Flirtation (11 page)

“I may have, but I don’t recall.”

“It’s quite the event. They have ‘saltwater cowboys’ who corral the herd when they swim across a channel at slack tide, with everyone watching, and they take the foals and auction them off to new owners. The proceeds go to various groups, and the new owners are held to strict standards for humane ownership of their horses.”

“They don’t do that here in Maryland?”

“No, the herd had grown here, and they are using some dart-injected contraceptives to prevent more reproduction.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

They were suddenly quiet, the talk of contraception reminding them of last night.

“I’m sorry Charlotte. You have so much on your mind as it is. I hate adding to it.”

“I’m not worried, EJ. Except about you.”

He moved in front of her. “I told you, you don’t have to worry about me. I wouldn’t leave you high and dry, or any child I may have fathered, either.”

“I’m not your responsibility, EJ, nor your obligation. I don’t want your money, I want—” Irritated with herself and almost saying much more than she wanted to reveal just yet, she yanked her hand from
his and walked away. He was by her side again in a second, grabbing her hand back and swinging her around to face him.

“Dammit, I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. I care about you, Charlotte, and I just want you to know—
dammit!
”

The cell phone in his pocket rang, interrupting his point. He snapped it open with a force that had her raising her eyebrows as he turned and took the call in hushed tones.

He cared for her. About her. What did that mean, exactly? She wished she knew what he’d been about to say. She saw his shoulders raise—whatever he was hearing on the phone it wasn’t good news.

He clicked the phone shut, looking around them, and slipped his arm around her, pulling her close as if to cuddle her—or hide her against him—as they headed back toward the house at a pace that was much faster than the leisurely one they’d enjoyed before.

“EJ? What is it?”

He didn’t answer her question, but hurried her back to the house, closing the sliding glass doors behind them and scanning the beach and the horizon before yanking the curtain over. He noticed Grace’s car was gone; she must have left while they were out on their walk, discretion being a major value in Grace’s world. EJ was glad she’d gone back to the city, now that he had a better idea what they were dealing with. He didn’t want his sister anywhere
near the danger he was in right now, and he was regretting he’d come to her home in the first place.

“EJ, you’re freaking me out—what’s going on?”

“Do you have a client named Lou Maloso?”

She thought for a moment—LOU52—and she did see his full name on her registration list.

“Yes, actually, how did—”

“Oh, Jesus, Charlotte. He’s a mobster.”

A what? She didn’t utter the words, but the question must have shown in the expression on her face. EJ planted his hands on his hips, nodding.

“Gangster, mafia, wiseguy, organized crime—whatever they’re calling it these days. He’s one of the main men on the east coast.”

She blinked, unable to really believe what she was hearing.

“He didn’t come across like a criminal. He was just a nice man who’d lost his girlfriend, and he wondered if he would find anyone again anytime soon. He…gave me a generous tip.”

He regarded her with open incredulity, and she sank into the nearest chair, trying to match up the pleasant and innocent conversations she’d had with Lou—who’d always been a complete gentleman—with what EJ was telling her.

“There has to be some mistake.”

“Ian and Sarah have uncovered the trail—the cops found documents with what ended up being bank account numbers in Ronny’s apartment. With your
name on the accounts as well, by the way—illegal, offshore accounts. The man who tried to grab you last night? He’s a known associate of Lou Maloso. Worse, the same money trail shows that whoever’s been ripping off the customers that come to the SexyTarot Web site—probably Ronny—ripped off Maloso, too. Not a good scene. These are not people to mess with.”

“But why would they be trying to get me instead of Ronny then?”

EJ sat next to Charlotte, pulling her forward, his hand curled around the back of her neck as he nestled her face in his shoulder, and rubbed the soft skin at her nape.

“Well, there are a couple possibilities. One, they need you to find Ronny, who is probably in hiding—so you are bait. They probably also think you may have been in on it, or know where he is, or why the money was stolen. Then, it could be that Ronny set you up to take the fall, and he ran off with the money.”

He felt her tense against him, heard her soft gasp when he spoke the second option, but he held her in place.

“I’m sorry, darlin’, but either way, there’s a heap of trouble going on here, and I’m not letting you out of my sight until it’s settled.”

“But what are we going to do?”

She pulled back, looking at him with desperate
eyes, and all he wanted to do was wipe the hurt from her expression, to ease the pain of her brother’s betrayal and make her feel safe. She shook her head, her voice just a whisper, “We have to help him, EJ. They’ll kill him if they find him, won’t they?”

“It’s a likely possibility. And it’s also likely, depending on what the whole story is, that they’ll keep coming after you, too. These people don’t take things like this sitting down.”

“How much…how much was stolen?”

“Twenty thousand from the credit card that Maloso used for the site, and then the money was converted to cash and laundered out of the country. It’s not a lot of money, relatively speaking, considering the millions of dollars that organized crime is involved with every day, but it’s a personal insult. Maloso may feel that you made a fool of him—he came to you on a very personal level and was betrayed. He’s not going to let it go.”

“Lou should know that I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Charlotte, these are not a trusting bunch of people. They live in a world where your best friend or even a family member can be your worst enemy.”

She made a face. “I know—I’m not completely out of it, I have watched
The Sopranos.
” She huffed a breath. “So what do we do? What’s next?”

“We stay out of sight.”

“But Ronny—”

“Ronny is on his own.”

Tears stung her eyes and her chin firmed in resistance to them and him. “I’m not accepting that.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. I’m not going to sit here while my brother is out there somewhere in danger, and I could be helping.”

“How are you going to help, Charlotte? Exactly what can you do, except maybe get yourself killed?”

She pondered the idea, wondering herself, until the obvious answer emerged.

“I can talk to Lou.”

“Pardon me?”

“I can talk to him through the Web site—explain, let him know what happened, even return the money.” She sat up straight, her mind racing, convinced she’d discovered a way out. “I know what you’re saying about him, but really, EJ, he’s a very nice man, at least with me. He’ll listen.”

EJ just stared, first in disbelief and then his own mind started working over the situation. Doing something was better than just sitting here doing nothing, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Could this work?

Stranger things were possible, and talking to the crime boss over the Internet wouldn’t pose any threat—as long as they did it from a safe location. No doubt Maloso had resources that could track them in seconds, especially if he had mules on the inside, and
so EJ would have to make sure they were somewhere untrackable. And he thought he might know exactly the place.

While he processed the idea, he took in Charlotte’s brightened eyes, the flush in her cheeks, the red bloom of her mouth. His chest tightened with desire, which stunned him—this was hardly the time for sex, but as her hand settled on his thigh, squeezing lightly, he hardened immediately and couldn’t take his eyes off of her lips. She shifted closer—was she actually thinking about using wiles on him, seducing him to convince him of her plan?

It was working, even though he’d already considered actually going along with her zany idea.

Charlotte leaned in, her breath sweet on his skin and he closed his eyes, trying to focus on anything but the effect she was having.

“It could work, EJ. Please let me try.”

Dammit, her mouth dragged down the line of his neck, and he swallowed, trying to keep his wits about him, but images of their coupling the night before assaulted him as her hand moved higher on his thigh, and he groaned, turning his head to capture her mouth in a hot kiss, aborting all conversation for the moment as he pushed her back on the sofa, sliding his hand under the soft material of the sweater she’d borrowed from Grace and closing over the hot, satiny skin of her breast.

He nudged a knee between hers, endlessly grate
ful she was wearing a skirt, and pushed his thigh up tight between her legs, murmuring approval as she locked her legs around him, moaning in pleasure and offering her mouth to his for another kiss.

Before things went where they were inevitably heading, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the small box of condoms he’d picked up at the gas station earlier—there were only three, which seemed paltry considering how he felt like he needed to get in between Charlotte’s legs at every opportunity.

His breath was short as she wound herself around him, and her hands loosened his belt, sliding his zipper down and freeing him. If she wanted to seduce him, he was more than willing. He was a goner, maybe in more ways that he ever expected. Covering himself quickly, he reached down, pulling the material of her panties roughly aside, and entered her in one hard thrust, giving in to the basic instincts she’d stoked to life and losing his breath at how her body hugged his, how right it all felt.

“God, Charlotte, what you do to me…”

He started to move, catching every sigh, every kiss that she offered him, knowing he would do whatever it took in the world to protect her, to make her happy.

He didn’t know what that all meant, or maybe he just wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. Either way, he knew he would support her in contacting Lou and
trying to help her brother, a plan forming in the back of his mind, even as he lost himself in the heaven of her embrace.

“S
O WHO EXACTLY IS
Jennie Snow?”

Charlotte looked out the window, but she wasn’t an idiot—she had seen the slight flicker, EJ’s veiled gaze when he said they were going to meet this Jennie person. She tried breathing deeply to loosen the knot of unfamiliar emotion that settled in her chest when EJ had mentioned Jennie Snow. Charlotte had known almost immediately that he knew this woman more than professionally.

“I told you—she works for the National Institute of Justice’s Mapping and Analysis for Public Safety. She used to be part of the Department of Justice, where I worked years ago.”

“And she makes maps of crimes?”

Charlotte was stymied at how any of this would be helpful to them; unless EJ was just looking for an excuse to see Jennie Snow. The odd thought pinched her, and she swatted it away. EJ was not that kind of man; but there was more to his relationship with her than he was letting on.

“Well, it’s more interactive than that. They do
map crime occurrences, but they also use GIS and GPS—computer mapping technology—to locate trends, for instance, tracking gang growth and activity, or finding connections between types of crimes. They might study areas that are particularly prone to crime—they research just about everything now. Anything can be put on a map, tracked by satellites, et cetera. They keep track of major criminal figures and their actions, and try to predict future trends. It’s really very cool.”

“So how does this help us?”

“Well, Jennie’s particular area is mapping organized crime activity on the east coast. She’ll have the most up-to-date information on where Maloso is, what his people have been up to, and we’ll also be able to use untraceable computers to contact him.”

“But if he finds out we’re contacting him through the government, he won’t talk to me. Can’t we just go to an Internet café or something? Use a friend’s computer?”

EJ shook his head resolutely as he descended down the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the section at the top of the bay that sent him in the direction of Annapolis, Baltimore and D.C.

“If Maloso gets chilled, then that’s fine. We’ll have more information on him than we had before, and there’s no way we’re going to make any attempt to contact him where his people can get you out in the open.”

Charlotte didn’t say a word, but suddenly her plan didn’t seem to be going quite the way she’d imagined. She’d been thrilled and surprised when EJ had said she had a good idea, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“What if he just gets more angry? Won’t this confirm his sense that I’ve betrayed him? If he thinks I’m working with the cops?”

EJ shrugged. “That’s a chance we have to take—it won’t put us in any worse of a position than we’re in now.”

Charlotte bit her lip, trying to restrain her angry response, but not quite succeeding.

“And what about Ronny, EJ? He doesn’t have government protection. Lou can get him—maybe already has him.”

She received no response for a moment, and when she did, it wasn’t the one she expected.

“Charlotte, aren’t you angry with your brother at all? He used you, could have ended up sending you to prison or getting you killed, and at the very least has disrupted your life and the business you were trying to build. Doesn’t that bother you at all? What he’s done?”

Charlotte shook her head.

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to be really angry with him, I’m so worried. He’s had a hard time of it. He needs me, my support. He wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose—he just doesn’t…think sometimes.”

EJ’s voice was gentle, and she felt his hand on her
thigh, squeezing softly in a nonsexual way that made her vision blur again. It would have been easier if he just kept picking on Ronny.

“I know it’s hard to accept, but you’ve only known him for a short while, right? A few years? And in that time, is this the first time he’s caused you pain or inconvenience?”

Charlotte straightened her back. “He’s been thoughtless from time to time, but it’s because he was never taught otherwise. The couple who adopted him kicked him out and never cared about him. And he always apologizes when he steps over the line, and he is very good to me in general.”

“Have you ever felt unsafe around him?”

She shook her head resolutely. “No, never.”

“His friends?”

She remembered how she’d asked Ronny not to bring some of his friends to her apartment; they’d looked at her like fresh meat, and she had always been nervous when they hung around, and worried they might have come back when her brother wasn’t there.

“Sometimes. But he can’t be held responsible for how his friends are.”

“Sure he can. He’s a grown man, Charlotte, not a child, and a man has to be held responsible for his actions, and for the people he chooses to hang around with.”

EJ was quiet for a moment, as if he were thinking how to say whatever came next, and she just waited.

“I know you love him, and I know he’s your only family, but you have to accept that he’s not a child. He knows what he’s doing, and this time he didn’t do a thoughtless thing—he did a very dangerous thing that took a whole lot of thought and planning. And he put you in danger’s way without so much as a second glance.”

Charlotte railed against the words, her voice raising in her brother’s defense.

“I refuse to believe that. There has to be more to it, something we don’t know.”

“Maybe. But we have enough evidence to arrest him, and if we find him, which I hope we do, before Maloso’s goons find him, then I’m going to have to take him in. You understand that, right?”

She said nothing.

“It’s up to the courts, but he could be looking at a hefty sentence.”

She felt her chest clench. If Ronny went to jail, she’d be alone in the world again. But she couldn’t expect EJ to feel about her brother like she did. She looked around desperately, trying to stem the overwhelming wash of emotion that threatened to break free, fixed her gaze on the spots from dried rain on the window and began counting under her breath.

“What are you doing?”

“What?”

“You’re mumbling numbers.”

“I, uh…I was counting.”

“Counting what?”

She shrugged, not wanting to get into it. “Stuff.”

“You’ve done that before. Why?”

“It’s just something I do.”

“To get a sense of control back?”

She was surprised at his insight; most people just thought her habit was weird, or if they were kind, quirky.

“I guess.”

“I used to have a friend who did something similar. Every time we were on stakeouts he would do fractions out loud. He said it helped him pass the time, but I think it was also a response to stress.”

Charlotte wasn’t sure what to say, so she said nothing.

“Did I make you feel so stressed, Charlotte, that you had to start counting? If so, I’m sorry. But I need to be honest with you, so you know what’s coming.”

“I understand that. It breaks my heart, but I know you have a job to do.”

“It’s more than that, Charlotte. Don’t you see?” He stopped at the red light—they’d hit some lunch hour traffic behind construction, and would probably be stuck for a few minutes. Dropping his hands from the wheel, he reached over, turning her face to his, looking at her intently.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, I just want you to see that none of this is your fault, honey. No matter how
much you believe you could have seen what was coming, and even if you could, Ronny made his own choices. He’s in control of his own destiny, not you.”

She hadn’t really thought of that before, though it seemed so simple. How could she be so arrogant as to think she was in control of someone else’s life? Their choices? Her mind reeled with the new realization, but part of her resisted. She still felt it had to be more complicated than that. Didn’t family help out each other, try to share the load? Wasn’t it too easy to just back away, saying she had no responsibility? But before she could say so, EJ continued, his voice tight with barely disguised anger toward her brother.

“He’s the luckiest guy in the world finding out he had a sister like you, and then he uses you like this?” EJ blew out a breath. “You met my sister, Grace?”

She nodded. It’s not likely she could have forgotten over less than twelve hours.

“She can drive me crazy, but I would throw myself in front of a truck before I’d hurt her like your brother has hurt you. And while I understand that you find it hard to be angry with him, that’s okay because I can assure you I am angry enough for both of us.”

Charlotte was stunned, seeing the conviction of his words in his beautiful green eyes. Only moments before she’d been feeling hollow and abandoned, but now she realized what EJ was saying. He cared. He was standing up for her. He wasn’t just angry at
her brother like a cop after a criminal, but because Ronny had hurt her.

It was a stunning realization that no one—ever—had fought for her before. She’d always been the one to do the fighting, the one who protected. And now here was EJ, so angry with Ronny because he’d hurt her…the idea filled her with happiness, and confusion. She didn’t want him angry at her brother, and yet she was warmed by having someone stand up for her so adamantly.

“You have a right to be angry, Charlotte. In fact, you should be angry. Maybe Ronny needs to feel that from you to get the point. When people hurt us, even people we love, we have the right to let them know it. I know you’re afraid of losing him, but maybe if you can find a way to have a healthier relationship, one where he’s not always hurting you and you’re not always making excuses for him, well, who knows? Prison isn’t the end of the world.”

Feeling as if she’d been released from the spell of her misery, Charlotte was grateful to EJ for so many things she couldn’t even name. Hope laced her tone as she thought forward, leaving her black thoughts behind.

“You really think so?”

“I do.”

EJ returned his attention to the wheel as traffic moved forward again, and they sat in silence for a little while longer.

“I wish I could take you to this little place in Annapolis—maybe after this mess is over with. They have the best crabcakes in the world, though I guess I’m being a traitor to my home state by saying so.”

“One thing I’ve noticed since I’ve lived here is you folks do take your crab seriously.”

EJ grinned, glad to move on from the more serious tenor of the discussion they’d been having.

She saw the sign for the exit that would take them to D.C. and settled back.

“I wish I’d remembered to bring my cards with me. I was so panicked that night, when everything happened, I didn’t even realize I wouldn’t be returning to my home.”

“Do you think they might give you some insight into what’s happening?”

She shrugged, feeling defensive even though there was nothing judgmental in his tone.

“I don’t know—maybe—or they might just help me deal with it all.”

“I have to admit, it was pretty interesting how you do that. You came up with a lot of really neat stuff when we were talking online—maybe some of it was closer to the mark than I was comfortable with.”

Unsure if he was pandering, though he sounded perfectly sincere, she slanted a look in his direction.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like how you could be so detailed about what
turns me on, not just taking shots in the dark, but linking it to my personality. When you haven’t met someone, that’s a pretty interesting insight to have. Or how you advised me to be careful about playing things too fast and loose—that I might come up against something unexpected, something that would change my life, and that I should be careful.”

Charlotte wasn’t sure if she’d imagined the husky note of suggestion in his voice. She tried to play it casual.

“Well, I guess I did hit that nail on the head, considering everything you’ve been through the last few days.”

“I don’t think it’s this situation that was unexpected, though I agree, it’s been a surprising turn of events.”

He paused, and she waited for him to continue, unable to take her eyes from his profile. He pulled smoothly into a parking spot, not looking at her, even as he killed the ignition. When he did meet her gaze, the undisguised emotion she saw there stole her breath, but not so much as the words that passed his lips,

“What is most unexpected, and what has probably changed my life, is how I am starting to feel about you.”

EJ
STEPPED INTO
the group of offices where Jennie Snow had her little space within the massive complex and was relieved to have moved on from the car conversation. He might have revealed more than he
wanted to, unsure of what his feelings actually were, but aware that Charlotte was beginning to mean something more than the other women he’d spent time with in the past few years.

Women like Jennie. He’d felt a little awkward calling her on business, when he’d spent the weekend in her bed less than a month ago.

She was a great woman, and he’d enjoyed being with her, but they usually just got together when he had reason to be in D.C., and neither of them expected anything else. Though he wasn’t in the habit of having two women he’d been to bed with in the same room, there really wasn’t much of an option. The best bet, he thought as he approached her corner by the window, was to keep everything on business.

That was going to be a little difficult, he realized, when he saw Jennie turn the corner and upon seeing him, light up and come at him with a big smile and arms extended. Jennie—whose original last name was not really Snow—was as Italian as the day is long, and it was just in her nature to be physically affectionate.

It was also in her nature to have a nasty temper, though thankfully he’d only witnessed that secondhand. His experiences with Jennie’s passionate nature had always been much more friendly. But that was in the past, and he disengaged himself gently, stepping back and drawing Charlotte forward to stand next to him.

“Jennie, this is Charlotte Gerard, the woman I was telling you about on the phone.”

He noted a stiffening of Charlotte’s posture upon the introduction, and felt a little irritated. What did she expect? That he introduce her as his current lover? Jennie’s outgoing nature extended to Charlotte as well, and she greeted her with just as much warmth, if not the hugs.