A Dangerous Game

by Heather Graham

  “We did. And marriage.”

  “Absolutely,” she said softly.

  “A real plan,” he told her.

  She smiled. “A real plan. And you do have the best apartment. We do need to go there, even though we will miss the entertainment.”

  “Do I need to ask Declan’s blessing?”

  “He’ll want to know what the hell you’ve been waiting for.”

  “I’ll have to tell him his sister is slow to say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  They both smiled. He kissed her. Tenderly, for the moment.

  “Seriously, for tonight, what about my wonderful guardians, Chopra and Harding? Do they get a day off tomorrow or what? And Jerome—thankfully, Alyssa wasn’t that badly injured, but she can’t watch a toddler from a hospital bed, and she’s alone. I believe her husband is on his way home, but he was in Germany, so...”

  “Brakes on!” Craig told her. “Egan has taken care of everything. Through the Bureau, he’s keeping everything internal. You might have noticed we’re alone here. He made sure that everyone was sent away, other than two of his most trusted field agents, before we came in with Lily Baron. Someone knew we had her. Someone found out about their safe cabin in the woods and tried to kill her and the girls—even on the way here.”

  “Yes! What the hell happened? I heard what I thought were gunshots!”

  “Yeah, but, honestly, no big deal. It was barely an attack,” he lied. People shooting on the interstate really couldn’t be described as “barely an attack.” But it was late at night, and they were both exhausted.

  “Honestly, short-lived, over quickly. I can tell you more later. Harding and Chopra have already been let off for the night. I had my friend Marty in tech go through their dossiers with a very fine-tooth comb. They’re the good guys, or guy and girl, whatever.” He hesitated. “I have Marty looking at everyone we know who has been close on this case, though—McBride and Kendall, Beard and Holmes, Jacob Wolff, and even Madison Smyth and Hank LeBlanc, our marshals. Something is funny—I don’t know what or how. But, from now on, we’re keeping some of this strictly in-house.”

  “What if it is an agent?” Kieran asked quietly.

  “I don’t believe it can be. The only agents constantly on the case have been me and Mike. From the US Marshals office, we have just Madison Smyth and Hank LeBlanc. As far as NYPD, there have been a number of officers involved, and a number of them have been involved pretty closely.”

  “I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.”

  “Neither do I. But, anyway, we have to go home. Have to. I’m about to keel over.”

  She nodded. “Me, too.”

  “Yeah, I heard about you, just running into a crime scene.”

  “Don’t start... I didn’t mean to do anything dangerous. I didn’t ask for any of this to happen. I certainly didn’t plan to have a baby thrust into my arms. Twice! They’re both adorable, by the way.”

  “Jimmy and Lily Baron have beautiful children, too.”

  “So while this group has killed nearly half a dozen people that we know about, we can say that five little ones are alive?”

  “Yes. Sometimes, you have to take pleasure in those things,” he said. With his hand on her shoulder, he steered her around.

  Mike was out at the desk with Egan, a nurse, and a doctor.

  “Sir,” Kieran said, and Craig hid a smile, aware that she was still going to assure herself that it was all right for them to leave, that the survivors—Jimmy Baron and Alyssa Ryan—were going to still be survivors when morning came. “I do realize that a tremendous burden seems to have fallen on your office because of...” She lost a beat, not wanting to say aloud that they had suspicions regarding the local police. “Because of the situation,” she finished. “But—”

  “Actually, it’s all good,” Egan told them. “I have a room here. First time I’ve asked for a room at a hospital.” He offered them a humorless grin. “I’m here, Mike will stay, and I have two of our people coming on in five minutes. We’ll be good here. You two go sleep. There’s a patrol car downstairs—the officer will drop you off.”

  Craig was glad of the drop-off; even with a company car, parking at night could be a bitch—it was New York City. But, when he wasn’t on duty, he didn’t usually care. Hell, it might be New York City, but he was a New Yorker.

  Tonight, though, he wasn’t leaving Kieran anywhere to go park himself. Nor did he want her walking with him down streets that would be almost empty now.

  He’d never seen the patrol officer who drove them before, so he sat in the back with one arm around Kieran and the other ready to go for his gun.

  Even the karaoke bar was quiet as they headed up to Kieran’s apartment.

  Once inside, he started for the bathroom, telling her he was going to hop in for a quick shower. He probably could have just keeled over, but the ugliness of the day—the car chase, the glass exploding, bullets flying...

  He needed the shower. And, of course, he knew that Kieran would follow him.

  Some of her clothing was dotted with Alyssa Ryan’s blood.

  But she didn’t follow him, and he walked out five minutes later in a towel to find her sitting on the bed, staring at the news. She looked at him, frowning intently. “My God! You didn’t tell me that some guy shot at you, point-blank, from his vehicle, that you had an insanely dangerous car chase on the highway, and that you sent the car flying over the embankment!”

  He sat down by her, picking up the remote, turning up the volume for a minute. “I didn’t know his name, and I didn’t know what happened after the SUV went over the embankment. There will be an inquiry, but at the time it happened, Mike and I had Lily Baron and her little girls in the car. We were told to get them into safety. Highway patrol went down to deal with the vehicle and the man driving. What else are they saying?”

  Kieran looked at him, shaking her head, smiling slightly, and then sighing. “The driver’s neck was broken. They found a bunch of guns in the vehicle. According to the news, no one knows exactly what happened.”

  “Egan is good at spin,” Craig said simply.

  He started to draw her to him, but she leapt up, shaking her head, and headed into the bathroom. He waited a second, and then heard the shower, and rose.

  In the bathroom, he dropped the towel and joined her.

  “Not clean enough, eh?” she asked as he stepped in behind her.

  “Not close enough,” he told her, his hands forming over the soap, and then over her body. He loved to watch the way water played over the ivory smoothness of her back, sliding down sleek and pure, and somehow in an exceptionally sensual way.

  She turned in to his arms. That was even better, breasts and curves fit against him, steam rising around them, flesh so hot and damp. He cupped his hand around her jaw and kissed her lips as the water fell around them.

  He’d been about to fall over with fatigue.

  He was suddenly excruciatingly awake and aware and on fire.

  They kissed...they touched...and they spoke against one another’s lips. She laughed as he lifted her over the rim of the shower, as they tried to share a towel, as they just backed into the room again...half dry and half wet, and still steaming from the heat of the shower.

  They were both suddenly and keenly awake and aware: passionate, alive and vital. Moving together, kissing, touching, here, there, one aggressive, and then the other, and then him rising above her, stretching her arms over her head, meeting her eyes and thrusting into her at last, in love with the way she looked back at him, smiling.

  After, as he held her in his arms, content and at peace, he was out. Just out. And it wasn’t until his inner clock felt the sun rise that he realized that he was dealing with the odd sensation that he needed more time.

  That he had his finger on something.

  It was righ
t there, like whispers on the tip of his tongue.

  But he didn’t know what it was.

  At his side, Kieran stirred. He hiked up on an elbow to look at her. She smiled.

  “It’s a workday. Do you have to go in?” he asked her.

  “I have one of my last interviews with a client I’m trying to keep out of jail.”

  “Maybe you could just stay in the FBI offices?”

  “Craig, we can’t live that way. You know that. And I’m no fool. We both like and trust Harding and Chopra—Abel and June! Marty even vetted them. They’re very good.”

  “Yeah. That’s how you wound up racing into an unknown apartment after following a trail of blood.”

  “And all was well because Harding was two steps behind me. Craig, I am your basic coward. I love living. Key word—living. We’ve been through all of this. I can call one of my brothers, if that will make you happier.”

  He sighed softly, pulled her to him, and kissed her.

  “I know you’re only trying to help. You’re amazing.”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “Keep in touch with me. Promise.”

  “I promise,” Kieran swore. She wagged a finger at him. “And you!”

  “Yeah?”

  “No somehow forgetting to tell me about a high-speed car chase and being shot at!”

  He rose, ready to head into the bathroom and dress for the day, but he paused and gave her a teasing and cocky smile. “Aw, shucks, that was nothing.”

  “Yeah, that’s what scares the hell out of me. So you—yeah, you! You keep in touch with me, understand?”

  “Absolutely. What was that? Keep touching you?”

  “No. I said, ‘keep in touch!’”

  “Keep touching...”

  He leapt back into the bed. They both laughed, and then their laughter faded...

  It was okay if they took a little extra time.

  * * *

  “I didn’t bite anyone else,” Besa Goga said, her attitude indignant. “You’re not bad to talk to—you’re not a bad person. But, I am here too many times. I have been controlling my temper. I have been pleasant and charming to all those around me.”

  If the circumstances weren’t quite so grim, Kieran would have been amused. The thought of Besa actually being pleasant and charming was a stretch.

  Hopefully, this would be their last meeting.

  “Besa, you aren’t in any trouble. The court had a last session scheduled for you. But, you could also help me, maybe. You could possibly help many people, here in the city. Do you mind?”

  “What do you mean?” Besa asked.

  “You know about the woman who was murdered. The man who was shot by the FBI. And the building that exploded in Brooklyn.” She hesitated and then added, “You may have even heard about the death of a very popular nun in the city. Other people—attacked and killed. All these things were done by a gang that hurts newcomers to this country—from Eastern Europe, Africa—anywhere.”

  “Yes,” Besa said simply.

  “Would you help me understand everything about your experience? Very bad things are happening to people. We’re trying hard to stop people from being hurt, tortured and killed.”

  Besa studied Kieran for a long time in silence.

  “There is a price, you know,” she said at last. She shrugged. “Sometimes, you just have to pay a price.”

  “A price?” Kieran asked her, frowning. Did Besa think that was the way you became American, no matter what? And the price was being used by others in illegal and immoral and degrading ways?

  Besa waved a hand in the air. “A price—you forget. You all forget because you are born here, yes, and you grow up whining, like little children, always wanting what you don’t have. What you do have is everything. You have lights. You have water. So much food. You walk the street and if you say something—words that people don’t like—no one shoots you. Not legally, anyway! I came here. My parents disappeared. I barely remember them. Yes, it was bad for a while, but I was a child. I knew no different. Back when I came, it was the same—what was done to me—as what I had left, and there was a promise that it would change. It did. Those people, the ones who were hurt or killed—they were not born here. They were not lucky. That’s life. Some of us are born here, some of us are born in places that are a form of hell. Some are rich, some have nothing and will do anything to have something. I understand that. I paid a price. Sometimes, others must pay a price, too.”

  “But it’s wrong, Besa. What happened to you was a crime. It shouldn’t happen to others.”

  “Biting is a crime. I learned that. They made me come to you,” she said.

  Kieran inhaled deeply, not sure just how deeply she should be offended. She wasn’t sure if Besa was trying to be funny and avoid the conversation, or if she was serious.

  Besa spoke quickly.

  “Kidding, just kidding. I like you, Kieran.”

  “Besa, no one should pay as you paid. No one should be threatened, or have their loved ones threatened. We need help. The people doing this are very, very bad. We have to stop it from happening. You say there is a price, and yes, there is a price for freedom, and there should be—but that is to come here and work hard for your own dreams and to keep the dream of what a country should be. And the dream of America is not to exact an illegal or immoral toll on those who want to try and create their own life here. Bad things happen, yes, even here. The point is that we do our best to stop them from happening. Allowing them to happen would turn us into a place worse than any place that was left behind. Thousands come, Besa. They work. They have families. They don’t have to become prostitutes or baby-making machines or drug runners. Anyone forcing such a life on anyone else should be locked away for the safety of all others.”

  Besa was quiet for a minute, and then said softly, “Do you know how history has always gone? The Nazis, the dictators who have ruled throughout time about the world? Fear. People living under such regimes weren’t bad people—they were terrified people. And sometimes others think they should have had some courage—some guts. But, you have a husband, a wife, an ailing mother...yourself! You know about guns, or gas chambers, or beheadings and...” She stopped speaking and looked at Kieran and shook her head. “Fear. You prove you have endless power. Like...oh, yes. Like Alexandra Callas dying in the street. You show that you can kill a woman on a crowded sidewalk in the middle of the day. That you can reach anyone at any time. And when you have done that, you can control a man, say, even when he stands in the middle of a police station.”

  “Besa, do you know anyone who might know anything about this? Anyone at all?”

  “Everyone knows someone—they just don’t know it.”

  “I’m not into playing games right now. No riddles.”

  Besa shook her head. “I have been lucky for a long time now,” she whispered. “My husband and I, we are so lucky. That dream—that real dream—we have found it. We have each other. Okay, so I bit the cable man. Yes, things come back to haunt us. I have what they call issues, yes. But we work. We have different languages ourselves, but we both speak English—mostly. It’s the language here, right? So we speak it proudly. That is the dream. We hold and love our culture, but we have become Americans!”

  She sat straighter as she said the last.

  Besa was silent for a moment, then she lowered her head.

  “I was helped when I was young,” she said quietly. “After the police caught me stealing things to eat, they sent me to juvenile detention. That took me from the man who was abusing me. He happened to be the king of a group at the time—not so powerful or bold as this group. The thing is, he always had someone on the inside. Most police, they are good. Not angels. But good. They want to keep the law. But every once in a while, you find the person who is weak. The one who needs a litt
le money to cover a gambling debt, to pay child support, to manage a drug habit. People who abuse other people have a talent for finding cops or other officers who will turn the other way. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Are you saying that you do know something?” Kieran asked her.

  “No. Honestly, right now, I don’t. But, I will ask my beloved Jose if he has heard anything. What I’m telling you is this—if it seems that there are eyes watching you—eyes everywhere—it is because it is true. Someone close to you, someone supposedly helping, is hurting you. Find them, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a chance. And if not...” She sighed and shrugged. “‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,’ eh?”

  “No,” Kieran told her quietly. “You arrest them both—both bosses—and they are the ones who will then pay the price.”

  “You are so determined.”

  “Yes, because I believe in the ideal,” Kieran told her. “And you never stop reaching for it. That, you see, is part of the dream, as well. No, it is not perfect. But, we keep trying—decade by decade—to make it more so.”

  “The beautiful ideal!” Besa said, and sounded as if she was somewhat scoffing at the concept. But she looked at Kieran earnestly, then. “I will see what I can find out, yes, because I like you. You are pretty okay. I wouldn’t dream of biting you—honestly. Just kidding. I’m not biting anyone again—swear it. Well, unless they bite me first.” She grinned and let out a sigh. “So? So do I see you again? I don’t mind, really...you’re okay. But so often? Please...it’s too much.”

  Kieran didn’t remind her that she might have gotten jail time for assault.

  “Besa, you do need counseling for all you went through. You should see someone—if not me—on a regular basis.”

  Besa waved a hand in the air. “But now, I must go. Okay?”

  Kieran nodded and sat back. “You may go now.”

  “Thank you. Goodbye.” She started out, but then came back, looking at Kieran. “You be careful. You are a good guy, right? You be careful.”

  “I will be careful,” Kieran promised.

  Besa nodded solemnly and left Kieran’s office.