by Lydia Burke
"Off-the-record?"
"Yes, off-the-record!" Allie shot back. "Jeez Louise!"
Jessie grinned at the childish interjection, relieved that her sister had capitulated so easily. "So much has happened, I hardly know where to start. I guess you already know somebody was after you in Port Mangus?"
"No! That is, I knew there was a chance, but—"
"Well, anyway, listen to this. They thought I was you, Allie, and Ben had to come and save me. Where did you go?"
"Oh, Jessie! You didn't listen to the messages on my answering machine, did you? And that means Kyle didn't give you my note."
"Not until today, but it wasn't his fault. He's been worried about you, Allie. Where are you, anyway?"
"Uh-uh, sis, you first. I've been trying to call you for two days. I was scared to death something terrible had happened."
"It might have, if Ben hadn't come to my rescue." Jessie settled into a chair beside the phone. Starting with her arrival in Port Mangus, she hit the high spots of her two days of adventure, omitting the more personal aspects of her story.
While she talked, the smoke cleared. Ben closed the window and joined her in the living area, where he neatly stacked the scattered newspapers on the sofa and set them aside so he had a place to sit.
"So the chauvinistic pea-brain fired me," Allie said after Jessie had related the events in the newsroom. "I figured as much."
"Ask her if she had anything in her desk about the story at Club Duan," Ben said. "I didn't find anything in the box."
Jessie was still put out with him, but she refrained from sticking out her tongue at his edict. "Ben wants to know if you kept notes in your desk about the club."
"Absolutely not," Allie said. "I kept my notes in the trunk of my car, and I didn't tell anything to a soul. This is my story."
Jessie relayed Allie's negative response with a shake of her head at Ben. "But you don't have a job anymore," she said into the phone.
"Then I'll free-lance it." Jessie recognized that stubborn determination in her sister's voice.
"Every paper in the Midwest will be after me when I write this thing up. If s big, Jessie, bigger than I dreamed when I first got wind of it. I've got something that'll knock the police and the FBI on their collective fannies. I found a journal in Mai Duan'ssafe."
"A journal? What were you doing in her safe?" Jessie shrugged at Ben, who had sat up straight when he heard her words.
"Well, to make a long story short," Allie answered, "I sneaked into her office to look around while she was busy elsewhere. To my surprise, one of the strippers, a girl named Christie Carter, had gotten there before me and was robbing the safe. She told me later she was the one who had arranged for Mai to be called out of her office in the middle of counting the night's receipts. She was stealing money for a plane ticket to
Kansas, where her parents live. Jessie, Christie's only seventeen, can you believe it? She was stripping, for God's sake, to keep her sleazy boyfriend in dope."
"Seventeen! Didn't anyone check her ID?" Jessie noticed Ben signaling her, but she was too interested in what her twin was saying to interrupt the flow of the story.
"She has a very convincing set of ID that says she's twenty-two," Allie said. "Anyway, the two of us struck a deal. I agreed not to give her away if she'd put the money back. Then I persuaded her to tell me her story while I drove her home to Kansas."
"That's where you are, in Kansas?" Jessie frowned at Ben and nodded impatiently to let him know she was well aware he wanted a report and she'd get around to it in a minute.
"Yes, at Christie's parents. The poor kid has had a rough time of it, and I'm acting as sort of a buffer right now. But there's more, Jessie. While I was in Mai's office, well, since the safe was already open, I couldn't resist checking a few papers. I came across a journal written mostly in Vietnamese, except for some lists of names and numbers. And you won't believe the names I saw, including my slimy boss's—ex-boss, that is. Mai must have been keeping records for some kind of exposd, or something."
"Wow! You stole it?" Jessie could see that Ben was on tenterhooks to know what Allie was saying. "Hold on a minute, Allie. I need to tell Ben about this."
"No! You might not be able to trust him."
Jessie considered the scowling man sitting on her couch. "I trust him, Allie. He saved my life, remember?"
Over her sister's protests, Jessie concisely related the gist of what Allie had told her. Ben's face grew more and more grim as she spoke. He shook his head when she'd finished.
"Good Lord. Tell her to go to the nearest FBI office or the local police and turn that journal over to them right now. "
Dutifully she repeated his directive.
"Does he think I'm stupid?" Allie exclaimed. "If I do that, my inside access to the biggest story of my life is history. Tell him no way, Jessie. I'm going to deliver that baby to the authorities in Chicago myself—after they give me some guaran-
tees. I've got a bargaining chip, and I'm going to use it to get an exclusive."
"Are you sure that's wise, Allie?" Jessie asked worriedly.
"What did she say?" Ben wanted to know.
"She says she's going to bring the journal back herself ."
"Give me that." He got up and grabbed the receiver out of Jessie's hand. "Allie, this is Ben. Allie? Allie?" With a muttered expletive, he handed the phone back to Jessie. "She hung up. Did she say where she is, at least?"
Jessie recradled the handset. "In Kansas."
"I know, but where in Kansas?"
She thought back, then shook her head. "Sorry, I don't know."
"Great," Ben said. "Kansas. That really narrows it down."
He walked to a nearby window and stared out, hands in his back pockets in a masculine, unconsciously sensual pose. Six years of celibacy was finally getting to her, Jessie thought. Did thirty-one-year-old women have middle-age crises? There had to be some explanation for why she was drawn to a man so manifestly wrong for her.
"What now?" she asked in an attempt to distract herself.
He combed his fingers through his thick hair. "How about I help you fix us something to eat while we go over everything Allie told you again? Before I report in downtown, I need to know all of it." He glanced at his watch. "My boss on this case has meetings this afternoon and we still have a couple of hours till he's in his office. Okay?"
Without waiting for Jessie's answer, he headed for the refrigerator. In spite of his typical presumption that she would fall in with his plans, she followed him into her little kitchenette without rancor. He'd taken her acquiescence for granted, to be sure, but at least he'd asked this time.
As she brushed by the counter, Jessie's eyes snagged on the forgotten copy of Midnight Lies. A secret smile warmed her insides. Unlike Antonio, Ben seemed to approve of her writing career. Maybe there was hope for him yet.
Chapter 7
v^hief Agent Cal Leutzinger placed the notes he'd taken during Ben's report on the corner of his desk and sat back in his chair.
Ben thought the stereotyped image most people had of government agents sat on Cal's shoulders with particular ease. He was an unpretentious-looking man. But his wire-rimmed glasses hid a sharp intellect, as well as a wealth of hard experience gained over years in fieldwork for the bureau.
He had a legendary reputation in the Chicago office as a relentless agent with no patience for ineptitude, and was regarded with judicious respect by his co-workers. Since there was inherently an adversarial relationship between feds and local cops, even when they were cooperating on a case, Ben couldn't say he liked the man. Still, he'd sensed from the start of the Club Duan investigation that Leutzinger took his work seriously. Ben could relate to that.
For the past hour and a half, the agent had put him through a grueling debriefing on the case and now regarded him with serious eyes. "I got a call from Ed Brock this afternoon, right after yours, Sutton. Somebody broke into that duplex where you've been staying in Port Mangus."
"That's what it looked like at first. A neighbor noticed a broken window open on your side of the place, got suspicious and called the police. When the cops saw you weren't there, your landlord was notified. He let them in to investigate/'
"And?"
"Nothing was taken that they could tell, at least none of the things that burglars are usually interested in. Whoever broke in was looking for something else. Every room had been ransacked."
Ben ignored the curl of distaste in his stomach. The few possessions he'd kept in the furnished duplex were not valuable, but being a cop didn't preclude him from a sense of violation at strangers pawing through his belongings. "Any dues as to who did it?"
Leutzinger shook his head. "According to the police chief, the Port Mangus boys investigated, and nobody saw anything. A light-colored car a few neighbors noticed parked on the street a couple of doors down from the duplex might be involved, but that's not much to go on."
Ben's instincts perked. "Was the car a Mazda?"
"I thought of that, too, when you told me about the tail you picked up in Sheboygan. Could be. But since nothing was taken, I doubt they'll pursue it any further, even if we tell them about the Mazda. If s a long shot that would require a lot of man-hours to check out. Not worth it for a simple break-in with no property loss."
This didn't fed right, Ben thought. "If whoever broke in wasn't your average small-time junkie after a quick buck for his next fix, what was he looking for? If s not likely he was there by mistake or coinddence."
"Could the Duan woman be behind it, just checking you out?"
"Uh-uh. Too late in the game. Fve been working for her for more than two months."
"But what about the journal that reporter says she has?"
Ben nodded. The agent's train of thought matched his own. "If that's what they were looking for, it could mean Mai's found out somehow I'm a cop."
"Maybe. Or she might have just been looking for a connection between you and that reporter. Could be she thinks you're a reporter, too. Or that there would be something at your place that would lead her to the Webster woman."
Ben just looked at him. His intuition told him differently.
"Or else," Leutzinger continued bleakly, "we're totally off base and Mai had nothing to do with the break-in at all. Maybe it was a burglary, and the thieves were scared off by something before they had a chance to take anything. Coincidences do happen." He sighed. "What a mess. So far in this case we haven't got a single thing we can use in court. Instead we've got a hotshot reporter who's managed to run off right under our noses with a potentially important piece of evidence we didn't even know existed. She's somewhere in the state of Kansas with some girl whose name may or may not be Carta:, and we don't have even the name of a city to help run her down. Not that that would necessarily help, because said reporter is showing distinct signs of noncooperation."
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes before settling the wire rims back into place. "For all I know, I could wake up tomorrow and find our case spread all over the front page of every newspaper in the country. Now, to top it off, there's a good chance the cover of my primary operator has been compromised. This investigation is going to hell in a hand basket, Sutton."
Ben wasn't happy about how things were going, either, and he felt more than a little responsible. He should have seen through Allie Webster's machinations. And if, as he suspected, his cover had been blown, that left the questions how and by whom? Had he been careless without realizing it?
"I'm going to pull you off the case," Leutzinger said. "You can report back to your old precinct on Monday."
Ben blinked. He hadn't expected this. "Why?"
"The only reason we called you in was for the undercover piece, and my gut tells me you've been made. Even if you haven't, your chances of getting Mai to trust you after somebody stole her journal are almost nil. She's going to be suspicious of everybody for a long time. So I can't use you there anymore, and there's no other reason to keep you—-none that I can justify to your commander, anyway. I have to let you go.''
Ben tightened his jaw. In eleven years working undercover, this was the first time he'd been pulled in the middle of an investigation. He didn't like it.
"You know," Leutzinger went on thoughtfully, "maybe the situation isn't as black as it looks. We can start checking out this editor in Sheboygan, for one thing. Besides him, this journal, if we can get our hands on it, raises possibilities for establishing Duan's link to organized crime. I'll have a Vietnamese translator standing by. The thing is, it might not be good evidence, given the way the Webster woman got it. I'll have to check with the prosecutor on the legalities. They've assigned us a new one, by the way. Ted Simmons is still in a coma, and it's doubtful now that he's going to make it."
"I heard." The news about the assistant U.S. attorney's automobile accident Thanksgiving morning had been part of Ed's update at the cabin.
"In fact—" Leutzinger reached for his telephone and punched in some numbers "—the U.S. Attorney's Office was supposed to send the new guy over today to get filled in on Simmons's caseload. Maybe he's still around. Sandy," he said into the phone, "has Rory Douglas checked out of the building yet...? No, I'll wait."
Rory Douglas, Ben thought. A familiar name from his teenage years. Could the new attorney be his old rival? Who cares? You 're off the case, he reminded himself.
There was just one last thing to take care of before he got back to Jessie. She'd waited for almost two hours, and was probably wondering what had happened to him.
Leutzinger didn't miss the surreptitious peek Ben gave his watch. "I'll let you go in a minute. I just need to get—" He broke off, his attention diverted to the phone again. "He is? Find him for me, will you? I want to see him."
He replaced the receiver and asked Ben, "How can I get in touch with the other Webster woman—the twin? You said she lives in Oak Park?"
"Yeah," Ben said. "I'm glad you mentioned her, as a matter of fact. I didn't want to leave her alone, so I brought her with me today. She needs protection till this is over. If her sister hadn't taken that journal, she'd probably be safe at her place, but it won't take long for the wrong people to put the
pieces together. If they haven't already. Jessie's in as much danger as her sister, since the two of them look so much alike/'
Leutzinger frowned. "I see what you mean, but I haven't got a man to spare. And until I show my superiors some concrete evidence that we're dealing with organized crime here, my budget won't stretch to the expense of a safe house. I suppose we could send her out of town to stay with relatives or something, though I'd rather have her available to help us deal with her sister if necessary.''
"She wouldn't go, anyway," Ben replied. "I tried to talk her into visiting her mother in Florida, but she refused. She thinks Allie might need her." Actually, he hadn't pressed Jessie too hard over the whole thing, because he'd figured Leutzinger would assume responsibility for her protection. Besides, if they were dealing with the mob as they suspected, there were no guarantees she'd be any safer in Florida.
"Come to think of it, I do have an extra man." Leutzinger looked at Ben reflectively. "I haven't called your captain yet to tell him I've released you. How about it? Axe you up for a baby-sitting job?"
"Me?"
"I realize if s probably been a long time since you were asked to pull guard duty, but it would just be till her sister turns over the journal."
Ben decided in less than a minute.
He found Jessie where he'd left her, in a glassed-in waiting room near the reception desk. She was writing furiously in a small notebook propped on the purse in her lap. Since she seemed unaware of him standing outside the strip of windows looking at her, he paused a moment to appreciate the chic uptown look she'd adopted for her visit to the bureau. Her outfit, a slim navy skirt and short plaid jacket, was businesslike, but Ben suspected he'd find her sexy in anything she
wore.
Jessie looked up and smiled when he entered the room.
"Hi. Sorry I took so long," he said.
"If s okay. I've been busy. Sandy at the desk got a nice young man to show me around, and I was just writing down my observations and taking notes for future research." When he looked at her blankly, she said, "You know, for a book. I've
been thinking of an FBI agent as a heroine. I haven't done that before. I like the idea so much, I may table the next book I had planned to write and do this one right away."
Enthusiasm glowed at him out of her dark eyes. Ben came close to kissing her right there in the open waiting room. Since they'd shaken that tail today, Jessie's prickly defensiveness had disappeared, and he was finding it harder than ever to resist her. In one way or another she challenged all the rules he'd fashioned for himself.
Realizing he was standing there just looking at her, he cleared his throat. "Leutzinger wants to talk to you."
Jessie closed the notebook and got to her feet. "What does he want with me?"
"Got me. I'm just a messenger."
He reached out to smooth an errant auburn curl over her ear. The gesture was a poor substitute for what he really wanted to do.
Jessie stared at him, her eyes soft, turbulent and bottomless. Then, with a faint blush on her cheeks, she smoothed her skirt and checked to see that the visitor identification tag she'd been given by security was still clipped to her lapel. She smiled up at him. "I'm ready."
Me, too, baby, he thought.
He was careful not to touch her as they walked through the hallways. Even in those heels she was a little thing. A surge of protectiveness swelled in his breast. Suddenly he was fiercely glad he'd been handed the job of taking care of her. By God, he'd fight the devil himself to keep her safe. She deserved to write about her female FBI agent with nothing more to worry about than where to put the next comma.
But how was he supposed to keep fighting himself? No way in hell could he be with Jessie twenty-four hours a day and stay away from her; besides, the effort of resisting her was taking a toll on his focus and objectivity. Maybe if he took her to bed, he'd stop wondering what it would be like with her, and he could concentrate on his job again. Fate had intervened and made him her bodyguard, so why not make the most of it?
