“I wasn’t whining.”
“Yes you were.”
“Whatever happened to the sweet sister I met in Kansas City?”
“I left her there,” Laurant answered.
Joe got up from the table, grabbed the box of Rice Krispies from the cabinet, got the skim milk out of the refrigerator, and then reached for a tablespoon and the biggest bowl he could find. “This Brenner guy increased his offer by twenty percent to buy the woman’s bakery, huh?”
Laurant gave him a surprised look.
“I listened to your messages,” he stated. “And it sounded to me like Margaret’s close to folding. The deal could be too good to pass up, especially if she’s as old as she sounded over the phone.”
“She isn’t that old, but you’re right. The money would be her retirement.”
“You’re trying to save the town, aren’t you?” Joe asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’m only trying to save the town square. I don’t understand why people think progress means tearing down beautiful old buildings to put up slick new ones. It doesn’t make any sense to me. The town will be fine with or without the square, but the charm . . . the history . . . that will be lost.”
Nick watched her stir the tea. She’d been doing that for the last couple of minutes, but she hadn’t taken a drink yet. She sat motionless, staring pensively at the swirling liquid in the cup. The sound of the spoon clinking against Joe’s empty bowl eventually drew her attention.
Laurant noticed that he glanced at his wrist as he carried the dish to the sink.
“Joe, why do you keep looking at your watch?” she asked.
“ ’Cause I’ve got it wired,” he answered. “If the red light goes off on the panel I’ve hooked up in the guest room, it will trigger the alarm on my watch.”
Thunder cracked close by, and it began to rain. Joe was thrilled by the sound. “Mother Nature’s going to help us out tonight. Let’s just hope the storm’s a bad one.”
“You want a bad storm?”
“I sure do,” he answered. “Because Nick wants to disable the camera after you two have put on your little performance for our unsub. I’m gonna make the lights flicker a couple of times, and then I’m gonna turn everything off. I’ll hit the main switch,” he explained. “When the lights come back on, the camera won’t.”
“I figured you wouldn’t be able to sleep with the camera watching you,” Nick said.
“No, I wouldn’t. Thank you,” she said, relieved.
“The camera’s plugged into an outlet up in the attic,” Joe told her. “We’re hoping he’ll come inside to turn it back on, thinking that the breaker just needs to be reset.”
She nodded. “And you’ll be waiting for him.”
She propped her elbow on the table, rested her chin in the palm of her hand, and stared at the back window with its blinds closed. Was he out there now, watching and waiting for his opportunity? How would he come at her? While she was sleeping? Or would he wait until she was outside and try to grab her then?
Rain began to pelt the windows.
“You guys ready to go upstairs?” Joe asked. “The storm could slow down any time, and I want to take advantage of this opportunity while it lasts. I’ll go down to the basement and mess with the circuits. You two wait here until after I’ve turned the lights off and flipped them back on. Then you go upstairs and do your thing. I’ll give you five minutes and then I’ll turn everything off again. Nick, you dismantle the camera and when you’ve done that, shout down to me, and I’ll turn the lights back on.”
“Got it,” he agreed.
“There’s a flashlight on the hallway chest,” he said. “So you’ll be able to see what you’re doing.” Joe pushed the chair back and stood. “Okay, just sit tight until the lights come back on. I’m going to keep flickering them every couple of seconds. I’ll yell when you can go up.”
He hurried around the corner into the back hall and down the basement steps. Nick stood in the doorway, waiting.
“You didn’t drink any of your tea. I figured out why you made it.”
She glanced up at him. “What’s there to figure out?”
The lights flickered twice, then went completely out. It was suddenly pitch black in the kitchen.
“Don’t get spooked.” His voice was a soothing whisper in the darkness.
“I won’t,” she assured him.
A flash of lightning lit the room for the briefest of seconds, and Laurant half expected to see a face looming in the gray light. She
was
getting spooked, sitting in that tiny room where
he
had made himself at home. God, how she wished she could jump in the car and run away. Why oh why had she come back?
Nick’s voice eased her budding panic. “Making tea is how you cope, isn’t it?”
She turned in his direction and tried to see him in the darkness. “What did you say?”
“When you get stressed, you stop everything you’re doing and make yourself a cup of hot tea. You did that a couple of times in Kansas City while we were at the rectory. You never drink it though, do you?”
Before she could answer, the lights came back on and Joe shouted, “Let’s do it.”
Nick took Laurant’s hand and gently pulled her from the chair. He didn’t let go of her as they went through the house and up the stairs. With each step she took toward the bedroom, her heartbeat escalated until it felt like it was slamming against her rib cage. The linen closet door was open, but she couldn’t see the camera.
Nick paused with his hand on the doorknob. “This has to look real. You understand what I mean? We want to provoke him, remember? That means we’ve got to get hot and heavy in there, and you’ve got to act like you’re enjoying it.”
“You’re going to have to act like you’re enjoying it too,” she pointed out. Lord, she was suddenly so nervous her voice cracked.
“Nah, I’m not going to have any trouble at all. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on you for a long time. Ready?”
“Just try to keep up with me.”
He wanted a seductress, and by God, that’s what he was going to get. She was determined to give the performance of a lifetime. They had the same goal in mind, to make the madman so jealous he would forget caution and come after her. They hoped his fury would drive him to do something careless. It was too late for second thoughts.
“Hey,” Nick whispered. “Smile.” He grinned as he added, “Maybe we ought to practice a little first. How long has it been since you’ve been tossed in the hay and mauled.”
“A couple of days,” she lied. “How about you?”
“Longer than that. Any surprises inside?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The usual stuff all young ladies keep at their disposal. Chains and whips on the walls. The standard equipment handed down from mother to daughter.”
She kept a straight face. “What kind of girls have you been hanging out with?”
“Good girls,” he assured her. “
Real
good girls.”
Laurant knew that Nick was trying to get her to laugh so she wouldn’t have stage fright.
As she pushed past him, she said, “Sorry, no surprises inside. Every girl has mirrors on her ceiling, doesn’t she?”
He was laughing when she opened the door. She went in first, flipped on the lights, and headed for the bed.
It turned out to be easier than she’d expected. She simply pretended she was modeling again. In her mind, the bed was the end of the runway, and it was her job to get there using every part of her body. She moved with easy grace, her hips swaying to the music she could hear in her mind, a pouty look on her face.
Nick watched from the doorway, stunned by the swift change in Laurant. She tossed her long thick curls provocatively over her shoulder as she glanced back at him with a sultry come-and-get-me look. When she reached the foot of the double bed, she turned and beckoned him forward with the crook of her finger. He had to remind himself that it was all an act. If eyes could smolder with passion, hers could burn down the house.
He walked toward his temptress, but she wasn’t quite finished shocking the hell out of him. As he reached for her, she shook her head, took a step back away from him and then slowly began to unbutton her blouse. She never took her gaze off him, staring directly into his eyes, waiting, teasing, beckoning.
He let her unbutton the blouse, but when she started to take it off and he saw the hint of her lacy bra and the soft swell of her breasts, he roughly pulled her into his arms, acting impatient and eager now. His hand moved to the back of her neck. He wound her hair around his fist as his other hand pressed against her spine, bringing her up close against him. Tilting her head back, he leaned down and kissed her long and hard.
The touch was electric. Her mouth was so soft, pliable, willing—damn, could she kiss. Her lips parted without prodding, and it was then that Nick gave in to his curiosity and desire. His tongue thrust inside to taste the sweet interior of her mouth. She stiffened in response, but only for a second or two, and then her arms found their way around his neck, and she was pressing against him, clinging to him as she matched his fervor.
The kiss went on forever. His mind knew it was all a performance for the camera, but his body didn’t care about that distinction. He reacted like any other man would in the arms of a beautiful woman.
He dragged his mouth away from hers and began to nibble on her earlobe. “Slow down,” he whispered, panting.
“No,” she whispered back. Then she tugged on his hair, pulling his head back so that she could kiss him on the mouth again. When her tongue touched his, he growled low in his throat.
She smiled with smug satisfaction against his lips and then kissed him passionately again, thoroughly getting into the role of aggressor now, but Nick wasn’t going to let her outdo him. He unsnapped her jeans and his hands moved to her spine and slipped inside the fabric. Cupping her backside, he jerked her up against his hard arousal. Shocked, her eyes opened, and she tried to pull back. He wouldn’t let her. His mouth took absolute possession, and within seconds her eyes were closed again, and she was pressing against his hard, warm chest. Pelvis to pelvis, the fit perfect, she rubbed against him. The way he stroked and caressed her with his hands and his tongue made her forget that she was supposed to be acting. She gripped his shoulders to keep from collapsing and kissed him back with honest longing.
From the darkened living room across town, the Peeping Tom watched. His roar of rage echoed through the house. Shaking, he picked up a lamp, ripped it from the socket, and hurled it at the stucco wall.
Retribution was at hand.
S
he had trouble looking Nick in the eye the following morning. As soon as the lights had gone out the night before, Nick had abruptly pulled away from her and had gone into the hallway to dismantle the camera. She was thankful for the darkness then because she knew she looked dazed and disoriented. She had trouble getting her legs to work. She’d wanted to hide in the bathroom until she regained her wits, but that had been out of the question. She fell back on the bed instead and stayed there until her heartbeat slowed down and she could draw a proper breath.
Nick and Joe came into her darkened room and told her to get some rest. They would take turns staying awake. She didn’t know if Nick slept or if he got any rest at all. The only thing she remembered was the exhaustion that overtook her.
She woke up at daybreak and dressed in her jogging clothes, a snug-fitting, blue-and-white-striped spandex top that didn’t quite cover her belly button, blue spandex shorts, socks, and her comfortable but worn-looking white Reeboks. After securing her hair into a ponytail, she went into the bedroom to begin her stretching exercises.
Nick came into the bedroom as she was coming out of the bathroom. He took one look at her outfit, and his heart skipped a beat. Every curve of her body was evident. “Jeez, Laurant, does your brother know you wear stuff like that?”
She began her waist bends and didn’t look at him when she answered, “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes. I’m not going to church. I’m going running.”
“Maybe you ought to put a big T-shirt over . . .”
“Over what?”
“Your chest.”
The shirt wasn’t going to cover her amazing long legs. He was having trouble taking his eyes off them. “And long pants,” he muttered. “This is a small town. You’re going to shock folks.”
“No I won’t,” she assured him. “They’re used to seeing me run.”
He didn’t like it, not one little bit, but who was he to complain? If she wanted to dress like a . . . runner . . . ah, hell, what was the matter with him? He had no business telling her what to wear. Even if they were in a relationship—which they weren’t, he quickly qualified—he still wouldn’t have the right to tell her how to dress.
Nick had already put on his running clothes, a faded navy blue T-shirt, gym shorts, white socks, and his battered, used-to-be-white running shoes. While she stretched her legs, he slipped his gun into the holster at his hip and pulled the T-shirt down to cover it. Then he picked up a small earpiece and tucked it in his right ear. Moving in front of the mirror above her dresser, he pinned a circular disc to his neck band just above his clavicle.
She was retying one of her shoelaces when she asked, “What’s the pin for?”
“It’s a microphone,” he answered. “So no dirty talking today. Wesson will hear whatever I say, and just for the record, Jules, I still think this is a badass idea.”
The voice inside his ear spoke back. “Duly noted, Agent Buchanan, and it’s sir to you, not Jules.”
Nick mouthed the word “jackass” to himself and then turned to Laurant, “You ready?”
“Yes,” she answered, and for the first time since he’d come into the bedroom, she looked into his eyes.
“I wondered how long that was going to take.”
She didn’t bother to pretend to misunderstand. “You noticed?”
“Now you’re blushing.”
“I am not.” Shrugging to cover her embarrassment, her voice dropped to a whisper so that Wesson, hopefully, wouldn’t hear her, “I don’t think we need to talk about what happened . . .”
“No, we don’t need to talk about it,” he agreed. Then he grinned an adorable lopsided grin and added, “But I’ll bet we’re both gonna be thinking about it all day long.”
He was staring at her mouth, and so she stared at the floor.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Nodding, she brushed past him. On the way down the stairs, he said, “I want you to stay directly in front of me, and don’t worry, I’ll slow down to keep pace with you.”
She laughed. “You’ll slow down? I don’t think so.”
“I’ve been running almost every morning since I joined the FBI. We agents have to keep in top shape,” he told her.
“Uh-huh,” she agreed. “Then how come you told me you weren’t a runner?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I told you I hated to run.”
“You said it was bad on the knees and that you were going to complain the entire time.”
“It is bad on the knees, and I do plan to complain.”
“And how many miles do you run every morning?”
“About a hundred, give or take.”
She laughed. “Is that right?”
Joe was standing in front of the living room window, looking outside through the crack in the drawn drapes.
“Nick, I think you better have a look at this. We’ve got a situation here. You might want to reconsider running today.”
Laurant beat him to the window. She peeked out and then said,
“It’s all right. It’s just the boys waiting for me. We run together every morning.”
Nick looked over her head and saw seven young men cluttering the sidewalk in front of her house. There were two more jogging in place in the middle of the street.
“Who are they?”
“High school kids,” she answered.
“And they run with you every day? Why the hell didn’t you mention them to me?”
He sounded incredulous and angry. “Don’t get upset. It’s no big deal. I’m sorry I forgot to mention them. The boys are on the track team at Holy Oaks High School . . . well, some of them are,” she explained. “And they don’t really run with me, at least not around the lake. They all peter out by the time I hit the path. Then they wait for me to come back and . . .”
“And what?” he demanded. Before she had a chance to answer, he muttered, “Wesson, are you getting this?”
“I’m hearing you loud and clear,” came the staticky reply.
“And what?” he asked Laurant again. “They wait for you to come back around the lake, and then what?”
“And they jog home with me. That’s all. They want to stay in shape during the summer so that when school starts, they’ll be in top form.”
Nick glanced outside again and noticed another boy running down the street to join his friends.
“Oh, yeah, they’re serious runners all right,” he remarked sarcastically. “Especially the kid eating the donut. He’s definitely headed for the Olympics.”
Joe got a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror. His hair was sticking up every which way. He hadn’t bothered to comb it since he’d gotten out of bed, or rather, since he’d gotten off the sofa, and he self-consciously tried to pat it down as he said, “Uh . . . I don’t believe any of those boys dragged themselves out of bed and came over here to run, Laurant. No, I’m pretty sure running isn’t on their minds.”
“Then what did get them out of their beds this early in the morning?” she asked, exasperated.
Nick answered. “Hormones, Laurant. Raging hormones.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. At this time of day? Boys their age have a whole lot more on their minds besides sex.”
“No, they don’t,” Nick argued.
She looked at Joe who sheepishly nodded. “They really don’t,” he agreed with Nick.
Nick jerked his thumb toward the window. “At that age, I didn’t think about anything else but sex.”
Joe nodded. “I’d have to agree with Nick again,” he said. “It’s all I ever thought about. Mostly I thought about how to get it, and when I finally did get it, then I thought about how to get it again.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. The conversation was ludicrous. “You’re saying that every second of every waking hour that’s what you both were thinking about when you were teenagers?”
“Pretty much,” Nick said. “So we know where they’re coming from and what they’re after. Maybe I ought to go outside and have a little talk with them.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Nick came up with a better idea. He’d intimidate them. He pulled his T-shirt up over his gun and tucked the material behind it so that the weapon was clearly visible.
Joe watched him. “That ought to discourage them.”
As Nick was opening the front door for Laurant, he smiled and said, “Maybe I ought to shoot a couple of them.”
Laurant rolled her eyes as she went past him, ignoring his scowl. Waving to her entourage, she jogged across the street and introduced Nick to the boys. She told them that he was her fiancé. The kids all noticed Nick’s gun, of course, but they gave it only a cursory glance before returning their full attention to Laurant’s considerable assets. They didn’t even look at him when Laurant explained that Nick worked for the FBI.
It all came down to spandex versus a loaded weapon, and spandex won.
Nick stayed right behind her as she ran. The boys fell into step around the two of them, taking turns trying to engage Laurant in conversation.
Donut boy was the first to fade. Three others quickly followed. Laurant gradually picked up the pace, her long legs eating up the pavement as she gracefully glided forward. She’d been right about her fan club’s endurance. By the time they reached the entrance to the park, the last two boys were doubled over and panting for breath. Nick heard one of them gag and got an inordinate amount of pleasure from the sound.
Laurant loved this time of day. It was so peaceful and quiet and lovely. For an hour she forced herself to forget about everything and concentrate only on the path. The rain last night had left the leaves damp, but she knew that by noon, they would all be dried out again. A drought had hit Iowa hard, and the weeds and scrub were brown. As she rounded the bend around the blue water lake, the entrance to the nature preserve was on her right. There were a good ten acres of tall brown prairie grass. Like wheat, it swayed in the gentle morning breeze.
She passed the abbot’s cabin and had the feeling that Agent Wesson was watching her, but she couldn’t see him because the blinds were drawn. The dock to the right of the cabin and behind was sitting up high out of the water, another sign of the lack of rain.
Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and between her breasts by the time she’d made a complete circle around the lake. She slowed down, then stopped, doubled over and took long deep breaths. She could hear Nick panting behind her.
Standing there, they were easy targets. He did a quick survey of the dense forest and overgrown brush around them, and moved closer to her. His T-shirt was covered with sweat. With the back of his arm he wiped his forehead. She could catch her breath when they were back home. “Let’s get out of here. Do we walk or run home?”
“We jog.”
The boys were waiting at the park entrance. Grinning like idiots, they once again fell into step around Nick and Laurant.
“Wimps,” Nick muttered as Laurant waved good-bye to the boys and sprinted up the front walk.
Once the door was shut behind them, Nick relaxed. “Damn, it’s humid out there.”
“What did you think of our lake? Isn’t it beautiful?”
“I saw it yesterday,” he reminded her. “When we went to see Wesson.”
“But isn’t it lovely? It’s a fisherman’s paradise. You can actually see the fish in the clear, rock-bottomed water.”
“Yeah? I didn’t notice.”
She had her hands on her hips and was still panting a bit. “How could you not notice? What were you looking at?”
“All the places the bastard could hide. He could have had you in his sights from the moment we entered the park until the moment we left, and I never would have spotted him. I can’t let you do that run again. You hear me, Wesson? The unsub could have been hiding anywhere. There’s too much territory to cover.”
Her mouth went dry when she tried to speak. “You think he’ll use a gun to . . .”
“He’s an up close and personal kind of guy,” Nick said. “He might try to wing you to slow you down though.”
“There were other agents keeping both of you in their sights all the while you were in the park,” Joe added as Laurant passed him on her way to get some bottled water. He followed her into the kitchen and continued. “You both were safe.”
Laurant returned to the living room, tossed Nick a bottle of Evian, and opened her own. She took a big drink and headed for the stairs.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
“Wait,” Nick said as he went up the stairs ahead of her. He looked in the bathroom to make sure there weren’t any surprises waiting.
He was being overly cautious, and she was thankful for it.
“Okay, go ahead.”
“You could shower in the other bathroom down the hall,” she suggested.
“I’ll wait.”
Nick was sitting on the bed talking on the phone when she came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later. Her hair was dripping down her back, and she was wearing a short cotton robe that had seen better days. He took one look at her and promptly lost his train of thought. He knew she was naked under that thin material, and he had to force himself to turn away so he could concentrate on his conversation.
“Look, Theo, we’ll talk about this when I get back to Boston. All right?” He hung up the phone and slowly turned his head to get a glimpse of Laurant out of the corner of his eye. He watched her open the dresser drawer and take out two little wisps of lace. Immediately, his mind went to visions of her wearing them.