Set Up With The Agent

Unless Mark intervened.

But that still didn’t justify what she’d done. She’d intentionally misled him when she’d said she might be able to recognize the voice if she heard it again—an exaggeration born of a desperate desire to save her career. A prime example of careerism.

Her gut roiled with guilt. She’d sat there in the garage tonight with Tom, acting as if she possessed more integrity, pretending that her principles were superior to his, when in reality they weren’t.

Her biceps and shoulder muscles tensed as she lifted the sledgehammer higher still, taking careful aim. She put all her weight and upper-body strength into the swing, but as soon as iron struck wood, she quickly stepped back. The loosened chunk of framing slammed to the floor, kicking up a small cloud of plaster dust.

What if Mark had known he was being manipulated? And even if he hadn’t, even if he bought the idea that she might recognize the voice, would he be likely to go to Bill Monroe?

If not, her awkward attempt to save her job wasn’t going to be worth squat. It would be only a matter of time before she was sent for a fitness-for-duty exam. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Bill Monroe was already making the arrangements. Which meant that in a matter of weeks, even before Christmas rolled around, she could be out of a job.

The idea left her feeling as if she’d been sliced open, twenty feet of gut pulled out and run through a meat grinder. From the time she’d been eleven and had written to the FBI, asking for a silhouette target, she had dreamed of becoming an agent. She had worked hard, acquiring skills to give herself the all-important leg up over the competition.

And now it was very likely going to be taken away from her. Just like that. Because she’d confronted Bill Monroe. Because she’d believed the oath she’d taken to protect the American public was a sacred one—more important than anything else…even the survival of her career.

Recognizing that she’d allowed her thoughts once more to get bogged down in things she had no control over, she shifted her grip on the sledgehammer.

Maybe what she needed to worry about was how she was going to live with herself if Mark did believe her. She’d lied to a man whom she held in great respect. She was intentionally trying to use him to save her ass. Both of which made her extremely uncomfortable.

She heaved out a breath. “Let’s not pull punches here. Everything about the man makes you uncomfortable.” That damn intense gaze. Those probing questions. And that lean body was pretty damn hard to ignore, too. All those lovely muscles…

She suddenly realized she was about to start down yet another wrong road, one with even less value than the previous one. What she needed to do was remain completely focused on the really important things right now.

“Name four things that are deader than a doornail…Leon. Rabbit. Your career.” Ducking her head, she used her forearm to wipe sweat from her forehead. “And coming in at number four on tonight’s big countdown…what’s left of your integrity.”

Negotiating around the debris, she raised the sledgehammer into position again, her shoulder muscles fighting to retain control.

“Name five things that are deader than a doornail…”

Here was where it got scarier. At least on a personal level. If Mark was right, if it hadn’t been Rabbit behind the attempt on her life tonight, there was every possibility that she’d be number five on her own list.

When Mark had first posed the potential risk, it hadn’t really unsettled her. Because it had seemed as if nothing had really changed. For four months now she’d been looking over her shoulder, believing Rheaume might try to have her killed. But now that she’d given it some more consideration, she realized that it was different. Seriously different.

As crazy as it was on a subconscious level at least, she hadn’t been overly afraid of Rabbit. Because she’d survived his first attempt to kill her, she felt more confident that she would be victorious again if put to the test.

But they were no longer talking a midlevel money launderer out to get her. They were talking terrorists here. The real deal.

Definitely not a comfortable thought.

Dropping the sledgehammer, she left it standing on its head as she stepped around the fifty-five-gallon trash can to reach the bottle of water on the counter. She tugged off the face mask, leaving it dangling around her neck.

It was as she took the first swig that the room’s condition registered fully. Believing her safety glasses responsible for most of the fuzziness, she removed them. The haziness remained. And that was only the beginning. Dark electrical wires dangled from the ceiling like long tentacles, their safely capped ends of neon yellow and orange swaying slightly. Pebblelike chunks of plaster had fallen out of the lath as she’d ripped the ceiling down and now resembled gravel strewn across the old floor.

Reaching over, she turned down the radio. What in the hell had she been thinking? Starting a demolition when there was a chance that she’d have to put her house on the market? No job, therefore no money for mortgage.

But as with most things in her life right now, there obviously was no turning back.

As she reached for the sledge again, someone pounded on the front door. She glanced at the clock—5:55 a.m. Who the hell…?

Dread beginning to pool at her core, she shed the safety glasses and retrieved the .45 automatic—her home-protection weapon—from the counter.

Maybe it was just a neighbor in trouble, but she didn’t think so. Given the past twelve hours, she felt fairly certain Mark had been right. That Rabbit had nothing to do with the attempt on her life. That someone had come to correct Leon Tyber’s mistake.

Flicking off the safety, she pulled aside the plastic sheeting she’d used to seal the kitchen from the rest of the house and stepped into the hall. There were no lights on in this part of the house, and she left it that way, preferring not to give whoever was out there a heads-up.

She took up a precautionary position just to the right of the door and out of the direct line of fire in case the person on the other side was planning to pump a few rounds through the solid wood panel. Whoever it was had finally located the door buzzer and punched it a dozen times in rapid succession. Her already fatigued muscles contracted as if the zaps of sound were short blasts of electric current.

Taking a deep breath, she shifted her index finger from the trigger guard to the trigger. “Who is it?” she called through the door.

“Mark Gerritsen.”

The sound of his voice only served to make the adrenaline kick a little faster. What would he be doing here at this time of morning? She hadn’t anticipated any additional contact with him, at least not right away. As she’d shown him out last night, he’d mentioned having to catch an early flight to Boston.

“Beth?”

“Give me a sec.” Still holding the automatic, she punched in the security code to the alarm system and then worked the dead bolt.

As soon as she had the door open, almost before she had time to move aside, he slipped past her, accompanied by a gust of frigid air.

He was dressed in a suit and an overcoat. If not for the fact that he was clean shaven and that he smelled of soap, shampoo and cologne, she might have questioned if he’d been to bed since she’d last seen him.

In sharp contrast to his impeccable grooming, she wore paint-spattered, low-rise sweatpants, an old FBI T-shirt that she’d long ago cropped and a face mask clogged with construction dust. And since she hadn’t bothered to brush her hair when she climbed out of bed it was matted to her skull. Not exactly how any woman wanted to be caught. Especially by an attractive, well-dressed male.

“You should try answering your phone,” he offered tersely, his brows drawn down tight over his eyes.

What in the world was with him? Just because she hadn’t answered her phone at an unreasonable hour, he decided to drive all the way out here at this time of morning? And then is irritated…? She frowned. Was it possible that when he hadn’t been able to reach her, he’d grown concerned? She found the possibility that he might have been checking on her intriguing.

By the time she turned around again, he’d wandered as far as the kitchen doorway and was pulling aside the plastic sheeting. Before she could stop him, he ducked through.

Obviously, he expected her to follow. For a brief moment she debated staying where she was, forcing him to return to the foyer, but then decided playing power games with Mark as an adversary was stupid at best. Mostly because she was unlikely to win, and it would eat up time better spent getting ready for work.

She jerked off the face mask and then, tugging up the neck of her T-shirt almost as if she was stripping it off, she used the less dusty inside to wipe her face before following him into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

“I could ask the same thing.” He glanced at her. “Is this your idea of midnight therapy?”

Midnight therapy? For the second time in a matter of minutes, she scanned the mess she’d created, recognizing how it must appear to an outsider. To Mark. As if she’d lost her mind. And maybe she had.

Screw it. He was going to think what he was going to think.

Stepping past him, she turned off the radio. “I hadn’t planned to start demolition until this weekend.” The lie came with surprising ease. “But physical activity helps me think.”

She folded her arms across her, her forearms settling against her bare midriff. “Now what’s going on?” she repeated. “I know you’re not here to discuss my renovation schedule.”

She saw indecision in his eyes, as if he was wondering the same thing—why in the hell he was there. Or maybe he actually had been concerned about her, but for obvious reasons was now hesitant to admit it.

“You’ve been assigned to the task force, and there’s been a development. You need to get packed.”

“I’ve been what?” She managed to keep her voice in check, but certainly not her thoughts.

She hadn’t given any consideration to the possibility he might actually request her transfer. The most she’d anticipated was a reprieve. One that would give her some time and a shot at another investigation where she could shine in her field—in forensic accounting. Which wasn’t likely to happen in a counterterrorism outfit where the other team members would have been handpicked because of their extensive knowledge of terrorist groups and activities.

“I requested your reassignment,” he clarified.

In the middle of the night? Had he awakened Bill Monroe? Or someone at FBI headquarters? Normally a transfer didn’t happen instantaneously, and the idea that this one had left her feeling uncertain.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that?” It didn’t surprise her that he had pull, but that he would use it to get her transferred did. What could be that urgent? Then she replayed everything in her head a second time. “You said there’s been a development. What kind?”

His eyes met hers, but there was a disconnect in them that hadn’t been there earlier tonight. A sense that he saw her, but that he was no longer emotionally involved with her on a human level.

So it hadn’t been concern for her after all. She was caught off guard by the level of her disappointment.

“I’ll fill you in on the plane. Right now you need to get cleaned up and packed.”

Tightening her arms, she lifted her chin. “I think you need to know that I may have misled you somewhat about my ability to recognize the voice.”

“That has nothing to do with the reason I made the request.”

“Then what does?”

“Whoever wants you dead…If they sent someone after you once, they may do it again. If they do, we’ve got a shot at getting to them before…” Mark didn’t finish the thought.

Why not finish it? What exactly had happened? And then the last pieces fell into place.

“It’s happened, hasn’t it?”

“Maybe. We’re waiting for the FBI lab to make the confirmation. Now get dressed.”

Beth shoved the gun into her waistband. At least now she knew why he hadn’t finished his earlier statement. And the reason for the disconnect in his eyes. She had suddenly become a means to an end. An instrument he could use. That he could exploit.

She jerked off the mask, dropped it on the pile of rubble. “So you want to use me as bait?”

His mouth tightened. “Sweetheart, you are bait. I can’t change that. But I fully intend to take advantage of it.”

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