Deadly Little Secrets (9 page)

The necessity of that unpleasant task left him feeling hollow, momentarily defeated. He could guard against intruders, help redirect business issues that devolved into personal attacks, but traitors and crazy people never followed a
type
of any kind. They killed for reasons other than greed, and seldom for glory. Whatever cause they espoused was usually so personal, so unpredictable, they couldn't be traced. Or prevented.

He was deathly afraid that this was a vendetta, one that couldn't be solved with money or jail time. If the old family discord was rearing its ugly head again, he would insist on calling in some additional help. His security measures were comprehensive, but they'd need a special team if it turned out the Gianikopolis feud was heating up again.

“Bromley?” a voice called from beyond the bobbing flashlights coming toward him.

“Here!” He flipped the light he held from side to side.

The detective the county had assigned to Dav's various cases hiked into view, along with a slender crime scene officer. For once Baxter had on jeans, boots, and a heavy canvas coat to keep out the chill, far more practical for this night's work than his usual dark suit.

“Damn mess, this,” Baxter drawled as he shined his Maglite around the smashed landscaping. Baxter's Texas burr made the words softer than the sentiment. He was a solid cop, but his finite county resources didn't stretch to chasing international-level assassins.

“Got some blood, some cloth.” Gates directed the CSI officer with his light. Two of his team came up with a portable floodlight and got it working. The tech nodded her thanks but didn't say anything, so Gates turned back to Baxter. “Not much else to go with. Tracks go nowhere. Can't find a vehicle trace either,” Gates said, with a grimace and a flick of a hand toward the tracking dog his team had hurried out to the scene.

The dog was tugging at the end of the lead now that he'd come back from a run halfway down the scrubby hillside without alerting. The would-be assassin had evidently had a car waiting, and had disappeared fast. “One of these days I hope we actually catch one of these sons-of-bitches.”

“Tell me about it.” Baxter added his own testy note to the night's lament. “Mr. G okay?”

“He was on the back side of the house. Didn't even know there was an issue till the alarms went off.”

“So, who's pissed at him this month?” Baxter grunted as he moved carefully through the thorns to the wall itself.

“The usual. Central American cartels. United Arab Emirates. Hong Kong conglomerates. Fellow Greek shippers who didn't get business. Half of America's corporate movers and shakers. Most of them don't go in for shooting first, however. They'd rather kill him financially.”

“Yep, the usual,” Baxter muttered, peering at the wall. “Kelsey,” he called to the tech, waiting for her to finish bagging something before he pointed at the wall. “Got some marks here, maybe climbing pitons, but there's some trace. Want me to get it?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I'll do it.” She shot a look at Gates, but continued to silently collect samples where the bushes were flattened before rising and making her own careful way to the wall, bags and envelopes in hand.

He watched for a moment or two as she dug minute metal fragments from the stucco and brick, but turned back to Baxter when the man cleared his throat.

“So, off the record, you got any idea what this is about?”

Gates shook his head. “Not this one. On or off the record, I have no idea. We've been clear for months on the thing with Hong Kong, and the other one from Honduras. Nothing brewing to warrant a threat.” He frowned, his tired brain working slowly. “I don't know, Bax. Seems more old-fashioned Ninja-style. Most hits these days are pretty straightforward, on the street, in the car, sorts of things. This?” He gestured at the wall and the bushes. “This is both professional and amateurish since they shot at me. I don't know what to make of it. Besides, I'm better at the business security part of things than I am at this.”

Baxter nodded, and checked the tech's progress. “I don't think there's much you need me for yet. Or that you need to be here for,” he added. “You look like hell. Go get some sleep.”

“Yeah.” Gates managed a smile. “That'll happen.”

 

“So, what did you think?” Jen said as she lounged on the couch in her condo as she and Ana shared a pizza on Sunday night.

“Of the guy?” Ana pretended to be confused to buy time.

“Uh, yeah.” Jen's sarcastic response was immediate. “I give you chapter and verse on the date, the Prometheus thing, the private jet to Vegas on Saturday, the whole deal, and you've barely batted an eye. You've got something smoking in that mad mind of yours. You've hardly heard a word I've said.”

“Oh, I heard it,” Ana stalled. She didn't want to admit she'd been thinking about Gates. Or that she'd been running scenarios about the art fraud case. Or that she'd been wondering again about Dav and Carrie.

“So?”

“So what?” She wasn't going to get away with that one, but how did she tell her best, most supportive friend that the millionaire she was dating was tweaking Ana's suspicion radar? She didn't want Jen hanging out with the guy, possibly getting into something she couldn't get out of, but she hadn't found anything to hang her hunch on, nothing solid. There were some peculiar things in the files, some weird codes that might even be Agency codes, some stuff about him from New Jersey, but she hadn't had time to dig them out.

Jen sighed and set her plate aside. “I know you ran him, Ana. I could tell it at the gallery. So let's get that out of the way. I forgive you, all right?”

Ana was shocked that Jen wasn't going to ream her. Relief followed hot on the heels of shock. “So when I tell you he gives me the willies, you'll know why you shouldn't see him again, right?”

“Nonsense,” Jen parried. “Everybody gives you the willies. Stupid, if you ask me.” Jen made a tsking sound as she recovered her plate. “Look, honey,” she said, a look of sympathy suffusing her features. “You've had a crappy run of it. First that married guy in Rome, then the whole work deal and all that crazy scary stuff with your job. You're gun-shy, I know it and you know it. I'm just sayin' it's time you got over it. You've never let fear get you, all these years we've known each other. I mean, when I met you, after your parents died, you were shy and hurt. You climbed out of that when we were in college, really played the field. Hell,” Jen laughed, shaking her head over the next words. “You blew the field wide open, girl. You went to work for the CIA.”

“I know, I know. But they recruited me,” Ana reminded her. “And I do have skills they need, right? But this guy, D'Onofrio. There's something about him I don't like.”

Jen rolled her eyes and continued eating pizza. “I appreciate you trying to save me from myself, honey. Here's the thing: I like taking the risk, you know? And you used to take 'em right along with me. Don't you think it's about time you found that part of you again?”

“Yeah, but Karma's a bitch, Jen,” Ana managed, feeling old and sad all of a sudden. “I screwed up. Maybe if the married guy hadn't made me so crazy, I'd have been sharper at my job. Maybe I would have seen things differently.”

“Bullshit,” Jen answered. “Doesn't apply. You got screwed with that guy, sure, but I know what you give to your work. You were on the straight there, girl. Whatever was going on with him was over anyway, the minute you found out he was hitched.”

“I know,” Ana said, still fretting. “But Jen, this guy, he's dating through an agency—don't you think that's weird?”

Once again, Jen rolled her eyes. “A lot of people do. He's not perfect, right? Anyway, I'm going to see how it goes. He's fun, you know? And what's not to love about being whisked off to Vegas, and wined and dined?”

Nothing she could say to Jen would dissuade her from her choice. To her surprise, Jen changed tactics on her.

“Enough about me. I saw you being all up close and personal with that sexy stumbler. What was up with that? He was touching you, had his hand on your back and stuff. What's going down? Did he ask for your number?”

Ana nodded, uncomfortable with the spotlight being turned her way. “I gave it to him.”

Jen sat up, her meal and the brief argument over Jack forgotten. “Really? You did? Oh, my gosh. Seriously?”

“Yeah, but it's the number for the diner down the street,” Ana said without cracking a smile.

“Aaaaannnna!” Jen's disappointment was palpable. “You didn't.”

Ana laughed. “Of course not. I wouldn't do that to Paolo,” she said, naming the diner's owner. “I like his food way too much. I had a non-working number to give to anyone who asked, if that came up. They'd get the I'm-sorry-it's-temporarily-out-of-service message and give up.”

“Why? He was prime,” Jen said, theatrically smacking her lips. “And you could tell he was interested. C'mon, what's to lose?”

“Who said I lost anything?” she dodged. “I talked to him. As a matter of fact he gave me
his
number.”

“Really? Oh, man. Tell, tell,” she urged, leaning forward in anticipation.

Ana laughed over Jen's enthusiasm. “It was talk. He knows who I am, that I'm Agency. I met him last Monday on the job. He wants to go out, but I don't know.”

“Did you say you would?”

“Well, yes, but I'm going to back out. I'm getting some leads on this case, and I'm not dating. I was using an alias to check out an art gallery. Maybe he finds that exciting or something. I don't know, but I'm not going.”

“Ye-ha!” Jen exulted, shocking Ana into dropping her pizza. “She's baaaaaaack,” she singsonged the word. “If you're finally taking risks again, even eeny-teeny ones like taking his number, then you're getting a bit of Ana back. What a relief.”

“Stop,” Ana protested. “It's not that bad.” She didn't know why she was protesting. It
was
that bad, and she knew it. Hell, everyone knew it. Even the cat.

“Really? You've been moping around like you just watched
Old Yeller
and someone shot your dog too. You won't go out, you won't date, you won't even go out to dinner with me and a group of people that might include men. If we have one more pizza night in, I think I'll turn into a pepperoni.” She saluted Ana with the slice before taking a neat bite. “And then where would we be?”

“I'm not, I didn't—” Ana began her protest, but Jen cut her off.

“No, don't spoil it. Just hush and let me savor the idea that you might be back to normal.” She snickered as she took another bite. “Or at least heading toward what resembles normal for you.”

They continued to joke around, and Jen left still insisting that normal for Ana was way off the charts toward sick-o. Nothing else was said about her concerns about D'Onofrio.

As she locked up, she wondered how Gates would react, seeing her on Tuesday. She'd made another appointment to meet with Dav, this time through the secretary she'd first spoken to. The woman knew her name and said she'd been expecting the call.

Gates had paved the way for that, she'd lay money on it. He'd missed nothing about her, from her heels to her evening wrap. She'd be willing to bet money that he could describe what color nail polish she'd had on. Jen was right, she realized. Her confidence when it came to him was more like the “old” Ana. Was that a good thing or a bad one? She just didn't know.

Thinking about the high heels sent her in another direction. What was it about men and high heels? Then again, the idea of being with him, wearing nothing but heels, did have its appeal.

Damn.

She paced her bedroom, trying to walk off the intense memory of his hard body, of the sound of his voice teasing her about the shoes. She tried to picture him rolling on the floor at the gallery, tried to use that silly picture to disperse the aura of power and sensuality he'd bewitched her with.

It didn't work. All she remembered was the power in his grip, the feel of the muscles hot under her hands. She could describe him too, right down to the size of the silver buckle on his belt, which had pressed firmly into her belly, and to the make and model of the weapon he'd worn holstered under his suit coat. She'd been pressed into his side when the crowd shifted toward them, imprinting the grip on her chest. No other weapon had a grip like a Sig.

Somehow, she doubted he'd be surprised that she'd already run the gun for permits. Legal, of course. He was also permitted for a variety of other weapons, many of which the estate owned. She'd lay odds that he had plenty that weren't legal too, given how difficult gun permitting was in California.

“Wonder if I should call him about Tuesday?” she asked the cat. “Probably piss him off if I don't, even though I'm sure he's already seen me on the schedule. Another budding relationship cut down before it's even started.”

 

More weary than truly tired, Agent TJ Michaels leaned back in the hard chair he'd been using to keep him awake as he listened in on his quarry. Several more phrases for Ana to translate. Both his Italian and Greek were passable for someone who'd learned it from a textbook and from living in each country for a bit. It did not, however, cover the idiom and slang in use by the people he was watching.

Standing to stretch, he moved to his laptop and linked up with the Internet. There were no new e-mails from Ana to enlighten him about the abstract phrases his quarry had used. Too bad.

Noting down another set of phrases, words he understood but which made absolutely no sense in literal translation, he readied another e-mail to his long-time compatriot. A vision of her lean strength and the long, attractive planes of her face reminded him that he missed her.