Survival Instinct

by Doranna Durgin

  Karin.

  He squelched an impulse to go find her, suddenly suspicious of the entire day. She had a whole new look, a new wardrobe. She could well have gone on the run again.

  He didn’t like himself for thinking it.

  He didn’t like himself much for the thought that came next, either.

  The one that wondered just what lurked in her past. The one that noted the ease with which she’d transformed herself. The one that urged him to check up on her.

  First he took his own shower. He pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a Bully Hill T-shirt. Not all that far from Hunter’s Full Cry Winery, the family business that had once supported the development of the agency. Now it supported itself…and then some.

  Owen could have gotten him answers about Karin Sommers’s secrets. But the safe house was already one favor too many.

  Still damp, Dave sat in one of the wing chairs, pulling the other chair over for a footrest. He fired up his laptop for a quick e-mail check—there was one from Owen, with the safe-house details—and then found the e-mail for a good feeb friend in California. That much he knew: Karin had come from California. Those old notes were occasionally good for something after all.

  He made the query vague, protecting the lie about Karin’s death.

  For now.

  And when he’d written the e-mail, he stared at it a moment. He rubbed his hands down his face and scruffed his wet hair and wondered if he truly wanted to know.

  And then he hit Send.

  That was when she returned, of course. He heard the key in the lock and flipped the lid down on the laptop. It beeped plaintively and went into hibernation, hiding only his innocuous e-mail inbox. Guilty conscience, Hunter?

  Hey. He wasn’t the one with all the lies layered around him. The one pretending to be dead. The one who had spent his life scamming people out of their savings.

  She slipped inside the door, closed it and leaned against it to regard him. The silence stretched between them.

  She looked tired. No little wonder, after their nonstop day. And she looked thoughtful, regarding him with her blue-gray eyes, her head ducked as it often was. This time those spiky new bangs swept to the side, partially obscuring her gaze. The expression did what it always did to him, waking parts he’d thought weren’t paying any attention. Reminding him how this conflict-of-interest situation had become quite tangled indeed.

  None of his parts cared about that. Not the slowly stirring erection, not the tingle down his lower spine. Not the tightening along the backs of his thighs. At least he had the laptop, already casually positioned to keep his reaction from becoming a topic of conversation. It wasn’t the kind of mixed message he wanted to send.

  He wasn’t quite ready when she sighed and said, “Had time to think about it, haven’t you?”

  Wary caution filled his reply. “Think about—”

  “It,” she said, and gestured at herself—dressed in her own jeans and one of the new tops, wearing her new hair—everything but the colored contacts. For that moment she somehow drew herself up to stand differently, becoming not a tired fugitive planning a scam but someone cool, aware of her own classy nature, and just a little bit flirty around the edges. “What I’ve done.”

  Dave swallowed, hunting a truth that wouldn’t sound harsh.

  Problem was, the truth was harsh.

  “Watching you today…” He shook his head. “You’re good, aren’t you? It wasn’t just your stepfather kicking you into compliance. You did it and you were good at it.”

  She inclined her head just so, a refined gesture that suited Brooke quite perfectly, and said, “We’ve only just started. Tomorrow it’s your turn.”

  Instant denial seized him, but he barely got his mouth open before she laughed, a pealing laugh he hadn’t heard before. “Don’t worry, dearling. A few key outfits and some temporary dye should do it. With those skin tones, we can’t pull off anything darker than a medium brown.”

  He muttered his words. All of them. The laptop as camouflage suddenly didn’t seem quite so necessary as before.

  But when he looked back at her, she’d dropped the pose. She ran her hands through her hair, scrubbing her scalp as she stretched. The shirt—a fine, slippery cloth the color of a blush—rose to show even more of her tight belly. Dave inhaled sharp and quick.

  Not a man who knew what he wanted, one way or the other; his body and mind danced around in opposition, flip-flopping positions.

  And it wasn’t that she couldn’t tell, laptop or not. She moved into the room, perching a hip on the rounded lip of the footboard. Totally Karin. “Hey,” she said, waiting for him to focus on her again. When he did, she gestured at herself once more—and then at him. “This is it, you know. This situation…my past, your future. It’s not perfect…but it’s what we have. It might be all we have. This now of ours.”

  He didn’t have a ready answer. He didn’t have any answer at all.

  She didn’t wait long. She came to his two-chair perch and picked up the laptop, setting it on the side table. Then she slung a leg over his knees and straddled the space she’d just cleared. Sat…right…there. Dave froze, letting his breath ease out through his teeth to stop himself from instantly thrusting up into her, clothes and all. He somehow managed not to garble his words. “Pretty confident, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what I am,” she told him. “A confident woman. I know what I want.”

  He reached for her waist, couldn’t quite stop himself from caressing the sleek, warm sides beneath the drape of her shirt. After a moment he moved her against him. Just enough so her inner thighs quivered. He murmured, “And tomorrow? Or the next day? Or the day we’re finished in Alexandria?”

  “Or the day you decide you can’t live with who I am?” Hard words, but she said them softly. Matter-of-factly. “Days like that happen. I think it’s better when nights like this happen in between them.” Then she cocked her head and said in bright, normal tones, “Of course, that’s up to you,” and shifted to get her feet under her so she could abandon him there.

  Oh, no. He caught her, snagging her jeans pockets, and pulled her back down close and tight. The renewed contact scrambled his brains and he reached up, cupping her neck to pull her down for an unexpectedly slow kiss, with his mouth moving against hers in gentle, deliberate care, nibbling and flirting and courting—and building into a connection deeper than he’d ever intended.

  Decision made. Regrets later. He put his glasses aside and tended to the side of her neck, her cheek, the corner of her mouth…he kissed the spot just beneath her earlobe and waited for her gasp to fade before murmuring, “I’ll take our now.”

  Chapter 14

  Karin woke tangled in sheets. Alone.

  From the now to the morning after. Nice letdown.

  Didn’t matter. She still owned the memory. Her skin still tingled from his touch, and his scent still lingered in her hair. She spent a moment savoring the sensations, and then she flipped back the sheets and headed for the bathroom.

  Today was Dave’s turn to be outfitted. Karin put her hair back in a high ponytail and dug into her courier bag, into the depths of the pocket that wasn’t quite a bona fide hidden compartment. She flipped through the Brooke Ellington ID, satisfied that she’d grabbed everything, including alternative IDs. If Dave thought she’d made up the name on the spur of the moment, he was in for a surprise. Brooke was an old standby who “lived” in Florida but who’d done a lot of traveling for Karin.

  She patted the paperwork and plastic and tucked it back away, then packed her new belongings in the new suitcase, ready to go. She reached the dining room just in time for the second serving, and she was spreading chunky spiced apples over her French toast—thick bakery bread, oh yum—when Dave arrived.

  She thought he looked tired. It gave her some satisfaction; she had a pretty good idea how he’d gotten that way. He pulled out one of the wooden tapestry-backed chairs and sat down.

  “Fruit?” she said, o
ffering him her bowl of melon cubes.

  “Ate at the early serving,” he told her, and then popped one of the juicy orange chunks into his mouth anyway. He wore jeans and that Red Wings sweatshirt this morning, though he still carried himself as if they were designer duds. His expression was far more pensive than melon-chewing could account for, and more remote than a man greeting his lover ought to be.

  “Second thoughts?” she asked him. She forked the toast and apple mixture into her mouth and then had to close her eyes so she could absorb the wonderfulness of the combination.

  When she opened them, there he was. Waiting. He nodded. “Second and third. But no better ideas. And Rashawn…” He scruffed up his hair. It didn’t look as if this was the first time, and the day was young. “They found him under a water tower across the tracks from North Glendale. Just dumped. Just like an—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. The words were there; Karin could all but see them. He just couldn’t bring himself to say them or perhaps to trust himself to stay calm about it. Instead he said, “No, I don’t like it. But I want to stop this bastard. If this is what it takes…”

  There was no need to say that Karin’s scam was Dave’s only way in. Officially, he wasn’t even here anymore.

  Karin said, “Hey.” She waited for him to meet her gaze and then she said, “I want to do something about it, too.”

  He stole another piece of melon. “I’d feel better if I understood why.”

  Clink. She put her fork down too hard; the couple seated a table away glanced over in surprise. Karin said drily, bitterly, “You mean because I’m such a soul-sucking money-grubbing thief, why would I do a decent thing?”

  He winced. “I would have used different words, thanks. And the offer of the safe house is open regardless—I’m the one who got you into this mess. I’m not going to leave you hanging.”

  She chewed another piece of her sublime concoction, but this time she didn’t really taste it. “How about, if it wasn’t for me, Ellen might have stopped this guy a year ago. Maybe I owe her this. Maybe I owe it to Rashawn and all the others who are still in danger. Maybe I just care.” Maybe I owe it to who I was as a child, needing my own rescue. But she didn’t say that one out loud. She waited for him to digest her words and said, still bitter, “Guess you never thought of that.”

  He didn’t respond right away. Then he shook his head. “Caring,” he said distinctly, “is a lot different than actually putting yourself on the line.”

  She snorted. A nice emphatic noise, not meant for the breakfast table in the cosy dining nook of the Woodward House. “Hey,” she said. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to walk that line. This guy is ripe for the scam, and in the end I don’t even have to pull it off.”

  “And how many times in the course of your…career…have you been investigating and poking around in well-protected places where you don’t belong? It’s not the same, Karin.”

  “And it’s not so different.” Okay, she wasn’t so sure of that. She was just mad. First the insult for who she was…and then to imply she wasn’t even good at it? “This started out as a tasty little breakfast,” she told him, and pulled back her melon bowl. “Get your own.”

  He was silent, one of those moments at which he seemed to be so good. He said, “I didn’t mean to turn this conversation into this conversation. I just need to understand.”

  Still grumpy, thank you very much. “And if you’ve listened, then you do.” But he wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking about it all, and she was ready enough to move on. “Here’s what I don’t understand—none of the others were found.”

  Not a new thought to him. He tipped his head in affirmation. “Only Rashawn.”

  “So Longsfo—” She broke off, glanced around and decided not to finish the name out loud. “He’s really spooked, then. He wasn’t done…or ready. He got sloppy. Now’s the time, Dave. Now’s exactly the time.”

  He regarded her with skepticism. “When he’s all stirred up and unhappy?”

  “Yes.” She leaned forward, pushing her plate aside. “Think of who he is. What he is. You’ve worked with enough profilers, right? Well, profiling is just a fancy name for assessing your mark. I bet your people have said he’s taking these boys—building some kind of strange relationship with them—to create a situation where he’s in complete control. Over his young self—that’s the boy—and even his mother. Don’t even try to tell me she’s not overbearing.”

  Bemused, Dave admitted, “She’s a strong woman.”

  “She’d have to be, to reach the Senate. So he’s creating situations in which he has complete control. When the rush grows old, then the relationship changes…it escalates. The boys are molested, killed and discarded. But this time, he lost control. He wasn’t able to complete his little ritual. He must be furious and confused. So here I come, offering him a way to make money and build face at the same time. To regain control. He’s going to grab it.”

  Dave drummed his fingers on the table. He checked around the room—no one was paying attention to them now. “You’re not so bad at this profiling thing.”

  She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms in a dare-you gesture. “I’m a people watcher.”

  She saw it instantly; he wasn’t going to take that dare. The subject of her past was, for the moment, closed. “What I’d like to know,” he said, “is how you’re going to layer in this extra irresistible face-building opportunity.”

  Karin was suddenly hungry again. She pulled the plate over, stabbing up a chunk of toast and apples. “Okay,” she said, hesitating with the fork halfway to her mouth. “But I get to finish this first. I’ll tell you on the way to the thrift store.”

  “To—” Dave started, but stopped himself to cover his face and emit a reluctant groan. “This is going to be a nightmare, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Karin said cheerfully. “I’m looking forward to it.” And she tackled her breakfast with renewed anticipation.

  Dave walked away from the tiny thrift store with beat-up black jeans, a variety of tight, dark T-shirts and a stonewashed denim jacket with enough styling to give it interest if not class. His gratitude when she declared them ready for checkout was short-lived, for then she declared her intention to drag him into the Fairfax Fair Oaks Mall—and after an hour on the road, she did just that.

  The Polo suit fit him right off the Macy’s rack. She frowned at the price tag—normally a scam this big would pay for itself, but this one would never get that far—and smoothed the fit of the material over his shoulders. “I hope you need a new suit.”

  “Your farm took care of my last one,” he said. “Now talk. Details, I mean.”

  He’d been patient at that, and she didn’t hesitate. “Simple,” she said. “There’s some land in Florida, owned by developers. Let’s call it Ranchwood Acres.”

  “Florida? You must be kidding.”

  She grinned. “That’s the beauty of it. I’m not. It’s an actual property in Palm Beach County—truly gorgeous—but it’s surrounded by swampland. Perfectly usable, if you don’t mind mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls or boating in and out during heavy rains. Five hundred acres, cypress trees, sweet gum, slash pine, palmetto…can’t get any greener than that.”

  He looked at her askance and unbuttoned the three suit buttons, checking the fit of the low-rise slacks. “When did you check this out?”

  “Just old habits,” she told him. Not to mention the need to keep an eye on what might be of interest to Rumsey. “And trust me. The pants fit perfectly.” Trust me, it turned out, weren’t the best words she could have used. But she ignored his expression and said, “It’s a million-dollar parcel. And the Florida Conservation Coalition is itching to get their hands on it to establish more territory for the Florida panther.”

  He slipped out of the jacket and vest, then headed for the changing room. Karin, jacket and vest slung over her arm, followed him right up to the open entranceway.

  “I’m not get
ting it yet,” he said from the changing booth. Keys and change jingled in his jeans pockets as he pulled the pants up, snapped, and zipped.

  “I’m the roper,” she said. “I approach our guy with this deal, playing middleman for the development company that hasn’t been able to unload it. They’re tired of the bugs, the snakes, the gators. So they—meaning I—present it in a single parcel for less than the valued price of the combined individual parcels, but at a decent profit for our developers. Once Longsford’s got the property, he can sell off lots of small parcels at actual market price to recoup his investment, and then sell the rest of it to the coalition cheap. Guaranteed buyers. He more than makes his money back, and he gets great PR points while thumbing his nose at the development company.”

  “How’s that?” Dave emerged, now wearing his newly acquired denim jacket and the black jeans. It seemed to Karin that he handed over the suit pants with some regret. Definitely not a boy used to dressing down on the job.

  “The developers—and this is for real—have been refusing to deal with the coalition for years. They’re all full of manifest destiny, and anything else that might want to live in that area—the panthers, the Indians, the snakes—is unfortunate inconvenience. So our guy gets his profit, gets his conservationist karma, and shows the developers that he makes his own decisions. Which, as we’ve established, is important to Longsford.”

  She let him ponder it as he put the suit on AmEx. Once they were out of earshot of the clerk, he moved in for a more confidential conversation, bumping shoulders as they headed for the mall exit.

  She bumped against him on purpose, just to do it. If it puzzled him, he didn’t dwell on it. He asked, “Exactly what else are you going to need to pull this off?”

  Didn’t even take a second thought. She held out her hand, ticking off items on her fingers. “Hotel with suite amenities—not five-star. Three or four will do. It’s okay if I give the impression of being careful with money—we want him to trust me with his money. I’ve got to set up a phone number, and someone to be the inside man, because he’s going to check with the development company, and we’ll have to intercept that call. But most of the work with this one is up-front. I need a good printer—the right printer—to work up the real-estate documentation. Finding that printer and getting the information we need…those will be the hardest parts. But I do believe I intend to be invited to a party.” She paused, tapping her lower lip. “Could mean more party clothes.” And then she laughed at the noise Dave made deep in his chest, snatching her elbow as if she might turn around on the spot and head back for Macy’s.