Crossfire (5 page)

The moment Cait had met Quinn, when he’d shown up at the apartment she shared with a nursing student at St. Camillus, she’d known he was trouble. He had met her roommate at a Christmas party earlier that week, and although Cait had insisted she’d been looking forward to a sudsy evening watching An Affair to Remember on video, the other woman had flat out refused to leave her alone on New Year’s Eve. So McKade had brought along a friend, Zach Tremayne, for her.

The two men had just completed SEAL training, which right away was a deterrent. And, although it was supposed to be the most glamorous night of the year, Cait hadn’t bothered getting all dolled up because no way on God’s green earth was she ever going to get seriously involved with a military man.

She knew some former service brats who actually claimed to have enjoyed the vagabond existence that was part and parcel of military life. They mentioned the fun of seeing the world—as if bases weren’t pretty much identical wherever they were—of meeting new friends, of learning to fit in wherever their fathers (and in those days it was just the men dragging their families hither and yon) got posted.

But Cait had hated it. She’d longed for a room of her own that she could paint whatever colors she wanted; she didn’t want to keep having to roll up her posters of Johnny Depp, ’N Sync, and Leonardo Di Caprio. By the time they’d finally settled down in Somersett, poor Justin Timberlake had suffered so many tack holes, his pretty face looked as if it’d been peppered with shotgun pellets.

By the time she finished the eighth grade, she’d attended nine different schools in nine different towns. And each time, when the teacher would announce the new student and she would stand there at the front of the room, with every other kid in the class staring at her, Cait had felt as if she’d had a big red target on her back. Or at least a KICK ME sign.

Not helping was her redhead’s quick-fire temper. Oh, she’d learned to control it over the years, but when she’d been younger, playground fights—where she’d only been defending her own honor!—had landed her in the principal’s office on a depressingly regular basis.

Her mother, she’d decided long ago, was a saint. Since Cait was about as far away as anyone could get from canonization, she’d sworn to avoid following her mother into that long-suffering-military-wives’ club.

Which was why, when she came out of her bedroom on New Year’s Eve and got her first glimpse of Quinn McKade taking up so much of the tiny apartment living room, she’d felt a frisson of unease.

First of all, he was huge, towering over her roommate and the other SEAL like Godzilla over Tokyo, making her feel small. And defenseless, a feeling she’d suffered too many times in her life. One that triggered fight over flight.

His face, even back then, was craggy. Too hard-edged to be conventionally handsome. Nothing like Johnny Depp’s. And he looked to have been scalped; she could see nicks all over his shaved head.

Although he’d been smiling when she entered the room, his gunmetal gray eyes held a glint of hardness that told her this was not a man who could be manipulated.

Which was, again, totally different from the college boys she usually dated. Easygoing males who willingly let her call the shots. Guys who understood that she wasn’t in a relationship for the long haul. She had plans. Goals. And none of them involved playing second fiddle to some soldier or sailor with plans and goals of his own.

Which was why when she practically saw the words ‘‘This Is the One!’’ flashing above his head in red neon letters, Cait truly understood fear for the first time in her life.

U.S. Navy SEAL Quinn McKade was dangerous. Dangerous to her future. And even more dangerous to her insane, mutinous heart—which, although he was her roommate’s date, not hers, had suddenly taken a ride on a Tilt-A-Whirl.

Which was precisely why she had to hate him.

Which didn’t explain how, eight years later, when they’d met at that damn wedding reception, she’d ended up in bed with him.

‘‘I remembered something while you were doing that press thing,’’ her partner—who looked even shorter than usual standing next to the former SEAL—said.

‘‘Tell me it’s something that’ll close the case,’’ Cait said, pointedly ignoring Quinn.

‘‘Don’t I wish. Sorry, but I’m supposed to meet the ball and chain at the Wingate Palace. It’s her parents’ anniversary, and there’s this chichi family dinner thing in the restaurant. And I’m already twenty minutes late.’’

‘‘So, we’ll call you a cab. And I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning at home.’’

‘‘Or, as I’ve already suggested to Special Agent Angetti,’’ Quinn said, breaking into the conversation, ‘‘rather than wait for a cab to show up, he could take the SUV. And I’ll run you over to the widow’s house.’’

‘‘Thanks, but I wouldn’t want to put you out,’’ Cait said.

‘‘No problem. All I had on tap for the evening was a beer and a book. Both of which can wait. Besides, I might be able to be some help.’’

‘‘Oh?’’

He’d taken his shades off in deference to the darkening sky. His eyes, in the whitish glow of the halogen parking-lot lamps, were the color of burnished pewter.

‘‘I knew Davis. Personally. I also know his wife. If the lady falls apart, it might be helpful to have someone there with her.’’

Cait couldn’t deny that. But still . . .

‘‘Cait?’’ Angetti broke into her thoughts as she was going through all the reasons why she didn’t want to collaborate in any way with the former SEAL. He tapped his index finger on the face of his watch.

Her partner might be a pain in the butt, but she had to give him points for worrying about ruining his in-laws’ anniversary party. Though more likely he was concerned about pissing off his wife yet again. The long work hours were probably one of the many reasons FBI agents and cops shouldn’t get married.

Maybe once he retired, he wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass.

Deciding that the leopard down at the Somersett zoo suddenly sporting neon zebra stripes would be more likely than her partner doing a one-eighty personality change, Cait experienced a moment of pity for Mrs. Angetti, who would soon be stuck with her husband 24/7.

‘‘Go.’’ Cait waved him off. ‘‘Have a great time.’’

‘‘Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen. We’ve been married twenty-five years, and my old bat of a mother-in-law still never misses an opportunity to catch Liles up on what her former boyfriend, aka ‘the filthy rich dentist who has more money than God,’ is up to.’’

‘‘If you’re trying to make points, you might want to stay away from the ball-and-chain analogy,’’ Cait felt obliged to point out.

‘‘Hell, it’s not like I say it to her face,’’ Angetti grumbled as he unlocked the SUV’s driver’s-side door.

‘‘Sounds like a fun evening,’’ Quinn said as they watched Angetti pull away from the curb.

‘‘A root canal’s undoubtedly more fun than an evening with that guy,’’ Cait said. ‘‘Thanks for the offer for a ride to the Davis house, but I think I’ll just snag a black-and-white and meet you there.’’

Ever since Nate Spencer, Swann Island’s sheriff, had brought up Cait Cavanaugh’s name during the slasher case, Quinn had been thinking about her. Too damn much.

From the first time they’d met on that long ago New Year’s Eve, although he’d been dating her roommate and had set her up with Zach, she’d always been able to get into his head. Under his skin. Infiltrating his dreams so he’d wake up hard and horny.

He certainly hadn’t planned to run into her today. But now that some psycho with an automatic weapon had thrown her into his lap—at least metaphorically— there was no way he was going to let her get away.

Not yet, at least.

‘‘Taking a cruiser out of business will just cut into your resources,’’ he said. ‘‘Which isn’t a good move when you’re trying to set up roadblocks.’’

‘‘Good point.’’

She’d run out on him once before. From the obvious reluctance in her voice, Quinn suspected she would love to turn and walk away now. But he was counting—correctly, as it turned out—on her professionalism.

‘‘One of the things you pick up right away when you’re working with a team of five guys is that logistics is job one.’’

‘‘I suppose so.’’ She rubbed her fingers at the vertical lines carving their way between her eyes. ‘‘I have the horrible feeling this is going to get really ugly.’’

‘‘It well could.’’

She shot him a look. ‘‘Excuse me if I’m underwhelmed by your support.’’

‘‘I’ve never lied to you, Caitlin,’’ he said, stressing the import of the claim by using the more formal version of her name. It had occurred to him on more than one occasion that if he had lied to her, just a little, until he’d maneuvered her where he wanted her, they might not have stayed strangers all these intervening years. ‘‘And there’s no reason to start now.’’

‘‘Everybody lies,’’ she said as they began walking toward the faculty parking lot.

‘‘That’s a fun outlook on life.’’

‘‘Hey, I’m a cop. I gave up my rose-colored glasses when I started carrying a badge and a gun.’’

‘‘That’s funny,’’ he said as they passed the larger-than-life statue of Admiral Somersett in front of Buccaneer Hall.

It was a long-standing tradition that cadets piss on the admiral’s boots sometime before graduation. Quinn idly wondered if that tradition had fallen by the wayside with the admission of women.

‘‘What?’’

‘‘I never thought of you as being the kind to wear rose-colored glasses ever before you joined SPD.’’

‘‘Something wrong with looking at life like it is? And not like you’d like it to be?’’

‘‘Not at all.’’ Quinn clicked the remote to open the door on the BMW. ‘‘Gotta go with whatever works for you. I was just saying.’’

‘‘In my business and, I suspect, your former one, pessimism can help keep you alive. Besides,’’ she began to argue, in the way he remembered all too well, ‘‘just because—’’ She broke off when she noticed the car. ‘‘This is your vehicle?’’

‘‘Despite what you may think of me, I’m not stupid enough to boost a car in front of an FBI agent. Why? Something wrong with it?’’

‘‘Well, while it’s the expected guy blind-your-eyeballsred, I would’ve figured you for something flashier. Like your buddy Zach Tremayne’s ridiculously macho Viper. Or a Corvette. Maybe a Porsche.’’

‘‘I’m six-five,’’ he reminded her as he opened the passenger door before she could do it herself. ‘‘I’d have to leave the top off any of those. And it rains too much here for that. This baby gives me the five hundred horsepower and handling of a German sports car without making me lie flat on my back to drive it.’’

‘‘Still, it’s pricey,’’ she said as she slid into the soft-as-a-glove leather seat. ‘‘The vice cops seized one from a drug dealer while I was on the force. Then, thanks to asset forfeiture laws, they turned around and sold it at auction for over seventy-five thousand bucks, which went to the SPD widows and orphans fund. I’d guess new ones cost more.’’

‘‘A bit.’’

‘‘You must have sold a lot of copies of that book.’’

‘‘I’m no Grisham, but I’m doing okay. And while my advance was generous enough, thanks to Uncle Sam pretty much paying expenses all those years I was in the navy, I managed to put some money away.

‘‘Plus I’ve got a gig on the side teaching the occasional creative writing class at the academy and I also do some work for Phoenix Team. That’s an international private security firm—’’

‘‘On Swann Island. I know. I was offered a job with them.’’

‘‘I suppose Phoenix Team’s loss is the feds’ gain.’’

She didn’t respond, but being pretty good at reading people, Quinn sensed she appreciated the compliment.

They were two miles from the campus and she still hadn’t spoken. Quinn figured she was thinking about the case, but then she said, ‘‘I can’t get a handle on you.’’

‘‘I’m not that complicated.’’ That might not exactly be a lie. But if he were to be perfectly honest, it might be a bit of a hedge.

‘‘Maybe. But how many SEALs end up novelists teaching creative writing? Which, no offense, isn’t exactly a gung ho class.’’

‘‘No offense taken. You’ve also been watching too many movies,’’ he said mildly. ‘‘One of my classmates at BUD/S—that’s basic underwater demolition SEAL training—had a Ph.D. in philosophy. And the class proctor was a rocket scientist.’’

She glanced over at him. ‘‘You’re making that up.’’

‘‘Swear to God.’’ He lifted his right hand from the steering wheel. ‘‘He’d gone to USD in his spare time and graduated with a B.S. in aerospace engineering the week my class graduated from BUD/S.’’

‘‘I’ll bet they’re the exception.’’

‘‘You know what I think?’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘That just maybe you took those profiling courses at the FBI Academy a little bit too literally. Because from what I’ve seen, people—even SEALs—don’t fit all that well into tidy little niches.’’

‘‘For your information, I happen to agree with you.’’

‘‘Well.’’ He flashed her a grin. ‘‘That’s a start.’’

She didn’t respond. Just folded her arms and directed her attention out the passenger window at the line of tall palm trees that had given Palmetto Drive its name.

‘‘This is a pretty ritzy neighborhood for a captain,’’ she murmured.

‘‘Not when said captain’s mother was a Hightower.’’ That got her attention. ‘‘Like the Hightowers? Hightower Oil, Hightower Shipyards, which just won a contract to build two atomic aircraft carriers? And then there’s Hightower Bank and Trust, and God knows what else?’’

‘‘The what else including Hightower Library at the academy. According to Will, generations of male Hightowers were expected to attend ASMA, going back to its founding.’’

‘‘Too bad for them. But we’re talking serious family bucks.’’

‘‘I’d say in the range of several billion,’’ he agreed.

‘‘The parents are dead, right?’’

‘‘Right. They died in a plane crash during a dust storm coming back from Dubai two years ago. But a board of directors is keeping the various companies going.’’

‘‘So why was Captain Davis working as a teacher? Hell, why did he go into the military in the first place?’’

‘‘Maybe he liked it. Or thought it might be an adventure, a chance to see the world.’’

‘‘Which he could’ve done first class.’’

‘‘The guy never acted as if he came from money. As for teaching, some people find the career a calling.’’

‘‘Some people aren’t gazillionaires.’’

‘‘Are you saying that if you won the lottery tomorrow—’’

‘‘I don’t play the lottery.’’

‘‘Hypothetically speaking. Let’s say you were watchingTV some Friday evening and saw that you’d just won Powerball, which would set you up for life. Would you actually show up for work the next morning?’’

‘‘Of course.’’

‘‘You love being a special agent that much?’’

‘‘I can’t imagine not working.’’

It wasn’t a direct answer. Unusual for her. Quinn remembered her being unrelentingly direct.

‘‘Well, I guess that’s something else we can agree on.’’

She fell silent again, mulling his statement over. He could practically hear the wheels turning in her head.

‘‘So you liked being a SEAL?’’

‘‘For the most part. A lot of the time it was like playing war when you were a kid.‘‘

Not that he’d been allowed to when he’d been a kid. At least not at home, where he’d never been allowed to have friends over, anyway. But his parents hadn’t been able to control what he did at recess on the school playground.

‘‘The difference is, being in Special Operations, I got to play with the most expensive toys Uncle Sam could buy, which was cool. And it’s true what they say about joining the navy and seeing the world. I liked going to lots of different countries, liked the adventure, the night runs, really liked the commitment and adrenaline rush of HALOing—that’s high-altitude, low-opening parachute insertion—and I really enjoyed the camaraderie of being part of a team.’’

Actually, he’d freaking loved what had been the first real family he’d ever known.

‘‘How about the fighting?’’

‘‘Yeah. That, too. There’s one helluva rush to combat you can’t get from anything else in life. At least nothing that’s legal.’’

Whoa. Having grown up in the weird and solitary world of the Vietnam War protestors’ underground, Quinn was an expert at keeping secrets. Which was why, he’d often thought, he’d been a natural to join a covert Spec Ops team.

The only people he’d ever shared anything the slightest bit personal with were Zach Tremayne and Shane Garrett. He’d certainly never spilled his guts to a woman. Most of whom, he’d realized early in his career, might really enjoy the idea of going to bed with a big, bad SEAL but didn’t want to dwell on what, exactly, warriors did to earn their paycheck from Uncle Sam.

‘‘Well.’’ More turning of mental wheels. ‘‘That’s not exactly a politically correct statement to share with a civilian.’’

He shrugged. ‘‘You’re not exactly a civilian. You’re a cop. A federal terrorist-fighting cop.’’ Who knew the business end of a weapon and how to use it. ‘‘Besides, I’ve never been all that politically correct.’’

‘‘Now there’s a surprise,’’ she murmured.

He didn’t hear the edge to her voice that he would’ve expected. In fact, although it might just be hopeful thinking and although he couldn’t see her face, because she was looking out the window again, Quinn thought he might just have heard a touch of a smile.

‘‘It’s become popular, especially these days, to admire the troops,’’ Quinn said quietly. ‘‘For what’s perceived as their innate toughness, courage, patriotism. But that image doesn’t allow for the idea that anyone could actually, in some way, feel any exhilaration in combat. And if you do, you’re damn well expected to keep it to yourself.’’

‘‘Yet you just told me.’’

‘‘Yeah. Must’ve fallen under the power of your excellent interrogation skills. I’ll bet you busted a lot of balls in the box.’’ In a stroke of lucky timing, he glanced over at her just as she looked back at him. ‘‘Isn’t that what you cops call it? The box? Or is that just on TV?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’ This time the smile in her voice was echoed at the corners of her mouth. A mouth that, although it should have been impossible, he could still taste after all these years. She’d tasted like rum and sugar and mint and he could’ve drunk from those sweet lips forever. ‘‘That’s what we call it. And, yeah, I was okay.’’

He suspected she’d been a lot better than okay. She’d always seemed driven to perfection. Something she probably, at least back then, never would’ve believed they had in common.

‘‘I’d bet you played the good cop.’’

Quinn could easily visualize it, like a scene from a book. There’d be a small, stark, airless room with the requisite one-way mirror taking up most of one wall. Her partner would be seated in a straight-backed chair on one side of a narrow wooden table. Some low-life criminal would be seated on the other side.

He could imagine the partner grilling the perp, over and over, verbally pounding him, not letting him take a breath or gather his thoughts.

Then suddenly the steel door would swing open, and in would stroll a leggy redhead smelling as fresh as a spring garden, the scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose giving her a look of innocence not often found in the testosterone-driven environs of the police department.

She’d be carrying coffee. Maybe an icy Coke from the machine if it was summer. As she ignored the county law against smoking in public places and offered a cigarette, her eyes, as blue as a County Kerry lake, would be warm and empathetic. Her smooth magnolia drawl would chide her partner for being too harsh. Too rigid.

Of course there’d be a way out of this mess, she’d say coaxingly. Then, leaning forward, perhaps even flashing a bit of lace in the open V neck of the silky blouse that clung to slender curves, she’d offer the lowlife a door out of the box.

Having fallen under her smooth, feminine spell, the perp would leap for it. Only to find himself landing smack on his ass behind bars.

‘‘You’d lose.’’ Her words yanked him from the imaginary scene. The laughter he’d thought he saw hovering on her lips earlier had moved to those remarkable eyes. ‘‘I tended to play the bad cop. Perpetrators didn’t expect it, so sometimes it caught them off balance.’’

‘‘Makes sense to me.‘‘ She’d always, since the first moment they’d met, kept him off balance. ‘‘And did you just say ‘perpetrators’?’’ He’d used the word once during a poker game conversation with Nate, who’d nearly laughed his ass off over what he’d insisted was a Hollywoodism.

‘‘Yeah, I did.’’ She folded her bare arms. ‘‘And if you tell anyone, I’ll have to shoot you.’’

‘‘Works for me,’’ he said agreeably.

It occurred to Quinn as he pulled up in front of the nineteenth-century mansion, that as bad as it was that two men were dead at the hand of some psycho who was maybe planning to terrorize the town and smoke-check a lot more, for the first time in a very long while, he was actually enjoying himself.