FEARLESS (4 page)

Good thing she’d left her work case file when she’d run off. The documents inside helped him track her identity and find her apartment. She hadn’t run back there, so he couldn’t tie up that end, but the trip hadn’t been a total waste. Not after he borrowed a few items.

And it had only taken him a few minutes to find exactly what he needed to take back and plant in Wasserman’s bedroom. A few pieces of underwear and her address book, along with her laptop and a brush. With all of those pieces, one would hang her.

The move was off script but to his mind brilliant. And perfect in the execution. Not even the best lawyer would be able to dodge the reality of her property and DNA being all over the crime scene, as well as all over the house. She was supposed to have been there for a simple interview, but Clive had created something much bigger. A false past that tied her directly to the dead man.

It would only take a few fake emails to establish the rest of the secret life and a lover’s spat. One well-placed hair from the brush and she’d be spending the rest of her days in prison. That would teach her to take him on, to think that she could actually win.

Idiot woman. She may have escaped, but she’d left enough behind for him to implicate her in the naval officer’s murder.

His orders hadn’t mentioned her. She’d been an unwelcome surprise, but he’d improvised. Wiped his fingerprints and any evidence of his presence away. Instead of framing the murder as burglary-gone-bad as planned, he had a new answer—her.

The question was whether his employer would see it this way. When he’d confirmed the Wasserman termination at check-in everything was fine. Delivering the news about Lara Bart’s interference had caused a hiccup. Clive had been directed to appear at this destination at this time. That was rarely a good sign.

He heard the crunch of tires and glanced in his rearview mirror. A black sedan now idled behind him. He didn’t wait for the phone to ring on this command performance. Taking the offensive always worked for him, and the two guns tucked within easy reach would even the balance of power.

Exiting the car, he scanned the area for witnesses. He’d been tripped up by one already today and refused to have it happen a second time.

The passenger’s-side window rolled down and a thin file appeared in the space. No words, just a tap of a folder.

Pompous and dripping with an overactive ego, his employer continued to act as if he could separate the things he did from who he was. A typical smarmy blowhard dressed in a too-expensive suit. From the sunglasses to the shiny watch to the annoying way he held his head an inch too high, the man’s overblown sense of self begged for Clive to put him down.

His usual business philosophy faltered with this guy. Usually, as long as he was paid Clive ignored the overdose of attitude. The second an employer failed to transfer the payment on time and in the right amount, Clive would cut him down—literally. It had happened only twice, but his reputation remained intact. Both of those disloyal men were dead and Clive promised the same to anyone who tried to screw him.

He leaned down but didn’t grab the papers. “What’s this?”

His employer continued to stare out the front window. Didn’t even bother to turn down the news on the radio or give eye contact. “Your one chance to fix your mess.”

Clive decided he could do without the overwrought drama, but that was what this guy did best. “I already did.”

“You left a witness. Worse, you opened the door to more trouble than you can imagine.”

Clive kept his one hand behind his back, next to his weapon, and grabbed the file with the other. “Meaning?”

The employer finally faced Clive, but the dark glasses hid any reaction. “Your backup failed to tie up loose ends, so I am reluctantly trusting you to do it.”

The words made the nerve in the back of Clive’s neck twitch. “What backup?”

“I always have insurance.”

“So do I. That’s why Ms. Bart will now take the fall for the murder. Problem solved.”

“She is the least of your worries now.” His employer turned the radio volume up and looked forward again as if to ignore Clive’s very existence on the Earth. “The man referenced in that file is your main concern. Neutralize him immediately.”

The car took off before Clive could move away. Only luck and quick reflexes prevented him from becoming a victim of a hit-and-run or losing a foot.

But he would remember. When this was over, his employer might need a lesson. One at the end of a knife, and Clive did so enjoy his knife work.

There would be time for that later. Now he needed to focus. He flipped open the file and read the name at the top and the job history.

Davis Weeks.

Looked as though Ms. Bart had a built-in protector. That was fine with Clive. This Weeks guy would bleed out like any other man...slowly and with as much pain as possible.

Then Clive would pay his employer a much-needed late-night visit.

Chapter Four

Davis sat across from Lara on the back deck of his brother’s twenty-six-foot cruiser. The gentle rock of the boat and slosh of water against the side had a hypnotizing effect. So did watching the guy four slips down stack enough supplies on the dock for a four-month voyage. Never mind that his boat was small enough to get tossed around in the ocean. Davis hoped the guy had the smarts to limit his trip to close-in on the Chesapeake Bay and have the coast guard on standby just in case.

But Davis had enough to worry about without adding another person to his Watch List. With his elbows balanced on his knees, Davis looked down at the rough white floor under his sneakers and listened to Lara’s description of what had happened at the Capitol Hill town house.

A knife wound. A dead naval officer. An attacker with a gun. Lara wrestling free and going on the run.

It was a lot to take in.

With each word, the adrenaline increased in speed as it raced through him. The need to find the guy and rip him apart nearly swamped Davis. He jammed his teeth together to keep from letting his rage out.

She wound down when she hit the part about leaving the city and heading for Annapolis. With an arm stretched over the top of the back bench, she stared at the locked gate separating the public area from the boat slips. Her mind clearly wandered to other concerns.

He knew where. “No one is coming in here who shouldn’t be here.”

“What?” She blinked as she looked at him.

He nodded in the direction of the mounted camera on the dock. “My team is watching the area through closed circuit.”

“When did that happen?”

The woman could stand to have a bit more faith in his skills. “The second after I called Pax.”

She shifted sideways and put her legs up on the padded seat. Thanks to a quick stop at the discount store, she’d changed clothes. Gone was the ripped and professional outfit. He preferred her this way. Relaxed and at ease. With her itinerary today, she’d earned a few minutes of peace.

She now wore jeans and one of those tops barely held on her shoulders with thin straps. It slipped past her waist but not by much. Another twist and he’d get a peek of her sexy bare skin and flat stomach. Not that he needed a reminder. He remembered every inch of her with his eyes open or closed.

She tipped her head back, and the fading sun streamed through her hair. Her husky voice echoed around them as she closed her eyes. “Are you in charge of this team?”

Damn, she was beautiful.

“No.” The word caught in his throat, but he pushed it out.

Also fought the urge to make her tell the entire story again. She’d run through it three times, the last one while grumbling and frowning at him through all but the end. She didn’t understand the importance of those tiny details that became clearer with each telling. He did.

“When did you take the job with Hampton and start doing security-clearance checks?” He knew her official start date, but the reasons for the change were a mystery.

“When I decided being an office manager at an intellectual-property law firm was not the most exciting career ever.”

He’d left her in a safe job with benefits and no danger, other than falling into a boredom coma or getting her shirt caught in the copier. Now she walked in and out of situations with people she didn’t know. Yes, she asked questions and collected data for a living, which should be relatively safe, but going into a stranger’s house was a whole different level of danger. One he didn’t accept for her.

“Isn’t protocol to meet interviewees in public places?” he asked.

“Have you been reading my employee manual?”

“I’m serious.” And about a half step away from being furious with her for taking huge chances.

“Usually, but this was a rush job and my boss asked me to fit the Wasserman interview in.”

The sequence seemed clear to Davis. She broke protocol this one time and the world came crashing down around her. Either her being there was pure coincidence, or someone had set her up. If the latter was true, then the second attack of the day made less and less sense.

So did her sudden change of position on job-related risk. She’d hated that he took them, but now she was plunking that perfect butt right into the middle of some sort of war.

The realization made his hands shake with the need to yell. The growl roared up from his stomach, but he tamped it back down. “So, you switched jobs because you wanted something dangerous.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m thinking it was implied.” She was making this conversation more convoluted than necessary, and they both knew it. The fact she didn’t give him eye contact gave her away. “And you used to say I was the one with the communication issue.”

She made a choking sound as she lifted her head and swung around to face him again. “Speaking of that, what’s with all the team stuff? Last I checked, you were flying around the world conducting investigations about military intel.”

The brunt of his anger smoothed away. Okay, this part promised to be difficult. He shot the other boater a look just to see if he was listening in. Davis looked in time to see the guy trip over his cooler. That was about as smooth as Davis felt at the moment.

Rather than dance around it, he said it straight. “I quit that job and went with a private firm.”

“Oh, really. The same job I begged you to leave.” The flat line of her mouth and dead eyes suggested she’d reached the end of her patience.

He couldn’t really blame her. They’d gone around and around on this topic when they’d been together. She hated his work and the life-threatening situations it threw him in. That last DIA-related assignment broke them apart. He’d sat there in San Diego, listening on the phone while she begged him to come home. He’d almost crushed the cell under his hand in frustration because he couldn’t get to her.

The crying and pleading had been new. Anger he could handle, but hearing the desperate tremble in her voice shredded him. Even thinking about it now started a hollow rumbling in his gut.

She hadn’t cared that his old boss was trapped in a nightmare because his fiancée had gone missing or that his boss’s twin brother nearly had got killed in an explosion. She asked him to turn his back on everything he knew to be right, and he couldn’t do it.

After the tense discussion, Davis and Pax had agreed they needed to finish the job. Just a few more days. Davis had justified it in his head until he blocked out the sound of her voice. The operation ended but Davis had come back to Lara and her packed bags and the engagement ring on the kitchen counter.

He couldn’t deal with any of that now. “I see the irony.”

“It’s more than that, Davis. We broke up over your habit of picking your job over me.” In the past, she’d deliver a line like that in a moment of pure female fury. Now she said it with all the emotion of reading a grocery list.

“We broke up over a lot of things.” Her lack of support and refusal to accept who he really was being some of the points he remembered.

She opened her mouth twice but nothing came out. Without warning the tension left her shoulders. “I am going to let that go because you saved my life today.”

Not sure he’d actually won that round but unwilling to get her riled, he nodded. “Much appreciated.”

“I’m guessing you don’t sit at a desk at this new job.”

There always had been so much about his job he couldn’t explain. This was part of that. “I’m sitting now.”

“You always were the best at dodging a question.” She lifted her hair off her neck. If she was hoping for a breeze, none came.

The air stood still. The heat was actually wet, choking as it burned down your throat. Having her sit there, sun-kissed and hotter than he remembered, made his temperature spike into the danger zone. This heat had nothing to do with anger or the temperature outside. This was pure, unfiltered need. All the fighting and months apart hadn’t crushed that.

“Ask me anything, but first answer one question.” He rubbed his hands together, debating if this was the right time. “Why me?”

“What?”

“You could have called the police or a friend. You were thirty miles away and you’d had a huge scare and you got in a car and drove to me.”

Amusement lit her brown eyes and a smile inched over her lips. “You’re the only spy I know.”

He really did hate that word and she knew it. “I’m serious.”

“You weren’t the best fiancé but you were great at your job. I knew I needed the best.” She glanced at the radio on the deck next to his foot. “Anything on the news yet?”

“No.” The answer was automatic. It wasn’t as if the radio was even turned up loud enough to hear it. At this level it sounded more like static or a low mumble, but he knew how this game was played. “Wasserman was in the military. NCIS probably dropped a net over this while the experts come in to collect evidence.”

A different emotion moved over her face. One that looked suspiciously like doubt. “Explain to me again why we aren’t reporting the murder.”

“I don’t want questions from anyone, including NCIS, the FBI or the police, until we know what happened in that kitchen and why.”

“I don’t get it.”

Of course she didn’t, because he was purposely not explaining it. That plan might have worked on another woman, one not as smart or intuitive. One who let things slide and accepted things just because someone said them with authority. Nothing about that description fit Lara.

She picked and checked and he’d loved that about her from the beginning. A whiny, clingy type didn’t suit him. He wanted vibrant...then he’d had it and lost her anyway.

The least he could do was let her see how this would go. “How many people knew you would be at Wasserman’s house today?”

She shrugged. “A few. Why?”

“Did you touch anything?”

“I don’t—”

“A table. The door. A glass.” He ticked the possibilities off on her fingers.

“All of them. What is your...?” She blew out a long breath. “You think I’ll be blamed for this?”

“Possibly.” Definitely. The police would look at the forensics, and Davis feared those results would only point in one direction. Hers.

“But not coming forward will only make me look more guilty.”

“That depends on why Wasserman was killed.” A question Davis wanted answered as soon as possible.

“What are you saying?”

A bell dinged in the distance as birds squawked. “Someone took him out before he could talk with you. Who knows what information he had or why someone would want it silenced.”

“Yes, so—”

“He asked specifically to speak with the investigator.” Davis switched seats. Instead of sitting across from her, he slid in next to her with his arm running along the back of the bench seat. “Coughlin, the guy you’re investigating, didn’t put Wasserman on the list. He got there because he came forward. He had something to say and specifically asked to say it that day.”

“How do you know this?”

His hand brushed against her back, right near her shoulders. When she didn’t pull away or wince, he kept it there. “I know people.”

“I’m serious.”

His fingers touched her soft hair. The gentle waves wrapped around his thumb. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

“I don’t believe this.” She bent forward with her arms wrapped around her waist. When she started rocking, he moved in closer.

“Hey, come here.” That arm slid around her and pulled her in tight against his side. Seeing her confused made bile rush up the back of his throat. “It’s going to be fine.”

She stared at his wide eyes, and a strain pulled across her cheeks and mouth. “How can you say that?”

“As you pointed out, I’m very good at what I do.” His fingers threaded through her hair as his mouth hovered just inches from hers.

“What is it you plan to do?”

Kiss her, deep and hard, and not stop while either of them could still move. He wasn’t one to mix business and pleasure, but control deserted him when she was around.

Even after she’d left, he kept the memories of her alive. He wanted to be pissed and still seesawed back and forth, but he couldn’t hold on to the rage. The hurt and disappointment, well, those lingered.

But she was talking about work and he forced his mind to focus on that. She needed protection, not pawing. “We’ll figure out why Wasserman is dead and why, coincidentally, people tried to take both of us out on the same day.”

“I’m confused. Do you think this is about my work or yours?”

He was still deciding. “Until I know, you are pinned to my side.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She said the words even as her hand traveled over his chest and down to his stomach.

“Then you should have called your imaginary boyfriend.” He kissed the very tip of her nose, thinking the soft touch would satisfy him.

He was dead wrong.

“I had a hard enough time handling the flesh-and-blood type.” Their heads bent so close together that her whispered words blew across his lips.

“From my memory you handled that quite well.”

He gave in. One small press of his lips against hers. Quick and gentle, with barely any heat.

“Your ribs.”

“I’ll let you know if you’re too close. So far, we’re good.”

She grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Davis—”

“Trust me.”

The second kiss blew the first away. This one sent energy arcing between them. His mouth over hers, pressing, touring, tasting. His hand in her hair and her cuddled against his chest.

He could feel her fingers slide over his shoulder and trail down his back. Any closer and she would be on his lap. He no sooner thought it then his arm slipped under her legs and tugged them up and over his thighs.

The kiss exploded and devoured. Any idea that they were done flushed out to the bay. When her head fell back and he started to push her down on the bench, he knew his control had snapped and it would take an army to put it back together again.

He’d just decided to tease the edge of that thin shirt and tunnel up when the nerve ticked at the back of his neck. At first he felt more than saw movement on the walkway down to the dock. Then he heard the clang of the gate and thumps of footsteps. If the person wanted to sneak up, they’d failed. No way was this a professional killer. Well, not the enemy kind.