by Cheryl Biggs
Rick’s Cobra exploded in a burst of flames.
Stunned, unable to believe what he’d just seen, Hart froze. For the briefest of moments he stopped living, as he watched what was left of the burning chopper spiral from the sky, crash into the dense woods and explode again.
Another missile burst from the foliage below.
The instinct for survival rushed in on Hart, and he jerked back on the throttle…
Hart was pulled back to the present by the sound of a police siren. He realized that his only hope of finding out who was trying to destroy him was to turn the tables on them—just as he’d done during that mission. For the briefest of moments that day a year ago he’d stopped being the hunter and had become the prey—a move that had nearly gotten him killed.
It wasn’t going to happen again.
He shrugged aside the past and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now, on what he knew about Suzanne Cassidy.
It wasn’t much.
He snatched the telephone receiver from the hook. The night before Rick’s last mission, she had done the one thing that no pilot could ever forgive. If she was innocent she would have known better.
The thought had nagged at him for the past year. Rick would have trusted her, might even have confided in her—told her things about the corps, about their missions, that he shouldn’t have. Things that she might have, in the end, used against him.
Hart punched out the number for her hotel, but the moment the operator came on the line, he hung up. No. Not this way. He needed to look into her eyes when he asked her that question.
A week ago he would have labeled the mere idea of her stealing secret military plans and setting Rick up to be killed ridiculous, the suspicion ugly and totally unwarranted. Now he couldn’t discount it, because now he knew all too well that she could have come back to do the same thing to him.
Or was she merely someone’s pawn? A total innocent who was being used?
His mind was a jumbled maze of unanswered questions, each filling him with frustration, slicing away at his patience and leaving him too keyed up to even contemplate another attempt at sleep.
He dressed and left the apartment, carrying a brown paper bag in which he’d placed the water glass Suzanne had used at dinner and which he’d managed to slip out of the dining room under his jacket without anyone noticing.
The lab guys at the base weren’t going to like being woken up in the middle of the night, but he didn’t care. If he was going to find out the truth, this was as good a time as any, and he couldn’t think of a better place to start than running her prints and finding out who or what Suzanne Cassidy really was.
All he knew about her was that she’d been Rick’s wife, a schoolteacher and had once said she’d grown up in Virginia. But he had to know what else there was. It might be all innocent; then again, it might not.
It was a fact that the Soviets had always had spies in the United States, families who were devout Russian Communists, but who had lived in the U.S. for years, maybe were even born here. They obtained government jobs and top-secret classifications, became scientists, doctors and teachers, and were usually not caught until they’d managed to pass back secrets to the Russians.
And they weren’t usually caught until it was too late.
On impulse he stopped by Suzanne’s hotel on the way to the base. If she wasn’t in her room, he’d take the opportunity to search it. If she was, he’d apologize for his brusqueness earlier, say it had kept him awake and, in spite of the late hour, ask her downstairs for coffee.
As he entered the lobby he heard the chime of the elevator to his left and glanced toward it.
Suzanne stepped forward as the wood-paneled doors silently slid open.
Salvatore DeBraggo was beside her.
Chapter 4
It was almost noon when Suzanne pulled her rental car alongside the building that housed Hart’s office. She’d meant to arrive earlier, but after he’d left her last night, she’d known she would have a hard if not impossible time getting to sleep, so she’d run down to the hotel lobby to get a book from the gift shop.
The sight of Salvatore DeBraggo standing in the small shop, flipping idly through a magazine, had rattled her, and she’d been about to turn and hurry away when he’d looked up, spotted her and spoken.
“Mrs. Cassidy.” His thick accent turned her name to a series of deep, musical rolls.
“Mr. DeBraggo, hello.” She felt a tiny bit of relief to realize there were several other people in the gift store. She wasn’t alone with him.
“Please, let me apologize again for interrupting your dinner earlier,” he said, smiling.
Anger and a bit of bravado melded with her fear, and she instantly decided to confront his lie. She’d never been one to skirt an issue. “I didn’t tell my associate in L.A. where I’d be staying, Mr. DeBraggo.”
He nodded. “Ah, my late wife used to tell me I wasn’t very good at white lies.” He smiled. “I should stop trying.”
Suzanne didn’t return the smile.
“Yes, well, the truth is, I recognized you from your picture in the New York Times—the article they did on your gallery when you purchased the Mastroniani painting from the Brenroget estate last month. I’m afraid when I saw you in the hotel restaurant, impulse overrode my normally good manners.” He shrugged. “Again, I apologize.”
It had been a coincidence, and Suzanne had chided herself for the dark suspicions she’d harbored about him. Assassin, FBI agent, foreign spy, even privateer and terrorist.
She turned the car ignition off and grabbed her bag. Before leaving for Hart’s office she’d made several long-distance calls in regard to the jewelry Mr. DeBraggo wanted to sell. She wasn’t certain but something still didn’t ring true about him. And she could swear she’d seen one of the pieces before—in a museum.
She’d also placed a call to Clyde, who had suggested she move into a place owned by a friend of his. He’d also badgered her mercilessly for almost fifteen minutes for details about whom she’d gone to dinner with.
The fact that Hart could still stir feelings in her she didn’t want stirred had taken her aback yesterday, but she had gathered her wits about her now. It was merely a physical attraction. That was all it had ever been, and she could handle that.
She stepped from her car and entered the building. She made her way to his office and found his aide standing at the file cabinet just outside. Hart’s office door was closed, but she knew he was in there. She’d seen him through the window when she’d climbed out of her car.
She had to be careful.
The aide turned from the cabinet, and Suzanne asked to see Hart.
Even though Hart could hear her voice through his closed door, he’d known the moment she stepped into his aide’s office, had been acutely aware of her presence since he’d seen her car pull up outside. Anger and yearning churned within him. He had half hoped that she had left Three Hills and was out of his life forever, and he had feared that was exactly what she would do and he would never seen her again. His feelings didn’t make sense, but he was too smart to examine them.
Doubting oneself, examining feelings and trusting women were the three things that turned a man into a fool.
He looked down at the lab report on the drinking glass he’d taken from the hotel dining room. They’d come up with nothing out of the ordinary. According to the fingerprints from DMV and when she’d worked as a clerk in the army before her marriage, Suzanne Cassidy was Suzanne Cassidy. Maiden name Ramsey, middle name Julynne. Her parents had divorced by the time she was eight, father ex-military, mother an artist who’d been married six times.
The preliminary background check Hart’s aide had handed him earlier on Suzanne hadn’t told him anything different. It was far from complete, and he didn’t need to read through it again to know what it said. He’d already gone over it a half-dozen times.
According to it, Suzanne was clean. But Teresa Calderone’s record had been clean, too
, or so said the feds, and believing that, and them, had nearly gotten Hart and several other members of the Cobra Corps killed.
A little over two years or so ago, the daughter of Peru’s staunchest antidrug advocate had been abducted by a member of the drug cartel, and the CIA spooks pulling duty there had requested the corps’s help in getting her back. It had been a simple plan: go in, grab her, get out.
The CIA’s main contact for information in Peru had been Teresa. Unfortunately, the spooks’ background check on her failed to discern that her fiancé had been murdered by a member of the cartel.
Teresa hadn’t really cared about rescuing the hostage or aiding the war on drugs. She hadn’t even cared about living. All she’d cared about was getting revenge—killing the man who’d ordered the death of her fiancé—and helping the CIA and the Cobra Corps put her in a position to do just that.
But Teresa hadn’t done nearly as good a job of seducing the cartel’s leader, Guilermo Ortega, as she’d thought, and when she tried to kill him, he’d been ready for her. It was only by sheer luck that Hart had been nearby and heard the struggle. A well-placed fist to the jaw had rendered the older man unconscious, and Hart had gotten Teresa away.
But within seconds Hart and his crew had gone from being the hunters to the hunted, and after grabbing the young woman, they’d barely escaped Ortega’s camp with their lives.
That much could not be said for Teresa Calderone, however. She had broken away from Hart at the last moment and gone back in after Ortega.
As far as Hart knew, no one had ever seen her alive again.
Trusting Teresa Calderone and the CIA’s work had been a mistake. The type of mistake he’d vowed he would never let happen again.
“Captain Branson?”
Jerked from his memories, Hart stared at the intercom, experiencing a moment of disorientation as his aide’s voice drew him back to the present.
“Ms. Cassidy is here to see you, sir.”
Hart looked down at the report that lay open on his desk. Everything in it indicated Suzanne Cassidy was the epitome of the all-American girl. Yet the feds suspected her of treason.
And he suspected her of worse.
He flipped the folder closed, closing off his emotions as well, he opened his office door.
Suzanne was standing beside Roubechard’s desk, deep in conversation with the young man. She turned, as if feeling Hart’s gaze on her. A white halter top and slacks elegantly draped the subtle curves of her body, accentuated the richness of her dark hair and the creaminess of her skin.
In spite of himself, Hart’s eyes drank in the sight of her, and he found it an effort to swallow past the knot that suddenly formed in his chest. She looked beautiful, almost mesmerizing. He damned himself for noticing and his body for reacting.
If he didn’t start thinking with his head, instead of another body part, he was doomed.
Maybe she’d been able to sleep because she had nothing to fear. There was no reason for her to toss and turn, to lie awake thinking and worrying because her plans were already in place. It was an ugly suspicion, but one he found all too plausible.
“Good morning, Suzanne,” he said calmly, none of the turmoil churning inside of him evident in his tone. He smiled and cloaked himself within the soul-numbing coldness of battle. “Come in.”
“Thank you.” She brushed past him, her gaze avoiding his.
He watched her move away from him, unable to keep from appreciating the sight. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you,” Suzanne said. She looked around nervously. “Did you get the report on Rick?” Her tone was a little cooler, a little abrupt.
She glanced back at him, and their eyes met for a brief second before she tore her gaze away.
Hart closed the door and returned to his desk as she sat in a chair opposite it.
“Good morning, Suzanne,” he said again pointedly, his gaze riveted on her. He knew what she was trying to do. But whereas she intended to try to ignore the physical attraction that obviously still burned between them, Hart had made exactly the opposite decision. He had every intention of using it in whatever way necessary to get to the truth.
Suzanne’s smile looked forced. She wound her hands together in her lap, while looking everywhere in his office but at him. “Sorry,” she said. “Good morning, Hart. Did you get the report on Rick? Is there anything of significance in it?” She spoke hurriedly. “I mean, anything that seems unusual?”
He looked down at the folder containing the report on Rick. There had been nothing in the preliminary background check to indicate that Richard Jonathan Cassidy had been anything other than an honorable and dedicated military officer. Which was what Hart had expected.
“Yes, I got it,” he said, “and no, Suzanne, there is nothing out of the ordinary in it.” But she probably already knew that. He caught her gaze, stared deep into her eyes, searching for reaction, for lies or truth, and felt himself becoming lost.
He pulled himself up, reining in the unwanted feelings. “Nothing to indicate why the feds would suspect him, or his wife,” he added pointedly, “of treason.” He rose and walked to a table by the window, where a coffeepot sat on a warmer, and grabbed one of the cups beside it. “Sure you wouldn’t like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, I’m sure, but thank you.”
Hart poured himself some coffee and took a long swallow. Hot enough to jar his physical senses, strong enough to jolt his other senses into permanent alert.
What had Rick told her before that mission? The answer should have been nothing. The mission had been top secret. But what if Rick had told her something? Possibly just enough to get himself killed?
The findings on Rick’s chopper about just why he hadn’t been able to maneuver away from the missile had proved inconclusive. Not enough wreckage left and retrieved, Hart remembered the report had said. Best speculation: compressor-blade failure.
Hart moved past Suzanne to resume his seat behind the desk, and a whisper of her perfume drifted to him, a heady scent that teased his senses as much as her beauty, her nearness, teased his desire.
“Whoever is behind all this has to be connected to the Cobra Corps,” Suzanne said. “It has to be someone who had direct access to what you were doing on that mission.”
Hart’s mind cleared and his gaze fell again on Rick’s folder, the sight of it and her accusation helping to chase away the subversive thoughts that kept invading his mind.
“Don’t you agree?” Suzanne asked when he didn’t respond.
He looked at her, stealing her gaze, holding it prisoner—silently interrogating her. “Maybe,” he said finally. But even as he voiced agreement, he silently rejected the possibility. The corps was his family. The thought that one of its members could be a traitor, a murderer, was—
He cut off the thought, not even wanting to consider it. Suzanne was a military brat, or at least had been until her parents divorced when she was eight, which meant she knew a lot about military life and procedures. She was the perfect person to pull off this sort of scheme.
Suzanne felt her breath nearly desert her as his gaze held hers pinioned, but instead of nerves or fear, a sense of longing seized her. Flushed, she finally managed to turn away from him. Pushing out of her seat, she walked to the window and stood with her back to him. But she could feel his gaze on her, watching, waiting, assessing her.
Stop it! she ordered herself. If she didn’t get hold of herself, and fast, this was never going to work. She inhaled deeply, memories flashing into her mind.
When she’d realized there was an attraction between them two years ago, she’d been almost thankful. It had been so long since Rick had looked at her with desire in his eyes that she’d begun to feel totally undesirable and to believe that no man would ever look at her that way again.
Then she’d started to look at Hart the way she’d wished Rick would look at her, and the possibilities of what could happen between them had frightened her almost beyond
reason. The thought of those possibilities had also brought guilt, which had eaten away at her night and day, even though she’d known the attraction between them was only physical. That was all it had been, all it would ever be.
“I guess I didn’t tell you yesterday,” he said, “but it is good to see you again, Suzanne.”
She turned and smiled. “It’s good to see you again, too, Hart. Even under these circumstances.” Suzanne felt the beat of her heart accelerate. A rush of heat swept through her that left her trembling.
Part of her felt so right being with him again, and at the same time it felt almost as if Rick’s ghost was standing between them, watching and condemning. She sighed. “I wish the circumstances were different, though,” she said quietly.
Hart nodded, watching as the sunlight streaming through the office window touched her long hair, turned it to gleaming threads of dark silk and made him want, more than ever, to close the distance between them and run his fingers through her hair and… “Me, too,” he said finally, his voice rough with unwanted emotion. “But if this hadn’t happened, Suzanne, do you think you would ever have come back here?”
The question was out of his mouth before he’d even been aware he was thinking it. Dammit. It wasn’t like he really wanted to know, or even cared.
Suzanne stared, surprised by the question. Did he honestly care? Or was the inquiry meant to lead her into a trap? Would she ever have come back, ever found the courage to face him again if she wasn’t desperate for his help? She didn’t know, so she ignored the question and reached across his desk for the folder that lay there. “Is this the background check you said you were going to have done on Rick?”
Hart grasped her hand before she could pull it and the file away.
Suzanne glanced down at his hand, covering hers. Strong and powerful.
Rick’s hands had been like that, too, but she couldn’t remember them feeling so warm and tender.
She knew she should pull her hand away. Distance, she told herself. Distance. Just being near him was risky enough. Touching him, letting him touch her, was a danger she didn’t need. Yet she remained still, her hand on the file, his hand on hers.
