Absolute Pleasure

by Jamie Denton

  “When was the last time you fired your weapon?” he demanded hotly.

  She crossed her arms and gave him a go-to-hell look before she turned away from him.

  “When, Sunny?”

  “Two years,” she answered, still not looking at him.

  “That recent, huh?”

  “In nonviolent crime?” She stared at him, hurt lining her gaze. “What do you think?”

  He leaned toward her and cupped her face in his hands. “It’s not what I think, babe,” he said, gentling his tone. “It’s what I don’t want to think about that has me worried.”

  She closed her eyes and pulled way from him, but not before he saw the abject disappointment in her gaze. “Duncan, please, this is what—”

  “What you do, I know. The job doesn’t bother me,” he said, moderately twisting the truth. It bothered him—a lot—because he feared for her safety. God, if anything ever happened to her…

  “You have to be ready for the worst when you go after this guy, especially if he’s unstable. And we don’t know that he isn’t.”

  She nodded her understanding. He hoped she did, for her sake.

  “You’ve already determined he isn’t your average street scammer gone big time, checked the database for networks or clans for the highly skilled cons on record?”

  “Yes, and paroled offenders, too,” she said. “He’s never been in the prison system. What I’m seeing is a variation of the classic sweetheart scam,” he said. “Because the vics are too embarrassed to admit they’ve been bilked and abandoned, or they’re in denial about what’s really going on, they rarely report the crime. This tells me the UNSUB has had the advantage of time to gain more experience and perfect his craft.”

  “I’ve considered the possibility of a sweetheart scam, but the profile isn’t there.” She paused and glanced down at the newspaper cluttering the coffee table, then lifted her eyes back to his. “The vics aren’t exactly doddering old coots.”

  “No, they’re not, but based on the police reports, the fundamental elements of the incidents do match. The vics are marked, their asset potential determined, sex is exchanged and then the rip-off comes and the perp jumps.”

  She considered his argument. “Possibly,” she said after a moment, “but traditionally these scams require at minimum, two perpetrators, and the marks are commonly old men, not women. The initial contact and set up is done by one of them, then another comes in and takes dear old Uncle Herbie to the cleaners. Even your files only contain evidence of one perp, which doesn’t lead me to the conclusion of a sweetheart scam artist.”

  “When I was an agent, the Bureau sent me undercover to bust up a network of con artists pulling scams across state lines, which gave us federal jurisdiction. If you’re as close as I was, for as long as I was, you learn the operation, how they set up the scams and chose their marks. This case is a variation, Sunny. Take my word for it.”

  “How long were you under?”

  “Almost two years.

  Her eyes widened in surprised. “And you lived among these people the entire time?”

  “Pretty much.” At least he had until his cover had been blown.

  “No wonder you know so much.” She eliminated the distance between them when she rose up on her knees and negotiated the cushion separating them. Bracketing his hips, she sat on his lap, then unbuttoned his shirt and carefully pushed the material aside. A frown creased her forehead as she gingerly ran her fingers over the puckered flesh from the wound that served as a constant reminder of what ambition had cost him.

  She pressed her lips to the wound as if she alone had the power to make it all better. The tender reverence of her touch combined with the fear of knowing what could happen to her, made his heart constrict in his chest.

  She straightened his shirt and lifted her compassionate gaze to his. “This is the case that ended your career, isn’t it?”

  He drew in a long unsteady breath, then released it slowly. “My cover had been blown.” He didn’t tell her he’d been aware of that fact, or how his handler had given him a direct order he’d disobeyed all because he’d been a slave to ambition.

  “This was a sophisticated network operation we had infiltrated. It took months of work pulling off penny-ante scams so I’d be noticed by this particular group.”

  “You broke the law?” she asked incredulously.

  “No,” he said. He wasn’t proud of his actions and regretted the results, but other than bending a few rules or regulations, he hadn’t committed a crime. “We had informants, so when we’d get a line on where their people would be, then we’d work the same area. We had it set up so I pulled street cons, three-card monte, pigeon drops on other agents until I finally drew the attention of the right people.”

  She started to rise, but he grasped her hips and urged her back down to his lap, unwilling to let her go.

  “Once you were in,” she asked, settling back down, “how’d you keep up the pretense without risking the integrity of the investigation?”

  “When the government is footing the bill, looking like a skilled grifter that earns big is easy. I insisted on working solo. These people wanted me earning for them, so that gave me leverage. My way or else. As long as I showed up with the take, no one questioned where it came from. If one guy brought in four grand, the next day my take was five. It worked because after a year of this, the man at the top level we were after asked me to show his son the ropes.”

  “And you agreed, to gain his trust,” she correctly surmised.

  “The operation objective was to get close enough to access the top level. You lop off the head of the monster—”

  “And the monster falls,” she finished.

  “I had prearranged locations from the Bureau to pull construction cons. For about a month, I’m saddled with this guy’s kid—”

  “What was he like?”

  “The kid?” At her nod, he said, “A walking oxymoron. Personable, could be a real charmer, but also arrogant. Ambitious. Very detached—scary detached—but he soaked up any attention I threw his way. He was eager to please, too.”

  “Disassociative disorder,” Sunny said. “Separated or rejected by his mother at a young age is common. Being raised in a patriarchal society like the one you’ve described contributes to it, as well. He most likely had a material influence of some kind in his life, but my guess is it was minimal, otherwise he couldn’t have related to you the way he did. Has probably had difficulty in relationships with women. His eagerness to please is most likely attributed to a domineering male figure since the maternal influence is all but missing.” She gave him a cocky little smirk. “Impressed?”

  “You nailed him all right,” he said. “The kid did talk about a grandmother who lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, but I never heard him mention a mother. How’d you do that?”

  “Abnormal psychology.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Comes in handy for profilers. Too bad I can’t nail the profile of the Seducer as easily. Go on, I want to hear the rest of this.”

  “About a month in, we’re at a prearranged location by the Bureau, and one day, the kid disappears on me. Before I realized what was happening, he’s off down the road pulling a con solo. There wasn’t anything I could do without risking close to two years of deep cover. We were close to the top and maybe weeks away from a bust, so I had to go along with it. A couple of days later, I went back, told the homeowners a cock-and-bull story about the kid being new and using the wrong materials and I gave them back their money. I don’t know if the kid was following me or if I’d been spotted meeting with my handler, but my cover was blown. A few days later, I was pulled in on a vacation con, and just figured it was my reward for teaching the kid the game.”

  “I’m not familiar with vacation scams.”

  “You ever see those displays that say Win a Vacation with a pad of entry forms? They’re usually at the checkout counter. Independent retailers, hair salons, auto repair shops, small places mostly,” he explained. />
  She nodded. “I see them all over the place.”

  “Don’t fill out the form,” he said wryly. “Some are honest, but for the most part, they’re cons. The mark fills out the form and a few days later, gets a call he’s won a prize. Naturally, it’s never the vacation, or even a second or third prize. When the mark shows up to collect, he has to sit through a high-pressure sales pitch before he’ll receive his prize. It’s one of the more lucrative cons.

  “Very sophisticated,” he continued. “Rented office space, furnishings, even staff. The average person never knows it’s a scam until it’s too late. A pitch for a resort time-share with a below-industry-standard down payment to open an escrow that will never happen. By the time the mark figures out he’s been conned, the perps have closed up shop and jumped. A lot of identity theft comes out of these scams, too. The marks think the deal’s legit, so they fill out the paperwork without thinking twice.”

  “It’s frightening when you think about the blind trust we place in strangers,” she said. “We do our best to inform the public, but it constantly amazes me how many people still fall for that kind of thing.”

  He shrugged. “It’s easy for con artists to operate when everybody’s looking for a bargain.”

  She leaned forward and tucked her head against his shoulder. “So I take it you were being set up with this vacation scam?”

  “Yeah, I was set up,” he said quietly. Smoothing his hands over her back, he turned his gaze to the sliding glass door. The evening sun had already begun to set, casting shadows on the balcony. A fat red planter with wilted pansies fluttered limply on a hot summer wind that reached the balcony floor.

  Peaceful, he thought. A concept which had been an illusion in his life for a long while. He knew in his gut unless he told Sunny the whole truth, peace would continue to evade him. He’d always be waiting for her to find out he’d lied to her about why he’d been relieved of duty. Two weeks ago it hadn’t mattered that he hadn’t been honest with her, but everything had changed. Until he came clean, the past would always be between them, even if she remained unaware of his duplicity, it’d be there, haunting the present. Their future, too.

  The thin line he’d been negotiating snapped. “When I made contact with my handler, he told me to come in because my cover was blown.”

  She must’ve noticed a change in his voice, because she sat up and looked at him curiously. “Go on,” she said quietly.

  “I ignored the order,” he admitted. “Instead I went after the bad guys.”

  “And?” she prompted. “How did that go?”

  “Not as well as my ego and ambition led me to believe. The kid put a hole in me, and we almost lost one of the agents sent in to bring me out.”

  “And the network?” she asked in the same quiet tone.

  He wished she’d give him a hint as to what she was thinking. “A few got away, but I did take out the bastard we’d been after. The rest are enjoying the hospitality of correctional facilities in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.”

  She shoved her fingers through her hair and pursed her lips. She stared at him and said nothing. The central air conditioning hummed. A clock in the kitchen ticked. Like a time bomb.

  He couldn’t take another second of the silence. “Say something.”

  She blew out a breath and raked her fingers through her curls again. “So you weren’t relieved from duty because you were wounded. And the failure to pass your firearms recertification was just a load of crap. Do I have it right?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then how exactly is it, Duncan?”

  Now she clearly sounded ticked. He didn’t like it, but at least he knew where he stood. In deep shit up to his elbows and not a tow rope in sight.

  “I didn’t lie to you about the firearms recertification. Took it three times and failed each one. It’s on the termination report.”

  “And you knew I couldn’t access your service record because it’s classified and I don’t have clearance,” she said sharply. “I trusted you to be honest with me, and when I asked you about it, you lied to me. So what isn’t on the report?”

  He dropped his head back against the cushion and stared at the ceiling. The boring white acoustic tile was a lot easier to look at than the distrust in her green eyes.

  “I broke the cardinal rule. Failure to follow a direct order.”

  “You were fired for misconduct.”

  “The firearms recert was the excuse they were looking for to get rid of me.”

  “Why the classification?”

  “All deep cover agents’ service records are classified,” he said. “The Bureau isn’t impenetrable. The wrong person obtains certain information and a lot of agents end up dead.”

  “You should have told me this when I asked you about it the first time.”

  “A letter of censure for disobeying a direct order that resulted in an another agent being wounded isn’t something I’m proud of. Besides, I didn’t think we’d be involved, either.” He ran his hands down her bare arms and gave her a teasing grin. “Two weeks ago I was just hoping to get laid.”

  He laced their fingers together and squeezed lightly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t up-front with you.”

  The barest hint of a smile touched her lips, softening her expression. He had a pretty good idea he was falling in love with her, and suspected she felt the same. But it was too soon, and he understood that for the time being, just knowing was enough for both of them.

  She nodded her acceptance of her apology and sagged against him. “Duncan?”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, enjoying the sense of peace finally settling within him.

  “If you ever lie to me again,” she said, “you can forget getting laid in this lifetime.”

  16

  MIDMORNING THE FOLLOWING day, Sunny hung up the phone just as Georgia walked into her office with an armload of documents. “Well, that was a waste of time,” Sunny told her. “Duncan was right. Celine Garfield is a total head case. She just told me the only reason she reported the theft to the police was to reimbursed by the insurance company. Getting her property back doesn’t matter. I’m really beginning to wonder if she didn’t give the UNSUB the stuff willingly.”

  She left her desk and joined Georgia at the round table she’d requisitioned for additional workspace. Two weeks ago she’d been pulling out her hair in frustration trying to understand the Seducer’s victims. Although she couldn’t relate to Celine Garfield’s denial, she could admit to a better understanding of why most of the victims felt a need to protect the UNSUB—it came with the territory when you loved someone.

  “I hope you’ve had better luck than I’ve been having with the profile,” she said to Georgia.

  “A big fat nothing,” Georgia said, her disappointment obvious. She flattened her palms on the table and leaned forward, scanning the documents she’d set out for review. “My New York theory is going nowhere. I know it’s here, but I can’t prove a thing.” She pointed to the eight-by-ten glossy of Celine Garfield’s Egyptian-styled necklace. “Nice piece, but so what? The information from Chamberlain Recovery gives me more to work with, but not enough to find the proof I need. The UNSUB could still be from New York City, but without a more positive ID, we have nothing solid, only more supposition.”

  “Trust your gut, Georgia,” Sunny encouraged her. “That’s what I do when I can’t see the ‘it’ thing when I know it’s there. You just haven’t seen it yet. How about the database check on recent inheritances? Any luck?”

  Georgia shook her head. “Not really. I have tons of names within the age group we discussed, but Ned was right. Needles and haystacks.”

  Ned burst into her office, his face flushed with excitement, his glasses slightly off balance as he skidded to a halt. “Would you like to kiss my ring now, or later?”

  Georgia turned and perched on the edge of the table. “I’m dying here and Agent Megabyte gets gold?” She folded her arms in a huff. “There is no justice in my world
.”

  “Read it and weep.” He took a place beside Georgia at the table. Nudging her with his shoulder, he said smugly, “I cracked Atlanta.”

  Sunny took the report from Ned and grinned at him. “It’s about time we got a break in this case.”

  Ned beamed and adjusted his glasses. “When the UNSUB was posing as Adam Hunt, he impersonated the accounting manager of Manchester Rod ’N Reel to initiate six separate wire transfers to accounts in six different Manhattan banks. He did it by phone with a new teller he specifically asked for. He had to have cased the bank for a mark.”

  “Video,” Georgia said. “Banks use cameras.”

  Ned shook his head. “No good. It’s the main branch, busy, hundreds of customers every day. Even if they did see someone how would they know it was the UNSUB?”

  Sunny looked at Ned. “Someone had to see a strange guy hanging around the bank, especially if he’s scoping tellers to find someone to do his dirty work for him. If he asked for this teller specifically, then he was definitely there. Go down to Atlanta and interview the bank employees. This guy’s M.O. is seduction. He probably came on to one of the employees using the account manager’s name to establish the relationship. That way when he calls to do the transfers, she won’t question them.”

  “Will do,” he said. “But it gets better. Two days after the wire transfers, the six Manhattan accounts were closed via another wire transfer to a single off-shore account. No name, naturally, just a numbered account, but I’ve got the details.”

  “Manhattan.” Georgia slapped her hands against her legs. “Another connection, but nothing to connect it to. This isn’t fair.”

  “It’s a piece of the bigger puzzle, Georgia. Be patient,” Sunny reassured her. “Ned, this is great work. Go through channels to have that account seized as soon as possible.” Even with the enactment of the Patriot Act, off-shore accounts were still a jurisdictional nightmare and it could take weeks before they could seize the account.

  “I’m already on it. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “I heard back on that forged check from Bryson. Nothing remarkable whatsoever, so we have one more dead end.”