Claimed by the Secret Agent (5 page)

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she promised. Her smile looked real this time, but he didn’t trust it much.

He wished they hadn’t had this conversation. Now it wasn’t only her physical well-being he had to worry
about. She’d been hurt somehow and in some way he was afraid he couldn’t fix.

Sometimes the worst scars of all didn’t show.

M
arie felt fairly comfortable with Tyndal today. He was holding her hand, and she’d almost gotten used to that. Sort of liked it, too. Maybe that wasn’t wise, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Where are we going?”

He pocketed the phone he was still holding. “I thought maybe we’d hit a few of the little shops, walk down to the city center. You haven’t been here before, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy it while we have some free time. I’m afraid the museums will be too crowded, though, and we should stay ready to respond.”

“We should be watching his hotel.” She hated to protest because she really did want to tour the city. Who knew when she’d get another chance?

“The commissioner assured me the police would han
dle it. We’ll still be close by. I said we’d relieve two of the officers at nine tonight. If anything breaks, they’ll call.” He smiled at her and nodded at one of the quaint little shops. “Any particular kind of souvenir you’d like to buy?”

“A diamond, of course!” she said, laughing. “Isn’t that what this place is famous for?”

“Well, they’re pretty good at cutting them up, so I hear. Hope your credit card balance is healthy.”

“Not
that
healthy,” she admitted. “Let’s look in there.” She darted into one of the shops and began browsing, thinking a small piece of delftware would be nice.

They shopped for several hours and spent the rest of the day seeing the sights. After a late dinner, they retrieved Grant’s car from the parking lot and went to work.

Marie had to remind herself why she was there. Grant had kept her so busy that the events of the past few days had faded. It was as if their little sojourn had turned into a vacation. When she mentioned it to him, he admitted that distraction had been his intent.

“You needed to regroup and unwind a bit,” he had said.

Maybe he was right about that, but she hated his presuming that she couldn’t handle it, that she had to be coddled. Nobody coddled her unless she instigated it to further her objectives. Nobody.

At nine o’clock that evening, Grant and Marie took their turn doing surveillance. They sat in Grant’s vehicle, parked on the sidewalk, half a block from the Zuider with a clear view of the main entrance.

There were only three exits, and the other two were being manned by another duo of local police. He and
Marie were watching the front because that was the most likely one Onders would use if he left. He had no reason to believe anyone was onto him.

Stakeouts were a necessary evil, usually boring as hell and uncomfortable, too. Gallons of coffee consumed in order to stay awake presented the problem of bathroom breaks. Having a partner helped. Of course, the person you were paired with made a difference.

He and Marie had already discussed the downside of the duty, listed their pet peeves and laughed about them. She hated humming, smoking and tongue clicking. He steamed over slurping, drumming fingers on the dash and incessant throat clearing.

Conversation quickly gave out as a general rule and left little other than the annoying munch of whatever snacks were involved and the interminable sighs of discontent. Surprisingly that was not so this time.

He certainly wouldn’t classify Marie as a chatterbox, and neither was he. They spoke occasionally when a topic occurred, but it didn’t seem forced, and the silences were agreeable, even comfortable. Points for her.

He liked that she didn’t try too hard to be charming and sound smart. She was both without any effort at all, and he wished he could tell her that without sounding as if he were coming on to her.

Her soft laugh drew his attention. “What?” he asked, smiling at her delighted expression.

“Look there.” She pointed to a couple on bicycles across the street. They must be eighty if they’re a day!”

The two were stealing glances at each other as they
pedaled and giggled about something one of them must have said. Grant watched them until they rode out of sight. “Statistics prove older people are happier. Did you know that? You’d think it would be the other way around, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess most of your problems are either solved or accepted by then. You needn’t worry so much about impressing people anymore and can just be yourself.”

Grant thought about that and what made her say it. “You worry about impressions?” He had been thinking the opposite about her only moments before.

“Only relating to the job. You know, ditzy blonde so that I’m underestimated. Party girl so I can flit around, eavesdropping.”

He nodded and slid a glance over her dark jeans, black sweater and the cap that covered her hair. “Androgynous spy.”

She laughed again. “Androgynous?”

“Not exactly. The bumps on the front sort of give you away.” And the beautiful features, the graceful hands and that rounded little butt that filled out those Calvin Klein’s to perfection, he didn’t add.

“Ah, you noticed the bumps?”

“Nice bumps. Who wouldn’t?”

“Well, thanks. I think.”

“You’re welcome. Seriously, do you run into many problems on the job? I mean, you must get a lot of unwanted attention with that butterfly thing you do. Propositions and such. Isn’t your cover sort of an open invitation to hits?”

“The worst part of the job, but I’m getting pretty good at duck-and-run with a smile over the shoulder. Gets dicey sometimes,” she admitted.

Grant couldn’t help the stab of anger at men who would take advantage of a young woman who appeared guileless and not too brainy. “That’s dangerous ground, Marie. Maybe you should rethink your approach and tone it down a little.”

Her smile faded to a stony frown. “And maybe you should do a little review on your own training. Whatever weapon works best at the time, you use it.”

“Mind my own business, huh?”

“Got that right.” She pouted for a little while, then blew out a sigh and shifted in her seat. “Is there any more coffee in that Thermos?”

Grant handed it over and watched her drink from the cup top. She slurped noisily, intentionally, her gaze locked on his, deliberately trying to annoy him, daring him to comment. He knew she wanted a fight, so he merely smiled, clicked his tongue and said. “Lovely manners.”

She finished the coffee quietly and screwed the cap back on. “Okay, truce?”

“Truce,” he agreed.

It was a long shift and he’d rather spend it with her than alone or with anyone else. He liked being with her, period. She was an enigma, that was for sure. Unpredictable, fascinating and beautiful as quicksilver.

And a bigger distraction than any he had experienced on a mission. Grant locked his fingers behind his head and concentrated on the entrance to the hotel.

Marie was up early the next morning in spite of their late night on watch. She showered and dressed for another day of exploring the city. There seemed to be little else to do but kill time until they had a break in the case.

She figured if Onders didn’t make a move soon, however, he’d be arrested and interrogated in hopes of discovering who had hired him.

When she returned to the bedroom, Grant was already dressed and on the phone. Suddenly, he flipped it shut. “The commissioner. We’ve got a situation.”

Without further explanation, he started getting his things together. Marie rushed to catch up, and they were soon ready to leave.

He still hadn’t told her what was going on or where they were going, but she held her questions, giving him time to formulate a plan.

At the moment he was frowning over a small tourist map.

“Is Onders on the move?” she asked finally.

“Another abduction, one of the clerks at the U.S. consulate at Museumplein. Never been there.”

“Get the car,” Marie told him. “If we cut through from this street on Van Baerlestraat, it’s a straight shot.”

He frowned a second, then his expression cleared. “Oh, the map’s in your head.”

“Yep. The consulate’s near the Van Gogh Museum. Know where that is?”

He nodded and they hurried downstairs. “When did he take her?” Marie asked.

“Early this morning.”

“On our watch?”

“Maybe, but Onders didn’t come out that front door. That much I know. Maybe he didn’t do it.”

Marie felt a burning in the pit of her stomach. She could almost taste whatever it was that had knocked her out when she had been taken, and she remembered the feeling of outrage when she woke up.

Valet parking delivered Grant’s car to the entrance and they hopped in. Grant had automatically gone to the driver’s side even though she was the one who knew exactly how to get where they were going. Typical male, Marie thought with a huff, but didn’t waste time arguing.

“We have to find her, Grant,” she said, then recalled those questions she’d never had a chance to ask. “How’d you locate me?”

“Your locator chip. She doesn’t have one.”

“I know it’s there, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t give a thought to depending on it. So, they knew where I was all the time? The Company, I mean? Why didn’t they—”

“We were detailed to do it. It’s our case now.”

“Well, can’t you…zone in on her or whatever you claim to do? If you have something she would have touched? You did it with Onders’s little list.”

“Nope. Doesn’t work that way. She would have to be the one deciding where to go, or at least know where she was going.” He glanced over at her. “A believer now, are you?”

“Not really, just desperate to try anything and everything. Aren’t you?”

“Sure I am, and we do have an agent who’s an empath. He might be able to locate her if
she
knows
where she is. That’s a big if, though. I’ll call as soon as we reach the consulate.”

They were all a bunch of nuts at COMPASS, Marie thought, but she held on to the hope that she was wrong. Surely the government wouldn’t put so much faith and funds into a group of self-defined psychics if they hadn’t proved they could do
something
out of the ordinary.

What if it were true? Grant
was
pretty convincing. Suppose the team did consist of empaths, mind readers and vibe seekers like him? Would she fit in? Her edge wouldn’t seem all that keen stacked against theirs, would it? She shook her head. Man, what a strange decision to have to make, based on criteria that was even stranger.

M
arie and Grant reached the consulate in under six minutes. After identifying themselves, they spoke with Acting Chief Brunson to get the details.

Marie automatically stood aside and took the subordinate role for practical reasons. Grant might obtain more information directly than she could, since they were dealing with a man.

“Cynthia Rivers was abducted from her flat on Ruysdahl between two and three this morning,” he informed them. “Her roommate, who tends bar at one of the nightspots in the Center, found Cynthia missing when she came in from her late shift. She said there were signs of a struggle.”

“Could we see her file?” Grant asked.

“Our personnel records are strictly confidential,” Brunson said. His glance fell on a blue folder on the side of his desk.

“If you have a photo of her, that might be helpful,” Grant told him. “Perhaps you could answer a few questions about her that wouldn’t compromise her privacy?”

Brunson looked doubtful, but he drew the folder in front of him and opened it. A photo was clipped to the top right-hand corner, and he removed it, handing it to Grant.

Marie lasered in on the upside-down form as Grant fired off questions to distract Brunson. Then she shifted her gaze to the typed copy opposite the form and recorded that. The fifteen seconds or so that Grant afforded her had to be enough because Brunson closed the folder and set it aside.

“Thank you, sir. You’ve been a big help.” Then Grant took her arm and turned to leave. “Let’s go.”

She prayed they could find the young woman before she was harmed. “We’re going to her address, aren’t we?” Marie asked after they’d left Brunson’s office.

“Yeah. Your head map still working? Where is it?”

Marie stopped and closed her eyes, visualizing the map of the city she’d committed to memory. “It’s a straight shot going toward the A10 exit.”

“How efficient you are, little MapQuest,” he said with a short laugh. “What would I do without you?”

“I doubt Rivers will be ransomed, Grant. She’s a small-town girl, went to a community college, then on scholarship to Mercer University. Her father’s a landscaper and her mom’s a housewife. They live in Shelby, Arkansas.”

“You got that from her file? Reading it upside down?”

“Are you impressed?” she asked with a smile.

“Utterly astounded. Let’s go find this young lady.”

When they reached the apartment building, police cars blocked the street. People were going in and coming out like ants.

Marie didn’t envy the police collecting evidence. “Not exactly a secure scene, is it?”

Grant strong-armed his way through the crowd near the entry, flashed his badge and asked for the chief inspector. Marie held up her badge and followed in his wake, curious to see what he would do next.

He had a few words with the inspector, who acted friendly enough to a strange American agent elbowing his way into an ongoing investigation.

Grant could be pushy—that was for sure. She didn’t realize just how pushy until he reached behind him and grabbed her hand, dragging her along to the apartment.

Cynthia Rivers had fought for her freedom. It hadn’t been nearly as easy as when the kidnapper took her, Marie thought. “Could this have been a different guy, maybe? The timing for one thing. And there were never signs of a struggle.”

Grant shrugged. “Maybe.” He left her at the door and went inside the room as if he belonged there.

What the hell was he doing? Contaminating the scene, for one thing. Hindering the forensics person, for another. The gloved woman didn’t look quite as agreeable as the inspector had and was railing at Grant in Dutch.

He ignored her, picking up first one scattered object,
then another and another. Eyes closed and tuning her out. Or maybe tuning in to something else.

Now he was holding a bath sponge, of all things, squeezing it between his hands. He sniffed it and made a face. Marie felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

Could he really get something like that? She watched as he slowly placed it back on the floor where he’d found it.

“Enough!” cried the forensics woman.

“Yes, that’s enough,” Grant agreed. He nodded to the irate examiner as he stood. “Thank you, and I apologize for the interruption.”

He went over to the window, took out his cell phone and made a call. Marie stayed where she was by the doorway until he joined her.

“I can’t believe they let you do that,” Marie exclaimed.

“I told the inspector I was looking for similarities to the last victim of the Embassy Kidnapper. He had orders to cooperate.”

“What
were
you doing with that bath sponge, by the way?”

Instead of answering, he took her hand to lead her back outside. “We’re going to Gouda.”

She started to jerk her hand away out of habit, but didn’t. It felt somehow right to let him hold it at the moment. She even threaded her fingers through his. “Gouda? Where they make that cheese?”

“That’s where he was headed with her.”

“Onders?”

Grant inclined his head and shrugged. “Like you said, the M.O. is different. He overpowered her, prob
ably knocked her out. There was chloroform on the sponge—pretty much dissipated now, though. Maybe it evaporated too quickly to be effective.”

“That forensics lady was about to knock
you
out!”

“I don’t blame her. But I had to pick up on the kidnapper’s energy.”

“And you did?”

Grant nodded. “He carried her over his shoulder. He was thinking about where he could stash her and worrying about the lack of planning. This was a rush job, maybe to make up for losing you.”

“So how’d you get Gouda out of all that?”

“He was going there with her. Had to. That means there’s probably someone there calling the shots.”

Marie hated to leave without seeing more of Amsterdam, but finding this woman was the top priority. Catching the kidnapper ran a close second. She was as eager as Grant was to take up the chase.

When had she begun to trust his instincts or whatever it was that led him? Marie wondered. Looking back, it was probably when they found that Onders was actually in Amsterdam.

“What about Onders? Is he still under surveillance?”

“I hope so. Call and inform them we won’t be relieving them today, would you?” He reached in his pocket and handed her his phone and a card with the number. “This is the force coordinator. Don’t mention the lead we’re following just yet. I could be wrong.”

“You? Wrong?” She laughed as she punched in the number. “Oh, right, that 20 percent margin of error we have to worry about.”

“I’m pretty sure about it,” Grant said, obviously not taking offense. He even seemed amused by her doubt.

Minutes later she related the news to Grant. “Onders is in the wind, and they just discovered it. He must have sneaked out of his hotel somehow and grabbed the clerk.”

“It seemed like a different energy. Not the same thought patterns.”

“You want to explain that?” she asked, trying to sound polite when she wanted to shake him till his teeth rattled.

“Later. I’m thinking right now.”

Fortunately for him, Grant didn’t sound petulant or annoyed, only distracted, so she let it go.

The ride to Gouda proved uneventful and silent. Marie wondered if he thought talking about his findings would jinx the op.

She gave him his time to think and enjoyed the scenery. The day was great, sunny and cool and perfect for open windows to enjoy the sweetness of the air. Small wonder it smelled sweet, since this was the flower capital of the world. Acres of them somewhere nearby she imagined as she inhaled.

It seemed so unreal that they were out chasing evil on a day like today. Even more so when they arrived in the picturesque little town of Gouda.

“What a fairy-tale place! Look at that spire. Wow, that has to be a thousand years old! And they have an open-air market. Turn—you can’t drive through there. Pedestrians only.”

“I know. I’ve been here before, but it’s been a long time. My dad was stationed in Germany, and Holland was one of our favorite vacation spots.”

“You mentioned before that you were a military brat. That must have been interesting.” She had another piece of the Grant Tyndal puzzle. He hadn’t shared much about himself at all since they’d met, and she was curious. “It’s not fair that you know almost everything about me from my file and I know hardly anything about you.”

“Not much to know,” he replied, “and none of it secret except what I do for a living. You already know that.”

None of it secret, huh? Well, that was one thing they didn’t have in common, and she wasn’t inclined to share any of her own Kodak moments. The personal Q&A should end right here. He might have the facts in her file but nothing she hadn’t been willing to reveal.

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“Find a place to stay, I guess, since there’s nothing else we can do for the moment. We’ll have to wait for the commissioner to return my call. He promised to get an address here for a phone number.”

Marie resented his keeping things from her. “What phone number?”

He sighed, pulled up on the sidewalk in front of a three-story building and parked. “He was thinking of a number he had to call. So far, that’s all I know. With any luck Onders is headed here, too, if he isn’t the one who took her.”

“They’re with the Hofstad Group, you think?”

“Maybe, maybe not. This…well, it feels like its motivated more by greed than a zealous political or religious act. At least where this perpetrator is concerned.”

“Vibes again, huh?” she asked, realizing only after the words were out that she sounded condescending.

He shot her a look of exasperation. “Look, I get that you think I’m making this up as we go, but spare me the sarcasm, will you?”

“Sorry,” she said, ducking her head a little and wincing. “It’s just strange, that’s all. You have been on the money so far—I’ll give you that much. Maybe if you explained it more, if it can be explained, it wouldn’t seem quite so hocus-pocus.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “I touch objects and through residual energy I collect their history, initially their most immediate history.”

“For instance?”

He thought for a minute, his hands still resting on the steering wheel. “Say I’m holding a very old clay pot. The energy would have, like, layers. First, I’d get the person who evaluated its age, then the archaeologist who discovered it, the ancient who used it and finally the one who created it. I’d get what they felt at the moment, general emotions or impressions. Now and then, words, if they thought in words. People don’t always. And sometimes they think in a language I don’t understand.”

“What about the people who owned it in between?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Only if they spent a lot of energy on it or a lot of time handling it. I have to concentrate, then stop at the level that reveals what I need. It’s taken years of experimenting and training to control it. Well,
usually
I control it. As I told you, my success rate is only around 80 percent.”

“So, that sponge you found. The kidnapper had it last and invested a little time doctoring it up.”

“Then tossed it as useless,” Grant said. “It belonged to Cynthia. He found it in her bathroom. That’s where he waited for her.”

She still didn’t believe it, but she believed he believed. “What about touching people? They’d have a purer energy, right? Why can’t you read minds?”

He smiled and placed a palm on the side of her face. “Right now you’re humoring me. You think I’m a pretty good guesser. The list we found was in Dutch, so Amsterdam was a fair bet. You can’t explain Gouda, but they make great cheese here so you decided to come along for the ride.”

Marie brushed his hand away and scoffed. “I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

He laughed. “Sure you were, but no, I’m not telepathic. It’s just written all over your pretty face.”

Pretty?
Without any makeup, wearing her worst color, hair hidden under a baseball cap? He thought she was pretty. She felt herself blush. “Now who’s being sarcastic?” she demanded with a grin.

“False modesty doesn’t become you a bit, Beauclair. You know how beautiful you are. You work on and use it, too. You already admitted that.”

“I’m not working on it now. And I’m not telling you anything else.”

He tapped a finger on her nose. “I’ll bet when you applied to the Company, you played it down then, too. No war paint, hair pulled straight back, maybe even darkened a few shades. Wore a gray suit not designed to
flatter, pants to cover up those fantastic legs.” He paused, squinting at her face. “And glasses, I’m thinking. Yeah. You’d have worn those, ugly horn-rims. Close?”

She simply stared at him. How could he possibly know that? “You’re guessing, that’s all. Any idiot would know I wouldn’t apply for a
job
looking like a brainless twit, even if I was going to use it as a cover later.”

He laughed. “Come on, mouse, let’s go register. Want to share quarters again? You know it will be more convenient if we do.”

She opened her own door and hopped out, not waiting for him to play the gent. “Well, I’m not sure about that, Tyndal. Knowing you think I’m
pretty
might just make me nervous.”

He grabbed their bags out of the trunk, tossed her hers and grinned. “Even if I promise not to touch your…things?”

Lord, she hadn’t had time to consider that. What if he really
could
get feelings, emotions and even words?

She grasped her little tote closer to her body, then shook her head at the weird thought.

But he had known about the gray suit and glasses. A good guess, indeed.