The Bliss Factor (29 page)

“Rae? Conn is on his way to your house,” Annie said on a rush.

“He’s already here.” And Rae disconnected.

“I know you’re pissed off,” Conn said, “but I didn’t think you’d be this stupid. I checked on Harry and Joe. They’re out of jail, and if this isn’t the first stop on their hit parade, it’s the second. And you’ve got that damned trailer sitting in front of your house like a neon NO VACANCY sign.”

“I hope Harry and his friends show up.”

“But not me.”

There didn’t seem to be a need to agree with that, but it wasn’t for the reason Conn thought. She was afraid she couldn’t resist him.

She pointed to the door. “You can take the Airstream if it makes you feel better.”

“I came here to explain, and that’s what I intend to do.”

“Suit yourself.” She got up and came around the desk. At least she tried to.

He blocked her in, and before she could backpedal his hands were on her, framing her face.

“That won’t work anymore,” she said, even though she wanted him to kiss her more than she wanted her next breath.

He didn’t, just rested his forehead against hers. “I came here to explain. It’s the least I can do.”

She pulled free, slipped around him and out of the room, amazed that she managed it with every muscle in her body trembling. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I owe you my protection.”

“I don’t need it.”

“You don’t have a choice,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

Rae didn’t miss the part where he stationed himself between her and the back door. Like she was idiotic enough to run from a man twice her size and strength.

“It’s me or protective custody, and before you commit yourself you might want to consider your parents.”

She went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. She didn’t offer Conn any.

“Did you use them, too?” She’d wanted to hurt him, which was foolish since you couldn’t hurt someone who had no feelings. But that wasn’t why he was avoiding her eyes. “Who are you, and what do my parents have to do with any of this?”

Rae had expected him to prevaricate. He looked her square in the eyes and said, “I’m FBI. Your parents are counterfeiters, along with several of their friends.”

She went deaf for a second, blind and breathless, too, as though all the air had been sucked out of the room. “You’re lying,” she finally managed to strangle out, the words thin and weak, even to her own ears.

“Think about it,” Conn said. “A bunch of people on the fringe who don’t want to file tax returns, let alone obey laws. They thought they could get away with making a bit of cash. Literally.”

Rae didn’t want to believe it. Unfortunately it was just the kind of thing her parents would do for just the reason he’d given. And then there was the cloth she’d seen on her father’s loom, God, not even a week ago. She didn’t even try to absorb how much her life had changed in six short days, beginning with Conn in her bed and ending with her parents being . . . She couldn’t bring herself to call them felons yet. But the cloth on her father’s loom had been stiff, almost paper consistency, the ink swirled on it copper or green depending on how the light hit it. Just like the new bills the government was printing. There was the iPhone, too, and her mother’s hesitation and uncertainty on the phone just moments before.

Rae leaned back against the kitchen island, all the breath leaking out of her. But she couldn’t stand still. She opened the water bottle and didn’t drink. Her mind was moving a million miles a second. She couldn’t hold on to a single thought.

Until she noticed the pity on Conn’s face. It wasn’t a thought she settled on, though. It was a feeling, and the feeling was fury. She refused to give him the satisfaction. “You dropped the bomb,” she said when she could keep her voice steady, “now clean up the mess.”

Conn shook his head. “You constantly amaze me.”

“You constantly lie to me. Try not to.”

“The sarcasm I was expecting. I just figured there’d be tears and shouting and, you know, violence first.”

“Yeah, I’m a constant surprise,” Rae said, still pacing because she was pretty sure she hadn’t heard the worst. “Move on.”

“This is all classified, Rae. I’m telling you because—”

“Don’t.”

Conn scrubbed a hand back through his hair.

Rae looked away. She didn’t want to see the sympathy on his face, just like she didn’t want to hear any justifications. She had to do what he was doing. She had to keep emotion out of this, or she wouldn’t get through it. “Start talking,” she said, “and don’t leave anything out.”

“I was born on a rainy morning in July.”

“Even the heavens wept.”

He grinned. “You said don’t leave anything out.” “Your birth is over-sharing.”

“What’s your view on Special Forces?”

“Sounds pertinent.”

“That’s what brought me here,” Conn said, turning serious. “Marines, then Special Forces until I opted out. The only thing I was fit for in the private sector was cop or bodyguard or security of some kind. I didn’t want that.”

“So you joined the FBI?”

He shrugged, a gesture that almost made her miss Conn the Armorer before she remembered he didn’t really exist.

“No confusion, no fuckups,” he said.
No kids with bombs strapped to them, no civilians who turned out to be enemy combatants, no split-second decisions where he had to make a judgment call and kill based on it.
“I wanted to know who the bad guys are and go after them,”

“And my parents are the bad guys?”

“They broke the law.”

“There have to be mitigating circumstances.”

“It won’t matter. Printing money is the exclusive province of the Unites States government, and they have no tolerance, no sense of humor, and no mercy when it comes to dealing with counterfeiters.”

“You picked some really terrifying bad guys.”

“I don’t pick the missions, they pick me. The U.S. Secret Service has exclusive jurisdiction in counterfeiting cases, but they needed someone with special talents, so Mike Kovaleski, my handler, agreed to loan me to them. I have a degree in history, with a minor in major global conflict.”

“There’s a shocker.”

“Before I came I did a lot of research on medieval history, thinking it would be necessary.”

“And once you got here you realized these things bear no resemblance whatsoever to what the Renaissance was really like.”

“True, but when I got cracked over the head all that medieval stuff was right there, waiting to fill in the gaps in my memory.”

“My parents didn’t hit you over the head.”

“If you’re asking me if Annie and Nelson are on my suspect list, the answer is yes.”

“Why would they hit you then take care of you?”

“I don’t believe they’re responsible for organizing the crime.”

“They wouldn’t hire Harry and Joe and Kemp, either.”

“Again, I agree with you, but they’re counterfeiting, Rae. They might not be the ringleaders, but they’re participating. It makes them suspects.”

“But you agree there’s someone else involved.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Can’t say. Yet.”

Rae studied his face, and she didn’t like what she saw. “You’re not telling me the truth.”

“I don’t know what the truth is,” Conn said. “Not all of it anyway.”

“Then I suggest we find out.”

“We?”

She huffed out a breath. “You don’t think I’m going to sit back while my parents are up to their necks in trouble.”

“Whatever is going on, it’s getting serious. I can’t keep an eye on you and wrap this mess up at the same time.”

Rae pushed to her feet. “Let me make it easy for you. I’m not your problem.”

“I got you into this.”

“My parents got me into this.”

“The op is heating up,” Conn said, slowly and clearly.

“If you think being deliberately patronizing is going to put me off, guess again.”

“You’re being bullheaded. Harry and his friends have gone from fists to guns in the space of a week.”

“I know. I was there. They may come off as Stooges, but if they were trying to kill us, we’d be dead. Look, there’s no point in arguing,” she said when Conn tried to do just that. “I’ll take the Airstream back, you follow me in the car.”

“Then what?”

“Then we find my parents and get some answers.”

“Don’t you think I tried that already?”

She met his eyes. “I didn’t.”

RAE BACKED THE AIRSTREAM INTO THE SAME SPOT it had occupied before she’d borrowed it, and okay, it took her three tries, but she had to give her parents credit. They were right there, waiting for her, along with a really attractive, dangerous-looking man. A man who was dressed as a tourist, but had FBI written all over him. Thanks to Conn, she recognized it now.

Her mother climbed into the old rattletrap of a pickup they used to haul the trailer from place to place. Her father came around to the driver’s window, already open thanks to the lack of air-conditioning. Conn and the stranger stayed where they were.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Rae said.

“Give us a chance to explain, Sunny—”

“Stop.” Rae shoved both hands through her hair, scooping it up and jamming in a clip she dug from her purse. “I only want to know one thing. If you knew Conn was an FBI agent on a
mission
, a man who is completely wrong for me, why did you keep shoving me at him?”

“I thought it was the best way to make you run in the other direction. But we didn’t know he was FBI.”

Rae gave her mother a look.

“We knew he was hiding something,” Nelson put in, “but who here isn’t? We knew he wouldn’t hurt you, but your mother was only trying to protect you.”

“When will you stop treating me like a child?”

“You’ll always be my child.”

“I’m your daughter,” Rae said. “Your
grown
daughter. There’s a difference.”

She reached for the door handle, but for once her father wasn’t standing aside.

“Sunny,” he said quietly, putting his hand on her shoulder. “You’re not the kind of woman who runs away when things get tough.”

Rae laughed, but it was harsh and humorless. “I’m exactly that kind of woman. I ran away when I was eighteen.”

“You stepped out on your own.”

“Did I? I wonder how much of that was bravery and how much was manipulation.”

Nelson shook his head. “I’ve never been disappointed in you before now,” he said. And he walked away.

Later, Rae knew, that would devastate her, but at the moment she was too angry to be moved by it.

Then again, her face wasn’t wet because of Conn.

CONN LEFT RAE AND HER PARENTS TO THEIR FAM
ILY moment. He decided it was a good sign that he didn’t hear any yelling. But then, they hadn’t gotten to him yet.

Trip wandered over and stood at his right side. Conn took a step to the left.

Trip snorted out a laugh. “You’re probably going to need a friend.”

“In this line of work?”

“This is just a job,” Trip said.

“It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle.”

“Only for as long as you want it to be.”

“Maybe you should get some ugly glasses and a couch, and hang out a shingle.”

“I could definitely come up with some new approaches to anger management. Probably not court sanctioned, though.”

Nelson walked away from the pickup, looking like death warmed over. A minute later Annie jumped out of the front seat, digging her phone out of her skirt pocket. Rae exited the driver’s door and came around the front of the pickup, heading straight for Conn.

“Hold that thought,” he said to Trip. Anger management was definitely going to be an issue.

“I know that look,” he said to Rae when she planted herself in front of him. “Your mind is made up.”

“Yep.”

“I could take her off your hands,” Trip offered Conn.

“It’ll take more than a couch and a line of bullshit to survive her,” Conn said.

“Don’t spare my feelings just because I’m standing right here,” Rae said, and when Trip turned to her, she popped up an eyebrow, daring him to comment.

“On second thought,” he said, “you’re on your own, Larkin. Besides, Mike reached out. Puff MacArthur is getting out of jail tomorrow. Since you have this under control, I have an urge to make his acquaintance.”

“Lucius ‘Puff of Smoke’ MacArthur? He must be in his sixties by now.”

“And he’s sitting on the location of a cache of stolen loot.”

“He spent the last twenty-five years incarcerated with the worst criminals in the country, and none of them could convince him to give it up. Not to mention every local, state, and federal law enforcement officer will want to close this case.”

Trip grinned, and it was diabolical. “None of them are me.” And he took off.