by Kay Hooper
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF KAY HOOPER
BLOOD TIES
“Hooper’s darkly riveting Blood trilogy comes to a terrifying climax.… The chilling intensity of this novel is sure to haunt your dreams!”
—RT Book Reviews
“Series fans and newcomers alike will appreciate the appendixes, which include bios of Special Crimes Unit agents and definitions of their various paranormal abilities.”
—Publishers Weekly
BLOOD SINS
“Disturbing … Hooper pulls out all the stops.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Fans of Kay Hooper won’t be disappointed.”
—The Romance Reader
“Another solid entry.”
—Booklist
BLOOD DREAMS
“You won’t want to turn the lights out after reading this book!”
—Romantic Times
“A good read for fans of other serial-killer books and the TV show Criminal Minds.”
—Booklist
“Spectacular … With its fast pace, high-adrenaline plot, cast of well-developed characters, and fluid dialogue, Blood Dreams fills every expectation a reader could have.… I highly recommend.”
—Romance Reviews Today
SLEEPING WITH FEAR
“An entertaining book for any reader.”
—Winston-Salem Journal
“Hooper keeps the suspense dialed up.… Readers will be mesmerized by a plot that moves quickly to a chilling conclusion.”
—Publishers Weekly
CHILL OF FEAR
“Hooper’s latest may offer her fans a few shivers on a hot beach.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kay Hooper has conjured a fine thriller with appealing young ghosts and a suitably evil presence to provide a welcome chill on a hot summer’s day.”
—Orlando Sentinel
“The author draws the reader into the story line and, once there, they can’t leave because they want to see what happens next in this thrill-a-minute, chilling, fantastic reading experience.”
—Midwest Book Review
HUNTING FEAR
“A well-told scary story.”
—Toronto Sun
“Hooper’s unerring story sense and ability to keep the pages flying can’t be denied.”
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“Hooper has created another original—Hunting Fear sets an intense pace.… Work your way through the terror to the triumph … and you’ll be looking for more Hooper tales to add to your bookshelf.”
—Wichita Falls Times Record News
“It’s vintage Hooper—a suspenseful page-turner.”
—Brazosport Facts
“Expect plenty of twists and surprises as Kay Hooper gets her series off to a crackerjack start!”
—Aptos Times
SENSE OF EVIL
“A well-written, entertaining police procedural … loaded with suspense.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Filled with page-turning suspense.”
—The Sunday Oklahoman
“Sense of Evil will knock your socks off.”
—Rendezvous
“A master storyteller.”
—TAMI HOAG
STEALING SHADOWS
“A fast-paced, suspenseful plot … The story’s complicated and intriguing twists and turns keep the reader guessing until the chilling end.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This definitely puts Ms. Hooper in a league with Tami Hoag and Iris Johansen and Sandra Brown. Gold 5-star rating.”
—Heartland Critics
HAUNTING RACHEL
“A stirring and evocative thriller.”
—Palo Alto Daily News
“The pace flies, the suspense never lets up. It’s great reading.”
—Baton Rouge Advocate
“An intriguing book with plenty of strange twists that will please the reader.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“It passed the ‘stay up late to finish it in one night’ test.”
—The Denver Post
FINDING LAURA
“You always know you are in for an outstanding read when you pick up a Kay Hooper novel, but in Finding Laura, she has created something really special! Simply superb!”
—Romantic Times
“Hooper keeps the intrigue pleasurably complicated, with gothic touches of suspense and satisfying resolution.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A first-class reading experience.”
—Affaire de Coeur
AFTER CAROLINE
“Harrowing good fun. Readers will shiver and shudder.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Kay Hooper has crafted another solid story to keep readers enthralled until the last page is turned.”
—Booklist
“Kay Hooper comes through with thrills, chills, and plenty of romance, this time with an energetic murder mystery with a clever twist. The suspense is sustained admirably right up to the very end.”
—Kirkus Reviews
BANTAM BOOKS BY KAY HOOPER
THE BISHOP TRILOGIES
Stealing Shadows
Hiding in the Shadows
Out of the Shadows
Touching Evil
Whisper of Evil
Sense of Evil
Hunting Fear
Chill of Fear
Sleeping with Fear
Blood Dreams
Blood Sins
Blood Ties
THE QUINN NOVELS
Once a Thief
Always a Thief
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Amanda
After Caroline
Finding Laura
Haunting Rachel
CLASSIC FANTASY AND ROMANCE
Raven on the Wing
In Serena’s Web
Time After Time
Larger than Life
The Wizard of Seattle
Rebel Waltz
If There Be Dragons
The Haunting of Josie
Illegal Possession
C.J.’s Fate
Golden Threads
Rafferty’s Wife is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2011 Bantam Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 1987 by Kay Hooper
All rights reserved.
Cover art: Carl Galian
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in paperback in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, Inc., in 1987.
eISBN: 978-0-440-42319-5
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1
To my brother, Jimmy—
for all those early-morning drives to the airport
Contents
Cover
Praise for the Novels of Kay Hooper
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
ONE
“WHY ME?”
“Because you’re the man I need.”
Rafferty Lewis shoved his hands in
to the pockets of his slacks and stared broodingly out the window. That the view afforded him was the striking expanse of a Trinidad beach cheered him not at all; he would have preferred the New York skyline he normally saw from his office window.
However …
“You can refuse, of course, Mr. Lewis. After all, I have no legal claim on you. Not one I’d care to be called on to prove in court, at any rate.”
“I’m glad you realize that.”
“But you were sworn in as a federal agent, Mr. Lewis. And Mr. Long is willing to give you a leave of absence; since you and your partner handle all the work for Mr. Long, I took the liberty of inquiring—”
“Hagen, for heaven’s sake just tell me what Josh said.”
“That you’d be a damned fool to get involved.”
“He should know.”
Rafferty sighed explosively. A damned fool. Well, he probably was one, since he was here. He didn’t like the setup, not one bit, but Hagen had been adamant about it. And, if nothing else, Rafferty had learned respect for Hagen’s intelligence, no matter what he thought of his methods. Had Hagen deliberately chosen to approach him when Zach and Lucas—both of whom would probably have tried to dissuade him—were out of touch on business for Josh? For that matter, Josh himself was out of reach on his honeymoon somewhere in the South Pacific. And only Hagen would have had the nerve to intrude at such a time to ask if Josh minded giving up his attorney for a while. Only Hagen would have been able to find Josh.
Rafferty smiled. He would have given a lot to have been a fly on the wall during that conversation.
It had been just a month or two since the secretive federal agent’s machinations had involved them all: Joshua Long, who commanded a formidable financial empire, and the three men who worked for him and were his friends. And at the conclusion of that hectic, troubling, dangerous episode, the wily government agent had managed to draft Josh and his men into “temporary” service.
Temporary, my eye! Rafferty thought now. Hagen had intended all along to call in those markers, one by one. He wouldn’t get hold of Josh again; Raven, Josh’s bride, would see to that, Rafferty guessed. But, he thought ruefully, Hagen had managed to get him.
Thinking of Zach and Lucas, Rafferty decided that Hagen would have a more difficult time enlisting their aid on future assignments. The massive security chief and the shrewd investigator for Joshua Long’s empire were tough men. Neither was prone to being backed physically or metaphorically into corners.
As for himself, well, his strongest trait was curiosity. And Hagen had known that. Damn him.
A soft, perhaps timid knock at the door of his suite recalled him to the present, and he turned from the window, unconsciously squaring his shoulders, and headed for the door. With no idea what he would confront, he was braced for the worst. He opened the door, and his golden gift for words, greatly polished by a Harvard education, failed him totally.
“Mr. Lewis? I’m Sarah Cavell.”
Rafferty had wondered how on earth he would deal with this particular part of the operation; now he wondered about it again, but for an entirely different reason. Clearing his throat, he hastily stepped back and gestured for Sarah Cavell to enter. “Uh, come in, please.”
As she passed him to go into the living room, Rafferty caught a hint of some elusive fragrance that went to his head in an unnerving manner. He felt a sudden strong pulse throb through his body on a wave of heat. Never before had he experienced such an instant, powerful reaction to a woman. It shook him badly.
Still, he was able to put one foot in front of the other to follow her. Barely.
Hagen had offhandedly called Sarah Cavell “attractive.”
Hagen, Rafferty decided, badly needed his head examined. Or his eyes.
Sarah was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall if that. And though another woman might have called her petite, no man worth the name would. Her vibrant, surprisingly lush curves of breasts and hips were sure to stop traffic and haunt dreams.
Her hair was that rare, striking color between red and gold, and it hung thick and shining to the middle of her back. Styled simply with a center part, that silky sweep of burnished hair framed a face that was too delicately perfect to be real. She was like a painting; every feature was finely drawn with artistic excellence. And in that strikingly perfect face, her eyes were simply incredible. Huge and shadowed by long, thick lashes, they were a clear, pale green.
In that single, flashing instant, Rafferty wanted Sarah Cavell more than he’d ever wanted anything or anyone in his life. All the training and experience gained in his thirty-four years of living hadn’t prepared him for this. His responses were no longer controlled by his mind. Instead, two million years of instincts were in command. His mind grappled with the situation, trying to master instinct, fighting impulses just this side of savage. And the fact that he partially succeeded was due almost entirely to the strength of his own force of will. A complicated situation, he thought grimly, had just become nothing less than impossible. How could he do what he was supposed to?
He waved her to a chair and sat down across from her, hoping his reaction hadn’t shown on his face. It was said he had a poker face when he desired one; with any luck at all, that was true. And he was, after all, a lawyer, so he got his tongue in gear. “First names, I think?”
She nodded agreeably. “Unless we want to have people staring at us. That kind of thing perished with formal Victorians.” Her soft voice was dry.
“True. So, Sarah, why is a nice girl like you about to spend a few weeks with a total stranger?” he asked. Her reaction to his question pierced the fog of his mind. He thought he saw something in her eyes before she answered, something that looked like fear.
“It’s my job.” She shrugged a little, her green eyes unreadable once more.
Rafferty had learned early in his career that he possessed an innate ability—call it an instinct—to detect anomalies. If something was out of sync in a situation he simply felt it, like an itch at the back of his mind. And that itching was fierce now.
He brushed a thumb along his jaw slowly, watching her, unaware that he was wearing his best professional poker face to hide the turmoil she caused. “Hagen said you’d fill me in,” he said abruptly, “on what we’re supposed to be doing.”
She met his steady gaze, her own unflinching. “Our assignment,” she said, “is to make contact with an undercover agent who has coded information. I was pulled—brought in for this—because I’m a cryptographer. Hagen said that twice in the past they’ve—we’ve—bought a pig in a poke and found it worthless, so my part in this assignment is to verify the information.” Inwardly, Sarah swore at herself, wishing desperately that the handsome face across from her would reveal something of the man behind it, reveal something of his thoughts.
Rafferty noted the lapses and hesitations in her statements, and on top of everything else, he had to wonder. “I see. So we’re to sail the Caribbean on this yacht Hagen provided until we make contact with the agent?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?” His gaze held her eyes, seeing the flicker of hesitation in their green depths. “Hagen said it was because I was the man for the job. As far as I can see, any one of his male agents would have sufficed to provide … cover for you.”
Sarah’s mind recalled an answer to a question she had asked her superior, the same question Rafferty Lewis had just posed.
“Rafferty Lewis was an assistant district attorney at a ridiculously young age,” her boss had told her. “Unfortunately, he had a problem playing political games. Joshua Long hired him, ostensibly to handle his legal affairs. He and his partner do that, of course, but Lewis is also a dollar-a-year man for the government. He’s done some work for the Justice Department, and has been in on a couple of crime commissions and task forces. He’s a pilot, and he holds a sharpshooter rating with all handguns. He’s also extraordinarily cool under pressure and has an ability to fit himself into any situation he encounters. Gets about
as nervous as a bag of cement.”
Sarah shook her head slightly, as her thoughts returned to the present. “I can’t answer you very well, I’m afraid. Hagen simply told me that you were the best he knew for this assignment.”
Rafferty, with recent events very much in mind, shook his head slightly. “That man was born with a motive behind him,” he said dryly. “From what I’ve seen, he has a reason for every action he takes, and every choice he makes. How long have you worked for him?”
“Oh, several years,” she said, vague. “But his—our—organization is a large one; I only met him when he briefed me on this assignment.”
Rafferty watched her cross slim, tanned legs, reminding himself that he was feeling suspicious and nothing more. Certainly nothing more. But his wayward mind persisted in thinking that she had the most fantastic legs, and what did it matter that she was either lying or concealing something from him?
“Then you”—he cleared his throat of a tendency toward hoarseness—“have never worked with him personally?”
“No.”
Remembering Raven, he asked, “What’s your specialty?”
“I told you. I’m a cryptographer.”
“Puzzles, coded messages and information—like that?”
“Like that.”
All Rafferty’s instincts, legal and otherwise, warned him that he’d better get all the information he could before this thing began. Past experience told him there might well be little time for it later. At the moment, however, he couldn’t think of many questions to ask. Except the ones he couldn’t ask, the ones he wanted very badly to ask, the ones having nothing to do with the assignment.
