Golden Threads (13 page)

"Why not?"

Drawing a deep breath, Devon spoke with careful restraint.
"Which newspapers?
And just what do you plan to say?"

Lara refused to let his obviously forced skepticism rattle her; she knew where it was coming from. "Since I'd have to be an idiot not to have realized somebody's after me right here in Pinewood, I'll run it in the town daily. And then—"

"Assuming a hired killer would take the time to read the newspaper?"

"He will if he knows I went to the newspaper office. And I would assume it was only logical that he was following me, wouldn't I?"

More or less cornered on that point, Devon visibly gritted his teeth. "And then?"

"The New York and D.C. papers; Dad and I lived just outside Washington."

That was too rational for Devon to protest; the New York papers tended to monitor the pulse of the entire country, and D.C. was close enough to home-ground to be reasonable. Before he could find an objection somewhere, Lara went on in the same calm, reflective voice.

"As to what I should say in the ads, I'm not quite sure.
Something to catch their attention, certainly.
They'll have to believe that I know I'm being stalked, and that I've protected myself by leaving the evidence with someone they couldn't possibly know about."

"Lara—"

Frowning thoughtfully, she interrupted. "And we’ll have to get you innocently out of the way when I place the ads, or the cartel's man will think you know what I'm doing. Even if he's not sure you're an agent, he'll smell a trap. It has to look like you're still trying to get information from me and I'm not giving any. Or that you're definitely not an agent. Damn. This is getting hideously complicated. I'll bet he knows you spent the night here."

Devon swore under his breath, being quite creative, and then said somewhat fiercely, "Even if they get the message and
don't smell
a trap, what d'you think they'll do, Lara? Turn tail and run?"

Gently, she said, "No. I think that eventually they'll try to grab me."

After a long and tense moment, he said, "I won't let you do it. There has to be another way."

"There isn't, and you know it." She lifted her free hand to touch his taut cheek. "Devon, you said yourself that there couldn't be any talk of futures until this is over. I don't even have a future, not with this hanging over me. It has to be resolved, one way or another. I want the men who stole secrets and killed my father punished, and I want to be free to live my life as I choose to live it. Not in a prison of any kind, not under a threat—and not in limbo. I won't be satisfied with anything less, no matter what the risk."

Devon almost yanked her into his arms, pulling her across his lap and holding her tightly. In a voice with all the feeling squeezed out of it, he said, "Don't you understand that I can't keep you safe here if they really go after you? No matter how many people are with you and watching you, if they try hard enough to get at you, they can.
Somehow."

"I know that." Lara smiled up at him, using every ounce of her willpower to ignore the strong thighs beneath her. But even now, with the tautness of other emotions between them, she was conscious of a desire so powerful, the sound of it ached to escape her throat. She held her voice steady. "But if we play this just right, we can trap the man they sent after me before they've made up their minds to grab me."

Still holding her, he winced slightly. And there was even a flash of reluctant humor and unwilling admiration in his burdened eyes. "Dammit, what've you got in mind?"

Lara forced herself to concentrate. She was still putting the plan together mentally, but she didn't intend to tell Devon that. "Well, it's going to be very complicated—"

"So I guessed. In case it didn't occur to you, I've read your file. I know what your IQ is. Any plan you come up with is bound to be complicated."

"My father was generous with his genes," was her only comment on that.

"Something the cartel is certainly aware of. So don't think you can play dumb with them," he warned.

"That's not what I had in mind." She was relieved that he had decided to hear her out. Not that she expected him to like what she was planning, but he was too intelligent himself not to realize eventually that it was the only way. At least she hoped so.

"What do you have in mind?"

"First, we agree that the cartel believes there's a chance I'll panic?"

"It certainly looks that way."

"All right.
Then suppose I make it fairly obvious to the cartel's watching man that the ads in the newspapers are partly a bluff.
That I do know where the evidence is, but haven't safeguarded it by giving it to anyone else, mainly because I never got the chance.
I've been more or less in protective custody since that night, remember. But I've kept quiet about the evidence because I've thought I might need to use it. Now the cartel has found me, and I'm scared. In that case, I might well use the evidence as a bluff, but I'd very quickly try to safeguard myself."

He frowned a little.
"By getting word to someone?"

"No.
By going back to the house outside D.C. and getting the evidence myself."
The house had been closed up, but it was still hers. The FBI had been fairly confident they would find evidence against the cartel quickly, so they had allowed that; she had promised not to go near the place until she was told it was safe to resume her real identity. And despite the tragedy that had happened there, Lara had wanted a place to return to, a place that was a part of her past.

"They searched the house," Devon objected. "So did we—and very thoroughly."

"But they can't be absolutely positive the evidence isn't there, hidden in a place no one would find."

Devon saw the point and obviously wasn't happy about it. "And what would I be doing while you drive off to D.C.? If the cartel's man knows who I am—"

"How good is your cover?" she interrupted.

"The seams won't show unless he can dig a hell of a lot deeper than I think he can. But if he already suspects me, he won't risk believing I'm just an innocent bystander."

"Then we'll have to distract him. The cartel can't know the bureau was tipped that I was in danger, and even if their man suspects you, he has to be wondering why I haven't been spirited away by now."

"He could guess I'm undercover."

'Yes, and after what he told me last night—assuming
it's
Luke—he'd expect me to guess as well. He'd expect me to think either that you're FBI or that you're the one who's after me."

After a moment, Devon nodded slowly. "I see what you're getting at. I'm the potential bad guy again. You presumably call your contact at the bureau and report me as possible trouble, a couple of agents in three-piece suits show up somewhere public to have a little talk with me, and they leave me in the clear.
A shell game."

"Right."
From his expression, Lara knew that he thought it was a pretty good idea, even if he still didn't like it one bit.
"Assassin or agent?
The assassin knows who he is, and if he sees a couple of obvious agents dismiss you as no threat and then leave as quickly as they came—"

"I don't know you're in the program and don't connect the questioning with you? We’ll have to come up with a good cover story as to why the agents question me."

She realized Devon was hardly aware that the agent in him had already accepted her plan as viable; but it was the man she had to convince, and she knew it. "Yes, something the cartel's man would believe. Then I'll have to seem to be relieved about you, but still worried that I'm in danger and not willing to involve you in my troubles."

"You wouldn't have told the FBI about the attempts against you so far? I don't know, Lara, that's pretty hard to swallow."

"I haven't told the FBI anything. I've told only you."

He acknowledged that point with a rueful nod, but didn't drop the objection. "But how do you convince the cartel's man that you've kept your mouth shut? The usual reaction of protected witnesses is to suspect anything that looks odd. You were almost run down by a truck, your apartment was searched, and your car was tampered with."

"He can't be sure that I know about the car yet," she pointed out thoughtfully. "No one was outside when we left the theater, and I have been riding with you."

"Granted.
But it's a very fine line, Lara. You have to be suspicious enough to run the ads and try to protect yourself, and yet not scared enough to yell for help?" He was hoping to make her see reason, but a coldness deep inside him warned that Lara had already made up her mind.

After a moment she said, "I hope I'm a good enough actress."

He knew she wasn't talking about her part in the play Rapunzel.
"How good?"

"Good enough to very subtly convince everyone at the theater that I have a strong—but mysterious— dislike of the FBI. If the cartel's man believes that, he just might be willing to believe that I'm determined to handle the threat myself."

"That's too many mights and maybes," Devon said flatly. The coldness inside him was growing, spreading out. God, didn't she realize that the chance she'd succeed was so slight, it was almost nonexistent? If a trained and experienced agent had suggested it, he would have been willing to try, because it was their best chance of getting at the cartel, at least as things stood now.

But not Lara.
Not Lara.

"Can't be helped.
And you know there's no other way." She was still hoping to convince him without resorting to the ace up her sleeve, because it would be a very painful card to play, she knew only too well.

Devon sighed roughly and held her a bit tighter. "Look, even assuming we have the time necessary for the cartel to read the ads, and even if we manage to convince everyone involved to believe what we want them to believe—what then? There'll no longer be any question that you're a threat to the cartel; they'll have to make their move, and fast."

If he could only make her realize...

"Then we set the trap." Quite deliberately she added, "With me as the bait."

"No." The word almost jerked out of him.

It was very difficult to sound cold and hard with a man whose lap one was lying across and with whom one had shared a rather extraordinary night-before in the bed just down the hall, especially with desire burning hotter with every passing second and her heart aching because this was hurting him, but Lara did her best. "Yes. For the first time since this situation started, I'm going to be in control of my own actions.
Me, Devon, not someone else.
Not even you."

He got her off his lap. "No."

Lara wasn't hurt by the physical withdrawal; he was just attempting to get back on his agent footing, and she knew it. She also knew that he would be forced to realize that she had already won the argument. The man could seduce reason and leave her virtually helpless if he chose, but the helplessness would only be temporary; and the agent couldn't fight the knowledge of a good plan when he heard one.
Especially when it was the only solution.

"There's no other way. You have no evidence against the cartel's man. When he follows me to the house, you'll be waiting there."

"And you'll persuade him to confess while I hide somewhere and get it on tape? Not bloody likely."

She studied Devon's face for a moment. He had a look she recognized, even though she'd never seen him wear it before; it was a look of sheer, iron determination. There was only one way she knew to break through that resolve of his—and she didn't want to use it. Despite the strong affinity between them, their relationship was fragile in its very newness, and she was afraid that if she pushed him too far their bond would snap under the strain.

She could lose him.

And yet, what choice did she have? Two million years of evolution had instilled in the male half of humankind a protective instinct that no amount of intellect could erase; every iota of knowledge and experience Devon possessed, as well as his professional responsibilities, weighed virtually nothing in the balance.

Lara knew that. It wouldn't have been true of all men, but it was true of Devon. If she allowed him to, he'd fight all her battles for her. And especially this one, whatever it cost him—not because he thought her unable to fight herself, but because the bond between them, blessing or burden, made her a part of him somehow, a part he would never willingly endanger.

She sat back slowly on the couch and braced herself inwardly for what she had to do. "All right," she said quietly. "Then I'll call my contact at the bureau, and tell him what I have in mind. You know he and his group at the bureau will agree to it."

Devon drew a short breath, and when his vivid, haunted eyes searched her face Lara knew he was looking for any sign that she was bluffing. She also knew that he didn't find what he was looking for.

"I won't let you do that," he said evenly.

"You don't have the right to stop me. I haven't given you that right." Lara could feel something shift between them and almost held her breath. Her instincts told her that Devon would respect strength, but she wasn't sure if he could accept being backed into a corner; in that situation, his instincts would demand that he fight.