A Kiss to Kill

by Nina Bruhns

Alex snorted. Soured? Kick didn’t know the half of it.

  Fuck, he didn’t know the quarter of it . . .

  Not that Alex would ever tell. There were some things a gentleman just did not divulge about a lady, no matter how poorly he’d been treated. Nor how intensely relieved over her unexpected but welcome change of heart . . .

  “Heard from Special Agent Haywood lately?” Kick asked him with a smart-ass glint in his eyes.

  Special Agent Rebel Haywood. The name hit Alex like a fucking jackboot in the teeth.

  Followed closely by vivid images of the delectable Agent Haywood that still haunted him from countless captive dreams. His angel, he’d called her then, back when he’d been trapped in hell. Because at the time he’d had no memory of her name, or who she was. Or, for that matter, who he was. Those amazing dreams of Rebel Haywood had gotten him through much of the horror of his imprisonment.

  His angel smiling. His angel teasing.

  His angel naked.

  Totally, wonderfully, titillatingly naked.

  Pure fantasy, of course. In real life he’d never seen her naked. Ever. Not that he hadn’t wanted to. It was just all that other stuff that came with being naked he hadn’t ever wanted. Or rather, hadn’t ever wanted to deal with again. He’d learned his lesson on that score, thankyouverymuch. Which was how he’d landed in that huge marriage mess with Helena Middleton in the first place. And why, since meeting Rebel several years ago, he’d always avoided the uncomfortable knowledge that she’d been crushing on him the whole time.

  Way too heavy for the old pre-capture Alex. He didn’t need or want the emotional responsibility for another human being’s happiness. Not with his job. Or all his other issues . . . He was gone half the time, in dangerous situations that could turn deadly at any given moment. And when he was INCONUS . . . well, let’s just say he wasn’t planning a family anytime soon.

  Rebel Haywood was strictly picket fence material. She wanted a husband, kids, and Sunday barbeques. She’d hinted at it often enough. No. He could never have made a woman like her happy.

  But what about the new Alex? Post-rescue?

  True, being tortured for sixteen months changed a man’s perspective. And priorities. But some things never changed. Well, unless they got worse, of course.

  Thank Jesus the pretense with Helena had come to a screeching halt. She was far better off without him, and she obviously knew it.

  But the tempting Rebel Haywood and her enduring crush? God. What would he do if the opportunity to have her—really have her—ever presented itself? After experiencing the sweet torture of those dreams, he’d be a saint not to act on it. But as much as he wished it were otherwise, he could never be the man she wanted him to be. Hell, needed him to be. Not in the long term, anyway. Not in the happily-ever-after picket-fence-two-kids-and-a-dog sense she wanted with him. Not then. Not now.

  So it was just as well that was no longer an option. She’d made sure of it by transferring to the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia.

  Oh, yeah. And by fucking her brains out with some other guy.

  Alex ground his teeth. His own damn fault. Yeah, and Helena’s—but thankfully, that whole screwed up relationship was over and done now. And so was he. With women. Christopher Alexander Zane had learned his lesson. Yes, indeed.

  Kick winked again. Alex ground his teeth harder. All right, fine. Maybe Kick did know the half of it.

  He sent his friend a warning growl. Drop it, dawg.

  Unperturbed, Kick chuckled, and went over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. Fucking joker.

  “Evenin’ all.” The greeting came from the doorway. Marc Lafayette yawned as he strolled into the kitchen with Tara Reeves tucked under his arm. Tara looked as fragile on the outside as Alex felt on the inside. She’d been through a monthlong hospital stay recently, also thanks to al Sayika. But unlike Alex, her outward appearance was deceptive. On the inside she was strong . . . thanks to the support of her new husband, Marc.

  The pair looked like they’d just rolled out of bed. Which they no doubt had. Alex glanced at the clock. Almost 6:15 p.m. Rise and shine. Marc and Tara had the night shift surveillance.

  Alex stifled a groan as they, too, kissed tenderly before accepting mugs of coffee from Kick.

  Jesus, please, just take me now. That flashback was looking better and better.

  “Pass me one of those,” Alex grumbled, holding out his hand for a steaming mug, which Kick gave him along with an unrepentant grin. Alex gave him the finger, much to Kick’s amusement.

  They all took seats around the large granite-topped table. Thankfully, Commander Quinn got right down to business by sliding a single page of computer printout onto the center of it.

  “This is the communiqué NSA intercepted,” Quinn said. “The origin of the e-mail was somewhere in Washington, D.C. They believe it was sent out by al Sayika. What do y’all think?”

  Somberly, everyone read it. If NSA was right, this was bad news. The next attack was coming faster than expected.

  When the paper got to him, Alex skipped over the source logistics and just read the translation of the original short Arabic message.

  Zero hour approaches! The garden of paradise beckons. The trigger will arrive tomorrow. Praise God and do His will!

  As he read, Alex’s blood ran cold.

  Normally he was a skeptic when it came to intelligence gathered from unsourced, intercepted e-mails. Hell, it could be some ten-year-old punk hacker in Poughkeepsie who’d sent it to his buddies as a joke. Even the zero-hour thing, a deliberate allusion to the infamous 9-11 chatter, was by now a cliché, used by every terrorist wannabe in the world. But Alex had to admit, this message had a certain ring of authenticity.

  “Let’s assume NSA’s right and it is real,” Quinn began grimly. “Then it looks like their next target is D.C. Not terribly surprising. The question is—”

  “—what is this trigger they’re talking about?” Alex finished.

  Darcy gave voice to what they all were thinking. “A nuclear trigger?”

  “Do these assholes never give up?”

  Three months ago, the al Sayika cell that kidnapped Dr. Cappozi had attempted to release a horrific Armageddon virus in several U.S. cities, planning to kill millions of people in retaliation for one of their leaders being martyred in the Sudan. Quinn’s team had managed to stop the massacre in the nick of time.

  “A dirty bomb?” Kick suggested.

  A chorus of curses sounded around the table.

  Quinn said, “NSA’s working on tracking down the e-mail’s exact place of origin within the District, and the FBI and CIA are digging into possible missing nuclear triggers around the world. State Department and Homeland Security have raised the national threat advisory level to red at all U.S. points of entry for the next forty-eight hours. Everyone coming into the entire country is going to be searched.”

  Marc pointed to the e-mail’s text. “Any idea where this garden of paradise is?”

  “Or what it is,” Tara amended. “I doubt al Sayika’s raising marigolds.”

  Everyone made noises of agreement. Tara was new to special ops, but as a former cop she had good instincts.

  “There is one possibility,” Commander Quinn said. “The Coast Guard got a tip about a yacht moored out in the Chesapeake Bay, called Allah’s Paradise. It’s been anchored there for a few days, though, so the timing isn’t exactly right.”

  “Still.” Marc’s brows beetled. “The names are too similar to ignore. Who’s following up?”

  “Coast Guard and FBI. A joint team will board the yacht tomorrow morning,” Quinn informed them.

  “That’s it? No other clues?” Darcy asked. “E-mails? Wire-taps? Kidnappings?”

  “A marked increase in chatter, nothing more specific than this,” Quinn said. “But NSA believes the threat is real. They’ve been monitoring al Sayika closely since December, when we took down the Abbas Tawhid cell in Louisiana.”

  Alex’s body in
stinctively recoiled at the hated name. Tawhid had been one of the two terrorist leaders personally responsible for his own suffering at Club Torture. Tawhid had been a savage brute, and his co-leader’s nickname said it all: the Sultan of Pain. Alex still had screaming nightmares about both men.

  Thank God they were now dead and buried.

  He rallied before a flashback beset him for the second time that day, and turned determinedly back to what Quinn was saying.

  “—with the FBI?”

  Which had apparently been addressed to him, because everyone at the table turned to gaze at him expectantly. Except for Kick, whose expression had frozen somewhere between horror and vast amusement.

  WTF?

  Alex cleared his throat and tried not to look like a complete idiot. “Um, what? Sorry, I was, uh—”

  Everyone at the table carried his own share of personal demons, and Alex’s were no big secret. Well, most of them. Quinn breezed right over the momentary lapse. “I was just saying that Commander Bridger suggested we get with the FBI and Coast Guard on this ASAP.”

  “The e-mail?” Alex clarified, momentarily puzzled as to why he’d been picked to deal with computer stuff. Had he missed something? “Isn’t that Darcy’s area of expertise?”

  Quinn shifted in his seat. “Not the e-mail. The yacht.”

  “Ah. Right,” Alex said, hastening to cover his inattention. “Sure, no problem,” he agreed.

  Quinn blinked. Then he smiled. “Great. You leave first thing in the morning. Darcy’ll book you a seat on the—”

  Whoa. What? Alex’s stomach sank on pure, raw instinct. “Leave?” He had missed something. Something important. “Leave for where?”

  “The FBI’s field office on the Chesapeake Bay, of course. In Norfolk.”

  Norfolk? As in Norfolk, Virginia?

  Then it hit him right between the eyes. The FBI. Norfolk . . .

  Oh, sweet baby Jesus.

  Quinn wanted him to—

  Alex lurched to his feet. “Hell, no. I can’t possibly—”

  “Somebody on the team has got to go down there and check out the yacht,” Commander Quinn refuted in a tone that brooked no argument. “The Allah’s Paradise could be our best lead yet.”

  “Please don’t ask me to do th—”

  “You know her best, Zane.” Quinn didn’t need to use her name; everyone at that table knew exactly which “her” he was referring to. He threw up his hands. “Hell, Alex, she was going to be a damn bridesmaid at your—”

  Darcy’s elbow jabbed Quinn in the ribs and he halted mid-word. He glanced uncertainly at her, then rolled his eyes and turned back to Alex. “Look. I know she reminds you of a rough time in your life, but I trust you’re not some dewy-eyed virgin who needs to be tiptoed around. And if you are, you’ve got no place on my team. Or in STORM Corps, for that matter. Be in Norfolk by oh-nine-hundred, Zane, and that’s a goddamn order.” The commander’s eyes narrowed. “You got a problem with that?”

  Alex swallowed down the tirade of protest he wanted to let loose. Goddamn right he had a goddamn problem with it. Fucking hell.

  “No, sir,” he answered the team leader tightly, and dropped back onto his chair. “No problem at all.”

  But behind his forced smile of concession, his innards were in free fall.

  Rebel fucking Haywood.

  Please, God. Just fucking kill him now.

  THREE

  Washington, D.C. Later that night

  METRO Police Detective Sarah McPhee peered over the edge of a stinking back-alley Dumpster in northeast Washington, D.C., careful not to touch the foul metal container. The Dumpster was lit up like the Lincoln Memorial, the surrounding brick walls of the alley painted with a grotesque mosaic of distorted shadows and light caused by people moving around in the circle of illumination. Beyond that circle, the brightness quickly faded to midnight blackness.

  Inside the Dumpster, sprawled on top of the rank contents, was the body of the vic, her long black hair spread around her head like a dark halo. Her once-olive complexion glowed pasty white in the harsh crime scene lights. The woman had once been really beautiful, Sarah noted. Nice clothes. Good body. Healthy skin. Definitely did not belong in this part of town.

  Dump job, she thought. “Damn shame,” she murmured aloud before she could stop herself.

  The conglomeration of uniforms, techs, and coroner staff working around the Dumpster studiously ignored her comment, continuing on with their respective pursuits. Clipped footsteps echoed through the alley, and newly promoted Lieutenant Gus Harding marched up, late as usual.

  “What have we got here?” he demanded importantly of no one in particular. The LT was fond of TV crime shows and imitated the brusque demeanor of the prime-time actors whenever possible. Like it made him seem more qualified for the job, or tougher. Or taller.

  Predictably, Jonesy—Detective Jonas Louden, whose nickname was Detective Loudmouth due to his annoying tendency to boom at the top of his lungs—jumped in to answer, flicking out his well-worn leather notepad before Sarah could even open her mouth to speak. “Female, twenty-five to thirty-five. With that black hair, prob’ly Italian,” Jonesy pronounced in a definitive statement.

  “Or Hispanic, or Middle Eastern, or Indian . . .” Sarah mumbled. Or heck, any number of other nationalities or combination thereof. This was America, land of the melting pot. But Detective Jones was nearing retirement, and tended to dwell in a past when “ethnic” still meant Irish, Italian, or Jewish.

  Lieutenant Harding flicked Sarah a dismissive glance. She was not close to retirement—for reasons of age anyhow, having recently tipped the scales at forty-five—but she had a good ten years on the rookie lieutenant. And that made him nervous. Like he knew she should be the one with the lieutenant’s shield. Which she should. Everyone knew it. And she would have had it, too, if not for that unfortunate incident . . .

  But she wasn’t going there.

  Harding turned back to Jonesy. “Any ID?”

  Nope,” he said. “Nothing. No effects of any kind. Just the clothes on her back.”

  Harding again glanced over the grody rim of the Dumpster, this time peering down at the assistant medical examiner, who’d donned a blue disposable jumpsuit and booties to keep his designer duds and elegant leather shoes clean as he went Dumpster-diving. To his credit, the man hadn’t uttered a peep of protest when he’d climbed in.

  “COD?” Harding asked him.

  “Nothing obvious,” the A.M.E., Dr. John Stroud said, looking up from the muck with youthful blue eyes. Gawd. He couldn’t be more than twelve. How was it everyone on the planet was suddenly younger than she was? “No blood. No wounds,” he reported. “No outward signs of internal trauma.”

  Sarah forced her mind back on track. Okay, that was interesting. When a body was dumped like this, cause of death was usually pretty obvious. Gunshot. Knife wound. Beating. Rape.

  “What about TOD?” the LT asked.

  She averted her gaze back to the alley as Dr. Stroud pulled his temp instrument out of the vic’s liver, read it, and mentally calculated. “Recently. About two to four hours ago, I’d say preliminarily.”

  Sarah twisted her wrist to look at her watch. 10:06 p.m. Which put TOD sometime between six and eight o’clock that evening.

  The LT grunted. “When can you get me the autopsy report?”

  “We’re a bit backed up,” Stroud said. “Tomorrow afternoon’s the earliest I can manage.”

  Harding turned to Sarah and, arranging his rotund face in pleasant insincerity, said, “McPhee, I’d like you to attend.”

  Nausea stroked through her stomach. It was a dare, she knew that. No. More like a nasty, condescending barb in the guise of a routine assignment. She shoved back the impulse to tell him no. Everyone around them was surreptitiously watching her. They could all go screw themselves.

  “Sure,” she told him. “Meanwhile,” she added, keeping her voice even, “you should probably have CSI collect that.” She jabbed a fin
ger at the grimy brick building behind the Dumpster. Specifically at the rotting sill of a broken window where the very corner of a small black cell phone stuck out, blending into the dirt and mottled shadows so well it was nearly invisible. Unless you were actually looking.

  The CSIs all turned as one, scanning from the ground up to the lone window that no one had inspected yet. She knew someone would have gotten around to it eventually—the geek squad was nothing if not thorough, and the scene had not been released yet, after all—but it was gratifying to show them all she was still a damn good detective, despite recent evidence to the contrary.

  The LT marched over and squinted at the cell phone, mouth thinning in irritation. He jetted a breath through his nose and barked at the closest tech to do his goddamn job, then spun and marched away again, right out of the alley.

  Okay, then. Sarah dug into her jacket pocket for her own notebook, and focused her attention on the clutch of seedy-looking individuals gathered on the other side of the yellow taped-off perimeter at the mouth of the alley.

  “Guess I’ll go interview the witnesses,” she said to anyone who might give a damn.

  “Hang on, McPhee,” Jonesy boomed loudly. “I’ll come with you.”

  Sarah sighed. Oh, goodie.

  Chesapeake Bay outside Norfolk, Virginia The next morning

  FBI Special Agent Rebel Haywood stood in the prow of a United States Coast Guard RB-M response boat, enjoying the early morning calm before the storm of the coming operation. A cool spray of salt water misted her face, contrasting with the cozy warmth of the spring sun on her skin. It had been a while since she’d been out on the water, and she was loving every minute of it. Even under these circumstances.

  “Approaching target vessel,” the voice in her headset comm squawked. “Take your positions, people.”

  Just ahead, the object of the joint USCG/FBI operation, a small but elegant yacht called Allah’s Paradise, lay anchored in a picturesque inlet on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

  Rebel’s cell phone suddenly vibrated in her pocket. She did a mental wince, quickly pulling it out to check the screen. And almost groaned aloud. Helena Middleton. Figured. Helena would phone at the worst possible moment.