Moonrise (2 page)

“Why?” he said again, his voice brusque.

“I want to find out what really happened to my father.”

He just stared at her for a moment. “He died, Annie. Remember? He had too much to drink, he fell down the back stairs and broke his damned neck.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“They did an autopsy. I’m sure you can read it if you’ve got the stomach for it—”

“I saw it. I still don’t believe it. Someone’s lying. Someone’s covering up.”

Silence for a moment. “What do you think happened?”

“I think someone killed him,” she said, before she could chicken out. “I think he was murdered.”

It was growing darker, and faint slivers of moonlight filtered down around them. His face was composed of planes and shadows, and she couldn’t see him clearly. Just the glitter in his dark eyes. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

He hadn’t denied the possibility, which shocked her. “You were his friend,” she said. “Don’t you want to know the truth? Don’t you want revenge?”

“Not particularly.”

She looked up at him, frustration making her grim. “Well, I do. And if you don’t want to help me, I’ll have to take care of it on my own. I’m going to find out what happened to my father. And I’ll be damned if I let them get away with some cover-up.”

He didn’t move. She had the sudden, eerie feeling that she was in danger. Very great danger. She didn’t dare look behind her—if she did, it would be to admit she was scared. So instead she kept her back straight, even though McKinley was close enough that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. She
could feel the tension in the air, emanating from his surprisingly strong body.

And then it seemed to dissolve. “All right,” he said in a cool voice, putting one hand under her elbow in what should have been a polite gesture. “You might as well come in. We’ll talk about it.”

She jerked for a moment, then held still. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”

“That means,” he said in his deep rasp of a voice that held the faintest memory of east Texas, “that you’ll tell me everything you know, everything you suspect, and then we’ll see what we have to do about it.” He pushed open the door, into the shadowy cottage, and she had no choice but to precede him inside. Once more resisting the impulse to look over her shoulder.

She looked around her as he flicked on the electric light. It was a small room, untidy. The furniture was frayed and broken, dishes were piled on the table. She turned to glance at him in the soft light.

“Why are you living here?” she asked. “This doesn’t seem like your kind of place at all.”

Just the faintest trace of a smile curved his mouth. It was hardly reassuring. “And you know me so well, don’t you, Annie?”

“I’ve known you for most of my life,” she said, defensive.

“How old am I?”

She blinked. “You’re drunk.”

“I didn’t ask that. And as a matter of fact,” he said, grabbing a chair and straddling it as he poured himself a glass of tequila, “I’m not nearly drunk enough. I’ve barely made a start on the night’s ration.” He poured a second glass, pushed it across the table toward her.

“I don’t drink.”

“You do tonight,” he said. “How old am I?”

She took the glass of tequila and allowed herself a faint sip. She hated tequila, and always had. “I used to think you were a little bit younger than my father,” she admitted.

“Your father was sixty-three when he died.”

“I know that,” she said irritably, taking another sip.

“Sit down, Annie, and tell me how old I am.”

“Not as old as I thought. Maybe in your late forties.”

“Maybe,” he said. “So why don’t you think your father’s death was an accident?”

“Instinct.”

“Christ,” he said weakly. “A woman’s intuition. If that’s all you’ve got to go on, sweetheart, then you’re wasting my time.”

“My instincts are excellent. Win always said so.”

“Yeah,” he said, draining his glass. “Well nigh infallible.”

“There’s something else.”

She didn’t imagine the sudden tension in the small cottage. “What else?”

“There’s something missing from the house. I didn’t even realize it was gone until recently, and I know it was there just before he died. I came down from Boston the week before, and it was—”

“What was, Annie? What the hell are you talking about?”

“A picture. He hadn’t had it for very long, but he always kept it with him. He said it had sentimental value.”

“Your father wasn’t a sentimental man. What was it a picture of?”

“Some obscure Irish saint. It never made sense to me, why he should have had it framed in silver, but he said it held the mysteries of the universe.”

“Did he?” James drawled. “And you think there’s some murderous conspiracy behind an old picture of a saint?”

“It wouldn’t have disappeared, not in the week after he died.”

“You’ve been reading too many mysteries, Annie. A tragic accident and a missing piece of religious art do not a conspiracy make.” He turned away from her, and his movements had
the deliberate grace of a man trying to appear sober.

“When did you become a drunk?” she said sharply. “You never used to be like this.”

“April second.”

The reply hung between them. It was the day her father had died.

She moved then, skirting the table, coming around to his side and kneeling down in front of him, not even hesitating. “You loved him,” she said. “As much as I did. We can’t just ignore what happened. Someone killed him, and we have to find out who and why. If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself. But you will, won’t you?”

He smiled down at her, and perhaps it was meant to be reassuring. Annie wasn’t reassured. She didn’t know this man—she kept looking for McKinley beneath the stubble and the danger, beyond the tequila and the unexpected look of him. He had to be in there, somewhere.

“Oh, I’ll help you, Annie,” he said softly. “You’ll get the answers to all those questions running about in your head. But I’m not sure you’ll like them.”

“Liking has nothing to do with it. I’m not going to stop until I find out.”

He looked down at her, and there was an odd expression in his eyes. “I know you won’t,
Annie,” he said gently. “And I’m sorry about that.”

He was going to have to do something about her. She knelt at his feet, all sweet-smelling innocence and trust, staring up at him. Her father’s age? Christ, he was thirty-nine years old. He’d done his job too damned well.

She was right—he had known her for most of her life. Since she was seven years old and he’d arrived in her life as James McKinley, newly widowed and not long out of college. Ready to follow Winston Sutherland anywhere, do anything he wanted. Ready to expiate the sins that stained his soul. It was a life he’d lived for more than twenty years now. It had become second nature to him.

He knew just how tenacious, how stubborn, how bright Annie Sutherland was. She wouldn’t let it go. Not until she learned the unpalatable truth, about all of them. A truth even James didn’t know completely.

While Win had been alive he’d been able to shield her. Win had been good at that—he could string together a bunch of lies that could convince the most rabid conspiracy buff that everything was aboveboard. He’d had the advantage with Annie, of course. She’d loved him, trusted him. It wouldn’t occur to her to suspect her father of being anything other
than the charming, slightly stuffy bureaucrat he’d appeared to be.

But Win wasn’t around to cloud her mind anymore. And she’d inherited his brains, even if she’d never used them in the same arena. It would only be a matter of time before she began making some very dangerous enemies.

It wasn’t his concern, he reminded himself. He was a dead man already—so what if Annie Sutherland was added to their list of victims?

And he didn’t really give a damn if she blew the cover off the whole stinking mess. He’d lost any interest in right or wrong, the good guys or bad guys. He’d spent too much of his life meting out someone else’s justice. He no longer cared.

He looked down at Anne. She probably had no idea of the thoughts racing through his brain, that no amount of tequila could deaden. He looked down at her slender, delicate throat, and thought about how much pressure he’d need to exert to break her neck. It would be simple, easy, no more than a flick of the wrist, and she and her questions would be no threat to anyone.

She wasn’t a particularly beautiful woman—Winston had seen to that. She wore her brownish blond hair long and simple, her clothes were uninspired, her makeup minimal. She could have been stunning, but Winston
was good at manipulating people. He’d wanted a daughter who was moderately attractive, intelligent, and outside the business. A glamorous beauty would have garnered too much attention, so Annie Sutherland’s perfect bone structure was hidden beneath a shaggy haircut and a self-deprecating style that was almost as effective as McKinley’s protective coloration, even if it wasn’t conscious.

He looked down at her, and he wondered what she’d do if he put his hand behind her head and pulled her mouth toward his crotch.

She probably didn’t know what to do with that mouth, he thought sourly. Win had scared off any but the most harmless of her lovers. Only his chosen one, Martin, was allowed to get close to her for any length of time. He never knew whether Win had destroyed their marriage in the end, or whether it had simply died a natural death. He told himself he’d never cared.

In the end, James didn’t touch her, because he wasn’t certain what he’d do. There was no hurry. No one could approach this place without him knowing, and so far they’d done a piss-poor job of coming after him. Annie being there would up the ante, of course, but they’d already let her get this far. Unless Martin had been able to cover it up, but he’d be a fool to count on that.

“Why didn’t you ask Martin for help?” he said suddenly. “Or did he turn you down?”

“I wanted you,” she said.

The words hung between them. He watched, with drunken amazement, as a faint sheen of color mottled her cheeks. She was actually blushing.

“Annie,” he said, suddenly weary, “go to bed.”

She glanced around. “Where?”

“There’s a bed upstairs. Take it. I’ve had too much to drink tonight to deal with you. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

“Does that mean you’re going to help me?”

He rose, caught her arm, and hauled her up. She was slender, the white suit was wrinkled, but she still smelled like some faint, sexy perfume. Not the kind of perfume he would have chosen for her.

“Maybe,” he said. “For the time being, get your butt upstairs and out of my sight.”

She smiled at him then. Christ, he’d forgotten Annie Sutherland’s smile. It had been a long time since he’d seen it, an even longer time since it had been directed at him. It was still just as powerful.

“I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” she said. She leaned over and hugged him, an exuberant, sexless hug, backing away before he could make a drunken swipe at her.

“I didn’t say—”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, escaping up the narrow stairs. Not knowing how close that escape was.

It was too damned small a house. The upstairs bedroom was nothing more than an open balcony. There was no door on his bedroom either.

He knew, deep in his heart, what he was going to have to do, and all the tequila in the world couldn’t change things.

He was either going to have to do his damnedest to convince sharp-eyed, quick-witted Annie Sutherland that her father was a harmless bureaucrat who’d died in a freak accident.

Or he might have to kill her himself.

M
oonlight shone in the office window. It was late, very late, in Langley, Virginia, and the building was relatively quiet.

“We’ve got a problem, sir.”

“Define it.”

“It’s McKinley, sir.”

“That’s nothing new. We knew we were going to have to take him out sooner or later. He’s holed up in that rathole in Mexico—he’s not going any place without our being on him like flies on shit. He’s also gonna be damned hard to take if we go in after him. What’s the hurry?”

“He’s not alone, sir.”

“Shit. I should have known. A man with Mack’s abilities could sell himself to the highest bidder. People with his talents are always in demand. Who is it? The Iraqis? The IRA? The Red Brigade?”

“Worse, sir. It’s Annie Sutherland.”

There was a measured pause. “Shit. We’ll have to go in, then. We’ve been playing a waiting game, and time just ran out. You’ve got the men for the job?”

“I thought I could handle it, sir.”

“No way. Mack’s more than a match for any single operative I know, and this isn’t your area of expertise. You send a team of your best. We can’t afford to make mistakes on this one. He’s a goddamned killing machine. It’s bad enough we’ve got to lose him. I don’t want anyone else going down if we can help it.”

“Yes, sir. What about Sutherland’s daughter?”

“What about her? You know as well as I do that there’s no room for loose ends. For witnesses, for questions. Your people know how to handle these things.”

“Yes, sir. When?”

“How long’s she been there?”

“My sources said she arrived on the island this afternoon and got to his place by dusk.”

“Are you sure he hasn’t already solved half our problem? The last man sent in after him wound up dead. He’s not the kind of man to wait around and ask questions. Maybe Annie Sutherland’s already floating on the tide.”

“No, sir. The taxi driver has been in our pay for months. He says McKinley let her in.”

“Shit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long will it take you to get a team together? People you can trust? People without sentimental feelings about a coworker?”

“Two or three days. Maybe four at the most.”

“I want the job done by tomorrow night. We can’t afford to fuck around on this one, son. Your ass and mine depend on getting this right. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It’ll be taken care of.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”