Hart's Last Stand

by Cheryl Biggs

  Chapter 6

  Suzanne’s tongue slipped between Hart’s lips, and a moan of pleasure was torn from his throat.

  “Temptress,” he growled, the word meant as both homage and curse, the torment of his need turning his voice ragged and harsh.

  She clung to him, her arms tightening around his neck, fingers entwining in the golden hair at his nape, as if she never intended to let go.

  Fire erupted in his veins, longing tore at his insides, burning deeper, hotter, brighter, than anything he’d ever felt.

  His hand moved to cup her breast, and a faint voice at the back of his mind yelled at him to stop—or he would be forever sorry.

  Waves of need ripped through his gut as incessant alarms sounded far-off in the back of his mind.

  Hart’s eyes shot open when the ring of the phone echoed through the room.

  He sat up and looked around, momentarily disoriented.

  The phone rang again.

  He glanced at the empty space of bed beside him. She wasn’t there. God, he was totally losing it.

  At the phone’s next ring he jerked around and grabbed the receiver. “What?” he snapped.

  “Captain Branson?”

  He recognized his aide’s voice and instantly sobered. The last time he’d received a call at home in the middle of the night, he had been on his way to Bosnia in less than an hour. “Yes, Roubechard. What is it?” Hart glanced at the clock on his nightstand.

  Eight a.m.

  That wasn’t possible. He’d just fallen asleep. He glanced at the watch on his wrist.

  “I was boxing up the files you were using yesterday, sir,” Roubechard said, “and, uh, I was wondering if you took any of them home with you, sir?”

  “No, I told you I was finished with them. Why?”

  “Well, uh, Personnel just called and said several files are missing.”

  Hart cursed silently. He hadn’t taken them, which meant Suzanne had. But why? They’d been going over them in his office together. If she’d wanted to see any of them again, she didn’t have to steal them.

  “Verify which ones they think are missing,” Hart said. “I’ll be there shortly.” He suddenly remembered Suzanne asking about Roubechard.

  “No, he is not a suspect.” His own words taunted him. Could he be wrong? Was it possible Roubechard was involved in this in some way? A fed plant, maybe?

  “Yes, sir. But there’s more, sir.”

  Hart felt his insides wince. He didn’t need more. “What?”

  “I checked on Ms. Cassidy’s movements in the last few weeks, sir, like you requested.”

  He had a feeling that whatever was coming wasn’t good.

  “She took a trip to France at the end of last month, but once she got off the plane in Paris, sir, she, uh, disappeared.”

  “What do you mean she disappeared?” Hart demanded. It was worse than he’d thought.

  “I mean, I couldn’t find any trace of where she’d gone, sir. And upon her return to the States,” Roubechard went on hurriedly, “she sent a package back to Paris—air express.”

  A package. Ugly suspicions exploded in his mind. A trip to France…most likely to see Marsei…a package sent there. Had it contained the stolen military plans?

  It was all too real a possibility.

  Hart knew he should get to the base. There were things he had to do that had nothing at all to do with Suzanne or the investigation into his own background, but which needed to be done.

  That was what he should do.

  Instead, he stalked up the path to her bungalow and rapped a fist on the front door. If she had taken the files, and he felt there was very little if involved, then he wanted her to explain why, and he wanted her to explain right now.

  But she didn’t answer. He glanced toward the window. When he’d come to the house before, music had been drifting out. Now the curtains were drawn, the house silent and locked. He walked to the side of the house, but her rental car wasn’t in the carport.

  Was she gone or just out?

  He felt the bottom drop out of his gut at the thought that she’d left for good. As soon as the thought and feeling assaulted him, a string of nasty curses zipped through his mind.

  Hart stalked back to the Vette and slid behind the wheel. His day had started off lousy, and was continuing its descent with runaway speed.

  Two blocks from Suzanne’s house a dark car pulled out of a driveway in front of him. He slammed on his brakes and the car sped off. Hart stared after it, certain his eyes were playing tricks. He’d only gotten a glimpse of the driver, but could have sworn it was DeBraggo.

  He jammed the Vette into gear and headed for the base. The training exercise he’d scheduled was to begin in an hour. After that he had a meeting with General Walthorp, several reviews to process and a lot of paperwork he didn’t even want to contemplate.

  The first thing he did when he walked into his office, however, was call Suzanne and leave a message on her machine. “I had a nice time last night, Suzanne, and was hoping we could have dinner again tonight.” He strained to keep a hint of seduction in his voice and his anger tightly under control. There had been nothing damning or top secret in any of the files, so why had she taken them? “Maybe at Cactus Jack’s.” It was one of the most romantic spots in Tucson, and perfect for the type of subtle interrogation Hart had in mind for Suzanne. “I’ll pick you up at eight. Call me if that’s not okay.”

  He hung up, then glared at the phone. Maybe confronting her now was a mistake. Instead, maybe he should play along with her game and see where it led.

  Hart pulled his car to the side of the road a short distance from Suzanne’s bungalow. He’d purposely arrived early again, but this time to watch, not search.

  Every house in the neighborhood sat on about an acre of land, most of which remained unlandscaped and wild. Tall saguaro cacti grew profusely in the area, like proud sentries guarding their harsh surroundings, while the smaller fishhook, prickly pear and a dozen other varieties, along with sagebrush and wild grasses, dotted the terrain and turned it to a profusion of color most people didn’t expect to see in the desert.

  The sun was already well on its way down, so once he cut his lights and engine, the sleek black sports car blended with the dusky night.

  Hart sat back in his seat and looked at his surroundings, paying close attention to everything, but most particularly the bungalow. Light flowed from its wide windows, and every once in a while he thought he saw Suzanne walk past one.

  He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but then, he hadn’t known what he was waiting or watching for that night in Peru, either. He’d only known he’d felt an inexplicable and nagging uneasiness. Then he’d seen Teresa Calderone where she wasn’t supposed to be.

  And if he hadn’t been waiting and watching, he’d be a dead man.

  The lights of a car illuminated the rear of the Vette.

  Hart hunkered down in his seat as it passed, then felt his pulse race as he watched the car pull to the curb in front of Suzanne’s bungalow.

  Salvatore DeBraggo climbed from a glistening, black luxury sedan.

  Hart stiffened. What the hell was DeBraggo doing here? Picking up stolen plans, maybe?

  A moment later Suzanne opened her front door and the man disappeared inside.

  Five minutes passed.

  Hart’s normally steel-cold nerves gnawed impatiently.

  A woman strolled by, walking a dog.

  Hart swore softly, a habit that was beginning to get out of control. Who in blazes was DeBraggo?

  He didn’t think she’d welcome a federal agent into her place, at least not knowingly, but the alternatives were worse.

  Maybe DeBraggo was exactly who and what he’d claimed to be: a man trying to sell his late wife’s jewelry. But Hart didn’t think so.

  The door to the bungalow opened, and DeBraggo stepped out and walked rapidly to his car. He wasn’t carrying anything.

  Suzanne remained on the doorstep, watching
as his car moved down the street in the opposite direction from where Hart was parked.

  Once it was gone she turned and looked directly at Hart.

  He froze. Had she seen him? Did they know he’d been watching them?

  Suzanne stepped back into the bungalow and closed the door.

  Hart released a hesitant sigh of relief and started his car.

  A man jogged past.

  Several houses down on the opposite side of the street, another man retrieved a newspaper from the end of his driveway, glanced toward the Vette, then went back into the house.

  The neighborhood seemed unusually busy tonight. Or was he merely becoming paranoid? Hart wondered as he pulled up to the bungalow, got out and headed toward the front door.

  She opened the door to his knock almost immediately.

  “Hart,” Suzanne said, smiling.

  Welcoming him? Or relieved he hadn’t arrived a few minutes earlier?

  “I saw Mr. DeBraggo leave,” he said, deciding to take a shot at the truth and see where it led.

  Suzanne paused, her hand on the clutch bag she’d been about to pick up. She turned. Had he been watching her? “He brought by some of his wife’s jewelry.” She disappeared into her bedroom and returned carrying a small box. “A beautiful old brooch, a pair of earrings and a gold bracelet.” She held the open box toward him. “The brooch is a cameo and, though I’m still new at this, my guess is it’s not only genuine, but will bring him a nice price at auction.”

  Hart looked at the jewelry sitting in the satin-lined box. He didn’t know a thing about cameos, earrings or any other kind of jewelry. It could all be fake, a cover meant to convince him DeBraggo was what he claimed and not her partner, if they got caught together, like they just had. “What’s a ‘nice price’?” he asked, curious.

  “Well…” She pulled her gaze from Hart’s and looked at the brooch. He was testing her. “Some women would pay a thousand dollars for such a beautiful piece of jewelry, but to a serious cameo collector the price could go into the thousands. Five, ten.” She shrugged. “You just never know.”

  Hart looked from the jewelry to Suzanne, into her eyes. Part of him wanted to believe her, even when he knew he shouldn’t.

  Cactus Jack’s was Southwestern comfort mixed with just the right amount of elegance. Candles on the tables, fine linen and silver, flowers everywhere, a fantastic view of the mountains framing Tucson and food to die for.

  But Hart wasn’t interested in any of those attributes, unless they aided him in getting what he wanted from Suzanne. And what he wanted was the truth.

  “Hart, I’m really worried,” Suzanne said after they’d ordered and the waiter had left the table. What she really meant was that she was becoming more frightened, but she didn’t want to say that. “Every background check I looked at on every family member of the men in the Cobra Corps appears clean, and I assume, since you haven’t said differently, that the ones you checked on the men themselves are clean, too.”

  He nodded. She was good.

  “So that leads us nowhere, unless you’ve come up with something else?”

  “No.”

  She could feel her panic level rising. “What if we don’t find anything?”

  He shrugged. “We go to prison. Or worse.”

  Her eyes widened at the answer and the casualness he’d purposely instilled in his tone.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” Hart said. If he had to use fear to get to her, he would.

  She took a long swallow of water and set the glass down with a hand that was obviously trembling. “What do we do next?”

  “We keep looking,” he said softly, hoping the benign answer would reassure her. “Keep digging.” Steeling himself against any emotion but the cold, hard anger he’d been honing to perfection all day, he reached across the table and placed his hand over hers.

  The preparation hadn’t been enough.

  Fire assaulted his senses the moment he touched her. Need and want plunged through him, seized him mercilessly and threatened to never let go. Damn. Why did he react to her like that? Especially when he knew that, if nothing else, she was at least a thief?

  Suzanne had seen the wariness in his eyes the moment she’d opened the door to him earlier. Something had happened to bring back all his suspicions of her. Yet he was trying to act as if nothing was wrong, and for some reason, that scared her more than anything.

  “But what if we don’t find anything, Hart?” she persisted. “Regardless of how deep we dig?” The mere touch of his hand on hers stirred feelings she didn’t want stirred and instilled a tremor in her voice she couldn’t hide. She felt an insane urge to throw herself into his arms and beg him to believe her, to protect her, to—

  Stop it! She ordered, suddenly afraid of her own thoughts.

  “Let’s not talk about spies, lies and dark what-ifs tonight,” Hart said as if reading her mind and sensing her fear.

  In spite of the reassuring words and the desire his gesture ignited in her, Suzanne’s fears remained.

  Hart moved his thumb tenderly, teasingly, over the crest of her knuckles and tried to ignore the passion the gesture threatened to spark within him. He had to play this out and learn what she was up to, how deep her involvement was. “Tell me more about what you’ve been doing the past year, Suzanne,” he said. “What’s your new career like? Your new life?”

  Her thoughts spun. How much should she tell him? She’d never been very good at lies and pretense. “I live in L.A. now,” she started, choosing her words carefully. “I rent a small house in the valley. It was built in the thirties by some movie star.” She laughed, but he heard the nervousness in it.

  “Supposedly she killed her lover and then herself after learning he had another woman. According to legend, she’s still haunting the place, though no one bothered to tell me that until after I’d moved in.”

  “So have you ever seen her around?” he asked.

  Suzanne shook her head. “I thought I did once, but, no, I don’t really think so.”

  For the next hour they talked about everything and nothing, hitting on every subject imaginable except the one that had separated them and then brought them back together. Hart controlled the course of their conversation, steering it in the exact direction he wanted it to go. Finally he brought up a long-ago trip he’d made to Paris.

  “I really enjoyed it,” he said, and smiled. “Of course, I did all the touristy things—visited the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, dined in sidewalk cafés and cruised the Seine.”

  “All of which, unfortunately, I don’t have time for when I go,” Suzanne said.

  He feigned surprise. “I didn’t realize that your business took you to Europe.”

  “Occasionally. England and Paris have a lot to offer in the way of antiques and art. In fact, I just came back from a trip to Paris.”

  “Oh?”

  She nodded. “It was a buying trip. A young couple who are friends of Clyde’s wanted to get rid of some things they’d inherited. Clyde was in the midst of negotiating a rather important private sale and his friends were in a hurry, so I went.” She sighed. “Their place is a lovely old villa in the country, but of course, I couldn’t really enjoy it as much as I’d have liked because I was too busy trying to catalog paintings, furnishings and several trunks loaded with bric-a-brac from what seemed just about every era known to man.”

  “Sounds like you’ve found yourself an interesting career.” Friends. And a villa in the country. That would explain her “disappearance” after she’d gotten off the plane in Paris. It might even explain the package she’d mailed back there upon her return to the States. It could have contained receipts, payment or appraisal records.

  Or stolen plans, an ugly little voice of suspicion whispered.

  She smiled. “I enjoy it, though I still have a lot to learn. Clyde can appraise something in a few minutes by just looking at it. I have to carry along a ton of reference books and loo
k everything up.”

  It was a good story. Maybe it was even true, Hart thought. Nevertheless, it wasn’t good enough to risk putting his trust in her. There were still too many unanswered questions, too many possible variables that weren’t good.

  They finished dinner, both seeming to strive at keeping the accompanying conversation light and impersonal. But the more they talked, the less they really said. He wasn’t finding out anything useful, but with each passing minute he was losing more of himself to her.

  Suzanne felt the strain that had begun to edge their conversation. It was as if they were both tense and waiting for something. But she didn’t know what.

  “I never meant to leave without saying goodbye,” she said. It had been something she’d thought about ever since the day she’d climbed into her car and driven away from Three Hills, away from Hart, but she hadn’t intended to say it aloud. A hot wave of color swept over her cheeks.

  The comment surprised him. “I always figured you’d call when you were ready.”

  She nodded, looking into her coffee, unable to meet his eyes.

  “Guess you just never were.”

  The waiter appeared, refilled their coffee cups and silently departed. Hart was physically and emotionally frustrated, and running out of patience.

  “Suzanne.”

  She gave a slight start, taken back by the sudden chill in his tone.

  “Why did you ask Rick for a divorce just before that last mission?” The question surprised him as much as it obviously did her. He’d intended to ask why she’d stolen the files.

  Suzanne stared at him. Shock rendered her speechless. It was not only the abrupt change in conversation, but the very question itself.

  Beneath the table Hart’s fingers closed around his cloth napkin, then clenched into a fist as the old anger returned, sweeping through him like a prairie fire out of control, moving to consume him. He let it—welcomed it. “You know how dangerous, how deadly emotional upheaval can be to a pilot, Suzanne. Especially one about to go on a mission.” His tone was accusatory now and edged with condemnation. An image of Rick’s Cobra, exploding and plummeting to the ground, flashed through Hart’s mind. “Dammit, Suzanne. Why’d you do it?”