Endgame (Last Chance Series) (16 page)

Madison flushed, dropping Harrison's hand like a hot potato, feeling all of about twelve.

"She was filling me in on what happened in the Village," Harrison said, apparently unaffected by Gabriel's implication. But then of course he would be. "Sorry you didn't catch the bastard," he continued. "But we'll get him next time. I was just heading for the operations room to start searching the Homeland Security computers. Hopefully that'll turn up something."

Gabriel nodded, seeming to find focus. Madison, still tongue-tied, was grateful for the reprieve. "I've just been talking to Cullen. It seems the Chinese are threatening to walk." Gabriel included them both in his somber gaze, his anger vanishing as quickly as it had come.

"That's what Jeremy said," Madison responded, delighted to hear that her voice sounded normal, "but Cullen assured him it was more talk than action."

"Not anymore. Kingston evidently got a call an hour ago. And unless we get things under wraps fast, all bets are off. As you can imagine, Cullen's fit to be tied."

"Did you talk to him about adding security? I'd say he's as likely a target as anyone." Harrison as usual cut right to the chase.

"He's already got quite a bit, but he's aware of the need. We need to talk to Kingston and Jeremy. They're also likely targets."

"Security might not matter much," Madison said, a new thought pushing its way front and center. "I'm sure we've all thought it. But no one has said it out loud. If Candace Patterson knew W. Smith, then it's possible that Cullen and crew do, too." She paused, her gaze encompassing them both. "And if it's truly an inside job, he's already got access."

*****

"YES." NIGEL MOVED farther into the shadows of the alleyway, his cell phone held tightly in one gloved hand. "Everything's going as planned. They have no idea."

He listened to the voice on the other end of the line, wishing that someone else could have been chosen for the job. His loyalty was clear, but his conscience was not.

People were dying. And while he knew it was the price of the game, he didn't have to like it.

"Yes, yes, I will." He nodded to no one in particular. "It's all in place. There's nothing to worry about. It's not exactly my first mission, is it? I'm very good at what I do. Plus I have the added advantage of knowing how the man works." He clicked off the phone, swallowing a surge of disgust.

Oh, yes, he knew how he worked. For the last decade he'd even called the man friend. But then, in this business, there really was no such thing.

"I WOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU to Nino's, you know." Philip Merrick laid down the plastic fork and shot his daughter a frown.

"I know." Madison shrugged. Nino's, an Italian restaurant on First Avenue, was a favorite, but when her father offered to take her there, it invariably meant he wanted something, and tonight she wasn't up to the fight. "I just thought it would be better if we ate here."

"So you could keep on working." It wasn't a question, and his voice held a note of frustration. "You work too much."

"People's lives are at stake, Dad. It's not
exactly a situation I can control." She pushed away her plate, suddenly losing her appetite. The ops room was empty, everyone gone for the night. If she'd had her way, she wouldn't have stopped for dinner, but her father had been insistent, and this was the compromise.

"Which is
exactly why I think you're out of your league. You're supposed to be holed up in Virginia probing into the psychological whys and wherefores. Not on the front lines here in the city. Cullen told me what happened today. Hell, Madison, you could have been killed." Philip's expression darkened, his gray eyes the mirror image of Madison's, and she realized that she'd made a tactical error. Nino's was a public place and her father would never make a scene. Here, on the other hand...

She sighed. "There was no one there. I couldn't have been hurt."

"You didn't know that. Cullen said—"

"
Cullen
should mind his own business." She cut him off with the wave of an arm. It was an old argument, but she never seemed to quit rising to the bait. If her father had it his way, she'd be home baking cookies for his grandchildren. "Besides, he's the one who got me into this."

"I know. And believe me, I've given him a piece of my mind on that subject. But unfortunately, neither of you has ever listened to a word I say. Sometimes I think you're more his daughter than mine." If Madison hadn't known better, she'd have said there was a touch of jealousy in his tone, but Philip Merrick wasn't the jealous type. He just liked maintaining control.

"Look, this case is no different from any of the others I've worked on. There's always some degree of danger, and you know it. But I'm careful."

"It's not you I worry about." Their gazes met and held. "I had the men you're working with investigated. A bunch of hotheaded daredevils. According to the information I got, they're not
exactly play-by-the-rules kind of guys."

"They walk the line, I'll grant you that
." She fought to keep her tone even. No sense starting a fight. "But they're trained professionals, and Cullen's worked with them before."

"Cullen wants what he wants." Her father waved a dismissive hand. "But that doesn't give him the right to put you in danger. There's a murderer out there, Madison, and now, thanks to Cullen, you're in the line of fire."

"I can take care of myself." She sighed, silently counting to ten. "If you'd pay any attention at all, you'd realize that I'm not a little girl anymore. This is what I do, and it doesn't matter if it's for the FBI or Cullen Pulaski. Either way, the job is the same. I'm out there to stop the bad guys. An honorable ambition, surely."

"Not if it gets you killed." Her father had crossed his arms, his expression mutinous.

"I'm not going to get killed. And I'm not going to quit the team, either. So you might as well give it up. Nothing you say will make a difference."

"What about your mother? Shouldn't you be thinking of her?"

Leave it to her father to try every angle. "Mother doesn't care what I do. She's far too busy fighting for the Ganges mountain beetle or whatever cause she's adopted of late. Besides, unlike you, she's accepted that I make my own decisions."

"Well, I don't know why that should surprise me. She never did have the sense God gave a goose." Despite their divorce, Madison's parents were actually quite comfortable with each other. Time, it seemed, did in fact heal all wounds. "And just because she doesn't see the risk doesn't mean it's not there."

"Dad," Madison ground out, her patience stretched to the limit, "I'll be fine."

"What about this Gabriel Roarke person? He sounds just like Rick."

There were similarities to her ex, but Madison wasn't about to discuss them with her father. Besides, she was beginning to think that maybe she'd underestimated the man, and quite honestly, she wasn't about to admit that, either. "It's not the same. For one thing, I'm not involved with Gabriel."
At least not yet
. The thought caught her by surprise, the accompanying rush of heat telling. "He's a colleague. Like Harrison."

Her father's expression said it all. In his world there could be only one relationship between a man and a woman—a horizontal one.

"I'm not interested in Gabriel Roarke. And even if I were, it has nothing to do with my ability to do my job." She loved her father, really she did, but sometimes she wanted to throttle him.

"I just want what's best for you, Madison." There was real concern in his eyes now, and Madison felt a rush of guilt.

"I know you do, Dad. But you've got to accept that I'm not going to change my mind about what I do."

"Maybe not. But it's my duty as your father to make sure you don't get in over your head. Even if it makes you angry."

"I'm not quitting the task force." They were at an impasse again. God save her from overbearing men.

"Fine." Her father stood up, his face flushed with anger. "Then I'll just have to talk to Cullen."

"Do what you have to do. But it's not going to change anything." She was wasting her breath—he'd already pushed past her, heading for the door. It swung open and her father barreled right into Gabriel. The two men stopped for a moment, assessing each other, and then her father shouldered by him, dismissing Gabriel with the gesture.

"Not a happy camper." Gabriel's dark brow arced upward, his expression amused.

"My father," Madison admitted, crossing her arms to hide the fact that they were shaking. "It seems the two of you have something in common." She fought against her anger, knowing it wouldn't solve anything, but she'd simply had enough. "He wants me off the task force, too."

Gabriel shook his head. "I never said that I wanted
you off the team. I just don't like the idea of sharing command."

"It's more than that and you know it," Madison snapped, common sense taking a back seat to her indignation. "You think what I do is a waste of time. That I'm nothing more than a woman with a crystal ball."

"Don't put words in my mouth." He frowned, his anger rising to match hers. "I'll admit I'm a bit skeptical about profiling as a valid tool, especially with regard to terrorists. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a place."

"In the back room of some flophouse."

"Madison," he reached out to take hold of her shoulders. "I don't know what's going on here, but you're mad at your father, not me."

Her anger deflated like an old balloon and she blew out a long breath. "You're right. I shouldn't have lashed out at you. It's just that I get so tired of having to prove myself over and over again." She was talking about more than just her father now.

"Then don't do it." Gabriel's hands burned into her skin, and she fought the urge to throw herself against him, to seek comfort in his arms.

Stupid notion.

"Look." He lifted her chin with a finger, their gazes locking. "The most important person you have to please in life is yourself. And if your father can't live with the choices you make, then so be it. You can't spend your life trying to gain his approval—" she opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off,"—or trying to shock him into paying attention. Either way you lose, because you're not living for yourself. You're living for him."

"You sound like you're talking from experience," she grumbled, not completely comfortable with the fact that he seemed to read her like a book. That was supposed to be her area of expertise.

"I'm not. At least with regard to parents." He shrugged, the gesture calculated to camouflage any emotion. "I didn't have any."

"Everybody has parents." The words were out before she could think better of them.

Gabriel's smile was hollow. "My father, whoever the hell he was, didn't stick around long enough for introductions, and my mother died when I was born. Too damn young to be having a baby."

"How awful." She stifled the urge to smooth the pain from his face, knowing he wouldn't appreciate it.

"It was what it was." He shrugged again with the same sense of overly orchestrated bravado. "I spent most of my life as part of the system. Foster care and juvenile homes. It wasn't until the army that I really found my niche."

"Regulation as a substitute for family." It was a predictable outcome for someone who grew up more or less on his own. And it certainly fit his profile.

"Don't analyze me, Madison, I don't fit into a box."

She believed that. Gabriel Roarke was definitely one of a kind. But it still explained a lot. "I'm not profiling you. It's just that a lot of kids from broken homes find comfort in the structure of the armed forces."

"My home wasn't broken. It didn't exist." His words were sharp, edged with long-ago pain. "And we weren't talking about me. We were talking about you—and your father."

"And how alike the two of you are." She couldn't resist the barb, but he ignored it.

"I've had experience with my share of overbearing commanders who thought they knew what was best for me."

"But they didn't?" She couldn't help the question.

"Not by a long shot." His steely gaze skewered her. "The only person I really trust, Madison, is myself."

"That's a lonely way to live."

"Maybe." He shrugged again. "But I find it's safer that way. And I think maybe you understand more about it than you're letting on. I don't think you trust people any more easily than I do."

Again he'd nailed her. And she didn't like the feeling. "I trust my father. I just choose to disagree with him. And there are others I know I can count on. Harrison, for one."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, the two of you looked thick as thieves earlier." There was an undercurrent to his words, and she wrenched away, angry at the implication.

"Harrison is my friend. Nothing more. And if you'd get your head out of the gutter, you'd realize that."

"I just call it like I see it." He shifted so that they were standing toe-to-toe again.

"Well, then you're blind." She wanted to move away, but held her ground, not wanting to let him get the better of her. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"Of course you didn't." His smile bordered on wicked, and he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, his touch sending rockets of fire racing through her.

Damn the man.

"I just meant that I'm not involved with Harrison. I'm not involved with anyone." She was babbling now, and the more she talked the deeper it got. He had a way of discombobulating her with only a word, or a look.

"Good." He'd moved even closer, his gaze dueling with hers, his breath teasing her cheek.

She stepped back, more because she needed to breathe than because she was running away. This was not how things were supposed to go with Gabriel Roarke. She was supposed to be able to manage him like she'd managed everything else in her life. Or at least compartmentalize him.

Not that Gabriel was the kind of man one could relegate to a back burner.

"We've got work to do." She reached for a file on a nearby desk and started flipping randomly through it, hoping he'd take the hint.

"It's late." His voice was gruff with an emotion she wa
s certain she didn't want to identify. "Maybe we should call it a day."

Her gut twisted as her mind presented a picture of the two of them naked, tangled in the sheets, body-to-body, as he stroked her, filled her. "You go on." She set down the file, trying frantically to pull her thoughts to safer ground. "I think I'll stay for a bit."

She kept her gaze on her hands, determined not to look at him, to face the challenge she knew was reflected in his eyes. It would be so easy to give in, to let her baser instincts take control...

She raised her head, drawing a breath to change her mind, but before she could utter the words, she realized the room was empty.

Gabriel Roarke was gone.

*****

"YOU'RE BURNING the midnight oil." Kingston Sinclair walked into the operations room just as Madison was yawning over an autopsy report. Truth be told, she hadn't gotten as much done as she would have liked, her thoughts centering instead on the abstruse man she shared command with. But she wasn't about to tell Kingston.

"What are you doing here?" She put the report on the table, tipping her head back so that she could see him better.

He was older than her father by about ten years, but that hadn't hindered their friendship. Kingston had been a part of Madison's life as long as she could remember. Never as much of a family member as Cullen, but still someone she knew and trusted.