Alex regarded her for a long time. She sipped her tea while she waited for his arguments.
“I’m an executive security specialist, Lucy,” he finally said. “Why didn’t you put someone with investigative or psychological background on an assignment like this? You’ve got a few ex-spies on your payroll.”
“I was testing you.”
His jaw visibly tightened. “For what?”
“For your next job. Something that has been brought to me by my former employer.” She took one leisurely sip of tea before dropping her little explosive. “They are looking for a special ops consultant.” She paused and watched his face. “In Cuba.”
To his credit, he didn’t flinch. “To do what?”
“I can’t say.” That much was absolutely true. “But you would like the exchange rate they offered.”
Only one brow lifted, but she could feel interest rolling off him in waves.
“If we succeed in the operation, they will arrange for fifteen people to leave the country. Our choice of who those fifteen people are.”
His dark skin paled, melting her heart a little. Sure, he was a tough, macho, Latin male. But Alex loved his family.
“I want that job, Lucy.”
“I know. But it involves careful character assessment and profiling. You’re not quite ready for it. I’d hoped this opportunity would provide the background you need. But—”
“Give me another chance.”
“I intend to,” she assured him. “I’ve already convinced Kimball he overreacted and that you are the best Bullet Catcher for the job. Miles is going to talk to Kimball and second that. Frankly, he thinks Kimball’s antics last night were bizarre. At the very least, they reveal that the man has a short fuse and an unwillingness to listen.”
“He’s thinking with his—” He stopped himself, then added, “He’s not thinking straight where Jessica Adams is concerned.”
“Once you’ve been reinstated by Kimball, you’ll need to make it a point to spend as much time with him as possible. Don’t bring unwanted attention to yourself and don’t do anything else to alienate him.”
He nodded slowly, no doubt thinking of fifteen cousins and uncles and aunts who longed for a better life. “What about Jazz?”
“What about her? She should continue her role—Miles is delighted that there’s no need to cover for where Jessica is. He doesn’t want Kimball to know he’s planning to hire Jessica. He thinks Kimball will be reluctant to let her go to the network, because of the ratings dip it would cause at the TV station. Kimball’s stringing her along in that regard.”
Alex’s frown deepened. “Aren’t you overlooking the possibility that something might have happened to her? It doesn’t bother you that she hasn’t contacted her sister? You don’t think there’s a chance she’s truly a victim of a stalker?”
“Miles has convinced me that isn’t the case. He’s the only person who knows the nature of the story she’s developing, and he’s certain that it would require her to stay deep undercover. She’s utterly capable, I’m told.”
An odd half-smile lifted Alex’s lips.
“What is it?” Lucy prodded.
“Nothing. It’s just that…I’m not sure this Jessica is all that, if you know what I mean.” His smile faded. “Nor am I convinced she’s safe.”
Lucy studied him, turning over the facts. Alex’s instinct was excellent, his sense of impending trouble the reason why he was her top personal security specialist. But Miles was much closer to the whole story, and knew the players. “Just in case you’re right, Dan and Max will investigate the stalker situation, former boyfriends and some other obvious sources on Jessica. You will continue to act as Jazz’s—Jessica’s—bodyguard. That’s how I want this assignment staffed.”
He shook his head and pointed over his shoulder. “You’re forgetting the one-woman bloodhound. She won’t stop until she finds her sister, and she isn’t going to care how you want things staffed.”
“You must stop her from ruining this investigation,” Lucy said.
“She’s planning to go to Key West today,” he said. “She wants to talk to Kimball.”
Lucy’s eyes widened in horror. “No. If he finds out she’s not Jessica, then he’ll let you go for certain. Miles will be most unhappy.”
He looked skeptical. “I think her primary reason for going is to clear my name after last night. After that, her next target is Miles Yoder.”
“You need to stop her, Alex.”
“I don’t know,” he said, running a hand through his long hair with a skeptical look. “She’s a force of nature all her own.”
Lucy leaned forward and picked up a sticky pastry, taking a bite. “Mmmm. Raspberry.” She brushed a crumb from her lapel as she captured his dark gaze. “Perhaps you can think of some creative way to distract her, Alex. You’ve always been so good at that.”
Facts, Jazz believed in her deepest heart, didn’t lie. People did. Opinions were ripe for interpretation and assumptions were the enemy. Facts were dependable.
And there was a big, bad fact staring her in the face from her computer screen.
Kimball Parrish had a direct connection to Denise Rutledge. She’d seen the reference to Desirée Royalle while searching his computer files, just after Ollie had left, while Alex had fumed behind her. She’d found a data capture feature and been able to bookmark the database, but then Alex had…sidetracked her. And while he’d annihilated her on Parrish’s desk, she’d been downloading files.
While her laptop searched those files, Jazz closed her eyes and relived the annihilation. What was this thing between them? This went way beyond physical attraction, way past the adrenaline rush that naturally led to sexual release. What had he called it, that night she’d escaped him?
A power struggle.
Oh, yeah. And Jazz was losing. Badly.
The screen flashed as she slipped through a flaw in the firewall, forcing herself to concentrate on her missing sister and not her budding romance.
Some romance it would be. Alex traveled the world protecting rich guys and she had a fledgling PI business in San Francisco. And no desire—none, zero, nada—to have a relationship with a man who believed in his core that the males of the species were somehow dominant and his role in life was to protect his woman.
But, Jesus. Her nipples ached and her insides twitched and her limbs grew heavy just at the thought of how badly she wanted him. This was just sex. Really amazing, bone-melting, incredible sex.
No one was going to win this power struggle. The only thing for her to do was concentrate on finding Jessica. And the most fascinating piece of evidence yet was staring her in the face. An e-mail to Kimball Parrish from none other than the man who fired Denise Rutledge, Howard Carpenter.
Thank God for electronic fingerprints and paper trails that people left all over their computers. E-mails back and forth from Howie to Kimball. Arranging a sexual rendezvous with a porn actress, promising she would do exactly what he’d seen her do in a movie and, most surprising of all, clearly indicating that Desirée had asked for the assignation to take place.
Was Desirée trying to get a job in legitimate TV, hoping that Mr. Parrish was her ticket to television? Or was Desirée helping Jessica on the story?
Either way, Jazz would find out. They could hop a commuter plane from Miami International and be in Key West in an hour.
She’d just finished booking them seats online when the bedroom door opened.
“I’m still employed,” Alex announced with a wry grin. “We can skip the trip to Key West and spend the day—” He raked her with a very unsubtle look. “—swimming.”
Why did her lower half react that way? Who was in charge of her body, anyway? “Sorry, honey. We’re going to Key West. Sunset Key, to be precise. We leave in—” She looked at her watch. “About three hours. With traffic and check-in, that leaves no time for ‘swimming.’”
“We don’t have to go,” he replied, closing the door behind him. Sh
e heard the lock switch in place, and damn if her throat didn’t go dry.
“Oh, yes we do.” She pointed to the computer screen. “Kimball Parrish has an unnatural link to Desirée Royalle and I want to know what it is.”
“Really?” He strolled over to the bed where she sat cross-legged and settled in behind her to read the screen. His long legs wrapped around hers and the granite of his chest warmed her back as he placed a hot kiss on her neck. Reading the e-mails over her shoulder, she could feel him smile. “That looks pretty natural to me.”
“Alex.” She pointed at the screen, aware that his hands had already encircled her waist and were creeping up toward her breasts. “Don’t you find it incredibly coincidental that Kimball Parrish knows Denise and that she arranged to have a sexual encounter with him?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.” He settled his chin on her neck and began to nibble her earlobe. “But I do believe in sexual encounters.”
She dipped out of the gentle grip of his teeth. “What did Lucy say?”
“I told you, she gave me a second chance. She likes you.” He glided his hand up her stomach to caress the underside of her breast. “So do I.”
Closing her eyes, she tried to form a coherent thought. She wiggled out of his grasp, and looked at him over her shoulder. “What caused the white streak?”
“Excuse me?”
“Lucy’s hair. A shock of gray in otherwise dark hair is usually caused by a trauma.” Lucy was stunning, easily six feet tall, with pale white skin and jade green eyes, but the two-inch white streak down the front of her long, black hair was her most memorable feature.
Alex shook his head. “No one knows Lucy’s background. Just that she was a spook, then left and started the Bullet Catchers.”
“No husband? Family?”
“Not that I know of.” He pulled her closer, threatening to tip her back on the bed. “We don’t have to go to Key West. Parrish will be back in Miami tomorrow, maybe Tuesday.”
What had changed his mind? She turned her attention to the computer and clicked on a few more keys, trolling through Parrish’s files. Most were secured, but she got through the password protection without much difficulty.
“Lucy is convinced that Jessica is fine,” he told her. “She is working on a story, exactly as you suspected from the beginning.”
Icy fingers of doubt gripped her. “What’s the story?”
“Something the network wants.” He slid his hands over her thighs.
She’d known that days ago. She succeeded in opening a new file and clicked through the pages. “Which is?”
“Not sure.” His hands stilled. “Go back a page.”
She hit the return arrow. “What is it?”
“One more page.” She could have sworn she felt his whole being constrict. “There.”
The spreadsheet listed about twenty entries down the left, mostly four-lettered television and radio stations, probably owned by Kimball. He pointed to the screen. “Look at that.”
Climax.
She blew out a quick chuckle. “You have sex on the brain.”
He leaned closer, peering at the screen, his scent making her dizzy. “Click on it.”
She did, and it flashed with a link to another file, which was protected. Well protected.
“Climax,” Alex said. “That reminds me of something.”
She leaned to her left to give him a disgusted look. “You’re pathetic.”
“I’m serious.” She could tell by the darkness in his eyes that he was. “Search all the files for the word.”
Tapping at a few keys, she searched the files she’d downloaded for the word “climax.” “What does it remind you of?” she asked as they waited. As if she didn’t know. Desk sex. Pool sex. More sex.
“Pornography.”
Suddenly it hit her. “Climax Distribution. That was the name of the distribution company on Desirée’s film,” she said, snapping her fingers. “You’re right.”
“The same film that had Jessica in it.”
Her heart dropped at the thought, but her fingers flew, typing in “distribution.”
More heavily encrypted files flashed on the screen. She didn’t have the software or time to hack into those.
Jazz glanced at Alex. “What if Adroit Broadcasting is somehow connected to Climax Distribution?”
“For the one-man Clean Up America campaigner, I’d say that’d be pretty bad news.”
“I’d say that would be network news.” Jazz hit a few keys to no avail. Access denied.
“But the network wouldn’t want that publicized, any more than Parrish would,” Alex noted. “Parrish owns a Metro-Net affiliate station.”
On nothing more than an unnerving gut feeling, she started scanning for video files.
“What are you looking for?” Alex asked.
“I’m not sure.” She found a video editing program and tried a few different search words. “I’m just…looking.”
Alex kissed her neck, the heat of his lips slowing her fingers as she worked. “I love watching you in action,” he whispered, the confession sending confusion and delight through her. “It’s sexy.”
She started to smile, but then froze as a familiar image filled the small video screen in the corner of her laptop.
“Alex.” Jazz could barely speak at the sight of her sister’s face, laughing. “Look.”
“Jesus.” Alex pulled her into his chest as he looked at the image on the computer. “Let’s go to Key West.” Alex was off the bed in one move, holding his hand to her. “Now.”
God, she could love a man who thought so much like she did.
Her heart landed in her stomach with a thud so loud she was surprised he didn’t hear it.
Love? Now, there was the scale-tipper in the power struggle of life.
Memories came and frustratingly dissipated like scents on the wind, gone before Jessica could capture and closely examine any one. She inhaled the pungent green tea in her cup, hoping for another snippet to break into her foggy brain.
But her head felt like a crashed hard drive.
“What did he give me?” she asked, clasping the ceramic for warmth that her body couldn’t seem to generate. “I can barely remember my name.”
“Some liquid roofie, I bet.” Denise guzzled her own tea, looking out the sliding glass doors to the dark purple thunderhead that formed over the ocean.
Liquid roofie. Rohypnol. Now, how did she know that? She closed her eyes and dug for a memory. Anterograde amnesia…she did a story on this once. She almost dropped her cup with the realization. Club drugs that erase memory for hours or days.
“Why did he bring me here?” she asked again, knowing full well Denise either didn’t know or wasn’t saying.
Instead of another shrug, Denise narrowed her eyes at Jessica. “How can you get my son?”
The memory that Denise had a son had come and gone twice since she’d crawled out of the bathroom. Jessica forced herself to concentrate. “We need to get to a phone.”
But every telephone outlet in the house was empty. They’d found a cell phone charger with nothing attached to it. There wasn’t even a television or radio. Downstairs, on the ground level, was a set of rooms built into the stilts that kept the main house elevated from storm surge waves, but the doors were locked. The only transportation—a golf cart—was missing and Jessica was in no shape to walk far.
Jessica’s gaze drifted around the kitchen. Although the place was spacious and clean and decorated with simple but expensive furnishings, the rambling beach house lacked color or personality. In the kitchen, gray ceramic tiles covered the counter and backsplash, plain white cupboards filled two walls, and the stove looked like it had never been used.
Staring at the burner, another memory tickled her brain. Cooking. She’d been cooking. That was the last thing she could remember. She’d been preparing dinner for…a man.
She clenched her fists and tried to pull out something, anything from her brain
. Forcing herself to relax, she let the images slowly take shape.
They drank wine…rich and robust Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Her favorite. But something happened…something changed…. She’d run to the elevator, hurried from the apartment, her heels clapping against the concrete of the parking garage.
Then there was nothing.
That was Monday, she remembered, pouncing on the fact. Monday night, she’d had plans to make dinner between her broadcasts.
“What day is it?” Jessica asked.
Denise turned to her, an unforgiving light highlighting the deep lines above her lips. “It’s Monday.”
Jessica’s tea turned to acid in her mouth. She’d lost a week of her life?
“Please tell me everything, Denise. I need to remember.”
“All I know is that you wanted my help to do some news story. You wanted some files and movies. You wanted to follow me around, and have me sneak a camera into the studio.”
Jessica gave Denise a blank look as she tried mightily to remember.
Denise banged her mug on the counter, startling her. “That was supposed to help you show that no one in this fucking business has any protection against the jerks getting rich off our bodies.” Denise shot her a dark look. “You asked a lot of questions about Howie’s distribution company and the studio in Hialeah. And then you offered me money and security if I could get some very specific information out of Kimball Parrish.”
At the mention of the name, Jessica’s whole body went on alert. “What kind of information?”
Something rumbled on the gravel that surrounded the downstairs of the house. Denise gasped, color draining from her face. “He’s home! Get back in that room. Hurry!”
Jessica didn’t move. “No, Denise. He has some explaining to do. I want to know why I’m here and why he drugged me.”
“Are you nuts?” Denise eyes widened. “I told you. He’s putting you in a movie with me.”
Jessica just stared at her and shook her head. “You’re mistaken.” But as she spoke, a vivid, ugly image flashed in her mind.
Her own face, laughing on TV. But it had been…edited.
That’s why she’d run out of her apartment. He’d shown her the film that he’d made. He’d spliced together candid images from her between newscasts, relaxed and laughing, and edited them onto a woman’s body. A woman…having sex. At first she’d thought it was a joke—a bad, horrible joke.
Kill Me Twice Page 21
