Crazy Love (25 page)
Authors: Tara Janzen
He unlocked the car and handed Gillian in before giving back the keys.
“Straight home?” He wanted to make sure.
“Straight.” She nodded, sliding into the butter-soft, custom black leather interior.
“Five minutes, then.” It shouldn’t take more, not in Coralie, but he never took anything for granted, not with her.
“Two, if we blow the lights,” she said, glancing back up at him.
He grinned and shook his head.
“Not on my watch, babe. Five minutes.” He turned and headed toward his Jeep.
Behind him, he heard the GTO start up, the deep rumbling purr of her engine and headers echoing in the back alley. Coralie had been a gift to Gillian from Dylan, a classic piece of muscle for the woman they’d all been too late to save. The boss had been the target that night, not a sweet faced, tousle-haired, thirty-year-old “wannabe” assistant trying to work her way up the ladder in General Grant’s office.
She still had a sweet face, sweetly exotic, except when seen from the bore end of an M40 rifle or her TC Contender single shot pistol. “Sweet” wasn’t the word that came to mind in those situations. She had a Glock 17 long slide reworked to a .40 Smith and Wesson in her fanny pack, and a seven-inch Recon Tanto sheathed in her boot—razor sharp. He’d seen the clip of her folding knife hooked over her pants pocket. He knew if he looked, he’d find a 12-gauge tactical shotgun under Coralie’s front seat, a flat black beauty called Nightshade that Gillian kept loaded with double-ought buck and rifled slugs.
Two knives, a shotgun, and a semiautomatic pistol, just to visit the neighborhood bar. Nobody touched Red Dog. No man could get a hand on her, not on his own.
But Royce wouldn’t be alone when he came. The ex-CIA agent had recruited a dozen of the most notorious mercenaries operating on the international scene to headline his underworld organization, every one of them a hardened criminal, the kind of men who would kill each other for the right price. The DOD had dubbed them the Damn Dirty Dozen, and they were on wanted lists from London to Laos, their reputations the stuff of people’s nightmares.
Travis knew each of them by name, face, and rap sheet. He’d made it his business to know, and if Tony Royce had moved into El Salvador, they’d been there with him—with Red Dog not nearly far enough behind.
She was going to get herself killed, unless he got to Royce before Royce got to her—so he hunted. He followed the mercs, he followed the money, he followed the deals, always looking for the man who stayed hidden behind it all—Tony Royce. Two weeks ago, a source had pinpointed the former government agent in Bangkok. But when he and Kid had gotten to Thailand the trail had been cold, and it had stayed cold—until now.
Gillian was wrong. El Salvador wasn’t far away, not at all. Travis would be there in a matter of hours.
Rounding the tail end of his Jeep, he glanced down at his license plate—SRCHN4U—and a brief smile twisted his lips. He’d spent his whole life searching for something—the astral plane, the perfect meditation, the solution for other people’s problems—but nothing had ever compelled him with more deadly and serious intent than the search for the man who had destroyed Gillian Pentycote’s mind and turned her into a highly professional, highly paid covert operator who only knew herself by the code name Red Dog.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tara Janzen lives in Colorado with her husband, children, and two dogs, and is now at work on her next novel. Of the mind that love truly is what makes the world go ’round, she can be contacted at
www.tarajanzen.com
. Happy reading!
ALSO BY TARA JANZEN
Crazy Hot
Crazy Cool
Crazy Wild
Crazy Kisses
AND COMING SOON
Crazy Sweet
CRAZY LOVE
A Dell Book / July 2006
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2006 by Tara Janzen
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33615-0
v3.0