For the Love of Pete

by Julia Harper

  Dante shook his head. “I don’t like that Headington set up the meet but it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the traitor. His phone could’ve been tapped, he might’ve told someone in the office he trusted, who knows.”

  “You have to admit that it doesn’t look good.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t look good at the moment.”

  She looked up, her blue eyes disconcertingly close. “Wait. If you were sent in to investigate the Chicago office, why were you guarding Ricky?”

  “The corruption within the Chicago office was tied to the mob and Tony the Rose. Guarding Ricky killed two birds with one stone: I needed a cover assignment, and we figured that if I was close to Ricky, I could catch any witness tampering.” He hissed as she poured more hydrogen peroxide. “That, at least, turned out to be a good call. Someone certainly tried to ‘tamper’ with Ricky. Too bad I didn’t stop them killing my colleagues and kidnapping Pete.”

  She shook her down-bent head. “You would’ve been killed, too. You know that.”

  He frowned as he watched her clean the wound. He knew it, but it was still hard to accept. Three agents dead . . .

  “What about Kevin?” she asked, interrupting his dark thoughts.

  He grimaced, remembering again Kev’s dull open eyes. “Kevin knew me from a former posting. He was a smart little jerk and figured out what I was doing almost as soon as I walked in the office. But Kevin had a history with the mob. His sister was killed by her mafia boyfriend in New Jersey. He had a deep hatred of the mob so it was pretty unlikely that he was the traitor. Since he was the tech guy, I decided he could help me with my investigation. He was doing computer searches for me.”

  “Is that why they killed him?”

  He sucked in his breath as she poked at a painful cut. “Probably.”

  “Poor Kevin.”

  “Yeah, poor Kevin.”

  “They were going to hang his murder on you, too, weren’t they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It had sure looked like a setup. If he hadn’t arrived early, the guys in the SUVs would’ve been there to arrest him for Kevin’s murder when he showed up. Or to shoot him as he tried to get away.

  “You keep saying we,” she said. “There must be someone else who knows that you’re undercover. Who sent you in?”

  “My boss, Charles—Charlie—Hessler.”

  She looked up excitedly. “So all you have to do is call your boss and tell him . . .” She must’ve seen the look on his face, because she trailed off. “What?”

  “That’s one of the things Kev told me yesterday,” he said wearily. “Charlie had a massive stroke. He was in the ICU unconscious, last I heard.”

  “Oh.” She looked down.

  He watched as she opened a tube of antibiotic ointment and squirted the clear jelly all over his leg. Then she got out a packet of the biggest gauze pads he’d ever seen and laid them in a row on top of the ointment.

  She glanced at him. “Can you lift your leg a little?”

  “Yeah.”

  She began to unroll gauze tape around his leg and the bandages.

  “So your boss—the only person outside of Chicago who knew about your hush-hush undercover operation—is now out of commission, and your tech support is dead, leaving you only the head of the Chicago FBI—this Headington guy—who may or may not have killed Kevin and sent hitmen to kill us. Have I got that right?”

  He looked at her. She seemed pretty calm for someone who’d just described a worst-case scenario. “Yeah, that just about sums it up.”

  “Sounds like we’re screwed.” She grinned at him.

  That we warmed him inside, even though he hated the thought that she was in danger because of him. “It also means that there isn’t anyone I trust trying to bring in Pete’s kidnapper.”

  Her hands stilled over his thigh as she seemed to think about that. He wondered if she noticed that one hand was between his legs. Probably not.

  He sure did, though.

  “They don’t want her found,” Zoey whispered. “If the Chicago FBI office is crooked—they’re not going to want Ricky to testify against Tony the Rose. They don’t want Tony convicted.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “No one’s looking for Pete.”

  Dante didn’t point out that no one looking for Pete would be the best thing that could happen. If the traitor in the Chicago FBI sent someone after the child, it wouldn’t be to save her.

  “We’re looking,” he said quietly.

  She bit her lip and dropped her gaze to her hands as if she couldn’t meet his eyes. “Are we? You’re not going to give up, then?”

  She was tying the end of the bandage, fumbling as if she were nervous or couldn’t see very well. He caught one of her hands and tugged gently until she looked up again. “I’m going to keep looking for Pete until we find her and bring her home.”

  He watched those blue eyes search his own. Zoey must’ve found whatever she was looking for in his face. For a moment, she closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

  He tugged at her hand, gently, so she could pull away if she wanted to. But she didn’t. Instead, she opened her eyes and leaned toward him. He watched her blue eyes come closer, and then he closed his own eyes.

  Kissing Zoey was a revelation. She kissed him open-mouthed, no hesitation, her lips soft and warm, her tongue wet and erotic. Simply. As if she’d been waiting for this moment from the time she’d flung herself against the hood of his car. She was unsurprised, maybe a little curious, and he wondered if she had any idea how much of a turn-on her forthright sensuality was.

  This close, her scent surrounded him. He inhaled and raised his other hand to cradle her head. Her braided hair was springy, tickling his palm. He angled his head and licked into her mouth, discovering sweetness and warmth. He wished he could haul her into his lap, take this embrace to the next level.

  She pulled back, breaking the kiss, and looked at him. Her eyes were blue and beautiful and as wise as if she’d lived a hundred years.

  And in that moment Dante knew. He’d either made the best decision of his life—or the most stupid.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Friday, 11:15 a.m.

  He’d overslept.

  Neil gripped the wheel of the red SUV and sped through the west side of Chicago, headed for I-57. He should’ve been out of Chicago hours ago, but the short nap he’d decided to take at five a.m. had turned into an hours-long snoozefest. He could feel a vein throbbing on his temple. His anger management instructor would call the vein an “indicator” and tell him to do some idiot breathing exercises. But then, his instructor had probably never waited up until three freaking a.m. in a freezing truck for an Indian guy and his wife to come home from a party.

  It must’ve been some party, too, ’cause Sujay Agrawal had been leaning on his wife when he’d finally staggered up the steps to his apartment. Neil hadn’t had any trouble at all muscling into the Agrawal apartment. Questioning Sujay had been another ball of wax, though. The guy had hardly been able to string two words together, and his wife had gone into shrill, shrieking hysterics. It’d taken a gag on the wife and a cold shower for Sujay before Neil had found out which way the old Indian ladies might be headed.

  Cairo. The fucking armpit of Illinois.

  A weird little whistling sound was coming from somewhere, and for a second Neil couldn’t place it. And then he realized that the weird little whistling sound was his breath, whistling from between his teeth. He was blowing his fucking top. He stomped on the brake, screeching to a stop at a corner light just as his cell phone rang. Neil froze. He’d already talked to Tony the Rose, but when he’d tried to call Ashley the night before, the answering machine had picked up. And it might make him a dickless wonder, but Neil just hadn’t had the guts to try Ashley again today.

  He swallowed and picked up his cell, looking at the little itty-bitty window. It flashed Ash’s number, like she was screaming at him through the line.

  Behind him, someone lai
d on the horn.

  Neil whipped down his window and stuck his Beretta out.

  “You want a piece of me?” he screamed, spittle flying through the air. “You want a fucking piece of me?”

  The driver’s eyes in the pickup behind him went wide, the whites showing all the way around. Then the guy threw his truck into reverse and backed the length of the block, tires squealing, before stopping, switching gears, and speeding away around a corner.

  Neil inhaled deeply, withdrew his gun from the window, and tilted his head to the side until his neck cracked. Then he picked up his phone again and answered it.

  “Hi, honeybuns.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Friday, 11:37 a.m.

  Dante tasted like coffee and sex. How the man could walk around in broad daylight without spontaneously combusting was beyond her. Zoey sat back in her own seat and began gathering used gauze pads and wrappers, hoping he wouldn’t notice how her hands shook. She looked down, focusing on steadying her hands as she threw trash into one of the plastic grocery bags.

  When she looked up, he was gingerly drawing his pants over the bandage she’d made. He winced as the fabric caught on part of the gauze.

  Zoey leaned between the seats and dug in one of the remaining plastic bags until she found the bottle of painkillers. “Here.”

  He glanced at her and then the bottle, grimacing.

  She rolled her eyes and started wrestling open the packaging. “What? Are you going to be all stoic and deny you’re in pain?” The bottle top came off with a pop. She poked a finger through the seal and dug out two red pills. “Here.”

  One corner of his mouth kicked up as he took the pills from her palm. “Thank you.”

  His voice was dry, but his dark chocolate eyes were intent on her, and suddenly Zoey didn’t know where to look. She busied herself finding a bottle of water.

  In the meantime he threw the pills in his mouth and tilted back his head.

  She wrinkled her nose as she held out the water bottle. “I don’t know how you can do that. I always gag when I try dry swallowing.”

  He drank from the water bottle, watching her, and then screwed the cap back on the bottle. “They teach us how to dry swallow pills at Quantico.”

  “Ooo, macho.” She buckled her seat belt and started the car. “So, where do we go now?”

  “Cairo.”

  She glanced at him.

  He was frowning at her hands on the steering wheel. “Maybe I should drive.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “With that leg? Not unless you want to cripple yourself.”

  He opened his mouth.

  But she spoke before he could. “I’ll drive.”

  “How much experience do you have driving a stick?”

  “Lots. I got us here, didn’t I?” She pressed down on the clutch and shifted into first before starting the car. She eased up on the clutch and the car coughed and died.

  Dante looked at her. “You’re sure.”

  “That was a fluke. I can drive a stick shift perfectly fine.”

  “Oh, God,” he muttered.

  This time she eased up on the clutch very carefully and the Beemer rolled forward.

  She shot a triumphant look at him. “So, you think the old ladies are headed for their nephew in Cairo?”

  “According to Ms. Agrawal, they’re not with any of the family in Chicago.” He was still watching her feet.

  She eased into traffic. “But Cairo?”

  “They’re two elderly ladies in a foreign country with not many people they know. So, yeah, I think they’ve decided to visit their nephew.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.” Zoey chewed on her lip. She’d stopped at a light and was waiting for it to turn. Morning traffic had slowed just a little bit. Even so, the freeway was going to be crowded. “Think I should go south to 55 and take it all the way over to 90/94?”

  “Go west until you hit Dan Ryan Expressway,” he said absently. He leaned over to check the dash. “We’d better stop for gas soon.”

  She glanced at the gauge. It showed that she still had an eighth of a tank of gas. “It’ll be cheaper if we wait until we’re out of the city.”

  “We have an eighth of a tank.”

  She looked at him, eyes wide. “Yeah, we have an eighth of a tank.”

  He exhaled. “You’re one of those.”

  “What one of those?”

  “One of those women who let the gas tank run down to nothing and then wonder why they run out of gas.”

  “I am not!” They’d stopped at another light, and she turned to glare at him.

  He lifted one eyebrow. How did he do that? “Have you ever run out of gas?”

  “Well, yeah, but everybody does that.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Everybody who’s normal runs out of gas.”

  “How many times?”

  “How many times, what?” She pressed hard on the accelerator and the BMW jumped forward.

  He glanced at her feet worriedly. “How many times have you run out of gas?”

  “Not more than three or four or maybe five times—”

  “In the last year?” he drawled obnoxiously.

  “You realize nobody likes a know-it-all.”

  But he wasn’t paying attention to her words. “Watch for that bus, he’s not looking where he’s going.”

  Zoey glanced at Dante thoughtfully. “You weren’t worried about my driving before, when I got us out of the parking lot under the Stevenson Expressway.”

  “I was busy shooting at the guys chasing us.”

  “So, go find someone to shoot at,” Zoey muttered.

  He watched her driving for a little bit more and then leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Zoey smirked. Apparently it was easier for him to let her drive his car if he couldn’t actually see her doing it.

  She passed a school bus and said, “So, have you got family still in New York? Mom or dad?”

  “Both parents.” He sighed. “And two brothers and three sisters.”

  “Wow, that’s a large—”

  “And three brothers-in-law, one sister-in-law, five nieces, two nephews, four uncles, three aunts, and a dozen or so cousins. Large doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

  “That must be really nice.”

  He grunted.

  “Oh, come on! All those kids must be great, especially at Thanksgiving.”

  “I don’t usually go home for Thanksgiving.”

  “Well, Christmas, then.”

  “I don’t—”

  She braked hard at a stoplight. “You don’t go home for Christmas? What are you, the Grinch? I bet all those nephews and nieces would love to see you. You’re an FBI agent! That’s gotta have some cachet with the elementary crowd.”

  He sighed. “You don’t have a large family, do you?”

  She thought of the big, mostly empty farm she’d grown up on. “Well, not exactly, but—”

  “So you don’t know what a pain in the neck they can be. Every time I go home, somebody’s not talking to somebody else, my father interrogates me on my job, my mother wonders why I’m not married yet, and inevitably one of the kids is throwing up or coughing.”

  “Huh.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” She shrugged. “Huh means huh.”

  “Oh, please. I have a mother and three sisters, and I know damn well that huh does not mean huh.”

  “Okay.” Zoey gripped the steering wheel tighter, leaning slightly forward. “Okay. I just think you’re being a little hard on your fam—”

  He snorted.

  She raised her voice. “They sound like they love you and are worried about you. It might be irritating at times, but you can’t tell me that it’s worse than the alternative.”

  “The alternative being . . . ?”

  “Having no family.”

  She was quiet then, feeling the blush creeping up her face. Dante
wasn’t talking, either, but she could tell that he was watching her thoughtfully. They passed a Popeyes, and Zoey noticed a gas station up ahead.

  “What was your family like, growing up?” Dante asked beside her.

  Good God, she hadn’t meant to start a conversation like this one. “I already told you, I lived on a hippie farm with my mother. Look, there’s a Shell gas station. Should I stop for gas there?”

  He watched her a moment more—a disconcertingly perceptive gaze—and then he glanced ahead. “Sure.”

  She felt like closing her eyes in relief. Dante was too aware. She wasn’t sure she was ready for his intense intelligence to be turned on her. Yet at the same time she knew she was drawn to that part of him. Was provoking that part of him. And what was worse, she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Friday, noon

  The veteran FBI agent watched from his office as news of Kevin Heinz’s death spread through the tech department. There were whispered conversations, a few angry exclamations, and even some sobs. But overall the result was oddly homogenous: a kind of frightened pall loomed over the tech department. He snorted. They were techies; they weren’t used to being the ones targeted in the line of work. Even Kevin, who’d grown increasingly paranoid in the last twenty-four hours, had been laughably easy to take down.

  Unlike Torelli.

  He sighed and swiveled his chair to stare out his office window. Killing Torelli was his prime concern now. After this morning he very much doubted Torelli would come in from the field—the young agent wasn’t stupid. Torelli was probably heading for a bolt hole at this very minute, assuming he wasn’t still chasing after Spinoza’s child. Of course it didn’t really matter where Torelli was heading because the veteran FBI agent had long ago to make preparations for any eventuality. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a palm-sized electronic devise. Once switched on, the screen showed a satellite map. In the middle, a small red dot blinked.

  It was moving south.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Friday, 1:26 p.m.

  Zoey wasn’t a bad driver, Dante had to admit. She was light on the brake and she didn’t accelerate too fast. ’Course that didn’t mean he liked her driving his car. But since he didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter, it was just as well that she was a good driver. Especially as it had begun to snow in the last half hour.