True Lies (12 page)

The impact of his solid, muscular form knocked her speechless. She squirmed, but that only intensified the contact of their bodies. No.
No!
This couldn’t be happening. How could the nightmare be getting even worse? It was as if reality had shifted, like one of those children’s pictures that changed if it was viewed from a different angle. She felt sick, and she felt instant heat spark along her skin from the proximity of this man, and that made her feel even sicker.

“What price are you asking for your merchandise, McQuaig?” Bruce asked.

McQuaig laughed his rusty hinge noise again. “Which kind, Primeau? The shipment at the end of the week, or what you're holding now?”

He answered with a chuckle that was deep and ugly. “I'm referring to business. What I'm holding is pure pleasure.” He named a price for several kilos of cocaine that made those dots dance before Emma’s eyes again. McQuaig haggled briefly and demanded a down payment. Bruce demanded to test a sample before he took delivery. A bargain was struck in less than a minute.

Emma felt as if she were going to throw up.

Bruce let go of her wrist and fastened a powerful forearm around the small of her back. He reached past her to pick up his jacket, then twisted quickly and propelled her toward the office door. “Looks like I'll have some time to kill around here, sweet thing.” His fingers dug warningly into her ribs. “What do you say we go somewhere for a drink?”

She stumbled alongside him, her heels skidding on the gritty cement floor. She clutched at his hand, trying to pry it loose, but it was like trying to pry granite.

“You don’t mind if I borrow your pilot for a few hours, do you, McQuaig?” he called over his shoulder.

“If you're thinking of striking a private deal with her, forget it,” McQuaig replied. “We only use people we can rely on. Isn’t that right, Miss Duprey? You wouldn’t think of doing anything to change our arrangement, would you?”

Simon had cried on the phone. They would kill him if she didn’t deliver. She shook her head. “Of course not.”

“Then what you do on your own time doesn’t concern me,” McQuaig said. “Keep in touch, Primeau. Harvey will see you out.”

Bruce held her firmly to his side as they walked through the pools of light, his body strung tight with tension. Emma felt it the same way she felt his simmering anger. Why was he here? What was he doing? She looked up at him as they reached the outer door. Who was he?
What
was he? A mad hiccup rumbled from the place where she was suppressing all her roiling emotions. This was
Bruce.
A blue-eyed, sexy-like-a-snake Bruce.

The night air was cool and damp as they stepped outside. A gleaming black car was parked beside her blue pickup. Of course, she thought, feeling another hiccup bubble to her throat. This Bruce wouldn’t drive a beat-up old van, he would drive a Corvette. Did he trade in his vehicles like he traded in his clothes? And his body?

Bruce steered her toward the car. “This is for Harvey’s benefit,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear. His grip on her loosened for a moment. Before she could pull away, he rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “I saw a place a few blocks from here, sweet thing,” he said aloud in a voice that would be sure to carry to the man who still stood in the open warehouse doorway. “You can follow me in your truck.”

She wanted to scream. Bruce, you're not like this. You're gentle, and kind and tender. We shared our desserts. We talked about books. You held me while I cried, remember? You're a man I could grow to...

His hand dropped to her hip, his fingers caressing the curve of her buttock.

The gesture was a travesty. Emma felt something shrivel inside her. The peace of her cabin by the isolated lake had already been shattered, her simple joy in her skills as a pilot was being corrupted. Why shouldn’t the warmth of what she had shared with the shy accountant be destroyed, too? “Don’t touch me.”

His mouth stretched into a predatory smile as he tightened his grasp and pulled her closer. “It’s not only Harvey,” he said between his teeth. “There are eight men stationed around the warehouse. Get in your truck and follow me.”

She had to tip back her head to look at the stranger who held her. He was tall. And strong. He couldn’t be her Bruce. But he was.

With a low curse he moved his hand to her back and steered her to the passenger side of his car. “Okay, we'll do this the hard way,” he muttered, opening the door and pushing her inside. Before she could recover enough to react, he had rounded the hood and jumped into the driver’s side. The engine came to life with a powerful growl.

“No,” she gasped, reaching for the door handle. “I'm not going anywhere with you.”

He clicked the power locks and put the car into gear. The tires squealed on the pavement and she was thrown back against the seat. Bruce didn’t even glance at her. In the sliding bars of light from the scattered streetlights they passed, his profile looked as if it were carved from stone.

Emma braced her hands against the dashboard, feeling her grip on reality slip another notch toward hysteria. This was no rusty old van he was driving. The black car could go almost as fast as her plane. And he knew perfectly well how to handle it. That clumsy performance with the grinding gears and jerky starts that he’d put on when he’d driven up her driveway had been as phony as his shambling walk. Why? If he was a drug dealer, why had he masqueraded as a klutzy tourist?

Wide-eyed, she looked at the large, strong hands that gripped the wheel. Her gaze traveled up his arms, halting briefly at the firm biceps before going on to the broad shoulders and coming to rest on his profile once more. He was the same man. The nose was the same, so was the forehead and the cheeks and the masculine jaw she had glimpsed through the beard. But he wasn’t trying to hide his attractiveness. No, he was flaunting it. Her pulse raced, her thoughts spun like the tires that squealed across the darkened streets.

Bruce drove in silence. In a matter of minutes they had left the run-down area of the warehouse and were cruising toward a neon-lit strip of bars and old brick hotels. Without warning he abruptly turned the car into an alley and skidded to a stop.

“Okay, this will have to do,” he said. He twisted toward her. In the dim light from the dashboard his features took on a harsh, threatening cast. “First of all, let me say as one professional to another that your act is one of the best I've ever seen.”

No, she thought as she listened to the cruel tones. This wasn’t Bruce’s voice. Bruce was gentle, and sweet and understanding.

“You've managed to surprise me all along, but this tops everything,” he continued. “I was wrong about you. I can see that now.”

She shook her head, trying to regain some control over her wits. “Who are you?”

“You can forget the innocent act, Emma. I saw you with McQuaig. I heard you make your deal with him. You freely admitted that you were his pilot before you recognized me.”

“But I'm not—”

“Enough lies. It’s too late. From now on I'm going to do my job, and the hell with the way my body happens to react around you.” He reached across the cramped space between them and grasped her chin in his hand. “I'm through trusting you. I almost blew this whole operation because of you, and that’s not going to happen again. From now on, I'm not letting you out of my sight.”

She jerked away from his touch. “What are you talking about?”

He draped one arm over the steering wheel and braced the other on the back of her seat. “Don’t you think I saw the exact moment when you made me? I'm not going to give you the chance to tell your pals who I am. Until this is all over, I'll be sticking to you like glue, sweet thing.”

He must be crazy, Emma thought. He wasn’t making any sense. This entire situation didn’t make any sense. Why? her mind screamed. Why, why, why? It became a litany, the question repeated so many times it began to lose its meaning. Why would a drug dealer assume another identity like that? Why would he need to? Why did he stop her from revealing what she knew about him to Harvey and McQuaig? And why had he told her to play along or they’d both be dead? Emma remembered the concern he had shown the day before, and how he had tried to convince her to go to the police.

Why would a drug dealer want her to go to the police?

The police?

The truth was too glaring, too huge to take in all at once. Emma felt her reeling thoughts converge into the only possible answer.

No. Oh, good God,
no!
Not Bruce.

But there was no other explanation. He had lied. He had masqueraded as a clumsy tourist to put her off guard. He had manipulated his way into her confidence, had faked a friendship, had even kissed her. And she had blindly opened up to him and given him information about herself and her brother....

She focused on the incredibly handsome face that was so close to hers. And in that moment, she felt the tender feelings that had once begun to grow wither and die.

“You're a cop,” she said finally, woodenly.

“That’s right.”

If he had reached out and slapped her, it wouldn’t have hurt worse. “Prendergast or Primeau?”

“It’s Prentice, Bruce Prentice.”

“It’s cop. That’s who you are. You're a damn cop.” She pressed back against the door. Tears burned behind her eyes, but whether they were tears of anger, or disappointment or hurt, she didn’t want to know. The one thing that she was certain of was that she wasn’t going to let them fall. She wouldn’t let him see her cry. Not again.

“A damn good cop, until I met you.”

“A lying, sneaking, dirty—”

“Whatever you think of my job, it’s a hell of a lot cleaner than yours.”

“I'm not—”

“Oh, no. I'm not falling for the lies anymore, Emma. That was a good act you put on for me. I almost bought it, too. I almost believed you were innocent. I tried to ignore your background, and the way you lied to the sheriff. I even admired your skill with that airplane, the Cessna you're using to smuggle cocaine into the country. It’s a neat little operation you've got going up at that private lake. How long have you been flying for them?”

She clenched her jaw, trying to keep her chin from trembling.

“And what’s the story with your brother? Was he following in his big sister’s footsteps? Did you suddenly have conscience pangs about what you got him into?”

At the mention of Simon, a new anxiety knifed through her mind. Bruce was a cop. What would happen if McQuaig found out? They might think that she had led Bruce to them. They had already told her that they would kill Simon if she went to the police. But even if they didn’t find out, what would happen to Simon if Bruce stopped her from doing that run? His interference could cost Simon his life.

Emma could feel the anger radiating from his tense body. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him she was innocent. And to explain her innocence, she would have to admit Simon’s guilt. She couldn’t do that. The police had brought nothing but misery to her and her family throughout her life, and this cop was no exception. How could she even consider telling him the truth? He had lied to her from the very beginning. He had lied to her when he’d told her his name, and when he’d made her laugh and when he’d held her face between his palms and kissed her. The closeness had all been a lie. The feelings she’d had for him had been based on illusion.

“I asked you a question, Emma.”

She gazed into the startling blue eyes that held no warmth or mercy and studied the man that she had thought she’d known. She remembered her father, and her mother and her own lost dreams. And just as she had when she was eighteen and her world had crashed around her, she straightened her spine against the pain and stared back into the face of the law defiantly. “Go to hell, Bruce.”

Chapter 7

B
ruce hung up the telephone and watched Emma warily. She stood by the front window of the cabin, her shoulders rigid beneath the wrinkled linen of her rust-colored suit. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her legs braced slightly apart, her chin tilted up combatively.

She had been standing there looking out at the darkness of the silent lake since they had arrived here almost an hour ago. Although she hadn’t resisted when he had taken her back to the warehouse and instructed her to drive home, he had followed her cautiously, alert for any surprises. She’d had a few colorful words to say when he’d stored his Corvette in her shed and removed the distributor cap from her pickup, but she hadn’t tried to stop him. Still, he wasn’t fool enough to take her compliance for capitulation. He didn’t want to underestimate her or misjudge her again.

He gave Emma’s back a final glance before he squatted down and unplugged the telephone cord from the receptacle in the wall.

She pivoted to face him. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” he snapped. He picked up the phone, wrapped the cord around it, and walked to the desk where he disconnected the modem and stacked it on top of the phone.

He’d done a thorough check of the layout of the place. The cabin might look rustic, but it wasn’t primitive—the rolltop of this large desk had concealed a computer setup that could have belonged in a high-rise office. Besides the multipurpose main room, there was a bathroom with a deep, oversize tub and lush hanging ferns, a small spare room with colorful, woven wall hangings and a single bed, and Emma’s bedroom, which was dominated by a big four-poster with a comfortable-looking mattress.

He headed toward her bedroom now. Forcing himself to ignore the traces of the woman who inhabited it, the discarded tube of lipstick on the long dresser, the pair of jeans that lay in front of the open closet, he crossed the floor to the phone that rested on the bedside table. He unplugged it like the other, then straightened up and turned around.

“I told you I wouldn’t contact McQuaig,” Emma said. She stood in the doorway, her face carefully expressionless. “I have my own reasons for not wanting anyone to know I was conned by a cop. This isn’t necessary.”

“I'll decide what’s necessary and what isn’t.”

“Why don’t you just gag and handcuff me and get it over with, Mr. Policeman.”