Serious Risks

by Rachel Lee

  “Right, I did. That’s what Kazin does best, investigate.” The woman was something to behold with a telephone and a computer terminal. Nobody’s secrets could withstand Maddy Kazin’s interest. Hoover would have loved her. “So spell out the connection, Phil.” At times Phil could be unbearably ponderous. Patience, Coulter.

  “So the connection is that Jan Dobrocek, the Czech guy, is also a fishing buddy of Carl Stratton’s.”

  Every hair on Arlen’s neck stood up. “How good a fishing buddy?”

  “Last year the two of them went to Mexico on a deep-sea fishing trip out of Mazatlán. Hear they caught some good-sized sailfish.”

  “Kazin’s sure about that?”

  “As sure as credit card charges and customs records can make her. It seems our friends had the sailfish stuffed and mounted and shipped back. Dobrocek’s credit card was used to pay for Stratton’s fish and for a room registered in Stratton’s name.”

  Arlen muttered an oath and closed his eyes. “How often does Dobrocek go to Mexico?” Mexico was the best place to go if you wanted to pass information to the Soviets. The embassy in Mexico City was watched by U.S. agents, but there was no way it could be watched as well as the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. More than one American had sold out his country on a little jaunt south of the border.

  “Oh, every month or so, according to his credit records. He flies Aero Azteca, and he usually goes to one of the resort cities, like Mazatlán, Cozumel, even Acapulco. And while he’s there he always makes at least a one-day trip into Mexico City.”

  “So when the hell does he do his graduate work?” Arlen demanded irritably. He needed to be angry at someone.

  “He’s working on his thesis, according to the department. Independent research that’s being funded by the Czech government. Or was. The funding got a little hazy during all the freedom uprising in Eastern Europe.”

  “I imagine.” Arlen’s tone grew dry.

  “Anyhow, he doesn’t have to be on campus all the time, so he’s free to come and go as he likes. He evidently doesn’t make any secret about his traveling. Kazin says he’s been known to take a coed with him from time to time.”

  “More recruitment.” Arlen sighed. “I guess he must be good. How long has he been operating right under our noses?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Stupid question, Phil. The point is, I don’t have a choice. How long?”

  “Five years.”

  Arlen could have groaned. “Five years,” he repeated woodenly.

  “Well, that’s how long he’s been at the university, and that’s how long it’s been since he entered the country for the first time. It’s possible—”

  Arlen cut him off. “Spare me. Start getting together the stuff the U.S. Attorney is going to need from us to get a court order for wiretaps on Dobrocek and Stratton.”

  “Kazin says she’s already compiling it. It’ll be on your desk first thing tomorrow. In the meantime, do you want me to start surveillance?”

  Arlen thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know that there’s any immediate rush, Phil. Unless he’s scheduled to go to Mexico, that is.”

  “Not that Kazin knows of at the moment. I’ll have her keep an eye on the airline bookings, though.”

  “Okay, let’s leave it there until tomorrow, unless something else comes up. I want to think about this some more before I make any decisions.” He looked at Jessica again. “Phil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Try not to need me in the next four or five hours. If you really, really have to, page me, but I’d be grateful—”

  “Sure,” Phil interrupted. “No problem. National emergencies only.”

  Arlen gave a short laugh. “Yeah. I’ll check in later.”

  Standing in the rain, Arlen pondered for a couple of minutes. He would have bet his last dollar just then that Dobrocek and Stratton were mixed up in Barron’s death. Maybe Barron had been involved in the espionage, or maybe he’d stumbled onto something. Either way, he was dead, and either way his brother-in-law was probably involved. Arlen remembered all too clearly the grief stamped on Martha Barron’s face when he had interviewed her two weeks ago. Familiar himself with the toll of such a loss, he would have recognized it instantly if she had been faking it. She had not been. A man who could inflict that kind of suffering on his own sister was a man to be wary of.

  And Jessica knew Barron. Jessica had met Dobrocek. A cold shiver passed down Arlen’s spine, the kind that supposedly meant someone was walking on your grave. In that moment he would have given ten years of his life for a way to pull Jessie from this mess. The best he could hope for, however, was to keep her from getting in any deeper. How the devil was he supposed to accomplish that?

  Sliding into the car beside her, he turned and studied her with that same solemnity that had made him pause at the foot of the stairs earlier. Jessica Kilmer thought herself a knowledgeable, sophisticated adult. Arlen Coulter knew differently. There was an innocence to her that he felt whenever he was with her, an innocence that came from the lack of the kind of experience that caused emotional calluses. She was incredibly open, incredibly warm, incredibly vulnerable. Her readiness to accept him exactly as he was took his breath away.

  Lord knew she had more than enough cause to complain. He’d stolen her virginity without so much as a promise, and now he was conducting their relationship under watchful eyes. Hell, he hadn’t even taken her out on a real date. Their dinners out together were as much business as anything, arranged to give them time to talk away from bugs. Small wonder she was looking frayed and pale. She deserved better than this by far, and she certainly deserved to discover her sensuality in privacy.

  He knew she was holding back when they made love simply because she had not held back the first few times before he had found the bugs. Even in her restrained, uptight state she was a much more active lover than his wife had ever been, and far more passionate, but Arlen was well aware Jessie had more than that in her. And she deserved to enjoy it, deserved not to have to bottle it up because of unseen listeners. Damn it, if nothing else he could at least set her free for a few hours!

  So he drove downtown to the Regency Hotel overlooking the lake. Jessica watched with huge eyes but never questioned him as he took his suitcase out of the trunk where he’d left it, intending to go for it after dark, and took her arm to lead her inside. This was a good hotel, one of the best, and a person couldn’t check in without luggage.

  She said nothing as he passed his credit card to the clerk and checked them in for the night. She even remained silent throughout the trip in the glass elevator, though he could tell she felt miserably out of place in her jeans and faded sweatshirt. In a couple of minutes, though, that wasn’t going to matter any longer.

  Their room overlooked the lake, not that he cared. He tipped the bellhop, closed the door and faced Jessica.

  “Arlen?” Her tone was uncertain. “What happened?” His grimness was frightening, his quiet intensity unnerving. That phone call must have been disturbing.

  “What happened is that you and I need time away from all of that crap. We need to be truly alone. We’re alone now, Jessie.” He took a step toward her. “Absolutely and utterly alone. And, by God, I’m going to make love to you the way I feel it, without worrying about being overheard.”

  Pink color blossomed in her cheeks and he heard her breath catch. “You felt that way, too?”

  He opened his arms to her. “I felt each and every sigh you swallowed, and every time you bit back a sound, I hurt.”

  Darn it, her eyes were swimming in tears again. He had noticed, which was mortifying, and he had cared, which was incredibly touching.

  Arlen folded her into his arms and pressed a kiss on the top of her head. She smelled like spring rain, fresh and sweet, and holding her made him feel warm in places that had been cold for a long, long time. For a long moment he simply hugged her, savoring her closeness. And for the first time he admitted to hims
elf that he wasn’t going to walk away unscathed from this. She was bound to tire of him, though, tire of the multitude of sins that went with his work and the way it made him live. She would tire of him just as soon as she didn’t need him around to make her feel safe. It was as inevitable as the rising of the sun, but only now did he realize that it was going to hurt. Just a little, he assured himself. Just a little.

  “I’m going to call room service,” he said, rocking her gently and stroking her hair and back. “I’m starved, and I don’t want to bother with them later.”

  He caught her chin with a gentle hand and tilted her face up to him. Her brown eyes were suspiciously bright behind her glasses, and there was the faintest tremor to her lips. Bending, he kissed those lips and felt them quiver and cling to his. “What you need,” he murmured huskily, “is a long, warm soak in the tub. I happen to have a pajama top that’ll make a perfect bathrobe for you.”

  “You? A pajama top?” A fugitive smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The Arlen she knew slept flagrantly nude; in fact, he hardly ever stayed under the blankets.

  He flashed his crooked smile. “Yep. Believe me, I do not sleep in the raw on my daughter’s couch.”

  She lifted on tiptoes. “Then,” she whispered, “you wore it last night?”

  The heaviness was growing in him, the weight of the need she evoked in him. “Yes,” he murmured, sliding his hands downward to rub them against her soft bottom.

  “Then it’ll smell like you.”

  Her husky whisper sent a thrill racing from his ear straight to his groin. His teeth clenched as he rubbed himself against her welcoming hips. “Yep,” he bit out.

  “Good.” She wiggled up closer to him and tugged his head down to her. “I wish I were taller,” she muttered as she tried to find his mouth.

  He kissed her. Her mouth was already open, begging for his possession, and he accepted the invitation with a sweeping, plunging stroke of his tongue that spoke of greater intimacies.

  “Kiss me back, Jessie,” he gasped a little later. “Come on, baby… Like that. Yeah.”

  Somehow his pullover was riding up under his arms and she was biting—biting!—at one of his nipples in a way he never would have imagined anyone doing, nor would he have dreamed it could feel so good that his knees were threatening to buckle….

  “I’m just the right height for that,” she whispered as she felt a tremor rip through him. “You like that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah…. Damn it, Jessie… Baby, don’t…”

  But she did, and he went nuts. For one of the very few times in his life, Arlen Coulter lost his self-control, every last damn vestige of it. Afterward he retained only the vaguest memory of tearing at her clothes, at his clothes, of tumbling onto the bed with her. He did remember putting his mouth on her in places he’d never put his mouth before, places he’d fantasized about kissing her, but had been afraid to for fear of shocking her or upsetting her.

  He remembered, too, that while she might have been a little bit shocked at first, she hadn’t been at all upset. No, Jessie had sobbed and writhed and dug her nails into him and driven him to take even greater intimacies.

  “Harder,” she gasped. “More,” she groaned, and her fever fueled his. And later, “Like this?” as she took similar liberties with him.

  He remembered the hard, driving ache that propelled his hips against hers, the helpless, wrenching, rocking need that made him plunge over and over and over.

  And he remembered the sheer beauty of her shrill cry as she crested the pinnacle with him.

  He’d never made a woman plead before, or cry out. He’d never known the wonder of sharing a moment so intense it was etched in pure crystal. Now he knew. Humbled, he held her tightly to him and gave silent thanks.

  Arlen would have provided candlelight, but that would have meant going out and finding someplace to buy a candle, and Jessie wouldn’t hear of it. Besides, there was a night-light in the bathroom that served almost as well.

  Sitting in the deep, steaming tub, she sipped champagne and soaked up the relaxing heat. Arlen sat on the floor beside the tub, on the fluffy mat, and watched her with a half-formed smile that seemed to soften his every edge. He made her feel beautiful and cherished, and her throat ached every time she looked at him.

  Time was slipping away so fast. Too fast. She tried to seize the moments, but they slipped through her fingers like water. Much as she wanted to escape from under the threat that clouded her days, she knew that the end of the investigation would be the end of this, too. Because Arlen would move out of her house as soon as he didn’t need to protect her, and then he would move out of her life to avoid the entanglements he didn’t want. Smothering a sigh, she forcibly turned her attention away from such thoughts. There was no sense in wasting these precious moments worrying about what hadn’t happened yet.

  “You know everything about me,” she remarked lazily. “And I still don’t know very much about you.”

  Reaching out, he touched her warm, damp cheek with a gentle forefinger. “What do you want to know?”

  “Have you ever been shot at?”

  “As an agent, you mean? Because I sure as hell got shot at in the war.”

  “Well?”

  “Once.”

  “Just once?” That surprised her.

  “Just once, by some drunken hunters who never would have done it if they hadn’t been full of good old Kentucky bourbon. They didn’t even come close, but it was a little tense.”

  “Did you shoot back?”

  “I wasn’t even armed. We’re not like local police. We don’t carry weapons all the time, and on that case, I wasn’t authorized to carry a gun. In fact, most of the time this job is about as tame as they come.”

  Jessica handed him her glass. “No more for me, thanks.” Sighing, she closed her eyes and let her head rest against the pillowing towel. “Tame. I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, it’s usually not dangerous, and a lot of what we do is legwork and paperwork. Investigatory stuff. Sometimes we go undercover, but that’s about the only time things get hairy. Surveillance is a boring pastime, and I’ve done my share of it. Things usually don’t begin to get exciting until a case starts to break.”

  The finger that had caressed her cheek now ran along the curve of her soft, smooth shoulder.

  “I enjoy my job,” he said after a moment. “I like solving puzzles, and I meet a lot of interesting people. And it’s important work.” His gray eyes lifted to her face, and he smiled his crooked smile. “Disappointed?”

  “Relieved,” she said frankly. “I’m not a good worrier.”

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about me,” he said firmly. Usually that was true, so he didn’t feel as if he were lying. He didn’t tell her how fast that could change, how fast he had seen it change. Or that he was working on a couple of cases that could get nasty if something went wrong. She didn’t need to know such things.

  Opening her eyes just a little, she looked at him from beneath her lashes, soaking up the way he looked. Wearing only his jeans, he sat with one knee raised and an arm resting on it. Lithe, lean, all male. She blushed a little when she saw the mark she’d left on his chest, just above the coppery disk of one nipple. She’d never imagined she could get so carried away.

  To Arlen, it looked as if she were about to fall asleep in the tub. “Is that all you wanted to know?” he asked, amusement evident in his voice. “Whether I’d ever been shot at?”

  Jessica opened one eye wider. “It’s an important question. And I already know the really essential things about you.”

  “What kind of essential things?” The crooked smile was still on his mouth, his posture was still casual, but she sensed a tension in him.

  She answered, her voice soft. “I know how kind you are, how gentle and generous, how honest and caring. I know you’re a good man, Arlen Coulter. The rest is just frosting to make you even more appealing.”

  Even more appealing. Arlen hea
rd the words, but, more important, he felt them in his gut, a sinking sensation that told him he was in trouble. Even more appealing. Well, what did he expect? She was hardly older than Melanie. She could hardly have the first great affair of her life without getting emotionally involved.

  For that matter, the sinking sensation told him that he wasn’t as indifferent as he would have liked to be, either. It mattered that she found him appealing. It mattered that he could make her feel good or bad. All of it mattered too damn much, and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. Wait for it to wear off? It had to wear off. No woman like Jessica, with so much to give and so much life ahead of her, could possibly stay infatuated for long with a man who had so little to offer in the way of a future. Sooner or later she was bound to come to her senses. In the meantime, he would just have to take care that he built her some good memories, that he made this a good experience for her.

  “Appealing, huh?” he said gruffly. “It makes me more appealing to have been shot at?”

  Jessica couldn’t hold back her laugh. “No, it makes you more appealing that you don’t get shot at with alarming regularity. Actually, I’m sorry you ever had to be shot at.”

  Again he was touched. She touched him easily, frequently.

  “Well,” she said after a moment, unnerved by the unblinking way he was looking at her, “I’m glad to know your job is tame. Not like TV and the movies.”

  It could get to be like the movies or TV, and had, but she didn’t need to know that. “Yeah. Tame. Not dull. It’s not a dull job, Jessie. And I usually feel really good about what I accomplish. That makes me a lucky man.”

  “What made you decide you wanted to be an FBI agent?”

  He smiled, that wonderful crooked smile that sent rivers of warmth rushing to her toes. “Eliot Ness and the Untouchables,” he said. “I wanted to be Robert Stack.”

  She felt her own smile widen, and her heart squeezed with emotion. “You must have been such a neat little kid. I can imagine what you must have been like. Serious, right? A solemn, serious little boy.”