Sure, none of those dates had developed into anything more, but the point was he was trying. Trying, after a dozen years spent serving his country in secret, to assimilate back into the world he’d left behind at twenty-two.
Nothing big, nothing earthshaking. But even those small steps added up to something so different from the life he’d been used to as a clandestine operative that it was like stepping into the noonday sun after a decade and a half spent skulking in the dark.
Hanging up the phone, Finn scanned the area reflexively. The homeless man was almost out of sight. The other guy was in his truck pulling away from the curb. Other than that, the block was dead.
He turned and started walking.
The building he was heading for looked as dark and deserted as every other office building in the area.
It wasn’t.
Inside the shabby brick building, the FBI kept offices that no one officially knew about. The offices were used by agents who were on special assignments that for one reason or another were off the record—in this case, it was the FBI wanting to keep an eye on the CIA in this under-the-radar government search for Cowan’s missing billions.
The people in the building didn’t know each other, didn’t interact, just got their jobs done and stayed out of each other’s way. Since Finn was not an FBI agent—the FBI and the CIA were about as friendly as a snake and a mongoose—and he preferred to remain as anonymous as possible, he had elected to remain outside while Bax went in to do his thing. As he’d told Bax, it gave him a chance to stretch his legs. What he hadn’t mentioned was that it also gave him a chance to check in with Eagle without worrying about what Bax or anyone else might overhear.
Meanwhile, his absence gave Bax a chance to file his report—the second one in the not-quite-two weeks he and Finn had been together—without worrying about what Finn might overhear.
A win-win for both of them.
The reason the building appeared empty at this hour when it was really fully staffed and operational was that the interior space had been configured so that there were offices within offices, and the real offices had no windows. The windows looking out onto the street opened into shell offices of a supposed oil drilling company, the lights of which went on and off at appropriate open-of-business and close-of-business hours.
At the moment, Bax was inside one of those secret offices, filing his report on major developments in his assignment that had to be dropped into his supervisor’s email inbox as soon as possible after they occurred. Finn wasn’t supposed to know the contents of the reports, but he did—despite the encrypted computer setup Bax was using. Why? Because he’d put the same kind of bug in Bax’s phone that he’d placed in Riley’s. It tracked Bax, captured his conversations, and in a happy little bonus, since Bax relied on a dictation program loaded into the computer to place his reports, captured those, as well. (Finn was confident the Agency was also monitoring them, but he liked getting information that affected him firsthand.) It amused Finn to think that the tech-savvy numbers nerd he’d been saddled with hadn’t thought to check his own phone for a bug, but Bax hadn’t, and Finn had gotten some enjoyment out of hearing himself described as “not much of a talker,” “stone cold,” and, his favorite, “dude’s fucking scary, man!”
None of which gave Finn a problem with Bax. The reports themselves had been factual. That was what he was interested in, and as far as he could tell Bax was playing it straight and wasn’t engaging in any kind of double-dealing. Not that Finn trusted him, or the FBI, but then again he no longer really trusted anyone—including members of his own crew.
Words to not die by: everybody lies.
Finn wondered if Bax had any real idea what the Bureau had gotten him into. He doubted it, but that was not his problem.
He was there to do his job and get the hell out.
Putting in the earwig that he’d taken out when he’d placed the call to Eagle, Finn was in time to catch the end of Bax’s report.
“—then drove to Margaret Cowan’s house, where I picked up Bradley. Together we proceeded to drive to this location. We made one stop on the way, to an ice cream store, where Bradley purchased two pints of ice cream. The ice cream was sent to Margaret Cowan’s house via a patrol officer whose unit was being dispatched to provide security for Margaret, Emma, and Riley Cowan at night from this date until an indefinite end date as a result of the previously described attempt on Riley Cowan’s life. The purpose of the ice cream is unknown. Bradley’s future line of investigation is unknown.”
Bax kept on talking, but Finn listened without really registering what was being said. He found himself instead mentally following the ice cream to its destination. Riley would have known it was from him, just like she would have known the squad car stationed in her driveway was from him.
What she wouldn’t know was that the ice cream was his way of saying he was sorry about the kiss, which he absolutely should not have engaged in. She also wouldn’t know that the kiss had been his way of saying good-bye. Her fessing up to finding Jeff’s body and taking his phone, coupled with her explanation for why she’d disabled it and the fact that she had voluntarily handed it over, had moved her down enough notches on his hit parade that he was turning his focus elsewhere. He was only interested in pursuing people who could take him where he wanted to go. Unless something new came up, he wouldn’t see her again.
The realization that that didn’t sit well with him told him it was an intelligent decision.
Letting his attraction to a subject he was investigating get out of hand like he had done tonight was something that had never happened to him before. It was unprofessional, and he regretted it.
The problem was, the way she had looked running toward him naked seemed burned into his brain. He was human, after all, and she was beautiful. No amount of training could counteract that.
No amount of training could counteract the memory of how her full, firm breasts with their hard little nipples had felt pressed up against his chest, or the slender, supple, unmistakably feminine shape of her as she clung to him. No amount of training could counteract the effect of the silken warmth of her skin beneath his hands, or how sexy she’d felt in his arms, or the sight of her bare, truly world-class ass. No amount of training could—
Keep him from getting a boner the size of a Louisville Slugger every time he remembered, he concluded wryly.
Obvious solution: don’t remember. But he was having a hell of a time getting her—the look of her, the feel of her, the smell of her, and most of all the passionate way she had kissed him back—out of his head.
She’d known he wanted her. From just before she’d finished, in her words, crying all over him, the evidence had been right there in front of her. She hadn’t missed it. He’d seen the moment the knowledge had dawned on her in her eyes.
Her only reaction had been to step out of his arms.
A cool customer.
Same conclusion he’d reached about her before.
Until he kissed her. Then she’d caught fire in the blink of an eye.
And he’d been consumed with the urge to take her to bed.
He was still consumed with the urge to take her to bed.
That was what was bothering him the most.
That, plus the fact that taking her to bed just wasn’t going to happen.
Almost as bothersome was the knowledge that he hadn’t liked seeing her cry.
Years in the field had hardened him so that he rarely felt emotion. But he’d felt—what? A twinge of an unfamiliar kind of unease when the moonlight had hit Riley Cowan’s face and he’d seen that it was streaked with tears.
He hoped it wasn’t a sign that he was getting soft.
Softness could be exploited. Softness could get you killed.
Whether he liked it or not, she’d slid way down the hit parade. He wouldn’t see her again.
It was for the best.
Finn was just reaching the car when Bax walked out the building’s side door
into the parking lot.
Perfect timing.
Bax was driving, so Finn got in beside him and said, “You get your report filed?”
“I did,” Bax replied. He was pulling out into the street, heading toward the nondescript hotel where Finn and he, in his role as Finn’s babysitter, had side-by-side rooms, when Bax added, “I also got a message from the lab about Jeff’s phone while I was in there. They’re not going to be able to get anything off it.”
“Water fry it that bad?” Finn was mildly surprised. He’d figured the FBI techies could get data off anything.
“Turned out it didn’t matter. The SIM card was missing. The Ukrainian must’ve taken it.”
Finn didn’t stiffen. He never gave that much away. But his gut tightened.
“Yeah,” he said, and that was all. Bax’s interpretation was certainly possible. But call him suspicious: he had a whole nother possibility in mind.
— CHAPTER —
TWELVE
After Bill left, they ate ice cream, the three of them. Or, rather, Riley and Margaret ate ice cream, spooning it up (with Margaret making the occasional exaggerated little sound of pleasure as if she were trying to encourage a baby to eat), while Emma, after taking a couple of tiny bites to please them, stirred her spoon around the melting contents of her bowl as if they wouldn’t notice what she was doing.
It was a desperate attempt at normalcy, undertaken solely for Emma’s benefit.
And, except for the fact that Emma wasn’t eating and Jeff wasn’t there and they were sitting at a secondhand table in a small, crowded kitchen in a dreary ranch house rather than a custom-made banquette in the bow-windowed breakfast room of a mansion where they’d once habitually adjourned to eat ice cream, it was almost like old times.
Also, back then there hadn’t been a squad car parked in their driveway that might possibly be all that stood between them and being murdered in their beds. And Riley hadn’t had a perpetual knot in her stomach. And Margaret hadn’t had that haunted look in her eyes.
And none of them had been afraid. She knew they were both thinking the same thing: What have we done?
“So who sent the ice cream?” Emma asked, stirring.
Glad to have something so innocuous to talk about, Riley swallowed her mouthful of chocolate peanut butter crunch. The flavor wasn’t her favorite, but she hoped that seeing her enjoying it would encourage Emma. Anyway, the cold smoothness of it felt good going down her bruised throat. “I told the FBI agent who drove me home that I’d meant to pick some up. I’m sure it was him.”
“That was thoughtful of him,” Margaret said in a falsely bright tone.
“We’re never going to get away from this, are we?” Emma asked in a subdued tone. “People think we were part of what Dad did.”
“No one thinks that,” Margaret protested.
Emma looked impatient. “Oh, yes, they do. Even the kids at my art program keep asking me things like, so where’s the cash? They all think we know. Everybody thinks we know.” She looked at Riley. “That’s the reason that asshat hurt you. That’s why somebody killed Jeff. That’s why there’s a cop car parked outside right now. We’re all in danger because Dad scammed all that money and everybody thinks we know where it is.”
“The cop car’s a precaution,” Riley said. “The asshat who attacked me was after Jeff’s phone. You heard me go outside and tell everybody in the whole world who’s interested that I gave it to the FBI. I don’t think anybody’s going to come after me again, because I no longer have anything they want. I don’t think anybody was ever going to come after you, or your mom.”
Emma said, “But you don’t know.”
Margaret was looking distressed. “Honey, it won’t always be like this. Time heals. People will forget.”
Emma looked from her mother to Riley and back. “That is such bullshit,” she burst out. “This whole thing is such bullshit. Everything is ruined. For the rest of my life, people are still going to be calling me ‘that crook George Cowan’s kid.’ And Jeff will always, always be dead. And we didn’t even do anything wrong.”
With that she shoved her chair back, jumped up, and ran from the room. A moment later, the slam of her bedroom door echoed through the house.
Margaret’s shoulders slumped. There were circles beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there before, and the lines running from her nose to her mouth suddenly seemed more pronounced. She appeared utterly defeated.
Riley hurt for her. For Emma, too. For all of them.
“You’re right, you know,” Riley said quietly. “People will forget, and time does heal. Emma’s just too young to realize it.”
“I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you but—oh, I hate George for what he’s done to us.” Anger blazed suddenly from Margaret’s eyes. Riley’s own eyes widened. In all the time she’d known her, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen Margaret angry. Margaret’s voice shook as she continued: “He’s the reason Jeff’s dead. And the reason you were almost killed tonight. And Emma—dear lord, what if someone comes after her?”
Her pale, slender hands lay palm down on the table on either side of the bowl that held the melting mound of pink ice cream. As she finished they clenched into fists.
“There’s a cop car in the driveway,” Riley reminded her. “With two armed cops in it. And no one could think Emma knows anything.”
Margaret wet her lips. “They could hurt George through Emma. Far more than they could through Jeff. He—she was his little girl. We’ve got to do something.”
Fear twisted inside Riley like a knife. Meeting Margaret’s eyes, she could see the same fear reflected back at her.
Panic did no one any good. Covering one of Margaret’s clenched fists with her hand, Riley said steadily, “There’s no way anyone could think that any of the three of us know anything. What happened to me tonight was strictly about what was on Jeff’s phone.”
The fear in Margaret’s eyes didn’t abate. “What was on it?”
“I don’t know,” Riley replied wearily, and made a gesture indicating that she didn’t want to talk about it right then. She’d been right in her suspicions so far. It wasn’t that much of a stretch to conclude that someone—like, say, Agent Finn Bradley of the FBI—might be listening in on everything they said, even inside the house.
“This is a nightmare,” Margaret whispered, and closed her eyes. Riley could see that she was fighting for composure. Riley knew that Margaret was being shaken by the same terrible thought that had hit Riley earlier—had their actions somehow brought Jeff’s killer down upon him?
A hard, cold knot formed in her chest.
The next question—would it bring a killer down upon them?—sent a shiver down her spine.
After a moment Margaret’s eyes opened and her hands unclenched. Riley patted those pale fingers then pulled her own hand away. Glancing toward the hall that led to the bedrooms, Margaret said in a more normal tone, “Emma’s like me. We tend to stick our heads in the sand in times of trouble. We’ve both been thinking that one day things would get back to normal. Now that Jeff—” Her voice quivered, and she didn’t finish the thought. “I guess Emma and I are both just now facing up to the fact that nothing can ever be normal again.”
“Things won’t be the same,” Riley said around the sudden constriction in her throat. “But you’ll adjust. So will Emma. We all just need to hang on.”
Margaret pushed back from the table and stood up. “I’m going to go talk to her. Even though she probably doesn’t feel like talking to me right now.”
Riley nodded. As Margaret left the room, Riley saw that for once her usually perfect posture had forsaken her. Her head was bowed, her shoulders hunched. She walked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her back.
With Margaret gone, Riley did the only thing that was left for her to do: she cleared away the ice cream bowls, rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher. Then she headed down the hall to get ready for bed. Thro
ugh Emma’s closed door she could hear the murmur of Margaret’s voice, along with other muffled sounds that she thought had to be Emma, sobbing. Riley’s stomach turned inside out all over again.
No matter what any of them did now, the hard truth was there was no going back.
An hour later, Riley tossed aside the light blanket she’d been curled beneath on the living room couch and stood up. As exhausted as she was, sleep refused to come. The house was quiet and dark, except for the light she’d left on in the kitchen because darkness now made her uneasy.
Lifting one edge of the closed front curtains, she peered out to reassure herself that the cop car was still in the driveway. It was: she could see the shape of it, pale against the night. She felt a rush of gratitude toward Finn for sending it, but as quickly as it came she shied away from it: he was the last thing she wanted to think about right now. She looked past the cop car to see that the TV trucks were gone. As far as she could tell, no one was out and about. The street was still. A lighted window here, a porch light there, provided only small points of illumination in the blackness.
Letting the curtain drop, she turned and padded into the narrow hall. Her destination was the bathroom, which was the first door on the right. Margaret and Emma each had bedrooms at the end of the hall. The other bedroom, the one Jeff had used, was almost directly across from the bathroom. Like the others, its door was closed. She couldn’t bring herself to sleep there, in the bed he had used, so she’d been sleeping on the couch. Since she was the first one up every morning, she wasn’t sure the others even knew.
She had almost reached her destination when the sound of a door opening made her glance swiftly toward the end of the hall.
Margaret stood in her bedroom doorway, shadowy and indistinct except for the faint gleam of her white satin robe as it reflected the dim glow of the kitchen light. The kitchen was behind Riley, and her pale blue nightgown was soft cotton and wouldn’t reflect the light; still, she had no doubt Margaret could see her, too.
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