Sweet Seduction Shield (24 page)

"Does Fred
think you've got a good imagination?" Abi asked pointedly.

"Who's Fred?"
Gen demanded, but was ignored by both women.

I noticed Eva
sit back in her chair, readjust her hat and close her eyes again.
She'd undoubtedly been here before and knew when to take a moment
to snooze, bypassing all the drama. It would have been hilarious if
I wasn't so upset by it all.

"Fred
loves
my imagination,"
Kelly was saying. "In fact it was my imagination that attracted the
man to me in the first place."

"Ah," Abi said
excitedly, "so he's an adventurous lover then?"

"Pfft!" Kelly
exclaimed, as even Eva opened her eyes to hear the next words out
of her mouth. "That man thrives off adventure." Then she realised
what she'd admitted, probably more than she'd intended, as it only
added fuel to Abi's fire-quest to find out who the mysterious fifth
man hooked on Kelly's line was. "And that's all I'll say about
that," she finished, turning her attention to Eva. "Your plan,
Evangeline?"

"You sure,
cookie?" the cowgirl drawled. "Seems to me you've got something on
your mind."

"Not you too,"
Kelly groaned, flouncing back into her seat with an attractive
pout.

Just as Abi
sat up straighter, pointed her index finger towards her terrible
twin and declared, "I'm watching you, and now so is Eva. Your
secret doesn't stand a chance against the both of us."

"Abi," Kelly
said with a roll of her eyes, "you watch way too many teen
dramas."

"There's nothing at all wrong with
Glee
," Abi shot back.

Gen snorted,
Kelly arched an eyebrow and Eva said, "They never do Country."

"They sang a
Carrie Underwood song once," Abi argued.

"Yeah, once,"
Eva pointed out. "How many shows have there been now, cookie?"

Abi ducked her
head.

"Enough
Glee
, let's get
serious," Kelly declared, then chuckled at her word play. "What's
the plan?"

Everyone
turned their attention back to the cowgirl, who tipped her hat back
on her head and smiled. It was a little mischievous and
calculating, and had no place on the pretty woman's face, I
thought.

"Simple. The
men all think they call the shots, don't they?" she announced and
we all nodded rigorously. "Well, I say we go get this book thingie
and in the process have a bit of fun."

"You can't be
serious," Gen said, sounding stunned.

"Ooh, I like
it," Abi and Kelly both offered, living up to their terrible twins
moniker.

"Well, Marie.
What do ya think?" Eva asked. "Kill two birds with one stone, isn't
that how the saying goes? Grab the ledger, and show Pierce you're
not sitting around the house waiting for him to see sense. Nothing
tells a cowboy that you mean business, than taking the bull by the
horns."

And maybe it was her choice of another overused saying that
did it. But Pierce had told me to
grab the bull by the
horns
too. Hearing it again, this time from a
genuine looking cowgirl, made me want to do just that. But, I was
not a young innocent without experience and responsibilities. I had
a five year old daughter to think about and real life memories of
what the bad guys could do.

"I don't think
so," I replied, and the whole room deflated like a popped balloon.
"At least, I don't think we can do it alone."

Eva raised her
eyebrows.

"Now, did I
say we wouldn't have reinforcements?" she asked.

"What am I,
chopped liver?" Abi offered.

"I know how to
fire a gun," Gen added.

Everybody
ignored the pregnant woman.

"Where's your
sense of adventure, Marie," Kelly demanded. I opened my mouth to
reply, when Eva beat me to it.

"You ladies seem to forget who our other halves are. Do you
really think Ben would let you out of his sight, Abi? Or Nick let
me wander off at night without knowing exactly where I'm going?"
She turned to Gen and sighed. "And Gen, sweetie,
really
? Dominic would lock you up and throw
away the key if you went off loaded for bear in your current state.
No," she added, turning back to the rest of us. "This is not about
defying them, as such. It's got to be a little more subtle than
that."

I liked this
woman. She had a devious side that appealed to me right now.

"We convince them that the retrieval is still on," I
suggested, getting into the swing of things now. "We don't need the
good detective to accompany us for the original plan to go
ahead."

"Now, see,"
Eva said, sitting back in her chair and adjusting her hat again.
"That's what I'm talking about."

It wasn't
going to be as simple as we'd thought, however. Nick took one look
at the innocent, sweet face of his fiancé and said, "You're up to
something."

"Who me?" Eva
asked, slipping onto his lap without waiting for an invitation.

Abi sauntered
over to Ben where he was leaning against the kitchen bench drinking
a beer, and snuggled under his arm, burying herself into his side.
He immediately offered her his bottle, grunting in amusement when
she tried to take more than one sip.

Gen and I
pulled out chairs around the table and sat down, while Kelly bumped
hips with Adam, who was leaning over Daisy's shoulder pointing out
a spot she'd missed on what looked like a birdhouse, clearly
recently painted due to the new-paint smell wafting up off the
thing.

"So," Nick
said, once we'd all gotten ourselves into position. "Finished
scheming?"

"Nobody's
scheming, cowboy," Eva drawled.

"Angel," he
shot back. "One word. Eric."

My eyes darted
to Abi's, taking in her widened gaze and slight grimace.

"Ah, fuck it
all to hell," Kelly declared. "You guys are seriously whacked.
Listening in on your women's conversations. What's with that?"

"Who's Fred,
Kels?" Adam asked. "Another guy I have to knock outta the ring to
get to you?"

Kelly snorted,
Gen made a long suffering sighing sound, and Ben said, "You wanna
go ahead with the retrieval, all you had to do was ask."

"You think
it's a good idea?" I queried.

Ben shrugged,
then looked over to Nick for guidance.

"Pierce said
he'd meet us there," Nick offered and every single woman
groaned.

"Did he now?" I murmured. Nice of him to have told me. Here we
were thinking we were being so clever, getting one up on the men.
And all the time we didn't even need to, the
men
had it all planned out for us.

A small
slightly amused sound escaped my lips. I had no idea what was going
through Pierce's mind, but clearly he had no intention of meeting
up with Stone for a beer after work. He wanted, instead, to meet up
with me... us. A smile curved my lips. Nah, me.

"I'm glad you
think this is amusing, Marie," Nick said, interrupting my cheerful
musings. "But there's a couple of things we need to get sorted
first."

The women
shifted in their seats and the men all stood a little straighter.
It seemed when Nick spoke everyone listened.

"OK," I said,
lifting my eyes to his ice-blue ones.

"Gen and Adam
stay here with Daisy," he ordered.

"What?" Gen
exclaimed. "I don't get to go? Why not?"

"Dominic," all
three men said in unison.

I expected Gen
to splutter and fume, but she cocked her head to the side and then
shrugged. My gaze met her amused one.

"It's all
right, he'll pay," she explained. "It'll be fun."

"I bet it
will," Kelly murmured, receiving a snigger from Abi in response.
Gen just smiled, wickedly.

"We'll be
buying drinks, but no one consumes them," Nick added. "They'll be
for show."

Everyone
nodded.

"Eva, Marie,
Kelly and I will go in together. Abi and Ben will scout the bar out
first before we do. We do not proceed unless they give us the all
clear."

"How will they
know it's safe?" I asked.

"Abi's familiar with McLaren's men, and Ben's familiar with
any locals," Nick pointed out reasonably. It all made complete
sense. "Both of them are trained to handle any difficulties that
could arise," he added, making me look at Ben's head, noticing the
bandage had been removed, but the memory of why he'd had to wear
one was still fresh.

Trained or
not, even professionals get caught out.

Nick's eyes
were on me.

"It's up to
you, Marie. If you think the risk is too high, we flag it. Give
Pierce instructions on where to find the ledger and hope he can
find it."

It was a solid
option, he could just flash his badge and storm in there, probably
get a search warrant and level the place flat trying to find it. It
was the safest path to tread. But I needed this. I needed to be the
one to retrieve the book, to make sure it was still there. It
wasn't logical. It wasn't a desire based on intelligent thought
processes. It was from the gut, from deep inside where Rick used to
live. His ledger, his hand writing, his deeds... all on display in
a leather bound tome.

The book would
destroy Roan McLaren, but it would also shatter what tiny sliver of
peace Richard Costello had in death. His hand was all over that
book. His accounting, his figures, his twist on New Zealand tax
law. Everything I stood for as a chartered accountant was blatantly
snubbed by my dead husband on each page. Forget the criminal
activities, every dime that went in or out of McLaren's coffers was
accounted for by Rick.

And every dime
was dirty, but came out clean after it had spent a time or two
between the pages.

I felt disgusted to be associated with the ledger. But I also
felt compelled to be the one to hand it over to the Police. That
had been my intention all those years ago. I
needed
to see that through to the end. I needed to touch
it first, before Pierce did. Because despite everything he and I
felt for each other, Ryan Pierce was a cop. And if he was the one
to retrieve the book, then what did that say about me?

I flicked a
glance over the table towards Daisy, who was munching a muffin in
one hand and opening and shutting the little door on her newly
decorated birdhouse with the other. The conversation was probably
over her head, but the atmosphere would not have been missed. Her
round eyes came up to meet mine. And held me there.

"You gotta do
it, Mummy," she declared, crumbs falling all over her chin and
chest as she spoke.

Yeah, I did.
For her. For me. I nodded, but said, "Daisy-girl, look at all that
mess." My voice was too light to be a reprimand, somehow over the
past few days the constant need to clean up after my daughter
didn't seem as important anymore. Daisy offered a wide smile and
stuffed the rest of the muffin into her mouth in one go.

Adam snorted,
Ben chuckled and Abi rushed over with a cloth.

"See, all
gone, Mum," Abi declared once she'd fixed my daughter up.

"Marie?" Nick
urged, when I still didn't say anything. Stuck on how easy it was
to be with these people. How comfortable. How completely normal it
felt. How much I didn't want it to end.

I took a quick
look at all the faces in the room, each one watching me
expectantly, but not in any way judgementally. I was an ice
princess surrounded by bright rays of sunshine, and I think I was
welcoming the burn.

"Let's do this," I said, holding Nick's gaze.

"All right,"
he said with a nod, pulling a cellphone from his pocket and swiping
at the screen. "You get that?" he asked, as soon as it was
answered. I couldn't hear the reply, but I was guessing he was
talking to Eric at ASI. Who else would get what had just been said?
"Yeah, we leave in fifteen. What can you see at the 'Cage?"

A pause, as
Abi cleared the table and Ben helped her stack the dishwasher.

"That's good,
keep him there until we arrive," Nick said, then swiped the
cellphone screen to end the call. "Jason's outside the Birdcage
waiting on us. He'll stay outside and keep an eye on the entrance,
relay any changes as they occur."

"So, I guess
we're set," I said, sucking in a fortifying breath of air.

"We're set," Nick declared, standing up and adjusting various
things hanging from his belt. Taser, handcuffs. Gun. This was
happening, and all because I'm a bit screwed in the head and need
to finish what I started.

"It'll be all
right, Marie," Ben said from across the table. His back to the
window above the sink, his arms crossed over his broad chest. The
others started to file out of the room, one by one, until it was
just me, Daisy, Ben and Abi left.

"How do you
know?" I asked.

He shrugged.
"Because Pierce wouldn't have agreed to let us go in with you, if
he wasn't sure the coast was already clear."

That's what he
thought, and part of me wanted to believe it too. I must have shown
some of my doubt on my face though, because Ben chuckled, shook his
head and added, "He said to give you this."

A folded piece
of paper was pulled from his jeans pocket and he reached forward
and handed it over the table to me. Then with one last look at Abi,
he clasped her hand and pulled her from the room. I sat stunned,
staring at the still closed piece of paper, willing myself to open
it up and read what was inside.

"Is it a love
letter, Mummy?" Daisy asked, making me jump slightly, for a moment
too caught up in my own world to remember she was sitting
there.

I mentally
shook myself and slipped the note into my back pocket and then
turned to face my daughter. I offered her a beaming smile and
nodded towards the birdhouse.