by Loree Lough
Ciara sighed heavily. “And this is the man you were ‘up close and personal’ with for seven months.”
Mitch nodded. “I posed as an accountant. Kept his books.”
“How’d you get inside?” Knight wanted to know. He’d stopped taking notes. His interest was personal now.
“We busted one of Pericolo’s right-hand men for trafficking, cut a deal with him. He’d get me into Pericolo’s organization, we’d let him stay outside the federal pen.”
“It’s a miracle you’re still with us,” Ciara said, her voice trembling slightly. “You see why I was so afraid? Do you understand what—”
He squeezed her hand. “Yes. I admit it. I’m in a dangerous business.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Knight said. “You’ve got your neck in a noose every time you go under. Why don’t you come to work for us? I happen to know we need a few educated, well-trained guys, right here in Howard County.”
“Do you send men undercover?” Ciara asked.
“Uh-huh, but it’s rare, and even then, only the narcs and homicide guys do stuff like that. What your husband, here, would be doin’ would be relatively safe, all things considered.”
“‘Relatively safe’?” Ciara’s brow furrowed with confusion. “‘All things considered’?”
“Nothing comes with a guarantee these days, little lady, least of all a cop’s safety. Every time you pull a guy over for speeding, you wonder if—”
Mitch saw her frown with resignation and roll her eyes, as if to say Where have I heard that before? and decided it was time to change the subject. “So what’s your take on this, Knight? Based on what you’ve already got, that is.”
“Well, whoever set the bomb wasn’t an expert, that’s for sure.”
“How can you tell?”
“For one thing, amateurs always want to use too much explosive. It’s like they think if a gram will go “Pow,” then an ounce is sure to go ‘Boom!’ But they don’t take that into consideration when they’re putting the rest of the thing together. It was sheer luck it went off at all.”
Knight took a deep breath and got to his feet. “Well, I’ve done all I can do here for the time being.” He handed Mitch a business card. “Give me a call if you can add anything that’ll help. And give some thought to ditchin’ the agency and comin’ to work for us.”
Mitch tucked the card into his shirt pocket, shook the officer’s hand. “I’ll do that. Thanks, Knight.”
“I’m putting round-the-clock protection on you guys.” He chuckled. “Till the Feds bully their way in and take over, anyway. I hear they like to take care of their own.”
“You hear right.”
“Yeah, well, that ain’t nothin’ to be proud of, way I see it. Doesn’t make much difference what the emblem on your badge says, we all took the same oath.”
He looked at Ciara. “So when’s that baby of yours due?”
“A week, maybe two…never,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I have three young’uns myself, five, six and seven. My wife just takes it in stride. Except for the big tummy, you’d hardly know she was havin’ a baby at all!”
“I hope next time I’ll be that way, too.”
Mitch walked Knight to the door. “Can she hear us from here?” the cop mouthed when they reached the foyer.
Mitch nodded.
He grabbed Mitch’s forearm and leaned in close. “Stay away from the windows,” he growled softly, “you hear?”
“No way. When did they find the body?”
At the mention of the word body, he saw Ciara’s needle hover over the cream-colored linen square she held.
“I’m not surprised,” Mitch said, “considering. Still, it seems a shame. He was a good agent…once.”
He watched as she tried to pretend she wasn’t listening. What was it his Italian grandma used to say when he pouted? “You face, she gonna freeze-a that way!” The old wives’ tale seemed to fit Ciara’s present condition….
“He did what?” he asked Parker. “You’ve gotta be kidding.” Shaking his head, he said, “Ironic, isn’t it?” Then, “Yeah, I’ll kick in ten bucks, but who’s gonna see it? Yeah. Okay. Thanks for calling.”
“Who was that?” she asked the moment he hung up.
He slumped onto the edge of the sofa bed, flopped back on the pillow beside hers and linked his fingers behind his neck. “Parker. Down at headquarters. They found Chet Bradley….”
“Found him? I didn’t even know he was missing. Did the Bureau send him undercover, too?”
“Hardly,” Mitch groused. “He’s been workin’ both sides of the street for years now. That’s why I got sent to Philadelphia.”
She put her needlework aside, snuggled against him. “I don’t get it.”
He’d never told her about his set-to with Bradley, right there in their living room. If she had known the guy had broken into their house, planning to murder him… Mitch didn’t want to think about what might have happened.
“He worked a case, couple years back,” he explained, “busted Pericolo for possession of cocaine, distribution, the whole nine yards. But the slimeball got off, thanks to our sophisticated immigration system. Anyway, it seems Bradley decided he could make a few quick bucks if he didn’t turn in all the evidence. If he sold what he held aside on the street.” Mitch took a deep breath. “The fool taste tested his own merchandise, got himself hooked but good and ended up having to make a deal with Pericolo.”
“Chet Bradley?” She seemed surprised, then shook her head. “Well, he’s a liar, why not a coke-head, too?”
Mitch turned slightly to read her face. If the news had secretly upset her, she was doing one fine job of masking it. He stared at the ceiling again. “He started doing odd jobs for Pericolo—muffing up investigations, losing evidence, running errands….”
“And Pericolo provided him with the cocaine.”
“Uh-huh. Had himself a four-hundred-dollar-a-day habit at the end. You know how many favors a guy has to do to satisfy an addiction like that?”
“But why did he send you to Philadelphia? Were you involved in that drug bust all those years ago? Did you know something that would—”
He shook his head. “He had a falling out with Pericolo, and the boss man cut him off, cold turkey. Bradley was desperate to ensure his supply, so he cut a new deal…with Eduardo Chambro, Pericolo’s next in command.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Seems his upbringing got the better of him, and he made what you might call a deathbed confession.” Mitch shook his head. “Nobody thought much of Pericolo, it seems. Chambro would have taken over years ago if he hadn’t been scared witless of the guy.”
“But…if Chambro was on Pericolo’s side, what did he have to fear from him?”
“Plenty, believe me. I saw Pericolo waste a guy for interrupting a phone call. Heard that he’d done the same thing to men who dared to question his judgment or entered his office without knocking. The man had no heart, no soul, I tell you. Life meant nothing to him…except his own.”
“So the lieutenant made a deal with Chambro,” she said, bringing him back to the point. “How did you fit in?”
“He called me the best man on his team. Said I was perfect for the job. Not to sound arrogant, but he was right, and he knew it. The deal he cut with Chambro was to get me inside so I could take Pericolo out of the picture. And when Chambro took over…”
“He’d continue to supply Bradley with bribes,” she said, thinking out loud. “A lot of things make sense suddenly.”
He rolled onto his side. “Things like what?”
She met his eyes. “I had no reason to believe his lies. I’m ashamed to say I wanted to. It was easier to hate you that way, for leaving me here alone, for not getting in touch, for not being with me when—”
He pulled her to him. “Sweetie, I’m sorry you had to go through all that alone. Hindsight is twenty-twenty—I guess it got to be a cliché for good reason…ever
y word of it is true—but if I had known then what I know now—”
“You would have come home that night? You wouldn’t have accepted the assignment?”
“Exactly,” he said firmly and without hesitation. “How could I have left my beautiful wife, pregnant or not? No amount of glory is worth a sacrifice like that.”
“My dad said something like that the other day,” she told him. “He said no sacrifice is too great when it’s made for love.”
“Smart guy, your dad.” He kissed her cheek.
“Were you ever in any danger in Philadelphia? From Pericolo, I mean?”
He thought of that first night, when Giovanni had asked him to choose a card. “If you had picked a black card, you’d be a dead man now.”
“Not really,” he fibbed. “I was acting as a numbers man. A pencil pusher. A four-eyed geek. I suppose I didn’t look like much of a threat, so—”
“Didn’t look like a threat!” she stopped him. “As big and muscular as you are? As handsome and intelligent and—”
“I’d better get to work on those door frames,” he said, laughing. “Any more of this flattery and my ego won’t fit through the door.”
“Mitch…”
“Hmm?”
“That explosion was intended for you, wasn’t it?”
Every muscle in him tensed. Tell her the truth, and risk sending her blood pressure sky high. Tell her a lie and risk the trust she’s beginning to put in you again. “It’s possible,” he said carefully.
“Who do you think was responsible…if you were the intended victim, I mean?”
“Truthfully?”
Ciara nodded.
“I have no idea.
“I suppose Pericolo might have had one loyal follower, but I don’t think so. And it can’t be Bradley, unless he’s operating from the grave.” Eyes and lips narrowed, she exhaled a sigh of frustration. “It could be anyone you ever arrested, or a family member of someone you locked up, or…”
“Sweetie, it’s not good for you to get worked up over this. We’re safe.”
“For now. How long can that last? The cops won’t hang around here forever. Whoever planted that bomb will wait until they leave, come back and finish what he started.”
She voiced the fears that had been on his mind every moment since the explosion.
“Ciara, let’s not talk about this now. It’s not good for you to get upset, honey.”
“You can’t sweep it under the rug, Mitch. It’s bigger than both of us. You can’t deny it anymore. Like it or not, you have responsibilities now, to me, to this baby of ours. You can’t just keep running off, playing cops and robbers. Not when it can backfire, blow up your family!”
He sat up. “Ciara,” he said, his voice stern and scolding, “this isn’t doing you any good. Let’s—”
“Hiding from it isn’t doing me any good, either,” she said, sitting beside him. “Have you given any thought to what Officer Knight said?”
“Quitting the Bureau, you mean, to become a Howard County cop?”
She nodded, the barest hint of a hopeful smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Yeah. I’ve thought about it,” he said dully. “I’ve thought about how I’d like to stop arresting nationally renowned criminals and start writin’ speeding tickets. I’ve thought how nice it would be to give up apprehending drug lords and murderers, and spend my time shooing teenagers off the street corners after 11:00 p.m. instead.” On his feet now, he added, “I’d be about as happy as your dad has been all these years, pretending that what I’m doing is what I want to be doing.”
“But, Mitch,” she said, her eyes welling with tears, “what about the baby and me? What will we do, if something happens to you?”
The smiling, the laughing, the playfulness…it had all been an act, and he’d known it all along. Worse, he’d let her put on the act, because it had made it easier for him to deal with his own guilt.
She was a tough little thing, and he knew if it weren’t for everything that had happened—this illness, being confined to bed, the explosion—she wouldn’t be crying right now. And he felt like a heel for being the one to put tears in her beautiful blue eyes. But she had asked him a straight question, and after all those months of silence, deserved to hear a straight answer. But did you have to make it that honest? he asked himself. He could blame the very same occurrences for his thoughtlessness, but the truth was he had no excuse for behaving like a self-centered lout.
And she deserved better than that.
He climbed back onto the sofa bed, took her in his arms. “Aw, sweetie. Seems all I ever do is apologize for hurting you. Sometimes I wonder why you married me. I’m sure as heck not very good for you.” And the awful thing was, he believed it was true.
Ciara gripped his forearms, gave him a little shake. “You are good for me!” she insisted, her eyes blazing with unbridled affection. “You’re the best thing in my life, if you want to know the truth. That’s why I married you. That and the fact that I love you like crazy.”
She felt so good, so right in his arms. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, the most affectionate and loving. Why wasn’t it enough? Why did he feel he must have her and the Bureau to be happy?
“I did some thinking last night,” she said softly, “about something Dad said at the cookout yesterday.”
“You’re all flushed, sweetie,” he said, all but ignoring her. “Lie down, will you, before something—”
She did as she was told, but continued talking. “I know how unhappy he’s been all these years, sacrificing the job he loved for his family. But he seemed to have derived some sort of satisfaction for having done the right thing. That’s why he said no sacrifice is too great, if—”
“If your love is strong enough?”
Ciara nodded. Then she grabbed his wrists, forced him to place his hands on her stomach. “This is what’s important, Mitch. This is your future. I know you’re a good agent, one of the best. Of course the Bureau recognizes that and appreciates who you are and what you do….”
She placed a hand alongside his cheek. “But, Mitch, the FBI doesn’t love you! If you die, they’ll add your name to the already-too-long list of agents killed in the line of duty. They’ll give me some sort of medal to lay on your grave, another plaque to hang on the wall. And by week’s end, another agent will take your place.” Her voice trembled, and fresh tears filled her eyes when she said, “I won’t be able to replace you, Mitch, not if I live to be a hundred.”
What was so all-fired important about his precious agency? he asked himself. Why couldn’t he just give it up, walk away from it, without looking back?
She was right about one thing—he had a lot of thinking to do.
His big hands bracketed her face, his thumbs wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I don’t deserve you,” he said after a while.
“You deserve the best that life has to offer, which is why I intend to try and be the best wife who ever lived.” She managed a tremulous smile, her voice whispery. “I love you, you big lug! Can’t you get that through your thick, Irish skull? I love you, and I don’t want to live a day of my life without you.”
“I’m half Italian, don’t forget,” he said in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood, change the subject….
“And so am I.”
He was aware of her scrutiny, aware that she wanted—no, needed—to hear him say he’d leave the agency. In truth, Mitch wished he could say it, because he wanted and needed to comfort and reassure her. Guilt ached in his chest like a huge painful knot. He looked away, feeling restless and uncomfortable with the fact that he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear.
Ciara’s small hand cupped his chin, turned his face and forced him to meet her eyes. Her tears were gone now, and she spoke slowly, with careful dignity. “You don’t have to make up your mind right now. You have two weeks of R and R left. Please say you’ll use that time to think about it, at least.”
Mitch set h
is jaw. He could give her that much, couldn’t he?
It was quietly disturbing to even consider leaving the Bureau, and his stomach knotted with tension. His voice began as a hushed whisper, then he spoke in neutral tones. “I’ll give it some thought,” he promised, his mouth tight and grim.
“And some prayer?”
“And some prayer.”
“Thank you,” she said, gently, serenely. “Thank you.”
When she snuggled close, he felt the rhythmic pounding of her heart against his chest, and the strong, sharp kicks of the baby against his stomach. “This is what’s important,” she had said.
And it was.
For the first time in days Ciara put aside her secret needlework project and spent every moment, it seemed, making lists.
She had spent hours fixing up every room of the house, and it showed. But for a reason she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—explain, she hadn’t done a single thing in the nursery. And now, it seemed, she was in a frenzy to get it all done before the baby came.
She insisted that Mitch sit beside her and help her pick out the furniture for the baby’s room. Everything had to be neutral, yet stimulating, a concept which thoroughly confused him. “Nothing frilly or girlie, but nothing too strong or masculine, either,” Ciara explained. “Colors capture babies’ attention and help them learn faster.”
They decided on a pale oak crib and ordered a dresser, changing table and toy box to match. He suggested the teddy bear wallpaper border. “Lots of color, without being masculine or feminine.” Rather than repeating the print in the baby’s bedding, Ciara ordered bright red sheets, a deep blue quilt, fluorescent yellow curtains and an emerald green bumper pad.
Portable phone in one hand, department store catalog in the other and list in her lap, she placed the order. “For an extra twenty-five dollars,” she told him, “they’ll deliver it tomorrow. Should I tell them to go ahead?”
It was by far the happiest he’d seen her since returning from Philly—small price to pay, in his opinion, for her pink-cheeked complexion and wide smile.
The next day when everything arrived, Mitch had the deliverymen put the boxes into the white-walled room across from the one he shared with Ciara. When they were gone, he took one of the chaise longues from the deck and dragged it upstairs, outfitting it with a downy quilt and pillow. And once he had her settled comfortably in it, he hung the wallpaper border and continued to focus on it as he hung brackets and rammed rods through the pockets of a pair of tailored curtains.
