Night Whispers (9 page)

He shrugged as he brushed sand off the legs of his pants. "I had an opportunity to find out how you react under stress, and I decided to take advantage of it."

As Sloan watched him, she suddenly realized why he'd seemed familiar, and she also realized he wasn't telling her the entire truth. "You were at the park yesterday, and in the parking lot at city hall earlier today. You've been watching me for days."

Instead of replying, he zipped his cotton jacket up enough to conceal the brown leather holster at his arm; then he finally gave her his full attention. "You're right. I have been watching you for days."

"But why? Why is the FBI interested in what I do?"

"We're not interested in you. We're interested in Carter Reynolds."

"You're what?" she said blankly.

"We're interested in your father."

Sloan stared at him, speechless and disoriented. Her father had long ago ceased to exist for her. Carter Reynolds was simply a name that belonged to a famous stranger, a name that no one ever mentioned to her. And yet, in the last twelve hours, that man, that name, seemed to be rising up out of the ashes of her past and sticking to her like soot. "I don't know what you think he's done, but whatever it is, I'm not involved. I haven't had anything to do with him in my entire life."

"We know all that." He glanced toward the shoreline where three men were running in their direction, one of them with a flashlight, its beam bouncing and fanning the sand like a lighthouse beacon gone haywire. "It looks like your reinforcements are on the way," Richardson observed, taking her by the elbow and propelling her forward. "Let's go meet them."

Sloan moved automatically, but her legs felt like wood and her brain like sawdust. "Be casual," the agent instructed. "Introduce me. If anyone asks, we met in Fort Lauderdale two months ago when you were attending the police seminar, and you invited me to Bell Harbor for the holiday weekend. Now, smile and wave at them."

Sloan nodded and obeyed, but she couldn't think of anything except that the FBI was investigating Carter Reynolds… and they'd been tailing her… and a few moments ago, this particular FBI agent had tried to see if she'd take a bribe!

Jess reached them first, well ahead of the others, his breathing unaffected by his run. "We thought we heard shots coming from here," he said, scanning the dunes. "Didn't you hear it?"

Sloan made a valiant effort to seem amused while she lied to a trusted friend who'd just raced to her rescue. "Those were firecrackers, Jess. Two teenagers set them off in the dunes and then split."

"It sounded like shots," Jess argued, planting his hands on his hips and staring beyond her shoulder.

Ted Burnby and Leo Reagan lumbered to a stop a few moments later. "We thought we heard shots," Ted panted, but Leo Reagan was incapable of speech. Forty pounds overweight and completely out of shape, he leaned over and braced his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"A couple of teenage boys were setting off firecrackers," Sloan lied again, feeling more awkward and resentful with each falsehood.

Leo and Ted accepted that far more readily than Jess, but then Jess was smarter and more streetwise, a big city cop who'd defected to a less violent community but whose instincts were still sharp. After a few moments more, he finally gave up his frowning visual search of the dunes and frowned at her instead. "Pete's party is almost over," he said bluntly. "We were wondering why you hadn't shown up."

In the current circumstances, there was only one possible, believable answer Sloan could give. "I was on my way there just now."

He dropped his hands from his hips, adopting a slightly less aggressive stance as he surveyed her companion. "Who is this?"

To Sloan's relief, the FBI agent decided to introduce himself. "Paul Richardson," he said, reaching forward to shake hands with Jess, then Ted and Leo. Positively exuding relaxed male cordiality, he added, "I'm a friend of Sloan's from Fort Lauderdale."

"If you plan to get anything to eat at Pete's party, you'd better get over there," Leo warned the agent, his thoughts ever reverting to food. "The nachos are already gone, but the chili dogs are good."

"I've had a long day," Agent Richardson regretfully replied; then he looked at Sloan and said smoothly, "Sloan, you go to the party without me."

Sloan panicked. He intended to vanish without answering any more questions! She'd unmasked him, and now he would simply disappear from Bell Harbor, leaving her in an agony of uncertainty, with no way of finding out why the FBI was watching her. She was so desperate to stop him that she actually clutched his arm. "Oh, but I want you to meet Pete," she insisted. "We'll only stay a few minutes."

"I'd really be a drag tonight."

"No you wouldn't," Sloan said breezily.

His eyes narrowed in warning. "I think I would be."

"You couldn't possibly be a drag. You're such an
interesting
person."

"You're biased."

"No, I'm not," she argued, and in desperation Sloan switched to veiled blackmail and said to her friends, "Let me explain how
really interesting
he is—"

"Don't bore them with any details, Sloan," he interrupted with a meaningful smile. "Let's go meet your friend Pete and get something to eat."

Leo brightened at the mention of eating. "Hey, Paul, you like anchovies?"

"Love them," Richardson said enthusiastically, but Sloan had the impression he was clenching his teeth.

"Then you're in luck because the pizza had anchovies on it, so there's a lot of it left. Never met anybody who likes anchovies, except Pete and now you."

Throughout the discussion, Jess had been intently studying the FBI agent; then he seemed to lose interest and patience. "If we don't get back to the party, the party's going to come looking for us."

"Let's go," Agent Richardson said agreeably; then he startled Sloan by curving his arm around her shoulders in what appeared to be a casually possessive, affectionate gesture. But there was nothing affectionate about the hard warning squeeze he gave her shoulders.

Jess, Leo, and Ted fell into step beside them, and the four men quickly struck up a conversation about sports. Soon the relative isolation of the dunes began to give way to a well-lit stretch of beach, where portable radios competed with the sound of the surf and beach blankets dotted the sand like colorful bandages, occupied mostly by young couples who were romantically inclined.

«
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T
he kiosk where Pete's party was taking place was next to a barbecue grill, and the smell of charcoal lighter and overcooked hot dogs was enough to make Sloan's nervous stomach churn. Pete and his fiancée, along with the rest of the party guests, were standing a few yards away, listening to Jim Finkle, who'd brought his guitar and was playing a beautiful flamenco song. "He should have been a professional musician, not a cop," Jess remarked, and he continued on to join Jim's audience.

Leo hung back a moment, however. "Have something to eat," he instructed Richardson, gesturing expansively to a wooden table covered with open pizza boxes, large bowls encrusted with the remnants of cheese dip, chili, and potato salad, and a platter of cold hot dogs with buns. "Drinks are over there in the cooler," Leo added before he headed off to listen to Jim. "Help yourself."

"Thanks, I will," Agent Richardson said, and with his hand still on Sloan's shoulder, he forced her to remain at his side until they reached the table. Sloan knew he'd been angry at first, but on the way here, he'd seemed to truly relax, joking with Leo about men who like to cook, and even laughing at something she said. Since she hadn't actually given his identity away, she naturally assumed he was feeling more charitable toward her. He even smiled as he handed her a plate and said furiously, "If you so much as utter one word tonight that might somehow jeopardize me, I will bust your ass for obstruction of justice."

His continued anger caught her so off-guard that Sloan gaped at him while she automatically took the plate from him. Still smiling, he handed her a napkin, took one for himself, and snapped, "Got it?"

Having issued a warning that she knew was no idle threat, he spooned food onto his plate from each bowl and picked up a cold hot dog, but Sloan noticed he did not touch the pizza—not even when the guitar music stopped and Leo and the group were returning to the table. Evidently Agent Richardson's dedication to duty and country stopped short of eating an anchovy.

"I wasn't really going to tell them anything about you," she explained, adopting the tone of calm reason that she always used to neutralize violent emotional situations. "But I am entitled to an explanation, and I couldn't let you disappear without giving me one."

"You should have waited until tomorrow."

Sloan dipped a limp taco chip into some salsa and put it on her plate, determined to appear as nonchalant as he. "Really?" she retorted. "Exactly how was I supposed to find you tomorrow?"

"You couldn't. I would have found you."

"With what?" she said bitterly. "Binoculars?"

Her rejoinder almost seemed to amuse him, but the man was like a human chameleon, so she couldn't be certain. "I see your point."

"Hey, Sloan, where've you been?" Pete demanded. With his arm looped over his fiancée's shoulder and a beer in his hand, he strolled up to them, and Jess tagged along. Mary Beth was blond and slender, a shy, refined, pretty girl who managed to look as happy as Pete without saying a word.

"Honey, show them the locket I gave you as a memento of the week before we got married," Pete instructed as soon as Sloan finished introducing them to her "friend" Paul Richardson. "It's solid fourteen karat gold," Pete added proudly.

Mary Beth lifted the heavy, heart-shaped locket at her throat so they could properly admire it.

"It's lovely," Sloan murmured, trying to concentrate on everything happening around them, watching for anything that Richardson might consider as "jeopardizing" his case.

Agent Richardson leaned forward to study the locket as if he had absolutely nothing on his mind now except socializing with Sloan's friends. "It's beautiful," he said.

"Last month," Mary Beth confided to him, breaking her personal record for lengthy conversation with a stranger, "Pete gave me a gold watch as a memento of the month before we got married."

"He's obviously crazy about you," Agent Richardson remarked.

"He's
obsessed
," Jess corrected with a grin, but Sloan scarcely heard him. Her attention had riveted on an unexpected and immediate threat to Agent Richardson's masquerade. Sara was strolling down the beach straight toward them with her date, and Sara never forgot an attractive male face. Earlier, Sara had said she didn't intend to stay very long at Pete's party, yet here she was. Agent Richardson seemed to notice Sloan's distraction and followed her gaze. There's my friend Sara," Sloan warned him as casually as she could.

"Along with her current man-of-the-week," Jess said sarcastically as he took another swallow of beer. "This one drives an eighty-thousand-dollar BMW. Blue. His name's Jonathan."

Sloan had bigger problems at the moment than the senseless bickering of her two closest friends. She stepped forward as soon as the couple neared their group. "Sara, hi!" she said, talking fast, hoping to bluff her way out of a potential disaster. "Hi, Jonathan," she added. "I'm Sloan, and this is a friend of mine, Paul Richardson, from Fort Lauderdale." While the two men shook hands, Sloan tried without success to distract Sara from her scrutiny of the FBI agent. "Did you hear those firecrackers earlier? Everyone thought they were gunshots."

"No," Sara said, studying Paul Richardson's face; then her expression went from puzzled to enlightened. "I know who you are. You were at the park yesterday!"

"Yes, I was."

"I saw you there. In fact, I pointed you out to Sloan—"

At that conflicting piece of information, Jess Jessup lowered his beer can, staring hard at Richardson, and Sloan leapt into the breach. "Unfortunately, when you pointed Paul out, his back was to me," she said with a quick laugh. "He was looking for me at the park, but we missed each other and didn't connect until later."

Sara gaped at her. "You mean, you knew he was going to be in town?"

"Of course not," Sloan said, improvising madly. "When I invited Paul here, he didn't think he could get away, and I assumed he wasn't coming. At the last minute, he realized he
could
get away for part of the weekend, and he tried to surprise me."

Sara's interest switched from the peculiar logistics of Sloan's fledgling romance to the financial prospects of Sloan's potential boyfriend. "Get away from what?" she asked.

To Sloan's relief, the FBI agent finally decided to help her out of the impossible predicament she was in, and he contributed an explanation. "I'm in the insurance business," he said politely.

"Really!" Sara said with an enthusiasm Sloan knew she didn't really feel. Sara wanted a rich husband for herself and she was determined that Sloan should have one, too. "Insurance is such an interesting field. Do you handle commercial, residential, or personal?"