"I don't believe," John continued, "that Whitlaw's daughter has any idea what's going on, or she wouldn't be calling the detective to ask him about it. On the other hand, someone else definitely thinks she does know. It might be interesting to put a tail on her, see who turns up."

"And step in if anyone tries to dispose of her?" McPherson asked.

"Yes, of course." John said it casually but without hesitation. He was like his father, McPherson thought. John spent his life in the shadows, constantly putting his life on the line in a world where people were assets and nothing was ever what it really seemed. Everything was fluid, shaded with gray. And yet John,

like Rick, had kept a few absolutes. He was, first and foremost, a patriot. He loved his country. Beyond that, he would back his people to the death. And underlying all that was his belief that for an employee of his country as he was, the ordinary citizen was his real benefactor. His job, boiled down to its essence, was to protect them.

"We'll shift our focus," Vinay said, "to Whitlaw's daughter. With Whitlaw dead, she's now the center of whatever's going on. John, how long are you stateside?"

"I cleared myself a week, max. I may have to leave at any time."

"But you're officially on leave. Jess, as of right now, you're officially on leave, too. This isn't a Company operation, and I don't want to fuzz the legal lines."

"Do I pass anything along to Detective Chastain?"

"Is there any need?" Vinay asked. That was what it always boiled down to: need to know. "If we agree Ms. Whitlaw is the center of it, and she's in Ohio, then any benefit a New Orleans detective would be to us is negligible."

"But she called him," John said. "She evidently trusts him. If she's hiding, he might be our only link to her."

"I've been up front with him so far," McPherson put in.

"Have you run a check on him?"

"A-one citizen," Vinay answered. "Excellent military record, did time in the Marines. He's from an old New Orleans family, the kind with a mile-long pedigree but no money. He got his college degree on the GI Bill, majored in criminology, started work on the NOPD as a patrol officer, worked his way up to detective. He'll make lieutenant easy, if politics don't get in his way. Or he might switch over to the state police."

"My take on him is he's tough but honest, the kind of cop a cop should be." McPherson spread his hands. "So is it quid pro quo or not?"

"I vote yes," John said.

Vinay considered the situation. "Okay, keep him briefed on what we know and what we're doing, so long as what you tell him doesn't touch Company business. If this veers into some old operation Rick was running in Vietnam, then that information stays in-house."

"At first, that's what I thought it would be." Hands in his pockets, John strolled over to the bookshelves and studied Vinay's reading material. "But now we know the focus was on Whitlaw from the beginning, so that theory doesn't hold. Our best bet is to find Ms. Whitlaw, and for that we may need Detective Chastain."

Marc watched Karen sleep, curled up in his bed, her shiny dark hair tousled around her head and her face delicately flushed with contentment. When she had stepped off the plane that morning, her face was white with tension. He knew he was part of that tension, but he hadn't been able to control his reaction at

seeing her frightened and bruised. Pure, savage rage had seized him; in that moment, if he could have gotten his hands on whoever did that to her, he would have killed him without hesitation or remorse. His woman was in danger. Every protective, primitive instinct in him was working overtime, fueled by fear and anger. If he hadn't had to deal with the sheer tragedy of little James Gable's murder, he likely would have flown to Columbus to settle things between them once and for all, and he would have been there to protect her. He wished he had been there when that son of a bitch broke into her apartment and tried to kill her. If she hadn't kept her head, he would have succeeded. She had defeated the would-be killer, using nothing more than a can of hairspray. The thought made him cold all over, thinking of her facing a gun with such a puny weapon. When she had told him about it, she seemed almost apologetic for not having something more serious at hand for self-defense. Her sheer guts awed him, and the too-detailed knowledge of a cop told him how close he had come to losing her. On a remote level, Marc was amused at himself. He had lightly loved before; he had argued with women, been angry at them. What he had never before done was lose control, but he had lost it with Karen. There was nothing light about the way he felt. It was dark and powerful and startlingly primitive. He, who had never before treated a woman with anything but the utmost courtesy, had been torn between the simultaneous and uncivilized urges either to spank her bare ass for leaving him, and therefore putting herself in danger, or to throw her on the bed and make love to her until she knew deep down in her bones she belonged to him and would never leave again.

He couldn't do the first because he couldn't lift a hand to her, and he knew it. His primary instinct had always been to protect, not abuse. The only way he would ever be able to strike any woman would be to protect Karen herself, or a child, from attack. His second urge had been abated by Karen's physical condition; she wasn't in any shape to be thrown on the bed. But having to restrain the force of his lovemaking had made it, in a way, even sweeter.

Until she went into his arms, he had been afraid. Afraid he hadn't read her correctly, afraid she didn't feel the way he did. He didn't know how she would take the suggestion, the question, the demand, but one way or another, he was going to marry this woman.

He hadn't worn a condom. Sweat beaded on his forehead as a wave of pure lust seized him. He had been in relationships where the lady was on birth control pills and it hadn't been necessary for him to wear a condom, and the sex was good; but today was the first time he had ever made love knowing there were no barriers, chemical, latex, or hormonal, against pregnancy. It had been incredibly arousing. He wanted to make her pregnant, wanted to come inside her, time and again, until his child began growing within her.

The bedroom was warm and darkened, the blinds closed. She had pulled the sheet over her before going to sleep, but she was beginning to perspire. Gently, Marc folded the sheet down. This was better anyway, he thought. This way, he could see all of her. He supposed he knew, rationally, that she wasn't the prettiest woman in the world, but if his eyes saw any imperfections, his heart didn't care. The things that made her different made her Karen. He loved the way she looked. She turned him on—God, did she turn him on. She was neatly formed, trim, toned. Her breasts were high and round, and he had satisfied his curiosity about how firm they were. They were very firm, with scarcely any jiggle even when she wasn't wearing a bra. Her flat stomach flowed into curvy hips, curvy hips into smooth, nicely muscled legs. Nothing about her was flashy, but Lord have mercy, she was sexy. He'd never known a woman more responsive, and her pleasure increased his.

She was lying on her side, one breast plumped by her arm. Gently, Marc rubbed a knuckle over the

velvety, slightly swollen texture of her nipple and watched, fascinated, as it immediately tightened and elongated, the pinkish beige color darkening almost to red.

Her heavy eyelids fluttered open, and a sleepy smile curved her lips. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I didn't mean to wake you."

She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his swollen penis. "Oh, I think you did." Her voice was drowsy, sensual. Lazily, she stroked him up and down, bringing him to full erection. He laughed and moved her hand away from him before she aroused him to the point where all he cared about was orgasm. She shifted closer until they were lying pressed together and lifted her mouth to his.

"How long before you expect to hear from that McPherson man?"

"I'll give him until tomorrow afternoon."

She looked wide-eyed and solemn. "Are we going to spend the entire time in bed?"

"Probably."

"Don't you have to work?" She traced his lips with one fingertip, then trailed it down his chest to circle his flat nipples.

"I took some personal time off. A case I was working cleared yesterday, and I didn't have anything else urgent." He didn't let himself think about how the case had cleared.

"So we can stay right here?" She hadn't lost the solemn look. Marc inhaled deeply as that slender finger worked its way down his torso, bypassing his erection to reach beyond and stroke his testicles.

"Right here." He did a little of his own stroking, down her spine to the crease of her buttocks, back up, down again. Each time his fingers stroked farther down. She gasped and arched against him, her buttocks tightening. Her nipples were pebble hard.

"What do we do if he doesn't call?"

"Proceed on our own." He squeezed her bottom, then eased one finger into her. She felt like warm, wet satin inside, tight on his finger, shivering delicately with arousal. He thought it was Henry Miller who had said entering life by way of the vagina was as good a way as any, and he heartily agreed. He could happily spend the rest of his life with some part of his body inserted into Karen, feeling her excitement, watching her little squirms.

She didn't have much patience. Her brown eyes were almost black as she suddenly put both hands on his chest and shoved him onto his back. He laughed as she straddled him, using both hands to position his penis and sliding down onto him so completely that his laugh changed to a groan. Oh, yes, he was definitely'going to marry this woman.

His beeper sounded.

"You said you're off duty," she accused, frowning.

"I am. That would be Antonio." He stretched to reach his beeper and checked the number. "Bingo."

"He can wait five minutes," Karen said firmly.

"And you can't?" He was teasing. He didn't think he could, either.

"No," she said, and proved it.

"You sound as if you've been running," Shannon observed when Marc called him, ten minutes later.

"I was downstairs," Marc replied. It wasn't a lie. He had been downstairs—about two hours ago.

"McPherson just called back. They're looking into any acquaintances Whitlaw and Medina had in common, but right now they don't have anything. Ah, he did say they were going to put a tail on Karen, to see if they can spot anyone else following her and also to step in if she's in danger. I didn't tell him she's here."

"Good. Hold off on telling him for a while. I might change my mind later, but for now I don't want anyone but the two of us to know."

Marc wanted to think more about the situation before he gave away Karen's location. Involvement by the CIA, even peripherally, made him uneasy. He didn't assume, as a lot of people did, that they were either bad guys or assholes, but by nature of the Agency they dealt with a lot of bad guys. On the other hand, it could be handy to have McPherson's shadow following them when he and Karen went to Columbus, to that storage unit. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Chapter 18

«^»

He couldn't just walk away. Hayes came to that realization during the night, in the middle of his plans to do just that. He had kept careful records of each meeting, what was required, and the results. The records incriminated him, but they also incriminated the senator, who had much more to lose. It followed that if he had kept records, so had the senator, the mistrustful son of a bitch. Hayes had no doubt Vinay would come snooping around. There were two ways to play it. The smart way, he decided, would be if he could arrange for it to seem as if he were on the senator's staff in, say, a security position. Everything above board. Vinay might have some snooping done by his own guys, though if he went by the book, he would involve the FBI in the investigation. CIA or FBI, that didn't matter, so long as his name popped up easily before they really began digging. Any half-assed check would turn up the information that he had done some work for the Company himself, a couple of decades ago. His name would shoot to the top of Vinay's list. When questioned, he would say, yeah, he told Senator Lake about Rick Medina's death and also mentioned that the word was he had a son who was also a Company man. That was logical, because he had been in a position to know those things. Bingo, mystery solved, no further investigation needed.

That was the smart way. The problem was, the senator would balk at having himself linked to Hayes. Maybe he could convince the senator otherwise. He decided to give it a shot, though he didn't have much faith in the outcome.

The second way, the dumb way, the risky way, was to find the senator's records and destroy them. That would be a job. Hayes hoped to hell the senator didn't have the records in his congressional office; that was the most dangerous place to keep them, where they were most likely to be turned up by accident.

In his Georgetown townhouse? Possible. His estate in Minnesota was more likely; it was larger, more hiding places, plus the senator had grown up there. He knew the house, the grounds, intimately. Then there was the summer house in Cape Cod, but the senator hadn't been there this summer, so Hayes thought he could dismiss that possibility.

If he had stashed the records in a safe deposit box somewhere, which was what Hayes had done, then they were beyond reach. He would have to find out which bank and what name the box was rented under, get the key, and learn how to copy the senator's signature. Hayes had a lot of talents, but forgery wasn't among them. Then there was the possibility that rather than deposit the papers himself and take the chance of being recognized, the senator had had his wife do it under her name. Mrs. Lake was a sweet, cheerful, uninquisitive person, and she adored her husband. She would do whatever he told her. The possibilities were endless. The one place the records wouldn't be was in a computer. The senator was computer-illiterate; hell, he had never even learned to type. From birth, he had been surrounded by wealth, and if he wanted to send a letter, he simply dictated it to a secretary or scrawled it by hand if he wanted it to be personal. From the beginning, Hayes had been relieved to know that; his personal opinion was that if you wanted sensitive information to get out, you put it in a computer. They were notoriously unconfidential. He wondered how many people would use accounting programs in their online computers if they knew the information could be accessed. Using the bank account number, a thief could then wipe out the account.

Bank accounts. Something about bank accounts niggled at him. Something he should have thought about days ago.

Suddenly, he knew what it was, and he wanted to kick his own ass. He had overlooked something so obvious that he shook his head in disgust.

He had been thinking only about covering his ass when Vinay came looking, so the DDO wouldn't link him to Rick Medina's death. Instead, now he was pretty sure he had figured out how to find the book. He had wondered about the damn book, wondered exactly what was in it that the senator wanted kept quiet. Wouldn't it be a bitch for the senator if the man he sent after it kept it and used it against him the way Whitlaw had done?

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