"Welcome to Cairo, Mr. Smith," Her accent lilted like raindrops rolling down a leaf. "Are you here for business or pleasure?"
"Visiting a friend."
Her gaze flicked up, a flash of green and gold under a veil of black lashes. "Enjoy your stay." She passed him the Canadian document. The suit jacket pulled against his muscled arm as Mulberry returned the passport to his pocket. He'd spent the last few months in T-shirts, half the time nothing even that formal. The searing heat and thick humidity of the Costa Rican jungle practically demanded nudity.
Staying at the Joyful Justice training camp, working with the new recruits and attempting to get over Sydney Rye, had left him fit, tan, and itching for a fight.
Admitting she loved him. That silky, sexy, dangerous kiss of hers…then running away—classic Sydney Rye. She always left him wanting more.
Mulberry checked his phone as he headed for the taxi stand. Sixteen hours had passed since Robert's call.
"Sydney is gone." The founder of Fortress Global Investigations, the premier security firm in the world, had kept his voice as flat as a pane of glass. "Looks like someone took her. Blue went willingly." No way she could die with Blue by her side. Impossible. "Sydney is hurt. Bad. She's lost a lot of blood." A crack in the glass, as a small fissure of emotion creaked into Robert's voice. That sent a thrill of fear through Mulberry, like touching an electric fence, a jolt of pure electricity.
Sydney Rye's instincts always kept her alive, even when she didn't want them to, but the woman was human. Mortal.
Mulberry hadn't slept since Robert's call. Maxim promised to "handle everything". But leaving Robert Maxim alone to handle this was like leaving a snake alone in the Garden of Eden with Eve to discuss the apple harvest. It wouldn't end well.
Mulberry needed to be there. He had to protect Sydney from Maxim.
Had to convince her that it was okay for them to love each other. That happiness was possible. Mulberry's jaw tightened around the desires clawing at his mind. His broad shoulders and deep scowl cleared a path as he moved through the bustle of the airport, like a python gliding through grass.
The sun blasted into the thick weave of his jacket when he stepped outside. The air smelled of exotic spices, exhaust, and approaching rain.
He got into a taxi. "The Ritz Carlton." Mulberry sat back into the seat. He cracked his window before sending a secured text to Dan.
Arrived.
I know.
Mulberry smirked.
Dan was on The Island, the headquarters for strategic operations of Joyful Justice. A former paranoid billionaire’s doomsday compound, Dan purchased the remote Pacific Island and hadn't left since setting up shop.
Dan Burke was a good man—a strong and important ally for Mulberry and Sydney. Without Dan, Joyful Justice wouldn't be the force for good in the world that it was.
But Mulberry had hated Dan for a stretch of time. Been sick with jealousy at his relationship with Sydney.
They'd talked about it once, at a bar in Miami after far too many drinks. They decided to confront Sydney, and make her choose. She couldn't keep them both around—yanking at their chains, making them miserable and starving for her.
The confrontation didn't go well.
But it had created an uneasy peace between the two men, which had turned into grudging respect and now this, a friendship.
Mulberry put the phone away as they entered the heart of the city and their speed slowed to a crawl. He needed a drink. Egypt Air was dry. When he asked for a whiskey, the flight attendant, who'd been wearing a headscarf and a serene expression, had turned pink at his request.
Mulberry's own cheeks had flushed in response. Being stuck in that tin can, surrounded by strangers, he'd craved something to dull the anxiety churning in his gut. The Ritz would have alcohol. The country wasn't under sharia law.
The hotel came into view up ahead on the left. The tall, gray building with reflective silver windows was separated from the Nile River by a two-lane street and a sea wall.
The traffic inched along, and Mulberry told the driver he'd walk the rest of the way. The cabbie was happy to release him so as to avoid the inspection necessary to pull into the Ritz's drive.
Armed men guarded the entrance, one carrying a mirror on a stick to check for explosives under every car that entered. A slick black Mercedes pulled in, and another guard appeared, leading a dog who sniffed at the vehicle's tires. Mulberry paid the driver, slung his small bag over his shoulder and started toward the hotel.
A shout from one of the guards made Mulberry pause as the man holding the mirror yelled and pointed under the Mercedes. The other guards raised their guns at the vehicle. The driver’s side window rolled down, revealing a woman with chin-length black hair.
Mulberry's heart sped up and his breath stopped—the same hair as Sydney Rye’s. The woman turned—not Sydney. She was middle-aged, poised, and wearing large sunglasses on her narrow, elegant nose. She spoke calmly, and the guards yelled loudly.
The woman opened her door, but one of the guards slammed it shut, and her face wrinkled with displeasure. She didn't look like someone on the verge of blowing herself up, but Mulberry wouldn't risk his life on the assumption. He turned and headed away from the hotel. If The Ritz was still standing in an hour he'd be back. In the meantime, he needed a drink.
Mulberry found a Western-style restaurant and ordered a beer. It arrived in a tall, cold glass, and Mulberry sipped it while scrolling through his phone. He texted Bobby and waited for a call back.
The two men had known each other for over a decade, and their relationship had shifted from friends, to enemies, to accomplices, to partners, to enemies again, and now they were supposed to be friends.
Mulberry was a member of the joyful Justice Council, and Robert was considered a friend of the Council. He'd given them an influx of cash and intel. His connections had saved many of their members’ lives, and over the past few months he had proved himself to be an asset unlike any that they had.
Mulberry didn't trust Maxim's motivations. He claimed to want justice. To be as hungry for it as any other member of Joyful Justice, but Mulberry just didn't buy it.
The man he'd known for the last fifteen years was selfish. Selfish to the absolute core. It made him dependable, in a way. Mulberry could always trust that Bobby Maxim would do what was best for Bobby Maxim.
This switch, this transformation into someone who just wanted to do good, was a fake out. Mulberry suspected that Maxim had some larger, brilliant plan in which he used Joyful Justice to enrich himself and gain more power.
However, Sydney Rye trusted Robert, to a degree. She didn't trust anyone completely except for her dog, Blue. Even though she confessed to loving Mulberry he knew that she didn't truly trust him. She would trust him with her life, but not with her decisions.
He'd given her reason to mistrust him.
Mulberry threw his phone onto the table and picked up his beer, taking a long slug.
He finished the drink and headed back to the hotel. It was still intact, so he checked in and went up to his room. His flight wasn't until the next day. And unless Robert Maxim screwed with him, Mulberry would be in Turkey by dinner time tomorrow.
But first he had to meet his sister Charlene for dinner in the hotel restaurant. She moved abroad soon after what happened in New York. Her reputation damaged beyond repair, and her heart splintered, his younger sister had fled to Egypt, where she'd learned the language and started a tourist business. But like all of his sister's businesses, it evolved into something illegal and highly profitable.
It turned out there was a demand for her style of dominance in this region dominated by men. Now his sister ran a service for powerful men who liked to be taken down a notch by beautiful women.
Her business had expanded to most of the Middle East, and Mulberry suspected she could gather intel for him that no one else could.
He just had to convince her to try…
Chapter Four
April
From their room on the twenty-first floor of the Bellagio, April Madden could see the Paris Hotel. The miniature version of the Eiffel tower looked nothing like the real thing—where the original rose high above the city of lights, a shining example of engineering and design, this thing jostled for attention with other fake versions of iconic buildings from that romantic place.
A lie. The whole of Las Vegas was one big lie.
The energy of the strip throbbed up at her, and the sky, so clouded with light pollution she couldn't see a single star, hung low.
April was trapped.
The devil's voice emanated from the small bottles of alcohol in the fridge; one little sip. Just one little sip. She'd learned to ignore it; had spent almost a decade practicing not listening to that voice. Usually the devil whispered, but in Vegas his voice boomed.
The city of sin.
And like all women, April sinned. It started with Eve…April's fingers clenched her forearms, feeling the bones. She was thin, skinnier than she'd ever been, having all but given up food in the past six months. And since Robert Maxim's call that morning, April hadn't touched a thing. Not even a glass of water.
Her stomach twisted with nausea as she remembered his words.
"She's missing. Probably dead."
Her daughter, Joy, her only surviving child, gone.
Years ago, April's son, James, was murdered—cremated and laid to rest. She missed his funeral.
Joy took revenge on his killer, sparking a vigilante group named after her: Joyful Justice.
April cringed, closing her eyes. Both her children passing before her? So wrong.
It was her fault. She should have protected them from the devil. Joy had become violent, cruel, and dangerous, but April couldn't help but love her. They were all God's children.
No matter what her husband, Bill, said—no matter how much he preached against Joyful Justice and their mission, no matter how hard he prayed for them to be defeated, April couldn't, in her heart, do the same.
She turned back into the room, neat and tidy and bland. This wasn't home. They hadn't been to their ranch in months.
As a preacher with a large following, Bill needed to visit his flock. This was their third time in Vegas in the last three months. April took a step toward the little refrigerator but forced herself to stop. "No." She spoke it out loud, even though there was no one in the room to hear her.
Well, Jesus was there; wasn't he always?
It was His love that had saved her, brought her to Bill and kept her sober. April's children didn't understand. James had lived a life of disgusting sin—sharing his home with a man—planning on marrying him!
April shuddered at the memory of his voice over the phone. "His name is Hugh, and I love him, Ma, I really do. I've never been so happy."
April's response haunted her as much as James' sin. "You're not my son. You are under the influence of the devil."
April collapsed onto the couch, holding her face in her hands. Her gold necklace tapped against her chin; its weight was choking her. The makeup on her face smeared under her palms. She itched to remove it, to take off her mask and face the devil.
Her children were gone.
She'd dedicated her life to Jesus, and he'd led her here: alone, desperate and so deeply sad. Why?
April looked at the mini fridge again, her heart pounding with need. Just one little sip.
The door opened with a whoosh of air, and her head jerked toward it. Bill came in, mid-sentence, his assistant following close behind.
"I can't believe the lighting was that bad. We can't show up like that. We've got to be totally professional." He strode toward the fridge, not even glancing at April, not noticing her at all. His latest assistant, a woman in her mid-twenties wearing a knee-length skirt suit and bright red lipstick that was smudged onto her chin, didn't see April either.
Bill's eyesight was really going. A decade ago he would have made the assistant fix herself up. But the man was too vain for glasses.
He was a false teacher.
A bigger sinner than any of his flock.
Bill pulled out a beer and opened it, the cap snapping off, the fizzing sound floating across the room. Her mouth watered, and her throat constricted.
She wanted a drink so badly.
Needed oblivion.
He took a long slug, his throat working up and down, his assistant, what was her name? Tara? Watching him. Half the beer gone, Bill lowered it and smacked his lips. He glanced over at her. "April, didn't realize you were here."
She was invisible.
"Yes, I've been here all day."
"Are you ready for tonight? Excited?"
He crossed the room, his loafers quiet on the thick carpeting—like a snake slithering through sand.
Sitting down next to her, Bill flung his arm across the back of the couch and leaned over to kiss her cheek. The smell of beer wafted off him.
"Yes, I'm excited for tonight."
Bill liked to bring her out on stage at the beginning and end of his sermons. She appealed to women her age…early fifties, children grown, life suddenly purposeless. Jesus always provided a purpose.
"Is that what you're wearing?" His eyes roamed over her body. It was as close to caressing her as he'd gotten in months.
Loneliness crashed over her— a rough wave, bigger and stronger than any of the small swells that preceded it.
April looked down at her outfit: knee-length skirt suit in light lavender, a silky white blouse, the gold necklace—a cross on a thick chain.
"Is there something wrong with it?"
His mouth turned down into a small frown. "Doesn't fit you very well."
"I've lost some weight."
He nodded slowly. "Right, that's it. Not a great idea. You look too thin, unhappy. Why don't you go get some food? Maybe buy something that fits."
April nodded. He took another sip of his beer and raised his eyebrows. Why was she still sitting there?
April stood and straightened her skirt, going around the couch toward the exit. She took her purse off the pier table. A briefcase, metal and locked, sat on the marble floor. The silver exterior reflected the colors of the room: sand, gold and burgundy brown. The case held the collections from the previous night’s ministry.
The security code was her birthday. Fifty-three years ago this week.
The scent of cocaine suddenly filled her nostrils, burning behind her eyes, wild nights and sweet, sickening oblivion called to her.
She turned back and looked at Bill. He was staring at his new assistant as she leaned over the couch holding out an iPad for him to examine.
April bent, her hand wrapping around the briefcase's handle. She took a deep breath, just holding the cool and solid plastic before straightening up. It weighed less than she expected; a few hundred grand stolen from the church wasn't a heavy burden at all.
Slipping on her low-heeled beige pumps, April left, the door swinging closed behind her.
April's foot tapped as she waited for the elevator. Her heart beat rapidly; sweat pooled in her lower back and beaded on her forehead. Both hands gripped the handle of the briefcase and she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, biting down, the pain helping to anchor her.
The elevators doors opened, and April stepped in. A heavily floral perfume filled the small space. A whore's lingering scent.
The gold chain around April's neck weighed too much. She reached up with one hand and tried to unclasp it, but couldn't get the damn thing undone.
The doors opened, and the sounds of the casino rushed in at her. April stepped out, her low heels clacking on the marble. The guard, a broad man in a black suit with an ear piece nodded at her, his smile tight.
She nodded back, gripping the briefcase to control the shaking in her fingers as she walked out onto the casino floor. Crowds of people laughed, smoked and drank as they gambled. The clinking of ice, and the sucking of liquid through straws, rose over the bells and whistles
of the betting machines.
April wet her lips, her mouth suddenly so dry. She was dying of thirst.
The devil's voice sounded in her mind: Have one little drink. It will calm your nerves. Help with whatever is to come.
She walked faster, but her skirt was too narrow, shortening her stride, slowing her escape.
A storefront window caught her attention, the mannequin dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt with a cocked hip. Inside the shop she could see tourists, fat and sunburned, brimming with the devil.
April needed to change.
The bathroom door shut behind April, dulling the cacophony of the casino to a soft rumble. The line of sinks and stalls were deserted, empty of people for one brief moment. She went into the handicapped stall and put down the briefcase far away from the gap, so no one could reach underneath and grab it.
April's fingers shook as she slipped off her suit jacket but they steadied as she unbuttoned her silk blouse. By the time April removed her stockings, the trembling had subsided.
Pulling on the pair of jeans and the T-shirt that she'd purchased, April balled up her lavender suit and shoved it into the plastic bag her new outfit had come in. She stepped out to the line of sinks, the briefcase under one arm, and pushed her old clothing into the trash can before glancing in the mirror.
She needed to get her makeup off.
Placing the briefcase between her feet and clamping it with her ankles, she turned on the cold tap then scrubbed her face until it shone red, blotchy and bare.
She'd worn that same pancake makeup, those thick lashes, and that slash of eyeliner, since she and Bill had gone on tour a decade ago. April held her own gaze, staring into her gray eyes, the same as her children. So unique, so very unusual in the genetic pool—the silver before a storm, the glint of the ocean under dark clouds, the deadly compound of mercury.
In the depths of her alcoholism, April believed that the color came from the devil. Part of her still believed it.
In Sheep's Clothing Page 2
