The Medusa Proposition

Paige started as the sound of an engine disturbed the rhythmic whooshing of the waves. Far down the beach, a speck was racing toward her. She glanced around quickly. No time to hide the body. She could push it in the water but might risk losing it in the capricious tides. Subterfuge, then. Quickly, she bent down and pulled shut the neck of the sodden canvas bag. Scuba gear. She’d claim it was diving equipment in her bag and she was waiting for a friend to pick her up.

She was surprised when her nerves calmed and her body fell into a state of relaxed readiness. Wow. All that training from the Medusas must have worked. Certainty that she could handle whatever happened in the next few minutes flowed through her. She’d feel better if she had an assault rifle in her back pocket, though. She made a mental note to carry a firearm from now on when she went for her morning runs.

The speck resolved itself into a blob of yellow, and then into a four-wheeled, all-terrain vehicle. Driven by a man. A holy-moly, ay Chihuahua, gorgeous man. Although his hair was dark, slicked back like he’d been swimming recently, and his eyes were dark as well, he looked Caucasian. Just with a really good tan.

A pair of surfboards stood upright in the passenger seat beside him. He wore a baggy pair of swim trunks that did nothing to disguise the sculpted power of his legs and showed off a tanned, muscular chest that frankly made her want to fan herself. Even his bare feet were sexy as he grabbed the roll bar over his head and swung athletically out of the vehicle.

He frowned as he looked at her. “There must be some mistake. I’m supposed to meet a guy called Fire Ant out here this morning. But you’re obviously not him.”

Paige grinned. It was an honored Medusa tradition to mess with male operators and fail to mention that the Medusas were women. She replied cautiously. “You Wolf?”

“Who’s asking?” he replied tersely, all traces of the casual surfer dude abruptly gone.

Ah, the joys of special operators dancing carefully around each other, afraid to blow their covers. She said quietly, “I’m Fire Ant.”

His frown intensified. “Come again?”

“I’m Fire Ant.”

“Sonofa—” He broke off. “Yeah, I’m Wolf.” He nodded at the canvas bag. “That your gear?”

“No. That’s the problem you’re here to help me with.” “What’s in it?”

“A dead man.” She watched carefully to gauge his reaction to the announcement. Interestingly enough, his expression barely flickered. Was he used to being around dead people or was he just extraordinarily self-controlled?

“What do you want me to do with him?” Wolf asked.

“Help me hide him until the right people can come and claim his body.”

He took that news calmly enough. “Who is it?”

Interesting that he should assume she knew the dead man. But then, what other explanation was there for why she’d want to hide the body? She hesitated to tell this guy the dead man’s identity. After all, she didn’t have any idea who he really was.

She shrugged.

He studied her all too perceptively. If she read him right, he didn’t buy for a minute the idea that she didn’t know the dead man. For all she knew, he might suspect she’d been the one to off the victim.

Wolf asked casually, “Any sign of chains or weights in or on the bag?”

“I dunno. I didn’t look yet.” Not to mention she hadn’t thought of it. She clamped down on the chagrin bubbling up in her gut.

“Help me check.”

They squatted in the sand near the bag and examined its exterior surface for tears, holes or other signs of attempts to weigh it down. The smell was worse this close to it. Paige held her facial expression perfectly still, particularly after she caught Wolf’s sidelong gaze on her.

She leaned back on her heels. “I don’t see any signs from the outside.”

“Me, neither. Let’s open it up, then.”

She clenched her jaw but held her position resolutely.

Her companion swore under his breath when he got his first look at the dead man and the condition he was in. Then he breathed, “Ando.”

So. Wolf was familiar with the attendees at the upcoming summit … or else he was conversant with Japanese businessmen and could recognize them on sight, even while dead and starting to bloat.

He commented, “Doesn’t look like any fish have been nibbling on him. Which means he was bagged before he went in the water.”

Wolf reached into the bag and around in the various—appendages—while Paige’s gaze slid away.

He rinsed his hand in the surf as he announced, “Nothing obvious in the bag with our guy. Odd. Who’d ditch a body and not weigh it down?”

Her gaze snapped back to him and she blurted, “Someone who wanted it found, obviously.”

He stared at her speculatively for several seconds. “Grab the bag,” he abruptly ordered.

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Help me lift your guy into my ATV.”

Distastefully, she grabbed the wet canvas and, between the two of them, they heaved the wet sack onto the back of the vehicle. It landed with a sickening thud. Trying to hide her involuntary shudders, she helped Wolf lash the surfboards across the spare tire mounted on the back of the vehicle. The guy knew his way around ropes and knots. But then, so did she.

He swept his arm toward the passenger seat in invitation. As she climbed in, she asked, “What do you suggest we do with him?”

“Put him on ice.”

She frowned over at her companion as he started the engine.

“Literally?”

“Yeah. Unless you want me to help you bury him. Can’t leave a body out in this heat and humidity for more than a few hours for obvious reasons.”

He flashed her a grin and her breath caught in surprise. Whoa. In the television business, that was known as flesh impact. Normal people might call him charismatic. She’d call him a walking advertisement for raw sex.

She mumbled, “The idea is to conceal his death until the summit is well underway. It starts tomorrow. We’re only looking at a day or two. Just until someone can get here quietly to take his body home. His family deserves to get his remains.”

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

“At the beach cottage of a friend. It’s close to the resort the summit is being held at.”

“Perfect. We’ll keep him at your place.”

“No way! I’ve got a refrigerator, but the freezer isn’t close to big enough to hold our friend.”

He shrugged. “So, we’ll buy you a freezer.”

“You can’t just walk into a store and say, ‘Excuse me, I need a freezer right away. Something big enough to hold a dead body for a few days.”

“Sure you can.”

“You’re nuts.”

He glanced over at her. “You got a better idea?”

She sighed. “No.”

“Technically, he only needs to be refrigerated if we’re looking at less than a week of storage.”

Lovely. They bounced over a high berm of sand and turned onto a paved road, heading south. The ATV accelerated smoothly as she studied her companion surreptitiously. Who was this guy? He obviously worked for Uncle Sam, but in what capacity? And how did he know so much about storing dead bodies? She supposed she should leave it alone and just be grateful he’d come so quickly to help out. But she was too much the nosy journalist to let it go.

Of course, she couldn’t ask him outright who he was. Special operators told you only what they wanted you to know, which was usually less than nothing about themselves. Everything else was off-limits. Case in point, she had no idea how much or how little Wolf knew about the Medusas. Just because Vanessa had sent him in to back her up didn’t mean he was briefed on the Medusa Project. Paige memorized his face carefully. And the license plate of the ATV. And the fact that he surfed. It ought to be enough for her to get a name, at least.

“Any idea how he died?” he asked without warning.

She answered as emotionlessly as she could muster, “I didn’t examine his body carefully, but I can tell you this. He was tortured before his death.”

“How so?”

“His fingertips were black. He was electrocuted. That blood pooling would’ve had to happen before he died.”

“Could be the corpse just beat against some rocks before it washed up here.”

She replied shortly, “Trust me. I’ve seen the results of electrical torture before.”

He didn’t comment, and she had no desire to elaborate. Visions of Jerry’s body threatened to steal her composure. She directed Wolf to turn onto the dirt road that led to her place.

The ATV pulled to a stop in front of the whitewashed stucco bungalow. A thick wall of trees blocked it from her neighbor’s view to the south, and a large rock outcropping separated her from the neighbor to the north. She and Wolf carried the bag around to her back porch without incident.

She opened the door and Wolf followed her inside. The kitchen abruptly felt tinier than it already was. Contained within walls like this, her impromptu companion suddenly lived up to his nickname. His eyes were dark and fierce with a predatory intensity that warned her off in no uncertain terms. Not that she was interested in making a play for the guy while a dead man was lying on her back porch.

He opened her refrigerator, a boxy 1970s model, briskly ordering, “Help me empty this out.”

He passed her what little food she had inside, some fresh fruit, a half pound of smooth Havarti cheese, a partial container of pâté and two bottles of wine. He stopped to read the labels of those. “Good choices. Although, that Merlot is too overpowering for a cheese as mild as the Havarti. You need an aged Stilton to hold up to a wine that robust.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I hate blue cheeses.”

He sighed, passing her a metal shelf he lifted out of the refrigerator. “Uneducated palate.”

She scowled. “I don’t need to be sledgehammered by the taste of my food. I appreciate subtle flavors. My palate is refined, thank you very much.”

He grinned at her as he pulled out the last shelf. “There. That should do it. Let’s get your boyfriend in here.”

Jerry’s dead face flashed through her mind. She snapped, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Wolf threw up his hands. “I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit.”

Her anger subsided, leaving her chagrined. “Sorry. Touchy subject.”

“Why. Your boyfriend the kind who kicks butts and takes names?”

She snorted. “Like I’ve got time for a boyfriend with my work schedule?”

He closed the refrigerator door abruptly, leaving them standing face-to-face, no more than a foot apart. He was a lot more muscular than he looked at first glance. And lethal looking. Like her instructors back on the island. She thought she’d gotten over the whole fluttery female reaction to overwhelmingly alpha males in the past two years, but apparently not.

Belatedly, she realized she was staring at him. She turned abruptly on her heel and headed for the back porch. Wolf didn’t comment, but she felt him smiling at her back as clearly as if she’d been looking at him. When she reached the door, she tossed a quick glance over her shoulder, but his features were perfectly straight. The smile still danced in his smoking hot gaze, though.

She rolled her eyes. Alpha males. All the same. They knew their effect on women and had the gall to be entertained by it. Just because some instinct left over from the Stone Age drew her to him, that didn’t mean she had to act on it. Far from it. She’d learned long ago to run screaming from guys like him.

They lifted the bag and wrestled it through the kitchen door with a minimum of conversation. Getting the dead man into the refrigerator involved standing the bag upright and cramming it into the small space. But eventually the door closed and stayed shut on its own. They tied a rope around the unit to hold the door in place just in case, though.

“I wouldn’t open that until you’re ready to take him out.”

“Ya think?” she asked dryly.

Grinning that thousand-watt smile of his, Wolf slipped out the back door. The screen slammed shut behind him. “Thanks!” she called.

He touched a finger to his brow in a mock salute. And then he was gone. And her little cottage felt oddly empty—despite the fact there was now a dead man in her refrigerator. She headed for a hot shower to wash off the sweat of her run and the creepiness of handling a body bag.

Talk about two ships passing in the night. Too bad she was never going to see Wolf again. He was hot.

She finished her shower, got dressed and duly reported in to Viper. Vanessa told her that an American forensics team had already been dispatched to collect the body and perform an autopsy. They’d arrive on Beau Mer around midnight local time.

In the meantime, Vanessa told her to go on with her normal day and act like a reporter covering the upcoming summit.

Sure. No problem. Morning run. Check. Discover dead body. Check. Stow it in refrigerator. Check. Yep. Just another day at the office.

Paige gathered her laptop computer, a notebook and her car keys, and headed out for her nine o’clock interview with Thomas Rowe, the reclusive billionaire financial advisor to the American delegation at the summit. Apparently, he was some sort of genius regarding anything to do with money.

Getting this interview had been a coup. Rowe never gave interviews. He was barely ever photographed for that matter. As it was, he’d forbidden recordings of any kind during her interview with him. She got to do it the old-fashioned way. Shorthand. Good thing she could take dictation at well over one hundred words per minute and had nearly total audio recall. But what Rowe didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. At least, not until she wrote her story.

She parked her rented MINI Cooper and walked into the plush Athenaeum Hotel at six minutes until nine. The past two years in the military had taught her that if she wasn’t five minutes early, she was late. She stepped up to the concierge’s desk.

“May I help you, mademoiselle?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Rowe. I have an appointment at nine.”

“I’ll ring his suite and buzz you into the elevator.”

She looked around the marble interior of the hotel. It was decorated like a Greek temple, with stone columns and carved wall friezes, which could have been incredibly cheesy. But the decor was so tastefully interspersed with plush Aubusson carpets and luxurious furnishings that the overall effect was impossibly elegant.

“Mr. Rowe is not quite ready for you, but his assistant says you may come up now.”

She stepped into the elevator the concierge indicated and pushed the button for the top floor. Of course Rowe had a penthouse suite. What else? She stepped out of the elevator into a small hallway and knocked on the last door on the right.

An obnoxiously gorgeous blonde wearing a tight business skirt and tailored silk blouse opened the door immediately. “Miss Ellis. Please come in. I’m Gretchen, Mr. Rowe’s personal assistant.”

Ha. She’d bet. With a body like that, it didn’t take a genius to guess just how personal Gretchen meant. Paige followed the woman into a sunken living room decorated in stark white, with lots of chrome and crystal. But then she caught sight of the view out the floor-to-ceiling windows. The Pacific stretched before her in brilliant shades of turquoise, cobalt and sapphire that stole her breath away. White sailboats bobbed on the waves, and a few brightly painted fishing boats added quaintness to the otherwise surreal picture.

“May I get you a cup of coffee or some juice?”

Paige wasn’t fond of the strong coffee favored in this part of the world. “I’d love a glass of water. No carbonation and with ice, if you have it.”

“Of course. If you’d like to sit down, Mr. Rowe will be out shortly. He was held up with a private matter earlier and is running a little behind.”

As Gretchen strolled away, Paige watched the woman’s impossibly long legs. Three guesses as to what—or who—that private matter was, and the first two didn’t count.

Instead of sitting, Paige went over to stand by the windows and gazed at the magnificent ocean below. She didn’t like to meet powerful people from a seated position. It gave them too much subliminal control of the interview from the start.

She’d stood there for maybe two minutes when a door opened behind her. Paige turned around and said, “Thanks for the water, Gretch—”

Not Gretchen.

Wolf. He was clean shaven now, his hair dry and styled—not slicked back from his face—and wearing a tailored business suit that must’ve cost thousands, but there was no mistaking him. If only she’d been able to find a picture of the reclusive billionaire to have recognized him on the beach! The casual surfer dude was gone, and in his place stood this formidable businessman. But the eyes … the eyes were the same. Intense. Smoky. Mysterious.

“You? You and the surfer are the same pers—”

Another door opened and Gretchen stepped out, carrying a tray with coffee, croissants and a pitcher of water.

Wolf held out his hand quickly. “I’m Thomas Rowe. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Ellis.”

Chapter 3

Tom watched his assistant impassively as she set down the tray on the coffee table in the living room. “That will be all, Gretchen.”

She nodded and turned silently to leave. Good assistant. Didn’t need or want pleasantries from him. Plus, she was the soul of discretion and scary efficient. He made a mental note to give her a raise. The door shut behind Gretchen and he turned to face the imminently less predictable woman still in the room with him. She’d moved again by the window and stood facing him, her posture defensive. Good. He liked reporters back on their heels. This one in particular after she’d shocked the hell out of him.

“You’re Paige Ellis?” he demanded. “How in the hell do you know Vanessa Blake?”

“Gee, I was just about to ask you the same thing,” she snapped.

He answered evasively, “We’re old friends. You?”

“Ditto.”

Riigghhtt. The obvious answer was that the woman in front of him was part of Vanessa’s secret team—

He discarded the idea out of hand. No way was a well-known journalist like Paige Ellis part of the Medusa Project. It was laughable to even think about. Except she’d answered to the code name Fire Ant on the beach. A biting insect … hadn’t Vanessa’s husband said something a while back about the new Medusa team going for dangerous bugs instead of snakes for their names?

Surely not. She was a civilian for God’s sake. A pampered media princess. No way did she have the stamina, the fortitude, the sheer guts to be a Medusa.

“So, tell me, Mr. Rowe. What is an important guy like you doing out at the crack of dawn surfing alone?”

“I like to surf. And I like my privacy.”

“But it’s dangerous. Too dangerous for a man of your stature.”

He raised an amused brow. “What’s wrong with my stature? Aren’t I tall enough to surf?” She rolled her eyes at him.

He studied her as she moved from the window to stand across the coffee table from him. Tension vibrated through her entire body, and something deep in his gut responded in kind. Damn her. He didn’t like being off balance like this.

Although she was an attractive woman overall, the first thing a person noticed when they looked at her were those incredible electric blue eyes of hers. Bright and inquisitive, they looked right through a guy and made him feel a little naked in front of her. He jumped in before she could ask the next question burning in her glorious gaze. “And what were you doing on the beach at the crack of dawn, Miss Ellis?”

“Hauling dead men out of the surf, of course.”

“Do you do that on a regular basis?” he asked dryly.

“At least twice a week. It’s great aerobic exercise,” she snapped.

Touchy, touchy. He asked more seriously, “What do you know about Takashi-san’s death? His family will be devastated.”

“You know the family?” she asked softly. Careful to keep his expression smooth and give nothing away, he nodded. “His first wife died of cancer years ago. Wife number two is a former high-fashion model and quite the wild child. But he seems—seemed—happy with her. He’s got a couple of grown kids from the first marriage.”

“Any idea who’d want to kill him and then dispose of his body in such a fashion?”

“You’re the reporter. You tell me.” She shrugged. “The North Koreans and the Russians have every reason to sabotage this summit and properly provoked, they’re both capable of murder. Of course, it could be some business or personal enemy of Ando’s, maybe the Yakuza—the Japanese mob is still pretty powerful. And then there’s always the ubiquitous child who wants to collect an inheritance sooner rather than later.”

Tom jerked, offended. “Not Ando’s sons. They’re both honorable men.”

Paige shrugged. “Then we’re left with enemies or politics.”

“Who’s coming to collect the body?” Paige pursed her lips and looked prepared to be stubborn about answering. He added gently, “I can always call the local police and tip them off to check out your house. In this part of the world, they’d throw you in jail first and maybe get around to investigating the murder later. Or maybe they’d just lock you up and throw away the key.”

She did an odd thing. Her eyes became preternaturally intense, and she became very still. Like she was readying herself to do violence. It was something he’d expect to see in a soldier, not a girly-girl TV journalist. For make no mistake about it, Paige Ellis was all girl. She wasn’t a big thing, maybe five-foot-five. And slender. Not skinny, by any stretch, though. She looked fit. But feminine. And those eyes of hers … he was having trouble looking away from them. They were even brighter and bluer in person than on television.

She spoke quietly. “I don’t take well to being threatened, Mr. Rowe.”

That was more like it. Now she was the one on the defensive. He grinned and picked up a plate of croissants. “Snack, Miss Ellis?”

“No, thank you,” she bit out.

He sat down on the couch facing the magnificent ocean view and poured himself a cup of coffee. Since he never took anything but coffee and croissants before noon, he assumed the water on the tray was for her. He poured some into a crystal glass already filled with ice. He set it on the low table in front of her without bothering to ask. She struck him as the kind of woman who’d answer no to anything he asked of her just to be obstinate.

He enjoyed watching her struggle to corral her temper as she sat down stiffly across from him. Slowly, she pulled out a notepad and a pen. And when she finally looked up at him, her face was calm. Pleasant even.

Impressive.

“So, Mr. Rowe. How did you get involved with this summit? Were you approached by our government, or did you approach them?”

Ah. Retreating into her reporter persona, was she? Surely she was aware of his reputation with journalists. He was known as the worst interview in America. He made no secret of the fact that he despised anyone poking into his personal life. He was even known for finding questions about his business matters offensive. But suddenly, he was finding it damned hard to be offended when he could hardly tear his gaze away from Paige’s tanned and toned legs.

She asked him the usual questions about the global business climate, the outlook for the future, what recommendations he was planning to make at this summit of world business and political leaders. In return, he fed her his usual dodges. He was the master of answering a question with a question, sidetracking the conversation into clarifications of exactly what questions meant and, when she finally nailed him down with a direct question, blatantly not answering it and straying into vague politician-speak about hope for the future.

After about ten minutes of cat and mouse, she sighed and laid down her pad and pen. “Mr. Rowe. If you’re not going to cooperate at all with this interview, why did you agree to it in the first place?”