Secrets of the Dead (16 page)

Declan had had the same thought. “She didn’t allude to anything more specific?”

“No.” For the first time she reached for the pizza. “I can’t help but believe she was being purposefully vague. She isn’t stupid.” She took a bite and swallowed before adding, “And she made a couple calls while you were torturing me in that dress shop of horrors.” He smiled at her descriptor, wistfully recalling the image of her in that blue dress. “No way to tell who she was calling, but she was quite upset when her calls went unanswered. Made a couple of disparaging remarks about her callee—who was obviously male considering her muttered insults about his questionable parentage.”

She picked up the beer and took a sip. “I had to wonder if she was trying to reach Malsovic.”

Declan started with the beer before setting it aside and reaching for the pizza. “What made you think that?”

Her appetite had obviously returned. She took another bite and swallowed before answering. “Today when I entered her office to plant that listening device, I was just about to leave when Malsovic started pounding on the door. I didn’t expect him to enter the room without her answering, but slipped into the closet just in case. Which was a good thing as it turns out, because he let himself in.”

The pizza he’d just consumed turned to lead in Declan’s stomach. “He caught you in there?”

Shaking her head violently, she took another bite. Washed it down with a drink from her beer. “No. It sounded like he was trying to get into her computer. I didn’t think he was able to from the curses he was muttering. I got the distinct impression that he doesn’t trust her. Why else would he be trying to access her computer files?”

He was still grappling with what she’d just revealed. Not only had she taken a chance on entering Shuang’s private room, she’d very nearly been caught there. Declan felt a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “You took a helluva risk.”

“The device had to be planted. It was a scary coincidence that Malsovic had the same idea I had at the same time, but I’m just glad it was the computer he was after and not the safe in the closet.”

Now he was the one who’d lost his appetite. Declan set his bottle down with a bit more force than was necessary. “That does it. You don’t leave the room without me tomorrow. We’ll find a way to talk to Brina together before we leave the hotel.”

She was eating in earnest now, not even bothering to set the pizza down to argue, just waving a dismissive hand at him. That gesture, coupled with the report she’d given to Raiker earlier tonight had his temper igniting. “I’m serious. You’re to stay put tomorrow where I can see you at all times. The assignment is far outside your qualifications. I don’t know that you take it seriously enough. And your inexperience in situations like this puts us all at risk when you take chances you shouldn’t. As evidenced by the lost earring today.”

Her narrowed blue gaze shot sparks. He should have ignited beneath her glare. “Inexperience?” She set the pizza down on her plate. Wiped her fingers with brisk deliberate movements. “You know nothing about my experience. But I’d think you’d have a bit more faith in your employer’s knowledge. After all, he paired the two of us. As partners.”

He bared his teeth. “We may be paired on this assignment, but you’re stepping outside your realm of expertise here. I’m reining you back in. We’ll get the job done without you taking foolish chances.”

“Foolish?” He had the dim thought that it was a good thing they were speaking Scottish because both of their voices had risen. “And you’re the one who gets to decide that definition? How did you expect to get that device planted? By donning a cloak of invisibility? If you want assignments that come without risk, maybe you need to change careers.”

“I accept the risk. I just don’t accept you making the decisions that put us at risk.”

Later he’d realized that was the exact moment he’d lost control of the conversation. But right now every fear that had been rising in him with each new revelation today boiled over into a frothing mass of temper. “The talent that brought you on to the case is narrowly defined. Languages. Period. From this moment on you stick to translation and leave the rest of the case to me.”

“You pig-headed narrow-minded douche nozzle.” He had a moment’s panic when he noticed her eyes were glassy with tears. But that didn’t negate the heat in her voice. She rose out of her chair so fast it toppled to the floor behind her. “I don’t know what burr you’ve got up your narrow Scottish ass, but you need to extricate it before we walk into that hotel tomorrow. We. Are. Partners. And maybe we each have individual areas of strengths, but you don’t have near the deductive powers you imagine if you believe that my knowledge of languages is all I bring to the table.” The rest of her remarks were muttered in a foreign language, which he imagined he was fortunate not to understand.

The slam of the bedroom door punctuated her words, and brought back all too vivid memories of various female family members enacting similarly dramatic exits from a room. But Eve wasn’t being dramatic. She was well and truly pissed. That was fine, because Declan was pretty pissed himself.

His gran had spent a few months when he was a kid teaching him to control what she’d called his black temper. He’d been mad at the world back then, lashing out because his world had been torn apart by a bitter divorce and warring parents. But age and his grandparents’ patience had taught him to harness his temper, tamp it down, tuck it in. A man didn’t last long undercover if he couldn’t keep his feelings in check. And a cop didn’t climb through the ranks like he had if he became known as a hothead.

He grabbed the bottle of beer off the table, brooded over it. These days he was the one known in the family for his ability to stay calm and logical amidst theatrical fireworks.

Which didn’t at all explain his lack of calm just moments ago. Hell, hours ago. He couldn’t deny that something had ignited in his gut when Eve had relayed the details of her day. Even thinking of what might have happened if Malsovic had opened Shuang’s closet door could still turn his blood cold.

And surely that image was responsible for a bit of this uncustomary flare of anger. That, coupled with a white knight mentality that ran wide and deep within him. Recognizing the weakness should have meant controlling it. But somehow control had gone out the window once Eve Larrison walked into his life.

The thought brought a scowl, and he tipped the bottle to his lips, drained it. Because it was just setting there, he reached across the table for the beer Eve had left behind. He didn’t like feeling like his normal restraint had slipped its leash. Just like he didn’t enjoy experiencing shame for the things he’d said and how he’d said them. Or the way he’d made her feel.

Which maybe was awfully similar to the way she’d felt growing up in her family of neurotic geniuses.

Declan brought her bottle to his mouth. Drank. The alcohol didn’t make him feel less lousy. He knew damn well that a lot of what she’d told him—a lot of what she showed to others—was a sham. Or at least only the outer shell of whom she was inside. But he didn’t know why she trotted that farce out, and he was a man used to questioning rather than accepting the obvious. The fact that he hadn’t done so with her—at least not enough—made her shot about his lack of deductive skills painfully true.

He took out his secured cell and pulled up the Internet. Sipped at the beer as he thought carefully about a few things about Eve that didn’t add up. He started searching. And it only took about a half hour for some of the various puzzle pieces that made up Eve Larrison to click into place.

Sitting back in his chair, he finished the beer while he considered the picture he’d come up with. The answers had been there. But she was so damn good at handing out half-truths. So practiced at the art of deception that he could be forgiven…maybe…for not seeing it at first. It was like being expected to put a jigsaw puzzle together when you didn’t have the picture on the box to go by.

He had a feeling she’d counted on just that.

There was nothing quite as uncomfortable as knowing you owed someone an apology. Unless it was knowing you’d hurt someone who’d done nothing to deserve it. Because both were true he got up from the table and went to that closed door and knocked.

He took her silence as permission and eased the door open. Eve was seated upright on the bed. There was nowhere else in the room to sit. Both ear buds were in. And she didn’t look up when he entered.

“Eve.” The quick gaze she flicked his way was wary. Deservedly so. He went to the side of the bed. Nudged her over so he could sit. She took one ear bud out. Still silent. She wasn’t making it easy. But then he didn’t deserve easy. “I was out of line out there. What I said earlier. I’m sorry. I was everything you said. Pig-headed. Narrow minded. And a…what else was it?”

“Douche nozzle.”

His mouth quirked. “Although I’m unfamiliar with the term, I figure it’s fitting, as well. I didn’t give you the respect you deserve. As my partner. I’ve got protective instincts that can get in the way of my good judgment sometimes, and right or wrong, you seem to set them all off. Which is my problem,” he hastened to add when she looked ready to interject something. “Not yours. I made it yours and I want to apologize.”

“It can’t happen again.” Her tone was as chilly as a wintry Atlantic breeze. “We have to be able to trust each other’s instincts.”

“I do. I will,” he corrected. “You could have been upfront about your experience. I’m not going to blow your cover for the State Department.”

She went still, her eyes huge in her face. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean you said more than once that people see what they want to when they look at you. I’m betting you’ve used that to your advantage. You work in IC at the Department of State, don’t you? The intelligence community?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve told you before, I translate documents…”

“See, that’s part of the problem. The smokescreen you put up.” Putting a fist on the mattress beside his hips, he hitched his weight around to more fully face her. “It’s convincing. You make damn sure of that. But you’re right. My deductive powers were shit for not seeing through it earlier. There were glimmers. Like today, when you were telling Raiker about Brina. I had to look up what a T Visa even is.”

She’d gone very still, like an animal scenting danger. “So it’s my fault?” she finally said spiritedly. “You have an interesting way of apologizing. And an even more interesting imagination.”

He didn’t expect her to spill all her secrets. Whatever she did for DOS, it would rely on secrecy and she didn’t owe him a thing. Certainly not her cover. “No, it’s not your fault.” After speaking to her mother for only a few minutes that day, he already figured that Eve had been made to feel that a great many things were her fault. “No one has a right to make you feel like
less
. And I’m sorry that I did.”

Her eyes held mingled wariness and surprise. And it was the surprise that did it. Whether she was unused to people apologizing to her or shocked to hear him do so, the expression caught something inside him. Something that would have been better off buried.

His hand rose without directive from his brain. With one finger he traced the delicate jawline. Something about her derailed his usually trustworthy instincts. Because they should have been screaming at him now.

Leaning forward, he brushed her lips with his. Once. Twice. Softly. Left at that and the gesture could have been construed as an extension of the apology. But of course he didn’t leave it at that. Couldn’t.

The first taste of her called to something inside him. Eve was a mixture of contradictions, so why would the taste of her be any different? There was softness there. A hint of vulnerability. But layered beneath both was a dark and sensual flavor that teased the senses. One that hinted at more, much more than the expected.

His hand cupped her jaw now, fingers at her nape to urge her closer as his mouth moved against hers. It was pure indulgence. The thought glimmered in the back of his mind before dissipating into bits of haze. But there was a hammering in his pulse that had him deepening the kiss. Pressing her lips apart so he could dive a little deeper. As if he could unlock all her secrets just by tasting her.

A fool’s errand. It was like chasing fire. The more he tasted, the more compelled he was to move closer. To take more. To delve further. And when her tongue came up to meet his, in one languorous glide, he felt the jolt of it through his system and went in search of the heat.

His mouth ate at hers. Devoid of a finesse he was usually capable of. He hadn’t expected to find that the contrasts of the woman went this deep. Hadn’t expected that one kiss would fire a compulsion to discover even more.

Faint voices could be heard close by. The sound took a moment to filter through the sensual haze. Another one to have his mouth lifting from hers. Awareness flashed across her expression and she reached between their bodies for the second ear bud. Fumbled with it a little as she put it in place. The slightly dazed expression in her eyes lifted abruptly. He had a moment to mourn the change before she whispered, “Shuang.”

The word dashed the sensual fog like nothing else could. “On the phone?”

She shook her head. “Talking to someone in the office. Asking where the hell have you been? I called several times. This is unacceptable. You do not have my permission to…” She broke off, appeared to be listening intently. “It’s Malsovic she’s talking to. She’s berating him. Seems enraged. He had to have been the one she was trying to call earlier. She demands to know what he’s been doing. Where he’s been.”

Declan would give a good deal to know the same. If Shuang hadn’t known the man’s whereabouts, he hadn’t been on an errand for her. So what else would have taken him away from the hotel that long?

“Every time he tries to answer she shuts him down. Wow. Says she should have killed him when she had the chance. He says…” Her gaze flew to his. “She wouldn’t have known the boy was still alive if not for him. He did the research. He discovered who had him all these years. She owes him respect for bringing her the information.”