Catch Me If You Can (The Mancini Way) (12 page)

Chapter 12

Mancini

She was staying in a townhouse in the heart of the city as part of her cover, which was as an up-and-coming socialite. Her background check looked pretty good: a young woman of means from a high-powered family. Of course it's one of those obscure families that no one ever heard of who just happens to be loaded. She's an alum of Vassar, at least that much is true, guess they had to keep some things as close to the truth as possible. But as for the pseudo family, that was all fabrication. The ride downtown in my Ascari on the deserted streets took less than twenty minutes. I parked a few blocks away and took the back street sticking to the shadows.  I had no problem leaving my million and a half dollar car on the streets of lower Manhattan because the shit was secured tighter than Fort Knox. Her place was on the end with a balcony and a privacy fence, which made gaining entrance easy for someone with my particular skills. I left my shoes on the balcony as I picked the lock that led into the living area, my nifty little device made easy work of her alarm system and I was in being as careful as possible as I made my way through her temporary residence making sure to stick to the shadows once more. I scanned for any hidden cameras or other detectors with this nifty little gadget Jace had built that was perfect for not only detecting but jamming those things as well. I didn’t know if her people had her under surveillance or not but I wasn’t taking any chances. It was one thing for me to accept that she was fast becoming my weakness and quite another for others to know.

I couldn't forget after all that I was dealing with a trained federal agent here. One other thing I hadn't taken into account was whether or not she would be alone, that thought brought me up short for a second. Nothing that I had uncovered hinted at a love interest but that didn't mean it wasn't a possibility. I folded my fists at the surge of emotion that overcame me at the thought I'll have to deal with that later. Right now I have to see her, be sure she was here alone, what the fuck I planned to do if she wasn’t I had no idea I just knew I would punish her in some way if that’s what I found. Fucked up I know but there you have it, I never claimed to be the most rational motherfucker out there.

The moonlight coming in through the bedroom window cast a shadowy glow over her perfect skin, her face serene in slumber looked even younger; my fingers itched to touch, to stroke her hair where it laid spread out over her pillow. Thank heavens she didn't sleep in the nude or else my control might've failed me; it was a trial as it was keeping my distance as her chest rose and fell with her easy breathing the T-shirt she wore to sleep in stretched taut across her breasts. I don't know how long I stood there but I felt the tension of the last few hours just drift away as if by magic, something that it usually took days of hard training to do. She slept like the dead, that's one of the things I noticed in my midnight vigil that and the fact that she made the sexiest fucking noises in her sleep. I didn’t look too closely at the sense of peace I felt standing there looking down at her. By the time I crept from her place in the wee hours of the morning after making some changes to her place I was hard as a rock and suddenly full of energy.

Cierra

I could smell Hank when I woke up in the morning, stupidly I felt around in my bed expecting to find him there until I came fully awake. "Shit now he's following me into my dreams."

I still had the weirdest sense that he'd been here which was a bit unnerving because there's no way that he could've been without me knowing. I found myself checking the house looking for any sign of an intrusion and finding none, yet still I couldn't shake the feeling of his presence. I shrugged it off and tried to throw myself into the rest of my day, tonight was my big date with the man himself there wasn't much for me to do in the way of preparation since I'd already studied him inside and out. I refuse to cart myself off to a spa to get all glamorized for him no matter how much my girlish heart wanted to so I spent my morning and afternoon working on my own little secret investigation.

The question of the murderer’s true intent had been raised time and again back then because nothing had been taken from the house that night we hadn’t had much to begin with. The original investigators had found it hard to believe that he had just simply chosen a house at random and just gone in and slaughtered the occupants. They’d always suspected that there was something else involved, both my parents’ backgrounds had been dug into excessively and even my little brother’s but nothing had sent up a red flag. There were no business deals gone wrong, my parents didn’t do dugs and had no known affiliation with anything to do with the criminal element or anything else that would bring something like that to their door and so the case had gone cold. Over the years others had taken a stab at it but always they’d run into that brick wall. When I was old enough to ask questions and be shown what they had so far I’d combed the files repeatedly looking for clues but with no results either.

In the past few years I’d taken to looking for like crimes in the area with no luck, it’s as if someone really had just randomly chosen my family but something inside of me wouldn’t let me accept that. I went over once again what the investigators had found that night. The way he’d gained entrance, who he’d killed first, the way he’d killed them. All three had had their throats cut, clean cuts by a steady hand apparently. I still had my dad’s old hard drive, every once in a while I’d gone through it looking for clues but there was nothing there but work related stuff from his job as a computer technician. He’d been one of those people who went around to businesses fixing their systems, at the time he’d been killed I remember him saying that we were finally going to be able to move out of the shitty neighborhood we lived in, things were just looking up. That more than anything stayed with me always, that hope he’d had as he’d swung me around spinning dreams of ponies and dollhouses.

I put it away after hours of collecting notes for my already overflowing pile collected from years of doing this, the case might be catching dust on a shelf in a police evidence room in Baltimore but for me it was always in the forefront of my mind and always will be until I could put it to rest.

A call came in hours before our meet and two of the men on him dropped in on me, apparently there were quite a few unaccounted for hours in Mr. Mancini's night. The Intel was sketchy at best but it was considered of great interest when such a thing occurred because it was usually followed by the disappearance of someone. Where and how the bureau had first came up with this analogy was anyone's guess but like I said before someone high up has a hard on for this guy. Yet with all the speculation and suspicion surrounding him we were sorely lacking in any concrete evidence to substantiate these claims. Now I'm being told to try to find out where and what he'd been up to for those missing hours. I'm beginning to think that my colleagues really have no idea who they were dealing with, the fact that they're asking me to do these things shows that they didn't understand how he operated at all. My one night with him had further opened my eyes to what we were dealing with; Hank Mancini was not a man to be easily led, he wasn't going to be swayed by my beauty and charm and though I got the feeling that he was definitely interested I didn't think for a minute that it would change that fact, that just made my job that much more difficult. The guy was going to be a hard nut to crack.

Durant called ten minutes before I was headed out the door.

"Stone you ready for tonight?"

"Yes sir I've got everything in place. I made sure to pick a place that our guys could have access to. Our table will have eyes and ears on it the whole time and his shadow will be on-site." That was one for the win column, since we weren’t allowed to tap any of Hank’s places or the man himself the fact that I could get close to him eliminated the legal aspects. In essence it was entrapment yes, but there were loop holes a mile wide that we could skate through, I left such things to the organizers. If we got burnt once more none of this will fall back on me, I’m just an agent doing the job she was assigned to. It was spectacularly confusing how they’d worked it out in their minds but hey if it worked none of that will matter; I got butterflies in my stomach at the thought, the truth is I was becoming less and less hopeful of it working. I’d accepted sometime in the last day or so that I wanted him to win, that I didn’t want him to be the criminal mastermind they suspected him of being. A very precarious if not dangerous turn of events; I also accepted that my excitement at seeing him again had more to do with my attraction to him as a man and less to do with the job. I was now walking a very tight rope of uncertainty but couldn’t seem to control the feelings he’d awakened in me; they just added another layer for me to peel away.

"Good, good, how do you feel, ready to beard the lion in his den?"

I had to roll my eyes at that see, no clue whatsoever as to the true nature of this guy.

"I'm ready to do the job sir." Liar.

"Good woman, try to get some more insight into this guy see what makes him tick, so far we're batting a thousand and I can't stress enough how much we need something."

No pressure though.

"Sure sir I'll do my best."

I was surprised at how easily I shed my nervousness in its place was an excitement at seeing him again. I wondered what outlandish things he'd say to me tonight or would he play the smooth operator? I made sure I got there ahead of him I'd already spotted my cover, the fact that I was able to find them that easily only meant that someone as sharp as Hank probably would too; hopefully he'd just think they were there on him and had nothing to do with me. He had to be accustomed to having a man on him by now, he's been aware of our presence for almost a decade and had in fact fought and won a few cases against us for violation of his privacy which is why the team was even now sitting the required distance away as was ordered by the judge. No doubt that stuck in the craw of the one who was after him.

Chapter 13

Mancini

Did they have to be so fucking obvious? I mean seriously, after all this time you'd think they'd have upped their game. They might as well have been wearing a sign that said G-men. She on the other hand was looking exceptionally pretty in her off the shoulder blouse, which is all I could see of her outfit from my vantage point across the room. Her hair fell in curls to her shoulders and I noticed her little butterfly pin slash camera, was pinned to her blouse again.  I approached with an air of nonchalance even though I had no doubt the place was bugged to pick up even the fall of lint from my cuff if there was any. I flashed my boyish grin to unnerve her as soon she caught sight of me. I've been told that it's very disarming to the opposite sex. Watching that blush spread from her cheeks to her shoulders, I was reminded of what she looked like when I watched her in her bed the night before. Sweetly innocent and yet so fucking alluring, it won’t be long now, I could feel the burn in my gut the need that wouldn’t be assuaged until I’d taken her. I had the feeling that when I did finally have her beneath me it was going to take a very long time to slate my lust.

"Good evening Cierra."

"Hank."

She seems a little more nervous than the other night and I wondered if it was because of our audience or her natural reaction to me the man?

"So how are you finding our fair city? Visited the shops as yet?" I took my seat across from her.

"I've done some shopping yes."

No you haven't you spent the first part of the day with your colleagues trying to figure out where and what I did last night. My easy smile gave nothing of my inner thoughts away, picking up my menu I scanned our surroundings from beneath my lashes they might be more than one variable here after all and it always paid to be careful.

Cierra

After a pretty awkward start the evening progressed rather smoothly, he’d pretty much demolished my feeling of calm with his first smile and it had taken me a while to get back on even footing and I was finally able to put on my professional cap and remember why I was here. Maybe having ears and eyes on me helped keep me focused whatever it was I was grateful, I had a hard enough time keeping things light. There were times when it seemed Mancini was playing games, he kept making a point of being suggestive, not that he was overly lewd or anything like that no he’s too much the gentleman for that, but it seemed he was trying to get under my skin with every word.

“So what is it that you do again Sierra?”

“I’m in acquisitions.” I took a sip of my wine to take my eyes off of his, he was looking right into me as if he knew my every secret it was to say the least very unnerving.

“Really what is it that you acquire?” There he goes again with that knowing look and my traitorous feelings were no help either, each time he looked at me like that as if he would like nothing better than to take me right there at the table my heart tripped and my blood heated. I was beginning to realize that he would always have this effect on me, that no matter how much I steeled myself against it, against him he will always make me melt. I have no real experience with this need I had for him, the feelings he seemed to call forth so effortlessly; he made me question myself. I’d come here with my own doubts as to his guilt to begin with and so far I’d seen nothing to suggest that he was indeed the man they’d painted him to be all these years, instead he was just guilty of knocking my carefully structured world off its axis.

“Things; how about you Mr. Mancini I mean Hank apart from the nightclub business what else if anything do you do? Or is it true what they say about you?”

“And what’s that Cierra what is it that they say?”

“Well word around town is that you’re a playboy heavy on the play.” I finally looked back at him because suddenly I needed to know the answer to this more than anything.

“One shouldn't believe everything they hear it could prove to be a danger.”