She met his dark eyes again, hoping perhaps she’d somehow misread the situation. But no. His freedom of movement in this place left her with no doubts. He was some kind of police official or military personnel, and she’d been used.
Miguel showed no emotion. “I’m sorry about the past week.”
He didn’t even have an accent? Of course not. Everything had been a lie, even his kisses.
She moved the coffee aside, leaning forward on her arms and to hell with Omar, she did not care what anyone thought. “For lying to me or for using me?”
That stopped him cold for two heartbeats before he recovered. Miguel—oh God, she did not even know if that was his real name—pulled a chair out and sat across from her.
“I can send someone to find food if you’re hungry. Would you like a doughnut to go with your coffee?”
“No thank you.” She couldn’t sit here and simply eat a pastry with him in some sad mockery of their dinner plans. “I just want to get this over with as soon as possible.”
He withdrew a small tape recorder and pressed a button. “Tell me more about your aunt.”
Irony burned away any tears welling inside, and she laughed, painful gasps that grated her throat on the way up and out. She should have known.
Everything always came back to Marta.
Moving to the next holding room at the base security police station, Nunez worked like hell to put Anya’s look of betrayal out of his mind for the moment. She’d maintained her innocence throughout, but her distrust of the police couldn’t be missed.
Yet she’d called for help.
As had Livia Cicero after her sprint for freedom.
He was lucky the whole flipping Turkish police force hadn’t come charging after them in a hailstorm of gunfire.
At least he’d convinced Turkish authorities this fell under the military’s jurisdiction, even allowing him to bring Anya back with Livia for questioning. If anything, the local cops seemed glad to turn the mess over to someone else. Anything involving Livia Cicero equaled paparazzi. They all agreed this would be best kept out of the press if possible.
They’d sent Omar, their undercover dude at the Oasis—and wasn’t the door fascist’s role a real kick in the ass?—to be their official representative. Beyond that, this was Nunez’s show. Thank God. Keeping this quiet was in the best interest of finding Chuck. They’d scanned a five-mile radius beyond where Kutros had pulled over and found no suspicious farmhouses, and Scanlon’s crew hadn’t found anything at the site farther north.
Work definitely required all his concentration right now. He needed to focus on questioning Livia Cicero and hopefully pry some answers from Spiros Kutros. If the bastard survived surgery.
Later, he would think about what Anya’s seeming innocence meant for him.
For now, he needed to find out why Livia Cicero had left the base and if she had any ties to Marta Surac. Jimmy Gage had requested to sit in on this interview. Since he’d been there when the goons brought Chloe to the cellar, he could well have impressions or memories that would help validate—or negate—Livia’s story.
The singer perched on the edge of the steel chair, cupping her coffee in both hands as if she couldn’t get warm enough. Nuances. Look for the subtle clues. Her makeup was smeared, unusual in and of itself for the always cool diva, but even more so, given her simple jeans and tank top. Not a sequin in sight.
She glanced up at the three men entering the room. The mug rattled against the scarred wood table as Gage and Omar set up shop in the corner by the two-way mirror. Ah, she held the cup to hide her shaking hands. A scared suspect he could work with.
Nunez grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and slammed it to the ground near her. Livia flinched.
He straddled the chair backward, leaning toward her, crowding her. “Why did you leave the base when you were told explicitly to stay put?”
Her chin quivered as she tried for a face tip of bravado. “I have already spoken to the Turkish police and the base security police. Why am I being questioned again?”
He stared at her without speaking, waiting.
“All right. Fine.” Her normally sultry voice turned curt. “I will repeat it all if you will just tell me what happened to Chloe Nelson.”
No one had told her? An oversight? Or downright cruel. “She’s alive and in our custody.”
“Thank God.” She blinked back tears as she crossed herself. “I left the base because I received a call from a friend performing with the USO.”
“A friend?”
“The American backup dancer, Steven Fisher, had a fight with his girlfriend, Melanie.” She swiped her fingers just below her red-rimmed eyes, sniffling but keeping up the steady stream of words. “He thought she was cheating on him, and he left base to track her. His taxi ride never showed up at the Oasis, and he needed my help to get back.”
The story would be easy enough to check out. In fact, his people taking notes on the other side of the two-way mirror were probably already dispatching someone to bring in the backup dancer for questioning. “Why didn’t you just call the security police to retrieve him?”
“He was drunk and crying. He was afraid of getting fired. He has a sick mother to support.”
The Kevin Federline look-alike had a mother? “You do realize your story sounds thin.”
“I have so many threats made against me. Perhaps I have grown a bit blasé when it comes to security.” She shrugged, her eyes flicking to Omar and Gage nervously. “Wrong of me, I realize now, but at the time, I never thought I would be in danger, and I believed I could help. He sounded desperate and pathetic, and yes, maybe I was looking for an excuse to leave this place. I’m just grateful no one was injured.”
Gage straightened from his post by the two-way mirror. “Do you really think your actions had no repercussions? Can you imagine what Chloe must have been thinking? How terrified she must have been?”
Her wide eyes flicked from one man to the other. “I truly am sorry. Tell me what you need me to do to make this right.”
Nunez leaned forward, blocking Livia from Gage’s line of sight before the pilot blew a gasket. “Ms. Cicero,” he pulled an eight-by-ten from his file, a picture of Marta Surac taken at a bank in Germany. He’d been able to locate a clearer image after Anya listed some of her aunt’s bars, and Nunez started following the money trail. “Do you recognize this woman?”
Livia edged the photo closer with one finger, nail polish chewed off the tip. “No.” She shook her head, nudging the picture back. “I’m afraid not.”
“Have you ever heard the name Marta Surac?”
Again, she shook her head. “Does not ring a bell.”
Nothing in her body language indicated she was lying. She truly appeared to be a woman terrified after a near kidnapping. Either way, he sensed he’d gotten everything out of her that he could. “That’s all for now. You should return to your quarters and stay there. You’ll be pleased to hear the water is working again.”
Quiet ticked away seconds louder than the clock on the wall. She didn’t so much as fidget with any sign of guilt. “Thank you for bringing Chloe back safely.”
“I will escort you to your room. For your own protection.” Hopefully, Kutros would be out of surgery by then and ready to talk.
A smile ticked the corners of her mouth, chewed clean of lipstick. “I am not going to make a run for it.”
She shoved back her chair and rose with a prima donna grace, waiting for him to open the door for her. All of which would have pissed him off, but her hands still trembled.
Outside the interrogation room, Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon stood by a water fountain, lounging against the wall. Interesting. The man’s expression revealed nothing. His presence, however, spoke volumes. Maybe he was waiting to speak with Jimmy Gage . . .
But no. The commander’s attention stayed firmly fixed on Livia Cicero.
Scanlon searched her up and down with inscrutable eyes. “You’re all right?”
> She nodded tightly. “I am sorry if I got you into any trouble by leaving the base.”
“I’ll survive. I’m glad you did, too.”
He shoved away from the wall and strode down the hall, rounding a corner and disappearing from sight.
Her haughty exterior slid into place again, but with a thin veneer. “I am ready to return to my room for my shower.”
Jimmy scrubbed his wet hair with a towel one last time before tossing it aside. The water wasn’t hot, but it was definitely wet. The pipes had been repaired, and so many people on base were lining up to wash off, the water heater couldn’t keep up.
All the same, the cold shower did nothing to lower his steaming blood pressure. The shakedown with Nunez had turned into a cluster fuck because the waitress had called local police. That paled, though, in comparison to the news here at the base.
His crew had returned, but without Chuck.
They’d run a cursory imaging scan of the building blaring the tracking device’s beacon, only to find no sign of their friend. But there had been plenty of ground fire. They’d hauled ass back to base empty-handed. Not that he’d expected anything positive to come of the flight once the kidnappers had asked about a tracking device. In fact, it seemed the crew may have even been set up.
The chances of Chuck being alive were next to nil.
Jimmy flung the wadded up towel under the sink. Even though he knew his presence on the plane wouldn’t have made any difference, he couldn’t dodge the sense of failure. From the start, this mission had carried a sense of doom he’d tried to attribute to too many reminders of his own POW experience.
At least Chloe survived. That much he could hold on to in a death spiral day. The need to check on her again kicked over him. He zipped his jeans, shrugged into a polo shirt, and toed on his deck shoes.
Jimmy jogged down the hall, knocked on her door—waited—no answer. She might be asleep. He knocked again anyway.
The next door down opened, and the stage manager stepped half-out in a black satin bathrobe. “She’s in the practice hall.”
“Thanks, dude.”
“No problem. It’s my job to know where everyone is,” Greg answered with an oblivious smile.
Greg sure had dropped the ball on that tonight.
Two flights of stairs down, Jimmy passed the commons area on his way to the rooms allocated for individual practice. Not a tough task finding her now, since he only had to follow the music.
He didn’t know a lot about the subject, but even a tone-deaf seven-year-old could have recognized the speed and mastery of Chloe’s playing. The emotions swelling from the notes, however, he wasn’t ready to think about.
He nodded to the guard outside the practice room door.
“Is Chloe Nelson in there?” Jimmy asked just to be sure.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll stick around for a while if you need to take a break.”
“That would be nice, sir. Thanks. I can hit the cafeteria, then hang in the commons area at the end of the hall. Call when you need me.”
“Take your time, Sergeant.”
Jimmy opened the door quietly and stole a moment just to watch her at the grand piano. Bent over the keyboard, she swayed with the runs of her fingers up and down the Steinway’s keyboard. Intent on her song, she didn’t even notice his arrival.
Her damp hair spiraled down her back in locks heavy with water. An image of the first time he’d met her flashed to mind. So much intensity had been packed into the few days they’d known each other. He understood that sensation well from other edgy missions. The senses increased, soaking up life at an accelerated pace.
She swayed in synch with her fingers dancing along the keyboard. Like a few days ago when she’d joined the villagers, she merged with the music. Her body rocked in a fluid accent to the sounds. Hell yes, this woman stirred things inside him he would rather not face, her unflinching grit challenging him to dig deep.
But turning away was no longer an option.
Chloe poured herself into the emotionally passionate swell of notes and hoped the pain and fear of the evening would empty out as well.
Caressing the final echoes from the Brahms ballade, she found her frustration level only increased. She segued to pounding the keyboard with Rachmaninoff. Her fingers burned with intensity. The strength of the piece flexed her muscles and infused her with a sense of power she desperately needed after the helplessness of her kidnapping, the anger over not being told help was so close.
She pounded harder, her feet on the pedals and the sway of her body squeezing every ounce of emotion from the piece. She couldn’t ignore the glaring reality that Jimmy did more than just fly airplanes. He put his life on the line, and she’d made things worse for him by landing in the car with Livia. She could have made things worse for others, because surely whatever he and the undercover man had in the works had been compromised by her presence.
She nailed the last chords, waiting for the final notes to fade before placing her hands in her lap and slumping with the release of energy. Slow, deliberate applause snapped her upright again. Jimmy lounged in the doorway, and she didn’t even recall hearing the door open.
Her emotions still too close to the surface from her music, she couldn’t miss the raw magnetism radiating from him as tangibly as any tone plucked from the keyboard. Her fingers itched to test the soft texture of his well-washed polo shirt over defined muscles, explore the rasp of crisp denim hugging his lean hips. After a night like this, she’d witnessed firsthand how that strength and vitality weren’t just for show.
“I didn’t see you there.” She picked at the wrinkles on her pants, boring khaki at a time when she wanted to be bold. “I must have been pretty zoned out.”
“I don’t know much about classical music, but even I can tell that’s amazing. It’s the sort of playing that sucks in whoever’s listening until you’re really in the moment. Kinda like how flying works for me, if you get what I mean.”
“I totally understand what you are saying, and thank you.” His praise meant more to her than it should. She wanted to be mad at him for keeping her in the dark about help being in reach, but she couldn’t deny her own culpability.
And bottom line, everything else seemed small in comparison to how close they’d come to dying.
“Do you want me to step back outside so you can keep playing?”
She shook her head, battling with the need to hold his warm, alive body—or kick him in the shin for letting her think the faux Spanish guy really intended to shoot him. “I want you to stay.”
“I sent your guard for a break, because I need to talk to you, too.” He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “You really held your own tonight and more. No one would have thought less of you for just stepping out of the way when the guns came out, but instead you stayed brave. You even kicked some serious ass in a way that put Street-Smart Barbie in the shade.”
She snorted. “I almost chewed up a secret agent on our side.”
“You had no way of knowing, and before you say anything more, I couldn’t risk letting you know about Nunez—uh, the guy calling himself Miguel. We couldn’t take the chance you might telegraph that information with your body language. We did it for your protection. I won’t apologize for that.” Jimmy folded his arms over his chest, arms bulging tight against the short sleeves on his polo shirt.
Well, hell. She couldn’t tout her need for independence now without sounding petty. “I’m sorry for putting you in greater danger, and I’m sorry I messed up whatever you were working on.”
“Apology accepted.”
She couldn’t stop from asking him the question burning a hole in her brain. “Can you share anything about what happened?”
“We’re looking for a missing military friend.” His clipped answer iced the air.
Guilt piled on top of the already huge pile of shame filling her gut. “He must be an important friend for so many people to risk their lives.”<
br />
“Every one of our brothers- and sisters-in-arms is important. But yes, this friend carries secrets that could endanger a lot of lives.”
“Thank you for letting me know that much. Can you tell me what you really do?”
“I’m a test pilot,” he said simply.
She could see in his eyes there was more but sensed she couldn’t push. Chloe feather-brushed her fingers over the keyboard, the glassy smooth ivory a familiar comfort in a world suddenly turned on its axis. If only she could bring colors to her life the way she milked rainbows from the keyboard. She’d hoped with this tour . . . “What about the tour?”
“I believe it’s in everyone’s best interest for the troupe to leave.” Jimmy braced his elbows on the edge of the piano, leaning closer.
“What if I want to stay anyway?” To see him. She couldn’t imagine leaving things like this between them. Everything felt unfinished, like a symphony missing the final movement.
He skimmed his callused fingers over the top of her hand, comforting, arousing. “Unless something radically changes in the next twenty-four hours, I don’t believe you’re going to have a choice.”
She resisted the urge to bang out her frustration on the piano again and instead forced herself to focus on the real source of her agitation. “Will we see each other again? I’ve never even thought to ask where you live. I imagine you can tell me that much.”
“I’m stationed at Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas.”
Not what she’d hoped to hear. And why couldn’t he show some disappointment on that too-appealing face of his? “That’s quite a commute from Atlanta.”
“I’m occasionally TDY in your area.”
Some of her anger melted away so fast at even the possibility of seeing him again it almost scared her into bolting out the door. “TDY?”
“Temporary duty, like a business trip.”
Keeping in touch, re-creating this surprise bond they’d formed, wouldn’t be easy back in the U.S. The fear and adrenaline from earlier started up a depressing requiem in her head, reminding her of the reasons she needed to live in the moment. She was tired of being safe. Too often others had made decisions for her, were still making decisions for her. But this one decision she was taking control of right here, right now.
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