Mask Of A Hunter

How could Falconer do this to him? He worked alone. Always had. It was part of the deal. As Ace Lyon, working as a grease monkey at Fletcher Automotive, he’d spent the last six months winning the Fletcher brothers’ confidence. And now Falconer wanted him to blow it all to bits for this woman just when the case was coming together? He couldn’t. This case was too important. It was scum like Fletcher who’d killed his mother and poisoned his sister. There was no way he was walking away. Not when he was this close to shutting down their corridor and getting his sister back on the right track.

“He’s right,” the woman who was causing all this upheaval said.

At least she was smart enough to know she didn’t belong in a place like Summersfield. She sat calmly across the table from him in her prim and proper green tweed suit. But all that wild red hair and those fire-gold eyes made her look as unstable as a homemade pipe bomb. That couldn’t be good.

“I want to know what happened to Felicia. That’s all. I’m not an agent or an operative or whatever it is you call the people who work for you.”

She was working as hard at ignoring him as Ace was at ignoring her. But it wasn’t happening. He was as aware of her as if she were a lit fuse and he was gunpowder. “Felicia’s hiding from Fletcher.”

“Felicia wouldn’t have left Hannah behind.” Rory almost knocked over the mug of coffee in front of her with her long fingers. “Something’s happened to her.”

“She’d leave Hannah behind if she thought it was the best thing for the kid.”

“She was leaving Summersfield,” Rory insisted, cupping curled fingers into curled fingers like two nested Cs.

“It’s all tied together, Rory.” Falconer tented his hands in front of him on the table. A deep V creased between his eyebrows as he laid out the facts for the woman. His dark gaze tracked from Ace to Rory. “Felicia was involved in the situation in Summersfield. There’s multi-agency task force involved in breaking this case.”

“Exactly,” she and Ace said at the same time. Finally Falconer was seeing the light.

Rory’s spine lost some of its starch. “That’s why she was coming to live with me.”

“Felicia was working for the ATF,” Falconer said.

“Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms?” The healthy blush of Rory’s cheeks drained to the color of smoke. Her hands flattened on the table as if she needed the support to hold herself together. “Felicia? Undercover? No, she wouldn’t. Not with Hannah. Not after…” Fingertips red from the force of their pressure on the table, she stared at Falconer as if she were willing him to take back his claim. “No, Felicia wouldn’t do that.”

Went to show how little she knew about her own sister. There were things he could tell her about Felicia Cates that would turn the fire in Rory’s hair to ash. “She was busted for selling meth a month ago.”

Rory’s head snapped toward him, sending her hair whipping like flames in a draft. “No. Not with Hannah—”

“The baby’s what got her the break,” Ace pointed out. “She agreed to wear a wire so she wouldn’t have to spend time in jail.”

Pushing aside the plate of blueberry muffins and the bowl of fresh-cut pineapple, Rory practically crawled across the table and banged her fist in front of him. Her gaze scorched his, and its heat struck all the way to his gut. “I don’t believe it. She’s changed.”

“She was under a lot of pressure—” But even Falconer’s cool words couldn’t douse the anger blazing in her eyes.

“Felicia wouldn’t do anything to put Hannah in danger,” Rory insisted.

“Well, she did.” Ace resisted the urge to look away from her scalding accusation. “And what you’re walking into is a finely tuned drug operation. Mike Fletcher runs the local distribution, but we’re after the guy who feeds him what he sells. There’s a regular alphabet soup of agencies wanting a piece of this.” As Rory slunk back into her chair, he turned to Falconer, focusing on the goal, not on the burn rising too quickly up his neck. “If she starts asking questions, she’ll mess up the groundwork I’ve set.”

“She has a legitimate reason to ask questions,” Falconer countered. “Questions you couldn’t ask without raising suspicions.”

“She’ll blow my cover.”

Her eyes darkened to a molten gold as hot as embers. “As what? A long-haired, Italian pirate?”

The leather jacket, chaps over jeans, engineer boots and bandana were part of what it took to fit in. If he knew nothing else, he knew how to fit in. He would not let her put a match to his emotions. He was better than that. “Fitting in is an art. One you can’t learn in books.”

“I don’t have to fit in. I’m her sister.”

“It’s not going to work.” She was going to fight him every step of the way, and he wouldn’t stand a chance to make his way deeper into the organization.

“She knows how to find information.” The hard set of Falconer’s face told Ace he’d already made up his mind. “I’ve used her skills in the past.”

Fighting this would get him a reassignment—or worse, dismissal. He needed the top-notch salary Falconer was willing to pay for his mastery at fitting in with the biker crowd. Ace swore silently, never letting the mask of control crack. He knew how to play the role. He’d done it all of his life. “This isn’t a book job, Falconer. These people aren’t the ROMEO club.”

“Romeo club?” Rory asked.

“Retired Old Men who Eat Out,” Falconer said. “A bunch of retired guys who formed a motorcycle club and meet at restaurants.”

“The Sons of Steel don’t mess with paper and computers. They’re like old-time gunslingers. They live by the law of the meanest.”

“There are triggers everywhere,” Falconer said. “Rory knows how to follow their tracks.”

“That’s Kingsley’s expertise.”

Falconer didn’t give. “I need Kingsley here. Rory will be on-site.”

“She wouldn’t know a handlebar from a fender—”

“—motorcycles.about.com,” Rory said.

Ace ground his back teeth. “Or an amphetamine from an aspirin—”

“—usdoj.gov.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s going to come in real handy when Mike and Curtis Fletcher come sniffing up your skirt.” He planted one finger on the table in front of her. “What web site are you going to look up to fight two guys who take what they want without caring who it hurts? They’re going to be all over you. Are you ready for that?”

She didn’t even have the decency to flinch. She just sat there staring at him like a wick feeding on lamp oil.

“That’s where you come in,” Falconer said. “Your job’s to see that that doesn’t happen. Anybody who tries to lay a hand on her has to go through you.”

“I’d be fighting the whole gang every day.”

“Make sure you win them all.”

A baby-sitter. Falconer was asking him to become a friggin’ baby-sitter. Ace didn’t have time for that. Not when he was so close to shutting down this whole operation. “She’s a damned librarian. She doesn’t know the first thing about working in the field.”

Rory picked up the laptop at her side and booted it up. Long fingers dancing on the keys, she worked as if no one else was in the room.

Falconer peeled back the paper cup on a muffin. “She has a keen sense of observation.”

Lip peeled from teeth in scorn. “Real keen. Her sister’s been eyeball-deep in manure for months. She only noticed when Felicia disappeared. And if you want my opinion, Felicia disappeared on purpose. She couldn’t take the heat and jumped out of the frying pan.”

Rory glared at him. “No doubt because you’d turned up the pressure for her to wear that wire and made her jump right into the fire.”

“She doesn’t know who I am.”

“But you were still ready to sacrifice her for your case. Who, other than me, worried when she disappeared?”

“I’m not ATF. I’m not FBI. I’m my own man.” Ace swore. She’d done it after all. She’d made him lose his cool. “She’s been gone only two days.” And he had noticed.

“I don’t care if it’s two hours, two days or two weeks. She wouldn’t have left Hannah behind.” The cold withdrawal in her voice took him aback. What had he said? “I don’t care about your case. I just want to find Felicia.”

“If we find Felicia,” Falconer said, “we can solve the case.”

“And that calls for field work.” Ace’s hands curled into fists. “You know it’s going to go bad.”

“Bad?” Rory said. “What’s he talking about?”

Nobody was going to believe that someone like him had the hots for someone like her. And if Ace didn’t stake a claim to her, she was going to be fair game. “Sooner or later somebody’s going to get suspicious.”

“Not if you keep your cool,” Falconer said. He turned to Rory. Her turn for the skewer. “If you find yourself getting up in the morning afraid, then pull out. That’s no reflection on you. Either way, we’ll find Felicia. I made you a promise, and I’ll keep it.”

Rory nodded slowly at Falconer, then looked up at Ace. “I may not be an undercover ace, Mr. Esteleone, but information is my business. You moved to New Hampshire last September.” She punched the page-up button on her computer. “You placed your sixteen-year-old sister, Bianca, at the Cheshire Academy.” She raised an eyebrow in snooty judgment. “Specializes in dealing with troubled teens, I see. Not cheap. Quite a coup for someone with less than five hundred dollars in his bank account. I’m guessing there was some trouble back in New York. Ah, yes, there it is. Shoplifting. Runaway. And not for the first time.”

How had she found this information? Bianca’s records were sealed. Leaning back in the chair, he slung an arm over the chair’s back and gave her his best impression of aloof. Stay cool, Ace. Don’t let her get to you. What did she know about Bianca? About their lives? Facts only told one part of the story. Certainly not enough to pass judgment. “What does that prove? That you can find your way around the web? I already knew that. It’s all facts.” He waved his free arm toward the wide outdoors outside the reinforced concrete walls of the basement bunker. “Facts won’t keep you safe out there.”

“Facts are what you’re looking for. I can find them.”

“Evidence is what convicts. For that you need the ability to become whatever you’re hunting.”

“Okay.” Falconer brushed muffin crumbs from his fingers. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“You care for your sister,” Rory put her laptop back in its case at her feet, “so you took her out of a bad situation. That’s a fact. I’m trying to do the same.”

“Then you’re two years too late. You should’ve yanked her out the moment she set eyes on Mike Fletcher.”

“Enough.” Falconer pushed the plate in front of him. His dark glare demanded compliance.

The flame completely fizzled out of Rory’s eyes, and Ace wondered why he’d thought of her as such a potent threat. She was nothing but a small woman who was bent on getting in a situation that would drown every last bit of the fire inside her. He turned to Falconer. “She doesn’t understand how dangerous Fletcher is.”

“Then you’ll have to explain. Aurora is going to Summersfield whether we want her to or not. Legally, there’s nothing we can do to stop her. We might as well make use of her expertise. I want you to keep an eye on her. Make sure no harm comes to her.”

“I have to find Felicia.” And in her voice he heard a familiar note of shame. He clamped back a curse. He didn’t want to feel anything for her, especially not understanding.

“Kingsley will be her contact,” Falconer continued. “She’s not going to interfere with your work.”

“Yeah.” Ace crossed his arms over his chest. That he had to see. He’d bet his last five hundred that she’d have half of Summersfield ticked off at her before the end of the day. Curious women always caused trouble.

Rory slanted him the coldest smile he’d ever seen. “I’ll pretend you don’t exist.”

“Yeah, you do that.” The ice, he realized, was a poor mask for the fire still burning hot somewhere in that lean body. Like the suit that did its best to hide the curves in the right places, she was damping back her true nature. That ignited a spark of curiosity he quickly snuffed. Don’t get involved. She was just one more problem in a whole vipers’ nest of them.

Kingsley, the electronics wizard who ran the Seekers’ command center, knocked and poked his head through the door. With his red suspenders and easygoing nature, Kingsley reminded Ace of a golden retriever. “I have the parts you wanted.” He held out a box with the rocker covers Ace was supposed to be picking up for his classic Indian.

On his way out, Kingsley gave Rory the once over, and Ace had to laugh. “Forget it, pal. She’ll burn you before she gives you the time of day.”

It wasn’t until he grabbed his gloves and sunglasses that he remembered there was a good reason he hadn’t become a firefighter. Fire made him choke, and he was partial to breathing. “Give me a chance to get back before you send her out.”

“Candace will call the Division Child, Youth and Family if I don’t get there before her shift.” Rory scraped her chair back and collected her belongings.

For a second, the image of kindling flashed across his mind, and he sighed silently. “If she knows you’re coming, she’ll wait.”

“How do you know?”

He slid the sunglasses over his eyes. “Because I deal with people, not names on a computer screen.”

He could feel the scorch of her gaze long after he’d fired up the Indian and opened the throttle as far as it would go. That couldn’t be good. Not at all.

Chapter Two

The instant Rory saw her niece, a pool of guilt filled her to near drowning. Why hadn’t she come to visit in the past nine months? Why hadn’t she dragged Felicia and Hannah home with her? Why had she let all the painful memories stored in the granite bed of this state turn her into a coward?

Across the cramped living room, Hannah sprawled in a mesh-sided travel crib swaddled in a pair of pink footed pajamas. Her arms were splayed at her sides, and her loose fists showed off smooth palms and tiny fingers. A nine-patch quilt in shades of pink lay beside one hand. One corner looked gummed as if Hannah had used it as a pacifier. Flyaway curls of a soft brown with red highlights surrounded her face. A face that, in sleep, spelled innocence and vulnerability, and at once made Rory feel as needed as a calculus book in a poetry class.

She was used to order, to things done her way, to being the master of her days. This baby, who didn’t look much bigger than a library edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, actually had her pulse skittering as if she were facing an armed madman demanding she produce plans for a nuclear device. She swallowed hard. “I don’t know anything about babies.”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken out loud until Candace’s voice grated against her ears. “Hannah’s an easy baby.”

Which meant next to nothing to Rory. Easy was an instruction manual, and she didn’t see one lying conveniently around. She let her tapestry tote bag slip from her shoulders to the rust-carpeted floor and peered farther over the edge of the crib at the creature sleeping there. What did Hannah eat? How long did she sleep? How did one entertain a nine-month-old child? Then there were diapers and baths and tears. The responsibility of it all gave her legs the sturdiness of wet sponges. She’d never worn helplessness well. “Tell me about her routine.”

Candace, dressed in black stretch pants and a light-blue sweatshirt with a sledding snowman printed on the front, finished tidying up the coffeemaker in the kitchenette and moved to the tiny living room where a soap opera played on the television. “Felicia usually covers the breakfast and lunch shifts at the diner, so Hannah goes to the sitter’s around 5:00 a.m. and gets picked up around 3:00 p.m.”

Candace headed to a pile of knitting on the seat of a faded lime-green armchair. She stuffed the balls of light-blue yarn and steel needles into a yellowing canvas bag with a Summersfield town centennial logo. Then hands on hips, she frowned at the floor as if she were looking for something. “Other than that, Hannah pretty much leads the way. She still takes a couple of naps a day, but sleeps through the night. She’s a good eater. It doesn’t take much to keep her happy.”

With a humph, Candace bent at the waist and picked up a glossy magazine, featuring a snowflake sweater and a rosy-cheeked pre-schooler, that had somehow strayed beneath the armchair. The map of lines on the older woman’s face placed her age on the strong side of fifty. Her short, bristle-stiff hair was still brown, although gray roots showed. Rory had not seen her stand in place for longer than a second since she’d arrived—and even then, her knitting needles had clicked like an old-fashioned typewriter manned by manic fingers. There was nothing soft or sweet about her, yet there was a spirit of generosity Rory found hard to ignore.

“Thanks for waiting for me.” She could handle Hannah on her own. Felicia had done it. So could she. How hard could it be?

Candace humphed again as she grabbed her black Mary Poppins handbag from the half wall separating the narrow kitchenette from the living room. “She’s a good kid.”

Rory wasn’t sure if she meant Felicia or Hannah. “Have you heard from Felicia?”

“Not a word.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

Candace slid the handles of the canvas knitting bag over her shoulders. “I learned a long time ago to mind my own business.”

“But—”

“Summersfield ain’t no Currier and Ives postcard, honey. It’s all I know, and I don’t want to cause myself any grief. Felicia, well, she made some decisions that are hard to undo. And if you want my advice—although somehow I doubt you’ll take it—I’d wrap that pretty baby up and take her away.”

“I have to find Felicia.” For all her faults her sister had finally done something right.

“It ain’t going to change anything.”

“You think she’s…hurt?” Rory could not bring herself to say dead out loud.

Frowning, Candace rummaged through her bag. “What I think don’t matter.”

“If Felicia’s in danger, I have to help her.”

Out came a purple bear with one ragged ear. Candace handed the plush toy to Rory. “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s too late to help her?”

Rory blinked in surprise. “No, I hadn’t.”

Not really.

At least she’d discounted that dire possibility. She still thought of Felicia as the headstrong kid who had a knack for checking out when the going got tough. She’d run away from school on a regular basis. She’d run from summer camp. She’d run from home. Rory had thought Hannah’s arrival had changed Felicia…and on the trip up to New Hampshire, she’d talked herself into believing this was just another one of Felicia’s disappearing acts that would resolve itself within a few days. Once she worked herself out of the quagmire of her emotions, Felicia usually returned.

Except that Candace’s phone call asking her to come get Hannah had spooked Rory. It was so premeditated an action for a girl like Felicia who lived for the moment. Sebastian’s assertion that Felicia was working undercover for the ATF hadn’t helped. That, too, was out of character. It just didn’t make sense. Felicia would never have done that. Not after what had happened to their parents.

Except maybe for a chance to stay with Hannah.

Rory kneaded at the tension hiking her shoulders to her ears.

Then when Ace—really, what kind of name was that for a grown man?—had brought up his theory that Felicia was hiding, she’d jumped at the saving grace of the probability that she wasn’t too late. Because if something had happened to Felicia, then that long-haired Italian pirate with his show-off muscles was right, and Rory had waited too long to find her courage. And if she’d failed Felicia when Felicia needed her most, Rory wasn’t sure she could live with the guilt.

Felicia was alive. Scared, but alive. Rory had to believe that.

Candace jerked her head toward the kitchenette. “My number’s on the memo board on the fridge. Penny Webster sits for Hannah. She’s right upstairs. Her number’s there, too, if you need her. So’s the number of Hannah’s doctor.”

“Thank you for all you’ve done.” Rory rubbed her arms against a core-deep chill that shivered through her in spite of the warm afternoon sunlight pouring through the bay window.

Candace wrung the doorknob and yanked the door open. “She’d have done the same for me.”

With that, Candace was gone, and Hannah was all hers. Rory slanted a glance at the sleeping baby and gulped. She reached into her tote bag for her laptop. First things first. She needed information on nine-month-old children, and she needed it fast: www.parenting.com. Then she could worry about Ace Lyon and Mike Fletcher and the illegal activities that hid behind the illusion of New England small-town charm in Summersfield.

RORY WAS STRUGGLING with a spoonful of mashed carrots when the roar of a motorcycle peeling around the town common snapped her out of her concentration and Hannah, who was strapped to her high chair, into a wail. Whatever Felicia lacked in proper nutrition for herself, she’d made sure Hannah would not run out of junior meat sticks, vegetables and fruits any time soon. There were enough jars in the cupboard to feed an entire daycare class for a year. Rory had spent the last half hour trying to interest Hannah in chicken sticks, mashed carrots and green beans. Finger eating might encourage dexterity, but it sure didn’t make for a neat meal. Armed with a baby spoon she waved like a baton, Hannah had seemed more interested in decorating Rory’s hair with carrots than eating them.

Until the motorcycle.

What kind of idiot races down a main road where children could be playing? Rory picked up the bawling Hannah and headed for the bay window facing the street.

The black-and-chrome steel monster stopped below. When the bearded Viking looked up, she swallowed hard. Was it too late to douse the lights and pretend no one was home? She recognized him, of course. Felicia had sent pictures. Even in the Christmas family portrait that was supposed to show tight bonds, there was something cold and empty about Mike’s eyes that had her questioning what Felicia saw in him.

Mike shut off the engine and leaned the monster bike on its stand. Hannah’s wail subsided to sniffles, and she promptly mashed her tear-streaked face into Rory’s hair. Had she packed shampoo? Patting Hannah’s diaper-padded rear, Rory kissed the crown of the baby’s head. “It’s okay, little angel. I won’t let him touch you. I don’t care if he is your father.”

Rory’s heart pounded to the rhythm of the heavy boots tromping on the stairs. Wanting to prevent his entry into the apartment, she inched the door open. Night air with an edge of frost swirled around her legs.

“Well, hello there, little girl.” His voice had a certain seductive edge to it—if you were into snakes. He didn’t look at Hannah, but straight at her. It set Rory’s teeth on edge, but she swallowed her sarcastic retort. If she wanted to get information out of him, she could not start on adversarial ground.

His green eyes widened with appreciation as his gaze slid down her body, making her wish for steel armor.

“What’s wrong with her?” Mike asked as Hannah’s tears hiccupped to new heights. His shaggy blond hair brushed his shoulders. His slightly darker beard could use a trim. He wore the standard biker gear of black engineer boots, denim jeans with a chain securing a wallet from his belt to a rear pocket, a black jacket with Mike tooled into the leather, and a gray T-shirt with the words Graberbootie & Pinch printed in darker gray on its front. Bits of various tattoos showed at the collar of the T-shirt and the cuffs of his jacket sleeves. Most disturbing of all, he carried a Buck Knife at his belt. Wasn’t that illegal for a felon?

“She misses her mother.” Rory placed a protective hand over the baby’s tender head. Maybe she wasn’t totally devoid of motherly instincts after all because the last thing she wanted was this hulk to place his greasy hands on Hannah’s soft skin.