by Alison Kent
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Copyright © 2004 by Alison Kent
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A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts.
—Axel Munthe, 1857-1949
Swedish physician, psychiatrist, and writer
One
South Miami, Friday, 3:00 p.m.
Turning heads was something Katrina Flurry had done constantly throughout the twenty-eight years of her life. She wasn't going to apologize for it, defend it, or get bent out of shape when it didn't sit well with what girlfriends she had left.
She'd never been one to play up her looks, but she'd certainly never had a reason to play them down. Especially now that they were one of the only things left she had going for her. Sad that such was the state of things, but running from the truth went against her personal grain.
Even if lately she'd given the idea of running a whole lot of thought.
Her looks had played a big part in her successful entree into the social circles about which she wrote. In fact, her syndicated urban lifestyle column, Cosmopolitan Arm Candy, ran in a multitude of publications along with a caricature that looked enough like her to stop traffic dead.
And speaking of dead . . .
She swung her legs over the side of her lounger, slipped her feet into her poolside slides, and packed her towel, sunscreen, and the paperback she'd been reading into her tote, wondering as she gathered up her things if her ex, the worthless bastard, had yet been sent to meet his maker.
It was true that Peter Deacon had provided amazing fodder for her column. And she wasn't about to deny how much she'd enjoyed spinning through the circles of society in which he'd traveled.
What she hadn't enjoyed was discovering two months ago that the man she'd dated for the six months prior wasn't who she'd thought he was at all.
That he was, in fact, the front man for the sort of crime syndicate that brought to mind James Bond movies and Elmore Leonard books—and which made her, ugh, his moll.
A mobster's girlfriend. What a lovely experience to add to her resume.
She wondered with a rather grim satisfaction how Peter was enjoying his traveling now, from his cell to the prison mess hall and on to the caged exercise yard.
The thought of his well-manicured hands working to press license plates . . .
She leaned down to check the scuffed polish on one toe, feeling the zip of a bee zinging by her ear as she bent. Dodging the insect and cupping that side of her head, she swore never again to spend a free afternoon poolside after a morning pedicure.
Now she was going to need a touch-up before tonight's charity fund-raiser hosted by the Miami Symphony. She was so looking forward to an evening spent at the fabulous Mandarin Oriental without the odious and criminal Peter Deacon at her side.
Okay, she mused wryly, getting to her feet. She hadn't found him odious while they were seeing each other. At the time, however, she'd had no idea of his true colors—colors that now were now limited to black and white horizontal stripes, or whatever dazzling combination was worn by the population at Sing Sing.
Considering she would never be paying him a visit, she contented her imagination with picturing him thus—when she pictured him at all, an event growing more and more rare of late.
Adjusting the rise of her bikini bottoms, she reached for her cover-up and slipped it on, tightening the kimono's sash around her waist.
As much as she wished she could wipe him from her mind completely, a part of her harbored no small degree of guilt... or anger . . . or disgust—she had yet to define the emotion—that he'd pulled the wool over her eyes until she saw nothing but soft and cuddly sheep.
It was tough accepting that she'd been such a bad judge of character when she prided herself on the opposite.
She reached down for her tote, cringing again as that damn bee buzzed the hairs on the back of her neck. A big red welt of a sting would ruin the effect of the plunging ivory and gold silk halter topping the slim ankle-length Cleopatra skirt it had taken her hours to choose for tonight.
The fund-raising event was dreadfully important to her personal future as it was the first society function she would be attending unescorted since Peter's arrest.
The gossip would be flowing as freely as the Veuve Clicquot and Pol Roger, and squashing rumors of her knowledge of his true business dealings was her main goal for the evening.
She had not been a party, knowing, willing, or otherwise, to his unscrupulous activities, and she had certainly known nothing about his treasonable crimes.
Even now she shuddered and swallowed the bile that rose when she thought of the young scientist who'd burned to death in that fire in upstate New York. Rumor had the kid as deeply involved as Peter had been, but no one deserved such a horrific end.
At the moment, though, it was her own reputation on the line, her own future suffering the collateral damage of Peter's reach.
Courtney David, Katrina's editor at her home base of the Miami Herald, had warned her earlier in the week to expect a possible backlash. Two of the more conservative markets running Cosmopolitan Arm Candy had already put her column on hiatus until the hoopla of her involvement with Peter died down.
Repositioning her sunglasses, Katrina admitted she had a hell of a fight ahead. What her doubters and detractors didn't know was that fighting—and win-ning—was the hallmark of all Flurry women.
She would not lose the career she'd worked her ass off to establish without a serious battle royal and a lot of metaphorical dead bodies left in her wake.
It was when the bee buzzed her again and smashed into one of the poolside's Grecian urn planters that she realized the first dead body might very well be hers. Because that bee was no bee.
It was a bullet.
"Tzao gao," swore Julian Samms under his breath, the fluid burst of Mandarin as natural as picking the lock on the front door of Katrina Flurry's condo.
He wasn't worried about being caught on tape by the high-tech security system. Even a zoom shot would show him opening the door with what looked like a key.
Besides, though she didn't yet know it, Katrina Flurry didn't live here anymore.
And if he didn't get her out of Miami now, she wouldn't be living at all.
Spectra IT, the international crime syndicate tailor-made to employ scum like Peter Deacon, had put out a hit on the man's former girlfriend, using the assassin most suited to a job involving a sexy woman and a gun: Benny Rivers.
Julian knew way too much about Benny's penchant for abhorrent sexual torture. The other man was an equal opportunity sadist, meaning no man, woman, or sheep was safe from the abuse and humiliation he doled out before death.
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Hank Smithson, the founder and principal of the Smithson Group, had sent Julian to make sure Katrina avoided that scenario while Mick Savin, Hank's newest SG-5 recruit, put his bloodhound nose to Benny's foul trail.
If the game went according to plan, and she didn't put up an uncooperative stink in the process, Julian would have Katrina tucked safely away thirty minutes from now.
He knew from his surveillance that she was home; he'd hoped a simple knock would've been enough to gain him entrance. But no. Either she wasn't opening up because she hadn't recognized him, or because she was busy in her closet alphabetizing her shoes by designer.
He had absolutely no problem with quality footwear; he had a problem with any obsession resulting in waste of any kind—physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.
The fact that she could afford a real-life Sex and the City wardrobe had no impact on his opinion. But then, nothing ever did. Nothing ever would.
Not after what he'd witnessed during the two years he'd spent stationed in Africa.
And on that last deadly assignment in Kenya.
He'd read several installments of her syndicated column during his mission prep. Cosmopolitan Arm Candy. What a load of high-maintenance gou shi. The fact that she had the readership she did left him speechlessly shaking his head at the state of female affairs.
If women thought men gave a rat's ass about external trappings, they were out of their airheaded minds.
Men who were real men cared about two things. A woman able to carry on an intelligent conversation filled with innuendo and mind games, who then delivered an equally fulfilling challenge once she joined him in bed.
The makeup and jewelry and shoes and nails? Uh-uh. His experience told him those were tools used to impress other women and for gaining an edge in the self-esteem war games females played.
Why they felt the strangely competitive need to best one another with the superficial trappings of class . . . He gave another shake of his head as the door came open in his hand.
He didn't want to walk in and find himself facing the wrong end of the handgun registered in her name, so he knocked again as he cracked open the door. "Miss Flurry?"
He peered into the foyer. Whoa. Nice digs, he mused, stepping onto white-and-black marbled Italian tile. He knew from his background research that Katrina came from money, that her father had died while she was in high school, leaving wife and daughter financially set for the rest of their lives.
His bitching about her wardrobe budget aside, he had to admire her taste. Talk about quality. He'd even give her elegance. Her place deserved a spread in Architectural Digest. He figured her square footage at two thousand at least— not a bad bit of acreage for one person to move around in.
She went for what he supposed was classical, or traditional, the sort of decor that didn't exactly invite anyone to sit, to ditch their shoes, to kick back with a beer and spend Sunday afternoon watching football—a nonissue since the room didn't have a television and he wouldn't fit on her red and gold brocade camelback sofa anyway.
You're a moron, Samms. You're not a fixture in her condo or in her life. And it would never be so with any woman, a fact his subconscious was still warring over with his logic all these years later.
A cursory walk-through of her kitchen yielded no Katrina, no dirty dishes, and nothing on the stove. A perverse part of him wanted to check her refrigerator, see if it was stocked with fruits, vegetables, yogurt, and designer-label water, but the unsealed package of Chunky Chips Ahoy on the countertop changed his mind. Not to mention intrigued him.
He liked the idea of this gourmet woman having a few pedestrian tastes. It made him wonder how she'd feel about eating those cookies in bed—yet another mental detour he had no business taking.
He made his way over the plush ivory carpet toward the private rooms of the condo. "Miss Flurry?"
Still nothing, and yeah, he'd been right on the mark with his earlier assessment of the money she spent on shoes. Standing at the door to her monstrous closet, he estimated she owned a hundred pair.
A regular mini-Imelda.
And he really shouldn't be checking out her wardrobe, but it was either that or the bed. The bed which made him think about those cookies and how he could really go for a night of down and dirty sex.
He headed back to the living room and the balcony that opened over the courtyard pool. The fitness center and tennis courts would be his next destination since he knew she employed a housekeeper and wouldn't be doing her own laundry in the center's facilities . . .
There she was, down at the pool, her back to him as she got to her feet and tugged at a pair of bikini bottoms that sent his libido back to the idea of leaving cookie crumbs in her bed.
She'd coiled her shoulder-length caramel-colored hair into a knot on top of her head. He liked the length of her neck almost as much as he liked the length of her legs.
What he wasn't crazy over was the way she was covering up without first turning around so he could get a full frontal view of that body. Then again, her body was merely a perk of this job, not the reason he was here.
She looked like she was on her way back upstairs, meaning he'd do better to intercept her on the other side of her front door. Save himself a buttload of explaining—who he was, how he'd gotten in, what he wanted, as well as the hassle of having to restrain her when she refused to listen.
Cookies or not, she struck him as the type to act first and ask questions a mile or so down the damn road.
In the next second, however, the insect she'd been dodging shot his carefully laid plans to shit when the cement planter it hit exploded. Julian whipped his gaze to the rooftop across from where he stood.
Sunlight cast Benny Rivers's block-like head in silhouette, and glinted off the barrel of the rifle aimed her way.
Katrina's only saving grace for the moment was that Rivers never gave his prey an easy time, toying with his victims, making them sweat out the wait for their death.
Heart pounding in the base of his throat, Julian gauged the distance from the balcony to the manicured lawn edging the poolside walk, gauged the distance to the deep end of the crystal blue water shimmering in the sun, chose the lesser of two evils, and jumped.
Two
South Miami, Friday, 3:30 p.m.
Julian hit the ground with a jolt, seams ripping, bones crunching, joints popping as he rolled to his feet and came up into a full-throttle run.
Coattails flying, he sprinted across the pool's cement deck, hurdled the shattered planter, and gave Katrina no chance to do more than gasp her surprise as he grabbed her upper arm and ran.
"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"
He propelled her forward, knowing he could run a hell of a lot faster then she could, the both of them dragged down even more by the slap, slap, slap of her ridiculous shoes.
She seemed to reach the very same conclusion at the very same time, however, and kicked off the slides to run in bare feet.
Once across the deck and up the courtyard stairs, he shoved open the enclosure's gate. Another bullet ricocheted off the iron railing.
Katrina screamed, but kept up with the pace he set as they pushed through and barreled down the arched walkway toward the parking garage.
Her Lexus was closer, but he doubted she had her keys and didn't have time to stop, ask, and wait for her to dig them from the bottom of her bag.
Even breaking in, hot-wiring would take longer than the additional burst of speed and extra twenty-five yards they'd need to reach his Benz.
"My car. Let's go," he ordered.
She followed, yelping once, cursing once, twice, yet sticking by his side all the way.
A shot cracked the pavement to the right of their path, a clean shot straight between two of the garage's support beams. Way too close for comfort.
Rivers's practice was about to make perfect in ways Julian didn't want to consider.
The keyless transponder in his pocket activated the entry into hi
s car from three feet away. He touched the handle, jerked open the SL500's driver's side door.
Katrina scrambled across the console, tossed her bag onto the floor; he slid down into his seat, punched the ignition button, shoved the transmission into reverse.
Tires screaming, he whipped backwards out of the parking space and shot down the long row of cars. He hit the street ass-backwards, braked, spun, shifted into first, and floored it, high-octane adrenaline fueling his flight.
Halfway down Grand, several near misses and an equal number of traffic violations later, he cast a quick sideways glance at Katrina and nodded. "You might want to buckle up."
She cackled like she'd never heard anything more ridiculous. "You're suggesting that now?"
He shrugged, keeping an eye on his rearview and any unwanted company, whether Rivers or the cops. He wasn't about to stop for either. "Better late than never."
That earned him a snort, but she did as she'd been told. Then she lifted her left foot into her lap, giving him an eyeful of a whole lotta tanned and toned thigh. "I've got glass in my foot."
He didn't say anything. He had to get out of her neighborhood and ditch his car—a reality that seriously grated. "Stitches?"
She shook her head, leaning down for a closer look at the damage. "I don't think so. Tweezers, antibiotic ointment, and a bandage should suffice."
"I've got a first aid kit in the trunk." How many times had he patched himself up on the fly? "I'll grab it as soon as we stop. In the meantime ..." He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket.
"Thanks." She halved it into a triangle and wrapped her foot securely, knotting the fabric on top at the base of her toes. "When you hit 95, head south. The police station's on Sunset."
He nodded, turned north at the next intersection.
"Uh, hello? I said Sunset. South, not north."
"I heard you." This wasn't the time for a long explanation as to why he couldn't go to the police, why SG-5 couldn't risk exposure.
Why he'd learned a long time ago that actions spoke a hell of a lot louder than words.
