Naked In His Arms

“Did she commit a felony?”

“Anything is possible, Alex. Surely you know that.”

Yes. Oh, yes. He did. And, the truth was, it didn’t matter. In the dark world of the Agency, the end always justified the means.

“What else?”

For the first time, the director looked uncomfortable. “I may have understated her hostility.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s not just a hostile witness, she’s hostile to accepting the government’s protection. She may, ah, she may object.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “And if she does?”

“If she does, your job is to change her mind. Any way you see fit. Do you understand?”

Now Alex knew why the Agency had been called in. The feds wouldn’t do anything that smacked of subterfuge or, even worse, coercion.

The Agency would. He would. Even now, doing things that danced on the edge of the law was Risk Management Specialists’ bread and butter.

“Well,” Shaw said briskly, “now to the details. You’re flying the noon shuttle to New York. There’ll be a car waiting in your name at Hertz, and a reservation at the Marriott on—”

“Tell your secretary I won’t be needing any of that.”

“I don’t think you understand, Knight. This is our operation.”

“I don’t think you understand, Shaw.” Alex took a step forward, until the men were only inches apart. “I’ll run this my way. I don’t want anything from you or this office, not until and if I ask for it. You got that?”

There was a long silence. Then the director nodded.

“Yes,” he said stiffly. “I understand perfectly.”

For the first time, Alex smiled. “Good.”

Then he turned on his heel and walked out.

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE time the shuttle landed at LaGuardia, Alex had come up with a plan.

Before he made any kind of move on Cara Prescott, he wanted to check her out. The drab bureaucratese of the file Shaw had handed him didn’t give him a feel for the woman.

He wanted to see Tony G’s former mistress with his own eyes. Find out how she spent her time. Walk around in her space.

Then, only then, he’d decide what to do next.

Until recently, the lady had lived in Gennaro’s sprawling mansion on Long Island’s North Shore.

Now, she lived in a loft in lower Manhattan, one of those neighborhoods identified not by a name but by an acronym nobody understood. Shaw said the feds had found her without any sweat. They’d been surveilling her, he said, but he’d seen to it they were pulled off.

At least, that was what he claimed.

Another reason to take his time and check things out, Alex thought as he headed for a car-rental counter. He’d said he wanted no interference on this job and he meant it.

When he was ready, not before, he’d introduce himself to the Prescott woman.

“Introducing himself” was probably a nice way of putting it, he thought as he handed the rental clerk his charge card. Assuming the lady was as hostile as Shaw said, it wouldn’t be a very polite meeting, but he’d worry about that when the time came.

He drove away from LaGuardia in a nondescript black minivan. Stopped at a mall and bought a black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, black sneakers and black jeans. He already had his cell phone with him. Then he went into a camping-goods store and added a gym bag, a flashlight, a thermos, binoculars, a nightscope and a palm-sized digital camera.

You never knew when gadgets like those would come in handy.

He checked into a big, impersonal hotel, put on the black clothes, packed the gear in the gym bag and made a phone call.

Within the hour, an old friend who asked no questions provided him with a loaded 9mm pistol and an extra clip. He shoved the pistol into the small of his back and the full clip into his sock.

He was as ready as he’d ever be.

By midnight, he was parked across from Prescott’s apartment building. It was on a street Manhattan realtors loved, a commercial slum just waiting to turn into a yuppie haven.

No self-respecting New Yorker was going to pay attention to a black minivan, or to him.

He watched the building all night. Nobody went in or out. At five in the morning, he set his internal alarm for half an hour’s sleep. A week spent with his mother’s elderly uncle, a guy Anglos erroneously referred to as a medicine man, had taught him how to go deep inside himself to gain needed rest for his mind and his body.

At five-thirty, he awoke refreshed and finished the coffee in his thermos.

At eight, Cara Prescott came down the steps.

She wore a long black raincoat that flapped around her ankles, a newsboy cap that covered her hair and oversized dark glasses despite the grayness of the morning. Jeans and sneakers peeped from under the coat’s hem.

Along with the phony name on the mailbox in the lobby—C. Smith—and an unlisted phone number it had taken him all of an hour to get, he figured this was her attempt at a disguise.

Anybody determined to locate her would see through it in a New York minute.

Either she believed in hiding in plain sight, or she believed in luck.

Alex watched her walk up the street. He gave her a head start. Then he got out of the van and fell in half a block behind her.

She made a stop at the Korean deli on the corner, came out with a foam cup of what he figured was coffee in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. When she headed back toward him, he melted into a doorway, waited until she went by, then fell in behind her again.

She went into her apartment building. He got into the van.

The hours crawled by. What the hell was she doing up there? If she spent her time locked away like that, wouldn’t she go stir-crazy?

At four-thirty, he had his answer.

Cara Prescott came down the steps again, wearing the same long raincoat, the cap, the dark glasses even though, by now, the sky was charcoal. But no jeans peeped out from the coat’s hem and the sneakers had given way to low-heeled black shoes. She walked briskly toward the corner, checked the traffic light, crossed the street and kept going.

Alex followed.

Twenty minutes later, she opened the door to a bookshop. A stooped-shouldered old guy with white hair greeted her. She smiled, took off the coat and hat and dark glasses…

Alex caught his breath.

She was demurely dressed. Dark sweater, dark skirt with an unexciting hem length, those practical shoes.

He already knew the lady had the face of a Madonna. Now, he knew she had the body of a courtesan. Not even drab colors could conceal her high, full breasts; her slender waist and gently rounded hips. She had long legs that he could almost feel wrapping around his waist. Her hair, a mass of gold-tipped chestnut curls clipped into submission at the nape of her neck, was sinful temptation all by itself.

A man could undo that clip, plunge his hands into those curls as he lifted that perfect face to his.

Alex’s body responded in a heartbeat.

Tony G might be a stone-cold killer, but the son of a bitch had excellent taste when it came to women.

The old guy said something to Cara Prescott. She nodded, went to the cash register and opened it. That sight was almost as startling as the sight of all those feminine curves.

Gennaro’s former mistress worked in a bookstore?

Either she was desperate for a job, or she had more brains than he’d credited her for. Her former lover would never think to look for his woman in a place like this.

Alex checked his watch. It was a little after five. The store’s hours were on the door. It was open until nine in the evening. Excellent. It gave him a four-hour window, more than enough to get into her apartment.

Once he’d done that, he’d have a better handle on Cara Prescott. All he knew now was that she was hot looking, smart enough to try to lose herself in the city but stupid enough, greedy enough, to have gotten into bed with a man who ordered people killed without compunction.

He had to know more if he was going to come up with an approach that might land him her cooperation or, failing that, her compliance.

Getting into her apartment was child’s play. A credit card slipped between the jamb and the lock did the job.

His estimation of the Prescott woman’s street-smarts went down a notch, then zoomed up again when bells went off over his head.

Literally.

She’d tacked a strip of them right over the door.

Alex grabbed the bells, silenced them and waited. Nothing happened. Evidently, whoever else occupied the building had learned the primary New York rule of survival.

If something went bump in the night and you weren’t the one being bumped, you ignored it.

He shut the door carefully. The lady might have other booby traps around. He waited again, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then he took out his flashlight, turned it on and swept the area with its narrow beam.

The apartment was one enormous room. No walls, just yawning space filled with shadows. There was a minuscule kitchen and bathroom at one end, a stack of cardboard boxes at the other. Whatever else he’d expected of a woman who slept with a killer—gilt, fringe, cherubs—wasn’t there.

So much for that stereotype.

There was no furniture to speak of, either, just a narrow bed, a chest, a couple of small tables and chairs that might have come from the Salvation Army.

He made his way through the place slowly, opening drawers and carefully poking inside without disturbing the contents. He found only the stuff most women had: sweaters, jeans, lingerie.

Lace lingerie. Bras that would cup her breasts like an offering. Panties that would ride high on her long legs and dip low enough so they barely covered what he knew would be gold-tipped, feminine curls.

Alex shifted his weight. He had an instant erection, one that strained at the taut denim of his jeans. He hadn’t been with a woman for a while. Was he that desperate that handling this one’s lingerie, thinking about how it would look on her, was enough to give him a hard-on?

Any man with enough money could have Cara Prescott. A woman had the right to do what she wanted with her body but if she chose to auction it to the highest bidder, she wasn’t a woman he’d want in his bed.

He wandered into the bathroom. The sink was chipped and stained; an equally battered shelf above it held small vials and bottles. He opened one at random and brought it to his nose. Lilacs? He wasn’t up on flowers or on perfume: he liked a woman to smell like a woman, especially when she was aroused and eager for his possession, but as perfumes went, this wasn’t bad.

A narrow closet was crammed between the bathroom and the kitchen. He opened it, poked through a sparse lineup of drab skirts, sweaters and dresses. Half a dozen pairs of shoes were stacked neatly on the floor: this morning’s sneakers, sensible heels. Not a pair of stilettos in sight.

Too bad.

The lady’s endless legs would look sexy as hell in strappy sandals with heels high enough to give a nosebleed to the lucky man she wore them for. Heels, one of those lace bras, a pair of the matching panties, and her chestnut hair wild and curling over her shoulders would—would—

Alex scowled as he shut the closet door. This was pathetic. Who gave a damn what she’d look like dressed in next to nothing? Nobody but her lover, her ex-lover, and whatever attracted Tony G would never attract—

Click.

Alex froze.

Someone had just turned a key in the front-door lock.

He switched off the flashlight and looked around for a place to hide. The closet was it. It was deep, even if it was narrow as a coffin. Besides, he didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice.

Quickly, he stepped inside, pulled the door toward him but didn’t quite shut it. He slipped the gun from the small of his back and held it down against his thigh.

The front door swung open; the jingle of Cara Prescott’s improvised security alarm told him he had company.

The lady of the house was at work. The feds had been called off. There were only two possibilities.

His guest was either a very unlucky burglar…

Or a killer on Tony Gennaro’s payroll.

Each time Cara opened the door lock, she thought what a pitiful excuse for a lock it was.

She’d asked the super to change it and he’d scratched his head and nodded and said uh-huh, sure, yeah, he would.

So far, nothing had happened.

Okay. She’d deal with it herself. Tomorrow, first thing. Tomorrow was her day off. Too bad it was too late to call a locksmith now, when she had unexpected time on her hands.

Half an hour ago, Mr. Levine got a phone call. His sister was ill; he had to go to New Jersey. Cara had offered to keep the shop open but he’d said no, he appreciated it but she was too new, she didn’t know enough about his system.

Cara smiled wryly as she locked the door from the inside.

She knew enough to know the old man didn’t have a system. Not that she’d told him that. He’d been kind to her, hiring her despite her admitting she’d never sold anything in her life.

Even now, worried about his sister, he’d taken the time to assure her that he wouldn’t hold back her pay.

“It’s not your fault you won’t put in a full evening, Ms. Smith,” he’d said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

For one awful second, she’d almost said, “Who?” She still wasn’t accustomed to being Carol Smith. Hair clipped back, no makeup, just a young woman on her own in the Big Apple.

Truth was, she’d never even known anyone named Smith. She had the feeling Mr. Levine suspected that. He’d asked for her social security card, she’d promised to bring it in but she hadn’t, and he’d never mentioned it again.

“I have a daughter just about your age,” he’d said when he’d hired her. “She lives in England and I like to think people look out for her there.”

In other words, he was an old man, lonely for his daughter, and she was capitalizing on it.

But she wasn’t going to think about that. She was doing what she had to do, to survive.

Anthony Gennaro wanted her to come back to him. The FBI wanted her to go into protective custody.

All Cara wanted was for her life to return to normal.

That meant never seeing Gennaro again and not testifying against him, either. No matter what he was, he hadn’t done her any harm. Not the kind of harm that counted, anyway.

Besides, as she’d told the agents who’d interviewed her right after she’d moved out of his mansion, she didn’t know anything.

You do, they’d said, you’re just not aware of what it is. That’s why we want to take you into custody. We can keep you safe while we help you remember.

When she’d refused, they’d gotten angry. Told her Gennaro would never stop searching for her. Made threats about sending her to prison.

That was when she’d decided to disappear from the Long Island motel where she’d spent a couple of nights. And how better to disappear than to move to Manhattan, where you could lose yourself in the crush of humanity?

She found a job and a place to live and until she exhausted the money she’d saved during the months she’d spent cataloging the library in the Gennaro mansion, she was safe.

More or less.

Cara carried one of the kitchen chairs to the door and propped it beneath the knob. That and the old sleigh bells she’d found in an antique shop on Ninth Avenue weren’t much of an alarm system but right now, they were all she had. She’d get the lock changed tomorrow but there’d still be the skylight….

She didn’t want to think what it might cost to alarm the skylight.

“Look up there, Ms. Smith,” the rental agent had bubbled. “See? You have a real skylight.”

What she had was a way for somebody to get in from the roof, but there was no point in being paranoid. The FBI wanted her to believe Anthony Gennaro would hurt her, but she knew better.

He wanted her back alive, not dead.

Besides, skylight or no skylight, the rent was right. So she’d said yes, she’d take the big, ugly loft.

And here she was.

As for the skylight…she’d ask the locksmith for suggestions. He could gate it off. Make it impenetrable. Yes, and turn this big, empty space into a prison.

Good practice, considering that she’d probably end up there anyway, according to those two FBI agents.

Cara swallowed hard.

“Stop it,” she said in a no-nonsense voice.

She wasn’t going to give in to self-pity. What she was going to do was take a long, hot shower, heat a can of soup and read a book until she was too tired to do anything besides tumble into bed and sleep.

Briskly, she slid out of her raincoat. Took off the newsboy cap and the dark glasses. Her sweater and skirt. Then she toed off her shoes and padded toward the far end of the loft, pausing in front of the closet, hand curved around the knob before she remembered her robe was on the hook behind the bathroom door.

The bathroom was small and badly lit. Its saving grace was a glass shower stall with top and side sprays and an abundance of deliciously hot water.

Cara switched on the light, took the clip from her hair, then opened the stall door and turned the shower on. Steam began rising, clouding the pebbled glass as she undressed and placed her clothes neatly on the closed—

What was that?

Her heart banged into her throat. Something was moving. She could hear it. A scuffling sound. Feet?

Was somebody breaking in? Was the FBI right? Would Gennaro send his men after her?

A little gray mouse darted from under the sink, shot across the floor and disappeared out the door.

Cara gave a weak laugh. A mouse. A mouse! Her imagination had turned it into a monster. She was letting fear dominate every aspect of her life.

No more.

Still…she felt a chill shrivel her flesh. For a moment, for a heartbeat, she’d been certain someone was here.

Watching. Waiting…

Ridiculous!

Cara stepped into the shower stall and shut the door, lifting her face to the spray. The water and the steam would do their magic and ease away her fear.

She hadn’t come this far to fall apart. Survival was all that mattered now.

Resolutely, she took a tube of shampoo from the shower ledge, squeezed some into her palm and began washing her hair.

CHAPTER THREE

ALEX didn’t take a real breath until he heard the thud of the shower door closing.

Jesus, that was close!

His plan had been to get a handle on Tony G’s mistress. He sure as hell hadn’t intended to hold out his hand, introduce himself and say, “Yeah, you’re right. I just broke into your apartment.”

He’d make his approach in a public place. The bookshop. The deli. She’d be less likely to make a scene if there were other people around.

Women were like that. Innately passive. It was their weakness. He’d seen instructors work like hell to drum politeness out of them.

You don’t like the way somebody looks, they’d say, you scream, yell, make a scene. Make noise. Lots of it.

Women in the program eventually caught on. Civilians rarely did. Raised to be polite, they struggled with the idea of calling attention to themselves. It was bull, but it was how it was.

And it would work to his advantage.

The Prescott woman wouldn’t make a fuss if he approached her the right way.

So, he’d stay with his plan. After all, nothing had changed. She hadn’t seen him. He thought she would, when she’d paused at the closet, so close he could smell her scent.

Lilacs, definitely. Soft and feminine.

She’d looked that way, too. Soft. Feminine. And incredibly sexy, walking around just the way he’d imagined her, in a lace bra and panties the color of cream, the color rich against her golden skin. No stilettos but she was a turn-on without them.

All he’d had to do was slip from the closet…

The way he did now.

She’d left the bathroom door open. He glanced at the shower. The glass was pebbled, translucent but not transparent. He could see her outline through it.

See that her arms were raised, her breasts lifted, her body gracefully arched.

Alex scowled, dragged his gaze from the bathroom and made his way noiselessly toward the front door, then paused. At least he could check the phones for bugs. He had enough time for that.

Working silently, he took out a pocketknife, undid a couple of screws in the base of the first phone…and found a bug.

Damn.

He put the phone back together and moved to the second one. Another bug. As he put the screws back in, thunder rolled overhead, its roar as loud as a freight train.

Thunder, in November? he thought, looking up at the skylight just in time to see a bolt of lightning blaze across the sky. It illuminated a small object in the corner of the skylight.

Something was up there that sure as hell didn’t belong.

Alex grabbed a chair, put it under the skylight and climbed up. No good. He was six foot four but even with the added height, the skylight remained tantalizingly out of reach.

He got down, checked the area again, eyes sliding past the broom in the corner, then returning to it.

Maybe.

He grabbed it, got back on the chair. Success! A couple of pokes and the thing he’d spotted came loose and clattered to the floor.

The sound was like a gunshot and he held his breath, listening for the Prescott babe to come running, but the shower was going full blast.

Alex scooped up the thing he’d dislodged.

It was a wireless camera. Incredibly small, barely the size of an oversized button, and it was recording everything that happened here.

Including his break-in?

One thing was certain. If there was one camera, there were others.

The woman he was supposed to protect was being watched. By Gennaro’s hoods? If Gennaro knew where she was, why didn’t he just come and get her? It could be the feds, but Shaw had promised to call them off.

To hell with trying to figure it out. Whoever was watching her could damned well have watched him for the past half hour, too.

For all he knew, they were on their way here right now.

Thunder raged overhead. Was the shower still running?

Noiselessly, he made his way to the bathroom. Yes, it was. Tendrils of steam curled from the opening over the stall.

Slowly, he moved inside the room, ready to spring if Cara Prescott chose this moment to turn off the water and open the glass door. She’d panic at the sight of him. There was nothing he could do to prevent that, but he did intend to control it.

Her panic would be all the worse because she was naked. That wouldn’t matter to him. Sex didn’t enter into this. She was a job, that was all.

But her fear, coupled with the element of surprise, could work in his favor. The old rules still applied.

He took a couple of deep breaths to slow his heartbeat and oxygenate his blood. Now, he thought, and in one quick motion, he slid the shower door back.

Cara Prescott whirled toward him. Her face contorted with fear and she gave a scream that might have curdled the blood of a man who’d never inspired terror before.

As for her scream bringing the neighbors…it wouldn’t. The bells had proved that. And then there was the sound of the shower and the thunder rumbling overhead.

Still, why take chances?

He stepped forward, put one foot into the stall and wrapped his arm around her neck, covered her mouth with his hand and pulled her back against him.

“Pay attention, Ms. Prescott. Do as you’re told and—Damn it!”

She sank her teeth into the tender web of flesh between his thumb and his forefinger. He yanked his hand free and adjusted it so that it covered her nose as well as her mouth.

She reacted instantly, her body arching like a bow against the threat of imminent suffocation.