Her Spy to Have (Spy Games Book 1) (11 page)

Small fists pounded on her door and the one next to it. “Izzy! Uncle Garrett! Mommy and Daddy are ready!”

They stepped into the hall at the same time, coming face to face with each other. Their gaze met over the children’s heads. Isabelle saw what she thought might be appreciation in his.

He let out a low whistle. “That,” he said, “is a nice dress.”

Pleasure bloomed inside her. He looked good, too. He’d changed into a short-sleeved white cotton shirt and navy cargo shorts, and his light brown hair was still wet and spiky from a shower. She caught the familiar scent of spice cologne. Before she could thank him for the compliment, or pay one of her own, he shifted his attention to the children.

“Go where?” he asked. “I heard they canceled the barbecue because of rain.”

Chelsea frowned up at him. Her curly red ponytail bounced as she gave a vigorous, negative shake of her head. “It’s not raining.”

“He knows it’s not,” Beth said, with her seven-year-old superiority. “He’s trying to trick you.”

Kiefer tugged on Isabelle’s hand, dragging her toward the stairs. “I want to go.”

The weather was too hot for the children to walk, and it would be dark before they came home, so everyone piled into the minivan for the short drive.

The main farmhouse, where Peter’s oldest brother lived, sat a half mile up a steep hill in the opposite direction Isabelle always took for her run. Along with the house, the property had two barns and a large machine shed. Beyond the farm, the pavement ended and became a dirt road. Another brother lived across from the farm, while the Mansfords’ parents owned a smaller house a mile farther along the dirt section. Isabelle hadn’t met them yet. She’d heard the elder Mr. Mansford was confined to a wheelchair.

The large front yard was full of vehicles, everything from half-ton trucks and SUVs to sports cars. Peter parked the van alongside a farm truck. Garrett opened the sliding back door and lifted the girls out while Isabelle freed Kiefer from his car seat. Garrett set the little boy on his feet, reached for Isabelle’s hand to steady her as she stepped to the ground, then closed the door behind her. Peter and Cheryl took charge of the children, leaving Garrett and Isabelle to walk together as they skirted the side of the house and followed the noise to the back yard.

The enormous stone patio and flower gardens had been strung with lights and circled with bales of hay for seating. To the far left, outdoor games had been set up. To the right was a canopied bar, complete with bartender, tables, and chairs. Three enormous barbecues belched smoke near the steps to the house and the open kitchen door.

Isabelle slowed when she saw the size of the crowd. Garrett placed a hand on the small of her back, urging her forward so that she stayed by his side.

“There’s nothing to be shy about,” he said into her ear.

“I’m not shy.”

Far from it. But she preferred making a quiet entrance so she could study people first, which was impossible when she was with Peter and Cheryl, who knew everyone.

It turned out Garrett knew quite a few of them, too. She’d been introduced to a dizzying amount of relatives and neighbors before he finally abandoned her near a thick hedge of dark pink roses with two of Peter’s cousins, Mary and Thea, middle-aged sisters who liked to travel. They were planning a fall trip to Paris and wanted her advice.

“We went to New Zealand last year, but for the most part, we’re cross-border shoppers and stick to the US,” Mary said. “This will be our first trip to Europe. We don’t speak any French so we’re a little worried about finding our way around.”

“Just a little, though,” Thea added. “Not enough to stay home.”

Their enthusiasm sparked a flare of wistfulness. Isabelle had traveled her whole life, and still, she never tired of discovering new places, or revisiting the ones that she’d loved.

“You won’t need French,” she assured them. “The metro is very economical, and easy to use for getting around the city. Don’t buy anything from anyone who approaches you on the streets or outside of the tourist attractions, don’t give money to children or anyone with a sad story who claims to be hungry, and you’ll be fine.”

Someone pressed a plastic glass of red wine into her hand. Garrett was back. He’d heard the last bit of her advice.

One eyebrow shot up. “Don’t give money to anyone who claims to be hungry, hmm? What if they’re desperate?”

When he’d asked her for an explanation as to why she was trying to sell her passport she’d told him she was hungry. Any desire to make light of the situation died. Her desperation and worry remained far too fresh. She didn’t ever want to go through that again.

Bangkok seemed so far away now.

“Feeding them would be a kind gesture on your part,” she conceded. “One greatly appreciated. However, giving money to strangers requires a very big leap of faith.” She couldn’t resist a small reminder that he wasn’t as altruistic as he presented himself. “Unless, of course, you expect to get something in return.”

Garrett took a sip of his beer and held her gaze. “How mercenary. Sometimes simply taking that leap is its own reward.”

There’d been no leap of faith on his part. He hadn’t given her money. He’d bought her a plane ticket. They both knew he hadn’t done it out of the goodness of his heart, either. He’d taken her passport away.

She was grateful to him nonetheless. He’d fed her before he knew anything about her. Whatever his real reasons for helping her were, and regardless of his true level of altruism, he’d been kind to her.

Thea spoke up. “Since my subtext is even worse than my French, let me see if I understand you both correctly—we shouldn’t give money to strangers unless we believe in a higher Being, but taking them out to dinner is okay,” she said. “Got it. What if they want us to go dancing with them after our meal?”

Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. “Then you should keep a close watch on your passport. I hear those things are better than gold on the black market.”

“They’re certainly difficult to recover if they’re taken from you,” Isabelle added. “Embassy staff isn’t as helpful about finding lost items as one might expect.”

“We’re plenty helpful,” Garrett said. “It all depends on what’s missing, and how it was lost.”

Mary nudged her sister. “My subtext is better than yours. We should check to see if Catherine needs any help in the kitchen.” She spoke to Isabelle. “It was lovely to meet you. We’ll have to talk again later. But watch out for Garrett. This boy is trouble.”

They thought he was flirting with her. In a way, she supposed he was. He simply wasn’t after what they assumed—at least, not with any serious intentions.

The two women left, leaving them alone by the hedge. A honeybee landed in the yellow center of one of the unfurled rose blossoms, its wings quivering as it worked.

He took another long sip of his beer. “You heard the woman. Watch out. I’m trouble.”

“I’m not sure you should be flattered.” Isabelle clutched her plastic wine glass. “She didn’t say what kind of trouble. And she called you a boy. I feel as if I’ve been handed the responsibility for your good behavior.”

He peered at her over the top of the bottle, his hazel eyes unreadable. “If I misbehave you can spank me.”

Isabelle laughed. She couldn’t help it. It was the deadpan delivery. Plus, the thought of anyone spanking Garrett for any reason was ludicrous. No one would dare.

“I’m sensing you aren’t into BDSM.”

That only made her laugh harder. “And you are?”

“I’ve never tried it.” His eyes dropped from her face to the low line of her bodice, then back. “But probably not,” he admitted. “I prefer a more gentle approach.”

Her laughter died. They weren’t alone. At least a hundred people milled around the large yard. Yet here, partially hidden behind the high rose bushes, when he looked at her that way, she felt as if the entire world had suddenly emptied. She remembered in great detail how it felt to be kissed by him.

To have the light touch of his fingers slide against her bare skin.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

It wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t want anyone to think she had any romantic thoughts toward Cheryl’s brother. She didn’t. She was tired of intrigue. She had even less interest in spies. To Garrett, no matter how decent he might be, she was a piece in a game involving her father and he enjoyed playing it more than she liked.

She was going to follow him anyway, without hesitation, because if he’d been flirting before, something warned her he wasn’t now. Despite the heat of the day, a chill chased up her spine.

They set their empty drinks on the ground. Garrett took her by the elbow and guided her around the end of the hedge to the other side. Fields of grass and foot-high corn stretched to the base of the hill a half mile distant. From there, a dense green blanket of forest began, spread out for miles. A narrow strip of pavement cut a ribbon-like trail through the trees.

He led her along a narrow gravel footpath that hugged the side of the house, then disappeared into a dense stand of poplars and maple trees a hundred yards beyond. The sounds from the barbecue soon faded, replaced by the rustle of leaves and the sigh of the wind. A squirrel chattered from the branches above them.

He stopped in a small clearing. By now, dread had built all sorts of worst-case scenarios in her head. Her father was dead. He’d been kidnapped by terrorists. A plane he’d been on had gone missing over the Indian Ocean.

What he said was unexpected. “We can’t get a fix on your father’s location through the site you gave us. He logged in using a VPN—a virtual private network. We can trace it back as far as the RBN and can’t get any farther.”

Isabelle was lost. “What does any of that mean? What’s an RBN?”

“The Russian Business Network. It’s an internet service provider with connections to the Russian mafia.” A muscle in his jaw worked. “It means your father is serious about not being found.”

Chapter Seven

It meant so much more than that. Whether or not her father was involved with the Russian mafia, the fact that a Canadian citizen was hiding his tracks behind the RBN, a well-known internet service provider for cybercrime, wasn’t a good sign.

Garrett had received the call from the CSIS director in Ottawa telling him that Beausejour couldn’t be tracked a few minutes before the munchkins came banging on his door. Oh, and by the way, the director had added, those missing weapons parts turned up in Pakistan. He’d wanted to have Isabelle formally detained on suspicion of facilitating terrorism because she’d been in Thailand when someone brokered the exchange. He believed there was a possibility she’d been acting on her father’s behalf.

That was when Garrett had started to sweat. CSIS had a very broad mandate. Deliberately so. It gave the director a great deal of latitude in making judgment calls.

“Terrorism is a stretch in this case, don’t you think? Canada doesn’t have any issues with Pakistan,” he pointed out.

“They’ve never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Therefore, the illegal sale of weapons systems with nuclear capabilities, even parts, to any Pakistani aircraft maintenance company can be viewed as a potential act of terrorism.”

“She’s a Canadian citizen. She has rights. She’s hardly a terrorist.”

The director sounded tired and stressed out, and increasingly impatient. “I’m less concerned about her rights than I am in saving innocent lives, and possibly avoiding a war. If there’s even a remote possibility she can implicate even one of the people involved, then I’m willing to have her formally detained. She’s got to know something useful about Beausejour. I want him found. You have three weeks left. If she hasn’t helped you pin him down by then, I’m stepping in. In the meantime, whatever you do, don’t lose her.”

So here Garrett stood. Her father had a large number of strikes against him, making him a potentially bigger player than CSIS first thought, and he’d stepped away from the plate, leaving Isabelle to pinch hit for him.

At least her confusion was real. Garrett thanked God for that. He had no idea why her father had gone into hiding, or who he was hiding from. Until Garrett had caught Isabelle trying to sell her passport, Beausejour had been of no more than a passing interest to CSIS, and since no one but the CSIS director knew of Isabelle’s connection to Garrett’s investigation, there was no way Beausejour could have learned they’d gotten more curious.

But if he wasn’t hiding from CSIS, then who?

That VPN activity leading to the Russian Business Network made Garrett nervous. She’d said herself that her father had tried to keep his work separate from her, but if Garrett had made the connection, someone else could, too.

“I thought you were going to tell me he was dead,” she said.

She was shaking, he realized with a jolt. Remorse punched him in the gut. He hadn’t been particularly sensitive. To him, Marc Beausejour was a criminal involved in espionage. A traitor to his country. But to Isabelle, he was someone she loved very much.

He couldn’t simply stand here and watch her try to hold herself together, pretending he wasn’t affected by her distress. He wasn’t trying to break her.

His shoes crunched in the thick layer of dead leaves, broken twigs, and pine needles on the path as he took two steps across the small distance between them to draw her to him. He pressed her face against the front of his shirt, stroking her hair. With the heel of his other hand, he rubbed the small of her back. She balled her fingers into fists and rested them beneath his rib cage. To his enormous relief, she didn’t cry.