Chapter 5
Extricating myself from the pull of Kane’s sexy grey eyes with an effort, I declined to mention how close I had come to ripping his clothes off in the middle of Nichele’s office.
“I’m working on a case,” I said. “And Nichele’s client is it.”
Kane waited.
The silence lengthened and I suppressed the urge to squirm.
Shit, I should never have involved him. He was a civilian now. He’d be safer if he didn’t know.
“I just didn’t want him to recognize me,” I added lamely.
Kane maintained his expectant silence.
“For shit’s sake,” I burst out as though he’d actually been arguing with me. “You’re a civilian now. Go home to your son and be safe!”
Hurt flashed in his eyes, quickly vanishing into the impenetrable expression I called his ‘cop face’. “It’s a little late for that,” he said evenly. “Your mark spotted you, and what’s more, he spotted you making out with me. You’ve already involved me, and I’ll be safer if I know what might be coming my way.”
“Oh, shit.” I let my forehead fall against the table with a thud. A little too much of a thud. “Ow,” I added, sitting up and rubbing the sore spot. “Dammit! I’m sorry, I’m an idiot. I wasn’t thinking; I was just…”
Just getting so caught up in ogling a hot hunk of man that my already woefully inadequate spy skills deserted me altogether. ‘Idiot’ didn’t even begin to describe the depth of my incompetence.
I clenched both fists in my hair. “Shit, what a moron I am! All I had to do was get up and wander away with my back to him, and he’d never have given me a second glance! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s all right.” The wicked glint was back in Kane’s eyes. “So you’re saying you were just looking for an excuse to kiss me.” A tantalizing whiff of his spicy aftershave made all the moisture in my mouth migrate to more southerly regions of my body as he leaned closer. “Maybe you should kiss me some more. Just to keep up appearances.”
Sucking in an inadequate breath, I leaned away from his gravitational pull. “I thought we weren’t doing that anymore.”
“You started it.” Half teasing, half challenging, he gave me a slow grin that raised my body temperature several degrees.
“And I’m finishing it,” I said, my words far more decisive than the husky voice that came from my lips. “You’re a dad now and your responsibility is to Daniel. I’m a bullet magnet, and you can’t afford to be close to me.”
“Which would have been a valid argument before you dragged me into this.” Kane gave me the commanding stare that reminded me all over again what a good agent he had been. Hell, still was. “I need a full briefing, Aydan. If you’ve potentially endangered me, that threat might extend to Daniel by proxy, and nobody threatens my son.”
Defeated, I blew out a breath of frustration before leaning forward and keeping my voice low. “Okay, fine. The man in Nichele’s office was Benoit Riel. He’s one of the higher-ups from a gang in Montreal and I’m supposed to meet him in my Arlene Widdenback cover, but he’s not supposed to be here yet. I recognize him from the dossier, and I have to assume he recognized me if he’s anywhere near as smart as we think. And it was definitely no coincidence that he was in Nichele’s office, because he’s also friends with James Helmand, who knew Fuzzy Bunny’s minions in prison.”
“Oh.” Kane’s voice went flat. His gaze flicked around the coffee shop before he leaned in and matched my quiet tone. “So let me be sure I understand this. James and Riel are potentially connected to Fuzzy Bunny’s original arms empire; they both know you by sight; and they both think you’re Arlene Widdenback the arms dealer. And they both know that Nichele is your friend, and Riel just proved how easily they can get to her. And now they both know that I’m a little more than your friend, too. So if they’re looking for leverage on you, they’ve found it.”
“Yes,” I mumbled, staring at the table and damning my own stupidity. “I’m sorry. The smartest thing you could do is shoot me right now. If I’m dead, Riel will leave you alone.”
“I turned in my weapon when I resigned. But I could throttle you slowly with lots of screaming.”
I gulped. “Um… You ‘could’? Or you ‘want to’?”
“I’m deciding.”
Edging back in my seat, I managed a sickly smile. “Well, I guess I’ll be the first to know when you make up your mind.”
He chuckled. “I’m kidding. Of course I’m concerned; but I’m actually glad things worked out this way. At least now I know what’s coming. If Riel has connections to Fuzzy Bunny, he’ll already know that you and I acquired their secret weapon last winter. And even if by some miracle he doesn’t know that, I’m a target anyway because James knows we were together last fall.”
“But he only glimpsed you at that bar, and I never told him your name…” I began.
“Aydan.” Kane gave me a ‘you-aren’t-thinking’ look. “James has known me since I was six years old.”
“Oh…” The enormity of my mistake rose like choking bile in my throat. “Oh, shit! I forgot you’d grown up together.”
“Not really,” Kane corrected. “He’s eight years older, and although my parents did make an effort to get to know Arnie’s family, they quickly figured out that even as a young teen James was nothing but trouble. Neither Hellhound nor I made any effort to stay in touch with James as adults so he won’t know anything about my law enforcement career. But he definitely knows who I am. In fact…”
He stared into space for a few moments. “Yes…” he muttered. “That adds up…”
“What? What adds up?” I jittered on the edge of my seat, the domino-fall of connections still echoing in my brain.
Arnie, John, Nichele…
“Oh, Jesus, no!” I groaned and thudded the heels of my hands against my temples. “John…” I had to stop and swallow to steady my voice. “Does… does James have a photographic memory like Arnie’s?”
Kane’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I don’t know. But when Mom and Dad were still trying to help Arnie’s family, they arranged for all the kids to have IQ tests. Arnie and James scored highest, in the genius range. So it’s certainly possible.”
“Shit, shit, shit!”
“What is it?” Kane demanded.
“Dante.” I thumped my aching forehead. “When we were in the bar last fall I told James you were my ex. So if Riel tells him we were kissing today, he’ll think we’re back together. That’s bad enough; but last fall James also saw me going home with Dante. If he thinks Dante and I are still close, too…”
Kane sighed. “One more tool for leverage. And if James has the same phenomenal memory as Arnie, he’ll remember Dante’s last name, where he works, and any other tiny detail Dante might have mentioned. And even if he didn’t know those things, he’d remember that Dante is an underwear model. That’s impossible to forget.” There was a slight edge to Kane’s voice that might have been jealousy, but I didn’t have time to analyze it before he went on, “If he wanted to track Dante down, it would be as simple as calling the local modelling agencies.”
“Oh, God.” I wallowed in despair for a few more seconds before pulling myself together. “Okay. You need to take Alicia and Daniel and move to a safe house. I’m sure Stemp will agree to that, at least for the short term. Arnie’s out of town so he’ll be safe until he gets back. I’ll warn him as soon as I can. I’ll get Holt to watch Dante-”
I broke off at the sight of Kane’s negative headshake.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” I demanded, tension winding up in my shoulders.
“I’ll be safe, and I’ll make sure Alicia and Daniel are, too,” he said calmly.
“Safe? How do you figure you’re safe?” My voice rose on the last word, and I reined myself in with a glance around the nearly-empty restaurant. Nobody seemed to be paying attention, and I returned my attention to Kane with a glare. “Didn’t we just agree that you’re a prime target?”
“No, we agreed that I would be a prime target if anybody actually knew how to find me.”
I flung out a hand in frustration, gesturing at his mountainous six-foot-four frame. “You’re not exactly hard to spot!”
Kane gave me a thin smile and I glimpsed the steely resolve that had made him the best agent in the Service. “Not hard to spot, but very hard to follow. That’s what I meant earlier when I said ‘it adds up’. I dropped over to Hellhound’s place yesterday for a little while. When I left, a white Ford Explorer tailed me. A single male driver wearing dark glasses. I evaded him and then turned the tables. I got behind him in traffic and confronted him when he stopped. It was James.”
My throat went dry. “And…?”
Kane’s lips turned up in a predatory grin. “I told him to get lost, and if he ever followed me again I’d make sure he got lost permanently.”
I gulped. “Oh, shit. John…” I leaned in and lowered my voice again. “You’re a civilian now. You can’t just go around killing people who piss you off. Even if they really, really deserve it.”
Kane gave me an affronted look. “You know perfectly well that even as an agent I could never kill for my own convenience. Or are you forgetting the mountains of paperwork and performance evaluations and psych assessments after a serious incident? We…” He hesitated as if suddenly remembering he’d quit the Department, then tried again. “Agents have to hold themselves to a higher standard of behaviour than any civilian.”
“I know; I didn’t mean that,” I muttered. “I’m just saying you shouldn’t have threatened him. It’ll only piss him off. What if he decides to kill you before you can kill him?”
Kane shrugged, a dangerous light in his eyes. “Let him try. Then I can claim self-defense. When the police investigate they’ll find out James was a dangerous criminal with gangland ties who was just released from prison, and I’m an innocent civilian. I’d be shocked if it even went to trial, and even if it did no jury would convict me.”
I clapped my hands over my ears and hummed. “La, la, la, la… I can’t hear you… Not going to be an accessory before the fact…”
He grinned and pried my hand away. “Don’t worry, it won’t happen. James is a coward and a bully, and he won’t take a chance on crossing me. And anyway, nobody has followed me since.”
I started to ask ‘are you sure’, but stifled myself before the words came out. If he said nobody had tailed him, I was damn sure nobody had. Even as a civilian he was a better agent than I’d ever be.
“My condo isn’t registered in my own name,” he went on. “Thanks to Alicia’s pettiness, nobody knows I have a son; so nobody would expect me to be going to or from an elementary school. Unless they pick up my trail via you or Hellhound, there’s no way to find me.”
“But what if…” I began.
“At this point I have only three options,” Kane interrupted. “One, take Alicia and Daniel and hide in a safe house. For how long? Until you stop being Arlene Widdenback the arms dealer? How many years will that be? Stemp won’t go for it, and in any case Daniel doesn’t need any more disruption in his routine. We’ve finally gotten him to the point where we can leave him in his classroom after the obligatory morning meltdown and he settles down and participates in class.”
“It’ll be a fucking big disruption to his routine if you end up dead,” I snapped.
“I won’t. And that brings me to option two, which would be to go underground by myself until this is resolved, leaving Daniel to deal with my abandonment and my broken promise. I told him I’ll always be there for him, and I won’t break that promise. Not for anything.”
“You’re missing the point,” I argued, worry making my tone harsher than I’d intended. “You won’t be there for him if you’re fucking dead!”
“Even if they captured me, which they won’t, they wouldn’t kill me. Leverage only works if the hostage is still alive. I’m no good to them dead.”
“Until they decide they don’t need you anymore,” I insisted. “And then they pretty much have to kill you. That still adds up to fucking dead.”
“Or there’s option three,” Kane went on imperturbably. “Which solves all the problems at once. I can be there for Daniel twenty-four-seven, I’ll be absent from my condo even if somebody does figure out where I live, and I’ll be able to protect my family in the unlikely event that I’m traced back to them.” He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll move in with Alicia and Daniel.”
Shock struck me speechless, my jaw flapping uselessly on strangled protests. “You wha…? What? That’s… that’s…”
“The best possible solution,” Kane finished, and rose. “Keep me in the loop. Have you got a burner phone I can borrow?”
“But… but… you just finished saying how much you hated Alicia!”
“And I love Daniel more than anything. He’s my top priority. If this is what it takes to keep him safe, I’ll do it.”
“But…” My useless syllable hovered in the air, unsupported by any viable rebuttal.
Shit.
I pulled out the spare phones I carried in my waist pouch and we wrote down each other’s numbers in silence. Then he pocketed his phone, leaned down to kiss me hard, and vanished out the door.
After a few stunned minutes I trailed out in his wake, finally returning to full mental capacity when the cold night air slapped me in the face.
“Well, that’s just fucking fine,” I snarled, aiming a vicious kick at a lone paper cup that lay on the sidewalk, rolling gently in the chilly breeze.
Shivering, I slid into my car and cranked up the heater before pulling out a secured phone. A moment later, Stemp’s crisp “Yes?” sounded through the speaker.
“It’s Aydan.” I drew a deep breath to organize my thoughts before explaining the situation.
“So you briefed Kane on your mission.” Stemp’s voice was completely without inflection.
A chill trickled down my spine.
Shit, I hadn’t even considered the potential repercussions of confiding in Kane. Even though I kept thinking of him as an agent, he was officially a civilian. If the chain of command wanted to get picky about it, I’d just breached security.
“Only in general terms,” I hurried to explain. “I didn’t mention any of the updated protocols and I didn’t tell him any identities that he didn’t already know…” I gulped as I realized that wasn’t actually true. “Um… except Riel; but Kane had already seen him, so the only new information he got from me was that Riel was a gang member who was potentially involved in my current mission. That’s it.”
After a short disapproving silence Stemp said, “Very well. Continue.”
I resisted the urge to babble more excuses. File that as ‘lesson learned’ and do better next time.
Assuming my most professional tone, I laid out my theory and its connections. “…so I’d like Holt to come here and guard Dante,” I finished.
“Using Holt to guard your friend would be a waste of resources.” As if anticipating the furious words boiling up to the tip of my tongue, Stemp softened his tone. “Even if you are correct in your assumption that Riel and James are attempting to gain leverage on you for some unspecified reason, they are almost certainly only gathering data at this stage. Hostages are an encumbrance and a last resort, and the danger to your friend will be negligible when they realize you haven’t had any contact with him for a year.”
Clenching my teeth to hold in the anger, I tried a different tack. “But if James was watching Arnie’s apartment and following John, that’s too much of a coincidence. Dante would be the logical next step. And if he’s watching Dante he won’t expect to be watched in return, so it’s a perfect opportunity to see what else he’s up to.”
“That is a tenuous link at best. Both Kane and Hellhound are well-known to James and there are many reasons why he might be watching them. I don’t believe that indicates a threat to your friend. In any case, James’s activities are outside the scope of your current mission; and we are not in the bodyguard business.”
Fury boiled into my veins. “Listen, d-”
Fortunately Stemp interrupted before I could complete the word ‘dickhead’. His cool impersonal voice went on, “…However, if you are in Calgary tonight anyway and Riel has yet to make official contact, there is nothing preventing you from watching over your friend. And if you include his name and address in your report we can be prepared to act if he does become involved.”
I drew a deep breath. Do not call him a dickhead. He’d offered me a loophole, and if I pissed him off he might forbid me to do anything to protect Dante. Then it would just get ugly when I defied him…
“Okay.” I thought fast. “Um… I’ll file my report in the morning. For all I know Dante may not even be in the country. He travels a lot. I’ll confirm his whereabouts first. Are our wiretaps active yet?”
“Yes, and the analysts are monitoring them. No useful intel so far. Is there anything else?”
“That’s it.” I hung up, congratulating myself on successfully concealing the fact that I couldn’t even remember Dante’s last name, let alone his address.
My smugness was short-lived when I realized I was going to have to call Nichele to find out.
Shit.
That led to another thought that spiked anxiety into my heart. I should have made her leave her cell phone with me. James probably had the resources to trace it. Damn, damn, damn!
After a moment of furious self-recrimination, I let it go with a long breath. She wouldn’t have parted with her phone without a life-or-death struggle, and I couldn’t break my cover to explain why it might actually be life or death.
I considered retreating to the comfort of Hellhound’s apartment before making the call, but it was getting late and delay wasn’t going to lessen the humiliation. I emitted a brief but heartfelt groan and dialled.
“Aydan!” Nichele’s greeting was as enthusiastic as ever. “Hey, girl, are you calling to check up on me?”
“Hell, yeah. Somebody has to keep you in line,” I bantered, delaying the inevitable. “How’s the party?”
“Oh, it’s fabulous!” Music and conversation were suddenly muted in the background as though she’d stepped out of a party room. She lowered her voice. “It turns out this whole thing is publicity for a new app they’re launching. The app presentation before the reception was a total snore, but tomorrow’s panels are going to be great. And I’m making some amazing connections tonight! These people are the real big-money movers and shakers, the ones you never get to meet socially. I’m so glad Benoit got that ticket for me!”
My heart stopped. “Wh… Who got you the ticket?”
“Benoit Riel.”