by Cindy Dees
“A bit,” she answered reluctantly.
“Let me carry you downstairs.” Without waiting for her permission, he stepped forward and picked her up.
Desire flared, hot and bright, at the feel of his strong, safe arms around her. Lord, he was pretty. Cover-model material all the way. “I’m going to have to start walking on it sometime, you know,” she grumbled.
His voice was low and sexy in her hair. “I know. Although, I rather enjoy hauling you around like a bride.”
For a moment, she was too startled by his forwardness to react. Belatedly, she frowned at him. He met her stare head-on, unapologetic. She had to give these American men credit. Their directness had a certain appeal. Even if it was a bit intimidating.
He broke the silence casually. “By the way, if I’m going to keep carrying you around like this, I probably ought to introduce myself. My name is Taylor. Taylor Roberts.”
A good name. Strong. It had character. Definitely fit him. “I’m Amanda McClintock,” she managed to squeeze out without sounding breathless.
They reached the ground floor and he set her down carefully. “Pleasure to meet you, Amanda.”
Doc Hammill bustled out of his office, a welcome distraction. “Don’t go running off, young lady. The swelling in your ankle should be down this morning, and I want to tape it before you go tearing around on it again.” He herded her into the examining room and forced her to swallow a couple painkillers he swore wouldn’t knock her out. Then he taped her ankle and pressed a brown plastic bottle of pills into her hand. She thanked Doc Hammill for his help and hospitality, and they were on their way.
The day was heating up fast, promising a hazy afternoon of brown skies and clammy humidity for New York City. Although the steam heat of late summer had not yet arrived, the air carried a certain oppressive weight. It dulled the usual vivacity of the city’s sounds, reducing it all to a methodical repetition of the weekday’s weary routine. The streets were relatively unclogged, and the taxi dropped them off in front of Shecky’s Deli on time.
Boisterous noise greeted them as a half-dozen employees shouted orders good-naturedly and tossed yeast rolls at each other behind the counter. Harry Trumpman waved at them from a vinyl booth in the back corner of the crowded restaurant. Good location for a meet. So much background noise no parabolic mike could isolate their conversation and record it. They waded through the line of people waiting for take-out orders and joined him. She couldn’t help but admire the way Taylor’s broad shoulders cleared a swath through the crowd for her.
Harry waved them into the seat opposite him and said little until the waiter had delivered their sandwiches and left. Then he stared intently at Amanda. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how strung out she really was after last night’s disaster, and she met his gaze dead-on.
He asked with quiet significance, “How are you feeling today?”
Like he really cared so long as she got the job done. She answered coolly, “Fine, thank you. Dr. Hammill says my ankle should be as good as new in a few weeks.”
Either oblivious to her hostility or unconcerned by it, Harry turned to Taylor. “And how did last night go? Did the pianist signal anyone?”
Taylor shrugged. “Maybe. You might want to have a cryptography expert listen to Subova’s improvisations. He may find messages encoded in the music.”
Harry raised his brows. “That’s an interesting idea. I’ll pass it along. Actually, Taylor, that’s why I asked you to come along to this meeting. I’ve decided to bring you in on the full details of the case we’re working on regarding Marina Subova.”
Amanda stared in undisguised shock. That was her case. Why hadn’t she been consulted about this? She always worked alone. Always. Why in the world would Devereaux bring anyone else in on this one, of all cases? If Taylor messed it up, he could trigger global violence. Literally.
Three
Taylor leaned forward, all ears. Finally. Now maybe they’d get down to the real reason Devereaux had hired him, not to mention finding out who in the hell had been wrapped up in that blanket last night.
Trumpman spoke in a casual voice just loud enough for Taylor to hear under the discord of restaurant noises. “Recently, a dozen large diamonds have popped up in the United States and Europe. They range in size from eight to twenty carats and are of exceptional quality. Their origins are a mystery. We can find only one correlation between the stones. They appear immediately after Marina Subova performs someplace. We can place six of the buyers at social functions with Subova this year.”
Taylor mentally saluted the desk jockey who’d figured out that obscure connection.
Trumpman continued, “We’re convinced someone attached to her entourage is smuggling and selling these diamonds. The key question, though, is where in the devil are the stones coming from in the first place? If a large enough number of stones like these were dumped on the world market, it could seriously destabilize diamond prices. There’ve been more than enough financial shake-ups in the last couple years in the United States. You can understand our employer’s concern over this prospect.”
Taylor nodded, his face impassive. Years of analyzing hardcore criminals had honed veritable radar in him for a lie. Trumpman wasn’t telling him the real reason this diamond smuggling was important to stop.
A ring of truth reentered his boss’s voice. “Last night we detained our likeliest suspect, Grigorii Kriskin.” Trumpman passed a slightly unfocused picture of a lanky, aging man across the table. Taylor had never seen the face before, but Amanda flinched subtly beside him when she looked over his shoulder at the picture.
Trumpman continued, “He was Marina Subova’s bodyguard. Unfortunately, he didn’t prove to be very cooperative.”
Amanda closed her eyes in acute pain, as if she’d just been stabbed with a sharp object. Now what was that all about? And then there was his boss’s odd behavior. Trumpman’s body language screamed that he was being evasive. Taylor was careful to keep his expression neutral when he asked, “Just how uncooperative was this guy?”
Trumpman’s gaze slid away guiltily, confirming Taylor’s suspicion. But then the older man said succinctly, “Kriskin took a suicide pill. Cyanide capsule in a fake tooth. He’s dead.”
Taylor jolted. “Jesus!”
Amanda recoiled beside him. But it wasn’t a movement of surprise. It was a movement of…what? What in the world was going on here? Unseen currents ebbed and flowed thickly around him. The woman beside him stared blankly at the tabletop, revealing nothing of her emotions. He’d worked long enough with criminals to see past the fronts they put up, but he wasn’t getting any read whatsoever on her. And that, in and of itself, was telling. If he hadn’t glimpsed the lonely, vulnerable person within her last night, there was no way he’d have guessed she existed within the cold professional sitting beside him now.
Trumpman passed Taylor a piece of paper without breaking his narrative. “This list of names, addresses and dates was found in Subova’s dressing room. It parallels her concert itinerary. It’s a list of the people she’ll be staying with during the course of her tour. Apparently, she has a thing against hotels.”
“Too much like Bartholomew’s,” Amanda murmured.
Taylor turned a questioning look on her.
“The boarding school Marina grew up in. Looked like a hotel. Or a warehouse for inconvenient offspring.”
The flash of bitterness in Amanda’s voice made it a good bet she’d been a warehoused, inconvenient offspring herself. Taylor shifted his attention back to Trumpman.
“Subova’s next host is this guy, Gilles Fortesque, in Toronto. Made his millions building automotive prototypes and now runs an import-export conglomerate. You two are going to spend the weekend with him and Subova.”
Taylor’s eyebrows shot up. How was Trumpman going to pull that off?
Trumpman answered his unspoken question. “Amanda will be your entree to the Fortesque home. You will act as her…escort. Oh, and M
arina loves good-looking men.”
Taylor glanced over at Amanda and caught a glimpse of some turbulent emotion before her gaze went blank. That had been resentment if he hadn’t missed his guess. Her control was extraordinary, except momentary chinks in her armor kept flashing. Either she was losing her formidable control, or she was trying to send him a subtle message of some kind. But what? His frustration mounted. What the hell was going on here?
“I’m the toy boy?” Taylor asked baldly, in an attempt to punch through the layers of unspoken crap.
Trumpman shrugged. “Basically, yes.”
He continued, “I’ve booked the two of you on a flight this afternoon to Toronto. You’ll want to acquaint yourselves with the area before you show up on Fortesque’s doorstep.”
Not to mention they’d also need to acquaint themselves with each other if they were going to be working as a team on this case. He studied his partner covertly as he picked up his sandwich and took a bite. Without any makeup, in the light of day, her face was unremarkable at a glance. But when he really looked at her, he saw once again how breathtaking she was. Her beauty had an elusive quality that was hard to put a finger on. Like the woman herself. Taylor dragged his attention back to what his boss was saying.
“Any questions, you two?”
Taylor and Amanda both shook their heads in the negative, and Trumpman flashed them a patently false smile. “Then I guess we’d better wind things up and let you two go pack. Your flight leaves in—” he checked his watch “—just over three hours. Taylor, Amanda’s the best in the business. You stick by her, and she’ll show you the ropes.”
Taylor reassessed the young woman beside him. Devereaux’s man thought she was the best? That was a hell of a recommendation.
Trumpman added casually, “Amanda, would you stay for a moment? I’d like to have a word with you.”
Taylor took the hint and slid out of the booth. “Thanks for lunch, Harry.” He threw out a trial balloon. “And thanks for the assignment.”
Trumpman threw him a wry look. Now that was an interesting reaction. Thinking hard, Taylor turned and walked out of the deli.
Amanda watched Taylor wend his way through the restaurant. She admired the way his lean waist complemented the width of his shoulders, how his biceps filled out his shirt….
Whoops. She was in grave danger of revealing far too much to her boss if she ogled her new partner openly. She forced her gaze away from Taylor. “What’s up, Harry?”
“I have Taylor’s dossier if you’d like to see it.”
“Let me guess. Hometown boy from Middle America, Ivy League schooling, inspired to be one of the good guys. How many field cases has he run?”
Trumpman shifted uncomfortably. “None.”
“None? Does he have any investigative background at all?”
Trumpman frowned. “He’s a criminal psychologist—terrific profiler. Has a real knack for getting inside people’s heads. We thought this guy might help you to anticipate the smugglers and get ahead of them long enough to nab them.”
Amanda ignored the implication that she was slipping, still hung up on another, much more dangerous phrase Trumpman had uttered. Getting inside people’s heads? Had Taylor been assigned to do that to her? Poke around inside her noggin and figure out what made her tick? Alarmed, she tuned back in to what her boss was saying.
“…our people reported that he was outstanding in his covert-ops training. He’s a natural. You may have noticed he’s decent looking, too. Should be tempting bait, given your friend’s proclivity for the gentlemen.”
Amanda stopped an impolite sound from escaping her throat. Decent looking? The guy was a hunk of the first water. She’d practically forgotten to breathe when she’d first seen him last night. She contained her annoyance at her boss and reached with only marginal success for a patient tone of voice. “Look, Harry. I don’t like the idea of dragging deadweight around with me. This case is high profile. I need to be able to move fast. You know full well that teams of operatives aren’t anywhere near as nimble as solo agents.”
“Amanda, I know it’s unusual, but I sense a lot of potential in this guy. I need someone like you to bring him along.”
Frustration laced her voice. “Then I’ll teach him when I get back. The field is not the place to train someone in my line of work. And certainly not on a case like this.”
“Amanda, please bear with me.”
Harry was shoving Taylor down her throat whether she wanted him or not. Her initial response was to be irate. She clamped down on the sensation. Why would Devereaux suddenly saddle one of its top solo operatives with a partner? An amateur partner at that? “What’s going on here, Harry?” she asked abruptly.
He gave her an innocent look. “I’m trying to brief you on your new partner.”
“I don’t have any choice in this, do I?”
“No, you don’t.” Trumpman’s voice held finality. He sighed and reached into his briefcase. He handed her a small package. Wrapped in plain brown paper, it was about the dimensions of an address book. “Devereaux thought this might help you on the case. No promises, but it’s worth a look.”
She frowned and took the package but didn’t open it. She felt the indent of a bound spine. Definitely a book of some kind. “Right. Well, then. Thanks a lot.” Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she slid out of the booth and marched out of Shecky’s with as much dignity as her sprained ankle would allow.
Trumpman frowned. He was worried about her. She’d taken Kriskin’s death hard. Irritability and displays of emotion—any emotion—weren’t her style. Amanda’d been strung out like a high-tension wire for so long, he didn’t know how she kept going. Eventually, she had to snap. Burnout was inevitable in her profession. When basically decent, moral people were turned into doers of dirty deeds, even in the name of right, it always caught up with their consciences at some point. He only prayed that when she fell apart, there were enough pieces of her left for Taylor to pick up and bring home.
He rubbed a hand across his eyes. God, he got tired of the game, sometimes. When he’d been younger, he’d thrived on the adrenaline rush. Craved it. But no more. Now it simply brought bone-deep weariness over him. He’d done what Devereaux wanted. He’d forced Taylor upon Amanda and put them both on this case. He’d argued with his employer against the idea, too, using much the same logic that Amanda had. But Devereaux hadn’t budged. The guy was worried about Amanda. She’d been in the field a long time and had been showing cracks around the edges for a couple of cases. It was high time for her to stand down. Except Devereaux insisted she was the only agent for this case, just like he’d insisted on assigning a shrink to her in case she imploded. And Devereaux got what Devereaux wanted.
Trumpman glanced at the tab for lunch and tossed a couple dog-eared bills on the table. Taylor’d catch on. The guy was a sharp cookie. Sharper than folks gave him credit for.
Hell, Amanda and Taylor would probably work out just fine together as partners on this case. He was just getting paranoid in his old age. He half smiled at how impatient Taylor had been when he’d been told his first field assignment was to go to a piano recital. As he stood at the curb hailing a taxi, Trumpman wondered if he himself had ever been that green and eager. Lord, his chosen profession aged a soul fast. Ah, well. Taylor would find that out soon enough.
Amanda took one last look around her hotel room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Funny how Marina couldn’t stand hotels. She didn’t like anyplace but hotels. Their sterile impersonality felt safe. No ties, no emotions, no sentimentality. It was an easy matter to empty the closet into her hang-up bag and to toss the contents of the drawers into a suitcase. She loaded her professional gear more carefully, wrapping fragile electronics in socks, and tucking small gadgets into zippered pockets where they wouldn’t get lost.
She was still rattled by her loss of composure last night, but she felt alert after a full night of drug-induced sleep. She pushed aside all thought of G
rigorii Kriskin’s death. Her brief attempt to face her grief and guilt had ripped away the curtain of her control, revealing just how thin a veil it was these days. She wasn’t strong enough to go there just yet. Later. Maybe later.
She got to the airport almost two hours before their flight left. She checked her bags and passed through security, then cruised the long terminals, browsing shops and going through the routine motions of checking for a tail. She was standing in a newsstand, glancing at magazines when her internal radar went off. Over there. A blond guy. Young. Dressed sloppily. Too casual. Too inconspicuous. Her heart slammed into her throat. How had someone known to find her here, today, at this time? She was careful not to look back over her shoulder.
Who was tailing her? Her mind whirled with possibilities. She’d been on ice for months after her last mission. Nobody’d come after her during that time, and the terrorist cell she’d infiltrated and exposed had been declared dead and gone.
Besides, surveillance wasn’t that gang’s style. They might lob a pipe bomb at her, but they wouldn’t bother following her if they knew where she was. She hadn’t shown herself to anyone so far on the diamond case. It had all been paperwork chases and electronic trails up to this point. Who, then? Who was that guy back there?
She moved away from the newsstand and headed for a coffee shop and sipped at a mocha latte, barely aware of its scalding heat on her tongue. It had been less than twenty-four hours since Kriskin went down. His superiors probably knew by now there’d been a fight and that he’d disappeared. But nobody should have connected her to him. How in the bloody hell had she been made so fast? Was there a mole at Devereaux?
Harry knew she’d be at the airport today. And Taylor knew. The team who pulled out Kriskin’s body knew about Carnegie Hall but had no idea she’d be leaving this afternoon out of this airport. The only newcomer was Taylor. Was he a plant? She cursed under her breath at Harry for saddling her with this new headache. She finished her latte and threw out the cup on her way back into the stream of passengers rushing down the long corridor.