Dead Ringer (3 page)

Stepping over dirty plates and strands of streamers, she made her way back to the bedroom and pushed open the bathroom door.

Spacious and airy, the marble bathroom was big enough to sleep in. Beamer had renovated it as a surprise for her, turning the tub into a rose-colored Roman bath with golden cherubs that shot water out of their mouths. She'd scolded him for his lavishness, but he'd just pinched her cheek, called her his darling girl, and told her life was to enjoy.

The shower stopped while she finished her business in the alcove that held the toilet. She came outside, but the door to the shower room remained closed.

Who was in there?

Sharkman?

Not his name, but for the life of her she couldn't remember ... Something fishy. Flounder?

A pair of men's trousers lay over the gold and pink angel wings that held hand towels. Down the side of the slacks, a long tuxedo stripe suggested they matched the jacket on the couch. She searched the back pocket and came up with what looked like a wallet.

Opening it, she saw it contained only two things: an official seal and a picture ID. Finn Carver, Special Agent, Terrorism Control Force.

A cop. Sharkman was a goddamn cop.

* * *

When Finn came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around him, she was holding his ID, her hair an uncombed and tumultuous gold, her eyes bruised from too little sleep, her face a thundercloud.

"You get out of here."

Calmly, he took the ID from her and put it back in his pants. "How about I put my clothes on first?"

He dried his chest with a second towel and to his surprise, her face colored. "You gonna watch?'

Her eyes narrowed. "Like a hawk until you get the hell out of my house."

He found his briefs and pulled them on under the towel, eyes never leaving hers.
You're nothing. Nothing I can't handle.

She raised her chin as if to say,
Wanna bet?

Oh, yeah. He'd take that bet. Thanks to his dear departed wife, he was an expert in handling women like Angelina. And he had a bullet wound to prove it.

"You had no right coming here last night. Certainly no nght pretending to be-"

"I didn't pretend anything." He slid into his pants. "You knew I wasn't invited."

Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't say you were a cop."

"You were so busy trying to fall off the edge of the world, I didn't have time."

"You had all night."

"Not unless you believe in communicating through dreams." Pants in place, he left the bathroom in search of his shirt. It lay where he'd left it last night, over the back of the couch.

She followed, standing in the archjvay where he'd watched her the night before, making an exhibition of herself to a crowd of ogling men.

"Then we didn't...?"

"What's the matter-don't you remember?"

She blushed again.

Of course not.
He shrugged into the shirt. "Wouldn't have been very sporting of me, since you were so... under the weather."

"Not to mention I would have sued your ass off."

"Not to mention."

She bit the inside of one full, luscious lip.

That's right, think about it. I'm pretty enough. I'm male. And if you take care of me, I'll take care of you. And I won't even make you sleep with me.

"What do you want?" She barked the question, her voice rife with suspicion.

"I want you to come work for me."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed again. "What makes you think I'd do that?"

"Because I have something you want."

She laughed. "Get real. What in this glorious hellhole of a world could you possibly have that I'd want?"

He found the snapshot in his jacket pocket and held it up, a corner grasped between two fingers. "Your mother."

Angelina gasped, the breath sucked out of her. "Wh-what? What did you say?" She reached for the photograph, but he snatched it back.

"You heard me."

His face was impassive, the eyes hard. His expression gave nothing away. Just like a cop. The most calculating, self-righteous, cold-hearted bastards in the world. She'd had her share of them when she was eighteen and if she never breathed the same air as a cop again she'd count herself lucky.

"I don't believe you."

He shrugged and started to put the snapshot away.

"Wait!" She stretched out her hand, heart pounding. Damn him. "What's her name?" She eyed the picture hard enough to burn a hole through it, but all she saw was the white back.

"Carol."

Carol.
The sound rolled around in her head, a loose stone echoing, a cannonball ready to explode inside her. "Carol what? Who is she? Where is she?"

'I'll tell you everything when you agree to work for us."

"I don't like you, Sharkman. I don't trust you. Why the hell should I do anything you ask?"

"Because your country needs you."

The mawkish phrase made her laugh again. "You're kidding, right? For what?"

But his face was dead serious. "A little lost and found."

"You lost something and you want me to find it?"

"Smart girl."

"And if I do you'll tell me who my mother is."

"That's right."

"That's blackmail."

"No. It's a simple, straightforward business proposition. Given all this..." He waved an arm indicating Beamer's luxurious home. "I assume you're familiar with them."

She saw the contempt in his blue eyes and was stung by it. "What do you know about me and Beamer? Nothing. So get the hell out of my house."

But he didn't move. "It's not your house. It belongs to Beaman's heirs now." He gave her a pointed look, a reminder that she would soon be homeless, rootless again.

But she didn't need any reminders. Not from him. "You have a damn sick way of asking people for favors."

"I'm not asking, Angel, I'm selling." He wiggled the photograph between his two fingers. "Just like Beaman."

She growled at the implication, but didn't bother setting him straight. Instead, she stared him right in the face, trying to get past the hard blue wall of his eyes. "Who burst your balloon, Sharkman? Girlfriend? Wife? Whoever she was, she must have been something to make you so god-awful judgmental."

Some emotion flickered across his face, something he shut down as quickly as it had come.

"Well, well, well." She arched a brow. "Struck a nerve." He glowered at her. "You want to trade potshots or make a deal?"

"A deal? Smells more like a scam to me. Arthur spent a fortune trying to track down my mother. And now some two-bit
federale
walks in and just hands her to me? I don't think so."

He shrugged. "Fine." And put the snapshot away.

"Don't!" The cry was more anguished than she'd intended, but her deep desire to see the picture warred with her desperation not to give him control. She licked her lips. "Why me? I'm not exactly Jane Bond. You must have a million people who do this kind of thing every day."

His face grew colder, if that was possible. "You're the right type."

"For what?"

"For the job." He picked up his tuxedo jacket and slung it over his shoulder. "You want to close the deal, give me a call." He flipped a card at her and walked out of the house.

Angelina didn't bother picking up the card. She turned her back on the sound of the door slam and tried to slow her breathing.

Her mother. He said he knew who her mother was. Where she was.

She straightened her spine. That gave him power over her. And no man would ever have power over her again.

Facing the mess in the living room, she swooped down and picked up the fallen banner, crushing it into a ball and marching into the kitchen where she threw it in the garbage. She was
not
going to have anything to do with cops, local, state, federal, or planetary. No matter what they claimed to know.

She pulled a plastic garbage bag from a box in the pantry, jerking it free from the roll. Back in the living room, she plucked the empty beer cans and plastic glasses from the floor and dumped them inside the sack.

Your country needs you.

Right. What could she do anyway? She wasn't a cop. She wasn't anything. Just a fly-by-night party girl who was suddenly sick to death of parties.

Wouldn 't it be nice to be different? To be the good girl for once?

She shut off the argument by dumping the overflowing ashtrays into the sack. The residue of ashes and cigarettes was so disgusting, she threw the ashtrays in there, too. One by one they crashed against the cans, each one a loud reproach. She spotted the card Finn had flung at her lying on the carpet and quickly turned her back on it.
Don't do it, party girl

Hell. Double, triple hell.

She threw the garbage bag down and stalked into Beamer's room. She fingered the expensive cuff links in the jewelry box on top of his dresser. Opening a drawer, she ran a hand over dozens of silk pocket scarves, each one brighter than the next. In her mind's eye she tucked one into the pocket of Beamer's white suit, a beloved morning ritual.

Profound sadness washed over her and she sank onto his bed. Beamer was gone. Her dear friend. Her protector. She felt naked again. Exposed. With no one on her side.

She surveyed his room, gaze skimming over all the places he used to be. When she came to the mirror over the dresser, her eyes caught on the sight of herself, hair a wild snarl, eyes pufiy, white halter creased from a night of sleeping in it. Beamer would have been appalled, but she merely stared, facing her flaws head-on.

Automatically, her hand went to the tiny, heart-shaped birthmark on her shoulder. She covered the spot, fingering the faintly raised edges of die mole. Her adoptive mother, Adele, used to say the shape marked the spot where an angel had kissed her. Had her real mother seen it? Had she taken one look and thought it a sign of some deeper defect?

Heat rose up Angelina's neck to fill her face, and all at once she knew without a shadow of a doubt that whatever trap Agent Finn Carver was laying, she had already taken the bait.

* * *

Finn slipped into the car Jack had left for him the night before, rummaged in the glove compartment for the keys, and fit one into the ignition. Gripping the steering wheel, he stared out at the dense trees and perfect lawn of Arthur Beaman's estate.

As though it seeped out of his pores, Angelina's lush fragrance curled around him. He'd planned to wait her out right there, but if he didn't ditch last night's clothes, the smell would drive him crazy.

Scrubbing a hand down his face, he tried to shut out all traces of her. The last thing he needed was another floozy getting under his skin. Once a lifetime was enough.

He pushed the thought away, and to make sure it stayed gone, he punched in the secure number to Roper at their temporary headquarters in Memphis. While he waited for the connection to clear, he started the engine and drove off.

"She agree?" his boss asked first thing.

He pictured Roper's bulldog face. "Not yet. But the bait's out there."

"We don't have time for haggling. Get her cooperation. Take her out to dinner, buy her something. Try being nice instead of your usual charming self."

Finn's jaw tightened. He didn't trust her as far as he could throw her. "She's a civilian. She isn't trained. I can do this job-"

"Alone." Irony edged Roper's voice. "I know. Finn Carver, one-man army. Look, we've already lost a week since the rumors started. Right now, she's our best option, so get used to it."

Finn's gut churned at the set-down. Roper may have been right, but Finn couldn't help hoping to avoid prolonged exposure to Angelina Mercer. Then again if his luck held out, she'd stay true to type and he wouldn't have to worry about her.

He promised Roper to report in person later that day, then drove to the motel, got the key from the desk clerk, and let himself into the room.

It was antiseptically neat, with the sharp smell of disinfectant just below the surface. Single bed, plain dresser, table with briefcase and overnight bag carefully placed. Like a thousand other motel rooms in a thousand other places.

His thoughts flashed on a house in St. Louis. A small brick Cape Cod, painted white. It had been a long time since he'd seen his boyhood home. Since his mother's death, he'd had no reason to go back. He should have sold the place, but something held him back. Nostalgia, maybe. Sentiment. Some vestigial desire for a real life.

Fuck that. He had a real life.

No, he had a job.

And as soon as this assignment was over he'd sell the damn house. He'd tried real life. Tried the whole love and marriage thing, and it had nearly killed him.

He'd take a job any day.

He plunged into the shower, the hot water cutting off the argument, and lingered in the steam.

He was taking off his rumpled clothes when his cell phone rang Finn picked it up. "Carver."

"Is that you, Sharkman?" Angelina's voice came through the receiver, low and close.

"Fins and all. So ... what can I do for you?"

"I thought it was more a question of what I can do for you."

His pulse quickened. "What we can do for each other."

A pause. He heard her take a deep breath. "I'm listening."

His heart jolted in satisfaction and alarm. They were on.

CHAPTER
2