License to Love (An Agent Ex Novel) (11 page)

She laughed as if delighted with herself that she’d pulled one over on him. “When you think about it, it
was
very clever of me.”

Sol was still studying her and, though he prided himself on his inscrutable expression, she could practically see the wheels of his little criminal mind turning. He wanted to believe her.

She was telling him just enough truth to lead him on.

“Does the ex have a name?”

She studied her nails again, admiring the pretty flowers on them before glancing up at Sol from beneath her false lashes. “Not that you need to know.”

“I see,” Sol said. “So hiding out for two years, that was to avoid this jealous bastard and any questions from the cops?”

She nodded.

“Now that you’re back and ready to reappear, I assume the problem’s been taken care of.”

She met his eyes and let her grin spread organically. “He won’t be bothering me, or anyone, again.”

“So the fewer questions asked…” Sol’s eyes had an evil, admiring twinkle in them. He looked almost turned on.

Lani smiled in reply and winked at him.

“Well, that answers the big question—why you haven’t come back to divorce Rock and capitalize on his fortune. The papers have assured the public there was no prenup involved with this quickie wedding.” Sol picked up the spoon and wove it through his fingers, disappearing it up his sleeve.

“But why me, your husband’s nemesis, Lani? There are other magicians on the Strip, not to mention Rock himself.” Sol acted cool, but his eyes gave him away. He wanted this opportunity to show up Rock so badly it hurt.

“You’re the best. Rock pulls his punches. Doesn’t take the risks he should and could to create the best illusions. Now that I’m unencumbered I want fame. And fortune. Plenty of it. My own with no strings attached and no one’s permission to get to spend it. I want to be my own woman.

“After the experience with my ex, you could say I’m a bit burned. The independent life has become much more attractive than being saddled with a ball and chain. You never know when a ball and chain will suddenly decide it can be a weapon.”

She put a touch of seduction in her voice. “I’m sorry, Sol. I made a mistake choosing Rock over you the first time. Who knew he’d get so possessive? I belong to no one but myself. I think you and I are a lot alike that way.”

“We all make mistakes, baby.”

She couldn’t tell whether that was an acceptance of her apology or not. She simply babbled on like a nervous showgirl. “Let me join your entourage, Sol. You have to admit, it will make for superior showmanship. And isn’t that what this is all about?”

“And Rock? Your marriage?”

She snorted as if cynically amused and shook her head again. “The marriage was one of those get-drunk-and-get-married things that happen in Vegas. Usually to tourists. And women stupid enough to think they’ve found a steady man who can protect them.” She straightened and sat back on the sofa. “The marriage was over the moment it began. Rock is too possessive. It scares me.”

“Yes, babe, but how will you be dealing with it?” Sol set his glass on the end table next to him. “This is tabloid fodder of the finest kind.”

She studied Sol, grinned, and nodded. “Yes. And if we’re smart, which we are, we can make a few bucks by tipping the best of them off to my reappearance.”

Sol laughed. “You are a mercenary bitch.” The words rolled off his tongue like flattery. “There’s the matter of the reward money, too.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten that. Rock will be mad as hell at having to pay it to you. As for you and me, we split it fifty-fifty.” She grinned. “See? I’ve just paid for myself. How many girls can say that? You’re getting me for a steal. How can you turn down an offer like that?”

Sol’s eyes gleamed with avarice and lust. “You still haven’t answered my question—how are you going to play Rock? What will you tell the tabloids about why you’ve come to me? The public loves Rock. They’ll hate you for betraying him.”

“They love you, too, Sol. Don’t forget that.”

Sol laughed. She’d properly stroked his maniacal male ego.

“I’ll tell the press you and I were always friends and I came to you for help because I feared Rock wouldn’t take me back.”

“Were we friends, baby?”

She laughed. “We could be.” She leaned forward again. “Think of all the lovely PR we’ll get, Sol. I’ll string Rock along. If he’s smart, and we know he is, he’ll play along with us and fuel this competition to new heights.

“The public loves love triangles and scandal. And magic. And professional competition played out in the public arena. Our shows will be
packed
. And of course I’ll want my cut.”

Sol didn’t object so she rushed on. “As an added bonus, I’ll do my best to get into Rock’s confidence again. Find out what he’s up to with his new illusions. With your permission, we’ll feed him a few of your new ideas for tricks. This could be the magical feud of the century, with you and me raking in a king’s ransom.”

CHAPTER SIX

Midnight or noon, the lighting was the same inside the best hotels—neon and fluorescent. Lots of it. A trick, a misdirection of time to keep the gambler guests up all hours and at the machines and tables. Opulent tile patterns ran through the floor. Arches and sculptures provided visual interest. Chihuly glass sculptures, urchins, and sea anemones in every heavenly color imaginable, hung from the ceiling. Gold and glitz sparkled as accents on walls and handles. The feeling of luxury everywhere pervaded, adding to the scent of money that hung in the air—the making and the losing of it. And in the background the din of the slot machines and gaming tables rattled on incessantly.

Tal had instructed Rock to “bump” into Tate in the lobby at precisely 2:03 p.m. Evidently NCS agents were sticklers for details and timing. Conveniently, Rock was well known for wandering through the hotel lobby and taking his magic to the streets, showing off for randomly selected guests and bystanders. He was prepared to do so now, fully decked out with playing cards and all manner of tricks up his sleeve. Including picking Tate as his random bystander.

Rock glanced at the clock on the wall of the baggage storage room where he sat waiting for his cue. A bored baggage handler held court over the sea of luggage surrounding them, totally unimpressed by Rock and not at all interested in him. Which made Rock wonder—NCS bodyguard perhaps?

Rock had a few minutes yet before he burst into the lobby, seemingly from nowhere, appearing out of a puff of smoke. He planned to disappear Tate and him together the same way. There was no taking the showman out of Rock.

Nor was there any taking the art of misdirection away from the magician and that’s what had Rock stymied, frustrated, and feeling foolish, lamebrained, conned, duped, bamboozled. Whatever word you like. Misdirection is the soul of magic. And apparently of clandestine missions and operatives. Somehow the CIA had out-misdirected him.

As Rock thought back over his brief time with Lani before she disappeared, he looked for the misdirection that had been applied by NCS to him. By Lani to him to make him believe she loved him. But damn if he still couldn’t see it.

Was he suffering from what magicians call inattentional blindness? Falling for the old crossing-the-gaze technique cleverly applied by the CIA as smoothly as if the Agency were a master magician? Rock used the technique all the time to appear a coin apparently out of nowhere.

It worked like this—the magician holds his empty left hand palm out to the audience, pointing to his palm with his right hand. The magician looks at his audience, directing their gaze to his eyes. He then gazes at his empty palm and the audience follows suit. During that quick instant of time, the magician holds out his right hand in a gesture that says
hold on, wait for it
with his right palm, and a coin, in full view of his audience. But no one sees it because they’re looking at his empty palm. Inattentional blindness. Classic misdirection.

What had Lani done to make him believe she loved him when she was just doing her duty for her country and advancing her career? Since she’d disappeared, he’d gone back over their romance too many times to count, relishing and reliving every detail, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong.
If
he’d gone wrong. Wondering whether he’d been mistaken about her feelings for him. Wondering whether she’d simply run out on him or if there’d been another reason for her flight. And whether she’d been abducted in that alley because she’d literally stepped into the middle of a murder.

He still didn’t see the misdirection. Maybe he didn’t want to. Or maybe he’d inadvertently rewritten their history by replaying it too many times and replacing it with what he wanted to see. All he knew was that despite everything she’d said and done even since returning, against his better judgment, his logical self, and yes, even his conscience, he still loved her. Even now she was probably misdirecting him. But two could play that game.

There was more CIA misdirection than just Lani. How had Rock missed Lani’s mission? How had he not seen her associations? Clandestine meetings? Dead drops? Fear?

The woman was damn talented. If he could go back and determine the truth, see the tricks, he’d have power, over both Lani and NCS. Power he wouldn’t hesitate to use when it suited his purposes.

Even now he was looking for the misdirection they must be applying to him and the situation. He’d be a fool to believe everything, maybe anything, they told him. This time, he was going to be in the driver’s seat.

Hell, that attempt on Rock’s life? That could have been manufactured by NCS just to get him in their camp. Scare the shit out of him and keep him dancing on their string as he looked over his shoulder for shadows. That little shooting was so perfectly timed and orchestrated and effective in bringing him and Lani together, getting them to work with each other when Rock otherwise might have been tempted to tell Emmett Nelson and the Agency to go to hell, that Rock couldn’t help thinking it had been scripted and planned.

Rock focused on a spot on the wall as he thought about the mission. It was dangerous and tricky sending Lani back in. There would be all kinds of questions regarding her and tons of publicity that would shine a spotlight on the operation. It was a huge risk to take, planning a mission in the public eye with the paparazzi watching. NCS must want the publicity, was all he could think, though it seemed to go against the CIA’s code of secrecy and operating in the shadows.

As for Sol, it was hard to believe they’d once been close friends, buds, blood brothers. They met at the Magic Castle in Hollywood when they were both crazy college kids taking magic classes and dreaming of stardom and magical feats beyond the ordinary. Even the fact of their previous friendship flew in the face of a smooth mission. They were rivals now, but when it came down to it, Rock feared their former friendship still tainted him. He had a damnable soft spot for Sol even though Sol had screwed him over one too many times. If ordered, could Rock kill Sol?

Tal had posed the question bluntly to Rock at the shooting range earlier in the day. “Think you could kill the bastard?” Tal had said.

“Depends,” Rock had answered truthfully.

Tal had pinned him with a look of disgust. “Shouldn’t. The world may seem gray to you, magic boy, but Sol’s aligned with RIOT, which makes the situation completely black-and-white.

“We’re white. He’s our mortal enemy. If you get the chance, kill him. If you have a soft spot for him, kill him quickly and painlessly.” There’d been no humor in Tal’s voice or expression.

It all sounded like so much melodrama.
Mortal enemy.
Hadn’t that gone out with Snidely Whiplash? Rock might have sneered if he hadn’t been so deep in thought.

What the Agency didn’t know, couldn’t have known, what no one besides Rock and Sol knew was that Sol had saved Rock’s life when they were young, up-and-coming magicians. Straightjacket escape gone wrong. Rock had had the brilliant idea to try it while water-skiing. Outdoing Houdini and all that. The fearlessness of youth. He and Sol had gone out on Lake Tahoe at dawn to practice. Sol drove the boat. Rock put on the straightjacket, a pair of water skis, and they were off.

Rock took a tumble before he could get out of the jacket. He hit a ski as he went down and was knocked unconscious, still in the jacket. He couldn’t move and didn’t have a life jacket on, no flotation devices at all, just that damn heavy straightjacket and a pair of swim trunks. Rock sank like a 180-pound rock.

It’s foolhardy to water-ski without a spotter. It’s even crazier to ski with a straightjacket on without a spotter. Fortunately, Sol knew how to handle a boat and was damn observant. He saw Rock go down the instant it happened and circled back for him.

They’d been young and cocky enough to bring one safety device along in case things went wrong—a grappling hook to retrieve Rock’s body. Heavy metal thing. Sol tossed it out, miraculously hooked Rock on the first throw, hauled him in, and performed CPR. The hook took a big chunk out of Rock’s right thigh. It bled like hell. Sol had said it was a good thing Lake Tahoe wasn’t shark-infested. Rock had to have a dozen stitches to close it up. But he and Sol never told anyone about the straightjacket or the grappling hook.

They told the emergency room doc who sewed Rock up that Rock had slipped while hiking and gotten the gash. Didn’t even mention the near drowning. The doc didn’t question them. They tabled the trick until further notice, as in they got more experience.

Escaping from a straightjacket isn’t an illusion. It’s pure escapology. Rock could escape with ease now. And he’d gotten better at water-skiing, too. But he’d never performed that trick again. As he’d learned the hard way—too many things beyond his control could go wrong. Rock took risks, but they were calculated risks. As for the scar, he’d gotten his first tattoo to cover it—
Expect the Unexpected.
Words to live by. So why did he feel so stunned by the current situation?

An analog clock hand clicked off another minute of Rock’s life. He glanced at the clock: 2:03.