Agent-in-Charge
Leigh Riker
SECRET AGENT MAN…AND WIFE?He'd led everyone to believe he was a mild-mannered civil servant who'd shamelessly neglected his ex-wife. In actuality, Graham Warren was part of an elite team of undercover agents who fought to prevent a catastrophic attack on the United States. Then, in the blink of an eye, the mission turned personal when Graham's beloved former bride was caught in the cross fire. Blinded in an apparent hit-and-run and fleeing from a predator, Casey Warren put her fragile life in Graham's hands. He'd battle till the end to protect Casey from a trigger-happy traitor who leaked government secrets to a terrorist network. But can this stealthy secret agent regain his footing after he plummets head-over-heels in love?
Casey fell into his arms when the elevator doors opened.
“Oh, God, thank you. I was so scared!”
Graham held her tight. He rested his cheek against the silk of her hair. He breathed in, deeply, of her scent: soft, feminine, clean. No artificial perfume. He smelled a trace of shampoo that hinted of coconut, but mostly he inhaled the aroma of Casey herself—female pheromones and fragrant skin and just…Casey.
For a long moment, he couldn’t speak.
The hit-and-run. The revolving door. The subway threat. Now someone had rigged the elevator doors to jam. If he’d ever had doubts about her first “accident,” they were history.
Someone wanted Casey dead.
Now it was his job to find out why.
Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And we have six breathtaking books this month that will make the season even brighter….
THE LANDRY BROTHERS are back! We can’t think of a better way to kick off our December lineup than with this long-anticipated new installment in Kelsey Roberts’s popular series about seven rascally brothers, born and bred in Montana. In Bedside Manner, chaos rips through the town of Jasper when Dr. Chance Landry finds himself framed for murder…and targeted for love! Check back this April for the next title, Chasing Secrets. Also this month, watch for Protector S.O.S. by Susan Kearney. This HEROES INC. story spotlights an elite operative and his ex-lover who maneuver stormy waters—and a smoldering attraction—as they race to neutralize a dangerous hostage situation.
The adrenaline keeps on pumping with Agent-in-Charge by Leigh Riker, a fast-paced mystery. You’ll be bewitched by this month’s ECLIPSE selection— Eden’s Shadow by veteran author Jenna Ryan. This tantalizing gothic unravels a shadowy mystery and casts a magical spell over an enamored duo. And the excitement doesn’t stop there! Jessica Andersen returns to the lineup with her riveting new medical thriller, Body Search, about two hot-blooded doctors who are stranded together in a windswept coastal town and work around the clock to combat a deadly outbreak.
Finally this month, watch for Secret Defender by Debbi Rawlins—a provocative woman-in-jeopardy tale featuring an iron-willed hero who will stop at nothing to protect a headstrong heiress…even kidnap her for her own good.
Best wishes for a joyous holiday season from all of us at Harlequin Intrigue.
Sincerely,
Denise O’Sullivan
Senior Editor, Harlequin Intrigue
Agent-in-Charge
Leigh Riker
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Like many readers and writers, Leigh Riker grew up with her nose in a book—still the best activity, in her opinion, on a hot summer afternoon or a cold winter night. To this day, she can’t imagine a better combination than suspense and romance.
The award-winning author of ten previous novels, she confesses she doesn’t like the sight of blood yet is a real fan of TV’s many forensics shows—a vicarious “walk on the wild side,” not to mention great research for her own novels. And when romance heats up the mix? It doesn’t get any better than that.
Born in Ohio, this former creative writing instructor has lived in various parts of the U.S. She is now, with her husband, at home on a mountain in Tennessee with an inspiring view from her office of three states. She loves to hear from readers! Write to Leigh at P.O. Box 250, Soddy Daisy, TN 37384 or visit her Web site: www.leighriker.com.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Casey Warren—The former art gallery owner’s hit-and-run wasn’t an accident. Someone wants her dead. Can her ex-husband keep her alive—but will he also steal her heart again?
Graham Warren—Does this mild-mannered civil servant have another, more dangerous, side? Graham isn’t talking about his own agenda—or his tangled feelings for the woman he’s sworn to protect.
Jackie Miles—Is Graham’s sometimes incompetent co-worker part of the solution—or the problem itself?
Sweet William—An aging golden retriever, he is Casey’s loyal guide dog. Who just may need her more than she needs him.
Anton Valera—Casey’s elderly, and sometimes forgetful, neighbor could be the link to a vicious killer.
Ernest DeLucci—Graham’s boss at Hearthline Security, the new government agency. Is he selling secrets to the enemy?
Eddie Lawton—A scrawny techno-wizard with a stubborn cowlick and a nose for other people’s business.
Rafe Valera—Anton’s son. Friend or foe?
Marilee Baxter—The girlfriend of the hit-and-run driver is filled with remorse. If she’s not careful, she could also be dead.
David Wells—This ex-counterterrorism task force member lives beyond his means.
Holt Kincade—The D.C. cop may be moonlighting elsewhere—as a traitor.
Tom Dallas—Graham’s former partner. What’s a nice guy like him doing in a job like this?
With love
for Don,
Hal,
Kimberly and Tim,
Scott and Linda…
My family, old and new,
who make the world so bright.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Prologue
Casey Warren didn’t hear the car at first.
From somewhere above her in the otherwise silent parking garage, its whisper-soft engine made barely a sound. She paid little attention.
At well after five o’clock on a typically hot and muggy summer day in D.C., it was just a car winding its way down the ramp toward the Washington street, its driver eager, as she was, to get home.
Her arms aching from the burden she carried, Casey hurried toward her compact sedan. The sound of her heels echoing on the concrete floor in the almost-deserted garage caused her heart to pound for no reason. Clearly, she’d watched too many movies. Psycho had given her an innate fear of the shower curtain being ripped back, a knife flashing in an assailant’s hand, and now, the vague sense of uneasiness when walking through a barren garage to her car. Like the film, her fear was unfounded. Silly, to imagine herself as someone being hunted, the innocent prey of a crazed killer.
A half-remembered face flashed through her mind. In the elevator earlier, she’d seen a man who had looked familiar, yet she couldn’t place him. Casey had felt uneasy ever since.
Nothing new. Her usual distrust of other people could be bad news or good, depending on the circumstance. From the age of five she’d learned to be self-sufficient to the core. That was the good.
The bad? With her divorce just final, at thirty she was on her own again. Alone.
In the silent garage, that very isolation seemed even worse to her than her recent break from Graham. She didn’t need to be surrounded by people, Casey told herself. People she could never quite trust.
For instance, Graham. And—the thought surprised her—the stranger in the elevator who, having caught a passing glimpse of Casey had found her familiar, too. Forget it. Forget them both.
Casey frowned and shifted the box in her arms. Bringing the small carton of Graham’s belongings to his office had been something she’d been dreading. He always worked late, and she’d braced herself for a face-to-face encounter. But luck was on her side. She hadn’t gained admittance at Hearthline Security once she got there, and she’d seized that excuse to run from the newest government agency.
She didn’t really want to see him.
Couldn’t risk her heart this soon.
So why had she come in the first place?
Obviously, it was like worrying a sore tooth. Instead, she should have mailed his stuff. Certainly Graham, ever the unflappable civil servant workhorse, would have done that in her place. Just as he’d coolly written The End to their marriage. What had happened to them?
Yet despite her own misgivings, she had come, and the nonevent seemed so…final. Too bad she still had the box and all her memories of Graham, with his thick, dark hair, his devil’s dark eyes and that quick slash of a grin that always surprised her. Like the way his slightest touch could heat her blood. As if it ever would again.
On level three of the garage Casey turned the corner and spied her car at the end of the row, in the farthest spot from the elevator.
All she heard now was the approaching growl of a big, well-tuned engine.
In that instant the air seemed to fill with sound. The throaty purr of an expensive motor and the shush of tires on pavement reverberated through the quiet parking garage when a long sedan squealed down the ramp, around the curve from the upper level, and screamed onto the third floor.
Inches from Casey’s heels.
Too close. Too close.
In her peripheral vision, she barely saw it coming. Frozen in shock, Casey felt the big automobile graze her body. Disbelieving at first, she tried to twist aside, but there was no room, nowhere to go except the wall.
The car bumped hard against her side. She bounced off the rear door, spun into the right front fender, then the force of impact lifted her off her feet and she slammed against the hood. For a second her head hit metal. Hard.
Then Casey was thrown back onto the concrete floor.
The car sped away, tires shrieking.
Casey saw a quick blaze of stars.
I’m dead, was her last thought. I’m dead.
Then everything went dark.
Chapter One
Total darkness obliterated Graham Warren’s senses. Disoriented, he felt his heartbeat kick into overdrive. The acrid scent of burning ash invaded his nostrils, and in the smoky haze he struggled not to cough, even to breathe hard. Any sound might be his last.
Just like Casey—almost—a few weeks ago.
Pushing his way forward into the bombed-out building, he kept his grip tight around his Uzi. His 9-millimeter Glock, tucked into the back of his waistband, would be his backup. Lose that, and he lost himself. His life.
In the blackness he crept forward, keeping his partner behind him. An advance team had already scouted the old apartment building on the fringes of D.C.
Any nagging fears he felt for Casey would have to wait. He had a job to do.
Focus.
Complete the mission.
Deliver the remnants of the terrorist cell to the proper federal authorities—
“Psst.”
His new partner’s voice at his rear stopped Graham.
“What?” He whipped his head around to mouth the word. They weren’t supposed to communicate, except in hand gestures. Jackie Miles knew that.
“To the right.”
Wishing again that his former partner hadn’t been sent to Afghanistan on another assignment, Graham looked in the direction Jackie had indicated and saw a room that had been blasted by the fire into near oblivion. Still, the walls remained.
So did the enemy.
A sudden burst of ammunition nearly shattered Graham’s eardrums. They were receiving fire! A shot whistled past his temple, and in a fury Graham pulled his trigger.
Seconds later, the hail of bullets had ended. Their Uzis still ready, his heart still pounding, Graham and his partner edged toward the room where the terrorists had hidden.
Graham steadied his aim.
“Freeze. Put your guns down. Hands in the air. Don’t get heroic.”
The blasts had already rattled through every pore in his skin, every cell in his body, every nerve ending, every muscle and bone. Most of all, Graham hated the noise, the sharp spurts of automatic fire, the tracers arcing through the night.
Except it wasn’t night.
Except for the smoke, it wasn’t real.
Tell his heart that, he thought. Tell his lungs.
It would be hours before he unwound.
Graham barged through the barren room. Kicking weapons out of the way, he secured the area. It stunk of creosote and kerosene. Hours before, after some punk had lobbed a Molotov cocktail, the D.C. fire department had issued permission to use the building. The team never knew when an opportunity for such an urban exercise might occur.
Graham barked commands to the mock terrorists. Up against the wall. Feet spread. Between them, he and Jackie Miles cuffed the “traitors” with plastic restraints. Other team members moved in to help.
And Graham inhaled his first deep breath in thirty minutes. He was sweating.
His partner laid a hand on his back. “You all right?”
Graham flinched. “Fine. You?”
“Still here. Still breathing.”
With that, he dragged her aside. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
Looking away, Jackie holstered her sidearm. “We would have been here all day if I hadn’t seen where they were hiding. It’s only training.”
“Yeah? Tell my churning gut. It could have been the real thing. If it were, we’d both be dead.”
Under guard, the “captives” filed past.
Holding his temper in check, Graham finished his duties in record time. Just as he’d raced from Hearthline, leaving the agency’s intense security behind as soon as the alert came in. Not secure enough, he thought, but he’d deal with that later. And with Jackie. What was her problem?
His new partner had a thing or two to learn. Still, they had stayed in one piece—and captured the “bad guys.” When the time came for a real takedown, they’d be ready.
Graham shook his head. Casey considered him to be just a boring civil servant. If she only knew. Which was exactly the point. She couldn’t.
Now that he could breathe again, it wasn’t just Jackie who worried him. Or the exercise. For the two weeks since Casey’s horrible accident, he’d had a nagging feeling of dread. He had to get out of here. Graham couldn’t get it out of his head that she might still be in danger.
He needed to see for himself that she wasn’t.
“TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE.”
The yellow-gray, elusive blur danced just beyond Casey’s wide-open eyes. Innocent and harmless, the light fluttered around the doctor’s examination room like a ballerina doing a tours j’eté under water. Then it spun away as if on satin toe shoes, trailing gossamer ribbons of remembered sun. Like that imaginary dancer’s flowing skirt, the glow was fleeting, graceful…gone.
Casey stared hard at the blank space in front of her. “Nothing,” she said, her heart beating hard.
She clenched the edge of the table with—probably—white-knuckled hands. She saw nothing. Felt nothing, except the terror that seemed to follow her everywhere. Without her sight, she felt vulnerable…afraid. Even the antiseptic smells of the office made her nervous. Oh, how she had hoped for better news.
At an unexpected brush of air on her skin, Casey jerked back on the exam table. The doctor had passed a slow hand in front of her face, that was all. She had to get hold of herself.
“Shapes?” he said. “Do you see any shapes?”
She shook her head. “No. Just the flickering light sometimes.” Rarely.
In the hospital that first day, her whole body had hurt but Casey’s vision seemed fine. Then a few days later, it blurred, dimmed. From there, her eyesight had gone downhill. Was this all she could expect, forever?
Fresh anxiety ripped through her.
Her future promised—no, threatened—total darkness, her own terrors locked inside her like a scream. She didn’t know where the next thought came from. Certainly she didn’t want it. I’ll never see Graham’s face again.
She squeezed her eyes tight, turning the darkness into a blood-red sunset behind her lids, and conjured him mentally—dark hair and eyes, that handsome face and beloved smile, broad shoulders and tough, lean body so at odds with his sedentary job pushing papers at Hearthline.
Casey bit back tears. “I should get myself a guide dog, what do you think? A nice big German shepherd….” With teeth like razors.
She loved animals. She’d always wanted a dog, but not under these circumstances. How would she take care of it now? Take care of herself? She couldn’t do this, wouldn’t survive on her own this time.
The doctor patted her shoulder but said nothing more. Which, for Casey, said it all. Poor thing. She hated pity.
“Try to be patient,” he said. “You never know in cases like these. It can take time.”
Casey couldn’t cling to false hope. “I doubt time will help. You said I had some kind of delayed hemorrhage.”
“Yes, that happens sometimes after a frontal head trauma. Edema within the optic nerves leads to—”
“I know what it leads to.” Casey touched a hand to her forehead, where some of the worst bruises had been. They were healed, but her eyes were not. She made herself say the words through tears. “I’m blind.”
Bilateral blindness. Both eyes.
He didn’t try to contradict her. When the doctor slipped out of the room to make her next appointment, he left Casey defenseless in the blackness from which there would be no escape. She was alone inside herself. And still terrified, not only because of her blindness.
In Casey’s mind getting run down in that parking garage had been no accident. To her, that meant only one thing. Someone—the same someone who had blinded her—would try again to kill her. And now she couldn’t protect herself.
Ironic, really, when she had prided herself on not needing anyone, especially Graham.
But it wasn’t Graham she “saw” now. Another face, unsmiling, flashed through her mind. When she’d been in pain, she had suppressed the memory of the man she’d seen in the elevator at Graham’s office building. Pale hair, pale features, she remembered. Why think of him again now? Was he harmless, just an acquaintance she couldn’t quite place—or part of the threat she continued to feel?
The fear raced through her again like another speeding car bent upon her total destruction. When it happened the next time, she wouldn’t be able to see it coming.
IN THE LOBBY of her doctor’s building where he’d been waiting, Graham was relieved to see Casey finally emerge from the elevator. She wasn’t alone.
Graham nodded at the nurse then focused on Casey.
“Hey, babe.” He swallowed. “How’d it go?” He had heard the tap of her white cane before he actually saw her, but he could tell by her face that she’d had bad news. Casey didn’t hide her emotions as well as Graham did these days. She hadn’t walled them up inside.
Startled by his voice so near, Casey missed a step and Graham cursed himself. He hadn’t meant to surprise her. Briefly, her head tilted in his direction. Then she kept walking, the cane that had become an extension of her right hand in the past few weeks rhythmically tapping the Carrara marble floor.
“It’s a miracle,” she murmured in the too-light tone she sometimes used to downplay a problem, as she walked right past him. “I can see, I can see.”
Obviously, she couldn’t, and sudden anger swept through him. Graham glanced again around the busy lobby of the professional building, making sure it remained secure. For the past half hour, after his quick stop at home to shower away the smell of smoke and change clothes, he’d made regular checks of the area from his leaning stance against the marble wall. But, like Jackie Miles’s earlier blunder, he couldn’t quell his own uneasiness about Casey.
Graham peeled himself away from the wall. “I’ll take care of her,” he said to the nurse after introducing himself. When Casey didn’t object, he waited again while she thanked her doctor’s nurse, who gave Graham a crisp goodbye. And another thorough once-over as if to reassure herself that she was leaving Casey in good hands.
Graham watched the woman disappear into the elevator.
Casey wouldn’t welcome him fussing over her, either. Yet she needed someone right now—in this case, him.
He stepped in front of her, forcing Casey to halt when she would have struck off on her own.
“Tell me what he said.”
She gazed sightlessly at the floor between them.
“He said, ‘be patient.’”
Her sleek blond bob had slipped like silk around her pale cheeks, creating a heavy curtain that hid her smooth, even features. Her straight little nose. Her beautiful green eyes were hooded by her lids now, and she didn’t try to look at him, which made him all the more angry. With her, with himself. They might not be married any longer but…
“Casey. Don’t. It’s me.”
And he watched her crumple. Just like that.
She didn’t want to, he guessed, but she flowed like warm honey into his waiting arms.
To his surprise, Graham felt a flash of familiar but unwelcome desire run through his body. With their first touch, he had caught fire—like that run-down apartment building for the team exercise. Graham tried to tamp it down, but Casey, slender yet curvy in all the right places, her skin warm and as soft as down, felt like home in his embrace. Hell. What was he doing, lusting over a broken woman? A woman who didn’t belong to him now?
“It’s over,” she said against the front of his dress shirt. He felt wetness seep through the blue cotton. “I’m trapped inside myself. I’ve never liked small, enclosed spaces, but now that’s all I have. I’ll never be able to run an art gallery of my own again. Never see the paintings on the walls. The colors. Never know if something is good, or bad. How could I now?”
Graham shut his eyes, sharing the darkness with her for a moment. “You’ll find a way. You know you will.”
He had to remind himself that they were quits. Over, as she’d said of her gallery.
His remark seemed to stiffen her spine, but he hated seeing her like this, hated knowing what someone else had done to her in that lonely parking garage. To Casey, her career, her life, her future had been snatched away along with her vision.
And her accident still troubled him, too.
That was natural.
She had nearly been killed.
But why in hell had the accident happened in the first place? Mere steps from his own office at Hearthline?
He took another look around the lobby. When he saw nothing suspicious, Graham tipped up her chin so he could look into her eyes, and the pain ripped through him all over again. Her gorgeous green eyes. Hell, he could do this much for her if nothing more.
“Let me take you home. My car’s outside.”
Casey pulled away, then set her shoulders. “I may be blind. I’m not crippled. I am fully capable of leaving this lobby and raising a hand to call a cab.” She stepped back a few inches. “You have no responsibility for me, Graham, remember? Our marriage is over.”
“We’re divorced, not mortal enemies.” Which only made Graham angrier at himself. “Frankly, if you ask me, you could use not only a lift—you could use a friend.”
“You are not my friend.”
Ouch, he thought, but he knew he hadn’t acted like a pal, much less a husband. He couldn’t fault her for not trusting him, for walking out. He’d driven her to it.
Yet Graham would be the first to admit that things weren’t always what they seemed. Including him. Too bad he couldn’t tell Casey anything—for now—but lies.
He double-checked the lobby, finding only the normal flow of passersby intent upon their errands. It didn’t soothe him. He forced his tone to sound lazy, nonthreatening. He wanted to get her out of here.
“Listen, friend or not, I’ve got a great car. Leather seats. Air conditioning. I haven’t had a speeding ticket in, oh, three or four weeks.” Since before Casey was hurt, the last time he’d felt able to unwind. “Take a chance, babe. Sit back and enjoy. I’ll have you home in fifteen minutes. Less, if we hit the lights right.”
Safe, he thought. If only, as he’d planned, he could have kept her safe….
Casey raised her face to his.
“Thank you very much, but I can find my own way home.”
Graham’s mouth tightened. Like hell you will. When she started to tap-tap her way toward the revolving doors, he stood there for a moment, staring, before he went after her. He couldn’t help feeling thwarted—and for some niggling reason he couldn’t define, still afraid for her.
He took one step before he felt the very air around him grow thick, heavy, with an ominous portent that seemed to smother him—and at the same time to shout a warning.
“Casey!”
Too late. Helpless, Graham watched it happen. One second she was making her way to the revolving doors, probably guided to their location by the constant swish of movement she heard as people came and went. In the next instant Casey had been shoved into a moving door. From the sidewalk, a man in dark clothes sent the door spinning, circling, round and round and round with Casey trapped inside.
Breaking into a run, Graham hurdled a woman’s stroller carrying a small child and twisted to avoid a pair of startled businessmen. His heart threatened to burst in his chest. Out of my way, damn it. All he could think was, Trust the feeling. I was right. He had known something bad would happen. He had to get to Casey….
CASEY’S CRIES echoed through the vaulted lobby. By now, she didn’t know up from down, in from out. Her world of darkness whirled. Played havoc with her sense of balance.
She tried to brace herself but felt like a rag doll being flung by a furious child from one side of the constantly circling space in which she was caught to the other. Over and over. Her head spun. Her own voice shrieked, and sound shattered. First she heard the swish of the revolving door, then a wedge of traffic noise. Blaring horns. Screeching brakes. A few footsteps passing by. Then that pressured silence again, like being shut inside a vacuum.
Casey couldn’t tell where she was. In the spinning section of the door her shoulder hit one glass partition then another, hard, her bones and muscles throbbing on impact.
The whole terrifying incident happened in less than a minute, but all the while she could sense the man who stood outside, preventing her escape. She could imagine the Grim Reaper smile on his lips. Her blood rushed through her veins, the memory of her “accident” roared through her mind again. Was it the man from the elevator? She tried to fight back, to push against the glass, but without effort he only shoved the door. Harder.
GRAHAM’S PULSE hammered. He raced across the lobby in seconds that seemed like a lifetime. Charging out onto the sidewalk, he stopped the man’s arm on the upswing before he could push the revolving door again. Then Graham lowered his shoulder and charged, trying to butt him. The guy sidestepped him and Graham missed. Bastard.
He was solid, well-muscled. So was Graham, but before he could recover his own balance, the guy was gone. Graham hadn’t even seen his face. Casey, who had been flung out of the revolving door when Graham’s arrival slowed its motion, was lying on the sidewalk. By that time a crowd had gathered.
“Somebody help her!” he shouted then took off to prevent the guy’s escape. Graham did his best imitation of a linebacker, snaking his way through the puzzled crowd, breathing in sharp hisses like a set of air brakes. Heads turned, necks craned at him and the man he was chasing down the busy Washington street, but Graham’s hours in the Hearthline gym were no match for his heart-pounding terror.
He was still ten yards away when the man, a blur of black pants and shirt, knocked a male pedestrian aside. He vaulted into a dark car at the curb, then tore off, literally. On his way out of the space he bashed the left rear fender of the SUV parked in front of him. Metal crunched. A taillight splintered. A passing taxi horn blew, the cab narrowly missing the car that peeled off into traffic. Then there was silence. Eerie silence.
Graham no longer heard the rush of passing vehicles, the growing buzz of conversation. He bent over, hands braced on his thighs, and gulped in the smoggy, humid air until he could breathe. Then he jogged back to Casey, now sitting on the pavement looking dazed.
Several people hovered over her, offering handkerchiefs and sanitary hand cleaner. Graham bent down to her. Casey’s palms and knees were scraped raw, oozing blood, and fresh anger spurted through him.
“Damn. Come on, babe, let’s get out of here.”
With thanks for the small group of passersby who had come to her aid, he gently helped Casey to her feet. Graham should have trusted his instincts. Divorced or not, whether or not she trusted him, he needed to see her safe at home. Then he needed to start asking hard questions. He hadn’t wanted to think the hit-and-run was deliberate, but now he would learn the truth—all of it.
Maybe then he could tell her the truth about himself.
“YOU SURE YOU’RE OKAY?” he asked Casey.
They had reached her apartment near Dupont Circle, but Casey was still shaking. Hadn’t she known someone would try again to hurt her?
“I’m okay,” she tried to assure Graham when he could see that she was not. He could see.
Digging in her bag for her key, she held it out to him. She wouldn’t be able to fumble it into position herself. Let him do it. Just this once.
Casey even allowed herself a brief, familiar fantasy. Less than a year ago they might have come home like this from a rare evening out, probably at some government function. Still in his tux, his dark hair glossy, his eyes hot, his sensual mouth curved in an always surprising smile, Graham would curl up beside her on the sofa for a nightcap. One thing would lead to another… They’d make lazy love then fall asleep in each other’s arms, warm, sated, only to wake the next morning with their clothes strewn all around the room. And they’d make love all over again.
Casey shook herself. That was all in the past. Graham was the last man she could be intimate with now, even if he was the only one who made her feel safe.
These familiar surroundings didn’t quell her anxiety. The smells of cooking that drifted from other apartments, the blast of someone’s television, the feel of the floor beneath her feet in the hallway could lead to fresh terror in a heartbeat.
As panic engulfed her, she had to suppress the impulse to throw herself into Graham’s arms again. That would create a danger of a different kind. She couldn’t get near Graham without noticing his scent, his body heat, the deep timbre of his voice that heated her blood.
Maybe she shouldn’t have taken Graham up on his offer of a ride home. But her nerves were shot. She kept remembering those frightening seconds in the revolving door, being spun out of control. Every sound, even the scrape of the key in the lock, set her heart racing again. Who might be lurking around the nearest corner? Ready to attack her again? To kill.
Graham couldn’t slip the key into the lock fast enough for Casey. Then he said, “Wait. Don’t go in.”
And in the entryway, she could feel it, too, that sixth sense that they weren’t quite alone. Then suddenly, they weren’t.
The door across the hall flew open and footsteps pounded toward her. Casey felt a heavy hand settle on her shoulder. “What’s wrong here?”
The dark voice belonged to her neighbor, but not to her elderly and sometimes forgetful neighbor. It was Anton’s son, big Rafe Valera. Wide-shouldered, thick-muscled, a bull of a man with dark hair and hard gray eyes. To Casey he’d always been as gentle as a kitten without claws.
Graham disagreed. Without warning he slammed Rafe up against the doorframe. “Drop it.”
“Damn it,” Rafe bellowed, “you almost broke my arm!”
Casey heard a brief scuffle, some kind of karate throw, then a few grunts before something heavy, like metal, thudded to the floor.
Graham’s voice was a low-pitched snarl. “This jerk was carrying a gun.”
A gun? Rafe owned a gun?
“I heard noise,” he said. “I was worried about Casey.”
The two men knew each other slightly but Casey felt their usual instant dislike in the air. Once, that would have meant jealousy on Graham’s part. She thought of Rafe’s dangerous good looks, his usual black clothes.
“You remember Rafe,” she said, which didn’t lighten Graham’s mood.
“Does he always flash a .357 Magnum when he sees you?” Clearly disapproving, Graham disappeared inside to check the apartment. Then he was back, prowling the living room while she and Rafe hovered in the open door, silent with tension.
When Casey heard her answering machine click on not ten feet away, she jumped. “Listen to this,” Graham muttered.
She frowned, puzzled. It was only her doctor’s receptionist with a reminder message from yesterday about her appointment today. “What is it?”
“Someone was here.”
She’d been right and Casey sounded braver than she felt. “The man who pushed me into the revolving door?” She could feel Rafe’s sharp eyes on her but didn’t stop to explain her latest mishap. “You mean, he heard the message. Then he knew where to find me.”
“And followed you there,” Graham agreed. “There are no visible signs of forced entry. There isn’t a chair out of place, nothing disturbed.” This only seemed to make him more suspicious. “Valera, did you see or hear anything?”
“I was about to wake my father from his afternoon rest before Casey got home. I didn’t hear or see a thing until you came.”
Graham returned his attention to Casey. “When you weren’t here at the apartment earlier—thank God, you weren’t—your visitor must have split. Apparently he got exactly the information he needed.”
The other apartment door opened again. Casey heard Anton’s carpet slippers shuffle across the hall. The older man sounded frantic. His European accent had deepened.
“What is happening? I wake up from my nap and Rafe is gone.” She envisioned Anton’s graying hair, standing on end, his blue eyes fierce. “You are not hurt again, Casey?”
“No.” Not too much. “I’m fine.” She reached out a reassuring hand, and heard Rafe bend down to retrieve his gun. Graham didn’t stop him, but his tone stayed grim.
“I’ll talk to you later, Valera. You too, Anton.” He waited until they went back across the hall. Then he ushered Casey inside and locked the door.
“If I had any doubts before about your hit-and-run being deliberate, Casey, I don’t now. Ever since the revolving-door incident, I’ve been wondering if the guy saw me with you in that lobby. If he did, then why risk going after you?” Graham paused. “Now I wonder if he did see me—and wanted us to know that you aren’t safe, even with someone else around. That you’re a target even in a crowd.”
Casey shivered. “Because I’m…blind.”
“I think he wants us to know you’re always alone in that way, always vulnerable. And he can get to you. No matter where you are.”
Us? “Then earlier he didn’t mean to kill me.”
“It was a warning,” Graham suggested. “But why?”
Without thinking, Casey took a step forward. Graham moved, too. Then she was in his strong, hard arms, held tight to his broad chest. Graham pressed his cheek to her hair.
“What the hell is going on?” he muttered.
Casey didn’t know. Yet even here, in her own home, she wasn’t safe. Until she learned why, she wouldn’t forget those terrifying moments caught in the whirling doors.
Just as she couldn’t forget the man in the elevator.
Or being run down like some hunted prey.
Chapter Two
The next morning when Casey’s doorbell buzzed, her heart beat so fast it threatened to shatter. She felt her pulse in the still-stinging scrapes on her hands and knees. After yesterday’s twin mishaps, she stood frozen with one hand on the doorknob. Outside she could hear someone breathing heavily.
He wants us to know you’re alone…vulnerable.
What if her attacker was just inches away, with only the closed door between them and her possible murder?
“Casey, open up. It’s okay.”
Graham. Still, Casey hesitated. Last night she had stayed in Graham’s embrace until she finally stopped trembling, automatically seeking solace in his familiar scent, and the safety she found in his arms. She refused to let him stay the night, then hadn’t slept a wink after he left.
Casey fumbled the locks open. “What are you doing here again?” She heard something whap, hard and rhythmically, against the nearby wall. Then something warm and moist nudged her side.
“I brought you a present.” Graham stepped into the apartment. His arm brushed hers for a fraction of a second, and a disturbing tingle of awareness ran over her skin. “The wet nose comes with the dog.” Casey heard the sharp click of toenails on her entry floor. “Meet Sweet William,” Graham said.
“A guard dog?”
For an instant she preferred that to Graham’s scent, his touch, his masculine aura. The too-vivid memory of his dark hair and eyes, that hot gaze that would send desire racing through her body. Even without her sight, she had perfect recall of his high-chiseled cheekbones, his broad shoulders, his muscled chest, his washboard belly, strong tanned hands and powerful thighs. She didn’t have to see, Casey realized, to get the same effect. The flesh on her bare arm still buzzed from their brief contact.
“A guide dog,” Graham corrected.
But she didn’t want his help. Somehow she had to pick up the pieces of her own life and go on. Only yesterday she’d learned that her blindness might be permanent. In the doctor’s office she’d considered the possibility of getting a dog, maybe even the eventuality, but her comment then had been facetious, a quip to keep her from falling apart. For weeks she’d held the hope of a complete recovery. She wasn’t ready to consider the full impact of her situation.
Leaving Graham and the dog to follow, Casey inched, one hand braced on the wall, into the living room. Twelve paces to the sofa, she remembered, not letting her skin graze Graham’s again. But she couldn’t avoid inhaling the clean-soap smell of him. Which only hardened Casey’s resolve.
She would try to retain some of the independence she’d lost with her sight. Take care of herself.
As if to disagree, Sweet William padded right behind her. With that name alone, how could she feel afraid?
Graham steered her to a chair, and Casey struggled not to feel that same jangling awareness when his soap-scented skin met hers. She felt the heat of his hand against her back and the slow burn flared deeper in her abdomen.
“Last night,” Graham began, “I made some telephone calls. Finally one of my contacts led me to the Guide Dog Institute. This morning the director told me they have a waiting list a mile long, that there was no hope of getting a dog any time soon. But then he remembered Willy. He’s a golden retriever and highly trained,” Graham went on. “But he’s getting along in years. Because of his age, the institute decided to retire him. He’s out of the program now and he’s been up for adoption, more as a pet or companion, but so far no one has taken him.”
“I can’t, either,” Casey murmured.
She heard the irritation in his tone. “No? From what I told him, the director seems to think you and Willy might make a good match. He let me pick him up today for a trial. Listen,” Graham said, “just keep him for a few days and see how it goes. I’ll buy some dog food, a bed, whatever else he needs. You can get to know each other. And, oh,” he added, as if he’d just thought of it, “the institute will throw in some training lessons. Normally their program is pretty rigorous and intense, but he thinks you can learn the basics in a week or two. I took the liberty of signing you up for a first session.”
“You did?” Casey sighed in frustration. “Does the word divorce hold any meaning for you?”
“Oh, yeah.” He didn’t sound happy. “Just because we’re divorced doesn’t mean I have to quit worrying about you.”
“I don’t need your concern.”
“After yesterday? Great.” She heard him drop onto another chair, clearly intending to stay. At the same time Willy apparently decided to lie down next to Casey. He circled a few times, raising the air around her with the musky scent of dog, grunted once, then settled down. She heard him breathing.
Graham tried again. “Casey, take the gift. I know damn well you’re scared—not just about this vision loss, but about what caused it. The question remains, why did these ‘accidents’ happen?”
Casey had no idea, but with Graham’s mention of the attacks, she felt another emotion. The anger felt welcome, fresh and cleansing. “I may be afraid, but I’ll never see the people I love again. I’ll never run through a field. I can’t even play Frisbee with this dog. And one day ago my home was invaded, Graham. Do you know how that felt?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Like a violation. Well, I’ve had enough. I’m going to find out who’s responsible.”
“Not by yourself, you’re not.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she admitted. “Did the police find any prints here last night?”
Graham had called some law enforcement contact of his, which in itself came as a surprise to Casey. He was full of them. The woman who showed up had been efficient, collecting samples, vacuuming the carpet for trace evidence, and slipping her other rare finds into little bags while Casey wondered how Graham knew such people.
“They’re still working on the fingerprints. She lifted a partial but it could be another of your prints, mine, Anton’s…” He hesitated. “And what about Rafe Valera?”
Casey frowned. “I doubt it. He’s only been in my apartment once or twice.”
“That’s enough.” She could sense the same scowl on Graham’s face. “He raises the hairs on the back of my neck. With very little provocation he showed up here yesterday waving a gun. A big gun. He looked like he knew how to use it.”
“He only wanted to protect me.”
“Did he?” Obviously, Graham wasn’t that sure. “I know you and the old guy have become close. Anton makes a great father surrogate, but his son is another matter. Casey, be careful. I think he’s dangerous. Until I ask around about Rafe Valera, it may be wiser to avoid him.”
“You can’t think Rafe had anything to do with the break-in here, or my experience in the revolving door?” She wouldn’t even think about the hit-and-run.
“How well do you really know either of the Valeras?”
“Not that well but—”
“Then just be careful,” he repeated. “Some extra caution wouldn’t hurt, Casey. I want you protected. I don’t want you living alone. Until we figure this out, Willy can help minimize the danger.” Probably to distract her, he returned to their earlier discussion. “He can help you adjust to your condition in lots of ways.” Graham paused. “And—quid pro quo—you’ll be helping him.”
As if to confirm that, Willy wiggled closer, and Casey’s hand bumped against warm, silky fur. In spite of her earlier concerns, she stroked him—and felt a strange feeling wash through her. She wasn’t alone. Casey almost welcomed the subject of the dog’s welfare.
“Me? Help him? How?” she asked. “He’s the one who can see where he’s going. You just said—”
“He had the same owner for six years until the guy passed away a month ago. William is now eight years old. If he doesn’t find a new home soon, he’s going to be in serious trouble.”
That struck a chord with Casey, as Graham knew it would. After her parents died when Casey was five, she’d been juggled from one relative to another, never quite belonging anywhere. For a while, in Graham’s arms, she had hoped…but that hope had died. Casey petted Willy’s fur but felt she was stroking Graham’s skin instead. She pulled her hand back.
Her heart lurched. You poor thing. They were two of a kind. Again, she reached out a comforting hand. A wet nose met her palm and Willy licked her, twice. “Not fair, Graham. You know I’m a sucker for animals.”
“He’s grinning,” Graham said in a coaxing tone that went straight through her like a caress. “He likes you.”
“This is fighting dirty. You know that, don’t you?”
“He has great eyes,” Graham murmured. “Dark, liquid—” Like Graham’s, she thought. “Full of trust,” he added, which shattered the illusion. Trust didn’t come easily to Casey, especially where Graham was concerned. “He’s got a hundred-yard stare. Just the thing you need for protection.”
Willy seemed to know that, too. With another grunt he lumbered to his feet, then laid his head in her lap.
Graham knew he had her. He’d be wearing his own, surprising grin now, the one that shot her defenses every time. Casey ran both hands over Willy’s silken ears, feeling the tufts of hair, then smoothing his bony forehead. She could feel him gazing at her, hoping. Perhaps even, if dogs were so inclined, praying.
Graham closed in for the…kill. “He always wears this goofy grin unless he’s really concentrating on the job. Then, kind of like me, I swear he frowns. He has terrific hearing, and even better instincts. By tomorrow, you’re gonna thank me, Case.”
But, as he well knew, she was hooked. With his head in her lap, Sweet William had won her heart. Just like Graham, the first minute she saw him. Tall, dark and dangerous, she’d thought then, losing herself in his smoldering eyes anyway.
But Graham, she had learned, posed little threat. He was normally as steady as a concrete pillar. He never took unnecessary risks, except with his driving. Hearthline relied on him to handle government paperwork with more dedication than he’d shown for their marriage. Casey supposed the only true danger he posed was to her own still-hurting heart.
Be careful.
Maybe until she found the reason for the attacks on her, Willy could help allay her fears.
“You won’t have to wait.” Feeling her way, she stroked Willy’s broad back then planted a kiss on the top of his head. She could all but hear his tongue lolling in delight. “Like your new home, pal?” Casey lifted her sightless gaze in Graham’s direction. “I’m already in love. You rat…thank you.”
“HOW DID SHE TAKE IT?”
Slow to answer, Graham watched Jackie Miles lean back in her seat across from him and grin. He didn’t smile back. Even after chewing Jackie out about the training exercise yesterday, he still felt edgy. He could see Casey last night, looking pale, could feel her in his arms at the doctor’s building beforehand. He could see her melting over Willy earlier that day, yet trying to hide her fears.
“How do you think?” he said.
Her grin widened. “She kept him, though. Right?”
“Right.”
Jackie ran her fingers through her short red hair. “So why the frown, tough guy? Casey has a dog to help her. And Willy has a place to live—literally.”
Graham lifted his eyebrows. In frustration, he tapped a pen against the edge of the table. They were alone in the booth of a small diner not far from Casey’s apartment, and were the only customers in the place, yet he could feel danger in the air.
“Watch it,” Graham murmured. “Be careful what you say.”
When her brown eyes cooled, he decided that he missed his original partner, Tom Dallas, who had gone back into the field about the time Graham and Casey split up.
Then there was Casey herself.
Graham kept his tone low.
“Before I hooked her up with the dog, she was depending on the old man across the hall—a nice enough guy but he’s seventy-five if he’s a day. Not much protection there.” Graham sighed, then, in an even softer voice, told Jackie the little he knew about the man’s son, Rafe Valera. “I was a hair away from pulling this out—” he patted his coat over his Glock “—when the old guy showed up. If we’re right about her first ‘accident’ and the revolving-door episode, then she’s still at risk. I’m not always around to make sure nothing happens to her.”
“You’re divorced, boy-o.”
“So she keeps reminding me.”
She laid a hand on his arm.
“You’re not responsible for her any longer.”
“So she told me.”
When he pulled his arm free, Jackie swiveled away to reach for the sugar, as if he’d rejected her, and Graham changed the subject again. It wasn’t comfortable for him, either, admitting his marriage had gone belly-up.
No sense jumping down Jackie’s throat again about Casey, when what she’d said was true. He needed Jackie to help him crack a difficult case, the reason they were sitting now in a diner several miles from the Hearthline complex to have a private conversation.
Graham’s personal life might be a mess, but he couldn’t afford to screw up this latest assignment. Casey’s well-being was one thing—and important to him. National security was another, and Graham returned to the business he shared with Jackie. Cloak-and-dagger, he thought. They were even “hiding” in a corner so as not to be overheard.
“Find anything new in those telephone logs or cell phone records?” He didn’t mention Hearthline by name.
“De nada,” Jackie answered, still with her profile to him. “Our guy is a real closemouthed type.”
“He’s careful, that’s for sure. I’ve been running the e-mail search myself.” The pen rapped the table edge again. “Nothing there, either. Hell, the breach has got to be someone in the agency.”
Jackie faced him again. “True, but weird.” Hearthline’s motto was “The Bastion of National Security.” “Selling secrets to Al-Hassan or any other terrorist network must be highly profitable—and it makes our guy on the inside a traitor.”
Graham frowned at his pen. Their mission hadn’t proved easy, not that he expected it to be. But locating the source of a major security leak before it triggered another terrorist attack on the U.S. was proving even more elusive than he’d thought.
“He’s there all right. I can feel it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “What we don’t know is who he is.”
“I have a theory you might like,” Jackie murmured and Graham’s head shot up. She silently mouthed the name Eddie Lawton.
“The IT guy?” He’d fixed Graham’s computer once. A small, scrawny kid with big glasses, a stubborn cowlick and a pen protector in his pocket.
“He’s a techno geek, I know. That’s why he’s perfect. PC’s are his friends, better than people to him. He looks harmless, even cute—” Jackie shuddered “—but it would be first-grade easy for him to hack into the databases. Believe me.”
“Maybe so, but I still think it’s someone higher up.” Graham had been making a list right before he suggested they go for coffee to discuss matters. Before he’d reamed Jackie about the training exercise. Before she’d brought up Casey. “Much higher,” he said.
Jackie saw his point. “You mean, someone privy to real information as it comes in.”
Like DeLucci. The thought of their boss soured Graham’s stomach.
“Right, and with the alert at highest level—”
“‘Rumor has it another disaster on a massive scale is all but imminent.’” She quoted their supervisor’s latest memo. “Thanks to whoever-the-hell-it-is we’re looking for. High or low.” She stirred the sugar into her coffee. “Whoever it is, we’ll find a slip or a name somewhere in those records—and then a face to go with it.”
Graham set his cup aside. “We’d better get started.”
“I have more cell phone calls to wade through before quitting time.” She leaned close to whisper, “And that’s our exciting life, 007. Sometimes I think the undercover drudgery at M-6 will kill me before a traitor’s bullet can.”
Graham pushed back in his seat. Their true affiliation was not with Hearthline, but with C.A.T., a top-secret, elite counterterrorist team funded in part, it was said, by the CIA.
“Listen.” He checked the narrow room again, finding no other patrons at the moment. “This diner is better than a ‘dedicated’ huddle room at the agency, but still, no exception. The walls could have ears, so watch it. Let’s go.”
Graham slipped his pen into his jacket. He wouldn’t dwell on the fact that his marriage may have gone bust because of his job. That he’d lost Casey, who found it hard to trust in the first place, precisely because he had been lying to her about who he was and what he did.
Yet one question had been teasing the edges of his mind ever since he’d gotten the call that Casey was hurt.
Graham paid for their coffee, ushered Jackie outside then posed the question. “Here’s another thing to chew on. What do you suppose she was doing at my office that day?”
And why had Casey been run down less than a block away, of all places in the nation’s capital?
Walking beside him to his car, Jackie shrugged. “She wanted to see you, obviously.”
Graham shook his head. “I had distinctly told her never to go there, but why in hell would someone want to hurt her?”
“Or try to kill her,” Jackie murmured.
Exactly. Graham’s blood chilled at the thought.
Like hell Casey was no longer his responsibility!
Until her assailant was caught, Graham, just like Sweet William, was there to stay.
He couldn’t stop the thought: And to keep her alive.
Chapter Three
“Tell me again. Everything that’s happened since you went to my office.”
Graham paced in front of Casey’s living room sofa where she sat with Willy at her feet. Every step Graham took carried his scent to her nostrils, made her pulse rise another notch.
“If we kick this around enough,” Graham insisted, “we may find a reason for the attacks on you.”
As he spoke, she tried even harder not to recall her last sight of his long, lean body, his dark hair and eyes, his high cheekbones. She didn’t need her eyesight to know he wasn’t wearing that surprising grin now.
Casey rested a hand on Willy’s warm shoulder and went through her story one more time. Her drive to Graham’s office—her last drive on her own—the elevator ride upstairs, then leaving for the garage, hearing the speeding car too late. The sketchy details never seemed to satisfy Graham. He insisted they were missing something that could tell them why she had become someone’s target.
“Again,” he said when she finished for the third time. “You were at Hearthline in the first place because…?”
“I know you told me never to go there.” Casey sensed he was not only frustrated by the lack of information she could supply but also irritated. So was she. “Too bad. It wasn’t enough that you spent the bulk of your time there after our move from New York to Washington.” For her, an unwanted move that had forced Casey to sell her art gallery—and become, since then, unemployed. “Before the accident, I’d been in the neighborhood after searching for another business site not far from Dupont Circle. I had an appointment near the Mall. And Hearthline.” But the question remained: even before the divorce, why didn’t her then-husband want her to see his new office?
Now they were divorced and she had to protect herself from a possible killer. She also needed to safeguard her heart from Graham.
If he walked past her once more with that woodsy aroma intermingled with the pheromone-laden scent of man, she might lose her mind. Better to tell him what she could, even when that meant exposing herself.
Casey cleared her throat. “I wanted to drop off the rest of your belongings.” She told him about the carton. “You’d left them behind.”
His tone sharpened. “Where’s the box now?”
“Why, I—” She frowned. To be honest, if she had thought about it during her painful recovery, she’d repressed the memory, like that face in the elevator. “I have no idea,” she said lamely, as puzzled as he was.
Graham cruised by the sofa and Casey bit back a moan. “When you woke up, the box was gone?”
“At the hospital, yes. I assumed one of the nurses or someone in Emergency had put it aside for me, but when I was released no one seemed to know anything about the carton. I’m sorry,” she added. “Things were chaotic. I hope nothing inside was valuable, sentimental….”
“That’s not the point.” Graham was clearly losing his patience. “This may be important. What exactly was in that box?”
She tried to relax. Graham too believed that her “accidents” were deliberate, a step forward since yesterday in learning who wanted her dead. She had to do what she could with her now-limited abilities to help catch that killer. Which, right now, meant cooperating with Graham.
“There was a trophy or two—bowling or golf—a few pieces of jewelry you never wore, some toiletries, that kind of thing.” Irish Spring. Aramis. She paused, wondering if her loss of sight would mean a lifetime of frustrated fantasy. “Are you saying someone ran me down, stole the box—or if not, then entered my apartment to find it? Tried to scare me in the revolving door when he didn’t? Why would someone want your stuff?”
“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath that only seemed, paradoxically, to emit more testosterone into the air. “It’s a long shot but we have to consider everything. Maybe this guy is writing a book—Most Boring Man in the World. And you had his research.”
Casey half laughed but could have groaned. “I wouldn’t say that.” Graham might be the too-dedicated civil servant with no time for his now-ex-wife, but he’d never bored Casey. All he had to do was walk into a room, and despite her resolve not to, she reacted to his presence.
Like a knife blade of desire, she could sense him with every fiber of her being, hear his familiar footsteps, touch his skin without intending to and feel the heat. But, most especially, she could smell him, his male scent, that tangy aftershave. And almost taste him on her tongue again. Hyperaware, Casey absorbed every shift of his body when he moved. She needed to distract herself.
“There’s nothing about your life or mine—the life we shared once—that would appeal to a killer. I sold pretty pictures, Graham.” Past tense. “You push papers around on a desk at Hearthline.”
She heard him pace some more. “There must be something else that triggered those attacks.”
When he stopped in front of her, Casey gazed up at him, wishing she could see even a hint of shadow. She saw nothing, yet she didn’t have to. That same, slow burn flared low inside.
Graham had his mind on other things. Real things. Murder, she thought. Concentrate.
“If someone wasn’t after the box, then what?”
Not long ago, Graham would have soothed her, brushed his finger across her mouth, kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. She imagined it now. Hot, dark, compelling…as if he were someone else, that dangerous someone she’d first assumed him to be.
“Come on, Casey. Think. From what happened recently, it doesn’t seem likely that you went to Hearthline to return my stuff and out of the blue someone decided to whack you. This guy has been tracking you. He pushed you into that revolving door yesterday after letting himself into this apartment. With very few traces left behind, I might add. There’s something you haven’t told me, or perhaps even remembered….”
That quickly, another memory resurfaced. Casey wanted to send it scurrying back into the far recesses of her mind along with the pain she’d suffered. But that wouldn’t help find a potential killer. The words tumbled out.
“I saw a man.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know. But he may have been coming from Hearthline that day. I watched the indicator drop down from seventeen.” Graham’s floor. “I was waiting in the lobby with that box for the same elevator to go up. When he stepped out, our gazes met. And locked.”
“You knew him. And vice versa.”
Casey shook her head. “I’m not sure. I had the odd feeling that I’d met, or seen, him somewhere…maybe some time ago. But I couldn’t put a name with his face.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Casey bristled. “Well, for one thing, in the last months of our marriage, you never took that much interest in what I did. You were gone so much that I finally stopped telling you about my days. Why would you care now about my chance meeting with some guy in an elevator?”
“You know why.”
She grabbed at straws. “There were other people on the elevator. It stopped at other floors on the way down. Maybe he didn’t even get on at Hearthline. He probably has no connection to this whole mess….”
Graham disagreed. “Let me be the judge of that. What did he look like?”
Casey struggled for the image. “Tall, but probably an inch or two less than you. He had blond hair. He wasn’t that remarkable, Graham.” When she finished her vague description of him and the two men she thought he’d been with, she added, “At least I assumed they were together.”
Graham expelled a breath, as if he’d been holding it while she spoke.
“It’s not enough. Is it?” she asked when he didn’t say a word.
He paced some more. “His face, his clothes, his manner. Nothing stands out.” Which seemed to bother Graham.
It didn’t trouble Casey. Please, don’t let that stubborn, mind-sticking encounter be significant. Because if it was, she had looked into the face of the man who might kill her.
“Casey, there must be more.”
She briefly shut her eyes, as if to conjure the image again on the blank screen of her lids. Even now, the only picture she could summon of the man remained shadowy. Unlike Graham.
“If he was coming from Hearthline, he could be anyone,” she said. “A senator, a journalist, an employee with a job like yours.”
“But then, I might recognize him.”
Or not, Casey thought. “He could be nobody at all.”
“Which is exactly what he may have wanted you to think,” Graham murmured in a taut tone.
“You mean, he might hope I would forget him?”
“Right.” She heard him rap his knuckles against a tabletop, clearly agitated by her story. “Keep trying to remember where you may have seen him in the past. He could be involved. He could be our man.”
Casey worried her lip.
“No, he couldn’t be. The time between seeing him at the elevator and my being hit by that car in the garage couldn’t have been more than ten minutes.”
“Time enough for him to reach the car—and lie in wait for you. Or maybe he called someone else to do the job.”
“But why?” They kept coming back to that. “Why would someone want to harm me? It doesn’t make sense, Graham.”
His tone darkened. “Sure it does. If he didn’t want you to identify him. He couldn’t take the chance on your forgetting him.”
“And that reason would be…?”
“I don’t know.” He crossed the room again and Casey felt him hunker down in front of her. He caught her still-raw hands before she could pull back, and another zing of awareness shot along her veins and nerve endings. “But we’ll find out.”
We? Casey definitely wouldn’t think about that.
She freed her hands. Yet she couldn’t hide behind her blindness from reality. Leaning to avoid touching Graham, Casey trailed her hand over Willy’s warm, silken fur. He was resting against her leg as if Casey would hold him up. Thanks to Graham, she had the dog now to protect her. Yet he wasn’t all she would need to find a killer, no matter what the reason for the attacks might be.
Whether or not she liked the fact, Casey also needed Graham. Willy would be her guide. But Graham would have to be her eyes.
AN HOUR LATER, from his car in the same parking garage where Casey had been hit, Graham punched in numbers on his cell phone, then waited for his contact at the D.C. police department to answer. The job was relatively new for Holt Kincade, but he had a lot of other experience.
Not long ago, he’d been deep-cover like Graham.
“Hey, Holt. How’s life back in the world?”
A soft Southern drawl came over the line. “Not bad. You still building that government pension?”
Graham didn’t need to answer. From Holt, the question would be rhetorical. Quickly, he explained about Casey’s initial accident. “I need to get my hands on the police report.”
After supplying the necessary details that would access Casey’s file, he waited, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. He didn’t like what Casey had told him, but he wasn’t getting anywhere. He’d already looked around the parking garage himself without finding any clues.
“She mentioned three men in the elevator, possibly coming from the seventeenth floor at Hearthline,” he said to Holt. “One of whom may have recognized her. But from where, when? And why were those men there at all?” Graham felt in his gut that they didn’t belong.
“Something’s not right,” Holt agreed.
“I’ll have to check the visitors’ log.” Because of the need for tight security at the agency, it was kept religiously. Would three names show up on that log after normal business hours? Graham couldn’t shake the feeling that Casey’s first accident and at least one of those men were connected.
“Here we go,” Holt said. “I’ve pulled it up on my computer screen. The report is pretty cut and dried. No eye witnesses at the scene except your ex, and she was either out cold on the floor of that garage or she was drifting in and out of consciousness until the next day,” Holt said. “There’s not even a good description here of the car that hit her.”
“It would help if we had a license plate number or at least the make and model of the car, its color.”
“A few paint chips wouldn’t hurt,” Holt agreed. “From the impact of the accident, we might be able to link them to a fiber from the clothes she was wearing at the time, or maybe a strand of her hair caught in the paint. All she could tell the cops who interviewed her was that the car was a sedan—she thought—and dark.”
Graham sighed. “That covers a lot of territory. Probably half the cars in D.C.” The nation’s capital had no shortage of plain dark sedans, not to mention town cars and limos.
Knowing, too, that they were a dime a dozen, Holt made a sound of frustration that matched Graham’s mood. “Well, the car did come at her from behind.” Another computer key clicked, probably to scroll down on his screen. “She apparently didn’t see the driver, male or female. Neither did anyone else, as far as I know.”
“All of that jibes with the scant details Casey gave me.” Graham asked about the missing box she had carried. He couldn’t discount any possibility. Had her attacker really been after Graham?
“Nope. Nothing here on any box. You might double-check with the hospital. They’d have any belongings left behind except for the clothes she was wearing at the time of the accident. We kept those for evidence.”
“The ambulance guys might know something.” The box might prove nothing, but Casey had been run down near his office building, and Graham didn’t believe in coincidences. Either the box was part of the problem, or Casey had indeed seen something—or someone—she shouldn’t have seen.
“Want me to fax you a copy of the report?”
“Yeah. At home. Thanks, Holt. I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll never be able to repay my debt to you.” Graham winced. On one dark-as-hell night in Beirut, he had saved Holt’s life, but Graham shrugged that off. He knew Holt would do the same for him. “Wish I could be more help,” he added.
“Wait. Maybe you can.” Graham straightened in his seat. He told Holt about Casey’s second mishap in the revolving door the day before. He tapped the steering wheel again while Holt scrambled through the most recent police write-ups—and found nothing.
Graham cursed himself. “I should have gotten the name of the guy who was almost hit when Casey’s assailant tore out of that parking space. His SUV did get bumped pretty hard. Maybe he didn’t file a report to keep his insurance rate from rising. I guess I was too concerned about Casey to think straight at the time.”
“No wonder.” Holt paused. His voice deepened and his Tennessee accent intensified, a sure sign he was troubled. “By the way, I was real sorry to hear about Casey’s eyes. That’s a tough one, Graham. How’s she dealin’ with it?”
“Better than could be expected.”
Holt hesitated again. “You two getting back together?”
“Not as far as I know,” Graham repeated Holt’s earlier phrase. Graham had a job to do. That was all.
At least that’s what he kept trying to tell himself. For her own safety, Casey had to keep thinking, like almost everyone else at Hearthline, that he was some dull civil servant in a dead-end job. A guy who hadn’t cared enough about her to stay home at night. Until this was over, he’d keep quiet—if it killed him.
Casey was already at risk.
The less she knew about Graham’s real work, the better. For now. As an ex-operative, Holt would understand.
“I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for, partner.”
The term was more than a throwaway word. Holt Kincade had been on the twelve-member team with Graham when the original antiterrorism task force began. He and Graham and Tom Dallas.
“So do I.”
Graham wondered whether Holt meant the rest of the story, the possible killer or Casey herself.
CASEY’S HEART pounded. All around her, horns blew. Five o’clock traffic rushed past. “We can do this,” she told herself and Willy.
Graham, who had late meetings to attend, had dropped them off at the Guide Dog Institute on his way back to work, saying his colleague, Jackie Miles, would pick her up. She was not to leave until Jackie got there.
Like the memory of Graham’s face and body, their earlier conversation still hummed in Casey’s mind. But she couldn’t afford second thoughts. Casey had been unable to sit home and do nothing—as Graham might prefer. This little trip had seemed harmless, even necessary at the time, in order to maintain her independence. Now they had to get home—their first solo trip—and Willy waited patiently beside her on the corner near the institute.
Why hadn’t Jackie Miles kept her promise to meet Casey? She had waited in the reception office for over an hour. But still no Jackie. Weeks ago the woman had kindly spent time with Casey at the hospital whenever Graham couldn’t be there, sitting by her bed, chatting with Casey when she woke. Why hadn’t she shown up this time?
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