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Personally, he was into leggy blondes, but he could certainly see the attraction. He tipped his glass to his lips.
“Do you always drink decaf?” she asked.
“For the past week or so.” He could hear the pain in his own voice. “I’m trying to kick a bothersome caffeine addiction.” On doctor’s orders. Since he had his hip injury, he hadn’t been moving as much as he should have and his blood pressure had been inching up. He was determined to do whatever it took to pass his next physical. “It’s all about discipline.”
“How is it going?”
He groaned just as his stomach growled. “Excuse me.”
Her full lips stretched into a sympathetic smile. “Missed your lunch?”
He nodded. He’d gotten into George Town on Grand Cayman Island late on one of those no-meal flights. His bad hip hurt from sitting still for so long. He wanted two things before he’d gone to bed for the night: a good dinner and a report from Anita Caballo on how the analysis of the financial records of their targets was going. So as soon as he’d dropped his suitcase at the hotel, he’d gone in search of her, concerned with what he might find.
Bribing four convicts to join an undercover team to bring down the king of all criminals didn’t fill him with confidence about the operation’s success. Could the four women succeed where professionals had failed? Carly was a top hacker, Sam a whiz at breaking and entering, Gina an ex-cop who’d done time for manslaughter, Anita a resourceful embezzler of four million dollars. Maybe they would have some kind of edge, a deeper understanding of criminal reasoning or whatever. Or maybe they were heading straight for disaster.
“How is the consulting business coming along?” he asked.
“Pretty well.” She seemed to relax at his choice of subject. “We have a half-dozen clients and a couple of nibbles from others. Once we complete this first round of projects, I think we’ll be getting a number of referrals.”
Since Cavanaugh had left the party minutes after Brant had discovered Anita, they’d followed him to his compound on the beach. And as they weren’t equipped for breaking and entering, he’d decided to end surveillance for the night and take her to the nearest restaurant that was still open, the Reef Street Inn. He didn’t believe in wasting time.
She looked nervous.
Did she have a reason other than being caught with a man? Frankly, he would have preferred if she spent one hundred percent of her time and energy on the mission.
He chewed his beef—a steak and potatoes man through and through—and washed it down with some decaf soda. He poured some extra steak sauce on the next slice.
“I’m tempted to throw the poor thing a life jacket. You’re drowning it,” Anita said.
He made a point in sopping up as much sauce as possible. “Best invention since the cow.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“So what have you been up to lately?” He didn’t have a good handle on the woman yet and was impatient to learn more.
She gave him a detailed rundown on all the projects the team had put into place since they had arrived on the island.
He wasn’t surprised that the business was doing well. She was a hell of a businesswoman—competent, resourceful, dedicated. He knew as much from her file. She had a fine track record with Pellegrino’s, the company she had built from nothing before she had succumbed to temptation and neatly made four million dollars disappear. “And the other end of the business?” He was referring to the money laundering they did on the sly in order to get closer to a shadier clientele that could provide valuable leads to Tsernyakov.
“I wish things would roll faster,” she said. “I was hoping to make contact with Cavanaugh tonight.”
“Got sidetracked?” He drew up an eyebrow.
She shifted in her seat, but wouldn’t look away. Good, the woman had chutzpah. She would need it on this mission.
“I was doing surveillance,” she said.
So she was using the poor bastard. How far would she have been willing to go? He thought of her shoes discarded on the marble floor. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“I was trying to listen in on Cavanaugh’s meeting next door.”
“Find out anything?”
“Very little before I was interrupted. Cavanaugh is in some kind of a real-estate deal. He and a couple of friends of his are trying to rezone an area for building. They mentioned environmental setbacks and the possibility of losing a lot of money.”
“They?”
She shook her head. “Don’t have names. And I only saw one, other than Cavanaugh.”
“Got pictures?”
“Not a good one. But I have pictures of others Cavanaugh had been talking to earlier in the evening.”
“And your companion?”
“Michael Lambert, land developer.”
“What are your plans with him?”
She looked like she would have liked to say, none of your business, but said instead, “None. I have no plans for him at all. He followed me when I followed Cavanaugh.”
“Is he linked to him?”
“I don’t know. Yet.”
He nodded. “Find out.” She obviously had no problem with cozying up to the guy. And Lambert had wanted badly whatever she’d been offering. Brant had seen the flash of anger and disappointment in the man’s eyes when he had walked in and interrupted.
Was Anita looking for suspects, links to Cavanaugh and Tsernyakov, or was she looking for allies for her own purposes? Lambert had money, you could tell by looking at him. And with money came influence. Was Anita working him? Sure looked like it from where he was standing.
He didn’t trust her, didn’t trust any of the women, had argued against the mission and lost. He had accepted the assignment of working with the team—somebody with realistic expectations had to be involved—but he still thought it was nothing but an invitation to disaster.
You wanted to know how someone would act in the future, you looked at how he or she had acted in the past. By and large, past behavior predicted future behavior. What the hell were they doing conducting a mission based on criminals?
The way he’d seen Anita play Lambert tonight had left a bad taste in his mouth, an odd reaction since that was exactly what she’d been recruited for. And she had been good, he had to give her that. She had looked the part of a woman about to be seduced.
Anita, more so than the others, bore watching. She was the most beautiful of the four women on the team—dark hair, nearly black, cascading to her waist, the body of a dancer, legs that could mesmerize anyone. He was a sucker for high heels and she worked them like nobody he’d ever known. She was a lethal weapon even when armed with nothing but a smile. And he would just bet she was smart enough to know how to use what she had.
In addition to her intimate knowledge of financial wizardry, those looks had been responsible for getting her involved in the mission. He had picked her himself, from the list of possible candidates.
His attention lingered on her full lips, annoyed as the picture of Michael Lambert kissing her popped into his mind. What did he care?
Then all of a sudden his instincts prickled and he turned his focus to the rest of the room, scanning the tables one by one. Nobody was paying them special attention. Maybe he was just too tired and out of sorts. Still, he had learned to appreciate intuition over the years.
“How about if we have our food wrapped and take it back to my hotel?” he asked, unable to shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“What’s wrong with here?” She didn’t look comfortable with the suggestion.
He glanced around surreptitiously as he took a drink, and from the corner of his eye caught a dark shape at the window, the glint of metal. Instinct honed by years of conflicts in the field pushed him forward. He registered the surprised expression on Anita’s face as he took her down, protecting her, softening her fall.
At the same time, the bottle of mineral water that had a split second ago been in front of her exploded all over their table, showering them with shards of glass from above.
Chapter Two
A woman screamed as people all around ducked for cover. With four years of federal prison and an intensive FBI crash course behind her, Anita managed to stay reasonably calm as she kept her head down.
“Unarmed?” Brant poked his head out, trying to see.
“Sorry.” She had thought about bringing her gun to the Chamber of Commerce reception, but there hadn’t been room to hide it under her slinky dress and her evening bag was barely sufficient to hold her cell phone, a tube of lipstick and the stack of business cards she had collected during the evening. She’d gone to the party to make connections, not to engage in a gunfight. She hadn’t thought the weapon would be necessary.
He didn’t chastise her for the lapse, but pushed her forward. “Let’s go. Toward the kitchen.”
All for getting out of there, she crawled under the tables among people who looked stunned, scared and confused. Spilled food and broken plates littered her path—a few tablecloths had been pulled down in the panic of the moment as people reacted on reflex.
Whispers came from everywhere, punctuated by a few sobs and some swearing. “Where did it come from?” “Is the shooter in here?” “Stay still.”
“Stop moving around. You’ll draw attention,” an older gentleman snapped as Anita pushed by him, then fell silent as he looked at Brant behind her.
She nudged the swinging door open and slipped through into the hot and humid air of the kitchen, which smelled of frying onions and burning oil. She didn’t rise until the metal door was closed behind them and even then she stayed in a crouch.
“This way.” Brant headed to the back.
The man could move. The only two times she’d seen him before—at the Brighton Federal Correctional Institute in Maryland and at their briefing at Quantico, he seemed more the corporate type than law enforcement—crisp suit and calm, professional manners. But right this moment the FBI agent was clearly visible.
They passed kitchen staff huddled in groups some in the cover of refrigerators, others squatting behind the counter.
“Is there a shooter in the restaurant?” one of the cooks, a lanky Chinese man, asked, gripping his white apron with one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. At first glance he seemed prepared to protect the staff, but when Anita looked closer, his darting eyes said he was ready to run.
“Outside,” Brant said. “Stay in here. Call the cops. Where is the back door?”
The man pointed with the cleaver, his arm jumping with nerves when a chair crashed behind them in the dining area.
Brant moved forward. “Let’s get out of here.”
Anita followed him down a narrow hall that led to cavernous storage rooms and stopped when he did at a door with peeling green paint on its wood panels. He paused a second then pushed the door open a few inches to survey the outside. Then he reached back to take her arm and pulled her behind him, into the deep shadows of the night.
The back alley was empty save the Dumpsters. She held her breath at the sour stench. Hundred-degree heat did nasty things to garbage.
“Come on.” He strode to the street and looked in both directions before stepping out from the alley. He walked to the nearest car and had the door open and the motor started in under a minute. “Get in.” The vehicle was in motion before she shut the door behind her.
“Did you see who it was?” She kept her eyes on the street.
“No. Are you hurt? Any of that glass hit you?”
She didn’t feel any pain but looked down at her bare arms anyway. Other than being dirty from the crawling, they looked okay. “I’m fine.”
“Call the others and put them on alert. Call Nick.”
Nick Tarasov was special ops, the man who had trained the four-woman team at Quantico after their release from prison. He had come to the island with them right at the beginning to keep an eye on things.
“Have you heard from him yet?”
Brant shook his head. “He’s only been gone for a day.”
Nick was off to look for Xiau Lin, one of their four remaining suspects who was believed to be on a business trip in China. Marquez and Cavanaugh were on Grand Cayman. They had not been able to locate Ian McGraw so far.
Life at Savall, Ltd. had been relatively calm since Ettori had been shot—a revenge-obsessed hitman who had gone after Carly big-time because Savall had stolen a few of his boss’s clients. After that danger had been taken care of, they had all felt it was safe for Nick to leave them for a while.
Obviously not.
She made the calls, reaching Sam and Carly first. Gina had just gotten in. She had stayed at the party after Anita had left with Law, to see if she could make some useful connections. Nick didn’t pick up. He was probably stalking Lin. She left him a message.
“You think it’s connected to Ettori?” she asked Brant when she was done with the calls and assured everyone that she was all right. She hadn’t fully known until now how Carly had felt for those weeks when she had been under attack. “Maybe he didn’t work alone.”
“He had a driver that one time,” Law said. He was referring to the kidnapping attempt Nick had stopped.
“Right. But that guy never entered the picture again. We assumed he was a one-time deal—a friend helping out.”
“Don’t assume.” He pulled into the hotel parking garage and stopped the car as close to the elevators as possible. “Could be he took over Ettori’s assignment.”
“But Ettori only targeted Carly.”
“Maybe Ettori’s death upset the boss and now he wants all of you taken care of.”
Not a happy thought. She got out and looked for anything suspicious, but the parking garage seemed deserted. Then she caught a glimpse of Brant and all she could do was stare. He was covering her, moving like she’d only seen people move in action flicks before: alert, gun drawn, ready for anything. Watchful energy and strength rolled off his body in waves. She could practically smell the testosterone.
He looked dangerous and capable and more than a little sexy, not that she was prepared to dwell on that.
The elevator dinged. She glanced down her dress, which was covered with food stains, and hoped they wouldn’t run into any other guests. They didn’t need any extra attention or questions from anyone.
They lucked out. The elevator opened on his floor in less than a minute without any incidents.
“This one.” He pulled a key card from his pocket and opened the door, went in first, made sure the place was secure. “Okay.” He locked the door behind them.
The room was spacious, the bed and armchairs covered in tropical prints that matched the curtains. She walked to the window to put some space between them, could see their dark office building across the street. She could even find their offices on the fifth floor, a little lower than Brant’s room. Would he be able to see into her office during the day?
She was too nervous to sit, shaken by the attack, wary of the man whose presence filled the room. All of a sudden she had the ominous feeling like she had just walked into the lion’s den. She looked around, feeling out of place. What am I doing here?
It might have seemed on the surface that they were on the same team, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He was using her to get to a dangerous criminal he wanted. She was using him and the resources he’d made available to clear her name. With little luck so far.
“Would you like a drink?” He was opening the minibar.
“Water would be fine.” If she ever needed a clear head, it was now. Somebody was trying to kill her. “This is crazy.”
“Did you expect it to be easy?” He watched her as he handed her the plastic bottle.
“I don’t know. There hasn’t been that much time to think about it. We’ve been going nonstop since we joined the team.”
“And you’ve gotten some results.”
She nodded. They had a list of possible links to Tsernyakov. That was something.
Her gaze fell on the suitcase by the window, a small carry-on. No other cases in sight. Didn’t look like he’d planned on staying long. They hadn’t expected him, at all. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Thought I’d check in, see how everything’s going. I’m a hands-on kind of guy. And, of course, I can never pass up a chance to go someplace where there’s even the remotest possibility of boating.”
Naturalmente. And it was just a coincidence that he showed up the day Nick left.
“How long are you staying?”
“Until Nick gets back,” he said.
He was here to check up on them. The thought made her mad, even knowing his mistrust was justified. She was pursuing her own agenda on the side. But that didn’t mean that she was short-changing his. She’d given her word and she would keep it.
Here they were, risking their lives, doing whatever they could to bring his mission to success. The least they would have deserved was a vote of confidence. “You don’t trust us.” She was still jumpy from the shooting at the restaurant, full of nerves and unexamined emotion. It was easy to snap.
He was watching her, his mahogany eyes unblinking. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”
The nerve he had. “You don’t think we can do it, do you? Unwilling or incapable. Which one is it?”
He said nothing.
What did it matter? “Bottom line is, you don’t think we have what it takes. And yet we are here. Which means you’re risking our lives just so you can say you tried everything. I could have been shot and killed.”
His expression turned dark. “Believe me, I’m well aware of that. And for the record, I never said I thought you couldn’t do it.”
“Just that you don’t trust us.” Her words slapped his back.
He drew up a dark eyebrow. “You want the truth?”
She nodded.
“I gave it to you. Now deal with it.” His manner was brusque and hard, the attitude she imagined he used with suspects during his investigations.
Maybe she should go back to her apartment. She had been checking the whole way here—they hadn’t been followed. She could call a cab at the front desk and be just fine.
As if he could read her thoughts, he stepped in front of her, solid as a construction barricade. “I’ll take you home in the morning.”
He was too close. She couldn’t move forward and she wouldn’t move back, despite the fact that he made her jumpy in a way Nick Tarasov, with his tough commando-guy stance, never did. Neither had Michael Lambert, even when he had his lips on hers.
Brant Law’s mahogany eyes said he meant business. He was not a man to cross. She couldn’t wait until he’d gone back to wherever he’d come from.
It would be better if he thought he had her full cooperation. She pasted on a smile. “Sounds good,” she said, and turned from him. She would pick her battles.
“You take the bed.” He went around her to the two armchairs by the wall and pushed them to face each other.
Was that where he planned to sleep? And was that a limp?
“Are you hurt?” He seemed such a wall of solid strength, it hadn’t occurred to her that he could be.
“No.” His response was quick, his voice sharper than necessary.
“Looks like you’re limping.”
“Trick of the light.”
The light was perfectly fine as far as she could tell. What was his problem? This macho man didn’t want anyone to know that he wasn’t invincible?
“Okay. You’re fine.”
What did she care? She made herself relax, sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him and bent to take off her shoes, wrinkling her nose as her hair fell in front of her face. She reeked of cigar smoke from the Chamber of Commerce reception.
“Mind if I take a shower?” She glanced at him over her shoulder.
“Help yourself.” He was digging through his suitcase. The next second, he tossed something large and white toward her.
A cotton undershirt, she recognized the thing as she caught it.
“You can’t sleep in that.” He nodded toward her soiled dress, without meeting her eyes.
“Thanks.”
He bent back to the suitcase, pulled out a laptop and set it on the desk. Looked like he meant to work. She was more than willing to let him.
Shirt in hand, she retreated to the bathroom, into the bliss of privacy and the cascade of water, washed her hair, using up one full minibottle of shampoo and conditioner. She was drying herself when he knocked on the door.
“I called down for a courtesy kit for you.”
She wrapped the towel tight around her body, opened the door and stood aside so she’d be covered and blindly reached a hand out. She pulled in the small plastic bag he placed in her palm then closed the door shut. “Thank you.”
“I ordered room service, too.”
Something to eat would be nice. All she’d had were a half-dozen microscopic hors d’oeuvres while scoping the crowd for Cavanaugh and Martinez at the party.
She unzipped the courtesy kit and looked at the comb, toothpaste, toothbrush and razor inside. She rubbed her arm where it was sore from when he’d taken her down, out of the way of the bullet.
He’d saved her life. He’d done so efficiently, with practiced ease, a true professional. And it just occurred to her that she hadn’t even thanked him. She’d been too focused on figuring out why he was on the island and how much he would interfere with her private investigation.
“Thank you,” she yelled through the door. “For everything.”
“You’re welcome. For everything.” He sounded tired and distracted. He was probably on his laptop, checking e-mail messages.
He seemed sharply efficient while staying studiously detached. But then there were those acts of unexpected kindness, the shirt in her left hand, the small bag of essentials in the other, room service.
Brant Law wasn’t an easy man to figure out.
HIS HIP THROBBED. It ticked him off. Brant walked into the George Town police department, using every ounce of will he had not to limp. He wasn’t going to pass his next physical. This assignment would be his last. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.
All the more reason for him to want to succeed with this case, a big one, something to remember him by other than that one miserable, glaring mistake he had made five years ago. He needed this case. And he’d had to hand it over to a bunch of criminals. It was enough to put him into a permanent bad mood even without the pain.
“Brant Law, FBI.” He flipped his badge to the man at the front desk. “I’m here for a consult. Mind if I get a cup of coffee first?”
The young cop looked at him, duly impressed by the badge. “Help yourself. It’s in the back.”
“Thanks.”
“Yes, sir.”
He headed down the narrow hall, turned at the end. Damn if the evidence room didn’t conveniently have a sign on it. Locked. He looked around, produced his small tool kit, was inside the next minute. He riffled through the plastic bags in the in-box, found one with Reef Street Shooting scribbled on it along with the case number and date, then pocketed the bag with the lone bullet inside.
On the way to Savall, he stopped by a FedEx store and overnighted the evidence to his office for analysis.
“HOW DO YOU KNOW the bullet wasn’t for you?” Gina was drilling Brant. She stood next to Anita’s chair, Carly and Sam were engrossed in sorting printouts by the front desk. “What if you were the target?”
He’d thought about that last night when he couldn’t sleep. The semi-sitting position the uncomfortable hotel armchairs allowed had been murder on his aching bones. And Anita’s soft breathing, which should have been soothing really, tickled something inside him that wouldn’t let him rest.
“The bottle it hit was right in front of Anita.” The man had to be aiming straight for her chest. The muscles in Brant’s jaw tightened. He was about to say something else when the mailman came through the front door, cutting him off.
The guy flashed an industrial spotlight of a smile around the room. “Hello, my lovelies.” He stopped in midmotion and glanced around at the tense silence. “Came at a bad time?”