“Oh, sure.” The woman ducked out and closed the door.
“What’re you doing here, Jayne?”
“Good to see you, too, Brady.” She sat and put her briefcase down. “I’m great. Thanks for asking. Well, my ass is still a little sore from climbing the other day because it’s hard on the glutes, but you probably know that—”
“Jayne…”
“—because you were also rock-climbing over the weekend. With Kira Gregory. The kingpin’s widow. Even though you’re a DEA agent.”
His heavy brows formed such a forbidding and shadowy line that his eyes would disappear in a minute. “We’re not going to—”
“Oh, but you wanted to know what I’m doing in the DEA’s office. I’m meeting with Harris on another case. I came early so I could have a word with you.”
“I can hardly wait.”
They stared at each other in the kind of locked and loaded silence that usually preceded gunshots, screams and police sirens. Brady laced his fingers and rested his hands on his blotter. Jayne held his gaze, laced her own fingers and put her elbows on the arms of her chair.
Brady scowled, looking as though he wanted to lunge for a letter opener and carve out her heart with it.
Jayne didn’t care.
“Aren’t we friends, Brady?”
He shrugged. Muttered something indistinct.
“Hooking up with Kira Gregory—”
Low rumble from Brady.
“—is a serious conflict of interest for you. It could cost you your security clearance. Hell, it could cost you your job. Your job, Brady. What kind of friend would I be if I stood by and watched you do something that could ruin your career without warning you? Maybe I’m being nosy, but my heart’s in the right place. I don’t have any horses in this race other than wanting the best for a good guy like you, and you know that.”
There was another long pause, during which something in his expression softened.
“For the record, you are nosy. Criminally nosy. You’re my friend. Not my mother. And I’m a grown man.”
“Well, grown men sometimes think with their…”
That rumbling in his chest came back, louder this time, so she trailed off and flapped a hand.
“My big brain is still fully functional, but I appreciate your concern,” he finally said.
Jayne leaned forward in her chair. “I don’t see how it can be fully functional, Brady. If it was, you wouldn’t be doing something so risky.”
“Yeah, okay, Jayne, that’s enough.” Dropping his gaze, he rubbed his jaw line and chin hard enough to peel off strips of his skin. “We’re done.”
“Wow.” She shook her head. “I feel like I don’t know you at all. Like I’ve never known you. All these years we’ve worked together and gone out for drinks and lunch together and I’ve had your back and you’ve had mine, and now I don’t think I know one damn thing about you.”
Brady slammed his palms on his desk. “Well, what do you want me to say?” he roared.
“I thought we were the same, Brady,” she said. “You, of all people, know what’s right and what’s wrong. You see straight, Brady. You don’t fall for their spiel. I could always count on you to stay focused on the big picture, which is protecting the victims and putting piece-of-shit criminals like Kareem Gregory and Kerry Randolph away so they won’t keep hurting people.”
She paused to swipe her nose, which was beginning to run. This conversation was not going to upset her. She was not going to wear her heart and her entire messed-up childhood on her sleeve.
But right on cue, her mind’s eye flashed to the last ridiculous goodbye scene her mother had dragged Jayne and her sister to. Jayne had been thirteen, Jasmine around eleven, and it had been raining. What a joke, like the plot ripped from some movie on the Lifetime network. So the rain had mingled with the tears streaming down their mother’s face when she got out of the car to give their father a goodbye kiss before he reported for processing so he could begin serving his sentence. Again.
And their father, who evidently fancied himself as some sort of father-of-the-year type in between stints in prison, had lingered in the open car door and, with rain running down his handsome and oh-so-charming face, told the girls to be strong and keep the faith because he was innocent, wrongly accused and/or in the wrong place at the wrong time but otherwise the salt of the earth and he’d be back soon and he was counting on them to take care of each other and their mother.
Speaking of pieces of shit.
“You’re muddying the waters,” Jayne continued. “I thought we were us and they were them, but now you’re holding hands with them. What the hell’s gotten into you? Maybe Kira was involved in his operation. Maybe she’s only dating you to get info to funnel back to other members of his organization. Maybe she’s setting you up to be blackmailed because she knows your office takes a dim view of fraternizing with the enemy. What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that Kira’s not them,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’s Kira. She’s a person. Not some cardboard cutout of what you think a kingpin’s wife is like. She wasn’t complicit. She’s not going to blackmail me. She hated Kareem as much as the rest of us did. She’s got a story. Which I am not getting into with you.”
“There are plenty of women in the world,” she said tiredly.
“Not for me, there aren’t.”
There was zero flexibility in his voice and even less on his face, so Jayne decided it was time to face facts: it was over. There was nothing she could do to save Brady from his own self-destructive impulses.
As for the flicker of envy she felt for Kira Brady? That was harder to process. It wasn’t that she wanted Brady for her own; he’d always been a brother figure to her, so that wasn’t an issue.
It was just that Jayne was positive that no man would ever be as fierce about her as Brady was about his precious, willowy Kira.
“Well,” she said, standing and picking up her briefcase. “I came. I said my piece. I listened. You didn’t hit me even though you clearly wanted to. I call that a win.”
One corner of his mouth twitched, which was the closest thing she knew she’d get to a smile out of him today.
“Sorry if I overstepped.”
“No problem,” he said.
“So…are we cool?” she asked, since his features were still dangerously close to a scowl.
“You bet.”
“Great.” Taking a closer look, she noted the dark smudges under his eyes that made it look as if he hadn’t slept this year. “You okay?”
Crooked smile. “Peachy.”
“O-kay, then.” Jayne headed for the door, then remembered she’d wanted to share the news with him. “By the way, you haven’t heard anything about our favorite CI, have you?”
Brady’s face tightened even further. “Kerry Randolph? Why do you ask?”
“We’re ready to close him out, but he’s fired his attorney. Who thinks maybe he’s fled, but claims he doesn’t know where he’d go or why.”
“Shit,” Brady said.
Jayne tried to keep it casual, unwilling to reveal how often Randolph had been on her mind the last several days. Where was he? Was he still alive? “Did you know anything about this? Anyone here heard anything?”
Brady shook his head, his gaze dropping to something on his desk. “Nope.”
A ridiculous amount of disappointment crashed through her, given the circumstances. As a medical doctor, Randolph might have more rehabilitation potential than the average criminal informant, but he was still a criminal. And he sure as hell wasn’t her responsibility if he chose to run off and take his chances in the wild.
Even so…
“Hope he’s still alive,” she said.
“Yep.”
There was a quick knock, then the door swung open.
In walked a tall, dark and handsome suit-wearing Latin-type guy.
“Sorry to interrupt, boss,” he said mid-stride. “Just wanted to tell you what
happened in—”
He looked around, saw Jayne, flushed to the roots of his hair and gaped.
Jayne managed not to return his gape, but only just. But there was nothing she could do to shut down her heart’s staccato thump at being the recipient of this kind of attention from a guy who, let’s face it, probably couldn’t walk ten feet without being tackled by a woman who wanted him to father her unborn children.
“What happened where, Garciaparra?” Brady asked, a distinct note of amusement in his voice now.
Garciaparra gave Jayne a swift once-over that somehow managed to encompass her face, girls in front, ass in back and legs, took a deep breath and focused on Brady. “In, ah…court. But it can wait. I don’t want to interrupt your meeting with Ms., ah…”
He turned to Jayne, those heavy black brows creeping higher with blatant interest and invitation.
Jayne got a grip and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Honestly, it was ridiculous the way some men lost their minds when they were in the room with a pair of thirty-eights, and she’d had her fill of this nonsense back in eighth-grade gym, when Jimmy Arnold spent the whole class with a semi-erection as he repeatedly tried to nail her during dodgeball.
“You know what?” she said, deciding to ignore Garciaparra and get the hell out of there. “I know you’ve had enough of me for one day, Brady, so I’ll get out of your hair. And I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.”
She turned to go, her peripheral vision snagging on some low-key signaling between the menfolk as she edged by Garciaparra. Ri-dic-u-lous. With her hand on the knob, she was inches away from a clean getaway when Brady cleared his throat.
“Hang on, Jayne. Have you met Special Agent Garciaparra? He came in a few months ago from the Seattle office. Mateo, this is Assistant U.S. Attorney Jayne Morrison. Criminal division. Jayne with a Y. She gets testy if you forget that.”
Jayne froze. Rolled her eyes. Turned back and tried to remain unmoved by the avid interest in Garciaparra’s eyes as he extended his hand.
“Great to meet you, Jayne with a Y,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” she said, keeping any hint of a smile on tight lockdown as they shook. He, naturally, had a firm grip and nice hands with short nails. Nice, big hands. A closer look at his eyes revealed a hint of both humor and warmth that would be tempting to anyone else. But given her unfortunate track record with men—she’d never successfully read any man, starting with her convicted felon of a father, any more than she could successfully read the Rosetta Stone without translation—she had no intentions of going down this road with Garciaparra (or anyone else) again anytime soon. “Well, I’ll leave you two crime stoppers to it. Time for my meeting with Harris anyway.”
Garciaparra sprang into action and put a hand on the small of her back. “You’re meeting with Harris? I’ll walk you down.”
“Not necessary,” she said quickly.
“My pleasure.” He shot Brady a quick glance. “Be right back, boss.”
Brady raised a brow. “Don’t hurry on my account. You two kids have fun.”
Jayne scowled at him.
Brady dimpled and winked at her.
Garciaparra increased the slight pressure on her back, and they were off. More to distract herself from the slow burn of his gaze on the side of her face than anything else, Jayne pulled out her phone and began thumbing through emails.
“Wow.” Garciaparra laughed, a sound that was as deep and mellow as listening to a Teddy Pendergrass song after your third glass of wine. “Subtle.”
“Subtle is my middle name,” Jayne told him. “Oh, I need to stop in reception and grab my law clerk. She’s meeting me here.”
“So, Jayne with a Y, what do you do for fun?”
“I don’t believe in fun, special agent. It never turns out well.”
“You’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.”
“That’s entirely possible.”
“Why don’t you have a drink with me sometime? I could be the right person.”
Stopping dead, she lowered the phone and stared him in the face. Much as she wished for complete immunity from his charm, she couldn’t quite achieve it. He was hot. Taller than her five ten, which was a rare treat and meant she wouldn’t have to spend her time with him feeling like Godzilla. Sexing this one up would be a memorable experience.
But then he’d revert to being an inveterate flirt and woman magnet, and she’d feel like shit again.
She’d learned to feel like shit at her father’s knee. She’d spent far too much of her life feeling like shit.
And after the disastrous end to her year-long relationship with an FBI agent this past winter (she wanted marriage and children; he wanted his career, other women and her, in that order), she was determined to never feel like shit again.
“You wear a badge?”
He shifted closer, his attention dipping to her cleavage, up to her lips and then settling on her eyes. “Technically I carry the badge with me, but yes. There’s a badge involved.”
“Then you’re not the right person,” she said flatly, resuming walking and email-checking. “Oh, look, I’ve won the Nigerian lotto again.”
He fell into stride beside her, a note of frustration creeping into his voice as they arrived in reception. “Why do you want to break a guy’s heart like that?”
“Cheer up.” She slowed enough to give him a condescending pat on the shoulder. “We both know your heart was never involved. Oh, here’s Sierra. My law clerk. Sierra, this is Special Agent Garciaparra.”
Sierra gaped at Garciaparra, turning the same bright red as the hearts that zinged out of her eyes when she looked at him. To her credit, she recovered quickly and stuck out a hand. “Hi.”
Garciaparra gave her a swift once-over and handshake. “How’re you doing, Kindergarten?”
Sierra scowled.
Garciaparra’s attention reverted to Jayne. “One thing I love? A challenge.”
“You know what’s challenging? Trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under five minutes. Have a great life, Garciaparra.”
With that, Jayne took Sierra’s arm and steered her toward Harris’ office, her thoughts returning to the unknown whereabouts of Kerry Randolph. She really hoped he was safe in his undisclosed location and smart enough to keep his head down and stay that way.
4
It was after ten that night when Jayne finally got home. Her mood was not good. Her morale was worse.
Four pounds, she thought, slamming her apartment door and hurling her keys into the console basket like she was trying to strike out Derek Jeter. How the hell had she gained four pounds this week? At last week’s weigh-in, she’d been down three pounds, but this week she was up four pounds. At this rate she’d be back to the gross tonnage of a walrus toddler by the end of the summer. How the hell had this happened?
Well, she knew how this had happened, she thought bitterly as she clicked on the lights and headed for the kitchen. She might have had a couple of transgressions this week. The cheese she’d put in her breakfast omelet the other day. The fries—and, okay, the bread, mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse cake—she’d sampled from her girlfriends’ plates Saturday night at dinner. The spinning class (or two) she’d missed.
And she’d had to pay the piper. Had to stand on the scale, stare down at the numbers and own up to the truth:
She’d been a very bad girl this week.
She kicked her heels into the corner, disgusted with herself.
And—since she was already disgusted and this week was already a total bust—why not a little emotional eating?
Leaning deep into the fridge, she pushed aside the cups of non-fat Greek yogurt and pulled out her precious remaining cup of chocolate mousse. And then—why not?—she grabbed the Pinot Grigio—
Her phone bleated.
Oh, come on.
It was after ten. No one should want anything from her after ten on a work night. Like, ever.
Bleat. Bleat. Bleat.
Withdrawing from the fridge (she brought the can of whipped cream with her, just in case she had a taste for it on her mousse), she found her phone.
The display showed some strange local number she didn’t recognize.
Dammit. This better not be someone from work needing something…
“Yeah, hello,” she snapped, lining up her snacks. “This is Morrison.”
“Jayne,” replied a deep male voice. “It’s Randolph.”
She’d been in the process of balancing the phone between neck and shoulder and uncapping the whipped cream, but now she paused and frowned.
“Who?”
“Kerry Randolph. Your CI?” he added, a touch of exasperation in his voice.
“Randolph?” Well, thank God he was alive. “What the hell are you doing calling me at ten o’clock at night? And how’d you get this number?”
“My ex-lawyer gave it to me earlier. He left a message and said you had some news for me. I couldn’t get him when I called back, so I thought I’d try you.”
“It’s late,” she grumbled.
A pause.
“I apologize. It sounded important.”
“And this is a little strange. We have ethics rules, and normally I deal with people’s lawyers.”
“Yeah, but I fired my lawyer, so it’s fine.”
Jayne hesitated. He was right, but still. She much preferred keeping a couple layers between herself and the criminal element, especially when it came to her precious late night me-time here at home, but really, this was no big deal.
“Jayne?”
“It’s fine. I’ve got some good news for you. My office is ready to close out your case. We’re satisfied that you’ve met the terms of your deal and told us everything you know, so we’re done here.”
Absolute silence.
“Randolph?”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I just, ah… I wasn’t expecting any good news.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t really expecting to cut you loose this quickly either, but whatever. You’ve told us all about your medical equipment money-laundering scheme and all of Kareem’s activities that you knew about. But he saved us a lot of time, trouble and paperwork by getting himself blown up, and you had limited knowledge of what he did with the other cogs of his organization, anyway, so, yeah. We’re done.”
Deadly Secrets Page 3
