To the Limit (18 page)

"I'm sorry, but I'm unable to take your call. Please leave a message."

She left a message, then tried Katrina Hofsteader. It was a long shot that she'd find Katrina in the city, but Eve gave it a try anyway—and got lucky.

Hofsteader's housekeeper answered on the second ring. "I'm sorry, Ms. Hofsteader is out."

"Can you tell me when you expect her back?"

"I couldn't say, ma'am. Possibly later this afternoon. May I take a message?"

Eve left her cell number, as she had with Margaret Reed's voice mail, asked that the housekeeper relay to Ms. Hofsteader that she was calling about Tiffany Clayborne and to impart the urgency of returning her call as soon as possible.

Now all she could do was wait. She checked her watch, gave a passing thought to McClain, his black eye and bum leg, and grabbed her jacket. McClain accounted for too many passing thoughts, she decided in disgust as she headed out of her room.

She didn't get it. Other than the fact that he was an aggravation—which upgraded his status from triple-A to quad—there was no reason to waste gray matter thinking about the man. And his disarming smiles. And wiseass remarks. And that sleepy, sexy question he'd posed last night in the heat of a Key West night.

Am I growing on you, cupcake?

In his X-rated dreams.

Tyler McClain proved the axiom: Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional. He hadn't grown emotionally. He was still just a big little kid.

"So, that makes him what?" she muttered to herself when the
elevator doors opened and deposited her on the lobby floor. "A jumbo shrimp?"

Amused with her
little joke but peeved with herself for getting sidetracked, she double-checked the address she'd pulled from the phone book with the concierge, then headed out of the hotel toward the subway stop.

Things had changed since she'd last been to the city. No more tokens. Only MTA cards. She bought a rechargeable yellow card and caught the F train to Brooklyn. She still had friends in the Secret Service in the field office. Friends she could count on and who were nothing like Tyler McClain, on whom she could
not
count. At 4:40 she was sitting across the desk from one in her old boss's office at 335 Adams in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn.

"I'm fifty-five flicking years old and you're asking me where the 'in' spots are? You're asking me about—what the hell was it?"

"Raves. Clubs where the rich and famous go to party. Where they play punk, glam ... maybe some new wave or Gothic. And metal. It's music, Bob," she added with a laugh when he looked at her like she was speaking Martian. "God, I've missed you."

Bob Gleason had been supervisor, mentor, and friend when she'd spent her six years as a Secret Service field officer in the city. He was overworked and overweight, with the drooping bags under his eyes and the bulldog jowls the most obvious tells, but the gaze from his silver-gray eyes was still as sharp as a stiletto. And he still smelled like mint and comfort. Just like she remembered.

Eve had just transferred out of New York City to D.C. and protection duty for Vice President Hargrave's daughter when the world changed on 9-11. As usual, Bob had been at work on the ninth floor of Number 7 World Trade Center, where the field office had been located until that horrendous day. He'd saved lives. He'd made a difference.

Eve missed making a difference, too. Sometimes she wondered if that was why she was so certain Tiffany was in trouble. Maybe she needed to make a difference for Tiffany more than Tiffany needed to be found. Maybe she needed to know she wouldn't screw this up the way her career had been screwed up and she'd been screwed over.

In the meantime, she really did miss Bob. The framed photograph of the Twin Towers on the wall behind his desk spoke of his respect and sorrow for another time when their office was in another place. When they'd lived in another world where terrorism happened everywhere but here.

Bob leaned back in his chair, shoved his bifocals up on his nose, and laced his fingers across his middle where his white shirt tugged at the buttons. "So, how you doin', kiddo? Things goin' OK?"

She hadn't given him a chance to ask that question yet, but she'd known it was coming. "Things are great."

"You're good with the security business, then?"

"Sure. Never a dull moment."

He considered her, then shook his head. "You should still be with the Service. You were one of the best. Those bastards sold you out."

She agreed. What had happened to her—losing her job— wasn't right. But it was the way things worked in the bureaucratic food chain. Big fish ate the little ones. One chomp. It was all she wrote.

"Yeah, well. You want to argue with the president of the United States?"

"'Worthy of trust and confidence,'" Bob muttered the Secret Service motto. "You were worthy of both."

"It's old news, Bob. I've put it behind me." At least she'd tried. "And I do like what I'm doing now. It's a plus being back home. A plus working with my brothers, although, I've got to tell you, there was a time I would have choked on those words before admitting it."

"Well," he said, seeing that she didn't want to rehash ancient history, "I'm glad. And you look great. Florida must agree with you."

"Being home agrees with me."

"Which begs the question, if home is so great, why are you here looking for nightspots? And don't tell me you're on vacation."

"Actually—don't get bent out of shape now—I'm looking for Tiffany Clayborne."

He blinked. Then swore. "Are you nuts?"

"Probably."

Very briefly, she filled Bob in on her search for Tiffany and her fear that she might be in trouble.

"And then there's this other little thing."

He searched her face. "How little?"

"OK. Maybe it's big."

She told him about the attacks and the notes.

"Fuck."

"My brothers pretty much sum it up that way, too," she said, and in spite of the gravity of the situation found herself smiling.

And in the end, that's why she was here. She hadn't really expected Bob to be of any help with the club scene information, but she couldn't resist the chance to talk to him. He always made her smile.

"Someone you bumped noses with in the Service?" he speculated with a frown.

She shrugged. "Don't know. My brothers are doing some digging."

"Have 'em call me. I'll do some checking tomorrow."

"Enough of this. Tell me what's happening with you," she insisted, and for a few minutes more he did. They kibitzed about his wife, and Eve made the right noises over photos of his beautiful grandkids before she decided it was time to let him go home to his family.

Her cell rang just as she stood up to leave. When she dug the phone out of her purse and checked the digital readout her heart gave an excited little lurch. And because it did, she considered not answering.

Disgusted, she punched talk, lifted the cell to her ear, and gave it her best bothered voice. "What do you want, McClain?"

"We need to talk."

"And obviously I need to change my cell number."

"Here I thought we were getting to be good buddies."

"What do you want?" she repeated.

"If you haven't left Florida yet, catch the nearest flight to New York. Call me with your flight number and I'll meet you at the airport."

Her oversize purse landed on Bob's desk with a thump. "You're in New York?"

"Look, we don't really have time to play Twenty Questions. The thing is, I think you're right."

She was still processing the news that McClain wasn't limping around Key West following a very cold trail when he spoke again.

"I'm beginning to think Tiffany might be in some trouble."

He had her complete attention now. "And?"

"And we need to talk," he restated with staged patience. "Now would you quit wasting time and just get on a damn plane?"

She debated for the length of a wary breath. "Hold on a sec." She turned to Bob. "Is Time Squared still open?" she asked, referring to a bar where a bunch of them used to sometimes congregate after work. They'd catch the subway, tip a few, then scatter to the various parts of the city and their own private spaces.

Bob nodded.

"Where, specifically, are you?" she asked McClain.

When he told her, she gave Bob his location. "What do you think? Take him an hour or so to get there?"

"If he can snag a cab."

She turned back to the phone. "Got a pen?"

"Shoot."

She rattled off Time Squared's address. "Got it?"

"Yeah, but—"

"I'll be waiting."

"Waiting?" Silence. "Well, shit. You're already in New York." It wasn't a question. More of a "why didn't I already know that" statement.

"Now who's underestimating who?"

His chuckle held more resignation than humor. "Guess neither one of us will make that mistake again. See you in an hour."

She disconnected, then caught Bob's concerned look and grinned. "Life's just one surprise after another, isn't it?"

She filled him in on McClain—leaving out the parts that were giving her trouble, which made it a very brief briefing— as she gathered her things to go.

"Come on," Bob said. "I'm ready to blow this pop stand. I'll ride partway with you."

She'd been thinking of hailing a cab but decided that catching the subway with Bob would be like old times. By the time she'd trudged down the subway stop steps, bought her card, and pushed through the turnstile, she was having second thoughts about the car.

"How could I have forgotten rush hour?"

Beside her Bob just grinned, the rumble of the trains and the screech of brakes in the cavernous tunnel making it almost impossible to talk. So did the glut of bodies. The subway station was packed. It was body to body as she stood beside Bob on the platform, a little too close to the edge for comfort.

She'd just decided to step back when someone shoved her from behind. Hard.

She might have screamed as she felt herself falling. But all she could hear was the roar of the train speeding by like a bullet. All she could see was harsh light glinting like splinters off polished steel. The glare of glass spun by in a blur. She couldn't catch her balance. Couldn't break her fall. Was sure of only one thing: she was going down on the tracks.

They'd find her body splattered from here to Upper Manhattan.

And she hadn't wanted to die like this.

Chapter 12

"Deep breath. You're
OK.
You're
OK."

Eve blinked up and into Bob Gleason's tired eyes. Eyes that were wide and worried.

"Jesus," she said, and let out a breath that felt fractured and too full for her chest.

"Yeah." Bob gave her a hand and helped her stand on rubber legs. "I'd say he had a hand in helping me get to you."

The crowd had parted, Eve noticed; the faces of several onlookers were studies in curiosity and concern. She brushed herself off and made a quick body check. All digits present and accounted for.

"Someone pushed me," she said, finally meeting Bob's eyes.

"I know. I saw. It was either go after him or go after you. I made a grab and got lucky."

She couldn't help it. She threw her arms around him. Hugged him hard, which of course had him flushing about three shades of red and setting her back.

"Lucky for me you've got good hands," she said, very much aware of the unsteadiness in her voice and the rapid-fire beat of her heart, which was still reacting to the close call. "Did you get a look at him?"

"Just his back as he cut out of here. Arms were bare. He was Caucasian. Big. Broad. Wore a stocking cap, so I couldn't see his hair. Sound like anyone you know?"

"I've never seen him—but I know he was big and muscular."