by Kay Hooper
Rafferty looked up from the desk as Josh came into the suite, and he went still as his sharp eyes absorbed the change. Well, now, he thought. Well, now.
“You guys had lunch?” Josh asked briskly, dropping his car keys on the table near the door and coming into the room to sink down in a comfortable chair.
“No.” Zach, his printout put away, was also intent on studying changes.
Smiling quite unconsciously, Josh propped his feet on the coffee table. “Room service isn’t too bad,” he remarked idly.
After a moment, Zach looked at Rafferty. “He imports the finest chef he can get from Europe, then says the food isn’t bad. You want to remind him he’s in his own hotel, or should I?”
Rafferty’s laugh changed into a cough by the time mildly surprised blue eyes looked his way. “It’s your hotel, Josh,” he ventured.
“I know that.” Josh looked from one to the other, coming to the conclusion, finally, that Raven hadn’t been the only one outwardly changed. Curiously enough, he wasn’t in the least embarrassed or self-conscious. “If I’ve grown another head,” he said politely, “somebody tell me. I’ll need to buy more hats.”
“You don’t wear hats,” Zach murmured.
Josh looked at him.
Rafferty cleared his throat hastily. “Room service sounds fine. Where’s the menu?”
“I’ll get it.” Zach rose from the couch with the uncanny grace that was surprising in so big a man, going over to the bar, where the menu lay.
“Where’s Lucas?” Josh asked absently.
Zach, turning from the bar and behind Josh, sent Rafferty a quick look and slightly shook his head.
After an imperceptible pause, the lawyer answered in a casual tone. “Oh, he had some errands. Probably be back before room service gets here, though.”
“We’ll order for him, then,” Josh said, accepting the menu from Zach.
Rafferty spoke slowly. “Josh, it could be today, couldn’t it?”
Some strain returned to Josh’s face, but not nearly as much as they were accustomed to seeing. “Could. But Raven says if Travers sticks to his usual method, it’ll be at night. Tomorrow night is the most likely.”
“Will she know where she’s going?” Zach asked.
“Not until she gets there.” Josh stared at the menu, and something grim, determined, tightened his face for a brief moment, then was gone.
Zach glanced at the lawyer, and Rafferty nodded with a resignation Josh didn’t see.
Both of them had known all along.
Hagen and Kelsey sat in a car a block from an elegant restaurant and ate their lunch from various paper and Styrofoam containers. Kelsey crumpled up the wrapping of his hamburger and said gloomily, “She did that deliberately, the witch.” He gestured to the small device that was currently giving them an ear inside the restaurant. “She told us exactly what she was having for lunch, knowing we’d be stuck out here eating flavored paper.”
“Undoubtedly,” Hagen agreed, staring with some disfavor at his own meal.
The conversation going on inside ended for the time being as Raven excused herself, and Kelsey sent a thoughtful look at his boss. “Eight years, and this is the first time I’ve known you to get involved enough to share a stakeout.”
“Big fish,” Hagen said dryly. “And this is one I intend to catch.”
“Thanks.”
Hagen chuckled. “No offense intended, my boy. You’re a good operative, possibly one of my best. So is Raven. You know, of course, that this will be her final assignment?”
Kelsey sighed. “Yeah, I guessed. Long. Well, I grudge him the best partner I’ve ever had, but I’m glad he can make her happy.”
There was silence for a few moments, until Raven returned to the table inside the restaurant. Kelsey, listening, cocked his head to one side intently.
“What?” Hagen asked.
“He sounds a little tense, don’t you think?”
Hagen listened to the conversation, which was a casual one. “I don’t hear it.”
Kelsey shook his head, still vaguely bothered. “Must be getting punchy from all this flavored paper,” he muttered. “Additives and numbered dyes and … whatever. Affecting what I fondly call my mind.”
Hagen looked at him for a moment, then returned his attention to the conversation. “Could be,” he said almost to himself.
In the garage level of the soaring hotel, Lucas Kendrick paused in the shadows to gaze around intently. Convinced he was alone in the echoing place, he moved forward silently until he stood beside a rental car.
Ever since a crazed ex-employee in Miami had traced Josh through his rental car and taken a wild shot at him some years before, they had learned to take no chances. Rental cars were always logged as being serviced while they were in his possession. Even when Josh drove one of his own cars, the plates were switched erratically.
Lucas was in and out of the car quickly and silently, and left nothing behind him except a small device hidden securely under the dashboard.
EIGHT
JOSH WAS AGITATED during the early part of the afternoon, relaxing somewhat only after Raven called him from a pay phone in the ladies’ rest room of the restaurant to report that Leon had canceled their dinner date for the evening. It seemed to indicate clearly that it was not yet “arranged” for Raven to see the girls she proposed to acquire for the international interests she was supposed to represent.
“So it’s not tonight?”
Josh looked at Rafferty as he hung up the phone and shrugged—as much to ease tense shoulders as anything else. “Looks that way. With any luck, it’ll be tomorrow night.” To himself, he added, “Then it’ll be over.”
Rafferty said nothing, but watched as Josh rose and moved around the room absently. He remained silent when his friend and employer suddenly returned to his desk and opened a drawer, pulling out a shoulder harness containing a rather deadly looking automatic. Josh removed the clip from the gun and checked it, his expression still abstracted, then replaced it and shrugged into the harness.
Lucas entered the room just then, and unlike Rafferty, he chose not to keep silent. “Is it tonight?” he asked quickly.
“No.”
“Then why—?” Lucas gestured toward the gun Josh now wore comfortably, as if it were a part of him.
Josh frowned a little. Still frowning, he shrugged. “I don’t know. Just a feeling.” When the phone rang, he made no move to answer, but stood staring out the window.
Rafferty got up and answered it, then held out the receiver to Josh. “Serena.”
His expression lightening, Josh took the receiver and spoke into it with mock severity. “You can’t have it.”
“Have what, Josh?” His half sister’s voice held its usual soft, serene, deceptively unthreatening tone.
“Whatever it is you want. Money, probably. Why don’t you con your husband into handing over large sums for your various projects? I happen to know Brian isn’t exactly poor.”
“Josh, have you been drinking?”
He could hardly help but grin at the gentle question. “No, Rena, I haven’t been drinking. Did you call for a reason, or just to brighten my day?”
“Curiosity. Daddy said you called to ask him about Hagen. What’re you up to, Josh?”
“You know Hagen?”
“Well, I know of him, of course. Daddy says he’s absolutely brilliant, totally devoted to law and order, and as twisty as snakes in a barrel.”
Josh reflected that he really shouldn’t be surprised at Serena’s knowledge. She had, after all, grown up much nearer than himself to the secretive world Stuart Jameson inhabited; she would certainly be aware of all the players in that particular game.
“Josh?”
He stirred. “Yes, he told me the same thing.”
Patiently, she said, “I know that. What I want to know is why you asked about him.”
Somewhat belatedly, Josh wondered if his phone might be tapped. He knew that Zach took precau
tions wherever they stayed, but wasn’t certain if that included more than a daily check on the phone. He looked up to ask Rafferty or Lucas, but found that both men had silently left the room to give him privacy.
Cautiously, he told his sister, “This isn’t a good time to talk about it, Rena.”
She was nothing if not quick; her voice didn’t change, but he knew she understood. “Later, then. What I really called to ask about was your brunette.”
She could, Josh realized, still surprise him. “Um … what brunette?”
“The one who finally caught you.” Serena was patient. “That’s why you’re still in L.A., isn’t it?”
Josh cleared his throat, torn between laughter and resignation. “Well, as a matter of fact …”
Her soft laughter was warm and rich. “It finally happened, didn’t it? You got swept right off your feet!”
Remembering, Josh laughed as well. “You’re more right than you know. And how the hell—?”
“Josh, you haven’t interrupted a business trip—except that time for me—in years! Besides, I’ve been watching the papers, and you haven’t appeared with a blonde on your arm since you got there. I know you. Such a radical break in your habits has got to mean—”
“All right, all right.” He reminded himself again that the phone could be tapped, annoyed by the need to guard his words. “If it weren’t for Brian’s tendency to go berserk when someone lays an unkind hand on you, you’d probably be burned at the stake, witch. My only solace is that you had nothing to do with my meeting Raven.”
“What a wonderful name! Josh, when can we meet her?”
His throat abruptly closed up, and Josh swallowed the lump. “Soon, I hope.”
After a slight pause, she said, “Can I help?”
“No.” He cleared his throat, not surprised by her perceptiveness. “No, honey, but thanks.”
“Well, I’m here.”
“Yes. Say hello to Brian for me.”
“I will.”
He cradled the receiver gently, staring at it, remembering for the first time in years the pact he and Serena had made as kids. It was now an ingrained habit both observed, and he, at least, never thought about it. Until now.
They never said good-bye, not even casually, when any distance separated them.
Staring at the phone, Josh thought about that. A pact concocted between two children, born in the darkest hours of their young lives when tragedy had stolen their mother and locked them within a cage of “security” designed to protect them. Stuart, silent and shattered, had withdrawn temporarily from his daughter and stepson, and they had clung to each other in bewildered pain, understanding only that there were things they could not control, could not change.
From that common experience, each had strengthened the innate traits they shared. Serena, brilliant and loving, had evolved a method of controlling her life that was as devious as it was natural for her. She schemed and plotted, arranging situations to suit her, always uncannily accurate in reading people and their reactions to her plots.
Josh, older than she and more cynical, had taken a direct route in an effort to control his own destiny. Certain deep within himself that he would love a brunette, he had simply avoided women with dark hair—obsessively avoided them. He gathered about him an impressive force of intelligence and security people, preferring to be aware of possible dangers, avoiding surprises of any kind. He grimly learned to recognize what he had referred to as “the dark side of the streets,” knowing that threats came from there.
And now …
He stared at the phone, realizing that some scars never really healed. Raven would never forget her sister. And he and Serena would never bring themselves to say good-bye to each other, because there was, somewhere within them, still two young kids stubbornly telling themselves that if they didn’t say good-bye … neither of them could go away forever.
He realized only then that he had never said good-bye to Raven.
Raven couldn’t have said exactly what was bothering her. She had been a little worried that Leon would see the change in her and react somehow, but he very obviously had not. And she soon forgot that worry, vaguely disturbed by something in Leon’s manner.
All during lunch, he had been his usual urbane self, talking casually, as he normally did. Apologetically, he had canceled their evening plans, explaining that there were some overseas calls he had to make. His expression and gaze were unreadable as always, his voice courteous.
But Raven had seen the slightest indication of restlessness or some similar emotion in him. He had toyed with his wineglass, his napkin. He had eaten little and glanced at his watch more than once. All uncharacteristic of Leon Travers.
She had the strong but inexplicable feeling that he barely knew she was with him, that his mind was far away.
Very uncharacteristic.
Raven had taken a chance and called Josh, wanting him to know they could be together earlier than usual that night. But she had been a little distracted, even while talking to him, still bothered by nothing she could put a finger on.
All her instincts were screaming at her, and she didn’t know why.
Talking casually to Leon, keeping her cool mask in place but avoiding any direct look at him that could show him she had changed, Raven devoted a tiny, analytical part of her mind to the problem.
What was wrong? What?
Zach came in minutes after Josh had finished his call. He looked at the gun, but said nothing.
“Is this phone safe?” Josh asked.
“Yes,” Zach answered simply, not surprised by the question. “And we haven’t been bugged. I check twice a day.”
“Good.” Josh stirred, then got to his feet and drew on his jacket. “I’m going to the penthouse; Raven doesn’t have to see Travers tonight.”
“Why the gun?”
Josh walked across the room and picked up his car keys, finally replying shortly, “I don’t know.” The door closed softly behind him.
Within a minute, Zach had rousted Lucas and Rafferty from their rooms, and the three men stood together near the desk.
“He wore the damned gun, didn’t he,” Rafferty said gloomily, and it wasn’t a question.
Zach didn’t waste a nod. “He’s bothered by something. Maybe Raven sounded tense or worried when they talked, I don’t know. But Josh has good instincts, and they’re obviously trying to tell him something.”
Lucas pulled out his gun and checked it methodically, automatically. “So. We stick close?”
“Until this is over.” Zach looked at the lawyer. “Got your own damned gun?”
Sighing resignedly, Rafferty patted the left side of his jacket, where only another professional would have spotted a very slight bulge. “Right here. And I hope to hell I never have to use it again.”
Zach nodded sober agreement, checking his revolver, then replacing it in its shoulder holster while he watched Lucas bring a briefcase from his room and open it on the coffee table. It was jammed with electronic equipment, and Lucas grunted in satisfaction when a brief check showed them all a clear signal on the small screen.
He closed the case and straightened, looking at the other two. “Well, we’re all set. Two signals, clear as a bell. If he leaves his car, the transceiver in his shoulder holster will still guide us.” Frowning, Lucas added, “What worries me is how he’ll know where she goes. If he follows her and Travers spots the tail …”
Zach’s wide shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Nothing we can do about that now, except stick as close as we can. He won’t do anything to put her in greater danger, and he knows surveillance methods. Cross your fingers and hope.”
Rafferty, following the other two from the suite, reflected silently that they’d probably spend an uncomfortable night outside the penthouse, bored silly.
At least he hoped they would.
It was late in the afternoon when Raven got back to the penthouse, and she turned her tape player on automatically as soon as she was insid
e. She opened the top drawer of the small table where the player sat, slipping her purse into it and gazing for a moment at the other purse there.
Another one of the habits she’d made obvious to Leon was the one concerning her purses. She carried a different purse each time she left the penthouse, always getting one out of this drawer whenever Leon was here. The purse she stared at now was one she’d never carried, because it was the one she intended to have at the final confrontation with Leon.
The one containing her gun.
She closed the drawer slowly, sighing. It was only then, distracted with the vague worry, that she realized Josh was there. She turned and saw him as he stepped into the sunken living room, and she crossed to him instantly with a glowing, welcoming smile. In his arms, she lifted her face for his kiss, everything inside her responding in a fiery surge to his touch.
But she stepped back abruptly, her face going still, and swiftly opened his jacket to stare at the gun.
“Better to be prepared,” he said quietly. “When we talked, you were bothered by something.”
After a moment, Raven nodded. It didn’t surprise her that Josh had sensed her disturbance. “Something nebulous. Nothing I can put my finger on.” She closed his jacket, smoothing the material absently. “But you shouldn’t be wearing a gun. However it ends, you won’t be a part of it, Josh.”
He was silent.
She stared up at his face, and anxiety knifed coldly through her. Swallowing hard, she said, “You aren’t planning on following me?”
The hands on her shoulders tightened, and something restless stirred in his eyes. “No. That would only put you in danger.”
Relief swept over her, and she rested her forehead against his chest for a moment. “It’s all planned,” she murmured. “And the timing is critical. Hagen and Kelsey will be there—” Abruptly, she swore softly and stepped back, staring down at the bracelet on her arm. “Turn off the mike, Kelsey,” she commanded firmly.
“Will he?” Josh asked.
“No,” Raven answered, still addressing the microphone hidden in her bracelet. “He’s a lousy pervert. Kelsey? Turn off the mike!” She knew only too well that it would remain activated.
