Claimed by the Secret Agent (2 page)

He disappeared and she heard him open the trunk
again. In a few minutes he returned and tossed her a pair of socks and black sweats. “These will swallow you whole, but at least you’ll be rid of that scratchy blanket. Don’t take anything off but that. Roll it up and I’ll bag it.”

He shrugged and stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “I’ll just…wait back there while you dress. Unless you need help?”

“I’ll manage,” she gasped. Marie grabbed the clothes and wrestled them on as quickly as she could.

He was surprisingly thoughtful. Maybe he was softening to the idea of letting her work with him. Or not. He probably thought she was a big baby. She swiped the tears from her face when she realized she’d been crying. Dammit. She never cried.

“All done?” he asked before looking inside.

“Ready,” she said, hating the thickness of tears in her voice.

He got back in and handed her an energy bar to eat. Then he put the old blanket in a paper bag he’d brought. “Evidence,” he explained as if she didn’t know. Then he promptly started the car and drove back onto the autobahn. “Feeling better?”

“I told you I’m
fine.
Thanks for the clothes.” She fell quiet then, bit into the energy bar and just watched him, really assessing him closely for the first time.

He radiated confidence and was probably very good at his job, judging by his actions thus far. He had taken that painful squeeze and twist she’d given his
essentials
with the good grace not many men would.

He was unusual in other ways, too. Not lecherous or superior for one thing. Most men saw her as fair game
and, at the very least, offered suggestive looks or a condescending attitude. Usually both.

Marie knew how she looked and used it, even enhanced it to the max. That helped in her job as an undercover operative. It was actually difficult to present a different impression than little blond airhead because she stayed in that character so much of the time.

She was short and slightly built. Dainty, some called her. Dimples, baby-doll features and pale blond hair had always caused her more trouble than not, but they also gave her that necessary edge. She had mastered the wide-eyed, vacant-headed smile, complete with a self-deprecating little laugh of incomprehension. She must look pretty rough right now, but that should have piqued his sympathy if nothing else. So far, he’d treated her like a fellow agent who had just been through a rough time. Unusual and, she admitted, very welcome.

People, especially men, never gave her credit for a brain; yet not once had Tyndal talked down to her. So maybe he didn’t make automatic assumptions based on appearance.

Neither did she, but she couldn’t help noticing how he looked. Impossible not to. Maybe she’d seen better-looking guys in her time, but he certainly was no slouch in that department. In fact, he had a commanding presence, sort of rugged and suave at the same time. His voice was a bit gravelly and had that slight Southern drawl. In your face, but with a smile, that was him.

His hair was salt and pepper, obviously graying early, since the rest of him looked early to midthirties. The eyes were light, either gray or blue, and really intense.
Good strong nose and his mouth…Well, that mouth…didn’t matter, she told herself firmly and jerked her gaze away from his profile.

Her overall impression was that Agent Tyndal was hot as hell, self-assured with good reason. And as stubborn as mule, she’d bet. A real challenge.

Now then, what would be the best way to appeal to him? How could she persuade him to let her go after these kidnappers without giving him the impression that her reason was personal? It
was
personal. Nobody yanked her around like a helpless rag doll anymore and got away with it. Nobody! If she let that happen again, it negated all her years of hard work, all that she had become.

She had to devise something before he put her on a plane back to the States. No way would she let that happen. She’d disappear first, and she damn well knew how.

H
e wasn’t going to budge. Marie decided that if she disappeared in Landstuhl, she’d be found almost immediately, so she had to go to plan B. She had to play it weak if her plan was to work. She brushed a hand over her face, sighed and shook her head. “Could I ask you a huge favor?”

“What?” He sounded a tad suspicious.

She upped the weak factor a notch. “I really need to go by my apartment when we get to Munich, just for a few minutes. Could we please do that?”

“All your stuff will probably have been packed up by now. I’m sure someone is detailed to bring your clothes and toiletries to the airport. I can call and check.”

Again, she sighed before answering. “No, that won’t
do. You see, it’s my grandmother’s ring. I really need to get it, and I know it’s still there. It’s pretty valuable. I keep it hidden away when I’m not wearing it, and whoever cleared my place won’t have found it. Please? I
need
to have that.”

Marie could feel Tyndal’s gaze on her, assessing the truth of her motive. She looked up at him, eyes wide and pleading, the best little-girl-lost look she could do.

He shrugged. “Well, if we just run in and get it, I guess it would be okay.”

“Thanks so much. It means so much to me.” She hesitated, then added, “Maybe I could just take a quick shower while we’re there?” She offered him a wry little smile and ran a hand through her hair. “I hate to stay this way.”

He looked sympathetic. “Sure. That should be all right.”

Piece of cake. Acting ability intact! Satisfied, she snapped on her seat belt, leaned against the window and settled in to take a nap on the way to the hospital.

Grant took a good, long look at her for the first time as she exited the exam room. It seemed before he’d only taken in bits and pieces of her at the time—dirty face, big round china-blue eyes, messy hair, cut-up feet and a milk-white length of exposed leg.

Now she stood there, eyeing him with a mixture of mistrust and gratitude that defied description. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman combine those two expressions while looking at him.

She looked like a little warrior queen, battered but undefeated, absolutely driven to thrive and to seek retribution. That determination would fade, he knew. As
soon as the adrenalin rush subsided, and it would, she’d probably collapse in tears and be perfectly willing to get as far away from Germany as was humanly possible.

But right now she was a picture to behold, so tiny in his oversize sweats and socks, one hand on her hip while the other impatiently raked the tousled blond curls back off her brow.

For a minute he saw Betty Schonrock, the first girl he’d ever loved. Beauclair had that same challenging lift of the chin. Aside from both having blond hair and small frames, the resemblance ended there. She wasn’t Betty, but seeing Beauclair safe and knowing he’d had a hand in it caused a little of the weight to lift off his chest.

He had been head over heels for Betty, who’d been almost four years older, a senior at Frankfurt American High School when he was a lowly freshman. She had only spoken to him a few times, smiled at him now and then and rarely gave him a second look, but he’d loved her anyway.

Suddenly she had disappeared without a trace. Everyone thought she was a runaway and the investigation hadn’t lasted even a week. Grant had never believed that Betty, a popular cheerleader and straight-A student about to graduate, would simply take off without a word and leave her charmed life behind. He was convinced she’d been abducted, but no one would listen to a thirteen year old who hadn’t even known her that well.

His limited psychometric ability had failed him then, and so had his nearly nonexistent power of persuasion. But he had found
this
girl in time, and she was safe now.
Wherever you are, Betty, this one’s for you.
He felt marginally better.

“How did it go?” he asked Beauclair. Probably not the most tactful question considering she’d just undergone an examination for possible rape, but he needed to know.

“No damage. I’m okay,” she said, defenses up like a nearly visible force field.

He doubted she was anywhere near okay but nodded his approval anyway. “Great, I’m glad to hear it. I guess we can go, then.”

Grant knew he had to debrief her, ask for all the details of her abduction and captivity and get all he could on the kidnapper before sending her home. But he’d have to do that somewhere else and later, when she’d calmed down a little. Maybe after her meltdown.

Who knew when that would happen? Soon, he expected. He knew from experience that the higher the adrenalin level, the harder one fell. The inquisition could wait awhile.

He hated debriefing. Extraction of a hostage or victim was his thing; the rest of the job package, a necessary evil.

Grant had to smile. Marie Beauclair hadn’t waited for a rescue. Spunky little devil had really saved herself. If he hadn’t been there, poised to make entry when he saw her coming out of that window, she’d probably have found help somewhere in the village and gotten back to Munich on her own.

Unless she’d been caught in the back alleys or on a deserted street. The thought sent a chill up his spine. At least he’d quickly gotten her away from the scene, as ordered.

That probably accounted for the smidgeon of thankfulness he saw in her eyes. The mistrust—he couldn’t figure it, unless she now feared men in general. Not that unusual, he supposed, given what she’d just been through.

He should reassure her that he was only there to take care of her and keep her safe. “You’ll be all right now,” he said, reaching out to take her arm.

She moved back before he could touch her. “I know. And I don’t need babying, so knock it off.”

“Your feet…” he reminded her.

“My feet are just fine. If I fall down, you can pick me up, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed with a sigh, “Miss Independent.”

She shot him a glare that would curdle milk and stalked out the doors ahead of him. Testy little thing, but he chalked that up to her ordeal and didn’t blame her a bit.

That made him wonder what she was like before. Soft as silk, he’d bet. He knew her type. He could almost picture her attending consulate functions in a slinky little black dress, that cloud of hair done up on top of her head, natural-looking makeup that took hours to apply. And killer stilettos on those pretty little feet.

He glanced at her hands. She had the badly chipped remnants of a French manicure, and her wrists looked raw. His lips tightened in anger at the bastard who’d tied her up and scared her to death.

“Don’t be afraid he’ll find you,” Grant told her. “We’ll see that you’re safe.”

She gave a short cough of disbelief as she stopped in her tracks and narrowed those wide blue eyes. “He damn well better be afraid I’ll find
him!
”

Grant shook his head and suppressed a smile. “Get in the car, tiger.”

He couldn’t help feeling sorry for Marie. She’d had a horrible experience, and he thought the exam at the hospital hadn’t been any fun, either. Even though she hadn’t been raped, he knew how violated she felt.

He had believed her determined bravado was beginning to fade when she’d gotten a bit teary and pleaded with him to go by her apartment. He was afraid just being where she was abducted would set her off, but she seemed to need that ring she mentioned. Maybe that symbolized some small victory over the kidnapper, that he hadn’t found it or taken it from her.

When they arrived in Munich, Marie gave Grant directions to her apartment, a second-floor walk-up in a German neighborhood near the consulate.

They stopped at the super’s flat and got a key. The old man was inordinately glad to see her, apologizing profusely for the fact that someone might have copied his keys and stolen access to her flat from him.

Grant noted that Beauclair spoke excellent Deutsch and conversed easily with the man as she reassured him he’d done nothing wrong. She looked to Grant for backup.

“The report said the lock showed signs of tampering,” Grant told him. “The man was a professional. No one’s holding you responsible, Herr Horst.”

Marie thanked Grant with a perfunctory nod and a smile, shook the super’s hand and headed upstairs. No hesitation, he noted. She didn’t seem afraid to return to the kidnap scene.

“Where’d you learn German?” Grant asked as they climbed the stairs.

“A retired teacher, a neighbor and friend. She was fluent in several languages and began teaching me early on. She said it might help me land a job when I grew up, and she was right. I had an ear for it, my memory made it easy, and we both enjoyed it.”

“Lucky you. I lived over here for several years and still had to suffer through language school to get it right.”

“Defense Language Institute at the Presidio?”

“Yeah. You ever been there?” he asked.

“Nope, just heard about it. I haven’t traveled much yet, even over here. I planned to. That’s one of the primary reasons I volunteered for the position, but they’ve kept me too busy since I arrived.”

She stood back as he unlocked the door for her and went in first to check things out.

He liked that she was prudent enough to let him do that. However, she didn’t seem at all leery about entering the apartment. Brave of her, or else she was a damn good actress.

Lights worked, so the utilities were still on. Investigators had obviously finished with the place. A few boxes were stacked in the middle of the room. Someone had packed her personal items but hadn’t shipped them yet. It didn’t appear that she had very much.

He continued into the bedroom, and there were a few more boxes. The bathroom was empty of her toiletries and towels and shone from a recent cleaning.

“All clear,” he said, then realized as he turned that she was standing right behind him. She looked like a lost
little waif, so tiny in his sweats and socks, hands clasped in front of her.

Her expression had altered considerably, and he figured this wide-eyed trepidation was her real reaction to the place. “It’s okay,” he said, gently touching her shoulder. “There’s no one here but us.”

“Thank goodness.” Her words were breathy, almost a whisper, as if she uttered them reluctantly.

“Hey, why don’t you call your family and talk to them? Mercier will have notified them by now that you’re safe, but maybe you’d like to tell them yourself. A familiar voice might make you feel better.”

She bit her bottom lip and avoided his questioning gaze. “Maybe later. After a shower.”

She stepped past him, approached the boxes and peeled the packing tape off one. “Towel,” she muttered, withdrew one and draped it over her shoulder. He watched as she opened another container and fished out a pair of jeans and a pullover. And undies. Beige lace. Brief.

He cleared his throat and looked away. “I’ll, uh, just leave you to take your shower.”

“Thanks…Grant,” she replied, using his given name for the first time. Why that seemed significant puzzled him. She wasn’t flirting, more as if she was earnestly reaching out, needing a friend.

He could understand why she felt friendless. Her people hadn’t sent anyone to save her. Her family couldn’t ransom her. He wondered if she had a significant other who was just sitting on his butt back there in the States, waiting for a miracle or word of her death.

Well, that wasn’t his problem, Grant thought. He
would take good care of her as long as she was in his custody, of course, and until he saw her off, he’d be her friend if she needed one. No risk there.

There had been a time when he did consider making friends a risk. For one thing, they had always moved away or he had. A lasting relationship of any kind had been his greatest wish when he was young, but he soon learned that short-term was his best bet. No gut-wrenching goodbyes to suffer.

Whenever he did get involved with people, he felt responsible for them, compelled to look after them, fix what was wrong with them, ease their way in life however he could. And then they would have to move on, or he would, leaving behind a feeling of distress on his part that they were going off on their own and might be unable to cope. Yeah, it was definitely better not to let himself care all that much.

Because he soon realized that was a cold attitude to live with, he had adopted a smiling, good-ol’-boy warmth that put people at ease. That way, they’d be less aware that he kept a safe emotional distance. He’d had to do that with the people under his command or he would have gone crazy.

He did much better with this civilian job. Working alone sure had its advantages. In this particular case, he was relieved that his association with Marie Beauclair would be temporary.

Grant went into the living room and clicked on the television to cover the sound of her shower. He didn’t want to imagine her wet and naked. It just didn’t feel right to do that. But he couldn’t seem to help it.

Given what she had endured, his response filled him with guilt. He concentrated on pity, a much safer reaction to her and a lot more appropriate. Poor little thing.

Twenty minutes into a boring old movie, Grant began to get worried. The shower was still running. The water should be stone-cold by this time.

Was she in there, crying? Had she gone to sleep? Drowned herself? He’d better check.

“Ms. Beauclair?” He knocked several times. “You okay?” He knocked again. “
Marie
? Answer me right now or I’m coming in.”

Nothing.

Grant tried the handle. Locked. Well, there was no window in the bathroom, so he knew she hadn’t climbed out. Either she had passed out or was unable to speak for some reason. He backed up and ran against the door. And promptly bounced off. Dammit, he’d break his shoulder. He shouted again. No answer.