His hips began a counter movement against her hand. Panting, Ranni gripped his hips and avoided his mouth.
“Julina, do you have the dagger?” His green eyes were almost black with passion, the pupils swallowing the irises.
* * * * *
“Ye gods, would you listen to this!” The FBI agent manning the tapes in the nearby house snatched off his headphones and pushed a button. A sultry voice began purring over the air. Within seconds four men crowded around the console, complaints of night duty and battery acid coffee forgotten.
“I’d be more than willing to take her off Steele’s hands. Hell, that little lady could do me with an entire hostile army closing in.”
“Not me. I’d want lots of time. And privacy,” the second man, not more than twenty-five, added as an afterthought, tugging on the collar of his suddenly too-tight shirt. A sheen of sweat glistened on his brow.
Badger walked by the open door in time to hear the last of the first man’s statement. Curious, he poked his head inside.
“Her tongue traced the ropy veins up to the tip. She closed her mouth…”
Badger jerked his head back out. Christ! Gabe was going to burst a gasket. He pelted down the short hallway.
“Sam! Wolf! Get hold of Gabe before Kalesia starts a war. Or finds herself in the middle of one!” Rapidly, he outlined the situation.
* * * * *
Gabriel answered the phone in the middle of the first ring. He had been in the house for less than an hour. It had been a long day made longer by his inability to be near Kalesia. Warned to keep near home in case the unknown suspect went after him first, he’d worked methodically on building the frame for his latest greenhouse just as if he didn’t realize she was gone. It helped keep his hands busy and off his cell phone. The urge to check constantly and see if the thing was in working order was damn near overwhelming. Especially as day slid into evening.
God, he hated trusting her safety to other hands.
“Steele,” he barked into the receiver.
“Gabriel, you better get Kalesia on the phone double-quick. She’s got four of my best men slobbering worse than a bulldog after a French poodle in heat.” Sam hung up, leaned back in the wooden office chair and grinned hugely. “Stick around, boys. The fun is about to commence.”
* * * * *
Kalesia had one eye on the screen and one on the clock beside her bed when the phone rang. She grinned. She’d have to remember to thank Wolf for reassuring her that the electronic bugs would pick up the slightest sound.
The phone rang three times before she picked it up.
“Yes?” Her voice was sugary sweet.
“Lady, you’d make a pacifist a firm believer in capital punishment,” Gabriel grated on the other end.
Kalesia set the laptop aside, sat up in bed and curled her legs beneath her. She smiled wickedly. Less than four minutes since she started reading. “I’ve always believed pacifism overrated.”
“Really?”
“Um-hmm. I mean, it’s understandable how a person could be motivated toward a little violence. Under the right circumstances, of course.” Kalesia barely restrained a chuckle.
She actually heard Gabriel grind his teeth.
“You might feel it safe to bait me now but I’ll remind you of that later,” Gabriel pledged, his voice as smooth as Carolina shine and holding the same promise of hidden fire.
Goose bumps lifted the fine hair on Kalesia’s arms and a tremor slithered sensuously down her spine. She twisted a lock of hair around her finger and lowered her voice to a seductive whisper. “Promise?”
“Count on it, lady. I will definitely remind you of this conversation. In the meantime, quit reading that goddamn book!” The receiver slammed in her ear.
She rubbed the offended appendage. “Quit reading?” she mused out loud. “Oh, I don’t think so. It makes life so much more exciting.” She found another passage, this one twice as provocative as the one before.
* * * * *
It was exactly 8:05 the next evening when a slight rustle in the hay told Kalesia she was no longer alone in the barn. She was singing off-key, a sexy, country ballad about slow hands and long, easy loving. Kalesia turned, already knowing what she would see.
“At least I don’t have to listen to Gabriel say ‘I told you so’.”
Chapter Fifteen
“You really shouldn’t be so ready to believe all you see and read, my dear.” Senator Clayton Morne, sixty-two and the picture of clean-cut American manhood, smiled, showing perfect white teeth. Held rock-steady in his hand, was an exact duplicate of the pistol she had pointed out to Badger.
It was a pity he was rotted so black on the inside, Kalesia thought. The difference between Morne and Gabriel was that as between night and day. Both men were lethal and dangerous. Yet where Gabriel used violence as a last resort, taking no pleasure in the act, Morne enjoyed the fear he invoked in his victims. Intuition told her he was capable of kissing a woman even as he slit her throat.
Gabriel’s violence, at least, was honest.
“Senator Morne.” Kalesia nodded her head with cool acknowledgment at Florida’s senior senator. “I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to beg for mercy,” Kalesia speculated with a poise she didn’t feel, bending to pick up the feed bucket with what she hoped was an absentminded air. She straightened, the metal pail held loosely in her right hand. “Then again, begging isn’t my style. It’s so undignified.”
Morne threw back his head and laughed but his eyes were cold, the cold of liquid nitrogen. The kind of cold that burned to the bone. There was something else in his eyes, a sensual speculation that turned Kalesia’s stomach with disgust and more than a hint of sick fear.
“You’ve put me to a great deal of trouble, my dear. I would enjoy seeing you beg. You might even learn to enjoy it. With a little practice, most women do.” He ran a hand suggestively down the barrel of the gun.
The last light of the evening filtered through the cracks in the roof of the barn. Dust motes danced in the waning beams.
Kalesia closed her mind to the reality of her vision coming true. Now, of all times, she had to keep her wits about her.
Her hand tightened on the pail’s handle. Cool it, she warned herself, he’s trying to spook you. You’re not alone. Every word he says is being heard and recorded. Get him to talk.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll pass.” Kalesia racked her brain for a way to lead the conversation in the direction she needed it to go.
“Pity. I would have enjoyed it.” The barrel of the pistol tilted slightly.
Kalesia rushed into speech. “Why? Why me?”
“Come, come. You’re a reasonably bright young woman. Surely you’ve drawn a few conclusions?” The gun never wavered. He smiled, showing all of his teeth.
Kalesia decided that she hated that phony smile. She much preferred the smile of a predator that stalked in the open, rather than from the shadows.
“No. That’s one thing I could never understand. Why me? We’d never even met!”
The Senator preened, enjoying his power over her. Kalesia began to feel more secure, certain now she had a handle on what made the Senator tick. Or, at least to control him long enough to allow him thoroughly to implicate himself.
“It is so simple. Most brilliant plans, I’ve learned, are simply conceived. Long ago I discovered that the key to success is information, inside information. I found a deputy susceptible to—how shall I put it?—a little pressure. He fed me the information I needed to keep my business in operation. You’d be surprised,” Morne put in with macabre humor, “how law enforcement frowns on true entrepreneurship. A few drugs coming into the country here, a shipment of arms outward bound there.” He shook his head in mock sorrow.
“So short-sighted. No vision. Well, as I was saying. I bought insurance. You know,” he told her meditatively, “you should never underestimate the hand of fate. Two years ago you reported a vision of a murder. No one saw fit to i
nform me at the time but, voilà! you reappear with a vision of another murder, this time your own. A memory is jogged, my man relates the tale to me, more in amusement than anything else. Suddenly, you’ve become a threat. See how simple that is?”
“But it doesn’t make sense. No one believed me. People think I’m crazy when I tell them I have visions. What harm could I have possibly done to you?” she cried, appalled at how casually he dismissed her life.
“You disappoint me, Miss Brannigan. I expected more intelligence from you than this. Because,” he explained as if she were a particularly slow student, “the chance existed that, one day you would make someone wonder. And, if they began to wonder, they might have begun to investigate.
“My worries were well founded as it turned out. I cannot allow any further investigation. If that happens, they’ll find more deaths. And from there they might discover a trail leading back to me. I simply cannot afford past baggage to encumber my presidential bid,” he confessed matter-of-factly. “Really, my dear, a child could have reasoned that through.
“I admit, I hadn’t expected you to turn to Gabriel Steele. That hurried my timetable a bit. I knew once he got his teeth into the Crump case, it wouldn’t be long before he discovered my connection to a certain South American drug cartel. The man is most tenacious, as I have reason to know.”
For an instant, Kalesia was thrown into the middle of a nightmare. A nightmare she recognized with sick horror. Again she was overwhelmed, pounded with images of pain, blood…and a deep, perverse enjoyment. Desperately, Kalesia waged war with a past that wasn’t her own.
“You’re mad,” Kalesia whispered. She balanced her weight on one foot, ready to throw the bucket and sprint for safety.
Displeasure flashed briefly in the brown eyes. “Insults, my dear?” He shook off his anger. “It will be most tragic, I assure you. Most tragic,” he reiterated with mocking mournfulness. “The press will have a field day with it. ‘Poor young woman takes own life after discovering lover’s secret identity as an assassin.’ Then again, the poor thing was never too stable. Thought she was psychic, you know. I have the suicide note right here.” He dug into the inside breast pocket of his suit.
Kalesia’s eyes were drawn to the single sheet of white paper covered in dark, neat computer print as if it were a lodestone. It required a monumental effort of will to tear her gaze away.
“That stuff you sent me about Gabriel? I assume it was you?” She waited until he nodded his head. “Was it true?” Kalesia was curious. Would he admit he lied or continue to taunt her?
“Oh, yes, it was true…for the whole. Just not as I presented it.” He seemed pleased that she had asked.
“How did you get hold of the information? It seems pretty obvious that some of it was classified.”
“My dear, you really must not underestimate me or my sources. People in high places are not immune to persuasion. For some it is drugs.” He gave a careless shrug. “For others, past associations that could prove embarrassing if made public.”
“No one will believe I killed myself,” she said. “Major Harley sent me to Gabriel. He’ll be more than curious if I suddenly turn up dead,” Kalesia insisted, unable to keep a quaver from coloring her voice despite her knowledge help was only seconds away.
“Ah but he didn’t know of Mr. Steele’s past. He’ll be just as shocked as everyone else when he learns he sent you into the proverbial lion’s den, probably exceedingly guilty too. He strikes me as that type of man. Dedicated to making life safer for others and all that.”
“My friends and family know I hate guns. They’ll never believe I’d shoot myself.” Where was Harley? Surely they had enough to convict Morne by now? What if the wire wasn’t working? And what of Gabriel? Where was he? She had half-expected him to burst in before now. Kalesia had a sudden, sickening thought.
Dear Lord in heaven, what if Morne had already found Gabriel?
Morne looked truly shocked. “Did I say I was going to shoot you? How remiss of me. Don’t worry, nothing so crude as that. No, my dear, you are going to become another drug-related statistic, I’m afraid. The problem of drugs in this country really is epidemic, you know. No one will think twice about it.”
He waved the gun. “Be a good girl and put down that bucket.” Morne reached into the pocket of the expensive Italian jacket and removed a hypodermic.
“You’re getting sloppy, Crenshaw. Ah but it’s Morne now, isn’t it?”
Morne whirled around, the gun coming up.
Stepping out of the shadows of a stall, Gabriel waited, hands held loosely by his side.
Startled by Gabriel’s silent arrival, it took Kalesia a full minute to realize Morne had forgotten entirely about her.
Gabriel shot her a glance from under lowered lashes.
She understood at once what he wanted her to do. Looking about, she dived behind a low stack of hay. Her hiding place was only two bales high and two bales deep but Kalesia figured beggars couldn’t be choosy. At least it hid her from view. She tried not to think how easy she would be to find.
Peeking from between the bales, Kalesia saw a change come over Morne when he realized Gabriel was alone.
“How obliging of you, Mr. Steele. I was coming to find you next. You were the one person I feared might actually ferret out my identity when I learned that you were inquiring into Crump’s death. There was a good possibility that you might link the manner of death of those he killed back to my days in Army Intelligence. I really shouldn’t have given in to the impulse of resurrecting those days. I won’t make that mistake again.” Morne’s assurance grew. He gestured. “Very foolish of you to come unarmed.”
Gabriel’s gaze flickered off to one side, just the minutest movement but Morne saw.
“Oh, don’t worry about the woman. I shall find her later. She’s trapped. She has to get by me to escape. No, I’m much more interested in you, Mr. Steele. If you want to know the truth,” he confided with the air of revealing a state secret, “I’ve been fascinated by you for years. Ah, I can see you understand my meaning.” Morne’s innate cruelty surfaced and he taunted the younger man.
“Just as I’ve always fascinated you. Only you didn’t know my identity, did you?” Morne answered his own question. “Of course, you didn’t. I took extreme pains to conceal it.”
“I knew I’d left someone alive when that second packet arrived.” Gabriel appeared relaxed and at ease, just as if he were engaging in a conversation with a friend.
Kalesia knew he was deliberately projecting that image, hoping to keep Morne convinced that he was no threat.
Morne laughed and the sound sent a chill straight through Kalesia. “Oh yes, I’m very much alive. And I intend to stay that way. Pity it can’t be the same for you and your whore.” Gabriel’s jaw clench and she silently begged him to ignore the insult.
“You’re helpless to save your whore now,” Morne stressed the epithet, digging the knife in a little deeper. “Just as you were unable to save yourself twenty years ago. You were helpless, Steele, helpless to prevent the flesh from being sliced from your body. Oh, the screams. My ears rang for days. I wonder if you’ll plead and sob this time? I do hope so.”
“You compromised our mission and got the rest of my men killed,” Gabriel stated flatly.
From behind the bales, Kalesia wondered about Morne’s arrogant confidence. If he knew Gabriel as well as she did, he would have pulled the trigger then and there instead of continuing to boast. But the man had grown very confident over the years.
“It was necessary. Your team leader, Lt. Colonel Downing, might have let slip the details he learned of my activities with Major Chiang and the Golden Triangle and my new association with General Chavez. He overestimated his hold over me. My position in Intelligence made it ridiculously simple to get myself on the team as advisor. I, of course, notified the good general of the team’s objective. But you survived.” Morne looked aggrieved for an instant. “I had to be absolutely certain you were not awar
e of my involvement and, in case you were, whether you had managed to contact base.
“I really should have killed you then,” Morne conceded. “Just imagine my astonishment upon learning the woman had run to you for protection. To think that after all these years, your path again crossed mine…and was again a threat.” He waved the gun in a short arc and, in the late afternoon light, there was a flash of gold.
“I remember your ring.”
Morne looked surprised. “This?” He raised his hand, highlighting the intricately worked dragon swallowing a tiger.
“Whenever I saw it, I knew a traitor was present.”
Pure fury twisted Morne’s face into an unrecognizable mask. “I knew you suspected something. There was a peculiarity about the way you would search the shadows.” His face smoothed out, a wide, politician’s smile replacing it. “It’s just as well I’d decided you were again expendable, now isn’t it? You might have recognized the ring when I began campaigning for president.”
“Your presence is definitely fortuitous. It will make the mop-up much more tidy than my original plan. You will kill your whore.” Noting Gabriel’s body tightened, Morne bowed mockingly and substituted, “Ms. Brannigan, for ferreting out secrets better left buried. You, in the process, will be fatally wounded while trying to make her death appear a suicide. Indeed, she will be found with the incriminating evidence clutched in her hand. While you, I’m afraid, are going to be thoroughly implicated in Crump’s murder. Having the murder weapon by your prostrate body will make the crowning touch. Nice and neat, no loose ends to come back and haunt me this time.”
Kalesia saw Gabriel shift his weight a bit and hook a thumb in his belt. He was watching Morne’s eyes, gauging the man’s intentions with the deadly accuracy of a born hunter.
Tapestry of the Past Page 24
