by Penny McCall
“Why would you try to convince me you’re innocent if you don’t want to clear your name? You go on the run, the FBI will be the reason for every move and every decision you make. You’ll still be their prisoner just like you were in Lewisburg. You won’t settle for that.”
“Spend almost a decade in jail and you’ll figure out what’s really important,” he said, trying to look all Zen and tranquil.
She’d struck a nerve, though. His jaw clenched, just once, but it was enough to tell her she’d gotten to him—and probably it would be best to back off before she pushed him too far.
They sat there for a minute, Harmony feeling like Cole and his big hands—which would fit so well around her neck—were way too close. She closed her eyes, took a couple deep breaths—
“Centering yourself?”
She frowned, cracking one eye open. Yep, he was sneering at her.
“You’re from California, right?”
Her other eye flew open, and she narrowed both of them. “What of it?”
His gaze went to her hair.
“Here we go,” she griped. “I have blond hair, which means I’m scatter-brained, and I’m from California, so I must be a kook.”
“You broke me out of a United States penitentiary,” Cole reminded her. “Kook doesn’t seem to cover it. And when the time comes for explanations, you resort to deep breathing and stress relief exercises. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. If there’s more danger, I don’t want to be hooked up with somebody who has to chant mantras to find some calm.”
“I put two fellow agents into a river a half hour ago. I don’t recall having to stop and ‘chant mantras’ along the way. And what I’m asking you to do isn’t dangerous.”
“There’s all kinds of danger. Flying bullets, pretty dangerous.”
“They were shooting at the tires, trying to get me to stop.”
“I have a feeling it would take more than a flat tire.” Harmony took that for a compliment, turning to face him. “If there was a way to do this through regular channels—”
“To do what,” he said, sounding exasperated—and antsy, like he was on the verge of taking off again. And she really didn’t want to shoot him. She’d have to start over then.
“An FBI agent has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom,” she said, jumping on the trust bandwagon and hoping he followed.
“You’re the FBI,” Cole pointed out. “You people are supposed to be the best at this kind of thing.”
“The Bureau won’t negotiate with kidnappers when the victim is one of our own. Sets a bad precedent.”
“Kidnap a fed and get away with murder?”
“Something like that.”
“And you think they should ignore their own rule in this case. Why?”
“The agent has some information we need. He was grabbed at the end of an assignment. He needs to be debriefed.” And she was babbling, which he saw right through.
“So this guy means something to you personally.”
Something? He was the closest thing to family she had left in the world, and the thought of him tied up and hurt, or worse—Nope, not going there, she thought before the tears burning in her throat leaked from her eyes instead. Richard was alive and she was his only hope. But she couldn’t let it show. “What does that matter to you?”
“I need to know what I’m getting into. You’re not exactly the typical FBI agent.”
“Don’t let my appearance fool you. I’m trained for this sort of thing.” But she was too emotionally driven to be a field agent. At least that was the reason they’d given her the last time they’d passed her over. It didn’t stop her from staying on at the Bureau, and it wouldn’t keep her from trying to convince them they were wrong about her. If she still had a job when all this was over.
She took a deep breath and made the real commitment. The fact that she was steering the conversation away from uncomfortable territory only made it easier. “The ransom isn’t money, not cash in a duffel bag, anyway. The kidnappers want the FBI to clean out the accounts that are frozen due to active criminal investigations.”
Cole whistled softly through his teeth. “And since the FBI won’t do it willingly, you want me to hack into their files and raid those accounts. Problem is, everything done on a computer is traceable, if you find someone who knows how to follow the trail. I’ll be on the hook for the money.”
“I’ll make sure the hook passes you by. You have my word.”
“Been there, done that, got screwed over for it.” He reached for the door latch, but he didn’t open it. “Although I have to say it’s pretty ingenious. And nearly irresistible. You were right about that much.”
She tore her eyes away from his grin—the white teeth, the wicked glint in his eyes—and gave her nerve endings a stern talking to. Not getting personally involved with the convicted felon, she told them. He’s here to do a job, not me.
No reason he can’t do both, her nerve endings retorted. Actually they gave a traitorous little throb, but it was the same thing. She was looking for a rebuttal when Cole gave her the perfect one.
What he actually said was “They want the funds transferred to a numbered, offshore account?” which reminded her what was at stake, and as long as she remembered that—and kept her eyes and her imagination to herself—she’d be fine.
“That’s what they said.”
He mulled that for a minute. “So give me the details.”
Harmony rolled her shoulders. “I don’t know all the details—”
He reached for the door handle again.
“I could have lied to you,” she said. “I could have spun what I know into a coherent story.”
“And sooner or later it would have fallen apart.”
“By then you would have been committed. I told you the truth, not to mention busting you out of jail.”
He snorted, more a soft rush of air that sounded almost companionable in the gathering darkness. There was definitely an edge of humor to it. “Still not sure you did me a favor there.”
“If you decide not to help me, I’ll take you back to Lewisburg, and I’ll contact my handler. He’s a good guy. He’ll get you back in your nice, safe jail cell without any repercussion to you.”
Cole’s eyes cut to hers, then shifted, just slightly, toward the sun setting through the trees. “You think I’m worried about my safety? You think I want to spend the next seventeen years in there?”
The way he was looking at the forest, the sky . . . it was how she’d expect a blind person to react the moment their eyesight was restored. For the first time she began to understand what he’d been through and the risk she was asking him to take. If they failed and he was caught, his sentence would be doubled at the very least.
She wouldn’t fare well, either, and losing her job was the least of what she’d face, although at the moment that was the worst thing she could imagine. Except Richard’s death. But if you wanted a big payoff, you had to take a big risk, and saving the life of a man who’d been like a father to her—what bigger payoff could there be?
Richard Swendahl had stepped into her life at a time when she’d lost everything. When she was eight years old, her parents had both been murdered, victims of a botched kidnapping. They’d been wealthy, so she’d escaped the foster system, but the absence of any living relatives left her to the dubious care of a nanny and a guardian.
Richard had worked the case for the FBI, but unlike the other agents, he was haunted by their failure. He’d stayed in her life, the one adult who was there by choice, and eventually their relationship grew into affection. Years later, when she’d stated her intention to work for the FBI, he’d been the only person who didn’t tell her she couldn’t let the past dictate her career choices, or try to convince her she wasn’t suited for it. Instead he’d calmly directed her educational path, and when the time came, he’d provided a recommendation—the recommendation, she believed—that had secured her a position with the Bureau. Richard had
been the one pillar for most of her existence, and now his life was in her hands. She couldn’t afford to worry about what would happen to her. Or Cole Hackett.
She took a deep breath and a huge chance. “We can’t sit here all day, Hackett. Either you’re with me, or you’re not.”
Cole went silent and still, absorbing the ultimatum and weighing his options, all of which involved the FBI. Agent Swift might look harmless but she was just like all the rest of them. She asked him for a simple favor, nothing really, making big promises to bring him on board. It all sounded perfectly safe and reasonable, but he could be heading for a sharp left turn around a blind curve up ahead. Before he knew it he’d be driving off a cliff, and the FBI wouldn’t just leave him to hope like hell he could learn to fly; they’d be waiting at the bottom just in case gravity didn’t finish him off.
So why was he actually considering her deal?
Because she wasn’t just offering him a chance to get out of jail, she was holding out the possibility of clearing his name. She had to know it was irresistible, but she had no idea who she was dealing with. No way would he put his trust in an FBI agent. And yet . . . If she was telling the truth, if there was the smallest possibility he could get a new trial, he had to take the shot. A new trial meant the chance of getting his reputation restored, which would allow him to put his life back on track—with a hell of a detour, sure, but exoneration was the closest he could get to wiping out the past eight years.
Besides, it wasn’t like taking the deal meant he had to play the game by her rules. Any new information she had would also be in the FBI’s files. She was asking him to hack into those files. If there was something new on his case in there, he’d find it himself, and then he’d ditch her and hire a shark of a lawyer to not only get his conviction overturned but take the government for everything he could get. If she was lying, he’d ditch her and look for his own evidence, and hell, the government could fund that, too, with the money she wanted him to clean out of those frozen accounts.
No matter what, he wasn’t going back to jail, and he wouldn’t be with her any longer than she was useful in dealing with their government pursuers.
“You have new evidence,” he said.
“Yes.”
“That might actually mean something if you were still in good standing with those jackasses in Washington.”
“You do what I ask and you’re a free man. Whether or not we get this agent back alive, I’ll make sure of it.”
He let that sink in for a minute, then said, “You have a first name, Agent Swift?”
“Harmony.”
“Shit,” he said. “Even your name is optimistic.”
He reached over and turned the key, rolling the front window down and taking a deep breath of the crisp fall air. “It’s getting stuffy in here, Harm. Go back to the beginning. How did you find out about the kidnapping, how much do you know, and what exactly do you want from me?”
“Is that a yes?” she asked him.
“It’s not a no. Yet.”
“I’ve given you all the assurances I can. What’ll it take for you to say yes?”
“I don’t know,” he lied, because he’d pretty much decided he had nothing to lose by helping her, “but buying me dinner would be a good start.”
chapter 3
“YOU HAVE A DESTINATION IN MIND?” COLE ASKED Harmony a half hour and three left turns later. “Over the rainbow maybe?”
“I’m from California,” Harmony said, “not Kansas.”
“It’s not about geography; it’s about make-believe. Optimistic bullshit. If you don’t like the real facts of a story, pretty them up.”
“They make horror movies in Hollywood, too.”
“Yeah, I’m in one,” Cole said, his face all hard planes and sharp angles in the faint glow of the dashboard lights. “It’s just a matter of time before I open the wrong door and find your coworkers behind it ready to haul me back to hell. All that’s missing is the ominous soundtrack.”
“It’s not going to end that way.”
“This is reality. You don’t get to write your own ending.”
“Why not?” Harmony demanded, exhausted suddenly, and completely disgusted with his continual negativity. “If you want something bad enough—”
“Someone will come along and take it away just as you’re about to get it.”
She looked over at him.
He stared back, one eyebrow raised.
“I’m starting to regret not shooting you.”
“You still have time,” he said dryly.
“True. And hey, at least you got out of jail before you died.”
He chuckled, a soft rumble of sound that seemed to fill the inside of the Explorer with companionship and comfort. “And at least I didn’t spend my last hours with someone boring.”
“Wow, was that a compliment?”
“Just drive, Calamity Jane. Preferably away from the other agents as fast as you can.”
“Whatever you say, Captain Smith.”
“The Titanic?” he said. “Seems about right. Not even Hollywood could make that story have a happy ending.”
“Didn’t you see the movie? Jack and Rose ended up together.”
“But they were dead.”
Harmony smiled, feeling more optimistic than ever, despite Cole’s lack of confidence. He didn’t believe she could do it. What mattered was that she believed. She’d rescue Richard from his kidnappers, and if she had any skill at all, she’d not only make sure the kidnappers didn’t get a dime for their trouble, she’d put them in Cole’s jail cell before it was all over.
They came to another intersection, a couple of two-lane roads with nothing but nature as far as the eye could see. “Eeny-meeny-miny-mo,” she said, and because her lack of a plan seemed to annoy Cole she took a right at random.
“This road’ll take us back to that little town,” he said, “I don’t remember the name, but we went around it about an hour ago.”
“And now we’re going back.”
“Nope.”
“Not even for food?”
“Food?” Cole repeated, slightly embarrassed but hardly surprised that the word came out on a breath of air and laced with longing. His stomach had been growling for hours, but he’d learned to ignore it in Lewisburg since the remedy for his growling stomach was prison food, which, as far as Cole was concerned, qualified as cruel and unusual punishment. The possibility of eating real food in a real restaurant made him dizzy—but not so dizzy that he couldn’t see the looming spectre of a return to Lewisburg. “Do you think eating dinner in a restaurant is a good idea?”
“Not even the FBI would expect us to show our faces in Podunkville, Pennsylvania.”
“I’ll bet they have televisions with cable in Podunkville, not to mention network programming.”
“Relax, we aren’t on the evening news yet. It’s too soon for the FBI to go public. The embarrassment-to-recapture quotient is still too high. It’s only been a few hours, and you’re not a dangerous criminal, so they can justify saving face by keeping this secret until they find you. Which they’re certain they will.”
“I’m not so sure that’s misplaced confidence.”
“A while ago you asked me some questions,” Harmony said, sidetracking him from the whole fear-of-discovery thing that would keep him from the food. The only thing he wanted more than food was information.
“How much do I know about the kidnapping, and what, exactly do I need you to do,” she continued. “You want answers, or should we keep discussing our travel plans?”
Cole figured the two were linked, but he was willing to take it at her pace. “I’m listening.”
“My handler, Mike Kovaleski, told me about the kidnapping.”
“And it pissed you off,” Cole said. She looked pissed off now just thinking about it, which was like seeing a rabid bunny. It was all cute and soft until you noticed the demented look in its eyes, but by then it was too late because it had sunk its tee
th into you. The idea of Harmony sinking her teeth into him wasn’t exactly unwelcome . . . Oh, hell, she could bite him anywhere, anytime, she wanted. In fact, he had some suggestions, and now would be a really good time.
But then he wouldn’t get the explanation, so he made a valiant effort to tame his raging lust. She’d still have teeth, and he’d still have all those places later, he reminded himself before he had to resort to chanting mantras. And hopefully they’d both be alive.
“So you decided to take matters into your own hands,” he prompted.
“We’ve been over this already,” Harmony said, still channeling Jessica Rabbit with blond hair. And PMS.
“Right, he’s a friend, a fellow agent. What I’m wondering now is what’s the hidden agenda.”
She glanced over at him. “Like what?”
“Like you were tired of riding a desk.”
She hesitated long enough to tell him he was on the right track, before she confirmed it. “There was some of that, but it wasn’t my main incentive. It isn’t right to leave a federal agent, who’s served his country for thirty years, out in the cold.”
At least there wasn’t anything personal between them, Cole thought, unless she was into much older men. Not that he cared about her romantic entanglements, he assured himself. He just wanted to understand her motivations. “That kind of black-and-white attitude will get you into trouble.”
“You mean like jeopardizing my career and putting my life on the line?”
“Not to mention mine.”
“Regretting your choice?” she said, keeping her voice light, amused, and not fooling Cole in the least.
“I haven’t made a choice yet,” he reminded her. “I won’t until you give me all the facts.”
“Oh. Right.” She did her California act, taking a couple of deep breaths, and when she answered, she sounded more relaxed. A little. “I lifted the file when Mike wasn’t looking and read it.”
“So we’re relying on your memory?
“I had to get it back before he noticed it was missing.”
“Why not copy it?”
“You can’t just leave the FBI building with a stack of classified documents, even copies. I took down the contact information.”
