To Love a Thief

Adam glanced pointedly at his watch. “Speaking of the IMF…”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!”

Snagging another of the flaky tidbits, Maggie chewed, swallowed and rattled off last-minute instructions.

“The girls have had their supper and their baths. They’ll be ready for bed about the time Nick says your dinner will finish cooking. Jilly’s eardrops are on the nightstand beside her bed. One squirt in each ear. Don’t let Samantha have any more apple juice. It goes right through her. If Terence gets loose…”

“God help you,” Adam muttered.

Shooting her husband a quelling look, Maggie grabbed her evening bag. “We both have our cell phones. Call if you need us. Bye, Nick. Bye, Mackenzie. Bye-bye, sugar pies.”

She planted noisy, smacking kisses on the cheek of each girl. Adam waited patiently, then took his turn. A few minutes later, the garage door rumbled up, then down. Before their vehicle had cleared the front drive, a low, mournful howl drifted up from the basement. Another followed, longer and louder than the first. The third rose to an earsplitting crescendo.

“Radizwell doesn’t like it when Mommy and Daddy go off and leave him in the basement,” Jilly informed Nick and Mackenzie between yowls. “He can go all night,” she added with some pride.

“I’d better let him up,” Nick muttered. “Brace yourself.”

Nodding, Mackenzie plunked Samantha on the countertop and took a wide-legged stance. Nick made sure she was ready before he opened the hall door.

Neither one of them could have known it at the time, but by that simple act he saved both their lives.

Chapter 2

The attack didn’t come until almost two hours later.

Looking back, Mackenzie would always marvel at how blissfully unaware she’d been her life was about to take a sharp turn into danger and international intrigue. Nothing in those hours leading up to the murderous assault gave any warning of what was to come.

The time was filled with nothing but noise and laughter. Shrieks of delight as Jilly and Samantha used the family room sofa as a springboard onto Nick’s prone body. Loud grunts when they landed feet first on his midsection. Earsplitting protests from Radizwell, who danced around the threesome wanting in on the fun.

Mackenzie kept a wary eye on lamps, books and silver-framed photographs and generally stayed out of the fray. She did, however, get suckered into playing the part of Bad Bunny when Jilly dragged out a set of plush hand puppets and a folding cardboard stage. With the air of a general marshaling her troops, the pint-size director issued orders to her cast and crew.

“You put the stage together, Uncle Nick. Fold the tabs over like this. See?”

“Got it.”

“’Kenzie, you sit here. Samantha has to sit in your lap ’cause she’s just a baby.”

Her sister’s rosebud mouth puckered at the disparaging remark. “Nuh-uh.”

“Yes, you are. A silly little baby.”

Tears welled. A chubby fist closed over a puppet in the shape of a bear. Before Mackenzie could stop her, Samantha swung.

Screeching, Jilly swung back. Radizwell set the windows to rattling with his bark.

It took a moment or two for Nick and Mackenzie to separate the combatants. They emerged from their brawl with sulky expressions that melted instantly into happy smiles when Nick suggested ice cream after they finished their theatrical production.

Finally—finally!—eight o’clock rolled around. Breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief, Mackenzie rinsed out the ice-cream bowls while Nick carried Samantha upstairs on his shoulders. Jilly raced ahead to select the books she wanted to read before lights out.

A half hour later, the girls were ear-dropped, pot-tied, story-taled and snuggled in. Nick dropped kisses on their cheeks and went downstairs to stir his pots, leaving Mackenzie to deposit their various items of discarded clothing in the hamper.

When she opened the door to the bathroom, though, an ominous hissing sound greeted her. Evidently Terence the iguana had heard the sounds of the toilet flushing and decided to migrate from the playroom next door. He had now taken up occupancy in the bathtub.

Radizwell, who’d plopped down beside Jilly’s bed, went on full love alert. Hastily, Mackenzie yanked the door shut, separating him from the bug-eyed creature in the tub.

“Sorry,” she told the quivering sheepdog. “I don’t think he’s in the mood for love right now.”

She just wished she could say the same!

Only now, with the girls tucked in and Nick downstairs, could she catch her breath and put a name to this tingling, prickly sensation she’d been experiencing for the past few hours. The sensation had intensified each time Nick grinned at the girls’ antics. Or sprawled loose-limbed and feigning exhaustion while they climbed all over him. Or solemnly danced his grasshopper hand puppet across the cardboard stage.

Mackenzie had seen a different side of Nick Jensen tonight—gentler, funnier, more relaxed. The disconcerting glimpses of the man behind the handsome mask had totally skewed the image she’d constructed of him over the past years. As OMEGA’s chief of communications, she’d monitored Lightning’s operations in the field. She knew how good he was. And how lethal.

She’d also monitored his activities when not in the field. It wasn’t difficult to keep up with them. The paparazzi followed him like hounds after a sleek, handsome fox. According to the tabloids’ various “reliable sources,” he could have his pick of the half-dozen gorgeous beauties reportedly madly in love with him.

Although…

Mackenzie could have sworn she’d caught a speculative gleam in his eyes when he looked at her lately. Part of her wanted to believe it telegraphed a very definite male interest. The rest of her got clammy at the thought.

Nick Jensen was out of her league. Correction, out of her universe. And despite the fact he’d spent hours tussling with kids and their near hairless sheepdog on the floor, she’d be a fool to believe he possessed any more homing instincts than her philandering ex.

Or so she tried to convince herself as she and Radizwell made their way downstairs.

Seeing Nick in his natural habitat didn’t exactly reinforce her theory. He looked right at home at the stove, darn him! Far more than Mackenzie herself did on the rare occasions she attempted anything more esoteric than nachos or microwave popcorn. He’d even set the table. Candles flickered amid the blue-and-white crockery and tall-stemmed cobalt goblets.

“Almost ready,” he assured her.

“I know it’s a little late to ask, but what can I do to help?”

“Why don’t you do the honors with the wine? I uncorked it but was waiting for you to come down before pouring.”

Extracting the bottle from the crystal ice bucket, Mackenzie gave its label a curious glance. “Mt. Blaze?”

“It’s a small vineyard on New Zealand’s Gold Coast. Their late-harvest Riesling won Wine Enthusiast’s best vintage award three years running.”

“Oooh-kay.”

Detouring around the recumbent sheepdog, Mackenzie brought two filled goblets to the cooking island. “What shall we drink to?”

Nick swirled the pale liquid, savoring its light, fruity bouquet. His glance caught hers.

Dammit, there it was again! That indecipherable look. The message she couldn’t quite interpret. Mackenzie’s breath hitched and that damned jittery sensation returned with a vengeance.

“How about our first dinner together?” he suggested.

How about their last!

She wasn’t a fool. Or dead from the neck down. She could recognize healthy, old-fashioned lust when it shivered through her. She just wasn’t ready to deal with it.

“To dinner,” she echoed faintly.

He clinked her glass softly, took a sip and turned back to the stove to stir a thick, creamy sauce.

Mackenzie blew out a slow breath. Maybe he hadn’t noticed that little blip on her internal radar screen. Sliding one hip onto a cane-backed stool, she eyed the slowly bubbling froth he was stirring.

“What’s that?”

“Béchamel.”

“And béchamel is?”

“A seafood-based white sauce used in a number of Mediterranean dishes. I seem to remember promising you the real thing a few weeks ago.”

He had, she remembered. Right after hand-delivering one of the countless pizzas she’d ordered while working late at the control center.

“Want a taste?”

Mackenzie studied the little blobs in the sauce with something less than enthusiasm. She wasn’t averse to trying new dishes. She merely preferred to have a general idea what they were first. Still, he had gone to all this trouble to cook for her. The least she could do was be gracious.

“Sure.”

Tearing off a crust of bread, Nick dipped it in the sauce. Mackenzie gave the lumps another doubtful look, but leaned forward to accept the offering.

The bread was warm and fragrant, the sauce a heavenly blend of cream, butter, garlic and shallots. The rubbery lumps took a bit of chewing, but their delicate fish taste wasn’t too bad. Not too bad at all.

“What do you think?”

“I think,” she announced, swiping her tongue along her lower lip, “I’m better off not knowing what I just ate.”

Laughter glinted in his eyes. “Coward.”

Her stomach did a little flip that had nothing to do with fishy blobs.

“You’ve got sauce on your chin.”

The glint in his eyes deepened. So did the timbre of his voice.

“I’ll get it.”

Before she could reach for the blue-and-white towel on the counter, he had it in hand and came around the end of the counter. She swiveled toward him, her back to the tiles, her knees bumping his thigh. Curling a knuckle under her chin, he tilted her face to his.

The gentle swipe of the dish towel raised goose bumps on Mackenzie’s skin. The brush of Nick’s firm, warm hand against her chin left her fighting to remember all the reasons why she’d decided not to jump his bones.

He was so close Mackenzie could see the gold tips to his lashes. So near she could feel his breath warm on her face. Her heart hammered. Her lips parted.

His thumb traced a slow circle on the side of her chin. The light, lazy touch set every one of her nerves to jumping. She knew she had to pull back, laugh off this crazy moment, or she’d do something monumentally stupid. Like flinging her arms around the man’s neck and attacking the mouth so tantalizingly close to her own.

“Nick…”

“Mmm?”

“I, uh, don’t think…”

“What?”

“This isn’t…”

Radizwell gave a low growl. The rumble barely penetrated Mackenzie’s whirling senses but Nick lifted his head and glanced over her shoulder. The next instant, he threw the dish towel aside and wrapped his right fist around her upper arm like a vise.

“Hey!”

“Get down!”

With a violent tug, he yanked her off the bar stool and threw her behind the counter. He followed her down. They hit the tiles a mere second before the wall of windows overlooking the garden exploded in a burst of glass and gunfire.

Bullets ripped into walls, cabinets, appliances. Raked the table, shattering dishes. Slammed into the stove. Sent boiling white sauce spraying.

Crushed against the floor tile by Nick’s weight, Mackenzie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The stuttering gunfire seemed to go on for two lifetimes. Burst after burst. Deafening. Terrifying.

Suddenly, there was silence. Blessed silence. For a heartbeat, maybe two. Then glass crunched and she heard the thud of running feet.

Nick rolled off her, sprang up. Mackenzie scrabbled onto her knees, trying frantically to get her feet under her. She lifted her head just in time to see Nick’s arm whip forward. A long-bladed kitchen knife flew across the room.

She heard an agonized scream. Another burst of gunfire. A feral snarl. Fangs bared, Radizwell streaked past her.

“Arrrgh!”

Bullets plowed into the ceiling, traced a wild pattern across plaster. Huge chunks rained down.

Nick leaped over the counter. Mackenzie raced around it a second later, horrified by the sight of Radizwell savaging a screaming, writhing figure dressed all in black. She was even more horrified when she saw the bastard still gripped his Uzi with one hand. He kept firing wild bursts while he tried desperately to fight off the dog with his other arm.

All Mackenzie could think of, all that pierced her frantic thoughts, was that the girls were asleep upstairs. Right above them. The stream of bullets could penetrate the flooring, plow through their mattresses.

Nick must have had the same gripping fear. His foot swung in a savage arc. The Uzi went flying. Only then did he attempt to drag Radizwell off the screaming victim. He got a fist around the dog’s collar and heaved.

Radizwell reared back, but was only gathering his muscles for another attack. Fangs bared, claws scrabbling on the tiles, he lunged forward once more. His size and fury carried Nick with him. The man on the floor frantically crabbed backward, kicking at Nick, at the dog, managing to get free of both. His hand went to his underarm holster.

Mackenzie didn’t stop to think, didn’t calculate the odds. She dived for the Uzi, got her hands around the grip at the same instant the bastard in black leveled a .9mm Beretta.

He pumped out one shot, only one, before she fired.

Chapter 3

The D.C. fire department, the police department’s crime scene unit, several detectives and a squad from the coroner’s office were already at the house when Maggie and Adam rushed in. Face ashen, Maggie took in the black plastic body bags on the kitchen floor. Her eyes were haunted as they locked on Nick.

“Samantha? Jilly? You said on the phone…” Her voice cracked, broke. “They’re okay?”

“They’re fine.”

Nick’s shoes crunched on broken glass as he crossed the kitchen and gripped both her hands in his.

“They were in bed, asleep. Jilly didn’t wake up until she heard the sirens. Samantha stayed down for the entire count.”

“A police officer is upstairs with them now,” Mackenzie put in. “We figured we’d better have someone keep them company until, well…”

She glanced at Adam. His jaw was set, his blue eyes arctic. He didn’t exude the charm of a handsome, wealthy Boston aristocrat now. He was Thunder, once OMEGA’s most skilled, dangerous agent.

“Until we figure out who was behind the attack,” Adam finished in a voice so soft and lethal it sent shivers down Mackenzie’s spine.

The idea that her children might need guarding in their own home drained the little color remaining in Maggie’s cheeks.

“I have to see them,” she got out. “Make sure they’re okay.”

Adam went upstairs with her. When they came back downstairs a short time later, Maggie’s face reflected the same savage determination as her husband’s.

“What have we got so far?”

“Two corpses,” Nick replied succinctly. “No identification on either. A near arsenal of weapons, all of which appear to have been stolen. A very sophisticated, very expensive electronic security bypass device. If Radizwell hadn’t heard them outside in the garden and given us a half-second warning…”

At the sound of his name, the sheepdog’s tail thumped the floor. Adam reached down to scratch behind his ear.

“You’ve just earned yourself a year’s worth of T-bones, pal. And free run of the house for the rest of your life.”

“Jilly will be happy to hear that,” Mackenzie said with her first smile since the bullets had started flying. Only now was the knot at the base of her skull beginning to loosen.

It kinked up again when the squad from the coroner’s office lifted the two corpses onto gurneys and wheeled them out. The carving knife that had gone through the throat of one of the gunmen tented his plastic body bag at neck level.

Adam’s glance sliced to Nick. “Your handiwork?”

“Yes. Mackenzie got the second bastard.”

“Good work, Mac.”

She accepted quiet words of praise with a small nod. She wasn’t one of OMEGA’s highly skilled field operatives, but she’d gone through enough training to hold her own in a tight situation. Hopefully, she’d never find herself in one this tight again!

“Mr. Ridgeway? Dr. Sinclair?”

Maggie and Adam turned to the two detectives, who introduced themselves and produced their credentials. The older and the paunchier of the two addressed Adam.

“I understand you were supposed to receive an award tonight.”

“That’s correct.”

“Was the award publicized?”

“There was mention of it in most of the papers.”

“And on local TV stations,” Maggie added.

The younger detective jotted the information down in his notebook.

“Are you assuming the gunmen knew my wife and I weren’t home?” Adam asked, eyes narrowed.

“We’re not assuming anything right now. Just getting the facts.”

Adam shared a glance with his wife. Mackenzie could see they were beginning to work through the possibilities she and Nick had been discussing since their hearts stopped pumping pure adrenaline and their brains reengaged.

If the attack was specifically timed for after Adam and Maggie left, the gunmen might have been intending to take the girls for ransom. Or exact vengeance against Maggie and/or Adam by destroying their home and family. God knew, both Chameleon and Thunder had taken down their share of scum in their days with OMEGA. Any one of those bastards could have been seeking retribution.

Then again, their target might not have been the girls at all. The gunmen might have been after Nick. Or Mackenzie.

The idea made her swallow. Hard.

She knew they wouldn’t narrow the possibilities until the coroner autopsied the bodies, the police followed up on every lead and OMEGA put its vast resources to work. Mackenzie suspected she had access to more databases than every city, state and Federal agency combined. She’d soon know if either of the scum who burst in tonight with guns blazing had been fingerprinted, DNA tested, given blood or peed into a cup any time in the past twenty years.

They hadn’t.

At least not that Mackenzie could determine. Once she received the autopsy results and crime scene analysis, she spent two frustrating days cross-matching the information with medical, dental and Red Cross databanks. At the same time, she followed convoluted trails to determine the source of both the gunmen’s weapons and clothing.

The first solid break came not from bodily fluids, fiber content or serial numbers, but from the trash littering the back seat of a nondescript gray sedan found abandoned a block or so from Maggie and Adam’s house. The vehicle had been reported stolen weeks ago in Atlanta. The license plates were also hot. But the back seat yielded a veritable treasure trove.

By running the list of fast-food containers and crumpled coffee cups through her computers, Mackenzie was able to plot all franchises selling those products within a fifty-mile radius of D.C. She then suggested the detectives handling the case e-mail pictures of the gunmen to the managers of each franchise. Within twenty-four hours from the time the car was found, they’d established a pattern that centered on Nick.

The gunmen had purchased donuts at a Krispy Kreme three blocks from his house. Bought chili dogs from a vendor located across the street from his pricey restaurant in Chevy Chase. Downed cup after cup of coffee from a Starbucks on Massachusetts Avenue, just around the corner from the Offices of the Special Envoy.

“According to one of the waitresses at this Starbucks,” Mackenzie told Nick in a voice laced with satisfaction, “they made a call on the pay phone located on the premises the morning of the attack.”

Plunking down a list, she hitched a hip on the corner of his desk. She hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning. She rarely did. But the way Nick’s glance shifted when she crossed her legs made her wonder why the heck she’d opted for a white blouse and a slim black skirt with a slit on one side instead of her usual slacks.

Ha! Who was she kidding? She knew why. That damned almost-kiss.

To her consternation, Mackenzie had relived those absurd moments just before the gunmen struck too many times for her own comfort the past few days. Just thinking about the way Nick’s mouth had hovered over hers got her all flustered. And irritated.

Particularly since Nick hadn’t appeared to have spared those breathless moments a second thought. Like Mackenzie, he’d devoted every hour not taken up with his social obligations as special envoy and his duties as OMEGA director to discovering who was behind the attack. She didn’t know how he could work such long hours, juggling so many roles, and look like he’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ. Not even Ace’s secure satellite transmission from Saudi a while ago, reporting another dead end on the oil refinery sabotage, had ruffled his composure.

Nor should Mackenzie let him ruffle hers. This was Lightning, for pity’s sake! Her boss. The man she’d sensed could be trouble since her first day at OMEGA. If she had half a brain in her head, she’d go hard astern and put plenty of blue water between them before she made a fool of herself. Again!

Frowning, Mackenzie uncrossed her legs and gave him a rundown on the list. “These are all calls made from the Starbucks the day of the attack. I’ve crossed through the numbers that check to friends or relatives of employees. The rest appear to be calls to doctors’ offices, dry cleaners and the like. All except this one. Europol’s running it now.”

Nick eyed the number. He didn’t need the European Police Office’s aid to identify the country code. It was as familiar to him as his own name.

“The south of France,” he murmured. “From the area designation, I’d say the call was made to the Riviera.”

“You nailed it. It went to a phone booth in the city of Nice, to be exact.”

Images of an azure sea lapping a broad boardwalk and a flower market filled with riotous color flashed into Nick’s mind. He’d only visited Nice a few times. He’d always found the pickings in Cannes to be more than sufficient for his needs.

“It’s beginning to look like someone in Nice wants you dead,” Mackenzie commented, studying his face intently. “Any idea who?”

“No, but I certainly intend to find out. Ask Mrs. Wells to come in on your way out, please. I’ll get her working on travel arrangements, then come upstairs and brief you on the operations I want you to track while I’m gone.”

The vertical line between Mackenzie’s brows deepened. Not two seconds ago, she’d made up her mind to put some blue water between her and Nick. Not, however, an entire ocean. And not when it came to finding out why those bastards had opened fire on her.

“You’re not thinking about jetting off to France without me, are you?”

“There’s no thinking about it.”

Leaning back in his chair, he smoothed a hand down his red-and-navy striped tie. His nails were neat and trimmed, Mackenzie noted, his wrist banded by a thin gold watch. For all his reputed wealth, Nick didn’t go for big or flashy. The memory of how those strong, sure fingers had grazed her chin deepened her frown into a near scowl. Or maybe it was how close their mouths had come to doing a little grazing of their own.

“You weren’t the only one shot at,” she pointed out. “I have a personal stake in finding out who hired those thugs, too.”

“The evidence seems to indicate I was the target.”

“Seems being the operative word.”

Pushing away from his desk, Mackenzie paced the plush Turkish carpet. She’d done a lot of thinking in the past twenty-four hours.

“I did a Mediterranean cruise with the Sixth Fleet during my navy days. We home-ported in Naples, and I took a couple of shore leaves up along the Italian Riviera. Never got to Nice, but it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from San Remo. Maybe I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see. Maybe I listened in on some ship-to-ship communications I wasn’t supposed to hear. This could be about me, Nick, not you.”