More Than a Mission (2 page)

“C
rash and burn.”

Lucia's words cut rudely across the airways and into the earpiece as he hurried from the Sparrow's restaurant. He was at the edge of the property when something compelled him to look back.

She was standing at the door, still watching him, and when their gazes collided from across the distance, a becoming blush stained her cheeks before she escaped into the building.

Aidan smiled. Good. The lady was not as unaffected as she let on.

“Shut up, Cordez,” he whispered beneath his breath.

“All bad moody are we? What do you plan on doing now?” Lucia asked while he continued on to the hotel at which the team was staying, only a few blocks from the restaurant.

“If she wants someone a little more professional, that's what she'll get.”

He was already at the door of the hotel when Lucia quipped, “That may take a lot of work.”

He ignored her dig and headed up to their suite. Inside, Lucia was busily working on her laptop.

Not that they'd needed it today, Aidan thought as he walked over and stood behind her, watching as she entered a date onto a list she was compiling.

“What's that?” he said and motioned to the screen.

Lucia looked up over her shoulder. “Corbett's contacts—”

“So it's Corbett now is it?” he teased, well aware that Lucia had a crush on the mysterious head of their group.

“His contact at MI6 provided a list of kills that they attribute to the Sparrow. That's in this column.” She pointed to one list and Aidan scrutinized the schedule, which comprised nearly a dozen incidents in the last six years. The Sparrow had been busy. There was just one glaring error.

“Mitch's name is not on the list.”

Concern flashed across Lucia's face a moment before she said, “MI6 can't connect Mitch to the Sparrow.”

“Well, they're wrong. I know what Mitch said to me.” He sat on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms.

Lucia laid a hand on his forearm as if to comfort him. “Maybe Mitch was trying to tell you something else about her.”

He thought about it, but what kinds of things did a dying man think important enough to say? In his book, first was the name of his killer. “The Sparrow did it. End of discussion.”

Seeing that he had gotten his defenses up, Lucia said nothing else, but instead began entering another set of dates onto the list. A number of the dates and locations matched those for the Sparrow's kills. “What are you doing now?”

“More than you are, clearly,” she teased, but then added, “Whoever spilled the beans to Corbett about Elizabeth being the Sparrow wasn't completely sure. So I did a search to see where she might have gone. Contests, expos, vacations and…”

Fingers tapping away on the computer keys, she finished her entries. Beside a number of the dates that had already been there courtesy of MI6, there were now four entries for Chef Elizabeth Moore that matched.

“Seems like we have a pretty good candidate for the Sparrow,” he said.

“It appears that way. There's just too much coincidence, including this weekend here.” Lucia motioned to one entry on her list. “She was at a cooking expo in the town next to the prince's estate. He was found dead that weekend.”

“Poisoned, which seems to be a favorite method for our assassin.” Which could be why MI6 hadn't listed Mitch, although some of the Sparrow's other kills had been the plain old get-up-close-and-kill-them type. Which made him wonder just what motivated her. Sticking a knife in someone…Seeing that look of surprise fade to a lifeless stare…

He knew it well, having had to kill more than once on his assignments as an army Ranger. It wasn't easy even if you told yourself that you had to do it. That it was either you and your men, or the man whose life you had just taken. But that look never left you. Not even when you slept.

Like the final expression on Mitch's face. One of surprise and possibly even regret. For months after Mitch's death, that image had chased him through his nightmares.

“Aidan?” Lucia asked, apparently sensing that she had lost him.

“I'm going to review the Elizabeth Moore file. Do you think you could give me a copy of that when you're done? And can you add Mitch to the list and see if she was in Rome then?”

“You got it.”

He went to his room, slipped out the earpiece and placed it on a mahogany desk that held an assortment of other electronic gadgets he had designed. Grabbing the file on Elizabeth Moore once more, he plopped down onto the bed and began to review the facts.

Elizabeth was an only child whose parents had been local merchants. When she was fourteen, her parents had been found murdered in their fish shop. The murder had never been solved. The file hinted at possible involvement by members of the Royal Family's ministers to quash parts of the investigation.

He paused, wondering if that was what had set the Sparrow on the path she had chosen? He was still lucky enough to have his parents and couldn't imagine what it might have been like to lose them at such a young age, especially to an act of violence, and then find justice denied.

The photo of the Sparrow stared at him from the left side of the file. No hint of the wide and engaging smile he had seen earlier today. The photo had apparently been taken in Prague when an MI6 operative on another mission had noticed her standing in a square. The serious-looking young woman had fit the description of the Sparrow that MI6 had gleaned over years of investigations. With the renowned assassin suspected of being in town, the operative had decided to take the picture just in case.

It might not even be her, he thought. There must be millions of women who matched the general description—five foot six, brown hair, brown eyes and a slim build.

Not that he would have called her hair just brown. As she had stood in the sun, he'd noticed the vibrant melange of reds, browns and even hints of blond. And her eyes—they had been more like the color of a rich sherry. As for the slim build, definitely slender but with curves in all the right places.

Losin' it, he chastised himself. The lady might be attractive, but that did nothing to change the fact that she was suspected of killing nearly a dozen people. Including Mitch.

It was up to him to get close to her, to confirm whether or not she was the Sparrow and whether she had murdered King Weston's heir, and then she could be punished for her crimes.

Which meant he had to attempt yet again to get her to hire him for the bartending position that was now vacant since Corbett Lazlo had arranged for a friend in London to hire away Elizabeth's bartender.

Lazlo's connections were part of what made the Lazlo Group tops in what they did—handling delicate and often-times dangerous investigations, like this one involving Prince Reginald's murder.

Pampered and spoiled royals like Prince Reginald held little appeal for Aidan. From what he had read in the dossier provided to him, Prince Reginald had been a selfish dilettante who probably would have made a hell of a bad leader for the centuries-old island kingdom.

Not that he involved himself in politics, since his nomadic life rarely gave him reason to grow attached to any particular place, and he had no interest in what happened in this tiny little town. At least, not in anything that wasn't related to this mission.

As for the Sparrow, he thought, she wanted professional? He would give it to her.

The bartending part was under control thanks to the earpiece and the program he had loaded on his and Lucia's PDAs. He'd resorted to that after his best attempts at memorizing an assortment of drink recipes had failed. He was a magna cum laude grad of MIT in a number of majors, none of which included Mixology 101.

But now he had to deal with his other dilemma—getting the Sparrow to hire him. He walked to the closet. Inside were an assortment of jeans, but also a few suits. He wasn't normally a suit-and-tie kind of guy. In some ways, he found them too much like the uniform he'd had to wear for so many years in the military. Now that he was in the private sector, he preferred his clothes to be casual. It suited his rebellious nature better.

In fact, the last time he had worn a suit had been to Mitch's funeral two years ago. It was one of the suits in the closet. Somehow apropos, he thought, as he reached for it and pulled it out. The suit was dark charcoal-gray and designer—Helmut Lang. Mitch, who had always insisted that his clothes and women be top-drawer, had forced him to buy it, claiming that his friend was never going to meet the right kind of woman if he looked like a Hell's Angels reject or a derelict surf dude.

Aidan had to admit the suit was gorgeous. Maybe it was just what the Sparrow had had in mind when she'd said that her type was someone more professional.

Watch out, Sparrow, 'cause here I come.

 

Elizabeth was running late. After doing all her shopping and advising her sous chef and assistants as to what to prep for inclusion in that night's dinner specials, she'd decided to tackle the slightly overgrown flowerbeds in the back of the restaurant during her afternoon break. In this backyard garden, which faced the shore, she had created an area for alfresco dining and dancing beneath the stars.

She was rounding the corner of the building on the way to the front door when she smacked into someone heading toward the back patio. Hard hands grabbed hold of her to keep her from falling. “I'm sorry,” she said, noticing not just the strength in the hands clutching her, but the fine fabric of the suit jacket as she grabbed tight.

She finally looked up and the familiar blue of his eyes gazed down at her, nearly laughing. “No,
I'm
sorry. Your sous chef said you were out back.”

He released her and took a step away, which allowed her to get a complete picture of his total transformation. A suit the color of deep slate—definitely expensive—accented his lean muscular build and broad shoulders. His shirt was a pale gray and he was wearing a silk tie that had a stylish Keith Haring kind of pattern in maroon on a dark blue-gray background. His shaggy hair was brushed off his face, the longish strands secured somehow, exposing the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw.

He cleaned up well, she thought, although a part of her was remembering yesterday's bad-boy look and regretting the change.

“Mr. Rawlings,” she said with a polite nod of her head. “I must confess that I wasn't expecting to see you again.”

He offered his arm and she looped hers around his, slightly surprised by the gallant gesture. She walked with him around the side of the building and to the front door.

“I'm not a man who's easily dissuaded, Ms. Moore,” he said as they stopped at the entrance to the restaurant.

“And what if I told you the position had been filled?” she asked with an upward arch of her brow.

“A gentleman such as myself wouldn't dare call a lady a liar, but…” He pointed to the help wanted sign that was still posted in the front window.

Heat rose to her cheeks, much as it had yesterday when he had caught her appreciating his backside. Definitely not good. The last thing she needed around here was someone who would be distracting her from all that she had to do. “Mr. Rawlings—”

He stepped to stand in front of her, held out his arms and said, “You wanted professional. So here I am.”

“I did say that, only—”

“I know my way around a bar,” he jumped in.

“I suspected as much, but—”

“What have you got to lose?” he interrupted yet again.

Elizabeth gripped the handle of her gathering basket tightly and examined him once more. Dressed like this, she could definitely see him preparing drinks for her patrons. Heck, he was dressed nicely enough to be one of her patrons. But could he mix a mean cocktail?

“A martini,” she said out loud.

“Excuse me?” he asked, clearly confused.

“How do you make a martini?” she clarified and nervously swung the basket back and forth a bit, hoping for failure on his part.

He raised one sunbleached eyebrow as if to say, Aw, come on. Try something harder. Then he rattled off, “One and a half ounces of gin. Dash of dry vermouth.” He paused, smiled and said, “Shaken, not stirred.”

She had to chuckle at his imitation of Sean Connery because it was dead-on. “Too easy. How about a…” She hesitated, trying to think of one of the more unusual drinks with which she was familiar. “A B-52,” she finally said and watched him squirm, but not for long.

“The drink, right, and not the alternative band from Athens, Georgia?”

Smiling, she confirmed, “Right. The drink.”

“One ounce each of Bailey's Irish Cream, Kahlua and Grand Marnier.” He picked up his hands, mimicked the shaking, and she got the rest of the recipe. Not to mention getting the very appealing way the man could move his hips.

Fresh heat came to her face. She gave it one last try to attempt to convince herself it was insane to consider him for the job. “You'll never get this one—Mexican Sunset.”