by Cheryl Biggs
“It’s classified,” Hart said softly, his gaze holding hers.
“I’m his widow.”
Silence and tension screamed through the air as they stared at each other.
“Aren’t I?” she finally added, her tone cold, her own suspicions suddenly exploding. “Or do you know something I don’t?”
Hart released his hold on her hand. She was right. Protocol didn’t matter anymore, not if it stood in the way of finding the truth.
She settled back in her chair and read quickly through the report on Rick. A moment later, finished, she looked back at Hart. “This report isn’t very detailed, but you’re right, there’s nothing unusual in it.” She lay the folder back on his desk. “So what do we do next?”
“We start checking out everyone involved in that last mission.”
“What if the person behind this wasn’t actually in the corps, Hart? I mean, I know I said he had to be, but what if he’s not?” She looked away, needing to concentrate without having to deal with the emotions that assaulted her every time she looked into Hart’s eyes. “What if he’s with the Pentagon or he’s some bureaucrat in Washington or something? Then what? We might never find him.”
“No.” His eyes held hers. “Whoever stole the plans had to have physical access, and that puts him in the corps, or at least connected to someone in the corps. There were only a certain number of plans, and except for the ones kept under tight security at the base, they were all with the corps on that mission. Every pilot who flew that night had access to the hardware, but only a few had access to the plans, including Rick.”
And you, Suzanne thought.
“If it goes beyond that—” Hart shrugged “—we’ll just have to see.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Before you got here I asked my aide to get preliminary background checks on all the corps members who were involved in that mission in any way—pilots, mechanics, strategists, clerks, fuelers, everyone. The reports won’t be extremely detailed, but they’ll do for a start. If we think we need more, we’ll get it, but that’ll take longer.” He switched on his intercom. “Roubechard, have the other reports arrived yet?”
“Just now, sir,” his aide answered. “I’ll bring them right in.”
Suzanne turned as the door opened and Private Roubechard entered carrying a stack of folders. She watched him cross the room. He was medium height and compactly built, his brown hair extremely close-cropped. He had a face that reminded her of a hawk, eyes that seemed to miss nothing and a tattoo on the back of his left hand that reminded her of a family crest—a shield bearing a horse’s head.
Except for the military bearing, haircut and manners, Private Roubechard reminded her of more than a few gang members she’d seen in L.A. He set a box filled with folders on Hart’s desk and left the room.
“I don’t remember him,” Suzanne said.
Hart glanced up from the folders he’d started sorting through. “Marcus Roubechard?” He glanced toward the closed door. “He’s only been here a few months.”
“Which means he’s not a suspect,” Suzanne said.
Hart separated the stack of folders. “Roubechard is barely nineteen,” he said. “His grandfather was killed in Vietnam, his father in Beirut. The tattoo on his hand is First Cavalry Division. They were both in it. So, no, Suzanne, he’s not a suspect.”
She felt like a heel.
Hart handed half the folders to Suzanne. “I’ll check the members of the corps,” he said. “You start with their family members.”
“Family members?” Suzanne looked from the folders to Hart, confused. “Why?”
“You were Rick’s wife,” Hart said, “and the feds suspect you.”
She nodded. “You’re right.”
Hart sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. He was getting nowhere, except frustrated, and he needed a break. “I think I’ve about had it with this for now. How about we break for a while and drive into town for some lunch?” he suggested.
Suzanne looked up from the file she’d been reading. They hadn’t spoken in more than an hour, both intent on getting as much done as possible. “Sure.” Her throat was dry, her voice cracking. “Just let me finish this file.”
The intercom buzzed. “General Walthorp on the line, sir,” Roubechard said.
Hart pushed the responding button and stood. “Hold him a minute.” He looked at Suzanne. “My unit is involved in an upcoming training exercise with Walthorp’s,” he said when she looked up. “He most likely has some questions. I’ll take the call out there,” he indicated the outer office, “and be right back.”
Suzanne nodded, wondering if he was telling her the truth. Perhaps “General Walthorp” was a code name for an FBI agent. Or the man had information about Rick or someone else involved in that mission.
Or maybe he was Hart’s accomplice.
The minute Hart stepped from the room Suzanne slapped the file she’d been reading closed and reached for her oversize handbag.
Her mother always said that only a fool ignored opportunity when it knocked.
Suzanne was no fool, and opportunity was definitely knocking now.
She glanced quickly at the door, then turned back to Hart’s desk and reached for the stack of files he’d been reading. There had been several men in the Cobra Corps whom Rick had been closer to than any of the others: Hart; Lane Banner, another pilot; Brenner Trent, the corps’s chief mechanic; and two rookie pilots—Rand Towler and Zack Morrow.
She’d met them all at one time or another, though she’d only met the two rookie pilots once, about a month before Rick’s death.
What she was about to do was likely foolish, not to mention illegal, and Hart might discover her deception immediately and refuse to help her further. But it was a chance she had to take. As she pulled each file from the stack, she slid it quickly into her bag. She stopped when she started to draw out Zack’s, and the one underneath it caught her eye. She turned it so she could get a better look at the label attached to its tab. Hart Branson.
Opportunity’s knock became a thunderous thud.
She shoved the folder on Hart into her bag with the others. There might be nothing in any of the files—but she wanted to look them over personally later, not merely take Hart’s word for what was in them. Especially whatever was in his.
She rearranged the remaining file folders on his desk, thankful there were several dozen; the absence of the few she’d taken wouldn’t be readily noticeable. He reentered just as she finished.
“Ready for lunch now?” he asked.
Suzanne stood. “I’m sorry, Hart, I forgot that I promised to meet Mr. DeBraggo this afternoon to give him an appraisal on the jewelry he wants to sell. Remember, the man from the restaurant?”
It was a lie—she’d arranged only to call DeBraggo—but the need to see the files and put some distance between Hart and herself was almost overwhelming.
Hart nodded. He thought about following her now, but the general wanted to meet with him in an hour, and there was no way he could follow her and count on being back in time for the meeting. And Walthorp was one old codger he knew better than to stand up. He dropped the file folders back into the box Roubechard had delivered them in. “Dinner, then,” Hart said.
The phone on his desk rang. He picked up the receiver and motioned for Suzanne to wait a minute, intending to quickly dismiss whoever was calling. But it turned out to be a call he couldn’t make short.
Suzanne started for the door.
Hart covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Seven,” he said softly, as the man on the other end of the line began to talk about a situation heating up in Mexico and the possibility of sending in the Cobra Corps.
She closed the door softly behind her.
What if Suzanne was telling the truth? Hart suddenly wondered. What if her life really was in jeopardy, and he went on a mission and left her alone?
Suzanne tossed her bag into the car.
She turned to see Chief Carger walking toward her. “Chief,” she said, inwardly cringing, outwardly smiling.
He lit a cigarette. “You planning on joining the army now?”
She laughed, fully aware that the comment was intended to secure him the reason she was back in Three Hills. But that was something she couldn’t divulge. “Hardly, Chief,” she said. “I’m an antiques dealer now. I have a gallery in Los Angeles.” She remembered Salvatore DeBraggo. “I was just in the area on business for a client, so I thought I’d drop in and see Captain Branson.”
The chief nodded, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Well, glad to hear everything’s okay and all. I mean, that you’re just visiting. The captain’s a nice enough guy, but I never got the impression he was the marrying kind.” He offered a warm smile. “If you know what I mean.”
She didn’t, but she wasn’t going to ask. Evidently the chief didn’t like Hart. But there could be a million reasons, she told herself. And most likely all of them had to do with the army, not her.
Or did the chief know something about Rick’s death? Something that linked Hart to it as more than a mere witness? Had his comment been meant as a warning?
Chapter 5
Six-thirty. He’d arrived purposely early. Hart glanced at the slip of paper he’d tossed onto the passenger seat. Before Suzanne left his office earlier, she’d written down directions to the bungalow she’d rented and given them to Roubechard to give to him.
Obviously she planned on staying around awhile.
Hart glanced at his watch again. If Suzanne was like most women he’d dated, she wouldn’t be ready, and that might give him time to look around the place without her realizing it.
He stood beside the car and looked at the small ranch-style adobe. Pale brown paint, turquoise trim, tile roof. Standard Southwestern style. Rocks and a variety of small cacti framed the pathway to the front door.
He pushed the doorbell and heard a series of chimes ring inside.
Several seconds passed.
She didn’t answer.
Hart glanced at the rental car sitting in the driveway, then toward a slightly open window next to the door. Soft music drifted out past the lace curtains. He looked through the window and found he could see straight to the rear of the house. A sliding glass door was open to the patio. She was sitting on a chaise longue.
He followed the brick path that led around the small house, but as he approached the rear he heard Suzanne’s voice and stopped.
“Yes, I know it’s late,” she said.
Hart peeked around the corner and saw that she was on a cell phone.
“But the package should go out in a day or two. No more.” She paused. “Yes, it will go out once we confirm the payment has been made,” she said, and rose, but remained standing beside the chair.
Hart stepped behind the tall rosebush that grew at the corner of the house and watched her through the gnarled branches of the plant.
Suzanne nodded, as if her caller could see her, then walked to the far edge of the patio and stared at the endless expanse of desert.
She was wearing a long, white terry-cloth robe, dark glasses, and her hair was covered by some kind of cloth turban.
“Direct deposit will be fine,” she said a moment later. “Yes, within two days, if nothing goes wrong.”
Every suspicion and doubt he’d had about her suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. Anger turned his blood to fire, while resentment chilled it. He knew her words could be perfectly innocent, but giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, especially when his career, maybe even his life, was at stake, wasn’t something he was about to do. Not even for Suzanne.
She gazed out at the horizon after terminating the call as if deep in thought, then she finally turned, set the phone down on a nearby table and walked into the house.
Hart waited what seemed like several excruciatingly long minutes, but she didn’t return for the cell phone. He moved stealthily across the patio, grabbed the phone and stepped back out of sight of the glass door.
Without giving himself time to rethink his intentions, he pushed the redial button. A series of clicks sounded, then the line began to ring on the other end.
“Oui, Marsei residence.”
Hart cursed and instantly broke the connection.
Only an hour ago he’d learned that the man the feds suspected of buying the stolen plans was a renowned French spy who worked freelance for any government, terrorist group, revolutionary or crackpot who could pay his price. His name was Robert Marsei.
Coincidence? Hart’s hand tightened around the small cell phone as the insane urge to throw it as far as he could into the desert almost overwhelmed him. But that wouldn’t solve anything, and even though Marsei was not an uncommon French name, Hart didn’t believe in coincidence.
He drew in a deep breath in an effort to calm himself, placed the phone back on the patio chair and hurried around to the front of the bungalow. Hopefully she hadn’t looked out the front window and seen his car parked at the curb. She’d wonder where he was.
Then again, maybe she knew. Maybe she’d seen him drive up, knew he’d overheard her and left the phone out there on purpose, suspecting he’d do exactly what he had done.
But why would she do that?
He didn’t have an answer. He only knew it was a possibility.
He knocked on the door again, and she opened it almost immediately.
Suzanne felt her pulse instantly accelerate and her heart begin to beat just a little faster as her eyes met his. It had been only mere hours since she’d seen him last, but her gaze involuntarily raked over him as if it had been years. He hadn’t worn his uniform. Instead, dark-brown slacks covered his long, lean legs and made them seem even longer, a white dress shirt tried, but failed, to completely obscure a wall of muscular chest, and a brown leather jacket accentuated his broad shoulders.
“Come in,” she finally managed, surprised by the breathlessness she heard in her voice.
He stepped past her and into the living room, his gaze quickly taking in the furnishings. “Nice place, but why’d you leave the hotel?” He turned back to watch her as she closed the door, then stood facing him but not approaching.
“Oh, I really dislike hotels and—” she shrugged “—I was talking to Clyde this morning and he suggested if I was going to be here a few days, that I move into this place. It belongs to a friend of his who spends most of his time in L.A.”
Hart nodded. “Makes sense.” He glanced around again. Whoever it was who owned the bungalow definitely wasn’t hurting for money. Everything in it appeared expensive.
“I just have to grab a wrap and my bag, and I’ll be ready to go.”
He wanted her, and silently cursed. He’d been trying to keep his mind occupied with suspicions and anything else he could fill it with, but the thought pounded repeatedly through Hart’s head now as his gaze devoured the sight of her and his body began an instant simmer.
The robe, glasses and turban were gone. Now long waves of dark hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, while a simple, dark-rust silk sheath slid provocatively over every curve and line of her body, complementing and accentuating the copper-hued slivers of color in her brown eyes.
Desire, hot and hungry, coiled inside him like a rope of fire. No other woman had ever affected him so thoroughly and swiftly, but if he had learned nothing else in his life, he’d learned caution and self-control.
And as he reminded himself of all his suspicions, a cold wave of anger and sense of survival doused his desire. Yet life’s hard experiences and his intense army training allowed him to keep the fire of seduction in his eyes and a smile on his lips.
Hart wasn’t able to get the idea that they’d been followed out of his mind. He looked around the restaurant again. He’d noticed a dark car parked down the street from her house as they’d left. It had pulled out right after them and stayed on their tail, though a respectable distance away, for some time a
s they’d driven to the restaurant.
Several blocks before they’d arrived at the restaurant, it had turned off, but he still suspected whoever had been driving, most likely a fed, had been following them.
The Italian restaurant was elegant, with a rustic touch. And it was quiet.
It reminded Suzanne of a quaint café in northern Italy that she’d once visited as a teenager while on a trip with her mother and one of her stepfathers. She didn’t remember which one. Except for her own father, whom she’d seen only a handful of times a year after her parents divorced, the rest of the men in her mother’s life were little more than a blur.
Suzanne set down her wineglass and glanced at what was left of her fettuccine and chicken. It was her favorite dinner, but she’d barely eaten any of it.
But it wasn’t the thought of rotting away in some federal prison that had been lurking in the back of her mind for days that had stolen her appetite. It was being with Hart again. Nerves. She stole a glance at him, and a rush of feeling swept through her that she didn’t want to acknowledge or try to understand.
“It must have been hard for you,” Hart said, breaking the silence between them, “starting over.”
She looked back at him, wondering if she should read anything into his words other than what she’d heard. Shrugging, she said casually, “It was and it wasn’t,” not willing to go into detail.
She’d decided long ago that she would never be like her mother. Lyla Russell seemed to have spent her entire life falling in and out of love and was now on her sixth—or was it her seventh?—husband. Suzanne had lost count.
But even if Rick had come back safely from that last mission, she would have had to start her life over. Their life together had ended the night before he left. That, however, was something she had never admitted to anyone.
“Do you still miss him?”
The question jarred Suzanne from her musings and echoed through her mind. Did she miss him? She thought for a moment. She missed the man she thought she’d married, but not the one it turned out she had married. “Yes,” she said, knowing it was the answer Hart expected. “I do.”
