by Lisa Weaver
“Okay, but you don’t need to pick me up in the morning. I’m meeting Lauren for breakfast not far from there. I’ll just head over when we’re done.”
“Sounds like a plan. My boat is docked in berth number nine. I’ll wait for you.”
For their return trip, he chose a back road that was infrequently traveled. It was just them, the bike, and the gorgeous, starry night sky.
The ride was beautifully tranquil, but that serenity was abruptly broken when he approached the turn that would connect them with the road back to Stephanie’s house. That’s when he spotted the flash of rapidly approaching headlights in his rearview mirror.
A vehicle was gaining on them swiftly—too swiftly—and that was enough to catch his attention.
It caught Stephanie’s, too.
“Frank!” she called out in warning as a dark Cadillac Escalade accelerated to pull up beside them, dangerously close.
“It’s okay. He just wants to pass,” he assured her, keeping his tone calm so as not to alarm her further.
He decelerated to give the guy an opportunity to pull ahead of them. If the Escalade’s driver did have malicious intent, the four-hundred-pound Ducati would be no match against the five-thousand-plus-pound behemoth and its driver who seemed hell-bent on edging them towards the soft shoulder of the road.
Instead of passing the driver continued to crowd them, forcing the bike to the edge of the pavement. The motorcycle skidded as its tires hit loose gravel, but he managed to keep the bike upright and bring it back onto the tar.
“What’s he trying to do?” Stephanie questioned, the tremor in her voice betraying her alarm.
“I think our new friend has road rage issues,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. “Apparently he wants the lane all to himself. Lucky for him, I’m feeling charitable. Hang on tight,” he cautioned.
Twisting the throttle, he shot ahead of the massive vehicle and scooted out around it. Aware that the stretch of pavement up ahead was under construction, he blasted past the turn that would connect him with the road leading back to Stephanie’s house and raced toward the work area instead.
A detour sign directed traffic to an alternate route, but he ignored it. Instead he headed directly for the concrete barrier blocking the road they were traveling.
A scant opening between the barrier and the roadside ditch appeared wide enough for his bike to clear. He hoped it was, because it was the only plan he had for extracting Stephanie from the danger their pursuer posed.
The tiny gap was white-knuckle tight, but he squeezed through. The man behind the wheel of the Escalade slammed on his brakes with only seconds to spare, unable to follow.
Dialing back his speed along the barricaded construction route, Frank took the first paved route they came to. When they reached the main drive there was no sign of the other vehicle. He resumed his earlier speed and kept it up until they arrived back at Stephanie’s home.
As soon as he killed the engine, Stephanie dismounted. She took her helmet off, setting her hair spilling free. Its fiery length mirrored the sparks of anger flashing in her eyes.
“What was that idiot trying to do?” she fumed.
She was shaking in fury or in shock—he wasn’t sure which. Perhaps it was both.
He knew he should resist the temptation to draw her into his arms, but the urge to comfort her was too strong to ignore. “Hey. It’s okay,” he assured her. “It was just some lunatic having a bad night.”
“It seemed more like he was trying to kill us to me,” she countered vehemently.
“I’d never let that happen,” he assured her. “There’s no way I’d never let anyone hurt you, Kitten.”
He’d sooner die than let any harm come to her.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Taking a moment to regroup in the shelter of Frank’s reassuring embrace, Stephanie realized Liz’s concern that he’d become a target had just been proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
After that soul-shattering kiss on the beach, she’d been prepared to renege on her deal to let him accompany her to Landers’s island. But given the near miss with the Escalade she couldn’t, in good conscience, walk away. He needed her—whether he knew it or not.
She could stay wrapped in his embrace like this forever, but she wanted answers and she couldn’t formulate sensible questions while she was this close to him.
As badly as she’d like to attribute her racing heartbeat and sudden oxygen deprivation to the adrenaline rush from their close call, she knew her symptoms could only be attributed to her feelings for Frank.
Boy, was she ever in deep.
Stepping out of his arms, she determinedly met his gaze. “So are you going to tell me the truth about what’s going on, or do we have to have another close call or two before you finally come clean about whatever it is you’ve gotten messed up in?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Frank. Last night you suspected your penthouse had been broken into. Tonight a stranger followed us on the beach. And there’s no way you’re going to convince me that incident just now was nothing more than a super-size case of road rage.”
“You’ve been watching too many spy movies,” he sighed.
She shook her head in exasperation. “No, but I did just watch a driver try and run us off the road. The question is: why? I know there’s something you aren’t telling me. What are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything. If—and that’s a big if—the events are somehow connected, they probably have something to do with all the poking around the Sentinels team has been doing trying to connect Lawrence Mendacci to the attacks on Rafe and Brianna.”
She arched an eyebrow, pinning him with a look that made it clear she wasn’t buying his explanation.
“You have to admit it makes sense,” he continued. “Considering Mendacci’s reputed ties to the mob, it’s not too far-fetched a possibility that our no-holds-barred investigation into his activities might have gotten his attention.”
“Nice theory, but that’s not what’s going on here,” she refuted stubbornly. “Mendacci is too shrewd to waste time playing cat-and-mouse games. If he has somehow discovered we work for Sentinels and he believes we pose a threat to him, he’d simply order a no nonsense hit and have us eliminated.”
“Maybe …” he hedged.
“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. We’re talking about a man who has eluded the grasp of every major law enforcement organization in the country. None of them have been able to prove he’s shady. Lauren and Luke are still guarding Rafe and Brianna because we don’t have enough evidence to substantiate whether Mendacci is behind the attacks that were made on them so we can put him behind bars. I’m sure the man’s not concerned about a small covert protection agency succeeding where every other government bureau has failed. So why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on?”
He met her unwavering gaze with one just as determined. “There’s nothing to tell. It’s my mess, not yours. I don’t want you caught up in it.”
“This has something to do with the case you were working on before you left the CIA, doesn’t it?”
“Just drop it, Steph. I don’t want you involved in this.”
“You keep forgetting—I’m trained to be caught up in sticky situations. I don’t need your protection, Frank.”
“That’s tough, because you’re stuck with it. I’ve already lost someone close to me to this crusade. I’m not about to let you be the next victim.”
“Earlier, you told me you were disappointed I didn’t trust you enough to confide in you. Now I know what that feels like.”
“I’m keeping you in the dark for your own good.”
“I just want to help you,” she persisted. “Please?”
He tossed his hands up in surrender. “Okay. But what I’m going to confide has to stay between us. You can’t tell Liz or anyone else. And don’t confuse my filling you in with my looping you into the inve
stigation. I’m serious about not wanting you involved in this.”
“I get that. Let’s go inside. I’ll brew a pot of coffee and you can bring me up to speed on your extracurricular investigative activities and why they’re causing such a stir.”
Chapter Nine
Sitting in Stephanie’s living room with the rich aroma of coffee wafting from a steaming mug in his hand, Frank waited for his friend to begin volleying questions at him. He didn’t have to wait long for the interrogation to begin.
“The guy who followed us on the beach tonight has a vested interest in the case the CIA ordered you to drop, doesn’t he?” she asked before she’d even taken a sip from her cup.
“I can’t tell you that’s not a possibility,” he conceded. “I’ve been doing a little digging around, and the fact that my inquiries have attracted some attention tells me I may have succeeded in poking the hornet’s nest.”
“I can’t understand why you continued to look into the case when the CIA clearly didn’t want you to pursue it. It seems to me your interest is more than professional. This is personal, isn’t it?”
He nodded, unable to refute her. It didn’t get more personal than tracking down the identity of the man who’d shot his partner. And beyond that, it was personal for both of them, although Stephanie didn’t know it. If his theory was right, her father was not a relapsed gambling addict or a killer, but a hero who’d lost his life while working to stop drug dealers and sex traffickers.
As for Frank’s own father—well, the man was just as sinister as Lawrence Mendacci himself.
But he couldn’t go there with her now. Not until he’d confirmed his suspicions.
He raised his eyes, meeting her questioning gaze. “That hornet’s nest I poked? We aren’t talking about the ordinary, garden-variety hornet. We’re talking about a super nasty hybrid, the kind that doesn’t think twice about killing innocent people. My partner, Pamela, was one of their victims.”
“Oh, Frank. I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“Pamela and I were working undercover investigating a money-laundering ring. We knew there were shady dealings going on, but we weren’t having any luck pinning down the leader of the operation. One night, while Pam was off meeting with one of her contacts, I received an anonymous tip about the location of the ring’s headquarters. I was anxious to run down the lead, so I decided to check out the tip on my own.
“When I arrived, the building was empty. It had been trashed—every piece of technology in the place had been destroyed. I called in our computer forensics unit, but even our best detectives weren’t able to recover any data from the demolished hard drives. It seemed like we were back at square one.”
“Except …” she prompted.
“Pamela was furious when she found out I hadn’t waited for her. She insisted on seeing the hard drives that were recovered. Before we arrived at the office where the equipment was being held, we got a call notifying us the drives had been stolen.”
“So someone else was interested in them?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “They were beyond interested. So interested they ambushed Pam and I and took us to an abandoned warehouse where they tortured us for hours. It turns out they’d discovered that whoever had trashed the hard drives had extracted data from them first. They thought I was the person who’d downloaded the information, and they wanted me to turn it over.
“I didn’t have what they were looking for, of course. When I couldn’t give them what they were after, they shot Pamela in a last-ditch effort to try and get me to talk. The only reason I made it out alive is because the men who’d been holding us set fire to the building as they fled, which drew the attention of the police. The first responders found me and dragged me out before the whole place went up in smoke. The blaze was so intense that Pam’s body was charred beyond recognition.”
“Oh, Frank. That’s horrifying. But you can’t blame yourself. Your partner knew the risks that go along with undercover assignments. What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not, but I should have bluffed my way through to buy us more time. If I’d stalled our captors, maybe I could have saved her.”
“You’ve been in this business long enough to know that’s not how these things work. Even if you’d managed to convince them you had what they wanted, they still would have killed her—killed you both. Men like that play for keeps.”
“Which is exactly why you are not getting involved.”
“I deal with risk every day. This is no different.”
“Look, you aren’t getting wrapped up in this mess. It’s already gotten ugly, and I don’t even know who I’m dealing with here. That’s what I’m trying to determine. That’s why I was so adamant about wanting to accompany you to Damon’s estate. The answers are there.”
“I never bought in to your explanation that your eagerness to be my plus one was out of concern for me.”
“I really am worried about you spending time with Damon. I want to be there to watch out for you while you’re a guest on his island. But this is a two-birds-with-one-stone expedition. I know Landers is involved, somehow, in the money-laundering ring. I believe he can lead me to the man who ordered the attack on Pamela and I.”
“What makes you so sure Damon plays a part in all of this?”
“When Pam and I were being held captive, I heard our abductors say their boss was meeting with Damon. They didn’t mention what they were getting together to discuss, nor did they refer to their ringleader by name, but I’m confident Damon holds the key to his identity. I’ll search for the answers while I’m on the island. And I’ll rest a lot easier knowing you aren’t out there by yourself without support.
“Speaking of which,” he continued, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think I should bunk on your sofa tonight. I’m not comfortable leaving you alone. If my new friends have any more tricks up their sleeves, they may decide you’d make a compelling bargaining chip.”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Problem solved, Stephanie thought, breathing a mental sigh of relief.
She’d been trying to figure out a way to get Frank to stay with her when he broached the subject, eliminating the dilemma himself. She didn’t want him going back to his penthouse when there clearly was a threat lurking out there. She needed him close so she could keep an eye on him.
Knowing he’d think it odd if she didn’t refute his offer, she waved her hand, dismissing his suggestion. “I’m fine, Frank. I don’t need—”
He halted her midsentence. “Please just humor me, okay?”
“Okay,” she caved, lacing her reply with a generous serving of reluctance so he wouldn’t question her rapid capitulation. “I’ll get a pillow and some blankets for the sofa. I think I may have an oversize set of sweats kicking around that might fit you, too.”
“That’s okay,” he declined. “I keep a few things in a bag on the bike.”
It was a mental face palm moment. Of course he did. She wasn’t naive enough to think he didn’t have relationships—some of them undoubtedly involved overnight stays.
“Are you seeing anyone special these days?” As soon as the question was out of her mouth, she regretted it. If he wanted her to know about his love life, he’d tell her.
Fortunately, he didn’t appear at all taken aback by her out-of-the-blue query. “I date, but there’s no one exclusive,” he shrugged. “No one’s going to miss me if I don’t go back to the penthouse tonight, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
She felt her face heat in a blush. “I wasn’t trying to pry. I just didn’t want you to feel obligated to stay if you had plans for the rest of the night.”
“There’s no one I’d rather spend the evening with than you,” he told her, following the assertion up with a warm smile that made her heart melt.
“I’m surprised you can still say that after the inanity I displayed back at the cove. I should have caught on to what was happening. I had no idea we were being
followed.”
“You were off duty. You had no reason to be on guard. You’re way too hard on yourself.”
“Not nearly hard enough,” she blurted. “I wasn’t on top of what was happening tonight, back at the boardwalk, because when I’m around you I have this awful habit of letting my feelings for you distract me. And tonight isn’t the first time I’ve lost focus and let my emotions stand in the way of my doing my job when you’re involved.”
“The night of the ambush, I had a chance to take down Lauren and Rafe’s attacker, and I blew it. I didn’t act on the opportunity because you were in the line of fire. And when you were shot, despite my caution, the guilt was unbearable.”
“Aw, Kitten. Don’t tell me you’ve been beating yourself up about something so totally out of your control? You were steeped in one of the most stressful scenarios we can ever encounter in the field. You only had a split second to make a decision. You did what your gut told you to do. That’s never a bad call.”
“Even if my failure to act resulted in you taking a bullet?”
He hesitated, and she wondered if he was considering sharing what Liz had told him about the second shooter who’d been at the scene of the ambush that night. She hoped he might tell her it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d taken the shot or not because the bullet that had wounded him hadn’t even come from the man she’d had in her sights. To her disappointment, he didn’t share that important piece of information with her.
“Even if you’d pulled the trigger, the shooter still might have had time to get a round off before your bullet connected and took him down,” he continued instead. “I’m sure I would have made the same call you did had our positions been reversed. For the record, I would have trusted you to take the shot but I’m not disappointed that you didn’t. You did what you thought was best, and that’s all that matters. You’re a great agent, and I’d be proud to partner with you in any situation.
“I’m sorry you’ve been living with that cloud hanging over your head all this time. You could have told me sooner and saved yourself the agony, you know.”
