Authors: Julie Leto
Claire ran her hand up Michael’s arm, admiring the strength there even as she met his gaze, which was equally determined. She did not know what bad blood existed between the brothers, but right now, one of them was her unexpected collaborator and the other was a man she could love. Couldn’t he see that they had to look at every possibility, every scenario, to make the right choice about what to do next?
“Please, Michael. At least hear him out. His idea might be bullshit, but it also might be worth listening to.”
She squeezed his bicep even as she slipped her other hand into his. The gesture indicated a greater intimacy than she would have wanted to reveal in any other situation, but the time for pretending was over. For the first time since Josslyn disappeared, Claire had a chance to do something to save her. And if it meant breaking out of Michael’s protective shield, that’s what she’d do.
But she’d rather do it with his cooperation than without it. She wasn’t stupid. At this point, the Bandit did have the advantage against her. But what she had was nearly as potent—an FBI agent who cared about her.
“Sit down, Michael. Please.”
He brushed his other hand against hers briefly, then reached for a chair, which he dragged into the center of the room, as if he meant to shield Claire from Danny’s presence. Claire opted to remain behind him, her wrists resting on the back of the chair, her fingers dangling just above his shoulders.
“So,” Michael snapped. “Speak.”
Danny smirked, but did as he was asked. “This Bandit of yours doesn’t play by the traditional rules. You can’t profile him with any degree of accuracy because he keeps changing things up. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is that he’s a criminal. He wants what he’s not supposed to have.”
Michael cursed under his breath. “You don’t get him at all. He believes these women do belong to him. He believes he’s entitled to have them—and worse, he believes they want him in return.”
Danny leaned forward, breaking into Michael’s personal space. “And you’re overthinking the situation. It’s a simple matter of supply and demand. You have what this Bandit wants. Give it to him.”
“Give up Claire?”
Michael moved to stand, but Claire pressed down on his shoulders, keeping him in his chair.
“You’re insane.”
Danny snickered. “That’s beside the point. But no, I don’t mean you should literally give up Claire. But dangle her. Tempt him with her. Taunt him out of hiding, then do everything you can to make sure he doesn’t snatch her when you’re not looking.”
Claire turned to Ruby, who’d been sitting in total silence. The whites of her eyes glowed against her dark skin, but her mouth was pursed as if the concept shocked her, but still had merit. Michael, on the other hand, shook with rage. This time when he moved to stand, there was nothing she could do to stop him.
“I won’t put Claire in danger. Not for Josslyn Granger. Not for anyone.”
Michael stalked out of the cottage, slamming the door behind him. Ruby stared daggers at Danny, but after a reassuring nod from Claire, went after her partner.
Claire crossed her arms and stared at Danny, who hadn’t moved a muscle from his comfortable spot in a cushy armchair.
“Why do you bait him?”
“Isn’t that what brothers do?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Claire answered. “I was an only child.”
Danny chuckled humorlessly. “So was I.”
At her quizzical stare, he unfolded his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “We didn’t exactly have a traditional family. In fact, our father didn’t even know I existed for most of my life. Not that it would have mattered. He fathered another child in Spain—Alejandro—and abandoned him without a backward glance. The only one who grew up with Ramon was Mikey.”
“So you traveled all the way across the country to punish your brother because he got to play catch with Daddy and you didn’t?”
For the first time since she’d met him, Danny looked ruffled. His brow furrowed, and inside the grim line of his mouth, she could tell he was grinding his teeth.
“I came here to help,” he said finally. “My reasoning is sound and you know it.”
“But he’s a trained FBI special agent with years of experience and probably a list of commendations that match the length of your rap sheet,” she countered. “He’s not going to listen to you unless you give him sound, logical reasons that can trump what his gut is telling him.”
“And his gut is telling him to protect you at all costs—even at the cost of another woman’s life?”
Claire rubbed her face, hoping it would cover the flush suffusing her skin.
It didn’t.
He whistled long and loud in apparent surprise. “Well, well. Looks like he really does have Murrieta blood running through his veins. Maybe it’s Pop’s ring. It’s supposed to have magical powers, you know.”
“Right,” Claire said, settling herself into the chair Michael had just occupied. His lingering warmth cradled her, comforted her. Gave her the strength to look his brother dead in the eye and quip, “Then why haven’t you stolen it yet?”
“I’ve tried, but the woman I sent to snatch it from Alejandro fell in love with him instead. Damned inconvenient. Now Michael has it, and frankly, an FBI agent is a tough guy to steal from. But then I realized, if Michael doesn’t totally screw up this…opportunity,” he said, briefly looking her up and down in a way that made her cross her arms over her chest. “It will naturally come to me anyway. And just for future reference, my rap sheet is surprisingly short. I rarely get caught.”
“I thought you were just in jail.”
“I was set up. That’s why I’m out.”
“Doesn’t seem to matter to Michael. He doesn’t like you, much less trust you.”
“Well,” Danny said, leaning back. “He hardly knows me. If he did, he’d totally hate my guts. But he’d also realize that I know what I’m talking about.”
“So you think I should just go home and wait for the Bandit to try and catch me?”
He laughed. “You think Mikey would agree to that? Not in a million years. However, we could go one better.” He leaned forward and presented his idea in a whisper. “He wants to be your lover, right? Why not trip him up by showing him that you already have one?”
W
ATCHING THE INTIMATE
scene from outside the window, Michael experienced a hot streak of fury that felt a hell of lot like a bullet tearing through flesh. If he couldn’t stand his own brother getting this close to Claire, how would he ever survive if the Bandit got even within one-hundred feet of her.
He wouldn’t.
The realization rocked him. Since he’d first signed on with the Bureau, Michael had never put his own needs above those of ensuring justice. He’d worked twenty-hour days for weeks on end. He’d had no serious relationships and pursued no outside interests except for exercise and defense training, all of which related directly back to his job. He only collected Zorro memorabilia because his father gave it to him—he’d never once trolled an estate sale, flea market or online trading site himself. To avoid conflicts of interest, he kept his friendships contained to fellow agents and had even failed to truly forge a relationship with either of his half brothers because Alex had been too far away and Danny’s tarnished reputation might have stained his own sterling one.
But when it came to Claire, he wasn’t willing to make any more sacrifices. He wouldn’t dangle her in front of a potential killer like fresh, bloody meat over a shark’s tank.
Not for the Bureau—and sure as hell not for Danny.
Ruby came up behind him. “If you had lasers in your eyeballs, your brother would have a hole in his chest right now.”
Michael pushed away from the window. “Give it a rest, Ruby. I know he pushes my buttons.”
“He pushes mine, too,” she commiserated. “Doesn’t mean he’s not right.”
Michael stalked around the small side yard, but Ruby remained still, waiting as she always did, for him to burn off his excessive energy and focus in on the heart of the matter. He didn’t want to hear the truth any more than he wanted to watch Claire cozily scheming with his brother, but Ruby wouldn’t let this go. Not unless he could come up with a better plan that didn’t mean putting Claire in the line of fire.
“Look, you care about her,” Ruby said. “I get it. And I think it’s too risky to send her home alone and wait for the jerk to take her right from under our noses. But the underlying idea is sound. We just need to flip it around. She’s our ace-in-the-hole. We can’t ignore that.”
Her keen assessment made him stop his pacing. If Ruby understood that he couldn’t put Claire in danger, maybe they could work out another way to use her to catch the Bandit.
“Protocol says we wait for the unsub to contact us while we’re actively pursuing any and all leads to finding him. Truth is, we don’t even know for sure that Josslyn didn’t go with him willingly. He could have paid her. Offered him some kinky sex experience she’s always wanted to try.”
Ruby strolled closer, her arched eyebrow visible as she came closer. “And what does your gut tell you on that?”
He cursed. He had no proof, but he was one-hundred percent certain that Josslyn had not gone with the unsub on her own. The
Nouvelle Placage
event happened only once a year, and from all of Claire’s intel, she hadn’t missed a single gathering since she’d left her family to do the sexual deviant circuit. Tonight’s ball was the main event, and according to the agent he’d left on the scene, she hadn’t shown up.
“He has her,” he confessed. “And she’s in danger.”
“Right,” Ruby agreed. “She has no value to him except as a means to lure Claire into the open.”
“Then why hasn’t he called yet? Tried to arrange for a trade?”
Ruby shook her head. “No idea. Maybe because he doesn’t know precisely where Claire is. If he follows his MO, he’s had her in his sights for weeks. She’s off-grid now and that might have thrown him off his game. We need to let him see her.”
Michael opened his mouth to object, but Ruby held up her hand. “I don’t mean face-to-face. From a distance. He watched all the women from afar before he finally swooped in and took them. I’ve got agents making very discreet inquiries about the recent renters in her neighborhood, particularly properties with views of her building. One of them is going to pop as a potential suspect. It just makes sense.”
“He could be using electronic surveillance,” he argued.
“He could, but that’s expensive and lacks the personal, romantic touch he seems so fond of. We’re going to get a bead on him sooner rather than later.”
“But it might not be soon enough,” he said. “Not for Josslyn.”
“Nope, not for her.”
Michael took a quick turn around the front garden, checking the lock on the gate and wondering how his brother had breached security. The detail he’d assigned to watch the house from the outside remained in place. Except for one glitch, his orders had been followed to the letter. Claire was safe—but at what cost?
He was too close to this—too personally involved. He needed distance, but he wasn’t about to stray more than twenty-five feet from Claire. Not until the bastard was caught.
“What do you think we should do?” he asked Ruby.
She frowned. “You’re not going to like my answer.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“We have an advantage with Claire,” Ruby said. “She’s not just another potential victim. She’s not just a woman you’ve come to care about more than you should, either. She’s a former cop. She’s a successful private investigator who’s managed to keep herself out of trouble even when she’s going into dangerous situations.”
“The unsub knows all that,” Michael argued. “He’ll expect her to be tougher to catch. Tougher to subdue. He won’t go after her in her house, not when he knows she’s armed.”
“He hasn’t gone after any of the women in their homes. To a one, he strikes when they’re out in public.”
“So what do we do, parade her at her favorite club?”
Ruby shook her head. “Just the opposite. We need to shut her in and give this guy every reason to think that she’s not going out—not alone—anytime soon. He has a deadline, right? Three days after the delivery of the first scarf. Three days is tomorrow. We need to force his hand.”
Michael grabbed on to the wrought iron gate, nearly unaware of the grime clinging to the metal or the way the rusty spots bit into his skin. Light from the nearby streetlamp flickered above the branches of the trees shielding the house from above. He had indeed found an ideal place to keep Claire from harm, but in doing so, he’d ground the investigation to a halt. He needed to act. Josslyn’s life did matter to him—and more than that, it mattered to Claire.
“So he’s been watching her. He delivered the scarf on Thursday morning, which means he fully intended to take her by Sunday. Where does she usually go on Sunday?”
“Church? Visiting family? Maybe she sleeps in. Whatever she usually does, you need to make the unsub think she’s not going to do it. That she has a better offer. A reason to stay in, if you know what I mean.”
Him.
Danny’s words drifted back into his mind. The unsub wanted Claire as a lover. He’d been watching her for months, waiting for the opportunity to make it real. Like the four women he’d taken before, Claire was single and available, but she was also the most highly desirable, descended from the woman Joaquin Murrieta had wanted above all.
What kind of wrench would they throw into the unsub’s mind if Claire suddenly showed up at home with a lover? A man who would give her every reason to stay indoors, in bed and out of the Bandit’s clutches?
Michael’s body instantly reacted to the images suddenly flashing in his brain of him and Claire walking up her street, pawing each other, flaunting their lust, maybe even ducking into a shadowed corner—in full view of the many windows lining her street. Then they would slowly, sensually, make their way to her bedroom, and with the shades open, show the obsessive unsub exactly what he couldn’t have.
“Claire will have to agree to it,” he said, but he knew before he said it that this would not be an issue. She’d already proved she was willing to do whatever it took for a case.
Ruby gave him a fortifying slap on the shoulder. “Stop looking so put out. The worst thing that happens is you two burn off a little bit of that massive sexual tension you have going on. All those pheromones are playing havoc with my sex deprived body. So unless you want me to work off my own needs with the closest single man around—who happens to be your brother—you’ll do this.”
“Thanks, Ruby. Talk about motivation.”
Ruby laughed. “Hey, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
M
ICHAEL SHOVED THE
gear shift into Park, leaned across the front seat and kissed Claire as if her life depended on it.
In this case, the cliché was true. Even now, they were being watched. Less than an hour ago, his team had finally identified a possible person of interest—a man who’d rented the third-floor apartment on Claire’s French Quarter street. The place had a fairly clear catty-corner view of Claire’s bedroom, and the man who rented it had paid cash, came and went during strange hours and made it a point to never talk to his neighbors. When he did venture out, he favored an entirely black wardrobe, giving the feds every reason to believe he was the man they were looking for.
But no proof. And no sign of Josslyn.
If the plan worked, however, the guy might tip his hand and reveal enough evidence to rescue Josslyn and make an arrest for aggravated kidnapping, stalking and rape.
And most importantly, Michael would have the rock solid proof that would keep Claire safe.
He leaned back only enough to break the kiss. She’d swiped on a layer of strawberry-flavored balm, and when he licked his lips, his senses yearned for more.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked.
Even in the dark car, he could see Claire’s eyes glisten with determination—and to his surprise, desire.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“He’ll be watching,” Michael reminded her.
“That’s the whole point. Besides, we’re pretty hot when we think someone’s watching.”
She moved to open her door, but Michael popped out and ran around to get it for her. Maybe he was taking his vow not to let her out of his presence too far, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Not with Claire.
She slid out of the car, then leaned provocatively against the door so that he couldn’t resist pressing his entire body flush against hers and kissing her again. She snaked her hands around his neck and rocked her pelvis against his. If she was teasing him for the benefit of the unsub, he didn’t care. The sensations ricocheted through his body and he couldn’t resist grabbing her by the ass and pressing her even closer while he kissed her until she could barely breathe.
“You’re not playing fair,” she murmured.
He slid his hands up her waist, his fingers teasing just along the edges of her T-shirt. “Neither are you.”
“Then I guess we’re perfect for each other.”
She grabbed his hand, barely giving him time to lock the car before she dragged him up the stairs of her porch. There, under the porch light, Claire’s tongue tangled with his, making it oh-so-easy to forget that not only the unsub was watching them, but so were Ruby and two other agents he’d posted on Claire’s street.
But only Michael had the job of watching Claire from inside. Once they crossed the threshold, the only person privy to what they did in her bedroom would be the suspected Bandit.
Amid laughter and sensual tickling, Claire used her keys to unlock her front door and then pulled him inside. She moved to flip on the lights, but he stayed her hand while he turned her deadbolts and pushed her slide lock into place.
“Not yet,” he said. “Stay here.”
As hard as it was to force himself back into FBI mode, he left her by the door and did a quick sweep of the interior of the house. Once certain the place was secure, he returned to find her leaning saucily against the door.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“Not hardly.”
She popped open the top button of her jeans and sashayed toward him. “I’m not going to think about the fact that some crazy man might be watching us.”
Sliding her hands into his hair, she pulled herself up and placed a feather soft kiss on his lips.
“We can’t forget,” Michael insisted. “Not for a minute.”
“Ruby’s outside, right? With your team? They’re watching the whole street, including his front and back doors. Even if he wanted to come and join us, he wouldn’t make it inside.”
On this, she had a point. Before Michael had given the green light to this operation, he’d made sure that the only way the unsub could reach them was via the cell phone Claire carried in her pocket.
Claire jogged up the stairs ahead of him and the view of her round backside burned away any lasting concerns. For this brief moment in time, they were doing precisely what they needed to be doing. For the case. For themselves.
When she rounded the corner into her bedroom, he snagged her by the waist and spun her into his arms. She squealed in surprise, but melted in to him even as he fumbled along the wall to turn on the overhead light.
She tugged at his shirt, made quick work of his buttons and then pushed the material off his shoulders while he attempted to untangle his limbs. The minute he was free, she shoved him gently backward so that he tumbled onto the bed.
He blinked, frozen as she moved directly into the line of sight of the window. Slowly, she drew her T-shirt up, higher and higher, revealing her café mocha skin inch by sensual inch. About mid-way up her torso, she stopped, her eyes darting warily to the side.
“What’s wrong?”
She tried to laugh and shake off her sudden hesitation, but she remained still, unmoving.
“Maybe it’s my imagination, but it’s like I can feel his eyes on me.”
“They probably are,” he said, scooting forward and bracing his hands on his knees. “We can stop now, Claire. Maybe he’s seen enough.”
She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and tossed it on the bed.
“Not until he calls.”
“Then focus on me. I’m watching you, too, and believe me when I tell you that I’m enjoying the show way more than he ever could. I know firsthand how beautiful you are. How free. How giving.”