Miranda touched her shoulder and gently squeezed her arm. “Good job today, Lucy.”
“You too. Night.” Lucy’s fingers curled around the envelope. She couldn’t imagine the reaction of the people she worked with if they ever saw these—or her parents, for that matter. Why had the Russians sent her the photograph now, though?
She pulled it out again, ignoring the image, and turned it over. A time and place were written on the back. They wanted a meet.
It wasn’t even encrypted, but then she didn’t have any of their cyphers so it would have been useless anyway.
They still didn’t trust her.
In the past, she’d received instructions via a letter that appeared anonymously in her mailbox at home. This was bolder. They must want something from her. Something more substantial than on previous occasions. Had they organized Kristen’s kidnapping? As a distraction? Or was it an unhappy coincidence that they intended to exploit for their needs?
Either was possible.
She slipped the envelope into her purse and went to work finding contact information for all Kristen’s friends, adding any personal details she could remember. She collated the school info Max had requested and also emailed Gemma asking what happened to Kristen’s belongings after the kidnapping. Then she sent all the data to Max Hawthorne’s email address.
It was dark throughout most of the building by the time she headed to the bathroom to change into her office clothes again. She stared at her drab reflection in the mirror, suppressing the grim smile that wanted to spill over her lips. She looked like shit. That photograph had been a kick in the gut, and the proof was scrawled all over her strained features.
She drew in a deep breath. She could deal with this. This was what she’d trained for. This was what she’d sacrificed for. She couldn’t waver from her path now.
Her cell rang.
It was Max. She hesitated before answering and then realized his invitation gave her the perfect excuse for going downtown again tonight.
“Lucy?”
“Yes?” she answered, ignoring the magic of his voice.
“I’m about to head to the hotel. Can I buy you that quick bite to eat before we both keel over from lack of food and exhaustion as a small thank you for all your help today or does your earlier refusal stand? No worries if you want to head home.”
“Actually, I’m starving so that sounds great.” Did he think she needed to lose a few pounds too? She didn’t ask. “Meet me at the entrance in five minutes.”
She hung up and gave her frumpy reflection one last look and then blew herself a kiss. This version of Lucy was as worthy as the confident blonde who attracted male interest so very easily. More so in fact. This Lucy was calculated and cunning whereas the other Lucy was gullible enough to fall for the oldest spy trick in the book. The honeytrap.
Old Lucy had thought she was smarter than everyone else in the room. New Lucy knew with certainty that she wasn’t even close. At least she wasn’t a trusting fool anymore.
The photograph in Lucy’s bag was proof of her mistakes. Her mind shied away from the other images they probably had of Old Lucy. She didn’t want to imagine how many of them had jerked off to photographs and videos of her making love to that rat bastard who’d died a year ago today.
Her throat tightened and not just with humiliation. With grief too. She’d fallen hard for Sergio Raminsky. Built fairytales around their future. Those dreams had turned out to be foolish fantasy that had shattered when faced with reality. Worse, they’d compromised her in the eyes of an enemy foreign government.
Raminsky and his Kremlin bosses had left a wake of victims behind them. Lucy wasn’t only fighting for herself, she was fighting for all of them. For every other person duped by the man’s beautiful dark eyes and that deep, sexy accent.
She saw clear parallels between Raminsky’s masculine beauty and Max Hawthorne’s. She had absolutely no intention of acting on her attraction to him—not that she imagined for a second he’d be interested in her dowdy self.
More fool him.
She applied some red-brown eye shadow that emphasized the hollows of her eye sockets in a bad way and dabbed a smokey gray under her eyes. She looked like death warmed up.
Perfect.
She snapped the small box shut with a degree of satisfaction and tossed it in her bag. Time to go to work.
Chapter Ten
Max dropped his stuff back in his room while Lucy saved them a table in the bar.
He quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The place was swanky, but they were only grabbing a quick bite to eat so he didn’t need to wear his suit. Board shorts would be a tad too casual though. He was starving, and he definitely owed Lucy a drink after everything she’d helped him with today. He was glad she’d said yes to coming out. He hated eating alone, especially on Christmas.
He found her in the far corner of the Oak Bar ensconced in a black leather chair. She sat with her back to the wall. The room was wood paneled, and exposed wooden beams lined the ceiling. The place smelled of power and opulence, whiskey and oak. An old boys’ club. He wondered if this was where the Nazis had hung out after the war. Probably best not to mention Hitler.
“Did you get served yet?” Max took his seat beside Lucy.
Her lips pinched in amusement as she jerked her chin toward the barman who was taking the order of three women at the bar. The women were all gorgeous, in their mid-twenties, wearing party clothes, with an air of celebration about them. They were all dark-haired, possibly sisters. One of them caught Max’s eye and knocked the elbow of the woman beside her.
Max turned away and found Lucy staring at him with a small smile on her lips.
“I bet you’re wishing you hadn’t invited me now.”
Max gave her a frown. “Why?”
“Oh, please. I’ve totally ruined any chance you might have had for a very Merry Christmas.”
Jesus. Did he look like he chased after women at every opportunity? “What makes you think I don’t have a wife or girlfriend back home?”
Her mouth opened a little in shock. “Oh, man. That would actually make perfect sense for a guy who looks like you do, but it doesn’t always make a difference when that sort of opportunity presents itself.” Her gaze landed on the three women who were all checking him out now.
The heat of a blush rose up in his cheeks. Damn. “As it happens, I’m not dating anyone right now, but if I were, I would never cheat on her. And I’m not looking to hook up during a case. And besides all that, why the hell would you put yourself down that way?”
“How do you mean?”
“By assuming I’d invite you for a drink and then dump you the moment someone else turned up?”
Lucy sobered. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was all way too personal.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I know, but it was.” Her lips quirked to one side. “I guess I’m a little out of sorts after someone told me I could do with losing weight, which made me feel particularly grumpy. Aside from making me want to eat every cake in Buenos Aires, it made me angry and petty. My comments were inappropriate. My apologies.” She looked down at the table. If she’d had a drink, she would have been hiding her face in it.
“Whoever said that was rude as hell.” Obviously, they hadn’t seen Lucy in yoga pants because Lucy had a perfect body. Not that he could say that out loud without revealing that he’d noticed her perfect body, which wouldn’t be a good idea.
He wanted to ask her why she downplayed her looks and why she let people walk all over her, but that wouldn’t help either of them decompress after a hard day. “Forget them. It’s Christmas, and I reckon we get to enjoy at least an hour of it.”
“You don’t feel guilty having a beer when Kristen and Irene are still in danger?”
There was curiosity rather than criticism in her tone and it was a valid question, so he answered her honestly.
“I have active cases three-hundred and six
ty-five days of the year. I need to compartmentalize my job from my basic need for downtime now and then. It’s a form of dissociation that means we law enforcement types don’t burn out and all go crazy and quit.” He glanced around for the waiter. He was starving. “It’s not that I am not concerned about those girls. I am. If I thought I could go out and rescue or help them this minute, then I would be out there doing it. But when a case is in progress or I simply need food or sleep, I have to take it and forgive myself for being human. It allows me to be sharp and focused when I need to be.”
The waiter finally came over as Lucy quietly digested what he’d said. Max rarely bothered to justify his existence but, much to his surprise, he liked Lucy. He wanted her to gain a little confidence. Although the woman dropkicking knife-wielding assailants in the barrio didn’t need a crash course in confidence.
The character traits didn’t quite mesh. He needed to check out her background but knew she’d have had to pass stringent background checks to get into the Foreign Service and regular assessments by the Diplomatic Security Service to stay there.
Maybe the ambassador was a bully behind closed doors and that made Lucy act so downtrodden at work. He didn’t know and, frankly, was almost too tired to care. He ordered a beer and tostado de jamón y queso con ensalada verde o papas fritas. Pricey for what amounted to a cheese and ham toasty and fries, but he hadn’t eaten all day. Lucy ordered a glass of wine and Empanadas.
He raised his glass. “Thanks for all your help today.”
Lucy chinked her glass to his, but her expression was wry. The women on the other side of the room were giggling and staring over at them.
“Ha. They just heard the accent. You might not get out of here alive.” She sipped her wine. “I might not get out of here alive.”
He felt his cheeks grow warm again. Damn. He was not the type of guy to blush.
Then she asked him the question everyone asked. A question he never really truly answered. “Why the FBI?”
He shrugged. “Like I told you earlier, I was a dual national. After I left the SAS, I got a gig training FBI agents in close-quarter combat techniques with another Special Forces guy I know in Arizona. One of the agents I trained turned out to be a recruiter, and he wanted me for the Hostage Rescue Team. Unfortunately for him, I’d already decided my days of kicking down doors were finished.”
He worked a kink out of his shoulder. He needed a hot shower and a few hours’ sleep. “I have another former-SAS friend who works the K&R circuit for an insurance company out of London. He’d been trying to persuade me to come work with him for years because he thought I’d be good at it. I guess that idea clicked inside me because I decided to pursue being a negotiator for the FBI.”
“You’re what? Mid-thirties? And already on your second illustrious career?”
“Depends on whether or not we’re counting the modeling gigs I did to get myself through university?”
“Wait. What?” She guffawed and gazed up at the ceiling. “Of course, you were a model.”
He laughed. “It’s not as cool as it sounds. I was mortally embarrassed by the whole thing and never told anyone when I was a student. When I was accepted into the SAS, one of the instructors outed me by plastering my locker with pictures he’d somehow tracked down and torn out of magazines. I don’t know how he found out or got the pictures. That was, without doubt, the most embarrassing day of my life.”
It felt good to remember the fun times of being a soldier. The laughter. The camaraderie. Not the blood and despair.
“In that case, you’re a very lucky man.” Her lips twitched.
“Why? What’s your most embarrassing story?”
The smile evaporated.
He’d said the wrong thing. Thankfully, their food arrived, and he was so hungry he was ready to gnaw on the table. They both ordered another drink and consumed their dinner like they were ravenous. Neither saying a word until their plates were clean.
Lucy dabbed her mouth with her napkin and grinned at him, and he was once again treated to her face lighting up in a smile. And he felt like he’d been let into a secret. For some reason, Lucy Aston generally hid her inner sparkle.
Max was a live-and-let-live kind of guy as long as no one was breaking the law. It wasn’t his business why she’d made the choices she had, but he enjoyed the glimpses of something more interesting that snaked beneath the bland surface, glimpses the others appeared not to notice.
“Do you think she’s still alive?” she asked suddenly. “They,” she corrected herself quickly. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
He pushed his empty plate away and pulled in a deep breath. “Yes, I do. The phone call put my mind at ease that this was a kidnap for ransom and not one for political reasons, which is what I most feared. If the hostage takers wanted the release of prisoners in the US or something else similarly impossible to deliver, then I’d be more worried.”
“Do you think they’ll harm them?” Lucy asked.
Max swallowed the last of his beer. Even though he’d like nothing better than to have another he didn’t let himself. If he was called out in the middle of the night, he’d need his wits.
“It all depends on the type of men who took them and who’s in charge. How the girls behave. The longer it goes on, the more opportunities the hostage takers have, so I want to keep the girls’ welfare high in the talking points every time they make contact. I want to make the kidnappers actively care about the girls’ health and wellbeing.”
“How do you do this all the time? I get that you give yourself downtime to deal with the necessities, but how do you cope with the constant uncertainty? The fear that what you say and do might get a hostage killed.”
He actually didn’t think about it. Someone had to deal with the kidnappers, and he and his colleagues were among the best negotiators in the world.
Maybe it was because he knew these abductions were happening around the world whether he was on the job or not. Had been going on since the dawn of human history. And life as a soldier had shown him how unstable the world was. Society clung to a thin veneer of civilization that could crumble at any time. He wanted to be someone who contributed to the stability of the democracy not someone who fed the chaos. That had evolved into a life of service and applying his intelligence and integrity to every case. Doing the best he was able to do. Saving those he could and helping prosecute the rest.
“We have some of the best people in the business working at the Crisis Negotiation Unit. We don’t get everyone back and we don’t always get them back unharmed”—he thought about Darby O’Roarke who they’d rescued from a volcanic island in Indonesia that summer—“but we know the most effective techniques to use, and we never stop trying to refine those techniques. We never stop trying to get people home—even when we’re in a bar having a drink.”
Lucy leaned toward him, clearly intrigued. “What do you mean?”
“Well, hopefully the things we’ve set up and the conversation we had with the kidnapper are already working in the hostages’ favor.”
Fairy lights twinkled, reflected in the crystal glasses on the table. Lucy was staring at him through those unflattering spectacles she wore as if she expected more.
“The Crisis Negotiation Unit is good at what it does. My colleagues are good at what they do. We have a lot more experience than most of the kidnappers we encounter, and we’ve seen almost every scenario before, but we also know to expect the unexpected.” The black swans. “That experience, combined with the massive resources of the FBI, often allows us to bring people home if there’s any reasonable chance of doing so.”
Bargaining with the likes of ISIS had been rough, but kidnappings in that part of the world, at least in the early days, had also often been about money. And many of those kidnappers were now in custody. The Department of Justice had a long arm and an eidetic memory.
The ladies at the bar were flirting with the barman again. Max had definitely missed his chance there, but he
wasn’t bothered. He was enjoying spending time with Lucy.
“Do you think the police will attempt a rescue?” she asked.
“I hope not, but probably.” Max noticed the widening of Lucy’s eyes and explained, “The most dangerous time for any hostage is during the abduction itself or during a ‘rescue’ operation. Bullets are flying, and the hostages are as likely to be killed by friendly fire as by hostage takers. Negotiation takes longer and can be time consuming and frustrating, but we get consistently better results than armed intervention. I know it’s hard to wait when someone is worried about a loved one.”
“Kristen’s a good kid. I’d hate to see her or Irene hurt by this.” Lucy checked the time on her Fitbit. “Wow. I better get home. I have to be back at work by seven.” She went to open her wallet, and he closed his fingers over hers.
He was unprepared for the sizzle of electricity that arced between them, but he was experienced enough not to show it. “My treat, remember?”
She nodded and quickly rose. “Thanks.”
“Let me walk you to your car.”
“I’m safe enough. I valet parked, and this is a good area.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t be here.” The reminder that two young women had been snatched a dozen yards from the front of this hotel in broad daylight hung in the air between them. Max still wanted to know how the kidnappers had tracked the women. He’d spoken to the ambassador earlier with a brief update. Confirmed the ring probably belonged to Kristen. He’d arranged for all the items to be securely couriered to Quantico. It had been too late to act on the other information Lucy had gathered for him.
Lucy’s gaze was unflinching. “I can take care of myself.”
He thought back to the flying kick she’d executed perfectly earlier that day and how it didn’t fit with the woman from the embassy. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
Cold Cruel Kiss: A heart-stopping and addictive romantic thriller Page 11