Hot Pursuit (To Catch a Thief Book 1)

by Kay Marie

  A wicked smile curved her lips, one she didn’t even try to smother as she pulled her phone from her pocket and hunted for a store close by. The two of them were playing a very careful game of chess, and it was Jo’s move.

  Game on, Nathaniel Parker.

  Game freaking on.

  - 12 -

  Nate

  Nate watched Jo scurry down the front steps of the museum and merge into the crowd, as much as any beautiful woman could blend in, which was to say, not much. Her red hair shone brightly in the sun. Her step was vivacious. Without even realizing, she turned heads. And not for the first time, she’d turned his. But in a way he never would have expected.

  That hopeful expression.

  That frightened one.

  The uncertainty.

  The panic.

  Her tone when she talked about her food, despite the ire, had come through fueled with passion and yearning. Her voice when she’d given the hypothetical truth of her past had been caged and straining. And at the mention of her father, he swore he saw a flash of shame, of doubt, in her eyes.

  “Well, you tried, Parker,” Leo consoled as Nate dropped heavily back into the car, half falling into his seat as this new theory began to percolate. The very idea of what he was considering had left him dumbfounded and speechless, tasered by the unexpected, because deep down he had the undeniable feeling that it just might work.

  “Leo,” Nate murmured.

  “You look like you’ve been hit by a bus,” his partner responded, not quite able to erase the humor from his voice. “You okay?”

  They eased from the curb and merged into the oncoming traffic, following Jo as she continued walking parallel to Central Park, looking down at her phone.

  “Leo,” he said again, a little louder this time.

  “Hey, man, what is she looking at on her phone? Can you check the feed?”

  “Leo,” Nate stated, loud and firm.

  His partner’s head swiveled. “What?”

  “I think…” He blinked a few times and shook his head before he looked up and over, meeting his partner’s somewhat concerned gaze. “I think I have an idea.”

  “And…?” Leo raised a brow as the corners of his lips twitched. “What? The shock of it has sent your body into hyperdrive?”

  Nate frowned. “No, I’m serious. I think—”

  “Parker, Alvarez.” Their boss’s voice came through the comm, interrupting him. “Did you pick up the address the target typed into her phone?”

  Nate swallowed the words sitting heavy on his tongue, popped the glove compartment open, and grabbed the tablet. He turned it on, then waited for the live feed of Jo’s phone to load.

  “Sorry, sir,” Leo teased into the mic. “My partner was struck dumb at the first sign of original thought.”

  “Don’t be cute, Alvarez. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” Nate half sighed the word as he tapped his leg, watching the feed update. Jo turned on her phone. She opened her GPS app. She typed in La Perla.

  Nate turned to look at Leo. “Do you know what La Perla is?”

  “Uh.” Leo shrugged. “Jewelry store?”

  Nate drew his brows together. Something about that didn’t seem right, but he shook it off and lifted his wrist to his lips. “We have the address, sir, about fourteen blocks south and one avenue over. We’ll follow on the road. Ground team can meet us there.”

  “Good,” the boss affirmed. “Now, what’s this stupefying idea?”

  Nate rolled his eyes. When exactly had he become the office punching bag? He’d really like to know. “I was going to bounce it off Leo, sir, before approaching you.”

  “I haven’t got all day, Parker. Spit it out.”

  Actually, you do, he thought with a snort. That’s sort of the definition of a stakeout.

  But talking back to the boss was something he’d never do. Instead, he took a deep breath and tried to work his theory out in a way that made sense. “I think, sir… Well, I think when I was talking to Jo”—he coughed under his breath—“I mean, Miss Carter, I saw something in her eyes, something we might be able to use. You were listening to everything, I presume?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Did you notice the change in her tone when she talked about her coopies?”

  “Her what?” the boss asked. “Is this some slang I don’t understand?”

  “No,” Nate rushed to say. “No, it’s a cookie in a pie, or a pie in a…something. Whatever it is, she calls it a coopie.” And it’s damn tasty. Those things probably will take the world by storm, not that I’d ever admit that to her. “Anyway, I think she’s done with the life of crime. I think she wants to bake.”

  There was a pause. Nate and Leo made eye contact as the line hummed. When the boss finally did respond, the words came out flat. “One of the best hackers in the world wants to retire at twenty-five to bake cookies?”

  Coopies, Nate silently corrected on Jo’s behalf. They’re called coop—gah!

  He shook his head forcefully, dispelling the rebellious thought.

  Get out of my head, woman.

  Leo tightened his hands on the wheel to keep them from shaking as his breath wobbled with mirth, as though he could see the quiet battle raging.

  Nate glared at his partner as he spoke into his mic. “Did you hear her hypothetical story about a fourteen-year-old girl? It was about her obviously. She’s only doing this because she loves her father. I don’t think she knows anything about what’s really going on with the Russians. Maybe that’s why Ryder and Carter left her behind when they went to Cuba. She’s in the dark.”

  The boss took a deep breath that sent a wave of static through the line. Then, “Go on.”

  Nate released a relieved puff of air as his mind wandered to Jo’s words, about shades of gray, and black and white, and making the system match the world. And then, he just spit it out. “I want to offer her a deal.”

  Leo turned to Nate and studied him.

  “What sort of a deal, Parker?”

  “I don’t know, sir. That would be up to you,” he said, holding Leo’s gaze. His partner nodded in agreement—silent approval of his new plan. The act gave Nate an extra ounce of assurance. “Get her to disclose everything she knows about Ryder and Carter, get her to turn over her computer and any documents in her possession, maybe get her to wear a wire into the island compound to get her father on tape, whatever you want. And in return, we give her immunity.”

  “Immunity?” the boss practically shouted into the phone.

  Nate winced. “I think it’s the only way, sir. The deal would need to be compelling enough to hand over her father and someone who to an outside viewer appears to be a best friend, or a brother figure. She wants to be free to pursue her own dreams. We give her that, and she might give us what we need.”

  Leo pulled to a stop at the end of the block as Jo disappeared into a store. From their angle, Nate couldn’t make out the name or see into the front window, but he assumed it was the place she’d typed into her phone. He leaned back into his seat as an agent in plain clothes came through the comm, saying she would get a better vantage point.

  “What makes you think she’ll turn on her own flesh and blood?” the boss asked once they got the undercover agent into position.

  “I’m going to show her that they turned on her first,” Nate answered, thinking back to that moment in the middle of the museum, surrounded by crowds yet all he could see was the flash of doubt in Jo’s eyes as he asked if she really understood who her father was. The answer was no, she didn’t. Nate would bet his life on that fact. “She has no idea what she’s participating in. No idea that whatever trick they’re trying to pull in the next few days is part of a much larger scheme, a much darker one than fulfilling the whims of an aging criminal on his way out. I can’t explain it, sir. I just have a gut instinct.”

  “I’m not sure your gut will be enough to convince a court to grant immunity,” the boss drawled.

  “Gi
ve me a day, sir. To work her for information.”

  “A day?” the boss replied.

  A flurry of activity came through on the tablet.

  “Hold on, Parker,” the boss said, seeing the same action Nate was. “She’s on her phone again.”

  He read the screen.

  She turned on her camera app.

  Then her messaging app.

  Sent a text—What do you think?

  The image was loading. Damn things took forever.

  “Do we recognize the number she’s communicating with? Is it Carter? Ryder?” The boss’s scratchy voice came through the line—he was talking to the tech team, not directly into his mic. But Nate shifted his attention to the ten-digit number, reading it twice as his brows pushed together.

  Wait a minute—

  The phone in his pocket buzzed.

  Goddamn that woman.

  “It’s my phone, sir,” Nate grumbled. “Somehow she got my number.”

  He shifted his weight to reach for the phone in his back pocket. Before he had a chance to pull it free, a sharply sucked in breath came through the comm.

  “Hot damn,” the boss muttered.

  Leo pounced before Nate could stop him and grabbed the tablet from his lap. He slid it onto the wheel while the image finished loading, then promptly let out a soft whistle as his knee started bouncing with the hilarity he was trying his best to suppress.

  What the hell did she do now?

  Nate closed his eyes and dropped his head against the back of his seat, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

  “You better get it over with, man,” Leo muttered.

  Nate hated when his partner was right. But he was. With a sigh, he picked his head up and looked down at the phone in his lap, just as it buzzed a second time.

  I seem to remember you liking the color red…

  Jo. Again.

  Nate took a deep breath and slid his finger across the screen, unlocking it. Then promptly started choking on his own breath.

  Jo.

  In a red lace bra and panty set.

  No more revealing than her bikini, but it set his blood on fire.

  “Breathe, Parker. Breathe,” Leo joked and slapped him roughly on the back.

  He shut his phone off.

  But the image was burned into his brain. The lace hugging her petite waist. The flash of his hands sliding up beneath it. The garter highlighting her long legs. The flicker of those thighs wrapped around him. The curves, too many curves to keep straight. He could spend hours studying the lines of her body. Tracing them. Touching them.

  If she weren’t a criminal.

  Or his target.

  Or a royal pain in his ass.

  “She’s unbelievable,” he muttered, tossing his phone to the floor and resisting the urge to stomp on it. Breaking the damn thing would only cost him. “She’s really unbelievable.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Leo commented under his breath, though his tone sounded a lot more appreciative and a lot less annoyed than Nate’s.

  The phone by his feet buzzed.

  Leo opened his mouth.

  “I don’t want to know,” Nate interrupted before he could speak.

  His partner plowed on anyway. “‘Should I wear this under my dress for the gala?’”

  “Gala?” Nate perked up and lifted the mic to his lips. “Boss, did you hear that? Gala?”

  “I did, Parker,” he said slowly.

  “Do you think she’s telling the truth? Do you think it’s a ruse to distract us from Ryder? I can’t imagine she gave up their plan, just like that, just to get a rise out of me.”

  “Unclear, Parker.”

  Gala.

  The gala was at the townhouse they’d been watching. A rich man hosting a charity event. Nothing too unusual, and there hadn’t been anything within the silent auction that had particularly stood out to the team as something that would be of true interest to Robert Carter, but was that in itself a clue? They’d chosen it as the least likely option between the three possible locations. So was she throwing them off the scent? Or had she made a mistake?

  Or is she just trying to drive me completely insane?

  The latter.

  Definitely the latter.

  “So, Parker.” His boss came through the comm again. “When you said you needed a day to work Jolene Carter for information, what exactly did you mean…?”

  Leo snickered.

  Nate groaned. “Not…that, sir.”

  “Professional, Parker,” his boss ordered, the command in his voice clear, hardened by age and experience. “Keep it strictly professional. And if you get anything we can use, I’ll see what I can do about an immunity deal. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Nate said, unable to stop his gaze from dropping to the tablet still perched against the steering wheel. He snatched his attention away, turning instead to the window. Jolene Carter, fully clothed this time, walked out of the store, not bothering to turn her face in their direction. But her smug expression let him know exactly what was on her mind.

  It wouldn’t be there for long.

  He was going to turn her.

  He was going to give her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  He was going to win…as long as it didn’t kill him first.

  - 13 -

  Jo

  In need of caffeine, Jo stepped sleepily off the elevator the next morning and stopped dead in her tracks as her mind processed the scene before her. Agent Parker, standing in the middle of the lobby, with a brown paper bag and two cups of coffee in his hands.

  “Do my eyes deceive me? Am I still dreaming?” she asked as she sauntered over with a coy smile on her lips. Tilting her nose up, Jo drew in a deep breath, catching the scent of espresso and chocolate in the air—two of her very favorite things.

  He offered her a cup, saying, “You seem like a vanilla latte sort of girl.”

  “Good guess,” Jo commented and snatched the drink, then brought it to her lips with a sigh. She was, in fact, a vanilla latte sort of girl. And this was a damn good one. Coffee addiction somewhat satiated, she slid her gaze to the brown bag in his hands. Jo raised a brow, eying Agent Parker. “Do I smell chocolate?”

  The edge of his lip perked up in a lopsided smile that made her heart pinch inside her chest. “Banana chocolate chip muffins from a bakery around the corner from my hotel. The concierge said they were the best in the city.”

  Jo’s eyes went wide. “Gimme, gimme.”

  A puff of air sounding suspiciously like soft laughter slipped through his lips before he shook his head and nodded in the direction of two chairs in the corner of the lobby. “Want to sit and eat?”

  “Hold on,” Jo said, narrowing her gaze as she zeroed in on him, looking to his neck, then his wrist, then back into his charming blue eyes, which were for the first time warm as a cloudless sky on a sunny day instead of cool as ice. “No earpiece. No mic. What’s going on here, Agent Parker?”

  “I came to apologize,” he said with a shrug.

  Jo eyed him dubiously. “Apologize? The Feds don’t apologize.”

  “Maybe I’m more than a Fed.”

  “Am I more than a criminal?”

  He held her gaze for a moment. Jo stared right back. If they were starting fresh, for a reason that still eluded her, she deserved to know where she stood.

  “I’m starting to think you might be,” he acquiesced.

  Not quite convinced, Jo knelt to put her coffee on the ground and then stepped close to Agent Parker. He watched her curiously but didn’t do anything except hold his arms wide as she pressed her palms against his stomach…his hard-as-a-rock stomach.

  “I’m not wearing a wire,” he murmured, voice amused.

  That alone made her intrigue spike.

  He’s…cheerful. Did I step off the elevator and into an alternate universe? Jo thought as her fingers ran over the defined contours of his abdomen, lingering a little longer than necessary. Okay…a lot longer than
necessary. But it had been ages since she’d been around any man besides Thad and her father, let alone a man who looked like this, and smelled like… Jo took a deep breath, sighing. Clean laundry and a fresh, woodsy soap.

  “Are you finished?” he drawled, looking down at her.

  Jo winced internally but kept her hands in place, maintaining her cool. Holding on to his gaze, she ran her palms up his chest, nice and slow, taking her time as an electric bolt flashed in his eyes. Agent Parker licked his lips and swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, but didn’t look away. Jo slipped her fingers around the collar of his shirt, undid the first two buttons, and stepped back with a grin. Much better.

  “I’ve been dying to do that ever since I first laid eyes on you.”

  “Yeah, well…” He paused, coughing under his breath and looking away. But not before Jo caught the spark of something bright in his eyes, a hint at maybe something he’d been wanting to do to her ever since the first time they’d met. Her smile deepened. He motioned back to the chairs. “So, should we sit?”

  “Sure…” Jo said slowly, always one to go with the flow, even if the flow was confusing as hell.

  They sat. Agent Parker pulled two muffins from the bag and slid one across the coffee table toward her, a peace offering. She carefully peeled the paper away and took a bite, moaning a little bit as fruity sweet banana and sugary cocoa exploded in her mouth, all accented by what must have been a pinch of salt in the batter to bring the flavors out.

  “So good,” she mumbled with her mouth full, but it had to be said. Agent Parker lifted his muffin as if to toast with it and took a bite, then nodded in agreement. “So,” Jo continued when she finally swallowed. “I thought you said something about an apology…”

  “I did,” he agreed, voice firm but not stern, more like emphatically honest. Direct and confident. To the point in a way Jo appreciated, a way that was foreign to her and her guarded heart. “I’m sorry for saying you were a bad person yesterday. I said it out of frustration, but I don’t really feel that way, Jo. You seem like a good person who maybe got caught up in a bad situation. Or maybe just someone who was raised not to know better. Anyway, I shouldn’t have said it. I know it hurt you. And I apologize.”