Seduced by the Enemy (Blaze, 41) (9 page)

How much he might know at this point was hard to guess, but considering she'd had her picture plastered on the national news, chances were pretty good he suspected that something completely out of the ordinary was going on in her life.

“It's not true, Leland. None of what they're saying is true. You have to believe me, because my word is all I have left at this point.”

A loud pounding on the door made her nearly jump across the cramped space. Her nerves were frazzled, no doubt about it.

“Peyton? You in there?”

She breathed a sigh of relief.
Jared.

“I'll be right out,” she called to him. “Just give me a minute.”

“Make it a quick one,” he ordered impatiently.

He fell silent, but was he listening on the other side? She couldn't be sure, so she turned away from the
door and lowered her voice. “I'll try to be in touch,” she whispered, “but I don't know if I can call again. I…”

I what?
she thought.
Love you?
The words wouldn't come. Not that they'd ever fallen easily from her lips, but now they were so deeply lodged in her throat she nearly choked on them.

With nothing else to say, she whispered, “Goodbye, Leland,” and disconnected the call.

She turned off her cell phone, wincing when it beeped, and tucked it in the bottom of her purse before leaving the relative sanctity of the rest room. As she stepped out into the chilly night air, she barely avoided colliding with Jared. From the look in his eyes, it wasn't a stretch to deduce she was facing a very angry man, who had quite possibly overheard her one-sided conversation.

“You want to tell me what the hell you think you're doing?” His voice may have been composed, but the anger flaring to life in his eyes told a whole other story.

She sidestepped him and headed toward the truck. He dogged her heels. “Since I was in the bathroom, I think it'd be obvious.”

“Oh, it was obvious all right,” he said, opening the door for her. “Obvious that you're trying to get us killed.”

“You know as well as I do that the technology for tracking cell phone users to their exact location is a long way from being perfected.”

“Perfected, yes. But thanks to your little stunt, they're going to know we're not in Virginia.”

Guilt had her looking away to avoid his accusing
gaze as she climbed inside the truck. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She'd made a mistake.

A stupid one that could very well cost them their lives, all because she'd been desperate to find comfort where none was to be found. And that had her worried more than the bastards who were after them.

 

L
ATE
S
ATURDAY NIGHT
, Steve waited in the elegant foyer of the senator's penthouse apartment while the maid announced his arrival. Judging by the hour, he expected the senator and his wife would be enjoying a nightcap, perhaps a cognac or an almond liqueur. Always the perfect hostess, Mrs. Phipps would insist he join them, an invitation he would very graciously decline. He had urgent business with the senator that was bound to give the old man a nasty case of indigestion.

The maid returned and ushered him directly into the study. A single desk lamp dimly lit the masculine room, which smelled of freshly smoked pipe tobacco and worn, comfortable leather. Steve's own apartment, while expensive and professionally decorated, lacked the old-world charm of the senator's domain. One day, Steve planned to have a room just like this one, one filled with leather-bound first editions, commissioned art, expensive but tasteful furnishings and gleaming brass accent pieces. A place where he would sit in wait for his own personal lackey to deliver important news that had the ability to change the course of history.

With a glass of the finest crystal in his hand, the senator sat on the end of the hunter-green leather sofa.
A decanter of top-quality whiskey rested on the mahogany end table. “I take it you have news.”

Steve crossed the rich, dark Oriental rug to hand the senator the file containing the latest information. “As we suspected, they're together.”

Phipps took the file and tossed it on the sofa without opening it. “This is not what I'd hoped to hear, Radcliffe.”

“I know, Senator. Our people are working on it.”

Phipps polished off the whiskey in his glass, then poured himself another. “Our
people
aren't doing such a good job. It's been twenty-four hours, Radcliffe. How hard can it be to find a couple of criminals in this town?”

The senator had a point, except Romine and Douglas weren't technically criminals. However, only a handful of people were aware of that minor detail. Expendable people.

“Until an hour ago, the last activity we showed was at a motel in southern Virginia, yesterday morning. The motel has been checked out, but our people came up empty-handed. There's a possibility they never used the room, but only rented it as a decoy.”

“I don't pay you for possibilities, Radcliffe. I pay you for certainties.”

“I just got word there's been some activity. A handful of select agents are responding as we speak.”

“Do they know what to do?”

“But of course, Senator.” Steve smiled. “Shoot first and ask questions later.”

S
UNNY DIDN'T MUCH BELIEVE
in coincidences. And while she wasn't one to believe in signs, omens or karma, even she had to admit someone had her number as far as strange and unusual occurrences were concerned today.

Not ten minutes after she'd arrived home from a fabulous day at her parents' place, her beeper had sounded. The fact that she'd been called in to work a bust really wasn't all that unusual. Depending upon priority, any available agent could be called to assist if necessary. But the fact that two hours later she was hunkered down in front an old Chevy Malibu next to Gibson Russell, the director of the D.C. office, definitely qualified as an out of the ordinary assignment—her second in the same day. Especially since they were waiting for word to move in on Jared Romine and Peyton Douglas.

She'd been summoned to the office around ten o'clock with five other agents she recognized but had never worked with, to play the hurry-up-and-wait game until Special Agent Russell passed along what information they needed to know, then ordered them to move out. The fact that Gib, as he was known to only the most senior of agents, had accompanied
them, also ranked high on her growing list of strange and unusual occurrences.

Crouched in front of the parked car, she balanced on the balls of her feet while using her night-vision binoculars to scan the twelve-room inner-city motel. The heat from the still-warm engine of the Malibu offered some comfort against the brisk autumn night air, but did little to stop the chattering of her teeth.

While she watched the motel rooms for any sign of Romine or Douglas, Gib waited to give the signal for them to move. Two other agents had been sent to rouse the motel manager. With the heavy drapes drawn on all the rooms but one, which was pitch-black, anyway, there was absolutely nothing to be seen.

The sound of rustling leaves drew her attention momentarily, but it was nothing more threatening than Mother Nature teasing them during a tense moment. The two additional agents were stationed at other locations around the motel. Any minute now the first two agents would return with the manager, and then they'd move in on the suspects. Until then, all she could do was wait—and try to keep the chattering of her teeth down to a minimum.

“Cold, MacGregor?” Gib asked her suddenly.

Sunny shivered in response. “Just a little, sir. Too much sun today, I think.”

“Such as it is for this time of year.” Gib shifted beside her. “We'll be going in first, MacGregor. I want you to focus on Douglas. I'll handle Romine.”

“Yes, sir.” She had a dozen questions, but considering Gib had already told them they were operating on a need-to-know basis, she figured he wouldn't be
forthright in providing the answers she sought. All she and the other agents apparently needed to know was that Douglas and Romine had been tracked to this location. She didn't even know how they'd been tracked, whether via a paper trail, wiretapping or a snitch. There was only one thing she was certain of: by being called in to assist in the Romine matter, she might actually be able to review the files. She nearly rubbed her hands together in hopeful anticipation.

She flipped up the collar of her black windbreaker with the large yellow letters
FBI
emblazoned on the back. The move did zilch for keeping the cold bite of air from making her earlobes numb.

“Here they come, sir.”

Caldwell, one of the two agents ordered to wake up the motel manager, appeared. He jogged across the parking lot, then crouched down as he wound his way among the parked cars to where she and Gib waited.

“Matthews is with the manager. Douglas is registered in room eight,” Agent Caldwell explained. “Checked in about four hours ago.”

Damn,
Sunny thought. She'd been hoping they'd be storming a room on the end of the motel. That way if things went bad and fire was exchanged, the chances of an innocent bystander getting in the way were greatly reduced.

Gib nodded, then spoke into his communication device. “We're heading into room eight. Be alert and stay alive.”

Sunny pulled her weapon from her shoulder holster, opened the safety, then slid the bar of the 9 mm back to be sure the chamber was loaded. She didn't like this. Not one bit. Whether her unease stemmed from
the fact that she was going in to arrest a fellow, former agent or some other instinct, she couldn't say. She didn't know Gib Russell all that well and had no clue how to read his cool demeanor.

“Ready?” Gib asked her and Caldwell.

They nodded and moved out. She and Caldwell followed Gib across the row of parked cars near the chain-link fence toward the end of the motel. Keeping low, they hurried across the lot to the side of the building. Plastered against the rough-textured wall, they waited for Gib's next signal. He motioned for her to stay close and for Caldwell to bring up the rear.

Slowly making their way along the front of the motel, they inched toward room eight. Gib stood to the right of the door, his weapon aimed toward the sky, clasped firmly in two hands. On his left, Sunny mirrored his movements.

Muffled voices could be heard on the other side. Gib gave her a brisk nod, then rapped his knuckles hard on the door.

Adrenaline rushed through Sunny. This was it. They were going in and God only knew what would happen next.

“Who is it?” called an angry voice from the other side of the door.

“Manager,” Gib answered back.

More voices, but Sunny couldn't make out the words.

The rattle of the safety chain followed by the twist of the doorknob was the signal Gib obviously needed before he charged forward. Sunny followed, weapon drawn, sweeping the room. Caldwell came in behind them, blocking the door with his large body.

“What the hell?” one of the four boys in the room shouted. Sunny stared at the three other youths scattered around the motel room, their eyes wider than the Potomac. The boys had shot to their feet when she and Gib had stormed into the room, and now stood with their hands above their heads as if Jesse James were about to grab the Wells Fargo payroll. The scene was nearly laughable, except a quick glance at Gib quickly quashed any humor she might have otherwise found in the situation. He was not pleased.

Without holstering her weapon, Sunny moved deeper into the room to search the bathroom. An exercise in futility, she figured, because she knew there was no way Romine or Douglas were anywhere near this place. For some reason, that gave her a sense of relief.

After a quick search, she walked back into the room. Gib and Caldwell were patting down the teenage boys. Glancing around, she figured local law enforcement would have a field day with these kids. Charging minors in consumption, with a small bag of weed, was definitely not FBI jurisdiction. Well, not on such a low-end scale.

“Ooh, look what I found,” Caldwell said, holding a gold card between his fingers. “Care to tell us how you got this?”

Without having to look at the credit card itself, Sunny guessed it belonged to Peyton Douglas. Stolen? Or planted? Considering Romine's expertise, she suspected the latter.

“I don't have to tell you shit,” the boy spat defiantly. The other three boys shifted their gazes from
one to the other, all of them looking more than a little scared.

“Wrong answer,” Caldwell told the boy. “Because unless you can prove to me you're Peyton Douglas, I'd say this is a stolen credit card.”

Sunny holstered her weapon as the three remaining agents entered the room. “Definitely a stolen credit card,” she said, inclining her head toward the corner and the stack of shopping bags, filled to overflowing, from the local mall. She walked around the room. “That's gonna get you two to five, young man.”

She pulled a pen from her pocket and nudged the bag of marijuana with the capped tip. “Oh, now this looks really interesting. How much pot do you think this is, guys? An ounce? Two maybe?”

“Not even,” the kid argued.

Gib crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. “At least two.” A chilling smile curved his usually grim mouth. “Maybe three.”

“That's what I thought, sir.” Sunny walked toward the telephone sitting on the nightstand and picked up the receiver. “That just might qualify as trafficking. I'll call DEA. They'll want to be in on this one.”

“No way,” the kid Caldwell held argued. “I ain't selling nothin'.”

“Then tell us how you happen to be in possession of that credit card,” she ordered.

Though he was looking more and more nervous by the second, the boy remained silent.

She shrugged. “Have it your way.” She started to punch in the number to access her voice mail at the bureau.

“Just give it up, Jimmy,” one of the other boys said. “They got you cold, dude.”

The other two boys nodded in agreement.

“Okay. Okay,” Jimmy said. “Just put down the phone. I don't wanna go to jail, man.”

She set the receiver back on the cradle as Gib grabbed the boy by the front of his pizza-stained T-shirt. “Good choice, Jimmy. Otherwise someone named Bubba would be finding a sweet young thing like yourself
real
attractive for the next two to five.”

The kid blanched and Sunny struggled to hide the twitch of her lips. Although empty, Gib's threat practically ensured the kid would have plenty to say. Except she didn't think for a minute the boy might know the whereabouts of Romine and Douglas.

And maybe that was a good thing.

 

T
HEY FINALLY REACHED
the cottage in Maine early Monday morning. Not much about the place had changed since the last time Jared had been here with Peyton, something he found oddly comforting, he realized. With a strange sense of coming home, an emotion that made him almost as wary as the feel of Peyton's sleeping body beside his during the night, he hefted their bags out of the truck and followed her over the sandy path flanked by railroad ties and up the steps leading to the front door. The vinyl siding was new and the railing surrounding the porch that stretched across the front of the cozy seaside cottage had been repainted. Otherwise, time had virtually stood still. At least it did in the quaint cape town of Maine where Peyton had often come to escape, seeking a little downtime. Her sanctuary, she'd often called
it, and he fully understood for the first time what she'd meant.

There was something inherently comforting about finding the key Harry kept under the plastic, urn-shaped planter overflowing with dried-out summer petunias. Just the sense of knowing that once they stepped through the door, they'd be safe, even for a brief period, offered a modicum of comfort in an otherwise terrible nightmare. Safe and able to pull themselves together, to find a way out of the insanity both of their lives had become.

He rolled his shoulders, still stiff from sleeping in the truck while Peyton drove. Before she had a chance to slip the key into the lock, the door to the cottage swung open.

The relief in Harry Shanks's eyes was palpable as the old man immediately pulled Peyton into a tight embrace. “You had me worried sick,” he drawled in his heavy Maine accent. “Are you all right?”

Peyton dropped her purse, burst into tears and clung to Harry. The old man inclined his head toward the entrance. Jared took the hint to make himself scarce. Picking up her purse, he walked into the cottage, giving Harry a moment alone with Peyton.

Jared had been waiting for her to have some sort of a meltdown, and it had finally arrived. Her tears did what her words and a few hours of sleep could not, alleviating his irritation with her for putting them in further jeopardy by using her cell phone back in Pittsburgh.

She'd known the risks, yet she'd blatantly chosen to ignore them. All because she'd needed to advise Kellie to find a warm body to cover a hearing on a
motion for some jerk who would probably walk, and to let Atwood know she was safe. Surely she had to have realized that Atwood's phone might be tapped. Perhaps even her secretary's. Jared didn't want to believe she'd intentionally been trying to lead the feds to their location. No, the truth of the matter was far more disturbing, and something he couldn't shake.

Had the old green-eyed monster really nipped him hard just because she'd felt compelled to call her fiancé?

Ridiculous.

Was he being unreasonable?

Definitely.

Was he headed right back into dangerous territory where his feelings for Peyton were concerned?

Undoubtedly.
And based on his reaction to a telephone call, not to mention the unrealistic stab of jealousy pricking him now that Peyton had turned to someone other than himself for comfort, he needed his head examined. He didn't have time for useless emotions like jealousy or anything remotely resembling lust. Unfortunately, he'd been feeling a major dose of both for the last thirty-six hours.

He set their bags in the corner nearest the hearth in the quaintly furnished living room as Harry and Peyton walked in. Peyton's tears had ebbed somewhat, but she looked twice as exhausted as before they'd pulled into Maine. Even Jared wanted nothing more than to catch up on much needed sleep, but there were details he still had to tell Peyton before he could suggest any such luxury.

She pulled in a deep breath. “Is that coffee?”

Harry gave her shoulder a squeeze and led the way
into the small kitchenette. “With cinnamon, just the way you like it.”

Jared followed. “How'd you know we were coming?” he asked Harry.

The older man shrugged his shoulders. “I didn't.”

Jared wasn't buying it. Not only did Harry have a full pot of coffee ready, a pound of bacon sat defrosting on the counter next to a glass bowl filled nearly to the brim with shredded potatoes. Jared looked meaningfully at the evidence as he leaned against the tiled counter. “Either you're expecting a small army or you're planning to drive your cholesterol through the roof. Care to try again, Harry?”