One Night In Texas

In her mind she was already formulating a plan. She’d phone Owens’s decorator for the name of the gallery that had sold him the piece to see if they had a similar one. With luck, she could have it in place before Owens returned from his golf game—a weekly appointment he kept without fail—and discovered the empty pedestal. A similar piece of art couldn’t replace the one-of-a-kind vase that had been broken, but at least it would let Owens know that she’d made an effort to rectify the mistake in the most expedient and effective way possible. Since he’d only lived in the building a short time, she was especially motivated to solve the problem to his complete satisfaction.

Then, as she was twist-tying the trash bag, she heard a soft whirring noise. The rear elevator?

She froze. It couldn’t be. Mr. Owens wasn’t due back for two hours. The man never cut short his golf game. Never.

Sensing that something wasn’t right, Alyssa stood motionless, the strangest chill skating across the back of her neck. She peeked out of the bedroom into the living room. A man came into view and her heart jolted hard. It wasn’t Gerald Owens.

It was a man in a ski mask.

Suppressing a gasp, Alyssa backed away. A burglar? How had he bypassed the security system?

Her jacket was lying on the bed across the room, her phone in the pocket. All she had to do was dial 9-1-1. She started in that direction, only to hear footsteps and realize he was coming toward the bedroom.

With no time to grab her phone, she shifted her gaze wildly around the room, looking for a place to hide. She hurried to the closet and slipped inside, closing the door silently behind her. The closet light was on. But just as she reached up to turn it off, she heard his footsteps and pulled her hand away from the switch. If he saw the light go off, he’d know someone was in the closet.

With every step he took, her heart rate escalated. She clasped her hands together to stop them from trembling, sure he could hear the slightest move she made.

Then she heard nothing. She felt a shot of relief, only to realize that the absence of footsteps indicated that he’d reached the bedroom rug.

Which meant he was right outside the closet door.

DEREK KNELT on the rug in the master bedroom, flipping the corner back to reveal the floor safe. Again, the state-of-the-art technology offered in this building was working against Owens. With the software Derek had access to, the electronic keypad lock was a whole lot easier to crack than a combination lock.

Derek took off his jacket and stuffed it into his backpack, then pulled out his small laptop computer and flipped it on. Using a wireless connection, in a matter of seconds he set up an interface with the lock at its programming port. He hit a few keys, then sat back to wait as the computer ran the possible combination sequences.

“It’s only a five-digit combination,” he said to Kevin. “We’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Good. That means I might be able to go fishing this afternoon after all. I hear they’re really biting up at Lake Dallas.”

Unlike Kevin, Derek was glad this job had come up at the last minute. If it hadn’t, he’d have been at a wedding rehearsal right now, of all things. Talk about dodging a bullet. What would have been the point of him being there, anyway? How tough could it be to stand up with Gus at the front of that church and hand him the ring at the right time?

Derek didn’t like weddings. They seemed like a whole lot of time and expense to accomplish something that had the same end result as going to a justice of the peace, assuming a man were crazy enough to get tied down in the first place. Unfortunately once Gus had met Sally, Derek hadn’t stood a chance of keeping him. Gus had quit the team a year ago, started a security business and then asked Sally to marry him.

Derek couldn’t imagine that kind of life. He thrived on the excitement of crisscrossing the country to solve problems that had to stay under the radar of standard law enforcement. He loved the autonomy he had to get the job done any way he saw fit. He had so many aliases for his undercover operations that sometimes he had a hard time remembering his real name. Because of his profession, he’d never even considered tying himself down to a lengthy relationship, much less a marriage. Likewise, was it really fair to expect a woman to tolerate his here-today-gone-tomorrow lifestyle?

Suddenly the words flashed on the screen: combination found.

“I’m in,” Derek told Kevin. “How’s it looking downstairs?”

“Coast is clear.”

Derek returned his laptop to the backpack, punched in the code on the keypad, then opened the safe door. He pulled a penlight from his pocket and flicked it on. A sweep of the interior of the safe revealed a small stack of folders. His intelligence said that Owens had yet to deliver the DVD of Galloway to his client, and when Derek opened the top folder, he saw just how dead-on that information was. In the left-hand pocket of the folder, he found a DVD that was labeled clearly with Galloway’s name. Owens was a meticulous record-keeper. Derek smiled to himself. Anally retentive criminals made his job so much easier.

“Got it,” he told Kevin.

He was about to close the folder and tack it into his backpack when his attention turned to the right pocket of the folder, which contained photos, lists and other information about the blackmail operation. As Derek flipped through the pages, he came to a stunning realization.

He might have solved one problem, but he’d just found five more.

“Holy crap,” he said.

“What?” Kevin said.

“It looks as if Galloway isn’t the only congressman Owens is blackmailing.”

There were photos of several more congressmen, as well as detailed plans for blackmailing each of them. One other congressman shared Galloway’s predisposition toward women’s clothing. Two had been caught cheating on their wives. Two more were victims of setups that only made it look as if they’d been cheating. But real or staged, it didn’t matter. Either one could send a man’s reputation right down the toilet.

“How many are we talking?” Kevin asked.

“Five others besides Galloway.”

“Why didn’t we know about them?”

“Apparently, Galloway is the only one who came forward and asked for help.” Derek flipped through a few more pages and saw a schedule of delivery dates. “Right now it looks as if Galloway was the last guy Owens collected information on, and it’s the only DVD he hasn’t yet sent to his client.”

Derek wasn’t sure what to do with the file. If Galloway was the only one being blackmailed, he’d take it, along with every other file in the safe. But now that it was clear that other congressmen were involved, he didn’t want Owens to know that somebody had broken in. Owens would alert his client in a heartbeat, which meant they wouldn’t stand a chance of locating the rest of the blackmail material that had already been delivered.

“Call Washington,” Derek told Kevin. “Get in touch with Sedgewick. Tell him the situation. We need some new marching orders.”

Derek waited impatiently as Kevin made the call, anxious to get the hell out of this apartment before something else went wrong. Only two minutes passed before he heard Kevin’s voice again, but it felt like a hundred.

“What’s the word?” Derek asked.

“We need to grab Owens and get him to Washington for interrogation. They need to find out who his client is so they can have a shot at locating the blackmail material before Monday morning. And bring everything else in the safe, too. They want to know what else this guy is up to.”

“Okay,” Derek said. “Get on the phone to Wilson and McManus and tell them to pick up Owens and deliver him to the Learjet at Love Field.”

“Gotcha.”

Derek was confident that that part of the plan would come together. His men were as proficient at kidnapping as they were at surveillance.

“Then call Lambert and tell him I need him to fly the plane,” Derek said. “Have him meet us at the airfield ASAP.”

“Will do.”

“I’m coming down now.”

Derek grabbed all the folders from the safe and stuck them into his backpack. After closing the safe, he flipped the rug back into place. Then he stopped short.

Had he just seen a shadow move beneath the closet door?

He froze, barely breathing, his gaze fixed on the shadow. Several seconds passed. It moved again.

Someone was in the closet. And whoever it was had undoubtedly heard every word he’d spoken.

ALYSSA SHIFTED nervously from one foot to the other, thinking that an hour had to have passed while she’d been in this closet. And the longer she stood there, the more she realized something was very strange about this situation. Just the fact that the burglar had gotten past the security system to enter the apartment through the back elevator astonished her. Equally amazing was the speed with which he’d broken into the safe. Pretty soon it became clear to her that his running monologue was actually one side of a conversation he was carrying on electronically with someone who was downstairs keeping watch.

And he was saying the strangest things. Blackmailed congressmen? DVDs? Learjets? What was all that about?

Right now, though, she really didn’t care. She just wanted him to grab what he’d come for and leave the building so she could get out of this apartment, call the police, then go somewhere and have a good, stiff drink.

Then all at once, the closet door flew open.

Before she could react with anything but a quick yelp of surprise, the man in the ski mask took two steps into the closet, grabbed her and spun her around. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him, her back to his chest. When he pressed the barrel of a gun against the side of her neck, she let out a strangled gasp.

“Not a sound,” he said. “Not one.”

She fell silent, with only the hiss of her panicked breathing breaking the stillness inside the closet.

“Everything’s under control,” he murmured. “Just sit tight.”

Alyssa knew he wasn’t talking to her, but to whomever was on the other end of whatever hands-free communication device he was using. For a long time the man stood motionless, his arm clamped tightly around her. Fear raced through her.

“Tell me your name,” he said.

“My name? Why—”

“Tell me.”

“Uh, Alyssa. Ballard.”

The man’s chest expanded with a deep, silent breath. “Damn.”

For some reason her name seemed to have made him unhappy. Given that he had a gun pressed to her jugular right now, she really wished it hadn’t.

“Do you work in this building?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Even as Alyssa’s heart pounded with apprehension, a sense of sudden recognition came over her. That voice. She’d heard it before. Despite the fact that his words were threatening, the deep, melodic tone of his voice still came through.

But it couldn’t be. She was imagining it.

He shifted his hand against her rib cage. She looked down at it and she couldn’t believe what she saw. A ring. Sterling silver. Alpha and omega symbols intertwined.

She glanced at his arm wrapped around her, his bicep bulging beneath his black T-shirt, and saw a long, irregular scar that extended the length of his forearm, faded to white but still distinct. The ring she was just now remembering, but his body she’d never forgotten. She’d memorized every inch of it, up to and including that scar.

For a moment she was too stunned to speak. Every second seemed sluggish and protracted as the reality of who he was slowly bared itself. She swallowed hard, trying to find her voice.

“Derek?”

His body stiffened, an involuntary reaction that told her just how right she was. Good Lord. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but…

It was Derek. He was here. In this building, two thousand miles from the last place she’d seen him. And he was robbing this apartment.

“It’s you,” she said. “I know it is. Your voice. Your ring. The scar on your arm.”

He was silent.

“So this is why you left me in Seattle?” she said, her voice escalating. “Because you’re a burglar?”

He said nothing. She squirmed in his arms. “Let me go!”

When he continued to hold her tightly, suddenly all the pain and frustration he’d caused her, both here and in Seattle, welled up inside her in a hot mass of anger. The man she’d been so crazy about, the man who’d intrigued her to no end, the man with whom she’d spent one wonderful week and had imagined a thousand more to come…

He was a criminal. And he wasn’t going to get away with this.

She lifted her knee, then slammed her heel down hard on his instep. He grunted in pain, loosening his grip on her just enough that she wrenched herself from his arms and shoved him aside to head out of the closet. But before she cleared the doorway, he snaked his arm around her and yanked her back. Only this time he didn’t stop there. He pulled a tie off a nearby rack and bound her hands behind her.

“What are you doing?” she shouted, yanking hard against the tie, unable to believe he’d done it. Unable to believe how fast he’d done it.

Ignoring her, he grabbed another tie and gagged her with it, then led her out of the closet and over to the bed, where he sat her down, bound her ankles and tethered her to the bedpost. She fought him every step of the way, but he was bigger than she was and infinitely stronger, and within a few minutes, he had her completely subdued.

He walked away and stood near the wall, his back to her, his shoulders heaving with a few deep breaths. She could almost feel the tension radiating from him. Was it from anger? Indecision? She couldn’t tell. When he turned back around, though, he seemed to sigh with resignation.

Then he reached up and pulled off the ski mask.

Alyssa had already known beyond all doubt that it was Derek, but seeing him again like this made emotions swirl wildly inside her. Fear. Surprise. Anger. All of those made sense. But mingling with them was something that made no sense at all—an unwanted rush of the elemental desire she’d felt the first time she’d laid eyes on him. But he was a burglar and a kidnapper. How could she have any feelings of attraction toward him at all?

He came back to the bed and sat beside her, tossing the mask aside. To her surprise, he also disconnected the tiny microphone clipped to his collar. He regarded her silently for a moment, then lifted his hand to brush a wayward strand of her hair gently back over her shoulder. His fingertips grazed her neck, sending shivers all the way down her spine.

No. He had no right to touch her. None at all. She turned away sharply, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Alyssa,” he said, “listen to me. I’m in a tight spot here. No matter what this looks like, I’m not a burglar. Not the kind you think I am, anyway. And as far as tying you up like this, I have no choice. I can’t risk you telling anyone what you just overheard. I’ll explain everything to you later, including what happened in Seattle, but I have to take care of a few things first.”

He lifted his hand and rested his palm along the side of her neck, trailing his thumb in soft strokes just beneath her jaw. In spite of the situation, her mind flashed back to those scorching nights they’d spent together in a tangle of bedsheets, making love far into the night. Just the memory made her want to believe everything he was telling her.

No. She had to stay focused. No matter what he said, he was a burglar, and a hell of a good liar. God only knew what he really intended to do with her.

When she jerked her face away from him again, he let out a soft sigh, trailing his hand down her arm before finally pulling it away altogether.

“You’ll be here alone,” Derek told her. “Owens won’t be coming back.”

When her eyes widened, he shook his head. “Take it easy, Alyssa. We don’t kill people. Owens is just being…diverted.”

Diverted? What did that mean? And who the hell was “we”?

Derek rose from the bed and disconnected the phone cord from the wall. He picked up his gun from where he’d tossed it on the bed and stuck it into his jeans, then took a lightweight jacket from his backpack and put it on, pulling it down over the weapon. He grabbed the ski mask and stuffed it into the pocket of the jacket. Slinging the backpack over his shoulder, he turned to Alyssa one last time.

“I should be back within the hour.”

He left the room. Alyssa heard his footsteps as he walked to the elevator and the faint sound of the doors opening and closing.

And then he was gone.

3

DEREK STEPPED OFF the elevator and walked through the parking garage, moving quickly and decisively even as his mind was spinning in a dozen different directions.

When he’d grabbed Alyssa in that closet, for a few seconds he hadn’t been able to move. To think. To believe who he had his arms around. But there was no mistaking that mass of blond hair, those green eyes and that slight, willowy figure he remembered as clearly as if he’d seen her yesterday. He’d known she worked in a building that was identical to this one in Seattle, but he’d never imagined that he’d find her here. He’d asked her what her name was just to ensure that the concept most people believed in—that everybody has a double somewhere—hadn’t come into play.

It hadn’t. It was Alyssa.

And then she’d said his name. Softly. Tentatively. Even after six months, she’d still recognized tiny details she never should have remembered. His ring. His scar.

His voice, for God’s sake.

He’d hated like hell having to manhandle her the way he had, not to mention having to tie her up and leave her there. But he had to make sure Owens got to the airport ASAP, and she clearly hadn’t been in the mood to listen to anything he’d had to say. Until he had the chance to calm her down and find out just how inclined she was to tell the world what she’d overheard, restraining her had been his only option.

He exited the parking garage and walked to the van waiting on the street outside the building. After climbing into the driver’s seat, he tossed his backpack down and shut the door.

Kevin emerged from the back of the van and flopped into the passenger seat. “What the hell was going on up there? I lost communication with you for a few minutes.”

“Somebody was in the apartment. She heard everything.”

“She said your name. She knows who you are.”

“Yes. She’s…” The last thing Derek wanted was to delve into his history with Alyssa. “She’s an acquaintance.”

“Oh, boy. So where is she now?”

“Tied up in the bedroom.”

Kevin stared at him, dumbfounded. “What?”

“I left her tied up in the bedroom.”

“So what are you going to do with her?”

Derek paused. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. Once we get Owens on the plane, I’ll come back and deal with her. By that time I’ll have something figured out.”

“And if you let her go and she talks?”

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

“But how—”

“I said I’d handle it.”

Kevin looked at him skeptically, but he’d never been one to overstep his bounds. Finally he simply nodded.

“Did you get in touch with the team?” Derek asked.

“Wilson and McManus say they’ll have no trouble grabbing Owens. But there’s a problem with Lambert.”

“A problem?”

“He’s got the flu. Woke up with it this morning. A hundred and three fever. Can’t stop puking. Says he couldn’t possibly get a plane off the ground.”

Derek just stared at Kevin, unable to believe that not a damned thing was going right with this job. First, the blackmailing problem he’d set out to solve was far bigger than he’d realized. Then he’d had to take a woman hostage to keep her from talking—a woman he never would have considered tying up in bed unless she’d smiled pretty, got naked and asked him to. And now he had a pilot who couldn’t stop hugging the toilet long enough to fly to Washington.

Derek hated this. Hated it. His team’s reputation was built on jobs going off cleanly without a hitch, and now he was on the verge of having to phone Washington and admit he couldn’t pull this one off because he had no pilot.

No. He wasn’t going to do that. Failure was not an option.

Derek started the van.

“Where are you going?” Kevin asked.

“St. Andrews.”

“The church?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a minute. Isn’t that where Gus is getting married tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Derek wheeled the van away from the curb and hit the gas.

“You’re gonna get him to fly the plane?” Kevin asked.

“That’s right.”

“But he quit the team a year ago.”

“Do you know any other pilot we can get on short notice who can fly a Learjet to Washington and who won’t wonder why he’s transporting a guy in handcuffs and handing him off to federal agents?”

Kevin sighed. “Good point.”

Ten minutes later Derek pulled up in front of St. Andrews. He turned to Kevin. “Get in the back. I don’t want Gus to see you and think we’re double-teaming him.”

“And if he won’t come?”

“That’s when we can double-team him.”

Derek parked behind a black stretch SUV. Nearby, several men milled around whom he took to be the other groomsmen. A white limousine was parked in front of the black one. Clustered around it was a group of young women who appeared to be the bridesmaids.

Derek checked his watch. It looked as if the rehearsal was over and the men were heading out to the golf course before the rehearsal dinner tonight.

As soon as Derek stepped out of the van, Gus spotted him and walked over.

“About time you showed up,” he said with a smile, clapping Derek on the shoulder. Then he lowered his voice. “Tell me the truth. You asked for that job just to get out of the rehearsal, didn’t you?”

Derek was relieved to see Gus in a better mood now than he had been when Derek had phoned earlier to tell him he had to miss the rehearsal. Of course, as soon as Gus found out why he was here now, that smile would be history.

“Sorry, man,” Derek said. “Duty called.”

“That’s the story of your life.”

“Used to be the story of yours, too.”

“Not anymore.” Gus leaned in and spoke quietly. “Guess I should have expected something like this when I asked you to be my best man, huh? ‘Sorry, buddy. Can’t make the rehearsal. Gotta tend to a congressman with his pants down.’ Or his panties down, as the case may be.” He gave Derek a smile, his voice still low and confidential. “So how’d it go this morning?”

“Not well,” he said quietly. “That’s why I need a favor.”

Gus’s grin evaporated. “What favor?”

“I need you to fly the Learjet to Washington.”

Gus just stared at him. “Come again?”

“Learjet. Washington. ASAP. I’m in a bind, and I need you.”

Gus held up his palms. “No way. I’m out of that business.”

He turned and walked away. Derek followed, finally grabbing his arm, but he shook it off.

“It’ll take a few hours, max,” Derek said.

“I’m getting married.”

“Not until tomorrow.”

“So why aren’t you sending Lambert?”

Derek sighed. “He has the flu.”

Gus looked flabbergasted. “The flu? The flu?” He glanced over his shoulder, then dropped his voice to an irate whisper. “I once flew a C-5 Galaxy over enemy territory when I had malaria, for God’s sake. Tell him to get his ass out of bed and fly the freakin’ plane!”

“I was with you when you flew that plane. My life flashed before my eyes.”

“This is my wedding we’re talking about. Find yourself another pilot.”

Derek glanced over to see a few of the groomsmen staring at them. He lowered his voice. “Look, I know it’s a hell of a lot to ask. But there’s a guy I have to get to D.C. for interrogation, and I have to do it right now. I took this job, and it’s my responsibility to see it through.”