by Jami Alden
Joe Taggart went very still, his finger frozen to a point on the map. Very slowly he straightened up and pinned his eldest son with a steely glare. For a moment, Ethan caught a glimpse of the man his father had once been. A man who commanded the room with his very presence, a man whose word was law. A man who brooked no disrespect from anyone, especially not his own sons. “Do I have to remind you that we’re talking about your mother and my wife? If I have to spend the rest of my life and every last penny of my fortune to find her—dead or alive—you bet your goddamn ass I will.”
Joe folded up the map and strode from the room, shoulders straight like the soldier he once was. Danny swore under his breath and turned back to the pot of sauce he was stirring for the spaghetti. Christ, Ethan thought, wondering how he’d ended up here. He should be out on a date, not having a spaghetti dinner with a heaping side of family drama.
But when he thought about having dinner with a beautiful woman, the only face that came to mind had catlike hazel eyes, heavy-framed glasses, and full red lips pursed as she focused on the screen of her computer monitor. Not his usual evening companion by a long shot.
“Why do you two humor him?” Danny said from the kitchen. “We should declare her dead and put Dad out of his fuckin’ misery already.” A spoon clattered into the stainless steel sink as Danny hurled it down. His big muscle-bound body looked out of place in the kitchen, but Ethan knew from experience that Danny’s hard-bitten exterior hid a master chef in the making. He cooked the way he did everything—aggressively, no holds barred, throwing every bit of his considerable passion into the process.
It didn’t make for a particularly neat process, and anger didn’t help, Ethan reflected as he watched Danny pick up a spice jar and wrench the top off with unnecessary force. He poured some of the contents into the palm of his hand, then flung it in the direction of the pan. Most of it went in. “I’m so fucking sick of these lowlifes taking his money, and watching him waste his life chasing after a woman who didn’t give a shit about us.”
“What else are we supposed to do? It’s not like we can change his mind,” Ethan said. As usual, Derek remained silent, letting Ethan and Danny battle it out. “Besides, if he’d just let her get a divorce like she wanted, she wouldn’t have had to leave.” It sounded lame even as the words left his mouth, but it’s what he’d been telling himself for the past eighteen years. That his father had forced his mother’s hand. If Joe hadn’t ignored their marriage for so long, she wouldn’t have become so depressed. And if he’d let her out when she’d wanted, she wouldn’t have felt so trapped.
Danny threw down the wooden spoon, sending a spray of sauce arcing like blood across the backsplash. He threw his hands up. “Oh, here we go again, defending poor Mom, whose life was so fucking hard she had to run away from it.”
Ethan didn’t say anything. Rationally, he knew Danny was right. Their mother—a woman who had abandoned her husband and children without a single look back—didn’t deserve his defense. But inside of him still lurked that little boy who had spent years doing everything he could to put a smile on her face. Who thought that if he had tried hard enough, the happy, fun-loving woman he remembered would reappear.
He didn’t dare admit any of this to his brothers. Danny, in particular, would bitch-slap him into next week and tell him to stop being a whiny mama’s boy.
Even so, Ethan never accepted Danny’s black-and-white version of how things went down—that their mother was weak and shallow and couldn’t handle real life, so she’d cut her losses and found herself a new life.
“None of this helps the situation we’re dealing with right now,” Derek said, always the voice of calm rationality. “Who’s going with Dad to Indonesia?”
“I don’t see why we have to hold his hand,” Danny said, stirring spaghetti into the pot with such vigor that boiling water splashed across his wrist. “Fuck,” he roared and thrust his hand under cold water. Clenching his teeth against the pain he said, “He wants to go on another wild goose chase, let him go on his own.”
Derek and Ethan exchanged a look. It’s all bluster. They all knew none of them, including Danny, would send their father alone into a situation like this. It wasn’t that their father was particularly stupid or naïve, just that he had a huge blind spot when it came to tracking down a lead on his wife. It had led him to deal with shady, unscrupulous characters from every dark corner of the globe. Men who would rob him blind and cut his throat if someone wasn’t there to watch his back.
“Not me,” Ethan said, not bothering to hide his relief. “I’m on duty till we find out where Kara Kramer has gotten herself.”
Derek shook his head. “I have three consultations this week, plus a seminar on corporate espionage. Danny, since you just wrapped up that corporate job in South City, I’m afraid it’s got to be you.”
“Son of a bitch! I need another trip to Southeast Asia like I need a hole in my fuckin’ head,” Danny said. “Ethan, why don’t you let me take over the Kramer case,” he said, his tone suddenly wheedling. “You speak better Bahasa than I do, anyway, and since you and Dad actually get along—”
“No way in hell,” Ethan held up his hands. He wouldn’t be charmed or bullied into covering for his brother. “I’m the one who had to go to Russia with him, last year, remember?” The memory was enough to make Ethan shudder. And not just from the remembered cold, though it had been a bone-chilling twenty below in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. No, it was the memory of how his father had nearly gotten a bullet in his head when his search for a woman matching Anne’s description landed him face-to-face with a couple of Mafiya thugs in the middle of an arms deal. Fortunately, Ethan had been a lot more sober and a lot faster with his fists than the thugs and had been able to get them both out of there.
“Maybe you can talk him out of it,” Derek offered.
Though they knew it was hopeless, the brothers spent most of their meal attempting to do exactly that. “Dad, why don’t you let me dig a little deeper on these guys,” Danny said. “Get someone to corroborate their story before we spend the time and money to fly all the way over there.”
“We?” Joe said, affronted. “I don’t know where you boys got the idea that I need a keeper.”
The brothers’ eyes met across the table. Ethan’s near-debacle in Siberia had hardly been the first time their dad ended up in danger. Though none voiced it, they all were remembering the numerous occasions when they’d pulled Joe out of potentially deadly situations.
“Going alone is out of the question,” Danny said. “And I don’t understand the urgency.”
“I don’t care if you understand or not, Daniel,” Joe replied, his voice gone scary-quiet, with an undercurrent of steel. It was a tone Ethan remembered all too well from childhood, the tone Joe used to remind his sons that the Taggart household was by no means a democracy. Joe Taggart was in charge, and his word was law. “I’m leaving tomorrow for Denpasar and that’s final.”
For several tense seconds, Danny’s steel-gray stare met Joe’s identical one. But even at age thirty-four, and standing six foot five and weighing over two hundred pounds, former Special Ops badass Danny couldn’t stare down Joe Taggart. Danny dropped his gaze to his plate, muttering under his breath as he mopped up a blob of red sauce with a hunk of bread.
Ethan stirred his spaghetti around his plate, his appetite killed by the knot in his stomach. He wished he could be anywhere but here, partaking of this sad parody of family bonding.
He knew how perfect they looked on the outside. His father, still handsome and fit at the age of sixty-three, a silver-haired, more craggy-featured version of his oldest son, Daniel. He and his brothers, strong and square-jawed with their all-American good looks. Nobody looking at them would know they were broken inside, their lives forever altered by the selfish actions of one sad, weak woman.
Ethan took a slug of beer, wondering where the hell that burst of self-pity had come from. Broken? They weren’t broken. Hell, he and his brother
s were all good-looking, had successful military careers behind them, and had built a rapidly growing business. Okay, so their mom had left them high and dry and sent their dad off the deep end, but they’d all done absolutely fine in spite of it. They’d survived as a family, remained close.
Closer, in fact, than most siblings he knew. Rather than let tragedy rip them apart, their bond had grown more fierce after their mother had disappeared. With their mother gone and their father lost to his obsession, they’d realized they needed to take care of themselves and each other, because no one else would. When they’d all found their military careers ending at roughly the same time, Danny had suggested starting their own security firm, leveraging their combined experience in military intelligence. None of them had hesitated to go into business together. There was no one Ethan trusted more than his brothers to have his back, and he knew Derek and Ethan felt the same way.
But tonight all the family togetherness threatened to smother him. Nights like tonight, his father’s relentless, delusional search for their mother made him want to make a run for it.
Plus, Toni had zeroed in on their one and only lead on Kara, and he was anxious to get back to her.
For professional reasons only, of course.
As though reading his mind—which he probably was—Derek asked, “So do you have any leads on the Kramer girl?”
Everyone breathed a silent sigh, relieved at the change of subject.
“We found another online profile for Kara. Not exactly the good girl she’s been showing the rest of the world.” He quickly filled them in on the photos Toni had uncovered. “But the good news is she updated her other Web page again.”
“You’d think she’d call her folks.”
Ethan pulled a face. “Yeah, but she might love that she’s making her parents squirm.” He felt a twinge of guilt even as the words left his mouth, remembering the way worry had etched deep lines into Toni’s face.
“You think the nude pictures have anything to do with it?” Danny said.
“Hard to tell. But they sure as hell complicate things,” Ethan said, taking a pull on his beer. “Toni’s convinced she’s in danger.”
“But you aren’t.” Danny said.
Ethan shrugged. “She’s been gone for nearly two days. I have to take that seriously.”
“So what’s she like, the other investigator?” Derek asked. “She looked sort of cute from her driver’s license photo.”
“If you like the nerdy, I-just-got-home-from-band-camp look.” Danny snorted.
Derek shrugged. “Not everyone goes for Pam Anderson clones.”
Ethan paused, beer halfway to his lips, considering his words carefully. He didn’t know exactly how to explain Toni. “She’s cute enough, I suppose,” which was an understatement. She was beautiful behind those big nerdy frames, and with a little makeup and something sexier than jeans and a T-shirt, she’d give the silicone set a run for their money. “And really fucking smart. And a complete pain in the ass.” But even as he said it, a reluctant smile crept a across his lips.
Derek shot Danny a look. “Wednesday.”
Danny shook his head. “Tuesday, max.”
“What?” Ethan asked.
“You’ll do her by Tuesday,” Danny said.
Ethan shook his head. “I don’t think so. She’s not my type.”
“Oh, please, like that’s ever stopped you. Besides, when you talk about her, you get that look.” Derek said.
“What look?” Ethan said. “I don’t have a look.”
“Yes, you do,” Danny said around a mouthful of pasta. “It’s that look you get when you get a whiff of fresh pussy, and you won’t stop until you’re nose-deep.”
“Jesus, not in front of Dad,” Ethan said, the back of his neck on fire. Ridiculous that at this stage in his life he could still be so easily embarrassed. But if anyone had the power to reduce his thirty-two-year-old adult self to an awkward teenager, it was his brothers. Fortunately, Dad seemed to be paying no attention, his mind on his upcoming trip.
“I still say Wednesday,” Derek said. “If she’s as smart as we think, it’ll take awhile for her to fall for Ethan’s usual game. He’ll have to be more creative.”
“No way.” Danny shook his head. “The nerdy ones are the fastest to fall. They’re not used to the same attention the bar bunnies get, so she’ll be all flattered to have a guy like Ethan sniffing around.”
Ethan shook his head. Little did they know that despite the attraction Ethan sensed, Toni was throwing up barriers left and right. Ethan suspected Derek was right, that Toni wasn’t about to fall for Ethan’s regular tricks. It would take Ethan more than a few days to get her where he wanted her.
But he didn’t want to talk about Toni, not even with his brothers.
It was stupid, really. Usually he had no problem indulging in a little locker-room talk with them. It wasn’t like he gave detailed play-by-plays about his dates, but they were guys, and guys talked.
But he didn’t want them talking that way about Toni, even in jest.
Nevertheless, their comments summoned up a whole host of raunchy images of her. Naked on top of him. Naked underneath him. Naked on her knees in front of him, staring seductively up through those sexy-librarian glasses at him as she took his cock between those luscious lips. He shifted in his chair, mentally cursing Derek and Danny for getting him all riled up.
His cell phone rang, and as though he’d summoned her, Toni’s number flashed on the display.
“I found out who T-Bone is,” she said without preamble. “His name is Toby Frankel, and from what I’ve been able to dig up, I’m afraid he has Kara into some bad shit.”
“I’ll be right over.” He hung up and met his brothers’ curious stares. “Speaking of Toni, I need to get back to her place. Make sure you wear your watch when you leave tomorrow, and make sure Dad has his.”
Danny gave him a “duh” look and flashed his wrist where his watch was securely fastened. All three of the brothers and their father had tiny tracking devices in their watches so they could keep track of each other’s locations at all times. After what happened with their mother, they were a little anal about keeping tabs. But Danny had an annoying habit of taking off into the mountains for “private time” and leaving his watch at home.
“You don’t forget your rubbers,” Danny shot back.
“She’s a colleague. Nothing else.”
Danny’s eyebrows wiggled lasciviously, and he pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his cargo shorts. “Fuck Tuesday, my money’s on tonight.”
Derek was still mulling over his bet when Ethan flashed them the finger and walked out the front door.
CHAPTER 6
T ONI OPENED THE door before he had time to knock. She felt Ethan give her a quick once-over and was glad she’d taken the time to change her clothes. Even so, his intense blue gaze scorched through the thin material of her T-shirt. His lips pulled up at the corner as he took in the cartoon girl and the caption “Little Miss Sunshine.”
“Cute,” he said. She prayed he couldn’t see the way her nipples jumped to attention under his stare.
There was something seriously wrong with her that she could have such a strong physical reaction under these circumstances.
“So tell me about T-Bone,” he said, brushing against her as he walked into her entryway. He’d changed clothes, too, trading in his businesslike sportcoat and dress shirt for a black T-shirt and cargo pants. The shirt wasn’t one of those metro-fabulous clingy things, but the sturdy cotton outlined the taut muscles of his back and shoulders, and the dark olive cargo pants did mouthwatering things for his butt.
Ogling Ethan’s clothed butt reminded her of the bare ones she’d been looking at, bringing her focus back to the task at hand. “T-Bone is the alter ego of Toby Frankel,” she said, following him as he walked into the living room. “He’ll be a senior at Stanford this fall. He’s twenty-two years old, a member of the Sigma Delta fraternity.”
She followed Ethan over to her desk, where he was looking at the Web site Toni had left up on the screen. “He’s also runs his own porn site.”
“Please tell me that’s not Kara,” he said, looking at a picture of a girl on her knees in front of a guy, about to perform oral sex. Both faces were blurred out.
“Fortunately, no,” Toni said, embarrassed heat raising beads of sweat on her neck. She’d seen a lot worse than this on the Net, but sitting here in her apartment with Ethan, looking at porn, sent her usual businesslike cool straight out the window. She strained for equilibrium, reminding herself this was just a case, and Ethan was just a colleague. “There are a few pictures of Kara on the site. You can find them under the ‘horny virgin’ heading.” God, just saying it turned her stomach. She’d known Kara was having a rough time keeping her shit together, but Toni had never thought she’d do something like this. And after reading Kara’s comments, Toni had serious doubts about whether she still qualified for the virgin classification.
The small silver lining was that if Kara was having sex of any kind, there wasn’t any photographic evidence on the Net, at least not that Toni could find.
And she’d looked a lot in the few hours Ethan was gone, downloading and analyzing all of the JPEG files on Toby’s site until she was satisfied that none of the explicitly sexual photos were of Kara. “Her pictures definitely weren’t the worst of it. Some topless shots, a few with another girl doing some light lesbian action, but her face was blurred out in all of them.”
“But easy enough for you to decrypt.” Ethan said.
Toni nodded. “Yeah, me and anyone else with a little extra time and some shareware.”
“Looks like he runs it out of his dorm room,” Ethan said.
“Yeah, it’s strictly low-budget amateur hour,” Toni said, feeling her lip curl as she tried to shove the images out of her mind. “I mean, it all looks consensual, but…yuck. I’m sure you want to take a look yourself.”
