Six-and-a-half years earlier
Valley of the Kings
She’d been right. Peter Kauffman was trouble. The kind that came in flashing capital letters and needed a warning label slapped all over it.
Kat stared across the table of the dimly lit Italian restaurant as Pete talked about his business and felt the
same electricity flow through her veins she’d been trying to tamp down the last few hours.
Hell, the last few days for that matter.
It wasn’t so much what he said—though she did enjoy hearing about his gallery in Miami and the buying trips that sent him all over the globe—it was the way he looked at her. With those smoldering eyes, like she was grade-A prime-cut beef and he was dying to sink his teeth in her.
Heat rushed to her cheeks. She eased her hands under the damask tablecloth and wiped her sweaty palms on her black slacks like she’d done several times during the meal.
He really was gorgeous—all blond and tan and sexy in that white dress shirt and those charcoal slacks. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and those hips? Perfection. He was also so totally focused on her she wasn’t entirely sure he was real. She’d been wary at first, careful not to divulge too much about her work site just in case he was one of those treasure hunters the crew had warned her about, but he’d barely seemed interested in her dig. And a big part of her was relieved. She really didn’t want to get into the scandal surrounding her site and the artifacts that had been slowly disappearing the last few months. Instead he’d steered the conversation to her months in Cairo, her interests, what she did in her free time and what she wanted to do with her life.
And that was what really did her in. No one had ever seemed so genuinely interested in her before. Especially not an Adonis like him.
At some point she realized she needed to open her mouth and say something intellectual so she’d stop focusing on that sexy dimple in his cheek and the subtle curve of his lips. He’d been doing most of the talking, and it wasn’t going to take him long to figure out she was practically drooling. So she picked the one topic she knew
would get her mind off hot, sticky, sweaty sex and what he looked like underneath those fancy clothes.
And regretted it minutes later when he only stared at her without responding.
“I’m boring you, aren’t I?” Kat reached for her wineglass. “Not everyone’s as excited about Egyptian history as I am. Sorry.”
Pete chuckled, the sound so deep and rich, she was sure she felt the vibrations all the way across the table and into her toes. “You’re not boring me at all. I could listen to you talk all night long.”
She frowned, knowing he was simply playing her, and told herself not to read too much into his words. But when his grin widened and those damn eyes of his sparked, held on hers and dropped to her mouth, she wasn’t so sure anymore. There was definitely something happening between them. Something sultry and electric she’d never felt before. And damn if it didn’t excite and scare her to death all at the same time.
The waiter brought his receipt then. Pete signed the slip of paper and pushed his chair back. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Happy for the distraction, she grabbed her purse, slipped the strap over her bare shoulder and headed toward the front of the restaurant.
Outside the air was balmy, with a slight breeze blowing off the water. Beside her, Pete tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks and gestured with his shoulder. “You want to walk for a bit?”
She was more relieved than she wanted to admit. Walking meant she’d get to spend more time with him before they said good night. “Yes. I’d love to.”
They strolled the streets of downtown Cairo and talked about sports and politics and what it was like to be an American living and working abroad. Eventually they ended up along the banks of the Nile where lights from
high-rise office buildings shimmered over the water, contrasting with mud-brick houses and donkey-drawn carts.
Cairo wasn’t a gentle city. It overwhelmed the senses with its noise and chaos, pollution and sixteen million people. But Kat loved it. Sure, there was too much of everything here—too much progress, too much history, too many dangers lurking if you weren’t careful—but it was a magical place. Never more so than it was this night.
It was close to an hour later when they finally made their way to her flat. The building was in an older neighborhood, but well-kept and safely lit.
“This is me,” she said as they slowed near the front entrance and the five steps that led to the building’s main door.
“Nice area.” She noticed he took it all in—the other buildings, the modern cars on the street, the security system blinking just inside the glass door of her building—and approved. The man missed nothing.
“Yeah. One of the guys on our team has been in Cairo a long time and has a flat here. He told us about it when a unit opened up. Personally, I think it’s because he has a crush on Shannon and he wanted to keep an eye on her, but I’m not complaining. Beats living in a mud hut or a tent.”
He smiled and looked down at her. And that spark passed between them again. A jolt she hoped he felt as strongly as she did.
She swallowed and watched as his eyes followed the line of her throat, lower to the skin revealed by her open collar, lower still to the St. Jude medal that fell just above her breasts.
Her pulse pounded under that sultry gaze. And she made a choice she never would have even considered before, right on the spot. “Do you want to come up? I think Shannon was hanging out with some friends tonight. She won’t be back until morning.”
Those smoldering eyes ran up to hover on her lips, higher still until his gaze locked on hers and it felt like he was looking all the way into her soul.
“I’d like to,” he said softly. “But I can’t. I’m flying to Rome tonight.”
Her stomach fell like a stone weight. “Rome?”
He nodded slowly.
“When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh.”
She looked down at her hands, noticed they were shaking and clasped them together. Maybe she’d read him wrong. Was she really that stupid?
His hand closed over both of hers before she saw him move. “Thank you for the nicest dinner I’ve had in longer than I can remember. I’m glad I met you, Katherine Meyer.”
A slight tremble ran through his touch, one she tried not to misread but couldn’t ignore. She chanced a look up. And knew she hadn’t been completely wrong. Regret and disappointment reflected deeply in his eyes.
And odd as it was considering she wanted him more than she could remember wanting anything else in her life, a strange sense of relief pulsed along her nerve endings.
Something she couldn’t define was pushing her toward him. Something deeper than a sexual connection and a thousand times hotter. He was the most dangerous kind of man because he was the first who made her feel with her heart rather than think with her mind.
Lucky for her, something was holding him back. Something she didn’t understand but knew instinctively had just saved her from major heartbreak.
“I’m glad I met you too, Pete.” Her throat grew thick. “I wish we’d had longer.”
She forced herself to let go and step back before he said
something that would make her stop. Without a doubt, the secrets in his smoky eyes would stay with her long after he was gone. “Good luck in Rome.”
She turned, hustled up the stairs and with a click of her key left him standing alone on the street.
Present day
Northeastern Pennsylvania
“Forecast shows snow slowing in the next hour or so.”
Aten Minyawi looked up from the handheld GPS he was studying and gave a brief nod toward his counterpart, Hanif Busir, who was seated at the small table in the motel they’d scrounged up, studying the weather on his computer. Minyawi refocused on the picture in front of him. The GPS dot hadn’t budged in the last three to four hours. Katherine Meyer was hunkered down, feeling safe and smug.
She wouldn’t be smug for long. It was only a matter of time before he caught up with her. And finished what she’d started six years ago.
“That’s good,” Busir mumbled with a scowl that said he was talking to himself.
Minyawi ignored him. Thoughts of Kat’s large brown eyes slid into his mind. Of the way she’d looked at him back then. Of the way she’d been so trusting. So naïve. He’d pegged her wrong from the start, though. He wouldn’t do so again.
He ran a finger down the scar on his left cheek. No, she wasn’t naïve. She’d taken away the only thing he’d ever truly cared about. Made him the killer he was today.
He shut out the memories and emotions he no longer felt. His training had hardened him into nothing more than a machine. And it had saved him.
He stood. “We go now.”
Busir glanced up. “But the weather—”
“We go now,” he said again. They’d been sitting on their asses too long as it was, holed up in a motel in the middle of bum-fuck America, and he was sick of it. Sick of waiting, of watching. Of planning. “Take care of the clerk while I contact Usted and Wyatt. They’ll go in from the north side. We’ll take the south.”
Their partners on this excursion were hired American thugs, but Minyawi didn’t care. He’d been at the auction house looking for Kat when she’d gotten the jump on Busir and Wyatt. Morons that they were, they’d let her slip through their fingers. But Minyawi still needed them. At least a little longer.
“Aten—”
He turned hardened eyes on Busir. The man quickly closed his mouth.
Indecision brewed in Busir’s eyes. He was debating whether to ask a question or bite his tongue.
Minyawi relaxed his jaw. Though he ran the show, he liked that this unlikely brother-in-arms had a brain and knew how to use it. It could be an asset in the future.
Busir closed the laptop and slowly rose from the metal chair. “We’re two hours from her location. With the snow yet, it’ll take us twice that. Usted and Wyatt are an hour behind us. She’s not going anywhere. If we wait—”
Of course, there was using a brain, and then there was overkill.
“If we wait,” Minyawi said through clenched teeth, his accent punctuating each word, “she could decide to leave. We’ll secure the perimeter and hold for the others. Now do as I say.”
Busir’s lips thinned, but he didn’t press the issue. With a frown he pulled the semiautomatic from the holster at the small of his back and screwed on the silencer. His footsteps echoed across the tile floor, followed by the muffled sob of the night clerk bound hand-to-foot in the back room.
Minyawi glanced at the GPS one last time before pocketing the instrument. He wouldn’t let her get away. Not this time.
A muffled pop echoed from the back room. Then…silence.
Loose ends.
In the military when he’d been nothing more than a boy, he’d learned to consider all his options. Prepare for the unexpected, never underestimate your enemy. He’d overlooked Katherine Meyer the first time he’d met her.
He wouldn’t again.
He now knew her weakness. A weakness he no longer had. She had no family left, no friends. Nothing. But she was loyal.
And that loyalty, luckily, was going to lead him right to her.
Present day
Northern Pennsylvania
Kat straightened from the doorjamb where she’d been leaning. Okay, Pete had been gone for thirty minutes. Enough was enough. She was going out to look for him.
In a closet off the kitchen she found several parkas, gloves and a flashlight. The exterior garage door opened just as she reached it.
Pete shivered as he stumbled through the opening. Snow covered his body. Ice crystals stuck to the shadowy beard on his jaw. As she took in his nearly white skin, she
couldn’t help but think he looked like a well-dressed popsicle.
Relief and irritation warred inside her as she grabbed him and helped him inside. “Smart move, Indiana.”
“F…f…freezing out there,” he chattered as he stomped snow off his feet.
“No kidding. It’s called a blizzard. What were you thinking? You could have been killed.”
“Looking for…h…house.”
She used one arm to close and lock the outer door, made sure to flip off the exterior light and then led him into the apartment. After easing him into a chair in front of the register, she took his frozen jacket, wrapped one of the heated blankets around his shivering shoulders and rubbed his arms to stimulate circulation.
And felt a twinge of sympathy for him.
Okay, being a bitch just because that kiss had thrown her for a loop wasn’t going to accomplish much. They were stuck in here together until the storm passed. Might as well make the best of it.
“There isn’t one,” she said as she shrugged out of her coat. “It burned to the ground about three years ago. The nearest house is at least a mile away.”
His teeth continued to knock together as she rubbed his arms, then his legs and finally his feet after she removed his shoes and socks. He was soaked to the skin. She’d seen extra clothing in the closet and knew she’d have to get him out of his wet tuxedo before long.
She glanced at his sodden slacks, the ruined dress shoes on the floor. Armani. She didn’t live in a hole in the ground; she knew when she saw money. And he had it. More than he’d had when they’d been together. Judging from how well all those stolen artifacts had done at his auction tonight, a whole lot more.
Don’t go there.
“Wh…where are we?”
Before she could answer, the kettle whistled. Relieved at the distraction, she rose, went to the kitchen where she poured a mug of tea and brought it back to him.
“Northern Pennsylvania,” she said as she handed him the steaming mug. He took it with two hands, pressed it against his right cheek and closed his eyes.
His color was slowly returning, but he still looked like death warmed over—which was ironically how she felt. Dry clothes could wait a few minutes. He looked like he needed a moment to catch his bearings.
So did she for that matter.
He kept the cup against his cheek, took slow and rhythmic breaths. He hadn’t looked at her once since he’d come back into the room. Though he’d accepted her help, hadn’t pushed her away when she’d guided him into the apartment, she sensed he was struggling to keep his emotions in check.
She had a brief flash of his enraged face in that alley tonight, and a shiver ran down her back. No, she really didn’t know this man, not the parts that mattered. Considering what she knew he was now capable of, she thanked her lucky stars he was in such control.
On a deep breath, she sat on the couch across from him and bit the inside of her lip. This was going to be a long night.
“Warming up?” she asked to cut the silence.
There was no response save a slight shift in his breathing. His eyes were still closed, the cup still pressed against his cheek. For a minute she wondered if he’d fallen asleep, but then decided he couldn’t have, not sitting upright like that.
“You weren’t on the guest list,” he said in a raspy, deep voice void of any kind of emotion.
“No,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t.”
Silence.
“What were you doing at my auction?”
How much could she tell him without putting both of their lives in more jeopardy? How much of the truth could she really trust him with?
Not much, her conscience screamed.
“I guess you could say I was curious. I…bypassed security.”
A humorless sound came out of him. A cross between a huff and a laugh. “Fitting, I guess,” he mumbled. “Karma’s got a badass sense of humor.”
Kat frowned. Oh yeah, good ol’ karma. When you considered the fact
he
was the criminal and
she’d
been the one doing the breaking and entering, it was more than just a little ironic.
“Answer me one question,” he said. “Why a bomb? I mean, if you’d wanted to hide from me, you could have easily done it without the theatrics.”
Hide from him? Was that what he thought? She’d been in hiding
because
of him.
“I didn’t really have a choice.”
The look he shot her screamed
yeah right.
“You mentioned that before. Everyone has choices, Kat.”
Not her. Hers had dried up the day she’d met Peter Kauffman.
She looked away. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I’ve got nothing but time, thanks to you.” He sipped his tea as if all was well, but the bite in his voice told her to watch her back. “And I think I have a right to know. You owe me that much at least.”
Her resistance wavered. She didn’t owe him a thing, not as far as she could see, but some small part of her knew he wouldn’t let up until he had at least a smattering of the truth. She decided giving him the basics wouldn’t hurt.
“I’m sure you remember Dr. Sawil Ramirez.”
He thought for a moment, took a sip from the mug. “Dark-haired guy. Brazilian, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” He’d lived in the apartment above her and Shannon, and Pete had met him several times. “I talked to him about the relics I suspected were taken from the tomb. He was surprised I’d kept such a close eye on it all. But in the end he was thankful.”
Tension seeped back into the room with just those few sentences. His hand tightened around the mug.
Kat crossed her arms over her chest. She would
not
feel guilty about this again. If he didn’t want to hear the truth then he shouldn’t have asked.
“One night while you were away on one of your ‘business trips,’ Sawil showed up at my apartment. He said he had the proof I needed and that I wouldn’t believe who was involved.”
Pete’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Kat knew what he was thinking, but he wasn’t denying it, so she went on.
“He’d taken what I’d told him to the Supreme Council of Antiquities himself. Filed his own report. The man he’d filed the report with, Amon Bakhum, was conveniently killed in a car accident the following day.”
The Supreme Council of Antiquities was the government body that oversaw all archaeological excavation in Egypt. They were supposed to keep Egypt’s treasures safe. In this case, they’d let the ball drop. Big-time.
She paused, thought back to Sawil’s wary eyes the night he’d come pounding on her door. He’d been a quiet man, and his crush on Shannon had endeared him to Kat. Repeatedly he’d tried to talk her into leaving things alone, told her it was none of her business. But when she hadn’t, when she’d persisted in looking for answers, he’d tried to warn her. He’d seen her coming and going with Pete, and he’d been worried their association would eventually cost her her life.
It had, but not in the way Sawil had predicted.
She bit her lip, debated how much else to say, then figured,
what the hell?
Pete already knew most of this. He’d been privy to it from the other side.
“One of the men I saw at the auction tonight ran stolen artifacts on the black market in Egypt.”
“Let me guess,” Pete said calmly. Too calmly. “Ramirez told you I knew the guy.”
A knot formed in her stomach as she remembered back. At the time, she hadn’t wanted to believe what Sawil had told her. The man she’d fallen in love with couldn’t possibly be involved in an artifact-smuggling operation. She’d told Sawil that much.
But that was before she’d seen the proof herself.
The betrayal that cut through her now was as sharp as the day she’d realized she’d been duped. Played, from the very start.
“He didn’t need to tell me,” she snapped.
Pete’s gaze shifted her way, not a flicker of emotion anywhere on his face. No, that wasn’t true. There was boredom in his flat eyes. Boredom and indifference.
And it cut her. Just as much as his reaction had that day.
“Move on,” he said. “What happened next?”
She drew a deep breath. “Sawil had an idea. A way we could get the last bit of evidence we needed, and I, well…I was curious. He asked me to go back to the tomb with him that night.” Her stomach pitched as memories of that night flooded her mind.
“Kat?”
She flinched at Pete’s voice. His brows lowered as he watched her. Was that concern in his eyes? Concern or just mere curiosity at her silence?
She didn’t know. But ultimately, she’d been in that tomb that night because she’d wanted some kind of proof Sawil was wrong and Pete was innocent. She hadn’t found it.
“We didn’t know they were still there. We surprised them.”
“Who?”
“Two men. One was at the auction tonight. The other—I never saw his face. Sawil, he…” She swallowed around the lump that formed in her throat. “He didn’t make it out.”
Pete’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything, and it was impossible to read his expression.
“Somehow I made it back into Cairo,” she went on, refusing to think about the details or what she’d heard from the shadows of the tomb. “I was afraid to go home. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to call Shannon, to warn her not to go back to our apartment. I got worried so I…” She took a breath. “I called Marty.”
Pete’s cup paused halfway to his mouth. It was no secret he hadn’t liked her ex, Martin Slade, who worked for the CIA. Of course, she hadn’t put two and two together as to
why
until after everything had gone down and she’d realized what Pete had really been into.
It was obvious Pete liked Marty less now than he had back then. That should make all this easier considering the circumstances, right? Only for some insane reason, it didn’t.
“Marty…he told me they would have her picked up. That they’d protect her. But they couldn’t.”
Kat glanced toward the radiator and focused on the tarnished metal. To this day, she still couldn’t let herself think of the horrible things those two men had done to her roommate.
“Whoever they worked for was so important,” she said, “they were willing to kill anyone who got in their way. That SCA agent. Sawil. Shannon. Me. They used Shannon to get to me.”
“So why the bomb?”
“Because I was in over my head. I was the last one to
see Sawil alive. I didn’t have an alibi for being gone that night, and people at the tomb had heard me arguing with him earlier in the day.” They’d been arguing about Pete and his possible involvement, though she didn’t say that now. “Several of the missing artifacts were found in my apartment, along with Shannon’s body. Shannon and Sawil were practically a couple by that point. And they both died on the same night. According to Marty, I was already under watch because of my job and my association with you.”
He glanced away, but she stiffened her spine and went on. “And then I heard from them. They knew everything about me—about my mother, where I lived, where I worked, what route I drove to the university when I was home. They threatened…my family, and after everything…I knew they’d make good on it.”
When he looked at her with blank eyes, she knew he didn’t believe her, and that treacherous heart of hers dropped. Did she expect his sympathy? She really was more pathetic than she realized.
“So, let me guess,” he said. “Good old Marty faked the car bomb.”
She nodded.
“And Shannon’s body was in the rubble, not yours.”
Sickness welled in her stomach again just like it had that day. “Not Shannon’s. But someone else’s. I don’t know the details, but Marty handled it. He figured an Egyptian investigation would just raise too many questions. Whoever it was…He made sure the dental records matched.”
“Jesus Christ.” Pete looked away in disgust.
Kat squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. There wasn’t anything she could do about the past. All that mattered—all that ever mattered—was what she did now.
“Look, I don’t expect you to understand. You asked. I answered. I did what I had to do to stay alive.”
He stood, wobbled and reached out to grip the chair. She quickly rose to help him, but the fire in his eyes had her thinking twice about touching him. She pulled her hand back.
“No, I don’t understand, and I don’t want to. Sounds to me like everything that happened was a result of you being too stubborn and impulsive to listen to reason.”
“Wait a minute—”
“No, I’m done waiting,” he snapped. “Why the hell am I here now? Not because you need anything from me. I’m here because you fucked up—again—and this time dragged me into it.”
She couldn’t believe he was just going to stand there and act like he hadn’t played a part in what had happened. She opened her mouth to say just that but stopped.
He was right about one thing. She had dragged him back into this mess. If she’d stuck to her plan and not gone into the Worthington’s lobby last night, neither of them would be here right now.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“What you meant to do and what you did are two very different things, then and now. Aren’t they, Kat?”
Her mouth snapped closed.
“And now I suppose you’re going to tell me these guys, the ones who were at the auction tonight, saw you and now know you’re not really dead. Which means they’re looking for you because they want to have a nice little conversation about what you remember. And because you showed your face at
my
auction, that means I’m now fucked because they’ll try to find me to get to you. Is that about right? Please, by all means, fill me in if I missed anything.”
It was more than right, and his sarcasm proved just how ticked he really was. She sensed now wasn’t the time to tell him the pendant she’d mailed him just before disappearing six years ago held the only evidence that would prove her innocence and possibly put a murderer in jail.