“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Have you finished making our travel arrangements?”
“Your doctor said—”
“Yes or no. Have you made the arrangements, Emily?”
Emily sighed. “Yes, Your Grace. Our flight to Miami leaves first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Good. It’s time I started playing cupid.”
8
Kristin had just gotten the bad news from the Miami SAC. Rudy was sympathetic but there was nothing he could do. The Miami OPR—heavily influenced, Kristin was sure, by SSA Harrison—had decided Kristin should be suspended until SIRT came back with its recommendation for action on her second shooting incident.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Get your daughter into school,” Rudy said. “Spend some time with your father. See the shrink, so you’re ready to come back when the time comes.”
“So you think I will be coming back?”
“Not my call,” Rudy said. “What about that assignment with the CIA?”
Kristin frowned. “I thought you’d hate the idea.”
Rudy lifted a brow. “I’m not crazy about loaning out my agents, but this is a serious threat, Agent Lassiter. How about it? I understand you’re a world-class tennis player. Sounds like you’re the right woman for the job.”
At least it would be a job. The one she had seemed to be in jeopardy. “I’ll think about it.”
“Be sure to turn in your badge and gun before you leave the building,” Rudy said.
That sounded more than a little final. Kristin left Rudy’s office in a daze. What if I lose my job? How will I survive?
She felt even more shaken when she dropped off her credentials and the weapon that had replaced the gun that had been sent to the FBI’s ballistics lab at Quantico after the first shooting. She hadn’t been without badge or gun for four years. They’d become a part of her identity. Who would she be without them?
More to the point, how was she going to survive the several financial catastrophes she was facing without her job. Maybe she could borrow some money at the bank while she still had her job. Perhaps get a home equity line of credit. Except she already had a second mortgage. And the banks weren’t loaning money these days without months and months of paperwork. She needed money now. And she needed lots of it.
You could always rob a bank.
Kristin snickered. Which was better than sobbing.
She’d taken a few precious days of her vacation allowance to deal with Flick’s appearance and her father’s stroke. She didn’t have many more left. Then what?
Her father had recently mortgaged his tennis facility to expand and improve it, so he was cash poor. He had assistants to help, but players came to the Lassiter Tennis Academy to be coached by Harry Lassiter. She had to figure out a way to keep the academy running until Harry could at least come back and supervise players from a wheelchair.
Harry had been so fit, he’d never bought health insurance. His bills at the hospital were mounting astronomically. She didn’t want to imagine what physical therapy—and perhaps a nurse at home—were going to cost.
Kristin was still in shock when she left the MFO. She felt frightened. She’d worried that she might be put on administrative duty again, but she hadn’t imagined being suspended. The reality of the situation came crashing down on her.
I could be fired.
She made it to her car before her knees buckled. She sat in the hot sun, trembling as though it were bitter cold. She’d left Flick with her father when she’d come in to see Rudy and promised she’d be back within a couple of hours. She needed to go pick up her daughter.
Then what, Kristin? Then what?
The offer from Max was looking a lot more attractive. Assuming the CIA was still willing to use her when she was on suspension from the FBI. Of course, there were her “special qualifications” for the job in London. Maybe if she helped find an assassin, it would influence the FBI to keep her.
Kristin suddenly realized she had no idea how to contact Max. He hadn’t given her a business card. Of course, neither playboys nor spies needed business cards. She knew Max was living in London. But would a spy have a listed telephone number?
She could always contact his mother. But as much as Max hated the duchess, would she be likely to know where he could be found?
Kristin used the trip south on I-95 to Jackson Memorial to compose herself. She mentally worked out the exact wording she would use to explain how she’d gotten time off from work. No sense upsetting her father or Flick, both of whom had an uncanny ability to tell when she was troubled. And no sense worrying herself, until she knew for sure she’d been fired.
In the parking garage, she added some lipstick and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. She took a deep, calming breath and let it out. Then she put a smile on her face. She grimaced at how phony it looked in the rearview mirror and tried again. Better. She was as ready as she would ever be to face her family without revealing the chaos that threatened them all.
One thing at a time. One day at a time. That’s how she’d survived when she was sixteen and her world had fallen apart. It wasn’t so very different now that she was twenty-six. With a little thought—and a lot of luck—she was certain she could figure out a way to turn all these bitter lemons into sweet, icy-cold lemonade.
Kristin stepped off the elevator at Jackson Memorial onto the floor where her father was recuperating and stopped dead when she saw who was sitting alone in the visitors’ lounge.
“Good morning, Ms. Lassiter.”
Kristin’s heart skipped a beat as she eyed the elegantly dressed woman in the waiting room. Bella Benedict had eyes that were almost violet in hue and barely a wrinkle on her face. Her black hair was parted on the side, cut to shoulder length and threaded with silver that set off her ivory complexion and made her look ethereally beautiful.
She was wearing a beige silk suit, with a necklace of pearls—clearly not the famous one Kristin had heard about—hanging in ropes across the silk blouse beneath it. Her crossed legs revealed a pair of leopard-spotted Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks or some other exclusive brand of heels that were higher than anything Kristin had ever owned.
The duchess was wearing the exquisite square-cut diamond ring her husband had given her on their engagement. It sparkled like polar ice in the sunlight. Was it eight carats? Eight-point-five, she remembered Max telling her. The duchess had kept it on her ring finger all through her separation from Max’s father. Max had suggested she wore it in defiance of her husband, while she entertained her many lovers.
Kristin couldn’t imagine a single reason—except for one, which was a well-kept secret—why the Duchess of Blackthorne had come calling. “To say I’m surprised to see you here would be a massive understatement,” she said at last.
The duchess smiled. “I’m a bit surprised to be here myself.”
Kristin felt the hairs on the back of her neck hackle, like an animal that senses threat. She didn’t trust the woman. Bella Benedict’s reputation—as someone who put her own interests first—preceded her. “What do you want?”
“Please, sit down,” the duchess said, gesturing to an upholstered chair angled toward the durable leather couch where she sat. “We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Kristin replied.
“I’m sure that’s true,” the duchess conceded. “But I know you need money. I’d like to help.”
Kristin felt her cheeks heat with shame and anger. “I don’t want your help.”
“I’ve gone about this all wrong,” the duchess said with a moue of distress. “Please, won’t you sit down? I only want what’s best for my granddaughter, Felicity.”
The blood drained from Kristin’s face.
“I believe you call her Flick.” And in case Kristin had any doubt that the cat was out of the bag, the duchess continued, “My son Max’s nine-year-old daughter.”
Kristin’s heart was threatening to beat it
s way out of her chest. “Does Max know?”
The duchess shook her head. “I didn’t think it was my place to tell him.”
“Thank God.” Kristin had kept Flick’s birth father a secret for ten years. Her first thought, her greatest fear, when Max had shown up in Rudy’s office, was that he’d somehow found out about Flick. But he hadn’t given any indication that he knew about his daughter. If the duchess was telling the truth, he was still oblivious to the fact he was a father.
So why had the duchess come? Not for any good reason, she was sure. The deep friendship that had grown between her and Max during the three years before she’d left the tour had flourished in great part because of Max’s frustrating relationship with the woman sitting before her now.
Kristin recalled one particular incident about nine months after she’d won her first Wimbledon trophy. She and Max had been playing at the tournament in early spring at Indian Wells, California. She’d won her match and had gone searching for Max to share the news and perhaps hit some balls with him.
She’d found the handsome sixteen-year-old far from the crowd, smashing his tennis racquet against a bench near the practice courts. The frame was broken and the Wilson racquet head was bent almost in half.
“Hey,” she’d said as she approached him. “You okay?”
When he looked up, she saw his eyes were red-rimmed. He’d swiped at them and said, “What’s up, Princess?”
She felt thrilled at hearing the new nickname he’d given her the past fall at the U.S. Open, when he saw her posing for a publicity picture her dad had wanted taken with all her shiny gold and silver and crystal trophies around her.
Max had said she looked like an Arabian princess with a hoard of jewels. Except for her blue eyes and blond hair, of course. If she were truly an Arabian princess, her eyes and hair would have been black. “Make that a North American princess,” he’d corrected with a laugh.
She’d laughed back at him. But he’d called her Princess as often as K after that. She wasn’t sure which she liked better. She was just happy spending time with Max, secretly loving him.
If she’d been able to see into the future, she would have tried to kill that love. At the time, she’d been blissfully infatuated. She’d even tried thinking up a nickname for him. But Max was short and sweet.
In her head she called him “sweetheart” and “honey.” But she was careful never to let on how she really felt. She knew the kind of woman he went for. Worldly. Sexually experienced. With a flashy figure.
Max might spend his nights with women like that, but he spent his free time during the day hanging around the tennis courts with her. She figured it was because he didn’t have to be anyone but himself with her. She was the only one who saw him when he was feeling low. And he was usually feeling low because of something his mother had done.
Or hadn’t done.
The duchess kept promising to come see him play. And making excuses why she hadn’t shown up. She kept promising she’d get the family together. Then she’d tell him the family holiday in Tahiti or New York or on the Amalfi Coast had been canceled. She kept promising she’d call. And never did.
He’d told Kristin he didn’t believe anything his mother said anymore. But he kept waiting and hoping she’d change.
When Kristin found him smashing his racquet, she knew it had to be something the duchess had said. Or not done. “What did she do now?” she asked.
He examined the ruined racquet and said, “She was supposed to come see me play in the finals. I don’t know why I thought she’d actually show up. She has some charity event in New York she forgot about. She’s not coming.”
“Why do you even care?” she said fiercely, hurting inside for the boy she loved. “She’s a mean witch!”
He’d laughed, startled at her outburst, she supposed. “Princess, you’re talking about my mother,” he’d chided.
“I don’t care. I’d call out anybody who treated you that way. Including that mean witch.”
He’d grinned and ruffled her hair in a way that reminded her he saw her as a kid sister.
She slapped his hand away. “Stop that! You wouldn’t do that to one of your girlfriends, would you?”
He eyed her askance. “Whoa, K. What’s with the attitude?”
“I’m not five years old,” she complained.
He studied her for a moment. She flushed because he seemed to notice she filled out her tennis togs better than she had the previous year at Wimbledon. “Point taken,” he said at last. “Well, K, I’ll say this for you. I’m not going to break any more racquets because of anything the Mean Witch does.”
Kristin laughed as he parroted her expression.
From then on, that was how the two of them had referred to his mother. That was how she thought of the woman sitting before her now. The last thing Kristin wanted—or needed—was trouble from the Mean Witch.
She sank into the nearby chair, staring with wary eyes at the duchess. “How did you find out about Flick?”
“I employ a very good private investigator. Mr. Warren has been very helpful over the years. Please, let me start with the reason I’m here.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Kristin said.
“You may not want my assistance, my dear. But you need it.”
“I’ve been taking care of my family just fine without help from anyone,” Kristin flared.
“Yes, but you’ve just been suspended from your job, which seems to be in jeopardy. And you don’t have the money to pay for your father’s medical expenses or physical therapy. Or for after-school child care, or private school, for that matter, since Felicity has been thrown out of that Swiss boarding school where she had a scholarship. And you can’t afford to pay a lawyer to defend you in the civil lawsuit that’s been filed against you.”
“How could you possibly know all that?” Kristin demanded, aghast. “I only found out twenty minutes ago that I’m on suspension. Flick’s barely been home twenty-four hours. And a person’s legal business and personal finances—”
“Can be examined without too much trouble. I sponsored Felicity’s scholarship, so the headmistress informed me immediately when she was dismissed for fighting.
“As for your suspension, I asked a friend in Washington if he thought you could get leave from the FBI to travel to London for a while. He said he’d check into it. I wonder now if he might have misconstrued my request. I didn’t mean you should be put on suspension.”
Kristin felt things shifting out of her control. “How dare you interfere in my life! I’m not going anywhere, especially not to London.” Although she’d been considering exactly that half an hour ago.
“I understand you’re scheduled to play an exhibition tennis match with Max against Elena Tarakova and Steffan Pavlovic on opening day at Wimbledon,” the duchess said. “I couldn’t have arranged it better myself.”
Kristin felt her pulse pounding in her temples. How could the duchess possibly know about something the CIA had arranged with Scotland Yard? Then she remembered the duchess’s “friend” in Washington. Had Bella suggested the exhibition match? Had Max been manipulated—without his knowledge—as well? Was there really an assassin after the president? Or had Bella and her friend in Washington made that up, too?
“Arranged?” she replied in as even a voice as she could manage.
“Well, I didn’t arrange the match,” Bella confessed. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. But I must admit, it’s an amazing coincidence that you’ve been asked to spend time with Max in London just when I decided to—”
“Even if I agreed to such a thing,” Kristin interrupted, “I haven’t played a professional match in ten years.”
“It’s only an exhibition, Ms. Lassiter. You and Max have plenty of time to practice before the match.”
“I can’t leave my father. Or my daughter.”
“As I said, everything can easily be arranged. Felicity can come with you. I spoke with your father, and he
agrees that you should play.”
“My father doesn’t run my life. And Flick goes nowhere without my say-so.”
“The announcement of the match was made this morning in the Times. There’s a great deal of excitement, actually, about having the four players who were the Wimbledon finalists ten years ago playing a mixed doubles exhibition match.”
Kristin wondered if Max was hoping to force her hand by having the announcement made without her having consented to play. And if Bella had nothing to do with arranging the match, then it was likely the assassin existed and that Max’s investigation of the tennis players at Wimbledon was necessary.
Which meant her participation in the match—and the investigation—might very well be important, as Rudy had suggested. Even if it dragged up a lot of unhappy history for her.
Ten years ago, Max had won the Wimbledon Boys’ Singles Championship match against Steffan Pavlovic. Kristin had lost her Girls’ Singles Championship match against Elena Tarakova. Kristin wasn’t looking forward to seeing Elena again. The woman who’d stolen the Wimbledon prize from her had also ruined her life. With Max’s cooperation, of course.
That was another story. One she’d tried to forget. Of love transcendent. And love betrayed.
“I’ve made arrangements for you and Felicity to fly to London on my private jet. Your father will be taken care of by a private nurse I’ve hired.”
Kristin couldn’t believe the duchess’s gall. “What part of no don’t you understand?”
“I hate to point out the obvious, my dear, but you’re out of money. What other choice do you have?”
None. She was out of choices. And the duchess knew it. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. It would be just like Bella Benedict to arrange for Kristin to go to London so that Max could take her to some British court and get custody of Flick. She suddenly wondered if Flick was in the room with her grandfather, or whether Bella might already have spirited her daughter out of the country.
“Have you seen Flick?” she asked anxiously. “Have you said anything to her about any of this?”
Invincible Page 8
