by Cindy Dees
She walked about a hundred yards, looked up at a gate, and abruptly reversed direction, as if discovering she was headed the wrong way. Careful not to overtly scan the crowd, she glimpsed the blond head and black rucksack. Her palms went clammy. Yup, still there.
Her knees felt wobbly as she walked past him. She was rarely noticed at her work—she could count on one hand the number of times she’d actually been identified and followed in her career. She was the hunter. The stalker. Not the other way around. Her heart pounded at this unfamiliar sensation of being watched. Of being known. She didn’t bother engaging in the delicate dance of hunter and prey that so often punctuated being tailed. It wasn’t worth tipping him off that she was aware of him, and besides, she knew what she needed to know. The blond guy was a pro. With her ankle a mess, she wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of going through all sorts of shenanigans to get rid of the surveillance.
She hadn’t arranged a signal to Taylor in case something like this happened. Hadn’t talked to him about pretending not to know her until they sat down in the airplane. She didn’t know what standard covert signals he knew, if any. Did he have any self-defense training at all? How could she have been so careless? She never took it for granted that she’d be able to travel unnoticed. But then, she never worked with a partner, either. Still, that was no excuse.
She found a seat in sight of the security checkpoint Taylor was likely to use and sat down to wait. An hour before their plane was due to depart, she glimpsed his tall form walking up to the metal detectors. A wave of women’s heads turned to watch him pass. She had to agree with them. He passed through security, and as Taylor stepped away from the phalanx of guards, she stood up and walked directly into his path. She lurched as he bumped her.
Taylor grabbed her arm to steady her. “There you are. Sorry.”
She whispered urgently, “I’m being tailed. Act like you don’t know me. Give me a head start and then follow me.” It was an incredibly transparent maneuver, but that was the point. If she could interest her follower in Taylor, maybe she could use her partner as bait. She just needed to find a place to spring a trap. For the next couple minutes, she zigzagged in a way that would force Taylor to reveal himself to the tail. If the blond guy was anything short of blind, he’d picked up Taylor by now. She headed for the nearest deserted hallway.
As Taylor passed by the entrance, she hissed, “This way.”
He swerved into the passage and raced after her as she darted to a closed door at the end of the hall. She picked the lock quickly and they ducked inside a janitorial storeroom. “Stand here and blatantly peek around the door so the tail will see you,” she ordered in a tense whisper. “When a blond chap with a black rucksack passes the hallway, shut the door loudly and head for the back of the room. And for God’s sake, get out of the line of fire in case he has a weapon.”
Taylor did as he was told, and it was only seconds until he closed the door and turned to run. As he ducked between two tall shelves, a flood of light spilled into the room behind him. A shadow loomed in the door, and she jumped at it. The tail was unbelievably strong. He wrenched in her grasp and managed to get his hands on her neck, but then she got off a short, sharp chop to the side of his head. The guy dropped like a rock.
“You can come out now,” she announced.
Taylor stepped out from behind the shelves.
“Help me drag him to the back,” she directed as she began to tug on the inert form.
Taylor rushed to the kid’s side and, instead of helping her, checked for a pulse. Disbelief vibrated in his voice. “Why in the world did you attack some college kid? What did he do to threaten you?”
Amanda snorted. “When he tried to strangle me, I thought it might be prudent to knock him out.”
Taylor didn’t say more, but disapproval of her violence glittered in his eyes.
Amanda pursed her lips. “I never said I was in the Girl Scouts. Did you expect me to invite him in for a cup of tea? Get real. I suppose you think every bad guy wears a raincoat with a suspicious bulge under the armpit, has a three-day growth of beard and talks like Humphrey Bogart, too. This guy was tailing me, all right.”
“Look at him! He’s just some kid, and you’ve mugged him.” Taylor passed an unsteady hand across his face. “Christ, what kind of delusional paranoid are you?”
Tight-lipped, she said nothing but bent over and searched through the knapsack the guy’d dropped when he went down. Silently, she handed Taylor a computer-generated picture of herself, a Russian diplomatic passport saying the guy’s name was Max Ebhardt and two packs of Marlboro cigarettes. Taylor stared in disbelief at the objects in his hands.
“Russians have a thing about Marlboros,” she said dispassionately. “I’ve never been able to figure out if it’s because they actually like them or they just like the cowboy in the advertisements.”
Taylor opened the passport to examine it. A note of wry apology sounded in his voice. “Says here he’s a translator for the Russian United Nations delegation. May I have some salt with that serving of crow?”
She smiled briefly. “Of course.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Bind and gag him and hope it’s a couple hours before anybody finds him. Help me truss him up before he comes around, will you?” Sensing Taylor’s chagrin, she added, “Don’t beat yourself up too bad. This guy was pretty good. Even I had trouble picking him out at first.”
“How long have you been a field agent?” he asked Amanda abruptly.
She looked up from Ebhardt’s pack, whose straps she was trying to tear off. “Ten years.”
Silent, Taylor took the rucksack from her and yanked at a shoulder strap. It gave way with a loud rip. He handed it to her and grabbed the other strap. In silence, Amanda tied up the Russian agent. She used the guy’s belt to secure him to a heavy stack of shelves and gagged him with a piece of cloth torn from the guy’s T-shirt. She stood back and surveyed her work. “There. That should hold him for a while.”
Taylor took a step toward her and she whirled abruptly. Defensively. Hands up to block or strike. Whoops. Just the partner. She dropped her hands sheepishly. Enough light seeped under the door for her to make out his facial features. He wasn’t giving away much with that poker face on.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she answered frostily. “He barely laid a hand on me.” Her words might be confident, but she couldn’t look him in the eyes. Her gaze darted off to one side and then riveted on a spot somewhere in the center of his chest.
Taylor put a finger under her chin and lifted her face gently. She didn’t fight him; that would give away too much. He said quietly, “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
His palm cupped the side of her head. He lifted his other hand and massaged her scalp. She sighed and closed her eyes. God, that felt good. It would be so easy to sink into the comfort he was offering, to let him soothe away the terrible tension that had built behind her eyes during the dance across LaGuardia. She felt like glass ready to shatter.
Why did someone like Taylor have to come along and offer her a shoulder to lean on at the exact moment she felt weakest? It wasn’t fair to have such a temptation dangled in front of her. She couldn’t accept his help. As much as she’d like to, giving up control of her emotions was the quickest road to her self-destruction. She had to handle this crisis on her own. She sighed and steeled herself to do what was necessary. And stepped away from his soothing hands. “We’d better go. We’ll miss our flight.”
Dodging the penetrating look he gave her, she headed for the door. She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that. It made her feel as if he could read her mind. And that would be disastrous. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and spoke without looking back at him. “Give me a five-minute head start. Don’t acknowledge me in any way until we’re seated on the plane. If you’re followed, don’t get on the plane. I’ll do the same. If I don’t make the flight, call Ha
rry for instructions.”
He replied crisply, “Got it. Oh, and our seats are in the same row. Do you want me to switch so we’re not seen together?”
“No. It’d draw too much attention to you. Let’s just pretend to meet and strike up a conversation.” She made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder at him. Lord, he was gorgeous. “Do you happen to have any self-defense training?”
“Does twelve years of kung fu and five years of Krav Maga count?”
Wow. She should’ve let him take down the tail. His usefulness just went up a couple notches. She nodded briskly. “Keep your wits about you and don’t do anything stupid. And don’t assume that, just because we caught this guy, there’s not another one out there waiting for you.”
She caught a flash of white as he smiled. “I won’t make any rash assumptions,” he said smoothly.
She frowned. Why did she get the feeling he wasn’t talking about being tailed?
She turned and left the storeroom.
Four
Amanda dropped into her seat beside Taylor, who’d beat her on to the plane. She felt his gaze on her skin almost like a physical caress. Inexplicable heat shot through her. The case. She was on a case. The plane taxied and took off before she recovered her cool. But then her resident head doctor asked without warning, “So, what’s the plan? How are you going to get us into Fortesque’s house? Do you know him?”
So much for her cool. She hated it when shrinks pulled stunts like that, asking questions out of the blue to surprise a person into an honest answer. She spoke below the roar of the engines and was careful to smooth out any ruffles in her voice. “I don’t know Fortesque. I know Marina. I’m hoping she’ll invite us to his house. Then we’ll poke around, try to figure out who’s smuggling the diamonds and go from there.”
“You know Subova?” he asked in surprise. “How did that happen?”
“We went to the same boarding school in Scotland. We’re old friends.”
“And Devereaux put you on the case, anyway? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
She shrugged. “Devereaux is more interested in seeing this case solved than in splitting ethical hairs.”
He absorbed that one in silence and then said, “Tell me about Marina.”
“You saw her on stage. She performs like that all the time, whether she’s sitting at a piano or not.”
“Tell me about going to school together.”
Amanda sighed. She’d been over this ground with Devereaux’s people before. “We both lost our mothers when we were very young, and our fathers found us…awkward. Her father was a government official, and mine was an art dealer who traveled a lot. We got in the way of their careers, and so, off to boarding school,” she finished lightly. Taylor no doubt heard the hurt of abandonment behind her words. But she didn’t know how to keep it out of her voice. She’d spent most of her childhood scared and alone.
Thankfully, he moved on without pause. “What kind of child was Marina?”
“The class clown. Popular. She had big emotional swings, though. In her dark moods she turned to music. It was almost an obsession with her.”
“What obsessed you as a child?” he tossed out casually.
Distant memories washed over her of a shy, serious child who spent much of her time trying to be invisible. The answer was abruptly as clear in her mind as a revelation. “I suppose I was obsessed with pleasing my father.” Taylor was cutting way too close to the bone here. “Well, I’ve certainly run on about myself,” she said smoothly. “What obsessed you as a kid?”
He smiled. “I suppose I’m obliged to trade an answer for an answer.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “I wanted to do something important with my life. I alternated between wanting to be quarterback of the Chicago Bears and wishing I was James Bond.”
“Is that why you chose to work for Devereaux?”
He shrugged. “In part. Besides, the money’s good.” Then he tossed the ball back into her court, the rotter. “Why did you pick cloaks and daggers?”
Now, there was a question. One she found herself asking more and more frequently. On impulse she answered candidly, “I didn’t pick this job. It picked me.”
“How’s that?”
She had a sneaking suspicion that she had no choice but to answer this guy’s questions. Devereaux certainly hadn’t put a psychologist on the diamond-smuggling case because he could actually be of any use in solving it. This was an elaborate setup to assess her mental state. Fine. She’d play along. For now. “My father was crazy as a loon. He was convinced Russian secret agents murdered my mother and that they were coming for me next. Whenever I went home on holiday, he taught me all sorts of weird and wacky skills. Everything from handling explosives to hot-wiring cars. After I graduated from Bartholomew’s, Devereaux approached me and asked if I’d like to put my…unique education to work. It sounded more interesting than moldering away for four more years in some moth-eaten, stuffed-shirt university.”
“How did Devereaux know about your oddball skills?”
She blinked. She remembered asking that question herself. But for the life of her, she couldn’t remember the answer anymore. “I’m sure the locals saw my father and me out and about, practicing some surveillance technique or whatnot, and word of it reached Devereaux one way or another.”
Taylor asked quietly, “Did you believe your father? Was your life in danger?”
“Believe him? Didn’t I just tell you he was mad as a hatter?”
He looked at her steadily, saying nothing.
God, she hated dealing with shrinks. And she wasn’t about to admit to one that a tiny corner of her heart wished her father had been right. “No, I didn’t believe my father. I indulged him because he was the only parent I had left.”
“How did your mother die?”
“Car accident when I was six.”
“Do you remember her?”
She’d been over this ground so many times with so many well-meaning counselors she could scream. “Yes. I have vague, but fond recollections of her. Yes, I dream of her occasionally. No, I don’t feel resentment that she isn’t here. No, I don’t try to replace her in my relationships with others.” She glared at Taylor, who returned her look impassively. She could almost see the wheels turning inside that pretty head of his.
“Why are you so sure Devereaux put me on this case to watch you?”
Okay, that shift of topic threw her. “Did Devereaux put you on this case to watch me?” she challenged.
“Not that I’m aware of,” he answered mildly. Too mildly to be lying, in fact. So. They hadn’t told him his real purpose. Then he was as big a patsy as she’d guessed. Somehow that thought was disappointing. Damn Harry to hell and back for saddling her with a psychologist, anyway. How in the world was she supposed to be with Taylor for weeks on end and keep him out of her head? She could hear her father admonishing her in one of his Spy School 101 lectures, “If you succumb to emotion or feeling, you get sloppy. When that happens, you will die. You can only survive if you become a machine.”
Right. A machine. She was feeling decidedly unmachinelike at the moment. Restless, she dug in her purse and took out the package Harry’d handed her at lunch. She tore off the wrapping. And stared in shock at the dog-eared leather-bound journal resting in her hands. How in the bloody hell had Devereaux gotten hold of her father’s diary? What kind of sick head game was her employer playing with her to give this to her now? How in the world did her father’s deranged writings relate to this diamond-smuggling case?
A flood of memories rolled over her. Countless times, her father scribbled in a leather notebook just like this one. As his insanity had deepened toward the end, he’d worked on his journals obsessively, for hours at a time. She opened the one in her hands at random and gaped at the date heading the entry. Only a few days before he died. This must have been his last journal. Why hadn’t it been in his personal effects when she’d packed up her father’s things? And how did it end up w
ith Devereaux? Why did it end up with Devereaux? Alarmed, she began to read.
…last night I heard the turquoise dragon again. He knows I have his hoard and wants it back. Only by fire shall he have it, the bleeding bastard. Oh, why did I ever succumb to his lure in my greed? I have ruined us all in my efforts to save the world from itself….
Typical of her father’s ramblings. She thumbed through the pages and a photograph fluttered out. Before she could retrieve it, Taylor leaned down, blocking the way with his broad shoulders. Damn. She watched apprehensively as he picked up the picture and looked at it before he handed it back to her. “That you?” he asked.
She took the yellowed Polaroid photo and stared at it. Memory of that afternoon flooded back as if it were yesterday. She’d been seven. Her father had insisted she help him plant an oak tree behind their home. It had been a sturdy sapling, already twice as tall as her father and as big around as her leg. She’d been worried she’d ruin her new lavender silk dress. Her father’d rambled on about planting the seeds of her security in that tree.
She flipped through the journal, which was nearly filled with her father’s spiky, difficult handwriting but found no other pictures. The pages still smelled faintly of bay rum. Grief pierced her and she closed the book hastily. She’d been seventeen and secretly relieved when he died. He’d been completely delusional by the end. Fortunately, compliments of Daddy dearest, she was very good at setting aside her emotions by the time he had slipped away, consumed by his private demons. Maybe that was part of why she’d taken the job with Devereaux. To carry on her father’s work, but sanely. To clear the stain on the family name.
“What’s the book?” Taylor asked.
“Something Devereaux said might help me—us—with this case. But I think not.”