by mentioning it.
“Where are you staying?” she asked, all business.
He gave her the address.
“So that’s where my taxpayer dollars go.”
“We usually stay in a Travel Lodge so the office administrator must have found a coupon or been drunk on Christmas sherry—in which case, I’ll be switching hotels in the next couple of days.”
He watched as a smile twitched the corners of Lucy’s lips, but she shut it down.
She drove through the quiet downtown traffic with competent ease. She wasn’t a mouse behind the wheel, if anything, she drove aggressively. The Mini was nimble and maneuverable. A wave of nostalgia hit him. He was going to get himself one of these when he got back to the States. Forget that he was home less than fifty percent of the time. Life was short, and he needed a little fun to counterbalance the grim. He’d earned it.
Took them ten minutes to arrive at the hotel, and he stared up in shock. This was probably the nicest place he’d ever stayed. “Definitely too much sherry. I better enjoy it while I can.”
He grabbed his stuff out of the boot, impressed despite himself. It was bloody palatial. He’d spent Christmas in much worse places. Iraq. Afghanistan, Mali. Countries most people hadn’t even heard of. Life in the FBI was a cake-walk in comparison to his career as a soldier, but it was still demanding and required his brain as much as his body. He figured most special forces soldiers needed that when they left the military. They weren’t good at boring routine. They weren’t good at soul-destroying monotony. Sure, they could sit for hours in a pool of freezing mud waiting for the right moment to strike, but they didn’t have the patience to stand in a long queue to buy groceries.
His brain shied away from some of the memories that wanted to intrude. He and his buddies in Colombia had raised a few pints to the men who hadn’t made the successful transition back to the civilian life. Some were dead. Some were in prison. He’d tried to help them and failed. Former soldiers were still living homeless on the streets of Britain in ever increasing numbers. It had been another reason to leave a country he loved, not that the States was much better.
Right now, it was time to concentrate on the things he might be able to fix.
The hotel’s uniformed valet tipped his hat, and Max gave him an appraising nod as Lucy handed over her keys. He wasn’t here to enjoy himself, but a drink in the bar later was something he was determined to look forward to.
He checked in and went upstairs to dump his bags in his room, which was also a knockout. Lucy hung around the lobby.
He took the time to place Kristen’s diaries in the safe. He contemplated wearing the SIG his buddies had loaned him but didn’t want to take the time to change clothes yet again, and there weren’t many places to conceal a handgun in a pair of board shorts. Plus, he wasn’t sure how Lucy would view him carrying a weapon. Officially, he needed permission from head of mission to wear a firearm, and it hadn’t felt like the right time to ask the ambassador today.
He couldn’t pin down the type of personality Lucy was, and that bothered him. He was usually adept at rapid assessments of people. Maybe that’s why he found himself so aware of her. He placed the gun in the safe along with his encrypted laptop. He locked the room, placing a Do Not Disturb notice on the outside. He didn’t want housekeeping going inside for any reason. Nothing he’d brought with him was classified, but it paid to be careful.
He headed back downstairs with his wallet in a zippered pocket, sunglasses on top of his head, and work cell in his hand.
Lucy was sitting on a plush sofa in the most secluded spot of the opulent foyer, clearly avoiding attention. Of course, she was.
“Ready?”
She nodded and adjusted the crossbody bag she carried, and he tried not to notice how the strap slid between her breasts and emphasized her curves. He wanted to ask about the ugly suit she wore for work but insulting her clothes wasn’t the way to a frictionless working relationship.
“It’s only a short walk to the abduction site. I gave the valet your room number for any charges.” Her eyes lit with a sparkle of mischief she quickly doused.
Why did she do that?
Something about Lucy Aston seemed slightly forlorn. Max didn’t enjoy seeing people suffer. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he’d gravitated to negotiation. Talking people into getting help when they needed it formed a big part of his job. Lucy looked like she could do with a friend.
It took less than twenty seconds to arrive at the junction where the abduction had occurred. He recognized the scene from the surveillance video.
Lucy stood in the shade of the building behind him, across the road where Kristen had been grabbed.
He went over and stood next to her. “Do me a favor, start scrolling through your cell phone as if you’re looking for a restaurant or taking a call. Give me a chance to check out the area without looking conspicuous.”
She nodded. Pulled out her cell and tapped the screen, putting the cell to her ear and turning away from him. It sounded exactly like she was calling her mother.
Max scanned the other pedestrians to see if anyone was paying them attention—they weren’t—then he examined the local architecture, looking for surveillance cameras that might give them a better angle. The one that had recorded the footage he’d watched that morning was about ten feet above his head, aimed at the pedestrian crosswalk in front of them.
He put his hands on his hips as though he were waiting for Lucy to finish her call. He stretched out his neck and turned his attention to the flow of traffic and the types of shops in this part of town. The traffic was light, but last night it had been a lot busier.
Whoever lifted the ambassador’s daughter had known exactly when the girls were going to reach this intersection. Someone had to have been tailing them. Or tracking them. And communicating with the men in the van. He snapped a photo of another camera
along the street on the opposite side that might give them different footage. Maybe the van had parked up for a little while. The local police should have canvassed all the shops along this street for their CCTV footage, but he’d double check.
The stores around here were in the same league as the hotel—high-end and really fucking expensive.
Was this where these schoolgirls actually shopped? Or were they taking in the designer glamor? Max knew what those dollars could do in poorer parts of the world. Places not far from here where a person could live for a year on the cost of one of the dresses in the window.
Apparently, Lucy really was on the phone to her mother, or she was a consummate actress. Lucy was reassuring the woman that she was safe inside the embassy, and she sounded convincing as hell.
Lucy’s mother seemed to be expressing concern for the ambassador’s daughter. The fact news of the kidnapping had spread so far wasn’t good. It was much easier to negotiate outside the media spotlight. Considering Kristen Dickerson had been lifted off a Bueno Aires street on Christmas Eve in broad daylight made it unsurprising that the press had caught wind of it. And, it wasn’t just Kristen, it was also Irene who was a British national. He needed to visit her parents to discuss what the FBI would do to assist them and figure out what the Brits were up to.
He texted the Legat a photo of the second camera and asked Powell to request the footage from local business owners via the cops.
He glanced back at Lucy and noticed the smile on her face lit up her features. Her expression closed down the instant she caught him watching her.
He frowned.
“I have to go now. I love you, Mama. Tell Daddy the same. Happy Holidays.”
“I’m requesting the surveillance footage from that other camera across the street,” he told Lucy when she hung up. Not because she needed to know but because he wanted to include her in the process. She knew Kristen well enough to have been getting a present for Christmas and for Kristen’s brother to trust her with their passwords, so she probably had more insight than most into Kristen’s actions and how she might react in captivity.
“Do you know what happened to Kristen’s shopping bags?” He remembered the scattered purchases lying on the pavement in the surveillance video.
Lucy’s brow crinkled. “I imagine Gemma picked them up.”
“Any chance you could prioritize getting me a contact number for her when you get time tonight? I know you’re busy, but I need to examine all of the things they were carrying.”
Lucy frowned slowly. “You think Kristen might have had a tracking device on her?”
Max shrugged. “It’s distinctly possible. I’d like to figure out that part of the story—how they knew her exact whereabouts. It might give us a clue into who did this.”
Lucy chewed on her lip and then nodded. “I’ll get you those numbers before I go home tonight. It’s the details from the school that will prove difficult on the holiday.”
“Just get me the name of the principal and any guidance counselors you may know of today. I’ll get what I need from them. I probably won’t get the chance to talk to them until tomorrow at the earliest anyway.”
Her brows pinched.
“You look like you got as much rest last night as I did,” he noted.
She huffed out a laugh. “Only if you got none.”
She probably had a ton of work waiting for her back at the embassy.
“Look, Lucy, I know you’re busy. I’ll grab a cab to the dump site in La Boca—”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head decisively. “I know my way around this city, and that part of town is dangerous once you stray away from the tourist area. The last thing I need is anything happening to you when I’m supposed to be chauffeuring you around.”
Max allowed a small smile to crease his mouth. It was amusing that she thought she needed to protect him. “I’ll be fine.”
“It’s not about you. If anything happens to you, my life will be hell.”
They started wandering back to pick up her car from his hotel.
“I don’t want to put you in a difficult position.”
Her laugh was unexpectedly bitter. “Trust me, it’s not you making my life difficult.”
She was starting to relax around him.
The valet brought the car around and they climbed in.
“We shouldn’t spend too long when we get there. In and out for a quick look. Do you know exactly where the van was found?” she asked.
He gave her the location Brian Powell had given him.
Lucy programmed her Sat Nav which spoke in French.
A slight blush touched her cheeks as she changed the settings to English. “I find a good way to keep up my language skills is by putting all my electronics in whatever language I’m not currently using.”
“Good idea.” Max couldn’t claim any language skills. It was right up there with his ability to sing.
She shot him a hesitant glance as if she expected more judgment.
He decided to keep quiet and hope she filled the silence. She didn’t. Funny, because a lot of people found silence intimidating. Negotiators used it as a tactic all the time, but Lucy Aston wasn’t falling for it.
He relented because he wanted to know more about her. Apparently, she was better at this game than he was. “You enjoy living down here?”
Her expression was that familiar blank slate. “I love the city, the country.”
He wanted to shake something free. “But your boss treats you like the coffee girl.”
Lucy turned to face him, and her mouth dropped open in shock. She quickly turned her attention back to the road. “The ambassador? She’s not so bad usually.”
“Reminds me of a sergeant I worked with in my first regiment long before I became an FBI agent. He used to make me and another lad run laps for any perceived infraction. I guess it worked out for us in the end. By the time I applied for Selection, I was probably the fittest man in the paras.”
Which had been the baseline for men in the Special Air Service.
Instead of talking about her work colleagues, which was what he’d been aiming for, she turned the conversation back to him.
“British military, right?” She looked at him, but it wasn’t really a question. It was a statement of fact. “What made you change sides?”
Anger flashed inside him, but he squashed it. “I never ‘changed sides.’ I was a dual citizen. My father was from Chicago. He and my mom split up when I was five. He took a job back home, and she refused to move with him. I stayed with her and my sisters back in England.”
“Was that hard?”
Was that hard? He was the one who was supposed to be good at subtly digging into people’s lives and yet she’d cut to his core in a few minutes.
“Yeah. That was hard.”
Made worse somehow by his father dying not long after Max joined the FBI, having had to renounce his British citizenship. He wasn’t sorry for the choice he’d made, but he missed his mother and his sisters and the security of knowing he could go back and live near them anytime he wanted.
“What about you?” he asked as the traffic flew by. “Where’s your mom live? I assume that was your mom you called earlier.”
She nodded, eyes on the road ahead. “Yeah. You made me realize I’d forgotten to call her to wish her Happy Holidays. Both my parents still live in So-Cal.”
That might explain the blonde hair roots but not why she dyed it a dull brown—although why not? People did the opposite all the time. No one questioned that.
“You miss your family?” he asked.
“I miss the idea of them more than the reality. I mean I love them.” She adjusted the flow of air toward her face. “I’m sure you’re not interested in pathetic stories of rich kids feeling sorry for themselves.” Her laugh sounded brittle. “I mean, I had a great upbringing—my nanny was as close to me as my family. My parents paid her well and even gave her a place to stay on the estate when she retired.”
Estate?
“I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with my parents when I was growing up. They wanted me to go into medicine.”
“You didn’t fancy that?”
“Actually, I tried,” she eyed him sideways, “I didn’t have good enough grades in the sciences, but they were always pushing me to do better.”
Max kept one eye on their surroundings even as he watched Lucy’s face try to come to life despite that inner restraint.
“People tend to do better in the things they love.”
“Which, for me, obviously wasn’t physics, chemistry, or biology.”
“Instead, you get to travel the world, and you don’t need to pull on a uniform or a semi-automatic weapon to do so.”
She snorted. “You don’t sound like you enjoyed being a soldier.”
“On the contrary. I loved being a soldier. I just hated going to war.” And losing my friends. He put his sunglasses over his eyes because, once again, she’d cut to the core of him while he’d barely glanced off the surface.
They headed south through streets that grew increasingly narrow and neighborhoods that started to look a lot poorer than upscale Recoleta. Fewer mansions and designer stores. Small apartments. Modest homes. Then, after twenty minutes, two-story stucco houses with corrugated tin roofs. Garbage blew along the sidewalk. Stray dogs slept in the sun.
They drove along Drive del Valle Iberlucea and passed the blue and yellow La Bombonera football stadium.
Lucy eyed the landmark. “Wearing the wrong soccer shirt around here can get you killed.”
Max jerked his brows. That was true for parts of the UK too.
Lucy drove down to the water and pulled up at the nearly empty harbor. She cut the engine. “The car should be safe enough here for an hour, even though most shops are shut today.”
There were still some tourists milling around, photographing the brightly painted buildings of El Caminito. Lucy checked directions on her phone before applying a steering lock and climbing out of the Mini.
Max got out and looked around.
“The area was originally settled by Italian immigrants when Europeans flooded the region in the early nineteenth century. Boca means mouth because we’re at the mouth of the river,” Lucy told him. “The story is that the mismatched colors of the houses originate from using whatever was left over from painting the boats.”
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